Burnt Eggplants and Red, Red, and Blue 2: Flashback
Steph glared at the wall. It shouldn't have been a wall. It should have been a doorway, a door to the top floor of the building. The elevator didn't climb that high, so she'd had to take the stairs, but now instead of a door there was a wall. She could see where the door had been, a very slight buckling in the drywall, but unless she wanted to break the wall down, she wasn't getting through here. And she didn't think Jason would appreciate it if she broke the door down.
The question was, was she tired enough to not care? The answer was no. She'd gotten plenty of sleep last night. However, she was almost hungry enough. She had left her apartment as soon as she'd showered and ridden the Gotham-Bludhaven train to get here, and hadn't really stopped for breakfast. Since Jason had said he'd had food in the fridge, she'd figured she'd just eat when she got to it. She hadn't thought that Jason would make getting to his apartment impossible.
With a growl, she stomped away from the wall. The roof access door was unlocked and there was a number of decent grapple anchor points she could choose from. She rappelled down to one of Jason's windows, disarmed the security, and jimmied it open.
The food in his fridge was actual heaven. It was a leftover chicken stir fry, and while the veggies were a little floppy, the sauce more than made up for it. Watching it turn in the microwave was torture.
She'd just sat down on the couch with her second bowl of heaven on rice when the phone rang. And Steph froze.
It was the middle of the day! Well, it was four o'clock. But the point was, it was still very light out, what with the days getting longer and all, and would be for at least three more hours. Did Jason normally go out to help kids during the day? What was going on?
But she picked up the phone. She didn't have much of a choice. She'd already eaten the food. "Hello?"
"You're not Red. Who-" There was a voice in the background and then a smacking sound. "Right. Sorry. He's 'unavailable' whatever that means. Do you know what that means?"
"Sorry bud. Not a clue." Maybe she wouldn't have to do anything. If the kid wanted Red Hood specifically, she could just sit here and finish her stir fry. "Did you need a hand with something?"
"Red was supposed to teach a class today. Do you know someone who can fill in?"
"What kind of class?"
"Aikido, with some jiu jitsu thrown in. All self defense stuff."
Dammit. She knew aikido, which meant she could help. She sighed, then went to find the plastic wrap. "I'll be there as soon as I can."
"You might want to hurry. They're getting impatient." And with that ominous warning, the boy hung up.
Her hoodie was probably good enough as a workout sweater, and with her mask on, it would help the kids identify her. Same shade of eggplant as her costume. She changed into some sweats and climbed back to the roof using the rope she hadn't bothered taking down.
When she finally got to the ground floor, she wasn't met with a class full of children like she'd been expecting. It was a class full of women, with ages ranging from eighteen to sixty. And they all looked at her like she was the devil incarnate. The one closest to the door slipped out of her yoga pose and stalked towards Steph. "Who the hell are you?"
Oh, this would be fun. "I'm Spoiler. You may have heard of me. Red Hood is out of town for," frick, she didn't know how long he'd be gone, "some amount of time, so he asked me to fill in for him." If throwing a phone at her head could be considered 'asking'.
The lady sneered, and was probably going to give Steph the verbal lashing of her life, but another lady stepped up behind her. One that looked vaguely familiar. "Chill Di. I recognize her. She and Hood are cool."
Right, she'd been the one Hood had been talking to the first night she'd met him. Well, second, technically. First as Spoiler though. She gave the lady a nod of thanks, then strode to the front of the room. Dammit, she was nervous, and she kind of felt like she had to throw up a little, but she put on her best Cass imitation face and addressed the class. "I know I'm not Red Hood. But I've been training in aikido for years. If you want a full list of my credentials, I can give them to you. Honestly though, I'd like to not waste time talking and just get to telling you how to stop a guy from punching you."
One lady raised her hand, but her neighbour elbowed her in the ribs.
The class went well, as far as these things go. Steph had a bit of trouble when she started them on easier stuff, but in her defense, she didn't know how far Jason had gotten with them. But at the end, the ladies were looking a lot less grumpy than they had when she'd first walked in, so win.
