Fic: "Flicker"
Flicker
by Jane St Clair
13 March 2005
Fandom: Batman/DCU
People: Jason/Bruce
Chronology: AU-ish, in the vague not-quite-now
Rating: dirty and disturbing
Disclaimer: of DC.
Summary: All dead angry boys come back.
thete1 fed me. Thanks, hon.
*
There are things he remembers.
Bare legs. Smoke. He remembers desert heat but not being in the desert. He remembers Gotham, but not the damp of Gotham. Being underground. Sleeping and waking in a house that was always dark. Not-sleeping in an apartment so cold he hurt all over.
Loud music. Running by himself in the later afternoon with his walkman on. Tapes he made. Howling music he always loved.
He's been cold for a long time.
And. It's probably significant that there are huge holes in his memory. He doesn't remember his parents' faces. He doesn't remember being dead.
It probably wasn't as much fun as this.
Even with the bars and the occasional screaming, this is the most -- interesting -- place he's been in a long time. Nobody watches him. They'd have to get down on their knees and peer through the food slot, or else open the grate higher up in the door. Nobody's done that. There isn't any light. He's been in the dark so long he can feel his eyes glowing.
Every so often, someone feeds him. No faces, no voices, just a plate shoved through a slot in the wall. Soft stuff that he can eat with his fingers. Very Kiss of the Spider Woman.
He remembers watching that. He doesn't remember whether Bruce was there. He almost remembers who Bruce is.
He remembers who Joker is perfectly. And, see, Joker's right next door, so knowing who Joker is is way more important. It's his first sign that where he is might be less Kiss of the Spider Woman and more Silence of the Lambs. And Joker is clearly Hannibal Lecter. Which makes Jason the creepy guy in the next cell screaming about how he can smell Jodie Foster's cunt.
Loudly. All night.
It's really fucking fun. Joker hasn't been sleeping at all.
*
And. There's a day when men in white coats come down and look at him for a long time. They pull back the steel door and stare at him through just the bars. Open the bars and ogle him through the open door.
He's not looking to get out. He's howling at Joker in the next room. Joker's been yelling back for the last six hours.
Good.
"What's your name, son?"
"Fuck off."
Howl, Joker, howl. Never sleep again.
*
Light hits him.
Clothes hit him. He didn't notice before he wasn't wearing any. It didn't seem to matter much. He's been cold for years. Barefoot and raw-bloody fingertips and his voice like he's been chewing glass and they want him to wear clothes.
Prison clothes. Thug clothes. Undershirt and denims that don't fit him. Shoes and no socks. Soft leather cuffs on his wrists and big guys in white shirts (no coats -- you'd almost think they weren't cold) take him upstairs. Lot of stairs. Other people howling. Behind him, he can hear Joker screaming, thank you.
*
"As near as we can tell, he came in with a shipment of inmates we received from the state psych hospital. Except we have no record of him. Nor does the hospital. There's been a miserable fuck-up somewhere along the line, but we can't find anyone to take responsibility.
"It's a problem. You know our budget. We simply can't afford to treat and house an inmate for whom we have no record of court-ordered commitment.
"I'm fully aware he's insane. However, as we have no evidence that he's also dangerous, his instability is not our problem."
*
So. He has new clothes. A few dollars in his pocket that one of the men in white coats gave him. Two bottles of something anti-psychotic they made him swear he'd take. He thought about throwing the pills out the window and leaping screaming over the table at the orderlies, to see if that would make them take him back down to Joker, but he didn't think it did. They had that look that said 'you have no money', and they were throwing him out.
It makes him probably the first guy in Gotham to really want to break into Arkham Asylum.
He'll get to it. He needs some stuff first. Can't quite remember what it is, but it'll come to him. All kinds of things keep coming to him, like the way he knows his way around without having to work out where the fuck he is after the bus drops him off. Just another kid (he thinks he's still a kid, not totally sure about that) in baggy jeans and warm-up jacket scuffing his way through the downtown. And it occurs to him that he must not be a kid anymore, because if he was a kid they would have found him a place to live, probably, instead of just dumping him in an area of cheap hotels and telling him good luck.
Fine.
Cheap hotel room. No bathroom. Mirror on the back of the door, toilet with no shower at the end of the hall. Stripped-down bed with no actual bedding on it. Couple of knives stashed around the room.
His hair's prison-hospital short. A bottle of peroxide costs maybe $1.10, not that he pays for it. And once he's blond, he looks less like himself and feels more like.
He doesn't know why he remembers himself blond. Every hair on his body's black at the root.
It gets dark and all the monsters come out. Men and boys and hard-up women and people who stopped having genitals years ago all crawl out of their rooms and go to work, fucking and mugging and killing and sliming the fuck out of the city. Jason goes up to the room and watches them.
He used to stop them. He's almost sure of it.
*
Eventually he goes out. Walks around in the mess and breathes it in, and he can almost remember. Most of his brain's full of the things he could do to get himself sent back to Arkham. There's only one face that echoes in his brain, and that's Joker's. The fucker's insane, but he isn't suffering nearly enough.
He's well-fed in there. Warm and fairly clean. People Jason walks past in Gotham aren't any of those things.
Finds out he's attracted to rooftops. So are junkies, but they're timid. They take one look at him and run like the law is coming. Leave him alone crouched on the brick edge of a roof, peering over the edge.
Man comes up behind a hooker, grabs her around the neck. Forces her down in the stagnant rainwater and skull fucks her and he thinks --
-- he could just jump --
-- and stop it.
He doesn't. But he gets off the roof. Goes back down to street level and waits for the guy to walk away from her, and then beats on him for a while with a two by four.
It feels good in his hands. He starts thinking about how good a crowbar might feel.
Goes away and throws up in the mess. Girl doesn't have any interest him. She won't even cry. Just gets up and walks away.
Flicker at the edge of his awareness, but by the time he's finished wiping his mouth it's gone.
*
He moves out of the hotel. Sort of: he comes back and the door's locked against him. There wasn't anything in there he needed, but he's going to miss the almost-warmth of the room. It gave him somewhere to be, during the day. Quiet/noisy like a cell. He doesn't make noise, but everyone around him does. The things they do outside the asylum are almost as sick as the things they do inside. Probably worse, but outside there are -- theoretically -- more functional brain cells per warm body, so the shit doesn't happen to the same people every minute.
