riverviewlogs | Put me back together make me right

You played yourself, Jason.

Hana wasn't an idiot. She realized fairly quickly that Jason was avoiding her - or at least avoiding seeing her. He seemed to have no problems with responding to her texts, but every time she made a suggestion to get together to play games or anything that required seeing each other in person Jason would come up with one reason or another. She took it the first few times - she knew better than most that sometimes you just needed to fall in on yourself and not see anyone. But it happened time and time again until she realized that perhaps it wasn't that he didn't want to see anyone - he just didn't want to see her.

And that realization hurt a lot more than she realized it would, not knowing why he would avoid her like this.

He'd better have a good reason, was all she thought. She knew she wouldn't get one unless she saw him in person, though - it was too easy to divert a text conversation or ignore it, which she realized was the reason why he kept their interactions digital.

When she saw him online but idle that day, she realized it was her chance. Luckily she was off that day too - so she got into her mech and made her way to his house, stopping by her favorite bakery and coffee shop on the way to grab some food - peace offerings for whatever offense she committed against him that made him start to avoid her.

It would be hard to miss the pink mech pulling up to the driveway, landing just behind Jason's mustang. If that arrival didn't wake him up, hopefully Hana's incessant ringing of the doorbell would.

Jason always plays himself. It was a fact of life.

He had found no problem in online chatter while gaming, or texting at any given point. A trick he learned from Bruce, and used to dodge anyone. Digital didn't convey emotions, he could disconnect himself and still appear just as strong even when he was breaking. He didn't think anyone had caught on, but clearly, the woman he had found himself caring about was a detective in her own rights. Figured.

He had a type after all.

The sound of the mech made him start to stir, what the fuck was that? He hadn't gotten off the couch yet before the ringing of the bell started.

"KNOCK IT THE FUCK OFF!" he screamed with the trademarked Batvoice. To make his voice boom with the tone that made criminals in Gotham quake. Rolling himself off the couch he pushed himself up the sheet wrapped around his shoulders, hair sticking every direction half full of static and it was growing out of the undercut already. His lip was split in the middle with a bruise on the left side of his mouth, the black sheet covered all but the bottom of his abs and the bat printed sleep pants he was wearing as he pulled the door open ready to scream again. Then he saw Hana, and oh the wave of pain came back he wasn't awake enough for that.

God he hoped Wally and Tim weren't home... they Wally probably would have gotten the door before he could have. "Hana?" What else could he say.

Hana actually had to stifle the urge to laugh at the yelling she could hear coming from inside. Well, if nothing else, at least Jason still seemed like himself based on that reaction, such a typical Jason-ism.

When the door opened, though, that amusement quickly faded from her expression, concern instead taking its place.

"Surprise," she said, although it lacked any of the fanfare that should accompany that kind of a greeting. Her eyes narrowed at him; she noticed his state of (un)dress, certainly, but it wasn't anything she would dwell on now, especially not when his lip was split open the way it was, face bruised in spots.

"Jeez, what hit you? A truck?"

She was going to go ahead and try to step past him to invite herself into the house, holding up the bag with red velvet cupcakes in them at him as she did so.

If it had been anyone else in his shoes, Jason would have laughed to, probably cop knocked on the door just to be more of an ass, but when things happened to him. Nope, not as funny. Namely not on a couple hours of much needed sleep. He couldn't keep glaring at Hana though. As much as he wanted to.

He stepped aside as she spoke so she could invite herself in, inside the house was a very homey looking house. Far more domestic than one might expect. Outside of the living room everything in sight looked immaculate, the couch was messy with the pillows on the floor, his guard uniform draped on a chair, and a duffle bag near by. The game system was still on, along with the tv, as he moved over dropping the sheet and picking up one of his black shirts and tugging it on.

He didn't reach for the bag however just arched a brow at it. He needed a second, given he was just waking up. "Why are you here? It's not even a human hour." He grumbled dropping down where he had clearly been sleeping. He was to big for that couch. "Come in have a seat... ignore anything I say." He added the last bit as he yawned and stretched his arms some, inside the turmoil was already bubbling. Shouldn't she be out with Mr. Perfect? The guy really was a doll, that's what made it all worse, of course Jason stalked him a bit... its what he does.

When Jason didn't take the bag, she simply put it down on the nearest coffee or end table before she continued wandering about the living room, peering into the other areas of the house, half to acquaint herself with the space and half to see if anyone else was around. She turned back around toward Jason just in time to spy him putting a shirt back on from the corner of her eye - but she looked away again promptly.

"Not even a human hour? It's the middle of the day, Jay. It's definitely a human hour. Just not a zombie one."

After that quip she did manage to turn back to him, if only so she could offer a smirk. She did come back and sit next to him, though, and it wasn't until then that she could really tell how cramped this couch must be for him to be sleeping on.

