A/N: Here we go, the final chapter. Thank you to all of you awesome people who commented. I'm sorry I didn't get the chance to respond to everyone, as my brother came home from Oz on Monday so it's been a somewhat crazy week, but I very much appreciate your wonderful feedback. :)
Also, thank you to my excellent beta, HaleyKim, for her stellar beta work. She is the reason I got past the writing block I was experiencing, so thank you, Kim. You are awesome. :)
Finally, just a quick note as I received a few PMs about this. I am aware that Queen of Crystallopia has written a few stories inspired by my Volatile verse (in fact, I've read and really enjoyed them). However, I need to point out that those stories are inspired by the Volatile verse, they don't actually take place in it (I'm not sure if Queen of Crystallopia has planned to give her own backstory as to how Jason ended up in the YJ universe so I can't comment beyond that). I have a few stories plotted for the Volatile verse, so only what I write takes place in it.
Hope everyone has a nice weekend! :)
oOo
There was beeping somewhere. Sharp. Annoying. Painful. Jason wanted to shoot whatever was making the noise, except he couldn't move.
That was aggravating. Why couldn't he move? And why was it so fucking dark?
Ignoring the pain sawing through his skull, Jason concentrated on moving.
His fingers twitched.
Okay. Progress. Jason forced himself to concentrate harder. This time he managed to lift his hand. It trembled from the strain before plopping onto something soft.
"Jason?" said a voice suddenly.
He tried to focus. That voice was familiar.
"Jason?"
The voice was louder this time, making him wince.
The beeping sound was suddenly accompanied by a ringing that tore a sharp strip of pain through his skull. Holy shit, since when did sound hurt this much?!
He tried to squeeze his eyes shut against the klaxon of noise, but then realized they were already closed. Somebody needed to turn that shit off!
The klaxon suddenly stopped, and was replaced by murmurs. Jason thought he heard his name mentioned a few times.
Then something touched his forehead and a flash of light stabbed his eye. Jason twitched and heard someone groan, before a flash of light pierced his other eye. What the hell? Okay, not knowing what was going on was really starting to piss him off.
It took an unprecedented amount of effort to open his eyes. When he finally managed to drag them open, he found a pair of pretty green eyes surrounded by a pretty halo of red staring down at him. The vision was fuzzy and ethereal.
Holy fuck! Was he dead?!
"Mr. Todd?" said the eyes in a soft voice that confused him. That didn't sound like the voice from before…
He made a noise that might have been a grunt, but he couldn't be certain.
"Mr. Todd," the eyes continued, "if you can hear me, can you blink?"
What kind of stupid-ass question was that?! Jason scowled and blinked, before opening his mouth to speak.
He whined instead.
Uh, what the fuck was that?
"Just relax," said the pretty green eyes softly. "You're in the hospital."
So, not dead then.
"H…hos…hos-p-tal?" he croaked. And whoa! That didn't sound like him!
"Do you know what a hospital is?" the pretty green eyes asked.
Jason stared at her disbelievingly. Was she for real? Of course he knew what a hospital was! He nodded, then immediately regretted it as agony twisted up in violent knots inside his brain. Screw this shit! If he was in a hospital, where were the goddamned drugs?!
The eyes smiled. "Can you tell me your name?"
"Ja…Jason…" he gasped out. It was harder to say than he'd expected.
The smile widened. "Good. You're doing really well, Mr. Todd."
Jason scowled. Why the fuck was she talking to him like a child?!
She held up three fingers in front of him. "How many fingers am I holding up?"
Hang on, he'd been here before. Head injury. That's why she was asking such dumb-ass questions. "Th-three," he replied, then licked his lips. Damn, his mouth was dry. "Drink?"
The red halo around the eyes bobbed. "You can have some water. But small sips only, okay?"
"Uh-huh."
Something was pressed against his lips. A straw. Excellent. Jason drank and the cool swish of water rushed into his mouth. It tasted amazing. He wanted to protest when the straw was removed.
"That's enough for now," the eyes told him, as the fuzz around her started to clear. A face came into view.
Jason squinted. Hey! She was a person! He was annoyed at himself for not realizing it sooner.
"Does your head hurt, Mr. Todd?" she asked.
"Like a…mother."
She smiled. "I'll give you something for it now."
She disappeared from his field of vision, only to be replaced by a big guy with dark hair. The man was staring down at him with a tight, concerned expression. "Jason?"
