#moving along ff

[babydipper]

“How did you know how to do it?”

“Do what?”

“Stitch me up.”

“It's just sewing.”

“And the IV?”

Jazz’s mouth opens, then closes as she also closes her eyes. He lets her think about the answer, a good enough lie. “A friend had a doctor phase a few years ago. We would try to do a lot of things on fake skin before she moved on to tattooing.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I am telling the truth. Look, I had- I had a weird childhood, so sometimes I had to improvise.”

“No, I believe you,” he says, and he means it. It's so stupid she couldn't make it up. There's also a part of his still light-headed brain that can translate weird childhood and improvise into what it truly means. Maybe she has lied, but not about the thing he thought she would, and it counts for something. The wind on the roof gives him shivers. “Why would you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Help me out. It's none of your business.”

Jazz watches him attentively and there's something about it that makes his muscles tense, body fully ready to jump. She tilts her head just slightly. “We live together,” she points out as if it explains everything. As always, it doesn't. Then she bites her lip. “I- I have never had anyone to catch me if I fall. I guessed you don't have anyone like this either.”

It hits him harder than the fucking bullet last night. “You think I would catch you.”

Jazz smiles and it's full of mischief. Then, like a fucking psycho she is, she leans back out the edge of the building.

He has her arm in an iron grip before he can think about it and pulls so hard, she stumbles forward and falls onto him, laughing, bouncing back like a tennis ball. “Are you fucking insane?”

Jazz just laughs harder, her forehead on Jason's chest, her arm still firmly kept in his hand. “Now we both know you would catch me.”

“You are so full of shit,” he grumbles, but the vibration on his skin manages to calm his heart back to a rational tempo. “You could have died.” It makes her burst out into a fit of giggles. “I got shot last night, you dipshit, I wouldn't be able to jump after you.” Not to mention the lack of proper equipment.

“Sorry I needed an outlet after literally saving your ass.”

Jason closes his eyes, trying to contain the laughter, “I will push you.” The wound was on his inner thigh, not his ass, so she can fuck right off for all he cares.

“I'd like to see you try,” she bites back. “You should have this checked out, by the way. Are you even vaccinated?”

“No need to.”

“I'll drive,” she gets off him, deaf to anything he says, and starts to climb down.

Jason follows. She doesn't even know the address. “Like hell, you will.” The story on AO3

[babydipper]

they are something else

[babydipper]

something, something, i am insane about them

The door is unlocked when he fumbles with the keys. He raises an eyebrow, but puts them back into the inner pocket of his jacket and enters. There's a lot of noise inside, some music and voices, making his muscles tense. He has never told Jazz not to invite people over, per se, but it should have been obvious.

“Hi! Food's on the counter! I haven't cooked. It's Thai from this place around the corner,” Jazz calls out. He's greeted by her ass in the air, leggings on, but no people whatsoever, when he steps further in. She's on the floor in some weird split, her ankles upstretched on pillows and her upper body put forward. There's a speaker playing something classical somewhere—Giselle, he thinks—and her laptop with a video on in front of her. Empty Thai boxes trash the couch, papers and notes are scattered around the floor. It's a certified mess. He's overstimulated just from looking at it. He doesn’t think she has ever looked so focused.

“It could have been a murderer,” he states, for lack of better things. “You should lock the door.”

She lifts herself and turns to look at him, still in the split. A YouTube advert comes up behind her—something for hair. Hers looks like it has been to the sewers with Red Hood. It’s… deeply amusing. “It was,” she blinks her big eyes at him, eerie, hollow. “It was supposed to be too.”

She offers him a small smile. Apparently, that’s what finally makes him crack. He laughs. A full cackle, head tilted back—something he didn't think he was still capable of making, but is being proved wrong about. He is a murderer. It has never not mattered before. Or maybe it does, but not in the way it always has. Not to her, anyway.

[babydipper]

what I like about writing Jason and Dick is that, to me, they are both these violent beings, but for two different reasons. they are on two different sides of the spectrum.

I think Dick is born violent. I think it's something that comes from his insides. the Narrative gives him opportunities not to succumb to it, but even as a child, he can't. he's not a family man, the way I see him, not exactly. he's charming and sunshiny, but his warmth leaves burns and everyday he fights the rage.

on the other hand, Jason from the day he was born was put by the Narrative into spaces where violence was required and meant survival. he wants family and he wants safety, but all he gets is violence and in the end violence kills him while he's looking for a family and turns him into someone who cannot live without this rage that was Dick's birthright.

so when Jason dies and tim shows up, Dick fills in the role of the older brother Jason needed because maybe if he was there, Jason wouldn't be dead. it's against his nature and its a chore, to be bound like that. at the same time, Jason's new-found rage makes him want to get rid of Tim, which I think is against his nature.

the narrative makes them switch the roles they should have been assigned and that's their tragedy.

that's why when I am adding jazz to this mixture, who's somewhere in between them on the violence spectrum, its gets insanely interesting. she may have rage inside her, but she's a family girl through and through.

I think there's a very interesting dynamic to the three of them and that they can only be growing out of the boxes the narrative locked them in while they work together. otherwise, they are all doomed

[babydipper]

Jason didn't think he would ever wear a comm again, but here he is, fighting some shitheads while answering a phone call. Jazz calls a lot and most of the time, he needs both his hands when she does, so he took the measures needed and put a fucking comm into his mask.

“When are you back?” Jazz asks, the sound of running water soft in the background.

