'That can't be. It can't be. This is a dream. It has to be a dream,' thought Alyssa, staring at her wrist. Her wrist with a timer. Her soulmate timer. Her soulmate timer that when she fell asleep earlier was counting down.
A few minutes ago, out of the blue, it started to burn. The pain waking her up in the early morning. She hasn't stopped staring at her wrist since she turned the lamp on by her bed and looked at it. Her timer had stopped.
Deep down, she knew what that meant. Tears fell as she continued to look at her wrist. She could hear a scream and her door slammed open. Her parents running into her room. She didn't even register that she was the one screaming. She didn't even realize she was crying.
The only thought that ran through her head was that her soulmate was dead. And she never going to meet whoever it was.
A few months have gone by. Alyssa was getting better. She was heartbroken. She guessed she always would be. The hurt of losing your soulmate never will go away, even if they never meet. But she was slowly healing. It didn't consume her like at first. Where all she could do was cry and sleep. She never wanted to leave her room, let alone her bed. Little by little, it got better. Her parents were amazing during the last months. They talked to her, comforted her, let her cry.
Now it didn't hurt as bad. She could leave her room again. Go to school. Hang out with her friends again. She just couldn't smile, or laugh. Not yet.
Alyssa had a good time out with her friends. They hung out to the mall then going to the movies and went to a favorite restaurant before coming home for the night.
She had just changed into her PJs for the night when it happened again. The burning sensation around her timer. It wasn't as bad as before. She looked down and nearly screamed.
Alyssa stared down at her wrist. The counter was going haywire. The numbers made no sense. She couldn't tell what numbers the counter had. It seemed like a broken clock. Never staying on a set a of numbers and even blinking random numbers in between.
She was broken.
For two years, her timer never acted right. Never set on time. No one could tell whether it was counting forward or backward. Alyssa got to the point where she didn't care. She didn't know why it was doing this. All she knew is that it was. She had a broken timer and that was normal. Her normal and she just rolled with it.
And when it started to burn again, she didn't want to even look. She didn't want to get her hopes up, or even dashed. She was happy and she didn't want to ruin it.
Eventually, she had to look. It was inevitable. So she looked.
She never thought that her timer would be counting down as it did over two years ago. She thought it would have stopped. It was counting down, only this time it was glowing. Glowing green.
"Come on, Alyssa. All work and no play isn't the way to go," complained Mary, "You can go out for one night. It won't kill ya."
"In Gotham, it might just," muttered Alyssa, earning a smack from the older girl.
"Gotham isn't that bad. Sure, we have villains and criminals, but what city doesn't. At least we have heroes watching over our city. Some cities don't even have that," argued Mary.
"Chill. Remember I am a Gotham native. I am not slamming down my fair city. No need to get your panties in a bunch," smirked Alyssa "I also have met the cities, heroes. At least some of them…"
"Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. How was it?" asked Mary.
"As you would expect. Batman is not a talker and takes brooding to a new extreme. Robin is a rude, little shit. The others I haven't met yet, but if it's what I heard, they can't be much different from that," explained Alyssa with a shrug. Being an intern at the Gotham Police department as a CSI, she got to meet heroes at certain crime scenes.
Of course, working in Gotham, she didn't get to meet a lot of heroes. Batman had no heroes, or supers in the city rule, which is well known throughout the force. She did meet the occasional hero, like Superman or WonderWoman, whenever they teamed up with Batman and were at the crime scenes.
"That's the same reaction as you meeting Superman and Wonder Woman. Why don't you get star struck like a normal person?" asked Mary.
She never did see the appeal. Sure, they were super-powered beings, but she wasn't starstruck, speechless mess most people were. To her, they were just humans and she had a job to do. She concentrated on her work than being googly-eyed over heroes. She would talk to them when needed and treated them like human beings.
The first time she talked to Superman was to correct him on a mistake he made in a conversation he was having with the commissioner. She was sure she shocked everyone in the room with that. Alyssa had to have been seeing things when she looked over at Batman and saw a small smile before he turned away.
"Not sure, Sarah. I never really talked to them. I was working," deflected Alyssa.
"Hm, that reminds me. Just means you need to have some fun," stated Sarah "Please. Just once go out. You need to have fun and not work all the time. It's not healthy. I should know. I am a doctor."
"You are a nurse," argued Alyssa "You know what? Maybe next week…"
"Funny you should say that," muttered Mary "There is a charity event next weekend…"
Alyssa whipped around to face her friend, "Nope. Not happening. Forget it."
"Please. Please. Please…" begged Mary "Pretty please. It's for charity."
