WARNINGS:

— EXPLICIT LANGUAGE

— SEXUAL SITUATIONS

CHAPTER EIGHT

Sharp gasps flicker through the apartment, the only light coming from that of the city that's glowing in from down below, through the smog.

Fingernails bite into a sweat-slickened back, clawing down, causing teeth to grit together and only motivating a heavier drive between thighs, moans and whispers carrying the name, "Jason," being reaped as a result.

His hands wrap around her wrists, pinning them above her head, his tongue running along the damp skin of her neck, her back arching underneath him.

For the first time in a while the both of them are consumed completely with euphoria, their bodies desperate and hungry to devour the other as he keeps up his brutal pace and pressure and she meets him with each stroke, taking everything he's willing to give to her.

Her legs wrap around him, her eyes squeezing together as she feels her ending near...before Jason stop abruptly, and opts to attempt to get away from her.

She opens her eyes and screams at the sight, unwrapping herself from around him, horrified.

Moments later, Jason winces as he grips the edge of the bathroom counter, his head pounding as his blood pressure is practically ringing it's tapping-out bell, Gia's brows are knitted together where she's standing in his t-shirt, concerned, her own breathing is heavy as she worriedly looks at him in the mirror as he examines himself.

A ring of bright red bruising where her legs were wrapped around him is prominent around his hips, the color beginning to resurface in his skin that had begun to turn blue.

It happened in the speed of light, at least it appeared that way to him.

He rolls his jaw as he looks in the mirror at her.

"What the hell did you do, Gia?" He asks her, as calmly as he can.

He knows it's simply not just that she went through with her work and used snake venom to cure her illness.

It wouldn't have done what it's clearly done to her had that been the case.

It wouldn't have easily undone her signs of dying—that quickly, it wouldn't have completely eradicated her body of cancer in that short amount of time.

When he left she was on the brink of death.

He comes back a couple days later and she's waving a copy of her clear body scan at him while looking freshly created.

As if God himself took an eraser to her and rebuilt what should have been in the first place.

Then when things get physical between them for the first time in months, she wraps her legs around him in the throws of passion and constricts him, not even realizing what she was doing exactly until he was turning blue.

Jason can see from the look on her face that he's right. She left a detail or two out of her miraculous recovery story.

But in her defense, her "partner" in this also left a detail or two out.

"I can explain." She finally tells him, quietly. "I think." She adds, trying to remember what the Joker had told her briefly.

Very briefly.

She squeezes her eyes closed, fishing for what exactly he had told her.

"How do you think I stabilized it to keep it from boiling you from the inside out…" she mumbles to herself, remembering what he was getting at.

"What?" Jason asks her, confused.

"The snake venom," she states.

"Yeah? What about it?"

"I thought since one breed of snake wasn't helping anything like it should have, I decided to mix their venom together." She explains, unconfident in her words because, again, she's just assuming that's what Joker had to have done.

"What?" Jason looks at her as if she's crazy.

"And then...um...I was like, 'well, snakes can't be poisoned by their own venom because their blood has antibodies to it,' so I got blood samples from each of them and...mixed that together...as well…" she realizes how incredibly stupid and dangerous it sounds. "...And then administered it." She finishes.

Jason looks perplexed. He is perplexed. To the point that he can't quite make sense of it.

"I don't know why I thought of it but I did because I clearly have no sense. Or plan. Or care." She adds next, secretly talking about the Joker, glad he's not here to bask in the glory of his aftermath.

Not yet, at least.

But then again, that's a given.

"That doesn't make any sense." He finally speaks. "How does that even work? That wouldn't work."

"I-I don't know how he did it but it worked." She says quickly, not realizing she threw "he" in there.

Jason's eyes cut.

"He?"

"What?"

"You said, 'I don't know how he did it but it worked'. Who helped you?" He questions next and she panicks.

"Dr. Arkham." She lies.

This confuses Jason even more.

"What?"

"Bruce didn't tell you?" She makes an attempt to cover her mistake. "I moved my research to Arkham Asylum's lab since I was fired." She explains and Jason raises a brow.

"So you let that creep Jeremiah help you do this? And you trusted him?!"

