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Bruce closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, steeling himself.
Dick had – still has – a tendency to go high during times like these. Jason’s tendency is to go low. He tucks himself under tables and in small spaces most adults usually can’t fit in. The Cave has a lot of places to hide under (and a lot a places to climb, high in the sky where fear is just a memory and your parents’ bodies seem so far away) and Bruce has already scoured the more obvious places before landing on this one: the worktable where he dismantles and fiddles with various piece of gear.
And where Jason has taken to messing with gear on his own, absolutely fascinated by the intricate mechanisms that make it all work. The kid is a gearhead along with his love of literature – several books on different engines have already started migrating to his room and he’s been debating between shop club or the tried-and-true drama club for next semester.
It would make sense that Jason chose this place of all the places in the Cave. Tucked in a corner, the lights dimmed since it’s not in use.
So, Bruce kneels and peers under the table. The table is deep for the toolboxes and a set of drawers on top, and Jason has managed to shove himself into the darkest corner, curled up in the smallest ball possible. He’s hit a growth spurt in the last few months, leaving his elbows and toes sticking out from the shadows. His face is tucked into his knees. His breathing is frantic and hitching – but still so impossibly quiet. Like he’s spent years teaching himself to cry silently. And Bruce’s heart breaks all over again at the reminder.
(Because this isn’t the first time Jason’s cried since he came to live in the Manor, and every single time Bruce never knows unless he’s right there when he starts, or he walks in on him mid-sob. Bruce hates it.
He hates seeing his kids cry.)
Bruce’s broad shoulders block the light. Jason flinches into a tighter ball, toes finally disappearing in the shadows.
“Hey,” Bruce starts then stops and doesn’t continue for a long moment. Jason stills like a rabbit caught in a fox’s gaze – barely perceivable quivers. Bruce exhales slowly. His knees ache from the worn thin rug that’s meant to keep dropped things from rolling away. He sits, legs crossed, hands on his knees to show he’s unarmed. Though, who knows what Jason’s actually seeing. “Want to come out from there?”
Jason shakes his head.
“That’s alright,” Bruce assures him even though it can’t be comfortable down there. No one’s getting hurt. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
Jason’s next breath is loudest thing he’s heard since the kid got hit with fear gas. A new batch, more potent than the last. Half a dose could give an adult a heart attack. Jason got one-eighth of one via a broken mask and a second too late realization. Hell, they didn’t even know he’d been hit until they made it to the Cave and Jason’s hands were shaking. They drew blood, set it up to be analyzed, and Bruce turned around to find Jason gone. Preliminary testing announcing their current anti-toxins would be ineffective.
Of course.
He has a new anti-toxin slowly being pieced together by a program and under Alfred’s watchful eye, but that does nothing for Jason right here, right now, with the kid too terrified to make a sound.
Bruce will just have to make the sounds for him. He doesn’t talk much – he’s never really needed to – but he shifts to get a bit more comfortable and…starts talking. First about a case, of a long-ago Rogue that had a more comedic gimmick than most and did surface level property damage more than anything actually dangerous – but eventually he finds himself talking about the budding Justice League, about their unprecedented expansion, about the various antics some of the newer heroes get up to.
He doesn’t know if Jason’s listening or even hears what he’s saying through the thin haze of fear. The boy doesn’t uncurl. Continues to be distressingly silent. He hopes he’s breaking through the living nightmare even a little bit, but he also knows hope doesn’t mean much anyway.
But he keeps talking.
During a lull, when Bruce’s mouth is dry, and his throat hurts and he’s talked more in the last ten minutes than he has in a collective year he’s sure – Jason shifts just the tiniest bit. He peeks out from behind his knees, eyes glittering in the dark, and stares at Bruce with pupils blown wide from fear and drugs, chin trembling, tears on his cheeks. Bruce feels like the kid is looking into his soul and finding him lacking, but he opens his mouth anyway and croaks out,
“I’m scared,” soft and wavering, thick with tears and the type of helplessness that leads to brokenness.
It’s a little bit like a confession. An admittance he doesn’t want to make but can’t seem to help it.
“I know,” Bruce says gently. “We can fix that, though. It may seem like it, but you don’t have to be scared forever.”
He holds out a hand, warm and inviting, in the same way he did back years ago towards the kid sitting across from him at a rickety outdoor picnic table. One who’d just finished inhaling a double batburger and fries. One who’d, just fifteen minutes before, had been caught jacking the batmobile’s tires and the moxie to whack Batman in the stomach with a tire iron.
The kid then eyed it warily. And didn’t take it. Just took a sip of his drink, and quietly agreed to let Batman set him up in a warm house with warm meals and clean clothes and the most comfortable bed ever with the person I trust the most – which isn’t Bruce Wayne but will always be Alfred Pennyworth.
The kid now eyes the hand warily. And takes it. Lets Bruce help him from under the table and lets Bruce fold him into a tight hug, his face tucked against the man’s neck, breaths sobbing.
“I’m so scared.”
“Not for much longer, Jaylad. I’ve got you.”
—
“I’m so scared,” he says out loud, but there’s no one around to hear it.
Jason’s both grateful for it and falling apart at the seams when there’s no assurances that’ll all be over soon, that it won’t be forever, that dad’s got him. In fact. It’s the exact opposite. He drops to his knees with a gasp, heart thudding so hard he can feel it in his throat.
