The cashier watches you with quiet interest, fingers resting lightly against the register as you sort through the mess, her gaze flicking from your hands to your face and back again.

“Love Batman?” she muses, curiosity seeping into the politeness convenience store workers ought to have.

You glance up briefly, following her gaze before looking back down at the coins slipping between your fingers. “It was a gift. Believe it or not but this is not my dream wallet.”

“Yeah?” she hums, leaning slightly against the counter, curls shifting as she tilts her head. “Could’ve fooled me.”

The cashier— Steph, you make out from her nametag—  tilts her head as she rings up the haul: three bags of chips in violently artificial colors, four bottles of the cheapest beer the city can offer, gummy candy from a discontinued brand on the East Side, and a gotham-vigilante-blind-box thing you found on the bottom of the alcohol section.

She scans each item, the register chirping obediently as the total climbs higher and higher. 

“Big plans?” she says lightly, tapping the screen. 

“Movie night, with my roommate,” you hum, flexing your fingers to prepare for the weight of your wallet to significantly decrease. 

“Fun, hope it’s not the Oscar nominees,” she laughs. “The amount of people coming here thinking i’ll churn out whatever Oscar bullshit they have.”

You echo it back, half-laughing, “Oscar bullshit?” 

Steph doesn’t even hesitate; she leans her weight onto one hip, scanner still in hand, curls shifting as she tilts her head like she’s about to deliver something practiced.

“I work in a male dominated field with guys who think they’re Batman,” she says, matter-of-fact. “Of course I hate Marty Supreme.” The scanner beeps as she drags it across a bottle.

“I didn’t know the cashiering realm was so competitive, I take it all back.” you say dryly, pushing a coin forward with your thumb.

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” she says, dragging the scanner across another item with a practiced flick of her wrist. “You give a guy a name tag and a night shift and suddenly he’s got a whole vigilante complex. Thinks he’s the last line of defense between freshly mopped floors and expired milk. Had someone throw a bowstaff at me once, not fun.”

“…a bowstaff?” you echo, not entirely convinced you heard her right. Steph doesn’t even look up as she scans the next item, the beep cutting clean through your disbelief.

“Mm,” she hums, far too casual about it. “A Red Robin wanna-be probably. Hey, you’ve got Batman and he’s got a bowstaff, we could really form something here.”

You blink at that, a laugh catching somewhere between your chest and your throat as you slide another coin into place. 

“I know a Red Hood type,” you add to the joke, “check aisle three maybe we’ll find a Robin there.”

“Me too! A Red Hood one I mean, I’ve seen enough kids in traffic cone colors thank you very much,” Steph laughs back, shoulders shaking as she taps the screen with a smile.

“Yeah, crime fighting before puberty is… something. The Red Hood type— that’s who I’m watching it with. Actually, he’s got a vendetta against Frankenstein though, can’t for the life of me get him to watch it,” you sigh, pulling out a twenty from your wallet.

“That's the thing with gun-wielding freaks, maybe play One Battle?” she suggests. “The scene when he came out of the car like Terminator actually gave me chills.” she gathers the money you’ve so helpfully placed in a pile.

The walk back to your apartment is as quiet as Gotham can get. the absurd mundane sound of sirens and screaming add to the city you weirdly love so much. When you push the door open, the first thing that greets you isn’t Jason, but the slow curl of incense smoke, something warm and amber burning low on the kitchen counter, sweet in a way that settles into your lungs and lingers. He’s already there on the couch, arm slung along the backrest like he’s grown into it, a magazine spread open in his hands as the lamplight pools lazily across his shoulders, softening him at the edges.

“Jason Todd reading something other than classic lit? Do my eyes deceive me— have the gates to hell opened up and the lakes frozen over?” the quiver in your voice too dramatic to warrant any kind of fear. No, you’d never been afraid of him. not now and not as long as he’s playing cupholder for you four beers.

