Chapter Text
Jason got home with absolutely no strength left in the system. His arms hurt. His shoulders hurt. Everything hurt. Jason was pretty sure he bumped his back somewhere around the effort of a swift turn on the track but ended up ramming into the fence.
He had been behind the wheel all night, practicing, blowing steam. The wind got him unwinded. The adrenaline rush of hitting daringly close to the fencing wall got his head clear. That was just about it of extreme sports right? The feeling of toying with death, with his own life and laughed when winning.
He checked his phone, a habit he had grown since… well, since Dick. Not that Dick got the time nor freedom to chit chat with him every single minute of a day but as shameless as it was, Jason still hoped to get something every time the screen lit up.
Maybe Jason was a little overexcited when a call came.
“Yes!”
“Get a grip, why you sound so fucking excited?”
Roy. Jason’s stomach sunk. “What?”
“Well, aren’t you being a shit? What a change of attitude. Is there someone else you’re expecting?”
Yes. “No.”
“Whatever. I’m coming to your place. We need to fucking talk.”
It seemed like something serious. Roy didn’t usually sound this pissed right in the dead morning. Despite most thoughts, Roy Harper wasn’t that easy to get into his head.
Roy made it to his apartment in less than 15 minutes. The moment Jason went open the door he knew whatever he got up his sleeve for him right at 7 in the morning, it was either something really good, or really fucking horrible. Jason would really rather it be the first option.
He didn’t get to see that frown sitting on top of the red head’s nose bridge that often. But it was the type of frown that made his eyes a little bit sharper, his brows a little bit tenser. It was moments like this that made him a lot older than he was and drove most people had taken him lightly to reconsider their life choices.
Roy walked straight into the living room, not saying a word. Jason’s exhaustion shrunk after each of Roy’s heavy steps.
“Where have you been last night?” He asked. Hands planted on his hips and eyes looked straight at Jason.
“At the track, practicing.”
“All night?”
“All night.”
Eyes down the mat, Roy’s kicked legs back and forth. If he didn’t start talking soon Jason was seriously going to beat it out of him.
“Have you been watching the news?”
“I literally just got back.”
“Then it might be a good time catching on it now.”
He grabbed the remote and turned on the TV.
“--revealed of showing witness of transactions between the rising racing star of NASCAR season Jason Todd and the infamous kingpin Black Mask. The man is charged for second graded crimes in 22 countries and warranted on intentional assassinations across the states along with crime organization, weapons and human trafficking. Further in the day, the FBI--”
Roy muted the channel. He didn’t ask. Not a single word. Dead eyes angrily bored on Jason’s dread dumb face.
Blood had found its way out of his system. He stood inert fixing vision on pictures cut off CCTV. The black and white didn’t leave much for the eyes but even a drunk man could make out the black mask of Roman and Jason by his side blowing smoke with a cigarette.
Jason turned blind for a short minute. He felt himself falling into an endless void, drowning in the black and white of countless photos taken of past times and meetings Jason had no longer put in memory.
The news ran on, and the more he watched the reporter digging, flaying open the part of his past he tried so hard to bury, the more the ground sunken beneath his feet.
“You see this?” Roy asked, throwing the remote down the couch. “They’ve been running on this shit since last night. On every. Single. Fucking. Channel.”
“Roman...”
“Roman didn’t do shit, Jason. I have a 15 minutes recorded call on my phone right now to prove if you even want to listen. That jackass was just as surprised as us.”
“You called him?”
“Yes, of fucking course I did!” Roy shouted. “You might be the one that did most of the talking and action but I wasn’t just by your side for added effects. I can handle a fucking call.”
“What did that jackass say?”
“Not much. But enough to say he’s not behind this.”
“I don’t buy it.”
“Jason-”
“No!” Jason roared. He had snapped out of his zone and now the rage was taking over. “After all this time and you still believe a single word he says?”
He knew Roman. He was confident he knew the man better than anyone else. They had this thing about knowing your enemy better than yourself, and Jason wasn’t far from that. What kind of man Roman was, nobody was strange to, but Jason had gone deep enough down through the mask and to the bones of the monster sentenced them with all kinds of hell in life. Jason had worked blood, sweat and tears to make sure neither he nor the team would have to cross face with Roman again. And now this.
He was going to kill that bastard. He didn’t care how. He was going to kill him.
“Calm the fuck down.” Roy shouted. He told Jason to gather his shit when he was the one losing it. “It’s not him. I had the same thought as yours when I made the fucking call. He said he didn’t, and I believe his reasons. He’s been in the dark from day one, why the hell would he step out now? If we go under investigation, that means he’s on the line. If he wanted us done we would be dead by now, not this.”
Jason didn’t feel like listening to Roy, not after he called Roman by himself behind his back. But Roy was right, them coming out did more harm than good for Black Mask and the man was too much of an opportunist to let that happen.
Jason was neck-deep in hot shit when a doorbell came by the door. Strange because usually, if an unexpected guest they would have called down the reception desk. Even stranger, the door opened on itself before Jason could go halfway over.
“Where is he.” came in Damian fucking Wayne with a steady loud tone of grudge and furry. He in his Brooks Brother suit and tie strode straight steps toward Jason and Roy, followed behind were lines of men in dark suits.
“Don’t make me repeat myself, Todd.”
Roy’s jaw slacked down his neck. He didn’t move, didn’t make a sound. That was how shocked he was.
Jason wasn’t expecting this either. Out of everything in this world, he wouldn’t even want Damian Wayne in his apartment as a nightmare.
Since both of their bewilderments were taking too long to fade, the kid let out a groan, turned and nodded at his bodyguards. Immediately, they spread out to corners and rooms of Jason’s penthouse.
“Hey hey hey!” Jason snapped. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Searching for something not of your possession.”
“You said he.”
The glare Jason received back threatened to toast him on a bonfire like a smoked duck.
“You’re talking about Dick.”
“You shall not address him in that name.” Wayne howled. A little fume he became. “You and your insolence, incivility in tongue formed words, impudence of manners. I will not allow your incompetence prowl over his grace like the devil.”
Okay, first, his wordding was seriously not what a kid his age should use. Second, he was talking really fast over a red hot face that Jason struggled to understand.
“Jason, what the hell is this? Why is Damian Wayne here? Why does he know your place and how to get in in the first place?”
And then there was Roy. Considering what his face was offering, he was somewhere between a panic, a confusion, and wanting to scream his lungs out at Jason.
Jason’s head turned round and round. Things were going hella fast that he couldn’t even keep on. Roy looked at his face, looked at how he sighed and pulled his lips, and realized. “This wasn’t his first time coming here.”
Fuck.
“Look, dude...” Jason struggled. But that was it, Roy jumped for the first train of reaction he got and blew like a volcano.
Before Jason could see it, literally, before anyone could see it coming, Roy fisted up and punched a straight hit at Jason’s face, sending him down to the ground.
Dazed. Confused. Angry. Humiliated. Jason went through various stages in a flash of a second. “What the fuck was that for?!”He shouted.
A few feet away, Wayne clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes. “You should be women. And yet your beards forbid me to interpret.”
Roy looked over, showing the same face Jason made each time he failed to understand the mockery jab the kid delivered. Then he ignored it, and turned back to Jason.
“I want to know what the fuck are you doing behind my back, our back. Why is a Wayne here? Why is he talking like he knows you in person? Why does he even come here asking for his brother!”
The more Roy asked, the louder he got. And the louder he got, the more terrified he sounded.
Yes, Roy wasn’t stupid. He was getting the dots and making connections. He knew the eldest Wayne was the hottest piece of all this city, knowing most straight people wouldn’t mind getting a time with him, knowing Jason himself wouldn’t mind getting a time with him because he had made such an impression before. Plus, Jason had been hinting about his all over the place crush and gender opening lately and Roy had cheered . And now the little demonish Wayne was here, angry, demanding his brother, turning bricks and stones as if Jason had tucked him in a closet.
“Don’t tell me...” Out of breath, his shouting broke. “Don’t tell me this-” He pointed at the tivi, went silent again.
And that was when Jason’s brain kickstarted again. Roy had been quicked, and Jason had been drunk, too drunk. His alcohol was sleep deprivation, a certain raven head with a star blinding smile, the whole chunk of shit called Damian fuckward Wayne kept jumping around threatening to chew his head if he dared to love, to feel.
And he had loved, had felt, for so long. Too long. It almost felt like an awakening when meeting Dick. He felt alive since him, had known to feel since him.
He had fallen. And wanted to keep staying fallen.
Jason turned back to Damian. This time, he was awake, alive. Full head on the table.
“You did this.” He grunted.
As always, the kid gave back little reaction. He watched them, watched Roy’s pain on his face, Jason’s anger on his skin, and turned to watch the news plasted on channels of TV.
A snort. Only a snort back, before he cocked his chin and glared down from the tip of his nose.
“I’ve warned.”
His words were the breaking end of lots of things.
Roy gasped. His legs gave out. He barely managed to lean on the counter of the kitchen island to keep still. Jason’s mind went blank, his ears went blank.
He made a bet. And he lost.
Among the heat of the moment, Wayne’s bodyguards came back all at once, announcing there was no sight nor sign of the eldest Wayne in Jason’s penthouse.
The announcement was a wrecking ball to Damian Wayne’s facade. His face turned, glommed and dark it went. His brows knitted together as his hands balls by the side of his legs.
“Impossible.” He muttered. “He must be here!” He screamed.
That was the ever first image of Damian Wayne on edging emotion that Jason ever got.
The kid suddenly turned to Jason. He stared, in his eyes, fire cracked merciless green. He stormed over, yearning himself to put hands on Jason’s collar before he could react.
“Where did you hide him! Return him to me this instance!” He yelled to the point of cracking. “Return my dearest to me!”
“Hey hey, calm down!” Roy jumped over, trying to rip them both off each other, and eventually, got knocked down the ground himself by one of Wayne’s bodyguards.
Jason was okay with Wayne hurting him. But hurting his friend? Not on his fucking watch. “Get your fucking hands off him.”
He lifted the kid up from under his arms. He was short and as light as a stack of rice. Jason threw him with force, and the kid just went flying yelling like a stabbed monkey. Jason immediately went to Roy, and punched the bodyguard that planned to have hands on them.
It happened so fast. Like a speed drive, Jason lost his counting on time and got full head into the fight. In a mere moment, they rode their way back to the good old days surviving on the streets, getting into fights, bro to bro, family by oaths, protecting each other.
And Jason ruined it. He tainted all those memories by simply denying to talk about them, remembering about them. He wanted a restart, a cleansing of profile and chose to forget everything despite the goods and bads.
But little different he had made. From poor, to rich. That was it. The count of dollar made him less miserable on terms of basic goods, and kept him miserable with the hollow feeling of unhappiness. And it left him in this giant penthouse alone at night after a wild party staring at the high ceiling remembering about nights of the old when the team had to share one floor together.
He was drifting. He knew he was. And in this black ocean, Dick was his lighthouse.
And now everything was falling apart just simply because he found a reason to be happy again.
A lot of things went on in Jason’s head, and a hell lot more when he got pushed down the floor of his own house, face ground against the fine wood of his kitchen. He and Roy were just two punks surviving on the streets by being witty and throwing wild punches. They were no match for Wayne’s bodyguards, especially when there were five of them.
“What an utter chaos.” Wayne growled in frustration. “I don’t have time to indulge monkeys. Has any side reported back my brother’s sign?”
His bodyguards shook their heads.
“What a bunch of incompetent. He is one person. He couldn’t vanish off a city in a mere day. Search for him, even if it took charging in through every door of the city.”
Tired of his own muttering. The kid turned attention back to Roy and Jason on the floor. He looked down on them, as they were insects beneath his soles.
Jason was dead sick of his high self value, his despising them.
“You fucking bastard.” Jason spatted, only to get his face smashed down the floor again by the bodyguard on his back.
“Know your insults before you speak them. I’m a Wayne by blood and soul, rightful heir of Ra’s empire. I can be many things but bastard isn’t one.” He huffed. “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubts. It was my greatest mistake to ever let you rodents creeping around Richard’s legs, for his attention worth far more than the pettiness of your lives.”
Was that a threat or not? What the fuck was wrong with this kid and life threats?
Jason squirmed on the floor. Next to him, Roy remained scaringly silent.
“Hey,” Jason whispered once the kid turned away for a phone call. Roy didn’t even look at him. It felt like a damn highway traffic, two cars hit and the rest just followed. “Dude, listen to me.”
“What the hell is there to listen to?” Roy grunted. At least he replied back.
“Look, I’m sorry, okay. I really am.”
“Doesn’t fucking help.” Roy spat. “You're a real piece of shit. He warned you, over our fucking lives. And a Wayne? A fucking Wayne? Out of everyone you can get on this planet, it has to be a fucking Wayne.”
“Hey, you’re the one that said you’ll stay supportive no matter my choice.”
“That’s because I thought you were only having a gay panic! I thought, yeah, you are you and you’re my friend and there’s no fucking wrong in loving who you love and it’s been so long since I saw you happy, being an idiot and doing something stupid. But not with a fucking Wayne!”
“You just said there’s no fucking wrong in loving who I love!”
Roy looked like he wanted to punch Jason again. “Because who you happen to love is Richard Grayson Wayne! Son of our boss, Gotham’s precious darling and whose brother also happened to threaten to strip our past naked if you keep on wandering for his pants. And guess what, we’re fucking fucked!”
Roy was shouting so loud he wheezed to get his breath back. His face a close color to his hair. It was rare to see Roy truly angry these days, not when each of them got a roof for their own, when they no longer share 20 out 24 hours a day together, not since they all got rich and famous.
The fame and dollar played God in their life, and they weren’t even religious. They took just as much as they gave. Jason slept around a lot more and felt a lot less. Roy laughed a lot more but at the same time, a lot less.
“You know what I’m fucking pissed about?” Roy cracked. His voice barely covered a whisper. He stared down the floor, avoiding Jason’s eyes. “You don’t tell me about this.”
Jason quitted breathing. He stared at Roy, couldn’t believe his eyes, his ears. “What?”
“You don’t tell me anything anymore, asshole. You’re my best friend, the team power core. We used to know everything about each other, we used to talk shit to each other. Then you start having secrets. If I didn’t confront you, you probably wouldn’t even tell me you’ve started feeling again. And I know you. I know when it’s just a fling and when it’s fucking serious. You have probably been serious about him since before even realizing it. And then the whole Black Mask thing came unfolded, Damian Wayne coming over like a fucking storm and you playing Romeo and Juliet with Top 20 desireable bachelors of Vogue Men. Everything was a big fucking shock. Not only that you date Richard fucking Wayne, but also more about you don’t even plan to ever tell me.”
Roy sighed. “I can’t believe I’m your fucking bestfriend.”
“Roy, I...”
“Zip it, I probably just said all the sappiest shit of my life and I need a moment to fucking forget it. Don’t even think about saying anything about this to any fucking life.”
Roy still denied looking at Jason’s face. His ears were as red as the rest of his face. Oh, he was pissed, he was still fucking pissed over Jason. And maybe he would stay pissed for a much longer time and it would be one hell of a memory in the upcoming future. But Jason knew, this probably wasn’t as bad as he imagined.
Wayne came back after finishing his call. He stared down at Jason and Roy, clicked his tongue, patted his shoe rhythmically down the marble floor. Frustration surfaced on his face.
“I don’t have the time nor the energy to deal with you imbeciles. Garth!” He shouted.
His bodyguard went over and nodded at the ones holding Roy and Jason down. They wore lifted up, arms crossed in a painful angle behind their backs.
Jason had a very very bad feeling about this.
“Hey hey, hold the fuck up. We don’t have your brother! Why are you even coming here to...” And then the realization hit. “You fucking lost him.”
