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Jason wakes up, and without even opening his eyes, he knows that it's going to be one of those days.
He can feel it in the agonizing tightness of his back, the stiffness of his shoulders, the radiating pain from his fingers, and the dull ache in his joints. Can hear the pattering of rain against the windows of his current safe house, and the cold leaking into his burrow of blankets. Knows he's going to have to get up, but isn't necessarily confident in his ability to do so.
This fucking sucks.
He tries to shift just a little, to readjust the blankets in the hopes that the warmth will ease some of the pain he's in, but winds up having to bite back an actual fucking whimper at the way his shoulder seems to grind in its socket. It doesn't matter how often he has to deal with this shit, it never gets any fucking easier. The pain never goes anywhere, but he'd think that after all this time he would have built up some kind of tolerance that could help on days like these.
But Jason has never had that kind of luck.
Instead he's suck, trapped in his own bed because he can't move his back or arms, much less his legs, in order to get the leverage he'd need to stand. On a normal day, his shoulders are fine to do almost all of the maneuvers he used to be able to pull off. But on days like these? When Jason is drenched in the sweat of old memories and the atmospheric pressure (or whatever the fuck it is) has changed? They barely support his weight.
The easiest course of action would be to just not get up.
Unfortunately, Jason knows from experience that it's possibly the worst idea he could run with. The only thing that it'll accomplish is a degree of stiffness that will make today's pain level look like a walk in the park. Meaning that the only option he has left is to try to haul his ass out of bed despite the pain.
Back when Jason was Robin, there were a lot of lessons about ignoring pain. To a certain extent, they made sense. After all, in the situations they were often in, getting distracted by pain would most likely mean that you were leaving yourself vulnerable to another, likely more severe, attack. The only way to deal with pain was to muscle through it (which Jason had gotten used to doing anyway, by that point in his life), and maybe you'd get the chance to take care of it more delicately at a later point in time.
Things with the League and Talia weren't much different. There, pain was a weakness, and showing it made you an easy target that was more vulnerable and easy to kill. Muscling through pain and refusing to show any visible sign that you were in pain were the only options, and there were never any exceptions.
But Jason is no longer Robin, and just plain trying to force his joints to move the way he needs them to is going to leave him without the energy to get through the rest of his day. He doesn't want to deal with that on top of the fact that his schedule has already been significantly impeded, since his ability to follow through on the majority of his tasks has been completely compromised.
So instead of forcing himself to stand up, Jason has to start smaller.
He has to force himself to stretch.
He starts with his knees because those are usually the easiest. Joker had spent the majority of his energy targeting Jason's upper body, and had left the bottom half alone after ensuring that Jason wouldn't be able to stand or walk away from the beating. That did still mean that Jason's knee was completely shattered, and his hip had been dislocated and nearly had to be replaced, but it could have been worse.
Jason doesn't know what that says about his life, that this could be the case.
Regardless, he starts with his knees. It's an agonizing process that he has to take inch by inch, slowly and carefully shifting his legs until they're no longer frozen in the curled position he tends to adopt during nightmares. Thanks to the clock on his wall, Jason knows that this entire process takes nearly two whole minutes. Not long in the span of his entire day, but considering the fact that the only thing he's actually accomplished in that time is to straighten his legs? It may as well be a lifetime.
Especially since now he has to work on bending them again.
He starts by shifting one leg in small increments until his foot is pulled up as far as it will go. Usually he's a little more flexible, but today his only goal is working his joints into some semblance of functioning. He takes a minute to try to press the side of his knee into the mattress, letting the joint move and stretch out his hip. He can't deny the fact that a few less than ideal whimpers escape his throat without his say-so, but at least there's no one else in the apartment to hear him. After a few shakily deep breaths, he lets his leg relax and moves onto the other.
That done, he uses was little mobility he's regained to slide the blankets off of him so that they won't impeded his movements for the rest of this ordeal. Unfortunately, that means that the cold air of his apartment (since he hangs out in shitty buildings that refuse to spend money on heating) settles in around him instead of the warmth, trying its best to undo the small amount of progress Jason has managed to make.
He tries his best to ignore it as he works on lifting his legs until his knees rest closer to his chest, trying to stretch out his hips and lower back. As soon as he lets himself relax, he can feel the pain in his hip radiating through the rest of his leg, but it's serviceable for now.
