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“By the time you were back, you’d re-created yourself on your own as The Red Hood . We all wish we had been there for you.”
“No one has ever said that to me.”
“Well, I’m saying it now.”
Barbara hesitated only a second before wrapping her arms around Jason’s shoulders and gently pulling him down into a hug. Her hands rubbed soothing circles into his back as she whispered reassurances. Even if she couldn’t hear Jason’s crying, she could feel the way he shook and the wetness growing on her shoulder where his head was resting.
“We’re going to get them. It’s going to be okay,” Barbara said. All her past convictions to bring Jason in for killing one of the Jokers had been erased the moment she and Bruce had found him. Now that they were somewhere safe and her head was cleared enough to think straight, she was horrified with herself for things she had told Bruce, the way she had fought for Bruce to bring Jason in.
She remembered her wishes when she had first woken up after what Joker had done. She didn’t want to hunt him down and kill him, she wasn’t that kind of person even after everything that had happened. But she knew if someone had handed her a gun in that moment with the Joker tied up at the foot of her hospital bed, she would have shot to kill.
Her thoughts switched to the boy, far too small for his age, who had rushed in the hospital room before Bruce was even halfway down the hall. How he had gone to her side in tears and buried his face in her lap as he cried from the relief of seeing her awake. Seeing her alive. He had cried for almost an hour, unswayed by either her or Bruce’s reassurances that she was going to be okay.
Jason had been with her through the beginnings of her physical therapy and the beginning of figuring out how to live her life now that she was confined to her wheelchair. He, Dick, her dad, and Bruce had been there for her through everything.
And Jason had been angry. It was one of the ways she recognized him so quickly when he came back as red Hood. He had been more angry than she had ever seen him, and it had all been for her, because the Joker had hurt her.
Jason had always been there, on her side, even when they were against each other. She couldn’t be there for him when he first woke up like he had been for her, but she could be there for him now.
But this wasn’t a one person job. Once the case wrapped up, she was sure Bruce would be staying by Jason’s side until Jason told him to leave. She had no plans to wait for the case to be over for Jason to get more than just her on his side though. She needed to make a phone call.
Kyle woke up to the sound of his phone ringing, and a headache pounding away at his skull. He turned his head to check the time on the clock by his bed and groaned. He had only been back planet side for six hours, and in that time he had managed to get a grand total of four hours and thirty minutes of sleep.
At first when he saw there was no contact for the caller he was going to decline the call and roll back over to sleep another few hours. Then he noticed there was no number either, and he only knew one person who could call his phone with that ID.
He fumbled to answer the phone and picked it up, unable to say anything before Barbara Gordon started talking.
“You need to get to Gotham as soon as possible.”
“Why?” Kyle asked dumbly, taken aback by the authority in her voice.
“I don’t want to talk about this over the phone,” Barbara said. “If it's an incentive to get you here sooner, it’s about Jason. He needs you.”
“Send me the address of where he is,” Kyle said before hanging up.
He had gotten a call like that once before. It had been from Roy, telling him the same thing. Get to Gotham, Jason needs you. When he had gotten there Jason had barely been holding onto his life, left physically and psychologically broken after a particularly brutal beating for a mind controlled Batman.
He got dressed while waiting for the address and was out the door by the time he got it. He made the flight as short as possible and didn’t bother trying to change into civics before approaching what he assumed was Barbara’s apartment.
Barbara opened the door and pulled him in before he could say a word.
“Where is J-” Kyle was cut off when Barbara’s hand went over his mouth.
“He’s asleep,” she whispered. She pulled her hand down from his mouth but grabbed his upper arm to lead him through the apartment to the beck bedroom. She opened the door but didn’t turn on the light, so Kyle had to use the white glow of his ring to see what was inside.
Jason was laying on a bed, the blankets pulled up over him, but it didn’t stop Kyle from seeing the damage. Just from the injuries on the half of his face that was visible Kyle could tell he was almost in as bad a state as he had been when Roy called him to Gotham.
Kyle gently sat down on the edge of the bed, running a hand through Jason’s sill sweaty and slightly blood crusted hair. The fact that Jason didn’t stir in the slightest bit from Kyle’s contact was enough to tell him just how messed up Jason was right then.
“What happened?” he asked Barbara without looking away from his unconscious lover.
“It’s a long story,” Barbara said. “Maybe one I shouldn’t tell in front of Jason. Even if he’s asleep.”
“I’m not leaving his side. Just tell me.”
