Work Text:
Talon knows it – no, he, Jason wants it, him, to say ‘he’ - has made a mistake.
The churchtower is too cold. It wasn’t, during other nights they nested here, but now there is a snowstorm blanketing it.
The insulation in the tower is good, Jason said when he saw Talon’s nest here, but it isn’t good enough. Not enough to keep them warm on a night like this.
Talon made a mistake. He knows that. But already, it is too late to set it right.
Already, he can feel the cold creeping into his veins. Luring him into sleep, the kind of sleep he dreads. He should have known better. He should have done better.
This is the kind of mistake that would have had the Court… No, no, he can’t think of the Court right now, not when his mind is already starting to get so hazy.
He needs to focus. He needs to stay with his owlet.
Jason stirs in his sleep as Talon steps out of their nest. Leaving the nest and its warmth hurts, but Talon can’t afford to waste time now.
Only an hour, if that, and already most of that hour has passed. That’s all he got before his body shuts down. They have done this in training. And done it later, as punishment. He knows how this works.
He thought it was warm enough, the tower, their nest, but no. It needed better cover. Cover Talon had not thought to provide.
Blankets. Need more blankets. They have one for each of them they are using now, the two extra ones Jason wanted to keep fresh, one of them the ragged one that doesn’t so much to keep out the cold but which Jason holds onto because it was his mother’s.
Enough blankets for the owlet. But it won’t be enough, not to keep the cold out of a Talon’s dead veins.
Well. That is okay. That is okay. He will just sleep for a little while. When it gets warm, he will wake up. He will have to. Please. He can’t leave his owlet alone. He will wake up.
But the cold…his owlet… Already his limbs are getting heavy, clumsy. Talon drops the blankets he was bringing to the nest and needs to stop for a moment.
The snow storm outside howls. Jason murmurs something in his sleep. Talon coos soothingly, easing his owlet back to rest.
Cold. Yes. Cold. Should make sure…make sure the owlet doesn’t get cold. Owlets sleep too, when it gets too cold. But unlike Talons, they don’t wake from it. He can’t let that happen to his owlet.
He’s not sure if it is that cold right now, he knows Talons are more vulnerable to the cold than the Warm ones are, but he is not going to risk it. He’s starting to shiver.
Not much time left. Already his body is beginning to shut down, his fingers going numb. Blankets. Cover the owlet with blankets.
Jason seems to like the warmth. He pulls the blankets closer around him, tucking himself in. Talon smiles.
It will be okay. His owlet will be warm. The nest…the nest is warm, inviting, and Talon is so tired… He knows there is something wrong, that it is too cold, but everything is…everything is fading away…
Talon lies down next to its – his – owlet (not too close, no, Talon is going to be getting Cold very soon, can’t make the owlet cold as well), and lets the cold take him.
Please. Please let him wake up. Please let his owlet be safe till he wakes up.
He reaches for Jason’s hand under the blankets, keeping his finger on the wrist, on the steady rhythm of his owlet’s pulse. That is the last thing he feels before the cold wins.
………………………………………
It is almost morning when Jason wakes up.
The storm has stopped. The roads are still buried under snow, but the howling winds are quiet.
Good. He knows Talon hates storms, and hates cold. Last night was a two-in-one special.
The first wrong thing he notices…he’s too warm. Too warm for someone who went to sleep in a nest in a churchtower with no central heating.
As the rest of his mind comes back online, the reason is revealed. Great. Talon went and buried him under what looks like every blanket they had last night.
Jason lets out an annoyed hoot, scolding. He’s not a baby, for all he lets Talon call him owlet. He can handle a bit of cold – it isn’t like he hasn’t handled the cold in Crime Alley before, both in his crappy apartment and then outside.
He really really needs to work on getting his overprotective weird bird brother to quit coddling him. Put his foot down. No coddling. Cuddling, though, that is fine.
Speaking of cuddling… Wait. That is the second thing wrong about the whole situation. Talon isn’t cuddling him.
Now, Jason is definitely not a baby, he doesn’t need to be cuddled… But there was never a time when he lacked cuddles from Talon.
Usually the problem was getting the big bird to stop holding him like a human teddy bear. Hell, he’d bet Talon’s got some octopus or koala genes in him as much as bird.
