Chapter Text
The gyro shop on Harlow was still open and Jason Todd was tired of tasting the blood between his teeth.
It was late, so late it was early, but the type of early where even God slept cause if you needed a god at four in the morning then you’re shit outta luck. Even Gotham had to settle down for the night, the thrum of hot-blooded madness a tide receding, orchestrated by the wax and wane of the moon. The Bats and Birds had gone to roost but here Jason was, eyes trailing up and down the empty streets for a soul and finding none, not even his own.
The orange streetlight flickered overhead. The ones they said were all replaced by LEDs but city counsel just so happened to forget this little avenue. And the next. And the next one after that. Forgotten as this part of the city was and at this hour, he wondered if God too forgot Jason was still here, still awake, maybe in need of a sign or three, or if He too slept through late night calls once off the clock.
If not God, he wondered what kinda god would be up right now. What god exists in the early hours when no one prays?
The gyro shop on Harlow Street is open late for the folks who work the graveyard shift. When Jason wandered in for something that had his stomach itching for a bite, the fire pit was already worked up to a fury, lamb meat roasting on the spit, he expected the place to be just as empty as Gotham’s streets, her shipyards, her cathedrals.
It’s not.
There’s a guy already at the counter and for reason inexplicable, once Jason caught the shadow of this guy, every fine-honed instinct —common sense, normal paranoia, Bat-paranoia, same difference— trained and beat into him snapped to awareness. Less of a prickle, more like claws raking down his spine, the animal part of his brain suddenly howling in alarm.
But…it was just some guy.
Some other guy at four in the morning, dressed like a deckhand from the docks which should have gotten Jason to relax but it didn’t. Shaggy black hair tied back carelessly, skin calloused and burnt by sun and sea-spray, wearing a brown dusty bomber-jacket, its leather old and worn, with long golden fur at the collar over a white tank and sun-bleached jeans. Overall, the guy looked like any other dock worker comin’ in the early morn’ for a bite before work.
Except Jason couldn’t relax.
The guy shifted from one foot to the other, the motion setting off every fucking warning bell in his head when-
“Order up!” Marko called, throwing down a takeout box of food on the counter. Guy stepped up to take his plate. Jason’s trigger finger twitched.
"“Ευχαριστώ Τον Μάρκο,”("Thank you Marko,") the guy murmured, the Greek on his tongue home grown, his voice groaning like the hull of an old wooden ship. He put down some cash on the counter.
Marko’s quick to slam his palm down on the money, pushing it away and shaking his hand as if the offer of a monetary exchange was an insult. He said,
"“Όχι, όχι, όχι, δεν πληρώνεις. Δεν θα το επιτρέψω αυτό."("No, no, no, you don't pay. I will not allow this.")
"“Η μητέρα μου θα με σκότωνε αν δεν σε πλήρωνα που με τάισες τόσο καλά. Μην με αφήσεις να απογοητεύσω τη μητέρα μου,”("My mother would kill me if I didn't pay you for feeding me so well. Don't let me let my mother down.") said the guy, pushing back the dollar bills.
"“Φέρε τη μητέρα σου. Πάντα λες ότι θα της ραγίσω την καρδιά, αλλά πες στη μητέρα σου ότι είναι ευπρόσδεκτη εδώ. Φέρτε την,”("Bring your mother. You always say I'll break her heart, but tell your mother she's welcome here. Bring her,") Marko ranted, shaking a fist about furiously, still refusing to take the guy’s money.
Quicker than Marko could react, the guy picked up the bills and stuffed it in the tip jar, twisting around with his takeout order in hand to make for the door. Jason was in his way, and in the moment it took for himself to step aside and him to edge past, he got a decent look at his face.
Sweet fuckin’ Jesus, Mary and Joesph-.
Ever look at a man and know he’s trouble?
It was all in the subtle lines around this guy’s mouth, lips pulled into a well worn, cocky little smirk, the shadows cast under his brow, the mischievous squint of his eyes —dear god his eyes— the faint impression that he’d raised hell for the fun of it. Wanton destruction has been raised for the tilt of that smile. Nations butchered for the look at those frankly unbelievably gorgeous set of eyes, green like the beckoning ocean surf on a hot summer’s day and just as arresting as the riptide.
It makes Jason stop in his tracks but the other’s already gone, the stench of kelp and sea water lingering a little too long. Men like that –like maelstroms given flesh and blood, the face of ruination, temptation, come hither all who dare– aren’t often up to any sort of good. For a moment, he’s tempted to abandon his evening plans to see where trouble goes. His gums were already bleeding from an earlier encounter, knuckles scraped raw and muscles still warmed up for another go but then-
“You gonna order or you breathin’ my air for free?”
