#i die on the ''jason todd would be treated horribly by fandom if he were a character of color' hill tho

[jcmorgenstern]

@superohclair oh god okay please know these are all just incoherent ramblings so like, idk, please feel free to add on or ignore me if im just wildly off base but this is a bad summary of what ive been thinking about and also my first titans/batman meta?? (also, hi!)

okay so for the disclaimer round: I am not an actual cultural studies major, nor do I have an extensive background in looking at the police/military industrial complex in media. also my comics knowledge is pretty shaky and im a big noob(I recently got into titans, and before that was pretty ignorant of the dceu besides batman) so I’ll kind of focus in on the show and stuff im more familiar with and apologize in advance?. basically im just a semi-educated idiot with Opinions, anyone with more knowledge/expertise please jump in! this is literally just the bullshit I spat out incoherently off the top of my head. did i mention im a comics noob? because im a comics noob.

so on a general level, I think we can all agree that batman as a cultural force is somewhat on the conservative side, if not simply due to its age and commercial positioning in American culture. there are a lot of challenges and nuances to that and it’s definitely expanding and changing as DC tries to position itself in the way that will...make the most money, but all you have to do is take a gander through the different iterations of the stories in the comics and it’ll smack you in the fucking face. like compare the first iteration of Jason keeping kids out of drugs to the titans version and you’ve got to at least chuckle. at the end of the day, this is a story about a (white male) billionaire who fights crime.

to be fair, I’d argue the romanticization of the police isn’t as aggressive as it could be—they are most often presented as corrupt and incompetent. However, considering the main cop characters depicted like Jim Gordon, the guys in Gotham (it’s been a while since I saw it, sorry) are often the romanticized “good few” (and often or almost always white cis/het men), that’s on pretty shaky ground. I don’t have the background in the comics strong enough to make specific arguments, so I’ll cede the point to someone who does and disagrees, but having recently watched a show that deals excellently with police incompetence, racism, and brutality (7 Seconds on Netflix), I feel at the very least something is deeply missing. like, analysis of race wrt police brutality in any aspect at all whatsoever.

I think it can be compellingly read that batman does heavily play into the military/police industrial complex due to its takes on violence—just play the Arkham games for more than an hour and you’ll know what I mean. to be a little less vague, even though batman as a franchise valorizes “psychiatric treatment” and “nonviolence,” the entire game seems pretty aware it characterizes treatment as a madhouse and nonviolence as breaking someone’s back or neck magically without killing them because you’re a “good guy.” while it is definitely subversive that the franchise even considers these elements at all, they don’t always do a fantastic job living up to them.

and then when you consider the fetishization of tools of violence both in canon and in the fandom, it gets worse. same with prisons—if anything it dehumanizes people in prisons even more than like, cop shows in general, which is pretty impressive(ly bad). like there’s just no nuance afforded and arkham is generally glamorized. the fact that one of the inmates is a crocodile assassin, I will admit, does not help. im not really sure how to mitigate that when, again, one of the inmates is a crocodile assassin, but I think my point still stands. fuck you, killer croc. (im just kidding unfuck him or whatever)

not to take this on a Jason Todd tangent but I was thinking about it this afternoon and again when thinking about that cop scene again and in many ways he does serve as a challenge to both batman’s ideology as well as the ideology of the franchise in general. his depiction is always a bit of a sticking point and it’s always fascinating to me to see how any given adaptation handles it. like Jason’s “”street”” origin has become inseparable from his characterization as an angry, brash, violent kid, and that in itself reflects a whole host of cultural stereotypes that I might argue occasionally/often dip into racialized tropes (like just imagine if he wasn’t white, ok). red hood (a play on robin hood and the outlaws, as I just realized...today) is in my exposure/experience mostly depicted as a villain, but he challenges batman’s no-kill philosophy both on an ethical and practical level. every time the joker escapes he kills a whole score more of innocent people, let alone the other rogues—is it truly ethical to let him live or avoid killing him for the cost of one life and let others die?

