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“HELP!!! HEEEEEEEEEELP!!! I’M STILL ALIVE, I’M STILL--- I’M DOWN HERE!!! DOWN HERE!!! HEL---”
Sharp dust coated the back of his throat, choking him, and his breath caught in a bubble; he coughed so violently that he tasted blood. How long had he been screaming? Clawing? Begging, begging no one, a darkness that swallowed him whole until there---
He couldn’t move his legs. He was trapped. He was buried, buried alive under six stories of rubble, and he was going to die before he could chew off his own limbs like a desperate rat.
He cast his gaze to the right, struggling to draw even a single breath past the aching band around his throat. Neon glowing green revealed the butt of a pistol. Three… three an’ a half feet away, covered in dust, but still intact. Just barely out of reach.
He reached anyway, stretching every muscle; every bone straining against its socket…
His torn fingertips brushed the edge of the mag. His heart leaped, he LUNGED, tearing something, and the gun---
The gun spun away from him, knocked out of his reach by haste. Too far now. Way too far.
Jason slammed his bloody fists against the slab of concrete pinning his hips in place; fresh tears poured down his face, stinging every cut, drowning his ears in saltwater--- “FUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!”
Coughing to his left almost made him jump out of his own skeleton. He scrabbled for a better angle, better leverage--- Was he dead? Who the hell was down here with him?! “Hello?!”
“Jason,” the answering groan came, and Jason…
Jason’s heart lifted, dizzying. “Bruce? Oh my GOD---”
“Jason.”
“Bruce, we’re stuck, I thought… I thought you got out, I thought you were… No one can hear me; I’ve been screaming---”
“Jason---”
“We’re gonna die down here, you bastard, I told you to run---”
“Jason.” A heavy hand shot out of the darkness, slapping against his wrist, and he jerked away, but it was too late--- It had locked around his rabbity pulse, clamping down like steel; he couldn’t--- Wasn’t this how some of the night terrors ended? Batman, vengeance, hungry darkness and disappointed moans and haunting strength that dragged him down into dark green water…
Blinking light revealed the faint outline of a familiar face. Not the cowl… Not the scowl. It was Bruce, Bruce with a cut forehead and a stubbled jaw and blood dripping from his mouth. Bruce with eyes full of reflex tears.
Jason couldn’t breathe.
“We are not going to die,” the vision told him, and his entire chest spasmed, resisting the hope that flooded his spine, but he couldn’t…
He couldn’t not believe that lie, those eyes. This was Bruce. This was Batman.
“Okay,” he whispered hoarsely, hating the way it broke, the way his desperation looked like weakness. He would never live this down. “What--- What do you want me to do?”
“My thigh is… is pinned.” Bruce licked his ghostly lips, lapping at the blood there. His eyes stayed unblinkingly on Jason’s. “Speared, I think, by rebar.”
“Holy FUCK.”
“Look at me. I need you to look at me. If I can see what I’m doing… I can free myself… with minimal damage. Then… I can free you.”
Jason turned his gaze onto the slab pinning him down, laughing; a sharp, hysterical thing. “You can’t lift… lift THIS… Even I can’t…”
“Jason.” The hand tugged on his wrist, and Jason couldn’t help looking back, furious tears glazing his vision--- Why is it always down to this? Why do I have to rely on YOU? Why are you HERE? Of all the times I’ve begged, why NOW, why TONIGHT; it’s too late, we’re going to DIE---
“Jaylad,” that voice begged, cracked, and Jason blinked rapidly. Bruce’s mouth was pressed in such a thin line--- He’s in so much pain. “Look at me. I need your light. Do you understand?”
Jason sucked a stale breath through floating dust particles. “Yeah… yeah. Watching.”
Bruce grunted absently, finally releasing Jason’s wrist, and gathered himself beneath the cape. Jason could see him a little more clearly now, as the dust settled, as death shut their coffin lid with a THUD, he could see… He could see the cape, the breastplate; he could see the torn gloves, and suddenly…
One of his ribs kept twinging. He remembered now. He remembered being shoved as the explosion blew the air apart. He remembered rolling away from the heaviest section of the ceiling.
Bruce was buried under rubble with Jason’s bloody name on it.
“Don’t,” he snapped, cutting off a pained grunt.
Bruce looked up, glaring from beneath dusty eyebrows. “I won’t bleed out; the suit---”
“You’re hurting yourself---”
“Jason… look at me. I have to. We are not going to die here. We are NOT… going to die here… and I need you… to LOOK at me. Please.”
That last word shut Jason up. He braced his elbows against the bite of ghostly cold ground, shivering, and watched.
He watched as Bruce pushed himself up. He watched as the shaking batsuit, several pounds of extra weight, pushed him back down. He watched as the Gotham legend, the shadow of shadows, executed the tightest, heaviest, most painful plank of all time.
He watched as Batman screamed.
“Jason,” someone murmured distantly, and they sounded… they sounded safe. Something tapped on his face. “Jason, I’m okay. Jason. Breathe… BREATHE.”
Every molecule of oxygen rushed out of Jason’s lungs. He reared back, stunned. Bruce was in… in his face, and his leg---
Jason couldn’t see his leg, but he couldn’t see a pool of blood, either. Was that good? When had Bruce gotten over here? How much time had passed?
“I am,” he snapped belatedly, sucking another dusty breath past spasming lungs. “What--- th’ hell happened?”
“You dissociated for three minutes.” Bruce exhaled slowly, pressing his bare fingers to the pulse point in Jason’s throat; where had his gloves…? “THANK you. I could not have done that in the dark.”
