Duckie

It hurts to read a fic and then suddenly I’m topping the character like bro

The house was too quiet for a place where five lives had once bustled only hours ago. Nothing stirred inside the grand two-story home on Gotham's east end, not the shadows along the wainscoted hallway, not the chilled air heavy with the iron-sweet scent of death, and certainly not the dinner that still sat on the table, untouched, as though time itself had frozen.

The dining room spoke of routine and care—everything laid out with precision. Crystal glasses stood empty and clean, polished to shine beneath the dim chandelier above. Fine china cradled perfectly arranged sides: roasted fingerling potatoes glistening with herbs, buttered carrots, a sharp Caesar salad barely wilting beneath its dressing. At the center of it all, the pot roast sat in a silver dish, surrounded by vegetables that had gone limp in the cold air. The meat had congealed long ago, glistening with fat that no longer steamed. The wine bottle, uncorked and half full, sat idle near the father's seat, but no glass had been poured. The table setting remained untouched.

Not so the living room.

They found the family there—what remained of them. Moved from where they likely died, their bodies had been arranged like grotesque marionettes in a scene so surreal it bordered on performance art. A twisted parody of domestic life. Each corpse nailed into place with the precision of a madman's steady hand, arms bent unnaturally, heads tilted just so, expressions frozen mid-horror or mid-nothing. Limbs distorted. Necks too loose. Smiles carved or sewn into lips like mockeries of warmth.

It was evocative of Dirk Dzimirsky's portraits of humans, of life—but this was no graphite drawing. This was meat and bone.

The killer had taken liberties—missing parts were common in each murder, as though the bodies had been scavenged for pieces like broken dolls: fingers sliced off at the joint, tongues removed, eyelids cut away, as if to force the eyes open long after death. Sometimes the eyes themselves were gone too, scooped out like soft-boiled eggs. Organs vanished. Brains cored. Hearts gone. Bones snapped with almost surgical care.

But it wasn't just the theft of body parts that chilled the seasoned investigators to their bones. It was the fact that the bones they did find bore teeth marks—small, ragged indentations set in half-moons where no animal could have reached. These weren't the bite marks of rodents or strays.

They were human.

And worse, the bruising on some of the victims suggested the mutilation came after death, but not always immediately. In at least two cases, tissue bruised from pressure after the heart had stopped, meaning some post-mortem activity was recent. The killer didn't just kill. He returned to his work.

This wasn't a rage killing. This was curated. Composed.

And it wasn't the first.

For five months now, this predator had made Gotham his gallery, choosing families seemingly at random. There was no consistent demographic—his victims ranged from modest apartments in Old Gotham to wealthy brownstones north of Robinson Park. Lawyers. Waitresses. Police. Students. Fathers and mothers. Children. Sometimes pets were found flayed, posed beside the family like taxidermy experiments. Other times, the animals were simply gone.

What united each scene was its presentation—a sickly cheerful parody of family togetherness. A dinner party. A game night. A birthday celebration complete with paper hats still stapled to gray, deflated skulls.

He or she moved like a ghost, never leaving fingerprints. No forced entry. Security systems glitched or were bypassed with ease. Even the Bat couldn't track the scent.

Whoever this was, they didn't just know how to kill—they knew how to haunt. To drag out the death until it meant more than just a corpse. To hollow out the meaning of "home" and fill it with something foul.

Not even the veterans in the GCPD could hold their stomachs.

Because it wasn't just murder.

It was consumption.

Anything consumed in Gotham never goes unnoticed by the Bats—especially something like this. And yet, there was still no name, no face, no profile to upload to the Batcomputer. Just a trail of mutilated bodies and whispers in the dark. The media had dubbed the killer The Flesh-Eater, while in the shadowed corners of Gotham's underbelly, a colder, more unsettling name was spreading—The Hearth Ripper. A grotesque play on the word "hearth," traditionally symbolizing warmth and family, twisted now into something synonymous with evisceration and desecration. A nod, too, to London's infamous Ripper, as if the past had infected Gotham's present.

"God... another baby," one of the crime scene cleaners muttered, turning his face away as nausea clawed up his throat. His voice was hoarse, thin with fatigue and horror. His gloved hands trembled slightly, hovering over the bundle of pastel blue swaddling in the corner of the living room. He had hoped it was the family dog, as sick as that was. But this—this was worse. Much worse.

