Jason is getting sloppy and he knows it. It's an unacceptable turn but it is the awareness of this fact that makes him ready when Nightwing comes. The trail of bodies Red Hood left this time reeked of determination and lacked the aura of cold murder. When Dick arrives, he seems more worried than anything else and that makes Jason even angrier with himself. He shouldn't have allowed himself this moment of weakness.
Dick finds him nested in one of the corners of the warehouse. Jason is hunched, his wounds still aching. It made him distracted today. Again. Oh, how he hates it. This side-effect of his miraculous resurrection.
Jason has already shed the mask so when Dick approaches him, there are no masquerades this time. It's the first time the first Boy Wonder sees his successor without the mask after the return.
"So it really is you…" Dick says, his tone still disbelieving. Bruce must have kept most of the information on Red Hood to himself. No surprise there.
"In the flesh," the other Robin replies, grinning. Dick flinches almost unnoticably but Jason sees it anyway - he's now sure there's blood staining his teeth and it gives him a sick satisfaction that it evoked such reaction from the other man. Nightwing seems to be thinking hard about something, conducting some kind of inner fight, his eyes not leaving Jason for a second. After a minute of calculating silence, he must arrive at a conclusion because he speaks again.
"Are you alright?"
This is not the question Jason anticipated. He expected to be threatened, to get his ass manhandled to the bat cave. He must be truly out of it if he forgot how ridiculous Dick can be.
"Oh, are you worried, Dickie-bird?" Jason smiles widely again, just for the spite of it. Dick visibly avoids looking at his blood-stained mouth.
"You weren't this sloppy even as a kid in scaled shorts," Dick replies with a little smile of his own. Jason always preferred this big-mouthed side of Grayson.
"Death changes a man."
As Jason expects, the smile on Dick's mouth wavers and turns into a grimace of annoyance.
"And makes you reckless," Dick snaps back as he makes a step forward. "I saw you that night you have showed your new ensemble to Batman for the first time. I've seen enough of your skills that night to know you shouldn't collect such wounds from fighting mere drug dealers."
Dick is now close enough for Jason to notice that Nightiwing's not unscatched himself. There's a tear on his costume, a scratch over his left collarbone, it's little but still bleeding. Jason shudders all over his body at the realisation.
"You should go."
"Or what? I can see you weren't lazing around those years you were gone, but I can easily take you in this state."
Jason actually laughs at that. It's not that Dick is not right. It's more of a sick desperation kind of laugh. He allows for it to reverberate for a second or two before he actually loses control. A second later and Jason is no longer cringed in the corner, a new wave of strength flows through his veins and he has Nightwing pinned to the wall. If only he had any way of controlling this particular kind of strength, he would be able to achieve so much more. But it's primal and out of control and Dick is unable to escape his grip.
"Ja-Jason, what are you-" he does not finish the question, the rest of it is swallowed by the gasp of bewilderment that leaves Dick's mouth as Jason's tongue licks at his wound.
"What-?! Stop!" Dick chokes out but Jason's senses are overwhelmed by the hunger. Nightwing's words does not matter as the other Robin sucks out blood through the reopened cut. Only after a few mouthfuls he finds it in himself to put a distance between his lips and the wound, though his hands still keep the other man pinned to the wall.
"What's just happened, Jay?"
Jason's head turns to face Dick at the sound of the nickname. He hasn't heard it for years but now it seems to be the last punch that pushes him towards any kind of sanity and control. His grip on Nightwing's wrists loosens a little.
"Resurrection is a bitch, Dickie-bird," Jason says bitterly. He forces himself to fully let go of the other man and takes a step back. "I did not come back fully operational. I need to provide my body with human blood to keep it in check. You have AB, I'm picky like that, you'd be out of my radar otherwise. Just your luck, huh?" Jason tries to turn it into a joke while his hands rummage through his pockets to find cigarettes. He needs to neutralize the aftertaste of Dick's blood in his mouth because goddamnit, it was delicious.
"Wait, you're some kind of vampire now?"
While Dick actually says it out loud, it sounds ridiculous. But that's not the first ridiculous thing in Jason's life after all.
"When you put it that way…" Jason finally lits a cigarette and takes a deep inhale. "I don't know, Wonder Boy Numero Uno. It's not like I met anyone else like me. If I am a vampire, all those movies lied. I got no super-senses or amazeballs strength. I'm just a freakin' blood junkie."
"Is that why you started to kill?" Dick stares at the glowing end of the cigarette, something bizarre and sad in his voice.
"No," Jason points at him with the half of a cigarette. "I'm killing because Bruce does not have balls to do it and this is what Gotham needs. Getting fed in the process is just a perk."
Dick actually smirks at that.
"That's why you lost control now and act like a feral animal instead of a trained professional? Because you're so satiated." Nightwing's right hand lifts to the cut on the collarbone. The blood there already started to form a scab but then Dick tugs at it with one steady motion. Jason cannot stop himself from licking his lips when the scent of the fresh blood hits his nostrils.
"What are you doing, Dick?" Jason's words come out with an effort. He does not have teeth out of a Hollywood production but his fangs are sharper than they were before Joker beat them out of his mouth with a crowbar and now he's more aware of them than ever. And oh, how heavenly it could feel to sink them into Dick's pale skin…
There's something more to the hunger he feels about Dick's blood. He craves blood on a daily basis, he's almost used to it by now. He seems restricted to AB type, matching his own, but about Dick it's something even more… Jason does not have to ponder upon it for too long. He always desired Richard Grayson, it was always a little more than just an admiration of his older brother and mentor. But back then he was just a kid, still confused about what he wants… But now it's all prominent. And this mixture - the hunger for blood and continuous desire - it makes Jason's head spin.
"I'll give it to you," Dick says and that puts Jason into focus again.
"What?!"
"I'll let you feed on me, if you stop killing."
At first Jason is so taken aback by the offer, he cannot find it in himself to answer cockily. But it actually makes sense, doesn't it? Dick Grayson and his fuckin nobility, of course he would offer such a deal to honour Batman's code.
But Jason Todd was never noble and the offer is too delicious to pass. He can restrain from killing as Red Hood and arrange accidents if it's required.
Jason lets the cigarette butt fall to the ground. "Deal."
The beginning of the fic is parallel to the beginning of the events known from "Under the Red Hood".
No beta and I'm not a native speaker of English. Sorry for the mess with articles. I'm not on good terms with articles.
Dedicated to Darca because I've dragged her with me into jaydick hell and we won't be out anytime soon (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧.