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Jason feels the metallic taste of the rebreather in his mouth before he fully understands what’s going on.
His ears are ringing. There was an explosion of some sort.
“Get up!” Someone screams, like he’s underwater. “We have to run!”
Jason blinks. Nightwing is above him, pulling his arm. He’s on his feet in an instant, and the next, he’s running next to Nightwing.
The older teen -because Nightwing is a teen, he might be leading his own superhero team but they’re the Teen Titans, so he’s a teen. It doesn’t matter that they’ve been talking of rebranding, or something. He’s a teen, barely older than Jason. Right. He has to remember. Soon, he, too, will be like Nightwing. But anyway.
The older teen is holding his hand. His wrist, more accurately, as they run. It occurs to Jason he’s the one who shoved the rebreather in his mouth. Jason would tell him that he doesn’t have to do that, that he’s not a kid, he’s Robin, but the hand is actually comforting, in a way.
Nightwing isn’t wearing a rebreather. Jason should ask him about that, as well as why he himself has one. He should ask what exactly they are running away from, or what they are running toward, maybe. He probably shouldn’t turn back, even if he wants to.
Instead of all that, what comes out of his exhausted lungs, voice distorted by the rebreather is, “where is Batman?”
Nightwing shrugs, looking a bit annoyed. He doesn’t know. Great. This is great. This is not stressing Jason at all. He’s Robin. He can handle it.
He risks an eye behind him. There is no one else running with them, which is good, because they are clearly in a dangerous situation.
The less good thing are the fumes, some sort of fog, a color between brown and orange, that is catching up to them. Jason would panic. He would. Except he’s Robin, and Robin doesn’t panic. He tries to run faster, but he can’t. The fog is coming up to them. No matter what they do it will always be faster than they can run.
It’s their limitation as humans. Superman doesn’t have that kind of problem, but Jason and Dick do. Even Batman does.
They can’t run faster than the fog. And the fog catches up with them. It starts with their legs, because the fog is heavy and it’s burning.
Still, Jason keeps running. Nightwing keeps running, so Robin isn’t going to stop either.
“Why don’t you have a rebreather?” Jason doesn’t ask. Firstly, because he doesn’t have the breath to. Secondly, because he knows full well why Nightwing doesn’t have a rebreather.
His rebreather is on Jason’s mouth. Jason’s own is missing, when he goes to fetch for it. Lost somewhere during the explosion.
They run. Dick’s hand on his wrist is solid. The fog is burning, progressing from his ankles to his knees, to his hips, to his shoulders, to his neck, and finally.
To his face.
Jason feels a metallic taste in his mouth, even if he knows the rebreather is protecting him. He can’t see what’s in front of him, even with the mask protecting his eyes.
Still, he keeps running. He won’t stop. He won’t stop. Nothing will make him stop.
Except something does make him stop. Not his own body, but the lack of something.
The hand on his wrist is gone. Dick’s hand is gone.
Jason curses silently. He turns. He can’t see anything.
But he can hear. Coughing, wheezing. Dick is on the ground, a vague shape in the brown mist.
“Come on,” he says, pulling on Dick’s arm. “Get up.” He might be asking a lot, but this is Nightwing. He can, and he will get up.
“Go,” Nightwing says between bouts of coughing. “Run.”
And, yeah, fat big chance. Jason is not going to run. He’s Robin. Robin doesn’t run. Not when someone needs him. Even when that someone is a seasoned superhero who is sometimes an asshole, but who still took Jason’s wrist – a catcher’s hold, Jason thinks absentmindedly – who still gave him his rebreather.
Even if that someone is Nightwing. Especially if that someone is Nightwing.
Jason shakes his head. “No, not without you!”
Dick says something that Jason can’t quite get between how much the older boy is struggling to breathe and how much his own ears are ringing.
He doesn’t care. He bends down, takes Dick’s arms to half haul him on his shoulders and starts walking.
He doesn’t really know where he’s going. Nightwing is heavier with each step Jason takes, and he still can’t see a thing.
But still, he keeps going. He’s not going to stop. He’s Robin. And Robin just doesn’t lay down and wait for death.
He keeps going. He keeps going until he sees a vague shape in the fog.
Batman.
Batman will save them.
It’s the last thing Jason thinks before he passes out.
When Jason wakes up, he’s in the manor. He’s in his room, and he has bandages on the part of his body his suit leaves exposed.
Other than that, he feels pretty much okay, so he stands up. He’s thinking of poking up the bandage on his arm to see what this is about, when he hears a voice behind him.
“I wouldn’t do that if I was you.”
