Gotham could be pretty at night, if you looked at it with the right lens the orange glow of the streetlights made hazy by the city smog. That night, atop the headquarters of the GCPD, cigarette smoke drifted up to meet with the smog as the cities commissioner paced the rooftop in long, slow strides, awaiting the arrival of his company for the night.
The Batsignal stood unlit, no need to advertise what was going on that night, and in the darkness, unless you were looking for it, you would have had no way of knowing there was something going on at all.
Darkness was a bats best friend, unfortunately for the commissioner; it was far from being his.
"Heya Commish!" Batgirl greeted, poking out from behind him and almost, she was sure giving the poor guy a heart attack in the process. It hadn't been intentional, and she felt kind of bad at the momentary shock on his face when he spun to face her. One would have thought he'd have been more used to it by now.
He regained his composure quickly though, and returned the greeting with a nod. "Batgirl, you're early."
"Yeah, gotta get me that worm." Steph folded her arms and nodded sharply, trying to swallow down her nervousness. Truth was she'd arrived early to make sure there'd been no time to set up an ambush. She had a feeling the others would be there soon for similar reasons.
The commissioner moved to take another puff of his cigarette when his eyes suddenly fixed on her head and he lunged forward, Stephanie ducked aside, and in the process got an eyeful on laser. There was some chuckling in her comm and she sighed heavily, attracting a very confused glare from the commissioner before his eyes moved to follow the laser light that was tracing its way across the gravelly surface of the rooftop.
"You're not worried about that?" He asked sounding more resigned than anything, probably still looking for cover.
Steph spread out an arm in the direction of the building across the street, and the commissioner followed her eyes. Jason, crouched on the other side with his sniper rifle waved back, if Steph could have seen her face she knew he'd be grinning. "My friend's just being a drama queen; I don't even think it's loaded.
And apparently, Commissioner Gordon was all surprised out for that evening, because he just nodded wearily and turned to scrutinize the figure across the street. "I ever met this friend before."
"Maaaybe." Steph clasped her hands behind her back, her eyes darting between the two of them.
Gordon drew in a deep pull of his cigarette, the deep red ember glinting off his glasses as he did so, he released the smoky breath slowly, waiting for the smoke to dissipate entirely before he spoke again. "Think you can get him to come closer, like to look him in the eye when I thank him for saving my life."
Across the comm line, Jason sputtered and Steph struggled to stifle a similar sound that might have escaped her.
The look the commissioner leveled her with was less than impressed. "Spend enough time with your kind; you get a feel for these things."
"Uhhh." Steph let out a nervous chuckle. "I don't think so, he's like a moody cat, 'll only come closer if we feed him."
Jason lined his scope up to her again in retaliation; Steph only saw it this time because he made a point of dragging it up along her midsection first. She flipped him the bird.
It seemed that the guy with the sniper rifled being proved harmless, they'd run out of conversation topics. That was just fine with Steph, the only times she'd ever spoken with him had been work related, and if he wasn't going to bring up the oddness of the fact that law enforcement had been called in to mediate for the Bats instead of the other way around, Steph wasn't going to either. Awkward silence was better than awkward conversation any day.
Tim showed up only a few minutes later, seeming to drop from the sky, his cape spread out all around him when touched down on the rooftop. "Commissioner." He nodded at Gordon, then at Steph, "Batgirl." She'd expected some hostility, a in the very least. "You saw the tape?" But Tim was all business; Steph wasn't sure whether to be relieved about that."
"Yeah." Steph nodded, mentally shaking the images out of her brain as Cass slunk across the rooftop, coming to a stop at her side, cocking her head at Steph.
Tim took a drive from his belt, and with the click of a button, it projected a map projected onto the nearest wall. "Plan's simple. We've narrowed the positions of the priority hostages down to five possible locations," Priority hostages, families and friends of the rest. Blinking circles appeared over the aforementioned five locations. "We have a general idea for the others." A portion of the map flashed red. "But it'll be safer to make sure we have something more concrete before making any moves on that." The others being the various dealers and bosses.
He handed the drive off to Cass, and then went to stand closer by the map. If they'd been on better terms, Steph would have cracked a joke about him looking like a weather girl, Cass might have laughed at the expression on his face if nothing else. Right then Cass wasn't even looking at Steph.
