Screw Up

A Word: Prompt for Jason's POV of the end of the first chapter of Doubting Gets You Places.

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The thing with anger is that it eventually wears off. The sharp edge of rage slowly blunting as the seconds slip by until Jason can really start to think for himself with out a haze clouding his mind. More often than not it leaves him kicking himself for something he'd done or not done. Something that had slipped by him because he was too wrapped up in emotion. Something that's usually minor, and only occasionally vital.

Rarely, he comes out of it thinking he'd be better off having stayed in his grave. It's just too fucking bad that 'rarely' doesn't mean it never happens.

Jason slams the door of his temporary warehouse closed, and turns on his heel to hammer his fist into the wall. Hard. It dents under the force of the blow and Jason grits his teeth through the red hot swell of pain that shoots up his arm from it. "Fuck!"

Tim's eyes, bright with actual fear are burned into Jason's mind. Right along with the desperate sound of his voice as he choked out his name. His actual name. Something that Jason had been looking forward to hearing the little snitch say, and now-

Jason pulls his fist back and punches it forward again. And again when that doesn't get him the same level of pain that he's looking for. That he wants. He's lost Tim, lost the bright eyed man who smiled so easily and welcomed his touch every time. Jason lost control and it was Tim who paid for it.

The wall groans and shudders, his knuckles are on fire, and the impact shudders up his arm. None of it does anything to erase any of what he's done from his mind.

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It makes sense, when Jason can think about it later as he cleans the split cuts on his knuckles, that Tim would know him.

He's one of the eyes and ears for Oracle. It's his job to know these things, and no matter how much of a secret they all like to think they are it's inevitable that someone would figure them out. It just shows how damn good Tim is at his job.

The fact that their identity —all of them, because it's very easy to connect the dots when you get a hold of one of their names— isn't common news speaks a lot about either Oracle's allegiances or Tim's. Jason isn't really sure which thought he's willing to bet on it being both of them.

Oracle sides with the law too often to be strictly neutral, and Tim has always been hesitant when the matter of the masked crowd comes up. Jason wonders how close that alliance is as he tries not to think about the way Tim crumpled when he let him go. The little sound of pain he'd made as Jason had backed away.

It doesn't work very well.

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Tim has beautifully fair skin that marks far too easily. Jason's reminded of that when he sees the horribly vivid marks spreading across Tim's face. Bright bruises that'd fit perfectly with the shape of his own hand.

The sight of it makes Jason's stomach turn, because he did that. He hurt his Baby Snitch like that.

Jason can't take watching Tim move around stiffly for too long. Holding his entire body in a way that lets Jason know the bruises on his face aren't the only ones there. He can't sit there and watch him without wanting to go another few rounds with a wall. Maybe a concrete one.

Jason just can't make himself stop from keeping an eye on the snitch.

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Jason's screwed up plenty of times in his life. He's almost used to the inevitability of it all now. It sucks and it hurts like a bitch, but he's gotten used to that too.

He turns a knife he special ordered from Talia's sources in his hands. The edge is lethally sharp and catches in the low light coming in through the room's windows. He's tested it, and knows that it will work exactly as he wants it to. He places it on the windowsill and retreats the the window he came in through to wait.

He's used to screwing up, and he's also grown used to apologizing for said screw ups. Not easily, but he does it anyway. Especially now, in cases like this where he's probably going to lose one of the best things in his life.

Jason settles in to grimly wait.

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