Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Your demeanor, when she asked, was calm and betrayed none of the expected surprise of having been almost stabbed in your own car.

“You what?“ Belinda said when you told her. Her voice was sharp, eyebrows jumping and then pulling together. The mug she held came down slightly too hard on the countertop, and you caught the quick, severe crease of her mouth. ”Hija de mi vida, que tienes a dentro de tu cabeza que piensas – ay.“

The river of Spanish was cut short almost as soon as it had started, and she caught herself with a shake of her head. Exasperated weariness presented itself in the raise of her palms.

“Nope,” she corrected herself. “You get no free lecture from me today. You’re too old for that.”

“It didn’t stop you the last time, though?”

“You watered down your coffee.“

“It was on the strong side, though. Even you have to admit–”

“Nope! No, you are the young one here and I am well within my rights to say,” and here she leaned forward to the jangle of earrings, “you are wrong.“

Maybe it was telling that she was getting worked up over your coffee misdemeanors the same way she’d started to over your near stabbing. Back home, it would have been a definite surprise.

You half-smiled.

“Alright, Beli. I’ll give you that one,” you said. You couldn’t bring yourself to feel anything but a surge of affection in the face of her matter-of-fact, whirlwing personality.

“You don’t have to give me anything,” she replied, prim. She settled herself back on the counter to finish drying the mugs, and you watched her work. Though she was the first to admit that running a restaurant was not her first choice in life, one would be hard-pressed to deny that she had a knack for it. Belinda Benavidez could balance a cupboard’s worth of spinning plates, and all there would be to show for the strain would be slightly disheveled hair and a slew of clever swearing.

She raised her eyes to you, and quirked a brow.

“Well?”

“Well,” you replied. “Do you want me to talk about the stabbing thing?”

“Well, I don’t spend all my time slaving away in a kitchen just to be denied the right to some chisme." A weary grin on tastefully painted lips. “Tell me.”

So this was how things worked, from what you understood so far.

Statistically, Gotham didn’t make use of things like Lyft and Uber. It wasn’t because people didn’t need to get around; it wasn’t because the city was especially given to pedestrians.

This was one of the things that initially had you flummoxed. Before you moved, you’d taken for granted the mainstream staples in food and work and entertainment. It was a given that you’d be flooded with logos day in and day out; it was just a side effect of living in a society. But you found yourself an apartment in what seemed to be a quieter neighborhood, and you flopped down on your air mattress in the spartan bedroom, and it occurred to you very suddenly that this place seemed to be devoid of anything from back home.

Billboards, logos, businesses - they existed; you’d seen the city lights, of course - but you couldn’t recall a single yellow “M” or Maybelline display. Like stepping into a different country, even a different world.

"I need a change," you’d said to your brother, weeks before.

He’d understood, but not willingly. "You’re already doing so well for yourself here. You have a place already, we’re not breathing down your neck… you even have a stable job right now, I mean, what are you gonna do?"

“I wish I could explain it to you. All I have is that I need to start somewhere new, something fresh. I feel stuck and it itches. Maybe I need to move to a bigger city and try, like, Uber driving, I don’t know.”

You’d found yourself the bigger city easily enough. In the absence of Uber, though, you made do, and you did some research, and these days, you were a driver for the underground taxi company Hitchhike. It touted itself as a wide-eyed upstart, created by one of the Heights’ own hopeful businessmen with velvet-lined pockets.

It seemed to you that Gotham loved things of its own. And that was strangely charming, in a way. You couldn’t deny the appeal of the brick skyline and esoteric inhabitants.

But like all things, Gotham had its downsides, and it kept a running tally of these that grew with every passing night. Everyone alive knew that Gotham was a cesspool of crime and corruption. Everyone knew that it was the place to go if you wanted to be mugged, and beaten, and left for worse in a grimy back-alley. This was a city that showed no mercy to the naive, and there was, in fact, a reason that your family had all but begged for you to find somewhere else to settle.

