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Jason was bored out of his skull. It was ridiculous that the aftermath in the Batcave that Bruce snootily insisted on calling “de-briefing” took longer than the actual fight, now ticking onto the second hour. Especially when the preceding fight, despite the all-hands-on-deck-emergency status, hadn't actually been that complicated: just some good old whacking people on the head, thwarting explosions, and defusing bombs. In other words, a regular Sunday in Gotham City.
And yet, files just had to be filled (and meticulously, anally labelled), blood samples had to be tested (even when there weren’t any fucking substances involved, because protocol), every action described to excruciating detail and then picked apart with counterfactuals (“excessive force”, “unnecessarily endangering civilians”, blaah blaah, Jason knew the song and dance by heart, somehow it was always the same lecture no matter what he actually did). Jason should really re-reconsider working with the Bats. If for nothing else, to get his lazy morning hours back.
Especially since he’d quite enjoyed those hours before being so rudely interrupted.
“So, what’s got you so antsy?” Steph’s voice caught him off guard.
“I’m not antsy.” If anyone was antsy, it was Steph herself, the idly spinning batarang exhibit number one for the supporting evidence. Comparatively, Jason was a temple of calm with his crossed arms and upright posture.
“Something waiting for you?” Steph shot him a grin she probably considered sly. “Or someone?”
“I have stuff to do.”
“Stuff, huh? That’s what they call it nowadays?” If the grin had failed to be sly by a hair, then the obnoxious eyebrow waggle abandoned the art of subtlety completely.
Well, at least the absurdity was a good anchor to stay unmoved, instead of twitching like an amateur. He very deliberately glared. “That’s what I call it when I have stuff to do”
Steph grinned, unabashed. That glint in her eyes never promised anything good. “Your voice is hoarse.”
Whatever Jason’s reply would’ve been was mercifully cut off by a loud beep from the computer. Maybe there was some mercy in the universe, after all.
“Anomalies found,” announced a robotic voice and Jason turned toward the screen, unreasonably grateful for the interruption. Even though it likely meant that Bruce would try to keep them even longer and pull a third degree on whichever poor bastard—
Oh, fucking fuck.
Oh, yes. The familiar feeling of the light at the end of the tunnel turning out to be a freight train.
Because right there, blasted on the largest screen in the cave were his goddamn blood work results. With a nice red banner on top declaring ‘Anomalies found’. And everybody was staring at it.
Why did it always have to be him?
“Anomalies? Could that be any less helpful? My fucking blood is full of anomalies, that’s what you get for spending your formative years in Crime Alley.” And that was in addition to the regular miscellaneous cocktail of toxins and poisons residing in the blood of every Gothamite. That shit was, literally, in the water.
“The analysis is configured for each individual,” Bruce grunted, obviously annoyed by the implied disparagement of his systems. Before Jason could reply, he pushed some buttons. A graph opened, zooming into Jason’s results.
“Substance unknown,” Tim said as all of them stared at it. “And the concentration is very high.”
Okay, fine, maybe that was bad.
“Full panel,” Bruce snapped, even as he moved his attention back to the keyboard. The files on Tim’s screen also vanished, replaced by models of various chemical compounds and such. Dick threw Jason a mildly concerned glance before leaning to look over Tim’s shoulder, Damian drawing close too.
Jason sighed. Fine. Better to get it over with and play ball. He chucked his jacket and marched to the med bay. Steph, apparently experiencing a spout of helpfulness, followed him and started to pull out the equipment for a blood draw as Jason jumped on a bed.
“My helmet has better filters than any of you got,” he pointed out as he dismantled the necessary parts of his armor. Which unfortunately meant the whole upper body, since it wasn’t really planned for easy baring of his arm. Especially with the thermal shirt as the bottom layer. Well, it was time again to be grateful for the fact that his bruises healed fast. Finger-shaped marks tended to be pretty fucking recognizable and difficult to explain. At least in certain places.
“It’s just you,” Tim said. Steph took Jason’s arm, not too gently, and patted his inner elbow with a disinfectant.
“That’s weird,” Dick said, “He and I were close together the whole fight. Any airborne substance would’ve gotten me too.”
“I feel like everybody’s forgetting the filters,” Jason pointed out. His helmet was very good, thank you.
Bruce grunted and then decided that wasn’t enough to imply his displeasure. “Jason, did you touch something?”
“What the fuck,” Jason snapped. “You expect me to touch something and then lick my hand for good measure? Again, I use a helmet! And, more to the point, I’m not a goddamn toddler—Ouch!” His nicely starting rant was rudely interrupted by Steph fucking stabbing him with the needle. “How the fuck are your bedside manners worse than Tim’s?”
