Work Text:
Dawn crept through the windows of the safe house, casting the well-organized surroundings in a cerulean glow. The doorknob jiggled, a twisting of a key. A few muffled curses as the door got caught in its water-warped frame again. Finally, it opened with a loud scrape of wood-on-wood. The Red Hood, infamous vigilante and wanted criminal of countless international organizations stumbled inside, closing the door behind him with an unintentional slam, something that sounded earth-shattering after hours of quiet stakeouts and stealthy patrols. He sagged against the door, fatigue pulling at his limbs as he pulled off the helmet and wiped sweat from his face.
It had been a long night.
Jason Todd stared into the depths of his apartment, thought of all he had to accomplish before crawling into bed, then wanted nothing more to escape to the tropical island he’d called home in his time with the Outlaws. But no. He pressed on.
He had been lucky tonight, no gunshot wounds or a constellation of bruises but he still felt pain buzzing beneath his skin, an electric current of ache that had followed him since he’d climbed from the pit. As Jason picked his way across the apartment he removed his gear, leaving a trail of body armor and weaponry behind him. After a quick shower and changing into something more comfortable – soft, loose clothing that kept him from wanting to rip off his skin – he settled down in front of the computer with a huff.
A new drug had cropped up in his hometown. He’d been focusing on bigger fish – international terrorists and aspiring supervillains – but peddling shit to kids on his turf made it personal. Whoever it was was well funded, unafraid of their heads being parted from their shoulders, and experienced enough to slip under the Bats’ radar until their new batches of Pyro – a vile amalgam of the most addicting shit on the market that sent its victims into an arsonous mania, had already put people in the hospital. He’d spent the night evacuating a burning apartment complex in the Bowery. True to form, the shithead landlords neglected maintaining the fire escapes to squeeze out a few extra bucks. He could still hear the shriek of metal and chorus of screams as it began to collapse, unable to support the sudden load.
Babs traced the blaze to arson, the perpetrator riding the Pyro-made ecstasy that fueled it. He couldn’t even bring himself to blame the kid – it had been a kid, a teenager, something that made Jason wonder if that could have been him, had he not jacked Bruce’s tires. Being poor sapped life from you, collected everything you had with interest just to scrape by. Everyone coped in their own ways, indulged in choice vices to claw back any scrap of pleasure and joy they could. He couldn’t help but wonder what’d been the final straw for that kid. If there was anything he could’ve done to keep people – his people – from slipping through the cracks.
He scrubbed his hand over his face, as if wiping away his spiraling thoughts, and stared into the searing blue light. Right. What he’d settled here to do.
Tonight’s stakeouts and enhanced interrogations after the fire revealed that the ring had connections to a west-coast pharmaceutical company, its identity concealed beneath countless shell companies and fake names. This was something that struck him as odd. Jason wasn’t the only one protective of his turf. Gotham was infamous for its organized crime and anything viewed as a foreign intrusion would be quickly run out of the city and given a dip in the Atlantic with complementary cinder blocks. He would know, he had one hell of a time trying to clean up Crime Alley and shrugging off Black Mask’s desperate attempts to retain power. No, these circumstances suggested something deeper. What was the word?
Jason rubbed his eyes. God he was so damn tired.
Conspiracy! That’s it. A conspiracy. It suggested a conspiracy and he was going to scrub through the cameras and through records to see if he could find motive, find a culprit, find something.
As he watched an eternity of sped-up CCTV he felt his eyes glaze over, eyelids drooping but glowing pain around his joints keeping him from falling asleep. His head was full of cotton and with a frustrated grumble he paused the camera feed. Jason stood up and stretched with a pop and staggered into the bathroom, squinting when he turned on the fluorescent lights. He rummaged around in his medicine cabinet, digging out a blue-capped bottle of Ibuprofen. Pain meds were always hit-or-miss. He had no idea what, exactly, the Lazarus waters had done to his body and didn’t feel inclined to drag himself into a clinic to be poked and prodded like a lab rat. He shook out two tablets. Considered for a moment. Shook out two more. Jason knew that this was the sort of thing he should take with food, especially with how often he was popping NSAIDs like candy, but at the moment, with the room spinning and everything feeling so bright and loud he couldn’t bring himself to care. If he got stomach ulcers he’d deal with it later. He dry-swallowed the pills, wincing at the way they scratched his throat when they went down.
A knock at the door.
Who the hell was trying to break in at the ass-crack of dawn?
Grumbling about being disturbed he marched towards the front door and pulled it open. He was met with Dick’s lanky figure, costume hastily covered by a sweatshirt and jeans though Jason could see it poking out behind the jacket’s collar. His brother’s face was obnoxiously bright for this hour. Jason scowled. Dick held up a greasy brown paper bag.
“I brought breakfast!”
