Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first Jason hears of the new arrival on the scene is predictably ridiculous. He is in one of his cosier safehouses, healing off the consequences from a particularly nasty encounter with the Kingpin when Dick fucking Grayson of all clowns swings by.

The shock value of him coming in person, of breaking boundaries he so far hasn’t even stepped close to is the only thing that saves him from two bullets to centre mass.

“Oh, good,” Dick says, strangely relieved to have found him bed-bound. “That’s good. Looks old, too—Jaybird, I can’t tell you how glad I am to find you with—what, two broken legs and an injured spine?”

Jason—stupidly—barks a laugh. Dick is, appropriately, a dick, but he usually keeps it more or less contained. The amusement is quickly soured by concern. He does like to keep it contained, which means he isn’t now because he’s rattled. Off-balance. Even Jason would admit it takes a lot to rattle Greyson. “Are you—” Is he what? Okay? He’s an ex-Robin nutcase. He’s a pack of rabid weasels in a trench coat the same way Jason is, psychopathic tendencies excluded. “Shit, fuck, you knocked someone up, didn’t you? The world isn’t ready—How are you even fertile, who allowed that to happen—”

“I didn’t knock anybody up.” Yeah, okay, maybe look less deranged, then. Maybe don’t look as if you came here expecting to find—something bad, whatever that might be. There are many bad things Jason could become at any given point, a corpse being the least terrible one all things considered. “I was just—Fuck, it really is convenient you physically can’t move.”

A cold fear stabs into his spine at the same moment as insane wrath lights up his heart. “He didn’t—The Replacement is a hideous little brat but he can’t have killed him off so soon; he just got him—”

“Drake is fine,” Dick says, closing his eyes. “All—everybody is fine. Everybody you want fine is fine.”

Jason takes a moment to give his body space to chew through the sudden influx of crazy-making brain chemicals. “Fuck you,” he says with a hazy, dreamy voice. “I can’t take this. I am a gentle soul.”

Normally, this would instigate a nice, emotion-free banter. Normally, Dick would be a good sport about the fact Jason can’t handle life often and needs the outlet of bullshit and blood to syphon off the accumulated Pit-rot. Now, because something has happened and it’s big and personal, Dick flinches, eyes darkening with his version of crazy. “Someone killed the Joker,” he says, blunt and straightforward and pleased around the edges in a way he usually knows better than to acknowledge much less show. “Massacred him and his goons. Nobody was left alive. Nothing. No clues, no blood, no forensics. No guns, nerve-gas or poison either. Someone wanted it done up-close and personal.”

A strange but familiar static fills his ears, possibly to make up for the lack of crazy laughter that never really stopped rattling around his mind. Someone—

“You thought it was me?”

Dick shrugs. “Everybody thinks it was you,” he says. “I hoped it was you, even though smuggling you out of Gotham would be a nightmare. Hoped, except, you know, absolutely didn’t hope and was, in fact, dreading it with every fibre of my being. Yeah.”

Jason doesn’t laugh because he’s learned after repeated and never-ending panic attacks that mad laughter is off-limits to him, but he thinks this would be a perfect time for it. “Kingpin got his paws on me the other week,” he says, tongue slow and stupid in his mouth. “I barely crawled to Gotham and Ivy had to carry me here. I don’t even follow the gossip.”

“Well, that’s—Good. Maybe,” Dick says. “Probably. Nobody is mad about it, of course, even Bats, as frantic as he had been. It helps he was cutting up a cart of children to send back to their parents at the time, so. You know.”

Jason nods. He does know.

“I could try to get them to stay away,” Dick continues. “I won’t succeed, but—You don’t need to run, is all. I know Bats is—I know Bats, but he was very worried about you, underneath all the moralisin’.”

Jason nods again. He is still reeling from the idea of a Joker-less word far too much to worry about Bruce.

“You’re in shock, hey? Good, that’s good. You need all the help you can get because they are probably going to be here in minutes. So—don’t work through it any time soon.”

Other than the Bats, nobody quite believes that Jason wasn’t the one who finally had enough of whatever messed up courtship thing Bruce and the Joker had for each other. That’s fine, Jason doesn’t care—

Except he does care because lying is one sin he doesn’t enjoy. Typically, he doesn’t need to resort to such things. Who would he lie to? Who does Jason even talk to except bad guys he’s not allowed to kill?

Putting the word out doesn’t do much, and Jason is beginning to accept that this is simply how it’s going to go and resigns himself to more travelling. Ironically, this helps him out, because he’s not even on East Coast when the next exceedingly professional execution takes place. This time it’s Deathstroke, carefully dismembered, body-parts set in formaldehyde, possibly for identification purposes.

On one hand, this helps rehabilitate Jason’s image, as he was at that time more or less publicly dealing with a nasty clutch-cartel type thing in Louisiana. In the other hand, this upsets a lot of people, most of them being filthy hypocrites. Bruce, of course, has his usual hysterics about the sanctity of human life or whatever. The bad guys are swiftly getting reacquainted with the idea of mortality. Instead of a short trip to Arkham which more or less serves as a B&B for the criminally minded, terrorists can and could get summarily executed with no-one being the wiser.

Gotham spends a month in an unprecedented state of peace, while both the heroes and the villains do their best to comb through the city to find the new threat. Jason, who doesn’t concern himself with petty crime, catches up on a lot of missed sleep and training. He reads a few books. He goes for runs. He has a list of bakeries to visit, as recommended by Ms Svetlana who does the jam-filled buns near his safe house. It’s great.

It’s precisely during one of the walks that he comes across a most unusual scene.

“What—” How many of them are they? And how is the guy in front keeping them tame? Jason knows the types of strays that can survive a month in Gotham. How is a single man organising what looks to be a carpentry class out in a particularly fucked up courtyard-type thing in the middle of a city block, with thirty urchins giving him their full attention?

“—pay attention to  the grain of the wood—”

Real attention too, he notes. Not the type you give to placate a toff that will later be giving you money or food or whatever. Somehow, the strange man in the centre of the half circle, standing in front of a makeshift blackboard, has inspired respect in a bunch of street kids that would tear a man’s heart out just to watch it stop wiggling.

“—The type of blade is important here. We’re still in the beginning stages, so we won’t do much decorative carving. For now—”

Huh. Jason is, yeah, a little hooked, to be frank. There is something about the man’s deep, confident voice, accented while still decently clear. It makes him want to simultaneously sit down and pretend he’s a good boy and act up so he would get disciplined. Looking at the improbably large, calloused hands, he can’t say which he would prefer. Jason is a big guy, and the Pit made him bigger, but this hulking giant of a man makes him look slender. Delicate, even.

Somehow, he’s wandered into the crowd, near where the older teenagers watch. Like calls to like; they take one look at him and quietly make space. Judging how their eyes are lingering on similar areas of interest as Jason’s are, he’s not the only one whose daddy issues are writing out their opinions in big neon letters.

“—practical, but we will still need to work up to building a proper workshop. For now, we make do with recycling. So, we talked about this yesterday, but what is the first thing we do when choosing a bed frame to repurpose?”

“Locating any potential blood-stains,” the kids chorus.

“Very good! Why—Jack.”

The boy can’t be more than seven, and he already has several scars down his tiny face. To say nothing of the thick ropes of scar tissue around his neck that Jason can’t bring himself to think about. “Pa-tho-gens,” the boy carefully pronounces. “Human blood makes you sick, sometimes.”

“Exactly,” the stranger says, reaching into his pocket and throwing a—wooden token? At the boy? “What else—Iris?”

“Needles and such,” the girl says, through an audible lisp. “Adults who sleep in the junkyard sometimes hide things in the frame.”

Good Lord.

“Very good.” Another token flies through the air, landing in the girl’s arm with such precision, Jason is vaguely impressed. “Junkyards are a valuable source of goods, but come with downsides. Setting aside the fact they are located at inconvenient places, they are valuable for other people, too.”

“And people are the biggest danger,” the kids sing-song.

“Precisely. Alright, moving on, say we did find a bed-frame—As luck would have it, I have brought one along to serve as a teaching tool—”

Jason sits in the lecture for a full hour and a half, wondering at himself, the man and the world in general. During this time, the strange man only makes himself more bizarrely appealing, first by displaying his improbable strength—enhanced, he has to be—then by walking the children through the process of recycling the damn thing into a more or less useable piece of furniture—past the matters, of course.

“Lunch is waiting in the Den for any who would like to join me,” the stranger says, which is finally where alarm bells start ringing. He’s offering them food? He’s luring them to a secondary location with the promise of food? “Afterwards, we will continue the lesson.”

Well, now. That seems like something more his speed. Good thing he stayed—

“It’s legit,” says one of the teenagers next to him. “Whole deal. Sakumo—” What an odd name. Sah-koo-mooh. Sounds vaguely Japanese, only twisted in the boy’s Gothamite mouth. “—bought a couple of old warehouses and fixed ‘em up. Homeless folk stay there and he enforces the peace. It’s safe as anything.”

“Right, yeah, of course,” he says, not buying it for a Goddamn minute. “Sounds like just the thing. A legit homeless shelter in Gotham. Soup kitchen too, or what?”

“All the little ones get food, yes,” says the boy. “Everybody under twelve, and leftovers go for us older ones. The adults have to work.”

Huh. “Bullshit,” he says, a bit less certain somehow. Realities of living on the street in Gotham mean that the kids who live through the initial month get a good nose for the crazies. The kid looks sincere. He looks certain, too. That doesn’t mean the freak isn’t doing something shady, though, or that he hasn’t already mind-fucked the kids into going along with it.

“See for yourself,” shrugs the boy. “Anyone can come, as long as they play by the rules.”

“Maybe I will.”

“Cool, yeah. Be seeing you, then, Red Hood.”

Hold on—

“How the fuck,” Jason calls, outraged, but the kid has already scampered away with the rest of the cohort. “Perceptive little monsters—”

He does come and brings Dick along just in case. His nose isn’t as good as the kids possibly need him to be. The man—Sakumo—is obviously an enhanced of some sort. If he is messing with kids—

Only it’s not just kids. The group he saw, yeah, but hundreds of people are milling in and out of a building that looks to have been a warehouse once and is now the world’s ugliest palace.

No, really, he thinks, a little bit in love. It’s like a palace made from garbage. Most of this looks to be hand-made, but it would have taken a long fucking time? It would have to?

