Kitty is aware of the irony, thanks. (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} kittynorville) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} chances_rpg,@ 2024-05-01 18:43:00 |
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| Entry tags: | dc: jason todd (comics), kitty norville: kitty norville, ~!game plot: villains |
LOG: JASON & KITTY
Who. Jason Todd & Kitty Norville
When. March 4; late
Where. Vague SF → The Station
What. The Nogitsune caused problems; Kitty escaped and called for help.
Warnings. aftermath of kidnapping, really
"You know your secret is safe with me, right?"
When. March 4; late
Where. Vague SF → The Station
What. The Nogitsune caused problems; Kitty escaped and called for help.
Warnings. aftermath of kidnapping, really
“Excuse me,” she blurted as she stepped into their path. Kitty knew she didn’t look harmless but she hoped she looked enough like a victim instead of an unhoused (and unwashed) person that some fellow women would stop long enough to hear her out. “I’m so sorry. I’m… I got in a spot and I can’t explain. I just need to borrow a phone and text my brother to come get me,” Kitty stammered. It wasn’t hard to recall how terrified she had been so many years ago after that bad date had gone so much more wrong. It wasn’t difficult to control the way she shook under their scrutiny. One girl opened her mouth and Kitty could practically smell the suspicion rolling off her. Fair. And under better circumstances, Kitty would have been proud of the girl. “He warned me about my boyfriend but he said he’d come get me if something went wrong and-” Kitty also didn’t need to fake the way her throat tightened and how tears pricked her eyes.
The other girl lifted her phone but also looked uncertain while glancing around. “We could call the police for you?” she offered.
Kitty shook her head. “If I call the police on him, it’ll just get worse. I just need… I just need Jason. He’ll know what to do. But I don’t have my phone and I don’t think he’ll pick up from an unknown number,” she said quickly. Her arms came up to hug herself and she stepped backward. “It’s okay. Nevermind. I’m sorry to bother you.”
The two strangers exchanged a look and a moment later, Female Solidarity kicked in. Kitty knew only a few numbers by heart; it wasn’t common in this age of smartphones but Kitty had been a little behind the times and some things were important to remember: Sam’s number, the Roadhouse, the radio station, Stiles’ number, and Jason Todd’s number. Jason’s was easy because she’d called him often enough to tell him when she was leaving work and since her hands were usually busy packing up or doing various tasks, a phone call was easier. Usually short. She could have cried in full when a phone was pushed into her hands.
Within two minutes, she’d sent her texts and the girls had shown her how to drop a pin for her exact location. They tried to talk her into going with them or to a coffee shop or anywhere indoors but Kitty was adamant: she couldn’t leave that spot and she didn’t want to risk the girls sticking around. They still insisted on giving her an insulated thermos with water in it (no, don’t worry about trying to give it back later. It was on sale at Target and she had so many more at home) before going on their way again with concerned looks backward. Kitty should have gone elsewhere. She knew that. Logically she understood that she’d made herself a sitting duck but there was enough light where she was that maybe she stood a chance if the Nogitsune returned and decided the third hostage was still necessary. Kitty couldn’t make herself leave the spot. She could see where she’d emerged and prayed keeping it in sight would be enough. She couldn’t risk leaving and finding that Stiles and Dee had been moved.
Kitty was a sight for sore eyes, for sure, no matter how roughed up she looked. Jason let out a huge sigh when he saw her, although none of the tension left his body. Not yet. Relaxing meant letting someone get the jump on him, if whoever had taken her was lingering.
"Todd's Taxi Service," he announced when he got close enough to be heard without yelling. His eyes flicked over her from head to toe, in a way that might have been sexual from another man but was simply assessing, from him. He and Kitty, they weren't like that. They were friends, and Jason might have had a thing for a friend or two in the past but... not this time. Especially not when she'd just been through who the hell knew what. "Where does it hurt most?"
Because Jason could guarantee that it did hurt, and in more than one place.
