Chapter Text
He never goes to the third round.
In the flashing lights, card girls brushing past bare skin, the sequins-studded miniskirts catching the reflection of the LEDs above, the crush and roar of the gathered crowd, and the adrenaline that seeps down his spine better than any of the hard stuff, better than anything at all. He steps into that ring shirtless, with wraps instead of gloves, grinning like the devil’s got into him, and doesn’t come out until someone is peeling him off his opponent. He never goes to the third round.
The house banks on it. He’s their prize pony, the safe bet. Jason’s the undisputed fucking champion.
Doesn’t mean he doesn’t get hit, though.
There’s a few seconds, after the blow connects, solid and to his jaw, where his eyes roll up and his vision crackles out like the static on his dad’s old tube television. Prickly and radioactive, nerves shorting and limbs spasming, body following his head straight down. Instant concussion, Jason thinks, a little deliriously, even as his knees hit the ground and the ref calls for a time-out. The pain is distant, but not in a good way. Rather, Jason feels disoriented, struck dizzy and nauseous, ears ringing.
Or maybe that’s the bell, or the screeching crowd. His vision is blurring too much to make out faces, to make out anything but the cushioned mat underneath him and the hazy forms of his—of Ty and the ref and the med student they roped into playing EMS.
There’s blood at the back of his mouth. Or. Maybe it’s trickling down his throat, gushing from his loose teeth and saturating the plastic guard that keeps him from biting off his tongue. He exhales and drool seeps from his lips, tinged pink and splattering onto the floor below. Jason…
Can’t see the VIP table, or the narrowed eyes of the big wigs that set up this match, but he knows they’re there anyway, even as the rushing confusion scatters his thoughts and narrows the world into who’s touching him and fuck, he can’t get up.
“Ja-ay,” That’s Ty, words filtering in through pulsatile tinnitus that has him painfully aware of how fast his heart is beating. Jason lifts his chin, eyes rolling in their sockets, trying and failing to blink tears away for long enough to actually lock onto his coach’s face. There’s a hand on his neck, also Ty, big and broad, thumb pressed against his clavicle.
And once he’s managed to meet the man’s gaze, pain radiating from his jaw and chest heaving, Ty steps back, lets the medic shine a little light into his eyes and fucking sear his retinas. Jason groans, batting the penlight away with weak hands.
“There is no way,” the nameless little slip of a thing says, rifling through the duffel bag of band aids and ice packs, as the stage beyond the ring is flooded with girls, trying to distract from the impromptu end to the first round. “That he keeps fighting. That is. That’s a concussion.”
“Jace?” Ty says again. “Jace, you good?”
And Jason can’t fucking think, can’t piece together the words beyond vague impressions and muscle memory of what usually happens when he gets hit too hard. Every time he looks up his vision dips and spins, stomach swooping unpleasantly, the strobe lights overhead threatening to implode his brain from inside his skull. He wants to curl up somewhere dark and quiet and lance his meninges until brain matter starts leaking from his ears.
But he reaches out, shakily, clenching a fist in Ty’s shirt and using the grip to drag himself up. Ignoring the black spots that dance behind his eyelids, and the frantic disapproval of the medic. “’M good,” he says, slurs, more consonants dropped than pronounced. He blinks, hard, at the mat beneath his feet. “Yeah, yeah, I’m—”
Ty catches him when he lists to the side, wedging himself under Jason’s arm and forcing the smaller man to lean on him. “Get me some water,” he barks at the medic, loud enough to send ice picks into Jason’s ears. Then, softer, turning so he’s addressing Jason, “You need a break?”
There’s a thread of tension in his tone. Edged with enough warning that Jason knows there’s a right answer to this question.
“No,” he grits out, startling when a water bottle is shoved up against his mouth, startling more when Ty tips it up and forces him to down a few sips. He doesn’t choke on it, doesn’t vomit it back up, but it’s a near thing.
Ty says something to the ref, the announcer says something through the speakers, and the medic grumbles, loudly, before stomping out of the ring. The lights are dimmed again, the card girl shakes her ass while holding up a ROUND 2 sign.
