Chapter Text
“Jason, stay with me.”
Someone is moving him. He can feel their hands on his neck, at his left wrist. Then someone touches his right wrist, lifts his right arm, and oh god, please god don’t do that he’s going to—
“Sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Jaybird.”
The hands move away from his arm and for a moment, there is no contact. Still, something is rumbling or vibrating beneath him, and it’s just enough to rattle his chest and stop his breath in his throat with the pain that crackles up his spine. He wants to see, wants to understand what is happening and why it feels like someone took one of Alfred’s potato mashers to his ribcage, but it’s difficult to open his eyes. One of them aches fiercely in its socket, part of a chorus of aching bones in his face, but the other flutters open just enough for him to see red.
Red like his mask. Red like his friend.
“Roy,” he whispers, and amid the rumbling, he hears a brief, sharp exhalation of air. Roy’s never this tense.
“Yeah, Jaybird, it’s me. Can you keep your eyes open?”
Jason’s eyes are already closed, but he tries to keep his ears more attuned to the world. Listen, he orders his brain. Know your surroundings. It’s one of the first things he learned as a child in Crime Alley, and all of his years since have only hardened his instincts. Sight is just one of the senses, and losing sight is no reason to lose focus.
The jackhammer pounding away in his head, on the other hand…
He drifts, half conscious and afloat, but not so far gone that he can’t feel the pain of each jolt that shakes his body. He decides at some point that he must be in a car. Batmobile, his mind supplies, remembering the days when a patrol gone sour would end with him curled up next to Bruce in the car, one of Bruce’s hands on his shoulder for comfort. His mind entertains the thought for a short second before reality bites back; it’s a cold comfort that he’s still aware enough to realize the folly of his first instincts.
The car skids to a halt, and Jason can’t restrain a sharp groan as his seatbelt shoves against his chest. He’d bet his whole second life that some of his ribs are broken. The agony threatens to drown out the rest of his awareness, but he yanks himself back to earth just in time for someone to touch him again, more gently this time, but still with enough pressure to scald his nerves. Coming back to earth was a mistake. Coming back to Gotham was a mistake. Coming back to life…
“Jason, Jason, hey buddy.” It’s Roy again. “Jay, do you think you can walk?”
No. “Yes,” he mumbles, and his jaw aches for his effort.
“Doesn’t really matter, I guess,” says Roy, and then his voice softens with a touch of what sounds like pity. “This is probably going to hurt.”
Then Roy yanks him up from the car, and Jason’s sure for a moment that he’s died again. His brain pounds against his skull and white flashes across his blacked-out vision. Had he drowned? Is that why everything filters to his ears as if he were underwater? Figures. The last time he died, it was in a blazing inferno. Why not go out by water the second time around, just to shake things up?
“Jay, Jay, Jaybird, come on, you’ve got this, I know you’ve got this.”
Roy’s voice filters through to him, and it’s almost comical how Roy thinks his words can fix anything right now. Jason can’t really do much of anything right now, much less “get” whatever Roy is asking him to do. His foot scrapes against gravel, and his knee hurts, his hip hurts, but still not as much as his head. His arm dangles in the breeze, and each time it thumps against his body, he descends to a new layer of hell. He’s sure he’s screaming, or worse, whimpering like a small child, but he honestly couldn’t tell. So much for his awareness.
It takes almost all of his remaining reserves, his last grain of hard-won, iron-tested willpower, to open one eye and glimpse a dark, abandoned alley, a small rundown building with weeds and vines clinging to cracked concrete with as much tenacity as Jason is using to maintain his own hold on consciousness. He doesn’t recognize this place, which is odd, because he knows every inch of Gotham, even the places that the sunlight has forgotten. Especially those places.
He closes his eyes again, allows Roy to drag him towards this strange hovel as he halfheartedly twitches his right leg forward in a semblance of walking. His left is too much trouble to even feign an attempt. He feels Roy’s fingers tighten their grip on his side in order to keep him upright, but the pressure hurts. Roy mutters something about Jason being too damn tall and muscled for his own good, and the corner of Jason’s lip twitches. Then Roy stumbles, and Jason pitches forward, and for a moment his world goes black.
