Work Text:
When Jason had said that he wanted to get some one-on-one time with the fuckers running this trafficking ring, this is not what he had in mind.
“Gotta say,” he drawls, pacing the length of the shoebox of a cell they'd shoved him in, “The room service around here could use some work.”
There’s a loud bang! against the metal door, and one of the E.T-lookin’ motherfuckers yells something in a garbled alien language. It sounds like food going down a garbage disposal, but he gets the feeling that whatever they said, it wasn’t polite.
“Yeah, yeah.” He bangs against the door, just to make his point, and snarls. “ Bold threat, coming from the guys too scared to face me.”
Another loud bang!
Jason growls, the sound coming out like crackling static through his helmet. They’d stripped him of most of his gear when they nabbed him, but it seems like the security measures on the latch had done their job, no doubt giving the aliens enough trouble that they’d decided it was better to just leave it. A good choice, considering how close they were to blowing off their own spindly fingers.
Fucking aliens. Out of everything, why the fuck did it have to be aliens?
They could have at least thrown in some gauze, or something, considering the piece of goddamn rebar that managed to pierce through a weak point in his armor during the clusterfuck of a fight earlier and right into the fleshy part of his fucking thigh. It’s through-and-through, which saves him the pain of having to dig it out later, but leaves him with the more present problem of trying to not fucking bleed out in the meantime. Hopefully, his dip in the worlds worst bubble bath will keep him from getting tetanus.
But the hole in his leg, coupled with the broken ribs, means he isn’t going anywhere fast at the moment, even if he could figure out the locking mechanism on the cuffs around his ankles and on the stupid door.
The cell they’d locked him in is about the size of the apartment he’d used to share with his mom— Catherine, back in the day. Which is to say, it’s a fucking shoebox. The chill of the metal walls is enough to leave him shivering, though whether that’s the result of the temperature, the blood loss, or the laser gun they’d used to knock him out is anyone’s guess. The light in the ceiling washed everything in a dark, sickly purple glow, and it’s barely enough light for him to make out his own hand less than a foot from his face. The pale light creeping in from underneath the sliding door helps a little, but there’s no handle or physical lock he can see, just a stupid keypad the cuffs around his ankles won’t let him reach. The cuffs are another problem altogether, dark metal smooth all the way around, just a tiny seam he can feel with his fingers. No lock there, either.
They’d taken all his guns and knives, alongside anything he could use to pick a physical lock— including the ones he keeps hidden in his boots, the fuckers. Thankfully, though, they’d let him keep his leather jacket and his belt. He’d definitely be fucked six ways to Sunday without something to use as a makeshift tourniquet around his bum leg, and the jacket is insulating enough against the cold chill of the metal walls to make things atleast a little more comfortable. Well, as comfortable as they can be, when you’re in fucking space jail.
He leans his head back against the wall. Talk about a clusterfuck. What is his life?
And to think, he’d actually been having a good night for once. Should’ve known that it was too good to be true. Nothing ever goes right for Jason Peter Todd, that’s just a universal fact.
He’d finally tracked down the assholes that were snatching kids out of Crime Alley. It had taken weeks. The fuckers were slippery, outsourcing most of the dirty work to an assortment of goons-for-hire to keep their hands clean, setting up shop in a handful of scattered abandoned buildings all over the city to try and throw him off the scent, auctioning off all sorts of goods . Snatching kids was only half of it— these fuckers were peddling all kinds of shit. Weapons, stolen tech, even some off-world stuff, real exotic type shit. Not usually his gig, but you never really know when something like that might come in handy. He takes pride in knowing what’s going on in his territory, and a bunch of goons running around with alien weapons, or whatever else kind of bullshit these morons thought they could bring into Gotham without anyone noticing, would only ever end one way: Badly.
It took three warehouse-busts, a handful of bloody interrogations, and almost a month of all-nighters and careful stalking before he managed to learn a single thing about these elusive suppliers, and he hadn’t learned much.
Whoever these guys were, they were crafty, hiding their tracks so thoroughly he almost broke down and asked Oracle for help. They never showed their faces, never gave names. Shipments of alien tech and other fun goodies were dropped off anonymously, and then divided amongst a whole network of third-party sellers. Payment varied from shipment-to-shipment, ranging from large amounts of cash to trades for kidnapped kids that are never seen again.
It took a hell of a lot of work. A lot of long stakeouts, a lot of dead-ends, but he hadn’t given up. There was someone in Crime Alley selling children in exchange for illegal weapons and alien tech— and Jason would be damned if he let them get away with it.
Not in Crime Alley. Not on his watch. Not when those kids were his, the scrappy alley-brats that he’d become accustomed to seeing around, the ones that the heroes and dirty cops wouldn’t do shit for. The ones that relied on him to protect them.
It had all led up to this night. A shitty warehouse halfway-sunken into the harbor, and an incoming shipment that was supposed to take place tonight.
His mission for tonight had three main objectives. Get a good look at the fuckers who thought they could put their hands on kids in his territory without him noticing, intercept the shipment to see what kinds of fun toys they were packing, and find where they took the damn kids, through whatever means necessary. Staying non-lethal would be a challenge, but finding those kids takes priority. Despite what everyone seems to think, he is, in fact, capable of exercising some self-control. He’ll leave enough behind for the medics at Gotham General to stitch back together, when he’s through, but they wouldn’t be putting their hands on another kid anytime soon.
He’d take whatever goodies they had that looked like the most fun, pawn off whatever’s the most expensive, and hand off the rest to the Bats so they can send it back to Metropolis, where it belongs. The last thing he needs is alien shit like that on the streets, he’s going to have a hell of a time tracking down the shit that they already sold off.
Technically, he had accomplished all three. In a roundabout sort of way.
He got a good look at his abductors while the E.T-lookin’ fucks were dragging his ass to his cell. The shipment of alien tech wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon, seeing as most of it was either destroyed when the warehouse was blown to bits, which was not his fault, or is currently sitting at the bottom of Gotham Harbor.
He even found where the missing kids had been taken— because apparently they had been fucking abducted by goddamn aliens.
And everything had been running so smoothly, too.
