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People are arguing.
Jason ignores it in favor of luxuriating in this wonderful soft bed with the haze of good drugs dulling the pain deep in the marrow of his bones. His feet. His neck. His hands. Hell. His everything. It aches like he’s died all over again, chest caved in, skin on fire, vision blurry with blood and smoke, calling out for Sheila – hoping she’s okay – and then Bruce, when it finally dawns on him how terrified he is. The drugs take the edge off. Barely.
He wasn’t so out of his mind last night to forget where he is now. At least, he’s pretty sure it was last night. His face to his toes is the kind of warm that comes from lying in a sunbeam, crisp and perfect with the cool air of the rest of the room. He feels kinda like a cat, and he doesn’t actually mind that. He knows Tim and Stephanie came for him; he remembers using the last of his energy for that circle. He remembers staring up at Cass, half-believing what he was seeing.
So, he knows where he is. He knows he’s safe. Just like he knows the argument is happening between Dick and Babs and is not another row between scientists who can’t agree on where they’re going to cut into next. Just like he knows there’s someone in the room with him, quiet and tucked away so he’s sure it’s Cassandra instead of a silent, armed guard. Jason doesn’t want to move, so he doesn’t. He hears a door slide open then weight drapes over his legs, carefully avoiding his knee and feet. Steph lets out a loud, dramatic sigh.
His hand aches when he lifts one to sign a shaky “off” without opening his eyes. He does the quick lexicalized version with no elaboration, but it’s still enough to exhaust him.
Steph laughs. “Good morning to you to,” she says quietly, probably to keep the others from knowing he’s awake. She really is his favorite sometimes. “How ya feeling?”
Jason wiggles his head in a so-so gesture. He curls his hands into fists, index fingers left extended, and points them at each other, bringing them together twice. “Hurt,” he admits.
Even with the drugs, the pain is edging on too much. He can’t ignore the ache in his feet that crawls up his legs and burrows in deep. He can’t ignore the heaviness in his neck, weighing against his throat, making it hard to swallow so he doesn’t even bother trying to talk. His hand…hurts more than he thought it would, makes his fingers tingle – and his wrists ache, one of them in a brace to support the mostly healed but still tender bone.
How he got those particular injuries is vague. It’s a blur of panicked hope when the restraints finally gave, of burning drugs they’d been increasing little by little, smoldering magic fighting the blockers, of someone shouting as he finally, finally broke free, scrambling for the first weapon he could find, hand curling around it tightly so no one could take it from him. It was all – pain and desperation and hot blood spilling over his hands and his frantic search for his gear and panic and fear and terror and he can’t go back, he can’t –
“Breathe.”
He hadn’t realized he wasn’t.
Jason sucks in a sharp breath that hurts. Cass’s hand is in his hair. Steph hasn’t moved from her spot on his legs and it’s way more comfortable than it should be. He can feel the press of her ribs against his shin as her chest expands with each inhale. It’s probably uncomfortable for her, but she doesn’t move. It’s literally the best thing in the world right now – a living weight instead of the cold, impersonal pressure of that room. She shifts, one hand wrapping gently around his ankle just above the mostly healed abrasions there, and she squeezes rhythmically in a soothing, repetitive motion Jason instinctively starts breathing in time with, brows furrowed and feeling shaky.
No one moves any more than that or says anything for a long moment. Then, when Jason’s heart isn’t trying to beat out of his chest, Cass gets up to close the curtains a bit – a soft scrape of metal rings across the rod and the drag of fabric on the carpet – she leaves it open enough to warm his chest to his toes, only closing it to spare his face the worst of it. Jason tilts his head in her direction in disgruntled anticipation for what comes next.
She touches his face, lightly drumming her fingers on his cheekbone. He scrunches his nose but obliges, cracking his eyes open enough for her to see the way his pupil dilate properly in response to the dimmed light, and the way they no longer have that otherworldly glow to them. They glitter with flecks of green and copper, like metallic flakes shimmering in stone, but they’re mostly blue.
“You’re not glowing anymore,” Steph comments. “But you’re still in pain?”
Jason closes his eyes against the sting of keeping them open. He’s too tired for this. His head is starting to ache something fierce. He points again with his non-dominate hand, curls his other into a loose fist and rolls his wrist over his finger. “Tapped out,” he basically says though the sign is better suited for a gas tank for his own magical reserves. Which…actually, they’re basically the same thing. He’s running on empty.
His tries to release his fist, but his body is finally rebelling. His fingers spasm and lock, making him hiss out. Cass wraps her hand around his and forces his fingers straight as carefully as she can, then just…doesn’t let go. Her hand is warm, her grip is nice. She squeezes questioningly and he squeezes back, curling his fingers around her before resting them both on his chest.
Stephanie pats his thigh. “Go back to sleep, Alley.”
—
The sun is still shining when he wakes up again, feeling marginally less like he got hit by a train and more like he got hit by a semi-truck. Cass is curled up on the bed next to him, her hand still entwined in his. He drops his head, cheek against her soft hair, and leaves it there. The weight on his legs is gone and he mourns the loss of pressure. It’s been replaced by a weighted blanket that doesn’t cover his feet. He wiggles his toes – and immediately regrets it.
