Chapter Text
You were friends, weren't you?
You'd like to think so. It made it easier to explain away the ache in your chest every time he left without a word. Or the warmth that bloomed beneath your ribs when he showed up, battered and brooding, yet somehow still seeking you out.
But then again, did vigilantes even have friends?
Arms folded loosely across your chest, you leaned against the doorframe of your cramped kitchen, watching him from across the dimly lit room. Your apartment was small, embarrassingly so, and the light above flickered in that way you kept meaning to fix. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic and cheap chamomile tea, curling around your ankles like smoke.
He sat at your wobbly kitchen table with his boots carelessly propped on the worn wood, the laces still muddy from whatever hell he'd clawed his way out of tonight. His brow was furrowed, teeth worrying at his bottom lip as he wound a fresh bandage around the gash on his arm. A grimace tugged at his mouth as he worked, the muscles in his jaw twitching.
His mask lay discarded beside the pile of bloodied tissues, a splash of crimson on your table that felt far too symbolic. You hated how used to the sight you'd become. It no longer made your stomach turn the way it once did. Now, it just sat there, like a guest you hadn't invited but didn't dare ask to leave.
You wanted to help. You always did, but in the careful months since he'd tumbled, quite literally, into your life, you'd learned not to offer unless he asked. Red Hood—or Red as you had fondly dubbed him because you still didn't know his actual name—was a man built of walls and wreckage, of hairline fractures hidden behind sardonic grins and barbed quips.
He didn't like prying. So neither did you.
You still remembered the first time you'd met him. Your life had been steady, if not dull, up until then. A slow existence filled with microwaved meals, cracked book spines, and long, lingering silences. Then, as if fate had grown bored with your monotony, he had crashed into it. One minute, you were walking home from work. The next, you were the sole witness to something that had no business existing in your version of reality. Guns, masks, blood. Gotham in all its gritty glory.
You were stubborn enough to get involved. He was—well you didn't quite know why he let you get involved.
You told yourself it was just curiosity. Maybe it was. But even now, as he sat there in your kitchen like he belonged, you weren't sure what tethered him to you. The case you'd helped him with had ended days ago. Loose ends tied. Threats neutralized. And yet he hadn't stopped coming.
That first time he'd stumbled through your bedroom window with a bullet wound, all adrenaline and snarled curses, you'd expected him to leave as quickly as he came. But he hadn't. He'd let you stitch him up. Said nothing when you offered him a drink, or when you laid out an old quilt on the couch. You hadn't known his name then, and still didn't. But you knew his face. You knew his eyes. You knew the way his shoulders stiffened before a storm of emotion, and the subtle quirk of his mouth when he found something amusing but didn't want to admit it.
He reminded you of a stray cat, too proud to ask for affection, but too lonely to stay away from the warmth you offered. So you gave it.
Quietly. Patiently. Repeatedly.
You'd begun to anticipate him in all the little ways you shouldn't have. Setting out a second mug when you brewed tea in the middle of the night, because somehow, without fail, he would appear just as the steam began to curl from your chipped porcelain cup. Leaving the bathroom light on, knowing he preferred patching himself up under its dim, humming glow. Folding the throw blanket on the couch just the way he liked—creased at the corners, but not tucked in. He hated feeling confined.
You kept extra ramen in your pantry. Started buying that brand of granola bars he always grumbled about but never left untouched. And now, here he was again in your space, holding his pain in the same way you held your thoughts.
Tight, hidden, private.
You watched him from the doorway and wondered if he saw you the way you saw him. If he noticed the weight of his presence, or how your world tilted subtly every time he stepped into it. If maybe, just maybe, he was coming back not because he had nowhere else to go, but because you were here.
No, that was stupid. You were a lot of things, but you weren't stupid. The city had no room for the foolishly naive.
But were you friends?
You wanted to ask him, but you didn't. You were afraid of what the answer might be. Hope was a delicate thing, and in a city like Gotham, it never lasted long.
You chewed on the inside of your cheek. Sometimes, when the silence stretched long and unbothered between you, you found yourself playing a strange little game in your mind. You tried to guess his name.
It had started as a harmless, idle curiosity, but it had grown into something you clung to when his presence lingered long after he'd gone. The guessing had become a comfort of sorts, as though naming him might make him more real. Less myth. Less mystery.
He didn't look like a Robert. You imagined a Robert might wear boat shoes and a pressed polo, maybe even a handlebar mustache if he was particularly insufferable. A Simon would have round glasses perched on the bridge of his nose and a fondness for spreadsheets. Anthony? No, far too smug. He'd be the kind of man who winked at waitresses and thought himself charming. Luke maybe, if he had more of a boyish softness to his features, but Red? No, he had an edge carved into him, all angles and tribulations.
Occasionally, when he sat slouched like this, the flickering bulb overhead casting harsh shadows over his jawline, you'd swear you had seen him before.
Not like this, with blood seeping slowly through bandages and a half-gloved hand trembling ever so slightly from the adrenaline still wearing off. But somewhere, in the back of your mind, there was an echo. A fading image of a photograph you might've once seen in a crumpled newspaper. Something about a billionaire's dead son. An obituary that featured a smiling young boy with bright eyes and a future that might have been written in gold leaf and marble.