He’s alone.
He’s alone and there’s a fear in his chest that invades his lungs and burrows in his bones. It’s going to be there forever. Forever and ever until he dies from it because this isn’t some new life. This isn’t some gift or proof of love. This is a curse. A death sentence.
Jason puts his hand down to heave himself up but the thought of walking out on those streets makes him gasp and choke and the fear cycles in on itself one more time – from fear into adrenaline to fearfearfear. Never ending. Ramping up bit by bit the more Jason breathes and trembles and tries, tries, tries to re-find the courage to get the fuck out of here.
Jason scrambles backward until he hits a shelving until that rattles. It feels like a knee to the spine, holding him down, driving in, and he sobs quietly, helplessly. Quiet like he always is when he cries because nothing good ever comes from being a loud crier.
And now he’s backsliding to where he was fifteen minutes before Marquise – Scandal – showed up and dismissed him and walked away before he could explain, before he could push the words through the lump in his throat. He’s back to knees tucked to his chest, arms around his legs. Back to trying to convince himself to stand up, to just go already. His chest heaves. He can’t stop the tears. He feels like he’s going to pass out, dizzy and nauseous, and that would be so much better than this.
But he’s too exposed like this, Jason thinks. Realizes. Fears. (and there it goes again, the fear feeds back in on itself, and he hates, hates this so much, but that’s not enough. The hate, the rage at this, isn’t enough to override it.) The room is half-trashed and covered in rubble, he’s a whole foot taller and more than he’d been as a kid, but there, right there –
Jason fits there, under a metal table that his mask once sat so innocently on top. The metal table got wedged against a wall, propped up slightly by a concrete slab. He tucks himself under it and trembles there.
And thinks about – nothing. Because if he thinks about anything – like Batman across a rickety picnic table, offering a warm house and a safe place. Like Batman scolding him for doing something reckless and scaring the shit out of him. Like Bruce sitting on the floor, so patient and understanding and telling him that this fear is only temporary, then being proven true when the anti-toxin comes twenty minutes later.
Like Batman throwing a batarang and the sick spray of blood. Like Batman throwing a punch hard enough to shatter his helmet. Like Batman ripping the insignia off his chest and dragging him across a rooftop, his words resolute and final.
If he thinks about anything. He won’t make it out of here. Jason whimpers. He tips over to lean against the table leg and gasps through the vice around his lungs.
He’ll hyperventilate himself into unconsciousness and someone will find him wearing most of his Red Hood gear, and that person will kill him. Or they’ll call the cops and he’ll end up in Arkham and he…and he won’t survive that, he won’t let himself survive that. This is a damnation. That would be hell itself.
There is no normal life. No identity in Metropolis for him. Even if he did make it there, he’d be dead at the first villain attack, unable to defend himself as his adrenaline surges and the fear sets in.
He never expected Bruce to be this fucking naïve. To be this short sighted to never take life into account.
“Hood?”
Jason doesn’t acknowledge his name, or the voice. Purposeful footsteps crunch on debris, announcing their path from the hole in the wall to Jason, getting closer and closer. His heart beats faster and faster.
And closer.
And faster.
Until there’s a shadow of legs blocking the watery-dim light. Until the figure crouches and there’s – there’s Nightwing peering under the table with wide, concerned eyes. He’s not wearing his domino, Jason notes almost distantly. His body is starting to – is starting to not feel like his own anymore for all that he feels the cool metal table against his temple and the rough feel of his pants in his clenched fists.
All there is, is fear.
“Jason,” Dick says with his own kind of fear, a shine of tears in his eyes that don’t fall.
He’s reaching under the table, not holding out a hand for Jason to take, for Jason to choose for himself – and the other man doesn’t know the significance of that, but something in Jason settles anyway at the stark difference. There’s no Bruce offering an open hand. No Bruce with his soft smile and understanding eyes.
Jason would break. If Bruce tried to do that to him this time after doing this to him.
Dick goes all the way, cupping Jason’s face like he does with all of them – a pinkie under the jaw for the faint hint of a heartbeat, a thumb brushing across the cheek for comfort, his palm to lean into and let him carry the weight. And Jason does lean into it, trembling and shuddering, wet eyes closing.
“C’mon, let’s get from under here.”
He guides Jason forward until he spills into his big brother’s arms, face pressed into his shoulder. The Nightwing suit is too tight to grip so Jason wraps his arms around Dick instead, clinging to him tightly. Dick hugs him back hard enough to pop the breath from his lungs in a good way compared to how he’s been losing it.
“I’m scared,” Jason whispers into his shoulder – an admittance he has no choice but to make.
Duck hugs him impossibly tighter, pulling him into his lap like he’s a child. Under difference circumstances it would be comedic – Jason is broader and taller than Dick – but right now he’s just…small. He tucks his hands against his chest and exhales slowly, it shakes and falls apart not even halfway through.
“I’ve got you, little wing,” Dick tells him, gentle and firm, a promise of retribution in his voice that Jason doesn’t hear. Because all he hears instead is not for much longer, Jaylad. I’ve got you.
Dick doesn’t know why Jason starts crying even harder. He just holds his brother and promises Bruce will pay for this.