“I see that.” Jason moved to close the door in his brother’s face but was foiled by the man wedging himself through the door and into the apartment.
“Babs said you’d had a late night and I was in the area so I figured I’d swing by.”
Jason didn’t have the energy to deal with this, to deal with the tangled knot of angst that came with talking to the Bats. He opened his mouth to tell Dick to fuck off but the acidic retort died on the tip of his tongue. His older brother stared at him like a kicked puppy, a look mastered through years of dealing with Bruce. “Fine. Fuck – just. You can set your stuff over there, give me a minute.” He gestured to the couch on his march to the desk, minimizing incriminating files and the CCTV feed. Behind him, the paper bag crinkled as his brother rummaged through it.
“I stopped by that bodega on the corner, figured you’d be fine with a breakfast sandwich. It’s -” Dick paused to glance at the foil wrapper. It seemed like he was pretty wiped too, “- sausage and egg.”
Jason hummed his assent, grabbing two plates from his well-stocked kitchen. They both knew he wasn’t picky. He plopped down on the couch across from Dick, exchanging a plate for a sandwich.
“You know I’m surprised they’re still open,” Dick said through a mouthful of English muffin, “I guess those bars on the windows work better than I thought.”
Jason knew exactly what store Dick was talking about. It’d been owned by an elderly couple for as long as he could remember. From what he’d heard they’d been there even when Crime Alley had been Park Row, like any Gothamite it’d take all the forces of Heaven and Earth to uproot them from their homes, from the lives they’d built. He also knew damn well that Dick knew it was his favorite place to grab a bite in the Alley, though he’d wish that the old lady who ran it would stop pinching his cheeks every time he came in. “Mhm. Or the guns.”
Dick batted his hand, “You can’t be there to watch over Crime Alley all the time.” it was meant to be lighthearted, but Jason knew how guilty Dick felt whenever he had to leave Blüdhaven.
“No, I mean they keep a sawed-off shotgun under the counter.” Jason replied. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, savoring the flavorful breakfast sandwich. The bodega’s food hit differently when he was hungry and exhausted.
“Ah.”
“Thanks for the food, by the way.” He may have been disgruntled by his sibling’s intrusion when he wanted nothing more than to alternate between sleeping and burying himself in this case, but he wasn’t a dick. Heh.
“’S no problem, you’ve broken into my apartment and fed me enough times.”
“Dry cereal isn’t a balanced meal, Dickwing.”
“Tell that to the packaging!”
“It’s full of shit and you know it.”
This banter soon deteriorated into jabs, then playful wrestling, sandwiches half-eaten and forgotten on the coffee table. It was only later, when the stress was worked out of their systems and they sprawled out on the carpeted floor, that Dick got to why he was actually here.
“Are you doing okay?”
Jason ran a hand through his hair with a huff, “I’m fine, Mom.”
He didn’t need to glance over to know that his older brother was frowning, that his brows were knitting together like they always did when he fretted over one of them. “It’s just that we haven’t really been seeing you outside of patrols. You go straight to one of your safehouses and disappear until the next night.” Dick paused, as if debating with himself for a moment. “Babs said you haven’t been leaving your apartment much.”
Jason sat up, “You’ve been watching me?” He’d thought that he’d finally gained their trust, finally gotten them to stop looking at him like he’d a bomb waiting to explode. But this meant that they’d never stopped seeing him as the volatile one. The crazy one that couldn’t let go of the past. His nails dug into the carpet. He thought of being a child hiding under the kitchen table with his dog. His father screaming. A slap and the shattering of glass. Fear and blood roaring in his ears. Is that what people saw when they looked at him?
Sensing the drastic shift in mood, Dick sat up. “She keeps tabs on all of us, you know that. To make sure we’re okay.”
For the rest of them, maybe. But Jason had long been a flight risk, an unreliable variable apt to go haywire and put bullets between people’s eyes – something he still didn’t regret. He swallowed down the bitterness and bile. Tried to remember the few useful things he’d learned when trapped in Arkham. Next to him. Hearing laughter seeping through the padded walls. Jason took a deep breath. Counted to ten. “You know what my privacy means to me.” he grit out.
“I know, but that isn’t what I’m trying to talk about right now. Look, I’ll speak to her but I’m worried about you, Jay.” Dick said, using the Robin Voice they’d all used when reassuring terrified victims, or when corralling a dangerous animal. Dick grasped Jason’s arm. It was meant to ground him, but all it did was make him want to lash out and run.
If the constant distrust, the wary stares, the hushed whispers at family gatherings weren’t what this was about, Jason wasn’t sure what was.
Jason shrugged away his brother’s touch, tried to ignore the way he could feel his hands start to shake. “I told you I’m fine. I don’t need to be babysat.”