You'd dismissed it as fast as it came. You never paid attention to socialite tragedies. The world of gala dresses and legacies was so far removed from yours that it barely felt real. Besides, that boy was dead, buried in some manicured graveyard you'd never be allowed into. And this boy was sitting in your kitchen bleeding all over your table.
Alive.
Though, perhaps not for long, if he kept living like this. He had the same regard for his own life that you had for the cracked mugs in your sink. Tolerated, but barely.
You watched him fumble again with the blood-slick bandages, the crimson staining through like watercolours blooming on canvas. He was trying to wrap his shoulder one-handed, which clearly wasn't working. The angle was wrong, and the effort was shaky.
You bit your lip and told yourself not to interfere.
He never asked nor expected your help, and that unspoken boundary hovered between you like a landmine, one you dared not disturb. And yet, eventually, you couldn't take it anymore.
You crossed the kitchen with slow, deliberate steps, like approaching a wild thing that might flee at the first sudden movement. He stiffened, the line of his back going rigid as you rounded the table, but he didn't look up. Didn't flinch. Didn't utter something sharp and dismissive, like you half expected him to.
You took it as a good sign.
Without a word, you pulled out the chair opposite him and sat. For a heartbeat, the room felt breathless. He tracked your movement with the wary precision of a soldier, but he didn't stop you. When your fingers reached for his arm, he tensed beneath your touch, muscles coiled like a drawn bowstring, but he didn't pull away.
That was enough.
You worked in silence, your touch careful and clinical. You unwound the soaked bandages and tossed them aside, grabbing the rubbing alcohol and clean gauze. You murmured apologies when he hissed at the sting, but you didn't stop. If he could live through getting stabbed and shot at, you figured he could endure a little antiseptic.
His skin was warm beneath your fingertips—fever-warm, maybe—but sturdy. He was littered with half-healed wounds and fading bruises, scattered across the landscape of him like constellations only he could decipher. There was a story written in each of them, and you hated that you wanted to read them. To know the ugly details. To understand.
You tamped the impulse down. This wasn't about curiosity. It was about care.
Your gaze lingered longer than it should have. At the sharp ridge of his collarbone. The sinew of muscle taut beneath tattered fabric. The way his calloused hands tightened into fists when the pain surged, but never once tried to stop you.
You should probably get him some lotion for Christmas. The thought rose unbidden, absurd, but somehow entirely fitting. "For your dry, murdery hands," the label might read.
If this... whatever this was... even lasted until then.
When you were done, you gave his arm a light pat. It was gentle, like punctuation at the end of a sentence you didn't know how to finish. Then you stood, discarding the bloodied tissues, and scrubbing your hands clean. You moved on autopilot, draining the tea that had long gone cold and replacing it with a fresh cup—extra honey, just the way you'd learned he liked it, even if he never said it aloud.
Then, because you were helpless against the urge to say something, you leaned one hip against the table and smirked faintly.
"Careful, Red," you drawled, "if you keep getting hurt like this, I might start to think you have a thing for my first aid skills."
He didn't answer right away, but his lip twitched. It was a breath of a reaction, but it was there, and for someone like him, that was practically a sonnet.
You sipped your tea, letting the warmth sit on your tongue before you spoke again. He hadn't touched his yet, staring down at the swirling amber surface like it held answers he hadn't figured out how to ask for.
"You're less chatty than usual," you remarked casually. "And I say that knowing full well you're already a man of, like, four words max."
Nothing. Not even a smirk this time.
"If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were brooding. Which, y'know... shocker."
Still nothing. No anger, just quiet. It was oddly unlike him.
"You don't have to tell me, of course," you amended quickly, not wanting to come off as nosy. "Whatever it is. I just—you're carrying it like it's made of concrete."
You pressed your lips together for a moment, then tried to fill the space again, your tone lightening, the way you knew he preferred it when things got too close to raw.
"I mean, if this is about the tea, I can make it again. Stronger. Less... 'grandma's house' and more 'man on the run.' I just figured you liked honey, seeing as you keep finishing the jar and pretending it was like that when you found it."
That earned you a tiny huff, maybe a laugh, maybe a scoff. You were not sure which, but it was something.
Emboldened, you tilted your head and gave him a crooked smile. "Or maybe you're just disappointed I haven't guessed your name yet. I'm running out of options, you know. I've gone through the entire cast of Friends at this point."
He lifted an eyebrow.
"No, really," you continue, warming to your own ramble. "Ross? Too whiny. Chandler? Too annoying. Joey? ...Well, I could see it, but you'd have to say 'how you doin' at least once to convince me."
When he didn't respond, you wondered if you'd made a mistake with the reference. Did vigilantes have time to watch sitcoms? Maybe you could convince him to partake in a marathon with you.
You let the inevitable silence stretch for a beat, then wrinkled your nose and glanced at him over the rim of your mug.
"So, just for my own peace of mind, you are housebroken, right?"