"A Wayne charity event, which in other words a ball. Not my thing" stated Alyssa "I have nothing to wear…"
"You did say next week and it is a week away. Plenty of time to get ready" coaxed Mary.
"I don't know…"
"Please. I don't want to go alone…" pleaded Mary.
"Fine. I guess I can go. It is for a good cause," muttered Alyssa.
"Yes, the cause is that you aren't making me go alone," cheered Mary as she swung Alyssa around before giving her a hug.
"We got to go shopping right this second!" shouted Mary as she pulled Alyssa toward the mall.
Alyssa sighed. This was better than going to the bars and clubs like Mary originally wanted. She reluctantly followed the blonde as she is mentally preparing.
What she wasn't prepared for was her timer counting down from years to next week a few days later.
"You look so hot!" squealed Mary as she looked at her friend. Alyssa wore a slimming, dark green dress. The dress had an off-shoulder neckline and was knee-high, showing off her legs and black ankle-high boots at the same time. Black flowers embezzled into the shirt and a black belt pulled the outfit together along with her jewelry. Her hair was up in a bun except when it framed her face, which she curled.
"Let me help you with your make up and then we can go," smiled Mary as she grabbed her makeup bag and started fussing over her friend.
Alyssa messed with a black banded bracelet on her wrist to cover up her timer. She didn't even tell Mary that her timer counted down to tonight. She didn't want to look at it. Didn't want to get her hopes up. It could always change. But it didn't stop her nerves.
If she did meet her soul mate tonight, would they like her? Would she like them? What did they look like? What was their personality? Those questions kept going through her head and more as she messed with her bracelet.
Looking around the hall, Alyssa silently cursed Mary. The place was packed. Full of rich folks, most of which didn't care about the charity they were here for. And here she was, standing by the wall while Mary abandoned her to go talk to some co-workers.
"Didn't expect to see you here," Turning around, Alyssa came face to face with Commissioner Gordan.
"Yeah, me either. Thought you would be making your way around the room, boss" smiled Alyssa with a little solute.
Gordan rolled his eyes before handing her a drink, "Thought you could help me out with that since you are all alone. Think of it as a favor."
"So, a favor I can cash in on later? Got it," smirked Alyssa, taking a drink. "What do you want me to do?"
"Just be yourself. I am just going to introduce you around the room. Make conversation. That kind of stuff. Nothing too hard" explained Gordan with a wave of his hand. He started to walk towards a group of people as he chugged the rest of his drink and grabbed another.
"You really hate these parties?" joked Alyssa, following the man.
The rest of the night was meeting people and talking up the police department. The good news was that she was good at that part. The bad news was it was boring.
"Last ones, I promise. Saved the best for last," whispered Gordan as they made their way over. Alyssa wouldn't have thought anything of it, at least at first glance. The men they were walking up to weren't facing them. Just tall, good built men from what she could see. It wasn't till they turned around that she froze up.
"Bruce, I would like you to meet our best intern on the force. Alyssa Williams," introduced her boss "Alyssa, this is Bruce Wayne and his son, Dick Grayson."
"It's nice to meet you, Miss Williams," Bruce greeted as he held out his hand. Taking his hand, "It's a pleasure, Mr. Wayne"
"You can call me Bruce," corrected the man before letting go of her hand.
"So, you are an intern at the police station?" asked Dick, shaking her hand.
"Yeah, CSI" answered Alyssa "Don't know if I am the best…"
"Don't shoot yourself down. From what I have been hearing, you have been closing cases left and right. If that isn't good, I don't know what else would be," acknowledged Dick. Shaking his hand, Alyssa remembered that Dick was once a cop. He works at Wayne co. now, but that was probably where he heard.
"Thanks," whispered a blushing Alyssa, before gunfire sounded at the front of the room. Everyone quieted down. Most frozen in place as Penguin and his gang made their way into the hall.
"Now that I got all your attention. Hands up, no funny business," commanded the man as he let his goons move around the room "We are just going to relieve you of all your possessions and then be gone. No need to worry."
Glancing around, she noticed Bruce and Dick weren't by her side anymore. She wasn't that worried about it though. Figuring they always did that, from what she could remember. They always disappeared with danger and reappeared afterward. Probably safer that way, since they were the richest people in the room and might be taken, hostage. Especially since it was the Penguin, who has been known for kidnapping the Billionaire and his sons.
She was worried about Mary, who was somewhere in the room. She hide behind a pillar when the Bat clan showed up. Slowly making her way around the room, she kept looking for her friend. She sighed with relief when she saw Mary in the crowd of people escaping while the fighting went on.
