Chapter Text
They put him back in the limousine. Roughly, this time, two hands on Jason’s shoulders, two more on each bicep, shoving him into the back seat. Behind him, the party goes on, unbothered. Falcone had stood, when it was all said and done. His eyes were black and his mouth was a thin line, and he’d stared down at Jason with so much venom it was a miracle his dainty little champagne glass didn’t shatter into a million pieces when he raised it in toast.
Jason won the match. Anyone who bet on him would be getting a healthy payout, anyone who didn’t—namely, the mob boss who’d hired him to lose—would be feeling the hole in their pocket just about now.
Jason thinks, by the way Waylon follows him into the car, blustering and puce-faced, that Falcone wasn’t the only one to lose a bet tonight.
He lets himself be manhandled. Slumps into the leather seats, still breathing hard and sweating from the match. Rolls his eyes skyward, to the closed sunroof, licking his lips. Licking the salt off of them, the blood off his teeth.
Grayson will be pissed. He’d drilled it home, that Jason was going to lose exactly how Falcone said he’d lose. No slip ups. The Falcones aren’t the kind of people to fuck with, Jason’s the one who said that, isn’t he?
This time, Jason shares his space with two other men, each as bulky as Trent, or more so. They sandwich Jason between them, stiff and menacing. He feels like he’s going to overheat. The entire car smells like sour body odor and cheap wine and Waylon’s cologne.
“You’re an idiot.”
Jason laughs. It twinges something in his ribs, but he doesn’t flinch. He’ll be in a world of pain, soon, anyway. What’s a little more now?
He knew something like this would happen. Jason’s too stupid for his own good.
“You had one job,” Waylon is twitching. The car is moving, headed west, to the docks. They don’t usually dredge the Sprang, and the tides are never strong enough to drag corpses onto land, not unless something’s broken up the corpses first.
Jason used to work the docks. For a few months last winter, loading and unloading shipping containers. Except he didn’t have any OSHA shit, or the forklift certification, and so when the inspectors started sniffing around Jason and all the other thugs that were doing cheap labor under the table were booted out.
Still. He knows the docks pretty well, spent a lot of time navigating the labyrinth of cargo boxes and piers. He knows how to get from the Marina to the Basin in less than twenty minutes on foot, if he runs fast and hard enough.
Jason ignores Waylon. Keeps his eyes pinned to the sunroof, so he doesn’t see it coming when Waylon reaches out and smacks him. The man’s hand is big, but soft, padded with fat that rounds his joints handsomely. Jason’s chin tips to the side, skin warming at the impact.
“You dumb bitch,” he says, and Jason wonders if that’s the best insult he can come up with. Being stupid, or being a woman.
The rest of the ride is taken in tense silence. Falcone’s expression lingers on Jason’s mind, like some sort of miasma. It’s almost comedic; he’d railed so hard against Grayson’s directives, lamented being manipulated into helping the man out with whatever investigation he’s running. And when it came down to it, Jason was the one to stick his neck into the guillotine for Grayson’s case. Put himself in reckless, needless danger. Why? Because he wanted to spite a mob boss? Because the thought of putting money in Falcone’s pockets, after what he did, turned his stomach?
Jason could have walked away from all this a couple k’s richer, could’ve let Grayson put Falcone away by himself, due process and all. There was no reason to put his pride above any of that.
Whatever. Jason runs his tongue over his teeth, again and again, the only nervous fidget he’ll allow himself.
“You know what I’m going to do to you?” Waylon hisses it, leaning forward, as the limousine pulls into a concrete parking deck a few blocks from the shore. He puts himself firmly in Jason’s space. But Waylon isn’t half as intimidating as Falcone is, still drunk and high off his ass, pupils blown, expression loose. Clearly, he did not think he’d actually have to manage Jason. “Because I won’t kill you, boy. No.”
The car is turned off. A man on each side of Jason grabs his arm. He thinks, briefly, that these people are idiots.
Best street fighter in Gotham, yeah. And they shouldn’t employ lethal force.
He’s hauled out of the car unceremoniously. The parking deck is sprawling, and mostly empty. He imagines that even if it weren’t, there still wouldn’t be any witnesses to what they’re going to do to Jason here. None that would say anything, at any rate.
Every other column is lit by hazy yellow HID’s, hanging from the ceiling. The entire construct is walled off from the outside world. It smells like wet pavement, and the sewage that outlets into the river. Jason hits the ground knees-first, then his palms. Lets himself stay there, as his nose drips a pinkish mixture of blood and snot onto the pavement.
He considers staying down, sees a boot headed straight for his stomach, and reconsiders. Rolls onto his back, rapidly away from the kick, before scrambling to his feet.
Waylon’s men advance on Jason, hands outstretched. Falcone must have told them to put the pain in him.
Jason lets his foot slide out, bending his knees, the adrenaline sliding down his spine. It’s not as effective this time. He’s tired from the fight, can feel it when his muscles tremble at having to hold him up. His fists clench, and it’s too loose, lacking the strength he had before.
Maybe he should’ve slept longer than a few hours last night. Maybe he should’ve eaten something. He really doubts it’ll be a struggle, though. Neither of the men are pulling their guns.
“Fuck you,” Jason spits, glaring at Waylon where he climbs gracefully out of the limousine. One of the men advances, jabbing for Jason’s face. He ducks under the blow, catching the man’s arm where he’s over-extended, dragging him forward and sinking his elbows into the man’s stomach
The other one tries to pounce on him, projects as he does, and Jason slips under his guard to drive a fist up into his chin—and hopefully the point of his nasal bone into his brain.
Not that Jason has the leverage, force, or strength to do that. Not that anything is ever that easy. Because the minute it looks like he might get the upper hand, he hears the damning click of the pistol on Waylon’s belt.
With a hand still fisted in one of the thug’s shirt, Jason freezes. Turns, slowly, raising his free hand in a show of peace.
Waylon looks bored. With the muzzle of his gun aimed squarely at Jason, finger on the trigger. He can see the red flash of the disengaged safety. He clicks his teeth, ambling from the limousine to where Jason has gone still.
“A fighter,” he comments, idly, closing in until their chests are just inches from touching. “Through and through, eh boy?” he presses the cold metal into Jason’s forehead, looking down his nose at Jason. “Get on your knees.”
Jason, chest heaving, gathers the saliva in his mouth. Clears his throat, jaw working as he prepares to expectorate the loogie at Waylon’s face.
Several things happen at once. Jason does spit on Waylon, and it’s an impressive glob of blood and mucous and saliva, so thick that it sticks for a beat, before sliding down the man’s ruddy cheek. Both of Waylon’s grunts manage to collect themselves, reaching for Jason’s shoulders, as if to forcibly put him on the ground. Waylon’s finger on the trigger twitches, the gun going stiff as he prepares to shoot.
And then the parking garage fills with the noise of screeching tires, and every head snaps in the direction of the noise, as a motorcycle screeches around the tight corners of the parking deck.
Jason blinks. It’s a sleek Ducati, all black with a grey underbody. The rider wears leather and riding armor, a bulky black helmet, and they don’t slow down, rocketing at full speed, headed directly for where Jason is standing.
Still heading for Jason, as the seconds tick down and the distance closes rapidly. His eyes go wide.
“What the fu—” Waylon doesn’t finish, scrambling out of the way when it becomes very clear that the rider will not be stopping. Jason himself lunges away from the group, so violently that he has to curl into a roll, scraping his back on the concrete.
The rider barrels through the spot where the four of them had been, snapping their bike around like it’s an extension of their body, the smell of burning rubber evident as they scream to a stop, one foot planted on the ground, their hands taut on the handles of the bike.
They’re slim, covered head to toe in a body suit tight enough that Jason can see the definition of their musculature. When Waylon points the gun at them, they don’t even flinch.
Jason, on his hands and knees now, and perfectly forgotten in the chaos, starts crab-walking backwards, to the wall of parked cars at the far side.
His heart is beating so hard it’s almost comical, the sound of his breathing drowning out Waylon’s demands for their interruption to identify themself. At the base of the rider’s neck, where the collar of their jumpsuit zips up tight around their slender throat, a silver bell jingles merrily. They reach up, slowly, still drawing Waylon’s attention as Falcone’s men pull their own guns and train them on the rider. Jason’s skin prickles, and he thinks, nonsensically, that the stranger is looking at him, though he can’t tell behind their helmet.
