Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

      Jason had never considered the possibility of dying from a bullet wound. 

      After dying and being resurrected once, he had often thought of death—what it would feel like the second time, whether it be final this time. But he’d never thought he’d die from a bullet wound.

     That just seemed too normal, too day-to-day. Too ironic. 

     It was only fair that he died of a freaking bullet wound. 

     Red Hood spent his days putting bullets through the skulls of people who spent their days robbing and murdering and—

     More warm liquid oozed between Jason’s fingers and he gritted his teeth to keep himself from making any noise. He wouldn’t leave this world whimpering like a kicked dog. 

     And, if he could manage, he would try not to leave this world. He was in the middle of a massive drug bust. He wasn’t about to let those jerks roam his city unhindered. All he needed to do was stop the bleeding. If he could stop the bleeding then he would be fine. He’d been shot before. He could deal with the pain, he could sew himself up. All he needed to do was stop the bleeding. He’d be fine from there. 

     But he couldn’t seem to focus. And those freaking black spots wouldn’t move out of his line of sight. 

     He realized, with a jolt, that his hand had slipped again. 

     No, no, no. 

     He was supposed to be applying pressure. He was supposed to be stopping the bleeding. 

     But he had nothing but his hands to hold everything inside of his body. 

     Maybe if he could…

     Jason mentally swore at the idea of standing—in this condition, with this much life liquid pouring in between his fingers. He was honestly surprised he was still conscious. 

     He didn’t want to be. 

     But he had to. He had to get to his apartment, he had to patch himself up. No one else was going to. He would die unless he patched himself up. He had no one to call, no one to help him. Roy was away on a mission. Hours away. Miles and miles away. 

     Jason snapped his eyes shut. He didn’t want to think about it. 

     Jason Todd was on his own. His life was in his own hands.

     Quite literally. 

     And he was, currently, making a mess of things. Blood was spilling through his fingers which was a sensation that Jason did not enjoy. 

     He didn’t fancy the idea of dying, though—not again. And so he got to his feet. 

     It was messy and it wasn’t on the first try, but he got to his feet. 

     He made it about two steps before the blurriness and the pounding in his head overwhelmed his sense of balance. He stumbled, slamming into something and felt blood flow over his hands. Bile rose in his throat, but he choked it down. He wasn’t fond of the idea of vomiting with two bullet wounds in his stomach. 

     Vaguely, Jason wondered if they’d gone all of the way through. If they’d hit anything important. He hadn’t had the time or frame of mind to think to check when it had first happened. 

     It hadn’t even been a heroic experience. 

     He’d started out the patrol a little tired, a little distracted, a little off. 

     He always felt wrong in April. He always slept too much or too little, but never felt better. Food always tasted bland. He was always slower. Always more reckless. 

     It got worse later in the month. It was nearly the 27th. Only a week away. 

     Only a week from the anniversary of his death. 

     This year, it was proving to be his downfall. 

     The first minute after he’d been shot had been filled with panicking and trying to pretend he hadn’t just got a new, surprise double piercing in his stomach. He’d tried to convince himself that he was fine. It was a simple wound. He’d go home. Give himself maybe ten stitches for each hole and sleep until Friday. He’d be up and kicking by the weekend. 

     He’d even made it to the edge of the rooftop—a stupid move now that he was thinking about it. 

     And then everything had just given out. 

     That feeling, the one of suddenly losing control was, most decidedly, Jason’s least favourite thing about the whole experience. 

     His body had just...given up, if only for a moment. 

     And Jason hated it. Partly because it was just unnatural and a terrible sign. Partly because...partly because the feeling just scared him. It was too similar to the feeling of death that had crept up on him that night, in the warehouse. The feeling that settled in his chest once the Joker was long gone and there was nothing but the sound of his own ribs rattling in his chest and the pain and the glaring numbers of the bomb’s count down. 

     He’d felt scared at first, staring at those numbers. He’d felt more frightened than he ever had in his life. He’d tried to get to his feet, tried to run. The door had been locked. His legs had been broken. 

     His body had given out then—just gone limp. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t feel frightened. 

     He’d just stared at the numbers. 

     5... the number would blink three times, always three times...4...3…

     2…

     The two had stayed there for a second too long, Jason always thought. It blinked three times, of course, but it was slower, somehow. Jason was sure of it. There had been just enough extra time for a tear to slip down his face. 

     And then the 1 and then it was all over. 

     Jason never dwelt on that part. It didn’t make sense. It hadn’t felt real. But everything before and everything after—that had been too real. 

     But that moment, that split second of death was just wrong. 

     And, now, freshly shot, likely to bleed to death, Jason did not want to think about those  moments.

     So, Jason had laid on the edge of the roof— too close, too close —and tried to keep his mind occupied. Tried to come to terms with the fact that he either had to die, or to live. Both of the options felt like too much work, but he thought that maybe dying here would give some punk something to gloat about. 

     Jason hated that thought too—some stuck up, jerk-face of a bum toting his gun, claiming to have killed the Red Hood. He thought that maybe, some of the kids he had saved would be a little disappointed, a little sad. 

     That got him moving again, even if he didn’t feel particularly like standing up would help anything. Faintly, he wondered if one of the bullets had gone through his spleen and he’d soon be matching Tim on the inside. 

     Tim. Tim Drake. His little brother— Goodness, that was weird to think —the only Robin that didn’t make him want to claw his own eyes out. 

     Well, save Dick. His older brother had proved he wasn’t a total butt—that was a while ago, but Jason was grasping for straws and he thought that maybe, it still counted. But he was Nightwing not Robin. 

     That just left Damian. Definitely a demon, but he had brought Jason pizza that one time. A random occurrence, probably spurred by some crazy, inhuman impulse—Jason was almost certain the kid was an alien. 

     No. No, focus. Jason told himself, desperately. Why was it that he always almost missed them when he couldn’t get to them, couldn’t call them?  

     Jason pushed those thoughts from his mind. He needed to focus on staying upright. Staying upright and making it to his apartment somehow. That was a feat that was starting to seem impossible. Luckily, he did impossible things on a fairly regular basis, such as coming back to life. 

     That had been weird. 

     “Focus,” Jason grunted, out loud. He tried for another step—standing in one place was just as bad, what with the way that he was trembling. 

     He could make it to his apartment. He had to. 

     Another step, staggered. His head was pounding. The pain was blinding, aching— no , stabbing. Every step sent a stab of the hot pain through his head. 

     The world wobbled, but Jason grit his teeth, and kept pushing. 

     He was going to kill himself like this.

     The ladder. That was where Jason was headed. He wasn’t about to jump off a building in this condition. 

     Another step. 

     Jason blinked, hard. Was he imagining the black spots in his vision? He thought that maybe they were growing. 

     Another step. 

     He was at the edge, right in front of the ladder. All he had to do was step down. 

     More blood. 

     He winced, choked on his spit. The feel of it, the feel of his life leaving him—he couldn't stand it. He needed to call someone. He needed help—
“Focus, Jason,” He ground out. He thought he could taste blood in his mouth and he swallowed harshly. “Focus—” A sudden stab of pain took away his breath, and his balance. 

     The world swirled, his vision went black. 

     He fell backward. Thankfully.

     Later, he would like to think it was on purpose. Fate probably had more to do with it. 

     His vision flashed white, and then dark again and when he woke he knew that time had passed somehow. 

     Not too much, because he was still alive. 

     It took too much energy to open his eyes. Way too much energy to lever himself into an upright position, to tighten his hands around his sluggishly bleeding wound. 

     He paused there, trying to remember what he was supposed to be doing. 

     Bruce, was the only word that came to his mind. He needed Bruce. 

     For a moment, his confused brain thought that that was right. He did need Bruce. Bruce would come. Bruce would help him. Jason would be fine. He wouldn’t—he wouldn’t die again. 

     The betrayal, his previous death, his predicament—it all came back in a painful rush. 

     He needed help. 

     He wasn’t going to get it. 

     Jason took a careful breath, taking in his surroundings through fuzzy vision. He was still on the rooftop. He still needed to get down the ladder. And to his apartment. 

     He scooted. 

     The great terror of Gotham, the vigilante Red Hood, scooted on his butt. It was the only thing he could do. 

     The ladder was harder. 

     Jason honestly wasn’t sure how he made it down. He stepped off onto the first step and his vision went dark—abruptly pushing him off into a blur of agony. 

     He didn’t fall, though. 

     He caught glimpses, spots of reality had traded places with the spots of darkness. He thought he must’ve managed all the rungs, because a split second or an hour later he was on his knees, on the sidewalk. 

     Still bleeding. 

     He needed — he needed help. He needed help now. He needed —

     Something interrupted his thoughts: sirens. 

     A moment later, he saw the flashing red and blue out of the corner of his vision. There was a stab of panic in his chest—or maybe that was one of the bullet holes. He was having a hard time telling the difference. 

     Jason couldn’t be seen. Not here. Not in his suit. Not in this condition. 

     He needed to get to his apartment. 

     His second wind hit, then. It might’ve been adrenaline. It might’ve been pure fear. It might’ve been a survival instinct. Maybe a not-so-healthy mix of the three. 

     He was on his feet, stumbling in the direction of his apartment before he could think that it was a terrible idea. 

     He could make it. All he had to do was focus. 

     Jason thought he might be floating. 

     He couldn’t feel his body. He couldn’t feel anything but the warm liquid coating his hands. 

     Was what that? 

     He wanted to look down, but his head was so heavy he thought that he wouldn’t be able to pick it back up if he tried. 

     He just needed to make it a few more steps. Then he’d be…

     Jason couldn’t remember. 

     He only knew that he could make it a few more steps. Then he could sleep. 

     A few more steps. 

     A few more…

     A few...

Chapter Text

     Jason could smell the blood.

     The scent was strong, too strong.

     He scrunched up his nose, rolled his head to the side, trying to escape the smell without actually getting out of bed. He was too cold, too ridiculously exhausted to get out of bed. He shivered, bit his lip to keep back a groan. 

     ...his bed? 

     His bed felt odd. Too hard. There was something digging into his back. Something sharp. 

     Ugh, the smell of blood again. He must’ve killed someone. Messily. And not showered before he got home. He was tired. That would make sense, he— Jason’s eyes snapped open. 

     Memories came rushing back— too quickly, too quickly —as his eyes flicked around the room. 

     There was blood everywhere. Leaking out from beneath him, pooling around him. 

     He was bleeding out. 

     He was bleeding out. 

     Panic was building in his throat, filling his body, choking him—

     By the looks of it, he’d been bleeding for much too long. But he was alive. And he was laying in the doorway of his apartment. The Lazarus Pit, and the unnatural strength that it had granted him, were likely the only reasons that he was awake at all. 

     Still, despite that, he would bleed out eventually. He needed stitches. He needed fluids. Curse it all, he probably needed blood. He couldn’t even remember his blood type. 

     He needed Bruce.  

     He needed Bruce. Jason was shocked that he wasn’t repulsed by the thought. It was true. Or one of his brothers. Tim or Dick preferably. Or someone. 

     He’d even take Damian. 

     Not to patch him up. They didn’t have to do that. 

     They didn’t have to save him. He wasn’t worth that. 

     He wasn’t worth that, but maybe if they just—if they just came here. If they just came to be with him, for a minute. 

     He just needed someone to get the first aid kit from the bathroom for him. Bring him his phone so he could call Roy. Or even just help him to his feet. If he could get to his feet—

     Jason was surprised by the tears that stung his eyes. They hurt. He didn’t remember tears hurting, but he hadn't cried in a long time and he couldn’t remember what it was supposed to feel like. 

     His breath hitched. 

     He pressed his hands harder against his wounds, trying to chase away the emotions. Dizziness rushed to his senses, though he hadn’t even lifted his head. The pain, the weakness turned his stomach. 

     The tears didn’t go anywhere. 

     They stayed in his eyes, blurring his vision, stinging. 

     He didn’t feel lucid—he blamed the tears in his eyes on that. But he didn’t let them fall. They couldn’t. That would be admitting that he was going to die. 

     Maybe he was. 

     Maybe Jason Todd was going to die for a second, final time. Here in his own living room. 

     He should call Roy. He should let someone know. 

     Shouldn’t he? 

     Would they—
     Jason cut off that thought. Of course. Don’t be stupid. Of course they would…

     Of course they would care. 

     Right? 

     His ringtone interrupted his thoughts. 

     Jason jolted, coming back to himself. He found himself shocked by the amount of blood around him, in his mouth yet again. 

     Slowly, pain nearly blinding him, he lifted his head. 

     A small miracle—his phone was on the sofa. Five feet away. 

     Another ring. 

     He could reach it. He knew he could. He just had to—

     Jason shifted, propping himself on an elbow, ignoring the numbness that had settled in his body. He couldn’t feel the wounds anymore, only a strange something weighing down him. 

     He’d felt the sensation before. He turned his head to the side, coughing up blood and bile. The taste was so familiar, so—

     His vision flashed. 

     He thought he saw a face—White and green and red marred his vision and he barely bit back a scream. 

     Suddenly, he was heaving and gasping for breath and blood was spilling out over his hands. More blood. He couldn’t—he couldn’t afford to lose more. 

     He clamped his left hand over the wound, digging his fingers into ruined skin, desperately trying to keep everything together as he reached out with the opposite hand. 

     Another ring. 

     He gasped. His chest was screaming, he couldn’t breathe. 

     His own bloodied fingers danced in his vision, shaking. He couldn’t possibly reach his phone. He couldn’t, he couldn’t, he couldn’t and he was going to bleed out and die again— again —because he couldn’t freaking reach. 

     He bit back a scream and a groan escaped instead. Slapping his right hand down on the ground, he struggled, trying to pull himself closer. 

     He felt something move. He wasn’t sure what and this time he couldn’t keep back the strangled scream. 

     The tears were back suddenly and it was all he could do to keep them from falling. 

     He stretched out his hand again, reaching, muscles pulling—

     His finger hit the edge of the sofa.

     His pushed further, crawling them over the edge, stretching—

     He couldn’t —

     He slammed his hand down on the sofa cushion. The phone bounced, and slipped off the edge. 

     The sudden rush of relief made his head spin. 

     He scrambled fingers closing around the phone. 

     He wasn’t going to—

     A strange, dizzy rush of pleasure struck him as he caught a glimpse of the caller ID. It was Dick. His brother. His brother. 

     Blood slicked the screen as his finger fumbled to find the right button. He needed to answer him, he needed to hear his older brother’s voice. 

     “ Jaybird? ” 

     It was Dick. 

     Dick had called, Dick was saying his name. He needed to... he needed to —

     His fingers slipped. 

     He swore his fingers slipped, because he wouldn’t hang up on his brother. He wouldn’t hang up on him, not now. Not when he needed him. Not when he needed someone— when he needed his family —so freaking badly. 

     He wouldn’t have hung up on him.

     Things had been perfect for a moment. For a moment, Jason hadn’t had to choose who to call. Jason hadn’t had to try and decide who would answer, who wouldn’t hang up on him, who would actually, maybe stop what they were doing and come talk to him. Come help him. No, save him because he’s pretty sure he’s actually dying now. 

     Now, he has to open his phone and choose someone to call. 

     Dick. He should probably call Dick. He was the one who had called him in the first place. So he wasn’t mad at him, he’d come help him. Maybe. Probably.

     Jason’s arm buckled without warning. 

     He slammed backward, cracking his head against his living room floor. The world spun, blackness invading his vision. 

     No. No, no, no. 

     The voice in his head sounded desperate even to him. 

     He had his phone. He could still feel it in his grip, though he wasn’t sure how he’d managed to keep a hold of it. All he had to do was…

     Jason couldn’t lift his head. 

     It was a frightening, stark realization. 

     His head was a heavy weight, and he was weak from a dangerous lack of blood. He could barely move, much less sit up. 

     But he had to — 

     He lifted his hand, tilting his head slightly, straining to see the screen. 

     It took too long to thumb out the password— Why had he made it so complicated? —and the screen opened. He scrolled through his contacts, squinting as the numbers and names swirled in his vision. 

     What was Dick’s contact name again? He couldn’t remember …

     Where was…

     Where…

     He...

     Jason jerked slightly, struggling to keep his eyes open. Distantly, he felt his hand drop. That was wrong. That shouldn’t have happened. He couldn’t remember why. 

     His hand hit the carpet, bouncing slightly. A faint clatter rang in his ears. 

     Jason blinked, sluggishly. 

     There was something he was supposed to be doing…

     Something…

     His eyelids felt like weights. 

     He needed—

     Numb descended quickly, unexpectedly. Jason floundered in for a moment, panic suffocating him, nightmares playing in the darkness. 

     And then, as in times before, he knew nothing. 

Chapter Text

     Jason saw flashes. 

     Separated by darkness, they were fuzzy and strange and distorted. None of them made sense, none of them added up and it was strange because last time Jason had died, it was all darkness. 

     Last time, he didn’t get to see the world again, not until he was waking up in his very own grave, panic filling his body like blood was meant to, his whole body screaming in pain. 

     This time, he sees things. He sees the world. 

     He sees flashes of light. 

     And then darkness again. 

     Not the complete, lonely, cold darkness of unconsciousness. He could see a blue light flickering somewhere.

     Something in between the two.

     And then a face. 

     Panic squeezed his chest, closed off his throat. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t move and there was someone here— 

     “—ason.” there was a voice floating above him, swearing, swearing . And then, “Jaybird,” 

     He tried to move his lips, tried to tell the man to get away. 

     That he couldn’t be his brother. 

     His big brother couldn’t be there. Jason had hung up on him. And before that—

     Jason had done so much more before that. 

     So, so much before that. 

     No, Dick wasn’t here. He couldn’t be. He wasn’t. He wasn’t, he wasn’t. 

     “Jaybird, please. Can you see me? It’s Dick, Jay. I’m here. I’m here. Please, please—” Dick’s voice choked off— that wasn’t his brother, his brother would never cry over him; he didn’t deserve it . 

     Jason tried to struggle but found he couldn’t move. He felt tears prickle his eyes. Why couldn’t he die in peace? Why must everything— why must his own mind —taunt him? 

     “No, no. Jay—Jay, it’s okay. You’re going to be okay. Jay…” 

     Ignore it, his mind screamed. Ignore him. 

     Jason closed his eyes, seeking darkness, seeking peace. 

     “Jaybird, no. No, no. Stay with me. Please, please. He’ll be here any minute. Please…” 

     Dick’s voice faded, but Jason couldn’t forget the sight of his blue eyes. 

     Jason was in the backseat of a car. He determined that fairly quickly. He could tell from the windows, the leather seats that he could feel against his bareback and, most importantly, the driver’s seat that he could see without shifting an inch. 

     He was laying across the backseat in a way that Alfred would utterly disapprove of. No seat belts to speak of. 

     Something soft was underneath his head and—

     Oh. 

     Holy—
     “Hey, hey, hey,” It’s his voice. But it can’t be. It can’t be. He wouldn’t be. “I’ve got you, Jay. It’s alright,” 

     That isn’t Dick. It isn’t. Jason knows that, he just can’t seem to convince himself. 

     It looked like his brother. 

     It sounded like his brother. 

     And— Jason wanted to swear, but he couldn’t make his mouth move —the way that not-Dick is running his fingers through Jason’s hair is so like his brother and Jason wanted to scream. 

     “I’m here, Jay. We’re going to get you help, okay?” 

     Right. 

     Help. 

     Jason was dying. He’d forgotten about that. Maybe because his abdomen wasn’t really achy anymore, and he couldn’t feel wet, warm blood anymore. 

     He felt sort of floaty —Jason was sure that was a word, it had to be—which might’ve been because of the blood loss, but more likely because of the too-rosy light that was starting to filter through the car windows and spill into his vision. More likely because of Dick’s face swimming in and out of focus, more likely because of his older brother’s hand gripping his own—he thought that was right, but he couldn’t really feel his fingers and maybe he was imagining that and here’s to hoping because the idea of that was nice. 

     So, he’d forgotten. Which was strange, but Jason hadn’t minded forgetting because then he wouldn’t have to think about death, which, contrary to popular belief, wasn’t his favourite thing to think about. 

     Especially not now. 

     Now, death made him think of his death. 

     What was worse, always, to think about was what happened before his death. The darkness, and the crowbar and the burn across his ribs and his face and then the laughing, laughing, laughing —

     Jason was dying. 

     Oh right. 

     “Hey, hey.” There was that voice again. It sounded so familiar. Why couldn’t he remember…? 

     He should focus, Jason thought. He should focus because he’s supposed to stay awake. 

     Right? He couldn’t remember that either. 

     Last time—last time he had died —he had remembered. He’d remembered he was supposed to stay awake. Or at least he had remembered, the last time he was fully conscious and able to produce any emotion other than fear.  

     He had remembered that he was supposed to stay awake. 

     For Batman. 

     Because stupid, stupid, stupid Jason Todd—the second Robin, the orginal rip-off replacement—thought that he was worth the superhero’s time. He had thought…

     Maybe he’d thought that Bruce Wayne loved him, like his own father never did. 

     Maybe he’d thought that even though he was stupid and rash and impulsive, Batman would be there to save him, Batman would be there to—

     And then his mind was fleeing and someone was crying—Jason couldn’t tell if it was him or some other unfortunate, stupid soul—and the bomb was going off…

     “He’s—You have to—im—” 

     Jason’s hearing was certainly off, because the voice was yelling but he couldn’t make out the words properly. He couldn’t see the rosy light anymore and Dick’s hand wasn’t in his hair and he thought his back was against something hard instead of the backseat of a car. 

     He wasn’t sure if his eyes were open or closed and he felt strange and not quite— 

     Nothing. 

