A/N: Hi! Hope you're all doing well. Happy Easter!
This story is set before Damian comes into the picture. It's far enough in that direction that some of the Pit madness has worn off, and Jason is feeling halfway human again, leaning closer to unutterably exhausted than murderous. Slightly, anyway. I think this might only be a temporary respite, but it it gives Dick a chance to make Jason think, so that's a plus. Enjoy. :D
If I'm totally honest, I'm not certain which timeline this fic falls into, or whether it should go in the comic or movieverse. I'm still a novice in the finer points of the Batverse, and would welcome instruction. Thanks!
Be the reason someone smiles today! :) And if you have a moment, I would really love to hear what you thought of it!
Jason had known it was a bad idea to patrol sick, but suddenly, here he was out on the rooftops, dizzy and not really thinking straight. He was sufficiently out of it to muse tiredly, Alfred is going to be pissed I'm out like this, before making his clumsy way towards the Manor, as if he was thirteen again, and nothing mattered more than getting home.
Halfway there, he tripped over reality, crashing down to lie dazed on rough tiles. The fall cleared his head, somehow, and he had to huff a slightly hysterical laugh. As if he could ever go back to that, to someone dragging him home, putting him to bed, and kindly leaving him alone with an enormous bowl of chicken soup. No, that bridge had long since been burned.
"Jason?" A voice he knew asked, incredulous and concerned. "What's wrong?"
Jason looked up tiredly. The blur of blue befuddled him. "Too tired. Sick. Stupid." He was unsure if the last was towards Dick, (because, really, who else would it be?) or himself. He reluctantly took the hand Dick offered him, and stood slowly, not certain if he could have made it on his own. Aggravatingly, instead of releasing his hand, Dick pulled him into a hug. Jason tensed for a moment, and then just let it happen. Everyone, even vengeful vigilantes, were entitled to an off day every now and then, and Jason was honestly too done to protest. Besides, some part of him desperately wanted to be nothing but a little brother right then. Because in a moment, Dick was bound to remember what a screwup Jason was, and how the last time they'd met, he'd tried to shoot the Replacement again, and come to think of it, Dick's arm probably wasn't entirely healed from intercepting that bullet. Anyway, as Dick took a breath, Jason braced himself, and tried to pull away.
"Where are we going?" Dick asked, only holding him more tightly.
Jason frowned deeply, stilling. "...what?"
"Home, or one of mine?"
Home... Jason wracked his brain, trying to figure out when Dick had discovered Jason's latest crappy apartment. Then he stiffened, finally understanding that Dick meant the Manor.
"I know..." Dick sighed, clearly not about to push the issue. "I only ask because Alfred's a better medic, and if you're sick enough to be wandering deliriously over the rooftops, we might need more than the average first aid kit."
Jason snorted. As if anyone trained by Batman would have an average first aid kit.
"But as long as you're conscious, and halfway lucid, we'll try this ourselves first."
Because Dick understood that the only way Jason would ever consent to taking advantage of the Cave's extensive equipment was if he was dying, and even then, it would be a close thing. Dick always understood. Damn him.
It came to Jason's wandering attention that he was still hugging Dick, and that couldn't be good for his fearsome reputation. He tried to pull away again, more firmly, and only ended up able to detach one arm before the world was sloshing unpleasantly around him.
"Ready to get going, huh?" Dick was saying, somewhere in the swirl of concrete and sky and light pollution, and suddenly Jason's arm was over Dick's shoulders, and there was a warm support curled around Jason, keeping him upright. Dick's other arm, he surmised, as the world jolted unpleasantly. How embarrassing.
"It's not far, but it'll take a little longer, moving slower than usual."
Jason would have liked to snap that he could keep up any pace Dick could set, but he was sick enough to know that wasn't true. But, he thought triumphantly, he wasn't too sick to realize it wasn't true, and that meant he maybe wasn't as bad off as he was feeling! Or… something. Through his muddled thoughts, he could hear Dick continuing his usual stream of inconsequential chatter, and occasionally, he remembered to move his feet when he could see the ground underneath him instead of the world swirl.
