Say what you want about Gotham's service delivery, and, well everything else too, but she had herself some pretty big mail boxes.
Huge metal things on most corners of the older parts of the city, they were holdovers from the days when people had still sent mail and the thriving metropolis had needed that much space for all of it.
That wasn't an important fact, not something life changing or even minorly interesting, but it was a part of where it started.
If you were being technical, it really started when Cass and Steph had come upon a shipment at the docks on their obligatory girls night patrol. It had nothing at all to do with the bigger case all of them were caught up in.
Not drugs or kidnappings, just a certain type of alcohol that had some very… interesting effects on some people and was therefore banned in their good city. As with most illegal but not immediately damaging consumables, that only made it more popular and every bar from sleazy to the highest of high ends liked having some of it in stock.
Cass didn't think much of it, and neither did Steph until she turned up at The Dive the next day to find Jason standing morosely outside of the door, staring at an 'out of business' sign crafted out of an old beer crate and fixed to the door with masking tape.
"You've killed me." He said simply, leaning forward to rest his head against the door with a dull thunk that kind of sounded like it hurt, but Jason gave no indication either way.
Before she could ask him exactly what had happened, he was talking again, tilting his head so she could see just one of his teal eyes peeping out from the damp curls that had flopped across his forehead.
"Bats arrested the owner last night, fucker's too paranoid to give anyone else the key."
"Oooooh." Steph clasped her hands behind her back and rocked on her heels. "So no more chili-fries, then? Yikes."
" H's got connections. 'll be out in like two months." Jason mumbled into the sign.
"Then why're you being all grouchy?" Steph took a step forward, wincing as her foot came down in a puddle and the filthy water sunk into her sneakers.
Jason turned around to rest his back against the door and raked a hand through his wet hair as he tilted his head back to look at the clouds that were still dropping rain on everything.
With not a trace of a smile and with his face as serious and blank as she'd ever seen it. "I'll starve to death before that." His voice rose a little at the end and a chuckle escaped Steph's lips before she could smother it behind her hands.
"You think it's funny?" He asked, mouth agape like she'd done the most offensive thing imaginable. "Do you know how much fuel it takes to maintain all of this?"He waved his hand in a gesture indicating his whole body before slumping against the door and hanging his head, bringing a hand to fist the fabric at his chest. "I'll waste away without this place, or have to live off…" He flopped a hand in circles near his head as he looked for the words, "cans of spam. Might as well crawl back into my grave now. "
"Are you done yet?" Steph asked in her Barbara voice, folding he arms across her chest and giving him the most unimpressed look she could muster.
Jason gasped and peered at her through his hair again, and if she was going to focus on anything he was saying, he was going to have to stop 'doing' that. "I can't believe this." He shook his head, something close to a pout on his lips. "This is all Bruce's fault."
"You can't blame Bruce for me and Cass…"
"I'm blaming him." Jason cut in.
"Come on Jay, I know this great waffle house." She wrapped one of her arms around his and tried to tug him out of the alley, but he didn't even budge.
"Won't make it to the waffle house, so weak." He whispered piteously.
"Poor baby." Steph patted his head, resisting her sudden urge to run her hand though the rain slicked curls, even more so when he leaned into her touch, determined to keep up his act. "I still have Talia's number; do you want me to call her to bring you a snack?" Steph paused, a thought striking her and drew her hand back. "Wait."
"So she can shut the place down for good and make me cook for myself?" Jason scoffed. "I really would rather die."
"That's why you like her so much." Steph brought her thumbnail between her teeth and she stared at him, trying to find the words she needed to string together to make sense of it.
"What?" Jason's face twisted into the look he got whenever she was getting close to something she could tease him about and they both knew it.
"She moms you." Steph said, a huge grin splitting across her face.
"No." Jason straightened, up and jabbed a finger sharply in her direction.
"She's like, totally your mom!"
"Come on; let's just hit the damned waffled house." He said, gently pulling her to the end of the alley.
Because Talia visited him in Arkham, and fed him, and brought him birthday gifts that he obviously loved, and scolded him for eating junk food and, 'disproved of his life choices'. Everyone back at the cave was wracking their brains trying to figure out Jason's connection to Talia. Why she was going through so much trouble for him, what she'd do if she got a hold of him, when really it was just her weird, scary assassiny way of smothering him.
"And you're her precious little baby."
