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“I killed him.” There wasn’t even anyone there to hear his sobs. “No. No no no. I didn’t—”
He was dead. Jason had—He could hardly even remember doing it. He just remembered the rage. It hadn’t even had anything to do with the Pit, it had just been pure, white anger pulsing in his head.
He hadn’t wanted to do that. Why had he done it? He’d never want that. He remembered feeling a pulse hammering beneath his fingers as he squeezed, felt short fingernails scratching at his arms, socked feet kicking at him. No gloves? No boots? He’d...he’d done it in the Manor. He’d gone into his room while he slept, and…
There was blood on his hands. Why was there blood on his hands? He’d strangled him, he hadn’t…Oh.
He looked down at himself and pressed bloody hands to his stomach. He hadn’t even noticed the fiery pain, but now it hit him full force. He’d been stabbed. Of course he had. Damian would never be sleeping unarmed, not even in his own home where he was supposed to be safe.
Except no one could ever be safe with Jason around.
He staggered, legs suddenly weak. His foot slid in the blood beneath his feet. There was a lot of it.
His head hurt. Why did his head—
And it was getting worse. A pike stabbing into his temple, the white rage was back, but he couldn’t move, he was on his knees kneeling in the blood and his head hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt—
——
He woke with a strangled cry caught in his throat. He tried to sit up, but there were hands on his shoulders..
He sank back onto the gurney and looked up at Dick standing over him. When he relaxed, Dick let up on him and straightened. Jason felt floaty and the burning pain in his stomach was distant, the sharp ache in his head still there, but just as far away.
Dick’s eyes were red rimmed and watery and the memory slammed into Jason's hazy mind. A pulse beneath his fingers. His neck was so small in Jason’s large hands. How could that kid be so tough when he was so small?
Jason bit back on the wail that was building in his chest and it came out as a choked keen. He gasped in a ragged breath and reached up to grab at Dick’s shirt, twisting it in his grip. “Dickie, I didn’t—Oh god, Dick, I don’t know what happened, I’m—”
Sorry? Of course he was sorry, but what was the point in telling Dick? Damian was dead, Dick didn’t want his apologies, he’d want revenge, and Jason would gladly let him have it.
Dick opened his mouth to speak, but Jason tried to shove himself up again and Dick’s mouth clamped shut as he grabbed for Jason. “Jay, stop—”
“I have to go, Dick, how can you even look at me? I need to—I need—”
What did he need? To turn himself in? So he could languish in Arkham with the rest of the monsters? No, that wasn’t a fitting punishment. He was a curse. He hurt everyone he loved, and he didn’t deserve to live. Damian had deserved to live.
Dick was talking, frantic words falling on deaf ears. Jason couldn’t think past the roaring in his head. The pain was spiking, pushing through whatever pain medication they had him on. Why had they done that? He deserved to feel the pain of the wound Damian had inflicted upon him. It was the last thing he’d done, the least Jason could do was feel it.
Dick’s hands were on him, trying to push him back down, but Jason used the little remaining strength he had to resist him, and he reached down and tugged at the bandages wrapped around his bare stomach. Dick tried to grab his hands, but he was too slow. Before Dick could stop him, Jason pulled the bandages away and dug his fingers into the wound, the stitches ripping as his fingers sank into the hole Damian had put in him. He screamed as hot blood welled up and the pain ripped right through the drugs.
His fault. It was his fault Damian was dead, he deserved this. Dick’s hands were like a vice around his wrists as he ripped Jason’s hands away from his stomach. Jason was too weak to resist now, too weak even to remain sitting up. He listed back against the pillows and his vision grayed out. The roaring in his head was fading along with him and he could hear frantic voices washing over him as he slipped away.
——
This time when he woke he was groggy and restrained. His hands and feet were strapped down and he recognized this room as the sectioned off part of the med bay where they treated fear toxin exposure.
Had he...had it just been…?
His thoughts were too muddy to suss it out. His stomach ached.
He looked over to see Tim asleep in a chair against the wall. His arms were crossed, head leaned back resting on the top of the chair back. He was in soft pajama pants and an old t-shirt and sneakers that he'd obviously thrown on and very hastily tied. His hair was sleep mussed.
Jason had come to the Manor in the middle of the night, gone into Damian's room while he slept, and wrapped his hands around his neck and squeezed. He didn't remember why, didn't remember deciding to do it. He barely even remembered the act itself, just that he'd been so angry. He just knew what he'd done. His family had woken from their sleep to find their youngest son and brother dead.
He didn't scream or sob this time. He just turned his gaze back to the ceiling and hot tears ran down the sides of his face, dripping into his ears and onto the thin, water-proof mattress beneath him. He couldn't lift his trapped hands to wipe them away.
He lay there like that for a long time before he heard the shift in Tim's breathing. He didn't turn to look as he heard Tim curse under his breath and come to the side of the gurney.
"Jay?" He said, keeping his voice low and soft. "Can you hear me?"
Jason just shut his eyes.
Tim made a distressed sound. "Jason, everything is okay. You're safe. Do you remember what happened?"
Jason shook his head. He didn't want to talk. There was no explanation he could give that would make anything better.
"Okay. That's okay." Tim assumed that Jason's denial was a direct answer to his question. “Can you tell me why you’re crying?”
Jason turned his head away.
“Jay...are you sure you don’t remember?”
Jason stayed still and silent.
“Jay, no one’s mad at you. It wasn’t your fault.”
Jason’s eyes snapped open and he turned his head to Tim. “How—” It was hard to talk, his tongue thick in his mouth. They’d given him something. Something to keep him calm so he wouldn’t try to hurt himself again. “How can no one—I killed him.”
Tim’s eyes widened and his face went pale. “What?”
“Damian.” He was too groggy to muster the energy to put the grief and despair that he was feeling into his voice. “He’s dead.”
Tim sucked in a breath. “He’s... not. Jason. Damian’s fine.”
Jason’s heart dropped into his stomach. His face twisted, and he screwed his eyes shut. “I was there. My hands were around his—” A pulse beneath his fingers. Eyes wide, struggling, clawing hands going limp, eyes fluttering shut.
Without a word, Tim left the room. How had he not known that Damian was dead? Had they been so focused on Jason bleeding out in the hallway outside of Damian’s room that they hadn’t gone inside to check on him? That didn’t seem right, that would have been the first thing they did if they thought there was a hostile in the house.
He knew—
A pulse beneath his fingers as he squeezed.
A pulse beneath two fingers. As he knelt next to Damian's still form on the floor, checking to see that he was still alive.
A pulse.
Tim returned and Jason’s thoughts ground to a halt at the sight of what he’d brought with him. Dick was trailing behind him, an arm around Damian, supporting him as they made their way slowly into the room.
They stopped at his bedside and Jason just stared. Damian was pale and blotchy, with bloodshot eyes and a split lip where he must have been hit during the struggle. There was a faint red mark around his mouth where he must have been wearing an oxygen mask—likely only removing it to bring him to see Jason.
There was a massive ring of purpling bruises around his throat.
Jason turned his head away and vomited over the other side of the gurney.
He heard Tim shuffling around and then he appeared with a warm wet cloth, wiping it over Jason’s face as he stayed with his head hanging over the side, taking in ragged breaths.
“He’s fine, Jason,” Tim was saying after dropping the wash cloth in a waste disposal bin nearby. “I’m sorry, we should have considered that you might think otherwise.”
“What...what happened?” Jason asked, barely able to bring his voice above a whisper and still unable to turn to look at Damian. At the bruises circling his neck.
“It was mind control,” Dick supplied. “We got rid of it, Little Wing. It wasn’t your fault. No one is upset with you.”
Jason finally turned to face them. “M-mind control?”
Dick nodded. “Not your fault,” he repeated.
Jason wanted to reach over to touch Damian, to feel that he was real, that he was alive, but his hands were still strapped to the bed. Damian seemed to recognize the dazed, desperate look in Jason’s eyes, because he took a shuffling step forward and placed a solid hand on Jason’s leg.
“I am relatively unharmed, Todd,” he rasped. God, his voice—it was barely there. “I do not blame you.”
“D-Damian,” he blubbered. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“Cease this nonsense,” Damian interrupted, barely audible. “Speaking is uncomfortable, do not make me repeat myself.”
“Come on, Dami,” Dick said, stepping forward to wrap his arm around Damian’s shoulders again. “Back to bed.” Damian nodded and Jason could see the way his shoulders seemed to untense at the idea. He must be exhausted and in a lot of pain. Pain Jason had caused.
He may not have been in control of himself, but he’d always remember the terrified look in his little brother’s eyes and the feeling of his nails scraping desperately against Jason’s skin.
Dick took Damian back to bed and Tim stepped around the bed to take their place. “If I take the restraints off do you promise not to hurt yourself again?”
Jason honestly considered it for a moment. He still felt like he deserved to be in pain like Damian was. But he nodded, anyway. He was starting to feel more lax and out of it again now that the shock of seeing Damian was wearing off.
“Okay.” Tim nodded. He loosened the straps, and when they were removed, Jason flexed his arms a bit before slinging one over his eyes. The tears were still coming, though this time they were tears of relief.
He heard the sound of a chair scraping as Tim pulled one up next to him. “You stopped yourself. That’s why he’s still alive. You fought it—it was impossible, but you still managed it. You love him, Jason. You would never hurt him, he knows that.”
Jason let out a shaky breath, but he didn’t take his arm from over his face.
Tim carded a hand through his hair again. “Just go to sleep, big brother. You’ll feel better when you wake up, and you can let Damian beat you at video games.”
“He’d never forgive me if he figured out I was going easy on him at Mario Kart,” Jason croaked.
“Be sneaky, then.”