moreover, batman’s ““blind”” faith in the justice system (prisons, publicly-funded asylum prisons, courts) is conveniently elided—the story usually ends when he drops bad guy of the day off at arkham or ties up the bad guys and lets the police come etc etc. part of this is obviously bc car chases are more cinematic than dry court procedurals, but there is an alternate universe where bruce wayne never becomes batman and instead advocates for the arkham warden to be replaced with someone competent and the system overhauled, or in programs encouraging a more diverse and educated police force, or even into social welfare programs. (I am vaguely aware this is sometimes/often part of canon, but I don’t think it’s fair to say it’s the main focus. and again, I get it’s not nearly as cinematic).

overall, I think the most frustrating thing about the batman franchise or at least what I’ve seen or read of it is that while it does attempt to deal with corruption and injustice at all levels of the criminal justice system/government, it does so either by treating it as “just how life is” or having Dick or Jim Gordon or whoever the fuckjust wipe it out by “eliminating the dirty cops,” completely ignoring the non-fantasy ways these problems are dealt with in real life. it just isn’t realistic. instead of putting restrictions on police violence or educating cops on how to use their weapons or putting work into eradicating the culture of racism and prejudice or god basically anything it’s just all cinematized into the “good few” triumphing over the bad...somehow. its always unsatisfying and ultimately feels like lip service to me, personally.

this also dovetails with the very frustrating way mental health/”insanity” or “madness” is dealt with in canon, very typical of mainstream fiction. like for example:“madness is like gravity, all it takes is a little push.” yikes, if by ‘push’ you mean significant life stressors, genetic load, and environemntal influences,  then sure. challenge any dudebro joker fanboy to explain exactly what combination of DSM disorders the joker has to explain his “””insanity””” and see what happens. (these are, in fact, my plans for this Friday evening. im a hit at parties).

anyway I do really want to wax poetic about that cop scene in 1x06 so im gonna do just that! honestly when I first saw that I immediately sat up like I’d sat on a fucking tack, my cultural studies senses were tingling. the whole “fuck batman” ethos of the show had already been interesting to me, esp in s1, when bruce was basically standing in for the baby boomers and dick being our millennial/GenX hero. I do think dick was explicitly intended to appeal to a millennial audience and embody the millennial ethos. By that logic, the tension between dick and Jason immediately struck me as allegorical (Jason constantly commenting on dick being old, outdated, using slang dick doesn’t understand and generally being full of youthful obnoxious fistbumping energy).

Even if subconsciously on the part of the writers, jason’s over-aggressive energy can be read as a commentary on genZ—seen by mainstream millennial/GenX audiences as taking things too far. Like, the cops in 1x06 could have been Nick Zucco’s hired men or idk pretty much anyone, yet they explicitly chose cops and even had Jason explain why he deliberately went after them for being cops so dick (cop) could judge him for it. his rationale? he was beaten up by cops on the street, so he’s returning the favor. he doesn’t have the focused “righteous” rage of batman or dick/nightwing towards valid targets, he just has rage at the world and specifically the system—framed here as unacceptable or fanatical. as if like, dressing up like a bat and punching people at night is, um, totally normal and uncontroversial.

on a slightly wider scope, the show seems to internally struggle with its own progressive ethos—on the one hand, they hire the wildly talented chellah man, but on the other hand they will likely kill him off soon. or they cast anna diop, drawing wrath from the loudly racist underbelly of fandom, but sideline her. perhaps it’s a genuine struggle, perhaps they simply don’t want to alienate the bigots in the fanbase, but the issue of cops stuck out to me when I was watching as an social issue where they explicitly came down on one side over the other. jason’s characterization is, I admit and appreciate, still nuanced, but I’d argue that’s literally just bc he’s a white guy and a fan favorite. cast an actor of color as Jason and see how fast fandom and the writer’s room turns on him.

