Fic: Falling Into Bed | DCU | Jason/Donna | R | 4/?
Title: Falling Into Bed
Fandom: DCU
Pairing: Jason/Donna
Ratings: R - for language
Word Count: 1,854
Prompt: (this section) For 50_darkfics: #29: Guilt; for the DCU Free For All February Challenge: T11; P32: Release
Summary: (series) There are many ways for a couple to fall into bed together. (this section) In an AU future, Jason and Donna have trouble coping with everyday life after the events of the Final Crisis.
Disclaimer: DC and WB own it all. I own nothing. Darnit.
Author's Notes: This is the fourth in a series of fics and ficlets written for several Valentine's Day challenges. I don't think this one really counts for either of those, but there might be actual Valentine's stuff to come in a sequel ficlet later today. However! This does also fit merfilly's Women Calling the Shots Challenge. Jay/Donna is still a pretty new pairings for me, but I really love it, so what the heck. :p As for this being an AU future-fic, I don't know what's gonna happen, I can just speculate. More ficlets in the series as a whole to be posted later today and maybe tomorrow.
Falling Into Bed - IV
Settling into a routine again after the latest crisis was over was damned near impossible for Jason. To be honest, he was bored out of his mind, restless, irritated. Even donning a new Kevlar helmet and taking up the mantle of Red Hood again hadn't seemed to live up to his expectations. It just wasn't... exciting anymore.
And revenge... who needed it? After he'd killed the Joker on Earth-51, his heart hadn't been in it anymore. Really, how much more vengeance did he need to take out once the hunger had stopped?
Which didn't seem like him at all, actually, but then, he realized his companions at the time and what they all went through together might have had something to do with his change in outlook. That, and seeing just what the Bruce of that otherwise perfect world had become.
The thought of it made him shiver. He'd never set out to become that guy, and he wouldn't want this world's Bruce - his Bruce - to ever wind up like that, either.
Even if the bastard still hadn't made any kind of effort to make things right between them.
But all of that was neither here nor there. The thing that was really plaguing him was the sudden aloneness he'd been shoved back into once things had returned more or less to the status quo. He'd been hanging around Kyle and Donna so damn long that he'd forgotten what it was like to just go off and do his own thing. Been jumping from fight to fight so often that he didn't know how to relax anymore.
As it was, he couldn't seem to settle into his ratty bed in his craptastic apartment. Sleep eluded him in the too bright city, in the insufficient heat and smoggy air. He couldn't content himself with cold pizza and beer. And dammit, even his Jerry Springer reruns didn't feel the same anymore. Nothing seemed... right.
So it was with this sense of unease that he found himself on Donna's doorstep in a bit swankier part of New York. He wasn't even sure why he was here, exactly, but... dammit, he just needed to see her. Maybe to reassure himself that he wasn't the only one going nuts. Or whatever.
Of course, waiting for her to come to the damned door seemed to take hours, during which he muttered several choice curses under his breath and tried to ignore the mad thrum of his pulse, but once she threw it open, it felt like the first time he'd seen the sun in years, finally laying eyes on her in her civilian clothes, a soft sweater and jeans. He started sheepishly, feeling like a complete idiot, “Uh, hey, Do-”
But his greeting was cut off as she grabbed him by the jacket and yanked him inside.
“Christ, Wonder Chick! What's the deal?” he managed once he got his footing again.
But Donna didn't seem to be in any kind of a talkative mood. Instead, she just grabbed him again, this time by the shoulders, and shoved him further into the bright, roomy apartment. “You,” she ground out, her eyes blazing.
“Yeah, it's me. What?” he glared at her, stumbling backwards until his legs hit something and he fell. Landing on a broad couch, he waited for her to either knock him around some more or... He didn't know, but he hoped it wasn't the former; he'd already taken his hair share of beatings from her for being an ass.
