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The Seattle safehouse is as barebones as a living space can possibly be. Orange light from the street lamps seeps through half-drawn blinds, spilling over the vacant interior. Beyond the cardboard boxes filled with equipment, books, clothes, and the occasional snack pile, there is scarcely anything else to occupy one's time with. But Jason told them to stay put whilst he places a few calls following their not-so-kind message to his brother. So waiting it is.
A comfortable silence fills the space. The teenagers have dispersed throughout the room like pets—Eugene and Jeffrey lay on Jason’s makeshift bed with a handheld console between them, Lian is leaning against a wall texting somebody, and Ezra is staring contemplatively at the kitchenette with a rumbling belly.
He makes his way toward the fridge. Old takeout, beer, a carton of eggs. Jason is truly living life out here. Ezra lets out a soft snort at his own joke, stooping to examine the carton. There are enough to make an omelette with, he reckons. He has little faith in whatever is in the takeout box. And Jason made it clear that leaving is not permitted until he comes back, so this will have to do. Even if technically Ezra could leave and destroy a double cheeseburger right about now.
“Whatcha doing?” Jett peers over the fridge door with a grin.
Ezra huffs, not even sparing him a glance.
“Omlette.”
"Cool. Cuz I’m bored as shit.”
Perhaps it’s the weariness that renders the group unconfrontational tonight, or perhaps the weight of Cole’s disappearance calms their otherwise mischievous energy. For some reason, Ezra feels not the faintest urge to make a jab at Jett. They simply move over to the dusty counters beside the fridge.
“If I were Jason Todd, where would I keep my salt?” Jett mumbles, a lazy grin playing on his lips. They delve through the cabinets, some empty, others stacked with canned provisions tucked away for darker days. It doesn’t take long for them to gather an old frying pan, salt and pepper shakers, and a plate that definitely needs a rinse.
“Anyone else wanna eat?” Ezra calls out.
Hushed conversations cease. Eugene and Jeffrey look up from the screen, and Lian’s attention on her phone briefly wavers. They all decline with headshakes.
Jett snorts, reaching for three eggs. “Alright, let’s get this party started.”
“Wait. Olive oil. Or they’ll stick to the pan,” Ezra looks around. “We gotta find it.”
They rummage the cabinets once more, now with a new purpose. When their search ends up fruitless, the teenagers move onto the various cardboard boxes littering the floor.
“Man, this guy loves his classics,” Jett mumbles, paging quickly though an old and yellowed copy of Frankenstein.
“Stop snooping in his shit.”
“Oh, like you’re not curious,” Jett counters.
Ezra peeks over his shoulder, eyebrows narrowed. “Whatever, man. Just look for what we need.”
Soon, the smell of heated cookware fills the confined space they occupy, along with the shuffle of cardboard, and the occasional quip.
“Dude.” Lian deadpans, locking her phone and crossing her arms. “Why didn’t you wait for him to come back before doing this?”
“Because I’m hungry?” Ezra scratches the back of his neck. Panic creeps up on him the longer his eyes linger on the cooktop. They had to act now before the bottom of the pan heats up with the red circle of death. “He said he won’t take long but like… How long is not too long for him?"
“We could call him?” offers Eugene, looking away from the console.
“Right. So he can make jokes about babysitting us. Not a chance,” replies Jett.
A sigh of resignation leaves Ezra. He sits beside one of the boxes, irritated by his hunger, exhausted from the day they’ve had, and truth be told, thoroughly exasperated with this entire cooking situation.
“We could order pizza,” he thinks out loud, rubbing the tiredness out of his eyes. “That way we don’t have to leave and we get to eat.”
“We can’t do that,” Jeffrey protests, sitting up straighter but never letting his attention waver from the game. “This is a safehouse. He’s going to be pissed if he finds out we gave his address out.”
“I know that,” Ezra groans. “We could order it somewhere nearby enough that it won’t be suspicious and boom. Dinner for all.”
Jeffrey bites his lip. Whether it’s concentration or hesitancy, Ezra isn’t sure. “This is still a terrible idea, man. He trusts us enough to leave us alone in his space, I don’t think we should mess up now."
Ezra signs exasperatedly, cupping his face with his hands. Jeffrey has a point.
“Okay, well, I’ve struck a goldmine,” says Jett, drawing everyone’s attention.
He’s kneeling, inspecting a medium-sized cardboard box from the shadows of the cabinet beneath the sink. It is painfully obvious it was not intended to be found. “I bet there’s some freaky shit in here.”
“Jett,” Ezra warns, “Leave that alone.”
He rises to his feet, dragging them the short distance to the sink. Jett’s eyes sparkle with a mischievous glint, his fingers drumming upon the cardboard lid. Now that he is closer, Ezra can see the box’s intentional plainness. Written on its side with a black marker is the word ‘Ammo’, though he doubts that it’s a descriptor of the contents. Jett shakes the box carefully. The rustle of papers and metal fills the silence.
