(◣ _ ◢)

in the middle of the night, creeping through empty allies, scattering matted rats , some manner of creature unhinges its jaw- swallowing whole whatever feeds his hunger. scary stories some young girl’s grandmother tells her, while her mother smokes in the balcony- it keeps her up at night, checking under the bed with a flashlight, hiding under the covers.

some young girl, no older than eleven, sits next to her aunt, face pressed against the woman’s arm, soaking her jacket with tears and snot. her auntie has a hand on the small of her back, seeming exhausted and hollow, her eyes pink and wet. she’s just lost her sister and her mother, only days apart from eachother. was it just her now? her and this little girl left to her? she didn’t want any children, she didn’t want to take care of her. but doesn’t she owe something to the child- to her blood?

some young girl, about twelve (and a half! she tells her teachers indignantly, who assume she’s thirteen like the rest of her classmates, surprised when she’s not), carves a little “n” for natasha and another “n” for nolan into a heart- a joke the whole class is in on, subtly mean to the weird girl and the freak boy. natasha lives with her father, her mother having left after an ugly divorce, wanting nothing to do with her. you feel some kinship, the two of them are alike in a way- but when she enters the class and her friends snicker meanly, she says nothing. survival of the fittest, natasha, get with it!

some young girl, a month from fourteen, hears her aunt on the phone talk about a mr. wayne. she's seen him on the tv, the news and some of the signs on buildings her older friends take her past when they want to “hang out” after school. later, auntie tells her, with her hands pressed against her arms, looking weary- the youth sucked out of her face by an evil spirit, that her father wants to take her with him. “It’s what your mother wanted,” she tells the girl despite her protests, “don’t be a bother!”. but what about her auntie? when will i see you? i want to stay with you, not him! what about my school? my friends?

some young girl, sixteen and sharp eyed, swats at her brother’s hand, that reaches for her phone instead of his by mistake. he scowls at her, and she makes a face back, snatching it up and heading off to her room. in the very first days, she’d tried to be nice, but it’s difficult knowing her father assembled a whole family around him before caring for her and her mother. didn’t he owe anything to her? his child- his blood? it wasn’t like her brothers tried to accommodate her antisocial personality either- and her sister avoided her like the plague. when she hears about a little boy, great old mr. wayne’s son, coming to the manor, she bursts into flames. fine then! what’s it to her?

she feels a kinship with the boy, both children too long gone from the nest. before talking to him, she watches him with the other birds. unlike natasha, it seems this boy already knows, it’s survival of the fittest, and he's fitter. she best keep away.

some young girl, now no older than eighteen, sobs into her palms- deleting pictures of her friends, swearing she’ll never be intimate again! she’s disappear, she’ll become nothing, never ever will she trust anyone again! but she knows it’s no use, in an hour she’ll restore the pictures, in half an hour she’ll get a text from her friends, in two hours, she’ll put on a dress and sneak out of an empty house, climbing into a boy’s car- pulling at the hem of her skirt to keep it down.

why be the fittest huh? she could always be the most affluent. just like your dad, a friend cackles, and she pushes down a strong wave of repulsiveness, smiling stiffly at her.

cassandra has tried to empathise with everyone she’s ever come across. there’s good in every person, or at least, was good in every person. it’s not entirely untrue when she thinks, guiltily, that (name) does not have much good in her.

a callous smirk, like she’s trying to hold down a cruel thing to say at the most mundane remark, overtly snappy and aggressive reactions to the simplest things, her constant absence from family dinners or anything important to any of their civilian lives- it’s more exhausting and annoying than it is irking.

she thought, no, perhaps it’s something else. perhaps she’s just defensive, perhaps something makes her sour, but she’s truly sweeter on the inside. she’d tried a few times to understand, hovering around her when she sat in the living room, noticing how she bristled and left despite bruce’s half-hearted protests to stay. she tried to speak to her, even though tim had rolled his eyes and told her it’s no point, to which (name) had scowled quite darkly and slammed the door on her face. she noticed how (name) secretly glared at alfred or dick when they talked, like it was all somehow beneath her to be in their presence. rude and bitter for very little reason. they’d all had difficult lives, but (name) just made her own and everyone else’s lives more difficult.

(name) never came on patrol. cassandra understood none of that was to be spoken about to her. she doesn’t have it in her to be mean to her, or pretend she liked her only to breathe sighs of relief when she wasn’t around her anymore, so she does the best thing she can and stays away. let there be no illusion of a family, a sisterly bond among them. (name) clearly didn’t want her, and she was learning not to want (name) either.

she pretends not to notice the (name) shaped figure on the roof, among others at night, flying away. she doesn’t need to worry about (name) entering the manor early, early in the morning, since she doesn’t live there. it’s her favour to the younger girl, their ignorance of each other benefits them both.

damian acknowledges that he’s softened around the edges since the first time he set foot in the home of his father. that softening gave way to so many people he cherishes, the warmth that came with them. that softening did not however, quell his frustration with his older sister, (name).

he’d initially labelled her a threat, as he had labelled all the others, perhaps more of an extravagant one, considering that she too, was bruce’s own flesh and blood. you wouldn’t see it on her face, her features that of a stranger, a woman he didn’t know, nor cared to know about.

he’d understood her as weak, when she didn’t react to his provocations, sneered at his demands to settle the better- but never engaged. but some of it started to make sense, when he understood she wasn’t one of them, wasn’t like them.

even after discarding his more violent tendencies, he found it impossible to like her. no fog was cleared out of his perceptions; she was every bit the weak and threatening opposition he’d thought her to be. she was disrespectful to father, even when he seemed to turn a blind eye to it, unkind to grayson, rude to drake, and… strange? with cain. with jason? he didn’t even know if she’d look at him twice.

thankfully, the witch mercifully spared him of her personality, avoiding him so obviously that tim had raised an eyebrow when she left the moment he entered the room. never had he recorded a pleasant conversation wih her, and looking at his family, neither had they.

(name) kept her distance, and damian was more than happy to let it be there. there was little time wasting one’s efforts on people who don’t deserve it, he’d even said so to his father, who frowned instead of agreeing. nonetheless, he had decided without any bias, (name) was wicked, yet too weak to do anything abour it.

even when you shut your eyes, you can’t block out the colour changing lights. everyone’s so loud over the louder music, yelling and laughing and cajoling. you could go for another drink, but the self appointed bartender, fran’s, to busy making out with her boyfriend in the bathroom- so you just claw at one of the beers.

mary, the host, and her best friend seem to be arguing in the corner, you notice in a haze, pulling your eyes away. ronnie’s on the couch with some of his friends, and he smiles when you make eye contact. you look away grimly.

notably, anita’s not here. it’s nothing surprising, your best friend isn’t as affable as you to even get an invite, you assume she’s probably at home, studying or moping. a girl from the flag team, you recognise her curly dyed hair, saunters over to you, shorts tight enough for her to be waddling a little, like a penguin. she says something- you can’t hear much, making it up; “all right, wayne?”.

you smile, subtly nudging off her chrome-clawed hand off your arm. “check!,” you correct, “i’m good.” she says something more, but you don’t hear it- since it’s drowned out by some song a few people scream about, and mary’s started yelling too. but her lips shape into an “o” and “e” and she juts out a finger to the couch again.

you shrug, hoping the flashing lights are enough to disorient her from your sneer. go ahead, you mouth at her, i’m going out. she seems positively giddy, waddling over to a more than pleased ronnie- who unlatches from his perch on the couch head. he grins your way, and you hope you look disgusted enough.

but you really are going out now, you decide, trudging out of the huge kitchen, past a now wailing mary, pushing past a number of extras to stumble through the door.

a boy, you squint at him, trying to remember his face, offers an arm, a ride back home. do you know him? big green eyes, a little rugged looking, much older than your classmates… no, no not really. you’re so out of it right now. you can’t have him drop you to the manor, so you just shrug, naming a building from where you’ll just walk the whole night to the grounds.

there’s a message on the phone from anita, both in all caps, a link too. you don't feel like dealing with her right now, putting the phone down and pressing your eyes shut. the boy (man?) mutters about something, and you hum in acknowledgement. you’ll deal with everything later. for now it’s just you.

(a/n) welll was that anything? was it a little underwhelming? err maybe.. keep in mind most of this fic will follow the movie's plot line but i will make some changes for added bits.. let me know what you think!

taglist (ask to be added) @starseekingaheart @abigaiili @akanescrustyashes @ivantheterr1ble @iloveescara

disclaimers. ㅤtypical slasher/coming of rage warnings; gore, murder, cannibalism, substance abuse, toxic relationships, child neglect, child abuse, etc. ㅤ// ㅤfemale, minor reader, non-sexual descriptions of sexualization, reader is possessed by a demonic force, reader is groomed and then sacrificed by adult males in a cult, self-harm, under-age sex, mentions of prostitution, reader is not a good friend/daughter/person, violence, misandry (if that's a disclaimer?), internalized homophobia and misogyny, girl on girl action, some body horror. ㅤ//ㅤ additional disclaimers; expect from reader what u expect from jennifer, this series takes her civillian concept and demon origins but strays quite a bit from the movie, batfam is a tad bit ooc not bc im a larper but bc i suck at characterisation. this content is only on tumblr under '72clones'

chapters.ㅤ✧

01. the hands resist him cruel and shallow, affluent and charming, no version of this girl is the real one. both everything and nothing at the same time, (name) is already a monster.

02. the punishment of marsyas low shoulder's concert really did change your life. maybe people consider you just as inhumane as before, 'least now you're not just a silly little girl. just half of one!

03. saturn devours his son you feel a little overshadowed by the half of you that squeezed into your brain uninvited... it seems all anyone can talk about is your persona, not you. it's time you come to terms with what you're trying to do.

04. raft of the medusa anita tries to talk some sense into you, always the lovely, sensible one among the two of you, the only one who you've let get this close. maybe that was your mistake. what's gonna happen to you when even she decides you're just too much?

ㅤ//misc.ㅤ✧

pls send stuff! interaction is appreciated

there was a time when your life was normal. more normal, in comparison to circus boys, assassins and the children of killers. 

your father rarely visited, a blurry shape in all your memories of him, but his presence filled every corner of the penthouse he provided for. your mother was a journalist, not the best, certainly not the worst, but notable enough to get his attention when they were younger. an interview led to another, then to a date, then to many more, and down the line- to a girl.

you’re not sure when you started to have difficulty remembering what he sounded like, what he looked like, who he was, but you remember exactly when mom started waiting up in the living room, head in her hands and a neglected cup of yellowing liquid perched on the sofa’s armchair- teetering at the edge. 

nothing you did ever made her go to bed, not your pecking at her face, not your small arms trying to hug her, she nudged you slightly farther the closer you came. back then, you’d thought it was awful you couldn’t cure her, learning only later, you were the cause of her diseased moping. 

she was always waiting. waiting for something to come and help her, for some promise that never came to fruition, and probably never would. you cursed whoever, or whatever it was that had made her so upset. you found a newspaper on the coffee table once, opened to a page about the elusive “batman and catwoman” their cowls and billowing capes making patterns in the blurry picture on it. mom wasn’t in the living room, not this time, and when you turned your head, you saw the faintest glimpse of her silhouette in the balcony. she was waiting, watching, waiting to catch something. someone. 

in the winter-time, your grandmother and aunt would come to visit, their gleaming faces brightening the whole world. your mother would smile more, wouldn’t wait up at night, wouldn’t nudge you away when you went to struggle for a hug. it was love, love for you, for them, for herself. the two of them loved, loved her- their daughter, their sister, and loved you, their daughter-or-sister’s only little child. 

auntie would paint your nails, telling you stories about her and your mother in their school days, the boys they kissed, the actors they watched, the clothes they wore. you were so fascinated, so excited for mom to tell you these things too, when it was your turn to be a big girl. but mom only loved in the wintertime, and the world would go dark again when they waved goodbye after new years’. she wouldn’t tell you these things, and you promised yourself to never think she didn’t love you. she did love you, didn’t she?

the year you turn eleven, your mother gets a call in autumn. grandma died in her sleep. they hadn’t told mom about her falling sick, didn’t tell her about auntie skipping work to take care of her, didn’t tell her about grandma getting admitted into a hospital. 

