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The only reason Jason Peter Todd was even out as Robin at fifteen til midnight was because it was the first day of spring break. Spring break meant no school, and no school meant flexible curfews and sleeping in later.
Unfortunately, spring break also meant bitter cold in Gotham. Cold and sleet and wind that had missed the winter is over memo. And so had Robin’s head, and throat, and muscles.
A winter cold in winter weather on the first day of what should have been vacation— a whole week to spend patrolling with Batman, saving people, fighting crime, and then sleeping in and enjoying Alfred’s brunches. He’d been looking forward to it for months and he wasn’t going to let a little thing like being a little sick stop him.
And he wasn’t that sick, or Batman definitely would have noticed way back at the Cave…or in the Manor, before that. Robin huddled closer to Batman, tucked under the cape, grateful that the sleet gave him an excuse to hang out there and glad that it was a slow night. He didn’t have to move much, the long black cape kept a lot of the wet and wind off, and he was still there: ready to spring to action if he was needed.
Three more hours. That was it. Unless something went terribly wrong, they’d call it a night in three more hours and then he could sleep it off. He just had to keep it together until…
“Robin,” Batman said, in that low voice like concrete blocks scraping across asphalt. “On my ten.”
Robin pulled the cape away from his face just enough to look down into the street in the direction Batman indicated. There were two men with thick hats and backpacks about to smash the display case of a jewelry store with a baseball bat.
“See ‘em,” Robin said and he cringed. His voice sounded way, way worse than it had the last time he’d spoken. If Batman was already focused on the crooks enough, he wouldn’t even notice. Robin readied a grappling line, already dreading the pull in his aching joints; if he went ahead Batman would probably just follow.
A gloved hand caught his cape right before he could leap out into the open, icy air. It was as good as Batman shouting stop at him and Robin went as still as a statue.
He’d been told once, during training in the cave, this story about a girl climbing a tree and her father yelling up for her to stop. She’d stopped right away, her hand inches from a sleeping snake, coiled in the sun with a head full of venom. The story had been told while they sparred, one of the rare instances Bruce had talked through physical exercise, and the message had been clear:
Listen first. Ask after. Otherwise, you might end up dead.
So even though it was the last thing he wanted to do, Robin held himself back instead of jumping. Maybe it wasn’t about him at all, maybe Batman had seen some threat or more dangerous crime.
The gloved hand was on his shoulder, turning him slowly.
“You’re ill,” Batman said and it wasn’t a question.
“I’m not,” Robin insisted, trying to look behind him toward the sound of breaking glass. They were going to get away if they waited too much longer, but Batman no longer seemed interested in preventing theft.
In the time he’d struggled to look, to see how fast they were working, to not look at Batman’s face and cowl and the eyes he couldn’t see and still didn’t want to lie to, Batman had gotten his glove off and his hand pressed Robin’s forehead.
“How long?”
“All day,” Robin said sullenly, letting himself slouch. “I’m okay though, really. It’s not that bad. Just a cold.”
“You were shivering earlier,” Batman said. Like it wasn’t spring break that thought it was January outside. Like it had never occurred to him that a kid who weighed about as much as his own backpack would maybe get chilly. Robin scowled.
“So?”
“Call it a night,” Batman said, giving his shoulder a squeeze. It should have made him feel better but all he could think was, there goes spring break. Robin shook the hand off.
“Those guys are getting away,” he muttered, scuffing his boot against the wet roof. His body betrayed him and he shuddered in the sleet and wished for just a moment he could crawl back underneath the black cape and just soak in body heat through the armor. It was like a little tent with it’s own furnace.
“I’ll take care of them. Go home.” Batman stepped around him and hesitated on the edge of the roof, grappling hook in hand. He turned, just his head, and asked, “Unless you need me to take you?”
“No,” Robin spat out. “I’ll be fine.”
And then Batman was gone.
Robin turned toward home, sour resentment at the entire world curling in his gut. He knew he was going to listen, he knew he was going to go home, but he was mad at everything ever. The idea of later facing Batman’s disappointment and being grounded from patrol for probably like, until he was thirty or something, was enough of a deterrent to keep him from disobeying, but that didn’t mean he had to be happy about it.
And if Batman was sending him home because he was sick, and he was sick because of germs, and the world had germs, then the whole world was fucking stupid and could just go to hell.
If he’d had more energy and if he’d been walking on the sidewalk, he probably would have stomped a bit as he went just to expend some of the fury. But he was swinging from rooftop to rooftop and hard landings pushed him to the verge of tears.