He made the sign of the cross across his chest with a shaky hand and lowered his head in a silent, private prayer. A ritual he'd repeated far too many times since this killer first surfaced five months ago. Once the words had passed, he exhaled and jotted down a note in the Gotham PD's field log:

Fifth family member confirmed. Infant.

A father. A mother. Two children. And a dog. Always the family dog.

Patchy, they'd said—small black terrier mix with a stubborn streak. Affectionate but noisy. According to the neighbor, Patchy barked like clockwork every morning at seven. Not that day. No barking. No scratchy paws against the front door. No garbage cans dragged out the night before, either—a red flag. The Kingsleys were meticulous about garbage days. Trash out by ten, like religion. It wasn't concern for Patchy or the bins that brought the neighbor to the front lawn—it was the silence.

"You sure?" another cleaner asked, still bent over the father's body. She hadn't looked up once, too focused on the grotesque artistry sprawled across the living room.

She prodded the man's torso gently, respectfully. A once-proud lawyer, the report had said. Married, no known affairs, no known enemies. His body was dressed in work clothes—button-up shirt unfastened, tie missing, one hand still clutched around the remote control. He was positioned neatly on the couch like he'd just come home late, loosened up, and started searching for something to watch.

"We haven't found the dog yet," she added, brows furrowing beneath her hooded hazmat suit.

"I'm sure," the male cleaner said, voice hollow behind the layers of plastic and filtered air. He'd peeled back the blanket on the mother's chest slowly, dreading what he'd find—and still, it hadn't prepared him. "It's not the dog."

The mother sat upright in an eerie domestic tableau. Her eyes open, face made-up with soft pink lipstick and perfectly curled hair. Her clothes were neat: a muted pink skirt down to her knees, white blouse ironed and buttoned, flats still on her feet. Not kitchen wear, not lounging attire. She had dressed for something. Dinner, maybe. Or company.

The cleaner swallowed hard, chest tight. "She's holding her baby," he said quietly. "She's cradling him...but the baby's head is gone."

The woman next to him turned, blinking behind the misted interior of her helmet. "What?"

He nodded grimly. "It's not fingers this time. Not eyelids. It's the head. A whole baby's head."

A long silence stretched between them, filled only by the low hum of machinery and the click of cameras from outside the crime scene barrier.

"It could be a woman doing this," she said finally, her voice low and dry. There was no humor in it. Just resignation. An attempt to stop the city from falling into a frenzy of assumptions. Gotham didn't need another witch hunt.

But the truth loomed heavy over both of them, undeniable and suffocating: this wasn't just a killer. This was someone with ritual. Someone who understood the theater of horror. Someone who knew how to leave a mark that wouldn't fade.

And this latest masterpiece? It was the most revolting one yet. The Hearth Ripper had struck again.

"You should finish looking for the dog. We haven't seen him yet," Montana said, straightening to her full height. The thick sleeve of her hazmat suit shifted as she reached down and gently pulled back the collar of the father's dress shirt. Just beneath the starched fabric, there it was—another Y-incision. Neat, practiced, the kind you see in mortuaries, not on a living man in his own home.

"Looks like he got another bite. I'm betting on the liver or the kidney again."

"That's not funny," William muttered sharply, glaring at her from across the room.

Before Montana could reply, a metallic clang echoed from the kitchen. Steel striking steel, loud and sudden. Both cleaners straightened at once, boots heavy on the hardwood floor as they turned toward the noise. The stench in the air seemed to tighten with their nerves. From the kitchen doorway, a shadow emerged, tall and calm and cloaked in the same protective suit.

[M/N] stood there, silent, composed, and holding a large, silver pot roast dish, lid sealed tight.

Montana's pen slipped from her gloved fingers, the clipboard nearly following. William froze. His knees wobbled just enough to betray his nausea. He knew what that dish meant. They both did.

"The pot roast?" Montana asked, though the answer already hung in the air.

"Cooked all the way through. Swimming in pork juices and vegetables," [M/N] replied, his tone devoid of shock or emotion. He stepped forward and set the platter down carefully, the weight of it solid in his grip.

Patchy. The family's dog.

Cooked.