“Why? Miss me?” he pants, sending a thug to a wall and helping another one onto the floor with a precise kick.

He doesn’t have to see her to know she's rolling her eyes. He dodges a blow. “You said you'd be here by eight and it's already quarter to nine. I made dinner, Red.”

It's not like it's his fault people want to use his drugs for human trafficking. If the deal went the way he intended it to go, then he would have been back already. “I can reheat it,” he snaps, irritated, because there's too many men he wants to kill around him now and Jazz is distracting him enough to have some punches land on his body.

She's not impressed. “There's a new episode of The Circle.”

“Okay?” It's not his fucking problem and she's not his fucking responsibility.

“I want to watch it before work today.”

“Have fun?”

Jazz sighs. “Half of the point is to watch it with you.” She has finally finished with the dishes because the water has stopped. Jason trips and almost falls, but manages to land with grace and mask it as a way to dodge a bullet. Jazz promptly ignores the shoot out. “If you tell me you've been watching without me, you're sleeping on the couch.”

Jason chuckles mid kick, a knife in thug's palm. It's a good one. Jazz can be funny sometimes when she doesn't make him want to kill her or himself. “No, I am not,” he goes, even if he is. It's his turn, so she gets the bedroom.

“Stop picking two fights at the same time.”

“Why? Are you going to punish me or something?”

“Oh my god, I am hanging up. You are the absolute worst.” Jason is straight up laughing now, the bubble of green, sticky anger swallowed in the pleasant sensation. “When are you going to be back?”

“Forty minutes, top.”

“Okay. Have fun, be safe,” she goes before hanging up.

And when she does, Jason finally gets out his guns. It would be so fucking useless to talk through the sounds of the bullets.

[babydipper]

quotes from my jasonxjazz extravaganza called "moving along" that make me giggle

[babydipper]

chapter five and we are back to our usual fun (dick might not even have a breakdown in this one!)

[babydipper]

“Hey, you!”

At first, Jason doesn’t turn. What are the chances that someone in the Crime Alley is calling out to him? Okay, fair, rather big, but usually it contains more slurs/threats and at least, his name, so he is fairly sure whoever is screaming their lungs out is doing just that.

“Hey, on the staircase, I am talking to you! It will take just a minute, I promise.”

Or maybe they are not. Finally, Jason turns to look down at his newest headache, swinging his feet. He hasn't got any chances to beat the shit out of anyone yet, so he dare says that this might be his one and not only occasion.

The person, a girl, if Jason was to take a guess, is standing under the fire escape, looking directly at him with her arms crossed. She doesn't seem particularly dangerous, but she also doesn't look particularly scared of him and it's Gotham and looks can be deceiving, so Jason stays where he's sitting and waits for the next developments. Maybe she will be his punching bag, after all.

“What's your name?” she shouts to him again. Well, it makes sense now that she doesn't look moved by him. She must be some fucked up college tourist if a backpack and her clothes tell him anything.

“Red Hood,” he decides to humour her because fuck him if that's not more entertaining than waiting for some dickheads to show up. A nice escape from getting rid of scum. Or a prologue to doing so.

He can't see that well from his beam, but she must roll her eyes before going, “Your real name. Don't you happen to be Todd maybe?”

Jason freezes for a millisecond, and then, “No.”

“The fuck you lying about?” she says, then covers her mouth right after, startled by herself, which is amusing. She has a weird accent, something from outside the state. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to. This is the longest week of my life, trust me, it means something, and I just really need to find this Todd guy and the only lead on him was you, apparently. I was told you are good at finding people, so if you are not Todd, please tell me you know something because, frankly, I will lose my mind soon.”

He jumps down in front of her, but she doesn’t even flinch. She’s tall, but not Jason-tall and from up close he can see deep bags under her eyes. “Sorry,” he says, “can’t do, can’t help. There’s probably a thousand guys named Todd in Gotham.”

“More. I checked.”

Jason raises his eyebrows under the mask. She is unbelievable. And slightly delusional. And desperate. A deadly combination in Gotham, truly. “Why are you looking for him anyway?”

“I owe him a favour.”

“You owe a favour to someone you don’t know?”

“Yes,” she doesn’t falter.

“Look, you are not from here, so I will go easy on you. I am Red Hood. I am a crime lord, not an errand boy. I don’t know shit about this Todd of yours, so admit your defeat and get back to whatever hole you’ve crawled from.”

“Sorry, can’t do,” she deadpans, parroting him. The look she gives him tells him she couldn’t even if she wanted to. “Thank you for your help, anyway. I won’t bother you anymore. Have a nice rest of the night.” Just like this, the tourist girl turns and walks away into the alley, unbothered by the darkness.

Jason closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, gathering the facts.

Firstly. The girl is from outside of Gotham and with Jason’s luck, most certainly looking for him, but that’s TBA.

Secondly. She doesn’t seem outwardly hostile or dangerous, but she has shown no signs of fear during the impromptu face-off with him, so there has to be something more to her, some sort of training or experience. She doesn’t seem like an assassin, but who knows these days?

Thirdly. She’s a girl wandering around Crime Alley alone in the dark.

Fourthly. Keep your friends close, but random girls who know your past self closer and all that.

With facts against his better judgment, Jason calls out after the girl, making her stop and turn under a streetlight, “Hey!” She tilts her head, encouraging him to talk. Her eyes reflect light weirdly. “Do you need a place to crash?”