Chapter Text
Prologue (POV: Roy)
“You’ve got those tracking bullets I made you, right?”
“Yes, Roy.”
“They’re hooked up to your helmet, they’ll start pinging once you shoot, remember?”
"I remember, Roy."
“Maybe just lemme’ look at the helmet again, I want to make sure-”
“Roy!”
Jason grabs Roy’s hands, pulling them away from the pockets of his suit. Roy can just imagine the exasperated expression hidden behind his helmet. “I was a fuckin’ crime lord, Roy. I promise you I can patrol on my own!” Jason reminds him.
Roy sighs, giving him a final look over. He knows Jason is formidable. He looks it too, armed to the teeth, 6’2” in his combat boots, his padded armor shielding him from the world… “Fine.” Roy sighs, though he steps into Jason’s space a final time. With careful hands, he reaches up to tilt Jason’s helmet up and back, over his chin and lips. Roy rocks up onto his toes, and kisses him.
Despite his urgency to get to patrolling, Jason pauses. His fingers flit down Roy’s sides before landing at his waist, fiddling with the belt of the Arsenal suit. Roy smiles against his mouth before breaking the kiss by resettling Jason’s helmet back down over his head.
“I’ll see you in the morning, be careful.” Roy tells him. Jason nods, and Roy can imagine him grinning under the helmet. Then he turns, pulling out his grappling gun and heading for the balcony.
“Love you!” Roy shouts after Jason as he slips out the window and takes off into the night.
It’s been a ‘quiet’ night so far, as quiet as Gotham can be, anyway, and Jason has yet to send any case updates for Roy to scrutinize. A part of Roy itches to go check on him, to join his partner in patrol like they’re used to, but the other half of him remembers that he has a 5-year old to pick up from her grandparents in the morning.
With a yawn, Roy stands from the desk, switching off the array of monitors he’s been watching, and heads to the locker room to change out of the Arsenal suit.
First his bow and his newly-restocked quiver are placed carefully in their case. Then he starts to work on removing his suit. Red gloves, elbow and knee pads, pauldrons… it’s a process to get in and out of the protective suit.
Shhh-thunk
Roy cocks a brow at the sound of the window opening. Jason’s hardly been gone an hour, did he forget something?
Slightly clumsy in his half-removed suit, Roy steps out of the locker room and back into the main area of the safe house. The room is dark, lit mainly by the city lights shining through the windows.
“Jay?” Roy asks the seemingly empty room, a sense of anxiety building in his chest.
He turns at the creek of the wooden floor, a sound just behind him. In the dim light, Roy makes out little more than a white face and an eerie grin, hurtling towards him.