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Jason remembers the stories some of the kids at school used to tell about soul marks, the legend that they were. How rare it was that there was someone so perfect for you that the body would show it. He would absentmindedly cover the crook of his elbow where his own soulmark sat on his skin under his uniform, and nod politely while the stories went on, and on, and on.
Bruce had found out quickly after his adoption, his brows furrowing but his eyes going soft, and the next week a new Robin uniform with long sleeves had been left on Jason’s bed.
Be careful , it said, as Jason picked up the fabrics in his hands and scoured his eyes over it.
He wasn’t stupid. Knew that the mark could give any goon a one-up on him both as Robin and a civilian. The most surprising thing about it, perhaps, was the way the mark brightened like an old scar following the Lazarus Pit, the skin burning once Jason had clawed himself out as if saying I’m still here! What are you doing to me?
Talia had tightened her lips when she noticed it herself, and wouldn’t allow Jason out in anything that didn’t cover it. Jason found that funny - as if any soulmate of his would want him now, with his trauma and his body count and the anger that constantly simmered under his skin. In fact, he didn’t even care about it for those first few months; what had love ever done for him?
Catherine. Willis. Sheila.
Bruce.
Jason had scratched at it and glared at it in the mirror and sat up late in the darkness, his fingers swirling over the pattern. Fingers just barely touching it. Jason wondered if this was how his soulmate might touch him, might drag his fingertips down the other scars on his body, might pull at the white streak in his hair.
Jason generally stopped those thoughts quickly. Rough hands rubbing at his eyes and an exasperated grunt. It was stupid to think like that. Distracting. Of no use.
And then Roy Harper had strutted out of the ensuite of the motel room they had camped up in for a night, his shirt off and jeans low, his soul mark bared on his chest for the whole world to see. Jason remembers his mouth going dry; staring at it, eyes wide, heart thumping.
“Cool right? I based my other tattoos off it.” Roy had said, his voice the epitome of nonchalance, pulling his hoodie off the pillow where he’d dumped it earlier. Jason doesn’t remember saying anything, just making a noncommittal sound and shrugging, all while his heart raced.
Others would see it and immediately think it was a tattoo. It was the usual soul mark colour, an inky black, but Roy was right - his other tattoos complimented it perfectly. Jason had taken himself to bed that night some short time later, his arms wrapped around him and turned away from Roy who was on the other side of the bed (“It’s cheaper for one room, Jaybird , and it’s only one night. Don’t give me that look”) and waited four painstakingly long hours as Roy shuffled and huffed and mumbled until, in the silence of the room, Jason pulled up his sleeve ever so slowly and rubbed his thumb over that ever so tender spot.
This was likely going to be a problem. Like every other problem Jason knew he would have to face, he chose to ignore it because he knew it would go away sooner or later. Jason decides it better to keep it to himself. He is fully aware that absolutely nothing ever works out for him ever, and he’s trying to remind himself of this even more now.
Except Roy… Sticks around. Kori leaves and Jason slowly makes his way back to Gotham, but Roy sticks around for a reason that Jason can never put his finger on, showing up in his safe houses and even on his comms in one instance. And Jason would just let it happen. The whirlwind Roy Harper dragging him to diners at four in the morning and showing him vine compilations when they couldn’t sleep, and Jason would come to notice that every time the two of them would sit or lie quietly, their heads close and breathing quiet, that Roy would lay his hand on his chest right on top of the mark while Jason fought to stop reaching out to his other hand to touch Jason’s.
What started as a hope that this ‘ I’ve just found out you’re my soulmate and also realised I have more than just a friend crush on you ’ crush had turned into… Something. Something definitely bigger, because Jason noticed that when Roy wouldn’t call for more than a few days he’d get anxious and jealous and sad all at once.
The whole thing was becoming a separate problem entirely - Batgirl and Spoiler had no business sticking their noses into why he had decided to blow up a degenerate warehouse on the outskirts of the city for “no apparent reason”. Because Jason had had a reason. Telling his sort-of adopted sister and her soulmate-slash-girlfriend that it was because he was pining was not what Jason deemed a good idea. Not that he was pining, either. Jason had done his research, had read numerous versions of the same topic scholarly articles about how increased time with your soulmate would lead to heightened feelings for them. Jason had wondered what happened if soulmates met but didn’t get along, or if there was someone else in the picture.
Jason had then thought back to the time Roy and Kori had danced their dance, however briefly, how every second conversation was a stab at the other, and how Jason had secretly thrived for that, wondering which comment would be the one that made them call things off forever.
He was getting ridiculous. This whole thing was ridiculous. Roy would take one look at Jason if Jason ever decided to come clean and likely laugh in his face before scratching at the back of his neck - which Jason hated him doing, because his shirts were too short for some reason and would always ride up, and he also had a particularly hard time not imagining himself licking the taught muscle on Roy’s underarm - and tell him “Sorry Jaybird, but I can really only see you as a friend”.
Jason had been a kingpin of the Gotham underworld and decapitated some twenty henchmen, but the idea of being rejected by the only person in his life he thought he could truly love made his stomach flip in ways quite the opposite that all his favourite books had talked about.