Your guest didn't look up, but his head tilted curiously. One eyebrow quirked the tiniest bit, the closest thing to a response you were likely to get when he was in one of his moods.
You gestured broadly toward the red helmet on the table, the scuff of his boot across the wood grain, and the faint trail of dried blood from the kitchen. "I mean, it's starting to feel like you live here, Red. And if that's the case, I should start charging you rent. Or at the very least, make you take out the trash once in a while."
No response.
"Because I don't just let any emotionally constipated vigilante bleed all over my apartment. I have standards too."
A twist. Barely there, but his mouth moved, almost betraying a smile. You held onto that like it was gold.
"I'm just saying," you went on, folding your arms dramatically, "if you're gonna keep showing up here at three a.m. looking like you got in a fight with a deli slicer, you could at least pretend to be a little more domesticated. I don't know, maybe wipe your feet at the entrance? Use the actual door? Bring flowers?"
His voice, when it finally came, was roughened by fatigue. "You want flowers?"
You blinked at him, caught off guard. "Okay, well now it's weird because you asked. If you actually show up with flowers, I'm going to assume there's a bomb in them."
He let out a quiet huff. Not quite a laugh, but close enough.
"And don't even think about roses," you added, waving a finger. "Too cliché. You're more of a—I don't know—carnivorous plant guy. Like a spooky Venus flytrap. 'Cause nothing says housewarming present like a plant that eats things."
His eyes finally lifted to meet yours. They were unreadable, but the heaviness behind them seemed to ease, just a little.
"You done?" he demanded, gruff but not annoyed. More like he was indulging you.
You were not, and the next words spilled out in an involuntary confession.
"Sometimes I think about how strange this all is. You. Me. This. Whatever this is." You gesture loosely between you. "You're out there dancing with death on a nightly basis, and I'm here pretending tea can fix bullet wounds."
You don't mean for the smile that followed to be so sad, but it was.
"I guess I'm just glad you come back. That's all."
For a moment, he was utterly still, the kind of stillness that lived in the eye of a storm. His response came frayed like it was coming through a static radio.
"Why?"
It knocked the air from your lungs. It wasn't quite an invitation. Not quite a wall. A wound, maybe.
You wanted to ask what was bothering him. Wanted to reach across the table and touch his hand, just for a second, to tell him without words that he was not alone. That he didn't have to be.
Jason hadn't meant for the question to sound like an accusation.
"Why?"
It slipped out sharper than he intended, but it had tumbled off his tongue before he could stop it. And now he sat there, watching you across the table, your hands wrapped around that chipped mug like it was the most natural thing in the world to sit across from someone like him and say:
"I guess I'm just glad you come back. That's all."
Something in his chest tightened. An ache, deep and reflexive, like a muscle spasming around an old injury. You had said it so simply, like it was obvious, like it wasn't a concept that felt foreign when he tried to believe it.
Glad? To see him?
It couldn't be real. No one was glad to see him. Not really. Not anymore. And the way you'd looked at him when you said it made his defences flare up like an allergic reaction.
He had to ask. Why.
Why would you be glad to see someone like him? Someone who showed up at your window uninvited. Someone who never told you his real name. Someone who brought death on his heels and stayed too long.
Your lack of response only made it worse. You looked at him like he was the one not making sense.
Of course, you were glad he came back.
He hated how fast the words came after that, how he couldn't stop himself from lashing out.
"You shouldn't be."
He said it like a truth he needed you to believe, even if he didn't. Said it hard, like if he drove the words deep enough, they'd take root and push you away before he got used to the idea of you staying. Because he was growing too attached. That much was certain.
It had started creeping in quietly, like a burglar. He hadn't even realized how bad it had gotten until he caught himself during a patrol, slipping off to some rooftop, hand digging into the inner pocket of his jacket for the burner phone you had the number for.
For emergencies. That was all it was meant for. That was the excuse he told himself when he'd scrawled the number down and pressed it into your hand.
You never used it. You never called or even texted. You let him keep his secrets, and that should have made it easier to let go. It didn't. And he'd found himself checking that phone anyway, half in agony, half in hope.
He still had it. Weeks past the point when he should've tossed it and gotten a new number, like he always did. But he kept this one. Maybe one day, you'd need him. Maybe one day, you'd use it. Part of him hated how much he wanted you to.
He stared at your tea across from him now. You never asked if he wanted any. You just knew.
And that wasn't all.
The second mug you always left out on the counter after midnight. The way you started keeping extra bandages under the sink. That one faded hoodie you folded up and left on the back of the couch after he complained—once—about the cold. The cabinet with the snacks you didn't like but kept stocked anyway.
You made space for him without asking anything in return, without ever pushing.
It made his skin itch. It felt like walking into a dream that would crumble the second he touched it. Too temporary. Too good. Too false. Like one of those illusions, fate gave people like him, just long enough to feel warm before it was ripped away again.
Because nothing good stayed. Not for someone like him. Not in Gotham.
But somehow, impossibly, you kept leaving the light on, and he kept coming back.