the two of you had stood frozen in the kitchen, mom’s phone on speaker at the counter. for minutes, no one said a word, only auntie’s hiccuping and sniffling audible through the crackly and frankly shitty audio from mom’s phone. after she hung up, no one said a word, the house had seemed to been thrown into pitch black darkness, the silence making your ears ring and ring and ring. 

you didn’t go to try and cure mom that night. you stayed curled up in your room, hugging yourself, still struggling with how to turn your joints, how to comfort yourself. you regret it. at midnight, when you were still wide, wide awake, you padded out to the sofas where mom sat, looking for her. waiting for her. in the quiet, you saw her in the balcony again, her arms outstretched waiting to fly. you wish now, you hadn’t waited to long to sprint over to her, voice stuck in your throat- refusing to cry out.

the dark inverted in on itself, a big bang of colour and light- you didn't notice you’d screamed- the world had gone silent. 

you didn’t hear anything when she fell. 

gotham, so close to the coast, has significantly mild winters. but with all the smoke, the dust, the tension in the air that traps just about everything, “mild” loses its meaning, and you find yourself shivering through two sweaters and a puffer-jacket on the top of some nameless building.

so close to new years, lights flood the city in beaming displays and advertisements of sales, discounts, the occasional wanted or missing person headline, and a buy-two-get-one-free offer. if you squint out at the waterway corridor between gotham and bludhaven, you’ll notice the sister city’s neon lights look especially fluorescent around this time.

you know someone’s staring, taking another drag from the cigarette you snubbed off an eager old man who was here before you. you don’t bother to look around, you’re not really doing anything wrong are you? children in gotham are born with a sixth sense, they know when someone’s looking, and you hope the lack of an exciting, loud entrance means its a troublesome, mythical hero instead of a conspiring criminal.

whoever it is, has been here a while now, and they hesitate to show up. you snub out the snout on the railing, a small ring of ash crumbling off of it. there’s a rustle beside you, the faintest glimpse of an oversized thrush in the corner of your eye. when it chirps, his voice is dry, dull and quiet. discomfitted and bored.

“don’t ever see the point in smoking,” it commented, watching you drop the cigarette down twelve, maybe fifteen stories, “what good does it do you?”. you wait a while before responding, muttering under your breath, watching the orange end of it disappear, “goody two-shoes here to lecture me?”

he doesn’t respond, cape making no noise at all, even as it flutters and moves in the wind. the red robin’s a curious figure, a legend and a rookie at the same time. you catch a look at him maybe once a year, the santa of gotham’s menagerie, and he disappears before you can figure out it was him. he’s not as elusive as some of the others, but really does his best to play mysterious. 

“it’s bad for you,” you keep yourself from sighing at him and his monotone buzzing, “so is staying up here so late in the cold. you’d best get home, kid.” you contemplate it, returning home to an eerily quiet house, feeling out of place and disgustingly aware of everything and everyone around you. and as you think, red robin stands up on the rails with a grapple gun on his hand, muttering in a way that sounds almost disgruntled, “don’t you kids ever think about your family worrying about where you’ve been?” before he leaps off, swinging away. you scowl a little at the place where he was standing just now.

the first arrangement of thoughts is indignant, offended. what if you didn’t have a family? orphans and no-names aren’t a rarity is gotham, it’s not too nice of him to be so blunt about something you’re sure some folk must be sensitive about. it’s none of his business trying to get personal.

the second arrangement crawls over to a place in your heart that’s a bit too soft and childish. what if they don’t worry? why’s he have to be so blunt about something someone might be sensitive about? these jumping and whirling creatures aren’t very kind. but, you suppose, no one here is. 

you regret dropping the cigarette, ears straining for any noise beyond the light howls of boat horns from the coast and police sirens from the city beneath you. you’re waiting for something, not sure what, wishing you could fly. everyone’s blunt and unkind and unmeaningly and unnecessarily cruel. you hate gotham. truly.

he wasn’t ever hostile, wouldn’t run away from conversations or ignore you. but some part of you still wondered if he resented you just a little bit. or was he scared? maybe it scared him to see you, your mother’s face printed on your skin.