Patchy had been found in the platter when [M/N] lifted the lid, the roast been written off as discarded food and the real pot roast tossed carelessly into the kitchen trash like an afterthought.

"I'll take the dog back to the lab. See if it was poisoned or drugged before... this," [M/N] said, motioning vaguely at the platter before turning back toward the scene without blinking.

William tried not to gag behind the filtered face shield of his suit. "You're taking this... really well," he said, voice thin.

"It's dead. It's a job. And more importantly—" [M/N] turned back toward them, his expression unreadable behind the clear visor, "—the dog didn't bark last night."

Montana adjusted the platter in her arms, shifting the weight so she could still cradle her paperwork without dropping either. "So?"

"They've been dead since last night."

"Exactly," [M/N] confirmed, eyes scanning the front room again, taking in the way the bodies were arranged, the frozen silence of what used to be a warm home. "And little dogs like that—terriers—they bark at everything. Especially when someone knocks. Strangers always set them off."

Montana's brow furrowed. "So the dog didn't bark... because it wasn't a stranger."

William's voice dropped, low and uneasy. "The family knew them."

"Correct," [M/N] said with a nod, leading the two toward the front door, careful to avoid the open sightlines of the media corralled just beyond the police tape. "Someone they knew came in. Maybe they drugged the family, but they didn't do the decent thing. No clean death. No quick mercy. They mutilated. Cooked. Performed."

Outside, the wind tugged at the corner of the plastic tent erected over the crime scene. Flashbulbs snapped in the distance, hungry reporters shouting questions no one would answer. The three of them kept walking until they reached the unmarked van parked by the curb—Gotham City Morgue, etched in fading black on the side.

[M/N] unzipped his hazmat suit, the thick fabric falling away from his shoulders in practiced motion.

He wasn't like the others who worked this job. Too young to be this hardened, too meticulous to just call it a career. [M/N] [L/N] was who Jim Gordon called when a body showed up where it didn't belong—or more often, when the scene felt wrong in the gut. He was the one Gotham's darkest corners feared for his precision, not because he fought crime, but because he could dissect the aftermath with surgical accuracy.

Batman had followed him once. Batgirl twice. Even the youngest Robin had trailed him through the morgue for answers once upon a time.

But to most people, [M/N] was no one special. Just a government employee with clinical hands and a too-cold stare. Blunt. Efficient. Unapologetic. His paperwork arrived before the deadline. His reports never left room for doubt.

"I want their blood tested, test for everything like the other bodies were." [M/N] orders, shooing his employees away as he walked to the front of the van. More will come for the bodies. "By tonight."

"Yes sir." Both said, both moving to do what was ordered.

++++

Jason Todd knew a cannibal.

Yeah. As insane as it sounded, he really did. He hadn't kept in touch—no letters, no calls, no shadowy rooftop visits—but that didn't change the truth. In a world where aliens crash through skylines, where metahumans burn holes in mountains, and literal clowns kill without blinking, knowing a cannibal somehow didn't feel like the craziest thing on Jason's résumé.

Still, he didn't advertise it.

The case had started the usual way—bodies. Torn apart, devoured in parts, carved with the kind of artistry only true psychopaths seem to possess. Bruce had forced a reluctant team-up between him and the rest of the family, some sort of olive branch Jason would've gladly set on fire if he wasn't so focused. At first, the usual suspects came up: Killer Croc, Robert Greenwood, Flamingo, King Shark. But every single one of them had alibis. Solid ones. Checked, double-checked. Dates didn't match, timelines were too tight.

Which pissed Jason off.

Not because of the victims—at least not at first. These weren't the poor or the innocent, not all of them. Some of the earliest victims were old money. People who drained Gotham of its color with silent investments and glass towers. People who took and took, boarded private jets to Monaco while the city burned. Jason wouldn't say it aloud, but he didn't care much for those types. The ones with no kids. No pets. No heart.

But this killer?

They didn't discriminate.

Didn't matter if you had a penthouse or a tenement. Pregnant, elderly, newlywed, children, pets—nothing was off-limits. A whole family found strung up like meat in a slaughterhouse, their dog curled up under the table with a broken neck and no signs of a fight.

Fourteen families so far. Each one spaced exactly ten days apart. Different times found, different times killed, all posed differently.

