Work Text:
From afar, Percy Grant looks like anyone else. A wariness to the set of his shoulders, sure, a tiredness hanging underneath his eyes; but that's something you'd see on any long-term Gotham citizen. You'd have to get closer, maybe, to see the explosive intensity that drives him forward to be the most committed EMS personnel within Gotham city limits and an absolute fucking nuisance to anyone who gets in his way. At best, this makes him awe-inspiring. At worst, this makes him an adrenaline-prone headache. Jason never knows what kind of shit he's going to find himself in next. He's never seen a civilian so personally invested in running into disaster zones on the mere off-chance there might be someone who needs help. Normally, that particular brand of altruistic stupidity is reserved for the capes. Awe-inspiring, headache inducing—there are plenty of other adjectives and expletives Jason could use here. So can anyone even blame him for being, perhaps, just a tad overseeing? Percy would call this stalking. Jason would call it keeping a reasonable eye on a guy known for pissing off crime lords. And then Percy would probably hit him, and then Jason would whack him back, and they would go on until somebody cried uncle.
It's just that sometimes Jason will see Percy on a late night shift and sometimes he won't, which is fine. It's always nice to see Percy after patrol, because Percy will undoubtedly have some batshit insane story about somebody's unfortunately hysterical medical emergency that makes Jason snort coffee up his nose, but they lead busy enough lives that it can't always happen. Most of the time, it doesn't matter, but sometimes, Jason won't see Percy after a long, late night shift and then he'll hear murmurs about some all-hands on deck shake-up on the other side of the district and he'll get. Not worried, exactly. A little antsy. Like it's his fault Percy has a sense for trouble so preternaturally honed that Jason sometimes, deliriously, thinks it's a bizarrely specific and useless meta gene.
So he'll oversee. Usually, just catching a glimpse of Percy on the way home is enough. It's a new neighborhood for him—he finally permanently transferred to Station 17 and moved down here a month or two ago, firmly placing himself into Jason's orbit for the foreseeable future. He's still exploring the neighborhood, trying a new path every other day or so. Sometimes he'll step into a corner store or a new coffee shop—if it's good, he'll drag Jason there later to check it out. Sometimes he'll take the short way home, sometimes he'll go roundabout, craning his head towards the skyline with a crookedly bemused look on his face, like the city's telling him a joke nobody else is in on. Percy knows the grooves of the city just as well as Jason does; maybe even better, which one of many reasons it's so inordinately satisfying just to watch him walk around. He's so thoroughly in his element.
But sometimes—often—this leads to an overconfidence, of sorts. Sometimes Jason will indulge in that oddly settling routine of watching Percy exist, only for Percy to stop in his tracks. Frown down an alleyway in a way that promises nothing but trouble. He opens his mouth and Jason is already moving, down to street level from the roof.
"Hey," Percy is saying. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" Jason loses the next sentence or so in the rush of the wind, but he lands to Percy saying, "—Hood's territory, and last time I checked, he's not a huge fan of—"
"Not a huge fan of what?" Jason asks.
He takes a moment to examine the scene in front of him. Three young people stand at the end of the alleyway, mid-twenties. A guy and a girl, Jason thinks. The guy is holding—and Jason wishes he were kidding—an actual fucking assault rifle and the girl is holding a frankly ridiculous pile of cash. At the front of the alleyway is, of course, Percy Grant, tilting his head up to squint at Jason disbelievingly.
"Did I fucking summon you?" He asks.
Behind the helmet, Jason grins. "I've decided to become omniscient. How lucky for you." Percy scoffs. Jason turns back to the distinctly unlucky duo, which grows collectively paler by the second. "Arms dealing. At seven am in the morning?"
"In Gigante territory," Percy says, singsong.
Jason looks down at him again. "Don't know if this is any of your business," he says. "Shouldn't you be heading home?" Jason's pretty sure he has another shift tomorrow and the more sleep he gets the less of a pain he'll be, on the off-chance Jason does have to deal with him.
Percy makes a face, that instinctive stubbornness biting back, but before he can say something stupid and overly familiar, the guy speaks out, tremulous, "Maybe we're done having the Gigantes control us. You ever think about that?"
Hm. Okay. Jason shoots one final warning look Percy's way before he steps past him and forward. "Alright," he says, letting the modulator dull his tone, turning it into a bludgeon. "I'm thinking about it. What are you going to do now?"
Jason knows what he is—frighteningly large when he unfurls himself to a fuller height, adjusts his jackets so the tops of the pistols gleam where they sit in his holsters. He knows what he is, and he knows how to use it. These fuckass kids don't know how to take it, but stupidity, as always, shines through.