Dick lowered his hand and though he kept a careful expression, Jason had been in this line of work far too long to miss the way his jaw clenched and his shoulders went rigid. Dick was upset, hurt at the distrust shining in his eyes. Jason looked away, ignoring the way guilt wriggled in his gut. His relationship with the rest of the Bats was far too tenuous for his older brother to push it further – it took months to mend the bridges burned after the latest shitshow between Bruce and Selina – they both knew how precarious these bonds were. That at the slightest inkling of messy family conflict he’d abandon ship and lay low away from the Bats for a while. Hell, Jason had contingencies on contingencies spinning away in the back of his head even now. He wondered if Roy would let him crash on his couch for a bit, if he needed to.
But he’d been here, in this apartment, for far too long. After nearly a decade of transience, of bouncing from safehouse to safehouse, he’d finally built somewhere he wanted to stay. The apartment wasn’t only an apartment to him, it was a home hard-won after long battles against the specter of a long-dead boy and expectations he’d never meet. It was a place where he’d fit – not because of squeezing into someone else’s mould, but by pouring his spare time and energy into it. By choosing to stay and to try despite being knocked down time and time again. The thought of wiping the slate clean, of abandoning the memories he’d made in rare moments of peace, of razing the mementos and books he’d hoarded after a lifetime of deprivation, made his chest ache.
Instead of giving in to the fears and paranoia that swirled around him, he gripped the tufts of office-gray carpet tighter. Jason sighed, willing some of the tension to bleed from his body, “Look, Dick, I appreciate you coming in here, checking on me, but I need my space.” At that, Dick was beginning to look like a kicked puppy. He wished he could put it better, to articulate how he felt smothered without biting the hand reaching out to him. But biting was all he knew. “It’s been a long night.”
“Fine,” Dick said, and got up to set his plate in the sink, “but when you feel ready to talk…” he threw his wrapper in the trash.
Jason batted the air with his hand, hoping his brother wouldn’t notice how it quivered, “Yeah, whatever, I know Dickwing. You should get home and get some sleep or you’ll be the one Babs is lecturing later.” For a seasoned vigilante and trained acrobat, Dick was taking his sweet ass time. Couldn’t he leave a little faster?
Dick’s eyes narrowed, a promise that he’d be blowing up Jason’s phone later and a sign that Jay’d have to sweep the apartment for bugs once he left, “Alright. I’ll have Tim send over the intel he’s dug up on Pyro this afternoon.” Dick picked up his bag, swinging it over his shoulder.
“Cya.” Jason said with a half-hearted salute. The door to his apartment closed with a click. Once again, the apartment was as lifeless and quiet as the tomb he’d crawled out of. Jason leaned his head back onto the couch. Shit.
Sheets of rain pelted Gotham’s rooftops, sending people scurrying for cover under awnings and into convenience stores. The cool rain was a welcome reprieve from the oppressive summer heat and the sporadic fires that had plagued New Jersey for the past several months. Jason stood in front of the grocery outlet, breathing deep and soaking in the smells of wet pavement and cheap flowers. The rain parted the smog that shrouded his city, washed away the layers of grit and grime. His arms were laden with plastic grocery bags, “Thank you!” emblazoned across the thin plastic accompanied by little smiley faces, and a bouquet of water-dyed daisies he’d spotted near the produce. His therapist, Dr. Rosemont, had suggested taking the time to do little things for himself, to savor quiet moments and indulge in small pleasures. Like grocery-store bouquets. It sounded like a lot of woo-woo bullshit to him, but he had to admit that if nothing else the smell grounded him. She was one of the reasons he’d been able to get back on his feet after the shit Bruce did to his head. He was still unsteady, easily pushed into downward mental spirals, but at least he wasn’t having panic attacks at the drop of a hat anymore.
He set off down the street towards his apartment, stopping occasionally to hand out candies to the alley kids that congregated near the crosswalks. This case was bugging him, tugging at the back of his mind like a burr snagged on a sock. There’d been more fires, enough that Babs had started keeping track of them and alerting the Bats whenever one’d pop up. Gotham Fire could extinguish the flames well enough, God knows they’d had enough practice with how many disasters have hit the city, but he and the Bats were much better suited to talking down druggies than the trigger-happy GCPD. Tim had put something into the family group chat, a tip he’d gotten about a shipment moving through a warehouse by the docks. Jason had that chat on mute since Dick added him, so he didn’t catch what was happening until Tim pestered him with several pushy voice messages. They would meet tonight to bust the deal and hopefully gather more intel. Jason was tempted to avoid the confrontation altogether, the thought of a stakeout with his brothers combined with Tim’s increasingly disdainful calls made him want to bail on principle. The people in the alley relied on him though and there was only so much he could accomplish on his own.
