request could you do a mini series or one shot of batfam finding out about your depression or you having a panic attack?
content jason todd x gn!reader, established relationship, graphic description of a panic attack, panic attack, dissociation, trauma references, aftercare
word count 3.9k
masterlist | jason masterlist
It started with the sound of glass breaking.
Not a window. Not a bottle. Nothing dramatic enough to justify the way your body reacted, really. Just a mug slipping from the counter because your fingers had gone clumsy around the handle, because your mind had been somewhere else, because the kitchen light was too bright and the rain against the windows had been too loud and the whole apartment felt suddenly tilted, as if gravity had changed its mind about which way was down. The mug hit the floor and shattered into white ceramic teeth across the tile, coffee bleeding between the pieces in a dark, bitter spill.
For half a second, there was only the crash.
Then your body decided it was in danger.
Your breath snapped in too fast, a hard, startled gasp that cut at the inside of your throat. The apartment blurred at the edges. The counter under your palm seemed to drop away even though you were still holding it, knuckles pale, fingers locked around the cool stone like it might keep you from being dragged under. You could hear your pulse everywhere: in your ears, in your teeth, in the soft meat behind your eyes. It was too big for your body. Too loud. A frantic animal throwing itself against the cage of your ribs.
You told yourself it was just a mug. You told yourself you were in Jason’s apartment, in the little kitchen with the crooked drawer he still hadn’t fixed because he claimed it had “character,” with the rain sliding silver down the windows, with the smell of old books and gun oil and the basil plant you had bullied him into keeping alive on the sill. You told yourself there was no blood, no smoke, no hands reaching for you, no voice telling you that you were too slow, too weak, too much. But your body did not care about logic. Your body had its own religion, and tonight, it worshipped fear.
The first wave hit like a fist closing around your lungs.
You tried to breathe around it and couldn’t. Air came in thin, useless ribbons. Your chest locked down harder the more you fought it, muscles turning to iron, throat narrowing until each inhale felt like it had to scrape through broken glass. You bent over the counter, one hand pressed to your sternum, the other still gripping stone, and the room lurched in a slow, nauseating spiral. Your vision splintered into details you could not hold together: ceramic shards, coffee spreading, rainlight on tile, your own foot too close to the mess, the edge of the fridge humming like an electrical wire inside your skull.
You did not hear Jason come in at first. The front door opened, rain whispered off his jacket, his boots crossed the living room, and all of it arrived through the panic as muffled, distant sound, like you were underwater and he was calling to you from the shore. Then his voice cut through—not loud, never loud, not when it mattered.
“Hey,” Jason said, careful and low. “Sweetheart?”
You flinched anyway.
He stopped instantly. You felt the pause more than saw it, a stillness blooming behind you. Jason Todd, who could move through gunfire like the world owed him room, went quiet as a shadow at the edge of the kitchen. No sudden motion. No grab for your shoulders. No demanding what happened. He took in the scene fast because Jason always took in a scene fast, eyes flicking over the shattered mug, your bare feet, the coffee, the angle of your body, the way you were gulping down air that didn’t seem to reach you.
“Okay,” he said, and the word was soft enough to be placed in your hands. “Okay, I see you. Don’t move, baby. There’s glass.”
Your brain caught on that: glass. Your feet. The floor. The danger that was real, small and sharp and ordinary, waiting under you. You looked down and immediately wished you hadn’t, because the pieces seemed too bright, too many, and your mind turned them into other things—bone, teeth, shrapnel, evidence. Your breath hitched, broke, collapsed in on itself.
Jason swore under his breath, not at you. Never at you. You knew the difference by now, knew the way his anger curved outward when the world touched you wrong. He moved slowly into your line of sight, hands visible, palms open. His hair was damp from the rain, the white streak at his temple plastered darker than usual, and his jacket dripped onto the floor behind him. He looked too big for the kitchen and too gentle for what he had been made into, all broad shoulders and careful eyes, a bruised saint with blood on his history and tenderness in his hands.
“I’m gonna get you off the glass,” he said. “I’m not touching you until you tell me I can. Can you look at me?”
You tried. You really did. Your gaze climbed from his boots to his knees to the wet leather of his jacket, but when you reached his face, everything slipped sideways. His features wouldn’t hold still. His eyes were green, then too bright, then far away. The room buzzed. Your fingers went numb.
“I can’t,” you choked, or thought you did. It came out small, torn into pieces by your breathing.
Jason’s expression tightened, but his voice stayed steady. “That’s all right. You don’t gotta do anything fancy. Just listen to me. I’m right here. You’re in my kitchen. You dropped a mug. Scared the hell outta your nervous system, dramatic little bastard that it is.” His mouth twitched like he was trying to give you something almost like a smile, something you could hold without having to smile back. “But we’re not in danger. You’re not in trouble. I’ve got you.”
Your chest cramped. The words I’ve got you should have helped. They did, somewhere deep down, but the panic was louder, a storm with teeth. Your lungs kept clawing for air. Tears blurred your vision before you realised you were crying, hot and humiliating on your face.
Jason lowered himself into a crouch a few feet away, putting himself below your eye level, making his body less like a wall and more like shelter. The sight of him kneeling in the coffee and rainwater without caring about his clothes did something terrible and tender inside you. He knew, you remembered suddenly. Maybe not this exact shape of fear, not this exact trigger or this exact night, but Jason knew what it was to have your body drag you back into a war that had already ended. He knew what it was to wake up with death in his mouth. He knew how memory could become a room and lock you inside it.
“Can I touch your hand?” he asked. “Just your hand. You can say no.”
You wanted to say yes. You wanted to say please. Your tongue felt too large, your jaw too tight. All you managed was a frantic little nod.
Jason reached slowly. His fingers closed around your wrist first, warm and calloused, not restraining. Just there. Then his thumb found the inside of your palm and pressed into the soft centre of it, firm enough to give your body a fact. His touch was steady. Not a demand, not a cage. A landmark.
“There you are,” he murmured. “Good. Feel my hand? Focus on that for me. You don’t gotta breathe perfect yet. We’re just gonna make the air a little less of a jerk.”
A broken laugh tried to claw its way out of you and got lost halfway into a sob. Jason’s thumb kept moving in slow circles against your palm. He shifted closer, still mindful of the glass, and slipped his other hand under your elbow.
“I’m gonna lift you onto the counter,” he said. “Glass is all over the floor and I’m not letting you step in it. You with me?”
You weren’t, not fully. You were somewhere between the kitchen and the panic, between Jason’s voice and the thunder of your heartbeat. But you nodded again because you trusted him with the parts of you that couldn’t answer.
He lifted you like you weighed nothing, one arm braced around your waist and the other under your thighs, careful and smooth. The movement made the room swoop, and you grabbed at his shoulder with a strangled sound. Jason froze for half a breath, holding you against him as if the whole universe had narrowed to not scaring you worse. Then he settled you onto the counter away from the spill, keeping one hand at your hip until he was sure you were stable.
“There,” he said. “Feet off the floor. No glass. That problem’s handled.”
Handled. The word slid through the panic like a blade through rope. One problem handled. One danger named and removed. Your brain wanted to spiral into a thousand other dangers, most of them shapeless, but Jason had pinned one down and killed it clean.
He shrugged out of his wet jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair, then came back to stand in front of you. Not too close. Close enough that you could see the rain caught in his lashes, the small scar near his jaw, the pulse beating in his throat. He was breathing deliberately now, slow and visible, chest rising and falling like a tide trying to teach yours the moon.
“In with me if you can,” he said. “Don’t force it. Just follow when it feels possible.”
You tried to match him and failed. Your inhale stuttered, shallow and ugly. Panic punched up again, furious at the failure, and you made a helpless noise that sounded too much like pain.
Jason’s eyes flashed, not with fear but recognition. “Nope. Hey. No beating yourself up. That’s panic talking, and panic is a lying asshole with bad manners.” His hand returned to yours, palm against palm. “You’re not failing. Your body thinks it’s saving you. It’s just got ancient software and no damn updates.”
If you hadn’t been drowning, you might have smiled. Jason and his stupid, perfect mouth. Jason, who could make jokes at the edge of hell because sometimes a joke was a handhold, because sometimes laughter was the first crack in the locked door.
He pressed your joined hands gently against his chest.
“Feel that?” he asked.
His heartbeat thudded under your palm, solid and slow. Not calm exactly—you knew him too well to mistake control for ease—but steady. A living drum. A proof. You stared at where your hand rested against him, at the black cotton stretched over scarred muscle, and tried to let your body understand that this was now. This was Jason. This was not whatever your blood kept mistaking it for.
“Count it,” he said. “Don’t count your breaths. Count mine.”
So you did. Or tried to. One beat. Two. Three. The numbers kept scattering, but Jason did not correct you. He just breathed and let you borrow the rhythm. His thumb brushed the back of your hand. The rain kept tapping at the window, softer now, less like a warning and more like the weather. The fridge hummed. Somewhere in the living room, a floorboard gave its familiar little complaint. The apartment began, piece by piece, to become itself again.
Your breathing changed without asking permission. It didn’t settle all at once. It came in ragged negotiations, the body bartering with terror. The tightness in your chest loosened by a cruel inch, then another. Air reached deeper. Your fingers tingled painfully as sensation returned, pins and needles waking under your skin.
Jason noticed because Jason noticed everything. “That part sucks,” he said. “The tingling. Feels like your hands are turning into TV static. It’ll pass.”
