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The rain has been coming down since sometime before dinner, steady enough that Gotham had begun disappearing behind it an hour ago.
Water streaks the apartment windows in uneven rivers, catching the red glow of brake lights and the occasional wash of neon from the street below before dragging the colors down the glass. Thunder moved farther east an hour ago, leaving behind a low, distant rumble and the constant hiss of tires cutting through standing water six stories beneath them.
The old window unit rattles uselessly against the July humidity, fighting a losing battle with the heat trapped inside the brick building.
Roy has been living there long enough that none of it keeps him from feeling at home anymore.
His boots sit beside Jason’s by the door. Lian’s yellow raincoat hangs from the hook that Jason installed at her height after exactly one evening spent watching her struggle to reach the others. There were three toothbrushes in the bathroom sink, pink plastic cups in the dish rack, arrows amongst bullets, and a pair of tiny sneakers abandoned halfway beneath the coffee table where Lian kicked them off despite being told six hundred times not to leave them where someone could break their neck.
At the moment Roy’s home sells like what Jason was cooking for dinner. Like garlic, tomato sauce, and the washable markers Lian has spread across half the living room floor.
“I don’t think roller skates on a dragon is smart kiddo,” Jason says, staring down at the picture in front of her with the grave expression of a man who has just discovered a serious tactical flaw.
Roy leans back against the kitchen counter, content to watch as Lian’s entire face scrunches in offense.
“Why not?”
“Dragons are like—the coolest—they’re apex predators,” Jason explains with in depth seriousness.
Lian tilts her head to the side, “So?”
“So, roller skates would make him unbalanced. He could be vulnerable.”
“But, he’d be fast.”
Jason playfully taps his chin, pretending to think, “but he can fly?”
“He can be even faster,” Lian protests, coloring in her green dragons' apparent roller skates.
Jason opens his mouth—then closes it before turning to Roy with a furrowed brow..
Roy laughs, shrugging his shoulders at his boyfriend, “She’s got you there.”
“You’re supposed to be on my side,” Jason grumbles, slapping a hand over his heart in faux offense.
“I’m on the side of innovation, babe.”
Lian grins triumphantly and bends over her drawing again, dark curls falling into her face as she carefully selects a purple marker.
Jason remains crouched beside the coffee table for another few seconds, apparently reconsidering everything he knows about dragon-based combat, before finally conceding with a muttered, "At least give him a helmet."
Roy can’t help but smile at the sight of them. There are moments where it all catches him off guard.
Not Jason with Lian. That had stopped surprising him since Jason had taken to loving Lian with the same terrifying commitment he brings to almost everything else, as if somewhere along the way he'd decided she was his too and that had been the end of the discussion.
It was everything around them that sometimes gets to Roy.
The crayons mixed in with Jason's books. The little purple backpack hanging beside two armored jackets. Lian's drawings pinned to the refrigerator with magnets Jason once used to pin takeout menus and ammunition receipts. Roy's bow case tucked under the bed because there isn't anywhere else to put it. Three lives crammed into an apartment that had only ever been intended for one.
And despite being a stickler for organization and a borderline OCD need for control Jason made room anyway.
"Alright, I'm hungry," Jason says, pushing himself to his feet. As he passes Roy on his way back into the kitchen, he leans in and presses a quick, absentminded kiss to his mouth—easy and familiar—before continuing on to finish dinner.
Lian abandons the dragon immediately, scrambling to her feet.
“No running,” Roy and Jason say together.
Their daughter stops halfway to the kitchen and looks between them, before letting out a huff, “You guys are annoying.”
“Yup,” Jasons exclaims, popping the ‘p’, and reaching over to ruffle her hair as she passes him into the kitchen. "We practice just for you.”
Dinner ends up stretching long past the point where any of them are actually hungry. Rain taps steadily against the windows while Lian explains, in painstaking detail, something one of her friends did earlier that week, and Jason listens with the kind of attention he usually reserves for mission briefings.
Roy loses three pieces of garlic bread to Jason despite him having two perfectly good pieces of his own. Lian spills water across the table. Jason catches it with a dish towel before it reaches the floor. Someone upstairs drops something heavy enough to shake dust loose from the ceiling, and none of them even look up.
The whole apartment is loud, and cramped, and a little too warm, but Roy could never imagine trading it for anything.
By the time the dishes have been stacked beside the sink, the rain has softened into a mist that silvers the windows beneath the streetlights. Lian has migrated to the couch with a blanket tucked beneath her chin, all energy from earlier finally begging to burn itself out as a movie plays quietly in front of her.
Roy checks the clock as he stacks some mail together on the counter, it’s nearly nine. He catches Jason doing the same. Their eyes meet across the kitchen.
Patrol has become another part of their routine they’re still figuring out.
On nights Lian stays with them, Roy usually goes out first. Jason stays home until she is well and truly asleep before they patrol together for a few hours in the very late evening and early morning. Then around two Roy goes home so he can be there far before Lian wakes up.
Sometimes Jason or Roy doesn’t go out at all. Sometimes Gotham makes the decision for them.
Tonight, though, the city has been unusually quiet.
A kind of quiet that Roy has learned not to trust since dawning a hood and a bow with Oliver all those years ago.
Jason on the other hand, seems less suspicious of it. He finishes wiping down the counter, tosses the dish towel over his shoulder, and crosses the living room to collect the markers Lian has left scattered across the rug.
The dragon remains on the coffee table, now purple and green with four vibrantly pink roller skates and a blue helmet balanced between its horns.
Jason picks it up slowly, his mouth curving up, as he turns toward the kitchen. He crosses to the fridge, and after a brief search through the clutter already there, finds a magnet and pins the drawing up among the others—crayon suns, crooked houses, a lopsided stick-figure family that has been there for weeks.
Roy pushes off the counter, drifting closer as he takes it in.
“You’re gonna run out of room,” he says, tipping his chin toward the crowded door. “At this rate, you’ll have to start layering them.”
Jason doesn’t look back, just adjusts the corner of the paper so it sits straight.
Roy just smiles, fighting ever instinct that told him to say ‘fuck it’ to patrol and spend the rest of the night tangled in his partner.
By the time Lians movie reaches its ending credits, she’s completely out, curled sideways across the couch with one foot sticking out from beneath the blanket and her cheek pressed into a pillow that used to belong to Jason before she claimed it through prolonged occupation.
The TV paints shifting blue light across her face while the endless rainwater drips from the fire escape outside in a slow irregular rhythm.
Jason crouches beside the couch, tucking her princess blanket higher over her shoulder.
“Bed?” Roy whispers from the kitchen counter.
Jason considers it before shaking his head and mouthing ‘she’ll wake up.’
Frankly, she will. Lian can sleep through thunderstorms, car rides, and one memorable afternoon where Jason dismantled half the kitchen sink with a power drill, but try to move her from one soft surface to another and she wakes like she's been trained for it.
Roy reaches for the remote instead and turns the TV off.
The apartment settles around them. Without the movie, he can hear the city again. Water rushing through gutters. A siren several blocks away. The occasional rumble of traffic from the avenue.
Jason straightens and rolls his shoulders padding across to the kitchen.
“You going out?” He asks in a hushed tone.
Roy shrugs, glancing toward the window, “Was thinking about it.”
“It’s been quiet,” Jason says, scratching the patchy stubble on his chin. “I might be able to just stay in.”
“The quiet is what worries me,” Roy admits, glancing back at Lian.
He should stay.
There’s no reason to leave Lian here alone if he isn’t needed, but at the same time he’s been itching for action. For the rush of purpose—or more accurately adrenaline—that being Arsenal gives him.
Roy’s about to agree to Jason's proposal when the latters phone rings. He scrambles it from his pocket to turn the ringer off before his gaze settles on the screen.
His expression shifts, Roy catches the pinch in his brows as he narrows his eyes.
“Speak of the devil,” Jason mutters, answering without putting it on speaker. “Sup Timbers.”
Roy can’t hear what Tim’s response is from where he’s standing, but he watches the humor leave Jason’s face.
Not all at once, but just enough to signal a problem.
“What happened?” He asks, a question Roy is not fond of in their line of work.
Jason listens as Tim responds, then, “How many?”
Another pause follows, before Jason is pointing to their bedroom.
“Where’s Dick?”
Roy doesn’t wait for an actual order, he’s moving before Jason can signal that they need to go. He doesn't need to hear the other side of the conversation to know what this is anymore.
Jason catches his eye just as he crosses their bedroom doorframe.
“Yeah,” he says into the phone, teal eyes meeting Roy’s green ones. “We’re coming.”
“What happened?” Roy asks, making his way to their walk-in closet as Jason hangs up.
“Tim and Dick have been tracking a guy for the last three days. Thought he was moving stolen artifacts.”
“Thought?”
“One of them apparently wasn’t as decorative as advertised.”
Roy stops just as Jason pushes past him into the closet, by the time Roy follows, Jason has already reached for the hidden panel behind the hanging clothes.
“Magic?”
Jason shrugs while pulling Roy’s Arsenal suit out, “Maybe.”
“I hate magic,” Roy grounds out, stripping out his sweats.
“Magic users definitely don’t,” Jason supplies, buckling his cargo pants and slipping on his under shirt.
Once mostly suited up Jason reaches for another hidden panel it clicks open and a drawer pulls out from the wall. He pulls out an extra chest piece, meant to slip underneath their armor for added protection.
Roy eyes it, concern twisting his own chest, “How bad is this supposed to be?”
Jason hesitates before slipping the armor over his undershirt.
“Tim asked for a heavy and an over watch. We fit that description.”
Tim asking for help by itself is strange enough. He only asks for it because he has already assessed the situation, calculated his odds, found them unacceptable, and decided to do something about it.
Roy has worked with the Bats before. Fought beside them. Been patched up in their Cave, insulted over their comms, threatened by Bruce in at least three different ways since he started dating Jason.
They finish dressing quickly. The apartment changes around them as they do.
Bare feet become armored boots. Soft cotton disappears beneath reinforced plates and Kevlar. Jason's hair vanishes beneath the red helmet. Roy's bow comes out from under the bed, followed by a quiver Lian has been expressly forbidden from touching under threat of losing dessert for the remainder of her natural life.
By the time Roy fastens the last strap around his forearm, Jason is standing beside their bed with the tablet in his hands.
The sensor system is already active.
It is, in Roy's opinion, excessive.
Jason disagrees.
There are contact sensors on every window and exterior door, motion detectors covering the hallway and common areas, cameras in the living room and kitchen, and a pressure sensor currently tucked beneath the couch cushion where Lian sleeps. If she sits up, stands, wanders toward the bathroom, opens a window, breathes too aggressively near the balcony door, or possibly thinks about committing a crime, both of their phones will know about it.
It’s only active when they have to leave her alone during an event like this where there’s isn’t time to get her to the manor.
Roy leans over Jason’s shoulder.
“Front door?”
Jason nods, “Armed.”
"Windows?"
Jason nods again, brows furrowing.
"Balcony?"
Jason gives him a look, "Armed."
"Laser grid?"
"Are you seriously mocking me,” his boyfriend deadpans, tossing the tablet on the bed.
"I'm absolutely mocking you,” Roy teases back.
Before they head out he pads into the living room again. Lian hasn’t moved, she’s still asleep beneath the blanket, one hand curled beside her face.
“Tim says hurry,” Red Hood's mechanized voice fills the room.
Jason turns toward the couch, even behind the helmet, Roy knows exactly where his attention goes. He tip toes closer, reaching down to pull the blanket a little higher over Lian’s shoulders again. His hand ghosting over the top of her head like he wants nothing more than to shield her from it all.
Then they leave.
The bedroom window is already unlocked by the time Roy finishes checking his gear.
Jason pushes it open just enough to slip through, careful of the warped frame that always sticks in humid weather. Warm, damp air spills into the room, carrying the scent of rain and asphalt. The fire escape outside gleams slick beneath the streetlights, metal steps still dripping from the storm.
Jason steps out first, boots landing silently on the grated platform. He checks his phone again.
Pressure sensor.
Occupied.
Roy doesn't say anything as he follows, pulling the window closed behind him until it clicks softly into place.
They move up the fire escape instead of down, climbing quickly, efficiently, metal barely creaking under their weight. By the time they reach the roof, Gotham has opened around them.
The rain has stopped completely, but the city still glistens beneath it. Water runs from gargoyles and rusted gutters, spills from rooftop ledges, gathers in black pools across tar and concrete. Steam curls from vents into the wet summer air. Neon bleeds across the streets below in smeared reds and blues, and somewhere beyond the tightly packed buildings, thunder still mutters over the river.
Roy flips his hat backwards just as Jason steps onto the building ledge.
“Three miles east,” Jason states, pulling his grapple from his belt.
Roy copies stepping beside his boyfriend on the ledge.
“Ready?” he asks, brushing a hand up Jason’s arm.
His boyfriend looks over at him, a slight tilt in his helmet the only tell that he’s smiling beneath it.
“Always,” he replies, firing the grapple into the dark.
The first sign that Tim has severely underestimated the situation comes in the form of a gargoyle flying past Roy’s head.
Not a decorative one.
A six-foot slap of weather-worn limestone rips through the rain-heavy air less than three feet from his face, close enough that Roy feels the pressure of it before it crashes through the brick wall of the building behind him.
Stone explodes across the rooftop. Roy ducks instinctively, one arm coming over his head as fragments pepper the reinforced leather across his shoulders and skitter over the wet roof.
Jason lands beside him a second later.
“They only need one heavy?” Roy questions, gesturing to the scene below them.
The mechanized voice that comes through Jason's helmet is entirely too calm, "Red Robins a lying little shit."
Another impact shakes the roof beneath their feet.
Roy straightens slowly.
Three blocks ahead, something glows violet against Gotham's black skyline.
The light rises from the hollow shell of an old courthouse wedged between newer office buildings, spilling through shattered windows and the places where half the roof has already collapsed. Each pulse briefly illuminates the low clouds hanging over the city before disappearing again, leaving Roy's eyes struggling to adjust to the dark.
There is a crash.
Then another.
A figure of black and blue comes through the courthouse’s third story window.
Roy’s stomach drops.
“Nightwing—”
Jason is already moving.
Roy barely gets his bow secured before his boyfriend fires another grapple and launches himself off the roof. Roy follows without thinking, boot leaving the ledge as the damp Gotham air cuts through his hair.
Dick hits the building side across the street hard enough to crack the brick.
He twists at the last second, shoulder taking the worst of the impact before gravity drags him down the wall. His grapple fires somewhere above. The line catches and his fall jerks to a stop two stories from the street.
“I’m alive,” Dick’s strained voice comes through the comms.
Jason doesn’t answer his brother. Roy watches him adjust his grip on the grapple line mid-swing, angle shifting as he drops lower than he should, boots skimming dangerously close to the side of the building.
He lets go in time for Roy’s heart to drop—for a second he freefalls. Then his arm shoots out, catching Dick around the torso just as his brother’s grip on the line falters. The impact knocks the breath out of both of them. Jason’s line takes their combined weight with a violent jerk.
“Gotcha,” Jason grunts through comm.
Dick huffs something that might be a laugh.
“Y’all miss me or something,” he groans out.
“Just try not to die,” Roy adds as Jason fires a second grapple, the hook catching the edge of the rooftop he’s currently standing on.
The line goes taut, hauling both of them upward in a sharp arc.
Roy steps back as they clear the ledge.
Jason lands hard, boots skidding slightly on the wet surface as he absorbs the impact and immediately lowers Dick onto the roof.
"Sit," Jason orders.
Dick rolls his eyes but doesn't argue, bracing one hand against the tar as he shifts his weight.
"I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“It’s Gotham Hood, when are we not bleeding?”
Jason ignores him, hands running a quick check over the patch of blood cakeing itself into Dick’s black hair. He flinches against the touch, eyes shutting tight.
“You sure you’re okay?” Roy asks, settling beside his boyfriend and friend.
Dick looks up at him, cracking his usual charismatic smile, “Fine as I’ll ever be.”
"You're an asshole,” Jason huffs but leaves it be, stepping away from his brother.
"Love you too."
“You guys okay?” Tim’s voice crackles through the comm.
“Just another day in the life, Red,” Dick mumbles out, rolling his shoulders back.
Roy approaches the ledge again, peering over the side to see a street full of… things?
He counts twenty-six before something moves behind an overturned city bus and ruins the number.
Twenty-seven—no thirty.
Human shaped… if Roy was being generous.
From the distance they stand between seven and eight feet tall, bodies formed from something too black to be flesh and too fluid to be stone. Violet light runs beneath their surfaces in thin, branching lines, pulsing like veins. Their faces are smooth except for deep hollows where eyes should be, and every one of them carries a weapon.
One has an axe with a blade nearly as wide as Roy's chest. Another carries a mace. Two hold curved swords that leak the same purple light as their bodies, energy hissing where the tips drag across rain-soaked asphalt.
Roy watches one of the creatures lift the front end of a police cruiser and just lift it.
The metal frame groans.
"Okay," Roy says, not looking away from them. "I hate whatever the fuck these are."
"Constructs," Tim answers immediately.
Roy spots him on the other side of the street, crouched behind what remains of a concrete barricade. His cape is torn near the bottom. Blood runs from a cut above his right eyebrow and disappears beneath the edge of his mask.
“Magic constructs,” Dick adds, moving to stand beside Roy as they look over, one hand resting against the redhead's shoulder while the other presses against his side.
“Thanks, Nightwing. I hadn’t fucking noticed.” Jason sneers also standing beside the two on the ledge.
A flicker of violet moves below them.
Roy's bow is in his hand before he fully registers the construct breaking away from the others. It clears the hood of an abandoned cruiser in one leap, curved blade raised toward the rooftop.
He draws it, the string grazes his cheek—between one breath and the next he releases.
The arrow punches through the violet seam beneath its shoulder and knocks the creature sideways in midair. Eight feet of black mass crashes through the roof of a sedan.
“One down,” Roy says, tilting his head to Jason with a smirk.
Competition was a sure fire way to kick any of them into high gear.
“You guys done taking a break?” Tim’s voice is so dry Roy can practically see the expression accompanying it.
Jason's helmet turns toward his brother on the ground. “Sorry, Red. Had to save your favorite brother.”
“Neither of you are my favorite, don’t play.”
Dick presses a hand dramatically against his chest. “Tim.”
“Will you all just focus—” Tim snaps out, his grapple line cutting through the damp air. It hits the edge of the building they’re on. He swings up and over a flipped car, landing several feet from them, cape snapping once behind him before settling against his legs.
Up close, he looks considerably worse. Blood has reached his jaw from the gash above his eyebrow. One side of his suit is gray with pulverized concrete, and the reinforced material over his thigh has been torn open.
Roy narrows his eye at the wound, it’s not bleeding too considerably mostly just looks like a nasty scrape.
“You okay?” He asks anyway.
Tim follows his gaze and shrugs, “Just a surface wound.”
Another crash sounds from below as a construct smashes into the courthouse wall. Tim moves toward the edge cap billowing behind him.
“There are over thirty constructs. Artifact users on the third floor. They’re stronger than expected—don’t engage directly. Keep them inside the evacuation perimeter.”
Roy glances down, their movements don’t seem entirely practiced, but definitely a far cry from random. He watches as another group passes before it clicks.
“They’re moving in sequences.”
Tim nods, “Yep which means they operate like a loop until something gets in the way.”
“Sounds like you got first hand experience,” Roy teases, sending a pointed look to Dick.
“Shut it, A,” he snaps back, without malice, before turning to Tim. “Call it Red.”
“Arsenal I want you high,” Tim starts, pointing to the building west of the courthouse.
Roy follows his line, it’s a good vantage point of the whole street. Perfect sight.
“Got it.”
“You’re overwatch,” Tim says. “Call everything. Clear anyone who gets pinned. Break containment but only if you have to. Disable the user if they show themselves or get a shot.”
Roy nods, just as Tim turns to Jason.
“Hood,” Tim starts.
Jason just grins, “Do I get to hit things?”
His brother nods, “I need them on you. Cops have a perimeter set up. We need to defend it and there are too many apartments on the south side so draw them in and keep them away.”
Jason rolls his shoulders out, unholstering his pistols. Roy's heart lurches—he hates it—hates that they so easily throw him to the wolves just because he’s better suited for it.
His boyfriend must sense his annoyance, because Jason’s helmet turns to him, tilting to the side in a silent question.
Before Roy can voice it though, Tim continues.
“Nightwing you’ll take north of the courthouse. I’ll handle the east and we will converge in. I don’t think the artifact can continually generate these guys so once they’re down they’re down. Got it?”
Three nods follow his orders and the first to enter is Jason, who steps to the ledge.
“Stay safe,” he throws over his shoulder then, he drops.
Roy peers down just in time to see Jason catch himself with a grapple. He hits a bus below hard enough to dent it.
Every construct in the vicinity turns.
“Hey, assholes,” Jason shouts with a sneer, unloading his guns into the closest construct.
Roy snorts to himself, firing his grapple and running off the edge.
Gotham drops beneath him. Warm, wet air tears past his face as he swings across the street. Violet light flashes beneath his boots. Somewhere below, Jason is firing fast enough that the individual shots blur together over the comms.
Roy releases the line, lands hard on the opposite roof, and runs.
The water tower rises ahead.
He climbs.
By the time Roy pulls himself onto the narrow maintenance platform, his pulse is hammering and sweat has collected beneath his armor despite the cooling rain.
He unclips his bow and looks down.
The fight has opened beneath him. Dick is already moving south, blue cutting between parked cars. Tim is advancing along the eastern sidewalk. Jason stands exactly where Tim put him—dead center, swallowed by black bodies and flashes of violet.
