Jazz scrolled on her phone furiously, checking the next twitter tag. So far #GothamVigilantes didn't give her any clues for her research. Of course, she had already checked TheRedHood, the official(?) account of the vigilante on twitter, despite not being blue checked - a fact he complained about a few times -, but his last tweet was from about a month ago and it was a selfie of him doing thumbs up in front of a "Batman Sucks" graffiti.

She sighed, considering stalking the other vigilantes' twitter accounts, but she was ready to accept that she was not going to get any concrete answers from this.

You see, she had messed up. Big time.

In her defense, her perception of the world was twisted after being so involved for so long with ghost issues, ghost politics, ghost biology and spending half her time in Phantom's Keep, Danny's new lair after the coronation.

She messed up.

Worst part? She realized it only when she saw Nightwing and Red Hood last night on the roof next to her window. Because it wasn't until she was thinking once more how amazing it was that these vigilantes were only human that she remembered a small detail: Red Hood was, indeed, human.

Yeah. Obvious, right? Of course, the man was only human.

Humans were allergic to ectoplasm. Drinking or eating ectoplasm makes humans burn up from the inside out; getting some on the skin will cause a severe rash and in extreme situations, first to third degree burns.

Ectoplasm, like the main ingredient in her Fenton "Quick Heal" Cream. It wasn't called that, of course. It wasn't even supposed to be a 'healing' cream either. Her father created it to dissolve ghosts' ectoplasmic skin to locally inspect the layers of muscle under it or something. As usual, it did quite the opposite and instead helped kickstart the accelerated healing of ghosts, especially useful in low ectoplasm concentration zones, like Gotham.

It was nifty and with a little bit of cream her cut from Saturday's adventure was healed by Sunday morning - without it she would have had to wear the bandaid to the gymnastics class. She usually saved the cream for more serious or infected wounds, but the cut was in an annoying place and she wanted it gone sooner than later.

She, who was already liminal, could do that. Normal people could not.

She forgot that not everyone was ecto contaminated, and therefore, the cream would do more harm than good. To normal people. To humans. To Red Hood.

At best, it would infect the wound and make it itch a lot and heal slower; at worst, it could cause a rash and burn the skin the cream had touched. She didn't want to cause harm to others - she had made an oath in med school, after all -; and even better, she didn't want to make the deadliest vigilante in town suspicious of her.

First she acts ridiculous and now she might have hurt the man. Ughhhhhh. Good job, Jasmine.

She sighed again when twitter offered the nth blurry photo of Nightwing doing a crazy backflip, Robin visible in the background only because of the yellow lining of his cape. Apparently there was a big takedown on Two-Face's mass bank robbery masterplan, and that's why Nightwing had been called to help or something. Jazz was not assigned to Harvey Dent's treatment so she wasn't called when he was brought in the morning to Arkham.

Who she had to face was Ivy, instead. The woman was interesting to talk to in general, and while her methods were quite destructive, in Jazz's opinion, Pamela only needed a better outlet for her destructive tendencies and a safe (and legal) project to bring back the Green to Gotham. She reminded her of some ghosts back in the Infinite Realms - they are right but their methods needed some work. She had been drafting a proposal for a podcast about proper care about plants hosted by Pamela, unsure if it'd ever be approved.

Arkham, despite promising an interesting and informative experience in criminal treatment, was lacking a lot in many departments. In her opinion the main problem was low funding and unsecure working conditions, resulting in lack of passion and half-assed performance from the staff. For some people being a door away from a serial killer, or an unstable individual with homicidal tendencies, wasn't the ideal dream job, she had come to learn. 'The pay is good', a guard told her once, when she asked why he did the interview for this job if he hated it so much.

Absurd. Money wasn't everything. In fact, it was worthless if it meant that half the medical staff and almost all the guards despised working in Arkham so much that they were a bad day away from snapping and becoming a criminal themselves.

Very soon into her internship she realized that 'rehabilitation' wasn't exactly on the minds of everyone involved in the Hospital. One would think that the city with the highest crime rate would consider a program to actually pull criminals away from crime; not fund a glorified time out corner where criminals and personnel alike didn't take it seriously.

