thegoshdarn | (no subject)

Going to see her little - well, not little - brother probably isn't a very good idea, honestly, but Tim's having difficulty thinking of good ideas. Under other circumstances, she'd enlist the help of herself, but it seems cruel to traumatize this younger self with knowledge of her life unless absolutely necessary. Jason, on the other hand - the trajectory of his life seems the closest to hers. Not exactly the same, thank god, but close enough that it fucking hurts to think about.

(Idly, she considers killing the Joker while she's here, but doing so cleanly would require more resources than she currently has on her. It's something to think about, anyway.)

Meeting him is... awkward. There's the usual need to confirm identity, of course, which she is more than willing to cooperate with. Occam's Razor and all that, she'd rule out every other possibility first if he'd showed up at her doorstep before accepting an accidental multiverse traveler. It's probably to her advantage that it would take an absolutely insane person to conceive of older little sister from a universe where she's the dead Robin as an effective method of infiltration.

Somehow, after that is the worst part. When she doesn't have to focus on proving her identity, there's nothing to distract her from noticing things. How big he's gotten. The changes to the way he moves. The shock of white hair that suggests trauma. Of course, she has her own tells - the most obvious of which is the Glasgow smile under her make-up - that she's sure he's taking in himself.

She swallows. "You really did have a growth spurt." Her Jason will be thrilled.

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Even after confirming each other's identities, Jason still finds it incredibly jarring to see his little(?) sister in this way. It also fucking hurts and it's infuriating that there's at least one universe where the damn clown managed to hurt a different Wayne sibling.

"Yeah, well, apparently all I needed was a shot of Lazarus Pit," he says. It's a small but grim joke but he's trying lessen the awkward tension between them. "You still look a lot like her."

Despite that statement though, Jason can't help but notice all the little differences this version of his sister has. Not that Tim was ever a perky kid but there's a hardened edge to this Tim.

"It didn't give me that much of a boost," she says, deeply wry. Because she hasn't gotten much in the way of height over her younger self, just a lot of scars, both emotional and physical. "Lucky."

"Weird to apply that to any version of our family," Jason says. The amount of tragedies the Waynes had, be it before or after Bruce adopting them, hardly made them lucky.

"I could've used a few extra inches."

That's not what they're here to talk about, though. "Sorry," she adds quietly, because even though he's not her Jason and there's absolutely nothing she could've done from another universe away, it still feels like a failure on her part, what happened to him.

Jason shakes his head. He knows what she's referring to. This version of Tim has an unfortunate number of things in common with him.

"You couldn't have known," he says. "Just like how I couldn't have known what happened to you."

It's a cold comfort though. The pure logic of it doesn't entirely override the anger he feels at knowing the Joker victimized another one of his family members.