“Alfie.” Despite all the training he did with Bruce, it seems that Alfred still manages to sneak up on him. “What happened?”
“It appears you’ve been burned by a toxic gas. Thankfully, you didn’t sustain any internal damage, but your skin-”
“Dick.” It all comes back to Jason in a flash. “Dick was with me. Is he okay?” If the gas was strong enough to burn Jason’s skin, what did it do to Dick’s lungs?
Alfred makes a face, and for a second Jason thinks Dick is dead. Dick is dead because he gave his rebreather to Jason. Dick is dead and-
“He’s downstairs, receiving care. He’s been… injured, but Dr Thompkins doesn’t expect any permanent damage so far.”
“Can I see him?” He needs to see him. Dick was so still, on his back, Jason thought he had stopped breathing.
“He needs rest and so do you,” Afred says, and for a second, Jason thinks he’s going to say no. “Do not exhaust him or yourself.”
Jason smiles. “Will do. Thank you, Alfie.”
Still, he practically jumps off the bed and runs to the cave.
He stops just before the end of the stairs. Just before they can see him. There is the beeping of a heart monitor, a little fast but steady, and Jason’s own heart quiets a little at the sound. From where he stands, he can see the large figure of Bruce, as well as a lot of medical equipment and the corner of a bed.
He hears Bruce’s voice first. “The mask must stay on until-”
“I know. I’m sick, not stupid.”
Dick’s voice is weak, but it’s there. He’s awake and coherent enough to be upset about Bruce, and Jason feels like he can breathe again. That privilege isn’t granted to everyone, apparently, because the next second, he hears Dick start coughing loudly.
He gets out of his hiding spot without thinking about it. Dick is laying on a bed, bandages similar to Jason’s all over his body. He looks pale, and there is an oxygen mask on his face, as well as an oximeter on his finger. Jason can’t read the number from where he stands, but from the way Dick’s chest moves, even after he’s done coughing, he can guess it’s not good.
“Jason,” Bruce says when he sees him. He looks unhappy, but Jason is pretty sure this is Bruce’s resting face. “You should be in bed.”
“Alfred says I’m allowed to be here,” Jason says, like a gladiator pulling out his ultimate weapon.
Bruce makes a Bruce sound of his. A sort of grunt that Jason only heard coming from him. But he heard it enough to associate it with Bruce. It means Bruce isn’t happy with something, but he can’t change it immediately. In that case, he’s not happy that Jason is here.
Well, though. Jason is here and he’s not leaving.
“Do not tire yourself,” Bruce finally says, echoing Alfred. “And do not tire him.”
Jason steps into the room. Something like relief crosses Dick’s eyes when he sees him, but mostly, he just looks tired.
“So,” Jason asks. “What was that stupid thing you wanted to do?”
Dick huffs. “Not you too. I’m not stupid. I don’t do stupid things.”
Jason’s eyes linger on the side of the bed. There is a trash can full of bloody tissues.
Dick doesn’t do stupid things, but Dick put his rebreather on Jason. He could have probably carried Jason out. That wasn’t the best pragmatic decision, and they both know it. If Batman hadn’t found them…
“You’re thinking too loud,” Dick groans. “I’m fine. It’s not my first time dealing with chemical pneumonia.”
He says this like it’s normal. Like anyone in their twenties had experienced getting their lungs filled with harsh chemicals. Like because he experienced it before it made it okay for him to suffer through it again.
“I had pneumonia too,” Jason confesses. “Well, I think. But I got better on my own so maybe it wasn’t.” It got really bad, before it got better, though, so maybe it was. Jason didn’t exactly had a doctor to confirm it. “When I was on the streets.”
“I’m sorry, Jason,” Dick says, and there is sincere sympathy in his tone. “It must have been horrible to deal with on your own.”
“Yeah,” Jason says. He remembers it. “But that wasn’t my point,” he remembers. “My point was… was the stupid thing you were trying to do really just removing the mask? Or was it trying to deal with it on your own?”
Dick looks like he got caught up with his hand in the candy jar by Alfred. So, that was it. Not simply removing the mask, but removing the mask and getting out of the manor. He would usually manage to hide things better than that, but it seems that even Dick Grayson is letting some of his barriers down when his lungs are damaged.
“I wouldn’t have been alone,” he finally says, under Jason’s glare.
“With the Titans?” Jason asks, and Dick nods.
The Titans -Teen Titans, maybe, he’s not sure - are competent. That’s not the problem. It’s just, as far as Jason knows, none of them have the same medical knowledge as Alfred. And they don’t have the same experience as Bruce. They’re teens. It’s in the name, or at least it was, until very recently.