"Are you gonna tell me how you busted your lip, or not?"

A coffee table was sitting in front of the couch, which was closest to them. There was corner tables but for some reason there was a stack of thick novels piled on the one by the couch's side. No one else was home, if they were they were asleep, or Tim was just hiding in his room, but Jason was sure Tim was at work. People tended not to be home when he slept, he liked it best that way. No one could hear his nightmares.

"Good thing I'm a zombie then." He grumbled, stretching his feet out to cross them on the coffee table. "Sorry about the mess... were in a transition period. Renovations are starting soon then this place can be properly clean." Jason Todd was a neat freak, it was just one of his many issues after growing up like he did, then connecting with the butler more than his adopted father.

"I didn't plan to, but why don't you take a guess and I'll confirm or deny. Its not a hard concept of why I would have a split lip." He grumbled, mostly just grouchy from sleep, but also trying to ignore his broken heart aching.

And for her part, Hana pulled her feet up, drawing her knees close to her chest on the couch and wrapping her arms around her legs, turning her head and resting it against her knees as she looked at Jason. He looked so tired, which a look only made worse by how beat up he looked. Obviously he got his ass kicked. But it wasn't so easy to guess how he might have gotten his ass kicked. He got into far too much trouble, she had at least three different guesses.

"Monsters outside the wall?" she muttered, but she promptly shook her head. No, that couldn't be it. If it were monsters outside the wall, he'd be way more banged up. This looked like the kind of injury you'd get fighting another person. Her gaze was fixed on his lips.

"Trouble with crooks on the street? Or... bar brawl?"

She sighed. As 'fun' as this guessing game was, it wasn't the reason she sought him out. She was here because one of her best friends was suddenly avoiding her, and that hurt. She thought she'd gotten past that wall of his, but now it felt like he was building it back up. Why? Did she hurt him? How?

"Okay, look. I didn't come here to give you crap about your bruises. Why are you avoiding me?"

"Bar brawl." Least it would fall in line to his usual lie to Damian. It was part of his trap, he made people say what they expected while keeping tick and using the most popular answer to keep his second job hidden well from his loved ones. "I got distracted, but the oaf looks worse so, don't worry your not friends with a loser." Sadly, he wasn't wrong. He messed the other guy up, he hated the marks being on his face but he hadn't resorted to cosmetics just yet.

he knew it was coming, and leave it to Hana to cut through his bullshit. He certainly did have a type. "It's nothing personal. I've just been busy, Hana." It wasn't a complete lie but damn if he didn't hate it. Dropping his head back against the back of the couch he knew she'd probably call him on it in a second so he spoke on before he'd give her the chance. "I have a lot going on, I just needed a little bit of time." Stupid feelings.

Of course, Jason'st attempt at reassurance didn't make Hana feel at all reassured. Instead she felt skeptical, which only made her feel worse about where they stood - because what kind of friend was she if she couldn't trust what he was saying? Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that he was hiding, hiding from her, when she thought they were both over that. What did he have left to hide from her after all the memories and nightmares?

'The other guy looked worse,' sure, but... she reached over, fingers on his chin as she pulled so that his face would turn toward her, even slightly. And the pad of her thumb brushed lightly over the wound on his lips.

"Is it really winning if you still come out with all this, though?"

She frowned. Jason had Damian and Jon to take care of now. He couldn't run off and get into bar brawls like that. What if something really happened? She pulled her hand away after that.

"Why can't you tell me? I thought we were friends. When you have a lot going on a friend can help you. You know that, right? You don't have to do it all by yourself."

She looked down.

"You don't have to push me away. I thought you were mad at me."

She hated this. She hated every moment that she felt vulnerable just as much as Jason did. But beneath all of her cool confidence, she was still just a nineteen, almost twenty-year-old girl who needed friends.

It was part of why he hated lying, even when he had to. Sure he could be damn good at it, Bruce trained him well after all, the streets even before that, but deep down he hated lying to the people he loved. And as much as he wished he could bury himself back down in that six feet of dirt, that would help nothing and no one. Namely, not even himself.

When she pulled his face her way, a slight look of pain flashed in his eyes, he was tired and grumpy but, just a simple touch made something in him flutter. He started to reach up to move her hand away when she touched his busted lip, but she moved it on her own.

"Winning's winning, and winning is all that matters right now." He admitted, just a tired admitting that he needed to win even if he knew it was bad.

"Hana, trust me, you don't want to know. Your happier not knowing. But, don't think like that, I'm not mad at you... not fully, pretty pissed about that wake up though." He grumbled the last bit shifting a small glare her way before letting it fall away. He hated looking her so hurt.

"Its completely a me problem, not you. You did everything right, okay?"