There’s nothing Jason loves more than watching a plan come together. He’d been on the trail of these fuckers for weeks, tracking their scent through Crime Alley like a bloodhound, sticking his nose in every single cranny and bolt hole he could find. Even the normal criminals and back-alley thugs he’d gotten accustomed to seeing around seemed to notice the change, and did their best to steer-clear. The Red Hood was out for blood, and everyone knew it.
Finding their base of operations had taken far longer than it should have, but his thorough, near obsessive, investigation had been worth it. He knew exactly when the shipment was arriving, which group of hired-muscle would be there to receive it, and, most importantly, that the elusive suppliers themselves would be making a rare appearance to deliver the shipment personally.
It was a good plan too, not quite ‘fill a duffel bag full of heads’, good, but satisfying. He’d been expecting a hideout full of goons. Goons armed to the teeth with alien tech and god-knows-what-else, but goons all the same. It had been almost too easy to get the drop on those assholes, and from there, it was just a waiting game. He’d settled in to lie in wait for the actual targets to arrive, and make sure to give them a personal welcome to the city. He’d practically been salivating at the thought.
What he hadn’t expected was to have all his carefully-laid plans ruined by one stupid Bat and his menagerie of birds.
Because the elusive suppliers he’d been hunting turned out to be fucking aliens. Because why not?
Next thing he knows, there’s a flash-bang of light and noise, and everything starts to get… fuzzy. Yelling in a language he couldn’t understand, the distinctive crack! of someone busting in through a window, the whir of a grapple line. He blinks the stars out of his eyes just in time to watch a bat-shaped shadow descend from the ceiling to throw a smoke bomb to the ground, and doesn’t have time to react before one of the spider-faced fucks is jamming a needle in his neck.
Either way, he’s 100% certain that this is all still Bruce’s goddamn fault.
The second he gets out of this fucking cell, he’s going to personally track down every single alien on this goddamn ship, and string them up by their fucking weird-ass alien toenails. Then, when he’s done, he’s going to do Officer Ripley proud, and get the fuck off this ship, so he can rip the Bat a new one for ruining fucking everything like he always does—
The sound of scraping makes him freeze.
The noise is faint, muffled through the heavy metal door, but the steady ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump of approaching footsteps is unmistakable. It’s accompanied by something else, the sound of something heavy being dragged across the metal floor, and the faintest sound of strange, garbled voices. Jason tenses.
The voices and footsteps get closer, and he doesn’t need to speak their gibberish language to know that the aliens are arguing about something, their voices loud and aggressive, words ending in growls and hisses. One of them makes a sound like an angry cat as they approach the door, and the other goes silent.
Jason stays perfectly still, every inch of him tensed, muscles coiled and ready to spring. He should be able to get pretty close to the door, if they open it, maybe close enough to make a grab for a set of keys, or for a weapon he could use. Something. Anything.
There’s the sound of someone fiddling with the cell keypad, the click-hisss of the door being unlocked, and then—
Jason doesn’t even hesitate. He lunges—
Only to get struck by fucking lightning.
Laser gun, his mind so helpfully notes, as Jason collapses into a convolusing heap on the floor, barely managing to avoid biting off his own tongue in the process. The alien with the laser gun pulls back, satisfied. It’s an ugly motherfucker, the both of them are, and he watches through the stars bursting and fizzing in his vision as they enter the cell. They’re not very big, insect-like things with whitish-grey skin and two sets of huge, black eyes. One of them opens its— mouth? Mandibles? And hisses something at the other one over the top of Jason’s head, and another dark, blurry figure is dragged into the room.
Jason blinks the stars out of his eyes, trying to get his jelly-like limbs to fucking work, already, as he attempts to get his feet underneath him again, clinging to the wall as he sways precariously. “Hey—!”
The two aliens jolt, whipping around to face him, and their faces seem to split open as they let out this god-awful screech.
He’s nearly sent ass-over-teakettle from the onslaught of sound, the noise ringing loudly off of the metal walls, the pitch high and shrill enough to feel like someone’s shoving an ice pick through his goddamn skull. He curses, clawing at the sides of his helmet, trying to turn the sound down make it stop—
By the time he’s recovered, the door is shut, and the two aliens are long-gone.
Jason slumps back against the wall, letting his knees buckle from underneath him. He lets out a wordless yell of anger and frustration, slamming his fists into the unforgiving metal as he sinks to the ground. Damnit— dammit all!
“Fucking cowards!” He slams another fist into the wall, just to make his point. “Hey! You two fugly freaks! Come back here and face me like a man, you—“
A low sound from his right has him stiffening.
He whirls around, dragging himself back to his feet, shaking the last of the jitters out of his shoulders. There’s not much light in the room, only a single, flickering lightbulb overhead to illuminate the space in weird, purple light that seems to pulse ever so slightly, brightening and dimming in regular intervals. It makes the shadows loom large and dark, makes the figure slumped against the opposite wall look even bigger. Broad shoulders, rippling fabric—
Two white eyes glint at him in the dark, and Jason snarls.
As if today couldn’t get any worse.
-
Five minutes and twenty-six seconds.
That’s how long Jason manages to keep his mouth shut for, even if he has to bite his tongue to keep it that way. If Bruce wants to sit on the other side of the cell, silently, and pretend he doesn’t exist, that’s just fine with him. He doesn’t care. Not one bit.
Eventually, though, the sheer boredom gets the best of him.
“So,” he drawls, his voice coming out sufficiently scathing through the voice modulator. “What are you in for?”
Predictably enough, Bruce doesn’t respond. He’s turned away from him, slowly pushing himself up and to his feet, running a hand along the metal wall. He mutters something under his breath that Jason can’t quite make out over the insistent ringing in his ears and the blood roaring through his veins. Great. Wonderful. Absolutely riveting conversation, glad we had this talk.
He shoots a glare at the back of Bruce’s head, and goes back to trying to pick his way out of the shackles around his ankles.
Now, Jason isn’t stupid.
He had, for a moment or two, actually considered bringing this case to the Bats. They weren’t exactly buddy-buddy, but they’d worked together once or twice without killing one another, which was good enough for him. Alien tech is a little out of his pay grade, he’s not so stuck up his own ass to know when he’s in over his head. Besides, no matter how painful it is to admit, the Bats do have some resources that he doesn’t. Namely Oracle, and her access to all the security cameras in the city. But, ultimately, he’d decided against it.
Why? Because of this exact scenario.
Because he knew the moment he brought this to the Bats, dropped it off at their feet like a good little hunting dog, they’d take it over. They’d butt their noses in where they don’t fucking belong, and scare off half of his informants in the process. Before he knew it, he’d be shut out of his own goddamn mission, as the Bat’s decided for him that he wouldn’t be able to handle it alone. They’d say that his methods were wrong, that his interrogation techniques were too violent. He’d have the Bat, or worse, Dickwing, watching over his shoulder, tracking his every movement like he’s some sort of rabid animal that could snap at any moment, a loose cannon that needs to be managed—
They’d fuck everything up, is the point. His methods, while not always the most ethical, get results.
He had a plan, and goddamn it, he was kind of proud of it. Crime Alley was his, it was the one part of the city everyone, even the Bats, have already given up on. The Alley handles its own problems, always has. This is what happens when the Bats try to get involved in his business. Not only did they have to fuck up his whole operation, but then, because the universe has a sick sense of humor and Jason is God’s specialist little punching bag, fucking Bruce has to go and get himself abducted right alongside him. Because why fucking not, right?
The holding cell, which had felt small enough before, feels downright fucking claustrophobic with the both of them inside. Nowhere to run, nowhere to go, no convenient outlet for the rage and frustration that howls through his gut and drags its claws down the inside of his ribs. The walls feel like they’re closing in, his breathing picking up a notch.
The longer he sits in fucking silence, the more the frustration starts to spill over into anger. With a huff, Jason shoves himself to his feet, doing his best to keep his weight off of his bum leg.
“Guess your losin’ your touch, old man.” He drawls, because picking a fight with Bruce always makes him feel better. “ The Batman I know would be halfway back to Gotham by now. Slowin’ down in your old age?”
Once again, no response.
Indignation flares in his gut, and he feels hands ball themselves into fists. Typical. They’re literally stuck in space jail together, and he’s still not important enough to be worth his attention. He’s standing three feet away and he can’t even be bothered to glance in his direction.
“Really? The silent treatment?” He scoffs, inching a little closer, and trying not to limp. “And you say I’m too childish.”
No reaction. None. Not to the sound of his voice, or the heavy thumps of his footsteps. Not so much as a twitch, or a grunt, or even a slight incline of his head in Jason’s direction to indicate he’d even heard a single goddamn word Jason had said. Not so much as a single goddamn glance.
Bruce just keeps running his hands along the wall, feeling it up like he’s looking for a secret passageway or something, or maybe an air duct he can try to squeeze his fat ass through. All the while pretending Jason isn’t right fucking there. Like he’s invisible, a ghost. Like he doesn’t even fucking exist.
It stings more than it has any right too.
It shouldn’t sting. It shouldn’t hurt. It shouldn’t feel like someone digging their thumb into an old bruise— but it does.
“Yeah, yeah, you’re pissy, I get it. You can lecture me all you want later.” Jason all but growls, brushing it off. He needs to focus.
“There’s a dozen kids on this ship that need rescuing first. You wanna share with the class why that wall is so interesting?”
When even this gets no response, Jason feels his patience running dangerously thin.
It’s one thing to give him the cold shoulder while on patrol. Jason gets that. He has a little fun with it, even, in riling him up when he can, stepping on his toes just enough to piss him off. He’s used to that. To the cold dismissal. To the way that Bruce just sort of looks through him, sometimes, like he isn’t even there. Like he’s just another stranger, just another street-thug that he needs to beat into submission. That’s fine.
But this is different. He’s exhausted, there’s a hole in his leg, and there are at least a dozen abducted kids somewhere on this ship in need of a rescue. It’s one thing to ignore him on patrol, and something completely separate to ignore him when he’s five feet away in the same claustrophobic cell when his kids are on the fucking line.
Jason slams a fist against the wall again, hard enough that the whole room shakes.
“Hey! I’m fuckin’ talking to you—“
Only— Batman doesn’t react to that either.
Jason stands there, lips pulled back in snarl no one else can see through the mask as he waits for the inevitable. For the confrontation, for the fight he’s been itching to have all fucking night. His own heartbeat pounds in his ears as the rage that’s been bubbling in him ever since he came across those kids, bruised and bloody and left in the gutter to die— salivates at the thought of finally having a worthy target—
Only— that’s not what happens.
Bruce doesn’t snap around to face him, there’s no growling response, no judgment-filled glare or thinly-veiled accusation. Not even a reprimand about how sloppily he handled his investigation, or how childish he was being right now—
He—
flinches.
It’s a subtle thing, the way he jerks his head slightly, like a dog hearing a sound from another room, his whole body suddenly going rigid. It takes him a second too long to turn, to shift into more of a fighting stance as he faces Jason, and—
“Who’s there?”
—glares intently at something a few inches to Jason’s left.
What.
The.
Hell?
“The fuck you mean who’s there?!”
The realization catches up to him slowly— way too fucking slowly.
(Though, in his defense, he’s managed about three hours of sleep over the last few days, has just been abducted by goddamn aliens, and has definitely lost more blood than the average person should in one night. He’s tired, and pissed off, and still sort of twitchy with adrenaline from getting a couple hundred bolts of electricity shot through him. Not exactly firing on all cylinders, here.)
Eventually, though, the realization clicks.
Oh. Oh fuck.
“Are you blind?!” Jason blurts out, incredulous.
Bruce doesn’t respond, still tilting his head slightly, like he’s straining to try and listen for a far-away sound— like Jason isn’t literally feet away from him, shouting in his ear. Again, to reiterate: what the hell?
Jason inches closer, still wary, but doesn’t bother to disguise the sound of his heavy, uneven gait as his boots thump loudly against the metal floor. There’s only so close he can get, with how he’s been chained to the wall, every shuffling step sending a lick of fire up his injured leg, but he’s a bit too preoccupied with the resounding mantra of “what the fuck?” repeating over and over in his head to care.
“Can’t hear me, either.” Jason murmurs, thinking aloud, the voice modulator distorting into more of a crackling growl.
