#* dyn — jason & julia.

[corpserites]

⠀⠀⠀HE THINKS HE KNOWS WHO SHE IS NOW. julia shimotori. jason remembers reading case files about this while snooping through bruce's database, memorizing names and faces just for the sake of knowing things like his dad. back when he was going by robin instead of red hood. morbid curiosity getting the best of him, muddy memories of the gore and viscera in the extensive collection of police photography, indistinct echoes of the discomfort and nausea he felt flipping through articles and clips of news reports. he fidgets as she speaks, listens but doesn't look, tearing a napkin into thin strips to keep idle hands busy.

⠀⠀⠀there is an angry little bird, one long-dead somewhere within him, that envies her and the chance she got to save herself. in a shocking ⠀( albeit not impossible, he has class when he wants to make use of it )⠀display of tact, he doesn't tell her she should be proud of herself and what she accomplished when she killed that man.

⠀⠀⠀instead, hood waits a moment, in case she has more to say. then:⠀"i'm sorry you had to do that on your own,"⠀another beat.⠀"... that you had to do it at all. that sucks."

OF COURSE JULIA COULD DIE. She was very, very young when she had to accept that near-death experiences are going to happen whether you're seeking them out or not. (Because Julia did not seek out the wolf. Julia did not do anything wrong. She didn't do anything wrong.)

Being in control of her own life isn't something Julia accepts as a natural fact. She has to work to earn that autonomy, that strength; she isn't simply entitled to it. So she knows that what she's getting into is dangerous. She also knows it's her choice entirely to dive deep into Red Hood's world of violence, brutality, and dubious legality.

As long as she proves herself first, of course. (He hasn't left or said fuck no/fuck off yet. She has a chance—a possibility to make something of her going-nowhere, meaningless life, and she has so much to give!)

"My parents died when I was really little," Let's brush past that, "And I moved in with my grandmother so she could take care of me. Her health was—her health wasn't the greatest, and she ended up with a nurse who stayed with us, you know, constantly."

If he wants the gritty details, he'll ask for them. She's not looking up to gauge how interested he is, anyways. It's too difficult.

"He was a monster. Honestly. I don't know what else to call him, even now. My grandmother got sicker, and I kind of depended on him for my own wellbeing, I was in third grade, you know?—he was making her sick. My grandmother. He wanted to be—he wanted me isolated."

She closes her eyes. He could be checking that stupid watch, for all she cares. The floodgates have opened.

"After school one day, I caught him right in the middle of murdering my grandmother. I couldn't stop him; I ran. So he—he tried to attack me." To devour her whole, evil and, as she said, monstrous. "But I was a pretty self-sufficient kid, right? Considering everything. I knew where we kept the knives, for cooking, if only because I was never supposed to touch them. I didn't have a choice.—the whole thing was in the news, for awhile. The government, the reporters—they did a pretty good job of telling everybody what happened to his body."