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"You did fucking what?! What the hell, Bruce!"
"Names, Hood. And yes, I went to see your 'friend'."
"What the fuck? Why?!"
Bruce had his arms crossed calmly over his chest, fully ignoring Jason's outrage. "You didn't give me an answer when I asked you about your friend. So I wanted to meet her."
"I didn't answer because my life is none of your damn business! Why does it matter if I have friends?"
"People don't befriend vigilantes for no reason, Hood."
Jason threw his arms up in frustration, pacing to the edge of the rooftop and kicking a lone can over the side. "Fuck that! You had no right to go prying into my life, especially while I was gone, or into hers! At all!"
"I was looking out for your safety. What if she was trying to use you for her own advantage? But she was as combative as…"
"What, as I am?" Jason whirled around, stalked back to Bruce, and jabbed a finger in his chest. "Safety, my ass. You weren't looking out for me, you were just trying to satisfy your own damn curiosity, which like I already said, was none of your fucking business!"
"She defended you."
Jason's mind short-circuited for a minute, and he froze as he tried to process that. She defended him? From Bruce? Why?
But then Bruce was talking again, and Jason had to force his thoughts to refocus.
"Hood, I--"
"No! Fuck off!" He spun back around, readying his grappling hook as he walked.
"Hood--"
"If you come after me, I'm going to fucking shoot you."
Then Jason dropped over the edge of the roof, using the grapple to swing from building to building until he landed on a familiar fire escape.
~ ~ ~
The fire escape door slammed open with a loud, "Did you fuckin' talk back to fuckin' Batman??"
Jay's voice barely even caught you off guard anymore. You didn't bother to glance over your shoulder as he came inside, just continued with balancing the hot pizza pan as you pulled it out of the oven. "So what if I did? And don't break my patio door!"
"You do know that's stupid and reckless, right?"
You let out a snort. "What, as opposed to when you do it? At least I didn't try to punch him."
The door closed with much less force than it opened with, and then Jay was crossing the apartment to the kitchen, yanking off his helmet as he came to stand across from you. "Are you crazy?" he demanded.
"I willingly live in Gotham, what do you think?" you said dryly. You gently pushed him out of the way so you could open the cupboard he was standing in front of. "Anyway, did you just find out or something? This happened like a week ago."
"I was out of the city on- it was for work, for the past week, so no, I didn't know that Batman planned to come ambush you, otherwise I would've stopped him. He just fucking told me about it earlier tonight."
"Well that's probably why he did it. You weren't here."
Jay let out a frustrated sigh and looked up at the ceiling for a long minute. Eventually he set his helmet on the counter and crossed his arms, but he looked less angry than he did when he first came in. "So what happened? I assume he didn't just ask you questions nicely." His voice was calmer too.
"Uh, no, not really. He was just lurking in my living room when I came home, which was freaky enough. Then he just wanted to know why you visited, why I helped, how long had we been friends. He pretty much implied that I had ulterior motives for helping you and then letting you come over and visit, which I didn't actually appreciate all that much, believe it or not. I kinda yelled - well, no, I did really yell at him - about Robin being sixteen." You thought about mentioning how Batman had also mildly implied that Jay was bad at his job and how you'd defended him, but then you thought better of it. Jay didn't need to know that part. Plus you still felt a little self-conscious about it yourself.
"So yeah. He hid in my apartment, tried to intimidate me for answers, and I pretty much told him to fuck off and mind his own business. Weird time all around, would love to never have to do it again."
Jay just stared at you for a moment. Then he muttered, "I could kiss you," out of fucking nowhere.
That caught you off guard. You'd been in the middle of reaching for a knife to cut the pizza with, and his statement made your hold on the knife slip. Luckily the knife just clattered onto the counter harmlessly, but you could feel your ears begin to burn, and you refused to turn around to look at him. He was probably wearing some smug grin about his joke surprising you, but… he didn't sound like he usually did when he was joking. You weren't sure if you could actually explain the difference, but it just didn't sound like the usual banter that you guys threw back and forth.
"...oh shuddup," you retorted after a moment. It was a weak comeback and you knew it, but you couldn't think of anything else to say. You were silent as you cut up the pizza and put a slice on a plate. Then you made a second plate and held it out to Jay. "Want one?"
"Sure. Thanks."
The two of you ate in silence for a few minutes, going through about half the pizza by the time you were done. As you started cleaning up the dishes and putting away the leftovers, Jay asked, "So. First visit with Batman. Thoughts?"
"Oh, a 'visit'? It felt more like an interrogation." You snapped the lid onto the tupperware container. "Honestly? I was a tiny bit terrified when I first saw him in my living room, then I was annoyed by all his questions and demands, and then just… tired. Yeah, I was angry there a little bit, because I don't think Robin should be fighting crime, but that's really not my decision. I can think it's irresponsible and be mad about it all I want, but it's not my life, and I don't have any right to try and change that." You'd been in that situation before, and it would honestly be hypocritical of you to try and play the other side of it, like how it'd been done to you. "Anyway, yeah. After that I was really just tired."
"Of what?"
You shrugged. "Arguing; trying to prove my point over his; the world being unfair; take your pick. Pretty much told him thanks for the conversation but please leave."
"How'd he take that?" Jay smirked. "Can't imagine it went over well."
"...I think it was okay? I'm honestly not sure. He just stared at me for a long time - which he did a lot of the whole time, by the way, it was kind of ominous - and then just fucking took off without saying anything. No 'bye', no 'thanks for answering my questions', no 'sorry for intruding', just… took off."
"Yeah, he does that a lot. Does it to us, to the Commissioner. It's kinda his shtick."
"His shtick sucks."
Jay laughed. "Kinda, yeah." He loosely crossed his arms and leaned his hip against the counter. "So now what?"
You gave him a confused look. "What do you mean, now what?"
"You gonna take up fighting Batman as a full-time gig or something? Pretty sure the rest of us would really appreciate it. Or are you just gonna send up a signal like the GCPD when you want to yell at him for being particularly stupid? Or better yet; you could go chase him down and stakeout his lair."
"Oh shut up." You couldn't help but grin even as your cheeks flushed when you turned and threw a dishtowel at him. "No, I'm not doing any of that. I'm not stupid enough to make telling off Batman a regular occurrence, thank you very much."
Jay caught the towel easily, and he grinned back at you as he flung it over one shoulder. "No? Come on, it would make great entertainment. We could sell tickets to it and everything. Probably raise enough money to make a decent donation somewhere."
"No!" Your blush got worse. "Shut up, Jay. That was a one time thing. I'd be perfectly fine if I never saw Batman in my apartment ever again."
"Aww. Not even if I asked really nicely?"
"No."
"What if I begged?"
"Not even then."
"Boo, you're no fun."