#instead he decided to wear a hideous tracksuit

[racewinnerlandonorris]

Got a date with Lando in a Chicken Shop this Friday

[holy-fate-worse-than-death]

Red has a new chapter!

Chapter 12 is here! Have a preview!

Content Warnings:

Graphic depictions of violence, canon-typical violence, swearing, blood, injuries, life-threatening injuries

***

It’s been two days since Damian woke up. Two days, and Bruce has already ditched Gotham again.

Jason’s in the grounds of Wayne Manor when it happens.

He’s perched on top of the roof of the garage, doing a handstand, with Dick by his side. They’re precariously close to the edge, and Alfred has told them off four times already for being up there. Don’t you think you’re setting a bad example for your brothers, Master Dick, Jason mimicked in his head, Must you spend all your time on the rooftops, Master Jason. But Alfred’s words hadn’t had the same bite to them that they usually had when he was ripping into them for something (not that Jason had been on the receiving end of that for many years). There’d been a softness in his eyes, a look of understanding. Jason was pretty sure he was the only one who’d caught it – that it had been intended for him, even.

He still wasn’t used to that feeling. Standing on his hands, shirtless, like some frat boy on the garage roof of his childhood home, trying to outlast his older brother in a vain and juvenile contest, he had the distinct sensation that people wanted him there. The soft look in Alfred’s eyes, Tim’s laughter as he looked up from his laptop by the pool every so often. The way even Damian had to shoot him a smirk once or twice as he goaded Dick with the best insults he could muster.

Truth was, Jason was doing it for that last part: for Damian’s sly little smirk. They spent so much time being teammates, tentative allies, or enemies, they hardly knew what having a brother was like. Tim’s words echoed in Jason’s head as he felt the blood finally starting to pulse in his ears a little, He’s not here half the time anymore!

Jason was just beginning to contemplate packing it in and climbing down. He was thinking that maybe he’d feign exhaustion, flop to the ground and place a hand over his forehead. You’ve bested me, oh great Nightwing! he’d say, and he’d get another contented little laugh out of Tim, and Nightwing would somersault off the roof effortlessly, landing a gentle kick in Jason’s ribs before helping him up. With any luck, his older counterpart might even be smiling.

They’d hardly spoken a word since that night in the Cave – when he’d promised Dick he’d stay – but Jason was pretty sure Dick knew what game he was playing at. As if on cue, Dick cocked his head slightly, sparing a glance towards the pool and indicating that Jason do the same. Jason followed his brother’s gaze, their hands almost grazing where they were braced on the tiled roof. And sure enough, Dick’s eyes were on Damian. The kid was smiling again, shirtless and soaking up the sun, though his torso was still bandaged. His cat (another Alfred) was curled on his lap, enjoying the soft heat of the day as well.

“You’re doing good here,” Dick said pensively, letting out what might have been a sigh.

The acrobat readjusted his stance then, and now his hand brushed Jason’s. Were they in some stupid teen movie, Jason might have thought it was accidental; a little static shock brought between them by happenstance. But Jason knew Dick was the most precise and coordinated man in the city – maybe even the world. Somehow that made it better, knowing that Dick had meant to touch him like that.

“His mom would be pissed if I wasn’t,” Jason admitted sheepishly, turning his head fully away from Dick’s now so that he could only see Damian and Tim.

That’s when they saw it. The familiar green glow of energy from a Green Lantern’s ring, rising up from the tree-line at the edge of the Manor’s lawns like a great bubble. From Jason and Dick’s vantage point they could just make out a few other figures within the emerald orb, one of which took on the uncanny silhouette of a bat.

Jason and Dick immediately turned to look at each other. Dick’s pupils were blown a little wider than usual, and his face was flushed from standing upside-down for so long. It reminded Jason a little of the kiss they’d shared that night when they’d thought Damian was going to die, and he chastised himself for even thinking about that. Right now, Dick’s mouth was nothing but a thin line of concern.

