Chapter Text
“Todd breaks left—intercepts at the thirty—Jason Todd takes it all the way! Touchdown, Gotham!”
Jason’s lying on the bench of Jersey State’s visitor locker room. The TV is whirring with the noises of post-game commentary, they won opening night, inevitably. The sound of gum smacking in his mouth is irritating him, but he can’t stop sticking it to his teeth and replaying the moments back in his head.
“What's gotten in the winner's head?” Roy’s peering down at him, droplets of hot water drip from the tips of his hair and slide down Jason’s cheek. He grins in response, lifting his back and grabbing the towel off Roy’s neck.
“We coulda done better,” He says, a poor attempt at hiding his ego. Roy catches on, pausing momentarily to stare before breaking into a full-bellied laugh. He swats his shoulder, “Sure, coulda intercepted a bit more poorly, huh, cornerback?”
“Kachow,” Jason replies, leaning into the hand on his shoulder, Roy wipes the wet strands from Jason’s face. He’s a safety on the field, off it he majors in mechanical engineering and has a crazy tolerance to drugs. Ginger hair and big, dog-like green eyes, Jason met him when he fixed his bike in eighth grade. Roy’s a year older than him, back then he was towering over Jason’s scrawny figure. In the very beginning they weren’t friends, couldn’t be, Jason was uncomfortable around guys with his poor history with them. Over time, they began to see each other more, and their friendship was inevitable, and Jason hasn’t looked back since.
Victor’s head pops out from a nearby locker, his new buzz making his hair shine like peach fuzz. “Buses are out, you idiots better stop cuddling and start moving.”
“I can cuddle you if you’re feeling lonely Vicky,” Roy says, after much mock-pondering.
Victor sneers, “In your dreams harper,” He pauses. “I like my men rough,” he winks.
**
Artemis pokes his cheek, making Jason raise an eyebrow, not yet looking in her direction.
She does it again, but this time she misses and her manicured nail digs straight into his nose.
“Ow! Fucking hell Artemis.”
“Oops.”
“Oops?”
They’re sitting in the lecture hall of Pamela Isley, she’s talking about something that has to do with organic chemistry, Jason’s deducing from the big board at the front that says ‘Organic Chemistry’. This technically isn’t his class, it’s Artemis’s, but he has time to spare. He’s not really even listening, his head has been in his arms, every now and then shifting his arms so his PowerBook stays on. He turns to Artemis, who is ripping open a new bag of trail mix, paying even less attention to her lecture than he is.
After a glaring match, which Jason voluntarily loses, he manages to grit out a harsh, “Need anything?” He rubs his cheek, they’re hollow enough so she was really just flicking his bones, albeit the soft layer between them.
Artemis rolls her eyes in response, “Didn’t realize that’d get you in a tizzy.” She pops a red M&M in her mouth, covered in peanut dust. “Heard you won the game yesterday.”
“We’re supposed to be in class stupid.”
“I’m supposed to be in class, I have no idea where you’re supposed to be.”
“Do you know anything about orgo?”
“I know enough.”
“Face forward.”
“I’m sure you love facing forward, staring right at Ms. Isley.”
Jason huffs a smile, "Can't help it," he shrugs.
“Ew.”
After a few more minutes of staring ahead in awkward silence, Jason grabbed his PowerBook and opened it up.
“So,” he grins, glancing at Artemis, “Heard you went down to the bar last night. Nab a poor fool, Arty?”
“First off, don’t ever call me that again, ew.” She visibly grimaces before sticking two fingers in the air, “second, nope. Men are total trash and I call for a matriarchy.”
Jason hums in response, Artemis is pretty, really pretty. She’s got long ginger hair and these stunner pairs of siren eyes. Every guy she’s come into contact with has tried to hit on her, Jason included, and somehow that’s turned her into a very vocal feminist.
“Classy.”
“But my head hurts like a bitch and Akila kept nagging me to take Advil but I ran out.”
“Of.. the room?”
“Of Advil.”
“Oh.” He pauses. Then, “I have some.” He reaches down, grabbing his backpack and grabbing a ziploc bag full of red button-like pills. He hands them over and gets a raisin launched at his face as gratitude, or so he’d like to believe.