Barbara hesitated a moment before sitting down on Jason’s other side and running a hand over his shoulder to comfort him through whatever nightmare they both knew he would surely be having.
“We found out there are three Jokers out there. Bruce and I were working the case when we ran into Jason and he joined us. To make a long story short, Jason and I ended up alone with one of the Jokers tied to a chair. He started to say all these things to Jason. Things about what he had been saying before his death, and why he chose the Red hood moniker, and Jason being-”
Her voice broke and she had to take a second to breath before finishing, “-About Jason being his Robin.”
Kyle’s blood ran cold and his hand stopped in Jason’s hair. He managed to control his reaction enough to not possessively curl his fingers in the black curls, but not enough to stop the low growl that escaped his chest.
Jason reacted to the sound, his breath hitching as he curled closer in on himself. Kyle started to run his hand through his hair again in comfort as Barbara’s hand moved from his shoulder to his back to rub in circles.
“Jason shot the Joker,” barbara said when he was calm again. “He shot him while he was tied to the chair. I had tried to stop him, and when he killed him, I was angry. I went to Bruce to try and tell him to take Jason in. I regretted it as soon as we found Jason again.”
Kyle took a deep breath to prepare himself, sure he wouldn’t like Barbara’s next words. He had a feeling he knew, based on Jason’s condition and Barbara calling him, but he had to hear it from her.
“The other two Jokers kidnapped Jason,” Barbara started. “He had found a pool of people they were torturing, making into Joker zombies. They knocked him out. From what Jason has told us, he woke up naked tied to a chair. The audio recording we recovered from his helmet told us the rest. The Jokers had intended to make Jason the next Joker. But they told him he wasn’t smart enough. They taunted him, saying these horrible things. They painted a Joker smile on his helmet, put it on him, and beat him. By the time we found him he was a bloody mess on the floor and they were long gone. Bruce is trying to find them now, and I brought Jason here so he would be safe.”
Kyle let the words sink in and almost felt sick. He couldn’t stop his fingers from curling in Jason’s hair that time, but didn’t let them pull on any of the strands. He leaned down and pressed his forehead lightly to Jason’s temple, and listed to his breathing to calm himself. He could feel the red and violet overcoming the other colors in his ring, and for once, he didn’t try to fight the dangerous combination.
Kyle stood and materialized his suit again, thankful to find it still white. There was no need to visually show Barbara the dark thoughts storming his mind and clouding all other judgement.
“Where are you going?” Barbara asked. “Jason needs you here.”
“I’ll be back before he wakes up,” Kyle said.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Don’t ask questions you don’t really want the answer to.”
“Kyle-”
“I’ll be back before he wakes up,” he repeated. “And I’ll pick some clothes up from one of his safehouses since I’m guessing he wouldn’t have a change here.”
“Kyle please,” Barbara rushed after him and stopped him just before he could open the front door. He turned to her and found the eyes of a desperate woman. “Jason can’t afford for you to get hurt right now.”
“I won’t,” Kyle reassured her. “He won’t even know I was gone.”
“Be careful,” she let him go.
“I will.”
Kyle left without another word, and started his hunt.
The rest of the night was a blur he only remembered pieces of. Gotham street lights. An abandoned warehouse that wasn’t really abandoned. Changing out of his suit and going in in just his civics with his ring ready. Two sets of ear grating laughter. His ring switched between red and violet like a flashing light at a rave. Blood. So much blood. Laughter gargling on the blood as life drained from manic eyes. Green hair clumped in the blood.
He left them tied to chairs on the docs. Someone would find them and recognize them. Maybe it would be batman or another member of his hoard. Kyle didn’t really care. He wouldn’t have cared if their bodies were never found and instead were left to decompose on that doc as birds and flies feasted on roasted flesh and sticky blood.
He stopped by Jason’s favorite safehouse, the one down in the Narrows, where his siblings would sometimes drop in when the manor or their own apartments were too oppressive and they needed to get away. The Outlaws had stayed there, as had Donna, Eddie and Rose. But Kyle was sure he was the one who had stayed in the apartment the most.
He stripped down out of his ruined clothes and tossed them into the waste bin Jason purposely had for clothes or items that needed to be burned. He made sure Jason’s clothes that had already been in there were covering Kyle’s. There was no need for him to have to see it.
He got into the shower and made sure he used a good amount of the shampoo and bodywash he knew Jason loved. Jason had told him once that when Kyle was gone for a long time running around the universe as White Lantern, he would sometimes use the body wash just so it’s strong scent could wash through the shower and trick him into thinking for just a second that Kyle was there.