They shared a synchronised nod and then they were both somersaulting off the roof gracefully, neither of them making a sound as their bare feet connected with the sealed concrete of the Manor’s rear driveway.

Dick locked eyes with Tim almost immediately, who was already shoving his commlink in his ear and typing furiously on his laptop.

Alfred was behind them in an instant, saying something like, “Master Bruce would like you all to know he’ll be out on League business for a few days.”

Jason didn’t really hear him though, the buzzing in his head drowning out the butler’s words as he sought out Damian’s gaze. The boy had been petting the cat in his lap, but now his hand had stilled; the only indication that something might be bothering him.

After an acceptable period, Damian gently scooped up the cat from his lap and deposited it on his shoulders. He stood carefully, but even so, he winced a little. Before Jason could think he was crossing the lawn to the pool area, padding over the warm, smooth tiles in his tracksuit pants.

Then he was helping Damian up, even as the boy protested with an acid tongue.

“I’m not an invalid, Hood,” Damian hissed, shoving Jason away.

Jason bit down the bile he felt at the use of that name when he wasn’t wearing the helmet or armour. He thought about how he’d called Dick Nightwing two nights ago though, and promptly decided that, all things considered, he probably deserved whatever low-blows were about to come his way.

Damian had stretched his ribs too far when he’d shoved Jason, and now he fell back down on the sun bed he’d been sitting on and winced.

“You’ll be healed within the week,” Jason assured him, his tone colder than he’d meant it.

Jason was still god-awful at talking about the Lazarus Pit and all of the effects it had had on himself – let alone on his younger brother – and he was sure Damian could hear it in his voice.

But if his youngest counterpart noticed, he didn’t say anything. Instead, he took to staring at Jason’s feet like they were the most interesting things he’d ever seen. Jason wondered if the kid was thinking to himself, Seriously, how did he manage to get a bullet wound in his foot?

“Damian,” Jason tried again when the boy made no other attempt to move or respond to him.

Jason could feel eyes on him – Dick’s and Tim’s – and it made him unsure of himself. He found himself crouching down until he and Damian were the same height, and he carefully leaned back onto his haunches so that he wasn’t crowding the kid.

“Look,” he said, dropping his voice so that the other birds couldn’t hear him, “You just have to let your body do its thing, okay, kid?”

Damian didn’t say anything, but eventually he nodded. Jason just sat there for a while, as Tim caught Dick up on the Justice League case that Bruce was working. Something off-world, apparently, and Dick seemed pretty convinced that Alfred’s estimate of a few days had been on the low side. Jason knew Damian could hear all of this too, and that he knew what that meant.

After a while, Damian spoke. His voice held a familiar quietness, the kind that the League of Assassins drilled into you. It wasn’t a whisper, it was decibels lower than that. To the untrained ear it would have sounded like Damian had just exhaled a particularly long breath.

“Red Robin can’t go out on his own tonight,” the boy said, his words for Jason and Jason alone.

Behind the boy’s black-haired head, stretched out on a sun bed, Dick was already talking about the case he’d be working in Blüdhaven tonight. Under different circumstances Jason might have been mad at his older counterpart, but how could he be? Dick’s perfectly chiselled abs were on full display, the only thing covering his body a pair of tiny cotton pool shorts. They were pink, which Jason had heckled him about earlier. Dick had dipped his mouth towards Jason’s ear and whispered you sure you don’t like them? and Jason had felt his whole face go red. Dick had made a tiny huff of pleasure before traipsing away.

“Well,” Jason said, smiling now and standing upright.

He held his hands out for Damian, who took them carefully and allowed Jason to steady him as he eased himself to his feet. Alfred the cat was still draped lazily around his neck, and Jason reached out to give the creature an idle pet. That seemed to earn some brownie-points with Damian. Encouraged, Jason continued, a little twinkle in his eye:

“It’s a good thing the Red Hood’s in town then, isn’t it?”

