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Jason felt a sickening mess of emotions coagulating in his chest like hot blood cooling on winter pavement. Out of some odd feeling of self-preservation, he looked down at his hands, seeing new and old sins staining his fingers. Anger and shame mixed together at the sight, and he wiped his hands on his pants, as if he could clean it away with such a simple gesture.
Raven was there, in front of him, her face unreadable behind the shadows of the hood of her cloak. On the list of people he hoped he wouldn’t see, she was at the top.
He knew why he didn’t want to see her, but the memories that caused the feelings were jumbled and out of order. Nothing made chronological sense - long, breathless conversations while they were both soaked in sweat and naked seemed to precede blushing introductions.
He saw an image of himself - young, gap-toothed, and grinning through a bruise under his eye - and a shy, young Raven, peeking at him from the hem of her hood, giving a low laugh at a terrible joke he found on a popsicle stick. Warmth filled his stomach at the memory, before it soured with shame. Where was that boy? What happened to him?
He was lost somewhere in the Pit.
She let go of a deep sigh that seemed to rattle the walls around them. “ Jason .”
Jason winced at the sound of his name clinging to her vanilla-flavored lips. She knew, obviously . Of course she knew - she was here, and their relationship had been secret to the outside world, but they were both bare to each other. In spite of being the “World’s Greatest Detective”, Bruce hadn’t even found him out yet. It had been several months since Jason was back in Gotham as Red Hood, and the idiot still hadn’t put two and two together.
His mouth twitched in a grimace and Jason pulled the red helmet from his head, not bothering to hide his face from her any longer. He ran his gloved hands through his sweat soaked hair and turned away, tossing the helmet on the lumpy mattress lying on the floor in the corner.
There was a shade of embarrassment that colored his face as he glanced at her surrounded by the worn, broken things in his life. He had enough money to get better things, he just… didn’t care. He wanted to care, but he couldn’t find a reason.
“What are you doing here?” The words were rough and accusatory, but Raven didn’t flinch.
“I should ask you that… since you’re supposed to be dead .” She moved to stand next to the chair, looking past him to the flickering lights of Crime Alley. The sounds of traffic and people were muffled by the dingy window panes, but it was still there - sin and depravity simmering at the edge of everything.
His tongue slid along his lower lip, and he looked back into her face. “A gross understatement.”
“ Fuck, Jason .” She pushed her hood down, and he could see the fire burning in her eyes at his response, her magic crackling at her fingertips. “You don’t need to act so damn aloof. You’re alive .”
He snorted and shrugged out of his leather jacket, throwing it to join the helmet on the mattress. “Doesn’t feel like it.” It felt like the first honest thing he had said in a long while.
Hearing the unspoken plea in his voice, Raven took a half-step forward but stopped herself before she got to close. It was as if she wasn’t sure if she was allowed to comfort or touch him. Jason didn’t blame her for her caution. He wasn’t sure what he would do either, so it was probably safer to not touch him. He was unhinged, tainted, and a shell of who he had once been before. He wasn’t sure if he knew himself anymore.
He ran his thumb along the line of his jaw before pulling off his gloves. “What do you want? Why are you here anyway?”
“I know what you’re doing, Jason.” Her voice was gravelly rumble against the stillness in the room, and she stared into his face. “I know what you’re doing with mafia men and crime lords and villains. I know the carnage you cause when you want to.”
“You want to sit here and preach how I should be savoring my born-again life?” He turned and stared at her. “How I should be doing something better with my life than trying to get drugs out of kids’ hands and murders off the street?”
Raven rolled her eyes. “I don’t agree with your methods-”
“ Figured. ” He turned and crossed his arms over his chest, staring at her. He wanted to start a fight - to find a way to get her to leave. Seeing her here brought up too many emotions that he didn’t want to feel. “Do you need me to go find God, or whatever bullshit you want to say?”
“I don’t agree with your methods,” she repeated with a venomous bite to her voice, trying to keep herself from taking his bait for a fight. “But I understand them. I don’t fault you for what you’re doing.” She growled, the shadows pulling to her, as if she was urging them closer. Her lips curled up in a snarl, expression demonic. “And in case you forgot, I’m the last person who should be telling you to find God or whatever.”
Jason’s breath caught in her chest as fragmented memories pierced the back of his head. Raven’s head tipped back, throat exposed and body shivering as she begged God for relief. His life before his death was still stitching back together, and the Pit had made him forget so many things, but that was real. If he closed his eyes, he could still taste the sweat on her skin and see the red love bites left by his mouth.
Raven’s face colored, but she didn’t look away. She wanted to force him to remember her. “So, you do remember some things at least. That’s something.”
He didn’t respond to her statement, and instead focused on toeing off his boots. “What are you doing here? What do you want from me?”
“ Jason …” The breath caught in her throat and she inched closer to him. There was hurt in her expression, but there was also a thin thread of hope. “Do you really not remember?”
“Should I?” He nearly winced at the hurt in her eyes.
Raven let a tense breath slip from between her lips, and she took another cautious step forward. “You had so much taken from you.”
“Yeah. I fucking died .” His words sounded petulant and childish, that urge to start a fight rising up into his chest again.
“Stop pretending like you have no memories of our time together. I know you’re lying. I’ve always known when you’re lying.” She frowned in thought, closing more space between them. “You remember that last night before you and Bruce left for Nanda Parbat. I know you do. I can feel it when you look at me.”
Jason pulled his shirt off, just so he didn’t have to look at her. The truth was that he did remember that night. He had snuck away from Bruce and met Raven at a hotel that took cash and didn’t ask questions. It was a place they had met before, but this time it felt so much different. He remembered her small hands feathering over his chest. He remembered the bunch of her thighs as she impaled herself on his cock. He remembered the words clinging to her lips as they finished together: I love you. Come back safe, idiot.
“My memories are broken. The pieces are missing.” He was surprised at how honest he was with her, and how easily that honesty came.
She nodded, the understanding easy in her stare. “I know. You told me that you couldn’t forget me, even if you were burning in Hell.”
He snorted, another memory flooding his brain. “You told me that you would pull me back from Hell.” He stepped up to her, a sadness filling his chest. “You should leave, Raven. It’s… I don’t…” Jason stumbled over the words he wanted to say to her, but he couldn’t find the right ones. He wanted her gone, but he couldn’t find the strength in him to actually force her to leave.
A deep, shuddering sigh escaped. “You should leave,” he repeated, the words only marginally softer as he realized his inevitable defeat.
Raven lifted her hand to his skin, feathering her fingers over the unmistakable Y-shaped scar on his chest. “ Make me. ”
It was a taunt and a challenge, and Jason’s hand buried into her midnight-colored hair before he could stop himself, twisting the strands between his fingers. There was the briefest pause as he leaned over her, waiting for her to snap and shout at him. He was hoping for her fear and disgust, anything that would make him push her away just so he could keep her safe. But there was nothing but acceptance and understanding, and that frightened him more than anything else.
“I kill recklessly.”
Raven had the audacity to laugh in his face. “You think I don’t have the capacity to?”
“I-”
“ Jason .” Her voice was a low bolt of darkness that spread through his veins like ice. “Will you stop trying to scare me off and just fucking kiss me? ”
That was all it took. With a bitter growl, Jason dragged her against him and sealed his lips to her. Memories rushed back to him with all the force of a freight train, and he let himself bask in every part of it. The taste of her lips, the bite of her nails digging into his arms, the smell of her perfume and lotion clinging to her skin. It was as if he had never left, as if they were still in that grungy hotel room that smelled of cigarettes and cheap liquor.
“ I missed you .” Raven’s voice was harsh in his ears, a rough sound of both pleading and pleasure, and she met him kiss-for-kiss.