Jason had driven through the filthiest corners of Gotham until the grime stuck to his soul. Sleep was a joke—he'd gone longer without rest than Bruce, and that was saying something. He rode the city like a hunter on the scent, wearing Red Hood like armor and rage like a second skin.

Ten days since the last one. Jason knew what that meant. Another family would die soon or at least being hunted at the moment. Gotham held its breath. So did the GCPD. Bruce brooded harder than usual, snapping at the team, sulking in silence when he couldn't find a lead. Everyone was waiting for the next move.

Everyone except Jason.

Jason was done waiting.

He was pissed. Ready. And just as he loaded his gear for the night, a thought cut through the haze of fury—sharp, sudden, unwelcome.

A memory. Buried, half-decayed like the skeletons they sometimes dug up in Park Row. Back when he was still Robin. Before the crowbar. Before the dirt. Before everything went to hell.

There had been a kid. A ghost, really. Not someone who spoke much. That was Jason's doing, he was a kid thinking he wa doing the right thing and never gave too much hope of a friendship that withered and died when Bruce picked up Jason.

A kid from the same broken part of Gotham Jason had been taken out of.

He didn't know if the memory was real or just another blur from the trauma stew his brain liked to cook up. Life at the manor had turned a lot of his childhood into fog. But he remembered him. The ghost. The silence. The secret. And the favor.

Jason had kept his mouth shut about a lot back then—activities that would've had Batman dragging the kid to Arkham or juvie or somewhere worse. "The right thing," Bruce would've called it. But Jason hadn't ratted him out. Not then. Not ever. And in return?

The ghost owed him.

Jason had never called it in. Hadn't needed to. But now? He was gonna cash it all in for this. A predator looking, hunting another one within Gotham's limits.

Finding him was easier than Jason expected.

All it took was a name typed into the Batcomputer and a little patience—Tim had already combed through traffic cams for weeks, chasing leads and discarding dead ends. Jason retraced the digital breadcrumbs, following a dark car seen heading toward a part of Gotham that had managed to survive both urban renewal and moral decay.

The place? A bar wedged awkwardly between the crumbling bones of Park Row and the dust-covered shoulders of the lower-middle-class districts. Not quite seedy, but not the kind of place you bragged about frequenting either. It sat there like a scar that hadn't healed right, one of the many Gotham hadn't managed to scrub clean in its attempt to look presentable.

Jason had raised a brow when the address popped up.

Drinking? Didn't seem like the sort of thing his old friend would be into. Not after the childhood they'd both crawled out of. Then again, who was Jason to judge? He drank sometimes too—when it was quiet, when the ghosts got too loud, or just because the bottle was cold and no one was around to stop him.

He didn't take the infamous red bike this time. And he left the uniform hanging in the closet like a costume he didn't want to put on tonight. No Red Hood. No guns. Just Jason Todd.

This wasn't an ambush. It was a conversation. A quiet one, if possible. Maybe even a reunion, if he was lucky. Not that he'd scratched the guy's name off the suspect list. Far from it.

Jason still had questions. Too many to ignore.

He dressed for the occasion—if it could even be called that. His tall, muscular frame—six-foot-six of solid threat—was dressed down in civilian clothes that made him look more like a biker off duty than a vigilante. Dark jeans tucked into well-worn black boots. A fitted dark gray T-shirt that dipped into a modest V, just enough to show the top of his scarred chest. Over it, a black leather jacket, soft from age and use.

His black hair, messy from the helmet, still carried that streak of white that the Lazarus Pit gifted—or cursed—him with. He liked to joke that it brought out the green in his eyes. It annoyed the hell out of Bruce and made Alfred sigh.

Jason had left his phone behind—technically stashed in Demon Spawn's bike so the family thought he was on patrol. He needed quiet. Space. A chance to breathe without a Bat whispering in his ear.

The bar's parking lot was half-empty. Mostly cheap bikes, dirty sedans, and one ancient truck held together by sheer spite. Jason parked away from the rest, kicked the stand down, and climbed off. The helmet came off next, freeing his hair to the cool Gotham air as he walked toward the entrance.

From inside, the noise spilled out—laughter, muffled arguments, the soft thwack of a pool cue striking a cue ball.

Jason paused at the door, gaze flicking across the peeling paint and flickering neon sign above it. He adjusted his stance, straightened his jacket.

"Didn't think he'd end up in a place like this..." he muttered to himself, voice low.

Then he stepped inside.

The bar smelled like beer, sweat, and wood polish—clean enough to not be a dive, but cheap enough to keep the regulars comfortable. Eyes turned to him the moment he entered—curious, wary, sizing him up like a predator walking into a den of other predators. Jason ignored them.

He moved to the counter and leaned a forearm casually against it. The bartender—a woman with dyed red hair and half a sleeve of tattoos—didn't even look up as she rinsed a glass behind the bar.

"Whatever you've got under twenty. The shittier, the better," Jason said.

She gave a small shrug and disappeared behind the cooler, popping a cap off something that smelled like a regret in a bottle. Jason took the beer with a nod, though he didn't drink from it yet. His eyes scanned the bar slowly, methodically.

He was looking for a familiar face.

[E/C] eyes. [S/C] skin. [Length] [H/C] hair.

He'd left the Batcomputer without much fanfare, but not without digging up a little intel first. His job updated their ID for the city, and Jason caught a good peek at his old friend's recent picture. That picture stuck in Jason's head. His friend looked... the same.

Not twelve years old anymore. No longer sneaking cans of beans out of corner stores with a busted coat and hollow cheeks. Now? There was weight to him. Not fat, but filled out. The kind of strength that said he didn't need to run anymore.

Jason's grip tightened on the neck of the bottle.

He found himself hoping this wasn't a wasted visit. And praying it wasn't going to end with blood on the bar floor. That was the last thing he needed was more trauma. Once he sipped the beer, he walked as if he was just enjoiying the vibe of the bar, without needing to knock together a couple heads who wanted to try him.

Jason searched the bar thoroughly, weaving through the dim space with a practiced eye. He even dipped into the bathroom, kicking open each stall after tossing his half-empty beer bottle into a nearby trash can that was already overflowing with crumpled napkins, plastic straws, and soggy receipts. The stalls were open and clean—no sign of anyone inside besides himself.

He sighed through his nose and stepped up to the mirror, leaning in slightly. The lighting was harsh, yellowed from age and flickering faintly. He brushed his fingers through his black hair, smoothing back the slightly damp strands from where the helmet had pressed them down. His eyes lingered on the faint line of foundation he had smeared earlier across the scar on his cheek—the thin, raised shape of a "J" carved by the Joker's hand, years ago.

It wasn't the only scar that haunted him. He knew what lay underneath his clothes: the long Y-shaped incision down his torso, from sternum to pelvis, from the night he died. When the morgue had sliced him open, they had thought he was just another dead kid from Gotham. Then came the casket, the burial, the cold silence underground. Until Talia.

But all of that felt like someone else's life now.

Jason stared at himself. He didn't know how his old friend would react to seeing him again. Would he care? Be scared? Angry? Indifferent?

For Jason, it was complicated. Messy. And maybe selfish. But for his friend... he hoped things hadn't turned out as badly.

He pushed off the sink and left the bathroom. The sound of boots echoed across the floor as a new game of pool started up. The chatter in the bar had shifted slightly, and Jason paused. A vibration rang through the noise—a phone buzzing. It wasn't his. He hadn't brought it, anyway. It wasn't one of the bikers' either; none of them reached for their pockets. The bartender didn't flinch.

Jason's eyes scanned the bar and caught sight of a black-cased phone sitting screen-down on a nearby table. He walked over and picked it up, flipping it carefully to check the screen. A notification banner was still glowing faintly—something about lab results, some workplace notification. The background wallpaper caught Jason's attention more than the message itself. A dramatic, darkly artistic image, full of color and emotion.

It fit. Too well. The kind of thing his old friend might have liked. Or... maybe still did.

He realized, grimly, he didn't actually know what his friend liked anymore. Did he drink? Smoke? Eat at fast-food chains like Bat Burger, or prefer quiet, upscale bistros tucked away in Gotham's gentrified corners? Did he listen to rock? Classical? Did he even still like jeans?

Jason shook his head.

"It doesn't matter," he muttered to himself. He slid the phone into his jacket pocket and looked toward the bar's side door—the one that led out into the alley for smokers, loners, or the occasional late-night brawl. His boots creaked softly as he crossed the room and stepped out into the cold night air.

