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thejusticelounge2014-11-08 08:40 am
bossymarmalade) wrote in thejusticelounge2014-11-08 08:40 am
Entry tags:
pressure point
Tak wanders into Jason’s side of the Arrow Penthouse, finding some of the cats and deciding to play with them with a feather toy. He watches how they stalk and hunt the feathers, fascinated.
Jason is asleep in his room, waking from his dreamless slumber when he hears someone moving around in the next room. With a yawn, he gets up, stretches and wanders out of the bedroom, faint smile sliding onto his face when he spots Tak. “Hey squirt. What’cha up to?”
Tak doesn’t look over right away, frowning as he tries to twitch the feathers in just the right way to interest one of the cats who seems bored by it all. “I wanted to see them,” he explains. “Sometimes it’s nice to play with animals who aren’t as desperate for love as dogs are.”
Jason meanders over, scooping up a gray tabby on his way and tucking her in tight against him. “Gonna have a hard time getting that one to play,” he says, nodding at the disinterested cat, a regal, darkly colored creature. “She’s kind of a brat about stuff like that, doesn’t like to play much unless there’s food involved.”
Tak stops swishing the feathers at the cat, regarding her for a while before putting the toy down. “I can respect that,” he announces, slightly pompously. “I’m like that sometimes too.” He sits down on the arm of a sofa, idly petting one cat who jumps up onto the sofa seat. “Do you like living here? I don’t mean in this city, I mean in this house.” Tak adds hurriedly as if he’d just realized how the question could be taken, “That might have sounded rude, I don’t mean to be rude. I only want to know if you like it here.”
"Good to know." He leans against the back of the couch, idly petting the cat in his arms. "Easy, squirt, I’m used to a lot ruder than that," he replies, offering a small smile. "Yeah, I like it here. It’s a little fancier than I’m used to, actually a lot fancier, but it’s got its good points. How ‘bout you? This place your style?"
Tak spreads his hands on his knees, looking around. “I don’t mind the house,” he muses. “I’ve lived in fancier and I’ve lived in simpler. My mother moved us around a lot.” He twists his mouth from side to side, then stares at Jason, hazel eyes steady, as he says, “I think my father’s more comfortable talking to you than to me. He doesn’t like spending time with me, I can tell. I make him uncomfortable. He doesn’t know what to say.” Tak bites his lip and looks around after saying this, teenage discomfort coming through clearly.
Jason lets out a breath as he pushes himself up to perch on the back of the couch. “Pretty sure it’s not cause of you though, kiddo,” he says slowly, trying to pick his words carefully. “I dunno the details of what went down with Ollie and your mom, but it seems pretty complicated, so my bet’s that it’s more to do with what happened between them, than you. Ollie can talk to me cause… well, I’m just a friend, I’m not his kid. But trust me, I know how much it sucks feeling like your dad doesn’t even wanna talk to you, but that’s on him, not you, kiddo. You didn’t do anything wrong.” At least as far as Jason knows. He’s not totally up to date on all things Tak.
Tak doesn’t move closer to Jason, but his whole attitude shifts to make things more personal and private, a sort of mood-bubble forming that includes only the two of them. “Oh,” he says, “I know why. It’s because my mother drugged and forced him so she could get pregnant to have me. So whenever he looks at me he thinks about that, is what I think it is.” Tak looks thoughtful. “My mother used to tell me that he didn’t want to be with us, but I don’t know if that part’s true or not. There’s a lot of things they thought I didn’t know, but I knew that much. How I came to be.”
Jason blinks, still not totally used to Tak’s bluntness. In a way, it’s weirdly refreshing, still a little jarring having something like that put so frankly though. “Oh. Yeah, that’s probably it,” he says with a faint nod, still working to process the information. Suddenly, he wishes he had been a bit ruder with Shado the one time he had met her. “I think… she was half right. After doing that to him, I couldn’t see how Ollie would want to be with her, but what she did isn’t your fault, and I’m pretty da—darn sure Ollie knows that. Just… knowing something and feeling it are two different things, y’know?”
