Tell me a story

Hey Brother

"You tried to blow up Black Mask with a freaking bazooka!" Was the first thing Stephanie said when the door shut behind her.
"You're back." He said, not even looking at her as he nonchalantly tapped the security button just above the bed he was laying on.
"Oracle disabled that." She eyed the little stool and desk next to his bed, but leaned against the far corner instead. There weren't any handcuffs that time, no table between them. It was a show of trust, those were a good start right? Show him she wasn't afraid of him and have him somewhere other than an interrogation room for once. She mimed an explosion with her hands. "The bazooka."
"It wasn't a bazooka, it was an RPG and I didn't try anything. I made desperate." Jason tapped the button again.
"You couldn't have needed him desperate a few weeks earlier?" She tried to keep her voice light as she tossed the tub of ice-cream she'd brought along at the desk, but she could have almost sworn she saw Jason flinch.
"It's not my fault Bruce didn't keep a closer eye on you." He kept his eyes on the ice-cream as he said it.
"It's Neapolitan, and not poisoned and delicious. I kind of ate half the tub while I waiting for them to clear me." She crept closer and dragged the stool back to her corner, not taking her eyes of him once. "That Schools guy was checking me out again, weirdo. You know anywhere can get an RPG without Batman finding out?"
"For what?" She caught the tiny glimmer of interest in his eyes. "I don't see you taking on Black Mask anytime soon."
"Who's to say? You took on the Joker; I figured I'd try my hand at being the rebellious one, seeing as you're the criminally insane one now." Her uneasy smile strained further when he cracked his knuckles, his interest turning into rage again. "Okay fine, you're not crazy, learn to take a joke, jeez."
"Don't compare me to the freaks in this place." He spat the words out, his lips twisted into a snarl.
Her hands itched for one of the batarangs in her fully stocked utility belt. "Alrighty then." She chuckled nervously. "Your ice-creams going to melt if you don't eat it now, or maybe you like melted ice-cream, or would that technically be a milkshake?"
"I'm not humoring you like I did last time, if you don't leave in the next ten seconds I'll make you regret ever putting on that costume Blondie." The dark edge to his voice sent chills down her spine, and she struggled to keep up eye contact when he held up his hands and started silently counting down the numbers.
"You know, if you tried to hurt me now, there's no way you'd ever get another transfer hearing." Her arms wrapped around her midsection. She hadn't shown Black Mask how afraid she'd been when he'd approached with a power drill, how much harder could it be with an unarmed nineteen year old.
He didn't answer, just kept counting down, that predatory aura around him not fading in the slightest. It was stuffy in the room, and she got the idea that maybe if it weren't so stuffy he wouldn't be in such a bad mood all the time. Then he stood and she caught sight of the ventilation slits blowing out enough clear air to gently ruffle his too long hair.
"Okay, okay." She jumped up and refrained from lifting the stool for use as a makeshift shield. "But I really did have an important criminal type question to ask you."
"Too bad." He said, dragging her over to the exit none too gently.
Her training kicked in and she slipped out of his grasp just as he knocked on the door.
She had a batarang in each hand seconds later. Training aside, people from her part of the city just felt better having something sharp in their hands, and she was no exception.
"Come on and fight me if you want." Her hands steadied as she stared the man down, Batgirl wasn't supposed to be afraid of anything, and remembering that helped her courage pool back into her icy veins. "But I'm not leaving until you answer me." At worst, he'd break some bones, even at his worst he didn't kill heroes, and she could take some broken bones.
"Fine one question." He leaned in close enough that she could see all the tiny creases in the bags under his eyes.
Stephanie swallowed, her throat suddenly feeling dry despite the lingering sweetness of the ice-cream she eaten. The slow loss of the little patience Jason had left with her was almost visible in how the lines around his eyes seemed to increase. His folder said green, but up close she could see they were more teal, they looked a little off against his orangey hair.
"How do get your hair dye here without anyone noticing?" She blurted out the first question sounding sentence that crossed her mind.
"What?" He was as surprised at the question as she was.
"I mean, it's a security risk, if you can get in hair dye, the other crazies can get all kinds of nasty things too, cant they?" Now that she thought about it, it was a pretty good question, just under why the hell he was still dying his hair after all that time.
"I don't dye my hair." Jason said, crossing his big arms much like he had the first time she'd visited.
