Hey, just wanted to let you know, Jason is 21 and Danny is 19. Tim is 17 and Damian is 12. A few of you have pointed out the fact that Phantom has scars on his neck and is missing a tooth while Danny isn't, and I just wanted to say that is on purpose. It's not a writing mistake. Thanks so much for the support, enjoy.

Chapter Three Am I making a mistake?

Jason stood out on the fire escape smoking. It'd been a rough night. The name the thug in the warehouse had given him, Dug, hadn't led Jason anywhere. No one at the strip club knew who he was talking about. He hadn't even had a chance to meet up with Phantom, just sent him a text and got to work. Jason blew out a cloud of smoke and sighed. He didn't smoke as much as he used to under the influence of the pit, but after a frustrating night, he needed the dose of nicotine.

A noise startled Jason out of his thoughts. The window below him was opening, and Danny climbed out into the crisp autumn air. He had a glass bottle in his hand which he sipped from as he sat down, his legs dangling between the bars. Danny looked up and grinned tiredly at Jason, the bags under his eyes were a stark contrast against his pale skin.

"Morning," he said, attempting to be cheerful, but he sounded tired.

"Morning," Jason offered back. "A little early for alcohol isn't it?" Danny looked thoughtfully at the bottle and Jason could see it was cider.

"I work overnight," Danny explained. "This is technically my evening." Jason hummed in understanding.

"I'm in the same boat," he shared.

"You work third shift too?" Danny asked.

"Yup," Jason said, popping the P.

"Well at least I won't have to worry about you stomping on my ceiling when I'm trying to sleep," Danny offered with another grin. Jason laughed softly.

"Same here. I was actually worried you'd keep me up all day" Jason admitted. Danny laughed softly. They lapsed into a comfortable silence.

"Hey," Danny said softly and Jason looked back down at him. "You want one?" he asked, holding out his cider.

"Sure," Jason agreed, and Danny got to his feet and climbed through his window. He came back out a moment later with two fresh ciders and scaled the narrow steps up to Jason. He handed him the bottle and plopped down, sticking his legs through the bars again to swing them. Jason sat down with his back against the wall, his legs half stretched out in front of him. Danny's back was mostly to him as he watched the early morning clouds trudge lazily through the sky, leaving Jason free to stare. Despite the chill, Danny's arms were bare, showing off the cross hatch of scars. He didn't seem ashamed of them. Danny turned to look at him and caught him staring.

"Yeah, I had a rough go of it in my teens," he said, nodding to his arms. "I've thought about getting tattoos to cover them, but then I'd be even more unemployable." He laughed at his own self deprecating joke.

"You can't seriously be discriminated for them?" Jason asked incredulously. Danny shrugged.

"Not legally maybe, but people stare. And no one really wants someone who looks so unstable serving your food or handling your groceries," he said flatly.

"You could get some kick ass sleeves and get a job bartending," Jason offered. Danny snorted. "Or really any job around here. The low income areas of Gotham aren't picky."

"Yeah," Danny laughed. "I think the guy who made me a sandwich the other day was more inked up than an excon."

"Pretty sure our landlord used to work for the mafia," Jason offered. They both snickered at this. A comfortable silence stretched as they drank their ciders; Jason finished his cigarette.

"Well," Danny said, using the railing to pull himself to his feet. "This has been really nice, but I need to go to sleep."

"Me too," Jason said and started to get up. Danny offered him a hand and Jason accepted, using it to haul his tired body up. "Thanks for the cider," Jason said with a small half smile.

"Any time," Danny said, with a smile of his own, and then went back down to his window. Once Jason had watched him climb inside and heard the sound of the latch being locked, he climbed back into his own apartment and got ready for bed.

...

That night, Phantom was waiting for him on their regular roof.

"No birds tonight?" he asked, a note of relief in his voice.

"No, thank God. I can only handle so much of them," Jason growled. Phantom laughed.

"Yeah, Robin really put me through the ringer. I didn't know someone that small could be so damn mean," Phantom mock complained. Jason snorted.

"You don't know the half of it. I'm pretty sure that was him trying to be nice," Jason said, his shark tooth grin clear in his voice.

"Nice?!" Phantom exclaimed in horror.

"Yeah, he was trying to show you what your weaknesses were so you could fix them," he said with an air of mock wisdom.

"Then I sure as hell don't want to piss him off," Phantom said with a shudder.

"Definitely not," Jason agreed. Phantom shook his head slowly.

"Did you find your weapons dealer last night?" Phantom asked.

