Chapter 5 of What's Up, Danger?: It's Brutal Out Here
Despite the dark clouds looming overhead, the temperature was surprisingly warm and humid for a late morning in the fall. Maybe it was climate change, or maybe the weather gods decided to cut the citizens of Gotham some slack.
Sweat trickled down Sabine's skin under her coat and sweatshirt as she navigated the bustling sidewalk, dodging and swerving to avoid other people just as lost in their thoughts as she was while fast tempo, hard-edged music played in her earbuds.
Contrary to most peoples' opinions on the gloomy and crime-ridden city, Sabine liked Gotham sometimes. Hell, sometimes, it was downright tolerable for all the talk of its negative reputation. In some ways, it was similar to New Brunswick where she grew up, except with a few more million citizens residing in it and a few bloodthirsty crime lords (but what big city didn't have criminals these days?). There were nice parts and rough parts in both cities, but she had been warned that Gotham was a different beast entirely. You only needed to look at the news to see how disproportionately bad Gotham was in comparison to her hometown; there was a hell of a lot more drugs and murder in the former for one, which led to its ever persistent infestation of bats.
However, there were still times when sitting and staring at the city from the roof of her apartment made the grime and seediness of it all the more palatable. Everyone needed a space where they could get away from it all—a space where they could breathe and not feel like a lonely speck among millions of others.
And she figured that if she kept her nose clean, minded her own business, and didn't look for trouble, it wouldn't find her…
…and the past few years she had spent in Gotham had been uneventful (besides overhearing a shootout outside her dorm room one night while studying for finals)…
…with the exception to that being her strange encounter with Red Hood a few weeks ago and his bizarre insistence on thanking her. For what? Not letting him bleed out in a dumpster after he pathetically shamed her? Human decency must have been a rare commodity in Gotham for him to go out of his way like that. Or maybe he was trying to improve his reputation. Who knows. She hadn't seen him since, and that was for the best.
Their encounter had ignited a morbid curiosity, and she spent a few late evenings looking up articles about the Red Hood in-between study sessions and absorbing what little information could be found; he suddenly appeared onto the Gotham scene several years ago, causing a whirlwind of mayhem and bloodshed and leaving a body count in his wake. That was news she already knew, but there was something about reading a first-person account on how Red Hood had managed to fill a duffle bag full of decapitated heads that made her stomach queasy.
Some articles condemned him, while others praised him for doing what needed to be done to clean up the streets. There wasn't a lot more to be gleaned from a dozen articles about his bloodthirsty tactics and dangerous heroics, or a handful of conspiracy and tabloid websites. She tried to leave her internet search and curiosity at that, but his presence lingered in her thoughts, especially when she was at work.
There was a lull in the music playing in her earbuds as one song faded out and another began, which momentarily shifted her from her thoughts and back to the sobering weight of reality—something was off.
She felt a familiar sensation in the back of her mind, like an itch inside her brain that she couldn't scratch. She slowed down her pace, trying to discern why her mind was wary and alert as a fast-paced song picked up in her earbuds.
She weaved through the other pedestrians on the sidewalk, stealing glances at unfamiliar faces as she wondered who, or what was setting off her internal alarm bells.
Sabine fingered the lanyard that was inside her coat pocket; the lanyard that had a key ring for her keys and, most importantly in moments like this, a small canister of pepper spray.
Jason didn't even bother to apologize after knocking into what felt like the tenth person's shoulder as he navigated the sidewalk.
He saw that the hooded stranger was less than several feet away from her and was almost close enough to grab him when the stranger lurched forward, snatching Donuts by the wrist. He yanked her back, shouting something incoherent, and raised his other hand which held something shiny and sharp that glinted in the sunlight.
Jason watched her whirl around with wide, frightened eyes and something small and black in her hand. She pressed down on an actuator button on the top of the tiny can she held. Jason's nostrils caught the foul stench of pepper spray as she pointed the nozzle at her assailant's eyes.
Well, I didn't expect that.
