Chapter 1 of What's Up, Danger?

"You're on trash duty today."

Sabine groaned. Taking out the trash bags during closing was her least favorite part of the day. The alley the dumpster was in behind the store was dark, hidden from the view of most of the streetlights, and all the flood lights that were in the alley had had their bulbs shot out by either kids with slingshots or gang members with guns. And she was pretty sure there were mean and territorial raccoons back there…or raccoon-sized rats. She shuddered at the thought.

"Trash duty," Marie reminded her as the larger woman squeezed past her behind the counter.

"I know, I know," Sabine muttered as she closed her register.

She pulled her register and handed it to Marie so she could take it into the back room and count it. Marie raised an eyebrow as she watched the twenty-four-year-old woman pull an overflowing trash bag out of a can by the condiment station, where the cream and sugar were kept for customers to add to their drinks.

"You might want to take a broom out there too," Marie said as she turned on her heels.

"Why?"

"The raccoons out there can be a little…aggressive," Marie added before she disappeared into the back room with the register.

Sabine knotted the top of the bag and half-dragged, half-carried it down the short hallway to the back door that lead out to the alley. She twisted the door handle and used her butt to push the door open as she struggled with the weight of the bag, worried that it might tear and spill open.

Goosebumps erupted over her arms as her skin met the chilly Gotham air. It was early fall. Whoever had said that the coldest winter they had ever spent was a summer in San Francisco had clearly never spent fall in Gotham. The cold air and wind passed through all the layers of clothes you were wearing and made your bones shiver.

Sabine kicked the door stopper down with her heel so that she wouldn't get locked outside.

The alley was dark and covered in shadows. Sabine could hear tiny feet scurry away as the light from inside the café cast a long, illuminated rectangle on the concrete ground. Long and billowy gusts of wind carried the sounds of sirens, yelling, and screeching tires in the distance over the rooftops and into the night, the typical Gotham cacophony.

Sabine scuttled over to the dumpster, which was thankfully only a few feet away from the door. She heaved the trash bag on her back, found her footing, then flung it over her shoulder before releasing it so it flew over the edge of the dumpster. She heard it land on top of the other trash with a wet crunching noise and a loud thump.

"Ow."

Sabine froze. Did the dumpster just speak?

She heard a long, deep groan and a shuffling sound emit from within the dumpster before silence again.

Curiously, Sabine plugged her nose between her thumb and index finger before stepping up on her tiptoes to the smelly edge of the dumpster and peering inside its depths. It took her eyes a few seconds to adjust to the darkness. Beneath the black trash bags, she could make out the faint outlines of sprawled out limbs and something red.

Sabine quickly walked to the supply closet, opened it, grabbed the broom, and shut it, all while muttering under her breath.

Marie poked her head out from the back room. "Are the raccoons back?"

"Yup."

"I told you they were big."

"You weren't kidding, they're practically human-sized."

Sabine brought a stool outside with her in addition to the broom. She dragged the stool up to the side of the dumpster and stood on it. Then using the handle of the broom, she poked at the large lump beneath the trash bag. She had heard stories from her coworkers that it wasn't too unusual to find someone passed out in the alley, usually strong out from drugs or falling-over-themselves-drunk, but someone passed out inside the dumpster? They'd want to hear about this tomorrow.

She heard another pained moan.

"Hey buddy," she said, "you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here."

She poked the lump again. Poke. Poke.

"Ow-shit, those are my ribs…"

She stopped at the sound of the deep voice.

An arm shot up and roughly pushed aside the trash bag that obscured the body beneath.

Sabine squinted her eyes as she saw a large figure slowly sit up, clutching at their right side. She didn't know if her eyes were playing tricks on her because their entire head looked red.

A car drove by the front of the alley, its headlights briefly and brightly flooded the liminal space with light. In that half-second, amidst all the trash—thrown out or half-eaten food, crumbled paper bags, and plastic drink cups—she saw that the person in the dumpster was a man wearing a dark brown leather jacket, gloves, guns strapped to his upper thighs in holsters, body armor with a red V-shaped bat on his chest…and a red helmet. After that brief moment passed, the car was gone and shadows and blurry shapes filled her vision again.

