ILLUSION || Jason Todd

SEVENTY-ONE

❝YOU NEEDED ME BUT YOU NEEDED DRUGS MORE

AND I COULDN'T WATCH IT HAPPEN❞

TAYLOR SWIFT, CHLOE OR SAM OR SOPHIA OR MARCUS

For the past few hours or however long it was, Lorelei wasn't sure and was not about to bring her phone into the open for all to see, the young Archmage had remained quiet. The screens continued to show the horrors that continued to create within the city but she paid no attention after the first thirty minutes as the anti-fear gas took control.

Where her eyes remained forward, her face blank and awaiting a next move, her presence had mostly fallen into her thoughts. The ice blonde mage hated the thoughts that slowly crept towards the surface, but they were right. And it hurt that her pessimism was a burning truth with the harsh exterior she clung to keep despite the inner war her heart was clutching to keep stable.

She had, and was continuing, to sacrifice so much for Jason. It was an inevitable truth she hadn't cared to think about - but why deny herself that truth? The thought was painful that followed, the blame casting onto his shoulders that he couldn't let her deal with her issues on her own, that his meddling was what got him killed. It hurt because it was, at its core, honest.

Jason made his own choice in approaching Scarecrow. That is what lodged the knife through her heart, the organ taking on far too much pain and it was becoming too much to bear. Or, at the very minimum, run from and find new excuses to take its place and a forcibility to ensure it wasn't all Jason's fault.

And it wasn't... until you dug deeper into the pessimism and hurt. His attempts of playing saviour gave Scarecrow a free card to freedom from Arkham. It gave Hank a speed run to his death.

Jason wasn't to blame for those things, not in the grand scheme of things. Scarecrow saw the broken bones of a damaged boy, a desperation with the bird's call for its family, and took that opportunity to gain his own freedom. Jonathan made those decisions on his own - and it would've happened eventually, it was just a ticking time bomb until the peace was disrupted.

A similar bomb to the one Red Hood - Jason - forced into Hank's beating heart. But was that really Jason? His mind isn't thinking properly, the drugs Scarecrow uses are strong. Not having fear was a dangerous thing, the manipulations and addiction certainly wouldn't - it doesn't - help.

Jason wasn't to blame, but he was to fault. Lorelei could, at the very least, admit that to herself. He knew the pain Jonathan Crane put Lorelei through, the trauma she had endured with his manipulations. And yet, still, he went to him. To seek his help for an issue that didn't need Jason or Scarecrow's involvement.

She had things under control, why couldn't he let her deal with her father?

And then came her own self blame. Lorelei could've, should've, seen the signs. That Jason was in more pain than he let on; that the drinking at Alfred's funeral was a cry for help, that he wasn't just as strong as he let everyone believe.

But was that her responsibility? To treat Jason like a child? No, Lorelei didn't think it was. She, too, was under a large sum of stress and a situation drowning her with the hope of freedom back to her Robin. Lorelei was cracking, but she wasn't the one sitting with a gun holster strapped to her thigh.

Her father. The reminder of his existence brought a slight furrow to her brow as she remembered his part in the past. He was the person that drove Jason to Scarecrow, to the need for elimination of his fear. Choking him, just a few days short of Deathstroke almost murdering Jason, wouldn't have helped; it didn't. It drove Jason to Jonathan Crane's lap.