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Roy didn't know how these guys got their hands on some fear toxin, but it was seriously a pain in the ass. The Outlaws had just gotten back to some good old terra firma when shit hit the fan. They hadn't even gotten back to one of their safe houses before the world around them exploded. A pitch black car had driven up next to an old restaurant and opened fire, shattering the glass windows and shooting some of the staff and customers inside.
They had known that the Italian place was a front for a small drug dealing ring, but since it was relatively harmless in comparison to some of the other crap going around, they had gone under the radar for a little while. Now, everything exploded into the sounds of screaming, of guns firing, and of the fire alarm that someone on the inside of the restaurant pulled, and they were at the heart of it all. The three of them had instantly ran to the scene.
It was difficult to tell who was attacking them since they were clearly just henchmen acting on orders rather than the big boss themselves, but there were always signs if they knew where to look. Roy shivered a bit as a cold wind hit him. Some of the men had tattoos, and some had patches sewn into their jackets. The guns they were all the same, Beretta ARX160s, probably supplied by their boss. If he had to guess, Roy thought that they looked similar to how Jason would describe Carmine Falcone's men, but he couldn't be sure.
They were in the midst of the fighting before he could investigate further. He barely registered all of the people running from the fight, too focused on the henchmen with guns. Roy heard another shot, a crack, and Jason grunt next to him. His eyes straying to his partner immediately, he saw several cracks in the man's helmet, but beside a few cuts on his face, he didn't seem to injured. The bullet must have only glanced off the side of the helmet.
Jason swore under his breath and returned fire, hitting one of the henchmen in the shoulder and another in the knee. Roy forced himself to look back at his target. Jason was fine. They were being shot at, sure, but none of them were actively dying. That was good. Brilliant, even.
He released his arrow, smirking in satisfaction as a net deployed from it. Several henchmen went down with it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kori handling several other henchmen, and she grimaced as she caught his gaze. There were more of them than they had originally thought when they had seen only one car drive up. A lot of them had probably been waiting nearby on foot.
He ran closer to Kori, backing her up as she took on the armored car itself. All of the sounds were deafening, and it was hard not to get disoriented. Sirens blared in the background; clearly, some passersby had called for an ambulance. He shook himself out of his thoughts. He couldn't allow himself to become too distracted. Lodging an arrow into one of the car doors, he dove backwards, waiting for it to work its magic. The door blew off, exposing the few stragglers who had been shooting from inside the vehicle, and Kori slipped in immediately. She grabbed hold of them and yanked them out, stripping them of their weapons and depositing them next to a few police officers that had just arrived.
"Where's Hood?" Roy waved some of the lingering smoke away from his face.
Kori's eyes flicked around, but the street was in chaos. The fighting seemed to have stopped for now, yet Jason was missing. They saw different cops, victims, bystanders, and henchmen but no Red Hood. She furrowed her brow. It was unlike Jason to just leave them without warning; their communication with one another was essential for working well together.
"His comms are off." She commented, her knuckles turning white as she squeezed her fist tighter. "I don't know where he's gone."
"Find him." His face was stony. "Odds are that he went after one of them."
Kori took off into the air, scanning the scene from above, but darkness had long since fallen. She would get the occasional glimpse from a flashing siren or from a street light but nothing else. Chewing on her lip, she moved closer to the area that Jason had taken, fully aware of her other partner following her from the ground. She listened closer for anything out of the ordinary. The gunfire had ended, but that didn't mean it was quiet by any stretch of the imagination. She heard shouts, some from the wounded, some from those being arrested.
Soon enough, the crowd started to thin out as they got to the outskirts of the scene, and there was still no Jason. There were signs, of course. Their partner had ran through on a rampage. Bullet holes, blood spatter, and disturbed dirt and stone provided evidence of the warpath he had obviously been on. The smoke or fog or whatever was finishing up clearing out just as she set foot on the ground, and Roy jogged up to meet her.
He frowned. "Did you see him?"
"No," Kori shook her head, "but the...chaos ends here. If Red Hood isn't around here somewhere, I don't know where he would have gone next."
Roy's eyes flicked around the alley they were next to. "He must have been chasing someone."
"Well, whoever it was, they're not here anymore." She felt like cursing, but she held her tongue.
Roy had no such restraint. He roughly kicked a loose stone away from him before turning on his heel and marching out of the empty alley. It would be useless to just stay there. They had to do something, but they didn't even know what had happened. It must have been while the two of them were taking on the black armored car. Unless there were certain unfortunate circumstances in play, Jason was typically pretty damn predictable. He would never have voluntarily left Roy and Kori without telling them that he was doing so. It wasn't like they were bats or anything.
