(no subject)

[prodigaljaybird]

The set-up's taken weeks, but the Red Hood is as patient as Jason is not, waiting and planning, gathering intel and distributing false data, wiring bombs and executing his plan to perfection. Five Lobos lieutenants, one captain, and in a stroke of luck, two high ranking Mad Men are all gathered in a small room of long abandoned warehouse 56.

The block is empty. The doors are shut. Inside the men are in varying degrees of inebriation, helped along by a little something Jason slipped into Aguilar's flask. Jason waits.

And waits.

And waits. And when he's completely satisfied, he sets the timer on the explosive charges and turns to leave, checking his outside feed one last time.

He's planned every detail to the last. Which is why it shouldn't truly be a surprise that fucking Allison Argent is in the alleyway outside.

"Dammit," Jason swears, looking at his timer. He could stop this, but any moment now, Allison's going to get the attention of the bangers inside, and Jason doesn't know when he'll get an opportunity like this again. "Dammit," he swears again, and flies swift and silent through the window into the outside air.

"Get out of here." The words ring clear and sudden through the night, for all that they're barely above a whisper. "I mean it. Go right now."

Comments

[prodigaljaybird]

What relief he feels at her touch is quickly dispelled by her iron grip, the sight of his helmet dangling from her fingers almost enough to take Jason off his feet again. Fortunately, the approaching sirens provide enough peril that he doesn't have to deal with that quite yet.

Curling an arm around her waist, Jason steadies himself to aim and fires a line, grunting as the sudden journey upwards tugs at his ribs. He doesn't stop with the first roof, not the second or the third, finally slowing near the tenth to land in an empty alley. He's breathing hard, rare sweat on his face from pain and a terror that only rises the longer he stands next to her, dragging breath after breath into his lungs.

"Allison," he says, but he doesn't know where to start. The only thing Jason knows right now is where it might end, and he can't bring himself to make that come around any faster. Slumping against the brick wall behind them, Jason stares at her.

[theresalwayshope]

When they landed, when Jason was slumped against a wall (Jason, the Red Hood, the same man) looking half dead and terrified, Allison walked right up to him, yanking back her hood, then her own domino so she could be fully seen.

The anger. The betrayal. Every emotion laid bare for his viewing.

She stood there, seething, staring...

...then drew back and threw a punch right at his jaw. Almost immediately, she grabbed him by the collar, hanging on as the angry tears in her eyes finally slipped free.

"Allison? Really?" she hissed, barely a whisper. "You could have died tonight...died any given night, and after everything...after the mugger, the fire bees, every night you're out here with me, risking your neck while I have no idea...all you can say is my name?!?" Her grip shifted, fingers grabbing him roughly by the hair as her voice rose to something like a scream, her control faltering.

"What part of I love you did you not understand, you arrogant fucking jackass?!?"

And, just to make the source of her fury very clear, Allison dragged him in so she could kiss him...tasting blood and not caring, her abused lungs protesting while she kept kissing him...clinging to him like a lifeline, because he was.

She wasn't sure she could ever forgive him for this...but she would kill every last soul in Darrow before she would ever let him go.

Even over this.

[prodigaljaybird]

His head snaps with the punch, the force of it against already abraded skin enough to black his vision, but it's nothing compared to the pain he feels at the sight of her face. It's not just the blood he put there, or the grime - he put that anger there, too, that fear and those tears, put that tremor in her voice.

And then she hauls him in and kisses him and it's like being punched all over again, all the moreso when she releases him and Jason still can't decide which part of this was a mistake.

Letting her see his face? Or starting this at all?

"I wasn't to hurt you," he finally ekes out. "Allison." You don't know how bad it gets. Even as she's clinging to him, Jason can't decide if she's going to leave. He knows very well what it is to love someone with all your heart and still turn away, to run for the slim chance that you can still make it out intact, and for a moment he almost wants that for her.

She'd be safer.

The thought of it still feels like bleeding out.

"It wasn't."

[theresalwayshope]

"Well, guess what: it did. You did." she spat when the kiss broke, staying close enough to touch, to hold...never really letting go as she grabbed his shoulders and shook him, features contorted with fury and eyes star-bright with angry tears as she kept talking. "You sit there and you tell me how much you love how dangerous I am...and then what? You try to protect me from the Red Hood? I get not telling me about your past, I understand that..."

She trailed off, her face twisting with a fresh surge of anger just before she suddenly flung herself into his arms.

She needed to walk away. Step back, be furious, hate him for a while. She didn't want to give into the urge to just keep punching him until he understood, or slapping him until he felt every single shred of betrayal that was in her. She needed to lance this wound, let it drain safely...then yell at him.

And keep yelling until he understood.

