Red Hood x gothic!reader || Masterlist || Request! Dividers by: @enchanthings
The apartment smelled like old books, melted black wax, and the faint iron tang of blood.
Again.
You didnât even look up from the taxidermy crow wing you were carefully pinning open on your work table when the window slid up with that particular scraping whine only Jason ever made. Heavy boots hit the floorboards. A low, pained grunt followed.
âBefore you start,â his modulated voice rasped through the helmet, âIâm fine.â
âYou always say that right before I have to cut your favorite jacket off you.â You finally glanced over. The Red Hood was swaying slightly in your living room like a listing ship, one gloved hand pressed to his side. Fresh blood had already soaked through the reinforced weave between two plates.
He tilted his helmet. âItâs not that bad.â
You set the steel dissection pins down with deliberate calm. âTake it off. All of it. Or I start reciting Victorian mourning etiquette at you until you pass out from boredom.â
A beat of silence. Then the mechanical hiss of seals releasing. The helmet came off firstâdark hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, a fresh split above his left eyebrow, the beginnings of a truly spectacular bruise blooming along his jaw.
He looked tired. Not just physically.
You didnât comment on it. You never did unless he brought it up first.
Instead you pointed to the stool you kept specifically for these midnight surgeries. âSit.â
Jason peeled the jacket away with a wince, then the armored undershirt. The gash along his ribs was uglyâjagged, deep enough that you could see the pale edge of fat before red swallowed everything againâbut it wasnât arterial. Small mercy.
He watched you the whole time you worked: iodine, saline, the curved needle you kept sterilized in a coffin-shaped case, black surgical thread. Your hands were steady. They always were when it was him.
âYou donât have to do this,â he muttered after the third stitch.
âI know.â
âThen whyââ
âBecause if I donât, youâll bleed on my rug again, and the last time that happened the stain looked like a very judgmental nun. Iâm trying to avoid thematic sequels.â
A short, rough laugh escaped him despite the pain. âYouâre so fucking weird.â
âSays the man who brought me a jar of what Iâm pretty sure are human finger bones last month.â
âThey were suspected human,â he corrected, almost prim. âAnd the guy I took them off definitely wasnât using them anymore.â
You tied off the last stitch, pressed fresh gauze down, and began wrapping. âYou act like that makes it romantic.â
âThought you liked morbid courtship rituals.â
âI like taxonomy and preservation technique and knowing exactly what kind of death Iâm looking at.â You smoothed medical tape with more care than necessary. âNot just âhereâs some war trophy, babeâ.â
Jasonâs mouth curvedâsmall, crooked, real. âNoted.â
You stepped back, surveyed your work, then reached over to the cluttered shelf behind you. Among the glass domes of preserved moths, the row of antique mourning jewelry, the vial of what might or might not be river water from the Thames circa 1889, sat the newest addition: a small, stoppered bottle containing something dark and faintly luminous.
Heâd brought it three nights ago without explanation. Just set it on your kitchen counter at 4:17 a.m., kissed your temple through the helmet, and left again.
You picked it up now and turned it slowly in the lamplight. âI still donât know what this is.â
âGlowing algae from that Lazarus-adjacent pit in Bosnia,â he said casually. Like people just stumbled across bioluminescent resurrection pools on vacation. âThought the color might match that weird lamp you keep in the bathroom.â
You stared at him.
He shrugged, suddenly looking almost shy beneath the blood and bruising. âYou said you liked things that shouldnât be able to glow after theyâre dead.â
God damn it.
You set the bottle down very carefully, stepped between his knees, and cupped the uninjured side of his face. Your black-lacquered nails looked almost blue against his skin.
âYouâre still doing that thing,â you said quietly.
âWhat thing?â
âActing like youâre allowed to be the untouchable rich boy who buys peopleâs affection with trophies and then leaves before anyone can ask for more.â
His eyes flickeredâsomething raw and young flashing through the green.
âIâm notââ
âYou are.â Your thumb brushed the edge of the bruise. âYou drop dead things on my table like offerings and then disappear for four days so I canât ask why your hands were shaking when you gave me the last one.â
Jason swallowed. Didnât deny it.
You leaned in until your forehead rested against his.
âI already know who you are, Jason,â you whispered. âI knew before the first time you bled on my floor. So stop trying to pay me off with weird little corpses and start letting me keep you alive instead.â
For once he didnât deflect.
He just closed his eyes and let his forehead rest heavier against yours, breathing like it hurt more than the stitches.
After a long minute he murmured, âNext time Iâll bring you something alive.â
You huffed a tiny laugh against his mouth. âDonât you dare. Iâm not running a pet cemetery.â
âToo late,â he said, and you felt the shape of his smirk. âAlready got one very alive disaster who keeps coming back here to bleed.â
You kissed him thenâcareful of the split lip, careful of the fresh gauze, not careful at all with the way your fingers curled into his hair and held on like you were daring him to leave again.
He didnât.
Not that night.
Later, when the bleeding had stopped and the painkillers had started working, he sprawled across your velvet couch (black, of course) and watched you return to the crow wing with a kind of quiet fascination he rarely let show.
You felt his gaze like touch.
Eventually he spoke, voice low and rough from exhaustion.
âFound something else today.â
You didnât look up. âMhm?â
âOld silver locket. 1870s. Still has hair inside. Looks like it was cut after death.â
Your hands paused.
He continued, softer. âFigured you could⊠I dunno. Put it under glass. Or wear it. Or tell me why the hell people used to keep dead peopleâs hair like love letters.â
You finally turned.
Jason was watching you with that unguarded look he only wore when he thought you werenât paying attentionâlike you were the strangest, most precious thing heâd ever pulled out of the dark.
You crossed the room, climbed onto the couch, straddled his thighs without putting weight on the stitches.
He let you.
You leaned down until your lips brushed the shell of his ear.
âBring it tomorrow,â you whispered. âAnd stay long enough to watch me open it.â
His arms came around youâcareful, warm, alive.
âDeal.â
And for once, when morning came, the window stayed closed.
















