Archive of Our Own ^beta

His heart pounds hard in his chest as he pushes his motorcycle through the city. The tracker on the screen in front of him still blinks steadily, but he doesn't know how long it'll stay that way. Only a few streets more. 

God, not again. He should really just glue Robin to his side. Otherwise he's going to have a heart attack one of these days. Maybe Robin should just stop getting into situations that threaten his life. 

As if. That'd be like asking him to stop breathing. 

Dick holds his breath as he turns a sharp corner; There, held at gunpoint by two guys, is Robin. He looks calm enough. They all seem to be waiting. Still, Dick jumps off his bike and leaves it to stop by itself, chucking a few wing-dings at the two. Two handguns clatter on the ground. One of them yelps as he leaps for them, swinging his escrima for their face. 

The guy ducks, then dodges again, screaming as the stick whips just past their nose. "Wait wait wait-" they protest, panicked, but Dick is already sweeping their leg out. 

As he pins them, the other one says, "We just wanna talk!" even as she's backing away with wide eyes. 

Dick steps on the collarbone of the one already on the ground, throwing another wing-ding. The blade slices through the air, and she yells, waving her arms around; It catches her leather jacket and digs into the brick, pinning her to the same wall she was holding Tim against earlier. 

He points his escrima at her threateningly, then turns to Robin. "You okay?" he asks. 

"I'm fine, they didn't hurt me," Tim answers. "They just wanted me to push the button to call you. They had a request, they said." 

Dick turns to glare between the two guys. "You have a request? You think you get to just threaten my partner and then make a request?" 

The woman is fruitlessly pulling at the wing-ding, pouting at the hole it's left in her sleeve. "My jacket," she says sadly. 

The one under him groans, going limp. "We are so dead," they whine, flopping their head to the side. "I told you this was a bad idea, Jacobs. God, he's going to kill us." 

"He can only kill us if he's alive to do it, dumbass," the woman retorts, giving up on the wing-ding. "He can't pay us if he's dead, either." 

"He can't pay us if we're dead! 'Cus he's going to kill us! We're in so much trouble!" The one under him picks their head up to give him wide eyes. "Please don't arrest us, Mr. Nightwing. We gotta go move and change our names. We're sorry for bothering you." 

"We didn't come all this way to not ask," Jacobs snarks. She turns to him. "Yes, we hava favour to ask, please." 

"We can ask somebody else!" 

"Like who, the Black Mask?” 

"Okay, okay, both of you shut up," Dick cuts in. He points at the woman. "You. What are we talking about?" 

"We're the Red Hood's guys," the one under him pipes up miserably. 

"I wasn't talking to you, was I?" Dick wags his finger at them, and they shut up. 

Jacobs says, "We are. The boss was trackin' down this guy, maybe you heard of him, the ex-cop who's been killing ex-convicts? He's batshit insane, but nobody told the cops 'cus we know we ain't gettin' sympathy from 'em. We thought we should help him, but the boss wanted to do it on his own, but now he's missin' and we think the cop got him." 

Dick glances at Tim, but his brother just shrugs. Neither of them have heard of this before. Possible that she's just making it up on the spot. "And this is our problem why?" he asks. “You know he's been trying to blow us up, don’t you?” 

"You gotta go get him," Jacobs says. "You guys wouldn't let him be murdered by a serial killer, right? I mean, Bats won’t even kill the Joker. You guys have that weird moral thing." 

The guy on the ground groans miserably. "We are so dead." 

"He'll kill us if he finds out we asked you," Jacobs agrees. "But we haven't seen him in a coupla hours since he said he'd be back, and if he can get himself outta a sticky situation, he's never more than an hour late about it." 

"You're seriously worried?" Dick questions. 

"Well, yeah. He's the best boss we've ever had," the one on the ground answers. 

"He takes care of us, y'know?" Jacobs says. "He's the only one that ever asks me how my momma is." 

"I ask how your momma is," the one on the ground pouts. 

"You ain't count, Skip, you're the one who's helpin' take care of her," she snaps back. 

"Okay, I didn't ask for anybody's story," Dick says loudly. "Where'd you last see him?" 

"Well, we know where he is," Jacobs says. "The old police station in the Narrows, the one that got gassed a long time ago. We think he's in there, anyway. We ain't got any way to get in there, though, 'cus the old pig is shootin' anythin' that moves." 

For a minute, he mulls it over. Eventually, he sighs, stepping off Skip and holding out a hand. As he helps them up, he says, "Okay. We'll go get him." He turns to Jacobs, holding her shoulder and yanking the wing-ding out of the wall. She frowns again and whines something about stitching holes. "But if you ever point any sort of weapon at Robin again, I will personally break your fingers." He squeezes her shoulder threateningly before pulling away again. 

"We weren't gonna hurt him, we just needed your attention," Jacobs protests. 

"Next time, just yell my name." Dick rolls his eyes. He turns. "Come on, Robin, let's go. Looks like we have a crime lord to go save." 

"Oh, yay," Tim says sarcastically, unhooking his grapple. "My favourite evening activity. We should start a bingo card." 

"Can't be worse than that time we saved the Penguin, right?" Dick quips. 

"Well, I don't know. Anything with the Red Hood seems to get messy." 

Dick snorts as he pulls himself up into the skies. "You mean that literally? Like the heads, right?" 

"Punny, isn't it?" Robin responds, shooting his line. "We're calling this our favour, right?" 

"Duh." 

"Alright, no need to get sassy." 

Dick snorts. "Watch yourself. I'm not sassy." 

Tim just laughs. 

They grapple through the city a while. It's cold out; It always is. Dick waits until they're halfway there to say, "You scared me." 

He can practically hear the wince over the comms. "Sorry," Tim says. "They wouldn't let me tap into your channel to get your attention." 

"You're lucky I'm not just sending you home," he sighs. 

"Well, you're not Batman." 

He quirks a smile. "No, I'm not. But just so I don't have a heart attack, you're gonna stay behind me for this, okay? And no more getting almost shot." 

"No guns pointed at me, got it." 

They stop on a couple of old streetlights, one of which that is broken. The old station is broken-down, bricks eaten away by the toxins it absorbed after the attack. They're still working the city council down on building a new station. There's a cop problem on this side of the city especially, but they don't want to spend all their budget on a new building when they could be getting new car models. The windows, though, once broken and jagged, are now barred with barbed wire. It's hard to see, but there's also a faint glow inside its highest tower. 

Dick whistles to get Robin's attention, gesturing to it. "Ten bucks that's where our killer is." 

"Are we going after him?" 

"As soon as the Red Hood's out of the way, yeah." 

Robin grins. "Sweet." 

"No, not sweet. Serial killer, remember? And you said you'd stay behind me." 

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, I'm ready. Let's go. What's the plan?" 