You tilted your head slightly now, watching him from across the table, your lips pressed into a gentle smile. There was no fear in your eyes. No judgment. Just the quiet patience of someone waiting for a wounded animal to decide whether it wanted to be held or bite.
Jason Todd only knew how to bite, even when he didn't mean it. Especially when he didn't mean it.
Before either of you could speak again, he stood, the legs of his chair scraping sharply against the floor. The untouched tea on the table wobbled in its cup but didn't spill. Not yet. It waited, just like you did.
"Don't," he snapped suddenly, dangerous in the way a wounded beast growled before it struck. "Don't look at me like that."
You blinked, startled, rising instinctively from your chair like you could fix it before the moment broke entirely.
"Like what?"
"Like I matter." The words were bitten off. "Like this means something."
He didn't mean to say it, but it was already happening, and he couldn't stop himself. The vulnerability curled in his gut like something shameful. Something that had to be punished before it grew too loud.
"I'm not some stray you can keep feeding and expect it not to bite your hand." He stepped back from the table like your kindness was something venomous. "You think leaving out tea and wrapping up my arm makes this normal? Makes me safe?"
You flinched imperceptibly, but Jason saw it. You always wore your heart on your sleeve, letting your emotions bloom too brightly across your face. It made you easy to read, and he knew when his words hit home, when the warmth drained from your expression, replaced by sheer hurt. He felt it, sharp and sudden in his chest like a splinter lodging deep into scar tissue.
But he kept going. He had to.
"I don't need your pity. I don't want to be your goddamn charity case. This—whatever the hell this is—you don't owe me shit."
"Wait—" you started, but he cut you off.
"You think this makes you a good person? Taking in the stray? Letting me bleed on your damn floor so you can feel better about yourself?" He laughed bitterly, shaking his head. "I'm not your project. I'm not here so you can collect your brownie points for being the kind one. You're not getting anything out of this, so why the hell do you keep doing it?"
Your breath caught, but you didn't move. You didn't yell back. You didn't tell him he was wrong. You just stood there, with that same stubborn gentleness in your eyes, and it drove him mad.
"Jesus," he muttered, raking a hand through his hair, pacing now. "You need to stop. Stop caring. Just stop."
"I never did it for something in return," you whispered.
"Well, maybe you should have."
The silence after that was suffocating, and Jason stilled. His chest heaved. He couldn't look at you. If he did, he might stay. If he did, he might say something tender, something real. And then he'd ruin you.
You inhaled shakily. "You think I'm doing this for points? That I'm keeping score?"
"You should be," he hissed. "Because all I've done is take. All I do is take. You keep giving and I keep showing up like some parasite, and for what?"
"Because I care," you said finally, too tired to hide the yearning in your voice.
"You shouldn't. I'm not one of the good ones. You think you're doing something noble, letting me in, playing Florence Nightingale. But I'm not who you think I am, and the sooner you stop pretending otherwise, the better."
He stared at you, waiting for you to yell. To scream. To say anything that would prove him right, would make walking away easier.
But you didn't.
You just stood there, hands limp at your sides, lips parted like you wanted to say something but couldn't find the words. And God, your eyes looked so betrayed, like you were trying to understand where everything had gone wrong. Like you had failed some test you didn't know you were taking.
Jason hated the sight of your heart breaking in real-time and knowing he had done it.
You swallowed thickly. "I didn't ask for any of this. I just... I just wanted you to be okay."
Jason's breath hitched.
You weren't crying, but your voice shook like it might come to that if he pushed one word further.
"I've been careful," you added, quieter now as if the room itself might judge you for the confession. "I never ask you to stay. Never asked for anything at all. You're the one who keeps coming back. How am I to blame for that?"
Jason looked away. The guilt hit like a bullet, right where it could do the most damage.
"You should've," he returned flatly. "You should've asked for more. That way you'd see exactly how little I have to give."
He wanted to say he was sorry. He wanted to tell you that you were the only good thing in his life that hadn't asked anything of him.
Instead, he said, "You should've slammed the door on me the first time I showed up. That was your mistake."
You didn't have the heart to point out that he hadn't used the door. You didn't follow him either. Didn't plead, didn't reach for his hand or beg him to stay. That hurt worse than anything else.
He was right.
You were too kind. Too kind to call him out on his bullshit. Too kind to tell him to go to hell. Too kind to stop him when he stepped toward the window and opened it, cold air spilling in like water from a broken pipe.
And in your generosity, Jason realized the worst part.
You still would've left the light on for him.
Even now.
You wrapped your arms around yourself as the window slid shut, sealing in silence and sealing out the sound of his retreating steps.
A sinkhole opened in the pit of your stomach, swallowing the remnants of warmth that had once lived in the corners of the space, and it left you hollow, like a house with the doors blown off. His departure felt too much like a goodbye. Too much like a half-finished letter, the ink smudged, the signature missing. The last page of a story ripped clean from the spine.
You stood there for a while as if the air might stitch him back into the room if you stayed motionless enough. As if the chair he'd occupied might creak under phantom weight. But nothing moved. Nothing stirred.