He stepped in close enough to touch, looking down at her with a smirk slanting his lips but worry furrowing his brow. He hadn't even known that his face could do both those things at the same time, but there they were. Unexplored depths, he had 'em.
The car that approached got her hackles up but relief made her sag when he announced the ridiculous name. Kitty watched his approach, weary but not of him. "Everywhere," she replied with brutal honesty. "Werewolf metabolism sucks when it starts eating up what you don't have to give." She held out her hand. "Can I have your phone?" the blonde asked. Kitty knew he'd oblige unless he didn't have it on him and she didn't see him dropping it between having fired off the texts back to her. She turned a half step and simply leaned up against him like she needed the wall at her back. Or side. Jason could watch her back. And every side. She knew that. She trusted that.
"We can't leave. And you can't go in there," Kitty added with a small shake of her head. "But I can put the word out for help." She shivered and realized that she was feeling the cold which was not a great sign considering werewolves ran hot and she was from Denver. She needed food. With that mental recall, she gulped down water before trading the bottle for Jason's phone as she did exactly as she said. She was fading, though, now that the adrenaline wasn't the only thing fueling her.
"Why can't I go in there?" Jason asked. He was already pulling out his phone and extending it toward her, no questions asked. Of course she had people she needed to get in touch with, people whose numbers she didn't have memorized.
He didn't protest why they couldn't leave; he could put the pieces together and figure out who was being held in that building right there.
Obviously they had to keep staking the place out until reinforcements arrived, if that was what she wanted, but Jason was pretty sure that he could take whatever was inside. He had the All-Blades after all, if it happened to be pure evil... but Kitty didn't know that, and yeah, maybe whoever went in needed to be a little stealthier than Jason, but he could make it work.
Kitty fired off a post to the network. "You can't go in because I need to know that someone who isn't me is able to keep watch in case I can't keep it together," she said. Her hands were beginning to shake and her lip quivered. Keep it together. She had meant that if she could remain conscious; Kitty was sure Jason would just put her in his car and lock the doors so if she fell asleep she had some protection. "And I don't want to be alone," Kitty admitted, voice quiet. She felt too vulnerable and her wolf wanted nothing more than to whine, to tuck her tail, to hide.
"Stiles told me how to defeat it. He explained, when it left us alone. Unless you're all sorts of magic and other..." Kitty pushed on before looking up at Jason. She had circles under her eyes and her hair was flat and plastered to her skull. "Please stay here. Until others arrive. Then you can go in if you have to. It's still in there. And it won't hesitate to kill Stiles and Dee. We need to-" Kitty broke off with a shaky inhale and looked away. "I know its type. It might play but it won't kill. If we don't hit hard enough and fast enough and protect Stiles and Dee at the same time, I don't like anyone's odds." Including her own. Because if Jason went in, so was she.
If it hadn't been for that one little admission, that 'I don't want to be alone', Jason would have gone charging in anyway. Because... yeah, he was equipped to go up against magic, no problem. It would take an awful lot of explaining and it'd probably out them to the rest, but Jason could go in swords blazing and take care of things.
There was always someone getting caught in the crossfires to worry about, though, and Kitty didn't want to be alone. Kitty was terrified, understandably, and Jason had to weigh his options.
Honestly? Jason wasn't that much of a hero. And he didn't know Stiles and Dee well enough to feel that drive to save them.
"Okay. Yeah, okay, I'll stay here with you," he capitulated. "Get in, at least? We'll just... I mean, what's the worst that could happen, I get a ticket?"
Kitty breathed a sigh of relief and then turned a wry grin up at Jason though it didn't reach her eyes in the least. "They won't give us a ticket for idling as long as we're not in the way. Could just put the hazards on and say we're waiting for a tow. You mind running the heater though?" Which meant the car needed to stay running but...
She looked down at his phone as the replies started coming in and Kitty tapped out the information she did have. Kitty startled when she realized she had already zoned out and Jason was herding her into the passenger seat. She was usually way better at doing multiple things at once. But Kitty was exhausted and wrung out in every way possible so she didn't dwell.