"We don't want to risk direct GCPD involvement." He shrugged weakly at the commissioner, an apologetic smile slipped in place. Gordon grunted, obviously less than pleased about being expected to contribute more that his presence to the proceedings. "But there are some undercover detectives in the surrounding areas waiting to move in if it 'does' become safe enough." The symbols of each of the Bats appeared around the hostage circles; Robin's was the only one missing. "We'll be waiting each at different locations to pull the hostages out as soon as he's distracted."
"So I'm guessing it's my job to do the distracting." Steph didn't sigh, she'd done plenty of that on the dive over, listening to Jason going on about why that was the most bullshit of bullshit ideas, but they'd both known there weren't any other logical options.
"We'll make for your location as soon as we've found and evacuated them, shouldn't take more than a maximum of two hours." He clicked retrieved the disk from Cass and cocked his head in Jason's direction. "He planning on helping? New Hood won't be looking for him so I've got a couple positions we could use him."
"He's not gonna get in the way." Was all Steph could really say about Jason, he didn't care about their plans, he's already come up with his own and he wasn't going to change it for there's.
"I take it he's going to be your shadow?" Tim asked.
"Pretty much." Steph looked to her side and noticed Cass was actually watching her for the first time since she'd arrived. Steph turned hastily away.
He pulled out a miniature computer and began typing. "Great, that'll give us more time to finish up." He nodded. "Now, we have some contingencies to run through in case something sours." He tossed something oval shaped and about the size of Steph's thumb at her. "If they move you to an unknown location, that tracer'll make sure we can find you."
"Right," Steph turned it over in her hands, studying its smooth white surface. "And if I lose it?"
"Can't." Cass said, a smile forming on her lips. "You swallow it."
"The whole thing?" She looked between Tim and Cass, expecting it to be some kind of joke, but both nodded in sync. "Dontya have a smaller one?"
"I might." Tim said, going back to working on his computer. Yeah, Steph wasn't going to get the smaller one.
"Fine, what else?" Now she sighed.
O
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O
Jason didn't like their plan he didn't like it at all. He'd asked her not to go, told her he'd find a way, hat he could ask favors. She wasn't Batgirl anymore they'd taken it and she wasn't obligated to take it back because 'they' needed her.
Crouching the way he was for so long hadn't been his best idea, and the stitches pulling at his midsection saw fit to remind him of that every so often. If not for the fact that this was the only easily defensible position that still gave him full view of both the GCPD and the surrounding area, he might have moved, but it wasn't and he had to make sure they didn't try anything, so he was for all intents and purposes stuck.
The shadow looming nearby didn't help much. Jason would have been fine ignoring him, as long as the man didn't move any closer, but a combination of sore muscles, the damned stitches and just a general irritation at the situation at a whole just left him too pissed off to want those eyes on him like that.
"Your theatrical ass gonna hide there all night?" Jason called out, not taking his eyes off his scope, he fixed the light on his replacement, and the little shit actually flipped him off, Jason was tempted to fire a warning shot just because.
"You're one to talk." And shit, he was actually going to try and make conversation wasn't he. Jason would have snorted if he could have been bothered.
"You gonna shove me against the wall again?" He asked instead, tongue darting out to moisten his very dry lips, thankfully hidden behind his half mask. "Picked up a lotta weight since then but 'm curious how long you can hold me for. Didn't threaten your little monster this time though so maybe not so long."
"That night," Bruce came to a stop, the edges of his cape just flickering at Jason's vision, and he tensed up, forcing himself to keep as still as possible. "Talia…"
"Don't." Jason turned the laser to dance over the commissioners shoes; he could practically feel the resting bitch face from here, but he didn't react otherwise, so Jason moved it up to the burning point of his cigarette, wondering what they would do if he shot it out of Gordon's hand. Cancer prevention, very important.
"She told me if I didn't take you from Arkham…"
"I said shut up." Jason tried to add a sing songy air to his voice, but his throat was threatening to close up along with the tension in his lungs that were threatening to suffocate him by now. He tried to focus instead on the comm; they were talking about crocodiles, not Waylon Jones, but actual fucking crocodiles. What the fuck kind of contingencies were they planning for?
