Gotham City had bad parts, and then it had parts that might as well have been the openings to hell itself. When Jason was a kid, you knew not to go to that one part of the Bowery. It had been dark, filthy, and above all way too dangerous for anyone to risk treading through unless they were either beyond desperate, or one of the monsters that lurked in the shadows.
Years later, and dangerous enough that the monitors themselves were weary of him, Jason still wasn't sure what he was when he was forced to dig into the bottom of his information barrel.
It was painfully obvious which category the girl belonged to. He didn't want to think about what could have made her that desperate, when even his mother had never…
"Crazy fucking kid! You'll be dead for this, you hear me, we'll fuck you up so bad your bitch of a mother won't know were feeding her what's left until…"
The screaming was getting on his nerves, echoing through the space like a banshee from the depths of the hell Jason must have crawled his way out of.
"Quiet." Jason tightened the chains he'd wrapped around the shrieking reptile, before kicking the man into the nearest corner of the box that was meant to pass as an apartment. He hadn't even done anything to the bastard yet, hadn't had the time. He grinned and leaned in close pulling the man off the ground to get their faces level. "You can scream all you want later, but for now, be mindful of impressionable ears. Right big guy?" He roughly patted the man's cheek, pushing down the revulsion he felt at the touch of clammy skin against his palm.
He hadn't brought a gun along, and he ignored the one laying discarded a few feet away, would have made it too easy, too tempting to just plant a bullet in the fucker's head. He couldn't, not with this case, no matter how much he wanted too, how much better it would make the world. There was a rag on the rusted kitchen sink, it stank of mold and cheap detergent that contrasted sharply with the man's expensive cologne and snazzy clothes. He balled up the disgusting piece of fabric and forced it into the man's mouth.
The bastard was dealing in frenzy, knew supply lines Jason could pick at, would be noticed if he disappeared.
The girl was curled into a corner, knees clutched to her chest as has entire body quaked with the force of the earthquake that hadn't managed to destroy the pit she was unlucky enough to be living in. Far as Jason could tell, she was around college age, her brown hair lank and unkept as was usual for those who gave more thought to where they'd get their next hit.
Outside, and two floors down he finally heard the sirens of the ambulance. Jason scooped the girl into his arms as he tugged off his ski mask, the trembling of her painfully thin body apparent even through the thick leather jacket he'd wrapped around her. At least it hid most of the track marks that ran along her arms.
Another OD, like so many since frenzy had hit the streets, not since straight venom had he dealt with a drug that killed off its buyers like this. Bad business to kill off your client base after all and most dealers knew that.
He carried her to the waiting ambulance, past rows and rows of locked doors, down steps littered with garbage sharp enough to dig into the thick soles of his shoes.
When he didn't offer any information, the paramedics didn't ask. They loaded the girl onto a stretcher. One turned back to ask if Jason was okay, if he needed to see a doctor, offered him a blanket.
Jason brushed her off, and looked down at the weeds poking up through the cracked asphalt. There were no flowers popping up on that street.
She said Jason was a good kid for calling it in. The burner cell in his phone beeped twice and he turned away without responding as he took the device out and skimmed through the text, eye's narrowing at the contents.
He wasn't a kid, and he wasn't good anymore, maybe he never had been, but that didn't matter when there was work he had to be doing.
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Arkham.
There was a long list of things Steph would have given to get out of ever having to set foot in the place again.
If not for all the other avenues of investigation turning up nothing, she wouldn't have bothered, but there was only so much the police could scratch up talking to the drugged out crazies they suspected had been part of Jeremiah Arkham's 'trials'.
Even the empty office she and Tim were waiting in brought up memories she didn't want brought to the surface. She felt bad for pulling him away from all the Batman Inc stuff he'd taken over for Bruce, but the multiple bounties still on Batgirls head had effectively banned her from going out solo.
