Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

To Jason sex felt like the simplest but most complicated thing in the world. The sex that the working girls he knew when he was young had in exchange for much needed money to keep them alive, simple, even if he never quite understood what it was the johns needed so badly in the first place. 

The sex that Isabel had wanted him to have? Yeah that was a bit more complicated. 

He remembered how much she’d liked him for playing the gentlemen and leaving her to go up to her apartment alone the first time they’d had dinner, and the second, then the third. Really, Jason had just had a swell of anxiety in his stomach every time the thought of what would no doubt come from following her up those stairs, so it had been easy to slip into the routine of just not doing so. 

Isabel hadn’t found it quite so charming the fourth time when they’d been outside one of Jason’s safe houses at 2am and he had been insisting that she really ought to head home when she’d suggested coming up. He’d let her without much more resistance and they’d gone up, had another drink from the beers Jason had chucked in the fridge when he’d arrived in town. He’d let her climb on top of him, let her press their lips together and didn’t shy away from her lingering touches on his hips. He’d said yes against her neck when she’d taken his hand and led him to the bedroom whilst sliding her other hand up underneath his shirt. He’d convinced himself that maybe, maybe this time he’d finally understand what it was that everybody meant when they spoke about how special sex was, that everything would just click into place.

Trying to push out of his mind exactly where this was going Jason settled into the role he knew Isabel expected him to play. Trying to push the stray thoughts out of his head and focus, no, how long was this meant to last again? Fuck his leg is going to be stiff in the morning if it stays at this angle. Has it been long enough? Were his neighbours really having a screaming match again- maybe he should go have a chat with their kid as Hood to make sure she doesn’t need any help. Don’t lose focus.

When it was over Jason shot her his usual lazy smile, lying down next to her and doing his best to ignore the insistent churning in his gut. He didn’t want to acknowledge it because the more he acknowledged it the more he would have to figure out the reality of what it meant and he really really wasn’t ready for that.

Over the next few weeks he’d drawn away from Isabel, distancing himself further and further every time she tried to initiate something again until she’d snapped at him and yelled about him acting like an asshole and how he couldn’t just play around with her feelings whenever he liked. Jason didn’t really argue because she had a point and he didn’t know how to put his reasons into words. He let her shout. Then he left. He missed her but he didn’t miss that feeling of fear that he was going to misread a situation, give off the wrong signals and not realise. Or that feeling of having someone else’s expectation hanging over you. Walking away was so much easier than trying to put down whatever it was he was feeling, or not feeling, into words. Maybe that made him a coward. Probably.

Things with Rose Wilson were complicated but not so much. Or maybe it was just easier to pretend with her because she didn’t want him to take control the way that Isabel had. It had been easy to let her push him back onto the bed and take command of the situation. Easy to fake the stuttering breaths and murmurs of assent, maybe this would be the time that it would all make sense? 

His gut had been churning at the end of it but it had been nice to not have to be the one who was guiding the direction of the interaction and Rose was so pretty when she fell down onto the bed next to him and grinned sharply. 

Jason’s absolute favourite part of their short lived thing (he was hesitant to call it a real relationship) was when they’d fight side by side. They moved in sync but he knew that Rose could destroy him if she wanted to. She was pure power when she moved and didn’t shy away from the more brutal ways of taking down their enemies. His second favorite was the quiet moments where they would find the time to sit and watch a film together and Rose would let him slide his fingers through her hair and braid it down her back the way he hadn’t done for anyone since Babs when he’d been Robin.

He found he could just about cope with the sex as long as Rose was the one taking control so he didn’t have to worry about his mind wandering too much, and it didn’t happen too often, as long as he got all of the other moments that came with it. It was a sacrifice that he was willing to make. 

Then Slade Wilson had to come along and fuck all of that up by walking in on the two of them asleep in the same bed and deciding to beat the shit out of him for it. Jason was pretty sure that the only reason he hadn’t gotten killed was that a) Slade likely didn’t want to bring either the Bat’s or Nightwing’s anger down on his head and b) he was like 70% sure that Slade actually enjoyed working with him on the few times they had ended up on the same side. 

Rose had chased Slade out into the city when he’d left through the window and Jason had been gone by the time they’d both gotten back. He hadn’t left a note but the next time he and Rose saw each other they agreed it had been for the best. Jason knew somewhere in his heart that it wouldn’t have lasted much longer anyway.

Roy was different. It was interesting but good because they’d never actually gone to bed together. Well they’d slept in the same bed, but Roy had never done more than slide his arm along Jason’s shoulders or wrapped his arms around him from behind. They’d both been so fragile at the time that it was enough and since Jason wasn’t giving off any signals nothing more ever happened. They’d just existed side by side for a while, working perfectly in sync until they’d fallen out of each other’s orbits. They were still the closest of friends but with Roy travelling around the world with a few of his old Titans friends and Jason reviving his old operations in Gotham it just wasn’t practical anymore. Jason missed him though. A lot.