She was just about to head back up to the roof herself when a pack of children walked in. Actual, five to twelve year old children. "Seriously? How many classes does Hood teach?" Had she said that out loud? She hadn't meant to say that out loud.
The girl nearest to her, who had totally heard her say that out loud, grinned. "Three a night. The older kids are after us because they can stay up later."
What? Hood, why? She was tired after one class. Teaching three, and then doing a full patrol? She was going to die of exhaustion before she'd crossed half the city.
Still, she had to try. These kids needed her to.
She focused more on moves that worked well against taller or stronger opponents. Ones she had learned as a ten year old at the Robbinson Community Center during the aikido lessons that some nice sensei was kind enough to offer for free once a month. Moves she'd learned from Tim, who had also been small and skinny. Moves she'd learned from the Birds, who were imposing but still smaller than most of the men they went up against.
Well, not all those moves, because they were a little advanced. But she taught them the groundwork for those moves.
The third class was indeed composed of teenagers. She taught them most of the same stuff she'd taught the little kids, because the basics never hurt anyone, and this was a good groundwork for them to know. As she'd thought though, she was really tired at the end and just kind of wanted to go upstairs and finish eating.
She did go upstairs, but she'd barely taken the plastic wrap off of her food when The Phone went off again. "Hello? Red Hood's phone, Spoiler speaking."
"Hi. My friend and her sister are at it again. Could you come to the fourth floor of the apartment please?"
Steph groaned and stuck her food back in the fridge. "On my way." She hung up, then glared at The Phone, as if it was its fault she'd forgotten to ask what room number.
Turned out, she didn't need it. When the elevator doors opened on the fourth floor, it was pretty obvious which room it was. The one where all the screaming and yelling were coming from. Good detective skills Steph, gold star.
"You're such a dumbass Ruby! Obviously, Star Wars is better!"
"You have no taste! If you did, you'd know that Star Trek was better and then you'd bask in my superior knowledge Alice!"
Oh great. One of those arguments. The ones that had dominated the nerd table at her high school. She'd thought she'd left them behind when she'd faked her death. Fantastic to know they'd followed her into her night life.
She knocked on the door, but she didn't think they'd heard her over the screaming. So she picked the lock. "Girls!"
Both girls froze, the last echoes of their yelling fading blissfully into the night. The cat let go of the older one's tongue first. "What do you want?"
"Well, firstly, it's the middle of the night and some people are trying to sleep."
"It's not even eight you weirdo," the younger one said.
"You live in a building full of kids under the age of ten. I'm pretty sure bed time is eight for them. And anyone older than that is probably trying to study." That's probably what Steph would be doing if she wasn't busy being a vigilante. "Also, I am very hungry and you're cutting into my food time. So you're going to tell me what this argument's really about."
Both girls started talking at the same time about how their respective show/movie was clearly better, but Steph cut them off.
"Yeah, yeah, Star Trek, Star Wars. Who cares? You're both old enough to realize that people can have different opinions about stuff." The girls gave her blank looks. "Really? You haven't figured that out?"
"Of course we have. We were arguing about which is objectively better." The older one crossed her arms and glared at her sister. "I say Star Wars, Ruby thinks Star Trek."
"You're both wrong, it's actually Farscape." She hadn't actually watched Farscape, although Tim had been very into the show for about a month. But she'd only heard this argument resolved once at the nerd table, and the person who'd resolved it had claimed that Star Gate was better. "Alice, why do you think Star Wars is better? And don't mention stuff like 'plot' or 'characters'. Just in general."
Alice thought for a minute. "The Empire is a lot scarier. It's this big unstoppable force of destruction and tyranny and it just feels like a bigger threat than the Romulans, or whoever, who don't even show up in most of the episodes. And it has the characters doing their best to stop the Empire, and banding a bunch of people and aliens from all walks of life together to do it, like how people today try and fight injustice. And it feels more fantastic to me, like I'm reading a Tolkein book or something."
"Ruby, same question but with Star Trek."
She'd clearly been thinking while her sister had been talking, because she spoke immediately. "It's all hope for the future. There's no hunger or starvation, and the entire premise of the show is peaceful exploration. It's something to strive for, not a generic rehashing of the past."