“And,” Artemis starts, drinking half of her lemon-infused water before turning to Jason, “The new guy.”
“The new guy?”
“Yanno, the guy on the Metropolis?”
“There’s a new guy on Metropolis?”
“You’re lucky you’re pretty.” She rubs the tip of her finger on the tip of Jason’s nose, who is staring at the interaction cross-eyed. He grabs her wrist and brings it down.
“Whose on Metropolis?”
“Oh now you’re serious?”
“Artemis.” He half-whines.
She shrugs, tilting Jason’s laptop to face her. After a few taps and a loading screen, she turns it back to him. A video.
“...Metropolis receives transfer wide receiver: Clark Kent with 9 touchdowns, turning every secondary into a highlight reel.”
Jason’s eyes trace the laggy figure, running off field after victory on opening night.. this guy is a sophomore and if the nine touchdowns are true, he’s one of the best wide receivers in the nation.
“Stop biting your lip.”
He looks up, Artemis is watching him. “Was I?”
“Yeah.”
“Hm.” He rubs a finger horizontally across his bottom lip. A guy in the row in front of them turns around to glare, Artemis glares right back.
Jason lowers his voice, “He’s good.” He says, without realizing. An uncomfortable amount of heat pools in his head, “not that good,” he responds peevishly, to himself.
“You said that to yourself.” Artemis points out.
Jason pointedly ignores her, flipping through tabs before getting to his Email thread he shares with his football team.
THREAD: UGotham CHAMPS
[Jason]: theres a new wr for umet?
[Nate]: ya ,, we went ovr dis like 2 days ago or sum
[Victor]: lol jason was sleeping rmbr
[Nate]: when is he not lolol
[Jason]: bruh
[Roy]: his name is clark kent n his stats r on espn
[Jason]: ik im staring at them
[Victor]: i knew it ! anyway it’s ok. umets 3 yr streak ends THIS YR.
[Nate]: my senior yr..
[Roy]: YAAAA
**
Jason steps out after Isley lets them go, reminding them of the chemistry homework they had to do, which Jason dutifully made sure Artemis heard. People are shuffling around them but Jason leans back against the wall, eyes closed and eyebrows furrowed.
“Tired?” Someone crows, Jason opens his eyes and meets familiar blue eyes.
“Dick,” Jason says. Dick is standing there, hair mussed up and wearing a pair of grey flannel over a wife beater. He smiles at Jason and peers into the lecture hall where people are already filling in.
“Not your class,” he observes. Jason chuckles, roping his arm around Dick’s neck and pulling him in.
“Great job Watson.”
“Not Sherlock?”
"Please, have you seen me?"
“That's why I'm asking.”
“Well,” he says haltingly, bringing a finger to his chin to really sell the moment. Dick just laughs in his face before he can finish his thought.
“Remember, you’re helping with the decorations for tonight.”
Jason remembers. Pike's hosting a party, they usually do, but today it’s for the Gotham knights. Jason rarely helps out, he and Roy get to skip out since they’re on the football team but since this time Dick was especially excited Jason made the winning play, he decided to help him out.
**
“So what’s the hold up princess?” Dick asks, Jason’s holding him by his hips, lifting him up so he can put streamers on the ceiling, the decision to have the ceilings so high was poor, but the decision to not have a ladder at hand was arguably worse.
Jason sighs deeply, “There’s this new guy on Metropolis and he’s a wide receiver and he’s really good Dick.” Jason couldn’t keep anything from Dick, it’s always been that way. Whenever he’s around him he feels like he’s five and looking at his idol. He knows that no one could ever feel the same way about Dick as he does, it’s a weird feeling.
Dick smiles at the slump of words, “Yeah?” His voice sounds unusually cheery, like someone plugged modelo into his nighttime milk and made him the right kind of doozy.
He hops off Jason and turns to look at him, Jason knows he looks like a kid right now, scrunched up nose and his bottom lip being chewed like a dog’s favorite chew toy. When he was younger and still living on the streets, he used to be mistaken for a girl since he’d get so sensitive his face would turn pink. A lot of things have changed since then, but for some reason, somehow, Dick brings it out of him for the dumbest reasons.
“Is that why you're sad?”
“I’m not sad,” he says through his teeth.
“Is that why you’re not sad?”
“Dick..”
“Jason,” Dick steps forward, “You’re only a sophomore and you’re being tracked. You’ve got nationwide attention.” He brings his finger up to pull Jason’s ear. “Stop attention seeking.”
Jason watched Dick walk away before reluctantly following him. “Not attention seekin’,” he mumbles.
**
“Fresh,” Duke says as he lounges on Dick’s bed with Jason, watching him fumble with his collar.
“Fresh,” Jason responds, more irritated.
They’re getting ready for the costume party downstairs, the brothers popped costume ideas into a hat and pulled one out for everyone. Jason got catwoman, whose very sexy, but also a petite woman with skin-tight clothes. He met Duke when he was pledging last year, the dude looked at him and smiled and Jason swore the sun got brighter. He’s supposed to be Captain America, Jason judges by the cardboard shield, but he’s only got blue paint all over his body without any white or red so he looks more like an avatar.
Dick walks in, wearing an incredibly ugly yellow shirt. He brings an arm up, finger pointing directly at a spot on the ceiling, his face is determined as he does his incredible interpretation of captain Kirk: “How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life.”
“Bravo captain,” Duke claps.
“Thanks captain,” Dick responds. He looks at Jason, who got the fuzzy black collar down and is moving towards painting his mask.
“How's Catwoman doing?”
“Meow,”
“Does she do that? Meow?”
“Woof?”
“The cat one was sexier,” Wally chimes in, head sticking out of the bathroom.
“Thanks Wally, I always wanna be sexy for you,” Jason winks at him. Wally blows him a kiss and bites his tongue.
Dick grimaces, “Jason respect your elders,” He looks around, “Where are the crowns?”
Duke points at the drawer by the nightstand. Dick pulls out two burger king crowns, looking at Jason.
“No way in hell, meow.” Jason says flatly.
“It’s your day! You’re our winners! Roy’s gonna be wearing one too,”
“No one's even gonna know what that means besides people in pike.”
“Exactly! It’s a cute little inside joke,”
“It’s gonna look ridiculous with our costumes,”
Dick frowns, quickly changing it into a pout. “But..” he tries to find a logical reason, “But, it’s cute,”
Jason looks at Duke who shrugs, “Cap’ makes a good point,”
Jason puts two fingers to the bridge of his nose before grabbing the crown from Dick, “I’ll remember this, he threatens as he carefully wraps it around his head, minding the spirit halloween cat ears.
Duke snorts, “Cute.”
Roy walks in, he’s got this long red cape with white fluff that resembles chicken feathers. He drew on a goatee with one of those skin color pens but they somehow had an orange one, or a really, really tan one, Jason reasons.
“I’m a king,” He explains. He walks over to Dick and grabs a crown, placing it on his head.
Wally’s head steps out against, the blinding fluorescent light blends in with his own hair so he sorta looks bald. He’s got a toothbrush stuck on one side of his face,
“Dude, remember last time when we had graduates tryna come in?”
Dick grins, “Hell yeah, that’s what happens when pike hosts a shit-rocking party in the beautiful and environmentally friendly town of Uptown Gotham, New Jersey. Population: 13,042 undead zombies.”
“Okay.” Jason cuts through, more to himself then anyone else. He pats both of his legs, whatever paint landed on his fingers falls invisible to the black spandex he has on. He turns to Dick whose smiling back at him,
"Okay!"
**
Britney Spears is playing in the dimly lit halls of the frat house. Jason's fiddling with a Bud Light, he feels drunk already.
Roy bumps shoulders with him, his cape is already gone.
“Where’ve you been?” Jason asks, handing him the rest of his drink.
“Sex,” Roy replies, “Asian chick. Super hot.”
“I’m sure you showed her minuteman,”
“Multiply that by five,”
“Wallys fucked a fleshlight longer,”
“Ok, gross. Aren’t fleshlights, like, illegal?”