Even with your observational tendencies and noticeably fit physique – you didn’t spend years in ambulances and fire rigs and come out of it soft – even you’d had your share of close shaves in the months you’d been there.

This one, for instance.

“So the last guy I had in my car was one of those types,” you began thoughtfully, gaze travelling up as you remembered. “Where you can just look at them and tell that they’re going to start something, just because the street’s empty and they feel like no one can stop them.”

“Ah,” she said sagely, and she didn’t need to elaborate. Because she knew.

Well, she really didn’t. Not in the way that you had the capability to. But she didn’t know that, and you didn’t have any need to share.

“It’s always one of the big things that they’re after, you know? Notoriety. Sex. Money, things like that. And uh, this guy was absolutely convinced that I had a wallet full of hundreds – you know, me with my job as a Hitchhike driver–”

“The most luxurious job out there, no less.”

“And he got in the car, and pulled his switchblade on me not even five seconds later. Just put it right up to my throat and said, ‘You’re gonna hand over your purse, and then you’re gonna drive me to the Bowery, and you’re not gonna say a word about it.’

“And to be completely fair to him, the whole time I didn’t say a word.”

“But…” The contented gleam in Belinda’s eyes said that she could see exactly where this story was going.

“But I didn’t have any cash on me to give him. Like, I don’t even have a purse.”

You sighed, thinking back, and shook your head.

“So I threw the car in reverse and floored it, and I let him bounce around like a sock in a dryer.”

Belinda soaked in the story with the seasoned grace of a woman familiar with the dark streets and danger. And you, for your part, were content with having gotten out of the situation with little more than some wasted gas and a raised heart rate. Much as you enjoyed conflict, and the rush of working through a fraught situation, you would prefer not to have another incident like the last one just yet.

Not like when you’d been huddled against a brick wall, fists clenched and shaking, working up the nerve to stand because you had been terrified but it was so stupid of you not to be on your feet and – he had been quiet throughout it all. Not panicking at your panic, not amused at your fear. Two weeks into your new life in Gotham, and the man in the red helmet was kind enough to give you what you’d needed after nearly dying: an outstretched hand, and a moment of quiet.

You still thought about him, sometimes. Months later - because who could forget someone like that?

The whispers about the masked figures were thrown around over tabletops and drinks and long waits at red lights. It was an open secret that most people were dying to talk about, but didn’t too loudly for fear of actually dying. You came to understand this: that Gotham was dangerous, but there was always an antithesis to the corruption. Criminals would always be beaten unconscious by a mysterious figure keeping peace through fear, and that heavyhandedness would be what kept another family safe for just one more night.

It took longer to learn about the vigilantes themselves. There was Nightwing, swathed in blacks and blues, who kept himself busy in Bludhaven, but who occasionally lent a hand in the grimdark city itself. There’d been Robins, how many, you couldn’t be sure – sometimes, you weren’t sure there even was a plural.

And there had been Batman, before. Here, the whispers would grow even more hushed, and you would have to strain to hear, leaning as far back as you could in the driver’s seat.

… Used to be the main one, they said. Beat the crap outta anyone deserving it.

He was comforting, said another. He saved me, once. He held my hand.

He shouldn’t have had to do it. He shouldn’t’ve had to go.

Good riddance, I say. Let the city burn itself clean.

The rise and fall of Batman was something that you could never completely comprehend. You hadn’t been there; the significance of his disappearance mostly passed like smoke through your fingers. But even you could sense it – the hole burned through Gotham’s foundation, acrid with heartbreak and anger. He had been important. The most important, maybe?

You didn’t know. All you really knew was that he meant something to Gotham, and that whenever you heard someone mourning the caped figurehead, you felt a slight squirm of guilt wash through you, because even as new as you were, to you he could never be the most fascinating one.

You were much more invested in the soft words you managed to pick up here and there about your vigilante – the harsh, quick figure that they called Red Hood.

