Chapter Text
<OvO>
It’s Saturday morning, his day off, and what Jason first assumes might be a nice weathered weekend, in the worst weathered place on earth, turns out to be the same dreary cloudy skies and rain as yesterday. And the day before that. And so on. And so forth.
They’re on a shit-weather hot streak.
Jason pours another cup of black coffee. Dressed in socks, an old grey tank top, and sleep pants, he sighs as he takes a long sip.
“You lied to me, Vickie,” he says to the weathergirl on the junky old box TV in his kitchen as he places the mug down, picks up his bowl, and takes a bite of cereal. Yeah, he’s being lazy today with an easy out of the box breakfast, but he’s allowed that sometimes. He’s also had the box of Cocoa Puffs in there for months, and honestly, Jason Todd isn’t one to waste food.
Jason watches the news in between bites, slowly clearing out the bowl.
Mostly, it’s all just terrible. Another gang war, money troubles, the fat-headed Mayor making shit harder for everyone while he gets wealthier--welcome to Gotham. Every story is doom and gloom, with only one supposedly ‘uplifting tale’ of a bunch of people coming together to buy some poor, down-on-their-luck schmuck…a bike.
What a feat of heroism.
And now there are frowny storm clouds over the entire next week's forecast as Vickie smiles like she’s offering good news, and her lies yesterday had never happened. Terrific.
Maybe it was time for a trip to Star City. Roy’s been bitching about needing to get out for a night or two to just get totally shit faced, and Jason could work on his tan. It’s honestly a more realistic solution than waiting for sunshine in Gotham.
Putting the bowl in the sink after he’s done eating, Jason notices a familiar black tail as an all black void and two gold eyes stare at him through his kitchen window. Coming up the fire escape outside, the furry feline carnivore is late this morning. Cisco the cat loves climbing to get to the fifth floor, Jason’s floor, so he can get his breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
He eats better than Jason sometimes.
Opening the window, Jason grabs a small plate and a can of cat food as he starts preparing Cisco’s meal. Cisco seems distracted today, though, maybe even agitated. His tail is aggressively moving back and forth, and he’s growling, now looking at something off in the distance, his ears slightly flattened.
Cisco’s been known to be dramatic and start alley catfights that turn into all out brawls, so Jason just stares at him mildly.
“Do you want in or not?” Jason gets cats are finicky and flighty, but he’s made an arrangement with Cisco that Jason doesn’t do the do you want to come in sitting by the window and refusing to move one way or the other, typical cat bullshit.
Cisco finally decides he does want to come in and jumps past the ledge and into the apartment, but he’s still looking at something behind him.
“What, did you piss off that other cat again?” Jason asks. “You really shouldn’t start shit you can’t finish, Cis.”
Cisco seems to unstiffen and, if it were possible, rolls his eyes as he heads towards the dish Jason places on the floor. Jason closes the window, leans against the counter, and watches his almost pet eat the canned--whatever is actually in the beef--pate’, as he picks up his mug again.
“Any plans for today?” he asks as Cisco munches away. “Apparently, it’s gonna be raining…” he could say cats and dogs, but Jason has some sense to know when to stop a joke.
Jason actually plans to try to get rid of the headache that’s been creeping up again. He’s been struggling with them on and off for months, but today's--is really hitting right between his eyes. It’s not just headaches either, Jason’s been feeling nauseous and slightly off for a while.
“But it’s a fact no one talks about…”
Jason’s musing on his headache lasts so long that the news has turned to another show altogether. It looks like some cheap gossip segment with a title that reads Inner Gotham on the back wall of the set. Cisco is cleaning himself, and Jason turns to look at the woman talking on the screen.
“They’re there, in the shadows, they have been for decades, maybe even centuries. One day, Gotham will see, they’re simply…waiting to strike. ”
“It’s a fairy tale, and nothing more,” A bespectacled man beside her scoffs. “A story said to scare children, we all know it’s not…”
Jason honestly doesn’t care. Flipping the channel, he stops on the DIY network, where he’s informed how he can put different god awful textures on his walls to add ‘room appeal’. Except Jason’s renting his apartment and can’t technically change anything.
And shit, his coffee’s gotten cold too.
“Pink and green?” He asks when the presenters reveal the paint colors. Jason pours the coffee down the sink. “Guess no one's ever heard of taste before.”
Cisco suddenly starts growling again, and Jason looks back at him. But it’s not just growling, Cisco is moving slowly backwards, his body hunched in that Halloween cat look most people associate with agitated or evil cats.
All while making a horrible, desperate, unhappy sound.
“Cis?” Jason asks in confusion. He’s never seen this kind of reaction before. Cisco doesn’t seem just mad or territorial--he seems fearful. “What is…”
Something slams the window.
Jason’s not an easily jumpy person; growing up in rough neighborhoods all his life has given him good instincts. Frankly, he knows when someone is trying to break in, and he’s got more than enough weapons that reaching for a pistol near the flour container is all but second nature.
Jason’s aware of where he lives and the shit assholes he lives beside.
The gun is quick to raise, but--
What the fuck?
Gold and black, just like Cisco, but--it’s a man. A full grown man who--doesn’t look well. At least from what Jason can see of him from his odd bird-like mask, covering his eyes and a good portion of his face. His longer hair (compared to Jason’s anyway) is dark, but messy and blowing ominously in the wind. It’s the claws on the man’s gloves, though, slammed up against Jason’s window, leaving a giant streak of blood--
Blood?
The claws have left jagged, cracked lines, and the man appears to be breathing heavily. He’s wearing a tattered scarf and some kind of gold and black--armor? But the way he’s carrying himself, it looks like he’s hunched in pain.
Jason has about three seconds to take it all in. Holding his gun, he’s more than ready to shoot the weirdly dressed asshole if he tries anything, but as he looks at Jason through that mask with his palm on the window--Jason doesn’t know what the man wants. Jason’s finger is ready, but all he gets is three seconds before with a quick look behind him--the man is gone.
Seriously, what the fuck?
The man is gone, but not the blood or damage. Nope, that's still very much there.
“Are you fucking…”
Mr. Bird mask had stayed just enough time to ruin Jason’s window before pissing off.
Angrily pushing the window back open, Jason jumps on the iron balcony and looks around the fire escape stairs to see where he’d gone. Because honestly, even in his not great looking condition, it looked like the man had leapt up, but Jason’s on the top floor. And Jason doesn’t see anyone.
He might think it was all some sort of fever dream if Jason weren’t personally looking at his fucked up window. That he’ll have to do something about. Because his bastard landlord loves to try to raise his rent wherever he can, for any little reason.
And Jason’s not losing his cleaning deposit.
“Hope you’re happy, asshole,” he mutters. Now Jason has to make a stop at the store. Right after he cleans the blood up and hopes no one calls the cops before he can get it all off.
Because even if there’s some weirdly dressed serial killer running around attacking windows, Jason’s sure as shit not calling the pigs himself.
<OvO>
“Back again, huh?”
Jason looks over from his searching of the hardware shelves of the small local shop to see a familiar dark-haired, green-eyed man.
Kyle, his nametag reads. The man Jason always seems to run into. And one of the only five employees (that Jason’s ever seen) that works here.
“Yeah, I had an emergency,” Jason admits.
Kyle is slightly shorter than Jason and a bit slimmer built, but he’s always seemed like a cool enough guy. Jason’s not in a huge mood to talk, but given that Gotham’s Quick Goods is the closest store to his apartment, it’s bound to happen that he’s recognized.
At least it’s not the other creep--Lazlo something rather. He’d followed Jason around, looking him up and down as if sizing Jason up for--god knows what, until Jason had told him if he didn’t want to lose an eye, he better avert his somewhere else. Whether he was checking Jason out or thought he was stealing, Jason had meant every word.
“Oh, that’s not good.” Considering the aisle they’re in and the goods they’re surrounded by, it seems obvious for Kyle to ask, “Did something break?”
Jason nods, “My window, a uh…bird crashed into it. It left a few cracks, and I need to try to fill them in before the whole window goes.”
He’d read online it was a futile effort, but Jason’s gonna try, dammit. If only to get back at the window stabbing jack ass.
Kyle brushes some of his hair back and leans his arm on the shelf, “Cracks?” he whistles and readjusts the top of his orange Gotham’s Quick Goods apron. “Just how big was this bird?”
Jason hesitates, “...pretty big.”
Kyle lightly laughs, “Sounds like it, but if you’re looking to fill a crack…you want,” he starts pointing at the items, “epoxy, hardener, and resin, but I should warn you…it’s kind of like putting a bandaid on a ticking time bomb.”
“So I’ve heard,” Or read, whatever. “As long as it can hold until I move out.”
“Ahh, the F U landlord special,” Kyle chuckles as Jason grabs what he needs. “A classic.”
Jason can’t help smiling a little. He’d love to say fuck you to his landlord, honestly.
A clap of thunder hits, and the sound and vibration seem to shake the entire store. It feels intensely loud, even for Gotham.
“Got to love these thunderstorms,” Kyle looks around in slight concern as the fluorescent overhead lights flicker a little. “Hopefully, we don’t lose power again, though. It went out earlier and…what a mess.” Peering into Jason’s basket, he notices, “You…doing some deep cleaning too?”
Jason had forgotten he didn’t have any bleach, so there's a bottle in the hand basket, along with some gloves and a new scrub brush (because he’s not using any of his brushes on someone else's blood, thank you). “What can I say...the rain makes me want to clean.” It’s a stupid response, but Jason’s social battery is starting to expire.
