Chapter Text
“Would you just hold still?!”
“I’m trying,” Jason groaned. “Your fat fingers keep poking me!“
“Because you keep moving right before I poke you!” Prime defended.
Prime stopped, taking a deep breath. Arguing wasn’t going to make this go by any faster.
He looked up at Jason. “Okay, how about this?” Prime put his hand over Jason’s shoulder, gently pushing him back. Jason resisted at first before Prime explained, “you lay down and try to relax. I can work better when you aren’t watching me.”
Jason let himself be guided down, laying his back against the small medbay bed. It creaked under their combined weight as Prime shifted around to lean down, hovering over Jason as he examined the gash on his face.
He used his hand to pinch around the open wound, seeing how far apart the skin had split. His fingers were warm, his touch surprisingly delicate.
“Just close your eyes,” Prime told him. “Think of something nice, like, uh—I don’t know—a basket full of puppies or something.”
“I’m not five years old, Prime, I can handle it,” Jason said with a laugh, but he still dutifully let his eyes drift shut, sighing comfortably.
“You better not mess my face up, though,” Jason warned.
“Heh, that would be impossi—” Prime stopped himself with an awkwardly placed cough.
“I-I mean,” he tried again. “It would…” he muttered at first, but then he trailed off, gnawing on his lip.
“I can do it right,” Prime finally said. “You don’t have to worry about it. Just don’t distract me.”
A clutter of steel as he sifted through the tray of tools Jason had set out earlier. Prime had found him earlier, vision unfocused through the side of a small mirror and fingers doddering as he tried to patch himself up alone.
Sometimes the thing that took the longest to accept when you weren't alone anymore was that helping hands were less unwilling than you might have thought.
“Good,” Jason hummed. He laughed softly as he added absently, an afterthought, “I’ve got enough gnarly scars as it is.”
Prime’s hands stilled their rummaging, the sound of metal scraping to a stop. A beat passed through the air, muted like a paper clip falling on carpet, but the silence ebbed like it had landed on a string, the feeling of it reverberating.
“They’re not gnarly…” Prime said quietly.
He said it as he shifted back to lean closer to Jason, gloved fingers soft like pillowed powder. His touch was light, painless, as he pressed around the wound on Jason’s cheekbone. Then it traveled elsewhere, wander to older ones. Some were healed, and some simply closed up, like Jason never had the time to care for them before the skin took it upon itself to stitch itself back together, jagged and raised.
Jason didn’t react, too stunned by the gesture to do anything but swallow, hold his breath and listen.
“They’re a part of you now,” Prime said. “You’re not gnarly, Jason.”
“Oh, uh… Sorry, I…” Jason swallowed again, his voice quiet, unsure how to handle this. He’s never heard Prime sound this upset about anything before.
Then, a thought suddenly occurred to Jason. He had half a mind to smack himself on the head for not realising it sooner. Prime had already pulled away from him, the soft clutter of metal resuming out of sight beside him.
“I forgot you had one,” Jason finished with an exhale, awkward as he shook his head, uneasy. The movement forced Prime to have to pull away from plunging a suturing needle into his skin, wary of hurting him. “That’s probably insensitive, right?”
“No, don’t worry about that,” Prime chuckled with ease. “That stuff doesn’t bother me. In fact, I think it makes me look cool.”
“Really?” Jason laughed, a bubbling sound, as he asked. “Cool?”
“I mean, yeah. You don’t think so? All good super-villains have cool scars or some…”—his hands busied themselves as he searched for the word but couldn't think of one—”thing they’re known for. Like a visual tell that reminds you ‘oh, shit, it’s that guy!’” He cried out theatrically, making Jason laugh again. “‘He means serious business!’”
Prime was getting good at telling when Jason was about to laugh, pulling away in time until his face relaxed again. The bridge of his freckled nose would crinkle a touch a moment before he did.
“Hm, whatever you say,” Jason relented. “Are you even doing anything right now? I don’t feel a thing.”
“Yeah, I’m halfway done,” Prime confirmed. “Just give me a minute and you can take a look at my handiwork.”
“Seriously?” Jason scoffed in disbelief. “I didn’t even know you could do this.”
“Well, technically…” Prime started hesitantly. “I’ve never done this before, so I didn’t know either,” he laughed. “It’s not that different from hand-sewing, though, so I thought I could try.”
“I didn’t know you could sew either. What else are you hiding?” Jason peaked a look at him with one eye and waggled his eyebrows, forcing Prime to stop again. “Can you drive a stick shift?”
“Uhh… probably not?” He gave it some thought.
He was never… home long enough to be the age where he had to learn to drive. But it's not like he couldn't still secretly be good at it, he decided.
“I could learn if you taught me. I’m sure I can figure it out, I’m a pretty fast learner.”
