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Jason wasn’t entirely sure how his undercover mission as ‘Neal Caffrey, non-violent criminal offender,’ had ended in a knife fight, but he was pretty fucking pissed about it. Well, that first part was a lie. Jason knew exactly how he’d ended up in a knife fight— he just wasn’t sure how one of his Gotham ‘employees’ had ended up in New York at precisely the right time to call him ‘Todd’ in front of his supposed crew.
The minute his former-employee spoke Jason swore and dropped his watch, crushing his mic under the heel of his shoe— Peter would take that as a sign to enter the building, even if it was only because he thought Neal was doing something shady. “Get the fuck out of here dipshit. Go home and hope I don’t kick your ass to the fucking curb.”
The underling paled. “Yes, boss.” He said, already starting to back out of the room.
“What the hell is going on here?” The head of the crime ring snarled.
Jason turned to face him, hands out in a non-threatening way— his thoughts racing as he tried to think of an excuse, any excuse, for what had just happened. Unfortunately this put his back to another one of his coworkers, leaving himself vulnerable to attack. Jason had assumed they’d wait for their leader to start attacking, but he was wrong. A sharp pain tore across his shoulder blade and he hissed, spinning around and punching his assailant in the face. The thug fell at his feet, and Jason grabbed his knife on his way down. As he hit the floor Jason turned to face the boss again. The antihero shifted his weight, getting ready to lunge—
“FBI! Freeze!”
Peter had chosen exactly the right time to arrive. Jason quickly dropped the knife, and stepped backwards. As subtly as he could he grabbed his jacket from the chair he’d hung it on earlier and slipt it over his shoulders: careful not to turn his back to Peter and reveal the steadily growing red he was sure must be staining his shirt. The agent rushed over to him as the rest of the team began hauling away criminals. “Neal! Are you alright? What happened?”
Jason sighed. “Just a little scuffle. An old friend of mine showed up and blew my cover. The unconscious guy took a swing at me with a knife but I got it off him.” It wasn’t a lie, exactly, although Peter was unlikely to be pleased if he found out his consultant had neglected to mention the literal knife wound on his back.
Peter sighed. “Well. I’m glad you’re okay. Is your old friend somebody I should know about?”
“Nobody you’d be looking into.” Jason said with a shrug— quickly pushing down a wince when he felt the wound to his shoulder stretch unpleasantly. Drug crime in Gotham wasn’t exactly Peter’s jurisdiction.
A scoff broke free of Peter’s lips. “That’s not exactly reassuring.”
Jason just waved him off and the agent left to coordinate the crime scene processing. Jason sat down, a little dizzy, and thanked whatever god might be out there that blood wasn’t likely to show on the dark, rich, fabric of his suit jacket. Agents and techs bustled around him, bagging evidence and taking photos of the crime scene.
Jones walked over to Jason and began to examine the knife he’d carelessly dropped earlier in his rush to hide his injury. The agent frowned, and stood straight— shooting Jason an odd look. “Hey Peter,” he called, “wanna come here for a second?”
The antihero froze; something was definitely wrong. That tone of voice promised nothing good. Did they think he’d stolen something? What could he even steal in this place? Rats and empty pizza boxes— the thieves hadn’t exactly been clean, and the heist had never taken place.
Peter walked over, raising an eyebrow in question. “What’s wrong?” He asked.
Jones gestured towards the knife. “You see what I see, Boss?”
The senior agent looked down at the blade, going still. “Yeah. I do.” He said tersely, turning to Jason. “Neal, I thought you said the knife didn't get you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The consultant denied quickly.
“Oh yeah? Then whose blood is on that knife?”
