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schizoauthoressTitle: Where Your Heart Is
Author: D.L.SchizoAuthoress
Rating: PG/PG-13
Spoilers: Ficlet 2 refers to events near the end of Countdown; Ficlet 7 references events that took place between 'Batman and Robin' #1 - #6.
Warnings: Cassandra Cain/Jason Todd; very short ficlets, some of which are rather vague on timeline.
Prompt: The Playlist Shuffle Fanfic Meme (rules below)
Total Word Count: 1426
Summary: Batgirl and Robin -- ♥ ...just not the ones everyone seems to expect.
Rules:
1. Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like.
2. Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle.
3. Write a drabble related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts, and stop when it's over.No lingering afterwards! (I messed up on typing sometimes and spaced out the paragraphs. So sue me.)
4. Do ten of these, then post them.
=-=-=-=-=
#1 - Numb, Linkin Park
Jason Todd has issues. Lots of issues. Mommy issues and daddy issues and abandonment issues and...
Cassandra gets that. She can understand. But sometimes, it really hurts to look at him, to see him and everything he won't say with words. There's rage boiling to the surface when he fights, hate that explodes in all directions inward and outward whenever he kills... she had to stop him from killing, of course. Eventually, she needed to resort to violence to get her point across, shattering three bones in his right hand so he couldn't use his kris to open another throat.
It has something to do with Bruce, of course. Everything he does has something to do with Bruce.
But she's trying to make him see beyond that, numb him to the pain that drives.
****
#2 - Story of a Girl, Nine Days
She doesn't smile often. He doesn't give her much reason to, he supposes. Sometimes he thinks that she's just wasting her time with him, but he's selfish enough to keep her with him. They are both outcasts, killers who violated the all-important code and betrayed the Mission. But he's lucky that she stays.
She left Batgirl behind in Gotham. He left Red Robin in a dumpster in Metropolis. And now they are both trying to find who to be beyond the Mission... or even just beyond Batman. It's hard going, and they fight a lot... fighting being the only way, sometimes, that they can even communicate.
When she smiles, though, Jason thinks that they'll make it.
****
#3 - Almost, Bowling for Soup
When she leaves him, they are halfway across India. She doesn't say anything, just slips out one night and is gone. He rips apart the camp looking for her, nearly beats someone -- a man from the nearby village -- to death trying to get information.
Lady Shiva has been seen in the area. He hears that and he thinks maybe he gets it. She's going after her mother, for whatever reason... he's not sure, and he's already made the mistake of projecting his emotions onto her actions.
They've slept together, but Jason knows that doesn't mean anything. He'd hoped, though... given who she was, and what he knew about her, that it meant something to her. He'd thought... he'd thought that she loved him enough to... he's not sure what, but it's definitely not go running off after her mother without a word to him.
****
#4 - Bleed American, Jimmy Eat World
He gets roaring drunk the next chance he gets. There's a fight, of that much he is certain, because he wakes up in a jail cell and picks a broken tooth out of his knuckles. He hears them talk about "the crazy American" and know that he's who they are talking about. They sound afraid, and that makes him grin.
He'll wait until he's sober, and break out.
As it turns out, he doesn't need to wait that long. Cassandra come back, mouth twisted into a wry smile and laughter in her dark eyes, but she comes back for him and that's what matters.
"Crazy man," she says fondly.
"Crazy for you, gorgeous," he replies.
"Only because I have keys," and she dangles them in front of him.
That's not the only reason, he thinks, but can't say.
****
#5 - I Will Buy You a New Life, Everclear
Jason gets depressed easily. He tries to hide it behind bravado and anger, and maybe that works with other people, but Cassandra sees immediately that such things are a mask. Jason likes masks. Or perhaps like is not the correct word. She still has trouble with words. Jason has a need for masks. He has since he was a child.
He thinks that she does not love him. He's accused her of loving Tim, of loving Dick, of loving Stephanie instead of him. Cass only shakes her head in mute denial and holds on to him.
"You should go back to them," he tells her once, "they can do much better for you than I can."
"I want a new life," she explains, just the once, "and I want it with you."
****
#6 - Ironic, Alanis Morissette
He's not what she was expecting.
She's told him about how everyone spoke of him to her, of how their eyes would try to avoid his memorial case and how their voices never said his name, and that despite all of that, they told her about him anyway.
Dick, the man he remembers as hating him for taking on the Robin mantle, misses the brother he never bothered to know, and is terribly guilty about it all. Tim, who he thought of as an eager replacement, has felt shadowed by him and his memory. Bruce, who didn't kill the Joker for him, really didn't do it because he blamed himself for Jason's death.
