The Knowhere Girl

[9] The Red Queen

[Jason Todd]

Jason hated the manor.

It reminded him of everything he lost.

His belongings. His family. His home.

Jason grew up on the streets. His dead-beat dad had died in jail during a life sentence, and his mother overdosed. Some weeks he got by fine. Others he didn't.

He was only back for Bluey. As much as he hated the place, it was where she was safest.

It seemed as though they were more alike than Jason though, sharing more than just a death. Her blank face gave away nothing as she looked into the mirror - now older, wiser, and grittier, she probably fell on the same wavelength as him and Barbara, but somewhere between the two.

Bluey had killed five people, and he could only imagine what was going through her head. She wasn't him; she still had a warm, beating, red heart. Jason never had the emotional tug of war that must've been threatening to tear her apart. Jason would've made them pay for trying to touch her if she hadn't done it herself. He wished he'd done it though, so she wouldn't have to suffer. He saw the guy she beat to death. The bloody limbs, the dislodged eye, the face so swollen it was unrecognizable.

Her powers unnerved him though. Meta-humans always had. But it wasn't like she would attack them for no reason. It was for self-defence. A weird, fucked up, supernatural way of self-defence, but whatever. Jason had no room to talk about the supernatural, he rose from the Lazarus Pit like something from a zombie movie. This was no big deal.

"So," said Jason, holding up two pairs of shampoo and conditioner, "we've got girl shit and guy shit. The guy stuff smells really manly, and this," he waved the bottle with picture of cookies and peppermint print in them, "will make you smell like Christmas threw up on you."

"Cool," said Bluey as she turned away from the mirror. She wouldn't meet his eyes, or turn fully to meet him, hiding the bruised side of her face.

"I don't really know why I brought the man hair products. I mean, you're a girl so you probably want to use the girl stuff-"

"Should I get you a shovel so you can dig that hole a little deeper?" She took the bottle from his hands. "Forget about gender conformity, I want to use the guy stuff."

"Oh." He was a little stunned that she liked the smell of testosterone and fragile masculinity rather than Christmas and that she made a joke about death without batting an eye, followed by the phrase gender conformity. "Okay."

"Jason."

Reading his expression, she brushed her matted red over the side of her face and faced him. She looked quite intimidating covered blood. Scary, almost, but also kind of hot. But Jason wanted her to look like herself again, even if she did smell like a dude and not that earthy bush smell - whatever it was, it smelt good.

"Do you ever feel uncomfortable in your own skin?" she asked, twisting one if the rings on her finger. "Like you're just trying to play the part of someone else?"

His stomach twisted like the ring between her fingers, because he did understand, more than he wanted to. "Every day, princess."

Meme of the day