Jason looks him over again, squinting in the dim light, scanning for injuries as the flare of white-hot anger in his gut settles into something a little more uncertain, twisting around his stomach like an eel. He’d thought that Bruce was just being an asshole on purpose, not that he literally couldn’t fucking see or hear him, what the hell—
His hands are shackled in front of him, the same way Jason’s are, but that’s about it when it comes to restraints. No blindfold, no sound-proof headphones, nothing that immediately jumps out at him as suspicious. Nothing to explain why the Batman, Gotham’s oh-so-fearless protector, is suddenly the next Helen Keller.
He whistles, almost impressed.
“Well shit, B. How did you manage to fuck up that bad?”
Another inch closer. Jason doesn’t bother being wary now, Bruce, blind and deaf, can’t see him coming. He can tell someone is there, no doubt, by the way he keeps growling and shifting, turning his head this way and that to try to… Jason doesn’t know, fucking ecolocate, or something, like an actual bat. Had it just been one or the other, Jason probably would have been a little more cautious with approaching him. The bats are all trained in how to compensate for losing one of their senses, sight, especially. He and Dick used to make a game out of sparring blindfolded, listening for the other’s movements like they really were part-bat. But like this , disoriented from the explosion, injured, no doubt, without his sight and his hearing, and not even accounting for whatever the hell else the aliens hit him with? He throws caution to the wind in favor of making sure Batman isn’t about to drop-dead in front of him.
Bruce still in a fighting stance, but keeps a point of contact with the wall of the cell at all times. Not quite leaning on it for support, but clearly not willing to wander far. No wonder he’d been feeling it up earlier, he couldn’t fucking see where he was. Jason would be hugging the wall for dear life too.
A hysterical sort of laugh threatens to bubble out of him. What a goddamn joke.
“The fuck happened?” He drawls, unable to keep the note of disbelief out of his voice.
He doesn’t really seem injured, not severely enough to account for being blind and deaf. His mask is still in place, he can’t see any blood around his face, even if he is holding himself a little strangely— but that might just be because he doesn’t want to lose where the wall is. He definitely looks a little worse-for-wear, but he doesn’t seem to be bleeding from the ears, as far as he can tell. Took a few too many hits to the head, maybe? He keeps bringing a hand up to massage his neck, and Jason tracks the movement with narrowed eyes. Can neck injuries cause blindness, or deafness? Fuck— did he manage to break his spine again ? He’s standing, so he’s definitely not paralyzed or anything, but—
It’s only when he’s a little closer does he notice the problem.
It’s a collar. A dark metal collar, less than an inch thick, molded snugly around the base of his neck. He likely wouldn’t have noticed it all if not for the way Bruce keeps trying to massage the skin around it, unable to get his fingers underneath.
“Shit.” He mutters. “Fuck.”
Fuck. Fuck.
Jason doesn’t know what the fuck that collar does, and he’d rather not find out if there are any even nastier side effects.
Especially in a confined metal cell, with a hole in his leg.
Bruce hadn’t been alone. Jason distinctly remembers seeing the tell-tale flashes of red and yellow in the corner of his eye before everything went to hell. Is the littlest brat here too? The replacement? Dickwing? Were all the bats captured, or just the dumbest of the bunch? Bruce sure as hell isn’t going to be much help with busting them out, so there goes that plan, and Jason isn’t having any luck with the locks. How long is it gonna take for them to be rescued? How long do they have?
He can’t hear anything. No footsteps, no shouting, no banging from neighboring cells. Considering the aliens hadn’t tossed anyone else into their cozy little cell, it’s sounding more and more like it’s just him and Bruce. Dickwing is incapable of shutting the fuck up, the new Robin is league-trained and a slippery little brat to boot, and his Replacement is a crafty son a bitch, he would have found a way to pick the locks before any of them.
No, it’s more likely that Bruce let himself get caught to give the others time to escape. Because he’s a bastard.
Typical fucking Bruce.
All the little birdies are probably losing their minds right about now, trying to track him down. He doesn’t remember seeing Dickwing on the scene, but he thinks that he recalls a flash of traffic-light yellow-red. If the littlest brat is in trouble, he won’t be far behind. It’s only a matter of time before they call in reinforcements— off-world threats are typically Justice League level problems, it’s only a matter of time before the whole circus shows up. The hell are they gonna think, when they find Gotham’s protector, deaf and blind, and currently roomies with one of Gotham's most prolific crime lords? Has anyone even told them about his miraculous revival?
Hopefully prison cells on the Watchtower are more comfortable than this.
Everything about this situation just seems to get worse by the second, all thanks to the fucking Bat sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. If he hadn’t shown up, busted in through the windows, guns blazing, the alien fucks wouldn’t have panicked. Now, they’re god-knows-how-many thousands of miles out into space, Bruce has been sufficiently Helen Kellered by the collar around his neck, and Jason is going to end up in another prison cell once the League of Idiots shows up, since Bruce isn’t in any condition to pay his bail.
He really, really wants to punch something right now.
Only— Jason side-eyes Bruce, still turning his head from side to side, scowling as he attempts to locate the threat, and all the fight, all the fury that's been simmering underneath his skin all night starts to fizzle out. He feels less like a powder-keg about to explode and more like a shaken-up soda can, equal parts jittery and uncertain. He slumps back against the cool wall of the cell behind him, scowling, carefully tracking Bruce’s movements, scanning for anything he might’ve missed earlier.
There’s no fun in picking a fight with someone who can’t defend themselves. It would just make him feel like an asshole.
Whatever. Whatever.
The sooner all the little birdies show up to bust them both out of here, the sooner Bruce can go back to his typical, obnoxious, holier-than-thou self, and the sooner Jason can kick his ass for getting them in this mess in the first place. Maybe, if they’re quick about it, they can even get here before the Justice League does.
“ This is fuckin’ priceless.” He snorts, leaning his head back so it thuds against the wall of the cell. Bruce’s head snaps towards him a few seconds later, when he feels the vibrations through the metal wall. “Looks like it’s just you and me, B. Hope you’ve been workin’ on your echolocation—“
He only realizes the mistake he’s made when Bruce’s fist cracks against the side of his jaw.