“Hush, you baby,” Steph said, unnecessarily pointedly, and swapped in a vial just as blood started flowing.
“A simple poke and lick wouldn’t explain a concentration this high,” Tim said.
“I don’t poke at—Ouch!”
“So,” Dick carried on, heedless of the ongoing patient abuse, “ruling out airways, and falling into toxic goo, since there definitely were no pits available, that leaves injection.”
“I think I’d notice if somebody poked me with a needle,” Jason said and rubbed his arm. Steph, demonstrating some maturity of her own and not yet satisfied with the amount of poking, answered with poking out her tongue.
“Or ingestion,” Damian suggested.
“As if there aren’t other ways to get exposed to all kinds of shit in Gotham,” Jason muttered, pulling his shirt back on. With the armor he debated a second, but fuck if he was going to hang around the cave without some layers of separation. If nothing else, it’d protect him from any more needles.
“Yeah,” said Steph as she returned from putting the blood vials to the analyzer and joined the others by the computers, “I’m more interested in what the effects of the substance are.”
Jason looked up when the silence lasted more than a few seconds.
“Sooo….?” Steph prompted.
Bruce grunted. And then, as was to be expected, failed to say anything further.
Dick sighed. “Tim, any elaboration?”
Tim stopped his keyboard clacking and hesitated. “It doesn’t seem to be detrimental?” he offered. “It’s not fear toxin, Ivy’s pollens, or Jo—a gas known by us. All the other markers in the sample are on the side of healthy, well within Jason’s precedents. On the optimal end, even. We’ll know more when the new sample is fully analyzed.”
Jason jumped off the bed. “Translation, it doesn’t seem to be killing me. Hence, I can leave.”
“We need to investigate this, Jason,” Bruce deigned to communicate.
“We don’t need to do anything,” Jason said, “The fuck do I care for one-time exposure to something weird that’s not killing me, I’ll keep an eye out for—”
“Actually,” Tim cut in, “It’s not a one-time exposure.”
“What?”
A push of a button pulled several cards on the screen, each titled with Jason’s name and including similar graphs. “The substance is present in Jason’s blood samples running back four months.”
“That’s a long period of exposure,” Dick said quietly.
“How has that not been noticed before?” Bruce said, a definite Batman growl in his voice. Hah! Maybe his systems really weren’t that good.
“The concentration was below the threshold each time, I just highlighted them here,” Tim said. “So it didn’t raise any alarms. The levels vary, but are also constant. That suggests continuous exposure to the source. And like I said, otherwise Jason is healthy as a horse.”
Damian scoffed. “That comparison is inaccurate enough to border on nonsensical. Horses are quite delicate and—”
A machine beeped.
Dick frowned. “Bloodwork’s done,” he said, unnecessarily.
“Oh, thank you,” Jason said. “Thanks for confirming this substance hasn't affected my hearing.”
“No, you brat, that’s the usual finished processing beep. As in the ‘nothing’s amiss, keep calm and carry on’.”
Oh. Maybe there was hope yet of reclaiming some of his day. “So the previous was messed up?”
Tim hit a couple of keys and the brand-new results sprang up to fill the screen.
“It’s still there,” Tim said after a second of all of them quietly staring, “But the concentration is again below the threshold.”
“An hour or so between samples,” Dick said. Then he whistled. “That’s a fast drop.”
And now, Bruce wasn’t the only one wearing a scowl. Fuck. Jason just wanted to go home and get over this day. And to think how nicely it had started.
“Again,” he said, “it’s fucking harmless. Even less reason for me to stay here.”
Bruce’s shoulders did something complicated. Apparently, the fighting time for this endeavor had arrived. Jason had been wondering how much more close contact either of them could take.
“We can run it against the database of the Justice League, though,” Steph cut in, looking right at Jason, “Odds are very good it has something that matches, if any place does.”
Jason hesitated. “Fine,” he snapped, mostly to get away from under those kicked puppy eyes Steph was giving him. Everybody sang the praises of Dick’s pleading face, and then underestimated Steph as the real contender in the game of making other people do what you wanted by utilizing underused face muscles and the pity instinct. Mostly the pity instinct.
“On it,” Tim said and swiveled on his chair.
The computer beeped.
Jason frowned. “That was fa—”
“No, that’s not it,” Tim said. “It’s an activity alert. A high-level visitor in Gotham—”
He abruptly fell silent when a grainy picture of a rooftop popped up. There, lazily perching on the edge, was an instantly recognizable figure in orange and black armor.
Bruce growled. Fucking growled.
