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[theknightshift]

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Remix. Slapping a big TW: SA and CA on this whole thing >>

[deadbirdarising]

The thing about trauma was that it was sly. It slipped in quietly, unnoticed and unhindered. Burrowed down into the warmth of one's mind, a tiny little particle of almost nothing that the mind closed around. But, like so many other things, that particle grew as it was fed. Just a little bit at first, then more and more and eventually that particle started to irritate. It couldn't go anywhere, but the mind could wrap it in layers of padding. Compress it tightly, wrap it over and over again to protect itself from those sharp edges. Even after the abuse was over, still it stayed in it's own pearl of a cocoon. Quiet. Waiting.

One couldn't see the pain for the coals they strolled through. It wasn't until they'd been pulled to safety that the ache started to be recognized as something malicious. And, sometimes, even then it didn't ache at all until something happened to strip away a corner of the padding that had been wrapped around it and the edge was just as sharp and jagged as it always had been.

Holding Gloria's hand as the nurses collected samples stripped off those first layers of protection and he didn't try to hide his tears as they slipped out from under his domino. She trembled with every cold, clinical touch and he offered her what strength he had to help in any way he could. He chomped at the bit as they planned the drug sting, his patience thin and wearing thinner, those protective layers finally started to fall off on their own.

Later, he held her hand as long as he could before the detective nudged him away so they could cut her down from the rafter she'd hung herself from. The little particle of nothing was an obsidian blade, lodged so far inside himself that he couldn't breathe as he watched Batman help lift her body up so that she didn't shatter like fine china when the rope was cut.

Something sliced deep and bled freely and while Batman's back was turned, he slipped out of the apartment on silent feet. He moved without thinking, his pulse a roar in his ears as he swung through the city that he both loved and loathed. That sharp blade twisted with every block he moved, digging deeper and deeper. He ran on instinct, half blind and mostly deaf, his rage driving him further and faster.

He didn't mean to point himself in Felipe Garzona's direction...but he had no regret as his feet thudded down onto the balcony.

[theknightshift]

The thing about trauma? Was that sometimes it wasn't sly at all. Sometimes it was loud and obnoxious and in your face - pointed like the dark, ominous barrel of a gun. And when you're someone like Bruce Wayne, what could you do with it but bury it deep until you can't feel the bite of it anymore? Its teeth were still sunk in, too deep to dislodge. You're still bleeding, but the feeling's gone numb and the body still sort of works like it's supposed to. So really, it was fine. He could ignore it.

The problem was, Jason Todd was not Bruce Wayne.

He was empathetic and warm and loved and felt everything so deeply that Bruce sometimes looked at him and wondered if he'd made a mistake - not bringing him in he'd never regret that. But turning him into Robin? Maybe that deserved some consideration. It was good that he cared, but sometimes that caring could puppet you in a dangerous direction.

Their encounter with Felipe Garzona's had not been the first time Bruce gave this sort of thing consideration. Jason was a good kid, Bruce never doubted that. But when he began to refuse orders, when his swings were being fueled by anger and not that carefully laid foundation of discipline? Bruce had to wonder. All that training layered over the blooming heat of teenage rebellion? Was he walking that kid into something disastrous?

When they found Gloria in her apartment, Bruce had decided maybe Jason needed a break. Space to breathe and recenter himself. Remember why they did this and who they did this for. People like Gloria who needed them and Bruce hadn't been able to stretch himself wide enough to cover. But there were so many like her who would need them just as badly as she had.

What Jason had not realized, was that Bruce had noticed when he slipped away and it did not take a detective to figure out just where he's heading. When Gloria is taken care of and arrangements made to contact her next of kin, Batman followed after his Robin.

He found him after he'd landed and caught only the briefest glimpse of Felipe before he tumbled from the balcony onto the sidewalk below. When he landed, he does so behind Jason, his boots a heavy thud on the concrete.

"Robin. What happened?"

[deadbirdarising]

He only refused orders when the orders were detrimental or over cautious. He was a teenager, his judgement skills weren't always the absolute best, but nine times out of ten, he'd follow orders with his whole heart. But sometimes, he couldn't hear the order over the sound of that pearl in his insides getting plucked. Sometimes, all he could hear or see or smell was someone in pain, someone reaching out for protection.

Someone that sometimes looked and felt alarmingly like himself.

In another world, in another time, his anger for Gloria would be all consuming. His anger at her assault. Her death. The fact that her rapist was just going to get a slap on the wrist before being sent back home to Daddy. His anger would blow up and he'd watch Felipe's body plummet with cold ice in his pale blue eyes. In another world, he would have turned and lashed that anger out at the man who'd let Gloria's rapist almost get away. In another world....

But not this one. Bruce landed heavy behind him and he turned, eyes wide with a mix of pain and anger and agony as he reached out to take handfuls of Bruce's cape in his hands. He shook with it, shaking his head over and over as he tried so hard to process what had just happened.

"I-I just wanted to talk! I ju-...I wanted to yell. I'm so mad, B. I..I wanted to hurt him. Punch him until he knew just how bad he hurt her! But, I got here and he was drinking and I-..oh God..." He pushed away, falling to his knees and barely feeling the sting of the wood against his skin as he retched into the trash bin that smelled like stale alcohol and cigarettes. Nothing came up, his breakfast long since gone, but he trembled like something wanted to come up anyway.

"I tried to catch him. He spooked and stumbled and I tried to grab him but he slipped and..." His back heaved and he gagged hard.

[theknightshift]

Bruce knew the feeling. He knew it because there had been no small part of him that wanted to pummel Garzonas into paste, until he was nothing but a stain on the underside of Bruce's boot. It lived in that dark, quiet part of him that emerged when Joe Chill put a hole in his heart. But it was discipline that stayed Bruce's hand. Discipline and his father's eyes and warm words: if you can save the life, then save it. Felipe didn't deserve to live, but Bruce did not have a license to take that life away.

And maybe, maybe if circumstances had been just a little bit different, Bruce would have looked at Jason differently. Would have quietly wondered if Felipe had fallen or if he'd been pushed to his death. But he doesn't wonder, because he trusted his Robin. He could be willful and headstrong and stubborn and maybe a little too violent, but he was a good kid at heart. A good kid who cared so much about others. That kid, the one Bruce knew, would never have pushed Felipe, no matter how much he hated him.

He reached for the boy when he fists clenched his cape, arms around his shoulders to anchor him, help get him grounded. And when he pushed away Bruce followed him, hand settling along his back as he gagged into the garbage.

Bruce believed him.

“This wasn't your fault, Jason,” Bruce said quietly, hand running up to his shoulder and down his back again. Meant to be comforting. A reminder that he was here and wasn't going anywhere. “Let me take you home.”