Chapter Text
At 3:52 pm on Sunday, July first, the Justice League medical evac team brings in a 25-year-old male, blood type AB(-), status: hero, code name “Nightwing” into the JL active battlefield medical station, an expansive maze-like facility constructed from translucent white plastic that’s sprung up within ten miles of every major world-ending event that the Justice League has fought in the past seven years. The facility is outfitted with state-of-the-art medical equipment and employs a team of elite, highly-trained surgeons and nurses, who are called in from all over the world during disaster-state emergencies to treat injured heroes; it is a brutally efficient place, designed for keeping people alive, and nothing else.
The 25-year-old male, blood type AB(-), code name “Nightwing” arrives with multiple lacerations to the abdomen, a broken leg, a collapsed lung, three broken ribs, two broken fingers on his left hand, two stab wounds to the lower back, and severe blood loss; even to the hardened JL nurses, who have seen the worse that the heroes of Earth have had to endure, he looks bad, like he’s already bled out on the gurney and now all that’s left to do is declare time of death. Upon arrival, he is rushed almost immediately into OR 13, where a team of four surgeons and five nurses set to work cutting away the mangled remains of his uniform. It takes three more nurses to hold back the hero he arrives with, a slightly younger male, status: unknown (seemingly friendly), code name “Red Hood,” from entering the operating room with them; he only relents, collapsing with shaking knees into a chair in the waiting room outside the operating corridor, when a nurse who can’t be older than he is begs him to “Calm down, sir, please, there’s nothing more you can do for him now.” When he finally goes still, eyes fixed unseeingly on the opposite wall, hands clenched white-knuckled-tight around the red biker’s helmet in his lap, she brings him a paper cup of hot tea, whispers for him to “Have hope, sir,” and leaves him to his fate, wherever it may take him.
~*~
Jason gasped awake in the middle of the night to something warm and heavy weighing down his chest, a maniacal laugh still echoing in his ears, that sickening red smile still imprinted like a lightbulb flash in the dark spaces behind his eyes. His first instinct was to thrash, or to keep thrashing (judging from the sweat on the back of his neck and the way his sheets were tangled around his legs, he was already working up to a pretty good thrash), but something was gripping each of his wrists, pinning him to the mattress. His second instinct was to throw his knee up, hard, and that, at least, made contact with whatever was holding him down, drawing a surprised grunt of pain from above him and a strained, slightly irritated “Jason.” The voice sounded nothing like the malicious, gleeful taunts that still clawed at his mind; in fact, it sounded familiar, almost like it belonged to—oh.
Jason opened his eyes. Dick was doubled over on the bed next to him, one arm around his stomach, aiming a dirty glare his way that softened the instant their gazes met. “Jay,” he sighed, and in an instant he was halfway on Jason’s legs again, reaching out a hand towards Jason’s cheek. Jason flinched back, mind still muddled, not entirely sure where he was or what he was doing or why is Dick in my bed?; Dick hesitated, then drew back, watching Jason with careful eyes as his gaze darted around the room, still over-bright and hazy with the lingering poison of his nightmare. Eventually, the frantic jackhammering of his heart slowed as he took in the moonlight framing the muslin curtains in the window, the undecorated walls painted soft yellow; Dick waited until his ragged gasps were replaced by deep, shuddering breaths before asking, quietly, “You with me?”
It took him a moment, but Jason swallowed and nodded. His gaze flickered to Dick, and he frowned, rising up off the bed on one elbow as he reached for Dick’s face. His fingertips brushed against the skin of Dick’s lip, and Dick jerked back, surprise flickering over his expression. “You’re bleeding.”
Distractedly, Dick reached up to test his mouth; when he lowered his hand, his fingertips came away shiny and dark. “Oh. That.” He licked his lips, swiping the blood off with his tongue, and Jason felt a shameful surge of lust shoot up his spine. “It’s nothing, I—bit my lip too hard.”
