Chapter Text
Invisigal didn't really speak to him aside from sparky comments whenever he was mentioned on comms. After Flambae and Jason blew up their previous dispatcher's car he quit, no surprises here. On cameras it literally looked like the car just blew up.
Their new dispatcher actually didn't dispatch Jason like the world was gonna end if he didn't. More free time was always welcome.
Jason was sipping on tea that Prism gave him. During one of his breaks he checked the tea out and tested it and it was safe. The scarf was just as safe, nothing additional, no weird devices.
Jason actually wore it in the morning, it was chilly as fuck And he could as well become mute in the process if not for the scarf.
Malevola smiled too when she saw him wearing it, and commented on it, saying it looked good on him. Jason swears that he didn't stumble on his words then.
The taste of the tea reminded him of Alfred so much that he shed a tear. Alfred saw him now and he would be so disappointed. Jason will never taste Alfred's cooking.
Beside him Punch Up is drinking coffee. Thank god for his helmet. That would be weird if Punch Up saw that.
Not long after Punch Up was sent on a mission. Jason relaxed completely, well as best as he could, being in a building full of heroes.
He heard footsteps that an average human wouldn’t pick up, in his opinion it seemed sloppy. Not long after he sees Invisigal thanks to his chip he easily spots her.
“Invisigal, what brings you to my humble break room?” Jason opened his helmet again and took a sip of tea through a straw.
She stops. Didn't expect him to notice her. She breathes out and appears. “What is under that helmet? You know I wonder, are you just ugly or have a real nasty scar?”
Now Jason doesn't think about his looks. They are not important, most of the time his face isn't even visible. He doesn't look into the mirror more than necessary, he also has more scars than he’d like but it's not his fault, Joker is a bitch.
“Nah, I'm a real beauty. Just wearing the helmet so you won't get distracted by my good looks.” His mind cycles back to his face before death, young, full of life, he even had a tan in a place like Gotham. Maybe it was because of his roots? Sheila was mixed as hell, Wills was just.. white. But after death he got pale, as a ghost, his eyes from crystal blue turned toxic green.
He doesn't think he is ugly more like he looks dead.
“Yeah? Then show me and I'll decide.”
“No.” The answer is quick cold and leaves no room for argument.
Invisigal like clockwork walks over to him and reaches over to try and remove the helmet that has explosives inside. Really stupid of her.
“Do you wanna die? There are better ways to kill me without killing yourself.” She stops. He didn't even have to move a muscle.
“What are you on about?”
“You wanna try and find out? Or live in the bliss of not knowing?” Can she tell he was a theatre kid? God he needs to write that down. That's good.
Invisigal looks tempted but backs off. Good decision. If she tried he would have stopped her, but it's also good to know she has some Brain cells left.
“The fuck. Are you one of those types that are Nonchalant but actually are softies? Let me guess you also like to read feminist literature and drink matcha.”
Jason doesn't answer. Instead he pulls out Pride and Prejudice.
From now on Invisigal was stalking him, watching his every move. Whenever She wasn't dispatched she was following him.
It didn't faze him, if he wanted to he could just disappear and lose her. But he saw no point in it, better focus on his work and not on noisy coworkers.
During lunch, both Prism, Flambae sat at Jason's table that is in the corner of the room. They mostly talked to each other, with Jason throwing a comment once every few minutes.
Across the room Invisigal is glaring at him. Jason acts like she isn't there and tunes into a conversation about how all dogs need to be on a leash.
“I was a pet sitting for my bestie, she has this poodle, a cute motherfucker, and a calm, good dog. Some fuckass bitch was walking her dog without a leash. It was some German shepherd, that shitty dog attacked my poodle. I didn't let that slide. So I grabbed the dog by his collar. Pull the dog away from the poodle. Bitch ass owner runs over. And safe to say. He won't be walking his dog without a leash.” Flambae gives her a high-five and a pat on the back.
“I would burn the owner to ashes if that happened to me. You were nice.” Flambae adds, he completely would. No questions there.
“In Gotham people only have their dogs on leashes.” Jason hopefully says.
“You hear this shit?? GOTHAM, the most fucked up city. And they actually understand the importance of a leash.” Prism throws her hands back, she even has a frown on her face.
“That's crazy.” Flambae smartly opens his mouth.
Jason continued with his shift. He didn't really expect a bigger headache from Invisigal, He even felt pretty normal honestly, constant state of paranoia and a sprinkle of trust issues, a mixture every true batkid needs.