anyway i don’t really have the place to speak about what an explicitly nonwhite!cop!dick grayson would look like, but I do think it would be a fascinating and exciting place to start in exploring and correcting the kind of vague and nebulous complaints i raise above. (edit: i should have made more clear, i mean in the show, which hasn’t dealt with dick’s heritage afaik). also, there’s something to be said about the cop vs detective thing but I don’t really have the brain juice or expertise to say it? anyway if you got this far i hope it was at least interesting and again pls jump in id love to hear other people’s takes!!

tldr i took two (2) cultural studies classes and have Opinions

#wow this was a hot fucking mess #i tried to be organized but my thoughts weren't coming out super well #again anyone interested please feel free to jump in or correct me at any place you feel like #i die on the ''jason todd would be treated horribly by fandom if he were a character of color' hill tho #i could go on about 1x06 until im blue in the face but that's the uhh overview. the executive summary. #dc titans #i need meta tags and shit for this show #god help me in too deep #finding the meta side of fandom was a GIFT tho i love this shit #so excited

[batarangsoundsdumb]

guess fucking what? my inbox is so fucking full right now i'm unloading all of this shit in one post.

For the 11th gotham memes: gothamites react to bruce being jacked in a tiktok he made with kids, like super yoked, ripped as hell

fucking hilarious thanks. i think i did it in one meme post, but i genuinely don't remember which one

i dunno which of the batfam would do this but one time i was sleeping over at a friends house and ended up on the floor bc the bed was so very small and i just stayed there because the rug was soft

that's a drunk jason move i don't know what to tell you

tim and jason are "i listen to pop punk" solidarity. whenever jason highjacks the batmobile theyll go on long ass car rides blaring mcr and paramore and then never talk about it again

as they should!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! tim: no jason it's my turn using the aux cord i gotta put on my jams jason: don't you dare put on weird shit tim: don't worry, you're gonna love this *plays fearless (taylor's version)

hear me out hear me out, red hood stans 🤝 nightwing stans t h i g h s

holy shit yes.

SNL au: Bruce breaks character when pretending to superman and says something like "I'm not superman! You've seen his gps!! It's from 2001!!!" @sabeanybabe

superman flies past the snl building the next day just to say 'actually it's from 2005, i'm not a heathen'

does your back hurt from carrying the batfam fandom

it hurts more from the exotic rock collection i keep in my backpack, but thanks for the concern.

I love your posts by why would you always leave the best parts in the tags?

as a treat for the people that check the tags ;) (and also because i'm committed to the short post aesthetic)

somehow your playlist was everything i never knew i needed. i mean it. this is my new favorite playlist.

and don't you dare get a new favourite playlist!

babe ur stoner tim playlist is exactly too perfect, earth is literally blessed by ur existence

babe thanks so much! i love my stoner tim playlist because it's just my usual playlist but people think it's an artistic choice that i put taylor swift and britney spears in there, when it's just what i unironically like listening to

JANDKSKDK BILLY RAY CYRUS ON THE STONER TIM PLAYLIST I LOVE IT IT

again it's not even an ironic choice, i know every single word and i genuinely like the song

The last chapter of Fundamentals of Casework has me crying at work. Thanks I love it @dudelookitsalesbian

oh babe, i'm sorry, but also, not sorry i love chapter 4 so much it's my lovechild with the 'mental illness' tag

soooo....stumbled on your tumblr by some stroke of fate??? read your DC fanfic first. which is PHENOMENAL btw. then found all the batmemes; the funniest thing EVER bc everyone forgets about regular old gothamites. kept scrolling and your blog pops up as recommended. clicked on the ao3 for shits and giggles and waddaya know?!?!? it's YOU!!! you're LEGEND!!!! ever seen that meme? it's a video of a cat that got into a baseball field and the two announcers get really invested in his escape attempt and start giving a play by play of the cat instead of the game. memeable moment: "GREAT stuff from the Cat!!!"