"Then how d…" Stephanie's question was cut off by Jason marching over to the door and stating to bang loudly on it.
"You asked, now go." He said.
"You didn't answer." She shot back, but went over to the door anyway.
The guard that opened it jumped farther back than his pudgy stature made seem possible when he looked up to see the Red Hood standing right in front of him. She was torn between feeling sorry for the guy, and finding it hilarious. Jason scoffed and went back into the cell.
"By the way." She turned sharply on her heel, pointing a finger at him. "I saw you throw the chili-dogs away, you'd better eat the ice-cream.
She'd taken three steps down the hall when the icy tub sailed through the little gap in door before it slid closed and the mechanical locks clicked shut. When she ducked it crashed into a wall, the flimsy container cracking and splattering half melted ice-cream all over the place, some of the sticky droplets hitting her in the face.
The shock quickly morphed into a kind of anger and she pounded her fist on the little window on Jason's cell door. The man inside didn't even acknowledge her, sitting on his bed, staring at a wall like it was the only thing in the room.
"Could you be any more of an asshole?" She demanded, striking the glass again. He didn't even twitch and she pounded the glass again. In her frustration, she nearly told the guard to open the door again, but the image of Jason's hulking figure coming so close to violence a minute before held her back.
She brushed the ice cream of her face, her leathery glove just smearing the stickiness more as she left.
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Jason didn't look up as Blondie made a scene at the door to his cell. She was lucky he'd been able to stop himself before he's turned her into a bloody puddle for the bats to drag away. It was bad enough Bruce pulled all those strings to keep him locked in the place with all of his other freaks when he wasn't crazy, and Jason wasn't crazy, he wasn't.
The wall was the safest things to look at while he tried to think through the rush in his head. The girl was gone, no longer pounding on his cell door, no longer feeding the rage that those damned meds they tried to hide in his food only magnified.
Didn't they know that giving those things to sane people messed them up, but then they wouldn't believe he was sane because Bruce told them otherwise, and who took the word of a manipulative head case over the goddamn Batman? Not the trained Arkham staff and certainly not the stupid little girl that thought she had the right to walk in any time she damn well pleased.
He wasn't there for Bruce's child soldiers to ogle whenever they felt like being rebellious, not a Freakshow for them to come in and throw peanuts at. Sure he couldn't do anything to stop her from coming in, the place was so corrupt that pretty much anyone could do that, and he couldn't physically force her to leave without risking his next hearing, but he wasn't going to give her the show she wanted.
When he was absolutely sure both her and the guard were gone he leaned back on his narrow bed, resting his head against the wall. Thankfully his cell wasn't padded, that would have been… He shook his head before knocking it against the firm structure just hard enough to hurt, to prove he was still there.
There was a creaking sound outside and he moved to have a look out the little window in the gate. There was a janitor pulling his creaking cart down the otherwise empty corridor towards the mess left by the ice cream Jason had tossed at Blondie.
Jason's eyes were drawn to it, the small bit of destruction he'd managed to cause even from behind bars, with a tired resignation. The container had hit the wall hard enough that it had broken in two, splattering rainbow streaks of ice cream all along the wall, dripping to the floor in some places. His mind instantly came up with a similar splatter pattern he'd once formed with a very different substance. His breath caught in his throat while he watched the viscous liquid drip down to the floor, joining the small puddle that had formed.
He chuckled darkly to himself, remembering the smell of iron while he watched the ice cream coagulate. The janitor heard the sound, his head shooting up hard enough that he must have gotten whiplash before he hurriedly plugged in his earphones and tried not to focus on the killer watching from the other side.
Idiot. Jason chided himself and went back to his bed, tapping his head against the wall. Here he sat feeling so proud for not rising to her bait when that's exactly what he'd done letting his anger get the better of him again. She was probably on her way to patrol with her fellow sidekicks and tell them all about how Jason Todd had flipped his shit when she'd asked about his fucking hair dye. 'But it's not he's fault he's crazy.' He could practically hear them.
Even when he couldn't see the ice cream splatter he could see it. Was it messed up that the splatter of ice cream on the Asylum walls bothered him more than the splatter of blood in a stinking alley had? Probably, but he didn't care, the phantom scent of Neapolitan tickled his nose and he felt sick.
That was all the proof they'd need, wasn't it? They wouldn't care that he hadn't hurt her, they'd grab onto any scrap of proof they could fabricate that he belonged with all the other freaks.
