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The grogginess was the first alarming sign. Tim never woke up groggy—he woke up exhausted and snappish, and he needed coffee to resemble a functioning human being again, but he was never groggy.
The second warning sign was the darkness. Complete, absolute darkness. No moonlight through the windows, no light spilling from the hall, nothing but black, and panic ticked up as the fuzziness receded.
The last piece of information that cemented that he was in trouble was the hard surface he smacked into when he tried to get up.
He could feel the edges of the mask sticking uncomfortably to his face, and his hands were gloved as they examined what he’d hit. His utility belt was in place, and his comm was still in his ear. Tim took a deep breath, and panic receded.
He was Red Robin, he was waking up in an unknown location, and he might’ve been drugged. Okay. He could work with that.
First thing was to figure out where he was, closely followed by calling for backup. He turned his comm on, and breathed a sigh of relief at the familiar static. More crackly than usual, but it still worked. Good.
He was lying on a flat surface, with maybe five inches of wiggle room on each side. There was something flat above him, and Tim tugged off a glove to confirm that it was wood grain. A similar panel blocked his head as he tried to wriggle that way, and stretching his boots confirmed that another one was impeding his feet.
He was trapped. In a box. In a wooden box.
Tim fumbled in his utility belt, and managed to locate a long, thin stick—it snapped easily, filling the space with sickly orange light, and Tim breathed another sigh of relief. He hadn’t gone blind.
He was definitely in a box, but it wasn’t quite rectangular, and it seemed strangely shaped to closely fit a human body.
Tim’s breaths stuttered.
He slowly reached out both his hands, and placed them flat against wood. He pushed. He raised his knees and dug his heels in and pushed with those too.
The lid shifted, a tiny twitch against the pressure bearing down, and something dark and crumbly slithered inside.
Dirt.
It was dirt.
This was a coffin, and Tim had been buried alive.
Tim managed to stave off the rising hysteria by calling for help. “Hello, this is Red Robin,” he reported, trying to keep his voice from trembling, “I need immediate assistance. I’m trapped in an unknown location.”
He waited a beat.
“Hello?”
Panic was clawing at the inside of his throat.
“Hello, is anyone there?”
Nothing but static.
“Guys, this isn’t funny,” Tim said faintly. He could hear the blood rushing in his ears. “I’m trapped. I—I think I’m underground. I’m in a coffin.”
Still nothing. No Oracle—wait, she was at some conference in San Francisco, and had only promised to check in twice a day. Batman was gone on JL business, and Nightwing had taken Robin to Bludhaven so that Alfred could have a couple of days off. Cass had accompanied Barbara to the West Coast, and it was midterms week for Steph, she only planned to go out if there was an Arkham alert.
Which meant that Tim, having decided to go on a small, solo patrol, was all alone.
“Hello,” Tim tried again, his voice rising higher, “Hello, is anyone there?” Someone hacking the comm lines? Someone checking in at the right time? Anyone?
“Please?” Tim had to swallow past the lump in his throat, “Please, if anyone’s there, please help, please.” His breath was more a sob than an inhale. “Please, I’m trapped, I need help.”
Nothing but unending static.
“Again, this is Red Robin calling for assistance. Anyone copy?”
Silence.
Tim took a deep breath and tried not to choke. No one was there. No one was coming. He—he needed to find a way out by himself.
Using the glowstick and levering himself half up on one elbow—it was an awkward position, but it was all the coffin gave him to work with—Tim catalogued the contents of his utility belt. The tracker was already activated, but Tim knew the signal was wonky underground. Aside from that, he had a collection of batarangs, smoke bombs, a couple of rebreathers, lock picks, more glowsticks, antidote vials, zipties, and his grapple guns.
Minor explosives. Dissolving foam. Compass. A small chem kit. First aid supplies.