The man cowered on the ground, clutching his face and shrieking. Several bystanders gave the commotion on the sidewalk a wide berth, walking around the incident and not wanting to get involved. Some had simply stopped to watch.
Jason saw the man try to stagger back up onto his feet—his eyes and face must have been stinging like hell—as he held onto the knife in his hand.
The young woman took a few steps back in surprise that he was recovering quickly. The lanyard with the canister slipped from her trembling hand, clattering on the ground, and rolled away from her. The papers she had tucked under her arm lay scattered like white leaves around her.
Jason hurled himself forward, his knee met with the man's forearm with a loud crack, knocking it down with enough force to send the knife flying out of his hand and skittering along the ground like a skipping stone across water. Another crack as his fist met with his ribcage, sending him sprawling onto his back.
Sabine could hardly believe what she was seeing, in two swift moves the young man from the elevator had disarmed and incapacitated him. His movements were quick and strong, he didn't hesitate or fumble as she had.
The man on the ground groaned and slowly turned to the side as his hood slipped off his head, revealing his face covered in red rashes.
Her eyes widened. "That's…that's the guy who wanted to show me his coin collection…"
"Well, looks like you dodged a bullet," Jason joked darkly as he positioned himself between her and the man.
It was an attempt to alleviate the tension, but she didn't seem to hear him over the sound of her heartbeat, spurred by adrenaline, pumping in her ears.
Jason's body tensed as the man pushed himself back onto his feet. Jason noticed a glassy sheen in his eyes that slowly faded, revealing dark brown irises. His sclera was pink from the irritant in the spray. The man tossed a wild look in their direction before scrambling away, pushing through the thin crowd of people that had gathered around them.
Jason felt the pull inside of him that wanted to pursue the man, but had to consider the importance of some "vigilante after-care", as Dick jokingly referred to it. Oftentimes victims, or almost victims, needed consoling or coddling, and reassurance that the threat was over for now.
"Hey," Jason slowly approached her and slumped his shoulders, assuming a non-threatening posture, "are you all right?" He felt like it was a dumb question to ask because who would be fine after almost getting knifed?
Sabine finally found the willpower to move her body and knelt on the sidewalk, trembling. Her shaking hands scrambled to pick up the papers and lanyard she dropped.
"I-I'm fine."
But it was an obvious lie. She was not fine. Jason recognized the look in her eyes as shock, her mind was probably trying to desperately process what had happened.
Jason took a step forward and waited to see if she would allow him to get closer. When she didn't flinch, Jason crouched down a few feet away from her and grabbed one of the pages off the ground to hand back to her. A few words on the page caught his eye—'Local Group Therapy Referral List'. He quickly held the paper up to her, feeling that he glimpsed something too private.
"Thank you," Sabine mumbled, taking the paper from him and standing back up. Her legs felt like lead, rooted to the spot.
Jason studied her, noting her creased forehead full of worry. "Where are you going?"
"Gotham U," she quietly said, "I…I have class there soon."
Jason's eyebrows shot up. "That's over two miles away."
Was she seriously planning on walking all the way there by herself? And with earbuds in?—in Gotham? The audacity. Jason almost wanted to rub his temples at the infuriating thought. Clearly, she wasn't a Gotham native. One of the ironclad rules of surviving in Gotham was to always be aware of your surroundings, which was second to always carry a weapon of some kind, and at least she was doing that.
Sabine hung her backpack off one shoulder, swung it around, and unzipped it. She crammed the referral lists that her therapist had given her inside before re-zipping.
Her gaze shifted from the sidewalk to Jason to the ground again. "T-thank you for, uh, you know, stepping in."
Jason nodded. "Well, if you're going to Gotham U, do you need a ride?"
She looked at his motorcycle helmet with apprehension. "Look, I appreciate you going out of your way to help me, not many people would do that…"
So she did know that the city was dangerous. Good.