The walls are primarily made out of wood and metal, but there is enough fucked up glass there to make him think of those spiffy coloured glass cathedrals. In fact, the whole thing kind of made him think of a coked-up renaissance artist whose materials came exclusively from the junkyard. Jason isn’t an artsy guy, he doesn’t think, but the actual lines of the building are elegant if you look past the patchwork aspect of it and the overall lack of uniformity.

“What the fuck is this, Jaybird,” Dick says, looking about as dazed about the whole thing as he feels.

“Can’t say.” He doesn’t know where to look, honestly. It’s not the question of it being unfinished—how could you even finish something like this? “It’s apparently a homeless shelter.”

“Bet you a thousand bucks some pretentious asshole buys it and turns it into a hotel or a restaurant—”

“I have received offers,” comes the vaguely amused, deep voice of the teacher guy. Sakumo. “But I have not thus far been swayed by money.”

“How about a bullet to the head,” Jason thinks, fascinated. “That is a common method of property acquisition in this part of the world.”

“Similar methods have been tried,” Sakumo allows. “Again, without much success thus far. I suppose we will have to wait and see. Now, gentlemen—” The way he speaks is cute, Jason thinks, horrified. He is charming. The word gentlemen sounds a bit like genoh-teru-menu, but softer. Rounder. “—I suppose you are what passes for an inspection?”

Uh.

“Sorry, uh, Sir,” says Dick, who looks as confused about his shame as Jason feels. “We just heard there were homeless children here and thought to take a look around. You know how it is.”

“I do.” The clear grey eyes are friendly and calm and for some reason, the monster in Jason’s head shrieks danger. The feeling passes after a few moments, but he doesn’t think it was pure paranoia talking. “I am Sakumo Hatake. Please, come in. All are welcome in the Den, and there are no closed doors.” He shrugs. “Except to provide basic human privacy, even if we are working on that aspect. Communal living comes with its drawbacks. I will give you a quick tour, and then I’m off to teach my class on metallurgy one-oh-one.”

One oh one. Good Lord.

“Metallurgy,” Jason says weakly. “I see. I caught a little of the carpentry lesson.”

“I know,” Sakumo says, in that tone of voice Bruce has when he’s deep in his turf and at his most confident. “I hope you enjoyed it. This way, gentlemen, I do not have a lot of time.”

Nobody is surprised when the building checks out. Jason, a little belligerently, jacks up his paranoia and tears through the place. Between him and Dick, they turn over every stone, poke their nose into every nook and cranny and Dick even digs out a basic scanner to check for cameras.

It’s really only the fact that they’re locals that saves them from outright rebellion by the people living in and around the property. Them being who they are, however, means being around that many people chases them out as soon as they know for certain nobody is cooking meth or selling sex anywhere on the premises.

“Talk to me,” Jason squawks into the phone, so aggravated about everything he isn’t even upset about having to resort to Oracle for intel. “He is shady, yes? He has to be. Nobody is—Nobody is that.”

“I don’t know about shady,” Oracle says, sympathy coming across even through the tinny sound of the phone speaker. “A feel-good story. Hatake Sakumo, age forty. He is something of a celebrity. Not your circle, so I’m not surprised you don’t know.”

Celebrity?!

“A suspected victim of human trafficking,” she continues. “He was found in Chicago, a bit over five years ago. No memories, didn’t speak any English, no records of him anywhere. It was a bit of a mess, but in the end, he was granted asylum, when no outstanding warrants were found anywhere around the world.”

“Hah! Shady! I knew it!”

“Calm down. He cooperated with the police, stayed in lock-up as long as they asked and didn’t put a foot wrong. Stark personally ran his prints and ID and got nothing. They were thorough, what with the mutation.”

Dick perks up, a similar blend of vindictive pleasure the man was suspicious and shame they’re so eager about it. Yeah. Jason sure as fuck doesn’t know why this is all hitting him so personally.

“I checked too, at the time. Nothing. Stark thought he was legitimately trafficked. You know what happens to mutants in some places? We suspect he was from, say, rural China or Russia, and lived quiet. Doesn’t matter, in the end, or are you going to blame a man for not having an updated birth certificate, Jay?”

“Get fucked,” he says defensively. “It’s shady, alright. It has to be. He’s making a homeless shelter. In Gotham.”

“He also spent two years jumping through every free mental health program in America, became an internationally acclaimed artist, sold all his sculptures for a ludicrous sum of money and moved to Gotham to build what he calls the Den. He has the permits, Jay. He even has qualifications to be a counsellor.”

He has—“Permits? Like, what, construction permits?”

“Among other things. You can’t just build a homeless shelter—Never mind. Point is, he checks out.”

“They don’t even have electricity,” Dick says, voice dead. “Much less spyware. Any notes about his mutation?”

“Interestingly, he tried to register them, and the closest the government could do was to refer him to Stark. I watched some of his interviews. He is stronger and faster than the average human. Not a very impressive mutation, but useful for an artist I suppose.”

Right, yeah.

“Like fuck that is all he is,” Jason says and means it. “Gotham would have ground him into so much glittery dust.”

“I don’t see why you’re so fixated. He’s just a guy. Naive, maybe, but seems to be doing a good thing, or trying to, at least.”

“You’ll have to forgive us,” Dick says. “We’re still reeling. Swear to Jesus, if he put on a pair of glasses and rolled up his sleeves, I’d have probably swooned.”

“Well, I can tell you he swings both ways and is the free-thinking type, so shoot your shot I guess. Just try not to make a bigger target out of him than he already is.”

Umm. “How, exactly do you know this?”

“Excuse you, I know everything. Now stop wasting my time, if you would? Ta’.”

Because Jason is Jason and he never once learned to leave a thing alone, he went back. Because Bruce is Bruce, he found him lurking around the neighbourhood, setting up monitoring equipment.

“You too, huh?”

“Red Hood,” Batman says in that stupid growl of his that sounded so cool when he was twelve and now just made him roll his eyes. What a theatre kid, honestly. Jason never even went to high school and he is getting flashbacks.

“I understand he is legit,” he preservers because Bruce is annoying, but he has good intel. If he’s suspecting Sakumo—

“He is. I am setting up equipment for when he inevitably gets kidnapped.”

Right. Yes. That’s—a thing that will happen.

“How come it hadn’t happened yet?”

“I understand he has a licensed firearm and some martial arts training.”

Good God. “What, like, capouera?”

Batman doesn’t reply. Judging by the fact Jason turned his back on him for longer than two seconds probably means—Yep. He’s gone.

“What a fucking asshole,” he sighs. “You hear me,” he repeats, louder and more obnoxious because he knows Bruce is well within hearing range. “I hope it rains. I hope your stupid cape gets soggy and unpleasant and doesn’t swish at all, just sticks to the back of your thighs and twists around your ankles.”

It’s welding today, Jason thinks, this time armed with a giant paper bag full of piroshki because he’s not a fucking animal. He has a little blow-torch and has braided his long ash-blonde hair back and looks like every authority figure that Jason never managed to impress.

“Well shit,” he says to the group of teenagers sitting in the back, oogling the teacher.

“You should have seen him on Sunday,” says the teenager after having snagged a pastry. “He set up a forge. Proper forge. He had a leather apron on. His hair got damp with sweat. I thought I was having a stroke.”

“Is somebody filming this?” They have to be. “Surely, someone is making money selling all this to competence kink monthly or whatever.”

“Step on my throat daddy dot com would pay a lot,” hums another teenager. “Christ.”

Because Jason has stepped into some version of a teenage flick, the group around him starts giggling which earns them a patient look from teacher that makes Jason want to bite.

“This is too much,” he declares. “I am but a weak mortal man. Good luck, kids.”

Chapter Text

As it happens, Jason is nearby when word reaches him there is trouble at the Den. Serious trouble.

All trouble is Jason’s trouble, but serious trouble most of all. He pushes his bike to truly unwise speeds for an urban environment and arrives in time to watch one Sakumo Hatake weave around a hail of bullets with far too much grace, all the while mowing through gang members like it’s the easiest thing in the world. It’s—

It’s art is what it is. It’s a brutal, animalistic show of savagery that isn’t a thing that’s possible. Stark’s AI battles are kind of like that, he thinks, dazed. It’s not just that he moves fast, he moves wrong but beautiful, using his body like he is keeping every muscle in his active memory. No—That’s not—It’s not wrong, just not like a human would think to move, even if they had such absolute control over themselves. He is never where he should be, somehow both knowing where they think he will be and then carefully not being there, all the while using everything around him as a weapon.

What kind of a mind does he have, that can achieve this level of efficiency? Competence, Jason thought when he saw him carving and welding and smithing. This is competence. This is—He doubts there could be a more optimal execution of slaughter by a bipedal mammal than what he’s seeing right this second. Every move of his arm achieves ten things, without sacrificing speed, flow or originality. How, even—

Jason is wholly superfluous, he realises as he slinks over to the nearby teenager who is, surprise surprise, live-streaming everything.

“How long—”

“Maybe ten minutes,” the kid says, in that typical Gotham sort of voice that suggests he is too accustomed to violence to acknowledge the mortal terror his body is telling him he should be feeling. “Oh, wow, Red Hood. Cool. Big fan.”

Jason sighs. “Point that thing back to the smackdown, kid. No court in the world will convict him for it, but I’m sure it can’t hurt to spread the word, yeah?”

“This isn’t for the cops,” the kid says, voice thick with cynicism. “This is an application form for the Avengers or some shit.”

Huh.

“You know,” Jason says, not at all certain where this sudden insight is coming from, “I kind of doubt it.”

The cops do come—just in time for Sakumo to have taken out the last thug—and take his Goddamn statement. Jason watches it all unfold from a nearby rooftop and doesn’t even know what to think. He didn’t do anything illegal. Guys came after him, guns blazing. He didn’t even have a weapon on him.

When his phone rings, he actually picks up, that’s how bizzaro this whole hour has been.

“You watching this?”

“Sure am Jaybird. They were traffickers and smugglers. Wanted some of the kids. When the guy wouldn’t cooperate, they sent a warning squad.”

Warning. “He’s so warned, oh my God is he warned.”

“Mm. Already trending everywhere. This is about the time recruiting starts happening. Both good and bad.”

Hah. “I am honestly looking forward to it.”

