To be fair, Dan did not intend to save Krypton. For a definition of "save," it must be argued.
That was an accident.
He had been stopping by to uh, convince them to cease tossing their criminals into the Zone and reclaim those they had banished into parts of the Infinite Realms that they tore into with each banished criminal.
For a ghost, being in parts of the Infinite Realms it didn't matter too much if part of the Realm passed time irregularly. What were they going to due of? Old age?
Dan would normally not give a shit about them tossing criminals into the Zone, except...
They were drifting into his lair!
Hence the aggravation worthy of actually leaving his lair to return all these criminals back to their own world and dimensions.
Dan didn't intend to save a whole planet's worth of population -their actual planet being fucked-
But just as Dan has finished settling the mishap in his mind, Clockwork sends him one of those damned cryptic notes.
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
Rating: M
Warnings: none
Relationships: Henry of Skalitz/Hans Capon
Characters: Henry, Hans, Father Godwin and most of the Devil’s Pack mentioned one way or another
Tags: Fluff & Humor, Banters, Idiots in Love, Jealous Hans (it’s Sam, it’s always Sam), Shy Henry, takes place right after Suchdol, as they return to the Devil's Den, Frottage, Kissing (lotssss of it), Secret Relationship but like everyone is painfully aware (poor Godwin, the things he has to deal with......), in this house the Devil's pack got Hansry’s backs
On the day the Siege of Suchdol has finally ended, Henry and Hans return to the Devil's Den to enjoy their moment of peace, just the two of them, with God and Devil alike watching their backs quietly.
So blaming random 4am thoughts that have been plaguing me all day for this
----
Jason woke to a bright room, thin sheets and the smell of a hospital embedded in his body.
First as always, assess. Hospital. No affiliation printed on the walls or anywhere. Private room, but small. That door looked like it led to a private bathroom. Generic flower picture, a mounted screen turned off. Really fucking bright sunlight from the windows.
There was no fucking way he was in Gotham then. Everything was too nice. Normal by standards outside of Gotham. There were blinds, not metal shutters. The walls were cleaner than Gotham allowed outside of Downtown and he could see greenery through the window.
Okay. So what had he been doing? Jason remembered and then wished he had his Jerichos to shoot himself with. Mystic Shit™. Okay. Okay. That was not one of his better ideas, but if he's recovering in a hospital, it worked. World saved.
So recovery. How fucked was he?
His skin looked so fucked. Which meant he had been worse. He's had time to recover and lose muscle tone in, going by how twiggy his arms were. His hands looked good. Clearly someone knew he cared about those if they went through the effort of restoring those.
Hmm, that was odd. No matter how much Jason hated the Lazarus Pits and all its by-products, it would have been a faster and more simple way to recover from near-death than the long incarceration in a hospital for a John Doe.
Jason wasn't sure if he'd been abandoned yet again by those who called themselves his family because he could, "take care of himself," or if he had been written off dead. Again.
Hospital beat the coffin by a long shot.
And it was with that cheery thought, a nurse -obvious meta human nurse- came in and burst into excited Japanese, because that was of course, his luck.
It's after the nurse and doctors leave that Jason loses his shit.
It looks like he's sulking in bed, but mentally everything in his head is exploding. Imploding.
Three. Fucking. Years. Coma.
Burn victim so bad they not only expected him to die in the first couple of days, but still expect it because of the infection risk his fucked up skin represents.
Still the conversation with the medical staff -of varying degrees of bizarre- was enlightening.
No, he has no idea who he is. Did he ever get anyone visit? How did he get here?
Of course some amnesia is to be expected. No, some of the nurses visited. No one knows how he got here.
Does he know what his quirk is? Uh?
Trauma blocked amnesia, the doctor mutters.
What's the last date he remembered?
Saturday. Maybe? The last year? No, I'm pretty sure my memory is shit and I'm trying hard not to freak out over not knowing anything. So could I get the year number?
And then there's the fucking year number. Once he got it translated into more normal terms.
Mystic Shit™ said fuck you to the future.
Except Jason knows this is not his future. Again, if it was, this would have been treated as a fucking inconvenience. Effective skin restoration goop -the proper name escaped him- was easily available to those with the right connections. A normal baseline human with 2nd and 3rd degree burns would be fine in less than two weeks with it, with nary a trace to show for it.
