"You guys KISSED?"
Jason was very tempted to turn off the comms and just abandon his brother without further explanation.
"I need all the details!"
"No."
"C'mon Little Wing!" He heard the wind rush and the sounds of his brother jumping around the rooftops. "I'm so invested in your love story, I need this!"
"There's nothing to tell. Shut up."
"But you have a date-date, right? Are you guys going out!?"
Telling his brother about the date thing had been a mistake, Jason decided. He thought it would shut him up at once about the stupid family dinner, but it backfired and now he was trying to interrogate him for details, instead of, you know, do their job.
"Yes, it's a date. I refuse to keep talking about this."
Dick complained a little more, but yielded, for now. At least he would stop insisting on the family dinner thing-
"By the way, dinner has been postponed."
Fuck.
"B has been called for some urgent Justice League mission. I mean, officially it is still on for Friday, if the mission goes well then he's supposed to be back Friday morning. But we all know that nothing is ever that easy."
Did a god hate him? Did he offend a powerful entity so much that now it was out for his blood?
"So unofficially family dinner is next Friday, instead of this Friday." By his pause, his brother knew exactly what he was doing. "And since you guys are going out-"
"Stop. I'm not going to dinner, she's not going to dinner." He stopped right where he was. If Dick was going to continue this he was leaving, favor or no favor. "I won't expose her to this family's bullshit. She doesn't deserve-"
"We will be on our best behavior! I promise."
"It's not about that!" Nightwing kept quiet, probably surprised by the intensity in his voice. "She's too good for this family, too good for all the vigilante bullshit and the secrets and constipated old men that can't accept the truth and too good for- for…"
"Too good for you?" The older man said in a soft voice. Jason hated it. He hated that he was treating him like he would crumble down or flee if he raised his voice.
(Would Jazz prefer someone capable of being this soft?)
"I'm not having this conversation with you." He turned to leave.
Dick didn't try to talk him down. "I think you are perfect for each other." He said instead. "And I think she loves you."
"What the fuck do you know? You haven't talked to her."
"Excuse me, I teach her gymnastics."
Oh right. The Sunday gymnastic classes. She had talked excitedly about them and how cool her teacher was - how patient he was with students and cracked jokes when she faceplanted to make her feel better.
Yeah. He was adult enough to recognize he got a bit jealous, but never got the courage to say that her teacher was his older brother.
(Would she ask him to introduce them properly? No, it didn't make sense to get jealous. If she wanted to date his brother she could have asked him out already at the classes.)
"You haven't seen her with me." He finally grumbled, annoyed by his irrational thoughts.
"But I've seen how she looks at you," Jason scoffed at the reminder that everyone had been spying on their dates. "She always has this spark in her eye when she looks at you and only you. As if you were the only person in the room with her."
"Smooth." Dick had always this way with words, the fucker, that people found charming.
(Would Jazz prefer it if he were that good with his words? He asked her out with the most pathetic speech ever. He still can't understand how she said yes.)
"I'm just telling the truth, Jaybird."
Was it true? He wanted it to be true. Feeling wanted, like he felt when he was around her, was addictive. He replayed the kiss in his mind again, how she looked him in the eye and asked if that was what he wanted. He could believe desire, he could understand infatuation, he would agree with a crush - but love was much more complex than that.
He had never been in love, but he had felt something close to it once with Essence a long time ago. He had been younger and foolish, and she had given him her attention and touched him like she wanted him. In the end he chose his revenge above everything else and with time and perspective he knew what they experienced wasn't actually love.
Again, Essence didn't look at him like Jazz looked at him. Maybe Dick was onto something.
"Robbery in progress, guys. This one is close to Hood." That was Tim's voice, who was running comms today. He had connected with the main channel for this patrol only, and the usual buzz was annoying, but it was part of the deal with patrolling with Nightwing.
Neither continued the conversation while the situation was dealt with, or even after that. Dick even quit the jabs about Jazz and their relationship, instead choosing to tell him about what he had done with his life all these years. Jason asked something here or there, but his mind was far away.
Once he was home after patrol, around four in the morning, he stood in silence in his living room still in his suit. Here is where it happened, where he finally took the leap and landed in a relationship with his neighbor. He still didn't know how it worked - logically, it made sense since both had flirted a lot and had met up plenty of times, their compatibility off the charts. It made sense in his mind, but his heart still couldn't believe it was real.
