Chapter Text
In the end, as is the case with so many of the other shitty things that’ve happened to Jason in his short life, it’s his own damn fault. He’s been reluctantly working with the Bats for just shy of three months now, reluctantly… beginning to see a future for himself, with them or otherwise, and with their added caseload on top of his own, he hasn’t had the chance to take apart the numerous bits of hardware in his equipment designed to either kill him or his assailant should a fight ever go irrevocably downhill – with the exception of the dead-man-switch bomb that Bruce had forced him to remove from his helmet.
So if Jason forgot to build a fail-safe into the hood in case it’s ever hit with an EMP? Well, you can’t blame a guy, really.
Well, he knows someone who’ll be quick to blame him, but that someone isn’t on this mission, and is therefore future Jason’s problem.
He’s the closest to the thing, seconds away from disarming the spinning, glowing, purple mess of technology, Tim hovering a bit behind him, commenting unhelpfully on Jason’s inefficient Jason’s hacking skills, and Dick a few feet further back, kicking some leftover goon’s face in, when the pulse goes off, slamming into Jason’s chest and sending him flying backwards through the air – not just an EMP, then, but a concussive device as well – and Jason really should’ve just let Tim take over, pride be damned. There’s a flash of yellow and red in his periphery and the crunch of wood as Tim presumably lands somewhere to his left, and then Jason hits the concrete floor of the warehouse hard, the back of his head bouncing off it with a sharp crack. Jason groans.
The diagrams on his HUD flicker and die, the eerie green of his night vision fading away and leaving him in complete darkness. He slowly pushes himself up to his elbows, and then sits up fully, assessing himself for injuries as he goes. The back of his head’s throbbing – unsurprisingly – and he’s got a few scrapes and bruises, but overall it’s nothing major… his armor absorbed most of the force of the blow and the impact. He’s pretty sure even his ribs made it out alright, which is a small miracle in itself.
Satisfied, he leverages himself onto his knees and then gets to his feet; he’ll be damned if some henchman catches him off guard. He stands there for one, long moment before the disorientation wears off enough to realize that he’s not only blind, but deaf, too. The last time he’d had the helmet on without the HUD active was when it was in its early testing stages, and since then he’s added additional padding to protect his hearing from gunshots, so the world is heavily muffled to him at best – and completely gone to him at worst.
And since when has Jason ever pulled the best case scenario straw?
Jason clamps down on the panic bubbling at the base of his sternum with a practiced hand and exhales all of his air, intending to settle into a meditative breathing pattern that should help him focus more on his other senses, except-
His breath comes out hot and humid, clouding the space around his mouth and nose and reflecting back on his cheeks, causing his skin to prickle uncomfortably. And when he inhales, it doesn’t quite fill his lungs, the air stale and wet.
It’s recycled air.
Jason involuntarily jerks in place, wobbling back a step.
He counts down five minutes in his head before he starts trying to break himself out – clings to the meager hope of rescue for those 300 agonizing, too-still seconds as he does his best to breathe shallowly and calmly to preserve his air supply. In the end, all it does is make him weaker, make the digging take longer.
Jason’s heart thunders in his chest. Dirt dribbles down onto his face.
A small hand suddenly grips his elbow and Jason snatches the adjoining wrist, swinging a punch towards what he hopes is his assailant’s face. It misses, so Jason shifts his stance to maintain his balance and rams his knee upwards, driving it into the person’s ribcage. Their chest caves just right under the pressure, and Jason lets go as whoever it is presumably crumples to the ground. He brings his hands up and digs his fingers into the mechanism at the back of his head that should unlock the helmet. It doesn’t budge.
Jason backs up, putting space between himself and whoever he’d just downed. He tries to recall where he is and what he was doing, but the alarm bells ringing in his head are too loud. He’d run, but he’s just as likely to run into more goons than escape them, and he’s no birdie, not anymore. He shifts into a fighting stance, caging his fists in front of his face, and tries once again to slow his breathing; the more he panics, the more he exerts himself, the faster he’ll use up his oxygen. He needs to take down his opponents quickly so he can… so he can do something about his damn helmet suffocating him.
