metaheroes - inbox

[voicelog]

CONTACTING...
T (private)
space donuts (public)
Iron Man (public/deactivated)
@tony.stark (neural implant)

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*assume all network exchanges with T
will be heavily encrypted and secured.

Comments

[reneger]

yeah, and your method is so much better
he's slipped out from under people with just as many shiny toys as you have

dick is going to do what he wants. you've seen what he grows into
he's smart, courageous, too reckless when left on his own, and stubborn as hell

if you don't want to, that's fine. i'll just do it myself

[voicelog]

that's just an excuse, jason

it shouldn't matter how difficult it'll be to prevent him from getting into trouble. you aren't his friend; you're his guardian. you do what you have to do as one, even if he might not like it and try to rebel. you adjust your methods until you can get through to him. you don't just humor him and pretend like everything will magically work out.

alts aren't the same, you know?
they might have similarities, but they aren't carbon copies of each other
dick is also old enough to know what he's doing by now
dj is only a kid
he isn't dick who has years of experience under his belt

besides, you of all people should know the dangers of entrusting a child to do the work of adults, so it's genuinely baffling to me why you would even entertain this

[reneger]

i do know
i was a year older than him when it happened
it's the younger tim's 15th birthday today

dj is a kid, but he isn't "only" anything
you're saying he lacks years of experience, but he's already got five under his belt
try talking to him for once, and you'll see it

you won't get it. you weren't one of us
but i get where you're coming from, and if it was damn near anyone who wasn't a robin, i'd find a way to ground them immediately
but trying to clip his wings is only going to make him fly away

[voicelog]

let me ask you first, have you even tried?
like seriously tried?

you're right
i don't get it
i'm not a robin and i can't even begin to understand what you guys must have gone through

but this is a different world we're in with different opportunities open to him
maybe what he thinks he wants right now is to be a superhero
but has anyone ever presented him with other options?

his life doesn't have to continue being a robin here

[reneger]

b tried to bench me once and i died

getting him out won't be instantaneous even if it does happen
he likes being robin. helping people, and the thrill of taking down criminals

he found out he accidentally created a legacy role, that four other kids took the name on after him
his name
and now you want me to smack it out of his hands and tell him "no"?

if you were 14 what would you do?

[voicelog]

[ you know what? this isn't a matter he should be sticking his hand into, so— ]

fine

i'll get a suit ready for him only because i don't want him to get hurt or killed
doesn't mean that i support it or like it

the rest i'm sure you can take care of on your own

[ aka he doesn't want to be involved in any way whatsoever, so drawing the very clear line in the sand here. please respect it. ]

[reneger]

you should try and talk to him
he's an incredible kid, too smart for his own good

tim is turning 20
the one you met
in case you want to say shit to him

[voicelog]

i'm sure he's an incredible kid, but i'm going to have to pass

and i think it might be best for you to just send tim my regards

[ he knows he sounds cold (trust him, he knows), but after their last conversation and recent events, he has come to realize that he needs to implement a bigger boundary between them, which includes getting too close with his family.

the price of knowledge, am i right? ]

[reneger]

( he sees it as soon as tony says to give tim his regards. between that and ignoring the person living right under him--well. tony being a recluse isn't new. but all of this hitting at the same time feels like it just might mean something a little--more serious. )

is this because of what happened?

[voicelog]

what happened? you're going to have to be a little more specific

[ he isn't about to confirm or deny anything until he knows which part of what happened is being alluded to here. better to curate a fitting response. ]

[reneger]

that's a yes
give me a bit to find a bigger apartment, i'll move out

[voicelog]

you don't have to move out
it isn't about that

we agreed to move past it, remember?

[reneger]

this isn't you getting over it
this is you shutting me and mine out

[voicelog]

it isn't because of that

[reneger]

but you admit you are shutting me out

[voicelog]

yeah
guilty as charged

[reneger]

so i'll move out to make it easier for you
the shutting me out bit

i've had enough time to bulk up my wallet
and kas keeps pissing me off

[voicelog]

[ he should just let him move out. it would be the most effective solution to put that distance between them. he has no reason to object. ]

i'm not going to kick you out
that's not what i'm trying to do
if i wanted you out of here, then i would have told you ages ago

[reneger]

you're not kicking me out, i'm leaving

[voicelog]

is that what you want or are you upset with me right now?

[reneger]

i told you i trust you and your whole line of responses were said with the fakest expression on your face
i let it go

and now you're shutting me out

you can lie to my face all you want, i'm used to it. you can sit there and call me a shit guardian, you're not wrong. call me out on all the bullshit you want to, i don't care

but i am sick of playing mind games with people, and i'm not going to play them with you

[voicelog]

[ way to make him feel like an asshole (which is absolutely fair). ]

you want the truth?
ok here's the truth: when you told me that you trusted me, i panicked
i wasn't trying to be fake or lie to you
it's my panic response ok?
it's always been my panic response
and usually people don't notice it because in another world that's who i am to everyone

i never intended to get close to anyone after i'd showed up in new amsterdam. none of this is permanent. attachment will only distract me. so i'd kept to myself and i'd avoided getting to know anyone more than necessary.

that didn't happen with you
probably because i didn't think we would ever get close
but then we started hanging out more
i started to get to know you
like REALLY know you
and the more i learned about you, the more i found myself caring about you
which was fine
up until the moment you told me that you trusted me and i realized that it was the same for me

so i panicked
i told myself that i needed to put some distance between us
because what good would it do for us to get closer when i'm already working on a way to get us all home?
it was a total jackass move, i'll admit it
and i'm sorry
i wasn't trying to hurt you

[reneger]

( there's a lot in there that he could touch on. the panic response, the need to keep people at a distance. jason tried that, too, until he realized he sucked at it, got attached to too many people, and lost nearly all of them. he could throw tony off, say fuck him, pack up his bags, and move his and dick's shit out. they'll be fine, they're always fine.

it's what he usually does, when someone throws feelings at him. because attachment is hard. harder still when something goes wrong, everything gets fucked up, and jason's left heartbroken wondering why the fuck he keeps putting himself through this shit. losing roy was a heartbreak, but it was one he pushed for himself. losing artemis and bizzaro was another. losing bruce and the rest of his family at the same time was--enough to break a guy. losing kovacs was oddly hard, because jason's pretty sure their whole thing was just bruising each other up for fun, but he'd gotten attached to that. losing cain was harder. there were so many he watched disappear one by one, up until the point he disappeared and ended up here. he's lost cass and steph already, and he'd just readjusted to steph's wit fucking him up. they'd laughed over putting a tramp stamp on jason, bullied tim.

because jason's an idiot who has forgotten how to keep it all in. to keep to himself, some asshat made him realize that pushing through in dark corners all by himself was fucking him over more than it was helping. he needs people to help keep his head above water, to remind him he's human, not a wrathful shadow haunting gotham. he's more than just the dead robin, the one who came back angry. and even here, two universes separate from his own, he gets stuck in it when he's left alone with his head.

jason doesn't self destruct harder. he lets the response sit for a while, watches several versions of 'fuck you and everything you stand for' scroll across the hud before he ultimately deletes them.

settles instead on some stupid shit an idiot glowstick threw at him that he may or may not have gotten from an anime, jason didn't do any research to back it up, that'd be going way too far. )

nothing is permanent, not even anything back where we originally came from
sometimes it's okay to just let things be

[voicelog]

[ to be honest, tony wouldn't have been surprised if jason threw his words back in his face.

it has happened time and time again throughout his life and his relationship with others, enough for him to start subconsciously bracing himself for the inevitable anger and accusations flung his way — sometimes deserved; other times, not so much.

a part of him is riding on receiving that response.

it's familiar territory. it'll distract him from the discomfort of knowing that he just let slip a bunch of things that he should have kept buried inside because they're either too personal or they work in direct opposition to what he's been aiming to achieve.

it's great if other people can open themselves up to new relationships, despite their current circumstance, but he isn't able to. ]

to what end though?

am i supposed to hedge my bets on the potentiality of forgetting everything once i'm back home so i should just do whatever the hell i want now with zero regard for those who i might leave behind?

just letting things be is easy, but whether you should depends on how willing you are to accept the outcome and take responsibility for it, disregarding what that outcome may turn out to be

i've already fucked that up once in my life in a big way
i'm not willing to do it again

[ not without weighing the pros and cons. not without knowing the full scope of things. not without thoroughly going over every single little detail first and mapping out all of the ways it can go horribly wrong, and then scrapping everything and starting all over again just to quadruple check you didn't miss anything the first few times. ]

[reneger]

( he's traveled through the multiverse before, even if he'd--forgotten it for a bit. jason knows it's complicated. hell, look what happened when they ended up here: found old friends, but ones that weren't quite the same, and duplicates of jason's siblings, as fucked up as that is. he could handle another copy of himself when they were - as different as mason had been. this is so much more, and who the fuck knows how long they'll be here for? nothing is permanent. their place here isn't. when they leave isn't. if they leave isn't a guarantee. )

closing yourself off doesn't help anyone
not you, not the people you're around, not this place, not anyone back home
you're always going to leave people behind
how many have you fucked off from back home? i don't know jack shit about anything you've gotten up to aside from the thor clone incident, which was a real crap move
but i know it's just as if not more fucked than the shit going on around me back in gotham

life is hard
losing people is hard
shit hurts, nothing is ever going to be perfect, everything is going to fall apart, you'll probably die tragically, maybe come back a few times, die some more
hurt terribly everything something goes wrong and it's either on you or you're blaming yourself for it even if it isn't

let it go elsa