“Hey kid? What you doing up here?”

Jason reached up and slid his helmet off, he knew that a lot of Gotham citizens found the black eye slits and robotic voice more than a little creepy. The girl stared at him then blinked and shook her head, refocusing her eyes at the street far below, “Not exactly a kid anymore, I’m 19.”

Jason shrugged and dropped down to sit beside her, “Still pretty young.”

The girl just looked sad.

“You can talk to me. I swear everything said to the Red Hood is said in complete confidentiality.”

“I thought you and Batman hated each other?”

Jason couldn’t help but crack a weak smile at that, “We have our differences. But seriously, you can trust me, ask half the kids from the Alley and they’ll back me up.”

“You kill people.”

“...no one’s perfect. Plus the news always acts like I kill every guy just trying to feed his family. I only shoot the assholes who get rich off taking advantage of those who don’t have a choice.”

Fiddling with the hem of her jacket the girl kept glancing up at Jason’s face before looking away again quickly.

“Seriously, if you need it, you can talk to me. Perk of being me is that I am rarely in a position to judge others.”

“You won’t understand it.”

“Try me.”

The girl sighed, seemingly trying to gather herself together before focusing on the horizon and speaking, “I think I’m broken.”

Jason frowned, “Broken?”

“Yeah, like something inside of me doesn’t work, I have no interest in anyone. I don’t want to sleep with anyone, I don’t know anyone I’d be even vaguely interested in having a romantic relationship with but all of my friends are pairing off and asking me who I’ve got crushes on and pressuring and pressuring me, like me saying nobody is really just me being embarrassed and not telling them. And last night this guy was flirting with me and I didn’t even notice until he already thought I was flirting back so when I backed off he just thought I was trying to get him to try harder. I just, I just don’t know what’s wrong with me and I can’t talk to anyone I know about it because they’ll all think I’m mad- which maybe I am.”

Jason felt stunned. Frozen.

“You think there’s something wrong with me don’t you?”

Desperately trying to stop gaping like a goldfish he stuttered out a, “No, I-”

“How can you not? You’re a handsome guy in his what? Early 20s? Bet you’ve got someone equally amazing to go home to and all.”

Feeling like slapping himself in the face Jason twisted more so he was facing the girl, “No, I don’t think you’re mad. I get it.”

The girl froze, scanning his face as though searching for some sign that he was lying.

“I, I- um- I’m not,” his throat felt clogged, “I’m not interested in sex.” He swallowed. “I’ve never said that out loud before. I know that you aren’t mad because I’m not interested in sex, with anyone, ever. I mean I still want to be in relationships but the part about sex- I understand that.”

The girl took a deep breath in and let it out, “you’re like me.”

“Maybe, it sounds like it. Mostly I try not to think about it because I live a strange enough life to push it down as deep as possible but I- yeah. Yeah I am.”

Asexual, maybe the longer Jason stared at it on the screen the less daunting it would look. 

It seemed like a big claim to be making. Even though it all seemed to make sense the idea of applying it to himself was more than a little intimidating. Like confirming what a part of him had known all along. It felt like a word he could never imagine saying in front of another person.

After years of thinking that way it was really difficult to wrap his head around the idea that maybe there wasn’t something wrong with him, that this was wouldn’t change if he just made himself go through sex with enough people. 

He fell asleep that night with his mind racing.

“It’s Ivy.” Bruce was standing at the head of the table looking far more concerned than Jason had seen him in a while, “she’s developed some sort of new toxin and when Dick and Damian came across her last night whatever it was got through their rebreathers so when we go up against her there is no guarantee that we will be protected, as you know they’re both strictly off patrol until they’ve healed up.”

Dick pushed back from his seat at the table, drawing attention to just how awkwardly he was moving as he got his crutches under him. Jason couldn’t help but wince a little, “whatever it was, we had it in our systems moments after we were made aware that it was even in the air. It has the usual effect of making Ivy’s… charm-”

“You mean the irresistible urge to sleep with her and so do everything she says?”

“ -Yes thank you Stephanie, it’s the closest thing to direct mind control that she’s produced yet and left Damian to fight on his own and ended in her vines throwing both of us off the building. It’s fast acting, and long lasting. Also gave me the worst hangover today. Just- be careful.”

He nodded at Bruce, who returned the gesture, before sliding back down into his seat. 

“I had to knock him unconscious to get him home,” Damian piped up from his chair.

Jason shifted his position where he was leaning against the railing behind them all. Taking a seat at the table still didn’t quite feel right to him. 