i seriously think about this ask every single day and it's so fucking funny to me that i've never seen the meme you're referencing, but i still find myself going 'GREAT stuff from the Cat!!!' whenever i see something funny. but wow i'm glad you liked this steaming pile of garbage

Fav dc character overall? And fav batfamily character?

don't ask me to pick between the loves of my life, but i can tell you i've cried about every single batfamily member and also wally west (my beloved)

What's your opinion on fans having a problem with batfam being "too big"? And some even claim that batfam is just "Bruce Alfred Dick Damian" and the rest of them are just "friends and allies" (source: reddit) Personally, I like batfam because of this reason but idk

stupid. a family can never be too big. i'm not that big a fan of like huge batfam stuff with everybody from every single universe, because as much as it's funny for bruce to have like 30 kids, it just feels a little too OOC for me.

This is the best tag I've seen involving the batfam, thanks for thinking of it

This is canon now @nctxrejects

lmao yeah i think at that point alfred has had to sit through like at least a dozen coming out talks and just has a pride flag collection in the attic that he pulls out whenever a kid comes out

idk why batfam hits different as compared to any other superhero family

bc it's found family and usually the other superhero families are almost all genetically related in one way or another

I don't know if you watch the umbrella academy but I saw your last post about batcest and saw the similarities. But the thing is (although I think it's weird) in TUA, they addressed it by saying "they were raised as weapons, not siblings" or something along those lines, which is simply not the case with batfam.

yeah i watched tua but i also thought it was ridiculous and they still treated each other as siblings so i didn't like the luthor/allison thing, and am glad they stopped doing that shit bc it fucking sucked.

Hot take: Batcest shippers are the same people who believe adopted siblings are not actual siblings

smoking hot take: batcest shippers are the people who watch 'my sister got stuck in the washing machine' porn

Duke was adopted by Bruce?

not technically no, but do i, tumblr user batarangsoundsdumb, look like i care?

True story but I had to change my freaking name because it used to be "Damien" and most people would go "OH LIKE DAMIAN WAYNE" like please I'm just tryna live

true story, but i don't actually think of damian when i hear the name damian, literally the first thing that pops up is damian darkh like bruh what?

apparently dc comics company supported comic stores by giving out new titles and stuff during the beginning of the pandemic to help them run and I just think that's wholesome

ah yeah that's so fucking cool, still don't like dc, the company, because this world is a capitalist hellhole and we're all owned by warner brothers or disney with no in between.

ayo looking at tumblr head canons and finding out bruce is actually a terrible father is a punch in the gut

lmao yes, in like 50% of comics bruce is a terrible father and it gives me whiplash

oooh I just saw the jason todd vs winter soldier post and the real question is: batman vs iron man

while iron man has like hundreds of cases of armor, batman could throw out an emp and have the guy dropping out of the sky in 2 seconds.

dickfast = fastdick = quickdick = quickie

magnum hot take

hey bata(?) just thought I'd let you know I have copied the obnoxious emoji and Billy Ray post for use on simping men going forth

thank you 😘🌷 (@spacebarsidecar)

why would you do that to your followers???? i get why i did it, but why would you???

what is scarecrow made the nightwing funko pop himself, like those diy-ers that paint over other ones

oh god no, horrible take, horrible take, that's a disgusting thought oh no

I see your HC that Bruce and Oliver fucked and raise you this: Dick and Roy ALSO fucked

yes they did and it was a horrible moment for jason to find out dick has fucked both of his best friends

"at this rate bruce adds like 1 child to his family every decade or so" Duke is introduced in 2013, Damian as Damian, not as an unnamed child, in 2006. And he is already 14 years old, Robins rarely remain Robins after 16 😬 It looks like a new Robin and Batkid will appear in a couple of years

i mean i can't wait? but somebody will probably die first tho, we're due for another major character death. my money's on either cass or duke this time.