He cracks his eye open and sees only shadows looming before him, but he thinks he can just make out the outline of a chair. He blinks again and the world flips, and he knows somehow that he’s no longer upright and then somehow the change in position, in the pull of gravity rams a railroad spike through his eye socket. This time, he hears his scream.
He blinks again, and there’s a soft light overhead, casting Roy’s head in a soft halo. Roy is still talking, never knows how to shut up, but he doesn’t appear to be talking to Jason anymore. Maybe he cracked his head open too, and he’s talking to himself in a fit of delusion. There’s rustling, clattering, and a frantic curse as something topples to the ground. Jason wants to laugh, wants to tell Roy to keep it together because he sure as hell is falling apart. He moves his lips, tastes blood when they crack open, but perseveres past the iron in his mouth and the swelling in his throat. “Roy,” he whispers, hoping his ragged voice can pierce through Roy’s panic. “Roy.”
“Jason,” says Roy, and he spins around on the heel of his foot. His new position exposes more of the light to Jason’s eye, and he has to close it against the fresh wave of pain it incites. He sinks his head back, and realizes he can sink back, that’s he’s lying on something soft. Whatever it is, it smells of must and grime, but those smells are almost a comfort to him. They remind him of nights spent curled next to his mother, before the cancer, before the drugs, before he was old enough to understand that his father was not a good man.
“Jason,” says Roy again. “Jaybird, please stay with me. Please don’t let him get the best of you.”
For a moment, Jason can claim complete blissful ignorance of what Roy is talking about. The wave of realization, when it comes, knocks him back as hard as any one of Bruce’s fists, puts a halt to his breathing with just as much precision as any of those gut punches that seemed to temporarily paralyze his diaphragm. He’s not sure if he’s breathing, not sure if the damage is physical, because for all he knows, something has shifted inside his broken chest. Regardless of the cause, the effect is physical, and Roy is shouting at him, pleading with him to breathe, damnit, just breathe.
After a minute, two minutes—he couldn’t tell you how long—he releases his breath. There’s a sharper ache at his side now, more acute, and he struggles to lift his left hand across his body to tamp it down. When he gets there, his fingers land on cloth and skin that is wet and warm.
“Roy,” he says, and there’s no use holding back now, because this might be the last thing he ever says. It definitely will be if he can’t alert Roy to the issue at hand. “Roy, I think I—
His fingers land on something that is sharp and jagged and exposed, and finally, finally, the searing across his chest puts him out for good.
Roy watches in horror as his best friend’s body falls slack across the old mattress. He’s not sure if it’s just the dim lighting in his ratty, poorly kept safehouse, but for a long, long moment, he thinks that Jason looks dead.
Then Jason’s chest moves in a slow, stuttering fashion, but it moves nonetheless and Roy thanks every god of every religion in the galaxy for this second chance.
It’s a second chance that’s quietly ticking away, just like the first time Jason died. Roy knew from the moment he saw Jason that this case was so far out of his league, even Kori would have trouble reaching it, flight power and all. If Jason were an animatronic or a robot or anything not made of flesh and blood, then Roy would be able to fix him in a heartbeat. As it is, he’s always been terrible with anything beyond the most basic first aid. Stop wounds from bleeding. Set broken bones, clean everything to prevent infection. This, he knows. He doesn’t not know what to do if he’s afraid that stopping the bleeding might just stop Jason’s lungs from working. Beneath the gash on Jason’s side lies the exposed bone of a rib that is certainly broken, and he’s just not sure what he can do that won’t kill his best friend.
