When they finally managed to make it to the Cave, they found Dick pacing the length of it, worriedly. He suddenly spun around when he heard their bike screeching to a halt. "Tim, you know you're not supposed to be out of bed yet, and..." He trailed off when he saw Jason. "Jason, you're back. Good work, Tim." He paused for a moment as he took in the state of their clothes. "Why is it that every time the two of you leave, you both come back bloody? What the hell happened?"
Jason helped Tim off of the bike as he answered Dick. "No time to explain. Suit up, while I patch up Tim. We've got incoming. Where the hell is Bruce?"
Instead of doing what Jason told him to, Dick threw one of Tim's arms over his shoulder, and helped him to one of the medical tables, while Jason gathered the first-aid supplies. "Upstairs, what's going on?"
Tim helped as much as he could as Dick started to remove his shirt. "Daisuke is one of the demons. He's the one responsible for Damian being here in the first place, and now he's brought more of them to eradicate us. I think his goal is to take over the earth, but I'm fairly certain that that's secondary to killing us for some reason."
"Okay, I'm going to go get Bruce. Jason, once you finish patching up Tim, get suited up. Tim, you're staying here."
"What?" Tim and Jason spoke simultaneously.
Jason dropped the first aid kit unceremoniously next to Tim. "Dick, what the hell am I supposed to get suited up in? It's not like I have anything here, and well, I didn't grab my bag before the fire consumed my apartment."
Dick glared at Jason. "I don't care. Wear one of my back-ups if you want."
Tim winced as Jason began fixing his stitches. "Great, well, now that that's settled. What the heck do you mean I'm staying here?"
Dick just rolled his eyes at him. "You know we have a rule about how many times you can pop stitches in one day before Alfred gets out the sedatives."
Tim glared and tried not to flinch as Jason pulled the needle through his skin again. "I don't know if you've noticed, but we've got a horde of demons on our trail, and we don't have time to argue. Nor can we afford for one of us to sit this out. I'll be fine."
Dick opened his mouth to argue, but Jason held up a hand to stop him. "He's right about one thing. We don't have time for this. Go get Bruce."
Dick looked extremely reluctant to do so, but after a momentary stare-off with Jason, he huffed out a breath and ran up the stairs. Jason sighed in relief before returning his attention to suturing Tim's abdomen. "He's right, you know."
Tim gritted his teeth as Jason worked. "Don't start."
Jason rolled his eyes and tried to work faster without jeopardizing the quality of his work. "Kid, it's been less than a week since you were gutted open and lost your spleen. You're in no condition to fight, and you know it."
Tim glared daggers at him. "This is my fault."
Jason stilled all over at that, pausing with the needle halfway through Tim's skin. "How do you figure?"
Tim sighed and hung his head. "I should have realized that Daisuke's blood sample was a fake. I should have figured out what this was really all about months ago. Instead, I screwed up and wasted time, and now we're..."
"Shut up."
Tim's head shot up at that and he just stared at Jason blankly. "What?"
"I said, 'shut up.' You couldn't have known the blood sample or the guy's entire file was fake. There was no way you could have foreseen all of this, so just shut up. You're injured and you're staying in, and that's final."
Tim rolled his eyes again. "You can't keep me from going with you guys, Jason."
"No, but I can." Bruce's voice was all Bat as he walked down the stairs. "Jason's right, Tim. You're too injured to be out there, and besides we're going to need you to contact Jason Blood again, and find out how to send all of these monsters back to wherever they came from."
Tim still looked as though he wanted to argue, but clearly knew there was no point. He nodded once, and then made his way to the computer once Jason had finished sewing up his wound. Bruce then came over and placed a hand on Jason's shoulder. "I have a suit for you, if you want it?"
Jason's eyes widened at that. "You do?"
Bruce simply nodded and gestured for Jason to follow him. Hanging beside Dick's extra costumes was a suit of gray body armor with a red bat symbol on the chest. Jason could tell just by looking at it that it was going to fit perfectly. "When did you have time to create this?"
"When you were staying with Dick. I had hoped that you would choose to stay."
Jason didn't know what to say, so he merely grabbed the suit, but before he left to go change he simply whispered, "Thanks."
The suit was clearly something Bruce had designed on his own. The gloves were more his style than Jason's, and quite frankly, Jason wasn't sure that he liked having the extra armor around his wrists. It was certainly something that he wasn't used to, therefore, he simply wore his own motorcycle gloves, which he just happened to have been wearing before the battle in his apartment. The boots, however, fit perfectly and were just the right amount of heavy. He liked them even better than his own. Jason wasn't a fan of capes, but unlike Dick he felt naked going out in just the body armor, so he slid on his leather jacket once again, and slapped a red domino mask onto his face before leaving the changing area.
When he entered the main part of the cave again, Dick and Bruce were already suited up and Tim was at the computer typing furiously, but he paused for a moment to give Jason a once over. His mouth quirked up in small smile as he inclined his head slightly. "Nice gloves, Jay."
Jason breathed out a laugh at that. "Yeah, no offense, B, but the other pair just wasn't me."
Bruce grunted in approval. "We can fix that later. Now it's time to go."
Jason didn't argue, nor did he even pretend as though he wasn't keeping this suit. He still wasn't certain about coming back and being a part of this family again, but he figured he'd deal with that later. Right now, they had a minor alien invasion to deal with. Jason nodded as he got back onto the bike that he and Tim had come in on, and took off after the Batmobile.
The End (for now)