You looked up at him then, really looked, and found his face drawn with something so tender it almost hurt worse than the panic. His brows were low, mouth set, jaw tense with the effort of not showing too much. Protective Jason was a dangerous thing on patrol, all red helmet and loaded silence, but here, in the kitchen light, he was protective in quieter ways. He kept his voice soft. He kept the glass away from your feet. He made himself into something warm and patient and impossible to weaponise.
“I hate this,” you whispered.
“I know,” he said.
“I hate that you have to see it.”
His expression cracked. Not breaking, exactly. Softening around an old bruise. “Baby, look at me.” You did. “I am not mad. I am not disappointed. I am not keeping score.” His voice went rough on the last word, and his hand tightened around yours. “You’ve seen me come back from nightmares swinging at ghosts. You’ve sat on the bathroom floor with me when the Pit crawled up my throat and made me feel like my skin didn’t fit. You think I’m gonna look at you having a panic attack and decide you’re too much?”
Your eyes burned again. “It feels like too much.”
“Yeah,” Jason said, honest enough not to argue with the feeling. “It does. That doesn’t mean it is.”
The words landed somewhere fragile. You closed your eyes, and the room tilted less violently this time. Jason stayed quiet for a while, only breathing, only holding your hand against his chest. He had never been good at empty comfort, never one for shiny lies or sugar-glass promises. He did not tell you there was nothing to be afraid of. He did not tell you to calm down. He simply stayed, and because he stayed, because he had survived his own impossible things and still come home to you with rain in his hair and gentleness in his palms, the panic began to run out of road.
When your breathing finally evened into something human, exhaustion rushed in behind it.
It was obscene how tired fear could make you. Your bones felt hollowed out. Your shoulders ached from clenching. Your mouth tasted metallic, and your cheeks were stiff with drying tears. You looked down at the floor again, at the broken mug and the puddle of coffee, and shame rose sharp and immediate.
“I made a mess,” you said.
Jason followed your gaze, then snorted softly. “Yeah, tragic. A mug died. Gotham mourns.”
“Jason.”
“I hated that mug.”
“You bought that mug.”
“I make mistakes.” He reached up and wiped your cheek with the backs of his fingers, so gentle it made your throat close for an entirely different reason. “Stay put. I’m cleaning it up.”
You wanted to argue, but the idea of putting your feet on the floor made your stomach twist. Jason saw the argument forming anyway and gave you a look that was pure Red Hood filtered through domestic concern.
“Don’t even start,” he said. “I’m wearing boots. You’re barefoot. This is not a democracy.”
That did pull a tiny laugh out of you, weak and watery. Jason looked absurdly pleased with himself, like he had just won a major battle instead of coaxing one broken sound from your chest. He got the dustpan and moved around the kitchen with efficient care, sweeping the large pieces first, then the smaller glittering shards that hid near the cabinet edges. He wiped up the coffee, checked under the counter, then checked again because his version of love had always been a little obsessive around the edges. Danger did not get to linger in rooms where you were trying to breathe.
When the floor was safe, he washed his hands and came back to you. “All clear.”
You stared at him, the massive shape of him in the warm kitchen light, the damp curls at his forehead, the old scars disappearing under his sleeves. “Can I have a hug now?”
His face changed so fast it almost hurt. “Yeah,” he said, voice low. “Hell yeah, you can.”
He helped you down from the counter, but before your feet fully touched the tile, he scooped you against him, arms wrapping around your back with that careful strength that always undid you. Jason hugged like he was building a barricade between you and the rest of the world. Not crushing, not trapping, just complete. His chin rested near your temple, and his body heat soaked through your clothes, grounding you more deeply than any counted breath.
You melted into him all at once, the last of your control giving way. Your hands fisted in his shirt. He smelled like rain, leather, soap, and the faint smoky bite of the city. He rocked you once, barely, more a shift of weight than a motion, and murmured into your hair.
“There we go,” he said. “I’ve got you. You’re okay. You did so good.”
You made a small, embarrassed sound against his chest. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You survived your brain turning the lights off and setting off the fire alarm. That counts.” His hand moved slowly up and down your back, broad palm tracing the line of your spine. “Trust me. I’m an expert in brains doing haunted house nonsense.”
You breathed him in and let the warmth of him fill the spaces panic had emptied. It was strange, being held by someone who knew the monster by a different name. Jason’s fear came in green flashes and grave dirt, in crowbars and laughter and resurrection wrong enough to bruise the soul. Yours came in other shapes. Other sounds. But the body did not care about the exact story when it was drowning. It only knew the water. Jason knew the water, too.
After a while, he guided you toward the couch, one arm still around you as if he didn’t trust gravity not to get ideas. He sat first and pulled you down with him, arranging you against his side, tucking a blanket around your legs with a gruffness that would have fooled no one. The apartment had gone dimmer, gentler. Rain blurred the windows. The kitchen light reflected off the clean floor where the mug had been, no evidence left except the faint smell of coffee and the ache in your body.
Jason pressed a glass of water into your hands. “Small sips.”
“You sound like Alfred.”
“That is the sexiest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
You huffed a laugh into the rim of the glass and took a sip because he was watching like the water was a sacred mission. He had disappeared for barely twenty seconds and somehow returned with water, a soft hoodie of his, and one of the emergency snacks he kept in the pantry because he had learned, somewhere between dying and coming back and loving you, that bodies needed practical kindness after emotional catastrophes. The hoodie settled over your lap, warm from where he had held it. The snack packet crinkled when he opened it for you without comment, sparing you the indignity of fighting plastic with trembling hands.
For a while, you ate because he asked you to, and he pretended not to notice when your fingers shook. The television stayed off. Jason knew better than to fill the room too quickly. Instead, he sat beside you and let the quiet grow soft around the edges.
“I’m sorry,” you said eventually.
His head turned toward you. “For what?”
“For scaring you.”
“You didn’t scare me.”
You gave him a look, tired but unconvinced.
Jason sighed, leaning back into the couch. “Okay. You scared me a little. But not because you did anything wrong. I get scared when people I love hurt and I can’t punch the hurt in the face. It’s very inconvenient for my brand.”
The corner of your mouth twitched. “Your brand?”
“Big scary crime lord. Excellent thighs. Emotionally constipated but in a charming, marketable way.”
“Very marketable.”
“Exactly.” His smile faded into something quieter. “But you don’t apologise for having a nervous system. Not to me.”
You looked down at your hands. They had mostly stopped shaking. Mostly. Jason covered them with one of his, warm and scarred, knuckles rough from a lifetime of choosing fists when words failed him. He was still learning words. You could tell, sometimes, by the way he handled them like live wires.
“I know what it’s like,” he said. “Not exactly. I’m not gonna sit here and pretend my mess is your mess. But I know what it’s like when your body decides it’s back there. Wherever there is. I know what it’s like to be safe and still feel like you’re about to die.”
The honesty of it settled over you heavier than the blanket. You leaned closer, shoulder pressed to his ribs. “What helps you?”
Jason was quiet for a long moment. You wondered if you had asked too much, stepped too close to a locked door in him, but then his thumb moved against your knuckles.
“Depends on the night,” he said. “Sometimes space. Sometimes pressure. Sometimes I need the lights on and every exit clear. Sometimes I need someone to remind me what year it is, which is annoying as hell but works.” He swallowed, eyes fixed on the rain-streaked window. “Sometimes I just need somebody not to leave.”
Your chest ached. You turned your hand beneath his and held on.
“I’m not leaving,” you said.
He looked at you then, something raw and young flickering beneath all the armour he wore in daylight. “Yeah,” he said softly. “I know.”
Later, he coaxed you through brushing your teeth and changing into his hoodie, which swallowed you in warmth and the faint smell of him. He checked your feet again, even though you told him you hadn’t stepped on glass, because Jason’s love was a locked door, a second sweep, a hand at the small of your back when the world got crowded. He cleaned the kitchen one more time. He turned off the big light and left the smaller lamp on because darkness after panic felt like too much too soon.
In bed, he pulled you into the heavy curve of his body, your back against his chest, his arm draped over your waist with careful weight. Protective but not possessive. Present but not trapping. The shape of safe, you thought, was not a place after all. It was this: Jason’s breath warming the back of your neck, his heartbeat steady behind you, the rain softening the city outside, the knowledge that fear could come and still not take everything.
“Jay?” you whispered.
“Yeah, baby?”
“Thank you.”
His lips brushed your shoulder through the hoodie. “Anytime.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.” His arm tightened just slightly, a promise made in pressure instead of words. “Me too.”
You lay there until your body stopped waiting for the next wave. Sleep did not come quickly, but peace did, small and cautious, padding into the room like a stray cat deciding whether to trust the offered hand. Jason stayed awake behind you longer than he needed to. You could tell by his breathing, by the way his thumb occasionally swept over your ribs as if checking you were still there, still breathing, still his to keep warm against the night.
Eventually, the rain thinned. The apartment settled. Your eyes drifted closed.
And when the last of the panic finally loosened its claws, it did not leave you empty. It left you held.
request lantern anon bruce, jason and damian with misa amane! reader content jason todd x mise amane inspired reader, obsessive love, yandere-adjacent reader, stalking, attempted assault, death note-inspired powers, shinigami, morally grey reader, possessive devotion, revenge, discussions of death and resurrection, unhealthy coping mechanisms, violence, blood, morally complicated romance
word count 8.6k | dc masterlist | jason todd masterlist
The first thing you loved about Red Hood was that he did not tell you to calm down. You were on your knees in a Gotham alley, dress torn at the hip and one expensive shoe missing somewhere behind a dumpster, when he came crashing into your life. Not gracefully. Batman, you imagined, probably entered alleys like smoke. Dramatic. Controlled. Gothic enough to make architecture feel underdressed.