Gulping, he focuses on what he can do. He’d called an old, old friend the moment he’d been able to lay Jason down on the mattress. Friend might be a strong word—she was primarily Ollie’s friend, but she knew him through his time as Oliver’s sidekick, however ill-fated it was. He wasn’t even sure if she would pick up, but once she did, he made sure to express the true depths of his desperation to her, begging her to come save his friend’s life, if not for him, then for simple human decency. He knows she’s on her way now, but until then, the most he can do is triage.
ABC, he thinks. Airway, breathing, circulation. Bruising lines Jason’s throat, a gift from Batman’s chokehold. It’s not the primary concern. Jason still breathes, but it’s not without effort and pain. He’s not sure how much longer it will last. Circulation—circulation maybe he can help. He can’t press against the wound on his side, but the wound on his head is still bleeding freely across his scalp, drenching his gray streak a morbid crimson. It almost hides how hideously bruised his face is, almost hides how the swelling around his eye threatens to engulf it entirely. Almost.
He knows head wounds bleed a lot, so he takes a towel from the safehouse bathroom and presses down hard against Jason’s temple. The lines of pain around Jason’s face deepen, but he does not awaken, and Roy’s not sure if he’s grateful or terrified. Probably both.
He settles in for a period of restless waiting. The safehouse he picked lies on the outskirts of Gotham, just beyond the usual territory of Batman’s patrol. He’d picked for its balance between distance from the scene of the crime and its proximity to medical help. If he’d ventured further, he’s not so sure Jason would have survived the trip. Unfortunately, Gotham wasn’t his home the way it was for Jason, and his options for location were limited. He hadn’t visited this location in months, not since he, Jason and Kory all made a stop in Gotham along their journey. His first aid kit looks woefully insufficient in the face of Jason’s needs. Dust coats the sparsely furnished room, and Jason occupies the only bed.
He checks Jason’s pulse every few minutes and listens as labored breath after labored breath emerges from Jason’s mouth. The wound on his side continues to bleed. A puddle now sits just beneath the bed.
When the door cracks open, Roy’s far closer to tears than he’s been in a long, long time. Not since rehab. Olivia Olsen surveys the room—the musty air, the grime, Roy’s desperation—and whistles. “What the hell have you gotten yourself into, Speedy?”
He can’t even bother to flinch at the nickname. She hasn’t changed one bit in personality, even if her hair is grayer and her wrinkles a little deeper in her pale face. “My friend, he—he’s in bad shape. Really bad.”
“You don’t say,” she says. Roy doesn’t reply. Instead, he pivots his body to allow greater access to the man beneath him. Olivia walks briskly towards them and settles her stuffed medical bag on the floor next to the bed. She takes an assessment of Jason’s state, checking the ABCs that Roy had already done, but also palpating along his chest and head. When she grimaces, Roy’s heart jumps.
“This man needs a hospital,” she says grimly.
Roy shakes his head. “Too risky.”
She snaps her bag open. “It’s not a question of risk. If he doesn’t get properly treated, he could die.”
“Can’t you just—
She cuts him off. “Unless you have an x-ray machine, a CAT scan and an operating room, then no. I’m not a stranger to field surgery, but I do not have the equipment here that I need. Based on my initial assessment, there’s a decent chance of a skull fracture and potential brain swelling. His orbital bone is fractured badly, and if it’s not handled well, he could lose his eye. Not to mention everything else below his head”
Roy wishes that Bruce fucking Wayne could be in this room right now, if only so he could see what he’d done to his son. And so Roy could punch his teeth out.
As if sensing his distress, Olivia softens her approach, but the same steel lies beneath her words. “I have a friend at a smaller hospital, community, local. It’s close enough to here. Once we’re there, I promise I will lead his treatment and use whatever name you need me to use. But if you do not let me do this, then I cannot help your friend.”
In the end, what choice does Roy really have?
“Fine,” he says. “Fine, but we need to hurry.”
“I’m going to stabilize him as best as I can first,” she says, then rifles through her jacket pocket and emerges with something metallic. “You get the car started. I’ll need you to drive, and I’ll need your help transporting him there.”
