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despairgnome · 2 months ago

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Hell Knows It's Got A Home For Folks Like Me

Summary: After losing your childhood sweetheart, you sought a life of adventure. Years down the line, when your gang is gunned down by the notorious outlaw 'Two Guns,' you find the life you've built for yourself turning upside down

Pairing: Cowboy!Jason Todd x Outlaw!reader

Words: 7.2k

Content/warnings: kidnapping, brief descriptions of scars and wounds, grief, longing, hidden identity shenanigans, real threats turning to playful threats, jason likes when you're mean to him, p in v sex, reader is not described, 18+ MDNI

You always thought ‘Two Guns’ was a bad nickname. Plenty of people had two guns; what made him so special he got a moniker for them?

The speed, you understood, was what made him so special. The precision of his shots, even on the back of his galloping horse. Even as he took out most of your crew mates, some part of you was stunned by the way he moved.

Black Mask rode off and didn’t look back, leaving anyone still alive for dead. Two Guns was happy to oblige, scattering bodies all along the pasture.

His accuracy is an assurance that you were intentionally left alive. Prairie grass tickles your nose as he pins you to the ground. You struggle like a wild animal against the weight of his knee as it presses into your back.

“Get off me!” you snarl, trying to wrench your arm from his iron grip.

He lets out a scoff as he ties you up with a casualness that warns you he’s done this before.

If he ever thought the Black Mask gang posed as a threat, that threat didn’t include you. The thought prickles at your nerves, makes you want to spit if you could only crane your neck enough.

“Not a chance,” is his only reply. A terse muffle beneath his red bandanna. The leather of his gloves brushes against your wrists as he ropes them together before moving down to your ankles.

“Mask isn’t gonna pay for me,” you say. “You’re wasting your time. Just let me go!”

He doesn’t say anything as he hoists you up onto the back of his horse, chuckling at every threat you make against him on the way back to his camp. Given your current situation—reduced to some spoil of war—you thought your ride would be rockier, yet Two Guns takes the ride easily with you dangling over the back of his horse.

His people seem surprisingly pleased to see him. Certainly far from the reception Mask gets, but you know most of your late crew mates weren’t in the gang for love. Most of them are dead now, their lives abandoned all from the service of a man who only saw them as bodies to shield him from men like the one currently hauling you from his horse.

Two Guns shoves you towards a little tent set up at the edge of camp. Only when he plops you down on a stool inside that you get a somewhat decent look at him. He’s no longer a blur of endless action. The bandana makes it difficult to tell his age. All you can make out is the sea of his eyes, something playful glinting within them.

“What do you want?” you ask, eyes narrowed in on him.

His dark, scarred brow quirks up. The small narrowing of his eyes suggests he’s smirking at you. Right now, you feel more irritation than fear. “Black Mask usually doesn’t keep such nice company,” he says as if that answers your question. Before you can demand an answer, he pulls out the sack you’d been carrying. He must have grabbed it after he’d tied you up.

You struggle against your restraints to no avail. “Stay out of there!”

Everything clamors together as he rifles through the bag carelessly, tossing its contents onto the bedroll on the ground as he goes. He ignores your small sack of money, the small folio of maps, even the little journal of jotted notes, only to pause at a stack of yellowed envelopes.

“You’ve got a lotta junk in there,” he says nonchalantly as he turns the bundle over in his hand.

The sight of your name scrawled across those envelopes in that familiar boyish handwriting makes something snap inside of you. “Put those back!” you snarl, a new ferocity burning in your voice.

You finally catch Two Guns’ attention. “What, these your important plans with Mask or something?” He takes a step closer to you.

You’ve got plenty of choice opinions on Two Guns from everything you’ve seen of him so far, but you know he’s not stupid. If he wanted your plans with Black Mask, he could have them, but he’s already tossed them aside in favor of old letters.

“They’re nothing to you,” you reply.

“Nothing, huh?” he challenges. He undoes the tight knot binding the stack together. Your eyes follow the red ribbon as it drifts to the ground.

You remember the boy who gave you a handpicked bouquet of prairie flowers wrapped with that ribbon.

“Stop it.”

