I Don’t Need Saving | Chapter One.
Pairing: Superhero!Dean Winchester x Journalist!Reader
Word Count: 6,295.
Warning: Slight mention of violence, minor character death.
Summary: To friends and family he’s known as Dean Winchester, at night he transforms into the Red Hood. The vigilante of the city beating up criminals and saving damsels from danger. Nobody has seen his face, nobody knows his true identity. Except for a few helpful allies. The reader is best friends with Dean for long as she can remember, and head over heels in love with the man. But she doesn’t have mutual feelings for the Red Hood.
However an encounter with the vigilante starts to change her opinion on the hero, and soon, she grows a fascination with him. Somehow she finds herself growing a strange friendship with the vigilante she once was supposed to hate, not realizing it’s someone she knew. Dean, hiding behind the mask of the Red Hood, shows his true feelings for the reader in disguise. Little do they realize both of them are holding a secret from each other that will put them in danger.
*Based upon Jensen Ackles as The Red Hood.
Mary Winchester hated the city. It was no place to raise a child.
It was too loud. People were mean and rude. The streets were filthy and littered with trash. Not to mention, the noise pollution. Drunks singing loud as they could at three in the morning and drivers honking their horns any chance they could get, as if that was going to make traffic run smoother. Her upstairs neighbors when she first move in was a young couple that fought when people should have been sleeping. While all of these factors drove Mary insane for the first handful of months, her boys didn't seem bothered by their surroundings. Dean was born shortly after they moved, and Sammy had turned the city sounds into his own personal lullaby. She’d lived here for four years, and she still wondered why John wanted to move here.
Well...it was the job offer that brought the newly weds here. Both of them were dirt poor with almost no money to their name. Back at home they were living in an apartment that was half the size of their current place when Bobby gave them a call. John had been out of the Marines for over a year and a half, but he hadn't found a steady job. Mary was determined to make all of this work without asking her parents for a single dime.
They made it quite clear they didn't like John. He wasn't "suitable material" for their little girl, her father said when she first started going steady with the man Her mother ushered her to think about other men she would be happy with when she became engaged. There was so many other boys Mary could have fell in love with, why the Winchester boy?
Because Mary loved him. And John loved her. Why couldn't that be enough for her parents to understand? Sure, John was from the lower side of town. He grew up with a single mother after his father left the family without a trace when he was young. John was rough around the edges, but he cared for Mary. He treated her like a queen. What they had together was enough to make them happy for the rest of their lives. But it wasn't enough to pay the bills and keep food stocked up in the fridge. Mary was slowly losing her hope that she could make it through their first year without asking her parents for help, but, like a gift from God, the couple got a break.
Bobby Singer called one afternoon to see how John was doing. Bobby was a family friend that John met in the Marines. Both of them trained and fought together in the war, developing a bond that would last for years to come. Bobby made contact with the young couple to see how they were doing, and to see if John was interested in a job with the police force. Hundreds of miles away from their small little town in Lawrence, Kansas...away from everyone they loved. And far away from Mary’s parents.
The coupled jumped on the opportunity to start their life over again. Everything seemed to have worked out like it was meant to be. Her parents gifted them with a three bedroom apartment in the better part of the city when they broke the news about moving, and how Mary was expecting her first child in late January. Dean came along a few months after they settled into the apartment and got everything exactly how they liked it. John's new career at the police force was going well and Mary was enjoying her new life as a homemaker. Everything seemed perfect...and it was. Except for the city. Mary tried and tried to fall in love with it like John had. But she couldn't stand it. She missed home. She missed having a yard and trees.
Dean was the opposite of his mother, he loved the city. He was only four and yet to see the flaws in the concrete jungle, but from what he could understand, the place was filled with wonders, and he took in every little thing the city had to offer. The sights of buildings that were monstrous compared to his small view on the world. The smells of all sorts of different cuisines from food carts on the corner and family owned restaurants from people wanting to spread their native foods to the city folks. Not to mention the sight of millions of different people that looked different than him. That was something a small town Kansas couldn't offer. Dean couldn't wait for when his little brother would be old enough to see of this for himself, and to be old enough to play in the vast and spacious park that was only a fifteen minute walk from their apartment.