"We're—we're taking a stand," the girl says, jutting out her chin. "No—no more money, no more drugs—"
"But assault rifles are fucking fine," Jason says sharply. The guy winces.
"If that's what it takes," the girl snaps back.
"Jesus Christ," Percy says, from behind him. "Are you guys fucking stupid?"
Jason whips back to him. "Why the hell are you still here?"
Percy opens his mouth to retort, but little miss gung-ho here is already running her mouth again. "We're taking back this neighborhood, and there aren't going to be any dirty dealers—"
"Yes, there are," Jason says, clipped and to the point. "Don't fucking kid yourself. There are going to be drugs, and there are going to be people using them, and selling them, and trust me, you'd much rather have someone invested in minimizing harm then someone who's invested in causing it."
Control. It's what he tried to tell Bruce a thousand fucking times before he gave up telling Bruce anything at all. You can't cut everything off at the root. Sometimes, you have to get it and get your hands dirty to keep someone else's clean.
The girl scoffs. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Dude," Percy says.
Jason turns back to him again. "I am not fucking kidding," he says, seriously, with every ounce of the intimidation he's imparted on the wannabe coup starters. "Go home."
Percy just rolls his eyes. He's been desensitized, at this point; although he admittedly didn't have a whole lot of respect for Red Hood to begin with.
"What do you want, huh," the girl sneers, towards Percy. She's not holding one of the rifles, but she's scowling at Percy in a way that makes Jason nervy. "You one of his little pawns? One of his dealers, an underman?"
"A concerned citizen," Percy says dryly. "I mean, Hood's going to wrap this up in the next, what? Five minutes? But it was a slow shift. I needed to have something to lie to my mother about and report to this shitass, nosy friend of mine."
Jason tilts his head up towards the sky. He's so fucking annoying. Unfortunately, he is also Jason's best—well, only—friend and one of most central people in his life, at this point. But also? So fucking annoying.
"So you're crazy," one of the guys mutters, twitching when Jason turns back towards them. The first correct thing these guys have said all night.
"Not crazy," Percy says, with a pedantic drawl to his tone.
"Alright," Jason says, before he can get started. Percy huffs but, mercifully, does not continue on whatever tirade he had been about to crack in on. He turns back to the kids. "I think you should give me those guns."
The guy holding them wavers visibly, but before he can cave, Miss Gung Ho steps out in front of him, staring Jason down. Gutsy. "So you can what?"
"Dump them in the river," Jason says honestly. "I'm a gangster, not a maniac, for God's sake."
"Could have fooled me," Percy mutters.
"You," Jason tells him, without looking back. "Are not helping."
"It's just another way to control us," Gung Ho seethes. "You get the weapons, we stay underneath your thumb. That's how it's always worked."
"I just said I don't want your fucking guns," Jason says, incredulous. Helplessly, he turns back to Percy, jabs his thumbs back towards their radical little trio in disbelief. Percy shrugs. "Listen, kid, I've been in your shoes before, okay? I get it. You're not going to get anywhere like this. It's just going to get you angry and then killed and it isn't going to fix anything."
Sometimes, Jason wishes someone had said that to him, back at the start. He wouldn't have listened, but it might have been nice to have someone who cared enough to try. Might have been good to know.
Of course, she isn't listening either. "Fuck. You," she says. "You're just like the rest of them. You want us all dead."
Percy gets to it before he does. "If he wanted you dead, you would have been dead." Jason twists around to see Percy stepping forward, face tight and furious. "I don't think you know what you're fucking talking about. Are you even from around here?"
"Hey, hey," Jason says, uselessly, putting an arm out in front of him. "Back up—"
"I don't have to be from around here to know—" Gung Ho starts, but good luck getting ahead of Percy Grant once he starts. She's about to learn this the hard way.
"—Because if you'd actually talked to people instead of hopping up on your moral high horse," he's continuing. "You'd hear a million fucking stories about him getting people jobs and getting people medicine and helping little old ladies across streets."
"One time," Jason manages. "That was one time."
"Yeah, okay, he's a fucking gangster," Percy says. "He has guns, he deals drugs, because somebody has to fucking do it, and I'd rather it be somebody who cares about the city and the people in it then some piece of shit self-satisfied wannabe justice hound who only wants to feel right." Gung Ho's chest is heaving. She's taking it personally, clearly. Percy inhales sharp, like he's catching his breath, and then finishes it off with, "Fuck you. You don't even know who you are."
