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Something heavy is pressing down on his chest.
Dust is in the air and every breath burns in his lungs and leaves his mouth dry and patchy. His eyes sting from the dry air and something trickles into his left eye, sticks it shut, leaving him half-blind and blinking the dust away from his right eye.
Jason’s head is spinning. Everything hurts and there’s already a panic trapped deep in his chest, an ache of something to come. But he learned from the best and Batman taught him to always assess his surroundings, to work out what is wrong with himself, with his environment and to then take steps to better the situation.
First things first.
His head hurts something fierce. There’s a dull pounding and when he concentrates he notices a sharp stinging in his left temple. A head injury. Likely a concussion. That would also explain where the blood in his eye comes from.
The rest of his face feels fine, if a bit dusty and Jason notes absently that he’s not wearing his helmet. Either he was caught as a civilian or he lost his helmet and his domino mask. Either way, he doesn’t remember right now and that’s just another point for a serious concussion.
Jason assesses the rest of himself.
He’s lying on his back on the ground and something is lying on his chest. His breathing is restricted but not cut off. The heavy thing seems to be made of metal. A beam, maybe, but at least something he shouldn’t move right now.
It doesn’t seem to have done much damage, but Jason is all too familiar with the way the body goes numb when confronted with too much injury.
His arms seem okay, if a little bruised up and with a few cuts that feel shallow but might not be.
He’s a bit light-headed but that could be the concussion and not blood-loss.
His legs are also trapped under something and that something groans uncomfortably when he tries to move, so he stays put. His left knee feels pretty much shattered and his right leg also aches deeply.
The metal beam on his chest probably gave him a broken rib, now that he thinks about it, aside from extensive bruising, so moving anything is out of the question right now, unless he wants a punctured lung.
Great. So. He’s incapacitated. The question is just where.
He gets his right eye to open – when did he close it – and tries to look around.
Immediately, he wishes he hadn’t.
All he can see is rubble. Metal, stones, bricks all strewn around and when Jason looks to the sky, he can only see something wooden a few inches from his face.
The distant panic in his body suddenly makes sense and is a lot closer now than before.
He’s buried alive.
Desperation claws at him as he tries to remain calm. Anything to just breathe in the dust and breathe it out.
Don’t think about the amount of air you have left, don’t think about how far down you are, don’t think how everything could come crushing down. Don’t think about screaming for Bruce and no one coming and having to dig yourself out on your own – all alone with no help and s u f f o c a t i n g.
Jason is not afraid of much – that’s a lie; the Joker, dying, crow bars, abandoned warehouses, his dad not loving him anymore – but something irks him about small spaces ever since.
He intentionally got a safe house with enough space, he avoids small, narrow alleyways whenever he can, he prefers to fly over the rooftops and he had to condition himself to be able to wear a helmet.
If he’s honest with himself for once, he might be a bit scared of tiny spaces with no air and death in the space between. And looking up only to see wood inches away from his nose, casing him in, trapping him; he’s terrified.
The pressure in his chest increases tenfold. The load on top of him feeling heavier and more oppressing than before.
No one is coming.
His breath stutters and speeds up. He can’t afford to hyperventilate, not with however much tons of rubble on top of him, not with however deep he his buried, not with oxygen running out but he can’t stop it.
He needs to remain calm, needs to keep a level head; needs Bruce to come rescue him.
He’s all alone and he’s dying and scared and the Joker is laughing at him and his mother doesn’t care and all he wants is Bruce.
He’s waking up and there’s velvet underneath his fingertips and he’s in a suit all prim and proper and there’s no light, no air, no one to help.
Jason is still a kid, still a child, and he needs his dad now more than ever but he doesn’t come, isn’t on time and he doesn’t even know that Jason needs his help.
He’s stubborn and resourceful, always has been. There’s no air and panic closes his throat and presses down on his chest and the only way out is up.
The wood breaks, his fingers break, there are splinters everywhere and mud and dirt and earth rains down on him. Wet tears slide down his cheeks but the lack of air refuses to let him sob or scream for Bruce. He wouldn’t hear him anyways.
Jason is digging and digging and for all he knows he could be going in the wrong direction, could be digging down, further down in his grave; mud floods his mouth, his eyes, his ears and he’s surrounded. His screams are silenced by more dirt and he just keeps digging further.
His arms ache, his fingers are broken, his lung is screaming and he wants to cry out for Bruce but he can’t.
The second his head breaches the surface, he’s hacking up the earth in his lungs, coughing and spitting and crying.
Tears stream down his face and mix with the rain. It smells like mud and rain and death. Thunder drowns out his cries for help, for Bruce.
He’s all alone and help will not come.
Something heavy is weighing his chest down and his head hurts fiercely. His legs feels like he’ll never be able to stand on them again.