Jason laughed shakily, trying not to betray how much safer it felt to be looking up at the sweaty face of his once-dad-once-home-once-family instead of endless concrete. “You’re gonna free me now, huh? You’re…”
“Breathe,” Bruce reminded him, like it was a damn chore, like Jason was being REPRIMANDED--- He moved away. “I’m going t---”
Jason snatched the edge of his cape, wild eyes flicking through the corners as fast as the thundering tempo in his chest. He was going to split apart; the wood… the wood was going to fail; the dirt was going to eat him up. “Where--- where are you going? Where are you GOING?”
“Nowhere.” Bruce closed his hand around Jason’s, squeezing. A silent reassurance--- and request. Let me go. “I’m going to set you free.”
Jason’s eyes burned. He let go, fingers shaking, and tried to ignore the panic clawing desperately at the backs of his eyelids. The world throbbed in time with the blood no longer flowing to his legs. “Okay.”
Bruce hauled himself to his feet, muffling a groan behind clenched teeth, and hit a hidden button on his cracked belt. With a metallic whirrrrr of protest, the armor on his greaves detached, shifting, and dug into the ground. Like the metal feet of a ladder.
“Bruce?” Jason whispered shakily.
Bruce wrapped his hands beneath the concrete across Jason’s middle, glancing over his shoulder with sharp blue ice. “Ready?”
Jason braced himself, curling his throbbing fingers into fists. “Ready.”
Bruce hit another hidden button, and this time, as the batsuit ground into the dusty floor, he lifted. A brutal roar gathered in his throat. His entire body began to shake.
Jason jerked back, tearing himself free as soon as he felt wiggle room. His back slammed against a metal beam. Bruce released the concrete slab with a BOOM, slumping, and his suit fizzled.
“Shit,” Jason whispered shakily. “I can’t… I can’t feel my legs.”
“No, but you moved,” Bruce grunted distantly. “Jason… Jason? Can you curl your toes?”
He almost laughed. It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t funny. “We’re not free. We’ll… we’ll run out of… of oxygen; we’re not gonna make it…”
“We are not going to die.”
“You weren’t there, you don’t KNOW---”
“I know you---”
“YOU DON’T!!!” Jason’s voice cracked, still bloody, and he couldn’t… He couldn’t breathe. He was already half dead, wasn’t he? “You weren’t there, Bruce, you don’t… you don’t know how DARK… This isn’t like, like dirt we can just…
Roaming glowing green caught a glint of steel. Jason’s gaze closed in on the butt of his pistol like a laser. There it was. Four bullets left.
Bruce crouched in front of him, blocking his vision, and his eyes… his eyes were so soft. Glassy, wrinkled around the edges; colorful. The neon light somehow couldn’t turn them green. “We are not going to die.”
“FUCK you,” Jason spat out, venomous and panicked and desperate to hide.
Bruce lowered himself with a grunt, leaning back, and slumped like fucking Darth Vader on his dying breath. “Come here Jason.”
Coward, COWARD, he screamed at himself, but he crawled over on jittery limbs. He couldn’t breathe… he still couldn’t breathe.
Bruce gathered him close through wincing and gasping and gritting of teeth. He was dying; he must have been, he was revealing so much pain… “We are not going to die.”
“Bruce---”
A heavy hand rested across his face, weighing on the bridge of his nose. Calloused fingertips brushed gently over trembling eyelids, soft. “It isn’t dark… you just can’t see.”
“You---”
“We are not going to die. The others are on their way. We are going to sit… and wait… and breathe.”
“I can’t.” Jason fumbled until he caught the edge of Bruce’s chest armor, tugging, gripping. Anything to hold onto as his world shook apart. Anything to tear. “I CAN’T.”
“We are not going to die,” Bruce exhaled through Jason’s hair, ruffling each sweaty strand. “You are not alone this time. I am here.”
Tears flowed freely beneath that heavy hand. Jason ignored them. “You’re… you’re here.”
“We are not going to die.”
“We are not going to die.”
“It isn’t dark.”
“It isn’t dark… I just can’t… can’t s-see.”
“We are not going to die.” Bruce’s hand tightened around his, tacky with blood. “You are not alone this time. I am here.”
“I’m not alone.”
“It isn’t dark… you just can’t see.”
“It isn’t dark… I just… can’t see.”
A quiet sigh escaped his body, tugging him gently toward consciousness. He checked in. Lungs… shoulders… ribs… aching. Legs…
He sat up, fumbling with the blankets, half asleep. He… He could feel his legs. Splints, both of them, but they weren’t… they weren’t gone. They weren’t dead.
A heavy hand rested on his nape, gently rubbing down each knob of his spine through layers of bandages. “Shhhhhhh…”
He breathed in, sinking back onto bruised elbows. Dad. “Bruce.”
The man cracked one eye open, one sliver of light blue. His face looked so much gaunter without stubble. Bandages peeked from beneath his t-shirt; his leg was bandaged, elevated, and his neck--- a brace.
Jason’s throat felt funnier than his battered hands, already half healed. They were in the master bedroom upstairs. That meant that whatever it was… Whatever had broken; whatever had gone wrong with Bruce’s spine when he’d used his entire body to free Jason’s… it wasn’t serious.
Jason collapsed again, burying his face against soft cotton to hide the boiling tears. It wasn’t serious.
Gentle fingers threaded into his hair, scratching carefully at his nape. It didn’t fix everything. Not… not even a little bit. It fit, though. It fit into the hurt, into the brokenness. Like a missing puzzle piece. Like a burst of color through the rain. Like a breath of rainy air sucked into muddy, bloody, screaming lungs.
So Jason sat… and waited… and breathed. He breathed until his body had released every coil of tension, every shiver of anxiety; until the soft thumping in his chest had matched up with the steady heartbeat beneath his ear.
He breathed until he fell the fuck asleep.