Again, I am not a doctor and I appreciate it if you notify me about any medical mistakes I make in this story. Please don't take any medical knowledge in this fanfic seriously, and I hope you enjoy it. I apologize in advance for any mistakes.


"Mr. Todd, are you ready?" a nurse said as she entered the room pushing a wheel chair. Jason hadn't moved an inch from his spot in the last hour, and he was leafing through the procedure instructions for what must have been the hundredth time

"Are they seriously going to put a needle in my bone?"

"Yes, but you will be numbed, you won't feel a thing." Jason stopped flipping through the booklet (which he must have memorized by now) to stare at her

"A needle. In my bone. There's no way that shit won't hurt."

"It's a necessary evil." Jason gathered all of the courage that he had in him and stood up and walked around the nurse

"I won't sit on that." The nurse sighed and guided him to where the exam would take place, as she had been warned before of how difficult Jason could be. As they approached the room, Jason quickly stopped and signed the papers on the wall, seeing as he had forgotten to do it

"I'm glad to see you came." Cassidy said from the doorway

"Yeah, if only to rub it in your face once the exam shows I'm perfectly healthy."

"I honestly hope you do get to rub it in my face, Jason." And judging from her tone, Jason could tell she really did

Once he was numbed and had a sneak peek of his ass to show Cassidy, Jason started to get real nervous again

"So, on a scale from bumping into a table and stepping on a Lego, how much will this shit hurt?" Cassidy smiled at that from behind her surgical mask

"You shouldn't feel a thing, but if you do, it will be at worst the pain level of scratching your knee."

"Hmm. So, if it hurts, will you kiss my boo-boo?"

"Do you want me to kiss your ass?"

"I want you to kiss other things of mine, not my ass."

"Your flirting might make me make a mistake."

"So long as you don't hurt my perfect ass, I'm cool."

"Don't worry, your perfect ass will be intact." She smirked briefly before getting serious again and pulling back on the plunger. Jason sucked in a breath

"Hey! Ouch! You said it didn't hurt!"

"Don't move, it will hurt more if you do."

"Hurry up!" Jason held still for as long as he could, fisting the fabric beside his head like his life depended on it

"Almost over." When Jason thought he couldn't hold still anymore, the pain started to die down "And… done!" Jason sort of felt her pulling up his boxers, or maybe he just heard the sound and imagined he felt it

"Can I go now?" he panted out

"Lay down on your back and keep like that." Jason did as instructed

"So when do I come back here for you to tell me I don't have cancer?"

"Tomorrow at 5 p.m." as Jason moved to stand up, Cassidy put her hand on his chest to push him back down "A nurse will come tell you when you can get up. If you bleed on the area of the biopsy, call the hospital." She said as she walked out of the room

"Why not call you?" he called after her with a smirk

"See you tomorrow, Jason."

About twenty minutes later Jason was standing outside the hospital waiting for a cab. He reached inside his jacket pockets for his cigarette pack and his lighter, because he fucking deserved a smoke now. As he tried lighting the cigarette pack, though, his lighter failed him and he threw both the Zippo and the pack of cigarettes on the trash.

He groaned as all the action in the day reached his mind and bumped his head on the headrest of the back of the cab

"Long day, fella?"

"You have no idea."

After paying the taxi driver an additional amount of cash for him to forget about the ride, Jason grumbled his way up the stairs to his apartment. Overall it took him thirty minutes to get to his apartment on the fourth floor, and he thought it was a good time, considering he took about ten breaks and was about to pass out of lack of air

"I should stop smoking." He laughed to himself at the thought that it took him having cancer for him to consider stop smoking. Jason quickly entered his living room before any curious neighbors peeked their heads to see who was laughing like a maniac. He kicked out his boots and got a water bottle from his fridge. He slumped down on the couch and quickly slided to his side because the puncture wound was beginning to hurt. Jason moaned his way to sleep and quickly marveled at how he slept almost the entire day before sleeping the day off


When Jason woke up, it was beginning to dawn outside. He considered eating breakfast but just the thought of doing so made him want to puke, so he went for the plan of spending the day on his couch until he had to go to the hospital, which to him was a good plan.