It’s so warm.
No, that’s not right. It was cold, rainy, windy; a perfect storm. The earth was wet and muddy.
Why does he feel warm?
There’s wood inches from his nose and something is trapping him in this position, lying on his back. But under his fingertips there’s no mud nor velvet. There’s wood and rubble and dirt.
The air is dusty and hard to breath. His legs hurt but his fingers are okay.
Jason blinks and he’s not in his coffin, not in his grave, not at a graveyard. Bruce still isn’t here.
His left eye is still stuck shut but there’s something other than blood trailing down his cheeks. His throat feels raw and it could be the hazardous air but there’s still the whisper of a name on his lips and a sob caught in his chest under the metal beam.
Fuck, he needs to keep it together. He can’t waste precious air, can’t lose control and move around and potentially bring down even more debris on himself. He needs to breathe.
He has to.
He’s not getting out of this himself but he doesn’t want anyone to find his corpse. Especially not Bruce. He doesn’t want his dad to be too late again.
Jason can’t go through that again. If he dies here then he wants to be as far away from a grave as he can. But he doesn’t want to die. He doesn’t.
He wants Bruce.
He’s trapped and his head hurts and his body hurts and he’s underneath tons of rubble, buried who knows how deep and he wants his dad to rescue him.
Time is like quicksand.
Jason’s hurting. Sometimes he moves and there’s a dangerous creaking noise and sometimes he doesn’t do anything and still the rubble shifts. His throat feels like he gurgled broken glass and he can’t scream. The air is getting staler or it could just be the dust. His mouth is dry and his body can’t produce any more tears.
He breathes and one moment he’s in Ethiopia, in his coffin, underneath a collapsed building.
He can’t keep track. Sometimes, it feels like he is in and out of consciousness but he doesn’t know how to be sure.
He hears voices and sometimes it’s the Joker, sometimes it’s Bruce. He’s telling him everything will be okay and then he says that he’s not good enough to be Robin, to be his son.
There are more voices, indistinguishable, shouting and whispering from far away.
A beam of light reaches his face and it doesn’t feel real.
The voices feel a lot closer now. Something touches him and he doesn’t want it, doesn’t want anyone to touch him; he just wants his dad.
Gloved hands brush hair from his face and this time he doesn’t shy away. The crippling pressure on his chest and legs is lifted and he finds himself cradled in someone’s arms.
He breathes and the smell is familiar yet he can’t place it. The way the arms fit around him is just as familiar but he doesn’t stay awake long enough to figure it out.
Jason wakes up slowly, bit by bit, eyes stuck shut, fog in his brain.
He doesn’t know where he is.
He doesn’t remember what happened.
Breathe, he reminds himself. He hopes no one watches closely enough to notice his breathing pattern change. He can’t let them know he’s awake until he has determined the threat level.
He’s lying on his back. There’s a blanket carefully draped over him. It smells like antiseptic and a little musty. The smell is painfully familiar. The consistent beeping that’s reaching his ears is probably coming from a heart monitor.
Everything points to him being in the medbay of the Cave.
At least that means he’s safe from physical attacks. That’s good, especially because he recognises the fuzziness of very strong painkillers and he still has a fucking headache.
His eyes are glued shut and he tries to lift his hands to rub the dirt away. His wrists meet resistance.
He tries again; maybe it’s just the painkillers and he’s a bit sluggish.
His wrists won’t move more than a few inches. Fuck.
He rubs his eyes on his shoulder and finally manages to pry them open. What he finds is luckily really the Cave. Unfortunately, now he can see the white, padded cuffs around his wrists. He’s bound to the bed.
Panic surges up in him. The edge is dulled by the painkillers but the anxiety is trapped in his chest, sluggishly wriggling around like dying ants.
Why the fuck would they chain him to the bed? Are they finally tired of him; do they want to get rid of him as soon as he’s not actively dying anymore?
Ice floods his veins. Is it going to be Arkham? Blackgate?
No. He has to physically shake his head to get rid of that particular thought. His relationship with his family is far from great but it’s not actively hazardous anymore. They have a peace, a truce. Jason would even go so far to say it’s an alliance.
They’ve had him in a vulnerable position a few times before and they didn’t do anything. Granted, those times he wasn’t as much of a sitting duck as this time but still.
Despite knowing better, he tries to move his arms again.
He doesn’t like being chained down. It brings back memories he’d rather avoid.
Lying on his back also reminds him too much about the events earlier. It’s all a bit fuzzy but a few things are coming back to him. For a second, he almost expects a metal beam on his chest; velvet underneath his fingertips.
He takes a deep breath. There’s no use to freaking out. Just focus on something else for now.
He looks around the medbay and out into the Cave just to distract himself. It hasn’t changed much.
It’s not the first time he’s back in the Cave since he came back but it’s certainly not a thing he does regularly. He can count his visits here on his hands; mostly for very important, highly confidential transfers of information where Batman was too paranoid to let anyone do it outside on a rooftop and Jason definitely didn’t let anyone into his safehouses.
Not that Batman would consider his safehouses safe enough probably. His safehouses aren’t safe enough, his encryptions not secure enough, his methods not moral enough and Jason isn’t good enough for him, ever.
The other times he was in the cave were because of medical issues he couldn’t solve alone and where Leslie and every other option was unavailable or untrustworthy. One time he ran out of supplies. That month had sucked.
But at least he knows he’s allowed in here. Though they obviously don’t trust him enough to leave him alone without restraints. Don’t think about it.
They won’t throw him out when he’s grievously hurt – that probably goes against their moral code or whatever – but he doesn’t want to overstay his welcome. He doesn’t ever want to be here again when he’s not wanted.
Their relationship is better now. He doesn’t try to kill them, they leave him alone and let him run his business uninterrupted, hell, sometimes they even team up when their missions intersect. It’s not what he would describe as amicable but it’s comfortable.
As long as he doesn’t compare it to what was before. As long as he doesn’t look at his relationship with Bruce.
They don’t talk unless Bruce barks orders and tells him what he does wrong or Jason throws back insults.
Most of his communication with the Bats is through Oracle; he only really interacts with them during missions and he most often teams up with Dick. Sometimes he talks to Tim about a case and it’s a miracle their relationship is as stable as it is. The other bats are barely even on his radar.
Except for Bruce. He still keeps track of him. They don’t talk, don’t interact. Jason doesn’t want to. He does, he very much does, sometimes he just wants his dad –
“Hey.”
Jason nearly jumps at the sudden voice.
Tim smiles at him a little sheepishly. “How are you feeling?”
“Like a building collapsed on top of me”, Jason rasps.
Tim chuckles. “Yeah, that’s about what happened.”
“That’s also about all I remember. Care to fill me in?”
“There’s not much else”, Tim reports, “You were in the office building – Oracle says you were accompanying someone from the Burrows for a job interview? – when the bomb went off. You were pretty lucky actually. Everyone else on the floor you were in died.”
Jason feels a pit in his stomach open. He remembers the young woman, Sally, one of the sex workers in his territory. He got along great with her; enough that they made friends out of his costume. They didn’t see each other often – she was getting her degree and he is obviously pretty busy with his crime lord schtick and keeping his territory – but they tried to go out for coffee once a month.
She bitched about her studies and he bitched about his work, as much as he could at least. It was nice to have some normalcy, someone to talk to that wasn’t connected to vigilantism or crime.
They and a few other friends of hers celebrated when she finally got her degree. And since she doesn’t have family, she asked him to go with her to her job interview. Just for moral support and someone to celebrate with should everything go to plan.
And now she’s dead.
Jason staunchly ignores the pang in his heart and doesn’t stop listening to Tim.
“Emergency personnel arrived on site four minutes later”, Tim continues, “Since it was during the day it took us a bit longer. Dick chased down the culprits. We tried to contact you and when you didn’t respond… Well, it didn’t take us long to figure out you were underneath that building somewhere.”
Jason blinks. That’s not exactly a logical conclusion. He could be asleep at one of his safehouses. He could be on a no-contact mission. He could be out of the country. They’re on better terms now but that doesn’t mean he has to update them on everything he does. Hell, he could be ignoring them; it sure wouldn’t be the first time.
He thinks for a second longer and then blurts out: “You have a tracker on me?”
Tim winces. “Well, yes and no. You took your comm with you. It was pretty damaged but Oracle managed to activate the tracker anyways.”
“How’d you know I was still alive?”
The answer is like a punch to the gut.
“We didn’t. We actually…”, Tim hesitates, “Well, we were pretty freaked out. But Bruce…”
Jason can complete the rest of the sentences: ‘We actually thought you were dead’ ‘but Bruce didn’t care and insisted we search for victims as if it wasn’t you under all that rubble’. After all, Bruce hadn’t been the one to save him, had he? Typical.
Jason gets it, he really fucking does. He would prioritise civilians first, too. He’d follow standard procedure; it’s the best way to keep everything orderly and speed up the rescue. But he really wants someone to put him first, for once. He knows it’s wishful thinking but he can’t help it.
Is it so bad that he wants his dad to lose his composure for a bit? To want to rescue him first and foremost? To show that he cares? But of course, the Batman is the symbol of staying calm and composed and letting nothing affect him. Not even his former son dying again.