No source of additional oxygen. No phone, or any way to alert anyone. He could, theoretically, remove his comm and fiddle with it to get to the police frequency, but he was working with three inches of space and a glowstick—and if he broke the comm, then it was gone for good.
Tim forced himself to take deep breaths until panic receded again. He needed to think. He was Red Robin. He could get out of this. He had to get out of this. He’d managed to defeat the League of Assassins on their own turf with half the gear he was currently sporting.
He—how much air did he have left? Suddenly, Tim was extremely conscious of all the deep breaths he was taking. When did he leave on patrol? When did he get captured? What time was it? He didn’t remember, everything was too foggy, and he didn’t know whether the lack of oxygen was real or just in his head.
“Hello—hello, somebody, please.” He was gasping now, the sound echoing and smothering in the silence. “Help—please—I—I need help.” Orange light was blurring and his eyes were wet. “Please—anyone—help—” he couldn’t even finish the sentence, he could only gasp uselessly, like a beached fish.
Was this what it felt like? Oxygen deprivation, slow and steady, and Tim would be choking for minutes, dying inch by inch, oxygen levels dropping until he finally blacked out. He was already in a grave. All that was left was to die.
“This is Red Robin,” Tim forced out, his voice wavering, “If anyone is hearing this, please respond. I need assistance.”
He hit the button to slide the lenses back, and tears spilled over, dripping down his cheeks.
“This is Red Robin,” his voice was cracking, “Anyone—please—I need help.”
Too loud, too deep—he needed to calm down, he was going to run out of air faster, he—he needed to calm down but he didn’t know how.
“This—this is Red Robin,” the words felt disjointed to his own ears, “Please—please—”
“Christ, Replacement, would you shut up? You’re giving me a headache.”
Tim was startled into silence. For a long, stretching moment, he thought he imagined it, that some fucked-up combination of oxygen deprivation and panic and lingering sedatives had caused him to hallucinate the Red Hood’s mechanized drawl.
And a full five seconds after he finally accepted that he wasn’t losing his mind, he realized that Hood was on the line.
“Hood,” Tim stuttered, frantic again, “Hood, are you there? Hood, I—I need help, I—”
“I got that part loud and clear, Replacement,” Hood growled, “You know you’re on the public line, right? Go bother one of the Bats and leave me alone.”
There was an ominous silence after his words—Tim didn’t hear the click that signified that someone left the line, but he hadn’t known that Hood had access to their comms, and all Tim cared about right now was the possibility that the only person who might be able to find him was leaving.
“Hood!” Tim shouted, his voice rising in desperation, “Hood, wait, don’t—”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Replacement, are you trying to make me deaf? Guess that’s what I get for linking the comms in the first place—”
“Hood, no, please, don’t leave—” Tim couldn’t manage to get the words out fast enough, to string them into the right order, Hood was antagonistic on a good day and Tim didn’t know what would make him stop long enough to listen. “Please, there’s no one else, please, I’m trapped, please don’t go!”
Nothing.
“Hood,” Tim forced out, his throat closing up, “Hood, please, no one else is in town—I know you hate me, but please, I’m trapped, I need help, please—”
“What do you mean, no one else is in town,” Hood said slowly, and Tim nearly sobbed in relief.
“They’re—they’re all gone—”
“All?” Hood repeated, incredulous, “I know Oracle and B, but Agent A? N? Spoiler?”
“Vacation, Bludhaven, taking the week off,” Tim recited, his voice weak, “No one is answering me, I’m—I’m stuck in a box, I think I was drugged—”
“Black Bat?” Hood pressed, “Robin?”
“Out, and in Bludhaven,” Tim said hoarsely, “Hood—”
“Wait. Are you seriously telling me that Gotham is Bat-free tonight?” Hood sounded delighted.
“Hood, please—”
“Except for you, I guess. But you’re trapped—exactly how trapped are you?” Hood asked with a considering tone.
“I’m in a coffin!”