So when he is sent on a mission with her his heartbeat speeds up.
His heart stops when he sees that the mission is to stop a bank robbery with hostages. Jason sees no hope for any of these hostages to see another day, they are as doomed as he is, maybe he'll die a second time? He doubts he'll come back from that one.
Jason grapples his way to the bank. It's a normal bank, when he scans the building he sees that there are 8 hostages, most of them workers, some are just normal civilians who came to the bank to do normal shit and not rob the bank.
Jason looked at Invisigal's location. Okay she might be here in a few minutes, he has time.
The police are already called and will surround the building, so it is best if he'll start from the top. No one is on the roof, which is actually good. From the roof Jason can climb down and take down the robbers as he goes.
Invisigal arrived and is standing right beside him, she is really close she stares at him with a frown on her face. Clearly still thinking about who is underneath the helmet.
“Grab onto me.” Jason takes out the grapple gun, when She grabs onto his shoulders and doesn't do anything weird he grapples on to the roof.
“We will stick close and look for the hostages. Once we find them you will attack the robbers guarding the hostages and I will finish the job and free the hostage.“ Jason explains with detail so Invisigal will understand and that if this mission suddenly goes wrong it's her fault.
She only nods and he starts to break into the closed door from the roof.
Every few minutes Jason scans the building so they won't be surprised by robbers catching them off guard after rounding a corner. From what Jason counted there are 25 robbers and 8 hostages. A large number but someone has to guard hostages and actually rob a bank.
Hostages are alone with two so doing the quick Math there are nine robbers actually doing the robbing.
Jason guides Invisigal to the first hostage, she disappears and takes down the robber then Jason finishes the other one. Invisigal ties the robbers and then tell the hostage to stay where they are and wait for the police.
They repeat this four times.
Jason has to admit Invisigal isn't so bad to work with, if it weren't for the BDSN jokes, and her interest in his face he would even like to go on another dispatch with her.
It turns out later that robbers have comms and they caught on. So they are kinda fucked.
“Let's separate.” she says and takes care of the fifth hostage.
Jason only nods knowing that she is sadly right. But also that Invisigal has been slowing him down. He didn't ditch her because they are a team and she also might fuck something out somehow.
It's him who takes care of the next two hostages and sees that the last one is carried in with the remaining robbers.
So eleven plus one hostage vs Jason and maybe Invisigal. Great odds.
No really they are great. Jason can just sneak in and put explosive gel near robbers. Then he could detonate them, if he's lucky he might take down some or just disorient them good either way.
Everything goes according to plan. He puts the gel as close to robbers as he can, which is really easy considering the robbers are in the middle of the room surrounding the hostage. Pissing themselves, clearly amateurs, it's their first time on a big job.
Jason gets in position, and detonates the gel.
Four of the eleven are dropped. Seven remaining, Jason shots two and knocks one with the back of his gun, four left.
He shoots at the rest. Bullets piercing nonlethal areas.
Jason breathes out.
“Good job.”
If he flinched at that moment, no one knows. It's a mystery that Jason won't reveal.
“Thanks, can you unlock the door?” Jason asks with clenched teeth. So she was there the entire time and didn't decide to help?
Invisigal shrugs and Jason is just tired of Invisigal’s presence. He walks over to the desk and pushes a few buttons, one lever and the door opens.
Through the door police and ambulance rushed in. Jason tells what happened to the nearby police officer, says where the hostages are and leaves.
Normally he wouldn't be so accepting of police officers but he didn't sleep and he had to deal with sex jokes for the last hour that Jason was beating up robbers.
His eyes closed as he was grappling back to SDN.
Jason went longer without sleep. He could go longer without sleep. While in the league he had a stake out that lasted four days.
Still his head spun and his body was heavy.
He went to some random small secluded room, closed it, barricaded it with anything he had beside him, turned off the comm and location and just closed his eyes. To close his eyes a little….
“Red…. Where?.....Red?..”
“visi… You last…him..”
“...looked… to me..”
On the floor was his blood. Jason's fingers were bent wrong. Twisted in all sorts of directions, he couldn't feel them, he couldn't move them.
His leg had an open break, Jason could see the bone sticking out as it bled. His other one was fine, weirdly so. Maybe all this pain made Jason forget if it was broken in the first place.
Dad will come… he will beat the clown and carry Jason back home back to Alfred, maybe Dick will even visit. Dick and he started to get along recently, like real brothers.
“Little Robin, say, do you like being over at uncle J's house?”