Red Hood came through a fire escape. Literally. Metal screamed overhead. Someone swore. Your stalker barely had time to turn before a body in leather armour dropped between you, hit the concrete in a crouch, and rose already swinging. The punch made a sound you felt in your teeth. Your stalker went down. Red Hood grabbed him by the front of his coat.
“You deaf?” he snarled through the helmet. “They said no.”
Your stalker made a wet, frightened sound. Red Hood hit him again. You stared. The alley was bright with rain. Gotham had been spitting it down for hours, turning the streetlights into bruised halos. Your knees were bleeding through silk. Your breath came too fast.
Above your stalker’s head, you could still see his name. You could still see the lifespan. Too long. Far too long. The page of the Death Note in your clutch felt suddenly unnecessary.
Red Hood dragged your attacker away from you and slammed him into the wall.
“I just wanted to talk to them,” the man choked out.
“Yeah?” Red Hood said. “Funny way to chat.”
“They made me—”
Red Hood went still. You knew that stillness. Not because you knew him. Because you knew rage. The deep kind. The kind that got very quiet right before it decided what shape to take. Your stalker seemed to realise too late that he had said something wrong.
“They made you what?”
The man’s eyes darted toward you. Red Hood followed the glance. “They made me love them.”
The next punch broke something. Maybe a tooth. Maybe a belief. You flinched. Red Hood froze.
Then his helmet turned toward you. For half a second, nobody moved. Your stalker was moaning on the ground. Your heart was trying to break out through your ribs. Red Hood released the man. He crossed the alley slowly. Not like he had approached your attacker. That difference mattered. Everything mattered, suddenly.
He stopped several feet away. “You hurt?”
You stared at the red helmet. The Shinigami eyes gave you nothing useful. Not because they had failed. Because you could not see his face. No face meant no name. No name meant no truth. It should have made him frightening. Instead, you felt something hotter and stranger uncurl in your chest.
Mystery. You had spent months seeing every person you met reduced to name and number. Every face came with an ending attached. Every handshake, every camera flash, every smile at a gala happened beneath a lifespan only you could see. Red Hood had none. He stood in front of you like a hole in the rules.
“You with me?” he asked.
You blinked. “Sorry?”
He tilted his head. You realised, distantly, that you had been staring.
Then he crouched. Not too close. He pulled off one glove with his teeth and extended his bare hand. There were scars over the knuckles. You looked at them. Then at him.
“You can grab on,” he said. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”
Your hand shook when you placed it in his. His skin was warm.
That was the second thing you loved about Red Hood. He felt alive. Painfully, strangely alive. At that moment, all you knew was that he helped you stand and immediately looked away when the tear in your clothes pulled wider.
He shrugged out of his jacket and handed it to you. “Put that on.”
You clutched it around yourself. It was heavy. Warm. It smelled like gunpowder, rain, and something woody underneath.
His helmet turned toward the mouth of the alley, where sirens were approaching. “You got security?”
You laughed. It came out wrong. Too high. “Technically.”
Red Hood looked back at you. “Technically?”
“My security lost me.” His helmet remained very still. You could somehow feel the judgement radiating through it. “Yeah,” you said. “I know. Very professional. Ten out of ten. No notes.”
That got something. Not a laugh. A strange mechanical huff through the helmet.
You smiled. “Was that a laugh?”
“No.”
“It was.”
“You’re concussed.”
“I’m not.”
“Shock, then.”
“Are you always this rude after rescuing someone?”
“Usually, they’re too busy crying to review the customer service.”
Your smile widened before you could stop it. Red Hood looked at you for a long second. Then he glanced away first.
The police sirens came closer.
Red Hood stepped back. Panic struck you unexpectedly. “Wait.” He stopped. You tightened your hands in his jacket. “What’s your name?”
The white lenses of the helmet stared back at you. “Not how this works, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart. Your entire nervous system lit up like a fire alarm.
“Oh,” you said.
Red Hood seemed to realise what he had done.
There was a tiny pause. Then, gruffer, “You’re gonna be okay.”
You looked at him. At the blank red mask. At the man whose ending you could not see.
You believed him. That was probably where the trouble started.
By morning, every paper in Gotham had your face on it.
FAMOUS MODEL SAVED BY RED HOOD AFTER STALKER ATTACK.
GOTHAM’S GOLDEN DARLING BREAKS SILENCE.
MODEL PRAISES MASKED VIGILANTE AFTER TERRIFYING NIGHT.
You hated all of them. Not enough to stop reading. You sat in your penthouse kitchen wearing an oversized hoodie and nothing else, scrolling through headlines while your Shinigami hung upside down over the island.
Rem was eating an apple. Rem was always eating an apple. Their real name could not be pronounced by a human mouth without making teeth hurt, so you had named them Rem six months ago. They hated it. You considered this enrichment.
“You’ve read the same article six times,” Rem said.
“I’m checking for inaccuracies.”
“You’re staring at the blurry picture of the red one.”
“It’s a compelling photograph.”
“It’s twelve pixels.”
“Art is subjective.”
Rem bit into the apple. “You’re obsessed.”
You zoomed in on the photograph again. It really was awful. Red Hood stood in profile, mostly obscured by rain and police lights. A smear of red helmet. Dark armour. Broad shoulders.
You remembered the warmth of his hand. Sweetheart. You pressed your lips together.
Rem groaned. “Oh, stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Romanticising.”
“I’m processing trauma.”
“You drew a heart around his helmet.”
You glanced down. At some point, without noticing, you had in fact traced a tiny heart on the screen with your fingertip. You locked the phone. “That proves nothing.”
Rem laughed.
A notification appeared. Your stalker had died. You opened the article. Cardiac arrest in police custody.
Your expression flattened.
Rem slowly lowered the apple. “You didn’t.”
“No.”
That was true. You had wanted to. God, you had wanted to. You had his name. His face. A strip of paper folded inside a lipstick tube on the vanity. But after the alley, you had not written it. You had gone home wrapped in Red Hood’s jacket and sat in the dark for hours with the paper in front of you.
You could not stop thinking about one thing. Red Hood had let him live. Barely, perhaps. With several missing teeth and a badly fractured wrist. But alive.
You had not known why that mattered. Still did not. So you had left the page blank.
Rem leaned closer to the screen. “Heart attack.”
“Yeah.”
“Convenient.”
You stared at the photograph attached to the article. Your stalker’s booking photo. His name. His now-useless lifespan. “I didn’t do it.”
“I believe you.” You looked up. Rem shrugged one shoulder. “I would know if you had.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“I’m a death god. Comfort is not really my lane.”
You closed the article.Somewhere under the unease, relief still came. You hated yourself for it.
Rem watched your face. “You wanted him dead.”
“Yes.”
“Do you regret that?”
“No.”
“Humans,” Rem sighed. “Always making simple things complicated.”
You looked toward the rain-streaked windows. Somewhere in Gotham, Red Hood was alive. Unknowable. Unseen.
You touched the sleeve of his jacket. You had not returned it. You told yourself it was evidence.
The second time you met Red Hood, you brought him coffee. Six coffees. You had spent three nights constructing the statistical likelihood of his patrol routes based on sighting reports, police scanner timing, gang activity shifts, violent crime clusters, and three blurry social media videos. Rem called it stalking. You called it data analysis.
“Stalking with spreadsheets,” Rem said.
“Shut up.”
“You colour-coded him.”
“I like organisation.”
“You have a tab called ‘Shoulders.’”
“That is separate research.”
So, on a cold Thursday night, you stood on a rooftop in Crime Alley wearing sunglasses at midnight and carrying a cardboard tray with six takeaway cups.
Red Hood landed behind you. “You have got to be kidding me.”
You smiled. “Hi.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Coffee.”
“At midnight.”
“You work nights.” You lifted the tray. “I didn’t know what you liked.”
“So you bought the shop?”
“Technically, no. I thought about it.”
His helmet tilted. You could feel the disbelief. Then he walked over and inspected the cups. “What are these?”
“Black coffee, latte, flat white, cappuccino, mocha, and one terrifying caramel thing the barista recommended after looking at me and making a character judgment.”
Red Hood stared at you.
You smiled. “Pick your fighter.”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“Before coffee?”
“At all.”
“Rude.”
“You were attacked less than two weeks ago.”
“Exactly. What are the odds of it happening again?”
“High. This is Gotham.”
“Fair.”
He folded his arms. You looked at them. Then looked back up. Maybe a little too slowly.
“Stop that.”
You blinked. “Stop what?”
“Whatever that was.”
“I was listening.”
“With your eyes?”
“That’s how looking works.”
Even through the helmet, you somehow knew he was suffering. It was wonderful. Red Hood sighed. Then he reached for the black coffee.
You gasped. “Knew it.”
“Knew what?”
“You’re a black coffee person.”
“Half this city drinks black coffee.”
“Yes, but you do it emotionally.” He went still. You grinned. “Like, ‘life has betrayed me but caffeine remains.’”
Red Hood stared at you. Then, unexpectedly, his shoulders shook. Once. Twice.
You lit up. “You laughed.”
“No.”
“You did!”
“No evidence.”
“You’re so cute.”
He almost dropped the coffee. The helmet snapped toward you. “What?”
You smiled innocently. “Your helmet.”
“You called my helmet cute.”
“Sure.”
He seemed relieved. Poor thing. Adorable. Oblivious. You tucked that knowledge away carefully.
Red Hood pointed toward the fire escape. “Go home.”
