PAIRING: Jason Todd x Reader
SYNOPSIS: "Sure, baby." He smiles down at her, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes, twirling it around his finger before tucking it behind an ear. "You'd think after the last-"
His body catches it before his mind does, and she watches in real time as Jason tenses, then trails off, the amusement draining from his expression. "What is it?" She whispers, confused. Her hand curls around his, squeezing.
Their front door breaks into splinters with a loud bang.
NOTE: It's actually been ages
"Let me up!" She giggles, trying to squirm away from under him. Jason is heavy, mostly muscle, and has no problem pinning her down with his body weight. A lazy smile stretches across his face, eyes glinting with amusement. "Jason!"
"Nah, you had so much to say earlier." He digs his fingers into her waist and yanks her back down under him easily. "Where's all that attitude now, huh?"
Rare were these days, where the Gotham smog cleared to show hints and flashes of the stars speckling the night's sky through their apartment's window. Days where neither of them came home with their shoulders set heavy, the slight weight of the world on them despite the years both of them have had to assimilate to the fact that that just is part of living in this city.
She doesn't even remember how they started play fighting, just that there had been a playful jab here, a chase around their kitchen table, laughter, and then the soft impact of Jason tackling her onto the couch cushions before dragging them both to the ground. Always careful, despite his strength, always cautious to cushion her landing physically and metaphorically.
It's carefree, for a moment. She's just her, and he's just Jason, and none of the darkness outside the rusty hinges of their front door exists.
Reaching around him, her fingers tangle in the hair near the back of his head, and she tugs him down. Jason fights it for a moment, just to see her giggle and then he relents, kissing her firmly, taking his time because God knows so much of it is already behind him. "I'm letting you win this time." She mumbles into his mouth, and Jason can't manage to hold back a snicker while he pulls away.
"Sure, baby." He smiles down at her, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes, twirling it around his finger before tucking it behind an ear. "You'd think after the last-"
His body catches it before his mind does, and she watches in real time as Jason tenses, then trails off, the amusement draining from his expression. She moves to sit up upon sensing the change, but a hand to her shoulder pushes her back down and still. "Stop." He says, head cocked to the side, brow furrowed in concentration.
"What is it?" She whispers, confused. Her hand curls around his, squeezing.
His eyes narrow. "I think-"
Their front door breaks into splinters with a loud bang.
Jason swears, immediately throws himself forward to cover her body with his own, arms around her head as pieces of wood fly over the couch. Her hands come to grab at him in shock, and once the dust settles they only have a moment to pull away and make eyes contact before Jason is ripped away and thrown against the coffee table hard enough to shatter the glass.
"What the fuck?" He snarls, sitting up with a wince, adrenaline catching fire in his blood. "Who-"
When Jason's finally calm enough to blink the sudden wave of anger out of his vision, his back stiffens. Caught between the smoking barrel of a shotgun and a headlock, is her.
To her credit, she doesn't look panicked. If the pinch in her brow is something to go by she's furious, but there's a controlled glint in her eyes that tells him she's tampering down her real fear to unpack later.
"Stay down." The man says. Two others in similar cloth masks scatter around the apartment, pulling out drawers and shoving things into bags.
Jason stands, and the man shoves the gun against his girlfriend's head hard enough for her to stifle a groan. He catalogues the sound, remembers it for when he'll pay it back tenfold later.
He's cautious, but knows that the man likely won't pull the trigger so soon, not when he has easy leverage against him. Was this a random robbery, or a personal attack on him, is the main question. By the looks of it there's nothing to suggest that anyone is really interested in Jason aside from keeping him from making a move.
"The fuck do you want?" He snarls, hands bunching into fists. Something dark thrums right under his skin, infecting his blood with a poisoning green that Jason has finally come to co-exist with.
"Nothing personal." Jackass 1 says with a shrug, and the inflection in his tone suggests he's smiling. "Running low on cash, my boys and I gotta keep the lights on."
No way Redhood just got caught in the middle of a random robbery.
If Tim was here he'd be laughing.
Jason feels the farthest thing from amused.
If this were just his place, he'd be less bothered about it maybe, but it isn't. It's theirs. Something crafted from years of living together, every corner holding something of value may that be monetary or sentimental. His and his girls. Their bed where they sleep every night, their kitchen table they use for those sleepless nights, their living room Jason often than not collapses in after a long patrol. Echoes of them live in the rooms, and it's one of the few sanctuaries Jason feels he can shed his armour without the fear of it getting thrown back in his face.