Fuck. That’s what he’d forgotten. Jason opened his mouth, ready to spin some sort of lie, but another wave of dizziness had him stumbling to catch himself on a nearby table. Jones stepped forward, grabbing the con’s shoulder to keep him upright. The shoulder that had recently been knifed. Jason’s legs buckled and he felt his knees hit the floor harshly. A grunt of pain escaped him as he gasped loudly— trying to breath through the pain. When he looked up, Jones was staring at his hand in horror. The blood from his wound had apparently soaked through his suit jacket, maybe that was why he was so dizzy, and Clinton was now red-handed.
“Shit.” Peter swore, he rushed forward, turning Jason to lean forward over the table so he could get a better look at his back. “Off with it.” He said, already beginning to tug at his consultant’s jacket. “You need to take this off, I need to see what we’re dealing with.”
Jason struggled weakly against his hold. “Leave it! I’m fine.”
“You’re clearly not fine, Neal. I’m pulling rank here, take the damn jacket off or you’ll never be sent into the field again. If I can’t trust you to tell me when you’re injured I can’t risk you being out here.”
“Please.” Jason asked, eyes shifting towards the White Collar team who had begun to notice what was happening. “Not here.”
The CI had paled, although whether it was from the blood loss or the look of abject terror on his face, Peter wasn’t sure. The agent sighed, and turned to face the rest of the team. “Unless your name is Jones or Berrigan, stop what you’re doing and get out now. Call the paramedics and send them in as soon as they get here.” The crime scene emptied quickly as his subordinates rushed to comply.
Diana hurried over to them, looking concerned. “What’s going on?” She asked.
“Neal’s hurt,” Peter explained, “and for some reason he’s decided to hide it.”
Jason sent him a weak glare. “Just trying to keep my modesty intact.”
“We both know that while I was chasing you I had to listen to you have sex with your boyfriend in a room you were fully aware we’d bugged.” Peter deadpanned. “You have no modesty, now take the fucking shirt off.”
“I said I’m fine.” Jason snarled defensively.
“You’ve quite obviously been stabbed, Neal.”
The antihero paused. “Stabbing implies penetration, it was more like swiping.”
“Shut up and take your shirt off.” Peter growled at him.
All the fight left Jason at once as he realised there was no avoiding this; he’d been caught, and now he’d just have to face the consequences. “Help me out.” He sighed. “My range of movement is a little impaired right now.”
Diana helped him shrug his jacket off, and inhaled sharply at the sight of the red stain that stretched from his shoulder blade down to his pants. “Jesus Christ, Neal. Why would you hide this?”
Jason turned his head away from his friends. He didn’t know how to do this. Everybody in his other life already knew what had happened to him. They knew about the scars that covered his body— head to toe, viscous, ugly, things that spoke of all the people who’d ever hurt him. Caught him vulnerable. “I don’t love going topless. I don’t have the best summer beach body.”
Jones gave him a quizzical look. “C’mon man, we all know you’re jacked. Your suits are tailored well enough that you couldn’t hide that if you wanted to.”
“It’s not that.” Jason sighed, he reached towards his tie but stopped himself with a grunt when it sent a shooting pain through down his back. “Fuck. I’m going to need some help with this.” The three agents exchanged looks, trying to figure out who would make Jason feel the least awkward undressing him.
Peter sighed and stepped forward— the relieved look on his consultant’s face telling him he’d made the right choice. Slowly, as if not to scare him off, Peter reached forward and undid Jason’s tie: pulling it off and handing it to Diana for safekeeping. When he reached for Jason’s collar the CI couldn’t help but stiffen, letting out a low hiss when it aggravated his wound. Peter only paused a moment before beginning to unbutton his shirt front— stubbornly looking at his hands and avoiding any and all eye contact with any part of his friend’s body. It wasn’t until he slipped the stained shirt off his shoulders that he saw why Neal could’ve been a bit worried about undressing in front of them.