"No," Jason sighed. "And I don't have any more leads. I'll check with some of my informants tonight, see if they know anything."

"You want me to watch the streets?" Phantom asked.

"Yeah. I'll let you know if I need help with anything," Jason said. Phantom went off across the roofs, and Jason turned toward the unpleasant task of research. He was starting to regret letting Phantom take care of the small fry. He could use a good fight to get out his frustration.

...

That night was another bust. Jason had checked with several of his informants, moles in various crime families and drug rings, but no hits on the name Dug or any information on the new weapons smuggling operation. Jason was starting to go crazy. He hadn't made up that fight in the warehouse, Phantom had been there! But when Jason went back to scan for more clues, the place was trashed. The cops hadn't left anything workable behind. Frustrated and pissed, Jason texted Phantom.

Red Hood: More dead ends here, how goes the patrol?

Phantom: if u free need help.

Red Hood: Where?

Phantom texted him an address.

Red Hood: On my way. What's the situation?

Phantom: Bad guy chasing kids. Beat the crap out of him. Now they in gap won't come out. Don't trust me.

Red Hood: I'll be there in a sec.

Jason tucked his phone away and rolled his eyes; Phantom was a horrible texter.

…

Jason found the meta crouched down in front of a tiny gap between two buildings, too small for even his narrow frame to fit into. Phantom stood up when he caught sight of Jason and took a few steps away from the buildings.

"They're really scared, and I think one of them is hurt," Phantom explained in hushed tones. "They don't want to trust me enough to come out." Jason nodded and placed his hand on Phantom's shoulder, moving him out of the way. He knelt down in front of the gap. Peering into the darkness, he could make out the forms of two kids, their bright eyes gleaming with the feral look of a rough life on the streets.

"Do two know who I am?" Jason asked gently.

"You're the Red Hood," one of them stated, matter of factly. Jason nodded and reached up to unlatch his helmet. He took it off and set it on the ground, letting the kids see his face. He still wore a domino mask underneath, but he'd found most people trusted him more when they could see his expression.

"If you know that you should also know I don't hurt kids," he said, still gently. He watched as their eyes scanned his face, looking for lies, and then darted to something over his head. Jason looked up and caught Phantom ducking back out of sight. He held in a sigh and turned back to the frightened kids.

"Don't worry about him," he explained. "That's just Phantom. He works for me."

"They say he's a ghost," the other one said, voice shaking.

"Him? Naw. He's just a punk. He's not going to hurt you. Believe me, if he tried that would make him a bad guy right?" Jason said with warmth in his voice.

"And Red Hood gets rid of bad guys," the first one said. Jason smiled at them.

"Yup. I won't let anyone hurt you. Now why don't you come on out of there and I'll buy you some dinner? Maybe we can even get that cut looked at," he nodded to the second one's leg, where he could see an old cut festering, probably what Phantom had been talking about. They seemed to perk up at the prospect of food, but still they didn't move.

"You won't rat us out to the cops will you?" the first one, the one Jason was starting to think was the older one, asked. He still couldn't tell if they were boys or girls, they were too young and too dirty to tell from where he crouched.

"I'm not a snitch," Jason snorted, sounding like the very idea insulted him. The older kid nodded, and helped the smaller one scramble out of where they'd wedged themselves. Jason fell back to give them plenty of space, but not enough that he couldn't stop them if they bolted.

Once they were out in the light of the street lamps, Jason could see the one he'd taken for older was a boy, and the smaller one he supported seemed to be his little sister. They couldn't have been older than seven or eight. They both eyed Phantom warily.

"You really work for Red Hood?" the boy asked.

"Yeah," Phantom said, crouching down to get on their level. "He lets me help him fight bad guys and keep the Narrows safe." The boy seemed satisfied with this and turned his attention back to Jason who was examining his sister's wound.

The girl had a nasty looking cut on her leg that did indeed seem infected. Jason worried his lip as he looked at it.

"Is it bad?" she asked him in a quiet voice.

"Yeah," Jason confirmed. "But I know someone who can make it better," he explained. The kids looked wary, like they might bolt and he quickly added, "she won't snitch on you either. I promise." After another back and forth conversation where it was revealed that the girls leg hurt to walk on, both kids agreed to let Jason carry her. He left his helmet off as they walked the several blocks to Doctor Leslie Tompkin's free clinic, the girl in one arm, and his helmet in the other.

…

With all the running around Jason had done, and then coaxing the kids out, time seemed to have slipped away from them, and it was already past 6am. It was still earlier than the clinic opened, but when Jason knocked on the glass door, Tompkins looked up from the papers she was sorting behind the front desk and narrowed a look at him. Jason figured if he didn't have a dirty and frightened kid in his arms, she probably would have glared at him. But as it was, she came over and unlocked the door for them.