Thanks to the three year coma, his muscles were all atrophied as fuck, despite their best attempts at physical therapy. Because of all the burns and later burn scars and infections making it basically impossible to actually do fuck all about maintaining muscle tone until he was basically burnt skin and bones anyway.
He was so fucking weak now. It wouldn't last forever. He'd escape this hospital before he was discharged, before whatever "benefactor" showed up for whatever "purpose," he was suppose to serve now, as they had the medical debt over his head or was threatening his loved ones or whatever. If one didn't show up in the next week, he was losing his genre-savviness, because shitheads always wanted to claim shit, if it looked useful.
And Jason was used to looking useful, until he was no longer useful and they just didn't care. The amnesia made him less shiny, but Jason couldn't pull off the brain dead zombie imitation without actually being a brain dead zombie crawling up out of his grave.
So under the thin hospital sheets, Jason twitched his muscles.
Two weeks of emotional freak outs, watching the news, physical therapy and drugs Jason had had enough.
And he broke out.
----
Yeah, he regretted it almost immediately. Hard not to in the stupid paper gown, barefoot and bare ass.
Thankfully people were people, even with the plethora of meta humans he had seen, so it actually wasn't hard to find clothes. Someone left a hoodie in their car and Jason broke into said car. Put on the hoodie. Hotwired the car and drove off.
Somehow for being in the fucking future by two centuries and change, cars really hadn't changed. More evidence of Mystic Shit™ slamming him sideways.
He drove to the next town over, picked another direction, drove some more. Parked the car near what looked like a chop shop, negotiated the car for some money. He probably got ripped off, but better than nothing.
He walked to a corner store, bought some flip-flops after bullshitting an excuse that his had broken. First aid stuff. You know, for his feet. Hair dye in three different colors, because Rose Wilson could pick out a bad dye job at a hundred meters and so Jason learned how to dye his own hair properly so as to avoid her mockery, only to get mockery (affectionate) anyway.
It was a mix of instinct and lifelong observation that let him find an empty apartment quickly. He stole some sweatpants and passed out on the bed.
----
The thing is, Jason doesn't regret his crimes like Bruce thinks he ought to do, with a massive pity party and flaming self-hatred and punching criminals instead of shooting them. He hates the necessity of doing crimes, even if that crime is a net gain to society, but that's why all his serious crimes are premeditated. He's homicidal, not a psychopath.
Not Pit-mad either, no matter what the rest of them might have thought.
Again, he's homicidal, not a psychopath. And when he doesn't have to be some sort of costume soldier to be discarded by family for the disgrace of disfiguring the memory of a dead boy? He's actually chill and boring.
That is to say, he crashed at that apartment for three days, felt progressively more like himself, especially after the dye job -white hair all over, now a solid and boring black- but it still didn't change all the other issues the Mystic Shit™ inflicted on him.
This body isn't actually his. Too young, scars not right where the burns didn't fuck him over. Thankfully his existing coping mechanisms for dysphoria work and it's shoved to the side.
It's also a shit body. Not even a month out of a three year coma with inadequate -by his standards- of medical care. It's weak and building muscle to do everyday civilian shit, is going to take months to do. Pushing as hard as he did during the escape wrecked him the next three days. Jason may not know what's going to happen, but with his luck, it's going to suck and training is preparing to make it suck less. The only certainty he's got is that his skin or lack thereof is going to kill him from infection if he doesn't fix it.
He's got no legal identity here. Which basically puts him back onto familiar ground of legally dead.
Beyond the lack of paperwork, he's got a lack of funds. He also has no easy target to steal funds and equipment from, even just for fun.
For more disadvantages, he's in a different country, with different laws and a whole different culture. He would be climbing on board a fucking plane to Gotham, if it existed in this world, for some familiar ground.
He really is the unluckiest Robin. It also means he is also the most prepared Robin.
---
The first six months after waking up in this mockery world of heroics were the absolute worst.
He started at one foot in the grave and crawled out of it before the casket could really eat him alive. Jason had experience in casket busting. He didn't wanna repeat it.
