Jason shuddered awake to a battery of sounds and smells. Lavender soap and antiseptic cream. Cracks running along a white popcorn ceiling. A car alarm blared through the air, shattering the haze. Blinding sunlight sliced through the space, searing his vision without mercy. Pain blazed white-hot over his body, and his head pounded as though a freight train thundered through his skull.

Most strangely of all—a set of soft hands pressed against his ribs, smoothing down something cotton-like against his skin.

It came to him like a reckoning, a backhand blasting across his face, blazing and bloody.

In truth, Jason didn't even want to think about the mission he'd consigned himself to, about the target—the diabolical kingpin of the Odessa Mob—who was now in the blue, having evaded his grasp at the last moment, about the weapon that'd been sicced upon him, about the hellfire he'd voluntarily walked through.

Life in the grey was surprisingly vibrant. Time and time again, the Red Hood painted the world red, slashing through his enemies, slashing through life, the way an explorer was cursed to hack his way mercilessly and relentlessly through the unforgiving jungle. Brain matter looked sunset pink against the filthy grey of the pavement.

There was always going to be some explosive to diffuse. There was always going to be an evil that needed to be excised. It was the bomb that didn't go off, the war that never happened, the instances, inconsequential in isolation but nuclear in chained reactivity, that never made the news that the world would never know about that had the power to save the world. That was what the Red Hood lived for.

Lately, though, Jason was beginning to wonder if there was a point to any of it. If there was such a thing as true justice, as Batman would have it. If Gotham was a particularly stubborn mold or if the cleansing of evil was a Sisyphian crusade that he'd keep pushing until he died again, a gravity he couldn't fight much longer.

He'd almost did, last night, at the hands of someone who moved through the air with startling accuracy, carving through space like a blade. All the while, Jason hadn't been able to glimpse his assailant's face. Had barely been able to keep himself on his feet long enough to block their advances. It was hardly a fight, in all actuality. They'd attacked him from the shadows, bending in and out of reach with artless grace, bombarding him with a battery of precisely planned strikes, a viper in the dark. Nothing about it felt human, but Jason knew, more than anyone, what people could be capable of given the right upbringing.

For something that was meant to be a distraction while their boss vanished back into the underground, his assailant had been dreadfully effective. He'd barely escaped, lunging across buildings, running blind into the dark streets of Gotham, just to escape them.

So here was the pressing question:

Who had he faced, and how had he gotten here?

The only answer that came echoing back was this: Jason had run. He'd lost all control over the situation and turned around and ran as far as he could before Alexandra Kosov's hired assassin could kill him. There was a black hole in the space between that last memory of losing the assassin somewhere in Chinatown, and shooting that grapnel into a chimney, swinging across the chasm between buildings, and smashing through someone's window. After that, there was only the pain. And then nothingness.

A prickling feeling ballooned in his chest. Panic constricted his lungs as Jason fought to gather his bearings. He could feel the chill of a draft on his left eye. Could feel the cold air prickling his feverish skin. This didn't feel like home. He felt displaced, unanchored. Something was very wrong.

On instinct, Jason clawed off his mask, and cast it onto the floor as he jerked upright and gasped for air. Pain tugged at his abdomen, the familiar tension of stitches pulling and skin straining snapping him back into his battered body. Sweat slicked his skin, and damp strands of dark hair fell over his brow as he took in his surroundings. Exposed brick walls and unopened boxes, the coppery tang in the air, the window facing the street, the floral lampshade above the cracked leather sofa, and her—

"Woah," she said, appearing before him like an apparition, face scrunched in vexation, drawing his gaze to the smattering of freckles over her nose and cheeks and her light brown eyes stirring with alarm. "You need to cool it before you snap your stitches. I'm just changing your bandages, alright?"

Her dark brown hair was tied back in a ponytail, and her navy blue sweater sagged low to reveal a necklace with a white shell pendant hanging between her collarbones. Now that he got a clearer look at her, she seemed young—perhaps seventeen? A plastic water bottle, a banana, and a bottle of Advil sat atop a wooden stool beside the brown sofa he was lying on. She knelt before him, a bag of what appeared to be medical supplies lying open at her side.

In her hands, raised as a display of harmlessness, were a tube of cream and a patch of white gauze.

But Jason has known all his life that nothing was ever harmless.

In Gotham, nothing was impossible. She could be fucking with his head. She could be something else dressed in civilian skin. She could've injected him with a thousand poisons and potions while he was unconscious. She could be—

Devon.

The name took shape on his tongue before he even knew it.