"Well Hood, who have you brought me today?" she asked, casting a suspicious look at Phantom over Jason's shoulder before smiling gently at the two kids.

"I hurt my leg," the girl bravely explained before Jason had a chance.

"Did you now?" Thompkins asked softly. "Well why don't you four come inside and we'll see if we can make it better?"

She let them in and locked the door back behind them. She led them back into a private room and Jason whispered to Phantom to go down the street and get some food for the kids, partly because he'd promised the kids food and didn't want them to bolt before he made good on the offer, and partly because Phantom was still unnerving them.

Jason waited patiently with the kids while Thompkins looked them over and decided that the cut was infected, but not too badly. She gave the girl a shot that she held very still for while her brother held her hand. She cleaned and bandaged the cut and told the kids to come back in a few days so she could look at it again. They led the kids back into the lobby where Phantom had two take home containers of pancakes and the kids sat down in the waiting area chairs to dig in. Phantom kept an eye on them while Thompkins pulled Jason into her office. Phantom eyed him as they passed by, but Jason waved him off.

Once they were behind the door Thomkpins glared at him.

"What?" Jason asked, defensive.

"Who's the new kid?" she asked like this was obvious.

"You mean Phantom? I don't know, some meta who showed up last week. I'm letting him work for me," he said as if it was an afterthought.

"So he's the meta I've been hearing about? The one people have been comparing to a ghost?" She glanced at the door behind Jason like she might see the guy through it.

"Yeah, but he's not a ghost as far as I can tell. Just has some ghost-like powers." Jason waved his hand in a so so gesture.

"Like what?" she asked curiously.

"Intangibility, and some disregard for gravity," Jason said.

"I've heard about energy beams," Thompkins chided.

"Yeah yeah, he's got those too. Look, why don't you just talk to him instead of playing twenty questions with me?" Jason said shortly. He didn't mean to sound aggravated, but it'd been a long night and his temper was thin. Thompkins glared at him again but didn't argue, shouldering past him and heading out into the lobby. The kids were gone and Phantom was standing awkwardly in the middle of the room.

"Sorry, they bolted when you left," he said. Jason groaned and scrubbed his hands through his hair.

"So you're Phantom?" Tompkins said. "I'm Dr. Thompkins. I run this free clinic. I patch up a lot of the heroes we've got running around this city so if you ever need anything feel free to drop in. It's a strict neutral zone in my doors though, so don't bring your fights here, understood?" she said with a friendly but on nonsense tone.

"Uhh," Phantom managed, shocked stupid by the command in her tone. Jason nodded exaggeratedly behind her back at him.

"Of course. Thanks for the offer," Phantom managed. Thompkins nodded approvingly at him.

"So I hear you're a meta," she said. "I know this is a bit forward, but I've been attempting to run a private study on metahumans. I don't suppose you would help me with it. I'd only need a few vials of your blood." Phantom jerked away violently at this request even though she was still several feet away from him. He stammered dumbly for several seconds before he managed, "No thanks. I'm good. Sorry. But I uh, really need to be getting home. It's late." And with that, he ran for it, not even bothering to open the door and instead just phasing through it.

"Well that was odd," Thompkins said.

"You scared him off. Maybe you came on too strong," Jason grinned at her. She glared back at him.

"Wipe that smile off your face and get your ass out of here Hood. Shouldn't you be in bed by now," she said, aggravated.

"Fine mom," he taunted as she shooed him out.

...

An hour later, Jason stood on his fire escape, smoking again. He'd thought a bit about the reaction Phantom had had to Thompkins request for blood the whole way over to his safe house and then to his apartment and he couldn't puzzle it out. His best guess was he'd had a bad run in with a doctor or doctor type before. It wasn't unheard of for metas to be illegally experimented on. It might even explain the scarring on his neck, the ones that looked almost like surgery scars.

Danny's window opening jarred him out of his thoughts. Those blue eyes looked up at him as he held up two bottles of cider.

"Want one?" he asked with a smile.

Jason grinned. "Hell yeah."

...

"Hood! On your right!" Phantom called as a thug ran out of the shadows and swung a table leg at Jason's head. Jason ducked and kicked the man's legs out from under him, sending him crashing to the asphalt. His head bounced and he didn't get back up.

