Everyone Crushing on Jason AU 3
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Hal wasn't sure how the situation had devolved to the point that he now had an alliance with Guy Gardner of all people, but even the extra back-up hadn't been enough to separate Jason Todd from the iron curtain of admirers that had sprung up around the man the instant he'd left Hal's sight.
The original plan had been to blandish the Supers until they changed targets to Hal himself as he slipped into their place beside Jason, but that had only resulted in Kara's eyes glowing terrifyingly red in preparation for a heat-vision blast with Hal as a target, while Superboy ignored him entirely. Meanwhile, Arsenal and Starfire had Red Hood's undivided attention for as long as they were in the man's vicinity and neither had taken kindly to Guy butting in. Arsenal and Guy had ended up in a fist fight that resulted in Red Hood himself slamming both men's heads together and leaving the two in a pile as he left the infirmary with Orphan and Nightwing, Starfire shaking her head over them both as Hal realized he'd severely miscalculated the difficulty of the task he'd taken on.
But seriously, how did some no-name beefcake he'd never heard of until minutes before already have an impenetrable wall of prominent superheroes policing his personal space? It was completely unfair! Like dangling a prize in front of Hal’s face before telling him it was on the other side of a death trap. He'd been way too naive to think someone this damn sexy wouldn't already have a slew of people ready to fight for the honor of being squeezed between those muscled thighs. Clearly there was more to Red Hood than an amazing body and bad boy aura and Hal needed to find out all he could to secure a victory against his rivals.
“We've got to change tactics,” Hal told Guy in a secluded, empty meeting room on the Watchtower satellite the next day.
Guy nodded to himself, eyes narrowed and distant with consideration. “Yeah, you're right,” his fellow Lantern acknowledged, rubbing his chin. “I should wear cologne. Something that smells like, I don't know, wood or something. But what kind of wood? Mahogany, teak, sandalwood? It's a tough decision, man.”
The only thing keeping Hal from slapping himself or slapping Guy was that he couldn’t decide which he wanted to do more in that moment.
Hal groaned at the ceiling, willing some sympathetic god to strike him down and end his misery. “That is not what I meant, I'm talking about information.”
“Information?” Guy repeated with a raised brow. “What kinda information and how do you say we get it? We could barely get within ten feet of the man! We're at a real disadvantage here, Jordan. We seem to be comin' in late to the game.”
Guy scratched the back of his head anxiously, looking more troubled than Hal was used to seeing his fellow Lantern. Normally the man was all ‘go’ all the time. He never seemed to have any doubts, even when the odds were stacked against him. Hal didn't know why or how it had happened, but when it came to Jason Todd, Guy seemed to have fallen hard and fast enough to start second-guessing himself. Gardner was almost stupidly cocky, but when it came to the Red Hood it seemed his confidence might be failing him. While normally anything that took the other Lantern down a peg was something Hal wholeheartedly supported, watching the man's enthusiasm plummet made Hal realize he really didn't want to see the man moping around about lost love.
“You wimping out on me, Guy?” Hal egged on with a raised a brow. No Green Lantern could resist a jibe like that. It would set the other man straight. “Because if you want to bow out of the running I'm all for it. Less competition for me.”
“I ain't saying that,” Guy assured him, standing up straighter. “It's just usually you've only got to worry about somethin' stupid coming outta your mouth at the wrong moment, or forgetting to wear deodorant in front of the person you like. You know, normal shit. Not a damn cadre of bodyguards enforcing a six-foot perimeter. I mean, I figure with cologne at least maybe I smell good enough to lure him in close...”
Hal rolled his eyes. “He's not a shark lured by the scent of blood, cologne isn't going to do anything. We need some tangible reconnaissance to fall back on.” Hal ticked off fingers as he listed, “Conversation topics, likes and dislikes, who his friends are, where all these gatekeepers are coming from and how to get them off our backs.”
Guy bit the inside of his cheek, looking thoughtful as he warmed to the idea. “Okay, yeah I get where you're coming from with this, Jordan. We've got to investigate. Really use our heads.”
As far as Hal could tell, Guy had only ever used his head as a blunt instrument of violence, so he felt perfectly justified in asking, “That's not going to be too difficult for you, is it Guy?”
Guy punched him in the shoulder hard enough to have Hal grab it and whine an “Ow...”
“Ha ha,” Guy deadpanned without humor. “Sure, insult my intelligence.You're the one whose had your brain turned into scrambled eggs by Parallax more than once, but I'm the dumb one of the two of us. Yeah, that makes sense.”