"What's your name?" He'd asked her, half-delirious, fighting to hold onto something real as the darkness began to ebb, the swaying room shuttering in and out of view.

"Devon," came her reply, her tone stiff, sharp, something he could use to pull himself onto the ledge for a little longer. "What do I call you?"

Had he given her a name? Jason struggled to recall, wading through fragments of the night, each broken piece disintegrating in his hands and swimming just out of grasp. For now, he was too aware of his lack of clothes, the exposed skin of his face in the presence of a stranger. Devon. Lavender soap and antiseptic cream. Soft hands and stiff sutures, the bite of a needle and broken glass in long, dark hair.

Right.

"What," he gritted out, "am I doing here?"

"You lost a lot of blood," Devon said, slowly, quietly. Her gaze was wary, as was his, just lacking the vehement animosity of an injured animal, primal and naked in a cage that wasn't his own. She lowered her hands gingerly, brows furrowed as she took in his hostile confusion. "You don't remember?"

"Clearly not," he drawled, unable to keep the sarcastic bite out of his tone.

Her gaze hardened, something akin to irritation rippling across her doll-like face. Her lips pulled back in a snarl, rising to the occasion. "Well, you don't have to be so rude, considering you're the one who smashed my goddamn window and bled all over my apartment. Get a grip, man. I didn't have to help you, but you passed out here. So here we are."

The hot snap of anger in his gut was a reactionary force to her accusation. If he were more clothed, he might've simply up and left, but, alas, his clothes were missing, and all he had to cover himself with—when he could care enough to—was a scratchy blue blanket stained with something that was likely his own blood.

Besides, what right did he have to be angry with her, when the reason he hadn't bled out and squandered his second shot at living was by the grace of her hands? Especially when he, as she'd so kindly put, was the one who'd wrecked her residence and stirred up trouble for her in the middle of the night?

Jason felt himself relax a little, the tension wound tight in his core bleeding away. "Oh."

Devon sniffed. "Yeah. Oh. You also owe me a rug, Jay."

Everything came crashing back all at once. Jason felt the colour drain from his face. Had he really been so out of it that he'd actually told her his name? Well, a nickname, a fragment of himself, really. Regardless, it was a slip.

Was that the truth, though? A small voice in the back of his mind whispered, nudging forth the raw memory, unravelling the narrative he'd spun himself into to save his sanity. Was it really a slip? Or something far deeper? Something like casting a line out into the dark and hoping to hold onto something? With Batman gone, and the Joker locked away, his plan of revenge thwarted by his former mentor, the glaring fact was that Jason was alone. He'd come back from the dead wrong, his resurrection a natural selection of his most savage parts. He felt Frankenstein, a monster in skin, extant only for the purpose of resolving someone's guilt.

And here was Devon, holding a fragment of his personhood. Jay. A gentle utterance in the cradle of her teeth. Perhaps this was why he'd given her a piece of his true identity.

It'd been a long time since anyone had spoken his name without it being an invocation.

"And a window," Jason finally said, his mouth set in a hard line as he scrubbed a hand down his bare face. His throat felt scratchy and his head was pounding, and even though he'd been comatose for god knows how long, not an inch of him felt rested. What was he doing? One night and he was exposing practically everything to this girl. What would he give her next? "I'll get it all fixed. I know a guy."

I need to stop fucking talking.

Rearranging her legs into a criss-cross on the ground, Devon let out a grunt. "Great. Can I change your bandages now?"

"You didn't call the cops." He measured her with a scrutinising stare, leaning back to let her work.

"I made a promise, didn't I?"

"I didn't know if you'd keep it."

"I don't trust cops," Devon said, plainly, checking under a set of bandages around his arms.

"And you'd trust a complete stranger instead?"

"Trust is a stretch," she scoffed. "But you needed help."

"You don't even know me," Jason mused, flexing his bruised fingers. There was a murky feeling in his chest, an unfamiliar swirl of emotion that coiled into something akin to warmth around his heart. He averted his gaze, unable to meet her eyes. Instead, he found his gloves, which lay in a neat pile on the arm of his chair. He narrowed his eyes at the broken eggshell of his mask. For some reason, Jason felt no compulsion to put it back on. No point trying to repair that, anyway. The damage was done. Between now and the previous night, something had soured and the Red Hood felt less like a calling and more of a burden.

"So I had to just let you die in my apartment on the merit that we're basically strangers?" Devon handed him a plastic bottle of water and shook a bottle of Advil in his face. "You're the one who insisted on not involving actual medical professionals or police. What else was I supposed to do? Plus, you know where I live. You could've hunted me down if I broke that promise."