“So, are you splitting,” Jason asks because the joys of delayed gratification never properly revealed themselves thus far. “Will we be seeing you in news clips wearing a snazzy costume with a catchy name like, I don’t know, Bolt or something?”

“I am precisely where I want to be,” Sakumo says, over the din of the hundreds of homeless kids sorting through the heaps of trash they dragged over. “Law enforcement took my statement and informed me I am not at this time charged with a crime, as all available evidence points to self-defence.”

Uh-huh. “And when the recruitment starts amping up? You have a lot of vulnerable kiddies here, colloquially known as hostages.”

Sakumo shrugs, not so much as flicking a lash in Jason’s direction. “I will handle things as they develop. Overall, I can’t see how that specific scenario should factor into my decisions. People who come here are already at risk of such things.”

True. Harsh but true. “Ouch,” Jason says, voice hollow with disbelief. “What, no moral quandaries? Worries? Thoughts about keeping a secret identity to protect vulnerable people around you who cannot protect themselves?”

“What a very specific set of hypothetical questions, young master,” Sakumo says. “Are you, perhaps, projecting?”

Jason looks the man up and down, takes in the wide set of his shoulders, the chiselled jaw, deep, confident voice and biceps that could bench a truck, and sighs deep and heartfelt. “It had occurred to me, wonder of wonders. Very well, then. Go on—recycling?”

“We are creating a new stained glass panel, yes. My companions are collecting lead, copper and glass.”

“Lovely,” he sighs. “Very wholesome. Call before you murder a whole lot of gangsters next time so I can get a front-row seat, yeah? Watching a stream would just not be the same.”

“I understand murder is by definition a crime,” Sakumo says, sounding almost terminally bored. “I was defending myself and my property. If you watch the recording you will have heard I warned them repeatedly of what the consequences will be if they insist on their foolishness.”

Foolishness, he thinks, morose. Like Batman and Alfred, all rolled into one environmentally conscious snack. If he calls him young man Jason might be physically unable to stop his knees from buckling. They will revolt and they would be right to do so because clearly Jason has betrayed the Party interests and should be shot for the sake of progress and the glorious future. Or something. His internal monologues are getting concerningly peculiar. “Right you are, good sir. Right you are.” Good grief.

“Hey, so—The guy. Sakumo. He definitely killed the Joker, right? You’ve seen the clips.”

Bruce, immersed in his Batman bullshit, only glowers at him.

“I mean, I guess I’m glad you’re this chill about it, only the memo about it being a-okay now to go around slitting people’s throats hasn’t reached me yet, so I thought I should take this time to lodge a complaint.”

“He didn’t do it.”

Jason nods, keeping his cool very admirably all things considered. “Sure, yeah. It’s all a coincidence, is it? A new guy moves to Gotham that fights like a Goddamn dream just around the time someone starts mincing up bad guys. Big old coincidence.”

“It wasn’t Hatake.”

Right. Well, this had been very useful.

“I don’t know, Jaybird. Bats is certain it wasn’t him, and you know how pernickety he is about these things. I think it’s just your masochistic tendencies that are fucking you up by trying to make the guy even hotter than he is, somehow.”

Fucking—“

“Listen, so, you killed the Joker that one time, right? I know people are being obtuse about it, but honestly. How obvious do you need to be?”

Sakumo gives him a patient oh it’s you look that Jason has become accustomed to over the weeks he’s been badgering the man. “Several people have confirmed my whereabouts at the time of the crime. I understand CCTV footage was pulled. Unless you think I have figured out a way to be at two places at the same time, I am afraid you will have to look elsewhere.”

Jason bites his cheek hard to stop himself from biting something else that he would enjoy more in the brief moments he’d have left to him. “Body double,” he says.

Sakumo blinks at him, slow and unconcerned. It was a bit of a shot in the dark, to be fair. Who would he even find to play him? Surely there couldn’t be more people who look like that? That type of genetic lottery only happens once in a generation.

“I know it was you,” he says, after a beat. “I don’t know how or why, but I know it was you.”

“Very good. Now if you would excuse me—”

“Yes, yes, the wood carving lesson. It’s not like I won’t be there.”

The small sigh that comes out of that perfectly biteable throat is a balm on Jason’s soul. “I do sometimes think about the previous instructors who had the pleasure of having you in their class during your rebellious, teenage phase.”

Hah! “Look at all this crazy and trust that you do not want to know about how I spent my impressionable teenage years, Teach,” he says, grinning wide and honest.

Unexpectedly, instead of a long-suffering twitch of an eyebrow, the comment causes something in Sakumo’s expression to sharpen with intent. “Is that so?”

Jason finds himself torn balancing with his fight or flight impulse, which he knows will inevitably tip into fight. Say what you will about his particular set of circumstances but the few lessons it teaches, it teaches well.

“Young gentleman should sit closer to the front,” Sakumo says abruptly, sharp eyes still cataloguing irrespective of any verbal deflection. “I could use a second pair of hands, and most of my audience is too young to be repurposed for teaching assistants.”

“Not a chance in Hell, Teach,” he says, and runs away. The first clever thing he did all month, probably.

Somehow, some-fucking-how, the Den not only survives its first month, it stands proud and more grotesque and beautiful by the day. Press tries to interview Sakumo, which is just about the funniest thing in the world because he has no compunctions about throwing them to the wolves, or in this case, a judgmental crowd of homeless kids who are territorial about the glittery trash palace they found. All but the most rabid reporters slink off in shame, and Sakumo shames them personally.

“I have no interest in you,” he says, displeased fatherly energy dense enough to cut diamond. “You are treating a project of communal care as a circus act. It is disrespectful and I don’t need to entertain it or you.”

“Just a few questions, Mister Hatake, just a few questions. As a formerly homeless man yourself, is this a way of giving back?”

For a long moment, Jason considers the guy won’t make it out of there alive. Then again, the children will find a way to repurpose and recycle his carcass somehow, so that’s alright.

“Remarkably, you are correct,” Sakumo says, after a brief pause. “I am impressed with your insight. When I woke up, I had no worth. I didn’t speak your language, I didn’t have any funds, contacts or useful skills. And yet, the community sheltered, fed and healed me. I was freely offered knowledge, wisdom and care, without any demands that such generosity be reciprocated. Naturally, I now seek to teach as I have been taught and provide as I have been provided for. Thank you for asking, Master Reporter.”

And that shut him up. It would be a hard man indeed who could continue being a sleazy dickbag after that—and Jason doesn’t doubt the reporter isn’t capable of it, but—There is no reason to, is there? He got his soundbite, Jason would stake both his arms it will go viral in an hour. Why debase himself further?

“Will the young gentleman be joining us,” Sakumo says in Jason’s direction, and he finds himself scurrying after him with the children. What a time to be alive.

“So, now that you are even more of a celebrity and we all know you killed the Joker, why aren’t you training your little army?”

Muscles ripple down Sakumo’s back, which, okay, and he exhales a long, careful breath, gets his foot off the pedal and turns his way, half-made clay pot left to slowly come to a stop. Jason’s blood starts rushing through his body. It’s not often he gets Sakumo’s full attention. It’s actually really fucking rare he does.

“Nobody except you even accused me of having so much crossed paths with mass-murdering terrorist known as the Joker. That is number one.”

They’re just talking and Jason is getting dizzy with adrenaline. Not surprising as such; his issues have issues and all of them stem directly from older, unknowable men. Sakumo is giant, mysterious and dangerous. Most importantly, Sakumo is always in control of himself. Always. You don’t get to that stage if you aren’t worried about what could come out if you aren’t vigilant.

“Number two, I am a law-abiding citizen. All my firearms are registered. All my paperwork is filed, and my tax obligations are fulfilled. I do not appreciate a suggestion of unlawful or immoral behaviour.” Huh. It seemed Jason stopped on a toe, here. Teach is getting tetchy.

“Number three, I do not have any wish whatsoever to teach children violence. None. I am teaching them useful things that will help them grow and develop. I am teaching them to create. I will not be teaching them how to destroy. They know enough about that already.”

“An argument can be made that they need to be alive to create,” Jason says, cocking his head. There is a fair chance that he will get punched in the face soon, and the very idea sends delight stabbing down the back of his neck, pooling in his belly. “Nobody saves anybody, Teach. Gotham is no place for fairy stories.”

“There are worse things than a murdered child,” Sakumo says, lips tilting in a gentle, soft smile. “A brainwashed child murderer is one such thing. Children murdering each other is another.”

Jason blinks. Breathes. Tries to stop his hands from shaking. This is swiftly moving towards a fight he won’t win, and he’s here for it. “Fuck you with your worse,” he says. “If a kid has to kill to live, they sure as fuck shouldn’t lose any sleep over it.”

“We’re not talking about a killing, young master. We are talking about murder. Any person who tries to twist the pain of my charges into something they consider useful will be stopped with any tools I have available.”

Huh. That child army comment hit something personal, didn’t it? Come to think of it, if the red haze falling down his eyes is any indication, it hit something personal in Jason, too. “Kids who don’t know how to fight, die,” he repeats. Don’t shout. Don’t shout. “Not teaching them how to survive isn’t noble. Keeping knowledge and skills from them that would stop some maniac from—” Easy, Todd. “That is not good or just or moral. It is just cowardly.”

Sakumo’s clay pot is a floppy, drooping blob, but the man pays it no mind. He doesn’t stand to loom over Jason—which is good, it would have made him see red—but there is nothing but steel in his face. “Notice how you didn’t ask me to train the adults,” he says, voice quiet and mean. “Because you know they know better. They understand what you are asking them to do. When you put a weapon in the hands of a mother or a father, they know how much killing costs. But children—you can get a child to do anything. They will thank you for it. They will love you for it. And they won’t grow out of it, either. You have a loyal monster for life.”

For the first time since he died, Jason hears the ghostly echo of mad laughter bouncing around his skull. He is breathing steadily because violence is imminent and you can’t afford to get winded this early in the game, but the rest of it—“What a sweet, noble sentiment. And if it is your child—”

“I’d rather kill my son myself than place him in the hands of those who would teach him to kill on command,” Sakumo says. The tone with which he says it—It’s—It’s meaningful. He isn’t moralising, he is testifying.