"…but, uh…"
Jason noticed her eyes peering at his helmet. By ride, he meant getting a cab, but she seemed to have misunderstood. He swung it over his shoulder, obscuring it from view to put her nerves at ease, and shoved his other hand in his jacket pocket.
"At least let me walk you there then," Jason offered. Even she couldn't argue with that.
And she didn't.
He took a few steps forward and waited. She closed her eyes, her hands curled into fists as she took several deep breaths. She released her fists and let her hands swing at her side as she caught up with him.
Jason learned two important things during their forty-minute walk through the heart of the city towards Gotham University's campus after he briefly introduced himself: firstly, that her name was Sabine (finally he could stop internally referring to her as Dumpster Girl or Donuts), and secondly, she was a first-year law student.
"Criminal law, I want to be a public defender," she replied when he asked what area interested her.
His dark brows furrowed and his lips formed a hard line. "You want to defend criminals?"
If she was unsettled by his aggressive response, she didn't show it; she was used to people being put off, or even outright offended, by the idea of her wanting to be a public defender—especially in Gotham (and especially after what had just happened). The way Jason clenched his jaw told her all she needed and more about his thoughts on her aspirations.
"It's not only about defending criminals," her brain scrambled to try to word what she wanted to say, "it's…well, it's more complicated than that." Because that was the truth, it was complicated and she could also go on and on about the subject but she did not have the time. From the look of disgust on Jason's face, she doubted he would entertain what she had to say anyway.
They stopped outside of a large lecture hall building that overlooked a small grassy quad nestled in the middle of several tall, dark buildings. A glance at her phone indicated that she had five minutes before her Civil Procedure lecture.
He could still see the gears turning in her head behind her troubled expression, she was still trying to make sense of the earlier encounter.
"You might want to consider carrying a gun," Jason advised casually, "it's a hell of a lot more effective than pepper spray and a hell of a lot more practical."
He also wanted to add that she should not walk around with earbuds in, but then he'd be nagging her and that wasn't his place, nor did he want to start sounding like a crotchety old man he knew. He had gotten her to her destination in one piece, none worse for wear, and as far as he was concerned this was his one good deed for the day during daylight hours. The Signal—Duke— could handle the rest of the daytime heroics.
"You're joking," she laughed nervously as her hands fidgeted with her backpack straps.
Jason heaved his shoulders up and down and walked away, waving goodbye lazily over his shoulder at her. "Suit yourself."
Sabine watched after him for a few moments, staring at the back of his broad shoulders and unsure what to make of their interaction. On one hand, he seemed harmless—no, harmless wasn't the right word—safe maybe? No, that wasn't the right word to describe him either. She remembered how mercilessly and without hesitation he knocked down the man from earlier.
She was thankful for his intervention, who knows what would have happened to her after she had dropped her pepper spray. She didn't get the impression that Jason was dangerous, not to her at least. He also didn't shy away from violence. Maybe he was a bouncer? She could picture him doing that. He had the build and daunting presence for it.
The alarm on her phone rang, sending vibrations up the side of her hip from its place in her back pocket.
"Oh, shit," she panicked as she turned on her heel and ran towards the lecture hall.
It was a quiet night in Gotham, and it was almost damn near unsettling. There was hardly any chatter over the comms as Jason patrolled from the rooftops. Red Robin said a few coffee puns to break the long periods of silence, which earned a snicker from Nightwing (Why doesn't he just stay in Bludhaven? Jason thought bitterly) and a "Tt-" from Robin.
Jason even stopped by a bodega to pick up a microwavable burrito. The cashier's mouth hung open because the rotund middle-aged man couldn't believe that the Red Hood himself was in his shop and counting out change on the counter right in front of him.
Red Hood squinted at the cashier through the mask, the white slits narrowing. "Can you break a twenty?"
The man slowly bobbed his head up and down, his mouth still agape.
Back on the rooftops, he brought his gloved hands up to his head to remove his helmet. There was a soft click and a hiss of air as the locking mechanism on it released. He placed it next to him on the ledge and began to leisurely take bites of the burrito.