He snatched both out of her hands, and she watched him toss back two pills and drain the entire bottle in three gulps, rivulets of water slipping down the column of his throat. She held out the banana to him next, and Jason was too voracious to feel the slightest bit of shame for how savagely he tore into it, cramming the whole thing into his mouth as if he'd never seen food before. She looked away as he ate, busying herself with the

"Hold on," Jason said, blinking at her, swiping away the little string of banana fibre clinging to the corner of his mouth. He'd seen the stitches she'd done. He assumed she had practical experience in the medical field, the way they held up. "What did you say you do again?"

Devon gave him a withering look. "I didn't."

"You a nurse or something?"

"No."

"Medical student?"

"No."

Frustration raked a claw down his chest. "So? What do you do, then?"

She let out a reluctant sigh. "Pre-Vet Med. I work at an animal clinic part-time. How different can basic first aid be, really? I just did what made sense. You should really get your lungs and ribs checked out by a real doctor, by the way. I did what I could, but it's definitely not enough."

Huh. She was older than he initially thought. A college student. He never would've guessed.

"I'll be fine." Jason glanced around the apartment for any sign of his clothes. As of now, he was down to just his cargo pants, but his shirt and jacket were nowhere to be seen. Judging by the state of himself, he assumed they weren't salvageable in the slightest. She had warned him, though—he remembered that, vaguely, at least. "What day is it? How long was I out for?"

"A little over a day," Devon said, quietly, "I thought I might've killed you. You were burning up with a fever. It's Friday now."

"Shit." Aside from the glaringly obvious fact that he'd lost twenty-four hours of tracking down the Odessa Mob, there was the slightest pinch of guilt that she'd been without a proper window for a full night. In Gotham, that was risky. He made a mental note to start working on that the moment he got some food in him. Only now, as the weight of the lost time began to sink in, did he feel the punishing emptiness of his stomach.

"Yeah," Devon deadpanned. "Listen, I've got class in about an hour, I really have to start running if I want to get there on time. You can rest here until I get back—"

"No," Jason cut in, heaving himself upright. His feet were bare, but, mercifully, she'd left his boots in a corner of the living room. Now, he saw the damage he'd done. The rug he'd initially thought was brown was irreparably stained with his blood. "It's okay. I'll walk out with you. Do you have a jacket or something?"

Realisation dawned upon her, then. It lit up her face in a gloriously comical manner, the panic flitting through her eyes and formerly frustration-flushed cheeks turning pallid. If he weren't so depleted, if his ribs didn't hurt when he so much as breathed, he would've laughed. For now, he could only muster a mirthful smirk.

Her alarm was shortlived, however. Devon sprang up, and scurried down the hallway. Without thinking much of it, Jason heaved himself off the couch, wincing as he felt his stitches pull. He heard the chaotic rustle of cardboard and tearing tape as he followed after her, ignoring the pain ratcheting up his arms, the wounds slicing up his arms screaming against their stitches, his skin a tapestry of fissures begging to be split.

The first thing he noticed was the picture hanging up on the wall in the hallway.

The only picture he'd seen so far in the apartment.

It'd been taken on a park bench, four smiling faces, two adults and two little girls, one gap-toothed and the other in pigtails. The gap-toothed girl was bursting with energy, her manic grin so wide, there was barely room for her eyes. Beside her, the girl in pigtails was smiling with restraint, much taller and sitting with more poise. Her arms were wound around the gap-toothed girl, either in an embrace or to hold her down. Against her purple sweater, Jason could make out the faint shape of a white shell pendant hanging from her neck. 

Devon. He could see the resemblance. Her face hadn't changed much—perhaps thinner, her cheeks more gaunt, the freckles more pronounced—but the question remained:

As he passed her bedroom—the one he'd crashed straight into the previous night—he risked a glance beyond the open door.

The walls were a dull and aged grey, barren, save for a few polaroid pictures above her bed, which was shoved up against the wall. Her brown wooden desk was neat, vacant. A white desk lamp and a stationary cup sat in a corner. A cream rug had been rolled up in the corner, shoved up against her dresser. With a tinge of guilt, he realised it might've been his doing. His blood, imbrued in the white fur. The hardwood floor was clean, though. The broken glass had been swept away, and all the blood he must've left along her hallway like a snail trail of DNA was gone, sponged from memory.

Plastered over the broken window was a flattened cardboard box, smoothed over with packing tape. Jason had to give her credit for innovation.