You doubted he'd ever show himself in front of you again, and even if he did—somewhere, out there beneath Gotham's godless sky—you wouldn't know where to look. Not that you would, of course. You weren't foolish enough to chase after someone who didn't want to be found. If he didn't want to see you anymore, you would not burden him with your presence. You would not be a nuisance.
When the tears finally came, they gouged hot trails down your cheeks. You bit your lip to keep from making a sound, unwilling to fill the void he'd left behind with your grief. At least you had your answer now. You and him were not friends. Maybe vigilantes didn't have friends. Or maybe he just didn't want to be yours.
And oh, how that simple truth ached more than any goodbye ever could.
It had been three weeks since the boy you had grown attached to cleaved himself from your life, not that you were counting, of course. You would never be so pitiful as to tally the days in his absence, to chart the sunrises without him like some widow mourning a love that had never been named.
And yet...
The calendar pages turned with a slow, dragging inevitability. The hollow ache in your chest had become something familiar. Manageable. You were slowly adjusting to the shape your life had taken before he'd ever crashed into your world.
Still, there were nights when the wind howled a little too loud and the tea kettle hissed just before three a.m., and you found yourself setting out an extra mug. You never filled it—not always. But sometimes, on the worst nights, you did. You'd place it gently beside your own, the steam rising between them like the ghost of a conversation.
Come morning, it would sit there untouched. Cold. Filmed over. Forgotten by everyone except you. You couldn't blame yourself for hoping.
Tonight was another late shift at work. The kind that stretched you thin until your bones ached with exhaustion and your thoughts blurred into fog. The headache had bloomed sometime after midnight and now throbbed relentlessly behind your temples. You pulled your cardigan around yourself as you stepped out into the Gotham streets, rain slanting in bitter sheets from a sky as grey as mourning.
Of course tonight, of all nights, you'd forgotten your umbrella.
Your shoes squelched with every step, the water soaking through the soles and into your socks. Streetlights flickered overhead, some sputtering, others long since dead. You kept your eyes down, focused on the familiar path home, on putting one foot in front of the other, but even so, you felt that prickle on the back of your neck, the kind you couldn't shake off, no matter how tightly you wrapped your arms around yourself. The streets were too empty.
You tightened your grip on your keys, slotting them between your fingers like jagged little weapons. You were half a block from safety. Just a little farther.
And then hands. Cold, foreign, and wrong. Fingers like iron gripped your arm and yanked you sideways into the yawning dark of a nearby alley.
A gasp tore from your throat, but you didn't scream. Instinct moved faster than thought. You lashed out with your keys, catching your attacker across the face—or somewhere, you weren't sure, but the sharp hiss of pain told you it had landed. You tried to twist away, but the alley wall met your back, and your heart hammered like a trapped bird in your ribcage.
It wasn't a mugging. He didn't reach for your bag. He didn't demand anything. He just came at you with precision, with intention.
And then... he was gone, like a shadow pulled back into the deeper dark, vanishing as swiftly as he'd come. You stood there stunned, breath ragged, mind catching up with what had just happened. It wasn't until the adrenaline began to fade that you felt it.
The pain.
Hot, sharp, deep. A burning throb in your side, just beneath your ribs. You reached down with trembling fingers and they came away slick and red. It was difficult to see the exact shade of carmine that marred your hands in the dark, but the heat of it told you all you needed to know. It clung between your fingers in syrupy ropes, and beneath it all, the pain bloomed sharp and insistent, flaring like a cruel reminder every time you breathed.
You'd been stabbed.
A hollow, almost hysterical laugh escaped your lips, grating the back of your throat. You'd been fucking stabbed. Of course, you had. Tonight was already a monument to misery. Why not crown it with something poetic?
You weren't sure what the weapon had been—a knife, a shard of metal, something small and quick—but whatever it was, your attacker had taken it with him. You weren't a medic, but even you knew that you weren't supposed to take the weapon out of the wound. Not if you wanted to avoid bleeding out like a gutted street urchin.
There was nothing left in you now. Only the blood, warm and gushing, and the panic rising in your throat as your body betrayed you with a wave of nausea so fierce it made your vision blur. The heat in your side was unbearable. Blinding until even that faded, replaced by a strange, iciness that spread from the wound outward, curling beneath your skin, settling into your bones.
So very cold.
Your knees buckled beneath you, and you collapsed sideways against the grime-caked alley wall, cheek scraping brick as you slid down into a crumpled heap. Your breath came in shallow gasps, as though your lungs were filling with broken glass. You pressed your hands harder against the wound, but it was futile. The blood seeped past your fingers, indifferent to your desperation.
Time lost meaning. Minutes blurred into hours, or maybe hours into seconds. You couldn't tell. You sat slumped over yourself, trying to remember how to breathe properly, how to think, how to gather even an ounce of strength to get back up.
Eventually, with twitching fingers, slick with your own blood, you fumbled in your pocket for your phone. The screen flickered to life, glowing too bright against the dark. You'd smeared the glass red, ruined it, probably.
You didn't care.
Your thumb hovered over your contacts. And then... faltered. Another laugh bubbled out of you, fraying at the edges.
Who were you going to call?