"Thanks!" Jason called over his shoulder where Phantom was trying to subdue another drunk brawler. A bar fight had gotten out of hand and spilled into the street. Phantom and Red Hood were trying to break it up, but seeing the vigilantes had apparently angered the bar patrons even more.

"You'd think drunks would be easier to fight," Phantom called as he danced out of the way of a knife. "But they are way more reckless!"

"Why are you trying not to hurt them?" Jason called as he watched Phantom try to wrestle the knife out of his attacker's hand instead of just knocking him to the ground.

"Cause he's drunk! He's not all there right now," he shouted back.

"I'll show you who's not all there," the drunk slurred. "Some out of town twink who thinks he can tell us Gotham natives how to do our business!" He threw Phantom off and slashed out with the knife again. Jason watched as Phantom threw up his arms to protect his head and the knife gashed a six inch long cut into his arm. Jason's vision swam with green as he kicked the last of his opponents in the crotch, sending the man to his knees. He yanked his gun out and shot at the ground. The rubber bullet bounced off and hit Phantom's attacker in his chest, knocking the wind out of him.

Phantom's form flickered as he seemed to be turning intangible and back again. Jason touched him and the flickering stopped. He examined the wound. Red blood flecked with green was soaking into Phantom's hoodie. Jason picked the knife up off the ground where it'd been dropped and looked at it. Nothing on the blade would explain the green in the cut.

"What's with the green?" Jason asked.

"Part of my mutation," Phantom explained, yanking his arm out of Jason's grip. "It's normal."

"You need stitches," he said, concerned.

"I've got it," Phantom said as he turned to walk away.

"Giving yourself stitches sucks. Let me do it Phantom." Jason took several fast steps to catch up and place a hand on Phantom's shoulder. The meta shrugged him off.

"I said I've got it Hood. Leave me alone!" Phantom yelled, sounding panicked. He ran straight up a wall and out of sight. Jason swore and stomped back to the bar, kicking the man who was still laying on his back panting from the bullet to his gut as he passed, and stuck his head into the bar. The bartender was just standing up from where she'd taken refuge behind the counter.

"You good? Need me to call the cops?" Jason asked.

"No, I've got it. Thanks Red Hood," she said with an air of professionalism like this was a regular occurance. Jason nodded and headed out. He glared again at the jerk who'd hurt Phantom. He wished that kicking him some more would fix the problem, but the meta had already bolted.

'Dammit all,' Jason thought to himself as he grappled up to a roof to continue his patrol alone. He didn't know what the hell had happened. Phantom had been holding back for some reason, showing an unwillingness to hurt the drunk that he'd never shown before. And then he'd been hurt, but not badly enough to warrant running off to lick his wounds. He'd bolted like something had spooked him. Jason didn't understand it. And then there was that moment where it looked like his powers had been glitching. He shook his head to clear it. There wasn't anything to be done about it now, and he still had several hours before he could call it quits and go home.

...

A while later as he was circling around the city, a voice spoke through his helmet.

"Hey Hood, how's it going?" said the female voice.

"Hey Oracle. Is something wrong?" Jason asked, pausing his movement to eye up a particularly large gap between roofs.

"Not exactly," Oracle started. "It's just, I've heard about your new partner."

"He just works for me," Jason clarified, not even bothering to ask how she'd heard about Phantom. Oracle had eyes and ears everywhere. She'd probably know about him for days, and was only just now bringing it up.

"Whatever you say," she agreed. "Are you considering bringing him into the fold?" she asked, getting straight to the point.

"It's too early to say," Jason said. He considered what had just happened and added, "I think he might be unstable."

"Mentally or physically?" she asked. Jason could hear her typing away.

"Both I think," he said.

Jason had never really had a beef with Barbara. She'd been screwed over by the joker same as him, and by that logic she'd been screwed over by Batman's inability to put that clown down. They had enough in common to not be at each other's throats, and while Jason had been hesitant to let someone as powerful as her have a line into his systems, her advice and hacking prowess had saved him more than once.

"Do you want me to look into him? See if I can find any record of how he got his powers?" she offered. Jason hummed, considering. He hadn't been working with the guy long, just over a week now, and in that time he'd started to rely on the guy. This had been the first time he'd up and abandoned Jason, unless you counted that incident with Thompkins a few days ago, and Jason didn't. But Phantom had been off all night.

"Yeah," Jason decided. "See what you can find."

"Any idea where I should start looking?" she asked.

"Try meta experimentation projects," he said.

"You think someone experimented on him?" she asked, concerned.

"Just a hunch," he explained. He didn't really want to invade the guy's privacy like this, but Bruce would be home in a few days, and once he got wind of Phantom, he'd dig up whatever he could on the meta. It was better if Jason beat him to it.