He doesn’t. Paper rustles as Two Guns pulls the letter from its envelope. You can’t make out the expression in his eyes as they scan the page.

The silence is agonizing. The sounds of Two Guns’ crew moving about camp are the only thing filling the void. You stare at the worn page in a stranger’s hand. Pages rumpled from being held to your heart as you cry and remember the boy you’d lost.

“Aw, a beau at home, huh?” he asks, glancing up from the paper.

“Put it back.”

“You carry these around with you everywhere?”

Another fruitless jerk against the ropes around your wrists. “What do you want?” you demand, your patience with his games growing thin.

Two Guns slips the letter back in the envelope, his eyes fixed on you as he does. “I want to know what a nice thing like you is doing running around with Black Mask.”

A nasty glower grows on your face. “Tough luck.” You don’t want to lose your indignation, but thinking of the words in those letters makes your heart twist in your chest.

In the schoolyard, your life seemed so perfectly laid out. You loved a boy who promised you forever. A boy whose heart seemed as wild as your own. Someday, you’d leave town, just you and him. Run away to a place just for the two of you.

Just after he turned seventeen, a falling out between Jason and his adopted father had him off to search for his birth mother. He’d promised you he’d come back for you once he found her. That you both could finally make the lives you wanted for yourselves.

In place of him, a letter found you in town. Jason’s mother had traveled with a bad crowd, and he’d gotten caught up in the middle of it.

Your mourning stretched out endlessly because moving on from him felt so unfair. Somewhere in these meadows, your heart laid buried. The walls of the life you were supposed to build together crumbled around you, and you were the only one left to clean it up. So you left. Getting married off to someone who wasn’t Jason was no life you could live. And if you could no loner find adventure with him, you would find it on your own. You never chose Black Mask out of any respect or adoration; he had money, and you needed some of it.

Two Guns gives an unimpressed hum at your resistance before pulling out another letter, eyes skimming the page again. “Let me guess. It didn’t work out too well for loverboy? Didn’t get your happy ending, sweetheart?”

Fury roars in your chest. “You don’t get to talk about him.”

Those blue eyes study you thoroughly for a moment before he puts the letter back in its envelope. The pile of letters scatter across his bedroll as he tosses them down. If you mouthed off to Black Mask like this, he’d probably kill you. For a moment, you think Two Guns might be the same.

“They feed you in Mask’s camp?” he asks instead with an evenness that makes you see red. You always knew how Black Mask was feeling from his incessant yelling. But Two Guns is giving you next to nothing to work off of.

You watch him carefully, trying to put together what he’s really asking.

“Yes.”

His eyes pass over you again like he doesn’t believe you. You brace for more questions, but none come. Wordlessly, he slips from the tent, leaving you alone with your mind cobbling together a plan.

Maybe you can slip out the back of the tent. Steal a horse. Black Mask’s gang was heading to a job; you could try to catch up? The strategy has enough gaps you know you’re better off trying to level with Two Guns, but you can’t get the image of his hands all over your letters out of your head. He’d touched Jason’s letters. Read Jason’s words that were only ever meant for your eyes. All you have left of him.

For that, you hate Two Guns. For that, you don’t care if he feeds you or offers you safety. You never found out where Jason was buried, so leafing through his letters felt the same as desecrating his grave. You want Two Guns dead for that.

The wish is enough to drive you through the burn of rope against your raw skin as you wrestle with it. But before you can make any progress, he returns, a bowl of something in his large hand. You freeze, looking at him with your eyes burning with resentment.

“You gonna run if I cut the rope?” he asks, looking down at your bound ankles.

“No,” you lie. Two Guns chuckles like he knows, but he pulls a knife from his pocket regardless. Slowly, he approaches, crouching down without moving his eyes from yours. Those damn eyes that give you nothing to work off of.

The muscles of your legs stay tight, prepared to kick if he tries anything. His blade dips between your ankles, beneath the thick rope before sawing your legs free. He keeps staring up at you like he’s waiting for you to make your move.

You don’t.

He towers above you as he rises back to his full height, gaze never shifting. You feel certain he’s trying to intimidate you as he stalks behind you. The smooth leather of his glove holds your wrist in place. You feel the rope tugging against your raw skin as he cuts, and finally you’re free.