Jason pinched the bridge of his nose. He wished he could just slice off fingers until minions started squealing, like he used to, but he was trying to play nice with the Bats now. That meant no killing, no excessive maiming, not if he wanted to maintain the tentative peace he’d built since the second iteration of the Outlaws had fallen through. That had been a clusterfuck and a half and the thought of falling into another self destructive spiral pushed bile up his throat. He clenched his fists around the bag handles. Inhaled for four. Held for four. Exhaled for four.
He was doing this, standing in a large puddle in the asphalt beneath his building’s fire escape when he heard it. He frowned, setting his bags (and flowers) on the blacktop alongside the plaques of discarded chewing gum and ground cigarette butts. It was coming from underneath the dumpsters. Jason moved slowly, careful to keep his steps quiet. Every so often, he heard a raspy, high pitched meow, infused with such misery that it made his chest ache. Pulling out his phone and flicking on its flashlight, he squatted down to peer under the dumpster. Two small eyes gleamed at him from the far corner, closest to the brownstone walls. Jason leaned back on his heels, remembering how disastrously his last foray into pet ownership had gone. He’d left Dog with Isabel, having travelled too much and gotten into too much shit to have a pet, especially not when he had the Penguin locked behind an aquarium in his own nightclub. Jason and Isabel had long drifted apart, despite attempts to stay in touch over email. He had no idea what happened to her or that dog. Or if they were even alive, since the people around him tended to drop like flies. He thought of Damian, the way that kid latched onto every animal in sight, embracing a “weakness” that had been beaten out of him in the League. At the very least, Jason could get this animal out of the cold and probably into a good home. Mind made up he reached his hand under the dumpster, speaking softly to the cat in a way meant to be comforting. The cat hissed at him, fur bristling. Well, screw you too then. Asking nicely obviously wouldn’t work, but Jason knew what it was like to be cold, alone, and hungry. He had an idea.
First, he carried his shit up to his apartment, mostly because he didn’t want it to get drenched nor did he want to juggle groceries, flowers, and an armful of enraged feline. Then, he snatched his last can of tuna from his pantry – he knew he forgot something at the store, damn it – and brought it with him to the dumpster. He sat down on the pavement, making a mental note to change out of his now-drenched jeans later. The can oppened with a loud crack and the little cat perked up immediately. He set it next to him, and faced away from the cat, to show it that he didn’t want to eat it or something. Jason looked at his phone as he waited, turning the flashlight off. While he hesitated to reach out to his brothers for help with anything, he did know someone who could give him an idea of what to do, someone he trusted to not give him shit about this later.
Jason:
Hey i found a stray by my apt
[1 image attachment: a picture of underneath the dumpster, only the cat’s eyes are visible.
Ive never done this with a cat before so what should i do once i get it inside?
Mama Cat:
You’ll need to take them to a vet to check for a chip and figure out what they need.
Until then they’ll need some food, water, a litter box.
Where are you? I can stop by and bring stuff after dinner.
Jason debated giving her his address for a few moments but decided against it. Sure, it may be an open secret amongst the Bats at this point, but the fewer people who knew where he lived, the better.
Jason:
The park by the cathedral work?
The Old Gotham Cathedral was the midpoint between their apartments, not that Selina knew that. Plus, it was one of the few parts of the Bowery that looked well taken care of. Its congregants tended lovingly to its garden, which was left alone thanks to the extensive humanitarian aid the church did. Whether or not that aid came with strings attached didn’t matter much when it was one of the few warm buildings that would open its doors to anyone off the street during winter. The garden’s trees and shrubbery would also lend them some privacy and a bit of shelter from the downpour.
Mama Cat:
Yep
See you soon bat boy
[1 image attachment: a bitmoji of Selina with cat ears making a heart shape with her hands]
She was definitely calling him that to fuck with him. There was a slurping sound coming from near his left hip. Jason looked down to see a fluffy orange head sticking out from under the dumpster, lapping up the tuna, so earnest that the can was inching forward. He wracked his brain for anything useful he’d learned in the times he’d been around Selina and her cats as a kid. Slowly, to not startle it, Jason held his hand out in front of the can. The cat paused, sniffed the offered hand, then scowled up at him.
“Oh c’mon, don’t give me that look.” Jason said. The cat’s ears were pointed in opposite directions, as if in offense. Regardless, it pressed itself closer to the floor and continued eating the tuna with vigor. Jason huffed out a sigh, lowering his hand into his lap. At least it didn’t bolt when he moved. Oddly, the cat reminded him of the kids in the alley: scrungly and slow to trust. He waited until it was most of the way through the can to make his move. The cat was fast, but Jason was faster, scooping it up into his arms and into his jacket. As it writhed and growled, he picked up the somewhat devoured can and held it to the cat's face. It dipped its head down into it, eating but continuing to growl. Jason snorted at the sound, which was reminiscent of a little imp growling “Nom, nom, nom,” as it ate. While it was preoccupied, he scaled the fire escape and slipped into the apartment, locking the door behind him. The cat was finished with the tuna, but in spite of its continued protests, it made no move to escape. Noticing how hard it was shivering, Jason tossed the can into the trash and plopped down on the couch, little imp still tucked against his chest.