Mercilessly, Jason darted forward and pressed the pad of his thumb, hard, into the bruised skin of Dick’s jaw; Dick yelped and fell back, unable to hide his shock at the sudden burst of pain. “You do this to yourself, too?”
Dick sighed, reaching up to pull Jason’s hand away from his face. “You had a nightmare, you were thrashing, it happens.”
The corner of Jason’s mouth twisted as he watched him. “I don’t seem to recall you ever punching me in the face in the throes of a midnight nap before.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a heavy sleeper.”
Jason’s jaw clenched, and he looked away, feeling sick.
Dust sighed, and the sound just made Jason feel worse. “Look, it’s not a big deal, okay? Can we just go back to sleep?”
Abruptly, Jason sat up, forcing Dick to slide off his lap and back onto the bed. “Yeah, you—get some rest. I’m going to take the sofa in the sitting room.”
“Jason, no.” Dick sounded so tired, so wounded. “Please, just—come back to bed.”
Jason tensed, hands braced on the edge of the bed. When he spoke, his voice was low, calm, that perfect timbre of flatness that practically broadcasted to Dick that he was about to lose it. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t. You won’t.” Dick reached out, settled a hand over Jason’s shoulder, the touch warm to Jason’s sweat-cooled skin. “Hey. Look at me.” He waited until Jason glanced at him, expression tight, before continuing. “I’m not going to break, okay? I’ve been through a lot worse than this.” He snorted, shaking his head, like he couldn’t even believe he had to say this. “A lot worse. Honestly, you don’t even make the top ten. So just—come back to bed, okay?” He cracked a tired smile. “I gotta meet up with Bruce in the morning, and if I don’t go back to sleep, like, right now, I’m going to oversleep and then I’ll be late and then he’ll be like”—here his voice dropped into a gravelly rumble that was maybe supposed to imitate Bruce’s Batman growl—“‘Punctuality is critical, Dick, the right timing could make the difference between life and death in the field’—”
“Shut up,” Jason laughed, but he could already feel the tension draining from his shoulders, washed away in the warmth of Dick’s grin. They hadn’t put a name to—whatever this was between them, yet, but Jason had the sneaking suspicion that it had already evolved beyond his control, that any speed bumps he could’ve thought to put on whatever it was they were became useless the moment he realized he couldn’t look at Dick without feeling like he was gazing into the heart of a forest fire that he would gladly allow to consume him whole. He hooked an arm around Dick’s waist and threw him back onto the bed, if only to get him to stop doing the fucking Batman voice in their—fuck, his goddamn bedroom, and resolutely ignored the voice in the back of his head telling him that the flames were burning his roof, and he was only adding fuel to the fire.
~*~
Tim and Damian burst into the waiting room at 6:02, covered in soot and blood and dozens of bruises and small cuts, the barely-contained panic in their expressions visible even behind the cowl and domino mask. They both spot Jason at the same time and make a beeline towards him, capes sweeping out behind them; Jason thinks, distantly, how ridiculous they look—how ridiculous they all look—in their dramatic costumes and fancy gadgets, in the middle of this sterile hospital.
“Jason,” Tim barks. His voice is deceptively steady. “What happened? Where is he?”
Slowly, Jason raises his head and blinks up at the cowled face hovering above him. Tim is close enough now that Jason can make out how tired he looks, how scared; it’s in the way his teeth clench, how his lips twitch despite how tightly they’re pressed together.
“Todd,” Damian snaps, entire body tense, “report.” He looks a little better—less hurt, but more scared, his youth showing in how he struggles and fails to hide his fear. Compared to Tim—compared to Jason, even—he’s practically broadcasting every thought that passes through his head, and all it does is remind Jason, yet again, that’s he’s barely thirteen, that he shouldn’t even be here if he’s still losing control of himself like that. But, then again, maybe that’s just Dick’s influence: He makes it hard for anyone who loves him to think straight.
