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Jason grinds his teeth together, hard enough that it almost balances out the pain searing across his shoulder blade. But the pain keeps building, the tugging in his muscle making it throb so much worse and eventually, the grit of his teeth stops helping.
“Fuck sakes, Harper.” Jason’s fists clench tight, and the impulse is to move away from the burn. He flinches, and the noise Roy makes is filled with distress, but Jason can’t help it.
“‘on’t.” Roy manages to say around whatever it is that he has wedged between his teeth. Jason’s eyes squeeze shut, and he’s sure he can feel the girt of glass against bone and he’s almost tempted to reach back and just dig his fingers into his flesh and rip it from his body that way.
But before he can move again, the piece comes free, and Roy’s exhaling a loud breath as he drops it into the basin with the other pieces. “Fucking pull that shit again and I’ll leave it in you.”
“Didn’t have to take so long with it.” Jason grunts, his face still twisted in pain, especially when Roy starts dabbing at the wound with alcohol, feeling the now diluted blood trickle down his back faster, Roy’s hand chasing it to clean it up.
“You wanna see how fucking big that piece was? I’d rather get it out all at once than have it snapping off and have to dig the piece out.” Roy huffs, and Jason can almost see him shaking his head. Jason takes in a slow breath, trying to keep himself relaxed, trying not to focus on the pain still burning in his shoulder.
“Would have killed you to have a steadier hand?” Jason snuffles, tipping his head back as he takes in slow breaths.
“Doesn’t help when you’re moving.” Roy sighs as he presses his hand firmly against the gash. “If you want to keep complaining, I’ll leave you to stitch yourself up.”
And Jason’s pretty good at taking care of his own injuries, they both know he’s stitched himself up a decent number of times, but they both also know that Jason won’t be able to reach this one easily. He grunts and bows his head again. “Way to blame the victim.”
“No one else threw you out that fucking window,” Roy mutters. And he’s right, Jason made a split-second choice. Kept him alive, but he’s lucky that he landed on his shoulder, that the glass didn’t somehow end up in his spine or anywhere else.
“If I planned on being there, I would have had armour on, and we wouldn’t be here.” Jason almost snarls, feeling more antiseptic put onto the wound.
“Yet we haven’t learnt our lesson to not get involved in shit when we shouldn’t.” Roy’s tone is almost as sharp. Jason rolls his eyes, his hands clenched tighter, hissing when the needle pierces his skin as Roy starts to stitch him up.
There’s a snappy response on the tip of his tongue, but a knock against the bathroom door cuts him off. Jason’s nails bite into his palms, and some of the frustration in his body subsides.
“Daddy?” Jason almost holds his breath so that he doesn’t make any other noises. Roy’s not being rough, but he’s not exactly being forgiving either.
“We’re okay, pumpkin,” Roy responds, even though Jason hears him curse under his breath. Jason’s lip twitches again when the stitches tug a little, but he’s used to this feeling. It doesn’t ever get any more comfortable or pleasant though.
“But Jay Jay’s hurt.”
Jason takes in a slow breath and, thankfully, Roy’s hands paused for a moment, long enough that he can respond. “I’m okay, peanut. Daddy’s taking care of me.”
“I want to come in.”
“Lian, baby… there’s blood…” Roy grimaces, Jason can hear it in his tone.
“There’s always blood.”
Jason’s heart aches, and he can tell with the way that Roy’s hands are resting against his back, loosely balled into fists, that his does too. Jason swallows and closes his eyes. She’s not wrong, of course. They’re always patching each other up, even though they try to be more careful these days because they can’t risk it, because Lian needs them.
With no answer, neither of them knowing what to really say to that, Lian pushes the door open slowly. Jason knows her eyes instantly come to his left arm, the blood that’s trickled down it from the gashes in his shoulder. She doesn’t flinch, but her eyes are filled with tears, and it kills him to see it.
“I’m okay, sweetheart. I am.” Jason tries to assure. He hears Roy exhale slowly before his hands start moving again, finishing up the stitches in his shoulder. Lian cautiously steps closer, and Jason’s right hand is still covered in blood too so he can’t reach out for her.
“You’re always getting hurt,” Lian mumbles, her eyes trailing up his body. And he knows the scars littering his skin. The worst of them always being the autopsy scar. The darkest, biggest, thickest, with the ugliest stitches. Lian sniffles and Jason’s heart breaks more.
“I know baby girl, but I’m okay. I’m always okay, aren’t I?” And he knows there have been close calls, times where Roy couldn’t just patch him up and they move on. The only relief that Jason has is that Roy’s never been that bad, that Lian’s never had to fret over his unconscious, bloodied body like she has his own. And he hoped she never would have to.
“It’s not fair.” She mumbles and her hand reaches out, and Jason doesn’t stop her. She presses her fingers to a scar in Jason’s bicep, one so old at this point, it’s barely visible. From when he was Robin, a kid, in a world that wanted to kill him just because he stood at Batman’s side.
Jason frowns. “What’s not fair?”
“You get hurt because you’re helping people… you shouldn’t be hurt because of that.”
Jason grimaces when Roy tugs a little too hard on the final stitch, hears his muttered apology before he’s cutting off the thread and dropping the tools into the basin with everything else. Not that it matters, the bathroom is covered in blood.
And it hurts to know that she doesn’t properly understand, and that she can’t, that even if she did, she’d probably still think it wasn’t fair. Jason swallows, but Roy moves to Jason’s side and crouches down beside him. “We don’t want those people to get hurt. We have to help them. You know that, pumpkin.”
“But then you get hurt and I don’t want that!” Lian almost wails, and the tears start streaming down her face. And they’re both too bloody to reach out for her, to hug her and comfort her and Jason hates that more than anything.
“We know, baby, we know. I’m sorry.” And Roy sounds as distressed as Jason feels. He doesn’t know what else he can say, he doesn’t know that he can comfort Lian how she needs him to. The only thing he could do would be to promise he’s not going to get hurt anymore, and he can’t. Because he’d break it, time and time again.
She wipes at her face, and despite the blood, despite the fact that neither of them want to get any on her, she steps into Roy, and he won’t push her away. He hugs her tight, pressing his face into her hair. Jason can hear him apologising, whispering to her, promising that they’ll always come home to her, that she won’t lose them. Jason closes his eyes and balls his hands into fists against his knees.
He only opens his eyes again when he feels Lian’s hands grabbing hold of his own, getting his blood all over her and he hates it. He looks up at her, can see the blood on her clothes from Roy’s hands. He leans in and kisses her forehead softly, closing his eyes again as he keeps his head rested against her own.
“I’m sorry, peanut. I know it’s scary. I’ll always be here though, okay? I promised, didn’t I? I promised both you and Daddy I was always going to be here for you.” Jason murmurs against Lian’s head. She nods slowly and Jason strokes his thumbs over her hands. Lian nods slowly and Jason kisses her cheek. “I love you, Lian.”
“I love you, Jay.” She mumbles, her eyes on his chest again. “I don’t love your scars though.”
Jason manages a weak chuckle. And if his hands were clean, he’d wipe the tears from her face, he’d run his fingers through her hair and try to comfort her properly. “I know, peanut. I don’t either.”
The silence that follows says it all. Jason lowers his gaze, feeling guilt and shame. She was a kid, and she didn’t understand. She was forced to take in things she shouldn’t have to at this age. Like Jason dragging Roy home with a bullet wound in his hip, like Roy digging his fingers into Jason’s skin to dig out glass.
Roy clears his throat and stands up, holding his hand out for Lian to take. “C’mon princess, let's get you cleaned up.”
“What about Jay?” She looks back at him with concern in her eyes and Jason’s chest aches even more.
“I’m okay, Daddy fixed me up.” She doesn’t look convinced, but Roy steps up to her and picks her up. He sets her on his hip and carries her from the bathroom to the one downstairs, Jason’s sure. The one they try not to fill up with blood.
