JayDickWeek2017 – Day 5 – Bruised and Bloody

"Jason's missing."

"What?"

"I just found his bio-tracker at the docks, in a pool of blood. He's been taken."

"Holy shit." Dick shook his head, trying to wrap his mind around what Bruce had just told him over the phone. The Batman had called him in Bludhaven at 3 a.m., and Dick had immediately knew there was a problem. Bruce never called unless there was a problem.

Batman finding Jason's tracker without Jason himself was definitely a problem. After the time the Joker kidnapped (and then blew up) Jason, Bruce had made them all implant trackers into their arms so that they would be easy to find if anything ever happened again. They'd come in handy, so when Jason came back from the dead and the Bat family slowly wormed their way back into his good graces, the Red Hood had begrudgingly agreed to getting the tracker implant.

For it to be at the docks without Jason, that meant that somebody had surgically removed it. Jason wouldn't do that to them, and it would be too painful a process for him to do it to himself anyway. So somebody had taken Jason, and they obviously didn't want him found.

"But who knew about the implants? Other than us, I mean?"

"I don't know," Bruce admitted, and that worried Dick more than any other response he could have given.

"Do you think it could have been… him?"

Bruce let out a sigh. "Probably. I can't think of anybody else who could have done this. I've got Tim and Damian searching the city, but we need more eyes, and hands."

Dick nodded, though he knew Bruce couldn't see it over the phone. "I'm on my way now." Dick jumped down from the roof he'd been standing on and straddled his motorcycle. It was usually a thirty-minute drive to Gotham City, but if he broke every driving law ever made, he could be there in ten.

When he got to Gotham (it only took in eight minutes), he met up with Bruce to better coordinate the search. Bruce told him which sections had already been searched and told him that the rest of Gotham had been divided into four sectors and which one of those sectors was his. Dick was getting back on his motorcycle to start looking when Bruce stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "Dick," he said, and Dick could tell that Bruce was worried – far more worried than he'd been in a long time. "If we don't find him in the next two hours, I'm calling Superman." Dick's eyebrows shot up into his hairline. The Batman was considering asking a super powered alien for help in Gotham? Dick suddenly realized that the situation was much worse than he had first thought. "His enhanced senses should be able to help locate him if we can't."

Dick hesitated, but he eventually nodded. Bruce seemed to sense his astonishment and he sighed. "I can't let this happen again, Dick. I can't let the Joker take him from me a second time."

Dick swallowed around a lump in his throat. "From us. He can't take him from us," he corrected, and drove off toward his sector, more afraid for Jason than ever.

An hour later, Dick had searched half his sector and found nothing. He had just made it to a small slum neighborhood just outside the east side of Gotham, and he doubted he would have any better luck there. As he ran through the neighborhood, fearful thoughts streaming through his mind, he heard laughing off in the distance, at the far edge of the neighborhood. At first, Dick brushed it off, but it continued. Dick had never heard anyone laugh that long in his life, and as he got closer to it, he realized there was a bit of a maniacal edge to it. It wasn't the Joker's laugh, he knew, but the resemblance was close enough that Dick couldn't help but check it out.

He got nearer to where the sound was coming from, and he started to recognize the voice. Dick thought it sounded like Jason, but Jason hadn't laughed in a very long time. He doubted there would be any reason for Jason to laugh just then either. Still, his curiosity was peaked and he double-timed it to the place from which the laughter was coming.

When he was only a street away, he hopped down from the roof and slowly krept along an alleyway. When he came to the edge of the alley, he saw what basically was an empty square of concrete, and it was boxed in by abandoned, dilapidated homes. The area had probably been used for gatherings, like a neighborhood barbeque or something of the sort. The laughing was much louder here, echoing off the concrete buildings in an affect much like an amphitheater. Dick could now hear hiccups mixed in with the laughter, and he searched the dark shadows for the source.

When he found it, he could scarcely breathe, much less believe what his eyes saw.

Against the far right wall, there was a man sitting on the ground, his legs sprawled out in front of him. One of his arms hung limp at his side, while the other clutched at his abdomen. His head lolled back and forth, from side to side, and his entire chest spasmed with his laughter and hiccups. There was a red helmet on the ground beside him, and Dick wasn't sure he'd have been able to identify the man if it hadn't been there. He thought he might puke at the sight, but as he moved closer, he realized that he had yet to notice the worst part.

