#oh yeah there’s his 6’2 220 lbs father

[frownyalfred]

the thing I love most about the “Bruce and Jason are both TANKS” supremacy is that it means, in all likelihood, that Nightwing, Red Hood and Batman went on a joint patrol together at least once and some out of towner goon, in a panic, called Nightwing — all 5’10 180 lbs of him — the “skinny one.”

[pinkandyellowstories-blog]

“We’re Just Lost Souls, Aren’t We?”

“We’re just lost souls, aren’t we?” Lydia began. Lydia and Jeremy had been walking in this endless forest for what seems like eternity, but neither were tired, nor hungry, nor thirsty. They just kept walking, without really experiencing anything at all.

“Lost souls?” Jeremy asked in reply. Neither had really said all that much, they merely found the other like it was meant to be and continued walking. They had encountered others similarly dressed to them, no shoes with white, almost translucent, trousers and shirt. At one point, Jeremy would have been disgusted at such a transparent ensemble, preferring many more layers; but that was then, and this is now.

“Yeah, we’re dead, lost, whatever you want to call it. But the thing is, I don’t remember dying. You’d think I’d remember dying, wouldn’t you?” Lydia responded. Jeremy was at a lack of words. To be honest, he hadn’t given much thought to their situation and what it meant for him. He was merely walking and looking around.

This wasn’t a typical forest, it lacked the stereotypical buzz that signaled other living creatures. There were no leaves rustling that usually occurs when squirrels jump from branch to branch. There were no bird calls at intermittent points. The forest was devoid of all life, and yet, Jeremy hadn’t given it a second’s thought. He hadn’t given much a second’s thought for a long time if he can remember clearly.

“I don’t-” Jeremy also tried to recall the moment of his death but all that came up was blank. He remembers vague details from his life, a woman with soft brown hair and kind green eyes with bruises on her arms. How did she get those bruises? Jeremy tried to recall, but he couldn’t. It was like that word just out of your reach, on the tip of your tongue. “I don’t remember, either. Is this supposed to be heaven?”

Heaven is a concept Jeremy knows well. He remembers the woman, his mother, would drag him and his brother, Samuel, to church every Sunday morning. She would put on her long sleeved dresses and take them both to mass. They always went to the churches with the longest ceremonies. Jeremy remembered that now. It was so long and stuffy. His mother always made him wear his nicest clothes. He thinks the kids made fun of him for his dirty collar and scuffed pants, he just can’t remember why.

“I don’t know. I don’t believe in God, so I doubt it. Maybe it’s hell.”

“I don’t think I would go to hell. My mom always made us go to church.”

“I can’t remember my mom.” Lydia said suddenly, with a bit of panic in her voice. It was the most emotion that either of them had expressed. Jeremy looked over at her, looking for the same desperation to be visible in her voice, but all he could see were her furrowed brows and lips pulled into a thin line. He studied her face, trying to mimic the emotion on his but found it to be confusing. Emotions were confusing, Jeremy decided. He finds it hard to remember the reasoning for letting them consume him when all they seemed to do was cause pain. “I can remember my dad, but I can’t remember my mom. Why do you think I can’t remember my mom?”

Lydia’s panic was gone and a calm sort of curiosity settled onto her face instead. “I can’t remember my dad,” was Jeremy’s reply, “Maybe they weren’t in our lives.”

“That would make sense. Were you happy when you were alive?” Lydia asks it to make polite conversation, he can tell. She would be one of the girls he would avoid at school. Blonde, gorgeous, perky, always willing to talk to you about something. Jeremy was the exact opposite. As one of the seven black kids in his school, he mostly stayed out of everyone’s way. It didn’t help that he hit 6’2” and 220 lbs at 15 and stayed there.

Was he happy when he was alive? He remembered being lonely. Jeremy didn’t think happiness was much of a prevalent state of being in his life. He remembered being scared, why he can’t remember exactly. He remembered being worried a lot, anxiety was a big part of his life.   

“I don’t think so. I was really lonely a lot.” Alive Jeremy would have been aghast at this Jeremy’s nonchalant admittance of such a personal detail, but at that point, he couldn’t think of hiding it anymore. He was dead, what was the worst that could happen?

“Yeah, I think I was too. My dad worked a lot.” Lydia responded with. She also seemed to be at ease with disclosing her inner turmoil. “And I guess I didn’t really have a mother since I can’t remember her, so I don’t think I was happy either.”

“I don’t think anyone is really happy when they’re alive. I think you can think you’re happy, but it’s more of a fleeting need, like hunger or thirst. I don’t think it’s a state of being.” Jeremy tried and tried to recall his father but instead kept being brought back to his brother, Samuel.

Samuel was much younger than Jeremy, he remembered that. He couldn’t have been older than six or seven. Jeremy’s mother was always doting on Samuel, making sure he did all his homework and spending lots of time with her youngest son. Jeremy thinks he resented her for that, but it isn’t clear.

None of his life is clear. Did he go to school? He can’t remember. He remembers the alcohol though. He remembers the parties and the nights spent trying to forget, trying to forget what?

Bruises.

Black and yellow and purple and blue.

Bruises on his arms.

Jeremy raises his hands to his face and examines his arms. Perfectly fine, just his normal dark skin tone.

A brief flash of worry shoots through Jeremy like an arrow. His mother comes to mind. Her kind eyes laced with pain, her hair is longer than he remembered the first time around. She isn’t smiling anymore. She seems scared. Why is she scared? He hears the steps outside his bedroom door. Then yelling. Then nothing. Why can’t he remember?