BRO you're so right all of your Bruce's ex headcanons are amazing but they aren't ships, that's kinda wild. Like I don't want any peeks into how their relationship was I just want to see everyone make fun of them

lmao YES it's just i love bruce being a slut, like good for him.

I am in love with your posts your honour thank you

omg thanks are we like,, gonna kiss now?

The justice league needs to have a meeting to discuss how many of their members/partners have slept with bruce. Because through a combination of cannon & fannon (if DC wasn’t homophobic) we have AT LEAST: 1) clark 2) lois 3) oliver 4) dinah 5) john

Thats not counting villains or random civilians @dudelookitsalesbian

yes yes yes, they'll have a yearly meeting about how many of their collective exes could be out for revenge and batman's list just keeps getting longer.

tim was like "i'm drake now" and everyone was like ahh so your fursona is a dragon and tim was like pffffft no. ducks.

and what about it?

when steph's fighting livewire and she zaps her with lighting and nothing happens and then they both just. stand there awkwardly for a second and talk. yeah i couldn't stop laughing at that batgirl steph is the BEST

oh yeah that was fucking hilarious and i think it would be so cool and sexy of dc to give steph a little comic series,,, as a treat

Hi I absolutely adore all of yours "Bruce and Oliver very badly pretending they didn't fuck each other" memes

lmao i do too

I need you to know that “Bruce Wayne had frosted tips” is one of my favorite Bruce takes of all time it’s so galaxy brained. you’re right and you should say it

he also painted his hair blonde once when he was travelling and in conclusion, this is why he's being blackmailed by the gotham gazette.

you know my thing about gordon being branded as the only good cop in gotham is its a load of shit like arguably he's a good person and not working to screw people over or anything but the fact that he also works w. batman makes him a shit cop. like yea batman is better than the mob but its still illegal its still an abuse of power he just not making bank

babe, all cops are bad cops. (but yeah youre absolutely right, working with vigilantes makes you a shit cop, but also working against vigilantes just makes you an asshole cop yanno?)

ruh roh i think i’m about to add “so not yeehaw” every time i don’t like something

that's a very good vocabulary upgrade

somehow i feel like steph already knew. like babs obviously knew but i feel like bruce got high/drunk in front of steph and started telling his boarding school stories and steph was just like “oh you fucked up i’m never gonna forget this”

steph and bruce have weird uncle/rebellious niece dynamic and they just hang out sometimes and bruce will be like 'i once broke my arm when i tripped over a hedge when i was drunk so oliver drove me to the hospital on an electric scooter' and steph will just have to sit there with that knowledge in her head.

Hello I just wanted to tell you you are So right in all your steph opinions bc she is, in fact amazing and I think that's very sexy of you. Ps. Your Bruce/Oliver fic is hilarious

babe, thank you so much and yes steph is amazing and i love her and she deserves the world and she's the best member of the batfam hands down. also thanks

In Supersons we see a couple of kids that are implied to be Damian and Jon's children and the boy has laser eyes and can fly, so I asume he's not adopted. The girl, who calls Bruce grandpa, can also fly, btw. So it's canon (probably by accident) that Jon can have kids and he must have married one of Bruce's kids. (I'm hoping for Damian, mostly because any other of his children would be waaaaaaaaaaaaay too old.) @artemisa97

lmao that was probably an accident seeing as jon is a 17 year old superhero in the year 3000 (by the jonas brothers)

You know, I'm a die hard fan of your memes, but I gotta say one thing: if Gothamites actually took gas mask everywhere with them, then the Scarecrow would just be a weird dude in a weird costume, and not a villain oh so scary. DC really should just takes notes from you.

bold of you to assume there's no gothamite anti-maskers

How does it feel being the funniest person on this app?

horrible, next question.