Mary was a bit afraid of how Dean was going to handle the news of becoming a big brother after she found out she was carrying her second child a little after Dean turned three. Mary and John were both only children. They dreaded the thought of Dean becoming angry and upset at the thought of having the attention not be on him as it had been for the first three years of his life. But to their surprise, the little boy seemed overjoyed. Dean loved his new little brother with every fiber of his being. Mary had never knew the bond of sibling love. She only hoped her children could have what she never did. A strong family bond that lasted forever.
"Mommy?" It was a little late into the evening when Mary was disturbed from the evening news she was watching in the living room. She looked away from the news reporter to see her oldest son standing in the hallway, his glasses crooked slightly on his face and eyes squinted from the florescent lights he was still getting used to. "I heard a noise."
"What kind of noise, honey?" Mary asked in a soft voice. She shut off the TV and sat straight up in her seat on the couch. Dean began to make slow footsteps towards. Her son shrugged his shoulders. "Did it sound like people talking? Maybe a car horn?"
Dean shook his head, “It’s in the walls. I hear scratching.”
Mary thought to herself for a moment what could have possibly made scratching sounds inside the wall. But then it hit her. The reason why she hated this place. Rats. Those disgusting, fat creatures with their long claws and thick pink tails. She let out a quiet sigh and got up to her feet, tempting the idea of calling up John at the station to see if he would buy mouse traps on his way home from work for precaution until tomorrow morning. She'd sit down with Mrs. Wilson, the sweet landlord, to see if any other tenants had the same problem and if she might know of a good exterminator to take a look at the possible infestation while Dean was at preschool.
"Well, I can say for sure that it's not a monsters. Monsters don't like the city. There's not enough darkness to snatch kids up." Mary said, walking over to her son and grabbed him by the hand to lead him back his bedroom. "I'll have Daddy call someone to take a look at it tomorrow. Okay?"
“Okay.” Dean mumbled, agreeing with the plan. He slipped back into bed without much trouble, Mary tucked him back in like he had done two hours ago before he slipped out in a half-asleep state. She kneeled down so she was at level with the bed and fell silent for a moment to listen for the sound that had rose her son from his sleep. But nothing. All she heard was the muffled sound of a police siren passing by. “Mommy, what if it’s a person living in the walls?”
Mary felt her lips stretch into smile at her son's wild imagination. She refrained from laughing as she gave him a slightly confused expression. "It's not, honey. Where did that idea come from?"
"Uncle Bobby said he caught someone living in between a person's walls. He said that he was looking for bad kids to grab and eat them." Dean explained, giving his true reason why he had gotten up from bed to bug her. Mary let out a frustrated sigh from what the old kook had told her very impressionable child. "I don't want to get eaten."
“You won’t. I promise. Uncle Bobby was just...telling you a story. There’s nobody living in your walls. They’re just rats.” Mary reassured her son. Dean seemed to have somewhat believed her, but she could still see the apprehension on her son’s face. She wondered what she could do in order to get him to feel better. Looking around, she spotted the new action figures her parents had bought Dean when they visited last month. She grabbed them and placed each one on the nightstand—Batman, Superman, Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk. The few that she could find. “See these guys? Long as they’re are around, nothing bad is going to happen to you.”
“What about Sammy?” Dean asked. Mary smiled at how he thought of his baby brother sleeping peacefully in the next room. “Who’s gonna protect him?” “Well…” Mary looked around the room and found Captain America peeking out from underneath the bed. She pulled out the figure and showed it to her son. “He’ll keep an extra eye on Sammy.” Mary could see the relief cross her son's face when she brought out his favorite toys that he played with every second that he possibly could. Him and John would play for hours with these hunks of plastic. Dean would play the hero as John pretended to be the villain who was trying to take over the world. She had a feeling her son was going to follow in her husband's footsteps in the career department. Dean had a knack for helping people and making sure people were safe. Like father, like son. The child stared at the Captain America action figure for a moment.
