The clocktower was predictably sealed off when Steph got there. She was expecting it, but it still stung. It reeked of the years when she'd been locked out of the Batcave and any information regarding what the others were up to Spoiler.
No amount of pounding on the doors and shouting gave her even the barest trace of her voice being heard. They didn't want to see her, none of them wanted to talk to her and still she stood there, her head pressed against the shut entrance that hadn't been closed to her in so long. She'd almost forgotten that feeling.
"Babs please." She tried. "This isn't about me or Jason, there are kids, they need help and I can't help them on my own." She tried, weakly knocking her fist against the barrier. Her only reply was, as much as she expected, the dull, hollow sounding thunk of a metal that was anything back. "Never really took for a hypocrite Babs." Steph said, bringing her balled fists to her side again. You wanna talk big game about the job and not letting personal stuff interfere, and here you're just gonna let that happen, and I know you got the files, cause you're sad I hurt your feelings!" Stephanie spat the words out and slapped her palm against the panel she knew hid both a monitor and a panel.
"Can you at least give me a couple gooperangs? I'm out and seeing as how I already gotta go after those assholes on my own, I'd like to have a little more than just a kitchen knife!"
There was a soft whirring sound that surprised Stephanie enough to have her taking a couple steps back from the door in time for one of the panels to slide aside for a the drawer that popped out the side of the wall. Steph blinked at the drawer for a second, hope turning just a little in her chest when she peered inside… to find it empty.
"The suit, Stephanie." Oracles voice, more distorted than usual filtered through the hidden speakers.
"Oh come on!" Steph wished she could pull the cowl down now to tug at her hair, damnit, she was really starting to envy those dominoes Dick, Cass and Damian wore. "You can have the suit if you listen to me for five minutes about the kids in…"
"Those kids don't need your help." The monitor flickered to life, but instead of Babs, or the computer graphic that was Oracle, a collage of photos and file snippets piled up on screen. The insides of two floors of an office building reduced to ashes, and entire cargo ship sunk off the coast of New York, nothing to say of the many trucks and cars and at least four houses reduced to rubble. Steph closed the tab of the death toll when it exceeded a page. "Now, the suit."
There was one single clip of a suspect leaving the scene of a car bombing, pulling up a hood as he confidently slipped into the shadows. His camo printed clothes blended in too well or he to make out body shape or even really tell how tall he was, and his face was hidden by a combo of goggles and the half mask that covered his face, but Steph could tell. And if she could, then the others had to as well. They'd known what he was doing long before Steph's solo investigating had found so much as the first part of the story and… Oh, so that's what that felt like.
"Bab's I didn't do it to hurt any of you, it wasn't about you." Steph turned away from the monitor and looked into the camera above the door. "It was just, he was so, I just… I wanted him to be safe"
"No, you're right, it isn't about us." Babs said, her face finally coming into view on the monitor, flushed red with anger. "This isn't about you, or me, or the Jason Todd you had editing your damned homework. How long did it take, Stephanie, for him to stop threatening to 'dismember' you and send the pieces to your mother? Before you went within two feet of him, hell, before you were only forcing yourself to be in the same room as him out of your morbid 'curiosity'?"
"That's not fair." Steph squared her jaw and met Bab's eyes, refused to look away. "He was sick, they were 'drugging' him, everyday. I had a taste of that stuff, and you did 'nothing' about it, you have 'no idea' what that…!"
"No, we had no idea, and we didn't stop it, because they were supposed to be prescribing him 'medication' because he was a fucking psychotic, because he needed 'help' and he would have been torn apart in any prison that he didn't tear down around him. Because if he was anything approaching courteous with you there must have been 'something' the place was doing right." Babs drew in a shaky breath and hardened her glare further. Steph just kept herself from flinching, her own anger building in her chest. "It's not about us grieving, thinking he was dead, it's about you not only releasing an extremely skilled mass murderer who has every reason to want all of us dead back into the city, but not telling any of us on top of that. All because 'you' had a damn crush!"
"It wasn't like that!" Stephanie growled, she'd hated when Tim had insinuated that was why she's helped Jason, and she hated it almost as much coming from Babs. "Why does everyone keep saying that?"
"Because we could see it, we could all see it." Bab's face disappeared to be replaced by a clip from Jason's cell, him, still with that too long red hair, carefully adding another marshmallow to the wall he'd constructed on his desk. A smile began to curl on Steph's lips at the memory, and the completely focus on his face that the camera hadn't been able to catch at that angle. Then she turned her attention to the on screen Steph who was attempting to hide her grin behind the bag containing the rest of the marshmallows.