He found her rummaging through a box in a room deadending the corridor.

From the unlabelled box, she procured a red hoodie, and a black shirt with a faded Rolling Stones logo printed on the front, both too large to be hers. She glanced up, startled to see him leant against the doorway, hands shoved in his pockets.

"See if these fit," she said, recovering from the shock quickly. When she handed him the clothes, her gaze slipped to the floor between their feet. As if sensing his questioning stare, she hung back, hands fidgeting at her sides, toying with the seams of her baggy blue jeans. "They were my dad's. He won't miss them. You can keep them, or toss them. I don't care. Bathroom's over there."

"Thanks," he murmured, eyeing her for a moment, before retreating in the direction she pointed out.

With the door closed behind him, Jason allowed himself to slump over the sink. Pain blazed over his skin. Every muscle ached down to his core, a seismic rattle that registered in the marrow of his bones, echoing outward. In the dust-speckled mirror, he found his bruised reflection glowering back.

It wasn't as if he hadn't seen himself beaten and bruised to a pulp before. This time, though, it was different.

Batman was gone.

So was the Joker.

Black Mask was dusted.

What else was there left? Where did it end? Between his shoulder blades was a twisted nerve that pinched and pulled each time he thought about his former mentor. When he'd first learnt of Joker's existence post-resurrection, all he knew was rage.

When he was younger, it'd come out in flashes. A pipe smashed over a thug's skull, the lick of satisfaction at the sight of a knife buried in the back of a knee, the screams echoing down a dark alley as he caught up to fleeing henchmen. Those moments, he could reconcile the dark parts of himself with. They would vanish into the depths when the mission was over.

Had he felt Batman's unease then? Would he have tried to be different?

After the Lazarus Pit, the rage had changed into a different beast. It was always there, filling in every corner of his body like a blood-soaked colouring book. It took shape in his skin. It was always there. It curled his hands into fists. It searched every corner of Gotham for canon fodder and blood to spill. It wasn't hiding. Every single fibre in his body was primed for war.

These days though, the rage was a dulled knife searching for a target, always striking but never sticking. He felt it kicking at his useless heart, an ache, a bruise. He could no longer seize it by the hilt. Instead, every act of bloodspill after he'd left Batman in the exploding building with the Joker felt empty. Like he was going through the motions, searching for something to hold onto.

Everyday felt the same. No matter how many bullets he emptied into a body, no matter how much filth and vermin he ripped out of Gotham's gutters, nothing could sate the widening gulf between his ribs, this rift that kept growing and growing, always hungry, always dissatisfied, always collapsing in on itself. Already the laws of physics were warped. Lately, Jason felt adrift through space, unmoored and haunting the streets of Gotham without gravity tethering him, swallowing everything in sight. Lately, he feared he was approaching the event horizon.

His fingers tightened over the edge of the sink, knuckles blanched.

His gaze caught on the three toothbrushes sitting in a yellow cup on the corner of the sink. That struck Jason as odd for a few reasons.

He'd been passed out in Devon's apartment for an inordinate amount of time, and yet, not once did he wake to anyone else coming across his comatose body. It seemed as though Devon lived alone. Everything was in boxes. Jason glanced down at the clothes she'd handed him. These were my dad's, she'd said, her tone flat. He won't miss them. You can keep them, or toss them. I don't care.

The family portrait in the hallway showcased four people. Who was missing? And where was the other little girl in the picture now?

He shook the thoughts from his head. He couldn't afford to get caught up with Devon. Already he'd overstayed his welcome.

He ran the sink and let the white noise wash over him as he splashed water over his face and rubbed the crust from his eyes. Careful not to wet his bandages, he sucked in a deep breath and dunked his head beneath the cold spray. Icy needles speared through his skull, piercing through the haze. When he pulled his head out from under the water, he felt sharper, the world shifting into focus with stark clarity.

He used the sleeve of the hoodie to dry his hair. He hadn't thought as far as to ask for a towel, but he figured he'd taken enough from Devon.

The challenge arrived swiftly and agonisingly as he attempted to pull the shirt over his head. The moment he felt his stitches pull, the moment he felt the white-hot searing up his ribs and abdomen, he stopped trying to pull the shirt over his head. Jason scowled. In his state, he could barely lift his arms over his head to manoeuvre his arm through the sleeves.

Just then, a soft, tentative knock on his door drew his attention.

"Hey..." Devon said, her voice muffled through the door. "You need any help? Not to put any pressure on you or anything, but I have to leave soon if I want to make it to class."

