(no subject)
Title: Where none can do treason to us
Summary: Everyone has a breaking point. This is Dick's.
Rating: PG-15. Content some readers may find disturbing.
Marcelo wrote a brain-breaking, terrifying snippet o’doom for the psych_30 challenge here: http://users.livejournal.com/__marcelo/113278.html
This story is my version of how that story happened. Thanks to Marcelo for the bunny and permission to write it.
Thanks also to chevauchee, petronelle, and rubynye for beta work and getting me to post this.
Dick’s had enough of people dying.
People being broken.
*Bruce* being broken.
Bruce loves Harvey, fine, and meanwhile Bruce is practically dead. Again. Tim’s not much better.
So fucking sick of this, fighting and fighting and fighting and it never *changes*. Dick remembers something Slade told him when they’d had to work together while Dick was still with the Titans, easy voice and one wary eye. “Kid, the problem with you capes is you never finish the damn job. You think the people you take down are gonna say ‘Oh, we’re sorry’ and never break the law again?” Snorted. “The thieves and the ones like them, you’ll always have those, no point killing them. But the crazies I’ve heard Gotham has… jail doesn’t stop the nutsos. Just kill ‘em, Grayson.”
At the time, he’d muttered something about Batman and changed the subject. Bruce would have never forgiven him for killing anyone. Now, though -- Two-Face should’ve been dead a long time ago. He shouldn’t have gotten the chance to hurt anyone again. To hurt Bruce.
Dick knows what has to happen.
He has the training and the skill to modify some of Cheshire’s poisons so that they aren’t lethal, to fiddle enough that they’re also brand-new. Bruce won’t have an antidote. Neither will anyone else.
He’s still needed in Gotham, so he stays and rests a tentative hand on Bruce’s shoulder one night and catches him when he falls from the poison in the needle Dick had secreted.
You won’t understand why I have to do this, Dick doesn’t say, looking at him lying on one of the Cave’s too many stretchers. You won’t forgive me.
But as long as you’re *alive* to not forgive me, I can handle that.
He doesn’t say he’s sorry. He barely thinks it.
Nor does he say “I love you.”
When he tracks down Joker and breaks his neck, Dick knows he should have used a crowbar instead. Hangs the corpse from a lamppost and he thinks he can hear Jason laughing.
For Two-Face, he does the same thing. Wonders a little hysterically if it helps that he still hasn't used a gun.
He's pretty sure Babs will forgive him for killing Joker when she finds out. She might get it. He'd hoped, a little, that Tim might not hate him once *he* found out, but -- but. "What did you find?"
"I think I know who did it. Or rather, who couldn't have done it." Tim points to the list he’s made. "I've accounted with reasonable certainty for the whereabouts of every living villain or hero with the knowledge and abilities to break into the Manor and poison Bruce. None of them could have done it."
Nods. Puts his hands behind his back, slipping out a needle. He doesn’t want to need it. "Then who did it, Robin?"
Tim looks back at the monitor. "The only possibility that Bruce didn't, *could never* consider. The only person that could have bypassed Bruce's defenses. I think Jason Todd is alive."
He should be. Like Stephanie should be. Dick puts his hand gently over Tim's neck. "No.” Slips the needle under the skin. “I'm sorry, little brother. You are too much like him to understand why I have to do this."
Catches him when he falls and pets his hair, moving Tim to a stretcher.
Maybe Tim will understand once Black Mask is dead.
And after Dick’s done in Gotham… he might pay Blockbuster a visit.
-- Finis
Now I’m going to go read happy Dick/Tim or Bruce/Dick *fluff*, darn it.
Summary: Everyone has a breaking point. This is Dick's.
Rating: PG-15. Content some readers may find disturbing.
Marcelo wrote a brain-breaking, terrifying snippet o’doom for the psych_30 challenge here: http://users.livejournal.com/__marcelo/113278.html
This story is my version of how that story happened. Thanks to Marcelo for the bunny and permission to write it.
Thanks also to chevauchee, petronelle, and rubynye for beta work and getting me to post this.
Dick’s had enough of people dying.
People being broken.
*Bruce* being broken.
Bruce loves Harvey, fine, and meanwhile Bruce is practically dead. Again. Tim’s not much better.
So fucking sick of this, fighting and fighting and fighting and it never *changes*. Dick remembers something Slade told him when they’d had to work together while Dick was still with the Titans, easy voice and one wary eye. “Kid, the problem with you capes is you never finish the damn job. You think the people you take down are gonna say ‘Oh, we’re sorry’ and never break the law again?” Snorted. “The thieves and the ones like them, you’ll always have those, no point killing them. But the crazies I’ve heard Gotham has… jail doesn’t stop the nutsos. Just kill ‘em, Grayson.”
At the time, he’d muttered something about Batman and changed the subject. Bruce would have never forgiven him for killing anyone. Now, though -- Two-Face should’ve been dead a long time ago. He shouldn’t have gotten the chance to hurt anyone again. To hurt Bruce.
Dick knows what has to happen.
He has the training and the skill to modify some of Cheshire’s poisons so that they aren’t lethal, to fiddle enough that they’re also brand-new. Bruce won’t have an antidote. Neither will anyone else.
He’s still needed in Gotham, so he stays and rests a tentative hand on Bruce’s shoulder one night and catches him when he falls from the poison in the needle Dick had secreted.
You won’t understand why I have to do this, Dick doesn’t say, looking at him lying on one of the Cave’s too many stretchers. You won’t forgive me.
But as long as you’re *alive* to not forgive me, I can handle that.
He doesn’t say he’s sorry. He barely thinks it.
Nor does he say “I love you.”
When he tracks down Joker and breaks his neck, Dick knows he should have used a crowbar instead. Hangs the corpse from a lamppost and he thinks he can hear Jason laughing.
For Two-Face, he does the same thing. Wonders a little hysterically if it helps that he still hasn't used a gun.
He's pretty sure Babs will forgive him for killing Joker when she finds out. She might get it. He'd hoped, a little, that Tim might not hate him once *he* found out, but -- but. "What did you find?"
"I think I know who did it. Or rather, who couldn't have done it." Tim points to the list he’s made. "I've accounted with reasonable certainty for the whereabouts of every living villain or hero with the knowledge and abilities to break into the Manor and poison Bruce. None of them could have done it."
Nods. Puts his hands behind his back, slipping out a needle. He doesn’t want to need it. "Then who did it, Robin?"
Tim looks back at the monitor. "The only possibility that Bruce didn't, *could never* consider. The only person that could have bypassed Bruce's defenses. I think Jason Todd is alive."
He should be. Like Stephanie should be. Dick puts his hand gently over Tim's neck. "No.” Slips the needle under the skin. “I'm sorry, little brother. You are too much like him to understand why I have to do this."
Catches him when he falls and pets his hair, moving Tim to a stretcher.
Maybe Tim will understand once Black Mask is dead.
And after Dick’s done in Gotham… he might pay Blockbuster a visit.
-- Finis
Now I’m going to go read happy Dick/Tim or Bruce/Dick *fluff*, darn it.