you could make this place beautiful

Okay but for real, you guys. I don't think you don't understand the gravity of this situation. I held out on writing Jason Todd for twenty years. TWENTY YEARS. Which is so brave of me considering *gestures vaguely to my well documented history of writing about soggy sad crying men* I mean, there were signs that this would be my final form. Many such cases, in fact. But no! I was determined. I held firm. I was not going to fall into this specific trap. And then I wrote TSSOYV and said ''hey, if Dinah and Bruce were together long enough for Sin to consider him her dad does that mean Jason would have considered her his mom'' and now I'm here. It was the complicated family dynamic of it all. It got me. I did this to myself.

I hope this doesn't awaken anything in me, I said, knowing full well it was going to awaken something in me.

Oh well.

You can run, you can hide, but you can't escape the OG sad boy.

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Title: sons are like birds Fandom(s): DC Comics, Batman: Under the Red Hood, technically MCU but this side quest has very minimal MCU involvement, very very minor Arrow influences, seriously if you're an Arrowverse fan, I am like 80% this is probably not what you're looking for. Pairing: Primarily focused on the mother/son dynamic between Dinah Lance & Jason Todd. Some Dinah Lance/Bruce Wayne (mostly in the past), mentions of Past Dinah Lance/Oliver Queen, pre (aka in their pining era) Dinah Lance/Bucky Barnes. Summary:  In the wake of the family they spent years building abruptly falling apart, Bruce Wayne and Dinah Lance meet again on a dreary November morning. Meanwhile, their late son continues to haunt the narrative. And the building they're standing in. A companion fic to The Soft Sound of Your Voice.

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Chapter One:

Save All My Ashes for My Return

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He waits until the doors close before he makes his move. He's lounging comfortably against the wall, one shoulder propped up, arms folded over his chest, ankles crossed, casual as can be as he scans over the men one more time. He spares a look at the security cameras in the elevator. Still down. If there's one reliable thing about this building, other than Harold the day shift doorman, it's that the security cameras are unreliable. One of the men, the one at the front of the trio, the one that looks, from his posture and build, to have at least some training, possibly military, presses the button for the fifth floor.

Yeah, of course it's the fifth floor.

Because if they were here to assassinate the DA on the fourth floor or the unassuming business man on the sixth floor who is poised to become a billionaire by the end of the year or kidnap one of the Crenshaw kids to get to their rich grandparents, that would be too easy.

''Just out of curiosity,'' he starts, voice a slow, almost soft sounding drawl in the silence of the elevator, ''are you here for the Soldier or the Canary?''