ɢʜᴏꜱᴛꜱ | ᴅ. ɢʀᴀʏꜱᴏɴ

chapter 14

14. past mistakes

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two minutes later

PAIGE WAS RIGHT. OF COURSE SHE WAS.
She was always right. As soon as she was out of sight, Jason's hand wandered over to his left to grab someone else's drink, taking a sip from it. "My bad. Thought it was mine," he said once the woman beside him called him out for it, "Let me buy you another one."

"It wasn't my drink."

"What the fuck are you doing?" a guy who was sitting beside her asked as he got out of his seat.

Jason got up as well as they stared each other down. "I'm sorry, Mumford. Did you say something?" he asked as he looked him up and down.

"Do you want me to kick your ass?"

"I want you to try." Jason shoved him back as the crowd reacted around them causing Dick to look over as he noticed who was at the center of attention.

"Let's not," Dick said, holding the kid back as he stepped in between the two.

"Back the fuck off. I got this."

As Paige walked out of the bathroom, she heard Dick talking to Jason before an explosion went off next to her. She felt her body hit the floor as the nearby window shattered. Jagged pieces of glass cut her skin as they fell around her. "Fucking hell..." the woman muttered as she got up from the ground.

She followed everyone out where she met up with Jason and Dick. The sudden blast was caused by a blown up car outside of the speakeasy. "Holy shit, your face is bleeding," Jason pointed out looking at where the glass had cut her.

"It's just a couple of scratches, I'll be fine. Nothing a Band-Aid won't fix."

"You sure you're okay?" Dick asked as she nodded her head. "Good." His phone began to ring as he walked a couple of feet away from the two. "Clay, you okay?"

✄ ✄ ✄

Dick Grayson, the former Titan, Batman sidekick, and now the idiot. Why is he an idiot you may be asking yourself? He was an idiot for telling Paige and Jason not to follow him and that he needed to go on his own. Yeah, maybe he wanted to go on his own, but he definitely didn't need to. And to add on to that, Paige and Jason weren't going to let him go on his own no matter what he said anyway.

Paige had stood in a warehouse on the same walkway that Jason had. Both of them were now in their suits as they watched the scene from above, having missed some of it since they had arrived a bit late.

"This guy has serious issues," Jason whispered, facing Paige.

"Right?" she agreed as they listened in.

"When the acid strikes your skin, it doesn't burn," the man below said, showing the disfigured side of his face. "It's much worse. It's like insects eating away at your flesh, burrowing inside of you. I can still feel them crawling all over me."

"I didn't want this to happen to you, Nick," Dick said.

"I'm not Nick anymore. That's what the acid did for me. It changed me," he said as he let more acid flow out onto Clay rather than drops. "You revealed your true self on that bridge. Just like the acid peeled away at the surface to reveal my true self underneath."

Paige looked over as Jason put two fingers up to his head, pretending to shoot himself out of boredom as she stifled a laugh. The rambling about his origin story was getting extremely boring.

"He's an innocent man. Let him go."

"No!"

Jason turned to Paige before she nodded. "Now," she mouthed.

"He gave you an out, dumbass. You should've taken it," Jason said, revealing himself as the man looked up at him. Pulling the R-shaped shuriken out of the top of his suit, Dick threw it, cutting the chains that were holding up Clay.

Jason jumped down, attacking Nick as they both rolled down to the ground. Quickly getting back up, the boy kicked him to the ground as the man pulled out a gun, shooting him with an acid filled bullet. Thankfully his suit was able to prevent it from penetrating.

Nick went to finish him off as he stood over him, the gun now pointed right at his face. Before he could pull the trigger, a knife came flying out of the shadows, cutting his hand as he dropped the gun. Dick noticed Paige — who had been standing right next to Nick, completely invisible — revert back into her natural form before throwing a hard punch.

Caught off guard by her sudden appearance, he wasn't able to dodge the attack. As he tried to punch
back, she dropped down, swinging her leg around causing him to lose balance. He stabilized himself before he was able to fall as Paige took the opportunity to jump up and kick him in the chin. Her last hit had been a combination of a tornado kick straight to the gut with a jab right to the nose.

She watched as his body hit the ground hard. Dick had helped Jason up from the ground. "Nice work. Dude deserved what he got," Jason said.

"Are you okay?" Dick asked, concern in his voice as Jason simply brushed it off.

"Zylon fibers, man."

Shaking his head, Dick looked over at Paige. "Thank you."

"Any time," she said as they heard police sirens get closer.

"We have to go," Dick sighed.

"I'll take care of it." They watched as Jason ran off before checking to see how Clay was doing.

Not too long after, they heard echoed groans coming from the distance. "Shit."

✄ ✄ ✄

"What do you think you're doing? They're cops!" Dick said, pulling Jason off as he tried to talk some sense into him. Paige's eyes landed on each and every cop that lied on the floor. All of them were either dead or severely injured, she didn't know.

Walking over to each one them, she kneeled down and checked for a pulse. Hoping that she would feel something as she tuned out whatever the two guys behind her were saying. They were all alive, which was a good thing. She heard his footsteps get closer to her as he walked past, through the door.

"Sorry about him..." she mumbled as she looked around at the people who had only been there to do their jobs. They wouldn't have even gone there if a report about the gunshot hadn't been made. They could've all been fine and not had to have dealt with the wrath of Jason Todd.

"Paige..." she heard Dick say behind her causing her to turn around as she swallowed thickly.

"Yeah?"

"We have to go."