Except, nothing happens. Bullets don’t pound into his armor, no one kicks his legs out from under him – he’d assume he’s alone if it wasn’t for that asshole he’d just knocked to the ground. He stays still for a long moment, and as his breathing calms a bit, he realizes he can hear. Just a little, but it’s something. He tilts his head, latching onto the extremely muffled conversation he’s picking up on and holding his breath as he works to pinpoint what direction it’s coming from. Once he does, he lunges for the closest voice, grappling whoever it is to the ground. Ankles come up and lock behind his head, following the momentum, and Jason twists onto the concrete with a grunt, lashing out with his elbow. It doesn’t connect, but his hand brushes hair and he manages to wind his fingers up in it, locking their head in place so he can wrap an arm around their neck. He squeezes, even as something jams into his side and electricity rockets up his ribcage. He grits his teeth, sucks in a breath-
Except he can’t.
His inhale sputters and dies with a pathetic choking sound, and despite his best efforts, his headlock weakens, and whoever he’s got ahold of squirms out of his grip. Jason’s hands scramble wildly over his belt and holsters, searching for a weapon, but all he can locate are his pistols, and he can’t shoot his guns blindly – he’d risk hitting himself with a ricochet, or, knowing his luck, hit a gas line and blow the whole damn place up, and he’d rather just be killed by whoever these assholes are than die in a warehouse explosion a second time. He hacks around an inhale, and his hands come up to tug at the locking mechanism at the back of his head again – it’s a mechanical lock, not an electrical one, so it should work, but the fall must’ve jammed it in place. His fingers ache as he scrabbles at the metal plating, and-
His fingernails are either split down the middle or gone entirely, splinters embedded into the raw nail beds, and blood runs in dark rivulets down his knuckles and over his palms, racing into the sleeves of the $10,000 suit he’s been buried in.
Metal creaks ominously above him, low-lying smoke creeping over his mouth and nose and filling his lungs. The broken bones in his leg shift and agony ricochets up his body. Flames lick his cheek and his skin blisters, the smell of burning flesh searing his nostrils.
He spits out clumps of dirt and grass, dry heaving as his broken hands scrabble for purchase on the muddy ground. He pushes weakly with his legs, leveraging his chest up and out of the ground as rain pounds down on his back. He sobs breathlessly.
Jason’s hands come around to the front of his armor, tugging at the edge of the chestplate sitting at the base of his neck. Someone grabs his wrist, and he slams his head forwards, knocking the front of his helmet into their face. The hand disappears. Jason stumbles backwards. His lungs compress around an empty gasp and he distantly registers that he can’t feel his feet.
Light suddenly floods the space and Jason fights the instinct to squeeze his eyes shut, grateful for the return of one of his senses and determined to use it to get the upper hand on his opponents, even as his retinas burn in protest. He blinks, and blinks, and sucks uselessly at the carbon dioxide floating around in his helmet. The room in front of him begins to take shape and Dick’s face comes into focus a couple of feet in front of Jason, eyes narrowed behind the domino mask and nose bleeding like a faucet onto his suit. Over his shoulder, Jason can make out Tim standing by the door of the warehouse, one hand still on the light switch and the other wrapped tightly around his stomach.
Shit.
No other opponents, just his brothers. Who he’d injured.
Jason’s chest flutters around another pointless inhale and he can’t hold back the hacking noise that escapes his mouth, knees wobbling as his fingers scrape at the black, skin-tight nylon covering his throat. Dick’s staring at him motionlessly, a slight crease in his brow like he’s not sure what to make of Jason right now, and Jason’s eyes flick over to Tim just as realization clicks on the detective’s face. His eyes widen almost comically behind his mask, and he rushes towards them, nearly careening into Dick’s side as he shouts something Jason can’t quite lip-read through his blurring vision.
Dick’s face goes rigid, and he slides his escrima sticks back into their holders as Tim skids to a stop in front of Jason, reaching up on his tiptoes to claw at the mechanism at the back of Jason’s helmet. He grits his teeth and turns to Dick, letting go of Jason to gesture wildly with his hands, and Jason watches Dick’s face shift through a complicated series of expressions before finally settling into “calming-civilians” mode. He takes Jason’s shoulders and Jason instinctively grips Dick’s wrists as Tim disappears into the background somewhere. Dick pushes gently, guiding Jason to the ground. Jason’s knees hit the concrete.