**

Red Hood and Red Robin fit together like pieces of a puzzle. Their combat manoeuvres were perfectly synchronised even with only one fight under their collective belts. Jason felt like he could do anything beside Tim, and the electricity in the air told him that his younger counterpart felt the same.

Hell, I haven’t even called him ‘replacement’ once tonight, Jason thought to himself as he crouched on the gargoyle of a building in Park Row. It was his old haunt – his oldest – and Tim hadn’t protested when he suggested they start their patrol there. Jason figured Tim knew he was from here; Tim knew everything. According to Dick, his stalking of the Bat-clan had begun even before Jason’s untimely demise.

Tim couldn’t have been older than Damian then, and Jason thought briefly of his own youth. In his mind’s eye he saw himself on his knees just a block north of here, the hood of his jumper pulled up over his head as he frantically unscrewed one of the Batmobile’s hubcaps. He still remembered the rush in his belly when Bruce had caught him, those hideous fangs Bruce called teeth curling upward into what should have been a blood-curdling smile.

Jason wondered if Tim had felt the same way, taking his little pictures of the three of them – Batman, Robin and Nightwing. He figured the kid probably did, because once you got a taste you couldn’t go back – not really.

Click, click, click.

Tim’s spy-sized bat-camera clicked a few times and then he was adjusting the lens with a green-gloved hand, zooming in.

Tim sat on the gargoyle next to him, his long black cape draped around it and encircling them both so that he was nothing but a shadow on Gotham’s murky horizon. The smog dimmed the moon tonight, as it always did, but it suited them both that way – suited their work.

They were doing their due diligence, as Tim had put it, by standing vigil in the very heart of Park Row for another fourteen minutes exactly. Tim liked schedules and had spent the ride here recalculating his to suit Jason’s preferred route.

“We’ll take Park Row first,” Jason had said, because that’s where it always felt right to start patrols.

If he was being honest with himself, it made him feel closer to Batman. Not to Bruce, but to the heart of who Batman really was. Jason had slowed the car down as they drove past that fateful spot, and Tim had asked him why. There had been a true innocence in his voice, so Jason had said, “thought I saw something” and kept driving.

“Still can’t believe we’re taking the Batmobile,” he’d muttered after that, shaking his head even as his hands gripped the car’s tactical steering column.

Jason was pretty sure he still remembered what all the buttons did, but he’d probably double-check with Tim before he touched anything anyway. The kid had been using the car’s onboard computer system but now he looked up, furrowing his brow.

“Two sweeps of Park Row?” he’d inquired.

“Yep,” Jason had replied, “One at the start of the shift and one at the end.”

Tim had paused for a moment, chewing on his lower lip. Then he’d just murmured, “God knows the place needs it.”

Now Tim was rattling off the rest of their itinerary, “… Midtown via the hospital and the university, then into the Diamond District through The Narrows, followed by a quick loop around Toxic Acres and- are you sure you want to go right through the main street of Chinatown?”

“Mm-hm,” Jason hummed.

When Tim didn’t look convinced he nodded down at the alley below, their gazes both falling on the now-parked batmobile.

“In that car?” he said shortly.

“Draws a lot of attention,” Tim murmured.

To which Jason countered, “It also scares most of the petty crims away.”

Tim didn’t argue with him after that and finished listing all the places they’d hit. When he finally wrapped up he said, “It’s better when we can delegate and give everyone their own beat.”

“Beat,” Jason laughed, hopping nimbly off his gargoyle to stretch his legs before they went numb. “You sound like a cop.”

He snorted when Tim turned to level a glare at him.

“Or Dick Grayson,” Tim said hotly, his voice lowering a little as though he were scared someone would hear him.

