Work Text:
Of all the things you could expect in Gotham at two in the morning, a loud crash and the sound of smashing terracotta from your fire escape wasn’t one that you exactly wanted to hear.
You were exhausted, fighting with yourself trying to get to sleep, and already measuring how tired you’d be at work with every passing second that you weren’t passed out. The noise, however, jolted you awake. Call it Gotham instincts, because that wasn’t a sound you just ignored in this city, even in a fourteenth-story apartment.
So, you grabbed your bat from the space between your mattress and the wall, scrambled to pull on some socks, and crept through your apartment to your darkened living room, squinting at the sliding door like you could see onto your fire escape past the blinds that you always double checked before leaving in the morning to make sure they covered the glass door completely. It was the only place in your apartment that the sound could’ve come from, and you dreaded what could’ve made it in the first place.
Because Gotham was the crime capital of the United States of America. Because you lived in a city that didn’t deal with the insane threats that Metropolis did, but break-ins and muggings were so common that it was part of the ‘Gotham charm’— as if there was anything charming about this city.
You inched forward, silently hyping yourself up as you reached for the blinds, trying not to jump to too crazy conclusions before you could really assess the situation. It wasn’t working, really, and with each millisecond of hesitation, your apprehension just grew until you had to force yourself to just bite the bullet and yank the blinds open.
To which you promptly screamed bloody murder when you were met with a red helmet and a bloody smear across the glass.
Jason winced, the shrill sound, though muffled by the glass, was still grating on his ears, and, for as much as he wanted to pretend he was fine, the blood loss was mixing with the long night and making him sensitive in a way he didn’t want to be around a civilian. Especially not one shrieking at him with a baseball bat.
He gripped the handle of your door, just trying to pull himself up (he’d apologize about the blood stains later. Preferably when you weren’t panicking) and that seemed to kick you into gear because you yanked the door open, sending him crashing back down to the grated floor of your fire escape, and then started spewing apologies at him as you tried to ask if he was okay.
He groaned, shoving himself back up on his elbow, and looked at you, dizzy and disoriented from just how fast you pulled the door and made him lose his grip. You were unassuming enough; someone who he didn’t recognize to any degree, and he could at least be relatively confident that you weren’t any of the thugs he’s had to encounter before between your unfamiliarity and the way you were visibly and verbally stuttering as you tried to figure out just how to deal with the vigilante currently bleeding out on your balcony.
He mumbled something that you couldn’t understand through the voice modulation from his helmet, and you finally scraped together enough sense to toss your bat aside and help him stand.
“Y’got any painkillers?” he managed to ask, voice rough as he leaned against your side. You could feel warmth seeping in through your shirt, and you cringed at the knowledge that it was, most certainly, his blood currently staining your clothes and skin.
“Uh.” You stumbled beneath his weight, grunting as you fought to half-support, half-drag the vigilante into your apartment and drop him onto your couch. Taking a step back, you ran a hand over your head, half-registering just how massive he looked against your throw pillows, and focusing on the darker splotch on the side of his shirt.
The fabric was ripped open, and you could just barely make out raw flesh amidst all the blood staining his skin a deep red. It was hard to tell just how bad the cut was, but you could assume (with your extremely limited medical knowledge) that it was a knife wound, since it didn’t seem shredded enough to be something dull, and a gunshot wound shouldn’t be that long.
You swallowed, trying to bring some moisture back into your mouth as you struggled to recall what he asked and what the answer was.
“I have naproxen and ibuprofen,” you offered hoarsely, already rushing over to yank the bin of pills down from on top of your fridge. Most of it was vitamins; supplements that you should be taking, but keep forgetting about. “No acetaminophen.”
He grunted, and you dug out the bottles of Motrin and Aleve, nearly dropping them as you grabbed a bottle of water from your emergency stash in the back of the fridge.
“The naproxen,” he groaned, and you ditched the Motrin.
He watched you rush off to your bathroom as he swallowed down several more pills than the recommended dose, gritting his teeth as he pressed down against the wound and laid down on your couch, trying to breathe through the pain while he listened to you tearing apart your bathroom in search of a first-aid kit you didn’t have.
You came back with a box of butterfly bandages, a wash cloth, and a bowl of water. You didn’t even seem to notice that Jason didn’t have his helmet on when you knelt down, spilling some of the water on yourself in the process, and began cleaning his wound with the most nervous energy Jason had ever seen radiating from one person.
Your hands shook as you dabbed at the cut, body moving spastically as your brain tried to process that you had a fucking vigilante in your living room, he was bleeding out on your couch, and you were currently trying to patch him up. You barely even knew what you were doing, moving entirely on autopilot as you slopped water from the bowl, into your carpet, and onto his side.