     It was sudden, so abrupt that it left him disoriented and he thought maybe he was vomiting but that wouldn’t make sense because he was fairly certain that his stomach was too ripped up for that anyway. 

     He was going to die, he decided then. He was going to die in the darkness again and he at least wished that he could open his eyes to see that stupid popcorn ceiling of his apartment, or even the random grey wall. The crooked picture of the boys that had just appeared out of nowhere one day and stayed because he was too much of a traumatized coward to take it down. 

     Batman could betray his family. Bruce could. 

     Jason wouldn’t. 

     There were his family, he knew that. He’d never let the words slip past his lips, but he thought, since he was dying anyway, he might as well think it. Maybe some immortal being would take pity on him because of the thought and not drop him into an eternal Hell right away. 

     Jason wished he could see that picture. 

     He wished again. 

     And then again. 

     It became a strange mantra in his head—without his consent, really. The same thought bumped around in his muddled brain and he clung to it because it was the only thing that he thought he could comprehend at the moment. 

     Jason wanted to see the picture. 

     He wanted to see it one last time. 

     He lost himself in the darkness before he could think it, wish for that, one last time. 

     He thought, maybe he deserved that. 

Chapter Text

     When Jason woke up, he couldn’t force himself to believe the afterlife had a cross stitch quote hanging in one of its rooms. 

     Then he tried to sit up and thought that maybe his eternal torment had started already. 

     He snapped his shut mouth, breathing carefully through his nose. Pain was racing through his abdomen oddly and he thought that maybe he could feel a bullet still underneath his skin, embedded in his flesh. 

     But that was impossible. 

     He was dead. 

     He shouldn’t still—He shouldn’t even be awake, should he? He couldn’t remember what had happened last time he’d died, but he was fairly certain it wasn’t this. 

     Which meant…

     Jason wasn’t sure what that meant. 

     He might as well find out—he was dead already, nothing worse could happen. 

     Jason gritted his teeth and tried to get his hands to work so that he could grip the sides of the bed he was lying on. It took a moment and his fingers felt thick and not his and he realized, distantly that his hands were shaking. From effort, or from pain, or from something else that Jason couldn’t think of the word for, at the moment. 

     He managed it though—because, darn it, Red Hood would not be found in the afterlife, crying about a gunshot wound that shouldn’t even exist anymore. 

     Once he was upright, he only felt worse. 

     It’s strange and it shouldn’t be happening because he was dead and—doesn’t he deserve a minute of peace?—but suddenly his vision was patchy at best and he thought that the room might be revolving. 

     He was going to puke. He barely had time to think the thought before it came true and suddenly he was heaving. 

     There wasn’t anything to throw up, but his body tried a few times anyway. 

     Pain tore through Jason’s stomach, lit up his vision with white spots, cut off his breath. 

     Ow. 

     Ow, ow. 

     Jason was almost sure that if he wasn’t dead already he was going to die now. 

     And then it’s all over suddenly and he’s gasping, and pain is shooting through his stomach and his head and maybe Jason just wants to die, because he doesn’t want to do this anymore. 

     “Jay? Jason!” 

     That was definitely Dick’s voice. 

     Jason had never known any other man that could sound so mushy and so endearing all at once. He hated it. 

     “Jason, hey, calm down.” Dick was somewhere nearer to him now, and Jason could practically feel the concern rolling off of him in waves. “You’re alright.” 

     Jason certainly didn’t feel alright but he couldn’t exactly label Dick as a liar. He was the Golden Boy, after all. 

     “That’s it. Breathe.” 

     Jason tried to follow the instructions—not because he trusted Dick or anything like that—but because he wasn’t stupid. He knew that breathing was a requirement for living. 

     So...I’m not dead, then. 

     The thought hit Jason a lot harder than it should’ve, considering everything. 

     Dick was silent for too long which was always, always a bad thing for him. 

     He was alive, then. Jason confirmed mentally. Unless this was some sort of torture from the afterlife. Maybe Dick was angry at him, maybe just he hated him. 

     That would count as torment, wouldn’t it? 

     He was right, apparently, because Dick didn’t say anything as he waited for Jason to catch his breath. He didn’t say anything as he helped Jason to his feet and then back over to the bed. 

     Jason didn’t resist, because his vision was at about 20% function and he was starting to feel lightheaded. He sighed a little, through his teeth when they reached the bed and sunk down gratefully, putting his back against the pillows that Dick had propped up. 

     “You’re not dead, Little Wing.” Dick said, after staring at him for much too long for Jason’s liking. 

     And, holy crap, Dick can read minds now? Jason tried to understand, to pierce the cloud of haziness that was hovering over him, bearing down on him. 

     “Sorry, Clark didn’t have any painkillers that would work for you. We didn’t expect you to wake up so soon.” 

     Jason tried to understand the words too, but they were slipping from his brain as quickly as they were entering it. He wanted to ask Dick to slow down, to talk a little less, maybe. Or even wait until his head stopped spinning. He swore under his breath, but even that was slurred. 

     He was starting to get frustrated. 

     His eyelids felt heavy. He couldn’t really be counted responsible for whatever came out of his mouth at this point. 

     “Dick?” He managed, even as he tried to sit up a little straighter, talk a little louder. Why was he so tired? He hadn’t been this tired a moment ago, a minute ago. 

     Jason’s older brother was at his side again in an instant. 

     “What happened?” He managed, the words feeling strange and thick in his mouth. 

     Dick sat on the edge of the bed. Or at least, Jason thought he did. He couldn’t really trust his brain at the moment. 

     “You were...shot, Jason.” He ran a hand over his face roughly, and in the moment, he looked nearly as old as Bruce. 

     And Bruce was an old man. 

     “It was bad, Jason.” Dick said, finally. After too long. “You lost a lot of blood. We don’t know exactly what’s damaged inside. We couldn’t—couldn’t take you to a hospital, obviously. The IV... We’ll get that back in. You’ve—You’re just gonna...you’re gonna need to lay low for a while, yeah?” Dick shook his head, maybe to something that he’d said to himself, in his head, because it didn’t make sense to Jason. 

     “I’m alive.” Jason didn’t want to say that. It slipped out of his mouth, anyway. He cursed—maybe outloud, maybe in his mind. 

     Dick froze. 

     And that wasn’t in Jason’s imagination. 

     There was a moment that nothing happened. Jason thought that maybe he zoned out for a moment because the next thing that he heard was the sound of Dick’s breath hitching and he couldn’t tell if it was his brother about to cry or trying to regain his composure after crying. 

     “Dick?” 

     “You’re alive, Jay,” Dick’s voice was shaky and Jason didn’t trust it. “You’re alright, Jay. I got there in time.” 

     He doesn’t sound certain. Almost as though he’s trying to convince himself. 

     “I got there in time, Little Wing. It’s okay.” 

     Dick kept saying that, repeating it, sort of under his breath as he scooted a little closer and put an arm around Jason. 

     Jason, in his defense, briefly thought about protesting. 

     But Dick was strong and warm and Jason—well, Jason was tired. 

     So he let his eyes close and let sleep take him. 

     Besides, he was alive and he’d have time to argue later. 

     The next time Jason woke up, he was alone. 

     He also had to pee incredibly badly. 

     Pain worked its way into his mind as he worked his way into consciousness and Jason ground his teeth together as he sat up. 

     His vision was unsteady for a moment, but he swallowed down the pain. He’d been shot before. 

     What was different this time? 

     He knew. He knew but he hated the thought of it. 

     Jason thought he’d be able to handle it, a bullet wound deep, deep in his gut. Bleeding heavily. So close to nerves that it made his very head burn with pain. 

     He’d admitted that he couldn’t do it himself, too late. He didn’t have anyone to call, didn’t have anyone to help him. 

     And so he’d bled out. Alone. 

     Nearly. 

     Jason breathed out a curse. 

     Dick had saved him in the end. 

     Jason supposed he should be happy. He was, he supposed. 

     Last night—or whenever it had been—he’d...felt so calm, peaceful. But now…

     The more he could avoid the Golden Boy, the better. 

     The bathroom was far, farther than Jason would have liked. Walking sent stabs of pain through his abdomen and his stomach was twisting but the pain in his bladder was a little more pressing, somehow. By the time that he reached the hallway, his head was swimming and his heartbeat was pounding too loudly in his ears. Blood loss, he thought it probably was. It had to be blood loss. 

     He leaned against the wall just outside the door, disguising his break as a chance to look around. He didn’t remember Dick’s apartment looking like this. His brother’s safe house was smaller, closer, less...fancy. Not Bludhaven, he thought. 

     This house didn’t even feel like Gotham. 

     Was it a house? 

     Maybe Dick had some friend that lived…

     Jason didn’t want to think about traveling outside the city. That would have meant that he hadn’t been lucid or even awake for hours. 

     Jason cringed, felt bile rise in his throat.

     He shook his head roughly. He wouldn’t throw up. He didn’t want to try that again. 

     Too quickly, Jason pushed off the wall and stumbled down the hallway. Now—the bathroom? 

     Jason reached the end of the hallway, turned a slow circle, trying to locate the bathroom. He didn’t see anything. There were a few closed doors, but he’d already passed those and— gah, why did he pass that second door? He was tired. And cold. 

     Why was he so cold? 

     It wasn’t even—Wasn’t it summer? 

     Jason stumbled to a stop, detachedly realizing that he was panting, that his head was swimming. He probably shouldn’t feel this bad, he supposed. He’d gotten shot before. 

     He usually just...slept it off. 

     Sometimes he had Roy. Other times he didn’t. 

     Either way, he got the wound stitched up as soon as possible, took as many Ibuprofen as relatively healthy and slept for a day and a half. Two full days was his record.

     Sometimes, it wasn’t that bad. Sometimes he only slept a few hours or skipped over the Ibuprofen and went back on patrol. He was smart enough to know when his butt was kicked and when he was fine to keep pushing. 

     Usually. 

     Other times, he didn’t and after he was healed, Roy kicked his butt again. 

     That was what usually happened. Not this. Whatever this was. 

     Jason groaned as he stumbled a little, careening into the door handle of the second door that he’d passed before. 

     If this wasn’t the bathroom... well, Jason’s shame had practically been destroyed when he’d called Dick instead of helping himself, for heaven’s sake. 

     Jason let himself relax, if only for a moment, leaning against the doorframe. 

     So cold. 

     He shivered, tried to ignore the shaking in his knees. He just wanted — wanted to sleep. 

     But he did need to pee. 

     And he was not about to pass out on the way to relieve himself. 

     Jason braced himself and put his hand on the handle. Taking a shaky breath, he pushed open the door. 

     Blue eyes met his own. 

     Jason froze. 

     Of all the awkward —

     His mind was slow—too slow—in filtering all the intake and it wasn’t until a moment later when he realized that the door he’d opened hadn’t led to a bathroom at all. 

     And the man in front of him wasn’t even the Golden Boy. 

     Jason felt his stomach drop away. 

     “ Clark? ” 

Chapter Text

Jason thought that maybe he had died after all.

Clark Kent— Superman, he was talking to freaking Superman—was standing in the doorway, looking about as shocked as Jason felt. 

Superman, Superman, was wearing a loose cotton shirt and pajama pants. Pajamas. Superman was wearing pajamas. 

And they were Superman print. 

The red and blue logos covered the material, all of them facing different directions and in a variety of sizes. 

He looked tired, too, though Jason didn’t even know if that was possible. 

“Jason?” Clark’s mouth moved but Jason knew that he hadn’t said Jason’s name. Did Superman even remember who he was? 

Jason shook his head once, just in case his ears were clogged due to over exposure to confusing-as-heck experiences. 

“Jason, are you alright?” Clark stepped forward and, suddenly, his hands were gripping Jason’s biceps, steadying him. He didn’t even realize he’d begun wavering. “I didn’t—I didn’t think you’d wake up... anytime soon.” 

Clark’s face was starting to swim in and out of focus in front of Jason’s eyes and he didn’t like the feel it gave him—the lightheadedness that he’d prayed he left in the grave. 

Dang it. 

Seemed these days that not one thing in Jason’s life could go right. Because just then his knees gave way and he was slumping over and fading and Clark— Clark, Superman —was shouting his name and, distantly, Jason thought he could hear Dick. 

And then freaking Superman was wrapping an arm around his waist and supporting his weight and leading him back to the room he’d started out in. 

Darkness was tempting by then, and he could only think of one thing. 

Jason still had to pee. 

He was back in the bed and drifting off to sleep before he could think to voice that concern. 

The next time Jason woke up, he had a terrible headache. 

“Ughhh,” He groaned, then bit his own to cut off the noise as the memories came crashing down on him. 

He was—he’d been shot. 

He was bleeding out— No. Dick had come. And then Clark had been there. Superman. 

Jason was not going to get over that. And to think that he thought he’d contained no more shame. 

As everything from the last day— day? Several days? —returned to him, he felt a distinct, terrible sense of embarrassment. Dick had saved him, twice. Then Superman had lugged him back to his room. Superman. Who else was next? Wonder Woman? 

Jason squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to be too frustrated, trying not to think about the fact that nothing made sense, because he’d been shot before and last time he’d handled it. 

But he was...he was alive now. 

He shifted a little in the bed, peering around him. He seemed to be alon—

Jason swore under his breath. 

Dick was slumped in a chair on the other side of the room, head cradled in one hand, hair mussed, drool dribbling out of his partially open mouth onto his jeans. He looked a little too pale, for Jason’s liking. But, he reminded himself, he didn’t really care. 

He leaned back in the pillows, trying to gauge how much pain he was in. He was starting to have the irrational urge to stay where he was, and he hated that feeling. 

That just gets you hurt again. 

So he sighed, feeling a twinge in his stomach as he did, and scooted back up a little. His last attempt at getting around hadn’t gone very well. He needed to think this time. 

He gathered his wits for a moment, and then slid out of the bed as silently as possible. 

Silently, he cursed. 

He was still cold. 

He’d already put his hand to his forehead to check for a temperature before he realized how stupid of an idea it was. He wouldn’t be able to tell, not if he really did have a bad fever. He groaned out loud and let his hand drop. Pain lit up his stomach and he grit his teeth, pulling his arm back up to wrap it securely around his damaged torso. 

But his head wasn’t swimming as badly as before. Now, all he would need to do was get outside, find a car to hotwire and figure out where the—

“Little Wing?” 

Jason swore. Loudly this time. 

He turned slowly, making sure that Dick saw that he was being careful. He wasn’t in the mood for a lecture. 

He wasn’t in the mood for anything to do with his older brother. He wanted to leave. He wanted to get back to his apartment and figure everything out on his own. Sleep. He wanted to sleep and not have to worry about anything but how soft his own pillow was. Because he was confused and tired and cold. He was cold. 

“Jay, what are you doing?” His brother’s voice was soft and calm and Jason could almost believe that he’s not mad. The familiar pit of anxiety settled in his stomach anyway, even though he didn’t think he was lucid enough to be worried about being yelled at. 

“I’m leaving,” He said, without meeting his brother’s eyes. He wasn’t ready for that, at the moment. He didn’t want to deal with his family at the moment. Ever, maybe.  

His family? 

Now, he wasn’t even sure. 

But he knew he didn’t want to argue. He didn’t have the strength to argue. He didn’t want to be yelled at, he didn't want to try and stumble over his words and figure out what he’s supposed to say to be right. He didn’t want to try to figure out how to explain the storm that became his heart a while ago. He didn’t want to deal with that right now. 

He really didn’t feel well. 

Jason took a careful breath through his nose, just now registering that his head was pulsing softly. Or maybe it’s the room that’s pulsing, growing too bright and then too dark every few seconds. 

“What?” Dick was voice is still soft, but somehow it didn’t ease Jason’s nerves. 

His headache only seemed to level up a bit. He put a hand to his head, before realizing how that would look to his brother. He sighed, trying to gather his thoughts. He could only think of swears, which was never a good sign. He really wished Dick had just stayed asleep. 

“I’m alright, Dick,” He said, finally and it might have been a minute or an hour later. 

His brother took a step forward and nope, he was not ready for that. All of the warning flags in Jason’s brain snapped into position. He stumbled backward a step before he could stop himself. 

Hey, Jason nearly yelled at himself. Hey, calm down. This is your brother. 

But he was already breathing hard, pushing his back up against the wall. Looking like a trapped animal. 

It had to be the fever. How did he have a fever already? He was never this jumpy, this frightened by the idea—the idea—

No. No. Calm down, calm down. He cut himself off. That was fever talking. They weren’t taking him—they weren’t taking him anywhere. 

Besides this was Dick. His brother. Not Bruce. 

Dick he could handle. Dick wouldn’t push him. 

Jason held his breath for a moment, waiting until his vision stopped swimming. 

He really didn’t want to do this. 

“Hey, hey—” Dick was stepping forward, obviously not getting the idea. “Jay, it’s alright.” 

“I know,” He snapped, on instinct. He was the Red Hood. He was in control. He knew when something was okay. He didn’t need to be reassured. “I know. I’m on my way out.” 

Dick held up his hands this time when he stepped forward. “I heard you. It’s just...Do you remember what happened?” 

What happened? 

Of course he remembers what happened. He—He died. 

Jason had gotten shot. And he was in his apartment and he was waiting, but there was no one there and—

And he’d called his brother? Hadn’t he? 

This was his choice. 

He’d called.  

He’d gotten himself into this mess. Again. 

Jason nodded his head, slowly. Because he did remember. And now he wanted out more than ever. 

“Okay—Okay.” His brother’s voice was shaking a little, and he wasn’t moving forward anymore. His gaze was searching Jason, maybe trying to see if he’d popped any stitches. “You’ve been out of it for a while. I just wanted to make sure.” 

Jason felt himself go stiff. “How long?” 

“Just a couple of days,” Dick said slowly. “You lost a lot—” His voice broke and Jason felt a thrill of panic. 

He was mad. His brother — the Golden  Boy — was angry. 

But the thought doesn’t match up, because Jason thought that, maybe, those were tears in his brother’s eyes. 

It was only then that Jason saw how tired he was. How ill he looked. 

The Golden Boy wasn’t looking too golden. He was pale, his face drawn, dark shadows under his eyes. He almost looked thinner. 

Dick had never been a large person—Jason even had a few inches on his older brother. But today he seemed...thin. Like he’d been stressed, or sick, or injured. He looked like he’d lost weight. 

Jason’s mind was reeling, trying to connect the information. He was—His older brother—

He stepped forward, hand finding Dick’s shoulder. “What’s wrong? What happened?” 

Dick’s brow creased. “What do you mean what happened? ”

“I mean—” 

“ You got shot!” Suddenly Dick was exploding and Jason was scrambling back even further, pain flaring in his gut and making his eyes sting. “ Twice .” 

“I—” 

But Dick wasn’t finished and Jason supposed he was stupid to think that he was because Dick looked like he was just getting started. 

“You were in your apartment, bleeding out, when I found you.” Dick wasn’t quite yelling but his voice is stern enough that Jason’s heart is crawling into his throat. “You would have died, Jason. Do you understand that? Do you care about that? Why didn’t you call?” 

Jason didn’t know what to say to that, because it was true but he couldn’t process what was happening, why Dick even cared. He couldn’t figure out what the expression on his brother’s face meant, because maybe Dick was mad at him for almost dying, and maybe he was mad at Jason because he’d had to prevent him from dying. Jason didn’t honestly know which is worse. 

“I wasn’t even going to come!” Dick looked like he was going to throw up his arms, but Jason must’ve flinched too hard, too quickly, because he kept them tight by his sides, veins standing out in his forearms as he clenched his fist. “I called you and you hung up and I was just going to call it a night. I thought you were just mad. Or you hadn’t meant to pick up at all. I thought—” 

And then just as sudden as it came, the anger is melting out of the Golden Boy’s face, replaced with guilt and fear. Jason watched as his brother took a shuddering breath, his frame shaking— he definitely had lost weight —and his shoulders slumping.

“And then you called back and I—” Dick reached up, running his hands over his face and Jason noticed that they were shaking too, badly. He paused and the only sound in the room was the shuddering of his breath. 

Jason’s heart had been in his throat before. Now he wasn’t sure where it was because he just felt strange and wrong. 

Dick looked up and there was something broken in his eyes. “Next time...call me?”

Jason realized, then, what that expression had been, what the crack in his brother’s voice had been. 

He’d been worried. He was worried. 

Jason swallowed, carefully. He didn’t know how to take that. He didn’t want to think about that. That only made his life more complicated. He couldn’t—He couldn’t deal with this right now—
“Jay? Jay, what’s wrong with you?” 

Jason’s mind snapped back to the present with a sickening quickness. His vision swirled slightly as he tried to focus back in on his brother’s face. “Two bullet holes,” He said, ignoring the edge of a slur in his voice. “Among other things.” 

“I’m sorry.” Dick’s eyes widened and he cursed under his breath. “I’m an idiot. Jason? Why don’t you sit back down?” 

“I’m leaving,” Jason repeated, because obviously Dick had forgotten that. Either that or Jason really was in a bad enough condition for Dick to just ignore whatever he was saying. Maybe he was high on pain meds and Dick was just assuming everything he said was irrelevant and irrational. 

Which, he wasn’t denying. After all, Jason said irrational and irrelevant things when he wasn’t high.

“Jay, why don’t you sit back down for a second?” 

Jason shakes his head, and immediately regrets it. His vision swirls a little more. “No, Dick, I’m leaving.” 

“What do you mean you’re leaving? You have two holes in your stomach.” His brother said, his expression shifting back to his almost-permanent look of concern. “You can’t—” 

Dick realized his mistake a second too late. 