Then he moves onto his arms.
His fingers and elbows got the worst of the blows way back when, and that means that they're the worst now (especially since escaping the coffin hadn't done him any favors). It takes several minutes of just laying there, bending and rotating his arms until he's able to move them without groaning or swearing his way through the process. His shoulders are harder to take care of while laying down, but he does his best to go from eagle spread to letting his arms cross limply over his chest to try to get at least partial range of motion back.
By the time Jason feels good enough to make an attempt at sitting, thirty minutes have gone by.
If he had been smart enough to check the weather before he'd gone to bed last night, he would have tried to leave water or food by the bed.
(Pain medication doesn't do much for him now, so he rarely bothers. If the pain is bad now, it was agonizing in the beginning, and he overdid the pain medications to the point where it barely does anything for him now.)
"Son of a motherfucking bitch," Jason moans, forgoing any attempt to use his arms to leverage himself up and instead going straight for rolling his lower half off of the bed and hoping that his back is okay enough to do the work instead of his arms. Thank fuck for the fact that he works to keep his core in shape.
There's a shock of pain as his bare feet hit the cold wood of the flooring, but it's practically nothing compared to the rest of his morning. Still, he makes a mental note to get some kind of rug or something to put there so that he doesn't have to deal with it next time.
The moment he manages to heave himself out of the bed and into a standing position his hip starts to spasm in pain, leaving him doubled over, clinging desperately to the headboard with fingers that throb (reminding him that he'd forgotten to work on them), to keep from falling face-first onto the floor, choking back whimpers.
Jason doesn't even have a chance to get his breath back before he hears someone knocking on the door.
"Goddamn, fuck off," he roars, not giving a single shit and or fuck as to who it could possibly be. No one should know he lives here, and theoretically no one should bother him here at all. Anyone who is here either has the wrong address or is trying to sell him something, and either way, Jason has absolutely no desire to interact with them when he can barely stay on his feet.
(There is, of course, the third option of it being someone who's followed him here and is here to kill him. He doubts they'd bother to knock first, but at this point, Jason isn't entirely sure he wouldn't just go ahead and let them give it their best shot.)
It really starts to feel like a no-win situation when he tries to push his leg out in an attempt to stretch his hip and winds up having to deal with the pain radiating out from his elbow and fingers as he holds onto the wall to keep himself upright. He has to actively resist the urge to just try and slam his head against the wall until he's knocked himself unconscious.
This specific urge only doubles when he hears the door open and the voice of Dick Grayson yelling his name excitedly.
If there was ever a specific set of people Jason didn't want to see him like this, any one of the Bats would be it.
Dick, who is notorious for being completely unable to fuck off and mind his own damn business, in particular.
"Go to hell, Dick, I don't need to put up with your bullshit today," Jason snarls, forcing himself to stand upright and having limited success. At the very least, he's pretty sure he's putting off the illusion of being able to move like a regular human being. The only thing stopping him from truly succeeding is the fact that the Universe has it out for him, sending another twitching spasm through his hip at the same moment that Dick is rounding the corner.
Jason is immediately rushed, and the sudden pressure on his elbow and shoulder has him digging his teeth into his tongue to keep from shouting in pain.
"Jesus, Jason, what happened? Did you get hurt? Why haven't you called anyone?" Dick is babbling, seemingly trying to decide whether he wants to help Jason continue to stay standing or force him back into bed.
Given how long it took Jason to get out of that bed, if Dick decides to push him back into it, he's going to punch the man in the face, fingers be damned.
"Nah, this is just what rainy days look like for those of us who got beaten to death," Jason grinds out, trying to yank his arm out of Dick's grip without wrenching the joints any further. The only reason it really works is because Dick flinches at the blithe mention of Jason's death, which never really fails to be amusing, in Jason's opinion. "Now get the fuck off of me, I've got shit to do."
"Well at least let me help," Dick says, because of course he does. "Jesus, look at you, you can barely stand."
"I can stand just fine, Goldie." Jason's allotment of patience for the day was decimated the moment he'd woken up this morning, and he doesn't have the temperament to deal with this bullshit considering that fact. "Been taking care of myself on days like these for the past four years, I haven't needed your help so far, and I don't need it today. I don't want to deal with your shit today, so back off, and go to hell."
To Dick's credit, he doesn't try to grab Jason again. Instead, he plants his feet stubbornly and crosses his arms to say, "Make me."