The worst part wasn't the fact that Dick could now make out the red blood seeping between Jason's fingers from a wound in his stomach.

It wasn't that every peel of laughter seemed to cause the man intense agony.

It wasn't that, as Dick got closer to Jason, he could see the tears rolling down his bruised and bloodied cheeks and the pain in his eyes, even as laughter tore out of his throat.

It wasn't even the words scrawled on the wall in a semi-circle above Jason – clearly written in blood: 'Why so serious?'

The worst part was the soft words he could hear Jason choking out between peals of laughter and around the sobs stuck in his throat, factured by hiccups as Jason struggled to breathe. "Help… Please, he- help me… somebo-body… help-p…"

The words droned on and on, a desperate plea for help forced through the lips of a suffering man who couldn't help himself, words that were too quiet to hear and would have gone completely unnoticed by

Dick if he hadn't heard the laughter first.

Choking back a sob of his own, Dick rushed forward and kneeled on the ground in front of Jason. He reached out for the man, but Jason flinched before he could so much as touch him. "No!" he heard Jason cry out. "No, ple-please! Don-Don't hu-hurt me. Don't hurt-t m…"

Dick felt his heart snap as he slowly lowered his hands. "Jason, Jay, it's me. It's Dick. I'm here," he crooned, hoping his voice would calm him down enough for him to recognize him.

Jason flinched again at the words, but the constant 'No's on repeat halted as the younger man's eyes widened. "D-Dick?" An extra loud round of laughs were forced out of Jason's throat, and his body sagged forward with the effort. "Dick-k, please… help m-me…"

Dick nodded, moving his hands up to Jason's cheeks at a snail's pace. Jason flinched again as they neared, but he didn't tell him to stop. Dick's face nearly crumpled as he wiped away Jason's tears. "I'm here, little wing. I'm going to help you, okay?"

Jason managed a miniscule nod, and Dick forced himself to give the man a small, sad smile. "Th-the Joker… It was- It was hi-im. He- I couldn't sto-top him, I couldn't…"

Dick shushed the man and cradled his face in his hands. "It's okay, Jay-bird. Can you tell what he did to you?"

Jason took a deep breath and nodded, though it was difficult to breathe through the laughter. "He-" Jason coughed, but continued, "he shot m-me and g-gave me a dru- a drug. He s-said it would make- make me happ-py for- for once-s…"

Dick could barely control his rage at the psychotic clown, and he vowed to himself that the Joker wouldn't get off this time with a bunch of broken bones and a vay-cay in Arkham. But for the moment, he contained his wrath and focused on helping Jason. "Okay, little wing. Okay, I got you. I'm going to get you back to the cave, and then we're going to figure out an antidote, okay?"

Jason managed a slight nod. Dick swallowed and gently moved Jason's hand so he could get a look at the bullet wound. It was bad, and he'd lost a lot of blood (obviously, considering Joker had had enough of it to paint 3-foot words on the wall). Dick wasn't sure how he was going to get Jason back to the cave. If it had just been the bullet wound, his motorcycle would have been more than enough to carry them both back. But the laughter – apparently a symptom of whatever drug the Joker had shot him up with – and Jason's mental state and obvious exhaustion meant that he probably wouldn't have an easy time staying on the back of Dick's bike, and Dick didn't think he could drive it with Jason in front of him – especially not with his entire torso shaking like that.

He decided the best decision would be to ask for help. He got on coms and called Bruce. "B," he said. "I found Jason. It's… It's not good. The Joker shot him and gave him some drug, nothing I've ever seen before. He needs immediate medical attention, and I can't get him back to the cave in this state on just my bike."

"I'm on my way now," Bruce replied, and the line went dead.

Dick returned his focus to Jason. The man was still laughing, and it was an eerie resemblance to the Joker's psychotic cackle. It sent chills down Dick's spine and made him want to vomit the entire contents of his stomach, but he forced everything away and shifted closer to Jason. "It's okay, Jay," he said, hoping to comfort him. "Bats is on his way, he'll be here soon."

Jason looked him in the eyes and managed a small smile, and despite the constant cackling, it was the first smile Dick had seen from Jason so far. "I knew-knew you'd co-come for me… I knew you w-would… knew you'd save… me…" Then Jason fell forward, and Dick caught him in his arms.

Drawing Jason close, Dick ran his hand up and down the man's back and said, "I'll always come for you, little wing." But Jason didn't respond.

He was unconscious, his insensate body still shaking with involuntary laughter.

It was two days before Jason woke up again. In that time, Bruce managed to figure out and administer an antidote, and then he made an inoculation for the rest of the Bat Family. Alfred patched up Jason's bullet wound in his abdomen and the deep gash in his arm from where the Joker removed his tracker (Bruce implanted another one in a location that would hopefully be less painful should anyone ever try to remove it again). Jason had stopped laughing shortly after the antidote was administered, but he still didn't wake up for over a day, probably due to both blood loss and the pure strain the ordeal had put his body under. The man needed rest, and the other Bats gave him just that.

Apart from a brief time shortly after Jason had stopped laughing, Dick hadn't left his bedside. Jason's words kept replaying in his mind, "I knew you'd come for me… I knew you'd save me…" Jason had been so confident that he'd show up, even though he'd all but given up only moments before he'd heard the laughter.

When Jason did wake up, Dick was the first face he saw. They had moved him into his old bedroom in the manor, and Dick had spent nearly all of the previous two days in a chair by the bed, trying not to think about what had happened, trying not to picture the agony of Jason's face as he'd been forced to laugh and laugh and laugh.

"Hey," Jason had murmured out when he saw Dick sitting by his bed. "Why does it feel like I can't breathe?"

Dick was so relieved to hear Jason speak without stuttering or laughing that he almost cried. As it was, he couldn't help the smile on his face as he replied. "You sprained your diaphragm. It'll take time for it to heal before you'll be able to breathe normally again."

Jason cocked an eyebrow as he observed Dick's smile, but he didn't comment on it. "How long have I been out?"

"Two days."

Now both of his eyebrows were in his hairline, and he shifted his position on the bed, wincing as the movement aggravated his abdominal wound. "For real? Shit."

Dick nodded. "We got you an antidote a couple hours after you got here, but I guess your body needed to rest for a while longer."

Jason shook his head slightly. "No kidding."

Dick's expression was grim as he sat in silence, watching to see any signs of trauma left over from the incident. Jason caught the look and smirked. "Why so serious," he asked, and Dick's eyes went wide at the obvious reference to the words that the Joker had written on that wall in Jason's blood.

Dick stood abrupty, his chair scooting back until it slammed into the wall behind him. He crossed his arms and took a few steps away from the bed – away from Jason. "Do not even joke about that," he seethed, spitting the words out through grinding teeth.

Jason had the gall to look surprised by Dick's reaction. He raised his hands in a motion of surrender, barely managing to hide the wince from moving his still-healing arm. "Hey, hey, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. It's just how I cope, I'm sorry."

Dick relented at the pleading tone, and the matching look in Jason's eyes. He took a deep breath and pulled the chair back to the bed before lowering himself into it. "Don't ever joke like that again. There was nothing funny about that. At all."

Jason rolled his eyes. "You think I don't know that? I'm the one who lived through it, you know. It's not like I don't remember what happened."

Dick's nostrils flared and his eyes darkened with a quiet rage. "Really? And do you remember your body shaking as you continued to laugh, even when you were unconscious? Do you remember sitting in the cave for hours, listening to your endless laughter, completely helpless to do anything about it while you waited to see if Bruce would be able to make a cure? Do you remember the months of grief and mourning after you died? The night after night after night when I cried myself to sleep after hours and hours of patrol, spiraling down into a black hole of exhaustion and loss? Do you remember that happening? Were you there for that, Jason?"

