Chapter Text
Jason’s POV
He wasn’t really sure how he had ended up here, with a gunshot wound in his abdomen. He certainly knew how the bullet ended up in him, that was fairly easy, but the why was much harder to answer. For the years Jason had been back in Gotham he hadn’t involved himself with the Bats, he even went out of his way to avoid them. He’d forgiven Bruce long before he came back but found it easier just to be his own person, no Batman watching his every move. It hurt less to see Bruce judge him as just another misled vigilante than as his son.
All of that to say he had no idea why he had stepped in front of Signal when he saw the gun being aimed at him. He didn’t even know the kid, sure he had done his research but he’d rarely even been in the same general area, let alone actually talked with him. His confusion didn’t fix the bullet hole above his hip though. Luckily the compression layer he wore under his suit had helped stop some of the bleeding but he could still hear it dripping onto the floor below them.
“Uh, Hood, you’re bleeding.” brilliant observation Jason thought to himself.
“It’s fine, you just go on home and I'll take care of it myself,” Jason grunted back, trying not to let the pain seep into his voice.
“I have some gauze and bandages.”
“Sure, I’ll just hand over a DNA sample too while I’m at it,” The Bats had gotten really pushy about learning who he was lately and he felt no need to make it easier for them. Duke didn’t reply, turning around and going back to whatever intel gathering mission he had been doing before Jason had shown up.
Jason readjusted himself, gritting his teeth as he pushed his hand down over the wound to staunch the flow of blood. He needed to get out of here before the rest of the Bats showed up and tried to “help” him. Damn this sucked. Gripping his stomach he tried to move as fast as possible out of the warehouse they were in, at least as fast as he could without passing out.
He was lucky he had a safehouse nearby, if he had to ride his motorcycle it would definitely end in a crash. Where his skin had felt hot not even a minute ago cold started to creep in, he’d always thought a gunshot wound felt like walking into an oven then straight into a freezer. The coolness on his skin scared him, he knew that meant he didn’t have long to stitch himself up before he wouldn’t be able to anymore.
Stumbling around the corner he found his front door, his fingers felt heavy and numb as he tried to unlock it. It felt like it took hours to get his fingers to work well enough to find the right key, unlock the door, and disarm all of his security. Each step towards the bathroom felt like running a marathon, Jason could feel his pulse racing all over his body, in his neck, his back, his legs. Each beat was accompanied by another pulse of blood coming from the wound. The adrenaline was starting to wear off and he could feel the blinding pain creeping in.
Reaching the bathroom he nearly fell face first into the sink, trying to open the cabinet and grab the first aid kit with one hand. Moving was getting increasingly hard, like moving through molasses. His vision had started to narrow as well, white surrounding the edges and stars dancing across what was left. With the last of his strength he hefted the kit on to the counter then crumpled to the ground.
Duke’s POV
Duke was shocked at how quickly a little surveillance had gone wrong. He had just been sitting in the rafters bitching to himself about how boring his night had been when several sets of footsteps echoed all around him. This wasn’t his first time being surrounded by men with guns but it wasn’t one of his favorite things to do, and in all honesty he didn’t see a good way out of this one. Imagine his surprise when Red Hood, a man who categorically avoided all things Bat, busted in through a window and before Duke could even think he had been shot.
“Signal with traffic,” Duke said, still trying to fully access the situation around him.
“Signal, go ahead,” Oracle sounded almost bored as well.
“I’m at the warehouse on the northeastern corner of 53rd and Main, Red Hood has been shot, he took care of all the goons though, no active threats as far as I can tell.”
“What’s Hood’s status?” Duke looked back to where Hood had been just moments before, finding nothing but an open window.
“He took off, was conscious, alert, breathing as of one ago. Unknown direction of travel, I’ll area check.” Several others chimed in over their coms saying they were headed to the area and would look around as well. Ducking out the same window Duke looked around. He didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, until he looked down.
“Oracle, I’ve got a blood trail, I’m gonna try and track it.” The darkness of the street made it hard to see the blood but Duke was able to trace it all the way across the street before it stopped in front of a door. “The blood stopped in front of this house, address is 1778 NE 54rd ave.”
“Copy,” Oracle replied.
Duke was hesitant to go any further, inside this apartment there was likely a very injured Red Hood. And a very injured Red Hood meant a very angry Red Hood, if past experiences were anything to go off of. On the other hand Hood could be dying inside. Taking a deep breath he walked up to the door, the handle was coated in blood. More alarming however was the fact that the door had been left open. Hood was more paranoid about his identity getting out than Bruce, for him to just leave his door open meant something was really wrong.
“Signal again, the door is ajar and the handle is coated in blood, I’m going to go in,” Oracle copied and Duke steeled himself as he pushed the door further open.