Roy plants his feet, draws an arrow… and watches.
“Nightwing, on your six,” he calls.
Dick drops below the thrown cop car just as Roy releases the arrow, passing right over his head and tearing through the glowing joint beneath the construct's jaw.
Dick pivots before the body hits the ground.
Two close in on Tim, “Red, three and eight.”
Tim turns, throws a smoke bomb as Roy releases the arrow. It flies across the street catching the sword arm. His next buries itself in the construct behind it. Tim drives his bow staff through the opening.
“Clear.”
“Copy,” Tim replies.
Roy’s gaze moves, pivoting between the four directions and always ending on Jason.
Three constructs have him pinned near the side of an abandoned delivery truck. One axe and two swords.
Roy draws an arrow and a steady breath, as the axe raises he releases—the arrow drives through the creature's elbow.
Jason catches the damaged arm and uses the construct's own weight to slam it into another.
“Thanks A.”
“You owe me pancakes,” Roy teases as he fires an explosion arrow toward a cluster that was heading toward the police perimeter.
“I cooked dinner!” Jason argues, taking the head off one of the constructs near him.
Roy fires another, inches past his boyfriend's shoulder, the construct approaching behind him jerks violently.
“Pan-cakes.”
Jason laughs into the comm, warm and breathless through Roy's earpiece, “This is extortion.”
Roy smiles, allowing himself a second longer to linger before his eyes are moving again. Tim was right, with this big of an area they need more eyes than bodies on the ground, and from this height Roy sees everything.
Like a construct slipping into the western alley, “Hood, west and behind you.”
Jason changes direction.
Two push the southern perimeter by the apartments, “Nightwing, you’ve got stragglers.”
“Copy.”
Something moves behind Tim, “Red duck.”
Tim drops without hesitation. Roy lets the arrow fly, it whistles through the space Tim’s head occupied and buries itself in the creature behind him.
Roy reaches for another; draw then release.
Again, and again.
The rhythm holds for another few minutes—not easily.
Roy's shoulders have started to burn from the constant draw, the muscles across his back tight beneath damp armor. His right hand stings where the string has been working against his glove, and every few shots he has to flex his fingers before reaching back again.
None of it really matters.
The corner remains contained.
Dick moves along the southern line. Tim is at a dead sprint toward the courthouse. Roy remains the perfect cover, clearing a construct behind his boyfriend.
Then the one closing in on Dick.
Another moving toward Tim.
His relay vibrates against his wrist—and for a heart stopping second he thinks it’s Lian, but it’s only the time: twelve am.
Roy reaches for another arrow as movement catches low in his peripheral.
His gaze drops south where one of the constructs has broken the sequence.
It seems smaller than the others. Faster. Its black body moves low between abandoned cars, two narrow violet blades extending from its forearms as it slips into the alley running between the apartments.
“There’s a runner pushing the south alley,” Roy explains as he attempts to aim a clear shot. “Hood can you—”
Gunfire erupts through the comm in an earsplitting pattern.
“Little busy, A!” Jason shouts back.
The redhead glances briefly back to his boyfriend. Five constructs have him pinned against the side of an abandoned delivery truck while two more close from either side.
Fuck.
“Nightwing can—”
“Not a chance!” Dick’s equally short voice echos.
When Roy chances a glance he sees Dick duck beneath the swing of a mace, both escrima sticks catching the weapon's handle before he twists with the construct's momentum and sends it through the side of a parked car.
“Red?” He tries one last time, not chancing a full turn away from the construct to look where Tim is at, but he hears his voice all the same.
“Negative, approaching the wielder.”
The construct is almost through the alley, beyond it police lights wash the wet street in red and blue. Paramedics are standing just behind, and a cluster of civilians huddled beneath the overhang of a pharmacy while officers try to push them farther back.
“Just wait for a shot Ars—” Jason shouts, before a painfilled grunt breaks off his sentence.
Roy focuses his shot again, he’s not sure if the creature picked up on his positioning, but the damn thing keeps ducking under and around objects.
“Fuck!” Roy spits, “Don’t have one. Breaking positioning.”
“Arsenal—”
Roy doesn’t wait for permission before he’s clipping the bow onto his back. The maintenance railing is cold and slick beneath his glove when he grabs it, vaulting over it and into the open air.
His grapple fires and the line catches four stories below.
The pull is quick.
Roy's entire body jerks at the shoulder as the cable steals his fall. Pain bites deep through the joint and into his upper back, sharp enough to force a grunt from between his teeth.
His momentum slams his boots into the brick in the side of the building before pushing off and sending the line lower until he finally hits the mouth of the alley hard enough that water erupts around his ankles.
The construct is less than twenty feet away.
Roy yanks his bow free and draws a grapple arrow and in the same breath releases it.
The line whistles down the alley—the grapple punches through the violet seam along the constructs upper back.
Roy plants both feet and retracts the line letting the construct jerk—nearly pulling him with it—before it flies backward. Crashing through a row of metal trash cans, and hitting the alley wall shoulder-first, and it keeps coming.
Roy pivots at the last second allowing the momentum of the line to pull the construct past him and back out into the main street.
It hits wet asphalt and rolls, breaking the line on its back.
Roy rushes it as it claws at the pavement, trying to force itself upright as violet light leaks from the split in its back. Its bladed arms scrape against the street, throwing sparks through the shallow water.
The knife on Roy’s belt leaves his fingers in one smooth motion, turning once before burying itself to the hilt in the exposed seam at the base of the construct’s skull.
The creature collapses face-first into the street, sending black sludge across Roy’s boots.
For a second, he only stands there, chest rising hard beneath his armor as the grapple line retracts with a faint metallic whir. His shoulder aches from the sudden pull, and adrenaline continues to buzz beneath his skin, but the paramedics and civilians remain untouched behind the barricade.
Jason comes through the thinning line of constructs at a run, one gun still raised as he checks the alley and then the body at Roy’s feet.
“I could fucking kiss you,” Jason says as he slows to a stop. “That was insane!”
Roy hooks a hand into the front of Jason’s armor and pulls him close enough that their heads nearly knock together.
“Save it for later,” he teases, pushing a flat palm against Jason’s chest to send him a few feet back.
Roy wishes he could see the smirk against his boyfriend's face as he says, “Promises, promises.”
Dick’s voice crackles through their comms from the other side of the containment zone in a less than pleased tone. “Could you two schedule the foreplay for after we stop the magical sludge things?”
Roy laughs as he retrieves the knife from the asphalt. The black material clings to the blade for a second before sliding away in oily strands that dissolve into the rainwater.
“Where’s Tim?” Roy asks, wiping the knife against his suit before sheathing it.
“Inside,” Dick answers. His breathing comes slightly heavier beneath the words, punctuated by the crack of escrima against something solid. “He found a way into the courthouse. Says he’s heading for the artifact.”
“So we keep these ugly bastards off him,” Jason says.
“Basically,” Dick replies.
Roy reaches back for an arrow as Jason reloads beside him.
For the first time all night, they are standing on the same piece of ground. Just the two of them shoulder to shoulder in the violet wash of the courthouse, rainwater dripping from their armor while the remaining constructs close in.
Jason’s helmet tips toward him, “Ready?”
Row draws and offers a quick nod just as the constructs enter their firing zone, charging with their weapons held high.
His arrow punches through its wrist. Jason fires into the opening before the weapon can fall, violet light bursting from the damaged joint as the construct stumbles forward.
The next construct takes a bow to the throat while Jason plants a boot in the center of it’s chest and drives it backward into the path of another.
They move in fluidity after that. Jason catches the sword arm of another one and twists it outward. Roy drives an arrow into the exposed seam beneath its ribs, then kicks the body free before it can close around his hand.
A mace swings for Roy’s head next and Jason catches the handle with both forearms.
The redhead ducks beneath their locked arms, draws from less than five feet away and fires directly through the constructs chest.
The explosive head detonates it, the impact throwing all of them backwards.
Roy lands on one knee. Jason skids through the water beside him, boots carving lines through the flooded street before he catches himself.
A breath later and a sudden impact slams into Roy from the side.
The blow catches the right side of his head and shoulder with enough force to lift him from his feet.
The city disappears around him. Only a flash of violet and the sunsation of his head snapping sideways before Roy crashes onto the hood of a nearby car.
Metal buckles beneath his back, the windshield shatters beside his head.
For a terrifying second Roy can’t hear anything. His vision strobes between darkness and rain-smeared light. Pain spreads from his temple down through his jaw, hot and disorienting, while his stomach lurches somewhere beneath his ribs.
Get up.
Don’t stay down.
He tells himself as he rolls automatically. A crash sounding into the hood where his chest had just been.
Roy drops to the street avoiding his legs buckling beneath him. The construct that struck him towers beside the car, one heavy club clenched between both hands. Roy’s bow is still grasped in his hands, but his quiver is no longer attached to him.
Useless.
The construct—constructs? No double vision—raises its weapon again.
Roy forces himself to breathe and blink until his vision clears ducking inside the club's arc just as the creature starts its swing. He grabs its wrist with both hands, the force behind it shuddering through his shoulders, but the momentum belongs to whoever understands it first.
He steps through, turns his hips—and uses the construct's own swing to drag it forward.
Roy pulls his knife again and drives it into a seam behind its ear before planting a boot against the side of the car and ripping the blade downward.
Effectively tearing the seam open causing the construct to collapse across the hood.
Roy staggers back—breathing coming in fast. The street tilts beneath his boots.
“Arsenal—” Jason’s quickened voice comes through the ringing in his ears.
The redhead wipes the rainwater from his eyes and looks toward his boyfriends voice. Jason is already running toward him, crossing the street fast, shouldering past one construct and firing twice into another without slowing. His helmet stays fixed on Roy, and he’s not sure why.
He thinks he can hear him speaking, but it’s muffled and electronic and it could be the rainwater instead.
“I’m good,” he calls to his boyfriend. Hoping to quell the worry he must feel. Except Jason doesn't answer instead he picks up speed toward Roy.
Jason voice, all of a sudden, comes in fast and loud, “A, get the fuck down!”
Roy turns, far too slowly as another construct rises behind him through the rain, broader than the one that hit him. Both hands are wrapped around the handle of a heavy war hammer already pulling back for the swing.
Fuck.
Roy thinks as he scrambles for purchase, but his body’s moving too slow. He can understand what’s happening, but he’s not responding quick enough.
The strike to his head has left the street half a second out of step. His balance shifts late. His knees bend when he should already be moving. Roy tries to throw himself aside, but one boot slides uselessly across the wet pavement.
Red and brown fills his vision.
Jason reaches him at a dead run and shoves Roy with both hands.
Roy hits the pavement hard, shoulder hitting first as he rolls through the standing water.
The hammer connects behind him—the sound sickening. Metal crashes against armor with a deep crack that Roy feels through the pavement. He twists in time to see Jason airborn. The force has thrown him backward across the street, arms loose for one terrible second before his left side slams into the sharp stone corner of the courthouse.