Jason felt like some heartfelt sighing was in order but managed to keep a straight face. Goddamn mercenaries couldn’t just stay put and not rock the boat. Or use a goddamn phone like civilized people instead of waltzing around in broad daylight just to show that their patience was running thin. As if Jason wasn’t also eager to get the fuck out and continue where they left off, maybe get some good old reciprocation or maybe a nice round two. After this, Jason had definitely earned it. He could almost feel it in his throat--
Wait. What were the options for exposure again?
It was purely a coincidence that Dick happened to be standing where he was and that he happened to be looking right at Jason. Unfortunate one though, in that it meant he got the front-row seat on whatever that realization made Jason’s face do.
And equally unfortunate was that Dick, unlike others in the room, was privy to what fifteen-year-old baby-Jason had liked. And as of this moment, the fact that his preferences hadn’t really changed.
Ah. That’s what someone having a dawning realization and wanting to bleach their brain looked like.
“It’s Deathstroke,” Tim said, sounding surprised for some reason.
“We all have functioning eyes, you imbecile,” Damian snapped.
“No, you gremlin, it’s a match to Deathstroke. The substance in Jason’s blood.” Something moved on the screen, but Jason couldn’t stop staring at Dick’s face and the intricate dance of muscle twitches on it.
“How’s that pos---” Steph’s sharp inhale ended in a squeak.
“Super soldier serum,” Damian said, still staring at the screen, frowning deeply like working on a puzzle. “I was under the impression that it is not replicable.”
Steph, very slowly, turned toward Jason, eyes enormous. “Oh my god,” she whispered.
“It isn’t,” Tim said, wearing a nearly identical scowl, and Jason prayed to all the gods he didn’t believe in for a moment of relief. A nice asteroid hitting, perhaps. Some stalactite loosened by bat screeches to drop and provide a distraction. Or to skewer him, he wasn’t picky, not now. Anything to get out from under those two pairs of eyes staring at him, because at any moment somebody would—
“Deathstroke is the only known carrier,” Tim declared.
--say something.
“Jason,” Bruce said, “how are you exposed to Deathstroke’s blood?”
“Doesn’t have to be blood,” Tim said, keeping up the streak of just making everything worse.
Steph made a strangled, high-pitched noise, but the corners of her mouth were twitching, and starting to suspiciously resemble a grin. In a nice contrast to the ongoing twitches of horror on Dick’s face.
“Deathstroke’s presence in the city coincides with the most decent exposure,” said Damian, who just had to pick up the baton and run with it. “It could be injected—”
“Or swallowed,” Steph said, not quite managing to hide the squeak of laughter. Dick looked like he wanted to puke.
“Sure,” said Tim, “But if ingested, the dose would need to be massive and right from the…source…” He trailed off, finally seeming to catch up with what exactly he was saying. The speed with which he swiveled the chair around to look at Jason was glacial. He stared. Jason stared back. Tim blinked first.
“Okay, I’m done,” he said and swiveled away.
“Me too,” said Jason, from the fucking bottom of his heart. “This was fun, but let’s not—”
“Jason,” Bruce commanded, “do not—”
“B, leave it,” Jason snapped. “You heard it, we know what it is, it’s fine.”
“You are exposed to super soldier serum, it’s--
“More like super soldier milk, am I right,” Steph said.
Dick groaned. “Please stop.”
“Better that than a super soldier shower,” she said, undeterred, “though who am I to kink-shame, to each their own.”
“--not good for you---” Bruce blinked, halting in the middle of his tirade. “Kink-shame? What do kinks have to do…”
In the silence, Jason could feel the upcoming blush burning behind his skin. For god’s sake, this was not the time.
“Jason,” Bruce said, voice strained, “Are you--- Is Deathstroke—” He took a deep breath, and with what seemed like a massive amount of effort, relaxed his scowl. “Jason,” he repeated, but this time his voice took a new, gentler note that got Jason’s alarms blaring. “You don’t have to be ashamed.”
“What? I’m not ashamed.”
Somehow, the new, almost open, look in Bruce’s face didn’t waver. Was he trying to be gentle? “If Deathstroke is threatening you, we can help you, you do not have to serve him.”
This “What?” from Jason had a noticeably higher pitch. “No!”
“If he’s forcing you—”
“He’s not forcing me to do anything!” Jason blurted. “I like it!”
“You like—” And now Bruce’s voice was strained again, “You like being his test subject for making new super soldiers?”
Dick’s squeak was nearly high enough to disturb the bats.
“Oh my god,” whispered Tim and buried his face in his hands.
