Welcome to day 2! So, the prompt for today was, 'Cigarettes,' and I decided to use it to take a first crack at an idea that's been wandering around my head for awhile. Mute Jason; courtesy of that batarang that Bruce put through his throat, back in the Under the Red Hood storyline. Enjoy!
Warnings for: explicit reference to sex, and reference to past trauma/addiction.
Roy sighs to himself, tapping his fingers against his knees. The metal of the decorative fence circling this rooftop is warm against the side of his head, since he's been leaning against it for a good fifteen minutes now. He's waiting for a target, and this one's work is so all over the place that he doesn't have a set time to make an ambush work. 'Dinner' is a range of a couple hours, with little to no way to tell when it will actually happen. He could get it done faster if he asked one of the Bats to pinpoint it for him, this is their city after all, but he's not real interested in trying to negotiate with the Bats.
Taking problems to them tends to end with getting your problems taken away from you, and he's not as possessive about his jobs as the Bats tend to be, but it is his. He's been working this particular case for months; he's not about to hand it off to someone else just when he's finally tracked down the guy running the whole thing. That would be a hell of a way to ruin the satisfaction of the whole thing.
Still, he kind of wishes he'd brought something to entertain himself. A book, or hell, a cellphone that isn't fifteen percent away from dying. Or something to fiddle with; keep his hands and mind busy. He doesn't do all that great with long waits and boredom; his brain spins too fast for all of that empty time. Oliver used to always scowl at him when he brought things along to stakeouts, but, well, fuck Ollie. He never understood that he multitasks almost better than he focuses (and if there's not something to focus on, that point's kind of moot anyway).
He hums under his breath, watching the alley that his target will come down to get to the restaurant he always eats dinner at. Mob ties inside, or something. Free or at least heavily discounted dinner, he's almost positive. Lucky guy; he'd almost be jealous if it didn't come on the backs of so many fucked up things. Free food is always nice.
There's a slight sound from behind him, the faint crunch of dirt ground into cement, and he grabs his bow from the ground and whips his torso around, reflexes kicking in to draw the arrow and take in a breath, poised to shoot.
A man looks down at him, looking distinctly unimpressed by the arrow pointed more or less at his sternum. Tall, shorter black hair with a vivid white streak at the left side of his forehead, and green-blue eyes, in a face that's on the younger side but sharply defined. Rough, but handsome. Also way too close but standing in a mostly non-threatening posture, hands at his sides, head tilted a bit to one side like he's a curiosity.
"Uh… Hi." Not his smoothest greeting, but considering how his heart is pounding from the shock, he's probably entitled to at least a little bit of speechlessness.
The man quirks an eyebrow, gaze flicking down to the bow and then up again, clearly judging him for his response. That's what it takes for him to realize the man is definitely not a civilian. At first glance he could be, but underneath the brown leather jacket is grey body armor, and the belt around his waist definitely has more pouches than any regular person could ever need. Not to mention the guns strapped to his thighs, and the helmet hanging from his right hand.
No identifiable marks, but he's not reading any kind of violent intent on the guy so he carefully lowers his bow, keeping the arrow nocked but not aiming at the guy.
"Startled me," he admits, as the man moves over and drops down next to the fence as well, sitting back against it like he hasn't got a care in the world. "Don't recognize the armor; who're you with?"
The guy rolls one shoulder in a shrug, reaching into an inner pocket of the jacket — he raises the bow a bit in sharp anticipation — and retrieving a carton of fairly expensive cigarettes. Wordlessly, the guy flicks the lid and holds the carton out towards him, eyebrow arching again in a clear question. He hesitates — 'shouldn't accept treats from strangers' is pretty solid life advice — but finally sets his bow down and takes one of them. The guy gives a little approving nod, and — practiced; he's a smoker — taps the carton sideways, just enough to let one fall out enough to grab.
He watches as the carton is tucked away and a lighter pulled out, and the guy lights the cigarette and then offers him the lighter too. He takes it, almost expecting to get grabbed, and lights his own before tossing the lighter back, underhanded. It's snatched from the air like it's reflex, and it probably is. Armor and gear like that, plus the utter lack of seeing him as a threat? This isn't someone fresh to the job.
"So… You're not part of the League; I'd recognize you." A quiet snort, and the flick of the man's free hand down towards the gun on his closer thigh. "Fair point. Not Titans either, same thing."