Jason shuddered, reined it in. If he went chasing after every guy and gal who looked like a future problem, he’d next be donning on the cape and cowl.
“Comin’,” he called, forcing himself to turn away and ignore impulse, urges pulling taut against its leash. At the counter, he gave Marko his order before curiosity prompted him. He motioned with his head towards the door, “Who’s that? New guy?”
“Aah,” Marko scoffed, getting started on spooning some rice on a plate, “New enough. Works the shipyard. Heard he knows his stuff.”
“Who he’s workin’ with?” Jason asked, unrepentantly digging.
The other casted a suspicious eye his way, turning back to finish his plate and point a finger at him. “Boy’s clean and don’t have business with Hood business.”
“‘ey,” he defended himself, lip twitching with a smile, “can’t blame me with a face like that.”
The older man harrumphs, bushy brows and mustache grimacing at the truth of it; new guy’s gotta already have a few run-ins with the less legal side of Gotham, all because his face was an invitation for a fight.
“Could say the same about you,” Marko remarks, putting a plate of food on the corner, “Order’s up.”
“Kiss your mother with that mouth?” Jason couldn’t help, putting down a twenty and seeing the other snatch it up with hardly a complaint, “And why’s he got the special service and I get the leper treatment? "Μπορώ να μιλήσω και ελληνικά.”("I can also speak Greek.")
"“τα ελληνικά σου είναι σκατά.”("Your Greek is shit.") For added effect, Marko held up the twenty dollar bill to the light, just to be an asshole checking for the watermark. “You sound like you learned from some proper schmuck.”
He did but that didn’t mean Alfred’s teaching was lacking. “You know him then? One of yours?”
Marko gave Jason the decency of dropping all pretenses, sizing him up for worth. All he and anyone else who lived in the slums of Gotham knew was that Jason worked for the Red Hood crew. That the docks were deemed a neutral zone by the various crime families of Gotham because everyone’s import/export business sailed through the same shipyard, but everyone kept a close eye on new hands and faces that worked the shift.
“Name’s Jackson,” the old man finally revealed, judging that it’d be better to tell Jason what he wants and not have Hood get involved. “Works with Price.”
“Price?” Jason repeated, running through his mental list of ship captains, "Joseph Price?”
Marko didn’t hold back on his glare, “Told you he’s clean. Keeps his head down and hands steady on the line. Don’t bring your trouble on him.”
“He looks like he’s got his own,” Jason scoffed, picking up his takeout and tossing a sarcastic salute behind him, “Ciao Marko, see you next week.”
With a slew of greek curses echoing after him, he left the shop with a chuckle to return to Gotham’s empty streets. Looking either which way, he idly wondered where Jackson had gone.
Sooner or later Jason was convinced he’d see him again, in a pool of blood or a firefight. But tonight no one with a soul was out at half-past-four in the morning, which only meant those awake couldn’t enter the gates of Heaven.
Looking in a mirror didn’t hurt as bad as it did looking at Jackson. That over-familiar curl of his lip, stress lines like scars around his eyes where nightmares haunted his face, the defiance that traced his shoulders, an endless well of fire burning, burning, burning-
That’s the sense Jason got out of that brief glimpse. And it made him turn his back from the direction the shipyard leads. His boots ate a greater distance between. By the time he got back to the bolt hole, he’d put the encounter behind him, willing himself to forget.
What good was there for the damned?
What outcome possible between them?
Violence met violence. No telling what the other guy may do but Jason knew what happened when fightin’ dogs get cornered. And he already tasted blood.
Not all dogs go to heaven.
So where do they both stand in all of this except on the same side of the district line? If Jason walked around pickin’ fights with every asshole with a face like they’d rather spit on his corpse than give ‘im the time of day, he’d never be able to stop and the headlines will read, No Honor Among Crime Alley Thieves.
Staring up at his apartment ceiling with an empty box of take out on the couch, Jason idly wondered if set aside there be a place for bad dogs and those left abandoned by both the Father and fathers. If any god existed to answer his prayers, to show up when he needed someone at four o’clock in the morning, or when it’s most inconvenient cause really, he’s at his limit wondering if the blood on his hands is all that he'll ever be or if it’d be easier for the city to change the orange lightbulbs to LEDs.
There’s a reason why no one should be awake so early in the morning.
And maybe that’s why God still sleeps.
So here Jason was torturing himself with a half-assed prayer with no one on the other end of the line going, “If God so loved Gotham why can’t he love this part too?”
And hearing no response.