And the word of the day is you are a disgrace [private log]
Who: Tim Drake. Currently Robin. For however long THAT lasts.
What: Reading back over the journal.
Where: Out in the Dead Zone, sweeping for strays.
When: Wednesday, early morning. VERY early morning. The second shift of nightwatch.
He spends hours just turning pages, reading by the dying light of Carrie's girl-scout campfire. Pretty soon it makes the most sense to start with October and work forward from there.
So the first thing that hits him is: the Joker knows Bruce's name.
The next thing to go is his. Timmy. And then the boundaries, the enmity between them, his ability to make the Joker mad: all gone with a knowing nickname. Little Jay.
After that he deadens his reaction output and just reads, breathing deeply in a slow pattern and leaving all deduction for later. Right now was for input, information gathering. Tam, he freaked out Tam. There's Kate, the lady he argued with over ghosts. Carrie. New Batman. Young. Younger than Nightwing. (Did he really 'bump people off'?)
He keeps note of the others. Newbie hero girl. Laid-back-sounding guy. Sulky kid. He'll remember them.
He's hit the worst, he thinks, when he gets to Carrie's entry about throwing a party and he can see the filters Joker wrote. He's wrong.
Batman patrolling with Carrie. Against him. (A name for the new voice: "Terry".)
And Batman - Bruce - to Steph: "Remember that this isn't just the Joker. It's Tim."
And Barb. "I'm sorry about your Tim."
Even that doesn't hold a candle to the victim report, the sickening knowledge that he gassed someone until they laughed their way into a heart attack. And then the Joker speaks up again, and behind his voice there's Carrie.
He has to shut the journal at that point, squeeze his eyes shut and curl into a ball. He knows Carrie ended up okay. She's actually right there, getting her shuteye after she took first watch. And now she's trusting him to keep her from disappearing in the night, watch her back against Mysterious Kidnapper, when two frickin' weeks ago the mysterious kidnapper was him.
It makes him feel sick.
When the older him shows up he's almost numb, absorbing each new line with a steady, dull horror. He'll revisit this page again and again, later, try to wring every drop of meaning from the words exchanged with Dick, and Barb. Good old Barb. You could always trust her to be around.
... Dick, though...
Is he ever gonna be around at all?
He watches the pale dawn without really seeing it. It occurs to him to count: just how many more of those is he gonna have?
How many days 'till he turns seventeen?
What: Reading back over the journal.
Where: Out in the Dead Zone, sweeping for strays.
When: Wednesday, early morning. VERY early morning. The second shift of nightwatch.
He spends hours just turning pages, reading by the dying light of Carrie's girl-scout campfire. Pretty soon it makes the most sense to start with October and work forward from there.
So the first thing that hits him is: the Joker knows Bruce's name.
The next thing to go is his. Timmy. And then the boundaries, the enmity between them, his ability to make the Joker mad: all gone with a knowing nickname. Little Jay.
After that he deadens his reaction output and just reads, breathing deeply in a slow pattern and leaving all deduction for later. Right now was for input, information gathering. Tam, he freaked out Tam. There's Kate, the lady he argued with over ghosts. Carrie. New Batman. Young. Younger than Nightwing. (Did he really 'bump people off'?)
He keeps note of the others. Newbie hero girl. Laid-back-sounding guy. Sulky kid. He'll remember them.
He's hit the worst, he thinks, when he gets to Carrie's entry about throwing a party and he can see the filters Joker wrote. He's wrong.
Batman patrolling with Carrie. Against him. (A name for the new voice: "Terry".)
And Batman - Bruce - to Steph: "Remember that this isn't just the Joker. It's Tim."
And Barb. "I'm sorry about your Tim."
Even that doesn't hold a candle to the victim report, the sickening knowledge that he gassed someone until they laughed their way into a heart attack. And then the Joker speaks up again, and behind his voice there's Carrie.
He has to shut the journal at that point, squeeze his eyes shut and curl into a ball. He knows Carrie ended up okay. She's actually right there, getting her shuteye after she took first watch. And now she's trusting him to keep her from disappearing in the night, watch her back against Mysterious Kidnapper, when two frickin' weeks ago the mysterious kidnapper was him.
It makes him feel sick.
When the older him shows up he's almost numb, absorbing each new line with a steady, dull horror. He'll revisit this page again and again, later, try to wring every drop of meaning from the words exchanged with Dick, and Barb. Good old Barb. You could always trust her to be around.
... Dick, though...
Is he ever gonna be around at all?
He watches the pale dawn without really seeing it. It occurs to him to count: just how many more of those is he gonna have?
How many days 'till he turns seventeen?