That guess gets the man to turn his head sideways and look at him, cigarette between his lips and held by two gloved fingers. He watches, studying the way he sits, the specific construction of his armor. The man's gaze is all too knowing, and when the cigarette is pulled away those lips quirk a bit, parting just enough to let smoke curl out from one corner in thick swirls.
That's a little bizarrely familiar, but he's not sure from where.
He glances down to the alley he's been watching — still empty — and then tilts his head and goes back to studying his new 'friend.' Which is why he catches the returning flicker of eyes away from the alley and to him, and links up a couple pieces in his head. Unless this is just strange happenstance, the guy's here for something, and that 'something' probably isn't to sit next to him and share a smoke. More likely, they're on the same case, and this is the same point of vulnerability in their target's life.
"There's a nasty man about to come through that alley," he says, watching for reaction, feeling out the man's intentions. His gaze is met, steady until he gets a small nod as confirmation. He breathes out, leaning a bit more against the fence. "You're here for him too. Most people don't try and do business in Gotham; whole city is pretty much Bat territory."
The man gives a harsher, louder snort, mouth curling into a derisive little sneer for a moment. He actually snorts out a laugh, which gets him a weird look.
"Sorry," he says, through a small grin. "That's about the same look I get whenever I track a case into Gotham. What control freaks, right? One word about a case and suddenly they just up and take it from you." He gets the flash of a smirk back, which leads him into, "Guess that answers the next guess too; you're definitely not with the Bats. So who are you with then? Team? Solo? You're not actually like, one of Batman's rogues and here for a meeting with this guy, right?"
There's an amused shove of breath, but the guy just shrugs, which isn't really an answer. Just because he hasn't heard of anyone matching this particular description doesn't mean that this guy isn't a villain, and he didn't deny it.
He glances down at the cigarette burning away between his fingers, down near the roof. "These aren't like, poisoned, or explosive or something, right?"
The guy gives him a look, and then takes a pointed, deep drag from his own cigarette. Then, as he holds it, raises an eyebrow and flicks his gaze down towards the cigarette he hasn't actually had any of.
It's his turn to shrug, and then to drum the fingers of his free hand against the outside of his thigh. "I've been clean for a couple years now. Feels good to light it, but I'm not going to have any. Like ordering a drink at a bar and letting it sit, you know?" He winces when the guy's brow draws into a frown, and says, "It's not a big deal, alright? Cigarettes were never really my thing, and—"
The man reaches over, taking the cigarette from between his fingers and then putting it out on the rooftop. He watches as the still-lit cigarette between the guy's lips gets taken and firmly put out too, and then both stubs get discarded through the fence and down towards the street below. He blinks, surprised, as the man turns his head away and blows out the last breath of smoke in the opposite direction.
"You didn't have to do that," he says, quietly, and the man's gaze lowers, shoulders drawing upwards in a small shrug. There's a moment of silence, and then he breathes out and lets himself say, "Thanks."
One hand rises in a sharp movement, palm flat, curling in towards the center of the man's chest. And then he winces, teeth showing for a second and hand instantly dropping again. It takes him a second to recognize the gesture; he hasn't practically studied sign language in a long time but he knows enough of it to understand simple, basic words. Like the equivalent of, 'you're welcome.'
He isn't sure how to respond for a second, as more pieces slot into place and he realizes his companion is actually mute. Probably not deaf, considering his reactions up till now, but more than just choosing to be quiet. The look aimed at him now is defensive, shoulders drawn partially up, mouth in a tight, flat line. Oh, yeah, he recognizes that look. That's the same look he gets whenever he accidentally brings up his past addictions to judgmental people, and he's expecting them to either be disgusted or pitying. Usually they don't disappoint.
He pauses for a moment. Then he lifts one hand, smiling as he signs a simple, 'thanks.' The man's expression is nakedly surprised for a moment, and then his mouth curls in a faint, echoing smile, and he shakes his head and looks away.
"Deaf too?" he asks. Those green-blue eyes flick back towards him, as the man shakes his head. There's a moment of hesitation, and then the man's hand lifts, head turning as he curls fingers underneath the high collar of his armor and tugs it down. "Fuck," he breathes, at the glimpse of the long, vicious looking scar stretching across the left side of his throat. "That looks like the kind of thing people don't usually walk away from."
The man huffs out a breath, but nods. The suit gets tugged back into place.
"Accident?" he asks. Probably shouldn't, but does anyway.