He huffs a laugh, unable to pretend he hadn’t heard you fumble with the key before you entered. Placing the magazine on the empty spot next to him, Jason stands up and shoots you a quizzical look at everything you brought back. 

“This a haul or we preparing for a pandemic?” he laughs, wordlessly taking the heavy plastic bag from your arms.

Jason doesn’t wait for an answer before peering inside, the thin plastic stretching dangerously as he lifts it, the contents shifting with a soft rustle. 

“This is excessive,” he decides, though there’s no real conviction behind it, already setting the bag down on the coffee table. 

“You say that every time,” you counter, toeing your shoes off by the door and nudging it shut behind you. Jason turns, and you think he’s about to chide you on your spending habits. Instead, there’s something small pinched between his fingers, held up like evidence he’s not entirely sure how to classify.

The plastic crinkles faintly as he shakes it once, eyebrow quirking. “What the hell is this?”

“Oh, that?” You step closer, reaching for it without hesitation. “I’m supporting local businesses, no need to thank me or whatever.”

Jason huffs under his breath at the lie, but he doesn’t pull it away when your fingers brush his, letting you take the little foil packet from him. It’s cheap and glossy— Gotham Vigilantes: Mystery Edition stamped across the front in bold, red printing.

“You bought a blind box,” he says flatly.

“You love a good mystery,” you shoot back, already tearing into the top seam.

“I solve crimes, I don’t—” he gestures vaguely at the crinkling plastic, “whatever the fuck I’m supposed to do with melted plastic in a mold.”

The wrapper gives with a soft rip, folding open in your hands. For a second, neither of you say anything. Then you tip it into your palm, letting it fall the short distance with a soft, weightless tap.

The lamplight catches it immediately.

It pools there in your hand, harsh and unkind, dragging every imperfection into sharp relief— the red print bleeding past the edges of the helmet like it couldn’t quite stay contained, one eye stamped a fraction too high, the lines of the body slightly off, as if assembled from memory rather than reference. The plastic gleams in places it shouldn’t, dull in others, warped just enough to make it feel less like a replica and more like something that tried— and failed— to become what it was meant to be.

A tiny, poorly made figure stares back up at you, its expression fixed somewhere between blank and wrong.

“…No way.”

You look up at him, already starting to laugh.

No way.

He takes it from you carefully, like it might disintegrate under too much pressure, turning it between his fingers. 

“…This is supposed to be me?” he asks, incredulous.

“You’ve finally made it,” you say solemnly. “Mass-produced and mildly disfigured.”

Jason lets out a sharp laugh, the sound catching somewhere between disbelief and something warmer. He flicks the little figure’s head with his thumb, watching it wobble slightly.

“Look at this,” he mutters. “I don’t even look like that.”

“You literally do.”

“I do not.”

“They even got your shit stain.” You laugh, pointing at the brown plastic of the jacket pooling on the ass of the figurine.

He snorts, shaking his head as he sets the figure down on the table with a soft tap, like he’s placing something oddly important despite himself.

“Atleast they got my ass right.”

You’re still smiling when he reaches past you, grabbing one of the beers from the bag and popping the cap with ease.  Then he glances at you again, nudging the tiny plastic version of himself with one finger.

“…So,” he says, voice settling back into something casual, something easy, “what’re we watching? Can’t be too gruesome, ‘cause he’s just a baby.”

“On the topic of birthing grotesque creatures,” you begin, already wincing at the dramatized transition. “I was thinking Frankenstein, it’s the only one we haven’t seen. Well besides—”

“—nope.”

Jason cuts you off before the sentence can even finish forming, the word slipping in sharp and immediate— like it had been waiting at the edge of his tongue the second you said Frankenstein. He doesn’t look at you when he says it, just tips the bottle back, throat working slowly as he takes a measured sip. The lamplight catches along the glass, warping amber through the curve of it, staining briefly across his jaw before slipping away.