"Or she'd take you to…"
"I don't fucking care!" Jason pulled on the reigns of his emotions, trying to stifle them as much as he could, to get some sort of evenness to his voice, this kind of tension wasn't the best for those stitches, and now they were 'really' complaining. "Not the worst fucking thing that happened there, not the worst thing that happened 'that' day. Gave me something to laugh about over breakfast." He shifted the scope to the batsignal and his trigger finger itched as he imagines the barely audible 'thwip' the bullet would make, the louder shattering of the glass, pieces falling from the giant flashlight, tumbling over the edge of the roof.
"You're still injured, you shouldn't be…"
"I don't wanna talk to you anymore." Jason moved the laser back to Red Robin, trying not to focus too much on the symbol, on the words of a dead Bruce from a dead universe that would never be the one speaking to him now. "'M not here for you Bats and your bullshit, so try to arrest me again or butt the fuck out."
Bruce was quiet for just a few seconds, it didn't help, didn't calm Jason in the least because he knew it wouldn't last, because Bruce always had to get in the last fucking word. "If the smallest thing goes wrong, and you…"
"Shut the fuck up." Jason tried to look like he was still focusing on the scope, but he knew anyone with two brain cells to rub together could have seen past it and realize he was just trying his best to 'not' look at Bruce. "You don't get to act like you give a fuck about anyone when the only solution you're willing to try is using her as fucking bait." Bruce made the mistake of moving closer and in an instant Jason was on his feet. "If anything happens to her." Jason jabbed his finger in Bruce's direction, wishing he had his helmet to cover up his whole face and not just the lower half. "Anything, and screw your 'greatest failure' and 'responsibility' for my 'wanton, self destructive path' before, I'll make sure I bring down every level of hell on your head and this time you're free to tell everyone it's 'your fucking fault.'
Bruce didn't make a move, didn't say anything and Jason's breathing was coming out in deep, shuddering breaths that didn't seem to deliver enough oxygen to his lungs. He dropped down, back to his rifle, tried to make it look natural like it wasn't just because he didn't trust his legs to hold him for much longer.
"I'm sorry, Jason."
He listened to Bruce, almost as silently as he'd shown up, then listened some more to make sure he was really gone. Jason turned from the scope pulled off the mask, let it clattered to the ground at his knees so he could pressed his face against the thick gloves covering his hands.
They didn't get to do that, they didn't get to fucking… It wasn't fair.
O
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"Hey." Steph crept up to where Jason was sitting curled up against the half wall, tense as a ball of rubber bands ready to snap. She brought a hand down on his shoulder and he flinched back his head shooting up to face hers. He wasn't wearing his little mask anymore. "You get bored annoying us all with your gun?"
He snorted and let his knees fall from his chest with a weak grin. "Took a nap, everything set?"
"Yeah, deadlines tomorrow, so we don't have a lotta time but…" She shrugged.
Jason stood and before she could react, he'd wrapped his arms around her, enveloping her in a tight embrace that had her body pulled flush against his.
"Wish I could ask you not to go." His voice was muffled a little against her head and he sighed.
"Wish I could ask 'you' not to go." She returned, not referring to the rescue they were about to attempt, the bat ears on the cowl prevented her from tucking her head under his chin like she wanted to.
"And we'd get the same answer, huh?" He huffed, at least a little amused his hold around her tightened and she relaxed further into it, reveling in the warmth and the feel of him as though it were the last time, because for all they knew, it very well might have been.
O
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O
Static crackled along the edges of the recording, he lighting was bad, showing only as much as its director deemed absolutely necessary, just enough to see the rows upon rows of terrified people kneeling on the ground of indiscernible color.
At the forefront of it all stood the Red Hood, his helmet gleaming under the dim lighting, polished the way his predecessor's had never been.
"This message isn't for Batman, or Robin or any of his other freaks; it's for Batgirl and only Batgirl." He stepped aside, revealing the trembling man chained to the chair behind him. "This man." He rested one gloved hand in his captive's hair. "Is going to die, because of you, because you held the lives of people like him above that of your own family. There is nothing you can do to save him, but these…" He swung out an arm, gesturing at the rest of the people behind him. "If these lives are so important to you, then you can save them by going through what he had to, if not." The Hood brought a gun to his head and pulled the trigger without an ounce of hesitation.
"Come to where you found him and I'll let the less disgusting of these things go free, but I want the rest of your Bats collecting them, out in the open where I can see. I see the police or anyone else helping them and…" He pulled out a canister. "They'll 'all' feel what he did. Their lives mean nothing to me and I'll always find more fodder in this city, 'don't' try anything."