This is part of a larger continuity of stories. Please consult my profile for the master reading list if you want to read them in order.

Happy commercial-holiday, everyone! Oh, uh, I mean Valentine's Day. Yeah. Right. I will be spending today hanging out in bed with my... laptop. Likely while my boyfriend plays games on his computer across the room, because having a special day where you emphasize your love is ridiculous. That, or I will be out at my local theatre trying to stop people from going inside and seeing 50 Shades. Because I'm still hoping that movie crashes and burns so hard.

Anyway, I have an actual story for this 'holiday' but it's not finished yet (it's more Jason/Roy, of course). So, instead, you get some Jason/Roy fluff because, as I am a genius, this story is actually necessary to understand my Valentine's Day piece. I almost posted something else before remembering that Jason's feels wouldn't make sense without this piece. Gee, wouldn't that have been embarrassing? XD

Anyway, this is a remarkable story in that it has no warnings. Yep, nothing. Nada. The pairing is, naturally, Jason/Roy, with mentions of Dick/Jason and Roy/Kori. Woo! Open relationships! Enjoy!

"What do you mean you've never been on a date?" I ask, incredulously, ducking under the swing of a fist and knifing the alien — flavor of the week — in the side, between armor plates. I turn as it collapses with a dying gurgle, towards my current battle partner. "Seriously?"

Jason puts a bullet into something behind me, as I draw an arrow onto my bow and pull the string tight to repeat the favor for him, and snorts. "Now, Arsenal, really?" I step closer, letting the arrow slice past his head, and flash him a grin. "You just pick the best times for these conversations, you know that right?" He ducks low, under a stray bolt of who-knows-what from could-be-anybody, and spins towards where it came from.

I move in to be at his back — we're working on Jason's whole paranoia thing — and kick another alien away from him, putting an arrow through one of its eyes as it falls back. "Well you always tell me these things in the middle of fights!"

"You ask!" he shouts over his shoulder, and then smacks that same shoulder into mine in a shove. "Watch out!"

I jump forward on automatic, and one of whatever kind of flier the aliens are using comes barreling through the space Jason and I were standing, carving a furrow into the asphalt and exploding in an impressively large fireball a few dozen feet away.

"Fuck!" Jason exclaims as I roll back to my feet, as I turn towards him to see him dragging his helmet off his head and throwing it to the side. He puts a bullet in one alien, off to the side, with some serious resentment and a sneer, and almost idly kicks another away as he drops the clip and reloads.

"You need some better helmets," I call, shooting the one he kicked and leaping across the furrow to be next to him again. "That or stop letting people hit you in the head."

"Oh shut up," he snaps as I approach, aiming his gun past my head and firing it. Only the communication headset in both ears saves me from some serious deafness. I love the Owls sometimes — especially Jason, but now's not the time — for the gadgets they come up with. Earbuds that filter out all harmful noises, and reduce anything deafening to a reasonable level, but don't totally kill our hearing.

Love, seriously.

"You go through like what, one helmet a fight?"

I trust Jason to cover me for a second, aiming up at another flier and pulling one of my explosive arrows onto the string. It goes just where I want it, inside one of the exhaust ports, and I grin and grab Jason by the arm, pulling him behind the edge of the closest building just before the flier explodes. Bits of metal and alien go spinning through the air, embedding into the ground, and I can hear quite a few alien screams of what's gotta be pain.

I grin up at Jason — with just the domino mask over his eyes now — and take the second we're alone to pull in a breath and just enjoy the angles of his face. "Not that I mind."

He snorts and drags me back to him when I start to pull away, his gun hard against my back as he wraps his arm around my waist and lowers his head a little bit to kiss me. It's actually pretty gentle, for Jason, and I grip the back of his neck with my free hand to meet it. The bang of a gunshot isn't really surprising, and since Jason doesn't flinch or pull away I ignore it. Of the two of us, Jason is way more paranoid. If he's not worried, I shouldn't be either. It's probably just him shooting something with the gun in his other hand.

He does pull back after a second, and I make a pleased sound and flash another grin. "When this is over," I tell him, "we're going on a date. It's happening. There will be no argument."