Hal held his hands up, absolving himself of responsibility. “Hey, you said it not me.”
Guy huffed, but suddenly looked smug and knowing as he said, “If I'm just so dumb, then why do I know exactly who we've got to hit up first for information?”
He'd already had a few people in mind when he suggested the course of action, but Hal figured hearing Guy's take could make for a good laugh. “Fine, I'll bite. Who?”
Snapping his finger with a grin, Guy revealed, “Our boy, Rayner! He and Hood seemed pretty tight yesterday. If nothing else he can probably point us in the direction of someone else to interrogate.”
Kyle, huh? Hal had honestly been thinking of going to Barry, just because his friend seemed to always have answers when he needed them. Or maybe Nightwing, since he and Red Hood were clearly close by the way he glared Hal down while stitching up Red Hood's side with full trust, but Kyle was probably an even better bet. They had so much more blackmail material on Kyle than they did on Barry or Nightwing. For once, Guy had a good idea.
“You're right...yeah, let's hit him up,” Hal agreed. “I thought I saw him in the Watchtower Canteen just earlier.”
“I call 'bad space-cop',” Guy said immediately, forcing Hal to scowl in response.
“We're not going to 'good space-cop'-'bad space-cop' another Lantern!” he protested.
Guy shrugged. “You say that now, but you'll be singin' a different tune when he clams up.”
Personally, Hal was skeptical that Kyle could resist telling them anything about the Red Hood. Kyle had his moments of stubbornness and snark but he generally liked to live up to expectations. He was a good kid. Not to mention bad-mouthing Jason Todd seemed to be a secret hobby of his that no one had known about, and Kyle really enjoyed his hobbies. Look at how often they found the guy doodling super heroes between meetings.
“Well if that ever happens, I call badder space-cop,” Hal decided, mostly just because he knew it would get a reaction from Guy.
Of course Guy's brows snapped together instantly and his face flushed with anger. “Like hell! You can't do that, I already called bad space-cop!”
Hal threw up his hands with no shame, internally grinning. “Can. Did.”
With an irritated snort, Guy growled, “Fine, then we'll just ask him normally. Jeez, you've just gotta ruin everything, don't you Jordan?”
Hal smirked. “It's what I live for.”
- - -
Kyle didn't look up from his sketchbook as Guy and Hal took seats across from him in the Watchtower canteen. He just focused on fleshing out the lines and curves, adding shape and depth and shading, breathing life into his work. When the lines began to take familiar paths, the image clarifying into someone recognizable, he frowned to himself and purposefully changed the design, trying to deviate from the real-life inspiration making itself known on his page.
Lately he was growing increasingly frustrated with how suspiciously similar his random character sketches were becoming to a certain vigilante with a red helmet. Despite all the references and inspiration at his fingertips from being a member of the Justice League, all his hand seemed to draw was an idiot by the name of Jason Todd with his dumb smirk and his stupid white streak and his sexy thighs and—
Kyle swallowed the urge to smack his head against the table and instead just roughly flipped his sketch book closed so no one could see the evidence concerning what was preoccupying his mind. There was no way in hell he was going to become one of the Jason-groupies that seemed have coalesced from the aether the instant the man had been accepted into the League.
Seriously though, when had Jason freaking Todd become so popular?
“No,” Kyle said as soon as Guy opened his mouth.
Guy's face wrinkled in an angry pout as Hal snickered next to him. “I didn't even—” he began but Kyle cut him off again. Guy always seemed to be able to talk him into things, he had to shut this line of questioning down quick.
“Nope!” Kyle insisted and finally opened the bag of chips he'd been neglecting for twenty minutes as his sketches stole his attention. “I'm not spilling my guts about Jason. No way, no how, I don't want anything to do with the guy.”
And as if to drive that fact home, Kyle loudly chewed on his potato chips at a volume his mother would absolutely disapprove of.
But of course there was no drowning out Hal. That man was used to talking over the sounds of an airfield with fighter-jets going in and out all day, so crunchy chips weren't even a challenge.
Hal smirked, waving an accusatory finger at Kyle as he pitched his voice louder. “See, you say that but the sexual tension between you two yesterday was palpable.” Kyle nearly choked and spat out his chips, as Guy smirked and Hal just kept talking, unconcerned that Kyle might be choking or that more than one person in the cafeteria had started paying too much attention to their conversation. “You're just trying to get rid of the competition and while I admire your strategic mind, I question your integrity as a Green Lantern—because that's just not fair play!”