Jason is—he's—he can't stop staring at Percy. There's a strand of dark, curling hair falling out of the messy bun he's piled over top his head, tumbling over his face. His eyes look particularly bright in the early morning light, warm, but not in the way a campfire is warm. Warm like a raging housefire, like a pile of coal left to simmer and smoke, like he can peel back your skin just from looking at you. And he's. Jesus. Jason can't stop staring at him.
"I don't have to be from here," Gung Ho starts, much to Percy's scorning disapproval. "—To know that he's poison to this city."
"Bitch, you wish," Percy says. "Look in the fucking mirror."
Oh, she doesn't like that either. She stiffens, and Jason swears the temperature around her drops by a handful of degrees, which is what finally gets him to pull his attention away from Percy Grant. Great timing, because Gung Ho reaches over to one of her little lackey friends and tugs at one of the rifles. Jason's body is moving before she can even point it up, sliding in front of Percy and unholstering one of his own pistols. The pistol won't do anything against the rifle, that's not the point. The point is keeping Percy out of the line of fire. It's the first and only thing Jason thinks to do.
"Percy," Jason says. He doesn't know if he'll have the time to ask, but he can't have Percy here, staring down the barrel of a gun. He's a liability, a blind spot.
But Percy understands without Jason having to explain himself. "I'm not—" he starts, but when Jason looks back at him he sighs. "Okay," he says. "Alright." He takes a few steps backwards, not turning away from Jason. "Fuck you, for the record."
"I know," Jason tells him. He turns back to their wannabe arms dealers again, just as Gung Ho pulls the trigger.
Jason's first thought is that Percy is never going to leave it alone now. His second thought is ow.
Armor piercing rounds, he notes dully, and then again as Gung Ho fires off another round. Her friend is shouting at her. Percy is shouting at him. At the blurring edges of his vision, he sees her raise it again, tilting it slightly towards the side, right where Percy is cursing into his ear. Moving into the line of fire is as thoughtless as breathing. He can take the hits. Percy can't. It's a easy calculation.
"Jesus fuck," Percy hisses. "Jesus fuck," one of the kids wails. Gung Ho is gearing up to fire again, so Jason takes what can charitably called a preemptive strike. Actually, it's not even preemptive—he should have done this five minutes ago. But firing off a pistol shot into the tightly woven knot of increasingly hysterical wannabe revolutionaries certainly seems to do the trick. Percy doesn't flinch, sticking stubbornly to Jason's side, but the others do. The guy is clearly trying to reason with Miss Gung Ho. Jason weighs the odds as he keeps his gun raised high. So does she.
"Please," the last kid left standing says, at the same time Percy does. Jason isn't sure who they're talking to. He slides his finger over the trigger at the same time Miss Gung Ho breaks, throwing the rifle down on the ground. Jason will take it, letting his arm fall heavy to his side. The kid flees as soon as she does it, bolting down the alleyway so quick Jason would call them speedsters if he didn't know any better.
The girl is the one who hesitates. The girl is the one who stretches out a hand towards Percy, says, "You don't have to—"
Percy's hand slides along Jason's arm, lifting up the hand holding the pistol. His hand is cool and steady over Jason's, his finger a hair breadth away from the trigger.
"I don't want to fucking hear it," Percy says, and his voice is toneless in a way it never is. "Scram."
She does. There's nobody around with any more guns or pointed anger, so Jason flicks on the safety on the pistol, turns to Percy, and asks, "Are you alright?"
Percy's face is bloodless, like he's the one who's been shot. "Jesus," he says, his hands fluttering around Jason's side, over the sluggishly bleeding bullet wounds. "Jesus Christ."
"Not quite," Jason says. "Give it like ten minutes."
"Okay," Percy says, and he doesn't even respond to the quip with an eye roll, which is how Jason knows he's fucked up. "Okay, let's just—" He slings Jason's arm over his shoulder, pulling at the holes in his side. Jason's wheeze punches out of him. "I know, I know. But there's a clinic just down the street—"
"Perce," Jason says.
"—And they'll have the fucking—sutures and the gauze and the shit," Percy continues, doggedly shuffling them down the alleyway. There's this look to him, when he gets stubborn like this, eyebrows creased up, dark eyes narrowed on a single point. Mostly, all Jason can do is sit back and let it happen.
"You're really something," Jason says nonsensically. His tongue goes heavy and dry in his mouth when Percy looks up at him. "You're really—"
There's a lot of weight to Jason, and when he goes down, he goes down hard. One moment, he's leaning all of his weight on Percy and in the next he's on the ground, with Percy hovering over him, face still twisted up.
"Jason," he's saying. "Jason."
His fingers are sliding over the bare skin of Jason's neck—checking for a pulse. Doing triage, even now. Jason's pulse picks up against Percy's slightly callused fingertips.