"I didn't trust him per se—"

"—This could kill you, Gia!" Jason raises his voice, worry shackleing itself to him.

"I was going to die anyway, Jason." She reminds him and he shakes his head a little. "And besides, if it was going to kill me it would have by now." She points out.

"Who knows about this?" He questions next.

"Nobody else." She shakes her head.

"Just you and Arkham?" He asks next, raising his brows.

"He doesn't know it worked." She admits next.

"What do you mean he doesn't know?"

"He doesn't know it worked. I told him it didn't work so he wouldn't do some freaky weird experimentation or something." She says next.

"Okay, and letting him pump you full of fucking snake blood and poison isn't freaky, weird, experimentation?" He argues.

"Jason, it worked." She disregards him and he breathes out, irritated that she's trying to change the subject.

"Yeah, it worked. I guess. It worked." He pushes past her, feeling his body beginning to recover, the bruise faded slightly.

"Are you angry at me, now?" She follows him.

"What do you think?" He hisses, pulling his clothes on.

"It's two in the morning, where are you going?" She questions.

"Where do you think?" He replies.

"Can you just give me a straight answer?!"

He doesn't respond.

"At least I came home after it was over, Jason." She keeps going. "The both of us have been given second chances by miraculous occurrences that have no reasonable explanation but I'm the only one who actually came back once I got healed."

Jason stops pulling his boots on, turning to face her.

"What did you just say?" He grits out, narrowing his eyes at her.

"I got fixed and came home." She repeats herself, unwavering.

He stands up, rolling his jaw as he walks to her, her feet taking backward steps until her back hits the wall behind her, Jason's arm extending so his hand rests on the drywall beside her head, his teeth gritting together.

"You were brought back six months after you died." She reminds him.

"Then I was in the hospital as a John Doe until I was located and restored in the Lazarus pit." He replies in the same tone. "And then I remembered who I was, and I came back, Gia."

"No, no, you rolled around in the sheets with Talia for several years while bulking up your training catalog to do something about your grudge for Bruce, and then finally came home when you were good and ready. You weren't thinking about me. You weren't thinking about your family. You weren't thinking about anybody but yourself and your own pride." She states.

"Well you had no problem with it when I came back, so I don't know why you're trying to use it against me now that you've gone and done something stupid." He snaps, pushing off the wall, going back to put his shoes on.

"I had no problem with it then because I missed you. And I loved you, and I was just relieved and happy and hopeful that you were even alive. Which is how I thought you would react to me not dying from cancer anymore, but I was wrong. Clearly."

"You don't know what you've done do you?" Jason asks her. "You can't play God and expect it to not reap consequences, Gia. I'm not upset that you're no longer dying. I am happy and relieved but I also know that when it's that easy to reverse death—or oncoming, inevitable death—when it shouldn't be that easy, there's a cost. An expensive one. I don't think you're ready to have to pay up." He tells her, honestly...weakly, before he heads to the window.

"Where are you going, Jason?" She asks him, trying to calm down but can't hold back the tears that line her lashes.

"To think." He tells her and she huffs out and rolls her eyes, closing them for a moment, wiping the tears that roll down her cheeks.

Neither of them say another word as he leaves, slamming the window shut.

13 YEARS AGO

"She's got a bad cut on her stomach, and keep these on ice," Batgirl says as she hands over Gia's two severed fingers to the paramedics.

"On it." They assure her, Batman putting Gia's unconscious body on the gurney, furrowing his brows at the slice the Joker made into the inner part of her bicep.

"A deep cut on her arm there, too." He adds to them, pointing to it as they hurriedly start wrapping her in pressure bandages.

James is frantically approaching the emergency vehicle after seeing to it that the Joker is safely apprehended, Batman blocking him.

"She's alright, they're working on it." He tells him.

"Working on it? On what? What happened?" Jim demands, trying to get past him.

"They're taking her to Gotham General, she'll be fine." He repeats.

"What happened in there?" Gordon sternly forces out.

"She's bleeding out. Her abdomen is badly cut up, she's missing two fingers." He honestly answers.

Jim can't fathom how he could let this happen to his own little sister.

"She was only put in that position because of me—"

"—Joker isn't strategic with his harassment. He would have gotten to her sooner or later, whenever he felt the need to."