Jason gives himself a moment to take in slow breaths, to try not to let the weight of his guilt crush him before he gets up, pushing the chair he was on aside for the moment so he can start cleaning up, getting the glass shards wrapped up and tossed out before he starts cleaning himself off and then the rest of the bathroom.
- - -
Dinner is mostly silent. Lian doesn’t want to hold conversation, doesn’t even try to start any herself, and Jason and Roy don’t know what to say. The pain in his shoulder was briefly tackled by the drugs he’d downed, but by this stage, it’s starting to hurt again. A low, throbbing pain. He doesn’t complain though, even when he moves his arm too fast while he’s cleaning up the kitchen and it tugs at his stitches.
After dinner, while they’re on the couch, Roy rubs the muscles around the wound, slowly but firmly without risking hurting Jason, trying to ease some of the tension. Jason has Lian against his chest, running his fingers through her hair, holding her tight against him as she clings like if she let go, he’d vanish.
But it doesn’t last long before they decide that they’re all too tired to stay up, the day having drained them all. Jason brushes Lian’s hair while she brushes her teeth. Her eyes are on him in the mirror the whole time. She pulls forward and Jason releases his hold on her hair as she spits into the basin. Clear of blood, like it never even happened.
“Can I sleep in your bed tonight?” She asks, wiping her mouth on her sleeve before Jason or Roy can tell her not to. Roy pauses in tying his hair up in a poor excuse of a bun and offers her a soft smile.
“Of course, pumpkin.”
“Thank you, Daddy.” She shuffles back into Jason and he finishes brushing her hair, absentmindedly toying with the ends of the strands.
“Do you want your hair up?”
She shakes her head, so Jason puts her brush down and picks her up, trying not to grimace when it makes his stitches pull again. He hoists Lian up onto his hip and lets out a huff of breath.
“You’re getting heavy.”
“No, I’m not!” Lian pouts. “You’re not as strong as Daddy.” Jason laughs and Roy pokes his tongue out at him as Jason passes him.
“Yeah, my guns are homemade.” And he flexes and Jason shakes his head, even though he makes a point of admiring the muscle in Roy’s biceps. He doesn’t even have to flex for it to be noticeable. Jason’s built, but he doesn’t have that archer build that Roy does.
“Silly,” Lian giggles and Jason hums his agreement as he takes her down to their room. He sets Lian down before he pulls the covers back and she climbs up into the middle of the bed. Jason rolls his shoulder back, grunting when it cracks, when the muscle tugs and he grabs hold of it with his other hand, mindful of the stitches.
He pulls his shirt off and sits on the end of the bed without a word when Roy comes into the room. He steps up behind Jason and presses the gauze patch he’d grabbed over the stitches, making sure it’s completely covering it before he smooths the edges down. And once it’s on, Jason climbs into the bed with a low sigh, laying on his good side next to Lian. It’s a good thing that he and Roy are able to put up with sleeping on whatever side of the bed they have to.
Roy turns off the lights and joins them, pulling the covers up. He wraps his arm around Lian’s middle and drags her into his body, leaning over her to pepper kisses over her face. She squirms and giggles, kicking her feet as Roy’s fingers dig into her side, tickling her.
“Daddy, stop!” She cries out, still laughing, but Roy doesn’t persist for much longer. Jason smiles softly as he watches them, Lian turning around in Roy’s hold, her hands moving over his own sides, trying to tickle him in return.
And maybe he plays it up a little more for her sake, but it has her smiling widely, so they both know it’s worth it. Roy threatens to tickle her belly and she stops, telling him that he’s a sore loser. Jason chuckles, silently agreeing with the statement.
Lian turns her head to look back at Jason after a while, and Roy lifts his gaze to look at him too. She reaches her hand out for him, and Jason shuffles closer, getting his arm around the both of them. “No tickling,” Lian warns and Jason chuckles, kissing the top of her head.