“Oh—Jay—” 

“ I’m leaving. ” Jason snapped, before Dick could even look as guilty as he should. “I can. I will.” 

“We just—You really shouldn’t even be on your feet. We just got you stable, Jay—” 

“ Stop calling me that,” 

“Please—” 

“No.” Jason said, a little louder than necessary. “Which way is the door? When did you even buy this place?” 

“This—This isn’t Gotham,” 

Jason froze. 

“What?” 

“It’s not that far,” Dick said, quickly. And then winced. “Okay, maybe it’s kind of far.” 

“Where are we?” Jason demands. 

“Clark’s parent’s place.” 

“ What?” Jason supposed that should make sense, considering the fact that it’d been Superman who’d lugged him back to his bed last time he’d tried to get out of this room. 

“Clark Kent? His parents live—” 

“We’re in Kansas?” 

Dick didn’t answer right away, which of course is an answer in and of itself. 

Jason threw up his hands and swore. 

Then he slumped backward, putting his back against the wall and letting himself slide down it until he was sitting up against it. In that moment, he realized how tired he felt. How drained he felt. He really shouldn’t be out of bed, should he? He pulls up his knees, just close enough so that the motion doesn’t pull one of his countless stitches. 

“What the heck, Grayson?” He asked, after too long. 

“The boys are out of town. And Alfred.” Dick said, simply. 

And, of course, that just left Bruce at home. And Dick couldn’t take Jason to Bruce, not even when he was bleeding, not even when he was dying. Bruce didn’t care; Bruce wouldn’t care. So long as his no-gun rule was upheld in Gotham, he wouldn’t care if his son—

“And Bruce.” 

Jason’s head snapped up. His vision took a moment to catch up. 

“Easy,” Dick said. His hand was somehow on Jason’s shoulder, though Jason wasn’t sure when he’d moved. “I know...I know I probably should have asked. I know how things are. But you were—” Dick managed to catch himself this time, or at least recover fairly quickly. He really was a baby. “There was so much...and I couldn’t find a pulse, at first and—I wasn’t thinking. I just called. I knew you wouldn’t—” Dick didn’t say Bruce’s name, but he might as well have. “—want to see him. He was too far away, anyway, he couldn’t get there in time.” 

Jason cringed at the poor wording. 

Bruce never got there in time. 

If not for Dick…

If not for the Golden Boy, Jason would’ve had a repeat of his last death. Bleeding, waiting for someone, for Bruce, to come and help him. Dying…

“Clark was nearby.” Dick forced a rough chuckle. “I mean, he can always be nearby. He freaking flew here. With you. And me and we got you stable and—” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Jason interrupted, feeling more than a little sick to his stomach. “I get it,”

“Are you still leaving?” 

“Do you have a car I can borrow?” 

“No—No, not really?” 

Jason made sure not to meet his eyes. Dick seemed so nervous. So scared of him. So scared he was going to do something wrong. For a split second, Jason wondered if his eyes had dipped into green. That happened sometimes—when he was sick, or angry. 

Jason was careful with his next question. “Is Clark here now? Maybe he can just...fly me back home.” Jason’s stomach turned again and he shifted uncomfortably. What was wrong with him? 

“Can you—” Dick paused, seeming almost concerned about asking the question he wanted to. “Can you just stay for a bit? Just until you’re out of the danger zone?” 

“Is Clark here?” The question came out a little harsher than Jason intended, but he couldn’t exactly take it back now. 

“No,” Dick answered, but his face was open and honest. Well, in all honesty, he always looks like that. “He went to town to get supplies. He should be on his way back.” 

Jason’s stomach twisted and he felt a sudden lightheadedness. He was trapped. Trapped here. With a member of his family, with one of the Bats and he couldn’t go anywhere. 

But Dick was still looking at him and he looked so concerned, so honest-to-goodness terrified that Jason choked out, despite himself, “He didn’t happen to pick up Jello , did he?” 

For the first time since he’d woken, Dick smiled at him. “I remembered, Jay.” 

Strangely—or maybe not-so-strangely—that smile did something, if only a little something, to ease the anxiety, the irrational fear in his chest. Dick wouldn’t throw him out. He wanted him to stay. He wanted him to stay. Jason took a careful breath, surprised by how drained he felt suddenly, like he was coming off an adrenaline high. 

Well, he sort of was. 

“Grape?” He asked, hopefully. He hadn’t had that in so long. 

“It tastes like poison,” Dick said, and Jason could tell from the sound of his voice that he was pouting. 

“Grape?” Jason repeated, meeting his brother’s eyes and trying to pretend like that was all that mattered at the moment—his brother’s crooked smile and their argument about Jello. 

Dick grinned. “Yeah, we got grape.” 

Jason sighed, feeling oddly pleased. 

No, floaty. 

There was a moment of silence. His gut twisted awkwardly. But it wasn’t really painful. Nothing was really painful at the moment. He just felt strange. 

Cold. 

He felt cold. Which didn’t make sense because he was hot, he had to be—he had a fever. 

He had a fever. 

He had a fever? 

He’d been shot. He wasn’t sick. He…

“Dick?” He hadn’t meant for his voice to come out that shaky. He tried to lift his head, which had dropped without his permission, but everything blurred immediately and the black spots were growing exponentially. He was stuck in that position, and he was shaking— “Dick?” 

“Jason? What’s going on?” 

“I—” He paused, feeling himself slip a little more. He ran his tongue over his lips. “I feel...strange,” 

“Okay—Okay, okay. It’s okay.” Dick said, quickly. His hands were on Jason’s shoulders now, and Jason tried to focus on that, squeezing his eyes shut. His stomach tightened. 

“Hey, can you look at me?” 

Jason tried, but he was shaking and suddenly he was much, much too tired. “ Dick —” 

“You’re alright. You’re alright,” His brother’s hands were on the side of his face now, helping him lift his head. It didn’t help much, but Dick’s form was wavering in his vision and he didn’t remember having two older brothers. “Jason? Can you hear me?” 

Jason could hear Dick, but he was drifting and he thought he replied but he couldn’t be quite sure. He was just confused. And cold. 

Holy frick, he was cold. 

“Alright, it’s alright. Just hang on. Hang on, alright? Until the Jello gets here, right?” His brother was closer, now, Jason thought, and he wasn’t quite sure what was going on because Dick seemed concerned, he seemed scared. 

“Ja—don’t…” 

Jason’s vision went dark abruptly and he bit his lip as his stomach twisted. There was pressure in his head, he was sure and he—

“—on’t you fall—” 

Darkness, true unconsciousness, descended altogether too quickly. 

Chapter Text

“Jason? Jaybird?” 

Jason thought that he might ignore whatever his brother was trying to ask him. 

The Golden Boy was insistent, however. He kept repeating his name, calling him back to awareness. 

“Jaybird, please? You’re starting to worry me.” 

Jason wasn’t stupid enough to think that Dick was just now worried. Dick worried about everyone—homicidal maniac or not. 

“Jason? Can you hear me?” 

Jason could hear him, but he wasn’t in the mood to answer him. In all honesty, he rarely was. 

“You need to get some fluids in you, bud.” 

Jason considered staying quiet, not responding, not opening his eyes. But considering that Dick had saved his butt more than a few times in the last twenty-four hours. 

It took too much effort to get his own face to obey him but once he got his eyes open, the image of his brother in front of him snapped into clarity fairly quickly. 

“Jay? That’s it. There we are.” His brother murmured, voice soothing as always. 

“Ngh,” Jason managed some blurry sort of sound, but his tongue felt thick and useless and he thought that maybe, going back to bed would just be a better idea. 

“Hey, you’re alright?” Dick said, and Jason could feel his brother’s hands on either side of his face, holding him steady and keeping his head upright. 

“Yeah, yeah,” He managed finally. “I know,” 

Dick laughed and somehow Jason could feel the vibrations of it, as though Dick was sitting close to him, shoulder to shoulder. 

Maybe he was. 

Jason couldn’t think of why the Golden Boy would be sitting so close. Dick wouldn’t want to be so close to him. He was a killer. He didn’t need the hands that had moved down to surround his shoulders, to pull him into his brother’s chest. He didn’t need a solid body next to him, the steadying presence of his breaths. 

Jason didn’t need that. He didn’t need anything. He was a criminal, a killer. He’d chosen that—chosen to be alone, to fight alone, to live alone. 

But the closer that Jason came to honest consciousness, the more that he became aware of the fact that Dick was sitting right in front of him, hands moving from his face to his neck and then his shoulders. 

“Hey, you got all fuzzy on me,” Dick said softly. 

Jason cleared his throat, trying to figure out how to regain control of his body. He felt wrong, off and for some reason the only thought lingering in his mind is grape Jello. “I...Sorry,” He mumbled before he remembered that that was totally out of character. He didn’t apologize like that. Red Hood— the Red Hood—didn’t do that. 

To be fair, he also didn’t sit on the carpet, discussing Jello flavors with Nightwing. Which Jason had been doing before...before...

“What happened?” He asked, after a moment, his voice raspy and harsh. 

“You passed out,” Dick said, almost calmly. Almost. “You lost a lot of blood and—” He hesitated, pressing his lips together so tightly that they were bleached out white. “I don’t…know about your immune system now and—the GSWs were to the abdomen and that’s always touchy and—” He was struggling, obviously, trying to figure out how to tell Jason what he knew Jason didn’t want to hear. “Jason, it was bad.” 

Jason licked his lips, let his gaze flick away from his brother’s. He really had almost died. 

He’d been shot before. This was wrong. Something...

“Blood?” He forced the word between his lips, past the brick of anxiety in his throat. 

“Transfusion?” Dick asked. “Yeah.” 

“You know my blood type?” Jason asked because that was the only thing that came to his mind. The mix between drowsiness and lightheadedness is making him feel awful and he sort of wanted the Jello that he remembered them talking about. 

“Um, yeah,” Dick said, looking uncomfortable. 

Jason stared at him for a little longer than probably necessary. But there was a memory budding in the back of his mind and he was trying to remember, trying to figure out what was missing, what he knew but couldn’t quite grasp. He raised a hand, rubbing his knuckles into a throbbing temple. “You’re…” he paused, waiting for it. That memory, the moment, was on the tip of his tongue, the edge of his mind.

Dick waited, but it wasn’t coming and Jason felt frustration building up in his chest.

He was so cold. And he couldn’t remember and his abdomen was starting to ache and it was all stupid. 

“What’s up, Jason?” Dick prompted after a too-long pause. 

“You’re still waiting on the Jello? ” He asked so that he didn’t look stupid. He could remember that. He could remember Jello. 

Dick cracked a smile. “Yeah, sorry, bud.” He said and the nickname that was much, much too young for him set an uncomfortable feeling burning in Jason’s chest. “But I do need to get some fluids in you. Can I go get you some water?” 

Now that he’d mentioned it, Jason was thirsty and his throat was dry. He nodded. 

Dick’s smile relaxed a little, looking more natural. “Perfect. Can I…?” He left the question open, but Jason knew what he meant. The bed was only a few feet away but Jason felt drained. 

Red Hood wouldn’t —

Jason cursed himself, mentally. The last two times he’d tried to get up and about he’d passed out, or close enough. 

Dick climbed to his feet and hesitated. When he reached out his hand, Jason took it and let the Golden Boy pull him to his feet. 

Dick wrapped his arm around him, but Jason wrapped his arms around his stomach and held himself stiff. His brother seemed to notice his discomfort and led him over to the bed as quickly as he could manage. 

Jason sat on the edge, focusing on breathing. 

Then he remembered something that he probably should’ve mentioned earlier. Dick was already at the doorway. 

“Um, can I…?” He hesitated, trying to banish the dizzy confusion that was ruining his ability to communicate and function like a normal human being. 

“Hmm?” Dick turned around, trying to hide the concern that lit up his face. 

“Where’s the bathroom?” 

Jason tried not to be unnerved as he carefully sipped at his water. Tried not to feel self-conscious about the fact that he was sitting across from Nightwing, his older brother, the original Robin, the Golden Child. Tried not to be embarrassed by the fact that Dick had found him, in his safe house, in a puddle of his own blood and took upon himself to save his butt. 

The last few minutes had been full of refusing to be helped to the bathroom and back, finding Dick hovering not-so-innocently in the hallway trying to make sure that Jason hadn’t passed out— again —while relieving himself, and trying to drink his glass of water so slowly that his stomach would forget its nausea. It was starting to dawn on him how mortifying of a situation that he’d landed himself in. 

He was the Red Hood. 

And he’s at Superman’s parent’s house, healing from two gunshot wounds that shouldn’t have disabled him like they did. 

He’s been shot before. And it did not feel like this. 

Jason leaned his head back, resting it back against one of the pillows behind his head. 

“You should finish the—” Dick cut himself off, and cleared his throat awkwardly. “Maybe try finishing the water, Jay?” 

Jason could see—could sense—that his brother was trying. Trying to make it seem like he had an option, trying to give him a choice. 

Somehow, it made Jason want to run even more. That anxiety in his stomach wasn’t budging and he brought the cup back to his lips, trying to ignore the way his hands were shaking. He didn’t answer Dick, keeping his gaze away from his brother. He wished he would leave, let him just sleep until Clark got here. Once Clark got here he could leave. He could go back home. 

He wasn’t stupid enough to think that he was fine—he obviously wasn’t. He thought that passing out earlier was probably a mix of the blood loss and the pain from the hole in his gut and the mixed-up mess emotions that came with interacting with any of his family members. He could still feel the impending threat, the intrinsic fear of Dick getting angry, of something arguing with him, of a fight coming when he knew couldn’t defend himself well. The fear of Bruce showing up out of nowhere, something he knew he couldn’t handle right now, not without running again, and being angry and taking him—

Jason nearly choked on the water. He squeezed his eyes shut, swallowing down the water and his panic, roughly. His breath stuttered and he fisted his hand in the sheets at his side. 

This was not the time. Not the time. 

Jason can already sense, already feel Dick looking up at him. He can already feel the worry. 

“Jason?” 

“What?” He snapped, without so much as opening his eyes. 

Dick seemed to get the idea because he fell silent. 

Worse—or better —a moment later, Jason heard Dick shift in his seat a few times, then stand and leave the room. 

Jason let out a heaving breath, flicked his eyes open, and set the glass down on the table beside the bed. He let his head drop back into the pillows again, his eyes drifting closed again, almost on their own. 

He lay there for a moment, trying to sort through everything that had happened, trying to figure out what was wrong with him, what he was doing here. 

Jason Todd had only had his sanity for a few months. 

He couldn’t remember a majority of the things that had apparently happened right when he’d been resurrected. He remembered clawing his way out of his grave. He remembered begin trapped and being confused and then being free and still confused. 

He remembered Talia, coming to find him. He remembered waking up in the Lazarus Pit, gasping for breath, the whole world around him painted in green. He remembered the training; he remembered his first kill; he remembered the pain. 

He remembered Talia telling him that he’d be able to control it someday. But he hadn’t been able to, not under her training and slowly she’d grown tired of his pain, of the demons that haunted him at night. She got tired of weakness—he would never be able to be what she wanted him to be. 

He remembered when Talia turned him away because she couldn’t drain anything else out of him. 

He remembered not knowing what to do. He remembered being lost. 

He remembered going back to the only thing that he knew, the only thing he could recall from his before life. The life that had him as Robin. The life that got him killed. 

He went back to Gotham. He went back on patrol. But things hadn’t gone the way that he’d wanted them to. He’d killed. 

It hadn’t exactly been on purpose, but it hadn’t exactly been an accident. 

The man was a nameless man, a dirty, dirty person, and Jason had remembered—in that split second—some other dirty man from his own childhood, in some flash of a memory. The green haze in the edge of his vision had taken over and Jason had let it and the next moment, the man’s head and his body hadn’t been in the same place and Jason had blood on his hands. He remembered deciding it was right that way. 

There had been a green haze over everything, a rage that blinded him, a rage that filled his chest and his mouth and his being and made him sick. The green had even bled into his past, his memory, tainting things that everyone seemed to remember differently. Making him feel like he was insane. Making him feel unpredictable. Dangerous. 

He felt like that, sometimes. Most times. 

He remembered killing. 

He remembered their faces. For most of his kills, he couldn’t remember the reason. Some of them deserved it, he thought. Some of them were drug lords, some of them...the things that they had done—some of them deserved it. Some of them, some of the reasons, he just couldn’t remember. 

The face—the faces he always remembered. There was a certain look, a special expression for people who knew they were going to die. There was a certain look of acceptance. One that, even they were terrified, they knew what was coming. 

Jason had wondered—sometimes, when the dreams got particularly bad, or when he was seeing in green, or when he was trying to avoid looking in the mirror at his scars—he wondered if he’d had that look on his face. 

Memories from his childhood, his past, came back in weird flashes, in dreams. And one night he remembered how he died and he lost it. 

He’d known that he was missing memories, of course. He knew that people didn’t just poof into existence—no childhood, no innocence. He wasn’t stupid. 

But, for some reason, he thought that maybe the memories that he didn’t have—that maybe they were good. 

No, of course not. 

No, Jason Todd— freaking Robin —had been tortured and murdered by the Joker, and Batman— freaking Batman —had done nothing. No, the Joker had still been running around, killing more people and doing whatever he wanted because Batman wouldn’t kill him. 

No, the Joker was running around, alive and free. 

Jason hadn’t gone out for a week after he’d found that out. He could have. He could have and the green in the corner of his vision told him that he should, that he should just go and find him and kill him. But there was some corner of his mind that was still dead and the other corner of his mind was terrified. 

Terrified because he knew he could kill the Joker, he’d been stronger and faster and better in every sense except mentally since he Lazarus Pit. 

But he knew he’d freeze up. He knew that he’d screw it up because he couldn’t look at crowbars anymore with feeling ice creep up the back of his neck and sleep was a foreign concept to him now because he’d woken up at two in the morning once, unable to move, unable to breathe, unable to think. 

He could kill the Joker but he also couldn’t because it was the Joker. 

He’d settled on a target that seemed more feasible in some twisted way. 

Jason Todd wanted to kill Batman. 

He wanted to kill him, wanted to feel his blood on his hands for some sick, sick reason and the Lazarus pit only egged him on. 

But his plan hadn’t worked because he could kill nameless men, but he couldn’t kill anyone important. He couldn’t kill anyone whose death would mean anything. Whose death would fix things, fix the mess that his mind had become somewhere between Ethiopia and Arkham. Somewhere between those two places something in his mind had snapped. 

Jason knew something was wrong. Wrong with him. 

He was too far by then. He was much, much too far by then. 

Jason supposed he should’ve never tried the next stunt. It was far too dangerous. Not physically, but mentally? Mentally it was brutal. 

Jason Todd never should have let Bruce choose between the Joker and his son because, if he was being honest with himself, he knew the answer. 

The Lazarus Pit broke something in Jason’s head. 

The scar across his throat broke something in his heart.

He remembered the look on Bruce’s face when he told Jason to leave. When he told him that he couldn’t have a son who killed. That he couldn’t accept what Jason was doing. He remembered the look in Bruce’s face when he made a decision, when he threw the Batarang. 

To be fair, Jason remembered nearly everything about that night. He remembered the subtle tremor in Bruce’s voice. He remembered the tilt of his head, the spark of reflected light in his eyes as he told Jason that everything he’d done—everything that they’d been through, everything that Jason had believed in and hoped in and tried for—wasn’t real. He remembered the stiffness in Bruce’s shoulders and the way that his voice rose. He remembered the thrill of surprise that shook his body. The feel of the blade against his neck. The flood of blood between his fingers. 

Jason slammed his head back again, ignoring the stab of pain in his stomach. He brought his hands up roughly, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes until they throbbed. There was a lump in his throat, a stinging in his eyes that he couldn’t deal with now. 

Jason remembered how it felt to be abandoned. 

But, of course, he did. 

He’d been abandoned again and again and again. 

His mother, Bruce, his birth mother, Talia, Bruce again. 

He knew that was his lot in life. Jason was easy to abandon, to betray because he didn’t deserve anything else. He didn’t want that anymore. He didn’t want to give anyone the next opportunity to abandon him. 

Which was why he couldn’t be here. Which was why he needed to leave, needed to steal a freaking car and drive as far away as he could from Kansas, and from Dick and his family. 

He could hear footsteps outside his room, a voice calling out softly: Dick warning him that he was approaching. Like Jason was some animal. Like Jason was a creature. An insane person. 

But that didn’t matter to Jason. They weren’t going to take him anywhere, they weren’t going to take him away—he was going to leave. 

Chapter Text

Jason was almost grateful when Dick knocked on his door, asking to come in, because he’d almost been asleep that would’ve been unfortunate for everybody. 

It’d been only a few hours since he’d woken up properly and for the amount of times that Dick had politely suggested he try getting some sleep, his brother had entered his room an ridiculous amount of times. Most of the time he just entered, hovered around the door for much too long, not quite making eye contact with Jason, and then shuffled back out. Jason had tried to pretend like he didn’t notice, pretend that he was sleeping. 

This time, though, the Golden Boy actually proved he had oral capabilities.

“Hey, um,” Dick sounded strange, sounded nervous, despite the soft smile on his face. He was scared around Jason, or worried—because if he was really scared of Jason, why hadn’t he just let him die? Why had Dick have even gone looking for him? Jason wasn’t sure, wasn’t even sure that he wanted to know the answer to his question. 

But he thought he remembered the first Robin being talkative and loud and bubbly. What Jason was seeing was the exact opposite. 

Still, he opened his eyes, pushed himself a little more upright, if only because he couldn’t force himself to be laying down with someone else in the room when he was in his right mind. Or the rightest frame his mind could cram itself into. 