Damian was being kept away from her for reasons she could guess at. Cass was only coming back from Hong Kong in a week for some family thing, not that Steph would have been comfortable investigating a case that hit so close to home for all of them with her lie detector of a best friend. Dick…
After that night in the cave, Dick was the last person Steph could handle being around. Hell she would have chosen working with the obsessive, reclusive Bruce she'd been catching only brief glimpses of lately. Dick noticed she'd been avoiding him, of course he did, but not for the reasons she was content to let him believe.
The door creaked open and the only person who'd offered up any information about he situation at Arkham stepped through.
"Batgirl!" He breathed, seemingly surprised she'd shown up at all.
"Hi Baker." Steph stayed where she was, near the room's only window, still not entirely sure how to react to the guard's presence. Without him, she'd never have found Jason in time to save Jason, but he could have told her much sooner and saved both her, Jason and everyone else in Gotham a lot of grief.
"I, I'm s, sorry about your brother." Baker said, turning over the box he held close to his chest nervously. "'Swear I didn't think h, he was down there, didn't know down there was real. So, so sorry."
"S'okay Jeff." Stephanie might have had some trouble holding back a groan if Tim hadn't been tensed up minutely and curled his fingers. "This is Red Robin." She introduced the boy with as much of a smile as she could manage. "Red Robin, Baker. You said you…"
"Actually we've gotten some new intell that suggests he's still alive somewhere." Tim cut in, clearly taking the introduction as his cue to take over. Steph let out a huff and pretended not to notice.
"I don't know, uh…" Baker looked helplessly between Steph and Tim like he'd been caught in some kind of trap. "That's not, I wouldn't have heard about that, but's good?" He finished off with his eyes fixed on Steph.
"We got the 'intel' from Schools, so…" Steph shrugged and crinkled her nose a little. "It's be really great if you heard your buddy say something out of context, huh?"
"No." Baker shook his head and practically shoved the object he'd been clutching at her.
"Cards?" Steph shuffled through the deck, raising an eyebrow at him.
"They're the ones he had, I uh, had to take them, 'cause of the…" He made a cutting motion across his neck and pointed at the cards. "Just thought you'd… I uh, I couldn't get the, the books too, but they're in the s, storage. Just thought you'd, you deserved to have something f, from him."
"Thanks Jeff." Steph felt her smile grow more genuine and tucked the cards away carefully. Her victory in their still pending poker rematch would be even sweeter if it was played with the original deck of cards.
"You asked us all the way here, to give Batgirl some cards?" Tim's voice was just on the edge of being his own version of the batgrowl.
"N, no." He inched around them to the back of the office and lifted two silver trays off the desk, handing them over Tim like he was holding meat at the mouth of a tiger. Steph noted belatedly that the bloodstains on one of them were from her short-lived rampage through the asylum. "Someone wiped the recordings and the other guards are all," He swallowed dryly and stepped away from Tim. "Everyone who saw her, they're all g, gone."
"Saw who?" Tim asked, and Steph could practically see Baker closing up every time the boy spoke. It wasn't hard to see why with how stiff Tim was being right then, but it wasn't helping with the questioning at all.
She put herself just a little between Tim and Baker, only enough to keep the man's attention mostly on her and calm him down a little.
"A woman, she came here, t, twice that I know of, just, threw around money like it was, n, nothing." He brought a hand to the back of his head and averted his gaze. "You can, get her prints off these and, uh, know who she is, right. Before she, uh has anyone else k, killed?"
Steph glanced over at Tim, who was looking over the trays as though they didn't already know where the things had come from. It would of fit, Talia being responsible for the string of 'accidents' and 'suicides' succeeding Jason's departure from Arkham. She, like her father, didn't like having witnesses around, no matter how well she'd paid them off.
What didn't fit was Talia leaving the witnesses alive as long as she had. Steph would have expected her to subtly get rid of the guards over a period of time after her initial visit, not pretty much all in one go months later.
"That's it?" Tim's voice broke Steph out of her thoughts. Baker just gave a shaky nod and the one Tim returned was confident. He cocked his head at Steph and moved for the window.
She blinked after him, feet staying planted right where they were. Tim always asked follow up questions, tried to dredge up information the person he was talking to might have forgotten, or was trying to hide. He only stopped when he was sure the speaker had told him absolutely everything he could possibly use.
"Batgirl." Baker said, reaching out a hand, but not quite touching her. "There are only three of us left who've seen her."
If Baker was right about Talia's targets, then he was on her hitlist too.
"We'll deal with it." Tim said disinterestedly, already typing something up on that computer he always carried around, probably a message to one of those informants he had everywhere. That was one resource she didn't envy him. Assassins were creepy, and while she was happy enough to work with them when she had to, sustained contact was just… Assassins were creepy okay.
Would have been nice to know what was going on for a change though.
They stuck around a few minutes more, but the rest of what Baker had to offer was mostly more condolences concerning Jason and nervous glances sent at Tim.
They were almost back to where they'd parked their bikes when Tim asked her if he could give the cards to Bruce for 'analyses', she couldn't really find it in herself to say no. It wasn't like she didn't have her own way of maybe finding out what Talia had been up to at Arkham.
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There was always something going down in Gotham, some rodent who thought they would be the one to pull the wool over the bat's eyes or conspiracy to get sucked into.
It wasn't like Jason had forgotten this during his time spent out of the loop, but it had been pushed to the very, very back of his mind.
Only now that he'd gotten actively involved that he'd had to deal with it again. There were at least twelve new gangs carving up territory for themselves, three of them more like harmless biker clubs and beneath his notice, while the rest had actually done some damage.
Five new drug variants, not including frenzy, had hit the streets, one of them containing high doses of venom mixed in with an opiate that wasn't exactly heroine, but close. Thankfully, that one had mostly dried up since Bruce forced Bane to stop operations in the city, so at least one good thing had come out of the clusterfuck that had been Jason's escape attempt.
Jason was still waiting for some kind of retaliatory fallout with that one.
Problem was, far as he could tell, remnants of the venom operation were also dealing in frenzy, and they knew what they were doing.
The resources he could tap into without showing up as the Red Hood weren't enough to dredge up anymore than a vague idea of their supply lines and it didn't help that the leads he turned over to the bats via Blondie barely left him anything to follow up on.
On top of it, the whole things connection to Arkham left him on edge. It wasn't enough they'd been pumping their patients full of that shit, they 'd graduated to snatching people off the streets too. Or maybe they'd started on the streets, struck a deal with the asylum to get more test subjects.
Even the dozens of crime bosses disappearing couldn't be seen as a plus, not when they left power vacuums that left a trail of blood that left hardly anyone who knew what the fuck was going on too scared to advertise.
In short, Jason was way past done with the city and in no mood to deal with the guy who couldn't take a hint that Jason really wasn't looking for a job, and no he didn't care how low risk and high paying the job at the docks would be.
"Come on, smart kid like you can tell there's hardly no risk in a job like this, I'll even make sure to have ya bailed out if ya get caught." Because that was something that happened about never. Jason looked across the bar at his booth, already occupied with dinner just an order away. "And hey, if the bat shows up maybe you get a scar and a story to tell next time you're looking for work."
Jason had to think for a second to be sure that was what the man had really said, then the absurdity of the whole thing hit home and startled a bark of laughter out of him. If Jason ran into any of the bats in his condition he doubted he'd be leaving with just s a fresh scar and yet another story. His hand moved partway towards the scar already at his neck before he could think about it.
"My boss don't like me doin' work on the side, man." That part was true enough, for a certain definition of 'boss'. Jason spread his arms out to encompass the whole of the bar as he brushed past the guy and backed towards his booth. "Sure one of these tools can put in the extra hours."
The guy looked annoyed more than anything else, the rest of the patrons apparently looked less likely to buy whatever story he was selling, but he left Jason to begin scouting again anyway.
Jason dropped into the seat across from Blondie, ignored her raised eyebrow and ordered the number five while she leaned over the table to rest her chin on her interlocked fingers.
"You dyed your hair." She said, the grin on her face too sharp for him to be comfortable just yet. "You can't ever deny it again."
He ran a hand through his newly dyed black bangs and resisted the urge to roll his eyes at her. "I've never dyed my fucking hair, Blondie, not once. Thought we covered this already."
"I didn't have proof, and then I forgot, but now." She waved her hands at him. "You have to admit it now."
"We're seriously gonna argue about my hair and not the shady suit waltzing around?" He raised an eyebrow at her.
"Honestly I was kinda scared to ask, but who is he, one of your super secret informants from your days as a crimelord? Does he want out? Did you forget his severance package and he went to the union? I told you they were gonna rebel if you didn't stop terrorizing them like that Jason. The guards at Arkham are still terrified of you, Baker actually asked me if I thought your ghost came back to kill off all of the guys who pissed you off." The grin melted off her face, replaced by a fake solemnity that made it hard for him to keep his own expression blank. "He also says he's sorry for stealing your cards and he prays every night that you get a new deck in the afterlife. He gave them to me, but I kinda lost them."
While she'd been talking he snagged one of the many pages she had spread out in front of her. "No, he was looking for some hired muscle and you can tell your friend that he'd better not get near any grave yards, cause my undead ass is waiting for a chance to kick his."
She snatched the homework he'd started writing over – it was paragraph upon paragraph of conjunctions how the fuck had she even passed her last course? – and pushed a sheaf of paper held together with enough paper clips to rebuild the Eiffel tower towards him.
"Some missing people and suspects. Do your homework and leave mine alone." She cradled the, now wrinkled, paper to her chest and glared at him before shifting her eyes to the guy chatting up another group of men. "So what is it just, 'Hey we're doing some illegal stuff tonight, you want in?'" Her face scrunched up. "What if they accidently ask an off duty cop."
"Cops don't come in here." Jason inched his hand nearer to the stack of textbooks at her elbow while she watched on with a bemused frown. He wasn't going to be reading through anything from Arkham until he was somewhere a lot less public.
"Sure they d…" Her head snapped up and she locked her widened eyes with him. The cook approached and dropped two plates of chili-dogs and sodas on the table and Blondie stayed quiet only until the woman disappeared again. "Please tell me we haven't been hanging out in a supervillian bar."
"Of course not." Jason watched her relax minutely, waiting for her to let out a relieved sigh before he continued. "It's a thug bar."
"What?!" Her head spun around, looking over the place like she thought someone was about to get mugged. She looked back at him and slouched down in her chair until she'd mostly disappeared beneath the table.
"You're overreacting. It's mostly tax evasion and insurance fraud." He took a bite of his chilidog and chewed while he watched her stew. "That guy over there's looking for some idiots to fake steal a shipment so he can say it never went out. No export tax."
"And you're not gonna." She made shooting motions with her hands.
"The hell'd I care? 'S how half the people round here make a living." It was how his father had made a living before he'd gone and gotten himself involved with a supervillian. Those kinds of jobs never really popped up at The Dive though and for good reason. The guys working for those freaks either went insane, quit before a week was up, or stuck it out for the street cred working for one of the big names could bring – so, also insane.
"I've been coming here for a while, how come no one's ever offered 'me' a job?" She lifted her chilidog off her plate. "I'm weirdly offended right now, aren't I evil looking enough?"
"You're in here every day, at the same booth, with the same guy, passing papers back and forth, go quiet every time there's someone within earshot and ya don't advertise enough ta be a call girl." Jason drank down a third of his soda by the time she found her voice.