“You didn’t drink the coffee yet.”
“I’ll drink it when you leave.”
“Promise?”
“Why would I lie about coffee?”
You considered this. “Good point.” You walked toward the fire escape, then turned. “Can I see you again?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
He paused.
You smiled brightly. “See you soon!”
“That is the opposite of what I just said.”
But you were already climbing down.
Rem floated beside you. “Smooth.”
“He likes me.”
“He thinks you’re insane.”
“Two things can be true.”
Above you, Red Hood watched until you reached the street. You knew because Rem checked.
You smiled all the way home.
Jason Todd did not know what to do with you. That was the problem. He knew what to do with criminals. He knew what to do with guns. He knew what to do with drug runners, pimps, traffickers, extortionists, and every other species of parasite that thought Crime Alley belonged to them. He did not know what to do with a high-fashion model who kept leaving snacks on rooftops. The snacks were good. That made it worse.
“You got a fan,” Roy said over comms one night.
Jason glared at the chocolate croissant sitting beside a gargoyle. “Shut up.”
“There’s a note.”
“I can see the note.”
“Read it.”
“No.”
“I’ll hack your helmet camera.”
“Do that, and I’ll shoot you.”
“Romantically?”
Jason disconnected. The note was written in ridiculous pink ink. You looked tired last time. Eat something. Also, the guy running weapons through the old printing warehouse is lying about his supplier. Check the shipping company registered under his sister’s maiden name. xoxo
Jason stared at it. Then at the croissant. Then at the city. “What the hell?”
He checked the shipping company. You were right. Not slightly right. Not lucky. The records led to a distribution chain Jason had been trying to crack for four months.
He sat in one of his safehouses at three in the morning, surrounded by documents, and pulled up your public profile. You smiled out from the screen in a perfume campaign. Perfect skin. Glossy mouth. Vacant eyes.
Jason knew that expression. A mask.
“Okay,” he muttered.
He searched deeper. Public interviews first. You told one presenter you thought the stock market was “like astrology for men with Patagonia vests.” The audience laughed. Jason snorted despite himself. Then, thirty seconds later, the host mentioned a recent merger. You made one offhand comment about the acquiring company’s debt structure being unsustainable if interest rates changed. The host laughed. The finance journalist sitting beside you stopped laughing.
Jason replayed the clip. Then another. Then another. A fashion interview where you accidentally identified a counterfeit supply-chain issue. A charity panel where you pretended not to know what regulatory capture meant while describing it perfectly. A late-night show where you spent seven minutes behaving like you had forgotten what inflation was, then corrected the host’s statistic.
Jason leaned back. “Huh.”
He dug deeper. Old school records were mostly sealed. Scholarship offers. Competition results. Papers under aliases. A frightening understanding of networks, behavioural patterns, financial systems, criminal structure.
Jason stared at the screen. Then at the selfie you had recently posted wearing heart-shaped sunglasses and captioned: brain empty only sparkles today <3
He laughed. Actually laughed. Then he realised he was smiling at your picture and immediately closed the laptop. “Nope.”
The laptop stayed closed for nine seconds. Then he opened it again. For research. Obviously.
The third time you met Jason, neither of you knew it counted. At least, Jason did not. You did. You knew immediately. Because you saw his face.
It happened at a charity photography exhibition. A model friend of yours was raising money for survivors of stalking and coercive control, and the Wayne Foundation had sponsored half the event.
You were standing near a wall of black-and-white portraits when a man beside you said, “That one’s good.”
You turned and everything stopped.
His name appeared above his head. Jason Todd.
The numbers beneath it were wrong. Not absent. Not normal. Wrong. Broken. Interrupted. A lifespan cut once and then continuing in a pattern you had never seen before.
Your mouth went dry. Jason Todd. Bruce Wayne’s dead son. Bruce Wayne’s living son. The boy murdered by the Joker. The man standing beside you. Your saviour. Your Red Hood.
Jason glanced at you. “You okay?”
You stared. He was taller than you expected. Broad, dark-haired, with a white streak cutting through the front. There was a scar near his mouth. Another by his eyebrow. He wore a suit badly, not because it fit poorly but because he looked like he resented every button personally.
Alive. He was alive. He had died. And somehow, violently, impossibly, he had come back.
You felt something inside yourself lock into place. Of course. Of course it was him. Of course the man with no name in the alley had one written twice by death. You had a notebook that killed. A god of death who followed you like a shadow. Eyes that showed endings. And Jason Todd was the man who had already broken his. Destiny was a ridiculous concept. You had always thought so.
Jason shifted awkwardly. “Uh.”
You realised you were still staring. “Oh my god,” you breathed. He winced. Here it came, apparently. Recognition. The dead Wayne kid. The scandal. The resurrection headlines. The— “You’re beautiful.”
Jason stopped. “What?”
You covered your mouth. Not because you regretted it. Because his expression was incredible. “I’m sorry,” you said.
He looked alarmed. “No, you’re not.”
“No.”
“Right.”
You smiled. Jason looked around the gallery as if expecting someone to explain you. Nobody did.
“Do I know you?” he asked.
You nearly laughed. “Yes.”
He frowned.
You watched the pieces move. Famous face. Magazine covers. Gala headlines. Then recognition. “Oh. Shit. You’re—”
“Yes.”
“The alley.”
Your heart jumped. He froze. So did you.
There. A slip. Small. Beautiful. Jason’s face changed as he realised.
“You heard about it,” you said softly.
“Yeah.”
“Red Hood saved me.”
“Yeah. Heard that.”
“Did you?”
“News travels.”
You stepped closer.
Jason did not move back, but he looked deeply uncomfortable. Poor baby. He was terrible at flirting.
You loved him already. Maybe you had before seeing his face. Maybe this only made the shape of it clearer.
“You remind me of him,” you said.
Jason nearly choked. “What?”
“Red Hood.”
“How?”
You looked him up and down.
Jason’s ears turned red.
Oh.
Oh, this was going to be fun.
“Build.”
“Lots of guys are built.”
“Voice.”
“You’ve heard me say, like, eight words.”
“Enough.” Jason’s eyes narrowed. You smiled sweetly. “Relax. I’m kidding.”
You were not.
He stared at you. Then his gaze moved past your shoulder. Rem stood there, invisible to him, smiling wider than you had seen in months.
“Interesting,” Rem murmured.
You ignored them.
Jason shoved his hands into his pockets. “So. You okay?”
The question was awkward. Blunt. Sincere.
Your smile softened. “Better.”
“Good.”
“Red Hood helped.”
His jaw shifted. “Yeah.”
“He was kind.”
Jason looked genuinely confused. “Was he?”
You laughed. Jason smiled despite himself.
The expression transformed him. Not into someone less scarred. Into someone softer around them.
You felt your obsession become something else. Deeper. More dangerous.
Because Red Hood had been a symbol. Jason Todd was a person. And people could be lost.
You looked above his head again. At the wrongness in the numbers. At the proof.
Maybe you were both supposed to have died. Maybe death had simply failed to understand that the two of you had not met yet.
Jason followed your gaze. “What are you looking at?”
You smiled. “Your hair.”
He touched the white streak automatically. “Oh.”
“It’s cute.”
“It’s not—”
“Very handsome.”
Jason looked away. You watched the tips of his ears go red again.
Rem leaned close to you. “He smells like a grave.”
You went still. “What?”
Jason looked back. “What?”
“Nothing.”
Rem circled him. Their eyes shone. “Death touched this one and let go.”
You stared at Jason.
He shifted. “Seriously. You good?”
You smiled slowly. “Yes.”
Better than good. Certain.
After that, you saw Jason everywhere. Some meetings were engineered. Others were real accidents.
The problem was that Jason started enjoying them before he realised that was what was happening.
You ran into him at a bookstore in Crime Alley. He found you sitting on the floor in the classics section, sunglasses pushed into your hair, reading three books at once.
Jason stopped at the end of the aisle. “You lost?”
You looked up. Your entire face brightened. “Jason!”
He flinched at the volume. “Indoor voice.”
“Sorry.” You lowered your voice theatrically. “Jason.”
He rolled his eyes.
Then noticed the books. Dostoevsky. Baldwin. Euripides.
Jason looked at you. You looked back. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re doing the thing.”
“What thing?”
“The face.”
“What face?”
“The ‘I thought they were stupid’ face.”
Jason winced. “I didn’t.”
“You did.”
“A little.”
You gasped. “Monster.”
“Sorry.”
“You can make it up to me.”
He immediately looked suspicious. “How?”
“Coffee.”
“No.”
“Dinner?”
“No.”
“Marriage?”
“Absolutely not.”
You smiled. “So coffee.”
“That is not how negotiation works.”
“Isn’t it?”
Jason stared down at you. You patted the floor beside you. He did not sit.
You looked back at the book. “Did you know,” you said conversationally, “people mistake prettiness for simplicity because they want beauty to be passive?” Jason stayed still. You turned a page. “They like beautiful people better when they’re easy to understand. Easy to consume. They hate being reminded that the person they’re looking at is also looking back.”
Jason slowly sat beside you. Close enough. “That sounds exhausting.”
You looked at him. Not teasing this time. “Yes.”
He nodded.
You glanced at the book in his hand. Pride and Prejudice. Your eyebrows rose. “Shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You thought it.”
“Mr Darcy?”
“I said shut up.”
You grinned.
Jason opened the book.
You leaned your shoulder against his. He went completely rigid. You pretended not to notice.
For nearly a minute, he stayed that way. Then, slowly, his shoulder relaxed beneath yours.