Coat, stuff in his pockets, stolen lunch under his shirt. He walks down to the waterfront, curls up in a doorway, and sleeps.
*
At night he goes hunting. Every time, he sees one of those girls. There's always some guy, just a couple of dozen feet ahead and walking away into the dark just like he didn't do anything.
Beating them makes him feel a lot better.
No one says thank you. He doesn't really expect it.
*
Except.
He's up on a pile of shipping crates, watching for guys who might deserve his attention, and the flicker comes back. Turns toward it and it's like looking into a really distorted mirror. For a second he thinks he really is back in Arkham, like maybe he never left, and this is drug-induced. Some new version of whatever they have in the needles they use to shut noisy people up for a few hours.
It looks nothing like him. Half his size, pretty in a way he's never been. Wrong hair. He's been blond for three weeks, and even when he was dark he was never that spiked. It's all wrong. And the dark legs are wrong, like all his skin is missing. And the throat is covered. And the toes are split.
Vertigo.
Little not-him wonders what he's going to do. Start a fight, maybe. Try to smash the mirror.
Jump and run.
*
During the day an outreach van comes by and someone covers him in an old army blanket. He carries it around with him, slung over his shoulders like he's four fucking years old and dressing up in a cape.
Coffee from the same van, because they seemed to think he should be awake. Church group, he thinks. They don't understand that Gotham's nocturnal.
The vans that come around at night are only interested in protecting the kids and the girls from men who look like him. Not sure how long he's been a man instead of a kid, but the longer he's out here, the more he feels his own hugeness.
He's strong enough to nearly cave a guy's head in. Crying behind them in the alley says maybe whoever this fucker raped is pretty young.
He has these holes in his memory -- in his head -- and no idea where his own trauma's coming from. Doesn't think he was ever that small. Never that scared. But some people don't seem to have any skin, and maybe he's always been an enforcer for something or other.
His mirror doesn't come back. Jason walks around in the dark and pretends he isn't looking for him.
*
The first time someone hits him back hard, he's amazed how good it feels. Part of his brain whispers about endorphins while the rest of him just shivers with it.
He wanted someone to fight him.
Hard, long, brutal fight with an enforcer for one of the gangs running girls down here, because they've more or less assumed that any guy protecting girls is looking to take over from them. And yeah, he is a threat, he just hasn't decided what kind, yet.
Brass knuckles on the guy, but no gun. They didn't, for whatever reason, want him dead. Wanted to recruit him, maybe. Hold him down, give him a taste of what the girls get, and stick a tattoo on him while he's delirious.
Cartilage gives under his fist and he watches the guy gurgle and fall. On some level he knows the fucker's going to die. That he deserves it.
Flicker.
*
Vice detectives shake down the odd prostitute. Find something in her purse, offer to trade her a blow job for a walk. Jason takes exception to that.
They're armed. He knows that. Guns, tasers. They have body armour on under their sleazy silky shirts. It's very. Familiar.
He smashes their tail lights. Takes a board to the hood of their department-purchased Lincoln.
Guy hits him in the shoulder with about 10,000 volts.
tingly
It blows his eyes right out the back of his head. He's on the ground, twitching, grinning up at the fuckers and thinking that this, finally, will send him back to Arkham's depths. Or else down into the river with a weight around his ankles.
He might end up back in Arkham that way, too. All dead angry boys go to loony bins when they die.
Flicker.
The officer goes down, lands on top of him, heavy muscle/fat and cheap cologne. Two-hundred-pound kick in the balls that doesn't retract after. Dead weight on top of Jason, breathing just enough to not actually be dead.
Black synthetics. Mask, cape, flicker.
Bruce. Jesus.
Batman says, "Jay."
He's strong enough to push the cop off him once he has his breath back. Picks himself up, ignoring the gauntleted hand. It hurts all along his back, but that'll fade in a day or two.
Doesn't want to be here.
He just says, "No."
And Batman doesn't say anything, but.
"No. I'm not Jay."
Walk away from him.
*
His mirror's back. Never as visible as he was that first time, but he flickers the way Batman does. Robin. Different Robin than he remembers. Darker and less. Fluttery. Dimmer colours, little or no bare skin, sharp edges. Expressionless little face that mostly reminds him of Batman.
He doesn't have any eyes. He's almost sure Robin used to have eyes.
*
Wakes up in the early evening and there's a different flicker watching him. Almost/not quite Batgirl. She's girl and bat, but all the details are wrong. No hair, no heels, no colourshimmer. Less curves.
Robin's eyes reflect. Batgirl's are completely gone.
She's still looking at him.
He says, "I'm not him. Go away."
*
They don't watch him during the day, but he can't sleep anyhow. Walks around, looking as much like a tourist as he can. It doesn't really work; he looks like a hit man or a panhandler. The people who don't press coins into his hand cross the street to get away from him.
The upscale parts of downtown Gotham are more beautiful than he remembers them. There's more glass, more light. Pigeons in the open spaces. He can't imagine when Gotham started looking like any other city in America, but it's developed a disturbingly normal commercial heart.
Wayne Tower rises up in the south, glass and pure architecture reflecting green-silver-gold.
He sits down in front of it and waits.
*
Alfred finds him.
Smooth dark towncar in the late afternoon looks like it's never been dusty, not even ten seconds of its whole existence. Jason's just sitting on the Tower steps -- eighteen concrete risers pushing the building up from street level. He remembers reading an architect's statement about rising up from the depths of the city to the sky. Wayne Industries takes a fairly liberal view of skateboarders, at least, so the steps see some use. At this hour, though, all the good little skaters have gone home to dinner, and the homeless are starting to come out.
Wayne Tower has heating vents all around it, too. It's a good place to sleep. If Jason hadn't been avoiding the whole area, he'd have slept here the first night.
And then Alfred's out of the car and bending over him. Narrow hand on his chin tilts his -- okay, dirty -- face towards the tower's light. Soft sigh.
"Come along, Master Jason."
"I'm not --"
Alfred gives him that look. The one that tells him not to be ridiculous. Opens a car door for him and watches until Jason folds himself into the dark, deep leather inside.
It's so warm.