"He went after her intentionally, this time. He hunted her down." Jim snaps. "And all because I couldn't just turn a blind eye to his warrant-riddled girlfriend that we finally pin pointed." He seemingly scolds himself in his words.

"You did the right thing—"

"—The right thing almost got my sister killed...it did get her traumatized." He shakes his head.

"She'll be alright." Bruce assures him.

"Next time I won't play cat and mouse!" The Joker barks from the back seat of the patrol car. "I'll just slit her throat first thing!"

"Don't bother." Bruce warns Jim, noticing the way he glares at the clown angrily, tears in his eyes.

Resentment and pure hatred being radiated to the assailant.

At Gotham General, Jason Todd is wincing as he's being examined, Dick—now changed out of his Nightwing suit—in the emergency room with him.

"The bullet went clean through." The doctor assures them.

"No shit." Jason grumbles. "I coulda told you that."

"Jason." Dick says to him, furrowing his brows.

"We've got the bleeding to slow down, I'll be back in here to take you to fix you back up shortly." The doctor ignores Jason's snide remarks and gives them a curt smile and nod, leaving them.

"He got away with her because of you." Jason says to his older brother, trying to ignore the pain from the bullet hole in him.

"Well, Jason, my options were pretty damn limited—"

"—Your options were me or her and you fucking chose the wrong one." Jason argues.

"Bruce and Barbara were on it. I knew they were. I knew she would be safe. You, however, would have died from hitting the ground that high up. I couldn't risk that."

"I would have." Jason mumbles.

"Well, we can't all be Captain Impulsive like you, Jason." Dick replies.

"Right, so you subject my girlfriend to mental torture that will probably keep her screwed up for several years if not her whole life."

"She's not dead, Jason." Dick states.

"Yeah, I got that part, Dick. That's not my fucking point."

Dick stays quiet for a few minutes, the two of them silently glancing around the room, not wanting to get into too big of a fight right now.

"She's going to be okay. You're going to be okay. It was a close call but you're both okay. That's a small victory over him. Just focus on that." Richard finally says to Jason, like a promise.

ONE MONTH LATER

"Good as new, huh?" James asks Gia as she tries to get her reattached fingers to bend with the rest of her hand. They bend, just taking a little longer than the others, and a bit more stiff than the others.

"Kind of." She mumbles, frowning in distaste.

"I told you when you moved here you'd have to be scrappy." He adds, trying to lighten the mood a little as he stops at a red light.

Her eyes are focused on the obvious scar across her middle and index finger on her left hand where Joker severed them.

"How am I gonna do my job with two fingers that can't work right?" She asks him, frustrated.

"Well, Doc said he expects you to have full function of them within the next year, maybe sooner." Jim reminds her. "And they're not bad off as it is, they just require a little more work, is all."

"Yeah, I guess." She shrugs, exhaling.

James looks at her for a second, feeling guilty once again for putting her in that position…

"Gia, can I ask you something?" He asks her when they eventually get to Wayne Manor.

"What's up?" She replies, looking at him with raised brows.

"Uh, what happened with…" he trails off, not exactly knowing how to say it but she knows what he means.

"Yes," she says and he takes a breath.

"...If you ever need to talk about it, you know you can come to me...I know you might not want to talk about it but—"

"I know." She assures him. "There's just nothing worth talking about." She adds.

Jim knows she's bluffing, but leaves it at that.

"Jason's gonna drive me home." She tells him as she opens the car door.

"Try to be in by midnight." He says and she nods.

"Got it. Love you." She steps out of the car.

"I love you, too." He replies before she shuts the door and heads inside.

Once she gets inside, she immediately notices that Alfred isn't greeting her like he's always done.

"Hello?!" She calls out, her voice echoing off the walls. "Jason?!"

Jason's finishing his glass of water in the kitchen, trying to catch his breath after his workout, his hair dripping with sweat, his body aching and tired when he hears Gia.

He puts the glass in the sink and heads to the foyer to get her.

"Hey," he says to her and she smiles as he approaches her.

"Where's everybody at?" She asks him as he leans down and kisses her chastely.