So where did he go? Jason, still half asleep, crawls out from under the pile of blankets, intending to go hunt down Talon from wherever he has disappeared to. It’s way too cold to go out, and they have got enough food to hole up till the worst of the storm and its aftermath passes.
But… Talon is right there. In the nest. Next to him. And not touching him. Not curled up around him.
Just…just lying there. Still. Pale. Way paler than even Talon looks, normally.
No. No, just no. Jason scrambles to his feet, throwing the blankets off.
“Talon!”
No, this is not what it looks like. This can’t be what it looks like. Talon wasn’t sick. Talon wasn’t hurt. Talon is strong. He knows that. He knows, okay? So this just just freaking cannot be what it looks like.
“Talon?” Jason chirps, the baby sound of a fledgling calling. A scared fledgling.
No response. No responding hoot or coo. Talon doesn’t open his eyes, doesn’t move. Doesn’t…can’t…hear him.
Jason grabs him. Shakes him. Talon’s body just flops limp as a ragdoll, his arm icy cold to Jason’s touch.
“Talon, come on, come on, just, just wake up, okay? Just freaking WAKE UP!”
He is shouting, he shouldn’t shout, that attracts attention. Kids in Crime Alley can’t afford to attract attention. Jason can’t bring himself to care about that any longer.
His voice changes into peeps and warbles, the really really tiny baby sounds he swore he will never make again after he found out it was hatchling sounds.
The sounds meant to let Talon know that his owlet is terrified, that his owlet needs him to come back, needs him to wake up.
“Talon?”
Okay. Calm down. Just calm down. This is going to be okay, he can set this right, he can help Talon.
Talon is just sick. Yeah, the featherbrained idiot stacked every blanket they had onto Jason last night, of course he got sick from the cold. That’s all.
Jason just, just needs to look after him. Like he used to look after mama. He can help. (You couldn’t help mama, a very unwelcome voice reminds him. You couldn’t help her after all, and when you came back from the grocery run she was lying like this, all cold and limp and-)
“No!” Jason snarls, and is not sure who or what he is snarling at.
No. Just no. He is not going to let it happen again. He isn’t a kid anymore.
He wraps the blankets around Talon, ignoring the way his brother’s hand limply flops to the ground when he moves him to tuck him in.
Okay. He will go to Doc Thompkins. She treats street folk, no questions asked. And sometimes with free medicine, if she can get it. She will…
Will she. Jason isn’t sure what exactly was done to Talon, not even sure if Talon is really human…
Will Doc Thompkins know what to do? Will she still keep her promise to not tell anyone if Jason brings in someone like Talon?
Batman protects Doc Thompkins and her clinic, everyone knows that, but does that mean they are close? Or just that Batman has enough sense to understand people need a place to go that won’t call the cops on them?
Never mind that. That is for later consideration. He… He will somehow get to Thompkins, snow be damned, he will.
He can’t take Talon to her, he can’t climb down from the rafters carrying Talon, even if he could risk carrying him through the snow covered streets all the way to the clinic.
But he can tell the doc what is wrong, he can tell her the symptoms and she might know what to do… He has done it for mama before. He has.
Symptoms.
Talon… Talon isn’t waking up, not even when Jason screams for him, not even when he shakes him. He’s really pale, really still, his skin horribly cold to touch…
And… And Jason knows what he’s describing sounds like, okay? But it isn’t that. It can’t be that. Not Talon. Not again. Please. Not again.
Doc, when he’s gone to her for mama, would ask about the temperature, pulse rate. Stuff like that.
Temperature. Cold. Jason’s gotten good at telling how high a fever is without needing a thermometer (mama accidentally dropped and broke theirs one night when she was getting the tremors), but Talon isn’t burning up.
Not like how mama got when she was sick. Just…cold. (How mama got in the end, the nasty voice reminds him again. Right, Jay? Just like how mama got all cold and still…)
Jason’s hand trembles as he reaches for Talon’s wrist. Reaches to check. And finds only silence.
“No” he chokes on the word. “No, you…you promised. You promised.”
Talon doesn’t move. His hand remains still in Jason’s now frantic grip. His pulse remains still.
“You…” Jason wants to scream, shout, do something, anything, but all that comes out is a broken whisper “You promised you wouldn’t…wouldn’t leave me alone.”