At around noon, his cell phone rang. Jason turned his attention from the crappy reality TV show he was watching to see who was calling him. Blood ran out of his face when he saw the call was from the batcave. Ignoring the pain on his hip, he sat up and looked around his apartment like a prison escapee as if either Bruce or Alfred was there watching his every move

"Hello?" he tried a neutral tone, testing out the waters

"Good morning Jason, glad to hear that you're alive, because then there is no reason for you not to appear on the stakeout last night." Shit. Jason had completely forgotten about that, and simply because he finally had a good excuse he couldn't use it. He wondered how Bruce would react if he just said 'Oh, my bad, but, you see, I was busy getting poked to see if I had cancer or not.'. Probably he would say it wasn't a good enough reason for him to not go to the stakeout. Or he could get all caring and stuff, which would be too creepy for Jason to deal with it. Either way he didn't want to know.

"Oh, sorry, I totally forgot about that." Made him sound like a big jerk, but at least it didn't have the 'C' word on it

"Forgot? You forgot about one of the most important actions of the year and all you say about it is sorry?"

"Ack, come on, it's not like it went to shit without me!"

"We did manage to arrest the drug group, but at a price."

"Yeah? And what was that?"

"Damian got shot in the chest."

"Oh, really, well then give the little demon my condolences and call Talia to come kiss his ouchie." Jason barked at Bruce and cut off the call. Not even a minute later his phone rang and Jason answered it before even checking who was calling, because he didn't need to "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME, BRUCE?! AN APOLOGY?"

"Um, is this Jason Todd?" A woman's voice sounded in his ear and Jason quickly looked at his phone's screen to see it wasn't the batcave that was calling him

"Oh, shit, my bad, I thought you were someone else."

"No need to apologize, Jason. This is Doctor Cassidy from Gotham Hospital, do you remember me?"

"Cassidy, yeah, sure. What's up?"

"I need you to come to the hospital at your earliest convenience. When can you come?"

"I'm free right now. Why? Something wrong with the exam?"

"I have to tell you in person."

"I'll be there in about an hour."

"I'll wait for you." Jason listened for the beeps that signaled the call was over for a few moments before letting go of his cell phone. The device laid forgotten on his couch as its owner got up, got his jacket and left the room. Only when he got out on the streets did Jason consider that he should've changed clothes, but right now he couldn't care less. His movements were completely robotic as he got to the hospital. He was so deep in thought the receptionist had to call him three times. Jason shook his head as he grabbed the doorknob and entered the room.

"Mr. Todd." Cassidy greeted him as they shook hands. She gestured to the empty chair in front of her desk and motioned for him to take a seat as she closed the door

"Why're you so serious all of a sudden?" Jason said with a nervous smirk, trying to break the palpable tension in the air. Cassidy didn't answer him right away as she looked for a couple papers in her stack. She spreaded out five paper sheets in front of him, all filled with numbers and words Jason had no idea what they meant

"These are the results of the blood tests and the bone marrow biopsy we performed on you." Even with the medical knowledge he got from working under the bat, Jason couldn't tell if these numbers told him whether he was sick or not "Do you know how blood cells are formed?" Jason shrugged "Well, normal blood cells develop from stem cells that have the potential to become many cell types. Myeloid stem cells mature in the bone marrow and become immature white cells called myeloid blasts. These myeloid blasts further mature to become either red blood cells, platelets, or certain kinds of white blood cells. Lymphoid stem cells mature in the bone marrow to become lymphoid blasts. The lymphoid blasts develop further into T or B lymphocytes, special types of white blood cells."

"And why are you explaining all this to me?"