Jason supposes that he should stop being surprised at how Cass turns everything in his life upside down.
****
#7 - Who Are You?, the Who
They're back in Gotham barely a week before Dick finds out about them living in a condemned tenement. He comes flying in one night wearing the suit and the cape and the cowl, and he looks so fucking ridiculous that Jason starts to laugh. That gets cut off when Dick... Batman... slams him up against the far wall and demands to know about a whole fuck-ton of people Jason doesn't know. Sasha, Pyg, the Flamingo.... all except...
"Damian?" he forces out past the pressure of Dick's... Batman's arm against his throat, "How is Talia's little prince?"
"Cut the act, Jason!" Dick snarls, and all right, that was pretty passably Batman of him, "I want to know what the hell you're doing back in my city!"
Jason doesn't answer. And Dick, at the moment, doesn't care. Can't care, because Cassandra walked in and threw a ten-pound weight at his head.
"I can't leave you alone for a minute," she sighs.
****
#8 - We Didn't Start the Fire, Billy Joel
So, Gotham City is right out. They go to Hub City instead, following reports that the place has really gone to hell since the Question became a woman.
Hub City is rotten to its roots, soaked in as much crime-laden history as Gotham itself or dear departed Bludhaven, yet Cass *still* won't let him kill the perps. For a while he contents himself with beating the crap out of them and stringing them up -- way up -- for the cops to find.
It's only a question (ha!) of time, though, before Jason decides that Cass's eyes need a little opening. Usually, he's the one to deal with this particular breed of criminal, but he's getting tired of being cut off from carrying out what he *knows* is right.
Cass takes one look at the little girls who were the next victims of the snuff pornography ring and ushers them out of the room. She looks back at Jason, he raises an eyebrow, and she nods.
He waits until she can't see him. It's only decent.
****
#9 - Ain't No Sunshine, Bill Withers
He hates it when she leaves.
Oh, he doesn't think that she's slipping off to see some Bat-idiot anymore (although, to be honest, he wouldn't mind being the meat in a Batgirl sandwich if Cass got it into her head to let Steph follow her back to Hub City), but it's just not the same when he's fighting crime on his own.
But leave she does -- usually to track David Cain's students, though that's not the only reason -- and he just has to deal.
It's easier to do that when she brings back Alfred cookies from a covert visit to the Mansion.
****
#10 - Barely Breathing, Duncan Sheik
Tim tracks Cass to Hub City. To be more accurate, Red Robin tracks Falcon to Hub City. She doesn't speak to him when he corners her on a roof, but she barely fights back -- not aiming to hurt him, just to keep herself from getting hurt -- when he lashes out at her for her silence.
He wants to know. He wants to know everything. Always has.
And he wants her help. He doesn't care if she's got her own life here, if she feels like she's responsible for Hub City and Jason. He doesn't care about anything but Batman and himself. He never has.
She strikes his solar plexus with her palm, driving the bird's-head emblem buckle hard against his flesh, and he stumbles back. She sees Jason, Sparrowhawk, leap the gap between buildings, heading for them... sees the flash of moonlight on his kris... and goes on the offensive. She knocks Red Robin out before Jason gets there.
They don't say anything, merely carry Red Robin between them to a safehouse and leave him there.
But she wonders, in silence, if maybe he's right about Bruce.
END
****
Under this next cut are some explanations for the stories, what in the songs inspired each ficlet. I think it kinda needs this, since some of the associations are incredibly loose. It's what I get for using my "DLed from YouTube" folder instead of picking a couple CD folders.
Numb, Linkin Park -- every Linkin Park song can be summarized as "Daddy didn't love me!" (or is that KoRn?) and that fits Jason. We know that. And yes, I didn't quite finish the last sentence. I added the song title in there for extra obviousness. (Actually, I think KoRn's songs can be summed up as "Daddy abused me".)
Story of a Girl, Nine Days -- This one was easy.
Almost, Bowling for Soup -- This one was not so easy, given that the song is has some pretty silly lyrics in the verses. Basically, I glommed onto the chorus and worked with that.
Bleed American, Jimmy Eat World -- Jason gets drunk in this one because the original song mentions Speyside a lot, and Speyside's a whiskey. The whole "crazy American" thing was me inserting the title and being obvious again. Also, I added descriptors to the dialogue at the end, after the song was over. I told you I cheated.