Ezra extends a hand toward the cooktop, swiftly shutting off the stove and pushing the pan to a cooler surface, the search for olive oil forgotten entirely.
Jeffrey speaks first. “We should definitely not open that.”
“Of course we should open it.” Lian uncrosses her arms and saunters to them. She kneels before the box with a curious expression.
“What if there’s something Batman related inside?” Eugene’s face splits into a smile, a childlike wonder seizing him wholly. He springs from the bed and makes his way to the group.
Ezra covers Jett’s drumming fingers with a firm hand.
“He doesn’t strike me as the forgiving type. If we open this, everybody here agrees we breach his trust, alright?”
In spite of his words, Ezra finds himself unable to quell the growing curiosity which overtakes his logical thinking. Not only might they uncover Batman related stuff in there, which would be awesome if you ask him, but it could also reveal more about the man who had agreed to mentor them. Perhaps, if they understand him better, the team would operate more harmoniously. Such is the lie Ezra tells himself as he releases Jett’s hand and makes space for Jeffrey to join them.
The collective attention falls on poor Jeffrey. He looks as though he will argue, but the pressure cracks him from inside out. Curiosity seems to have gotten the best of him as well.
“Fine! I’m coming. But let it be known I am against this.”
A hush befalls them, charged with anticipation. Glances are exchanged—from Eugene’s giddy impatience to Jett’s grin. The weight of consequences doesn’t seem too bad compared to the prize of knowing what Red Hood would hide, even in his own safehouse.
Lian lifts the lid.
The teenagers gather over the box like cats, tilting their heads to examine the contents. As expected, there is no actual ammunition. Within, nestled amidst papers, lie keychains from various countries, a black notebook, fake passports, a burner phone, and other trinkets.
“Cool…” Jett lifts a scratched Batarang. He chuckles, but it sounds awfully breathless.
Lian is the most audacious. She is careful as she sets aside the passports, turning her attention to the notebook. Between its pages are names of drug dealers and crime bosses, some underlined twice, others scratched out with a red pen. Nothing unexpected here.
“Is that a polaroid?” Eugene adjusts his glasses further up his nose bridge.
Lian brushes away the keychains, revealing a stack of pictures. She is diligent with ensuring her fingers leave no smudges. Ezra assists her in laying them out as one would a hand of cards.
“What the…” Ezra utters.
The group falls silent. The polaroids are clean, as though freshly captured; their gloss reflects off the orange light. They are not, as Ezra had presumed, photographs from a crime scene.
Jason is captured in several pictures—his usual scowl either absent or replaced with a private smile, one which sits odd upon his stern face. Most of them, however, portray a dark-haired man that looks familiar. One depicts him in sleepwear, hunched over a sketchbook with a pencil behind his ear. Another is a selfie of the artist on a mountain path, smiling into the camera; Jason stands a bit further from the camera, wearing that tentative smile. Their hands are entwined.
The more polaroids they look through, the more domestic the scenes get. Jason brushing his teeth, attempting to evade the camera. The artist sprawled on a couch like a starfish. A picture of their joined hands. Jason browsing books in a bookstore. The artist stuffing his face with French toast in a diner. Jason doing push-ups. Jason and the artist petting stray cats that have climbed their shoulders. A black haired woman with her arms draped around both men in what appears to be a restaurant.
“Holy shit, that’s Wonder Girl,” Ezra whispers. Anything above a whisper feels inappropriate at the moment. The collective breath they all hold in stunned silence seems to burst like a dam. Everyone exchanges faces with various degrees of shock. A murmur overtakes them, questions thrown out with no answers. Frankly, it is more than bizarre seeing Jason Todd like this. Thinking of the legendary Red Hood as a man not only in love, but keeping sentimental pictures, was like… seeing a pig fly. It hadn’t even occurred to Ezra that this guy would ever consider being in a relationship.
“I told you we shouldn’t be looking at this,” says Jeffrey quietly. However, he doesn’t look away. Ezra isn’t sure any of them could. The shock fades not unlike a punch—first you feel the full force of it, then it dissipates into something manageable.
“Woah, look,” interjects Eugene, focus drawn to the papers in the box. “These are all sketches of Jason.”
Everyone’s attention drifts down. Lian sets aside the polaroids delicately, and arranges them in a neat pile, before lifting the papers for all to see. Page by page, awe comes in waves with each reveal. Costume sketches crowd the white papers, along with portraits of Jason from different angles that looks like perspective practice. Scattered among the designs are silly doodles in green pen, a cartoonish version of the dark-haired man. Sometimes he offers thoughts about his design choices (“Ditch the helmet. Everyone needs to see that handsome face.”). Other times he makes funny faces. There is a doodle of him whacking tiny cartoon Jason with his sketchbook and another one of him kissing Jason’s cheek.
“These are crazy good,” Jett’s eyes are blown wide, for once not with mockery but with reverence.
“And they’re recent. Look at the date in the corner,” Jeffrey points out.
Eugene frowns. "But… why would he hide all this?”
