[Meme] Lyrics-drabble meme: DCU version

[runespoor7]

1. Put your mp3 player on shuffle and take the first 25 songs it gives you. (you can pick alternate songs if you think the language barrier might come into play. which I did.)
2. Pick a lyric that speaks to you
3. Let your friends assign you a lyric to write a drabble. Parts of the DCU you can choose from: Gotham, Titans, Outsiders, Others.

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[runespoor7]

“You are cutting it extremely close,” Jason once said, conversational. He watched avidly on the grainy flatness of his security cams, the deeper shade of the cape as Batman worked to undo the bomb. Batman’s jaw clenched, and Jason swallowed.

He bit his lip when Bruce strode away, anger more palpable than fear of the explosion.

*

The heat weights Gotham down, a sweltering blanket of lead before a storm. Crime buzzes like a horsefly, menacingly lazy, and its inevitable sting prickles at uneven intervals. Sweat stick T-shirts and work clothes to the skin, and passerbys cast occasional, dubious glances at the sky and its grey cover of clouds.

A bead of sweat trickles down Jason’s face, and a lock of his hair falls limply before his eyes. He blows a gust out of the corner of his lips, thoughtless and not taking his eyes away from the multitude of blinking lights on his screen. One of them is Bat-shaped - never let it be said that Jay can’t be detail-oriented when it pays (even if he’s only getting paid in thrills and a pang of satisfaction, low in the gut like a punch; that’s the only kind of payment that’s worth anything anyway) - and it slides from one red dots to another, erasing them as it goes. Each is a bomb, harmlessly disarmed.

He passed the first third a while ago, but despite the earcom that he must have picked up, Jason’s earcom is staying obstinately silent. The curl of hair falls back again, tikling, and impatiently Jason shakes his head to push it away. Of course he knew Bruce was going to be stubborn; of course Bruce is going to give in sooner or later - Jason’s not chatting and that always throws Bruce off a loop - it doesn’t make the meantime any more fun. Jason’s on tenterhooks like a kid at the amusement park, mouth full of the sticky-sweet taste of cotton candy even before the first bite. He gets enough mileage of his imagination when he’s on his lonesome, and it doesn’t hold a wet candle to the real thing.

Come on, he mouths at the screen. The bomb Bruce is currently disarming has been holding up better than the others, the Bat-shaped symbol superimposing with the blinking light longer than for the others. Get over it, talk to me.

The red light disappears. Jason waits with bated breath, for a heartbeat. Another.

Nothing, and he wants to bite his fist not to scream with frustration.

Fuck you, you incommunicative, arrogant ass.

As the Bat makes its way to the nearest symbol, Jason glances over the rest of the screen. There’s not nearly enough remaining bombs if this turns into a contest, if Bruce makes it into a matter of stubbornness and wounded pride.

“Are you nearly done?”

Bruce’s irritated voice, made deeper with Batman’s Gotham growl, and it makes Jason’s heart jump in his throat (edge of his seat out of his skin, ghost boy made flesh, who’d wreck the Batman’s brains out just to spread his mind out, zombie-starved), and startles a laugh out of him.

One of the surveillance cams he’s hacked into relays a glimpse of Batman driving through the night. You couldn’t tell through the Batmobile’s dark windows, but Jason’d bet he looks pissed.

“We’re never gonna be done, Bruce,” Jason informs him. “Not until, y’know. One of us bites it. I think it’s gonna be you; it was my turn last time and you cheated when it was yours. You’d call it winning, am I right? That winning streak of yours is gonna hold up long, you think? You don’t have the best track record when it comes to people dying, Batman.”