An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Batman - All Media Types, Under the Red Hood
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Barbara Gordon/Dick Grayson/Jason Todd
Characters: Jason Todd, Dick Grayson, Barbara Gordon
Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Trauma, Established Relationship, Self-Destruction, Denial of Feelings, Jason is hurt and needs love, Barbara and Dick want to give him love, Threesome - F/M/M, love and smut, Bruce is not helping, Dick just wants his little wing back, Jason Todd Has Issues, Healing Sex, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex
Summary:
“At this rate, he’ll burn down half the city.” Dick’s hands combed anxiously through his hair. She winced at the grip he had on his hair. “He’s killing people and he won’t listen. He won’t listen to a word I say, Babs. What do I do? I can see him. I can see our little Jay in him, but he won’t let me close. He won’t let me touch him. I just-I just want him back.”
“I...I don’t know Dick. Jason’s in pain and he’s angry. We both know he never listens when he gets mad.” Barbara swallowed. Her hands laid clasped in her lap. “He feels betrayed, by Bruce, by us. I don’t know how to get through to him.”
Dick let out a defeated sound. Barbara watched as he visibly shrunk in on himself. “Neither do I.”
10. Loose thread on a well-worn jacket (alternatively titled: you might be some kind of wonder, boy). (DC: Jason/Dick/Barbara)
“You’re in bed with your ex-girlfriend and your adopted brother.”
Barbara Gordon points out the absurdity of the situation without a flinch, puts their thoughts into words and voices that out loud too.
In the afterglow, with sweat cooling and love bites settling into a blossom of reds and purples against their skin, the former boy wonders find themselves blinking back stars at a blank white ceiling while Barbara waits for them to catch up.
After all, they’ve come a very long way to end up here.
Jason Todd comes back to them as Red Hood.
Even without the signature helmet, the red bat across his chest says every word he is not willing to utter, so does the bandages around his neck, and the smell of grief that trails after him.
She sees him first from across two rooftops, and she is patient while he debates whether this is where he will break. He doesn’t, not even as he crosses the threshold to find himself in front of her, and she doesn’t look away once. She isn’t sure she ever wants to, not again.
“Hey Barbie.” He says, and it wavers like he isn’t sure.
Barbara doesn’t cry, she is so much stronger than the flood of tears in her eyes. To say the absolute least, her voice holds steady like steel. “It’s been a while, Jay.”
He laughs in answer, it is rough and tough and unused and that’s a damn shame because she loves this sound.
-
It is a hard lesson to learn but Dick Grayson has learned it again and again.
You fail far more times than you succeed, and you can do everything right and still be in the wrong. Dick has every intention to save the world, and he does (time and time and time again). But good innocent people still die.
When Batgirl’s distress signal lights up for him, he doesn’t quite anticipate that this is what he would find.
“Are you planning to stay?” Batgirl asks while the sole of his boots hit the roof top tiles without a sound.
He doesn’t think he should recognize who is standing there between him and Babs when all he sees is the man’s back, except he does. His stomach knots into something painful because that is Red Hood down to that very last loose thread on his well-worn jacket, but he knows that voice too.
“Only if you’ll have me.”
It is Jason who says.
-
Barbara misses a great deal of things, this is most definitely one of them.
“Little wing, that’s a plural you right?”
The sharp tense line of Jason’s back pulls taut at Nightwing’s intrusion but maybe it is simply what his question implies that has fear rooting him in his place, there between them. Dick knows he is not above pleading, and it shows. He crowds him until all Jason knows is his body pressed along his back and hers against his front.
There is no hold that keeps him in place, but Jason isn’t moving away.
“Stay for good.”
To hear that nickname again, she thinks she is almost seeing the flashes of Robin’s colours in her peripherals. To reach out and touch, her glove lands on the bright red bat of Jason’s chest.
“No promises.” He tells them, whisper soft, his mouth opening against hers, his hand reaching back to grasp at the black of the Nightwing uniform with need.
“That’s okay, I’m sure we can convince you, Jay.”
-
Her legs are tangled with Dick’s, her hair is a splay of red against the pillow she is sharing with Jason. Even with a world of damage across their bodies, the autopsy scar is what stands out in sharp relief every time.
“If it matters at all, one, I’m still legally dead.” Jason starts off easy, slow like he is talking about the weather and not his adventures six feet under, ignoring the low groan Dick lets out from the other side of the bed. “So, I’m pretty sure the whole adoption doesn’t really stand anymore. Two, I don’t think the two of you were ever really not together even if you weren’t together.”
There are some fair points to his technicalities. Jason thinks he is helping but he isn’t quite so sure he wants to be when he gets to see the way Dick frowns with a furrow between his brows as he turns over to face them.
She sees it too, and like most things, it is a very good look on him.
“You two are the absolute worst at pillow talk.”
Jason props his head up with a hand and turns his body just enough to grin right back. Babs turns too, lets Jason pull her against his chest so they are both facing Dick. Her mouth curling into the sweetest smile when she settles her head against Jason’s shoulder to say.
“Well then, wonder boy, aren’t you glad we’re not here to talk?”
When Jason laughs, the sound reverberates through Barbara to reach Dick, and it’s still a damn good sound.