"Your exams showed an abnormality in your white cells, and further examination diagnosed the problem came from your myeloid cells. I'm sorry, Jason."

"So, I guess I won't be rubbing it in your face after all." It was taking everything Jason had not to scream at the doctor, yell at her that she made a mistake and he wasn't going to die, to take out his guns and murder every living being in this hospital, no, the entire city. But a part of him knew that it wasn't a mistake, he knew something was wrong with him even before he passed out in the grocery store

"You were diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia, we need to start with treatment immediately until we get a remission. A remission is when a patient doesn't have any cancer cells in his system and that is our primary goal with treatment, I will give you a different therapy once we achieve remission so that the cancer doesn't relapse. I will prescribe you some medicines and you will start your chemotherapy with them. I want you to come to the hospital this week again so we can give you stronger medicines. The chemotherapy is given out in cycles, and in your case, we will start with weekly sessions. Is there any questions you have?"

"How long until I drop dead?" the doctor sighed as she stopped writing out the prescriptions

"Generally acute leukemias can be cured with the right treatment."

"How much is generally?"

"For your type of leukemia, people in your age group have a 60 percent 5-year survival rate."

"So I've got five years?"

"Jason, you can't go into treatment with that mindset. You have to believe you will get better. The mind has a lot more power than you think."

"You know, Cassidy, I liked you a whole lot more yesterday. You didn't look like those doctors that hand out pretty words so that the patient could be at ease, I thought you wouldn't spare me any words if I really turned out to be sick, but I thought I was wrong." Cassidy was shocked for a moment before she found her words

"I don't want to scare you."

"Why? Because you think I might not show up if you do?"

"Yes, that's the reason. Cancer isn't pretty and the treatment for it is even uglier! The patient loses hair, loses weight, pukes, has diarrhea, and I've had some patients feel so much pain they literally beg me to kill them! This is the hell-show you will be walking into, but if you want to live, then that's your only shot! So man up and take whatever I throw at you!" That might be the first time in Jason's life someone scared him so much with only words. He knew what dying's like, and he didn't want to repeat the experience, but just hearing about the treatment was enough to make him feel like puking

"You really believe I'm gonna live?"

"I will do my half of the deal and treat you to the best of my abilities, so you have to do your half of the deal and be willing to live."

"Is it that much of a shit-show?" Jason asked, looking from his hand to her face

"You have no idea." The two stared at each other for a few seconds until Jason looked away and Cassidy went back to writing

"That's a lot of medicines." He commented when Cassidy finished giving him the prescriptions and instructions on the schedule of his medicines

"You can get them at the hospital pharmacy." He nodded absent-mindedly as he tried to engrave in his memory the names of the pills that will screw with his body "Also, this-" She handed him some cancer group pamphlets

"The hell?! I ain't gonna go to this!"

"You don't have to but-"

"No! It's bad enough that I'm already shitting my pants even before the treatment began, I won't go to this pussy group to cry about my problems!" Cassidy just stared at him, she looked like she wanted to say something to him, but she didn't. However, she stopped him when he was going to crumple them and throw them away

"At least keep them, or I will stuff your pockets with these pamphlets every time I see your face, and trust me when I say that we will be seeing each other very often now." Her hand on his, the intense stare she was giving him and her words were too much for Jason to let it pass

"Wait, are you asking me out on a date?" The petite doctor turned beet-red and pushed Jason out of her office

"Just go grab your medicines!" she yelled as she shoved his exam results in his chest and slammed the door on his laughing face


"Okay, so, Reasons to live!" Jason said excitedly to himself as he rubbed his hands. The first reason was easy. 'Clean Gotham of its evil.' was what he wrote on the notebook he had in front of him in his kitchen counter. The second one was fairly easy as well, 'Eat Alfred's cookies.'. 'Annoy the Replacement.'. 'Annoy Dick.'. 'Annoy Bruce.'. 'Annoy the Demon.' He grabbed the eraser and erased the last four things he wrote and put 'Annoy all the bats.' in its place. This list was looking good for him. What else could he write on it? 'Beer.'. 'Kill the Joker.', now that one was important

Jason was running out of things to write down when his cell phone rang. He recognized the number as being Dick's

" 'Sup?"