Kyle coughed a few more times and smacked his chest before he managed to sputter, “'Sexual tension?' I do not have sexual tension with Jason freaking Todd, of all people!” And he'll admit his voice was tinged with an edge of hysteria but this was a serious accusation!
Hal was clearly not buying what Kyle was selling as he crossed his arms and eyed the younger man incredulously. “Oh really? So you don't think he's hot.”
Kyle rolled his eyes because admitting Jason was hot only proved he had functional vision. If Jason hadn't been a walking wet dream then Kyle wouldn't have been so terrified when the man started hanging around Kyle's at-the-time ex-girlfriend, Donna. And it wasn't even just his looks—Jason was smart, and talented, and well-read and was respectful to women and rode a motorcycle—basically a really cliche romance novel love interest.
“Of course I think he's hot,” Kyle freely admitted, starting to feel himself get angry as he remembered everything about the man that made him feel inadequate. “Have you seen those honking thighs? You know he has to buy a bigger size pant and take it up in the waist to fit? And he does it himself, the multifaceted piece of shit...” Seriously, why was Jason so dang good at everything? It wasn't fair, how was a normal guy supposed to measure-up?
Guy slapped the table, eyes huge as if he'd just been told he'd won an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii. “Oh my God, he can sew? Damn, that's wife-material, right there.”
Hal ignored Guy and instead frowned, leaning over the table and trying to loom threateningly. “How do you know all of this, Kyle? We are your mentors, you owe us this.”
Kyle felt his temper pique at the idea that he owed anyone an explanation regarding himself and Jason Todd. He didn't like the guy, didn't want to think about him or talk about him. And yet the man was everywhere he went all of a sudden. Now Kyle couldn't even eat his chips and draw in peace because every time he put pencil to paper it turned into Jason Todd and people got in his face demanding he tell all when there wasn't much to tell to begin with.
In an incredulous tone, Kyle said, “'Mentors'?” Raising his hand, he tapped the glowing green ring on his finger with emphasis. “When I got this ring, I was the only Green Lantern in the galaxy. By the time there were any other Lanterns around, I was already an expert. You guys are like...senior colleagues at best.”
Hal whistled. “Ouch. That hurts, Kyle.” He seemed impressed at Kyle's level of shit-talk, which was unsurprising because shit-talk was Hal's first language and the form of communication he seemed to respond the best to.
But Guy on the other hand did not look impressed. He looked angry and hurt, his hands on the table tightening into fists, his cheeks and forehead flushing red beneath freckles as his eyes lit with fire and the overzealous passion he always put into everything. All at once Kyle felt awful about what he'd said and wanted to take it all back.
“Come on, man!” Guy demanded, lip lifted in a snarl. “Screw being mentors or colleagues, I thought we were friends! I gave you the 'friends-and-family discount' on your tab at my bar!”
“You get a discount?” Hal interjected. He turned to Guy and complained. “Why does Kyle get a discount? I don't even get a discount...”
Completely ignoring Hal, Guy stabbed Kyle right in the conscience as he slapped his own chest with emotion, the ache of betrayal in his expression. “That meant something to me, I thought it meant something to you too...”
And now Kyle felt like a total piece of shit. He really wasn't like this. He wasn't snappy and snarky and angry. It was only when the Red Hood was around that his personality did this one-eighty. He'd been joking about the mentor thing, he really did look up to Hal and Guy. Kyle was letting his frustration with Jason-Jackass-Todd get the better of him and that wasn't okay.
“No, you're right, Guy,” Kyle agreed running a hand through his hair. “We're friends and that's important me.”
Guy's expression was mulish, not quite ready to forgive him. “And friends tell each other shit, especially about their future significant-others, right?”
Kyle sighed and nodded agreement, though the idea of Jason being Guy's future wife seemed like a joke with no basis in reality. “Yeah, I get it. What did you want to know?”
The anger and hurt finally seemed to bleed out of Guy, but he still answered with a forceful, “Everything. You're gonna earn that discount, Rayner!”
Hal's eyes were narrowed at Guy as he promised, “We'll talk about discounts and why I don't get one later. For now let's start at the beginning. We'd never even seen him until yesterday, so how do you know Jason? Unless you're spending way more hours Earth-side than I know you are, you wouldn't have had enough contact to be slinging sexually charged insults at each other unless something fishy was going on.”
