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Jason never touches Sasha. She digs through his weapons caches, wreaking tweenage havoc on his organization system, begging him to teach her how to use this one, this one, that one.
He doesn't. He tells himself it's the principle of the thing – if he doesn't train her, she'll go away and find a different hobby, one that's less likely to put her in an early grave and turn the rest of his hair salty in the process.
It isn't.
Sasha picks a code name. Sasha tries on his spare dominoes and grumps for hours when they don't fit well enough to cover her scars. Sasha eats his ration bars and stays at his safehouses and talks his ear off about how she bets he could beat both the Unnatural brothers in a fight. (He agrees, but he doesn't say. If he says, he's encouraging her. If he says, she might think he wants her to stay. He doesn't. Does he?)
He can't want her to stay. Wanting her to stay is still a form of wanting her, and it doesn't matter that it's not the same thing when his brain is insidiously whispering to him that it's a first step in that wrong direction.
You want her. You want to touch her. She'd let you.
Jason shoves Sasha out of the way when she accidentally sends the gun rack hurtling towards the ground, because it's that or let her get hurt and that's no choice at all. His skin boils unpleasantly everywhere their bodies meet.
You're enjoying this. You engineered this. She'd like it.
Jason locks himself in the bathroom and scrubs his skin raw trying to get the memory off, but the boiling remains.
Sasha is waiting for him outside the door when he finally stumbles out, skin still red with guilt.
“I, um, cleaned up the guns,” she points weakly at the rack. He wants to scream at her to get out, which is also a form of wanting her.
Jason nods instead. None of this is Sasha's fault. She's not the reason he's like this.
The reason is…he doesn't let his brain finish the sentence. The loop restarts. You want her.
Jason is going to have to train her. She's not going to give him any other choice, is the thing. Not if she keeps following him into firefights and messing around with weapons and showing him plans to go after Pygg as revenge or justice or some shit, Jason's not much for the difference on a good day. Jason hasn't had a good day since she showed up.
You want her. Youwantheryouwantheryouwanther.
Does he want her? On his good days, Jason is sure he doesn't want anyone. Jason hasn't had a good day since she showed up.
Fine. Even on his bad days, Jason amends, he's almost sure he doesn't want anyone. That almost is a problem. Batman taught him that. Any failure in the world could fit in that almost, and wanting Sasha – touching Sasha – would be the worst kind of failure.
Bruce did always call Jay ‘my greatest failure.’ Jason wonders if even Bruce knew how far he could be capable of failing.
You want her.
Jason doesn't. But Sasha won't leave, so the loop keeps going.
Touch her. Want her. Train her. You know you've wanted to all along. Why else would you have let her stay?
Sasha looks up to show him her latest costume design. Jason gives it a cursory glance and then looks away. He can't look at her. If he doesn't look at her, he won't hurt her. Won't want her.
You will.
Jason shudders. Sometimes the thoughts are in his voice, which is bad because it makes them feel like part of him. Sometimes they're in the Bat assessment voice, which is also bad because that makes them feel like objective facts.
He empties out clip after clip in the makeshift gun range, trying to silence both voices. When he looks over his shoulder, she's watching silently, mimicking his firing stance.
She'd let you.
Jason reaches for the next clip.
No.