“Now, that I’d like to see,” Jason grinned. Prime's hands paused again. “No offense, but you don’t come off as an awfully patient guy.”
“I guess you got me there,” Prime didn't bother arguing. “But if I take my time with anything, I’ll be great at it in no time. Take my word for it.”
Prime pulled his hands away, sitting up. He set the needle and gauze down, taking off the gloves Jason had given him and trashing them.
“There,” he finally said. “All done.”
“That was fast,” Jason said, sitting up.
Prime handed him a small mirror. He took it and looked at his freshly sewn up wound in its reflection, running the pads of his fingers carefully over it.
“Not bad, Superboy,” Jason admitted.
Prime chuckled, leaning over to press a small bandaid over the fresh stitches. Jason dropped the mirror into his lap, eyes falling naturally. He watched Prime’s concentrated face, his tongue sticking out in the corner of his mouth.
“Y’know, you’ve got pretty gentle hands for such a big klutz, C,” Jason said. He meant it as a joke, but his voice came out quiet in the space between them.
“Oh, yeah?” Prime laughed. “It’s funny, I’ve never done this on a person before. The last time I broke out a sewing kit was when I was stitching up a hole I tore through my Superboy costume.”
“How’d you manage that?” Jason grinned. “I thought those were supposed to be indestructible.”
He imagined how mad Prime must have been after realising he'd torn into the red-and-blue fabric. He was so used to seeing him blow a fuse that, at this point, it was never a cause for concern. He was always easy bait for Jason to make fun of him over it.
Come to think of it, though, Prime seemed to have calmed down a lot lately. Jason couldn't remember the last time he'd actually been bothered by anything too small.
“Not mine,” Prime clarified. He’d just finished putting away all the supplies, sealing the medkit closed as he set it aside. “It was just a homemade costume. I wasn’t actually Superboy for a long while.”
Jason raised an inquisitive brow. “But you already had a Superboy costume?”
“I had a bunch, actually.” Prime was smiling now, looking down at his hands. His voice grew softer as he seemed to recall something far away, and yet comfortingly close in its familiarity.
“When I was eight,” Prime recalled. “I told my mom I wanted to be Superboy for Halloween. She told me I could do whatever I wanted as long as I made the costume myself.”
“How’d that first one turn out?” Jason asked, a small smile tugging at his lips as he watched Prime’s minute expressions, lost in thought.
“Terrible,” Prime laughed. He was ringing his hands, but there was a certain glee in his voice that Jason has never heard before. “I kept poking myself with the sewing needle, and I didn’t finish it in time for Halloween. I cried to my mom about it. I didn’t go trick-or-treating that year because I didn’t want to be the only one not wearing a dumb costume.”
“What did you end up doing?”
“My…” Prime coughed. “Uh, my best friend Laurie. She lived next door to us. When she got home that Halloween night, she asked me to come over so we could share the candy she got.”
“So, you didn’t end up going trick-or-treating?”
“I didn’t need to,” Prime admitted. “I didn’t really want to, anyway. If I was going to go at all, it would have been so Laurie and I could spend time together.”
“Anyway,” Prime changed the subject. Jason let him, not wanting to push or pry. Prime has never spoken this openly with him before. “I did eventually figure out how to actually sew a real costume together. The first few times were still bad. The sleeves were too long, or the colour wasn’t right, or the cape was too short.
“But the last one I made was perfect,” he smiled. Just a small tilt, like a wistful feeling lingered. “It fit just right and it looked great too. I looked like a real Superboy. Not just a character from a comic book. I wore it to a party with my friends. Laurie was there too.”
Jason smiled at him. Prime’s soft waves were falling over his eyes. “That good, huh?”
“Yeah!” Prime beamed back at him, finally looking up to meet his eyes. Jason’s gaze was tender, something rare and new to both of them. “It even fooled Superman! Can you believe that?”
It was the second time Jason was mildly skeptical. Prime always had a fantastical way of looking at things. It made everything sound a little too good to be true, but it was also kind of endearing. Like he never lost the spark that inspired his wonder as a boy.
“How’d you manage to trick him?” Jason asked.
“Well, I guess he was fooled because I was flying,” Prime added the part that made the picture start to make sense. “But he figured out the costume was fake when I damaged it. The suit got burned pretty badly when we were fighting alien invaders.”
“Really? Space invaders?” Jason laughed. This was sounding closer to fantasy again, even if Jason’s had his own fair share of encounters with the third kind. “Sounds like it was a ton of fun.”
“Yeah…” Prime’s voice trailed off into something meek. Small. He looked away. “Yeah, it was.”
Just as before, Jason wasn't sure what he'd said wrong this time either. He racked his brain for something else he could have forgotten and let slip.