He didn’t answer Dick, barely even met his eyes. He couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t get him into a fight and the two holes in his stomach were constantly reminding him of their existence. Dick still looked ill and tired, but Jason was sure that he couldn’t fight him at the moment, not when he could barely make it to the bathroom. 

“You still up for Jello?” was what Dick finally said, when he’d drifted over to the chair in the corner of the room. 

“I can’t exactly say no, can I?” Jason said, finally and then bit his tongue immediately as Dick’s expression shifted subtly. 

Jason felt himself stiffen, but there was nothing to worry about. 

Nothing to worry about. This is Dick. Not Bruce. Dick isn’t going to —

Jason ground his fingertips into the mattress beneath him, so he didn’t reach up towards the scar on his neck without realizing it. 

“I thought—” But Dick cut himself off, a careful sigh in his breath. “You should probably get something in your stomach. We had you on a IV for a bit, but you kept tearing it out…” 

Jason flinched, trying to ignore the idea of him being unconscious, helpless for two whole days—

He was surprised he couldn’t remember the dreams. They must’ve been bad. Or maybe he’d been too drugged up to care. 

“So, Jello?” 

“As long as it’s grape,” Jason said, after too long. His heart stuttered as Dick took a step forward. Jason held his breath as he came close, relaxing only slightly when he realized that Dick was going for the glass on his bedside table, not for him. Dick surveyed the level of water and then picked up the glass, nodding. 

“Thanks,” he said. “You feel any better?” 

Jason had a distinct flash of the exact feeling he’d had just before he’d passed out in front of his brother. It was a sick feeling, an overwhelming nausea that he hadn’t ever associated with gunshot wounds before. “I’m fine,” He said, instead. 

“It’s alright if you’re not,” Dick said after another silent minute. Had the Golden boy really always been this quiet? “Do you think you still have that fever?” 

Jason considered the question briefly if only to convince Dick that he didn’t have to worry about him. He wasn’t exactly sure that he would actually be able to tell if he had a fever, but he did still feel a little cold. 

He’d probably just overtaxed himself. 

Thinking about it now, Jason was sure that he had overtaxed. He’d been shot in the stomach twice, nearly bled out, and then threw up promptly after being unconscious and getting a blood transfusion. 

And, considering how the day that he’d been awake had gone, his body really wasn’t appreciating its treatment. The fever, the nausea had probably been a part of that. His body telling him to shut up and sit down and just stop being awake so that the leftover Lazarus juices could work their superhuman magic. 

Unfortunately, Jason didn’t have the privilege of letting his guard down. Not when he was in some country home in freaking Kansas instead of one of his safehouses in Gotham City. 

He needed to convince them—he really just needed to convince Dick, heaven knew that the man could be clingy—that he was well enough to be freed from their clutches. It wasn’t as though Dick could take Jason back to the Manor. He couldn’t escort the Red Hood back into Gotham City, not without escorting him directly into Arkham. 

Again. 

Jason hadn’t been in Arkham Asylum for a long time. Only a few months. Just after his first killing spree. When Batman was still convinced that he was just it was just Pit madness, that Jason just needed help. 

He remembered being in the Asylum. He remembered being called crazy, feeling insane, believing that he couldn’t be trusted with his own two hands. He remembered not being able to piece together who he was, not with the oppressive, white walls staring back at him. Not when he was drugged to the gills to keep under control.

It was meant to be a temporary thing—just until they could get him to a place where he could get actual help. Because that’s what Bruce had thought he needed. Somehow, in that twisted mind of his, he’d figured that all Jason needed was a few months in an asylum to clear his head. Just until the Lazarus Pit wore off. Just Jason was back to his normal, comedic, rash self.

Bruce had somehow forgotten that that kid had died in Ethiopia. 

No, what Jason needed was the Joker dead. What Jason needed was for this, for none of this to ever have happened. What Jason needed was to have stayed dead. 

He remembered hearing the Joker’s laughs one day, ringing in the back of his mind. He remembered the day that he discovered that they weren’t just in his head. That the Joker, his murderer was just a few cells down. 

Jason had broken out that weekend. 

And a few weeks after that, when he’d finally managed to leave his safe house for more than a trip to rob the local corner store, he’d confronted Batman. 

And that had gone well. 

Thinking back, Jason realized he knew exactly why his mind was so screwed up. 

“Jason?” Dick’s voice pierced through Jason’s fragmented thoughts. Dick looked worried again and Jason thought he was standing a little closer. 

He searched his brain for the question that he’d asked, trying to figure out what he was supposed to say. 

“Fever?” He asked, weakly, and then flushing as he realized how he must have sounded. He was the Red Hood, for goodness’ sake. 

Dick only looks more worried. “Can I check you for one? I’d have to touch your forehead, I—”

Jason recoiled, suddenly revolted by the thought. “I said, I’m fine,” He bit out, trying to make sure that Dick knew that he was serious. His brother raised his hands in surrender immediately. 

“I got it, I got it. Just...if you’re feeling weird again—” 

“I’ve been shot before,” Jason snapped, sitting up properly and throwing back the sheets. The feather-light weight of them was suddenly suffocating against his chest and the position, although not fully reclined, was too open, too vulnerable. He’d already been too weak in front of Dick, he didn’t need to add this to the list. Jason was already feeling less and less like the Red Hood. 

And when he didn’t feel like the Red Hood, he felt like Jason Todd and there was no situation where that came out good. 

“I know—” 

“I know the drill, Dick,” Jason stood, ignoring the still too-sharp pain in his stomach, the swirl of his vision. His brother reached out a hand, probably to stop him, maybe to steady him, but Jason sidestepped it on his way to the door.

“Where are you going?” Dick asked, instead of chasing after him.

“To the bathroom,” That was the only room that Jason could remember how to find, and the only door he could lock. 

Dick cleared his throat slightly behind him and Jason tried to ignore the shuffling of feet behind him as he made his way to the doorframe slowly and steadily. His vision really wasn’t going to get reliable, was it? 

“I’ll have the Jello when you get back,” Dick said. 

“I can walk to the kitchen.” Jason said, even though he wasn’t sure where it was. “I’m not an invalid.” And since he’d said that out loud, he passed through the doorway without reaching out for the frame for support. He knew that bullet holes hurt, but it annoyed him every time that he wouldn’t build up some sort of bullet-wound-pain-immunity.

Dick didn’t say anything in argument.

What he did say was infinitely worse. 

“I’m glad you’re awake, Jay,”  

As the person in question, Jason wasn’t sure he agreed.

Chapter Text

Jason stared at scars and wounds soon to be scars and he wanted to vomit. 

It wasn’t as though he hadn’t had scars before but the massive Y across his chest, the jagged J across his face—

Those were something else. He never asked to be some sort of sick alphabet book.

Other than necessities like shaving, and occasionally brushing his teeth, Jason didn’t like looking at himself. Everyone else that he knew seemed to share the sentiment. 

No one liked looking at Jason anymore because it reminded them of dark things. 

He wasn’t the same person anymore, so he supposed that he shouldn’t look the same, but it didn’t have to be so different, did it? 

Jason had never been like Dick. He’d never been the most photogenic face. His smile was crooked—heck, his whole face was crooked. His hair stuck up at odd angles; Dick’s hair had always been that perfect sort of curly, whereas Jason’s hair managed to look like a bedhead 24/7. But the old ladies at the galas had always pinched his cheeks, and Bruce had always said that he looked handsome in a suit even though they were always too tight on his armpits and Babs— he did not want to think about her, he hadn’t in forever—had always called him a pretty boy, ruffling his hair like the older sister that she was to him. Said that Dick’s antics were rubbing off on him. 

And Jason had always sort of cared. 

Sort of. 

It wasn’t that he was worried about looking nice now. It was just…

There was a sick feeling in his stomach that wasn’t just the double piercing in it when he ran his fingers over the jagged edges of the scar on his cheek. And his eyes weren’t the right color anymore—they had always been more blue than green and now it had flipped completely opposite. His face looked foreign and he didn’t think he could muster a smile right now if he tried. 

Also, he looked just as tired as he felt. 

He leaned forward, bracing his arms on the edge of the sink and trying to think clearly. He needed to leave, he needed to leave soon. And since he was in Kansas, he had two options. 

He could either steal a car and somehow outdrive Superman. 

Or he could act okay enough that Dick let him go. 

He could, of course, get kicked out. But Jason didn't think Dick had changed that much. The Golden Boy had always been a softie, even when Jason had come in off the streets and taken his job. Sure, they’d butted heads forever, but Dick had never told him to leave, never told him that he didn’t deserve to be a hero. 

That’d been Bruce’s job. 

Jason realized, with a jolt, that he’d been standing there, half-naked and in front of the mirror for far longer than he’d intended.

He’d already peeled off his shirt, planning to inspect the wound that he would have to pretend would heal in a few days. If Dick was going to let him off easy, he’d probably have to act okay. Jason wasn’t stupid, he knew a bullet hole to the stomach wouldn’t heal in a day, even with the abilities that Lazarus Pit had given him. But his brother didn’t know that and Jason had gotten fairly good at working despite injuries. In a world as harsh as the underworld of Gotham, you couldn’t be down and out for long. Weakness was exploited quickly and without hesitation or sentiment. 

Jason had learned to get over things quickly— physically, anyway —and this had to be the same. He’d already been out of Gotham for too long, already been off the streets for too long. 

He stared at the partially stained, white bandages wrapped around his middle, and wondered if he even wanted to deal with this right now. 

He had to, he knew that but… 

Staying dead might’ve been easier, he thought as he picked at one of the seams of the bandages and started unwinding. 

It hurt more than it probably should’ve and Jason tried to ignore the way his hands were shaking. The bandages fell away eventually and he surveyed the battle field that had become his abdomen. 

The gunshot wounds in question had been stitched up, presumably by Dick and he’d done a good job. They were a little puckered and considering the mess that his skin already was, they might scar a little, but Jason was far past caring. They were close to one another, near the center of his stomach but closer to the right and sort of at an odd angle. 

Missed my stomach. 

And his spine, obviously, since he was still standing.

So it had been some sort of freak shot, some sort of good luck that he wasn’t dead. He’d bled a lot—maybe nicked something important—but obviously not anything that would kill him immediately. 

His surprise trip to the Lazarus Pit had helped out with that. He had increased strength, increased healing abilities—which was probably what Dick had been counting on when he sewed him up on the bathroom floor of Superman's parent’s house in Kansas. 

Jason’s trained eyes hadn’t missed the bloodstains on the tiles near the bathtub and he doubted that it was Clark’s. He’d try and clean that up; it wasn’t fair to whatever-Clark’s-mom’s-name-was to have to deal with Jason’s blood. 

The area around his stomach, around his navel, was swollen—his body and the green Lazarus juice working together to try and stitch him back up. He had fairly extensive bruising around his ribs, but he wasn’t worried about anything being broken or cracked, luckily.

Altogether, it was better than he’d expected. Nothing but a lot of bleeding and two gaping holes in his muscles. 

Which was why the way that his vision was swirling made no sense to him. 

Jason swallowed back the uncomfortable feeling in the back of his throat, the nausea that was working its way up his throat. He leaned a little further into the counter, taking careful breaths, trying to block out the twinges of pain coming from his stomach. 

He’d needed to rewrap the wound, but he was starting to rethink the whole unwrapping idea itself because he didn’t know where any bandages were and he didn’t feel like walking around again and trying to find them. 

And his stomach hurt. 

That made sense, of course, but he didn’t remember being this bad at dealing with injuries.
Jason wasn’t quite paying attention to the fact that he was stumbling backward, easing himself to the ground until his back was pressed up to the cold side of the bathtub and his head tucked between his knees and his middle was on fire. 

Breathe, he reminded himself. Breathe and get up. Don’t tear your stitches, don’t wince, Dick was probably sitting outside the door waiting for him again. 

He said it all again in his mind, just to remind himself, but his body didn’t move and he was starting to lock up. He squeezed his eyes shut against the dark spots that were swirling in his vision. 

The sound of a fist against the door jump-started his heart. 

He flinched—too fast, too hard because his stomach was screaming and the back of his head was aching from hitting the side of the bathtub. 

“—son? Hey, are you alright? Sorry, it’s just been a while. I thought—” 

“It’s fine,” Jason shouted, on instinct, and his voice sounded hoarse even to his own ears. 

Dick fell silent, but Jason just knew that he was still lingering by the door. He was proved right half a minute later when he said, “Hey, I have your Jello if you’re ready.” 

That was enough to get Jason lurching to his feet. He unlocked the door and threw it open before he thought about it. 

Dick jumped back a step, staring at Jason with wide eyes. He breathed out a curse. “What are you doing? ” He demanded, eyes wide. 

Jason remembered his wounds and the lack of bandages just then. “Checking to see if you’re as bad at stitches as I remember.” 

Jason didn’t actually remember Dick’s stitches and if he was good or not, but the words were the first thing that came to his mind that wasn’t where’s the Jello? 

“Oh,” Dick said, still staring at him like he’d just crawled out of his grave. 

Jason had seen that look, on the face of a little old man who patrolled the church graveyard at night, so he figured that it was a comparison that he was entitled to make. 

“I said I could get my own Jello.” 

“Do you want me to rewrap those?” Dick offered him a little glass bowl, filled to the top with translucent, grape-flavored gelatin. 

“I can do that too,” Jason snapped, taking the bowl despite his protests. 

Dick’s jaw hardened a little and Jason looked away to avoid the thrill of anxiety. “I’ll bring the bandages to your room?” 

Jason grit his teeth, angry at the man for no reason at all. “Thanks,” 

“Yeah.”

Dick followed behind as Jason made his way back to the room he’d been staying in. He hovered by the door for a bit, then came in after Jason had settled back on the bed. 

Jason poked at his Jello with the provided spoon, trying to dredge up an appetite. His abdomen was still painful, but he couldn’t deny that he was starting to feel hungry. 

He just...didn’t want to throw up again. For some reason, that moment was cemented in his brain and he wasn’t fond of it. 

But when he glanced up, Dick was watching him, and he remembered his plan. 

He didn’t realize how hungry he actually was until he started eating, but with the hunger came the memories and Jason went stiff halfway through the second bite. 

There was something about the grape flavor that hit Jason with so much nostalgia. 

He was an idiot, he realized because grape was his favorite flavor. So, of course, Bruce had bought it for him that time, when he was thirteen and so ill that he couldn’t make it to school, despite his valiant efforts. Of course, Bruce had tucked him into bed and promised he’d be right back with Jello and left Jason feeling way too childish and way too comfortable inside. And, of course, Bruce had come back with the Jello.  

And, of course, they’d eaten it together and then watched old movies, and then, of course, Bruce had read to him until he drifted off to sleep.

And, of course—

Of course, Jason couldn’t think of that right now. 

Distantly, Jason could feel Dick’s eyes on him and the spoon was halfway to his mouth and his hands were shaking and he’s such an idiot. 

“Jaybird?” 

That was a step too far. 

Jason’s head snapped up, gaze meeting his brother’s for a split second. 

And then he was slamming the bowl down on the bedside table and getting to his feet for heaven knows why and Dick was staring at him, panic growing on his face. 

“Jason—” 

“I’m not hungry,” 

“What—” 

“I need air.” Because he didn’t want to go hide in the bathroom again and he didn’t know where else he could go since he was stuck in freaking Kansas. Because he can’t really breathe anymore. 

“Okay, is there something—” 

“ Now, ” 

“Yeah—yeah!” Dick jolted into action, practically lunging toward Jason before pulling up short. “Yeah, just…” Apparently, he just decides to shut up because he snapped his jaw shut and just made for the door; Jason fell in step behind him.

Chapter Text

Dick didn’t try to talk to him as they worked their way to the front door and Jason treated it like a miracle from heaven. He needed a moment to think—or maybe to not think —and relearn how to breathe. He needed a moment to banish grape flavoring from his mind and Bruce and all the pain that came along with those things. 

Instead of thinking of that, instead of thinking about the things that always, always led him down a dark path, Jason forced himself to look around himself. 

Clark’s house was much different than Jason had imagined. Not that he’d imagined it at all. He just thought for some reason that it’d be...bigger. 

He had known that Clark grew up on a farm— no, he hadn’t stalked him when he was a child —but it had never really sunk in. 

The farmhouse itself, however, was just exactly that: a farmhouse. 

Jason had heard about Clark’s father’s death, but, according to his knowledge, Martha Kent was still around. Clark didn’t talk about his family often and Jason knew the fear of endangering those close to you. 

Jason didn’t see Mrs. Kent or anyone else as Dick led him to the front door. 

“Do you—” Dick hesitated. “Can I stay out here with you?” 

Jason stepped out, stiffening as he passed his brother who was stopped in the doorway. “I’m not going to take off,” he said, and he winced, unsure if the words came out how he’d intended for them to. 

“I know. I know! I was just…” 

Jason looked back at his brother and Dick ran a hand through his hair almost self-consciously. 

“I want to talk to you,” 

So, there’s our social butterfly. 

“I don’t.” 

Dick huffed, but he was undeterred. “I’m not going to bring anything touchy up. I just—Jay, I haven’t talked to you in years.” 

If Jason had still been looking back he would have seen the nervous expression on his brother’s face. He wasn’t. 

“I died, Dick.” Jason realized that he was barefoot only when he stepped on the deck, but he didn’t hesitate in his step. His stomach was starting to throb again, starting to turn uncomfortable and he latched onto the railing like a lifeline, leaning against it heavily. “That’s what happens when people die,”

Dick didn’t move from behind him and Jason could almost imagine the unnatural stiffness in his shoulders. Dick was an acrobat; he was supposed to be gentle and graceful and lithe. He was the original Robin: he was supposed to be excited and talkative and passionate and stubborn, and maybe a little bit reckless. He was the Golden Boy: he was supposed to have some sort of messed up hero complex and a winning smile. He was supposed to give hugs when he knew you wanted one but wouldn’t ask for it. He was supposed to be helping people, talking to them, loving them. 

But, instead, he was here, pleading with Jason to just talk to him and there was a brick in Jason’s chest that was going to make sure it wasn’t going to happen.

Dick was wasting his time. 

Dick was wasting his time because other people had tried to help, to fix Jason and it hadn’t worked. 

Dick was supposed to helping people. Jason didn’t know what he was, but he certainly wasn’t that because people don’t die, come back to life, and still have crap to deal with. 

No, Dick was wasting his time. 

Jason leaned against the railing of the patio, huffing out a breath and pretending like that didn’t aggravate the holes in his stomach. 

“Jaybird,” Dick started, then stopped just as quickly. “ Jason. I want to talk to you. I want to get to know you. I...don’t want you to do that again.” 

Jason almost asked what he meant, but he was determined not to get dragged into a conversation with the older man. 

“I don’t want you to—I don’t want to think that you have to survive alone.” 

Jason pressed his lips together as every warning sign in his brain fired off. This was exactly what he didn’t want to talk about. This was what he had been trying to avoid for...forever. 

He couldn’t do this because...he couldn’t. 

He wasn’t Jason Peter Todd anymore. He didn’t have a family, not anymore. He’d made too many mistakes. He’d gotten out of the Pit insane and he’d messed up one too many times and he couldn’t be Jason Todd anymore. 

He’d tried.

He’d tried and he’d ended up killing someone. 

He’d tried giving Bruce a chance to help him, a chance that had made sense to his Pit-mad, undead brain, and Bruce’s answer was clear. 

Jason didn’t answer his brother. He couldn’t. Not over the lump in his throat. Not over the searing in his chest that had nothing to do with a wound. 

“Jay, please. You don’t even have to talk. I just...I just want to tell you—” Dick’s voice actually broke, then, and Jason focused on the horizon ahead of him to keep himself sane. 

“I didn’t know, Jay.” 

Jason felt himself go still. 

“I didn’t know until I came back to Gotham to visit and you were gone and…”

Jason waited. There was a heartbeat’s worth of time and then Dick was pushing forward and Jason can almost hear him gritting his teeth. 

“Tim started...during a rough time for all of us. I think it helped—” Dick skipped over the name and Jason almost breathed a sigh of relief. “—him, all of us, get out of a dark place. But he didn’t replace you, Jason. Tim’s Tim. You’re Jason—” 

“Not anymore.” Jason snapped. 

“You—” 

“I don’t want to talk.” 

“I know, but—” 

“I’m not talking. And I’m not staying.” 

“What…? Wait—I’m sorry. Wait.” Dick fumbled for words, completely taken off guard, although he shouldn’t have been. “I’m an idiot. Still. Jason, please. Don’t leave.” 

“Not now,” Jason said because that was part of the plan and he couldn’t exactly walk back to Gotham. He turned, watching his brother’s face as the fear melted out of it. “Tomorrow. I’m asking Clark.” 

“Tomorrow?” Dick said and swallowed. 

“Unless he can take me tonight,” Jason said and watched Dick’s face fall even further. “I’ve been shot before, Dick. I can handle myself.” 

“I know, I know. I just... you lost a lot of blood, and—” 

“I could have died. Yep, got that.” Jason raised his eyebrows at his brother, turning fully to face him and putting his back to the railing. “I’ve done that before too. Remember?” 

“I just thought you could stay here for a little longer. You wouldn’t have to worry about staying at your safe house or anything. I just thought—” Dick sighed, cursed under his breath, and risked another look at Jason. “I know you don’t really want to talk to me, but I can leave, Jay. I don’t have to talk to you again—that was a stupid idea in the first place. I know I’m pushy, I just—I wanna make sure you’re okay. Y’know, before you go back out there.” 

Something in Jason’s brain couldn’t interpret those words. Those words, for some reason that Jason couldn’t parse out, sounded like care and Jason wasn’t sure if he felt more like crying or throwing up. 