There was the familiar voice! A name clicked in Jason's memory banks. "Bruce?"
Relief almost crumpled the big man's face. "Yes. Are you okay?"
Jason thought about that. Something was banging from inside his skull, making pain vibrate outwards in waves. He felt kind of sick too, come to think of it. Yeah, nope. He definitely didn't feel good. "Been better."
"Well then, this should help." Ms. Pretty Green Eyes was back and seemed to be doing something to Jason's arm.
"What–" he began as something cold flowed up his arm. Then the hammer in his brain slowed to a dull thud and everything around him began to melt.
Jason didn't have time to wonder what was happening before he was pitched out of awareness.
oOo
He woke to beeping again.
As Jason blinked back to consciousness, he felt the familiar compulsion to shoot what was making that noise. Irritating fucker.
"Urgh," he mumbled, trying and failing to sit up.
"Jason?"
Suddenly Bruce was standing over him. Jason blinked again. When did that happen?
"How are you feeling?" Bruce asked.
"Shit," Jason growled, making another effort to sit up. "Can you turn that off?"
"Turn what off?"
Jason waved in the general direction of the noise. "That fucking beeping."
Bruce's lips twitched a little and he shook his head. "Sorry, Jason. The doctors still need to monitor you."
Doctors? Oh, right. He was in the hospital. "What happened?"
"You don't remember?" Bruce's expression tightened.
"Remember what?"
"Weldon."
"Weldon? What–" Images trickled back to Jason: a study, fighting, Weldon's smirk, a lamp, Dick on the floor…
"Dick!" he shouted, jerking to a half-sitting position and sending agony roaring through his skull. The beeping became more insistent.
"Dick is fine," said Bruce, placing a hand on Jason's chest and gently pushing him back against the pillows.
"Where is he?" Jason demanded, trying to sit up again. "Is he okay? Why–"
"Jason, stop!" said Bruce firmly, grabbing his shoulders and holding him in place against the pillows. "I told you, Dick is fine. He's at home with Alfred. But you need to take it easy; you suffered a cracked skull and you've been out of it for days."
Jason stared up at him, bewildered. "I don't understand. How…?"
"I will tell you everything if you promise to lie down and relax."
Jason stopped struggling and Bruce released his hold. "He's really okay?" Jason whispered. "Weldon didn't…didn't…"
Cold anger flashed in Bruce's eyes. "He never touched him. Dick's fine, Jason. I promise."
"Oh, thank fuck," Jason breathed, relief making him lightheaded. He closed his eyes and sank into the pillows. His hands were shaking.
"Are you alright?" Bruce asked.
"Fine," said Jason, opening his eyes. "Bruce, what happened? The last thing I remember is going down…"
"Commissioner Gordon got there just in time to catch Weldon trying to cover everything up, arrested him on the spot."
"Gordon! How the hell did he get there?"
Bruce eyed him in concern. "It's a long story. Are you sure you're up to it?"
Jason gave him a withering look before pressing the button to elevate the head of his bed.
Bruce sighed in resignation before settling into a chair beside the bed. "Detective Bullock was there when the call came in from Kevin Weldon to say Dick had gone missing on the Weldon estate. Bullock knew Gordon had gone to Roger Weldon's house, so he called the commissioner. Gordon was examining the folder with Dick's pictures when he got the call."
His eyes flashed with the same rage Jason was feeling. "Gordon guessed instantly that Weldon was behind it and headed for the Weldon estate with two of his officers. When they arrived, Kevin Weldon told them you were searching the house with his brother. They couldn't get Gerald Hopkins – the security guard with you – on the radio, but the other security team were able to tell them that you'd been searching the first floor. Gordon and his men were on the guest corridor when they heard the struggle; they got to the study just as Weldon was about to kill you. Hopkins was trying to stuff Dick back into the wall."
"It never crossed my mind that the bastards were working together," said Jason, angry with himself for missing what seemed obvious in hindsight. "I thought Weldon was working alone."
"Weldon has never worked alone. Turns out he's a member of a highly organized sex ring that specialize in children. Hopkins is a mercenary who does their dirty work: abducting children and disposing of their bodies once the gang have finished with them."
"How the fuck have a gang like that slipped under the radar?!" demanded Jason, horrified.
"They work internationally, abducting children from war-torn regions, or areas devastated by disasters. Makes it impossible to track whether a child is actually missing, displaced or dead due to whatever has afflicted the region."
"Then what the hell was Weldon doing trying to abduct Dick?! He couldn't have picked a more high-profile kid!"
Cold fury hardened Bruce's features. "Apparently, Weldon has had his eye on Dick ever since I adopted him, he just thought abducting him was too risky. But then he heard about Dick's kidnapping last September."
"September? Dick wasn't–" Jason stopped dead. Dick hadn't been kidnapped in September, but Robin had been abducted and tortured by Joker. The only way to explain his injuries had been a kidnapping gone wrong.
"Fuck," he whispered, staring at Bruce.
Bruce nodded grimly. "It seems the fact that Dick was a target for kidnapping put ideas into Weldon's head; he realized he could make an abduction appear like a kidnapping for ransom. No one would ever suspect someone as wealthy as him to be behind it. And now was the time to act, in another year Dick would have been…too old for his tastes." Bruce's horror and revulsion were clearly visible on his face.
Jason swallowed down nausea that had nothing to do with his head injury. "And Hopkins?"
"Weldon knew his nephew and Dick were friends, and that Dick would be at the party, so he used his contacts to get Hopkins a job with SecuriCorp, the security company his brother uses. He gave Hopkins a map detailing exactly where the hidden compartments were, all Hopkins had to do was wait for an opportunity – he grabbed Dick on his way back from the bathroom, drugged him and put him in an unused dumbwaiter."
"Those small elevator things in the walls?" Jason clarified.
Bruce nodded. "The security teams were rotated between the floors, so when Hopkins was sent to the first floor, he moved Dick from the dumbwaiter to the compartment in the study. It was several feet off the ground and Weldon was banking on that being enough to confuse any sniffer dogs brought in once Dick's disappearance was discovered. He was certain no one would find Dick since not even his brother knew the compartments existed, although it was likely his wife would have found them once she started redecorating the study."
"Fucker definitely wasn't happy about her working on the house," Jason commented, remembering. "Bet he didn't want his dirty hidey-holes exposed! Can't believe he wasn't worried about someone suspecting him after Dick disappeared."
"Weldon was clever. He stayed in full view of the party at all times, telling inappropriate jokes so everyone would remember him, thereby ensuring he wouldn't be tied to Dick's disappearance. His plan was to sneak Dick out of there once the police and everyone had left."
"Bastard!" Jason snarled, his rage at Weldon overwhelming. "Did he really think he could get away with it?!"
Bruce's mouth thinned. "The fact that he has been getting away with this for years made him overconfident. Plus, he hadn't planned on you showing up."
"Bet that really threw a wrench in his plans," commented Jason, seething.
"It definitely concerned him. But it wasn't until you started checking the panels in the study that Weldon realized you were on to him."
"So why did he wait until I found Dick to react? Why didn't he make a move sooner?"
Bruce shook his head. "My guess is Weldon didn't want to act unless he absolutely had to."
"Guess? You don't know?"
"Weldon's not talking."
"But then how–?"
"Hopkins talked. He struck a deal with the police. In return for a reduced sentence and protective custody in prison, he told them everything he knew about Weldon, the gang and their victims."
"And the police agreed to that?!"
"Hopkins wasn't actually involved in the abuse or murder of the children–"
"He abducted them! Hid their bodies!" cried Jason, enraged. "He's every bit as guilty as those other fucks!"
"Maybe so, but the DA felt that bringing down an international sex ring which trafficked children outweighed any gains that nailing one man guilty of kidnapping and accessory to murder would bring."
"It's still wrong," said Jason bitterly.
"I know."
Jason clenched his jaw in anger, ignoring how it made his head throb. "Why didn't Hopkins get involved when I started searching the study?"
"Weldon was signalling him not to act while you were checking the study panels. Hopkins thinks it was because they could continue to play dumb if you didn't find Dick. But once you found him, the game was up."
"And just how were they planning on explaining my murder?"
"They were going to pretend you attacked them out of the blue and that Weldon stabbed you in self-defence."
"What?! That was a stupid-ass plan!"
"Not necessarily," said Bruce, and his expression was serious. "Apparently, when you arrived at the Weldon estate, you were acting very paranoid and on edge. Add to the fact that you were unnecessarily antagonistic towards Roger Weldon and–"
"Unnecessarily?" Jason interjected furiously. "He's a fucking pervert! There was nothing unnecessary about it!"
"Only if you knew what Weldon is, and nobody at the party had any clue." Bruce looked Jason square in the eyes. "Except you."