Bruce cleared his throat, “since me, Jason, Tim and Duke would all be compromised if we came into contact with it, Stephanie and Cass-”

Jason, despite feeling the usual cold spread through his stomach even though he knew he had never given Bruce a reason to assume otherwise, couldn’t help but huff at that. Bruce could be so oblivious for the self proclaimed ‘World’s Greatest Detective’. Of course everyone immediately turned to look at him.

“He’s not wrong B.” Steph was smirking as she looked between Bruce’s serious expression and Jason, “me and Cass are gonna be just as useless as the rest of you.”

For a second, Jason thought about speaking up and volunteering himself. He vividly remembered the time that he’d had an encounter with Ivy and her toxins only to have found out a few days later that his helmet’s rebreather had been broken for weeks. His throat clogged up with all that confessing would bring so he stayed silent and the moment passed.

“Right,” any indication that Bruce was shocked didn’t show in his voice at all, “In that case we all go in together, hard and fast to try and overwhelm Ivy before she gets a chance to release the toxin.”

Something told Jason that this was going to go horribly, horribly wrong.

Chapter Text

“I’ve got eyes on Ivy.” Tim’s voice came rattling through Jason’s comm where he was crouched on the roof, eyes focused on the window of the warehouse next door.

“She alone?” He couldn’t see Bruce but he knew he was somewhere on the roof to Jason’s left.

“No henchmen but Harley’s with her, which is gonna make this even less fun.”

“Nothing we can’t handle.”

“Well can we hurry up because I’m feeling more than a little cramped in this vent.”

Jason could hear Steph’s smirk, “that’s what happens when you’re the smallest Timmy.”

“I never used to be!”

“How many times do I have to tell you to, keep this channel clear during missions!”

Steph and Tim both murmured their apologies and they all fell back into silence.

“Is everybody in position?”

‘Readys’ echoed through the comm and Jason chimed in with his own as he readied himself to jump. At Bruce’s command he shot his grapple and flew for the window, kicking out feet first as he burst through the already cracked glass. He tumbled hard down to land in a crouch. The six of them crashed down to surround Harley and Ivy in one fluid motion but neither so much as jumped.

“You know I was wondering when you were going to show up after I sent Nightwing and the Boy Blunder scurrying off yesterday.”

The same moment that Bruce gave the command for them to attack, Ivy revealed a control in her hand and Jason’s vision filled with green.

He struggled hard not to panic. He was half blind from the gas and it was clogging up the filters on his hood. Dropping to his knees as he choked on it, he ripped the thing off in a desperate attempt to clear his airways. After the longest moment, the gas started to clear.

Jason desperately wiped at his watering eyes until they cleared enough for him to look around. Bruce, Tim, Duke, Steph and Cass were all in similar states around him, although Cass had made it significantly closer to Ivy before collapse than the rest of them. Not exactly surprising.

Ivy was looking around at them all curiously. As Bruce started to push to his feet she stepped towards him carefully, “Stop.”

Bruce froze. Jason’s stomach dropped.

“That goes for all of you.” Jason made sure to freeze along with everyone else, his heart hammering in his chest. It only increased when Harley started to giggle that maniacal laugh of hers as she skimmed her fingers over Bruce’s cowl.

“Look at them!”

Ivy rolled her eyes but smiled, “Harley…”

“I mean I’ve known Red Robin over there since he was tiny which makes it a bit weird but look at Batsy! Maybe we should call Selina?”

“ Harley .”

“Sorry.”

Jason could feel his guns digging into his thighs, what were the chances he could take down Ivy and Harley alone, not to mention all the others when Ivy would no doubt stick them on him too. No, better to play along as best he could for now until he could figure out a way to take Ivy out without risk of getting himself killed as a result.

“Stand up, all of you, and put your weapons in front of me. All of them.”

Smart, if any of them weren’t completely under her control then there was no way that they would leave themselves that defenseless. Right? Jason’s mind was racing as he struggled not to look out of place while Tim pulled out his bo staff and threw it on the floor without hesitation. The adoration on his face as he stared at her was clear even through his domino mask. Yeah there was no way Jason was going to be able to fake that.

Disguising the movement as one to get rid of his own weapons, Jason pulled a gun out and manoeuvred himself to stand just out of Harley’s sight line. As quickly as he could he grabbed Harley around the neck and pulled her back and as off balance as possible. The gun shoving up against her temple.

“One move Ivy and I blow her brains across the both of us.”

He could see Harley grinning wildly from the corner of his eyes but Ivy was staring at the point where metal hit skin. She took half a step forward and Jason tightened his grip on Harley’s neck, “do not test me.”