Okay, she was being harsh. There were some good people here. She had met people that believed in the system and committed their lives to do actual good, but there was little they could do when the status quo was made like this.

Jazz had drafted a forty five step plan to fix it, of course. She made a list of things that needed to change, a list of the 'good people' and a list of people she suspected were corrupted and actually worked undercover for any of the rogues - who they actually worked for, she still didn't know. It started the weekend of her first week in Gotham, when she noticed that Riddler enjoyed the idea of planning his own escape rooms, with plenty of deadly traps, once she asked out of curiosity if he was into them at all.

She was laughed at when she presented the idea of actually allowing him to make them, sans deadly traps. Some implied maybe she was as crazy as the other inmates.

Her rage was blinding as she rushed home, opened her laptop and started making lists and charts and-

Danny always said she had a weird way of processing her emotions. Maybe. She liked to feel useful, even if she knew nothing she did would really come to reality.

She still saved her powerpoint presentation and her notes, just in case.


Jason knew he had promised no more interactions with her as Red Hood, and he intended to keep that promise, really. He had been tempted a few times as he watched Jasmine walk back home from her bus stop with her attention focused on her phone screen. He glanced at what she was looking at, rolling his eyes when he caught a few photos of Dick doing flips in his Nightwing costume.

Was she a Nightwing fan?

Oh no, she saved a photo to her phone.

Please don't be a Nightwing groupie, that'd be disgusting in so many ways.

No, wait - she said she was a Red Robin fan, when he asked about it. That was worse. Why would she like that twerp?

Nightwing fans he could somehow understand, since Dick was friendly and smiled at the cameras when caught by civilians. Heck, even being a Batman fan he could get, if you were into furries and the color black.

But the others were rarely seen or caught in public, sans Duke, the daytime shift of the bunch.

Maybe he could ask her-

Stop. No more interactions. She might suspect that he was investigating her.

"Check that out."

"She has nice tits."

"Let's go."

Jason jumped to the next rooftop where he could hear the hushed conversation better. The low evening sunlight gave plenty of shadows from where he could watch the group of four guys in your typical 'I'm a low rate criminal' attire. Typical. Also, the disgusting way they were looking at some girl passing by the alley they were hiding in was typical.

He could watch and evaluate the quickest and most efficient way to deal with these guys. He had time, he could afford the theatrics.

"Hey, girl!"

She turned. It was Jasmine. Of course.

She blinked slowly, finally looking around her and realizing that this was not her street and she had wandered into unknown territory as she had been too absorbed by her phone. This girl needed to work on her spatial awareness.

"Um…" She took a step back, body tensing. She had the foresight to pocket her phone.

"Why don't you come with us?"

"We promise a fun time."

"No, thank you." She looked at both ends of the street, but neither was a better option to run to. This was the Narrows, after all. She could run but people like this were everywhere.

Jason saw the moment she chose to fight her way out of the situation. She took a wider stance, her body balanced perfectly, core closer to the ground, one arm prepared to defend and one hand prepared to attack. He saw her eyes measure the four men, analyzing her options and where to hit, what to avoid.

She did have training.

But from where she was standing she couldn't see that two of them had guns hidden in their waistbands. She could probably hold her ground just fine, he was sure of it, but he wasn't about to stand idle just to see what she could do in a situation like this, not when she could get seriously injured or even-

He jumped down, knocked the heads of the dudes with guns together, their bodies dropping to the floor. The noise they made distracted the other two men, one of them withdrawing his knife from his pocket. One kick and one punch and they were quickly dealt with. He almost chuckled at how easy it was.

"Thank you."

He looked up at his neighbor. She was smiling and rubbing the back of her neck, her cheeks pink in embarrassment.

"I guess that makes two for two, huh?"

He tilted his head in confusion.

"Two times we meet that you have to save me."

He scoffed. "You didn't need 'saving', I've seen you throw a grown ass man over your shoulder like nothing."