Which one hurts more? Forehand? Or backhand?
Jason shudders. His chest convulses uselessly and his jaw hangs open, gasping around nonexistent air.
Dick keeps pushing. Jason doesn’t have the energy to fight it, or even question it, so he obediently lowers himself until he’s laying on his side, staring at Dick’s knee. Jason’s trust in anyone is a weak, shuddering thing at best… but if he had to put himself in anyone’s hands, it’d be Dick’s. A small, aching bud of hope quivers to life in his chest, somewhere just under where his lungs are burning at the lack of oxygen. Dick keeps his hand on Jason’s shoulder, leaning down to murmur something into Jason’s ear he can’t hear, and scoots to the side a bit, folding one leg over Jason’s and boxing him in place. Jason’s heartrate picks up as he realizes just how vulnerable this position is.
I can trust Dick. I can trust him. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. He’ll help me. I can trust him.
He glances up at Dick’s face, a small, childish part of him seeking reassurance, but Dick’s looking at something above and… behind Jason.
Jason jerks weakly and Dick just tightens his grip in response. Saliva’s pooling at the side of Jason’s mouth, soaking into the padding of the helmet, and his throat scrapes against itself as he tries to pull in nonexistent air. A muscle ticks in Dick’s jaw; he’s still not looking at Jason. Jason clenches his fists.
I can trust him. I can trust hi-
Something slams into the side of his head.
Jason’s chest convulses with a soundless cry and he whips his face around, dizzy and disoriented, just in time to catch the glint of light off a fucking crowbar before Dick’s forcing his head back to its original position. His grip disappears right before another blow lands.
If Jason had eaten anything today, he’d surely be choking on his own vomit by now.
His head wobbles inside his helmet as the metal bar connects a third time. Jason struggles with what waning energy he has left, kicking out against Dick’s legs, shoving at him with his hands, trying to turn his head to face that fucking crowbar head on ‘cause he’ll be damned if he goes out like this again, but Dick won’t budge, finely-tuned muscles wrapped like steel cables around Jason’s body.
Jason chokes on a sob – he’s just as pathetic and useless now as he was back then.
Laughter, shrill and manic, echoes in his ears.
Tears bead in Jason’s eyes, prickling despite the numbness in his face, and Jason shudders as the crowbar comes down again, and again, and-
Crack.
Jason had kept track, initially… his wrist, his fibula, his skull… but he’d lost count somewhere along the way.
A? Or B?
Jason twitches.
Air hits the side of his face. He can faintly register the soft sound of tiny glass shards plinking against the concrete. Cloth comes next, shoved into the gap between his helmet and his face, covering his eyes.
Then, ripping.
It’s almost worse than the crowbar.
He searches desperately for a catch in the fabric, in the flawless silk sliding softly beneath his fingers. His nails are trimmed neatly, his batarangs stashed in his Robin costume, and he’s running out of air by the second. He surges forwards and opens his mouth, catching the fabric between his teeth and yanking. Dull pain lances through his gums and the silk refuses to tear. He lets out a muffled sob and tries again, throwing his head from side to side and gnashing at the fabric as hard as he can in the confines of the space. Eventually, it gives way – a small hole made by one of his canines – and Jason reaches up, catching his hands in the tear and leveraging his strength to widen the hole. The sound of the fabric ripping is deafening. He reaches through the gap and his fingers meet the smooth, polished wood of the lid of his coffin.
Jason’s head is jostled around as force is applied to his helmet, and he hears it cracking down the middle like he suspects his skull had, all those years ago. There’s a horrible crunch of glass and metal and as the last of the helmet is torn away, the cloth falls from his eyes, and Jason stares straight ahead at the locked door of the warehouse.
He stares, and stares, until someone’s knees block his view, and his face is being tilted upwards.
“Hood? Hood!”
Fingers tap his cheek. Jason’s eyes roll around listlessly in his head.
“C’mon Hood, breathe, dammit.”