Ivy stopped moving, holding up a hand to keep the others in place too, she looked him up and down curiously instead with a gaze far too analytical for Jason’s taste, “What’s different about you Red? Why didn’t it work?”

Jason gritted his teeth. He knew this whole mission had been a bad idea. 

“None of your business.”

“Call it professional curiosity. Women not your type?”

“Not exactly,” it was always easier to just let people make the assumptions that suited him in the moment, “now let them go.”

“No can do, I’m afraid. No quick fix, it takes time to wear off.”

Jason swung down and shot the floor directly next to Harley’s foot, causing her to shout and jerk in his grip and Ivy to look about two seconds from trying to rip his head off his body, “I don’t have time for your bullshit Ivy, I know you, there’s always an antidote. You’re too smart to walk around without one.”

Ivy rolled her eyes, “fine. Let Harley go first.”

“Yeah, right,” he scoffed, “so you can just knock me out instead.”

“So I just cure them only to get a one way ticket straight to Arkham?”

“Well it’s either that or I shoot Harley so make your choice.”

“You wouldn’t kill her, not with the Bat right here.”

It’s true he wouldn’t, and especially not Harley, somebody that he could see had her life ruined by the same mad man as him, but Ivy didn’t need to know that, “you don’t know what I’d do.”

They stood there in a silent stale mate for a moment, Harley’s breathing loud in his ear before Ivy sighed, “fine.” She pulled out the same control from earlier and pushed a different button. The air stayed clear but Jason did sense a small amount of sweetness. Within moments Bruce and the others were coming back to awareness and taking in the scene before them. Without a word Bruce turned his attention from Jason and Harley to Ivy and the very obvious threat she still posed.

The next few hours were a blur of arrests, taking his bike back to the Manor, showering, sitting through one of the worst debriefs of his life that ended in Bruce shouting at him for not telling the truth and finally being able to disappear into his room at the Manor. It was still disturbingly similar to how it had always been but it felt like home and he needed that right now. He couldn’t hide from this forever but he definitely could for a few hours more.

Only a shitty 20 minutes after he first threw himself on the bed, the knock came on the door. Jason didn’t move and, within a few seconds, it came again.

“Jason, can I come in?”

The golden boy. Great. Right now, Jason thought, he would almost prefer Damian’s snarky defensive superiority to Dick’s open efforts to listen and talk. As a kid he had wanted Dick’s understanding so badly but currently he was seriously regretting not just leaving the Manor as soon as he got the chance. Now he was stuck 3 floors up and far too drained to face climbing out the window.

Dick knocked again, a little louder, “Come on Jay, I know you’re in there. I just want to talk to you.”

He didn’t move, comfortable in the knowledge that Dick was going to come in anyway.

“Alright, I’m coming in.”

There we go. Jason swung himself around so that he was sitting on the bed with his back to the door, hunched over his knees slightly. He didn’t look up but felt it as the bed dipped with Dick’s weight beside him.

“I just want you to know it’s okay Jay, no one’s mad.

“Well, Bruce is a little mad, but that’s more because you could’ve made the mission a lot simpler and safer if you’d been honest not because of- well you know. Everyone is fine and honestly I don’t know why you’d be so worried about it. I mean you know that half our family has dated someone of the same gender and Kate has been out and around since I was a kid.”

Jason felt his chest getting tight. He didn’t generally cry much but some part of him couldn’t quite gather that this was really happening.

“It’s okay Jason. It’s okay that you’re gay. No one’s-”

Dick cut off when Jason suddenly bubbled over with a chuckle, sometimes he hated the way that his emotions would express themselves in the most unpredictable ways.

“Jay?”

“I’m not gay Dick.”

“You don’t need to hide it anymore Jay. I know that’s it’s shit that you couldn’t tell us yourself but you don’t need to-”

Jason looked up at Dick, “I’m not gay. Not in the way that you’re meaning anyway.”

Dick fell quiet. Frowning as he looked back, searching Jason’s face with concern.

“Then what?”

He couldn’t get his voice up louder than a whisper, wincing at the way it caught a little halfway through, “I don’t, I don’t like anyone.”

When Dick didn’t reply for a second Jason looked down again, grasping his hands in front of him in a desperate attempt to quell the shaking. Somehow his voice dropped even lower to the point where he wasn’t even sure Dick could hear, “I think I’m asexual.”

Dick blinked, “but you- Rose? Roy?”

Jason could feel himself shutting down, this was exactly what he wanted to avoid by keeping it to himself. Dick trailed off on his own but he still couldn’t bring himself to look up. He heard a deep breath.

“I’m going to be honest, I don’t know much about it past the word but I promise that I’m going to learn and so will Bruce even if it means tying him down in front of his computer with his own handcuffs.”

Jason couldn’t help but crack a smile at that.