Jason almost bluescreens when they take off the helmet, and beneath it is a domino mask and a pointy pair of ears, and the terrible rush of white noise panic that’s been creeping up on Jason finally eclipses his higher brain function. Holy shit, that is Catwoman.
Waylon and his men seem to realize it at the same time as Jason. They start shooting.
Catwoman is already moving, though, like she has some kind of sixth sense, moving so fast that Jason’s eyes blur just watching her. She throws something—silver and wicked sharp—and it slices across Waylon’s gun hand, forcing the man to drop the weapon. He cries out, and she’s upon him, wrapping herself up in his body so that the two grunts can’t shoot at her without risking hitting their boss.
Jason feels frozen on the sidelines, all but underneath a grey Toyota Tacoma, flinching every time a gunshot echoes around the parking deck.
He should run. Or maybe help Catwoman, but while she seems quite capable of dodging bullets, Jason’s never learned that particular technique. He should run.
She rakes her nails over Waylon’s throat, deep enough that thick dark arterial blood spurts forth immediately, and Waylon starts gasping like a dying fish.
Catwoman’s head snaps up. She looks passed Waylon’s quickly stilling body, passed the two thugs still trying to fill her with lead, somehow finding Jason’s hiding spot in less than a second and locking eyes with him.
There’s blood dripping from her claws, expression so intently murderous that Jason feels something closer to awe than fear stirring in his chest.
She drops Waylon, moves for the next man. Moves in Jason’s direction, and his self-preservation finally kicks in. He stumbles up to his feet on legs that almost refuse to support him, using the truck for balance. Turns on his heel, his back to the skirmish behind him. And Jason runs.
The payphones are following him.
Jason thinks he’s seen this in a movie once. Maybe the Matrix, or Harry Potter or something. An otherwise deserted street, except it’s not, and Jason is drawing eyes. Every phone booth he passes starts ringing, exactly as he passes it. He’s not stupid enough to think it’s a coincidence.
He tries taking a side street, ducking between 7th and 9th at a brisk jog, because he knows none of the traffic cameras in this alley work. The payphone outside of the bodega and deli starts up anyways. Jason’s hackles are rising.
There’s still another mile between him and his apartment. He’s been running since he left the pier.
“You can stop,” Jason shouts, and his voice is breaking. The air is fluttering in and out of his lungs, too shallow and too rapid. He doesn’t know why; he’s run farther for longer. His whole body is keyed up, head snapping around, dread prickling up his spine. “I’m not fucking picking those up.”
A woman walking in front of him crosses the street rapidly, and Jason knows he’s scared her. That he looks half-insane, sweating bullets through his shirt and spinning on his heels every other step, jumping every time a phone rings.
It occurs to him, when he thinks his legs are going to give out, and he has to stop and put his hands on his knees, bowing over and sucking in great big breaths of air, that he could’ve died back there. That he still might. No, not might. He’s put himself at the top of Falcone’s shit list, humiliated the man and made a show of it, too. This is the end of the line for him.
By the time he gets back to his street, apartment building in view, Jason’s spiraled himself into and out of two separate panic attacks. There’s a cramp wracking his lower abdomen, and one in his calf muscle, but he pushes through it, shoving his hair out of his face ungently. Some of the tension in his shoulders eases; a door he can lock. A chance to catch his breath. Maybe he could even borrow a neighbor’s phone or something, call Grayson.
He didn’t follow the plan, though. He didn’t lose the match, and he probably didn’t get as much info as the man wanted, leaving early and all. Jason doesn’t know what that means for his chances of cashing in on that protection promise.
His eyes scan the street—no payphones, thankfully—and land, for a beat, on the balcony fire escape attached to 514’s apartment. He only notices because the man is sitting on it on a foldout lawn chair, a pack of unsmoked cigarettes in hand. He’s gazing down at Jason, leaned forward, a grim press to his lips.
Jason lifts a hand, mustering a thin smile for his neighbor. 514 stands, crossing his arms over his chest. He shakes his head.