“What?” said Damian, demanding, confused, and obviously getting mad about it. “If Deathstroke is using Todd, it is a serious matter—”
“Using him, making new little super soldiers,” said Steph, way too gleefully for Jason’s tastes. “Or well, at least practicing for it.”
“What are you insinuating, woman, say what you mean!”
“Well, when a man and a man like each other a lot—”
“Jason,” Bruce cut in, “you cannot trust Deathstroke. Recreation of the serum could have catastrophic consequences.”
Jason spluttered. “I cannot believe you are this obtuse!”
Bruce frowned, but as could’ve been expected, instead of stopping to consider and maybe, just maybe listen, shouldered on. “There’s super soldier serum in your blood going on four months, I do not understand how you don’t take this seriously—”
“I’m telling you to leave it, it’s fine, why can’t you just trust me, it’s none of your business!”
“It is a business of mine what that villain is planning in my city—”
“It’s not your city—”
“Enough!” Dick’s yell cut through the escalating noise like a whip. “Everybody shut the fuck up!”
Dick raised both of his hands while everybody else tried to get over the fact that Dick had just sworn. “Just for a moment, okay? I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but--,” he took a deep breath, looking more than slightly pained, “--I don’t think Slade’s planning anything. Least of all making the serum again. It’s just… Just…” And then he had to falter right at the precipice. Thanks for nothing.
“Just what?” Bruce snapped. “Jason can’t just accidentally be injected by super soldier serum!”
“Well, not accidentally, maybe, but, uh, incidentally...?” Dick grimaced, probably hearing how stupid that sounded.
“Jason is infected! Enough to show up in his blood!”
Dick made a helpless gesture with his hands, the well of his elegant words apparently running dry again. Tim, for some reason, took the torch next. Or well. Tried.
“I wouldn’t say ‘infected’, it’s more like… Coming into contact with. Close contact. As part of… activities.” Tim wrung his hands and shot a nervous glance at Damian. Which, naturally, only added to the indignation the little demon was feeling.
“What on earth are you blabbering about, Drake?”
Never say Tim wasn’t persistent. He tried again. “Well, maybe they… Work closely together.”
Damian’s scowl deepened. “Blood is not affected by ‘co-operation’, no matter how close. Besides, they both wear adequate armor.”
“Except when they… might not,” Tim said, and the glance he cast at Bruce was full of desperation and pleading. Pity that Bruce wouldn’t recognize either if they danced naked in front of him. The only thing he was worse at getting was a fucking hint.
“None of this matters,” he declared, all high and mighty. “Deathstroke is dangerous.”
“Oh my god,” said Steph, “Can none of you just straight up say it? Goddamn prudes, the bunch of you.”
“What does that—" said Bruce,
“Don’t—” said Jason,
and none of that mattered as Steph announced: “Jason is boning Deathstroke, apparently on the regular.”
It got quiet again. Real quiet. Jason really, really tried to listen for any stalactites teetering in the ceiling. Especially any close by.
Bruce blinked. “What.”
“Boning,” Steph repeated, slowly, and not at all helpfully, “Boinking, canoodling, having sex with. Apparently, a lot of it involves Jason on his knees.”
“But,” said Bruce, “the blood work.”
“Congratulations, you have discovered a hitherto unknown method of making super soldiers. Doesn’t seem applicable for the general populace or that easily maintainable. Do I need to spell that out too?”
“Please don’t,” Tim said weakly, but Steph had already started, and Jason had never known her to quit part way.
“The only thing Deathstroke is injecting Jay with is his penis.”
Tim’s forehead hit the table with a thud. Dick made a noise like a malfunctioning tea kettle that became inaudible after barely a second.
“That penis being the delivery method for—”
“Okay, enough,” Jason said, and would’ve very much liked to say that his delivery was stable and commanding, his voice low. He wasn’t sure he’d reach such a register since before the Pit. But at least his voice was audible to humans and not just bats. “That’s quite enough.”
“What,” said Bruce.
“Ick,” Damian said, with a surprising lack of elegance, and his grimace made him resemble the kid he was much more than usual. “You could do better.”
Jason wasn’t sure if he should feel touched or insulted. “Thanks?” he offered.
“What,” said Bruce again, and yeah, right, that was Jason’s cue.
“Yeah I…” he said, “I’m just going to. Go. Right now.”
He gathered the frayed tatters of his pride and with control, deliberation, and purpose walked to his bike and jumped on.
When he was fiddling with his helmet, Steph decided to go for a parting shot.
“Maybe you should reconsider using protection! Super soldier serum is an STD!”
Jason slammed the helmet on and sped away, the roar of the motor mercifully cutting off the laughter, groans, and one last ‘what’.
Yeah, Jason was never going to work with them again.