"Oh my god." Her head hit the table with a thunk, the sob she let out was overdoing it a bit though. "They think I'm hiring. My dad would be so proud." Her wail had to be soft, so they didn't draw too much attention, but it got the point across.
"Relax." He shuffled through her homework again. "Don't think of it as making a name for yourself in the underworld, think of it as a fallback incase the college degree doesn't pan out." He snorted and held the papers back to her. "Ya might need it."
"Relax? In Gotham." She slid the pages into a binder and sniffled, looking up at him with eyes that lacked any trace of redness, she shoveled down some food before talking. "My life is now devoted to expanding my control from just this table, until I have the whole of the bar under my control, and eventually the city. Where do crimelords even go to relax in Gotham, like massage parlors or something?"
"Nah, you need a proper lair to plot your schemes from in peace. Like a manor on a hill surrounded by miles of woodland, or a dark cave, or an ominous clocktower, or a fortress of ice, maybe look into getting a space…"
"Okay Jason I get it." She grinned and pressed a hand over his mouth. "Hey, what about an abandoned observatory?"
"There's only one unabandoned observatory in Gotham." He pointed out, though it was likely another had opened and gone under, that wasn't really the sort of thing he kept track of.
"Come on, I'll show you." She finished off her soda then scooped up her half eaten chilidog as she stood.
He raised an eyebrow at her, but made no move to get up. He'd been trawling after drug dealers all day and squeezing into places he'd regained to much weight to fit into. Getting up within the next hour just wasn't in the cards for him right then.
"You're too paranoid to go out after dark, we have to go no now." She tugged on his arm with her free hand. "Please, I'll stop teasing you about your hair."
"We're adults, Blondie; ya can't tease me to begin with." He carried on eating his food. "Drag one of your justice friends with you."
She rolled her eyes and huffed loudly. "No we're not. Come on, please. All my friends are too busy to hang out with me. One of them is literally in space, Jason. I haven't seen her in months. I'm all sad and lonely, and I went with you to rob drug dealers."
"You're not going to stop until I get up, are you?" He drank the last of his soda and she blinked innocently down at him, tugging gently on his hand. "I need to find new bar." He sighed and dragged himself to his feet.
She let out a whoop and kept her hold on his hand as she led him out. He looked down at her fingers wrapped around his and found that it didn't bother him nearly as much as he thought it would.
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Night was coming early by the time they got there the sky prematurely darkened by the heavy rainclouds that were as common in Gotham's summers as blizzards were in winter.
"That isn't an observatory."
They stood at a wire mesh fence, peering at the ruins of a building just barely visible past the dense copse of trees that were likely the work of some meta because they couldn't have grown in the few years since Steph had been there last.
"Used to be a planetarium." She pressed her head against the wire hard enough to leave the pattern indented on her skin. "Y'know, fake stars cause Ima fake criminal, thought it'd be funny."
With a sigh, she turned to leave, tightening the ponytail the wind had blown loose. They wouldn't have been able to stay long anyway, she had to get ready for patrol soon and Jason was…
There was only one set of footsteps crunching on the overgrown gravel, Jason wasn't following after her.
Behind her, the fence rattled loudly and she spun just in time to see Jason land on the other side.
"C'mon Blondie, you're not stupid enough to think vigilantism isn't a crime right?" He scoffed, but the smirk on his face wasn't nearly mocking enough for it to sting. "Some Batgirl you are. If the projectors still there, ya get fake, illegal stars."
She groaned, even as she hooked her fingers into the links and pulled herself up and over the fence. "I can't take you anywhere without…"
Something rattled deep in the darkening woods, emitting a keening cry that had both Jason and Stephanie snapping their heads towards the trees.
"If this is a plan to sacrifice me to Cthulu, I'm warning you…" He turned his intense gaze on her and said with absolute seriousness. "I've come back to life before and I can damn well do it again."