He's been tired for a long time. The car's engine purrs very softly, idling, with Alfred waiting in the driver's seat and Jason falling asleep in the back.
*
He wakes up with his head on Bruce's lap, still in the car and moving. Heavy fingers in his short blond hair.
"Hi."
"mmph"
"It's okay. Go back to sleep."
*
He wakes up again in his bedroom.
Vertigo.
He still has all his clothes on. Still smells like a month on the streets and whatever number of weeks in Arkham and four years down among the dead men. Shoes on the floor next to him. Sandwiches and milk on the table by the door.
Alfred would want him to take a bath, put on clean clothes, and eat. He goes looking for Bruce, instead.
He thought, honestly, Bruce might be in here with him, watching to make sure Jason didn't leave. Possibly crouching at the foot of the bed with cape and cowl on. Possibly sleeping with an arm and a leg over Jason to hold him still. The fact that he's down in the Cave is probably important.
Half in the Batsuit. Slumped down at the console (computers've changed -- he should have expected that) with his hands in his lap. Thinking.
Watching tape of Jason.
Mirror-Robin's got a knack for framing shots. It's almost movie-quality stuff.
"How long were you following me?"
"A while."
"How long?"
"Twenty-two days."
"How long have you thought I'm Jay?"
"I knew you."
"You're wrong."
"You were a terrible liar all your life."
"You don't know anything about my life."
"They let you out of Arkham twenty-seven days ago. You had a hotel room at the Senator Hotel, the first week. 716. You gave it up, probably due to lack of funds. You changed your hair colour sometime in the first six days. You started patrolling within the first three days. Since then, you've disabled thirty-eight perpetrators and disposed of a further four." Silence. "There is a police warrant out for a man of your description."
"How many do they have out for you?"
"At present? None."
"The warrants don't just go away."
"The records went away. All of them. Did you notice that Gotham looks different?"
"Everything's just a bit warped. Like somebody shook it up in a snowglobe."
"Earthquake. Maybe two years ago. Are you going to keep pretending you're not Jason?"
He sighs. I'm not. Your Jason."
It's the first time Bruce makes eye-contact with him. He's pretty sure it is Bruce -- the cowl's off, and there's actual eye-contact. Batman hasn't had real eyes in years. The new Robin doesn't either; probably something important in that. "You're Jason."
"More or less." Probably.
Beat. He can hear air moving, somewhere lower in the Cave. He wonders where the giant penny went.
Bruce says, "Go shower."
And. It probably means something that he does it without arguing. Finds the Cave shower. It's bigger than it used to be. He strips down, and starts scrubbing the street-dirt off. Blindingly hot water that he instantly loves and that he instinctively knows Bruce didn't build into the design. Somebody without the need for mortification works out of here too.
Robin. The new Robin.
Maybe the new Batgirl?
He can remember Barbara's bare shoulders when she'd come out of the shower. Wet red hair was an essential part of his teenage jerk-off fantasies.
Mostly indulged in the shower.
He hasn't had time to revel under this much hot water since.
Since.
He remembers cold hose-showers in the Arkham darkness. Howling at Joker the entire time.
they're coming for you next, fucker!
Howl laughter at the shower walls.
And, really, Bruce should catch him like this. Not Robin. Stripped down to his tights and shorts, bootless. Still masked. He has the kind of hair Jason wanted all his life. Looks like it's almost as much work as the physique.
"Hi." Little shrug with it.
"Hey."
Robin nods. Strips off the rest of his uniform, mask last. He has more scars than Jason, even. Thinner. Red marks on his skin where the uniform was sitting, and even if Jason hadn't had a couple of good looks at the uniform already, he'd know it weighs more than it used to.
Naked boy scrubbing down opposite him. Jason used the stuff that was in here -- shampoo, liquid soap -- but Robin's got his own stuff, all coloured and vaguely girly. The whole shower-space starts to smell like fruit.
Time to get out.
*
He's not really surprised when he wakes up in the early morning and Bruce is standing next to his bed.
He says, "I missed you."
"I got that."
There are still holes in what he remembers. Maybe why it only comes back to him now that he always had to start it. So. Stand up, all in Bruce's personal space, make a point of being almost naked. Almost tall enough to look him in the eye, and this is as tall as he's ever going to get. Tattoos here and there on him that he doesn't remember getting, but they mix in with his scars, and they look normal to him. They're a good place to start.
He takes Bruce's hand and puts it on one of them. Just the wire-twist on his arm. Hard muscle underneath. Jason's been sleeping; he knows what he smells like.
Bruce hasn't been to bed yet. He showered. Same liquid soap he's always used. Smell of it's up there with wet red hair on his teenage list.
Kisses him.
They did this before. He remembers bits of it. He stood on his toes and Bruce had to bend down to him and fuck that's disturbing.
Open his mouth and rub softly against Bruce's. Stubble and hard lips. Somebody cracked Bruce's lip recently; he can feel the tiny healing place with his tongue. Soft for just long enough for Bruce to breathe in and out once.
Then hard.
Big arms around him so tight he almost can't breathe, dragging him in. Wide open mouth against his and yeah, this is what he expected the first time. The part of him that knows Bruce loved him, and that Bruce is still angry at him, expected Batman to throw him down and fuck him in the first alley. Might even have been waiting for it.
Open him wide and kiss him right down his throat.
He remembers all in a nauseating rush being fifteen and so in love with Bruce that he couldn't breathe. Crawling into bed with him after patrol and lying still for maybe thirty seconds before kissing him. Straddling his waist and sliding down because he was Bruce and Jason couldn't not.
Bruce laid him out on his back and kissed him all over, the first time they fucked. Naked boy in his bed and he was so huge.
He can almost, at this late date, look Bruce in the eye. If Bruce's eyes were open.
Romantic psycho.
He didn't come here intending to get any of this back. It's just. It's harder to remember why he came back.
Tiredscarednaked face Bruce offers him. Warm breath on his skin and Bruce says, "Jay . . ."
"No." Jason stiff-arms him.
"Don't do this."
"You need to understand this. I am not your Jay. He died."
Flinch. "I know you."
"You haven't seen me in years."
"I see you every night."
Interesting. Creepy. He pushes Bruce a little. "Do you want me?"
Silence.
"Do you want me?"
"Yes."