Roy doesn’t hesitate. He snatches the key and sprints outside the building. Olivia’s car sits just next to the old clunker he’d hotwired in his haste to get the hell out of dodge. It’s a little larger than the stolen vehicle but far from the ambulance that Jason realistically needs. He has the engine running in a few seconds, and then he busies himself spreading out a blanket on the back and removing clutter from the floor.
When he returns inside the safehouse, Olivia is working efficiently to prepare Jason for transport. He already has bandages on his chest and head and a splint on his arm. He watches as she ties a makeshift sling around his neck and carefully settles his arm in the fabric. Then she looks up at him like she’d felt his gaze on her while she worked. “You’ll need to carry him.”
He nods in silent assent and reaches down for his friend. His hands slip gently beneath Jason’s back and knees, and in one smooth motion, Jason is contained in his arms. Jason stirs a little at the movement, his one eye twitching, but he remains unconscious. Roy carries him all the way to the car, where he settles him in the back next to Olivia.
“I gave him a very mild sedative,” says Olivia. “No need for him to move around on the ride over.”
Roy guns it down the street. If Olivia objects to the handling of her car, she remains silent. Instead, she speaks only to instruct Roy on where to turn or to mutter something to herself as she monitors Jason’s condition. The drive takes all of twenty minutes, shorter than the ride from the rooftop to the safehouse, but it feels longer. When he finally pulls into the entrance of the hospital, the sight of it offers little comfort. Smoke and age have stained and darkened its brick exterior, and several of the lights on the “emergency room” sign flicker. This late at night, the hospital is abandoned except for those most desperate for help. People like them.
He doesn’t even wait for any of Olivia’s instructions. He picks up Jason’s limp body from the backseat of the car, grunting beneath his weight, and half runs to the sliding doors of the ER.
“Help!” he says. “I need help!”
A combination of his frantic tone and the blood still coating Jason’s face and side grab the attention of the triage nurse. He directs him to one of the beds at the side, and he proceeds on instinct.
Olivia’s hand at his shoulder stops him in his path. “I need Dr. Zedecke right now,” she tells the nurse firmly.
“Dr. Zedecke is—
“Tell her Dr. Olivia Olsen is here, and she’ll come.” She straightens her spine. “If she doesn’t, then we’ll talk.”
The nurse eyes her skeptically, but ultimately acquiesces. She returns to her booth to page Dr. Zedecke as Oliva guides Roy towards one of the back-corner beds.
“Keep it together, Speedy,” she mutters underneath her breath to him. “You’re better than this. Just follow my lead.”
Once Roy sets Jason on the bed, Olivia turns to action. She uses scissors to cut apart the sling and then moves on to his shirt. Finding the fabric of Jason’s body armor resistant to her scissors, she takes a knife from her medical kit and slices open his shirt first vertically, then once more horizontally through his sleeves until she can lift the pieces of shirt away and expose his chest.
Roy gasps. Bruises mottle Jason’s entire torso, creating a horrific rainbow across his skin. Blood has already seeped through the bandage on his right side, but there are other smaller cuts and scrapes across his body, almost like an awful case of road rash. The bruising extends up past his chest and over to his right shoulder, which Roy can now see is displaced from its joint. Based on the swelling, he doesn’t even want to begin to imagine what other damage lies beneath. When Olivia moves down to his legs, cutting away his pants as she had done with his shirt, Roy feels almost ill. Something is wrong with Jason’s hip—the joint is deformed—and his knee is already threatening to rival his shoulder in swelling.
He knows Jason’s been hurt before—they all have—but this, this feels personal. Batman knew what he was doing when beat Jason. He decided exactly how much pain to inflict on his son.
The sound of a curtain drawing back tears him from his thoughts.
“Olivia? What on earth are you doing here?”
