lucas

A lil HC I have that Jason and Damian were in Nanda Parbat together and Talia took this candid of them.

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There was a very fine, dangerous line, between being a hero and self-destruction, and Jason Todd walked it recklessly, as if he had no fear of what lay on either side.

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Jason didn’t keep his scars for anyone else.

He didn’t wear them to impress or intimidate.

No,

he kept them because he thought he deserved them.

Each scar was proof that he was paying for something – some sin, some mistake, some cosmic debt he wasn’t even sure he’d ever clear.

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He collected scars like they were a punishment he couldn’t outrun. A reminder that he wasn’t the hero he’d once dreamed of being.

He needed to show himself – and everyone else – that he was trying.

Trying to be a hero,

trying to matter,

trying to be good.

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He threw himself into situations that would bring him harm, seeking out battles where the odds were stacked against him, pushing himself beyond the limits of what his body could take. He fought with reckless abandon, not because he was fearless, but because he believed suffering was the only currency he had left to pay.

oopsies. posted this to IG but not tumblr.

As soon as he settled onto her bony frame, she seemed to come alive, just a little. Her arms wrapped around him and her breath hitched in her throat. Her smile returned, stretched tighter this time, like she was holding back tears and trying to turn them into something pretty.

Jason could feel it – the desperate effort. The performance of motherhood. The aching want to be 𝙜𝙤𝙤𝙙, if only for tonight.

“Oh look at you,” Catherine breathed, a trembling laugh rising in her throat. “You’re gettin’ so old. Eleven already?” Her voice lifted with something close to joy. And, for a moment, she wasn’t the hollowed-out woman who slept all day and disappeared at night. She wasn’t the brittle shadow he had watched shrink before his eyes over the years.

She was just…

Mom, trying her best to hold on.

Trying to remember.

Jason didn’t speak right away. He could feel the fragility of the moment in her heartbeat. Like if he said the wrong thing, it would all collapse. But even then, the worry clawed at him. The guilt. The knowledge that this cake – this beautiful, too-perfect cake – wasn’t something they could afford.

He looked at the candle again, still flickering stubbornly on the table.

“We could still return it,” Jason insisted again softly, turning just enough to look at her. “Get somethin’ we need.”