Jason draws up short. Feels his heart skip a painful beat. Go, 514 mouths, shaking his head again.
Now that he’s looking for it, Jason can see the men sitting on the stoop, that he’d written off without much thought. There are bulges in the pockets of their sweatshirts, there’s a van parked on the street that Jason’s never seen before.
Falcone’s men.
The blood drains from his face, stomach sinking. Jason turns on his heel, but he knows it’s too late. The men on the stoop have already spotted him, started getting up and heading toward him. He turns on his heel, turns to run.
Makes it fifteen steps, slow and unsteady, and then a man steps into his path, and punches Jason in the gut in the same motion, and Jason’s body is reacting before he can think, he’s curling his hands into fists and making himself a smaller target, going to punch his attacker in the face.
A gun digs into his abdomen, an arm across his chest, pulling him into someone else’s body. He freezes up, and then he’s surrounded.
Three men, four. One to hold him down while Jason writhes and gasps, three others to rain blows on him in the street. A jab to his liver has him seeing stars. Someone hits his face, someone cracks his ribs, and Jason knows it’s seconds, at most, but it stretches out into an indeterminable length of time. Until he can’t see straight, and the pain is eclipsing the need to breathe, and he’s dropped unceremoniously onto the concrete.
Jason manages to get his palms out before he can faceplant, but only barely. Spits and vomits onto the ground, can taste bile, and something more insidious and bitter. He’s going to bleed internally, he can tell, if only by the way his abdomen has already gone turgid at the trauma.
“Dumb fuck.” One of them is laughing. Foot traffic navigates around them like they’re a rock in a stream, parting but never stopping to help. Jason blinks, and the world sways violently. Then, “Get him up.”
A question Jason doesn’t hear, because one of the men takes the liberty to kick Jason’s side, where he’s lying prone. The sharp-edged toe of a pointed boot digs into his kidney. Jason chokes on air, groaning, trying to push himself up and failing miserably.
“The boss wants an example made out of him,” is the eventual answer, their voice rolls over Jason like a landslide. Nonsensically, he exhales, body unclenching. “We don’t gotta take him far, just not here in the street, yeah?”
Someone grabs his arm, lifts him, and Jason reaches for them. It doesn’t matter if he dies, it really doesn’t, he just needs them to do it quickly.
He’s hit again, across the face. Jason’s eyes are swelling rapidly, and he can’t see through the tears and the blood, nothing but the blurry outline of the figures that surround him. The glint of gunmetal. Jason is dragged backward, feet skittering over the concrete as he’s lifted off the ground entirely. He struggles, but not hard, and not for long.
He closes his eyes, as he’s pulled into a dark back alley, unoccupied. He thinks of his mother when he’s put on his knees, of her whispered promises of heaven. He wonders if Willis will cry for him, if anyone would even think to tell his dad he’s dead.
A gun is leveled against his head for the second time today. He doesn’t recognize the person behind it. indulges the brief notion of reaching up like they do in the movies, grabbing the muzzle and forcing it away from him so quickly that the man doesn’t get the chance to pull the trigger.
But he’s not Catwoman, and he can barely feel his fingers, let alone get passed all four of them to escape again. And where would he go? If they know his apartment building, and they know his coach.
“Godspeed, kid,” the man says, amusement coloring his voice as he flipping of the safety. Jason doesn’t hear the click of the trigger, because the echoing boom of the gunshot blows out his eardrums.
The noise rattles him so much that the pain registers five or six beats later. Disorientation and shock blurring everything over into a haze, before agony punches him in the chest. Fiery starts up his left side and radiates, the force of the gunshot sending him falling backward. He thinks its not fair, to be dead and still feeling it. It registers, as his eyelids flutter and he instinctively grabs for his shoulder, where it hurts the most, that the bullet should’ve planted between his eyes.
Jason goes down, deaf now, blinking in technicolor. His chin scraps against the asphalt, and his vision whites out as his shoulder is jostled. Hot wet blood seeps out of him, the same way it seeped from Waylon when the man’s throat was slit.
Except, when he pulls a hand back from his shoulder, blinking at it blearily, the blood is so dark its black, and his hand doubles and then triples in front of him. A terrible cold drips down his spine, and he shivers.