Jason's helmet snaps against the wall.
He drops, landing heavily on the same side lying still near the courthouse steps.
Roy sees the hammer rise again, then all at once the violet light goes out.
The glow flooding the courthouse windows disappears. The pulsing seams beneath every construct flare once before collapsing inward, their weapons dissolving between their hands.
The creature standing over Roy breaks apart. Black material falls around him in heavy, shapeless pieces that strike the pavement and melt into oily puddles.
Across the street, every remaining construct does the same. The fighting stops so suddenly that Roy can hear the rainwater running into the storm drains.
For one blank second, he remains where Jason pushed him before his gaze tracks back to the courthouse. His boyfriend flips, curling onto his right side beside the steps. One hand pressed hard against his sternum.
Roy is moving before he realizes he has gotten up.
“J—Hood—” he sputters out as he pitches on the first step, catching himself to keep going.
The street swims beneath his boots. Scattered pieces of the dead constructs dissolve around him while Tim’s voice comes through the comm, breathless and distorted.
“Artifact disabled. What is everyone's status?”
Roy can’t respond, he just watches Jason attempt to drag in a breath as he drops to his knees beside him.
It catches almost immediately. His body tightening around the failed inhale, knees pulling slightly inward as his fingers curl into the front of his armor.
One hand hovers over Jason’s chest while the other reaches uncertainty for his shoulder. His left arm is pinned close against his body. The joint sits visibly wrong beneath the armor—lower than it should be, the plate around it pushed forward by the distorted angle.
Dislocated, but Roy knows that. He understands that. The way Jason is clutching his chest is something else.
“Look at me,” Roy commands.
Jason’s helmet turns slightly up toward him. Roy fumbles for the release catches, his gloves slip against the wet metal before he finally breaks the seals and pulls it free.
Jason’s face is nearly colorless beneath the domino. Rain and sweat have plastered his dark curls against his forehead. His jaw is clenched so tightly Roy can see the muscle jumping beneath his skin, and every breath comes shallow through parted lips.
His boyfriend tries to push himself up, guarding the dislocation of his shoulder, but the pain cuts the attempt short and he slumps back over.
“Don’t move,” Roy says, catching his good shoulder. “Don’t—just stay there.”
Jason smirks as best he can, “Wasn’t…” he drags in another broken breath. “Planning—on it.”
Dick lands beside them with considerably less grace than usual, one hand immediately bracing against the courthouse step as he crouches. Blood has dried along the side of his face, but his eyes move quickly over Jason.
“What happened?” His voice cracks at the question. “Are you okay?” He presses again, reaching up toward his brother's neck, likely checking pulse rhythm while Roy is focused solely on Jason’s chest.
Jason levels a pisspoor glare at Dick, “I’m great.”
Roy lets out a sigh of relief. Jason’s voice sounds less strained and his breathing eases enough that it feels normal. After a few more moments, the redhead settles his boyfriend into a better sitting position. His right hand is still pressing firmly against his side, but he seems far better than he was.
“Pop it back in,” Jason grits out, jerking his chin to his very out of place shoulder. “Before it swells too much.”
Roy exchanges a worried glance with Dick.
“Now?” He asks, resting a weary hand on Jason’s good shoulder.
“It’s been out before,” Jason says, still holding his ribs with his arm. “It’ll be harder once everything locks up.”
Dick carefully feels along Jason’s upper arm before checking the pulse in his wrist. “Any numbness?”
“No.”
“Tingling?”
“No, mom,” Jason jeers. “Just put it back.”
A grapple line catches somewhere above them.
Tim drops from the courthouse window and lands heavily on the steps, cape wrapped around a twisting metal artifact beneath one arm. Blood trails from his eyebrow, but his eyes immediately move between Dick, Roy, and Jason.
“Everyone alive?” He asks.
“Mostly,” Dick answers. “Hood’s shoulder is out.”
Tim crouches beside them, quickly checking Jason’s pupils and the circulation in his injured arm. “You should have it imaged first.”
Jason gives him a flat look, “You got a portable X-ray machine under your cape? Cause I don’t have one in my jacket.”
Tim purses his lips into a thin line, but doesn’t argue further.
Jason jerks his chin toward Dick on his left side, “You do it.”
“Huh? Why me?” He asks, brow furrowing.
“Because I’m probably going to hit somebody, and I’d feel worse hitting Roy.”
Roy frowns, “Not sure if that is sweet or deeply concerning.”
Dick shifts beside his younger brother's left side, “Just… try to avoid the face, okay? Not eager to make my head hurt more.”
Jason snorts, it looks like it hurts, “No promises.”
Roy grimaces, shifting behind Jason and bracing his back against his chest, one arm secured across his upper body without pressing against his ribs. Jason’s good hand locks around Roy’s forearm as Dick supports the injured arm at the elbow and wrist.
“Slow traction,” Tim says, settling a hand near the joint to guide the angle. “Don’t force it.”
Dick begins to pull, making Jason go rigid.
Roy feels it immediately—the way the body locks when the joint is wrong, when bone grinds against places it shouldn’t. He’s been here before. He remembers the sick, hollow looseness of his own shoulder hanging out of socket, the way every tiny movement felt like something tearing deeper inside. He tightens his hold instinctively, bracing Jason harder against his chest.
His boyfriend's grip clamps down on Roy’s forearm hard enough to bruise, breath cutting off as every muscle in his shoulder and chest seizes at once.
“Breathe,” Roy murmurs near his ear, voice low and steady despite the memory crawling up his spine. “Don’t fight it.” Jason flinches against the pain. “I know—it fucking sucks, but you need to breathe, babe.”
His boyfriend drags in a shallow, broken inhale.
Dick changes the angle. Something shifts under his hands—wrong, grinding—and Jason makes a raw, animal sound, his arm wanting to snap backward.
Dick rocks slightly, but doesn’t let go, “There it is.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Jason gasps out, voice shredded.
“It’s okay,” Roy whispers into his ear again, forcing his breaths steady so Jason has something to match. “Almost done.”
Tim adjusts his hand against Jason’s shoulder, fingers pressing carefully along the displaced joint. “A little higher.”
Dick rotates Jason’s arm up.
For a split second, everything resists—muscle, tendon, the joint itself—and then it gives. The head of the humerus grinds back into place with a wet, nauseating clunk, a sound Roy feels as much as hears, like something thick and wrong snapping back where it belongs.
Jason convulses violently against him, a strangled cry tearing free as his body arches, then collapses back. His breath stutters, catches, disappears entirely for a few awful seconds as his chest locks up around the shock of it.
Roy tightens his hold around him, “Come on. Breathe.”
Jason finally drags in a shaking breath, then another, his body slowly losing some of its rigidity.
“Better?” Dick asks, hands hovering like placating a wild animal.
Jason keeps his eyes closed, “Ask me when I stop wanting to kill you,” he grits out. “Fuck I fucking forgot how much that shit hurts.”
Tim barks a laugh as Dick secures the arms against Jason’s chest with a sling from his belt. Why he has it, Roy isn’t sure. The strap crosses close to his ribs, earning another sharp hiss, but Jason’s fingers flex normally and the shoulder now sits where it belongs.
“We should head to the Cave,” Dick says. “All of us need to be checked properly.”
“Bruce isn’t there,” Tim adds, sending a pointed look to Jason. “He’s off-world with the League. You won’t have to deal with him. Damian’s at the Kents for the weekend and the girls are in Central City, so it’s only Alfred.”
Jason’s gaze drops immediately to the screen on Roy’s wrist.
“Lians alone,” he comments, shaking his head.
“She’s still asleep,” Roy replies after checking to make sure none of the sensors had gone off.
“I don’t care. I don’t want to leave her alone at night any longer than needed—” Jason shifts up hiding his grimace well, “I want to go home.”
Dick’s expression tightens. “Hood—”
“We know concussion protocol,” he snaps back. “The shoulder’s handled, and the ribs are bruised or cracked. Nothing new.”
“You don’t know they’re only cracked,” Tim urges.
Jason carefully takes another breath. It remains shallow, but steadier than before. “I know what cracked ribs feel like.”
Roy watches him for a moment. His breathing still catches, but it’s possible that they’re only cracked. He did watch Jason put on his heavier plated armor for this exact reason.
He still doesn’t like it, but he also understands the way Jason’s body tightens at the suggestion of the Manor, even with Bruce several planets away. More than that, he understands the need beneath Jason’s stubbornness.
It’s not only about him—it’s about Lian too. Jason hates leaving her alone. Still remembering the times when he was a child and would wake up not knowing if his parents would come home.
“We go home,” Roy reluctantly agrees. “But if anything gets worse, we leave. No arguments. And we’ll follow up with Leslie tomorrow morning after we drop Lian off for school, deal?”
Jason looks back at him and nods.
Dick sighs, clearly unhappy, but reaches down to help Jason stand. Roy takes most of his weight once he is upright, keeping an arm firm around his waist while Jason steadies himself through the first wave of dizziness.
“Call us,” Dick says. “Even if you think it’s nothing.”
“We will,” Roy promises.
Jason leans into his side, warm despite the tremor still moving through him.
Getting home takes longer than it should.
Neither of them is moving particularly well by the time they climb through the bedroom window. Roy’s head pounds with every pull of the fire escape, and Jason has to stop twice to catch his breath, leaning most of his weight into Roy while insisting through clenched teeth that he is fine.
The apartment is dark and quiet when they finally stumble inside, exactly as they left it except for the soft glow of the bedside clock and the steady rattle of the window unit.
When they push through to the living room, Lian is still curled beneath her blanket on the couch. The sight of her well and peaceful loosens the knot inside Roy’s chest.
Jason seems to relax marginally as well, standing in the bedroom doorway with one hand braced against the frame, battered armor dropping a mixture of rain water and sweat onto the floor as his eyes settle on the small rise and fall of her body.
“Get her to bed,” he says quietly gesturing to himself with his good arm. “I’ll handle this.”
Roy narrows his gaze at the sling, then the stiff way Jason is holding himself.
“You sure?”
Jason scoffs, then winces, “I can take off my own pants, Harper.”
“That is debatable on a good night,” Roy says through a half laugh, sending a wink at his boyfriend.
Jason gives him a tired glare, but there is no real heat behind it. He disappears into the bedroom after that while Roy sheds his bow and quiver on the ground by the doorframe, leaving the rest of his gear where it falls.
Lian barely weighs anything when he lifts her from the couch, but she startles awake anyway.
Her eyes open halfway as Roy settles her against his chest, dark curls flattened along one cheek.
“Daddy?”
Roy’s heart clenches at her worn out voice, “Just taking you to bed, sweets.”
Her arms find their way loosely around his neck, her face nuzzling into his chest.
“You came back,” she says with sleepy words, and a yawn. “Did you fight baddies tonight?”
Roy can’t help the smile, “‘Course I did. Me and Jay kicked some butt.”
He carries her down the short hall and lowers her carefully beneath the blankets. She stirs when her head touches the pillow, blinking up at him through the darkness.
“Where’s dad?” Lian asks, gripping the blanket Jason bought her a few weeks ago tight to her chest.
“He’s just getting ready for bed, baby.”
Plus maybe struggling to take off his compression underlayer with a sling—or struggling to take off the sling to get to his underlayer.
“Is he okay?” Lian questions, her big blue eyes bright despite the dark room.
Roy hesitates for less than half a second
“He’s just tired—now go to bed,” he says, brushing his calloused hands through her dark curls. “I love you.”
Lian seems to relent with a mumbled ‘love you too’ as he eyes close again. Roy pulls the blanket over his shoulders, pressing a kiss against her forehead, letting the sounds of her steady breathing wring out the rest of the adrenaline that had been thrumming beneath his skin.
You came back.
Guilt hits Roy, because the only reason he did was because Jason took a hit meant for him. The redhead doubts he would have survived it if Jason’s extra armor and padding had barely taken such a forceful hit.
Roy closes Lian’s door most of the way before standing in the hallway, head bowed as the memory catches up to him again. Jason running through the rain. Jason’s hands hitting his chest. The sound of the hammer connecting behind him, or the sharp sound of Jason’s body hitting the courthouse corner.
Roy presses the heels of his hands against his eyes until sparks bloom through the darkness. He stays there longer than he means to, breathing slow and uneven, until the quiet of the apartment settles back in around him.
Eventually, he drags his hands down his face and straightens.
One step. Then another.
The hallway feels longer than it should as he moves toward their bedroom, each footfall heavy, like he’s wading through something thick and unseen. He pauses just outside the doorway, one hand braced against the frame, steadying himself before he looks in.
“Hey.”
Roy glances up, eyes focusing on Jason. Who sits at the edge of their bed in a pair of loose sweatpants, his armor abandoned in a disorganized pile beside the closet. The sling remains secured across his bare chest, already mottled with bruising along the sternum and left side. His head is lowered, curls still wet with sweat and rain, but his eyes are fixed on Roy through the open doorway.
“C’mere,” he says quietly.
Roy can’t seem to make himself move—guilt glueing him the the linoleum floor.
Jason’s expression softens, his lips upturning into a barely there smile, “Roy.”
Roy forces his legs to move crossing the room slowly and stopping between Jason’s knees. His boyfriend reaches for him with his good arm, winding it around Roy’s middle and pulling him close until his stomach presses against Jason’s chest.
“Wait—” Roy starts, immediately easing back. “Your ribs.”
“Shut up,” Jason mumbles, resting his forehead against Roy’s abdomen. His arm tightens around him as much as it can, holding him in place.
For a moment, neither of them speaks. Roy lays one hand against the back of Jason’s head, fingers disappearing into damp curls. The other hovers uselessly above the injured shoulder before settling carefully against the side of his neck.
“I just—” Roy starts inhaling the woodsy incense of Jason’s cologne. “I feel like it should’ve been—”
“Nope,” Jason replies immediately, grip tightening. “Roy—listen to me. You just got hit in the head. None of this is your fault.”
“But—if I’d just seen it—”
“Babe—” Jason huffs out a ragged breath pulling his head back to bore his green-blue eyes into Roy’s. “It’s not your fault.” Jason presses, the softness leaving his voice just enough to make the words clear. “Get that shit out of your head.”
Roy feels the frown tugging at his lips. Jason is pale and exhausted, one arm strapped to his chest and bruises spreading visibly across his ribs, but his gaze does not waver.
“I love you,” he expresses, with more warmth and sincerity that Roy is sure no one would believe him if he told them about it. “I made the choice. I’d make it again ten times over, so don’t turn it into something you did to me.”
Roy’s face twists, he wills the tears to stay behind his eyes as he bends down and carefully kisses his boyfriends forehead.
“I love you too.”
Jason presses his face into Roy’s stomach again, holding him there for another quiet moment before breathing out still a bit labored.
“God—we smell terrible,” he coughs out after a minute with a wince to his shoulder.
Roy laughs weakly and wipes at his eyes. “Romance is alive.”
The shower takes considerably more coordination than either of them has left.
Roy gets the sling off without letting Jason’s arm shift, then helps him step beneath the spray. The water runs gray and pink around their feet as it carries away grime, dried blood, and whatever oily residue the constructs left behind. Jason braces his good hand against the tile while Roy washes his hair and carefully cleans around the bruising on his chest.
Every time Jason has to move, his breath catches. It’s hard not to notice, but Roy knows how much cracked ribs make breathing—hell even moving—a bitch so he tries not to press more.
By the time they trade places, the bathroom is thick with steam. Jason insists on checking the cut near Roy’s temple despite having only one useful hand, gently turning his face beneath the light and making him track a finger back and forth.
They dry off slowly and make it into bed sometime after two.
Jason tries lying on his back first—it lasts less than a minute. He shifts onto his right side next, but the position pulls across his chest and displaced shoulder. He returns to his back, adds another pillow beneath his injured arm, then removes it when the angle makes his ribs ache.
Roy watches from beside him, trying not to mother hen his very capable boyfriend.
Jason lets out a controlled breath through his nose, “just can’t get comfortable.”
Roy reaches over and adjusts the pillows behind him, helping him sit at a shallow incline. Jason settles back carefully, his mouth pulling tight as the movement sends another line of pain through his chest.
“Better?”
Jason nods minutely, “A little.”
Roy studies his face the best he can in the dark lighting of their bedroom. Jason’s breathing is still shallow, his injuries still hurt despite the pain meds, so nothing about it seems strange enough to overpower exhaustion.
Whilst setting an alarm for three hours Roy rests his phone on the charger making sure the volumne is on high. Concussion protocol means they need to be up every three hours to make sure there is no insensitivity to light or blown pupils. It sucks but it’s necessariy, so Roy swallows his complaint and lays down.
Roy settles beside Jason, close enough that their legs remain pressed together but careful not to jostle his upper body. Jason turns his head and finds Roy’s hand beneath the blanket, lacing their fingers together.
He watches him for another minute or so, tracking every shallow rise of his chest.
Eventually his boyfriends breathing evens out enough that Roy allows his own eyes to close, trusting the alarm beside them to wake him in three hours.
***
Roy isn’t sure what wakes him first. The sharp thud against his leg or the strangled sound that follows it.
Eitherway his eyes snap open, and for one disorienting second the bedroom spins violently, the concussion catching up with him as he jerks upright too fast. The room tilts sideways, the glow of the alarm clock smearing into long red streaks across his vision.
Then everything settles.
Jason is sitting on the edge of the bed—his sling has been torn off. One hand is white-knuckled against the mattress, the other pressed hard over the center of his chest. Sweat pours down the side of his face despite the cool air rattling from the window unit. His skin—
Fuck… he’s so pale.
Not like an exhausted pale he’s skin is clammy and leans more gray. His mouth hangs open as he fights for air that doesn't seem to be reaching him. His entire chest shudders with each desperate attempt.
“Jaybird?”
Jason turns just enough for Roy to see the panic set in his eyes.
“C-can’t…” he tries to force another breath, but what comes is a wheezing sort of gasp. “...breathe.”
Roy is up and out of bed in seconds, catching Jason before he can pitch sideways off the bed, one hand between his shoulder blades while the other fumbles blindly across the nightstand for his phone.
His fingers aren’t responding.
Come on.
Come on—
He nearly throws the damn thing across the room before finally managing to hit Alfred's contact. The call barely rings twice before Alfred’s steady voice fills the speaker.
“Mast—”
“We’re coming,” Roy blurts, words tripping over one another. "He can't breathe. Alfred, he—he can't fucking breathe. We’re on our way now.”
There is the slightest, tiniest, of pauses before Alfred’s voice comes back impossibly calm.
“Bring him immediately.”
Roy is already hauling Jason to his feet, whose breathing has starting to come in short, desperate gasps that barely seem to move his chest.
“Li…an—” Jason forces out, lifting one finger and pointing toward the shared wall of their bedroom.
Roy swallows the lump in his throat and wraps one arm firmly around Jason's waist. He half guides, half carries him into the hallway before ducking into Lian's room.
“Hey, Bug,” he calls in, but his daughter doesn’t answer. “Lian you gotta wake up.”
His desperation must have leaked through his tone, because her little eyes flutter open.
“Daddy?” She calls, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.
“Hey bug, we’re gonna go on a little trip, okay?”
Lian blinks sleepily up at him but nods, allowing Roy to scoop her into his free arm, wrapping her blanket around her before settling her against his shoulder. She immediately curls into him, still mostly asleep.
"What's wrong?" She slurs out.
"Nothing you need to worry about,” Roy says hoping his voice sounds steadier than he feels.
Jason is leaning against the hallway wall when Roy steps back out. He's slid halfway toward the floor. Every breath comes with a frightening little hitch now, shoulders working harder and harder just to pull air in.
Roy is across the hallway in two strides and then they’re out the door.
The elevator feels like it takes forever. Jason refuses to lean completely against him despite the obvious effort standing requires. His breathing audibly wet and sharp now. The sound follows them all the way to the parking garage.
Roy get’s Jason into the passenger seat first. He doesn't even argue when Roy reclines it slightly before immediately sitting him upright again after remembering breathing would probably be easier that way.
Lian is asleep again before Roy finishes buckling her into the backseat—small mercies.
Roy, honest to god, hardly remembers what happens next other than that a few moments later Gotham is flying past the windshield in streaks of orange and white.
Every red light is a suggestion. Every stop sign disappears. The tires squeal around corners slick from the earlier rain. Beside him Jason sits rigidly upright, one hand gripping the door handle so tightly his knuckles have gone white.
"Jaybird, hey,” Roy coos, reaching across the center console, and resting his palm against Jason’s thigh. “You gotta take slow—deep breaths—as much as you can.”
Jason tries, manages a short one before his chest stops expanding and the breath catches painfully.
“It’s okay,” Roy doesn’t even believe his own words. “Just keep trying.”
Jason nods once, and the movement seems to cost him.
Minutes past as Roy beelines it across Mooney Bridge.
“Talk to me Jay—are you with me?” Roy asks desperately, swerving around a car on his left.
“...hurts,” Jason chokes out.
Roy’s own panic is threatening to overcome him. The road breaks away into trees.
“Just don’t pass out on me, okay?” Roy tries for humor and Jason even attempts a smile, but it hardly makes it all the way on his face.
“Tr…y—no… to.”
Jason takes in another attempted breath as Roy’s hands tighten on the steering wheel.
“Please stay with me Jay.”
Jason nods again, and his breathing suddenly changes. He jerks forward—and for a split second Roy is worried he’s gonna throw up, but a instead a harsh cough tears out of him. Then another. His entire body folds around it.
“Jason?” Roy calls barely managing to keep his eyes on the road.
