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Spoiler drops the last trafficker with a well-placed elbow, then turns in a circle, surveying the half dozen mob soldiers scattered, unconscious, on the warehouse floor. She whistles, long and low, but Jason can tell it's not a coded signal. She dusts her hands off and sets her fists on her hips. She’s proud of herself—he acts the same way when he's satisfied with his work.
He isn't satisfied tonight.
“Hood.” She nods a greeting. “I'm surprised you needed help with these bozos. Under the weather or something?”
Maybe. He doesn't feel right. It's late April, and Jason always wants to crawl out of his skin this time of year, but it doesn't matter. It's not relevant. He’s certainly not gonna cry about it to Spoiler. “Just bad luck,” he replies. His voice is rough and garbled. He clears his throat. It feels raw, sore and gummy. Maybe he’s under the weather after all.
She shrugs. “Not the worst luck. Oracle could have sent the big guy over. I bet you're glad she called me instead!”
A chill runs down his spine. He’s been patched into their system for a few months now, but he never reaches out. He keeps the channel passcode-locked and muted, not that it matters. He’s had a suspicion ever since they linked comms that Barbara might be surveilling him covertly. She's Oracle. Anything digital is vulnerable to her, including Jason’s helmet.
Offense prickles him, but he pushes it away. He can't be too upset. He isn't right today, and he got himself caught, and the traffickers were talking about shooting him through the neck shortly before Spoiler made her entrance. He might not have been able to get out of it on his own. He might be dead right now, if not for Babs’ meddling. Dead again. “I’m over the fucking moon, kid. Hurry up and untie me.”
Spoiler laughs. She laughs. Jason grits his teeth and pulls at the restraints with twice the vigor. It's been hours of this bullshit now, first the traffickers, and now this, his “rescuer” and her fucked up priorities.
He’s grateful, or whatever. He hadn't expected the violence tonight, not in full force. He planned a stealth mission. He’s all beat to shit, and maybe not thinking too good, but he knows he wants out of this joint. He wants out now. He wants out like a bad dog, with teeth, and barking. Lots of barking. “Fuck you for laughing. Offbrand wannabe fucking bat brat. Untie me.”
She leans a hip on a palette of shrink-wrapped bottles of 4-piperidone and crosses her arms. He catalogues details, a program left over from those formative years clutched in the Bat’s fists. He knows Spoiler. They run into each other on the street, occasionally, but he's never been this close to her before. He may be little fucked in the head right now, but he isn't a complete idiot. He scans for as much intel as he can discern.
“I'm gonna need you to calm down before I get any closer. Everyone knows how dangerous you can be, Hood. I'm not taking any chances!” She holds one pointer finger up, like a girl scout or something. He can hear her smiling. He wonders how old she is, if they might know each other from childhood. Spoiler sounds like the Alley. It makes Jason think of his mother.
He remembers her leaning over him, close and smiling, on the nights she was sober enough to tuck him in. They would read together, and she would kiss his head and say, “I love you,” before turning out the light. She smelled of baby powder and vanilla body spray from the 99¢ store. She smelled of mildew and ammonia.
He shakes his head to clear the haze of the memory. It sticks to him. How could he not think of Catherine Todd, seeing a little skinny thing like that, talking Alley, slumping over to look at him sideways? Spoiler has her head cranked all the way over to her shoulder. From this distance, at this angle, he can see that her full-faced mask is structured and sectioned. There are seams in it. He can even see a flash of hair, tucked at the back of her hood. Blond.
“And besides,” she continues, gesturing with a flippant hand, “you did some pretty fucked up shit to a very good friend of mine. Maybe I want to watch you struggle for a bit. ”
She’s not going to untie him.
An unreasonable swell of panic rises in his chest, choking him. A bit of Bruce follows it, and Jason is forced to swallow the memory dry, like a pill.
Sometimes he hates his own mind. His day-to-day thoughts are so rigid, so broken up, yet he can somehow still remember full quotations from the military issue literature Bruce made him read at thirteen.
“Forty percent of the over 7,000 POWs in Korea died in captivity.”