Well, tough, because Jason isn’t talking out of his ass either. “Oh, gee, I guess that answers the question if you have any kiddies running around. I imagine you ran out quick—”

Just like that, he’s got a hand wrapped around his throat, back slamming into the wall. He swings—Nothing. One arm is pinned in place with his elbow, the other with his arm. His legs—Nah, nothing, not even a twitch. Useless mutation his fucking foot—

“Do not. Try to hurt me with my son’s life. Do not.” The words are spoken straight into his ear and the extra adrenaline from the tight but not immediately deadly grip on his throat makes them land that much more powerfully. “I have treated you with respect. Try to turn my charges into soldiers, and I will be forced to stop. Now, little boy, I suggest you spend some time considering that many people in many places have lived lives exponentially more challenging than yours, and they did so with grace and bravery. Think about it and go away.”

Just like that, Jason is flung good ten meters across the yard, much to the shock of everybody present.

“Do not challenge me in my space, child,” Sakumo says, possibly thinking Jason is going to do something dumb.

Which, yeah, he’s thinking about it, but it’s not even clear to him if he wants to get the man’s hands on his throat again or punch him in his fucked up head. Man. He—did not see this coming. He knew Sakumo was dangerous. He knew he was capable of breathtaking violence, but he thought—He thought he was a Steve Rogers or a Hawkeye. Capable of savagery when defending the weak, but otherwise bound by whatever stories they tell themselves. He—This—

“My bad, Teach,” he croaks. It doesn’t even hurt to say, that’s how bad he wants to be let back. “That was a dick move.”

“It was,” is the even reply. “I have already given you my instructions. You are not welcome back until you fulfil them.”

Okay. Okay, calm. He’s going to get hard here, in front of God and Jesus and everyone. “Gotcha.”

“Hey so Jay, I was thinking—Whoa, buddy-bud, what’s this—”

“Talked some shit,” he says, obsessively tracing the purple marks, already mourning how quickly they will fade. “Word to the wise. Do not tell Hatake that his kids are dead because he wasn’t brave enough to teach them how to fight.”

Dick stares at him, eyes blank, with none of that performative expressiveness he does when he wants to be cute or disarming. “Jesus Christ, Jay.”

“Yeah.” Man. “Pinned me to the wall by my throat. Growled in my ear. I barely made it out of there without having to ask him for a cold shower.”

“I am concerned.” He doesn’t look concerned. He looks like he is slowly filling up with dread. Dick is more or less in Jason’s shoes, though. He knows some topics are—charged. “You wanted him to teach the homeless kids.”

“Mm. We had a philosophical disagreement, you could say. I was right, of course, but I can see that, whatever his damage is, it’s at least as toxic as mine is.”

“Just what we needed,” sighs Dick. “More tragic backstories. C’mon, let’s go and figure out a good grovelling gift. Something sustainable—Maybe a big set of compost bins?”

Chapter Text

Jason’s earnest attempt at grovelling is interrupted by Sakumo Goddamn Hatake tracking him down, while he’s browsing through a flea market with Dick, trying to find something appropriately hideous and environmentally friendly.

“I would like to apologise if you would hear it,” he says, stiff and uncomfortable and solid.

For a long, bizarre moment, Jason is pretty sure he’s experiencing some sort of a psychotic break. It was bound to happen eventually, he thinks, gaping. His mental stability was never anything to write home about, and clawing his way out of his own grave didn’t help matters much. If anything he expected it would happen sooner. The only discrepancy is that his mind is never this kind. He thought that once he finally succumbed to the inevitable, it would all be blood and screaming and ghosts.

“Fuck you,” he says, entirely on automatic and then scrambles to say anything else, when Sakumo’s expression closes further and he starts retreating. “No, wait, what? I didn’t mean. What?”

“I—Do not follow,” Sakumo says. “Do you want me to leave?”

“Hey, Jay—Okay, no, you know what, I think I see a crate of hummus over there that looks really promising. As you were, gentlemen.”

Well, Jason thinks, as he’s watching Dick vanish into the crowd with all the speed he can manage, at least this means he’s not hallucinating. That’s something.

“What is this about,” Jason finally says, blinking.

Sakumo stands his ground, which is not surprising. “I put my hands on you,” he says, smoke-grey eyes flickering over the handprints on Jason’s neck and wrist. “No matter what was said, I betrayed the rules of hospitality and respect. I was wrong and I regret doing it. I apologise.”

“You—” Alright, Todd, calm down. “I know what I said, Teach. I suspected it would earn me a punch to the teeth. If anything, you were conservative—”

“I disagree,” Sakumo says. “I spoke to my therapist and confirmed what I already knew to be true. I betrayed your trust. If you choose not to accept my apology, that is reasonable and I will respect it.”

For a long, strange moment, Jason is struck with the urge to whine his confusion and maybe hide his face in the soft underside of Sakumo’s jaw. “What would—You realise I’d have punched right back if—”

That was a wrong thing to say, he knows before it’s out of his mouth. The sharp edges of Sakumo’s expression shatter further. “If I hadn’t stopped you,” he says, voice jagged. “If I hadn’t prevented you from defending yourself. If I hadn’t decided to use my strength to quiet your voice and overwrite it with my own.”

What the fuck is even happening, anymore? “I think you’re taking this a little too seriously, Teach,” Jason says cautiously. “I talked shit and got smacked for it. Plus, I mean, not to be crass about it or whatever—” He is really pushing it. Surely, after a certain point, the Universe wills start up a punishment protocol for statements of outrageous hypocrisy. “But I would do a lot of unwise things to get your hands on my throat again.”

Something pained flashes over Sakumo’s face. Not pained as in ‘the nightmare brat is at it again’, which is absolutely what Jason is going for. No, this is—real upset, he thinks. “I am not a man who is capable of anger and care at the same time, Jason.”

Jason. He called him Jason. He knows his name. Sakumo knows Jason’s name. He knows who Jason is—

“I don’t know what we’re talking about anymore,” he says honestly. “But, uh. Apology accepted or whatever. Don’t—Don’t worry about it.”

“I have to worry about it,” Sakumo says, still oddly pained. “I should worry about it. But I am grateful for your patience with me. I am trying to be better. I am learning.”

Jesus fucking Christ. “Alright. This is—Too much. Come on, we’re only here so I can find a grovelling gift for you, so you might as well pick something now.”

“I do not think young master—”

“Jason.” Huh. That was too revealing. Too honest. Grey eyes sharpen on him again, and Jason isn’t sure he is breathing correctly. “You called me Jason. Before.”

“Was it presumptuous of me?”

He is definitely not breathing correctly. How is he supposed to do so when a man like that whose marks he is still wearing on his skin like jewellery is treating him like he is something to be careful with? When he’s apologising for hurting him, even though he didn’t, even a little—“You can call me whatever you want,” he says, instead. That was too revealing as well, but better than anything else he could think of. “But Jason would be good.” Nobody calls him by his name, really. Dick comes closest. It’s not like he made it a rule; he’s not hiding who he is. It just—happened like that.

“Thank you, Jason,” Sakumo says gravely. “To circle back to my earlier point, I don’t think you have anything to apologise for. We spoke harsh words to each other and treated each other unkindly, but that is allowed. You didn’t attack me, even when you were angry enough to want to. You need not apologise.”

“Look, Teach—”

“Sakumo.”

Jason swallows twice in short succession. Pull yourself together. You’ve been around pretty people. Bruce raised you in one life and Talia in the next. Were you ever so tongue-tied around them?

No, whispers the bitchy voice that always gets him into trouble. But they never apologised for anything, much less anything that mattered. Nobody ever apologised—

Good grief, like this matters?

“Right, yeah, Sakumo. You gotta—” What was he even going to say? “I get physical violence is a boundary for you and all that.” Where is this even coming from? Did he spend too much time around Sakumo already, and picked up some of his vocab? “But it’s not for me. So. Words will always cut deeper than a nice, clean fist to the face.”

“Hmm.” Sakumo cocks his head and looks at him. Properly looks, up and down and left and right, cataloguing his fucking body like he’s appraising horseflesh. Jason locks his knees and holds steady like a Goddamn champion. “I see that we have arrived on the shores of an impasse. So, how about a compromise? I will humbly accept whatever apology you deem appropriate and in return, I offer to teach you how to fight.”

“Excuse you, I already know how to fight,” Jason says, then realizes what his fool mouth is about to rob him of, and back-pedals as quickly as he can. “But yeah. Yes. That sounds—Good?”

“I look forward to it,” Sakumo says.

Does he?

When in doubt, brazen it out. “Don’t get upset when I wipe the floor with your pretty face, Teach.”

Sakumo’s smile grows a pitying edge which is absolutely deserved. “Jason,” he says, lip dipping into a smirk, “if you land so much as a single hit in the first month, I will buy you a new bike.”

Gifts. That man is talking about presents and incentives and fighting. This will be trickier than he thought. He thinks about saying something obvious like just getting to touch you is reward enough which is true but not, maybe, the most expedient way to get to what he wants. Even a lunatic like Jason can spot a complex the size of Texas when he’s looking at it. Whatever Sakumo’s deal with sex and violence is, it’s not going to go away easily.

“Done,” he says, instead.

“Thank you. Do you want to reunite with your companion that has been eavesdropping on us for the last fifteen minutes?”

You played yourself, Todd, he thinks, several days later, as he’s laying on his back, exhausted to the point of infirmity, staring at the gloomy sky and trying to get a wisp of control over anything at all. You played yourself bad.

“We are finished for today, I think,” Sakumo says, picking him up like a lion scruffing a sleeping cub. Not a lion, he thinks, staring muzzily at the slightly too-sharp eyeteeth and grey eyes that sometimes appear to glint yellow. A wolf. “I will assist you through your stretches today, but your stamina will improve soon enough that you will be able to pace yourself better.”

Thankfully, Jason’s mind stalls right at the start of this outrageous statement, so he dumps the whole thing to the back of his mind and decidedly doesn’t think. Doesn’t think when Sakumo cheerfully—platonically—manipulates his body through an agonising set of stretches that do horrible things to his abused muscles. Doesn’t think when he all but carries him into a bathroom and gives him a set of his clothes to change into. Doesn’t think when he’s hustled off to a room that is, quite possibly, Sakumo’s bedroom, sat down on a giant cushion and given a protein shake to gulp down.

“I considered taking you to the communal rooms, but you don’t strike me as the type of man who likes to have strangers nearby when you are vulnerable.”