Jason looked away.
"You know, Alfred was really concerned when you took off without any explanation," Bruce continued quietly. "And he was worried about you last week. We all were."
"I was fine. Just busy," replied Jason shortly.
"Clearly. How did you know about Weldon? Even I didn't suspect anything."
Jason kept his gaze averted. "Bastard in my world wasn't so subtle about hiding his twisted shit. When I discovered there was a Weldon here, I just wanted to make sure he didn't have the same sick tastes. Turned out he did."
"Then why not tell me? Why all the secrecy?"
Jason shrugged, still not looking at him. "You knew the guy, so I didn't want to say anything in case there was nothing to tell."
"You were going to tell me once you discovered what a monster he was?"
"Yeah. Sure."
"Then why did Red Hood ask Gordon to keep his name out of it?"
Jason whipped his head around, causing pain to ricochet inside his skull. "How do you know that?"
"Batman's been working this case with Gordon."
"Since when?!"
"Since Hopkins revealed the presence of an international trafficking ring. You've been drifting in and out for four days, Jason. A lot has happened."
Jason stared at Bruce. Four days? Fuck!
"Are you going to tell me why Red Hood didn't want anyone to know about his involvement?"
"Didn't want any questions raised about the validity of the investigation. If it got out that a vigilante was involved it might get thrown out of court."
"Name one case that was thrown out of court because of vigilante involvement."
"I was just being cautious, alright?" snapped Jason. "Weldon's a rich bastard with a team of lawyers…I didn't want to take any chances."
"And that's all there is to it?"
"Yes!"
"Then why are your hands shaking?"
"What? Shut up! They're not!" Jason clenched his hands into fists, uncomfortably aware that his heart monitor was racing.
"Jason–"
"Just drop it, Bruce!"
"I can't." He fixed Jason with a serious look. "You almost got yourself killed over this case. I'm worried about you."
"I'm fine." Jason tried to calm down. The more he reacted, the more suspicious Bruce would get.
"You're not. Fine," Bruce enunciated slowly. "When are you going to realize that it's okay to admit you need help?"
"Look who's talking," Jason muttered.
Bruce gave him a small smile that disappeared quickly. "Jason, I know there's more to this than you're letting on. You've been rattled and on edge ever since you met Weldon…and don't think for one second I believe that's down to Joker's escape," he added as Jason opened his mouth to argue. "You think I can't spot an evasion tactic when I see one?"
Jason closed his mouth, annoyed. Goddamn World's Greatest Detective.
"I didn't push you because it was obvious you didn't want to talk about it," Bruce continued. "But whatever is eating at you nearly got you killed, and I can't ignore it anymore."
"Please, Bruce, just let it go," said Jason. He was exhausted and his head was throbbing. He didn't have the energy to fight this.
"I already told you, I can't." When Jason didn't respond, Bruce continued, "What happened between you and Weldon?"
Jason shook his head slowly. "I can't…"
"Why not?" Bruce's tone was soft.
"You wouldn't understand."
"Try me."
Jason shook his head again. "It fucked me up. That kind of shit…it gets into everything. I don't want it to poison my life here…"
"It's a little late for that. Just look at the wall you've built between yourself and the people who care about you."
A lump came to Jason's throat. "I don't want this," he whispered. "I don't want it to be real here."
"Pretending it didn't happen won't make it any less real." There was sadness in Bruce's dark eyes. "You need to talk about this or it's going to eat you alive."
Jason gave a shaky, bitter laugh. "Says the man who bottles everything up."
"Says the man who understands the consequences," Bruce countered quietly.
Jason looked down at his hands, clenching and unclenching them. His head ached and the lump in his throat was now painful. He was angry at how scared he was of talking about this. He wasn't a kid anymore dammit!
"Jason, whatever happened between you and Weldon, you know it wasn't your fault, right?"
This time his laughter bordered on hysterical. "You can't say that when you don't know what happened! You don't know what I did, Bruce."
"So tell me about it." Bruce's expression was calm.
Jason tried to swallow the lump in his throat. "You're going to hate me…"
Bruce leaned forward in his chair. "I promise you, Jason, I won't hate you. You are family and no matter what you tell me, that won't change."
Jason closed his eyes. It was so easy for Bruce to say that when he didn't know everything. Oh, he knew that Jason was a killer, that his hands were stained red. He just didn't know how red. But Bruce Wayne was also a stubborn bastard once he got an idea into his head, he wouldn't drop this until Jason talked.
