agoodyarn | for batmansphoenix: post Eudio

for batmansphoenix: post Eudio

It's harder than one might assume, finding the Red Hood. Whether or not he wants to be found is an entirely different matter, of course, but given that Cassandra is freshly returned from Eudio, it's one of the first missions she gives herself. Because she was so very sure that they were from the same world. So very sure. Sure enough that she could hope.

Because she'd missed him. Because she'd felt something small and precious that had started to grow and now that she was home, she wanted to see if he would grow it with her. So Jason, don't be surprised that someone knocks on your door. She is Batgirl, after all. And things might be hard, but she makes it a point never to fail.

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Jason hadn’t been expecting it.

Sure, he could have hoped. He hoped for many things, that had always been his biggest flaw. He could be aggressive, hurtful, cynical and distrustful but at the end of it all nothing he’d gone through had killed the spark of hope in him. And that, apparently, included meeting the batgirl he’d gotten to meet in Eudio.

But logically, he was aware that Cass had no reason to look for him now that they were both back. She had her own life, her own mission, her own… thing, and their paths didn’t have to cross. He’d say bye when he’d left and that should have been it, and Jason was- well, fine might not have been the right word for it. But he was definitely ready to deal with missing her.

So imagine his surprise when her face is all over the cameras he has set to protect his safehouse. He opens the door for her- and doesn’t bother masking his surprise because he knows it’d be silly, with her.

“...Hi?”

She's satisfied, at least, by the fact that she can recognize that he recognizes her. She had been right. This was the Jason she'd met, the one she'd gotten to know. And while he was surprised to see her, he wasn't precisely unhappy about it. At least, she was pretty certain of that. When it came to happiness and any member of the Batfamily, it was always an iffy question.

"I finished. It was hard to find you."

At least that makes Jason grin.

“Yeah. Being hard to find is kind of the idea.” He’s happy to see her, but not exactly pleased at the fact that she could find him to begin with. But she has resources not everyone has, he probably doesn’t have to burn everything and run the hell away. Probably.

“Come in, Princess.”

She comes in, but she makes a point of not looking around. Instead, as soon as she's in, her attention turns back to Jason.

"Did you think I wouldn't want to see you, that it wasn't me you'd met, you didn't know I was back, or were you just busy?"

Jason just... blinks, at first. His entire body screaming confusion because Cass is- mad at him? For not contacting her?

"I... all of the above? I didn't know you were back, but if I had, I wouldn't- I don't know. Bat-clan in this world isn't all that keen on seeing me around." And he didn't want to find out Cass had come back only to end up being the same.

Not at all mad. Merely trying to find out the answer to the question. His response gets a firm nod before she smiles up at him, the same way she had that one day they'd gone to get a meal together. She really is happy to see him.

"I know there's no debt to be repaid here. But I missed you."

She wants to touch him, just his hand. Maybe a hug if they get there. She's asking permission in her own way.

There's a pause, for a second. This kind of thing doesn't come automatically for Jason. He runs the words in his head, processes them, then analyzes his own response.

"Me, too." He finally says, after he's decided that it's a) true and b) Cass isn't going to use it against him. She has a lot more to use against him if she wanted to. And yes, he should have learned to trust her by now but that's really not how Jason operates.

He reaches for her hand. Jason might not be the expert Cass is, but that doesn't mean he doesn't know how to read people. Right now he's honestly more flabbergasted about her being here than anything else.

"I didn't really want to leave. Leave while you were there, I mean."

She gives his hand a squeeze once they're joined and looks up at him with a nod. She'd known that when he'd left. It was why she'd come to find him afterwards. If he'd wanted to leave, she never would have made an effort to seek him out. She would have considered the whole thing done, and if Batgirl met the Red Hood...

It probably would not have been with a smile on.

"We're both here now."

That's the important thing.

"That we are."

And even if he isn't sure what the heck that means, for them, it does make him happy to have Cass around.

"Does B know you're here?"

"Probably."

She hadn't told him, didn't really think it had anything to do with him, but she also knows he keeps a watch on her, the same as any of the others. And if he wasn't watching her at the moment, he was probably watching Jason; putting two Bats together increased the likelihood exponentially in her mind.

"I've told him about my trip to Eudio. But I didn't tell him I was coming here. It's none of his business."

Then she’s already told him more than Jason has, but that isn’t really a surprise. He has basically been avoiding Bruce since he got here, as always- because as far as he’s concerned nothing really has changed outside of him getting his reward. Jason might have had a better relationship with the Bruce in Eudio but that was… Different.

Right?

“Not gonna hear me disagree with that.” He tilts his head, reaching to rub the back of his head because. Well. How do. “Wanna get something to eat? I feel like we gotta talk about a lot of stuff.”

"That would be good," she agrees as she falls into step beside him, but she can't help but frown up at him.

"Stuff?"

What stuff did they have to talk about? Why did it have to involve talking?

A shrug. “Stuff.”

Look, talking isn’t exactly Jason’s favorite way to pass the time either. And it’s even harder for Cass. He gets that. But he can also guess some things.

“You want to go to how things were, right? Before that place.”

She blinks as she tries to think of what he might mean by that. 'Before that place' means when they didn't know one another. Why would she want that?

"I missed you," she says, a little slow because he's clearly missing the point. "I came to see you because I missed you."

He’s not just missing the point, he purposely threw the point somewhere dark so he didn’t have to find it. He doesn’t want to hurt her, he really doesn’t, and the way he sees it the more she sticks around the more he’s going to hurt her.

Even if he isn’t sure how.

“I…” He reaches to rub the back of his neck. Lying would be stupid, considering she would read it all over his body. It’d probably make her curious about why he felt he had to lie. “I missed you too.

You were one of the best things in that place.”

She smiles as she watches him, sees and reads all the nuances of his words and his comments from his body, and reaches out for his hand, though she leaves it ultimately in his court as to whether or not their hands meet. She'd like to hold his hand, though. Because he was one of the best things in that place. She was just lucky enough that he was here, in her world, after that place.

"Of course. I'm awesome."

The smile turned playful like punctuation.

That gets an amused chuckle out of Jason, some (but not all) of the awkwardness leaving his shoulders. He meets her halfway, reaching to hold her hand. He may not be as physical explaining himself as Cass is (for obvious reasons), but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t get the importance of even that simple gesture.

He runs a thumb through the back of her hand.

“I didn’t want to leave.” A beat. “I should have come talked to you, after you came back.”

She shrugs at that, as she doesn't necessarily agree. But she can guess why he thinks that.

"It's better this way."

She looks up at him with a little smile, smaller and less playful. It's simple, and earnest in what it intends to say.

"You know that we met again because I wanted to."

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