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Dick woke up in bed. The wrongness of that took a moment to catch up with him. He’d been on patrol, on a stakeout for a case. Some trafficking ring Jason had been looking into.
Jason.
Dick sat up, his head spinning. He’d been on a stakeout with Jason, where the fuck was Jason. It wasn’t until he tried to stand up that Dick realized his wrists were bound with chains and his ankles shackled together. He still had his suit on, but his boots and socks were gone.
Dick stopped, for a moment, to take in his surroundings. To stomp down the panic making its way up his throat. He was a on twin bed with unassuming blue sheets and a floral comforter. The room was sparse, not much more than the bed and a dresser next to the door.
He stood slowly, sure that he’d been drugged. There was a fogginess around the edges of the world and he had to focus on not falling as he made his way to the door. The doorknob was cold to the touch and turned easily under his hand.
Heart thundering in his chest, Dick pushed the door open. He was greeted by a giant of a man holding a gun and wearing a ski mask.
“The boss is waiting for you.”
“Where is Hood?” Dick said, sounding more desperate than he’d intended. The floor shifted violently underneath him and a large hand around his bicep was the only thing that kept him on his feet.
“He’s waiting too.”
Dick was led down the hallway and shoved into...a bathroom? And there, finally, was Jason on his back in the bath tub. His helmet, armor, and gear were gone, only his t-shirt, pants, and socks remained. Thick chains wrapped around his wrists and looped through a thick metal ring in the wall, holding his arms above his head.
“How nice of you to join us,” a man said. He was crouched beside the tub, wearing a ski mask and latex gloves. There was blood, across the knuckles of his gloves. There was blood, on Jason’s face. Rage burned in Dick’s belly.
“Who the fuck are you?” Dick spat.
“I’m an independent contractor,” the man said flatly, like the topic did not interest him much.
“What? You hit me when I ask, but you’ll tell him?” Jason said, rolling his eyes. “That’s so rude.”
The Contractor turned the nob on the tub and Jason flinched as the water gushed out of the faucet. "Jesus fuck, that's cold," he said, giving the chains a bit of a jerk.
The man gestured to someone behind Dick, who entered the bathroom carrying bags of ice. The kind you got from a gas station. The Contractor ripped them open one at a time, dumping them into the tub.
“What the fuck,” Jason hissed.
Dick watched wearily as the tub filled and Jason started to shiver. “What do you want?”
“Well,” the man said with a shrug. “I don’t want anything. My employer, however, wants to know what you did with that shipment you intercepted last Wednesday.”
"Don't you fucking d-dare," Jason said, his teeth starting to chatter.
Shipment. As if it hadn’t been a semi-truck full of trafficked children. Dick felt sick. The tub was halfway full.
“I can’t tell you that,” Dick said, because he couldn’t. Because the bats had to be on the way. Because someone would have noticed they weren’t where they were supposed to be. Because as much as they bitched and moaned about Bruce’s overprotective tendencies, it really did keep them alive.
The Contractor shrugged.
No one spoke. There was just the sound of water and clinking chains. They watched the water rise until it reached Jason’s chin.
The Contractor flipped off the tap and, without fanfare, placed a hand on Jason’s chest, shoving him under the water.
Dick tried to lunge, but he was held back. He yelled incoherently, pointlessly. Jason thrashed. Only his arms were above the water, and they twisted against the unyielding chains. Water sloshed over the tub wall onto Dick’s bare feet and it was like ice on his skin.
It felt like a lifetime. Jason thrashed in the water. Dick thrashed against the iron-grip holding him back from his brother.
Finally, the Contractor pulled his hand out of the tub and Jason surfaced gasping and coughing and swearing and shivering violently.
"Where are they?" The man asked flatly, still crouched next to the tub, his posture entirely calm. Bored, even.
It was only when Dick found Jason's eyes, angry and frantic, that he realized his little brother's domino was gone. Jason shook his head.
“D-don’t,” he said. Pleaded, almost.
The Contractor pushed him back under.
It hadn’t been enough time for Jason to catch his breath. The water would be too cold, would punch the air out of his lungs. He wouldn’t be able to hold his breath, not for very long.
Once, when Dick was Robin, he’d fallen into Gotham Harbor in October. The cold had been all-encompassing, consuming. It had taken only a few minutes for Bruce to pull him out, only a few minutes after that to get him into the Batmobile. An hour later they were curled up under a blanket in front of the fireplace in the library. Alfred made him hot coco. Bruce hugged him close.
It had been okay, as far as near death experiences go. But he never forgot the feeling of uncontrollable shivering. He never forgot what Bruce had taught him about hypothermia, later. Shivering was good, it meant the body was still trying to warm up. It was when someone stopped shivering that you had to really worry.
Jason emerged from the water, coughing and coughing and coughing. He was exhausted, resting his forehead against the tub wall, trying desperately to stay above the water.
His lips were turning blue. He shook his head. Dick kept his mouth shut. Jason’s head disappeared under the water. They thrashed against their respective restraints.
Dick knew he’d never be able to get the sound of Jason coughing up water out of his head. Not his wet gasping or his violent shaking. He would remember every second of this.
“Just tell me where they are,” the man said without emotion. Like he was asking for napkins at a restaurant.
“I can’t,” Dick said, his voice hoarse from screaming. He knew he should pretend not to care. He knew he should try to stall, to wait for the others who must know something was wrong. Except the guy already knew he cared, had known before any of this started.
Except Jason was pale and shaking and breathing too shallowly and Dick was terrified.
“Well,” the Contractor said with a shrug. “If that’s how you’re going to be.”
He pushed Jason under and there was a finality to the movement. Like he wasn't planning on letting go. And he didn’t. He held Jason down and too much time passed. Jason gave a few desperate tugs against the chains, thrashed weakly, stopped moving.