He might as well have word the tub in his head and called himself Captain Ice Cream, or Neapolitan? Captain Neapolitan would have sounded cooler. Heh, cooler that was a real Robin pun right there. And he bet all they'd say was 'Poor Jason Todd, it's not his fault, the Lazarus Pit made him crazy.'
Well he wasn't, and he wasn't going to let them carry on easing their guilt by thinking that he was.
Lights out felt like it came a little sooner than usual and he glared up at the blinking red light of the camera that was constantly watching him. In his mind, fuzzy with a lack of sleep the blinking of the camera became the blinking of a bomb. Laughter tickled the back of his head and he knocked his head on the wall again as he watched it.
Another sleepless night then… it didn't matter, he was mostly nocturnal anyway.
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"Can you believe that?" Stephanie raged into her comm. As she punched a thug in his face, pretending that it was Jason Todd's scruffy, obviously died red beard. "And he needs to shave, too the asshole." She punched the thug twice more for good measure.
'I warned you he was unhinged.' Barbara sighed in her ear. 'You were at best wasting your time at worst…'
"I don't care if he's unhinged," she said the last word in an impression of her mentor's voice. "That's no excuse for him being an asshole." She ducked a knife and punched it's wielder right in his generous gut. She threw him to the ground and stomped down on his wrist maybe a bit harder than she needed to for him to drop the knife. She picked the weapon up and swept it out the point just touching the face of the man final thug. "Do not test me tonight Bub." She warned and he dropped his own knife holding his hands up in surrender.
"Great!" She moved to zip tie them to a pole while Barbara called the cops to pick them up. There was a grin on her lips while she tightened the binds on the one with the scruffy face. "Nothing like redirecting your aggression onto some worthwhile targets." She hummed.
"Geez lady, I'm just doing my job." Scruffy thug whined.
"That's not an excuse for being an asshole either." She rapped the back of his skull with her knuckles before she shot out her grapple and zoomed up to the rooftops.
The cool air filled her lungs and she did a not very necessary flip when her feet touched down of the gravelly surface.
"Where was I?" She asked, then carried on before her mentor could reply. "Then he starts counting down from ten, and not with his words. Oh no, he just has to be a condescending prick about it and count down with his fingers. Make me wish I'd never put on the costume, he called my uniform a costume Oracle."
'It is technically a costume, I mean I came up with it for a costume party.' Barbara replied.
"Doesn't matter, he's still an asshole, and it's still my uniform." Stephanie huffed. "You know what, I think I'm gonna make him apologize. He's not that scary"
'There's a mugging two streets west.' Barbara said tiredly.
"After I stop that mugging." Stephanie shot out her grapple and set off again.
She didn't waste time announcing herself, just leaped into the alley and flipping off a fire-escape to slow her fall before landing on the muggers shoulders. His nose hit the wall behind his victim with a spray of blood. Stephanie winced when the dazed man gripped his nose as he scrambled back.
'I heard that.' Barbara said.
"You heard nothing." Stephanie muttered as she turned to the guy still standing by the wall. Most of the time they would've been gone by then, and if they weren't they it was usually because they were hurt or in shock, often both. "You okay there buddy, need a doctor or a paper bag, or…"
There was a click of a gun at her left temple as someone slipped out of the shadows. "Just you Batgirl, or should I say…" His breath smelled heavily of tobacco. She looked at him without turning her head while the hapless civilian she'd just rescued got out a knife. "…the Red Hood's sister."
'Batgirl, what's going on?' Barbara sounded worried.
"Your brother killed mine, so I think it's fitting…"
She ducked just as his finger twitched to pull the trigger and grabbed the Knife-guy's arm, pulling him forward to stab Gun-guy in the shoulder while he got shot in the foot. Her knee hit the gun into the air and she brought up her arms to crack their heads together.
"Oh the fatal flaw of all crooks." Stephanie sighed dramatically as she kicked Broken-nose-guy into his cohorts as he was trying to sneak up on her. "These idiots speak too much." She tied them to the pole again.
'Batgirl!' Barbara demanded.
"I'm fine O." Stephanie said. "I just found out why the asshole was mad at me for saying I was his sister." Barbara's long suffering sigh was at least ten times more terrifying than the gun to the head had been. "So uh, got anything else for me?"