He gives me a comparatively gentle shove backwards and turns both guns farther along the edge of the building. I glance along the length of his arms to find what he's aiming at, and since I'm really, totally, convinced that Jason can handle five aliens that are a hundred feet away on his own, I turn the other direction and fit my back up against his again.

"I'm pretty damn sure I'm not missing out on anything," he points out, and I snort.

"How would you know, Red? Never been on one!" I shoot the pilot off another flier — at the wrong angle for me to nail it with an exploding arrow — and laugh as it crashes head on into one of the skyscrapers around us. Ah, Metropolis is fun. "It's too late anyway, I've decided. No argument, remember?"

"Ship, left!" he calls, and I turn the indicated direction and along his shoulder to aim up at the hulking mass of one of their larger, more dangerous ships. I scan for a second and then loose a normal arrow up through the window of the cockpit, following it up immediately with one of my remaining exploding arrows.

The first shot shatters the window — what morons to not have at least arrow-resistant windows in their ships — and Jason and I take off running as one. I so don't want to be around when that ship hits the ground, which it so will. I watched Oliver take one of these down earlier with the exact same move, it'll go down. I hear the explosion, and Jason pulls me into an alley between two buildings and down the length of it before stopping, leaning against the wall and glancing around the edge.

I laugh when I hear the boom, and feel the rattle, of the ship hitting the ground, and Jason shakes his head. "You'll have to pay," he points out, taking a shot out into the fray on the main street. "Legally dead, remember?"

"Like you don't have at least three fake identities," I say with a snort, leaning against the opposite wall and taking down an alien that's going after the shadow that's Black Talon. It's not like T needs my help, especially since I'm damn sure that Kon's hovering somewhere taking out anyone who looks at his Talon wrong, but better to take out the ones that are a faster danger, right? "And you know, people do take cash payments still, Red. But yeah, sure, I'll pay."

"We'll have to dodge the media too." Another shot, to something I can't see. "Might raise some eyebrows; Star City's favorite son showing up with a dead guy."

Well now Jason's just making excuses. "So we go out somewhere else." I resist the urge to put an arrow in the back of some hero I don't recognize off the bat, shooting down the alien he's struggling with instead. His head whips around, and I offer him a salute from my alley before picking another target. "Dude, let's go to Gotham and just eat in costume. They'd totally be down for that, right?"

"Tell me you're joking," Jason says with a pained glance at me, "we'll get heroes on us in like an hour, maximum." He darts across the alley and flattens himself against the wall next to me, reloading another clip in one of his guns. "This is going to be a long fight, Arsenal, can't we just eat back at base, like normal people?"

"Not unless you get crippled," I pause for a second, glancing sideways at Jason and seeing the considering look on his face, "which is not a suggestion and I will be pissed if you do it on purpose. We're going to go out like normal people, on a date, like we didn't just save the world."

Which is so not our job. We should be killing the idiot heroes, not working with them but, well, when aliens invade the Earth, people tend to put aside their differences to stop them. Even people as bitter as most of my fellow 'villains' and their nemesis heroes.

"Not in Gotham we're not," Jason says flatly, and turns to shoot something coming up the alley behind us. "There is no way in hell I'm risking running into that fucking clown today."

Ah, yeah. The Jokester's here, somewhere, but every time I see even a flash of green I pull Jason the other direction. I'm not chancing ruining his mood if I don't have to, and anything to do with the asshole that killed him is a pretty sure way to do that. There's also the way less not-selfish — because I'm hardly ever selfless — reason that if Jason sees or has to interact with the Jokester, then he's either going to kill him or he's going to try really hard. I definitely don't have the skill to stop him, and if one of us kills a hero this whole fight is going to turn into total, awful, chaos. Right now we're holding the invasion back through a lot of teamwork, but if that goes up in flames?

Yeah, so will we.

I'm not letting Jason anywhere near that bastard, not if I can help it.

"Alright, how about we just find something still standing here then?" I offer, drawing my gun out of the holster at my thigh and slinging my bow over my shoulder. Just to swap weapons for a minute, and not get too low on ammo for any one weapon. "If the heroes don't cut us slack after this that's total bullshit, you know?"

"Cause heroes are always so great about not being hypocritical fucks," Jason snarls, leaning around me and shooting past my side and around the corner.

