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bicycle4two · 1 year

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fine as we are, but we want more || Jason Todd x Female!Reader || Chapter 1 of 8

Summary:

all things considered, you're pretty lucky.

in all your years living in gotham city, you've never been mugged, never had your apartment broken into, never been held as a hostage.

until now.

it seems your luck has run out and there's nothing you can do about it other than wait for someone to come rescue you. . . .

or, jason and you reunite after a long time.

Notes:

title's from "fools" by lauren aquilina

i haven't written fic in a good while and well, playing gotham knights made me want to write jason todd fic because i love him

this is mostly self indulgent, just scenes i wanted to write all crammed together. it's been a hot minute so i'm very rusty

hope you enjoy it though!

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Read on AO3

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Chapter 1:

You like to think that all things considered, you’re pretty lucky.

Living in Gotham is no walk in the park. You imagine that people don’t normally have to look over their shoulder as often as you do when you leave the comforts of your apartment. You think that maybe people outside of Gotham don’t play Bad Guy Bingo with their friends, checking to see if they’ve got the wining row of cliches and chaos on their way home.

One night, you found yourself texting BINGO to your group chat within thirty minutes of leaving the café, having witnessed a bunch of Freaks setting fire to the streets—obviously just because they can—while trying to break open an armored truck’s door. It didn’t take long before Nightwing somersaulted into the scene and quickly beat the group to the ground, quite literally, if you do say yourself.

It was the description of Nightwing’s spectacular entrance that caused your win. Your friends tend to forget the theatrics of the hero.

Anyway. For all the years you’ve been living in Gotham, walking its streets, and being witness to the disorder and mayhem that the city seems to be victim to much too often, you’d been lucky. Your apartment has never been broken into, you’ve never had your purse stolen in broad daylight, nor have you been held at gunpoint.

Maybe you were born with the knack of always being in the right place at the right time. Or maybe, just maybe, you had someone looking out for you.

At least, that’s what if felt like a few years ago.

You wonder if anyone else has noticed that the Robin they see fighting on the streets, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, was not the original Robin.

You’ve heard stories of the Batman for years, practically grew up watching the news cover his fights with major threats like the Joker and the Riddler, and he almost seemed like a fairytale—the dark hero that keeps the monsters from coming to get you in the night. It wouldn’t surprise you if no one questioned the child, now teenager, fighting alongside him, maybe because he seemed like a myth, too. You remember the time Robin first appeared alongside the Dark Knight, flipping over bad guys with a boyish laugh only to hit them where it hurts when they least expect it.

You remember the first Robin and you’ve met, befriended, maybe even loved (if teenage you even knew what that meant, what that entailed) the second.

Your Robin.

The boy who fought with strength that seemed to come from someone much bigger than himself.

You were a couple months into your freshmen year of high school when you first ran into him.

You were once again out late at night, not your choice, really, the library had run out of paper and you really needed to photocopy several chapters from a first edition (something you cannot check out) for your homework, and were just about to take a short cut through an alley when you stumbled into something you were sure you were going to see all over social media tomorrow.

Robin stood with his back to you, his attention on four grown men in different states of collapse. Two were face down on the ground, hands zip tied behind their back. One was leaning against a dumpster, eyes unfocused and drool and blood dripping from his mouth. The last was dangling upside down from the fire escape. He was missing a shoe and his jacket was slipping off his arms.

You were so focused on taking in the sight of it all (it really is different witnessing something in person than seeing it on a screen) that you didn’t realize that Robin was now looking at you, a curious frown on his face.

“I wouldn’t go down here if I were you,” he said, forcing your attention to him, thumb over his shoulder, pointing at the scene behind him like he needed to clarify what he was talking about.

“I, I need to get home,” you told him, almost embarrassed by how small your voice sounded. After all, it wasn’t every day you got to talk to Robin. “It’s, uh, faster through here.”

