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Jason is nursing his second beer of the night, attention half on it and half on the well-worn book in his other hand, when the man enters the bar and sets off all of Jason’s warning bells.
It’s the way he walks, the way his eyes instinctively scan over the bar. It’s the gun tucked under his jacket, and in an ankle holster, and the knife he’s fiddling with in his pocket.
Dangerous, Jason’s instincts are screaming. A threat. Here for you?
It’s possible Talia sent someone here to try to kill him, as a test. Make sure his skills are up to snuff, that’s he’s actually learning from all these masters she’s sending him to (before he kills them, of course).
But no, Jason dismisses that idea quickly. Right now, when coming to this bar, he covered his tracks pretty well. He needed—a break, or something like it. He needed just a couple hours to go sit somewhere and not relax, really, but at least do something normal. Sit in a bar, have a drink, not be surrounded by trained killers and criminals, people who would try to kill him without a second thought if they wanted to.
There hasn’t been a lot of normal in Jason’s life these last few years. And with this training tour coming to an end soon, with Gotham in his sights—he needed this minute. And he made sure Talia wouldn’t be able to interrupt.
Jason is hesitant to call the other man’s presence a coincidence, because in his new line of work those are very rare. But he also doesn’t want to be overly paranoid, it’ll only make him jumpy and tired in the long run. And since the man only settles down on a stool and flags the bartender down for a drink, not paying any attention to Jason past that initial scan of the establishment, Jason is leaning towards it having nothing to do with him.
He does his best to tune the man out, but it’s hard now that he’s aware of him. Now that he knows there’s a very dangerous person just a few stools down from him, it’s hard for him to experience that normal feeling again. He can’t help but be alert, taking stock of the weapons he currently has for the possibility of a fight.
But nothing happens. The man pulls out his phone, and sips his drinks as he messes around on it. His expression is placid, no sign of impending trouble. And the longer the peace remains, the easier it is for Jason to settle again, to turn his attention back to his book and get wrapped back into the story.
He doesn’t know how much time has passed—and fuck, when was the last time Jason was able to just tune out the world and do something he enjoys? When was he able to turn his attention away from his mission, for even a minute?—before there’s movement out of the corner of his eye and he looks up to find that the man has risen from his seat and is approaching him.
Jason eyes him warily, the hand not holding his book slipping down to sit on the knife hidden in a sheath in his boot, accessible because of the way he has his foot resting on his opposite knee.
The man sits down on the stool next to him, taking a sip from his drink as he looks Jason over. Jason narrows his eyes at him, trying to make himself look as unapproachable as possible, but the man’s only reaction is one corner of his mouth ticking up.
“I’m gonna be straight up,” the man says. “I’ve been working a lot lately, and I’m in need of a break.” Well. Jason can relate to that. “I clocked you the instant I came in here, and unless you managed to track me and you’re here to kill me on behalf of the people I’ve pissed off—which I’d gonna say is unlikely, because I’m good at what I do—then why don’t you let me get rid of that fucking tension that’s tightened you up, and get rid of some of my own as well.”
Jason goes beet red when he understands what the man is implying, that he just approached a stranger in a bar and bluntly propositioned them. No flirting, no lead up, just hey, want to fuck?
Jason laughs, and it comes out far more awkwardly than the derision he was going for. “Excuse me?”
“Look, kid,” the man says, and Jason bristles a little at the term. “I know what you are same way you could tell about me when I came in. And I can see some shit in your eyes, but frankly I don’t care about the crap you’ve been through. I doubt you care about my past either, and I wouldn’t tell you even if you did. I just think you could do with a fuck.”
Jason stares at him. He opens his mouth to say something, but can’t come up with a single thing, his mind going blank despite how desperately he wants to say something far more confident than he’s feeling. Just. What the fuck.