"Why do you think Tim asked you specifically if he'd shown up again when you were suddenly all smiles while we were scrambling to find a body? We should have known you were lying, but we trusted you too much for that, so we assumed you were just seeing someone else. Congratulations, you managed to break up his family more than all of Jason's other schemes put together."
"You're 'not' the only things he thinks about so shut up about that!" Stephanie tore her eyes away from the footage. "I kept him away from you because you weren't just going to lock him away again. They were already talking about another crazy house to put him in and I panicked okay." She pressed a hand against her chest to still the tension building there. He was hurt, and I was so scared he was gonna get hurt again, worse, and it's our job to protect people no matter who they are or what they did. I was trying to protect him, and I'm not going to apologize for doing what I was taught to do. If I told them where he was, you were all just gonna hurt him again."
"Did you really believe that?" Jason and Steph disappeared from the monitor, replaced by Bab's hard face. "After you had a chance to calm down, and he was stable again, did you really think that we would do that?" Bab's jabbed a finger at herself. "That 'I' would do that?" Her hands went to grip at the armrests of her chair. "Because when Cass came back after leading the League of Assassins, that's what I did to her, wasn't it. I locked her up and never thought about her again?! Is that what I did?"
"You say that like…"
"Forget about the others. You really thought, after everything I told you, that I wouldn't have done my damndest to protect him. That 'I' would let them pack him off to another Arkham?"
"Yeah well maybe if you ever…"
"When you were convincing him to watch movies with you, and eat junkfood with you, learning about what music he likes and watching him heal and teasing him, and watching him heal, did it ever occur to that those weren't 'your' things to learn?" Babs asked, leaning towards the monitor. "Did you think that maybe his family, his father, and his brothers, and his sister could have needed that more? I know you don't give a damn about Bruce or Dick, but did you ever think while he was editing your college homework assignments that he had, I don't know, a sister who struggles with written language and could have used that kind of help? Have you thought that maybe if he'd been with us instead of 'you' he wouldn't have gone back to that?!"
Babs wheeled her chair to the side, giving Steph a look at the pictures and clips from crime scenes still on display behind her. Steph's gaze was drawn to one set in particular, strung up on a crane with blood dripping down off a white sneaker. She tried to match the Jason who had done those things with 'her' Jason. Her big, protective, tried to shove her in a mailbox Jason.
"You didn't just keep him a secret." Bab's said, her voice wavering and tight. "You 'stole' him from all of us. You 'stole' him, and then you 'lost' him, because like always you thought you knew better than everyone else. Because you were selfish and didn't stop to think about what it would do to everyone." She took in a deep breath. "Now. Get. Out." She punctuated each word by jabbing a finger at Steph. "Leave the suit, and don't stay you're sorry again."
Steph looked at waiting drawer, her hand resting on the bat-symbol splashed across her chest. She remembered when Bab's had spoken to her about Jason, about how he'd been a sweet kid, and their guilt had made him out to be something else. How as soon as they though he was dead again their opinions on him did a complete one-eighty and he was suddenly family again. 'Paved over in favor of this idea they made up to make themselves feel less guilty...'
"Well fine." Steph let her hand drop to her side and hang the limply, a chuckle crawling out of her throat as she met Bab's eyes. "But I am sorry Babs. I'm sorry you never said anything like that to 'Jason', when he was suffering alone in that asylum, and he knew no one was going to help him. I'm sorry that you never gave a crap about him, and I'm sorry you believe everything you're saying when it's pretty clear to me it's all complete bullshit. I'm sorry that 'you' decided he was worthless as soon as he was in his grave, and that 'none' of you even tried to do for him what you did for Cass, and I'm sorry that 'I' was the only one who ever told him I was happy he was alive." If Steph's teeth had been grit together any harder she's be looking at a lot of dental work in the near future as she pulled the cowl up and over her head. "But I'm not taking this off until I find him, cause you gotta admit, I wear hypocrite real well."
'I'm sorry Stephanie, if I don't give a damn about their guilt.'
O
O
O
From his position leaning against the wall besides the monitors, Dick watched Babs watch Stephanie as the girl strode out of the tower, nowhere near as frazzled as she's been when she'd entered. Babs slammed down on the keys that shut the outer monitor down and retracted the empty compartment.
"You didn't tell her." He said, kneeling besides her chair and resting an arm on her shaking shoulder as she pulled her glasses off and pressed the back of her hand against her watery eyes.
"She doesn't need to know." She looked at the monitor set besides her main one, Jason sprawled only half on his bed, hands resting loosely on the floor besides his head while Stephanie leaned near to him as she could while keeping her books on her lap. "We'll be ready for him when he comes."