I can't listen to Green Day or Billy Joel without thinking of your post about how Bruce got arrested at a Billy Joel concert @nightwings-kid

yeah that's your mistake, i on the other hand can't enjoy billy joel without thinking about the glee rendition of 'uptown girl'

I've FINALLY been watching the Batman animated series and I gotta say, after watching "the gray ghost" I am CONVINCED that Batman is a closeted super hero geek who was 100% freaking out the first time he met Superman and is just REALLY good at hiding it.

superman: so what do you do in your free time? batman, thinking about the superman fanfiction he's writing on the batcomputer: i have no free time

bruce and oliver be like boyfriends to co-workers 401k (do the justice leagues get 401ks??? not that bruce and ollie would need them, but-)

lmao yes just 400 thousand words of bruce realising 'oh dip oliver is such a fucking dumbass' (also i don't know what a 401 k is but i assume they don't?)

Gothamites would totally boo superman as he saves Gotham while batman is out. @meenje

he's like 'okay think about that next time you want to be saved from an alien octopus'

I just took long break from dc comics and I come back to see ric grayson ??

i think it's very cool and sexy of dc to see dick and just think 'you know what? let's just give him a traumatic brain injury' and then didn't develop his character in any real way

SPEAKING OF RIC GRAYSON, gothamites making confused memes out of ric grayson is much needed

'dick grayson is my taxi driver? can anyone explain what the fuck happened he looks like an italian plumber?'

i hate to say it but batfam are def "marvel characters" in that sense they are characters who are human but become superheroes unlike most dc characters who are gods trying to be human maybe this is why I like batfam

fair enough

#this is only like half of it #but at least you can get like a few answers #yanno fuck it #bataranswers #ask #asks #anon

[black-streak]

Waiting for the Worms - Empty Spaces

Part 2

Please heed warnings of part 1. Added warning of suicidal tendencies. If Anything about suicide makes you triggered, don't continue reading this particular story. Please be mindful of yourself. This WILL get worse.

Tag list of known masochists (I'm playing, you guys are amazing):

@northernbluetongue @thethirdwheelfriend @shizukiryuu @theatreandcomicfreak @michellemagic @karategirl119 @moonlightstar64 @my-name-is-michell @mystery-5-5 @zalladane @queen-of-the-trash-planet-tm @wuvpancakes @dorkus-minimus @jardimazul @allthebooksandcrannies @g-arya @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry @persephonescat @mycupisbroken @luciferge @18-fandoms-unite-08 @dawnwave16 @alwaysreblogneverpost @kris-pines04 @mysteriouslyswimmingfan-blo-blog @weird-pale-blonde-person @you-will-never-know-how-i-think @kokotaru @naclychilli @slytherinhquinn @clumsy-owl-4178 @ladybug-182 @darkthunder1589 @evil-elf16 @lysslovsanime

~---~

Coming to in Marinette's body was jarring to say the least. Moments earlier, pain was all he could register and now he was leaning back on a bench in the back of a classroom. 

Leaning forward and hiding his face in his arms, he focused in on the tug in the back of his mind, trying to bring it forward. To force the switch back, only to be met with harsh resistance.

"Dammit Mari, don't do this. Let me back!" He whispered under his breath, panic starting to lurch to the forefront. He started to shake all over, the longer the connection lasted and the longer she resisted.

"Marinette, please stop, please? You can't keep doing this," he murmured, slowly rocking back and forth, pushing with all he had at the bond.

"God, how pathetic can she get? Faking a breakdown for attention," a voice from the front spoke, pitched just right to be intentionally heard by him.

"Why don't you mind your own damn business," a haughty voice exclaimed from his left, before a body drew closer, arm wrapping around his shoulder. He held back a flinch, trying to tune into her normal reliance on others for comfort, instead leaning into the body, vaguely recognizing it as Chloe. 