"Okay, fine. Plan. Those two said that the old cop's shooting, right? He's probably looking out from that tower, it's what it's meant for. It's got sights over the whole ground, so we need to-" He sees a flicker of movement, and automatically dives for Tim. "Shooter!" 

They tumble to the ground. The shot blazes past their heads. Silencer. Dick drags his still-groaning brother into cover behind the concrete wall around most of the perimeter. He puts Robin behind him as he peers around the corner. The window he saw move is now still. 

"You okay?" he asks. 

"I'm okay," Robin says. "You?" 

"I'm good." 

"Well, safe to say he's seen us." Tim rights himself against the wall. "Now what? Stealth?" 

"Yes, but we have to get in there first," Dick says. "There's only one of him. Can you make a distraction on the other side of the wall?” 

Tim reaches for his slingshot. "I can try, but I don't think I can get my snappers that far." 

"We don't need them all the way, just enough to draw his attention so he can't turn around and shoot us," Dick says. He peers again around the corner, scanning the walls. "Door on the left looks like it should be easy to break down." 

"Left door, got it." 

"Ready to run in three?" 

Tim draws back a snapper in the pouch. "Ready when you are." 

He ducks around the corner again, checking one last time. "Okay. Three, two, one, go." 

The snapper crackles on the other side of the building, sparking. The tower flashes with movement. As another shot goes off where the snapper was, Dick sprints for the door, Tim's boots pounding right behind him; He kicks in the door just in time for Tim to slip in behind him. 

"Not shot," Tim reports, taking a big breath. He bends in half, bracing his hands on his knees. "Why's it always that I'm fit until there's somebody shooting at me?" 

"Adrenaline," Dick answers, checking their surroundings. 

"Yes, I'm aware. That was rhetorical." 

"Don't have any heart attacks, either." 

"If I was going to have a heart attack from the adrenaline, it would've happened a long time ago," Tim says smartly, looking around the hallway they're in. Dick almost pinches him for it, but he says, "The emergency lighting is on." 

"Good catch. He probably has a generator." The lighting is dim and red, small strips lain into the walls. Makes the whole place way creepier. He shivers, mostly for show. "Kinda makes you feel like you're in a horror movie, huh?" 

"I feel like I'm in a horror movie just walking through the streets," Tim retorts. "This is nothing." 

"You're mouthy tonight," Dick snickers. "Okay. We'll sweep through, and you stay behind me." 

"Yes, dad." 

Dick does flick him for that, though he focuses again quickly after. As he moves forward, he makes the hand sign for silence, to which the footsteps behind him promptly disappear. 

The door they found seems to be just a staff side door. It leads through offices, file storage, evidence rooms. Some of them are hard to tell what, exactly, they used to be. The items are rotting and stained, strewn about, and mangled. It's been a long time since the place was shut down. 

They creep through the station slowly. The toxins shouldn't still be potent in any sort of capacity that will affect them, but Dick still pays careful attention to the taste of his tongue. The emergency lights don't do much except point to the exit and give anything in two feet an ominous glow; Everything else is dark. There's no guarantee their killer cop won't leave his tower to come looking for them, and if that happens, they shouldn't give away their position. Meaning no flashlights. Meaning they have to attempt to make it through with their adjusted eyesight. Normally not an issue, but the glow lights are making it slightly harder. 

Eventually, they break out into the bullpen. On first glance, there's no one inside. That only turns out to be the case because there's no movement. Robin finds the first body. 

"Um... N?" he says with trepidation, splitting from behind him to kneel on the ground. "There's people here. They're not breathing." 

When he takes a second look, he sees a dead man, slumped against the wall. His hands are tied above him to the wall railing. There's a large wound in his chest, likely a large knife, after he pokes at it. When he looks around the desks, he finds three more bodies tied in a line to the railing. On the very end, however, is a tangle of rope that's been slashed, and no body. 

"Guess someone got away," Tim says. 

"Over there, please, Robin," Dick grimaces, pointing him away. The kid leaves with a condescending sigh, but still moves away from the bodies. Dick clicks on a little penlight just for a few seconds to ID the bodies. Several names come up, all of them felons. All crimes from over fifteen years ago. 

"These are all criminals who've turned their lives around," Dick says, backing away and scrolling through their files. "Tom Johnson. Has a wife and two kids. Sariah Mannings. Killed someone twenty-two years ago, served eighteen years, got out on parole and worked her way into a chef position at a restaurant downtown. That one got out of rehab and went clean. This one spent a while in a mental hospital, but got out and had been doing well. None of them have any major crimes since they served their sentences.” 

"So, this cop killer is holding grudges against people who've already been through the system," Tim says. "Great. Classic case of someone thinking in extremes and taking it into their own hands." 

"Why hasn't anyone put together these missing people's cases?" Dick wonders aloud. "All four of them have one, all dated in the last two weeks. You'd think it'd be easier for GCPD's finest to catch that they're all felons." 

"Or maybe they were right to not trust the cops," Tim says. 

Dick frowns. "We'll have to do another corruption sweep. They might as well be weekly by now." He blows out a slow breath, straightening again. "Okay. We'll get someone in here to take the bodies after we secure this guy. We'll keep going, but let's just be careful." 

"Copy. After you." 

This killer is a little more competent than he thought. That, or more crazy. Six victims, one escaped, over two weeks, and he's still holed up here? He's dangerous. He pulls his escrima from their casing before he starts back through the building, heading for the stairs. 

The stairs are old and cracked, and he has to stick close to the walls to see the steps in the emergency lighting. Still, the shapes are vague and the once-polished dark wood is splitting. A sudden, sharp crack, and he falls. 

Robin reaches for him, but he only goes about knee deep into the stairs. They both blow out a slow breath, his own heartbeat racing loud in his ears. Carefully, Dick extracts himself from the hole in the staircase and continues up a bit more slowly. 

It's even darker up here. Filled with holding cells. Dozens of them, cages on the second floor made of thin steel bar skeletons layered with wire. The Bowery station always had a lot of occupants, and they were never given much of a budget to upgrade. Tim catches his elbow as they move around. 

He stops and looks back. Tim kicks what he had run into again. A soft thump. Then a small groan. 

Tim flicks on the light glow of his gauntlet screen –shouldn't be visible for more than a few feet – and turns it in front of him. 

The light glow outlines another body, pinned to the falling-apart wire by what look like cables. Hard to tell if they're moving in the dim light. Robin kneels beside them, tapping until he can find their throat. 

“Alive,” he whispers, “but their pulse is slow. Likely drugged.” 

“Great,” Dick mutters. “We gotta find out where everybody's getting their drugs from. Maybe Harley’s opened a pharmacy again.” 

Tim brings the dim screen up, and another body is outlined a couple feet away, similarly strung up on the wire. “There's more,” he says. 

“We need to check them all, see how many are alive. Either way, assuming these all match his M.O., we have civilians we don't want in the crossfire.” 