“You didn’t even let me—”

“Don’t need to,” he murmurs, lowering the bottle with a quiet clink against his knee. He sinks back into the couch like gravity’s decided to settle heavier on him, one arm stretching along the backrest, fingers drumming once— twice— before going still. “Some guy gets stitched together and has a bad time, hell, he had such a bad time everyone else basically got tortured for his creation.”

You scoff, heat rising a little too quickly for something that should still be light. “That’s a reductive take. It’s one of the most influential pieces of Gothic literature— pioneered an entire genre. She’s literally exploring anxieties around industrialization, creation, isolation—”

“I Know! I read it too smartass. Guy gets made,” Jason cuts in, lifting a hand to count it off, each point ticking out, “guy hates it, creator hates it, everyone basically dies.”

“That is not—” you stop yourself, breath catching somewhere between frustration and something harsher. You exhale sharply through your nose instead. “You cried to K-pop Demon Hunters.”

“I was arguing with Bruce at the time,” he shoots back, quicker now, like he’s been waiting for that defense. “I would’ve cried to anything with a complicated parental dynamic. It was just… unfortunate timing.”

“I’m sorry,” you say, softer this time.

Jason shrugs. It’s loose, almost careless, but it doesn’t quite land that way. The bottle tilts again in his hand, condensation slipping down the neck and gathering at his knuckles, catching the light in small, trembling streaks. For a second, the room feels warmer than it should.

“Timing is everything,” he says. “Bad timing. Bad movie.”

“Why is Frankenstein a bad movie?”

The question slips out before you can soften it, before you can dress it up into something easier to dodge, and the moment it lands, you feel it— how it doesn’t bounce back the way your teasing usually does. The air doesn’t move the same, even the light feels different somehow, less forgiving where it touches your skin, settling harder along the edges of his face.

Because you’ve never asked that.

Not really.

You know about Red Hood; the violence, the anger, the way he moves through Gotham like a distorted ballet dancer repeating a staggered dance. You know the broad strokes of his past, the undercoat of his trauma. Things he’s told you in fragments, in offhand remarks and jokes that pitch a little too sharp to mean nothing. But to truly know Red Hood, one must know the reason for his rhythm, the cadence to his violence that might not be as sporadic as you once thought.

The incense you’d forgotten about burns low on the windowsill, its smoke no longer soft and sweet but sharper now, curling into the air with a bitterness that clings to the back of your throat. The light shifts almost imperceptibly, the cheap bulb overhead stuttering from its warm yellow into something harsher, tinged at the edges with red, like heat building under the surface of glass.

Jason doesn’t answer immediately.

Instead, he goes very still, a contained reaction. Like every reaction has been pulled inward and locked behind his ribs. His fingers tighten slightly around the neck of the bottle, just enough for the glass to creak faintly in protest, condensation breaking and slipping down over his knuckles in uneven lines.

“Jason—”

“Because it’s not a horror story,” he cuts in, voice low, but not sharp— worse, almost flat, like he’s already decided how this ends. His gaze stays fixed somewhere past you, not quite meeting your eyes, not quite leaving either. “Everyone treats it like one, like it’s about the monster. Like it’s about something going wrong.”

The bulb flickers again. Warmer, then redder.

The figurine on the table catches it wrong— the cheap plastic warping under the color, shadows pooling in the uneven paint, turning the already off-center eyes into something almost… hollow.

Jason lets out a quiet breath through his nose when he spots it.

“It’s not,” he continues. “It’s… I always thought it was about making something you don’t know how to take responsibility for. Like, I don’t know,” he murmurs. “Burying your son and then findin’ out he’s taken your moral code and twisted it into something so grotesque and vile that you can’t even call him that anymore.”

“You’re not grotesque,” you say instantly, the sound so beguiling to him. The idea that he, Jason Todd, could be something more than vile or disgusting or wrong, breaks him in two.

