Work Text:
It had been two years since Jason was kidnapped at gunpoint and held hostage for several days by some freak in a clown costume, and he was totally over it.
… if you ignored the panic attacks, and the night terrors, and how he punched a hole through the wall when Tim put on some trashy horror movie about a killer clown.
So, you know, not over it at all.
Knowing what he was like, Jason probably should have said no when Tim asked to go to a haunted house that had opened up in Gotham, but everyone seemed pretty hyped about it, and he didn’t want to ruin the moment, so he went anyway.
Besides, it wasn’t like the haunted house was going to have clowns in it. Gotham had a few really bad Killer Clown scares over the years - maybe it was something in the water, maybe it was just how Gothamites were wired - whatever it was, the concept of clowns was pretty taboo.
Jason went into the Haunted House with Dick (who was in town visiting for the weekend), Tim (who was a horror nerd), and Damian (who had insisted that he was unscareable). Things were going fine at the start. The haunted house was pretty well put-together, honestly. Solid special effects, and the actors were good at what they did.
Damian was bragging about how he wasn’t scared at all, though he was clinging to Dick’s hand. Meanwhile, Tim was complaining about not being allowed to bring his camera, since he wanted to get pictures from inside the haunted house for his nerd blog.
Everything was fine.
Right up until they turned the corner and came face to face with a clown wielding an axe, and Jason freaked the fuck out. At least he didn’t punch a hole through the wall this time.
Not that having a panic attack in the corner of a haunted house meant for children was any less embarrassing.
Kara had told her boss that doing the Killer Clown thing in Gotham was a bad idea, but he hadn’t listened to her, even when she presented him with the dozen or so news stories from the last ten years about Gotham’s eight Killer Clown scares.
Eight .
In ten years.
As far as she was aware, Metropolis had never had a Killer Clown scare. Maybe it was just a Gotham thing.
In any case, Kara had been prepared for someone to react badly to her costume. She’d expected it to be a little kid, though.
Not an adult man.
When she saw him, her first thought had honestly been about how attractive he was. Tall and well-built, with dark hair and pretty eyes. She’d been debating the ethics of asking for a phone number while she was technically on the clock and in the middle of trying to scare him, when the guy took a staggered step backwards, losing his footing and collapsing to the ground. It was pretty obvious he was having a panic attack, and Kara felt awful about being the one to trigger it.
Pulling off her mask, Kara crouched down next to the man, hoping that she’d be able to do something to help. One of the guys he was with - his older brother, probably - tried to stop her, but hesitated when he shuffled closer to her. Kara put an arm around him; the touch would hopefully help him settle.
Sure enough, he started coming back to himself, the panic ceasing. He looked up at her with those pretty eyes, and Kara was pretty sure everyone in the room could see the way she melted under his gaze.
“Is this a bad time to ask for your phone number?” Kara asked.
Jason looked up at her with affection in his eyes. “I was about to ask the exact same thing.”