Once she was settled into the seat, Jason turned the heater on... and locked the doors, because he figured that they'd both feel a little better about life if he did. Protection duty wasn't usually Jason's thing, but it wasn't the first time he'd been on it. This time, though, it was at least completely his choice instead of someone else giving the orders.
"I'll watch," Jason told her, "if you wanna rest your eyes for a minute."
Which he figured would probably mean her going to sleep, but he was okay with that too. He could keep an eye on the building for as long as he needed to. He hadn't been through much of anything, lately. It was weird, honestly.
Kitty shook her head a moment and went back to his phone before she breathed a soft sigh of relief. "I think they've got it from here," she said. "It's... that's all I can do right now."
She traded Jason's phone for her gifted thermos of water again. It was his network connection, he could see the post and track where it was going so he was in the loop. "When we're all... when they're safe," Kitty started and quickly changed tactics, "think we can do a run through a drive-through? Just like... so many hamburgers. I can pay you back. No wallet on me." Kitty drew her knees up and curled into the seat, the last of her adrenaline disappearing and leaving her exhausted. Her back was to Jason but that was just it: she trusted him to watch her back. "If you need to go in... fine. Just... please wait for the others?" Kitty wasn't even sure if he'd heard her before she dropped off to sleep. It was going to take her body a few days to recover; the drawback of werewolf healing meant she needed the fuel to do so.
Jason stayed right where he was, even after the reinforcements rolled in; he rolled his window down and talked to them in a hushed tone, gave them what information he'd gathered for himself in his time watching and repeated what Kitty had told him. He stayed right where he was until after they'd brought Stiles and Dee out safely, and then he'd carefully put the car in drive.
It was the slowest and most carefully he'd ever driven, honestly, avoiding holes in the road as well as he could to keep from waking Kitty up. He winced when the pulled into a drive thru and the speaker crackled on, but he managed to order a ridiculous amount of burgers that had the poor kid working the mic sounding a little dazed and she still slept on. Jason figured she really needed it; he wasn't going to push. He just ordered the burgers plain.
When they handed the bag to him, Jason opened the top and wafted the smell of it toward her. If anything was going to wake her up peacefully…
Kitty wasn't so out of it that she was fully unconscious but she might as well have been. The scent of fast food burgers did pull her up enough that she unfolded and turned toward Jason with a look of hope--and hunger. "Oh my God, thank you," she breathed and snatched at the bag to unload four burgers before shoving it back toward him. Not polite, no, but at least she was letting him take one or two for himself without wanting to bite his hand off.
She was halfway through the first hamburger when her brain really caught up and she realized they were away from where they'd been parked. Which meant she'd missed the action. "Are they okay?" Kitty asked around a mouthful of food. It was entirely possible she was going to make herself sick but for the time being it was fine.
"They're fine. Or, they're going to be fine," Jason said. There was a difference, obviously. "Everyone got out safe and sound, thanks to you."
It was important for her to know that; he should have started with that, probably, but hey, hindsight was twenty-twenty.
"They're getting taken to... wherever they need to go, I guess, it's all being taken care of. All you have to worry about is you, now." Because Jason knew that wasn't true before. She'd been responsible for them, there was no way around it, the only one that could save them... but she could put that down now and focus on herself.
Kitty shook her head. It wasn't thanks to her. Sure, she played her role in it and that was why Stiles had decided she was the one who had to get out. That part wasn't important, who deserved the credit, because everyone was safe and that was what mattered. She made her way through the first hamburger in record time.
"They'll probably take them to Rapunzel," Kitty said. She wasn't the only healer but she was the fastest, most thorough option if Kitty was remembering things correctly. "I... should not do that," she said after a moment and frowned as she dug another hamburger out to unwrap it. "Not injured just... fucked up. I don't know if that would work or if it could harm her so I'll just... I'll deal with it." She hated all of her pauses and the uncertainty she could hear in her own voice. Kitty started in on the second burger and didn't even have it in her to be embarrassed.