Before Steph knew it, she was laughing. Not so much because it was funny, but because she was more relieved than she would have thought she'd be when she figured it out. She still hated Talia, boy did she hate that woman, but it wasn't something she had to worry about getting Jason hurt anymore, and that lifted a layer of stress from her chest she hadn't even known she was carrying before.
"Are you done yet?" Jason didn't share the same sentiments at her revelation, and stood stiffly, frowning at her with his arms crossed.
"No." She laughed some more. This time because his reaction really 'was' funny, and also somewhat adorable.
"You got no clue how messed up that that idea is." Jason growled out at shifted his eyes somewhere past her.
"Bet she's where you learned to be all scary." Steph brought her hands up to make claws in front of her face and deepened her voice. Jason turned something that was maybe a version of the batglare on her until her laughter died down and she managed to straighten up, her hands clasped behind her back as she leaned towards him. "So which part of me are you gonna threaten to send to my mother in a box for this?"
"All of you." He lunged at her and before she could get out of the way, he'd lifted her off her feet. Cradling her tightly in his arms he carried her to the nearest of the big mailboxes that weren't even used anymore.
The people that hadn't – or couldn't, considering the part of town they were in – taken shelter in the pouring rain paid them no mind beyond a few weird looks, and Stephanie was laughing too hard to put up much of a struggle.
Nothing would have come of it otherwise, but it seemed it just wasn't their day when a police cruiser approached and it was –surprise of surprises – a cop that actually took his job seriously.
The cruiser slowed down just as she was doing a very good impression of a cat, and Jason the kid trying to push it into a bathtub. Her feet were propped on the edges of the box and he held her with both arms around her midsection, twisting her from side to side trying to get one of those legs inside.
"Keep moving." Jason said as the cop came to a halt besides him before the cop a chance to do more than open his mouth. "This doesn't concern you."
Jason pulled her back and finally managed to get one of her legs into the mailbox when the incredulous expression on the cop's face almost got another bout of laughter out of her.
"You can't say that to a real cop." Steph whispered harshly and more than loud enough for the cop to hear as she kicked her leg, trying to dislodge it from the metal box
"But it doesn't." Jason's voice was so earnest, his eyes so wide with innocence she might have even believed it at one point, if she didn't know him and he hadn't twisted her right them to get her other leg into the mailbox.
"My friend's just being an asshole officer." Steph tried to give the officer an apologetic look, because it was obvious she was going to have to be the serious one in that situation. She yelped when her shirt rode up just an inch and the cold metal of the box brushed against the small of her back.
"Now when you get in there, check if there's an old ass letter with a stamp and…"
"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to step away from the young lady." The cop was stepping out of the car now, gun drawn.
The blank stare Jason gave him was supremely unimpressed and his arms wrapped minutely tighter around Steph's midsection. He was warm, Steph realized, even soaking wet while she shivered in the rain.
"Yeah, put me down Jay." Steph said, even as she leaned into his warmth and kinda wished he'd keep him hands where they were.
She knew immediately she's made a mistake when he grinned, the rain bringing out the color in his eyes and making a mess of his hair made his grin more impish that it would have been otherwise.
"Okay." He pulled her out of the mailbox and dropped her.
She let out a high-pitched squeaking sound at the cold shock of the puddle she splashed into. Jason smiled at the cop – who looked at both Steph and Jay like he thought they were either drunk or high – and clasped his hands behind his back in mimicry of Steph's earlier pose.
"She wouldn't visit her poor old mother." He said. "I was trying to help."
The cop rolled his eyes and finally put away his gun. "You kids… just get where you're going and don't cause any trouble."
"Too bad you can't arrest people for being assholes." Steph grumbled, and curled up a little at the derisive look the cop sent her.
After a moment of deliberation, Jason bent a little to help her up. She accepted his hand, but tugged harshly just as he was about to pull her up.
His landing besides her in the gutter splashed her with more water as well, but the shock in his face made it worth it.
She chuckled into her fist and he buried his laughter into his hands.
The staff wouldn't let them into the waffle house, soaked through with both rain and gutter water as they were, and they were forced to find another source of lunch.
Jason did, in fact, survive the journey to the food truck near Gotham U and they ended up in a sheltered awning on her college campus with polystyrene containers of popcorn chicken. She got s few nods from people who knew her, but no one bothered them.
He did jump about three feet into the air when she sneezed though.
"I really hope we don't get sick." She sniffled.
Jason scoffed and took a bite of his food. "I don't 'get' sick."