And mama promised she’d get clean. Promised she’d get better, that she’d stop, that it was just this one night, after that she will throw it all away…
But Talon isn’t like that. Mama, mama got sick. Got weak. Talon is strong. Talon never ever broke a promise to him. (Nor did mama, not till she got sick…)
“Talon?” Jason hates how small his voice sounds, how like a baby.
But maybe that’s good, maybe that’s what is needed, call to Talon, let him know Jason needs him, let him know Jason can’t… Not alone. Please, not alone. Not again.
“Talon, please?” He tries the hatchling warbles again, dignity be damned, he tries the angry hoots. “Talon, stop pretending! Stop, okay? This isn’t funny. This really really isn’t funny. If you don’t stop this right now, if you don’t stop pretending right freaking now, I’m never gonna let you cuddle with me again! Hear me? Last warning! Wake up! Wake up right now or no cuddles ever!”
That last phrase actually gets Jason crying, because some part of him, the rational, tough part that was responsible for him surviving as long as he did before Talon found him, tells him that part is true.
No cuddles again, ever. Because Talon is not going to wake up. Talon can’t wake up. Anymore than mama could, back then.
Even though he had screamed and pleaded, bargained. Like he is doing now. Wasting time.
Jason screams. He’s not sure what he is screaming for, who he is screaming at. There aren’t even words in the scream. Doesn’t matter. Not anymore. There isn’t anyone to hear it.
“Talon” he takes the limp body into his arms, trying to blink away the tears that are blurring his sight.
He doesn’t want to lose sight of Talon, even for a moment. If he keeps looking at him, keeps holding him… Maybe, maybe things would be okay? Please? God or Universe or whatever is writing the damn script of it all won’t be that cruel, right?
“Just wake up” he pleads, knowing it will be of no use. “Please? Just open your eyes? A little bit? Just for a moment, for me? Please, Talon? I know it’s cold, I know you’re tired, and you can sleep after, but… I’m so scared, okay? Just…just please look at me. Just once.”
Talon’s eyes remain closed, his body limp in Jason’s arms.
How… How did Jason miss this? Miss that Talon was getting sick? He must have gotten sick, he didn’t get hurt any time near, and anyway Talon heals fast.
But if he was getting sick, if Jason was too stupid, too busy with his own stupid stuff, to see Talon was dying…
“I can’t have messed up that bad, can I?” Jason asks, knowing he must have, knowing there will be no answer, because he did mess up, he always does, he never notices in time.
He never noticed in time with mama. He never noticed she had that bit stashed away, that she was looking at him in that careful, hurt way he had learned to see as warning. He didn’t notice anything wrong till he came back.
Just like now he didn’t notice anything till… Oh God, Talon died in the night, didn’t he? Died while Jason was right here, sleeping like the stupid, selfish oaf he is?
Was that why he woke up all covered with blankets? Because Talon knew he was dying and the whole blanket stuff was his last attempt to try and keep Jason safe?
“Why didn’t you just wake me up?” he hugs Talon’s body closer, another sob tearing through him. “Why didn’t you just… I could have gone to Doc Thompkins, I could have gotten help. I could have…”
Could have just been there, at the very least. Could have at least held Talon, told him goodbye, told him he loved him, told him thank you.
Told him all the stuff he should have, but never did, because it would have sounded too sappy, too sissy. All the stuff he assumed Talon knew without really needing to be told.
But what if he hadn’t known? What if he needed to be – or just wanted to be – told, after all? And Jason never did? Now never can?
“You should have woken me up” he tells Talon.
Another, worse, thought spikes through him. What if… What if Talon did try? Try to wake him? Called for him? And Jason just freaking didn’t hear?
He isn’t a light sleeper. Not when he is somewhere safe, and the Nest has always been safe.
He feels something tear within him at the possibility Talon might have tried to wake him up, tried to get help, only for Jason to end up ignoring him. Ignoring him and sleeping, while Talon died right there.
At least, at least with mama, he knew he wasn’t there when it happened. He hated he wasn’t there, but he had to go out, had to go steal something.
So he wasn’t there when it happened. By the time he got back it was too late to help, too late to do anything.
But this time… This time he was right there. Right beside Talon. And fucking asleep. While the only family he got left died right beside him. Maybe too weak to call out for him or shake him.
A shudder goes through Jason at the image his mind conjures up. Was it just last night that he missed hearing – seeing – what was going on?