He still didn't know who he was -in who was he inhabiting- but it wasn't like Jason had a lot to go on. 'His' quirk was thermo-manipulation, most obviously in the blue fire he could call to his hands but he could do some ice too; it was thanks to Duke's light and shadow manipulation that he had even tried for the duality. He had white hair. Presumably Japanese heritage but quirks had really erased or blurred a lot of racial lines. Also presumed dead and young.
Access to the Quirk Registry took some doing, but again, not everyone followed basic computer security, much less what it took to keep someone bat-trained out of their systems. Again, for nearly two centuries in the future, a lot of the technological development had stagnated. Searching through the Quirk Registry hadn't yielded any result but none of his other methods had struck anything either. And he had looked at the recently dead and/or presumed dead. Sure, he had some leads that looked viable, but he wasn't going to follow those up yet.
He had fixed a few of his most pressing issues the past six months. His ignorance of the local area, the local and national politics and so on. This world supported and had an entire industry catering to making child soldiers and sell their image and reputation to make money and more child soldiers that called themselves Heroes.
His weak ass body no long cried doing daily tasks and only hated him after working out. Yes, Jason was pushing it but he was well aware of how months of preparation could mean shit in the face of seconds.
His infection risk was severely reduced after quick research bender let him make the most generic knock-off brand of the skin restoration goop in a shitty homemade lab. Did it fix his skin being patchwork fucked in places? Some. He wasn't going to get feeling back properly, but at least he looked more normal. Maybe with enough moisturizing he might look a little less Frankenstien's monster.
He also had a cash inflow. It wasn't great, but it supported his apartment. And the second set of papers. And the 2nd apartment.
Which meant in grand old tradition for Jason, time for him to bounce to the next apartment and come up with a new name.
Tim's had years of experience at being a vigilante but sometimes the human brain has a little fritz and misses something obvious. Especially while stressed and sleep-deprived. Very unkind of evolution to have not fixed that in human brains.
Which is why on little lunch date before Tim drags himself back to the office, he's walking in the park with Benard. Bleary-eyed and focused more on his drink than food. It's great weather for Gotham, surprisingly sunny and warm enough that being outside is enjoyable. Everyone that's not chained to work is enjoying the rarity. Something is bound to go wrong but for now, time to enjoy it.
So that's what Tim was doing. Enjoying the good weather and good company as they walked along in the park.
And that's how Benard spots Jason Todd, laying out on a picnic blanket, holding a book to shield his face first, as he read. Or so Tim has to conclude. This had to be what was going wrong for Tim. Jason. Please, he'd rather take Scarecrow. Or Firefly. (He was not desperate enough for Condiment Man.)
"That's a dead-ringer for Willis Todd," Benard breathes his excitement as he chatters on. "I wonder if he's related?"
"Willis Todd?" Tim asks Benard, as if he hadn't seen the files himself. Petty criminal. Jason's biological father. If Jason parts his hair down the center, brushes it and through some magic Tim has never understood, he's basically his father once again, but with prettier eyes.
"Hmm, yeah, could still be a doppleganger instead of related but.. he looks like Willis Todd, the biological father of Jason Todd, your adopted older brother, who died under mysterious circumstance overseas."
"So you think he's like a cousin?" Tim asked. Because, now he could see how Benard would pull them over so he could ask. If he didn't manage to derail this.
"No, I did a little research a while back to scratch the itch and with the rise of social media, you can get enough information about a family to hire one of those ancestry sites."
Oh great goddess no. Benard did not.
Actually Benard would.
That's why Tim liked him.
He had terrible taste.
"Anyway, so all of Willis' living siblings only had girls, so it's probably a doppleganger."
"You mean officially. Kids out of wedlock happen all the time." Tim's mouth ran before his brain caught it. Do not feed the Conspiracy! "And-" Think Timmy, damn it Jason-voice, out of his head! "And, he could also be a cousin from further out. Like Jason's grandfather had a brother who had kids."
"You'd think so but the neat thing about the Todds is that they've only had one male offspring to survive to adulthood for each generation for the past seven generations. Willis did have a younger brother."
Oh shit. Now Tim might be jumping to conclusions, but that sounded like magic. He, like every other self-respecting Bat, hated magic.
"So your plan is to just go up and ask if he's related to Bruce Wayne's dead adopted son?"
"Well, it sounds really rude when you put it that way, but look at him!"
So Tim did. Reluctantly.