I knock my shoulder up against his in the moment between his shots, the closest thing to the hug I want to give that I can spare in the middle of a combat zone. At least, with the main invasion force just outside our alley. "Then we'll shoot them," I say, flashing a grin. "If we're paying, just having food, and they decide to mess with us, then screw 'em. They asked to get shot."

Jason gives a smirk that's — considering the stress he's always under in fights like these — practically his version of a laugh, and presses up against my side, one arm hooking around my waist. "You going to defend me?" he asks, sliding a bit behind me, between me and the alley wall. I can feel the jerk of his arm as he fires another shot, and then the press of his lips down against the side of my jaw. "Put an arrow in anyone who fucks with us?"

I turn my head, catching his lips for a second and making a pleased noise. "You betcha, Red," I say with a smile, against his mouth. I press back against him, and reach back with my free hand to slip my fingers into his jeans, past his belt. Just at his hip, not to his crotch. I'm pretty nuts sometimes, but I'm not insane enough to grope him while we're in a combat situation. "I can be your knight in shining armor, darling." He snorts.

"Not a princess," he counters, and I laugh.

"Never said you were, Red. Not gonna lie, the thought of you in a dress just doesn't do it for me." Yeah, I like Jason just the way he is. Unless I want to laugh my ass off — and I'm feeling really suicidal because Jason would hate me for that — I've got no desire to see Jason in a dress of any kind. The guy's not hairless, and he's handsome but not pretty the way Nightingale and Black Talon are. Unless, I guess, he's all done up like a woman. Okay, yeah, that might be pretty damn hot.

I'm not telling him that.

"Arsenal," snaps Nightingale's voice in my ear, through our open channel, and I flinch a little bit and jerk my hand out of Jason's pants.

"Yeah, N?" I answer, and I hear and feel Jason give a muffled snort against my shoulder.

He can laugh all he wants, I never quite got over the time Jason's predecessor ambushed me, beat the shit out of me, and informed me with a smile that if I ever hurt his 'little wing' he'd do a whole lot worse. I've seen that 'whole lot worse' in action before, and I so don't want to be on the other end of it. My lingering fears of Nightingale are healthy, thank you very much. I'm making moves on something that's his, right? Everybody knows that Nightingale has Red Hood wrapped around his fingers, and you'd have to be freaking blind to miss the way they touch and look at each other.

I'm not jealous, really. I've got Kori, and I came second for Jason so it's not like I've got any kind of say about it. I've just started seeing N as — and this comparison will never, ever leave my head because Jason would murder me — Jason's owner, and he lends his toys out but heaven help you if you so much as scratch them while you play. N's the only one who gets to hurt Jason, and I gotta admit, I don't get that part.

I've seen the bruises and the scratches Jason wears sometimes, the ones that can't possibly be from anything but seriously rough sex, and they just look straight out painful. Why the hell does Jason put up with that? Sure, he's clearly got some kind of deep seated loyalty thing for N, and that I get, but that's a lot of pain. I've never known Jason to do or take anything he didn't want to.

"There's a group of the invading force closing on the main fight, on mounts, two blocks to your left. Take Red and wipe them out before they get to the rest of us."

"Understood," Jason says for me, taking a last shot into the fray before sliding out from behind me and taking my arm to pull us both down the alley in the indicated direction.

A second voice breaks into the communication, softer and with a sarcastic edge. Black Talon. "And I know it must be immeasurably difficult, but if the two of you could keep the flirting to a minimum on official channels I would appreciate it. I get enough of that from Nightingale."

I laugh, following Jason as he leads the way. "No problem, T!"

"I hold little hope in your ability to restrain yourself, Arsenal," Jason's replacement drawls, "but I suppose there is always the chance of a miracle."

Jason pulls me to a stop at the edge of the alley, glancing up and down the street, and I pause him for a second to lean in and kiss him with a wide grin. "Later," I promise. "Date, food, and totally sex if we're not beat to hell." Oh, now I have his attention. Someday I'm going to get Jason to appreciate the more romantic, relationship portions of being partners. Beyond the whole fucking bit, as awesome as that is.

"Holding you to that," he comments, darting out of the alley, and I follow as best I can. No shame, I can totally admit that Jason's faster and more agile than I am.