The light has shifted again, not fully red but no longer soft either, something harsher bleeding through the cheap bulb overhead, staining the edges of everything it touches. It catches along Jason’s jaw, sharpens the lines of his face, sinks into the hollows beneath his eyes until he looks less like the boy on your couch and more like the thing Gotham whispers about in alleyways. Even the little figurine on the table seems to change under it, the warped paint job deepening into something almost intentional, the uneven smile twisting into something that looks too close to a snarl.

Jason huffs out something that almost resembles a laugh. “Yeah,” he mutters, rolling the bottle between his palms, watching the condensation smear under his thumb. “That’s easy for you to say.”

“It is,” you admit, softer now, but no less certain. The light flickers faintly, like it can’t decide what to make of him, of this. “Transparently so, even.”

You shift forward slightly, gaze fixed on him as if you hold it there long enough, he might finally see what you do.

“But you act like there’s something inevitable about you,” you continue, voice quieter. “Like you were made wrong, and everything after that just… followed. Like every bad thing you’ve done is proof of it instead of something you chose. You treat it like some predestined, predetermined consequence from the universe for being born.”

The bulb hums faintly overhead, the color saturating into a deeper red.

“You’ve reduced yourself to the worst version of you,” you say, a small shake in your breath now, “and that fucking sucks, Jason. Because I see all of it— there’s pain and anguish and so much hate, but there’s good.”

The bulb hums faintly overhead, the color deepening, red bleeding more insistently into the room, catching in the glass of his bottle, in the edges of your vision.

“There’s good in you,” you say, quieter now, like the words are something fragile you’re placing between you. “Not in a ‘you do nice things sometimes’ way, but in the way you try. In the way you stay. In the way you don’t leave, even when it would be easier to.”

“And I don’t think it’s fair to reduce yourself to a ‘bad’ person—” you know you’re rambling now. “Everyone’s a little fucked up, everyone’s nice on occasion. That’s not the point.”

You laugh, the reflection of a half-crazed, semi-exasperated you staring back in the glassy look Jason has right now. Your gaze softens, but you don’t look away.

“The point is that you get to choose. Over and over again. And yeah, sometimes you choose wrong, but that doesn’t make you inevitable. It just makes you human. So, stop trying to define yourself and just… let it be. Let your choices be just that; choices. Not you.”

Just as Jason opens his mouth, eyes melting under the overhead glow, you speak up again.

“Also, you missed the whole point of the book. Frankenstein isn’t about inevitability,” you press on softer, leaning forward slightly, like if you can just say it right, it might reach him. 

Jason furrows his brows, pure confusion in his face as if he had never heard another side to the story. “It’s not?"

“I mean, it’s a pessimistic way to look at it. It’s more about someone being made and then left alone with no language for what they are, no guidance for what they’re supposed to become.”

His lips form a tight line but you continue.

“It’s not his fault he’s alone— his anger is a byproduct of how others treated him, but he was not born that way.”

His eyes land on the cheap copy sitting on the table. “I spent a lot of time hating Bruce, and then hating the Red Hood, like I had no part in the creation of it.” 

“I don’t—... please don’t make me watch it,” he murmurs, voice hitching as he steps closer. “I can’t watch it,” he adds, quieter now, like admitting it costs him something. “I know I’m—” he gestures vaguely, grunting in frustration with the lack of a word that fits, “conflicted, and broody, and whatever you like to call it, but I don’t think I’ll survive that movie.”

For a second, neither of you move.

The light hums overhead, red bleeding fully now into the room, swallowing the last traces of that earlier warmth. It catches on the table, on the glass, on the cheap little figurine still sitting there.

You reach for it, turning it slightly. Your thumb presses lightly against its head, straightening it where it had been tilted too far off-center, aligning it just enough that it looks… less broken. 

More facing forward.

“You don’t have to,” you say finally. It’s softer now, stripped of argument.

“We can watch something else,” you add, a small breath of a laugh slipping through, lighter now, but careful. “Something objectively worse.”

