Disclaimer: Set in the Batman Under the Red Hood-verse. Beyond that I don't pretend to know anything about Jason or any other DC character. Also, this fic is set before, during, and after the movie with references to but no actual rewriting of the movie scenes. And I'm bending the flow of time as I please. ^^
Because Jason needs as much love as he'll accept:
When Revenge Meets Vengeance
"Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged."
-Samuel Johnson
By the time he happens on them, it's over. Jason takes in the scene with more objectivity than most people could pull off. There's blood everywhere. It's covering her hands, soaking through what's left of her clothes, and trailing down her cheeks like tears. But she is mostly unharmed. Aside from the black eye starting to form over her right eye, he can only spot a few cuts and small bruises. And she still has her underclothes on and untouched.
The perp on the other hand is a mess. Or rather, parts of him are a mess. The parts that aren't where they should be. The man is slumped on the ground in a heap, knife in hand. His heart lays a foot or so away, and Jason is pretty sure that's his brain on the other side of the room. There's blood congealing in his mouth and trails of it leading from his body to his lost organs. But despite all the blood, there are no gaping holes in his body, no sign of of his organs being ripped out as they must have been, because there they are, leaking body fluids all over the floor for the world to see.
When Jason lands lightly on the ground, the girl's head snaps up to look at him. Her eyes widen in terror and she stands, swaying slightly as she does. Her jeans are in pieces at her feet and her shirt has been ripped open, but she makes no move to cover herself. She just stands there and glares at him.
"You can't hurt me," she tells him, her voice unconvincing, "So why don't you just go away?"
He doesn't say anything for a few heartbeats. He hasn't decided what to do, because he might not be a good guy, but he's not on par with the now-dead dirtbag either. And it's obvious that this girl needs a hand, regardless of the fact that she can rip a man's insides out. The long-dead Robin in him rears its annoying head.
She shifts uneasily in response to his silence. "What do you want?" she asks, her voice raw with fear and trauma. "Trying to r-rape me didn't work out so good for the first guy," Jason notices that she refuses to look at the dead body, "So what do you want, Hood?"
He walks forward, watching her subtle swaying and trembling. She takes a few unsteady steps backwards, but he closes the distance nonetheless. Jason's timing is, as always, perfect. He reaches her just in time to catch her when her legs give out.
"I'll kill you," she says, and the fear in her voice isn't only for herself, but for him as well. Which is confusing.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he says.
She swallows hard, staring up at his masked face. "Then what the hell are you going to do with me?" she asks.
He shifts her in his arms, carrying her bridal style and heading for the door. He's getting the guy's blood on his clothes, but he doesn't really care. "I'm gonna take you home," he replies after a few moments of thought. He feels a pathetic need to prove to himself that he isn't just another criminal. Especially since he's planning to be just that for a while.
"No!" the word is violent as she shouts it and starts to struggle in his arms.
"Easy," Jason growls as she knocks him upside the head, "If ya don't wanna go home, where do ya wanna go? The hospital? A friend's house?" He's beginning to wonder just what the hell he's gotten himself into.
"Just-just put me down," she says, moving in attempt to get down, "I'll figure something out."
Jason, being Jason, doesn't do as she asks. He tightens his grip on her and heads towards his bike.
"W-what are you doing?" she demands, panicking, "Where are we going?"
"My place." He feels her tense, hears the quick intake of breath, and realizes where her thoughts must have jumped to. But before he can correct her she says, "I'll scream."
He chuckles. "And who will come?" he asks, "Who will save you from the big bad Red Hood?" He feels her start to shake. Not the I-was-almost-raped-just-now-and-I'm-still-terrified kind of shaking, but more like an I'm-about-to-go-all-werewolf-on-your-ass kind of shaking. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that she's about to do to him whatever she did to the dirtbag in the abandoned warehouse they just left.
"Chill," he says, pretending he isn't mildly intimidated by her power, "I'm not gonna hurt you."
