Work Text:
Jason watches the ceiling spin. He blinks in surprise, slowly he realizes that he’s no longer asleep but still mostly drunk. It was a bad idea to get that drunk during an operation, he would blame Roy for it tomorrow… well more tomorrow than it currently is. There’s a thud from further in the apartment, oh yeah something had woken him up.
Carefully he pushes himself up. His stomach lurches dangerously, but he manages to everything down. He’s certain he had a handful of crackers during his binge. Jason reaches behind for the gun he laid on the table to clean in the morning. He makes his way to the back room, careful to not make a sound, but he’s clumsier than normal and ends up stepping on some of the creaky floorboards. The apartment building is old, which hopefully would make the intruder think that this is just the sound of dilapidation.
The noise is coming from his bedroom. Jason shoulders the door open, he keeps the gun up but concealed. Once he’s fully inside he spots the figure crouched under the window. The person is small, and the flash of red in the night is all too telling. He’s too drunk for this, but he stumbles forwards regardless. Robin is slumped over in an alarming way, and he really doesn’t want to explain that Robin died in his bedroom after breaking in.
Jason gets closer and there’s no scent of blood and he calms slightly. Robin looks up at him, there are no bruising or scrapes but his mask is askew. He’s not entirely sure what to do with the look, but Jason crouches down until they’re almost eye-level.
"Does Batman know you’re out?” Jason asks it’s not as sharp as it usually would be.
“No,” Robin mumbles.
Jason raises his eyes to the sky, he hopes it hasn’t been long. If Robin came directly here after suiting up he’s only been gone for a minimum of twenty minutes, Bruce probably hasn’t noticed. Which is good, because then he doesn’t have to deal with a worrying bat hovering over him while he’s drunk.
Robin is acting odd, so Jason shifts and almost tilts over, “why are you here?’
There’s silence from the boy. Jason narrows his eyes and observes Robin. He’s uninjured, but his body is tense, and he’s hunched in on himself. Jason knows the signs well enough, he can’t tell with the mask on to be completely sure, and he thinks that this is the aftermath of a nightmare. So he changes tactics and carefully moves so that his back is pressed against the wall. The spinning stops, so he takes that as a win but he feels fuzzy and warm so being sober is still a morning away.
Minutes pass and Robin slowly unwinds himself, his mask peels off and Jason is surprised to see the swelling around his eyes. Maybe Damian hasn’t cried, but he’s exhausted. Jason watches him out of the corner of his eyes, he knows that Damian will speak when wants to and will fight if pushed.
“I-” Damian starts and then hesitates.
Jason tilts his head to indicate that he’s listening.
“Do you remember dying?”
He wasn’t remotely prepared for that question. It’s not a topic he’s ever broached with the bats, there’s too much there to do it when their relationship is still tenuous. But, Damian’s just come back from his own death. Jason winces, he has a feeling he knows what’s bothering the kid.
"Right up until I did,” Jason answers, grateful that he isn’t sober for the first time tonight.
“I didn’t,” Damian replies.
Jason stills, “and now?”
Damian shuffles and shrinks into himself. It would be hilarious to see Robin try to be small if it didn’t sting. Jason bites his lip.
“I dreamt it,” Damian whispers, “and it felt real. When I woke up, I thought I was back there.”
Jason doesn’t know a lot about Damian’s death. He wasn’t exactly sure what happened, he wasn’t around, but he knows that it disturbed the batclan. Damian’s chest shuttered, and Jason moved before he could think. His arm wraps around Damian’s shoulder and the boy leans into him. It’s strange.
Damian whispers, “the others, they don’t know.”
That explains why Damian’s here. Everyone in their family has been presumed dead, but they were the only two that actually died. Jason doesn’t squeeze, but he flexes his fingers into Damian’s arm. The boy leans further against his side.
"You can stay here for the night,” Jason says.
He should really talk things through, but he’s also sure that’s why Damian came to him. So, he didn’t have to explain what he was feeling or thinking because Jason knew what it felt like. Damian makes a noise of approval.
Jason huffs a laugh, “although the bed is more comfortable.”
He feels Damian shake his head. Jason rolls his eyes but doesn’t move. He’s sitting up which is better for his sobriety. At some point, he’ll have to move Damian to the bed and text Bruce that he was safe. Jason can tell Damian hasn’t settled yet, so he starts humming. Back when Catherine was still alive, that’s how she would get him to settle when was sick.
Damian glances up at him, “mother used to sing that before I started training.”
Jason pauses, Talia had sung this when she thought he was alone, at the time he didn’t put much thought into it. Singing to himself helps calm him down. He does the math quickly, Damian would have been at least six when he started training.
“You… don’t have to stop,” Damian mumbles.
“I know the words,” Jason offers.
The kid looks up, his green eyes were filled with something, “Grayson has mentioned your singing voice is pleasant.”
Had Dick heard him sing? Jason tried to avoid singing in front of people. Still, he made the offer and Damian accepted it. For a second Jason paused to remember the words, his pronunciation wasn’t perfect but for once Damian wasn’t hissing complaints about western accents. By the time he got to the second verse Damian’s breath was even.
He finished the song before he determined that Damian was asleep enough that he wouldn’t complain about being moved. Jason stood first, to avoid stumbling with Damian in his arms. Slowly he bent back down and winced at the unbalanced feeling as he lifted the kid back up. The bed wasn’t too far, so Jason wasn’t worried that he would drop him. Damian grumbled at being moved but otherwise didn’t wake up.
It was kind of cute, in the way all little kids were when they were asleep. He also feels like he’s ten times heavier. Jason sets him on the bed, close to the wall like he knows the kid prefers. Then Jason reaches for his phone on the side of the nightstand.
Damian is with me. He’s safe and gonna miss school tmrw. Insomnia or somethn.
Jason knows that the text isn’t up to his usual grammatic standard, but he doesn’t care. Damian his grabbing his sleeve in sleep. Carefully, Jason dislodges the hand and wanders into the bathroom for a painkiller and drinks a couple of glasses of water from the tap. It might help his hangover, but he’s going to wish he wants to die in the morning.
He flops onto the bed slowly. Damian had stirred in his absence but settles as Jason’s weight registers in his mind. Jason falls asleep quickly.