She flicked a switch and the screen was replaced by rows of names gathered from one of Tim's League informants besides the looping second's long clip of something streaking by a hidden camera. Oracle put her glasses back on and went to work.
O
O
O
Steph's confidence in her words lasted about fifteen minutes, when she found taking shelter from the rain under a toppled billboard on the roof of the cheap apartment building that shared an alley with The Dive, a can of grape soda dangling loosely from her fingers.
Part of Barbara's words, once she's stopped to think about them, had run true with Steph, even if only a little, even if only because it sounded so much like what Steph had been thinking of Talia after Jason's birthday what felt like years ago now.
A bug buzzed by Steph and she irritably batted it away from her, the jerking movement sent the soda sloshing over the opening of the near full can and spilling onto her chest. Steph let out a cry and swung the arm attached to the can away from her. Because the day just wasn't bad enough already, was it? She grumbled a string of curses under her breath and tried to brush the purple off her batsignal. Wouldn't be wearing that for a while – ever – after what she'd done now.
It was worse because she couldn't really refute any of what Barbara had said, could she? And still Steph couldn't bring herself to regret any of it. Steph had figured out early on that she was motivated in part by selfishness, and she still could make herself regret it.
Who was to say there was something about 'Steph' in particular that had made Jason stick around, that he wouldn't have done it for any of them? That Jason couldn't have been persuaded away from 'his' ideas of justice?
Now she was just making herself depressed again.
Steph tilted the can back to take a sip of her soda with a grunt. Her only warning was a soft, high-pitched noise, she was covered in grape soda, and the ruined can was flying by her. It felt like time had slowed down when she watched the can ruined can moving away from her as she pulled back and the collected raindrops on the near invisible string glinted over the light of the city.
Her hand shot out in an attempt to grab the knife that had speared through her can and the string attached to it. Her fingertips just missed their mark when she had to pull back and clear off the building to avoid the next knife to come at her out of the shadows.
The fire escape she touched down on groaned ominously under her weight, and wouldn't 'that' have been just perfect? Figured the thumps that succeeded her were so quiet they didn't even compare. Steph really hated freaking ninjas.
The first one she actually saw was wearing a familiar armored suit, another blade and string hanging from her hands, the other took Steph a while to make out, hanging back in the shadows as she was. The girl reminded Steph of Cass a little, and being reminded about Cass by someone who was likely not very friendly was 'not' a good thing in the least.
"So, Scarab." Steph rocked back on her heel, hands feeling around the panic button that wouldn't be summoning any help. "It's still Scarab huh? Long time no…" Her sentence was cut off by a cry when Steph had to duck out of another sharp projectile. She landed on the fore escape one floor down, then had to jump back warns again to avoid being impaled by a hand held knife that followed the first up. "So who's your friend?" Steph grinned widely at her opponent.
"Marque had been hired to be sure your friends don't interfere." Scarab said, shifting her position on the railings. "She will not interfere in our battle."
"Yeah, she's real familiar." Steph got out her retractable staff, one of only two weapons she had on hand, the other being a lone gooperang. "Sucks you wasted your money though, this is gonna be just you and me."
Under that helmet, Steph was sure Scarab was smiling. First thing was getting rid of the suit, maybe Steph was lucky and Marque really wouldn't interfere. Steph took in a deep breath and charged forwards, right, get rid of the suit, just get rid of…
She spun as soon as she was in range aiming her foot at Scarabs face, only to have her ankle grabbed by one armored hand, Steph let the momentum of the first kick carry her away anyway, and her other leg crash into Scarabs face. The force was just enough to loosen the assassins grip enough for Steph to break free and drop to a crouch, gooperang in hand. She leaped up and put all her force into wedging the weapon into slim gap between the plates of armor at Scarabs midsection.
The weapon activated in a shower of sparks and Scarab's scream probably woke up everyone in the apartment building. Steph had just begun thinking of a way to move the fight away from the very not-vigilante like civilians in said building when she hit in the chest by something hard and 'heavy' that knocked her right off her feet and sent her flying down to the alley below.
There was just enough presence of mind left for Steph to shoot out her grapple before she could go splat on the ground. Instead, she made a much less fatal splat against a steel door and a splash in an oily puddle, gross, but not going to kill her. The cardboard closed sign still taped to the door broke off and plopped down on Steph's face.
"Ouch." She muttered, trying to think past the complete and utter lack of breath left in her lungs and the ringing in her head.