Chapter Text

On Belinda’s request, you sometimes used the moments you weren’t behind the wheel to help her out at the Encantada. That meant manning the skillet when she was unpacking supplies in the back, or refilling patrons’ mugs, or taking out the trash to the dumpster down the street at the end of the day. Though you’d have liked to say that you did all this out of the kindness of your heart – of which there was some, of course – she did pass you a good few bills to compensate, and you wouldn’t deny the extra rent money.

You knew that she worried, whenever you stepped out into the streets alone. But it was just the two of you, and she could hardly leave the restaurant unattended to hold your hand. Reminding her that you did pass first responder physicals for a reason – and showing her the can of pepper spray and pocket knife at your belt – assuaged her concerns enough that she would always relent in the end.

“Stab to kill,” she called after you, and you gripped the two garbage bags and walked out into the night. Like it usually did, Gotham’s midnight atmosphere seemed to settle, cloaklike and damp, around your shoulders. A thrill always coursed up your spine during moments like these; you were acutely aware that this city was nowhere near a safe place to be, and you were always a hair’s breadth from making one of the tragic front page headlines.

So you kept your ears open, and you kept your steps light. And, deep down, you kept on feeling that course of excitement, of adrenaline, that lit you up from inside like a live wire. This was the exhilarating part, when the dial was just a notch or two below catastrophe and you hadn’t yet freefallen into pure terror.

The dumpster got slightly farther away every time, you’d swear it. By the time you saw it propped up against a brick wall, Encantada ’s lights glowed a little too far away to be strictly comfortable. At that point, it would have been all too easy to clear the last ten paces to the trash, dump in your bags and book it back to the lit-up safety of Belinda’s kitchen.

But it was when your hand was just brushing the top lid - slick with grime and dust and who knew what else - that you heard the sounds of the fight, just a few streets down.

Now, at this point, you considered yourself a fairly knowledgeable resident of Gotham City. You knew when to keep your head down, and you were very much a fan of getting home alive and uninjured. It would have been prudent to simply pretend the noises weren’t happening – or that they were happening just out of earshot, too far to be anything but a sad statistical footnote. But time and experience meant that you were also something of an expert on extrapolation and probability, and after only a few moments of listening, you could tell that this struggle was a little too one-sided.

For one, you had heard your fair share of drug scuffles and back-alley disputes. Frequently, gunshots were involved. Even more so were the shouting matches, loud, ugly things so primal in their anger that they began to sound more like savage dog barks after a while. You knew to keep out of these things; there was no place for you in them but a shallow grave.

This fight, though, lacked the call-and-response you knew too well. There was no active participation from both parties. In fact – you noted, drifting away quietly from the dumpster before you were consciously aware of it – you would argue that this sounded less like a dog fight and more like a fox hunt.

“Where is the son of a–”

“He was just here, we had him!”

“He’s hurt. I clipped him good, where the hell did he–”

“Shut up , you morons, you’re just makin’ it harder to hear–”

One fox and a pack of dogs.

You knew it was stupid. You knew so well that this was such a dumb thing for you to be doing. Chances were, these men were looking to shake down some unlucky soul for a few owed coins. And even bigger chances said that if you put yourself in the middle of this one, you would not only be of no help to the victim, but you’d be actively signing yourself up for a quick, gruesome death.

If they didn’t drag it out. The thought pushed a shuddering breath from your chest.

What were the odds that you would be doing any help here? What probability lay on your side if you picked the hero route?

What were the odds? The question rankled, deep and old in its sting. You’d asked yourself that dozens of times in the past, and every time, you’d yielded to the likely outcome. No, you won’t get to that appointment in time. No, you won’t miraculously revive this patient. No, you won’t make it if you decide to leave your hometown, so keep pushing it back and back and back for years, because it’s just not likely –

And just like that, you’d made your decision. The question was, how would you make your play?

The voices were coming from a cluster of backstreets about half a block from where you were. In terms of linear distance, that didn’t stand for much – but in this labyrinthian stretch of Gotham, it could put you miles away if you played your cards right. All you had to do was keep them on your radar and move the same way you would if you were one person – one injured, alone person – trying to give them the slip.

