Something is holding Jason's hand.
Irritated, Jason tries to shift away. The thing only holds on tighter. It wraps around his hand, almost like… Another hand? Yeah. So, apparently someone is holding Jason's hand.
Jason scrunches up his nose, thinking hard. The thoughts come, but only with a lot of effort, between the blurriness of his brain and the annoying beeping of something nearby. Why would someone be holding his hand while he's sleeping?
Except, he's not sleeping. He's definitely not sleeping.
It all comes back to him in a rush, and Jason's eyes fly open. Well, they try to. Really, they sluggishly pry open. Jason peers around the room, but he doesn't see much more than what looks vaguely like a hospital room before-
Bruce. Bruce is leaning into Jason's vision. Bruce is holding Jason's hand. Bruce is looking just as concerned and relieved as Jason has ever seen him. Bruce is here.
Bruce is not with that kid.
Jason tries to say something. His mouth is dry, his throat aching with the effort. Everything aches. His nose especially aches. Ow, did they have to give him oxygen through a nose line or something? Or did they have one of those tubes up his nose and down his stomach to feed him? That's gross. Worse, that means he's been out for a long time, longer than he should've been, and for however long it's been, that kid has to have been in need.
Jason tries again to say something. A rasping moan comes out.
"Hey, hey," Bruce says quietly. "It's all right. You're safe. You're-"
It's not him being safe Jason's worried about. Obviously Jason is safe. What about that kid? What did Bruce do with him? Did he put him in Arkham Asylum? Bruce had looked so freaked out by the kid, but it wasn't the kid's fault, it couldn't have been the kid's fault!
The beeping from before is getting quicker, louder. Jason's breathing rattles in his chest as he tries to tell Bruce that the kid really does need to be saved. Only gasps and rasps come out. Trying to do something, anything, Jason flings an arm toward Bruce, the arm that Bruce isn't holding the hand of, but a sharp tug of hurt comes from that arm's elbow.
It's hard to talk. It's hard to breathe. It's hard to think.
Jason gasps and groans and tugs and twists, but Bruce is holding him tight, and the mild aches he started out with are becoming full-blown pains, and someone else is in the room, and Bruce is shushing him, and someone is doing something with his painful arm, and-
And Jason's eyes fall closed again.
When Jason wakes up again, he resolves to do better. It's pretty obvious that getting worked up wasn't gonna work, and from the vague reactions he can recall, it probably made everything worse. So before Jason even opens his eyes, he takes a couple deep breaths and wiggles his fingers and toes, trying to tell how he's doing.
Yeah, his left leg is definitely broken in at least one place. He can feel the hard line of a cast formed around it. Most of his fingers are in splints, but he can't tell if they're badly banged up or all the way broken. His ribs are probably cracked in multiple places, given the way it feels to breathe, and it feels like every inch of skin on his body is bruised or cut or both.
He also has a killer headache, but that's gonna be at least partly from stress.
Slowly, Jason opens his eyes.
He's still in the hospital room from before, definitely a Watchtower one. Bruce isn't there right now. On the other hand, Dick is sitting in a chair a little bit away from the bed, flipping through a folder of papers on a rolling table.
Jason coughs a little.
Dick's eyes pop up from the papers and practically pop out of their sockets. Dick absolutely beams at Jason. "Jay!"
Licking his lips, Jason tries to ask what's been happening and for how long, but instead, he just coughs again.
"Here, try this," Dick says, and he trades the folder of papers to pick up a cup with a piece of what looks like plastic sticking out. Using the plastic thing, which turns out to be a spoon, Dick offers a couple shreds of ice to Jason.
Feeling goofy, but still grateful, Jason opens his mouth and accepts the bits of ice. He lets them melt in his mouth for a few moments, soothing the dryness there, before swallowing. Then he opens his mouth again, intending to speak.
Dick pops the spoon into Jason's mouth with more ice chips.
Begrudgingly, Jason takes those too, but when he gets ready to open his mouth again, he turns his head away from Dick's waiting spoon first. Man, that hurts his neck.
"How long?" Jason asks, wincing at both the sound and the feel of his voice.