“Faster doesn’t always mean safer.” Robin gestured to the bodies behind him again, emphasizing the scene once more. “If that wasn’t obvious.”

“Good thing I wasn’t here a minute too soon then,” you let out a huff. You wanted to take his advice, you really did, but again, you needed to get home and it was only getting later. “I doubt there’re more hiding around the corner there… maybe if I’m quick…”

“I think it would be better if you stick to where the light is, Miss.” There was a bit of impatience laced in his tone. You figured that Robin had better places to be now that his job here was done. There was only more crime to stop in Gotham. “Or, I don’t know, maybe call someone to get you.”

You couldn’t keep yourself from pouting at his insistence that you don’t take the shortcut. You really didn’t want to be picked up and lectured if you could help it. There was a reason why you chose to walk home despite the risks.

“But that could take like thirty minutes. Can’t you just, I don’t know, escort me? Isn’t that like in your guidelines?”

The Boy Wonder let out a short, surprised laugh. The restless energy he was exuding fading. “Guidelines?”

“Yeah.” You perked up as well, glad that he no longer seemed like he was trying to get rid of you. “Superheroes save cats from trees and help old ladies cross the street. Things like that.”

“I must have missed the memo,” Robin said, grinning. “It really says that?”

“Yup. Pretty sure I’ve read it in Superheroing for Dummies or something.” You gave him a smile. “So, what do you say?”

The boy put his hand on his hip, a sort of thinking pose, you guessed, before he shrugged his shoulder. “Oh, what the heck,” he said under his breath. “C’mon. What kind of hero would I be if I don’t make sure you get home safely?”

And he did get you home in one piece, his presence reassuring and comforting on the walk back to your old apartment building.

You didn’t expect him to make small talk, he looked like the type who was comfortable in silence, preferred it, but he asked about the papers you had cradled in your arms and surprised you with some recommendations for your paper, suggested other books to look into. When you reached the front steps of the building, keys out to unlock the door, you didn’t even have the chance to thank him before he disappeared into the night. You looked into the sky, hoping to catch a glimpse of him but, alas, all you saw was darkness.

With a sigh of disappointment, you figured that maybe that was the last time you would see the Boy Wonder.

But then you caught sight of him right before the bank down the street practically burst into flames, people in heavy body armor running out with bags of money, and you watched him jump down from an impressive height, landing a kick on a goon twice his size.

And, again, you saw him brooding on one of the buildings you walked past on your way home, almost missing him if not for the chill that went down your spine, the telltale sign that you were being watched. Once you saw how his brightly colored suit looked in contrast with the dark skies of Gotham, it got easier to spot him running on top of buildings before disappearing into the shadows.

And again, and again, and again, outside the library’s doors, back against the wall, waiting for you.

“It’s late,” he would say, like this wasn’t the first time he’d wait for you to finish your schoolwork.

He said it like it was a coincidence that he was there, like he hadn’t waited for you about a dozen times before—in front of the school’s gates after you stayed back to decorate the classroom for the holidays, by the bus stop when you returned to the city after a weekend at your grandparents, behind the gazebo in the park when you stayed out late into the night just because being at home was too stifling.

“Shouldn’t you be home by now?”

“And leave you with nothing to do during your patrol?” You smiled when he took your backpack from you, the weight of your borrowed books practically nothing to him. “We all know how quiet Gotham is at night.”

“Safest city in the country.” He agreed before a thoughtful look passed over his features.

It was a familiar sight and you stayed quiet, waiting for him to speak.

Your friendship with the Boy Wonder (confirmed after a particularly awkward conversation that involved a lot of uhms and uhs and flushed faces) was special, unique—the kind of friendship that you were pretty sure you’d trust him with your secrets, your life, but he couldn’t return the favor, because of course he couldn’t, but you still trusted him and he still tried, tried to give you what he could, so you waited for him to gather his thoughts and put it into words that he could say.

“You’re…,” he began, clearing his throat. “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”

“I don’t think I am. I do live on like the tenth floor. Why?”