When Jason had told him about that, a dark but pleased thrill had shot through him, and he had pulled Jason into a devouring kiss right then and there.
Kyle had started to trade out the hoodies he ‘accidently’ left in the safehouse so that the one Jason had smelt the strongest of him. After a while, Kyle had noticed the comfort Jason got from soft things and had started to buy them for him whenever he could, always spraying them with a bit of his cologne before handing it over.
This odd darkness had been latent in Kyle for as long as he could remember, and for as long as he could remember he had forced it down and acted directly against it. But after so long with Jason, he had started to indulge in that bit of darkness, such as spritzing some of Jason’s clothes with his cologne and buying him a ring, and leaving marks over his neck and collar bones just to remind people who looked at Jason who’s he was. Carol was the only one who he had told about these tiny acts, and she had just smiled at him and said she was glad to see him embracing more of his Star Sapphire tendencies.
When Kyle was done in the shower he dressed in the softest hoodie he had at Jason’s safehouse and a pair of sweats and pocketed his cologne. He grabbed underwear, a pair of sweats, and one of Kyle’s other hoodies for Jason and locked up the apartment before making his way back out onto the Gotham streets.
While he was walking down the street, something in a shop window caust his eye.
It was a squishable plague doctor stuffed animal Jason had shown him a picture of last time he was planet side. Jason’s face had lit up when he found it and he had lightly gushed to Kyle about the little lantern glowing in the dark.
He checked his phone, and when he saw he still had plenty of time before Jason would wake up and he didn’t have any calls or messages from Barbara, he ducked into the shop. He was sure jason wouldn’t mind a gift to hug onto when the weight of everything that happened would crash down on him after that grace period of disassociation and hazy understanding wore away and he was left with the broken pieces.
The stuffed animal in hand with a spray of his cologne and Kyle was off again to the apartment.
Not wanting to bother Barbara =, he created a construct key and let himself in, locking up the apartment again when he was inside. Bats were paranoid creatures, and considering the night’s events, the two bats in the apartment could definitely use some help easing that paranoia. Even if Barbara put on a brave face, Jyle could feel through that yellow in his ring that she was terrified by everything that happened, and the state they had found Jason in had surely only brought up memories she had spent over a decade healing from. So he locked up the apartment, and walked back to the bedroom.
Barbara was sitting next to Jason on the bed, finally changed out of her Batgirl costume, her laptop sitting on a pillow on her lap as she talked quietly into the phone jammed between her ear and shoulder. It didn’t take a genius to guess it was Dinah Lance she was on the phone with, or a genius to figure out Dinah was probably headed to Gotham already.
Barbara nodded to him and gave a strained smile when she saw the stuffed animal in his hands.
Kyle nodded back and sat the clothes on top of the nightstand by the bed before gently lifting Jason from the bed with a construct so Kyle could sit propped up against the headboard with Barbara, Jason laying across his less and his head pillowed in Kyle’s lap.
“Is it finished?” Barbara quietly asked after she and Dinah hung up.
Kyle hummed but didn’t give a direct answer. Instead he just nestled the stuffed animal into Jason’s arms and thread his fingers through his hair again.
They stayed like that until the sun started to rise. Barbara ended up being the first to move, getting up out of bed to take her own shower and make breakfast for them all. A breakfast that only ended up being eaten by her and Kyle as Jason still hadn’t woken up by the time they finished.
Lunch rolled around before he knew it, and Kyle ended up getting up to make lunch while Barbara waited by the door for Dinah. Jason’s portion of lunch ended up eaten by Dinah when she got there. After eating, Kyle settled back into the bed in a position that allowed him to sketch while still having Jason curled on top of him.
The sketches were mindless while he listened to a podcast Barbara had put on in the other room through the open bedroom door as well as Dinah and Barbara’s chatting.
When he zoned back in on what exactly it was he was drawing, he crumpled up the paper and stuffed it into the bottom of Barbara’s waste bin. He didn’t want anyone seeing the drawing of the two Jokers’ mangled bodies.
The sun had gone down again and Dinah and Barbara were working on dinner together when Kyle felt Jason shift on top of him and heard a soft whine.
Kyle sat his sketchpad aside and curled his fingers in Jason’s, rubbing his other hand across his shoulder, back, and the back of his neck in comfort while Jason slowly woke and came into reality.