“Illegal, no. Unsanitary, probably. But it’s either that or he jerks off to an Aldi’s catalogue,"
“The poor virgin,”
“Hmm,” Jason’s eyes are wandering around. There are several girls looking at him, a pretty one with doe eyes and curly brown hair catches his eyes. So does a blonde one with nothing but a frisky Victoria Secret nightgown and mascara like its Vanessa Williams secret slumber party. The room is pretty dark, so he doesn’t really stick out with an all black outfit to match the night sky.
He zeroes in on a guy standing by the spiked punch. He’s tall, and he’s staring right at him. Jason’s cheeks burn at the way the dude’s staring at him, weird. The weight of his gaze is dragging Jason’s shoulder down.
He stiffens up, if this is some sort of power play he saw on Nat Geo, Jason can be the bigger hawk. He’s 6’2 with 212 pounds of muscle, he can beat a little chickadee in the wrong jungle.
His eyes are beginning to itch and heats crowding his whole body weirdly,
“Fuck,” He manages to spit out. Roy stares at him, then follows his gaze to the guy. “Woah.”
Jason’s digging his blunt nails into his neck to get rid of the imaginary sweat, “What the fuck,”
The guy begins making his way over, Roy watches. “Do you guys like, know each other?”
“No Roy, am I red? He looks like a fuckin’ bull, tell me, am I red?” He wipes his mouth.
“I can barely see you,” Roy watches, he turns around, “Holler if you need me, I’m gonna go grab a knife,”
Jason breaks eye contact to whip his head in Roy’s direction, “Roy– fuck.”
He can’t bring himself to make that same weird mind-altering predatorial eye contact so he opts to stare at the ground.
“Hey,” Jason looks up, almost instinctively, after hearing the man’s voice. It’s this deep baritone, like it’s been hibernating and the snow finally melted. It’s rugged, it has an edge to it that makes Jason step back, almost. He’s a hawk right now so he stands his ground, wings open.
Jason looks up. As in, above himself. The last time he had to do that was pre-puberty. The dude is massive, he’s maybe two or three inches above Jason but he’s wide. Jason’s convinced that this guy is a meta-human.
“You’re biting your lip,” The deep-voiced meta-human says. Jason stops, brings a finger to rub over his bottom lip, the saliva collecting on his finger. The dude watches, at least he thinks he is. He’s got cream-white contacts that make it hard to tell, come to think of it, Jason peers down, doing a full body check, trying to see the costume in the dark light.
“What’s wrong kitty?” The voice brings him back up, the meta-human brings a hand up, and it’s huge, a good 9 inches if Jason remembers anything about his sport. He brings his hand to rest on Jason’s arm, squeezing it.
Jason now realizes that he hasn’t said a single word to this man, he travels his gaze around him, the man’s now blocking his view quite literally everything, he’s a giant shadow.
Huh. He’s wearing a cape, a superhero then maybe. All black, and, he looks up, two pointy ears stick out from the top of his head. A black mask parallel to Jason’s on his face, and Oh, heat pools in Jason’s gut. Oh it’s–
“Batman,” he says. Then, “You’re Batman,”
“I am,” Batman helpfully responds, “And you’re Catwoman,”
Jason stares, he brings his lips together to form what might be a frown but Batman gives him a deep chuckle instead, “You spoke,”
“I did,” Jason helpfully supplies, “You came here for the funsies?”
“To you? Or this party?”
“Take a guess,”
“I came here ‘cause I like booze, shitty bouncers at the front anyway,”
Jason can feel his eyebrow twitch.
“But that’s not what you were asking right?” Batman grins. He hums softly, his thumb circling around Jason’s arm.
“Hands off,”
“Don’t you mean paws off?”
“Fuck off,”
“Yeesh,” he holds his hands up in surrender.
They stare in silence, Jason trying to look everywhere but him but failing impossibly because everywhere is just another rippling muscle from the man in front of him.
Jason sighs and stares at his hands, closing his eyes and trying to conjure up a PBR. The guy’s breathing is messing up his tempo, he can feel the calm, steady heartbeat of the low humming of his chest.
“So,” he finally snaps, looking up at him.
The guy’s just staring back, not realizing or, more likely, completely ignoring the open invitation to fill in the gap.
Jason deeply sighs, “Okay, sure.”