"I'm still here," Jason tells him. Percy lets out a shaky sigh. His knuckles brush up against the edge of the helmet. "Here, let me—" Jason's own hands are clumsy as they knock against the helmet latches, uncoordinated and imprecise. "Can you—"
"Okay," Percy says again, voice thready. "How do you—"
Jason shows him. He gets it quick, because of course he does, lifting the helmet up and over Jason's head. He leaves his palm underneath Jason's neck as he does so, like he's trying to—what? Keep Jason comfortable? Like it's going to matter at all in the next few minutes.
"There you are," Jason finds himself saying. The carefully constructed lenses on the helmet are very good, sure, but there's still something inordinately relieving about blinking up at Percy with one less barrier between them.
Percy's knuckles brush along the edges of the domino before he says, "I still can't believe you wear a mask under your mask. You piece of shit."
Jason's laugh bubbles out of him, sweet and surprised, along with the blood gurgling up in his throat. Percy makes some soft noise, like he's taken a hit. He's adjusting Jason's head into the crook of his elbow, until Jason's matted, sweaty hair is piled against Percy's bony knee. It's such a pointless thing to do for someone who's hopeless anyway. It's very Percy.
"That was stupid," Percy's saying. At first, Jason thinks he's calling Jason a dumbass, like he so often does. But he continues with, "I'm sorry. That was so fucking stupid, I'm so—"
"Hey, hey," Jason says. He reaches up to press his thumb over the constant crease in Percy's brow, try to smooth it out. "You're alright. You're okay."
"I should have left it alone," Percy continues miserably. "I should have just listened to you and—"
Jason laughs again. He can't help it. "Percy," he says, letting his head loll against Percy's arm. "When have you ever done that? Come on."
"I should have," Percy says again. Jason watches as he swallows, hard. "We can still get you to the clinic, it really is just down the street. You'll be—"
"Perce," Jason says, and he goes quiet.
"Yeah," he says. "Jesus. I know."
The bullet wounds are steadily bleeding, staining the ground beneath them and Percy's pants to boot, swelling into Jason's lungs. Jason knows dying like the back of his hand, at this point—the blackness flickering in and out over his vision; the unnatural, inevitable calm of it all. But just because Jason knows it doesn't mean Percy should have to. At least not any more than he already does. He sees it every fucking day, Jason knows, but here Jason is, making him look at it again.
"You should," Jason tries. Percy's mouth tightens. It takes Jason a couple of tries to keep going. "You should leave. Cops will be here any minute, and I don't want you—"
"Fuck that," Percy says instantly, because of course he does. Of course he fucking does. "I'm not leaving you alone, it's my—"
"Your job," Jason finishes for him. "I know, Perce." It's very Percy—he can never leave it alone. Not if he thinks there's someone who needs help; even if that somebody is Jason. It was the first and most essential thing Jason learned about him, and Jason finds himself grinning up at the sky stupidly.
"Jesus," Percy says quietly. His knuckle brushes at the sweaty bangs sticking to Jason's skin, his fingertips lingering against Jason's forehead. "You're okay. You're alright."
"It's okay," Jason echoes dully. He has to blink hard to keep his vision clear. Above him, Percy is haloed by the hazy streetlight, casting shadows into the hollows of his cheekbones and his undereyes. He looks like something out of another fucking world. His hands are still in Jason's hair, drawing gentle lines down the side of his scalp. Delicate, hesitant, like he thinks Jason could pull away. Jason's breath chokes up in his throat, coming out as a cough that turns into a bloody wheeze. "Percy."
"Ha," Percy says, pitched and slightly hysterical. "That's me. Yours truly."
There's a streak of blood on Percy's cheek, and his mouth is pulled tightly to one side, but despite the misery dragging his face down, he still chose to stick around. With Jason. He's still stroking carefully through Jason's hair, like Jason is something worth touching; even now.
What to say? Thank you isn't enough. I'm sorry is too small. There is something aching inside of Jason's chest, something that has nothing to do with the bullet. Jason knows what getting shot feels like—this is different. This is something set deeper, intrinsic to Jason's being, crawling up through the lattices of his ribcage and into his blood-slick throat. Jason exhales shakily, probably among the last handful of breaths he'll take here, but it doesn't relieve the pressure swirling around his chest. The pressure is there when he looks up at Percy and there in the brief second of darkness when he blinks. The pressure is there when he lifts a heavy hand up to Percy's cheek to wipe uselessly at the blood tackily drying there. It's there when he pulls away and lets his hand fall back down again. The pressure, Jason thinks, is Percy. And Jason wants to keep it. Hold on, he thinks, hold on.