“Kyle,” Jason mumbled into his thigh, every bit of his massive form curling closer to Kyle and wrapping around the stuffed animal trapped in his arms.
“I’m here mi amor,” Kyle hummed, pressing down a bit between his shoulder blades where there were luckily no bruises Kyle could see.
“Where are we?” Jason asked, looking up at Kyle through sleepy eyelashes. Kyle’s breath caught in his chest when he saw Jason’s eyes, and his fingers tightened in his hair.
Pure blue. He had only seen Jason’s eyes so pure blue without a single tinge of green after he woke up from the brink of death.
Jason let out a whimper, head leaning back to try and lessen the tug, and Kyle quickly loosened his grip.
“We’re at Barbara’s apartment,” Kyle said. “Do you remember?”
Jason’s entire body went rigid and his breath quickened, tears streaking down his face in the blink of an eye.
“Hey, hey it’s okay,” Kyle soothed. “It’s okay, you’re safe here.”
Jason started babbling something incoherent, but Kyle understood. Things about the Joker, about being helpless, about how Bruce was going to be so mad all poured out of his love’s lips as the reality of everything crushed down on him.
Jason had done this before, but definitely never to this caliber that Kyle had witnessed. He would react to and feel the situation while it was happening, but his brain would build a wall so all of it wouldn’t fall on him at once when he was still in danger. Then, when he knew he was safe enough, he would break down and let it all out. All Kyle could do was hold him through it and say reassurances of his safety.
By the time Jason had calmed his frantic sobs and mumbling to soft sobs, Kyle had laid down fully on the bed so Jason could rest his head on his chest and listen to his heartbeat.
“You’re safe mi amor,” Kyle whispered, running a hand through his hair and the other from his neck to the small of his back. “You’re safe. I took care of it.”
Jason hiccuped between each word when he spoke, “What do you mean?”
“I mean they won’t ever bother you again,” Kyle said. “You’re safe from them. Forever.”
“I don’t understand,” Jason’s voice was thick, like he was about to break down again just from the confusion.
“You don’t have to,” Kyle said. “It’s better if you don’t. Just trust me. You’re safe.”
After a moment Jason nodded, continuing to hiccup and sniffle as he curled impossibly closer to Kyle.
“We should get you something to eat,” Kyle said, racking his fingers through Jason’s hair, his nails gently scraping at his scalp. “Dinah and Barbara finished making it a moment ago. It’s a chilli.”
“Babs is still here?” Jason asked.
“Yeah. She didn’t want to be here when you woke up. So did Dinah.”
Jason hesitated before asking, “where’s Bruce?”
“He called an hour ago. He’ll be here soon,” Kyle said. “He just had to wrap up the case down at the docs.”
Jason sniffled and nodded again.
Kyle helped him up and handed him the clothes he had brought. Despite the amount of time they had been together, Jason had always been embarrassed about changing in front of him, so Kyle left the room and waited for him to finish before leading him to the dining room.
Jason’s steps fumbled, his legs unused to walking after so much sleep and the rest of him soar from the abuse his body had taken.
When they got to the table, their food was already served and Dinah and Barbara were already started on their meals. They both offered Jason soft smiles when he sat down, but Jason averted their gaze, almost hiding behind Kyle.
That was okay. Whatever made Jason feel safest.
Bruce hesitated at the door of Barbara’s apartment.
Over the door she had told him that he could just let himself in, but he was nervous. She had texted minutes before to tell him Jason was awake and was acting like a frightened child constantly clinging onto Kyle Rayner.
Kyle Rayner, who Bruce had no clue how to feek about.
Bruce knew what he did. He didn’t have any evidence, no sign that concretely pointed towards the White Lantern, but he knew. He knew the moment he got to the docs and saw the two bodies and blood that oozed over the planks. He knew this man had arrived in Gotham, learned of what had happened to Jason, and killed the Jokers in a way that left them almost beyond recognition.
Bruce knew it was Kyle who left that bloody message of “you couldn’t take care of it, so I did.”
Barbara had sent a picture after her text. It was of Kyle and Jason on her living room couch, Dinah half in frame lounging on the La-Z-Boy Barbara kept just for her. Kyle was reading a book aloud, and it didn’t take the world’s greatest detective to know it was Pride and Prejudice despite the cover not being visible. Jason was laying on the couch with a plague doctor stuffed animal clenched tightly to his chest while his head rested in Kyle’s lap, his eyes unfocused looking ahead of him.
Under any other context, the picture might be sweet. It might have been one he saved to his phone and looked at when he needed a reminder of the soft moments in life his children had managed to find. But the haunted look in Jason’s dazed eyes, the rest of his face blank, along with the memory of finding his son broken and naked on a warehouse floor was enough to paint the picture in a completely different light.
But the haunted look and the memory reminded Bruce that his son needed him. It didn’t matter if the man his son loved had just done something so atrocious, as much as it made Bruce’s blood boil that such bloodied and brutal hands were the same caught in his son’s hair, he knew his son needed that man too. He needed Bruce, and Kyle, and Barbara, and Dinah, and anyone else who could possibly support him for the rough times ahead.
Bruce opened the apartment door after taking one last deep breath and stepped into the living room.
The scene was similar to what had been in the picture. The only difference was that Dinah had managed to pull Barbara onto her lap and had her eyes closed as she listened to the story.
“Bruce,” Barbara said, making everyone in the room’s attention draw to him.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner,” Bruce said.
“It’s okay. You’re here now,” Barbara said.
Bruce gave her a nod and pulled his attention to the couple on the couch. Kyle had stopped reading when Barbara had announced his presence, but it was Jason Bruce really cared about. He had sat up, a bit more awareness in his eyes than there had been in the photo.
“Hey Jaylad,” Bruce said softly. “How are you feeling?”
Jason just stared at him for a moment before giving a one shouldered shrug. Jason looked like he was itching for something. His fingers twitched and his blinking became slightly rapid. It reminded Bruce immediately of similar times when Jason was still just a child. He had gotten that itch when he wanted to ask Bruce for something he thought he didn’t deserve.
Bruce walked carefully over to the couch, but was stopped midway when Kyle stood and came towards him.
“I need to talk to you. Alone.”
Bruce nodded, and gave Jason a look he hoped was comforting before following Kyle to the end of the hallway.
“Mr. Wayne, I feel there’s something you need to know since we’re about to spend a considerable amount of time in each other’s company,” Kyle said.
“Very well,” Bruce said. He almost regretted it when a dark look he had never seen on the man entered Kyle’s eyes. At first, looking at Kyle, he had almost been fooled into believing that maybe it wasn’t the young Lantern who did it, but that dark look was all the evidence he needed to cement in his mind that this was the man who had killed two Jokers the night before.
"I love Jason more than anything in this world, Mr. Wayne," Kyle said calmly. "I would do anything for him, and he knows that. If anyone ever hurts him, he knows he can come to me. I show no mercy to those who hurt him."
"Is that a confession or a threat?" Bruce asked, chin raising slightly.
"Neither," Kyle said, that dark glint in his eyes growing with promise. "It's a reminder. If anyone hurts him, I will know. And if you treat him as anything less than your traumatized, hurting son who desperately needs and wants his father, I will know.”
Bruce stayed silent for a moment, taking in every ounce of truth in the man’s words before speaking, “Then I think there is something you need to know as well Mr. Rayner.”
Kyle nodded, his eyes falling into a curious glare.
“This is my reminder to you: I will do anything for my children to be safe. No matter what, they will never feel unsafe or afraid if I can help it. I know Jason usually doesn’t need my protection, physically he is one of the strongest of my children, but now he needs it just as much as he did when he was a child. And I will protect him, even from you. If you take advantage of this vulnerable state he is in, if you do anything he is too compromised to agree to, I will punish as I see fit not as batman, but as Bruce Wayne, his father.”
Bruce’s voice had turned to a low growl by the end of his promise, and Kyle’s expression, while staying dark, had morphed into something of respect.
“I would never take advantage of him. I love him too much to ever hurt him, even if it means I have to put my own desires aside,” Kyle said. “But i appreciate the reminder Mr. Wayne. It is good to know Jason has someone like you making sure he is safe. His safety is the only thing that matters to me right now.”
“Same as I,” Bruce said.
“Then we agree?”
“I suppose we do.”
They stayed in that hallway for a minute more, before walking back to the living room. Kyle reclaimed his spot on the couch with Bruce gingerly taking the spot on the other side of Jason.
They didn’t move from where they were for the rest of the night. Even when Barbara and Dinah went off to bed, Kyle and Bruce remained on either side of Jason.
Kyle held Jason until he fell asleep, eventually falling asleep himself, and Brcue took over reading the book aloud while he sat like a guard dog over his son and the man who loved him enough to kill the last two Jokers.