Dismissed (Jason Todd & Eddie Bloomberg)

[shauds]

Title: Dismissed

Fandom: DC Comics

Prompt: #003 Dismiss

Character/Pairing: Jason Todd, Eddie Bloomberg

Rating: A

Word Count: 1540

Summary:Jason wasn't expecting someone he knew to sign up for the Everyman Project, he wasn't expecting to feel bad when he knew that person would never be accepted.

Eddie doesn't really know who this guy is, or why he's so familiar, but it's having someone be nice to him for a change isn't something he's going to complain about.

Authors Notes/Disclaimer: Requested by anonymous on tumblr.

Another familiar face. Some days every face is familiar, every glance cast his way is a shriek of danger, every shadow is staking him. It's common enough that he's used to it already, he what measures he needs to take to manage those days without an incident taking place.

Jason hasn't taken those measures today, because today has by all counts been one of the better ones. Everything clear and quiet and just near enough the surface for him to do what's supposed to be his job. Still the face is familiar. Arm outstretched, yelling for someone to hold the lift. There are three people other than Jason in the lift, none of them look about to stop the doors from closing. Jason shouldn't either, if it's familiar there's a chance it will recognize him too, and that would be... not good, not good at all.

Jason blocks the door with his foot anyways, it gets him a couple of disgruntled looks, but no idiot's going to do anything about it. Ah nepotism.

"Hot damn." He's out of breath when he slumps against the wall and struggles to catch it back. "Thanks. It wouldn't look good if I was late, huh?" He flashes Jason a grin. There's no recognition in his eyes.

Jason's smile is tight and formal, he nods, adjusts the tray of coffee in his hands and fixes his eyes on the numbers rolling by on top of the door.

The doors open, the woman in the pink business suit gets off. Jason pretends the kid isn't watching him, then there's a hand being shoved in front of his face.

"I'm Eddie."

"My hands are a little full right now." Jason nods down at the eight cups of coffee he'd been sent to fetch. Eddie looks down at them too and flushes a bright red.

"Sorry." He chuckles, nervously and their two remaining companions frown at him, the both of them get off only seconds later. "So." Eddie shuffles his feet and buries his arms up to the elbow in the pockets of his bright green hoodie. "You work here?"

"Yeah, I'm..." He definately not an intern, but he doesn't think what he does really fits with the 'personal assistant written on his contract either. "I get coffee."

"So your like a gopher?" Eddie seems a little too excited by that, but Jason nods anyway why did this damn building have so many sub basements? "Me too!" Eddie glances upwards and he rocks back on his feet. "Well, I used to be. I'm here for the Everyman Project now."

"I don't get why anyone would sign up to be poked at by those creeps." Jason says, thinking of the throngs of kids lining up around the building, flooding Talia's inbox with applications. Either she'd done a little too good with the P.R departments restructuring, or people were getting even more stupid. Those doctors are the kind of people Jason would taze for getting too close.

"Who wouldn't want superpowers?" Eddie scrunches his face like Jason's said the most in incomprehensible thing he's ever heard. "I'd give up everything for a chance... I did give up everything for this chance, I mean, come on you've never wanted to fly, or go shoot lasers, or move things around with your mind?"

"Everyone I ever met with powers was miserable." Or dead, and Jason's had that option taken away.

"Its not gonna be like that for me." Eddie says, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet. "If I get in, I'll be a hero. Just like Blue Devil and... " His grin turns to something almost sad. "And Robin."

"Robin?" Jason starts, lets himself really look at Eddie for the first time since he stood besides Jason. 'He couldn't mean...' "Most people woulda said Batman."

"I never met Batman, but I knew a Robin who was pretty cool."

"Ah." Jason nods and looks back up at the number dial he plucks one of the coffees out of the tray. "Well then here's something for luck." The doors slide open again and Jason steps out. "Be seeing you Eddie."

"Hey thanks!" Eddie calls after him, so excitable and filled with hope it's cruel, and cruel of Jason to allow, even worse to encourage it.