"Shhh," Percy's saying, so quiet Jason can barely hear him. His thumb brushes against Jason's temple again, and there's the pressure, cracking and bursting like a bullet exploding from the barrel of a gun. Percy blurs and smears above him. Hold on, Jason thinks, hold on. "Everything's gonna be fine, okay?" Jason watches as he swallows, hard, comes back into crystal clarity as he manages a shaky smile cast down Jason's way, for Jason's sake. "I've got you, Jay."
"I know," Jason says easily. Percy's smearing again, into a mess of light and shadow, but at least he's here. At least his fingers are somehow warm against Jason's already cooling skin, passing back and forth against Jason's forehead. "You know," he says. "It's not such a bad way to go."
Percy's face shakes into a haze, cracks open into the swirling, streetlight glow. "Jason," he says simply, and his voice sounds thick, wet and sticky. "Jason, hey—"
Hold on, Jason thinks, hold on, but then even that slips away and there's nothing.
"Jason," Percy says again, uselessly, even though he knows better. It's not the first time Percy's dealt with death. It's not even the first time Percy's dealt with Jason's death, specifically. Never makes it any easier. Never stops feeling like Percy is the one who's taken the hit, like it's his guts split open over the pavement. He rests two fingers on the side of Jason's neck, a glancing touch, because he already knows exactly what he'll find there: Silence. "Fuck."
Honestly? Fuck Jason Todd. And fuck Percy Grant, too, for getting caught up in him in the first place. But especially fuck Jason Todd with the crooked, too-rare grin and the hacking, ugly laugh and the carefully concealed neuroticism and the quiet, constant, irrepressible care he puts into fucking everything. Fuck him. Fuck.
"Fuck you," Percy says out loud, even as he runs his fingers through the sweat drying tackily in Jason's hair. "I mean it. Go to hell."
Nothing. Of course there's nothing. Percy has to swallow back an out-of-place tightness bunching up in his throat. He knew that already. It doesn't matter.
"Fuck," he says again. He gives himself one last second to press his bloodied knuckles against his eyes, take a bracing breath, and then he gets the fuck to work.
First, set the watch. Note time of death—7:36 in the morning. Next, rolling the body onto it's side. It helps to think of it in detached, neutral terms. If Percy thinks of it as Jason, as Jason's body, as Jason's corpse that he's rolling around on the dirtied, perpetually rain-slick ground, then he will simply start screaming and never stop. So he doesn't do that. Instead, he focuses on putting the body into recovery position, so that Jason doesn't choke on his own vomit and fucking die—again—or come back up into Percy's face and break his fucking nose—again. When he comes back. When.
And now he sits. And waits. For his best friend to rise back up from the dead. Easy. He does this shit every week.
A handful of seconds pass, excruciatingly long. Percy swears the small digits on the watch are ticking over slower and slower with each passing unit. He taps his fist against his knee in quick, staccato patterns. He looks at the body and then away again just as quickly, out towards where the alleyway spills into the street.
He should leave, probably. People will have heard the gunshots, called the cops. Percy doesn't need to be caught hovering over Red Hood's swiftly cooling corpse. Jason probably wouldn't even hold it against him—in fact, he would probably wake up expecting it, which is the thing that solidifies Percy's decision to stick around. He is nothing if not a contrary, stubborn son of a bitch, and as soon as Jason wakes up, he can say it to Percy's face.
Percy checks the watch again. It can't be too much longer now.
The digits on the watch flip over one another, gradual and excruciating. Tick, tick, tick, tapping like an icepick against the front of Percy's skull. The pool of blood beneath Jason—beneath the body—is still spreading sluggishly, soaking up into Percy's knees even as it dries tackily on the pavement. Tick, tick, tick. Tick, tick, tick.
Two minutes now, falling over into three. Percy likes figuring shit out. He likes being the one to put the pieces together. Once he'd realized running into self-resurrecting crime lords was not a particularly unlucky fluke of fate, it had been a natural next step to put the fucking pieces together. In his apartment there's a messily scrawled list, tucked in between pages of a thrifted medical reference book. The list is nonsensical to the naked eye, hastily abbreviated medical jargon combined with inscrutable lengths of time: Craniocerberal gunshot injury, two minutes and thirty four seconds. Blunt abdominal trauma leading to severe hemoperitoneum, four minutes and eight seconds. Multiple cranial contusions causing a severe intercranial hematoma, three minutes and twenty one seconds.