Or was Talon gradually getting sicker and sicker, while Jason just…just let it happen? Didn’t even care enough to notice?
He remembers Talon looking paler, moving a bit slower than normal, a little clumsy (but a little clumsy for Talon is still Olympics gymnast graceful by most people’s standards)… Not quite so eager as usual to go ‘flying’ around on the rooftops like they did.
Jason had just assumed it was the cold, Talon said it was just the cold, but what if… Could he have stopped this? Could he have saved Talon? Gotten him to Doc Thompkins or someone, anyone…
There were no signs, no obvious signs, like with mama. But Talon isn’t – wasn’t. Oh God, now it is wasn’t – quite human, so would it even be obvious? Even if Jason wasn’t a piece of shit idiot who didn’t even notice?
The plot of that creepy movie they went to see last month runs through his mind, the movie where nutcase scientists built people-clones in a secret facility somewhere, and tweaked the deigns so that the clones couldn’t survive outside even if they somehow escaped…
What if… What if those Court bastards, Owls or whatever they were – did the same to Talon? Made sure their ‘weapon’ never got out of their hands?
Jason wants to feel angry, furious. Wants to vow vengeance on the Court. On whoever did this. someone has to have done this, someone has to be responsible, this can’t…
Something this bad can’t just have happened, can’t be just one of the million shitty things that happen in this blasted city for no reason at all.
Talon is… Talon deserved way better than to be just taken like that, by something random.
Jason wants to – needs to – pin this on some villain, some bad guy, someone who can be held responsible. Or someone who can share a bit of the blame, a bit of the blame that should be on Jason for just freaking sleeping all snug and wrapped up while Talon lay dying beside him.
He wants to feel angry. Needs to feel angry. But… It just doesn’t matter. Not anymore. Not with Talon gone.
Nothing seems to matter. Maybe that will change. Maybe there will be time for anger.
Maybe. It doesn’t feel like that, though. It doesn’t feel like there is room for anything but whatever is tearing at him inside right now.
He knows he can’t actually take revenge. He’s not some freaking action hero in a movie. He isn’t Batman.
And even if he was, even if he could, the Court of Owls is long gone, and with them whoever did this to Talon. The real Batman took care of them.
There’s no one to rage at. No one to take revenge on. No one to blame. Except him, maybe.
What maybe? Except him. For sleeping like a log while Talon went through…went through whatever it was.
He looks peaceful, though, Jason tries to tell himself. He looks just…asleep. Maybe that is how it went? Maybe there was no pain, no fear, maybe Talon just…fell asleep and didn’t wake up?
But he knew what was happening, the cold voice in his head whispers again. He at least knew something was wrong. That’s why he covered you up snug.
He knew he was dying. There may not have been any pain, but there must have been fear, and a lot of it. And you slept through it all.
Jason tries to summon up the hatchling warble again, but he can’t. He just can’t. His throat isn’t working right, the only sounds coming out of it choked sobs.
He just holds Talon closer, burying his face against the older boy’s chest. There’s nothing he can do. Not anymore.
Maybe there never was anything he could do, but he will never know that, will he? He never got the chance to try…
…………………………………….
Jason is not sure just how long he stayed there like that.
The cold voice in his head, the one that took over, took his body on autopilot mode after he found mama like that, speaks up again a couple of times.
Telling him he needs to make preparations, that he needs to scout out their stores, that he needs to either get rid of the dead body or get himself somewhere else.
He doesn’t listen. The stupid cold voice, the one that thinks it is so smart and tough, never noticed Talon was getting sick either.
Never got up in time, never woke Jason up in time, to try and help. Or to at least be there, so that Talon wasn’t alone and scared when he…
The stupid wanna-be tough guy voice didn’t help, and now Jason has no intention of paying attention to it.
He just…just wants to stay with Talon. Stay in the nest. As long as he can.
Some part of him knows that sooner or later he will have to start listening to the cold voice, start doing the smart thing, but that time is far away.
Right now it feels like that time will never come, and that is perfectly fine with Jason. Everything is going numb, and he is content to let it stay that way.
Let himself stay a little bit away from it all. Not all the way away, not the stupid disassociating thing he sometimes does (yes, Jason snuck into the public library and read about it after that time he did it and scared Talon so badly).
He won’t leave Talon alone. Can’t.