And part of Jason wanted to talk, to tell someone so he wouldn't have to carry this all by himself. It was the part of him that worried about how Bruce would react that was holding back. Problem was, there was no going back, not when they'd reached this point.
Exhaling, he opened his eyes and looked at Bruce. "I don't want anyone else to know. Especially Dick."
"It doesn't leave this room."
Jason finally manged to choke down the lump in his throat and began his tale. "My old man split when I was six. I never knew where he went and my mom was too bitter to talk about it. She started drinking, and pretty soon moved onto drugs. I was eleven when she OD'ed." His right hand was now twisting the blankets. Jason fucking hated talking about his past. "I had no other family so they put me into foster care. I bounced around the system for two years before running away. Even the streets were better than some of those homes."
Jason ignored how bone weary he felt as he ploughed forward with the story. "But it was still hard on the streets, especially for kids. There was always someone bigger or stronger than you, and they had no problem kicking the crap out of you if it meant they could survive."
His voice sped up. Now that he'd started, he just wanted to get this over with. "Weldon used that to his advantage. He preyed on street kids. Promised them food, shelter and money in return for certain…favours. When the kids who went with him came back, they'd have warm clothes, food, money… It made the rest of us think that going with him was worth it."
"And no one put a stop to him?" asked Bruce, his expression angry.
"I don't think anyone knew for a long time what was happening. The street kids who went with him never talked about it, so no one really knew what favours he wanted until they actually went with him. And by that point, most kids were either too scared or too desperate to back out."
Jason tried to ignore how his hands were shaking. "My first winter on the streets was pretty brutal. I was beaten up twice in one week for my food, and after five days of not eating, I was desperate enough to go with him. I spent three days at his house."
Something stuck in his throat and hot, sick shame slithered into his stomach. In a shitty past filled with horror, those three days ranked among the worst.
Bruce's eyes were filled with pity. "Jason, you can't blame yourself. You were a child in a desperate situation and that bastard took advantage of it."
"That doesn't change the fact that I did what he wanted for money and a warm bed!"
"Jason–"
"No! I did that shit and there's nothing more to say, alright?" His voice was shaking and he wished Bruce would just stop with the pity. Jason couldn't fucking stand pity.
Bruce was shaking his head. "Jason–"
"No, Bruce! Okay? No! Look, I get that I was a kid and didn't have much of a choice, I know that it wasn't my fault, but that still doesn't change the fact that it happened! No matter what shit you try to spew at me, it won't change that it happened!"
Bruce was silent, his expression full of sorrow.
Jason let out a shaky exhale. "I get that you want to help, Bruce, but it's done. It already happened, and I learned to deal with it a long time ago, so just let it go, okay?"
Bruce nodded.
There was a minute of silence before Bruce asked, "Was that why you didn't want to tell me about Weldon?"
"Partly," said Jason quietly. "But mostly it was because of what came after."
"What came after?"
Jason closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. He'd done many awful things as Red Hood, but what he had done to Weldon was the worst. Jason felt no guilt over those actions, but he was pretty sure Bruce wouldn't see things the same way.
Opening his eyes, he glanced at the older man. "After what happened with Weldon, I got smarter. I did other things to survive so I wouldn't ever have to go back there. Then Bruce took me in and I didn't have to worry about it anymore." His voice got quieter. "But I did go back. Eventually. It was years later, after I'd been resurrected, after I'd returned to Gotham. I found out Weldon was still using street kids as toys, and had strangled one of them during his sick games. The boy was only twelve."
Something hard and ugly tightened in his chest. He could no longer look at Bruce. "I took Weldon to one of my safe houses, let him experience some of what he put those kids through. It wasn't as much fun for him being on the receiving end of those games."
Jason stared at his clenched fists. "After that, I moved on to torture. Started with things that caused pain but weren't lethal, slowly graduating to more extreme methods. It took him a week to die."
There was a long silence. Jason didn't dare look at Bruce. Torture was a step beyond murder and he had taken it to extremes.
Finally, Bruce spoke. "Did your mentor know about this?"
Jason shrugged. "He probably guessed after Weldon disappeared, but I didn't leave much of a body for him to prove anything."
"Not about that. Did he know about what happened between you and Weldon when you were a child?"