A beat of silence, and then Hood’s voice came back, sounding extremely unamused and very angry, “Is that supposed to be a fucking joke?”
“Why would I joke about being buried alive?!”
Tim couldn’t breathe again, his panting loud and harsh and every wheeze reminded him of how little air he had, how precious every molecule of oxygen was. After a moment, he realized that someone was talking, the voice crackling in his ear.
“Deep breaths, you need to calm down, Red Robin, deep breaths, come on, Red, I need you to calm down.” The voice was slightly desperate, cracking audibly, “Red, breathe, come on, four beats in, one beat hold, six beats out. You can do it. Four in, one hold, six out. In, two, three, four, hold, out, two, three, four, five, six. In, two, three, four, hold, out, two, three, four, five, six.”
Tim found himself unconsciously matching the words, and the gasps died down. “Red?” Hood asked, “You there?”
“‘M here,” Tim forced out, feeling his heart pound incessantly against his ribs.
“Okay,” Hood sounded like he was struggling to take deep breaths himself, “Okay, you need to hold tight. I’ll be back.”
Dread slid down Tim’s spine. “Wait,” he rasped urgently, “Hood, wait—”
But it was too late, he could hear the helmet disengaging and the only thing that came through the comm was crackling static.
Tim tried to think of a plan. He really, truly did. He kept half his attention on the comm, alert for any change in static—maybe Hood was coming back, maybe he wasn’t taking advantage of the fact that there was absolutely no one to stop him tonight, maybe Tim wasn’t a pathetic fool still clutching to memories of a bright, laughing Robin that saved anyone who needed help—and the other half trying to devise an escape.
He didn’t have the resources to create a different communication device, not curled up on his side with a dying glowstick, and he snapped open a new one and stared at his pile of gear.
He could dissolve the wood—but then the dirt would just come rushing through—but if he used his cape to cover his face, then—except his cape wasn’t breathable, all he would do was suffocate faster.
Maybe if he used the explosives to tunnel out? No, anything that could get through six feet of dirt was also going to hit him, and turn breathable air into smoke.
Tim sorted through his gear again, organizing it into various piles. He picked up the rebreather and turned it over in his hands.
If he used his rebreather, then it might buy him enough time to dig out through six feet of dirt. If he timed it carefully. If it was only six feet of dirt, if someone hadn’t thrown him in a well and filled it up.
Tim imagined digging up and up and up, for a surface he couldn’t see, losing oxygen every second, clawing himself forward in desperate hope—
“Red?” the comm line crackled, and Tim let out a startled wheeze.
“Hood?” he asked slowly.
“Yes, I’m back,” Hood said levelly, “Okay, first things first—you’re sure you’re in a coffin?”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“Underground? You see dirt?”
Tim swallowed painfully, “Yes.”
“You said you were drugged—what’s the last thing you remember?”
“I—going out on patrol?” Tim said, unsure, trying to remember. He’d—he’d gone to W.E., got back home late—didn’t eat anything, he’d been sucked into work. He remembered snagging an apple before he got dressed for patrol, at which point everything became a little fuzzy.
“What’s the last place you remember patrolling? And when?”
Tim thought back—he didn’t have any active cases, and he wasn’t going to go poking around with no backup, so he’d stuck to a simple patrol, doing a couple of circuits just to remind Gotham that the Bats were there. “Burnley?” Tim said hesitantly, “Around ten o’clock?”
“It’s almost two now,” Hood responded, and Tim sucked in a sharp breath. That—he had maybe three hours of oxygen, total, before the carbon dioxide levels killed him, and that meant he was running perilously close to his limit—
“Okay, did some searching on social media hashtags. Someone reported you swinging around at midnight, near Coventry. Assuming that was your last point, that gives us approximately one hour.”
One hour. One hour for a mass murderer who hated his guts to search the entirety of a large, crime-ridden city for a coffin six feet below ground.