Jason tossed the kid’s conclusion around in his head for a moment. It was true, Nightwing was the vigilante who most resembled a cop out of all of them, and that was the part he played in his daily life. But Jason wasn’t so sure that was true of Dick Grayson, not deep down, and Jason knew from experience that no Robin was a cop.

“Maybe he’ll arrest daddy for all the breakin’ and enterin’ he does,” Jason finally quipped back as he bent down to touch his toes.

He was in the middle of readjusting his domino mask – which still felt a little alien on his face, especially with the shit that passed for adhesive these days. Tim had explained that it was resistant to most commercial and industrial solvents and was only compatible with the kind kept in the Batcave and at the various League headquarters around the country. It meant that no villain with a little chemistry know-how could compromise their secret identities, but the stuff smelled like a tyre fire.

“Shit,” Tim said emphatically, and Jason was immediately on his feet.

He crossed the roof and stood just behind Tim’s perch on the gargoyle. Tim was looking through his bat-noculars and frantically trying to chase something a few blocks in the distance.

“What?” Jason barked, and Tim shot him a frankly terrified look before handing the binoculars over.

It took Jason a moment of frantic searching to find Tim’s target down the street. When he did, he found himself unexpectedly smiling.

“Look,” Jason began, eyeing the tension in his younger counterpart’s shoulders and jaw.

Jason felt his brow furrowing in confusion as he noticed how Tim was white-knuckling the gargoyle beneath him, how his legs trembled just slightly from how tight he was clenching his whole body.

“I know you got a history with KC,” he continued, “But Waylon’s not the monster you think he is.”

“No,” Tim hissed, snatching the bat-noculars back from Jason’s hands, “You idiot, didn’t you see what he was carrying?”

Jason hadn’t seen Croc carrying anything. In the brief moment he’d seen Croc, he’d been poking his head out the door of an abandoned building, like he was concerned about being followed. Jason supposed that it was their city, so they should go and at least ask the big guy what was happening, but the panic in Tim’s voice seemed unfounded.

Tim took Jason’s silence as a ‘no’ and blurted, “He was carrying R- Arsenal. Unconscious.”

Jason’s eyes widened, but even as concern for his friend coiled itself deep in his gut he stared at Tim’s hands, the way they were shaking around the bat-noculars. He hadn’t known that Red Robin and Arsenal had met, let alone were on a first name basis. Something in Tim’s shattered expression caused Jason to push his questions away though, and in a heartbeat, he was springing into action, already about to leap off the roof and down into the alley were the batmobile was lying out of sight.

“Go!” he shouted at Tim, hoping the frantic scurry across the rooftops to Roy’s position would focus the boy somewhat. “I’ll bring the car around.”

The tyres of the batmobile came to a screeching halt in front of the boarded-up apartment building not a minute later. Tim hit the ground in front of the car at a run, staff already out, and Jason was barely a second behind, leaping out of the batmobile’s rooftop hatch and scarcely remembering to lock the thing behind him.

He was out without a gun again tonight, but Damian had quietly tucked his sword – Talia’s sword – into the backseat of the batmobile. Jason had seen him do it, of course, and they’d shared barely a second of eye contact before Damian was disappearing into the shadows of the Cave and making his way back to his bed upstairs. In that brief moment, Jason had looked stern, he knew – which was no doubt why Damian had made a beeline back to his bed – but he hadn’t been able to help it. On the one hand, he wanted to tell Damian that the blade was too long, too gaudy, and completely impractical for the kind of close-quarters combat that Gotham vigilantes were so often faced with. But on the other, Jason was being bestowed with a family heirloom; a trusted and irreplaceable possession from the woman who had trained them both.

Jason grabbed the sword from the backseat as he leapt out of the car and pounded up the stairs of the duplex after Tim.

By the time he was inside he had it slung snugly across his back, and the loud “FUCK!” he heard echo through the gutted building made him draw it from its sheath.

It was Roy’s voice – that distinct Star City accent he’d picked up in his many years there as Speedy clear as day – and Jason felt panic rise up into his throat like the green bubble that had carried Batman away earlier that afternoon.