"Okay, I'll let you know what I find," Oracle said, cutting off the line. Jason made a few more laps around the Narrows before turning for home.

...

Jason stood on the fire escape waiting. He had a cigarette in his hand, but he wasn't smoking it. It was just an excuse to be out here. Every morning since that first time, he and Danny had met out here and shared a drink. They'd talked about all sorts of stuff. It turned out Danny was as much of a nerd as Jason was. They'd both avoided their pasts, darkness clearly lurked in both and it wasn't something either of them were ready to broach. Instead they chatted about books and movies. Danny was a huge fan of video games, something Jason had never really had a chance to get into, but the passion that Danny talked about them with made him want to try them. And Danny would listen while Jason went on about his favorite authors and why they were overlooked or why others were overrated. They'd developed something like friendship.

But now, Danny was late. It wasn't like they'd ever made these meetings official, but still, Danny had never been this late before. Something was starting to gnaw in Jason's chest, but he couldn't identify it. Worry? Or fear? Had Danny gotten bored of him? Was he mad at him? Had he said something yesterday to piss him off? Jason stubbed out his unsmoked cigarette in frustration. Dammit, why was he so obsessed? He looked down at the window below his for a long moment before turning around and going inside.

He paced back and forth for a while, debating with himself. It was dangerous to get close to people, eventually you had to push them away, to protect yourself. But maybe Danny would understand. Maybe this time it would be different. Jason growled at himself and pulled on his hair.

He marched into the bathroom and splashed water on his face. He glared at himself in the mirror, his blue eyes tinged with green from his dip in the pit. He scrubbed out the temporary dye that masked the white streak in his hair. He didn't know why he didn't dye it permanently black, but something always stopped him. He tried to distract himself by picking up all the clothes he'd left in the bathroom and carrying them to the hamper in his bedroom, but it didn't work. He couldn't get his mind off of Danny. Finally, he marched to his door, out of his apartment and went downstairs.

He stood in front of Danny's door for a long time, debating with himself before he changed his mind and started to turn around. He knew this was a mistake. He stopped when he heard the door open.

"Jason?" Danny asked softly. Jason whirled.

"Uh hey, I was uh, gonna ask you something," Jason stammered, unsure if he really wanted to go through with this. Danny opened his door further and Jason got his first good look into the apartment. It was the same floor plan as his own and sparsely furnished. All of the furniture looked like it had either come from thrift stores or ikea. But Jason hardly paid that any mind when he noticed how awful Danny looked.

The bags under his eyes were worse than normal, and he was disheveled. His hair was sticking up all over the place and he wore an oversized hoodie and sweatpants; his feet were bare. Jason had never seen Danny cover his arms, even as the days got colder, but he hadn't really known the guy long so maybe that wasn't a fair judgment.

"Are... you okay?" Jason asked, not the question he'd come to ask, but one that needed to be said. Danny shrugged.

"Rough night at work, but I'll live. Is that what you wanted to ask me?" he asked curiously.

"Uh, no. Not exactly," Jason said, trying desperately to keep his hands from fidgeting. Danny raised an eyebrow at him and Jason took in a deep breath. Why was he so goddamned nervous?

"Do you want to get coffee with me sometime?" Jason spat out too fast.

"Coffee?" Danny asked.

"Or food, or whatever. You know," Jason lost the fight with himself and tugged on the hem of his shirt.

"When?" Danny asked.

"Uh, whenever you're free I guess," Jason said, not sure where to go from here, he hadn't planned this far.

"I'm free now," Danny offered.

"Now?" Jason spluttered. Danny nodded, smiling at him.

"Just let me get changed okay," Danny said. "I'll meet you out here in a few minutes."

"Yeah, sure," Jason said. Danny smiled at him again and ducked back into his apartment, closing the door. Jason stood there dumbly for a minute, stunned. That had gone a lot better than he expected. After staring at Danny's door for a while, he came to his senses and bolted back up to his apartment. He needed to change! And brush his teeth! And crap, did he clean all the Red Hood crap out of his car? He needed to stop leaving stuff in there. Jason hurried to get ready, unsure if this was a date and not really caring. He was actually going to get to spend more time with Danny dammit, he wasn't going to screw it up. Danny wasn't going to be another mistake.

There you are. I'm actually a chapter ahead of what I'm posting, so if I ever don't feel up to writing you will still get a chapter. I plan to keep to the schedule of posting Tuesday and Friday mornings. Please review! I love to hear from you.