Jason swallows, throat dry, and looks down at his own hands, limp in his lap. “He’s in surgery now,” he says, low and flat. “One of the surgeons is supposed to come out to give me an update in an hour or so.”
“One of the—” Tim swallows the rest of his words, jaw tightening. He takes a second to exhale, quick and sharp, before repeating, voice wrestled into that tone of forced-calm again, “What happened?”
Abruptly, Jason feels something hot and angry surge inside him, because what do you think happened, Replacement, your hero complex poster boy of an older brother threw his martyr ass into harm’s way without a thought to the consequences and left me alone, again, to deal with the fallout—but then, just as quickly as it came, the emotion dies away, leaving him just as hollow and numb as he was before. “They took him,” he says, emotionless, and god, god, if he could just go back, if he could just stop it all from happening— “They grabbed a bunch of civilians and threatened to slaughter them if he didn’t surrender, and then they dragged him away and tortured him for information on the Justice League and by the time I busted him out—” He chokes on his own breath, panic rising fast and hard in his throat as he sees Dick on the floor of that cell again, still and cold in a pool of his own blood, unreactive to Jason calling his name as he cut apart the lock on the door. “Fucking—hell, he wasn’t even breathing when I found him, and I—I got him to wake up for a bit but—” He shudders and falls silent, unable to continue. Tim’s eyes have closed, his face drained of color, while Damian stares at him in disbelief, like he refuses to accept the possibility that the last person who will see Grayson alive is the black sheep of the family. Jason wants, desperately, to shout at both of them, to demand to know why they weren’t there instead, why they left the protection of the most precious member of their family to the fuck-up who couldn’t even keep himself alive; Jason wants to curl up into himself and sink into a black sleep, the deep, dreamless kind that washes everything away.
Tim opens his eyes again, the mask of calm he’s put on so thinly stretched it’s already cracking between his brows; then he asks, like it pains him to do so, “Did you contact B?”
Jason barely suppresses the instinct to flinch. Fuck. “I—no. I…didn’t get the chance.” That’s a lie; he’s done nothing for the past two hours but sit in this waiting room, staring at the wall. “I’ll, uh—I’ll do that now—”
“No.” Tim’s already reaching for his utility belt, pulling out his communicator from the pouch by his hip. “I’ll do it. You”—his gaze flickers down Jason’s profile, taking in the bruise-like shadows under his eyes and the tears in his blood-caked clothes—“probably shouldn’t, right now.”
Purely by instinct, Jason snarls, ready to lash out, but Tim just gives him a look loaded with all of the pained sympathy that Jason never expected to receive, and like that he crumbles, anger drying to dust in his throat as he realizes that Tim is not punishing him, but doing him a favor. He digs his fingers into his thigh and tells himself, for once, to feel something more productive than rage; then he nods, stiffly, and meets Tim’s eyes, trying to convey all of the twisted fear and shame and gratitude he feels inside with one look. “Right,” he says, and leaves it at that, but from the way Tim’s expression softens, he understands completely. He gives both Jason and Damian a single, curt nod, a wordless order to stay put, before turning and striding out into the hall outside, communicator already raised to his lips.
Damian looks to Jason, face pinched tight, and Jason can’t tell if the kid is more angry at him or scared for Grayson. He’s been unusually quiet since he arrived with Tim, only speaking that one time to prod Jason into giving them an update, and Jason’s half convinced that he’ll snap any second now, call Jason a useless imbecile and incapacitate all of the nurses so he can break into Dick’s OR—so Jason feels justified in starting in surprise when Damian suddenly flicks his cape out behind him and takes the chair next to Jason’s, plopping down in it with his back ramrod-straight and his arms crossed over his chest. “Do not worry, Todd,” he says, the words clipped but sincere. “Grayson is resilient. Not even your incompetence in protecting him will lead to his demise.” He shoots Jason a sideways look, eyes narrowed behind the milked-out lenses of his mask. “He will make it through this. I know it.”