“Copy. You take left?” 

He gives a nod, and they split. He moves from body to body on his side – and they’re all alive. All six of them. All drugged, and all tied to the wire of the holding cells. 

“I'm getting six, all alive,” he reports at the end. 

Tim’s moved on to his last. He jerks away suddenly, rearing back. “Um… Found our mark, N,” he says, sending him an uncertain glance.  

He’s quick to join his brother, stepping in front of him. When he squints, he can make out the last figure bound to the wire beyond its general outline. Beaten jacket. Stiff armour. Steel-protected boots. And a chunky helmet – though one side has a hole in it, caved in like it was hit with something sharp and strong, exposing an ear and some hair. 

Dick puts an arm around Tim’s chest, pushing him backwards with him. He doesn't move his eyes off the still figure slumped against the wire. “How many did you count?” 

“Six, minus him,” Tim says. 

“Okay. Okay,” he says. “We need to get these people out as soon as possible, but we'll need to distract the cop so they don't turn into collateral. I think,” he grimaces, “it'll be easier if we have some help.” 

“From him?” Robin says. “Who says he'll help us?” 

“He was here to take out the guy in the first place. We have the same goal.” 

“He's probably drugged with the rest of them.” 

“Maybe,” he says. “We’ll have to find out. Stay behind me.” 

“I don’t think he’s getting me like that.” Robin eyes the cables thoroughly entangled around his limbs. 

“We’re going to have to cut him loose at some point.” 

“Ah. Right.” He takes a step behind Dick. 

Carefully, Dick kneels down next to the man. First time they’d met, the Red Hood had shot him for getting in the way of a delivery. Second time he’d been kidnapped from another crime lord. Third time had been about two days ago, three weeks after the second time, when he’d blown up a cargo ship with Dick and Bruce inside. He’d led them to a storage facility housing Amazo after that. Maybe not the most violent of the three, but he’d also heard about eight heads in a duffle back and the iron grip he was gaining around the throats of the biggest players in the city. Dick hadn’t clocked him correctly at first. He thought he and Bruce would be able to take care of him easily. But he’s well on his way to being a Black Mask-level villain, and he’s doing it by taking Black Mask head-on, via a hostile takeover of all of his operations. Meaning Dick needs to treat him exactly like he does Black Mask – a dangerous, ticking nuclear bomb. 

And, just to add to all that, he knows what Dick looks like at the very least. He thought they’d be able to take him down, but the guy’s smart, and before Bruce could go after him for it, he was already causing trouble with the Mask. Dick’s had no personal attacks, though, even though he’s run into the Red Hood one-on-one, so he can’t say for sure that he actually connected the dots and knows his identity – and, subsequently, all of their identities – but it’s highly likely that he’s been saving it to use as a trump card. He needs to be careful. 

He draws a breath and reaches for the Red Hood’s throat to check his pulse. Not even guaranteed he’s still alive. Yet, the neck of the body suit goes up into his helmet, and he can’t feel anything. He’ll have to take it off. Thankfully, though, the Red Hood hasn’t popped up to- to bite him or blow him up or anything. 

When he feels around the hard material of the red helmet, he finds a latch at the back. Or three. When he gives them the slightest press, they have different pressures; Must be connected to something that requires an order. He takes a guess and presses the easiest one down first, on the left. The right one gets lighter. Then the middle. The back panel of the helmet lifts, and he pulls it off carefully, the Red Hood’s head lolling with the movement. 

Lucky for him, after a second, the man himself groans and lifts his head. In the dark, Dick can’t see anything other than the subtle outline of his hair as he shakes his head. 

Dick snaps in front of his face to get his attention. “Hey. Are you drugged? We need your help.” 

The soft sensation of his helmet pulling off his head drags him out of an unconsciousness that is, frankly, worse than death. At least in death he couldn’t feel all his stupid aching bones. 

His head hurts, and when he blinks his eyes open, little sparks of colour fuzz in his vision. He sucks in a breath, shaking his head to try and clear it. The fuzz bubbles out of his vision, but the darkness behind it remains. 

Fingers snapping sound directly in front of his face. His eyes finally focus. “Hey. Are you drugged? We need your help.” 

Even through the ringing in his ears, he recognizes that voice. He groans, long and drawn-out, rolling his head. “Aw, hell. Who invited you?” 

“Your men did,” Nightwing says, unimpressed. 

There’s a tickle in his throat, and he coughs to dispel it. He shakes his head again, processing. Then he jerks up. “They what? Oh my fucking god, I’m gonna kill them. I’m gonna string them on the ceilin’ alive, I swear to god.” The wires around his arms catch, pressing on the bruises wrapped beneath his skin. He groans again, collapsing against the metal fencing. “Ow.” 

“So, we’re gonna go with yes on the drugs,” Robin pipes up from somewhere beyond. 

Jason squints, his eyes adjusting in the dark. Even with his Pit-enhanced eyes, he can’t see anything of either of them except for the light reflecting off the lenses of their masks. “Aw, fuck, there’s two a’ you? Great, let’s get the whole family in here. Tell me Batman’s not in the dark somewhere.” God, he feels like shit. 

“Actually, he’s out dealing with your mess.” Nightwing’s lenses narrow in a glare. 

That makes him snort. “Oh, good,” he says gleefully. “No, I’m not drugged. Not anymore. And a’ course you do. Sounds pretty par for the course.” 

The light flashes as the two birdheads glance at each other. 

“Mm… Help with what?” he hums. 

“The serial killer cop that kidnapped you?” Robin suggests. 

“Oh, that guy!” He snaps, pointing awkwardly. Because his wrist is still strung to the wire. “John Jenkins. Yeah, I can take care of him.” 

“Can you?” Nightwing questions. “Because it seems like he took care of you.” 

“Hey, he was already targetin’ me and I didn’t realize, ’s not my fault. Just gimme my gun, I’ll go take him out.” 

“You have killed enough people, you won’t be killing him, too,” Nightwing snarls. “That’s not the deal, anyway. I’m going to take Jenkins. But we have twelve people here that are still alive, and we need them out. All of them are drugged and won’t be able to move themselves. They need to be out of the crossfire.” 

“Ugh, you are such a tight-ass. You always have been. Alright, whatever, fine.” 

“Tight-ass?” Nightwing mumbles, slightly offended. His tone drops back into serious. “You’ll help us? No back-stabbing, no violence?” 

“Cut the wires ‘nd find out.” 

“No. I want your word first. I know you have it out for us. Tell me you’ll work with us. And if I don’t believe you, I’ll leave you where you are for the police to find.” 

He rolls his eyes so hard they hurt, rolling his neck. “God, you heroes love to draw these things out. I’m not gonna do anything.” 

For a couple seconds, the reflective eyes in the dark flash. Then the tension around his arms begins to loosen. 

As soon as he can move again, he stands up and stretches. “Where’s my helmet?” he asks the birds in the dark, who’ve skittered away from him. Pussies. 

“It’s broken,” Nightwing says, but he can see it flash in the dark. Jason snatches it from his hand. 

There's a giant chunk taken out of the side of it, and his head aches right where it hit. Ugh. Great. He sighs, clipping it to his belt. Quick inventory check, and he has nothing useful or cool. Couple sparkers, couple smokeys, nothing that can do any real damage. Or, well, he has his knife, but that’s it. “Okay, let’s go. Sooner I can get away from you two monkeys the better. He's up in the tower.” 

“Yeah, we know,” Robin says. 

“Zip it, lippy. He’s real farsighted and he doesn’t have glasses. If you can get in there silently, you can sneak up on him easy.” 

“Huh,” Nightwing says, sounding surprised. “Alright. You’ll start taking people outside?” 

“No, I’m jumpin’ out the window,” Jason says sarcastically, pulling his knife and beginning to cut the cables keeping the person closest to him. 

“Robin. Can you work the other side?”  

“Ah, what? With him?” 

“Can’t believe you’re so excited t’ spend some time with me,” Jason says sweetly. 

“He won’t hurt you,” Nightwing answers, his voice lowering to a glower directed at him. 

“Well, yeah. Kinda busy.” 

“And you think you can take on Jenkins by yourself?” Robin questions. 

He can hear the smirk in his voice. “I can take care of him, Robin. I’m a big boy.” 

“Big pain in the ass,” Jason mutters under his breath, but nobody hears him. 

“Alright. Just don’t actually go outside until I engage and give you the signal, you don’t want to get shot.” With a final glance, Nightwing leaves to go upstairs. Yet, as Jason picks up the person and throws them over his shoulder, there are still eyes on him. Fuck, his head hurts. When he presses a hand to his forehead, it still burns his skin. Well. Apparently the guy didn’t manage to knock the virus out of him. 

“You gonna keep staring, or you gonna work?” 

Carefully, Robin asks, “You’re not going to hurt me, right?” 

“Black Butt tends to get this pathetic little shine in his eye when I even threaten you that I don’t wanna be responsible for again. So, let’s go with no.” 

So, Robin starts to cut cables and they begin to drag the kidnappees toward the exit. 

Dick creeps up the tower stairs with his escrima in his hand. 

He’s fine, he reminds himself. The Red Hood didn’t hurt Tim last time, he won’t do it now. Besides, he still has his panic button. The Red Hood knows they need the civilians out of the way. He’ll be fine. 

When he reaches the top of the stairs, he takes a breath and he pops his head up into the tower. 

Fortunately, he spots Jenkins almost immediately. He has a rifle out of one of the barbed-wire windows, and he’s muttering to himself. Dick pulls his escrima out of their holders and begins to advance silently on the man. 

Before he jumps him, he taps his comm twice as a signal to Robin. 

Taking people outside is long and slow and boring. Down a set of stairs, through the building, outside into the streets beyond the boundary of the old station. Behind a wall so the poor fuckers don’t get shot at. He wishes his helmet wasn’t broken. He could totally spice this up with some, like, funky Lithuanian pop. Man. He could really use some Jessica Shy right now. 

The second round out, he decides he could probably carry two at a time. Lazarus pit perks. Or maybe he’s just naturally built different. 

The tickle in his throat comes back, and by the third trip, he’s trying to choke down coughs every three minutes and only succeeding half the time. He feels God-awful and this is taking way too long and he wants to go home and sleep and he’s so fucking bored. 

“You don't happen t’have a speaker on you, do you?” Jason grunts as he shoves the door open with two bodies slung over his shoulders. 

The kid doesn’t even seem to process he’s talking to him for a couple seconds. “What?” he says, shooting him a look. 

“Nothin’, don’t worry about it,” he grumbles. Damn. 

After dropping the bodies outside, he realizes that the dull ache in his muscles is not entirely from carrying two hundred-and-fifty pound adults out of a building. The feeling is uncomfortable, and he would love to drop on the ground and curl up. Like a roly-poly? A centipede? Something. Bugs really got the right idea. 

Still, not an option. He's working. He can- can roleplay being a little bug later. He’s already halfway there, what with having crawled out of the dirt and all. He groans to himself, trying to stretch the ache from his arms before he has to go back in. 

The kid drops his kidnappee against the wall, giving him an eyebrow. “Are you sure you’re not drugged?” he asks suspiciously. 

“C’mon, I’m way too cool for that,” he says, wincing at the ache. His body feels hot, his skin flushed, and he really needs to get this over with so he can go home. 

They’ve gotten eight out. Four more is all. He sighs as they run back in, trying to make themselves harder to shoot if the pig sees them. 

“I don’t suppose you could carry two?” Jason says as he kneels to cut another person out. 

Robin is breathing pretty heavy – evidently, those thin little muscles are exactly what they look like. “You can’t carry three?” he snips back. 

Jason can’t think of a retort over the sudden cold that shudders through him. Okay, it was not this bad when he went out. Symptoms are catching up to him. Great. He’s going to take, like, a whole bottle of tylenol when he gets back. 

The cold is uncomfortable, and he tries to calm his shivering long enough to finish cutting cables. His aching muscles tense and lock like they do when it’s- like- ass degrees outside. Gotham gets cold at night. His jacket is supposed to protect him. He pulls it tight around himself before he hefts another body onto his aching shoulders. 

Robin’s still pulling the cables off his kidnappee, and he pauses suddenly, straightening. “N? You okay?” he says. 

A pause. “Nightwing, check in.” 

Another couple of seconds, and Robin frowns. Jason just picks his second civilian up by their waist. The kid is reaching for his belt and turns towards the stairs, but there’s already a figure jumping down the rotting tile. 

“Bomb,” Nightwing says shortly, panting. “Whole building’s rigged, we need to leave.” 

“Ah, a man of my own heart,” Jason says dreamily. Sarcastic. 

“Move,” Nightwing snaps at him. It sounds so much like Batman that he’s turning to leave before he even knows what’s happening. 

“There’s still one left,” he reports as Robin pulls his civilian onto his shoulders. 

“What happened to Jenkins?” the kid asks, following him out. Nightwing slams a batarang through the cables left on the last civilian and drags their weight up. 

“He got away,” Nightwing grunts, joining the back. His fast pace makes the two of them pick it up. “I have a tracker on him, I’ll sick the cops on him when we're done.” 

Jason snorts, then has to swallow a cough. “Yeah, like that’s gonna work. There’s a reason he’s been such a big problem.” 

“I’ll call Gordon. Forty seconds, pick up the pace.” 

He shuts up and pushes himself into a run. 

They make it out before the first explosion rocks the ground. It went off early, on the top corner of the building, and they only have enough time to duck behind the wall, drop their baggage, and duck before the rest of the building explodes. 