“Two hours means that they didn’t have time to dig a grave and fill it. This wasn’t on impulse, this was planned—they needed to have a grave ready. Were you only patrolling in Burnley?”
“Yes,” Tim said, throat dry.
“Noticed anything suspicious?”
“No.” He was feeling faint—like everything was behind a glass wall, and he couldn’t reach out and touch it.
“Okay,” Hood took a deep breath, and seemed to hesitate, “Okay, Red, I need you to listen and tell me if you can hear anything. Vibrations from cars. Sirens. Running water. Anything.” He paused before continuing, “And you need to take the comm out of your ear.”
“What?” Tim croaked out, “No.”
“Red,” Hood said, the mechanized voice low and measured, “You can’t hear anything with that in your ear. Take it out. Just for a minute. I’ll be here when you put it back in, I swear.”
His heart was already racing. “Promise?” he managed, his eyes prickling again.
“I promise.” He imagined it was Jason, he imagined it was Robin, and trembling fingers nudged the comm out of his ear.
He listened. He took deep breaths to calm down and lower the pounding of his heart, he squeezed his eyes shut, and he listened.
Heartbeat. Soft, whistling breaths. Quiet tapping—he hadn’t even realized he’d been drumming his boots against the side of the coffin. Something that sounded like wood creaking.
No cars. No water. No sirens.
Tim hastily fumbled for the comm, half-dreading that the line would be silent, that Hood was laughing somewhere at his naiveté, that Tim was going to die with the sickening realization that his childhood hero had turned his back on him—“Hood?”
The response was immediate, “Yeah, Red?”
“I—I couldn’t hear anything.”
Silence. “Okay,” Hood said finally, “That’s okay. We’ll figure something out. I’m near Gotham Heights, I’ll—I may have a lead. I’ll check on that, and if that doesn’t work out, I’ll try to trace your footsteps from Coventry.”
Tim appreciated the information. He couldn’t even remember what he was doing last, or who held this much of a grudge against him, or anything useful to figure out where the hell he was.
After a pause, Hood spoke up again, “Do you want me to call Nightwing?”
Tim’s first instinct was to say yes. He wanted someone on the line other than Hood, someone he trusted, someone he was assured was going to come for him. But there was a reason Hood was asking.
The I-87 from Bludhaven to Gotham was undergoing repairs. It would take Nightwing at least an hour and half to get here—at which point Tim would already be dead. All that Tim would accomplish, having him on the line, was forcing his older brother to listen to him die.
“No,” Tim said softly. Hood didn’t ask any further questions.
Tim couldn’t hear anything through the comm—not breathing, not the roar of a motorcycle—and he broke the silence with a quiet question, “What if your lead doesn’t pan out?”
Hood replied immediately, “I told you, I’ll retrace your steps from Coventry.”
“And if that doesn’t work?” Tim asked. He only had an hour of breathable air left. Or fifty minutes, now, and Hood still had to dig him out even if he found him.
A stretching pause. “Then I’ll talk you through crawling out,” Hood said, his tone heavy.
Tim balked. “What?” he whispered hoarsely, “I—I can’t do that—I’ll suffocate—”
“You’ll manage,” Hood said harshly, “I did, and I didn’t even have any gear.”
Tim stopped breathing for a moment.
“What.”
“I’m the dead Robin, or did you forget that already?” Hood asked sardonically, something bitter in his tone.
“J—Hood, what? You were buried alive?”
“No, I was buried dead. Unfortunately for everyone, I woke up.”
Tim understood the words, individually. He was just having difficulty putting them together in his head.
“I thought the Lazarus Pit brought you back to life,” Tim said weakly.
“The Pit can’t bring the dead back to life,” Hood snapped, “It just fixed half the broken stuff inside me, and made the rest worse.”
Tim’s head was reeling, and he’d begun to take shallow breaths again. “I don’t—I never—you woke up inside your own coffin?”
