Moments like these made Bruce wonder if either of them had learned anything from the past. There were so many disastrous moments to rehash, ones he’d sooner forget, and yet it seemed they were both set on repeating those mistakes. It didn’t help that he never learned how to talk to Jason effectively. He’d treated him with tough love, the same he’d shown to Dick, and assumed it would eventually get through to him. It hadn’t.

“You know why I’m here. This isn’t going to make you forget, and it isn’t going to bring him back.” Bruce had never been the sort to soften hard truths and he wasn’t going to tiptoe around the subject, not when Jason was using extreme avoidance as a means of coping. 

Aggression was rarely aimed at her with her patients. It was very often mis-directed toward her though and Linda was smart enough to know this was the case here. “Ahh, the ‘fuck you’ argument. We’re doing well,” she replied, her own tone more deadpan if anything, “And what do you need right now Jason? Because all the self-destructive symptoms you’re showing right now aren’t going to help you either.” he paused a moment, “You’re not just ‘someone’ you’re a person I care about, and right now you’re hurting. It’s not about what I can live with, it’s about what you can live with.” And he couldn’t keep on going like this.

Jason shook his head. “I can live with this. I’ve been living with all this—this shit for as long as I can remember. I’m going to be fine.” Roy leaving wasn’t even the worst thing that had happened to Jason, that was for sure—he was sure the abuse he suffered as a child came first, and his death at Joker’s hands was a close second. This was just the perfect maraschino cherry on top of a shit sundae and Jason had accepted that. His life was just meant to be a long series of failures, injuries and abandonments. 

She hadn’t planned to stick around if she didn’t get an answer, either because Jason wasn’t there or wanted her to fuck off. But he’d said something. That was all the invitation she needed. If he wasn’t being a recluse enough to flat out ignore her, she was going in.

“Everybody opens the door for Girl Scouts and I’ve got a sleeve of Thin Mints in my jacket.” She wasn’t actually lying about the cookies. As if to prove a point she pulled one out and stuck it in her mouth. “Are you gonna shoot me or move and let me in?”

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When Harper found out Roy was gone, she’d expected Jason to go off the rails. So far that was spot on. She hadn’t even tried to track him down, which might have been kind of shitty but it’s not like she didn’t have five hundred other things going on. And everyone needed space. She didn’t want to invade his.

Someone eventually had to, though. She wasn’t sure if he was still living in the house. When she showed up, she half expected to find it empty.

She froze at his words, Roy left… Well fuck. Linda sighed, letting out a breath she’d been holding. “Really? Important things like hiding behind that newspaper?” she asked, a hint of dryness in her tone as she took a seat next to him on the bench. “You’re right, this is something that you can’t change.” she nodded, taking a moment to pause, choosing her words very carefully, “But, you know what you can change, what you can control?” That was important to him, “You can control how you react to these changes in your life. You’ve come so far, don’t throw the people around you away; not when you need them most.”

“Yeah, so what if it is? Fuck you,” he said without conviction, dropping all pretense of reading. Jason rolled his eyes, shaking his head and looking at the ground by Linda’s feet instead of at her. “This is really not what I need right now,” he said quietly but emphatically. “Some pep talk is not going to pull me out of whatever shit I’m going through right now, so you can feel free to quit while you’re ahead. It’s not giving up. I’m just not someone you can fix and you’re going to have to live with that, not me.” 

“It’s exactly what they’re already doing.” None of that was news to him. Whatever signature the gun had was irrelevant. All they would need were bodies to write any kind of narrative they wanted. They didn’t always wait for someone else to provide the bodies, either.

Erik pressed his lips together into a hard, thin line. The gun twisted in the air like it was on some kind of invisible display. “This is a coward’s weapon.” But it dropped to the ground with a clank a moment later. It was tempting to destroy it on principle.

“Are you Quasimodo?” He vaguely recalled watching that cartoon and was pretty sure there were gargoyles in it. Probably singing ones. A memory better left as hazy as possible. Josh narrowed his eyes. “Come over here.” There was nothing wrong with the clinic. It had what it needed to have. Him, primarily.

“Of course you weren’t.” Far too many had tried and failed for one single man to manage it, but surely that part went without saying. The gun floated down toward the two of them and hovered in the air like some morbid children’s mobile.

“I would encourage this,” he nodded toward the fallen NOVA agent, “if I didn’t know mutants wouldn’t be blamed for it. We don’t need someone making things more difficult.” And yet, even though that was true, Erik had absolutely no desire to save the lives of any NOVA agents.

“That’s a stupid reason, and I’m not offering you band-aids. If you’re going to sit in here like a gargoyle, I’m not letting you do it looking like that. People are going to think I don’t know what I’m doing.” That probably wasn’t true, but frankly he didn’t like to be around people in pain. He was acutely aware of it, it was distracting, and (as he’d just said)…stupid.

Dick had been waiting outside Jason’s door for a little over two hours. Motorcycle helmet in hand, he paced back and forth in the hallway just outside his door, freezing in place the second he heard the ding of the elevator. He didn’t expect a warm welcome - and he wasn’t disappointed - but he grit his teeth and stepped in front of the door to block Jason from going inside. “Considering you’ve just seen and talked to me, then let’s consider that horse shot in the face.” The only reason he was there at all was because he knew Jason shouldn’t be alone. Even if it wasn’t his company he wanted, returning to an empty apartment after years of happiness wasn’t something anyone should have to face by themselves. “The way I see it, you have two options. Let me in and I’ll shut up, or you could lock me out and I’ll talk your ear off through the door.” 

Jason turned and started walking back away from his door, back out towards the street. “Or, third option, I run,” he called over his shoulder, already moving quickly away from Dick. He wasn’t interested in seeing anyone who might have even a shred of insight when it came to Jason’s life. That would be too painful. That would be too real. Jason wasn’t prepared to face the new realities of the life he was living. He had long used his anger and his capacity for violence to cope with overwhelming feelings, but even that wasn’t helping now. He had never felt so abandoned, hurt and lost. It only reminded him of what happened time and time again when he was a kid—only proved that he poisoned everything good. 

It didn’t take long for the news to reach Bruce. He’d been deeply disappointed that something that had become a driving, positive force in Jason’s live, something that had grounded him, was ripped away without warning. Jason had never allowed anyone else close enough to be that presence - for good reason, although this incident would surely put a damper on any future hope of change. 

“Grounding you never did any good.” It wasn’t for lack of trying. Bruce’s clumsy attempts at being strict with Jason had always backfired and generated mistrust. Punishment wasn’t an effective communication tool with Jason; he’d never had time to figure out an alternative way of handling him. 

Body language, word choice, brief eye-contact, active isolation and the list went on. Two words and Linda was already drawing several connections that were setting off red flags and worrying conclusions. “Well that’s a bare-faced lie.” she told him dryly, “And I won’t bother going into how I know that. Jason, what’s happened? We’ve had this conversation before; when you most want to stay away is you need to come and see me, hiding from whatever’s happened isn’t going to make it better.” Honestly, this boy emotional maturity was questionably at best… Though he’d been through more than enough to cause that and then some.

Jason knew that she was probably reading him like he was an open book and he hated the idea. He wanted to be unknowable like he used to be, completely withdrawn from everyone else and protected by his isolation. He regretted ever opening up. Jason looked up. “Roy left. He took Lian. I have shit going on.” He leaned forward against the table. “I have things I have to do and I don’t want to waste time sitting in your office talking about things I can’t change.”