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It was his own stupid fault.
Wait, no. No, actually, it was Bruce's fault. It's always Bruce's fault. He'd been handling that case just fine and Bruce just had to come in and criticize him, just like he always did. He hadn't had time to pull his punches—the cargo ship was about to cast off and there were kids on it. No one had died and he'd saved the kids.
"It's not just about the guns, Jason. You went in without backup! You were almost killed! If that grenade hadn't missed—"
"Well, I didn't die. I'm not an amateur, Bruce. I've been on my own without backup since I was sixteen, I don't need to be babysat now."
"The next time you don't call for—"
"No, fuck you, Bruce. I don't care how that sentence ends, I'm not your kid."
He almost felt bad for the flicker of hurt that crossed Bruce's face, only for a second, before it was replaced with the usual stoniness. But he didn't, he was too pissed for that. He was having a hard time controlling the green pulsing at the edge of his vision right now; no matter how good his control was, Bruce always seemed to be able to snap it like bone.
"This is how much I care about your backup," he snarled. He ripped the comm out of his ear and chucked it over the edge of the platform and into the abyss below. He took the spare comm out of his belt and dropped it to the ground. He looked Bruce in the eye as he crushed it beneath his boot.
——
One comm probably would have been symbolic enough, he’d admit. For practical purposes, he should have kept the backup comm instead of. Um...the mild theatrics.
But he was still blaming this on Bruce.
Jason had been running himself ragged making sure everyone on the streets in Crime Alley had heat and shelter, because no one else seemed to give a shit. He was decked out in winter gear, but it was his own—he took as little from Bruce as he realistically could. He used his own money, sourced most of his own tech and gear. Sure, he mooched off of Bruce on occasion—he had no choice, sometimes, if he wanted to have what he needed to be effective—but he kept it to a minimum. He didn't want to be too dependent. Didn't want to rely on daddy.
But that meant that his gear wasn't as protective as it could have been, wasn't as protective as the other Bats'. He was shivering in the piercing cold and his feet were numb despite his heavy boots.
He'd finished his rounds and was about to do one more sweep for good measure, but he ducked into an alley to rest and get out of the wind for a few minutes before he did. He heard the wind pick up as he leaned heavily against the alley wall.
Then the night started to turn white.
It had already been snowing, but now it was picking up. Quickly.
He stuck his head out of the alley and was immediately hit with a massive blast of freezing air. The snow was so thick in the wind now that he couldn't see an inch past his nose.
Shit. He couldn't find his way to a safe house in that.
He ducked back into the alley and wrapped his arms around himself, bouncing in place to try to keep himself warm. Maybe he could wait it out. There would have to be a break in the snow at some point, right? The worst of it wasn't supposed to hit for another few hours. This was probably just a short precursor to the rest of the storm.
Yeah. He could wait this out.
He stopped telling himself that after he'd been hunkered down in the alley for over an hour.
Dammit. He was going to have to swallow his pride and call for help. There was no way he was going to make it out there on his own. The others had better gear and better optics—they'd manage well enough in the storm to get his dumb ass back home.
No comm, but that was fine—he wasn't a complete idiot, he had his phone on him.
Except when he pulled it out of his pocket, the no service symbol mocked him from the screen. The storm must have knocked out cell service.
Shit. Shit.
The weather people had been panicking about this storm for weeks. “ Record breaking cold” was repeated over and over. Climate change. There was also talk of possible extraterrestrial intervention—it was record lows and highs all over the world right now. The JLA was looking into it.
This storm was supposed to break the record for the coldest ever recorded in Gotham history. Catastrophic, they called it.
The coldest ever recorded was -34 in 1904. It was already -20. His gear wouldn't be able to withstand -34.
If he was stuck out here long enough, he was going to die.
He had two options—try to wait out the storm in the alley, or take his chances and hope he knew the city well enough to navigate it blind while wading through the rapidly accumulating snow on the street.
He had a feeling this wasn't going to let up soon enough for waiting in the alley to be a logical option.
He was so fucked.
It took him a while to psych himself up, but he finally managed to talk himself into it and plunged into the storm.