As quickly as you can, you try to pull your arms back in front of you, but Two Guns catches your wrist just above where they’re red before you can hide the evidence from him.

“No use trying to loosen those knots. You’re not the first person I’ve tied up, sweetheart,” he says. “As long as you don’t bolt, I’ll get you something for those burns.” He turns away from you—cocky bastard—and picks the bowl back up. “In the meantime, eat.”

You stare down at the chunks of something in a thick broth and look up at him skeptically. “What is it?”

“Well, it’s stew. I’m sure it’s nothing compared to the five course meals you get over in Black Mask’s camp, but it’s food.” Sarcasm. No one ever said Two Guns was such a charmer.

After you hesitantly take your bowl of mystery stew, he disappears from the tent. Your back straightens once you’re alone, setting down the stew to carefully peer through the gap in the tent. Two Guns talks to one of his crew, the expanse of his back blocking most of your view.

They speak low. From where you are, you can’t make out a single word, and Two Guns walks away before you can try to put it together through context. When he turns to rummage through a small box, you move quick to collect all your belongings strewn about Two Guns’ bedroll.

Your fingers are steady as you take great care to bind Jason’s worn letters back together—can’t say working with Black Mask never taught you anything—before tucking the bundle gently into the pocket where they’re always kept.

Time isn’t on your side, but experience is. Black Mask always had you sneak around when furtiveness was required from a job. Usually, however, you were sneaking up on belligerent drunks and not a notorious outlaw in the confines of his own tent. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

Two Guns may have swiped your gun when you brought you to his camp, but he famously has two. He doesn’t strike you as the sharing type, but you don’t let it deter you. You aren’t really the asking type, anyway.

You poise yourself, waiting for the moment his hand slips through the opening of the tent. As he emerges, you reach out as fast as you can for one of the holstered guns on his hip. Fingers curl around the cool metal and tug, turning the weapon onto him as soon as you retrieve it.

Two Guns is facing you before you have time to celebrate, one hand gripping your shoulder firmly. The other holds his remaining gun just below your chin.

“Don’t tell me the stew was that bad,” he says as he crowds you. When you don’t lower your weapon, he nudges your chin with his gun. “I’d like that back,” he says with a self-assured cock of his head.

“Or what?”

He laughs. “Or you’ll have to go out there and explain to the rest of my gang why their boss has a hole in his head.” He knows you’re in no position to follow through with your threat, but the idea of admitting defeat and giving him the gun back makes you livid.

You step back as he shepherds you back to your seat. With one hand still occupied by his gun, he fishes a roll of linen out of his pocket. “Now, if you don’t give me that back, I won’t be able to wrap your wrists, and I’d hate for you to get an infection.”

“I can take care of myself,” you refute. Two Guns seizes the moment the second it occurs, disarming you and sliding the gun back to its holster as soon as you’re even marginally distracted.

“Oh, I know that,” he says. You hear the smirk in his voice. And he’s passing you your bowl of stew again. Ripping strips of linen with practiced ease.

He’s lucky he got the gun when he did. You would have pulled the trigger the second you heard that arrogance.

One of his large hands stretches out for yours expectantly, the bandage dangling in his grip.

Irritation prickles up your spine. You stare at his hand as if you don’t understand what he wants from you. Take a long, petty slurp of your stew to fill the time, your eyes never leave his.

Two Guns keeps his eyes locked onto you, hand still held out for you. He knows our game, and he doesn’t seem keen on giving you the satisfaction of his annoyance. “May I see your wrist?” he asks evenly.

You consider tossing your bowl of stew onto him, but the lukewarm meal would only serve as a minor inconvenience. So you surrender with a sneer on your face, giving him one of your rope-burnt wrists.

“Thank you,” Two Guns replies, still speaking in that same even tone that’s been steadily growing on your nerves. He sinks a knee down into the earth. The leather of his glove warms your arm as he begins to wrap it up. You know he could hold you harder than he does.

He doesn’t see you as a threat. Another reason to hate him. You’ll find Mask, make sure he takes care of Two Guns once and for all. He just lost half his gang to him, and while you certainly have no true loyalties to Black Mask or his gang, you know he’s going to be hellbent on getting back at Two Guns. You just want to be there when it happens.