He approached with Damian’s sword clasped firmly in both hands, holding it in a proper stance that he knew Roy would make fun of him for if he had all of his senses.

Another scream told Jason he didn’t, and he heard a heated exchange between Roy and Tim.

“Don’t you fucking touch it, Red,” Roy hissed, then groaned in pain again.

Jason rounded a pile of debris – an old TV, a couch that was so old it was practically decomposing, and a stack of chairs piled to the sky. When he got around it, the pair finally came into view.

“You have to let me take it out, Roy,” Tim was saying flatly, his voice conveying none of the panic Jason had seen in him on the rooftop a minute ago.

Roy was stretched out on an old kitchen countertop, the only thing left standing in the entire apartment by the looks of it. His hat was missing, and his orange hair was slicked to his forehead with sweat. His eyes were open; wild and manic, and his whole body was bucking off the table in pain.

In his abdomen, the lone, red spine of one of his own arrows stuck out of his flesh.

Jason had sheathed his sword and swept across the room in an instant, and then his hand was on Roy’s forehead, sweeping his hair out of his eyes.

“T-thanks, Jaybird,” the archer replied weakly, his eyes fluttering shut.

The fact that he didn’t even have the wits to be surprised that Jason was working with Red Robin in Gotham was terrifying, but what was worse was how much blood had already pooled on the counter below him.

“You need a hospital!” Tim exclaimed shrilly, bandages and gauze appearing from nowhere in the kid’s hands as he applied pressure around the arrow.

Roy howled in pain and Jason silently wished he had a gun strapped to his leg to grip onto, or to put the handle of it in Roy’s mouth so he had something to bite down on.

So, he took his combat knife off his belt and tried to put the thing between Roy’s teeth, a weapon that had been between both their teeth numerous times before when anaesthesia wasn’t an option.

But Roy wrenched his head away, arching away from Jason until he was curled up on his side, facing Tim.

“They’re still coming for us,” the archer managed to grit out.

Jason saw his eyes close and his breathing grow more laboured, like it always did right before he threw up. Instinctively, Jason rounded the table and put his hands on Red Robin’s shoulders, gently peeling the boy away just in time to avoid getting puke on his shoe. Roy looked up at him with what might have been gratitude, and Jason snatched a piece of clean gauze from Tim’s hands to wipe at Roy’s mouth.

“Who’s still coming for you?” Jason asked as he folded the gauze over and patted it against Roy’s forehead.

Jason could hear Tim behind him, the boy’s breath whistling hard and fast through his nose. There was a history here. Jason didn’t know what, but he knew that he was the only poor sucker in the room who was used to seeing the people he loved on their deathbeds. Tim, on the other hand, was losing it.

“Some guns Waller hired to track down KC after he escaped,” Roy managed to say.

Then the idiot tried to sit up and Jason and Tim both had to wrestle him back down onto the bench.

“He needs to go to the Cave,” Tim said meekly, the shrillness from earlier still tweaking his voice an octave or so higher.

“Not until it’s done,” Roy growled, anger streaking across his face like a great jolt of pain (which was probably what caused his sudden outburst).

“But what if you die,” Tim was saying, his voice barely more than a gasp, and then Roy was looking at Jason pleadingly, with the ghost of something else between his eyes that Jason would have to piece together later.

“Where’s Croc?” he asked instead, cocking his head over his shoulder at Tim.

Suddenly Jason felt bad about being between the two men, so he extricated himself and shunted Tim closer with a hand on his counterpart’s flank. Tim took up the position easily, one of his hands reaching for Roy’s face and then withdrawing it immediately. Roy shot a look at Jason that said don’t do this now, but Jason knew that Tim’s hesitation hadn’t been because of Jason’s prying eyes; Tim’s hands were covered in blood, and he didn’t want to smear it all over Roy’s already bloodied body.

“Checking the perimeter,” Roy finally answered.

Jason was turning on his heel and stalking out of the room before anyone could say another word. He turned so sharply he thought that if he wore a cape it would have snapped in the air. He felt like Batman, especially when he called orders to Tim back over his shoulder, “Get him behind that bench and keep him alive,” he was saying, then shouting as he took off at a sprint down what remained of the apartment building’s hallway, “And stay in radio contact!”

The ensuing firefight was hellish. Never in his life had Jason enjoyed a fight less. Croc fought valiantly beside him, tanking bullets like they were raindrops, while Jason dodged out of the way with the grappling gun he’d taken out of storage at the Cave. If he wasn’t going to be shooting anybody, he needed an extra element of surprise.

He dropped down on the men one-by-one, like Batman… if Batman carried a sword. He knocked them unconscious, mostly, smashing the hilt of Damian’s sword into a lot of brainstems and slicing a lot of ankles. When he broke the first guy’s jaw with a well-placed punch and his machine gun clamoured to the ground, Jason had to grind his teeth together to keep himself from picking it up.

He thought of Roy in the next room, bleeding out and probably dead, and then he thought of Tim. Tiny Tim, the one who’d cried into his chest for hours that night in the Cave. Tim who was so opposed to death and who had such a righteousness in his heart that he’d chosen to be Robin in a way that no one else ever had. He imagined Tim cradling Roy in his arms as he died, and Jason tossed the machine gun down the jaws of a mouth made of jagged floorboards that opened up into the basement.

He slammed his boot into the throat of the next one, knocking him clean out. He sliced at the arms of some of the others, brought the tip of Damian’s sword up to the neck of one in particular who had spat an insult at him. He was so close to doing it that his hands shook, but then Croc was smashing an end table over the guy’s head and that was the last of them.

Jason’s suit was nicked with cuts and scrapes and he could feel bruises forming everywhere on his chest. He could barely breathe, sucking in air like he was drowning, and Croc swayed on his feet. But Jason couldn’t rest – didn’t dare.

Instead, he was sprinting along the length of the apartment block, leaping over piles of debris and bodies without a second thought – he figured the cops would be here soon anyway. Croc was hot on his heels, and Jason came to a screeching halt halfway to the apartment where he’d left Roy and Tim.

He turned to Croc and barked, “Go find someplace to lay low, I’ll know how to contact you when I know something.”

Croc was looking at him with the eyes of a predator, adrenaline (or whatever crocodile men had) no doubt still pumping through his veins. His fists clenched and then relaxed, and Jason took that as agreement.

But he stepped towards the prehistoric man anyway, lowering his voice and holding Croc’s gaze firmly.

“I will not let him die,” Jason promised, even as he imagined Roy dead as he spoke those words.

It’s what Batman would say – what Robin would say – he realised, and he silently cursed the ghost he could never quite escape.

But that ghost seemed to comfort Croc somehow, and then they were peeling their eyes off each other and running in separate directions down the hall.

When Jason reached Roy and Tim’s room, Tim was already hauling an unconscious and pale Roy to his feet.

“Think I stopped the bleeding,” the kid muttered, his suit covered in blood from his collar to his boots.

Tim grunted as he slung one of Roy’s arms around his shoulders and Jason was struck by how small Tim was – how young. Roy wasn’t even six foot and Tim could still barely lift him, and the archer was on the light side as far as superheroes went.

“Here, let me,” Jason offered, reaching out his arms and getting ready to carry Roy bridal-style – not for the first time in their long and gory history.

“No!” Tim growled, the strength in his voice surprising Jason.

With another strained grunt, Tim somehow managed to haul the older ex-sidekick into his arms. He looked possessive and he was fuming. Jason wondered if it was because he’d missed out on the fight, missed out on getting a chance to crack the skulls of the people who’d done this to Roy – who Tim apparently cared so much about.

Jason took point on their way out the front door, not even bothering to draw his sword so that he could unlock the batmobile faster. He could hear sirens in the distance now, drawing nearer, and he urged Tim onwards with a short, “Quick.”

“I know,” Tim grumbled, allowing Jason to help him hoist Roy’s limp body into the back of the batmobile.

“Get in the back and keep an eye on him,” Jason was saying as he leapt into the front seat and took the steering column in his hands.

Tim seemed grateful for the direction and his eyes started to come back into focus somewhat then. He kept one finger on Roy’s pulse and lifted the other up to his radio, where he hailed Alfred on the comms and warned him to be prepared for triage.

Jason was glad they were still so close to home, and was thinking about saying, see, this is why you visit Crime Alley twice, when Roy began to stir.

Jason put his foot to the ground then, which caused the batmobile to blast past everything in its way. The other cars on the road were a blur, the buildings were a blur, and if Jason hadn’t known this route so well that it was muscle memory, he might have taken a wrong turn.

Roy was murmuring something, and Jason strained his ears to hear it.

“Kori…” he managed to say, his breath ragged and catching on fluid in his throat. Probably blood, Jason thought grimly. “Went back to Tamaran,” the archer finished, and Jason felt his stomach sink on his friend’s behalf.

For a moment, stuck in the cramped batmobile with Red Robin between himself and Roy, Jason felt like he and his best friend were the only two people in the world. He thought about their crashed ship, and their little tropical island, and wished that Roy had been allowed to die there in the sun.

“I’m sorry,” Jason breathed after he wrenched the steering column again.

It was the second last turn he’d have to make, the last one being onto the side road that led to the Batcave. Now they had about two minutes to sit and pray as they crossed the bridge out of Uptown and towards the mainland where the Manor stood alone in its fields.

Some air escaped Roy’s lungs that Jason thought might have been the poor guy trying to laugh, and when he spoke next, he had a smile in his voice.

“Don’t be, Jaybird,” he breathed, and Jason heard a shifting sound as Roy and Tim rearranged their limbs on the backseat.

Jason caught a glance of what they were doing in the rear-view mirror and his heart shattered right there. Not two days ago Jason had seen Tim hold Damian’s hand the same way, and now the seventeen-year-old was being put through it all over again. Only this time… Well, as Roy put it:

“Be sorry if this one ever leaves me.”

And then Roy was smiling, and his eyes were closing, and Jason was easing up on the accelerator to make it safely past the Cave’s waterfall. Jason and Tim both held their breaths as the car dove through the curtain of water, like if they didn’t they’d drown in it.

Drown in blood’s more like it, Jason thought darkly as he slammed on the brakes and opened the roof in the same movement.

Tim rocketed out of the car in an instant, already barking a description of Roy’s injuries and relevant medical info at Alfred, who was already clad in gloves and a surgical mask.

Jason made short work of hauling Roy out of the car. He sprinted down the hall to the med-bay and was assaulted by a not-so-distant memory of carrying Damian down here the same way only a few nights ago.

Jason felt panic rise in his chest, and thoughts that he’d been trying so hard to keep hidden started to rise to the surface. This job is too dangerous, the weak voice that had reared its ugly head after his resurrection said. I won’t be here to watch them die.

Jason put Roy in a different room to the one that had held Damian, just to make it feel like this was somehow different than that night had been. Sure, Damian hadn’t died, but Jason knew deep down that the Lazarus Pit had determined that; not his own fortitude or some cosmic luck. And Roy didn’t have any powers, not even the Lazarus Pit to give him a boost.

Jason didn’t realise he was crying – might not have been – until he was shouting at Tim. He’d meant to bark out an order the way Bruce would have, but he just wasn’t that fucking strong.

“Go clean that blood off you,” he snarled, ignoring the way Tim’s own eyes were brimming with tears, “and bring me everything you’ve got on Amanda Waller.”

***

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