Cleaning up some files and decided to officially post this... a crossover AU that started on comment_fic for fun and then grew completely out of control... I hope you guys enjoy it...
they meet {prompt: "Steve Rogers/Jason Todd, helpless"}
Steve realizes he has a type: tall, dark-haired, able to take a hit, and good with a gun. The Red Hood sans helmet apparently fits that description, all curly black hair with a shock of white. Blood runs down the side of Red Hood's face, along a square jaw, dripping down to the scraps of helmet littered across the concrete. He wipes it away and Steve is drawn by the arch of his eyebrows, the twist of his scowling mouth.
It's a shame that Red Hood is unbelievably paranoid and equally prepared. If he didn't wear a domino mask underneath the helmet, Steve could see the shape and colour of the man's eyes.
And. Um. He'd have a chance at identifying the vigilante. Because that is Steve's biggest concern. Apprehending him. Nothing else.
"See something you like, flag boy?" Red Hood growls and Steve does his best to stop being Steve and start being Captain America.
"You can't keep doing this, son," he says firmly, because the Red Hood is definitely younger than him and he needs to remember that. "Executing criminals without a fair trial is -"
Red Hood rushes Steve, knocks away his shield, and pulls him down to the ground. He sits on Steve's hips and slams Steve's wrists on the ground. Trapping him.
This is... bad. Steve should not be memorizing the image of Red Hood leaning over him to sketch later. He should be concentrating on escape. This is serious.
"I'm tired of being lectured by hypocritical assholes like you," Red Hood sneers. "I'm tired of so-called heroes, I'm tired of this bullshit happening in every," he puts Steve's wrists together, "fucking," holds them together with one hand, "world!" and makes a fist with the other.
Steve should add 'mean left hook' to the list.
they live {prompt: "Jason Todd/Steve Rogers, Jason is taken into custody of SHIELD and makes a deal to help Steve fight HYDRA in exchange for his release (definitely not because he likes Steve)"}
Jason glares through the one-way glass, knowing that the backstabbing, flag-fucking son of a bitch had to be on the other side, squirming with guilt. Like he should be.
"Am I boring you?"
"Yes," Jason snaps, eyes darting to the government spook. "What the hell do you even want from me? I'm a murdering psychopath from another dimension, you should either be finding a way for me to be my world's problem again or tossing me in jail." Or a nuthouse. Jason will literally tear his way through SHIELD if they try to do that to him. He has enough memories of Arkham.
Agent Suit (because fuck if Jason's gonna dignify this asshole with a name) clasps his hands on the table. "We don't have the technology to hone onto your home dimension, not after you've been away from it for so long. You've told us yourself that your original method of travel is no longer viable."
Fuck that magic ruby, fuck Intergang for getting Jason mixed up with it, and fuck Count Doom or whatever his name is for stealing and breaking it. If Jason no longer gets a shot at killing the Joker, he'll damn well take that chrome-gilded bastard's head as a consolation prize.
"As for prison...," Suit continues, smiling wryly. "Well. We both know you'll just break out again."
Jason doesn't bother hiding his smirk, even though it pulls at his split lip. After he was ambushed, they took him into custody. This time, they stripped him down to his undershirt and boxers, slapping him with thick manacles tied to a table, which is bolted to the interrogation room floor. Jason shifts, feeling the chains drag along the surface of the table and the cold metal circling his wrists, and knows it isn't enough to hold him. He ignores the memory of Dick teaching him how to dislocate his joints.
Still, these guys are learning. Which is more than Jason can say for the pack of deluded idiots that populate his dimension.
"So. What's the deal, Armani?" Jason demands.
"It's Dolce & Gabbana, actually."
"Whatever, like I give a crap about you being a brand whore," Jason says, rolling his eyes. They stripped away his mask, they should know how fucking done he is with this pussyfooting bullshit. "Have you finally seen the error of your ways? Decided to join me, learn the art of taking out the trash?"
Suit brings up his hands, still interlaced, to hover in front of his mouth. Jason doesn't... he doesn't flinch, but, for a split second, he sees Batman—Bruce—brooding over his latest case.
No one is looking for him. Jason is stuck here, on this Earth without Gotham, for the rest of his miserable life.
"Steve would be the first to tell you that people aren't trash," Suit says and it cuts clean through Jason's thoughts, like a sharp knife across a scumbag's throat.
"What," Jason starts, slamming his fists on the table. He stands up to loom over Suit, letting the anger, the—the betrayal bubble back up. "—does that lying shithead have to do with any of this?!"
"Everything," says Agent Suit blandly and tosses him a file. Jason breathes, trying to pull himself back from that Pit-edged rage, and jerkily opens the folder.
It's a dossier on HYDRA, an honest-to-gods Nazi outfit, one that's been recently updated. There are colour photos clipped next to black-and-whites, dates reaching from the present all the way back to fucking Hitler himself. Christ on a bike, these wannabe fascists managed to infiltrate SHIELD, which is only a few steps away from the Justice League's security.
Captain America led the team that cleaned these fuckers out. The first time, anyway. He killed people doing it.
"Hypocrite," Jason mutters, skimming through the pages. He pauses on one of the surveillance shots. The blonde the camera is focusing on kiiiiind of looks like the bald assassin chick he worked over a few days ago. He closes the file and looks up. "Congratulations! You showed me this world is even shittier than I first thought. Again, what does any of this have to do with me?"
Suit tilts his head slightly, peering at Jason in a way that's eerily similar to Babs.
What the fuck is with his trip down memory lane today?
"We've been keeping track of your... interactions with the criminal element," Suit starts. He pulls out a stack of paper from said suit. He lines them up in front of Jason, one after the other. They're crime scene photos and Jason recognizes each of them. The bald assassin's body is featured in the first photo. "In the last two weeks, you've left behind nine dead HYDRA agents. You seem to have a knack for sniffing them out."
Jason shrugs, hiding his worry with nonchalance. Yes, he'd put a bullet in each of their heads, but that was because he'd caught them red-handed, committing wildly different crimes. He hadn't suspected they'd been part of the same organization. "Soooo, what? You want me to off them? I may be trained by assassins, but I'm not one of them." Not that Jason would really mind having to kill them. He'd have to keep a better eye out for these HYDRA stooges.
Suit raises an eyebrow, then shakes his head. "No, not quite," he says cryptically. He waves at the one-way glass and another spook unlocks the door and walks in, handing Suit yet another goddamn stack of paper before leaving. He passes it on Jason, who nearly drops it when he reads the first line.
"You want to offer me a plea deal?! Me?"
"It's been suggested that you would be the ideal candidate for this operation," says Suit. Jason only pays him a quarter of his attention as he flips through the pages, going through the legalese and fine print. "We need to take down HYDRA as soon as possible. You, Mr. Todd, are combat-trained, stealthy, a keen investigator, and have strong motive for seeing an end to their organization."
Jason can't really deny any of that. "And what, exactly, do I get out of this? What's the catch?"
"We're prepared to offer you pardon for your previous crimes," didn't sound too bad, "and a legal identity with U.S. citizenship, which you can use start a new, vigilante-free life." Fat chance of that happening. "In exchange, you will assist us in dismantling HYDRA, use non-lethal methods whenever possible, and be remanded to the custody of one of our freelancers, who will act as your handler and partner during this assignment."
Typical black ops bullshit, then. Jason hopes they aren't trying to seduce him over to their side and into the ranks of their spy agency. So far, he found one perk is going to be a massive expense account and his handler would be—
"What the fuck?" Jason growls, lowering the plea deal. In the back of his head, he hears the voices, the Pit, laugh long and low. "Rogers? Old Glory himself? Are you shitting me?!"
"He asked for you. Recommended you, in fact," Suit informs him. Jason lets out a wordless yell and throws the contract at the one-way mirror. The papers scatter across the room, drifting into a haphazard mess. Jason hears someone breathing raggedly, but Suit is as still as fucking stone. Goddamn it. "I don't see the problem."