Ty’s got his hands on Jason’s shoulders, bracing him against the ropes of the ring until the ref gestures him forward.
His opponent isn’t even that big. Jason staggers on stiff legs, fists held limply at his sides, until he’s at the center of the ring, staring at a man with just a few inches on him. They’re probably the same weight. Jason’s just used to fighting guys so much comically slower than him.
He can’t focus on the man’s face, just the stretch of his torso, the layer of fat underneath his ribs. He’s confident in the way he moves, wicked fast, too. Jason’s—
Woolgathering. The ref grabs him, moves his body the way he likes, and Jason concentrates enough to clock the shit-eating grin his opponent is giving him. Cocky and exhilarated, like Jason hadn’t just broken his nose.
The round is announced. The ref steps back once, and then again, and then the fighter is lunging for Jason.
Like a fucking dumb ass.
Jason grins a bloody smile, hands still at his sides, staring the man down.
Around them, the audience shits themselves. Practically crawling over the barriers to get a better look. Jason can faintly hear Ty yelling something at them, voice thick with confusion, but it doesn’t matter, because.
The guy, Jason’s opponent, brawny and blonde with a round face, throws a punch at Jason’s kidney. Grabbing at him, just trying to batter him, because Jason’s already had his bell rung. It should be a take-home match at this point.
Later, when they’re back in the gym, and Ty’s letting him have a go at the speed bag, he’ll ask Jason when, exactly, he sold his soul to the devil.
As it is, no one in the crowd can quite follow what happens next. How fucking fast Jason is, stepping into the attack, into his opponent’s guard and deflecting the blows, jabbing his bare fist and bloody knuckles into the man’s liver before boxing him around the ears.
The man reels, chokes, and Jason knows he’s surprised. Still hasn’t quite recovered before Jason digs his fingers into his hair and slams his forehead into the man’s broken nose.
The ref starts screaming, but Jason’s not done. He never goes to the third round.
The world is spinning, black around the edges and dangerously distant. Jason knees him in the stomach, drops the man, and kicks him in the head for good measure. Goes to do more, but there are arms around his waist, dragging him away, and he knows better than to fight the ref.
Ty grabs him, as soon as he’s within reach, and Jason feels a bit like a bruised package, trading hands and taking hits.
“Damn, boy,” the man says, forcing Jason to wrap an arm around his shoulder, practically hauling him out of the ring. “Damn, that was fast.”
He can’t hear Ty, can’t hear anything but white noise and copper. Except he’s tasting the copper, not hearing it, and he spits out the tongue guard before he can choke on it, and still manages to gag around the blood in his mouth. Everything is tinged metallic, silver around the edges. Jason sways.
The match is called, but Jason’s not even in the ring. Claiming his victory on the sidelines, allowing Ty to lift his hand up in the air and forcing himself to grimace around teeth that feel particularly loose. Sweat is dripping down his bare chest, into the dips between his ribs and the V of his hips. There are a hundred eyes on him.
As concerned as the medic was, they seem to be a little preoccupied with reviving the corpse Jason left on the mat. Hunched over and spilling the contents of their kit onto the floor of the ring. The crowd pretends not to notice them, doesn’t have to pretend for long, because the girls start their routine again. All the glitter and ass-shaking is pretty damn distracting.
“—ants to meet you,” Ty is saying, and Jason lets his head roll onto the man’s shoulder, blinking slow and unsteady. Ty frowns at him, urges him to make his way to the back exit. Security has cleared a path, but that doesn’t stop the hands that reach out to touch Jason as Ty drags him away, skimming over his biceps longingly.
“Ty,” he says, when they get to the thick steel door. “Ty, Ty, stop.”
He doesn’t stop. Takes one look at Jason’s green-gilled expression and ushers him through the door, slamming it shut before he lets him go.
Jason bends over, stomach surging up his esophagus, bile and blood and regurgitated food splattering onto the floor of the hallway.
“Fuck,” Ty says. “Jesus. Do you need a doctor?”
Like Jason can respond, hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, eyes crossing and puking his guts up. He kneels, gracelessly, by some stroke of luck avoiding the pile of vomit, gagging and retching there for a minute, acid stinging the cuts in his mouth. Something hard and keratinous jars against his tongue, and he spits out a tooth into the congealing puddle.