Maybe if he ignores the pain, the Joker will just pass and he won't have to remember it ever again.
Joker swung the crowbar at Jason's broken hand, the fingers will heal wrong, no doubt. All twisted like worms. Someone screamed, then whimpered. It sounds pathetic.
“Naughty kid. Bats isn't coming for you.”
Jason looks at Sheila, his mom, his biological mother. She doesn't look back disturbed. Uncomfortable with how Joker is torturing her own son but doesn't do anything to stop it.
“What would I do for some Joker gas right now? Would really lift up the spirit. But alas, there's nothing we can do, now tell me boy Wonder, what hurts more?”
When Joker swings the crowbar Jason already feels the pain.
Chase thinks it would have been better to cut half of the z team and just start over, Prism isn't bad, Golem is chill, Sonar should stop doing lines in the break room, office or just anywhere.
Flambae should stop making fires, and putting them out just to farm points. He would cut Coop, she is still evil. The only reason she isn't right now is because SDN pays her. Malevola is okay, Punch Up is fucking annoying, Chase would cut him just for that. Invisigal hasn't been here long enough.
Red Hood, Red Hood on the other hand could as well be a hero. He takes care of victims, comforts them, actually strategies, and has the skills of a real hero. And that makes chase wonder, because how could a crime lord know what to say to a victim of armed robbery? How does a crime lord know how to take down a horde of goons without killing them like it was second nature?
That's suspicious as fuck.
And now Red Hood came back from his shift early and didn't tell anyone. For the few days he's been here he never did that. That motherfucker is planning something or shitty at communicating that today he is going home half an hour early.
Still Chase kept on working and dispatching his own team. Z team's new dispatcher had already had enough of their bullshit. Chase isn't surprised.
He even stayed behind doing some shitty paperwork.
His mind was numb and he dreams of sleeping, this old body isn't easy on him. Fuck he could have the most lethal face card of all if not for his power.
Then he heard a scream. Not a normal scream, the voice was distorted like a certain z teamer with a red helmet.
Chase stood up with his old bones creaking as he went up to the janitor's room.
It was locked, nothing big Chase had a key to every room in this building. Blazer doesn't need to know that.
As he was walking back he could hear sounds weird. Like someone was trying to speak but couldn't, with the voice changer it sounded even more weird, disturbing.
As Chase tried to push the door to open he couldn't but after a few seconds he remembered. That door specifically to Janitors, was weird and some guy while doing the door fucked up. So you had to pull it.
So Chase did and a chair and some random shit sloppy barricaded the door. Chase just side stepped and walked in.
The noises got louder.
Chase turned on the light switch and saw the Red Hood.
The man was clearly lost in his own mind, he sat in the corner of the room rocking back and forth his helmet hitting the wall repeatedly while his hands tried to get off as much of his gear as he could.
His leather jacket was already thrown on the floor with gloves and some armor.
Chase looked at Red hood. While the shirt was still on and didn't show anything his hands were free of his gloves.
With loud steps he came to the big ass man. Seriously, what are they feeding him? And grabbed his hands so he would stop, if he accidentally left a gun without safety on and it shot Chase didn't want to deal with that.
“What. the. fuck?”
Chase looked away then back at the hands in his hands. They were shaking and he could still hear whimpers come from Red Hood.
The fingers looked like they were all broken at least three times, for every joint. They also had clear scars of fist fights, cuts, even burns, like someone putting out a few cigarettes on his hands, and a few uneven burns from explosions.
It dawned on Chase that it wasn't some crime lord having a panic attack because he killed someone and regretted it. He was looking at a torture victim.
The moment Chase realised it he got to work. Stood back up to close the door. Lock it. Disarm Red Hood. Try to talk to him.
“Hey? Hey. You are safe. Tell me how to take off the helmet so you can breathe correctly.” It took a few more tries than that but Hood raised his hand and clicked something at the back of his helmet and with a hiss Chase took off the helmet and he was eye to eye… with a kid.
At least 18 at most 22. His eyes are green, his face is covered with scars. A nose who had been broken too many times. Split lip, slip brow, burns on the side of his face, red irregular clearly from an explosion. No matter where Chase stared he could see at least small white lines or a cut that would make Chase wonder how in Jesus' name is this kid still alive.
Kid's eyes cleared a little.
This isn't Red Hood, some scary crime lord. This is a kid.
“Breathe with me. One to inhale and one to exhale.”