Still…
He glanced at where she had been standing when he came back from cleaning the cut. He saw her eyes glow green for a split second, he was sure. How and why he had no idea, but it was an alarming item in the list of things that didn't make sense about her.
Would she tell him her secrets? What kind of secrets were those? Was she a metahuman and was hiding from Batman? Metas weren't welcomed in Gotham and people thought it was because Batman hated them, even if the truth was much simpler - would you fight a Jokerized Superman? A mind controlled Wonder Woman? Metas were vulnerable in Gotham and a potential danger.
Even if he explained this to her he wasn't sure she would like it if he overstepped when she hadn't shared her secret just yet.
He just… He had to trust her to come to him with the truth.
And then what? Would he show her his suit and confess about his other life? Tell her what he had to actually do on Thursday? That he couldn't go on dates because he had people to kill, a drug operation to run, a whole bunch of Lieutenants to keep in line?
Would she be horrified? He would understand it if she did, even if it hurts.
Would she ask him to change? Would her love be conditional, after all? If she agreed to be with him at the price of giving up all of this, would he do it?
He shook his head. It was stupid to consider this. Also, he was jumping too ahead of the story, there was no need to lose his mind about something that could just never happen.
One step at a time - first he needed to go on a date with her that Friday. He was tempted to call her and move the date to next Friday out of spite, but then he'd have to explain why.
Whatever. He needed to change out of the suit, shower and then try to sleep.
The memory of the kiss passed through his mind again.
Try to sleep. 'Try' being the key word.
Jazz didn't sleep. Maybe an hour or two, at most, because there was a moment just before sunrise where she didn't remember falling asleep. It was a bit after she heard movement in Jason's apartment, including the sound of the shower turning on. Patrol? Did he have patrol after dinner?
Oh dear, she hoped she didn't hold him up for something important.
The thing is, she didn't sleep. And coffee wasn't a substitute for sleeping. So she went to work feeling like death and not really in the frame of mind to deal with whatever craziness the Asylum had in store for her.
Sleep deprived as she was, her mind was half rotating yesterday's kiss and half panicking about her revelation in the bathroom after leaving his apartment.
There were two important sides fighting inside of her, one for each option she had to ponder.
First option: not date Jason. Dating required a lot of work, time, trust and dedication; and while she was a very dedicated person, and when she set her mind on it she could do an insane amount of work, she was aware that starting a relationship with a lie was unhealthy.
At best, she could damage whatever they had built, all the trust and companionship; at worst, she could get into Red Hood's shit list and maybe Batman's too, if Jason decided to put together all the clues on how weird she was and sold her out to the man.
Second option: date Jason. Neither said anything serious for the moment and they only said to try a date and see where it goes for them. There weren't conversations about long term or compromise or revealing secrets. She could play by ear and sneakily find out if Jason knows about his liminality and maybe help him deal with it in exchange for his forgiveness for lying to him about herself.
Who knows, she may even get away with it since Red Hood was Danny's favorite Gotham's (anti)hero, so he wouldn't be too mad about her getting distracted from her mission and revealing his secret.
It was around the time she had to go home, feeling like crying from exhaustion, that she decided that fuck it, she was going to date the man. Stand by what she said, date him, and slowly and carefully reveal that there was something different in her, that she knew about him, until he confronted her with the truth. And happily ever after.
Easy. Flawless plan.
Or maybe after a nap she could think of a better plan. Yes, a nap was a good idea.
She woke from her nap feeling well rested and maybe she dreamt about a certain neighbor and his arms around her, so that's cool. Not really wanting to give up her dreams, she turned in her bed and looked out of the window, sighing when she saw it was already dark. She had some hours before her usual bedtime, and she could still try some yoga and see if it helped her sleep at a reasonable hour.
She was pondering the pros and cons of getting out of bed to make dinner when she heard it - the living room window was being opened. Her heart skipped a beat. Maybe it was Jason, well, Red Hood, coming to check on her? Maybe he wanted to confess about his identity before their date tomorrow?
The steps were silent, though, quieter than how Hood's were that time she brought him to her apartment. So it wasn't him.
Maybe a ghost?
Her ghost sense didn't activate, but it didn't work for halfas and liminals in general, so she didn't trust it at all if it was Vlad or an unknown liminal.
Alright.
She quietly searched under her pillow for her staff, a modified version of the one her mother used. With a click of a button, the staff transformed from its compact form to the combat ready, full-length form.