You cast your eyes upward. Caught the outline of a fire escape on the dark complex building nearest to you. If you followed that, careful to mind the pursuing party… Walk the perimeter, and choose the most deserted path into the maze, maybe –

The garbage bags made rustles that seemed to almost echo in the streets, and you winced. They would sound louder to your own ears, of course, but why hadn’t you just left them behind? One foot in front of the other, cautious, so slowly that you didn’t upset the plastic bags too much…

It was when you rounded the second alleyway that the figure dropped down in front of you.

Landing with a crackled exhalation and a dull whoomph , all compact muscle and fluttering jacket, the man almost startled a loud gasp out of you, one that you just barely avoided by biting down on your own tongue. Bending your legs so that the garbage bags made less of a crash when you set them down, you took a step back, then another for good measure.

Red.

“You,” you said softly, startled both by the striking color and the barrel of a gun suddenly pointed, wavering, at your chest. “I know you.”

You could almost see the wheels turning behind the crimson mask.

“Yeah. Hi,” he said, terse, no recognition in his static-laced tone. “You – shouldn’t be here. Bad guys afoot an’ all. Get lost.”

As if on cue, one of the men’s yells bounced back and forth along the stone walls, obfuscating the exact origin. His head whipped to the side, on high alert, but the motion was followed up by a strange, near-full-body sway that told you plainly that something was wrong.

They’d hurt him, you realized. This was the fox they were hunting.

You looked between him and the space behind him, almost certain you could imagine the voices drawing just a bit too close for comfort. Brows drawing together, you nodded, and jerked your head back the way you came.

“Over here,” you whispered. “Walk with me to my car? I know the way back.”

A beat of silence, then two, as if he was wondering just how crazy you were, and subsequently, how crazy he had to be.

“Is he this way?”

“I don’t know, stupid, check!”

“Ohh, boys, when I get my hands on that damn helmet I’m gonna grab it and twist like a bottle of whiskey until everything slides out–”

You locked eyes with him. He stared straight at you.

He cursed.

“Fine.” A ragged breath. “Go.”

Very carefully, you slid the two contractor bags into the narrow alleyway behind the Red Hood – nothing like an impromptu tripping hazard – and, with an “okay” of your own, you took a light hold of his sleeve and tugged him along.

His wrist burned.

From where the civilian gripped his arm – not even his arm, just his jacket, and so lightly if he focused on it – he could feel a sense of tightness, of radiating discomfort spreading, acid-like, under the lines of scar tissue. It was all he could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the –

There was a sense of irony in the way you slipped over the curb and between the few parked cars that you couldn’t help but be acutely aware of. It was almost wrong, that something so ludicrously simple as crossing the street and timing your moves even worked in real life. You should have been caught, right? Instantly, you should have caught a bullet to the back – but the shot never came. The voices grew fainter. As it stood, you were aware that you hadn’t gotten so much of a glimpse at the lucky, lucky people who managed to get the Red Hood himself on the ropes.

Speaking of.

“Keep going, keep going,” you implored quietly. He tensed suddenly when your grip on his jacket tightened, and you immediately slackened your fingers. Spooking a touch-averse vigilante was not on your list of to-dos tonight. “We’re almost there, I promise.”

His head dipped forward – no, not quite a nod, but maybe acquiescence? Was he even fully aware of your presence?

“Five more steps. You – you should hear the door unlocking now.” The jangle of your keys and the telltale click felt terribly loud in the dark, the opening pop of the passenger door downright deafening.

Had to keep walking, he knew that much. Where was his gun? What had they injected him with?

His wrist burned.

The AC only worked a good seventy percent of the time, but this particular night was damp enough that you didn’t worry. What did have you worrying was the fact that you had to wrestle at least six feet of muscle and sinew into the passenger seat, and even as careful as you were being, you were certain that he’d sustained some kind of injury under the hood that the trip would only exacerbate. But what choice did you have?

“Sorry, sorry – no stable surfaces, I know –”

The Red Hood exhaled something that could have, maybe, been construed as words, but that was lost under the garble of static and disorientation.

