Description: "I'm home," he says, softly. He sounds like he's living a reality of his dreamland. "I'm home, Y/N."

Request: Friends with benefits relationship in which Jason gets attached and catches feelings before the reader. Kind of clingy, needy Jason?

Jason x reader where reader has powers (really cool, intense shit) and her eyes and such glow and Jason discovers her abilities and wants to know more and just sits down and listens and is mesmerised by everything?!!?!

Since requests are open, if you could do some Jason Todd angst with a happy ending? Like something with him being reckless and worrying the reader? If you can't that's cool too! :)

Could you maybe do something with Robin!Jason (if requests are still open), where maybe he sneaks away on patrol to visit his s/o in their room or something like that? Thank you if you do!

Hey, Ivy. Could you write a fic where Jason has been alive for years, and he finally tells the reader? They're upset with him because he kept this from them.

Words: 3340

Notes: I'm sorry I haven't posted in a bit, guys. Here's a Jason Todd imagine for teh soul =D

_

"What are you doing here?" You said.

Your voice rings in the darkness the light of his helmet doesn't fill, softer, quieter than you had intended it to be. There are hundreds, thousands of questions you could have asked. How did you get in? There's a key hidden by your front door, so maybe he found it there. Why are you doing all this? Plenty of people had it out for Bruce Wayne and his allies; even so, the weight of the present moment seemed to spin with answers. Who are you? Though you can't bare it, though you can't stand it, you are certain you know the answer to this too.

You've only heard him—this strange, dangerously familiar man—speak once or twice. He'd been yelling at Batman, tone sharp with metallic feriosity that cut the air with a vengeance. The next time was different. Not only was it directed at you, but it was soft, and loving. Regretful. Longing, even. Maybe that's when you knew. But it feels like you don't know anything anymore.

Especially because he's doing it again. Red Hood makes no move to harm you, keeping his stance open and kicking his weapons at your feet. Even with the voice-disrupter he wears, his tone is twice as tender as it should be.

"I came to see you."

There's a pause. There's the feeling that he's looking you over, drinking you in. You should have been extremely put off by this. You should have been fighting the intruder. You should, you should, you should—it's that same old phrase you've been repeating more and more lately, and it mocks you with a childish echo of your own voice.

We should have had more time.

You should have lived longer.

You should, you should, you should.

A familiarity surrounds him in an aura of serenity. If he was any other man the night would bathe him in shadow, hide him from you, until he stepped into the bare light like fresh blood under the moon. But he's not. He's familiar, so moonlight pours upon him with all her grace and softens him into the little boy you see behind your eyelids.

(It's like he hasn't seen you in an eternity, and the time he takes to fall in love with you again goes by so quickly his head spins. He's not used to this quickness. Not used to this rush of feelings and heart, but it's familiar.)

"I couldn't wait any longer," Red Hood said. He shook his head at himself, part in shame and part to avoid your gaze. "I should have... waited until it was over. But I don't know what to think anymore... Do you... know?"

"Who you are underneath?" You said.

The way you speak cracks and crumbles as the sentence travels, like a road aging away with time. More words fill you, enough to fill the silence and enough to fill a million books, but there's a sob lodged in your throat and it won't let you speak. As a result, you give him a tired wobble of a shrug.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he promised.

Fighting through the sob's barricade, his visage blurring underneath a sheen of your tears, you nod. "I know."

Usually, you could feel whatever a person was feeling the moment you looked at them. Heroes from your previous team used to say what a useful ability it was, how powerful it was, how powerful you were—there was no need for touch, which eliminated challenging variables in the field. But you could touch. It was more intimate then, more potent and real. You could feel the way that this person felt. You could become so knowledgeable in this person's nature that you almost are them.

You look at Red Hood and you do not see what he feels. You look at him and you become him, all over again.

Gotham's lonely streets. Gotham's heart, her core, where there is nothing but poverty and suffering and more poverty. The pills. The murder. The suicides. Her ugly, black heart, tangling him in her web with the tendrils of the tortured. Relief. A home, a brief luxury. A family. Elation so thick and full the world turns gold at the edges. Love, deep and real and pure. Health. And then hope, determination. A yearn for home. A yearn for forgiveness. Then nothing.

Rebirth.

Anger. Regret. Guilt. Longing. Anger. Regret. Guilt. Longing. Anger. Vengeance. Guilt. Longing. Anger. Vengeance. Longing. Vengeance. Longing. Longing. Here... home again. Love again. Guilt, beating and bearing down upon with the weight of the world, only to be lifted away even with a glimpse at his lover's happiness... Their purity... Their beauty, here and now under the moonlight. Them. All he needed was just a glimpse...

"You know me," he says softly, more than just remembering each other, but remembering one another's hearts.

"I do," you quavered. This confirmed it for you. The word conjured itself from your lips, perhaps by order of your subconscious, perhaps from the will of the wind. But the moment you speak it the truth floods you in a sea. You know.

Red Hood took in a shaky breath.

With the careful hands of a desperate man, Jason Todd pulled off his helmet to reveal a passionate longing beneath.

"I'm home," he says, softly. He sounds like he's living a reality of his dreamland. "I'm home, Y/N."

You pulled your hand from Jason's cheek as if he had burned you. The memory flashed hard, sailing dots across your vision and making the same dark setting of your living room sway back and forth. Hands pulls you from the memory. Sweet, corroded hands, guiding you into the center of the couch cushion and back into the real world.

"Hey," Jason says. "Hey. You okay? Look, I know you said that touching my cheek would heal me and everything, but you need way more healing than I do. That mission really wiped you out. You alright?"

His face swims in the blue midnight. For a moment you're trapped in time's limbo, caught between now and the year in which the memory took place, torn in two by the access of space. The red of his helmet blurs in the corners of your vision. The light shadow of his face replaces it, outlined by the edges of Gotham City's nighttime skyline as it scrapes past your window. Staring at his face seems to do the trick. Soon, you can look at him without seeing double.

"You okay?" Jason repeated.

"Yeah. Yes," you nodded, but hissed and clutched your head when the stars in your eyes began to swirl faster. Awkwardly, you pulled your fingers out of the grooves they'd made in Jason's sleeves, and gave him his well-needed space. Unknown to your dizzied mind, his hands had shot out to catch you again.

"But you shouldn't be the one asking me that. Did it work? Are you okay?" You asked.

Jason pulled his eyes off of you to get a look at himself. The knife-wound he'd just gotten through his uniform had been repaired, leaving behind nothing but the bloodied and tattered remains of his armour. He gave a little grunt of indication, then stood up and turned into his bedroom to change.

You sighed, steeling yourself by unfolding and folding your hands repeatedly in your lap, watching his shadow undress as it fell across the living room floor. Before you could speak your worries, he began, "I'm... sorry we got interrupted earlier. I miss it—I like it, I mean. You're a good partner."

"Is that what you tell all the other booty calls, Mr. Todd?" You laughed, though there was a not of untruth to it.

This game had been going on for months. Jason was determined to keep you—a vigilante much more powerful than him and his enemies—away from his side of "the life", and that meant the pre-death relationship you shared had to fizzle out. But Jason Todd was still a man very desperate for touch, and would occasionally return to you on nights like these to melt into intimacy in your bedroom. It was the only thing you could express anymore. It was the only thing that you could cling to, and some part of you wished that the spark would light again.

Jason appeared in the doorway. He paused just briefly enough for you to catch the way he looked over you, and it was strong enough to make you turn away from him; he was staring at you like you were lovers. He was staring at you like he did then. With youthful, eternal longing. Like then.

The look went just as fast as it came, as sharp and as sudden as a flicker of firelight.

"You're the only one," Jason said simply. He shrugged, "I don't think anyone could handle me with you. Especially with abilities like that—" Jason lifted his shirt and showed you the place where the knife wound had been, tapping on his hard skin, "There's not even a scar. I don't know how you do it."