“Yeah. Fun trip. Never want to do that again. Anyway, if it comes to that, I’ll walk you through digging yourself out—and with batarangs and rebreathers, it’ll be much easier for you than it was for me.”
Hood’s sudden one-eighty was beginning to make a lot of sense.
Tim’s second glowstick was dying, and he cracked open a third.
“What lead are you following?” Tim rasped, desperate to keep him mind on something other than the possibility of him digging out, or Jason, fifteen-year-old, newly-alive Jason digging himself out of his own grave. Waking up in the dark with no clue what was going on—dressed in a suit instead of his Robin uniform, no comm, no way to contact anyone, desperate and panicking and falling to the last resort.
“Gotham’s a concrete jungle. There’s only a few places that have enough soil to dig a grave.” Assuming you’re still in Gotham, he kindly didn’t mention. “And, in the middle of summer, there’s even fewer where a six-foot hole will go unnoticed.”
“You’re checking out the cemeteries,” Tim concluded.
“Fun Gardens first,” Hood said, “If there’s nothing here, then Gotham Cemetery.”
“Paupers?”
“Buries urns, not coffins. Unless you failed to mention some pertinent details about your crate, you won’t be there.”
Tim tried to regulate his breathing. In for four, hold, out for six. Again. Deep, slow breaths, and the oxygen would last longer. Fun Gardens, then massive Gotham Cemetery—searching all of it, finding the right spot, digging him out—
And the clock was ticking steadily down. Forty minutes left.
“Ah,” Hood said, and Tim abandoned the slow breathing.
“What? Did you find something?”
A stretching pause. “Found two freshly filled graves. I—son of a fucking bitch.”
“What?”
“I think this one’s yours, but just to be sure, take out your comm and listen for ten seconds, and tell me if you hear this.”
Tim didn’t protest this time, just slid the comm out and counted to ten, suppressing his panic. His counting was jolted by two muffled bangs.
Tim hastily pressed the comm back in. “Did you shoot something?” Tim asked.
“The dirt,” Hood exhaled slowly, “Okay. This is definitely yours. Someone thinks they’re funny.”
“What did they do?”
“Grave marker for a Robin Rouge. Fuckers. They’re going to be red when I get my hands on them.”
“I—just get me out first, please,” Tim said, feeling his heart squeeze painfully inside his chest.
“Yeah, I’m working on it,” Hood said, sounding distracted. Tim’s stomach twisted over.
“Hood?”
“Give me a second,” he said, his voice fading out.
Tim tried to slow his breathing down, but panic and terror was gripping fast, refusing to let him take a full breath. Hope and freedom were so close he could taste it, hanging just out of reach—and if this was all a trick, if he got this far and Hood began laughing—
“Hood?”
Silence, and Tim sucked in a breath far too quickly.
“Hood?” he repeated, “Hood—Hood, please, get me out, please—” nothing but static, and Tim was losing his mind—“Hood, please, don’t go—”
“Not going anywhere, Repl—Red, calm down,” Hood said levelly, “Just trying to find something to dig with.”
Tim bit the edge of his glove to stop the pleading clawing at his throat—he could not afford to antagonize Hood, not now, not when he was so close to getting out, but he couldn’t hear anything from his end, didn’t know what was going on, what Hood was doing, what—
“Red?” Hood asked, his voice neutral.
“Yes?”
“I’m going to take off my helmet for a little bit, okay—”
“No,” Tim wheezed on an exhale, no, Hood was the only person he could talk to, he couldn’t just leave him alone, he couldn’t.
“You’re hyperventilating, and I need you to calm down.”
“I can calm down!” Tim said, far too fast and far too desperate.
“Red. I can’t listen to you and dig you out. You’re panicking, and I’m going to panic, and then we’ll get nowhere. Give me five—give me ten minutes, five to figure out how this backhoe works, and five to dig you out, okay?”
No, Tim wanted to shout.
Please don’t leave me, he wanted to beg.