And then fascinated, as he watched Jason perk up into a sitting position as a lady approached him. Tim immediately profiled her. White hair, light skin, about Tim's own height, no eye patch! Okay, not Rose Wilson, that's one hazard avoided.
"I think he's on a date Benard." Because then Tim and Benard could return to theirs.
Yeah, she wasn't really Jason's type -not that Jason really had a type as far as Tim knew- since he didn't advertise anything personal about himself and was utterly miserly about what he did share. The women he worked with though, those were usually tough as nails. Which was a stupid phrase from a stupid brain. Rose Wilson was a railroad spike in the eye kind of a nail if she had to be a nail.
She had a style kinda fashions sense to Rose Wilson though, if more punk and less Deathstroke's iconic colors. Cropped dark hoody, leggings, boots that might be steel toe. A pleated black skirt, too many belts.
But yeah, they definitely knew each other, since she was leaning over and teasing him. Maybe about the book?
Oh! Jason put the book down!
He never put the book he was reading down unless the book was in danger or he was done with it!
He must be in love!
And now Tim knew about it!
And Benard knew about it! Without knowing! So, how to get Benard to never mention it at all to Tim's family and also to not stalk them as soon as Tim's lunch break was over?
She reached down as if to help pull Jason up, Jason making a comment as he was lifted-
-overbalancing them-
-stronger than she looked-
-Jason was not light-
-they were falling backwards-
-green light flashed.
"What." Tim said as he put what he had just seen into something like logical sense.
Bruce would want to know everything. Everyone would. Tim had no answers. No evidence.
"Tim. What if Jason Todd was still alive and just got abducted by magic in front of us?"
"Benard, I love you but if Jason's been alive all these years, why hasn't he gone home to Bruce?" Tim pointed out logically. Except Tim knew the reason.
"Well," Benard said as he bought time to come up with something outlandish. "With Superman and Green Arrow and that one Green Lantern coming back from the dead, along with a number of other civilians through various incidents it's possible that Jason Todd was revived through some cosmic quirk. But however it happened, he's now bound to Gotham, because he's buried in town. And the undead in lore, usually can't cross running water because it's a natural boundary, but the Finger and Sprang rivers are part of Gotham City itself. But Bristol is separated from Gotham by the Gotham River. So he can't!"
Benard looked so proud of himself, so Tim kissed him as he went to the consider how to actually report in and not tip his boyfriend off about the vigilantism.
"Anyway, we just saw someone get abducting in the park, possibly through magic. I'm going to call into the bat-tip line and hopefully they'll investigate."
"Oh, Tim. Imagine if one of the Bat's show! Best lunch ever!"
Going from sharing brainspace with a demon to sharing an apartment with said demon actually wasn't hard. Not like Jason expected it would be. No matter how tiny the apartment was.
Yeah, he bitched about the couch and stole Jason's bed when Jason was off in a safehouse and pointedly was scheming for better accommodations for himself and the cat. To be honest, Jason was also scheming for better accommodations for himself and the cat. The cat was growing on him.
Jason kept expecting it to be hard to share the space. However his Pit Demon manifested as some sort of Italian mobster and thus had the human knowledge to not be a terrible roommate. Didn't yammer on at all times about nothing, didn't vibrate in place. Didn't play loud obnoxious music at all times or fail to mark down what had been used if he cooked. Xanxus didn't leave hair in the shower, didn't leave a mess behind him in the way that people used to traveling and living out of their travel bags did. Was very exacting in his neatness. No evidence left behind, no stress.
It was the unexpected things that got to Jason, more than the learning curve of "How to survive Gotham's Bullshit," home edition.
Who the fuck expected a Pit Demon to be a Catholic for one?
That first Sunday, not even a full twenty-four hours after possessing Tashira Owens' corpse, the demon went to Mass. Jason had followed, half expecting the service to go terribly. It didn't but it let Jason see how smooth, how rote all the little rituals were.
A devout demon. Only in Gotham.
Jason had no idea how Christianity meshed with you know, being a demon mobster. But clearly Xanxus had found some way to do it that Jason's meager religious knowledge couldn't understand without delving further into it. Jason was more performative religious as a kid; in that if he said the right words, did the right things, they'd feed him. Sure he'd read up more on religion, that good ole' Robin bookwork but academic understanding wasn't actually believing, much less acting in accordance with the faith or truly understanding it. Closest Jason got was the All-Caste and it was less religion and more way of life. One he had mostly left behind.