A blush rode its way up your neck with his awe-filled praise, and you were suddenly thankful Jason never turned on the lights. (His bill got so high sometimes, and it's not like either of you were afraid of the dark). The only source came from the two windows across the living room. One was open, your re-entry into his apartment, and the other spilled the blue light of a electronic billboard across Jason's face. He shot a glare at it like he wanted to buy curtains.

"Well, it comes from within," you said.

At the phrase your hand had drifted to the center of your chest, where your heart beat wildly underneath. Like you were teaching him how to own his own magic, Jason laid his hand in the same place and flashed you a boyish smile. The reality of it hit you harder than expected.

You were sitting here at three in the morning, in Jason Todd's living room, about to divulge into the secrets of magic. It sounded stupidly juvenile. It sounded like you were just dumb teenagers with a little bit of real-world knowledge, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder upon the fire-escape, talking to the moon and each other after a patrol that wouldn't let you sleep. When the hour finally became too late (or early), Jason would kiss you goodnight and head off into the city.

Now, you were here again, but it's all wrong. You're on opposite sides of the couch, feet pulled under your legs so you don't end up wrapping around each other, far too knowledgeable of the world and it's discrepancies. Even if you had spent a night before this one wrapped in one another's bare embrace, there was no way that Jason Todd was going to kiss you goodnight for a long time.

"I have to want it to happen. I have to mean it." You said, eyes darting anywhere but Jason's, "I wanted tto heal you. So I healed you."

"I want to take a nap," Jason chuckled.

"Then take a nap," you agreed.

There was a soft moment where you laughed together. Maybe it wasn't shoulder-shaking laughter, and maybe you weren't together anymore, but a piece of the weight in your chest broke off with the activity. It was more his laugh that did it than your own.

"Well, maybe I won't, actually. All of your power stuff seems pretty cool, and I only know so much about it," Jason said. He threw his arm over the back of the couch and his legs on the coffee table, sinking into it like an tired ship into dock waters, "I mean, I know you can do the long-distance reading or whatever, and then there's the kiss thing—" Jason flushed, clearly reminiscing all the times you had healed him with a kiss, "and you can translate emotions onto other people. What else?"

Without thinking, you spoke, "Sometimes, when I'm healing someone, I can see memories that are important to me and that person. Like with Kori—I remember this time she comforted me once. With Bruce, I—" you stopped short quite suddenly, catching the end of your sentence before it veered off.

I remember talking to him at the funeral, you wanted to say, I remember him saying, "You're always welcome at the Manor. You're always welcome as apart of this family, because I know Jason always thought of you as his."

"I remember when he told me that you died," you blurted, which was somehow much worse than what you had original wanted to say. Man, you suck at improvising.

When he remained quiet, only filling the air with an non-revealing hm, you frantically tried to replace it," Uh, yeah. Sometimes the memories are bad. But sometimes they're good, too."

To distract yourself from the crippling embarrassment now clawing at your heels, you began playing with a string of magic. After tying it around your hands a couple times, creating flowers and Eiffel Towers, then permanently dying inside, Jason thoughtfully questioned, "Did you see anything when you healed me?"

"Well, when I'm worried about someone, or feeling something really strongly, I end up blocking out the memories," you said, frantically pulling at your reserves so they could save you. They seemed to be digging your grave even deeper the more you spoke instead. "But I did see bits and pieces of the night you came back."

Again, you say something stupid when he doesn't respond right away. It's like a talent of yours. "Yeah, I was really happy to see you. I think... I think I missed you the most, out of all of us. They all loved you a lot, but... y'know... I just felt it more."

Oookay, that's enough. No more spouting. You literally just told him everything you've been thinking, ever, that you were suffering without him, and then totally confessed your love for him all over again. I'm sure Jason will think you're still friends-with-benefits. You were just the person he calls when he wants to have sex, that he also happened to previously date. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with reminding him that he died, either. The magic in your hands crackled lightly, and only then did you realize that it was fizzling out, and that warm hands were holding your shoulders.