The resistance dropped and finally the tug calmed down. He still couldn't switch back, but she wasn't fighting him anymore either. He let out a sigh as the shaking calmed down. Bruce must've found her. She was safe, but likely exhausted and unable to switch back. As much as he hated her taking the pain for him, all he could do now was wait for the bond to pull again and leave a letter detailing exactly what he thought of her little stunt here.

This time Jason did flinch. He felt the first few blows Joker landed, he could only imagine how much pain she must be in now.

"You okay there, marzipan?"

That was a new one. Glancing up into worried baby blues, he gave one soft nod and slumped into her side, paying attention to the lesson. Mari would be upset if he let her fall behind in her studies while she was gone.

…

It had been four days since then and Jason couldn't help feeling like something was horribly wrong. It wasn't the first time they switched for an extended period of time, by any means, but his gut told him this time was different.

Sure she had claimed his body for well over four days before to wait out an injury or get more extensive training with Bruce before and he had held her body hostage for over a week once when she was in the hospital with pneumonia, but normally a tug or two would tell him that one of them was holding out on the swap.

This time, nothing came. His mind was achingly devoid of her and as the days passed, he feared he might end up here longer than planned. It would make sense. Multiple broken bones, blunt force trauma, and the sheer force of their swap could easily have overwhelmed his body and dropped it into a state of unconsciousness. 

He took to her computer, trying any combination of words related to the accident to see if anything had been reported only to come up empty handed.

That couldn't be right, if she were in the hospital, if his body was properly reported as a Joker victim, the report would be made public, even if the identity was kept under wraps for being an unknown minor. Anything to indicate someone was caught up in the accident. Surely Bruce wasn't relying solely on Alfred to patch them back up?

It wasn't until a week after the incident that he received his answer, buried in a tiny little notice in the back of a Tuesday local newspaper. Like an afterthought. Amongst the obituaries. A tiny note that the late Jason Peter Todd had died.

His soulmate died in his body and didn't even make it into the citywide Sunday paper. Just a local midweeker with barely more than two sentences.

Disbelief struck first.

This couldn't be real, right? Soulmates weren't able to just. Die in the other's place. That wasn't a thing. It was his body, if anything, he would have immediately been evicted the second his body died and moved on while she returned to hers. So how the fuck was he still here?

Next came anger.

How dare Marinette die in his place. How dare she end her life for his mistakes! And by the Joker! The fucking Joker deserved to die for torturing and killing his sweet little soulmate. He deserved a life worse than death. To be strung up and peeled apart inch by inch until he begged for death. And Batman... How dare he not make it in time to save her. It'd be okay if it were him, but not her! She didn't deserve this. Mari had her own life, her own desires and dreams, her own villain to hunt down, and that was torn away from her because Batman let them down. But even worse, Bruce barely cared enough to be open about his death. To mourn the loss of her like he did, even if the man didn't know it was an innocent in that body and not him. And even if it had been, it hurt knowing that he alone wasn't worth more than a barely there acknowledgment that he was once alive in an unseen back page.

Last came devastating grief.

She was gone. Marinette, the girl who never even really met him, cared so much for him, she sacrificed her own life for his. Forced him to stay in her body and took his as her own to the grave so he could live as her. With her loving parents and colorful room and warm heart. She gave him everything and wanted nothing in return. Slept on the streets for him at times, took brutal fights on as Robin so he could have a reprieve, skipped meals so he could taste something he'd never had before that her parents made that night. Learned English from an early age so they could talk and he wouldn't be alone in the world. And now that one of them had died, she ensured that he would be left in the best environment she could provide him, even if it had become rougher around the edges from when they were younger. And now she was gone. Dead. Never to return. And as he turned towards the mirror and looked into her beautiful, glowing blue eyes, he saw the tears trail down her face before he collapsed into himself, cursing anything and everything in the universe for allowing such a cruel fate.

…

For the next month, he moved through life like a zombie. As much as he hated her classmates for treating her the way they had, he couldn't help but feel grateful that no one wanted anything to do with him. They still muttered under their breath and glared and purposefully manipulated situations against him, but no one tried to ask what was wrong.