Rem watched from the top shelf.
“You’re both pathetic,” they said.
You smiled at the page.
Jason noticed. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You smiling at Greek tragedy?”
“I contain multitudes.”
“You contain problems.”
“Romantic.”
“That wasn’t flirting.”
“I know.”
The disappointment in your voice was mostly fake.
Jason glanced at you. Then quickly back at the book.
Oblivious, yes. Not completely. That was worse.
You started leaving information for Red Hood again. Better information now. More precise. No theatrics. Jason knew it was you. He did not know how you knew where to leave it. That bothered him.
The information kept being good. That bothered him more.
A trafficking route through Gotham docks. A laundering operation hidden under a talent agency. A list of corrupt photographers who supplied private parties with vulnerable young models.
Jason spent three weeks dismantling the network. Nobody died. Not by your hand.
When he found you on a rooftop afterwards, you were sitting on the ledge in a silver coat, legs swinging over the city.
He nearly had a heart attack. “What the hell are you doing?”
You looked over your shoulder. “Hi.”
“Get off the ledge.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re sitting on a twenty-storey drop.”
“I have balance.”
“You wear six-inch heels for a living. That is not the same thing as being immune to gravity.”
You laughed.
Red Hood crossed the roof and grabbed your upper arm. Protective. Instinctive.
You looked down at his hand. He immediately released you. “Sorry.”
That made something tender twist under your ribs.
You got off the ledge. “There. Happy?”
“No.”
“You’re cute when you’re stressed.”
“I’m never stressed.”
“You’re stressed right now.”
“I’m annoyed.”
“Same family.”
He folded his arms. “Where did you get the dock information?”
You smiled. “No.”
“Don’t play with me.”
“I flirted.”
“With who?” The question came too fast. You went very still. Red Hood did too. Then, suspiciously casual, “I mean, who gave you the information?”
You smiled wider. “Jealous?”
“No.”
“Sounded jealous.”
“It sounded investigative.”
“Romantically investigative.”
“Stop saying that.”
You laughed. Red Hood looked away. You could not see his face, but you knew him now. Jason Todd. Scar near the mouth. White streak. Ears that turned red when you complimented him. A dead boy who still bought books. A living man who saved people in alleys because nobody had saved him in time.
You wanted to tear the whole world apart for him.
Instead, you held out a flash drive. He took it.
“Everything is cross-referenced,” you said. “Shipping manifests, shell companies, payment records, private flights.”
Red Hood stared at the drive. “How long did this take you?”
“Three days.”
“That would take my team weeks.”
“I’m very smart.”
“You tell reporters you forget your own postcode.”
“It keeps expectations manageable.”
His helmet turned toward you. “You do that on purpose.”
“Obviously.”
“You act like an idiot on purpose.”
“I act harmless.”
The word sat between you.
Red Hood went quiet. You looked out at the city.
“Pretty people get watched,” you said. “Stupid people get ignored. I prefer being underestimated to being examined.”
“Doesn’t sound like they ignore you.”
“No.”
“Then why keep doing it?”
You smiled faintly. “Because sometimes men explain crimes to me.”
Jason laughed. A real laugh through the helmet. You loved the sound.
He shook his head. “You’re terrifying.”
You looked at him. The joke left your face. “Do you mean that?”
Jason paused. “Not in a bad way.”
“Aw.”
“Don’t make it weird.”
“Too late.”
He sighed. Then his tone changed. “Seriously.” You waited. “You can’t keep doing this.”
“Helping?”
“Putting yourself near people like that.”
“I’m always near people like that.”
“That doesn’t mean you volunteer.”
“You do.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“Because I can handle myself.”
Your expression cooled. “So can I.”
“You almost died in an alley.”
“And you didn’t?”
Red Hood froze. The city seemed to hold its breath. You had gone too far.
Not because he knew you knew.
Because he did not.
You softened your voice. “Everyone almost dies somewhere.” His helmet remained fixed on you. You smiled. “Some people just come back meaner.”
For a long time, he said nothing.
Then, quietly, “Go home.”
You did. This time, you did not tease him.
Jason learned about the first death connected to you two months after the alley. Not your stalker. The others.
He found patterns. Not like Bruce would have. Jason was not a detective because he liked puzzles. He was a detective because Gotham taught every child in Crime Alley to recognise when the world was lying.
Men who had hurt people in your orbit were dying. Not randomly. Not all at once.
Carefully.
A producer. A photographer. An agent. A financier. People Jason had no love for. People he might have killed once.
That was what made the discovery hurt.
He sat in his safehouse and read the files.
Cause of death. Heart attack. Accident. Suicide. Aneurysm.
His stomach turned. Not because he mourned them.
Because he understood. That was the worst part.
When Red Hood found you again, he did not bring coffee.
You knew immediately something was wrong.
He stood in your penthouse because, weeks ago, you had given him the balcony code. He had said that was reckless. You had said it was romantic. He had said it was neither. Now he stood dripping rainwater onto your expensive rug.
Rem looked up from the sofa. “Oh.”
You set down your glass of water. “Hi.”
Red Hood held up a file. Your smile faded. “Did you kill them?”
No greeting. No teasing.
You looked at the file. Then at him. “Yes.”
The answer cracked through the room.
Rem stood.
Red Hood’s helmet tilted slightly. Maybe he had expected denial. You had never wanted to lie to him. Not really. “How?”
You looked toward the vanity. Red Hood followed your gaze. Rem moved between you and the notebook.
“Don’t,” they said.
You ignored them. “Come here.”
Red Hood stayed where he was. “Why?”
“Because I want to show you.”
“That’s not how this works.”
“I know.”
You walked to the vanity and picked up the notebook. The plain black cover looked ridiculous in your manicured hands. You carried it back.
Red Hood stared. “What is that?”
“A Death Note.” He said nothing. You smiled faintly. “Yeah. I had the same reaction."
“You expect me to believe you have a magic murder notebook.”
“You believe in aliens.”
“That’s different.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Superman does interviews.”
Rem laughed. You did too.
Jason did not.
You sobered. “Touch it.”
“No.”
“You’ll understand.”
“No.”
“Jason.”
Everything stopped.
Red Hood became absolutely motionless.
Rem whispered, “Oops.”
You held the notebook tighter.
His voice came low through the modulator. “What did you call me?”
You did not look away. “Jason.”
“How do you know that name?”
You swallowed. “The eyes.”
“What?”
“My eyes.”
He stepped forward. You had seen Red Hood angry. You had seen Jason awkward. You had never seen both at once.
It hurt.
“I can see names,” you said quickly. “And lifespans. Above people’s heads. I couldn’t see yours with the helmet, but then I saw Jason Todd at the gallery.”
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“This whole time.”
“Yes.”
Jason ripped off the helmet. The face beneath it was furious. Beautiful. Wounded. “You knew it was me."
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t say anything.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Your voice broke. “Because you didn’t want me to know.”
That stopped him. Not fully. Jason breathed hard. Rain ran from his hair onto his forehead.
You looked above him. The broken numbers. The impossible continuation.
“I saw you,” you whispered.
Jason’s jaw clenched. “Don’t.”
“I saw your lifespan.”
“Don’t.”
“It’s wrong.” His face changed. “You died.”
“I know.”
“And you came back.”
“I know.”
The anger sharpened because you were touching a grave. You knew that. You could not stop. “Jason, I have spent months looking at death everywhere. Names. Numbers. Endings. I kill people by writing them down. A god of death follows me around like a roommate.”
“Hey,” Rem said.
You ignored them. “And then there’s you.” Jason stared at you. “You’re not supposed to be here,” you whispered.
His face closed. “That’s real sweet.”
“No, that’s not what I mean.”
“Sounds like it.”
“You broke it.”
Jason laughed once. Ugly. “What?”
“Death. You broke death.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes.”
“I died.”
“And came back.”
“You think that makes it beautiful?”
“No.” Tears burned your eyes. “I think it makes you mine.”
The second the words left your mouth, you knew.
Jason’s face changed. Not anger. Something worse.
Hurt.
“No,” he said.
Your chest hollowed. “Jason—”
“No.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“You did.”
He stepped away.
You set the notebook down immediately. “Wait.”
“You don’t get to do that.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.” His voice rose. “You don’t get to look at everything that happened to me and turn it into fate.”
You flinched.
Rem took a step forward. You held up a hand.
No.
Jason paced once, hands opening and closing. “I didn’t break death. Death broke me.”
Your breath caught. “I know.”
“No, you don’t.” His voice cracked. “I woke up in a coffin.” The room vanished. Not literally. It simply ceased to matter. Jason looked at you with the face of someone standing in an old grave. “I clawed my way out of the ground.”
Your eyes filled.
He laughed bitterly. “You think we’re destined because you’ve got a death god and I died once? That’s not romantic.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I do.”
“No.”
His eyes were bright now. Angry. Alive. “You know facts. You know names. You know lifespans. You don’t know what it feels like to come back and realise the world kept moving.”
You could not breathe.
Jason looked away. “I saved you because you needed help,” he said. “Not because the universe sent me.”
Your tears spilled. “I know.”
His mouth twisted. “Then act like it.”
The cruel thing was that he was right. That was why it hurt.
You looked down at the notebook. “I killed them.” Jason went still again. You swallowed. “Not because of destiny. Not all of them. Some before you. Some after.”
“Why?”
You laughed wetly. “Because nobody stopped them.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
Rem moved closer to you.
You looked at Jason. “They hurt people. They kept hurting people. Everyone knew. Nobody did anything. So I did.”