Kyle nearly started choking again on nothing but air. 'Sexually charged insults'? Not even! Jason had a smart mouth and hot lips but he wouldn't know attraction if it hit him over the head with a crowbar. Kyle had seen enough sad losers make passes on Jason to know the man was denser than concrete when it came to the subject. The ungrateful asshole had men and women hanging on him left and right and he didn't even seem to notice.
“There is nothing going on between Jason and me—Never was, never will be!” Kyle assured his fellow Lanterns. “Me and Jason were never even friends, okay? We got stuck doing this reality-traversing gig with Donna and some jerk named Bob to save the multiverse together in an alternate timeline. Then the universes merged and everything we did technically hadn't happened anymore but we still had the memories intact since it all took place outside our world.”
While Hal stared at him in wonder, processing the ridiculous but true explanation regarding Kyle's association with Jason Todd, Guy's face was screwed up in something between confusion and outrage.
Guy held up a hand. “Wait wait wait...So you went on a universe-hopping adventure to save the very fabric of reality, with your ex-girlfriend and Jason Todd, that got erased from history and you never told your buddy Guy Gardner?”
Okay, when put like that Kyle admitted it was the sort of thing he should have mentioned to his friends. Especially Green Lantern friends who were used to branching timelines and multiversal weirdness and wouldn't even question his story.
“Well...” he trailed uselessly.
Clearly Kyle's response was not adequate because Guy shook his head at the table and muttered to himself, “I feel so betrayed...giving you the ‘friends-and-family discount’ is supposed to mean more than this...”
Kyle blushed with shame. “I'm sorry, okay? It just...didn't seem relevant.”
Hal smacked the table with a frown. “A piece of man-meat that sexy is always relevant, Kyle!”
“Not to me. Most of the time I try to pretend he doesn't exist,” Kyle confessed.
Guy tapped his chin, eying Kyle with suspicion. “Oh really? You just seem territorial, to me.”
Kyle scoffed. 'Territorial'? Over Jason Todd? Pff, that was just...no way, that could ever...Kyle shook his head. No way was he feeling territorial over Jason. The fact that he'd known Jason way before any of the people suddenly following him around like a lost puppy had appeared, back when Red Hood had no positive connections to anyone, in a universe where no one showed any interest in him, was no reason to think he was territorial now. It really just had no bearing on anything...
Seriously, it didn't!
“I am not territorial,” Kyle hastily assured them with a sniff of contempt at the very idea. “I just don't want to see you guys waste your time trying to go after Jason Todd when I can tell you from experience that it isn't going to go anywhere good.”
“Experience. Right,” Hal deadpanned. “This experience that took place outside our universe in an alternate timeline that no longer exists.”
Shrugging, Guy said, “Eh. I wouldn’t put it on your resume, kid.”
Kyle rolled his eyes. “The world might be different, but Jason Todd is still the same. He acts like a jerk just to prove he's unfit for company. He's an all-mission-all-the-time bat who doesn't see a problem with shooting people in the back when it suits his agenda,” he tried to explain. This Jason might have Batman fooled somehow, but the Jason that Kyle knew, the one that still seemed to know him, was contrary for the sake of it and did bad just to push people away. He couldn’t imagine the man had really changed all that much in a few years and a few timeline tweaks.
Guy just raised a brow, what Kyle was trying to get across completely going over his head as if he'd translated everything his friend said into, 'he's a streetwise sensitive loner' and couldn't figure out the downside. But at the mention of Red Hood's mission-obsessive tendencies, Hal seemed to hesitate. It was common knowledge the first Earth Lantern had an issue with Batman, mostly regarding the Gotham vigilante’s patronizing seriousness and intensity, which grated on his nerves. When the mission was on, the Red Hood was just as bad and he didn't appreciate perceived incompetence. He'd never seen Jason Todd relaxed. Kyle wasn't certain he was capable of it.
After a moment of consideration, Hal shook his head, his interest seeming to rally. “Let's set aside whether or not Guy and I are wasting our time and get down to the real nitty-gritty details. Like, does Jason Todd like men? Is he single? Which position does he like? How many dates with him does it take to get to fourth base? Will I have to fight Batman in a cage match for his honor, because I think I would be open to that.”
Kyle was fairly sure Hal had no chance in a cage match with Batman. He also had no idea why Hal thought Kyle could answer any of those questions. “Don't know. No idea. As far as I know, he's never really dated,” he answered.