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"Baker listen, I really need to get in to see Hood right now, some guys tried to shoot me and I have to slap him in the face for it." Stephanie said, practically leaning over the Arkham guard three hours later.
"Unfortunately, due to the incident when you visited earlier, he's not…" The poor guy was sweating profusely while he typed at the keyboard she knew didn't really do anything he had the clearance for.
"Yeah whatever, but this time it's a for reals investigation, you're impeding my investigation Jeff." Her styrofoam take out box squeaked as she slid I across the counter.
"We try to keep out patients on a tight schedule Miss." He mumbled. "Please come back tomorrow during visiting hours."
"But that's when Schools is on duty." She whined, ignoring his correction of "Scholz". "Are really going to put me through Schools again? I bet you don't make Batman come during visiting hours, am I gonna have to call in Batman?"
"I'm sorry, there's really nothing I can do." If possible the guy looked even more nervous. "Please leave."
"Jeff, I need to see him, or people will die, do you want people to die?" She questioned.
"No." He conceded. "Maybe if you didn't bring the food…" He gestured at the cooling styrofoam in her hands.
"Without this food, the one dying might be me." She said, clutching it to her chest. "I'd rather not die in this creepy asylum, no offense."
"No, it's fine, it is creepy." He stood with a resigned frown and they began the long walk to Jason's cell.
"You won't let him kill me if he's mad I woke him up, right?" Baker asked, his hands shaking as he lifted this keycard.
"I promise." She smiled brightly. If the halls had been creepy during the night time visiting hours, they were super creepy this close to dawn. The groans and occasional scream that punctuated the near silencer made it even worse.
"Sorry, a lot of them have nightmare's." Baker said, like he was afraid she'd somehow blame him for the sounds. He swiped his key card one last time at Jason's cell before skittering back into the hallway.
She leaned hesitantly into the room, telling herself that she'd leave if he was asleep, the sharp eyes that fixed on her tossed that plan right out the non-existent window. No one in their line of work was ever asleep that time of night.
"Hi." She said, hesitantly waving her hand. This wasn't a conversation they could have with the door open, but she really didn't want to get too close to him in the dark. What if he hallucinated her as Joker or something? "Can I come in?"
"Can I stop you?" He said.
"This time I promise it's important." Okay, maybe not as important as she'd made it out to be, more of less flimsy excuse really. She was pretty sure there were more people who wanted her dead for her connection to Batman.
"What?" He asked, less of a biting challenge now than a tired sigh.
She stepped in and let the door slide shut behind her, a dim light, very dim, flickering on courtesy of Baker. "I brought waffles?"
He didn't say anything, instead leaning further back, his head hitting the wall with a soft clunk.
"It's okay if you don't want them, I like waffles, so I'll just eat them myself." She sat on the ground, choosing not to risk getting close enough to get the stool again. "You know how when I told you I had to pretend to be your sister to get in? I get how that was a bad idea."
She paused for him to insert whatever mean comment he had prepared, but carried on after a few more seconds of his stubborn silence. "If you had to guess, how many more people want me dead now?"
"Not as many that just want to make you suffer." He said blandly.
"Okay." She bit her lip took note of the way he was sitting, it didn't look comfortable by any means, but not like he was going to take a swing at her either. "You got any idea how I can get myself out of this?"
"Kill them all."
Stephanie got out one of the syrupy waffles, the takeout box squeaking clearly in the quiet. "I can't do that." She took a big bite of the palm-sized snack.
"Then go ask someone else." There was a blinking red light in the corner of his cell, and his eyes were fixed on it.
"That thing must be really annoying." She pointed out. "How do you sleep in here?"
"Better when I'm not being interrupted." He gave her and the door a pointed look.
"Yeah, sorry." She said, feeling a little bad now that she knew she'd woke him up. "Hey, before I go, is there any food I could bring here that you would eat?"
"No."
She nodded and got to her feet, leaving the other waffle on his desk. Better to leave before he got angry again. "So a drink then? You look like you could do with a coffee." She tapped on the door, and if he was going to answer, he didn't before she was gone.
'Did you get him to say sorry?' Barbara asked as soon as she switched her comm back on.
"Nope, but he didn't threaten me this time." She got on her motorcycle and left the asylum at full speed, exhilarated by the wind whipping her hair all over the place and the roar of the engine drowning out the other sounds of Gotham. Make her regret being a super-hero? Not likely.