Ty crouches next to him, grimacing.
And Jason can’t do anything but groan, bracing himself against the hard floor, panting open-mouthed. His head is throbbing.
“You need to get dressed and get upstairs.”
“What?” Jason breathes, lifting a shaking hand to his face. That headbutt move was a bad idea. The adrenaline is wearing off, leaving him shaky. And fucking confused as hell. He doesn’t go upstairs.
This was supposed to be his last match of the night. Ty promised. Three fights today and a couple tomorrow, then his payout, and then he’d get a break. He doesn’t think he can make it down this fucking hallway, let alone all the way upstairs.
“C’mon kiddo,” Ty says, already touching Jason again. He rubs over the younger man’s shoulders, massaging into the skin, and it’d feel good, except there are pins and needles in place of his epithelium, and Jason’s on the verge of passing out. “Half an hour. You turned some heads today.”
He’d noticed. Before his rather intense last match, Jason was just wiping the floor with a couple of brawlers. He’d seen the suits in the VIP section staring him down. Shuddered at the hunger in their gaze. It’s par, though. Business as usual. Jason gets eyed, gets touched, gets paraded around like the Iceberg’s ribbon-winning show dog, and then gets a big ass check for his troubles.
“Ty,” he says, wishing it didn’t come out like a whine.
The coach helps him to his feet again, studiously avoiding the vomit. Jason wobbles, knees weak, grateful, at the very least, that the back halls are always kept dim.
This one leads straight out, to the back exit of the Iceberg. There’s a locker room for the fighters and the girls where Jason stowed his stuff, but the thought of going in there and getting dressed in front of some of the same assholes he just put on the mat sounds like actual torture.
“Hey, stay with me now,” Ty says, hoisting Jason up, palm on the back of his neck and shaking him gently enough that Jason only moans a little. “These aren’t the sorta people you say no to, kiddo.”
And it’s not like Jason has any useful defense against that. Not like he hasn’t done harder things under worse conditions. His head hurts. So what? The guy he left in the ring is probably a vegetable by now.
Ty takes him to the locker room, practically puts Jason’s pants on for him, and doesn’t bother with a shirt. All while he just sits there, shivering with the comedown, listless and dazed, and his head hurts so fucking bad.
“Who?” he manages, while Ty checks his hands for fractures and runs gentle fingertips over the knot at the back of his skull. “Who wants me?”
Another water bottle is forced on him, this time with pain killers and a cold compress. Jason uses all three liberally, spilling half a dozen pills into his hand and putting the ice straight on eyes that feel like they’re about to burst from his skull.
Ty doesn’t answer his question for long enough that he knows it’s important. Jason swallows a mouthful of blood, pills getting stuck in his throat.
There’s a squishy, raw-meat, pulverized section of gum between his molars. He runs his tongue over the butchered flesh, teasing at it until it stings.
In the end, all Ty does say is, “Don’t screw this up for yourself, kid,” before wrapping a flannel around his bruised shoulders and hauling him up three flights of stairs, through the nightclub, Lounge, and bar, and to the VIP showrooms.
There’s security at the door, armed with semis and the meanest scowls this side of the Sprang. They take Jason in, bloody and bruised as he is and their lips curl up like they’ve seen elephant shit that smells better.
And all Jason can do is stand there, expending a ridiculous amount of energy just trying to keep his drool inside his mouth, blinking stupidly at the section oh-so-notoriously reserved for Carmine Falcone.
“Falcone asked to see us,” Ty says, with more confidence than Jason thinks is prudent, going to move past the muscle and open the door, only to be quickly rebuffed.
The soundproofing is better here. Jason can just barely make out the pounding base coming from downstairs, especially not over the lilting, jazzy music that’s playing softly over the hidden speakers. Everything is darker, too, clouded in cigar smoke and mood lighting. Supposedly classy, but Jason can taste the cocaine residue that clings to every flat surface, he’s not fucking fooled. Designer drugs never made a habit prettier.
“Just him,” The guard says, pointing at Jason with the muzzle of his gun, and the threat registers, Jason just can’t tense for it, too busy being blindsided by the way the door opens, and he’s shoved inside.
