Summary: Dean watches Batman: Under the Red Hood. Maybe it wasn't such a hot idea. Damn it, does this whole movie have to remind him of hunting and what happened?
Warning: Mega-spoilers for Batman: Under the Red Hood. As in MAJOR-I-wrote-this-as-I-was-watching-it-for-the-third-time spoilers. Stop reading now if you haven't seen it, unless you don't care if you get spoiled. In that case, by all means, keep reading.
And then you absolutely must go and watch the movie, even if you don't like animated stuff/Batman/etc, because that was me until the obsessive Jensen Ackles fan in me made me watch it and now I'm hooked on the movie. (Sorry about the run-on sentence there—it's not a reflection of my writing, I swear. I'm just excited.)
Under the Black Hood
He passes by the red-and-black DVD cover once before the title registers and he goes back to take a closer look.
It's the new Batman movie, the animated one, not the one with that douchebag in it. (Dark Knight was cool; the Joker was awesome, and so was the Batmobile, but Christian Bale, man.) "Batman: Under the Red Hood," the dramatic comic-book lettering proclaims.
The title sounds like it was based on the one where Robin gets killed. He remembers that volume vaguely—it's one of the comic books he didn't have enough money to buy as a kid and never got around to reading once he grew up.
Dean picks the movie up. Red Hood's white eye-lenses glare up at him from behind Batman in the foreground of the cover. Hmm. Ben's birthday's coming up, and Dean's got no clue what to get the kid. To his inexperienced eye, it seems like he's already got everything a kid could want (momhomeloveinnocence).
He turns it over to read the back. Yeah, it's the one where Jason Todd dies and comes back as Red Hood. He doesn't know the whole story behind that one. Ben hasn't seen the movie either; Dean remembers now that he overheard Ben begging Lisa for it when it first came out. Lisa had ended up not buying it, for some reason. Dean's memory's not so great nowadays, seeing how he's always preoccupied thinking about trying not to think about the thing that he doesn't want to think about.
The price isn't that bad, he sees when he checks the sticker. It's certainly not cheap, but it's reasonable. Dean holds the box a moment longer before dropping it in his cart. (And by the way, Dean Winchester with a shopping cart buying teriyaki-flavored tofurkey and soynuts? Surreal. 'Bizarre' seems to be the norm these days. Dean's gotten used to it.)
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Ben loves the movie: he proclaims it with an enthusiasm akin to the way he'd greeted Dean when he'd first showed up on that dreadful night. He inserts the disc into the player and plops down right there on the floor.
"C'mon, Dean. Watch it with me!"
Dean glances hesitantly at Lisa, who rolls her eyes and smiles at him before leaving the two of them to have their "male-bonding" time in peace. Lisa's great like that. He clears his throat and sits down on the couch. Ben scoots over so that he's leaning on Dean's shins.
The boy grins up at him. "You're awesome. Thanks, Dean."
Dean manages to twist his lips into something like a smile. It had taken a while for Ben to get used to this new Dean, but in the end, he and Lisa had found that Dean fared better when people just acted normally, rather than tip-toeing around him.
The movie begins with the Joker beating Robin with a crowbar. Pretty brutal, especially for an animated flick. Dean looks around towards the kitchen to see if Lisa's watching. Now he remembers why she had objected to the movie: It's PG-13, and Ben's only eleven.
Dean flinches when a bomb blows up the building Robin had been in, leaving Batman to search for the boy frantically. Dean knows what's coming next. Maybe buying this movie wasn't such a hot idea. He can't stop watching though; Batman finds Robin, and stands up cradling the broken body with an anguished look.
SamSamSamSammySamNoooooooo! Dean clenches his eyes shut, shuddering slightly. Can't think about that now. He looks down at Ben, who's still absorbed in the film playing on the television screen.
He calms himself down in time to catch the awesome fight scene. Pow! Bam-bam! Yeah, this action stuff is great. The Bat and his partner Nightwing. Partner…Sam…No. Okay, cool car chase. That's always good for taking his mind off of things.
Now Red Hood's talking about failures. Don't talk to Dean about failures. He failed, on an epic scale. He let his little brother choose to allow himself to be possessed by Lucifer and throw himself into the pit. What kind of older brother does that? That's just…
Dean notices that he's just missed a big chunk of the story while he was berating himself. It's another action scene now. It's pretty cool, but he can't bring himself to get into it. Man, this really wasn't a good idea. However, there's no way he's leaving Ben to watch it by himself when he'd asked for Dean's company, and especially not on his birthday. So he sits and squirms in agony.