bruce wayne looked different from what little you remembered about him. the blurry edges of his face and smudged blue of his eyes were really actually sharp and cutting, nothing like mom’s, deep, cushioning stares.

maybe that was your problem. maybe you never really gave him a chance. you were looking for mom in someone who wasn’t her, disregarding anything that suggested it. you couldn’t bring yourself to be satisfied with his shoddy attempts to talk to you first, couldn’t appreciate the way he just couldn’t bring about the same warmth you remembered from mom.

maybe some part of you resented him too. resented him for leaving mom, thinking that if he showed up surely she’d still be here. he must have been who she stayed up for every night. maybe you were scared. 

he had no reason to love you. you were your mother’s only child. she loved you because she had no other choice. even if it hurt to admit, that lack of choice gave you something to rely on. maybe she left because you were selfish. but dad… he had alfred, he had richard, he had jason, he didn’t need you. does anyone?

richard was bright. kinder than you could have been grateful for. it was your fault for latching onto that, you must’ve overburdened him, expecting too much, clinging on too close. you were afraid of everything. you’d never had a brother, thought he was the best, too quickly, too fast. but he pulled away, strangely, your shared smiles suddenly became awkward. you became hyper aware of how painful you probably made every outing. stressed about everything you did and crawled into the covers and swore you’d never leave again. out of shame for nothing- you stopped trying. stopped bouncing on the heels of your feet and trying to play little sister. how embarrassing, (name), to become so dependent so fast. you were a stranger still, invading. you don’t blame him if he felt uncomfortable.

with jason, things were different. he didn’t seem to mind it when you hid behind him at galas, following him around like a duckling. didn’t mind it when you went quiet for days either, shuffling into you room and just sitting quietly on the bed where you lay. you chalked it up to him being as socially inept as you, strange and odd. maybe he was just nicer than you gave him credit for. the two of you talked a lot, babbling on and on at the dinner table while bruce would be missing from every meal. but the real conversations, away from alfred’s attentive ears, in the secrecy of pillow forts, those were the ones you cherished the most.

jason’s mother had passed away well before bruce found him, he’d told you. sometimes, he felt guilty. guilty for living in the manor after being out on the streets for so long, wondering if he deserved all this privilege. “feel like o’m abandoning my mom, you know?” he’d murmured, flipping a page from the book he was reading for school. you knew. you felt guilty too, living with the man you were so sure was the reason mom was so sad. guilty for coming into this family uninvited, her death the only reason he wanted you around at all.

two little gargoyles from gotham perched on the tallest spires in the city, the two of you knew each other better than anyone else. you saw the way his expression shifted a little whenever dick was around, even when he was happy, his mouth would twinge just a little bit. you learned from your own experience, it was envy. the slightest, smallest bit of envy. you never knew why. he saw the way your eyebrows furrowed at bruce’s often empty chair, resentment, guilt, and said nothing. you appreciated it, even when you knew he knew, appreciated how he’d talk about something else when alfred asked why you seemed so down.

he’d talk about school; he’s doing great in literature! about rena; he likes her so much- (name) don’t laugh at me! name), me and bruce are going to find my mom! no, catherine was my mom, but she didn’t give birth to me. yeah, my other mom, i’m going to find her, (name)!

you hated yourself for feeling bitter, hated that you couldn’t bring yourself to be so, so purely happy for him. hated that you felt something was wrong when he left with bruce, piercing your nails into the skin of your arm. god, you were such a miserable bitch. why couldn’t you be happy for him? why did you have to be such an awful sister?

jason didn’t come back. 

bruce didn’t come for any meals. but that wasn’t out of the ordinary for you. the house was empty, jason was… your brother was dead. his funeral was quiet, you, bruce, alfred and barbara, the kindly stern lady who you’d see around sometimes, dick missing entirely. his life was too short to have caused too much of a stir, jason left without anyone hardly knowing him at all. jason left in the winter, by spring, nobody knew you at all.

