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joaniejustwokeup · 2 years ago

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Jazz jumped at the knock on the window, her hands automatically fisted in front of her, prepared to attack.

��Hey Babe, just got back from my trip and I- oh…” Red Hood paused, taking in his girlfriend’s frazzled appearance.

She knew she looked a mess, her braid pulled apart from the number of times she ran her fingers through her hair, her Team Phantom gear torn off and thrown haphazardly across the couch or onto the kitchen island, a stained apron tied over her jumpsuit. The blank, robotic face of his mask held her deer-in-the-headlights gaze for a startled moment before he clambered the rest of the way through her window. He pulled off his helmet, raising his hands to hold her as he rushed forward, but stopped an inch before touching her.

She felt her eyes grow wet as she looked down at him and nodded. And then he was holding her, all warmth and leather and body armor, smelling of iron and gunpowder and smoke, in a way that was not exactly pleasant, but was familiar and comforting. He kissed where his face nuzzled up into the crook of her neck. He pulled back, looking up at her with his brow furrowed.

“You went on a mission while I was away?”

Jazz sighed, rubbing her face with one hand, tracing the shoulder seam of his jacket with the other.

“Yeah… It wasn’t a bad one, really it wasn’t. It’s just… it was an ex-GIW lab and they had Danny’s DNA. We destroyed and confiscated their research, but we don’t know how they got it or if it got passed around, and I just- we don’t even fully know what they were doing at the lab, not yet. Danny and Tuck are still analyzing what was pulled from their servers. And Ancients, if it’s another clone situation, or some kind of weapon that targets Danny…” Jazz trailed off.

“Hey,” Jason said as he cupped her cheek. “We’ll figure it out, I promise.”

Jazz slumped forward with another heavy exhale, leaning in to kiss his forehead.

“Yeah. I know. Thanks Jason.”

Jason gave her a soft smile before he visibly sniffed the air.

“Are you making snickerdoodles?”

Jazz smiled back at him.

“Gingersnaps, actually. I came back from the mission and was waiting around for when you got back from your trip tonight and- well. You were the one that introduced me to the joys of stress-baking.”

A timer went off behind them and Jazz scrambled to throw on her oven mitts and pull two trays laden with molasses brown cookies out from the oven. They smelled amazing.

She be placed the trays on the burners of the stove, the countertop already occupied by another tray. And another tray. And two more trays on the island. And a large plate of cookies on the table. And another plate of cookies on the bar.

“Babe…” Jason tried to smother his smile as he looked around the the apartment. “How many batches of cookies did you make?”

Jazz blushed as she took off her mitts, her eyes darting around the room.

“I don’t know, like… four or five maybe?”

“Four or five maybe?” Jason laughed.

“Hey, I was stressed! And you weren’t back yet and I-,” she was cut off by Jason pulling her into a deep kiss. When he pulled back, he smiled wolfishly up at her.

“I love you Jazz.”

She hummed in response and pulled him into another kiss. And another. And another. Ancients, she had missed him.

———

God, I’ve missed her, Jason thought as he pulled away. He sighed.

“As much as I’d love to spend the night kissing you, I do have a meeting with my men planned tonight. I can cancel if you…”

“No, no,” Jazz reassured him. “I’m fine Jason. We can pick up where we left off when you get back,” she said looking down at him through her lashes, stroking the edge of his jaw with her thumb. Then she brightened as a thought popped into her head. “Actually, it’s great!” She rushed over to one of the cabinets.

“Huh?”

Jazz giggled. She pulled down a few plastic containers and began to fill them with cookies.

“You were the one to point out I made too many cookies. You can bring them to your meeting tonight- tell them it’s a welcome home present from me that I told you to share with them.”

“Aw what? I don’t even get to try one before you box them all up?”

Jazz rolled her eyes, passing him over two from a tray that was still cooling on the stove.

The cookie was still warm and soft as he bit into it, a bit of sweet smelling steam curling off its side.

It was…

It was perfect.

It was sweet and spicy, with bits of sugar and crystallized ginger sprinkled on top that melted in his mouth. But there was something else too. Some unnameable flavor that made Jason think of curling up with a favorite book on a rainy day, or the rush of joy he felt when he first put on the Robin costume all those years ago, or the humming satisfaction of a bullseye from 100 yards, or the bittersweet happiness of hugging Alfred for the first time after so many years apart. It tasted like home, and Jazz, and safety. It was a comforting cookie with just the right amount of bite. Jason groaned and practically shoved the other cookie in his mouth.

Jazz raised her eyebrows.

“Good?”

“Good? Jazz, these are amazing!”

Jazz’s smile widened as she blushed.

“Seriously Jazz, I don’t know how you did it, these are so good.” He went to reach for another and pouted when he realized she had packed them all away. How had she done that so fast?

“Don’t give me that look. You can have more when you get to your meeting. Now, shoo!” she said, handing him two bags filled to the brim with containers of cookies. “I’ve kept you here too long already.”

Jason smiled back on her.