O
O
O
Jason was going to have to change his ring tone really fucking soon, to something that was the complete opposite of the screeching noises emitted whenever the thing went off. They'd been fine when the thing had been used so infrequently he forgot he even had it someday, but if it ever went off while he was sleeping again he was going to end up using one of the burners and fuck those things with their tiny little buttons and even more annoying ringtones.
He buried his face deeper into his pillow and blindly reached for the device so he could shut it up before his brain oozed out of his ears.
The nap had seemed like a good idea at the time, when he'd been full and warm and freshly showered and his bed had been right there, but something had set in while he slept, fogged up his head and stuffed up his nose and had his chest making an uncomfortable rattling sound whenever he took in a breath. Nothing some tea shouldn't have been able to fix, but still.
Five hours, he noted when he finally found the phone and got a look at the screen, and he still hadn't gone through the folder he'd found taped to his door, meaning he'd be listening to that ring tone again long before wanted to.
"Yeah." He pressed the phone against his ear as he rolled off his bed, surprised at how much the itch in his throat intensified when he spoke. He padded over to his kitchenette to put his kettle on.
"Hey, would you be able to tell on your hit list thing if someone was gonna try and get at the Commissioner?" Blondie said, on the other side, her voice tight and nervous as the sound of boiling water filled his apartment.
"Yeah, gimme a sec." Jason yawned and glanced around for the tablet, he found it on his coffee table and dropped onto the sofa while he typed in his codes and brought up his info on the commissioner. "Nothing aside from the usual, less than the usual actually."
He didn't have to ask what it was about, she was already rambling at him and he took a second to wonder if she'd gone to bed at all after they'd parted.
She gave a breathy sigh. "Sorry I woke you up, it's just, Babs was really worried, cause her dad you know, if it was my mom I'd be super worried, and everyone was up all night, well and day watching him as if they're not running themselves ragged enough, and I figured you'd know, so I'd just ask, but why would 'Talia' send death threats before she had someone killed, I mean…"
To make them expect the wrong thing and be too tires to deal with the actual threat was why.
It took Jason a couple of seconds listening to her voice before his brain caught up to what she was actually saying. "Wait, why would you think it was Talia after him?" Talia didn't care about Gotham's police system, never had and he found it unlikely she start anytime soon.
"Huh, cause of the uh, the Arkham thing."She sniffled. "He was the arresting officer and stuff." There was a shuffling sound as she moved her phone around. "Wait, you didn't know that?"
"But Dick brought me in." At least, that was what his vague, not completely trustworthy memories of the even told him.
"Yeah but, they can't exactly put 'Batman' on the arrest report." Her voice trembled a bit and he dug deeper into the information he had on the commissioner according to more than just Gotham's underworld. "Jay what's wrong?"
Nothing more. There really were too little people out for his blood right then, way fewer than there'd been a few months ago, and that usually meant someone with a lot of pull didn't want anyone going after him. The reasons for that weren't often altruistic. Jason looked back at the envelope that might have kept him busy for hours if he hadn't gotten her call.
"Damnit." He tossed the tablet and leaped to his feet fast enough to make him dizzy for a second he really didn't have. "Where's he now?" Jason asked, tucking the phone between his head and shoulder as he dragged the duffle bag out from under his bed.
"At a safehouse, you know, police protocol and stuff, he's got some guards and stuff while the others…"
Fuck, the GCPD's idea of a safehouse was a house in a quiet neighborhood and a handful of bodyguards. Less innocent civilians to worry about underfoot, it was fine for run of the mill crazies, not so much for big league assassins with back doors into their systems.
People who knew exactly where and when to strike before to deal the most damage. People like Talia.
"Where?" Jason pressed, brushing his fingers across the camo printed fabric of the bodysuit while she rattled off an address. He pushed the suit away and went instead for the knives beneath. "Listen." He flung open his closet and pulled out some of the heavier duty clothes he owned. "Call the bats and tell them to hurry their asses there."
"What are you gonna do?" She swallowed.
"They won't make it in time." He hung up on her the same time his kettle finally clicked off.
There wasn't any time for tea.
O
O
O
Steph spent half a minute after she heard the dial tone just staring at her cellphone screen before she actually made the call.
It was still daytime, the part of daytime where the others were either at word or resting up before patrol, whoever responded would take a while to suit up first, they'd have to go first from wherever they were to the cave, get out of whatever they were doing if they had jobs.