She made a face. "Well, yeah. Still, thank you."

Hm. She didn't want to dwell on her stunt from the other day, preferring to change the topic. One would normally feel proud of their training… unless the source of it was something worth hiding.

"No problem."

She watched him with rapt attention as he tied up the low rate thugs and called the police. It wouldn't take long before someone was here, even if not many cops wanted to get into the Narrows and dragged their feet when dispatched there. Figures.

"Um…"

He looked at her, waiting as she collected her thoughts. Her eyes, he noticed now, were a striking teal blue. He remembered them being greener, but between the fight with Ivy and the incident with the Black Clover thugs he hadn't been precisely thinking about cute neighbors and their eye color.

Wait-

"Are you… okay?"

Ah, yes. She had been wanting to ask something. He filed his worrying thought for later.

"Yeah?"

"Your arm. The, um, the cut. It healed fine?" She absentmindedly rubbed the place she had a matching cut to his.

"Yeah?" He repeated. "I heal fast." He shrugged. Maybe she wanted to follow up on the wound? Maybe she wanted to make a comment about the bandaid buddies thing?

He stomped down the warmth creeping into his chest.

She didn't do any of those options. Instead, a myriad of emotions painted her face - confusion, horror, realization, suspicion. She really needed to work on controlling her facial expressions.

Finally, she opted for a neutral smile. "Good!" Her voice was a little high pitched at the end. "Um. It's been good seeing you, Mr. Hood!"

She turned back to run away, suddenly eager to get away from him. Was she finally scared? Was this what finally tipped her over to fear territory? Had he been too brutal with these guys?

"Wait!"

She stopped mid stride, turning towards him with the same controlled smile. "Yes?"

He had called without really thinking what to say. He just didn't want to part like this. Also, he could hear the police sirens approaching, so he had to bounce pronto.

"Do you have a knife?"

She did the head tilt thing, her teal eyes on his - at least on his helmet. "Yeah? I do have kitchen knives."

He bit his lips to contain a chuckle. Then, he picked one of the many hidden switchblades he had on him, unfolding it to show her.

"I mean one of these."

She eyed the blade with distrust. "Why would I?"

"Because this is Gotham?" He took a tentative step towards her. She didn't even flinch. Good. That meant that she wasn't scared of him.

Jasmine shrugged, her hands gripping her messenger bag, eyes down. "I never needed one."

He took another step, his longer legs letting him be now at grabbing distance from her. The hand that wasn't holding the knife was extended, asking for hers. She put her hand in his without hesitation, confirming that she wasn't scared and she trusted him. He folded the switchblade and put it on her hand.

"Well here you do."

"What?" Her fingers twitched but didn't close around the knife. She looked at it and then at him. "What are you doing?"

"I'm giving you something to protect yourself with."

She blushed again, but the smile turned genuine. She let go of her bag and tried to open and close the knife on her own, testing the mechanism.

"When in doubt, stab, twist and run away." He added, and she nodded in agreement.

She closed the knife and looked back up at him. "Thank you, Mr. Hood."

"Just Hood is fine." The words were out before he could stop them. It just bothered him to be called so formally.

Finally, her shoulders relaxed, her smile as big and as warm as it was last Saturday. The feeling in his chest was also back, and he was tired of pretending he didn't like being so comfortable.

"Well, in that case, thanks, Hood." She nodded, waved with the hand that didn't have the knife, and speed-walked back to the main street from where she could safely get back home.

He stood there for a minute, watching her go.

He wanted to see Jazz again.

Fuck.


Jazz tried to keep her cool as she practically ran back home. The hand that still had Red Hood's knife (her knife now?) was gripping the wood and metal so hard she had to remember to calm down or she was going to break it.

She didn't want to break it.

She liked the present.

A present from Red Hood, the friendly neighborhood vigilante.

Red Hood, who not only was 'fine' after touching a very dangerous - for humans - substance; but who added a 'I heal fast' as well at the end.

Red Hood was liminal.

He was liminal. Like her.