He hadn't realized it until he sat down with his feet dangling over the ledge, but he was in the area where Sabine lived. He wondered, faintly, if she was doing okay. He doubted she would appreciate a check-in from the Red Hood though.
As he took another large bite, a beeping noise followed by Oracle's distorted voice came from inside his helmet.
Quickly, he put on his helmet.
"Oracle, repeat."
"Robbery in progress at a bank, you're the closest. Red Robin is on his way as well."
Jason looked sadly at the unfinished half of his burrito before responding:
"Send me the location, I'll be right there."
As he turned around and gripped his grappling hook, a ragged meow came from behind him. A paunchy tuxedo cat came waddling up to him with their yellow-green eyes transfixed on his burrito.
He paused, staring down at the cat who had sat down at his feet.
"Uh, Oracle, quick question. Are burritos safe for cats to eat?"
He heard her sigh heavily over the communicator in his helmet and could picture her running a hand over her face.
"Red, Gotham National Bank. Now."
Sabine was tired. Her nerves had been on edge all day. She couldn't focus during her two lecture classes, and she was in a complete mind haze during her half-shift at work. Knowing that she didn't have the mental or emotional bandwidth to make dinner after her shift, she had stopped by a deli and picked up a sandwich packed with cold cuts before heading home.
Inside her apartment, she double-checked, then triple-checked, to make sure her door was locked, deadbolted, and that the door chain was fastened in place.
Anxious energy kept her from focusing on one task for too long; she bounced between eating her sandwich, reorganizing her bookshelf, and looking up self-defense videos online because she wasn't going to get a gun.
Maybe a taser would work?—although she still didn't like the thought of it.
The hardwood floor was covered in uneven stacks of books, a mess of textbooks, reference books, fiction, and graphic novels.
She was still chewing on a bite of turkey, lettuce, and tomato when she came across a couple of thick black and dark brown leather-bound books she kept shoved into the bottom corner of her bookshelf.
Her skin prickled uncomfortably as she stared at their spines. There was no title on the spines and no author names. She didn't even remember the last time she had opened one of them.
The half-dozen books that her gaze lingered on had belonged to her mother and were some of the few keepsakes she had kept all of these years.
Swallowing, she reached out and touched the tip of the spine of one of the books with her index finger and felt a chill, like a cold hand had touched her neck.
Sabine ignored the strange sensation and hastily grabbed the books off of the shelf, threw them into a cardboard box she had dug out of her closet, folded the box's lid close, and then thrust the box back into a corner in her closet.
Out of sight, out of mind, she hoped.
Still consumed with restless energy, she decided to visit the roof and see if her favorite cat was in the mood for a visit and grabbed her coat from a hook by the door.
She left her apartment, locked the door behind her, and headed to the stairway at the end of the hall. Sometimes she would take the fire escape outside her window up to the roof, but she didn't feel like climbing up the ladder and sometimes the metal was too cold to touch, even through gloves.
Sabine rubbed her hands together and breathed a hot puff of air on them as she stepped out of the roof access door.
She spied the small bowl of kibble she had set out by the storage shed last night was untouched. She emptied and refilled the small water bowl next to it. Then she rattled the bowl of kibble for a few seconds, hoping that the noise would attract CEO, who never wandered too far away from the apartment building.
After a few minutes dragged by without the cat making an appearance, she ducked back inside the warmth of the apartment building. As she made her way down the stairs and back to her apartment, she hoped that the chubby cat found something to eat and was spending the night somewhere warm.
A/N: One day I'll write a proper summary for this fic. Maybe.
Love.fiction.2021 asked me what my face claim was for the characters: In my mind, Jason is an amalgamation of Dexter Soy's artistic interpretation of him and his animated appearance in Under the Red Hood/Death in the Family films with Jensen Ackles' voice. As for Sabine, well, I'm going to have to dig around and think about that a bit more.
Thank you for reading and for all of the support so far! Stay safe and happy holidays. :)