——
He got turned around almost immediately. He knew as soon as he did that there was no way he would make it anywhere in this, so he turned around and headed back toward the alley. He'd counted his steps away from it for this exact reason—to know how far he'd moved from the alley so he'd know if he could realistically get back to it. He hadn't gone all that far.
But when he counted down to zero, the alley was nowhere in his limited sight. He felt around blindly, but his hands only met empty air—no buildings nearby to be found.
Fuck.
He tried a different direction. And then another. And another. Until he was well and truly lost.
He was shivering uncontrollably now. His helmet's HUD was flickering and lagging—the tech wasn't meant to operate in these kinds of temperatures. Not that it really mattered anyway—his optics weren't good enough to be useful in this. His only hope was that someone noticed he was missing and Babs could use his helmet's signal to locate him, if it lasted long enough for her to try to ping.
He wanted desperately to sit down and rest, but he knew he couldn't stop moving. Being still in this weather as a bad idea—that was how you froze to death.
But he was so tired. He'd been awake for days now preparing everyone under his protection for this storm. He'd been on his feet out here for fourteen consecutive hours today alone—fighting this wind and trudging through multiple feet of snow was exhausting him even further.
But he had to keep moving. He had to.
Until...until he found himself sinking down to the ground against his will, his legs giving out of their own accord. He couldn't feel his body, and he was shivering so violently he wouldn't even be able to hold a gun right now.
But shivering was good. Shivering meant he wasn't hypothermic yet.
He growled in frustration and tried to lever himself back up, but a howling blast of Arctic wind knocked him right back off his feet. His HUD finally went dark and he lost audio. The wind was more muffled from inside his helmet now and his heavy breathing and curses filled his ears.
"N-not f-f-fucking dying from snow," he growled to himself. He'd be goddamned if he was going to freeze to death without Freeze even being involved. Embarrassing.
He tried one more time to stand up, and as though it felt sorry for him this time, the wind let up just the tiniest bit just long enough for him to stand without a repeat of his last attempt. He stumbled forward—he didn't know where he was going, but he'd bump into something inevitably, right?
He just hoped that something wasn't the harbor.
He didn't know how long he was stumbling around in the snow—it felt like hours but in reality it was probably only half of one—but he was getting nowhere. For all he knew he was just going in circles.
His foot caught on something and he tripped forward into a deep snow bank. Everything went muffled and quiet for a moment as he was buried underneath the snow, but it all came back when he rolled out and onto his back on the ground. He wasn't getting up again this time. He was spent. For good now. He thought about making a snow angel as his last dying action, but the snowfall would just cover it up right along with his body.
They probably wouldn't find him until it thawed.
Then—the roar of a familiar engine.
Sometimes that sound strummed a chord of anxiety in his chest. Sometimes it stirred anger in his gut.
And sometimes it kneaded relief into his muscles.
The Batmobile skidded to a stop feet away from him and then there were two sets of hands hauling him up. The wind was abruptly cut off followed by the swish and click of the doors closing.
He was too cold and too numb to move or speak.
"Get his helmet and the rest of his gear off," Bruce was growling. "The heated blankets should be ready."
Then his helmet was lifted off his head and he was looking into Nightwing's whiteouts.
"H-h-i, G-g-g-goldie."
"Hey, Little Wing. Thought you'd go build a snowman, huh?"
"F-f-forgot the m-magic h-hat."
*We don't really have a good track record with top hats around here anyway."
Even Jason's laugh came out stuttered.
Dick stripped him of his outer gear as quickly and efficiently as possible. Jason was too numb and shivering too hard to be of much help. When he'd been stripped down to his thermal underlayer, Dick pulled a heated blanket around his back and draped another around his front.
"F-fuuuck," he sighed, relaxing into the warmth.
Dick laughed. "Next time don't be a drama queen and keep your extra comm on you, yeah?"
Jason wanted to roll his eyes, but his lids were drooping closed. He was having trouble even keeping his head up. He shook himself, and blinked hard, trying to stay conscious.
"It's okay, Jay," Dick said. "You can sleep, we've got you."
Jason shook his head, but he did let it fall back against the seat. "'M good."
"Sure you are. Don't mind me, then."
Jason grumbled, but he really couldn't keep his eyes open this time.
The last thing he heard was Dick's bright, "Told ya so."
So maybe backup wasn't such a bad thing.