"Then take me. But I'm not your baby Jay." Advances on him until they're backed up to the wall and only then he realizes he's made Bruce give ground. Good.
Pushes him up against the wall and kisses him again.
Not on the bed. Nothing romantic. Two guys wrestling while their clothes come off, taking stripes out of each other and digging in wherever their hands grip.
Flicker -- the Batman flicker, the point where Bruce has always been smarter fiercer faster -- and then Jason's face is pressed to the wall and Bruce is biting the back of his neck. Thin skin over bone and the teeth dig in hard.
shitfuckyes
Jason pushes his hips back. Naked Bruce behind him. Muscle and hair and hard flesh, pale like Jason's pale, like neither of them's seen the sun in years. They go out at night and live the rest of the time underground. Icewhitebloodcoloured cock pushes at him and Bruce bites him again, holds both Jason's wrists against the wall and growls at him.
"Tell me what to call you. Or I'll call you 'Jay,'" he says. Growls, again, like the next time he calls him 'Jay' it'll change truth and time. Maybe you have to believe something like that to be Batman. Maybe it's even true.
The flicker, this time, is inside.
"Tell me."
Teeth in the scruff of his neck. One hand on his wrists and one on his belly, trailing down to his cock. Hips pushing back fuckmefuckmefuckme and he feels himself opening his legs wider. Waiting for the first finger. (God, he was just a kid and he loved it. Bruce's fingers have calluses he always forgot to expect and they'd scrape him and leave him begging for it . . .)
"You can call me Jason. If you have to."
Bruce's hair brushes. Something. The air or the wall or Jason's hair. He's nodding.
Very soft kiss where he bit down. Fingers from his belly come up to Jason's mouth. "Suck them."
He remembers this, too. Big eyes on him, kneeling on Bruce's lap and sucking the big fingers as seriously as he could. Making a show of it.
Nobody to see him now but he wants Bruce to remember what it was like. Two big scarred fingers in his mouth push at his tongue while he sucks on them, tasting soap and some kind of coffee-edge and Bruce's skin underneath. Metal and sparks.
He remembers sucking Bruce's fingers in the dark of Gotham at three in the morning when neither of them had enough time to undress.
Kiss behind his ear. It's too tender.
Jason bites down.
The hand snaps out, hurting his teeth, and Bruce pushes him hard against the wall. Crush of his face against the unnoticeable, expensive wallpaper that he didn't realize has a smell until right now. Jason pushes his ass back and out and waits for it.
Counts to ten. Twenty.
Fifty.
And then Bruce pulls him apart and touches a wet fingertip to his hole. Silent grin that he can still hear.
Push.
godfuckyesfuckohgodbruce
Finger in him burns. Big and hard-skinned and rough. Fucks him open fast and hard and doesn't pull back much when the second one goes in. Spit-slick in him, Bruce's hands and Jason's whining. He wouldn't put it past Bruce to fuck him like this, two big hands holding him together and pushing him to admit how much he loves this. How much he remembers wanting this.
Teeth again, this time in his shoulder. "Jay. Son."
fuck
fuckityfuckfuck fuckit
He says, "Fuck me."
you came here to fuck me so fuck me
Slick stuff on him. Bruce doesn't expect so much, but Batman knows what Jason's like, and he came prepared. Jason can smell the slightly sugary edge of commercial lubricant. (Not even the good stuff, not the bat-stuff Bruce designed or paid someone to design, that didn't smell like anything except both their bodies.) Fingers inside make him very, very slippery. Little push of three fingers where there were only two before and oh god it's good.
Makes his eyes roll back in his head when Bruce slams in.
One hand on his hip and one on his shoulder (back of his neck, pushing him against the wall) hold him still while Bruce takes him. Rough push-pull of it's brutal. Belly-cock ache that he's been missing for almost as long as he's been cold.
He couldn't possibly have forgotten this.
"Jay. Son."
"No. Fuck fuck fuck don't stop."
Bruce bends him forward and pulls his hips back so he's low over his knees and then thrusts up. Lifts Jason up onto straight knees onto his toes and drives deep, hard enough against his prostate to make his cock jump and to make Jason howl. No words, just all the ways he missed this, so loud his voice must carry all over the house. All his pleasepleaseplease.
Again.
"Bruce please."
Bruce can't possibly be laughing at him.
Hand comes up from Jason's hip and pulls his head around. Bruce's mouth on his shoulder, kissing him. His skin, his mouth. Fucking him gently just for the seconds needed for them to do this without losing teeth.
And then teeth dig in his shoulder hard and Bruce fucks him the way he loves it, hard and steady until Jason howls and Bruce closes a hand over his cock and pulls until Jason comes.
Not Bruce. Just Jason.
His bones give. When Bruce lets go of Jason's cock, he crumples. Knees hit the floor and one hand's over his head where Bruce is still holding him. He groans.
Over him, Bruce is very, very quiet. He has to still be hard.
Warm skin-on-slick sound. The hand on his wrist tightens, grinding little bones together. Jason wants to fold up. Or lean back and do something.
He can hear Bruce panting. Very, very close. And even if his bones are gone, that only means he can bend more easily. Over backwards and arch towards Bruce and it shouldn't be nearly as hot as it is when he catches part of it in the face.
Momentary shock between them and then Jason raises his free hand, wipes the back of it across his cheek, and licks Bruce off himself.
Looks straight up and grins.
*
He sleeps on Bruce's bed, naked and on top of the covers. Daylight hours exist on the other side of curtains that could lock out the end of the world.
Little bat people flicker in and out of the room, nodding occasionally to Bruce. Jason can't read them, as long as they're masked like that. Eyeless, both of them. He can read Bruce through the cowl, but he always could.
The clothes Alfred leaves out for him are perfectly black. He loves them.
*
And.
He doesn't think Bruce is incredibly surprised when Jason leaves the house and goes hunting. Not in uniform, not "on patrol". Just moving through the city, hunting ugly things and beating them into slow, heaving pulp. Being just-him means he can stand over them long after a cape would have to disappear. He isn't on a protective agenda. Yet. He's just working.
Flickers all around him and he sees Batgirl slide out of sight.
Robin.
Bruce is still there, somewhere high up. Crouched and watching.