“Man, I don’t know. If your father is the world’s greatest detective wouldn’t you want to hide something only for yourself?” replies Ezra, putting back the sketches the way they were arranged before.
He shakes his head slowly, regret already settling between his ribs. This was a side of Jason that a privileged few were allowed to view, and it felt wrong to intrude on that. Yes, he had anticipated stumbling onto something nobody should see—but he had assumed it to be inappropriate magazines or weapon catalogues, or something which fit the concept of Red Hood Ezra had in his head. Not… this.
“Maybe some day he will trust us enough to let us meet this dude. Until then, we haven’t seen any of this shit.”
“Wait, wait.” Lian slaps his hands away, inspecting one of the polaroids again. “I swear, I’ve seen this guy.”
“It has to be another hero, right?” Jeffrey chimes in. The look of a deer in headlights on his face tells Ezra he isn’t the only one burdened by guilt. “Someone who helps people. That’s the kind of person Jason would want to be around.”
“Yeah,” replies Lian absentmindedly. She rotates the photo, as if it will help her solve the mystery. The group twist their heads to view it from the left, from the right. After a beat, she bites the inside of her cheek. “Someone take a photo of this and draw a mask over his face. I need to see something.”
“We shouldn’t—” Ezra begins. Even as the words escape his lips, that irksome flicker of curiosity compels him to bite his tongue. They shouldn’t, but they are far too deep now. They may as well unearth every last secret before questions devour them whole, or worse, distract them from the mission they set upon earlier today.
Jett whips out his phone. Ezra peers over his shoulder as Jett closes the app with their server, with unread requests for pizza, and opens his camera app. One picture and a hastily drawn domino mask later, he presents the screen to the group.
“Well?”
For a moment they all stare.
“Oh.” Jeffrey straightens up, pointing a finger. “Oh my God.”
“What?” asks Eugene.
“That’s one of the Green Lanterns!”
Recognition sparks across everyone with a collective "Ohhh" as they cross reference it with their own memories. Now that the realisation had downed upon Ezra, he can’t believe he failed to identify the Lantern earlier. He had seen pictures and videos of him all over the internet, the news. The very notion of Red Hood dating a Green Lantern borders on absurd. It sounds like a joke someone would make. Strangely, after seeing the polaroids, it makes perfect sense to him.
“Damn.” says Jett. “That’s crazy.”
“Yeah,” Lian exhales. For the first time since they opened the box, something akin to mild shock is written on her features.
They work with remarkable swiftness, returning everything to its original state, and closing the cabinet beneath the sink as if nothing was out of the ordinary. The realisation lingers, weighty, even as they return to their initial activities. Though he begged his mind to stop drawing connections, Ezra found more and more logic in the whole ordeal. For example, one of the cardboard boxes here contains clothes which he could hardly picture Jason in. But seeing the way the Lantern had dressed in some of those photos, he can see how they can fit into his style instead.
Half an hour later, Jason barges into the safehouse.
“Alright. I’ve got the pizzas. One pepperoni and a veggie supreme in case there are any vegans.”
He pauses by the threshold, his gaze sweeping over the room with suspicion only years of training can produce.
“What’s wrong? Jett.”
“Hey!” Jett rolls his eyes. He shrugs his shoulders, avoiding eye contact for the first time in his life. “I didn’t do anything.”
Jason’s attention turns to Ezra next. With nowhere else to hide, the teen leans against the wall with his hands tucked into his pockets. He gives his shoulders a swift shrug upward, then turns to face the window behind him.
“Right,” says Jason, dragging out the vowel. “Nothing suspicious at all. Come on, guys. I wasn’t born yesterday. What happened? Did you learn something new about the kid?”
The mere mention of Cole makes Ezra shrink into himself further. Today had been such an emotional rollercoaster, it was a miracle they were still all standing on their feet.
Jason steps inside, setting the pizzas down with a sigh. For someone who had made a big deal about not wanting to be a leader, he sure seems to fit great into the role. He sweeps the room once more, this time not just the kids but the furniture. Ezra’s heart climbs up his throat. How foolish of him to think they could leave no evidence behind. The air charges. Nobody dares to glance at anything besides the floor.
“Can we eat?” asks Eugene suddenly. Jason falters, his eyes relaxing just a tad.
“You’re starving us out here,” says Jett. To the ordinary eye, his smile looks to fit his teasing demeanour, but Ezra can see the way it twitches nervously.
Jason remains vigilant for a beat more before his shoulders relax. He gestures in the vague direction of the pizza. A sigh that could rival a single mother’s rips out of him.
“Suit yourselves.”
The teenagers eat in silence, deflecting questions for the rest of the night. The way they view their new leader through a different perspective, as if they could see signs of him being a softie now that they know information they definitely shouldn’t have learned, makes Jason even more suspicious. Still, he doesn't find out why they started acting weird. Or he won't, unless he checks the box and notices something amiss.
When Jason’s phone trills and the faintest hint of a smile appears on his lips, they can't help but exchange knowing looks.