Flittermouse

I only have 26 teeth and only in the front of my mouth, but that’s ok because I’ve got ridges in my throat to help tear up food before it gets dissolved in my lungs (liquids on the right, solids on the left obviously).

Stephanie: French toast.

Duke: French fries.

But the big reason that you have these agreed upon rules of war (they pop up a lot throughout history; ours are just unusual in that they allegedly apply to all nations) is that you otherwise get spirals of vengeance that lead to massacres that do nothing to actually bringing a swift resolution to war (because, while war is awful, if you really must have war it is better to be as short and bloodless as possible).

I remember reading that the London Blitz started off as a mistake - German bombers got lost at night and dropped their payload in a residential district rather than an industrial one. Naturally, Churchill responded in kind. But the Germans did not go "ah, this is retaliation for that thing we did by accident" they went "the nefarious British are terrorizing our people, we must show them we will not be intimidated." Which provoked a similar response ad naseuam.

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Also prev tags:

Robin: Oh my manager?

He can understand metaphors and knows about philosophy, but he’s always struggle to truely grasp the tragedy and helplessness so may of them hold. The idea of someone being doomed from the start, by the author and the narrative or maybe just the world they were set in, just doesn’t really make sense to him.

Part of him knows it’s because he was born with a vintage silver spoon placed delicately in his hands, but there’s more to it than that.

See, most of the bad things that have happened to Tim have either been consequences of his own action or the fact that his friends and colleagues all have the same dangerous job.

To him it just makes sense that bad things will happen and so he can just… prepare for it. He can do what he can to fix it or move onto something else and push away his own feelings because what else is he supposed to do?

So, no, things like Hamlet and Dorian don’t really click for him

At least… until he thinks about Jason.

Born in poverty with a world surrounding him that would not bother to care or offer help to him purely because of how he looks of his parents.

A mother who loves him endlessly, only to fall into the drugs she tried to protect him from.

Finding out that mother didn’t even give birth to him, but the father that never showed anything other than distain and cruelty was still his own.

Being given Robin, hated by the first one for a time, only to die in the suit by the hands of a mad man all because his real mother sold him out.

Waking up in a coffin, digging himself out and roaming around catatonic and the only thoughts he can actually process is that he must be a ghost.

Being taken by a league of killers, lied to and trick and tormented into thing a perfect weapon.

Realise his mentor, who he once thought the father he deserved to have, has failed him and let his killer free because of something as fickle as a moral compass.

Seeing that mentor seemingly replace him with a perfect rich kid who doesn’t swear or complain or sneak off without permission from what he can tell.

Having no real friends in that time.

Having no one to trust because everyone had an ulterior motive. Everyone uses him.

And through out it all, even with all the hate and the bitterness and injustice he had been faced with, his first course of action is to make the home he first had and the only one he will ever have… safer.

To protect the kids like him from becoming statistics and killers, from the pain he felt and the false promises of the Batman.

Jason keeps honesty and integrity, even when no one else offers it to him in return.

Tim can’t understand Macbeth or Antigone or Othello, can’t see why someone would write something so morbid just to try and entertain.

But he can understand, or at least try to understand, Jason Todd.

Because that is someone who had actually been hurt for no reason. Someone who had been tormented by the universe, by fates and coincidence, with no real lesson being taught other than the world hates him.

Sure Jason has Roy and Biz and Artemis and Kori, but what about a brother?

Dick tried, he still does, but he fails Jason over and over by trying to make him ‘better’.

Damian doesn’t really care too much, not out of malice but there’s just not much of a connection between them.

Cass tries, but Jason is always awkward around her and that’s not his fault, you can’t hide a thing from her.

Duke liked Jason a lot, but again, the newest Bat is trying hard to find his place in the world of vigilantes and can’t quite find it in himself to be too close to Jason’s violence.

But Tim…

He’s morals have always been held together by the simple fact of ‘it’s not really that approved of’ and not much else. He won’t kill, but unlike the others he is happy to leave a Rouge in a sinking ship and not feel a hint of guilt.

He adores Jason’s Robin, he knows to some extent how much he lost with that, and now he knows that Jason might not need much more than a few good things.

Small things, nothing that will trick him into thinking the world is apologising because it won’t, but enough to show him that Tim thinks he’s still worth something.

Tim won’t try convince him to become a better person or to stop killing, he might ask him to be a bit more rational and probably won’t be able to stop himself from giving tips on how to run his business, but he wouldn’t ask for his violent brother to change.

Because unlike everyone else, Tim knows that violence exist for good reason.

He retreated to teaching, where he became a fantastic teacher, but one who sheltered himself so he wouldn't have to deal with opposition. When Strautt found him, he reluctantly agreed to help, but when she took the astrophage he chose to fight. For his kids(students), for his planet, he stood beside Stratt and helped her do whatever she needed to do to save their planet.

His friends, DuBois and Shapiro, were killed in a tragic accident three days before launch. Stratt offered Grace the choice, to board the Hail Mary, to fly through the dying stars on a suicide mission to save the only planet humanity has ever known.

And he refused.

He was a coward; he made excuses about staying on Earth to help his students rather than do the only thing that could save their lives. He wouldn't give his life to save his species, his kids. Stratt knew her duty, she knew it all along and there was nothing, nothing she wouldn't sacrifice. Even herself. Even Grace.

He woke up on the Hail Mary and did exactly what Stratt anticipated. Ryland Grace may have been a coward, but he was also a scientist. Grace met an alien, his best friend. He and Rocky flew to Adrian, found Taumoeba, and bred it into a version that could survive in the necessary environment.

He tried so hard to forget that he would have to die when their mission was over. And then, suddenly, he could go home. Rocky gave him the fuel. He could live, he could go home, he didn't have to die.

Ryland Grace cried with joy.

Then everything went wrong. The Taumeoba escaped. He found it early, he fixed the problem. But he knew Rocky couldn't. Grace the scientist, Grace the coward, could finally go home, he could finally live. And he chose to go back. He chose to sacrifice himself.

Ryland Grace would not give his life to save his planet, to save the people he had known and loved. But now, he decided willingly to give his life to save an alien he had known for a couple of months, from a planet he had never seen and a species he had never really known.

Grace gave his life, because it was the right thing to do. This time, he wasn't a coward.