Jason's looking for weapons in the corners of the alley before he moves on. He loves this. He's the only person out here with eyes.
by Jane St Clair
13 March 2005
Fandom: Batman/DCU
People: Jason/Bruce
Chronology: AU-ish, in the vague not-quite-now
Rating: dirty and disturbing
Disclaimer: of DC.
Summary: All dead angry boys come back.
thete1 fed me. Thanks, hon.
*
There are things he remembers.
Bare legs. Smoke. He remembers desert heat but not being in the desert. He remembers Gotham, but not the damp of Gotham. Being underground. Sleeping and waking in a house that was always dark. Not-sleeping in an apartment so cold he hurt all over.
Loud music. Running by himself in the later afternoon with his walkman on. Tapes he made. Howling music he always loved.
He's been cold for a long time.
And. It's probably significant that there are huge holes in his memory. He doesn't remember his parents' faces. He doesn't remember being dead.
It probably wasn't as much fun as this.
Even with the bars and the occasional screaming, this is the most -- interesting -- place he's been in a long time. Nobody watches him. They'd have to get down on their knees and peer through the food slot, or else open the grate higher up in the door. Nobody's done that. There isn't any light. He's been in the dark so long he can feel his eyes glowing.
Every so often, someone feeds him. No faces, no voices, just a plate shoved through a slot in the wall. Soft stuff that he can eat with his fingers. Very Kiss of the Spider Woman.
He remembers watching that. He doesn't remember whether Bruce was there. He almost remembers who Bruce is.
He remembers who Joker is perfectly. And, see, Joker's right next door, so knowing who Joker is is way more important. It's his first sign that where he is might be less Kiss of the Spider Woman and more Silence of the Lambs. And Joker is clearly Hannibal Lecter. Which makes Jason the creepy guy in the next cell screaming about how he can smell Jodie Foster's cunt.
Loudly. All night.
It's really fucking fun. Joker hasn't been sleeping at all.
*
And. There's a day when men in white coats come down and look at him for a long time. They pull back the steel door and stare at him through just the bars. Open the bars and ogle him through the open door.
He's not looking to get out. He's howling at Joker in the next room. Joker's been yelling back for the last six hours.
Good.
"What's your name, son?"
"Fuck off."
Howl, Joker, howl. Never sleep again.
*
Light hits him.
Clothes hit him. He didn't notice before he wasn't wearing any. It didn't seem to matter much. He's been cold for years. Barefoot and raw-bloody fingertips and his voice like he's been chewing glass and they want him to wear clothes.
Prison clothes. Thug clothes. Undershirt and denims that don't fit him. Shoes and no socks. Soft leather cuffs on his wrists and big guys in white shirts (no coats -- you'd almost think they weren't cold) take him upstairs. Lot of stairs. Other people howling. Behind him, he can hear Joker screaming, thank you.
*
"As near as we can tell, he came in with a shipment of inmates we received from the state psych hospital. Except we have no record of him. Nor does the hospital. There's been a miserable fuck-up somewhere along the line, but we can't find anyone to take responsibility.
"It's a problem. You know our budget. We simply can't afford to treat and house an inmate for whom we have no record of court-ordered commitment.
"I'm fully aware he's insane. However, as we have no evidence that he's also dangerous, his instability is not our problem."
*
So. He has new clothes. A few dollars in his pocket that one of the men in white coats gave him. Two bottles of something anti-psychotic they made him swear he'd take. He thought about throwing the pills out the window and leaping screaming over the table at the orderlies, to see if that would make them take him back down to Joker, but he didn't think it did. They had that look that said 'you have no money', and they were throwing him out.
It makes him probably the first guy in Gotham to really want to break into Arkham Asylum.
He'll get to it. He needs some stuff first. Can't quite remember what it is, but it'll come to him. All kinds of things keep coming to him, like the way he knows his way around without having to work out where the fuck he is after the bus drops him off. Just another kid (he thinks he's still a kid, not totally sure about that) in baggy jeans and warm-up jacket scuffing his way through the downtown. And it occurs to him that he must not be a kid anymore, because if he was a kid they would have found him a place to live, probably, instead of just dumping him in an area of cheap hotels and telling him good luck.
Fine.
Cheap hotel room. No bathroom. Mirror on the back of the door, toilet with no shower at the end of the hall. Stripped-down bed with no actual bedding on it. Couple of knives stashed around the room.
His hair's prison-hospital short. A bottle of peroxide costs maybe $1.10, not that he pays for it. And once he's blond, he looks less like himself and feels more like.
He doesn't know why he remembers himself blond. Every hair on his body's black at the root.
It gets dark and all the monsters come out. Men and boys and hard-up women and people who stopped having genitals years ago all crawl out of their rooms and go to work, fucking and mugging and killing and sliming the fuck out of the city. Jason goes up to the room and watches them.
He used to stop them. He's almost sure of it.
*
Eventually he goes out. Walks around in the mess and breathes it in, and he can almost remember. Most of his brain's full of the things he could do to get himself sent back to Arkham. There's only one face that echoes in his brain, and that's Joker's. The fucker's insane, but he isn't suffering nearly enough.
He's well-fed in there. Warm and fairly clean. People Jason walks past in Gotham aren't any of those things.
Finds out he's attracted to rooftops. So are junkies, but they're timid. They take one look at him and run like the law is coming. Leave him alone crouched on the brick edge of a roof, peering over the edge.
Man comes up behind a hooker, grabs her around the neck. Forces her down in the stagnant rainwater and skull fucks her and he thinks --
-- he could just jump --
-- and stop it.
He doesn't. But he gets off the roof. Goes back down to street level and waits for the guy to walk away from her, and then beats on him for a while with a two by four.
It feels good in his hands. He starts thinking about how good a crowbar might feel.
Goes away and throws up in the mess. Girl doesn't have any interest him. She won't even cry. Just gets up and walks away.
Flicker at the edge of his awareness, but by the time he's finished wiping his mouth it's gone.
*
He moves out of the hotel. Sort of: he comes back and the door's locked against him. There wasn't anything in there he needed, but he's going to miss the almost-warmth of the room. It gave him somewhere to be, during the day. Quiet/noisy like a cell. He doesn't make noise, but everyone around him does. The things they do outside the asylum are almost as sick as the things they do inside. Probably worse, but outside there are -- theoretically -- more functional brain cells per warm body, so the shit doesn't happen to the same people every minute.