Looks up, in time to see a haze of blue and black toss a man across the alley, into the wall. Realizes that Falcone’s enforcer didn’t just have abysmal aim, someone stopped him from killing Jason.
And for the second time in as many hours, Jason watches as a vigilante starts wiping the floor with Falcone’s men.
It’s not Catwoman this time. Electric blue finger stripes, a head of messy black hair and a scary intensity to his face. Jason thinks, hysterically, that Nightwing is a Bludhaven Mask.
He takes out two of the men with a violent jab of his lit escrima, the smell of burning flesh fills the alley. Jason doesn’t hear them scream, but he also doesn’t hear the sound of their bodies hitting the ground, so it’s probably just his ears.
Nightwing flips over another of the enforcers, cups the back of his neck and kicks out his legs. Drives the man to the ground. Hits him so hard that Jason’s face hurts in sympathy. He doesn’t get up again.
He takes out the last one with a hand around his throat, throws him up against the wall and chokes him until his eyes roll up into the back of his head.
Through some force of will, or maybe just a surge of adrenaline as his body realizes it’s going to die, Jason pushes himself up, onto his back, kicking at the ground in an attempt to crawl away. Every movement pulls at the hole in his shoulder. His shirt is drenched.
Jason gasps, and gasps, and can’t seem to exhale. Every time he blinks time seems to fast forward. Nightwing is bent over one of the men, and then he’s standing, and then he’s striding toward Jason.
His mouth moves, and Jason stares up at him, unhearing. Nightwing crouches in front of him, hand outstretched. Jason flinches, but when the man speaks, he can finally hear him.
“Easy,” Nightwing says, cajoling, and he grabs Jason’s shoulder. Shoves his gloved palm into the bullet wound, holding pressure in a way that makes the darkness encroaching on Jason’s vision close in further. He touches Jason’s face with his free hand, cradling the back of his head, and the gentle juxtaposition makes him dizzy. “I’m not going to hurt you, Todd.”
Jason blinks. This close, with Nightwing leaned over him, he can see the man’s dimple as he grimaces. His grip is steady, strong, holding Jason in place so easily that it’s familiar.
The comm unit in Nightwing’s ear flashes green. He says, lowly and not to Jason, “I need the car sent to my location. He’ll need medical.” Nightwing pats Jason’s cheek lightly, says, “You with me, buddy?”
Jason thinks he’s already dead. That this a bizarre fever dream. He thinks Nightwing wouldn’t make the worst guide into the afterlife.
He opens his mouth, as everything starts to fizzle out, knowing he’s losing consciousness and saying it anyway, because the incredulity almost manages to overshadow the numbness. “Grayson?” he splutters, choking up his own blood.
The lenses of Nightwing’s domino mask twitch. Jason’s body finally gives out on him.
He wakes up, and that in itself is probably a miracle.
Also miraculous is the lack of pain. Although after about ten minutes of staring vacantly at the ceiling, unable to string a full thought together, Jason is quickly disillusioned with it.
He doesn’t do narcotics, except apparently no one asked his opinion on that, and he can’t even muster any outrage about it. He’s detached from his body, takes in everything one at a time. The smell of antiseptic, the faint, distant beat of a heart monitor. The bed—and bedpan—beneath him. Someone’s tucked a blanket around his shoulders. There’s a curtain drawn around his hospital bed, and he can’t hear or see anything beyond it.
He might doze off, or dissociate, or something in the middle. He breathes, and it feels too heavy, too wet in his lungs. He remembers feeling his ribs snap, wonders if he’d punctured a lung.
Wonders if Falcone will send someone to smother him in his sleep. Pay off a nurse. Although why he’d try at this point, after two separate vigilantes have gone to bat for him, is beyond Jason.
It hits him, during his time spent listlessly waiting for something to change, that Grayson’s witness protection is actually just full time Mask bodyguards. He remembers that Grayson is Nightwing, Bludhaven’s best in blue, and Jason can’t help but laughing. It hurts to laugh, aches in his chest, but he can’t seem to stop.
No, of course Grayson wasn’t worried about him getting caught by Falcone. Why would he be? He’s Nightwing.
