Work Text:
The Red Hood’s new safe house was a tiny, but not that tiny, apartment crammed between two fat buildings in an intersection of Park Row with the Bowery. There was suspicious mold growing in the laundry room and at night the residents were more scared of the silence than of the loud ringing of screaming and gunshots. You could peek into one of the dry patches of greenery that only Poison Ivy kept from dying whenever she occasionally took it over if you stood kitty corner in the far window of the living room and he was pretty sure the microwave someone had bravely attempted to imbutte to the wall but done an awfully shoddy job of it would never have a chance of working again.
And Jason was absolutely enamored with it.
It had, somehow, maintained it’s original wallpaper from back from at least the 20s in starkly pristine condition and the faded purple-pink wallpaper, peppered with clusters of little white flowers (baby’s breath, if Jason was guessing correctly) gave the room the air of a haughty reading room right out of a victorian era novel and the Jason that had devoured entire novels whenever he’d been benched from his Robin duties due to injury or whatever else made the Bat decide he wouldn’t be bringing his little soldier onto the field that night, was stupidly, embarrassingly giddy with the prospect of even existing in his new living room. (Plus, it was one of the few houses this side of the city that had had its old lead piping replaced by more modern, safer pipes that wouldn’t literally poison you).
Just another damned failure this city had committed against what many considered her second class citizens.
Jason huffed, adding ‘funding for new piping’ onto his mental list of all the things the people of his Gotham still needed, and that even with all the Bat’s posturing the Dark Knight hadn’t managed to throw enough money at to solve.
No. Jason was going to stop himself right there. Today he was only going to enjoy his new pretty living room and apartment. He was hoping to make it into a little bit more of a fixated roost, preferring to avoid the ping ponging he’d been doing between safe houses ever since he had come back to Gotham. Even if constantly switching places was safer it could also be very tiring . And Jason was often tired these days.
Just as Jason was about to sit down on his newly recovered vintage couch, a sudden crackling kicked up around the living room, static permeating the entire place. It was like the space itself, the atoms making up the fabric of the air around him, were buzzing with a sort of anticipation.
Jason instantly and seamlessly, like the good assassin, the good soldier he was raised up to be, stood at the ready, nerves alight, trigger finger flexed, when a figure appeared into the room with a loud pop!, purplish particles raining down around them.
Jason doesn’t think and shoots out of instinct.
Only he misses .
The bullet not hitting anything as the figure- the girl- freaking teleports out of the way , reappearing almost a metre away, the reaction speedster quick even if the girl seemed almost as confused as Jason felt himself, if less stressed. Of course, outwardly Jason didn’t look stressed. He wasn’t stupid enough for that, after all this time.
They both paused and stared at each other for a moment, the invaded and the invasor.
...before both of them decided to start talking at the same time.
"Oh my god, who the fuck-"
"Hallo? Waar ben-"
"Are you- why the FUCK are-"
"Ik? Help alsjeblieft ik ben-"
"You’re in my APARTMENT, YOU-"
"DE WEG EEN BEETJE KWIJT-"
"OKAY, OKAY. PAUSE." Jason points his gun at her again and she cocks her head, as if confused, maybe even a little bit frustrated. The gun had proved itself to be stupidly ineffective after all, " I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE FUCK YOU’RE SAYING"
Jason could tell there was not a single shred of understanding going on behind those eyes as she responded. "Huh?"
“Well this is going fucking nowhere” Jason muttered. Slowly, he lowered his gun. The girl clearly couldn’t understand him (or was otherwise faking really well-) but she also hadn’t made a single move to advance towards him, in an offensive way or in any other manner. Mostly, she just seemed lost, now distractedly gazing around his poorly furbished apartment as if she hadn’t been being shot and yelled at mere moments ago. And there was also- there was also something almost familiar about this girl, a semblance he couldn’t quite place amidst his hole riddled memories from before his death and dip in the Lazarus Pit, that had compromised between his physical and mental integrity enough for the only side effect these past four or so years to be a spotty memory and the occasional and rare bout of pit madness. A luckier fate than many, and it wasn’t like he needed those memories anyway, Jason thought with a scoff.
Red Hood holstered his gun. Keep your head in the game, Todd , Jason mentally chastised himself, There’s a strange woman who doesn’t speak English and refuses to get shot in your safe house and you’re reminiscing about the past .
He was probably just mixing up faces anyways. It didn’t matter.
The floating girl had now progressed from curious observation to unabashed invasiveness and was opening up the shelves of his empty TV console, looking for whatever it was that strange floating girls were interested in.
“Hey!” Jason called out “Just because I’m not shooting at ya anymore doesn’t mean you have permission to go through my shit,”
The girl simply looked at him with that same open faced, quizzical look that meant she couldn’t understand a lick of what he was saying (and probably wouldn’t care even if she did) and went right back to her poking.
Jason growled. This fucking sucked. The first house that he was intending to make a little more permanent in ages and it immediately got invaded by another of Gotham’s wackos. Even if she clearly wasn’t from here, Gotham was just the place that attracted those kinds of people like flies to honey. He had returned here after all, Jason thought bitterly, his usual anger brought down to a low simmer after the strange events of the last half hour (and maybe also of hauling furniture up and down stairs after beating up criminals and slashing throats the entire night, but he put those thoughts aside for now).
A sudden rumble startled both occupants of the room, Jason’s hand immediately jumping to the gun on his right hip, stance widening from where he’d unconsciously relaxed. The girl jumped too, floating higher and hitting her head on the shelf she’d been shoving herself under. After a few seconds of silence, the rumbling resounded again. Jason and floating girl stared at each other, as the girl’s stomach gave another thundering roar. Floating girl didn’t even have the decency to look ashamed as she stared at him with intentions clear behind those electric pink eyes. Jason sighed, long suffering. It was almost dinner time, he supposed.
“Come on weirdo girl, let’s get you some pizza.”