They'll never let a former kid sidekick into the project.

000

It's raining, because of course it is, when Eddie's kicked out. Dismissed for psychological reasons. Nobody tells him what those reasons are, the assessor had barely even looks at him when she stuffs Eddie's file into a drawer and tells him he has five minutes to leave the premises. It takes him all of those five minutes just to get outside, and from there he had no idea where he's supposed to go.

There's no money for a return flight to L.A, even if there was something waiting there for him. He doesn't know what number his parents are using now, and if he did, he probably wouldn't use it. He'd risk trying to find Dan for a place to spend the night, but Dan's been missing for months.

Eddie doesn't bother trying to find shelter from the rain, he knows it's pointless, anywhere he can reach by foot is too far away for it to matter. It grants him solitude, at least he can be grateful for that when he dropped onto a park bench like the animatronic props when they had their cords pulled. Head in his hands his shoulders shake uncontrollably, his chest hurts so bad he thinks it might kill him if it doesn't stop, if his lungs keep refusing to pull in air. Alone in an unfamiliar city and all he has to be grateful for is that he's alone, that he's cold and wet and alone because even the mad scientists don't want him.

Then a shadow passes over him and the rain's suddenly stopped hitting him. "It didn't go well?"

Eddie starts, his head snaps up at the voice. It's the guy from the lift, the one with the coffee. He's standing in the rain while he holds his umbrella over Eddie's head.

"Hey." Eddie frantically tries to scrub the tears from his face with his sleeves. The guy watches, impassive, no more emotion on his face than there'd been when Eddie'd chattered at him in the elevator, his eyes so green against the grey of the clouds and the ghostly pallor of his skin that they almost seem to be giving off an unnatural glow, like a ghost. He's still the only one who's showed Eddie anything like kindness since he's been in Metropolis. "No, I uh, don't meet the psychological requirements."

"That's too bad." The guy inclines his head just a little . "I would have liked to see more of you."

"Thanks." Eddie sniffs and wraps his arms around himself to ward of some of the cold.

"You have some place to go?"

Eddie shakes his head, unable to come up with the words to voice his reply.

"Ah." He nods once and steps away from Eddie, but keeps the umbrella where it is. "Come on, I can book you couple nights in a motel."

"You'll what?" Eddie frowns, sure he's misheard, or outright imagined the whole person, he gets nothing but a blank stare in response. "Why would you..."

He looks pained, for a moment, and for just that moment something about this stranger is familiar, something in Eddie's subconsciouses that tickles at his brain but refuses to let itself be known no matter how hard he tries for a clearer picture, and then it's gone.

"I don't want nightmares of you being murdered on this park bench tonight." He cocks his head at the street. "Gotta be up early."

"You're sure?" Eddie asks, getting up from the bench.

The guy nods again and Eddie senses he's getting impatient, so he doesn't question it again, just gets up and lets himself be led away keeping close so neither of them is without the umbrellas shelter.

"I'll uh, pay you back, uh..." Eddie offers later, turns the key card over in his hands when he realizes that he never got a name. "Mister..."

He's surprised when the man lets out a short bark of laughter and his too-bright, too-dim eyes light up a little. "It's Jason, and don't worry about it. I work for Lex Luthor, probably be needing a hero if he tries to steal my hair." He runs his hand through his damp curls as he says it, mixing the thick lock of white in with the rest before he makes for the door.

"I'll keep an eye out!" Eddie calls after him. "Thanks, Jason!"

The smiles Jason flashes him over his shoulder is bright, and again, there's something way too familiar, but there's no way... "Goodbye Eddie." He reopens the umbrella, steps through the door, and he's gone.

It can't be... Like a ghost. Eddie runs through the door, he's only a couple of seconds behind, but there's no one for him to chase after, not so much as a glimpse. His voice is just barely over a whisper, just loud enough to be heard over the pattering of the rain. "Bye Jason."