I Will Buy You a New Life, Everclear -- Okay, I like working bits of the titles into these drabbles. Dick, by the way, is supposed to be "the handsome man with athletic thighs" mentioned in the song, while Tim is the "obsessive little rich boy".
Ironic, Alanis Morissette -- This baby was a stretch. Basically, I took the core idea of "shit that's ironic, kinda" and applied it to the Batfamily.
Who Are You?, the Who -- I didn't get to mention this in the drabble itself, but Cassandra's supposed to be out (doing a run for supplies like workout gear) when Dick!Batman busts into the apartment that Jason and Cass set up. There's cursing in this one because there was cursing in the song, haha. (I debated misspelling "Pyg" because this Jason wouldn't know about the guy, but decided against it eventually. Yes, we're imagining that evilginger!Jason is a crazy double from another universe. I liked the theory that evilginger!Jason was from the ASBARverse. Kudos to whoever came up with that one.)
We Didn't Start the Fire, Billy Joel -- Another big stretch. Played with the basic idea of history, and equated the "fire" that "was always burning since the world's been turning" with horrible crime. Also, I like the idea that Jason would sort of "protect" Cass from having to deal with sex crimes. I dunno. Jason killing evil fuckwads has never bothered me.
Ain't No Sunshine, Bill Withers -- Obvious inspiration is obvious. Also, this was a short, short song. I barely got to 'Alfred cookies' at the end. I'm pretty convinced (by my exposure to fanon) that Steph and Cass had a thing, and *of course* Jason would be all 'threesome, plz' when he finds out...
Barely Breathing, Duncan Sheik -- "I don't know who I'm kidding, imagining you care" was pretty much the basis for this (with 'I' being Cass and 'you' being Tim). Also the only mention of Cass and Jason's new identities (Falcon, with a costume based on the coloring of a bat falcon, for Cass; Sparrowhawk, which is an alternate name for the American Kestrel, for Jason). I checked this time! Falcon is a hero identity, but only in the Marvel universe, far as I could find.
And I should think that the overarching name for these ficlets gives away the theme of "finding a home", yes?
ETA: Jeez, just realized... big mistake. In one of these drabble-thingies, I originally said that Jason dumped the RR costume in New York. Rereading tells me it was Metropolis. I think I confused the city at the end of 'Countdown' with OYL.
Author: D.L.SchizoAuthoress
Rating: PG/PG-13
Spoilers: Ficlet 2 refers to events near the end of Countdown; Ficlet 7 references events that took place between 'Batman and Robin' #1 - #6.
Warnings: Cassandra Cain/Jason Todd; very short ficlets, some of which are rather vague on timeline.
Prompt: The Playlist Shuffle Fanfic Meme (rules below)
Total Word Count: 1426
Summary: Batgirl and Robin -- ♥ ...just not the ones everyone seems to expect.
Rules:
1. Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like.
2. Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle.
3. Write a drabble related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts, and stop when it's over.
4. Do ten of these, then post them.
=-=-=-=-=
#1 - Numb, Linkin Park
Jason Todd has issues. Lots of issues. Mommy issues and daddy issues and abandonment issues and...
Cassandra gets that. She can understand. But sometimes, it really hurts to look at him, to see him and everything he won't say with words. There's rage boiling to the surface when he fights, hate that explodes in all directions inward and outward whenever he kills... she had to stop him from killing, of course. Eventually, she needed to resort to violence to get her point across, shattering three bones in his right hand so he couldn't use his kris to open another throat.
It has something to do with Bruce, of course. Everything he does has something to do with Bruce.
But she's trying to make him see beyond that, numb him to the pain that drives.
****
#2 - Story of a Girl, Nine Days
She doesn't smile often. He doesn't give her much reason to, he supposes. Sometimes he thinks that she's just wasting her time with him, but he's selfish enough to keep her with him. They are both outcasts, killers who violated the all-important code and betrayed the Mission. But he's lucky that she stays.
She left Batgirl behind in Gotham. He left Red Robin in a dumpster in Metropolis. And now they are both trying to find who to be beyond the Mission... or even just beyond Batman. It's hard going, and they fight a lot... fighting being the only way, sometimes, that they can even communicate.
When she smiles, though, Jason thinks that they'll make it.
****
#3 - Almost, Bowling for Soup
When she leaves him, they are halfway across India. She doesn't say anything, just slips out one night and is gone. He rips apart the camp looking for her, nearly beats someone -- a man from the nearby village -- to death trying to get information.