"Um," he rasped, defeatedly, absolutely hating his life with the vehemence of a thousand suns. "I can't put the shirt on."

"Oh." A beat passed. "Do you... want any help?"

Jason exhaled sharply through his swollen nose. The shirt was stuck around his right arm, and he couldn't get his left arm through without snapping all of his stitches. Screwing his eyes shut, he whispered a vicious curse beneath his breath, then he wrenched the door open.

Devon sucked in a sharp breath as her sharp stare landed on him. He stared down at her, his skin heating at their unexpected proximity. Her cheeks blazed red.

Jason fought a smirk. "You mind?"

She blinked, and the nasty scowl that twisted her features elicited an involuntary snicker from him. "Shut up."

"Yes, ma'am."

Wordlessly, gently, she helped him into the shirt, stretching it enough to let him manoeuvre his arm through the sleeve. The hoodie went next. Arms first. The material was thick, a little stiff, and everytime it grazed his stitches, he winced. Devon's expression didn't falter, her face a perfectly schooled mask betraying no emotion.

When she pulled the collar over his face, she was startlingly close, standing on her tip-toes, her pink mouth just inches from his. His breath caught as her fingers brushed over his bare skin, her scent flooding his senses. Lavender soap, and the sting of antiseptic cream on her hands. His pulse thundered in the hollow of his bones. Her lashes were dark and sweeping, her freckles a constellation over her tan skin, and he had to fight the urge to smooth his thumb over the concentrated furrow in her brow.

Then she stepped away hastily, arms snapping back down to her sides.

"We should go," Devon said, her voice strained. "I don't want to be late."

Jason let out a shaky breath.

What the hell just happened?

They left promptly. Jason cradled his broken mask in his hands, not quite sure what to do with it. He stared into the intact eye of his Red Hood mask. For some reason, he couldn't put it back on.

Backpack slung over her shoulders, Devon shut the door behind them.

That was when he saw it.

Bright red paint splashed over the dark wood of the front door. It'd dried over already, but it seemed recent.

He could still smell the fumes hanging in the stale corridor.

As Devon locked her door, Jason watched her.

"Who did that?" He asked.

Devon's gaze flicked to the paint on her door, and her expression tightened. "No one important. Don't worry about it."

"Is someone harassing you?"

"No."

"Anyone ever tell you that you're a shitty liar?"

"It doesn't matter," Devon said, curtly, brushing past him. "Let's go. I'm going to be late."

A prickle of unease in his chest forced him to glance over his shoulder at the red paint on her door. Something about this felt too familiar.

They went down the steps in silence, their footsteps echoing up the stairwell. Jason surveyed the graffiti covered walls. Devon stopped abruptly at the bottom of the stairs, and Jason barely stopped himself in time before bumping into her back.

Devon clutched the wall for a moment, glaring at the exit.

Then she turned to face him, a fierce expression thundering across her features.

"Put your hood up," Devon said, panic pinching her tone. "There are cops waiting outside this building."

Jason blinked down at her. "So you did call them."

"Not everything is about you." Devon swept him with a withering glare, to which Jason could only grin down at her. "But they've been watching me for awhile, now. Not sure if they were still here when you fell through my window."

Who are you? He wanted to ask. Instead, he cocked his head toward the stairs. "Is there a back exit?"

Devon shook her head. "It's blocked by the trash."

"How long have they been watching you?"

Devon didn't answer, but the distress was evident. Her shoulders were tense, and her jaw was tight, and her panic palpable in the tense air. Despite the thousand questions swarming his mind, he figured he shouldn't push her now.

Jason pulled the hood over his head and tucked his mask into her backpack, ignoring her protests.

"I'll come back for it later," he told her. "Lead the way."

Together, they stepped out into the daylight.

AUTHOR'S NOTE.

oooooo she wants to sit on that lap so badly

also yall i have something to confess.

im writing this jason fic on my phone straight onto wp raw - with 0 planning, 0 character / plot notes whatsoever - and its the most freeing thing ever bc i actually dont even care if its good quality anymore (à la the ancient wattpad practices before everything got Professional). im using this as an exercise to get over my self-imposed writer's block, bc i realised that what's been stopping me from writing is that i need everything to be perfect the moment it comes out of my brain. BRING THIS "WRITING ON THE FLY" VIBE BACK TO WP!!!!!!! i'm having so much fun. living life on the edge. if wp crashes, this fic is not coming back. *insert stock photo of man standing on the edge of a cliff breaking chains*