oh hey, that snippet where Bruce tells Dick about Jason's death got a rewrite and a title! looks like it'll be a whumptober/BTHB fill - Blood Covered Hands/I don't want to do this anymore for day 24 and "Please don't leave me."
title is: grief doesn't know its own shape
His feet touch Earth’s ground for the first time in three months. He feels the weight of their home’s gravity settle in his bones like he never left. Dick breathes in cool, crisp air, and grins when Wally whoops loudly and speeds off. He ambles behind the rest of his team, digging for his phone he swears he shoved into the bottom of his duffle. Gods, if he left it back in space he’s never going to live it down.
Score! He finds it with a satisfied grin. The battery is still loaded when he turns it on – he’d turned it off once they left, he’s not entirely sure why he brought it to begin with. The lock screen is of him and Jason at Alejandro’s just before he left planet-side. There’s whipped cream on the kid’s nose and he’s staring up at Dick with a light in his eyes that Dick feels like he’s never going to get used to seeing.
Dick’s smile faces when he finds an onslaught of voicemails and text messages.
The oldest messages are from Jason. His stomach sinks while his heart lodges in his throat.
Hey, can I call you? he asks in one. I don’t, is in another like it’d sent by accident.
Hey, Big Bird, his voice shaky, thick with tears. He sniffles. The sound of clothes rustling. I kinda forgot you were in space. Ha. What a stupid thing to forget. Sorry. I just – I don’t think I can do this anymore. I don’t want to do this anymore. Bruce he – I don’t know. I’m, I’m sorry. I – and he pauses long enough the voicemail force ends the call.
Another, a couple days later. I didn’t do it. Bruce doesn’t – I wouldn’t do that. I swear I wouldn’t. And…And I wouldn’t do that to you. Not to you. Not to Robin. I’m sorry. I’m – I’m going to find my, my mom. My real one. I need….I don’t know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for everything. I just wanted…
Dick stares at the screen with wide, stinging eyes. That sounded like goodbye, he thinks and covers his mouth. Bruce’s most recent message just says call me when you get this. He does, shakily bringing the speaker to his ear. He doesn’t realize he’s stopped dead in the middle of the main room. Donna frowns, asks him if he’s alright, and it sounds like she’s coming from underwater. He ignores her as the line rings out without Bruce ever answering.
He calls again. Then again. Hands shaking, eyes burning, a mantra of no no please no in his head.
The third call almost rings out when there’s a click and then a long sigh. “Dick,” he says heavily, his voice hoarse.
Dick remembers the last time he heard Bruce sound like that, and he closes his eyes. Remember waking up to scratchy, stiff blankets and monitors in the distance and cotton in his mouth. Bruce hovering over him, clasping his hand, carding his fingers through Dick’s hair.
Bullet wounds hurt.
He’s pretty sure this is going to hurt worse.
“What happened?” he demands. It grabs the team’s attention fully instead of them just side-eyeing him, and he can’t find it in himself to care that they’re zeroed in on him. “Bruce, what happened?”
A long silence. Batman doesn’t hesitate. Bruce does.
“Jason’s dead,” he says quietly.
Dick doesn’t realize his knees buckled until Roy’s grabbing him by the arm, swearing. Garth takes his elbow and they both lead him to the couch where he collapses in a heap. They’re asking rapid-fire questions, but while Donna sounded like she was underwater, they’re all starting to sound like they’re at the end of a long tunnel. Underwater. Just background noise to the awful, terrible sentence echoing in his head.
Jason’s dead. Jason’s dead. Jason’s dead.
“How?” he croaks out, leaning forward – and leaning and leaning until Donna’s there, bracing him by the shoulders. He ducks his face, pressing the crown of his head to her stomach, shoulders shuddering. She digs her fingers in rhythmically, but that just makes him want to cry even more.
“The Joker.”
Dick laughs brokenly. Because of course. Why not.
“How?” he asks again. Getting answers is like pulling teeth. The anger that would normally appear the longer Bruce gives non-answers doesn’t show up. Instead, he feels – he feels hollow. Like, like an ice cream scoop came in and carved him out. “It doesn’t matter,” he says. His voice is dead. He feels dead. Jason’s actually dead. “I’m coming to the Manor.”
“We had the funeral,” Bruce says softly and there it is, a hint of emotion. Regret. Remorse. Grief. Dick tugs on his hair once, twice, then Garth is taking his hand, tangling their fingers together. “I’m sorry, Dick. I tried to put it off for as long as possible.”