"Alfred and Bruce are out." He tells her. It's not a complete lie.

They aren't in the house.

Just under it.

"Ohh," she nods.

"I'm about to go get a shower." He says to her. "Then we're going somewhere."

"Last time we tried that you ended up almost dying." She reminds him, apprehensively. "And I lost two fingers." She adds.

"We're not going out, we're going somewhere. There's a difference." He points out.

"Right." She says, unsure, as he kisses her cheek and heads up the stairs.

PRESENT

Gia turns over in bed once again, opting to throw her pillow that is suddenly not comfy enough for her.

She looks at the clock, seeing it's nearly five in the morning and Jason still isn't back.

"Fuck." She mumbles to herself, wishing she wouldn't have sent Rambo off to stay with Barbara and Dick for a couple of days.

"If he were here he'd flip his shit on you." She reminds herself, recalling the way he nearly ripped into her when he first saw her after she returned from Arkham, barking, growling, and snapping…

At first she thought it was because she didn't smell like death and he wasn't used to it.

But now, something darker is beginning to sprout within her and she can feel it.

Not dark in the sense of mentality or possession—nothing that holds a flame to the batshit wonders of Gotham—but physically.

She's not blind to the fact she looks how she did before she got sick, maybe even a little better. Her cancer has clearly evaporated into thin air...she's stronger. Jason's a testament of that.

The more Gia thinks about it, the more she digs.

When she'd gone for Joker's throat, she thought she was fast out of adrenaline.

But it was as if in the blink of an eye she was on him.

Maybe…

The thought is absurd.

There's no way she could have anything more given to her other than her cancer being cured through the use of venom.

But he didn't just use venom, did he? She asks herself, her curiosity genuinely piqued.

At this point, she's more afraid of anybody finding out who really helped her, than she is of what she's done to herself.

Her mind goes to her brother. She hasn't told him she's cancer free, and she contemplates waiting a little longer to tell him, or not.

The irritation and horror she feels in regards to now being indebted to the Joker makes her feel a sharp nausea in her gut.

Maybe she should wait before she tells anyone else, just in case she pisses the slimy bastard off.

He probably has a little button he can just press and it automatically undoes whatever he's done to her, or he'll tell her brother himself before she can. Or worse, he'll tell Jason.

While Gia's oncoming epiphany begins to take it's toll, Jason's rummaging through Gia's old lab at Wayne Biotech, sifting through the small room off the lab, filled with files and research, brows furrowed together as he attempts to find any copies of Gia's work that she left behind, trying to make sense of what she's disclosed to him.

It doesn't shock him, that's hard to do considering the things he's seen happen in this city, and things he's gone through himself.

Logic has never been one of Gotham's strong suits…

But that shouldn't apply to Gia.

She's always been logical, for as long as he's known her, at least. Of course she went off the path a couple of time in the past several months but he's always put that on the fact she was sick.

You're allowed to lose logic when you know you're dying and there's not much left for you to do to stop it.

And now she's dug a hole for herself with the help of Dr. Fucking Arkham.

His skin crawls at the idea of her working with him.

He's heard rumors, none of which were able to be proven as true or false...the fact Gia allowed him to take advantage of her hard work while she was in a vulnerable state makes his blood boil.

Jeremiah knew she was sick—he had to have known. People talk too much for him not to have known.

Not to mention she looked sick. A stranger could see her and tell she was sick past the point of return. So why the hell did a doctor—supposedly ethical in all of which he does—not only encourage such a dangerous thought, but to enable it? To be the one to pull the trigger?

Part of him wants to go to Arkham and beat the shit out of the sick fuck.

Another part wants to take this to Gordon and have Jeremiah slammed with counts of endangerment and malpractice—possible attempted murder, even. Have his establishment shut down for the time being, strip him of his licensing…

But Gia would go down, too, possibly.

If Jeremiah were to get a good enough lawyer to prove Gia was of sound mind when making the decision to do it.

Option two was out of the window.

He slams the filing cabinets shut, realizing he's getting nowhere with this, but not wanting to go back home just yet, either.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Thank you so much to Midnight 5889 for your encouragement. It means a lot, and as to answer your rhetorical question: who knows?:)