A light crunch nearby brought Steph back to herself and she leapt to her feet, scooping up the closed sign as she did and launching her cardboard projectile at the approaching Scarab. Scarab knocked the cardboard aside, but the couple seconds obscured vision were all the time Steph needed to come at the woman with a an uppercut underside her armored jaw. Scarab retaliated by bringing up the knives attached to her forearm and nearly shaving the girl's nose off.
Steph just barely twisted out of the way, and got a cut long her jaw instead, but couldn't duck the follow up kick that ended with Steph's back slamming into the filthy alley wall again.
"Sure you're not calling your friends little girl?" Scarab taunted, readying another set of knives.
"Nuh uh." Steph slid along the wall to dodge the swipes that left deep gauges in the brick, then ducked under a kick that caved in the door to The Dive. Damnit, that was a steel door, that huge ass dent could have been Steph's ribs. Looked like Steph's gooperang hadn't done as much damage to the suit as Steph had been hoping.
Scarab's next kick just clipped Steph's shoulder, but sent Steph sailing through the air 'again'. Her backside skidded across the pool table, thank god for 'her' armors keeping that from hurting a whole lot more, but the pool table was toast now. Steph got second to look around the bar in the dark, and the wave of nostalgia hit her harder than Scarabs kick, which was weird because it hadn't even been all that long since she's been there.
She let out a groan as she sat among amongst the ruins of the pool table and flicked on her night vision, flinching when she saw the damage done to the bar washed in its washed out purple tones. "This place is gonna take even longer to reopen now, you ass."
"You won't be here to see it either way." Scarab shoved a table out of her path and reached Steph in three leaps.
Steph's hands wrapped around a nearby barstool and she brought it up with her, splintering the wood against Scarabs head and knocking the woman back. Steph sent a mental apology to the owner who would be coming back from his prison time to the mess she knew they were going to make.
"You really wanna get into a barfight with a Gotham girl?" Steph cracked her knuckles as Scarab pulled off the sparking lower part if her face armor, revealing her snarling mouth.
Steph vaulted over a couple more tables that had actually been bolted down and got herself to the a non-destroyed pool table neat a wall where she got her hands on a pool cue to replace her lost staff and released the balls with coin she'd gotten out of the broken one.
The clacking of the balls echoed around the bar along with Scarabs crunching footfalls, there was near silence for a second before Scarab 'lunged' at her. Steph hurriedly scooped up the pool balls and tossed them into the air, one by one, then as they fell, she used the cue to whack them Scarabs way, aiming for her exposed lower jaw.
Scarab, being a stupid ninja who just had to ninja, dodged every one of the balls, at least they slowed down her approach a tiny bit. Steph's neck, the cuts on Steph's neck were tingling uncomfortably, making the whole thing suck just that little bit more. No time for it to bother her all that much though. Scarab had gotten near enough to make a grab for Steph. The girl brought her pool cue down in the assassins head and tried to duck under the pool table.
An armored hand closed around Steph's trailing cape – damnit NO CAPES Steph – and dragged her up and right into the waiting knife. Steph twisted and rammed her cue into Scarabs throat, as the blade pierced into her shoulder, and fuck that hurt. Steph drew in a shuddery breath and tried to block off the pain as she wrapped her hand around the blade and yanked it out of her shoulder, if not for the fact that she was wearing nights specs, Steph would have thought the lights had dimmed for a moment from the sudden darkening of her vision. She used it to cut through her cape and free herself from Scarabs hold. Who woulda thought, there's be a silver lining to being stabbed, huh?
Steph slipped under another swipe with a knife and leaped over the bar counter to provide with a tiny but of cover from the assassin as she rifled through strong smelling bottles. The owner had gotten arrested for importing illegal alcohol, Steph was sure she had to find 'something' stronger than brandy behind here. Her searching eyes landed on a bottle of clear absinth and Steph if Steph had even an ounce more of energy she would have let out an excited yelp. She opened the bottle; almost considered taking a swig to take away from the gash at her shoulder, then soaked a rag in the booze before flicking her nigh specs off.
The bar went dark foe only a second before it was lit up by the flames of Steph's improvised alcoholic Molotov cocktail. She tossed the bottle to the ground, on the other side of the bar and heard Scarab's shouts when 'her' nightvision blinded her with the sudden brightness.
Steph vaulted over the bar and dashed past Scarab, trying to make for the door.
So close she could feel the chilly Gotham wind on her nose, Marque suddenly appeared, blocking the opening. Instead of sweet freedom, Steph got a pair of feet slammed into her chest; and she was yet again tossed off her feet, her back again slammed into a wall.