Dick barely heard the crash behind him over the ringing in his ears. Jason was still under the water. There was a flash of movement, the man restraining Dick was pulled away. He wasn’t coming up. A Black Bat-shaped blur launched at the Contractor. He wasn’t coming up. Someone unlocked Dick’s restraints. He wasn’t coming up.
Dick dragged Jason’s head out of the water. He wasn’t breathing.
"Get these fucking chains off," Dick screamed and Tim was immediately at his side, some sort of gadget cutting through the metal. It took a few seconds. They felt like eternity.
Finally, blessedly, the chains fell from the wall and Dick dragged Jason out of the tub. Tim pulled the chains from Jason's wrists and Dick started administering CPR and every single time he blew air into his brother's mouth he was confronted with how cold he was.
Thirty compressions, two breaths. Thirty compressions, two breaths. Thirty compressions, two breaths.
"Come on," Dick whispered, falling back as Tim took over. His arms were shaking from fatigue and fear.
“We have secured the man,” Damian said triumphantly, barrelling into the bathroom. There was silence, as he took in the scene before him. His voice was impossibly small, when he said: “What is going on?”
Tim panted as he counted his compressions under his breath. Dick’s heart was in his throat. Tears carved a path down his face.
Jason couldn’t die again. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair. It felt like they had just gotten him back.
He came around the Manor more. He took Damian to the zoo and to get ice cream. He played video games with Tim and listened to him talk about programming. He sparred with Cass and accompanied her to the ballet. He was teaching Stephanie how to cook. He had tea with Alfred and discussed Shakespeare. He and Duke disappeared for hours on end getting up to who knows what kind of trouble. He talked to Bruce.
Every Sunday, before family dinner, Jason went to lunch with Dick. Always somewhere different, some place he wanted to try. Every Sunday, before family dinner, Jason explained different cuisines and techniques and ingredients and Dick listened and tried to hold the hours in his hand because his little brother was alive.
He was alive, and Dick didn’t know what he would do, if that changed. He didn’t want to figure it out. It had been unbearable, the first time, and Dick hadn’t known him nearly as well as he did now. There were so many more people that would miss him, this time.
And then Jason took a sharp, gasping breath that immediately devolved into a coughing fit. Behind Dick, Damian made a sound like a sob.
Tim turned Jason onto his side as he coughed, water spilling across the floor. Dick flopped on top of him as he continued to hack. He was shivering, but weakly. They had to move.
"Where's B?" Dick asked into Jason's shoulder. "He's freezing, we need to go."
"There were a lot of guys out front, he was leading them on a merry chase so we could get in." Tim tilted his head, listening to something in his comm. "He's back, let's move."
Consciousness came and went. He was on the floor of the bathroom, coughing up water. He was upright, being dragged down a flight of stairs. He was in the Batmobile, someone’s hand running through his wet hair.
The cold of his wet clothes was gone, replaced by ones that were thick and soft and warm. He knew, vaguely, that he was in a bed, enveloped in blankets and then, even better, a body radiating heat. He knew it was Bruce, even before he could hear his voice. He knew he was being held against Bruce’s chest, his face resting against his dad’s shoulder.
“He’s still too cold,” Bruce said, and Jason could feel Bruce’s jaw move against the top of his head.
“He’s shivering again, though. That’s good.”
Jason couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t shivering. It seemed to him that he’d always been this cold, always been shaking, always been so goddamn tired.
“You have to stay awake,” Bruce said into Jason’s hair and Jason grunted. He knew that Bruce would know it meant I am and fuck off.
Then, another pair of arms, another warm body hugging him. He was sandwiched between them, Bruce and Dick, and finally the warmth started to seep into his own body.
“What kind of tea do you want? Alfred said it needs to be sweet.” Dick said, his face pressed between Jason’s shoulder blades.
“Ci’m’n,” Jason slurred, fighting to get his tongue to form the syllables.
“Okay,” Dick said, then, after a moment, “I don’t know what that means.”
“Apple cinnamon,” Bruce said, and Jason nodded blearily.
He wasn’t sure how Dick communicated this information to Alfred, but a small while later he heard the distinct sound of the butler’s shoes approaching.
“I have the electric blanket as well,” Alfred said. “Time to sit up, Master Jason.”
Jason groaned, trying to wedge himself closer to Bruce. There was a laugh, one he felt more than heard, before Bruce kissed his forehead and pulled away. And Jason whined like a child, because he was cold and he was tired and he didn’t want to sit up and drink his tea.
But he did, because he wasn’t a child and because he knew the tea would be warm and that Dick and Bruce weren't going anywhere. And wasn't that a thought he wouldn't have had a year before. That realization, too, was warm.
The mug that was pressed into his shaking hands was scalding and he rested it against his cheek for a moment before drinking it as fast as he possibly could.
The blanket started to heat up and Jason burrowed back under the covers, shamelessly pulling Bruce and Dick with him.
At some point, he had realized it was Bruce’s bed. The one he used to crawl into after he had a nightmare. The one that was too big and incredibly comfortable. The one that felt like safety.
Eventually, Damian and Tim wandered into the room. Damian curled up on top of the covers, and Jason’s legs, drawing in a sketchbook. Tim laid on his stomach at the end of the bed, clicking away on his laptop.
Cass was next, huddling next to Dick, one of her hands reaching over Dick to rest on Jason’s shoulder. Duke and Steph were last, the former flopping down on top of a shrieking Damian, the latter draping herself over Cass.
Eventually, Jason stopped shivering, his body temperature finally returning to somewhat normal. The cold had seeped into his bones, though, and — he would never admit it — he was happy to fall asleep amidst the warmth of his family.