It's enough to startle an actual laugh out of Jason before he can stop himself. "That's cruel," he says. "Bullying an invalid just because my fingers are too fucking stiff to punch you in your dumb idiot face. Fine. Make yourself fucking useful and get my heating pads out of the bathroom if you're going to insist on sticking around. And if you touch me again, I'll break your fingers no matter how badly it hurts me."
Thankfully, Dick heeds the warning and the command, and heads off into the apartment, leaving Jason to start making his way to the kitchen. It's a slow as shit process only slightly expedited by the work Jason did before getting out of bed. Still, it's a brutal and pathetic process, limping heavily, his right leg practically dragging behind him since he can't bend the knee or lift his hip to help keep weight off of the limb, actually having to pause and take brief breaks. The only thing that makes it worse is the fact that he knows that Dick is there, watching every strained movement and shuffling step.
By the time Jason gets to the sink, leaning heavily against the counter so that he can fill up a glass of water, held precariously in shaking fingers that barely bend and ache with the task, he wishes he'd never gotten out of bed in the first place.
"We're living the high life here, Dick," Jason calls mockingly. "Enjoying the show?"
Dick's voice is surprisingly quiet when he finally decides to speak up. "Is it always like this?"
"No," Jason replies honestly, knowing that if he says anything to the contrary Dick will become insistent on Jason limiting his time as the Red Hood, and Jason has enough bullshit to deal with without having to find a way to cope with Dick thinking he knows best. "Only some days."
To be bluntly honest, he still doesn't know what causes it. Whether it's physical or psychological or some weird blend of the two, trying to anticipate when it'll hit is pretty much a waste of time. He doesn't have the trust or time to go to doctors to see if there's a physical cause, and he's sure as hell not seeking out any shrink that'll buy his story without locking him up, so for now it'll stay a mystery. It's not like it matters anyway. Jason has never spent too much time debating the root causes of things, he's more the type to deal with the symptoms and let some other big shot take care of the shit.
Granted, he's sure as hell not letting anyone else take care of him, but that's a different story.
"Can you take anything for it?" Dick asks, still listening to Jason's earlier threat and refrains from trying to give a helping hand as Jason starts the trek to the couch, but Jason can still feel him hovering somewhere behind him.
"If I could, I would have already, Dickiebird. I'm not a glutton for punishment." No matter how much he might deserve it.
Sitting down on the couch is almost as agonizing as the walk was, but at least once he's finally managed to lower himself down he can set to work piling heating pads on the worst of his joints and hoping that they'll work well enough that tomorrow will be more manageable.
After a moment of tense silence, Dick leaves through the front door, and Jason has a blissful ten minutes of silence to debate whether or not he wants to try just sleeping his way through the day before the apartment is invaded once again.
Dick, small stack of pizza boxes and what appears to be box sets of some shitty tv show in hand, closes the door behind him and marches his way over to the couch, setting his boxes on the floor (due to this apartment's glaring lack of any table) and settling down on the couch next to Jason.
After a moment of internal struggle, Jason decides that the argument to try to get Dick to fuck off since he's clearly decided that he's going to stick around won't be worth it, and begrudgingly hands over the remote for the cheap TV sitting in the corner.
Thankfully, talking is kept to an absolute minimum. Aside from the occasional snide comment about the show, the two of them stay quiet and largely ignore each other's presence. Jason does occasionally grant Dick the chances to appease his obvious determination to help, and will push a cooling heating pad into the older man's hands so that he can run off to the bathroom (the only sink that gets hot water) to refill it. Jason takes these reprieves to readjust his limbs so that they won't stiffen and leave him stuck in this position without Dick's watching eyes on him.
When evening hits and Dick starts to get incessant calls to go out, he still lingers to ask half a dozen times if Jason's really okay with him leaving, offers to help him get back into bed, and vehement instructions to call someone next time his joints are in this bad of a state again. By the time he actually leaves, Jason is more than happy to see him go.
Unfortunately, he also can't deny the fact that it had been helpful to have someone else around during the worst of the pain. The day could have gone a lot differently (read: Worse) had Jason been alone the entire time.
That said, Jason would still rather limp his way to the ends of the earth than let Dick hear that he's grateful for the man's presence.
But it might just happen that Jason dials the 'wrong number' next time anyway.