"As I stated," T says dryly.

Jason smirks, and I laugh.

"Oh hell," Jason groans, collapsing into the circular booth, and I follow him down, scooting in beside him. "I am so done with today," he nearly snarls, head flat back against the mediocre cushions of the booth.

I flag down one of the moderately terrified looking waitresses, dropping my bow on the table and unhooking the quiver on my shoulder so I can actually sit back comfortably. I drop that at my feet, under the table, and offer the waitress approaching — looking a bit like she's heading for the executioner — a grin. She gives a tiny little squeak, and I think she might be hyperventilating. Well, good to know we've at least got decent reputations even in Metropolis.

"We're just here for food," I tell her, and reach into my belt — she takes a sharp step backwards with a gasp — to pull out a roll of cash. "Paying and everything, promise. Menus, please?"

She runs off, literally, and I drop the cash on the table and nudge Jason with my shoulder. He makes a disturbed, angry bear noise, and I smirk.

We're both grimy, splattered with blood that's kind of a disturbing blueish color, but more or less unhurt. I've got a gash in my upper left arm from the shrapnel of some exploding ship, and a burn across that same shoulder from getting knocked into some kind of heated metal thing that I honestly don't remember, but it's nothing serious. Jason was a touch more melee than I was, and I think he might have a broken rib or at least a bruised one, but otherwise his armor took pretty much everything. I'm not counting scrapes or minor bruises of course, those are always a thing in big fights like these.

"Come on," I prod, nudging him again. "Food, and then we can head back to the base for showers and sex."

He grumbles, but rolls his head to the side to look at me. "I don't get why we aren't there already," he complains, and he must be tired because the mention of sex doesn't even get a real reaction. "I feel gross— No, scratch that, I am gross, and damnit we could just be eating at base too, you know."

"Fair point," I admit. Yeah, I was expecting a little less grime when we were done. "I'll postpone the whole date thing for later, this doesn't count. But, I'm not down for leftovers or the team's cooking, so we're eating here. Deal, Red."

"You're a bastard," he gripes, and I snort.

"You love me anyway," I point out, and I don't realize what I've said until Jason freezes. It's shock on his face, and I go really still in response because surprised Owls are dangerous Owls. God damn my mouth. "That wasn't what I meant to say," I rush to spit out, "it's just an automatic thing, I'm sorry."

He stays frozen for a second before shaking his head, starting back into action and straightening up a bit out of his sprawl, all his walls back up. Fuck. "It's fine," he says quietly.

"No, it was my stupid mouth. You know I don't actually think about half the shit I say, and you remember our deal right?" Our total fun deal, where if I say something stupid he gets to hit me. How hard, really depends on how badly it pissed him off and/or freaked him out.

He scoffs, and I give a completely mental cheer as he eases up a little bit and leans his shoulder into mine. "Yeah, dumbass, I remember." His voice is sarcastic, and I get the warning of his shoulder shifting a bit before he elbows me sharply in the ribs. It drives the breath out of me, and I fold over onto the table.

"Jesus, fuck," I gasp. "I forget how hard you hit."

I can see him shrug out of the corner of my eye, and relax just a touch further. He's even smirking, which is pretty much worth the bruise I'm going to have. "You offered the deal," he reminds me, "and you keep bringing it up so you must not value your ribs too much."

I drag myself back up — and despite everything I say I'm aching and tired, so that's not easy — and sit back against the cushions, wincing just a little. I flash a bright grin at Jason anyway, and casually burrow my way under his arm to press right up against his side.

"Or maybe I just value you more than my ribs," I say, and I get one of those moments where Jason just stares at me for a second. Like he can't believe that I'd give anything at all to keep him happy, let alone actually get myself hurt for it.

We're working on it. Maybe, someday, Jason will actually believe that he's worth a damn, and that there really are other people who will sacrifice so he doesn't have to. I'm definitely one of them, and I will get that through his thick skull eventually. Just because he thinks he's not worth much doesn't make it true, and you know what? If any of the other Owls reinforced that, at all, to hell with them. Maybe it's suicidal, but I'll totally try and make a stand between him and any other Owl that tries to make him think he's worthless.