The next cough sounds wetter. Pain rips visibly across Jason's face. He cries out—cuts himself off halfway through—and instinctively clamps his hand over his mouth.
The coughing stops—Jason stares down at his own palm. Roy chances a glance down and catches the puddle of frothy pink blood coating the center of his hand before it drips slowly between his fingers.
Roy’s entire world narrows to a pinpoint.
No.
No no no—
“Daddy?”
Roy's head snaps toward the backseat.
Lian is sitting up now, the blanket slipping into her lap. Her sleepy blue eyes are fixed on Jason and unfortunately also the blood.
“Why’s you bleeding Dad?”
Roy forces every ounce of panic out of his voice, “He just got a little more banged up fighting those bad guys from earlier.”
Lian nods slowly, “Is he gonna be okay?”
Roy exchanges a worried glance with his boyfriend. Another thin line of blood trails over his knuckles before disappearing onto his sweats.
Jason can’t seem to answer anymore. Every ounce of his concentration has narrowed to one impossible task: Getting enough air.
Roy tears his eyes back to the road.
The Manor gates appear through the darkness already open. He threads the car through gap fast enough that the tires scream across the wet stone drive. The lights the Manor explode into view as he drives straight to the cave.
Roy barely remembers throwing the car in park. One second the tires are screeching against polished concrete, the next he’s around the passenger side before hte engine has even finished idling.
Alfred and Dick are both there. The latter in a pair of sweatpants and a Gotham Knights hoodie, his damp hair sticking up in every direction like he'd rolled straight out of bed.
The moment Roy opens the passenger door, both of their expressions twist.
“Master Jason,” Alfred greets surprisingly calm.
Jason attempts to reply, but its cut off by a ragged breath. When his feet hit the ground upper body supported by Roy his knees buckle almost immediately.
Roy tightens his grip on his boyfriend as Alfred comes onto his other side carefully assisting around the injuries. Between the two of them they half carry, half drag Jason toward the medical bay. His tennis shoes scrape across the concrete every few steps, his good hand still pressed desperately against the center of his chest.
“Dick—Lian,” Roy states, not slowing down.
“I’ve got her, buddy,” Dick says firmly.
Roy glances back just once to see his friend has the back passenger door open. Lian is blinking sleepily beneath her blanket as Dick carefully lifts her into his arms.
“Hiya there Miss. Firefly,” Dick says softly, a characteristic charming smile plastered across his face. “Why don’t we go see if Alfred’s got some cookies for ya.”
Lian nods against his chest, Dick’s body blocking her view of her Dad being dragged across to the medbay.
Roy doesn’t see them disappear up the stairs, everything just narrows to the sound of Jason trying—and failing—to just fucking breathe.
Once to the cot, Alfred lowers it with a quiet hydraulic hiss and assists Jason onto it.
In an instant, the older man is working with practiced ease.
Roy’s stomach drops to the floor despite having already seen the state Jason was in. It does little to ease his worries though to see his boyfriends chest is still a mess of dark purple and black bruising across the left side, ugly and deep beneath the fluorescent lights—maybe a shade darker now, maybe a little more spread, but not enough to explain why—why every breath is pulling wrong, shallow, and strained.
Roy realizes minutely that his left chest is barely moving at all.
"When did this begin?" Alfred asks without looking up.
"Thirty minutes tops. Maybe twenty-five." Roy's words tumble over one another. "He woke me up—he couldn't breathe—we thought it was cracked ribs—we—"
Jason coughs again.
Alfred is already there with a folded square of sterile gauze.
The cough folds Jason forward despite the incline of the medical cot, his entire body locking around the effort. It sounds wrong—wet and deep, almost bubbling somewhere inside his chest.
Then another tears free painful enough Roy flinches with the sound. Bright red foam splatters across the gauze. It’s not thick or clotting, just frothy. Pink around the edges where air must have churned through it.
A thin ribbon catches at the corner of Jason’s mouth before Alfred wipes it away with practiced efficiency.
Thats… oxygenated blood—fuck that—that’s coming from his lungs.
Roy’s stomach knots at the thoughts.
Jason drags in another breath behind the cough, or at least he tries to. His mouth hangs open beneath the effort. Every muscle in his neck stands out in sharp relief, tendons pulling tight as he fights for air that simply isn't there.
"Easy, Master Jason," Alfred says, keeping one steady hand against his shoulder as he reaches for the oxygen mask. "We will sort you out."
Jason’s gaze finds Roy’s. His gaze lacking focus, eyes almost glassy. Like every bit of oxygen left in his body is being spent simply staying awake.
Footsteps thunder down the stairs, when Roy turns Tim is rushing toward them. Still in his uniform from only a few hours earlier, but his cape and domino are gone.
As he runs he reaches for a portable monitor with one hand while the other balances an oxygen kit and a portable ultrasound.
“I came as soon as I could,” he explains in a rush. Within seconds adhesive leads are pressed against Jason's chest, careful to avoid the worst of the bruising.
The pulse oximeter clips onto his finger, the monitor shrieks awake a second later.
“Fuck—eighty and dropping,” Tim cruses out, his fingers already flying across the screen.
Roy narrows his eyes at the monitor, “W–what?”
“His oxygen saturation," Tim doesn't even look up. "Normal's above ninety-five."
The number flashes again before lowering to seventy-nine then seventy-seven.
Roy’s heart feels like it's been ripped from his chest.
Alfred settles the oxygen mask over Jason’s nose and mouth, “High-flow, Master Tim.”
Tim twists the regulator causing oxygen to rush through the tubing with a loud hiss. Jason’s chest keeps straining despite it. Every breath pulls his shoulders upward, lips starting to lose their color.
Alfred slips his stethoscope beneath Jason's back, listening methodically, "...Markedly diminished breath sounds on the left."
Tim is already spreading ultrasound gel across Jason's bruised ribs. The probe glides carefully over skin already turning nearly black beneath the fluorescent lights.
The image that it provides looks completely useless to Roy, a mixture of white’s, blacks, and grays. Apparently though, Tim is more versed, because he studies it for hardly two seconds before shifting the probe lower.
“I’ve got fluid,” he explains, keeping his eyes on the screen. "And no lung sliding."
“What does that mean?” Roy exasperates, looking from the monitor back to Jason.
"It means blood's collecting around his lung," Tim says, shifting the probe again. "Air too. Every time he breathes, it's getting trapped in the pleural space instead of letting the lung expand."
Alfred nods once, “Likely a hemopneumothorax.”
Roy barely comprehends the words Alfred speaks, it seems like a made up word, but he catches the meanings around it—and all he knows is that’s bad.
Jason coughs again, beneath the oxygen mask. Another spray of pink foam spatters against the inside of the clear plastic. The monitor alarms louder.
Seventy-three.
Jason reaches weakly for the mask, trying to pull it away. Roy catches his wrist letting his fingers slide into his boyfriend's hand.
“Hey,” he says softly, wrapping his other hand around Jason’s forearm to ground him. His boyfriend squeezes his eyes shut, another useless breath shudders through him like maybe he tried to speak before his body stopped him. "I know," Roy whispers, voice cracking. "Just... leave it on for me, okay?"
After a long second, Jason's hand goes slightly limp against his own. Roy’s thumb rubs absentmindedly across his wrist while he counts breaths that never seem big enough. It’s all too much for him. He’s seen enough death—felt enough loss. He can’t lose Jason too secret identities be damned.
“Do we need to take him to a hospital?” Roy finally blurts out, letting the question that had been simmering on the tip of his tongue out.
It hangs in the damp air for seconds, Tim hesitates minutely, long enough for Roy to realize he'd been wondering the exact same thing. His eyes flick to Alfred’s, who listens to Jason’s chest one final time before pulling the stethoscope off.
"I've managed this injury before," he explains evenly as he reaches for a pair of sterile gloves. "Master Bruce sustained a similar hemopneumothorax following a cave collapse some years ago." The blue gloves snap around his wrists. “I believe I can stabilize him here.”
Believe?
Roy wants to scream at the top of his lungs.
I’m not risking his life on a ‘belief.’
“We must work quickly though,” Alfred interjects before Roy can voice any other objections. The old man's eyes settle on Tim, “We need to evacuate the air and blood from the pleural space before the lung can re-expand."
“Chest tube?” Tim asks, already pulling open a sterile tray. Roy isn’t sure he even wants to know how Tim knows A) how to do that and B) where he learned it.
Alfred only gives a firm nod as metal instruments clatter softly against stainless steel: a scalpel, forceps, and what Roy assumes is the chest tube itself.
Tim tears open another sterile package while Alfred begins scrubbing Jason's left side with antiseptic.
“Roy,” Alfred orders, making Roy startle so hard he nearly drops Jason’s hand. “I need you.”
The redhead looks down at where his hands are trembling hard against his boyfriend's skin.
“I—my hands—I’m shaking—”
“I need them anyway,” Alfred says firmly.
Roy swallows hard and steps closer.
Alfred takes his own steadying breath, "Keep the mask sealed against his face. If he tries to pull it away again, don't let him.”
Roy slides both hands into place around the oxygen mask, careful not to press too hard as he seals the soft silicone against Jason's face. Even through the gloves Alfred had shoved into his hands moments earlier, he can feel the faint tremor running through Jason's jaw every time he attempts another shallow breath.
The cave suddenly feels impossibly small.
The overhead surgical lights wash everything in stark white, turning the stainless steel instruments laid across the tray into blinding flashes every time Alfred or Tim reach for another one.
Somewhere behind Roy, one of the computers hummed steadily, almost drowned out by the relentless rhythm of the cardiac monitor. Every few seconds it answers with another shrill alarm as Jason's oxygen saturation hovers stubbornly in the sixties.
Roy is incapable of tearing his eyes away from Jason’s face. How his lips have lost nearly all their color. Sweat dampens the dark curls plastered against his forehead, and his eyelids are fluttering weakly every few seconds, just fighting to stay open. He looks exhausted.
"Stay with me, Jay," Roy whispers, brushing his thumb over the back of Jason's hand. "Come on, baby. Just keep looking at me."
Jason’s eyes drift toward him slowly. It clearly takes more effort than it should. His gaze finds Roy's for a brief moment before sliding away again, unfocused and glassy.
Alfred's voice remains impossibly steady somewhere beside him, “Local anesthetic."
Tim hands over a syringe before reaching immediately for another package.
"You'll feel some pressure, Master Jason."
Roy isn't sure Jason hears him, but he makes the mistake of glancing down. Alfred has already painted Jason's entire left side with antiseptic, the amber solution staining the bruised skin a deeper shade beneath the harsh lights. The scalpel flashes once as it passes from Tim's hand into Alfred's.
Roy's stomach lurches so violently he has to swallow hard against it.
Nope—no I can’t watch this.
He's seen Jason stitched up on bathroom floors. He's helped pull bullets out of shoulders. Hell, he's dug shrapnel out of his own leg once with Jason talking him through it, because he refused the alcohol the locals offered him.