“Who’s vulnerable,” he slurs, dazed.

“Nobody, nobody. Eat your shake. Your body fat index is concerning me. When you’re done, I need to look over some things.”

Some things happen to be Jason’s body and all the scars, burns, breaks and injuries that healed badly. Jason is—Jason doesn’t know what he is these days but a baseline human is not one of them. He doesn’t think about things like physio and maintenance and hospitals. He heals off whatever bullet or wound or sledgehammer happened and immediately forgets about it. His body, he reasoned, survived death by crowbar and the subsequent burial—and the Pit, of course. It can damn well shrug off anything else.

“Some of this is limiting your function,” Sakumo says, while casually moving Jason’s leg about with one arm, while the other is pressed tight to his skin to keep track of muscle contraction.

Jason’s mind buzzes oddly, eyes blinking too often. It’s not—It’s not even a little erotic or suggestive. Sakumo’s touch and expression are professional and clinical. Impersonal. Jason didn’t count objectification as one of his kinks, but fuck if he isn’t recalibrating in real-time. “Umm.”

“Scars are a natural consequence of your work,” Sakumo continues, shifting his leg to the side and straightening it, palm curved over his knee, then under it. “But they are also points of weakness. You should consider removing this damage.”

Jason gives up, tilts his head back and stares at the ceiling. “Yeah, no, totally. Will get right on it. Yeah.”

“That would be wise. You also have several concerning misalignments in your muscles. I can fix that presently if you would allow me?”

Like an idiot, Jason nods, not really paying attention to anything that isn’t the hot press of a palm on the back of his thigh. He’s not even naked—he’s wearing loose shorts and a soft, loose t-shirt—and Sakumo is fully dressed, but—Yeah. What’s a man to do, when a man like Sakumo is kneeling between his spread legs, touching his thigh?

“Excellent. I will get the supplies. If you would remove your shirt and lay down on the cot, I will be back presently.”

Jason sighs. Why not? Why not, at this point?

“Mngh,” he says, as encouragingly as he can.

“Yes, that was an unpleasant knot. At least it will stop bothering you going forward.”

“Nffp,” Jason agrees. “Trrmp.”

“Your centre o gravity is a bit lower than I am accustomed to in men,” Sakumo continues, voice light and casual, like he isn’t talking about Jason’s unusually big ass. “As such, a lot of the misalignment is focused around the middle of your back. We are nearly finished, but—”

He twists his fingers somehow, digging into the muscles on either side of Jason’s spine and pressing down and in. A strangled whine builds in his throat that he is far too pleasure-drunk to do anything about. Jason’s had massages before. He’s even had the fun sort. This brutal show of proficiency—He isn’t even surprised Sakumo is more competent in Jason’s body than Jason is, that much was more or less certain from the start, but he is shocked by how it plays out in this particular circumstance.

“Just a bit more,” Sakumo hums, digging in, sending lightning sparks of pleasure and pain straight into Jason’s gibbering mind. “You really should take better care of your body, Jason. Self-care is an essential part of any warrior’s routine.”

“Bmpfg” Very eloquent. “Hhhhht.” Yeah, okay. His whole body is vibrating, he’s sweating like a pig, and his vision is blurry. What does this maniac expect from him?

“Almost there—” He twists his fingers further, hooks out a wounded yelp from deep in Jason’s belly, and—And his body suddenly sags, relaxed and euphoric, muscles smoothing over, purring and loose. His muscles feel neat, like Sakumo plucked them out one by one, untangled whatever unholy mess they had been in and slowly placed them back as they should have been.

“I think that is enough for today.”

For today?!

“I have removed the worst of the snags in your upper- and middle-back. Lower back and arms we can do in a couple of days, and legs we should leave for last because I never would have guessed it was even possible to have knots like that and still be able to walk.”

Jason, for once in his life, doesn’t have the strength or the inclination to argue. He is but a puddle of relief and light. He is a neat little bundle of sensation suspended in air and the state of his mortal shell concerns him not at all.

“There is a glass of water and electrolytes next to the cot. You should drink it when you compose yourself. Also, a washcloth and a basin for the oil. I will be waiting downstairs.”

Whatever Dick spots on his face when he’s walking home later that day, it makes him double-take and stare.

“Jaybird—Oh, wow. Are you high? What happened? ”

Jason shrugs and stops to marvel at how light his body feels. He didn’t even notice all the tension he carried before, but he sure as fuck notices their absence. “Not high. Got a massage,” he says. Slurs a little. “I feel so good. Like—floaty.”

“Okay. Alright. I can see why he called me.” Dick scurries forward, eyebrows knitting together. “Are you alright? Why are you out here when you’re this loopy? Did he—Did something happen to make you run?” 

“Didn’t,” he says. “Got too much. Too nice. Jumped out of the window. Had to clear my head.”

“Oh, you sweet lil’ lamb. You caused a little bit of a commotion, but that’s probably for the best. Serves him right for overwhelming you.”

Jason continues slowly rolling his shoulders, delighting in the soft, warm tingles it sends down his back and through his spine.

“Well, all is well that ends well. Lemme just give him a quick call before he tracks me down and stakes me through the eyes.”

Who? “Sakumo?” He frowns a little. He could, of course. He’s more than capable. But Sakumo likes Dick, he’s pretty sure.

“Don’t worry about it, Jay. Let’s just walk straight alright? On foot in front of the other, work with me a little, I absolutely don’t have the body mass to carry you.”

“So, wait,” he says, some hours later, a bit less high on strange new endorphins. “Sakumo called you?”

“Mm. He was worried.” Dick’s lips twitch, but he looks a little restless. “Wasn’t sure he would be welcome. Why is that, again? Did something happen I don’t know?”

Hah. “He is a fucking animal,” Jason says, leaning forward. “I thought—Red Hood, right? Many people trained me. Some people would say I’m pretty good, right? Wrong. I couldn’t even—He wasn’t even winded. And then he started teaching. I was never this outclassed in my life. Not once.”

Dick flaps a vague hand. “Yes, yes. Very competent. Very impressive. Anything else? You were acting crazy, Jay.”

“Then,” Jason continues, a little disbelieving at his own memories. “Then he led me through stretches. I couldn’t move a muscle, and he—He stretched me. Like, physically moved my body to stretch out my limbs and muscles.”

Dick’s eyes sharpen. “See, that is the part I am interested in. That doesn’t sound good, you realise?”

“If only,” Jason sighs. “He was a perfect gentleman. Didn’t even—Nothing. Not even a hint. Stark’s AI would have looked at me with more arousal.”

“Alright.” Dick exhales a breath and closes his eyes. “That’s good. I really wasn’t looking forward to losing that particular fight. Alright. So he felt you up but didn’t feel you up?”

“And then— as if that was everything. If only. “—Then he put me face down on a cot and gave me a massage. Upper and mid-back. It was—I legit blacked out a few times. My whole body is tingling.”

“A massage.” Dick blinks a few times. “I’ve had massages, Jaybird. They don’t—”

“You haven’t,” Jason cuts in. “You might as well forget about all that shit. In fact, start thinking about things to bribe him with. It’s transcendental. I don’t know if his mutation lets him feel things better or intuit shit or what but—I never felt this good. Never. Even before, you know.”

For a long moment, Dick is quiet, fingers digging into his temples as if he could knead out the headache. “So—alright. He kicked your ass and massaged your shoulders and you ran because a big, buff bear of a man was too nice for too long and you couldn’t stand it.”

“Basically,” Jason sighs. “Why he called you still escapes me, but otherwise you have the picture of it.” It’s beyond bizarre to spend this time around other people. Typically, he talks to Nightwing once a month, and less if there is no need. Now, they talk in person at least once every couple of days. And—yeah, Jason can’t say he minds. Strange. So strange.

“You escaped from the window of his bedroom, Jay,” Dick says patiently. “He thought he crossed a line and didn’t want you to think—Honestly, I wasn’t that nice about it, either. I’ll have to apologise.”

For a long minute, Jason is torn and then he loses it and bursts into incredulous laughter. “Are you—Are you policing my virtue?”

Dick looks him straight in the eye and hitches an eyebrow. “Sure am. I wouldn’t enjoy sniping him from a long way away but I would if I had to.”

“Trust me,” Jason says through a long, wistful sigh. “Getting that man to fuck me will be a lengthy and bloody battle, but I have hopes I will outlast him if nothing else.”

Chapter Text

Things progress like this for several long, impossible months. Jason runs missions—tame things, now that the big bads have decided to lay low for a bit—gets back, mopes in a random safehouse until his stupid pride would fuck off and go to the Den. He’s not in classes much, not since his classes started happening, and recovery became an issue.

Honestly, he doesn’t even blame himself for how much of a lap dog he’s become. He really doesn’t. There does not exist in the world, a mind that could withstand this level of conditioning and stay true. Jason is instructed by a man that looks like a fertility God of old. He is taught how to move and fight and kill. Sakumo is professional but he is hands-on. If Jason doesn’t understand a move, Sakumo would manually move his body as he wants it. If Jason still doesn’t understand—because Jason’s mind often short-circuits at those times—Sakumo would demonstrate the move himself at one-hundredth speed, while narrating how every relevant muscle and joint is moving. If Jason is supremely lucky, he would agree to remove the appropriate piece of clothing that is obstructing the view. It doesn’t do much to help Jason learn, but it is one Hell of a carrot—and a stick, come to think of it because the threat of the View being taken away is absolutely incentive to think and focus and pay attention.

Then, the recovery and, thus, real conditioning, begins. Nothing in Jason’s life prepared him to go from adrenaline-fight-move-run to gentle-fuzzy-warm-soft. No, really, he’s developing a bit of a complex, maybe, or an addiction or something. He never thought of himself as particularly weak to pleasure, never searched it out much, but he can accept it, like this, if it’s wrapped in a shell of utility and function. He can get over himself and enjoy the feeling of loose, humming muscles and the layer of fluff in his mind protecting his self from all the horror. It’s not just hedonism. It’s not just indulgence. Jason’s body is improving at a, frankly, staggering speed.