Jason, please, he wanted to cry.
“Red?”
“Ten minutes,” Tim croaked, and the silence cut him to the bone.
He could feel the ground shaking.
That was a good sign, he reminded himself, as he focused on packing away all his gear, and not on the mental clock ticking in the corner. It meant that the dirt was being excavated. It meant that he was close to freedom.
The comm was still silent.
Tim made sure each item went back into the proper pouch, double-checking in the light of the last dying glowstick. He was almost free. That was what he had to focus on. He was almost free, and groan of machinery was becoming more audible by the second.
He was almost free, he wasn’t choking, he wasn’t injured. All positives.
Something scraped lightly along the top of the wood, and Tim froze. The grumbling of machinery cut off.
Tim tentatively pushed at the wooden lid—it was lighter, and it shifted with a little force, but dirt trickled down the edges like sand, and he stilled.
Before he could calculate whether to push the lid up or wait, the choice was made for him—the lid was roughly yanked off, showering Tim in a mini cascade of dirt. He didn’t manage to get his arms up fast enough, and he choked on the dry dust as his eyes began watering.
Squinting up, Tim could see the outline of a figure dressed in dark colors and red accents. And an outstretched hand.
Tim took the hand, and let himself be hauled up. And when the hand let go, he followed it, throwing his hands around Jason’s neck and burying his head against the body armor, shuddering violently.
Arms slowly, cautiously encircled him, encompassing him in an iron grip.
Air. Sweet, sweet air. The breeze against his forehead, the faint heartbeat pulsing against his cheek, the hand rubbing slow circles into his back.
“Shh,” Jason said softly, “It’s okay. You’re out, you’re safe, you’re okay.”
“T—thank y—you,” Tim managed, tears trailing through the dirt. He couldn’t stop shaking, and his legs felt like jelly. “Thank you.”
The arms constricted tighter, clutching Tim as hard as he was holding onto Jason. “Of course,” Jason murmured, “Of course, baby bird.”
Tim knew they were still standing in a six foot hole, over an opened casket, with a backhoe next to them, and he had no idea who put him in a coffin or why. But Jason was a solid rock, and he’d come, he helped Tim, and it was like the clouds eased to show that the sun was still there because Hood was a lot of things, but there was still a part that was Robin.
“Can—can we go home?” Tim asked quietly, his limbs jittering and refusing to work properly.
“The Manor?” Jason asked after a long pause, his voice expressionless.
Tim nodded against his neck—he didn’t want to go back to his Nest, not tonight, not after this. The Manor was empty, but he could still make himself a cup of hot chocolate and curl up in the den and feel safe again.
“Sure, baby bird,” Jason hummed, “We can go home.”
Satin, too soft and too smooth against desperate fingers.
Choking on every breath, no air, no air, he couldn’t breathe.
Wood, hard, unyielding wood, and sharp bursts of pain in his fingers as he clawed and punched and cried.
The fine material of the suit under his fingers, not the kevlar weave he was looking for, no comm, no gear, the sharp edge of a belt buckle and he hastily undid it and—
Guns. His guns. His knives. His belt, his gear, the constricting armor, the smooth metal of his helmet under his gloves.
The comm, spitting static.
“Hello?” he called, or thought he called, “Anyone?”
Crackling static, like the faint sound of popcorn popping—“Yes?” a low growl.
“B,” he exhaled, relief making him lightheaded, “B, I’m stuck underground, in—in a coffin, please—please help—”
“No.”
He—he didn’t hear that. That—that wasn’t real. That couldn’t be real.
“B?” he tried again, “B, are you there? Oracle? N? Anyone?”
“No one’s coming,” the eerie, distorted tone that Oracle preferred.
“Help?” Nightwing laughed, “Help you?”
“You tried to kill me,” Red Robin hissed.
“Murderer,” Black Bat spat.
“You are a traitor to this family,” Robin said coldly.