Jason:
[1 image attachment: A picture of the inside of Jason’s leather jacket, a fluffy orange cat is tucked against his chest, its head buried into his shirt.]
Got it inside.
Mama Cat:
Awww what a sweetheart
Jason glanced down at the trembling ball of fur, then at the groceries sitting on his counter, including the ice cream that was definitely melting by now, then looked down at the cat again. He sighed, plucked the latest Louise Penny off of the coffee table, and began reading, startling a bit as the cat began to purr.
Rain pattered on the leaves above them, partially shielding them from the downpour. Jason crossed his arms, ignoring the stinging slashes on his shoulders from when he’d peeled the cat off him to meet Selina. “That everything?” he asked, nodding towards the totes she carried.
“Should be,” she said, sparing a quick glance inside, “There’s bowls, litter and a box, dry and wet food, and some toys.”
Selina passed the bags over to him. “Thanks,” he said, for even though she always rubbed him the wrong way, he’d at least remember his manners, “I’ll try to get these back to you once I get it to its owner.”
She gave him a knowing look that made his hackles rise, but wisely chose not to say anything. “You remember what I taught you back when you’d catsit for me as a kid?” she asked. In the happier parts of her and Bruce’s on-and-off again relationship, Jason was often enlisted to watch her cats during the couple’s dates and day trips. He could practically smell the piss and feel his sinuses clog at the thought of it.
“Dry food out for snacking throughout the day, a bit of wet food for dinner, clean the water, and empty the litter box every morning and night. Yeah, I got it.” he huffed, reciting instructions that made him feel like an awkward teenager again. It wasn’t a feeling he cared for, especially not while standing in a cemetery-turned-park.
Selina looked amused, her lips quirking into a half-smile half-smirk. She almost looked fond, something Jason had long learned meant she had a scheme up her sleeve, even if in this case it meant ratting him out to Bruce. He’d been burned by maternal figures far too many times to allow himself to feel anything but guarded exasperation. She passed him a business card, “There’s a vet clinic I go to all the time for my girls, down in the Narrows. Just tell them my name and they’ll sort you out.”
Jason nodded, pocketing the card, “I’ll go in tomorrow morning.” He paused for a moment. “I should probably start headin’ back. Damn near had to pull out the crowbars to wedge that thing offa me earlier.”
She laughed. Jason felt his face flush. “Well you’ll have to introduce me sometime soon,” she teased, knowing damn well that the day Jason actually invited her over to his apartment would be the day hell froze over.
He didn’t deign to respond, instead he turned on his heel and began his trek – no, he was not fleeing, thank you – back to his apartment, weaving through alleyways to shake off any potential tail.
On his way through the front door, Jason’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He shouldered the door shut behind him and snagged the phone. Once inside, door locked, he glanced at the caller ID. Tim. Jason debated sending it straight to voicemail. He and the replacement had always been on awkward terms, even after he started working with the Bats again. It turns out that beating the tar out of someone unprovoked in a blinding fit of pit rage, clad in a Party City Robin costume, left a lasting negative impression. Who knew? Ah fuck it, it was probably about the stakeout tonight.
He swiped right to answer, “Hey Hortons.”
“Hortons?” Tim asked, bafflement interrupting whatever he was about to say.
“Ya know, Tim Hortons? The coffee chain?” Jason supplied. Silence. Well, far be it for him to try to lighten the heavy mood that appeared whenever they shared a room. He coughed, “Anyways, what’s up?”
“I got the results back from the tests I ran on that batch of Pyro you snagged,” Tim said, and Jason could near see the kid leaning back in the Batcave’s chair, surrounded by a mountain of discarded energy drinks. He set the bags down on the counter, and kept an ear out for a pitter-patter of little footsteps.
“Yeah?” Jason replied, half listening. He wedged the phone between his shoulder and ear as he set out the stuff Selina got him.
“Mhm. It’s got a similar chemical makeup to fear toxin. Though instead of fear it’s the other way around. Though still I wonder why..” Tim descended into the incoherent mumbling he seems to spiral into whenever working on a case, typically talking to himself more than anything else.
Still, Jason humored him with hums and “uh-huh”s in the right places. As he fished pet supplies out of the bags, he paused when he pulled out a mousey toy dressed up like Batman. It caught him off guard, causing him to wheeze.