He hasn’t had a formal instructor he trusted not to slit his throat out of boredom since Bruce, and he was an itty-bitty thing then. Sakumo, somehow, knows more about fighting than he thought a human could, and he enjoys teaching. If he didn’t, Jason might have found enough willpower to stay away. If he felt like a burden or a chore, he’d have maybe figured out a way to cut all this safety out of his life. But Sakumo sincerely enjoys his self-imposed task. He is still teaching the urchins, isn’t he? Urchins and every homeless person that wants to be taught. What’s more, Sakumo—

It’s dawning on Jason that Sakumo isn’t very altruistic at all. In the beginning, he felt like he had a debt to society to repay. That’s true. However, Jason is pretty sure that it wouldn’t have even occurred to him to repay it by doing anything short of what he wanted. If he didn’t like teaching, he wouldn’t be teaching. It’s kind of obvious in how blasé he is about the state of the world outside of his little bubble. Bats and the bigwigs might be deliberately looking away from how irrepressible Sakumo is, but Jason isn’t. If he had a mind to, Sakumo could take out any one of the Avengers except, maybe, the Hulk, and even then he wouldn’t bet against him. And yet, he stays here, building up his trashy commune, wasting his time teaching useless skills to orphans and forging Jason’s body like he was one of his projects. Like he’s a piece of trash he found in the junkyard and decided to fix and improve and make into something useful and good and beautiful.

And, because this is Sakumo, it works. Jason never felt better, stronger or saner. He’s eating regularly now, not counting the disgusting shakes Sakumo pours down his throat by the gallon. He sleeps—too exhausted and blissed out for nightmares—and goes out to bars with Dick to whine about his perpetually un-fucked state. It’s getting so good that he crossed paths with Drake and isn’t even tempted to strip his skin and suspend it in Bruce’s creepy death shrine.

Naturally, whatever Godly decree responsible for the bullshit that is Jason’s life can’t have this. He is on his way back from a mission—successful but tricky, which left him drained and messed up—when he’s kidnapped.

Him, Jason Todd. Red Hood. Kidnapped. Professionally sniped with a tranq dart right at the barely noticeable gap in body-armour necessary to have some mobility. The dosage is strong enough to knock down a giraffe and Jason is unconscious before he hits the ground, thinking—Fuck, I didn’t even get paid for this one.

Whoever has him, they are good, he thinks. They accounted for Jason’s strength, his insanity and his tricks. His jaw is fixed shut with a muzzle they don’t remove. Every one of his limbs is wrapped with immovable but not constricting bands and affixed to a simple steel slab. IV lines, catheters and the like keep him fed, watered and drugged. And boy, is he drugged. Mood-stabilizing drugs don’t work on Jason that well, but they accounted for that, too, because the cocktail of psychoactive and sedatives leave him numb, grey and slow. Soupy. Some hours later, he loses his sight, smell and hearing. He can speak, still, but—

Yeah. Professional. He’d keep his captive as helpless as possible. Thankfully, the drugs are insulating his mind acceptably well, because otherwise he’d have long since lost what grip he has on sanity.

On the second day, the proof of life slash threat thing happens. Jason can’t see or hear, of course, but even the drugs aren’t enough to fully numb the sensation of a sharp blade calmly slicing through his shoulders and digging into the joint. Almost immediately, he loses sensation in everything past the burning nightmares that are his shoulders.

Again, the drugs help. It hurts, yes, but the implications and everything else that comes with torture escape him. The pain is dull and not urgent, and he can’t bring himself to feel any which way about it. Easily enough, it falls into the background as his mind slips back into the daze.

The person dabs his shoulders with something—disinfectant possibly—and binds them. The buzz of pain is fully meaningless before he’s finished. Convenient, honestly. It’s telling that his captors are trying hard not to damage him more than they feel is necessary. He doesn’t know what it tells, only that it does.

That’s—good. Probably. They are confident someone will come for him. And someone will, he doesn’t doubt, it’s just not clear what. Jason’s life is valuable among amateurs and megalomaniacs and his death among everybody with a brain who knows it is not possible to make him into something useful. The Joker and the Pit saw to that. Jason could be hurt, killed or deceived, but he cannot be driven to kneel.

On the third day, however, as his thoughts clear more and more, mind adapting to the drugs, there is commotion. There is a sense in the air that something is happening; he knows it well. He still can’t hear or speak—or think very much past the pain he now feels—but he can think and taste the nervousness in the air. Maybe it’s just his insanity, but maybe not—

Keeping track of the goings on, however, is tricky with only faint impressions his senses are capable of producing. He registers something moving his slab and hears faint whispers of sound. Conversation. Drag of metal on metal. Whatever is moving him stops for a while; ten minutes at least. Distant screams. Faint wisps of blood. Then—something touches his skin. A gun, he’s pretty sure. Hostage? It goes away almost immediately. Good. Whoever is after him isn’t falling for shit that predictable.

There is nothing to be done about it. Someone has come. Reluctantly, he will admit it’s most likely Bruce, even if only to prevent having to build another shrine in his cave that looks far too much like a trophy for it to be anything but disturbing.

It’s probably Bruce. Maybe Talia? It’s probably Talia. Dick, maybe, even though he’s pretty small-time, and whoever has him probably wants more than a more or less un-enhanced vigilante. Yeah, Talia and the League are his first bet. Bruce a close second. After that, it’s only bad options. HYDRA. Red Room. Ten Rings. Shit like that.

When his restraints are ripped open, easy as you please, he revisits his list. Maybe Bruce got his frenemies in the Justice League to assist? That’s superhuman strength for sure. What little of their scent he can catch is unfamiliar. Then giant-ass hands gently peel off the mask on his face, and he thinks—Bruce. But Bruce always smells like leather and metal and whatever weird synth shit he uses for his costume. He knows Bruce’s scent more than anyone’s—

Motherfucker, he thinks, as his body is manipulated upright, IVs probably removed. He knew it. He knew it.

His sight is still mostly filled with darkness, but he’s starting to make out blurry, liquid shapes. Yeah, he might not be able to do much but no drug is going to stop him from recognising that shoulder-to-waist ratio.

“Hey, Teach,” he slurs through numb, stiff lips. The sedatives are still making muscle control complicated but he’s a mouthy asshole; always has been. It would take a lot to prevent him from talking shit. “A bit scandalised to see you here if I’m honest. Don’t you have classes?”

Something strange is happening to his body. It feels really good which is a shocking state of affairs. Alright, so good might be stretching it. It feels like lightning is flowing through his veins, which, traditionally, means death and agony, but not now. Now, each pulse of energy burns out some of the chemical and physical restraints. His head clears and his vision brightens. Pain increases to a fiery crescendo, only to then subside. It’s not a farce, he knows. It’s not drugs and lies and bandaids over rotting flesh. It’s—healing. The pain of flesh knitting together, at a thousand times the speed.

Huh. Magic. Alright, so there’s magic, now. His eyes manage to focus on his unlikely rescuer. There is—there is nothing at all on Sakumo’s face. No rage, satisfaction or vindication—not even bloodlust. He is as shut down as an android. Is he an android? No, surely that would have come up in Bruce’s search. How, then, is he so still?

“A little longer, Jason,” Sakumo says. Even his voice is dead. All the charming idiosyncrasies are banished, leaving behind a sound that might as well have been coming out of an instrument, lightly coloured by a foreign accent.

Stupidly, the accent soothes him. It wasn’t an act, before. This is—focus or stress or whatever, but Sakumo wasn’t faking everything. Downplaying it, maybe, but it wasn’t false. Plus, he came for him, didn’t he, and he didn’t need to.

“Did I fuck up your cover? Sorry about that.”

“Please, Jason,” Sakumo says, a small crack in composure made evident by how his voice curls around Jason’s name. “Don’t thank me. This was—You will be alright.”

“Well, I mean,” he says, blinking at Sakumo’s glowing hands. “Um.”

“At least I can now—” The light around his hands intensifies, as something clicks, rolls and smooths out in his shoulders. Jason’s groan is, yeah, absolutely pornographic, but he’s conditioned. He relaxes into Sakumo’s arms, fully used to his body being fixed around him while he basks. “Good. You are good, Jason.”

Okay. “Look, Teach,” he says, strangled. “You gotta lay off a little, okay?”

Sakumo steps back, putting his hands in the air as if he was burned. “I apologise,” he says—almost barks.

Jesus Christ. “I only meant,” he says in his best soothing tone, “that I’m trying to behave, but if you’re going to start praising me and touching me at the same time, you gotta give me some warning, first. I know you have your issues about intimacy and I’m trying not to be a dick about it, but I’m only human, you know?” Why are you saying any of this, you absolute disgrace? Is it the drugs? The magic? The strange and alien feeling of being saved? Yeah, okay, maybe he will give himself a pass on this one.

“My issues.” Sakumo’s expression fully blanks over, as emotive as the morgue. “My issues with intimacy.”

Jason flaps a hand, wondering both at the fact he can now move his hands, and at the hideously inappropriate setting this conversation is taking place in. “You know, your thing with sex and how you don’t want it with me. That’s fine, it really is, but—I mean. It’s not weird, so don’t make it weird. Just, you know, a little heads up so I can—slap myself in advance or something would be appreciated.”

“I think—” Sakumo’s head snaps to the side and his body language shifts, bodyweight redistributing. He does something silly with his hands and—And it wasn’t silly at all, was it, because just like that another copy of Sakumo appears and lopes off through the door. Almost immediately, the sounds of bullets and screams intensify.

“Motherfucker,” he says, awed. “Two places at the same time—You fucking—”

“I apologise,” Sakumo says again. What animation there was is all gone, replaced with calm, ruthless professionally. “I will, of course, explain everything but the organisation that took you is uncommonly well-equipped.”

Jason nods, relishing everything. “I am the damsel,” he says, voice appropriately dreamy. “All this time, I thought I would spend half my life fishing you out of dungeons and creepy mansions, and I had it all wrong. I am the princess.”

Sakumo’s blink is slow and all sorts of lupine. “I thought I burned out all the narcotics from your system,” he says, “but nobody is infallible. Please describe your symptoms.”

“I feel cold,” Jason replies promptly. “Desolate. Lonely. Please, brave knight, come comfort me in my time of need.” He bats his eyes and clarifies, “Preferably by bending me over—”

“Jason.” Sakumo’s flat expression twitches, eyes—

“I knew it,” Jason crows again. “Your eyes do change colour. I fucking knew it!”