Robin had made it a dozen blocks before he heard the screaming.
It was high and shrill, amplified by the chorus of joined voices.
Then, he saw the curl of black smoke pouring up from the crumbling building just to his left. He skidded to a stop and peered through the slushy gray weather at it, the sleet aglow with a sickly yellow haze from the aging streetlamps. Three kids, little kids, were in front of the building shrieking.
It didn’t look like an apartment building, not even by Robin’s own Gotham-ingrained lax standards about what could be an apartment building. It looked like one of those condemned places that sat waiting for someone to buy it just for the land and tear it down. In a neighborhood like this, that meant it was hardly worth the cost of demolition.
This one was going for free.
Flames were beginning to lick out of the windows toward the cloudy sky. One of the kids on the sidewalk was pretty much hysterical at this point. Robin didn’t think twice about grappling down into the alley and sprinting toward them. He did, at least, switch his comm off mute to call for help-- just in time to hear Batman giving Alfred a terse update about being headed toward a multiple-weapon hostage situation on the eastern banks.
Robin muted his comm again. He could handle calming a few kids while the fire department headed over. He’d go home right after.
One of the kids was screaming a name.
Oh shit, he thought, looking up at the building. He knew, he felt like he’d have known sooner if his head wasn’t so muddled. The place was probably full of squatters, and if it wasn’t junkies it’d be kids. Just kids looking for a warm place like he’d done more times than he wanted to remember.
“How many?” he demanded, whirling the tallest of the three kids to face him. Wide, startled eyes looked at him in his suit, in his mask, and the kid stuttered for a minute before getting out,
“Seven. Seven of us. Chelsea told us to stay here.”
He couldn’t have been more than eight or nine.
Robin flew into the building, cape tugged over his face to ward off the smoke, and he started hunting. The first floor was wide and open, dark with lots of old counters. Maybe a store once. He called out a few times, “Anybody here? It’s Robin. I’m just here to help.” There was no answer, so he ran for the stairs.
The roar and heat overhead were immense as he hit the second story. Here, the smoke was thicker and he wouldn’t have found anyone if there hadn’t been crying. He went toward the sound, hunting the abandoned shelving and glad it hadn’t been a bunch of smaller rooms and aware in the back of his mind that maybe, just maybe he should be terrified about the ceiling ahead crashing down on him and dragging him into a steel beam and old wood inferno.
A small girl was hiding under a table and he picked her up without warning. She kicked and tried to bite him but he didn’t have time to wait for her to be calm. “I’m Robin,” he said, about five times in a row, while taking the stairs by threes all the way down. “I’m helping. It’s okay.”
They got to the front door and maybe she’d heard him or maybe the yellow cape registered, because she stopped struggling and let him practically throw her at the kids on the sidewalk. Another was with them now, his skin and hair covered in soot, so that left two. Two more.
Jason could find two more.
He sprinted up the stairs, ignoring the pounding in his head and tightness in his chest, and came out on the third and final floor. It was an old, old building and the flames were consuming the wood underneath with crackling, rapid hunger. The third floor looked like hell. There was red and yellow and white everywhere, all of it so hot he felt like he was melting, and smoke so thick he couldn’t see through it.
He started yelling.
After the first few attempts, he stopped and listened. The fire was so loud and he kept pushing further and further into the building, away from the stairwell. A faint, “Help!” came back through the chaos and he zeroed in on it.
He found them hiding behind a warping closet door, a girl not much younger than him and a much smaller boy who was weeping without tears, his face dry. She was struggling to pick him up and shield him at the same time. And when she saw him, saw Robin standing there, she burst into her own tears and Robin scooped the stubborn, terrified kid up and the girl clung to his arm.
“Downstairs,” he yelled. “Hurry!”
Ominous creaking sounded throughout the building and he didn’t have to urge her to run. She ran and he followed, the little kid plastered against his chest. They exploded out of the building just as there was a deafening crack and a blast of heat as the roof caved in. Sparks spilled out in the air above them like fireworks, doused by the sleet seconds later and before they could drift down. A small crowd was pooling on the opposite sidewalk and Robin didn’t slow down near the first knot of kids.
“Keep going!” he ordered in a rasping bellow. “Get back!”
In the distance, sirens were screaming and drawing closer.
“Was that everyone?” he asked, when they were half a block away and the girl reached out to take the kid from his arms.
“Yeah, yeah,” she nodded, her voice trembling. “Thanks. We gotta get out of here or…”
She trailed off but he knew.
His throat stung and everything hurt and the heat from the fire was already dissipating, leaving him freezing and drenched. He remembered, ducking in and out of what was to him safe, warm places-- out of the wind, away from leering eyes-- to dodge weather and social services. Falling asleep with a fever and waking himself up, dragging himself to the next place because staying put for too long was a death sentence.
“There’s a clinic,” he said hoarsely. “It’s not far from here. You know it?”
“It’s closed,” the girl said. “We’ll find somewhere.”
Robin looked over the little group. The sirens were getting closer and the girl looked like she was going to bolt any second. He knew they could find somewhere, tomorrow if not now, for a few days. They’d walk until then. They’d walk in the sleet and maybe half of them would be dead within the year.
“Chelsea?” he guessed. She nodded, a suspicious glint in her eyes. She and the others were edging out of the spread of the street lamp on instinct. He didn’t step forward to follow them. “Dr. Thompkins will let you in. I promise. It’ll be a warm place for tonight.”
If the littlest one, in Chelsea’s arms, hadn’t started coughing, Robin was pretty sure they would have refused. But the girl looked at the kid-- the baby, really-- she was holding, and then said in a quiet voice, “Will she help? If the smoke hurt him?”
“Yeah,” Robin promised. “Really. I’ll take you.”
It was ten blocks. Not far at all, not really. But one block in, he ended up with a coughing, crying kid on his back. Two blocks and they’d barely spoken at all, any of them, and he was glad he’d been able to help them and swearing at himself for not just staying home all night. The adrenaline was fading and everything hurt again. The wind bit at him, unforgiving.
He kept going. He wanted home. He wanted bed. He wanted to go knowing that these kids would have somewhere just for a night at least. One foot in front of the other, one foot and then another. He coughed. He coughed again.
It’s just smoke, he lied to himself. That’s all. Keep moving.
By the time they reached the clinic back door, it was sheer willpower that kept him from falling against it. He pounded instead, each knock sending a shockwave down his tired arm. The kid on his back slipped off. After a minute of pounding, he could hear Leslie Thompkins approaching.
She opened the door and he stepped aside so she could see the group behind him.
“Fire,” he said. “They need a place.”
Dr. Thompkins was about as good as Batman was at not showing surprise. She ushered them inside but Robin didn’t budge. “You coming?” she asked, hand on the door.
“B’s waiting,” he said. “I’m good.”
And then he took off again.
The trip home took way longer than it should have. He stopped to rest a few times, under roof awnings or billboards. He kept needing to catch his breath, to give his arm a break before he hung his weight from it again. And it was never a real break, not one where he could relax. He had to stay alert and awake and start moving again before the chill really settled in.
It was over an hour later that he stumbled down the long entrance to the Cave, relief flooding him that he was almostthere, he was so close to–
Shit, he thought, stopping dead in his tracks. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.
The Batmobile was there. It was parked, right where it always was when Batman drove it back.
“Where the hell have you been?” the deep voice demanded from across the Cave, when he staggered to a stop by the car. Robin swallowed and turned to face him, his excuse already on the tip of his tongue. Batman-- no, Bruce-- was standing near the medbay table with his cowl off, Alfred quiet and not far from him and with open worry on his usually calm countenance.
“I…” Jason started, peeling off his domino. He stretched and twisted it in his hands. On a good day, maybe he’d shout, but he didn’t have the energy.
“Jay,” Bruce said, his whole tone changed in the seconds Jason had looked away. “What happened?”
The fire. The smoke. Jason put a gloved hand up to his head, remembering suddenly that he probably looked just as bad as those kids. He’d left them to Leslie with skin blackened with the smoke and bright red from heat where the soot hadn’t settled.
“There…”
“I told you to come straight home,” Bruce said, as hard and cold as the wind all the long way back to the Cave.
Jason was way too old for this kind of crap, but he burst into tears and sank to the floor next to the car. He cried harder when Bruce materialized in front of him, crouching and stretching out a hand but not putting it on his shoulder or hair.
“There was a fire,” Jason gasped, trying to rein himself in. He couldn’t. “Some kids. And then they needed somewhere to go and I…I…I wanted to do what you said, but they needed help.”
“Jay-lad,” Bruce said, the hand finally settling on Jason’s shoulder. “You should have raised me on the comm. But I’m glad you’re alright. You need some medicine, and some sleep.”