Her stomach didn't just drop, it fucking somersaulted. The broom in her hand dropped to the ground with a loud clatter. She slammed the lid of the dumpster down and backed away.

Sabine had heard stories about him— the Red Hood— but he had always sounded like some fabricated urban legend. She had never seen any of the famed Gotham vigilantes since she had moved to the city several years ago. She also never wanted to. It was a well-known fact that it was not fortuitous to come across any of them because it meant trouble was nearby or trailing closely behind them.

"Hey-hey," the baritone voice said muffled inside the dumpster, "you find an injured guy in a trash heap and shut the lid on him? Not cool."

She conceded that he did have a good point.

Quickly, she found herself pushing the lid back up and leaning over the side of the dumpster. She looked at Red Hood and he stared back at her through the white slits in his crimson mask; until this point she had no idea that being stared when she couldn't see someone's eyes could be so intimidating. However, she didn't know what else to do as she offered a trembling hand to Red Hood.

He continued to look up at her. It was impossible to read him with a mask covering his entire head, there were no visible facial expressions to interpret. After a moment, his gloved hand reached up and grabbed her forearm, completely ignoring her outstretched fingers and palm. He used his other arm to push himself up as Sabine strained to pull him onto his feet.

"Geez," she huffed, "what do you weigh? Two-hundred pounds?" She felt like her arm was going to pop out of its socket from the strain.

"Heh," he chuckled while trying not to wince in discomfort, "that and some change."

It was difficult for him to get his footing in the middle of all the garbage. Everything was slimy, smelly, and slippery, but he finally stood up and immediately hunched over in pain. Judging from the sharp feeling in his side, several of his ribs were cracked. The vision in his right eye was blurry and red. He looked up the side of the building and estimated that he had fallen about thirty feet from the roof into the dumpster. At least the heaps of garbage had cushioned his landing or else his friends might be scraping him from the ground with a spatula.

Red Hood vaulted over the side of the dumpster and stumbled.

Sabine took a few steps back and watched him warily. He was tall, a good head taller than herself, and built like a human wrecking ball, she took notice of the thick muscles under his jacket and body armor.

Slowly, she crouched down and picked up the broom. She held it with two hands, like it was a broadsword, while her eyes stayed locked on the vigilante.

Red Hood gingerly clutched his ribs and turned around, thinking to thank the rude girl. If he wasn't wearing his helmet, she would have seen him raising his eyebrows in amusement at how ridiculous she looked. However, he was keenly aware that he wasn't in the best shape to comment. She'd probably heard terrifying stories about him, and here he was in front of her—needing her help to get out of a stupid dumpster, of all things—with messed up ribs and a serious head wound, judging from the amount of blood that was leaking into his eye. He didn't look cool at all right now.

"Relax, Donuts, I'm not gonna hurt ya."

"Donuts?" Sabine tilted her head to the side as her hands tightened around the broom's shaft.

Red Hood walked a few haggard steps, leaned his shoulder against a brick wall, and then pointed at the apron she was wearing. One of white slits in his helmet had turned red with blood.

Sabine glanced down at the large, embroidered donut with pink frosting and sprinkles on the front of her work apron. "Oh, right."

Her grip on the broom loosened and she began to feel silly. Did she really think she was going to fend off a deadly vigilante with a broom? He had guns and probably knew a hundred different ways to kill her with his bare hands and she had what?— a piece of wood with prickly bristles on the end. Although a good smack with the broom was probably what he deserved after calling her 'Donuts'.

"Really though, a broom?" He felt his knees buckle, it wasn't the searing pain in his torso that was getting to him, it was the head wound. He could feel the lightheadedness coming on, which he found concerning. One of Penguin's men had hit him with that bat covered in nails harder than he initially thought.

"It's for the rats," Sabine explained quietly.

"Ha…ha," Red Hood laughed lamely as his head lolled to the side and his body slid down the wall. His vision blurred, which wasn't a good sign, right before he sunk into a crumpled mess on the floor and was out cold.

