Chapter Text
Jason’s lungs seized as he struggled to draw in a breath, blood filling them up as he coughed and wheezed trying to empty them. Hands grasping at the bone protruding from his thigh. His eyes prickled with tears, his entire body aching and bruised.
He doesn’t know where he is, his eyesight blurry as he tried to blink the black spots appearing at the corners of his view away, causing the tears that were gathering in his eyes to make their way down his face. He groaned loudly as he tried to sit up and not lay vulnerable on the wooden floor of the completely new house -or is it an apartment? He can’t see or think that well right now-.
He gasped as he pushed himself up , his back now against the wall instead of him laying on the brown carpet in the middle of the room. He breathed in hard and deep, clutching at the batarang stuck in his ribs, a desperate and almost hysterical laugh leaving him at the situation, can’t use force like this against the rouges of Gotham but against an irredeemable monster wearing the face of his dead son it isn’t that hard huh?.
suddenly he is fighting to hold back a sob, furious with himself at his weakness as the mere effort he had used to hold the pathetic sound back caused rippling pain to travel up his back, courtesy of nightwing and the escrima stick he slammed against his back - Was he hoping to cripple him? Jason thinks so since they weren’t holding back- while he was down and unable to fight back, not that he was trying to fight back while trying to explain he was innocent of what they were accusing him of.
Between the smoke and ash in the air and the fire still raging a few feet away, the wailing of the people still stuck in the rubble, my people, crime alley people who trusted me to get them out of there. Jason didn’t know what he was supposed to be focused on as his family’s fists dove down at him.
was he ever even considered family? After he came back wrong? Maybe it was just wishful thinking of a stupid teenager too far gone to see things as they are. Of course someone like him wouldn’t be taken back with open arms, not after what he did.
not after his scheme to take down the joker
not after he hurt their precious new robin, Tim (at that time at least, since he was quickly replaced when Bruce’s shiny new boy came home)
not when he killed, executed, butchered, massacred criminals (no matter how much he believed they deserved it)
what made him think he will ever be worth giving another chance, maybe it was seeing how happy the others were at the rare times Alfred invited him over for family dinners during the very shaky truce he had with the bats, the simple and easy routine they have between them at the dinner table, dick passing Tim the salt before he even had to ask, Bruce ruffling Damian’s hair as the other pushed his hand away with a scoff despite the slight red dusting his cheeks.
the same little boy with green eyes who drove his whole weight at Jason’s knee shattering it.
he was stupid oh so stupid to think, to imagine he would someday earn a place in a routine like this, when they didn’t feel like they had to invite him out of obligation but simply because they wanted to. And at that thought the dam broke, his sobs ringing out muffled by the blood coughed from his lungs as he struggled to even cry properly.
then the quick click of a gun and the feeling of cold steel on his forehead had him freeze and quiet down, his body tense as he stared at the bare feet of a man standing in front of him.
”who the hell are you? And what are you doing in my house?” The man asked his voice gravelly and deathly calm, Jason let his eyes trail up to meet the icy blue of a man with shoulder length hair, the same pitch black color as his, his eyes quickly noting the steel arm - is it armor? Maybe flesh covered by steel?-. When Jason tried to reach for his own gun he was met with an empty space in his gun Holster, right, he thought as he recalled it being taken from him during the one sided fight with the big bat.
“I’m running out of patience” the man practically growled the sound so similar to a particular person that Jason shrunk into himself, cursing himself out in his own head at showing weakness even in this type of situation, though despite that his knees drew to his chest blood running down his face from a cut on his forehead -his helmet still discarded on the rooftop when he was confronted before he fell through the black hole, portal? Jason was in too much pain to think-.
the lamp light in the other corner of the room was flicked on and Jason flinched now that he was visible instead of protected by the darkness that shrouded the apartment when he first dropped into it, his eyes flying to a blond man, his build big and tall -probably bigger than even Bru- Batman himself-, he had no time to think of how bad of a move it was to remove his eyes from the man who held a gun to his face but fuck it, if he was going to die anyway what is the point, he didn’t see a way out of this, not while he was practically bleeding out on their floor, it wouldn’t take much longer now for him to stop being able to function due to blood loss.
would they bury me again when they find out im dead? In the same place they did before or would I be put in an unmarked grave somewhere?
maybe they wouldn’t even bother at all, I know I wouldn’t if I was them.
the gun held to his forehead was pushed back as the blond man now was standing between Jason and the man with the metal arm, when did he get between us? Jason wondered, his eyes now half lidded, he felt tired.
“…-just a boy!”
“…know that-…look at-“
“Call Bruce-…”
Jason felt fear crawl up his frame, as he spluttered blood out of his mouth struggling to speak “no-“ he barely was able to say before his throat clogged up black spots painting his vision, two shadowy frames filling whatever he can see, hands now on him and all he felt was pain and fire where they touched him, he flailed -or at least tried to-, kicking and waving his arm around trying to throw a punch, his wrist caught by one of the figures, the touch cold, as he slowly sunk into unconsciousness, last thing registering was someone pressing down and applying pressure to the gaping wound on his side where the batarang is still buried.
Hopefully this time he’ll die for good and not come back to ruin anything else.