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Jason kicked his legs under his chair as he finished his homework. He had noticed Bruce side eyeing him all evening, but he pretended not to notice. The old man would tell him what was up eventually anyway if Jason had anything to say about it. He had found that he was good at getting Bruce to tell him more than the man had wanted Jason to know. Besides, he wasn't acting suspicious or anything. At the moment, he was hiding nothing from Bruce, so there wasn't anything for him to pick up on. He had done nothing recently that warranted being in trouble.
"I went over your medical history today, Jaylad."
There it was. Jason had never had the most...complete medical care in the past. When he lived on the streets, he never went to doctors because they'd ask too many questions and could potentially send him into foster care (the horror), and before that...well, the Todds never had a lot of money. Jason was aware that he had spent some time at the hospital around the time he was born for some sort of complication, but after that, he had barely ever gone. Doctors were a luxury that they couldn't afford. They didn't even go if there was an emergency most of the time.
"And?" Jason set down his pencil and turned to look at the older man.
"Your childhood care wasn't really," he paused to find the right word, "complete."
He shrugged. "So?"
"You are very far behind on your vaccinations." Bruce mentioned, flipping through a few papers.
"Vaccines are for rich people." Jason snorted cynically.
The older man shook his head. "Surely, it would have been covered by your insurance plan."
"We didn't have a goddamn insurance plan." He deadpanned, his voice coming out in a low grumble. "I wasn't exaggerating when I said that we had no money earlier, you know."
Now annoyed, the young boy turned back to his homework and picked up his pencil again. Stupid B didn't know anything. He had too much money. It clogged his brain, so he didn't understand anything that he had to say. Stupid. He scowled down at his paper, scribbling a few words down and ignoring the man who continued to stare at him. Wouldn't he just leave it? There wasn't much Jason could do about it at the moment.
"I didn't think you were." He responded evenly. "But, Jaylad, you need to get vaccinated."
He shifted in his seat. "It involves needles, right?"
It wasn't even the vaccine itself that tripped him up. Deep down, he knew that vaccines were supposed to be good for him, but there were few things in life that Jason hated more than needles at the moment. He could still remember walking into the bathroom of his old home to find his mother dead on the floor, a needle jutting out of her arm. It had killed her that quickly, but at first, he hadn't realized that she was dead. No, he had seen her in similar positions several times prior, and she had survived every one of those. Jason had thought that he just had to wait until she woke up like she did all those times before. She never woke up, never even twitched a muscle.
Jason found that he didn't want to die. Needles were evil.
"No," he shook his head rapidly, fast enough that pain blossomed behind his eyes when he stopped.
"Why not?" Bruce furrowed his brow, obviously not having expected his opposition.
The young boy glared at him and scooted his chair a few inches away. "Bad. They're bad."
"They're good for you." He argued.
No, he wasn't falling for that shit again. That was exactly the sort of thing his mother pulled with her needles full of whatsits, and guess what? It turned out to be not such a good thing for her. It had literally killed her. Now, he was aware that whatever Bruce was encouraging him to take was not the same as whatever his mother took, but the similarities were there. Needles were painful anyway, and that couldn't mean anything good.
"I don't want to." He insisted.
"Can you explain why not, Master Jason?" Alfred spoke up as he entered the room.
Jason's eyes turned to Alfred. He was much more sensible than Bruce ever was, so perhaps he would understand what Jason was trying to say. He didn't think either of them were trying to kill him or anything. Bruce just might be a bit stupid. That's all. Jason had never seen a needle bring about anything other than pain and suffering. Did it really matter what was in it? Needles were evil. He didn't want to die with one of them sticking out of him.
"I cannot address your concerns if you do not tell us what they are." The eldest man continued when he was silent for a few long moments.
"Vaccines are not harmful." Bruce added as an afterthought. "They help defend your body against illness."
He already knew this. While he hadn't had the most complete education while on the streets, he had a vague idea what vaccines were. They were expensive enough that his parents couldn't afford to get him many, and they involved needles. To this day, he couldn't be near a needle without seeing his mother's cold, still corpse on the floor, couldn't help but feel just as useless as he had sitting by her side, waiting for her to wake up.
"They hurt mom." Jason mumbled under his breath. "The needles."
Bruce's mouth formed an 'o' as the comment registered with him, but Alfred was the one to speak up first. "Master Jason, I can assure you that the contents of your vaccines would be very different than what your mother had been taking."
It was clear that Alfred was trying his hardest to be gentle, but it was difficult given the circumstances. A short bout of angers shot its way through his system at the thought of the long lasting effects that Catherine's actions had on her son. He'd never voice those emotions though. Addiction was a monster to deal with, but he wished Jason hadn't been exposed to it like that.
"I know," the young boy shrugged. "Feels the same though. I don't like needles."
Bruce glanced briefly to the man who had raised him. "I'm sorry, Jaylad, but you need to be vaccinated." He sighed, running a tired hand through his hair.
The strangled, whimpering sound that his son made made him feel like a monster.
"Jaylad, can you come out?" Bruce squatted next to the table and looked underneath of it. "It's just Dr. Thompkins. She's not going to hurt you."
He had convinced his son to come with him down into the Batcave, but the boy had dove under a table in the medbay as soon as he saw the doctor. Bruce knew that Jason always felt safer when he was underneath of something. That something was normally a table, but he had also used his bed, chairs, and other pieces of furniture on occasion. He saw his son, his eyes full of fear, flick wildly over to Dr. Thompkins and back at him. Jason further curled himself into a ball and pushed himself against the wall behind him as though he was trying to disappear completely.
Bruce heard Alfred walk behind him and sit down on the chair right next to the bed. Jason turned his head to look at the man he had grown to think of as a grandfather, but by now, he knew that he too would insist on his vaccination. The young boy rocked backwards and forwards a few times and looked anywhere except at Bruce. Maybe if he didn't see him, he'd go away, right?
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife," Alfred spoke up again, clearly reading from a book.
Bruce recognized it as Pride and Prejudice, and based off of the look on Jason's face, he could tell that he had too. He rose to his feet and sat on the bed, hoping that his son would come out now that no one was looking at him. He didn't want to appear to be a threat to Jason, but he supposed that his figure could be a bit imposing. He was above average height, and his vigilante activities had left him with more muscles than he would have had otherwise.
His son did eventually come out from under the bed and planted himself firmly in Bruce's lap, his fingers squeezing his hand tightly. Oh. Frankly, Bruce hadn't expected him to be comfortable being that close with Bruce, but he wasn't going to argue with that. It had been a long time since a child had done that; he hadn't had a child do this since Dick was younger. Wrapping his arms around the boy in a hug, he pressed a kiss against his temple. He now knew that Jason feared needles. It was one of his greatest fears, so the fact that Jason was doing this just showed how brave his boy was.
"Just focus on Alfred, okay?" Dr. Thompkins smiled gently at him; she was used to children being afraid of needles.
Jason, of course, ignored her and stared warily at every needle she had on her torture device tray. "What're those for?"
"You're missing quite a lot of vaccinations." She frowned as she read over her clipboard again. "I'm going to give you as many as I can now, but I'll come back later for other doses."
He shivered at the idea that she'd be back to poke at him some more. "What're those?" He repeated, still not having his answer.
"I'm going to be giving you vaccines for diphtheria, polio, hepatitis A and B, measles, chickenpox, HPV, and your annual flu shot today." Dr. Thompkins listed.
Jason cringed. "That many? And you'll come back for more?" He couldn't help but whine at her even though it made him feel kind of bad.
Did she just say 'annual?'
She nodded her head, grimacing. "Unfortunately, you haven't had much of anything except immediately after your birth."
Well, duh.
After he was born, he had been in the hospital already, and the doctors wouldn't have let him go home with his parents unless he had the vaccinations required for a newborn. They had given him the first three doses of the hepatitis B vaccine before sending the Todds away, and that had pretty much been the only vaccination he had ever gotten. They had never had enough money to buy more (or get insurance for that matter) as all their money funded his mother's addiction and his father's additional less than legal habits.
"I'm going to start now, okay?" Dr. Thompkins stayed in his line of sight at all times, knowing that he might panic if she left. "Do you want me to count down from three or just do it?"
Jason shot her a sour look and grumbled, "Just do it."
"Okay, Jason." She sat down next to him and readied the first needle. "Just focus on Alfred and Bruce, and relax your arm for me, yeah?"
He forced himself to relax one of his arms, but the other one held Bruce's hand in a death grip. The older man tightened his arms around the boy, hugging him even closer to himself. Alfred had started reading the book once more, picking up from where he had paused, and his voice remained calm and even throughout. He felt Dr. Thompkins disinfect the area with a wet cloth, but there was no pain yet.
Jason jumped slightly when he felt a prick right on his deltoid, but he immediately forced himself to relax. Who knew what would happen if he was tense during the procedure? He hadn't gone to medical school, had barely gone to normal school. He turned his head to look at what had been done to him, but there was no evidence that he would be suffering the same fate as his mother. It was illogical for him to jump to that conclusion, but nevertheless, it was a fear that had lingered in the back of his mind.
"Which band aid do you want?" Dr. Thompkins offered when she saw him turn to look. "I have some Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern...You want Batman, right?"
"No," he said savagely. "All of them can be Wonder Woman."
Bruce shifted underneath of him. "Isn't Batman the best hero, Jaylad?"
"Nope," Jason shook his head. "Wonder Woman is the best."
It grew increasingly difficult to keep his wits as she continued giving him shots. He knew it was necessary, especially if he was going to be around other kids in school and around the more shady part of Gotham as Robin (not that he hadn't already been in the shady part), but it still sucked ass in his opinion. Eventually, he started flinching violently, so Dr. Thompkins started to count down from three. He didn't think it helped much, but he appreciated the gesture.
"Almost done." She promised. "You're doing so well, Jason."
His eyes started to water as he caught sight of yet another death dealer needle, but he blinked the tears back harshly. He couldn't cry now. That would be pathetic. He had experienced so many more dangerous situations and hadn't cried then, so how could he do so now? Especially in front of Bruce? Jason bet that Dick hadn't cried when he got a shot or something, but he never seemed to live up to the expectations that the Golden Boy left behind him. He tried to focus on Alfred's voice as he read the book. It didn't help much.
"It's okay, baby." Bruce whispered in his ear when he felt his son tense. "You've got one more."
That's one too many.
"Just breathe normally, okay?" Leslie suggested.
He exhaled, not having noticed that he had been holding his breath. Jason squeezed his eyes shut and waiting for the prick, but he found it hard to relax. Time seemed to slow down, and Dr. Thompkins was taking forever to administer it to him. In reality, it had perhaps been a few seconds before Leslie quickly gave him the vaccine. Jason gasped and screwed up his face, ignoring the few tears that had escaped his eyes, and his hand squeezed Bruce's in a vice grip.
And Dr. Thompkins said she would be back later for more?
Jason didn't want more.
"See? All done," Bruce kissed him again on his temple, and Jason found himself leaning back into him. "You did so well, baby."
Alfred didn't stop reading until he managed to dry his eyes from tears. Dr. Thompkins looked sympathetic but not guilty. This was something that just had to be done, but if she left him with three times the amount of lollipops that she normally gave kids, well, who was going to tell on her?