He tries to push himself off the meat man, putting two hands on his chest and pushing with full force, finally getting him to nudge back a little. Jason then wiggles his way out, wiping his arm in case the guy was actually a giant monster getting giant monster juice over him.
He turns himself around to meet the guy and his hackles rise, everytime he looks at him he just gets bigger.
“Are you okay?” Batman asks.
Jason thumbs his head, grabbing a drink from a nearby table, anything to clear his mind, downs it, and then stretches both of his arms before turning to him, his hands outstretched in front of him. He can't think but he's certain he has to say what's on his mind.
“I’ll say this in the nicest way possible, you are the weirdest guy in the world.”
“The world?”
“The whole freakin’ world and every weird guy inside it,” Truthfully, there were weirder guys. Kyle Rayner existed and so did Ted Bundy, but Jason didn’t want to tell him that.
“That’s harsh,” the guy says, he doesn’t sound hurt.
“Truth hurts,”
“Well, Debbie Downer, there’s more to life then frat parties and broken beer cans, and there’s a lot more weirder people then hot, booze drinking cosplayers,”
“I was giving you an opening to an apology,”
“An apology?”
“A little groveling could work too,”
“For what?”
“Harrassment,”
“Harrassment?”
“Yes, Iago, harassment. You grabbed me without my consent and looked at me really weird,”
The guy hummed, “Look at you weird..” He shifted his foot, craning his neck as if to stretch it but Jason felt even more intimidated. “How’d I look at you?”
“Huh?”
“I said,” He took a step forward, right back to where he was originally, “How’d I look at you?”
Suddenly the air was ten times colder than it was before, and Jason had to get out.
Jason runs his tongue around the inside of his teeth, “Like–” he spits out defensively, “Like a freakin’ bull,”
From where the guy craned his neck, Jason manages to peer over and spot Dick, who is chatting up one of the hottest girls Jason has seen in his life. He telepathically communicates with Dick, which, surprisingly, came with no response. But Dick, because he’s Dick, looks up and meets Jason’s gaze, eyebrows shooting up.
He turns back to look at the muscle man in front of him, who was in the middle of saying his weird, deep-voiced, piss-on-territory shit.
“Great meeting you,” He said, cutting through the middle of his sentences and making the guy pause, giving Jason some of his dignity back. He smiles pitifully, “gotta go.”
He let his hand linger for a second, just so this guy knew who had the upper hand, before making his way to Dick. Every step he took, he could feel the uncomfortable gaze behind him, but he couldn’t look back.
Dick claps Jason’s hand and reels him in, his other hand wrapping around to meet his shoulder.
“This is Kori,” Dick says, “and her friend, Donna,”
“Meow,” Jason smiles, wide and toothy.
**
“And, he was so fuckin’ creepy. Like, creepy. Is that a thing? He looked at Jason like he was gonna bite him,” Roy started, he was near the coffee machine pointedly not making any coffee.
“Yeah he was huge,” Dick nodded, in all seriousness. They’re all sitting at a table eating breakfast, Jason was the topic. More specifically, Jason’s encounter with the yeti cosplaying as Batman. “I was so scared for him, I was gonna step in, scouts honor.”
Jason’s stuffing his face with english muffins so he doesn’t have to partake in the awkward conversation, they’re a bit stale, and have more blueberries then brown sugar.
Wally perked up, “Dude! They’re like bonded now. I’ve seen it in Sex and the City.”
Jason turned to stare at him, “What do you know about Sex and the City? You can barely read past the third grade literacy level,”
“Read? It’s a show dumbass,”
“You watch Sex and the City?” Duke asks, pouring orange juice into a lemonade bottle.
“Yeah I watched it with Linda, anyway it’s probably like a soul thing now, I saw it in the show. It's like when there's a lot of horny tension.”
“When was there ever a ‘soul thing’ in Sex and the City?” Jason asks. Then, “we don’t have a ‘soul thing.”
Dick huffs a laugh, “Jason was too busy eating some girls clit out Wally. I don’t think the ‘soul thing' worked,”
Wally shrugged, “Sure hate on Wally.” He moves his scrambled eggs to Roy’s plate, “I’ll show you a ‘soul thing’.