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Petrified of who you are and who you have become
You will hide from everyone, denying you need someone
The bullet pierced his lung.
At the time, Jason didn’t know this, so his first thought was to fight back when the shot hit, tearing through his chest with a flash of heat. It wasn’t even pain that registered first – the shock took away the impact as he staggered back a few steps, mind racing, telling him to focus on remaining upright, not the metal that had ripped his insides apart.
What he noticed wasn’t he pain; it was the heat of blood around the wound.
Blinking, he looked down to see the red stain spreading, wishing he had been wearing his body armor that night. As it was, the blue button up was absolutely useless against a bullet and tore like paper, a hole in his favourite leather jacket, too. Pouting at that, one hand lazily fell to the red and tried to apply pressure, the other going for his own gun, hidden down his pants.
Truthfully, he hadn’t even been looking for a fight.
But that didn’t mean he was going to lose. Pulling out the gun, the time elapsed since he had been shot was mere seconds despite the amount of information he processed in that time. It had been that way since he was Robin: he wasn’t dumb, he knew that, but he thought quicker in the field than any other time, especially when he was hurt.
Assess the injury. Locate the perpetrator. Fight back. Get to Batman.
The last part was no longer true, but the earlier part of his plan hadn’t changed. A lot of things like that didn’t when he came back. His fighting style, his patterns, his little routines in the field, they were effective – and more than that, they were hardwired into him the same way walking and talking and breathing was.
For a long time, Jason blamed Bruce for that. But those instincts, the fighting over flight, every time – they had been in his blood since he was a kid growing up in Crime Alley. It was who he was, through and through.
Some things changed, but mostly, nobody ever really changed. Not deep down.
“You shot me?” Jason shouted on instinct, looking up at the shooter. He had been walking towards his safe house from a supply run, his brown paper bag on the floor between them, slowly seeping milk onto the concrete. “Don’t you know who I am? I’m the fucking Red Hood, you big dumb-”
Jason didn’t even bother finishing the insult, the hand resting on his gun suddenly finding purpose, tightening; he pulled it out and put a shot into the man. Or, he assumed it was a man. The only light was from a closed convenience store across the street, sign lit up dimly. And, in true Gotham fashion, it was raining, making everything even harder to see.
The shooter was hit, letting out a cry as they made a hasty retreat back from the alley they had come from. Following them a few steps, Jason tried to shoot them another two times, both shots missing as his vision blurred and twisted; the gun was heavy in his palm as he struggled to hold it straight, making a clean shot impossible.
And there was no way he was risking hitting some idiot kid playing in an alley by shooting blind, so Jason let the gun fall to his side as he collapsed against the wall at the side of the alley, shoulder against concrete. Pressing his head into the brick, he tried to think straight, letting the gun slip from his numb fingers a minute later. It landed with a splash and a clunk.
Move.
The voice in his head was always Batman, and Jason hated that with every fibre of his being. It only happened when he was out in Gotham – everywhere else, there was a degree of separation that let him think for himself. But then he walked these streets again and there was Batman in his head, telling him he needed to get to a doctor before he bled out.
“Damn you,” Jason said to the Batman in his head. But bleeding out to spite his own deluded mind was stupid, even he knew that, so he forced himself to turn until the wall pressed into his back, holding him up, and he could get a clear view of the street again. It was a main road, but in this part of Gotham that didn’t mean much. The stores were closed and locked up, and it wasn’t like the blocks of apartments round there had a doorman he could ask for help. There were a few parked cars and a ten minute walk to his safe house.
He was so dead. Again.
Laughing at his own morbid joke, blood trickling from his lip at the jarring action, Jason slid down the wall into the gutter, the pain starting to cut through as the adrenaline wore off. The heat was still at the wound, but he felt cold everywhere else, shaking in the rain which thankfully hid how much he was bleeding, the red mixing with the grey puddle he sat in.
Hand shaking, he fumbled with the phone in his pocket, struggling to get it out of his wet jeans and then wincing at the bright light when he pressed a key to unlock it. Squinting against the light, he struggled to read the contacts list, which was blurring, knowing he had saved Dick under ‘Asshole’ and aiming for that when he hit call.
“I’ve got a hole in my gut . . . with your name on it,” he huffed, the words slurred as he held the phone loosely, a few inches away from his actual ear. There was a voice on the other end, but nothing was making sense anymore and he didn’t have the energy to argue. “Jus’ be here.”
The phone plopped into the puddle beside him as Jason’s hand fell, going slack at the same time his face did, blurring into unconsciousness.
*
The next thing he was aware of, someone was shaking him by the shoulders none too gently and even though his eyes could barely open a crack, headlights blinded him. A shadow loomed between them, indistinguishable in Jason’s current state of mind.
“Master Jason! Can you hear me, lad?”
He knew the voice. To Jason, that voice was a warm blanket after a long, cold night. It was feeling safe, hands which cared for him when he was sick, a smile and a cup of tea while he waited for Bruce to come back to the mansion after work. That voice was the only person in his crazy family he could never bring himself to hate. Simply, it sounded like coming home.
Lips cracked with blood, Jason smiled. “Hey, Alf.”
“Master Jason, we need to get you out of here.”
Suddenly, surprisingly strong arms were pulling him upright, Jason biting his lip to hold back the scream of pain at the movement. He stumbled, vision going black for a few seconds, but there was a body holding him up when he almost fell, head lolling into Alfred’s shoulder. Knowing he would be getting the worried but stern trademark Alfred look and not wanting to worry the other man, Jason took the opportunity to weakly speak, joking to prove he was okay. “No shit.”
“Language.”
“Sorry, Alf.”
They stumbled towards the car, which Jason vaguely noticed was one of Bruce’s. Like everything else the man owned, it was black and expensive; as he was hauled into the passenger seat, he took a little pleasure at the thought of ruining the interior with his blood. Then he remembered that bleeding out on Bruce’s seat might just lead to it being put in a glass case and made a memorial of.
Bile rising in his throat, Jason groaned, putting his head against the glass window.
“You need to stay awake, sir,” Alfred said. His voice never had left room for argument – even Batman followed orders when the elderly butler gave them in that tone. Pulling a first aid kit from the glove compartment, he handed over a wad of gauze, pressing it into the wound and putting Jason’s hands over it. “Keep pressing on that. Tightly.”
“Yessir,” Jason slurred back. Fumbling, his hands found the gauze and held it in place, although he was too weak to really press down on the wound. It was still seeping with blood, the white bandages turning red in seconds, spreading outwards quickly.
One hand on the steering wheel, Alfred kept the other on Jason’s, trying to push them down to hold the gauze more firmly. He drove more doggedly than usual, foot never leaving the accelerator, cutting corners and ignoring traffic lights. In the passenger seat, Jason felt every bump in the road, hitting his head against the glass a few times; he tried not to swear each time, turning some curses into grunts. He worried for a second about what would happen if they got caught – but then he remembered Alfred was a total badass. Alf could handle any cops who hassled them, and Bruce would pick up any tickets from this little adventure.
Knowing he was safe, there was no one he trusted more or was more competent that Alfred, Jason let himself to be driven, not caring where to, but before he was even aware enough to try and stop it, his eyelids became heavy again.
*
“No! Master Jason, wake up!”
The hands were shaking him again, and Jason woke more slowly this time. He had lost a lot of blood. Things were foggy in his head; sluggish, slow. When Alfred appeared in his vision, he was crystal clear in the centre, but the edges of his vision swirled and twisted like a kaleidoscope, keeping Jason off balance when he was pulled from the car.
“Now, you stay awake, sir! Do you hear me?”
“Mmfp,” Jason made a noise, which wasn’t quite a word, but served as confirmation he was listening.
Excruciatingly, they staggered into a building – through the back door, Jason was aware enough to notice. It was unlit, nobody around; Alfred had to prop him against the wall to pull a key from his pocket, letting them in. Down a dimly lit corridor, Jason managed a few steps before having to be dragged the rest of the way, arm hooked around the old man’s shoulders and utterly in awe of him.
“Alf,” he said, but it sounded more like ‘umph’. Jason tried again as they found an empty room, falling into a bed as soon as he was pointed at it. He lay on his back, a light coming on overhead and forcing him to blink at the sharp light, until hands pressed down on his wound so hard he gasped in pain, making his vision swim again.
Once he had recovered, he focused on the figure standing above him, trying to speak again. The words were panted out in pain, as he struggled to speak, the words making sense in his head but getting lost somewhere before they could reach his tongue. “Hey . . . Alf. You know . . . know you’re a friggin’ . . . badass, right?”
“I’m glad you’re aware of that, Master Jason,” the old man replied, taking a second to smile kindly. But, the same way it had when Jason was a teenager, Alfred’s eyes held a twinkle of mischief. “Because if you’re not awake when I come back, you know I’ll kick your arse.”
As Jason laughed weakly, just the effort of that making his eyes heavy again, Alfred ran from the room, hopefully for help. Keeping himself awake by staring at the glaring light overhead, Jason breathed steadily, grateful for the softness of the gurney and that someone had answered his call. He could have died tonight. The fact scared him, although he would never admit it.
Alfred was back in what felt like seconds. Jason swore that he would thank him every day for this for the next ten years, if he survived. The person who walked in the room next shouldn’t have surprised him at all, and Jason would have laughed with relief, if it hurt less to do so.
“Doctor . . . Thompkins,” he heaved out, “I’m glad to see you.”
“I wish I could say the same,” she replied. As he watched, her face paled at the sight of him. Crossing the room, she set to work straight away, moving his hands to look at the gunshot wound first, pressing a new gauze against it. “I hoped you’d stop this, eventually. We all did.”
Coming from Leslie, it didn’t sound like a slap in the face the way it did from the others. She was a no-nonsense woman, something Jason had always appreciated, but this comment was laced with fragile worry.
“What can I say, Doc? Stripes don’t change . . . ‘an all.”
She sighed, shaking her head. “I hoped that for all of you boys, that one day you’d stop getting hurt like this. It’s been a long time, Jason.”
“Yeah, Doc.” He said. In the corner of his eye, Jason saw both Leslie and Alfred exchange a look, feeling Leslie’s hand warm on his arm. The world was getting blurry again. Mind a whirl of disconnected thoughts, Leslie’s words and Alfred’s presence and everything that had happened taking it’s toll, Jason knew he was slipping again. His last thought, he accidentally murmured too.
“I’m sorry.”
*
Jason woke up feeling, strangest of all, rested.
There was sunlight streaming in from a window to his left, telling him that he had been out at least half a day, maybe more, but the room was quiet. He could hear the consistent beat of a heart monitor he assumed was linked up to himself from the short spike from his initial shock at waking, slowing as he relaxed, the memory of what happened returning to him.
Although an oxygen mask obscured his vision, Jason knew he was at Dr. Thompkins clinic – which meant he was safe. It was a place he knew well from his Robin days, and although he had avoided coming back since, he knew it was still in the same building, so doubted the layout had changed much - which made it easier for him to make a quick getaway before anyone could see him.
Jason pulled off the oxygen mask, so focused on pulling himself free from it and sitting up that he didn’t notice he wasn’t alone until another voice spoke.
“I do hope you’re not thinking about moving, young sir.”
“Alf?” Jason looked around, blinking in confusion. Next to his bed in a shaded corner, his eyes made out a figure sitting in a chair, head in his hand, like he had slept that way. Alfred. “Wha- I wasn’t. I was just . . .”
“Yes, Master Jason?”
“Okay, I was leaving,” Jason admitted with a sigh. There was no point lying to the Wayne family’s personal lie-detector, after all. “So what?”
“So, you had a collapsed lung last night, young sir. The bullet pierced it. You could have died,” Alfred laid out the facts simply, but there was an element of pleading in his voice. Intensely, he held Jason’s gaze; the old man’s were tired. More so than Jason remembered from when he was young. “I won’t let that happen, lad. Not again. If you want to leave this room before Doctor Thompkins clears you, it will have to be through me.”
Alfred meant that. Dropping the oxygen mask so it dangled around his neck, Jason help up his hands and leaned back against the pillows. “Wouldn’t think of it, Alf.”
“Good,” Alfred said strongly. Although he looked like he wanted to say more, the old man seemed to hold his tongue at the last minute, mouth snapping shut abruptly as he sat back. Instead, he quickly amended, “You should try and get some more rest.”
“Alf, about what happened-”
“I don’t want to know how you got shot, Mater Jason.”
The words were curt this time, to the point. They stung more than Alfred’s anger, because the reason for them lay between them like twenty miles of no man’s land. Jason’s stomach churned uncomfortably.
Alfred didn’t want to know what happened because he thought it was the Red Hood who got shot, probably in the process of doing something underhand. Because after all, Alfred was Bruce’s man – as close to a father as the dark knight had – and although he knew Alfred understood the use of lethal force better than the Bat, he still was against the kind of justice Jason dealt out in Gotham. It hurt almost as much as the bullet.
“I haven’t killed anyone in months,” Jason blurted out. He felt ten years old again, baring his soul to the one person who he felt unfaltering faith from. “I was thinking about coming to see you, actually. Dick said you might like that,” he grinned sheepishly. “But I’m better, Alf. I’m seeing things more clearly now – I still know what I’m doing is right, but I’m trying a new way. I didn’t kill the person who did this to me either - I was out buying milk, for Christ’s sake.”
Alfred’s smile crinkled up, just a tad. “I would like it very much if you visited me, young sir.”
“I didn’t think you’d stay this long,” Jason admitted. “You can go home, I’ll be alright.”
“To be honest, I’m avoiding Master Bruce.” There was that twinkle in Alfred’s eye again, half rebellious, half guilty. “He’s quite angry I failed to pick him up from the policeman’s gala last night, from what I hear from Master Richard. And I thought you might want to keep this between us, so I haven’t contacted him with an explanation to where I have been yet.”
Jason grinned like it was Christmas. “So you ditched Bruce at one of those parties he hates to let me bleed on his seats? And then didn’t even call him? Brilliant.”
“I doubt he agrees,” Alfred said, but his smile deepened a fraction. “I have been avoiding his calls, but I spoke briefly with Master Richard this morning. He rather got the short end of the stick, I’m afraid, having to deal with Master Bruce in one of his moods.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Although if you two are on speaking terms as you mentioned before, perhaps I could call Master Richard and fill him in?”
“God, no,” Jason said, all too quickly and desperately. “Dick’s an awful hospital visitor – he’s either overly worried or he spends twenty minutes making jokes about you getting injured. And he’s so loud, please, please don’t tell him I’m here. At least not until Doctor Leslie’s hooked me up to the good stuff.”
Alfred chuckled. “Of course, sir. Perhaps you should remember that if you get any more ideas about leaving early.”
“Understood,” Jason nodded. The threat wasn’t serious, although he had no doubt Alfred would follow through on it, but he couldn’t help but catch the butler’s eye again, becoming serious. “Thank you, Alf. I know there’s a lot of bad blood between us, and you had every reason not to come – not least that you had to leave Bruce to do it – but I appreciate it. I – I owe you my life.”
There was a lump in his throat that Jason had to swallow before he said that. Not because it wasn’t true – but because he didn’t want to admit it was true. After everything, after coming back and learning to live on his own, reliant on no one, Jason didn’t like to owe anyone. Especially not owe them his life.
“You don’t owe me a thing, my lad,” Alfred replied, lifting the weight from Jason’s chest before it even had time to settle. He looked at him with as much love as he had five years ago. “I came because even – even in the way you came back, young sir, the first thing I remember feeling when we found out it was you under that hood was relief. I know you never believed any of us when we say it, but when you died, it was like . . . like a light went out at the manor.” As he searched for the right words, Alfred’s age began to show; he leaned closer to Jason, pressing a wrinkled hand to his lips for a second. “You were missed. By me, and Bruce, and everyone. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done – who you were, and who I still believe you can be, lad, I love. I love that boy. And if you call, I will always come.”
Jason didn’t trust himself to answer that, feeling tears prick his eyes and unashamedly shedding them. Instead, he reached out, took Alfred’s hand, and held it tightly for hours, until they both fell asleep.
And I have nothing else left to say
But I will listen to you all day, yes I will
I know you want to leave but
Friend, please don't take your life away from me