Tak peers closely at Jason. “Do you know what that’s like?” he asks, and there’s a wistfulness to his voice, almost eager for them to find this common ground even though it’s nothing either of them would want. “For your parent to know that it’s not your fault and they should love you, but they can’t make themselves feel it?”
Jason hesitates for a moment before nodding. “Think I kinda do. It’s… a different situation, but yeah, been there a couple times.” He had used to try to trick himself into believing that Willis had left because he was trying to find work, but he knows it’s not the case, he didn’t love him or Catherine enough to stay. Bruce though… is way more complicated.
"But you seem like you still know who you are." Tak frowns, trying to phrase what he wants to say properly. "Like, you didn’t need all that parent approval to figure out who you are and what you believe in. You decided it for yourself, right?" It’s obvious what the boy wants to hear, and he watches Jason intently for the answer.
"I did, yeah," he says with a nod. "See, when I was a kid, I kinda had to do most of the parenting myself. Had to figure things out for myself, and then re-figure it a couple times." It seems best to be honest even if it’s maybe not what Tak wants to hear.
Tak doesn’t actually seem to know if this answer fulfills what he’d wanted to hear, but he mulls it over for a while, picking up a cat to cuddle on his knees. “I’m sorry you had to do that,” he says, with the awkward courtesy that seems to be how he handles traumatic subjects. His tone is sincere, though, and Tak pushes his floppy hair from his eyes and says hopefully, “…so you think my father doesn’t like me because I remind him of bad things? Not because of my personality. Because he likes /you/ and I don’t think I’m SO much different from you.” He says this like it’s obvious, and like it’s a compliment.
"It’s fine, happened a long time ago," Jason says quickly, though there’s a faint smile back on his face. It fades away just as quickly as his brow furrows. "Basically, yeah… and I don’t think it’s that he doesn’t like you, squirt, he just… doesn’t know how to deal with the stuff that happened with your mom." He can’t stop one eyebrow from rising as Tak compares the two of them. It’s probably a fair call actually. "Guess you and me are kinda similar. But trust me, him liking me didn’t exactly happen over night."
If anything, that piece of information makes the stars shine even starrier in Tak’s eyes as he regards Jason. “So there’s hope for me,” he interprets. “If my father didn’t take to you right away.” He pets the cat to celebrate this idea. “Maybe what I should do is make a more obvious statement about who I am and what I believe in. You don’t seem wishy-washy and neither does my father.”
"Course there is," he says, reaching out to ruffle Tak’s hair without thinking. Once he feels close with someone, the affection just kind of happens. "Maybe yeah. But I think the best thing you can do is just give it time. I mean, I know that’s kinda frustrating, but it worked for me. I’m not wishy washy, but it kinda took a while for that to seem like a good thing."
Tak is even more pleased that Jason rumples his hair, and maybe it’s the unexpected but welcome contact that emboldens him enough to ask Jason, “You were there when my mother died, right? When my father shot her in the heart. Like she did to him and to Batman.”
Jason hesitates, gnawing at the inside of his lip as he nods. “Yeah, I was. Ollie brought me along to help with the prison transfer, tried to pull some strings to make it go smoothly… kinda didn’t work out how I hoped it would…”
Tak nods. “Things often didn’t go the right way for my parents,” he says gravely. “You shouldn’t blame yourself.”
Jason lets out a breath as he drags a hand through his own hair. “If you say so, squirt. Still feel shitty that things went so far south.”
Tak doesn’t contradict Jason. He’s quiet for a little while and then he blurts, “Did she say anything about me before she died? My mother, I mean.” As if he could be referring to anybody else.
Jason nods slowly. “Yeah, she was talking about you a lot actually, she wanted to know how you were doing mostly. Said she thought you and me would be good friends.”