Looming over him, she pinned him to the couch within the cage of her arms. Eyes furious. For a long time she just stared down at him, her face pulled into a stone grimace.
Jay could only breathe shallowly and wonder why he'd come here. The last time they'd seen each other... things hadn't exactly been that great.
Finally, “Do you have any idea what I've had to deal with since we came home!?”
“I think I-”
“Shut up,” she cut him off. “I can't eat. I can't sleep. I can't... God, I can't sit still for more than five minutes without going out of my mind. And all because of what I saw, what I did... What we did... I can't even tell anyone about it, without risking lives! And you! You're the only one that even knows what all happened out there! You and Kyle... and God only knows what happened to him in the middle of all that. Have you seen him? They've... they've got him sedated, twenty-four/seven. They're threatening to send him to Arkham, Jason! And... how the hell do I deal with that!?! I can't! I can't-”
“Donna, stop,” Jay finally interrupted her tirade, gripping her around the waist tightly to get her attention. Not that he had bothered to deal with the aftermath of being a central figure in a near-apocalypse, but when he did manage to sleep at night, the nightmares were just as real as the day it had all happened. “Just... stop.”
Tearing away from him, she spun and stalked over to the wall-height windows, hands clenching into fists at her sides. “Fuck you,” she spat, not looking at him.
Seeing her pained reflection in the window sent an ache straight to Jay's gut, and he rose from the couch to approach her, tentatively. With a heavy breath he laid a hand on her shoulder. “It's over, Donna. And there's nothing we can do about it.”
Snarling, she pounded a fist against the window, and the hollow warping thud reverberated through the apartment. “Dammit! We wiped out entire worlds, Jay! Whole Earths, just... gone! Because we were too damned concerned with saving our own.” Her eyes fell closed and she dipped her head away. “Prime was right. He was right, and we were wrong. We're no better than the mass murderers he made us all out to be.”
“That's not true!” Jason ground out. “Prime was a whining pussy. And look where it got him? One-way ticket to eternity. And not the good kind, either. We're still alive. He's not.”
“That's some logic...” Donna hurled back at him with a dark sarcasm he knew she'd picked up from him along the way. “You ever hear from Bruce?”
Caught off guard, Jay blinked at her reflection, his hand slipping from her shoulder. “No... You hear from Diana?”
“Not one goddamn word. And you know why?”
“Because they know they all screwed the pooch on this one, that's why. They're too damned afraid to face us.”
Whirling on him, Donna grabbed his wrist in a tight grip. “No! Because we screwed up, Jason. We did. Every damned move we made, was a mistake. They can't face us because of what we've become! And here everyone thought Diana was a murderer because of Max Lord, and Bruce was some kind of psycho for building Brother Eye. When it turns out that we're the true fuck-ups.”
“Oh, would you give it a rest, already!!” Jay shouted at her, pulling out of her grip and slamming her to the window by the shoulders. “We did what we had to do. And Kyle did what he had to do. And the universe is still more or less intact. We're here. And so what if a few crazy versions of Earth had to go the way of the dinosaurs! Who the hell needed that crazy steam-punk Earth, anyway!?”
He only realized he was screaming in her face when she flinched back from him involuntarily, and instantly he withdrew, his jaw dropping. “I... I'm sorry... I...” he breathed.
Donna only glared at him harder, her features hardening again, her chest rising with angered breaths. Slowly, quietly, she added, “That was never our decision to make.”
But Jay couldn't look at her. Turning on his heel, he started for the door. However fast he could get away...
“You never did tell me what was so special about that Earth.”
And just like that, Jay's feet cemented to the floor, and he could only stare at them, immovable.
“I can see it in your eyes, you know. Could then, too. When we... when you... I know you didn't want to, Jay. I know there was something about it... that killed you to give up. So why did you do it? Why, out of all the possible worlds, did you destroy that one?”