That Jason probably knew that finally got her fishing out her comm and calling up Babs.
Leslie was going to kill her for not getting the even the least of the bed rest she been recommended, but still Steph was suiting up even as she explained the situation to Barbara, and suggested the birds of prey instead of the bats. They were more used to working in the daytime, and maybe wouldn't be as likely to recognize Jason right away.
He wouldn't have gone in if there was a huge risk of him being caught, right? Probably wasn't even going to Gordon's actual location. So even if the bats got there before he was out, it'd be okay, right?
That idea was dashed against the metaphorical rocks in the metaphorical sea that was her blood pressure the second the quaint little house came into sight.
More specifically the mess of twisted metal that might have once been a motorcycle and a very nice sedan topped with a felled streetlight.
That there were no people gathered around the crash site was all the confirmation they needed that something else was happening nearby. Gothamites generally had a sort of sixth sense for such things and also the common sense to stay away until they were sure it was over.
Steph flanked Dinah along with Helena as they approached a front door that had been kicked in with enough force to kick the thing in half.
"Don't know about you, but in my experience assassins don't usually go for the flashy entrance." Dinah frowned at the entrance.
'Unless they're good enough for it not to matter.' The digital distortion in Bab's voice hid any feelings Bab's must have been feeling right then and Steph remembered that they were dealing with what might have been her mentors murder scene right then. 'Be careful.'
Steph swallowed and followed after the two other heroes, trying to not think too closely about what it meant if they were too late because of her.
She thought she heard the distant shrieking of a siren, but didn't get the chance to care before Dinah broke away from them to rush for the pair of cops in the kitchen. The blood almost had Steph pulling away for the second it took Dinah to reach them.
One kneeling beside the other, pressing a wad of bandages against his unconscious partners crimson soaked chest. He looked up at the women approaching him with wide, relieved eyes.
"Upstairs." He said before they could ask anything. "He said, said to keep the pressure till they get here." He made a choking sound and pressed down a little harder.
Dinah nodded at the others and they both moved quickly for the staircase their field leader's voice fading in the distance. The comm's stayed silent.
The first thing Steph and Helena noticed when they reached the landing was the blood streaked all along the pale, yellowish wall of the hallway, then the ominous banging coming from the room on the farthest edge.
"Like a freaking horror movie." Helena shook her head, lips curled up in a grimace as she stalked on.
Steph again followed, almost terrified of what they find. The pool of blood dripping off an end table in one of the rooms they passed by didn't help matters, the bullet holes peppering another door they didn't have to open helped even less.
Thankfully, the powder blue walls of the bedroom only had one small platter of red that was immediately obvious. Overturned in a corner was the oak closet all the banging was coming from.
"Commissioner?" Steph called, ignoring Helena's whisperings about horror movies.
"Get me out of this damned thing!" Steph would have almost sworn she heard a sob on the other end of her comm when the commissioner's voice rang out.
The girl was there a second later; between her, Helena and a burst of sudden adrenaline, they finally managed to turn the closet back over. Steph didn't even take a second looking for a key. She produce a gooperang and hacked the lock away to get the doors open, revealing a very disheveled, disgruntled, probably dis-a lot of things with a gash leaking blood down across his eyes.
"Are you okay?" Helena asked hands raised to catch him if the answer was a negative.
"Need a cigarette." He stumbled out of the closet to rest against the wall and squinted his eyes at them in a manner that suggested he had at the very least a minor concussion.
"Otherwise okay, right?" Steph piped up and almost immediately regretted it when a draft blew some of the smoke down her throat and broke into a bout of coughing. Helena reached for her but Steph just waved her hand and back away. It was bad enough she was sick, didn't need anyone drawing more attention to it.
The commissioner shot her an incredulous look that prompter a weird distorted laugh from the comms that almost sounded more like crying, almost. 'He's okay, he's…' The comm's clicked off before Steph heard whatever else Bab's said. Nobody commented on it.
"Ha!" Helena held up a crumpled bag of cigarettes she's dug up somewhere in the room and offered then to the commissioner along with one of her flares. "Think you can tell us what happened here?"
"Ninjas." He shook his head, almost dropping the cigarette he had dangling from his lips. "Almost makes you nostalgic for the times you only had the mob to worry about." He flinched back from the wide flame produced from the flare, but quickly decided he didn't care and used it to light his cigarette anyway.
"So ninjas broke in, stabbed a cop, then called an ambulance and locked you inside a closet?" Helena frowned down at him.