There was no judgement in Bruce's voice, no anger. Jason looked at him in confusion. Bruce was watching him closely, his expression calm. This wasn't the reaction he'd been expecting…
"You're not…angry," said Jason, struggling to understand. "You're not even disappointed."
"I'm sad," Bruce told him. "Sad for the things you've been through. You didn't deserve it."
Jason had no idea how to respond.
"You never answered my question. Did your mentor know about what happened between you and Weldon?"
Jason shrugged again. "I don't know. Probably. I used to react to certain cases as Robin, but we never talked about it."
Bruce pursed his lips. "Did you ever talk to anyone about this?"
"Not until now."
Bruce shook his head. "You shouldn't have had to deal with that by yourself."
"I'm a big boy, Bruce," said Jason in irritation. "I'm used to dealing with shit by myself."
"Except you were a child when you had to deal with that."
"Whatever," muttered Jason. He didn't know whether to be relieved or annoyed that Bruce wasn't reacting like he had expected. The no judgement thing was great, but now Jason had no idea how he was supposed to react to all this.
Bruce sighed. "Jason, I know you were alone for a long time, but that's not the case anymore. When are you going to start accepting the fact that you don't have to deal with everything by yourself?"
"This wasn't about that. I just…I didn't know how you would take this. I didn't want to risk ruining things here."
"Jason, you will always have a home here, no matter what. You are part of this family."
"Even though I considered killing Weldon?" asked Jason quietly. "Because I wanted to, Bruce, I really did." He shook his head angrily, making his throbbing skull protest. "I don't want to be a killer, but it's like some fucking default I keep rebooting back to! I can't seem to shake it."
"There's a big difference between wanting to kill and actually doing it. Do you think I haven't had moments where I've wanted to kill? When I heard what Weldon had planned to do with Dick…" Bruce clenched his jaw and his eyes narrowed. "And after what Joker did to Robin, I've never wanted to snap anyone's neck more."
Jason stared at him.
"The point," Bruce continued, "is that they were reactions, impulses. Such impulses are pretty common in extreme rage, but you have to act on them to be a killer."
"The problem is, I have acted on them, Bruce! Back before I came here!"
"And that's why you're so afraid of the snap instinct to kill, because you don't trust yourself. You don't seem to realize that the fact that you don't want to be a killer keeps you from acting on those impulses."
Jason frowned as Bruce's reasoning trickled into his brain.
"You're too hard on yourself," said Bruce quietly. "You don't give yourself enough credit for the progress you've made since you came here, for the man you've become. Most people who travel as far down the path of violence as you did don't come back."
"Okay, Yoda, enough," said Jason, squirming. This was more than a little uncomfortable. Not to mention it was freaky how like his Bruce this man could be, and yet how totally different. It made his head spin.
Bruce smiled.
Jason settled deeper into his pillows. He felt totally drained, but also lighter. Now that everything was out in the open, he couldn't understand why he'd been so determined to keep it a secret. "I'm sorry. I should have told you about this sooner. But my head was just so messed up, I couldn't think straight."
"You don't need to apologize. I understand." A slight frown creased Bruce's forehead. "What are you going to tell Dick?"
Jason grimaced. He hadn't thought about that. "Depends. How much does he know?"
"About Weldon? All of it." Bruce's expression was grim. "It was hard to keep it from him once the police started asking him if Weldon had touched him."
Jason's gut lurched. He remembered how Dick had felt when he thought Joker had wanted to do that. "How did he take it?"
"He didn't really react to be honest, he was too worried about you. It's been like pulling teeth to get him to leave the hospital ever since you were admitted." Bruce glanced at the clock on the wall. "Actually, he should be here soon. He refused to leave last night after you woke up coherent yesterday – he was mad he missed it. Alfred forced him to go home and get some rest this morning, but I doubt he'll be able to keep him at the manor for longer than a few hours."
"So I need to figure out what to tell him pretty quick," Jason concluded. More lies. Awesome.
Bruce nodded.
"What about the police?" asked Jason, trying to get everything straight in his head. "What do I tell them about why I showed up to collect Dick?"
"Already covered. We told them that Alfred received an anonymous call telling him Dick was in danger at the Weldon estate, that he panicked and sent you there. I programmed the lines to look like a call had been received from a burner cell. And since the police think the evidence that Gordon received was sent anonymously–"
"They're not questioning it," Jason finished. "Bet Gordon suspects Red Hood though."
"Probably."
Just then the door opened, and Dick entered, followed by Alfred. The boy's eyes widened when he saw Jason sitting up.