Not that any of that matters now, Roy in the equation or not.
“I just think you’re acting extremely irresponsible, Red Hood. People could have gotten hurt.” Batman says, unable to keep the angry tone out of his voice as Jason folds his arms and rolls is eyes. This is the last time he ever helps out a Bat, despite the comments of his new costume, but Bruce is too busy tearing Jason a new one to give a fuck, his next sentence cut off as another bomb detonates in the distance.
Jason knows that under his cowl the vein just above his left brow is twitching, and Bruce takes a minute to breathe in very, very slowly. Of course Roy takes this moment to jump down onto the rooftop with them, his face unmasked and a goofy grin on that quickly falls when he takes in the situation. Jason tries not to startle - he didn’t even know Roy was in the country, let alone in Gotham - and Bruce turns to face him.
“Bad time?” Roy asks, coughing a little to probably dislodge the lump of fear that’s risen in his throat upon the greeting glare he receives from Bruce, and Jason clicks his fingers against his biceps.
“Actually, right on cue.” Jason says, kicking himself off the stairwell he had been leaning on, and he can tell Bruce is itching to start up a new argument about this, but Bruce would also rather die than have Oliver Queen hear on the grapevine that he’d lost his shit on a rooftop barely in Gotham because the Red Hood got one over him again.
He does get in one last word though. It’s unspoken but there, in the way Bruce grips Jason’s forearm tightly and slowly makes a point of staring at Roy and then down at Jason’s arm. How Bruce knows that they have matching soul marks is beyond him, but Jason does realise that Dick and Roy were good friends, back in the day, and Roy hadn’t entered Bruce’s life with only Jason.
That flares up some unwarranted jealousy, as everything with Roy these days does, so he rips his arm from Bruce’s hand roughly and then pushes into Roy in what he hopes is taken as an endearing shove, his heart jumping at the contact.
He doesn’t know what would happen if it was skin on skin. If the feeling of Roy’s back through numerous layers of kevlar and clothing makes his cheeks go hot, he’d surely combust if it was anything more. They make their way down the rooftops of Gotham, this neighbourhood all connected in the old bungalow style, and Jason follows in silence, waiting until he’s sure Bruce is out of any kind of earshot.
That is, of course, when the bullet shreds through Jason’s arm. In all honesty, the leather jacket takes the brunt of it, the wound is really only minor, but Jason lets out a gasp and then Roy is pushing him out of the way with his leg while he pulls out a bow and his arrow with his arms, his face pinched as he spies the rooftops. Jason’s already on recovery mode - right arm clamped against the wound, blood gushing through his fingers but thankfully at a rate that’s controllable, his ears ringing under his hood.
Roy must see something because he pulls his bow taut, the thwap of it far louder that Jason ever remembers it being as he lets it go, the arrow whistling into the distance.
A building Jason really hopes - for his own sake mostly - is empty blows up, and then Roy is on him, arms everywhere as they pull Jason’s head forward, his fingers scrambling at the hood until it’s being pulled up and off. Roy’s hands are warm against Jason’s cheeks, slightly calloused, his eyes coming into focus.
Jason is in shock, he realises, but he can’t do anything except mouth wordlessly at Roy for a few minutes until Roy is pulling at his chest suit to give him some room to breathe. They sit on the roof for some time, Jason somewhat aware that Roy is asking him what he wants him to do, and then suddenly everything snaps back into place and Jason feels like a weight has been pulled off of him.
“Home… Just take me home, Harper.” He says, his voice far stronger than what he was expecting, and Roy lets out a sigh of relief at the sound of it.
“Christ, Jaybird. Don’t scare me like that.” He says, and Jason wants to protest, to tell him that it’s not his fault, but he’s all too aware of Roy pulling him to standing and wrapping an arm around his waist to steady him. Jason zeroes in on the contact, his nerve endings on fire, and then a soft whine escapes him and Roy brings his own hand to link with Jason’s over the wound. Jason isn’t sure how they make it home. They stumble over each other; careless. If Bruce were to know that they had been walking around right for the picking in their costumes he’d surely have his second aneurysm of the night, but they do get to Jason’s front door with little hassle.
Jason had forgotten, for some time, how much Roy fusses in times like these. He pulls Jason over to the couch, double-checking he’s sat properly before letting him go, making his way to the bathroom and presumably rummaging around for Jason’s first aid kit.
The shock from the injury is ebbing away, replaced by the pain. Jason’s heart rate is almost back to normal but even then he can’t have blamed the spike all on the injury in the first place. He doesn’t make any effort to get out of his shirt, just the slight movement of his fingers causing the tacky dried blood to pull away from the wound and cause more blood to spill again. In the back of his mind he’s aware that pulling away dry cotton from where it has stuck to his wound will be more painful in the long run, but tonight has gone so utterly tits up to what he was expecting Jason isn’t entirely sure it’s real at all.
