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sellyourshadownotyoursoul · 2 months ago

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DP x DC WIP: Magical Sugar Daddy

The world exists in shades of green. Everywhere Jason looks he sees sickness and death and the perverted unfairness of it all.

There's blood on his boots, accompanied by the pleasant ache of tired muscles. His hand is still buzzing from the recoil of his gun - the breath in his lungs is tinged with cigarette smoke, dry and acidic.

There's been a presence behind him for a while now, trailing after him no matter what he does to lose the tail. It's like a prickle of static in the air, faint enough to dismiss for anyone less paranoid.

Jason's body is a spring wound too tight, the metal screeching in protest as the feeling of being watched intensifies.

A week and change since he's had a moment of peace.

When he hears the scuffle of a shoe on the quiet rooftop it's no wonder he explodes into action.

The trigger is pulled before he's even turned his head, a roar of thunder in his ears. The butt of his gun misses its target by a hair's breadth as he brings it down in an arc followed up by a kick that finally earns him a reaction. The figure grunts in pain and surprise, but the step it takes backwards isn't one of staggered retreat. It's a pivot on a heel and a coil of muscle before Jason's stalker is vaulting over the smokestack at their side, launching them back into the fight proper.

Jason growls low in his throat, like his lungs do not exchange oxygen for carbon dioxide but what he exhales is instead a heady mix of hunger and rage. There's an answering sound, a hiss pitched high at the end as the two of them clash once more.

Jason blocks a punch and pushes the muzzle of his gun against an unguarded shoulder, point blank. His target flinches hard enough that the shot only clips them but that gives Jason the opportunity for a follow-up punch to the jaw.

The hood of his stalker falls to their shoulders and Jason answers the grin on their face with a baring of teeth hidden behind his mask.

Jason gets a kick to the ribs while he reloads the gun and subsequently opts to just holster the thing so he can have both hands free. The other asshole isn't much bigger than Jason and their guard is sloppy.

He won't need weapons for this.

A misstep from his opponent has Jason surging forward to fling them over the edge of the roof before a flip that would make Dickie proud reverses their positions. It forces Jason to roll under a kick so he isn't the one meeting the pavement at lethal velocity.

His attacker appears male, age unclear but certainly out of their twenties. Jason grabs the snowy white braid that flows behind them and feels a rush at the gasp that pulls from the guy, even as the retaliation gets him an uppercut that makes his vision swim.

Jason twists the hair around his fist, forcing the head it's attached to into the pavement at their feet.

He slams it down once, twice, before a leg around his own has him lose his balance. He lands on his elbow and curses at the pain shooting through it even as he gets back up and rounds on his opponent. He blocks a punch by diverting it outwards, stepping back and to the side so the fight stays in the center of the roof.

There's blood running freely down the other man's front from a nose that Jason bets is broken, the liquid looks jet black in Jason's monochromatic world of sickly lazarus green.

The eyes watching him are wide and alert, a manic edge to them from the bared fangs and the tense posture. They both surge forward, trading blows and kicks until they're breathing heavy and Jason can tell his opponent is flagging.

The way they move makes it clear they're not a fighter, at least not one with a preference for hand-to-hand. They keep up with Jason just barely, but it's already clear who the winner is going to be, even as Jason lets it drag out until there's sweat running down his back.

A kick from Jason's steel toed boot against an unarmored shin is what finally ends it. His opponent falls to the ground with a curse and they don't get back up even as Jason looms over them. Their eyes are half-lidded, hands sprawled out limply above their head in defeat, but there's a smile on their face that really tests Jason's ability to suppress the urge to tear out their throat. He places a boot on the guy's sternum and puts enough weight on it to show he's serious.

A low sound, a mix of a grunt and a laugh, precedes a weak attempt to buck Jason off but he doesn't budge.

“Talk,” Jason rasps.

A dark tongue swipes through the drying blood on his assailant’s lips and they cough wetly before responding.

“Nice to meet you,” is what he says, strained from the pressure on his lungs, “fuck, you're good.”

“Who sent you?” Jason's demand is curious but dripping with derision. Who would send a fucking prodigy of stealth just to have them suck at actually taking out the target?

Jason hadn't been able to lose this stalker for over a week, had gotten litterally zero intel on who this fucker is despite having Oracle and half his own men on high alert.

And then the guy just walks up and scuffs his shoe against the pavement?

Suicide by Red Hood much?

“Technically Clockwork, but I'm not really-” the guy coughs again, trying to breathe, “not really someone people can send.”

Jason prompts him to continue with an addition of pressure to his ribs. He doesn't feel any sort of armor under the neutral hoodie, nor do the cargo pants look like they're in any way reinforced. They're clean though and clearly not the kind of worn Jason expects for someone trying to blend in this side of town. No camouflage tech unless it's nano-sized.

The man wrinkles his nose, eyes flicking down to the boot and back up to Jason's face.

“Okay, look I know I'm late, but I'm here to apologize,” he says with another little grunt and a wiggle. Jason keeps him pinned.

“I didn't actually know you were mine until a year ago-”

“Yours?” Jason scoffs, something sour rising in his gut.

“Yeah?”

“I don't fucking belong to you,” Jason states darkly, one hand unholstering his gun.

There isn't any immediate reaction to the escalation, but Jason can feel a strange charge in the air. The body underneath him certainly doesn't relax.

“Fuck, okay sure, yeah, no ownership,” the guy huffs but the voice is not nearly as afraid as it should be, “that's kind of, ah, what I wanted to talk about.”

“And if I tell you to fuck off?”

“Then I'll fuck off.”

Jason pauses, tilting his head in consideration.

“Who are you?” Jason's question is wary and curt, a final offer to change his mind before he cocks his gun. The guy under him watches with bright, intense eyes, seemingly unperturbed by the monster looming above.

“I'm the reason you're still alive, Jason.”

Jason laughs coldly at the boldness of that statement.

“Bullshit,” he spits.

The eyes continue to watch him, appearing to glow in the faint light. The guy's face is set in a grimace, but it's one of mild inconvenience rather than pain. He should have a concussion at least, not to mention a fracture or two, so he's either trained to withstand pain or some kind of meta. Maybe he's hopped up on some new drug that's got him unaware of the damage. A byproduct of whatever made him so difficult to track.

Neither of them are panting anymore.

“Last chance,” Jason drawls as he takes aim at a damp forehead, already feeling the anticipatory rush that comes with taking a life.

He is admittedly not intending to let this little stalker live no matter what comes out of his mouth. Not when he knows Jason's name, not when there might not be another chance to tie up the loose end.

The guy seems aware of it too, eyes flickering over Jason's mask as if trying to find the right combination of words to buy just a little more time.

He opens his mouth, closes it again.

He sighs through his nose, a wet sound when it displaces the coagulating blood, and lets his head fall back against the concrete rooftop. The message seems clear in the resigned set of his shoulders and Jason feels an irrational indignance at being denied the struggle.

Nevertheless he pulls the trigger.

BANG

The sound echoes into the distance until it blends into every other incriminating noise Gotham makes at night. Jason frowns down at the would-be corpse.

He couldn't have missed, not with the muzzle barely a foot from its target - but there's no bullet hole marring the face at his feet. The eyes remain alive and aware as they watch Jason's growing confusion.

“What the fuck,” he mutters.

That earns him a stuffy snort. The man's hands flare out as if to say ‘ta-dah’ and only flinch minutely when Jason sends another bullet into him.

“Rude,” the guy comments, in the cadence of someone annoyed rather than relieved.

“What are you,” Jason demands in response, forcefully holstering his gun now that it has proven to be worthless. Looks like fists are going to be the way forward.

“Loaded question,” the guy groans unhelpfully, pushing at Jason's leg with little success.

Jason makes a point of momentarily increasing the pressure, staring the fucker down through the whiteouts of his mask.

“You survived a lazarus pit,” stalker offers, the words a sucker punch to an unhealed wound that Jason refuses to acknowledge, “which means you accepted the price that comes with it, whether you knew about it or not.”

“And that explains what, exactly?”

“You asked what I am,” the guy shrugs.

“And you still haven't answered.”

There's a moment where stalker-guy gazes up into the cloudy, dark sky, hands settling from their attempts to remove Jason's boot to instead tap idly against the leather. The fingers are long and thin, the kind an author might describe as suited for playing the piano, the nails neither bitten to the quick nor so long as to appear unkempt. Jason feels a sudden urge to break those fingers one by one just to see if that might yield a more satisfying reaction. Or some answers. His eyes catch on a sleek black band on the ring-finger of the guy's left hand and wonders momentarily if his shadow’s got someone waiting for him. He pities them.

“Price,” Jason prompts, “explain.”

“Right, yeah I can do that-do you mind stepping off? The bullets are digging into my back-”

“Maybe if you give me a reason to,” Jason retorts with a sneer, feeling the absolute furthest from any notion of ‘charitable’.

Stalker-guy sighs.

“Got it, okay, so, I'm basically your magical sugar-daddy-”

“My fucking what-” Jason chokes, feeling distinctly like the gravity of the situation is doing loop-de-loops.

“Your patron. Your new one, anyway,” the guy shrugs again, as if that's a concept that's common knowledge.

Jason forces air into his lungs. The world flickers.

“You paid your soul to my predecessor and he gave you back your memories.”

Jason's insides are made of cracked glass and every syllable pushes further up against it. Isn't the pit rage enough of a price?

“I came to introduce myself,” Jason's apparent ‘magical sugar-daddy’ continues conversationally, “which I guess I still haven't, technically.”

Jason's hands are white-knuckled fists, his vision is green and tunneling. From the moment he had him pinned every word out of his stalker's mouth has done nothing but add more fuel to the anger sitting low in Jason’s gut. The need for this piece of shit to at least have the decency to be afraid.

Talking about Jason's fucking soul - about paying the price and book-ending it with a term as crass as ‘sugar-daddy’ is so discordant it is almost physically painful. Mentioning the pits and claiming to have saved Jason's life in such a blasé manner has him writhing with indignation. The condescension drips from him and his every action, too similar to-

Jason's spiraling is interrupted by a change to his balance. His foot on the guy's chest hits the concrete underneath, the sight of his calf sticking out of what should have been a living, breathing body causing a momentary stutter in Jason's reality.

Then the guy is on his feet, reaching out a hand as if they weren't at each other's throats a moment ago. As if the bullets lodged in the concrete weren't intended for one of their heads. As if he cannot sense the raw malice pouring out of Jason.

“I'm Danny, sorry for the wait.”

#dpxdc #dp x dc crossover #fic wip #danny phantom #jason todd #batman #red hood #i have been consumed by dpxdc for the last while #especially #danny x jason #but also just in general

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