That almost gets him, not quite a laugh, but closer than he’s been since the conversation turned. His gaze flicks down once more— at the figurine, at the way it stands now, slightly less wrong than before— then back up to you.

“…Yeah,” he murmurs.

The room stays red, but it doesn’t feel like it’s burning anymore.

You snap out of your reverie at his distant grumbling.

He’s still sitting in front of you, knees pulled up slightly as he fiddles with the burger in his hands. His palms practically swallow the bun whole, scarred fingers flexing around the paper wrapper as he rotates it like he’s trying to locate the exact structural failure responsible for the mess.

“This is a disaster,” he mutters.

A smear of sauce glistens along the side where the top bun has slid halfway off, lettuce threatening to escape entirely.

Jason stares at the lettuce sitting on his lap like a fallen soldier.

“Damn, you really suck at this,” you huff a laugh, deftly throwing a fry in your mouth as if to prove a point, “it’s a losing battle.” 

“I’m not losing anything.”

He adjusts his grip, large hands nearly engulfing the bun entirely. The paper wrapper crinkles as his scarred fingers try— unsuccessfully— to coax the sandwich back into alignment.

“Okay, well,” you gesture lazily with another fry, “half your lettuce is on the ground and you’ve used three of my limited edition Green Lantern tissues to wipe away the sauce—”

You lean forward slightly, pointing accusingly at the glossy smear still clinging to the side of his thumb.

“— the best part of a freaking Big Mac, by the way— instead of just licking it off like a normal person.”

Jason finally glances down at his lap, where the lettuce sits abandoned against the dark fabric of his suit pants. Moonlight catches the pale green edges of it.

He nudges it with one finger, like it might get up and run away.

“It jumped,” he mutters.

Then, after a beat, “How is it my fault they gave me suicidal vegetables.”

He flicks the lettuce off the edge of the roof. Somewhere far below, Gotham gains a slightly healthier rat.

“Hey— I was gonna eat that,” you say, watching as it falls onto a passing car. Jason grins at your displeasure and looks back down at the burger, squints at it suspiciously, and takes another bite anyway. 

“You’re still hungry? Geez, you had like two burgers and half of my fries.” Jason pauses mid-chew, eyes sliding toward you with the slow suspicion of someone who knows they’re about to be falsely accused of something.

“You offered the fries.”

“I offered one fry.”

“You handed me entire thing.”

“That was— I thought you’d take one, two at best.” Despite his words Jason nudges the box of fries with his foot towards you. Cute. 

He swallows and shifts the burger in his hands again, attempting to rotate it to a less catastrophic angle. The wrapper crinkles loudly under his grip, moonlight catches along the grease staining the paper, and the faint sheen of sauce still clinging stubbornly to the corner of his mouth.

“Should we go back?” Jason asks dumbly, fully engaged in solving your mysterious hunger.

“No,” you hum, trying to hide the cheeky smile as you poke his sauce-covered cheek, “you’re the only snack I need.”

Jason groans, throwing a fry in your direction.

Messy, you mutter.

Jason tilts his head slightly, cheeks flushing for a moment before taking another bite— slightly more careful this time, though the burger still protests with a soft squish.

For a brief, miraculous second, it actually looks like the burger might survive the attempt— the bun holds, the lettuce stays put, the whole thing balanced precariously between his large hands. Then the illusion shatters, a glossy streak of sauce immediately smears across the corner of his cheek where the top bun shifts again, dragging the mess sideways. You open your mouth, the observation already halfway out of it. Your eyes flick to the bright smear of sauce against his skin, then back to his stubbornly focused expression as he chews like nothing has gone wrong at all. You close your mouth again. Nope. You’re letting that sit for a minute.

The two of you fall into a brief silence, broken only by the low thrum of Gotham traffic several stories below and the soft crinkle of burger wrappers shifting in Jason’s hands. The moonlight spills across his shoulders, softening the harsh lines of the jacket he’d thrown on after patrol. The red helmet sits beside him on the gravel, its lenses dark now, watching the city in his place.