He’s never been so careless in his life, letting Roy catch him struggling with his jacket, who comes over and sets the gauze and stitching on the couch beside him, gentle hands helping Jason pull the sleeves off. His hands hesitate at Jason’s shirt hem before gripping it, slowly pulling it up his chest. One arm, then over the head, then to the injured one. Roy’s knuckles brush against a scar on Jason’s collar bone, fluttering.
“Batarang injury.” Jason says, his voice soft. Roy makes a noise in the back of his throat, his thumb coming up flat against the edge of the scar, and then it’s gone as quickly as it went, both hands back on the shirt to pull it off the final few inches.
Jason is too busy thinking about what Roy must think of all of his scars that he doesn’t even register why Roy could be gasping like that, his hands pulling away the shirt like Jason’s skin burnt him. He can’t even remember having any scars on that arm, except-
Oh.
“ Oh. ” Jason says, out loud, and Roy is just looking at him like he grew two heads or something because he hasn’t moved since actually realising what it is he’s looking at.
The jolting has caused the bleeding to start up again, some of it trickling down Jason’s tricep, and he pulls the shirt out of Roy’s grasp slowly so he can use that to stop the blood dripping onto his couch pillows.
Jason can’t decide if Roy not saying anything at all is better than all of the imagined rejections he’s thought up over the years. Roy is avoiding his eyes, too, instead pulling the washcloth he’d wet in the bathroom up and pulling away Jason’s hand, covering the wound with it. He’s so gentle, Jason notes, apologising when he has to clean the deeper bits of the wound, and Jason is watching Roy who’s watching his own hand, but also keeps flicking his eyes to Jason’s elbow.
They sit in silence for what feels like hours but Jason knows is only fifteen or so minutes. The two of them have had enough practice stitching people up - even each other - in the past to not have to mess around with it, and Roy chews on his lip as he places the final bit of medical tape over the gauze. His hand stills in the air and Jason holds his breath, his heart jackhammering as Roy drags his fingertips down, coming to rest on the crook of his elbow.
It’s all too much. Too much sensation, too much build-up, too much like what everything Jason has ever wished for. He lets out a sigh and then drops his head, all the tension bleeding out of his body, and then Roy is cupping his cheek with his other hand and slowly moving Jason’s head so he can look him in the eye when he says:
“You knew .”
Jason chews his lip and nods. He’s in so much pain that any kind of deflection or argument would just make him feel worse, and he pulls a face when Roy moves away.
Here it comes… Jason thinks, closing his eyes tight, yet when he opens them Roy is halfway through ripping his own vest and shirt off, until he’s sat on his haunches and looking up at Jason with a shy grin on his face.
“I’m not- Jesus Christ, Jaybird. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.” He laughs and Jason laughs back, but its weak. This isn’t going anything like Jason thought and he’s honestly just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Roy pulls on Jason’s uninjured arm then, pressing his thumb hard into Jason’s palm so he has to open his fingers, and Jason widens his eyes as he can finally, finally, reach out and touch the mark on Roy’s chest.
He runs hot, Roy flinching as Jason’s cold fingers brush his nipple, but he presses his hand up against skin, something like joy jumping up when he digs little white spots into the flesh and Roy breathes in deep.
“Fuck.” Jason says, all of the raw emotion flooding over him, and Jason can feel the rumble of Roy’s laugh in his chest before it escapes out of his mouth.
“Yeah. That’s… That’s one word for it.”
“You don’t want to talk about it?” Jason asks; hates how his voice sounds so insecure, and Roy sits up so he’s leaning forward. Jason’s hand is well and truly pressed against his chest now, Roy’s hips coming into the vee of Jason’s knees as he opens them for him to get close. They’re eye to eye in this position, as Roy places his fingers back on Jason’s arm. Circling, circling, circling.
Jason is flushing, embarrassed that the injury has absolutely nothing to do with it.
“You need painkillers, and sleep. I’ll rant and rave in the morning about how we could have had this months ago once I know you’re not pushing the pain to the back of your mind while you try and analyse all of this.” Roy says, which…
Jason furrows his brow and wonders when Roy had figured out he does that.
“There is one thing, though.” Roy says. Jason can feel Roy’s heart jumping under his palm, and Jason swallows.
“...Yes?” He asks, quiet, and Roy brings his free hand back up to Jason’s neck, thumbing under his jaw. Jason thinks they both move in at the same time, breaths ghosting against each others faces until Roy pulls him the final few centimeters, lips coming together as Jason lets out a small whine. Roy’s mouth is warm, his tongue licking at Jason’s bottom lip, and Jason’s head spins as he pulls his hand off Roy’s chest to wrap it around Roy’s neck and pull him closer.
They are both panting when Roy pulls away, Jason’s entire body feels like it’s on fire, and Roy is flushed on his face down his neck and onto his chest. All Jason can think is ‘ I did that’.
He lets out a puff of air, pulling away, and Roy smiles.
“What do you know, Jaybird. You can kiss after all.” And he knows the tease is a stab at an old argument from long ago, but Jason smiles a lazy smile at him anyways, his heart about ready to explode.
“Plenty more where that came from, Harper. Just you wait.”