“Can I put it in Sammy’s room?” Dean's request was asked in a small and timid voice. He knew his mother was strict when it came to his bedtime and scooted him off to bed whenever he tried to get out. But Mary seemed okay with the idea of letting her son stay up for another few minutes. She had checked on the sixth month old to see that he was peacefully sleeping.
Mary allowed her son to get out of bed one more time tonight to deliver Captain America to the room next door to his to put the four year old's mind at ease. Both of them traveled only a few feet to enter ever so quietly into baby Sam’s room, the only light source besides the hallway light came from the baby giraffe nightlight to help guide their way into the room.
Mary pressed her index finger against her lips when she heard the baby let out a deep breath to follow the rhythmic pattern. Dean quietly made his way into the nursery and to the shelf that Bobby had built himself one afternoon, it was a present after he found out Mary was pregnant with her second child. It was filled with different stuffed animals and baby books Mary remembered reading to Dean when he was small as Sam.
The thought of her son being a baby, small as the one sleeping in the crib felt like it happened a lifetime ago. Children grow up quick, but time felt like it moved so slow at the same time when she thought about it. Soon the boys were going to be going to school before she even realized, and all of this was going to be a distant memory.
She grabbed the action figure from her son's hand and placed it on the very top shelf, making sure it was watching over baby Sammy. When she looked over at Dean to make sure she did a good job, her son broke out into a smile, suddenly seeming to have been filled with relief and happiness that his brother was safe from the fictional monster he thought was crawling inside the walls. Little did she realize there was a monster pacing around the halls outside of her apartment.
+ + +
Mary found herself back in the same spot on the couch she left twenty minutes ago after tucking in her son back into bed and reassuring him that there was no monster hiding in the walls and waiting to eat him. She swore she was going to give that Bobby Singer an earful the next time she saw him about how he spoke to her children. She had a feeling Karen, Bobby's wife, would feel the same way. Hell, she'd probably beat that man with a wooden spoon. But she saved the day from disaster. Mary smiled in the small victory and continued to watch the news, eagerly waiting for the news segment John told to keep an eye out for. Her husband was famous.
A few days ago the police and FBI took down one of the biggest underground crime rings the city had ever seen. Infamous crime boss, Nick something, Mary didn't remember his name, was arrested for a long list of charges that weren't ever going to let him see the day of light again. Drug charges, illegal possession of firearm, prostitution, rape, murder...the list went on for this one man. But Mary forced her husband to stop talking when he admitted that this Nick guy murdered his baby son and wife, but blamed it on a "robber." It didn't matter. Karma got the son of a bitch. Bobby and John were the ones who made the very public arrest.
Mary half-listened to the report about some robbery that happened upstate just this morning. She found her attention drifting away from the TV when she heard the phone start to ring, which was rather odd for this late at night. Mary could think of only one person that was calling at this time of night, her mother. She only called every few week to see how things were doing and the boys were. Her parents were already in bed at this time of night. She’d be only calling at this time of night if something happened to her father. Mary's mind wandered to the worst case scenario as she got up from the couch to answer the phone.
"Hello?" Mary answered the phone on its second ring. Her voice was dull as she was momentarily distracted by her panic of her father's imaginable illness. She looked over her at to the TV, her lips stretching into a small smile at the sight of her husband on the small screen. She thought to herself about how handsome he looked in his uniform as he escorted out the criminal that was going to be locked away for years to come. “Winchester residence.”
“Mary? Is that you?” The voice on the other end was instantly recognizable as her husband. She answered John’s question in a chipper tone, but he didn’t greet her with a hello like always. “Are you and the boys okay?”
"We're fine." Mary reassured her husband. A slightly confused expression crossed her face from the question he asked her. "Honey, is everything alright with you?"