“No such thing with you, darling.”

Her blush spread to the tips of her tapered ears.

“Oh Ancients, just go!” She pushed him towards the window, nearly unbalancing him with a third bag of cookies.

“Okay, okay I’m going! I’ll be home in a few hours. Love you,” he called from the fire escape.

“Love you too,” she echoed.

He allowed himself one last lovestruck look back at her before pulling on his helmet and grappling down to the alley where he left his bike. He felt a rush of satisfaction as his motorcycle purred to life beneath him and he pulled onto a busy Gotham street.

It was good to be home.

———

There was something evil in those bags.

Bill had worked as a goon, a minion, a henchman, whatever you call it, for quite some time now. That kind of work, in Gotham no less, gives a guy a sense for these sorts of things. Bill’s hands weren’t clean, hardly anybody from around here had that kind of luxury. He’d hauled fear toxin, wired bombs, and shot at far too many people to count. He’s not proud of a lot of the things he’s done. But it did give him a feel for when things don’t quite feel right.

And those bags didn’t feel right. They didn’t feel right at all.

Which was a surprise, considering Red Hood had been the one to put them on the table and declare them a “special surprise” for the end of the meeting.

Red Hood, despite his reputation, was a halfway decent guy. If he was ten years younger and ten times more naive, Bill might’ve even called him honorable. A good person, even. For a crime lord at least.

The thing with Red Hood was that he cared. He wanted their little hellhole to get better. Underneath all the guns and severed heads, he hid a hopeful optimism that was downright contagious once a fellow realized what it was. Bill could see it in how he paid for health insurance for his gang members, including the working girls. He could see it in how Red Hood set up safe injection sites in Crime Alley, where the people they sold to could shoot up without fearing an overdose. He could see it in how the boss arranged book and clothing swaps right at the start of the school year, where an anonymous donor would always just happen to leave thousands of dollars worth of brand new books and clothes every year. He saw it in the soup kitchens they delivered groceries to every weekend.

‘Course it wasn’t all charity and rainbows. There were drug deals, arms deals, gang wars, gun fights. Threats to keep his people in line that were far from empty. Territory disputes that ended in casualties and hard goodbyes.

But Bill never got the sense that their lives were disposable to Red Hood, like they were to most of the other rogues. The opposite actually. If you were from Crime Alley, you were his, and that meant something. If you were Red Hood’s you were protected.

So then why did he bring in something that felt like death? Bill wondered to himself.

A latecomer with a familiar buzz cut sat down next to him with a heavy thunk.

“Bill,” she grunted in greeting.

“Toni,” he grunted back.

She side-eyed the bags from across the room.

“What are those?” She asked gruffly.

“Dunno,” he responded. “Surprise, I guess.”

He could see the hairs on her arms raising the longer she looked at it. In a way, it was comforting to know he wasn’t the only one to feel the waves of evil emanating from those bags. He caught others nervously eyeing them as the meeting went on as well.

Finally, the last of his lieutenants had finished up their reports and Hood nodded in approval.

“Alright. Thank you everyone for keeping things in line while I was away. As a reward, my partner made something special for all of you.”

Partner? He couldn’t mean…

“As some of you may remember, Jazz has been learning to bake. I’ll admit, there were a few hiccups at first,” Red Hood chuckled as he started unloading containers from the bags, and Bill felt his stomach drop. “But I think she really hit it out of the park with this one. So! Everyone come up and take a cookie,” he said shaking a now open container of gingersnaps.

Oh no, Bill thought to himself.

The gang had learned about the boss’s girl a few months back when she came to drop off something Hood had forgotten at home. A sweet girl. Built like an Amazon. Dodged bullets like she was born walking through gunfire. Boss looked at her like she hung the moon and the stars, and honestly, Bill couldn’t blame him. She looked like the kind of gal that could throw a man through a wall and he’d say, “Thank you ma’am.” Could throw a woman too if the look on Toni’s face was any indication.

Not that Jazz ever would, sweet girl that she was. No, if she had a problem with you she was much more likely too sit you down and ask you about your childhood and how you were feeling. Bill knew most of the guys would rather be thrown through the wall.

But Bill knew one thing to be true, even before he’d met the woman.

You did not disrespect the boss’s girl.

Especially a boss like Red Hood’s.

So, with all the enthusiasm of prisoners on death row walking towards the electric chair, Red Hood’s goons shuffled up to the front, each taking a cookie as they passed by.

The aura of impending doom was even stronger now that Bill was holding one.

It smelled… fine? Good even. Like molasses and ginger and cinnamon. Maybe even a little lemony.

He screwed his courage and took a bite, swallowing quickly, before the taste could even register.

It was as he was taking another bite that the flavor really hit him.

The cookie didn’t just feel like death.

It tasted like it too.