Dick regretted every word when he saw the guilt in Jason's eyes. He let out a harsh exhale and sagged forward in his chair, his head falling into his hands. "I'm sorry, Jay. I just… when you were missing, I spent every second wondering just what it was the Joker had done to you this time. And when I found you, I spent every second after wondering if you would survive. And then I wondered if you'd be the same after or if you'd change again." Dick looked up at Jason, worry and sorrow in his eyes. "Sometimes, when you make those morbid jokes and puns about death and laugh off the fact that you were literally dead – that you were brutally murdered and lived to tell the tale – sometimes I wonder if your life means anything to you at all."

Jason's eyes narrowed in hurt. "What, you think I'm suicidal?"

Dick shook his head. "No, Jason, I think you inherited the family Martyr's Complex. I think you would die to save one person's life, and I think you'd die for a lot less than that, too. I think somehow, in your brain, you've worked it out that if we all survived losing you once then surely we can do it again." Dick felt the tears falling down his cheeks, but he ignored them, pushing forward to say what he felt needed to be said. "But we can't do it, Jason. We can't lose you again. I can't. We survived, yes, but that was all we did, all we could do." Dick barely took the time to notice that the guilt in Jason's eyes had increased, coupled with a combination of what seemed to be worry and panic. "When I found you like that, against that wall…, Jason, I-" Dick swallowed. "I felt my heart stop and I wasn't sure it would start beating again, until you smiled at me and told me you knew I'd come for you."

"But, Jason, I-" Dick looked down at the floor, unable to meet Jason's eyes any longer. "I might not be able to come for you next time. I might not get there in time. I just-" Dick took a deep breath and shook his head. "I can't lose you again, Jason. The first time nearly killed me. A second time would for sure." Dick lost himself in his tears, too upset to care about what he'd said and the scene he was making.

He was so lost in his tears – in his grief – that he didn't hear Jason shifting on the bed. With his eyes closed, he didn't see Jason's feet hit the ground in front of him. He was so out of it that he didn't know Jason had moved at all until the younger man was pulling him into his arms. Dick resisted at first, but he eventually allowed himself to lean into the embrace. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he figured that it was probably painful for Jason to be supporting him as much as he was with the bullet wound and his sprained diaphragm, but the rest of Dick really didn't care. Jason was holding him, and that was all he knew or cared about in that moment.

As he continued to sob into Jason's chest, Jason shushed him, stroking his back and running his fingers through Dick's messy hair. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Dickie bird." His voice was soft and consoling, a comfort to Dick's ears, and he felt Jason's thumb wipe away his tears. "I'm okay, Dick, I'm okay. Everything is okay." Dick shook his head, but Jason shushed him again. "Dick, I know that was hard for you. I know. And I know I didn't make it any easier when I first came back. It was selfish of me, being so angry when you had all been hurting for so long. I promise that will never happen again. No matter what, I'm not going anywhere."

Dick pulled away from Jason to sit next to him on the bed, wiping away a few remaining tears. "I'm so sorry Jason."

Out of the corner of his eye, Dick saw Jason tilt his head in confusion. "What for, Dickie?"

Dick swallowed. "When you came back, you were so angry with Bruce, for not killing the Joker, for not being willing to break that stupid rule – not even for you. And I- I'm no better, no different."

"Dick, what are you talking about?" Jason's tone was warry and worried, and his fingers drew soothing patterns into Dick's back.

"After Bruce made the antidote, once you'd stopped laughing and we knew you were going to make it, I left. I went looking for… him." Jason sucked in a gasp, but Dick didn't let it stop him. "I found him, I wanted to make him pay. I couldn't let him get away with hurting you like that again, not when you could have died so easily. And I-" Dick choked on a sob, and Jason pulled him into another embrace. "I held a gun to his temple and, even after everything, I couldn't do it. I couldn't pull the trigger. I was- I was so weak."

"No, Dick, no," Jason crooned, his voice gentle, reassuring, but Dick ignored it and continued.

"I fell back on the classic Bat move: break all his bones and put him in prison so he can lick his wounds and recover. I failed you, and I'm so, so sorry."