"Mary, I need you to listen to me very carefully. You and the boys need to find somewhere safe to hide." John explained to the woman the true reason why he was calling. Mary felt a shiver run up her spine from the way her husband was speaking. She warned him to stop joking around. "I wish I was joking, sweetheart. But I'm not. Grab the gun I have in the nightstand and take Dean to Sammy's room. Lock the door and don't let anyone in."
“W-What?” Mary suddenly found it hard to form words. “John, what’s going on?”
The line went silent for a moment, as if he was debating with himself if he wanted to tell her the truth. He did. "It's probably nothing. Some kid dropped a note off at the the front desk a half an hour ago. It said that the families of the cops involved with the big bust a few days ago were..." John didn't need to say the words for Mary to understand. It was a threat against her life. And her two precious boys she had sleeping just down the hall. "I'm heading out now. Bobby left five minutes ago to check on Karen and Y/N."
Mary understood that when her husband became a cop his life would be put in danger every single time he put on the uniform. But never did she think her own would be. Her last thought before she heard the door handle start to slightly rattle was about the safety of the Singer family and their new adopted daughter, Y/N. The infant who had been brought into this world in a painful and miserable way that made Mary feel nauseous when Bobby told her the story. She was such a beautiful baby girl. Mary wondered if her and the boys would be good friends. But she would never know the future, as hers only lasted for a few more minutes before it was cut.
+ + +
Dean felt himself inhale a deep breath as his mind tore itself away from the familiar hellish nightmare that could always make him break out into a cold sweat and confuse him for a second of where he was,. In the brief few seconds of his sleepy haze he thought he was four years old again, clutching his action figure he grabbed from his room for comfort and hid underneath his baby brother's crib like his mother instructed him to do. And he did. His four year old self focused on keeping silent as possible, he was a pro at it from the hundreds of times he used to play hide and seek with his father after he came home from work. But trying to block out his mother’s screams for mercy were harder. The seven minutes that it took his father to get home felt like it took a lifetime and a half.
His father prayed to the Virgin Mary, God and their son Jesus that his wife was safe during the entire way back home from the station. John found her dead body lying on the living room floor, bleeding out from the six stab wounds the killer managed to inflict before sneaking out the fire escape. The last thing Dean remembered about that night was seeing all those cops in the living room and the flashing of lights. Bobby was there, too. He took Dean out to the police car and showed him all the buttons that an officer had to use to chase down bad guys. Dean thought that was the night he wanted to help people. And the last time he ever saw his mother.
Three days after his mother's murder, his father quit the force. He decided that his time would be suited better to helping people as a private investigator, attempting to solve crimes and mysteries the police didn't have time for. Dean knew it was an excuse to obsess over the murder that took his mother's life when his father got a little too drunk. He lost count how many times he came home to boxes and boxes of evidence lying around the apartment. Dean was surprised the old man survived until a few years ago from the heart attack that took his life. His mother’s murder drove his father insane. But now the both of them were at rest.
Dean rubbed his face with his hands, forcing his aching body to get up when he heard the sounds of rustling coming from outside his bedroom and into his apartment. For a split second in his post nightmare haze, Dean reached for the gun that he always kept hidden underneath his pillow, thinking someone had followed him home last night. But then he realized a few moments later that it was Friday morning, your weekly visit to his apartment to make sure that he was still alive and to drop off the food you picked up after each time you stole his credit card. You thought you were being sneaky, but he caught you every time, yet he never said anything.
Dean was thankful for the helpfulness on such a simple task, and you wanted to make sure the man didn’t eat himself into an early grave from all the takeout he had. Dean didn’t remember the last time he cooked a meal for himself, either. You were here almost every chance you could when you and Dean weren’t too busy with work. From an early age you were in the kitchen with your mother, Karen, learning all the tips and tricks to make a delicious meal. You loved loved to cook, and he loved you...r food. Obviously.
"I don't understand why you don't just ask Dean if you can move in. You're practically here every chance you can get." Charlie Bradbury, best friend to you and Dean, was currently occupying one of the chairs at the small dining area and enjoying the fresh pot of coffee you had put on before she arrived. She was drinking out of the cup that was in the shape of Iron Man's head. It was part of a gift you had gotten Dean few Christmas' ago that were a set of Marvel superhero coffee cups. "You cook for him, you buy his groceries."
"Hey, I'm not paying for this out of my own pocket. He pays for his own stuff. I just happen to live a few blocks away from the store. And I know how to cook better than he can. It's the only way I can get him to eat something that isn't a pizza or deep fried." You defend yourself against your best friend as you put away a few cans of vegetables into a cabinet. "Besides, Dean does this stuff for me when I get busy with the paper.”
"You never do it for me." Charlie said.
“That’s because you’re annoying.” You sarcastically shot back at her. You knew what you said would only add more fuel for her to use against her. So you added, “And that's a lie. I was over at your place every single day cooking for you when you broke your leg last year after you and Dorothy went up the Adirondacks to go skiing. It’s what friends do.”
“Yeah. True. But you’re also obsessed with him and his well-being.” Charlie slyly remarked. She hid her growing smirk behind the coffee cup as she took another sip of her drink. She saw your body stiffen in discomfort at how the conversation shifte. She would take any chance she could get to remind you of the dirty secret you confessed to her at a New Years party a few years back while you were too drunk for your own good. “Why don’t you just ask him out already?”
“Because!” You quickly shushed the redhead when you realized that Dean was still sleeping in the room just across the way. Unless Charlie’s big mouth woke him up. “It’s weird. He’s my best friend. I’ve known him since I was born.”
Charlie's brow raised slightly in curiosity, "So you're finally admitting that you like him?"
You opened your mouth to defend yourself against your best friend's assumption, however you slowly shut it as you felt your cheeks burn in embarrassment when Charlie's smirk grew into a toothy smile. You would admit in a heartbeat that Dean was your best friend for long as you could remember, along with his little brother Sam, who was almost six months older than you. Your father said all you were like the three musketeers growing up, you were always at each other's side at every chance you could get. And the dynamics stayed the same when the three of you were adults with careers and lives of your own. You and Sam had your own dynamics you formed after going to school from pre-k all the way to your senior year of high school. But your friendship with Dean was...different.
There was something about him, from his nerdish love for everything comics and horror related, to old Westerns he used to make you and Sam watch all the time as teens, to his taste in music. The both of you liked a lot of the same things, sharing a special bond to the old cartoon of Scooby Do when you used to watch it together, and his secret guilt pleasure of Disney movies you would drag him every so often if there was a cute one playing in theatres. He was adamant on not wanting to see "Finding Dory" when it came out a few years ago, but he fell in love with the forgetful fish. Much as the both of you acted like best friends, at some point in your life you grew the tiniest crush on him that never stopped growing.
Luckily before you could try and deflect the conversation from spilling your guts, a familiar face greeted you when you turned around to finish putting away the rest of the groceries. A smile crept at the ends of your lips when you saw Dean standing in the doorway of the kitchen with a slightly groggy expression, his green eyes that you could stare into all day were covered behind this black rimmed glasses he wore since he was a little kid. You realized that you must have accidentally woken up from how loud you and Charlie were talking.
"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty." You greeted the man in a playful tone as you shut the fridge door after putting away a quart of milk. Dean scratched the back of his head, subtly making sure his short hair wasn't sticking out in any odd ends. He adjusted his glasses and mumbled a good morning to follow yours. You took a moment to examine the man when he went on the search for finding himself a clean mug to pour himself a cup of coffee. "No offense, but you like you were dragged through a hedge backwards. Rough night?"
"Yeah. If you want to call it that. I was out until three for a client. He wanted me to follow his wife around to see if she was cheating on him. You know, the stuff that pays the bills. Hey, do you know where the..." Dean tried to remember the word for the bottle of painkillers he was searching for. He rattled an invisible bottle in his hand, you grabbed him a new box of ibuprofen and threw it at him.