He's not. Jason's one of the scariest, deadliest people I've ever had the pleasure to fuck, and I'm with an alien warrior princess pretty regularly.

It might be seriously cheesy, but I wish Jason could see himself the way I see him. I mean god damn, he's the mercenary badass that made a play against the whole Owl-family and nearly came out on top. That takes some serious skill, nevermind everything I've seen him do since he became one of them again. You don't just do things like that, you've gotta have a lot of talent and a lot of commitment. You've pretty much gotta be a badass through and through.

I'm a badass, but I'm not on the same level as any of the Owls. I don't like my chances against any of them, not even the new little one who's taken over the Talon name, but especially Nightingale or Jason. Christ, where does Owlman even find these kids?

"Yeah right," Jason finally deflects, breaking my gaze and looking up past me into the rest of the restaurant. He doesn't seem to mind that his arm is around my shoulders, so I take full advantage to press a little closer.

"What's a few bruises to keep you happy, Red?" I say with a grin, putting in a teasing edge because otherwise I'll make Jason uncomfortable and I just got him to ease back down from the defensive. The defensive I put him on, go me.

I'm just really not great at this whole words thing.

The waitress saves me from shoving my foot any farther into my mouth, easing up to our table like we're snakes she has to stay out of range of and dropping two menus on our table. I lean forward and grab them — she flinches back — and give her one of my practiced heir-to-the-Queen-fortune smiles as I pass the other menu to Jason. It doesn't seem to calm her down any, but at least she's not cringing away.

"I'd like some water, please," I order, and then nudge Jason. He grumbles. "Red, what do you want?"

"Coffee," he grunts past the unfolded menu, clearly with absolutely no patience for anyone not dealing with him on his terms. I get it. "Black."

She scurries off as I wince; just imagining the taste of that is enough to make all my tastebuds curl up and die. "How do you drink that stuff?" I ask, leaning back against him and flipping open my menu. "And what time is it?" I try to only order things in the appropriate time frames, usually. I mean, it's not like they're going to refuse to do it — not while I'm Arsenal and not while I'm Roy — but still, better to not be a dick on purpose.

"4AM-ish," Jason says with a faint air of disgust. Christ, I knew the fight lasted a long time but that's a bit excessive even for an invasion. Usually if they start as early as this one did — 8AM, which means we were fighting for roughly nineteen hours, fuck — they wrap up before it's even dark. "I don't drink coffee for how it tastes. It's not about the flavor, just the caffeine."

"Isn't there something you could be drinking that actually tastes good that has the same caffeine content? Or a pill or something?" There are energy drinks, right? Besides, with all the inventions the Owl-family shows up with you'd think they'd have some kind of absurd cocktail pill for instant energy.

"They don't usually sell those in normal diners, jackass," Jason points out, "and yes, I have pills I could take if I wanted to be up and running for another four hours or so but I really fucking don't. I value my sleep, and I'd like to be firmly enjoying it before that much longer."

"Fair point," I concede, deciding on a simple offering of bacon and a breakfast burger thing that I'm honestly not going to look too close at. "Still down for sex?"

He snorts and his arm tightens around my shoulders for a second. Hot damn, that's almost a hug in the world of Jason. "Let me be clean first, then maybe." And that's not a no.

"I'll take that," I say with a grin, dropping the menu and leaning a bit further back to turn my head and see what page of his menu he's looking at. "You know, I really hope this shit actually washes out. The blood, that is."

"You just had to bring that up, didn't you? I am blaming you if it doesn't, Arsenal. I like this jacket."

I make a teasingly wounded noise, bringing a gloved hand up to press over my heart, and smearing blueish blood between them. Oh, ewww. "Ah, yeah that's gross. Alright, fair enough. If it doesn't, what do you want for the jacket? It's worth like what, a hundred bucks? Two?" If I wasn't so close I probably wouldn't catch the irritated little snarl he gives, barely a breath, but I am so I do. What's that about? "More?" I hazard guessing, and he flips the menu shut and drops it.

"A lot more," he snaps, and I blink behind my mask and pull back from him a bit to look at the dark brown leather jacket. It's sprayed with the blood of the aliens, streaked with dirt and what I think might be ash, and under that it's scuffed and scratched, even stitched together in a place or two.