"The problem?" Jason laughs, high and breathless. In it, he hears the Pit raking his mind raw, and doesn't care. Almost welcomes the Pit, enjoys it, drinks in the sudden hesitance in Suit's eyes with malicious glee. "The problem is that the glorious Captain America thinks he can just waltz into my life, say some pretty words to try getting me off guard, then throw me to the wolves without any. Fucking. CONSEQUENCES!"
Jason is a survivor. He survived the streets. He survived Gotham's high society, survived Bruce. He didn't survive being Robin or the Joker or his birth mother's betrayal. But he got better and learned from his mistakes. He survived Talia's training, being replaced, making his name as the Red Hood, this fucking one-way road trip through dimensions.
Rogers thinks he's got Jason beat. Thinks that by laying off him for a bit, patching him up when he's hurt, teaming up against a new supervillain, that they're suddenly friends? Thinks that he can visit Jason in jail and talk about everything and nothing, about art and war and turning a new leaf? Thinks he needs another patron to save him from his awful sins? Thinks that Jason doesn't know about the sketches, or the worried looks, or the times when he shouldn't have got away from the other costumed vigilantes, but did?
Rogers thinks he can take all those little moments and gestures, ball them up, and throw them away, so SHIELD can get their grubby mitts on Jason? Thinks Jason will forgive him, instantly, at the first sign of him coming back?
Fuck that. Jason's a survivor and he'll survive Steve Rogers too.
...And why the hell is Suit staring at him like that?
"Your eyes are green," Suit says. Like he wants to be calm but can't quite manage it. "They were blue before. Is there a reason for that?" Jason laughs again, grinning wide and strange.
"It means I'm really, really angr—WHAT the FUCK?!" Jason screeches, clamping his neck. He pulls out the thing in it and... it's a horse-sized... tranq...
..s..ui...t..
...?
"Phil," says Steve with as much patience as he can muster. "Jason is not the Hulk. He does not have Bruce's powers."
"I know that. Now."
Steve heaves a sigh and sneaks another peek at the infirmary. Jason is laid out on one of the beds, held down with as many straps as they could find. Three SHIELD agents are supposed to be guarding him at all times, and Steve apparently didn't count.
"Why did you let him think that I betrayed him to SHIELD?" Steve asks. He watched the whole interview on video after SHIELD called him in and Steve yelled at them for Jason's condition. Jason acted like he usually did, but Steve knows his tells. Jason had been angry and hurt, in a way he hasn't been since they first met.
"It wasn't on purpose," Phil insists. He's fidgeting with his sleeves, so at least he feels a little guilty about knocking out Jason. "I'm not sure where he got the idea in the first place."
Jason is pale underneath the sheets, the darkness under his eyes looking less like bags and more like bruises. The heart rate monitor beeps at a steady, reassuring pace. It reminds Steve of his own visits to the hospital, of his mother, and he aches to draw it. Ever since he met Jason, Steve feels like he can't go a day without grabbing a pad and pencil to capture the many sides of the younger man.
"He must be having a bad day," Steve says finally. All signs point to the Pit's influence. Jason told him one night, on a rooftop overlooking Central Park. About the Pit that gave him a second life and the insanity that cursed it. Steve remembers the tenseness of Jason's shoulders, how it relaxed with the smoke of a lit cigarette and Steve's hand on Jason's arm. "You should have let me talk to him about the deal."
"I've learned my lesson. He's all yours, Captain." With that, Phil walks away, leaving him alone in the hallway.
Jason will be fine, Steve thinks as he slumps against his chair. They'll talk things out and Jason will say yes to working with him and it'll be another step in the right direction. It worked for the Winter Soldier.
Still, Bucky is his best friend. They've known each other since they were kids, fighting bullies together. Jason is... Jason. Beautiful and harsh, kind and alien, incredibly lonely and wounded. He's a good man, despite everything. Hopefully, Jason could be a great one too.
Steve settles into the chair and closes his eyes, waiting for Jason to wake up. They'd be fine.