"Saw you were running low nd got some more. Stocked your bathroom with a new one, too. I swear, you gotta be careful with that stuff." You warned the man. But you knew you were contradicting yourself when you grabbed an open can of an energy drink you picked up from the store. "Too much of that is gonna give you kidney failure in the future."
"Uh-huh. And that stuff isn't a heart attack in a can." Dean said. You rolled your eyes as you took another sip of the drink that was the only thing keeping you from falling asleep. He ripped open the paper packaging to dig inside the bottle and take out a few pills, trying his hardest to keep the muffled sounds of his pain to a bare minimum so you wouldn't notice. But you always did.
"So," You leaned yourself against the countertop and looked over at the man who downed the few pills with a sip of coffee Charlie poured for him. You pointed to Dean's stomach area that you were guessing was making him walk around like an eighty year old man in pain. "What's the latest injury? The cheating wife kick your ass after she found out you were following her?"
Dean worked as a private investigator after taking over his father's business when John died a few years ago from a heart attack. Winchester Investigations was started before Dean's firth birthday and attracted all sorts of people for John to help them. Mostly on missing people and unsolved mysteries that families wanted closure for. But that didn’t always walk through the door asking for Dean’s investigative skills. Lately it was a disgruntled spouses wanting to see if their partner was cheating on them with someone younger than them. They wanted photographic proof to file for divorce, Dean agreed, and he'd do all sorts of weird things to get his proof.
“I...might have fell out of a fire escape trying to get her picture.” Dean admitted to you. His words became muffled slightly as he brought the cup back to his lips to take another sip. But he knew you heard him as your eyes grew slightly wide in concern as you spoke his name in a serious tone of voice. “Relax, Y/N. I’m fine. Nothing’s broken. Just a little bruised up.”
You let out a sigh and shook your head from how accident prone he could be. You rubbed your face with your hand as you let out a yawn. The few hours of sleep you managed to get last night were demanding more. “You look like crap yourself.” Charlie said. You gave her a small smile as you sarcastically thanked her for the compliment. “Did you get any sleep last night?”
“About two hours. Cas and I were down at the docks since four this morning. His ‘friend’ Meg tipped him off about these four girls who said they were kidnapped and kept in these horrendous conditions in one of those storage units. You know, the ones that get shipped off into boats and stuff? Well, we got there first and took a look around. And...trust me, it was messed up." You explained the situation to your friends about the news story you were investigating for your job. These poor girls were kept in complete darkness for days. They barely were given any food. There was no place to go to the bathroom or bathe. God knows what would have happened."
"That's terrible." Charlie mumbled. You could see a slightly disturbed expression cross her face when she imagined what kind of things you had seen. She knew by tomorrow morning you would have written all about it with Cas' pictures on the front page. "How did they get away?"
"This is where things got...ridiculous. These girls claimed a guy dressed in all leather and a red mask saved them. Never saw his face. The guy never said a word to them. He somehow managed to take on four men all by himself." You said, your lips stretching into a small smirk as you retold the statement one of the women had given to Meg Masters. "When the cops got there all of the men were tied up and locked in the unit."
Charlie's brow raised itself slightly in curiosity from the description she heard a dozen times before, "You mean this could be the work of the Red Hood?"
"Red Hood. Who the hell came up with that stupid name?" You mumbled to yourself. You couldn't help yourself when you rolled your eyes as you scoffed from the name you had grown to hate. "No. These girls were severely dehydrated and scared out of their minds. They probably wanted to think it was that psycho."
"If they were in such bad shape, how did they manage to escape?" Charlie asked. You tilted your head to the side and gave her an annoyed look from how she was getting on your nerves today. She grew a smile from how easy the mention of the masked vigilante could make you so angry. "Why do you hate the Red Hood so much?"
