Work Text:
Jason tells Connor, “It has occurred to me that I might have been a bit of an asshole.”
Connor puts down his book. “What makes you say that?”
“I yelled at you, after I put words in your mouth.” He does his best not to shuffle awkwardly. “You hadn't even said anything, and I lost my temper.”
“It sounded as if you had something to be upset about.”
“Yeah, but- You weren't responsible for that.
"And I'm a guest in your home. I shouldn't have done it.” He knows how to be polite, and he also knows the rule ‘if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all’.
And anyway- “I don't like it when people hunt me down to lecture me, and even though I didn't do exactly that, it wasn't far off. It was rude, and inaccurate, and not relevant to you.”
This too: “And I shouldn't have said that about being a hero.
"I'm sorry for doing it. All of it.”
“...Apology accepted, for putting words in my mouth.”
Jason waits for the rest of it, but it doesn't arrive. “...And for yelling?”
“Apology not accepted for you being upset. It's not necessary.”
Yeah, but he'd been rude. He's a guest. He shifts uncomfortably. He wants Connor to accept an apology for that, but if he tries, it's just gonna end up another argument. And then he'd have to apologise for that too. Can't Connor just-
“Apology accepted for you raising your voice?” Connor clearly doesn't think he needs to do this, but he can also clearly tell that Jason wants him to, and is making an effort.
He can't help it, his shoulders relax. “Thanks.”
Okay. Okay. His apology has been accepted. They're good now. It's fine.
And then Connor says, “I'm sorry for trying to continue our conversation when I should have noticed that you were upset.”
…What?
“You were clearly unhappy,” Connor says.
“I thought it would be okay, because you were trying to manage it, that you'd prefer if we …didn't acknowledge that?
"But I should have checked, and I didn't, and I'm sorry.”
Uh. Why is he apologising for Jason getting upset?
But Connor had accepted Jason's apology, so he says in return, “Apology accepted.”
“Thank you.”
After a moment, Connor asks, “You said it wasn't relevant to me. What did you mean by that?”
Because Connor hadn't been there.
Jason had- He'd got too worked up about the shitshow with Karate Kid, and yelled at Connor and Mia about it. Neither of them had been there, he doesn't even know why he’d brought it up.
(…He has no idea why, but what happened with the Morticoccus virus- he can't stop thinking about it. Maybe it's because it happened the last time he went dimension hopping, and this current mess is because of another Jason who started hopping dimensions.
But he really can't stop thinking about it. He should have stopped it. He knew how. They all did. And they chose not to.)
But Connor hadn't been there. Even though Jason's pretty sure he's friendly with a couple of the people who had been there, Connor had not been there. “You weren't there. You didn't make the decision to let it happen. It wasn't- it had nothing to do with you.”
“Alright.”
And then Connor tells him, “You may not have realised, but it's not relevant to me for other reasons as well.”
…What?
“If I felt as strongly about killing as you believe I do, I would have to reject my father. I would have to reject multiple people that I care about.
"I do not kill. I think all life is sacred, and I will not take a life. But that is my choice.
"It is not everyone's. I am aware of that, and I accept it.”
Jason can't help but stare at him. What the fuck.
(...Why couldn't Bruce accept it?) (...Why can't Dick? Or any of the others?)
He breathes.
(Bruce had said it was because if he started, he'd never stop. That it would break something inside him.)
He breathes.
Connor's not the same as B, but- but it might break something inside him, maybe.
He's…he's nice. He accepted Jason's apology, and apologised himself. Jason doesn't want him to get broken somewhere inside.
After a long moment, he tells Connor, “I hope you never have to. I hope you never have to make a choice between killing someone, and letting people die. I really do.”
“And you were faced with that choice?” Connor asks, "The decision that you had to make?”
Jesus. He's fucking sharp.
Or maybe Jason's just obvious.
He closes his eyes, says hoarsely, “Yeah."
He hasn't been able to stop thinking about it. If he'd just-
He breathes, he breathes.