Robin pulled out what you’d come to know as a grappling hook from his back, waving it with a grin on his face. It didn’t take you even a second to know what he was trying to say, and you found yourself returning his excited look.

“No. Can we, really?”

“Just hold tight,” he said as his only warning, arm suddenly tight around your waist, forcing you to press close to his side, your arms immediately wrapping around him before he lifted the grappling hook and shot upwards, sending you both into the midnight sky of Gotham, laughter lost in the wind.

A year into knowing Robin, he handed you what you at first thought was simply a keychain shaped like a bat. The visit started with him practically scaring you out of your seat, pointing out a misspelling you had in your research paper, his face so close to yours that you caught a whiff of his mint toothpaste in his breath.

“Jesus.” You breathed out, heart practically in your throat. You heard him laugh behind you, footsteps walking away. With a quick glance at the clock on your desk you saw that you’ve been working on your paper for a good couple of hours, so focused that you’ve literally lost track of time and your surroundings.

“Hello to you, too, Robin,” you said to him with a roll of your eyes, pushing your chair back and turning to look at him. He’s climbed into your room through the window again, tracking the dirt and grime from Gotham’s streets onto your fluffy rug.

“Here,” he said, tossing the keychain over his back. You barely caught it, jumping out of your chair to keep it from clattering to the ground, glaring at him when you have it safely in your hands. “Keep this with you, will ya?”

“And what is this?” You looked it over, thumb gliding over the metal finish. The wings felt sharp enough to slice through your skin if you weren’t careful.

“Good luck charm.” Robin said with a shrug, purposely not looking at you. “Might save you one day.”

“Oh yeah? How so?” You asked even though you saw the button. It reminded you of those anti-crime buzzers the school handed out at the beginning of the year. You had yours hanging on your backpack, unused, luckily.

Robin finally looked at you and frowned deeply, unamused, when he saw the look on your face. You knew that he knew that you knew what it was, what you were supposed to do with it when the time came, but you wanted him to explain it to you anyway, just to show that he cared. You watched him struggle with himself for a minute before he let out a grumble, marching over to you.

You immediately realized that you’d miscalculated your teasing because Robin was in front of you, standing close as he flipped the bat in your hands. You looked at him through your lashes, took in his features up close. You thought that his nose was slightly crooked, probably from being broken a few times, and there was a cut on his lip that was healing nicely. You remembered when it was fresh and bleeding, half his face discolored from a blossoming bruise, and you were rightly horrified at the sight, never thinking that Robin would crawl through your window, hands on his bruised ribs, cape and uniform dirty and torn.

It was nerve wracking having to patch him back up to the best of your ability with your makeshift First Aid kit. And keeping an eye on him as he slept over the covers of your bed, the sun only just beginning to rise, waiting for your alarm to ring. He had promptly passed out after a quick call to, you want to say Batman to reassure him that he was alive and that he’d be home soon. You promised that you’d wake him before morning so that he could go back to the Bat Cave.

(Bat Cave! You never would have thought such a thing existed.)

You let him sleep in just a bit longer, scared that he’d probably collapse on his way to homebase.

Sometimes it was easy to forget that Robin wasn’t indestructible. That like you, he was only human.

And he was young.

It was fairly easy to see that he was your age, voice young but had definitely already cracked before you’d met. You were about the same height, but you could already see that in time—probably sooner than you’d like—he’d outgrow you, shoot up like bean and gloat about it for the foreseeable future.

But for now, for now you were the same height, and if Robin were to look up from your hands to see if you understood his explanation—there really wasn’t much to say, really, just press the button when you’re in danger and he’d come save you—you’d find that everything would align—you’d be eye to eye, nose to nose, and lips to lips.

The thought caused you to blush and take a step away from him when he did look up.

“Press the button, gotcha,” you said, clearing your throat. The room was warmer all of a sudden, but the weight of the key chain felt heavy in your hand—it scared you to think that one day you were going to have to use it.