"No way," I say, disbelieving. "There's no way you'd be wearing a designer leather jacket into combat. You wouldn't, right? It can't be worth more than a few hundred bucks if you're wearing it into fights."

His mouth curls up in a bit of a sneer, and I resist the urge to swallow. So I've stepped in something I probably shouldn't have. Me and my mouth again. "It's worth more to me," he clarifies, "jackass." And he means it so much more this time; ouch.

"Sentimental?" I guess, because what else could it possibly be? He's still gotta be pretty crazy to be wearing something he values into fights, but I guess that could be motivation not to get hit or something? Trying to figure out how Jason's mind is working is either easy as pie, or a task from the depths of hell. There's really no inbetween.

Jason looks at me for a second — and this is one of those times I wish he didn't have the mask on to cover his eyes, because the rest of his face is totally unreadable — before giving a small nod and shifting to stare down at the table. "Yeah," he answers quietly.

I tap my fingers on my leg and tilt my head, just watching him for a couple moments before I lean back into his arm and shoulder. I swap my gaze out to the rest of the restaurant. "I'd like to know why," I offer, "if you don't mind telling me?" One of the easiest ways to stop Jason being defensive is just not to look at him. Weird ticks, but I take the advantages I can get.

He's quiet for a while, as I watch the waitress wander around and basically make coffee from total scratch just to avoid coming over here. That's one of the other things about Jason, you just can't fight him to get him to do things. If he thinks you're demanding, ordering, or otherwise jerking him around he'll dig in his heels and not move an inch come hell or high water. You have to ask, make what you want really plain, and give him the opportunity to choose not to do whatever it is. Otherwise you're just going to get your ass handed to you. You'll never win. At least, I'll never win, I don't know how Jason's stubbornness matches up with the rest of the Owls.

He shoves out a breath that's a little too angry to be a sigh, and I can feel him relax a little bit. "It's mine," he emphasizes. "Not much is mine."

Oh, oh. This is that whole worthless, raised on Gotham's streets thing coming into play again. The jacket is Jason's, therefore he's really possessive about it. He does this with his knife too. I've seen him scour whole battlefields looking for that thing, though to be fair that knife is kind of a work of art, and definitely one of a kind. I don't really know the story behind that thing either, I should ask at some point.

"I'm yours too," I point out, and he snorts.

"You're Kori's," he counters, "being 'mine' is kind of questionable."

Someday he'll figure this out. Someday. Eventually everything will click together in his head — for being an Owl, he's kinda obtuse — and he'll realize that yeah, I really do want the whole package that is him. Anger and paranoia included. And Kori might claim me as hers most days, but she's got some radically different ideas of love and sexuality than most humans. Another guy? Not a problem.

Now, if I wanted to stir the nest, and make Jason think, I'd ask if he can be mine and Nightingale's at the same time. But tonight, I think I'm just going to quit while I'm ahead and not go there. Some other time, sure, when we haven't been fighting aliens for nineteen hours and we're not both seriously gross.

"I can multitask," I say instead, and look up to flash him a grin.

Now, maybe not on both at the same time, but Kori generally takes care of herself more than wanting me to do anything, and Jason doesn't really need tending either. It's more that I think together they might kill me from pure awesome, and I'm not down to die just yet. Plus, one of them is all encompassing enough, I don't even know what I'd do with two.

"Uh-huh," Jason says, mouth curling in one of those smirks that I know means he's about to poke fun at me. "Like that moment earlier where you got me thrown into the edge of that wall?"

"Your rib was not my fault!" I exclaim, and his smirk gets a little wider. "Besides, I shot the guy that did it before he skewered you like he wanted to."

"You were supposed to be watching my back so it wouldn't happen at all." Alright, so it might have been kind of my fault.

An alien got behind me, at Jason's back, and literally picked him up and threw him. He hit the corner of a wall with his side and there went the rib, but he was only down for a second, and he's mostly fine anyway. It's not like a rib is that much. It'll heal just fine, it wasn't one of the really dangerous ribs to break, and we're not even sure it's actually broken, it might just be bruised or cracked.

"If you were really upset you'd be way more obvious about it," I point out, "not mocking me."