So. Jason knows his place. Likes his place. Likes the excuse to beat the shit out of meatheads on the regular, and get paid for it. He knows he ranks right down there with the working girls, a form of entertainment. Warm bodies to keep the idly rich happily throwing their money at the Iceberg. Jason spends his nights sweating in the basement. He’s pennies and dimes.
And he doesn’t belong here, scuffing up the spotless floors of a luxury suite, smelling like sweaty balls and wet dog, gaping at the pretty women strewn about the chaise settees and the acolytes playing poker at the back table.
Falcone’s at the sidebar, decanter of something amber and expensive in hand, not even looking up at Jason’s arrival.
The rest of the room does, though. It gets real quiet all of a sudden. Half a dozen cat-eyes slit at him, sharp and assessing, and he shudders, swallows his tongue, and wishing he had enough brain cells left to do something other than just stand here, like an idiot.
Falcone makes him sweat. Drags it out, pouring two glasses of liquor into fancy tumblers, and then rolls his wrists, turning on his heels to face Jason, to face the room, and say, “There he is,” grinning with stark approval. “Ladies. Gentlemen. Give us the room.”
And it’s not unlike being called into the principal’s office. Jason’s struck with the uncanny feeling that he’s done something wrong. Mis-stepped somewhere and hadn’t even noticed. He’s sweating and nauseous, shaking with adrenaline, doesn’t know what he did, or if he’s about to be killed by Gotham’s most infamous mob boss.
Falcone stabbed someone once, in broad daylight, on fucking eighth in the Diamond. Walked out of the downtown precinct not even an hour later, no charges pressed. Jason’s not stupid enough to think there’d be anything hindering the man from putting a bullet in Jason’s skull.
Pennies and dimes. He’s...
A woman brushes past him on the way out, her thigh highs sinfully tight, hugging the meat of her curves in all the right ways, her crop top baring the smooth brown skin of her stomach. There’s kohl around her eyes, but her gaze is softer than all the others, more focused, too, and he doesn’t know what to make of that. The way she saunters past without ever breaking eye-contact.
He doesn’t realize he’s staring, head twisted almost all the way around to watch her leave, focus shattered and still trying to decipher the look on her face, the pensive slant to her brow. Until Falcone is suddenly beside him, slapping him on the shoulder and shoving one of the glasses into his hands, so Jason jolts forward and nearly spills it all over himself.
“You have dangerous tastes,” the man says, leaning so close his breath ghosts over the side of Jason’s face and neck, smelling like tobacco and menthol. Jason flinches, at the noise and the proximity, but doesn’t dare move away. Manages to bite down on the perplexed, what?
Falcone sees his confusion anyway. Gestures after the woman suggestively. “Careful with that one,” he says. “I’ve heard she’s got claws.”
“Um,” Jason says, intelligently. He shifts, jeans chafing uncomfortably, and blinks down into the spinning liquid in his cup. Can’t smell it, because he’s pretty sure his nose is, at the very least, bruised. “I’m not…”
Falcone wraps an arm around his shoulders, the way Ty always does, overly familiar and unwelcome. Jason leans as far away from him as he can. “I’ve seen you fight, kid,” he says, like it’s remarkable. Jason flushes despite himself, lets Falcone lead him to the low-set sofa and push him gently onto the plush cushions. They capsize under his weight, and Jason sinks so far that his knees are pressed up against his chest, putting uncomfortable pressure on his bruised ribs. “You are a devil in that ring, you know that?”
When Jason just sits there, awkwardly, trying to read into the words, Falcone nudges the hand Jason’s holding the drink with, urges him to take a sip.
It’s bourbon. Which. Jason always assumed bourbon was a drink for depressed fifty-somethings on their fourth marriage. He very nearly spits it out, it’s so strong and bitter, not even sure he’s supposed to be drinking, what with the dubiously diagnosed concussion, but manages to choke it down, burning all the way.
He knows he’s good. Isn’t deluding himself, or arrogant, when he says he’s the best the Iceberg’s got. He’s been in the ring, in Ty’s gym, since he was fourteen years old. And in fights like the one this club hosts, lawless and dirty, he doesn’t lose.
So, he says, “I know,” without a bit of shame and, “What about it?” with more attitude than he maybe should.
Falcone just laughs. Slaps him again, hard over the shoulder. “I like you,” he insists. “I think I can work with a kid like you. What do you think? Think we could get along?”
Jason thinks that he’s being asked to do too much thinking. That his brain is liable to fall out of his cranium at any minute. And that if Falcone fucking wants something from him, he should just come out and say it. But he’s not an idiot.
“Uh,” he says. “Yeah that. I can do that.”
“Good, good.” Falcone takes a bracing sip of his own drink. “Got a proposition for you, kid.”
Falcone gives him a minute. A stretch of silence that Jason doesn’t know what to do with. But when Falcone talks, he listens.
“Got a fight coming up in a week or so,” the crime boss says, cutting his eyes at the door, as if someone might be stupid enough to disturb him. “Little more upscale than the ones your used to. Gonna invite a few pals o’ mine, place some friendly bets.”
Jason, wisely, keeps his mouth shut. There’s something in Falcone’s voice that spells out trouble, the edge of a threat.
Despite his low status on the totem pole, Jason doesn’t take entertainment jobs. He knows some guys who do, who get dragged up to Bristol or Diamond or wherever the fuck and throw hands on marble floors of glistening palaces. Who let themselves be beat to shit for the entertainment of country club schmucks. It’s not that Jason thinks he’s better than them, just that no one’s ever asked. No one sees him, vicious and bloodstained, and even thinks of letting him near their silk linens.
Except, apparently, Carmine Falcone.
Falcone says, “You like carnival games, kiddo?”
Jason blinks at the non-sequitur, rolls it around in his head, and grimaces. “Not really,” he says, feeding into it anyways, hunching forward and putting his glass down on the coffee table. The low light is actually helping his throbbing headache, but the mind games aren’t. Falcone isn’t half as clever as he seems to think he is. “They’re all rigged.”
Falcone laughs again. “Yeah, they are. Make a good buck though, don’t they? And people still have fun while they’re at it. Still go back to the circus every year, at any rate.”
Jason wants to point out Gotham’s rather rocky history with circuses. Refrains, because it seems like Falcone might finally be getting around to making his point.
“See,” he says. “Carnival games are a sure thing, Kid. I need a sure thing.”
“I’d win,” Jason offers. “I always win.”
“I know that,” Falcone chuckles, tips back the rest of his tumbler. “Everyone this side of the Sprang knows that. No one sane ’s betting against you. The thing is, kid, I don’t want you to win.”
Ah.
“Hey,” Ty says, when he drops him off outside of Jason’s apartment building, clutching the steering wheel of his shitty sedan with one hand, brows furrowed so deeply they might start merging. The silver in his beard glints and refracts the interior lights of the car, casts deep purple shadows on his dark face. “Jace, hey, look at me.”
Pensiveness, and guilt, and Jason doesn’t have the energy to assure the man that he isn’t mad. Doesn’t have the energy to be mad, though he maybe should be. It’s not like he didn’t bring some of this on himself.
But he’s still just wearing a hoodie over hastily applied bandages, his pants too loose without a belt, and the steady drizzle of rain is starting to even out into something that threatens a downpour. He’s wiped, and he wants to go inside already, pass out and sleep for a year before his next match. Not cater to his coach’s concern.
“You gonna be up for tomorrow?” Ty asks. “Do I need to tell Ricky to—”
“I’m fine.” Jason sways in place. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? I’ll be fine.”
“Call me when you get up. And don’t die in your sleep, kid, I swear—” Jason slams the door shut on whatever it is he was gonna say.
Jason likes to tell people he has a high rise apartment. Saying it like that, high rise, sounds luxurious. Like a bachelor’s penthouse or something. In truth, Jason’s shitty projects apartment is in the high rises. The looming backdrop of Gotham’s horizon, shoddily built cheap housing stacked one on top of the other, lined up like dominoes just waiting for someone to knock them down.
