Chapter Text
“God fucking damnit” Jason mutters under his breath. To everyone else, it comes out a garbled mess of synthetic whispers, the helmet keeping his voice anonymous to the assholes he was just fighting. The key word here being was. Now, his leg is caught under a steel I beam that had previously been helping support the ceiling above. Knocked loose from years of strain, stray bullets, and water damage. Now, the smugglers were getting away.
It’s only after laying on the wet concrete stuck under the beam for hours that he finally decides enough is enough. He presses a small button on the base of the helmet, hidden under a ridge. There’s a small static sound as his comms go online “Oracle, anyone near my current location?” he coughs out, if begrudgingly.
Bab’s electronic response rings into his ear “If you didn’t destroy any trackers we put on you, I’d be able to give you an answer” damnit. He got in his own way again.
“Well that’s because I don’t need fuckin’ babysitting”
“But I bet it would be helpful right about now” she snaps right back, not a second wasted. Jason stays quiet for a bit, trying to gauge how much feeling he has left in his leg. Or in other words, how urgently he needs help. He strains and tries to move, struggling against the grime and dirt all around.
I think… yeah I think that’s my toes moving. No, no that was my imagination, fuck. “I’m in some fuckin’ warehouse. Big skylight roof, keep going straight off fifth street. M’around there. I need backup, m’stuck”
There’s a moment of silence before he hears a small snort “You’re stuck? I’m sending Nightwing your way regardless, but how does that happen? Mr heads in a bag, solo act” jokes on her, he isn’t going to dignify that question with an answer. “Nightwing is roughly twelve minutes out, I gotta help RR” and a small beep to signal her disconnection.
Dickface is never gonna let this go. Jason has no doubt he’ll be able to free him. Using a rope pulley system over the other structural beams above would be incredibly easy, but Dick will use this as blackmail for ages. That’s what Jason would do too.
After what feels like an hour he checks his watch. Three minutes. It’s only been three minutes. Maybe if he pretends he’s having fun the time will go faster. He takes a deep breath in and Jason’s pitchy acapella rendition of Alice in Chain’s Man in the Box reverberates through the brick and cement room.
“-Won’t you come and save me, save m-” his helmeted head shoots up when a crash and clang of metal meeting stone meets his ears, prematurely ending the song. It’s dark, really dark. The night vision in his helmet having broken when he first got pinned.
There’s someone in here with him. He can just barely make out a bipedal figure, laying down a ways away. The beam shifts, forcing a pained groan out of Jason. The person is trapped with him.
His mind starts to run at one million miles per hour. He’s trapped with what must be a meta, because he himself can’t wiggle the beam, let alone shift the whole thing. “Hey!” No response. “HEY!”
His blood runs cold when instead of a pissed off person yelling back, he’s met with a low animalistic hiss, followed by a rumbling growl.
What on earth were those men smuggling? He barely paid any mind when he got the intel from Tim. He just knew to get in, interrupt, and apprehend. He didn’t think they would be transporting exotic animals! Lions don’t hiss, snakes don’t growl. Damn this lighting, or lack thereof.
The beam creaks again, and all the blood rushes into his leg. White hot pain blinds him as feeling returns to his leg. Whatever the animal is, it’s strong enough to remove the beam.
Jason’s dead leg gives out at the attempt to stand, forcing him to sit on his ass and grab a flashlight out of his jacket that had fallen a few too many feet away.
He barely registers the click of the flashlight as it illuminates the animal. If that’s an animal. He scoots backward on the ground with his one working leg, away from that thing. The flashlight clacks to the floor, and the creature’s head whips around to his direction.
It’s tall, standing on its two legs. A long barbed tail curling protectively around itself, pointed right at Jason. It looks at him, he assumes, due to it not having any visible eyes. Its teeth are very visible though, appearing almost like metal spikes. Its entire body an inky black leathery texture, decorated with veins.
“H-hey buddy.” Oh god did he stutter? “are those guys from earlier your buddies?” He chuckles nervously. He’s not even sure this thing can understand him. The only saving grace being that it’s not attacking him. Yet. The monster hisses, baring its sharp canines. “Is that a no? Because if they’re your enemy that makes you my ally, really”
Another hiss can be heard, not the same as before. He tracks the sound to a dripping substance coming off the creature's midsection. It’s bleeding, and the lime green blood is melting the broken metal sheet it’s standing on. Jason finally manages to stand on his leg, wincing. “Hey, hey you're hurt huh? That doesn’t look fun” he limps over carefully, putting his hands up placatingly when it bears its sharp teeth and hisses once again. “I’m just gonna see how bad it is, okay bud? I’m just as hurt as you are”
He makes it closer to the creature than he thought he would, and surveys the wound properly. It appears the strange chitin exterior of the monster has been crushed inward right below where he imagines its lungs to be. Jason snorts “looks like we’ve got something in common huh?” He lifts his pant leg up a bit, showing off his cool new crushed purple decaying leg. He takes pride in his actions just a tad when the thing backs down a bit, sitting on its hind haunches. “I don’t know how to help you with that, sorry buddy.” He murmurs sympathetically.