“I will explain later.” Sakumo’s shoulders twitch like he is much less sanguine than he’s letting on. “My clones are clearing out the facility and Nightwing and his associates are—” The beat of hesitation is music to Jason’s ear. His already toothy grin is unhinged, he can already tell. “They are doing their best. Nightwing is filming. I don’t understand your technology but he assures me this means that the footage will be immediately available to everyone in the world who has appropriate devices to watch it from.”

Nightwing’s associates—“Batman?” This is the best day of his life. “Are you calling Batman Nightwing’s associate?”

“I am not interested in politics,” Sakumo says, a bit absently, like he is listening close or trying to keep many different thought processes clear. “Setting aside his unfortunate taste in names, this Batman is less familiar to me. I would not have called him. Nightwing insisted.”

Jason doesn’t propose or proposition or otherwise sexually harass him then and there, which, he thinks, is really big of him. “Understood,” he manages to say. “And Dick is—” Wait. “Where are we, again?”

“The organisation is called Hydra.” Sakumo’s lips thin for a moment and he repeats his magic-double trick twice. “The facility is located in Minnesota. It’s a training facility, I understand. They wanted to secure my services as a trainer.”

HYDRA? Oh, boy. “Gotcha,” he says, because what else is there to say? The fucking around part of this little snafu is over; now they are in the business of finding out. Poor bastards. “And Dick is live-streaming it because?”

“To prove I have followed protocol,” Sakumo says. “I only used lethal force after giving three clear verbal warnings and didn’t attack first. I also carry a recording device now.”

Right, right. Jason is getting light-headed. “So I—So when I—Are you recording now?”

“I am.” Sakumo’s lips twitch in a smile. “Why? Are you ashamed of me, Jason?”

“Put a cock in it, horsefucker,” he says absently. “Right, right. Well, nobody can fault you for drama. When you make a statement, you make a statement.”

“I have nothing to hide.” He has the gall to look smug. “Doctor Stark and his attorneys assure me there are specific laws about citizen’s arrests and rescues put into place specifically to account for vigilantes and such individuals. I followed them to the letter. I never instigate lethal force, only return it. Most of the civilian personnel is subdued with the least amount of damage I could manage under the circumstances. I even kept property damage to a minimum.”

Right, right.

“So, how many copies do you have running around?”

Sakumo shrugs. “A couple. Most of them are covering Nightwing and his team. I understand several other teams are on the way.”

“And we’re still here because—”

“We need to give our statements Jason,” Sakumo says like it’s obvious. “Nightwing informed me an organisation called Shield is going to arrive soon, and they are a registered government body.”

Government body, Jason thinks, gives up and closes his eyes. “I’m exhausted. Im’ma nap a bit if you’re going to inflict the feds on me.”

“Here—” Something warm and thick falls over him. He cracks his eyes open—One of Sakumo’s ridiculous layers. Well, it’s thick and it smells nice, and Jason really is tired.

“Cheers, Teach.”

The fallout is as ridiculous as he expected it would be. One of the men Sakumo butchered is the Winter Soldier, which is insane. Then it comes out that the Winter Soldier had been Bucky Barnes before he was injected with a knock-off super soldier serum.

As it happens, the serum won’t save you from a beheading, which fits into Jason’s in-depth and exhaustive knowledge of life sciences and medicine. The bigger problem is that Captain America loses his shit and tries to punch Sakumo, only to get his wrist fractured and ribs bruised. Things are a little tense, after that, but between Dick live-streaming everything and Bruce’s unimpressed glower, they all go their separate ways without much fuss. Even Stark doesn’t have anything clever to say, as baffled and taken aback as he is in the face of Sakumo’s everything.

“Take me home, brave knight,” Jason says, fully swooning. Sakumo catches him, of course, without so much as a hint of grace.

“You still need to debrief,” barks Fury. “You didn’t disclose your powers.”

“I specifically asked if there is an agency to register a mutation,” Sakumo replies, nonchalance not even a little hindered by the fact Jason is still in his arms. “I was told there was not.”

“This is not a mutation, you insubordinate—”

“I am afraid your law does not codify what a mutation is. I checked. If you insist, however, please forward me the appropriate warrants, indictments and suchlike. I am a law-abiding citizen. Until then, however, I will be taking my companion home to recover from the ordeal of being tortured for eight days.”

“Companion,” Jason sighs. “Fan me, Nightwing, my maiden heart can’t take it.”

Chapter Text

At this point, Jason doesn’t even pretend to put up a fight, when Sakumo takes him to the Den. Whatever magic thing Sakumo did, some of the energy came from Jason. A lot of the energy came from Jason. His muscles are trembling, he’s ravenous and soon, he knows his body will simply cut power and rest no matter what he would prefer.

It’s worth it, though. It’s good. He melts, boneless into the bed, head empty and clear, sleep coming like a tidal wave.

“Rest,” Sakumo says, smoothing over the tangles in the blanket—Jason is a burrower in mind and body—and tucking the edges in. “Things will be better in the morning.”

“Mng,” Jason says and sleeps.

“So, Teach,” he says in the morning when things are, indeed, better. “You’ve been holding out on me.”

“Have I?” Sakumo tilts his head, eyes still glinting gold far too often. His teeth are sharper, Jason is thrilled to see, and them’s some interesting nail-claws. “I will admit I wasn’t forthcoming with information, but I always used all the skills appropriate for the task.” He pauses briefly, the gold in his eyes intensifying. “Except healing,” he admits. “I could have done more to help you. I have my reasons for not doing it, but I understand that you might not find them satisfactory.”

Hah. “No see, you don’t owe me anything.” Might as well cover that; things have become a little confused. “You’ve not made me any promises. You’ve not made any claims.”

“I offered to teach you,” Sakumo says, after a brief pause. “You would have progressed further  if I worked you through your recovery more.”

Worked him through his recovery, Jason thinks, delighted. As if the eyes, claws and teeth weren’t inhuman enough. A slew of idiosyncrasies is quietly shifting around, guiding him towards a most intriguing hypothesis. “You aren’t even a little human, are you?”

Sakumo’s lips dip into a sideways smirk, eyes growing lidded and pleased. “Very good. I am not, no. Not by your standards. Conversely, you would not be considered human by mine. We are, workably, different species.”

Now, the question becomes what he should do about this? Jumping at him and tearing off his clothes will probably see him clotheslined. “So, what, an alien?”

“Mm. Workably.” His asshole smirk intensifies. “After my death and subsequent pseudo-eternity spent in purgatory, I woke up here. In Chicago, to be precise.”

That explains so much, Jason thinks, blinking. It’s probably true. Jason hopes it’s true. That said— “Not to be a dick about it, but did you check if maybe your memories were the result of a telepath fucking with your head? They can do all sorts of crazy shit, you know.”

“I am reliably informed telepaths don’t know what to do with me,” Sakumo says. “If Doctor Xavier can be counted as a reliable authority, of course. Something about my skill set combined with being completely and utterly insane means even an attempt at entering my mind causes them considerable distress.”

Jason blinks some more. If he couldn’t get any more lethal— “Insane? You?”

“Jason,” Sakumo says, lips curving away from the smirk and into a smile that has next to no association with living things. “I died and went to purgatory.” His eyes are full gold now. Something about this conversation is upsetting the mild-mannered werewolf, and Jason doesn’t have a single idea what it could be. “Correction. I killed myself and went to purgatory. Do you know what purgatory is?”

“No.” Holy mother of God. He’s never felt more like a mouse caught in the hypnotic gaze of a dragon. “Can’t say I believe it exists, frankly. What is it?”

“It is timeless, endless nothingness.” He’s not blinking as often as he should. “It is being suspended in that heavy, dark peak of despair that drove you to stop existing. That complex cocktail of feelings. Forever.” Finally, he blinks, shattering the eerie stillness. “That is what purgatory is. I am quite possibly more insane than any being you are ever likely to meet.”

Huh. “Bullshit.” Sakumo blinks again, expression melting into something taken aback. “You are traumatised, yeah, and, I don’t know, really messed up, but you are not insane.” What utter nonsense. “Not by any metric I use for such things.”

“And what metric do you use?” The flash of surprise folds away into blank politeness, edged liberally with cynicism. “Every telepath and empath I came across ran away from me screaming.”

“Weaklings,” Jason sniffs. “So you feel strongly, that sucks or whatever. The only useful metric for insanity is if you are functional or not and you, Teach, are, disgustingly competent. Insultingly competent. Pornographically competent—”

“Is that the standard you would apply for a being as destructive as I am?”

Destructive—“You can fuck right off with destructive,” he says, outraged. “I mean, whatever, you want to pickle yourselves in self-pity and angst, go right ahead, but you won’t get me to agree.” Destructive. “You built a homeless shelter out of broken bottles, salvaged wood and melted down old cars. You teach kids who’d have gone straight to crime how to do, admittedly, very archaic and useless crafts. You almost tore my head off when I suggested they learn how to fight. Fuck off with that noise.”

“Pickle myself in angst,” Sakumo repeats, something cautiously pleased peeking out from behind all that heroic stoicism. “You have such a way with words.”

Jason grins with all his teeth. “Proper wordsmith; always thought so. Don’t change the topic.”

“I can’t see what more there is to say,” Sakumo says, putting his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I accept our views are misaligned on this. You don’t have the full picture, and I don’t want to destroy what progress I’ve made in my mental health by airing out my past life more than I have to.”

Jason arches his eyebrows. “That’s surprisingly reasonable.” He doesn’t believe it even a little. Or, well, he does, whatever little that means for him. Sakumo is still stewing in whatever traumatic nightmare he lived through that made him into what he is.

Jason meant all he said. He doesn’t think Sakumo is insane or destructive. That doesn’t mean he’s not violent, inhuman and profoundly dangerous. To say nothing of whatever trauma led him to suicide. Is that something you can bounce away from, purgatory or no purgatory? Jason kind of doubts it. His own death and resurrection have been traumatic enough. He really doesn’t know how bad it would have been if you add in the crippling despair necessary to stop yourself from being.

“I sense a measure of doubt in your voice.”

Jason shrugs easily. “I believe you are trying. I also believe you are messed up and far too disciplined for your own good. A little bit of letting go won’t hurt you. Then again, I’m not an alien and you’re becoming progressively more wolf-like. Who knows what letting go even looks like, for you.”