“Fuck— shit!”
Jason staggers, nearly tripping over his own two useless feet as he dodges the second blow, the chains around his ankles tangling together.
The cuffs around Batman’s wrists clatter uselessly to the ground, and Jason has just enough time to think ‘ fuck me’ before two strong hands are snatching him by the collar of his jacket, hauling him up and—
“Fuck!”
—slamming him against the wall.
The back of his head makes a sickening crack! against the metal, thank god that it’s his helmet that takes the brunt of the impact and not his skull— “You motherfuckin’—“
Jason struggles, but Bruce has him pinned, releasing the grip on his collar to grab him by the fucking neck , instead, right underneath where the helmet stops and before his suit begins. Fuck, fuck, fuck—!
Jason makes a strangled sound, which quickly becomes a wheeze as the grip tightens, fingers finding the carotid artery in the side of his neck without much effort and pressing down— which means he’s got about half a minute before the lack of oxygen to his brain makes him pass out, all because Bruce doesn’t fucking recognize him, and Jason was enough of a moron to not realize what would happen if he knew someone else was there what was he thinking—
Bruce leans in close, lips twisted into a snarl. Jason can’t see his eyes through the cowl, only the white lenses of the mask, and that’s probably for the better. He doesn’t know how he’d react to that utter lack of recognition, his own fucking Dad staring straight through him as he chokes him out—
It’s what you deserve, something venomous taunts in the back of his head, really, what were you expecting to happen? You’re the enemy.
There isn’t enough air. The walls press in too close, and Bruce is still looming over him, those familiar calloused hands constricting like a vice. The helmet that's supposed to be protecting him turns into a goddamn tomb, pressing in around him, the air quickly turning stale.
He kicks and claws with his hands, but he’s running out of strength as his lungs start to scream, eyes bulging as his whole head throbs along with the rabbit-fast pounding of his pulse. He can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, there’s not enough air and he can’t—
Jason wheezes out a curse, metal cuffs straining against his wrists as he struggles, trying to bring his own hands up to break the grip as black stars begin to bloom and burst in his vision, “B—“
The hands around his throat loosen, and then, all at once, they let go.
With nothing to support him, Jason drops to the ground like a sack of fucking bricks.
The metal floor is cold and unforgiving, but he can’t find it in him to care. He coughs, lungs spasming, his own hands still instinctively clawing at the phantom weight he can still feel around his neck like a noose. Black spots bloom and shift in his blurry vision, the dark shadow of Batman still looming over him like a fucking wrath.
For a second, he thinks that maybe Bruce somehow miraculously regained his hearing, that his voice finally snapped him back to his senses, but no. Bruce doesn’t start apologizing, or demand to know what the fuck he thinks that he’s doing, he just— stays there. Stays looming over him, caging him against the wall, eyebrows pinched together in confusion as Jason wheezes and hacks up a lung, goddamn it, there still isn’t enough air the walls are too close—
Oh, fuck it.
“You are—“ he forces out, hands fumbling with the latch of his helmet, a feat only made harder by his cuffed hands, until he can force the thing off to gasp for air like a dying fish. “A fuckin’ asshole !”
Bruce isn’t looming over him anymore, when the spots finally clear from Jason’s vision, instead crouching in front of him on the balls of his feet, the snarl on his lips morphing into a tight frown. Jason ignores him, focusing on trying to get his breathing back to normal— fuck, was that hell on his ribs, if he ends up with a punctured lung he fucking swears—
“You dented the back of— quit that!”
He smacks away Bruce’s hands from where they’d been attempting to prod at his neck, he’s already been choked half to death once today, thank you very much.
Bruce catches one of Jason’s flailing hands in his, and he shivers when he feels warm fingers pressing on the inside of his wrist, just underneath the metal shackle. He sighs, some of the tension leaving his face when he finds Jason’s pulse, then shifts his grip, running his thumb over the leather of Jason’s favorite jacket. His eyebrows pinch together.
“…Dick?” Bruce murmurs, confused.
Jason just stares at him.
He falls back against the wall behind him, “You’ve got to be fuckin’ kidding me.”
“N?” Bruce repeats again, this time in Batman’s low, rusty growl. “N, report.”
Jason swallows down the bitter taste in his mouth, his sore throat aching in response, gritting his teeth. Of course Bruce doesn’t recognize him. Why the fuck would he? It’s not like he and Jason spend a lot of quality time together, nowadays. There’s no reason Bruce would recognize him, especially here. No reason for him to even think that he should.
The pain in his chest is due to the probably-fractured rib, nothing else.
“Yeah.” He forces out, ignoring the throbbing of newly-formed bruises around his neck, and shoves Bruce’s hands away from his jacket. If thinking he’s Dick will keep him calm, he’ll play along for now. At least until they get the hell out of here.
“Sure. It’s me, Dickhead.”
Bruce’s hands latch on to his, his attention flickering right over him without pausing, like he isn’t even there, looking for someone else. Someone else.
“…Sorry.” Bruce rumbles, squeezing his hand reassuringly as he looks around. “Nightwing, you’re… here. What is… where…?”
He trails off, confused, and Jason resists the urge to bang his head into the wall of the cell as hard as he can, this time without the helmet to cushion the blow. He’s changed his mind. He’d actually rather have brain damage than deal with this shit. He’d rather Bruce have finished choking him out, so he can spend the rest of today in sweet, sweet unconsciousness until the bats or the Justice League or whoever comes to bust them out of space-jail. He’d never be as cool as Ripley, anyways.
He can’t decide which is worse. Spending however long it takes for them to get Bruce back to normal in a jail cell on the Watchtower, or having Dick show up to drag him back to the fucking manor.
Or worse, dragged back to the Manor with them.
He’d prefer a beat-down than having to sit still and be calm while one of them stitches him up.
Will they worry about him? Pretend to care, when they finally show up to save Bruce, and find him here, too? He can just picture it, the shock on their faces, the pity and shame written all over Dick’s kicked-puppy expression and the syrupy-sweet sound of his voice. The way he’ll fuss over his wounds and the new bruise on his face, force him to come back to the Cave so they can keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn’t do anything they don’t approve of while they try and figure out how to fix Bruce’s condition.