“Everything good over there?” Tim asked.
Jason cleared his throat, “Yup, just something I was working on, you were saying?”
“Right, so like I was saying the molecular structure…” Tim continued. Jason went back to tuning out his younger brother’s nerd shit.
Movement caught his eye and he looked up. Two glowing marbles stared back at him from his open cupboard. He had a momentary vision of the cat leaping into the cabinet – mistakenly left open from putting away groceries once he left – knocking every can over and wreaking carnage on his meticulously organized pantry. Jason sucked in a breath and peered inside. As he approached, the little imp shrunk away towards the back corner, growling. Only a few things were knocked over, cleared away to make room for the cat’s makeshift nest. Jason considered scooping it up and wrenching it from the cupboard, but a twinge of pain from the healing claw marks in his shoulders made him decide otherwise. Instead, he crouched over the new food and water bowls, bag of dry food in hand. He opened and shook it a few times and a furry orange head poked out from behind the door, curious. Muffling the phone’s receiver with his hand, he poured kibble into the metal bowl before slowly backing away.
“..Jason? Jason!” Tim shouted out him. He must’ve tuned the kid out for too long, oops.
“What? What? No need to yell.” Jason snarked, plopping himself on the couch. It was the perfect place to observe if the little creature would brave the outside world for dinner.
“Were you even listening?”
“Yes?”
Tim sighed, and Jason didn’t need a camera to know that a constipated look was on the kid’s face. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll see you tonight Jason.”
“Aight, see you then.”
Tim hung up and Jason tossed his phone onto the furthest couch cushion, relieved that the call was over. Interacting with the Bats always had him feeling high-strung, even for the most mundane shit.
Reaching towards the corner of the room, by the couch’s arm, he pulled out his duffel bag. It was beat to hell and stained a nasty rust red that wouldn’t get out, no matter what chemical concoction he soaked it in. It was sturdy though and Jason wasn’t about to shitcan a perfectly good bag, regardless of how many severed heads it may have held once.
It seemed like the little imp was playing a game of attrition, a battle to see whose patience would diminish first. Little did the beast know, Jason had long mastered the art of hours-long stake outs. Its hunger would win out eventually, forcing it to get used to him being in the room.
In the meantime, however, he could at least prep his gear for tonight. He took apart his pistols, starting with Elizabeth, cleaning and polishing each piece. The last thing he’d need is a jam. Sure, he’d probably pistol-whip them across the face if that happened, but it was the principle of the matter.
There was something soothing about the repetition, the mind-numbing quiet that came with dismantling and reassembling his weapons and gadgets. It scratched the same part of his brain that cooking did. A clear set of instructions, a haven of simplicity in a sea of turmoil, helped ground him in ways that breathing exercises he’d been condescendingly prescribed never could.
He looked up and frowned.
What the hell was that cat doing? It stood over the water bowl, clearly puzzled, before lifting a paw and dipping it into the water. The paw resurfaced, sopping wet, before the cat stuck it in its mouth, sucking off the water. Jason shook his head and went back to maintaining his equipment, this time moving on to his armor.
Gotham Bay looked gentle, this time of night. The sporadic gunshots weren’t so loud at the edge of the city. The lights reflected on its surface looked like a sea of shining stars. The cargo ships loomed over the docks, scaffolded by crane skeletons picking at their whale fall. Jason breathed in the salty ocean air, cleansed by that afternoon’s showers, as he crouched atop a cluster of colorful shipping containers. If he closed his eyes, listened to the distant sounds of traffic and lapping waves, he could almost ignore Tim and Damian’s incessant bickering. Instead, he trained his eyes on the cannery-turned-warehouse in front of them, picking out patrol patterns and suppressing his mounting frustration over petty squabbling. He tapped the side of his helmet, pinging the AR overlay that showed him a cluster of heat signatures at the center of the first floor.
His brothers’ arguing began to escalate to something physical, with Damian reaching towards his knives and Tim grabbing his staff from where it was magnetically attached to the back of his suit. While they wouldn’t outright maim each other, the last thing they needed right now was someone getting pushed to the concrete below and giving away their position.
“Now if you two could shut the hell up,” Jason growled, not missing the way their heads snapped towards him with matching glares, “we might actually get something done tonight. They’ve got an armed guard posted at each entrance and two patrolling the catwalk. There’s a bunch of people on the first floor too – if I had to guess they’re cooking up more batches of that crap.”
“Fine.” Tim huffed, that constipated look on his face again. “I’ll take the back and you take the front. Dami, you should take out the guards on the catwalk and strike from above.”
“I’m more than capable of handling the ones at the doors, Drake.”