It tasted like the cold press of a gun to the back of your head. It tasted like walking over freshly dried concrete and still being able to hear the screams of your buddy who’d been buried alive right where you now stood. It tasted like Joker venom as it twisted your face into a rictus grin and you couldn’t help but laugh and laugh at how you knew the Bats would never make it to you in time with the antidote. It tasted like the beeping of a bomb as a voice over the loudspeaker yelled “Riddle me this, Batman!” It tasted like a graveyard. It tasted like poison.

Had they been poisoned?

Bill looked around.

Everyone seemed to be handling the cookies differently. Some were completely unaffected, chowing down on the cookies no problem, though maybe with a slight grimace at the flavor. Others had expressions ranging from mild concern to downright terror as they either swallowed or tried to subtly spit mouthfuls of cookie into their hands.

“Jesus fuck,” muttered Toni. She was staring at her cookie in horror, a large bite taken out of it. “How is that a fucking flavor?”

Bill looked over at Red Hood, but he hardly seemed to have noticed the reactions of his crew. He’d taken his helmet off and was munching away at the cookies in his domino mask. He was… savoring them? He had a blissful expression as he bit into another cookie, like it was somehow the best tasting thing in the fucking world.

What the Hell was going on?

———

Danny called while Jazz was cleaning up the kitchen.

“Hey Danny,” she answered. “How’s the research going? Find anything yet?”

“Yeah actually,” he said. “You remember that time Spectra and Bertrand kidnapped our high school by infecting everyone with parasitic ghost bugs?”

“And everyone developed flu-like symptoms along with individualized ghost abilities?”

“Yup,” he said, popping the p. “Ok so, what these guys were doing with my DNA? It’s like that.”

Jazz stilled.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, they were looking into how to give humans ghost powers, without making them fully liminal. They were really close too, possibly even successful, it’s still not clear. Nothing was ever permanent, especially with how the GIW, er, I guess ex-GIW, has its employees get ecto-purged every few weeks to prevent them from becoming liminal from the build up of ecto-contamination.” Danny sighed.

“They had this substance, a powder apparently, that they formed into pills or dissolved and injected into their test subjects, and then the subjects would experience basic ghost abilities for up to two days afterward. Flight, intangibility, invisibility, that sort of thing.”

As Danny spoke, Jazz started rinsing out her mixing bowls in the sink and loading them into the dishwasher.

“Side effects included nausea, slowed heart rate, emotional dysregulation, anxiety, a sense of impending doom, and, in extreme cases, hallucinations and/or the delusion that one was already dead. The subjects weren’t great at controlling their powers either, but that was probably just inexperience rather than a side effect.”

“Okay,” Jazz prompted. “So what does that mean for us?”

“We don’t know yet,” said Danny. “I mean, obviously it’s not great that they were using my ectoplasm to make this stuff, but it honestly looks like it wasn’t shared outside of this one lab? Hopefully, at least. I guess the next thing we’ll need to do is bring the powder to Frostbite and have him analyze it.”

“Alright. Let me know what he says when you reach him.”

“Oh we can’t leave yet. You have the powder.”

Jazz froze.

“Wait, what?”

She could practically hear her little brother rolling his eyes.

“Remember? Me and Tuck handled the data and gadgets, Sam grabbed the paper documents, and you were supposed to grab the chemical samples?”

“Right. Right! I remember. I have them right here next to… my… gear…” Jazz trailed off as she looked over at the kitchen island.

There, uncapped next to her containers of cinnamon and ginger, was a shiny chrome container of a fluorescent green powder. A measuring spoon was sticking out of it. When she looked at the bowl she’d placed in the sink, she could see streaks of bright green powder along the side.

“Jazz? Jaaaaaazz- Earth to Jazz? I don’t like how you said that, you trailed off all ominous. Do you have the experiment or not?”

“Oh Ancients,” Jazz whispered as she realized what she’d done. “I’ve turned into our mother.”

“What???” yelled Danny.

DPxDC prompt - Poison cookies?

Anger Management (Jazz/Jason)

Established relationship - post reveals.

Jazz is trying a new cookie recipe and miscalculates and makes a fuck ton of cookies so she asks Jason if he could pass them along to his goons?

The cookies are not bad but they taste weird and some suspect they are actually poison, but if Red Hood says they are from his girlfriend/wife and she wants feedback, you have to eat them, or else

#anger management #jazz fenton #jason todd #jazz x jason #my writing #ok so #I had about five hundred more words written #where Jason gets high off cookies and his goons are trying to figure out how to handle their new ghost powers #but I realized I had no idea where it was going #I mean- it had some sweet thoughts and dialogue from Red Hood about his goons and protecting them #but I couldn’t really tell where this story was actually going #so I thought I’d just end it here #anyway #Tall Jazz! Tall Jazz! Tall Jazz! Tall Jazz!#hey it’s Bill!#Bill the Goon #Red Hood’s gang is definitely part of the Goonion #Toni is here because I am of the firm belief that every story can be made at least 50% better with the inclusion of a butch lesbian #the gang’s about to have an interesting time of it not gonna lie #‘I bit a radioactive cookie and now I have ghost powers’#reverse spider-man but with a cookie

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