Everyone but Chloe and Juleka avoided him like the plague, which felt accurate in a sense. He didn't have to fake a smile or pretend to be okay like he had when the class still loved her. He could sulk and cry and grieve and it went unquestioned. The others hated him and the two girls, while worried, knew that sometimes she needed the reprieve of just letting her negativity go unchecked for a little while to make up for bottling so much of it all the time, so they let it go as well. The teacher barely glanced his direction. If it weren't so beneficial to him at the moment, Jason would be pissed at the obvious neglect his soulmate had endured at the hands of this lot. As it stood, he just cried a little harder at night in his grief, Tikki curled to his neck with tears of her own. 

The two quickly bonded over their mutual loss and the inability to talk about it to anyone else. Despite the stress of it, Jason refused to let anyone else know that Marinette had died. Her parents didn't need to suffer her death while looking at her living, breathing body, knowing she wasn't in it. That it was his fault she had died in the first place. And he couldn't even imagine having to tell them how she died.

So he resolved himself to live in her stead. To live as she would for the sake of her loved ones and in her honor. He had enough practice in the past to pull it off. It helped that they had both learned to suppress their emotions to the point of nonexistent in the light of facing Hawkmoth.

That was another thing entirely, though. While he resolved to fake a smile and play the happy designer in her civilian life, Ladybug took a turn from that day forward. He warned the cat off him, not playing into the teasing and banter, becoming stoic and professional. And when the kid got too brash, too pushy, too unreliable, he stripped the ring from him and moved on. Built a team she would've been proud to lead.

Over the next three months, he slowly adjusted her mannerisms to be more natural for him. Not enough to be noticeable or seen as anything more than growing older and slightly more jaded, but enough to make it a touch easier and less like he was living a lie.

…

Six months had passed and everything was different. 

The rest of the class didn't bother him. Didn't make accusations. Throw insults. Acknowledge his existence in any way. And maybe that was meant to be punishment. To be treated as a ghost haunting an unknowing audience. But it was pure bliss. He couldn't thank them enough for their continued silence. 

At least this way he could pretend her last days of life were happy and surrounded by people who cared for her. That they were grieving her just as he was.

There were still mornings he forgot. Times he'd walk by a mirror and smile, seeing her looking back and thinking it just another of their sporadic swaps where he'd wake as her and find a note waiting for him. 

Then reality would crash around him as the little kwami would come out and look at him with those sad eyes, nuzzling his neck (her neck, this was her body god dammit). On those days it hit him differently. Sometimes he'd shut it all down, going through the motions for the rest of the day. Other times he'd break down and cuddle the small being as close as possible and share in her despair, not bothering to leave the house. Usually anger would coarse sharp and deadly through his heart, urging him to seek vengeance. On those days, any remarks made his way were brutally rebutaled, until the remarks stopped entirely. Ladybug fought with just a little more violent intent; he couldn't avenge her until Hawkmoth was defeated. Those gorgeous blue eyes set into her face turned into a deadly storm of promised danger. 

It all kept swirling and cycling through him over and over until one day, the desperation and grief and hurt all hit a little too hard and he laid on the floor, staring up at the dark ceiling, wishing he could be by her side. That he could join her and not have to feel like this anymore. That it could all just go away and he could be happy for once in his miserable life.

That night he wished for nothing more than to die. If it hadn't been for the absolute heartwrenching sight of her little, pale hand wrapped around a too big knife, he has no doubt he would have gone through with it. 

Afterwards he could only thank his cowardice for preventing him from destroying her body like that. She wanted him to live and who was he to deny her? 

That night, he curled up on the cold, hardwood floor and begged her forgiveness, promising to do better. To be better. He knew she couldn't hear him, would never respond, but he begged all the same.

#jasonette #ml x dc #maribat #part 2 #WFTW