Your coworkers? You only ever spoke to them in clipped pleasantries, trading shift schedules and dead smiles. Your manager? God, she'd be annoyed more than anything. You could already hear her, full of barely-veiled condescension.
How dare you get yourself stabbed when we're at our busiest? Do you know how difficult it will be to find someone to replace you on such short notice? Honestly, it's selfish. You clearly don't care about the team's success.
Your laughter splintered, turning into a strangled sob, and your shoulders shook violently from the effort of it.
It's not like you had any friends.
And even if you did, what could they do now? Friends were for sunny mornings and warm café booths, for midday walks and shared sandwiches in the park. What sort of friend could help you now?
No one was coming.
You sank deeper into the concrete, the phone slipping from your fingers, the bloodied screen flickering like a dying star.
The cold crept in intimately, then. Not just the cold of the night, but the one that nestled in your marrow.
This was it. This was how you'd go. Alone, and irrelevant. In that moment, all you wanted—more than comfort or help—was for someone to notice you were gone.
Your fingers quivered as you scrolled through your contacts again, the names blurring before your eyes, all of them meaningless, until one, in particular, made your thumb falter.
His.
You stared at the entry. The number he'd given you with all the solemnity of a last resort. For emergencies only. The implication had been clear. You had never used it.
Yet here you were. Bleeding out alone. Surely this counted. What constituted a greater emergency than your slow descent into death? You should call him. He owed you that much, after the countless nights you'd nursed his wounds, brewed tea for his unravelling nerves, offered wordless comfort when he couldn't meet your eyes.
You hesitated.
He was the one who had left. He'd made it clear that your concern was unwanted, that your presence was a burden, a kindness too foreign for him to accept. Who were you to claw back into his life now, demanding something from a man who had nothing to give?
Besides, he had probably thrown the phone away already. Changed numbers. Burned the whole thing and permanently severed all connection to you.
Your throat tightened, and you swallowed down the lump forming there.
You had helped him expecting nothing in return, and if your care had ever truly been selfless, then you couldn't call him now. You wouldn't dishonour whatever shred of dignity remained by asking for something he never offered.
He told you not to rely on him, and you were nothing if not obedient. Even in death.
But would he even know that you'd died?
Would he hear about the nameless person found lifeless in some forgotten alleyway? Or would you be just another unclaimed cadaver, swiftly removed with nothing but a toe tag to mark your end?
The thought struck harder than the pain in your ribs.
No. That wasn't fair. That wasn't right.
You were no one—yes. An inconsequential creature tucked into the shadows of a city that never slept, but you were not nothing. You had existed. You had loved. You had helped. And whatever little sliver of self-worth burned in your chest would not let you die like this, like some discarded scrap on the edge of the world. You wanted to at least have the dignity of dying in your own home.
With a choked cry, you forced your blood-slicked palm against the wall, fingers scrambling for purchase. Your legs screamed in protest, and your vision went white with pain, but you pushed, staggering to your feet like a marionette with half its strings cut. Your body bent nearly double, every breath a dagger in your ribs, but you moved. You moved because you had to. Because you refused to die here in this piss-stained alley, where the rats would be your only mourners and your story would end in tragic comedy.
Step by agonizing step, you dragged yourself toward your apartment building, each footfall a prayer, each gasp a rebellion.
You were not going to die out here. You refused to.
By the time you reached the entrance to your building, your body was little more than a shuddering husk, hollowed out by blood loss and sheer willpower. The stairs loomed before you like a joke, an unscalable mountain for someone with no air left in their lungs. You cursed the building for not having a damned elevator, cursed yourself for choosing this place, this street, this life. But then you remembered, with no small measure of desperation, that your apartment was on the first floor. Just one flight. Just a few steps.
You could do this.
Each stair was its own Everest. Your hands gripped the banister like it was the only thing tethering you to this world, your knees buckling with every upward shuffle. By the time you reached your door, your vision had gone obsidian around the edges, the hallway swimming before your eyes like you were underwater.
Your fingers fumbled at the keyring, sticky with blood. You dropped it once. Then again. The keys jangled to the floor in a wet scatter, and you nearly screamed in frustration. It took everything in you to bend down and retrieve them, the movement setting off a white-hot flare in your side. When at last you managed to force the key into the lock and shove the door open, it felt like winning some futile, cruel battle.
The moment you crossed the threshold, your legs gave out. You caught yourself clumsily on the edge of the doorway, panting. There was a trail of red already soaking into your welcome mat, smearing across the floor where your shoes dragged in rainwater and the city's muck.
You thought of what a mess it would be in the morning. Not your pain. Not your fear. The mess.
Of course. Always worried about the inconvenience.
Your bed beckoned, soft and warm in memory, but you knew better. The thought of dying there, of ruining the sheets, staining the mattress, and leaving some poor cleanup crew to find you sprawled like a ghost in a coffin of cotton, made your stomach turn.
No, you couldn't do that to them. You couldn't be a burden, even in death.
So you turned instead toward the bathroom, dragging your feet unsteadily. The mirror reflected something ghastly as you passed, but you didn't look long enough to register it. The bathtub was where you would go. Easy to clean. Contained. Not that you had plans to die, not really. Just a precaution.
