Chapter Text
Jason takes a deep breath as he walks up to the door of the unassuming townhouse the file pointed him to. This is it- no turning back now, or he's a dead man, before he can blink.
(He's seen Bruce's analysis of the Flashes' powers, and he knows dear well exactly how much they're holding back every time they fight a normal human. Before, he'd taken it for granted that none of them would ever kill or maim someone on purpose. Now, just the thought of pissing off a speedster makes his throat feel as dry as the Sahara.)
He mentally runs through his list of preparations and contingencies one last time, checks that his knives and Taser are still in their proper places, then rings the doorbell.
As soon as the chime sounds, there's a clamor from inside, the door yanked open an instant later by a small gap-toothed whirlwind of a red-haired girl, about six or seven years old.
"Are you the babysitter?" Irey West asks, eyes wide. Sparks crackle faintly in her wake, fizzling out on the welcome mat. (She's a speedster like her father, then. Great.)
"I am." Jason confirms, looking around. Wally's got a nice house, especially for East Gotham. "Where are your parents?"
"Mom's upstairs doing computer things." Irey informs him, bouncing from foot to foot. "Dad's out doing work things. They're top secret, so don't ask."
Jason sighs. Just his luck- Linda Park isn't aware of the West family's true affiliations, though she is at least aware of her husband being the second Flash. (With her twin children both being speedsters, she really couldn't not be.)
"Can you take me to her?" Too late, Jason realizes that Irey interpeted that as "physically pick me up and dump me on her desk", rather than "lead me to where you last saw her".
He's got extensive practice reorientating himself after suddenly being moved, whether by the train he's in getting rammed off the rails or being teleported by malfunctioning mad science devices, but being slammed into a table by a six-year-old speedster is still rather disorienting, especially with the spray of paperwork everywhere.
Jason groans, rubbing his aching head, then pulls himself to his feet, steadying himself on the desk. Irey darts away in a blur of red, off to cause more chaos no doubt.
"Real excitable daughter you have there, ma'am." he informs Linda. "Sorry about faceplanting into your papers."
"Who are you?" Linda asks, a dangerous tone in her voice.
Jason holds his hands up in surrender. "I'm the babysitter your husband hired. Jason Grace, at your service. I must admit, I wasn't expecting your daughter to have powers, but we don't discriminate here. That's a Batman thing."
Linda sighs, eyes raking over Jason, taking in his battered clothes and general rakish appearance. "…Now that I think about it, Wally might have mentioned that he hired someone to look after the kids. He was talking really fast, so I'm not 100% sure what he said. What agency are you from?"
"Red Hood Childcare Services." Jason digs through his pocket for the business card he'd prepared for the childcare service he'd set up for his goons(thank God for that, since he now has a practically bulletproof cover story). "Here. Might be a little crumpled, but I'm pretty sure it's still legible."
Linda blinks, gingerly examining the card. "You know, I didn't expect business cards."
Jason shrugs. "Boss likes all those fancy things. Makes people feel safer, when they have a contact phone number for grievances and an address to throw bricks through the windows of if they don't have a working phone."
Linda stares at Jason for a long moment. "…What?"
Jason holds his hands up sheepishly. "Look, the windows are all broken anyway, and it actually makes it harder for burglars to break in when your windows are already shattered into a dozen jagged fragments. Most people like having their intestines inside their body."
"This city is just as much of a hellhole as advertised, isn't it?" Linda mutters, casting her eyes up to the ceiling.
"Well, I wouldn't go that far. The local hellgate's been closed since 1705." Jason pauses. "Tell you what, you won't need to worry about that kind of stuff. We at the Red Hood Gang pride ourselves on customer service, and by that we mean actually serving our customers instead of robbing them blind. Protection rackets are kinda bad for the economy, ya know?"
Linda blinks and takes a step back. "You're part of a gang?"
"Ma'am, it's us or the Blue Brotherhood, and trust me when I say the Blue Brotherhood is worse. Especially since all of them are cops or ex-cops, so they have the legal authority to arrest you for looking at them funny or driving with the wrong skin color." Jason starts ticking items off on his fingers. "Hood's a good guy. Pays all his employees a living wage, offers the best employment benefits in the Alley, makes sure no one gets too rowdy, keeps drugs away from kids, offers great retirement plans, supports local businesses. Really, we're less of a gang and more of a mixture of neighborhood watch, job agency and community center."
Linda blinks more rapidly, then looks down and sighs. "I suppose I have some things to get used to…"
"Yeah, I guess you do." Jason agrees. "Now, uh, I do have other jobs to do, so I can't be here all the time, even with my best attempts to clear my schedule. But Hood promises to send someone else if I'm unavailable and you really need a babysitter or bodyguard STAT, so just call that number whenever, yeah?"
From there, the conversation settles into a much less uncomfortable discussion of scheduling, house rules and Irey and Jai's bedtime and supper routines.
Jason's just happy that Linda didn't panic or kick him out. He'd probably get eviscerated by an angry speedster for that- and he doesn't mean verbally.