That was another thing that Jason couldn’t deal with at the moment. Seemingly, the list was alive and well, and still accepting new additions. 

“I’ll be fine.” 

“No, Jay, I—I know what it's like to go on patrol with a bullet in your stomach, Jay. It’s not fun. If you just wait a little longer… Could you let the wound close up at least? It’s only been a few days.” 

Jason shouldered past Dick. “I have things to do. Drug dealers to shoot in the head.” He resisted looking back at his brother, even though he’d said that mostly just to remind Dick who he was working with, who he was trying to care about. 

Hey, idiot — I keep heads in my duffle bag. I slit throats. You don’t want me at your dinner table. 

“Oracle’s watching out for you,” 

Jason froze in the doorway. 

“She’s just keeping her eyes on everything. Clark said he would help if anything got out of hand.” Dick said. “And Tim’s heading back to Gotham early, for a couple of meetings. He said he’d patrol a few times.” 

Okay, Jason got Clark. Superman would patrol for anyone. He even sort of got Babs, who had always been different from the rest of the Bats. She’d even contacted him a few times, gave him tips about a specific cartel or some drug bust he was working on. 

But the Replacement already had his hands full. 

Also, Jason had tried to kill him a few times. 

It wasn’t as though they hated each other still. Jason had had contact with each one of the Bats at one time or another since he’d finally, sort of, regained most of his ability to think straight. Mostly, they’d run into each other on missions. 

Jason had even talked to Tim a few times, if agreeing not to try and kill him again counted as a conversation, and he was the only Robin who didn’t drive him insane with his constant need for conversation and affection. 

But Tim Drake offering to help Jason was a whole other thing. 

This whole week had been a whole other thing. 

“We can help you out,” Dick said as Jason forced himself to keep moving. 

“I don’t need your help.” 

“I know, I know,” Dick said, too quickly. “But, just until you heal, I thought that it would be nice.” 

That was about all Jason could handle. 

“Why do you care?” The words came out before he could think about how they would sound and since he wasn’t a coward, he turned around to face the problem he’d somehow landed himself in. 

Dick had the decency to act surprised by the question. “Why not? You’re still family, Jay, no matter what you…” 

Do? Think? 

Jason felt anger well up in his chest, felt his neck grow hot. He stepped in to meet Dick, barely registering how much taller he was, how young and old the Golden Boy managed to look all at once. 

“I don’t know what you’re playing at,” Jason ground out, teeth gritted, jaw clenched. He ignored Dick’s look of confusion, his weak protests. “I don’t know what your angle is, but it’s not going to work. I suggest you cut it out before I get angry.” 

“I’m not—” 

“Did he put you up to it?” Jason demanded, the possibilities—the terrible, terrible possibilities—suddenly multiplying before his eyes. His stomach squeezed, the edges of his vision dipping into a sickly green that he knew was a bad sign.

“Jay?—” 

 “That’s how to get to the Red Hood, huh? Get him when he can’t fight back? Get him when he can’t kill you?” Jason stepped a little closer, forcing his older brother to look up at him. “When he can’t break your pretty face and then slit your throat? Right? What is it this time? What’s his plan? Arkham again?” The words were spilling out of his mouth now, he couldn't stop them. The green was crowding—“Been there, done that. What’s next? Surely Bruce has something else, some new plan. Something else to stop the Red Hood. ‘Cause he’s a killer, right? Insane, right?” Jason did feel a little insane at the moment, a little too crazy and certainly too close to killing. He couldn’t—

“Jason, stop. You know he wouldn’t…” Dick trailed off, despite his earlier attempts to keep his voice strong. 

Jason almost smiled, almost laughed because that whole situation was just desperate now, desperate and ironic and terrible and he couldn’t help wishing Dick had just left him alone in his apartment. Left him alone to just fade away. Then, he would have had a happy ending. As happy as he probably deserved. Because his brother had called and he’d almost convinced himself that they cared and that it was just that they couldn’t get there in time. 

Why was it always because they were late? 

“He wouldn’t what ?” Jason demanded, watching the guilt, the trapped expression grow on his brother’s face. “He wouldn’t leave me? Betray me? Try to kill me? ” His voice was roaring in his ears, but it isn’t louder than the blood rushing in his ears. Then the sound of his own heart slamming out some erratic beat in his throat. His hands were flexing, fists formed so tightly they were shaking and his very skin was aching. He was almost short of breath, his chest aching. Jason realized distantly that everything veiled with green, but he felt like his control was slipping and it was outside his control.

And for some strange, twisted reason, he didn’t much care. 

He wanted to be angry. He wanted to lose control. He wanted to see green because that would be easier. And, in the end, Jason Todd was a coward. 

He leaned forward, and Dick actually faltered, stumbled back a step. 

“He already did,” Jason hissed.  

There was a beat of silence and Jason couldn’t see anything but green blurs and his own death playing behind his eyes. 

And then Dick’s hands are on his shoulders and Jason felt weakness in his knees that was wrong. 

“Jay...what? Jason?” 

But Jason was already off-kilter, the world spinning off its axis in a strange way and he could almost smell his own blood. Could almost smell rain—but that’s wrong because it wasn’t raining that day in Ethiopia. It was raining that day Bruce, his dad, chose the Joker over his own son. And he was sure that his neck was bleeding again, but it’s not, it couldn’t be because he wasn’t choking. But why couldn’t he breathe then? And—
“Jason?” 

Dick’s hands were still on his shoulders and Jason was still standing, but he didn’t know if he’d breathed in the last hour and the green was starting to be replaced by just fuzziness. 

“Hey, Jay, calm down, right? Hey, hey, hey,” Dick was trying to pull him along with him, leading him back to the living room, but Jason couldn’t get his feet to move.

“He tried to kill me.” The words felt feel heavy and stupid on his lips and he thought that maybe his fingertips—his entire body—was going numb. 

It was Dick’s turn to freeze, to go completely stiff. 

Time stuttered. The green seemed to ebb in the corner of his vision and he wasn’t quite sure what he said next. Honestly, it was probably a curse. Jason’s eyes found his brother’s much too slowly. 

He couldn’t read Dick’s expression, couldn’t read whatever was behind those blue eyes.

“Who?” The single word left his brother’s mouth too slowly.

Chapter Text

Jason didn’t often pride himself on running. 

The Red Hood was the bane of Gotham criminals. He didn’t run. 

This time, though, Jason ran. 

Not literally, of course. He wouldn’t be running, properly, for a couple of days. 

But run from this conversation? Jason could do that. 

His whole psyche seemed to snap—snap back into function, snap back to what it should be—as he realized what he’d said, what he’d let out of his mouth, what he’d told the Golden Boy, of all people. 

Of literally every single person on the planet. 

Jason didn’t want Dick to know about what had happened that night—about what Bruce had done, about what Jason had done—because he would want to talk about it. 

Jason didn’t want to think about it. Much, much less wanted to talk about his feelings on it. 

So, he’d pushed past Dick, without an explanation. 

“Hey! Jay, wait!” Dick lunged after him, managing to snag his arm, turning him around halfway. 

Pain flared in Jason’s gut, white spots popping in his vision. He stumbled, pulled away again. 

Dick swore, an apology spilling out of his mouth at nearly the same time. “Sorry, I—Jason, wait! What happened?” 

“It doesn’t matter,” Jason turned away from him, trying to hide the shaking in his hands. 

“Jason, no. Who—” 

“It’s nothing,” Jason felt his chest constrict, and holy crap he hated today. 

And the day before. And this month. And possibly every moment of his life since he’d come back to life. 

“No, if Bruce did—” 

“ Stop!” Jason shouted, throat aching. “Just don’t.” 

“I need to—” 

“Stay out of this,” Jason was already back in his room, the Golden Boy just trailing behind him, and Jason couldn’t exactly remember the walk. 

“Jason, I want to talk. Please. You can’t—” 

“Did you bring the bandages or not?” Jason snapped, trying, as a last-ditch attempt, to redirect the conversation. 

Dick didn’t miss a beat. “They’re on the chair. Jay, please. If something happened…” 

Jason crossed the room, snatching up the bandages, and then sitting down hard on the bed. His head was starting to throb again. He didn’t answer. 

“Can I help you?” Dick asked. His voice was pinched. He was getting frustrated at Jason, finally, thankfully. Maybe he wouldn’t try and stop Jason when he left in the morning. 

Jason unwound the first roll of gauze, trying to pretend his vision was steady. 

He was so tired. 

And the grape Jello was still sitting there on the bedside and table and he could smell it and—

Jason wasn’t sure when he stopped trying to wrap the wound and started trying not to cry, but suddenly that was a current problem and dang, his life really was falling apart wasn’t it? 

“Jason? Jay?” Dick was there, crouched down in front of him, but Jason didn’t want to look up, didn't want to do anything. 

He let his head drop into his hands, focused on preventing the tears welling up in his eyes from going anywhere because then he would actually just roll over and die. 

Jason Todd was not going to cry. 

Not in front of his older brother. Not in front of anyone. 

He was a grown man. He was a vigilante. He was a killer. 

He didn’t cry. 

Which was why the warm liquid running in between his fingers and making his hands feel sticky and awful made no sense. 

“Hey, hey, hey,” Dick was murmuring above him, around him—Jason couldn’t really be sure. “Hey, it’s okay. I know. I know.” 

But he didn’t know. He didn’t know because Jason didn’t even know. He didn’t know why he was crying. He didn’t know why he was sitting in Clark’s parents' house. He didn’t know why he wasn’t dead. He didn’t know why Dick was sitting forward and wrapping his arms and hugging him. 

He didn’t know what to do inside the hug, either, so he just sat there—stiff, with his hands pressed into his eyes, trying to keep the tears from actually escaping because maybe Dick had missed them and still thought that Jason was just an insane killer and not the same broken boy who had clawed his way out of his own grave and own family. 

To Dick’s credit, he held onto Jason’s uncomfortable, unnatural form and didn’t expect any hug back. 

To Dick’s credit, he didn’t let go. 

Chapter Text

Dick vision wavered slightly. 

It’d been doing that for the last few days, ever since he’d found Jason— don’t think about that, don’t think about that —and it had been admirably persistent in staying exactly where it was. He thought it was maybe from lack of sleep, maybe from the fact that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had an actual meal. 

He kept reminding himself that he’d be able to catch a quick nap somewhere, but the actual possibility of it is seeming less and less likely. The last time he’d tried to get some rest while Jason was sleeping...well, it hadn’t turned out very well. 

And now with the image of his brother bleeding and Bruce—

He wasn’t sure if he could fall asleep right now. 

The blurriness didn’t seem to care. It was there whenever he stood up too fast, or sat down too quickly, or did pretty much any movement too quickly. 

He was starting to get used to it—he wasn’t sure if that was a good sign, or a bad one—so he wasn’t surprised that the edges of his vision went static-y when he dropped to his knees in front of Jason. 

Jason—his baby brother —was hunched over, shaking, breathing so hard that his chest was heaving. 

Dick wanted to cry. 

No, Dick wanted to scream and yell and possibly punch someone in the face, maybe Bruce, maybe the Joker, maybe himself. 

He...wasn’t sure how the last one would work. 

“Jason? Jay?” Dick wasn’t sure what to do, where to put his hands because this was Jason. 

Jason had never liked being touched. Bruce had always warned Dick about that as a kid, always told him to be a little more respectful of personal space around Jason. Bruce told him that the second Robin had had a rough childhood. Dick had known that he grew up on the streets, that he grew up having to fend for himself, he just didn’t realize how much of that instinct had stuck with him. Jason, as a kid, had been cocky and funny and rash and annoying, but he had also been shy and jumpy and anxious in equal amounts. The first time that Dick had seen Jason flinch he’d been confused because Bruce would never hit him. 

Apparently, apparently, he’d been wrong. 

Dick’s mind was whirling as he shuffled closer to Jason. The boy— he wasn’t really a boy anymore; he’d grown up —had dropped his head into his hands. Dick had to remind himself to focus or he would’ve gotten distracted by the shaking of Jason’s shoulders, the choked sort of noises that were coming from him. 

“Hey, hey, hey,” Dick said because he wasn’t doing a very good job at not focusing on the fact that Jason Todd was crying because someone had hurt him and, unfortunately, Dick had inherited the trait of sympathetic emotions from his mother. His chest was already starting to feel tight, a terrible feeling of dread and guilt and sadness dropping over him like a heavy curtain. “Hey, it’s okay. I know. I know.” He didn’t know, but Jason was crying harder and the closer that Dick was getting the more he could feel the unnatural heat coming off his brother. 

Dick swore mentally. 

The perfect storm. 

“Hey, it’s okay, Jay. Let it out, alright?” Dick murmured, having the distinct impression that Jason had to be feeling like crap. 

Jason didn’t move, didn’t say anything, but he also didn’t pull away which Dick took as a good sign. 

That had to be a good sign, right? 

But Jason wasn’t stopping and Dick could practically hear his stitches beginning to tear and so he threw caution to the wind, cursed himself and leaned in for a hug. 

Dick hadn’t hugged his brother in years. 

A lot of things had changed about Jason Todd in that time. His hugging skills hadn’t. He was still stiff and awkward and not really sure how to return a hug properly and for some reason that made Dick feel a little more at ease about everything. 

Maybe because his little brother had broken and pieced himself back together with nothing but broken promises and determination and he still fit in Dick’s arms despite it all. 

Dick didn’t let go for a long time. 

Jason didn’t talk, didn’t even look up, as Dick rewrapped his abdomen. 

The sight of the wound made Dick feel sick. Maybe because it was swollen and bruised and a little warm to the touch. Mostly because it made him remember how Jason had looked in his apartment, lying in his own blood. How he’d looked as Dick frantically called Clark. How out of it he’d been when Dick tried to talk to him, to keep him awake. He could barely keep his eyes open at that point, his face so pale it looked skeletal. How he’d looked as Dick performed the blood transfusion, using his own blood. He’d almost forgotten that they were the same blood type, but he’d remembered Jason doing the same for him, right after Dick had become Nightwing. He hadn’t wanted Bruce to know that he’d been careless on a mission, hid the injury until it had gotten too bad. 

Come to think of it, Jason and Dick had been through a lot together. 

Maybe they hadn’t spent a ridiculous amount of time together, what with patrolling different cities and never getting along perfectly. But they’d always had the shared experience of being Robin and that had always counted for something. 

Nightwing and Robin had agreed to help one another out. That seemed like such a long time ago. 

Maybe Jason had forgotten, because he’d looked so surprised to see Dick. 

Dick tried to banish that image from his mind too. He didn’t want to think about that, didn’t want to think about that fact that, maybe, Jason thought he was too far gone for his big brother to help him. No, to keep him from dying. 

That was the bare minimum, in Dick’s mind. If he saw a stranger bleeding out, he would help them. If he saw a criminal bleeding out he would probably help them. 

Because nobody deserved to die like that. 

Okay, maybe a few people deserved. Mainly whoever had made his baby brother freaking cry. 

Don’t think about that. Dick reminded himself. Don’t think about that. He just needed to rewrap the wound. Needed to figure out why Jason was running a low-grade fever when he didn’t have any blatant signs of infection. 

Dick needed to deal with this, to fix this not just sit there and feel bad about it. 

Unfortunately, the only things that Dick Grayson felt capable of doing at the moment were crying and hugging someone who was crying. 

And the hugging thing couldn’t exactly fix the trauma and PTSD that came along with dying and getting resurrected. 

It had to be PTSD, Dick thought. He’d seen it, in the people he worked with, in the cops that he had shifts with back in Bludhaven. And those dreams—they had to be bad. 

Jason had woken up several times before he had woken up properly alert. 

It scared Dick—how many times he’d woken up, crying out, eyes an unnatural green. It scared him how many times he’d sat by the bed, trying to hold Jason down so he wouldn’t tear stitches, or unhook the IV or hurt himself. 

Dick knew he was in over his head. 

But he did know how to bandage wounds, so he started there. 

Jason complied, and maybe that was what made Dick a little more worried than he’d been. He didn’t resist as Dick moved closer to check the wound and then wrap the bandages. He didn’t protest, insisting he do it himself. He even lifted his arms, albeit slowly. 

It was only when Dick reached out a hand, going towards his face, that Jason flinched. It was hard and sudden, like Jason had just forgotten that Dick had been there. The look in his brother’s eyes was so wild, so terrified, for that split second that Dick felt guilt threatening to crawl up his throat and choke him. 

“Sorry, sorry,” He said, carefully, withdrawing his hand a little. “I just wanted to check the fever. Is that okay?” 

He expects Jason to say no, to pull away, to insist that he’s fine because now Dick has to have gone too far. 

But Jason just sat there, staring at Dick with red-rimmed eyes, like he was trying to figure out if he was trapped in a nightmare all over again. 

Dick cleared his throat loudly, moving forward and putting his hand against Jason’s forehead, so he was distracted enough to miss the sound of his own heart breaking. 

“You’re a little warm.” Dick murmured after a moment. “Do you want some more water? I’m gonna try to find some Tylenol.” 

“No,”

“What?” Dick paused, trying not to feel relieved that Jason is finally, sort of, acting like Jason. 

“It doesn’t work.” Jason’s eyes cut up to meet his and it was just then that Dick realized that he’d been staring at the abandoned bowl of Jello. 

What was it about Jello? 

“What?” Dick repeated. 

“My…” Jason sighed, shoving his palms into his eyes again. “Leave it, Dick. It’s fine.” 

Dick swallowed, dropped back to a crouch so that he was a little more level with his brother. “What’s going on, Jay?” 

Jason cleared his throat and gestured vaguely. “The Lazarus Pit. It’s trying to heal me. It’s...I don’t need Tylenol.” 

Dick didn’t know if that was true, didn’t know how that worked, but he was fairly sure that Jason would know if his insides were being knitted back together by zombie-juice. 

He got back to his feet, ignoring the way that his vision moved a second later. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, okay.” He didn’t move though. “I…” 

“I’m going to sleep,” Jason said, voice a little stronger now. And that was the Jason Todd that Dick knew. The kid would use sleeping and eating as an excuse for everything. 

“Right, I just—”

“ I don’t want to talk, Dick ,” Jason ground out, hands still covering his face, shoulders still tense and trembling. 

“I know. I know,” Dick raised his hands in surrender even though Jason couldn’t see them. “I just wondered if you wanted food.” 

“No,” 

“Okay, but—” 

“Get out, Dick,” 

Dick snapped his mouth shut, cutting off his next protest. “Right,” he mumbled. “Right, yeah. Sorry,” 

He left Jason sitting there on the bed, hunched over like the world and the fate of everyone on it was balanced on his shoulders. 

Dick hesitated, then picked up the bowl of grape Jello. He left, and that was when it sunk in how badly he’d screwed up.

Dick wasn’t surprised to see Clark working in the kitchen when he left Jason’s room. It was his house after all. 

“Dick,” Clark looked up from whatever he was in the process of cooking and smiled at him.

Dick tried to return the smile, but it didn’t work out as well as he’d thought because Clark’s smile faded and he turned away from the stove as Dick slumped down at the dining table. 

“Dick? What happened?” 

“You just got back?” Dick asked. There was no possible way that he wouldn’t have heard Dick and Jason’s conversation. 

“I stopped by Metropolis, just to see how things were going,” Clark said, looking more and more worried by the second. “What happened? He’s still here?” 

“He’s not...doing well,” Dick said, leaning forward and feeling wearier than ever. 

“What happened?” 

Dick scrubbed at his face, feeling the uncomfortable itch of a five o’clock—well, a little more than that—shadow. He didn’t know how to explain what had happened, how to explain Jason. 

It was a mess, but Dick should be able to fix it. He was the big brother. He was the people person in the family. He was the emotional one. 

Right? 

“It was my fault.” He settled on that, finally, because it was true, wasn’t it? “I tried to talk to him and he—” His voice broke a little as he remembered something horrible. “Someone tried to kill him, Clark.” 

Bruce. 

Bruce had tried to kill him, but that didn’t make sense because Bruce didn’t kill and he certainly wouldn't have tried to kill Jason and —

“Dick?” 

“He’s not doing well, Clark,” Dick repeated again, trying, and failing probably, to keep the desperation out of his voice. “He’s…” 

Clark was next to him, somehow, and his hand moved to Dick’s shoulder. “It’ll be alright, Dick. We’ll take care of him,” 

“I know, I know.” 

“He needs time.” 

“I know.” 

“And you need sleep,” 

“I know,” 

“Get some?” 

Dick thought about protesting but he was so tired. “I don’t want to leave him alone.” 

“Dick, I can hear anything,” 

“I know, I know.” 

“Just until dinner,” Clark said. “We can eat together and then you both can go back to bed,” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Dick meant to get up, to get to his feet and to find the blanket he’d brought from Bludhaven and crash on the couch, but he didn’t want to move and he was halfway in between deciding and committing and just hoping to sink into the ground and disappear when Clark shook his shoulder gently. 

“Hey, you gonna find somewhere comfortable to sleep?” 

Dick blinked heavily and then jerked out a nod. “Yeah, sorry,” He tried to look more apologetic than just bone-tired but he wasn’t sure if he succeeded as he stumbled to his feet. 

Clark followed him down the hallway, pointing out another empty bedroom—it was a family house, after all—and Dick sort of blanked between the time that he entered the room and he found himself lying on his back on the bed fully clothed. 

Somewhere above him, he heard Clark harumph softly, which reminded him way too much of Bruce. 

Silence followed that, and for a few minutes, Dick wasn’t sure if he was asleep or awake. 

Then— “He’ll be okay, Dick,” 

And Dick said, “I know,” because, apparently that was the only thing that he knew how to say. 