When one wrist is wrapped, he holds his hand out for the other. You give it to him, still trying to work out his plan here. Why not kill you? If he thinks you’re going to tell him anything about Black Mask, he’s got another thing coming. It wasn’t like he ever told you anything anyway. You were nothing but another body for his means to an end.

“There,” he says, when your tender skin is safe behind bandages. He drops your hand and rises to his feet. “Now, stay here, and I’ll get you sorted once I’m back from killing your boss.”

“I won’t tell you where he’s going.” Two Guns must think you’re loyal to Mask, which is a laugh. Right now, your strongest loyalty is to making Two Guns’ life as impossible as possible.

“Don’t need you to,” he replies. He pulls a stack of envelopes out of his pocket, shoving them into your hands, but you don’t even spare them a glance. “Now, my guys are a lot less nice than I am, so if you’re wise, you’ll stay in here.”

He takes a step back towards the flaps of the tent. You wait for him to turn around, disappear from the tent, but he just stares back at you for a moment. Rage burns in your chest again. You want to throw whatever he passed you down into the dirt, show him how little you care about anything he has to say to you.

A gun emerges from one of his holsters, the barrel nudging up the brim of his hat like some kind of polite nod before slipping out. Without hesitation, you storm after him. What does he mean get you sorted? What’s he going to do after Black Mask is dead and gone? His step doesn’t falter even after you protest after him.

One of his men catches you by the shoulder the second the light of the sunset hits your skin. “Two Guns says you’re stayin’ here,” he says.

The outlaw mounts a hulking stallion as your stopped. In the dark corners of your mind, you understand he would need a large horse to accommodate for the sheer bulk of him. You try not to entertain the thought. Two Guns helps, making your mind go completely blank as his eyes meet yours one last time.

His gaze feels like a suckerpunch. Somehow, it’s worse when he looks away.

When he rides off and the rush of horse hooves grows faint, you’re pushed back into your captivity. Only then, do you process he handed you something.

You sit back down on the stool looking down at the envelopes in your hand for the first time.

The tent feels as if it could be at the bottom of the lake you and Jason would swim in during the sun-drenched days of youth with the way the air seems to disappear. The familiar writing makes your hand tremble like responding to a long-forgotten call. The slopes and curves of the way your name is written. You know them by heart because they’re the same ones you seek when you miss Jason so badly everything within your body aches.

These letters feel like a trick. Your optimism has long vanished. So you pull out your own savored letters to make sure Two Guns hadn’t just snatched some earlier just to pass them back. But the weight of your bundle is the same as always, all letters accounted for.

Your only next guess is that Two Guns knows something of Jason’s death. He was somehow privy to more details than you. You, who waited in town for him to come home, only to be met with a letter from one of the guys he’d been running with. The one letter you never kept.

When you realize these are letters you’ve never read—letters from Jason with your name scrawled out on the front—you immediately begin to tear through them.

The first letter is dated two months after you were told Jason died. But these are his words, his penmanship, assuring you he’s alive. A close call, but he survived the shootout that was claimed to have killed him. He had things to do before he could see you again, but he assured you soon he would.

He alludes to letters he’s never sent in the next few, and slowly, your heart drops as you make the realization that Jason chose never to mail these to you. He was alive, and he chose not to let you know.

There’s a few months gap between letters until Jason writes to you to say he’s a bad man. He does bad things because someone needs to. He’s a bad man because he never came home to you, and now he’s not sure if he’s good enough. You wonder if the things you’d done to survive would qualify you as bad too. You wonder what that changes between you, if anything.

His last letter was written yesterday.

‘Two Guns’ Todd rode to your childhood home in search of you, only to find you were no longer there waiting for him. The townsfolk told him you left town after your childhood sweetheart was killed.

Jason didn’t know where you were, but he promised he would find you.

You don’t realize you’re crying until a tear drops. The ink bleeds across the page, and you gasp like you’ve ruined something sacred. But those words are no longer the words of a dead man. They’re the words of the man who’d lived all these years without you.