He shrugs and pokes at the menus on the table with the hand not wrapped around my shoulders. "Shit happens. It's not like you meant it, and it doesn't hurt that bad. Other Owls have done worse to me in spars."

That doesn't surprise me at all. Not a bit.

"You guys have the weirdest dynamics," I marvel, shaking my head.

Alright, so obviously you've got Owlman. The big bad, the Crime Syndicate founder, the all around badass 'do not fuck with me' guy. Then you've got Nightingale, who's as totally opposite Owlman as I could imagine. Warm, bright, cheery, and with a love of causing pain that's honestly pretty damn scary. Black Talon, the calculated little bastard with the Kryptonian wrapped around his fingers, who just aims everybody's emotions back at them. The current Talon, who is a tiny little demon — I swear to God — and about the nastiest, most arrogant piece of work I've ever met which, considering the people I hang around with, is saying something. Then there's Jason, aka Red Hood, who tried to kill all the rest of the Owls but now he's back with them like nothing ever happened. He's the kind one.

What the fuck?

Jason shrugs, and his voice is void of pretty much everything but matter-of-factness when he says, "They're family."

That does seem to be a thing with the Owls. Say what else you want about them, and their methods, they are viciously loyal to each other. Even Jason, who turned on them, still got welcomed back into their ranks without a thought. I honestly don't know if Oliver would defend me half as nastily as the Owls just act in passing. I don't know if I would do that for him, I don't even know if I'd do it for Kori.

Well, no. I definitely wouldn't. Kori would roast me alive if I dared to try and defend her from anything without it being an obviously deadly threat. She's got this thing about fighting her own battles; I try not to interfere. If someone insults her she'll kill them herself, I don't need to and I really shouldn't do it for her.

Jason? I don't know. He's totally capable of defending himself, and I really don't know how he'd react to me doing the 'defend your honor' thing. Besides, anyone dangerous enough to dare fucking with Jason is probably a little above my paygrade. I take care of the people I like — or I try to — but Jason is… something different. I guess I won't know until it happens.

The door of the restaurant opens before I can come up with an answer to his statement, or some new line of conversation, and I turn my head to look over at it.

"Fantastic," I groan, at the two figures standing in front of the doors as they swing closed, their heads turning to scan the restaurant. "Wanna bet the waitress called them?" I say to Jason, reaching low to unsnap the holster on my gun. I can see Jason's hand slip off the table and down to his thigh, to the knife.

Heroes. One man that seems to be made of some kind of metal, and a woman in golden armor that covers nearly all of her. They just ooze hero, and they're both spotless which means there's no way they were involved in the big fight. Lucky bastards. Or cowards, maybe. Minor leagues too chicken shit to get involved in the war.

The man spots us first, and heads our way, the woman follows a second behind. Jason's lip curls in a sneer, and for the sake of food and maybe just a little bit out of insanity — I promised Jason earlier, didn't I? — I nudge Jason's arm off me and slip out of the booth, flashing a grin back at him.

"I got this." The look he gives me is skeptical, but he doesn't move from his leaning sprawl so I guess he must trust me at least a little. Aw, Jason trusts me. If that's not enough to give me warm and fuzzies even through the blood/slime and exhaustion — boy's got issues about trust — I don't know what possibly could.

Wait, yeah I do. Sleepy Jason.

Sleepy Jason is so damn adorable I always just want to cover him in enough blankets to make him a furnace and keep him all to myself. Granted if I ever tell Jason that I'm going to get a fist to the face and maybe a kick to the balls, but there's a lot of those things. Things I will never, ever say out loud, but I keep fondly in my mind.

I lean against the outside of the booth, letting my hand rest nice and obviously on the holstered — but safety off, and the holster unsnapped for easy access — gun on my thigh. They're close, and the rest of the restaurant is rapidly clearing out or hunkering down, when I hold up my free hand and offer them a smile. It's not Nightingale's kind of smile — the scary as fuck ones — but I like to think it does a decent job of at least showing that I'm not worried. Which I'm not. At all. I could probably kick these two's asses by myself, and I know Jason could. Together, even tired, they don't stand a chance.

I just don't want to right now.

"Alright, look guys," I try, and gold-woman sneers while metal-man stays with that stoic and serious thing.