Other oddities from a demon was his ability to busk. Like actually play music and get paid for it on some street busk. Jason had thought the Devil and his fiddle was just some country song. Not something demons could go and play and be paid for. Especially since the violin didn't exist. Not in Jason's apartment and not in Xanxus' hand, unless he wanted it to. Xanxus called it a memory, but how the hell he made it manifest was probably magic. That was also on Sunday, after Mass and Jason knew only a few of the songs by ear and certainly not by name; his musical tastes always ran to rock. Whatever; it was easy money. Not a lot compared to Jason's illegal income streams, but for a couple hours' work, but considering Jason wasn't even expecting a measly hundred from his fellow Gothamites, it exceeded his expectations.
It did mean that Xanxus didn't have to be given spending money out of Jason's accounts. That his Pit Demon having the means to earn an income meant Jason didn't have to worry about his food budget or general living expenses being ate up by an inconsiderate roommate.
It also meant that Xanxus' had the money to replace all the plates and other crockery he had ruined as he adjusted to Gotham's "Living the Horrors," standards.
Leaving your glasses up in the cupboard and see how much poison they collected from the air's everything, even after filters was always a horror show. Jason was surprised that that experiment wasn't some kid's winning horror at a science fair. Maybe too mundane for Gotham. Not nearly as dramatic as the whole, "will dissolve plates if left to soak repeatedly in the sink."
Jason's first victims to Xanxus' learning that Gotham Water:tm: can and will dissolve the glaze off of plates was at least cheap ceramic dinner plates. Jason's mixing and eating bowls were steel and glass respectively, except for the one ceramic bowl reserved for cereal menaces. So some things could entirely be left fine in the water. Mostly. Others however could not.
So now Xanxus did what he thought was logical and set the water on fire.
Jason was now resigned to occasionally see his sink on fire. With the dishes in it.
Magical fire that somehow purified the water -something he was sure was otherwise impossible with all the pollution in it, didn't even set off his smoke detector somehow- that the dishes were soaking in. The testing period to finding something that worked to purify the water and not destroy his soaking dishes also -surprise, surprise- killed more of his tableware but Xanxus at least replaced it. Well, tossed money at Jason to buy his own replacements.
So arson was generally not an acceptable way to do dishes, but it let Xanxus soak the dishes so he'd actually do the dishes.
All told, basically ideal roommate in a small space. Even with the cat causing extra chores.
Did chores, wasn't messy, loud or inviting people over. Wasn't obnoxious.
Jason wasn't likely to invite people anyway and so far Dickhead hadn't butted in, so he hadn't had to explain why his glass mixing bowl basically lived in the sink now and would light up when water from the tap was poured into it.
Which left the most obnoxious habit to be relatively minor.
Xanxus was vain, but not modest.
Jason wished he had some personal modesty.
Jason didn't know all the details but Owens' corpse was chosen both from luck and for fit. However it was still technically a corpse so needed an energy investment to believe it wasn't. So that it would be alive enough to produce the energy that Xanxus used for magic. However it could only produce so much, over such a period of time.
So sometimes the energy that was used to disguise the corpse as Xanxus was too much a drain and the illusion of Xanxus fell. Which surprise, a half naked man on his couch became a half naked woman wearing men's clothing on his couch.
Yeah, Jason wasn't sure what to think about that beyond a, "he looks more at ease with being a woman than I expected," for someone with such a strong masculine impression left in Jason's head. This also gave him an intellectual thought exercise of the limits of necrophilia and the degrees thereof from his lingering zombieness (mostly alive) to a possessed corpse mimicking life (functionally alive) to a shambling corpse (mostly dead) and a well preserved corpse (very much dead.)
Jason never said he wasn't fucked in the head, but he wasn't fucking around and finding out with this. Jason kinda valued living his life, such as it was. Pit Demon roommate and all.
Jason thought that having made a deal with his inner pit demon -actually probably a ghost of some Sicilian mobster- about the whole "possessed" thing would have made things easier. Like dividing chores between roommates or something like that. Penciled in time to talk to his demon on the bluetooth, like Jason did to bitch with Roy over the phone.
Instead, Jason had somehow ended up with more work.