"Stop right there!" Kori ran in front of him and thrust her hand on his chest.
His brows furrowed. "What? What is it?"
"Listen."
At first, he heard nothing out of the ordinary. A car would pass by every now and then, and he could hear a dog barking in one of the apartments above them. He strained his ears (if that was even possible), trying to hear whatever Kori suspected that she had heard. Eventually, a long, low pitched groan over top of heavy breathing.
"Two people. Maybe more." Kori murmured.
"You think it's Hood?"
"It must be." She didn't want to even think about what they would do if it wasn't him.
The two cautiously approached the source of the sound, not knowing who else could be there. The sounds seemed to be coming from another alley about a block away, so they rounded the corner quickly. It was dark; the light bulb in the street light had long since gone out. Deep in the alley, they could barely make out the silhouettes of two individuals. One of them was sitting on the ground next to the brick wall, and another was lying on the ground and clearly in pain.
"Hood?" Kori called out after pausing for a brief moment.
"Don't say that!" The figure on the ground shouted. "Get outta here!"
They met each other's eyes and moved forward regardless. The man who had shouted at them was one of the henchmen from earlier, and the other was their partner, Red Hood. Jason was clutching a gun in both of his hands, and the eye that had been exposed to the air by the crack in his helmet had a wild look in them. There were several bullet holes in the wall across from Jason as well as a few more in the fallen henchmen.
"Stop!" The henchman called out to them. "This guy is fucking insane!" He panted, his hand gripping one of the wounds on his side.
"What did you do to him?" Roy growled.
"I didn't know!"
"What did you do?"
"The...The bossman gave me this canister, yeah? Wouldn't tell me what's in it. Well, this ass was chasing me, and I assumed 'Hey, maybe there's a little something in here that could help me," he wheezed a bit. "And...and this weird gas thing shot out straight in that guy's face. I managed to cover mine; it didn't shoot out in my direction anyway...I don't know what it is. I swear; I don't."
"And then?" He snapped at the henchman.
"Dude went fucking crazy! Look what he fucking did to me! He wouldn't stop mumbling either...weird shit, too. Stuff about evil clowns and-and coffins and some head of a demon or something; I don't fucking know. He's just sitting there now." The henchman blabbered. "Just get me away from him, man. Please."
Roy wanted to punch him, but Jason had already done a number on him in whatever haze he was in. Turning to Kori, he said. "Take him to those ambulances. Quickly. Then get back here and help me."
Kori nodded wordlessly and took the henchman in her arms. She was clearly just as pissed off with the man as Roy was and also hesitant to leave Jason, but they couldn't just ignore all the injuries this guy had sustained. She took off, holding the henchman haphazardly.
"Hood?"
Now that the henchman had gone and finally shut up, he could hear the erratic mumbling that the man had described. He kneeled down, looking his partner up and down. It didn't look like he was seriously injured after this scrape.
"Not going to let him...I'm not going to let him." Jason rocked back and forth, his fists tightening around his guns. "Not this time...not this time."
"Buddy, why don't you give me those guns?" Roy asked, his hands brushing against Jason's.
Just like that, both guns went off. Roy dove backwards immediately and ducked. Thankfully, neither bullet ricocheted and became embedded in the old brick walls that lined the alley. He grimaced. That was stupid of him. He suspected that the henchman had somehow gotten his hands on some fear toxin; the signs were all there. If that was the case, he had a vague idea of what Jason could be seeing. A feeling of nausea settled over him. Jason had thought that he was a threat, perhaps even one of the monsters that had plagued his partner's nightmares for so many years.
"Okay, okay...." Roy's eyes flicked around the alley, but he had little idea about what to do.
His actions seemed to have triggered Jason to leave his panicked stupor. Jason rose to his feet beside him and raised one of his weapons at nothing in particular; he supposed it must have been some hallucination induced by the fear toxin. Another shot went off, then another, and one of them ricocheted off of a nearby dumpster. Roy threw his hands up, trying to make himself seem as least threatening as possible, but it only brought Jason's attention to him.
Jason's weapon turned on Roy. His hand shook.
"Hood? Hood, it's me."
"Fuck you." His partner's voice cracked.
"It's Arsenal." He said. "It's Roy."
Screw the code names.
Roy's eyes locked on the gun in his partner's shaky hand. Jason's finger almost never left the trigger as though targets were everywhere, which to him, there might be. He grimaced. He hated fear toxin; it was one of the reasons he liked to avoid Gotham if possible. It was a pain in the ass to deal with on the best of days, and needless to say, today was not a fucking good day.