Suddenly, she was grabbed from behind. "You are going to do what I say, or you will die. You are my ticket out of here," directed Penguin as he dug the knife into her side.
"You ruin my dress and you will be sorry," whispered the girl.
"You got spunk, kid. Gotta give ya that," chuckled the man as he dug the knife into her right side, "But remember who you are talking to."
"Short little man with temper issues that has a huge ego and is ugly as fuck," answered Alyssa "On your right asshole."
Penguin turned to his right, which moved the knife far enough away for Alyssa to move. Crushing his foot, she swinging her elbow around, colliding with his head and knocking him to the side. She ran for it after that.
What she didn't notice was Penguin aiming a gun at her as she ran. A shot rang out as she was tackled to the ground. Looking up, she saw a red helmet. Blinking, she noticed her wrist tingling as the man picked her up and moved them behind a pillar as gunfire kept ringing through the air.
Carefully taking the bracelet off, she looked down at the timer.
"Are you ok? You are not hurt anywhere?" asked the man, known as Red Hood. He looked down at her and noticed what she was looking at. He quickly pulled up his sleeve and looked down at his timer Alyssa looked at his wrist, which looked like hers. The glowing green numbers on both their wrists were at zero.
"Oh, shit" muttered the man as he looked up at her again.
"No shit, Sherlock," deadpanned Alyssa, which earned a chuckle from the man. The two suddenly noticed the gunfire had stopped.
"What do we do now?" asked Alyssa as she looked around to make sure the coast was clear, "Soul mates can't be too far apart after meeting. We can't go cold turkey. And we just had to meet like this. You don't even have a choice…"
"We should talk elsewhere. Come with me," interrupted Red Hood. "Ok," whispered Alyssa before he grabbed her hand, guiding her through the back doors. He picked her up as soon as they made it through the back door.
"Hold on," warned the man for bringing out his garbling gun and shooting it towards the rooftops.
Alyssa watched as Red Hood paced the room. He had brought her to one of his safe houses. She knew she was safe and it was safe for them the talk. But she needed to calm down the man in front of her, so they can talk.
She wasn't an idiot. She knew how this was. How bad this was. She may be his soul mate, but she was still a stranger. They didn't know anything about each other and they meet the worst way possible. Someone somewhere must be having a blast right now.
She knew how dangerous he was. What he used to do. That he may not kill anymore, but that doesn't make him any less dangerous.
It wouldn't have been so bad if she met him outside of the costume. Then he would get a chance to get to know her. Let her get to know him before revealing this part of his life. Have trust built between the two before a reveal. But life just had to be a huge fucking mess.
Because now he had to reveal his identity. He couldn't get to know her as Red Hood or even get close to her without her being in danger. And soul mates had to be close to each other for the first few weeks. Separating was not an option. It did things, bad things, to soul mates who went with that option. Even rejecting a soul mate so soon after the finding was bad.
"My name is Alyssa Williams," introduced Alyssa, stopping the man in his tracks "You don't have to say anything. Not even your name…. Just know you can trust me… I know that it's not much. And I do know you went through a lot of shit. Share what you want. Don't share even…. Just please, stop the pacing. It isn't helping you and it's honestly making me more nervous."
"Sorry about that," muttered the man, turning to face her. He took off his helmet, showing a red domino underneath.
"It's ok," whispered Alyssa. She looked up at the man in front of her. Black hair falling in front of his mask, she took in his features. He couldn't have been much older than she was. Even with the mask on, she could tell he was handsome. Really hot as a matter of fact. She really wished she could see his eyes as he looked back at her.
"Like what you see," joked Hood as he buffed up with a sexy grin.
"Yeah, I do," answered Alyssa, before slapping her hands against her mouth. She found a very interesting spot on the wall to look at as she tried to control her blush, silently cursing her lack of filter.
"Glad you like the view. I really like mine," admitted Hood. She glanced at the man and noticed a slight blush before looking away again.
"So, what now?" asked Alyssa once she got control of herself.
"Well, Alyssa. I think I should introduce myself," before she could stop him, or he could stop himself, he took off his mask. Peeling off the glue off his face that stuck his mask on, "My name is Jason Todd. I am also known as Red Hood."
Hi! Thanks for reading!
I have too much free time. I wrote this in two days. First time I wrote for this fandom, so there might be some characters that are occ in here.
I saw this prompt and thought it would be a cool story to write. As of right now, it's complete. It is only supposed to be a one-shot, but I guess if I get more ideas, I will expand. (Which unfortunately I am getting ideas as I am writing this, so you may get more if you are interested.) God knows I have the time now to write as all this is going on.
I hope you enjoyed it. I will keep ya updated if I do decide to add to it.