“They were gonna be cold,” Jason said, his breath hitching in his sore throat. “They were gonna be sick and cold and out there alone. And nobody’d take care of them or make sure they had food, even when they felt like shit, and they’d be scared it was finally gonna kill them.”
He wasn’t sure he was talking about the kids anymore, except, he knew he was. He just wasn’t talking only about the kids anymore.
He’d been a kid.
Wordlessly, Bruce lifted him off the hard cave floor and carried him like he was a baby all the way over toward the stairs up into the Manor.
“Sir,” Alfred’s voice followed them. “I’m loath to interrupt, but I really think I ought to look at that wound before you venture upstairs. I can accompany Master Jason if you wish.”
“Wound?” Jason sobbed, twisting until Bruce almost dropped him. “What wound?”
“It’s nothing, Jay. It’s not a big deal,” Bruce said, readjusting his weight so Jason didn’t fall straight to the floor. “I’ll come back down, Al.”
“No,” Jason said, sniffling and pushing against the Bat Symbol on Bruce’s armored chest. “I can wait. I can go up myself. I’m not just a kid. Go sit down.”
With a sharp frown, Bruce lowered him to the ground and then limped back to the medbay.
“As your evening’s activities have been cut short,” Alfred said, pulling a chair over for Jason. Jason sank into it gratefully and began peeling off the soaked Robin suit. “I recommend removing your suit so I can treat the injury and send the both of you to sleep.”
Bruce grumbled about as much as Jason wanted to. Jason pulled his legs up on the chair and wrapped his arms around his knees and watched as Alfred applied antiseptic to both sides of what looked like a straight-through gunshot wound. Bruce hissed once but didn’t complain otherwise and at some point, Jason was handed a cup of measured medicine and a cup of water.
“Cold medicine, Master Jason,” Alfred said, and since it was Alfred, Jason swallowed it. There was a light tousle of his hair when he returned the empty medicine cup and at some point after that, he must have fallen asleep in the chair.
The next thing he knew, Bruce was wrapping a blanket around his shoulders and lifting him off the chair.
“M’too big,” Jason grumbled without lifting his head. “And you’re injured.”
“Shh,” Bruce said, to the lift and fall of footsteps climbing stairs. “I called Leslie,” he said, as they slipped into the dark Manor. “She updated me. They’re all fine.”
“Good,” Jason nodded, letting his eyes drift shut again.
“Good work tonight, Robin,” Bruce added, when they reached the flight of stairs up to the bedrooms. “We’ll both take tomorrow night off.”
The bedroom was everything Jason had wanted all night, all day, really. It was dark and warm and dry and his bed was so comfortable when he crawled beneath the covers.
“Night, Bruce,” he mumbled from where he was half-buried in his pillow.
“Good night, Jason,” Bruce replied, silhouetted by the hallway light with his hand on the doorknob. He was there for long enough that Jason didn’t fall asleep as fast as he wanted, waiting, because it seemed like Bruce maybe had more to say. “Jay,” he finally said, when Jason had just about given up on him talking before sleep won. “You know…you know we’ll take care of you, right? You don’t have to hide being sick just to survive. Anymore.”
And that pulled Jason back out of his sleepy haze, to stare at Bruce across the long bedroom. The gaze that met his was determined, even if his posture looked all uncomfortable and embarrassed.
“I wanted to patrol with you,” Jason said. “I like what we do.”
“Okay,” Bruce said. “If you’re sure that’s all it was.”
“That’s all,” Jason said with a fierce nod and then a yawn that made his throat sting.
“Get some sleep, Jay,” Bruce said, relaxing. He crossed the threshold from door to bed and straightened the covers again, a little too roughly like he was way out of practice at that sort of thing. He leaned, paused, and then leaned quickly and kissed Jason’s forehead. He was almost out of the room again before Jason’s brain processed what had happened, like a movie trying to get started after getting stuck on a scratch or smudge.
“Night, Pops,” he said with a grin, snuggling into the blankets.
The door closed softly with a faint click.
Being sick kind of sucked, but he had saved some kids. He was a good Robin, Bruce had as much as said so, and maybe he could be a good son, too. He wasn’t in trouble, he wasn’t freezing under a bridge somewhere, and he felt better knowing those other kids were with Leslie for at least the night.
Spring break suddenly didn’t feel like it was as quite as bad as he’d thought.