Without it, he looks younger.

Not soft exactly— Jason Todd has never been soft— but less like the thing criminals whisper about in alleyways and more like the boy Bruce must’ve first dragged home years ago.

You watch him for a second too long.

Jason notices. He always does.

“What?” he asks, glancing sideways at you. He shifts slightly, bumping his shoulder against yours where you’re sitting close enough that your boots are practically tangled together.

“Nothing!” You groan, laughing and leaning in fully intending to wipe the mess of dressing on his cheeks. Jason immediately leans back an inch, eyes narrowing like you’ve just confirmed a long-held suspicion.

“I know what you’re doing,” he mutters suspiciously, your hand pauses halfway to his face.

“What am I doing?” you ask innocently.

Jason doesn’t answer right away. He just watches you, head tilted slightly, the corner of his mouth quirking like he’s trying not to smile and failing miserably. The moonlight catches in his eyes again, brightening them to that unfair shade of green that always makes it harder to pretend you’re not staring.

Jason doesn’t answer right away.

Instead, he studies you like you’re a puzzle he’s already solved but wants to watch try to escape the answer anyway. The moonlight catches in his eyes again, brightening the green there until they almost glow against the dim Gotham skyline.

“You’re trying to distract me,” he says finally.

You lean closer.

The gravel crunches softly under your knee as you shift, closing the small space between you. Close enough now that you can see the faint scar cutting through his eyebrow, the tiny crease between his brows when he’s thinking too hard about something that definitely doesn’t require that level of thought.

“Distract you from what?” you murmur.

Jason lifts the burger slightly in one hand like it’s evidence in a court case. 

“This.”

“I don't care about that,” you lie, gaze dropping to it briefly.

The poor thing is barely holding together now— bun crooked, lettuce hanging out at odd angles, the wrapper soaked through with grease. Your spare hand slides down and wraps loosely around his wrist, steadying it between you. His eyes flick down at the contact, then back up again.

"youre not distracting me, nope," he laughs, "won't have it."

“I don’t know,” you say softly. “Looks pretty distracted already.”

Jason snorts.

“Nice try.”

Your hand finally reaches him, thumb brushing lightly along the corner of his mouth where the smear of sauce has started to dry in the cool night air. The touch is gentle, almost absentminded, but Jason still goes very still under it.

For a moment, neither of you say anything.

You’re close enough now to feel the warmth of him despite the night wind, close enough to see the faint scar running through his eyebrow and the way his lashes cast thin shadows across his cheek when he blinks.

Jason’s eyes flick down to your mouth.

“Well?” he says quietly, your thumb lingers against his cheek.

“You gonna finish the job,” he adds, voice low and teasing, “or just stare at me all night?”

You roll your eyes.

“Shut up.”

And then you kiss him.

Jason makes a small surprised sound against your lips before the instinct kicks in. His hand— still holding the burger— tilts slightly as the other slides automatically to your waist, fingers curling into the fabric of your jacket as he pulls you a little closer.

For a second, he forgets the burger entirely, the city noise fades into something distant and unimportant, leaving only the quiet rooftop and the warmth of you leaning into him. Jason relaxes into the kiss slowly, the tension draining out of his shoulders as his hand settles more firmly at your waist, pulling you a little closer. His other hand— still loosely trapped in your grip— tilts slightly with the weight of the half-destroyed burger, forgotten somewhere between the two of you as he leans in properly, eyes slipping shut while he kisses you back.

Then you pull away.

Jason barely has time to register it. His eyes are only halfway open again, still hazy and confused, when you tighten your fingers around his wrist pinning it right where it is between you before he can move it.

He blinks at you.

And that’s when you lean down and take a bite.

Your teeth sink neatly into the crooked side of the burger still in his hand, the wrapper crinkling loudly under your grip while Jason freezes in place, staring at you in complete disbelief as you chew like this was the plan all along.

“You—” he starts, voice cracking with laughter already threatening behind it. “You held my hand down!”

You finish chewing, trying— and failing— to keep a straight face. Jason looks down at the burger, then back at you, the realization finally landing.

“You kissed me so you could steal my burger.”

That does it.

You burst out laughing first, shoulders shaking as the ridiculousness of it hits, and Jason follows half a second later, the sound breaking out of him in a rough, helpless laugh as he leans back on his hands.

“Unbelievable,” he mutters, still laughing, shaking his head as he lifts the now-even-more-destroyed burger like evidence of a crime.

-

For a second, Jason had forgotten every sentence he’d rehearsed on the drive over.

Forgotten the speech Dick had made him practice in the mirror— forgotten the confident smirk he’d been planning to wear, the casual lean against the car like he hadn’t spent half the afternoon adjusting his bowtie in Alfred’s reflection. 

Someone call Houston’s Belts & Leather, because Jason Todd is officially whipped.

The gym lights are dimmed low, cheap paper stars taped to the ceiling, and the sickly sweet smell of fruit punch haunts the halls, and The DJ finally gives up on whatever pop song was playing before. A slow, familiar bassline rolls through the speakers instead.

Every breath you take.

Jason groans immediately.

“Seriously?” he mutters, leaning closer so she can hear him over the music. “This is the creepiest love song ever written.”

She laughs, the sound soft against his shoulder.

“Oh please,” she says, nudging him. “It’s romantic.”

“It’s surveillance,” Jason insists, “the guy’s basically admitting to stalking.”

She rolls her eyes but takes his hand anyway when the slow dancing starts.

“It’s romantic because it was a needledrop in that Adam Sandler movie we watched together,” she hums softly, eyes looking at him like he hung the (paper) stars above.

Jason squints at her. “That is not a valid defense.”

“It is,” she says easily. Then, after a second, she tips her head toward the DJ booth across the gym.

“I requested it.”

Jason blinks. “You what?”

Her grin widens— just a little smug.

The slow, stalking bassline of the intro keeps looping through the gym speakers, couples beginning to shuffle onto the dance floor.

“Had to bribe him with the last five dollars I owned,” she admits. “But it worked.”

Jason exhales a laugh, shaking his head as he pulls her a little closer so they don’t get bumped by another couple.

“You picked the creepiest love song in existence.”

She just shrugs. Right as the vocals finally slide into the song, she glances up at him— then quietly mouths the words along with the singer.

Every breath you take.

Her lips curve faintly, amused.

“That is evil, you’re evil,” He groans, unable to fight off the grin. But he’s smiling anyway as they start to sway together beneath the slowly spinning paper stars.

And Jason— who’s fought grown men in alleyways and jumped across rooftops without thinking twice— suddenly has no idea where his hands are supposed to go. One on her hip, maybe. That seems right. Or maybe that’s weird. Maybe she’ll think he’s being a creep. Like the one in the song.

So he settles for careful: one hand resting lightly at her waist, the other holding hers, fingers stiff like he’s afraid she might disappear if he squeezes too hard. Which, of course, he immediately does, but instead of vanishing like his brain insists she might, she only smiles and squeezes back.

This moment will never leave him, Jason declares to himself. Not explosions or crowbars or college will make him forget the love that bloomed in his chest when he accidentally stepped on both her feet at the same time. The startled little noise she’d made, half apology and half laugh, the way she’d tightened her grip on his hand like she thought he might bolt for the exit.

He hadn’t, obviously.

Instead, he’d laughed too— awkward and breathless— and tried to pretend he’d meant to step that way, like the stumble had been some kind of complicated dance move instead of the fact that Jason Todd had absolutely no idea what he was doing.

The paper stars spun slowly above them, the song kept humming through the speakers. The dress shifted around her legs when they swayed, catching the low gym lights every time she turned.

Jason notices all of it.