"You-" Steph put her hand over Alice's mouth before the girl could start yelling again. For fairness, she also put one over Ruby's mouth.
"Ok. So. Star Wars is better because it's more familiar, like a fantasy book or like modern war. Star Trek is better because it's what humanity could be if we stopped fighting petty wars with each other. Great. That makes them a space fantasy and space drama respectively. Therefore, they're completely different genres and shouldn't be compared." She removed her hands, placing them on the girls' arms instead. "Instead of yelling at each other about opinions that you're never going to change, you should either enjoy them separately, or share the things you love about Star Whichever with your sister. Ruby, have you ever seen Star Wars?"
The girl looked down at her shoes. "Only part of the first movie. I got bored, and then Alice got mad because I didn't finished it and then I just never did."
Alice nodded. "Same here. I couldn't get through the first episode."
"Rock, paper, scissors girls." They both gave Steph weird looks, so she nodded at them. She would have given them a stern look, but she still had her mask on, so. That couldn't be done. "Now please." They did, and Alice won. "Great. You're going to sit on that bed and watch the entire first Star Wars movie. Then, um, eight episodes of Star Trek, then the next Star Wars. And so on. And if you decide at the end that you really can't stand your sister's preference, then you will respect her opinion and never argue about it again. But, if you do end up liking it, then you'll have someone to nerd out with about your favourite thing."
The sisters looked at each other, gave each other identical nervous grins, and bolted out from under Steph's hands. "I'll get the popcorn," Alice called from the hallway.
"I'll get the laptop!" Ruby was digging under the bed, probably looking for a charge cord.
"And I will go eat my dinner. Let me know how your movie night goes!"
Back in Jason's apartment, she gleefully microwaved and dug into her food. And then put it back in the microwave because the chicken was still cold on the inside. When it was actually hot, she ate her fill, then scooted down on the couch to take a nap. Jason's city would be fine for a few hours.
Twenty minutes later, The Phone rang again.
Jason had fallen about eight blocks behind, but that was fine. And really impressive actually, considering at least two ribs were cracked. The point was, he was close enough to see when the helicopter landed on the top of Black Mask's financial district building.
Luckily, that was one of Gotham's oldest areas, and all the buildings were well over two hundred years old. They all shared that same gargoyles-and-black-marble aesthetic, which is probably why Black Mask had bought it (Bruce owned four buildings in the area), and more importantly, most of them had been designed by Adelbert Graf. Graf had been a brilliant architect with only one failing. Ventilation. The guy could not properly direct airflow to save his life. And instead of learning how to, he'd just made all the vents hugely massive. Quantity over quality and all that.
Bruce had remodeled his ventilation systems, so the vents were smaller, more efficient, and also covered in sensors and scanners. A person couldn't fit in there, but any hint of drone or chemical activity and there were vent covers that slammed shut until someone qualified could investigate the disturbance.
From the looks of things, Black Mask hadn't owned this building long enough to do the same. Jason laughed to himself as he looked up the purchase records. He'd bought this immediately after Red Hood had blown up his other office. Oh, he would enjoy that so much more if there weren't a Superman clone in need of liberating.
And so, back to business. He used another one of his phones to hack into the security system and shut part of it off. Specifically the part inside the vents. Black Mask hadn't had time to do a full remodel of the ventilation, but that didn't mean he hadn't put motion sensors in them.
The vents were big enough to fit Batman, something he'd taken advantage of very often, which meant that it was fairly roomy for Jason. He'd had more bulk when he'd first arrived in Bludhaven, but he would admit to letting himself slip. The two months stuck in a hospital bed with broken limbs hadn't helped. He was closer to Nightwing's physique now.
And it was time to stop thinking about those two because otherwise he'd make himself angry and do something stupid that would probably get him killed.
So he fit, and he knew how to move through vents without making noise, and he had his helmet to protect him from all the dust and crap he kicked up with every motion. When he finally got out of here, he was going to be the world's dustiest... what was he? Hero? Anti-hero? Just a vigilante? He'd figure it out later. Point was, everything would be super easy if his wrist wasn't broken. As it was, with one limb down he had to go a lot slower than he'd like.
Eventually, he reached a vent that, according to his stolen schematic – thank you Black Mask's terrible security – lead right to the lab. Unfortunately, it was a straight vertical drop, for three stories, and his grapple wasn't exactly silent. Crap.
He grabbed a spare grapple cable from his pocket and attached it to a hook. Then – after making sure it was attached securely – he tossed it down the shaft. And started climbing.
By the time he'd gotten to the bottom, Black Mask's goons had moved the Superman clone from the pod to a big globe thing. But the room was oddly empty. Carefully disabling the cameras in the room, including three running on a separate network than the others, Red Hood jumped down into the room and walked up to the globe.
He knocked lightly on the glass. "Don't know if you can hear me, but I'm going to get you out, ok?" Was it his imagination, or did the clone move a bit? Nope, not his imagination. The clone's eyes fluttered open slightly. "It'll be ok, big guy. Trust me."
A shout from the other room had Jason tearing back to the vent and scrambling up his rope in record time. The vent cover slid back in place just as a tech raced into the room to check readings. "He's awake! Quick, get Black Mask!"
Within minutes, the entire room was flooded with scientists and lab techs and random thugs and Black Mask himself. "How is he awake? He wasn't supposed to wake up for another twenty four hours!"
"We don't know sir!"
Jason, in the vents, was busy editing the time stamp on some footage so no one would notice he'd turned off the cameras. He'd just finished looping it in when Black Mask ordered a goon to check the cameras. When the goon came back with another undesirable answer, Black Mask growled, "Useless idiots." He took a deep breath. "You, start draining the biochamber. If he's awake, we need to take advantage of it."
The scientist he'd pointed at did just that. In the chamber, the clone was looking around, sleepy and confused. But when the liquid started draining out the bottom, exposing his head to air for what had to be the first time, his hands flew up to his throat.
And suddenly, Jason was underwater. Everything was green and everything hurt and he couldn't breathe and he had to get out, had to get up, but he couldn't find up and he couldn't breathe and -
The shattering of glass didn't have any place in his memories, and Jason found himself in the vent again. He gulped down huge breaths of air, trying to keep silent, almost failing. When he'd calmed himself down, he chanced a glance through the vent cover again.
The clone had broken out of his chamber, and his skin had turned a sickly shade of white. Black Mask's goons roughly lifted him onto a gurney and strapped him down, wheeling him out of the room.
Jason knew he'd be able to find the clone again later, so he climbed back up his cable and made his way to a more abandoned part of the building. Once he was out of the vent (otherwise the sound would echo throughout the building), he slammed his fist against a wall. "Dammit!"
And again.
It had been a solid year since his last fucking PTSD fucking flashback what the, "Fucking dammit!" His fist collided with the wall again, this time accompanied by a cracking sound.
With more curses silent on his tongue, he slid down the wall to sit on the floor and pulled off his glove. Yup. He'd cracked that knuckle. Again. His mind flashed back to the last time he'd beaten up a wall. He'd cracked a knuckle then too, and the only reason it had healed as well as it did was because the kids of Bludhaven hadn't let him forget that he'd broken it.
Flipping over his hand, he examined the thin strips of white adorning his fingertips. The Lazarus Pit was supposed to be a cure-all, with short term insanity being the only downside. It just figured that it wouldn't work right for him. Didn't fix all his hurts, and he could still feel the green of the Pit pushing at his mind, trying to take over and let him lose control.
Well. That wasn't happening. So enough sitting here, feeling sorry for himself and whining about things he couldn't change. But he could change the state of the clone's captivity, so he was going to go do that. And he had to find Artemis. She'd only gotten gassed because she'd been busy throwing him out of the helicopter. He had to find her and figure out whether he wanted to thank her or shoot her for that.
So he crawled back into the vent.
AN: I couldn't resist a bit of angst near the end there. In my flimsy defense, that happened in the comic too. Sort of.
Read and enjoy friends! More Bizarro and Artemis next time! Loxie OUT!