He could have just been saying no , come to think of it. Over, and over, and over.

“I’m sorry , I am, I am –”

Headlights off – a measure of discretion, and a huge no-no that you could forgive yourself for under the circumstances – you eased out of the lot and made to merge as quickly as you could with other lit up vehicles. You’d have to take the scenic route home; you gnawed on the inside of your cheek, turning as carefully as you could in your worn sedan. Make it as convoluted as possible and then… inside through the window? Could you manage it?

You’d have to.

Secondary location. No. Third? Not good. Pretty damn bad, actually.

He worked to swim back to the surface, catching fleeting glimpses of city light trailing smudged along his vision. Movement. Left, then left, then right. Left again. Relative to what?

He knew better than to panic.

Still pretty damn bad.

You did manage it, excruciatingly.

Your apartment rested on the first floor – not only on the first floor, but with one side pressed almost flush against a tall brick wall that all but killed the view dead. The key word here was almost - there were about two, maybe three feet, of room between if you knew to climb over the dusty, useless pallets of long bad drywall wedged into the space.

You knew well enough to do this, as opposed to waltzing in through the dimly lit lobby. You had the requisite strength to do it with a passenger as heavy as this one, too, just barely. With the Red Hood hoisted onto your back – something that he surely would find just a little undignifying – you clambered over the questionable structure and reached blindly into your pocket for the little window key that you couldn’t bring yourself to move from your keyring, even as useless as it had been before this moment.

“Just have to – I’ll pick you back up quick, promise, just –”

Your quiet murmurs had to have been lost on him. He didn’t offer anything substantial in the way of protest as he lay where you set him. Tragic, you thought, in that compact little sprawl in the dusty space between your wall and window. You eased the pane open, crouching to heft him into a fireman’s carry.

To him, just to give him the chance to follow with your procedure, you said, “I’m going to slide you so gently onto my rug.”

And to your credit – something you could and would claim in hindsight – you did slide him in so gently, with only minimal thudding to show for your efforts.

It wasn’t making sense. There was an awful lot of carting around happening. At one point he could have sworn his vestibular senses were telling him that he was being rotated . He’d thought he’d left behind the gangsters – hadn’t there been a civilian somewhere? – but this felt all too much like he’d just changed hands to another, much less competent band of mooks.

There was something so sad about it: sensing that there was a quip to be made but being physically unable to move his mouth and brain in tandem for it.

Jason almost wished they would just taze him already.

‘Antsy’ didn’t begin to cover it. Even at the hands of the most inexperienced, prolonged pain always hurt the worst.

His fingers twitched and found no triggers.

Damn it.

Seat to ground, ground to rug, rug to bed with the sheets stripped off. Mortifying mode of transportation aside, this was more familiar ground for you. Not so much the having a man in your bed – having the ability you did growing up often made intimacy much more harrowing than it needed to be, after all.

But the supplies on the table beside you, and the slightest tingle of hands scrubbed clean twice over, and the familiar iron tang you could catch seeping from his wounds? This you could work with.

The clothes had been unfortunate victims of your largest pair of scissors. Even going for the most unobtrusive slices, and wincing the whole way through, there was no way around it. You’d already moved this man enough for the kind of head injury you were certain he had, and even though you’d already ascertained that there was no extreme spinal injury, you were not going to rotate him again , even if it was to save the admittedly gorgeous jacket he’d been sporting.

You could only hope he’d forgive you for it. Failing that, you did know how to operate a needle and thread – though you had no real talent for anything that wasn’t economical-looking. You wouldn’t be out here embroidering this man’s stuff, was what you meant – there was room for ladder stitches only under your roof.

And maybe it was horrible, but you looked down at the prone figure and you couldn’t help the thought.

I missed this.