“You attack us at every turn,” Spoiler said, every word a sharp blade, “And you expect us to come help you?”
“No—please—I’m sorry,” he gasped, “I’m sorry, please, I am—I’m trapped, I’m underground, I’m going to die—”
An eerie, echoing laughter.
“You expect us to fall for that again?”
“No—no, I am, I’m in a coffin, this isn’t a trick—please,” he begged, “Please, someone come, please—I can’t, I can’t do this again, please—”
“Who,” Batman growled, “Do you think put you there in the first place?”
Jason woke up with a shuddering gasp.
The room was too familiar, the sheets were constricting tight around him, there was wetness trickling down his face as he struggled in the sheets, and there was no air, he couldn’t breathe, terror carving through his veins like a hot knife through butter.
He fought himself free of the sheets and nearly faceplanted as he rolled out of the bed, every shadow a haunting reminder of what he lost, of the boy that went into the grave and had the audacity to come back out. He had to leave, he had to breathe, he had to stop gasping for breath because everything was dizzy and fuzzy and he could smell mud, thick and cloying, and he could feel splinters in his fingers, and he was suffocating and there was no air and laughter rang louder and louder in his ears and—
Light spilling out from wall scones. Thick rugs under his bare feet. Paintings that he’d spent years walking past, familiar and calming. By the time he clutched the banister at the top of the stairs, he could breathe again.
He was in the Manor. He was safe. He was alive. He wasn’t choking in a coffin six feet below ground, calling for help that never came. He was fine.
By the time he reached the bottom of the stairs, he could almost believe it. His skin had stopped crawling, and he shivered as the trembling eased. Low voices came from the den, and Jason changed direction—there wasn’t supposed to be anyone else in Gotham tonight, who—
A few strands of dark hair over blue eyes was all that was visible amidst the blanket. Sitting in the darkness, staring at the flickering lights of the TV. The gaze swung towards him as he paused in the doorway.
“Can’t sleep?” Jason rasped.
“Cocoa’s in the kitchen,” the kid answered, curling further around his mug.
The cocoa was, indeed, in the kitchen. Still hot. Just enough for another mug.
Jason took the mug back to the den, and hesitated on the threshold again before stepping inside. He took a seat next to Tim, tightening his grip on the mug as the tension swelled.
It eased when the blanket burrito nudged closer, enough to knock their shoulders together.
Tim had put some random ad channel, and the woman was trying to sell them a whole set of kitchenware to make chocolate fondue. Jason switched it to something in a different language—background noise without the possibility of accidentally stumbling upon a trigger.
He took a sip of the cocoa—hot and thick and slightly burnt. It slowly chased away the chill.
“Mud,” Jason said quietly, “I can’t handle the smell of mud anymore. It—it was raining that day, and every time I smell it, I remember what it tasted like when I was digging through the ground.” The helmet thankfully filtered that one out, but there was a reason Jason didn’t go out barefaced when it was raining, and why he had a whole collection of scented candles and vapor inhalers.
“Mud,” the kid repeated, like he was mentally writing it down, “I—anything else?”
Jason took another sip of cocoa as he thought about it. “Claustrophobia,” he said, “That’s an easy one. No tight, confined spaces.” The warmth exuded from the mug, making it easier to think. “Satin. Anything that mimics that silky feel.” He remembered the terror that had shot through him when the kid said he was in a coffin, the nightmares threatening to tear him apart. “I can’t sleep on my back anymore.”
The kid hummed as Jason slumped back, watching a woman in a fancy blue dress yell at a man with guards in a language Jason half-understood.
“And you know the most fucked up part?” Jason exhaled, “I don’t even remember it. I know bits and pieces, and I get nightmares, but the only clear memory I have of that night is—is fear.”
Panic, terror, sick dread, the certainty that no one was coming for him and desperately hoping anyway.