"Hey, you home?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"I need your help with a case."

" 'Kay, just come through the front door like a normal person."

"But I'm not normal!" Dick said laughing and Jason cut the call on him. He hurried to hide all things related to cancer in his house, and there was no better place to hide things than the sock drawer. He was beginning to sweat when he heard the front door open. He snarled and walked to the living room to see Dick rummaging through his fridge

"Hey! Keep away from my food!" Dick poked his head out and gave Jason the least innocent-looking innocent eyes

"But there's basically no food in here. And I'm looking for the coke I bought the last time I came here. Where is it?"

"I threw that junk down the drain, what did you expect?"

"Aw, you suck."

"Thanks. Now, you said you had some actual business with me?"

"It's in the folder on the coffee table." Jason took the folder and slumped on the couch

"What about it?" His heart almost jumped out of his ribcage when Dick somersaulted the couch and landed beside him. The old couch wobbled but stood firm in its place "Don't do that, freak!" he yelled at his brother as he held his heart in place, but Dick pretended to ignore him and flipped through the pages on the folder as he explained his thoughts on the recent actions of the drug dealer he was currently dealing with

"Ramona, huh. I thought I had taken off his pinky finger back when I first came back." Jason smirked at the memories and Dick glared at him

"Let's forget about your barbaric tendencies for a while and focus on this."

"So, your problem is that you don't know whether he'll flee from pier 30 or pier 19?"

"Yeah."

"Why not attack them both?" Dick glared at him again

"That was the original plan, but Damian got hurt last night."

"Oh, right. Sorry. How is he?"

"Complaining that Bruce is being a tyrant and that he can still patrol even with a purple bruise taking over most of his chest. He would be better if Talia came to kiss his ouchie." Jason winced at Dick's tone

"That treacherous bat. I hope he didn't distort the facts when he told you."

"He didn't have to. We were all in the cave at the time. Tim's making fun of Damian until now." Jason chuckled at that

"I wonder how the bat's face must have looked like." Dick barked out a laugh

"Oh, it was priceless." Jason looked down at the map in front of him

"So, usually, people would choose pier 30 because it's closer to the sea." Dick nodded. He thought that too "But, if you take pier 19, there's a lower chance of the cops appearing because it's a bit farther." Dick kept nodding as Jason explained things to him "Pier 30, however, has some dirty cops taking control of it, and with the right amount of cash, you can make a quick and cop-free ride, which also makes pier 30 appealing to most illegal vendors." Dick snorted at that. Illegal vendors was a huge understatement

"So, pier 30?"

"Did you hear anything I just said? Ramona is too much of a sewer rat to give up any of his cash, even if it made his life easier. Of course he's gonna take pier 19."

"That's what I originally thought. But I got some intel that Ramona has a new right hand man that's changing the way he deals."

"Okay, now that makes things a whole lot different." Jason frowned at the paper. His vision was starting to swim a little and it was getting hard to focus

"So, what do you think?" Jason shook his head to clear out his mind "Hey, maybe you could join us. That way we can split up in two groups." Jason shook his head again "Aw, come on, Jay, pleeease. If we don't get this guy next week he'll leave on a ship to Africa and we'll never be able to get him again!" Dick was shaking Jason so hard it was hurting him and making him want to puke

"Okay, fine, stop whining!"Jason said as he shrugged Dick off of him

"Yay!"Dick went to hug Jason, but the younger kicked him on the stomach

"Just go away!" Dick laughed as he deflected the pillows Jason threw at him and moved to the window

"Don't forget, okay?" He said and then jumped out of the window in order to get away from the knife Jason threw at him