Which, fucking typical.
It was also very helpful work.
Not that looking up tidal generation of electric power wasn't educational, but it was something of a pipe dream at the moment. It was on his wishlist of what shit he wanted for Crime Alley (and how preferably) within the next twenty years. Like better healthcare, renovation for half the condemned buildings and revitalizing the community and arts. Stuff that couldn't be done overnight.
Permits were needed (at least on paper), supplies bought. Renovations actually occurring properly. Staffing that would fill the buildings. Stuff that took time. Getting the money, payroll, how overbudget could he afford to go in the name of investment?
It also made Jason do some math about how big he wanted his crime empire to be, what he really wanted to do with it and how. Bigger meant more influence but Jason didn't want the whole damn city. He wasn't that ambitious.
He wanted Crime Alley to be safe. To be the Park Row it once was. Not gentrified. For the people, by the people. Under the dismal gray sky of Gotham.
Jason, armed with a wishlist for the next twenty years and a dream of making Park Row out of Crime Alley got his daydream wrecked by a deadline.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Assassin's Creed: Black Flag
Rating: Mature
Warnings: nuh
Characters: Edward Thatch/Edward Kenway, Charles Vane/Jack ‘Calico’ Rackham (if you squint), Kenway’s Unnamed Son (not Haytham!), Adéwalé, Anne Bonny, Mary ‘James Kidd’ Read, Stede Bonnet mentioned once
Additional Tags: Modern AU, No Assassins/Templars AU, Referenced Character Death, Caroline died and Kenway is in too deep, Widowed, Grief/Mourning, Coping, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Single Parents, Single Father Edward Kenway, Epic Friendship, Epic Bromance, Supportive Friends, a friend in need is a friend indeed, Families of Choice, Slow Burn, Friends to Lovers, from life-long friends to confused dads to idiots in love, Calico is the best uncle (he's not but let him think he is)
Edward Kenway is a widower and a single father. He doesn't know how to handle a helpless child in his arms, and the grief is trying to break him like a twelve-point storm. However, he's not alone on this wreck of a ship.
Jason didn't own a cat, but he had one purring on his chest. A solid black cat. Not excessively fluffy. Friendly enough.
In his own apartment, Jason realized as he sat up, arms automatically curling around the cat. His Jason apartment. Dressed in the sweat pants and t-shirt he used as pajamas.
He had no memory of getting here.
Jason would usually chalk that up to being that tired, but well, he also could have been possessed for who knew how long? So, what day was it before he started to panic over nothing?
His Jason phone had the date and the time and okay, it was about ten hours later. Part of it was spent sleeping. Maybe all of it. He felt rested enough, but hmm. It was like having a good day after having a week of bad ones. So he wanted to do everything he previously couldn't and in the process, over do it and crash harder.
Still, ten hours sleep? He'd take it, if it were all actually sleep.
Doubtful, as Jason put down the cat and started thinking seriously about breakfast and how much of a breakfast he wanted. He opened his fridge and nudged the cat away from it. He had supplies enough for... hm, nah. What sounded good? A French Omelette sounded good. With a couple rashers of bacon. Maybe fry up some diced potatoes with onions?
Jason started on the bacon first; cold bacon to cold pan, so as the pan warmed, so would the bacon and the fat would melt. He'd keep the bacon from frying to the pan with a couple of pokes in a minute or two. Better bacon was always made low and slow. He washed, sliced and diced the potato and onion. Pulled out the butter -the proper kind- pushed the cat away from the pan of bacon, the cat was fine on the floor, and popped the butter into another pan.
French omelettes took so much butter. Sure, he could make one with less, but his Jason apartment was too small to have a non-stick pan dedicated to nothing but omelettes. Besides, the butter was the organic, grass fed and grass finished stuff; it was healthy butter.
Pulling the eggs out, hm. Yeah. Two omelettes.
Bacon was..? Yeah, ready to be flipped, so he did that. Then it was time for the eggs to be cracked, beaten and poured in. French omelettes took more practice to make, but Jason had been a convert to them, ever since Alfred had first shown Jason how to make them. Prior to then, Jason hadn't liked omelettes, but it became clear to him later, that no, he just didn't like how people fucked up making American style omelettes. Himself included back then. He seasoned the omelette.
