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Jason was sitting before he even realized he was awake, gasping at the nightmare. He glanced around at his surroundings, cotton sheets (never silk), cracked drywall (not wood and dirt and everythingstooclosehelp-), and an empty spot next to him in the bed (it’s a bed. It’s a bed).
Jason took a minute to just breathe. Once he got his bearings (and no longer felt like he was suffocating), he glanced at the clock.
“Fuck!”
He scrambled out of bed and ripped open his dresser drawer, desperately searching for a shirt.
-
Lian was, in fact, late to daycare.
-
Roy opened the door with a sleeping child balanced on one side and a bag of groceries in the other hand. He was long past grimacing at Lian’s face on his greasy mechanic clothes before he got a chance to change. Bath night was every night.
“Jason! We’re home!”
Roy heard a thud, a muffled curse, and a “Don’t touch the oven, lunch will be ready in 15 minutes!”
Roy sat the groceries on the counter and put Lian to bed before he went in search of his boyfriend. He found him under the sink in the bathroom.
“Babe, I told you I’d get around to fixing it. Just- just give me another couple weeks.”
Jason glanced up at him. “I know, but just about everything around here’s broke. I can tighten up a couple pipes, it’ll work for the minute. You know the laundry machine’s next on your list.”
Jason shoved himself out from under the sink before standing up straight and pulling Roy into a hug, ignoring his protests about greasy mechanic clothes. “I know you want to get things done around here, but you don’t have time. I’m the one that wanted you two to move to Gotham, and I feel like it’s been nothing but stressful to you.”
Roy sighed, moving to cup the back of Jason’s head from where he had rested his chin on Roy’s shoulder. He buried his nose into Jason’s shoulder. “Being near you isn’t stressful. Being disowned is. There’s a difference.” His voice came out muffled. “Love you. Promise I’ll fix the washer soon.”
Jason just squeezed him tighter. “Love you too.”
-
Roy ate lunch and almost immediately passed out. Jason, on the other hand, sat down at the table and spread out their bills. Electricity, phone, water, daycare… all marked overdue in bright red letters.
He groaned and sat back. This would be so much easier with some of Bruce or Oli’s money. He couldn’t be sure of the welcome he’d get back at the Manor though, and Oli had made it very clear on his stance on Roy, even before it became Roy and Lian and then the three of them. He groaned again. Who could he even call? Dick wouldn’t want to hear from him. The Repla- Tim. Tim definitely didn’t want anything to do with him. Once upon a time, he would have called Alfred, but he was pretty sure he was demoted from favorite after Titan’s Tower. Alfred would probably shoot him. The fact that he deserved it was besides the point. And Bruce-
Bruce definitely wanted him dead after the Tower. Even if he didn’t, the second he heard he was gay, he’d be gone. Jason ran a hand absent-mindedly over the barely-healed scar on his throat, and tightened his arm across his chest. He never had worked up the courage to confess that he hadn’t been born a boy to Bruce. He knew he wouldn’t take it well. All the rich people types were like that. Hell, look at Oli.
Jason shook himself out of his thoughts. There was no one he could go to. There was only him, Roy, and Lian. It would be enough. It had to be enough.
Jason was an internationally feared drug lord. He should have the goddamn money for his bills, damnit. He sighed again. All of the money made from his “business” was going directly into public relief efforts for the Alley. He was paying people off, allowing some of the more reluctant areas to take a higher percentage for their loyalty, and funneling everything else into helping people. Overall, the “business” was barely scraping even.
It was an investment, he knew. He just hoped it’d last long enough to see the rewards.
-
Arsenal and Red Hood took to the streets in the evening. Jason had still been sitting at the table, glaring at bills, when the nice old lady from the ground floor came in to watch Lian. He caught her look, but she didn’t say anything as he scrambled to put it all away. He knew her finances. They weren’t much better than his.
They ran parallel patrols, a few blocks apart. Arsenal headed home at 1:00 every night. His shifts at the mechanic’s started at 2:00.
Jason kept patrolling, focusing more on his “business” than the crime-stopping him and Arsenal did. Roy didn’t want anything to do with drugs, never again. Jason didn’t blame him, he didn’t either.
He knew, in the back of his head, that this warehouse was entirely too close to Bat turf for his comfort, but it was the next big stop for him. Hopefully, he’d start turning a profit after this one. Hopefully, he could pay the water bill. Maybe he could replace the spoiled milk. This all just had to go according to plan.
-
Nothing ever goes according to plan.
-
He knew someone was staking the place out the second he got within three blocks. He figured it was some of Black Mask’s men. He was proven wrong when the first Bat-adjacent silhouette dropped from the ceiling.
It wasn’t a particularly organized run. It wasn’t even close. They were just trying to mess with him, and Jason knew it. Make his next step harder, and maybe the deal would fall through. Maybe his reputation would take a hit, and he would be linked to the Bats.
The Bats were not expecting him to be as desperate as he was.
This wasn’t even Pit Madness, it wasn’t him angry, not even a little. He was desperate. Lian was supposed to start kindergarten in just under a year. Roy’s birthday was coming up. Christmas would be here before they knew it. The apartment was falling apart, and there was mold in the walls. Lian shouldn’t be raised somewhere where there’s mold in the walls.
He went in, hand-to-hand combat. He wouldn’t use his weapons. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. But they were going to throw him in Arkham, if they could, last he checked, and fuck, he was desperate. That desperation had nowhere to go but out.
-
When he tuned back in, he was in a cell. In the Batcave, which was surprising, but Bruce just probably didn’t know how to deal with the identity problems yet. Jason Todd couldn’t be in Arkham, but Red Hood should be.
He had no more delusions about being Jason Wayne.
He took inventory of himself. No helmet. No weapons. He was in his cargo pants, and that was it. No socks, no boots, no shirt, no hood, no domino. He expected that, his get-up had things sewn into his undershirt, but he was still cold in the cave. He was sore all over, like he’d sparred the entire Batclan. At once. Hell, he probably had.
His picture of Lian was gone.
That one almost made him cry. He kept a tiny little picture of Lian, sewn into the sleeve of his undershirt, so that he could flip it out and look at it if he had to. She pulled him out of a Pit Rage once, and her picture continued to be a constant reminder of her. He felt tears pricking the corners of his eyes. He was going to Arkham, and he didn’t even have a reminder of his boyfriend and daughter. Damnit, he couldn’t do this! He couldn’t do this. He was done. He gave up. He couldn’t even find the energy to panic about being trapped.
He put his head in his hands, and sobbed.
-
It could have been days or minutes later when a knock came on the reinforced window of his cell. He had stopped crying at that point, but he was sure he looked a mess, and the tear tracks had not gone anywhere close to dry. He didn’t react to the knock. Just continued staring into the corner.
-
Dick didn’t really know what to do.
His little brother was in a cell. In the Cave. He had cried. Sobbed like- Dick didn’t even know. He didn’t know what would make his brother cry like that. He’d never seen Jason cry before, not even when relaying what happened to his mother. (And no, he didn’t mean Sheila).
Dick tapped on the window once he seemed calmer, waiting for a response. He didn’t get one.
If he wasn’t worried before, he would be now.
Fuck it, he decided. He pushed the cell door open, closing it behind him.
“Jay? You in there?”
He looked at him, but didn’t react otherwise.
“Oh, LittleWing. What happened to you.” Dick reached for Jason, and he didn’t flinch away, just stared at him. Dick cupped his cheek, using a cloth he brought with him to wipe the tear tracks from his face. Jason barely reacted, but Dick did notice him leaning in to the touch.
“Hey, Jay. How are you doing, huh?” Jason stared at him, even as he leaned into his hand. “Can I hug you?” He took the shrug as a yes.
Jason gasped the second Dick pulled him in, and immediately started crying again.
“Shhh… shhh… you’re okay. Everything’s okay now. I’m right here. I got you. You’re okay. You’re alright LittleWing. You’re okay. It’s okay.”
Jason cried harder at the reassurance. “Just don’t- please… Please can I have her picture back? Put me in the cell next to the clown if you have to, just… please. Please Dick. I can’t- Dick, I can’t. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t.”
Dick’s heart dropped out his feet. It was gone. Poof, through the floor, evaporated in the core of the earth. “Jason. LittleWing, why- what… What picture? What clown? The clown?! Why would you go anywhere near him. Jason, who wants to put you in Arkham? I’ll fucking- I’ll kill ‘em myself.”
Okay, maybe he should have taken things one at a time, because his brother was functionally nonverbal with all that crying he was doing. Dick resigned himself to not getting his answers for… quite a bit, actually. He was less resigned about getting to hold his brother again.
-
It took Jason an embarrassingly long amount of time to stop crying. Long enough for Bruce, Tim, and Alfred to pop by. Alfred brought food and rubbed his back for a little while. He couldn’t bring himself to let go of Dick. His brother wasn’t pissed. He thought. Maybe. He didn’t know, but he didn’t seem mad, and the world past Dick’s shoulder was entirely too scary right now. Tim didn’t touch him, but a quiet conversation was had with Dick that he was too busy crying to catch. Tim left and came back and left again, and then Dick was pressing something into his hand. He knew by the feel that it was Lian’s picture. It did the opposite of helping him stop crying.
Bruce stopped by for all of five seconds, because Jason promptly had a panic attack when he noticed the man out of the corner of his eye, and Dick chased him off.
Eventually, he returned to the land of the not-actively-breaking-down. He felt better, maybe. He was really tired though. He kept his head buried in his brother’s shoulder. Dick didn’t force him away.
“Jason?” Dick spoke gently, as if he was scared he’d start crying again. Jason just hummed in response.
“LittleWing, do you need help? You seem really stressed.”
It was a testament to how stressed he’d been that he didn’t shove Dick away immediately. Instead, he took a deep breath, nodded into his brother’s shoulder, and whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Dick just held him tighter and whispered reassurances back. “What do you need help with, Jason? How can I help?”
His breathing hitched again against his will. “I- Lian- and- and Roy- and… But the water bill- but the washer went out a month ago, and- But we can’t just not send Lian to daycare, and- LIAN! I’m the one who gets her from her babysitter, fuck- but I’m going to Arkham- I don’t wanna be near the clown. Roy’s gonna be- I’m so cold… But we need to pay the phone and electricity… And 22nd Street’s losing loyalty… Milk’s bad. Been spoiled, the last two- There’s mold in the walls, Dick, and she’s four…”
Dick hushed him gently. “It’s okay, LittleWing. Let me take care of it, okay?”
Jason could feel the silent tears slowly soaking into Dick’s shirt, but he nodded anyway. He trusted his brother, he realized all of a sudden. He fell asleep on Dick’s shoulder, right there in a cell in the Cave.
-
Dick’s heart had returned just to shatter into a million pieces, and all his other organs were angry at the pieces of heart scattered among them. His little brother had been so stressed for so long… He felt his breathing even out a few minutes ago, and he knew he had fallen asleep. Dick slowly moved to pick him up (and he was worryingly light, but if he had been having all those problems, it’s no wonder…), and carried him out of the cell and upstairs. He wasn’t dangerous. He was scared. Everything in his life was broken.
Dick would help fix it.