“Have they ever had chemical pneumonia?” he asks instead of pointing out the medical knowledge thing.
Dick snorts. “I’m pretty sure Roy-” he doesn’t finish, and Jason doesn’t find out what was it about Roy, because he starts coughing instead.
Jason doesn’t really know what to do when Dick removes the mask and starts coughing into a tissue until it’s saturated with red. He just stays there, holding the mask back until Dick is done.
“Is that normal?” he asks. Should he go get Alfred?
Dick nods. He looks even more tired than before. Jason doesn’t quite believe him, but he doesn’t go to get Alfred.
“Here,” Jason says, giving him back the mask. “Put it on.”
Dick takes the mask, and puts it back on. “Not stupid,” he mutters.
“I know you’re not,” Jason says, and it’s true. He knows Dick isn’t stupid. Still. “You should have kept your rebreather.”
Dick rises an eyebrow. “If you had a secret one hidden, now is a bit too late to say it.”
“No, but- you didn’t have to- you could have-” He could have carried Jason away. He could have died. Jason isn’t sure which one he wants to say.
“No,” Dick says, definitive, and Jason doesn’t know which statement he’s answering.
“Did you want to die?” Jason asks, very fast, before he can think about it twice.
“No,” Dick answers, a second too late, like he was surprised by the question, or maybe because he had to take time to think about it.
Jason had met people who wanted to die, both on the streets and as Robin. Batman had explained to him that these weren’t people who actually wanted to die, just people who couldn’t live with their conditions anymore, and that they needed help.
A morbid part of him wonders if his mother overdosed on purpose. He doesn’t think about it much, but the idea is there, on the back of his mind. He’s not stupid, either.
His mother was suffering. She needed help, and nobody helped her. Jason tried, but he wasn’t enough.
Jason suffered, too. That he knows. He never actually felt like death was the only solution. Death just seems so… final. Painful, too. He’s sure he doesn’t want that. Also, his suffering wasn’t final. He’s with Batman, now, and he’s Robin. He got help, and now, he can do the most wonderful thing ever. Help other people.
The way he couldn’t help his mother.
Dick is suffering, right now, and not just because of the pneumonia. Maybe Jason is willing to accept that he didn’t want to die, when he put the rebreather on his face. But he’s not stupid. He can see Dick is suffering. He needs help.
Thankfully for him, Jason is Robin. Helping people is what he does.
He can help Dick, he just needs to figure out how.
“You saved me,” Dick says, like reading his mind. “You carried me out.”
That doesn’t sound like enough, when he sees Dick on that bed.
“You told me it was stupid.”
Dick smiles, but it’s a small thing. “I did, yes.”
“But I saved you, so that was not stupid, was it?” Jason knows he sounds desperate. He doesn’t know how to say it otherwise. He doesn’t know how to help.
He’s Robin, and yet he doesn’t know how to help.
“No,” Dick says, but there is still this little hesitation before, like he’s thinking about it. “No, it wasn’t.”
Jason wants to scream or cry, because he might have saved Dick, or maybe he hadn’t, maybe Batman would have found him anyway, but he can’t help.
Sometimes, his mother would ask him to sleep next to her on the bed. It didn’t change anything, in the long run, it didn’t change much, but maybe it helped.
“Can I lay down next to you?” he asks in a small voice.
Dick looks surprised, actually surprised, not the same hesitation as before, for a second, and then he opens his arms. “Sure. You must have been scared.”
Jason doesn’t say that he was, but that’s not why he’s doing this. He climbs on the bed, next to Dick.
Dick smells like blood and sweat and medicine. There is no place Jason would rather be, right now. “I’m glad you’re not dead,” he says.
Dick’s arms close on him. They’re not very strong, but they’re comforting. “Me too,” he says. “I would do it again. It’s worth it. You’re worth it.”
Jason doesn’t say anything for a time. It feels good, to be worth it. To be worth Dick’s endangering his life. Even if he’s not sure if it’s because he matters a lot to Dick, or because his own life doesn’t matter much.
“Well,” he finally lets out. “Don’t do it again.” And maybe his voice is a little wet, but he will deny it later.
Dick snorts. “No promises.”
Jason stays there, in Dick’s arms, for a while. He doesn’t know if he’s helping. But he knows he doesn’t want to move.
Dick saved his life, and he saved Dick’s life. And Batman saved them both.
For the first time since forever, in Dick’s arms, while Bruce and Alfred are getting busy upstairs to take care of them, he feels safe.
He’s Robin, and as long as he has these people protecting him, nothing bad is going to happen to him.