Pick Your Poison
Honestly, in Frank’s opinion, Jason is a…remarkably well-adjusted individual, considering the situation. Yes, leading an invasion of a major city was definitely not the healthiest way to cope with trauma, but they did force an evacuation beforehand, so it could have been much worse, really.
That doesn’t mean there’s not quirks. Holdovers from that cackling sonofabitch. Plenty of ‘em are exactly what you’d expect and aren’t that much different from anybody else here; no sudden movements, keep your back to the wall, touch with caution. Some of them are at ‘well, no shit Sherlock’; he doesn’t like purple coats and green hair and high-pitched laughter, but honestly, it seems like most of Gotham has that problem. He’s a little dicey about cooking meat, but so’s Riley and both of them are, honestly, usually fine.
The one Frank can’t quite place is the food thing. The only person he’ll take food from without hesitation is Dove Marquis*. Everything else? Either he cooked it, watched them cook it, or will not take the first bite.
It took him a while to notice. They don’t see Marquis that often–though she usually does give the kid a wafer stick, he thinks it’s a Whole Thing–and with seven grown men in this unit, it’s not like he pays that much attention to who eats what. Cooking dinner is always a group activity, and on those nights they order pizza, it’s not like he’s watching to see who braves it first.
When he did finally notice it, he thought initially it might be a Gotham thing. There’s a lot of assholes who use chemical warfare here, maybe it’s just a precaution. But no, restaurants are fine here, even ones with weird names like ‘The Gotham Pony’ and ‘Your Money or Your Life’. So clearly it’s a Jason thing.
For months, he leaves it at that. Joker was a sick freak. Jimmy researched him once, way back, and what he found kept him up for a few nights. Hell, Trent asked Marquis, once, pre-invasion, what had happened to the body. Apparently paranoia won out and they cremated the bastard and flushed the ashes down several different toilets throughout the city. She’d found this funny. Trent had been a little creeped out. Frank had also been creeped out, at the time, but now, living day-to-day with the results of Joker’s…uh…Joker-ness, he thinks they were smart to do that.
The answer turns out to be what Frank suspected, revealed courtesy of some old Scarecrow booby trap they stumbled upon. Figures. Crane and Richardson are both dead and they’re still causing problems.
Fear toxin either has a long shelf life or just doesn’t go bad ever. And this batch was strong, strong enough to bypass the helmet. Short-ranged, at least–he was close, he took the hit–but then he’d vanished and it had been the better part of two hours before they could track him down.
Getting him back to base hadn’t been that bad, all things considered. They’d found him in some run-down apartment building and managed to convince him to come back with them. That had gone all right, but then they’d made the mistake of trying to get some apple juice in him (weirdly effective against this crap, according to several briefings), and. Ah.
Mercifully, he hadn’t attacked them. Frank had thought he might, at first, but he’d just gone tense and wide-eyed and pleaded no more please no more I’ll be good I swear–
It had been a rough night. At least that shit hadn’t lasted long, in the end, and by noon he’d been jumping at shadows and small noises but was otherwise back to normal. Mostly. A little clingy, but nothing serious.
…barring, mind, the insistence on getting his own food and drink.
He’s in the kitchen now, slumped against the counter and wrapped in a giant blanket that looks like a tortilla. He looks like shit, in Frank’s non-medical opinion, but he’s waiting for his tea all the same.
“I can bring it in there, y’know,” Frank points out. “You look like death warmed over.”
“Does me good to move around.”
“Really.”
The stare-off is brief. Frank wins.
“It’s nothing personal,” Jason finally mumbles. “It really isn’t.”
“Then what is it?”
The timer for the tea goes and Jason takes longer than necessary getting the bag out and stirring things around.
“He didn’t feed me all that often,” he says, hesitant and stilted. “So I’d eat it regardless of what it was.” That right there is ominous and bad. “And now and again he’d. Spike it. Joker venom, usually–causes uncontrollable laughter, hurts like hell–but sometimes it’d be something else. It wasn’t often, but it was enough–eighteen months, even once a month–” His jaw clicks shut. “I can take care of myself, s’all.”
Christ.
He’s not surprised, but it’s still painful to hear.
It’s best to let it go for now, though; it’s been a long night as it is and getting him to share is, often, like pulling teeth. It’s like any other teenager. Take what you can get and don’t push for more right away.
“Come on,” he says, “back to bed. Mark’ll be pissed if he catches you up and about.”
THE END
*If given the opportunity, Jason would also accept food from Alfred.