“He was already unconscious. It wouldn't have hurt, he wouldn't have even felt it. He'd have just slipped away.
"But we didn't.
"And because we didn't-
"They died such ugly deaths, Connor. All of them. The entire world, and more besides. It was the worst thing I'd ever seen, and I'd let it happen. We all had. And none of them ever- I don't think they even regret it. I have no idea how.”
Softly, Connor says, “I'm sorry you had to face that choice.”
Jason doesn't answer.
He's sorry too. And he's so goddamn sorry he didn't make that choice, just put it off until it was too late. (But god- at least he wanted to make that choice. It's cold comfort, but it's better than nothing, probably.)
He breathes, he breathes. He has to keep the balance.
And well, if they're asking for clarification- “You asked me what if someone decides that I should die. What did you mean? ‘Cause I think I-” He lifts one shoulder. He'd already been on edge. He knows what the Bats would have meant by it, but he's not sure about Connor.
“You had said that you tried to make sure that people who didn't deserve to die did not, and that those who did deserve to die did.
"I don't think you deserve to die.
"But someone else might decide differently.
"And so, the logic follows, that those you believe deserve to die, others might believe otherwise.”
“Yeah, I know." Jason answers. He does know. "Everyone is someone's father, brother, son.
"It's a hard choice. I don't make it lightly.”
“For example," Connor says, "like when you killed Firefly - I wanted to ask why you did that. He'd been defeated before. You're capable of defeating him without killing him.
"I suppose…I wanted to know if you knew why you killed him. Whether it was because he deserved it, or to stop him, or for another reason.”
“Oh.” That's- uh. Not the tone he'd been expecting.
That's embarrassing. (Balance, balance.) He'd completely overreacted last time, then.
“Uh. It was to stop him.
"I’d managed to drive him up and away from the city. An’ instead of stopping, he dropped an incendiary grenade. Gotham was already burning, and he wanted to see her burnt to ashes. Gotham, and everyone in her.
"We'd already done everything reasonable. He could have stopped - he didn't have to keep going, but he did.
"So I- it was quick. Quicker than he deserved.”
“Deserved?”
Yeah, okay. Hero, right. Though, maybe questioning if Jason did know his own motivations.
For what Firefly had done- that satisfied urge to hurt people- Jason knows what that urge looks like. He's seen it in enough eyes over the years. Jason knew he deserved it. That's why he doesn't regret it, not one bit.
But had he done it because Firefly needed to be stopped, or because he thought Firefly deserved to die?
Tired, Jason says, “Do you know how much it hurts to burn?”
Jason knows. Firefly's victims know. But Firefly hadn't felt a thing.
“I killed him to stop him and also he deserved to die.
"I get that you'd rather I stuck him back in Arkham, but he'd just broken out of there.
"And anyway, prisons are- there's not-”
Connor waits. Jason breathes in, and out.
He's never bothered to say this to any of the Bats. (They'd never asked.)
“I've been told, a lot, that sending someone to prison instead of killing them is the morally superior option. Not in those words, but-” he shrugs. “That it's better because when you kill someone, their family has to grieve for them, because the person they love is gone forever. Because the loss has broken that family.
"But. My dad went to prison. And that broke my family. We grieved his absence, even though he was still alive. All the effects that people claim killing had, his prison sentence had on us.
"And when he died in prison, I didn't notice. There was no effect on my life, because in practice, he'd already been dead to me. Because in a lot of ways, there's really not much difference between someone dying, and someone going to prison. Maybe it's different for other people, like for my mom. But for me- There wasn't any difference at all.”
“Oh.”
Connor looks a little stunned.
But he doesn't look angry.
Time for Jason to give him another secret, then. Because the Bats think that being dead is the worst possible thing, but it's not.
“And…in my experience, it's kinder to be dead.
"I've been in Arkham, and I've been dead, and I know that I preferred being dead. Fuck, you know how many people kill themselves in prison?