You collapsed inside it, the porcelain biting cold against your rain-soaked clothes. You had meant to only sit on the edge, to open the cabinet, maybe fish out the old first-aid kit, the one you'd used on him more times than you could count. But that thought was as distant now as the stars. You couldn't move anymore. Couldn't lift your arm, couldn't reach the faucet, couldn't even curl properly into yourself.
The chill was everywhere, gnawing its way into your bones. Your side throbbed, your hands were numb, and your clothes clung to you like a second, sopping skin. The bathroom ceiling blurred above you, a dull white light flickering in and out of focus.
Maybe if you could just turn the shower on, and run the hot water, it'd warm you. Even that was beyond you, and your eyes slid shut.
Just five minutes, you told yourself.
You'd rest for five minutes and then you'd wake up. You'd patch yourself up, and you'd clean up the mess.
Jason Todd stood outside your apartment door, a greasy pizza box balanced in one hand, the old burner phone cradled in the other. He hated how long he stood there, staring at your door like some coward at confession, trying to summon the nerve to knock. The light overhead flickered erratically, buzzing like it, too, was mocking him for coming back with his tail between his legs.
He didn't do apologies. Not well. Not in words. Nonetheless, this was the closest thing he could offer. A peace offering. Your favourite pizza and an irrational hope tucked in his chest that maybe you hadn't stopped waiting for him.
He told himself it was just a coincidence when his patrols started curving past your building more often than necessary. Gotham was dangerous, after all. Plenty of reasons to keep an eye on your neighbourhood.
That didn't explain why he always ended up outside your window. Why he paused there, hidden in the shadows with his helmet in hand, unable to resist the pull of light spilling through your curtains. Why he'd squint through the fogged-up glass, watching the shape of you as you went about your night, a ghost in your own home.
Sometimes you'd sit at the little table by the kitchen window, two mugs set down instead of one. One of them always remained untouched, placed directly in front of the empty seat he used to occupy like muscle memory. And god, those were the worst nights, the ones where he caught you staring at that vacant spot, eyes glazed with thought, fingers wrapped around your own mug for warmth that never quite reached your face.
It gutted him in ways he didn't want to examine. Routine was memory. Memory was grief.
You'd left the light on most nights, like you always did. Once he'd seen you crack open the window just a sliver, as if you were expecting someone to come climbing through. He hadn't moved from the fire escape that time, just sat there like a coward in the dark, watching you wait.
You hadn't closed it again until dawn.
Here he was now, standing at your door like a man with something to offer, when all he'd ever done was take.
It had been three weeks, not that he was counting. Three weeks since he'd stormed out, spitting venom at the only person who'd offered him a lifeline. He'd told himself he was doing you a favour by leaving. Sparing you. Protecting you. But all it had done was leave him bitter, clawing at the emptiness where your laughter used to sit.
So he'd come back. He was even doing it your way this time. No rooftop skulking, no slipping through your window like a thief in the night. He'd wiped his boots on the doormat like you always nagged him to, grumbling under his breath about manners even as he indulged your rituals.
It was then that he saw it.
The mat was wet, and not just from rain. It was stained with something thicker than water. His brows furrowed. He crouched down, pressed his fingers against it, and brought them up to the light.
Blood.
A chill knifed down his spine. The pizza box slid forgotten to the floor, and the burner was shoved back into his pocket with numb fingers as he stepped forward. He reached for the door and froze. It was ajar, just enough to be wrong.
Jason's jaw clenched as he pushed it open, inch by inch, his muscles tense. The air inside was still, but not in the comforting, quiet way. It was stale, coated in something metallic.
The hallway beyond the threshold told him everything he needed to know, and nothing he wanted to. There were smears. Streaks of blood that dragged in uneven trails across the walls and floor like someone had been pulling themselves, struggling to crawl. It didn't take a detective to know it hadn't happened more than a few hours ago. It was still wet in places.
"No," he muttered under his breath.
He followed the trail, dread festering like rot in his gut, stifling in its certainty. The apartment bore the signs of someone trying—and failing—to get to safety. A chair half-toppled in the living room. A phone on the floor with bloodied fingerprints on the cracked screen. The bathroom door half-open, swinging slightly on its hinges.
Inside, Jason's boots crunched over scattered pill bottles, cotton pads, and disinfectants. The cabinet had been ransacked, the sink stained, and the floor a battlefield of debris. However, it was the bathtub that rooted him in place.
The shower curtain had been torn from its hooks on one side, hanging askew like a shroud, and there at the edge was a hand.
Unmoving, and painted the same devastating hue as his discarded helmet.
"No, no, no—"
Jason surged forward. His fingers trembled as he grabbed the edge of the curtain and yanked it back. His heart stopped.
There you were, curled up like a broken doll. Blood had seeped through your clothes, and pooled beneath you in a slick that had long gone cold. Your face was too pale. Your lips were tinged with blue. You looked like you'd been dying alone.
And he hadn't been here. He'd left you.
