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Jason really, really didn’t want to be here. He’d managed to get out of the handcuffs and was now attempting to wriggle his way out of the ropes. There was a clock ticking in his brain, and as it ticked down, he felt more frantic, more crazed. Was he counting right? Was he too slow, or too fast? How much time did he really have left?
This kind of thinking wasn’t helpful, but he couldn’t stop himself.
“Ten minutes,” the mob boss had said with a grin. “Long enough for the autopilot to get the boat out far enough, and then,” he’d swept his arms out in a motion Jason could barely see through his flickering helmet, “Boom! It’s a real two birds with one stone kind of situation.”
The boat had evidence, drug residue that would pin Sergei Erlantz to the deaths of fifteen people, all overdoses on cocaine cut with some deadly additives. The boat also had Jason, who had stupidly gotten himself caught snooping around. Next time, he was just going to blow Erlantz’s head off, instead of doing it the still-illegal-but-less-deadly method of breaking and entering to gather evidence. That was if there was a next time, if he made it off the boat.
More unhelpful thinking, he told himself as he finally wormed his way out of the ropes.
He needed to either get off the boat or find the bomb and disable it. The numbers were still ticking away in his head, but he was unsure how much time had actually passed. If he could get off the boat and swim far enough away that he wouldn’t be caught by shrapnel from the blast, he’d be good, but he was unsure how much time he had left, and the frantic pulse of his heart wasn’t helping to reassure him. If he didn’t have enough time to get away, he’d be better off trying to find the bomb and disable it, and if he did have enough time to get away, that just gave him more time to disable the bomb. It was hard to think logically with his heart in his throat, but he was pretty sure that meant he should go for the bomb. The countdown drove him forward as he started searching the boat for the bomb. It wasn’t that big of a boat, surely it wouldn’t take that long to find?
Suddenly, everything got both very quiet and very loud. Quiet, because the engine had stopped, and loud, because he could hear the tinny beeping sound of a timer.
He moved, heading for the bomb. It was hidden in the dark behind some boxes, the glowing display showing a minute. Shit. One glance at the bomb told him that there was no way he could disarm it in less than a minute, let alone in less than a minute equipped with only a flashlight in his pocket, the only thing Erlantz’s men had missed when they searched him. He turned to run, to try and put as much distance between him and the explosives as he could, only to find Batman standing there in all his moody, gothic glory. Jason swore. “You can’t be here,” he said. “How did you get here?” He prayed that Bruce had the Batplane flying above them right now, and they could just climb the ladder and escape-
“Batglider. And you only found one of my trackers,” Bruce said. “What are you doing here?”
“We have to go,” Jason said urgently. “Now.” He saw Bruce’s eyes flick over his shoulder, and then widen slightly. “Now, Bruce!” he snapped, pushing past him and running for the stairs. The seconds were ticking down in his mind, thirty of them wasted trying to get Bruce to run, another ten to the stairs, leaving twenty to get over the side and into the water. He heard Bruce’s footsteps behind him as he flew up the stairs, taking them in long strides.
Either he’d counted wrong, or Bruce had taken more time than he’d thought, because he was just pushing off from the railing, Bruce behind him, when the bomb went off.
The heat hit him first, then something solid from the boat knocked into his back and shoved him into the water. He twisted, thrashing blindly as he tried to get to the surface. He was glad he hadn’t died in the explosion, but drowning was by no means his second choice. He already had one too many bad experiences with being submerged in a body of water.
He came up gasping for air. Something was wrong with his helmet. The display flickered weakly, and no air was getting in or out. He wrenched it off and coughed in the cool air.
“Batman?” he called, turning around in the water to look for him. “B? You alright?”
There was no answer. A sinking dread filled him, worse than when he’d realized he couldn’t disarm the bomb.
He pulled a flashlight from his belt, sucked in a breath and dove. The water was dark and dirty, and silt clouds blocked the beam of light from his flashlight. Thank god it was waterproof and that he’d changed the batteries before he’d left his safehouse that night. He wouldn’t have been able to see anything without it. Starlight in Gotham didn’t go very far, and it definitely didn’t go underwater. He kicked and went deeper, searching, his heart beating from the exertion, his lungs burning from holding his breath.
