Work Text:
“I never said I didn’t know how to use a gun.”
| Neal Caffrey is Stray | A/B/O Dynamics | Identity Porn
The White Collar gig was supposed to be the safer one. That was one of the reasons that Jason hadn’t argued with the Justice League about the fact that Neal Caffery was nonviolent to a fault. The other part of it was that he was trying to prove to himself and to Batman that he didn’t thrive on violence. After this, though, he was definitely going to raise the issue with the old man and his superhero cronies.
And he didn’t thrive on violence. Violence just often got things done more effectively than the broken justice system. Like right now. A white collar criminal from a pharmaceutical company, who had received absolutely no punishment because of a corrupt judge had walked into the field office, claiming to have ‘evidence’ of something one of his cronies was up to and had moved to the center of the bullpen toward Peter’s office before dropping a smoke bomb of some kind of paralytic agent.
So, right now, he was pretending to be just as affected as everyone else, when he wasn’t. It wasn’t that he was immune, but either his exposure to a multitude of toxins as Robin and in the League of Assassins helped his body ignore the effects more, or the good ol’ Lazarus Pit was doing him a solid. It had taken him slightly longer than he would have liked to react, Gotham instincts of gas attacks dulled by his time in New York.
Making sure to move as slowly as he dared, inching along the floor, he made his way to Diana. “I need your guns.” He whispered to her. “I’m sorry about this.” He saw the way her eyes widened, but he knew she couldn’t respond or fight him. Her Glock that she used as her main sidearm was familiar and fit his hand well, though the Sig Sauer P320 she used as her backup pistol hidden on her leg was a bit small for him. He would have to compensate. Luckily, he knew how to do that, because pharma boy looked to be reaching the end of his monologue and was preparing a syringe; it looked like he was planning on stabbing that syringe into Peter Burke.
Jason checked to ensure that both pistols had a round chambered and moved himself into position. He knew that he had one chance at this. The adrenaline started pulsing through his system, and he took a deep breath, calculating angles and space and likely penetration, blood, and which shots would be nonlethal. He was going to break the non-violent part of this assignment, but even though Bruce Wayne associated guns with only death, Jason Todd was an expert. He was enough of an expert in trajectories and specific firearms he could pull this off nonlethally if not nonviolently.
Inhale. Vault. Exhale. Aim. Inhale. Hold. Trigger press. Follow through. Exhale.
He landed on his feet without a noise. It wasn’t a Flying Graysons' quadruple somersault, but the bad guy had two bullets in him: a shattered wrist and one shattered knee. The syringe had rolled several feet away and Jason Todd let out a sigh.
He turned his back on the whimpering businessman bleeding on the floor and reached for the phone on the desk he had vaulted over. He hit the button for the security office, waiting for it to connect.
“This is Neal Caffery on the 21st floor. We’ve been attacked by a visitor. Security, medical, and hazmat required, stat. The suspect is down, but most of the white collar team is drugged by some sort of gas.” He waited for the affirmative reply before disconnecting the line.
The man whom he had shot, the man who had attacked his team had attempted to pull himself up on the desk he had been standing near, his unbroken hand fumbling in his waistband.
“If you pull that knife, I will put a bullet in your T-12 vertebrae.” Jason said coldly, his voice entirely Jason, nothing of Neal’s manner remaining. The cool, average American voice had been replaced by rough Jersey, straight out of Park Row, not even the more ‘educated’ voice he had learned to put on while living in Bristol with Bruce as Robin. “You won’t die from it, but you will never walk again. I have a friend that went through it, and she’s the strongest person I know. If I do it to you? I doubt you’d make it a month before you killed yourself.”
The dirtbag froze, and held up his hands. “I thought…I thought you were supposed to be nonviolent.”
“I am nonviolent.” Jason agreed, allowing his voice to return to Neal’s perfectly bland voice, which he knew would make his next words even more frightening. “I grew up in Gotham. I saw the worst sort of violence before I was even in the double digits.” That was true. “Abusive parents, abusive pimps, drugs, theft, rape…and all of that as a child .” He admitted. “Then I got older and the violence got even worse. Scarecrow and his fear toxin working your own mind against you, Poison Ivy, who could make you second guess even the scraggly trees that grew in what passed for a park – mob bosses: Falcone, Hawke, Bertinelli, even Maroni – but they were all small potatoes compared to the clown.” He scoffed at the memory of the Joker. “When you grow up like that, you want a world without violence.”
The thing that Bruce didn’t understand, the thing that Batman could never understand was that he, Bruce, had led a sheltered life. One night of violence had rocked his world. Violence had been a constant companion in the lower dregs of Gotham City. Jason did want a world without violent crime. The true difference between Batman and Red Hood was the way that they approached it. Batman wanted to fix the world through rehabilitation and hope, refusing to compromise himself. Red Hood, accustomed to the dirt and grime, was willing to make himself the scariest monster in existence to keep control of the other monsters. He was willing to take on being the weapon. He was willing to take all the violence onto himself, the jumped-up street rat, in order to protect others, in order that others did not experience the violence, even the undeserving. He was willing to bathe in the dirt and mud if it meant that others never had to experience it. He wasn’t meant to be a symbolic lamb, pure as the driven snow, he was meant to be the scapegoat. He leaned toward the man as guards in Hazmat suits began to push through the doors. “I am nonviolent, but I’ll tell you a secret.” He learned toward the man.
“ I never said I didn’t know how to use a gun. ”