A loud crash broke the quiet. Metal bins clattered together, a familiar noise that didn't startle him. Jason turned the corner slowly, rounding into the dimly lit alleyway where the scent of damp trash and oil clung to the brick walls.

Then he stopped.

Two figures were ahead of him. One lay sprawled on the ground—skinny, twitching slightly, with a pool of blood forming beneath his head where it had struck the pavement. A biker, by the look of the leather and patches. Alone. Weak. Easy pickings without his gang.

The other man crouched over him.

Jason's heart dropped.

There he was. His old friend. Same features, sharper now. Same eyes—calculating, cold in this moment. He was crouched with one knee touching the ground, head tilted as he examined the bleeding man. Fingers slick with red. Jason saw him lick the blood off absently, as if it were honey on his fingers instead of another man's life.

"Fast food?" Jason quipped, voice casual despite the tightness in his gut.

The man didn't look up immediately. "Funny," he said dryly, the tone calm but laced with irritation. "What are you doing here? Finally come to collect the freak?"

He licked his lips, the blood already fading into his skin, and let his hand fall away. Then, without pause, he rolled up the biker's shirt and pressed lightly over his abdomen, fingers testing along the skin near the kidneys.

Jason didn't move. He just stood there, arms loose by his sides, trying to ignore the burn of unease crawling up his back.

"No," Jason said after a beat, voice lower. "More like a collection."

The man's hand stilled briefly at the word.

Jason took a breath. It was hard to say, harder still to admit the reason he was even here, but he forced the words out anyway.

"You owe me."

Jason's voice cut through the silence like the sharp edge of a blade. He didn't move, just stood there with his hands loosely at his sides, eyes fixed on the man crouched in the alley. His dark green gaze, once bright with mischief and fire, now held a weary sort of ache.

He studied the man in front of him—not the scrappy kid he used to know, not the boy who ran with him through the broken streets of Park Row. This wasn't the same friend who had helped him scavenge cans for coins or waited anxiously at the corner for his grandmother's Social Security check so they could split a hot meal. This wasn't the same boy who showed him how to read, sitting cross-legged on the church steps with a weathered paperback pulled from a donation box, grinning like a fox with a stolen prize.

No, this man was something else entirely. Taller, leaner, sharper in every sense of the word. There was a quiet menace in the way he crouched there over the biker's unconscious body, blood on his fingertips, the scent of violence still thick in the air. The boy who once had dirt under his nails and bruises on his knuckles was now Gotham's city coroner—[M/N] [L/N]. The same man that could be responsible for the many families that were wiped out. No evidence. No leads. Only whispers.

And if it was him—if the stories were true—Jason wanted to know how. And why.

A laugh echoed off the alley's brick walls. [M/N] stood up slowly, brushing the grime from his slacks. He licked the last smear of blood from his finger with the absent grace of someone licking honey off their hand.

"I owe you? Is that what you're saying?" he asked, the amusement curling beneath his words like smoke.

Jason tilted his head slightly, unfazed. "Yeah," he said coolly, giving the biker on the ground a small nudge with the toe of his boot. A groan escaped the man—low, broken, proof he was still breathing.

"From when I found you elbow-deep in some burglar's spine," Jason continued. "Getting your favorite snack."

"I was thirteen," [M/N] muttered, rolling his eyes as if the memory were an old family story told too many times. "And starving."

His eyes flicked to Jason, measuring. He looked at him the way someone might look at an old photo—familiar, distant, and hard to recognize all at once.

"Not all of us got kidnapped and taken in by a billionaire with a mansion and a butler," he added, brushing off the last bits of alley dust. "Got to dress up in tights and play... what was it again? Robin Hood?" He snorted. It was a laugh, but not a kind one. It wasn't exactly bitter either—just laced with a kind of resigned amusement. But it still stung. Even now, after all these years, it struck something raw at the bottom of Jason's chest.

Jason didn't answer right away. The cold air hung between them, thick with memory. The stink of trash, blood, and the past clung to their clothes like oil.

They were both strangers now—strangers with shared memories. And Jason wasn't sure which part of that hurt more. He couldn't focus on that, not that.