Her steps were quieter than her intruder as she moved in the shadows, her training kicking in even after so long not needing this amount of stealth. It was like riding a bicycle. If she ever learned to ride one.
The stranger was also in the shadows and with his back to her, but she could see it was male, tall and not Jason. She didn't hesitate, jumping at the stranger who decided to enter her apartment without permission and bonked him in the head with her staff before he could even turn around to see her.
He fell to the floor, completely out cold.
She sighed and re-contracted the staff, putting it on her kitchen table before crouching to turn around the body. Even with eyes adapted to the dark, she didn't recognize the silhouette of who had tried to attack her in her own house until she saw his face.
Nightwing? What the heck?
Jazz groaned. Great, she had attacked one of the vigilantes. Amazing. Fantastic. First she puts a cream that could have done real damage to Red Hood, and now she has an unconscious known associate of Batman's on her living room floor.
In her defense, people don't usually sneak in girls' apartments at night without bad intentions. She was acting as any other woman living alone in Gotham would have done. That's it. She was innocent!
Jazz watched the unconscious body at her feet for a moment, considering her options. What could she do now? Think logically, Jasmine.
She could wait until he woke up, but that meant: deal with having attacked him and how he would react, deal with what he wanted from her since he was in her apartment, and (potentially) deal with other bats or birds coming after her.
Or - she could throw him out of the window and let him sleep it off in the fire escape stairs. Outside was cold, and it felt cruel to just abandon him to the elements, but it was the safest option for her. She was trained and she had her favorite weapon at hand, but she had seen the crazy stuff the bats could do and she wasn't sure she could fight one on one any of them.
Jazz tentatively kicked the vigilante's side, jumping back in case he woke up.
He didn't.
Also, she was starting to regret hitting him so hard and was thinking about placing him on her sofa and putting a blanket over him. Would he like tea? She couldn't cook but she knew how to make tea, it was her only redeeming quality according to Danny. Not that he liked tea in general, but he said hers at least didn't taste like burnt leaves.
Focus on the unconscious vigilante, Jazz.
There was a loud sound from Jason's apartment, followed by a curse. He was still at home. Would he know what to do with an unconscious vigilante? She saw them standing together on the roof the other day, so they must at least know each other.
Was Red Hood friends with the bats? They were not enemies, since Batman stopped chasing after him, that's for sure. She wanted to ask what was the story behind the cease fire.
But she couldn't until he told her about his identity himself. Ugh! This was so annoying.
Focus.
Jason was at home. She could just walk over there and ask what to do in case you have a passed out vigilante at your home, you know, the usual. Or maybe she could ask him if he could come over real quick and help her with something?
Both options made her seem so suspicious, though. Even if he weren't Red Hood and wasn't trained to expect traps and such, a normal person wouldn't just brush off something like that.
Okay. She could go there and explain the situation, ask if he wanted to help and then ask if he could come over to help with the situation.
Their kiss from yesterday flashed in her mind, the feeling of his lips on hers vivid in her memory.
She groaned into her hands. Not the moment for this, Jasmine. She had time for an existential crisis after dealing with Nightwing.
Bracing herself, she walked to the door and opened it, her eyes adapting to the bright hallway. It was easy, she only needed to drop completely unannounced and ask her neighbor, who was secretly a vigilante but she wasn't supposed to know, to deal with a passed out Nightwing in her living room.
Wait, were they friends? Would he get angry at her for attacking a friend?
She was overthinking this. She just needed to go over there and ask.
Bracing herself again, Jazz stepped into the hallway-
What if Nightwing woke up while she was bothering her neighbor? What if he went to her apartment to snoop around and steal something? What if he came here to investigate her-
She did a one-eighty and marched back to the still unconscious vigilante. She had to carry him, there was no way he could be left alone in her apartment, no matter how brief her asking Jason for help would be.
Jazz hesitated. Carrying him wasn't a problem for her - one of the perks of her liminality was the strength and she knew she could lift the man, no problem. It was that, well…
She blushed.
For the longest time, Jazz has had a crush on the hero. Since he started making headlines, she latched onto the celebrity hero like a teenager with a crush because she was a teenager with a crush. She had a brief career as a fanclub president for a moment there; but after a while she decided that she needed to "grow up" and ripped all her posters from the walls and stored them in a box. The box was still hidden in her childhood room's closet, to never be seen by anybody.