"Stop it!"
"Jay, please, it's fear toxin! Whatever you are seeing isn't real." He slowly rose to his feet, his arms up in the surrender position.
The two of them stared at each other for a few moments. Roy shivered, his heart pounding in his chest. Terror twisted the visible portion of Jason's face, and seeing it hurt Roy. It looked wrong on him. He saw Jason's finger pull the trigger again, but nothing happened. Flinching slightly, the archer glanced at him again, trying not to trigger him once more. It seemed that that gun had run out of ammunition, but Jason kept pulling the trigger over and over as if more bullets would magically appear inside the gun. While watching him, Roy barely registered Kori landing right behind him, but Jason's eyes locked on her figure immediately.
"No, no, you're not going to do this to me again!" The empty gun hit the floor with an audible clatter, and he drew yet another weapon from a hidden holster on his calf.
"Woah!" Kori's eyes widened as she fully took in the situation.
"I think its fear toxin." Roy murmured under his breath, so only Kori could hear him speak.
She grabbed Roy by the shoulder and pushed her partner behind her, so she was standing between him and Jason. Jason startled at the sudden movement, the gun in the arm dangling by his side going off and hitting the ground in front of him. He shook his head rapidly, backing up further into the alley. Kori showed him her empty hands, but Jason didn't calm down. He wouldn't, not with the fear toxin still in his system.
"You got an antidote on you?" She asked out of the corner of her mouth.
"I snag a couple every time I have to be in this goddamn city." Roy bit his lip. "But I can't get close to him."
"Give me one."
Roy nodded, slipping one into her hand behind her back.
"No, stop it!" Jason shook his head. "I...Get out!"
"Jason, it's us." Kori promised. "Kori and Roy."
He stumbled back a couple of steps, raising the guns in both of his hands. "I swear to fucking hell that I'm going to shoot you. You're not getting away from me again. Not again."
"Jason, please-"
"Shut up!" He shouted. "I'm going to do this myself now. Not Bruce. Never Bruce. Bruce would never do this, but I will."
"Jaybird-"
Several more shots went off, one after the other. Kori dove to the left; Roy, to the right. Roy got into a doorway, blocking himself off from Jason's line of sight, and Kori managed to scramble behind an rusty green dumpster. For a while, all they could hear was Jason's strange mumbling and his footsteps walking around the alley. Roy's eyes wandered over to the dumpster that Kori had hid behind, and he managed to catch a glimpse of her. She was gripping her shoulder, a couple streams of blood dripping out between her fingers. Roy winced; she had clearly been hit. Honestly, he was surprised that neither of them had been hit before. Jason was an expert marksman, but he didn't even seem to be aiming before he fired his weapon. The fear toxin was making him terrified, paranoid, and twitchy, and those emotions and a trigger were never a good combination.
"Jason? Can you tell me what you're seeing right now?" Kori called out, her breath coming quick.
There was some silence, and then Jason started walking closer to them. "No, he's a fucking clown. He's the worst of the worst, Bruce."
That's exactly what I thought he was seeing.
Roy huddled closer to door frame and inched towards the ground. Hopefully, Kori would be able to keep Jason's attention on her without getting hurt even more, and maybe he would be able to get the antidote into Jason while he wasn't focused on him.
But Jason notices everything.
No, the fear toxin was skewing with his mind. Jason probably wouldn't notice Roy if he was careful enough. He held back, crouching low to the ground as Jason came to stop a few feet away from the dumpster that Kori was hiding behind. Jason seemed to hesitate, his eyes flicking around erratically, and his breathing visibly quickened. Both Roy and Kori tensed, not sure what Jason was seeing now. He gripped the antidote in his hand tightly and waited.
"Can't breathe. Can't fucking breathe." Jason murmured. "Too tight, too small, too dark, can't fucking breathe."
It looked odd, seeing as he was standing in the middle of a relatively empty alley. There was nothing closing in on him, and the walls were several feet away from him. There were several tense moments as both he and Kori watched Jason slowly break down. They wanted to rush him, deliver the antidote, but they couldn't risk anything. They had to wait for the perfect moment.
"Got to get out. I'm not going to die. I'm not going to die." Jason forced out a cough as though something was caught in his throat.
"Jason, you're not going to die." Kori said calmly.
His head snapped over to Kori, and he stumbled a few steps closer. His eyes narrowing, Roy held His breath. He couldn't mess this up. He had to get the antidote into their partner as fast as possible, and with any luck, the perfect opportunity was about to arise.