A beatific smile crosses Tak’s face. “She was right about that,” he says, proudly. “I don’t think she was good at telling character but she was right about you and me getting along. Because we’re so alike. Maybe she could see that you did fine without a lot of needing approval from your parents.” He looks a little stricken, though, when he recalls, “But she never knew I put on a mask and became Ninko!”
Jason returns the smile with one of his own as he nods again. “Yeah, maybe.” He’s not totally sure if that’s the case, but he can’t deny that he has a fair amount in common with Tak. His hand moves to settle on Tak’s shoulder, giving a gentle squeeze. “She didn’t, but if she did, I’m sure she’d be proud of you,” he says firmly, despite feeling more than a little strange saying anything good about the woman, now fully knowing what she’d done to Ollie.
This seems to fulfill whatever it was that Tak had wanted to know, and he grins at Jason (it’s not as broad and easy as Ollie’s grins, but there’s something similar at the corners) and leans in for a one-armed, back-patting hug. “There’s a lot to be proud of,” he boasts. “I haven’t gone out to patrol in Star City much. We should go together one night and I can show you all of my awesome Ninko moves!” Tak does a few martial arts moves to demonstrate, scowling fiercely.
Jason leans in, wrapping an arm around Tak to return the hug, giving a little squeeze to the boy’s shoulders before letting go. “Sure, been a while since I went out with a partner, should be fun,” he says, watching the moves with a fond grin. “I’d offer to show you some of my moves, but you probably know it all already, huh?” There’s a little bit of a tease in his voice as he crosses his arms over his chest.
The teasing goes right over Tak’s head, since he’s certain that he’s impressed Jason completely with his sweet moves. “Yeah, I know pretty much everything already,” he agrees. “But maybe we can come up with some together.”
Jason is slowly realizing that his tendency towards the sarcastic might not totally mesh with Tak’s usual bluntness. Oh well, there was no point in bursting the kid’s bubble. “Sure. Probably got some Batmoves or something that’d work with your stuff.”
Tak declares, “Excellent!” and then pats a cat one more time. “Thank you for talking with me man-to-man,” he says. “Those were things I needed to know.”
Jason ”No problem, kiddo.” His smile grows a bit, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Always glad to help.”
Tak bounds out of the penthouse, doing random Ninko moves along the way, very happy with how that conversation went.
Jason is asleep in his room, waking from his dreamless slumber when he hears someone moving around in the next room. With a yawn, he gets up, stretches and wanders out of the bedroom, faint smile sliding onto his face when he spots Tak. “Hey squirt. What’cha up to?”
Tak doesn’t look over right away, frowning as he tries to twitch the feathers in just the right way to interest one of the cats who seems bored by it all. “I wanted to see them,” he explains. “Sometimes it’s nice to play with animals who aren’t as desperate for love as dogs are.”
Jason meanders over, scooping up a gray tabby on his way and tucking her in tight against him. “Gonna have a hard time getting that one to play,” he says, nodding at the disinterested cat, a regal, darkly colored creature. “She’s kind of a brat about stuff like that, doesn’t like to play much unless there’s food involved.”
Tak stops swishing the feathers at the cat, regarding her for a while before putting the toy down. “I can respect that,” he announces, slightly pompously. “I’m like that sometimes too.” He sits down on the arm of a sofa, idly petting one cat who jumps up onto the sofa seat. “Do you like living here? I don’t mean in this city, I mean in this house.” Tak adds hurriedly as if he’d just realized how the question could be taken, “That might have sounded rude, I don’t mean to be rude. I only want to know if you like it here.”
"Good to know." He leans against the back of the couch, idly petting the cat in his arms. "Easy, squirt, I’m used to a lot ruder than that," he replies, offering a small smile. "Yeah, I like it here. It’s a little fancier than I’m used to, actually a lot fancier, but it’s got its good points. How ‘bout you? This place your style?"
Tak spreads his hands on his knees, looking around. “I don’t mind the house,” he muses. “I’ve lived in fancier and I’ve lived in simpler. My mother moved us around a lot.” He twists his mouth from side to side, then stares at Jason, hazel eyes steady, as he says, “I think my father’s more comfortable talking to you than to me. He doesn’t like spending time with me, I can tell. I make him uncomfortable. He doesn’t know what to say.” Tak bites his lip and looks around after saying this, teenage discomfort coming through clearly.