Jason pushed her back against the wall as her cool, slender fingers were already pulling at the catch in his pants. He didn’t bother with her clothes, thinking that maybe he would worry about them later. With a ragged curse, he grabbed her thighs and pinned her to the rough brick wall behind her. She didn’t seem to mind, and pushed his pants down to free his erection.
Cool air hit his overheated skin, and a thin shiver slipped down his spine, settling in the pit of his stomach. Without any other warning, he spread her legs wide and slammed his cock deep into her. Raven’s head tipped back as a high-pitched keen escaped her throat, and she dug her heels into his back, trying to force him to move.
“ Don’t make me wait any longer, Jay .”
Her pleading was what sent him over the edge. His emotions were raw and damaged, but Raven was somehow reigning them all in. She was unbothered by the curse the Pit had placed on him, and her calm strength is what made him pull back from the edge. It pulled him deep into her, and Jason rubbed his face into her neck, dragging her scent into his body. He wanted to remember this moment forever.
If anyone was curious enough to look up, they would see Raven - resident demon of the Titans - getting thoroughly fucked against the wall. Raven was screaming, urging him on one thrust at a time. Her fingers bit into the thick, corded muscle of his shoulders and she tipped her head back as he angled his hips to drive his cock deep into her. It wasn’t the slow show of passion that she deserved. It was a rough display of power - a reminder to her that he wasn’t the same person he had been those few months before he left.
Before he died .
But Raven accepted all of him without giving him an inch. She accepted his broken memories, his churlish attitude, and every sin he had committed trying to make Gotham a different place. She was still here, trying to find the good in him even when Batman was hell-bent on taking him out. Her open honesty was an anchor for him, and Jason clung to her as he was broken apart and remade new.
With a sound somewhere between a curse and a whimper, he buried his face against her neck and drove himself deeper into the sweet warmth of her body. Being with her made his world shift back into place. She was a balm to his broken soul, and he needed her in a way he had never needed anyone before.
Raven let go of another desperate sound, and Jason knew she was close. Groaning, he slammed harder into her, driving her higher and higher to that peak. It felt like bringing her this brutal pleasure was a kind of penance for him, for leaving her for so long, and what he had done when he returned. His teeth scraped along her neck, sucking at her pulse as her thighs tightened on his hips.
“ Jason- ”
“I know.” He murmured, his voice painfully low and aching as his own pleasure burned molten in the pit of his stomach. His tongue lapped at her neck again. “ Let go .”
With another high pitched cry, Raven’s back arched and he felt her body tighten almost painfully on his cock. She looked beautiful, her face flushed, eyes wild, and plump mouth open in a begging scream. Jason’s hips stuttered as he appreciated the sight of her, letting his eyes worship every nuance of her form. He slammed himself into her, desperately seeking his own release as they both tumbled into oblivion.
Jason barked out another curse, and felt himself get swallowed by pleasure. He remembered this feeling with her - the pleasure that felt like lightning striking every nerve ending, before easing into leisurely relaxation. His eyes closed and he savored the last few tremors of pleasure sliding through their bodies, until they were left gasping against the wall, staring into each other’s faces.
Fuck .
Jason felt something like remorse and shame slither into his chest, and he slid down the wall to land in the rat’s nest of pillows and blankets that covered his lumpy mattress, dragging Raven with him. Against his better judgment, he pulled her tight within his arms, feeling every breath she took and every aftershock that trembled through her. Raven let go of an uncharacteristic whimper, and she buried her face into the dip of his shoulder with a sigh.
“Don’t do that ever again.” Raven’s voice was ragged, as if all the emotion she had been holding was tearing her apart from the inside.
Jason tensed, suddenly worried he misunderstood what this was between them. He searched for an apology that sounded genuine, but nothing came to the forefront of his mind. Holding his breath, he listened to her continue.
“Don’t fucking die and leave me ever again.”
He closed his eyes and drew her deep into his arms, bunding her up in the threadbare blankets and pulling her against his chest. He tried to think of something he could say, but nothing came to mind, and so he just sat there in silence.