Coat, stuff in his pockets, stolen lunch under his shirt. He walks down to the waterfront, curls up in a doorway, and sleeps.
*
At night he goes hunting. Every time, he sees one of those girls. There's always some guy, just a couple of dozen feet ahead and walking away into the dark just like he didn't do anything.
Beating them makes him feel a lot better.
No one says thank you. He doesn't really expect it.
*
Except.
He's up on a pile of shipping crates, watching for guys who might deserve his attention, and the flicker comes back. Turns toward it and it's like looking into a really distorted mirror. For a second he thinks he really is back in Arkham, like maybe he never left, and this is drug-induced. Some new version of whatever they have in the needles they use to shut noisy people up for a few hours.
It looks nothing like him. Half his size, pretty in a way he's never been. Wrong hair. He's been blond for three weeks, and even when he was dark he was never that spiked. It's all wrong. And the dark legs are wrong, like all his skin is missing. And the throat is covered. And the toes are split.
Vertigo.
Little not-him wonders what he's going to do. Start a fight, maybe. Try to smash the mirror.
Jump and run.
*
During the day an outreach van comes by and someone covers him in an old army blanket. He carries it around with him, slung over his shoulders like he's four fucking years old and dressing up in a cape.
Coffee from the same van, because they seemed to think he should be awake. Church group, he thinks. They don't understand that Gotham's nocturnal.
The vans that come around at night are only interested in protecting the kids and the girls from men who look like him. Not sure how long he's been a man instead of a kid, but the longer he's out here, the more he feels his own hugeness.
He's strong enough to nearly cave a guy's head in. Crying behind them in the alley says maybe whoever this fucker raped is pretty young.
He has these holes in his memory -- in his head -- and no idea where his own trauma's coming from. Doesn't think he was ever that small. Never that scared. But some people don't seem to have any skin, and maybe he's always been an enforcer for something or other.
His mirror doesn't come back. Jason walks around in the dark and pretends he isn't looking for him.
*
The first time someone hits him back hard, he's amazed how good it feels. Part of his brain whispers about endorphins while the rest of him just shivers with it.
He wanted someone to fight him.
Hard, long, brutal fight with an enforcer for one of the gangs running girls down here, because they've more or less assumed that any guy protecting girls is looking to take over from them. And yeah, he is a threat, he just hasn't decided what kind, yet.
Brass knuckles on the guy, but no gun. They didn't, for whatever reason, want him dead. Wanted to recruit him, maybe. Hold him down, give him a taste of what the girls get, and stick a tattoo on him while he's delirious.
Cartilage gives under his fist and he watches the guy gurgle and fall. On some level he knows the fucker's going to die. That he deserves it.
Flicker.
*
Vice detectives shake down the odd prostitute. Find something in her purse, offer to trade her a blow job for a walk. Jason takes exception to that.
They're armed. He knows that. Guns, tasers. They have body armour on under their sleazy silky shirts. It's very. Familiar.
He smashes their tail lights. Takes a board to the hood of their department-purchased Lincoln.
Guy hits him in the shoulder with about 10,000 volts.
tingly
It blows his eyes right out the back of his head. He's on the ground, twitching, grinning up at the fuckers and thinking that this, finally, will send him back to Arkham's depths. Or else down into the river with a weight around his ankles.
He might end up back in Arkham that way, too. All dead angry boys go to loony bins when they die.
Flicker.
The officer goes down, lands on top of him, heavy muscle/fat and cheap cologne. Two-hundred-pound kick in the balls that doesn't retract after. Dead weight on top of Jason, breathing just enough to not actually be dead.
Black synthetics. Mask, cape, flicker.
Bruce. Jesus.
Batman says, "Jay."
He's strong enough to push the cop off him once he has his breath back. Picks himself up, ignoring the gauntleted hand. It hurts all along his back, but that'll fade in a day or two.
Doesn't want to be here.
He just says, "No."
And Batman doesn't say anything, but.
"No. I'm not Jay."
Walk away from him.
*
His mirror's back. Never as visible as he was that first time, but he flickers the way Batman does. Robin. Different Robin than he remembers. Darker and less. Fluttery. Dimmer colours, little or no bare skin, sharp edges. Expressionless little face that mostly reminds him of Batman.
He doesn't have any eyes. He's almost sure Robin used to have eyes.
*
Wakes up in the early evening and there's a different flicker watching him. Almost/not quite Batgirl. She's girl and bat, but all the details are wrong. No hair, no heels, no colourshimmer. Less curves.
Robin's eyes reflect. Batgirl's are completely gone.
She's still looking at him.
He says, "I'm not him. Go away."
*
They don't watch him during the day, but he can't sleep anyhow. Walks around, looking as much like a tourist as he can. It doesn't really work; he looks like a hit man or a panhandler. The people who don't press coins into his hand cross the street to get away from him.
The upscale parts of downtown Gotham are more beautiful than he remembers them. There's more glass, more light. Pigeons in the open spaces. He can't imagine when Gotham started looking like any other city in America, but it's developed a disturbingly normal commercial heart.
Wayne Tower rises up in the south, glass and pure architecture reflecting green-silver-gold.
He sits down in front of it and waits.
*
Alfred finds him.
Smooth dark towncar in the late afternoon looks like it's never been dusty, not even ten seconds of its whole existence. Jason's just sitting on the Tower steps -- eighteen concrete risers pushing the building up from street level. He remembers reading an architect's statement about rising up from the depths of the city to the sky. Wayne Industries takes a fairly liberal view of skateboarders, at least, so the steps see some use. At this hour, though, all the good little skaters have gone home to dinner, and the homeless are starting to come out.
Wayne Tower has heating vents all around it, too. It's a good place to sleep. If Jason hadn't been avoiding the whole area, he'd have slept here the first night.
And then Alfred's out of the car and bending over him. Narrow hand on his chin tilts his -- okay, dirty -- face towards the tower's light. Soft sigh.
"Come along, Master Jason."
"I'm not --"
Alfred gives him that look. The one that tells him not to be ridiculous. Opens a car door for him and watches until Jason folds himself into the dark, deep leather inside.
It's so warm.
He's been tired for a long time. The car's engine purrs very softly, idling, with Alfred waiting in the driver's seat and Jason falling asleep in the back.