Tim opened his mouth for a snarky retort, but Jason didn’t want them to descend into another argument so soon after the last one. Otherwise, he’d have to strangle them both and take on the mission alone. “We know that, demon, it’s not like you let us forget. You’re smaller than either of us, it’s better for you to handle stealthier parts.”
Damian crossed his arms, looking as if he’d bitten into a lemon. “You’re both terrible at strategizing. It would be better if Grayson was here.” The man in question was handling an armed robbery in Blüdhaven and had to bail at the last minute. Ever since, Damian had decided to make it everyone’s problem.
“Whatever,” Tim rolled his eyes, “Can we go now?”
With that, they split up, grappling to different perches. Jason knelt on the lip of the roof opposite to the entrance. The guards standing at the front of the two large retractable doors were packing, cradling automatics in their hands like they'd popped out of the womb with them. The night had been dragging on for a while – as Jason waited for an opening they were shooting the shit. He now knew far more about their sex lives than he ever wanted to. That reminded him: he needs to check on the working girls once he wraps things up here. Jason shook his head. Sleep deprivation had a way of making his focus slippery.
There. The guard to the right pulled out his phone to show off his conquests. The pair met between the doors, huddled over the glowing screen. A lewd grin broke out on the other guard’s face.
This was his chance. He pulled out his grappling gun and aimed for one of their shoulders. It zipped him forward and he spread out his legs, boots connecting with each face, knocking them out cold. He paused for a moment, considered the look he saw earlier, then crushed the phone beneath his heel.
Jason pinged the AR. There was a guard approaching along the outer right wall. He snuck across the open door and hugged the corner. As the guard rounded it Jason grabbed his throat and slammed him into the bricks. The henchman was about to do something stupid, like scream despite choking, so Jason covered his mouth with his other hand. “Shut up asshole,” he hissed as the man's eyes rolled into the back of his head. He let go. The guard dropped to the asphalt like wet cement.
Another AR ping told him that no one else was coming and that his brothers were picking off the others. He crept back towards the front doors and peered inside. He saw a flash of movement in the rafters. Damian.
At the center of the warehouse were two rows of folding tables, flanked by large metal barrels. Tubing snaked from these barrels into chemistry equipment on the tables – there were bunsen burners and enough vials and flasks to make the place look like an old sci-fi horror set. Men and women, who looked like they’d watched Breaking Bad and resolved to cosplay Jesse Pinkman for the rest of their lives, hovered around the work stations like bees. They seemed oblivious to the guards’ sudden disappearance. Jason saw Tim’s head poke out from behind the door frame on the other side of the room. Perfect.
At his signal, Damian dropped to the center of the room on one of the work tables “Oh shit!” the woman at the table screamed, fumbling for a weapon on her belt. Tim rushed the group from his end, sweeping people off their feet with his staff. Jason came in from the other side, shooting rubber bullets, dodging fists and tasers.
He grabbed one of the goons by the arm and wrenched it behind the man’s back, pinning him to the table, “Who’re you working for?!” he demanded.
“Hood, look out!” Jason heard Damian shout behind him. He ducked, glancing over to his shoulder only to see Damian tackle a teenager as they fired a shot. The teen missed. Badly. The bullet flew over Jason and the man beneath him right into one of the vats. Green vapor started pouring from the barrel.
“Ah fuck,” Jason hissed, getting a faceful of rotted lavender for several seconds before his helmet’s automatic filters kicked on. Fear toxin. God knows what bullshit it’s been laced with. Even a small dose would be enough to send anyone into a personal horror-show. He steered his interrogee away from the mist. He had a few moments to get answers out of this asshole before the toxin worked its way through his pit-enhanced system. Jason forced the man to the floor, pinning his chest with his boot while his brothers incapacitated and interrogated the others. “Talk. Now.”
The man blubbered incoherently, already feeling the toxin’s effects. Jason leveled a gun between his eyes – not that he’d actually shoot – ignoring the way shadows warped in the corners of his vision. “I don’t know, I don’t know anything!”
“Bullshit.”
“He’ll kill me, man!” the minion’s face began to melt into the floor, dripping like wax, exposing bone and splattered brains, bone shards and blood everywhere like when that crowbar had- Jason blinked. His vision cleared, the man stared up at him, clammy and wide-eyed. A distant part of Jason wondered what the man below him saw.
“I’ll do hell of a lot worse if you don’t tell me,” Jason retorted. He unloaded a round into the goon’s shoulder. The man’s arm blew off and he screamed, a chorus of voices singing and sobbing what have you done what have you done what have you done? Jason blinked again. Back to normal. Arm still attached. The man would be fine but the shadows were darker. Reaching. Grasping. His stomach roiled.
“Firefly!” The man howled.
“Finally. See, was that so hard?” Jason said, dragging him to the rest of the now-incapacitated dealers. He needed to last a few more seconds. Then he could crawl away and lick his wounds where he couldn’t embarrass himself. Jason dusted off his hands.