Hesitation, and then the man raises a hand and wiggles it back and forth in the 'sort of' gesture that's evolved far further into culture than just sign language.
That's… an interesting answer. How is a scar like that only sort of an accident? He'd think that either it was a terrible accident, or someone deliberately tried to kill him and almost succeeded. Damage that lasting, deep, and brutal is a difficult thing to do. Vocal cords, or other muscles or nerves necessary to control them, are fairly deep beneath skin and muscle. A blow nasty enough to damage them would have to be very bad. Honestly it's probably a miracle that he survived at all.
"Must have been one nasty son of a bitch," he settles on saying.
The man's head falls back, and he laughs. Almost-silent huffs of air, mouth open and curved into a grin and eyes almost closed, shoulders faintly shaking as if he's told a startlingly funny joke.
He watches for a second, puzzled but entertained, and then says, "There's a story there that I don't know, huh? Sounds funny." The grin is still there, but the man shakes his head, pressing back against the bars of the fence. Courage forges ahead of actual common sense, and he opens his mouth and says, "Want to grab a drink after this? Talk about it?"
The look he gets is sharp; he smiles back.
"I'm not great at sign language; I pretty much just know the basics, but I can definitely read typed words, and I also know how to read lips. Hero skills, you know?" The man looks a bit bewildered, honestly, and he shrugs, ducking his gaze away and taking the opportunity to look down at the alley again. "I've kind of fallen out with… everyone. Things happened — I did things I shouldn't have — and a whole lotta people kind of left me behind because of it. Having a drink with someone who didn't instantly judge me for being an addict once upon a time sounds pretty nice."
There's a complicated little twist of emotion on the guy's face when he looks back, and then the guy's reaching into his jacket, pulling out an old, beat-up looking phone that's still got a manual keyboard. He flicks the keyboard open, thumbs moving rapidly over almost too-small buttons, and then offers it to him.
He looks down, and reads, "I thought you didn't drink?"
Through the grin that curls his mouth, he answers, "Hey, there are drinks other than alcoholic. Magical as that is. So what's your name, stranger? I'm Roy."
Another quick burst of typing. "I know. Jason."
Something clunks into place in his head, painfully slowly. He looks at that name, then up at the man sitting there. "You… Jason? Jason as in— Oh. Nightwing said you—" Another clunk. "You're the Red Hood," he says out loud, as that realization comes around, and then his mind takes it one step further. "You're here to kill this guy."
Jason — the Jason; Jesus, no wonder he snorted at the idea of being in the Teen Titans — meets his gaze steadily, phone held against his thigh. There's a bit of defensiveness to his expression, near the corners of his eyes, but he doesn't actually defend himself from the accusation.
He's heard a bit about the Red Hood from Dick. Scattered things, when Dick's got the time to actually contact him these days, which isn't often. He's heard more gossip from Jade than from Dick, lately. That's partially his own fault too though; he's been distant, even if pretty much no one else is making much of an effort to get him to stop. Blame on both fronts, and he tries real hard these days to admit when he's wrong, and be honest with himself, if no one else.
He taps his fingers against his thigh, and then carefully comments, "I stopped thinking in moral absolutes a while ago. Offer stands, if you want?"
Jason relaxes, and smiles.
Somehow, a drink turns into spending the night in a hotel room, amid tangling sheets and with Jason's pants and soft, breathy noises a uniquely fascinating background to it all. That turns into solid sleep, wrapped in powerful arms, and then to delivered breakfast in the morning. How the wrestling match starts he doesn't remember, but Jason wipes the floor with him and then gives him one of the best blowjobs he's ever had, leaving him boneless on the carpet until he can muster the energy to return the favor.
(Jason's fingers clench in his hair and stroke his scalp in turn, and he never thought it would be so hot to have someone not making sound.)
The hotel room turns into a shared second job halfway around the world, tracking leads and combining resources, and getting the hell away from the two fucked up father figures they leave behind. They work well. Jason's got a hell of a mind, and he seizes onto the challenge of learning sign language so he can fully appreciate and understand everything that comes out of it. Sometimes, they fall back into the same bed instead of different ones, and that seems to work too. Somehow, before they finish that second case, they don't ask for a second bed at all.
