Jazz sighed at the dress in her hands. It was the last one still surviving from before she’d disowned her parents and dragged Danny to Gotham to get away from them. The moment she’d gotten a steady job, steady food, and Danny easily tested into Gotham Academy, she’d started gaining weight and height and muscle to the point where she’d needed to replace her entire wardrobe.
“I’m pretty sure you can still wear it,” Danny said, watching her separate the cleaned laundry into either a folded pile or a scrap pile for Danny. He’d started patching up his old clothes after becoming a hero and now it was something his hands could do while watching tv (and maybe he also wanted to help keep the costs down for his sister and repairing clothes was better than buying new ones all the time).
Jazz shook her head and sighed, “My arms are too big, plus, it won’t even reach my knees…”
“Fine,” Danny said, and she assumed she’d see the pretty blue patched onto some other clothes in the near future.
But, two weeks later, a cute regular offered to walk her home after her bar tending job and eventually asked her on a date. Danny pulled the old thing out, sleeves cut to straps and a kind-of petticoat to make it a little longer.
“I needed the practice.” Was his excuse, but she could tell from his smile that he’d actually put a lot of work into it. She may have cried a little bit
Her date was going well too. Jason was a sweetheart who would rant to her about his family, or favorite books, or his precious motorcycle when he got a little too drunk. And, unlike most of the men Jazz talked to, he didn’t mind looking up to meet her eyes.
The main issue with their date was the people following them. Jazz knew Danny was there, she could sense him when he was close enough, but there was someone else too. She excused herself to the restroom to scold Danny for following her. (Though, if she could be in two placed at once, she might have been able to see Jason making the exact same speech to his younger brother, with the addition of keeping the date a secret from the rest of the family, he didn’t need all of them up in his business and how did Damian know he had a date, anyway?) She also warned him about the other presence following them, and Danny said that’s why he was there. And also maybe scare her date a little bit if they tried to overstep a boundary.
Then the attack happened. The restaurant wasn’t too fancy, but apparently fancy enough for a gang to bust in and demand everyone put their valuables in a bag. Well, Jazz wasn’t going to let these losers ruin her first real, non-trap, no-ghosts date in years! Even if she’d left all her collapsible weapons at home, when one of the criminals came up to her table…
Thank goodness Jason had conveniently run to the bathroom moments before the gang busted in, she didn’t know what he’d think if he saw her break a man’s nose, take his gun and pistol-whip the next closest bad guy with it before throwing the gun and beaning a third man in the forehead before the broken nose guy stood up and needed to be punched again. Danny also decided to come out of his hiding place, decking a man and made him trip back into another, before jump kicking the two of them to the ground.
When Red Hood and Robin entered the establishment, 5 of 12 were down and bloody with Jazz and Danny maneuvering together and set off a combo move that took out 3 more gangsters in one go. Robin and Red Hood did take out the last of them, but there assistance was clearly not necessary.
Though, the second the gang was zip tied up, Jazz turned on Danny and started scolding again. “I don’t need you to follow me around on dates, Danny! I’m your big sister, I can take care of myself.”
“Wait, he’s been following you all night?” Robin asked, and while he got a ‘it’s none of your business’ look from Danny, they couldn’t have known how impossibly impressive it was for the Trained Since Birth Assassin to have not known or even notice that his brother’s date had another stalker.
And as Danny and Jazz walked off to find her missing date, Robin and Red Hood shared a look, both blushing to high heaven. Red Hood put his hands up and said, “I won’t tell if you don’t.”