Maybe they’ll try to stitch up his leg. “For your own good,” Dick would say, like he isn’t the biggest fucking hypocrite on planet earth. Not that he’d ever fucking let them, of course. The idea of Dick sewing up the bullet wound, touching him, makes his skin crawl. Alfred, he could probably stand, but they’d still probably muzzle him, first. Strap him down to a gurney to keep him from lashing out, just in case. To keep him from hurting anyone, because that’s what wild animals do when they’re hurt and backed into a corner— they bite.
He shoves Bruce away, already reaching for his helmet again. His skin prickles with pins and needles where Bruce had touched him, the contact making him feel more caged than he already is. This cell is already too goddamn small for one person, much less two. There’s nowhere to go, the rasp of their breathing too close and too loud in his ears. He clutches the helmet protectively to his chest, but doesn’t put it back on. There’s a sizeable dent in the back of it, now, which is going to be a bitch to fix later.
“Just fuckin’— don’t touch me.” He shuffles back, putting some distance in between them. “You stay on your side, I’ll stay on mine. I’m sure your little birds will be here soon anyways.”
Bruce doesn’t respond, not that Jason had really been expecting him too.
Well, he doesn’t respond with words, anyways. Instead, of pushing himself back up to his feet and leaving, like a normal person, the moment Jason finally manages to extract himself from his stupid hands, he pitches forwards and almost fucking crushes him.
God. Damn it.
Jason bites down a curse, looping an arm around his shoulder to keep him from just collapsing like a tower of cards, lowering him down a little more carefully instead. Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck fuck fuck—
“What’s wrong?” He demands, before common sense catches up with him, “B? B! Fuckin’…”
Jason growls, spitting curses under his as he lets his first-aid training take over. He’s all business, now, tilting his head back to open up his airway, running his hands over arms and legs, looking for any obvious damage.
The lighting in here is shit, and his helmet is fucked to hell and back, so he’s forced to squint and feel things out with his hands. He traces the metal of the collar, first, and it’s definitely snug, but not tight enough to be restricting his airflow. He is still breathing funny, though, curled slightly around his left side, but the moment Jason starts trying to poke at his under armor, he gets promptly shoved back as Bruce attempts to drag himself back onto his feet.
“Where the fuck are you going?!” Jason forces him back down. Ever the stubborn asshole, Bruce doesn’t exactly go down easy, growling as he tries to sit back up, despite Jason’s firm grip on his shoulder.
“Nightwing,” Bruce murmurs, looking to the left, and then the right, and basically everywhere but at the crime lord right in front of him. “ Have to find… Nightwing, the explosion— where is— where—?”
“I’m sure your birds are all fine.” Jason growls, rolling his eyes. “They’re like cockroaches. You couldn’t kill ‘em if you tried, and I tried. Now just hold still, you fucking— Do you seriously not—“
Jason grips him by the shoulder as best he can, with his hands still handcuffed together, attempting to settle him down. He’s definitely got some sort of head trauma, alongside the whole Helen-Keller situation. He’s unbalanced, his words slurring together— Brain damage? A concussion? The side effect of some kind of drug, or whatever the collar did to his hearing or eyesight?
Either way, if he keeps fucking moving, he’ll just make whatever the fuck is wrong with him worse—
“Just— stay still!” He punctuates this with a particularly strong shove to his shoulder, using his bulk and body weight to bully him back down to the floor the best he can.
A large, calloused hand latches on to his like a vice.
“There was—“ Bruce forces out, desperation bleeding into his voice, “Nightwing, where is Robin?”
—And the rest of whatever biting remark he had on the tip of his tongue abruptly dies.
“Robin.” Bruce continues to mutter, disoriented. “Where—?”
It stings more than it has any right too.
Bruce would have recognized him immediately, all those years ago, hisses something sharp and childish in the back of his mind. The voice of a kid who never quite managed to die. Blind and deaf, he wouldn’t even have to lead his hand to the ‘R’ emblem on his suit. He’d recognize him by the material of the fabric, or the smell of Alfred’s lavender detergent, or the size of his hands and the scars on his knuckles that never quite healed right. He was his Robin. Batman would know his Robin anywhere.
But Jason isn’t Robin anymore.
No. Now, he thinks that he’s Dickhead, too out of it to remember that he’s about twice Dick’s size, clutching to him like a buoy in a storm. Calling for Robin and meaning Damian or Tim, but not him. That’s not his name anymore.
(He remembers when Bruce’s hands used to dwarf his. The ones that had just been wrapped around his neck. When just one of them was big enough to cover almost his whole shoulder. Now, he and Bruce’s hands are pretty much the same size. He remembers—)
Jason rips his hands away from Bruce’s like he’s been burned.
What the fuck is he doing? Bruce is injured, delusional, and he’s acting like a fucking child. Of course Bruce doesn’t recognize him, he’s a far cry from the scrawny little kid he used to be, The Pit had fixed all of that, undoing the years of malnutrition that left him so small , all knobby knees and elbows, too-long legs that he never seemed to grow into and fragile, breakable little bird bones—
Hell, he can barely even recognize himself when he looks in the mirror anymore, so why should Bruce be able to recognize him any better?
(It’s not like he was his fucking son, or anything—)
“N? Nightwing, report!” Bruce keeps calling out, attempting to sit up to try and reach for him, but Jason stays just out of reach. “Robin? Robin!”
Jason is half-tempted to just— leave him there. If he wants to go and fuck himself up more, why should he care, anyways? Bruce tried to strangle the shit out of him just a second ago, just because he's a whiney mess at the moment doesn't mean he’ll stay that way. There’s no telling what he’ll do when he finally figures out that he’s not Dick, not with whatever drugs the collar has pumping into his system. Jason doesn’t know if he has enough blood left in his body for a round two. He should try to do whatever the hell Bruce managed to do to his own cuffs, and work on his original plan. There are kids somewhere on this ship, and they need him more than Bruce ever did.
But the more he thinks about it, the more the thought of sitting here and having to listen to Batman— Bruce— pathetic and injured and blind and deaf , calling out for Robin and then—
He can’t just fucking— leave him here. Not like this. Not when he keeps talking.