Suddenly, the beam of light from the flashlight moved across a darker spot in the water, a drifting ink blot in the already black water. It was Bruce’s cape, and Jason kicked hard, bubbles escaping from his nose as he pushed himself through the water and snagged the cape.
Bruce was heavy. Even without his gear, he would have been heavy. Jason wrapped the cape around his fists, dragging Bruce’s unconscious body up so he could pull his back against his chest and get his arms around Bruce’s torso. He kicked frantically, straining once again for the surface.
They burst above the water, Jason gasping deeply for air, treading water while holding Bruce above the gentle, rocking waves. He didn’t stop long, just long enough to drape Bruce on his back, arms over his shoulders, one hand holding Bruce on and the other dragging water towards himself in a one-armed stroke meant to get them to the docks as quickly as possible.
It was only a few minutes, but it felt like an eternity. Jason’s chest ached, not just from the exertion, but from fear, and it only got worse as he heaved Bruce up onto the dock and checked to make sure he was still alive.
Bruce wasn’t breathing. “I swear to God, if you die I’m throwing you in a Lazarus Pit so I can kill you myself,” he muttered, mentally fortifying himself, and then started mouth-to-mouth.
All he could think about was how cold Bruce’s skin was. A panicked shudder rippled down his spine as he kept breathing into Bruce’s lungs. Breathe, Bruce, please, he mentally begged, as Bruce laid too still. Please.
Suddenly, Bruce convulsed, and Jason scrambled back, giving him space to expel the water from his lungs. Bruce breathed in raggedly, but he was breathing, so Jason didn’t much care how he did it. The relief nearly brought him to tears as he gasped for breath, a wave of uncomfortable feelings threatening to drown him.
No. No more drowning, not even in metaphors.
Bruce was still unconscious, so Jason dug around in his belt, searching for a spare comm. He found one and turned it on, then slipped it into his ear. “Anybody there?” he asked, hoping that somebody had noticed the little explosion and was trying to get ahold of the bat.
The comm buzzed a little, then a mechanical voice came across. “Who is this?”
Every time he patched in to the Bats’ comm line, Oracle pretended not to know who he was, despite being famed for knowing everything. He didn’t have time for this. “I’ve got a drowned mouse with wings here, and if you want him back, I’d suggest you send the Batmobile for him. Now. I don’t have all night,” he said brusquely.
Privately, he thought that Bruce didn’t have all night. He needed checked for a concussion, and injuries from the blast, and he was pretty sure he was bleeding from a wound on his leg, but whether that was from the blast or an old wound reopened, he didn't know, and either way it was probably full of dirt and harbor bacteria. All that, and the potential for hypothermia from the dip in the frigid Atlantic waters, weren’t doing Bruce any favors.
Jason tried to focus on the rise and fall of Bruce’s chest, and not the way the rest of him resembled a corpse.
“It’s on the way.”
Jason didn’t respond. He ran his fingers through his wet hair, grimacing at the feeling of grit against his scalp. He needed a shower, and to sleep off the stress of the whole night. He couldn’t stop scanning his environment, looking for- what? Threats? Allies? He had plenty of the former, and few of the latter. Now that Bruce was breathing, he wanted to go, to be anywhere else but waiting here for the Batmobile, but he couldn’t leave. Bruce would need someone to haul his ass into the car and strap him in so Oracle could drive him back to the Batcave. As soon as he was in the car, he was someone else’s problem, and only then could Jason go.
Until then, he sank down into a crouch beside Bruce. He reached for his hand, only to be met with the feel of cold, wet gauntlets. He hesitated only a moment before pulling the gloves off, first one hand, then the other. Bruce’s fingers were clammy and wrinkled, and Jason gripped them, trying to warm them up.
The last time Jason had held Bruce’s bare hand, his hands had been smaller, and Bruce’s knuckles hadn’t had quite so many scars.
He picked up the quiet rumble of the Batmobile before he saw it, old instincts making him attuned to the sound of the engine. He tucked Bruce’s gauntlets into his belt and lifted him into a fireman’s carry to get him to where the Batmobile was parked. The door opened automatically. “Thanks,” he grunted as he maneuvered Bruce into the seat, assuming Oracle could hear him. He tossed the gauntlets and the comm on the passenger seat.
“No problem. How is he?” she said through the Batmobile’s comm.
“Alive,” he said, but still he reached for Bruce’s neck to feel for his pulse, a reassurance. Bruce’s hands twitched when Jason dragged the cowl off. “Don’t like that, huh?” he muttered. “Good.” He felt the tiny bump bump bump under his finger and drew back. “Heart is beating. Shocked he has one, to be honest. Pulse is a little weak, but it’ll do.”
When he drew back, he nearly jumped when he saw Bruce’s blue eyes were open and staring at him glassily. His hand moved, a little twitch like he was reaching for Jason, but then it fell weakly back into his lap.
“Good to go,” Jason said, swallowing hard when those blue eyes followed him as he ducked his head out of the Batmobile. The door closed without ceremony or acknowledgment, and rumbled away.
Well. That was that. Jason watched it go, and then started for his bike. He was done. He could go home.
His hands felt like ice where he’d touched Bruce.
Bruce woke up in the medbay in the Cave. The lights were dim, which he was thankful for. He had a raging headache that didn’t improve when he started to push himself upright. Damian, perched in a chair beside the bed and sitting in a way reminiscent of Dick, frowned at him. He was in his pajamas, and his hair was sticking up like he’d been in bed.
“What time is it?” Bruce croaked.
“Four-thirty. You got blown up. And then you drowned,” Damian informed him, before he could ask what happened. Damian passed the tablet he was holding over. “The cowl footage, if you’re up to looking at the screen. Alfred said you might be a bit sensitive to light.”
Bruce took the tablet and started the video from the beginning. Beside him, Damian rearranged himself into another unusual position in the chair. Did all teenage boys refuse to sit normally in chairs, or was it just his teenage boys?
The footage was set to fast forward, zipping past him dropping onto the boat and stashing the Batglider before starting to prowl around the ship. Bruce watched his past self as he stopped the ship, went belowdecks, and found Jason.
He stopped the video and started going over it frame by frame, examining Jason. Had he lost weight, or was it just the darkness making him appear thinner? Did he look like he was favoring any limbs, going easy because of injuries? He got nothing from their three-sentence exchange, no window into Jason’s current state of mind. His tone of voice was hidden by the automated sound of the voice modifier in the helmet, though there was a slight buzz to it. Damaged, maybe? He looked at the helmet, searching for scuff marks.
“Jason called for help for you,” Damian said, looking at Bruce over the top of his phone. “Barbara sent over the audio file. It’s on there, if you want to listen to it.”
Bruce switched tabs, and audio started playing through the tablet’s speakers.
“I’ve got a drowned mouse with wings here, and if you want him back, I’d suggest you send the Batmobile for him. Now. I don’t have all night.” This time, Jason’s voice wasn’t changed by his helmet. It was his actual voice, and Bruce replayed the audio file just to hear it. He switched back to the video, watched a bunch of blurry, black footage, accompanied by the sound of someone breathing heavily.
“I swear to God, if you die I’m throwing you in a Lazarus Pit so I can kill you myself. The camera was obscured by Jason’s face leaning in close, and Bruce squeezed his eyes shut when he realized that Jason had given him mouth-to-mouth, that for a few minutes Jason had put the breath in his lungs and kept him alive.
The camera shifted again as Jason picked up Bruce in a fireman’s carry and hauled him towards the waiting Batmobile. The camera view changed again. Bruce was in the Batmobile now.
“Heart is beating. Shocked he has one, to be honest.” He couldn’t see Jason’s face. The cowl had been removed and tossed aside, and the camera on his suit wasn’t at the right angle to capture Jason’s face, but Bruce thought he sounded relieved, maybe, or at least not upset.
There was the sound of the Batmobile’s door closing, and the near-silent hum of the engine, and Bruce stopped the video.
He handed the tablet back to Damian, who took it silently. Bruce knew he should say something to him. He hadn’t said one word so far about being sent home early.
“You alright?” he asked, wincing at how impersonal it sounded. Damian shrugged.
“When would I have had a chance to not be alright?” Damian said, voice scalpel-sharp.
“I’m glad I sent you home early. No sense in both of us getting our lungs full of water.”
Damian glared at him. Bruce held his gaze, playing the long game, waiting for him to get bored with the contest of wills.
“Are you alright?” Damian asked, backing down somewhat begrudgingly.
“I’m fine,” Bruce started, but Damian brought back the glare.
“You drowned,” he said dubiously. “You really expect me to believe that you’re just fine? Would you accept that answer from me?”
Bruce bit back the urge to say It’s different when it’s you. That would not go over well, not when Damian, like all the other Robins, wanted to be treated as an equal. As a partner.
Bruce amended, “Well, I will be fine. My chest hurts a little bit. And I’m cold.”
Damian narrowed his eyes at Bruce for a moment, before nodding and rising. “I will go get you a heat pack.”
As he started by, Bruce impulsively reached out and snagged his wrist, pulling him off-balance to land on top of Bruce. Damian gave a startled yelp, before freezing on top of Bruce.
“You’re supposed to be asleep,” he said, sliding over to make space for Damian to slot in beside him. Hesitantly, Damian rolled into the open space and under the blanket.
“You told me to go home. You didn’t tell me to go to bed,” Damian pointed out.
“Have you ever thought of becoming a lawyer?” Bruce asked. “You’re pretty good at finding loopholes.
“I don’t want to be a lawyer,” Damian mumbled sleepily. “I want to be Batman. It’s my legacy.”
Bruce sighed. This was a familiar argument, and not one either of them were likely to win any time soon.
And anyway, what good was the Batman legacy? Dead parents, a dead son, long nights of loneliness punctuated by bouts of violence and sorrow. It wasn’t the life he wanted for his children.
“Father?” Damian said quietly. “I’m glad you’re going to be fine.”
Bruce hmmed and reached over with the arm not pinned down by Damian to gently run his fingers through Damian’s hair. “Me too, kiddo.”
Damian was gone when he woke up, likely off at school. Bruce dragged himself out of bed and up to the kitchen, where Alfred was waiting with breakfast. He wasn’t hungry, but he managed to eat some toast that he washed down with coffee under Alfred’s disapproving eye, then he retreated back to the Batcave to again review the footage and try to figure out why Jason was on a boat rigged to blow.
His chest ached all day as he worked, but he ignored it. Annoyingly, he kept having to stop to cough, his lungs itching but nothing coming up. He decided it was a psychosomatic symptom from the mental stress of having drowned, and that it should be ignored.
Because that was how bodies worked. You could just tell them to do things, and they would do them.
He couldn’t figure out what Jason was doing on the boat, or why it was rigged to blow, but the two things were definitely related. Not that that meant much, because if Jason was within five hundred yards of a bomb, he was involved somehow. The trick was figuring out how.
Around seven, Alfred joined him downstairs. “Sir, may I remind you that a caloric deficit is not conducive to continued crimefighting?”
Bruce had skipped lunch. “I’m not hungry,” he said. “Here, look, there was residue on the gauntlets. My impromptu swim washed most of it away, but I think I scraped up enough to get a sample large enough for testing.”
“I wasn’t aware that ‘impromptu swim’ was a synonym for ‘drowning’, Master Bruce,” Alfred said dryly.
Bruce ignored him. “Somehow, Jason is involved with this Sergei Erlantz. I just need to figure out how.”
“Have you considered asking Jason?” Alfred said, in the same tone one would use with a very tired toddler, the same tone he always used when he thought Bruce was being foolish.
“Hn,” Bruce said, then coughed. Alfred’s eyebrow twitched, and Bruce stood up. “You’re right. I’ll just ask him.” He headed for the Batsuit to get changed.
“I meant that you should perhaps call him? Or text,” Alfred said. “Not put on your work suit.”
Before he could suggest something like Bruce staying in that night, Bruce said, “He wouldn’t answer. A direct confrontation will be better.”
Behind him, he heard Alfred mutter, “Yes, because Jason and confrontation go so well together.”
Bruce ignored him. It would be fine.
By the time he tracked down Jason’s safe house, Jason was gone for the night. Unsurprising, but he wasn’t very careful when he climbed in through the window so he’d probably triggered at least two sensors and Jason would likely be back soon. He snooped a bit in Jason’s kitchen cabinets (full of canned food and boxes of pasta), checked under his sink (drain cleaner, bleach, dish soap), and was currently inspecting his bookshelf just to distract himself from the tight pain in his ribs. It was getting worse, if anything, and harder to ignore.
“See anything you like?” a voice said from the window.
Bruce didn’t turn around. “This one on medieval warfare looks interesting,” he said, reaching up to let his gloved finger tap on the spine.
“It’s good, but you probably know a lot of what’s in there already.” There was the sound of the window sliding shut, then footsteps. Bruce turned around now, to see Jason walking towards the kitchen, his helmet tossed on the couch. Bruce glimpsed blood on his face as he walked past him to get a glass out of the cabinet.
“What are you doing here, Bruce?” Jason asked, once he’d downed the water. Bruce’s throat was dry, and he almost wanted to ask for a glass for himself.
“Tell me about Sergei Erlantz.”
“No. Anything else?”
“Jason-”
“No. My case.”
“If you’re planning on killing him-”
“And there it is,” Jason scoffed. “You’re like a broken record.”
It was probably one of the nicer things Jason had ever called him.
“We’ve been in the same room, what, three minutes? That’s apparently about our limit before we start arguing,” Jason continued. “At least, our limit when we’re both conscious.”
The reference to the night before didn’t go unnoticed. If anything, it made Bruce hurt worse, both physically and mentally, the reminder making his chest tighten even further. It was almost uncomfortable to breath at this point, but he powered through.
“Just let me help.”
“No thanks. It’s never just help with you, it’s a dictatorship that you expect me to obey, and I’m not interested. I can handle this just fine on my own.”
“How did you end up on the boat?”
He saw the muscle twitch in Jason’s jaw and knew he’d hit the nail on the head.
“It was a tactical error.”
“Almost getting blown up is a tactical error?”
“Let me remind you that you were on that boat too,” Jason snapped.
Bruce remembered. His ribs remembered. His lungs remembered.
“In fact, if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have been delayed dragging your soggy wet ass back to shore. And I didn’t even get a thank you!” Jason said acerbically.
Bruce wasn’t focusing well anymore, and he was suddenly struggling to breath. “Thank you,” he gasped out.
“What the fuck,” Jason said flatly. “What’s wrong with you now?”
“Can’t breathe,” Bruce gasped. “Can’t-” He grabbed at his chest, mouth open as he gasped for air. He needed to cough again, he could feel the itch, but he couldn’t get enough air in to have enough to expel out. He dropped to his knees, still gasping, white sparks floating in his periphery.
“Bruce, come on,” he heard right next to him in his ear. “I’m calling Alfred, okay? You’ve got to relax and breathe, okay? Just breathe.”
He was choking on nothing, and he still couldn’t breathe as he passed out.
Jason had his arms loosely folded across his chest and was slumped into the chair, feigning nonchalance. Beside him, the demon bat sat in his own chair, not bothering to hide his hostility. He’d slid his chair slightly forward, so he was just barely between Jason and Bruce. His glare was shooting daggers at Jason. Jason was just glad they were only metaphorical daggers and not real ones.
Honestly, the kid made a pretty good guard dog. Jason didn’t doubt he would bite if he had no other options.
Damian was hunched over a tablet, occasionally looking up to glare at Jason, and then glance at Bruce, and Jason wondered if this was how the kid showed worry, get angry at someone or something so he could pretend what he was feeling wasn’t concern. He was so much like Bruce Jason almost pitied him.
So they sat in silence, save for the sounds of Damian tapping on his tablet, Jason shifting his boots against the floor, and the hum of the medical equipment beside Bruce’s bed.
It wasn’t much later that they both, almost simultaneously, noticed Bruce starting to wake up. Jason’s hands went to the armrests of the chair, gripping them tightly before he willed himself to relax back into that feigned nonchalance again. Bruce’s eyes opened, and he blinked at them.
“There’s two of you,” he murmured hoarsely.
“You drowned. Again,” Damian informed him disapprovingly.
“Dry drowning this time, technically,” Jason added. “It’s nice to have variety in your life.”
The look Bruce gave both of them didn’t bode well for Jason’s continued uneasy but mostly steady mood.
“Damian-”
“No,” Damian said, interrupting Bruce. “I’m not babysitting you this time. Todd weighs more than I do, and if you attempt to leave that bed anytime in the next 48 hours, he will sit on you.”
The conversation when Jason had arrived with Bruce in tow had gone something like this:
“He shouldn’t have gone out without me!” Damian had cried irritably. “He always does this.”
“Yeah, he did it when I was Robin, too. Dumbass doesn’t know how to stay down,” Jason had said. “I think he’s worse about it now, though.”
“What did you do to keep him in? When you were Robin,” Damian had asked.
“Talk him into playing board games,” Jason had said, grabbing his helmet. “Best way to babysit the bat was a nice long game of Monopoly.”
“Excellent. Since you have experience with this, it will make it a lot easier for you to ‘babysit’ Father, as you said.”
“What? No,” Jason had scoffed.
But Damian could be persistent, and Jason had caved.
“There’s no actual sitting on people in babysitting, Damian,” Jason said.
“You may have to adapt for Father,” he grumbled.
“I am right here and I can hear you,” Bruce said, sounding mildly affronted but not trying too hard.
Jason completely ignored that comment. “So, Monopoly or Clue?”
Bruce held his gaze, like one of the game options had been ‘staring contest’. “Clue,” he said finally, “And Damian has to play.”
“That is acceptable,” Damian sniffed, as if he didn’t love playing Clue. “I will go get it.”
He went out of the room, Bruce watching him go, and as soon as he was gone, his gaze snapped to Jason.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Jason’s mouth dropped upon. “Uh, what?”
“I’m sorry I demanded you let me help you on your case.”
Jason stared at him a moment more. “If this is an attempt to guilt me into letting you in on the case-”
“Would it work?”
Jason narrowed his eyes and didn’t answer, but Bruce got a small smile on his face.
“And the trackers? Are you sorry for those?” Jason asked, knowing full well the answer was ‘no’.
Bruce went “Hnn,” and looked away.
That’s what I thought,” he said.
“I won’t put anymore on you,” Bruce said.
“You’re a bad liar,” Jason said, “Try again.”
“Will you please wear a tracker so that I don’t have to sneak them onto you?”
Jason narrowed his eyes. “I’ll think about it.”
Bruce seemed, if not satisfied, then content with that answer.
“What did Damian promise you in exchange for making me stay put?” he asked.
“What makes you think he promised me anything? Maybe I’m doing this out of the goodness of my own heart.”
Bruce raised an eyebrow.
“One of the Batmobile’s turbochargers and a bottle of your bourbon.”
“You were going to make a teenage boy steal alcohol for you?” Bruce said. He was teasing Jason. They were having a playful conversation with no yelling, or angry words, and Bruce hadn’t brought up Jason killing people. It was downright friendly.
“Like that’s the worst thing Damian’s ever done,” Jason retorted, starting to smile.
“I’ll give you two bottles,” Bruce said, suddenly serious, “and the turbocharger, if you’ll forgive me for what I said about you killing Erlantz.”
Okay, well, scratch that. He had brought up Jason killing, but it wasn’t in the angry way, and Jason could tell by the tone of his voice and the look on his face he was serious about asking for forgiveness.
“Bribery, Bruce?” Jason said, weakly attempting to keep his voice steady. “Throw in a batch of Alfred’s blueberry muffins and you have a deal.”
“Done.”
Jason didn’t know what to say after that, and Bruce seemed to be similarly lost for words, but luckily Jason heard Damian’s footsteps returning, and he distracted himself with dragging the chairs closer to the bed. In less than two days, they’d been blown up, Bruce had drowned, Jason had resuscitated him, they’d gotten in an argument, Bruce had drowned again, and now they were sitting in the Batcave about to play Clue. What a wild turn of events.
“What?” Damian asked, when they both turned to stare at him when he walked in. “What did I miss?”
“Nothing, kid,” Jason said, feeling a little like he was going to cry over the fond look Bruce kept giving him. “Set the game up, okay?”
It took seven games for Damian to beat Bruce, but Jason thought Damian was purposely loosing just to keep Bruce in bed.