Feeling safer, he looks around the room a bit more. Specifically over the cargo that had been being smuggled. Metal and plexiglass crates filled with crushed corpses of more of that creature. All of them just as alien looking, their blood pooling and melting away any metal it touches. “We really are alike huh?” He turns to his new monstrous pal “alone”
He feels a bump against his hand, and looks down to see the beast nudging its head into his palm. “Sorry bud. I know how much it hurts” he didn’t know if he was referring to its lost family or its injury, but he was being truthful either way. He raises a finger to the button under the ridge of his helmet again, speaking over the comms “O? Tell Nightwing to turn around. I’ve got backup already” he gently pats the slick surface of the monster's head.
—-///—-
Limping home on a leg that desperately needs amputating is easily one of the worst things Jason has ever done. Add on the giant fucking alien he covered with a tarp following him like a puppy…
Yeah he’s very surprised he hasn’t had anyone cause him trouble yet.
The creature stopped bleeding, but the wound is healing wrong. Permanently crushing most of its lungs.
He finally falls into his closest safehouse, and slams the door shut when tall, dark, and alien crawls inside. Then flicks the lock, then snaps the secondary lock shut, then arms the keypad. He slides down against the door, throws his helmet aside, gasping and clutching his dead leg. Not much blood actually managed to return to the limb it seems, and most will have to be removed. He’d rather have a robotic leg than some dangling painful hindrance.
“Hey, buddy” he snaps his fingers, stopping the creature from clawing the bottom of his window blinds and getting it to face him “knife” he makes a hand gesture, chopping the air “sharp thingy, over there” and points to the kitchen.
The monster growls and crawls through the apartment, tail flicking behind the main body. He’s incredibly surprised when it returns with a spoon. “Close! Uh, sharper.”
Thirty more minutes of this, the monster returning each time with the wrong thing. “No no no no, that’s a can opener. You’re so close! C’mo- oh who am I kidding. I can’t do this, I can’t do this” Jason whispers to himself, running a hand over his head through his hair. He clenches his eyes shut, and covers his face with his hands.
There’s a weight on his healthy leg. He peeks through his fingers, and only fully removes his hands when it turns out to be the alien, resting its head on his thigh. “I know you’re trying to help bud. I’m tryna help you too” his head makes a small thump when it gently hits the wooden door behind him, glaring at the ceiling.
He can’t sit with the pain anymore. Careful not to disturb his friend, he removes his belt, tourniqueting just above the knee. He takes off his jacket, raising one of the leather sleeves to his mouth. “Bud, use that on this” he points to the sharp knife like appendage on the end of the tail then to his leg “clean as you can” he mutters before quickly stuffing the jacket sleeve between his teeth.
—-///—-
He’s sure this thing is getting hungry. Mostly because he found it digging through his pantry this morning. Chips ripped open and smashed everywhere, canned food torn into pieces. Most food untouched besides several cans of peeled peach slices that had been delicately stabbed and eaten.
He went out, got strange looks from the butcher as he bought as much raw meat as he could, and brought it home. It made a sickening squelch as the meat hit the ground “bon appetite” he says amused, watching the alien unhinge it’s jaw and eat with its smaller second row of teeth. “So Peaches, I’ve got a plan to track down these guys that hurt us. We can get our revenge” he grins wildly.
He rolls out a giant map of Gotham city on the living room coffee table. Taking a seat on the old raggedy couch, he’s thankful to finally get off the uncomfortable prototype prosthetic leg. He may not be Tim or Roy in smarts, but when you’re surrounded by so many literal geniuses, his own smarts are not nearly as noticeable.
As the alien finishes its meal and crawls closer, he circles the warehouse in bright red marker. “That’s where all this started. They headed off this way-” he draws an arrow east “so we have… the entire east side to clear” he slumps, his head hanging low.
Jason groans in frustration and leans back into the couch cushions, letting the monster not so subtly sneak onto his lap “you’re just a big puppy” he coos and pets the creature “mhm, just a big lonely alien puppy. Aren’t you, Peaches?” He baby talks the alien, his smile growing when it lets out a sort of satisfied sigh or hiss.
He looks over the alien to the map, trying to form a plan. He can start going back to normal patrols while looking for clues and signs. Can he really leave Peaches alone in the safehouse though? The longest he left it alone so far was thirty minutes for the butcher. If he brought it with him on patrol not only would it get exercise, but if there was a rapist or like, child murderer maybe Peaches would get a meal out of it. Training this thing is gonna be hell, though so far it seems highly intelligent. It may not be able to as much as before, now with its permanently damaged lungs, but surely getting out will be beneficial for both of them.
He lets his eyes drift closed and his hand stops its rhythmic strokes on Peaches’ back.