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When Jason opened the door to his safehouse turned apartment, the very last thing he expected to see was Nightwing swaying on his doorstep.
At first, Jason hardly even registered the swaying. He was just so utterly flabbergasted at the idea, the concept, of Nightwing being at his—the Red fucking Hood—door that he doesn’t clock the hand pressed to the vigilante’s side.
And when he did, the red consumed his vision, chasing away the green before it could even begin creeping in. There was so much blood, unseen against the black body of Nightwing’s suit but apparent in stark trails of red that rolled down his fingers. Beads of red dotted the floor as the blood dripped down, staining the wood alongside other more dubious substances.
Despite being hidden by the whiteouts of the domino, Jason knows that Nightwing’s gaze had fixed on him.
Jason wasn’t sure what the story was. Where the rest of the bats were, why Dick didn’t go to the cave, where Batman was. Jason had a meeting with some drug runners and then called it a night. A perk of working solo as a vigilante. Jason forgot, however, that going solo means that you run the risk of not having backup, or medical aid to come back to. A lesson he was apparently learning through example.
“I—” Nightwing rasped, voice hoarse and lips dry with flecks of red from where he’d bit it bloody.
And he collapsed right then and there, legs giving out like cut puppet strings.
Jason swooped down to catch him before his head could hit the nasty floor, a reflex left over from years of being a bright and bumbling vigilante. And Jason should be angry. He should be pissed that Nightwing was here, that he knew where Jason lived, knew his safehouse because that meant that all the Bats know, and part of him, that little Robin that he refuses to admit still lives on, should be livid at who put Nightwing in that state.
But there was no green, no rage roaring in his ears, consuming his vision.
There was only fear. Fear because that's Dick , that’s his older brother, that’s Nightwing. The perfect, infallible Nightwing. He’d always seemed so untouchable, so perfect, so much better at everything, to Jason.
But now, bleeding out in his arms, pulse faint against Jason’s gloves, all Jason can think is that Dick’s so small, so human and mortal and—
And Jason’s so fucking scared.