"And I get that some people hate killing. I know that dying is an ugly thing. It's awful, and it hurts. Dying itself is terrible.
"But being dead is not.”
“...You" Connnor stutters for a moment, but keeps going, "…You hated that ‘everyone on the entire planet, and countless more’ died, though. That it was the worst thing you'd ever seen.
"So, if death isn't bad, then…”
“And I also told you that they died awfully. They died in pain and screaming. All of them.”
A solid point though. However, “You're assuming that this is a binary. That there's no nuance.
"Between prison and death, no, I don't think there's much practical difference, not on the effect it has on someone's family. -Which is the argument that is given to me.
"The other argument is that life is precious. Do they think I don't know that?” Jason knows it, intimately.
But what the Bats think life is, and what Jason thinks life is, he suspects that differs. A life in prison, that's not a life. A life alone, a life in fear- that's not a life.
(Gloria-)
He tells Connor, “You have to try to save as many people as you can.”
It's just that sometimes, that does mean killing people. One death, quick and easy; or all the people they'd kill, or hurt, who had to keep suffering onwards.
Because “Sometimes, it is just a numbers game. One life, or dozens. One life, or hundreds. One life, or trillions.”
“Trillions...” Connor repeats, appalled. Then he asks, “Is that relevant, outside of that particular situation? I don't know what happened, but-”
“No, it's not often as clear as that. But yeah, the choice itself is still relevant.
"‘Cause…How many second chances do you give your Rogues? I'll admit, I don't know if you do it the same as the Bats but- every time you make the choice to let them live, you choose their life, over the lives of the people they kill. And that adds up.”
And Connor's still not getting angry - and Jason's watching for it.
So he says, “I have been the one murdered by someone that Batman refused to kill.
"Batman chose his life over mine.”
Not just once, either. Jason had laid it out for him, made it explicit what he was choosing. And he had.
“Maybe you don't think of it like that, but- but we do.”
“...We?”
“We, the people that heroes sacrifice for their clean hands. We suffer and we die, so that heroes can, what, claim a moral high ground?”
Connor frowns. “Earlier, you said that you hope I never have to face a choice between killing someone and letting people die.
"But now, you are implying that I have already made that choice, and chosen to let people die.”
Uh.
Hmm. …But Connor's nice. He hasn't got angry. He just keeps asking, and talking, and not shouting. (And fucking not attacking Jason either.)
That's a stupid reason to hold him to different standards though. Connor's right, it shouldn't be different. And yet…
He tries to reason through it, “You said it's your choice, not to take a life. But that it's not everyone's, and you accept that.”
“I did say that.”
“So…” He doesn't want to use himself. He's not a good person. He's not evil, but he's not good. However, Roy is a good person. “You accept that Roy has killed, and is likely to kill again, yeah?”
“Yes, I do.”
“And he's not…he's not morally wrong for doing it?”
“I don't approve of everything he's done, but I accept that we have different moral viewpoints, yes.”
Jason's feeling his way through this blindly, trying to work out what he wants to say, trying to work out what he even thinks.
“And- if you had been there. In that situation. One dying man, or trillions of people. Would you have let him die? Not kill him yourself, but if someone else was willing to do it. Would you have backed them?”
It's Connor's turn to fall silent.
Eventually he says, “I will think about it.”
Well, that's more than what Jason normally gets.
A frown flickers over Connor's face, and slowly, he says, “You should ask Ollie about the longest bull's eye he ever got. Ask him about Tonnabok.”
“About what?”
“About who,” Connor corrects.
Okay, sure. Jason tips his head. “Why?”
“I think- I don't know. It might help.”
…Curious. But sure, he's got no real reason not to.
Connor doesn't say anything else, just lets them pause for a moment.
Jason doesn't think he's ever talked to anyone like this before. Not all at once. Roy knows most of this already, but he worked for it. It took Roy longer than this, but Jason's just so goddamn tired, and Connor asked.
He breathes, he breathes.