His is two hundred square feet of mold-bitten, paper walls and a twin mattress on bare floor. He makes the most of it. Tells himself it could be worse; he could still live in the Alley. In comparison, the Basin is practically paradise.
Jason doesn’t remember the five-story climb, just comes back to himself leaned up against the doorjamb of his apartment, blinking down at the door knob, twisting under his hand. Something at the back of his mind points out that something’s wrong. The hair on his neck stands on end, but before he can puzzle it out, there’s movement behind him.
Jason looks over his shoulder. His neighbor—apartment 514 to his 513— is a stocky man, fondness for floral shirts, in the middle of a miserable custody battle. He steps out of his apartment, arms crossed over his chest and eyebrow raised. His face is loose, friendly, Jason can’t bring himself to meet the man’s eyes.
He says, “Going out?”
“Just got in, actually.” Jason corrects him.
Bushy, furrowed eyebrows. 514 drops his arms to scratch the paunch of his belly. He’s got a beard, thick and silver around the edges, long dreads pulled back into a knot at the base of his skull, and pretty brown eyes. Jason’s got him pegged as ex something. He’s leaning toward old military, but he wouldn’t be surprised to find out he used to be a cop. “You look like shit, kid.”
Jason clears his throat. Drags his gaze away from the man’s biceps. “Had a fight.”
The thing is, Jason’s seen 514 around. The guy works city sanitation, does contracting during winter to clear roads and spread salt. He always assumed, by the cold shoulder the man gives him whenever they pass each other in the neighborhood, that 514 just didn’t like him all that much. Thought he was riffraff or trouble or something. They’ve never had a conversation.
He wants to ask the man’s name. Ask him about his kids, or his bitchy ex or something. He also wants to pass out face first into his own bed and forget his own name for a while.
“I’d hate to see the other guy,” 514 says. Still not moving. Not looking at Jason either, just… commenting. Idly. Like they really are just making small talk.
“Yeah.” Jason nods. “You would.”
He doesn’t know what’s on his face. Kind of wishes he had a mirror, or a bird’s eye view to this conversation. Because 514’s voice gets real, real soft when he says, “Kid, your nose is bleeding.”
Jason reaches up, touches the skin under his crooked nose, finally realizes why it’s been so hard to breathe, when his fingers come away red.
“I’m fine,” he says, but he’s listing, and they both know it. His fingers slip off the doorknob, and he pitches, a little, fully intending to just double over. Put his head between his knees and get some air in his lungs, that’s all, but when 514 lurches forward to grab both his shoulders, he finds himself leaning into the man.
“Steady,” he says lowly, as though he’s calming a horse. “You want me to get your friend?”
Jason chokes out a sharp laugh, thinking immediately of Ty. Tries imagining 514 calling Ty and can’t. Come get your boy, he’d say, he’s bleeding out on the hall runner.
But 514 doesn’t know Ty, doesn’t know that Jason is Ty’s boy at all, couldn’t know, because Jason’s never let Ty see how he lives. And the minute he remembers that, that awful anticipatory dread comes back.
He pushes at the hands 514 has on him, forces himself to inhale deeply, despite the way it makes his ribs twinge. Collects phlegm and blood and saliva in the back of his throat and spits it out on the ground. “What friend?”
“Young. Tall. Came around earlier with a key to your apartment, thought it was you. But if you were fighting tonight… Is he your brother?”
Jason doesn’t answer. It clicks, finally, the awful dread feeling; his door wasn't locked. Jason rights himself. “You see him head out?”
514 shakes his head, and Jason gets a glimpse of the thick wooden beads weaved into his hair. “No. You’re going to be alright though?”
Jason grins at him before he can think twice about it, and 514 winces at the sight of his smile, crooked and bloody. The retort—a flirty worried about me? line, the sort of thing that works on all the pretty girls at the bars—dies on his tongue. He swallows thickly. “I’ll be fine.”
“Ice your,” 514 trails off, his lips pulling. “Everything.”
Jason nods, even though he doesn’t have an ice machine. He could probably hop in the shower for a while, the water is frigid enough to have the same affect.
He gives 514 a lingering look, hoping it’s not too obvious, and finally forces himself to face the elephant in the room.
Or. The stranger in his apartment.