Chapter Text
If there's one thing Jason can confidently claim experience in, it's waking up from the edge. Whether he's jolting awake from a nightmare in the early hours of the morning or being shoved back into a freshly unhindered body by some force beyond mortal ken, Jason knows exactly what it's like to violently come to. In some ways, he's even catalogued it. Waking up from whatever light hours of sleep he manages to catch is like coming up out of water, lungs striving for oxygen. But coming back from whatever great beyond kicks him back out on his ass every time he comes knocking is—not something he's ever been able to successfully quantify. One moment he isn't, and the next he is. One moment, there isn't anything left to think with and in the next moment, there's thought. There's being. For whatever that's worth. Usually, not much.
It's heady, disorienting. But Jason's done it enough to know the routines of gasping back into existence. Sometimes, he'll lay on the ground for a long, long moment, listening to bones click back into place or organs knit themselves together. Sometimes, like now, the transition from disorientation to actual alertness is startling enough that Jason shoots up like he's being pulled by strings, panting and heaving. Normally, he at least gets a second or two to breathe, place himself back into the world. Normally, he does not throw himself up in the air and pretty much immediately whack against something hard and unyielding, rattling his skull in his helmet.
Instinctively, Jason rears back, clutching at his forehead. There's the distinct sound of cursing and for once, it isn't him. Jason has to blink hard before his vision clears enough to make sense of what he's facing.
It's some fucking—paramedic. With the dorky little uniform and everything, staring at Jason with huge, baffled brown eyes. He's got one gloved hand underneath his bleeding, already purpling nose. Yikes.
Jason says, "Your nose is broken."
"What the fuck," Paramedic Guy says faintly. And then, with feeling, "What the actual fuck?"
Pieces of context slot back into place. Some petty little gang thing on the far end of the Bowery, bunch of kids with guns and small dick syndrome, so on and so forth. Normally, this would be Batman's problem, but Bruce has been making a particularly concerted effort to avoid Jason these days. Which means it's up to Red Hood to clean up this mess before it trickles down into Sofia's territory. And, well. Jason hasn't been doing his cleanest work, as of late. Things had escalated. Hell, Jason thinks he even remembers hearing the sirens in the background while he chased a couple of them across the rooftops. All this had culminated in a lucky couple shots to the chest and falling off the fire escape into a seedy back alleyway that's honestly not even the worst place Jason's died. Also, he apparently broke some paramedic's nose.
Paramedic Guy is currently swiping at the blood dripping down his chin, still staring at Jason with an increasingly perplexed frown. This sucks for him, but it's not Jason's problem. He still has work to do.
"Sorry about that," Jason says, as he shifts to get up. "Maybe next time—"
"Sit down," Paramedic Guy snaps, and he puts a firm hand to Jason's chest and pushes him back to sitting, which is so startling that Jason actually lets it happen. "I saw you take at least three gunshot wounds to the chest, not to mention whatever cranial injuries you incurred when you hit your head on the way down. And you were—" Paramedic Guy's eyebrows screw up over his head, his mouth twisting down and to the side. "You were dead. You were absolutely a hundred percent dead."
Aw, shit.
The whole unkillability factor is something Sofia prefers to keep under wraps. Too easy to lose an advantage. Too easily taken advantage of. Jason can count on both hands the number of people who know, and that's if he's being generous. Sofia, first and foremost. Selina, through Sofia. Some of the very top Gigante lieutenants, the ones who have been with Sofia for years and years.
Dick knew. Dick knew, and then he blabbed to Bruce and then that whole mess blew up in everybody's face. And now it doesn't matter if Nightwing or Batman know that Jason just won't stay down, because these days he only sees them when they're fighting.
That isn't the point. Isn't worth dwelling on. The point is that random paramedics do not, under any circumstances, get to be in on the secret. Jason has to think fast.
"No, I wasn't," he says. Paramedic Guy narrows his eyes even harder. "I was just—really unconscious."
"The fuck you were," Paramedic Guy says, personally affronted. "You weren't breathing. You didn't have a pulse. I was about to go into CPR, when you decided to pull a Jesus goddamn Christ right into my face. Which hurt like a bitch, by the way."
"Whoops," Jason mutters. Paramedic Guy wipes at his still-bleeding nose again, but he puts out his arm when Jason shifts to the side in an attempt to get away. Jason stares down at the arm across his chest. "You can't be serious."
"Dead," Paramedic Guy says flatly, and then, "Sorry. Too soon?"
Oh, this guy thinks he's so funny. Jason huffs. "You understand that I have, you know. Crime lord stuff to take care of. Work to do. Right?"
"So do I," Paramedic Guy says. "I have to make sure you're not about to bleed out on me again."
"No, you don't," Jason says instinctively.
Paramedic Guy is looking at him like he's very, very stupid.
"Yes, I do," he says. "It's my whole goddamn job."
With a single-minded focus, he yanks open the first aid kit sitting at his legs and starts pulling out—Jason doesn't even know. Paramedic stuff or some shit.
"Listen, man," Jason tries. Paramedic Guy is stripping off his bloodied gloves and replacing them with new ones, even though his nose is still an absolute mess. "I'm good. I feel fine. You don't have to—"
"Let's say I believe you," Paramedic Guy says, like they're continuing some conversation from earlier. "When you say you were, quote-unquote, just really unconscious."
He pauses in unpacking the first aid kit to look Jason dead in the eye and actually give him the air quotes, which is almost impressively bitchy.
"You were definitely unconscious long enough for brain damage to be a concern," Paramedic Guy continues. "Not to mention the blood loss from the aforementioned multiple gunshot wounds. Not to mention—"
"Alright, I get it," Jason snaps.
Paramedic Guy flashes a bright, false smile, dumping a pile of gauze and other indeterminate items right onto Jason's lap. "Now," he says. "I need to get underneath your shirt."
"You need to—" Jason sputters, one hand flying up across his armor. "Fucking what?"
"You got shot," Paramedic Guy says again, as if Jason doesn't know. "I literally saw you go down. I'm minimizing the lead poisoning and making sure you don't, you know. Bleed out. Again. And I'm hoping, since you're shockingly coherent for somebody who was—and I cannot stress this enough—completely fucking dead, you'll play nice and cooperate."
Okay, why the hell is this guy talking like he has any kind of authority in this situation? Jason is the one with all the guns, and Paramedic Guy is the one with the broken nose. Either this guy has some serious shit going on or he is just. So phenomenally stupid. Speaking of— "Okay, so you saw the fucking Red Hood go down, and your first thought was, welp! Better run over to help!"
"Bullet wounds," Paramedic Guy says, somehow managing to glare even harder. "Now."
No way in hell is Jason taking off his shirt in front of him, no matter how authoritatively he says it. The conspicuous lack of fresh bullet wounds and the ancient autopsy scars are going to raise even more questions that Jason does not fucking need, right now or ever.
"Don't worry about the bullet wounds," Jason tries, with all the gravelly Red Hood intimidation that he can muster.
"Are you stupid," Paramedic Guy says flatly. "I mean this genuinely. Are you fucking stupid."
"What even is your deal?" Jason says, baffled. "I mean this genuinely. What the fuck is your problem?"
"My problem," Paramedic Guy says, like Jason is the one who is somehow insane for asking why he's backtalking notorious crime lords. "Is that I'm doing my level best to keep you from dying." A deliberate beat. "Again."
Jason thinks he hates this guy. "Jesus fucking Christ," he mutters, and he pulls back the armor just enough to reveal one of the places the bullet pierced through. There's not anything there but smooth skin and tacky, drying blood. Paramedic Guy leans closer, squinting. He pokes one blue-gloved finger into Jason's stomach. The muscle twitches automatically.
"Well," Paramedic Guy starts and then, mercifully, falls silent.
"See?" Jason pulls his armor back into place. "Nothing to worry about."
Paramedic Guy lets Jason push the sundry medical items off his lap, staring off into space with a tight, twisting frown. He looks distracted. Reconfiguring impossible things into possibilities will do that to you, Jason knows. But, to be frank, Jason doesn't give a shit. Paramedic Guy's insistent, inconvenient desire to ensure the Red Hood is not mortally injured—like that even matters—is something Jason is very eager to move past. He can worry about the whole sensitive knowledge thing later.
But when Jason tries, again, to stand, Paramedic Guy puts the flat of his palm over his helmet, and pushes Jason down.
"Oh my God," Jason blurts, exasperated. He bats Paramedic Guy's wrist away. "What the fuck do you want now?"
Paramedic Guy raps his knuckles over Jason's helmet. "Cranial hemorrhaging," he says. "You hit your head pretty hard when you went down. Head wounds are a real son of a bitch, I'll tell you that." He's shifting closer to Jason with the same intent as before. He doesn't seem deterred when Jason leans away. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, this guy is stubborn as hell. "I'll need you to take off the helmet—"
"Like hell you do," Jason snaps out. "It's bad enough that you know—"
He bites down on his tongue before he says any new, stupid things, but Paramedic Guy's eyes narrow.
"Here's the deal," Paramedic Guy starts.
"Sorry," Jason says. "Who died and put you in charge?"
"You did," Paramedic Guy says blithely. Jason scoffs. "Listen, dude. I don't give a shit about who you are, or any—weird fucking abilities you may or may not have. This is Gotham. The only way you don't trip and eat shit is if you don't get involved."
"If this is your idea of uninvolved," Jason deadpans. "I suggest you crack open a dictionary."
"This is my idea of employed," Paramedic Guy fires back. "This is what I do. I help saints. I help assholes. I help everyone in-between. I don't care what you do, and because I like to keep my brains inside of my skull, I'm certainly not going to tell anyone. Patient-doctor confidentiality, dipshit." And then he just—tilts his chin up, just slightly, sets his jaw when he looks Jason dead in the eye. "I'm not ditching you with a potential head wound. I'm not leaving until I finish my goddamn job."
Obviously, there's something wrong with this guy. Most people would have taken the first opportunity to bolt. Actually, most people would have never bothered to approach Red Hood's corpse at all, unless they were making an ill-fated attempt to gloat.
This fucking dude, though. This fucking dude runs over to Red Hood's corpse and tries to actually bring it back. And then spends the next five minutes bitching at a recently resurrected crime lord with multiple guns strapped to his person. And then refuses to leave because he is, for some reason, still concerned with whether or not Jason bites the dust again.
Jason leans closer. Paramedic Guy doesn't flinch.
"I could make you leave," Jason says lowly. Hell, he could even nip that whole sensitive knowledge issue in the bud and take Paramedic Guy out of the picture entirely. It would be a pain in the ass, but he could do it. Probably would be the smart option. "I could make your life really fucking difficult right now. You do understand that, right?"
Paramedic Guy narrows his eyes again, meeting Jason head on. "Yeah, well. Join the fucking club."
His eyes are almost black in the dim, glitching street lamp overhead, and he does not look away from Jason once. He doesn't look naive, or prideful, or in over his head. He looks like he knows exactly where he's at. Exactly what it could cost him. He looks like he's going to stay anyway. And he's doing it all with a broken nose.
With a short, sharp sigh, Jason thumbs at the latches on his helmet and pulls it off.
Pretty much immediately, Paramedic Guy is on him, jerking his head to one side and then the other.
"Fuck," Jason yelps, as Paramedic Guy tilts his head up just a touch too fast. "I thought you said you were worried about head injuries, not that you were causing them."
"I thought you wanted this over with quickly." Paramedic Guy picks a penlight up out of his front pocket and shines it onto the side of Jason's head. Jason squints underneath the mask. "Hm. There's blood here, but no laceration."
He's chewing on the inside of his cheek. Jason shrugs. Maybe it was a brain bleed that did him in, conveniently healed over. Maybe whatever nightmare it is that keeps on sticking him right back in it decided to do him a solid for once. Who's to say?
"Man, alright," Paramedic Guy mutters and then, thankfully, moves on. Back around to Jason's face, where he slides one finger over where Jason's domino mask digs into his skin.
Immediately, Jason grabs his wrist. Paramedic Guy goes still.
"It's still possible you have a concussion," he says. "I'm checking your pupils to make sure—"
Jason cuts him off. "You got the helmet off," he says. "Mask stays on."
Paramedic Guy huffs, clearly aggrieved by Jason's insistence on silly little things like a secret identity. But for this first time in this whole stupid conversation, he does the smart thing and leans away.
"Fine," he says, snippily. "Compromise."
It doesn't feel like much of a compromise. It feels like Jason's basically handed this guy everything he demanded without any recourse for himself. But whatever. If it gets him to go the fuck away, then Jason can live with it.
Paramedic Guy is packing his stuff with short, efficient movements. Incredibly, he's still fucking talking.
"Doublecheck for a concussion when you get to—home base or whatever," he's saying. "Make sure somebody's waking you up at intervals during the night so you don't die of a stroke in your sleep. Sad."
"Jesus," Jason says. "Are you this bitchy with all of your patients?"
"Depends on the shift." Paramedic Guy snaps his case shut and moves to stand. Jason stands with him and this time, thank God, Paramedic Guy does not actually stop him. "You also are uniquely frustrating."
"Yeah," Jason admits. "I get that a lot."
With them both standing like this, Jason finds that Paramedic Guy is somehow shorter than he expected. Like, maybe five six. Doesn't seem to stop him from glaring up at Jason as if Jason's the one who's wronged him.
"Well," Jason starts. "It's been real." It hasn't been. "See you—"
"Wait," Paramedic Guy says, reaching into one of his pockets. Jason means to ignore him and bolt in the opposite direction, because who gives a shit, but Paramedic Guy's proven he has quick reflexes. In between one blink and the next, he slaps something onto the side of Jason's forehead. Jason whacks his hand away, but it's too late.
"What the fuck?" Jason says, reaching up to poke at the offending object. "Why?"
"It's a band-aid," Paramedic Guy says, helpfully unhelpful. "You had a cut. Just a little one, but still. Keeps out dirt and germs and prevents infections and untimely deaths from sepsis." All Jason can do is stare. "It's got sparkles."
"Sparkles," Jason echoes dully. Is this dude, like. Aware that Jason is a crime lord? He has to be, right? Jason's got the helmet and the guns and everything.
Paramedic Guy just shrugs. He's tilting his head to one side, dark brown hair curling and spilling over his cheekbones. There's drying blood all over his face. When he smirks, Jason can't help but notice he has a single crooked canine on the left side of his mouth. "You know, sometimes people even like to thank me."
Man. Fuck this guy for real. Before Paramedic Guy can even react, Jason grips the back of his head with one hand, grabs at his nose with the other and violently sets it back into place.
"Jesus fuck," Paramedic Guy shouts out immediately, loud enough that a stray cat across the street yowls. His hands fly up to his nose. "What in the actual fucking hell is wrong with you, you everloving bitch of a cunt—"
Some kind of instinct has Jason taking one, two, and then three huge strides back. "There," he says, as he slips his helmet back on. "Now we're even."
"Even," Paramedic Guy echoes furiously, wiping at the fresh blood with the underside of his wrist. Jason gets the strangest urge to run. "Fucking even—"
"Don't get into my business again," Jason says, and then before Paramedic Guy can cuss him out for that, he fires off his grappling gun and vanishes into the night.
***
It's always deeply embarrassing when Jason dies in civvies.
Dying at work in one thing. It's part and parcel with the job, an annoying but ultimately necessary expenditure. But dying in plainclothes? Come on, man. He can't be catching stray bullets during routine robberies, decked out in holey jeans and a thrifted Radiohead t-shirt. What would Sofia say? He doesn't know what she would disparage more—how he died or what he was wearing.
Unfortunately for him, he'll get the chance to find out, because he makes the mistake of stepping in-between the robber and the cashier while he's out stocking the safehouse of the week. Robber freaks out. Jason gets got. Ugh. Sofia's going to be so pissed.
He blinks awake surprisingly easy. Must have bled out pretty quick this time around. He does however, have a killer headache, and the flickering corner store fluorescents are not helping. Also, he should probably slip out of here before somebody tries to take him to the morgue. That's always a pain.
Jason sits up with a theatrical groan, cracking his stiff neck to one side. There's a soft clatter beside him. Jason turns and—
It's that stupid fucking paramedic. The one from last month, with the stubborn streak and the death wish and the nose that Jason technically broke, which is admittedly his bad. The one who witnessed Red Hood rise from the dead and has now, apparently, witnessed this random civilian rise from the dead and is, possibly, connecting some inconvenient dots.
Paramedic Guy stares at Jason with those wide, brown eyes, rimmed with dark circles that could probably rival Bruce's. He rubs his palms down his face.
"You can't be serious," he says. "Oh my God." He digs his face into his hands and just—screams.
Jason knows he has shitty, shitty luck, alright? He doesn't need the universe conspiring against him at every goddamn turn to prove it so vividly. He certainly doesn't need this fucking guy using any of this as an excuse to stick his nose into Jason's business.
"What the fuck," Paramedic Guy is hissing out, again somehow making it all sound like Jason's fault. Jason's got to come up with something cool and clever and reasonable, make a semi-hearted attempt to get this fucker off his back.
"Listen," Jason starts, and immediately cuts himself off by turning his head to the side to vomit.
Well. Not ideal.
Paramedic Guy lets out a short, sharp sigh and then crowds himself up into Jason's space. Before Jason can even tell him to fuck off, he's shining a penlight directly into Jason's iris.
"Possibly you're in shock," he mutters, more to himself than to Jason. Jason opens his mouth to rebut, but Paramedic Guy jerks his head over to the side, just slightly too rough. A hobby of his, Jason notes. "That, or you have a concussion."
"I do not have a concussion," Jason says automatically. "I'm very hard-headed."
"You don't say," Paramedic Guy deadpans and this, unmistakably, is directed Jason's way. He's prodding at the side of Jason's head, surprisingly gentle given literally everything else about him up to this point. "There's a head wound over here. Did you hit your head when you—" A long, delicate, telling pause. "You know. Fell."
"I don't remember," Jason says, reluctantly. "But I don't have a concussion."
Paramedic Guy is now rooting through his med kit. He's got the pen light in-between his teeth, but he still manages a slightly muffled, "The vomit tells me otherwise."
"That was a—bad taco," Jason tries. Not only did he die in civvies, in front of the asshole paramedic, but now he has a concussion on top of it? Could this day get literally any worse?
"Uh-huh," Paramedic Guy says condescendingly. He's back up in Jason's space. Jason sucks in a breath. "This is the part where I make sure you're nominally coherent. Can you tell me your name?"
Paramedic Guy's fingers drag through his hair as he tilts Jason's head to dab at the clotting blood there, and something about it is so startling that Jason finds himself saying, "Jason. My name's Jason."
"Sure, sure," Paramedic Guy says. "Can you list the months of the year backwards?"
"No," Jason says flatly. "That sounds dumb."
"The longer you drag this out," Paramedic Guy says, ripping open a pack of gauze with his teeth. "The longer you're going to have to spend in the hospital."
Jason rears his head back automatically, but Paramedic Guy's grip is steady enough that he can't get far. "I'm not going to the fucking hospital," he says. "Are you kidding me? No way in hell."
"Yes, the fuck you are," Paramedic Guy says, like it really is that easy. "This SAC test is just a formality. I'm like, ninety percent sure you have a concussion right now. Last time, I let you—"
He catches himself just in time, but it's too late. There goes Jason's last, fleeting hope of somehow keeping this situation from spiraling too far out of control. Due to Jason's staggering stupidity, this random, bitchy paramedic knows Red Hood's deepest kept secrets. Awesome. Jason might throw up again.
"Anyway," Paramedic Guy continues, undeterred by the slip-up. "I think you're pretty obviously an asshole. But I'm not letting you walk away with a brain bleed. I'll fucking force you into that ambulance, if I have to."
"Oh, will you now," Jason mutters darkly. Paramedic Guy doesn't react to it, carefully plastering a piece of gauze over Jason's head wound. "You do understand that I could actually beat your ass. Right?"
"Understanding and acknowledging are two different things," Paramedic Guy quips.
"Awareness is the first step to recovery," Jason says.
Paramedic Guy tips his head to one side in a gesture that could, if Jason is feeling optimistic, be seen as concession. "Well, I still have the concussion on my side. So."
He finally finishes bandaging the side of Jason's head and leans back. Jason blows out a sigh.
"Concussion or no," he says. "I could whoop you six ways to Sunday."
"That's cute," Paramedic Guy says, absentminded. Randomly, Jason chokes on his own spit. Then he says, "Listen."
He doesn't say anything else. Jason spreads his hands out. "You're holding me hostage. I am all fucking ears.
Paramedic Guy huffs and rolls his eyes. "I was just gonna say. If you're worried about, you know. Identity bullshit. Then I get people who won't or can't show identification all the time. I've gotten good at figuring stuff out."
"Figuring stuff out," Jason echoes. It's very blithely delivered, for an offer to outright evade the law.
Paramedic Guy just shrugs. "I mean, come on," he continues, snapping his case shut. "You're not the first person to use a fake name and you definitely won't be the last."
"Right." Jason coughs into his fist. "Fake name. Right."
Slowly, Paramedic Guy lifts his head.
"Did you," he starts. "Not give me a fake name?"
Jason's shoulders tense higher and higher. "Um. No?"
Paramedic Guy squints at him. Shines the penlight right into his eyes.
"Holy shit, you did," he says. "You gave me your real-ass name. And you're a shitty liar?"
"I think that penlight is giving you a complex," Jason mutters, pulling back from the glare. "It's making you an even worse person."
"Holy shit," Paramedic Guy says again. "You really are stupid. How the fuck have you even made it this far?"
Where does this guy even get off? "I have a few things going for me," Jason says. Namely, of course, the whole resurrection thing. Paramedic Guy might be following the same line of thought, because he grimaces. "Also, it's not like you can talk."
Paramedic Guy looks at him, sharp and sideways. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"What the hell do you mean, what the hell is that supposed to mean?" Jason parrots. "Not to put too fine a point on it, but I happen to have it on pretty good authority that you saw a notorious crime lord get shot down and decided to immediately run in. Did you even have back-up?"
At that, Paramedic Guy scoffs, looking back down at his little case. "You're missing context."
"Really?" Jason lifts an eyebrow. "What context?"
Paramedic Guy bites down hard on his lower lip and does not answer. Jason checks the invisible watch on his wrist for emphasis.
"It's my job," Paramedic Guy says finally.
"Oh, this again," Jason says, rolling his own eyes. "You know, you say that a lot."
"You keep on doubting it," Paramedic Guy fires back. He jabs one finger into Jason's face. "Also, you're deflecting. You're getting into that ambulance and they're checking you out at that hospital. End of discussion."
"It's not a discussion," Jason says incredulously. "Listen up, Mr. PG—"
Paramedic Guy blinks. "Sorry, what?"
"—This is your one warning to butt out," Jason continues. "I told you not to get into my business. It's not fucking happening."
Five minutes later, Jason is, quite frankly, absolutely bamboozled to find himself being escorted outside by Mr. PG himself, who's got Jason's forearm locked in a shockingly tight grip. Jason honestly doesn't know how he got here. One moment, they were arguing and the next Jason was being herded out into the blinding halo of a streetlamp.
There's a handful of police officers swarming about outside, along with a paramedic buddy for PG, who's adjusting a shock blanket around the shoulders of the woman Jason took a bullet for earlier. The buddy and a couple of the officers do a double take. The woman starts crying harder.
"Yikes," Jason mutters. PG's grip on his elbow tightens.
"Holy shit," the buddy mutters. He drops his voice tactfully lower to whisper, "Poor lady totally thought he was dead. Been crying over it the whole time."
This, Jason thinks, this has to be the bit where the whole mess comes crumbling down over top of him. Paramedic Guy says, Actually, he totally was; what a complete freak of nature, and then they drag him to some secret government lab or sell him to the circus or just kill him again, just to see what happens. Sofia is about to be so fucking pissed. Hell, maybe she'll even be pissed enough to ditch him for good.
PG takes a deep breath. Jason braces for it.
"Shock's a hell of a drug," Paramedic Guy says sympathetically. "Really easy to get things mixed up or blow shit out of proportion. It was a pistol whip that knocked him out. He's got a concussion and an attitude problem, but other than that he's fine."
Out of the corner of Jason's eye, he notes Buddy Boy shrugging and turning his attention back to the hysterical woman on the ground. The officers turn away a second after that. Everybody apparently accepts PG's totally bullshit explanation at face value.
PG, for his part, continues to herd Jason towards the ambulance, either oblivious to or completely uncaring towards the way Jason can't stop staring at him.
"You lied," Jason says, as soon as he thinks Buddy Boy is out of earshot. Paramedic Guy just lifts an eyebrow as he—unnecessarily—lays Jason down on a gurney to get him up into the ambulance. "You totally pulled that out of your ass."
"Well, no," PG says, pushing Jason up and clambering in himself. "You do have a concussion and an attitude problem. Only one of those is medically treatable, but awareness is the first step to recovery."
He's turned back to face Jason, bracing both hands on his hips. There's some kind of nominal attempt to pull his wild dark curls up into a half-up ponytail, but it's mostly given up, wisping around his face and breezing over his cheekbones. The stupid little smug smile he's wearing is creasing up his dark circles, revealing just a hint of that crooked canine—
Jason blinks. Man. That concussion hit him harder than he thought.
"That's not what I meant," he manages. "You lied about my whole—" An inelegant, clumsy gesture. "You know. Thing."
The only thing PG says is, "Hm."
This gives Jason precisely nothing to work with. He throws one hand out and nearly whacks it into a side cabinet. "Well?"
"My job is to make sure you receive the necessary medical treatment," PG says finally. "You can figure out your—" He's breaking out the air quotes now. "Thing on your own time. It's not any of my goddamn business. I stay the fuck out of it."
No shit, dumbass. "Literally nothing you've done so far has borne that out."
PG opens his mouth, probably to shoot back some devastating repartee, but Buddy Boy knocks on the side and claims they're headed out. It's a lot harder to bitch at each other with Buddy Boy in the front seat, which leaves Jason strangely itchy underneath his skin. Paramedic Guy knows so much about Jason, now, and Jason doesn't even know his name. It makes Jason want to bite back. Give this guy a taste of his own medicine, so to speak.
He doesn't get the chance. They wheel up to the hospital and then roll Jason out of the ambulance with a practiced ease and a total lack of fanfare. But for some reason, he finds himself twisting his head back for one last look as they take him in. Paramedic Guy is leaning on the inner wall of the ambulance, tilting his head Jason's way. His lips twitch up, just once, when he catches Jason looking. Then he shuts the door and Jason looks forward and it's over. PG rides back into Gotham to be a lifesaving pain in somebody else's ass, and Jason rides into Gotham Medical to be told he has a mild concussion. They give him a fistful of overpriced pain pills Jason can't wait to flush down the toilet and instructions on head wound care he's already picked up on through experience. Overall, a huge wash.
He's also given strict, inconvenient instructions not to drive himself home. Have somebody pick you up, they tell him, and how does he even say that he recently cut off pretty much his entire family and that he even he hadn't, they wouldn't have cleared their schedules for him anyway. His contacts list is laughably thin. Selina, who would be good, but she's currently in Paris. And Sofia. Sofia, who Jason gave up everything for. He'd do it again, but he doesn't need to put anything else on her.
But at the end of the day, she's the only option he has left. He sighs and hits call.
She picks up pretty much immediately. "How many dead or dying?"
"Jesus Christ." Jason leans back in his seat. "Hello to you too, Sofia. How are you doing this fine evening?"
"Jason," Sofia says, straightforward as ever. Jason runs through it the best he can. It's actually good she started out with the kill count, because that makes it easier for him to downplay the series of events: Went to pick up groceries, got caught in a robbery, ended up with a mild concussion. Now in need of a tiny little ride home. No big deal. No lasting harm done. It was barely even his fault this time.
"Alright," Sofia says, with a soft exhale. "Christ. And here I was planning a nice evening in."
Jason cringes. "Sorry, I—"
"Jason," she says again. He stops. Static crackles over the receiver. "Don't—I don't need that right now." It isn't outright condemnation, which is probably better than Jason deserves. "I'll be there in half-an-hour."
"Just send the car," Jason says, pinching at the bridge of his nose. "I'm not trying to put you out—"
"I'll be there in half-an-hour," Sofia repeats, in that steely tone of hers. Jason has long learned to shut up and quit arguing when she says things like that. "Were there any—" A rolling, delicate pause. "Incidents. That I'll need to clean up?"
It's her way of subtly probing into whether or not he kicked the bucket at any point because he had indeed conveniently left that out. She's been working with him too long not to ask. Normally, this is the part where he fesses up and Sofia sighs and lets him have it for being stupid and careless and so on and so forth.
But now there's the added complication of Paramedic Guy. Sofia is eminently practical to her core. If she sees a problem, she'll take care of it. End of story. Paramedic Guy is annoying, sure. Over-the-top stubborn and clearly so batshit insane that Jason can't decide between being put off or being impressed.
He'd still lied for Jason, though. The least Jason can do is return the favor.
"Nope," he says. "All clear."
***
Jason gets caught out in gunfights a lot. He's beginning to think it's giving him a complex.
It's mostly the usual routine: New upstart gang think they have what it takes to challenge Sofia Fucking Gigante. Red Hood gets to emphatically prove them wrong. They have one competent shot who gets a bullet through Jason's side, but Jason gets one into his head, so they're about even. The rest of them go down like tin cans at a carnival.
Unfortunately, the sirens start sounding pretty soon after that. He only barely manages to dart up the staircase of the office building turned gang hideout—whoever manages this building is about to have a hell of a Thursday—before the cop cars and ambulances pull up outside. The lightheadedness makes itself known about halfway up to the second floor, but it isn't until floor four that Jason's brain engages itself properly and points out that passing out in the middle of the staircase is one of the more embarrassing ways to go.
So Jason finds himself inching down a hallway towards an outside window, cursing as he leans against a side wall for support. He pokes at the bullet wound. It's a clean clip through the side, but it might have grazed a vein or something, because it's bleeding like crazy.
It's not technically immediately deadly. But things could go south pretty fast if Jason aggravates it while evading the police. It wouldn't be Jason's first time unceremoniously bleeding out on a rooftop and it probably won't be his last, but that doesn't mean Jason finds it fun.
He might not have much of a choice. The cops and paramedics are milling about amidst the chaos Jason left for them downstairs, and eventually they'll think to check the upper floors, and if Jason doesn't move fast, they're going to catch him before he can get out. The only thing more inconvenient than dying is getting arrested.
Already, he's out of time. There are footsteps pounding up the stairwell. Jason has a second and a half to to turn and whip his gun out of his holster before the stairwell door slams open and—
"Oh," Jason says. "You've got to be fucking kidding me."
It's Paramedic Guy. For some goddamned reason. His hair is disheveled from the run, falling haphazardly over his face. He lifts an eyebrow Jason's way, even though he's still panting. "Are you going to put that down, or…"
"Jesus Christ." Jason lowers the gun, but he doesn't holster it entirely. "Why the fuck are you here?"
"Well, I have this thing called a job," Paramedic Guy starts.
"Yes, yes, you're very noble," Jason says, gesturing grandly with the hand not currently holding his blood inside of his body, which does unfortunately mean waving the gun around a bit. PG doesn't flinch, but his gaze narrows in on the blood seeping out around Jason's glove. "But I don't think they're paying you to chase crime lords around the city."
"You're shot," PG says, sidestepping Jason's very valid point.
Jason looks down at his side. Back up at PG. He shrugs. "It happens."
"God, you're insufferable," PG says. He steps closer to Jason, and Jason lifts the gun back up on instinct. PG sways slightly as he stops. "Okay, so we're back to this."
Really bold of PG to call Jason insufferable when he apparently acts like this all the fucking time. "Listen, I think it's great that you're so dedicated to your stupid fucking job—"
"Ouch," PG mutters.
"But I'm about to head out that way—" Jason points the gun towards the window he's so very close to escaping from. "And you're about to head out the other way." He gestures towards the door PG came in through. "Bye. See you later, with my fucking luck."
"You could bleed out," PG says, surprisingly cool.
"So?" Jason says.
Jason has interacted with Paramedic Guy exactly three times. Each interaction has been glancing, tense, and rife with frustrated bitching. He's coming to the swift realization that despite the frustration and the bitching and the endless nagging, he has not actually seen Paramedic Guy this vividly, incandescently angry.
"So you die," PG spits. His brown eyes are shockingly bright in the hallway flourescents, flecks of gold catching like sparks. "You just fucking die. Is that it."
Jason's head is weirdly fuzzy. Probably the blood loss. "Uh."
"Oh my God," PG says, smacking his palm against his forehead with a high, half-hysterically mocking laugh. "You really are that stupid. That fucking suicidal. Jason, you can't just—"
"Hey," Jason says sharply. The sound of his name, his actual fucking name, coming out of PG's mouth cuts through the brain fog and brings him crashing back into the present. It's not fair for PG to lay it all out so plainly; although it's hard for Jason to remember why when PG is still looking at him like that. "Don't—you don't get to—"
PG's shoulders are tensing up as he stalks closer and closer, uncaring of the pistol tucked into Jason's grip. "What? I don't get to what?"
"Listen," Jason starts. He doesn't know where he's going with it, but it's going to be really good and it's going to show Paramedic Guy what's up. "You're kind of—"
Jason doesn't get to find out how that sentence ends, because there's a distant, threatening shout somewhere down the stairwell. As addled as Jason is, it's still easy to conclude he is, officially, out of time.
But before Jason can even open his mouth to give PG a disrespectful sayonara, PG says "Shit," and grabs at the collar of Jason's jacket.
"Whoa," Jason says, rendered completely and stupidly inert as PG's knuckles brush against the side of his neck.
PG drags him three doors down the hall, and then Jason gets to watch as he lifts the door off the hinges and physically shoves his way in, with impressive strength for a guy who barely tops out five six. The muscles underneath his uniform flex as he drags Jason into a dusty office and slams the door behind them.
What. What the fuck just happened. Why the fuck did Jason just let him do that. Has blood loss always made him this dumb, or does PG have a uniquely stupefying factor?
"Okay," Jason manages. "Do I get to know what that was all about?"
PG turns back to him, running a hand through his wild, wild curls. "Well, I figured you would appreciate not being arrested while I take care of that bullet wound."
Jason scoffs. "You're still not—"
He doesn't get to finish the sentence before PG is putting a firm hand on his shoulder, pushing him up to the nearest wall and sliding him down to sitting. For some reason, Jason lets him. Again.
"You can die on your own goddamn time," PG says stubbornly. His glare is boring holes through Jason's helmet. His hand is still on Jason's shoulder. "But not on my fucking watch. Do you understand?"
"Christ," Jason says. He clicks at the latches on his helmet, pulling it off to gulp cool air into his suddenly starving lungs. "You just don't know when to quit, do you?"
PG huffs, blowing a curl up and away from his forehead. "Man. People keep on saying that."
"Yeah," Jason says. "Yeah, I bet they do."
Now PG's rifling through his dumb little bag, pulling out his dumb little medical appliances or whatever. "Shirt up. Let me see the wound. Are you going to actually fucking cooperate this time?"
Jason lets out a slow, controlled exhale. "Your bedside manner needs work."
PG raises an eyebrow. Jason huffs and lifts up the armor.
"Thank you," PG says condescendingly. And then, with something approaching tact, "This is going to have to be a rush job, okay? I didn't buy a whole lot of time. Brace for it."
"What do you—" Jason starts, but PG is already jamming gauze straight through the wound. Jason's resulting yelp is high enough to crack glass. "Jesus fuck shit—"
"You're lucky this is relatively shallow," PG mutters, almost conversationally.
"Yeah," Jason says, through gritted teeth. "Real considerate of the guy who shot me." PG snorts. His fingers are surprisingly gentle around the edges of the wound. Jason's focus goes out and then in again. "Buy time. How the hell did you buy time?"
"The conspicuous-ass blood trail you left ends a little further down the hall," PG says. "Hopefully, they'll search those rooms first before they bang in here."
"Hopefully," Jason echoes. "What if they don't?"
PG makes a face. "I don't know," he says. "I'll figure something out."
"Like what?" Jason says, incredulous. Tellingly, PG stays silent, rustling through his bag again. Jason heaves out a theatrically huge, put-upon sigh. "Tell you what. If they do end up barging in here, I'll say I forced you to fix me up at gunpoint. That way you don't get charged as an accessory for my numerous crimes. How's that?"
PG's eyes flick up towards him. He looks like he's trying not to smile. "Is this your idea of being helpful?"
"It is very fucking helpful," Jason says. PG hums again, pulling out a roll of gauze. "I'm getting the feeling you're being a little condescending right now."
"Just a little?" PG says. "I need to up my game."
Jason open his mouth to retort, but a door in the hall bangs open. He stiffens.
"Hold still," PG mutters, putting a hand to Jason's chest, not looking back towards the door at all.
Voices, shouting. "He's in there!" Somebody hollers, a bevy of footsteps following. Jason palms at the pistol at his thigh, braces himself for it, and then—
The door stays shut. Another door bangs down the hall, but it's not this one. Jason looks back at PG, who's tearing open some kind of medical pack with his teeth. Some kind of hobby of his, along with badgering crime lords and evading the law.
"Fucking idiots," he says as he plasters something over top of the wound. Jason barely even notices the sting and the pull, still staring at the miraculously untouched door.
"I can't believe that actually worked," Jason marvels.
"Of course it worked," PG says, sounding mortally offended. "I'm a fucking genius."
"Oh, real humble, too," Jason drawls.
PG snorts as he unrolls the gauze. He taps a hand to Jason's hip. "Other side."
"Fuck you," Jason says, perfunctory, but he twists against the still stinging pain to give PG a better angle. "They could still circle back around, you know."
"You just love raining on my parade." PG wraps the gauze around Jason's abdomen, tight and precise. "They won't, because they're dumb as shit. Tell me why I was the first one to notice the blood trail you left up the stairs."
"Because you're a nosy ass bitch," Jason says, and then, before PG can snap back to that, "You know, I'm surprised they let you up here before any of the cops." It's a leading question, and Jason's hunch is proven right when PG presses his lips together tight and doesn't answer. Jason grins. "You totally snuck up here. Didn't you?"
"Okay, like you can talk," PG mutters, careful as he secures the gauze up and around Jason's shoulder.
"My excuse is that I'm a crime lord," Jason points out.
"You're an asshole," PG says and then, in a deeply hypocritical move, he pulls the gauze even tighter. Jason breathes out hard.
"So," Jason starts again, instead of letting things lie. "The cops are dumb as shit. Is that why you're helping me?"
"Well," PG says. "That's not not an incentive."
"Ha," Jason says. "Finally, something we agree on."
Out of the corner of his eye, he catches PG's there and gone grin. But then he says, "I saw the blood and knew somebody needed help." He looks up towards Jason again, something strangely self-deprecating about the tilt of his mouth. "It doesn't matter whether or not you believe me. This is just what I do."
He says it so simply. Not like a trumped-up moral charge or some heroic declaration. He says it like it's some universal, immutable truth, as natural and logical as the sun rising and setting.
PG tugs at the gauze again. Jason exhales slowly, rests his forehead against his fist. What the hell is he supposed to do with this guy?
Another door bangs out in the hall. Somebody shouts, "Nobody's there! They're gone!" Jason twitches. They're running out of time.
"Hold still," PG hisses again, flattening a hand on Jason's chest. "They're not gonna come in, relax."
"You just fucking jinxed it," Jason says, but he holds still. PG rolls his head around and to the side in obvious disdain. "Don't give me that attitude. I know how this shit works."
"Uh-huh," PG says simply. He's almost finished with the roll of gauze, but he's still excruciatingly slow and careful.
"You're being condescending again," Jason says.
"You are so smart," PG coos, in an asshole voice, like an asshole.
Jason rolls his eyes behind the domino and then says, for PG's benefit, "I just rolled my eyes."
"That's very helpful to know, thank you," PG says, and then, "Almost done—"
Outside the room, the officers are still discussing their next move. Jason can't make out the exact words, but it's only a matter of time before they make their way in here and find this random, dumbass paramedic fixing up the motherfucking Red Hood. It's inconvenient if Jason gets arrested, sure, but he's very good at busting his way of unideal situations, and he and Sofia have failsafes set-up for this exact scenario.
But Paramedic Guy. If Paramedic Guy gets caught in this situation, what happens to him? Jason wasn't kidding about pretending to hold him at gunpoint, and he wasn't kidding about it being helpful, but how far will that go? Paramedic Guy is risking an awful lot for a guy he barely knows and definitely doesn't like.
More importantly, why does Jason care?
He's jerked out of his thoughts by the sharp sting of PG wrapping and pulling the gauze one last time, coupled with the sound of another banging door; closer this time. They've made their decision. They're moving down the line. The clock is winding down even faster.
Even PG must have figured this out, because he fastens off the bandages quick and harried, talking so fast Jason can barely keep up.
"Watch the strenuous movements," he's saying, shoving shit back into his bag. "Get a doctor to look over that sooner rather than later, I did it way too fast and I didn't have the right disinfectants. This is a holdover to keep you from slipping in a pool of your own blood and dying while you do—whatever the shit it is you do." Jason can't help his ugly snort. PG continues. "Also if you bleed through that, I'll find out and I'll fucking hunt you down."
Jason looks down at the gauze wrapped around his chest before he pulls his shirt back down. PG's busy disparaging the handiwork, but it's tight and snug. Definitely better than anything Jason could have done on his own. They might even keep him from bleeding out while he's pulling his latest daring escape from the jaws of the law.
"Right," Jason says, instead of mentioning any of this. "Noted."
PG stands up, dusting detritus off his knees. "I'm not kidding," he says. "I'll pop your ass."
"You can certainly try," Jason tells him.
At that, PG grins outright, revealing that weird, crooked canine. He stretches out a hand Jason's way, and it takes Jason's blood bereft brain a second to actually process. But he takes it, and PG somehow manages to pull up all of Jason's bulk, swaying just slightly on his feet. He's blinking up at Jason, eyes huge and brown. Jason's mouth is weirdly dry.
"Hey," Jason says. PG raises an eyebrow. "Oh, don't even start. I was going to say thanks."
"Oh, wow." PG crosses his arms. "You mean all it took to learn some manners was a bullet wound."
"You fucking wish." Jason takes one, then two steps back towards the window. He's slower than he should be, he knows, with the police still banging around in the hall, but there are just—a few more things he has to say. He gets the window open, perches on the sill. As he pulls the helmet back on, he says, "You know what, I'll do you a solid. I now owe you a favor. You have one, bonafide Red Hood favor. Do with that what you will."
He's about to leap into the night when PG says, "I have three."
Jason stops, one foot hanging off the ledge. He looks back at PG. "The fuck you do."
"I took care of your bullet wound," PG starts, counting off on one hand. "I took care of your concussion—"
"That was barely a concussion," Jason argues. PG's opening his mouth again, but Jason cuts him off with, "And if you're about to go into that other time, that doesn't count, because there was literally nothing wrong. You were just—overbearing."
PG puts a hand on his chest. "After I gave you a band-aid and everything. It even had—"
"Sparkles, I remember, I was there," Jason says, waving it off. "Still doesn't count."
"You did also break my nose," PG points out.
Goddammit, he has a point. Jason sighs, long and dragging. PG's smile gets smugger by the second.
"Fucking fine," Jason says. "Two favors."
"Three."
"Two," Jason says. PG rolls his eyes again, but at least he doesn't argue. "What the fuck would you do with three favors? How many people do you need dead?"
PG furrows his brow. "Is that the only thing they're good for?"
"Well—" Jason starts, and then something bangs on the door, and Jason's actually useful instincts kick in and he's gone. Hopefully, PG can handle the police. He's welcome to claim Jason held him hostage or whatever. Even though it was pretty much the other way around.
The chase isn't nearly as close or intense as Jason was expecting—either these cops really are dumb as shit or PG was distracting enough to give him a headstart. The gauze ends up soaked through red regardless, but PG doesn't appear out of nowhere to rake him across the coals, so apparently he's not omniscient after all.
And here's the thing Jason keeps thinking about, long after he's made his report to Sofia and holed himself up in one of the safehouses: He is still alive.
Okay, aliveness is something Jason can't seem to shake it, no matter how much easier it would be if he could. Normally, the aliveness is preceded by, well. A deadness. He's got to die first to be alive. That's how it's always fucking worked.
But Paramedic Guy slaps some gauze over his wounds in some downtown office building with the cops breathing down his neck, and Jason doesn't bleed out on a rooftop. He makes it back to a safehouse and cleans out the wound just like PG told him to, rebandages it significantly shoddier, and then he falls asleep and wakes up the next morning and stays wholly, distinctly alive.
Paramedic Guy saved his life. Jason doesn't know what to do with that.