You stare down at the letters long after it’s grown too dark to read them, your mind racing as you try to grapple with what this means. Everything you’ve thought for the past two years has been a lie. The boy you loved had gotten to grow into a man without you knowing.

You’d uprooted your life with the grief of losing Jason. Searching to fill the void, you decided to listen to the call of adventure. To do something unrecognizable from the life you and Jason had imagined in the field behind the schoolhouse.

Outside the tent, your guards have fallen into a drunken sleep. Their snores overpower the chirping of crickets and the whirring of cicadas. To hell what Jason wants, you decide.

You make a quick escape with one of the men’s guns, a horse, and a lantern, riding towards Black Mask’s hideout.

Jason may have most of his crew with him, but every part of you needs to be with him now, even if you are absolutely livid with him. But you can’t help but savor the thought of feeling something other than everlasting grief when you think of him. You can scream at him, shove him, tell him you hate him because he’s alive. That’s nothing you’re going to take lightly. Not when you’ve spent your days wishing to see him one last time.

You think of the way he held your wrist as he bandaged it as horse hooves thunder through the night. You think of sunlight filtering through the leaves of trees the first time you kissed him and ran away, face burning with embarrassment. You think of years later when he’d held your hand and promised you forever, eyes burning with a certainty that only comes with youth.

You find Mask’s hideout, the rest of Jason’s gang hooting and hollering of a job well done. Your eyes skim the darkness for Jason, not daring to get closer unless you know he’s there. You’re not about to risk an escort back to camp without seeing Jason first.

“I had a feeling those two wouldn’t be able to stop you.”

The voice startles you. You prepare to be bucked, but Jason is already soothing your stolen horse. And then you realize the horse was never as startled as you to begin with. Its rubbing against his outstretched hand like a friend.

“You—”

“I know,” Jason says.

“I thought you were dead.”

Jason looks at you like you’re history. Like the part of him that held you was still buried in the earth where you thought his body was. Those years feel so much longer ago than they once did now that you’re looking at him again.

“I know you did, sweetheart,” he says, a pinch in his voice.

You scoff. “Don’t sweetheart me.”

“Alright then. Darlin’?” There’s challenge in his tone. His amusement with himself gets under his skin. Nips at your nerves. All this time, and this is how he treats you now that you finally know?

You slide down from the horse. His sturdy body barely moves when you give him a shove. He waits a beat. Lets the silence settle between the two of you, the sounds of his crew seemingly drowned out amidst the tension. “I take that as a no.”

He encroaches on your space as he takes a step closer, his broad shoulders closing in on you. His eyes glimmer with the longing from your youth, only now clouded with the weight of years passed.

Memories linger like a tune stuck in your head. You’d promised him everything. You’d meant it, too. But those days have faded away, hardened by the realities of life. Jason’s boyish grin came to you only in dreams, the only real place you had left to cling to him. So you’d thought, at least, because here he is. A phantom of the time you spent mourning him. The ache you’d carried inside your chest because you couldn’t hold him.

You knew what you had. You’d known just as well what you’d lost. A boy with a wild heart. One with kindness in his bones. He stole kisses behind the school when the teacher wasn’t looking. When he was old enough, he pursued greater ambitions, promising you the life you deserved one day.

The years haven’t been kind to you, and you imagine the same can be said about the man in front of you. Jason Todd, your honeysweet boy, didn’t become ‘Two Guns’ Todd for no reason. Fear lingers in the back of your mind that you’ll never get back what you had. That this reunion will end in bitterness when you realize all your childhood dreams were bolstered by naive optimism.

Whoops and hollers of a job well done still linger behind you, though Two Guns no longer seems to be in the mood to celebrate.

“We should talk.” Nearby flames make shadows flicker across his face. Now that you know the truth, you can’t imagine how you didn’t know immediately this was Jason. How the truth has bent him back into a shape you recognize.

“You’re damn right.”

“There’s an inn in town,” he says, crossing over to his horse.

You grip the reins of the horse you stole a little tighter. “And?” you inquire, eyes narrowing.

He tugs down the worn red bandana covering the lower half of his face. That alone is enough to knock the air right out of your lungs. That’s your Jason. Yes, he looks different—a scar along his top lip, another through his cheek—but it’s him.