*
He wakes up with his head on Bruce's lap, still in the car and moving. Heavy fingers in his short blond hair.
"Hi."
"mmph"
"It's okay. Go back to sleep."
*
He wakes up again in his bedroom.
Vertigo.
He still has all his clothes on. Still smells like a month on the streets and whatever number of weeks in Arkham and four years down among the dead men. Shoes on the floor next to him. Sandwiches and milk on the table by the door.
Alfred would want him to take a bath, put on clean clothes, and eat. He goes looking for Bruce, instead.
He thought, honestly, Bruce might be in here with him, watching to make sure Jason didn't leave. Possibly crouching at the foot of the bed with cape and cowl on. Possibly sleeping with an arm and a leg over Jason to hold him still. The fact that he's down in the Cave is probably important.
Half in the Batsuit. Slumped down at the console (computers've changed -- he should have expected that) with his hands in his lap. Thinking.
Watching tape of Jason.
Mirror-Robin's got a knack for framing shots. It's almost movie-quality stuff.
"How long were you following me?"
"A while."
"How long?"
"Twenty-two days."
"How long have you thought I'm Jay?"
"I knew you."
"You're wrong."
"You were a terrible liar all your life."
"You don't know anything about my life."
"They let you out of Arkham twenty-seven days ago. You had a hotel room at the Senator Hotel, the first week. 716. You gave it up, probably due to lack of funds. You changed your hair colour sometime in the first six days. You started patrolling within the first three days. Since then, you've disabled thirty-eight perpetrators and disposed of a further four." Silence. "There is a police warrant out for a man of your description."
"How many do they have out for you?"
"At present? None."
"The warrants don't just go away."
"The records went away. All of them. Did you notice that Gotham looks different?"
"Everything's just a bit warped. Like somebody shook it up in a snowglobe."
"Earthquake. Maybe two years ago. Are you going to keep pretending you're not Jason?"
He sighs. I'm not. Your Jason."
It's the first time Bruce makes eye-contact with him. He's pretty sure it is Bruce -- the cowl's off, and there's actual eye-contact. Batman hasn't had real eyes in years. The new Robin doesn't either; probably something important in that. "You're Jason."
"More or less." Probably.
Beat. He can hear air moving, somewhere lower in the Cave. He wonders where the giant penny went.
Bruce says, "Go shower."
And. It probably means something that he does it without arguing. Finds the Cave shower. It's bigger than it used to be. He strips down, and starts scrubbing the street-dirt off. Blindingly hot water that he instantly loves and that he instinctively knows Bruce didn't build into the design. Somebody without the need for mortification works out of here too.
Robin. The new Robin.
Maybe the new Batgirl?
He can remember Barbara's bare shoulders when she'd come out of the shower. Wet red hair was an essential part of his teenage jerk-off fantasies.
Mostly indulged in the shower.
He hasn't had time to revel under this much hot water since.
Since.
He remembers cold hose-showers in the Arkham darkness. Howling at Joker the entire time.
they're coming for you next, fucker!
Howl laughter at the shower walls.
And, really, Bruce should catch him like this. Not Robin. Stripped down to his tights and shorts, bootless. Still masked. He has the kind of hair Jason wanted all his life. Looks like it's almost as much work as the physique.
"Hi." Little shrug with it.
"Hey."
Robin nods. Strips off the rest of his uniform, mask last. He has more scars than Jason, even. Thinner. Red marks on his skin where the uniform was sitting, and even if Jason hadn't had a couple of good looks at the uniform already, he'd know it weighs more than it used to.
Naked boy scrubbing down opposite him. Jason used the stuff that was in here -- shampoo, liquid soap -- but Robin's got his own stuff, all coloured and vaguely girly. The whole shower-space starts to smell like fruit.
Time to get out.
*
He's not really surprised when he wakes up in the early morning and Bruce is standing next to his bed.
He says, "I missed you."
"I got that."
There are still holes in what he remembers. Maybe why it only comes back to him now that he always had to start it. So. Stand up, all in Bruce's personal space, make a point of being almost naked. Almost tall enough to look him in the eye, and this is as tall as he's ever going to get. Tattoos here and there on him that he doesn't remember getting, but they mix in with his scars, and they look normal to him. They're a good place to start.
He takes Bruce's hand and puts it on one of them. Just the wire-twist on his arm. Hard muscle underneath. Jason's been sleeping; he knows what he smells like.
Bruce hasn't been to bed yet. He showered. Same liquid soap he's always used. Smell of it's up there with wet red hair on his teenage list.
Kisses him.
They did this before. He remembers bits of it. He stood on his toes and Bruce had to bend down to him and fuck that's disturbing.
Open his mouth and rub softly against Bruce's. Stubble and hard lips. Somebody cracked Bruce's lip recently; he can feel the tiny healing place with his tongue. Soft for just long enough for Bruce to breathe in and out once.
Then hard.
Big arms around him so tight he almost can't breathe, dragging him in. Wide open mouth against his and yeah, this is what he expected the first time. The part of him that knows Bruce loved him, and that Bruce is still angry at him, expected Batman to throw him down and fuck him in the first alley. Might even have been waiting for it.
Open him wide and kiss him right down his throat.
He remembers all in a nauseating rush being fifteen and so in love with Bruce that he couldn't breathe. Crawling into bed with him after patrol and lying still for maybe thirty seconds before kissing him. Straddling his waist and sliding down because he was Bruce and Jason couldn't not.
Bruce laid him out on his back and kissed him all over, the first time they fucked. Naked boy in his bed and he was so huge.
He can almost, at this late date, look Bruce in the eye. If Bruce's eyes were open.
Romantic psycho.
He didn't come here intending to get any of this back. It's just. It's harder to remember why he came back.
Tiredscarednaked face Bruce offers him. Warm breath on his skin and Bruce says, "Jay . . ."
"No." Jason stiff-arms him.
"Don't do this."
"You need to understand this. I am not your Jay. He died."
Flinch. "I know you."
"You haven't seen me in years."
"I see you every night."
Interesting. Creepy. He pushes Bruce a little. "Do you want me?"
Silence.
"Do you want me?"
"Yes."