All at once, after who even knew how long, Dick stopped talking. Then all in a moment, he swore quietly, and set Jason gently down to lean against a chimney. Half of Jason's brain looked around, and thought, wow, Dick's bolthole entrances have only gotten wierder. It had driven Bruce crazy when he and Dick were at odds that he could never find Dick's hideaways, usually because they were so unconventional, with downright bizarre doors. The silo had always been Jason's favorite of the ones Dick had shown him. After a moment, though, Jason realized there was a problem. Even being half-aware, Jason could see the moment that Dick shifted seamlessly into Nightwing. It was unmistakable. Everything about the bouncy, cheerful man went still and deadly.
"Trouble," Nightwing whispered, almost soundlessly. "Stay here."
He put a birderang in Jason's hand, and another on the ground beside him, a silent just in case and then disappeared into the night. Jason stared at the sharp, elegant twist of metal in his hand, and began to giggle silently. Jason had two of his favorite handguns in holsters in his belt, several knives, a handful of smoke bombs, more deadly explosives, and several other surprises hidden in the secret pockets of his jacket. Even only in a domino mask, without his self-destructing helmet, he was armed to the teeth. And Dick had just... had just given him more weapons, after being shot by him not just the month before, but several times in the past. It was all just so, ridiculously, Dick. He wondered, though, if Dick would have done the same if Jason had managed to shoot Tim. Maybe. Probably not.
It wasn't long, he thought, before Dick was back.
"A couple of muggers ambushed a mom and her kids," Dick said, his voice still half Nightwing, light and deadly cold all at once, like a snowflake that heralds a blizzard. "They stopped when I asked nicely."
I'll bet they did, Jason thought. Only a fool would cross an angry Nightwing. And all at once, Jason wondered what that made him, when he regularly, intentionally, did just that.
Jason thought he might have passed out when Dick helped him up again, but maybe the world just simply dissolved into the swirl of color and motion again, and he only came back to itself when it stopped, and Dick was helping him into a chair in an unfamiliar bedroom.
"...so stay there," Dick was saying, as if this whole thing was perfectly normal. "I'll be right back after I grab you some clothes."
"'M wearin' clothes," Jason managed petulantly, after glancing down to make sure.
"Soft, sleep clothes," Dick countered, and that leap of logic left Jason confounded until Dick's return. After a joint operation of getting Jason into the pajamas ("Don' need help!" "Jason, you have the coordination of a drunken toddler at the moment, you really do." And so on,) Jason finally found himself in bed, wrapped warmly in blankets, with a glass of orange juice Dick had mysteriously conjured to go along with the pills waiting to be taken. A single light shone softly over the unfamiliar room in a vague way that he normally would have hated because it didn't illuminate anything clearly, but right now, being this sick, he loved it for the same reason.
A gentle knock, and then Dick was pushing through the door with an armful of miscellany. He set a huge water bottle down beside Jason, with a cup, a plate of toast, and a napkin, and then moved off to the small bathroom.
"I'm putting soap and towels in here," he announced, somehow both projecting his voice and keeping it soft enough not to scramble Jason's brain. "You should eat something. Oh, and take those," he added, as he came out of the bathroom and nodded to the pills. "Fever reducer, nausea suppressant, and something to keep that cough down while you sleep."
Coughing? Had he been coughing, Jason wondered? And he had been, he realized, coughing for days. That had been the first sign he was getting badly ill, but he had barely noticed since.
In the moment of clarity, he met Dick's bright blue eyes (when had he changed into civvies?) and asked quietly, "Why are you doing this?"
Dick looked blank. "Because you're sick, and you need medicine?"
"No, not the pills. Why're you helping me? Dick, last time I saw you, I put a bullet in your arm!"
Dick sat down in the chair beside the bed, suddenly sober. "Yeah," he replied, the word lost in a sigh. "You did. Well, the suit caught the worst of it. Alfred's worrying when I got home was worse than the graze itself. But the answer's mostly the same. You were sick, I could help, so I did."
And didn't that just leave an inexplicably bitter taste in Jason's mouth. Dick would have, Jason knew, saved any injured villain he came across. Jason wasn't anything special. But then again, he also would have turned them in to the police, and here Jason was, in one of Dick's secret safehouses, in bed, with orange juice. Somehow Jason didn't think that Penguin or Riddler would have that favor extended to them. So, why...?
