Once Upon a Time 22
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So I’ve had this in my drafts a while. Oops.
Some quick FAQs:
* this isn’t on ao3. Yet. It won’t be until it’s finished enough for me to be happy with the story. This is essentially proof of concept/rough drafting. Characterization is still an ongoing issue with this imo and I wanna do these boys and their families justice
* there isn’t a master post as this is currently the only ongoing fic I’m posting here, but the most recent chapter will be pinned to my blog like a master post would be.
And a final note: I love love love seeing comments, likes and reblogs! Even if you’re keysmashing at me, it keeps the dopamine flowing and reminds me this thing exists
Without further ado, chapter 22 (hey that rhymed!)
All in all, for a patrol that started suddenly and sort of pear shaped, Jason considered this one of his more successful Bat-reunions.
His guys had been, unbeknownst to Bruce, working an arms deal with Penguin. Then when his guys were on the way to the meet, Sionis got involved, bringing Bruce lurking and blowing his deal to shit.
He got his guys out, which was the important part. He played ‘good son’ for Bruce, even though he was pissed Bruce let his rogue blow the deal. He only got a couple bruises out of the deal, and nowhere near the ones that were blooming from his little match with Danny. During Bruce’s rooftop debrief - since Jason was not going all the way across the city to go to the cave - Jason set his helmet at his feet, domino still firmly in place, and pulled out his phone. It was technically his civilian number but also had things push through to his work one, just in case.
He saw Danny’s texts and only barely kept from a fully amused smirk at the way he could almost hear the man’s flustered voice over the emoticon mixup.
“Something funny, Hood?” The gruff voice of Batman, just different enough from Bruce’s baseline that it used to scare him as a kid, interrupting his reply.
“Plenty.” He was intentionally being unhelpful. His conversations with Danny weren’t Bruce’s business. Bruce cleared him from the possibility of being a rogue with his current Intel, and while that could change, they both knew it would take something extreme and significant for Danny to go to the side of evil.
“Such as?” Okay. Bruce wanted to do this then.
“Such as you couldn’t keep your rogue in check with four of you and the best eyes in the skies short of a loyal AI, and it compromised my op as a result meaning I had no choice but to get involved, cutting my night off short. So yeah. It’s funny that I had to come in and save your asses.”
“I was not aware of your “op”. You should have run it by me.” Bruce’s words brought the pit flaring to life in a way it hadn’t for a while, flooding him with barely contained rage.
Jason grit his teeth. “No. I shouldn’t have. I’m not your pawn. Not anymore. I’m not a bat or a bird. I have the alley. Those people are my number one priority. The only reason I help you at all is for them. Stop fucking with my shit.”
“If I knew about your plans then maybe I-“
“Maybe nothing B. If you knew you’d sit there on your perch, with that holier than thou attitude and judge the shit out of me and my plans. Telling me it’s too violent. Too dangerous. Not what we do. But there is no “we” anymore and you keep forgetting that. I’m, at best, an independent contractor. Someone you call in when shit goes sideways.”
Before either of them could say more things they’d possibly regret later and add to the pile of things they never talked about again, Jason grabbed his helmet, slid it back on, and flipped Batman the bird before hopping off the roof. It wasn’t as graceful a landing as Dick would have made and he certainly didn’t take the precautions he should have with landing but nothing was broken and it was silent until he started his motorcycle, revving it as loudly and obnoxiously as possible as a final ‘fuck you’, then driving away with a roar.
He drove for five minutes, maybe ten, aimlessly before he stopped and pulled his phone out. He reread the text he started to send to Danny and sighed, finishing it.
To Danny: glad you’re safe
To Danny: no stitches for me tonight, don’t worry.
Jason put his phone away and had just started his bike back up when the text tone for Danny sounded back. He pulled the phone back out of his pocket to check.
From Danny: Are stitches after patrol normal????
He could almost feel the distress caused by the admission that he was, in fact, fine.
To Danny: not usually. But I’m not bleeding, there’s no broken bones, and I’m not concussed so really, I’m fine.
There wasn’t another ping so Jason put the phone away again and resumed driving. It wasn’t long until he found his way to Danny’s building. He hadn’t intended to, but now that he was here he may as well check in on him. But not directly. He didn’t want to seem…. Weird and overbearing.
Danny just probably fell asleep in the middle of talking.
He effortlessly scaled the building across from Danny’s window and parked himself in a shadow a floor up. Danny had a curtain over the window, but it was thin and did little to hide light or movement. Maybe it was just an altered sheet? Either way. He wasn’t actively spying. Just…. Being near?
That wasn’t weird was it? Sitting in a shadow across the alley and a floor up, looking up at the starless night sky and making sure that his own rage wasn’t going to strangle the next person that looked at him funny.
He wasn’t sure how long exactly he was there for, he just knew it hadn’t been more than half an hour when the window opened and Danny’s head and upper body popped out, squinting into the darkness.
“I can feel you brooding out there, why not come on in hm?” Jason could tell that even if Danny had a vague idea where he was he wasn’t completely certain. Or he was being nice and pretending. Jason stood and intentionally clattered the heel of his boot onto the metal grate he was sitting on and he watched Danny’s eyes lock onto his position with a certainty that hadn’t been there before. “I’ll meet you downstairs to let you in.”