You did, more than you’d let yourself dwell on – though, realistically, your days both at the station and as cabin technician were far more tame and well-lit than whatever this was. At least then, there was a team of people around you and a destination that had even more structured medical support. At least then, you’d had the best supplies to work with, paid for by your old city – never trauma kit supplies that were top-of-the-line but that nearly put you into debt to acquire; never saline bags that weren’t a day or three old and passed on to you by kind folks at the general hospital averse to just throwing things out.

But you were nothing if not equipped to work with what you had.

It was tenable - a sure thing, even, that you could patch him up - but the thought occurred to you that this was a vigilante . And he had saved you, once, on that misty night, but even then you had been aware that there was a harshness to him. You could reasonably get away with stitching his body, but weren't sure how much clemency he'd be willing to grant you if you addressed his head.

Would he accept your treatment if it meant you then knew his face? Would you risk seeing the cutthroat side of the Red Hood that people whispered about? 

You breathed in, held it for a moment, and let it out slowly, mulling it over. A tentative idea kindled in your head, one that you knew needed backing if you were to go through with it. If you were to continue this course of action… if you settled on this route, then… 

When you looked at him - really looked, settling in on the Red Hood's prone figure with a deliberate intensity - it was like trying to see through a thick fog. These things worked out better for you when you could see faces, when you could make eye contact. The strain of peering even for a moment lit the faintest ache in your head, and you knew it would get worse the longer you lingered. It only took moments, though, before you found a hint of what you were seeking. 

You weren't in severe danger, you didn't think. The Red Hood  - whoever he was under the helmet - could (would?) inspire in you a sense of trust. 

It was trust that had little to do with his face. That made your decision for you. 

You reached for the zip sutures and gauze, the latex gloves and alcohol, a grim quirk tugging at your mouth. Your eyes cut over to your closet, to where you knew a deep maroon scarf hung. 

You knew the field. Back then, your coworkers used to say that you could probably do your job with your eyes closed. 

"Okay," you said, snapping on the gloves. "Here we go." 

You did miss this. 

Chapter Text

It was like this.

He had been bleeding; of course he had been bleeding; taking stock of the damage littering his body, it was evident that the Red Hood had gotten slashed pretty badly. Even before you’d started on his head, you were certain that he’d also sustained a nasty concussion.

Head trauma, lacerations, contusions everywhere and certainly several bruised ribs, but - nothing broken. Exsanguination and cranial blows were vicious things, though.

What was more, you got the feeling that he’d gotten trussed up for a minute; given his BP, the way his skin behaved against pressure, he was also very dehydrated.

“It’s okay,” you told him softly, as if you were working with a child patient afraid of the needle. “Here’s what I’m going to do, alright? I’ll walk you through it. That’s it.” You just needed to project confidence; if reassuring him helped your hands stay steady, all the better.

Resist the urge to tap into your ability here - no, don’t use it. You don’t need it, not now. You will make things okay.

He was strong, anyway - in good shape. Good sign. You took note of it even as you continued your running commentary. Here. I’m going to do this, now. Here comes a quick pinch. Out like a light though he was, you couldn’t bring yourself to keep any of it from him. The way he’d held himself even as his strength flagged, defensive, teeth certainly bared if you could have seen them…

Your hands followed the routine flawlessly. Although, at times, you did have to loosen the scarf for a moment - to ensure the IV looked right, to assess the wounds on his body and gauge your plan of attack - once you eased the helmet off, it was with a staunch refusal to look.

Not at him. Of course not at him.

But – surely a quick glance. A split-second. You needed to see where you stood.

And, oh, your resolve was unusually brittle tonight, wasn’t it?

You allowed yourself to look again – just that single glance – just enough to know whether you would be grieving hours from now, or if you would regret helping him. And then, satisfied, you looked away, rubbing your temples. Strange shapes danced behind your eyelids. See? It was fine. It was okay.

It wasn’t like you could claim to know anything for certain. All you knew now is what you’d suspected from the first time you’d met him: he was tenacious, and you did not need to fear him.

Maybe it was ridiculous, the latter point - when the Red Hood came up, all anyone would mention in conjunction was his brutality. How he would leave corpses piled onto each other in empty lots to send a message; how he apparently dangled a druglord over a building grilling him for information, and still chose to let him fall after he got his answers. The Red Hood was ruthless in his ways and had no qualms about shedding blood.