And now she had the chance to touch him. It felt surreal. It also felt kinda wrong to feel her heart flutter as she knelt and grabbed the hero's arm and leg to pull him into a fireman's carry.
If only the people that wrote all that NightwingxReader fanfiction back in the day saw her now.
Jazz shook her head, thinking about her - uh, were they dating? Jason was her boyfriend, right? Ugh, they really needed to talk about that. Not now though, as she was going to carry a passed out man to his apartment.
Now feeling guilty for hitting the vigilante AND feeling weird for remembering her celebrity crush on him, Jazz marched back out and was soon ringing the doorbell of Jason's place.
She heard his heavy steps approach the door and stop without asking who was there. He was probably looking at her through the peephole, so she smiled awkwardly at it.
"Hey." Jazz shifted her grip on the man around her shoulders so she could secure him with one hand, using the other to wave.
Jason opened his door.
"Hello?" His eyes were of the unconscious vigilante instead of on her.
Good thing, because he wasn't wearing a shirt and it was a bit distracting. She wasn't expecting to see that today. Also, he had so many scars, that it was difficult for her to not stare.
"I can explain."
His only response was to slowly blink and then start laughing. Jazz stood there awkwardly in the hallway, very aware of the absurdity of the situation, and very aware that Nightwing could wake up at any moment and she didn't want it to be while he was on her person.
"Please, tell me what happened," Jason finally said, stepping away from the door to let her and her cargo in, "and spare no detail."
Relieved, she went into the apartment, vaguely remembering the comment about vampires and needing permission to enter. She was not a vampire, that was Vlad's shtick, thank you very much.
"Wait, I need to take a photo." He stopped her before she could let the vigilante down on the sofa.
"Why?"
"To remember this moment?" By his smirk as he grabbed the phone and opened the camera app, his motivations weren't those exactly.
Yeah, these two were friends.
She weakly smiled at the camera, not really sure what she looked like after having a sleepless night, a horrible day at work and a nap. Her hair was probably all over the place.
"Ok. Explain."
Jazz let the body drop on the sofa and sighed.
"Broke into my apartment. I got scared and just… hit him."
Jason's smile got bigger. "And he let you?"
"Um, he didn't see me."
"And you just hit him?"
"Yeah. Bonked him in the head."
If Jazz had to describe the way he looked at her, she would use words like "heart eyes" and "lovesick". She blushed and looked away, noticing the guns and the holsters on the kitchen island they had dinner in, ready to be strapped to his legs before going out and doing vigilante things.
She acted as if she didn't see anything and turned back to Jason checking on Nightwing, poking him here and there.
"He seems fine to me."
"I didn't hit that hard," he glanced at her with an eyebrow raised, as if he knew better. Had he seen her make unnatural displays of strength? She had been careful, or at least she had tried to. "Anyway, can you help me or not?"
He blinked slowly. "With what."
Jazz narrowed her eyes. "About Nightwing?"
"You want me to get rid of the body?" He sounded confused but highly amused by the whole situation.
"What? No!"
"Because I can get rid of-"
"-m not dead."
"Oh great, the princess awakens."
"Shut up Jaybird." He grumbled, trying to sit up on the sofa.
Alright. Ok. This is fine. Nightwing knew Jason out of his suit, and probably viceversa, but neither knew she knew.
It was time for her to go, before she made things worse.
"Okay, I see everything's fine, then." She laughed nervously, pointedly not looking at the costumed vigilante. "Thanks, Jay. See you tomorrow?"
"Huh-"
She didn't give him time to process the reality of the situation, kissing him on the cheek and patting his shoulder. Being this close, she noticed a big scar on his chest - one line from each shoulder to the sternum and then down all the way to his belly button. She didn't comment on it, but stored the information for another moment where she wasn't running away from an awkward situation.
"Bye ~"
With that, she did a very familiar escape from Jason's apartment. Twice in less than twenty four hours, huh? What was it about Jason's place that made her run away like this?
As she closed the door, she glimpsed at the shirtless vigilante clearly wearing Red Hood's pants and glaring at Nightwing, who was looking at her. Maybe. He had those whiteout lenses, so it was difficult to discern.
Back safe and sound in her apartment, Jazz took a moment to breathe.
Ok. That was something that happened. She was ready for today to end, but was scared about what tomorrow had in store for her.
She prayed to anybody that listened for her date to be uneventful. Please. Just one good date. Was that too much to ask?
She realized too late that with her Fenton luck, she probably just jinxed herself.