"You need to leave," gold-woman says, cutting me off before I can get any further in, and my smile tightens a little bit. Alright, so I might have a bit of a thing myself. I don't much like people cutting me off when I'm legitimately trying to talk. Mocking in a battle is one thing, but cutting someone off in a conversation is just rude.

"Not here to cause trouble, honey," I try again, speaking a little quicker this time to get it out before she decides to talk over me again. "In case you missed the whole invasion, that was a thing, and we were there. We're just here for food before we head out, we're even paying and everything. What's the problem with that?"

"You're scaring people," metal-man rumbles and I drop my smile and my free hand.

"Yeah, that's not my problem." They tense, and I offer them a bit of a sharper smile, wrapping my hand around my gun but not pulling it out; yet. "Before you do anything stupid," I caution, "take another look." I raise my free hand to my own chest. "I'm Arsenal, and that," I flick my hand back over my shoulder, towards Jason, "is the Red Hood. He's with Owlman." They flinch nearly as one, and I grin. Yeah, I got no problem name-dropping the big bad Owl to keep heroes off my back. "Now, do you really want to fuck with us when we're not even doing anything? 'Cause I gotta tell you, Red's really in no mood to mess around."

I am really, really sure that if they start anything, Jason's going to fuck them up before I get the chance. That's not a lie after all, Jason really is not in the mood to be antagonized. I just get away with a bit of it because he likes me, otherwise I'd be bleeding more than I already am and in a lot of pain. Jason doesn't take shit from anybody.

They share glances, I brighten my grin and lean a bit to one side to give Jason a clear shot at them, and then metal-man turns away while gold-woman sneers and raises a threatening finger to point at me. "Both of you, out of here within the hour. We see you do anything while you're here, we'll take you in."

I hold back the sarcastic, 'you'll try' that wants to leave my mouth, and only let my grin lower to a smile. "Sure thing," I say instead, and she snorts, lingers for a second, and then follows metal-man over to another booth, halfway across the restaurant. "Dumbasses," I mutter, and slide back into our booth, next to Jason. I flick the safety back on my gun and resnap the holster, relaxing back into the curve of his arm.

To my total surprise I feel Jason's mouth against my temple, and when I turn he catches my mouth with his and makes a small, pleased rumble of sound. Oh that's… Okay. No complaints. Jason-kisses are always good, even if they do taste a little bit like ash and metal right now. Whatever, it happens. It's not nasty tasting so what do I care?

"Was that for something?" I ask, when he pulls back, and his mouth curves in a tiny smirk, arm tightening around my shoulders.

"Knight in shining armor after all," he comments, "having fun?"

Oh, hah. Yes. "Intimidating heroes is always fun," I answer. "Still not interested in you in a dress though, in case that's where your head was going. Thank you gifts and all that."

He stares at me for a second, looking a little stunned, and then his head folds down onto my shoulder and holy shit he's laughing. It's quiet laughter, sure, more like snickers, but it's still laughter.

On one hand, yes, because Jason could use more happiness in his life and I am all down for whatever makes him laugh, but on the other hand it's a little weird. I've seen Jason laugh before, once or twice, but never in straight out amusement like this — there's always this tinge to it of anger, or bitterness, or something else — and definitely never in public. He only ever lets his guard down around the team, and even then only certain members. Like I said, trust issues.

Well, whatever. I got him laughing, I claim victory and I'm so not ruining it now. "I'm still taking you out on a date sometime soon," I comment down at his black hair and shaking shoulders, and over his snickers. "It'll happen, promise."

Jason gives a last snort and straightens up a bit, kissing me again. He might have some blueish blood smeared over his forehead, but I'm definitely not mentioning it. "I'm holding you to that," he says quietly, "moron."

"Deal," I answer, "Jaybird."

There you go! I hope you enjoyed this piece of complete fluff, and know that if I finish this Valentine's Day fiction on time you'll also be getting more fluff, as well as some lovely sex between the two of them. Digital cookies, by the way, to anyone who can name the plot point in this that will come up in the Valentine's piece. It's so obvious.

So, naturally, come stalk me on Tumblr, talk to me, feed me with your lovely reviews! Rawr! Yeah, it's 4AM and I'm tired. Don't judge.