Another voice, smaller, weaker, “He should be breathing. Why isn’t he breathing, Nightwing?”
Jason stares up at the roof of the warehouse.
“He’s… frozen, in his head… I think,” someone says. “C’mon Hood, snap out of it.”
There’s a pause. Jason stares.
“Dammit.”
Fire lights up the side of Jason’s face and his head whips to the side. He sucks in a shocked inhale and gasps with the force of it, pushing himself up to his elbows and gulping in air as his chest painfully decompresses and his lungs expand. There’s a blissful, delirious high for a short moment, where Jason nearly passes out from the sheer relief of being able to breathe, before his oxygen-deprived muscles give out and he drops back down to the concrete, cheek slamming into the floor. He moans, closing his eyes.
“Hood? You with us?”
“Fuck you,” Jason rasps, a handful of rough coughs tearing out of his shredded throat at the effort it takes to form the words. He turns his face fully towards the ground, tears dripping into the concrete. They shouldn’t see him like this. “Get away from me.”
There’s a short pause, and then the rustling of fabric as someone sits down next to his head. “I’m sorry,” Tim’s voice whispers, quiet and defeated. “I’m so sorry, Hood.”
“It was the only way,” Dick adds. Jason’s not sure if it’s for his benefit or Tim’s.
I trusted you.
Jason hiccups around a sob. If he could move his arms, he’d cover his face and block them both out. “Just leave me alone.”
Dick places a gentle hand on Jason’s shoulder. “We need to get out of here. You can brood all you want once you’re patched up.”
Jason just stares at Dick’s knees, taking shallow, stuttering breaths. “Fuck,” he grits out, clenching his hands into fists.
Dick rubs his free hand up and down Jason’s back. “I know, Little Wing… I know. Just breathe.”
Jason manages a weak glare. “Easy for you to say,” he whispers, then coughs, and coughs, and coughs, until he’s dizzy simply laying there.
“Nightwing,” Tim cuts in, “We should really get him out of here… those guys will probably start coming to soon.”
Dick nods, and then his hands are maneuvering Jason upright. Agony lances across Jason’s chest and shoulders as Dick sits him up, and his breathing stutters as the memory of his broken collarbone grinding against itself resurfaces. His stomach lurches and he forces himself to swallow, clenching and unclenching his fists in his lap. Dick catches his head from where it’d started to loll backwards and tucks Jason’s face into the crook of his neck.
“Red Robin, help me out… grab what’s left of his helmet and support his other side.”
Jason pants quietly, urgency suddenly picking up in the back of his mind as he’s jostled around.
He swears he can hear ticking.
He opens his mouth to tell Dick, but the feeling of Dick’s legs pinning him in place, his hands on Jason’s wrists as he’d struggled, the force he’d used to shove Jason’s face into the floor, surges to the forefront and locks the warning in his throat. He doesn’t want to risk saying anything that’ll make Dick decide he’s not worth it and leave Jason to bleed out on the concrete.
So Jason stares at the warehouse door, crying quietly into Dick’s suit, and prays they’ll be fast enough to get out before the bomb goes off.
Dick runs a hand through Jason’s sweat-soaked hair, scattering a handful of little glass shards caught in the strands. “You’ll be alright, Little Wing,” he murmurs. “We’re going to get you out of here. I promise. We’ve got you.”
Dick then slips himself under Jason’s left arm and presses himself against Jason from hip to shoulder. Tim does the same on his right. Together, they manage to haul Jason up to semi-standing with no help from him at all; his muscles are virtually completely uncooperative, and he’s so lightheaded it’s a miracle he doesn’t pass out just from the few feet of elevation change. Tim grunts under his weight, but doesn’t comment.
Jason focuses on breathing as his brothers haul him across the floor of the warehouse, his boots scraping obnoxiously against the concrete. They reach the rusted, stained door Jason’s been fixated on this whole time and something unravels in his chest as Dick shifts his weight and reaches out, lifting the latch and swinging the door open. Jason inhales deeply as they drag him outside, relishing in the cool night air on his skin, filling his lungs. Then, his body hits a familiar leather seat, and Jason finally loses his battle with consciousness, eyes sliding shut as he hears the door to the Batmobile slam shut.