"Then take me. But I'm not your baby Jay." Advances on him until they're backed up to the wall and only then he realizes he's made Bruce give ground. Good.
Pushes him up against the wall and kisses him again.
Not on the bed. Nothing romantic. Two guys wrestling while their clothes come off, taking stripes out of each other and digging in wherever their hands grip.
Flicker -- the Batman flicker, the point where Bruce has always been smarter fiercer faster -- and then Jason's face is pressed to the wall and Bruce is biting the back of his neck. Thin skin over bone and the teeth dig in hard.
shitfuckyes
Jason pushes his hips back. Naked Bruce behind him. Muscle and hair and hard flesh, pale like Jason's pale, like neither of them's seen the sun in years. They go out at night and live the rest of the time underground. Icewhitebloodcoloured cock pushes at him and Bruce bites him again, holds both Jason's wrists against the wall and growls at him.
"Tell me what to call you. Or I'll call you 'Jay,'" he says. Growls, again, like the next time he calls him 'Jay' it'll change truth and time. Maybe you have to believe something like that to be Batman. Maybe it's even true.
The flicker, this time, is inside.
"Tell me."
Teeth in the scruff of his neck. One hand on his wrists and one on his belly, trailing down to his cock. Hips pushing back fuckmefuckmefuckme and he feels himself opening his legs wider. Waiting for the first finger. (God, he was just a kid and he loved it. Bruce's fingers have calluses he always forgot to expect and they'd scrape him and leave him begging for it . . .)
"You can call me Jason. If you have to."
Bruce's hair brushes. Something. The air or the wall or Jason's hair. He's nodding.
Very soft kiss where he bit down. Fingers from his belly come up to Jason's mouth. "Suck them."
He remembers this, too. Big eyes on him, kneeling on Bruce's lap and sucking the big fingers as seriously as he could. Making a show of it.
Nobody to see him now but he wants Bruce to remember what it was like. Two big scarred fingers in his mouth push at his tongue while he sucks on them, tasting soap and some kind of coffee-edge and Bruce's skin underneath. Metal and sparks.
He remembers sucking Bruce's fingers in the dark of Gotham at three in the morning when neither of them had enough time to undress.
Kiss behind his ear. It's too tender.
Jason bites down.
The hand snaps out, hurting his teeth, and Bruce pushes him hard against the wall. Crush of his face against the unnoticeable, expensive wallpaper that he didn't realize has a smell until right now. Jason pushes his ass back and out and waits for it.
Counts to ten. Twenty.
Fifty.
And then Bruce pulls him apart and touches a wet fingertip to his hole. Silent grin that he can still hear.
Push.
godfuckyesfuckohgodbruce
Finger in him burns. Big and hard-skinned and rough. Fucks him open fast and hard and doesn't pull back much when the second one goes in. Spit-slick in him, Bruce's hands and Jason's whining. He wouldn't put it past Bruce to fuck him like this, two big hands holding him together and pushing him to admit how much he loves this. How much he remembers wanting this.
Teeth again, this time in his shoulder. "Jay. Son."
fuck
fuckityfuckfuck fuckit
He says, "Fuck me."
you came here to fuck me so fuck me
Slick stuff on him. Bruce doesn't expect so much, but Batman knows what Jason's like, and he came prepared. Jason can smell the slightly sugary edge of commercial lubricant. (Not even the good stuff, not the bat-stuff Bruce designed or paid someone to design, that didn't smell like anything except both their bodies.) Fingers inside make him very, very slippery. Little push of three fingers where there were only two before and oh god it's good.
Makes his eyes roll back in his head when Bruce slams in.
One hand on his hip and one on his shoulder (back of his neck, pushing him against the wall) hold him still while Bruce takes him. Rough push-pull of it's brutal. Belly-cock ache that he's been missing for almost as long as he's been cold.
He couldn't possibly have forgotten this.
"Jay. Son."
"No. Fuck fuck fuck don't stop."
Bruce bends him forward and pulls his hips back so he's low over his knees and then thrusts up. Lifts Jason up onto straight knees onto his toes and drives deep, hard enough against his prostate to make his cock jump and to make Jason howl. No words, just all the ways he missed this, so loud his voice must carry all over the house. All his pleasepleaseplease.
Again.
"Bruce please."
Bruce can't possibly be laughing at him.
Hand comes up from Jason's hip and pulls his head around. Bruce's mouth on his shoulder, kissing him. His skin, his mouth. Fucking him gently just for the seconds needed for them to do this without losing teeth.
And then teeth dig in his shoulder hard and Bruce fucks him the way he loves it, hard and steady until Jason howls and Bruce closes a hand over his cock and pulls until Jason comes.
Not Bruce. Just Jason.
His bones give. When Bruce lets go of Jason's cock, he crumples. Knees hit the floor and one hand's over his head where Bruce is still holding him. He groans.
Over him, Bruce is very, very quiet. He has to still be hard.
Warm skin-on-slick sound. The hand on his wrist tightens, grinding little bones together. Jason wants to fold up. Or lean back and do something.
He can hear Bruce panting. Very, very close. And even if his bones are gone, that only means he can bend more easily. Over backwards and arch towards Bruce and it shouldn't be nearly as hot as it is when he catches part of it in the face.
Momentary shock between them and then Jason raises his free hand, wipes the back of it across his cheek, and licks Bruce off himself.
Looks straight up and grins.
*
He sleeps on Bruce's bed, naked and on top of the covers. Daylight hours exist on the other side of curtains that could lock out the end of the world.
Little bat people flicker in and out of the room, nodding occasionally to Bruce. Jason can't read them, as long as they're masked like that. Eyeless, both of them. He can read Bruce through the cowl, but he always could.
The clothes Alfred leaves out for him are perfectly black. He loves them.
*
And.
He doesn't think Bruce is incredibly surprised when Jason leaves the house and goes hunting. Not in uniform, not "on patrol". Just moving through the city, hunting ugly things and beating them into slow, heaving pulp. Being just-him means he can stand over them long after a cape would have to disappear. He isn't on a protective agenda. Yet. He's just working.
Flickers all around him and he sees Batgirl slide out of sight.
Robin.
Bruce is still there, somewhere high up. Crouched and watching.
Jason's looking for weapons in the corners of the alley before he moves on. He loves this. He's the only person out here with eyes.