“Hey, don’t worry,” Robin said, voice soft, clearly catching the change in your mood, practically read your mind. “Angel,” he held your hand tightly in his, grounding you. “No matter what, I’ll come to you, okay? Nothing can stop me from coming back to you.”

“Promise?” You asked, looking him in the eyes. Or in the mask. The whites of his domino mask hid one of the biggest secrets you’d always wanted to know.

“I promise,” he swore and a moment between you two, both unmoving, eye to eye, passed before he cleared his throat, red blossoming on his cheeks. You felt the same warmth on your own, but you didn’t look away from him. He probably felt the weight of his words in that moment, realized the kind of promise he’s made. But he didn’t take it back. Instead, he tried to shrug it off like it was no big deal.

“Besides,” he said, grin forming on his lips once again. “If you’re lucky you’ll never have to use it.”

And you were lucky, for the most part.

You kept the keychain with you, fashioned it into a necklace when you figured that if you were in any danger, your bag and phone would probably be the first to go. You never had to use it, thankfully, never found yourself in a situation that called for it.

But oh, was it tempting. Because although you and Robin were friends, it wasn’t like you could send him a text or an email and ask if he wanted to meet up for a movie. Or you could if only you had his contact details.

Apparently, friends of vigilantes aren’t exactly privy to that kind of information. Like his name or what he really looks like.

So, yes, it was tempting to use, what you fondly called, the bat buzzer because you knew it would bring Robin to you and maybe it would make him mad, make him think that you’re in danger, but some nights when the pressure from your parents and school and maybe just life in general was too much, you wished there was an easier way to get Robin to your side, to have him be with you if only just to listen to you rant or hold you when you cry.

But you wouldn’t do that to him. No. You wouldn’t abuse the power of the buzzer like that. You wouldn’t take Robin’s attention away from what could be something important just to keep you company.

So, the bat stayed around your neck, the metal cool against your skin, as you waited for the next time you would see Robin again.

And wait you did.

You waited for him. You waited for him outside the library, looked out for him when the sky grew dark on your way home, and stayed by your window, eyes scanning roof tops in the hopes that you’d see the bright red of his uniform.

You waited for what felt like a lifetime, worried when for a time after Batman sent Joker to Arkham in a full body cast, you’d see pictures of the Dark Knight on your feed, alone, fighting crime without the Boy Wonder by his side. You wanted to use the buzzer then, just to see him, to see if he was alright. But something told you that even if you pressed the button he wasn’t going to come.

And the thought of that made your chest cold, made your heart hurt in a way that made you understand why they described it as broken, so to ease the pain, you decided that maybe not knowing was better than knowing. That if you never called for him, there was still a possibility that somewhere out there, he was okay and, in time, maybe, hopefully, he’d come back.

So, you left the button alone and waited.

Waited until images popped up online of a costumed boy with a familiar R on his brightly colored suit fighting off bad guys with a bō staff.

It was Robin.

Only, he wasn’t your Robin.

And maybe that was the confirmation that you needed that if you were to push the button, your Robin wasn’t going to come.

But right now, on the cold hard floor of the cage you’re in, with music blaring from the speakers that the Freaks dragged into the building, you wonder if you should take that risk.

You hear the moans and cries of the other hostages, pleading for someone to save them, hear the taunting of the Freaks as they tell you that no one was going to come, and you wonder what would happen if you pushed the button on the bat’s back.

Because what was there to lose? Your luck has run out. You were taken in the night and now you’re forced to listen to awful heavy metal music and stare up at your captor’s made up face, his awful excuse of clown make up smeared from sweat and grime, and you think that this isn’t how you want to go, that this freak isn’t the last thing you want to see, that this noise isn’t the last thing you want to hear, and God forbid this stench is the last thing you’re going to smell, so with nothing else to lose, you bring out the bat around your neck and push the button down as hard as you can.

And you wait.

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Chapter 2

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