And then Connor says “Have you ever talked to your family about this?”
What-
They're not his family. He doesn't want that from them, not anymore - and they'd definitely never wanted that from him.
“They're not my family. And no, I haven't.”
He'd presented his case to Bruce, and then to Dick. They'd refused to listen.
Maybe he should have tried just talking to them, but they never seemed to want to talk. They always jumped straight into attacking him.
And whenever he did try to say something, when they weren't fighting, they completely disregarded it. Because it was him saying it. No matter what it was, they didn't want to listen, not even about something like, maybe, someone should be on the inside, actually keeping track of what was really happening. Or maybe, putting their effort in finding and stopping Jason instead of finding and stopping the Joker- But no. Batman knew best.
He hadn't tried to get them to see his point of view again, not about his morals; but they'd damn well tried to make him obey theirs.
-And the way they looked at him. The way they always looked at him. Their uncompromising opinion that he was always wrong, because- because he'd killed. It didn't matter when he didn't, and hadn't. It only mattered that-
“They don't think about it the way I do.
"To them, killing is not just an action that anyone can do. To have killed someone, and thus to be a killer, is the most reprehensible thing. Once you've killed, you are a killer, and that's all you will ever be. The only way you can stop being a killer is if you crawl on your belly repenting.
"And I would not.
"They nearly made me. They came so close to making me crawl. But they didn't.”
“Is that you think of them?”
Jason taps two fingers against his head, at what Batman had put there. “Shouldn't it be?”
“Dick is Roy's friend.”
And Roy has killed. But “Roy was left to die in Qurac. If I found out about it, so could anyone else. And yet I was the one to break him out.”
Connor looks away.
Ah. Connor is Roy's family.
He backtracks, “Perhaps I'm being cruel. It was luck that I found out, and bad luck no one else did.”
And Connor is right: Dick doesn't think of Roy like that. “Perhaps it depends on what they think of you first. What they think you are, at your core.
"If you're a hero, then you can kill, and it's just an action. The killing is excusable. It doesn't affect what you are.
"But if they believe that you're a killer, then you can be heroic, you can be good, and do good things - but those actions don't affect what you are.”
“You really think that?”
“I don't know. Sometimes.”
“I thought they believed in second chances.”
“They might. Or- they might think they believe in second chances.
"But not for everyone, no matter what they say.
"And I have no goddamn idea how they decide who gets a second chance, and who doesn't.”
“You think they didn't give you a second chance, then?”
“You mean, because they worked with me sometimes? You think that's a second chance?
"They tolerated me, on occasion. They weren't consistent about when, or why.
"And when they were working with me- They never asked. They never wanted to sit down and discuss why I do what I do. They didn't even trust me to know what I was doing, that I was at all capable of…anything. They believed that they were right, and I was wrong. No matter what.
"…I haven't always- I know I've made mistakes. I've done things I shouldn't have. I try something out, sometimes for longer than I oughta, and if it doesn't work, I try something else. I keep trying.
"But I keep trying because what I had been doing wasn't working. And that includes what they do. It doesn't work. So I tried something else.”
“You think what we do doesn't work?”
“I dunno about Star, but Gotham?
"No. It doesn't work. There are more Rogues than I can count nowadays.
"And common criminals- that number damn well hasn't gone down.
"Because beating the shit out of people one by one is not an effective method of controlling crime.”
Batman's way, just fear- People weren't scared of him. The Rogues weren't, anyway, because they knew he wasn't going to kill them. They knew, sooner or later, they could just go right back to what they were doing. Batman didn't stop them in any meaningful way.
So Jason had tried a different method. One that Bruce had even thought up, but hadn't had the guts to carry out, because it would have got his hands dirty.
Connor looks thoughtful.
Jason adds, “I will give them this: I knew what I was doing, mostly, but I had not taken the time to think about it, or put it into words. Not always.
"But fuck, sometimes I had thought about it. Sometimes I really had. More than they had, I'd bet. And they never gave me any grace.”
