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"This script is so fucking dumb," Jason said, not for the first time.
Clayface apparently didn't deign that worthy of a response.
"Life's just a game. Oh just look at the number of people who wanted to participate! Game over, and I'm an annoying pretentious asshole! The Purloined Letter? Do better."
Jason tossed the packet of paper aside, and it landed in the grass with a sad flop. He was standing over his grave—something he was doing a great job not thinking about—with Clayface, running through a… dress rehearsal. For Hush's dumb fucking game.
Jason could tell it wasn't going to work from a mile away, but it was useful to participate, for his own purposes. An appetizer of sorts for the main course.
Clayface stooped to pick up the script, flipping through it. He was in Jason's assigned outfit—trench coat, Robin R, and all—but his face was some undefinable mass of goop. "You still haven't figured out when we're swapping out."
"I've already told you I'm improvising for that cutscene," Jason snapped. He just said cutscene without a hint of irony. What the hell. "I'll come to you, I'll give you the fucking hand signal, it's not complicated."
"Hush said to follow the script," Clayface said mildly.
"The script wants me to complain about the first Robin. I don't give a shit about the first Robin."
Clayface's face was transmogrifying into Jason's, and he averted his eyes from the vaguely disturbing display. Clayface said, "Weren't you the one who worked the script with him?"
Jason snarled. "I mentioned the fucker one goddamn time, and Hush latched on like—"
"What the fuck are your eyes doing?"
Clayface swearing was enough to draw Jason up short. He waved a hand in front of his own face, and caught the green gleam on the leather. "The glowing? They do that when I get pissed. You already know about this."
"I know they change color," Clayface corrected. His eyes rotated between blue and green, barely visible in the gloom of the night, lit only by distant lamps. Right, most of their conversations had been in well-lit rooms before this, instead of a cemetery in the middle of the night.
"The glowing is part of the color changing!"
"Do you need me to do that too?" Clayface had adapted Jason's pitch and cadence perfectly, which was great for the plan but made his hindbrain irritatingly, irrationally upset. So was the face, actually. The face that had settled back on perfectly blue eyes.
"Yes? Obviously? If my eyes stop glowing mid-fight Batman's gonna notice."
"I can't do the glowing."
Jason blinked. "You can't do the glowing."
"That is what I said."
"The fuck do you mean you can't do the glowing. Mimicking people is your entire fucking gimmick."
"I can shapeshift," Clayface said, in the blank and polite way of someone who was one wrong word away from escalating to physical violence. That made two of them. "I can't produce light from nowhere."
"Then what's the goddamn point—" Jason cut himself off with a sigh, pinching his nose. "Okay. Okay, fine, whatever. We need to find a way to fix this, then."
"Seems simple," Clayface said still mild. "Just keep your eyes blue. Use contacts."
"Contacts won't properly hide the glow. I tried."
"Well, then, don't get angry."
"Jesus fucking—don't get angry? Do you hear yourself? Look at the scenario. Me, second Robin, back from the dead. Batman, my da—mentor, sitting on his high horse doing jack shit in response. Do you think I'm going to confront him without getting pissed? The high emotional stakes are the entire fucking point."
Clayface looked down at the script. "Says you're upset he let you die. Nothing about an inadequate response to Robin's death."
Right, the why the fuck is the Joker still alive thing was something Jason was saving for later. "You're missing the point," he dismissed, airily. "Which is becoming a concerning pattern. Look, it's a Lazarus Pit side effect. Batman's going to zero in on that immediately. It's an important, significant element to keep."
"It just sounds like you won't be able to handle this confrontation without losing your cool."
"I will trap you in a hollow, steel ball, weld it shut, and dump you in the harbor."
Clayface put up his hands, placatingly. "All right, buddy, I didn't say anything."
Jason scrubbed a hand over his face. He needed to focus. He needed to think. "Okay. Ugh. Can you do transparencies."
"Yes," Clayface said. He then proceeded to raise his arm and transform it into a writhing translucent tentacle of all things—
"Okay you can, great—fucking put that thing away—"
The bastard was smiling. Using Jason's face.
Jason took a deep breath. Found peace and serenity and similar bullshit within himself, and said, "Okay. We'll just get a pair of green LEDs. It's fine."
"Green LEDs."
"Light-emitting diodes," Jason said. "They're the standard choice for lighting these days, since—"
"I know what LEDs are," Clayface said. "What do they have to do with anything?"
"They emit green light," Jason said, slowly. "Like, you know, my eyes do."
"…You want me to store them. Behind my eyes."
"Well not just them, you'd need the rest of the circuit too. Battery, wires, resistor… that's about it, actually."
"Behind my eyes," Clayface repeated, like he thought Jason was stupid.
"I don't know the specifics of your physiology. If you're worried about damaging the components we could—I don't know. Cover them with clear plastic. Shouldn't be that hard of a fix."
"I'm not putting that shit in my head."
"It's a basic circuit," Jason said. "You learn what this stuff does in middle school! I learned this in middle school and I was an elementary school dropout! It's not going to secretly mind control you."
Clayface raised a single eyebrow. Jason would punch him in the face, if it wasn't Jason's own face. He had too much self-respect to do that. "So you would be okay with putting a circuit in your head."
"I am made of flesh and blood. You are made of clay. You can't make this comparison."
"I'm not putting LEDs in myself."
Jason rolled his eyes. "Do you have a better suggestion?"
"I had two—"
"Both of which were shit—"
"The options are cover up the glow or learn how to calm the fuck down! They make sense. Your single idiotic idea—"
"Mine was entirely reasonable. A shit suggestion would have been, I don't know, telling you to genetically splice in photophores—"
"Huh," Clayface said, expression shifting enough to stall Jason mid-rant. "Photophores. Not a bad idea. Do you think you could—"
Jason threw his hands up. "Fucking—fine, shut up, I'll wear a goddamn domino mask. The white lenses will block the glow. Are you happy?"
"So you agree, covering up the glow was the right idea all along?"
He chose to be the bigger person and mentally added Clayface to the hit list instead of replying with a childish jab. Right after Jason handled Batman and the Joker, he was going to take this fucker down.