Chapter Text

Jason wasn’t dead when he woke up, hours later, which was a surprise not because he thought he was dead—or wanted to be—but because he had dreamed about dying. 

He was upright and stumbling out of his bed, tripping over the blankets wrapped around his legs before he realized he was even awake. He nearly fell, stumbling as pain flared in his gut and made his stomach turn. 

It hadn’t been a good dream. He rarely had good dreams, but at least he usually didn’t remember them. This one he did remember and it was the worst that he could remember in a while. 

He’d been dying, again. But it had been a strange, nightmarish mixture of all his near-death experiences. He’d been bleeding, broken, but it was Bruce above him, laughing. Then he was choking on his own blood and—

Jason shook his head, stumbling into the doorframe and gripping it like it was a lifeline. His vision was blurry, darkness dancing just out of reach, but he was determined to stay awake, to stay focused. 

Step one: breathe. 

He shifted, moving until his back was up against the wall and he could lean his into it, letting it take his weight. 

Breathe. Don’t think. Breathe. 

He tried to do just that. 

But there was a tightness in his chest that was making it hard to think, much less force himself to breathe, and holy heck his body ached. It wasn’t just his stomach anymore, though every movement brought a spike of pain through his stomach and up into his throat. But his back throbbed, too. And his head. And his eyes felt dry and achy and—

Oh crap. 

He’d cried. 

He had cried in front of Dick. 

He couldn’t remember why, he couldn’t remember what would have possessed him to do a thing like that because he was the Red Hood and he was a killer. 

He wasn’t a...he wasn’t a little boy anymore. He didn’t even think he’d ever really been a child. Had he? 

Did children fend for themselves, live on the streets, steal food so that they wouldn’t faint in the shelter lines because those were freaking long? 

No, children didn’t fight and steal and lie, just so that they could stay alive. They didn’t go to sleep hungry and tired for days on end. They didn’t take hits for their mom from their own dad, because he was drunk and angry. Children didn’t wake up one morning and find their mom dead on the bathroom floor, they didn’t—

Jason nearly cried out, nearly bit off his own tongue because he hadn’t remembered that until now. 

He hadn’t remembered how he had woken up late in the morning because he’d spent the whole night trying to get his mom to eat something, to stop throwing up. She’d been trying to get clean, but she hadn’t been doing well and at some point, Jason had fallen asleep. 

And by the time he woke up, she’d been dead. 

Jason had known immediately what she’d done. He’d gone back to bed and tried to go back to sleep because maybe it was all a dream, maybe it wasn’t real, maybe his mom wasn’t dead. Maybe she actually wanted to stay with him instead of giving her life to whatever crap she’d overdosed on. 

He’d tried to go back to sleep, tried to convince himself that he couldn't have saved her. That he couldn’t have saved if he had just woke up a little earlier. That he couldn’t have saved her if he’d been able to stay up just a little later, to stay with her a little longer and give her the motivation that she needed to just stay clean and sober. 

He’d tried to go back to sleep and convince himself that it wasn’t his fault. It didn't exactly work.

No. Don’t think about that. 

Jason gritted his teeth, wrapped his arms around his middle, and struggled to his feet. He needed to start moving because if he didn’t he might remember and that was one thing that he didn’t want to do. 

He stepped out into the hallway, ignoring the way his head throbbed with every step. Maybe Clark was here. Maybe he could take Jason home before he had to face Dick. 

That was the other thing that he did not want to do. 

The one good thing that Jason remembered was how to get to the living room. The kitchen wasn’t hard to find from there, it was attached and Jason could see right into it. That was where he scored. 

“Clark?”  

The man was leaning against the countertop, an iPad and stylus in his hands. There were glasses on the tip of his nose and Jason couldn’t help but wonder if that was just by habit because he knew well that Clark’s vision was perfect. 

The man looked up as Jason entered, quirking an eyebrow at him. 

Jason felt suddenly, abruptly, terribly embarrassed about everything. His mouth felt dry and he still couldn’t shake the cold that had settled in his bones. 

“Jason,” Clark said, evenly, setting aside the iPad and straightening up. 

“Hey,” Jason licked his lips, feeling oddly lightheaded. If he passed out in front of Clark again he was gonna swear up a storm or shoot someone in the head. Maybe both.

“How are you feeling?” Clark folded his arms across his chest, which was much, much more intimidating than it sounded, but his eyes were soft. As always. 

Jason was going crazy. He wasn’t scared of Clark. 

No, maybe Jason was. But the Red Hood wasn't . 

Jason ground his teeth together, stepped his feet a little further apart, and tried to get a handle of himself. “I need a ride back to Gotham.” 

Superman just hummed pleasantly. “When?” 

“As soon as possible.” 

Clark’s eyebrows rise a little more. “I thought you were leaving tomorrow.” 

Jason grimaced. Losing track of time was never a good sign. “No time is too soon,” 

Clark eyes him carefully, silent for a moment. Jason wondered if his x-ray vision worked on hearts too because he was starting to grow uncomfortable and he sure as heck didn’t want Clark to get dragged into his problems too. He shifted uncomfortably. 

“I made dinner,” Clark said, after too long. “You must be hungry.” 

“So I’m not allowed to leave?” Jason snapped, feeling himself stiffen further. His heart hadn’t stopped beating in his throat throughout the entirety of the interaction but it seemed to get a little more excited now. 

He wasn’t trapped. Jason tried to remind himself. He wasn’t trapped, he just… sort of was. 

What was he supposed to do against Superman? Especially when he was apparently so out of commission. He wondered, faintly, if he was still running a fever. He felt like crap, and he had to hope that part of the nausea that he was feeling was just the Lazarus Pit trying to patch him back up. That wasn’t always a pleasant experience. It’d only been a few days— he really was losing track of time, wasn’t he? —and considering that he should probably still be high on pain meds and sleeping, he was doing fairly well.

Okay, maybe he wasn’t doing well. The gunshot wounds in his stomach were. They were healing. 

Sort of. 

What a mess. 

There was definitely no way he could take on Clark. He just...had to do this the nice way. He had to figure out how to talk his way out of this, to figure out how to get out of here without starting a fight, or without being honest-to-goodness okay, because, at this point, he wasn’t even sure he could try to pretend anymore. 

But the words that come out of Clark’s mouth are completely different than Jason had been preparing himself for. 

“I didn’t say that,” Clark said, reaching over the stove and picking up one of the pots there. He moved past Jason—who stepped away immediately; he really needed to get rid of that habit —and crossed to the dining room. He started serving out portions of the food: scrambled eggs. “But flying on an empty stomach is never good.” 

Jason didn’t move from his place in the kitchen. He wasn’t sure he could. He watched Clark carefully, feeling the back of his neck prickle. 

This was so normal, so calm that he thought his brain must’ve short-circuited. 

The food smelt okay. He could smell bacon, and hashbrowns, maybe. He didn’t think he’d had a ‘breakfast dinner’ since he was a kid. He’d been completely addicted to bacon and pancakes and he’d convinced Alfred to make them for every meal on his 13th birthday.

“Jason?” 

Jason swallowed roughly, tried to force himself to think. “What?” 

“Are you going to eat with us?” 

He didn’t know what to say. “Where’s Dick?” 

“He’s sleeping. He was dead on his feet.” 

Jason felt himself flush. Dick had been taking care of him, making sure that he didn’t do something stupid, run off and get himself killed. The man really hadn’t changed that much. “Oh,” 

“Are you going to stay?” Clark was looking at him and Jason couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling as he tried to think of an answer. 

He didn’t know what he wanted to say. He didn’t actually know what he wanted to do. 

Well, he knew he wanted to be away from everyone. He wanted to sleep without worrying about waking up and killing someone without knowing who it was. He wanted to be able to just exist. His mind was mixed up, maybe more mixed up than it had been before any of this. This week, this month was always bad. But this year? This year he was a mess.

He’d been with his brother, awake and aware, for one day and he was already losing his mind. 

Or losing what was left of his mind. 

Jason Todd wanted to get away. 

But he couldn’t. 

He couldn’t leave right now, anyway. Because now he owed his life to Dick. 

No, more than that. Dick had been there for him. He’d been there for him when he was falling apart—which he hadn’t exactly stopped doing since he’d woken up from the pit. He’d been there for Jason when Jason didn’t even want to be there for himself. 

So he couldn’t exactly leave now. Not when Dick was asleep. Not before he could thank him. 

That was stupid. The Red Hood didn’t need to thank anyone. 

He didn’t need to thank anyone. 

Which was why he didn’t know why he was sitting down at the table, nodding at Clark. 

“So, I’m not exactly a cook,” Clark said, walking back to the kitchen to put the pot back and then returning to sit across from Jason. 

Jason tried to muster up a laugh at the joke but, for some reason, his body had taken sitting down as a sign to relax completely. He couldn’t understand why he was so tired—he’d just woken up.

He tried to smile, at least, for Clark’s sake and, partly because of habit, but a thrill of achy pain shot through his stomach which cut any attempt off. 

“You alright, Jason?” Clark asked, and Jason realized that he slumped over a little, hands around his stomach again. 

“Fine,” he ground out. 

Clark hummed, but he wasn’t sure that he’d convinced him at all. 

There was a moment of silence. 

“How are you really?” 

There we go. 

Jason gritted his teeth, tried not to snap at him. “I’m fine,” he said. “It’s a gunshot wound. It’s not like it tickles,” 

“Right,” Clark said, still sounding unconvinced. 

Another beat of silence. 

“I’m going to go wake up your brother,” 

“Yeah,” was all Jason managed. 

Chapter Text

Jason shouldn’t have been surprised that the first thing that Dick did after stumbling out of his room, still half-asleep and barely lucid, was check his temperature. 

Dick had barely changed. Sure, he’d mellowed. He was softer and a little less pushy. He looked like he’d sorted out his problems. Sorted out his life while Jason had been dead. 

While he’d been dead. While he’d been a murderer, and while he’d been in an asylum. 

Jason hadn’t used the last several years as well as Dick had. 

“Jason,” Dick frowned as he took the back of his hand away from Jason’s forehead. “You still have a fever.” 

Jason wondered how bad it was, with the way that his head was throbbing. But he kept his expression flat and careful. “I’m healing, Dick. It’s normal.” 

“...For you?” Dick didn’t look convinced. 

“For me,” Jason agreed, although he wasn’t entirely sure. 

“Okay,” Dick said, staring at him for a split second longer. Then his face broke into a soft, sleepy smile and he yawned. “Okay. Good morning.” 

Jason raised an eyebrow. “It’s night,” 

“Good...night?” Dick’s brow furrowed. Clark laughed at him and Dick groaned and then plopped himself down on the chair between Clark and Jason. 

“Alrighty,” Dick said and Jason thought that his mood had improved significantly with only a few hours of sleep. “ Bon appetit? Dig in?” 

“Go ahead,” Clark said, gesturing. 

Dinner was more than awkward, but Dick Grayson doesn’t seem to notice. He ate like he’d been starving his entire life. Jason should know what that looked like. 

All the while, he tried to get a conversation started, despite Jason’s obvious uninterest and Clark’s borderline indifference. Apparently, the man hadn’t been around Dick long enough to know that the only way to get him to stop talking to you was to kill him. Or die yourself. 

Which Jason would know about as well. 

He groaned a little, trying to focus on eating and not on his death for one second. The food wasn’t bad in any sense of the word but it was by no means Alfred-level cooking. 

That was another one of the things that Jason wished he could forget: Alfred’s cooking. That and everything else about him. 

Alfred had always been...Alfred. He’d been such a constant in Jason’s life. Always there to talk to, to get advice from. He’d stayed up with Jason and been there when he got from school, been there to ask about his day—which had been a first for him. He’d been there for Jason to rant to, when he didn’t know who else to talk to. He’d suggested books to read, helped him with homework, and read over his essays for school. 

And his food. Jason missed that. 

Jason hadn’t seen Alfred. Not since he’d died. Not really anyway. 

He’d stopped by. One day a few months ago, when he’d just started to remember everything. He’d gone to the manor, slipped past defenses and everything. He’d been standing there, trying to prepare himself—convince himself—to go inside the manor for heaven-knows-why. 

And then he’d seen Alfred. 

The man had just been carrying through his daily work, oblivious—or maybe not, it was Alfred, for goodness’ sake—of Jason’s presence. 

Seeing Alfred that day had triggered way, way too many memories.
Jason had been pounded with them; so many little glimpses of moments from a time that he couldn’t properly recall that smelt like, tasted like family. 

Jason didn’t go into the Manor that day. He turned around and he went home. 

“—I told him he couldn’t but the next day he shows up, with the cow, on the doorstep and...Jay?” Dick stopped, halfway through some story about the demon spawn that Jason had lost track of ages ago. 

Cow? “Huh?” Jason managed, resisting the urge to squeeze his eyes shut, gripping his fork until his knuckles turned white instead. Why was he remembering everything now? 

“You okay?” Dick asked. “You haven’t really eaten anything,” 

“It’s not that bad, is it?” Clark actually sounded sort of miffed and Jason looked up, feeling an odd pang of guilt. “I didn’t think I did that bad,”

“No,” Jason shook his head. You don’t have to explain yourself. This isn’t your problem. But the next words spilled out anyway. “No, it’s good. I just...I’m not really hungry.” 

He wasn’t lying either. 

His stomach felt stranger, tighter, and achier than ever, and however hungry he’d felt before, he simply didn’t feel like eating anymore. 

Well, he was sort of lying. About the food. He was sure that it tasted good, but the smell of it was activating his gag reflex for some reason. It couldn’t be that bad, could it? Dick was eating it. 

“You’re not hungry?” Dick sounded concerned, suddenly, and Jason hated that. He really needed to leave before Dick found his freaking adoption papers and changed the ‘ Bruce Wayne’ to ‘ Richard Grayson’. 

“I’m fine.” Jason shook his head. “It’s a Lazarus thing,”  

He didn’t think it was. 

Dick stiffened at the mention of that, something wary and almost scared coming into his eyes. His expression flattened out in a split second, his Grayson smile plastering back onto his face. “Yeah,” he said. “Well, maybe try a little? You’ve been running on nothing but IV and—” 

He was going to say Jello. 

Jason could’ve sworn that he was going to say Jello. But he stopped himself right before and bit the edge of his lip. 

“Maybe try eating something?” Dick finished, awkwardly. 

Jason could tell that he was asking because he cared. It was Dick. The man couldn’t lie to save his life. Jason hadn’t asked him to care. He hadn’t invited his concern. Heck, Jason didn’t want him to care. That only made things harder. 

But he was right. Jason wasn’t stupid. He knew he needed to eat something and he knew that feeling this terrible at the thought of food wasn’t a good sign. 

So he swallowed down the bile in his throat and took a bite of the hashbrowns. 

Dick brightened visibly, shooting Jason a nervous smile and a look that meant thank you for trusting me and launched right back into his story about demons and their pets. 

Two hours and half of a Disney movie later, Jason was regretting ever listening to Dick at all. 

It had taken almost an hour for Jason to give in to Dick’s pleadings. They were both tired and Jason was angry and confused, but for some reason, the Golden Boy thought that watching Atlantis: The Lost Empire would fix all of that. It was one of the only Disney movies that Clark had dug out of storage and Dick had immediately decided that they should all watch it. 

“You look like you’re gonna pass out, Goldie,” Jason had said, not willing to even get up from his spot from the dining table with the way that his stomach was cramping. 

“I already took one nap today.” Dick had already put the CD in the player by then and was settling on the couch, beckoning Clark over to join them. “I’m not going to bed until it’s decently late and until then, I can either talk or we can watch Disney, ” 

Jason made the choice then. 

He’d chosen the seat furthest from his brother that he could manage—a fact which a disappointed Dick didn’t miss out on—curling up on the La-Z-Boy chair while Clark sat on the other end of the couch. 

In a few minutes, Dick had the movie up and running and Clark had flicked off the living room light. 

Jason found himself drifting almost immediately. He struggled to keep his eyes open, struggled to pay attention. Not to the movie—Jason couldn’t even remember the main character’s name, much less keep the plot straight in his mind—but to the people around him. 

His mind was on high alert. He knew that he shouldn’t be falling asleep. Not in such a public place. Not when he was so injured, surrounded by people that he didn’t trust, that didn’t trust him. He shouldn’t even have been sitting down like this, especially not in this condition. It would be difficult for him to get to his feet, should Dick leap out of his and start attacking, with the gut wound and the way that he was curled. And if Clark did something…

Well, Jason would be dead before he could even think about it. The man was Superman. 

Jason should not have been there. 

But for something about the harsh light of a TV playing in a dark room, and the lingering smell of dinner and the sound of a kids movie playing in the background did something to him. 

It made him feel like a kid again. 

Jason hated that feeling. Or he thought he did. 

His subconscious was an entirely different thing because it apparently took that feeling as a sign to relax and suddenly sleep was pulling at him harder than he could fight back. 

He felt himself start to slip. 

Hey, no. What the heck? What are you doing? 

Despite the intensity of the thoughts, Jason didn’t move, didn’t make an effort to raise his eyelids from half-mast. He was so tired. 

His entire body ached, he was cold, and he should probably move, probably just go back to his room and go to bed but he wasn’t entirely sure that he could make it, at this point. And he’d die before asking Dick to help him up. 

He glanced over at his brother, his gaze drifting lethargically. 

His brother was staring back at him. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Jason thought that he should feel startled—or at least uncomfortable—that his brother was just staring at him, watching him so openly. 

Jason was too tired to listen to that thought. He just stared back. The harsh light from the TV made his vision flicker. One moment he could see his brother clearly—the rough lines of his face, the softness in his eyes, the five o’clock shadow, and the bags under his eyes. The next moment was darkness and Jason’s semi-lucid mind could be convinced that he’d imagined the honest-to-goodness worry etched in Dick’s face. 

Jason felt his stomach turn uncomfortably. 

One of those light moments came again and Jason saw his brother’s lips quirk into a kind, tired sort of smile. He picked up his hand a little, waving at Jason. 

Jason might’ve smiled back. He wasn’t quite sure. 

Just in case he had, and had totally ruined every reputation he’d been working towards, he offered his brother a rude gesture before drifting off. 

He wasn’t sure if the half-snort, half-laugh from Dick was real or imagined.

Chapter Text

Jason woke up to pain and confusion. 

His stomach was on fire, his nose burned and his mouth tasted like acid and it took much too long to connect that to the puddle of vomit beneath him. 

It took another few moments to realize that he was on his hands and knees, head bowed, hair falling into his face and that the buzzing in his ears was a mixture of Dick’s nonsensical murmurings and Clark’s concerned voice. 

The room was dark—wherever he was—but flashes of light seared his eyes every few seconds, even though he was just staring at the reflections of it in the shiny tiles beneath him. 

And it took another few minutes before his stomach squeezed painfully again and the bile was filling his mouth, burning his throat and he was puking up nothing but water and possibly his very own stomach. 

He choked, coughed, and tried to convince himself to do the work of breathing when his abdomen felt like it was tearing in two. 

“Jay? Jay, can you hear me?” 

That was Dick, wasn’t it? Jason couldn’t remember what was going on, what’d he’d been doing before he’d been puking—which was starting to feel like the only thing he’d ever done. 

He tried to respond to his brother, but he was choking up acid and water again which reminded him how over being awake that he was. 

“Hey, hey, hey,” Someone was saying, above him. Whose voice was that again? “Take it easy. It’s alright. Clark—please,” 

“I’m trying,” That was another voice. Clark? 

Wait, Clark?

Jason hated today. And yesterday. 

He was probably hungover, right? Why would he get drunk? That never ended well. 

“Jason? Can you hear me?” Dick asked again and Jason didn’t even try answering this time. He felt awful, worse than last night. Worse than after he’d tried to eat that Jello. 

Okay, maybe that was a stretch. 

That was what happened. Jason was at Clark’s. He’d been shot which was why…

Well, that didn’t make complete sense either. Jason tried not to think about it too much because that made his head ache more than ever and he wasn’t fond of the idea of his head exploding as well as his stomach. 

“Hey, it’s alright,” His brother kept murmuring those things, trying to convince him that he wasn’t dying all over again until he spat out the last of the bile that had collected his throat and nearly nosedived into the puddle of it. 

Dick guided him down and Jason didn’t resist, going down on one elbow and then rolling onto his back. That put him entirely too close to his brother: his head bumped into Dick’s leg and he could sense his closeness. 

Not good, not good, not good, something within him screamed and he tried to lift his head. His abdomen flared with pain again and he squeezed his eyes shut against the wavering ceiling above him. 

“Hey, hey,” Dick tried to push him back, but he was too gentle—almost like he was scared to break Jason—and Jason rolled onto his side, curling in slightly and trying to get the pain in his stomach to abate. 

As soon as he settled there were fingers intertwining his hair and Dick was swearing. Clark’s voice still hovered somewhere in the background and Dick said something to him. The movement, though, hadn’t really done Jason any good and his mind was starting to wander again. 

“—what did he—” Jason lost track of the sentence, and the world, for an unknown period of time, only picking up again when he heard, “—he can figure it out. It’s Tim. Just tell him—” 

Jason tried to say something, but it came out more like a slur of syllables.

What happened again? 

“It’s alright, Jay. You’re sick. It’s gonna be alright. We’re gonna figure it out,” Dick mumbled and Jason realized a moment too late that his brother’s fingers are still in his hair and he was still half-lying on his legs and that’s not right. 

He jerked himself, pulling his head away from Dick’s hands and uncurling and biting his lip against the pain.

“Hey, hey, hey—” Dick sighed a little, “Er...Jason, please? It’s okay. Let me help you,” 

There he went again, trying to be an angel brother. 