you end up pricking yourself with a hiss while embroidering, damian looking up from his homework for just a second before you shake your head- and he looks back. you’ve not had much to do since school closed for winter break, busying yourself with a myriad of hobbies you had fleeting interests in. this half-week’s was trying to decorate a handkerchief you found in your cupboard, eyes blanking away from the pre-existing, cursive “M” on the top-right corner on the cloth.

it’s that weird time in the afternoon, right before the sun sets, that makes the world strangely slow and melancholic. you try to remember what you did around this time with your old friends, but remember that the basement’s “game room” had no windows. this melancholic time just didn’t exist with your friends.

over the past four weeks, you’ve seen basically everyone that was here before, with the addition of damian, and the absence of tim. barbara had come over for something, and you ran into her while she was talking to bruce. weary about interrupting, you’d turned around to leave- but whatever she was saying to your father, she dropped for some mild small talk with you. you excused yourself after a few awkward moments, relieved the second you went around the corner. why did you make everything so weird?

duke, another boy in the manor, came back from his school trip. he was alright enough, nodding politely as bruce introduced the two of you. he didn’t seem all too bothered at your lack of response, the way you smiled stiffly and looked away. damian said he was a reliable guy, more praise than you’d heard from him about anyone for a while. but what did it matter to you? you weren’t looking for anyone to rely on.

stephanie and cassandra came over to visit for a few days just the day before yesterday. steph, the jovial girl who you’d been somewhat comfortable with once, seemed just a bit more mellow now. you chalked it up to her growing up, even as she smiled brightly and gave you a small tight hug, observing the slightest dark circles under her eyes. she left after only a few hours, wanting to go out for something. she asked if you wanted to come out a walk, but you refused automatically, preferring the warm mansion to the brutal winds outside. 

cassandra on the other hand, seemed to haunt the manor for most of the time. you had no clue where she disappeared when she wasn’t hanging around bruce’s study or curled up in the library next to a miserable damian struggling through assignments from school. she hadn’t spoken to you even once, beyond an acknowledging look when they first arrived. it was like she knew you didn’t want to talk, and you were grateful for it. 

tim was the only person you hadn’t seen yet, and with your history together… you imagine he wouldn’t want to see you. you don’t blame him- you’re not too sure you want to see him either. tim was a sudden addition to your life after… you push the thought away. you didn’t give him a fair chance when he first showed up, pushing everyone away. you realise now that it probably made him feel unwelcome, the way he did, how was he supposed to know you weren’t close with anybody at home? that it wasn’t just him.

that was your mistake, you’d realised one day, a year or two away from gotham. you’d centered yourself too many times, been too selfish. it’s why every hurdle, every awful thing that ever happened in your life, felt like punishment. richard grayson’s distance had felt like your punishment for being needy, jason todd’s death was your punishment for getting too attached, bruce wayne’s coldness was your punishment for being alive. that’s how you thought.

but it wasn’t the truth, was it? you had no hand in any of it. it’s wasn’t your fault, but neither was it theirs. how could it be, when you never existed to them at all? when you never existed at all? (name) died before jason, (name) died before bruce brought her to the mansion. you’ve been dead since she left. you’ve been nothing all this time. but forgetting this, you were cruel, weren’t you? 

cruel to tim, who felt just as out of place and uncomfortable as you had. what if he’d tried to find kindness in you, only for you to shove him away? cruel to your first doctors, who really just wanted to help? why do you do it? you’re awful, just awful. for once, without being selfish, you take these consequences with grace. this is punishment for being cruel. for thinking too much about yourself. 

disappear (name), be nothing at all.

the soil’s a little damp for the oddly timed rain, your clothes picking up bits of dirt and mud as you sit near her. you’ve started to forget what mom sounded like, it’s been so long, you wonder if she even existed. if those soft memories and happy days were real, or if they were figments of your imaginations, manifestations of your longing.

at the party you escaped today, bruce was talking to a lady. you know how it is for him, he has to be charming, has to be beautiful for gotham to survive. but looking at the two of them, you couldn’t help but remember agonisingly, the shape of your mother on the couch. waiting.

if alfred, or anyone else knew you were here, they would’ve been upset. when you came back home after the day you ran into the red robin on the rooftops, bruce had sternly spoken to you about just how dangerous it was, and how he couldn’t afford you risking yourself like that without telling anybody. you wonder how he knew, he never used to know before.

the graveyard’s not empty. quarter a mile away, a family begins to leave their grandpa. a funeral procession’s going on on the other side, a few loud wails and whines muffled by the wind. you close your eyes and try to remember, what you wanted to tell her, what you thought you’d vent out to your mother. i’m afraid? i want to go back (to my friends? to you?) ? why’d you have to go so quick?