"Mostly the same," Dick stressed, smile growing as if he read Jason's thoughts. "I could help, so I did, but also, Jason... complicated as everything is, messy as it is, you're my brother."
Jason couldn't let that stand. "No, I tried to shoot your brother."
A patented Dick Grayson huff. "I have two brothers, and you're one of them, no matter what. But I really do wish you would stop that. It's not fair to Tim, it makes Alfred worry, and it doesn't really get through to Bruce the way you want it to. He just closes up, clamlike, and trains Tim harder."
These were things Jason didn't want to know, didn't want to hear, because he could picture it all too clearly. Alfred, monitoring the radios, looking old and tired, ready to tend to whatever injuries his charges came home with, whatever injuries Jason had inflicted on them; Ti- the Replacement training, training, training, never feeling good enough to fill his predecessor's shoes; Bruce shutting down all of those pesky, inconvenient emotions, and pushing everyone around him to distraction. Dick himself just trying to keep them all working together, to bridge the gaps, in spite of the cool tension that lay in his voice when he talked about Bruce. The two of them still had their own issues they were working through, after all.
"'S stupid of you," Jason finally said. "It doesn't change anything, you know, and we'll just go back to fighting again tomorrow, or next week, or whenever we run into one another again."
Dick looked tired, but he managed a small smile. "For tonight, both of my brothers are safe, under a roof, and not stumbling around delirious. That's enough for right now." He stood, and just looked at Jason for a long moment, as if memorizing him, and then he bent down to press the back of one hand against Jason's forehead, ignoring his spluttered curse.
"You really do need to take those," Dick said, nodding towards the pills. He helped Jason sit up before Jason could protest, and handed him the juice and pills. Jason hesitated, wondering… But if Dick had wished him harm, he could have just left him where he was to stumble off the edge of a roof, instead of going to all this trouble. Jason swallowed them, and lay back down before Dick could try to help him again. Dick only grinned a little wryly, and turned out the light. He hesitated at the door, looking back, silhouetted against the dim light beyond. "Love you, Jay," he said softly, and then he was gone.
Damn him, Jason thought again, struggling to blink back the sudden heat behind his eyes. Damn him. He didn't know whether to be disappointed or grateful that Dick hadn't waited for an answer.
And then Jason was asleep, his overspent body slipping inexorably into slumber.
He woke an uncertain amount of time later. Sunshine was peeking through the edges of the blinds, there was another pile of pills beside him, and the bathroom was suddenly quite attractive. Jason was surprised at how stiff and weak he was now that he was actually lucid. Without Dick stumbling across him on patrol, Jason may very well have died. The thought was sobering and unsettling, and Jason pushed it away, along with the swell of something uncomfortably like gratitude. He resolutely thought instead about how creepy it was that Dick remembered what kind of soap Jason used, (and seriously, towels with little robins on them, Dick, really?) and managed to get back out to the bed without any more inconvenient realizations.
There was something new on the bedside table, Jason realized, several things, actually. He picked up the note reluctantly, and glanced over the pot and tray of empty dishes curiously. The note said simply, "If you need anything, just call." Absentmindedly cursing Dick once more for being so perceptive, and not giving him any hovering to resent, Jason turned his attention to the pot. He was too congested to smell anything much, but carefully lifting the lid, Jason immediately realized what it was.
Dick was a nosy, overbearing, sentimental ninja who couldn't stop eavesdropping on other people's thoughts, and while Jason would normally resent him for it, here was Alfred's perfect chicken soup, keeping warm in a small slow cooker. Someone had taken Jason home, put him to bed, and left him alone with Alfred's go-to sick soup. It was all he had wanted while confusedly running towards the Manor, and despaired of ever finding again.
Not being in any fit state to examine the implications of that, and feeling slightly hysterical, all Jason could do was laugh.
fin
A/N: This will probably just stay a oneshot, but I did have an idea for a short follow up chapter. If people are excited about that, and review/PM me about it, then maybe I'll type it out, and post it. :) Otherwise, stay tuned for a couple other Batman stories from me soon.