Jason bit his lip harder, trying to sit up. His vision flickered a little but the blinding pain of a minute, or an hour ago, was starting to abate. 

He could breathe again, think again. 

He was on his feet a moment later. 

“Jason!” Dick scrambled to his feet beside him, looking much too alarmed. 

Jason was fine. He was fine. 

He needed to leave. 

“Jason, calm down!” Dick nearly shouted, reaching out for him. Jason jerked away again, but his balance wasn’t as reliable as he thought it was and he nearly lost his balance, stumbling back into Clark. The man caught him, an arm wrapping halfway around his chest in an attempt to keep him upright. 

Jason froze, panting but freezing, aching everywhere. Something clawing at his mind. Something screaming in his mind. 

Clark, Superman, was trapping him against his chest and Jason had never quite gotten over his whole aversion to being trapped. 

He could hear his heartbeat in his ears, too loudly. Hear his breath rasping in his chest, in his throat. His vision was starting to fade again, around the edges. 

He could feel the Lazarus Pit somewhere that he couldn’t pinpoint. 

Oh crap. 

“Clark. Clark! Let go!” 

And he did. Jason stumbled forward, the rush of relief making him even more lightheaded than before. Dick caught his arm lightly but pushed him down immediately. Jason found himself on his butt a moment later, breathing hard and looking up at his brother. 

How had he gotten himself into this mess? was his first coherent thought. 

His brother took one look at him and swore fiercely, one hand running down his face. “Clark, he popped stitches.” 

Jason tried to do something, to say something, to convince his brother to just let him leave because he’s just tired of this now and he didn’t care where he ended up. “Dick?” was all that came out. It was small and choked up and Jason didn’t understand why he sounded like that because he didn’t want comfort, he just wanted this all to be done . 

But Dick dropped to a crouch immediately and took Jason’s face in his hands and pushed the sweat-drenched hair out of his eyes. His expression went all soft. “Hey, it’s me. That’s right. It’s okay,” 

And Jason felt soft and terrible and achy inside but he couldn’t figure out if that was his wound, or if it had something to do with the way that Dick looked like he cared. With the way that Jason knew that he cared. 

“I don’t feel good,” Jason managed, leaning into Dick’s hand. He felt hot and cold and achy, but his brother’s hand felt solid, and maybe if he latched onto that he wouldn’t slip away again. 

Maybe he just needed to stay awake. He only felt this terrible after he’d drifted off. 

“I know, I know, Jay,” Dick said. “You’re sick, bud. I just gotta figure out what’s going on, okay?” 

Jason swallowed, trusting his brother on instinct before his fever riddled mind could think that it was wrong. “Okay,” 

Dick smiled. 

It was short, shaky. Nervous. 

But Dick was smiling and Jason thought that was probably why he was called the Golden Boy. 

“Let’s get you on your feet, okay? It’s just Clark and I, okay?” Dick said in that same soft voice that Jason couldn’t decide if he hated or not. “Can we help you up?” 

Jason didn’t want the help—he knew that he didn’t—but he took Dick’s hand when he offered it and let his brother pull him to his feet. He didn’t pull away when Dick slung one of Jason’s arms over his shoulder. 

Jason took a breath, felt the sharp pain in his abdomen and his brother’s arm across his shoulders, and decided to not think for a bit. Jason walked with the Golden Boy, instead.

Chapter Text

“I’m going to throw it back up, Dick,” Jason said, leaning back against his pillows and trying to avoid his brother’s gaze. 

It was true, probably. Jason hadn’t been able to keep anything down for the last few hours and Dick had threatened to drive him to the hospital more than once. 

But that didn’t make sense, it wouldn’t help, because Jason had more Lazarus Pit juice than blood running through his veins and he doubted that a Smallville Doctor was going to know how to sort out his insides. 

“Okay, but can you try? Please?” Dick said, threading a sterile needle through Jason’s skin yet again. He’d only popped a stitch or two, but Dick had insisted on fixing it. 

Jason hated the ordeal. 

The wound wasn’t infected. It wasn’t spewing puss at least. But the place ached like a fresh bruise and the whole needle-through-the-skin-procedure wasn’t his favourite experience. 

Also, there had been the look on Dick’s face when Jason had taken off his shirt. The look on his face when he saw the scars, the scar. The one running down the middle of his chest. 

Jason didn’t answer. 

“You’re going to get dehydrated, Jay,” He probably already was. Jason hadn’t put much in his stomach since he’d been awake and he’d thrown up everything that he had eaten, probably. Maybe he’d puked up that Jello. That would make him feel better about the whole situation. Sort of. 

Maybe. 

Jason gritted his teeth as he felt the pinch of the needle going down into his skin again. “Where’s the IV?” 

Dick groaned. “We don’t have a lot of fluid, Jay. Clark doesn’t use that sort of thing. I just brought the two I had on hand. Can you just try?” 

“It’ll be fine,” Jason grunted, still not answering the question. That was a stupid thing to say because he’d barely made it to the couch and he didn’t think that he was going to be getting up anytime soon. Not of his own accord anyway. 

He didn’t want to try. He just wanted to sleep. He wanted to get out of here, he wanted to feel better. He wanted for none of this to ever have happened.

Why was he so stupid? Why did he have to go on patrol this month? Why couldn’t he have just stayed home and wallowed in self misery? 

“Jay?” Dick’s voice sounded strained. He was worried now. Again. Whatever.

“My body will heal,” Jason said, after too long of a pause. He wasn’t sure. He didn’t know what was happening, what was going on. His other, older gunshot wounds had never felt like this. He’d never had this sort of reaction, even after the Pit. Sure, he’d had the fever, and a ton of fatigue, but nothing like this. Never the puking. Never the pain that ripped through his navel and down his back. 

Maybe it hadn’t been as clean of a shot as he’d thought. 

Crap. 

“Yeah, it’s doing a great job ,” Dick snapped and jolted Jason out of his reverie. He flinched, hard and obvious— stupid, Jason, breathe —and the thread halfway through his skin pulled taut. 

Their gazes leapt up to meet each other. Dick’s chest was rising and falling too quickly and something on his face read panic. 

“Sorry,” Jason blurted, half because he didn’t want the guy who had a needle stuck in him having an anxiety-induced breakdown and half because he couldn’t understand why Dick would be so upset because of him—not at him, because that would make sense. He felt guilt well up in him for a reason he couldn’t explain. Or maybe that was shame. 

That’s what he did though, right? He messed up his family. That’s what he did.

Dick made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat, but his eyes went soft. “No, I’m sorry.” His voice sounded too breathy. “Sorry, that was—I shouldn’t have yelled.” 

Jason swallowed roughly, staring at his brother as Dick ducked his head and finished off the sutures. Silence filled the room. 

“Okay,” Jason choked out dumbly, a moment later, when Dick had finally gotten the stitches done and put away the needle. 

“Sorry, I just—” Dick didn’t finish that, just stared down at his hands for too long and then peeking up at Jason. “Do you feel up to trying again? Please?” 

Jason nodded his head even though he felt like saying no. 

“Okay, I’m gonna—” Dick’s breath hitched a little. “I’m gonna clean this up and get you some water. Clark’s still on the phone, I think.” 

“Yeah,” Jason shifted a little, wanting to ask if there was a trash can he could have if— when , he wasn’t an optimist—he couldn’t keep down the water. He didn’t say anything and Dick was already at the doorway. 

He paused there, looking back at Jason. “We’ll figure it out, okay? You’re gonna be okay.” 

Jason gritted his teeth, against the pain in his stomach, against the pain of that statement—because when was anything ever okay, honestly? 

“I’m not an idiot.” 

Dick didn’t know what to say back, apparently, for once in his life, because he just said, “I’ll be right back,” 

Jason faded a few times before Dick came back. He didn’t know how long it took Dick to just get a glass of water. He couldn’t see the kitchen from where he was on the sofa, directly in front of the TV, but he thought he could hear Dick and Clark talking, their voices barely whispers. 

Jason was starting to get freaking worried. 

He couldn’t remember much about the first aid that Alfred had taught him when he first became Robin, but he was pretty certain of the warning signs of a gunshot wound. He was feeling the warning signs. 

But there was no outward infection. Which meant that there was something else really wrong. Maybe his stomach had been hit. Maybe he actually had a hole in his stomach. 

No. 

No. He’d be dead by now, wouldn’t he? The Lazarus Pit wouldn’t keep him alive this long with a hole in his stomach, could it?  

It bothered him that he had no idea. It bothered him that he had no idea how his own body worked—how fast his body healed, how much it would take to actually kill him. He didn’t know what was going on with his own body and that sort of felt like the biggest betrayal. 

Or maybe it was just a gunshot. Maybe he really just couldn’t handle himself. Maybe he was just a coward. 

Or maybe he’s being unnecessarily stupid and insecure and he needs to just tell Dick to call a doctor before he goes into some sort of internal septic shock. Peritonitis. Whatever it was called. 

Maybe. 

Jason rolled over onto his side—onto the side that was less damaged—and tried to curl in a little tighter on himself. Maybe that would lessen the pain. 

Maybe it didn’t matter if he lessened the pain. 

Maybe he was dying anyway. 

Okay, now he was definitely panicking. 

Contrary to what people thought, contrary to what he told himself, Jason Todd didn’t want to die again. More importantly, he didn't want to die again, on the anniversary of his death. 

Breathe, Jason. 

He wasn’t exactly sure when he stopped trying to convince himself that he wasn’t going to die—which wasn’t working—and when he started to convince himself that Dick would fix everything because that was his job. Because he was the hero. He’d figure this out. He’d fix this. 

He just had to come back. He was coming back. 

Dick was coming back. 

Right?  

He was so cold. 

Jason curled a little tighter on himself, squeezed his eyes shut and counted the seconds until his brother came back.

Chapter Text

Dick didn’t realize that he was panicking until Clark’s hands dropped down on his shoulders and Superman told him to sit down before he fell down. 

He wasn’t going to get used to that. Superman.

Dick sat down, heavily, on one of the kitchen chairs and put his head in his hands. 

In and out. In and out. His brother wasn’t going to die again. He wasn’t dying. It was just a gunshot wound. He was just healing. 

That’s what happens when you get resurrected in the Lazarus Pit. Right? He wasn’t—

“Damian!” Dick stumbled to his feet, reaching for the phone in Clark’s hand. 

“Tim said—” Clark cut himself off, looking startled at Dick’s outburst. “Yeah, hold on. Dick wants to—” 

Dick took the phone before Clark could finish explaining. “Tim?” 

“ What — Hey. Dick?” 

Dick’s exhale exploded out of his chest and he felt a heady rush of relief and hearing his brother's voice. Tim was the smart one. The collected one. The one that knew what-the-heck he was supposed to be doing. 

“Tim, hey,” Dick’s voice was supposed to be solid and firm and cheerful but it didn’t come out as any of that. 

He could hear—no, he could feel it—as Tim started to grow uneasy. But his younger brother’s voice was steady when he replied, because Tim knew what he was doing. “ Yeah, hey, I heard what happened. How is Jason?” 

“He’s—” Dick couldn’t force out the words that came to his mind first because I think he’s dying and I don’t know what to do wasn’t exactly the sort of thing an older brother was supposed to say. “He...couldn’t keep anything down, Tim.” He decided to state the facts because, yeah, maybe Tim already knew them all from Clark, but those were the only things that Dick could force out without crying and isn’t he supposed to be the adult in this situation? “The GSW’s aren’t infected, by the looks of it, and he keeps saying that his body’s just trying to heal itself.” 

“ Okay, cool,” None of what Dick had said was remotely cool but he thought that was just Tim’s way to stay focused. Stay casual. Stay unconnected. “ We’re trying to factor everything in, but he’s probably going to need medical attention regardless. We —” 

“Damian,” Dick interrupted. “Does he know how the Lazarus Pit will affect healing?” 

It might have been Dick’s imagination, but Tim’s voice soured just the slightest. “ I just talked to Robin. He says it would have improved his healing but wouldn’t cause anything like this. Not that he knows of, anyway. He thinks that the healing factor could be holding off a complication that it’s trying and failing to heal. ” 

Dick blinked, trying to process the words. “Like...Like it’s trying to heal something that it can’t?” 

“ Sort of. Like maybe the wound was worse, internally, than we thought and the effects of the Lazarus Pit have been withholding the effects, slowly healing it. It’s becoming a problem now, instead of having killed him in the first 24 hours. Or whenever it would have.” 

“What?” Dick felt numb. 

Tim cleared his throat. “ I mean, the gunshot wound damaged something internally. It would have killed him by the time you reached him but his healing factor was working hard enough to keep him fairly okay.” 

“Until now,” Dick finished. “Now he’s dying.” 

Tim cleared his throat again. “ Hypothetically. ” 

Dick hadn’t realized how sick he was feeling until Clark’s hand on his bicep felt like it was the only thing keeping him up. 

“ Dick? Are you okay?” 

Dick glanced at Clark, trying to convey his gratitude with just that. Clark didn’t answer, just towed him back over to the dining table. Dick let his knees buckle, sitting back down and drawing up his knees. 

“He’s dying again?” Dick found himself repeating, which wasn’t really an answer to Tim’s question but somehow felt like one, in a roundabout way. How was he supposed to be okay?

He’d just gotten his brother back. 

Sure, Jason wasn’t really the Jason that he’d teased as a teenager. But he was alive and he’d talked to Damian that one time. And he’d gone on patrol with him that other time. He’d even talked to Tim. They’d agreed to not and try to kill one another anymore. Sort of. He’d talked to the girls. He’d had lunch with Cass. 

He’d called Dick. 

And now Dick was just supposed to sit here and let him die again? 

He couldn’t do that. He knew that he couldn’t do that, but at the same time, he didn’t know how to stop it. Was everything in his life just spiraling out of control ? 

“ Dick?” That was Tim’s voice in his ear again. “ Dick, what’s going on? Are you alright?” 

“What do I do?” That was all that Dick could force out between his lips. 

For the first time in the conversation, Tim hesitated. “ Um...can I talk to him? ” 

Jason was completely still when Dick came back into the living room. 

It would be an understatement to say that his heart leaped into his throat. But Tim’s voice in his ear was telling him the symptoms to look for, the things to ask him and Clark would’ve noticed if Jason’s heart had stopped, right? 

Was that a Superman thing? Dick couldn’t remember. 

He dropped to his knees beside the couch and he heard Clark come up behind him as well. He handed the man the phone and he somehow read Dick’s mind. The phone was on speaker the next moment and Clark said something to Tim that Dick wasn’t quite paying attention to. 

Instead, he leaned over the half-curled form of his brother. 

“Jay? Jason?” 

Jason jolted immediately, flailing a little and jamming himself against the back cushion of the couch. His teeth snapped shut, gritted and he tried to withhold a noise of pain. 

Then his gaze met Dick’s. 

He pushed himself up a little with the hand that wasn’t wrapped around his middle and he stared at Dick like he was some sort of apparition. 

Dick could see the fever in his eyes—the glassiness, the lack of focus. But he heard it in his little brother’s voice even more as he choked out, “Dick?” 

“Yeah, it’s me again,” He put a hand up against his brother’s forehead, trying to ignore the wild flinch that came with the touch. “Sorry, I took so long,” 

“You…” Jason’s voice wavered, honest to goodness wavered, and Dick felt an acute thrill of worry. “You came back,” 

Dick started and Jason copied him a second too late. He seemed to slip back into himself a little, eyes snapping open wide. 

That...that was the fever, right? 

“I didn’t—” He struggled for the words, mouth moving in vain, but no sound coming out. Finally: “Dick?” 

“Hey, yeah,” Dick repeated the assurance another time when it seemed to have no effect. 

“I didn’t...I didn’t mean that,” 

“What?” 

“You didn’t…” Jason shook his head, disturbing Dick’s hand. He didn’t think that either of them had realized that Dick’s hand had been pushing back Jason’s hair until just now. “Nevermind.” 

“What? No, you can tell me—” 

But Clark was pushing forward and Tim’s voice interrupted his thoughts. 

“ Jason? Can you hear me? ” 

Jason jolted again, his gaze shooting up to Dick’s as though he was looking for assurance. Or permission. Or neither. Or both. 

When did his life become so complicated? 

“It’s okay, Jay,” 

Jason hesitated, glancing between the phone and Dick for a few more seconds. He swallowed roughly and ran his tongue across his bottom lip. “Replacement?” His voice was almost hoarse as it came out. 

“ Hey. I’m trying to figure out what we can do to help you out.” Tim’s voice was so clipped, so professional that Dick nearly forgot that it was his little brother that he was talking to and not Bruce. Jason must’ve thought the same thing because he hissed a little between his teeth and snapped his eyes shut, dropping his head back against the back of the couch. 

Dick reached out for his hand, to comfort him, to remind him that he wasn’t alone, but he pulled back at the last moment, hesitating just an inch above his brother’s hand. 

“ I need to ask you and Dick some questions,” Tim answered. “ Damian’s here too, to help out with the Lazarus Pit factor. If you don’t know the answers to the questions, it’s alright. ” Tim paused. “ Dick, is he lucid?” 

Jason’s eyes came back open abruptly but Dick cut off the outburst before Jason could open his mouth as well. “He’s iffy, Timmy. His fever is pretty high,” Really high, but he didn't know if he could make that come out of his mouth. 

Jason shot him a look that meant he wasn’t so out of it as he was a minute ago—maybe because of pure spite, he’d always been like that. If the thought of Jason dying didn’t make him so sick, Dick might’ve thought that even death couldn’t keep Jason away from his intentions. If he was one thing, Jason Todd was stubborn. 

“ Okay, do you know exactly how high?” 

There was a rush of air behind Dick and a second later, Clark was at his side offering him a thermometer. 

Dick took it and looked up Jason. 

That feverish, terrified look had returned to his eyes and it looked so sickly familiar that Dick wondered if the sickness was just highlighting what had always been there. What Dick and the whole family had just refused to see. 

Dick’s free hand dropped down on top of Jason’s. 

There’s the customary second of surprise. 

Then Jason drops his head back again and takes a shuddering breath and squeezes on Dick’s hand, shakily, like it’s a new experience. 

“We can figure it out,” Dick tells Tim and Jason and his whole world because that’s his job. 

He’ll figure it out. 

He had to.

Chapter Text

“We need to bring him to the hospital.” The words felt strange and heavy in Dick’s mouth but he said them anyway. 

That’s what they had decided. It wasn’t the Lazarus Pit just trying to heal him. It wasn’t just a simple complication. Something was damaged on the inside. Something that Dick had missed. 

Don’t think. Fix this. 

“Now?” Clark looked concerned immediately, hand tightening around the glass of water he’d gone to the kitchen to get for Jason. Dick hadn’t wanted to leave him. Despite the little clarity that he’d gained when he addressed Tim—as Replacement; Dick really needed to talk to him about that later—for the first time, he’d quickly deteriorated into the previous hazy state that sent a spike of fear through Dick. 

By the time Tim had hung up, Jason had been barely hanging onto to lucidity, alternating between flinching away and hissing at the pain, and leaning into Dick’s hand on his forehead. The first time he did it Dick’s heart nearly stopped. Jason understood that something was very wrong, but from the look on his face, he didn’t quite comprehend that he might need surgery. 

Dick didn’t try and explain it to him further. He’d let Jason yell and scream at him after he was out of the danger zone. 

Right now, he was going to do what he had to. 

“Tim doesn’t think it’s call-an-ambulance worthy, but we should get him over there as soon as possible.” Dick hesitated. “I just want to make sure he’s going to be calm.” 

That he wasn’t going to freak out and lash out. 

Jason didn’t react to the statement. He was going through one of his calm moods—teeth gritted, but not pulling away from Dick as he ran his fingers through his brother’s sweaty hair. He was laying back again, eyes valiantly struggling to stay open.

Breathe, Dick thought. It was going to be. He was going to handle this. 

Clark met Dick’s eyes and nodded. “I can fly both of you.” He said. A silent offer. I’ll be there. I’ll make sure nothing happens. 

Dick feels a rush of relief because he’s not sure if his tired body and mind can handle restraining Jason as he lashes out in the Lazarus Pit’s grips again. He’s really starting to hate that cursed swimming hole. 

“Thanks. We should probably drive, though. I don’t want to raise any suspicion.” Not about Clark. Not about Jason or him. 

Tim had said that would be fine. The Lazarus Pit had kept Jason alive and relatively well for this long. Driving would be fine. He would be fine. 

As long as he got the care that he needed. 

He’ll be fine. 

“I’ll grab blankets. Let me know when you’re ready, Dick,” Clark said, snapping him out of his reverie. The man was offering the glass of water and Dick took it carefully, trying to ignore the way his hands were shaking. 

“Jay?” 

Jason’s eyes flickered open, searching the ceiling aimlessly for a split second and then snapping open fully. 

“Goldie?” The word is half-slurred. Jason turns his head to the side, gaze finding Dick’s a second too slow. 

“Yeah, it’s me.” Dick felt for his temperature again. “How do you feel?” 

Jason blinked stupidly. “Tim?” 

“We finished talking already. He’s gonna call back and check up on you in a bit.” Dick swallowed, mentally stealing himself to say the next words. “Hey, you’re pretty sick, bud,” 

“Don’t...call me that,” 

Dick pressed his lips together, counted his breaths. “Do you think you can keep some water down?” 

Jason’s eyes widened a little, and he gritted his teeth, jaw going tight. “Don’t make me,” 

“Okay, it’s alright.” Dick tried to sound soothing. “I know you don’t feel very good. We’re pretty sure we got it all figured out though. We’re gonna take you to see a doctor, alright?”