"Yep, real familiar." If that happened 'one more time' tonight Steph was gonna…
Scarab was back on Steph, her suit now singed all over the place, she brought her foot up, presumably to stomp down on Steph, but the girl arched her body, brought both of her own legs up and 'crashed' them into the assassins chest. Scarab backed up and Steph grabbed the woman's shoulders, used the hold to propel herself up and bring her knee ramming into Scarabs neck jaw, then spring boarded over her attacker. It was only after she landed on the ground and way close to the fire than she likes that Steph felt the wetness running down her leg.
There was a bloody line running up along her calf and twisting over her thing in a wicked looking 'S' shape. It took about a second of assessing the damage for Steph to get that nope, it was just a scratch, but Bab's was 'not' getting the Batgirl suit back like she'd hoped, well, not unless she accepted the tatters of what had once been a Batgirl suit. It took less than two seconds for Steph to realize that she couldn't really feel any pain from the cut. She couldn't really feel the deep gash in her shoulder anymore either.
No time to think too much past that, Scarab was on her again. Steph ducked a kick and rolled with the momentum to put a few feet between her and her assassin. She came up with a bottle of something real expensive and broke it over Scarabs head, making a deep slice across the woman's chin that must have stung when the alcohol hit it.
Steph got her hands on another bottle and tried to repeat the trick, but it slipped from her fingers and broke against the ground instead.
"What?" Steph looked down at her hand, finding moving it even up to her face hard. A punch came out of nowhere, crashed into Steph's face before she could even think about dodging it. She went down and her legs refused to get under her. Even breathing was getting to be difficult. Steph sucked in as deep as breath as she could, which really wasn't very as Scarab approached, the flickering of the fire glinting on her shiny suit giving her an almost demonic appearance.
"You've just now noticed?" She asked, bringing getting another knife in hand. "A gift from The Society."
Steph's numb hand braced against the seat of the both she's landed near and as she tried to crawl back, away from Scarab, who approached slowly, confidently, like she was so sure Steph was down and out. Well Steph wasn't, there was 'something' Steph could do, bottles shad rolled all around the bar, if she could just douse Scarab in the contents of one, get her near the fire. She just had to reach them, get her 'fucking' feet under her one more time. She reached the booth she'd shared with Jason so many times, got a look at the underside of the table. Her hand balled to a fist against the fabric of the seat he'd always sat on and she felt a lump forming in her throat that had nothing to do with the poison before she couldn't even move that anymore. She went completely limp, her head hit the ground with a muted thump and all she could see was the fire.
Why had she thrown it over here of all places anyway? Should have gotten out of the bar sooner. It helped no one if she took the place down with her. A hand gripped at Steph's throat and she was lifted off the ground like an oversized rag doll, then slammed down on her and Jason's table with enough force to knock every trace of a breath out of her lungs.
A fist came at Steph's face, and the girl was powerless to stop it, her body refusing to respond to her brains commands. She couldn't dodge, or pull always and another fist came at her, then another and she saw stars.
The smell and taste of iron on her tongue made her want to gag and as she watched flecks of her blood splatter and smear against the wood. She still couldn't really feel 'any' pain right then, and if she ignored the smell, she thought that maybe, maybe she could pretend the red droplets were just ketchup. That she'd tried stealing Jason's fries again and they'd spilled across the table.
He was going yell and steal hers any second now, and then, then maybe they'd go watch a movie again, and she could tell him… Her eyes prickled and her vision swam as Scarab raised a knife to plunge into Steph's chest, saying something that the girl couldn't have heard if she'd tried. She blinked and salty liquid dropped from her eyes, trialed down her cheeks.
'I should have told him.'
There was a hollow thump, and suddenly Scarab was convulsing, her suit spraying sparks like confetti, and the smell of iron was replaced by the tang of burnt ionized air, static electricity pulling at Steph's hair, making it spring to life all around her and cling to everything it could reach.
Scarab was replaced in Steph's spinning vision by a larger, darker shape that lumbered forward, growing bigger the nearer it got. Steph's joke of a breath caught in her throat as it got near and her fist instinct to back away from it was blocked out by the poison. Huge eyes reflecting the flickering firelight landed on her and a heavily modified voice broke out through the featureless half mask as hands came up.
"'Hope you didn't go' and order without me Sunshine." The mask clipped off halfway through the sentence replacing the voice with one much more familiar and so welcome it hurt. The goggles were lifted up off eyes that practically glowed in the dim light.
Steph tried to say his name to reach back for him, getting only the barest twitch of her fingers for her troubles.