The curtain is drawn back. Jason tries to make himself stop, but he can’t. His throat is scraped raw by it, lips cracking.
“Mister Todd.” His nurse is an old man in a button down and slacks. He has a funny little mustache, and a head so bald that the top of it shines under the harsh fluorescents. He addresses the heart monitor first, and then picks up Jason’s hand, where a pulse oximeter is clipped to his middle finger. Grabs a stethoscope off the side table next to Jason’s cot. When he finally looks at Jason, his smile is small and reassuring, the weight of his years sunk into the wrinkles on his face. “How are you today?”
He's speaking so softly Jason has to read his lips to make out the meaning. His own voice is quiet, too, cracking from lack of moisture. “Is it, uh,” he licks his lips. “Codeine? Morphine?”
“Fentanyl,” the man corrects. Jason goes quiet, and he presses the bell of the stethoscope to Jason’s chest, tilting his head as he listens. “You’ve… through quite the ordeal…me to?”
“I can’t hear you,” Jason says. Then, “Can I get water?”
The man frowns. He steps back from Jason with a nod. Disappears back behind the curtain.
There’s an IV in Jason’s arm, leading up to a stand with a saline bag and a couple other pumps. He itches to yank out the needle, but refrains. He can ask them to take him off the fentanyl, probably. It’s not like they’ll be wanting to waste their money on Jason.
When the man comes back, he isn’t alone. And the sight of Grayson, in a loose-fitting T and jogging shorts, hair wet from a recent shower, eyes bright and alert, has Jason trying to push himself into a sitting position.
“Motherfucker,” he swears, even as Grayson hurries to his bedside, one fluttering hand over his shoulder, and then, before he can press down, he moves it to Jason’s forehead, forcing him back into the mattress.
His thumb smooths over Jason’s hair. “Hey,” he says, quietly.
Jason feels the indignation drain out of him like a deflated balloon. He doesn’t know if he should be upset or not. What did he expect? For a trained vigilante to reveal his identity to some random mole. Why? To reassure Jason, to put his fucking mind at rest?
And it’s weird, that he’s in Jason’s hospital room. That he’s still not stopped touching Jason, settling the blanket back into place.
The old man hands Grayson a cup of ice chips, and he sits down at Jason’s bedside with a plastic spoon and a grimace.
Jason lets himself be fed the ice chips. Crunching them makes his teeth hurt, at first, but then the cold chills his swollen, painful throat, and he swallows easily for the first time. The old man takes his blood pressure, muddles around for a while, pulling up the blanket at his feet at one point, and touching them with a stick to watch Jason twitch.
“You came in with some,” Jason flinches when Grayson starts talking, louder than he was expecting when everything else they’ve been saying has sounded like it was coming from underwater. Grayson pauses, waits until Jason looks at him, and continues, “Potential nerve damage. Because of the shock.”
“Take me off the fentanyl,” Jason says.
“Jason, you’ve been shot.”
“Who’s fault is that?” Dick winces. Sits back, finally taking his hand off Jason’s arm. Jason feels his chest heave, as he takes in a long breath. “Did you get ‘em?”
“Who?”
“Falcone.” God, this can’t have all been for nothing. “There were girls…”
“They’re safe. Thanks to you, we got to them all.”
“Aces.” Jason lets his eyes fall close, leaning back into the pillows.
The next time he wakes up, the pain medication’s worn off. Jason understands, very abruptly, why his mother spent more of her life on heroin than off it.
Almost worse than the pain that steals his breath away and pierces every inch of his body, is the crash after the floating feeling from earlier. The way reality slams into him, and he’s not laughing anymore. He comes awake sobbing, hitched shallow breaths that strain his bruised ribs, fear bubbling up in his chest. The panic turns his stomach, his fingers and toes tingling. Jason tries to sit up, and can’t, his whole body screaming in protest at the attempt.
Before he can work himself up any further, there’s movement beside him. Jason recoils, but it’s just Grayson, who was sitting at his bedside apparently, springing into motion.