Jason didn’t answer that, gaze drifting. 

“Jay?” Dick tapped his cheek.

Jason’s gaze was sluggish again and Dick tried to stay in control of his emotions. “I don’t...wanna,” He sounded young, too young. 

“I know you don’t feel good right now. But I think it will help, Jay,” Dick could feel guilt twisting in his gut again because Jason had never liked going to the doctor, or being ill enough to have to. He’d always hated feeling so small. Feeling so vulnerable. “It’s gonna be okay, Little Wing. Trust me, okay?” 

But Jason’s gaze was blank again, his features etched with pain. “Dick?” His voice cracked, ever so slightly. 

Dick swallowed harshly, wishing that Clark was back. Wishing that Jason would stop blanking like that because it was starting to terrify him. Wishing that Bruce was here. 

Maybe that wouldn't help. He didn’t even know at this point. 

“Yeah,” Dick said, not even trying to explain everything again. “It’s me. It’s gonna be alright. I gotcha, okay?” He got his feet, setting the glass down. “It’s gonna be alright Jay.” 

Jason didn’t say anything as Dick reached out a hand to him. He hesitated, wrapping one hand more tightly around his stomach. He gripped Dick’s hand a moment later. 

Dick didn’t let him stand alone for a second. He ducked under his arm immediately. He was surprised— surprised not freaking mortified—when Jason didn’t protest. He listed to the side slightly, leaning into Dick. 

Deep breaths. He’s not dying. 

“Clark!” Dick called out. “I think we’re ready,” 

The man came around the corner a fraction of a second later, blankets and a duffle bag held in one arm. “Alright, we ready?” 

Dick nodded, feeling a little relieved when Clark ducks under Jason’s arm. The boy doesn’t take that as easily and Dick can feel him stiffen. 

“Hey, it’s alright,” He murmured, low in Jason’s ear. “We got you, okay?” 

Jason didn’t respond. He was already going limp—not relaxing, just simply losing the strength to keep his defenses up. 

Dick glanced over at Clark and the man nodded. The three men walked together out the front door. 

Chapter Text

Jason didn’t know why his vision was swirling. 

He sure as heck didn’t know why his head was being cradled in his brother’s lap. 

But he did know that he was in a car of some sort because every bump in the road, every turn, sent a stab of pain through his gut, choking off his air and making his whole body go tense. 

He was trying to relax, though, because that’s what Dick kept telling him to do. 

“Breathe, Jason. There we go. You’re alright. Relax, I gotcha, Okay?” 

Jason doesn’t know why—can’t remember why—but the Golden Boy must be panicking because he keeps biting his lip, and running his hand down his face, and talking. 

And suddenly that’s all that Jason can remember.

Dick, young. Years ago. Before Jason died. 

Jason, young. 

Bruce, young. 

He slammed his eyes shut, trying to breathe through the pain, through the sudden barrage of memories. Why does it always happen at the worst times? 

Another breath hissed in his chest and wondered if maybe he was dying. That would make sense because hadn’t he and Dick been fighting? Why would his brother be helping him now, talking to him, unless he was dying? 

Dick had come back for him. 

Twice.

More than twice. 

There’s something about the sight of Dick staring down at him, of the shaky bravery, that he remembered. He remembered it because he’d seen it so, so many times before. 

Dick had saved him when he was Robin. He’d been stabbed in the shoulder on a patrol when Batman was out of town for a meeting. And he’d bled. A lot. Dick and Jason had been fighting then, too. But Nightwing had swooped in to save the day, just when Jason had been sure he wouldn’t be able to make it home. He’d been sitting in the doorway of the Manor, trying to convince himself that he could get to the first aid kit and fix himself up. Dick had dragged him inside, sewed him up. He’d had to have his first blood transfusion since becoming Robin and Dick…

Dick was his blood donor. 

Jason squirmed a little in Dick’s hold as pain spiked through his middle. It was making it hard to think, hard to understand anything. He couldn’t really hear Dick anymore. He couldn’t make out the words anyway, but he thought that his brother was still talking. 

He was always talking. 

Jason remembered that now. He knew that for sure now. 

Dick Grayson liked talking and hugs and the circus. He knew there was something about the circus. 

He liked cereal.

He liked cereal. Why hadn’t Jason remembered that? That was obvious. Dick liked junk food too, didn't he? Pizza? He liked Pizza. 

Pain in his stomach again. He was freezing . Didn't Dick notice that? Didn't Dick realize that Jason was going to die of the cold faster than he was going to die of whatever Dick was worried about. He gritted his teeth, leaned back against Dick’s hand before he even thought about it. 

“Jason, it’s okay,” 

Dick. Think about Goldie. Not the pain. Think positive. Think about something. 

Jason squeezed his eyes shut, tried to grab at the memories that he knew were lingering there, in the back of his mind. That was something else to think about. 

“Hey, look at me. You’re okay,” Dick’s hands were in his hair again, on his face, tapping his cheek lightly. “Just keep looking at me, okay?” 

What else could he remember?  

Dick liked people. He liked happy people. 

Jason squeezed his eyes shut a little tighter, trying—and maybe failing—to breathe through the pain. He felt sick. He was going to throw up again. 

He wasn’t sure if it was because of the pain in his stomach or the realization he’d just come to. 

Dick liked happy people. Jason was anything but happy. 

Jason wasn't   a good person. He wasn’t who Dick thought he was. He wasn’t even Jason Todd anymore. He was a murderer. He was a…

Well, he was a jerk. 

He’d tried to kill Dick’s brothers. He’d—

Panic jolted through Jason’s chest. He couldn’t—He couldn’t breathe—

“Jason, Jason, hey!” Dick yelped, trying to hold him down. Trying to keep him—

No. 

Jason scrabbled at the pressure on his shoulders—Dick’s hands, maybe? He tried to sit up, tried to clear his thoughts enough to just talk to Dick. To just explain. He just needed to—

Agony stabbed through his abdomen again and sagged back a little, trying to blink the dark spots out of his vision. He felt off-kilter. Like the world was spinning out of balance. Dick's face swam in and out of focus above him. His mouth was moving still, he was talking to him...

“Jason, hey, it’s okay. It’s just me, Jason.” Dick eased the pressure, resting his hands back on the top of his head. “Hey, breathe with me. It’s okay.” 

But it wasn’t okay, not really because he was starting to feel like he’s losing awareness and he really, really doesn’t want to pass out again. He’s done that way too many times in the last few days. 

“Hey, Jason, just breathe. Just try and stay awake.” 

Dick didn’t understand that he was trying to. He was trying to stay awake. He was trying to be a better brother. He was trying to stop killing people. He was trying to do better, to be better. He was trying to get along with the demon child and the Replacement. He’d sworn not to kill them. He’d sworn not to try and kill them. He’d promised himself that he was going to keep them safe from him. He’d been trying to stay sober. He’d been working on the Pit madness.  

He was trying to muster up the courage to visit Alfred. Heck, he’d tried to quit smoking because he knew that Alfred would hate to see that. 

He’d tried to stay and talk when they tried to hang out for a little bit after patrol. He’d saved Dick’s phone number. He’d tried. 

Unfortunately for him, it still wasn’t good enough. 

He wasn’t good enough. He’d died, come back and he still wasn’t good enough. 

That was okay, though, right? He’d tried. Maybe he was done. Maybe that was just it and he needed to just let go. 

Jason tried to blink away tears and dark spots, but it didn’t work for either. He wasn’t...He needed Dick to know—

“I…” The words felt dry and terrible in his throat. 

“Shh, Jay. I got you, alright?” 

He needed him to know. 

“I...You didn’t have to…” He choked on the breath, and felt it in his stomach. Dick’s head snapped up, looking up at the driver’s seat. 

“Clark, he’s not—” 

No. Jason needed him to know. 

 “Goldie,” 

Dick’s gaze snapped to meet his just as quickly as it had left. “Jason?” 

Of course, Jason faltered then. Of course. 

This was stupid. It was stupid. He didn't have to tell him, didn’t have to explain. He’d just leave. 

That had worked well , Jason thought bitterly. 

“You didn’t have to come,” He didn’t know how well it came out, how clear it sounded. Dick was staring at him like he’d spoken in tongues. 

There was a beat of nothing. No reply. Dick didn’t say anything, didn’t breathe, didn’t even blink. 

Jason’s vision flickered, got a little darker. 

“Jason,” Dick’s voice cracked. “Jay, I wanted to come. I want to help you.” 

He knew that. He knew that, he just didn’t —

Didn’t Dick know that he couldn’t? That he couldn’t help him. Not in the long run anyway. He couldn’t always be there for him. He couldn’t help him because Jason couldn’t meet him halfway. Jason couldn’t do his part. He couldn’t fulfill his side of the deal. 

He’d tried. 

And he’d tried and he’d tried. 

“Jay...Jason, it’s okay,” Jason could hear his brother’s voice, floating somewhere above him. He couldn’t really see him anymore, not between the darkness in the edges of his vision and the tears blurring everything. He shut his eyes, refusing to let the tears out again. Even if his brain was boiling itself. Even if he was injured. He wasn’t going to cry to his brother again, he wasn’t going to— 

Dick’s words cut through to his mind again, and Jason let go of the thought, stopped trying to remember, stopped trying to resist and fight. And just listened. 

Maybe it was on instinct. Maybe it was just because he wanted to hear his brother say, “Hey, it’s okay, Jaybird. It’s okay , Jay. It’s gonna be okay. I’ll always come back, okay? It’s alright, Jay,”

Maybe. 

Either way, he tried his best to listen. 

I wanted to come. 

Jason tried to remember that as he started to slip, tried to convince himself. 

He didn’t know when the hands in his hair turn to hands carrying him, hands putting him on a gurney. He wasn’t sure when the soft lights of streetlights became the blinding fluorescents of the hospital. He wasn’t sure when Dick’s voice got lost in it all, when blurriness made way for static and static bled into darkness but suddenly he was alone and drifting and the mantra it’s okay, it’s gonna be okay was the only thing playing through his mind.

Chapter Text

Clark practically has to hold him back when they took Jason away. 

It’s strange, the way that humans work. 

Clark had known Dick for years, since he barely reached Clark’s waist. Yet, he’d never seen him like this. Never seen his emotions to be honest, so raw. 

As easily Bruce could hide his emotions, Dick could smile. 

Yet he couldn’t seem to muster up anything as they sat in the lobby of the hospital, waiting to hear results, waiting to hear anything.

The hours passed slowly and Clark tried not to focus on how tired Dick looked. The man kept trying to stay upright and focused, but every minute, it seemed, his posture slipped a little more. His head drooped, his eyes kept going unfocused and after the first hour passed, his chin dropped into his hand. Clark thought that he probably wouldn’t be able to keep his head up without that. 

And just as concerning was the fact that Dick didn’t say anything. 

Clark could recall when Dick never seemed to shut up. He’d been Robin when Clark had first met him. It had been a Justice League meeting, and Dick had tagged along. Supposedly, he’d begged for weeks desperate to meet Batman’s team. Bruce had finally given and Dick had been ecstatic. 

Bruce had warned him beforehand, explaining in an uncharacteristic display of gentleness that the Boy Wonder was a fan of Superman and wanted to meet him. ‘ Almost as much as he wants to meet Diana’ Bruce had told him like he was impressed. 

Dick had been clad in so many bright colors and been so enthusiastic that it seemed that Bruce couldn’t have chosen someone with a more different personality. 

“Mr. Superman, sir,” Dick had said, stepping up to him and extending a still-pudgy hand. “I — Wow. You’re tall, sir,” 

Clark had laughed, shook his hand. Half of him expected for the kid to get embarrassed, and to get quiet. To hide behind Bruce and to watch from the sidelines. 

But Dick had defied that expectation immediately. The boy was only starstruck for a moment. Then he was curious. That split second of hesitation was the last one of the afternoon. 

Clark was a reporter. He didn’t think he’d asked so many questions in his life. 

The kids sitting next to him seemed like a different kid. 

Sure, he was still Dick. He was a happy kid. 

But there was no denying that this week had been a rough one. For everyone. 

“Dick?” Clark said, finally, when he couldn’t handle the sight of the kid struggling to stay awake, struggling to stay on top of his nerves, struggling to keep his breathing even. 

Dick looked over, half startled. Clark wasn’t sure what the kid saw when he met his gaze, but Dick relaxed a little when he did, some of the panic going out of his eyes. “Hmm?” 

“You can try to get some sleep,” Clark said. “I wake you up when we get a word on Jason. I promise.” 

“I can’t,” Dick didn’t even hesitate. “I need...I need to be here for Jason,” 

“I’ll wake you up,” 

“No, I…” He hesitated, then and Clark heard his heart pick up a little bit. Like he was nervous. Or angry. 

Or something else, entirely. 

Dick dropped his head in his hands. There was a beat of silence and Clark tried not to listen to the frantic beat of Dick’s heart in his chest. 

“Dick?” 

The boy’s voice came out muffled. “I can’t do this, Clark,” 

Clark felt something like anxiety in his chest. He didn’t answer for a moment, licked his lips. “Can’t do what, Dick?” He prompted him gently. 

“This.” Dick gestured vaguely, tearing one hand away from his face. “It’s...It’s stupid,” 

Clark didn’t answer, waited for him to explain. He was the sort of kid that just needed the room to say what he needed. 

“It’s my job, I guess. It’s in the job description, right? But it’s not—” Dick’s breath hitches and he jerked his head up, stared straight-forward with red-rimmed eyes like all he needed to do was focus and the tears, the pain would go away. “It doesn’t get easier, does it?” 

Clark didn’t know what job he was talking about. 

He didn’t know if Dick was even talking about the fever, and the injuries that came with being a vigilante or a hero. 

He didn’t think he was. 

Clark thought that, sometimes, being part of a family had just as many accidents and casualties and challenges. 

“It doesn't get easier,” Clark said. 

Dick pressed his lips together, set his eyes straight forward, like he’d been trying to prepare himself for that answer, but hadn’t quite expected it to be so hard to take. He set his jaw, took a careful breath. 

“Or less important,” Clark finished. 

That was all it took. 

Dick let out a strangled little noise, buried his head back into his hands. 

Clark leaned over, wrapped an arm around his shoulders. 

How he’d grown. 

“I know,” Dick whispered. 

“You know he sees it?” Clark said, his voice low as he felt Dick sag a little more, relax a little more. “You know that he feels it? You’re doing good, Dick,”

“He’s an idiot,” 

“He’s your idiot,” 

“I know,” 

“Then, it’ll work out,” 

“You think so?” 

Clark shifted a little, so he could look down at Dick and raise an eyebrow. “Did I ever tell you that I have super wisdom as well as super strength?” 

Dick’s laugh is watery, but it’s a laugh. 

Clark counts that as a victory.

Chapter Text

He had a hole in his pancreas. 

Jason had forgotten that a pancreas was even a thing. 

It wasn’t a complete hole, everyone kept telling him. Not anymore. Lazarus Pit had managed to heal most of it, but the infection had reached it anyway. 

The surgery had gone well, they kept telling him. The doctors had managed it and there was no concern about them being confused or asking why he’d lasted so long with a hole in one of his organs. It looked as though the bullet had just clipped it. It was hard to hit the pancreas anyway. It was a freak accident. 

That was weird, because Jason didn’t remember anything about the day of the surgery, didn't remember anything after spilling his guts to Dick. Didn’t remember anything else other than pain and being able to sense his brother’s presence. That hand in his hair, that hand in his hand. 

He thought he remembered the sound of crying, the sound of his own heart too loud. He thought he remembered hazy images of Dick, walking by a gurney. Of him sleeping all hunched up in a hospital chair. 

He thought he remembered Dick talking to him, but he couldn’t remember the words.

I wanted to come. 

They gave him the good stuff, apparently.  

There was no question about his identity, they told him. Tim Drake, the Replacement, had taken care of all it. From Gotham. He’d taken care of everything for the Red Hood, creating a fake identity. 

And apparently, one for Dick too, because when he’d woken up the Golden Boy had been sleeping so freaking close to his bed that he was surprised he hadn’t just sleep-crawled up onto the hospital bed. Dick’s hand had been intertwined with his still, though Jason had quickly fixed that upon waking. 

Dick had been so excited to see him awake. Jason tried to believe he’d imagined that because he couldn’t deal with that thought. 

I wanted to come. 

It was the good drugs, for sure. 

He was supposed to stay in the hospital for at least a day, they told him. Just to make sure that there were no complications. Just to make sure that he was okay. 

Jason didn’t like that idea. 

He couldn’t wait until he was okay. That would take a freaking century. 

That was why he was standing in a hospital room, struggling to put on his shirt, while Dick Grayson whisper-shouted at him and Clark stood by trying to smother his laughter. 

So, apparently, his life was a freaking circus now.

Hope you’re happy, Grayson, Jason thought bitterly. He’d ruined everything, every reputation he’d tried to build because neither of them looked scared of him anymore and Dick was already trying to mother him. 

Jason ignored the bandages around his middle, ignored the brand-new set of scars hiding underneath as he finally wrestled his shirt on. He turned on Clark then, ignoring the way that his vision tilted a little at the movement. 

“That ride now?” He asked Clark, still ignoring Dick, who was likely about to explode. 

Clark grimaced. 

“I need to get home.” Jason bit out, trying not to sound like he was pleading. His side was throbbing from the bit of movement, which was maybe because he’d just been through surgery a day before, but he didn’t want to dwell on that. If the Lazarus Pit could mend one of his organs, it would certainly heal a couple of stitches. 

“Jason, they’re going to be back any minute.” Dick hissed from the corner. Jason didn’t even have to glance over to know that he was smothering a yawn as he spoke. He looked as exhausted as he had when Jason had woken up however many days ago. Jason was, apparently, not the only one who needed to calm down and just get some rest. 

“Exactly. Which is why we need to hurry,” Jason riffled through the bag that Clark had brought and found a hoodie that he was fairly certain was one of Dick’s old ones that he’d claimed when his older brother had moved out. He tugged it out of the bag, swallowing down the sentiment that struck him suddenly. 

What was he now? A cry-baby? He was going to need a new vigilante name and persona if he kept this up. He couldn’t be tromping around Crime Alley, catching butterflies, and crying when he saw puppies. 

That was Dick’s job. 

Jason smirked to himself as he struggled to get the hoodie over his head. 

He heard Dick groan in frustration from the corner. But by the time he got his head back through the hoodie and tugged it down over his shirt, Dick was up and facing him. 

Jason swore under his breath. It was hard to look at him without feeling the well of confusion and embarrassment overwhelm him. He’d literally spent four days letting his estranged brother try to convince him to eat and take care of himself. Literally spent an entire day word-vomiting all of his emotional problems on someone that he hadn’t spoken more than four words to at once in the last year. 

“Jason, just one more day,” 

Jason gritted his teeth, tried to fall back on his stupid sense of humor. “I feel like I’ve heard that before,”

“Jay, you just had surgery,” Dick looked like he was trying to be frustrated, but he was too tired to muster the emotion completely. 

Jason snorted. “Last time I walked home, it was after crawling out of my grave. I really don’t think that this will be too bad,” 

“You almost—” Dick didn’t finish that and Jason thought about doing it for him, but for the first time in a long while he didn’t feel like saying the word died. 

“I know,” The words left his lips without his permission and they sounded entirely too soft to be his. He swallowed, heart jumping to his throat, side throbbing in time. “I just…I need to go home,” 

Dick’s eyes took a moment to meet his and he surprised himself by waiting for them. “Yeah, I know. I just…” He huffed, glanced away like he was trying to think. The movement hit Jason in the gut because he remembered that too.

“Thanks,” Jason said, drawing Dick’s gaze back to him. “For...not letting me bleed out,” 

The and for everything else remained silent, hanging between them as Jason tried to get his nerves under control again. 

He turned to look at Clark, who’d gathered up their belongings and slung the bag over his shoulder. “Thanks for letting us crash the place.” 

Clark smiled and Jason thought it was a little sad. “Anytime. I’m just sad you didn’t get to meet Mom,” 

Jason nodded, not sure what to say to that because he wasn’t exactly the sort of person you had over for family dinners.

“Hey, don’t go on patrol right away, okay?” Dick blurted. 

Jason looked over at him, raised an eyebrow. 

“Please?” Dick looked like he wanted to step forward, looked like he wanted to explain everything, to talk. 

I wanted to come. 

Maybe he really had. Maybe he had meant all of it. Maybe he didn’t hate him, maybe Jason was a screw-up but the Golden Boy didn’t care that much. 

Maybe he’d meant it all, maybe he’d held him because he’d meant it and said you’re still family because he meant it. 

Maybe Jason would do that, sometime. Talk to him. Try to be part of the family. He owed Dick that, anyway. He owed that to Tim. And Damian. And Cass, and Steph and Duke and whoever else Bruce had picked up while Jason had been out of his mind. 

And Alfred. He owed it to Alfred too. 

Because maybe they meant it. 

Jason tried to ignore how nervous that made him feel, how unsteady that made him feel. 

Didn’t they know it wasn’t going to work? Didn’t they know that he was going to try and fail?

Didn’t they know that Jason Todd was a mess? 

“Ready?” Clark asked, already opening the door. Jason tried to force down his anxiety, tried to clear his head. 

“Yeah,” He forced out, managing half a smirk in his brother’s direction before he turned, started towards the door to meet Clark. 

A hand gripped his arm and he stifled a jolt. He turned to face his brother again.  

“Hey, text me, okay? Please?” Dick asked, meeting his gaze. “I’ll be there, okay? If you need anything.”  

Jason Todd was stupid, too. 

His brother wasn’t going to let go, even if he was a mess. 

It’s going to be okay.

Jason smiled.