Sakumo stops and blinks. His expression twists into something strange. Shock, maybe. A little bit of outrage. “You brat,” he says, tone wondering. “My Clan heritage has nothing to do with my personal baggage. My people are sworn to the wolf spirits. There is nothing sinister about a few harmless traits crossing over.”

Huh. He did want to move away from the subject but this is a fantastic opening he stumbled into blind. “Oh,” he says in his most innocent tone. “So you mean you won’t transform into a giant hairy monster on every full moon? How dare you lead me on?” Oh, wow, he didn’t even know he was going here. Good work, subconscious mind; this will throw him for a loop. “And all this time, my furry heart has been yearning. Do you even have a knot, Sakumo, or was everything a lie?!”

It’s not often Jason drives somebody to full-mute shock with only a few sentences. It happens, of course, he works hard at it, but infuriating people is a special, intricate art, and inspiration isn’t always as forthcoming as it is today.

“You—” Sakumo blinks a few times in short succession, mouth opening and closing slightly. “What—Knot—Knot?!”

“You know,” Jason says, almost vibrating with glee. “When wolves fuck, they—”

“Shut up.” A small, scandalised blush appears high on Sakumo’s cheeks, catapulting Jason straight into the stratosphere. “How do you even—I tell you I am an insane, resurrected monster. I reveal I am not even the same species and you talk about—About wolf mating?!”

“I know my priorities, Teach,” Jason says. “Typically, when I’m around you, they converge into getting fucked as hard as physically possible. And, I mean, lie to me and tell me you haven’t thought about all the possibilities that come with—”

“I most certainly have not,” Sakumo yelps, blush intensifying, “you infernal little monster. We aren’t—Wolf spirits are sacred and wise beings of great power and insight. They don’t—We don’t—”

He’s fully driven him into incoherence. A reward is in order. He will get himself that one bike he’s been thinking about and was always too cheap to get. He’s earned it, for this masterpiece. “That’s alright, Teach,” he says, injecting a note of condescending pity into his voice. “We can’t all be creative and imaginative like that. I accept your soul is fundamentally not as artistic as mine—”

Something snaps in Sakumo’s expression, something shifts, and suddenly the flustered, stuttering energy winks out, replaced with a sleek, suave sort of predator. “Jason,” he purrs. “This reminds me. What is it you said, back in the pitiful ruins of Hydra base? Issues, I think. You said something about having understanding for my issues with intimacy.”

Well, fair’s fair. Jason had his fun, and he doesn’t like lying to himself more than he has to—he was never going to have the upper hand for long. Not when he’s been gagging for this man for months, to say nothing of the convergence of complexes, fetishes and sexual taboos that make Sakumo perfect to drive Jason, specifically, into depths of depravity. “Um—Well, I mean, admittedly I have been a bit lax on that particular self-imposed rule, but—”

“What self-imposed rule, Jason?” Sakumo tilts his head, lips relaxed enough to let a sharp point of a too-long eyetooth peek through. Jason was joking about the furry thing, but, well, Sakumo could take up needlepoint and it wouldn’t take long for Jason’s fucked up mind to start making some truly unfortunate connections.

“About not. You know. Being all over you.” He’s not tripping over his words exactly, but the sentences are growing choppier. Don’t go belly-up just yet, come on man. Where is your pride?

“And what lead you to believe I would not be receptive?” Sakumo leans backwards just a bit and Jason, for his sins, leans forward, as if pulled by a string. “I didn’t think I was subtle about my interest.”

“Uhh.” Focus, for fuck’s sake. “Your what, sorry?”

“You wear my clothes and eat my food,” Sakumo says, already deep voice rolling even more hoarse. “You trust me to train and guide you; you let me touch you and move you and soothe your hurts. You are covered in my scent and wear the marks I leave on your pretty skin with pride. What did you think was happening?”

Huh. Through the sudden buzzing in his mind, a small part of his mind thinks you miserable idiot. Another part thinks so that’s why Dick has been rolling his eyes at me so much these days. Still— “I thought—I thought you just took your teaching vocation seriously?” It sounds weak even to himself. “What else was I supposed to think? You said; you said anger and care don’t mix for you. You said that to me.”

Sakumo’s expression softens from predatory to endeared bit by bit. “Number one, I was showing off for you. Demonstrating I am worthy of your attention. Or do you think I would strip for anyone, training or not?” Fair. “Number two, anger and care don’t mix, for me. That is true. I don’t see how that maps onto this conversation at all.”

Jason shakes his head and bites his tongue hard when that doesn’t do much to clear it. The sharp sting of pain does the trick, as it usually does. “Yeah, okay. What did—Ah. Well, that’s obvious, isn’t it? Everybody who wants me also wants to slap me around a little. I’m one of those people, you know?”

The silence that falls on the room is—charged somehow, only every hint of the playful, sexual energy is sucked out as if it was never there. It’s giving him a bit of a whiplash, frankly. “What? It’s not that weird, and people have been mixing sex and pain for thousands of years, there are books about it—”

“I don’t want to, as you say, slap you around,” Sakumo says, every word said carefully as if it could shatter and injure them all if not handled with care. “I If—I am not a young man, Jason, and my people are in many ways more open-minded about sexual pleasure. I have played many games in and out of bed. If you want an illusion of violence, I could give that to you. There aren’t many things I wouldn’t try to give to you. But it would be a scene. A play with pre-arranged details and a fixed time frame.”

Sakumo Hatake is talking to him about BDSM? Jason blinks. Sakumo Hatake is looking at him with real nervousness, eyebrows knitted together, lips pressed in an anxious line. What? “But, like, just to make this clear,” he says. “You would do that for me? But—Sorry, I’m a bit lost. You want to sleep with me? Like, actually have sex with me? That is something you want? For yourself?”

“I want everything you would give me.” The worried line softens a little but doesn’t go away. “I—I apologise for not making it clear from the beginning. The rules of social interaction in this world are confusing and irregular and I try but I often fall back to my senses. I thought, since I could smell your arousal—”

“Since you could what?!”

Sakumo rears back, blinking furiously, hands flying up as if to show he’s not armed. “I—Sorry, does that upset you?”

“You can smell my arousal?” Jesus, Mary and Joseph, he’s going to become a furry whether he wants to or not. He can already tell; it’s over for him. What little claim on sexual virtue he has is immolating in so much miserable, cursed smoke.

“I—can.” Sakumo swallows and visibly bites his cheek. “Forgive me, I will not bring this up if it upset you going forward, but you don’t smell like you mind.”

Good grief. “Frankly, Teach,” he says, closing his eyes and breathing in through the mortified delight making his belly clench and palms sweat, “there is not much you can do or say that my brain won’t file under incredibly arousing, beg for more immediately.”

Sakumo is quiet for a long, merciful moment, which Jason absolutely uses to pull himself together. “For the life of me, I do not understand how to treat you,” he says finally. “Every thought and reaction you have is so contrary to what I understand—You are ashamed of your attraction to me? Or you are ashamed of me knowing it?”

“Humans have a complicated sexual relationship with the concept of shame,” Jason says, after a beat. It was a serious question, as bewildering as it may be. They are talking about serious shit. “As, apparently, you can smell.”

“The concept of sexualising the forbidden or shameful is not unknown to me,” Sakumo says slowly. “Our standards are just different. No Shinobi would bother trying to hide their interest. It wouldn’t work, most of us had some type of enhanced senses. I thought you—You are so uninhibited and free with yourself. I didn’t think you would ever let yourself be made small like that. Not about your pleasure.”

Alright. Alright. It’s still a conversation. This isn’t dirty talk, it’s—it’s negotiations. Prospecting. “I am just surprised,” he says. “Since we don’t have enhanced senses, I felt exposed by your insight into something I thought was private. Since exhibitionism is something I am very interested in, in the right setting, it is also arousing.”

There. That’s as clear and informative as he can make it, and miles more helpful than trying to articulate the sick sense of dread-delight that he could smell how much Jason was panting over him and didn’t so much as flick a lash. All those times he was near tears about how much he wanted to grab and bite and lick, and Sakumo simply accepted it as his due and moved along like nothing at all was out of the ordinary. Like Jason being a desperate, trembling wreck was as it should be, and he didn’t feel the need to do anything about it until he was good and ready.

“I see.” Sakumo blinks a few more times, a little thoughtful. “You are romanticizing this, I think. It’s not a power play. I rarely play such games outside of the bedroom, and never without discussing it first.”

Oh you sweet, summer child. “Everything you do is a power-play,” Jason says. “Just because you are who you are. But that is not a bad thing.”

“This is something we will need to discuss more in the future,” Sakumo says after a beat. “If for no other reason than to be certain we are not talking past each other again. I know my social and sexual conditioning is vastly different than yours, and I try to keep that in mind, but I will unavoidably have blind spots for a long while.”

Sexual conditioning! Ha! Like what he has been doing to Jason? No, wait, don’t even think about that, because it’s not true and if you said it Sakumo will run for the hills no matter how much you try to backtrack it afterwards.

“But the baseline is established,” he says instead, desperately trying to cling to the one thread of conversation he can somewhat follow. “You want me in some capacity. Some sexual capacity. I also want you in, frankly, every capacity I can get you.”

“I also want—” Sakumo’s lips purse briefly. “I want a relationship.” He hesitates, reading something in Jason’s face that prompts him to explain further. “A romantic relationship, as understood by your people and mine. I want to be free to express my admiration for you, I want to build on my respect for you. I want to have you in my life as a partner.”

Admittedly, Jason never in his life had a relationship that lasted more than a night, so. “I mean, we can try,” he says cautiously. “I doubt I’m good partner material, but—If the only difference is that I will have a right to stay in your house and eat your food and will be getting fucked on the regular, I’m not seeing much of a downside.”

“There will probably be downsides,” Sakumo warns, even as the faint expression of hunger is claiming more and more of his face. “But I am far too invested in keeping you to be ornery about compromise. If you think you can be patient with me, I will try my best to be good for you.”

Jesus Christ.

Sakumo’s eyes sharpen further, as a smirk cuts into his lips. “That wasn’t a power play either,” he purrs. “But it can be if you want. You know, as easily around as you are, I never managed to figure out if you want to be good for me, or if you want me to be good for you.”

Yeah, okay. “I think the reasonable, adult, talking part is over,” he says, taking off his shirt as quickly as he possibly can. “We can discuss everything later, but if you don’t fuck me right this second, I swear to God I will go and find somebody who will.”