"Thought that was one of you." He took a deep pull of smoke. "Turned to look at the wreck outside and he was already breaking down the door, then all hell broke loose, the men downstairs…" He paused to give them a questioning look.
"Alive." Helena said, jabbing at the sounds of the approaching ambulance.
Gordon nodded again. "Like I said, thought he was one of yours didn't get much of a look before he dragged me in here and locked the door. Heard plenty, was cursing up a storm at someone on the other end of a phone, coughing a little, don't know if it was him or the others, but someone was getting their asses handed to them."
Dinah showed up at the door. "Ambulance is here. Commissioner?" She inclined her head.
"Should make sure I'm not bleeding somewhere I can't see." Gordon sighed and limped for the door.
They moved after him, close enough to keep an eye out for any lingering assailants, but far enough away that he couldn't hear them.
"Whoever it was, he was good." Dinah whispered. "I gather the assassins were Society from the cop's description of their uniforms."
Helena made an angry hissing sound, but Steph just frowned.
"Society?"
"Oh right you weren't… ", Helena waved her hand in circles, "around right around then."
"Society of Supervillians, the other side's go at starting up a Justice League." Dinah explained.
"The bastards that blew up Bludhaven, wouldn't have though anyone'd be stupid enough to try and give them a comeback." Helena looked about ready to beat hit something.
"Talia, huh?" Steph tried to keep her voice even. That had to be who Jason had been yelling at on the phone, but had she listened, called them off? It made sense if that was why there weren't any assassins jumping out from the shadows or bleeding to death in the bushes. But what could he have said that made her listen, what could he have offered?
O
O
O
She head was still tied up in those thoughts when she showed up at the Clock Tower for the whole debriefing part of the mission. There had been a time, she remembered, when she'd found that part of the vigilante thing 'cool', like she was a cop, or a soldier in those action movies she used to watch when she was a kid.
What she liked even less than the overly long debriefing, was that it had carried on long enough for her mind to drift off from Helena threatening violence if she was asked the same question again.
Cass, being Cass, noticed and also noticed the minor cold Steph had been doing an okay job of ignoring untill then.
For the first time since becoming Batgirl, people who routinely ignored their own broke bones had banned Steph from patrol for a simple and relatively manageable illness.
Alfred, brought over by Cass, made Stephanie drink a spoon of something that was almost too bitter for words, then had Tim drive her home in one of the less fancy – still very fancy though – cars sitting in the manor's garage.
She came very close to sulking on the drive, but it was kind of nice to have a night off, and she 'did' need to check in on Jason and make sure he was okay beyond the short string of texts Cass had proudly showed off earlier in the night.
Speaking of nights off.
"You know, you could use break too." Steph said, turning from the scenery passing by them to her driver.
"I'll take a break when this is all over." Tim said, taking the chance to scrub a hand over his eyes when they came to a red light. "We'll all need a rest, and you know they won't anytime soon, so i might as well keep going too."
"Then you can all collapse at once." She said, tracing the condensation on the window.
"The idea's to get this done before 'anyone' collapses."
Steph frowned at her friend, trying to come up with an argument he'd actually consider, but her eyes shifted to something sitting on the dashboard. 'Crime and Punishment', one of the secondhand books she'd given Jason.
"Isn't there, like a protocol against taking evidence out of the cave?" Steph asked, waving a hand at the book.
"Hm." Tim blinked at her before his eyes shifted to the book and then back to the road. "Yeah, this is one of Alfred's cars though, and he 'likes' reading them." Tim sounded a little angry, but brushed he emotion aside quickly enough. "You know the normal rules don't really apply to him." He sighed. "I really wish he wouldn't."
"Why?" Steph leaned her head against the window. "It's just a book."
"Just, it's not helping anyone, them all obsessing over 'him' like that, you don't have to deal with it as much, but…" he grumbled something under his breath. "I just wish none of this had happened."
"Yeah." Steph picked the book up and turned it over in her hands, tempted to peer inside at what Jason had scribbled in the margins. It wasn't like she didn't know the kinds of things he wrote, her essays and college textbooks were proof enough of that, but his own books felt more personal somehow.
They arrived at Steph's apartment building not long after that and she was already out the car before Tim reminded her that she was still holding on to the book.
"They'll kill me if I lose that thing." He said apologetically if somewhat dismissively and Steph felt her face quickly burning up.