“Uh, sorry,” he quickly apologised. “I didn’t mean to—“
“No, no, you’re fine. It’s fine. Just…” Prime glanced over at him for only a moment before he looked away again at a spot on the wall behind Jason.
Prime waited a moment before he spoke up. “It was just… it was the only time I was really Superboy, y’know? It felt like it was only a day. I mean, it was, but..
“The best day of my life happened that night,” he finally landed on what he wanted to say. “And when the sun rose again, the whole world just… ended.”
Jason stalled, staring. “I… I don’t know what to say,” he admitted. “I’m sorry. That’s awful.”
Prime didn’t say anything. He bowed his head down, staring at his hands. He couldn’t keep them still.
“Hey,” Jason said gently, reaching for Prime’s clasped hands where he was still ringing them together in his lap. Jason squeezed his hands reassuringly. “It’s okay. That… wasn’t, but you aren’t there anymore. You’re here now.”
Prime said nothing still. He didn’t look up. Jason felt the soft trickle of something wet on his hands.
He reached over, laying his hand on Prime’s chest to urge him. “C’mon, C. Look at me.”
Slowly, almost reluctantly, Prime raised his head. He didn’t meet Jason’s eyes right away, embarrassed. He resisted the urge to rub his hands over his own face, but it was hard. It felt humiliating.
Jason didn’t look at him with pity. He couldn’t quite tell what it was, but it felt good. It felt nice.
He reached over and gently swiped his thumb under Prime’s eye. The gesture was unexpected; so foreign with its tenderness. It made him feel like he could shatter into a million pieces right now and he would be safe to do it. Safe for the first time since he could remember.
“Clark,” Jason called to him softly. He’s never said his name before. Not even as a joke. “You’re here now, okay? With me. Right here. We’re in Gotham. It’s Friday night. You went to work today, remember?”
“Y-Yeah, I—“ Prime swallowed a lump in his throat. It was hard to speak. “I remember.”
“It’s okay if you need a minute, but you have to stay with me, okay?” Jason said gently. His hands were warm like a soothing balm. “Right here. You’re nowhere else. You’re safe here, I promise.”
“O-Okay…” Prime said, voice shaken.
Confounded, he wouldn't have imagined Jason would say any of this, let alone understand or give him the time of day. Prime almost expected him to brush it off. Ignore it and hope he never brought it back up again.
Yet, what Jason was asking of him was something he was realising he’s never really allowed himself. It was always easier to stop himself from thinking about it entirely. To never speak of it again, stuffing it all down to the deep dark hole inside himself just so the feelings never had to resurface.
But, like a buoy, those feelings could never be weighed down enough to sink entirely. They were never going away. They remained there, floating just below the surface, waiting to be seen and heard and felt again.
The ghosts of his past were waiting to be remembered, but Prime just didn't think he had the strength to let go of them each time he let himself dip his head back underwater. It felt like he was looking through that haze now, and the only light shining through it was Jason offering his hand.
Prime reached for him without thinking.
It was like he was being guided by some other hand, some other force that knew something he didn’t. Something bigger than himself that knew what he needed when he didn’t. He wrapped his arms around Jason’s waist and buried his face in the crook of his shoulder.
Jason only hesitated for a moment before he returned it. His hands were already on Prime, touch light, uncommitted at first. Then Jason circled his arms around him, holding him close; strong and unwavering.
Jason’s heart was a rabbit sprinting in an open field, but it wasn’t scared, running from danger. He wasn’t afraid. He was simply just as surprised as Prime was.
Prime buried his nose into the curve of Jason’s neck. He tried breathing.
Why was that hard? Why did it feel like there was a knot growing tighter and tighter in his chest with every passing moment? Why didn’t he feel better already? Was Jason going to be mad that he was getting his shirt wet and gross because he kept rubbing his face in it?
Jason slipped his fingers into his hair, carding up and through from the nape of his neck. That’s when the rope frayed and snapped. The knot broke, and Prime felt himself break with it as he finally collapsed into him, sobbing in Jason’s arms.
This was definitely humiliating.
Jason only held him tighter. The touch of his hand only grew softer in his hair, soothing him without words.
Prime cried, not because he felt like he had any right to, or that Jason wouldn’t mind it, but because he felt like he couldn’t hold it in any longer. All it took for him to let that part of his heart spill out was for it to be gently caressed. Now, it felt nearly impossible to stop the ensuing downpour.
They didn’t talk about this after. It took a while for Prime to stop avoiding Jason’s eye as they crossed paths, or even when they spoke directly.
Then eventually—as they always do—things went back to normal.
There wasn't really a right way to describe ‘normal’ when you bared your heart to someone for the first time in years. For the two of them, this was as close as it was ever going to get.