“Liar,” Dicks says uncharitably just to hear Bruce’s carefully controlled exterior hitch. He said sorry. When was the last time he heard Bruce say sorry? He slumps. “Sorry, B,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair.”
There’s tears in his voice and Dick feels like a heel, when Bruce says, “It’s okay, chum. It’s a lot to take in. I…I would really love it if you came to manor.”
Dick thinks of bodies cooling in a cold, lonely alleyway, pearls shimmering in the lights, a little boy wailing for his parents. He thinks of free-falling then not, standing on his toes and looking downdowndown and seeing red and white and pink and people screaming and crying, and a figure curling around him, whispering reassurances in his ear, hiding his parents from sight.
“Okay,” he whispers. “I’ll – I’ll be there soon.”
He thinks there’s word for children who lost their parents.
“Love you, chum.”
– but what about a word for parents who lost their children?
“Love you, too.”
– word for siblings who lost their little brother?
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An interesting little fun thing with team 7 is that you assume that Sakura's gonna, like, woobify and simplify Sasuke by putting him on a pedastal,cause her goal is centered around him and shes a 12 y/o fangirl so like of course her understanding of him is skewed cause she doesnt see him as a person, just an object of affection, right? She's can't get Sasuke, can't imprint on and/or traumabond with him like Naruto and Kakashi do. They don't see him with rose tinted glasses, because they've lived through their own Horrors and empathize with Sasuke's experience.
......right?
WRONG lmao!! They have too many ghosts!! Naruto's single-minded codependent ass won't get out of his own way long enough to see Sasuke for who he actually is, only able to empathize with the parts of his trauma Naruto relates to and not really capable of understanding him outside of the context of himself (because Sasuke is. His other half). And Kakashi is far too jaded to be fair to him!! He can't decide if Sasuke is gonna end up as a mini-him or a mini-Obito or maybe a mini-Itachi, but either way he ALSO is too traumatized to see Sasuke AS SASUKE.
meanehile SAKURA'S autistic ass may have dogshit empathy, but you know what she does have? A special interest in sasuke. Nothing better to do then give herself a degree in Uchihaisms. She can write character studies about him. she can read his soul. Whenever she says something about him she is right. Every fucking time! She is RIGHT!!!!
'sasuke would NOT compliment me this directly or explicitly express worry unprompted, especially if it gets in the way of his goals' correct.
'Sasuke shouldn't hide that curse on his neck its not healthy BUT if I tell anyone about it he'll never trust me again, which might be even more dangerous for him then the curse mark. Like he can probably handle the curse mark but no one else can stop him from ripping peoples arms off.' correct.
Speaking of! 'Sasuke would not hurt me even when he seems to be...possessed? whatever the only way to knock him out of it is to present myself as Alive and thus something to be protected rather then something to be avenged, because he gets really stuck in his own head about revenge' CORRECT
'hey so um. like. Sasuke's gonna leave Konoha. I'm not sure anything can stop him at this point and honestly I'm kinda starting to doubt anything should, so the only thing I could possibly do to help him at this point is ALSO defect.' CORRECT!!!!
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I have work off so I'm going full unhinged as a treat, I guess.
Re: my previous comment about this being two separate pieces of paper because they don't match up, if you (messily, on your phone in ClipStudio) split them into two separate layers, you can line up the radial chart. However, once you have the radial chart, if you follow the paper along the rip, nothing really lines up in a satisfactory way to create one piece of paper.
The paper is wrinkled, so you could make the argument that maybe if you smoothed it out it might line up better but... some of these paper 'teeth' are just never gonna fit together. (Even if you take into account the way that thick parchment tends to rip in what I'm gonna call 'pulp layers' this doesn't fit together as one piece of paper imo.)
I was originally going to show a pic of trying to match it up along the straight edges as well but I don't think it's necessary.
See above: Overlap & lack of overlap as seen when you try and put the pieces together with opacity turned down, if it helps make the visual more clear.
Again, this could just be looking into it too hard, but we have fun here.
When they were creating the artwork, they probably weren't thinking that people would attempt to see if they match, and that it was also just easier to do this way...but...it's also just so obviously not a match? Right??? If it was intentional that they don't match, I once again appreciate the implications!!! Very cool!
Bonus: Gif of me trying my hardest to make Ais' radial chart (almost) line up by using Kuras' as a guide -- I actually had to rotate both of Ais' pieces a little bit.
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