“i miss you,” a murmur escapes, and it takes a moment for you to realise you said it. a few years pass by in your head while you stay dazed, skin prickling in the cold, remembering her, auntie, grandma, waiting, your old house, your primary school, waiting, your friends there, your teachers, waiting, she’s talented, waiting, she’ll do great things, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting. eventually, mom stretches her arms out on the railings, about to fly. you open your eyes to save her, but the stone in front of you gloats that it’s too bad you didn’t really.

“(name),” a voice. a name- your name! you blink, turning your head back, registering a black jacket, gloves, a frown, “does bruce know you’re here?”

jason. jason. it takes a moment to respond. you forgot he was still alive. forgot you were there when bruce came back looking ruined one night, forgot nearly passing out in shock when you saw him in the kitchen one night, forgot about sitting at the top of a spire as he talked, voice distant and far away. how could you forget? jason. your brother was alive.

jason and your mother had both left you suddenly, bursting into light or plunging you underwater. you didn’t want to think about them. you didn’t want to think about how jason wanted to do a masters abroad, didn’t want to think about how he was looking forward to the next addition of a book series he’d begged you to read, didn’t want to think about how he’d murmured that once he saw the light leave his mother’s eyes, he wasn’t afraid anymore. you wish you knew enough about mom, to not want to think about her. 

tried instead to think about how it was going to happen anyway. how mom was going to die eventually. how jason would disappear from your life like her and richard did, haunting presences. better yet, you refused to think at all. you were safe in your cocoon. you didn’t have to care about anyone ever again.

you shook your head, swallowing, turning your head back. after jason died, you saw him in the corner of your eyes, sometimes he’d be in your room, sometimes he’d frown at you across the dining table. if you spoke to him, looked for too long- he’d disappear. you don’t say a word, looking away before he evaporated into dust.

he doesn’t either, looking at the gravestone in front of you. when the two of you were younger, you’d walk out here holding each others hands, hoping the flowers you got your mothers were the ones they liked. it was painful to think that you’d never know if she did. so you didn’t think at all.

“you should go home,” he muttered, sounding so different from the last time you heard him. far less cheery than when you were younger, far more weary than the day he explained. you wonder if he tried to find you when you were gone at the hospital, “it’s cold.”

despite that, the two of you sit there for much longer, quiet. he shuffles and sits next to you after a bit, you lean on his shoulder out of instinct. if he stiffens, you ignore it. years pass by in your head, wondering if it hurt for her. wondering if she felt the impact, wondered if she thought about you. wondered if she even cared that she was leaving you all alone. wondered if she knew what yoou were going to become.

“what was it like?” you asked jason, voice too quiet for him to hear, since he shifted a little in question. “what was it like to die?” the question doesn’t alarm you, you don’t think of it as something he might hate you for. this was jason, he knew you, you knew him. he wouldn’t bristle or despise you for it, you’d asked such questions when he came back, too.

he’s silent for a while. you look at him side ways, waiting. his curly hair’s gone flat, the freckles gone from his face. his green eyes have gone gunmetal gray. he looks like a different person, the pale ghost of your memories of him. finally, he shrugs. everything he said when you were children were naively detailed and long winding, like he was preparing for a play. even when you met him before going away, he’d retained some of those dramatics through bitter and soft monologues where you said nothing. you waited to listen, to hear him, you knew what he was like.

“not everything feels like something else, (name)”

ah. he’s a different person. you don’t know him at all.

── a/n. it's been a minute,,, i'm flopping so bad in school and have been feeling like shit for months. buts thats ok riley im joy. please interact !!! send asks or replies or stuff idk !! ill start drawing for the end of these eventually !! stephanie focus next chapter !! bye !!