And now it's been tainted.
Drawers emptied out, photo frames on the floor, and a gun pressed to his girl's head.
The freak goes to say something else, maybe to taunt him or demand the location of whatever he thinks he's going to find, but nothing but a howl comes out of his mouth as Jason watches the woman he loves rear her head back and crack it against the bastards nose, her free hand pushing the barrel of the gun away from her temple just as it goes off.
The noise is deafening, leaves a ringing in her ears that's almost unbearable, but the momentum is enough for her to shove the man off and stumble against one of the walls, hand pressed against her ear in pain. She trusts him to handle it, trusts him enough to squeeze her eyes shut and focus on not throwing up all over their new rug.
'Atta girl' Jason thinks viciously, and after sparing a glance just to see her whole and in one piece, he launches himself forward with an amount of grace surprising for a man of his stature.
Jason snarls, rips the gun out of the man's hand and slams the rear end of it into his head, kicking him hard in the chest to send him crashing into the wall. The other two men have abandoned their pillaging in favour of pulling out small knives and jumping into the fray, trying to take him down.
They go down easy, further proof that this wasn't a professional job, just an unlucky encounter for both ends.
Jason disarms them both, knocks them out, and leaves them on the ground before picking up one of their knives and approaching the first guy on the ground who's struggling to push himself up against the wall.
He grabs the man by the hair and yanks it backwards painfully, standing over him with a scowl. "Bad day to be you, shithead."
Then he drives the knife straight into the man's wrist that held the gun, twisting until he's screaming and Jason can feel his bones crack and separate. He leaves the blade in their, tightens his grip on the bastard's head and slams it down onto the floorboards to knock him out.
Silence. The noise is over as soon as it started, the threat neutralised, but Jason still feels the tell-tale anger coursing through his veins. It's a struggle to soothe it, to remember that this isn't who he is now, that taking the lives of these three men would not make him feel better in the long run no matter how much his fingers itch to pull the trigger. Shaking it off, he turns to more important matters.
He's by her side in seconds, a hand on her back and urging her to straighten up from how she's standing all curled into herself.
"Hey." He breathes, voice dropped to a lower register. "We're good, it's alright, c'mon."
Alarm rings through him. "What's wrong?" Jason says, shifting to stand in front of her, hands on her shoulders. He practically pulls her upright
"Hurts..." She grits out, pale. "I...I can't hear clearly. Ringing." "Shit." She inhales with a shudder.
"Let me see." It comes out firmer, and this time when he tries to tilt her head up Jason doesn't let her fight it.
Blood drips down the side of her face, slick between her fingers that were pressed against the wound. Jason's breath hitches sharply as he brushes away her hair to inspect the damage. It's nothing severe, the gun firing just grazed the side of her forehead but everything's still intact, and she's still breathing, and Jason hasn't lost the best thing to ever happen to him over dumb Gotham luck-
A hand winds around his wrist, one that he hadn't noticed was shaking. "I'm fine." She finally says, blinking hard a few times and straightening up. She wobbles, and offers him a weak smile when Jason immediately steadies her by the waist. "It's okay, Jay."
"It's not." He swallows, glancing over his shoulder at the wreckage of their home. Bloodstains and dents in the walls, possessions thrown around, and blankets torn up. Now that the adrenaline is wearing off, a heavy sort of sadness settles in him.
"I don't care about all that." She says softly, holding onto him as the tinnitus starts to fade. The sound is still dizzying, but much more bearable now. "Just that we're alright."
Jason lets out a long breath, and allows himself a moment to bury his face in her hair, breathing in her scent. He winds an arm around her, digs his phone out from his pocket with the other.
"That'll need stitches." He mumbles, pulling away to frown at the bleeding again. "We're going to the cave, Alfred'll help."
Tired, she settles for a nod. They gather the few essential things they need and Jason kicks aside one of the men in front of the door roughly to get past and back outside. There's a little bit of satisfaction in that.
Tonight he'll watch over her, stay by her side and hover. That's just what he does, what Jason has always done after a close call. His bones ache with the need to protect, to stay close, to safeguard. Tonight is for soothing that rush of anger in him that he's barely keeping a leash on, just enough to make sure that she's settled and recovering well.
Tomorrow, the Red Hood goes hunting.
Reblog, Like and Comment!