He asked about it. They were in Bruce’s office. Jason was lying on his back, atop the rug by the fireplace, with his feet up on the couch. He’d gotten comfortable, at that point. He was no longer afraid of Bruce, though Batman was another story.
“I don't understand something,” Jason had said. How is it possible that he remembers it, moment to moment, with such perfect clarity? Why this, when so much of his own life is lost to him? Bruce set a hand on Jason’s socked ankle, humming at him to continue, half-distracted, still staring at his laptop. His touch felt comforting, a firm, warm weight. It was winter. The manor was chilly, and the fireplace in Bruce’s office was Jason’s favorite place to be. “It says a bunch of POWs died in captivity.”
Bruce looked at him. He had that particular tightness around his eyes, his lips pursed. “You remember what POW stands for?”
Jason made a face at him that Alfred would have called ignorant. “Yeah, you told me five minutes ago when you handed me this thing. I get what it’s saying, I just didn’t think you could say that about people. In captivity? Isn't that for like, zoo animals?”
Bruce’s tension broke. Jason loved moments like that, when he's done nothing wrong. When he’d caused relief instead of stress.
“I see, this is a vocabulary question.” Bruce smiled for a half second there, a rare treat. “It's an appropriate term to apply to human beings. You don't often see it written, because it's difficult to consider.”
Being held in captivity. Dying there. It is difficult to consider, isn't it? Jason is having considerable difficulty with all of this, even setting aside the fact that it’s late April, and he just got his shit rocked by a bunch of lowlife fentanyl traffickers.
Spoiler is frowning at him now. He can't see it on her face, shrouded as it is, but he can hear it in her voice. She's so expressive. She could be one of the kids from the gang he used to run with. “You alive under there, Hood? You hurt bad? I wanna watch you struggle, not suffer.”
Her words send a jolt of panic spiking through him. He's supposed to be struggling, fighting the tight wires that bind him to the cold metal of the warehouse column. He doesn't know why he stopped. “Untie me,” Jason repeats. “I don't have time for this.”
He doesn't have time to stick around and have one of his freak-outs in front of Batman’s soldier. The freak-out is definitely happening. It’s imminent. Hell, it might already be in progress. He’s been staving it off since the fuckers first tied him down. It’s late April. He’s on a hair trigger. He doesn't want it getting back to Bruce. He doesn't want it getting back to any of them.
He might have a chance, with Spoiler. She’s Oracle’s, not Batman’s, though at times it boils down to the same thing. There’s a chance they don't tell him about this, especially if there isn't much to tell. Jason just needs to keep his cool.
“You’re gonna have to make time, ‘cause I’m on my fifteen.” Spoiler unbuttons a side pocket on her belt and takes out a box of cigarettes. She reaches up by her ear and releases a catch, and the lower half of her mask pops off. Her skin is white. Her lips are pink. He blinks the command to capture images through the helmet cameras and gets three good shots before the sound of her lighter makes his whole body twitch. The smell of her smoke washes over him.
The situation is bad. He’s aware enough to admit that. It's so bad that he’s started rationalizing in his head.
It's not like she's torturing him on purpose. She doesn't know about the connection. She couldn't. No one knows, apart from Jason himself. Sheila is dead. The clown would never remember such a subtle detail. He didn't care about Sheila’s brand of cigarettes. He was too busy breaking Jason’s bones to care.
“You’re a lot quieter than usual. Feeling a little embarrassed, maybe?”
“Are you smoking Virginia Slims?” His voice echoes off the helmet. It feels too close, too tight. His air filtration system is top-notch, but he has it set to ambient mode. He can't change it without the use of his hands. The smell of smoke is choking him, a heady topnote over the tang of Jason's blood. It's hard to breathe.
“Ha! Yeah, I know, they're disgusting. Light blue American Spirits all the way. These are my mom’s. I always steal them, smoke a couple, then chuck the rest. It's harm reduction. Plus, she deserves it.”
Spoiler makes herself laugh again. Laughter is hard to listen to when Jason’s hands are tied, and he’s beat to shit. The traffickers were laughing too.
The clown laughed. He never stopped laughing.
His struggling tips into a repetitive frenzy. He wants to play it cool, but his body won't allow it anymore.
“Jeez, you hate it that much? Sorry to offend.”
Every part of him hurts, but at least he can move. He still has some strength. He can thrash, and flex. There’s no bomb, no red numbers ticking down. Sheila’s already dead, and she can't die again. She’s safe. Jason isn't safe, but things aren't so bad. Spoiler isn’t Sheila, and she isn't Joker. Spoiler isn't Batman.
“Hood, stop. Stop. You’re bleeding. Jesus. Why didn’t you say someth—”
“Untie me,” he repeats. “Just fucking untie me.”
She gets up in his face. It surprises him. He can still see her lips. Her frown. She’s got her pointer finger up again, pointing sternly this time. “Stay still, and don't you dare attack me. I will call for backup.”
Batman. She's talking about Batman. He bites down the urge to correct her assumption—Jason knows very well what can happen when a young vigilante relies on Batman for help. His heart feels swollen, overworked and heavy. His breath heaves in and out of him. It takes him too long to process her words. Her frown has deepened by the time he sputters, “Fine, whatever. Just do it.”
She starts to. It takes a while. She keeps swearing behind him, but at least she isn’t laughing anymore. He doesn't move. He doesn't speak. He doesn’t make a sound. He sweats instead. He feels slippery with it, and cold.
“Shit. Hood. There's too much blood. I can't get purchase. I’m gonna have to cut you loose.”
“Do it,” his throat aches, “cut a thumb off if you have to, just do it fast.”
“You can keep your thumbs. Don’t move,” she instructs, leaning forward over his shoulder right next to the helmet, “You’re doing a good job staying still for me. Deep breaths, okay? Keep it up.”
He should probably be embarrassed about how good the praise feels. Even through the filter of his audio system, her murmur sends shivers through him. He's so rarely physically close to other people. He kinda wants to climb inside her somehow, except that thought is freaky as fuck and probably makes him a criminal psychopath. Which, practically, he is.
Jason is going through something, that's all. He should have stayed in today. Late April is always terrible. This year, the moment has finally come, and he’s having his annual freak-out in public. In front of one of them. “I am glad it's you,” he says aloud, delirious in the horror of the realization.
“Yeah? Why? Because of my bedside manner?”
She sounds like she's smiling again. She uses her forearm to press flush against the small of his back. She bends him forward over his splayed legs, like she's helping him stretch after training. Like Dick probably taught her. Or Bruce. “Take a deep breath,” she instructs. He does. He can still smell her cigarette smoke, but it's fainter now that she's put it out. Jason knows it must hurt when she digs her gloved fingers beneath the wrapped wires, but he can barely feel her lifting the cordage away from his wrists, round by round, and sawing through it with a utility tool.
More time passes. He isn't sure how much.
“Damn, Hood. This is fucked. Who did this to you, Captain Tying Knots?”
A joke. It jolts him to a slightly greater awareness. His wrists burn. He nearly bites through his cheek before getting his wits together to respond, “I understood that. We must be around the same age.”
His meme knowledge is limited. He was completely out of commission, internet-wise, for a few critical years. He has a vague recollection of the video she's referencing, from the before times. Alfred caught him watching it on his laptop when he was supposed to be doing homework. “Why is the lizard using such ghastly language?” he’d asked.
The memory is a good one. Harmless. A nice distraction from the sting of blood returning to his hands, and the hot flow of it through the ligature wounds, down his fingers and onto the concrete floor.
“You’ve got a couple years on me, but yeah... Y’know, I'm pretty sure I used to see you at the library sometimes. The Third Street Branch? When we were both little.”
The last wire snaps. Jason is on his feet in a fraction of a second.
“Hood! You said you’d stay still!”
The warehouse wobbles around him. He stumbles, catching himself on a crate. He glances down at his hand. It’s bad. It looks like someone tried to use Alfred’s crank peeler on his wrist.
Jason shouldn't be thinking about that. Not the wounds, not Alfred, nor Alfred’s kitchen. He needs to focus on getting out of here. He needs to be alone. He has to get away.
He shuffles through the space, retrieving his guns from the fuckers who made the mistake of taking them. He takes helmet photos of each unconscious trafficker as he goes, clinging to his operational procedures like a lifeline.
He stands. His head swims. Spoiler’s next to him. She’s in front of him, a hand on his chest plate, her purple glove soaked in blood. “Let me take you to—”
“No.” He pushes past her. He fumbles for the air controls on the bottom edge of his helmet. He should have adjusted them already. It's too hot. He needs more oxygen, but the cigarette smoke has tainted the filter. He flicks through the settings over and over, but he can't stop smelling it.
They almost made it. God. They were up. He’d freed her from the ropes. They were walking to the door. He wasn't that surprised that she’d betrayed him, really. He'd almost absolved her of it already. She could have run away, at the end. He told her to. She could have left him there to die alone, but she didn't. She cared, at least a little. She was his mother too.
Jason always wanted to save his mother. Catherine. Sheila. They’ve blended into one woman in his mind. His mother, the homunculus. He wanted to forgive her. He wanted her to live, so that they could be together. He should have saved her. He tried. He tried.
“Look at me, Hood. I'm talking about Dr. Thompkins. Leslie. Just Leslie, okay? No one else. Let me take you to her. Let’s go to the clinic.”
She takes his elbow. He shakes her off. “I don't know who that is,” he insists, “and I don't know what you're talking about. I'm fine. I’m good.”
A ridiculous denial. He can't stop himself from making it. He can't accept the truth, that they all know, the whole damned colony of bats. They think they know. They know his name, and the rough shape of what happened to him. Jason Todd, the dead Robin. The tragedy that broke Batman. The prodigal son who returned as a curse.
They don't know Jason, though. How could they? He doesn't even know himself. He’s more like a ghost than anything. A cautionary tale.
“If you don't let me help you, I'm sending one of the others after you.”
He ignores her. He slumps across the floor, headed toward his exit point. She doesn't follow. The window is already broken. It must have been shot out during the struggle. He steps onto the ledge, grunting with the strain, glass crunching beneath the soles of his boots.
“Go to Leslie, Hood. I'm serious. If you don't, I'll know.”
He looks back. Spoiler has her arms crossed. The lower third of her mask is still unfastened. Her lips have thinned into a line, no hint of laughter left to grace them.
“Thanks for the assist,” he offers. “Make sure you destroy this shit. They’re making fentanyl.”
It's really the best he can do. He pulls the trigger on his grappler. It thunks into place, lodged to the roof of the apartment complex across the street, then he’s off. He’s zipping through the window like Peter Pan. A little lost boy who never grew up. He trips over the rooftop ledge and catches the asphalt with his face. His neck aches. He scrambles to sit up, to get the helmet off.
He vomits. He hates it, same as always. It's such a waste. He starts mentally cataloguing the food left in his pantry, the boxes of pasta, the dried beans and lentils. The frozen protein. The shelf-stable rations. He can afford to throw up these days. There’s enough food to make up the difference at home.
He just needs to get home.
Peter Pan would be ashamed of him. So would Batman. Jason doesn't so much fly as he tumbles, rooftop to rooftop, leaving a trail of blood and broken masonry behind him. Any capable opponent will be able to track him. He doesn't care. He just needs to get home. He thinks of nothing but his bed and keeps a hand on the grip of a gun as often as possible.
When he finally slips through the skylight entrance of his safehouse, the relief is so powerful that it nearly takes him to the ground. He manages to silence the alarms, but he doesn't make it to the bedroom. He collapses on the couch. His last conscious thought is a shitty realization, one that flashes through him as he unbuckles his kevlar and shrugs it off, wincing—he doesn't have his jacket on. The fuckers must have nicked it.
“Jason. Jay, wake up.”
Jason groans. He closes his eyes tighter, refusing the command. Is Dick really taking him to school today? He must be, if he's waking him up. He’s the only one at the manor who does it like this, annoying little slaps to Jason’s cheeks. Alfred’s method is classic butler; he always opens the shades and announces the date and time. Bruce usually sets his hand on top of Jason’s head and holds it there for a while before saying, “Morning, Jay.”
This hardly ever happens. Maybe they’ll stop for coffee on the drive. Bruce thinks teens shouldn't drink it, so Dick takes Jason out for coffee as often as possible, when his busy schedule allows for it. He says they need to band together against Bruce’s control issues.
“Jay, please. Wake up. Come on. Jason.”
Dick isn't slapping him anymore. He’s holding Jason’s face, and he sounds wrong. Upset. Jason tries to stir. Pain stops him. “Dickie. Can't go,” he rasps. “No school. I’m sick.” He feels awful. He can't convince his eyes to open. Now that he’s not being slapped, Dick’s hand feels cool and soothing on his forehead. Jason sighs, but the sound is tinged with suffering. He hates missing school.
“We’re not—you don't have to go to school, Jay. I know it hurts. You’re alright. I've got you.” Dick sounds really wrong. He shouldn't be this weepy. Jason finally manages to crack his eyes open. The room is dim through the lenses of his domino. His vision’s blurry. He blinks until he can see Dick’s face. “Are you with me? Talk to me, Jay."
Jason squints up at him, confused. “Why are you Nightwing?” Nightwing isn't supposed to take Jason to school. That would be crazy. Bruce will be mad. "Go change.”
Dick frowns. “Jay... I'm Nightwing because you're Red Hood. You’re running a fever. Where’s your first aid kit?”
“I'm Red Hood,” Jason repeats. It's comforting to remember, though it's disturbing as fuck that he somehow forgot. His living room looks warped and unreal. Dick is here, and he’s touching Jason’s face. He flinches back, perturbed. “Fuck. What the—fuck? Fuck you. The fuck are you doing here? Get out. Get out of here!”
Dick gives him an awful, disappointed look before swiftly standing and walking away. Despite the distant sounds of banging cabinets, for a moment, Jason thinks he’s won. Then Dick comes back with a familiar plastic case in one hand and a bottle of solvent in the other. “First things first.”
He removes his own domino with practiced precision, fitting the bottle’s nozzle into the gaps of the mask and wiggling it free. Even with the telltale ring of red across the bridge of his nose, encircling his eyes, he still looks like the moody protagonist of a teen romance movie, eyes dark, brow furrowed. He kneels at Jason’s side. Jason can feel his own mask still clinging to his face.
He’s Red Hood. He wants to stay Red Hood. Dick lifts the bottle of solvent and Jason raises his arms to fight.
He and Dick both freeze. Jason wonders if they’re really his arms at all. He can barely feel them. They look like a slasher film, red and raw, striped with purpled indentations from wrist to elbow, crusted with dried blood. The sight dizzies him. When he comes back to himself, Dick is holding his hands. He has them clasped together. He pushes down until Jason relents and lowers his elbows to rest lightly on his chest. His tone is even, but he sounds breathless. His brow is furrowed tight. “Keep your arms just like that, okay? Hands together, in a triangle, elbows down, supporting each other. Can you keep them like that?”
Jason can feel them after all. They burn. The position lessens the agony slightly, but puts pressure on his torso. He had the tar beat out of him tonight, Jason remembers. The traffickers. They kicked him in the gut about a dozen times before they tied him to the pole. He’s probably all fucked up, but it's hard to tell exactly how and where. He feels like one giant wound.
He tries to get up, to shift position. Dick holds him down, somehow able to overpower him. He hasn't been able to pin Jason like this for years. Not since those early training days, down in the Batcave, when Jason was still skinny from the streets. “What are you doing?” he asks. He hates the way he sounds, vulnerable, almost frightened.
“You're hurt, Jay. Please—” Dick’s voice is strangled. Guilt unfolds at the center of Jason’s chest. “Please don't fight me. Please let me help.”
The words sicken him. They’re all Jason has ever wanted, but he doesn't want them now. He pushes Dick away with every bit of strength he can muster, palms to chest. Dick barely moves. He covers Jason's hands again, pressing them close. “Keep your hands here then. That's even better. Hold on to me.”
Jason clutches at the fabric of the Nightwing suit. This is all wrong, so he must be dreaming. Dick sets a bath towel between them. He picks up a bottle of wound wash from Jason’s kit. He keeps one hand on top of Jason’s as he irrigates the wounds. It stings. The towel is getting soaked with blood and saline. He can feel it, wet and heavy through his undershirt.
“Dick.” Dick hums a response. He doesn't look Jason in the eye. His sharp gaze is narrowed on the wounds, on the torn skin and bruised indentations being revealed beneath the gentle stream of saline. Jason hates being ignored almost as much as he hates being seen. “Dickwad. You're making a mess.”
That earns Jason a quick, unimpressed glance, a dismissive, “I'll clean it up.”
Jason scoffs, then has to clench his teeth against the resulting wave of pain from his chest and gut. “You never clean anything up,” he grits. “You’re a slob. You leave it for Alfie, just like Bru—”
Dick’s attention snaps to Jason’s face at the same moment Jason realizes what he's saying, what’s happening right now. A maskless Dick Grayson is in his safehouse, tending to his wounds, and Jason is talking to him like they share something. Like their brief time together at Wayne Manor was meaningful.
Dick sets down the wound wash. He uses both hands to hold onto Jason’s face. Jason keeps his hands twisted into the Nightwing suit. He should be raging right now. He should be pushing him away, but he just can't seem to let go. He's thankful for his domino, still firmly in place. Hopefully it will conceal some of his distress from Dick.
“I won't leave a mess,” Dick insists, voice low. “After we lost you, I—God. I won’t leave a mess, Jay. I swear. I swear I won’t.”
It leaves Jason shell-shocked. He closes his eyes so he doesn't have to see the wetness on Dick’s cheeks, or his tortured expression. He is silent as Dick finishes cleaning and dressing his forearms. He has about a thousand things he’d like to say, but his mind keeps scrolling through all of them on a loop instead of picking one and spitting it out.
“Spoiler said you were having trouble moving. Where else are you hurt?”
Dick’s hand rubs the center of Jason’s chest. Chills run through him, up and down his spine. “After you lost me,” Jason says. Finally, a thought emerges. “After you lost me—what, Dick? What were you going to say?”
Jason manages to open his eyes. Dick isn't crying anymore, thank fuck, but his face is puffy from it. He used to look this way after the really bad screaming matches with Bruce, worn out and downtrodden. Jason hates knowing that the expression is his fault, this time.
“I started cleaning up after myself. I would think about you, and how mad you used to get at me when I left a mess. I was alone in my apartment so often… When I cleaned, I could remember you without it hurting as much. So. I guess it's become a habit now.”
Alfred used to say that Dick would learn to clean up after himself when hell froze over. Jason feels a strange sense of accomplishment over it. He wants to go find Alfie and brag about it, but that's impossible. His thoughts start sliding away from him again. He manages to get in one final jab. “And all it took was me getting tortured to death, huh?”
He dismisses what happens next as some kind of fever-induced hallucination. Dick might care about him, but surely not enough to burst into panicked tears. “Clark,” Dick cries, sounding like a teenager again, “I can't—I can't—I need help. Clark!”
It's just another confirmation that Jason’s having a whacked-out fever dream. Calling for Superman isn't something a Robin is supposed to do lightly. It's a rule, and a stringent one, because they all adore Clark. Jason thinks Bruce is just jealous. Sure, protecting all of Earth is a big job, and Clark doesn't need distractions, but Dick and Jason are earthlings too, after all. They need Superman’s help, sometimes, and Clark insists they should call on him whenever they deem necessary.
Sort of strange that hallucination-Nightwing would use Clark’s name, instead of calling for Superman, even if he has his domino off. Jason will have to remember that detail for his dream journal. Maybe it means something about his psyche.