Jason just stares at him, speechless, and it is an even further testament to Damian’s growth that he doesn’t say anything more, just faces forward again and settles back in the chair, offering up his presence as a silent condolence to the brother who sits beside him.
~*~
They buried Nightwing in a quiet, closed ceremony at Wayne Manor, on the same hill where Bruce’s parents were laid to rest, just a few feet away from Jason’s own tombstone. The sky was dark with storm clouds, the smell of freshly-turned dirt and ozone thick in the air; the gathering of heroes who had come to say their final farewells were quiet as they watched the pallbearers lower the casket into the grave, like they were all acknowledging, by virtue of their silence, that they had reached a turning point in their history: Nightwing, Robin, the first Boy Wonder was unmasked and dead, and there was no going back. Jason watched as the casket sank into the dark, damp earth and felt like he was choking on the bitter, acrid grief that welled in his throat. There were so many things he had wanted to say, but now they would be buried with Dick’s body, deep beneath the ground.
~*~
When Batman storms through the entrance of the facility, a hush falls over everyone inside, tinged with a mix of reverence and wariness and no small amount of fear. Eyes turn away as he sweeps past, like he is a ghoul from an urban legend and merely looking upon him will incur his wrath; doctors and nurses who have been strictly monitoring traffic inside the facility all day scurry aside for him, cowed by the pale rage visible in what little of his expression is not obscured by the cowl. His anger is such a tangible presence that hardly anybody notices the shadow that flits behind him, lithe and soundless, her face expressionless even as her head tilts like an echolocating bat to take in her surroundings.
Jason’s entire body jerks when Bruce stomps into the waiting room, any color that had begun to filter back into his visage vanishing the instant he meets Bruce’s eyes. Bruce growls, and in an instant he’s crowding into Jason’s space, dark and towering and radiating rage; Tim, who has been leaning wordlessly against the wall since he returned from his call, starts forward, looking concerned. “Jason,” Bruce growls, and Jason swallows, mouth dry, because for all of his rebellion against the Bat code, there’s a little robin inside him still that will never fail to snap to attention at the sound of that voice. “Where is he?”
Jason swallows, more forcefully this time, and stiffens his spine, determined not to let Bruce see how much he’s been fucking losing it these past three and a half hours. “Still in surgery,” he says, and he can’t help that the words come out clipped; it’s the only way he can get them to come out at all, at this point. “He went in around four. They haven’t given us any updates yet.”
Bruce’s jaw works under the cowl, and Jason instinctively flinches back, because he knows, okay, I fucked up, I’m sorry, I should’ve been able to save him, I should’ve—
“B.” Jason doesn’t even notice that Black Bat is there until she lays a tiny, gloved hand on Bruce’s bicep, her voice calm and cool like river water. “Please.” She turns to look at Jason, and despite the fact that her eyes are covered, Jason is struck by the intense and inevitable feeling that she is picking him apart. “Jason…has done all he can. There is nothing to do now but wait.” Bruce twitches, like he’s about to protest, but Cassandra simply speaks over him, slightly firmer but no louder than before. “You both…need rest. The doctors will be done when they are done.”
Bruce’s upper lip curls back, but he doesn’t argue; instead, he cants his gaze towards his other sons. “Robin, Red Robin, report,” he barks out.
“I am uninjured, Father,” Damian says curtly, head tilted up. “Sandsmark and Batson were also holding their own when I left them.”
“I’m fine, too, B,” Tim says. “Kon, Bart, and Kara are holding the northwest quadrant of the city. They’ve been checking in every hour, and so far it seems like they’ve managed to push the invaders back to the bay.” He pauses, taking in the way Cass seems to be favoring her right leg, how Bruce holds himself away from his left side. “Are you—?”