The force of it rocks the ground. Heat rolls over them in waves, the sound of concrete crashing to the ground and metal snapping and bending behind them. Dust billows out as things hit the ground, smaller and lighter chunks of debris falling around them. He… ducks close to Nightwing. On instinct. Because it was what he was supposed to do as a little squirt, hide behind someone with a bigger body who could protect him. God, awful. 

Once the big pieces of debris have hit the ground, he pushes himself up to stand, his chills slightly wavered in the heat of the fire burning in the remains of the building. He steps out to look at the damage, ducking past Nightwing. The destruction is great, huge chunks of the building fallen, burst down to the last few feet of the walls of the bottom floor. There’s dust and smoke everywhere, and flames still burn brightly in the wreckage. He laughs in the face of the fire, throwing his arms out and grinning, the light and the heat painting his skin. 

“For a piece a’ shit, the pig knows how to make an explosion!” he says gleefully, tipping his head back. “Absolutely beautiful. I gotta git me a bigger building to blow up, this is art.” 

He doesn’t get a response. Actually, Nightwing isn’t making a sound. No one is. All he hears is the flickering and cracking of the fire. Someone should be making a plan; There are cops to call, other authorities to contact about the explosion, and they need to get all these guys to the hospital. So he turns, expecting another issue that is interrupting them from that. 

Nightwing is staring at him, unmoving, slack-jawed and wide-eyed. 

Uh oh. 

He doesn’t have his helmet on. 

“Oh, no.” He backs away, nearly tripping over himself in his haste. “Oh, no. No no, fuck, absolutely not, shit shit shitshitshitshit-” 

Nightwing is on him quicker than he can turn around, grabbing his arm. Jason panickedly twists out of his grip, turning and sprinting in the opposite direction. 

“No no no no no-!” 

Footsteps pound on the concrete behind him, nipping at his heels, terrifyingly close. 

He shrieks as he pushes his aching body to go faster, fumbling for his grapple. Nightwing isn’t even saying anything, just relentlessly chasing him. The ground suddenly crackles underneath him, making him scream again and skip to avoid them. Finally, the grapple comes loose from his belt, and he aims for a high roof while he runs. 

The line takes him up, and just in time. Nightwing was practically stepping on him he was so close. The vigilante doesn't have his own grapple out yet, and Jason doesn’t waste any time watching him pull it out. 

He hears Nightwing's heavy feet hit the roof as he’s a couple steps from jumping roofs to the next one, a little lower down. He tucks and rolls as he drops, stumbling back into running. He’s hot again, and panting heavily, and there’s sweat slicking every square inch of skin he possesses. He hears Nightwing hit the roof behind him impossibly fast. 

“Fuck, fuck fuck fuck-” 

He needs to leave, he needs to get away. How the hell do you lose a vigilante on your tail like a bloodhound? He doesn’t have his guns, it’s not like he can just shoot the fucker. And at this rate, he’s going to wear out much faster than him. 

He jumps another roof, this one slightly taller, catching his hands on the ledge and heaving himself up. A grapple line shoots past his head, and hastily, he shoots his own to the next roof, aiming a few feet to the left.  

Loose gravel rolls under his hands as he scrabbles to his feet. Nightwing hits a second behind him, but he’s already aiming for a roof a full street over, letting it pull him a fair distance away. 

If he can put some ground between them and drop, he can lose him in the streets. That’ll be fine. He just needs to go faster. 

He's halfway across a long roof when weighted balls tangle rope around his legs. 

He trips, yelping as he hits the roof. He frantically kicks the rope away, wrenching his neck back to fearfully watch Nightwing advance on him. An outstretched arm nearly grabs his leg before he can finally throw the weighted rope off and scramble back into a sprint. 

He barely makes it three feet before a large body tackles him to the ground. 

Jason screams as he goes down, reaching out. Long limbs and a heavy weight pin him to the roof even as he claws to get out from under it. “Fuck, no, please-” 

The weight shifts to straddle his waist, legs trapped. He twists underneath it, trying to push him off, but all that earns him is limbs trapping his arms against his body, dragging him up. 

“Nightwing, we can talk about this, c’mon-” 

Nightwing buries his head into his shoulder, clutching him close. 

Really, though, it’s the shaking that gets him to stop struggling. 

“Nightwing?” he says, voice pitching high. 

The body against him wracks with a violent, full-body shudder. Arms around him tighten, fingers curling into his jacket. 

“Jason,” Nightwing says, strangled and wet. 

His heart spikes in his chest, shock striking through him. He wasn't supposed to know yet, he’s not that far along in his plan, and- and it was Batman who was supposed to figure it out, not him. All he can manage is a, “Uhh—” 

“Jason. Jason. Please tell me it’s you, it’s really you, please, please.” 

The grip around his chest tightens impossibly more, squeezing a cough out of him. “Umm—” 

Arms loosen as Nightwing pulls back, hand spreading the back of his skull. The other comes up to yank his mask from his eyes, seemingly uncaring of the irritation that comes from doing that. Jason almost makes a comment in his head but then he’s looking right into the big, wet, shining blue eyes of Dick Grayson, and his own eyes blow wide as fear strikes sharp through his heart. 

“Tell me it’s you,” Dick begs him. 

“It’s me,” Jason says, strangled, as if he had any other option in the face of sad eyes and a quivering lip. “It’s me, Dick, it's me, stop looking at me like that.” 

Dick’s lips pull down into the most pathetic frown, and his face twists in completely misery, and his eyes fill with sparkling water so fast that Jason barely has time to panic before there’s ginormous fat tears rolling down his cheeks. 

“Oh no, no no nononono- Don’t cry! Dick, don’t cry, please, fuck, it’s okay, it’s alright.” Guilt twists inside of him, clawing at his ribs like iron. How does he fix this? He wonders for only a second, before turning to the one thing he knows works in most situations. He reaches out, tugging Dick into his chest and squeezing him close. “It’s okay, really, I promise.” 

Dick’s body shakes against him rather violently as he buries his head into Jason’s shoulder, clutching him close. Jason groans, long and drawn out, as he returns the favour, cupping his head. “Please breathe,” he says quietly into Dick’s ear. “If you hyperventilate then I’m going to feel really bad.” 

Dick doesn’t seem to be listening, though, because his shoulders just shudder again. “Alright, okay, man, I’m sorry. What’s wrong? Please tell me what’s wrong, before I throw up.” 

Fingers curl in his hair as Dick presses into his skin. His breathing stops for a second, just for him to be able to choke out, “You’re- You’re alive.” 

“Y- Yeah?” he squeaks. “Is that your issue?” 

“You were- were dead.” 

Christ, the shaky whine in his voice is awful. His fast-beating heart is high in his throat, spiked with panic. “It’s okay, I got better! I’m okay, I’m right here. Please stop crying now.” 

That doesn’t seem to work either, and Dick’s general quiet crying breaks into a loud sob against his shoulder that twists his stomach so hard it makes him nauseous. So he swallows, gathering his brother into his lap and clutching him tight. 

For a long couple of minutes, his stomach swirls with guilt and he sits there and hugs his brother and rubs his back and whispers to him and regrets every choice he’s ever made in his entire life. He never should’ve stolen those dumb fucking tires, he never should’ve gotten killed, he never should’ve come back, he should’ve just told his brother he was alive the second he came back to Gotham, he should have shot to kill the fucker that night, he should’ve just blown him up on the boat instead of waiting for him to get out, he never should have gone after Jenkins, he should've put his helmet back on, he should’ve run faster. He. He should’ve. He needs to- to fix this, but he doesn’t know how. 

By the time a little bird finally finds their roof, Dick is back to quietly crying. His shaking has subsided, but there are still tears, because Jason can feel them. Yet all he can do is rub his back and hold him. 

“Okay, well I took care of everything, no thanks to you two.” Robin scoffs, stomping up to him with his bow staff extended. “What the hell did you do?” 

“I didn’t do anything!” Jason snaps. “He ran me down and tackled me an’ now he won’t stop cryin’!” 

“Well clearly you did- something-” The kid jams his stupid stick into Jason’s shoulder, pushing him back and prying Dick away from him. “So don’t even try it!” He holds Dick around his shoulders, stepping on Jason’s hand and pinning it as he tries to push the stupid staff off of him. “Why’s it always that when he’s around you, he ends up with his mask off? And whatever you’re doing, stop it!” 

“Ow!” Jason snaps, the staff grinding into his bones. He’s forced to lay flat against the ground again, though Dick is still on his waist, meaning he can’t even twist away. “I guess I’ll just go fucking kill myself, then!” 

“No.” Dick reaches for him again, but Robin hauls him back. 

“Nightwing, hey, hey. Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong. Why are you crying?” 

Dick clutches at his arms. “It’s Jason,” he says, staring down at him unblinkingly. 

Robin turns to him, also staring. Studying him. “No,” he says finally. “That’s impossible. Jason is dead.” 

“But- He’s right there!” Dick protests. 

“I don’t know who that is, but Jason’s dead.” 

“Other people have come back before. Superman. Green Arrow.” 

The kid looks at him again, lenses squinting. “Okay. Sure. How?” 

Jason squirms under his gaze and the increasing pressure of the staff. “Lazarus pit,” he cuts in, before Dick can guess. The man has stopped crying, and is already wiping his eyes and evening his breathing, and at the moment his need to get away is overriding his never-ending pit of guilt. “Can I leave now? I have, uh, I have some lackeys to kill. I think.” 

“Lazarus pit. That- Okay. That could be plausible.” Robin shifts his grip on his staff, moving to kneel over Jason’s arm instead of just stepping on it so he can reach for the domino mask plastered over his eyes. 

“Oh, no, wait- You don’t have to do that-” He tries to wiggle away from his hand, but he is thoroughly trapped. 

“Should have thought of that before you unmasked Nightwing last time,” Robin says acidly, holding his face still with his free knee so he can get a grip on the edge of his mask. His adhesive is just, like, eyelash glue, because hell if he knows how to make Bat-grade stuff, so it peels off stickily and easily. 

Jason grimaces as his face is smushed into the roof as Robin keeps him still to pry his eye open. “Green,” he says. His hand drifts up to tug at the white strip in his hair. “Huh. Okay. We can test this.” 

Jason tries to bite him as he pulls away. “Hell no. Absolutely not. I’m going home.” He renews his wriggling, twisting his pinned hand and using his other to try and push Dick off of him. 

The vigilante still sitting on him widens his eyes. “Home? You want to leave?” he says, sounding so hurt it stabs through Jason’s heart. “But you're alive! I just- I just got you back, you can't leave!” 

“He’s not leaving,” Robin soothes, shooting him an entirely unearned dirty look. “I already called the Batmobile, we can take him back and make sure he's actually your brother.” 

“What? No! No, no no nononono- Fuck no!” 

Even as he struggles to get out, the weights holding him down do not relent. The kid actually has the audacity to look amused, and he reaches out to flick Jason in the throat. It triggers a fit of coughing, and, of course, the virus decides it’s the perfect time to hit him with chills so cold he’s left shivering and gasping from the coughing. 

“Good luck trying to run while you’re sick,” Robin says smugly. 

Dick shoots him an alarmed look. “You’re sick?” 

Jason groans, thumping his head back. “I'm not sick.” 

“He is too. Chills, hot flashes, coughing, fatigue, sweating. Fever.” 

Dick frowns, reaching out to brush his forehead. “You went to take on a psychotic criminal-hunting serial killer cop while you were sick?” 

“I’m not sick!” 

“Jay, you are, you’re burning up. You shouldn’t be out right now. You’re already weak, and now you’ve been beaten and drugged, what if it gets worse?” Dick’s eyes grow big and round, shining once again. His brother is not supposed to look like that. “Please come back with us. Please let me take care of you. You can- You can leave once the fever breaks, if that’s what you want, I promise. Please let me take care of you first.” 

Jason groans, “Dick. I can’t- I don’t want- I can’t.” 

Dick swallows, despair and desperation dripping from his drooping limbs. When he said he wishes Dick would have the reaction he had about Robin for him, this is not what he meant. “Please,” he whispers. “I don’t want to lose you again.” 

The monkey's paw curls tighter around his throat, cutting off his air. This is manipulation, he’s being manipulated, having the flu is not that serious and he won’t die from it but- but- but the thought of leaving his brother to worry about him, especially like this, makes him more ill than he feels with the flu. 

“Fine! Fine, okay? Fine,” he says before he even realizes it. After a second, though, he realizes he means it, and he slumps defeatedly. “Fine. Just- Just stop looking at me like that.” 

For the first time, Dick actually listens to him. His face splits into a grin instead, delighted and excited and- and happy. Happy about him? Really? 

The kid steps back reluctantly, retracting his staff. Nightwing rolls off of him, popping to his feet just so he can offer him a hand. Jason closes his eyes for a moment just to regret ever being born, then takes the offered hand and lets Dick pull him to his feet. 

He doesn’t let him go, instead pulling him into another hug. A real hug. Warm and soft and all-encompassing, his head tucked into Dick’s shoulder, Dick’s face burying into his hair. The kiss that plants against his head makes his eyes sting. When Dick pulls back, he’s grinning again, holding his shoulders. 

As he’s led to the Batmobile in the alley below them, Jason mourns the ruins of his plans. 

“No, we’re not tying him down.” 

“I’m just saying,” Tim says, pressing Jason’s inky fingers to a pad of paper, “that if he doesn’t pull up, he might get- violent.” 

“I think I would just punch you and run right now if I knew I wouldn’t,” Jason says, unimpressed. 

Dick shoots both of them a look. “None of that is happening. Eyes open,” he reminds, tapping Jason’s cheek. He flicks a penlight over his pupils. “Just run the prints, kiddo, it’ll prove it. No concussion, Jay, you’re lucky. I know it wasn’t fun the last time you had one and got sick at the same time.” 

Jason huffs. “Ugh, don’t remind me. Hey- Ow!” 

Tim pulls back his batarang, newly minted with Jason’s blood. “Yeah, I’m not just checking his prints,” he scoffs, as Jason shoots an offended look at the thin slice on his arm. 

“Okay, warning next time,” Dick says, but he can’t even give it any bite. His brother is alive. He’s alive and he’s right in front of him. He can’t help the grin that splits his face, and he pats Jason’s shoulder. “I’ll get you a bandaid.” 

“I’m not a baby,” Jason complains as Dick stands from where he was sitting next to him on the cot. His brother still looks sweaty and flushed, even though he’s now stripped of all his gear and his jacket. He felt really hot. 

As Dick gathers the stuff he needs to take care of him, Tim runs the blood sample and the prints at the computer. He has Jason’s files and records pulled up on the screens, and the image of a small street kid with a scowl and dirt on his face makes Dick’s heart hurt. He can’t spend more than a couple seconds looking away from Jason – he’s kind of afraid that if he does, he’ll disappear. Jason, though, can’t seem to keep his eyes off the Cave entrance. 

“Are you sure Batman’s not gonna come back?” he asks nervously. 

“He’s not coming back, he’s still dealing with the mess you left,” Dick soothes, uncapping a thermometer. 

“If he's still following the lead with the kryptonite, that’s not going to last him very long.” 

“He said he found another lead he was following. Didn’t tell me what.” He pokes his little brother, and Jason grumpily opens his mouth to hold it under his tongue. 

“He called Zatanna,” Tim says, spinning in the computer chair while a loading bar slowly fills. 

“What? Why?” 

“I dunno. But she’s with him now.” 

The thermometer beeps, and Dick swipes it. “I can do all of this myself, you know,” Jason complains. His legs are swinging lightly over the edge of the cot, like he’s not aware he’s doing it. 

“One hundred and two point seven. Jay, you absolutely should not have been out tonight. Take one of these. Ehh- No, two. You’ve gotten really big.” Dick gives him a smile that he feels growing wet again, setting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing as he hands him a bottle of tylenol. “I’ll get you some water.” 

“Don't need it,” Jason says, tossing back two pills and swallowing them dry. 

He shakes his head, amused. “You should drink something anyway. Can you lay down? I think we're gonna try a cool rag to fight the fever until the tylenol kicks in.” 

“I can deal,” Jason says defensively. 

“You said you'd let me take care of you. Remember? I don’t want your fever to get worse.” 

All it takes is a look for his brother to sigh. “Fine. But you're not getting me to sleep here.” 

“Are you sure? We could go upstairs, it’d be more comfortable.” 

The look Jason gives him is dark enough to startle. “No. I’m not going up.” 

“Okay,” he concedes quickly, hands up in surrender. We’ll see, he thinks. 

 When he comes back with a rag and a bottle of water, Tim is standing and staring up at the computer. The screen has a picture of Jason Todd on one end and a security capture of the Red Hood on the other, and between them, large text that says DNA: 100% Match. Fingerprints: 99.9% Match. 

“It’s him,” Tim says, awed. 

Dick grins so brightly he can feel muscles stretch in his face that he hasn’t used in a very long time. “Yes it is,” he agrees, turning back to Jason. Realization sets in on his brother, but Dick already has an arm around his shoulders and is planting a kiss on his hairline. “I already knew.” He pulls back again and hands him the bottle. “Whole thing, but don’t chug and don't throw up. Are you hungry?” 

“Not really,” Jason says, making a face at him but cracking open the lid. “I’m cold.” 

“You’re not. You’re hot. We don't want you overheating. It’ll pass.” 

Jason startles and spills a bit of water on himself when Tim suddenly pops up at his side, a bright and curious expression on his face. “How did you come back? Was it magic? Does Bruce know? Do you have all your memories?” 

Dick tries to steer him away, patting his back. “Sick, remember? You can ask him questions once he feels better.” 

“How long have you been alive?” Tim calls, even as Dick pushes him away. 

“Go shower and change. Then I want you in bed.” 

The kid pouts as he trudges to the showers, giving him a forlorn look over his shoulder. Dick ignores him, turning to his brother and frowning. “How long have you been alive?” 

“A while.” Jason sighs, capping the bottle again and laying back to set it on the floor. 

“A while? How long is a while?” Dick lays that cool cloth against his forehead, making sure it’s above his browline. 

“A coupla years, I dunno.” 

“A couple of years?” He puts his hand on his brother’s collar, fixing him with a hard look. Jason looks up at him with wide eyes. “Why didn’t you come home?” 

“I was training,” he says defensively, flinching when Dick bares his teeth. 

“You were training,” Dick says flatly. “You were training. That’s why you didn’t tell us. You left me, alone with my grief, with him, for years, because you were training?” 

“It was Talia’s fault!” he protests, squirming under Dick’s tightening grip.  

“You came back, you should have come home. You should have told us! Instead you come back cutting off heads and going after serial killers while you’re sick? Did you leave your critical thinking in the Pit?” Dick glowers down at him. “Were you gonna get yourself killed before we even knew you were alive?” 

“You weren’t even supposed to know yet,” Jason pouts back at him. 

He growls. “Dig yourself a bigger hole and see what happens.” 

Jason snaps his jaw shut. Dick pinches his side before he draws back again, just to be a bitch. He pulls away and starts pittering around in complete, tense silence. He doesn’t have to look at his brother to know it’s making him squirm. 

Eventually, he breaks. “I’m sorry.” 

Dick smirks to himself with his back turned, but schools his expression before he turns back around. “You are not doing this again,” he tells him sternly. 

“Doing what?” Jason asks snidely. 

“Any of it. Never again. And you aren't going back out until you've beat the flu.” 

Jason’s pouting as Dick comes back to his side. Putting a hand on his brother's shoulder, he says, “I’m gonna go shower and change. Are you okay here?” 

Green eyes – green – flicker towards the entrance. “You're really sure?” Jason says again. 

“Very sure. And if he comes, you can bolt and I won't even be mad.” He rolls his eyes. 

“Fine.” 

Dick can't resist smoothing his hair back and pressing another kiss to his temple before he goes.  

It takes a long, long time to shower, because he spends a good hour crying. His brother – his little brother – is alive. It doesn’t feel real, he’s convinced that this is all some elaborately made world; Even so, nothing in the world could drag him out of it. Even if, apparently, his dead little brother runs around as his murderer’s first alter ego and kills people and scares vigilantes to death by threatening their other little brothers. 

