title: 4am philosophy
summary: then again, every story about jason seemed to paint a different picture: broken man, or misguided hero, or dangerous zealot who'd had one too many chances, depending on who was doing the telling. if there was one common thread, it was that jason was a cautionary tale. —jaysteph, oneshot.
word count: ~2000
a/n:
i got this prompt so long ago but i'm the slowest writer on the planet so. yeah.
i swear i chose steph for this because of my jaysteph bias, not The Waffle Thing. promise. (though the jaysteph is more "if you squint"...just...believe it's there in your heart.)
also i'm really insecure in how i write batkids other than jason so constructive criticism would be appreciated a lot?
(edited 21/11/16)
prompt: "jason takes one of the family out for waffles. you choose who."
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At four in the morning, Pauli's Diner had lulled to a drowsy pace; even Gotham City had its slow periods. The perfect time to grab a little early breakfast, in Jason's opinion. Most of the crooks were dozing in their hideouts (or else sleeping off a well-earned concussion in a GCPD holding cell), and even the earliest morning commuters were still turning in bed. The current occupants of the diner came to a grand total of three: the veteran waitress (too sleep deprived and Gotham-weary to question serving a pair of costumed vigilantes), six feet of leather-wrapped waffle-eating muscle — and the snarky blonde Bat two stools down, eyeing him like an unexploded bomb.
Jason swallowed a mouthful of strawberries and cream and jabbed his fork in her direction. "I paid good money for those. Eat them or I will."
This worked. Batgirl blinked, arm curling protectively around her plate of blueberry waffles. "You paid six dollars for these."
"Yeah. Not all of us are billionaires."
Stephanie snorted despite herself. Don't I know it. She might have asked, too, exactly where he got the money from (part time waiter? sponsors? kickstarter? it was hard to imagine Jason bussing tables or embracing charity), when she remembered that perhaps there were more pressing matters here.
Jason sighed, setting his fork down and twisting to face her. He rested his elbow on the counter, cheek braced against his fist. Even the curl of his mouth seemed dry, as if sarcasm were as innate and thoughtless as breathing. His curls were all over the place, crushed and rearranged by his helmet, his jacket rumbled; beneath the domino mask, Steph had a feeling she'd find shadows worthy of Tim during finals week. Rightfully, all this should have made him look like an asshole who'd rolled out of a dumpster that morning. All it did was give him an infuriatingly disarming, dishevelled charm. If not for the mask, he might have been an innocent motorcyclist stopping after a long stretch for an unremarkable meal. Not harmless, exactly, but defused. Not threatening. Not to her.
Batgirl, focus. She dredged up the scene from an hour earlier in her memory: arms snapping in Hood's grip, the barrel of a gun whipping across a crook's face, helmet pulverising nose cartilage.
It was hard to reconcile with the man in front of her.
"Okay," he said. "What. Spit it out, Blondie."
Normally she'd rebuke the nickname, but she was a little preoccupied right now. She pursed her lips, prodding her food thoughtfully. "It's just. I mean. You're the Red Hood."
"Thanks for noticing."
"Buying me waffles. In a diner. In public."
Jason licked a dab of cream from his thumb. "Nice detective skills. Bats must've jumped to hire you."
Steph would have scoffed at that. If, y'know, she were a scoffing person. "The point is — why are you doing this?"
"The goodness of my heart?" he said. She matched him with a deadpan stare. "Look, this is the third time this month you've saved my ass. Won't say I believe in fate, but figure I at least owe you a breakfast."
It was then Steph realised she'd been absently digging into her food as he'd been speaking. It was also then she realised that, holy crap, these were delicious. "It's just — I mean — this is weird. Way weird. You are still a wanted murderer."
"Say that a little louder, why don't you."
"I'm Batgirl and I'm eating breakfast with a wanted murderer. Oracle could kill me for this. I should probably be arresting you, or calling in Batman. Or something."
At this, Jason's mouth quirked. It took Steph a moment to recognise it as the seed of a smile, followed swiftly by the realisation that she hadn't actually seen him smiling before. Not outside of photographs, at least. She'd convinced Alfred to dig them up once, curious and a little nostalgic, still working to wrap her head around the tales she'd returned to following her stint in Africa: empty coffins and Robins gone rogue.
She used to imagine what she might say to him, if she ever got to sit down and talk to him. She'd just imagined the situation would have a little more — well — gravitas. She weighed her practised words in her head, but they felt foolish under the harsh white light of the diner with blueberry juice on her chin.
"That's cute," he said. "But I'm not gonna tell on you to Daddy Bats, if that's what you're worried about."
Stephanie glanced away from her next forkful, casting a cautious eye over the diner. The sky outside was barely a shade lighter than dead-of-night (blah blah blah darkness blah Gotham metaphor), the diner was still thankfully empty and the lone waitress had retreated to the refuge of the diner's back room (presumably to avoid having to handle potential vigilante drama, and could Steph fault her for that?). No audience. Good.
"Hey, he's not my dad."
"Great. We've got something in common." He cut her off before she could even open her mouth: "I've heard the family BS before. Save it. 'Least until breakfast is over."
Right. Probably smart not to push it. "Oh, c'mon. I was looking forward to the zombie angst."
"Funny. You're funny."
She may have been starting to enjoy herself. Just a little. Off the record.
"'Course," Jason just had to add, "our real dads weren't much better, were they? If we're gonna talk common ground."
Steph's smile slipped. And there it goes. "Jesus, do you have to do that?"