"Jason." Stephanie tried to keep her own tone just as serious. "You deserve better. If I were gonna sacrifice you to anyone it would be Slenderman."
"I will fucking haunt you." He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of the jacket he had on over his hoody and marched forward.
Steph laughed and followed after, broken asphalt crunching under their feet as they crossed the ruined parking lot, passing by a rusted, dented old solar system that had once lit up and moved at the entrance.
The doors were locked, but that wasn't exactly a problem when most of a wall and part of it's ceiling had cave in. Jason broke the lock anyway.
The inside was even worse off. The purple upholstery of the chairs having been mostly carried off, and the chairs themselves only so much broken plastic. Grass had grown into the room, taking over part of the tiled floor, even dotting it with some pale white flowers.
Steph stood in the center of it while somewhere in the distance thunder rumbled ominously. She took in the space as much as she could with the little light there was while Jason disappeared somewhere near the back. She looked at the char marks decorating the walls and wondered why no one had bothered to rebuild. The place had been well liked years ago, so it wasn't liked there wasn't anything to be gained by fixing it up.
A mechanical screech echoed through the room, sudden and loud enough that she had to clamp her hands over her ears. Just as suddenly it was gone and the dome came alive with stars. Multi colored pinpricks of light that moved steadily across the walls, ceiling and floor. Where there was nothing to keep them in they spilled across the wooded area to dance across the trees.
"Found the projector." Jason popped back into view, his face scrunched up in distaste as he brushed dust and spider webs out of his hair. His hand came back covered in webbing and even a small spider. "Fuck." He shook his hand to dislodge the crawling thing as he came forward, frowning at her amused grin. "Shut up, wolf spiders are poisonous."
"Oh no, I've been poisoned." Steph chuckled and folded her hands behind her head as she tipped backwards, wanting to rest on the softer looking grassy parts of the ground. She almost thought she heard Jason let out a shout, but the face that looked over her was as unimpressed by her antics as always.
"You really get bitten and Ima leave you here to die."
"I've swooned." Steph flung an arm over her eyes and made grabby motions with her free hand. "I don't think I'll make it."
He sighed loudly and there was a muffled thump, then she felt the slight increase of temperature that came with having another body close by.
Steph uncovered her face and shuffled a little closer to him. Summer or not the wind was chilly and extra warmth was welcome. Her arm brushed against his and he pulled sharply away, covering the action by moving the arms further to pillow his head.
"It's just like being in space." Steph stretched out and ran her fingertips over the soft blades of grass, watching the way the stars caught against her skin. "I've never been to space." She shifted her eyes to catch his. "Used to come here in highschool. Mostly to make out in the back, but like a hundred other teenagers too. Sucks that they didn't rebuild after whatever happened. I mean, all you really need is the projector, huh."
"Damage like this? Too much trouble, get a payout from insurance and retire, maybe start up a replacement business somewhere better. Let the ruins be someone else's problem." He snorted. "Why put in the work if you don't have to?"
Steph studied the moon drifting across the cracked ceiling and the smattering of stars lighting up the pale flowers, she plucked one of the ground to turn it over between her fingers. "Cause a lot of people loved it."
Those same stars passed over his face, across the pale scar at his throat, they reflected in his partly closed teal eyes. Feeling her watching him, Jason, cocked his head to look back at her with a questioning furrow to his brows while lightning flickered between the heavy clouds covering the sky.
"I kind of love it this way too." She tossed the flower at him, but he caught it before it could hit his face and twirled it between two fingers so it took off into the air like a mini helicopter when he let it go. The wind picked up and carried the little flower out of sight. "It's beautiful."
"Until you get bitten by a wolf spider." Jason shook his head and shifted his position to look through the grass.
"You literally came back from the dead, how can you be such a pessimist?" She flicked a longer blade of grass that was ticking her wrist.
His lips parted, the upturn of his lips hinting at his next words being some kind of joke response, but the expression faded before he actually said anything. Above their heads, the clouds rumbled and blew away, exposing the moon for just a second before it was covered up again.
"From the get go only one person was ever anything but pessimistic about that." He sat up with something that might have been a sigh had it been louder. "And she's pretty fucking pissed at me right now. We should leave before the storm breaks."
Standing, he offered a hand to help her do the same, but instead of letting him pull her to her feet, she gripped tightly and pulled him back down. It was unexpected enough that his feet slipped out from under him, and with a surprised shout, he was sprawled on the grass again.
"The hell, Blondie!"
"Y'know, I'm not pissed at you, and I'm like, the most optimistic person I know." She rolled over to lean almost over him and softly poked his forehead.
"I've figured." His voice was tight, the muscles in his body tensed up. She ran the finger down the bridge of his nose without really thinking about it, watching the stars pass over him again she brought it to cover his mouth before he caught it, gently prying it away. "What are you doing?"
"I just noticed you have some freckles." She pulled her hand back to her chest, feeling her face heat up. "Like tiny little stars aaall over your face." Her grin was more nervous than playful, but she had a feeling he'd turned away too fast to notice anyway. "It's kind of adorable."
"You're insane." He threw an arm over his eyes and groaned loudly.
"Yeah, but I bet all your friends are, so I fit right in, right?" She rested her chin on her interlinked fingers. "Bet Talia'll stop kidnapping me if I get into your supervillian club."
"You don't wanna be part of that club, trust me." He brought down the arm and rolled his eyes. "Make one joke and Deathstroke's sending Vertigo after you."
"You pissed off Deathstroke?" She chuckled. "That how you got that scar on your neck?"
His hand went to the thick white line at his throat, but whatever other reaction he might have had, he brushed away before she could acknowledge it. "You wanna hear that story ask Bruce, she knows all about it." He said bitterly, then smiled sharply up at her. "Old Mister Wilson wouldn't have tried to damage me that much back then."
"Cause you'd kick him out of the club?"
"No, I was never part of the club either, Talia woulda suspended his membership though."
"What is it with you and Talia anyway?" Steph rested head on his shoulder and tried to make the question sound casual, she was pretty sure she didn't pull it off. It was doubtful he'd be straight with her if she asked upfront whether he the woman had been offing the staff at Arkham, if he even knew, and she didn't want to push him on that anyway.
"Talia's…" Instead of pushing her away like she'd been expecting, Jason just gathered up the strands of her hair that had strayed near his face and arranged them back around her head while he thought. "She's there." He said finally, softly as he pressed against the ends of a lock of hair with a fingertip. "I owe her a lot, but it's a damn long story and we aint got time before the storm drowns us outta here."
"But it's so nice." She shifted so her head was cradled more securely on his shoulder and started picking more flowers. "Maybe the clouds'll blow over."
"We're not that lucky." He closed his eyes and pillowed his head on the arm she wasn't laying on.
"Not like we can't handle some bad weather." She piled her flowers on her chest and began looping the stems into a chain. "And there's…" She squinted up at the starry ceiling, "kind of a roof. Bet we'll be fine, you're just worried the acid rain'll wash out your hair dye."
"You're 'too' optimistic." He said. "And it's not dyed."
"Hey, you shoot people, this is my way of one upping the world."
"Huh." He let out a puff of air. "Okay Sunshine."
"Sucks that you dyed it, the streak was pretty cool."
The storm broke about twenty minutes later, and they were both thoroughly soaked before they could make it to anything resembling cover.
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So i don't usually do this, but I've noticed that the perspectives in this story have grown kind of limited.
If anyone would like to see a scene from the point of view for characters other than Jason an Stephanie: Like their reactions when they found the tapes, Jason's disappearance, etc, drop your requests in a review or a PM if you're shy and if there aren't any spoliers in that scene I'll write it up separately from this so you can see what the others have been up to.
Thanks for reading.