He talks to Talon. About what, he is not entirely sure. He thinks it is about their plans, once the storm has blown over completely. Once they can go out.
About going to the mall, look for a red hoodie like the one mama once bought for him long ago. About getting the weird sugary cereal Talon loves, though he just crunches it up without heating or milk or anything.
Just stuff. Just stuff they will do.
Maybe if he keeps talking like that, keeps pretending they are going to do it all anyway, maybe if he pretends hard enough it will be real?
Jason keeps talking. Sometimes crying. Never going silent, because he can’t bear to be silent in the nest right now.
Not with Talon so still and silent beside him. He needs to fill it all with words, with sounds, so that the missing coos or warbles won’t tear at him so bad.
He isn’t sure how long they stay like that. He is not sure how long it is before…
Before Talon moves again.
He did feel Talon’s fingers move in his rigid grip a few moments ago, but he had figured it was just his imagination, wishful thinking. But then-
…………..
Talon is not sure how long he stayed asleep this time.
Not very long, it seems, for the cold is already leaving his limbs, leaving his mind. He’s still tired, the bone deep tiredness that comes whenever the cold makes him sleep.
But he is awake. It… It is warm? Kind of? There is…there’s something warm pressed up against him, warm and soft, shivering against him.
And then he hears the sobs.
His owlet. His owlet is crying. Sobbing. The quiet, muffled sobs he used to make when he was having nightmares, the first couple of months they were here.
The nightmares that faded not long after they built the nest, not long after he began to finally believe Talon meant it when he promised to never leave him alone like that again.
And now his owlet is sobbing like that again.
Talon is not entirely sure what is going on, not quite, but one thing he knows is that he cannot just lie there and listen to his owlet sob.
He’s got to help. Got to fix whatever it is. Jason is pressed up against him, holding him close.
Which, yes, feels really nice, with how warm Jason is. But Talon is cold. And the cold can’t be helping his owlet. Not with the snow outside.
Owlets need to be warm. Confused or not, cold or not, Talon still knows at least that much.
He grabs for the nearest blankets, to try and tuck his owlet in again.
……………………………
SOME YEARS LATER
...........................................
“-and I freaking screamed” Jason waves his hands expressively.
“Squawked” Dick corrects. “It was definitely a squawk.”
“Wasn’t!”
“Was too.”
“How would you know, you were still in zombie mode! It took us like three hours to get you warmed up to normal idiot bird levels!”
Tim laughs at the indignant expression on Dick’s face.
They have sanitized the story for the nestling a little, the hours Jason spent holding what he thought was Dick’s corpse summed up simply as “I freaked the fuck out and just held him like a teddy bear figuring I’d have to wait for daylight to dump him somewhere”.
They don’t mention the hours after that which Jason spent crying, holding on to Dick like he couldn’t believe he was real, that Dick had kept his promise after all.
They don’t mention the weeks after that when Jason wouldn’t move more than two feet away from Dick if he could help it, the nights when Jason tried refusing absolutely to take any of the blankets for himself and woke up every hour to make sure…Make sure it was okay.
But from the concerned look Tim shoots both of them, it is obvious he knows there is more to it than that.
He doesn’t ask, though. Not when they are here, in the warm temporary nest – pillow fort – before the giant TV screen, Jason determinedly pushing a blanket onto Dick despite the room being at pretty comfortable heat levels (“It’s different for Dickie, he needs it warmer”)
“Screaming came later” Dick comments “When you started yelling at me.”
“When I figured out you freaking let yourself freeze into a coma instead of just taking the stupid blankets!”
“I woke up when it got warm!”
“I should have tossed you in the snow to freeze. Made myself a nice birdscicle”
“Aww, Little Wing!”
Jason throws the nearest pillow at Dick. Dick just grabs it out of the air and hugs it close, burrowing deeper into his blanket.
Jason glares, but he’s trying to hold back a smile.
It is okay. It is fine, they are fine.
Dick is still a self-sacrificing idiot with no common sense when it comes to looking after himself, but hey, nowadays Jason knows what is going on.
Knows enough to watch out for him. And they’ve both got other people watching out for them. It's… It’s okay.
Dick kept his promise. Dick always keeps his promises. So does Bruce.
It’s okay. They aren’t alone anymore.
Jason isn’t going to be left alone anymore. Never again. He can finally let himself believe it.