"What?"
"The whole —" She gestured, exasperated. "— this. The douche thing."
He blinked slowly. Gestured to himself.
"You know what I mean." She speared her blueberries with unnecessary prejudice, waving them in Jason's direction to punctuate her words. "Look, I've been there, I know what your doing. I know deflection when I see it. And it's gonna make this a really annoying breakfast if you keep it up."
He narrowed his eyes at her. "I'm getting armchair psychology from a Bat?"
"Technically it's bar stool psychology, but if that's what you wanna call it. And I'm not exactly like the other 'Bats', anyway"
He didn't speak for a few minutes; Steph didn't look away, though the sharp look in his eye was a little unnerving. It was the same look Bruce wore, she realised, when he was 'taking notes'. Tim, too, and Dick. Even Damian sometimes, when he stopped wearing Talia's expressions long enough to resemble his father. Apples and trees.
She'd better not mention this to Jason's face. He'd never buy her breakfast again.
"You're not, are you?" he said. Before she could ask what he meant, the expression was gone. He huffed, typically melodramatic. "Fine. No more douchey comments 'til six am." He saluted. "Scout's honour."
It was a start. They settled into something akin to a companionable silence, city din batting ineffectually against the diner's windows; Steph shot furtive glances along the counter at Jason, taking notes of her own. She even plucked the courage to shift a couple seats closer. He didn't seem to mind, apparently miles away and utterly at ease, though Steph had heard enough stories to know better — he could shift into defence mode at the drop of a bullet, aware of every brush of air in the room. Then again, every story about Jason seemed to paint a different picture: broken man, or misguided hero, or dangerous zealot who'd had one too many chances, depending on who was doing the telling. If there was one common thread, it was that Jason was a cautionary tale. She knew the feeling.
Yet none of these really added up to the Jason sitting beside her. Still, she hadn't totally forgotten the skirmish at the dockyard, or the brutality and implications of Jason's blows.
Might as well ask. "Were you gonna kill those men? If I hadn't shown up?"
She half expected a sarcastic response, half hoped for a straight answer. Instead, he looked her in the eye, deadpan, and said, "What do you think?"
Was he trying to make this awkward?
Alright. Stupid question.
"Remember what I said about the douche thing?" she deadpanned back.
This drew a laugh. Sharp and a little caustic, but it was something. "No. I was gonna use 'em. The plan was interrogation, but that got screwed. Managed to slip one a tracker, though. See, they're just the little fish. I'm going after the shark."
She wrinkled her nose. "So. What you're saying is. I just helped you murder a guy in the long run...?"
"Don't think about it too hard. Plausible deniability, Blondie."
Oh. Oh, Oracle would definitely kill her. "Aren't you comforting."
"Not paid to be."
"Are you paid? Like, at all?"
"You seem pretty unbothered by the murder part."
Stephanie opened her mouth — paused. Mulled over her words carefully as she rolled blueberries around the plate. Unbothered was the wrong word. She certainly felt uneasy. She could vividly recall, once, having a life dangling from her fingers: a gun trained on Black Mask's wood-encrusted forehead. The weight of the metal, the weight of her bruises, sweat in her eyes and blood matting her hair. She recalled putting the gun down. It was a choice that almost killed her, but she couldn't regret it. She'd done The Right Thing.
But she could just as vividly remember another night, another life, another piece of metal: a chain against her father's throat, crackling with years and years of rage. That night, she knew what it was to truly, fiercely believe a man deserved to die.
"I don't know," she said. "I mean. Look, I'm not saying I agree. But I think I get it." A beat. "Don't tell Batman about that either. And that doesn't mean I'm not gonna try to stop you."
He smiled wryly. "Expected nothing less."
Before either could say any more, Jason's pocket buzzed. He fished out a disposable phone. "Rojo. What's the sitch?"
Alright, so she had to snicker at that. Whatever he heard, it didn't seem to surprise him. He spun out of the stool without warning, snatching up his helmet and scattering change on the counter in one fluid movement. He'd left a waffle on his plate. "Well, Blondie, it's been a blast, but I gotta run. Work to do. And by the way —"
He brushed a tiny GPS beacon off his shoulder.
"Nice try."
Damn it. She pouted into her cooling coffee, watching him walk — away from their first real conversation, and they'd barely said anything.
Those words were still sitting on the back of her tongue.
She wasn't sure why, exactly, she wanted to tell him so bad, or what she hoped to accomplish — realistically, nothing. But he was halfway to the door and she just wanted him to know, for all the good it would do.
She looked back down at her plate, nudging her last waffle around the plate. Why the hell not, right? What did she have to lose?
"You were my Robin, you know," she murmured. "Growing up."
Maybe he hadn't heard her.
But no — Jason's gloved hand paused against a pane of glass in the door. He'd heard her just fine.
In truth, she hadn't asked Alfred to see those photos out of curiosity alone. Maybe she hadn't known it at the time, but it had been Jason's silhouette flitting across the sky when she was a kid under Arthur Brown's thumb; it had been Jason's R fixed in her mind of when she first put on the purple hood, an angry girl with so little to lose. Hope didn't burst from thin air. She'd only wanted to understand how he'd lost his.
She probably shouldn't have said anything. It was impossible to gauge his reaction from here.
He didn't turn, but his head twitched as if he were about to. Then he donned his helmet. His voice came hard and metallic through the hood as he pushed through the door, city hum spilling in behind him.
"Maybe you needed better heroes, then."
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