He sets her down beside his motorcycle. He gets on, then just looks at her. "My place is shitty as hell," he tells her, "but the hot water works and you can take some of my clothes if you want."
She stands there deliberating, and Jason has to force himself to be patient.
She doesn't say anything as she slides onto the bike behind him, but her arms are unhesitating as they slip around his waist and hold on tight. He guns the engine and heads home, trying to ignore the feeling of her pressed against him.
When they come to a stop, six floors up in an abandoned building a few blocks from his apartment, she doesn't pull away.
"Hey," he says, shifting, trying to give her a hint. She's clinging to him so tightly that he feels the deep breath she takes before she lets go. She slides off the bike, still looking as if she's about to fall over, and takes a look around. He can see the question on her face.
"Wouldn't want people to know where I really live, now would I?" he says by way of explanation.
The girl nods slowly. "So what's the price for me knowing?" she asks, staring at him unflinchingly.
He chuckles and pulls a strip of cloth from one of his many pockets. "Who said you get to know?" he asks.
She lets him tie the blindfold on, her clenched fists the only sign of her discomfort.
"This might be scary," Jason warns as he picks her up again. She nods and wraps her arms around his neck as he starts running. To her credit, she doesn't scream when he jumps out of the window.
"This place is pretty bad," she says when he pulls the blindfold off. She observes his apartment with the understanding condescension of a lower-middle class citizen. He doesn't mind. He knows the place sucks, but anything better would be harder to be inconspicuous in.
"Bathroom's in here," he says, leading her into the only bedroom in the place. He doesn't have to watch her to know that she's being careful to stay just out of his reach, and as far from the bed as she can. He pulls a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt from the bureau and tosses them to her. "Should be an extra towel under the sink." he says, jerking a thumb towards the bathroom door, "I'll be back soon."
"Where are you going?" she asks. He doesn't miss the suspicion in her voice.
"Somebody's got to clean up the body," he replies with a shrug.
She's silent as he leaves the apartment the way they came in.
o0o0o0o
He's back sooner than she counts on, so he hears the sobs only half covered by the sound of the shower. He doesn't wait for her to come out so he can comfort her. He didn't sign up for that kind of shit. Instead he turns right back around and climbs back out the window, waits until a few moments after she leaves the bathroom, then climbs inside again.
She's toweling her hair, looking deceptively calm. He stares at her for the few moments before she takes the towel off her head and looks up at him. His clothes swamp her body, concealing all the curves he felt on the bike earlier. She's average height and build for a girl and she isn't the prettiest thing he's ever seen, but she's not ugly either. When she looks up at him, he realizes that it's her eyes that would do a guy in. She's got these gray eyes, and even with the black eye it feels like he's being sucked in, body and soul. They make him imagine things he definitely shouldn't, especially after what almost just happened to her. "So" he says, shaking himself from his thoughts, "Ready to go home?"
The place where she tells him to drop her off isn't where she lives, he can tell. She still doesn't trust him, but that's fine. He doesn't really give a shit. He's ready to be done playing boy scout.
"I-uh-" she says as she gets off the bike and stands beside it. She's looking anywhere but at him.
"Be careful, huh blondie?" he says, and rolls his eyes behind his mask. He might as well go around telling kids to not do drugs and shit. This whole thing is way too Robin for his liking.
"I-" she still can't seem to say whatever it is she wants to say. Jason's ready to just leave her standing there, but then she flings her arms around his neck. She's hugging him of all things. He stiffens and doesn't return the hug, but she doesn't seem to mind.