This is so much worse—because Jason isn’t here laughing with him and distracting him through it. Not cursing or threatening when something hurts too deep. He’s just lying frighteningly still beneath Roy's hands while someone cuts into his chest.
Roy drags his eyes back to Jason's face before the incision grows any larger. His pulse hammers against his ribs as he fights another wave of nausea.
"That's it," he murmurs, more for himself than Jason. "Just keep looking at me."
Metal clicks softly against metal then packaging crinkles. Roy only hears ‘clamp’ and ‘tube’ before they all blur together into meaningless noise. He couldn't tell anyone what they're doing if his life depended on it. He only knows Alfred is working quickly, Tim anticipating every movement before it happens, and Jason's fingers twitch weakly inside his own.
Then Jason lets out the smallest sound—not a scream or a groan. Just a strained, breathless whimper that seems to scrape its way out of his chest.
Roy squeezes his hand tight, "I know," he whispers immediately. "I know, Jaybird. I know."
A second later comes a sound Roy knows he'll never forget. It’s a long wet hiss, like opening a bottle that’s been sitting in an airplane.
Tim moves almost instantly, guiding clear tubing down into a collection chamber hanging below the cot. Dark blood flows steadily through it, chased by streams of escaping air that bubble noisily beneath the water seal.
"There we are," Alfred says quietly, the first hint of satisfaction entering his voice. "Pressure's coming off."
"The lung's beginning to re-expand," Tim confirms, never taking his eyes off the monitor. "Air leak's slowing."
Roy doesn't understand exactly what that means, but he understands what happens next. Jason's next breath is still shallow, but it actually fills his chest.
Then another, and another.
They're not great, but they’re breaths.
The monitor's frantic alarm finally changes pitch. Roy looks up just in time to watch the oxygen saturation crawl upward. Seventy-two to eighty-one to eighty-nine to ninety. Each number feels like another weight lifting off his own chest.
Alfred listens to both lungs again before giving a single satisfied nod, "Much better. Keep the drainage below the chest. Let's secure the tube."
Tim is already threading suture through a needle holder before Alfred finishes speaking.
Roy barely registers the rest. His entire world narrows to Jason, how the tight lines around his eyes have softened. How the panic that consumed every expression only minutes earlier is gone, replaced by complete exhaustion. His breathing remains shallow beneath the oxygen mask, but it has settled into something almost rhythmic.
Jason’s eyelids drift close.
"Jay?" Roy asks immediately, panic flaring all over again.
Tim glances up from the dressing he's helping Alfred secure and offers the smallest shake of his head, "He's okay," he says quietly. "His body's finally getting oxygen again. Let him rest."
Roy doesn't realize he's crying until one warm tear lands across the back of Jason's hand. He wipes it away before anyone can pretend not to notice.
The room grows strangely quiet. The only sounds left are the steady hiss of oxygen, the quiet clink of Alfred cleaning up the last of the instruments, and the rhythmic beeping of a monitor that no longer sounds like it's counting down the seconds until Roy loses the person he loves.
He doesn't realize he's still holding the oxygen mask until Alfred gently lays a hand over his wrist.
“Master Roy,” Alfred says quietly.
Roy blinks.
Tim is already disconnecting the portable monitor, transferring Jason onto a larger bedside monitor while Alfred carefully settles the drainage tubing below the level of the bed. The frantic pace from only moments earlier has slowed into something measured and controlled.
Roy doesn’t remember it changing.
"Thank you," Alfred continues, easing the mask from Roy's hands. "You may let go now."
The redhead’s fingers refuse to cooperate. They’re locked around the plastic so tightly his knuckles have turned white.
Alfred doesn’t pry, he just waits.
Until eventually, Roy’s grip loosens one finger at a time. The oxygen mask leaves his hands, but Roy’s eyes remain fixed on Jason as Alfred and Tim begin wheeling the cot farther back into the medical bay toward one of the recovery rooms tucked behind the glass doors.
Everything beyond that glass suddenly feels… far away, like he’s watching through corn syrup.
"Master Tim," Alfred says as they come back, his voice strangely muffled. "Would you mind relieving Master Dick? I imagine he'll wish to see Master Jason."
Tim disappears without a word, and Roy is able to watch him go, or at least he thinks he does because between one blink and the next he’s—he’s…
Sitting on the floor?
Sorta? He’s curled in on himself, knees pulled tight against his chest. His back is… against something cold and smooth.
It’s dark. Maybe the opposite side of the cave?
Roy has no recollection of even moving. His hands are shaking so violently he can’t lace his fingers together, but he doesn't feel cold.
Jason almost… died.
The thought crashes into him all over again. Not even figuratively this time—actually.
If they’d stayed home another twenty minutes.
If Alfred hadn’t answered.
If Bruce had never built this cave.
If, if, if, if—
His stomach twists violently, air catches halfway into his lungs. He tries again but nothing comes of it aside from his vision narrowing.
The cave tilts sideways.
Somewhere nearby someone says his name—once, then twice. Before a weight settles beside him and a warm hand rests against his knee.
It doesn’t shake him or demand his attention. It just stays there, solid and grounding against the violent tremor running through his legs.
“Roy,” a voice says.
Its Dick—of course it is. Roy realizes it distantly he would know that voice anywhere. Usually it's paired with a crooked grin or some terrible joke that makes Jason roll his eyes so hard Roy swears one day they'll get stuck.
Tonight it's softer than he's ever heard it, stripped of all the effortless confidence Nightwing wears like a second skin.
“Hey, Harper.”
Roy wants to answer—he really does.
Instead another breath catches halfway into his chest before dissolving into something sharp and uneven. His fingers curl tighter around his own knees, nails digging through the fabric of his sweatpants.
He can't stop fucking shaking.
Jason almost died.
The thought is looping now not even as a sentence but as a memory. Roy can see his oxygen numbers going down in his head clear as day. Over and over and over again. His stomach rolls so violently he has to swallow against it.
He isn't looking at the floor anymore. He's looking straight through it, every horrible moment replaying itself whether he wants it to or not.
Dick doesn’t interrupt, he doesn't even tell him he needs to breathe, or tell him that everything's fine because they both know how close it came to not being fine.
Instead, after another long minute, Roy feels Dick shift a little closer until their shoulders touch.
“You know,” Dick says quietly, "Bruce gets like this sometimes…”
Roy blinks—not sure why Bruce is relevant.
"When one of us gets hurt bad enough..." Dick lets out a slow breath as he continues. "He checks every heartbeat. Every breath. Every monitor. Doesn't matter if Alfred's already told him we're stable."
Roy swallows hard around the lump in his throat, glancing up at his friend.
"I always thought it was because he didn't trust anybody else,” A sad little smile tugs at the corner of Dick's mouth. "When really it's because for a few hours..." he pauses, searching for the words. "...his brain gets stuck in the version where we don't make it."
“M—my brain is—is s—still there,” Roy forces his words through the violent shudders.
“I know, buddy.”
"I can't..." His voice finally breaks free, rough and scraped raw. "I keep seeing—"
“I know,” Dick says both simply and firmly.
Roy finally turns his head enough to look at him fully. Dick's expression is tired. His own eyes are rimmed red, exhaustion pulling at every feature despite the small smile he's trying so hard to hold together for Roy's sake.
For the first time all night, Roy realizes Dick had been scared too. Jason isn’t just Roy’s boyfriend—he’s Dick’s little brother.
The realization cracks something new open inside him, "I thought..." Roy's voice trembles. "I thought I was gonna lose him."
His friend's hand squeezes his knee once, “so did I.”
A whole new kind of pressure builds behind Roy’s ribs, hot and impossible to hold back. Dick seems to notice before he does, because he opens one arm, so automatic it almost hurts.
Roy doesn’t hesitate, he simply folds sideways. One second he's sitting against the wall, the next his forehead is buried against Dick's shoulder as strong arms wrap around him with a familiarity that only comes from years of patching each other back together.
The first sob tears out of him so hard it hurts.
"I know," Dick murmurs, one hand settling against the back of Roy's head. "Let it out."
Everything he's held together since Jason took the damn hit comes apart at once. Terror. Relief. Guilt. The image of blood on white gauze. Jason's gray skin. The numbers on the monitor. Every ‘what if’ he'd shoved aside because there hadn't been time.
Dick just holds him through all of it. He simply stays exactly where he is, letting Roy fall apart because sometimes there isn't anything else a brother can do.
The sobs eventually lose their violence, fading into shaky breaths that still hitch every so often despite his best efforts. Dick never once lets go, one hand rubbing slow circles between Roy's shoulder blades the same way he used to after particularly ugly patrols back when Roy practically lived at Titans Tower.
The familiar hum of the cave shifts.
A second later, the unmistakable whine of the Zeta Tube echoes through the cavern. Roy barely registers it and the fast paced footsteps that step off of it.
Heavy boots striking concrete in quick succession.
“Where is he?”
Roy knows it’s Bruce—the deep timbre of Batman is gone, a much tighter version of Bruce Wayne presenting itself.
“Recovery room,” Dick replies as his other arm moves, likely to point. The footsteps fade just as fast as they appeared.
Distantly, the redhead knows how much Jason is going to hate it that Bruce is gonna be here when he wakes up, but honestly he’s just grateful his boyfriend is alive to be pissed. Plus, he knows all Bruce is going to do is pace beside his bed, check every monitor, every rise and fall of Jason’s chest. He knows because he would do the same thing. Despite everything the image manages to pull a weak huff of laughter out of him.
After another moment or so, Roy finally pulls back, scrubbing both sleeves across his face before realizing he's left a damp patch across the front of Dick's hoodie.
"...Sorry,” he says weakly.
Dick glances down at the tear-soaked fabric before shrugging one shoulder, "This thing's survived Kryptonian slime, Kori setting me on fire by accident, and the weird dessert Beast Boy spilled on it last month." He gives Roy a sideways grin, "You'll have to give it a lot more than that."
Roy lets out something halfway between a watery laugh and another sniffle.
“You look like you're about ready to pass out,” Dick says, after studying him for another second and nudging his shoulder.
Roy starts to shake his head, then immediately regrets it as the Cave sways gently around him.
“‘M a little dizzy,” he admits.
“Yeah no shit. Pretty sure all of us walked away with a concussion from that fight.”
Another tired laugh escapes Roy, but his eyes drift toward the recovery rooms.
“I should stay with him,” he says. “I want to be here when he wakes up.”
“What are you planning on doing exactly?” Dick pries with a cocked brow.
Roy opens his mouth to say something, and absolutely nothing useful comes out.
“Exactly,” Dick laughs out, “Come upstairs, get a few hours of sleep. Bruce isn’t gonna leave that room unless Alfred physically drags him out, and I’ll stay here too. You both need to get some sleep.”
Roy only hesitates for a minute longer, “...Lian?”
Dick smiles, “She’s good. Roped Tim into watching some Lego ninja show or something. Last I saw, she was trying to explain the plot in five-year-old-ish to Tim.”
