Chapter Text
One moment, Jason was standing in a warehouse with a gun to the head of the insane clown who murdered him, yelling at Batman to choose between the two of them. To kill the Joker, or to kill Jason.
The next moment, he was on the floor, clutching his neck as blood poured down his throat, choking on it. The metallic scent filled his nose and the taste of it coated his tongue. He knew the taste of his own blood well, but that didn’t mean he was used to it. He never would be. There was a Batarang stuck in his neck, lodged deep, and blood was oozing from the wound. It hurt like nothing he had ever felt before. It wasn’t the worst pain that he’d felt, that would be that one time where he died, but this pain was new . Different. The specific feeling of a wound this deep in his throat was a novel experience. However, trumping the joy of discovery was the fact that it hurt like hell.
He wondered if that’s where he’d be going as he took the detonator out of his pocket and pressed the button, staring across the room at the man who raised him, the man he had seen as a father as he did so.
The man who had almost definitely just killed him.
The last thing he saw before he passed out from blood loss was Bruce running towards him. Then he felt heat all around and accepted that he would be leaving this world for the second time. It was okay, he had never been supposed to come back in the first place, had he?
Jason woke up in a pile of rubble, bricks and rocks strewn over him as he stared up at the bright sky through. He was alive. The memories of what had happened quickly flooded back to him. His hand shot up to his throat, finding bandages over the cut. A quick patch job. It was probably stitched too, he thought. Dark amusement filled his mind. The old man cared enough to patch him up, but not to take him to the hospital, or the Cave, or maybe even to not injure him in the first place. Just like how he had cared enough to mourn him, but not to avenge him. To push him away when he came back.
Jason laughed mirthlessly. Wait. That didn’t sound right. Jason cleared his throat. It felt like he’d been gargling with razor blades. He opened his mouth and tried to make a sound, nothing coming out except for a dry rasping noise. He tried again, with the same result. He tried to scream, to yell, to force any sort of sound to come out aside from the quiet rattle of air escaping his lungs.
Nothing.
He felt tears pricking up in his eyes. He couldn’t talk? Was the cut really that bad? Would it be like this for the rest of his life?
His breathing got faster and faster. He was panicking, hyperventilating as he tried again and again to make any sort of noise. Every time, nothing came out, and every time, it caused him to panic more. Another part of him, ripped away from him by Bruce. Because, fuck. It was Bruce who had done this to him. His own father. Not a villain, not a stranger, not even some random hero trying to get rid of a helmeted crime lord. It was Batman. Bruce. Dad, a certain little part of him that he thought had died with him years ago, said. The tears were flowing freely now down his face, sobs coming out silent, scraping their way up his throat like cats with their claws fully extended.
It’s okay, he said to himself, trying to calm down, It’ll heal. It’s going to heal. I’m going to be able to talk again and it’s going to be okay. He took a few deep breaths, in, out, in, out. If Bats were good at anything, it was repressing emotions and shelving those types of problems to deal with later. Those skills were being put to good use.
Jason pushed himself up, using the rubble around him to steady himself as he attempted to walk on weak legs. The cut wasn’t all that he had to worry about, apparently, judging by the way his ribs ached sharply and his legs protested as he walked. He had a safehouse a few blocks down. He could rest there. Recuperate. Heal . He was going to be alright. Definitely. He had bounced back from dying, he could take a deep cut. He would go back to the wisecracking, sarcastic vigilante in just a few weeks, maybe even days. It would be alright. It would turn out perfectly fine.
So why did he have this sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach?