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When Jason found the underground bunker, he initially went in with the expectation of liberating some supplies from a bunch of weirdos Bruce had locked up last week. He didn't expect it to turn into a rescue mission.
The minute he saw the line of enclosed glass chambers he knew he had stumbled onto something bigger than he had expected. He had approached the bank of glass doors slowly, right up until he glimpsed who was inside one of the chambers.
Jason's heart almost stopped when he saw the slumped pile of green and red on the hard cement floor. Forgetting caution, he rushed down the long hall and into the room. Pressing a palm to the cool door he peered in and was relieved when the bundle of torn fabric stirred.
Jason had heard about Drake's death through the grapevine. Batman hadn't even had the balls to tell Jason himself that he had let yet another Robin die for his Mission. It had to come from Leslie, like most of the hard truths in his life.
“Hey kid, you ok?” he husked, trying hard to keep his voice steady and even. He tapped lightly on the glass as Drake shifted and looked up at him.
Seeing the kid was like a punch in the gut. Drake was very clean for a teenager. Unless Tim just got out of a fight, he was usually just about as tidy as Alfred. Now, Drake’s too thin face was streaked with dirt. His hair was limp and greasy and his usually spotless uniform was torn and filthy.
“You're gonna be ok. I promise you're gonna be ok. Do you know how these doors open?”
Drake shook his head slowly. It looked liked it hurt.
“I've never seen it open...” he rasped, and the sound of his voice made Jason struggle to hold back a wince.
“Ok. It's ok. I'll figure it out. I'm going to go back into the other room. I'm gonna see if I can figure out how it all opens. I'll be right back, though. I promise I'll be right back.”
Drake just nodded and struggled to stand. It looked like he hadn't eaten in days…
Jason made himself turn away and run back down the hallway to the main room of the underground bunker. There was a bank of computers there was no way he'd be able to figure out in the little time he had.
It didn't take Jason long to spot a series of switches along the wall adjacent to the hallway. Saying a prayer to the god of all Bat-kids, he started pressing buttons and flipping switches. Lights went on and off, computers started, an exhausted fan started kicking up some dust, but it was when he heard a low wooooosh from the room with the cells, that he knew he had found the right switch.
Sprinting back down the hallway, he was just in time to catch Drake as he stumbled out of the room.
“I got ya. I got ya,” Jason said as he wrapped an arm around Drake. “We just gotta hurry now. I played around with their equipment, if there were any of them left, that may have tipped one of them off. I need you to run, kiddo. Can you run?”
Drake swallowed hard and nodded. A determined look came over his dirty face, and Jason knew that it was time to run.
Drake stumbled and struggled to keep up with Jason. It took them longer than Jason would have liked to get Drake out of there and onto his bike. Jason helped Drake into a helmet before revving up his bike and taking off down the road.
He did some evasive driving to make sure he wasn't being followed before making his way back to his bunker under the police station.
Drake nearly fell off the bike when they came to a stop. Jason caught him before he took a hard fall on the cement floor.
“I gotcha. You're good. Let's get you to the sofa and I'll call Bruce.”
Drake stopped short.
“No,” he rasped. His voice was quiet but fierce. “No.”
“No to the sofa, or no to the call? 'Cause the sofa's clean, I promise... I mean there's a few ketchup stains, but--”
Drake cut him off with an aggressive wave of his hand.
“No to the call. Don't call Bruce. Don't call any of them. Not... Not yet...”
Jason felt his throat tighten. He just nodded and lead Drake further into the bomb shelter.
“Sofa it is, then.”
“Maybe a shower. Do you have one?”
“Yeah, yeah we can do that.” Jason course corrected and helped Drake into the bathroom. They wrestled him out of his ruined uniform and into the shower stall. Drake turned the water on as hot as it could go. Slumping down to sit on the floor of the shower, Drake immediately reached for the soap.
Jason cleared his throat awkwardly as Drake lathered up.
“I'll just... I'll grab you some grub. You look like you could use it.”
Drake just made an affirmative sound as steam billowed up into the bathroom.
Jason grabbed Drake's ruined clothes and tossed them into the trash before moving towards the food stocks. There wasn't much there. Just some tomato soup and crackers. Jason usually ended up ordering take out...
Transferring the soup to a pot, he switched on the hotplate to warm the food.
His pocket buzzed with a text but Jason couldn't bring himself to check it. His phone was burning a guilty hole in his pocket. He knew he should call Bruce, or Dick or Steph. He should absolutely call Leslie, but..
But Drake had asked Jason not to call any of them and there was a part of Jason, a part he tried not to think about too much, that understood why.
He'd clean the kid up, get some food in him and let him get some actual sleep, or as much actual sleep a guy could get on Jason's honestly not all that clean sofa. Then they could talk about next steps.
It was almost an hour before Drake staggered out of the shower. Jason gave him a pair of old sweats to throw on, but Drake was still shivering when he settled on Jason’s couch.
At least he didn't seem to mind the ketchup stains. Jason dug around for a few extra blankets, but Drake was already in a half doze by the time Jay came back with them. He didn't say a word as Jason laid them on top of him.
‘Hungry?’
Drake just shook his head.
‘When's the last time you ate?’
Drake gave a feeble shrug.
‘More tired than anything. How long have i been gone?’
‘Not totally sure. The Boss didn't keep me in the loop, as usual…’
Drake just nodded thoughtfully.
‘At first I could keep track of the days by the number of times they brought food. A few days ago they just stopped coming, so I wasn't sure… I lost track of time…’
Jason nodded.