“And we can talk there,” he replies, turning back towards you.

“Sounds like you’re just buying time,” you reply curtly.

He gives you another look. Both of you know you’re right. He’s not happy you called him out on it. Not happy, after all this time, there are still some things you’ll always have a read on. The men following Two Guns know him as the mysterious figure none of them dare to push. But you know Jason Todd. The sweet boy from class who always got the answers right. Who got in trouble for punching another boy because he made fun of you. The one who has always—would always—have a soft spot for you no matter how hard he tried to outrun it.

As you stand before him for the first time in five years,it dawns on you he hadn’t gone after Black Mask expecting for you to be there. His last letter—his real last letter—told you he would find you. He promised, just like he’d promised he’d come home for you. But he’d made a big show of it, made sure you didn’t know who he was beneath the bandana, so the fear seemed real for his audience. His audience, of course, being the gang you ran to when you couldn’t run to him. But this is your Jason; he’d never had any malicious intent. You didn’t know who he was, but he certainly knew you.

“Then will you allow me a little time?” he asks with a terse air of formality.

You don’t want to, but you agree. The foreign look on his face haunts you enough to not want to kick up any dust. Jason doesn’t run; you’ve always known that. You read what the past five years have been like. It’s not something he can dole out in casual conversation.

Riding beside each other in the night offers you time to think, though you’re not sure you appreciate it. Your thoughts seem to go as far and wide as the prairie, racing as fast as your horses.What happens now? When you were kids, everything was so clear cut, but neither of you went in a conventional direction. When it comes to outlaws, what is the protocol for a future?

As if he knows you’re sinking too deep into your thoughts, Jason spares you a glance. His bandana is pulled back up, but you just barely see his eyebrow quirk up in the darkness. Before you can make his meaning, he begins to speed up. He’s testing you. He wants to see what you’ve picked up since he last saw you, curious by the unexpected turn your life had taken you on.

You give your horse a small kick, speeding up alongside him, shooting him a glare when he glances back your way. You’ll indulge him, but you aren’t going to play around with him.

Or so you think as he starts to speed up again.

The glow of town is so faint in the distance, and his gang is long behind you. It’s just you and him, and that has you feeling bold. So you speed up again, still looking stern as you race beside him. “You’re gonna wear these horses down,” you call over the rush of hooves.

Jason’s eyes are crinkled at the corners again. “Naw,” he replies. “Rochester loves to run.”

As you get closer to town, Jason starts to slow down and you follow his lead. You worry about being a known associate of Black Mask alongside ‘Two Guns’ Todd, an incredibly prominent outlaw, but if Jason is concerned, he doesn’t bat an eye. You’re not sure if it’s his confidence or his reputation that gets you a room in the inn, but it’s certainly not the scowl on your face plastered there to make sure no one thinks you’re there for sex.

He tosses his hat on the bed first. Slips the leather gloves off his long, thick fingers. Fingers you remember as much nimbler from childhood. Hands that had fewer scars when you knew them. Finally, he hurries with the knot of his bandana, freeing himself of the burdens of hiding who he really is.

And now, as he stands before you, and it fully registers for the first time that this is Jason. Not a ghost, nor a haunted nightmare of who he could have been had he gotten to grow up. He’s as real as you are, and your heart pounds with the ache of it.

“Why didn’t you send those letters?” The flame of your anger seems to have been snuffed, now leaving you with only the energy to breathe your question.

Jason looks at you, pinched between the brows. “You read ‘em. You think they make me look very favorable?”

“Favorable?” you scoff. “God dammit, Jason, I thought you were dead. Who gives a damn about favor?”

He laughs. “You sound like you’ve been riding with a gang all this time.”

The attempt to diffuse your mood only fans the flame. You shove him again, this time harder than before. He has to take a step back to catch himself. His eyebrow quirks up at you again, and you want to smack the expression off his face.

“You were alive, and you never told me.”

“Well, sounds like you didn’t stick around very long to wait for me.” He’s still trying to tease you.

You give him another shove. His eyes light up with something. “I would have gotten married off! I couldn’t stay there and wait for someone who wasn’t you.” You shake your head, taking a step back to try and calm yourself down. Jason is just so damn sturdy now. He’s gone against the worst of the worst out here and come out on top. He’s survived death. What are a few pushes for him after that?