"Shh, you're okay." His hand came around to cup the back of Steph's head, gently pulled her back off the table. And Jason, he could have looked the same as he always did. His thumb brushed across her cheek, the bloody cuts on her jaw. He pressed something between her teeth and a bitter, vulgar taste flooded her mouth, burned its way down her throat and all its way into her stomach where it burned some more. The sensation that began flooding her body, pain and pain and nothing else was worse, so much worse.
His hand brushed along her jaw again, brushed her clingy hair aside before his head snapped to the side, and the clattering filtering in through the crackling of the fire.
"On second thought," Steph was lifted up of the table like she weighed nothing and set down gently on the familiar plush seats instead. "Go ahead and order, ya know what I like. Got something to take care of real quick." There was an edge to his voice, dangerous as any of the weapons Scarab had aimed at Steph.
Just as soon as he'd appeared, Jason was gone. Steph struggled vainly to follow him; desperate for reasons she couldn't put words to. The fingers of her hand curled slowly to a fist.
O
O
O
Stupid, careless, arrogant. Jason left Steph at the booth, each step feeling like one in the wrong direction as he clipped his mask back into place and lowered his goggles. He'd left her alone, gone so far away when he'd know, he'd know there were enough bounties on her head to give Bruce a double take and he's left to deal with it all on her own. All because he'd let her perpetuate the idea that she was family, that getting to her would get to him, this was the end result. His fault.
Every muscle fiber in his body was screaming at him to turn around, to get her out of there and pretend that he hadn't almost been too late, that she hadn't been seconds away from bleeding out in the closed down bar he should never have brought her to.
But he had, and she was, and 'someone' was going to suffer for it, more than even she was. Scarab was picking herself up and out of the flames. Marque recovering from the surprised shot that had downed her at the door.
"Stupid, to think…" Jason drew his keris and Scarab cut her sentence short, looked up at Jason's approached while she pulled the rest of her mask off. "Ah…" She said, eyes glinting along with the fire's reflection on the blade. "Talia's pet. The little toys she gave y…"
Jason didn't give her anymore time to talk, didn't care about what she had to say. His vision was green and his hands found their way around her throat. Crashed her head against the back of the wall so hard that if the cheap wooden panels hadn't caved, her skull would've. Her suit was useless, with the cybernetics shorted out, just a heavy prison of metal that slowed her down. Even as her hand clawed at his, squeezing the life out of her, Jason could see the rage burning in her gaze.
Too easy, it was too easy. She didn't deserve easy, she deserved to suffer, to suffer and suffer the way Stephanie had, to scream and cry, and know she was helpless before he ended her. Jason blinked and his fist was covered in red.
"You took the wrong, fucking job!" He growled and he punched his knife through her armor, into the flesh and muscle beneath. She didn't look at the wound, but fear shone through her hateful gaze. Good. Jason yanked the knife out and kicked Scarab back into the flames, with a snarl. He stalked towards her as she tried to get back up, his knives weren't poison, there was nothing keeping her from feeling every ounce of pain he inflicted on her for what she'd almost done, 'for sport.' When his foot connected with her ribs, and he stomped down on her ankle, she could do little more than shout, her pride preventing her from outright begging.
The fire was spreading, fueled by the alcohol soaking through the floor like a drunk on a rampage, destroying everything it could reach. Jason had to reach, Stephanie, get her out, before it got dangerous.
"Marque!" Scarab gasped the word out and the deathblow he'd meant to deliver was knocked off course when movement registered on the edge of his vision and he had to leap back and out of the way.
"They don't pay when they're dead." The dark haired woman said, pulling her leg out of the hole she'd made in the weakened wood of the bar. Jason went after her, and ducked under the kick she aimed for his chest. In the second it took him to recover, she had Scarab up and before he could stop it, she'd tossed the armored assassin at the door. Enraged Jason, tried to go after her, but the woman blocked his path again, this time with a series of lightning quick punches, only the last of which got him square in his nose, and even that might just have been the concussion he'd probably given her on his arrival.
"You understand professional courtesy, don't you?" She asked with a grin, her eyes going to the crest emblazoned on his combat gear.
"You one of those Cain kids, huh?" Jason brushed aside the blood trickling out of his nose. "Heard about you."
"Not me!" Oh, she was angry now. Jason ducked under a kick and came up with his knife, almost driving it into her eye before she twisted out of the way and got the side of his head with her elbow.
He got in close, sliced at her, but she moved like a snake, twisting and ducking between lashing out like it took no effort at all. Not just flexible, she was fast, a lot faster than him, and if what he knew about her was true, she could tell next move soon as he could think it.