“I’m sorry,” Tim whispered, leaning further against Jason’s side. Jason sighed and extended a hand around his shoulders, pulling him close.
“I’m sorry,” Jason murmured to the kid’s hair, “I’m sorry you had to go through that.” The horror, the fear, not knowing whether or not you’d be saved, not knowing whether or not you’d be saved in time…
Jason hadn’t been afraid when he died. Exhausted, hurt, sad, yes, but he saw the numbers tick down and he’d thought ‘at least it’ll stop hurting’.
Jason had been terrified when he came back.
The drama played out on the television as they finished their cocoa, and a small weight dropped on his shoulder. Jason shifted, tugging the kid fully into his lap as he eased down so they were horizontal. He stared at the dim, flickering TV screen as he slowly ran fingers through the kid’s hair, listening as breathing evened out into sleep.
He could feel the memories lurking, nightmares leashed just out of reach, but there were warmth around him and the taste of cocoa on his tongue and a heartbeat thudding low against his ribs, and it was different enough to keep them at bay.
He closed his eyes.
“Little Wing?”
Something gently brushed the hair away from his forehead, and he wrinkled his nose—that tickled. Someone huffed softly, and a lock of hair weaved across his forehead again, this time deliberate.
Jason squinted. Dark hair, anxious eyes, a soft smile—“There you are, Jaybird,” Dick said softly.
Jason frowned. “S’pposed to be in ‘Haven,” he mumbled.
“Realized I forgot something in the Cave,” Dick answered easily, his forehead scrunching up in concern, “What happened?”
Jason stared at him, trying to muddle through half-asleep thoughts. Whistling breaths ruffled his shirt, and there was an untidy mop of dark hair pressed against his sternum.
“Buried,” Jason said slowly, attempting to fix events into a coherent narrative, “S’meone buried the kid. Found him.”
Dick’s face flitted through expressions too fast for him to see. “Tim?” he asked softly, “Someone buried Tim?”
There was a rustling movement in the background, and Jason realized that the TV had been turned off. He wanted to see who else was there, but exhaustion had ensnared him, and he was warm, and he didn’t want to get up.
“Yeah,” he exhaled again, blinks getting longer and longer, “Bastards.”
Dick made a low sound that, even half-asleep, sent a thrill of fear through him. It slowly clawed him back to alertness, but soft fingers ran through his hair again, and dry lips pressed to his forehead. “Sleep, Little Wing,” his older brother hummed, “You’re safe now.”
Safe. Safe and home and warm.
Exhaustion dragged him back.
There was a long, tense silence, the static of a room full of powerful, dangerous people all seething in unison.
“I’ll be back in Gotham this evening,” Barbara said, her tone clipped. Behind her, Cass was a dark wraith with glinting eyes.
“Already headed to the Manor,” Spoiler reported, her jaw set.
“You’re sure they’re safe?” the cowled figure demanded, not Batman’s growl, but furious enough in its own right.
“They’re both sleeping upstairs,” Dick said, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. His fingers kept clenching around the back of the computer chair, desperate to clench into a fist, to coil around his escrima, to lash out at the people that dared to hurt his little brother.
His little brothers.
And wasn’t that a fun little revelation when he listened to the comm footage—he’d assumed that Ra’s had fudged the details of the Lazarus Pits, he’d never imagined that Jason had crawled out of his own grave.
Bruce had nearly broken the monitor when they reached that part.
“Titus is keeping guard,” Damian reported dispassionately, like Dick hadn’t seen him carefully transfer a sleeping kitten on top of Tim’s blankets and sternly order Titus to stay in the den.
“Any ideas who did this?” Bruce asked finally. He was still in space, too far to return quickly, but Dick could see how badly he wanted to turn the spaceship around, the tension and worry evident in every line of his body.
“No,” Dick said softly, “But we’re going to find them.”
A promise.
A threat.
When the Bats were away, the mice came out to play. A stupid mistake.
Because the Bats always came back.