Before you can step away, Jason catches your wrist, just above where he’d bandaged them earlier.

“You went to Black Mask of all people,” Jason replies. He smooths his thumb over the linen wrappings gently despite the accusation in his voice. He touches you like he’s reading the signs of what happened to you while he was gone.

“I must have missed the word that Two Guns was looking for crew,” you chide.

From downstairs, you can hear the lively chatter of the people at the bar. Next door, you hear a happy paying customer moaning through the paper thin walls. And between you and Jason is silence, your words hanging heavy in the air.

In a show of the boy you knew, Jason’s cheeks flush slightly as he stares down at the ground, no longer able to meet your eyes. Good, you think. Let him feel ashamed of himself.

And as you glance away as well, you realize his shame may be coming from not his actions but his reaction to your stern voice. A bulge grows in his pants, and for a moment, your brain seems to slip away from your anger. But you only allow yourself the moment.

You’re mad. You have every right to be. You’d mourned for him. You’d planned a life without him in it after the heartbreak of losing him. And he has the nerve to get hard while you’re trying to get an apology.

Except you realize how big he is now. No longer the small, underfed boy you’d shared apples with in the schoolyard. Now he’s all muscle and strength from all of his many activities these past few years. He’s a fierce outlaw, and yet he’s still pink on the ears because of you.

You’re still angry, you remind yourself as your desire seems to catch up with you. You knew what it was like to be held by those hands when they were smaller. But now you can’t help but imagine them smoothing down your skin. You think of running your fingertips over the skin lightened by scar tissue. While he still glances away from you, your eyes flicker over him, hungry to know the grown up Jason.

When you push him again, he falls back onto the bed behind him, eyes surprised up at you. All it takes is a glance, and he knows exactly where your mind is. The hard-on jerks in his pants.

“I wanted you dead for the way you touched those letters,” you say. Jason blushes, but his eyes drink you in as you push him back against the headboard. “When you started opening them, I was thinking of all of the ways I’d get back at you.”

A warm palm wraps around your hip, pulling you close to him, but moves it as soon as he has you on his lap. Like he needs to touch you but can only stomach it for so long at a time like touching a pot still too hot from a flame. The grief that ate you alive was the longing he carried to have you in his life yet again.

One of your hands runs up his firm chest before your fingers curl around his thick neck. You don’t squeeze, but you feel his cock jerk against your thigh nonetheless.

“Lotta people have tried to kill me over the years, sweetheart,” he says, staring up at you like you’ve said something romantic.

Warmth shoots up to your stomach as you drag yourself across his lap. Jason’s punched out air brushes against your collar as he stifles a groan. “Did you let all of them get this close to you?” you whisper.

Jason is far from vulnerable with his guns still strapped on, but you know your Jason; his eyes are always on the prize, always have been since you were kids. You can’t imagine he’d been climbing into many beds when there was work to be done.

There’s no suave answer. Just a quick shake of his head as you drag yourself across his bulge. You duck your head into his neck, pressing your lips against the warm skin of his neck. His hands land on your hips again, curling into the fabric of your clothes. His breath is hot against your cheek.

“I got your gun earlier, didn’t I?” you ask, grinding against him yet again.

This time, he lets out a blissed sigh before he speaks. “Didn’t get you very far.” It’s subtle, but you catch the slight pitch in his voice.

You kiss along the muscles of his neck, feeling him jerk against your seam. Your hips roll into his again, trying to ease the aching between your legs. “I’ve got you distracted,” you murmur, grinding against him to prove a point.

The sound Jason makes is a mixture of a laugh and a groan. He bats his dark eyelashes open, looking at you like a long lost love. Your stomach flips with it. “You wouldn’t kill me now, would you?” he breathes.

You feel drunk on the sounds he makes. For the first time in who knows how long, you feel good. Genuinely. Your mind isn’t on a job or running for your life. Right now, the only thing you care about is the fact that Jason’s heart is still beating.

No. Never.