Jason can see, through his teary eyes, the way Grayson’s hair sticks up. The red splotchy mark on his cheek where he’s slept on his knuckles, eyes only half-awake. He puts a hand on the mattress, drawing his knee up, like he might crawl onto it instinctually. He stops himself, bent over Jason’s cot, his broad hand hovering just shy of touching him. “Dude,” he says.
Jason chokes. Makes an awful, dying noise in the back of his throat.
“You’re fine,” Grayson says again, and it’s Nightwing. That perfect calm, that restless energy. It’s a Bat-trained Mask, hushing him through a panic attack. “Breathe Jason, you’re fine. You’re safe.”
“F—Falcone.”
“He can’t get you here.” Grayson is staring directly at him, enunciating perfectly, and Jason needs it, because he can’t seem to hear the man over the ringing in his ears. “You’re safe.”
Where is here? He’d assumed it was a hospital, but the ceiling is too high, and the rest of the room has been carefully kept from him. He can’t hear any hospital noises, hasn’t seen any nurses except the old guy. There’s no generic furniture, just steel carts and industrial equipment. The chairs are fucking rolling, like desk chairs, complete with ergonomic seat rests. The floors are stone.
Grayson keeps talking. Jason catches about half of it. A rattling list of his injuries and treatments—cracked ribs, tension pneumo, GSW, hypovolemia, internal bleeding, liver trauma, burst spleen. He was in surgery for a while, apparently. He mentions a doctor so briefly that Jason almost thinks he’s talking about the old man. Jason finally manages to calm down when Grayson brings up the girls that they rescued. How they found them in Falcone’s basement, how they used the camera footage to identify and take down all of the buyers.
“You did a good thing,” Grayson says. “And a very stupid thing. But it was badass.”
“Oh good,” Jason chokes out, and his voice is hoarse. It sounds like he’s been gargling with glass. “As long as it was badass.”
Grayson slips a palm between the pillow and Jason’s head, cupping the back of his neck. He doesn’t seem to mind the sweat that’s gathered at Jason’s nape, just squeezes against pressure points that force Jason’s body to go limp, the tension leaving his muscles rapidly. “What do you need?”
“Where are we?”
Grayson’s expression shutters. His eyes go blank, and stubborn, and Jason marvels at the way he can see the indecision in the clench of the man’s jaw. His gaze flicks to the curtain. “You’ve put me in a position.”
“Are we in your lair?” He tries to sit up. Grayson’s pushes him back into the bed. “Are we in Batman’s lair? Seriously?”
“It had the best medbay.” Nightwing adds, after a beat, “For humans.”
Jason’s voice rises three octaves. “Holy shit. I’m in Batman’s lair.”
Grayson smiles, and it’s sincere this time. Somehow, it makes Jason feel better. He exhales, for a long time. “What do you need,” he presses. “What do you need right now, Jason?”
He needs a couple dozen Tylenol. He needs another sixteen hours of sleep, and to be able to take a full breath without being in pain. He needs to go back to his apartment, back to his small dark life, turning a blind eye to the kind of people he fought for.
“I want to drive that fucking… car… That Batmobile.” Jason grabs Grayson’s wrist, as he pulls back. Squeezes the man’s hand, like he’s all of five years old. “I’ve always wanted to drive that thing. I took one of the tires once.”
Grayson uses his foot to hook the legs of the rolling chair he was sleeping in, pulling it up behind him and sitting down heavily. “What?” he says, amused. Disbelieving.
Jason shakes his head. “Are you going to neuralyzer me?” He’s half joking. Doesn’t think it’s possible, until Grayson falters, consideringly. Jason’s eyes widen.
“No,” he says, quickly. “No. But you can’t tell anyone about this. About who I am.”
“I still don’t know that. Not really.”
Grayson purses his lips. Stands again, and Jason wonders if he’s ever found a way to sit still, or if he’s spent his life being this incessantly kinetic. He grabs a handful of the opaque curtain, shoving it aside.
Jason’s eyes go wide.
The cave is sprawling. Stacks of bays, computers, training mats, tunnels. What looks like a chemistry lab, heavy bags. The medbay Jason in is enclosed in glass observation windows and antiseptic surfaces. A hazmat shower, decon pods.
“My name is Dick,” he says, looking back at Jason, patiently waiting as he stares in awe. “Dick Grayson.”