“No need. Just back up.” Danny nodded and took a couple steps back. Dick would have swan dove through the window, somersaulted and rolled onto his feet. Jason was nowhere near that fancy. He just jumped, no running start, and caught the window ledge. Danny rushed forward and grabbed his jacket, pulling him in with that deceptive strength of his, although it wasn’t needed.
“Ancients, what the hell?!” Danny asked once the window is closed and the sheet-curtain back in its proper place. “Jumping like that? Are you crazy?”
Danny reached for his helmet and Jason closed his fingers around the slim wrists, bringing the hands to a halt instantly, with minimal effort.
“I have it rigged to explode if someone not in the system tries to take it off.” Jason watched Danny’s face slowly become concerned as his muscles locked into rigidity. He pulled the helmet off himself and deactivated the explosive mechanism, then set it on the floor next to him. “Stop looking at me like that. I’m not…. Fragile.”
“No, but you still deserve care. Anything else in your suit rigged to explode if I help you with some of the layers?” Jason shook his head, and Danny was reaching for him again, fingers skating cool lines across his cheeks before finding the edge of the domino. “May I?”
“I have some solvent in my jacket.”
“No need.” Jason felt something…. Weird. Not bad or good weird, just…. Weird. The adhesive solvent usually was warm and almost itchy, but with Danny’s fingers it wasn’t. Just the simple peeling away of the mask, no residue left on his skin, no alcohol smell, just a soft smile and “there you are.” Before he handed the fabric back to Jason. “Now sit and I’ll make you some tea, or would you rather I warm up the coffee?”
“Coffee,” Jason obediently sat, “please.” He added after a beat, looking around at the….mechanical graveyard that had taken over Danny’s living room. Danny puttered for a moment before turning to say something and pausing when he saw the spread of circuitry on a sheet that had Jason’s attention.
“Oh. Yeah. Well. I’ve been collecting old tech in my free time and I think I finally found the last piece that has something that might work.” The coffee maker beeped, signaling it was finished enough to drink and Danny poured them each a mug, tailoring them to each of their tastes without thinking.
Danny handed Jason his carefully, before plopping down on the floor near his technology graveyard. “I know I’m retired, but the lack of ambient ecto in a city like this is concerning. And I mean I fixed the Fenton Finder and the Spectral Storm Seeker, so building a modified one from scratch with odds and ends shouldn’t be too hard.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“An ecto seeking device? Not on its own or in the hands of someone who doesn’t know what they’re looking at. Its whole job will be to find where the ecto is stuck. Like a metal detector. For ghost goo.” Danny opened a radio with a screwdriver and swiftly disassembled it into a variety of pieces that he sorted into piles.
It went on like this for a while, Danny rambling on about this piece or that, and the benefits and detractors of ‘reappropriating and recycling’ various circuitry against buying new. While Danny talked and continued to take apart electronics and add the pieces to different piles, Jason found the tightness that Bruce had wound into him slowly dissipating. Once it was fully gone, Danny changed topics.
“Wanna tell me what had you skulking outside my window at two in the morning?”
“Nothing important. B is just an asshole sometimes. I don’t even know why it got under my skin the way it did.”
Danny nodded and held something up to the light for a minute, examining it. “You ever see those articles where the eight week old kitten is trying to care for three week old kittens?” What the fuck kind of non sequitur…? Danny didn’t wait for a real answer, and forged ahead. “That’s kind of what’s happening here. Even though I’ve been a halfa for almost a decade at this point, in ghost terms I’m a baby. But you are even more of a baby ghost. And to work on stabilizing your core, it takes a lot of ecto. Which would be fine if Gotham didn’t have something slurping all the ambient ecto up, I was fully formed myself or I could bop between the realms to recharge. Of those three things making it difficult for us, the first one might be easier to fix. Your emotions are a bit haywire because of your core not having enough ecto to stabilize. We had been scraping by just fine, until I got kidnapped. Trying to burn that whatever out of my system used up a lot of what I had, so I haven’t been able to funnel you as much.”
Jason’s blood ran cold. Had Danny been over exerting himself? Putting himself in danger? Just to help him? Fuck. He needed to-
“Don’t give me that look.” Danny looked over at him now, cutting through his thoughts while looking almost amused. “You haven’t done anything wrong. You aren’t hurting me.”
“You sure?” He had to be sure. Danny was the first person he had liked, genuinely, as both a crime lord and civilian, since he came back. He didn’t want to be the reason it all fell to shit.
“Positive. If I was stretched too thin I would not have been able to kick your ass earlier tonight.” The amused look turned cocky and he winked, causing Jason to scowl in an attempt to fight down the flush that wanted to rise to his cheeks. “Really, don’t worry too much. Any updates on the mystery sedative?” Danny put down the screwdriver he was holding, carefully sliding it back into the set. Then, Jason suddenly had Danny’s undivided attention.
“Well, not much. It was a new formulation and way too strong. If anyone else had been taken and shot up with that, they would have been dead within minutes.”
“Thank the ancients for small miracles.” Danny flopped his upper body backwards, thumping his shoulders and head against the wall. “Not surprising it burned through so much ecto then.”
And so the rest of the night went. Danny drinking coffee, taking apart electronics and talking about whatever popped into his brain, and Jason, drinking less coffee and letting Danny’s words wash over him in relative silence. The last thing he remembered was the faintest stirrings of dawn before he fell asleep on the couch.
