Chapter Text
He opens his eyes. He’s still in one piece. The earth is still under his feet. ( He isn’t underneath it.) Jay is still-Jay-
Oh God, Jay
Bruised, bloodied, and barely breathing. He’s trying to phase into his body with what little strength and cognizance he has. There’s blood, so much of it. In a strange, fucked up way. He wishes it was his.
“It’s alright, It’s all right, You’re alright”, He doesn’t know who he’s telling it to. Himself, or the unconscious teen in his arms.
He sucks in a smog-saturated breath and almost chokes on it.
He’s in Gotham, his Gotham.
The world is as decrepit as ever. He’s in a rotten alleyway in the bowels of the Narrows.
Jason holds the kid in his arms. Who’s still feebly trying to claw at his jacket, unsuccessfully. As if reaching for something—
(—someone)
As if the warmth was a tangible thing he could seize.
Jason doesn’t have the heart to pull away. Instead, he adjusts his grip, trying to soften the words that scratch out of his abused throat, "It's alright, kid. You're alright."
Jay sinks into the hold, burying his cold nose into his neck. (He’s cold, so cold).
He’s shivering, his body hasn’t succumbed to the exposure yet, that’s good.
Jason knows these alleyways like the lines on his palm. So he follows the garbage-smeared concrete, rights, lefts, forward. One foot in front of the other. Until he’s standing at the mouth of 15th. The city’s weaved deep enough into his muscles that carry him to his safe house on their own.
(There’s a gap in his mind. It doesn’t matter. The city has carried him home.)
Stealth is a laughable notion right now. He can barely put one foot in front of the other. A kid half his size could stroll up to him and shoot him with his own gun. And he wouldn’t be able to do anything.
But it’s the Narrows. So they won’t.
He carries on.
Whoever sees him gives him a wide berth. Closing their shutters and drawing blinds as he passes, and yet he feels eyes over himself, as he presses his fingertips to the biometric underneath the door’s handle, watching, wary, far too young and too knowing.
So he knows it’s out of a kindness of its own. He knows no one will find his safe house tonight. And that there’ll be food at his doorstep when he wakes up.