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There's a Batgirl missing in Burnside.
It's been a couple months, Jason's back in town and feels like coffee. Gotham's finest, Dante's, is open till 5 am. He picks out their mocha and donuts, thinking about Steph's sparkling blue eyes, and sweet grin white with powdered sugar.
It's only nine when he drops down onto the fire escape. Patrol won't start for another three hours. Maybe they'll go together. It's been too long since someone had his back. Not that Jason needed anyone, but he could admit that it was nice.
Jason picks the window and sets up on the couch, leaning back casually, waiting for a dramatic entrance. Sue him, it would be fun to watch her jump.
Cass rounds the corner. Not the Batgirl he was looking for, but they tend to follow one another. Paler than normal, her hair tangles around her shoulders, greasy and outgrown. She doesn't jump, or squeal, or even hug him, her own brother.
She kicks him off the couch.
"Get out."
Rolling with the hit, Jason pushes himself up, "I have an open invite,"
"No you don't." Cass presses forward, edging him back towards the window.
"I do!"
"Babs," she hollers, "did you invite Jason?"
It'd be nice if she made it sound like a question.
Barbara emerges from her study still wearing her wireless headphones around her neck. She takes a look at the coffee on the table and takes a sip.
"You won't find what you're looking for here."
Cass's jaw tightens. He doesn't have to speak body language to understand what she's feeling. And that he's the closest target.
Jason raises his hands, "I’m gone," he snags the donut bag on his way out the window. The coffee might be cold, but she'll still appreciate the sugar.
It takes him three rounds of the city before he admits it, eating the last donut on a rooftop ledge, watching the sun rise over the docks.
Steph is gone.
He gave her his number, not a burner, for emergencies. He'd died with no one way to communicate, no one coming to save him. He'd be damned before he let it happen to her.
She hadn't called. He doesn't know how to feel about that.
He opens his messages. She's the third highest name in his phone. They haven't texted in two months. Doesn't that say great things about a guy's personality.
Hope you're ok
When the dots blink, his heart beats like a fox clawing at the cage of his chest. He watches them stutter as the bleary morning sharpens in colour.
Me too
He can barely breathe for relief. Even if her answer is awful.
What happened?
Long story
Isn't everything for them?
I've got time.
He always will, for her, for a dead Robin.
Not a texting story.
I can call. Or come right over.
She leaves him on read for hours. He has to retreat to a safehouse. He doesn't shower, or take off his armour. He waits, staring at his phone, remembering every ten minutes to read a sentence of the book he picked up to distract him.
Then, an address.
Jason could be in New York in twenty minutes,
This time he knocks first.
There’s no answer. He does what he does best.
This time Steph is waiting on a beaten up couch, tank top exposing the mottled bruises crossing her arms and stretching up her neck. She stares up at the ceiling like she can feel the world spinning and that’s her one focus point.
Her eyes are a startling green.
Jason feels sick to his stomach. A million memories come flooding in. Anger, confusion, pain. He should be the guy who knows how to deal with this, and he’s got nothing.
He can’t tell if she knows he’s there. She hasn’t moved to acknowledge him the whole time he’s been spinning in his thoughts.
“Hey,” he tries. Because what else can he say?
Steph doesn’t look at him, “Hi,” It’s a rough noise.
There isn’t any other seating in this dump. Jason lifts her legs and she jumps, snarling a little bit. Her face carefully pieces back into blankness. He sits down, one hand around her ankle. She’s cold.
“I’m dead,” she says. He hadn’t realized he’d made that observation out loud.
“Me too.”
Okay, not the best thing to tell someone struggling. But Steph cracks a smile like it surprised her.
“Cass doesn’t believe me,”
“She’s right about most things.” Sure they’re like oil and water, but Jason knows this. Stephanie shakes her head, scowling.
“That why you’re sleeping in a back closet in New York?”
She stretches over his lap, yawning, “Rent’s a crime.”