“Fine,” Bruce says, brusque, and Cass confirms it with a gentler nod. He hesitates, then, and Jason wonders if he will really get to see the big bad Batman cram into an uncomfortable plastic chair next to a water cooler to wait on news of his eldest son, the Dark Knight of Gotham reduced to nothing but another anxious father in a waiting room—
Well, as it happens, he doesn’t, because at that moment an exhausted-looking woman in pastel green scrubs and a surgical mask pushes through the double doors from the operating corridor, takes in the cluster of dirty, bleeding vigilantes in her waiting room, and sighs, like she was both expecting and fearing this. “Family of Nightwing?” she asks, and in an instant they’re all on their feet and pressing forward, the air suddenly electric with tension as they await her words. She looks at them all and her mouth turns down in regret, and Jason feels the fear solidify into a glacier inside his stomach, bleaching away any warmth he’s managed to hold onto, leaving nothing but the howling wind that screams inside his chest.
~*~
Dick Grayson came back to life on a windless Tuesday night in Gotham and the first thing Jason did was punch him, as hard as he could, right in the face. He was filled with so much livid, burning, boiling rage that he couldn’t think straight, couldn’t even see straight—there was only Dick in that fucking spy outfit and his hair trimmed short, eyes big and blue and pleading, and it was like literal fucking acid was dripping into his chest cavity as Jason realized, slowly but surely, that Dick had been alive this entire time, Dick had lied to them, Dick had betrayed them and gone behind their backs and let them think—let them feel—
Jason spent the next week doing his absolute motherfucking best to avoid speaking to Dick face-to-face, lending his help to whatever it was that had gone wrong enough in Dick’s spy life for him to reveal himself to them in the first place before fucking off back to his safehouse, swearing to stay there in its relative safety until he could look at Dick’s facing without seeing red and instead feel nothing at all. But, because Dick’s status as an asshole was fucking otherworldly, the fucker himself showed up on his fire escape not three days after his return from the dead, ducking in through the window like he had any right to be there at all, like he had any right to even speak to Jason after what he had done.
“Get out,” Jason said the moment Dick was inside, voice cold as ice. Dick, to his credit, didn’t flinch; he just looked at Jason with hooded eyes, mouth twisted downwards.
“Jason,” he said, voice edging on a plea, and no, nope, Jason was not fucking doing this, not today and not ever; as far as he was concerned, Dick gave up his right to ask anything of Jason the day he made Jason wish he could join Nightwing’s casket under the ground.
“Get. OUT,” Jason repeated, only this time it was more of a roar and Dick did flinch, the expression on his face faltering into something wild and desperate—but then Dick was ducking back out of the window, Spyral-issued boots thudding on the iron landing outside before he was launching himself into the night, and Jason slumped to the floor, hands trembling, fisting his hands in his hair as he tried desperately to blink back the tears stinging the backs of his eyes.
~*~
“I’m sorry,” is the first thing the surgeon says, and Jason goes cold all over again. “Your…friend was already in critical condition when he arrived; the trauma inflicted on him was…extensive, and combined with the copious blood loss, it made the operation extremely risky. We managed to remove the shrapnel in his lungs and abdomen, as well as repair his collapsed lung, close the wounds in his back, and set his broken bones—however”—here she falters, an exhausted sort of sadness creeping into her voice, and Jason’s fists clench as he braces himself—“during the operation, a blood clot formed that pressed on his lower vertebrae, and, combined with the injuries he had already sustained in that area, resulted in…significant nerve damage to his spinal cord.” She sighs and sets her shoulders back, and fuck, fuck, it must really be bad if this world-renowned trauma surgeon was psyching herself up to spill it to them—
“I’m sorry,” she says, again, “but it’s highly possible that, if your friend ever wakes up, he will never walk again.”
If he ever wakes up. He will never walk again.
Jason collapses, numb, back into his seat, throat filled with the ashes that are all that’s left of the forest fire that consumes everything in its path.