She wanted to laugh when he said he was pissed about the way she woke him up, but she was far too preoccupied with everything else to do so. In the end she couldn't fault him for what he'd done - she understood that feeling of needing to win no matter what the cost, even if she wasn't sure that it really mattered when the thing to win in question was a bar brawl.

Hana curled up a little bit more into herself, frowning.

"Jay... if I hadn't seen you left your account logged in and came over today, what would happen? Would you just keep making excuses to not see me? Then what, I give up and we stop being friends?"

Red Hood had a reputation to uphold, though if he let anyone of his loved ones, her included, know where his bruises were really coming from he was sure someone would rip him a new one. And he just didn't want to deal with that. He was worlds away from Bruce, he didn't want speeches about being reckless.

Jason pushed off the couch and slipped his hands into the pockets off his sleep pants as he moved over opening the blinds to let the room fill with light. Just to put space, and let himself collect his thoughts a moment. "I wouldn't have let that happen Hana. Never. I just needed to work through the problem I created myself." He kept his back to her for now looking out the window. "Your still one of the most important people to me here. Nothing will change that. Emotions and shit just, they fuck me up. Every damn time."

Hana wanted to believe him, that Jason wouldn't let their friendship fall apart - which only made her wonder even more what it was that he kept needing to deal with by himself, because to her? Friends are people you can rely on for that kind of thing. Emotions and shit.

"What happened?" she muttered as Jason stood by the window. She couldn't see him, but her gaze was fixed on his back.

"Are you scared that if you told me what you were dealing with that I'd - I dunno, change my opinion of you? You can't just run from your emotions, Jay."

Friendships with emotionally constipated bats was never easy. Not when they had to live double lives, even if she knew his other face, she didn't know parts. Just like even his brothers didn't know everything.

He leaned a hand on the window frame looking outside a moment.

"I'm not scared of anything, Hana, I've died that removes normal fears." He muttered before raking a hand through his hair, and decided to tell her. In his own way.

"The rumors aren't true Hana... I started the rumors about me. Their all lies... even something I told you was a lie to protect the reputation I made for myself." He figured she already realized he's not the Casanova bad boy he projects but, if he had to lay his cards out to save their friendship better to start there. "Being close to people puts a target on their back..."

She'd heard that before, from him. She knew that he was hesitant to get close to people because he felt that made them targets. But she also knew that so far, no one's come after her for simply being a friend of his - the Joker is gone, and as far as she could tell, he hadn't made any enemies here petty enough to go after Jason's connections...

She wasn't sure she was following what he was saying, though.

"So you were lying to protect yourself. Right?"

She'd been there.

"And to protect other people?"

Sometimes he wished he could go back to the past and punch both Bruce and Willis and maybe yell at Cathrine...nah fuck that, his mom did nothing wrong in his eyes. Not beyond her addictions, she did her best. But the men, it was their fault he was so bad at this stuff. He turned finally, and started pacing, he was tired and it was more of a tactic to keep himself awake than not.

"You make it sound pathetic that way... its more complicated than that. I've nearly lost everyone more than once, making the friends I have here and now was probably even a bad idea given the fact the Joker was here under our noses... but that part is not what I meant Hana, that was an explanation." He stopped just before the couch running a hand through his hair again and sighed. "I don't actually sleep around Hana... that was the lie I meant." He spoke looking down to her with a tired look, one that seemed to go soul deep.

The more Jason talked, the more Hana was beginning to think that this was going to be something deep, and dark. Perhaps even darker than anything she'd already seen of his past from his memories or nightmares. As she stayed curled up on the couch, her fingers' grip on her own arms tightened a bit.

And then loosened when she heard his Big Reveal.

"Wait, you—" she paused, giving a few slow blinks, "That's it? You lied about sleeping around... to protect your reputation."

What is this, this is so extra, Jason, please.

"What, so you said that so I'd think you were some kind of bad boy? That worked out really well, huh?"

As in, it didn't work. At all. Although their initial interactions had certainly been flirtatious and built almost entirely around the assumption that Jason was some kind of playboy, Hana was quick to realize that he wasn't really like that. Especially after she'd seen his memories.

She had seen so much of his darkness already, his pains, his horrors, now she should be able to see over the walls he's built around himself, before the door was cracked, open for her... but it was locked now, sealed for her own good.

When she spoke he looked to her with a shocked look on his face... like he expected it to be dramatic, some yelling, to be called a dumbass at least. But, the jury was still out on that last bit. "Yeah... No one would take me seriously or disrupt my work if they saw no future with me, and I have no future to offer."

After a second he scrunched his face some, any sorrow of underlying anger vanishing as he looked so confused. "Excuse you, I am bad, just not for the reasons I said." Suddenly he felt like a teenager on display... where did this go wrong?

Put me back together make me right

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