By the time he’s pulled himself back together and wiped his eyes on Bruce’s stupidly large clothes, Jason is asleep on the cot. He almost cries again looking at his little brother, alive, sleeping soundly back home. He shoves a cap on it and stores it away for later, preferably when he’s alone and his little brother is no longer sick. For now, he just enjoys going through the motions of taking care of a sick little brother. 

The rag is warm when he takes it off, but Jason’s forehead feels less so. A little over a hundred, maybe. The tylenol is doing its job. Jason is also just as asleep as he promised he wouldn’t be. 

Dick can’t help lingering, brushing damp hair away from closed eyes; With a closer, more careful look, he can see all the changes. Round cheeks have been lost, his jaw and chin pronounced. His nose looks different than he remembers. It’s been so long that his memory is warped; Even when he finally drew the strength to look at old photos, they looked wrong. Distorted. He looks so much like the little kid Dick remembers, and yet something seems wrong. He knows it’s perception issues. He’s willing to work around that. He’d work through anything just to have his little brother back. 

There’s new scars, too. The biggest is one that draws up from the corner of his mouth and disappears into his hairline. He wants to study them, these changes, commit them to memory so that he never forgets them again. There’s better places to do that, though. 

He glances over Jason, then over at the stairs. How hard can it be to carry one stupidly large younger brother? 

When he wakes up, he feels like death. 

It’s dark, it doesn’t smell right, and he’s so stupidly cold that for a moment he thinks he’ll hit hard wood when he jerks up. 

Despite bracing for it, he hits nothing but air. Warm air. It distracts him from the dirt he can taste in his lungs. 

God, he feels awful. 

There's a grip on his shirt. There's a weight on his legs. There's a smell so familiar and nostalgic it nearly brings him to tears before he even registers what it is. 

Something woke him up. Something’s changed since he was brought up here, he thinks, snarling down at the body on his legs. Fucking asleep. Something’s different. 

His eyes are already completely adjusted to the dark of the room as he scans around. Still, he almost misses the completely motionless, silent shadow standing on the other end of the den. 

When he registers those wide shoulders, always looming, every muscle in his body locks up. 

Anger floods his vision so fast it makes his head hurt. This is exactly what he’d wanted to avoid. “Turn around and back out right now,” Jason hisses. He doesn’t have time for a calm tone or some smart, taunting quip. He’s clocked three ways he could get out of the Manor, but he’ll never make it if he can’t put some space between them. 

Still, the shadow stands. Stares. 

“You think I’m fucking joking?” he snarls. One twist of his leg and he has one backstabbing blue fuck flipped over on the other end of the couch, pinned beneath him. The knife that was strapped to his thigh is gone, but the one in his boot comes out with the sharp slick of metal. “Back up, now, or I slit his throat on your couch.” 

Dick is now awake and lightly gripping his wrist, clearly still processing. “Huh?” he says, clearly still slow. 

“You shut up,” he hisses, shoving him into the armrest. “I told you I didn’t want to be up here. That’s why.” He bares his teeth, glaring up at the fucking man still stock-still. “Batman. Step out, let me leave, it’ll be like I wasn’t even here. Step closer, I’ll kill him right now.” 

“Jason?” comes the quiet breath of a whisper from the dark. 

His own name makes him bristle. “I’m not messin’, Bruce. Leave. Now.” 

Instead, Bruce takes an unsteady step forward. 

Dick struggles under the increasing pressure of his knife, gasping when he breaks skin. “Bruce, stop.” 

When Bruce stutters to a stop, he stops pushing. Doesn’t move back, despite Dick scrabbling at his wrist. “Leave,” he growls. 

“Jay, can we calm down a minute?” Dick asks, squeezing his wrist lightly. “It’s alright.” 

“Shut the fuck up, I don’t give a shit what you say,” he hisses. “Keep talking and we’ll see how long it takes for you to bleed out.” 

“You don’t mean that. Please stop yelling.” 

“Don’t tell me what I mean,” he snarls. 

Dick tips his head, smiling up at him. “It’s alright, Jay. Put the knife down. B’s gonna stay where he is, and you can go back downstairs, yeah?” 

“Don't smile at me like that. I’m leaving, and I want him to step back.” 

“You’re still sick,” Dick murmurs. 

“I am not-” 

“Master Jason?” 

Jason jerks up, pulling the knife away on instinct. Between him and the only other exits is the one man he dreaded seeing more than Bruce. 

“Al,” he breathes, terrified. 

Alfred stands, in only his sleepwear, with the most shocked expression his usually neutral face can muster. 

“It’s him, we checked,” Dick says. “Al, tell him he can’t leave. He’s still sick.” 

“Sick?” Alfred responds, obviously still processing. 

Jason turns a murderous glare on the brother beneath him. “I’ll fucking kill you, you fucking narc. My fever broke, I’m fine.” 

A hand on his shoulder has him startling, eyes wide as he holds his breath. “Jason, my boy,” Alfred breathes, a hand cupping his jaw. “I must be dreaming. How are you here?” 

“Not dreaming, Al,” he manages past his closed throat. His eyes drop to the floor. “Lazarus pit.” 

A sharp intake of breath comes from way too close, but before he can get angry about it, a gentle hand takes the knife from his fingers. Then there’s two hands cupping his face, tilting it up to look into soft eyes. 

“You don’t look well, lad,” Alfred says quietly. 

He’s shaking. He can feel it. Jason clasps his wrists tightly, just holding, trying to regain some sense of control. Of balance. “I don’t feel it,” he answers, voice cracking. 

Alfred leans down and presses a long kiss to his forehead. Jason melts under the pressure of it, the ache in his chest so heavy he fears it. Those hands are warm, and so gentle – he didn’t think he’d get to be held like this again. He doesn’t deserve it. His breath hitches, and yet he leans into it. 

“You’re still warm,” Alfred says as he pulls back, thumbs stroking his cheeks. 

A quaky breath has his entire body shivering. “I’m alright.” 

“I’ve heard that before,” Alfred responds dryly. Still, there’s a subtle tilt to his lips, a kind set to his eye. “You can leave if you wish. But it would please me if you’d let me take care of you.” 

He wants that so bad it hurts. Still, he says nothing. 

“Shall we get you to a real bed?” Alfred takes his hands, gently pulling him off his brother, to his feet. His head swims a little with the motion. Maybe he’s not well. “It’s so late.” 

Numbly, he nods. He’s already being led out of the room. 

“We’ll get you tea,” Alfred says decisively. “Then you can rest up, and we’ll see how you feel in the morning.” 

The iron jaws that clamp around his heart don’t seem so cold and sharp anymore, being held so gently. Maybe he can survive this after all.