Roy spins around to see a woman who he assumes is Dr. Zedecke, and his surprise almost makes him forget his desperation for a moment. She’s young, barely older than Jason in all likelihood, and nearly as tall. Her locks are knotted in a twist above her head, only adding to her height. She also speaks with a British accent, something Roy would never have expected in a place like this in Gotham. You only came here if you were born here, tied to the city like Jason always would be.
“Lenore,” says Olivia, brushing past Roy to greet her friend with a brief handclasp. “Lenore, I need your help with one of my friends. He’s…it’s similar to what you did with Oliver Queen last year.”
Lenore’s jaw opens in mild shock, but much to Roy’s admiration, she regroups herself quickly enough. She nods stiffly and takes her place at Jason’s bedside.
“I need only people you trust here,” continues Olivia. “I can help too, but no one comes near this man that you don’t know, okay? And we need to make sure he ends up in a private room with his records altered. I’ll bring in my own people to keep this scheme afloat, but we don’t have time right now.”
Lenore stands and snaps her gloves sharply across her hands as she pulls them on. “You’re right, we don’t. His blood pressure is low and breath sounds on the right are decreased.”
“There’s head trauma too,” adds Olivia. “He’s going to need a CT scan.”
“Bloody hell, Liv, where do you find these people?”
Olivia jerks her chin at Roy with a grimace. “They just seem to find me.”
Lenore eyes him carefully, and he can feel her gaze sweeping over his body from head to toe. She’s sizing him up like he would size up any adversary. He holds his ground.
“Fine,” Lenore says at last. “Get him on a gurney and I’ll get a team to x-ray and have another one on standby at the operating room. You’re staying with him and me at all times—I don’t know what he’s involved in, but if someone starts asking questions, I will not be the one answering them.’
“Have I ever let you down?”
Lenore’s mouth twitches in an almost-smile. “The normal rules don’t apply here.”
Lenore leaves them at brisk pace, and before Roy’s aware of what’s happening, Olivia has procured a gurney and brought it over to Jason’s bed. Roy just stands there, taking in Jason’s still rising chest, until Olivia clears her throat.
“I’ll need your help transferring him,” she says.
Roy’s cheeks burn—he knows they’re turning red. “Right, of course.”
Together, the two of them lift Jason from the bed to the gurney, easing him down carefully. Olivia checks his pulse and his pupil reactions while Roy gently settles Jason’s arm across his chest, mindful of the fingers which are now swelling and bruising as much as the rest of him. Jason frowns and for a moment, Roy thinks he’s going to wake up, but the moment passes and leaves him just as quiet and vulnerable and un-Jason as before. He hates the blood drying brown across Jason’s white streak, so he takes a lock in his hand and tucks it away from view.
“He must mean a lot to you.”
Olivia’s words startle him back into the present. “He’s my best friend.”
Even after everything that happened to them, the way everything ended, that has never stopped being true. Jason is the one person he trusts completely, and he thinks—hopes—Jason returns the favor.
Olivia nods. “What’s his name?”
Roy only has to think for a second. “Jason Peters.”
“Is any of that real?”
Roy hesitates, but finally decides to answer. “His first name is.”
“Good. Now I know what he’ll respond to.” Olivia pauses at the sound of someone calling her name. “That’s my cue. I’ll let you know when we’re done. Fair warning, it might take a while. Maybe use the time to catch up with another friend?”
And with that, she’s gone behind the doors, Jason in tow, leaving Roy utterly alone in this fluorescent hellscape of a hospital. He resigns himself to a long night of waiting in a shitty chair where even the air reeks of bleach and neglect.
Catch up with another friend. He huffs out a sad laugh. The only friend Olivia knows is Oliver, and maybe she thinks that now would be a good time for him to rekindle their connection. Whatever Oliver told her, it must have softened the story, because she didn’t seem to understand how final their severance was. The suggestion does give him another idea, though. Another old “friend” whose bridge is, if not burnt, then smoldering. Someone who might be the only person that he knows still cares about Jason as much as he does, even if their relationship carried as many painful memories as fond ones.
Roy pulls out his phone and calls Dick Grayson.