Title: Missed Exit Signs
Characters/Pairings: Jason Todd (with lots of characters and multiple pairings)
Notes: I found a 153-count, one-word prompt list and decided to give it a try to get some creativity flowing. Most of the sentences are unrelated and detail different times/events. Word of warning: I play it fast and loose concerning the nature of the Bat-family relationships.
Missed Exit Signs
Prompts 1-20
001. Bullet
Jason Todd has a single bullet hidden, tucked in his jacket pocket — for Batman, he vows — but he's looked down the barrel of his own gun a few too many times to fool himself.
002. Lesson
When Barbara Gordon beats him halfway into next week with those damn eskrima sticks Dickie-bird usually carries around, all while in her wheelchair, well, that's one lesson Jason doesn't forget.
003. Wind
It blows in through the cracked window in his rundown apartment — the stale smell of cigarette smoke, sewer fumes, musky sweat and body odor, the warm-heavy stench of trash bags in the sun, brackish water and the eye-watering aroma of rotten fish from the docks — the worst (best) parts of Gotham that Jason knows like the back of his hand.
004. Resurface
Dick Grayson calls his old cellphone the entire night after figuring it out, after figuring out the identity of Red Hood, but Jason pretends not to hear it ring because he's not ready to resurface just yet.
005. Winter
Every winter solstice, Alfred Pennyworth leaves a scarf draped over Jason's gravestone.
006. Cruelty
He thrilled at the crack of Batman's rib under his fist and the sight of blood dripping down the older man's face, but the greatest cruelty was the fact that Batman kept forgiving Jason.
007. Uncle
When he finds out about Dick and Barbara, he fights back any disbelief and instead says, "Don't forget to wrap it, Boy Wonder, because I'm not ready to be an uncle."
008. Happiest
It was such a stupid thing, but the happiest moment of Jason's life was sitting on Spring Bridge with the sunrise to his back, Barbara leaning against him, and just a small reminder of who he wasn't before he went back to Roy Harper and Koriand'r.
009. Bunting
"I'm not bunting for you," Jason spits out at Dick's suggestion that he distract the bank robber so Dick can take him down — and later Dick tries not to roll his eyes when Jason shouts "homerun" after knocking the robber out with a baseball bat.
010. Stalked
"I don't appreciate being stalked, kid," Jason says, 63 years old and retired — definitely too old for this shit — when some tech-head from Brooklyn with a batsuit shows up on his doorstep and tells him Nightwing sent him to get information on the Joker.
011. Immortality
When the Joker reemerges months after the warehouse explosion that almost-but-didn't kill Jason a second time, Jason is convinced that there's no human left in that walking monster — that he had to sell his soul to the devil or something because there was no other explanation for his apparent immortality.
012. College
He pretends he doesn't care but he can't help but feel relieved and proud and happy when Barbara leaves for college — at least she had enough sense to get out of the Bat-game while she could.
013. Sauna
Roy and Koriand'r decided to surprise Jason with a sauna vacation — and by surprise, that is, Kori drags him bodily as Roy follows laughing his ass off at Jason's cursing and futile struggle.
014. Carnivore
"Sorry, babe, I'm a bit of a carnivore," Jason quips, and Poison Ivy is decidedly unamused.
015. Clutch
He usually boosts vehicles with manual transmissions because he always liked the snag of the clutch when he shifts gears, but he finds he doesn't miss it too much when he's zooming down the streets of Gotham in a hotwired Batmobile.
016. Wednesday
He sneaks down the hallway feeling like the shadows are following him and ducks through a doorway but before he can make it across the room, two figures bear down on him, tripping him headfirst into the basket of clothes in his arms, which makes him realize — as Barbara somehow manages to incapacitate Dick with the same wire currently wrapped around Jason's ankles and then cheerfully dump her dirty clothes into the washing machine — that Laundry Wednesdays were the worst.
017. Cavity
As much as he hates Batman for everything, he can't bring himself to just walk away because who he used to be, what he used to be, that's all still there, just a cavity near his heart that won't go away.
018. Engaged
She doesn't bring attention to it or shove it in his face, but he notices the glint of light off the diamond as she raises her hand to keep her hair from blowing into her face as Jason steps on the accelerator.
019. Saint
He's no saint, that goes without saying, and he doesn't exactly hold Dick in the best regards but his conscience still nags him as he leans across to the passenger seat and kisses a stunned and newly engaged Barbara.
020. Sinner
And as quickly as he pulls away, he realizes what sort of damage he's done because Barbara had always been the best of all them — Jason, Dick, and especially Bruce — and here he was trying to make her as much a sinner as he was; he's glad when she gets out of the car and storms away.
Author's Notes: Well, this was part one (also known as the mostly Jason/Barbara section). The second part will see a different relationship form.