"Shit—" The curse ripped out of him as he dropped to his knees beside the tub. "Shit. No, no, no. Stay with me. Don't you dare fucking do this."
His eyes raked over your body in a frenzied scan, finally landing on the crimson bloom beneath your ribs, still seeping sluggishly into the sodden fabric of your shirt.
"I've got you," he rasped, yanking his jacket off and pressing it hard against your side. "Just—fuck—open your damn eyes. Please. I can't—just stay with me."
You didn't flinch. You didn't cry out. You didn't even stir.
"C'mon, c'mon," he pleaded again, trying to keep pressure on the wound while reaching up to cradle your face. His fingers brushed over your cold cheek, the dampness of it jarring. "Shit, you're freezing."
Your skin had the waxy hue of someone far too close to death.
"Don't do this." His voice cracked around your name. "Don't you fucking do this to me."
He ran his thumb across your temple, trying to coax warmth back into your skin. "You're not allowed to go out like this."
He wanted to rage, to tear apart every alley in Gotham until he'd found the bastard who'd done this to you and buried him in pieces, but he couldn't leave you. Not again.
"I shouldn't have left," he whispered, forehead pressed against yours. "I was trying to keep you safe, you stupid, stupid—all I did was get you hurt."
The blood kept leaking through the fabric under his hand. He tried not to look at it. Tried to focus on the flutter of your breath instead, shallow and shaky as it was.
"You stayed up for me. Every night," he continued hoarsely. "Kept the light on like a goddamn lighthouse. You set out mugs for a ghost, and I—I let you."
He swallowed hard, jaw tight. "I thought if I stayed away, you'd move on. Forget me. Be safe."
He brushed back the damp strands of hair plastered to your forehead and nearly flinched at the chill of your skin. "But you didn't forget. And now look at you."
Another shallow breath rattled from you. Not enough. Never enough.
Jason let out a bitter laugh. Half relief, half devastation.
"You always patched me up without question. Let me bleed on your couch like it was normal. Told me to stop tracking blood in like it was mud, like I was just some dumb, messy roommate. You made me think I could be something other than this."
He gripped your jaw gently, coaxing your face toward his, needing even your closed eyes on him. He had seen worse wounds. He'd inflicted worse wounds. But never before had his hands shaken like this, not even when pulling bullets out of his own flesh. Not even when bleeding in the dark with only adrenaline and resentment keeping him alive.
You weren't moving, and that terrified him more than anything else.
He hadn't wanted to look. Had clung to the jacket pressed against your side like it might reverse the damage, like he could will the blood to retreat into your body, but the pressure wasn't enough. He had to see it, to know what he was dealing with.
"Sorry...I'm gonna lift your shirt now. I need to—I need to fix this."
As if you could hear him. As if that mattered.
Nevertheless, his entire demeanour softened when speaking to you, even now.
Almost reverently, Jason tugged the fabric of your shirt upward. It clung to your skin, soaked through with blood and rain, and he had to tear it gently around the wound to reveal what lay beneath.
It was sickeningly deep. Ragged. A puncture wound, just below your ribs, the edges dark with drying blood, the center still weeping. It hadn't clotted. It wasn't going to.
"Shit," he grunted, clenching his jaw as a fresh wave of helpless fury surged through him. His hands hovered, uncertain. "You weren't supposed to..."
He wasn't supposed to let this happen.
His gloves were already off, discarded god knew where when he found you. And now, he reached for the cabinet above your sink, flinging it open and pawing through it until supplies tumbled out. A crude first aid kit: gauze, antiseptic wipes, a needle and thread in a plastic pouch. Nothing close to sterile. Nothing close to what you needed, but it would have to do.
Jason fell to his knees beside the tub again. His fingers were too numb, but he forced them to work. He yanked the antiseptic open with his teeth, nearly choked on the smell, and drenched a clean cloth with it.
"This is gonna hurt," he uttered another apology as he dabbed around the wound. You didn't flinch. That silence hit harder than a scream.
He took a deep breath and threaded the needle.
"I'm not good at this," he told you. "You usually do the patching. I just sit there like a jackass and make fun of your tea."
A breathless huff escaped him. Not quite a laugh. Not quite a sob.
"But I'm gonna try, okay? You just—you stay with me. Just for a little while longer."
The first stitch was agony. Not for you, but for him. The needle pushed through skin with resistance, your blood sticking to his fingers. He cursed under his breath, eyes burning as he worked. He tried to be careful, gentle even, but he didn't have time for grace. He just needed to stop the bleeding.
One stitch. Two. Three. The jagged edges of the opening puckered beneath his efforts, but slowly the worst of it began to close. He wrapped it after, thick layers of gauze and the remains of your shirt to press against it.
Then his hands fell still.
"Okay," he consoled, brushing hair away from your brow. "Okay. That's... that's the worst of it."
You didn't stir.
"You're not dying," he repeated as if he could manifest it into truth. "I didn't just fix you up so you could fucking die on me anyway."
He leaned down and brushed his lips against your forehead, tasting rust.
"I'm not losing you."
He had come here thinking it would be the beginning of an apology, but now it might as well have been a eulogy.