Chapter Text
Jason had felt the slow creeping ache of ailment sink into his bones as the day progressed. Adding the weight of the Red Hood gear didn’t ease any of the soreness.
He moved slowly, keeping his distance from the bats to make sure none of them picked up on the fact that he wasn't at his best.
Granted, keeping his distance wasn’t really that out of the ordinary. Even if he had joined them in roof top tag and a few movie nights.
He kept having to clear his throat. The sickness settled into his head as his immune system began the daunting task of fighting whatever bug he had picked up.
He crouched at the edge of a roof, not wanting to move from exhaustion. The crouch made his knees cry out in protest, accentuating the pain in them as it dampened out the ache everywhere else. Yet, he knew if he sat, he likely wouldn’t get up for a long time.
And he was too tired to stand.
His body was begging for sleep.
Sleep, a bath and ibuprofen… preferably not in that order.
Jason, still contemplating in his crouched position, reached up, turning his comms to the main channel. He broke the silence, “I’m headed in for the night.”
“Everything alright,” Oracle asked immediately.
“Yeah, it’s still pretty early,” Spoiled added. “Your old age is finally catching up with you.”
It was quiet for a moment while Jason thought of how to respond. He felt too drained to even try and fight it, too tired to muster up his normal angry response. Instead, he conceded, “if I say it’s cuz my knee hurts does that make it better or worse?”
Spoiler immediately started laughing, Red’s snarky giggle ghosting through as background noise.
“You wanna borrow one of my braces,” Nightwing asked, always trying to fix everybody else.
“Nah,” Hood blew off immediately. “Just gonna go home and ice it,” he explained, knowing full well he was going to get into a hot bath to try and soothe his sore muscles instead.
0o0o0
Jason reset the security system after he entered the window before beginning his nightly routine. He walked to his kitchen table and began to strip the armor from his form. Anything that needed to be refilled, cleaned or fixed remained on the table for him to deal with in the morning. Everything else he carried back to his bedroom. With the night having been slow, he only left one gun and his helmet on the table. He had been meaning to tinker with the locking system for a while now since it had gotten sticky a few days ago. If he was coming down with something, now would be the perfect time to begin that project when he benched himself from patrol to just rot in bed and dramatically die from a cough.
He walked into his bedroom, arms full of his gear, in his underarmour and socks. He approached the far wall of his bedroom, the moonlight from the uncharacteristically clear sky shining on his face from one of the two windows to his right as he opened his closet door. He knelt, using his thumb print, code and retinal scan to open his trunk before neatly placing the gear in for his next patrol.
He closed the lid and tried to stand. His knee refused to move, like the pain had fused it in place. Yet it didn’t hurt that bad, he wasn’t even trying to hide a limp because there wasn't one. It was just an annoying throb.
He laid his right hand on the curved top of the black trunk as the other found refuge on his good knee.
He heaved himself up with the support, embarrassed that shadows of the room had heard him sound like a 90 year old man trying to get off the couch. He turned, leaving his bed behind as he quietly padded his way through his living room to his bathroom.
He flicked on the light, the small room immediately violating his eyes as it stripped him of his eyes night vision. He blinked away the shearing blindness as his eyes adjusted slowly to the light.
He had learned his lesson though, he let his right leg skate behind him as he bent at the waist and his good knee to get the med kit out from under the sink. The night had been slow, he knew he hadn’t gotten any injuries but he still had the stab wound on his left shoulder that was only 2 days old and he knew he should change the bandages before adding the waterproof overlayer.
He paused after opening the medkit, looking down at its contents as his brain slowly caught up. He should start filling the tub now, that way by the time he was done with his shoulder he could just strip down the rest of the way and get right in.
He followed through, pulling up the water stop before turning the water on, careful to keep from bending his right knee and making it freeze up again.
He stood up straight and spun slowly, careful not to hit the toilet as the world wobbled slightly.
The worst part was, he knew why he was sick. And he didn't really regret it either.
About 20 minutes after he had gotten stabbed he had found a little girl in the building that assholes had rigged to blow up with him still inside. She was a stowaway in all senses of the word, just trying to steal some protection from the environment, a safe place to sleep somewhere no one would find her.
He didn’t blame her.
But, he had run out of time.
He has shielded her from the blast, quickly taking off his helmet to put over her face. He had already died of smoke inhalation once, it wasn’t like he was gonna get the luxury of knowing the second death was going to take him this time around. The universe didn’t like him that much.
He gave her the helmet because she was scared and to protect her airways from the smoke as he carried her out of the building. She had been sick, her nose red rimmed from irritation and sneezing inside his helmet.
Granted he had cleaned it, not as well as he had thought though.
He returned to the vanity, reaching for the bandage adhesive remover before stuttering. He redirected, reaching up to the medicine cabinet behind the mirror. His eyes were already getting puffy, his skin looking paler than normal.
Damn it.
He grabbed the bottle of fever reducers, hoping to get ahead of it before this sickness really kicked his ass and took him out of commission.