Connor’s just watching him, letting him talk. So he talks.
“Look-” and he doesn't really want to admit it, but being with the All-Caste, he'd had to own up to it, “if someone's in the middle of a mental breakdown, what would you do?
"Would you hunt them down, do shit you know will trigger them, attack them? Do you think that's the best way to handle it?”
“No. I don't.”
“The Bats do. Maybe they treat other people different, but if it's me, they won't help.
"Maybe I'd done some shit I shouldn't, but they'd damn well done shit they shouldn't either. Worse than me. I tried to reach out, and they wouldn't have it. They made that very clear.”
Bruce had been dead, and Jason had tried to work with Tim, and with Dick. And they- Dick had-
(...Once, Bruce had reached out. And it had been a trick, just to get Jason to Ethiopia, to the worst place in the world. He hadn't broken then, despite B’s best efforts. No, he'd saved it for after: wiped his brain clean, taken Bruce and Batman and Robin and all of that, had it plucked neatly out of his brain. He'd been free then, freer than he is now. But it hadn't stuck, more's the pity.)
“...You had a mental breakdown?”
“I've had several. You may have noticed I wasn't doing great last time we talked.”
“Yes, but-”
“Sometimes, what someone struggling looks like, from the outside, is them lashing out. Getting angry.” He rolls his eyes. “I was in Arkham. It's a shithole, and I shouldn't have been there, but they do actually have psychiatrists there.”
“Why were you in Arkham?”
“‘Cause Dick thought I was crazy.” (He breathes in, he breathes out.)
“...Because you kill?” Oh, but Connor's quick, he is.
“Yeah. And apparently only crazy people kill.”
“So- why were you killing people? At that point, specifically?”
Jason looks at him, startled.
“You said they didn't ask. But I'm not them. I'm asking.”
He taps his fingers on his thigh, thinking. At that point, it had been because… “A while back, I went dimension hopping, with a couple other people.”
(He doesn't think about what happened after that. He doesn't want to think about that.)
“And in one of the dimensions we travelled to, Batman was a killer. He'd killed all the villains on that world. Consequently, it was peaceful. People were happy. I heard that dimension get called the perfect world.
"And then we came back to our own dimension, and Batman was gone. Gotham was out of control, with the Bat dead.
"So I thought I'd follow his example. Be Batman, and a killer.
"But he'd been alone. He was so alone.
"And I didn't want that. So I tried- I tried reaching out. I didn't want to be alone. It was clear, with that dimension’s Batman, that he shouldn't have been alone.
"Maybe I could have talked to them beforehand. I probably should have done. I just- I wanted to prove my point first, ‘cause I didn't think they'd listen otherwise.
"And it was working. It was. It did fuck some other things up, but what I was trying to do, was succeeding.
"But they didn't care about that. Hell if I know why.
"I'd been- I wasn't okay, really. But I'd been holding it together. And they did their absolute best to break that.
"And they did.
"I did a lot of shit I'm not proud of, then. A lot that I regret.”
Balance, balance. One hand up, one hand down.
“But some of it I damn well do not. I had nothing, and no one, but I was trying. I had to get better by myself. They wouldn't help me. They didn't want to. They just made it worse. Deliberately, they made it worse.”
He looks away. He breathes. He breathes. He breathes.
He'd begged Dick to stop. And Dick hadn't.
Batman was supposed to help people. He was supposed to stop the bad guys. And that other Batman, he had. Jason had just wanted to do the same in his own dimension.
He'd failed. But not for lack of trying.
And if Jason's broken, the way his own Batman -Bruce and Dick- thought he was. It wasn't because of what happened to him as a kid. It was because they'd broken him.
(They'd put him in Arkham. He hadn't been crazy, not the way they thought he was. They thought he was crazy because he killed. He wasn't. He was just practical.)
And yes, he hadn't been well. It had been obvious he hadn't been okay. He'd done shit he'd never-
But Dick had thought he was crazy before that. He thought Jason was crazy because he killed.