When he opens his eyes, the folded wall the blocks the master bedroom from the living room is wide open – which he’s pretty sure wasn’t the case before – the television is playing something colorful on mute with the captions turned on, and he can barely make out the familiar forms of Steph and Damian at an island counter in the kitchen. There’s the sounds of murmured conversation and a burner being turned on.
Everything is cozy and subdued in the way lazy days get.
Jason dozes serenely for who knows how long, not in any rush to get started on anything. Footsteps sound now and then, louder than usual on purpose. Someone checks in ‘bout every fifteen minutes like clockwork. Dick. Stephanie. Damian. Alfred. He even hears Babs’s wheelchair, a soft whisper of wheel on carpet. When he’s sure she’s there, he flutters his fingers in a silent hello. Hears her huff out a relieved laugh.
She doesn’t actually say anything thankfully.
He likes that no one’s bugged him yet. It makes something warm bloom in his chest that they know not to overwhelm him even though they’ve gotta be worried as fuck. Especially Babs. Especially Tim and Steph, for how they found him.
Cass has been awake for a while, alternating pressure on his forearm, pressing her thumb at the hinge of his wrist to make his fingers flex then massaging the muscles and tendons up his arm. She’s warm next to him. A solid presence tucked to his side. It was fun to learn that she was a die-hard cuddle bug. If anyone stayed still longer than twenty minutes while not working, they would eventually find Cass wrapping around them like they were a stuffed animal. She and Dick are a nightmare team-up.
Jason lets out a slow breath, using the action to test the tenderness of his throat. There’s a raw scratchiness he attributes to screaming, but it’s mostly okay now, so he mumbles out, “Why the penthouse?” It’s no more than a whisper, rasping and hoarse. He grimaces.
She doesn’t call attention to it. Just laughs a little. “You refused the Cave,” she whispers back.
Huh. He…doesn’t remember that. He remembers more than he wants from the past four-ish days, but everything between passing out in the batmobile surrounded by safety and then waking up earlier to Cass and Steph, there’s…nothing but the sweet void of unconsciousness. No nightmares. No awareness. No memory of protest or slurred, jumbled arguments about going to the Cave. Why anyone would listen to him in the first place is weird because, well –
He hasn’t refused the Cave in a long, long while.
Because Bruce hasn’t been anywhere but the Cave in a long while too. And isn’t that funny – he spent so long avoiding the Cave and the Manor (even when he shouldn’t have) because Bruce was there. Now, apparently, he’s avoiding both because Bruce isn’t there. When did that happen?
…And everyone came to him instead.
Cass must see where his thoughts go because she’s laughing again. At him. Which is so rude.
Jason groans. “Be nicer to me,” he mumbles, refusing to admit he’s pouting.
She gets off the bed in response, the exact opposite of being nice to him thankyouverymuch. He’s suddenly cold, left adrift. But the next thing he knows the bed is rising under him to sit him up without him putting out his own effort for it. He glares at her, and she just smiles beatifically.
Jason scrunches his nose before he brushes his index finger down his lips then forms a ‘C’ against his right cheek under his eyes, before bringing it against the flat palm of his other hand. He follows it up by pointing at his ear then moving down, fingers forming ‘y’ with a little bit of a wobble like a stereotypical surfer dude then forms a ‘s’. Finishes it up with the actual question, pointing his index finger up and pivoting it side to side, using his wrist and elbow, with his brows furrowed. Asking “where?”
“They went back,” Cass explains. “Duke wants to see if there are echoes and Tim thinks he can get into their system from there.”
Hm. That makes sense. Babs claims Jason was doing her a favor, but it was mutual. They somehow got on the case independently from each other. Him on the ground, tracking this group manually, trekking through country after country. Her on the computers, trying to remotely hack their systems. She called him up when she realized they were working on the same case. He’s a lesser-known magician, makes it easier to go undercover. So, he gave her the hardlines to get into their systems and he was able to sabotage their search from the inside.
– but he must’ve fucked up somewhere, because they found someone, and he couldn’t let them destroy that kid like they wanted.
So, he put himself in her place. And still doesn’t regret it.
It’s not a huge chance, but there is a chance Tim might find something. Duke, on the other hand… Jason’s Sight might not be up to the same standards as his meta-ability, but it’s still better with magical traces than Duke’s. He would’ve seen them if there were any useful echoes around, forward and back, despite them moving him to a new location around day two, so if Duke is going to find anything different, all he’s going to see is – is…
Oh.
Oh fuck.
Jason swallows thickly, feeling more than vaguely sick as his stomach churns. It’s suddenly hard to breathe, the air is too thick. A sweat breaks out all over. He’s overheated and clammy, his chest jerking erratically, eyes blown wide and staring distantly at nothing.
There’s blood on his hands. A scalpel in his grip. He’s shaking, feeling wild and out-of-body. Someone tries to sneak up on him, syringe in hand, and he knows what that does – muscles weak, indistinct figures fluttering at the edges of his vision, ants swarming his skin, fire burning through him – and he can’t. He can’t keep going through that. Not when he’s free. A hand brushes against him and he’s lashing out, skin and cartilage tearing under the force of his terror, his desperation – Nononono –
He's burning up from the inside out, brain frying in his skull as the Pit and his magic work desperately to keep him alive. He’s running on fumes after four days. He doesn’t have enough to keep going.
Does he even want to keep going? It would be so easy to just stop –
He doesn’t know what happened between one moment and the next, but he’s on the ground, pressed against glass that’s been warmed by the sun, half-hidden from the rest of the room by a lightweight curtain. He gasps, erratic and too shallow to be called proper breaths, his hands shaking, his vision swimming nauseatingly until he squeezes his eyes shut and curls in tighter on himself.
People are speaking rapid-fire. At each other. At him. And it’s no, no, no, don’t look at him. don’t look at me. Because when they talked to him, it got worse. When they talked to him it was too obvious that they didn’t care about the tears and the pleading and the screams. He had no thoughts, no feelings, he was worth nothing more than the magic in his veins and – and they’re digging down deepdeepdeep and stealing and taking and all that fucking greed in their eyes and their words and stop, he’s all hollowed out, please stop, he’s empty, he has no more to give stop – stop – let me go –
“Jason.”
Quiet. Soft. So far away. Jason tucks his face against his knees, shaking his head. Another hallucination. Something in their drugs. He’s dreaming. It’s a nightmare.
It’s a nightmare and it’s never going to end.
“Jason.” The voices are gone. The glass is warm. The only sound is Jason’s sobbing breaths. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay. Can you hear me? I need you to breathe, okay? Breathe with me.”
A solid presence next to him. He feels it breathe, an exaggerated inhale and a slow, low exhale. It seems impossible. Horribly, terribly impossible. He tries anyway, hitching and stuttering his way through it. He shakes his head.
“That’s okay. Let’s try something smaller.” A softer inhale, still deeper than what Jason’s doing but not nearly as big. Jason manages to follow at some point, and the lightheadedness that started to encroach fades just a bit. “Awesome job, little wing. That’s great.”
They breathe like that for a few minutes, getting deeper and stronger as they go. Jason slumps against the glass, surprised to find tears on his cheeks. He blinks through the sunlight, barely able to see the cityscape through balcony railings.
Not a window. A door.
Before he fully thinks it through, he fumbles with the handle and opens it. He topples right through the doorway. Lays there. The sill digs into his ribs. It must’ve rained or snowed or something because the mat is damp and cold. But he smells exhaust and hears cars honking and people talking and laughing and a bicycle chiming, and it’s more grounding than anything Dick could say to him right now. He’s not underground. He’s not isolated in that horrible room.
The top floor penthouse. The outside world is literally within reach. He drags his fingers over the mat’s bristles. It flicks up water. Jason grins. Right. Right. It’s amazing how easy it is for panic to become overwhelming. Just one little thing and everything’s gone.
Jason glances back to see Dick crouched in the room still, elbows on his knees, a small smile on his face. The smile doesn’t do much to hide the concern, but that concern starts to fade when Jason meets his eyes fully.
“Welcome back,” Dick murmurs.
He snorts. “Fuck you,” he rasps out, and that smile gets bigger in response.
Concern turns into relief and Dick drops back on his ass, crossing his legs like he’s getting comfortable, like he knows Jason’s gonna be here for a hot minute. Jason checks over his brother’s shoulder and sees Cass lounging on the bed, pretending to pay them no attention but they know that’s a joke.
“Kinda cold out there,” Dick comments idly.
Jason shivers. “Not really.”
Dick laughs quietly. Cass proves the obvious by dragging over the comforter and draping it over the part of Jason that’s still inside. He tucks his arm under his head, closes his eyes, and breathes in the not-crisp air. Gotham doesn’t have crisp air. But it’s still soothing.
“’m tired.”
“Two panic attacks within a few hours of each other will do that to you,” Dick says casually. And Jason loves that he’s not making a big deal out of it even though it’s gotta be killing him to do so. “You can’t sleep.”
Jason hums quietly. He feels legs carefully drape over his hip, knows without looking that it’s Cass again. He reaches back and lays his arm over them in his own kinda reassurance. He pats her shin.
“Five minutes?” Jason mumbles, already drifting. There’s another huff of laughter and then a knee is nudging him as Dick scoots closer.
“Five minutes,” Dick agrees. He pulls the comforter higher up on Jason’s shoulders, tucking it around him to keep the cold air from blowing through, then leaves his hand on Jason’s shoulder. “Then soup.”
Jason nods distractedly. “Then soup,” he echoes, words mushing together so badly they’re barely discernible from each other. The legs on his hip shake as Cass laughs silently, but he pays it no mind as he drifts off.
Maybe when he wakes up next time, he won’t have a panic attack.