“Why did you kill me Jason?”
His head snapped up. Tim stood over him. In the damn Robin suit, torn and tattered, bruises blossoming all over his skin. A red smile weeped from the kid’s neck. Titan’s Tower. The worst of his pit rage, when he was deep in his crusade and when violence felt like salvation. Like euphoria. Jason swallowed bile, “What?”
“I said, are you okay, Jason? That barrel was right next to you.” Tim stepped forward and he tried to hide his instinctive flinch backwards.
“I’m fine. I’ve got filters in the helmet. Look, if you guys’re all wrapped up here I’ve gotta go. The cops still aren’t exactly my biggest fan.”
Tim frowned. As the kid opened his mouth, blood flowed from his lips instead, pooling on the front of his suit. Hell no.
This time, Jason did flee. “See ya later, Timmers.” he said with a mock two-finger salute, grappling away as fast as possible.
The wind whipped around him as he flew from rooftop to rooftop. His vision warped and shimmered. A crackle over his earpiece. Oracle.
Damn it, this was the last thing he wanted to deal with right now. Jason reached up and turned it off with a flick. The streets below him clouded with green fog. Cackles and howls of laughter as every Gothamite succumbed to Joker Venom. He clenched his jaw. Not real. Not real.
As he wove through Gotham’s skyline, taking a circuitous route to ensure he wasn’t followed, reality got harder to hold. Images flooded his mind. Forehand or backhand? Alfred’s body crumpled at Bane’s feet. His mother slumped over in the bathroom, unseeing eyes boring into him, mouth opening and closing in dying gasps. Nails peeling from his fingers as he clawed through endless soil.
Jason slammed into his apartment’s fire escape with a groan, the railing colliding with his solar plexus. He scrambled over the railing onto the balcony, barely resisting the urge to grapple through another loop because he can see eyes looking staring knowing. He slid the window open and slipped into his living room, shutting it behind him. Yellowing lead paint was peeling from the walls. The entire apartment was covered in salt and pepper speckles of mold. Cobwebs and dust clung to every rotting surface. He was twelve again, squatting in an abandoned building.
Jason closed his eyes, steadied himself against the kitchen counter. Breathe. He opened his eyes again. Hot desert air and sand buffeted his skin. Had he ever really left that desert? No. He had. The warehouse. Brains splattering concrete. Dirt in his mouth and nose and eyes.
His sight unreliable, he closed his eyes again, using touch to guide himself towards his bed, shedding armor and weapons with each step. He sunk into the mattress with a creak, pulling blankets over his body like a protective shell. Jason was cold. So cold. Ever since he crawled from that pit he’d been unable to get warm. Every partner he’d been with shied away from his touch at first, stung by the chill. Every meal he’d indulged in and quiet moment he’d enjoyed inevitably turned to ash in his mouth. He was a wrathful spirit puppetting a dead child’s body. Jason could never recognize himself in the mirror, larger and more intimidating than he should’ve been able to become. He felt grotesque, a walking mockery of a long-dead kid who’d wanted to make the world a little better. Sometimes, Jason wondered if the All-Blades would work on him. Would he die, if he ran himself through?
A small weight on the foot of his bed. Jason froze. Had his pursuers finally found him? With toxin flowing through his veins he couldn’t trust what he saw or felt. The waking nightmares left him too exhausted to care about fighting back. It was the days after the Gotham War all over again. When he was swinging between panic and exhaustion so quickly that all he could do was hole up in his apartment, cowering under the covers. The weight crept closer. Something warm and wet nudged his forehead. He cracked an eye open. He was at the lake on the outskirts of Gotham, a place he retreated to whenever everything was too much. He remembered bringing the Outlaws here, once, and his chest ached at the thought. A creature was in front of his face, sniffing him and opening its mouth to reveal rows of countless sharp teeth. Jason tensed. It wasn’t real it wasn’t real it wasn’t real.
The thing licked his cheek, streaked with salty tears he hadn’t realized he shed. He frowned, confused. It… purred? Jason closed his eyes and reached towards it. His hand met soft, warm fur. The creature started kneading the bedsheets as Jason ran his hands over its back. It settled down, curled up into a ball next to his face. The small imp smelled like the dumpster near his apartment. Drawn to heat like a moth to a flame, Jason wrapped an arm around it.
The loud, overwhelming world condensed down into this single, quiet moment. It was just Jason, the bed he bought on sale at the thrift store, and this little animal that was content to share its warmth for a while. He used that as his anchor, a sensation to hold onto to ride out the waves of panic and flashbacks.
After what felt like both decades and minutes, the fear toxin ebbed. Then finally, for the first time in weeks, Jason drifted off into a long dreamless sleep.