“You must clean a lot then,” Kyle jokes.
Which isn’t untrue, but Jason just shrugs. “Anyway, thanks for the help. I should probably get out of here before the storm gets too bad.” Judging by the wind blowing outside, it looks like it’s already gotten worse since he’s been here.
“Yeah, probably,” Kyle agrees, then waves him on to follow behind him. “Come on, I’ll ring you up.”
Jason wonders sometimes just how much Kyle seeks him out when he spots him. Considering there’s plenty of other people shopping he could be helping--and there’s a long line of customers at the first register that Kyle ignores as he opens a second one--
Jason can feel people glaring at him. He’s surprised no one has cursed at him yet, “I don’t mind waiting in the…”
“Nah, it’s okay, you’ve got to get home, right?” Kyle couldn’t sound any more nonchalant about it.
Is he trying to get Jason jumped?
“I…”
A line starts growing behind Jason. A little kid on an iPad literally bumps into him, and her device is unnecessarily loud.
“There’s that old nursery rhyme about them, right? Beware the Court of…”
“Bella, I’ve told you not to watch that show,” Her mother pushes in behind the girl, touching the screen so it moves to something more kid friendly. Customers continue to build him, and Jason notices some small bottles of ibuprofen on a shelf next to the register. Jason grabs three containers and throws them on top of his other stuff.
If Kyle comments on it, Jason doesn’t hear him.
Because his headache has suddenly returned.
<OvO>
Jason wipes off the excess mixture of hoping to god this window sticks together goo as Cisco watches him. And by watches, Jason means judges.
“Hey, it looks decent,” Jason argues to the cat’s very unimpressed look as he goes to wash his hands. “I’d like to see your no thumb having paws do any better.”
Cisco yawns and goes to lie down somewhere. Probably on top of the laundry Jason hasn’t finished yet.
“But that’s not the truth…”
Jason frowns at the TV, not sure when he’d turned it back on and--was it still the same damn show from earlier or just a repeat of the broadcast? It’s the same people, wearing the same clothes, talking about the same thing. “...They watch you at your hearth, they watch you in your bed.”
Oh, Jesus Christ. Jason turns it off.
Nursery Rhymes, just stupid fucking stories, meanwhile, Jason’s got a very real problem that he hopes he’s fixed well enough.
Jason sighs and goes to start the other chores he still needs to get done. Putting on some music, grabbing the vacuum, then sorting the stuff he needs to take to the laundromat, Jason lets Cisco out the door, since the window is currently out of commission, and gets to work.
After he’s finished, Jason takes a break and searches the web for reports of any masked weirdos trying to get into people’s apartments. All he gets are the usual thieves, which are commonplace, but nothing in his area.
Tossing his phone on the nightstand, Jason falls onto his bed, his arm draping over his eyes. He honestly isn’t even tired, but it feels almost impossible to get up again.
Somehow, as he drifts off, Jason hears words he doesn’t think he knows, but he swears it comes from somewhere.
“...or they'll send the Talon for your head.”
The next time Jason opens his eyes, the room is dark. Everything is dark because it’s nighttime, and Jason’s slept the rest of the day away without meaning to. Groaning as he gets up, Jason decides to go check the window. It was probably close to being dry now, and dammit, Cisco was no doubt waiting for his dinner too.
Trying to comb down his short hair back into some kind of style that wasn’t giving he’d just been electrocuted, Jason turns on the light and heads out into the hallway. He takes a few steps into the kitchen and sees with relief that the window seems to be holding up, when his sock steps into something--wet.
Looking down, Jason sees blood. Not just blood but a blood trail and--
Shit.
Arming himself again, because--there’s definitely someone behind him. Jason quickly turns and aims. And this time he intends to shoot, “Seriously, what the fuck is your…”
But something feels immediately off. The man is definitely the same weirdo from earlier, but--
Jason blinks at what he thinks he sees, and suddenly it’s a little harder to pull the trigger, “What is…are you…”
Some masked guy was jumping across apartments and had broken into Jason’s apartment, but it looks like--Jason's not a master of these things--but it very much looks like the man has a bun in his oven.
Which--what?
The man slowly and carefully removes his mask, which he lets fall to the floor, and although Jason can’t see his face very well in the shadows, his eyes are definitely an unnatural shade of yellow bordering on gold.
Which is Jason’s sign that, yeah, he still very much needs to shoot.
Jason lets off two shots, and he knows they hit. Or they definitely should have, anyway. But--as Jason’s shoved against the wall behind him, gasping for air as he’s choked by a man he swears is shorter than him. Everything is a messy blur of inhuman speed and strength, and once again, it seems all Jason has are mere seconds before the world starts going black.