Clark shows up seconds later, cape and all. Jason isn't sure how he gets in, but his arrival is punctuated with his characteristic whoosh of air. Dick gets up, and his crying builds in volume. Clark holds him by the shoulders and murmurs something to him before hugging him close. Jason closes his eyes. Crying always embarrasses him, whether he’s the one in tears or not.
“He’s hurt. His arms. And Spoiler said she thinks he was—beaten.” Dick makes a choked-off sound. His voice spirals tighter, higher. “He’s feverish. We need to—oh God, Clark. Clark. Today, of all days?”
“I know. Sit down, Dick. I'll take care of him. Catch your breath. I'm here.”
Being close to Superman always makes Jason’s hair stand on end. There’s something about his power that hangs electric in the air. Jason feels him coming closer. “Hi Jay. Long time no see.”
He has to open his eyes. It's Clark. Reliable, easygoing, affectionate Clark, second in a young Jason’s esteem only to Diana. He’s missed him. God, he's missed them all. It's safe to admit it here, in his dreams. His hallucinations. Whatever the hell this is.
Clark looks back at him, smiling but pale, his dark brow gathered with concern. His eyes dart away from Jason’s face, scanning him head to toe. His smile fades as the seconds tick by.
Jason wants to say something. Hello, at least. Maybe, I missed you. If he’s feeling particularly brave, he might even ask, Where were you? Why didn't you come? His mouth moves, but he can't seem to shape any words. He makes a sound, a sort of half-voiced croak. He closes his eyes again, too tired to keep them open. Out of sight, Dick lets out another choked sob.
Jason knows his day tomorrow is gonna be totally miserable. He can handle the dreams where he gets revenge. He can handle the dying, and the screaming, and the fighting. He can even handle Bruce—his disapproval, his disappointment, his absence.
This sort of dream is harder to deal with. A fantasy of care. He always wakes up feeling sick over it.
“He’s bleeding internally.” Clark’s in Superman mode for sure now. His voice is deep and serious, full of authority. “My bet is that's the source of the fever. He needs surgical intervention—Watchtower or Cave?”
Jason would laugh, if he could manage it. Internal bleeding is probably what would have killed him, back in Ethiopia, if the bomb hadn't gone off—a fitting detail for a dream like this. Bruce always said he had a literary mind.
“Fuck,” Dick gasps, “We can't bring him to the Watchtower. His identity—”
“The Batcave, then.”
Clark must be picking him up. Jason feels mostly numb, and he can't heave his eyes open again to confirm, but Clark’s Kryptonian warmth is unmistakable.
“He’ll hate us for it,” Dick mourns.
“He might, but at least he’ll be alive. Hop on my back, kiddo. Time to go.”
“I rode my bike here from Blud. It's on the street.”
“You’re in no state to—”
“Don’t worry about me. I have to clean up here before I follow you anyway. It’ll calm me down. I'll be safe.” Then Dick’s voice is much closer, right in Jason’s ear. “If you die again, I'm dunking you in the Pit myself. So don't try it.” Dick’s forehead is cool against Jason’s. He stays there for only a moment before pulling away. “Go, Clark!” he urges.
Clark goes, and he takes Jason with him. Jason’s never been any good at flying dreams—he always ends up falling, or inventing some gale-force storm to knock himself out of the air. This time, he just blacks out.
He wakes up to a steady beeping on his right-hand side, and someone breathing to his left. Jason doesn't hesitate to open his eyes. He wants to see Clark again. Even Dick would be welcome.
Bruce stares back at him, arms crossed, eyes wide.
“You’re awake,” he says.
Jason takes a deep breath, assisted by the cannula fitted into his nostrils. He’s strangely calm, considering. “You look like shit,” he observes. Bruce has blood on the shoulder of his button-up. He looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks, but that’s nothing new. He’s gone grey at the temples. The lines across his forehead, beneath his eyes, around his mouth, have all carved deeper since Jason last saw him. His mind strains to put the pieces together.