And that hadn't been the indicator that he wasn't doing okay. That he'd had Scarlet, had taken a kid out on the streets with him- Jason would never. And Dick hadn't even noticed. He hadn't given a shit about Jason, or about Scarlet.
“Look- killing people is something you are against. If you started doing something like that, people would notice, right?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, well. I started doing something I'm against. And no one noticed a goddamn thing.”
He breathes, he breathes.
That was years ago now. He should be over it. He's tried to get over it.
Why the hell all this shit has started bothering him again, he does not know. It sucks.
But he's gotta accept it. He can't ignore it. Accept the dark, embrace the light.
And fucking breathe.
…Wait. They'd thought he was broken because of what happened to him as a kid.
“Mia-” he says abruptly. “Mia can talk to you, right?”
“Yeah? Why-? About what?”
He doesn't- it's not really his place.
But she's friendly with Tim, he's pretty sure, and that means she might be around Dick.
He's not sure if Dick still feels that way, if maybe he's gotten better about it. Maybe it was just specific to Jason, how Dick had treated him.
He doesn't want to risk it.
But it's- if she doesn't talk to Connor about this stuff, and if Dick doesn't- if it's not relevant-
He needs to be careful. Maybe he's overreacting. (Again.)
He says, “Mia and I have a lot in common. Not currently, as far as I know,” he smiles wryly. Just keep smiling, don't make a big deal out of it- “But when we were younger, before we got taken in.”
Fuck, but Connor's good at this. He's watching Jason, eyes dark - he knows what Jason means, that's clear. But he's letting Jason say what he needs to.
“I have known people to be less than sympathetic about it.” No specifics, he doesn't want to- “If someone says something like that to her- does she have someone to go to? Just- anyone?”
“Yeah. Yeah, she does.”
Okay. Okay, that's good. Connor was confident in his reply. That's good. That's good.
He breathes in, he breathes out.
And Connor does the same.
Jason takes the minute to check in on himself. He hadn't before he went to the Acres of All, just tried to get back to where he thought baseline was, and- the baseline had been moving, sliding further and further away from where it should be, and he hadn't even noticed.
So now he checks. Right now, just a quick check-in. (He'll examine everything thoroughly later, every evening, the way he has to, now.) Heartrate, diaphragm, lungs. Is he tensed up more than he thought, what's he thinking. Is he scared.
He breathes. One hand up, one hand down.
Connor murmurs, “Roy said- he said what you do, you're- balancing?”
“Yeah?” What's Connor getting at?
“You wanted to meditate with me, last time.”
…He had.
Connor folds his legs into position, sitting with his back straight, hands folded in his lap. He smiles gently at Jason.
…Oh!
Yeah, he wants to do this. He'd almost forgotten. Jason sinks down, and matches him.
Connor breathes in, very slowly, and then out again.
Jason synchronises his breathing.
And Connor murmurs, very very softly, “Father of all, Father of the many wonders, grant your servant peace and hear his prayers. I pray for the center to hold.”
Jason echoes, a beat behind, “I pray for the center to hold.”
“I pray for patience. I pray for humility. I pray for zen in the face of adversity.”
“-Zen in the face of adversity.”
“I pray for the delivery of the world outside, from the powers that corrupt it, into the hands of those who seek justice.”
Connor drifts into silence.
Jason doesn't really have anything like that. He doesn't pray. He doesn't even have a spell. All he has is the balance.
(Tiffany’s spell, when she uses it for the first time for something that matters-
Thunder on my right hand, Lightning in my left hand. Fire behind me. Frost in front of me. Frost to Fire.
But that doesn't mean anything to him.)
And he doesn't really want to just repeat ‘balance’ a hundred times. He does that anyway.
Does he have anything to say?
….Hmm.
Softly, he says, “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.” God, but it does. Every time he loses control, it obliterates him.
“I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.” -and out of him, and into heat. Semantics.
“And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
Only he will remain.