Jason lets out a breath as he pushes himself up to perch on the back of the couch. “Pretty sure it’s not cause of you though, kiddo,” he says slowly, trying to pick his words carefully. “I dunno the details of what went down with Ollie and your mom, but it seems pretty complicated, so my bet’s that it’s more to do with what happened between them, than you. Ollie can talk to me cause… well, I’m just a friend, I’m not his kid. But trust me, I know how much it sucks feeling like your dad doesn’t even wanna talk to you, but that’s on him, not you, kiddo. You didn’t do anything wrong.” At least as far as Jason knows. He’s not totally up to date on all things Tak.
Tak doesn’t move closer to Jason, but his whole attitude shifts to make things more personal and private, a sort of mood-bubble forming that includes only the two of them. “Oh,” he says, “I know why. It’s because my mother drugged and forced him so she could get pregnant to have me. So whenever he looks at me he thinks about that, is what I think it is.” Tak looks thoughtful. “My mother used to tell me that he didn’t want to be with us, but I don’t know if that part’s true or not. There’s a lot of things they thought I didn’t know, but I knew that much. How I came to be.”
Jason blinks, still not totally used to Tak’s bluntness. In a way, it’s weirdly refreshing, still a little jarring having something like that put so frankly though. “Oh. Yeah, that’s probably it,” he says with a faint nod, still working to process the information. Suddenly, he wishes he had been a bit ruder with Shado the one time he had met her. “I think… she was half right. After doing that to him, I couldn’t see how Ollie would want to be with her, but what she did isn’t your fault, and I’m pretty da—darn sure Ollie knows that. Just… knowing something and feeling it are two different things, y’know?”
Tak peers closely at Jason. “Do you know what that’s like?” he asks, and there’s a wistfulness to his voice, almost eager for them to find this common ground even though it’s nothing either of them would want. “For your parent to know that it’s not your fault and they should love you, but they can’t make themselves feel it?”
Jason hesitates for a moment before nodding. “Think I kinda do. It’s… a different situation, but yeah, been there a couple times.” He had used to try to trick himself into believing that Willis had left because he was trying to find work, but he knows it’s not the case, he didn’t love him or Catherine enough to stay. Bruce though… is way more complicated.
"But you seem like you still know who you are." Tak frowns, trying to phrase what he wants to say properly. "Like, you didn’t need all that parent approval to figure out who you are and what you believe in. You decided it for yourself, right?" It’s obvious what the boy wants to hear, and he watches Jason intently for the answer.
"I did, yeah," he says with a nod. "See, when I was a kid, I kinda had to do most of the parenting myself. Had to figure things out for myself, and then re-figure it a couple times." It seems best to be honest even if it’s maybe not what Tak wants to hear.
Tak doesn’t actually seem to know if this answer fulfills what he’d wanted to hear, but he mulls it over for a while, picking up a cat to cuddle on his knees. “I’m sorry you had to do that,” he says, with the awkward courtesy that seems to be how he handles traumatic subjects. His tone is sincere, though, and Tak pushes his floppy hair from his eyes and says hopefully, “…so you think my father doesn’t like me because I remind him of bad things? Not because of my personality. Because he likes /you/ and I don’t think I’m SO much different from you.” He says this like it’s obvious, and like it’s a compliment.
"It’s fine, happened a long time ago," Jason says quickly, though there’s a faint smile back on his face. It fades away just as quickly as his brow furrows. "Basically, yeah… and I don’t think it’s that he doesn’t like you, squirt, he just… doesn’t know how to deal with the stuff that happened with your mom." He can’t stop one eyebrow from rising as Tak compares the two of them. It’s probably a fair call actually. "Guess you and me are kinda similar. But trust me, him liking me didn’t exactly happen over night."