Something squeezes Jason’s hand. He looks down and realizes that it’s Bruce. It’s Bruce’s hand, warm and calloused, holding his. “Are you in pain?” He sounds nervous. He hardly ever sounds like this.
Jason isn’t sure what to make of it. “You were watching me sleep,” he says, unsettled.
“Jason. Are you in pain?”
They must be in the medbay. The lights are dimmed, but Jason can see the bright fluorescents of the Batcave through the gap of the open door behind Bruce’s shoulder. Maybe Jason was hurt on patrol. It must have been bad if he’s laid up in the medbay with a cannula in his nose. It must have been bad, since Bruce is holding his hand and looking at him with that agonized face. Maybe Jason went off on his own, before getting hurt. That would explain Bruce’s grey hair. He complains that he sprouts a new one every time Jay breaks the Robin rules.
“I’m on cloud nine,” Jason replies. It’s not that he enjoys being injured, far from it. But having Bruce’s attention like this is nice. He’s so focused, like Jason is his entire world. Bruce’s thumb moves back and forth across the back of Jason’s hand. He watches it, concentrating on the feeling. Then he notices the bandages on his forearm and frowns. He can almost remember how they got there. Nightwing was involved. Jason was on the couch, wasn’t he?
“Leslie’s got you on morphine. She finished surgery a few hours ago. If you’re in pain, we can up the dose. Just say the word.”
Jason sighs. He’s in for it now. Morphine and surgery mean he’ll be benched for weeks, if not longer. He can’t be too upset about it, though. He’s too tired for that. “Can’t feel anything,” he reports, “except you.”
Bruce’s hand tightens around Jason’s. He looks up to find his eyes again, but Bruce has covered his face with his free hand. He’s half turned away in his chair. His broad shoulders are trembling slightly. It does something to Jason’s heart. The monitor beeps faster. “Am I dying?”
It gets Bruce to look at him, his face slack with horror, his eyes searching. “No. No, you’re not dying. You’re gonna be just fine, Jay. We got to you in time. You’re gonna be fine.”
“You’re acting weird.”
Bruce barks a laugh. Both of his hands close around Jason’s then. His voice is uncharacteristically shaky. “I’m sorry. I’m just—I’m so glad that you’re okay. I’m glad you’re here.”
“You’re not acting glad,” Jason complains. It’s impetuous of him. He’s sure whatever he did to land himself in the medbay caused a lot of trouble for Batman. Bruce doesn’t get annoyed, though. He doesn’t lecture him, or get up and leave.
“I know. I was worried. I’ve been—I’m still—” Jason frowns. It isn’t like Bruce to struggle for his words. He watches with silent concern as his guardian bends to set his elbows on the bed, as he lifts Jason's hand to press it to his forehead. “Late April is always hard.”
Jason remembers. It doesn’t hit him like a semi-truck, or a freight train—nothing so violent or forceful. He remembers like a new leaf uncurling on one of Alfred’s houseplants, or like re-reading a note he left in the margin of a book years ago. He remembers who he is, now, and what happened to make him this way.
Maybe it’s the morphine, or maybe it’s the exhaustion. It could be that he has little choice—he can’t just get up and leave, not hooked up to all these IVs, with a cave full of batlings just beyond that door. Perhaps he’s just comfortable.
He wants to see Dick, and Clark. Spoiler, whatever her name is. He wants to thank them. He wants to see Alfie, and brag about Dick’s miraculous ability to clean up after himself. He wants Bruce to stop looking so torn in two. He wants things to be simple again.
He doesn’t want to leave.
“Yeah,” Jason replies, “today is the twenty-seventh. Right?”
The anniversary of his death.
Bruce presses Jason’s hand to his forehead. His head is bowed, and Jason can’t see his face, but he can hear the thickness in his voice. “It’s the twenty-eighth, now. Five am.”
“I’m not dying.” It seems like Bruce could use the reminder. “I’m not dead.”
Jason might be imagining it, but he can feel a slight wetness on his fingers, brushed there by Bruce’s eyelashes, fluttering against his skin.
“You’re alive,” his father says.