"I was really happy to see you, too," Jason said. He may have moved across the couch to sit beside you, and was now caressing your upper-arms, but he was staring down at the magic in your hands; it seemed to be his distraction as well. "You really have no idea. I was... I was thinking about you, a lot."

His face was more angular in the night's light. It cut apart his features, sharpening the hollows of his cheeks and the shadows under his jaw. Little bits of the black makeup he put around his eyes was still there, like mascara that hadn't been cleaned off right. He looked exhausted. Even so, the light still hit him in all the right places and turned strokes of face into gossamer; his eyes would catch the blue sometimes and play with it like the magic in your hands, turning moss into sea and his tiredness into uncertainty; his lips shone with the same streaks as his taste pulled at the light.

"That's good. That's really, really good," you muttered. A part of you had known that you were were a core piece of Jason's redemption, of his turn at coming down to Earth again.

Jason smiled and directed his gaze on your for the first time in the entire night. You were struck by that longing, the lover boy grin that pulled at your heart strings and drowned you in bliss every night he came to visit.

"You know, you ramble when you're nervous," Jason observed.

"Yeah, I do," you chuckled awkwardly. "And when I'm tired."

"Then take a nap," he said, echoing you. To your pleasant surprise, Jason turned your cheek and laid the lightest of kisses on your temple. He pulled himself off the couch, rubbing his neck all the while, and gestured for you to follow him, "I'll tuck you in and everything."

Before you could think, before you could realize why or what you were even doing, you got a leap of something else for the first time tonight. It wasn't another realization that would build the weight in your chest. It wasn't another touch of longing in your body language. It was courage, and it hit you much like it had hit Jason every time he wanted to kiss you.

You clasped Jason's wrist. "Okay, but before—can I... Can I heal you?"

Jason opened his mouth to speak, no doubt to remind you that you had already done so, but then his lips snapped shut and his eyes widened by just a fraction.

"Yes," he breathed, shuffling in place, "Yeah, I think—my lip is cut. Real bad."

"Ooh, definitely," you stared at Jason's perfectly healthy lip, mock-grimacing. "I'll—"

He moved in like he had been waiting months for a cue, but your stomach dropped in disappointment: this was like all the kisses you'd shared in the previous months. They were passionate and lustful, but they were the kisses that Jason gave when you were no longer together. This is the kiss he gave when you returned from a lacking patrol and spent your energy on each other, as he caressed your sides and your stomach, murmuring sweet nothings that truly meant nothing.This was the kiss he gave you when he pulled you aside and pushed you into a wall, praising you up and down as he kissed down your throat.

Or maybe it wasn't. As it lulled, as his fingers got to caressing your sides again, as your played with the hairs at the base of his skull, it drowned you in memory. This kiss held the emotion that he would plant on your cheek before he swung off into the city. This kiss held the emotion that he had when he asked, "Doll, have you eaten yet?" This kiss possessed the raw and pure feelings you got when you first told him you loved him, and the low longing in his heart as Jason was recovering from the Lazarus Pit.

It had been like that all along. Your escapades had been more than just lust-driven hazes, just having sex. You knew, then, that if you thought too deep into it you'd be mourning all over again. You couldn't. But now you had the time, you had the conscience, and it was blindingly clear. Every kiss. Every touch. Every whisper that you didn't catch, and every held breath: the longing was still there, and it was not sexual at all. It was a longing for lame jokes and your laughter and your humming when you brushed your teeth.

The thoughts echoed in your mind, over and over again, bouncing off the walls like the chimes of a wedding bell in a cathedral.

You pulled him closer, drowning in memories.

"You're not an accident," Jason said, "You're not anything that you think you are. You're amazing, trust me."

"You're just saying that," you sniffed, rubbing your tears on his jacket-sleeve.

"No, I'm not," Jason said. He brushed the sleeve away from your face, "I like your powers, just like I like everything about