the lebanon won't speak my name

[goodsoldier]

Who: Barbara Gordon and Jason Todd
What: saying hello
Where: Barbara's residence in Brock Marsh
When: late morning
Notes: "hey I'm alive want to join my secret club"
Warnings: probable FEELINGS

Although he'd told Rex he'd have Barbara contact him, Jason had not even spoken with Barbara; he had no idea if Barbara would even want to talk to him, let alone have anything to do with any of his vague plans. He'd been acting on instinct, drawing on the one resource he'd been so reluctant to draw on until now. He didn't care to count the years that separated them. In many ways, he'd come to assume that her silence was more meaningful than his. He had the files Talia had given him, and Barbara had herself as Oracle. They could have both made contact at any time. But Barbara didn't know he knew. If she never contacted him, it must be deliberate.

Then again, one of the reasons he'd made his move in Gotham at the exact time he did was because of two people exiting the city: Cassandra Cain, and Barbara. Their collective absence was the only thing that had allowed him to run wild like he had — that and Bruce's unwillingness to believe the truth. What (if anything) she read into that, Jason couldn't know.

It is not right, it is not fair, for him to swing by after a long night out, to sit on her doorstep and drink coffee and think about how he kind of needs to shave. But she must know that he's like this already, even if she doesn't know he's in the city. There aren't cameras everywhere in Baedal like there were in Pseudo New York; there, she'd sent Cassandra to him so he could serve as a warning, as an example. An educational tool for the family member Barbara wanted to keep, he'd decided, and did not resent that. It had given him a chance to make his case to Cass, though in the end, it served Barbara's purposes.

He had been relatively incautious about tracking Stephanie, but he's been much more wary of surveying Barbara. There's only been a few glimpses here and there, always at a distance. He thinks he probably should have stopped at the apartment and shaved. It's a ridiculous thought. He's here because he's pretty sure she'll have finished this morning's tutoring session and may head home from there, so fuck shaving, at least he brought her some coffee. Hopefully she'll be back before it gets cold. Hopefully she'll actually talk to him. Hopefully she may even let him inside. Hope is stupid, like him; neither of them will stay down, and he can't tell whether this decision to approach her is stupidity, instinct, hope, or both.