"Dick, no!" Jason said forcefully. He shook his head and pulled Dick in tighter. "You aren't Bruce. You aren't me. Hell, I'm not even the same me that I was back then. I never, not once, expected you to do something like that." Jason pulled away slightly, enough to look Dick in the eyes. "Dick, you're the good guy. You don't do things like that, and that's okay. Bruce and I – we're violent and morally ambiguous. We do those things. You, you're the moral one, the good one. That has never been a problem." Jason offered him a weak smile. "It's part of your charm, Dickie. I'm glad you have morals. Don't lose them for me."

Jason wiped away the tracts of Dick's tears and pulled him closer – this time, for a kiss.

Dick sucked in a breath, surprised by the turn of events. He'd always hoped, in the back of his mind, but he'd never thought it was possible. To think that it was finally happening, now of all times, was almost too much.

Jason pulled away with a smile and leaned their foreheads together. "That was even better than I thought it would be." He smirked. "A little salty though, to be honest."

Dick laughed and gave him an answering smirk. "Thought about kissing me a lot, did ya?"

Jason's smirk turned into a pleased smile, the most content and relaxed Dick had ever seen him. "Every damn day, since the moment we met."

Dick's eyes widened, but he wasn't displeased. He surged forward and kissed Jason back, pouring into the kiss just how long he'd wanted it, too. But when Jason groaned, and not from pleasure, Dick remembered Jason's wounds and figured now probably wasn't the best time to catch up on what they'd missed. He pulled away, a small smile on his lips. "You need rest." Dick traced Jason's lips with a finger before standing up and moving to go.

Jason caught his wrist, and he turned back to see a hopeful, yet wary expression on Jason's face. "Why don't you rest with me," he asked, and Dick thought the younger man just might have been nervous. "By the looks of it, you haven't gotten much rest lately either. You could use a break, too, don't you think?"

Dick worried his bottom lip with his teeth, contemplating it. Seeing his hesitation, Jason sighed and showed Dick a vulnerable side of him that he usually kept hidden. "Please, Dick. When I wake up in two hours from a nightmare, I'll-" He took a deep breath, though it seemed painful because of his diaphragm. "I'll just… I'll need to know you're okay."

Dick's eyebrows rose into his hairline. After a moment's thought, he pulled his wrist out of Jason's grasp. He walked to the door and opened it, hearing a defeated sigh from Jason behind him. Dick saw Alfred walking across the foyer, and he called out to him. "Hey, Alfred, would you do me a favor and tell Bruce I'm taking the night off?"

Dick couldn't be sure because Alfred was a ninja, but he was pretty sure he saw the butler smirk. "Of course, Master Dick. Is there anything else I can do for you? Or for Master Jason?"

Dick shook his head. "No, Alfred. Thank you."

"Certainly," he said, then the butler walked away and Dick went back into Jason's room, shutting the door behind him.

Jason smiled at him. "I thought you were going to leave."

Dick shook his head, a smile gracing his lips. "When I wake up in two hours from a nightmare, I'll want to know you're okay, too." Dick kicked off his shoes and removed his pants so he was in nothing but his shirt and boxers, then he went around to the other side of the bed and climbed in next to Jason. Jason turned over on his side to face him and pulled him into his arms, pressing Dick's back to his chest. "That's not good for your wounds, Jason," Dick protested, but Jason shushed him.

"Just let me hold you, Dickie." Dick hesitated, but he eventually relaxed into Jason's arms. Jason smiled against Dick's neck, then the smile morphed into a smirk. "Besides, I'm bigger anyway."

Dick huffed and looked over his shoulder at Jason with a half-amused, half-irritated grin. "Shut up, little wing."

Jason laughed as Dick turned his head back around. "Never," he whispered, teasingly biting Dick's earlobe. Dick rolled his eyes, trying to ignore how much he'd liked the feeling of Jason's teeth on his skin.

"Go to bed. We're resting, remember?"

"Yes, sir." And then they fell asleep, Dick in Jason's arms.

And when Jason woke up a few hours later from yet another nightmare in which it was Dick who the Joker blew up in that warehouse, all he had to do was look at the man in his arms, and he knew that Dick was okay.

And when Dick woke up a few hours later from yet another nightmare in which Jason never came back after they buried him, all he had to do was relax into the embrace of the man of his dreams, and he knew that Jason was okay.

Both their dreams were plagued by laughter, but, for once, reality was far better than their nightmares.