Lady Shiva has been seen in the area. He hears that and he thinks maybe he gets it. She's going after her mother, for whatever reason... he's not sure, and he's already made the mistake of projecting his emotions onto her actions.
They've slept together, but Jason knows that doesn't mean anything. He'd hoped, though... given who she was, and what he knew about her, that it meant something to her. He'd thought... he'd thought that she loved him enough to... he's not sure what, but it's definitely not go running off after her mother without a word to him.
****
#4 - Bleed American, Jimmy Eat World
He gets roaring drunk the next chance he gets. There's a fight, of that much he is certain, because he wakes up in a jail cell and picks a broken tooth out of his knuckles. He hears them talk about "the crazy American" and know that he's who they are talking about. They sound afraid, and that makes him grin.
He'll wait until he's sober, and break out.
As it turns out, he doesn't need to wait that long. Cassandra come back, mouth twisted into a wry smile and laughter in her dark eyes, but she comes back for him and that's what matters.
"Crazy man," she says fondly.
"Crazy for you, gorgeous," he replies.
"Only because I have keys," and she dangles them in front of him.
That's not the only reason, he thinks, but can't say.
****
#5 - I Will Buy You a New Life, Everclear
Jason gets depressed easily. He tries to hide it behind bravado and anger, and maybe that works with other people, but Cassandra sees immediately that such things are a mask. Jason likes masks. Or perhaps like is not the correct word. She still has trouble with words. Jason has a need for masks. He has since he was a child.
He thinks that she does not love him. He's accused her of loving Tim, of loving Dick, of loving Stephanie instead of him. Cass only shakes her head in mute denial and holds on to him.
"You should go back to them," he tells her once, "they can do much better for you than I can."
"I want a new life," she explains, just the once, "and I want it with you."
****
#6 - Ironic, Alanis Morissette
He's not what she was expecting.
She's told him about how everyone spoke of him to her, of how their eyes would try to avoid his memorial case and how their voices never said his name, and that despite all of that, they told her about him anyway.
Dick, the man he remembers as hating him for taking on the Robin mantle, misses the brother he never bothered to know, and is terribly guilty about it all. Tim, who he thought of as an eager replacement, has felt shadowed by him and his memory. Bruce, who didn't kill the Joker for him, really didn't do it because he blamed himself for Jason's death.
Jason supposes that he should stop being surprised at how Cass turns everything in his life upside down.
****
#7 - Who Are You?, the Who
They're back in Gotham barely a week before Dick finds out about them living in a condemned tenement. He comes flying in one night wearing the suit and the cape and the cowl, and he looks so fucking ridiculous that Jason starts to laugh. That gets cut off when Dick... Batman... slams him up against the far wall and demands to know about a whole fuck-ton of people Jason doesn't know. Sasha, Pyg, the Flamingo.... all except...
"Damian?" he forces out past the pressure of Dick's... Batman's arm against his throat, "How is Talia's little prince?"
"Cut the act, Jason!" Dick snarls, and all right, that was pretty passably Batman of him, "I want to know what the hell you're doing back in my city!"
Jason doesn't answer. And Dick, at the moment, doesn't care. Can't care, because Cassandra walked in and threw a ten-pound weight at his head.
"I can't leave you alone for a minute," she sighs.
****
#8 - We Didn't Start the Fire, Billy Joel
So, Gotham City is right out. They go to Hub City instead, following reports that the place has really gone to hell since the Question became a woman.
Hub City is rotten to its roots, soaked in as much crime-laden history as Gotham itself or dear departed Bludhaven, yet Cass *still* won't let him kill the perps. For a while he contents himself with beating the crap out of them and stringing them up -- way up -- for the cops to find.
It's only a question (ha!) of time, though, before Jason decides that Cass's eyes need a little opening. Usually, he's the one to deal with this particular breed of criminal, but he's getting tired of being cut off from carrying out what he *knows* is right.
Cass takes one look at the little girls who were the next victims of the snuff pornography ring and ushers them out of the room. She looks back at Jason, he raises an eyebrow, and she nods.
He waits until she can't see him. It's only decent.
****
#9 - Ain't No Sunshine, Bill Withers
He hates it when she leaves.
Oh, he doesn't think that she's slipping off to see some Bat-idiot anymore (although, to be honest, he wouldn't mind being the meat in a Batgirl sandwich if Cass got it into her head to let Steph follow her back to Hub City), but it's just not the same when he's fighting crime on his own.