He grunted again, one hand coming up to grab your wrist, and you flinched hard enough to spill almost all of the remaining water onto the floor before realizing that you weren’t about to be ripped clean in half by the Red Hood, and he was instead stopping you to tear a wider hole into his shirt to give you full access to the oozing cut in his side.
He dropped his hands and head back down, sucking in a breath through his teeth as you shakily mopped up the blood and cleaned the cut. You pressed down, holding the skin closed as well as you could as you fumbled for the box of bandages on the floor beside you.
Your knees felt numb by the time you were finished. A mess of butterfly bandages held his side together, minimizing as much bleeding as your sloppy application would allow. For now, you stood, knees nearly buckling beneath you as you picked up the nearly empty bowl and went to put it away in the kitchen.
You stood there, braced against your counter for a good minute, just breathing, trying to steady yourself and calm down enough to really take in the situation. It wasn’t unheard of for one of Gotham’s vigilantes to wind up bloody on a fire escape (in fact, it was common enough that you’ve stumbled across a subreddit dedicated to these sorts of incidents), but as far as you were aware, the Red Hood hasn’t been spotted like this by anyone alive to talk about it.
“Y’shouldn’t let the water soak,” he muttered from your couch, effectively snapping you out of whatever spiral you were teetering on and making your breath catch in your throat when you looked over at him in the dim light from your hallway.
You couldn’t see his face, not fully with the domino mask obscuring his eyes, but you could see the shape of his head and his messy black hair. Your eyes lingered on the white streak, cutting through the dark like clean paper next to an ink stain. His head lolled back, resting against the arm of your couch, and his neck stretched, throat exposed towards you for long enough to overthink.
“Right,” you responded hoarsely, grabbing a dry towel and stumbling back into the living room. You tossed it onto the wet patch and dug your foot in, soaking up what you could.
Jason watches you for a while, quietly taking in every jerky movement and shaky exhale. He could list everything you did wrong— from leaving the lights off while you worked to letting him in in the first place— but he didn’t have the energy, nor the heart to harp on you the same way he would the bats. So, he watched, shifting a little so your head didn’t bump into his knee when you sat on the floor, your back to the couch’s front.
“Thanks,” he grunted after some time, eyeing the way you still tensed at the sound of his voice. The pills were starting to kick in, thankfully, and the pain was dulling along with the adrenaline. If Jason wasn’t careful, he’d end up passing out like this, stretched out over your dinky couch. He doubted you’d do anything to him, but the thought of leaving himself vulnerable like that made his stomach churn, and he’d rather not give you another heart attack by passing out after you patched him up.
You turned your head, stretching your neck to look back at him, and the dim light from your hallway left your features shadowed. His eyes traced the dark lines cast across your face.
“Oh. Uh, no problem.”
You stared through him, eyes unfocusing and fingers tapping over your knee. It was a little easier to breathe now, with your heart steadily calming and your brain catching up with the situation. Your eyes tracked him as he slowly lifted himself into a sitting position.
“I should get going,” he says, voice soft as to not spook you any more than he already has. You watch him grab his helmet and shove it over his head, bracing himself before he stands, and impulsively, you scramble up to offer him a hand.
It’s quiet, almost awkward as you lead him back out to the balcony, cringing at the blood still smeared on the glass. The door squeaks obnoxiously behind you, and the muggy air of Gotham’s spring threatens to choke you as you survey the busted-up table and broken pot of flowering primroses dirtying the fire escape.
“Stay out of trouble,” Jason murmured, leaning back against the railing as he spoke to you, taking in your night clothes and the way you shifted nervously on your feet. If he were a better man, he’d feel guilty about spooking you so badly.
You nodded. “Yeah. I’ll uh— I’ll see you?”
And quickly, you caught the implication, cringing and flipping between trying to amend your mistake or just leaving it to linger, because you didn’t want to see the Red Hood again, but you also didn’t want to offend him by insinuating that.
But Jason just huffed, head lolling to the side in what looked like a tame amusement, and you swore that your heart stopped.
“Dangerous offer,” he said softly, the blank, white eyes of his helmet staring through you. “Let’s not make this a habit, yeah?”
“Right.” You nodded jerkily, pressing your back against the glass door behind you. “Uh, try not to… y’know.” You made a vague gesture to your side. Try not to aggravate your injury. Crime lord or not, you’d feel bad if your bandages went to waste.
“Right,” he parrots, a hint of something warm in his voice. You’re sure it was the fatigue catching up to you. “Doctor’s orders, huh?”
You nod again, swallowing down the sudden dryness in your throat. Against every instinct you had, the prospect of actually seeing him again looked appealing.
Without another word, he fires off his grappling hook and swings away, offering a snort nod as he disappears into the night. Which left you alone to collapse against your balcony door, emotionally and physically exhausted, and groan. The bloodstains would be hell to get out of your couch.