‘I thought for sure they’d come. I kept hoping--’ Drake’s voice cracked on the word and this time Jason couldn't hold back the wince.
‘They thought you were dead, kiddo. They didn't look because they didn't think there was anything to find.’
Drake took a deep breath and nodded, as if he had suspected.
“Guess now we both know what it's like to be the Dead Robin,” Jason said with an attempt at humor.
Drake smiled hollowly at the joke.
“Guess we all do…”
“Thaaaaaaat’s a depressing thought.”
Drake just nodded and the silence stretched between them until Jason just couldn't stand the thought of the kid believing…
“He was pretty broken up about it, you know. They all were. They went after them with a vengeance and…”
Drake broke him off with an almost bitter laugh.
“I'm sure he was…”
Jason wasn't really sure what to say to that. Even after all of this time he knew there was nothing in the world anyone could have said to him to make what happened feel anything less than crushing. He hadn't realized how profoundly that hurt until he was searching for the words to say to someone else.
“It's like… we’re cannon-fodder, right? All of us. And not just physically. It's not just about the red and green that draws the eye and the bullets. It's not just that we're in the front lines where all the danger is. It's not just about the violence.
“We’re emotional cannon-fodder too. He throws us out into the fray and when one of us doesn't make it, it's just more fuel for the fire. Just one more reason for The Mission, just another Memorial Case for him to brood over while Alfred makes indulgent excuses and lets him.”
Jason swallowed hard but couldn't bring himself to respond.
“It's been weeks… He’s the World’s Greatest Detective and you found me faster.”
“It was luck. Just luck. I was looking for supplies and I just…”
“And why do you need to look for supplies? Why are you squatting here with outdated tech and no security? Because he fucked up and you got mad and he can't forgive you for trying to get your head sorted out in your own way. In ways he doesn't understand because I'm not entirely sure empathy is something he gets.”
Drake shook his head roughly, and breathed in deep through his nose before repeating.
“Cannon-fodder.”
Jason felt all the energy seep out of him all at once and he slumped to the floor. He couldn't stand to look at Drake any more. Too thin, too bitter, too hurt…
Jason rested his back against the front footboard of the sofa and tilted his head up to look at the ceiling.
“We’re not just… cannon-fodder.” Jason said finally.
“Well, not to each other, at any rate. At least there’s that.”
“You should eat.”
“You should allow me my existential crisis.”
“Food first, crisis later.”
Jason got Drake to eat most of the bowl of soup before he crashed again.
Even asleep, though, Drake’s presence in his space was unsettling. Not just because the kid was back, but his words kept echoing in Jason’s head.
Emotional cannon-fodder didn't feel too far wrong. Jason had never really thought of it in those terms before, but it seemed like Drake had been thinking about it long and hard for a few weeks and that's where he came down on it. And Drake was a hell of a lot better at thinking than Jason.
Even still. Even after all of the hurt and the dredged up bad feelings and the empathy he felt for Drake in this moment, his phone was still a heavy, guilty weight in his pocket.
Bruce should know. Deserved to know. But Drake also deserved some time to recover before facing everyone again.
Jason knew a little bit about that.
Drake needed time, he needed space, he needed rest. He needed to think about what he wanted before moving back into…
Into the real world. Into living again. Into family and fights and…
And everything that went with it.
Pacing back over to the kitchen, Jason’s phone buzzed again, but he didn't look at it. He couldn't look at it. He didn't trust himself not to make the…
The right call?
The wrong call?
The call Drake sure as shit didn't want him to make, at any rate.
Jason shook his head and tried not to think. Tried not to remember. Tried not to feel all the things that still felt so bottled up inside.
Jason pulled his phone from his pocket and threw it on the counter. Stalking back out of the kitchen, he stopped short when he saw Drake still curled up on the sofa. He had pulled the blankets almost up over his head, but he was still shivering in his sleep.
Shock. Must be shock.
He really needed to call Leslie. See if the kid needed some IV fluids or anything else, but…
But Jason couldn't get the sound of Drake’s voice out of his head as he told Jason not to call anyone. Low. Forceful. Serious.
It tore at him a little.
Swallowing hard as he paced through the bomb shelter, the image of the bundle of red and green at the bottom of that cell flashed in Jason’s head. Drake had been so still, his uniform in tatters. Jason hadn't let himself think about it too much in the moment, he was too preoccupied with getting Drake out of there, but now, thinking back…
Jason wondered if that's how he looked when Bruce found him. Was he that still? That bloodied? That… alone?
Jason found himself back in the kitchen, standing over the counter. The light of his phone screen illuminated his dark kitchen with an almost eerie green glow when it buzzed again with a text.
Three message alerts were up on his screen and even from where he stood he could see the names.
Dick - 2 messages
Bruce - 1 message
Bruce's name seemed to sting at Jason’s retinas.
Emotional cannon-fodder…
Drake was feeling rough, betrayed, abandoned but that didn't mean…
Isolation can do bad things to a person. Mess with their head. Drake had been in that prison cell for weeks, god knows how much human contact the kid had. And the last week he hadn't even had food. Not wanting Jason to call Bruce, to call any of them, was just raw emotion. His brain trying to compensate for the yo-yo effect of being captured and being free. The kid was just trying to readjust. It didn't mean...
It didn't mean he'd always feel like that, right? Jason could see the kid getting over it. Talking to Dick and Steph and even Damian. He'd come around…
Jason had.
Drake just needed time. He just needed to be reminded that he wasn't alone anymore. He just needed to know that Bruce, that none of them, actually thought of him as cannon-fodder.
He just needed…
Jason picked up his phone and dialed.