Jay's stomach tried to crawl up through his throat. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't speak. She didn't know what had happened to him there, what he'd felt, known. She couldn't know that he was of that world, or that, in some way, a part of him belonged there. Or that he was, in essence, destroying his home.
When he felt her hands on his shoulders at last, he couldn't keep them from slumping with the weight of his truth. “I...” he started, his voice choked. “I did what had to be done. Sacrifices had to be made.”
“Bull shit. You... you remember that world, don't you?”
He whirled on her at that, eyes hard. “The hell?”
“I remember it, too, Jay. I remember all of them.”
“What... what do you mean?”
Donna sighed. “It's a long story. But the gist of it is that I have full memory of all the versions of me on all those other worlds. And believe me, it's not a happy family reunion.”
“But...”
“But what? Why didn't I ever say anything? Come on, Jason. What good would it have done? I had to put all that aside just like you did.”
For a moment, Jay thought he saw a storm brewing in her eyes. A heavy tempest full of sorrow and drowning rains. But it was replaced just as quickly with that look of compassion she'd get every time they'd run into another Joker, or gotten into a fight where Jay had been hurt.
“I couldn't let it exist,” he blurt out suddenly, unable to keep it in under her intense gaze any longer. “I... couldn't have that reminder that I belonged somewhere else.”
“Jay...” she sighed deeply, and with a step she closed the distance between them, her mouth pressing against his in an anguished kiss, firm and unexpectedly tear streaked, salty and sweet, bitter and tired. Her hands found his sides, and snaked beneath his shirt to grip his waist, cool fingers on taught muscles.
With a moan rumbling in his chest and throat, the ache in his gut moving southward, he grabbed her shoulders again to steer her back to the couch, pressing back into the kiss more urgently. God, but he needed this. Needed her.
Donna seemed to have her own ideas, though, as she turned him to head towards the bedroom, her natural strength overpowering him with little effort or care as she took control of the kiss again, hand keeping his head where she wanted it.
Just as she'd taken control of him while they were out trekking through the multi-verse.
Willing to give her anything she wanted, grateful for anything she might offer, he went.
* * * * *
Fandom: DCU
Pairing: Jason/Donna
Ratings: R - for language
Word Count: 1,854
Prompt: (this section) For 50_darkfics: #29: Guilt; for the DCU Free For All February Challenge: T11; P32: Release
Summary: (series) There are many ways for a couple to fall into bed together. (this section) In an AU future, Jason and Donna have trouble coping with everyday life after the events of the Final Crisis.
Disclaimer: DC and WB own it all. I own nothing. Darnit.
Author's Notes: This is the fourth in a series of fics and ficlets written for several Valentine's Day challenges. I don't think this one really counts for either of those, but there might be actual Valentine's stuff to come in a sequel ficlet later today. However! This does also fit merfilly's Women Calling the Shots Challenge. Jay/Donna is still a pretty new pairings for me, but I really love it, so what the heck. :p As for this being an AU future-fic, I don't know what's gonna happen, I can just speculate. More ficlets in the series as a whole to be posted later today and maybe tomorrow.
Falling Into Bed - IV
Settling into a routine again after the latest crisis was over was damned near impossible for Jason. To be honest, he was bored out of his mind, restless, irritated. Even donning a new Kevlar helmet and taking up the mantle of Red Hood again hadn't seemed to live up to his expectations. It just wasn't... exciting anymore.
And revenge... who needed it? After he'd killed the Joker on Earth-51, his heart hadn't been in it anymore. Really, how much more vengeance did he need to take out once the hunger had stopped?
Which didn't seem like him at all, actually, but then, he realized his companions at the time and what they all went through together might have had something to do with his change in outlook. That, and seeing just what the Bruce of that otherwise perfect world had become.
The thought of it made him shiver. He'd never set out to become that guy, and he wouldn't want this world's Bruce - his Bruce - to ever wind up like that, either.
Even if the bastard still hadn't made any kind of effort to make things right between them.
But all of that was neither here nor there. The thing that was really plaguing him was the sudden aloneness he'd been shoved back into once things had returned more or less to the status quo. He'd been hanging around Kyle and Donna so damn long that he'd forgotten what it was like to just go off and do his own thing. Been jumping from fight to fight so often that he didn't know how to relax anymore.
As it was, he couldn't seem to settle into his ratty bed in his craptastic apartment. Sleep eluded him in the too bright city, in the insufficient heat and smoggy air. He couldn't content himself with cold pizza and beer. And dammit, even his Jerry Springer reruns didn't feel the same anymore. Nothing seemed... right.
So it was with this sense of unease that he found himself on Donna's doorstep in a bit swankier part of New York. He wasn't even sure why he was here, exactly, but... dammit, he just needed to see her. Maybe to reassure himself that he wasn't the only one going nuts. Or whatever.
Of course, waiting for her to come to the damned door seemed to take hours, during which he muttered several choice curses under his breath and tried to ignore the mad thrum of his pulse, but once she threw it open, it felt like the first time he'd seen the sun in years, finally laying eyes on her in her civilian clothes, a soft sweater and jeans. He started sheepishly, feeling like a complete idiot, “Uh, hey, Do-”
But his greeting was cut off as she grabbed him by the jacket and yanked him inside.
“Christ, Wonder Chick! What's the deal?” he managed once he got his footing again.
But Donna didn't seem to be in any kind of a talkative mood. Instead, she just grabbed him again, this time by the shoulders, and shoved him further into the bright, roomy apartment. “You,” she ground out, her eyes blazing.
“Yeah, it's me. What?” he glared at her, stumbling backwards until his legs hit something and he fell. Landing on a broad couch, he waited for her to either knock him around some more or... He didn't know, but he hoped it wasn't the former; he'd already taken his hair share of beatings from her for being an ass.
Looming over him, she pinned him to the couch within the cage of her arms. Eyes furious. For a long time she just stared down at him, her face pulled into a stone grimace.
Jay could only breathe shallowly and wonder why he'd come here. The last time they'd seen each other... things hadn't exactly been that great.
Finally, “Do you have any idea what I've had to deal with since we came home!?”
“I think I-”
“Shut up,” she cut him off. “I can't eat. I can't sleep. I can't... God, I can't sit still for more than five minutes without going out of my mind. And all because of what I saw, what I did... What we did... I can't even tell anyone about it, without risking lives! And you! You're the only one that even knows what all happened out there! You and Kyle... and God only knows what happened to him in the middle of all that. Have you seen him? They've... they've got him sedated, twenty-four/seven. They're threatening to send him to Arkham, Jason! And... how the hell do I deal with that!?! I can't! I can't-”
“Donna, stop,” Jay finally interrupted her tirade, gripping her around the waist tightly to get her attention. Not that he had bothered to deal with the aftermath of being a central figure in a near-apocalypse, but when he did manage to sleep at night, the nightmares were just as real as the day it had all happened. “Just... stop.”
Tearing away from him, she spun and stalked over to the wall-height windows, hands clenching into fists at her sides. “Fuck you,” she spat, not looking at him.
Seeing her pained reflection in the window sent an ache straight to Jay's gut, and he rose from the couch to approach her, tentatively. With a heavy breath he laid a hand on her shoulder. “It's over, Donna. And there's nothing we can do about it.”
Snarling, she pounded a fist against the window, and the hollow warping thud reverberated through the apartment. “Dammit! We wiped out entire worlds, Jay! Whole Earths, just... gone! Because we were too damned concerned with saving our own.” Her eyes fell closed and she dipped her head away. “Prime was right. He was right, and we were wrong. We're no better than the mass murderers he made us all out to be.”
“That's not true!” Jason ground out. “Prime was a whining pussy. And look where it got him? One-way ticket to eternity. And not the good kind, either. We're still alive. He's not.”
“That's some logic...” Donna hurled back at him with a dark sarcasm he knew she'd picked up from him along the way. “You ever hear from Bruce?”
Caught off guard, Jay blinked at her reflection, his hand slipping from her shoulder. “No... You hear from Diana?”
“Not one goddamn word. And you know why?”
“Because they know they all screwed the pooch on this one, that's why. They're too damned afraid to face us.”
Whirling on him, Donna grabbed his wrist in a tight grip. “No! Because we screwed up, Jason. We did. Every damned move we made, was a mistake. They can't face us because of what we've become! And here everyone thought Diana was a murderer because of Max Lord, and Bruce was some kind of psycho for building Brother Eye. When it turns out that we're the true fuck-ups.”
“Oh, would you give it a rest, already!!” Jay shouted at her, pulling out of her grip and slamming her to the window by the shoulders. “We did what we had to do. And Kyle did what he had to do. And the universe is still more or less intact. We're here. And so what if a few crazy versions of Earth had to go the way of the dinosaurs! Who the hell needed that crazy steam-punk Earth, anyway!?”
He only realized he was screaming in her face when she flinched back from him involuntarily, and instantly he withdrew, his jaw dropping. “I... I'm sorry... I...” he breathed.
Donna only glared at him harder, her features hardening again, her chest rising with angered breaths. Slowly, quietly, she added, “That was never our decision to make.”
But Jay couldn't look at her. Turning on his heel, he started for the door. However fast he could get away...
“You never did tell me what was so special about that Earth.”
And just like that, Jay's feet cemented to the floor, and he could only stare at them, immovable.
“I can see it in your eyes, you know. Could then, too. When we... when you... I know you didn't want to, Jay. I know there was something about it... that killed you to give up. So why did you do it? Why, out of all the possible worlds, did you destroy that one?”
Jay's stomach tried to crawl up through his throat. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't speak. She didn't know what had happened to him there, what he'd felt, known. She couldn't know that he was of that world, or that, in some way, a part of him belonged there. Or that he was, in essence, destroying his home.
When he felt her hands on his shoulders at last, he couldn't keep them from slumping with the weight of his truth. “I...” he started, his voice choked. “I did what had to be done. Sacrifices had to be made.”
“Bull shit. You... you remember that world, don't you?”
He whirled on her at that, eyes hard. “The hell?”
“I remember it, too, Jay. I remember all of them.”
“What... what do you mean?”
Donna sighed. “It's a long story. But the gist of it is that I have full memory of all the versions of me on all those other worlds. And believe me, it's not a happy family reunion.”
“But...”
“But what? Why didn't I ever say anything? Come on, Jason. What good would it have done? I had to put all that aside just like you did.”
For a moment, Jay thought he saw a storm brewing in her eyes. A heavy tempest full of sorrow and drowning rains. But it was replaced just as quickly with that look of compassion she'd get every time they'd run into another Joker, or gotten into a fight where Jay had been hurt.
“I couldn't let it exist,” he blurt out suddenly, unable to keep it in under her intense gaze any longer. “I... couldn't have that reminder that I belonged somewhere else.”
“Jay...” she sighed deeply, and with a step she closed the distance between them, her mouth pressing against his in an anguished kiss, firm and unexpectedly tear streaked, salty and sweet, bitter and tired. Her hands found his sides, and snaked beneath his shirt to grip his waist, cool fingers on taught muscles.
With a moan rumbling in his chest and throat, the ache in his gut moving southward, he grabbed her shoulders again to steer her back to the couch, pressing back into the kiss more urgently. God, but he needed this. Needed her.
Donna seemed to have her own ideas, though, as she turned him to head towards the bedroom, her natural strength overpowering him with little effort or care as she took control of the kiss again, hand keeping his head where she wanted it.
Just as she'd taken control of him while they were out trekking through the multi-verse.
Willing to give her anything she wanted, grateful for anything she might offer, he went.
* * * * *