It’s a nonanswer if he’s ever heard one.
“Always is, Blondie.”
Jason now desperately wishes he’d ever taken everyone’s advice and seen a therapist. At least so he’d know how he could help her. Just looking at her reminds him of that feeling, raw and burning. Ants crawling across your skin. Dirt you can still feel under your fingernails after you’ve washed your hands for twenty minutes and clipped the beds to a tender nub.
“Where did you go?” Steph asks.
“Denver.”
“Pretty,” Steph’s a social person. Normally she'd smile and tell him about her last hike, ask if he ever visited X. She’s so removed now. Jason’s heart aches, but he also understands.
“You didn’t call,”
“Yeah,”
“I would have come,”
She must know that he’d drop everything for her, right? The way he felt?
“There wasn’t time.”
“Still, after.”
Steph gives him a quizzical look.
“How long has it been?”
She shrugs, “About three weeks. The fits died down after four days.”
“And the rest?’
Steph gives him a glare. It bounces from him, to the duct taped couch, to the literal holes in her wall, edged in fresh blood.
“Do you ever feel-” she stops tripping over the word, “-normal?”
“You mean alive?”
And not the joyful, soul searching kind. The blood pumping, on this plane of existence kind.
“Yeah,” And he might be mistaken, but he thinks he sees a little hope shine in her green eyes. It could be tears.
“I think I was in heaven. It was so warm. Safe. I was so loved. I’ve never felt like that before.”
“I wouldn’t bet against you.”
Jason didn’t remember much of that. Sometimes he’d dream, and wake up crying. It feels like nothing else. He doesn’t think he'll be lucky enough to feel it again.
“I think this is Hell.” Steph drawls. Sure everyone has said that about Gotham before, but Jason knows this is different. He should tread softly.
“Would you bring me back? If you knew?”
What a question that was. The girl who makes him feel alive? She who brings coffee, and listens, and is the only person in their convoluted little family business who gets him?
"Yeah,"
Obviously not the answer she was looking for. It tears her out of her funk enough to snap back her legs, stand up, and pace the room like a caged lion.
“Oh, so you can kill any two-bit, but I’m the one you gotta drag back into hell with you, huh?”
“It’s not like that, Steph.”
She’s wild, her blond mane in her face, teeth bared, tense in every step. She pushes towards him, standing in between his legs. When she speaks he can feel spittle burning his face.
“I just thought you’d get it, that’s all,”
Jason heads her face on. Makes sure she can see the blue that's bled back into his gaze. He grips her shoulders and is shrugged off violently.
“I do,” he grits out.
She scoffs.
“I felt the same way for a long time. The only reason I pushed through the pain was Bruce. I needed him- I needed to make him hurt. To prove him wrong. Make him realize that all my pain was his fault and give it to him.
“But it wasn’t enough. I got knocked on my ass and Bruce hasn’t learned anything . I didn’t know why I came back. I didn’t think I should’ve.
“And it wasn’t some big thing, or any one person. It was just, I don’t know the sounds of birds in the morning. Wanting to finish a book I’d forgotten about. Some stupid joke Dick said years ago that made me laugh in inappropriate places. Petting the stray cat that kept coming around. Waiting for leaves to turn red. It was the missions I did, the kids I saved. My teammates sneaking under my skin, yelling at me because they wanted me around. I kept living from moment to moment, until I didn’t have to. Until I was just alive.
“I don’t know why I was brought back, but I’m grateful I was.”
Steph chews her lip. For the first time today she looks vulnerable instead of just wounded. Jason doesn’t try to grab her again, but he’s got one more card to play.
“I’ll be here when you need something to look forward to. And I’ll be here as long as it takes for you to find everything else.”
She doesn’t burst into tears, and she doesn’t hold onto him like he’s the only thing in the world. She keeps tearing the broken skin on her lips, breathing shakily.
“Okay,” she whispers.
“Okay.”