Title: knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend
Fandom: DCU/Avengers movieverse
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Donne
Warnings: pre-Under the Red Hood film; post-Cap2 by a couple of months. Discussion of death/violence/torture – basically, everything Red Hood and Winter Soldier's respective backstories has.
Pairings:
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 810
Point of view: third
Prompt: any, any, He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. - Friedrich Nietzche
Getting into Arkham is easy. Cutting the power is easier still. Jimmy knows exactly where the Joker's cell is located and the asset gets them there without interacting with any of the guards panicking over the loss of electricity. The backup generator is powering the locks on the cells but everything else has gone dark. Exactly as intended.
The Joker is laughing; Jimmy can hear it from three halls over. He supposes it must be a frightening sound, for those who were never the Winter Soldier.
It's the sound Jason heard just before his death. It's the sound many children have heard before their deaths and yet the murderous sack of shit is still breathing. Some hero Batman is.
Jimmy steps up to the door and uses the not-arm to rip it open.
.
The Joker looks at him and laughs. Jimmy pulls out his favorite knife and the Joker cackles about Batsy and heroes.
"There are no heroes here," Jimmy tells him.
The Joker blinks at him before asking, "And what are you?"
There is madness in his eyes, but also brilliance. He is not to be underestimated but mindgames no longer work on Jimmy.
Jimmy smiles at him, the smile Bucky Barnes used to give the fuckers beating on Steve, the prisoners he interrogated, the techs at the last recalibration site.
The Joker can still feel fear; it's written plainly on his face. Jimmy's smile widens. "I spent 55 years as the greatest assassin in the world," he says. "Do you remember Robin?"
"The Boy Blunder?" Joker says. "Of course I do. Do you mean the first one or the one that died so ignobly?" He backs up, raising his fists. "Are we gonna fight, Mr. Assassin Sir?"
"No," Jimmy says. "We're not gonna fight."
He wishes he could draw like Steve, just so he could show Jason that even the Joker feels terror when faced with the inevitably of his death.
.
It doesn't even take five minutes. Thanks to the not-arm, the Joker is left in pieces, scattered throughout his cell. He dies laughing but there isn't much humor in the sound. Jimmy turns his earbud on, taps it five times, and then changes into the clean clothes he brought, bags the blood- and gore-stained shirt, pants, and shoes, and slips out of Arkham.
.
After he tells Jason, Jason's knees buckle. Jimmy catches him before he hits the ground and guides him to the nearest bed.
"He's really dead?" Jason asks.
"Yes," Jimmy says.
Jason just stares blankly ahead. "I never actually… he's dead. Holy fuck."
Jimmy lets him sit for a few minutes; he takes a shower, checks the news and the video-feeds, and then returns to Jason, who has not moved at all.
"Jason," he says, gently squeezing Jason's shoulder. "Take a shower and go to bed. We still have things to do, remember? The mission isn't done yet." Jason doesn't respond so Jimmy physically turns him, leaning down to look him right in the eye. "Jason," he says again, in the tone Bucky Barnes had perfected in the alleys of Brooklyn, guaranteed to make even Steve fuckin' Rogers listen.
Jason jerks away from him and Jimmy lets him go, quickly stepping out of reach. "I'm fine, I'm fine," Jason says. "What's goin' on?"
"Take a shower," Jimmy tells him. "And then try to sleep."
"Right, yeah, good idea." Jason distractedly gets up and goes to the bathroom; the shower starts up almost immediately.
Jason is never that agreeable; Jimmy will clearly need to keep a closer eye on him in the coming days.
.
That night, Jason crawls into Jimmy's nest in the corner and wraps the not-arm around himself. Jimmy rests his chin on Jason's head and murmurs the lullaby Bucky remembers Steve's ma singing to them both, back when they were small and the world still seemed like it could be a good place.
Jason's sleep is fraught with nightmares; Jimmy doesn't sleep at all.
The Joker's last words were a begging cry - Who are you?
The failed mission gave him two names. He chose another for himself. Hydra called him both asset and soldier. The intelligence community called him Winter Soldier.
Who are you? the Joker screamed as Jimmy tore the lower half of his jaw away.
Jimmy watches Jason breathe, chest rising and falling beneath the not-arm.
"I am Jimmy," he says. All of the other men (and not-men) he has been are dead. Jimmy is what is left, and he thinks – Jimmy might even be a good man.
.
In the morning, Jason sits across from him at the breakfast table, eyes wide, smiling, and he asks, "Tell me again."
Long ago, Bucky Barnes could spin a yarn that had entire roomfuls of people holding their breath. That is not a skill Jimmy retained, but he's pretty sure Jason doesn't breathe until the end.