"Don't worry about that," Dick says gently, which is a ridiculous non-answer and makes Jason scowl at him. "Just focus on healing and-"
"How long?" Jason asks, forcing as much power into his voice as possible. Mostly his voice just cracks, which sounds more pitiful than powerful.
Apparently that works too, though, because Dick nods and says, "Just about five and a half days."
Five and a half days. Almost a week. In that amount of time-
"The kid," Jason says. "Where's the kid?"
Dick looks uncomfortable.
"I need to know about the kid," Jason insists.
"B would want to be the one to tell you," Dick says slowly.
"Since when do we care about what B wants?" Jason says, aiming for humor.
Dick gives a laugh, but it's small and strained. "I think this time we do. Or, I do."
Jason huffs. "Then go get him."
Dick grabs his phone from beside the folder of papers. He taps at the screen for a minute before he nods and looks up. "He'll be here in just a minute. I'll bet he was already on his way when your vitals showed you were up."
Jason nods back and falls silent.
Dick talks to him, rambling on about how things have been in Bludhaven recently and how Alfred is debating trying a new dish for when Jason gets healthy enough to go home.
Jason lets him talk. He doesn't really pay attention.
Dick doesn't seem to mind. As he chatters, Dick's eyes never leave Jason's torso, clearly catching every rise and fall of Jason's chest.
As soon as Bruce walks in the room, his eyes go to Jason as well. It's really obvious, especially because he's wearing civilian clothes and no domino mask. Come to think of it, Dick's in civilian clothes without a domino too. Weird. Even though most of the main heroes on the Watchtower know their identities, Nightwing doesn't usually walk around in civvies, and Batman definitely doesn't. What's going on?
"Jason," Bruce breathes.
Jason tries for a casual, almost-bored, relaxed wave. It doesn't come off very relaxed, given the finger splints and the painful wince it causes him.
"What's wrong? Do you need your pain medications increased? Do you need me to call in the doctors? Do you need-" Bruce begins, rushing toward the bed.
"Whoa there," Dick says loudly. "I think he just needs some answers."
Bruce stops, already hovering beside the bed. He looks a little offended, almost, but mostly concerned.
The concern makes something inside of Jason warm up and melt down at the same time. But Jason doesn't let that stop him. He says firmly, "The kid."
Bruce's expression goes from concerned to guarded in the span of a moment. Dick looks pretty much the same.
"What did you do with him?" Jason asks. "He's a victim, B. He needs help. We have to make sure Joker can never get him again."
"I'm becoming pretty aware of the help he needs," Bruce says slowly.
"Then you've got to know it isn't the kind of help he can get in jail," Jason says sharply. "You can't send him to Arkham, or to Blackgate, or anything like that. He's a kid! And you can't send him to juvie, either, that won't do him any good. He needs something good! We need to help him!"
"We will," Bruce says. "I promise you, Jaylad, he's not going to jail or to juvie or anything like that. We'll help him."
Jason pauses. He takes a deep breath and slumps down into the bed, not really realizing until that moment how much he'd pushed himself upward and how much that pushing hurt. "Okay. Yeah. Okay, good. How are we gonna help?"
Bruce and Dick exchange glances.
"I'm not gonna crack if you tell me," Jason says. "Not unless it's something bad and stupid, and we already ruled out jail and juvie, so that's most of the bad, stupid options, I think."
Dick shoots Bruce a meaningful glance.
Bruce clears his throat awkwardly. "How would you feel about adding to the family?"
Jason blinks at him for a moment. It feels like they've jumped topics entirely. "What?"
"The boy. JJ, or Joker Junior," Bruce says. "Unfortunately, that's how he refers to himself."
"Which is super screwed up," Dick says unhelpfully. "We've been calling him just Junior."
"Junior is in need of a lot of care," Bruce continues on. "He needs help, like you said. He needs a safe space, multiple caring people, lots of comfort and ease and time and security. And Wayne Manor has all of those."
Jason blames his definitely-banged-up brain for the moments it takes him to process that. "Oh. Oh, yes. It does. We do."
Bruce looks like the weight of the world has been lifted off his shoulders at Jason's enthusiastic reaction. He smiles. "As soon as it's possible, we're taking Junior home with us."