"Don't give me that pity shit," Jason snapped, though his voice stayed even—controlled, or at least pretending to be. He had to. He needed to be calm, to keep the upper hand. "You owe me for that night. I could've told Batman, and he would've—"

"Sent me to Arkham," [M/N] interrupted flatly, not missing a beat. His tone wasn't angry, but it was sharp—cutting in a way that left no room for argument. "Because that's what you do with broken kids in Gotham. Lock them up, drug them up, and let them rot in a padded cell where no one has to look at them again."

His eyes flicked to Jason, unwavering. "You'd know something about that... wouldn't you?"

Jason's jaw clenched, the muscle twitching at the corner. He did know. The words sat heavy between them, heavier than the blood still drying on the biker's jacket behind them. But instead of rising to it, instead of shouting like he wanted to, Jason drew a slow breath through his nose. He had to keep cool.

"It would be a shame," he said at last, voice low, "if someone were to... disrupt your cases. Make things a little messier. A little harder."

[M/N]'s expression didn't shift, but his eyes sharpened.

"Blackmail?" he hissed. "Grow up, Jason."

There it was—the venom. Not rage, but disdain. He saw through Jason like glass, just as he always had when they were kids sharing stale chips in the stairwell of their roach-infested apartment building. [M/N] had always been too sharp for his own good. He was even sharper now, like something honed under pressure until it cut clean through everything else.

"What do you actually want?" he asked, arms crossed, standing tall in the dim alley light. The man Jason once knew had vanished entirely into the sharp lines of dark slacks, polished shoes, and a deep purple button-up, a matching vest fitted over his lean frame. Sophisticated. Unbothered. Dangerous.

Jason opened his mouth, hesitated, then shut it. He ran the words through his head again and again before finally settling on the truth.

"You."

[M/N] blinked once. "Excuse me?"

Jason silently cursed himself. Smooth, Todd. Real smooth.

"I want you to help with the case," he clarified quickly, shifting on his feet. "I know you've already been doing some behind-the-scenes work, but I mean officially. Privately. On a more personal level."

He met his friend's gaze, forcing himself not to flinch under the weight of it.

"You know who I am. You knew when I left Park Row. And you know who Bruce is—what he is. We have resources, tools, intel that could make your job a hell of a lot easier. And you..." He searched for a word that didn't sound insulting. "You have knowledge in certain... areas. Special expertise."

There was a pause. Then, a snort.

"Because I eat people?" [M/N] replied, raising an eyebrow. "On rare occasions."

Jason's eyes flicked over him again, now that the lighting allowed for it. He wasn't just refined—he was striking. The kind of handsome that wasn't polished or forced, but carved from surviving everything that should have broken him. There was a confidence in his posture, the effortless way he moved, the calm edge to his voice.

Most kids from their building hadn't grown up. They'd ended up in gangs or coffins. But [M/N] had clawed his way out—and maybe lost parts of himself along the way.

"And what exactly is in it for me?" [M/N] asked, tilting his head. "Please, entertain me. Blackmail only works on people who are stupid or insecure. I'm neither."

The first thought that jumped to Jason's mind was simple.

"Money."

[M/N] narrowed his eyes.

"Tons of it," Jason added, shrugging with mock nonchalance. "Courtesy of Bruce Wayne's personal accounts. I could get you out of the city, if you wanted. New job. New name. Close to cadavers, minimal questions. Easy snacking options."

It was rare for Jason to talk about Bruce without a bitter twist to his voice. But here, now, he sounded almost like a salesman. Desperate. Convincing. Maybe both.

[M/N] considered it, arms still crossed. "Interesting," he murmured, "even though I already have a very well-paying job."

"Student debt's a bitch."

"Paid off. Buried with the rest of my past," [M/N] replied with a small roll of his eyes. He rubbed his fingers together absentmindedly as he studied Jason—not just looking at him, but reading him. Measuring the man who used to be a boy who always got up when he was knocked down, even if it meant standing on shaking legs.

Jason didn't have to explain what he'd been through. He didn't have to say what came after death. It clung to him in waves—trauma and anguish, raw and real.

"I'll do it," [M/N] said finally, his voice quiet but firm. "If it means the money's mine. No strings. A rainy day fund never hurts."

Jason let out a slow breath, part relief, part tension. A small nod followed.