Instead of a response, you tug at his jacket, the scent of earth and leather lingering once you toss it off the bed. A fear seizes in your chest that this could all be a dream. That you’ll wake back up at Mask’s camp, Jason’s letters hiding away in a bag, and the warmth of his body fleeting with your wakefulness. This moment won’t pass you by without you digging your nails in.

Your lips crash into Jason’s, your hand moving up from his neck to hold onto his jaw.

He kisses like a man starved. Long gone are the timid brushes of lips, and sweaty palms reaching out for your fingertips. His hand stretches out on the back of your skull to hold you against him like he can’t afford to be without.

You feel the growing wetness of your drawers as you grind against him yet again, letting out a breathless sigh against his lips.

Jason’s head falls back, a low groan slipping from his kiss-flushed lips. His lids grow heavy over his eyes, fingers clinging onto your clothes. The sound seems to wipe everything from your mind except for Jason. He’s here. You’re in his lap, kissing him as if your lives depend on it. While you kiss him, there’s no history, and yet there’s all the history in the world. The first time you kissed him. The way his cheeks turned beet red every time you looked at him for a week after.

You kiss furiously as you both shed clothes, until your skin presses up against his. Until you’re sinking down on him, pussy fluttering at the feeling of being filled so deeply. A breathless curse slips through your lips as your head falls against Jason’s chest.

His arms wrap around you, holding you flush against him, another low moan rumbling in his chest. Your breath catches when you feel his heart pounding against your chest. You’re wrapped in Jason Todd’s arms, and everything is right with the world again.

Slowly, you raise your hips just to sink back down again. Jason’s hand catches your head as it tips back, pulling you into his lips again. You rest your hands on his shoulders, using him as leverage as you start to build up your pace, acclimating to the stretch of him.

You ride him, and Jason goes the extra mile to push you down even deeper on his cock each time you lower down, feeling him nudging at something blindingly brilliant. With Jason’s hands back on your waist, no longer holding you to his mouth, his moans fill the room. You could listen to him all night. Jason, who’s been through so much in his life—more than you even know—deserves this, even if he caused you sleepless nights and endless tears.

Your fingers drag through his thick, dark curls, gripping onto the strands at their base. His nails dig into the flesh of your hips as he lets out a whine. The noise drives something in you, burrowing into your brain until all you can think is how badly you need to hear it again. So you tug, and Jason’s lips break from yours to breathe another needy whimper.

With their newfound freedom, your lips move down to Jason’s jaw, nibbling, your breath hot on his skin. You feel warmth growing in the pit of your stomach along with the burning in your thighs, but you can’t even consider stopping now.

He promised you he’d find you. Jason Todd has always been true to his word.

You’re so full of relief and so full of him, you feel tears prickling at your eyes. You’re not sure if it’s more from the pleasure or the fact that you’re together again. As you pull back to look at Jason’s face, you see his eyes watering too, staring up at you like you’re something heavenly.

Both of you crying. You almost laugh, but it gets caught in your throat as Jason’s cock hits something blinding as he holds you down even deeper than ever. Your cry breaks through the room, eyes pinched shut as warmth washes over you. Everything seems to slip out beneath you, and for the first time in a very long time, you feel absolutely weightless.

Jason catches you when you lean back too far, guiding you so you still rock on him through the comedown of your orgasm. Your head clears just in time to catch Jason’s eyes as they roll shut. Even as your legs shake, you go back to work, the meat of your ass slapping against his lap.

He groans out your name, holds your hips down against him, and you feel him spilling into you. Lips parted as he groans, cock twitching against the walls of your pussy.

As he comes down, Jason just holds you against him. You savor his rapidly beating heart, the rising and fall of his chest, the smell of sweat and sex in the air because it’s him. You’re collapsed against your Jason, hand lazily draped against his chest as you still clench around him in the aftershock of your orgasm.

When you feel as if you’ve come to your body more, you look back up at him, wiping away the fallen tears from his cheeks with the pad of your thumbs. He does the same in suit, holding onto your cheek after he does.

“I’m never letting you out of my sight again,” he says. And you believe him.

a/n: huge shoutout to @janybabyy for beta reading as always 💛 if you enjoyed this, please consider giving it a reblog or sharing your thoughts

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