"Sorry." She thrust the book back at the car a little too fast and Tim's hand was just a little too slow in grabbing hold of it.
Steph felt a sort of fascinated horror for a splits second before his hand shot out and grabbed one edge of the book just before it could meet the water in the gutters. He almost looked a little disappointed.
"It's fine." He let out a breath and held it in place for a second, his face going through an array of emotions that passed by before she could place them. He pulled the now open book up by the corner he had pinched between his thumb and forefinger, brought it up to settle a little close to his too wide eyes before he looked back up to Stephanie with something close to shock.
"Good things you've got mad ninja skills, huh?" Steph said, stepping away from the car.
"Yeah." Tim looked between her and the book before he cleared his throat and got both hands in his steering wheel. "Yeah, I gotta go, I'll uh, see you tomorrow Stephanie."
"Bye." She waved awkwardly as he left, then looked up at the apartment building housing her warm bed and throat sweets, before stepping back to the curb and hailing a taxi.
O
O
O
"Is this gonna be a regular thing now?" Jason sniffled as he swung open his door and stalked back inside without closing it again, his heavy combat boots still making less noise than they should have. He was still dressed in jeans and a dark t-shirt, but looked like he'd been asleep.
"Are you okay?" Steph shut the door behind her.
"No." Jason dropped onto his couch and flung an arm over his eyes. "You gave me your germs." Steph chuckled but it turned into coughing again and he raised his arm just enough to peer at her. "You seriously go Batgirling like that?"
Steph shrugged and stepped over the discarded hoody and motorcycle helmet to went to kneel by the couch. "Look who's talking." She rested her head against his chest. "I was worried they were gonna catch you there. You wanna dazzle me with the details of your daring rescue escape combo?"
"Daring." His huff turned into a cough. "Stupid. They find me now it'll be my own fault." The arm that wasn't on shielding his face moved to play with the tips of her hair.
"Babs was so scared." She said, leaning closer to him and finding that her clogged nose could still kinda pick out the familiar scents clinging to him, sweat and cinnamon, and now gunpowder and blood as well. It shouldn't have made her feel as secure as it did. "Don't think it'd be so bad if she found you right now."
"Yeah, maybe she'd get me a window cell this time." Jason scoffed. "Or a picture of a window at least."
"Not like that." Steph sighed and lifted her head so she could actually look at him. "You just saved her Dad's life, maybe…"
"Maybe what?" He sat up too, his relaxed posture gone. "Maybe I get a touching thank you card and we meet up for coffee where we decide to forget about the past five years and become bestest friends. And hey, maybe the rest of the Bat's show up too and welcome me back with open arms and we all pretend like nothing happened and live happily ever after." He rested his cheek on his clasped hands and fluttered his eyelashes.
Steph kept her face carefully neutral and relocated herself to the space that had opened up on the couch. "Well, I would still be your bestest friend, because I'm greedy like that, but otherwise you hit it pretty much on the nail."
Jason let out a bark of rough laughter and stretched out his arms. "No offense to your friends Sunshine, but I'd prefer a couple milligrams of cyanide." He said with a yawn. "That all you came here for?"
"Asshole." She jabbed him with her elbow. "I came cause I was worried about you." She sagged deeper into the plush cushions of her couch, feeling the ache in her muscles more than she had since she'd woken up with her cold.
"They're all really worried about you too you know." She absentmindedly ran a fingertip along his forearm, down to his wrist where she could still see the scars from his time in Arkham's basement. "They think those… They think you're one of the people in those rooms we keep finding. That you're in a ditch somewhere or still being pumped full of…" She pressed her forehead against his arm, suddenly feeling sick in a way that had nothing to do with her cold she chuckled mirthlessly. "I used to break into the Batcave, and now I can't stand the place."
"Yeah well hopefully they'll give themselves severe stress ulcers and the villainous psychopath of the week will have a boxer gimmick and punch them all really hard in their guts."Jason said, his lips curled into something cold and dark she hadn't seen from him since that white room what felt like years ago. "Then none of them have to worry about anything anymore and neither of us will have to worry about them."
"Why do you hate them so much?" Steph said. "I mean… I get it, that place was… horrible, and it…" she took in a deep breath, when she thought of that rat faced doctor again, "It was so, so horrible, but hey really didn't know, and, and it…"
"I don't… I don't hate them, I just really don't give a fuck anymore." he pulled his arm away from her and raked it through his hair with a sigh, his whole body practically screaming exhaustion before he stood up. "Can we talk about something else?" He asked, halfway to his kitchen already.