But then, everyone knew on some level that there was another facet to him. Where he would grip a man by the tie and shoot him between the eyes as punishment for unspeakable corruption, he would also extend a stiff, bloodied hand toward those who needed it.

On saving you from armed thugs months and months before now, he had made sure to wait until you were turned away to shoot them where they lay. Even still, that part is clear enough: that tiny, infinitely significant breath between your eyes squeezing shut and the gunshots. Deed done, he’d stepped close enough to block your view of the still bodies, close enough that you doubted it was comfortable.

Most of that night was a blur to you - the broadest strokes escaped you, lost in a haze of adrenaline - but you remembered, as well, that when he spoke, it was halting, and scrambled through a sea of electronic cover. Comforting, you thought. Comforting enough.

You shook your head. No; you knew better. Even without using your marrow-deep intuition, you knew that you had nothing to fear from him.

He chose now to stir. Cautious, you backed up a couple steps, gave him room.

Your voice was pitched low, calming.

“You’re awake. Don’t - don’t worry. I’ve almost got you all patched up. Please don’t struggle, you’re not in enough shape for it. The gun you had on you is to your right, on the nightstand.”

You heard more than saw him relax back into the covers at that, and your shoulders dropped a fraction in turn. Minor degrees of calm from both sides. lingering wariness had your hands raised slightly, your head filled with the fact that you had placed yourself at a severe disadvantage if this whole thing, against all odds, went south…

… but you didn’t have ill intent. That much was blatant, clear. You knew it was.

“… I’ve patched up your cuts,” you said. “Don’t move too much - I need you to give them time to begin clotting, and then I can add liquid skin to seal them properly.

“Also, don’t - yes, stop, thank you - don’t roll onto your back like that just yet. I have a subcutaneous saline drip going at your left shoulder blade. I want to keep it in for another ten minutes at least, because…” Your mouth creased, your brain catching up with just how bossy you were being. In an ambulance? Sure. Here, though…

Actively harmful or not, he still had a gun.

“Because right now, your skin plasticity sucks,” you finished, quietly.

Jason felt like lead.

“…wh’re you?” he demanded, or tried to. The weakness of his limbs and the sandpaper way his throat had gone really made it so that his intimidating growl overshot straight into ‘feeble senior citizen’ territory. He’d have clicked his tongue at that in derision if he didn’t feel two feet away from unconscious. Regardless, he kept his eyes on you as closely as he could, analyzing.

You were a civilian.

Not just that, you were the most stupid, naive citizen he’d ever seen. If lightning hadn’t been shooting through his veins at having woken up in an unfamiliar place with his helmet gone, then he would have had half a mind to lecture you on that first thing. You were wearing a blindfold.

A blindfold.

And it wasn’t just a thin strip for show, either - he could see the way you tilted your head just too far right of him, the hesitation before you moved that showed you were calculating where exactly you were.

You were wearing a blindfold and you’d pointed him to his gun.

Knowing where his weapon was had an immediate effect on the tense lines of his posture. Subtle, but there, if you had been watching - his shoulders slackened, fingers uncurling ever so slightly. To anyone with iller intent than you had, it might have been mistaken for complacency. Really, though, even weakened like this, from this angle he could reach over and have you lanced through with bullets before you had a chance to get at him. You, with your self-imposed handicap, had practically set yourself up for it.

And it was stupid.

Your hands - latex-blue and smeared with the proof of your labor - came together, clasped; they fell back apart almost immediately afterward, like you weren’t quite sure what to do now that he was a good deal more conscious than he had been. The stretch of time he took to take stock of the room and all exits – two doors, one leading out into the rest of the apartment, the other connected to a small bathroom. Window in a corner. Terrible carpet – seemed to unnerve you. He really ought to say something; everything still hurt.

“I didn’t see,” you said.

“Huh?” Ouch.

