Chapter Text
Jason hums idly to himself as he walks up to the back entrance of the building, hands shoved in the pockets of his black leather jacket. His footsteps are light despite his steel-toed boots, though his presence is more clearly announced by the subtle little clinks of the two links of chains resting on his right thigh.
The Clocktower looms over him, casting a shadow despite the gloomy sky providing scant light. He comes to a stop outside the secret entrance, inputting his numerical code, eye scan, and thumb print before the door slides open with a hiss.
The tower is still and nearly silent, only disturbed by the quietest of clink clink clinks in time with his steps. You'd never guess the information tech vigilante backing the Bats was ever holed up here, diligently working away at her massive computer setup all day and all night.
Which brings Jason to why he's here. He has a day off, for once. No cases need his immediate attention, he's uninjured (minus some minor cuts, scrapes, and bruises), and he's, most importantly, bored.
Babs has been helping Batman and his flock for a long time, and in doing so, has managed to fall into the same overworking-themselves-to-death pitfall the rest of them are usually in.
So Jason has decided to intervene.
A little birdie (Red Robin) had mentioned something about a high profile case that was requiring all of both his and Barbara's attention to figure out the culprit and track them down. With emphasis on the tracking them down part, figuring out who they were looking for didn't take all that long. They'd been working on this case for almost a week now, and with Babs also working on other cases, as well as helping the flock out at night and running the Birds of Prey, Jason was willing to bet she hasn't gotten any kind of break, or rather, hadn't given herself any kind of break.
So today he decided to pop by, drag her away from her screens, and drop her in front of another one in the form of a movie and late lunch. There was a new movie that came out recently that had actually caught Jason's interest, so he figured Babs might be interested as well.
He twirls his bike keys around his finger as he steps in the elevator, waiting for it to take him to the top of the tower. Out of habit, he glances around in a quick assessment of the elevator.
It's a good thing he did, because otherwise he never would've noticed the dent in the top left corner of the elevator wall.
Squinting up at it, it's immediately obvious that there used to be something there. He doesn't know for sure what it would've been, since he's rarely in here, but knowing Babs and knowing the placement, it was probably a camera. A camera that's distinctly no longer there.
Jason draws his gun from wear it sits tucked into his waistband, the metal a familiar weight in his hand. With the other he pulls out his phone, sends a quick text to whichever family group chat comes up first, not even paying attention to who may or may not be in it.
If only they didn't have like seventeen of them.
He steps to the side as the elevator slows to a stop, using the reflection to see out the door while he hides around the corner.
The reflection is blurry, but there's one vaguely humanoid form at the end of the opening room from the elevator, waiting outside the door to the more apartment-like room that hid Oracle's real workspace. It doesn't look like the guy is looking, so Jason unsheathes the dagger he always has strapped to his ankle and throws it.
It hits its mark with a quiet squelch, the goon’s body hitting the floor with a thud muffled by the carpet.
Jason carefully steps out, checking the corners before walking around the edges of the room. He sticks to the shadows just in case the other cameras aren't disabled, and avoids the triggers for the traps that may or may not still be there.
Putting his ear to the door, he doesn't hear anything on the other side, so he crouches down to the guy he got with his dagger. It hit center mass, just like he planned, though it was a little closer to the center than he probably should've aimed. If the guy's wheezing is anything to go by, he probably punctured a lung.
“Oi, asshole, what the hell are you and your boys doing here?” Jason growls, slapping his face a few times to get him to focus. He just glares at Jason, who sighs. “Where is she?”
When he doesn't answer, Jason puts hand over the guy's mouth and twists the dagger. His scream is muffled against Jason's hand, which he just tilts his head condescendingly at.
“Shut up, it could be a lot worse. Now tell me where she is.”
The goon points unhelpfully to the door before passing out. Jason rolls his eyes, kicking him over to the side. The guy is probably going to die, but honestly he could care less about that right now.
He rips the dagger out of the guy's chest, holding it ready in his left hand and keeping his gun in his right. He's got near perfect aim with both hands, but most people go for the right hand first if they see it holding something and he would take a knife in close combat over a gun any day.
He opens the door, thanking Babs mentally that she doesn't have creaky doors, and peeks through the crack.
Through the reflection on the window, he can make out Babs looking almost bored tied to her wheelchair and being held at gunpoint. Almost. The tension in her shoulders gives away her stress– but not from the gun, she's too familiar with being held at gunpoint for that. Her focus is lasered in on something else. She's facing away from the door towards the exact opposite wall, with the barrel of a gun being pointed at her from behind. She's far enough away from the reflection that makes Jason's mental map place her in the middle of the room, which means the guy holding the gun is practically right in front of the door Jason is right on the other side of.
He toes the door open another two inches, enough that he can see a little more but not enough that a passing glance will see anything wrong.
Immediately he gets a whiff of gasoline, along with a glimpse of the other door opened to Oracle's workspace.
Ah, so that's what she's so worried about.
Babs lets out a huff, tapping her nails against the arm of her wheelchair.
“You're not going to find anything!” She calls ahead of her. So there's more in there, probably trying to go through her systems.
“Quiet, bitch,” the one behind Babs snaps, flicking the barrel of his gun against the side of her head. She only glares, but in turning her head she ends up catching a glimpse of the window. Her eyes widen minutely, but that's the only tell before she's back to playing the victim.
“You two seem pretty focused with fumbling around with my system,” Babs continues despite the previous threat, “You could just untie the rope from my wrists and let me help instead of pouring gasoline everywhere.”