"Thank you," she says softly, and her voice is thick like she's about to start crying again. She holds on a moment longer, then draws back slowly, her hands trailing down his neck, shoulders, and arms. He should be pissed, because innocent-looking girls do not caress men feared throughout the city for being merciless murderers, even ones that help them out; so this doesn't say much for his reputation. But he's too busy being annoyed with himself for liking it, so he merely nods at her before speeding off. He can see her in his right side mirror for a few seconds before he turns. She's waving him off.
o0o0o0o
Two days later he pulls into his makeshift parking lot to find a couple cans of paint where he normally parks his bike. According to the dots of paint on the tops, the paint is a neutral shade of light green. There's a note taped to one that says "Your apartment might not be so bad if it didn't look like someone threw up on the walls. No offense." It shouldn't, but the note makes him smile slightly.
He should be pissed that his "parking lot" has been compromised, but he can't find it in himself to be mad at the girl. It's his fault for bringing her there anyway. He shouldn't have assumed she'd be too freaked out to notice her surroundings.
He checks the security cameras he's set up around the building and is satisfied to see that she came alone, dropped off the paint, and left again. She didn't plant any cameras, or rat him out. As far as he can tell. He'll still switch up his parking spot to be sure, but he isn't too worried.
o0o0o0o
The paint cans sit in the middle of his apartment for several says, unopened. He tells himself that it's because he doesn't have time and why the hell would he paint an apartment he might not be living in a month from now? But he knows it's really because he's pretending to be too badass for something as mundane as painting walls. Her note sits on his counter for the same amount of time. He sees it every time he gets something from the fridge. It makes him feel a little less shitty about his life every time.
Finally he gives in and opens the cans, and then he realizes that he needs paint rollers and a whole bunch of other shit he doesn't have. It's with no small amount of annoyance that he heads out into the daylight. It's one of the rare occasions of him walking the streets of Gotham without the Red Hood persona, and if he meets someone that recognizes him, he knows who to blame.
o0o0o0o
For about two seconds he thinks, irrationally, that she's planned this whole thing, because what are the odds of meeting her on the busy streets of Gotham? Yet there she is, sitting outside a cafe next to the hardware store, right eye curiously lacking the black eye that should have been there. Her presence is too crazy to be coincidence, right?
But when she glances up, there's no recognition in her eyes. She doesn't know who he is then. Amusingly enough however, she does look him over with obvious approval in her eyes before turning her attention back to her friends. He uses the red light as an excuse to observe her. She's sitting with four other girls, drinking over-priced coffee and laughing like she hasn't a care in the world. He wonders if she told any of these girls that she was nearly raped a week ago. Somehow he doubts it. They don't look like the kind of girls she would be friends with. They look like a group of politically correct Barbie dolls, and she's the ugly duckling. Yet she looks like she's having a good time. It's kind of sickening actually, how normal she looks. He can't help the look of disapproval that makes its way onto his face as he crosses the street and walks past them toward the hardware store.
"I thought I was totally gonna lose it," one girl is saying when Jason walks past, "I mean, who does he think he is, asking me that?"
Jason can't help it, he looks at her again. He wants to see if she's actually interested in this girl's story. It seems that she is. She's nodding and laughing along with the others. It's pathetic. Jason shakes his head as he walks into the store. Pathetic.
o0o0o0o
Except that she isn't. Jason didn't notice it at first, but when he finally does, he actually laughs aloud. Within two days of her almost-rape, police reports began coming in regarding the disappearances of attempted rapists. In a week the number of rapes in Gotham is cut in half. The would-be victims all report the brief appearance of a female, covered head to toe in black, then the sudden disappearance of the perp. Some report that they could hear the perp's screams for a few seconds before they ran for it. One victim calls her mysterious savior "Lady Vengeance" and the name sticks.
Most of the perps reappear a day or so after their abductions, alive but damaged somehow. Jason is impressed. He didn't think she'd have it in her. It's only after a few complaints from his new underlings that he realizes that she poses a problem for him. He told them that he'd protect them in return for a cut of their takings, and he isn't holding up on his end of the deal. Several guys come in with complaints of not being able to feel different parts of their bodies. Important parts. So Jason tells them that he'll have a word with Lady Vengeance.