“I didn’t see anything - you. Your face.”

“Obviously.” Ouch. The rasp in his throat was reaching distracting peaks; he swallowed dryly. Your chin tilted minutely in his direction at the sound.

“There’s a glass of water on the nightstand.” He hadn’t noticed it before. “You’ll have to mind your shoulder, like I said, but if you need help –”

“No.” Coming across a little prickly. Couldn’t be helped. “I got it.” Maybe it felt a little bad. “…Thanks.”

You said nothing – just half-nodded and turned your back to him in favor of fussing over your supplies. Gloves came off, carefully, expertly, and went in the trash. The first aid kit clicked open and shut.

“Yeah. Let me grab your helmet. I cleaned it off as best I could without drycleaning instructions - isopropyl alcohol, mostly. Sorry for any discoloration.”

Lifting the glass shouldn’t have taken the concentration it did; that it did at all rankled, made him uneasy even as he glanced over to where you stood sentry at the foot of the bed. But even with the sudden, screaming thirst he was experiencing, he forced himself to take it slow. He wet his tongue briefly, waited an absurdly agonizing couple of minutes for any symptoms of poison, and only then took slow, measured pulls from the glass.

He shut his eyes briefly. Still definitely Gotham water, but filtered several times and blessedly cool.

The cup came down harder than he would have liked when he set it back on the table; the telltale clack was a dead giveaway to his shaky hands, and he hated it. Still, if you heard anything, you made no indication - only passed back over to his side of the room, his helmet secure in your palms.

He caught it with his own before you could place it down; his fingers twitched where they brushed against yours. Callous on callous. Unfamiliar.

Brushing past the note in his thoughts, he squinted down at the helmet to inspect it for damage.

“Are you going to put it…” You stopped yourself. Inhaled shortly. Exhaled quick. “You don’t have a TBI. I’m pretty sure of it. But also it might be best to leave it for a bit, so you don’t aggravate your wounds putting it on.” Another brief pause. “It’s your choice, though. I can’t tell you what to do.”

He adjusted the weight of it in his hands; the motion he made to immediately conceal himself again fizzled out despite himself. He didn’t feel – right. Without the helmet. Felt too raw, exposed. The Red Hood was safer to stand behind, lent him the same assurance of a gun in his hand.

Because without the Red Hood, you’re Jason, said a wholly unhelpful part of him. And Jason is afraid.

Shut up. Jason shoved that train of thought away. Fear had no place here. And he certainly wasn’t scared of you, with your blindfold and careful movement.

He left the helmet off.

You’d sounded worried, anyway.

“Are you going to answer my question?” he asked at last.

“Who am I?” You shrugged, and gave him your name. Nothing about it seemed to be false. “It really doesn’t matter, though. I’m nobody.”

“In my experience…” Jason swallowed hard, adjusted his position to something slightly more alert with a slight hiss. “People who downplay their importance tend to come back up in ways I don’t like.”

You hummed thoughtfully.

“… Then in that case, I’m a civilian, although I’d bet it’s obvious. I have enough medical experience to have helped you, and I was inclined to, anyway.”

The way you canted your head, he got the feeling you meant to stare straight into his eyes. Pity that instead you mostly stared into the headboard. It worked out all the same, because when you spoke, it was with an earnestnest that discomfited him.

“A few months back, you saved my life, Red Hood. It seems only fair I return the favor now.”

It would have been a point of shame, maybe. In another time, far, far from this one. Another place. Used to be that every count of heroism was something he made a careful note of, something that brought a proud smile onto a face far too little to be prowling the streets with the Batman. The memory tasted like bile.

And yet somehow, the faintest note of shame still welled up in him, that he could not remember you.

“Right. Yeah.” Thanks. You’re welcome? What exactly was said, here?

“So, thank you for that,” you said, drawing his attention again. He watched a half-smile brush against your face. You were – strangely serene about it all. He didn’t know what to do.

As if sensing somehow sensing his crisis, you added (that smile broadening slightly):

“And, also, you’re welcome.”