"Deal." But as [M/N] turned away, Jason couldn't help but wonder if he'd just made a deal with something more dangerous than he could control.

And deep down, maybe that was exactly what he wanted.

"But there's a catch," Jason added, voice quieter now, more deliberate. The words rolled off his tongue like they'd been sitting on it for a while—carefully thought out, chosen with intent. He'd come here for more than just a partnership. He had a plan.

Of course he did.

"I figured," [M/N] said, still not turning to look at him. He stood with one foot slightly forward, hands tucked loosely into the pockets of his slacks, as if the entire conversation bored him—but Jason could see the subtle tension in his shoulders. "I'm listening."

The alley's single flickering light buzzed overhead, casting long, dancing shadows against the brick wall behind them. Inside the bar, laughter and off-key karaoke filtered out through the back door, a stark contrast to the cold air and the weight of their reunion. Jason watched the back of his oldest friend—the only one from Park Row who'd survived in a way that wasn't just breathing—and wondered what the hell he was really getting into.

Still, he smiled faintly. Almost smug.

+++++

Tim Drake liked to consider himself the most balanced of his siblings—strategic, composed, occasionally slept like a log anywhere within an inch of his life. He enjoyed the occasional prank war, especially when it involved getting under Damian's skin or making Bruce sigh loud enough to echo through the Manor. Sometimes Steph joined in. Sometimes Dick took things too far and ended up covered in glitter.

But this?

This wasn't a prank.

He paused mid-sip of his post-workout protein shake, nearly choking as his phone lit up with a new message in the family group chat—a rarely peaceful zone of chaos and passive-aggressive memes.

A single text from Jason.

"Got married."

That was it. No emojis. No explanation. No pictures. And just as fast as the message was sent, Jason went offline.

Almost immediately, responses started pouring in. And from somewhere upstairs, there was the unmistakable sound of a chair toppling over in Bruce's office, followed by a muttered curse.

Tim blinked. Slowly lowered his protein shake.

"Sweet," he said aloud to no one, but the word came out half-hearted. His eyes stayed glued to the screen, rereading Jason's message.

Then it hit him.

"Wait... Jason got married?" His brow furrowed. "Before any of us?" He sat back, a frown creeping onto his face. "Feel bad for the unlucky lady," he muttered with a dry laugh.

But the amusement faded quickly.

Jason didn't date. Not seriously. Not long enough for an engagement, let alone a marriage. And he definitely didn't announce anything unless he had a reason. Tim's fingers hovered over his phone, ready to call.

ALSO: I just showed this post to my roommate, who is an MD at a clinic that specializes in care for the LGBT community in the Baltimore area. I asked her  whether hormones were responsible for the difference in the “male/female” symptom arrays. I asked how that would apply to her trans patients (which, she treats a LOT of trans patients). She said, basically, that the longer you’ve taken testosterone the more likely you are to get the intense chest pressure and the arm pain, versus the upper back pressure and shortness of breath.

FOOD

Find your nearest food bank or mission, for food

grocery stores with free samples, bakeries + stores with day-old bread

different fast food outlets have cheaper food and will generally let you hang out for a while.

some dollar stores carry food like cans of beans or fruit

SHELTER

Sleeping at beaches during the day is a good way to avoid suspicion and harassment

sleep with your bag strapped to you, so someone can’t steal it

Some churches offer short term residence

Find your nearest homeless shelter

Look for places that are open to the public

A large dumpster near a wall can often be moved so that flipping up the lids creates an angled shelter to stay dry

HYGIENE

A membership to the YMCA is usually only 10$, which has a shower, and sometimes laundry machines and lockers.

Public libraries have bathrooms you can use

Dollar stores carry low-end soaps and deodorant etc.

Wet wipes are all purpose and a life saver

Local beaches, go for a quick swim

Some truck stops have showers you can pay for

Staying clean is the best way to prevent disease, and potentially get a job to get back on your feet

Pack 7 pairs of socks/undies, 2 outfits, and one hooded rain jacket

OTHER

first aid kit

 sunscreen

 a travel alarm clock or watch

 mylar emergency blanket

 a backpack is a must

 downgrade your cellphone to a pay as you go with top-up cards

 sleeping bag

 travel kit of toothbrush, hair brush/comb, mirror

 swiss army knife