Her shoulders hunched when she'd finished off her second mini-meal and she risked a look up at Jason. "Do you...?" The question died off before she managed to finish it though the upward tilt was still there. Kitty grimaced. "Could I take over your couch or something and sleep? I don't... God, I just don't want to be in my apartment right now and I need sleep."
"Absolutely not," Jason told her. His mind was spinning, trying to remember if they'd left anything out that needed to be put away before he had company over. He didn't... think so? But shit, it was a gamble. "You're taking the bed. No arguments. Mi casa es su casa."
So what if he didn't exactly fit on the bed? He was probably sleeping on the floor outside the bedroom that night anyway, just in case.
He put on his turn signal before taking the turn a little too sharply for a normal driver.
Kitty blinked, startled, and then immediately smiled when she realized what Jason was doing. The absolutely not had ratcheted up her anxiety for all of two seconds and here he was vehemently denying her the couch so she could crash in his bed. It was sweet and she was grateful for the man all over again. The argument was still on the tip of her tongue by sheer nature of who she was but Kitty was distracted by the sharp turn.
She hadn't realized just how far the Nogitsune had taken them, even without the detour for fast food, and Kitty frowned all over again as her mind tried to come up with the where and when that Stiles had been taken in the first place. It did her no good. She had gotten through the rest of her hamburgers by the time Jason parked and Kitty was still ready to drop again. "Thank you," she murmured and pushed the car door open but had to talk herself into getting out and getting vertical. Leaning so heavily against the car a second later was likely not a good look. Her feet were bare on the concrete and Kitty focused on the feeling of the chill, trying to ground herself so she didn't tip over on her first independent step away from the car. "Okay," she breathed, clearly still talking herself into the next (literal) step.
"Piggyback or princess?" Jason asked, coming around to her side of the car far more quietly than a man his size ought to be able to manage.
Werewolf hearing meant it didn't matter how quiet Jason could be. She smiled and started to decline as she looked up at the man--and realized it wasn't an offer. It was a question of how she was going to be carried and Kitty pursed her lips for a moment before relenting. "Princess," she muttered and found herself scooped up with far too much ease. Since she didn't have to cling to him, Kitty just settled against Jason and let relief settle in that she was both safe and she wasn't going to make a fool of herself by face-planting into the floor without warning.
"You're an assho-" Dick said as Jason came through the door and the scold ended with a click of his teeth. He was still nursing the damned shoulder wound and cracked ribs which were not helped by the way he'd sat up at the sound of the door. He watched the blonde give a weak, embarrassed wave. He also watched Jason disappear into his bedroom with her and Dick heaved himself up to tuck away any incriminating items that were in the main living area. Jason would have to explain anything he'd left out in his bedroom and, admittedly, his brother was far more tidy than Dick was. Dick tried but it was so low on the list of worries.
Jason deposited Kitty gently on the bed without any regard for his fairly clean sheets. Sheets washed. So did women, and it occurred to him belatedly that maybe she'd prefer to get clean before she crawled under the blankets.
"Sleep? Shower? You can just, I don't know, borrow a shirt, and I might have some shorts around here somewhere." If not: boxers. What? He washed them! They were as clean as anything else he owned.
Jason stood above her, arms crossed over his chest and lips pursed as he tried to remember if he had in fact bothered to get a pair of athletic shorts. He was kind of thinking he hadn't, now.
Kitty grimaced at the mention of a shower because, yes, that would do wonders as long as she didn't fall over in the middle of it. "Quick shower, I can borrow a shirt," she said and then sized Jason up, "and it'll probably be big enough to not worry about shorts. I'm not shy." And they weren't like that, worrying about modesty, because they were grown-ass adults who were friends. Jason had a protective streak a mile long; Kitty couldn't feel safer. "That can be a thought for in about ten minutes and I'll crack the door open while I’m at it." For both their sakes.
She flashed a grin and reached out, tapping one of his forearms. "You really have that intimidating stance down, you know that?" Kitty teased. He'd never had cause to use it when he'd been there to meet her at her stop and she knew he didn't mean to be using it while standing there in his own room.