“Bruce went berserk”, Tim whispers like a secret, “I actually had to hold him back from digging since he was destabilising the whole structure.”
For a second time already in this conversation, Jason feels like someone stole his breath with a sucker punch. That can’t be real. He must have misheard. Batman would never.
But there’s something niggling in his brain. A hulking figure dressed in black standing over him, gloved hands pushing hair strands away, someone carrying him like a baby.
It can’t be.
But who else is big enough for Jason to fit into his arms? Who else has that same familiar timbre of voice, who else calls him Jaybird?
It can’t be. He must be remembering incorrectly. Stupid concussion.
“And why am I strapped to the bed?”, he croaks out. Anything to distract himself.
“Oh, right”, Tim rushes towards him and undoes the bindings, “You were pretty delirious. You had a high fever and were panicking and wouldn’t let anyone but Bruce close to you. Leslie and Alfred couldn’t treat you like that.”
Jason swallows and rubs his freed wrists. That sounds plausible but it doesn’t make him like any of this any more. He doesn’t even try to think about Bruce possibly being there for him the whole time.
“So what’s the diagnosis?”, he asks instead.
“A severe concussion. Multiple broken ribs but luckily no internal organ damage. Your right leg is broken and your left knee was pretty much crushed. The recovery period is going to suck, sorry.”
Jason waves him off. At least he’s not dead this time.
“Miraculously there were no crush injuries. No idea how you managed that but we think the Pit might have helped”, Tim looks him straight in the eyes, “By all accounts, you should be dead right now.”
Jason laughs uncomfortably. “Don’t you know that no grave can hold me down? Death doesn’t even try to get me anymore.”
“Well, you still shouldn’t do that again. You freaked us out. Especially Bruce.”
Jason scoffs. Tim looks at him like he wants to protest and explain and reassure him but Jason decidedly does not care for that bullshit right now.
“I’m tired”, he cuts Tim off.
Tim looks hesitant but it’s the truth, even though Jason uses it as an excuse to end the conversation here, and he must see the strain it takes to stay awake on Jason’s face.
“Fine”, he concedes, “Someone will check on you during the night what with your concussion.”
Jason closes his eyes and starts to drift off. He doesn’t hear Tim leave but that could be because Bats are notoriously stealthy. Either way, he doesn’t manage to stay awake for long.
He wakes up when he feels a presence disturbing his sleep. The smell of antiseptic, the steady beeping of the monitors and the smooth bedding under his fingers ground him in reality before he can panic.
He opens his eyes and it feels like fighting against a storm. He’s still so tired but when he looks to his left and sees Bruce of all people sitting at his bedside, he feels a lot more awake.
“What are you doing, old man?”, he croaks out.
Bruce blinks, as if he hadn’t thought that Jason would wake up and isn’t prepared for a conversation.
“Someone has to watch you. You have a concussion.”
Jason eyes him suspiciously. His relationship with Bruce now is leagues better than when he came back from the dead but that just means they’re not actively physically fighting each other anymore. They’re certainly not at a point where Bruce would watch over him while he sleeps.
He did that back when Jason was young, when he was injured or sick. But that was then. This is now.
“Yeah”, Jason drawls, “that’s what it looks like.”
Bruce visibly hesitates and the silence stretches.
“You said some… things today.”
Jason frowns. “Like what?”
Bruce hesitates again and Jason’s thoughts turn to the horrendous time spend under that building. The fear. The flashbacks. The panic. A shudder runs through him just thinking about it.
Jason doesn’t remember saying anything. What he does remember is wanting Bruce to rescue him. He remembers not knowing where he was. He remembers begging for Bruce to save him, to be there. He remembers calling out for Bruce but he thought that was part of the flashback.
“Oh.” Heat floods his cheeks and he looks away.
Suddenly there is a hand in his hair, carding though it. No gloves, no Batman attire, no emergency, just his bare hands in his hair. He hasn’t felt that since before his death. Hell, he’s barely even seen Bruce out of his uniform since he came back.
“I nearly lost you today”, Bruce whispers low enough that Jason maybe wasn’t supposed to hear it. There is something strained in his voice.
It could be the concussion but Jason suddenly feels his eyes sting. Bruce cares about him. Bruce saved him. There’s a choked up feeling that’s quickly rising in his chest and up his throat.
It’s probably the concussion. Those have always made him irrational and overly emotional.
They both ignore the tears slipping out of the corner of his eyes, the slight sniffle.
Bruce continues to card through Jason’s hair over and over again, as if to assure himself that he is actually alive and in front of him. The movement is oddly soothing.
It’s everything Jason ever wanted since he came back to Gotham, since he woke up in that damned coffin, since even before his death.
He lets Bruce soothe him into a blessedly calm sleep, watched over by his dad, completely safe; not alone.