Jason looks over at Stephanie, at the encroaching flames. She'd be able to get herself out of here in a minute if Jason could remove any obstacles to that. It made him almost light headed to think of doing it, but he shut his mind down, let the green that he never allowed past he edges of his vision crawl just that much closer. Almost immediately his guard dropped enough to let her get a hit to the side of his face that rattled something loose in his head he was sure, so he could get his knee to her solarplexis and knock the breath out of her. Then he grabbed a handful of hair and brought her head down on his knee as well. A crack told him he'd broken her nose for sure. Before she could recover, he pushed her aside, then kicked her through the busted door into the pouring rain, out of the bar and away from Stephanie.
She was on her feet in a second and charging at him again. Her fist coming for his face, he got his knife between it and her target, shaving off a sliver of her knuckle before she was able to draw it back and dance out of reach.
"No weapons?" Jason queried, as she came at him again, and he ducked and swiped at her without giving any thought to his movements. The rain gathered on his goggles, obscuring his vision, but he couldn't find a break in the fight to get them off his eyes.
"Don't need them." She spring boarded off a dumpster and wrapped her hands around the rungs of the fire escape and launched herself at him her feet getting him in his shoulder, then kicked of him, landing in a crouch a couple feet away, and wasted no time in coming at him again with her fist ready.
"Cocky." He caught her wrist and 'twisted' flung her over his shoulder and bashed her head against the alley wall. She leaped back to her feet, and one of his was there to meet her, a knife protruding out the bottom of his shoe at the last second, almost getting her in her back. She rolled aside and came at him again, Jason ducked low, a tazer in hand to press into her midsection. He grabbed her as she convulsed from the current and he pulled back, grateful for the insulated lining of his suit that kept the rain from tazing him too, then bashed his forehead against her broken nose.
She backed up a few steps, and scrubbed away the blood that was trickling down over her lips. He went at her again. His fists crashed into her, uncoordinated, sloppy, and best of all unpredictable. But she was still 'so' damn fast. Her own fist struck around in rapid succession, striking him over and over. One connected solidly to his jaw, then another cracked his goggles, and fuck her, those were new. He yanked the equipment off his eyes just in time to see her foot come crashing into his head.
Another kick was directed at his midsection, kicked the breath out of him, then his throat, that one he dodged, her fists aimed at his head again. Jason brought his arms up to defend himself from the onslaught as best he could while looking for a way to create an opening. He rushed forward, heedless of the blows he had to sustain to get there, and struck out with a powerful kick of his own. It connected and she went sailing through the air.
Jason pressed his back against the wall, shaking his head to clear the ringing in his ears as he gulped in deep breaths. She recovered before he did, dragged herself up of the ground, dripping wet and looking all the more pissed off about it to continue her assault.
"Fuck that." Jason switched the knives out for his guns, away from the fight there was no reason for him to keep them down. Bullets flew down the alley, and Marque, she fucking dodged them, by running along the damn walls. Jason fucking hated it when they did that.
Jason traded one of the guns for a knife and kept firing as she got closer. He used his bullets to keep some distance between dashing forwards and taking swipes at her with the knife. On one swipe that went a just a little wide, she grabbed his arm, twisted it and turned the blade back at him. It cut through his own armor as well as anyone else's and pierced his side, just under his ribs. Her follow up kick, knocked him to the ground while the knife was stick in his skin and tore up his side even more, spilling his blood to mix with the filthy water soaking the alley floor. Shit, that was going to hurt like a bitch later, but adrenaline could keep the pain at bay for a while yet.
Jason took aim again, his bullets chasing after her, he got lucky or she was tired out, because a couple of them actually hit their mark, neither of which were lethal unfortunately, and halted her pursuit to duck behind a dumpster.
It gave him room to duck back into the bar, scooping up the lid of a trashcan as he went, Jason got a grenade in hand and pulled the pin. It landed right besides where she was hiding. Marque picked up the explosive before it could blow and tossed it back at him. Jason, ready with the lid, bounced the grenade back at her and ducked inside just as it the deafening BOOM shook the alley, blowing the rain at the point of impact right out of the air.
Ears ringing, Jason looks to where he'd left Stephanie, she's not there, but the blood she'd left on the table is burning up in the fire, so much goddamn blood. Jason's fury comes back full-blown and he stalks out back into the rain, the splashing of the puddles at his feet heralding his approach.