If anything, that piece of information makes the stars shine even starrier in Tak’s eyes as he regards Jason. “So there’s hope for me,” he interprets. “If my father didn’t take to you right away.” He pets the cat to celebrate this idea. “Maybe what I should do is make a more obvious statement about who I am and what I believe in. You don’t seem wishy-washy and neither does my father.”
"Course there is," he says, reaching out to ruffle Tak’s hair without thinking. Once he feels close with someone, the affection just kind of happens. "Maybe yeah. But I think the best thing you can do is just give it time. I mean, I know that’s kinda frustrating, but it worked for me. I’m not wishy washy, but it kinda took a while for that to seem like a good thing."
Tak is even more pleased that Jason rumples his hair, and maybe it’s the unexpected but welcome contact that emboldens him enough to ask Jason, “You were there when my mother died, right? When my father shot her in the heart. Like she did to him and to Batman.”
Jason hesitates, gnawing at the inside of his lip as he nods. “Yeah, I was. Ollie brought me along to help with the prison transfer, tried to pull some strings to make it go smoothly… kinda didn’t work out how I hoped it would…”
Tak nods. “Things often didn’t go the right way for my parents,” he says gravely. “You shouldn’t blame yourself.”
Jason lets out a breath as he drags a hand through his own hair. “If you say so, squirt. Still feel shitty that things went so far south.”
Tak doesn’t contradict Jason. He’s quiet for a little while and then he blurts, “Did she say anything about me before she died? My mother, I mean.” As if he could be referring to anybody else.
Jason nods slowly. “Yeah, she was talking about you a lot actually, she wanted to know how you were doing mostly. Said she thought you and me would be good friends.”
A beatific smile crosses Tak’s face. “She was right about that,” he says, proudly. “I don’t think she was good at telling character but she was right about you and me getting along. Because we’re so alike. Maybe she could see that you did fine without a lot of needing approval from your parents.” He looks a little stricken, though, when he recalls, “But she never knew I put on a mask and became Ninko!”
Jason returns the smile with one of his own as he nods again. “Yeah, maybe.” He’s not totally sure if that’s the case, but he can’t deny that he has a fair amount in common with Tak. His hand moves to settle on Tak’s shoulder, giving a gentle squeeze. “She didn’t, but if she did, I’m sure she’d be proud of you,” he says firmly, despite feeling more than a little strange saying anything good about the woman, now fully knowing what she’d done to Ollie.
This seems to fulfill whatever it was that Tak had wanted to know, and he grins at Jason (it’s not as broad and easy as Ollie’s grins, but there’s something similar at the corners) and leans in for a one-armed, back-patting hug. “There’s a lot to be proud of,” he boasts. “I haven’t gone out to patrol in Star City much. We should go together one night and I can show you all of my awesome Ninko moves!” Tak does a few martial arts moves to demonstrate, scowling fiercely.
Jason leans in, wrapping an arm around Tak to return the hug, giving a little squeeze to the boy’s shoulders before letting go. “Sure, been a while since I went out with a partner, should be fun,” he says, watching the moves with a fond grin. “I’d offer to show you some of my moves, but you probably know it all already, huh?” There’s a little bit of a tease in his voice as he crosses his arms over his chest.
The teasing goes right over Tak’s head, since he’s certain that he’s impressed Jason completely with his sweet moves. “Yeah, I know pretty much everything already,” he agrees. “But maybe we can come up with some together.”
Jason is slowly realizing that his tendency towards the sarcastic might not totally mesh with Tak’s usual bluntness. Oh well, there was no point in bursting the kid’s bubble. “Sure. Probably got some Batmoves or something that’d work with your stuff.”
Tak declares, “Excellent!” and then pats a cat one more time. “Thank you for talking with me man-to-man,” he says. “Those were things I needed to know.”
Jason ”No problem, kiddo.” His smile grows a bit, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Always glad to help.”
Tak bounds out of the penthouse, doing random Ninko moves along the way, very happy with how that conversation went.