Jason was quite aware that his body wasn’t exactly a pretty sight. The life of a vigilante wasn’t easy— the life of a crime boss/anti-hero was even less easy. The team had seen the scars on his face before: a knick in his left eyebrow from Joker’s ring, a slash through the corner of his mouth from his time with Talia, a scar under his jaw he wasn’t sure when he’d gotten, only that he had it by the time he’d regained most of his sanity after the Lazarus Pit. His body though? That was a different level of gruesome. Harsh, angry, marks littered his torso and arms— long pale slashes from poorly-stitched knife wounds were littered with knots of scar tissue from bullet holes. Electric burns from one of the more fucked-up supervillains he’d dealt with marred his side, and he definitely had at least one alien bite wound. Most obviously, however— and still just as red as it was the day he’d clawed himself out of his coffin —was the Y-shaped autopsy scar that stretched shoulder to shoulder and down to his pubic bone.
The whole room seemed to still, everybody holding their breath as they waited for somebody else to react. Peter got over his shock first. “Get on the table, on your stomach. I need to put pressure on your wound.”
Jason scowled but complied, grateful that Peter wasn’t pressing him for an explanation. When he turned to lie himself down on the table he heard a strangled noise from behind him and winced. Yeah. The scarred slashes that covered most of his back practically screamed whips, and not in a fun way. Torture was so fucking pedestrian sometimes.
Peter pressed down on his back and Jason gritted his teeth. The awkward silence that had filled the room was interrupted by the arrival of the ambulance crew who quickly whirled him away. They were just pushing the stretcher into the ambulance when the world faded to black from the outside in and Jason lost consciousness.
He woke to an annoyingly familiar sound: a heart monitor steadily beating to the left of his head. Jason kept his breathing even and his eyes closed, taking a moment to process his surroundings. Peter and a doctor were talking in low voices a few feet away from the end of his bed.
“ … not even just the scars. We had to do an x-ray and we could hardly find a bone he hadn’t broken. I don’t know what happened to him, but I’d be surprised if he didn’t have any lasting side effects.” The doctor said.
Peter sighed in response. “If he does he’s never said anything. That’s hardly surprising though— actually it kind of makes sense now how tight-lipped he’s been about his past. Whatever caused this probably isn’t something he wants to talk about.”
They talked for a few minutes more before the doctor left, and Peter spoke up. “I know you’re awake Neal.”
Jason cursed under his breath and opened his eyes. “Hi, Peter.”
The agent scoffed, but gave him a fond look. “Hi, Neal. I’ve got a few questions for you. Starting with who shot you, and ending with the autopsy scar you apparently have.”
“Oh. That.” Jason mumbled. This wasn’t something he wanted to talk about with Peter— his friend was too good for Gotham and all that she entailed. “It’s … it’s a really long story. I don’t even know where to start.”
“El always says to start at the beginning and go from there.”
“Right. Well. How much do you know about Gotham?”
Peter paused. “I know that it’s the most violent city in America by a large margin, and that the federal government has all but declared it Justice League jurisdiction because of the weird amount of supervillains.”
Jason snorted. “Violent is an understatement. Whatever rumours you’ve heard about Gotham, I promise you it’s worse. Bruce Wayne is the richest man in America and he gets kidnapped on a fairly regular basis. What do you think it’s like for the non-billionaires in the city? I grew up in a place called Crime Alley, Peter, and it’s not named that for nothing. You don’t get out of there without looking something like I do.”
Peter looked pale under the hospital lights. “What the doctor said, about side effects. Are you okay? I don’t know how you could be okay after whatever caused … well, that.” He said, gesturing in the general direction of Jason’s entire body.
“I’m not getting out of this conversation, am I?” The consultant said in a wry tone.
“Not a chance. Do they affect your everyday life? Do they hurt? Why didn’t you ever tell us?”
“Of course they hurt, Peter. They’re not just cosmetic, some of these scars run deep. I didn’t mention it because it isn’t anybody else’s business— there’s nothing anybody can do about it, so it wasn’t worth mentioning.”
Peter sighed. “I just wish you would tell me the truth about your past.”
“Trust me, you don’t want to know.”