It's quick if the injury was severe enough that death was instant. Longer if it was slower, more drawn-out. It's the only pattern Percy can make it out, but even that can vary—one time Jason had gotten a bullet clean through the side of the throat. Would have bled out before he hit the ground. It had taken a whopping four minutes and fifty-eight seconds for him to choke back to consciousness anyway, spitting up bile and chunks of blood as he gave Percy a messy, slightly sheepish grin; like they'd both been mildly inconvenienced. Percy had bitched something back, he's sure, made incoherent with relief, but what he hadn't said was that's the longest you've been gone. I thought you were gone. Thank God. Thank fucking God.
All Percy has to do is make it to four minutes and fifty-eight seconds. Less than a minute now to wait.
Tick, tick, tick. Tick, tick, tick. Percy scratches at a splatter of blood caked on his palm. Thinks about Jason muttering out, out damned spot at a soot stain on his jacket and then, when Percy had given him a baffled look, saying Oh, come on. Lady Macbeth? When Percy had continued to stare blankly, he'd scoffed and called Percy a rube, and Percy had kicked sharply at his ankles. But he'd looked it up later anyway. Thought of course Jason would be would be into over-the-top nerd shit like this, and felt so violently, sickeningly fond he'd had to head down to the gym to take it all out on a punching bag.
"Out, out damned spot," Percy mutters, and looks Ja—at the body helplessly, like it's going to sit up just to laugh at him. Which he fucking would and Percy would curse at him like it wasn't the most relieving thing he'd ever heard. He looks away and then down at the watch again, ticking over and over. Four minutes and fifty-eight seconds. Four minutes and fifty-nine. Five minutes.
New record, Percy wants to say, quipping at nothing for no one, but when he opens his mouth nothing comes out except for a punched-out sort of wheeze. He reaches over, touches two fingers to the side of Jason's—no, the body's, fuck—neck again, presses against the empty pulse. When he pulls away, he finds his fingers lingering over the bangs sticking to the side of Jason's forehead. He brushes them away, selfishly, letting his thumb rests over where the domino digs into skin.
Five minutes and ten seconds. Five minutes and eleven seconds. Five minutes and twelve seconds. Tick, tick, tick.
"It's five minutes," Percy says to himself pointedly. "It's five fucking minutes. Calm the fuck down."
Unsurprisingly, he isn't listening. To himself. In most other circumstances, five minutes is an entirely unremarkable span of time; this is true. But this is five minutes and fifteen seconds without Jason. Five minutes and sixteen seconds without Jason rolling his eyes at something dumb Percy said just to make him laugh. Five minutes and seventeen seconds where Jason's not around to argue with him over diner food, five minutes and eighteen seconds where he's not around to ask Percy how his mom's doing and if she ended up liking the last book she was reading, five minutes and nineteen seconds where Jason's not around to do something quietly, thoughtlessly caring when nobody's watching. Five minutes and twenty seconds where he's nothing, where he's no one, where Percy is completely alone.
"Jason," Percy says. He raps his knuckles against Jason's forehead and immediately feels horrifically, needlessly guilty. "Shit. Jay."
Nothing. Five minutes and twenty-three seconds. Percy digs the heels of his palms into his eyes and holds them there, tight, letting the colors dance across his eyes. As if the time will somehow magically contract, as if he'll open back up to the sight of Jason, staring at him with a pointed, sideways look, asking without asking: Are you fucking crazy?
He keeps his hands over his eyes until the ache starts to border on bruising, and then he gives in to the urge that's been hounding him since the last time he looked away from the watch, which is, of course, looking at the goddamn watch again. Five minutes and fifty-eight seconds. Five minutes and fifty-nine seconds. A whole fucking minute of Percy spiraling over what—what? This shit happens. This is part and parcel with befriending Jason Fucking Todd, and Percy had fucking figured that out by the first time he dragged Jason down to the diner.
He knows the risks. No matter what Jason thinks, he knows the risks. It's just that somewhere along the way, he got in over his head. His heart got too big for his chest. Now it thuds uncomfortably against his ribcage every time he hears about Red Hood get into a shootout, or every time he can't save Jason, or just every time Jason does something as simple as looking at him. That's all it takes, these days.
"Fuck you," Percy says again. No response. "Fuck."
At six minutes and fifty-eight seconds, Percy starts to wonder if this is it.
There's an awful lot they don't know about Jason's little party trick. An awful lot of questions that Percy has asked and Jason has unsubtly dodged. One of them is does it end? Does it run out? Is there a little meter in some corner of the universe, some inscrutable timer ticking down? Is there a point, Percy's wondered, where Jason goes down and stays down? He doesn't like to think about it. This is one of very few cases where he prefers to bask in naivety, but he can't exactly bask in it now, can he?
