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It wasn’t a good night for Jason. He’d had a pretty gnarly run-in with some watered-down fear gas earlier in the night while on patrol–when he’d jumped between Scarecrow and Damian, he’d taken the dose straight to the face, his helmet cracked earlier in the night–, and the effects hadn’t quite worn off yet. It wasn’t enough to take him down during the fight, but it was enough to make him leery of the shadows around him. And it was enough to bring forth some of the nightmares he’d thought he’d gotten over back when she’d first come back into his life.
Thankfully, his nightmares weren’t enough to wake the woman sleeping beside him. He’d jerked himself awake without dislodging her from her place against his chest. The sight of her snoozing peacefully was enough to start the process of lowering his heartrate. Slowly, Jason started doing some of the breathing exercises Talia had taught him.
As he inhaled and exhaled steadily, his fingers found themselves tracing over the familiar swath of color that was inked into his lover’s side. The tattoo was something that’d damn near brought him to tears the first time he’d seen it. A stark black robin overshadowed by a beautiful, red phoenix rising behind it. It was for him, she’d said; something to hold onto when he’d left to come get his revenge against Bruce and the Joker. The matching one on her other side, the one with the green silhouette of Goliath guarding over the little Robin, came later; it was for Damian. Her boys, both of them.
The exercise worked; his breathing was almost completely back to normal as his fingers felt the slight ridges where the phoenix’s tail resided. If she were awake, she’d be giving him hell for being so sentimental in the middle of the night to distract him from his chaotic mind. Asleep, she did the job just as well by being a calming weight on his chest.
How he’d managed to live without this was something Jason didn’t understand, and it wasn’t something he would ever experience again. Not if he had any say in the matter.