Just a few steps closer....
"No," Jason shook his head. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no."
"You're not dead." Kori started. "You are so, so alive, and that isn't about to change."
He didn't speak, but the sound he made sounded uncertain. Again, Roy waited. At the same time, he knew that if he waited too long this opportunity might slip out between his fingers. He edged closer silently, and Jason didn't outwardly appear to notice.
Jason's breathing grew heavy, his knuckles turning a bright white as he squeezed his guns even tighter. "I don't...You're not going to do this anym-"
Roy struck.
It was quiet when Jason came to. He kept his eyes closed for a little bit, willing his breath to remain slow. A clock ticked steadily in the background, and wind hit the windows and walls of the place gently from the outside. He cracked open his eyes but saw only darkness. The flannel sheets that Jason and his partners had just got on the bed earlier that week brushed gently against his legs, which were bare. Jason sat up, and once his eyes adjusted, he saw the familiar sight that was his bedroom. He heard low, quiet speech coming from another room, both recognizable as his two partners.
He threw the blankets off of him and rose to his feet, and they both fell silent. A few seconds later, the door opened with a high pitched creak. Light from the other room spilled in, and Roy poked his head in.
"Hey, Jaybird." His voice was quiet.
"Roy?"
He wasn't sure exactly what had happened. He could have sworn that he was near the Joker, about to kill the Joker, and then suddenly in a coffin, but that must have just been a weird nightmare, right? Jason had just gotten out of bed. He wasn't in Ethiopia or six feet under. His heart was beating faster than normal, but it wasn't as fast as it had been in his strange dream.
"How are you doing, bud?" Roy opened the door wider and stepped inside, Kori following him.
Jason furrowed his brow. "I feel like I just ran a whole marathon." He frowned. "Flick the light on? I don't want this....darkness."
Kori nodded, her fingers finding the switch, and the light turned on. She sat on the edge of the bed, pulling Jason back down. Roy followed suit, sitting on his other side. Jason frowned, not quite knowing why they were acting like this, and the brief moment of silence didn't explain things.
"Why are you..." He trailed off.
"You got hit with some fear toxin." Kori explained. "Falcone must have procured some at some point."
"Oh," Jason winced.
So that hadn't just been a nightmare.
Well, that's embarrassing.
"He working with Scarecrow now?"
Roy shook his head. "We think the toxin was stolen at some point, and they got their hands on it sometime afterwards."
It was difficult to ignore the details of his dream, and they were coming back to him quickly. There had been screams and explosions and fire and the clown's crazed cackling. It was small and tight and damp and dark, yet it was also glowing a lurid green hue. It was every disturbing, nauseating, gut wrenching incident that he had ever been in colliding in a great, big ball of terror, and his two partners had seen it all.
"You're hurt." Jason furrowed his brow.
"Yeah," Kori rubbed the bandage absentmindedly.
"I did that."
She shook her head. "It's not your fault."
"It was my bullet, my gun, my shot." Jason listed. "I don't see-"
"The fear toxin made you see things." Kori corrected. "You saw me as a threat and acted on it."
"But I shot you. Nothing is going to change that for me."
She looked down at her hands resting in her lap and then back up at him. "Then we'll have to work on it."
They were silent for a few moments, the three of them simply existing in each other's presence. Jason's heart beat had finally slowed to its regular pace, and he listened to his two partner's breathing. They were calm, and so was everything else.
A couple seconds later, Roy inhaled, then exhaled. "How's the cut on your face?"
Jason's hand wandered to his cheek where his broken helmet and the bullet had grazed his cheek. He had almost completely forgotten about that. It must have been that crack that allowed the fear toxin gas to enter his system. He grimaced; perhaps if he had been more careful, this wouldn't have happened.
"I'm sorry about that." He groaned, thinking about what had happened.
"It's not your fault." Kori said immediately.
Jason shook his head rapidly. "No, I was reckless."
"When aren't you?" Roy snorted, leaning against the younger man. "It was a bad set of circumstances. Plus, it was kind of that fucking idiot's fault."
A shiver ran up his spine. "Just...I...Please don't leave me. Not right now."
"Never." Kori said.
"We're with you until the very end." Roy agreed.
He closed his eyes. "And just...forget everything you saw."
"We don't see you any differently than we did before." Kori also leaned in.
Jason wanted to believe it, but it was difficult. He knew his partners were amazing. There was no doubt about that. It was more that he could only imagine how pathetic he had looked and sounded while under the fear toxin's influence. Did that make him insecure?