Jason laughed and rubbed at the back of his neck in embarrassment. "Sorry. Guess I'm being a little bossy, huh? You can pay me back when it's my turn to get kidnapped."
He said it like it was inevitable, because in his life it kind of had been. They'd all been taken captive, once in a while. He could usually fight his way out eventually, though.
"Here, I'll go ahead and grab you one," he offered, moving to block her view of his drawers with his body. There were probably a few little things out here and there that were suspicious if you put them together. Jason was just hoping she was too exhausted to be her usual sharp self, at least until after he'd put them away while she was in the shower. "This'll work."
The shirt he tossed her way would definitely be long enough on her that she didn't need pants. It had a logo on it once, but it had already been so faded it was unreadable before he picked it up at the thrift store.
"See? Perfect," Kitty said as she caught the shirt and held it up for inspection. It took Jason helping her up but Kitty was able to at least get into the bathroom under her own power which was already an improvement from the parking garage. She was on the rebound after stuffing herself with the hamburgers. Kitty got the water going and smiled at the towel set on the sink for her. The door was cracked, as promised, and she stripped before finally climbing under the hot water.
Dick watched Jason. "You're dumb," he said, fondly, once he knew the blonde was in the shower. "Just take sweatpants out of my room. They'll fit her a little better. You have everything put away?"
"Nope." Jason popped the 'p' and shrugged. "She didn't say anything. I'm just gonna... go do that. You sure about the sweats? She's okay with just a shirt... or she says she is anyway."
And Kitty didn't play games like that. She'd be honest about it if she wasn't.
“She's a girl,” Dick said, as though that explained his entire thought process. “Grab sweats so she has them. They don't put on worn underwear after a shower and they don't go commando as easily as we do. She might not have thought that far ahead and she can ignore them if she doesn't want them.. Then go pick up shit. I'll be here.”
"...huh. Guess I really don't understand girls," Jason admitted.
He slipped into Dick's room and grabbed the smallest pair of sweats he could find and then dropped them right inside the bathroom on the counter; he wasn't sure if Kitty even noticed his hand and forearm sneaking into the room. Cleanup was... not a breeze, exactly, but Jason managed to get it done before the water shut off.
Hey, he even changed the sheets.
He snorted at the comment about understanding but Dick just dropped back down, carefully, into a horizontal position on the couch.
Kitty immediately noticed the sweatpants and smiled. She dried off and changed into the borrowed shirt and pants and kept the towel to dry her hair as much as possible. She looked more solid when she exited the bathroom, if just exhausted and a little thin in the face. “Thank you both,” Kitty said before slipping into Jason's room again and dropping heavily onto the bed.
She grinned up at Jason, though, mischief in her eyes. “Did you get all your superhero shit hidden?” Kitty teased. “Your first aid cabinet is massive, for the record, and someone left what looks like weapons in there.” Just in case they needed to do another clean up so someone else didn't stumble on anything weird.
"Uh." Jason stood and stared for a second, panicking. "I'm. Uh. We collect them?"
Shit, shit, shit, either he was going to kill Dick or Dick was going to kill him. Maybe it would be a mutual killing.
"Uh huh," Kitty replied with an amused smile, not at all believing him. Or, well, she probably did believe him but his defense was completely lacking. "You know your secret is safe with me, right?"
She crawled across the bed and settled at the very far edge. "I'm not the boss of you but there's room up here when you're ready to sleep. Your choice. I'm not going to last more than ten minutes and I'll probably sleep pretty hard. You won't offend me." Kitty slid under the blanket and curled up onto her side. "Jason..." she said quietly, the smile disappearing though it turned into something small and grateful. "Really. Thank you for showing up."
Dick was still going to kill him, but Jason didn't mind too much. Not if it made his friend smile even after all she had been through. He leaned in to pull the blanket up a little more securely around her, more out of a need to do something than any real problem with its previous position.
"I mean, let's try to avoid that happening again, but..." Jason winked at her. "Any time."