There's not a single spot on his face that isn't scarred in any way. Kid touches his neck and Chase doesn't want to even imagine what is under that high collar of his gear. He doesn't even entertain that thought.
Whoever has done this is sick. The fact that Red Hood was in the phoenix program is a wonder. If someone did this to Chase he would have been a supervillain making it everyone else's problem.
“one.” breathe in
Kid is shaking like crazy, but Chase holds him through it.
“two.” breathe out
They continue few more times until the green in kid’s eyes doesn't glow and Chase wonders what the fuck someone gotta go through to make their eyes glow.
Kid freezes. As his eyes landed on his helmet that is put to the side of his hands that are in Chase’s warm brown ones.
It all really goes out in a blink. Kid grabs his helmet and runs out of the room. Doesn't even open it as he just breaks it. And runs away.
Chase needs to tell Blazer that there should be free therapy for heroes of SDN. He is not dealing with all of that and hearing what happened to Robert.
Jason stumbles through the building. He had just de-masked in front of the old man at the office. Should he just come back and threaten Chase that if he told anyone what happened then Jason would reveal his identity as Track Star?
Jason's legs wouldn't listen anyway.
He ran and ran.
It was night no one was walking around at these ungodly hours. Jason continued to run like he didn't before.
Then he stopped, he should go back to his apartment. With a grapple gun it will be easier.
He patted his thigh for his grapple.
“Meow.”
And came out empty.
Chase took all of his shit.
“Meow”
All his guns.
“Meow”
Most of his knives.
“Meow!”
His dignity too while he was at it.
“MEOW”
“Shit!” Jason felt a weight in his shoulder, it was light, he could almost dismiss it as nothing. But the meowing tells another story as he twisted his neck to look, he saw a cat. A tuxedo cat Black and white, but it was really asymmetrical. It was a kitten, small, skinny. They had a small head, big ears and not so big eyes. They were licking his helmet. trying to grab his attention.
How did they even climb up on his shoulder?”
When Jason reached out with his hand and petted the cat the endless meowing stopped. And soft purrs started to escape the kitten.
With Jason's other hand he picked up the kitten and inspected their private parts. And they or she is a girl.
Jason hugged the cat and petted it while just standing there. He felt better. The purring helped him relax and the soft fur distracted him.
Jason started to walk towards his apartment. He didn't care if someone followed him, he could always move out to a different one. If someone sees his face, they won't find anything Jason Todd is dead legally anyway.
As Jason closed the door to his apartment he finally started to take off all of the gear and stay only in some sweats he found on the floor. Grabbed some ham from the fridge and a small cup of water. He didn't really have a bowl that was meant for a pet so this was the next best thing.
The kitten ate and drank and then she started to meow again. Jason picked her up and held her to his chest like last time. Then just went to bed with a cat on his chest, warm and content.
Jason woke up and chose… peace. He didn't show up for the first shift. Feed his new cat. After giving her water, he drank some tea.
When he looked at the clock it was lunch in the office. Grabbed his helmet, put on a shirt, some spare gloves and picked up the cat. The most threatening thing he had was a duffel bag. And maybe the creature he was petting.
Walking into SDN his image of a scary crime lord vanished.
All of the office whispered around him as he walked up to Chase who was still at his desk.
“Can I get my weapons first?” Jason said as he stole the chair from his dispatcher's ass and sat beside Chase.
Chase stared at him, not really knowing what to say which is surprising, the old man always had something to say like All old people do.
“They are in a box near your locker. I even put your name on it.” Chase’s eyes traveled down and he saw the cat Jason was petting and hugging. Chase’s whole expression changed and he looked at the cat like she was the lord and saviour.
“Not a single soul will know about anything if you bring this cat into the office everyday and let me care for them when you are on shift.”
This is not that bad. Jason won't have to leave her alone in his apartment. “Fine but if you speak of this to anyone you are never gonna see her again, and I will make sure you will regret running your mouth.”
Jason gave his Cat to Chase and went for his weapons. Put them all in his duffel bag and ignored anyone who tried to talk to him. And was back in front of Chase.
“I'm not working today, give her back.”
“Did you even name her?”
Jason didn't say anything as Chase handed the kitten back, he petted the black fur.
“I will name her. Uhh. Car.” Chase said with a smirk. Fuckass old man.
“You are horrible, I will not call her that.”
Jason went back to his home. The helmet came off as soon as he closed the door. He remembered that the cat was probably from the streets and only now decided to wash her.
Jason spent his day sipping tea and reading And petting his new cat.