“This is just to get you to shut up.” He murmurs, shuffling back over. He carefully lowers himself back down, minding his injured leg. Bruce relaxes when he grabs his hand again. “Can’t think of an escape plan with you making all that damn noise. If I stay here for a minute, will you be quiet?”
“Nightwing…” Bruce mutters again, then trails off into babbling nonsense. Great.
He’d put up a pretty good fight against Jason, but had clearly used up most of whatever energy he had left in the process. He’s pale, and his breathing is sharp and shallow, one hand clutching at the wound on his side he wouldn’t let Jason touch, the other once again latched around his wrist. He can’t even stand up right now, much less pick a fight. Maybe Jason’s odds are better than he thought, if he decides to freak out again.
Still, it just— It feels wrong. Seeing him like this.
Jason can’t quite bring himself to look him in the face for longer than a second or two, the labored rasp of his breathing impossibly loud in the small space. He swallows.
He’ll never get over how wrong it feels, to see him hurt. He’d never been able to stand it, even when he was still running around in spandex and pixie boots. The way it makes his blood run cold, his stomach twist itself into knots as the alarm bells in the back of his head start to shriek that something is wrong, wrong, wrong—
Batman isn’t supposed to look like this, a child’s voice screams in the back of his head. Bruce isn’t supposed to look like this— pale, sweaty and confused, eyebrows pinched together as he continues to mutter words Jason can’t quite hear.
He hates the way his breathing starts to go funny at the sight, the same way it did back then. Even though they’re practically the same fucking size, even though Bruce is injured and pathetic, he still has a way of making Jason feel so goddamn small.
Like he’s still a little kid, standing frozen at the edge of the medbay, realizing for the very first time that Batman still bleeds just the same as any other man. That Jason can still fuck up badly enough to get him hurt.
Most of all, he hates the way that sometimes, just sometimes, he still jerks instinctively when he hears Batman calling out for Robin. The same way a dog jerks when you yank it by the collar.
“Right.” Jason forces out past the lump in his sore throat. Focus, Jason.
He grabs Bruce’s other hand, peeling it off of the injury on his side just enough for him to try and see how bad it is. Bruce grunts, “‘wing?”
“Yep.” Jason ignores him, hissing through his teeth at the sight of the injury. “Shh— just, lemme see.”
It’s hard to tell, in the dark, but it looks like some kind of burn. Some kind of high-powered taser? One of the stupid laser guns the aliens had, only with the power dialed up to eleven? Whatever it is— the good news is that the wound itself isn’t too big, having burnt a hole in the side of Bruce’s suit, just above his hip, that’s about half the size of his fist. Bad news is, Jason doesn’t have the faintest fucking idea how to treat a burn this deep.
Burns are self-cauterizing, at the least, so as long as it didn’t hit anything important, at least Jason won’t have to worry about him bleeding out. The smell itself is bad enough— burning hair and roasted meat— and he pulls back fast, trying to breathe through his mouth.
“Just— keep pressure on it.” He demands, pressing the man’s hands into place against the wound, and letting go once he’s satisfied they aren’t going anywhere. “Don’t fucking mess with it, just— don’t pick at it!”
He continues to mutter curses under his breath, putting his hands back over Bruce’s to hold them into place. His breathing seems a little stronger, now that he’s settled on his back, and not trying to stand up anymore. He doesn’t keep trying to grab for Jason’s hand, not as long as he keeps them firmly pressed over his around the injury. Still, this isn’t the kind of thing that can be fixed with a bottle of cheap vodka and a handful of stitches. This needs actual medical attention, and soon. He has no idea how deep that burn goes, and the idea of trying to pick out the melted bits of his suit out of his skin—
Jason shudders. Yeah. No. He’s had enough experience with burn wounds to last a lifetime, thank you very much.
“‘Wing.” Bruce mutters again, a little louder, this time. “N?”
“Here, B.” Jason lets him feel the sleeve of his leather jacket again, hoping to settle him down. Dick used to wear a leather jacket, didn’t he? Way back in his edgelord days? “See? Everything’s fine. Just— try not to make it worse, ‘kay?”
“Robin.” Bruce says again, like a fucking broken record. “There was— there was an explosion—“
“I’m sure the little brat’s fine.” He growls. “Now can you be still?”
Bruce makes a noise. An awful fucking noise, a wheeze like all the air is getting squeezed out of his lungs. Jason is immediately on high alert, scanning for injuries, for anything he missed, “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I wasn’t— I wasn’t fast enough.” Bruce manages to say, voice ragged, like he’s been swallowing razor blades. “I couldn’t— he’s still in there— let me go—! Robin!”
“Oh, for the love of—“
“Robin!” Bruce calls out again, ragged and desperate in a way that makes him wish he was the one who was deaf— “Robin!”
Robin, Robin, Robin—
“I felt him.” Bruce says, in a voice that borders on a sob. “He was right there.”
Jason snorts viciously. “Sorry to disappoint—“
Only to flinch, hard , when a hand brushes against the side of his face.
It catches him so off guard he doesn't do anything. He’s frozen, still as a statue for the handful of seconds it takes for that clumsy hand to skirt, feather-light, along his jaw, drifting up and over the bridge of his nose.
Bruce makes a soft, satisfied little noise, “There you are, Jaylad.”
And Jason—
Jason wrenches himself back and away from that hand so fast, he knocks himself off balance and nearly cracks his skull open on the metal wall.
“Jason?”
He scrambles back on his hands and fucking knees, until he hits the opposite wall of the cell, heart thudding in his throat as the words ring over and over in his ears, in that soft, endlessly fond voice he saves only for family, there you are, there you are, there you are—
— The awful smell of burning skin and hair, smoke in his lungs, burning his eyes and his throat—
“What…” he says, mouth dry and voice impossibly small. “What did you just say?”
“Jason?” Bruce calls out again, swinging his head from side to side like a fucking idiot. He tries to push to his feet again. “Where? Jason!”
-Ha Ha HHA HA HA HA—-
He can’t do this.
He needs to get the fuck out of here. Right now. Right fucking now.