Jason’s face became unreadable. That frightened you more than anger. “How many?”
“Eleven.”
Rem looked at you. You did not look back.
Jason closed his eyes. You waited for disgust. It never came.
When he opened them, he looked tired. So tired. “You wanted to kill your stalker, too.”
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
Jason frowned. “Why?”
You looked at him. “Because you didn’t.” That silenced him. “I don’t understand,” you said. “You hurt people. You kill sometimes. You protect Crime Alley. You know what it’s like when monsters keep breathing.”
“Yeah.”
“So why are you looking at me like this?”
“Because I know what it costs.” The words were quiet. Jason looked at the notebook. Then back at you. “You think killing them made you safer?”
“No.”
“Better?”
“No.”
“Feel good?”
You wanted to lie. “Yes.”
He nodded. Not judging. Understanding.
You hated that.
Jason came closer.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s the problem.”
You covered your face. “I thought you’d understand.”
“I do.” Your hands lowered. Jason looked wrecked. “I understand too much.”
He did not leave. That surprised both of you.
Rem watched him with narrowed eyes. Jason watched Rem with even narrower ones after touching the notebook and seeing them for the first time.
Rem leaned in. “You smell dead.”
Jason’s face twisted. “Excuse me?”
“Interesting dead.”
“There are categories?”
“Many.”
“Great.” Rem circled him. Jason looked at you. “Tell your demon bird to back off.”
“They’re a Shinigami.”
“I don’t care.”
Rem grinned. “I like him.”
Jason pointed at them. “That’s worse.”
You laughed. It came out weak.
Jason glanced at you. His face softened for half a second. Then hardened again. “Sit down.”
You blinked. “Bossy.”
“Sit.”
You sat.
Jason sat across from you. The notebook lay between you on the coffee table. Rem perched on the back of the sofa.
Jason looked at the cover. “I’m not touching it again.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not using it.”
“I know.”
“And don’t ask.”
“I wouldn’t.”
Jason’s eyes lifted. “Wouldn’t you?”
The question hurt. You looked down. “No.”
He rubbed a hand over his face. “Jesus.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologising like that fixes shit.”
“I know.”
“And stop saying you know.”
You closed your mouth.
Jason sighed. “Okay.” You waited. He looked at the notebook. Then at you. “You can’t keep doing this.”
Your chest tightened. “I know—”
He gave you a look. You stopped.
Jason leaned forward. “You think I’m gonna tell you everyone deserves saving?”
“No.”
“Good, because I’m not Batman.”
“I know.” His eyes narrowed. You grimaced. “Sorry.”
He almost smiled. Then it was gone.
“I’ve killed people,” Jason said. “I’m not gonna stand here and pretend I’ve got clean hands. I’ve wanted monsters dead. Still do.”
You looked at him. “But?”
“But it changes you.” His voice dropped. “You tell yourself it’s one person. Then one kind of person. Then a list. Then a system. Then everyone starts looking like a problem you can solve.” You swallowed. Jason’s gaze moved to the notebook. “That thing makes it easy.”
“Yes.”
“Killing shouldn’t be easy.”
The sentence entered you slowly. You looked down at your hands. “I liked that it was.”
“I know.”
You looked up.
Jason’s expression was painful. No disgust. No superiority. Just recognition. That was almost unbearable.
“What happens now?” you whispered.
He leaned back. “I don’t know.”
“You’re Red Hood. Aren’t you supposed to have a dramatic speech?”
“I used it all on Batman.”
You laughed despite yourself.
Jason smiled. Small. Then he looked away. “You gotta stop.”
You stared at him. “Will you stop me?”
“If I have to.”
“And if I don’t?”
Jason was silent. Your heart hammered.
He looked at you again. “Then maybe I help.”
You forgot how to breathe. “Help?”
“Don’t make it weird.”
You smiled through the tears. “Too late.”
“Of course.”
Jason made rules. You hated them less than you expected.
No killing for jealousy.
You acted offended. “I have standards.”
Jason stared at you. “You followed me onto rooftops.”
“Romantically.”
“No.”
“Fine.”
No killing because someone insulted him.
“Even Batman?”
“Especially Batman.”
“What if he deserves it?”
“He always deserves it. Still no.”
No killing anyone in Crime Alley without telling him first.
You frowned. “Why only Crime Alley?”
“Because if you go after some senator in Washington, that’s Batman’s problem.”
“Jason.”
“Kidding. Mostly.”
No killing because he got hurt.
That one caused the first real fight because Jason got hurt constantly.
You saw him three weeks later at his apartment with stitches across his side and bruises blooming over his ribs.
Your whole body went cold. “Who?”
Jason looked up from the sofa. “No.”
“Jason.”
“No.”
“Tell me.”
He stood. “You’re doing the thing.”
“What thing?”
“The eyes.”
“I’m looking at you.”
“You’re looking through me for a name.” You went still. Jason’s face softened slightly. “Sit.”
“I don’t want to sit.”
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m angry.”
“Yeah. Sit anyway.”
You hated him. You loved him. You sat.
Jason lowered himself beside you with a grimace. You stared at the bandages. “Who did it?”
“They’re handled.”
“Dead?”
“No.” Your jaw clenched. Jason noticed. “Hey.”
You looked away.
He reached for your hand. Then hesitated.
You saw. That broke something open.
You took his hand instead.
Jason went quiet. His palm was warm. Scarred. Alive.
“You don’t get it,” you whispered.
“Then tell me.”
“I see numbers over your head.” Jason’s thumb moved once against your knuckles. You continued. “Everyone’s. Always. Lifespans. It used to be annoying. Then I met you.” His grip tightened. “Yours are wrong.”
“I know.”
“They scare me.”
Jason looked at you. “That’s why you keep checking.”
“Yes.”
“You think I’m gonna die again.”
“Yes.”
“I am.”
“Don’t.”
Jason’s face changed. “Sweetheart.”
The word nearly destroyed you. He had not called you that since the alley.
You stared at him.
Jason seemed to realise. His ears turned pink. Even now. Even while emotionally devastating you. Ridiculous man.
“You’re gonna die too,” he said.
You shook your head. “Not before you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I can see my own lifespan in mirrors.”
Jason’s entire body went still. “You can what?”
“Not directly. Reflections are weird. But enough.”
His face hardened. “How long?”
You smiled faintly. “No.”
“Don’t do that.”
“You don’t get to lecture me about mortality and then demand mine.”
Jason looked furious. Then he laughed once. “Okay. Fair.”
You leaned closer. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“I know.”
“I could stop people before they hurt you. I could protect you.”
Jason looked down at your joined hands. Then back at you. “That’s not protection.”
“It feels like it.”
“Yeah.” His voice softened. “I know.”
You started crying. You hated it.
Jason looked horrified. “Oh, shit.”
You laughed through tears. “That’s your response?”
“I’m bad at this.”
“I noticed.”
“Okay. Okay, uh—”
He awkwardly opened one arm. You stared.
Jason looked offended. “What?”
“Are you offering a hug?”
“Don’t make me regret it.” You moved so fast he grunted when you hit his chest. “Ribs.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Sweetheart.”
“Don’t use that tone.”
“What tone?”
“The one that makes me want to kill people.”
Jason snorted.
His arm came around you. Warm. Careful. A little stiff.
You pressed your face into his shoulder. “You’re terrible at hugging.”
“I got murdered before the advanced class.”
You made a broken sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
Jason went still. “Too dark?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
You held him tighter. “Jason?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
His whole body froze.
You waited. One second. Two. Three.
Then Jason said, “You barely know me.”
You pulled back. He looked panicked. Not disgusted. Panicked.
You stared at him. “Jason.”
“Yeah?”
“I have been flirting with you for three months.”
He blinked. “What?”
You stared. He stared back. “Oh my god.”
“What?”
“You didn’t know?”
“I thought you were like that with everyone.”
“I asked you to marry me in a bookstore.”
“I thought it was a joke.”
“I brought you six coffees.”
“That was weird, but not necessarily romantic.”
“I told you your thighs were heroic.”
“I thought you were concussed.”
“That was two months after the alley!”
Jason looked genuinely distressed. You began laughing.
Jason’s ears went red. “Shut up.”
“You’re so stupid.”
“You pretend to be stupid professionally.”
“And you believed the act emotionally?”
“I’ve got trust issues!”
You laughed harder. Jason folded his arms. Then winced because of his ribs.
You immediately stopped. “Does it hurt?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“I will be.”
You looked at him. Jason’s expression shifted. The humour faded.
“I don’t know what to do with that,” he admitted.
“With what?”
“You loving me.” Your heart hurt. Jason looked away. “Especially like this.”
You swallowed. “What does that mean?”
“It means you love like a loaded gun.” You stared at him. Jason sighed. “And I don’t know if I’m better.”
“You are.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Sweetheart.”
“You save people.”
“So do you, probably.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you.” The answer came quietly. You stopped breathing. Jason looked back at you. “You’re not just the notebook.” Your eyes filled again. “Don’t cry.”
“Fuck you.”
“Fair.”
“You can’t say things like that.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ll get worse.”
Jason smiled faintly. “No.” His thumb brushed beneath your eye. Very gently. “You’ll get honest.”
You leaned into the touch. “Is that supposed to be comforting?”
“No clue.”
“Terrible.”
“Yeah.”
“Can I kiss you?”
Jason froze. You waited.
His ears went red again. “Now?”
“No, next Tuesday.”
“Shut up.”
You smiled. “Can I?”
Jason looked at your mouth. Then your eyes. Then the notebook on the far shelf. Finally, back at you.
“Yeah,” he said.
You kissed him.
Jason was awkward for exactly half a second. Then his hand came up to your jaw and the kiss deepened with sudden, startling certainty.
You made a soft sound.
Jason pulled back immediately. “Too much?”
You stared at him. “No.”
“You sure?”
You grabbed the front of his shirt. “Jason.”
“Yeah?”
“Again.”
He laughed. Then kissed you again.
Rem appeared in the doorway. They gagged. Neither of you stopped.
The last real test came months later.
Not with jealousy. Not with a villain. With a child.
Jason brought you to Crime Alley more often once you stopped treating every rooftop meeting like a chance to climb him. You still tried occasionally. For morale.
He introduced you to the kids he looked after. Not formally. Jason did very few things formally. You simply started appearing with bags of food, warm coats, school supplies, and expensive skincare nobody had asked for but everyone secretly loved.
“You can’t give a twelve-year-old a three-hundred-dollar moisturiser,” Jason said.
“Why not?”
“Because they’re twelve.”
“Skin has no age.”
“That is definitely a slogan.”
“It should be.”
The kids adored you. Jason pretended this was annoying. You knew better.
Then one of them went missing.
Mara. Fourteen. Sharp mouth. Sharper eyes. Wanted to be a lawyer because, in her words, “Somebody’s gotta yell professionally.”
Jason found the men who took her. Alive.
You arrived too late to help. Early enough to see the aftermath.
Mara was safe. The men were not dead. Jason stood in the warehouse with blood on his knuckles.
You looked at the names above their heads.
Rem appeared beside you. “You know what to do.”
Your hand went to the inside pocket of your coat. A page. Small.
Jason’s head snapped toward you. He knew the movement. “No.”
“They took her.”
“I know.”
“They would have killed her.”
“I know.”
“They’ll do it again.”
Jason’s face twisted. “I know.” You pulled out the page. Jason stepped closer. “Don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re angry.”
“I’m right.”
“Yeah.” That stopped you. Jason came closer. “You are.”
Your hand shook. “They deserve it.”
“Probably.”
“Then why?”
Jason looked at the men on the floor. Then back at you. “Because I don’t want every bad day to turn you into a weapon.”
Tears burned behind your eyes. “Jason. She’s fourteen.”
“I know.”
“She trusted us.”
“I know.”
The page trembled in your hand. Jason held out his palm. Not demanding. Not grabbing. The same way Red Hood had once held out his hand in an alley.
“I hate you,” you whispered.
“Yeah.”
“I love you.”
“I know.”
“I could make sure they never hurt anyone again.”
“I know.”
“Do you want them dead?”
Jason closed his eyes. When he opened them, there was no lie. “Yes.”
You started crying.
His hand stayed extended.
“That’s why I need you,” you said.
Jason’s expression broke.
“No,” he said softly. “That’s why you need you.”
Your breath caught. “Don’t make me your excuse.”
The warehouse blurred. Jason stepped closer. “You wanna choose me? Fine. Choose me when I’m wrong, too. Choose me when I’m angry. Choose me when I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.” His hand remained open between you. “But don’t choose me instead of yourself.”
You stared at him. At the boy who died. At the man who came back. At the person who knew exactly how revenge could feel warm in the mouth.
Slowly, you placed the page in his hand. Jason closed his fingers around it. He exhaled. Then he pulled you into him.
You held on. Hard. He held on harder.
Behind you, Rem sighed. “Humans are exhausting.”
Jason looked over your shoulder. “Shut up.”
Rem grinned. “I still like him.”
“Still worse.”
You laughed into Jason’s chest.
Mara was safe. The men would face trial. Jason would make sure they did. Not because the system always worked. It did not. You both knew that too well. But because sometimes choosing not to kill had to mean choosing something else instead. Evidence. Witness protection. Pressure. Money. Fear. Jason knew plenty of ways to make monsters regret breathing without ending the breath itself.
So did you. You were learning. Slowly. Messily. With teeth.
The city thought Jason Todd was dating a beautiful idiot. Jason found this endlessly funny. He attended a Wayne gala with you six months after the alley, wearing a dark suit and the expression of a man being held hostage by formalwear.
You leaned close. “Smile.”
“No.”
“People will think you hate me.”
“I look at everyone like this.”
“That’s worse.”
Jason’s mouth twitched.
A reporter approached. You immediately brightened.
“Can you tell us how you and Jason met?”
You gasped theatrically. “Oh my gosh, it’s so embarrassing. I thought he was someone else.”
Jason choked on his drink.
The reporter laughed. “Really?”
“Mhm. Then I realised he was way cuter.”
Jason looked at you. You smiled sweetly.
Later, when the reporter left, he leaned down. “Someone else?”
You looked innocent. “Red Hood.”
Jason’s ears reddened. “Shut up.”
“You are cuter.”
“I’m literally him.”
“I know.”
“Then that sentence doesn’t make sense.”
“Emotionally, it does.”
“You’re impossible.”
“You love me.”
Jason went quiet.
You looked at him. He still did that sometimes. Froze when love was spoken too plainly.
Not because he did not feel it. Because he did. Too much.
You softened. “Sorry.”
“No.”
His hand found yours under the table. You looked down. Then back at him.
Jason looked straight ahead. “I do.”
Your heart stopped. “What?”
He glared. “Don’t make me say it again.”
You smiled slowly. “Jason.”
“No.”
“Jason.”
“I will leave.”
“You won’t.”
“I might.”
“You love me.”
He sighed. “Yes.”
You beamed.
Rem floated above the chandelier and threw an invisible apple core at him.
Everything, you thought, was ridiculous. Everything was dangerous. Everything was alive.
You looked at Jason. Above his head, the broken lifespan still glimmered. You had stopped checking it obsessively. Mostly. Sometimes you still woke at night and looked. Sometimes fear still climbed into bed with you. Sometimes Jason came home bleeding and you had to lock yourself in the bathroom until the urge to write names passed.
Sometimes Jason stood outside the door and talked. Not always about feelings. Usually about books. Food. Something Roy had done. A stupid argument with Dick. Anything to remind you that the world contained things other than death.
You still had the Shinigami eyes. Rem still watched over you. The Death Note remained locked away, though Jason knew where. You were not harmless. Neither was he. That was never the goal.
One night, long after the gala, the two of you stood on the same rooftop where you had once brought him six coffees.
Jason wore the Red Hood helmet. You held one cup. Black. Of course.
He took it from you. “You remembered.”
“Please. I remember everything about you.”
“That’s ominous.”
“Romantic.”
“Debatable.”
You leaned against his arm. Below, Crime Alley stretched out under rain and neon. “Jason?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think we were destined?”
He groaned. “Not this again.”
“I’m serious.”
He lifted the helmet enough to drink the coffee. You looked at his mouth.
He noticed. “Eyes up.”
“Bossy.”
“Answer’s no.”
You frowned. “No?”
“No destiny.”
“You’re so unromantic.”
“Listen.” Jason looked out over the city. “I don’t think death sent me to you.” Your smile faded. He continued. “I don’t think the universe planned the alley. I don’t think what happened to me was supposed to happen so I could meet you.”
Your throat tightened.
Jason turned. His green eyes were tired. Warm. Alive. “But I think I was there.” You swallowed. “And I think you were there.”
He reached for your hand. Bare fingers. Scarred knuckles. The same hand from the alley.
“And then we kept choosing to be.”
Your eyes burned. “That’s less dramatic than destiny.”
“Yeah.”
“Kind of boring.”
“Probably.”
You looked down at your joined hands. Then back at him. “I like it.”
Jason smiled. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Rem appeared behind you. “Disgusting.”
Jason sighed. “Go haunt someone else.”
You laughed.
Jason pulled the helmet off fully and kissed your temple.
Below, sirens started somewhere distant. A city calling for someone.
Jason reached for the helmet. You released his hand. That mattered too.
He paused. “You heading home?”
“Probably.”
“Don’t wait up.”
“I will.” He gave you a look. “I know,” you said. “My choices, your choices.”
“Good.”
“But I’m still waiting up.”
“Obviously.”
Jason put the helmet on.
Red Hood stood before you again. Your saviour. Your obsession. Your impossible dead man. He stepped onto the ledge.
You smiled. “Be careful.”
“Always.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Yeah.”
Then he jumped. The first time, you might have followed. The first time, you might have tracked every turn, every gunshot, every enemy. Tonight, you stood still.
Rem landed beside you. “You could kill everyone who wants him dead.”
“I know.”
“You could make him safe.”
“No.” Rem looked at you. You watched Red Hood disappear into the dark. “I could make the world emptier,” you said.
Rem smiled faintly. “And that would be different?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
You thought of Jason’s hand. Offered in an alley. Offered in a warehouse. Offered every day after, awkwardly and angrily and without promises he could not keep.
You smiled. “Because safe isn’t the same as empty.”
Rem made a disgusted face. “You’ve gotten sentimental.”
“Dating Jason Todd will do that.”
“Tragic.”
“Probably.”
You remained on the rooftop a little longer. Not watching his lifespan. Not searching for names. Just listening to the city.
Somewhere below, Red Hood laughed over comms. You smiled into the rain. Death had touched both of you. It had marked you differently. You carried it in your eyes. Jason carried it in his bones. For a while, you had thought that made you destined.
Now you knew better. Destiny was passive. This was not. This was you, every day, standing beside the grave and deciding not to climb in. This was Jason, every day, choosing to stay alive. This was love without worship. Devotion without ownership. A hand held out between two people who knew exactly how easy it was to become a weapon. And chose, painfully, imperfectly, repeatedly to become something else.