The grenade had detonated mid air, but closer to Marques paltry cover than his. The woman was trying to stand, bleeding in more places than he could count where the shrapnel had gotten her, streaks of crimson mixing in with the water she was lying in. Jason picked her up off the ground and drove his fist into her stomach, dragging a pained grunt out of her. It gave Jason pause, and his hand stilled before another blow could connect, then he remembered Stephanie, lying bruised and bleeding, and helpless to so much as move as she was almost stabbed to death and left to be turned to ashes by that fire.
Marque would have stood there and watched, would have helped Scarab if she'd been paid for it. Jason's fist crashed into the woman's jaw again, then again and again, and he felt the blood splattering onto his face, barely registered the anything else past the green haze clouding his vision until one of his strikes was powerful enough to break his hold on the blood soaked fabric he'd lifted her by. She didn't deserve his pity, didn't deserve to either live or die quickly. He drew his gun and moved staked forwards, indifferent to the hatred and fear in her eyes as she tried to scramble back from him splashing up water to hit him in the face as she went. His boot came down on her again, how many times he didn't count, but by the time he was done, she wasn't moving anymore, just another piece of garbage soaking in the rainwater.
"Don't use weapons." He scoffed. A pity he couldn't take his time, but he still needed to catch up with Scarab, gut her and break her apart like she'd tried to do to Stephanie. Then, then he's take his sweet fucking time. He checked his ammo and took aim, tightened his finger on the trigger.
"No!" The scent of vanilla hit him, how, he couldn't have said, almost before he heard her. Then there was something tightening around his chest, Jason stomped down hard on the reflex that told him to thrown it off him immediately. The arms tightened. "Please stop." Her voice was high, and hitched on each word as if she had to tear them from a barricade in her throat. "Please, please just stop Jason." She shook against him, her head pressed against his spine. His eyes stung and all of the momentum he'd been carrying into the fight, from the race to the city, and through it, through the guards Scarab had left around the perimeter, the desperation he'd felt in the minutes he was sure he wouldn't reach her in time; it all vanished in an instant. "It's enough. I'm okay Jayce, I'm okay, I'm here. Isn't it enough?"
It was enough, it was… Slowly, as though moving too fast would shatter everything, Jason turned around careful not to break the hold.
And there she was; cowl down and soaking wet, her face bloody, purple bruising all along her cheek and neck and likely spread out across the places he couldn't see as well. But she was breathing, she was alive, and breathing and shaking in front of him. It knocked his breath away as well as anything could've and he stood at a loss for words.
Her trembling fingers came up and traced along his mask, feeling along the seams for the clasp. Jason unlatched the thing himself; let it clatter to the ground. Stephanie rested her hands along the sides of his cheeks.
"You were gone." She sobbed and tears, easily distinguished from the thinner droplets of rain, fell from her eyes, cut salty trails through the blood on her cheeks. Jason wrapped his arms around her, pressed her body against his and reveled in the warmth and the feel of her, of having her close to him again, feeling her breaths against his neck and her heartbeat pressed against his own.
"I'm sorry." He choked the words out and pressed his head into her hair, breathed in her scent. He'd almost lost her, she was almost lost and gone and buried and it would have been all… "God I'm so sorry Sunshine." He tightened his hold as much as he dared less he hurt her anymore.
She pulled back, her fingers interlocking behind his neck as she tilted her head up to meet his eyes, freezing him in place with her the brightness in hers, he wondered what she saw in his. She stood on her toes and brought his head closer to hers, her mouth close enough that he could taste the soft puffs of her breath entering his mouth.
It was as though he were in a daze as he let her pull him closer, the idea of doing anything else not even entering into his mind. Then she was pulling back, her face suddenly splattered in even more blood, and his too. Jason stilled, turned his head to follow her gaze.
There was a barbed blade protruding from his shoulder, having come right through from the other side. Briefly, he wondered when that had happened, he was sure he'd gotten Scarab before she'd… Then the blade was yanked out, taking flesh and muscle with it.
Before thinking about it, he grabbed Stephanie and shoved them both aside, right as a barrage of similar blades whizzed through the air, pin cushioning the place where they'd been standing, one striking his arm and another anchoring itself near his collarbone. Marque was up not a second later, and Jason barely had the time to push Stephanie behind him when he saw both of the assassins hands pressed against his abdomen, surrounded by a dark crimson stain.
"You give good advice." She spat at him and drove the blade deeper glaring through her soaking strings of hair hanging over her face.
'That's my knife…' He thought as he fell back. Something caught him, he could piece together the presence of mind to feel grateful for that at least. "Steph, tell you friend…" He gasped in a breath. "Her sister's… a bitch."
A tattered cape flew overhead, just barely in his field of vision.
What was left of his vision.
Shit.