It's easy. Jason stands close to him, hand on his back or side, listening as he speaks, and then either rapid-fire signs answers back to him, or types out the more complicated things he can't quite understand. Jason just smiles or smirks at how fast his mind runs, and the ideas that flow through it. There's never anger when Jason wakes up and finds him gone, tinkering with something or another because he just couldn't sleep and had to give into the thought keeping him awake. Jason just touches his back, presses soft kisses to his neck, and makes him coffee.
It occurs to him about seven months into this that they're probably dating.
Since he has very little filter when things spin circles inside his head — Jason's listened to so many rambles about various bits of technology he could probably build something pretty complex himself — he only manages to make it about four hours, till they're breathless and resting from a round of intense sex, before the thought buzzes back into his mind and then directly out of his mouth.
"Are we dating?" he asks, still resting half on top of Jason from where they've resettled, covers thrown back to escape the heat.
He has the forethought to lift his head first, at least, so he catches the little flicker of surprise that crosses Jason's face. The fact that it isn't immediately followed by physical distance and a closed expression means that Jason's not offended or hurt in any way though, so maybe he'd just never thought about it either. He shifts to let Jason slide the arm trapped underneath him away, so both hands can come up and sign a, "What do you mean?"
"Well…" he shifts up onto his elbows, wrapping a leg between Jason's to maintain contact as he frees up his hands to tick things off on his fingers. "We're having regular sex, we're living together, we do almost all our work together, you cook me food pretty regularly, I build you weapons, and there's no money involved in it anywhere unless you count the 'joint banking account' bit. We're totally dating, aren't we? You're my boyfriend, aren't you?"
Jason reaches up, sliding fingers through his hair and tugging him down a bit, until he's close enough that he can hear the faint whisper of, "Partner," that's Jason's only method of actual speech. It comes through the curve of a smile, and before he can really answer he's being pulled into a kiss. That's more than fine.
He kisses back, and then when Jason eases back, he says, "Hold on. I've been working on something, and it's not perfect yet but it's pretty much at testing phase anyway so it'll work. Wait here a second."
Jason lets him go without anything but a bemused look, and he rolls out of bed and heads for his workshop. The project is inside one of his drawers, and under a couple other bits of things because he hasn't worked on it recently, but he still knows just where it is. Consequently, Jason's only moved as far as pushing himself up to lean against the wall at the head of the bed when he gets back. He comes over and climbs back onto it, sitting down in front of Jason, leg pressed to his.
He holds out the metal cylinder, pointing out the button on the side when Jason takes it with a raised eyebrow. "So, this is based on technology that already exists, but it's pretty limited." Jason presses the button down, causing the opposite end to rapidly vibrate with a low buzz, and Jason gives a wicked little smirk in his direction. He rolls his eyes and defends, "It's not a vibrator. Well, technically it is because it does vibrate, but it's not sexual."
Jason shoots him a quizzical look.
"So, there's a tool that some people with damaged vocal cords use to create an artificial vibration, so they can talk." Jason goes very still, staring at him over the tool. "They end up with this flat, robotic voice though, even with the high-tech ones, so it's all pretty rudimentary. I figured I could probably build a better one; something that might actually be able to mimic tone." He clears his throat, giving a crooked smile. "I don't know exactly what happened to you, and that's a prototype of a prototype, but it should let you speak. If you want to."
Jason's totally still, but after a few moments his gaze stutters downwards, fingers flexing around the cylinder. A thick swallow, and then he looks back up, looking a little bit overwhelmed.
"Hey," he murmurs, shifting over to sit right next to Jason, pressing up against his side, "it's only if you want to, alright? No pressure."
Slowly, Jason lifts the cylinder, presses it to his throat, and holds the button down. There's a moment of relative silence, and then a fairly mechanical sounding, "Roy." Jason jerks in shock, pulling the cylinder away and staring down at it, eyes wide.
He smiles and leans a little more into Jason's side. "I was thinking, if you want, I could probably build one into the collar of your suit, and get it to activate remotely. I want to work on getting it to be more human sounding too, though a bit of robotic distortion kind of goes with your helmet, I think." Jason leans into him, head turning and then ducking down against his shoulder, a sharp exhale rushing over his skin. He tilts his head down on top of Jason's and adds, "All totally your choice, partner."
Jason shifts, a shakier breath escaping, lips brushing his shoulder. "Thank you," Jason breathes, barely understandable if he couldn't feel the shape of the words against his skin.
There's the wet warmth of tears against his shoulder too, but he doesn't mention that. He just smiles, and raises a hand to curl into Jason's hair to hold him close.