"Jay I just…" She stared at the palms of her hands helplessly. "I just don't get how things got so bad. I saw this picture of you… before." The image brought a little smile to her face and just a hint of warmth to her chest. "And you were so tiny Jay, and happy, and… Do you think if they hadn't…"
"It's not about Arkham." Jason's arms were braced on his countertop, his head hanging low between shoulder that were shaking with whatever emotion made his next words so intense. "It's got less than a damn to do with what went down in that hellhole. What, they think because they saw a couple tapes they know less than nothing about it gives them the right to…" He pressed a fist to his mouth a breathed a deep, shuddering breath.
"Jay, you don't have to…" She got up off the bench, one of her hands reaching for him, but he held out one of his own, cutting her off.
"Because I was the bad robin, the reckless robin, the stupid robin who didn't know what the duck he was doing and got himself killed for it, had it coming." He spoke in a mocking, high-pitched tone that didn't match his stance at all.
"They took everything good I ever did and pretended it never happened. All the hell I raised when I came back… The kid I was when I was Robin, he was a good kid, he, he didn't deserve to die. He wanted to help someone, and she sold him out, and it was stupid and maybe I 'was' stupid, but if I had to go back I'd do it again because it was right, and he was good and he didn't deserve to be paved over in favor of this idea they made up to make themselves feel less guilty." His breath hitched and he turned angrily away from her, grabbing the kettle and taking it over to the sink.
"So I'm sorry, Stephanie if I don't give a crap about their guilt. What crawled out of that grave, they deserve to hate it." He shoved the kettle under the running faucet." They can keep trying to chain me down, or shut me up, or fucking end me for all I care, and I don't. I've stopped giving a fuck and they don't get to pretend they do..." The kettle had already filled up, but Jason didn't remove it from under the stream of water, he just stood there, watching it spill over the rim and flow down the drain.
"Jay." She reached over around him to shut off the faucet, unsure of what else she could have done, if there even was anything she could do."
"They don't get to pretend they do because they found some recordings they don't know the first damn thing about." He rested his elbows on the countertop and buried his face in his hands, sagging against the solid surface as if someone had cut the imaginary strings holding him up. "They don't get to feel guilty and pretend they want any part of me back, that they think there's anything good enough left to love, right when I finally stopped wanting it."
Steph didn't think about it, just like she was starting to notice she didn't really think about a lot of the things she did when she was with him, she just snaked her arms around his broad chest from behind, and held onto him as tight as she could.
"You are good Jason." She whispered it like it was some secret he didn't want anyone else to know." You're still good. You're so, so good." He sniffed and she pretended it was the cold, tightening her hold in response. "There's so much good in you, even if you don't think so, and you know I…" She caught herself before she could finish a sentence she suddenly, startlingly realized would have been painfully true.
She caught herself because she knew that no matter how true it was, it wasn't what he needed right then.
"I'm not in Gotham for them." Jason covertly brushed his arms against his eyes before he turned around, without completely breaking away from the arms wrapped around him to face her. "I didn't stay here for them." He cupped the side of her head in one hand, the calloused pads of his fingers brushing against the sensitive skin at the nape of her neck. "Why do they have to matter? Can't I just… be here for you?"He gave a tired sigh and rested his head against hers.
She stood in silence for a while, absorbed in warmth radiating from his body, the prickly feeling on his thumb against her cheek, how every breath he released blew softly against the back of her head.
"Jay," She forced herself to pull her head back, break the close contact so she could think, but is was even harder when she had those eyes looking down on her, his lips tilted down at the sides just ever so slightly, so close to her own.
She tried to imagine again what would have happened if she'd made that call when she'd first found him, if she'd never decided to start her visits in the first place. In none of those imaginings did she get the chance to tease him about stupid, mundane things, or spend so many hours in the rain they were both stuck with colds, or hang out in a seedy bar that still served them milkshakes and burgers for some reason. She didn't want to imagine 'any' of those things not being part of her life.
"I'm really glad you're here at all." Her hands gripped the cloth at the back of his shirt and she ducked her face against his chest, felt his arms wrap more securely around her waist. "It's enough that you're here."
After all of that, how could telling him how much she loved him be interpreted as anything other than some kind of manipulation?
Pretty sure this was the hardest chapter for me to write so far, but nothing else was working.