But leave she does -- usually to track David Cain's students, though that's not the only reason -- and he just has to deal.
It's easier to do that when she brings back Alfred cookies from a covert visit to the Mansion.
****
#10 - Barely Breathing, Duncan Sheik
Tim tracks Cass to Hub City. To be more accurate, Red Robin tracks Falcon to Hub City. She doesn't speak to him when he corners her on a roof, but she barely fights back -- not aiming to hurt him, just to keep herself from getting hurt -- when he lashes out at her for her silence.
He wants to know. He wants to know everything. Always has.
And he wants her help. He doesn't care if she's got her own life here, if she feels like she's responsible for Hub City and Jason. He doesn't care about anything but Batman and himself. He never has.
She strikes his solar plexus with her palm, driving the bird's-head emblem buckle hard against his flesh, and he stumbles back. She sees Jason, Sparrowhawk, leap the gap between buildings, heading for them... sees the flash of moonlight on his kris... and goes on the offensive. She knocks Red Robin out before Jason gets there.
They don't say anything, merely carry Red Robin between them to a safehouse and leave him there.
But she wonders, in silence, if maybe he's right about Bruce.
END
****
Under this next cut are some explanations for the stories, what in the songs inspired each ficlet. I think it kinda needs this, since some of the associations are incredibly loose. It's what I get for using my "DLed from YouTube" folder instead of picking a couple CD folders.
Numb, Linkin Park -- every Linkin Park song can be summarized as "Daddy didn't love me!" (or is that KoRn?) and that fits Jason. We know that. And yes, I didn't quite finish the last sentence. I added the song title in there for extra obviousness. (Actually, I think KoRn's songs can be summed up as "Daddy abused me".)
Story of a Girl, Nine Days -- This one was easy.
Almost, Bowling for Soup -- This one was not so easy, given that the song is has some pretty silly lyrics in the verses. Basically, I glommed onto the chorus and worked with that.
Bleed American, Jimmy Eat World -- Jason gets drunk in this one because the original song mentions Speyside a lot, and Speyside's a whiskey. The whole "crazy American" thing was me inserting the title and being obvious again. Also, I added descriptors to the dialogue at the end, after the song was over. I told you I cheated.
I Will Buy You a New Life, Everclear -- Okay, I like working bits of the titles into these drabbles. Dick, by the way, is supposed to be "the handsome man with athletic thighs" mentioned in the song, while Tim is the "obsessive little rich boy".
Ironic, Alanis Morissette -- This baby was a stretch. Basically, I took the core idea of "shit that's ironic, kinda" and applied it to the Batfamily.
Who Are You?, the Who -- I didn't get to mention this in the drabble itself, but Cassandra's supposed to be out (doing a run for supplies like workout gear) when Dick!Batman busts into the apartment that Jason and Cass set up. There's cursing in this one because there was cursing in the song, haha. (I debated misspelling "Pyg" because this Jason wouldn't know about the guy, but decided against it eventually. Yes, we're imagining that evilginger!Jason is a crazy double from another universe. I liked the theory that evilginger!Jason was from the ASBARverse. Kudos to whoever came up with that one.)
We Didn't Start the Fire, Billy Joel -- Another big stretch. Played with the basic idea of history, and equated the "fire" that "was always burning since the world's been turning" with horrible crime. Also, I like the idea that Jason would sort of "protect" Cass from having to deal with sex crimes. I dunno. Jason killing evil fuckwads has never bothered me.
Ain't No Sunshine, Bill Withers -- Obvious inspiration is obvious. Also, this was a short, short song. I barely got to 'Alfred cookies' at the end. I'm pretty convinced (by my exposure to fanon) that Steph and Cass had a thing, and *of course* Jason would be all 'threesome, plz' when he finds out...
Barely Breathing, Duncan Sheik -- "I don't know who I'm kidding, imagining you care" was pretty much the basis for this (with 'I' being Cass and 'you' being Tim). Also the only mention of Cass and Jason's new identities (Falcon, with a costume based on the coloring of a bat falcon, for Cass; Sparrowhawk, which is an alternate name for the American Kestrel, for Jason). I checked this time! Falcon is a hero identity, but only in the Marvel universe, far as I could find.
And I should think that the overarching name for these ficlets gives away the theme of "finding a home", yes?
ETA: Jeez, just realized... big mistake. In one of these drabble-thingies, I originally said that Jason dumped the RR costume in New York. Rereading tells me it was Metropolis. I think I confused the city at the end of 'Countdown' with OYL.