It’s a desperate plea within himself. Why can’t he remember? Just a simple detail, anything, would be helpful.

He hears a voice, deeper than his own. “Where is my beer?” Looking around the forest, Jeremy searches for the source but sees nothing but trees and fog.

“Did you hear that?” He asks Lydia, she shakes her head in response, staring at Jeremy with the most peculiar look on her face.

“Shirlene! I asked you where my goddamn beer is! I didn’t work all day to come home and not have a cold beer waiting for me!” The voice returns, but Jeremy recognizes it to be within him now. A memory.

Shirlene. That must have been his mother’s name. Shirlene. Shirlene with dark brown hair that sticks out from under her working cap. She worked at a diner. Josie’s. He remembered now. It was a small little restaurant with 10 tables and four booths. He was a dishwasher there. His father didn’t like him working there. He didn’t like Jeremy’s mother too far from him at any given point.

His father worked on a factory line and he was even bigger than Jeremy. He had a massive stature, standing a little over 6’4” and muscles taut from managing the large machinery at his work. The bruises were from his father, he remembers now. He can recall his own bruises and his mother’s when he couldn’t protect her, when school ran too long and his father got home from work too early.

Oh God, he had to protect her, and Sammy. Little Sammy who was too brilliant for their tiny hovel of a home, and too kind to deal with his father’s abuse. Why wasn’t he there? He had to get back.

Jeremy began to feel the panic, he looked around the forest, looking for some hint of an exit, some clue of a way to get back to reality. This couldn’t be real. He had to get back. He had to protect them. “Do you really think we’re dead?”

Lydia cocked her head, her brows furrowing once more. “It makes sense, wouldn’t you think?”

“No, no, no. I can’t be dead. I have to go back. I have to get back. I have to help them.” Jeremy turns around and lashes out of the nearest object, a tree. His fist connects with the trunk and a relieving sort of pain rushes through his knuckle. “Oh fuck, that hurt!”

Lydia does not react to his lash-out and instead takes a step closer. “What’s happening? Tell me what’s happening in your head.”

“I have to get back. I have to go back. I can’t stay here.” Jeremy makes a bee-line for an area that seems to have a brighter skyline than the other areas of the forest.

“You can’t leave. We’ve been all around the forest, I don’t think there’s a way out. We’re dead, we’re dead, and there’s no going back.” Jeremy swung around to face her. This girl with long blonde hair and stunning blue eyes that lacked all semblance of emotion. It made them less stunning, he realized.

“I’m dead?”

“Yes, and I am too. I couldn’t remember why but then I remembered my mom and it came back. It was a car crash, I think. Too much ice on the road and we ran off a bridge.” Lydia says it with no recognizable emotion, it’s done and gone, no point in worrying about it.

“You don’t understand; if I’m not there to protect my mom and my brother, my dad will kill them!” Jeremy doesn’t look to Lydia to see if she understands his predicament and instead heads toward the clearing he sees above. He doesn’t know what it means or what it could lead to, but anything is better than wondering.

The clearing is nothing but a cliff with a steep drop off into the unknown. The fog obscures whatever could be waiting at the bottom, and Jeremy doesn’t want to risk landing on hard rocks.

“I’m dead.” Jeremy collapses to the ground in shock and Lydia sits beside him, far enough away to give him his space but still close enough for Jeremy to know she’s there.

As soon as he says the words a memory returns.

It was a late night, the school bus took too long to get from the high school to his house. Jeremy’s house was the last stop. He could see the flashing of the tv through the flimsy curtains covering the living room/kitchen/dining room window. He felt the familiar sense of dread when he looked to his left and saw his father’s truck in the dirt driveway.

Entering, he couldn’t hear the tell-tale signs of his father’s being home. Maybe if he was lucky, his father would have already passed out for the night. Sure enough, his father was snoring soundly on the couch, his beers fawned out around him like some sort of sick version of a halo. Having seen his brother’s backpack at the kitchen table, Jeremy went straight to his brother’s room where he found Sammy curled in a ball under his bed. His normal hiding place when their father came home before his mother or Jeremy got there. Pulling him out from the bed and into his lap, Jeremy saw them before Sammy could say anything.

Bruises, already turning purple, covered his arms.

Jeremy couldn’t tell you exactly what was going through his head at that exact moment but he knew exactly what he had to do. The only thought Jeremy can recall is “This has to end.”

So he took the gun from the locked safe that his mother had given him the combination to one night after his father had beaten her up to the near point of death. And he shot his sleeping father in the hands first, since those were the things that caused his family the most pain. Then, as his father’s eyes flew open in response to the pain, Jeremy saw the recognition flash into his brown eyes, and then, nothing. One more bullet, and it was over.

The next few months flew by after that.

It was the stereotypical tale. Poor boy can’t afford a good enough lawyer and gets sentenced to death by lethal injection. Jeremy was dead two months after his sentencing. His mother couldn’t afford the appeals necessary.

She was there when he was injected, her kind green eyes laced with silver the entire time.

[mayjunenov]

bats by height: jason, bruce, duke, steph, dick/damian (same height), cass.

therefore i propose, dick, damian and cass all wearing platforms to try and be taller then steph (dick), stephs height (damian) and taller then jason (cass)

the thing I love most about the “Bruce and Jason are both TANKS” supremacy is that it means, in all likelihood, that Nightwing, Red Hood and Batman went on a joint patrol together at least once and some out of towner goon, in a panic, called Nightwing — all 5’10 180 lbs of him — the “skinny one.”