"Because there's some stranger out there taking the law into his own hands. Putting the lives of people in danger so they can play hero.” You said, crossing your arms over your chest. "Last time I check it only takes three buttons to call 911 and report a crime. It's gonna be a matter of time until they kill someone."
"But they haven't yet." Charlie subtly argued with you. You gave her a look of disbelief from her support to this masked mad man running around the city that seemed to have popped out of nowhere a few years ago. "You've got a point, Y/N/N. And I'm not dissing your dad or the cops. They do a good job. But it doesn't hurt to have some peace of mind knowing there's someone out there looking out for us folks. And he probably saved those girls from being trafficked.”
You let out a sigh as you looked around the kitchen, waiting a second before giving your best friend the satisfaction that she had won this argument. "You’re right. But I still don't like him. And I’m not mentioning him in the article.”
You finished the last of your drink and disposed of it in the recycling. You wanted to stay for a little longer but you needed a nap and write the first draft of the article for your editor, Gabriel, to read over to see what revisions you might need to make before the printing of tomorrow's paper. You said your goodbyes to your best friends and made your way out. A moment of silence fell between Dean and Charlie after the door slammed shut. Dean sipped the rest of his coffee as he started to open up the cabinets, wondering what he might want for breakfast. He ignored the shift in Charlie's expression as she narrowed your eyes slightly on the man.
“You fell out of a fire escape, huh?”
“Yup.”
Charlie tapped her fingers against the ceramic mug, allowing the man a chance to come clean with the truth of his injuries. But Dean remained silent as he settled on a bowl of cereal, ever so slightly wincing at the movements he made. Charlie couldn’t take it anymore. “I thought we were gonna be smart about this, Dean. You could have gotten yourself killed. We should have went to the cops—”
“Charlie, I've went up against worse. I'm just a little sore. I'll be fine in a couple of days. Nothing a little rest and painkillers can’t fix. And besides, I don't think Bobby would like how we found those girls.” Dean cut off of the redhead from expressing her concerns. Charlie let out a faint sigh as she sank down into her seat, knowing that he was right. "But you did a good job. You should be proud of yourself.”
Charlie grew the faintest smile as her face lit up at the compliment. She took another sip of her drink and looked over at the front door. "I think Y/N is starting not to had the Red Hood so much. I'd call that progress." Dean turned his head slightly and looked at the woman from the corner of his eye. "You know, I think she would change her mind for good if she were to meet him."
Dean gave his best friend a disapproving expression from her idea. He didn’t want anyone to know the truth, not even Charlie. But things happened that caused her to know his secret. And he wanted to keep it between the both of them. "Right. Tell the daughter of the city's police captain that I'm really the Red Hood. 'Cause that doesn't end up with me getting hauled off to jail. Or Y/N laughing in my face.”
"I didn't say you had to reveal your secret. Just find a way to talk to her as the Red Hood." She suggested. Dean stopped for a moment as he stared at her with a look of disbelief from how she wasn’t letting this go. He asked her in a sarcastic tone of voice if he wanted her to show up at their best friend’s front door dressed up as the persona he adapted into. “No. But I know Y/N. And she loves a man in uniform. Besides, you can’t tell me you’ve never followed her around.”
“What? No. That’s weird.” Dean quickly defended himself against such an absurd accusation his friend thought of. Charlie tilted her head to the side, he quickly moved his gaze back to the bowl of cereal me made for himself. “I did get those pictures of Mrs. Taylor last night. They're still on the computer. Send them to the client and get the hell out of my apartment. I’m going back to bed.”
Charlie watched as Dean grabbed his bowl of cereal and began to slowly make his journey back to his bedroom, the painkillers he took were starting to kick in. The redhead snickered to herself and got to work on her day job, delivering bad news to their clients about their suspicions on how faithful their partner was being. As Charlie uploaded the pictures to the computer, she found herself growing the smallest smile. Sure, this kind of work helped keep her and Dean in a job, but it was what the both of them accomplished last night that made her stick around and help the Red Hood. And she had to repay him back after Dean saved her life that night.
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