Hal groaned and pulled his hands down his face with exaggerated frustration. “Ugh, dammit Kyle, you were supposed to be our fount of knowledge!”
“Well I don't know anything like that and even if I did it would be outdated information because this is a different universe,” Kyle reminded the man, trying not to get angry.
“So what can you tell us?” Guy asked, with an edge of impatience. “Anything at all. Favorite color, or favorite band, or hobbies or something.”
Kyle had to think because his most memorable experiences with Jason involved wanting to ring his neck the instant he opened his mouth. What he'd actually said had been secondary to how annoyed Kyle was the moment he looked into the man's handsomely brooding face.
“Um...I know he listens to the band Cheap Trick. It's really annoying,” Kyle revealed. “And he reads a lot, and quotes at you like a smartass. Also, you don't want to play poker with him because you will lose. Badly. Even if you think you're winning, you're actually not. By the end of the game, you will be broke”
Hal stared at Kyle in silence until the younger man began to feel self-conscious, eventually he said, “Right. So now that we've established that Kyle knows absolutely nothing of value, who do you know that we can actually go to for information that would be something approximating useful?”
Kyle almost opened his mouth to protest, but then he remembered he'd never wanted any part in this to begin with and knowing nothing about Jason Todd was his ideal state of being. So instead he just answered, “The Bats, of course. But good luck with that, you know as well as I do that it's pulling teeth to get anything from those guys. He's really close with Arsenal and Starfire, too. They started a hero team in this universe, I also heard they might have been...involved in some way.”
Hal perked up, mouth spreading in a leer. “Like a threesome? Hot!”
“That explains why those two were around yesterday,” Guy remarked with narrowed eyes, drumming his fingers on his arm unhappily.
“I don't know, that's their business,” Kyle said with a shrug. “You could also ask Donna, I guess. She knew him when he was a kid, he was on her Teen Titans team. Apparently they were really close back then. Also the team members he's got now—Artemis of Bana-Migdhall and Bizarro. That's kind of it. He thinks the lone wolf lifestyle is cool or something.” Kyle snorted in derision. Todd was such an edgy idiot.
“Alright, well that's a place to start, I guess.” Raising a solemn hand to his chest, Hal humbly declared, “As much as I hate the guy, I will take one for the team. I will confront grouchy old Batman about why all his kids are such freaking hotties. How did the genes that produced his brooding goth ass produce such perfect specimens as Nightwing and Red Hood? This I will find out.”
Kyle couldn’t tell how serious Hal was being. “They didn't, Hal. All the bat kids are adopted.”
Hal's tut of sympathy, made it clear he thought Kyle was being naïve. “Sure they are. So while I'm focusing on that, Kyle is going to get us an in with his ex-girlfriend Donna. And Guy? You're going to hit up your fellow gingers Arsenal and Starfire.”
“No way, let's switch!” Guy protested, pointing at his face as he said, “Arsenal about gave me a black eye yesterday, he's not gonna talk to me.”
As Kyle was trying to figure out how he'd missed seeing Arsenal try to deck Guy Gardner, Hal batted an uninterested hand at Guy and said, “Figure it out. Unless you want to hunt down Artemis and Bizarro, but I've honestly never heard of either of them, so good luck.”
Guy grumbled but seemed to be resigned to his assigned.
“Wait a minute, why am I involved in this strategy?” Kyle asked as he realized Hal had casually involved him in his outrageous plans. “I'm not the one trying to get in Jason's pants here, leave me out of it.”
“Green Lantern solidarity, Kyle. We're in this together,” Hal said easily. He didn't seem to care that his statement was completely lacking in logic.
“I don't see how getting either of you laid has anything to do with Green Lantern solidarity,” Kyle argued.
Guy reached across the table and squeezed Kyle's shoulder, pinning him with his intense stare. “Friends-and-Family discount,” he reminded Kyle. “Are you a friend? Are you family? Because someone who was either would help a brother out.”
Fuck, Kyle thought vehemently. He might get a few credits off on drinks and appetizers, but apparently he was paying for it with freaking blood. Kyle wasn't sure this nonsense was worth a discount he only got to use on Oa at Guy’s admittedly pretty good bar which was the only establishment on the planet that served Earth cuisine.
But it was probably worth it for their friendship. It might be worth it for the laughs, too. And it would put him in a prime position to beat Jason senseless if he stomped on either of his friends’ hearts.
“Damn it, fine,” Kyle caved, as his fellow Lanterns grinned.