He plated the omelette, placed the bacon on the plate, tossed more butter onto his omelette pan and tossed all the potatoes into the bacon grease and turned that up. Gave the potatoes a few minutes, added the onions and cursed himself for not setting up a kettle to boil for tea.
He pulled a bottle of water from the fridge, poured it into one of his larger cups and put it in the microwave for two minutes. While that was going, he eyed the cat again -it was pretending like it wasn't going to go after the bacon the second Jason turned, by giving itself a bath- so he started omelette number two, which would finish about the same time as the potatoes and onions.
The microwave beeped at him, as he stirred the potatoes and onions as he seasoned omelette number two. Picking up the cat under an arm, he walked to the cabinet that had his tea in it and picked a breakfast tea. Picked the cup out of the microwave, enjoyed the warmth of the ceramic and plopped the cat on the floor so set the mug down and quickly plate omelette number two and scrap the potatoes and onions onto the plate as well.
Then he checked the water temperature, judged it well enough for the tea chosen and put the tea bag into the water to steep. He scolded the cat for reaching up towards his plate and took the plate and the mug to what realtors would call "a breakfast nook," or "kitchen bar table," but Jason called "kitchen counter space," and sometimes "work space."
Jason was halfway through his first omelette when he noticed the work laptop he had used yesterday was there and some papers were under it.
His problem after food. He was starving.
The cat was making eyes at him. It meowed sadly. Like it had never been fed at all, in its entire life.
Snorting at the cat's lying he demolished his potatoes, the other omelette and everything but half of the last piece of bacon.
The cat was only getting it because the bacon was cold. That was Jason's story and he was sticking to it.
Clean up was simple; french omelettes didn't stick to the pan when done right, so only needed a rinse and today was an inside sort of day plan for him. Cat complicated things, but at the moment putting a lid over the bacon grease would have to do to keep the cat out of it. He was planning to use that to cook with later. The other dishes were quickly washed, dried and put away.
Settling back at his workspace, he checked his phones -no urgent messages, two vaguely important Crime messages, one voice mail about his car's extended warranty- and then it was to his laptop and the papers there on top and under it.
The papers on top were... oh, those were a plan. Well the start of one.
Jason knew he'd have to do some sort of scheme to get the cloning tech. A smash and grab would get too much attention but a heist? Just a simple little con?
Doable with a some time and effort and planning.
Hack the place to determine if they had the cloning tech and what research they were doing with it, because that was just due diligence. Still, no need to kill whatever clone was developing out of simple greed. He'd either have to use the bat computer or Barbie's set up for that in Gotham. Could just borrow Roy's too. Bribing Oracle might be best for that.
Do something so he could walk out of there with the equipment. Pose as tube maintenance people or whatever. That would only get them a couple cloning pods or tubes or whatever they cloned people in.
Xanxus had proposed faking and stealing a shipment of them. Because most scientists were smart, but that didn't mean that they built and maintained their own equipment. So he proposed getting a shipment made to be sent off and just making it disappear en route.
Which Jason liked the idea of, but just disappearing a shipment of cloning pods entirely would be suspicious. Doing a discrepancy however? A miscommunication? Faking that would be easy and let him disappear half a shipment or more, depending on size and shit. If he wanted to get fancy with it, he could even steal some money. Okay, a lot of money.
Fuck up some dubious science researchers and get rich in the process? Why yes, sign him up. It'd be work, but also fun. Basically a bribe for Barbie.
Still left him turbine-less and without a place to set it all up. Unless things panned out with the organ thief gang he suspected was holed up in one of those underground bunkers from the Cold War.
He turned on the computer, checked the server the bugs uploaded feed to and ran the data through the programs. There were more files on the server than he expected, so more bugs had been put out while he was "asleep." While that was going, he lifted the laptop to get to the bottom papers.
Well, bottom photos. A small stack of them.
Ten hours sleep? That was more unbelievable than being possessed by a ghost of an Italian mobster who ate the other Pit Demons under his skin.
The cat meowed at him.
Pictures from his mask footage stared back at him.
The organ thief gang did exist. As did their hospital.
And they did have sea access. Fuck yeah. The area was... he was so going to have order those turbines custom or renovate. Maybe he could just ask Roy to build it?
So now Jason had a better idea of what his body had been up to while he was "sleeping."