Commits it to memory the way he does with street corners and license plates and the faces of men who look at the working girls wrong. Because some part of him already knows this is the kind of moment you keep, deep down, he knows, on his deathbed in sixty years— old and grey and half-asleep in some hospital bed, this’ll be the memory that winds on repeat for seven minutes before the heavens call him home.

And Jason Todd is sixteen years old and stupidly in love, so he’s certain nothing in the world could ever make him forget it.

He was right, in a sense. Now, nineteen and the farthest thing away from the boy at prom, he still finds himself lingering in cafes that play their song, heart stuttering in his chest whenever he sees that shade of maroon. 

That’s fucking cruel. Jason thinks to himself as he stares back into the glass panel of some unnamed Gotham pawn shop in the East Side. The glass of the display window clouded with age and fingerprints and scrubbed off frosted glass. In between old videogame consoles and five string guitars is that stupid shade of maroon he can’t scrub from memory.

It’s as beautiful as he remembered— less beautiful, without the woman who wore it.

For a moment, he just stands there staring through the pawn shop window like he’s sixteen again, watching her step down those porch stairs while the whole world forgets how to spin.

Traffic hums somewhere behind him, a bus sighs to a stop at the corner, someone down the block is arguing loud enough that it echoes off the brick. 

Jason doesn’t hear any of it.

He’s staring at the dress.

Up close, through the glass, it doesn’t look quite the way it did under the gym lights. The color hits first. That deep shade of maroon that’s been lodged somewhere in the back of his skull for years, the fabric along the torso is gathered in tight ruched folds, every crease catching the dull fluorescent light differently.

Jason remembers that part.

How the light used to move across it when she laughed.

The skirt falls in heavy, sculpted waves now— layered, asymmetrical folds that twist down toward the floor like fabric frozen mid-spin. Back then, it had moved when she did, the ruffles shifting with every step across the gym floor.

Now it just hangs there, still.

A little wrinkled, a little tired.

Jason swallows. It could be a coincidence, Gotham’s not exactly short on dresses. Plenty of girls went to prom that year. Before better judgment can catch up with him, Jason hears the bell chime overhead as he pushes the pawn shop door open.

The cramped place smells like dust, leaving an unpleasant taste in his tongue when he breathes in. Fluorescent lights buzz faintly above rows of mismatched electronics, old instruments, and glass cases full of watches and jewelry— Jason doesn’t look at any of it.

He steps up to the counter, already rehearsing the question in his head. Something casual, nothing creepy, just a simple: Hey, where’d you get the dress in the window?

Maybe he’ll ask about it’s owner, where she is and why she had left it there. Maybe he’ll buy it. Maybe he’ll just—

“Can I help you?”

The voice cuts through his thoughts; it’s strange how a voice can do that. How it can slip through years like they’re nothing more than a thin curtain. Bravely, he lifts his head, bracing himself for the bitter aftertaste of what was the best moment of his life.

Behind the counter stands a woman with a receipt book in her hands, pen tucked loosely between her fingers. She’s spinning it to the beat of a song playing from the shitty speakers. The fluorescent lights overhead flatten the colors of the shop— turning everything pale and washed out— but somehow they can’t quite dull the familiar shape of her face. The softness around her cheeks has sharpened a little; the easy brightness he remembers from that gymnasium replaced by something more introspective and numb.

But it’s still her. Unmistakably.

She had only looked up out of habit at first, the way someone does when the bell above the door chimes and another customer wanders in off the street. For a second Jason thinks maybe she’ll say something. His name, maybe. Or maybe just hi, soft and uncertain like the years between them are something fragile that might break if handled wrong.

But she doesn’t.

She just stares at him.

Her eyes move slowly over his face like she’s trying to map the man standing in front of her onto the boy she once slow danced with under spinning paper stars. Jason doesn’t know what she sees. Hopes she doesn’t see three years of trauma and bloodlust, morality hanging on a thin line of his wavering sense of justice and power.

All he knows is that the question he’d been rehearsing— Hey, where’d you get the dress in the window?— has completely abandoned him.