“I promise.” He says, even if his fingers do trail a little up Roy’s side, under his shirt, teasing that he could. He didn’t promise him. Roy narrows his eyes, but Jason’s hand doesn’t trail any higher, so he says nothing. Jason leans in and presses a kiss to his lips before he relaxes back against the bed.
He’s exhausted, he knows that it won’t take him long to pass out. Roy’s hand comes to his own side, coming to rest lightly on his hip. Lian turns over now that Roy’s not holding onto her, rolling onto her other side so that she can look up at Jason.
“Jay Jay?” Her voice is a low whisper in the quiet of the room. Jason hums and moves his hand to brush her hair from her face.
“Yeah, sweetheart?”
She doesn’t say anything for a moment, and her eyes lower to his body. Her hand reaches out, pressing into the centre of his chest, where the “Y” shape in his skin meets. He swallows and his gaze briefly flickers up to Roy’s face. The hand on his hip tightens, and Jason’s own fingers twitch against Roy’s side.
“Promise you’ll stay.”
Jason’s heart shatters. Roy exhales slowly and lowers his head a little, pressing his face into the back of Lian’s hair. Jason’s hand comes up to cover Lian’s against his chest, giving it a soft squeeze as he leans in and presses a firm kiss to her head.
“I promise, peanut. I’ll always be here. Always.” Jason assures. But Lian’s sniffling, hiccupping, the beginning of crying and Jason’s hold on her hand tightens.
“Mommy didn’t,” Lian mumbles and Roy makes a strangled noise. He holds Lian tighter and presses his face into the side of her own, kissing her cheek softly.
“I’m not going anywhere, Lian. I promise. I’ll always be here for you, for both of you. Nothing will ever take me from you, Lian. Nothing.” Jason will fight with everything he has to make sure he never breaks that promise. He squeezes her hand again. “Not even this, none of these scars will take me from you.”
Lian hiccups and wipes at her face. Jason moves his hand away from Roy’s hip and runs his thumb under her eyes. Roy’s still pressing his face into the back of her hair again, and Jason can see the shake in his shoulders. There’s guilt that he carries that he shouldn’t. Jade made her choice, and Roy has done everything he can to be the father that Lian needed him to be. And it was more than enough, Jason knows that this isn’t Lian saying that she wants Jade around because Roy isn’t good enough. This is Lian needing stability in her life, and Jason has become that. If he left, in whatever way that entitles, that stability would go with him.
Jason leans in to kiss them both, moving his hands to wrap an arm around each of them, even if it tugs at his shoulder and leaves him uncomfortable. This is more important to him right now. He holds them tight until Lian’s crying simmers down, and the shake in Roy’s shoulders starts to ebb away. Jason keeps his fingers stroking down their spines, through Lian’s hair and down the back of Roy’s neck. Anything to comfort them, to make them feel better.
“I’m right here. It’s okay.” He whispers softly. Roy lifts his head and leans in, kissing the corner of Jason’s mouth, his own hand coming up to cup the back of Jason’s head, keeping his other arm around his daughter. “It’s okay,” Jason repeats.
“You’ve done so much for us, you… I can never thank you enough, Jason. For being here, for taking my daughter in as your own when she needed you most. For being there for me, keeping me safe, making me happy, showing me love.” Roy whispers it, but he’s sure that Lian still hears it all. Jason nuzzles his nose against Roy’s own.
“You’ve done your fair share for me too, Roy. You accepted me for who I am. You’ve never looked at me any differently for the body I have. You’ve given me a family. And I’ll do everything I can to protect that.” Jason looks back down at Lian. She’s staring back up at them with wide, teary eyes. Jason kisses her cheek softly and rubs her back more. “I promise, Lian, I will always stay here with you.”
Lian nods slowly and cuddles more into his chest. Jason exhales slowly and looks up at Roy again. His eyes fall closed as he nuzzles against him, holding them both close. “I love you both so much. There’s nowhere else I want to be right now, then right here, with you two.”