And there's that whole "to kill or not to kill" argument again. Damn it, does this whole movie have to remind him of hunting and what happened? Bruce Wayne is digging a grave up, for heaven's sake. Dean suppresses a groan.
Oh no, they didn't. That's how they brought Jason back? That's just…At least the poor kid didn't wake up in his own coffin, right? Maybe there's a way to bring Sam back…Stoppit.
Batman blames himself for Jason's death. Join the club, buddy. And now they're fighting each other. Him and Sam? They used to spar, and there was the occasional tussle, but only once had they actually tried to kill each other, and that was because of the siren. No, make that twice; Sam had tried to choke Dean to death. And after that, Dean had told his brother what their dad had said the night Sam left for Stanford. Bad move there, Dean.
If he hadn't said that, would things have turned out differently? Would Sam still have killed Lilith?
Sam had wanted to go after her so bad, but only because she had killed Dean. That was what Ruby had manipulated him into thinking. That's how this Red Hood thinks; that Batman should have killed the Joker for revenge.
Dean laughs bitterly to himself. He's got no one he can kill for his brother being in hell. No one but God, and God (the bastard) doesn't want to be found. Shit. Shit.
"Dean?" he hears the quiet voice say. Dean blinks bleary eyes and pulls them away from the blank stare he had on the screen. The movie's over; the credits roll, raindrops dripping onto the watery background. Ben's no longer sitting by his knee, but is perched on the couch a safe distance away from him. Both of the Braedens try their best not to startle him too much. It's safer that way.
Dean shudders to think of that night he'd woken up from a nightmare and grabbed the small figure sneaking up on him in the dark in a harsh grip. He hasn't slept with a weapon since coming to stay at Lisa's; he's got no need of them, since he doesn't really care too much about living or dying anymore. It's a good thing he didn't have a knife under his pillow that night, since he remembers groping for it before he realized that it was only Ben, and that he'd scared the living daylights out of the poor kid.
The eleven-year-old is now looking at him with his mother's solemn eyes. "You okay?"
Dean attempts another grin. "Who me? I'm awesome." He clears his throat. "So great movie, huh? Didja like it?" He rubs his sweaty hands on the fabric of his jeans.
Dark eyebrows furrow for a moment before smoothing, and the shuttered expression disappears. "Yeah, it was good," Ben says, relaxing a little and coming closer, now that Dean's alert. "It was epic." Kid always seems to talk in italics, like Sam used to.
Sam. Dean closes his eyes again, feeling the tears well up behind his eyelids, and stands up. "I'm sorry," he whispers desperately. "I gotta…Bathroom," he says, ducking his head and practically running out of the room.
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He heads for the garage instead. The Impala's there, under the blue tarp that crinkles as he peels it back enough for him to slip into the driver's seat. He'd put her in storage when he had first arrived, and he hadn't been back aside from taking his duffel out. He'd left everything else where it was. Everything.
He sits there now, breathing in the scent of the car, leather, gun oil, Sam, home. A lone tear rolls down his nose and plops onto his lap. That tiny drop of water opens the floodgates; his face crumbles, and he's suddenly draped over the wheel wheezing and sobbing his lungs out.
Aw shit, now he hates Batman, with a passion. That's another thing he can't watch or be around anymore. Dammit, Sam. Why did everything have to remind Dean of his little brother, from Ben's soccer games to Lisa's fruity shampoo?
Speaking of Lisa, she's standing at the door of the garage looking at him that worried expression he's seen so often on her face since he'd knocked on her door. He sniffs, snorts all the snot up his nostrils because he doesn't have a damned tissue (and maybe he should start carrying some around because every little thing seems to set him off), and swallows the big mouthful of mucus. Ugh, gross. He does it again to clear his nasal passages, but it doesn't seem to be much help. Oh well.
He gives his face another wipe-down and gets out of the car. Lisa takes that as a sign to approach him. "Dean, sweetie," she says, and pulls him down for a hug. He's been getting a lot of those lately too. That's alright, because she's soft and warm and it helps.
You know what else helps when he's feeling all messed up inside? He pulls away and looks over his car. "I think I'm gonna fix up my car today, maybe clean it out a little. I need to-" he hiccups, "I need to do that."
Lisa still looks worried, but she seems to take his proposition as a good sign. "That's…That's a great idea, Dean." She smiles encouragingly and pats his arm. "I'll go get some rags for you."
The tarp is all the way off of the car and folded up on the workbench by the time she gets back. Half of Dean's body is hidden under the Impala's black hood as he checks the inner mechanics of the beloved car.
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