"Oh, shit," Sabine's eyes widened when the vigilante slowly slumped down and fell over on his side, a pool of dark liquid was leaking out of the bottom of his helmet and spreading on the ground. "Oh, shit oh shit oh shi—"

She didn't have time to process the situation before she heard a beeping sound. She padded her pockets, thinking that the source was her phone at first before she remembered she had left that in her bag in her work locker. She looked at Red Hood and realized that a band around his wrist was actually a watch of sorts, or maybe some other type of small electronic device. He didn't seem like the type to own a Fit Bit though, but who was she to judge.

The small screen on the wrist device was flashing a blue light as it beeped. Her ears picked up on a very distorted female-sounding voice.

"-Hood, come in. Red Hood, come in."

Sabine knew she could easily hurry back inside the café and pretend she hadn't seen anything. It wasn't her responsibility to make sure he was okay, but she knew the guilt would gnaw away at her if she just left him. It seemed like an unspoken rule in Gotham to mind one's own business, but passed out, he seemed so helpless. It was easy to forget that the defenders of Gotham were only human too.

"-Red, your heart rate and blood pressure dropped. Is everything all right?" The distorted voice asked with an urgent tone.

Sabine sighed as she moved closer to Red Hood and crouched down next to him. She could barely hear his slow, shallow breaths over the sound of her thumping heartbeat as she knelt beside him.

"Sorry, I'm gonna have to touch you," she said meekly as she grabbed his right forearm and inspected the beeping device on his wrist. She jabbed at the tiny screen with her index finger in the small hope that fiddling with it would put her in contact with whoever was trying to contact him. Maybe they could help him.

"H-hey, sorry, I'm not your—err—friend, but he looks injured."

"Come in again, Red?"

"H-hi, your friend—I mean Red Hood—fell into a dumpster then passed out behind C&D Café. He, uhh, doesn't look too good."

Her words were met with static then silence. She wondered if whoever was on the other side of the communication device had heard her at all.

One minute passed by. Then another.

She didn't know what she was waiting for; maybe for another one of the infamous vigilantes to swing by overhead and pick up their partner? Or for the Batmobile to suddenly materialize? The Batmobile was real, right? She had only heard stories.

"Oh, fuck it," Sabine hissed as she ran inside to grab her cellphone to call an ambulance. Why hadn't she done this as soon as she found him? She dialed 911 and held her phone to her ear as she dashed back outside.

But as soon as she returned to the alley, Red Hood was gone. Even the puddle of blood had been wiped away, leaving no trace that he had been there. She heard the emergency dispatcher on the other end asking her to state her emergency, but the ambient noise of Gotham drowned out their voice as she looked around frantically. She tapped the red icon on her phone screen to end the call, shoved her phone in her back pocket, and then slowly picked the broom off the ground.

She swiveled her head around one last time—left and right, and then up and down—but Red Hood had vanished.

Utterly confused but appreciative that Red Hood was no longer her problem for now, she went back into the café and closed the door behind her.

Damian crinkled his nose as Dick set Red Hood—Jason— down on a sterile surgical table in the Batcave.

"He smells like garbage," Damian crossed his arms over his chest, "which is fitting for Todd."

"Put a can in it, Damian," Dick lightly scolded, "and get Alfred."

He examined Jason's helmet and saw a small hole where it appeared that something small and thin, like a nail, had punctured through the hard material. "And tell him we'll need to pull Jay's vaccinations records because we might need a tetanus shot administered as well."

A/N: New fic, who this?

This story isn't set in any specific DC timeline or universe, so characterizations and events will be pulled from various DCU media that I've read/watched. However, I would say this story is probably a mash-up of the Young Justice, Under the Red Hood (DCAMU), and Wayne Family Adventures universes. All the Batfamily kids are also aged up to early-late twenties, except Damian who is in his mid-teens. Anyway, I just love Jason and want him to have a lil slice of happiness. uwu

(this is also cross-posted on AO3!)

Musical Inspiration- What's Up Danger by Blackway and Black Caviar