It's an eventful day for the Bats in Gotham. However, Jason has been invited to a birthday party. Jaymia ft. the Arrow and Bat clans. 11k, Rated M.
(This is the longest work I've published yet and with ao3 acting up all day getting it ready was a goddamn nightmare lmao. But it's done! Just in time! I'm so so happy about it LOL)
I gave myself a prompt challenge back in January, during the Snowflake event over Dreamwidth, and finally completed and posted them \o/
Here are all the drabbles (exactly 100 words long) I wrote for the event.
A little something fron a very recent idea I got thanks to a discord mutual. The gist of it is that Jason takes the fall for a death caused by Duke. Or attempts to, because Duke is not having it; various bats will have different takes on this.
(also yeah Duke is there but this is new earth continuity, of course. There are some kinks to figure out there lol)
"I think you're doing the right thing," Dick said.
Jason dramatically threw his head back, pressing the tips of his fingers, clad in the eye-catching red gloves, atop the red skull on his chest. "It means so much to me, Dickie, that I have your seal of approval."
His voice had gone high-pitched, sounding like the lovelorn heroine of one of the historical films he'd favored, as a kid. It used to be that his freckled cheeks went red when Dick caught him watching those, but self-consciousness was one of the things Jason had left in the caskett on the way out. Now, he always had to make a damn production of everything.
"What I'm trying to say," Dick spoke through gritted teeth, "is that you're doing a good thing for Robin. I would've done the same in your place."
Gone was the affectation. The undignified snort sounded like a muffled shot through the helmet. Jason grabbed his stomach as he cackled, carefree.
"Oh. Oh man. That was a good one. Thank you."
"Jason–"
"No no, let's think this through. Let's say you told him you were the one who killed– no, wait, I have a better one."
He'd removed his helmet, leaving only a red mask, as if he wanted Dick to appreciate the sheer glee in each of his micro-expressions. It'd been a really long time since he'd seen Jason's bare face. He had a five o-clock shadow, and his hair was a bit longer. His curls, relaxed and flattened by the helmet, fell over his cheekbones, framing his dimples.
"Let's say that, standing ten feet away from Batman, you shoot a guy right between the eyes." He pressed one finger on the center of Dick's frown as he spoke. "And let's say I can prove I'm within... three thousand yards, okay? And I let myself get photographed near a place where he later finds a disposed rifle. What do you think he'd do? Believe his eyes? Or cling to denial and make up a convoluted theory about how I timed my shot just right, it order to make him think you're a killer?"
Dick's fits itched. He bit his tongue, hard. "You have no idea what you're talking–"
"Oh, man," Jason interrupted laughing even harder. "Now I'm picturing you trying to take the fall for me when I was Robin."
Denial had become familiar; a shroud to wrap around himself to keep warm in the cold that permeated the city when Bruce took on Darkseid. Tim still clung to it with increasing desperation as his eyes remained stuck in the scarred slash of Jason’s neck. The other man’s weight kept him pinned against the wall, Tim’s focus turning him crossed-eyed.
The placement alone was dangerous, and it’d been obvious even to the untrained observant that it had not been a superficial wound. Batman would never risk such an injury. Not in his right mind.
Those were all truths, and Jason was a liar. He had to be, because the most fundamental truth of all, the one which Tim had known intimately ever since he set foot on the cave and breathed the charged atmosphere around Robin’s memorial–
“Bruce… loves you…” he struggled to say.
Tim felt the sharp tip of Jason’s batarang carve into his neck; it followed the exact path in Jason’s skin that had kept Tim entranced. It was a shallow cut, but Tim’s breath caught in his throat, thinking about how the slightest slip…
“Does this feel like love to you, Robin?” Jason whispered in his ear.
Mia had the misfortune of meeting a higher than average number of scummy politicians, and yet in that moment Batman uttered the most hypocritical sentence she'd ever heard.
"I find that suspicious."
"You think a guy wanting to hide his face is suspicious?" Oliver said exactly what Mia was thinking.
"Under the circumstances? Yes. Anyone in his place would want help to remember his past life. He needs to be identified." He then added, turning to Mia, "And as long as he insists on remaining a double agent, the Dollhouse has access to him. I don't need to tell you why that's a risk."
Mia knew Adam, whatever his real name turned out to be, had his reasons to be apathetic about the idea of chasing the past that haunted him. And he might not know Batman and his cohort, but he wasn't wrong to guess that they wouldn't respect that boundary, in their investigative zeal. And she'd been to his apartment, with every mirror removed. He had more than one reason to be uncomfortable about strangers seeing his face, and Mia would shield him from the world if that's what he needed.
"His face is littered with scars," Mia snapped, "They're self-inflicted, you know? He cut his own face. But see, the Dollhouse can remove scars, quite easily. So they healed him, and he cut it again. And they healed him and he did it again, and again, and again. Until they decided maybe he was more profitable as a spy than as a whore."
Her voice could've cut through steel. Batman remained studiously impassive, but through the corner of her eye she could see that Robin, usually almost as poised as his mentor, had lost what little color his face possessed, and his expression had all the marks of a bleeding-heart.
"So if he says he'll only talk to you through a mask, that's what he'll do. Or are you planning on showing him your face anytime soon?"
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