The fear wouldn't let her walk away, though, because Jason had just saved her life. He'd nearly died, saving her life and all she could envision was his death, and her never knowing where Jason had gone or what had happened to him, because he'd been blown to bits in an explosion rigged by his own alter ego.

Wrapping her arms around his neck, the helmet falling forgotten on the ground, she pressed her face to his neck and finally let the tears fall as she held on.

"I swear to God, if you ever go trolling for bad guys without at least calling from now on, I am breaking up with you on the spot, you fucking jerk." she hissed against his neck, giving him another little shake before drawing back to meet his gaze. "Because let's get one thing clear: this is not your Get Out Of Jail Free card. This just means the Red Hood got himself a new partner, and...I need a few days to cool off so I don't kill you. I can't kill you now, you're hurt--Jesus, you're hurt. Do you need a hospital? God, if I have to take you to the hospital like this--goddamnit, if I didn't love you so much I'd hate your fucking guts right now..."

[prodigaljaybird]

Jason keeps his good leg locked, all of his weight and most of hers distributed between it and the wall, and he lets her cry. He lets her rage, not disagreeing in words or even thoughts for the most part, even if he can't let her be a partner. Not yet, if ever, not like she wants, but then she doesn't know what she's asking for. Not completely.

"We're covered in evidence," he says when her threats become questions. "No hospital." His ribs hurt worse than ever after their flight, but he's used to it. This is what he does, and for all her anger Allison doesn't understand.

"I was trained by the League of Assassins," he says, wishing she knew his world, knew to be scared just for his association with that name, let alone membership. "By the All Caste. The worst of what I can do is necessary, but it's dirty, Allison. I don't want to ruin you. I know you think you know what that means, but you don't."

Grimacing with pain, he holds her back just far enough to look at her. "The things I do aren't good, and you are, even when you're tough or cruel. Jason isn't the whole me." He touches her cheek like he'd tried to before, half expecting to be struck, but he can't help himself. He loves her, and he hasn't let her know him. He'd tried to be like Bucky, tried to hold at arm's length the people that needed to stay there for their own good, but of course he's fucked it up. Allison's been part of him from that first look, and no mask was ever going to stop that.

"I just wanted to give you the good parts. When you see the rest, you might not love me anymore."

[theresalwayshope]

"Idiot." she growled between her teeth, eyes shutting and leaning greedily into his touch as his hand found her cheek. More tears slid from her eyes as she reached up to catch his hand, turning her head to kiss his gloved palm before those furious eyes met his again. "God, I can't let you do anything without supervision...you don't know anything about women, do you? Either one of the stupid halves of your stupid personality!"

To make her point, she looked down and nudged the helmet with the toe of her boot, careful not to kick it too hard before she looked up at him again.

"I've wanted him, didn't you realize that? I've been terrified of how he made me feel, I...God, I honestly thought I could love two guys at once, I had to be so goddamn careful about how I acted around Helmet Head..."

She blamed how mad she was for the sudden, blistering fantasy that flickered through her head right then of tearing off that body armor and taking him right in the alley...and if he weren't injured, she might have at least tormented him with that. Instead, she kicked his good leg, sharp but not hard enough to take him down.

"I love the man that killed for me as much as the boy who asked my permission for our first kiss. And the only way you're getting rid of me is to aim that gun at my face the next time you draw on me...so I'm getting you home, I'm getting you patched up, and then you are going to leave me the hell alone for about a week while I decide if I'm going to let you live this down." She was already softening, some part of her already forgiving him, and Allison hated herself for it.

She needed to be angry. She couldn't let him do this again, shelter her from his dark side when all she wanted was to lose herself in all of him and never find her way back to the light.

"And if you argue with me about any of that, Red," she finished with a little growl, dragging him back in to press her forehead against his, "I'll break your wrist, I swear to God."

[prodigaljaybird]

He's dizzy with it, so much he hadn't hoped for suddenly in his lap and threatening him with broken bones, her determination almost enough to make him believe the impossible - that he won't fuck her up, won't get her killed, that he won't be something Allison has to turn from in the end. Her forehead meets his, and Jason's expression crumples, shock sucking at his composure until it's one tiny thread and ready to unravel.

He has no idea what to do. He misses Bucky like a hole in his heart, misses Steve and Natalia perversely when they're right here in the city and don't know him. On the island, any one of them would have known exactly what to do, but here...Here Jason's just lost.

"I don't know about women," he finally concedes, voice a mangled thing between them. "I don't know about anything." And he hurts, not just in his heart but in his body, functions he can't regulate when his head is so fucked up, and every anxious breath he takes more painful than the last.

"I'm sorry," he says, tears spilling down his cheeks, and a part of him knows it isn't fair, to cry when she's the one he's hurt, but he can't help it. The sob is almost boyish when it comes, and Jason hiccups it down, straightening himself up for the piteous journey home.