The walls are too close, this throat still throbbing with phantom pressure, ears ringing from an explosion that happened years ago. There isn’t enough air, and he can’t get his hands to stop shaking.
He can’t— he can’t do this. He just.
Can’t.
Bruce is just gonna have to figure this shit out on his own, and if the bats or the JL shows up to find nothing but an empty ship and a pile of corpses— he’ll burn with that bridge when he gets to it.
Jason’s not Robin anymore. This doesn’t make any fucking sense. Why the hell would Bruce be calling for him, instead of one of the brats? Just how fucking hard did he hit his head?
It smells like smoke. It’s soaked into Bruce’s clothes, the scent of burning skin and hair and melted plastic filling his nose until he’s choking on it. No helmet to filter it out, nowhere to run.
—an explosion—
—ha ha HAHAHa—
Does…. Does Bruce think…?
He hates the way his breathing starts to go funny at the idea, but it makes an awful kind of sense. He died in an explosion, after all, not too unlike the explosion that ripped the trafficker’s warehouse to shreds. The smell is the same— smoke and melted plastic and burnt hair and—
There’s a ragged edge to Bruce’s voice as he calls out, and Jason flinches every single time he says his name, though he can’t bring himself to move any closer than this— torn between the childish urge to cover his ears with his hands to block him out and the even more childish, ridiculous, urge to cross the distance between them and hide in Bruce’s cape, the way he did when he was a kid.
“Jason? Where did— come back—“
Jason is no one’s son, no one’s soldier.
(But you used to be, some small, vicious part of him sings. You used to be, and you still remember.)
— and, the thing is, there are some things that are just as true now as they were, all the way back then.
There are some things that the Pit couldn’t touch, some parts of him that stayed the same, even when the rest of him was mangled beyond recognition. He’s always been stubborn. He’s always loved too strongly, always been so quick to put all his faith in all the wrong people, always been the one to dig his heels in a little too deep when it would be better for everyone if he just got the hell over it, already, and—
Jason always came running when Bruce called out for him, back then. Always, always.
Always so fucking loyal, trotting back to Batman like the good little street mutt he was. No matter how often they fought, even when Jason would shout loud enough to rattle the window panes, or sneak out at night to smoke on the roof, the minute Bruce called his name, he always came running.
…right up until he didn’t, that is.
Bruce calls out his name, and he finds himself limping back over.
He reaches out blindly, and Jason catches his hand again, lets him grab his arm and drag him closer, and that half-forgotten memory is the only thing that keeps him from flinching away from the hand that comes up to cradle the side of his face.
This throat tightens. “I’m…”
And oh, he hates the way he finds himself leaning into the touch, instead of pulling away. Hates the way it makes him feel so goddamn small.
“I’m— I’m right here,” he mutters, not looking him in the eye. “I’m here.”
Bruce hums, a satisfied sort of sound. Jason doesn’t flinch when he feels another hand begin to trace the other side of his face, like it’s committing the details to memory. Along his jaw, up to his cheekbone, over the bridge of his slightly-crooked nose, the raised scar by his temple. He doesn’t fight it, doesn’t push him away when it settles back on his cheek, as he holds both sides of his face so gently in the palms of his hands, like it’s something precious. Like it’s something worth holding on to.
Jason closes his eyes.
He lets himself just— just have this, for a moment. Just for a few seconds. For just a few seconds, he pretends that everything is just fine. That his dad knows who he is, when he’s holding him so gently, and not just remembering the boy he used to be.
“…I’m right here, dad.” He murmurs, before he can think better of it, letting Bruce tuck him in his arms like he isn’t practically the same size.
A clumsy hand combs through his hair. “It’s… it’s okay, jaylad. I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
If Jason was a stronger man, he would shove him off. If Jason was a stronger man, he’d move to the other end of the cell, and focus on actually getting the hell out of here rather than letting himself be man-handled like a little kid. He’d pull away. He’d resist.
But goddamnit— when was the last time his dad gave him a hug like this?
An actual, real, honest-to-god hug? A patented Bruce-hug, the kind that makes you feel small and safe, like nothing could touch you as long as you stay right here, forever. No arguing, no demands— no fighting or yelling or reprimands, just…
“It’s okay, Robin.” Bruce murmurs. “It’s going to be alright. It’s over. You’re safe.”
Jason laughs, but it comes out more like a sob.
He’s not Robin anymore. Bruce took that from him— the name that meant “safety” and “hope” and “freedom” all at once, a title he wore just as proudly as son. He took it like it didn’t mean anything, stole the name that had been everything to him and the uniform he’d died in and passed it on to the next bright-eyed kid who needed a cause to die for. He’d come back to a Gotham exactly like the one he’d left, as if he’d never died at all. As if he’d never even fucking existed.
It was all the same. The same headlines in the papers, the same rouges in the streets. Another dark-haired, blue-eyed boy dressed up in the same colors Jason had died wearing. Another boy that would die the same way he had. Another boy that would be replaced just as easily.
Jason was just— a stand-in. A soldier.
He hadn’t stood for anything, and died for absolutely nothing at all.
Jason sees that, now. He’s not a little kid anymore— not the naive, starry-eyed kid with a headful of ideas about hope and justice. He’s old enough to know better.
(But I was his Robin, A voice whispers in the back of his kind, young and childish. But I was his Robin, his son. That has to have meant something, right? I did what he wanted, I tried so hard.
He had to at least have loved me a little bit, right?)
It’s that part of him that keeps him still, that makes it impossible for him to loosen his hands where they’ve latched on to Bruce’s cape. The part of him that has him folding in on himself, trying to be smaller, to fit in his arms the same way. The part of him that clings.
“This is just because you’re delirious.” Jason mutters into his collarbone. “That’s it.”
Bruce hums into his hair, content.
He doesn’t mean to fall asleep. Not behind enemy lines, not when he needs to be working on getting out of here—
But exhaustion pulls at his limbs, fucks with his head, with his emotions. He’s tired, he’s hurt. There’s a hand in his hair, and an arm around his back, and a heartbeat thumping soothingly under his ear.
He just— he just needs a minute. That’s all. He just needs to have this again, just for a minute…
Jason’s always held on to things too tightly.
He closes his eyes, and refuses to let go.
—