What if this is it? What if Jason drifts away in Percy's arms, in some shitty alleyway, soaked in his own blood, and just. Doesn't wake up again? What if he took a bullet for Percy and it was the last thing he ever did?
"It shouldn't have been me," Percy says. There are a million other things to throw your life away for. "Jesus Christ, Jason, it shouldn't have been me."
The body in front of him—Jason, just Jason, always Jason—blurs even as Percy presses his hand into his eyes again. He swallows against the thickness in his throat, takes a breath, holds it, and then lets it out again. Rests his hand against the underside of Jason's jaw, right where his pulse should be.
Seven minutes and twenty-one seconds.
At seven minutes and twenty-two seconds, Jason's pulse kicks back into being.
"Oh my God," Percy says, dazed, hurriedly adjusting to hold Jason's head steady as he twitches, jerks around, neurons firing to life. "Oh my God. Jesus Christ."
Jason takes a long, ragged breath, and Percy breathes with him, oxygen flooding through his lungs for the first time in seven minutes and twenty-two seconds. Jason sits up, beating heart passing blood to his muscles, lungs contracting as they expand in and out. Percy's hand is still resting on the junction between his head and his shoulder, but he must still be too out of it to shake Percy off.
He looks at Percy. Tilts his head.
"You're still here," Jason says. He sounds surprised, like Percy thought he would be. Percy can't do anything but look at him, stare and stare and feel Jason's pulse pick up again underneath his palm. Jason's mouth crooks up, in the way it always does when he's about to say something unbearably shitty. "Jesus, you look like you've seen a ghost."
"Oh my God," Percy says again, voice shaking, and then he tugs on Jason's neck and clashes their mouths together.
The first thought is pain, as Jason's teeth smash up against his lips. The second thought is relief, because Jason gasps in a short, startled inhale and if he's breathing that means he's here, that Percy didn't get him killed. The third thought is Jesus fucking Christ, you actual fucking moron.
Percy makes to pull away, mouth already forming one of approximately one million apologies, except—
Except—
Except Jason goes with him, sways right back into Percy's mouth. It's Percy's turn to make a soft, startled noise, because Jason's lips slip over Percy's, slow and soft. Deliberate and unmistakable.
Hesitantly, Percy lets his mouth come up into Jason's again, presses his tongue against Jason's teeth, lets his hand slide to the back of Jason's neck and scrape up against the fine hairs there. Instead of startling or pulling away or any other reasonable, expected reaction, Jason's hand comes up to grip at Percy's wrist. Squeezes once.
And then—Christ. And then they're really going at it.
Percy gets one chance, he thinks. Percy gets one fucking chance before Jason wakes the fuck up and does the smart thing and walks away. One chance to let his mouth slide open against Jason's, take in the sharp taste of iron and sweat against his tongue. One chance to wind one hand up in the collar of Jason's jacket and the other up into Jason's hair, like he's been wanting to for months and months. One chance to catalogue every single glancing touch, every throwaway noise Jason makes in the back of his throat.
Jason, for his part, scrabbles a broad palm against Percy's waist. Slides it up his back and then down again, like he doesn't quite know where to settle. The hand on Percy's wrist stays, thumb resting against Percy's erratically thumping pulse, swiping from side to side once or twice.
Fuck the city. Fuck the sirens blaring in the distance, fuck it all. Everything Percy's ever known narrows down to wherever Jason's touching him—the pulse point on the wrist, the places where their chests press flush, the hand that slides up Percy's back again, gripping into the curls hanging loosely over his neck. Jason makes a low, needy noise and Percy kind of loses his mind a little.
He brings the hand in Jason's jacket up against Jason's throat—a fucking stupid move, but he's too punch drunk to care about anything except for how to get closer. Jason must be out of it too, because somehow he fucking lets Percy do it, with nothing but a cut-off gasp as Percy grasps at his jaw and tilts Jason's head like he wants it, so he can bear up into Jason's mouth again. Jason meets him where he's at, because of course he does, because he always has. The hand against Percy's curls grips tight, pulls painfully at his scalp, but who cares. Who fucking cares.
Percy will take it. Percy will take it all, hungrily, gasping out breaths in between wet exchanges, hotter and faster. A mounting feverishness, growing warmer and warmer low in his gut. Jason's throat quivers against Percy's palm, like there's something locked in there trying to get out. But he doesn't pull away. He lets Percy work him apart and takes Percy apart right back and he does not once pull away. Not even when the siren out in the street whines closer and closer, not even when it's joined by another siren. He just keeps on sliding his mouth over Percy's, over and over and over as if there's nothing else in the world to do.
But there is. And being caught soaked in blood and making out with some random paramedic in an alleyway would be less than ideal for the Red Hood's image. Still, it takes the siren beeping piercingly out in the street, dangerously fucking close, for Percy's brain to crash back into gear.
"Fuck," he mutters, still smeared against Jason's mouth. He looks up at the red and blue lights cast against the concrete. "Oh, fuck."
He looks back at Jason and—
Big mistake. Life-ruining, a little. Jason's hair is mussed up against the back of his head—Percy did that—and his lips are slick and bitten red—Percy did that—and the lenses of the domino mask is blown wide, with one hand lifted to his slightly parted mouth. Percy fucking did that. Jesus Christ.
Percy opens his mouth. Wipes, uselessly, at the spit and blood sitting on his lower lip. Ignores both the medically trained part of his brain and the horny part of his brain screaming about fluid transfers. Looks at Jason and says, very cool and calm and collected: "You should probably get out of here."
"Um," Jason says.
A handful of gruff voices, outside the alleyway. Percy glances out and then back at Jason, who is still touching the back of his hand to his mouth, seemingly ignorant to the swiftly approaching cops who likely have orders to shoot on sight.
"Christ, you've really got to go," Percy says. Luckily, Jason stumbles to his feet when Percy pulls at him, and then he goes over to the fire escape without too much shoving.
"Perce," he says. "Percy—"
"What part of the cops are here do you not understand?" Percy hisses at him, shoving again. "Go, oh my God—"
Jason turns back to him and says, a little desperately, "Percy."
Percy looks up at him. Jason's whole face is creased up with worry. One hand comes up, hesitantly, to rest on Percy's elbow. His head is tilted down towards Percy and, if Percy decided to indulge in delusion, he could almost say it's like Jason is looking at his mouth. There's a moment where Percy is tilting up closer, and then he remembers where they are. And who he is. One fucking chance.
"We're okay," he tries. Jason's mouth—the mouth Percy was just kissing a minute ago, in case anyone forgot—twists down. Percy puts both hands up to his shoulders and shoves. "Go."
And thankfully, Jason does, vanishing in the typical vigilante fashion just as the officers burst in the alley, guns raised. Percy puts both hands up in the air and tries for his least aggravating smile.
"Thank God you guys showed up," he says. "That trashcan looks very dangerous."
Obviously, Percy suspicious as hell. The main thing he has going for him is that he's very annoying and he knows his goddamn rights and is loud about them, which means they want to stop dealing with him as soon as possible. Percy waves them goodbye as they peel off and away to be useless somewhere else.
He manages to save the worst of the oncoming freak-out until he's back in the apartment, although there are a few people who cross the street to avoid…whatever it is he's got going on. Frankly, he doesn't want to know. He kissed Jason Todd. He kissed Jason Fucking Todd, and probably blew up his whole life while he's at it, and he can't bring himself to regret a single fucking thing. He lays down on the floor. Bangs his head against the wall. Yells obscenities into a pillow. None of it helps. None of it changes the fact he kissed Jason Fucking Todd.
Percy's phone dings, abandoned on the floor across the room where he threw it the moment he closed the door. Whoops. There is exactly one person who would be texting him at this hour, and Percy's never had the self- control to avoid him. He walks over to pick it up, flip the newly cracked screen over.
Hey, from jay. Of fucking course. Another beat or two before it dings again. Did you get home safe?
all good over here, Percy lies, blatantly. you?
Jason types for a long, long time. Percy paces around the apartment two and a half times before the phone dings again: Yep.
Okay. So that's how it is. Pretend it never happened. Percy can work with that, he thinks. He hopes. He'll have to, either way.
The text bubble pops up again, then vanishes, then reappears. Then vanishes again. Percy takes matters into his own hands, which is to say he enables his own avoidance.
im headed to bed i think, he says. What he'll actually be doing is staring up at the ceiling in abject horror and self-loathing, but Jason doesn't need to know that. been a long night haha see you later.
He furiously turns his phone onto silent and then tosses it away. He will not look at until he has tried and failed at sleeping. Maybe he just won't look at it ever. Maybe he'll throw it out the window and move to Canada, where he never has to think about Jason Todd again except for the fact that he will, constantly, because this is just his life now.
The anti-phone resolve lasts until right before Percy crawls into bed, where he checks furtively one last time. Just two more messages from Jason: Okay, he'd said, and then five minutes later: Sleep well, Perce.
you too, Percy types, and then deletes, and then he throws his phone across the room again because who cares if a stupid phone gets broken? Percy's heart is about to get fucking decimated.
And all it took was seven minutes and twenty-two seconds.