There was a time when I was alone in Gotham. But that was a lifetime ago. Now my family patrols the streets with me. Watching them work, it's impossible not to see myself in each of them.
POSSIBLE BATMEN OF THE FUTURE
In DC K.O.: Knightfight (2025)
i really really like those fics that have Talia as the person who took in and became parental over Jason while not telling shit to Bruce, while also taking out the whole 'she did it to catch Batman off guard and use Jason as a surprise weapon' because the other option is just. so much funnier.
like Talia knew who Jason was. she probably would have met him before depending on when her and Bruce were doing their whole on-and-off-again thing. so i can only imagine her whole thing with taking in Jason post-Ethiopia was. like.
Talia and Bruce: *insufferably flirting during a surprise run-in*
Jaybin, three rooftops over, falling twenty feet to elbow-smash a criminal in the chest: IT'S RAINING JUSTICE MUTHAFUCKAAAA-! B- OI B, DID YOU SEE THAT? DID YOU FUCKIN' SEE THAT?
Talia:
Bruce:
Bruce: he's the new Robin. ...i'm working on it.
Jaybin, distantly: I'M GONNA FIGHT THIS ENTIRE GANG RIGHT FUCKING NOW.
Bruce: ROBIN NO.
Jaybin, distantly: PUSSY.
Talia:
Talia: i want him. that's my son now.
Bruce, pausing: ...no?
Talia: i will have him.
Bruce: um, that's my son? Talia- Talia wait fuck-
-like, a couple years later-
league worker: Lady Talia, we came across an interruption on our mission in Gotham. it seems Bruce Wayne's second son is still alive, and we found him wandering around the streets in a deprived state. what would you like us to do with him?
Talia:
Talia: finally,
league worker: uh, Lady Ta-
Talia: prepare a guest bedroom. i have finally claimed my son.
*baby Damian behind her, slowly crawling towards a snake nest*
league worker, watching him over her shoulder nervously: um- Lady Talia, your son-
Talia, walking away: iS ABOUT TO FINALLY ARRIVE NOW PREPARE HIM A BEDROOM.
league worker:
Ra's, face despondent, begrudgingly walking to pick Damian up before he gets bitten: just- just do what she says. i don't care anymore. i really don't care.
~
Ra's: daughter, he is defective.
Talia: no it's fine i'm going to lazarus pit him.
Ra's:
Talia: he will become prince of the league. a worthy heir. and we will- and this is important, father. we will never tell Bruce Wayne about it.
Ra's:
Ra's: surely Jason's main use should be to be used against the bat, therefore we should lord it over his head that we have him?
Talia: no i just want Jason. i'm not risking him being taken away.
Ra's:
Ra's: this place used to be a glorious kingdom. what happened.
essentially i like the idea that Talia must have seen Jason absolutely fucking shit UP in Gotham and from then on it was just like
like she finally got him she isn't letting him go.
scenarios Alfred Pennyworth has to be a witness to as a resident of Wayne Manor that the batkids have absolutely no shame in front of whatsoever part 4 (masterpost here)
*Alfred vacuuming a hallway*
*shuts off vacuum*
Dick, instantly audible from a nearby study: -ok well you both have… severe issues,
Tim: no i just think me and Jason are more objective than emotional about that kind of thing. like yes, child abuse is bad, but you can’t be mad about it forever.
Alfred: *pauses to listen*
Dick: no, that’s not—the question was, if your child-self appeared in front of you, crying because of the hardships he was going through at that point in his life, what would you say to comfort him?
Tim: yeah.
Dick: and both you and Jason said,
Jason: *low chuckles*
Dick, slightly louder: both of you said, that your response to your child-self would be to tell them to buck the fuck up and stop deserving it.
Jason: *laughing louder*
Tim: we’ll it’s not like we’re saying some kids deserve to be hit-,
Dick, indignant: that is exactly what you’re saying! Damian, Dami- what would you say if you got presented with your child-self?
Damian: *hums thoughtfully* …i suppose i would kill him instantly.
Dick: …what. -Jason stop fucking smiling like that.
Jason: i’m enjoying the conversation!
Tim: why would you kill him, Dami?
Damian: if a perfect copy of my younger-self appeared in front of me then i would first assume, logically, that it was a clone rather than an effect of time travel. given my past with clones i feel nipping that in the bud would be worthwhile.
*a beat*
Jason: *snickers*
Dick: ok well Damian—Damian’s in his own little world with this, so we’ll leave him out of it-
Tim: *snorts*
Dick: -but you two were still victim blaming abuse victims!
Jason: we were not- *huff of laughter* it’s not that, it’s just—ok, you aren’t allowed to call me an asshole for this,
Dick, already dismayed: oh no,
Jason: no i’m just—i feel like this is something that is horrible to say but is still objectively true. and that is that kids that have angry and violent parents are, slightly, like those kids in Africa that charities put in commercials.
Tim: ...oh i’m excited for this,
Dick: -what?!
Jason: no- listen. you hear about those places all the time, where the little kids are in deep shit because of the lack of resources or shelter, and how they keep getting sick or hurt by animals because they don’t have the ability to keep a proper roof over their heads. and it’s like. look overall, it is very sad and not at all the fault of the kids that they live in that environment, right? they don’t deserve those struggles. but on the other hand, you cannot tell me that if you heard one of those kids, who grew up in that dangerous environment and knew how to keep themselves safe within it, got hurt by a snake because they chose to poke the snake nest, that at least a small part of you wouldn’t be like…
*pointed silence*
Tim: *wheezes*
Jason: sounds like it was fuckin’ fair play by the snake. -and in the SAME WAY… little Jason Todd objectively shouldn’t have been born into a violent environment, however he was, and he knew how to fuckin’ navigate it. so if little Jason Todd shows up in front of me crying because Willis beat the hell out of him, i am at least in part going to be like… well maybe you shouldn’t have fucking thrown a shoe at him while he was drunkenly singing in the middle of the night. buck the fuck up, you know better than that Jason.
Tim: *bursts out laughing*
Dick: what is wrong with you.
Bruce, coming down the stairs in the hallway: Alfred, is everything… ok?
Alfred, still holding the vacuum: …
Alfred: i fear, sir, you may soon need to call the counsellor again.
Bruce: what are you talking about?
Tim, from the study: -no i just think that i specifically should have been a better child. i wouldn’t have deserved that comfort like you might have.
Jason: see- he doesn’t even have an excuse. at least i had scientific principles to back up my self hatred. he’s just sad.
wildest thing about Jason becoming a part of the batfamily again in Jason and Damian LOA AUs has to be the fact that Damian and Jason get to hang out together again in front of them. like the shit the rest of the family must hear in passing just... during an average conversation between the two has gotta be. the most insane shit ever.
Dick, walking into the kitchen to get a glass of water:
Jason, at the table with Damian: -eight of them, which was the best heist i ever pulled off.
Damian: i still don't understand how grandfather didn't realise it was you. like, who else in the league was going to be brave enough to sneak eight dildos into his private chambers?
Dick: *chokes on his water*
~
Tim: *swinging past Red Hood and Robin on patrol*
Jason: the guy in that poster looks exactly like my poison tutor.
Damian: oh yeah; hey did you know that guy had a massive crush on you? he admitted it to mother after you left.
Jason:
Jason: but he was massively homophobic???
Damian: yeah and in denial about it all too, apparently.
Jason: ...huh.
Jason: you know he tried to fuck a donkey and got kicked into a tree once, right?
Tim: *almost swings into a billboard*
~
Bruce: -and Nightwing i want you down by the docks. everybody understand?
Everyone else: *murmurs of agreement*
Jason and Damian: *furiously whispering in the corner*
Bruce: ...Red Hood. Robin.
Jason and Damian: *not noticing him, getting louder*
Damian: no, no that's BULLSHIT. it was purple.
Jason: it was fucking green, Damian. you're colourblind.
Damian: I'M NOT COLOURBLIND, YOU'RE JUST AN IDIOT. YOU WERE STRAIGHT OUT OF THE LAZARUS PIT, EVERYTHING WAS GREEN TO YOU.
Jason: Damian, you were a ten year old on psychedelic mushrooms. it was GRASS and it was GREEN.
Everyone else:
Bruce:
Bruce: sorry he was a ten year old on what now?
like the league of assassins lore must be WILD to hear out of context and i think the bats hearing just little snippets of it must be so insane for them.
the specific pairing of literary nerd Jason with theatre kid Damian is so funny to me. like those fuckers would be the most theatrical dickheads in Gotham. the others get annoyed when they patrol together because every time they join the com line all they'll hear is some fucking musical that the two are belting together or a scene from an olden play that they're re-enacting, as loud as possible, with no shame, in the middle of an empty street.
Damian will specifically bring up Jason's favourite books during dinner just to get Jason to go on a dramatic reading of his favourite passages while Tim and Dick yell at them uselessly to stop. Bruce will be awoken at four in the morning because Six: The Musical is being karaoke sung at the TOP of Damian and Jason's lungs and they will not listen when Tim slams open his door to screech in a remarkably high-pitched voice sHUT THE FUCK UP. Damian takes one of Jason's guns and the two spend the next 8 hours mocking soap operas by making up dramatic scenes and using the gun as a prop to act them out. Jason will spend hours laying on the floor in the hallway just reading old classic literature and when Damian finds him he just plops himself down next to him and starts sketching the characters in whatever book Jason's reading.
Basically i want the boys to have intersecting special interests and i want them to be insufferable about it.