Jason grins when Babs passes him a glance and the slightest of nods. So there are two in the other room that are focused, huh?
He opens the door just wide enough to slip through and stalks up behind the first goon, the one holding the gun to Babs’ head. Without so much as an escaped gasp Jason has him in a sleeper hold and is gently lowering his unconscious body to the ground.
He passes Babs the dagger so she can cut herself free, then starts to move to wheel her out before she shakes her head, then jerks it towards the computers. Jason raises an eyebrow, gesturing between her, the clearly gasoline soaked floor, and the two men too focused on her screens to notice them. Her jaw clenches and she sends her signature bat-glare at him and–
Wow , she is scary. Jason actually backs up a little under the force of her glare. He forgot how scary she can be. Okay.
He allows himself to roll his eyes and silently mock her while she can't do anything about it before walking up to the two guys and knocking their heads together. The first guy collapses with a groan, the other guy just stumbles back while holding his head. Jason doesn't give him more than a second before he's blitzing him with a punch that breaks his nose and a hook that knocks him out cold.
He shoves his hands back in his pockets and spins on his heel back to Babs.
“So, Barbie, what was that all about?” Jason asks innocently, jutting his hip out to make his stance more comfortable. Barbara wheels herself in, glancing around.
“Somehow they found me, wanted to find and erase something in my systems. Never specified what, though. Also never found it.”
“And the gasoline?”
“A back up plan,” she replies tersely. Jason hums.
“Well, this has all been really fun, but I came here to invite you to a movie and it starts in like twenty minutes.” He leans down to fold his arms on the handles of the chair when Babs sighs. “Cmon Barbie, it's been forever since you've taken a break. And we haven't made fun of a movie together in a long time.”
“...Fine.” She folds her arms across her chest and leans back in the chair, making Jason straighten with a gleeful smile, starting to wheel her out.”
“Fuck yeah. And I texted one of the group chats awhile ago, they can deal with all this shit,” he mentions, waving vaguely behind them at the bodies as they pass into the lobby room. Babs looks down at the first body. Jason follows her gaze, then shrugs. “I was in a rush, it's fine. Speaking of, can I have my knife back?”
She hands it back to him with a disappointed huff. He wipes it off on the dead guy's jacket and tucks it back into his boot before continuing on their way to the elevator.
Of course, it's when he hears the telltale sound of a safety being clicked off that he realizes his mistake.
He can't react before a wave of explosive heat sends both him and Babs careening forward, slamming into the opposite wall. Jason more than Babs because he was closer and she had a wall of muscle protecting her.
It takes him a moment to get his bearings after that, when his vision finally starts to focus and the ringing in his ears dies down. All he registers is the searing, oppressive heat bearing down on him from all sides. It makes him sweat uncomfortably and his lungs struggle to draw in enough breath– no, wait, that's the smoke. Smoke was coming from the fire.
Fire.
Gasoline.
Clocktower.
Babs.
“Barbara!” Jason shouts, or at least he thinks he shouts. All he can see is the blinding light of the fire where it's burning away the gasoline and spreading to every other flammable object in the vicinity.
“Over- over here!” Her voice finally filters through the roar of the fire, but he can't pinpoint its location. Soon the ringing subsides, but it's just replaced by his heartbeat.
Jason opens his mouth to shout again but breaks out into a cough when he inhales a lung full of smoke instead. If only smoking cigarettes actually helped him build up a tolerance to something like that.
A dark blob moving catches Jason's attention, and then he realizes it's Babs. Not too far away, in fact, just separated by a small trail of fire caused by gasoline that was trailed after them when they left.
Fuck he was careless and let his guard down. And now all of this is going to be destroyed because of him.
He pushes himself to his feet and jumps over the fire, coming to Barbara's side.
“Are you okay?” He asks, quickly checking her over for injuries. She shakes her head, raising her hand towards Jason's face. He finds himself involuntarily flinching away from the contact, a guilt stabbing him in the gut at her wounded expression.
“You're bleeding,” she states instead. Jason shrugs.
“Not the first time, won't be the last.” With that he works his arms under her legs and back to lift her bridal style, looking around for the exit. The elevator probably wouldn't be working due to the explosion, which just left the stairs.
Jason groans internally as he starts making his way there, dodging flames expertly and only breaking out into short coughing fits.
Eventually he manages to get the door open, but not without nearly sacrificing his boots because of how hot the handle is and the fact that he had to kick it open.
He races down a few floors before finally taking a second to breathe and figure out what the hell he's going to say.
“...Barbie?” He starts hesitantly, looking down at her. She has a conflicted expression when she meets his gaze, but he can't quite figure out why.
“Yeah?” Jason glances away.
“I… I'm sorry. That was… reckless. Should've been more thorough,” he finally gets the words out, keeping his eyes on the steps ahead as he continues down.
“Well, yes, but I didn't notice either. This isn't all on you, Jay,” Babs reassures him. It does little to actually soothe the guilt and blame clawing at him, but he nods anyway. “I have backup servers anyways, it'll just be annoying to reset up everything physically, but I can just make Tim and Bruce do that.”
Jason chuckles at that, but doesn't comment further.
Once they're closer to bottom after a long stretch of silence, Jason finally clears his throat awkwardly.
“...So. About that movie.”
“Might as well, not going to be much help here.”
“Should I let them know we made it out?”
“Nah, let's see how long it takes for them to find us.”