"Jason!" he cried and shot towards the bed. He threw himself across Jason and hugged him tightly.
"Oof," gasped Jason, wrapping one arm around Dick. "Good to see you too, kid."
"Are you alright? Are you okay?" Dick asked, his words muffled against Jason's chest.
"Totally fine," said Jason, smiling as he patted Dick's hair with his free hand. "Not even a headache."
"Liar," Dick mumbled, his arms tightening around Jason's torso.
Jason laughed. "Alright, maybe a small one. But I'm okay, Dick, really. I've got a hard head."
Dick jerked up and glared at him. "You do not have a hard head! You got hurt, Jason!"
"That happens in my line of work," Jason reminded him gently. "You're going to have to get used to it, kiddo."
Dick's face told him exactly what he thought of that idea.
"Dick," Jason looked him straight in the eye, "I'm okay."
"You don't look okay," Dick whispered, eyes glued to his face. "And you were acting really weird before all this, plus you knew about…what Weldon was doing…"
Shit. He hadn't expected Dick to come at him right out of the gate. "I knew Weldon in my world. He wasn't a nice guy. I just wanted to make sure that this Weldon wasn't the same." Jason scowled. "Turned out he was."
"But why didn't you tell us?" asked Dick, still clutching at Jason.
"I didn't want to unless I found something. Accusations like that have a tendency to stick, whether they're true or not." It was alarming how easy it was to lie to him.
"Alright, Dick," said Bruce's voice, "give Jason some space."
Dick ignored him and studied Jason. "Are you really okay?"
Jason ruffled his hair. "I'm fine, kid, I promise."
Dick leaned in and hugged him again, and Jason could feel him exhale against his chest. He was startled to realize just how scared Dick had been by his getting hurt. Wrapping both arms around the boy he hugged back tightly.
"Okay, kiddo," said Bruce, putting a hand on Dick's shoulder, "let him breathe."
This time Dick complied, releasing Jason and straightening up. Jason smiled reassuringly at him and squeezed his arm.
Alfred appeared on the other side of the bed. "I'm very happy to see you awake, Master Jason. You had us all quite worried."
"Yeah, sorry about that," said Jason. "But I'm okay now."
"Do you know when the hospital plans on releasing you?"
"Uhhh…good question, actually." He looked at Bruce for an answer.
"Depends," said the billionaire. "They told me that if you were more coherent today, there was a good chance you could be released in a few days."
"Excellent," said Alfred. "That gives me time to prepare your room and collect some of your belongings from your apartment."
"Now hang on," Jason began, "why do I need to go to the manor?"
"You need to rest and recuperate, Master Jason. This way, we can ensure you do that instead of flinging yourself across rooftops before you're ready."
Oh, hell no! Jason knew what that meant – Alfred would fuss over him. He hated being fussed over. "I don't need–"
Alfred pinned him with a look. "There will be no arguments, young man. Unless you want your recuperation to involve prolonged and enforced bed rest?"
Swallowing, Jason shook his head and slumped against the pillows. Not even Bruce argued with Alfred when he gave that look.
"Wonderful," said Alfred crisply. "Now, I've brought some food for you and Master Bruce. I daresay neither of you have eaten since I left."
The butler picked up a bag and moved over to the table by the window, where he began unpacking the bag's contents. Bruce followed him under the pretext of helping, but Jason saw him lean down to whisper in the old man's ear.
Dick was still standing close beside Jason, now grinning impishly. "Dude, what were you thinking arguing with Alfred when he's in Mother hen mode!"
"Mother hen mode?" Jason groaned. He was too old for this shit.
"Yup!" said Dick gleefully. "Should be fun watching him making you eat your vegetables and go to bed at a reasonable hour."
"Brat!" Jason swatted at him. "You know you don't have to look so happy about this."
The mischievous expression became serious. "But I am happy; I'm happy that you're okay. We were really worried about you, Jay."
Jason's irritation melted. "You don't need to worry about me, kid, I'm going nowhere."
Dick beamed and Jason tugged his arm, bringing the boy in for another hug. As his arm wrapped around Dick again, Jason finally relaxed, the tension and worry of the last week falling away completely.
Dick was okay, untouched by the blight that had infested Jason's childhood…Bruce knew his worst and deepest secret, and still wanted him to stay…And now that the secret was out there, it no longer felt like it might poison Jason and everything he cared about. For the first time in a very long time, he was truly free.