“I did not lose him!” The kid howled back like an offended cat. “He is in this city. My city. And I’m going to find him!”
“Yeah, consider the way you guys treat him, you’re never going to find him. You don’t know him at all.”
And that got right into the kid’s head, even though Jason didn’t mean to. Wayne jumped over, furious like a kid got his toy ripped off him.
“You don’t speak of me that way!”
Jason thought he was going to yearn over on his short legs for giving Jason a slap or something. Lucky for him, another call came. Wayne’s phone rang right in the heat of the moment.
Wayne muttered something in a foreign language with spite, and reached for his phone.
“What is it?”
His small face turned.
“What do you mean you can’t find it? I gave you one job.” His brows went up and down. His nose crunched. Teeth sunk down on the bottom lip. “A daring man he may be, but Slade Wilson is no god. He could be found. He must be, or you are fired.”
He shut his phone with force and stared back at Jason’s stunned face. “What’s with that foolish expression?”
“Did you just say Slade Wilson?”
Wayne eyed him. His face didn’t tell a thing but oh, his silence was as loud as the gear of a 300 horsepower.
“You fucking said Slade Wilson. Why are you looking for Slade Wilson?” Jason received back silence again, and that was his answer. “He’s got something to do with Dick, hasn’t he?”
“It’s none of your business.”
No, it was very much of his business. Dick’s business was his business and oh help it if he couldn’t beat the sense out of this fucking twat.
“I knew Wilson.” Jason decided. That got Wayne’s attention. “Yeah, he’s a fucking name around the underground business. And guess what, that’s where I’m from. You’re never going to find him like this. He’s easiest to trace around twelve hours from the starting point. But pass that? He’s a popped bubble. Consider your situation, you’ve already missed the golden time.”
Wayne stayed quiet. He didn’t yell, didn’t budge an inch of his face. What he did was staring at Jason, the phone stayed forgotten on his hand.
Jason knew this was his chance.
“How about we make a deal?” He waited. A reply, a moved eyebrow at least. Nothing. Not even a blink when the light from all windows suddenly ranged over his penthouse and laid on him.
Jason swallowed, and hit it. “You fix this,” He swiftly glanced at Roy. “You fix our reputation, erase our past, make it mass media or a press release, I don’t care. Whatever it is, however you do it, just fix it. And I help you find Dick.”
Wayned snorted with spite. “I thought you care for him.”
“Oh I do, I care for him deeply. But you put me in a real awkward situation.”
Again, Jason found himself wired in a bet. His hands on the table, pocket empty. It was a hit and miss, even more so than last time. And facing him again, on the other side of the table was the demon.
Jason knew he wasn’t always the luckiest of all bastards on earth, but damn what he never lacked was boldness.
“Time is gold.”
He had gone too far to draw back now. Better fucking rock it.
Wayne had stayed horrifyingly quiet the whole time. At one point, Jason popped an idea that maybe the kid had expected this. Maybe he had foreseen a deal coming to his way the moment Jason claimed he knew about Wilson. And maybe, fuck, maybe, he just stood and watched what Jason had in mind to work his way up and out.
And like a clown, Jason jumped and danced and humored him to the end.
What the fuck with all these people. Even Dick sometimes got him chilled down the bones with the idiom laid beneath his words that at first drew laughter of ignorance out of Jason, only to hunt Jason’s mind later at night.
“Shall it be.”
Jason was still running in his own head when the kid stated out of the blue.
“What?”
“I said, it shall be our deal.”
Wayne nodded at his guards and they quickly let go of Roy and Jason.
Jason popped his neck, fixed his shoulder with a watchful eye on Wayne. The kid pulled off his leather glove, stepped over.
A hand raised by Jason’s bowel, waiting.
Jason, late to respond, bore his eyes on him like a deer facing headlights, dumbfounded in and out. Roy thought, he had seen what was going on and nudged on Jason’s elbow, pulling him back to reality.
This was their chance, his chance of fixing everything.
Jason took the kid’s hand and shook it firmly.
“Deal.”