The image comes easily—Lian tucked beneath a blanket, animatedly narrating every fight scene while Tim nods along like the world's most confused babysitter. It eases the worry that is ever constant. He’ll need to tell her what happened, but he just… can’t right now. Dick is right he needs to sleep. He’s no good to anyone dead on his feet.
“...okay,” he relents, taking his friend's offered hand.
Dick haul him to his feet. His legs wobble beneath him, but they manage to hold.
“C’mon then let’s get you to bed.”
***
Roy isn’t sure what wakes him.
It isn’t the frantic alarm he’d set for the concussion checks—that much becomes obvious the moment awareness finally claws its way back through the fog wrapped around his mind. Instead its warmth. The unfamiliar weight of an impossibly soft mattress beneath him. The faint smell of cedar and old books carried through air that's several degrees cooler than their apartment ever manages in July.
Somewhere beyond the closed bedroom door comes the muffled echo of laughter, small feet pattering across polished hardwood, and a child's delighted shriek that ricochets through the cavernous halls of Wayne Manor before dissolving into silence. The sound feels strangely out of place after everything his brain insists happened last night.
For one long, terrifying heartbeat he can't reconcile laughter with blood on Jason's lips.
Roy’s heart hammers against his chest as he stares up.
The ceiling above him isn't cracked plaster stained by decades of apartment living. It's painted cream, trimmed with dark walnut beams that disappear into shadows cast by afternoon sunlight filtering through heavy curtains. He lies perfectly still, head beginning to pound as memory crashes back all at once.
Courthouse—hammer—Jason not breathing—pink blood—chest tube.
Roy bolts upright too fast, immediately regretting it as the room rocks gently beneath him. His skull throbs where the construct caught him yesterday, the dull ache spreading behind his eyes with every beat of his pulse. Immediately, his hand reaches toward the nightstand for his phone, desperate to check the sensors before remembering there aren't any sensors here. His fingers close around empty wood instead.
The digital clock sitting atop the dresser glows 4:17 PM.
He slept through almost the entire day. The realization sends another surge of panic through him.
Jason.
Before he can even swing his legs over the side of the bed, another burst of laughter floats up from downstairs.
Fuck—Lian.
Roy freezes. A second voice follows hers, younger than Dick's, flatter than Tim's, carrying all the practiced exasperation of someone being forced into children's games against his will. It isn’t until he hears a muffled response that he realizes the voice belongs to Damians.
A soft knock sounds against the bedroom door before it opens a crack.
Dick leans around the frame carrying two steaming Justice League mugs, his damp hair still refusing to lie flat despite clearly having showered sometime earlier. He's traded last night's hoodie for an old Titans t-shirt and sweatpants, though the dark circles beneath his eyes suggest he hasn't slept much more than Roy has.
“How’s Jason?” Roy asks hurriedly, the question leaves him before anything else can.
Dicks expression softens somehow more, "He's okay."
The words settle over Roy like the overpriced comforter he just slept on.
"He's been awake on and off most of the afternoon," Dick continues as he crosses the room, setting one of the mugs onto the bedside table. "Still exhausted. Still pretty sore. Alfred says his oxygen's looking good though, and the lung's behaving exactly how they wanted."
The relief is enough to make Roy want to just simply lie back down and sleep another twelve hours, but his next thought is just as quick.
“How’s Lian?”
“She’s great,” Dick says with a laugh. "She slept until almost lunch," He explains scratching absently at the back of his neck. “Alfred already called the school before any of us even thought about it. Figured one day wasn't going to kill her."
Roy nods slowly.
"Steph and Cass came back as soon as they heard what happened. Between the two of them and Alfred, they kept her occupied most of the morning." Dick grins toward the hallway as another muffled protest from Lian echoes upstairs. "Then Damian volunteered to babysit for a few hours while the girls got unpacked."
"Volunteered?" Roy questions, lifting a brow. Damian isn’t well known to be fond of the unpredictability of kids.
“Yup! Shocked the hell outta me,” Dick exclaims handing Roy the steaming cup of what can now be identified as coffee—bless it. “How you feeling?”
“Tired,” Roy says immediately, taking a sip from the warm mug while rubbing his free hand over his face. Now acutely aware of just how heavy every muscle in his body feels, “I’m honestly just… so fucking tired.”
Despite looking just as exhausted, Dick offers a small smile, “Same.”
Roy lets out a slow breath, pushing aside his own needs to incline his head toward his friend.
“Thank you,” he says firmly. “For literally everything.”
Roy wishes there was more he could say. More he could express, but the only thing that feels right is that.
“That’s what families are for…. Speedy,” Dick says with a cheeky grin, waving away the words with an easy shrug. “Although you guys might want to consider staying here for a couple days.”
Roy raises a brow, but before he can clarify his friend continues.
“Jason shouldn't be climbing six flights of apartment stairs with a chest tube, you've got a concussion, Alfred's already hovering whether you like it or not, and you've got like—eight people willing to help with Lian."
A part of the redhead knows Jason would oppose, the other part is deciding not to let his boyfriend have a say in the manor given their current predicament.
“Yeah that’s… that’d be amazing—thank you… again,” Roy says, looking away and toward the window where late afternoon sunlight spills across the hardwood floor in warm golden rectangles.
“Again…” Dick emphasizes. “Family, Roy. Whatever you need we’ll be there.”
Roy doesn’t respond that time, just swings his legs over the edge of the bed, accepting the oversized Wayne Enterprises hoodie and pair of sweats someone—Alfred probably—had thoughtfully left folded across the footboard. They smell faintly of clean cotton and fabric softener, comfortable in the unfamiliar way borrowed clothes always are.
As he pulls the hoodie over his head, only one thought keeps circling back.
"Can I see him?"
Dick's smile softens, "I was hoping you'd ask."
Together they step out into the quiet hallway, sunlight pooling across polished wood while the sounds of laughter drift toward them from somewhere farther down the hall.
They don’t make it far down it though before something small and dark-haired barrels around the corner.
“Daddy!” Lian screams, leaving Roy barely enough time to brace himself before his daughter launches headfirst into him.
His arms wrap around her automatically, lifting her clean off the floor as she crashes against his chest hard enough to make his sore body complain. He doesn't care. He buries his face in her curls, breathing in the familiar scent of strawberry shampoo and the faint sweetness of cookies she must have talked someone into helping bake that afternoon.
For much longer than necessary Roy just holds her, sinking to his knees on the wooden floor to keep her as tight to his chest as possible.
“I missed you! But Uncle Dick said you needed to sleep,” she mumbles into the front of his borrowed hoodie.
Roy laughs softly, pressing a kiss against the top of her head, “Daddy needed a break, but I missed you too.”
She pulls back enough to look at him, blue eyes bright as saucers, little hands still fisted in the fabric of his sweatshirt.
“Is dad okay?” She starts, before taking a deep breath, “Iwannaseehim—everyonesayshe’ssleeping, butI’ worried. Iwannaseehimnow!” Lian's words tumble over one another before Roy can even comprehend her first question
It takes him several seconds to descramble the words in his own mind and when he does he brushes a loose curl away from her face, tucking it carefully behind her ear.
“He got hurt keeping people safe,” he explains gently. “Alfie and Uncle Tim fixed the scary part, and he’s okay, but he’s still hurt.”
Her eyes search his face with a seriousness that always catches him off guard. In a way it’s very… Jade. Maybe one of the only traits she’s inherited from her mother aside from her looks.
“So… he’s gonna be okay?” She asks, uncertainty wavering her voice as she tugs at the hem of her faded strawberry shirt.
“Yeah, sweets,” Roy says with a nod, his smile comes a bit easier this time. “He’s gonna be okay, and just to make sure we’re gonna stay here for a few days, okay?”
Relief spreads visibly across her little face before excitement immediately takes its place.
Damian looks a bit exasperated behind her, but is hiding a barely there smile. Dick claps a hand on his littlest brother's shoulder before ruffling his black hair.
“Oh oh! Can I see Dad now then?!” Lian asks between squeals and jumps.
Roy glances up at Dick before looking back down at her, he reaches a hand out to grasp her shoulder pulling her back into a still position and waiting till his daughter meets his eye.
“Can you give me…” he pauses, thinking. “...twenty minutes first?”
Lian’s head tilts almost to her shoulder, “Why?”
“Daddy needs to see him first okay? Jay’s had a rough night and I want to make sure he’s okay before we go jumping into his room.”
Roy hopes his explanation is enough to both buy him some time and appease Lian. In truth, he just wants a moment with Jason before the hustle of others inevitably breaks the bubble they so often keep around themselves.
Lian seems to consider his explanation thoroughly though, with all the gravity only an almost six-year-old can manage before she nods decisively.
“Okay!”
Behind her, Damian folds his arms across his chest with theatrical impatience.
“Come along, child,” he sighs. “Your dragon has yet to defeat mine in our battle.”
“Hey! Mine already beat yours!” Lian argues back, grasping for Damian's hand as they descend the hallway.
“No yours merely incapacitated mine for a brief moment—” Damian is cut off by Lian jumping up and down and yanking on his hand.
“Nuh uh! I breathed extra fire!”
Roy watches Damian pinch the bridge of his nose before silently entering the game room. Lian glances back at Roy one more time with a toothy grin before darting after him, already halfway through explaining why her dragon's fire was, in fact, hotter than Damian's.
Dick chuckles quietly beside him.
"I'd wish him luck," he murmurs, "but he's done this to himself."
Roy smiles, listening to their voices fade farther down the hall until only the quiet hum of the Manor remains.
Then he lets out one slow breath and turns toward the grandfather clock that leads down to the cave.
With every step, the temperature drops a little.
The warm scent of polished wood and afternoon sunlight slowly gives way to cool stone, antiseptic, and the distant mechanical hum of equipment he now knows far better than he ever wanted to.
Dick doesn't say anything as they descend further and further. He simply walks beside Roy, close enough to steady him if the concussion decides to make the stairs sway, but far enough away to leave him alone with his thoughts. The deeper they go, the quieter everything becomes until only the soft buzz of fluorescent lights and the rhythmic beeping of monitors remain.
The frantic energy of the medbay has vanished, replaced by the kind of quiet that often befalls recovery.
Roy slows as they reach the doorway.
Bruce is asleep, in the chair besides Jason’s bed—still in his suit, sans cowl. One elbow rests against the armrest while his head has finally tipped forward onto his chest, dark hair falling untidily across his forehead. One hand remains draped loosely over the edge of the mattress, fingertips only inches from Jason's uninjured arm, as though sometime during the night he'd needed the reassurance that his son was still there.
Roy doesn’t think the man meant to fall asleep there. Looking at him now, it’s more evident that exhaustion simply won.
“Alfred stopped arguing after he couldn’t get him to leave,” Dick laughs out after following Roy’s gaze. “Hey B—wake up.”
Bruce’s eyes snap open instantly, exhaustion and grogginess gone in seconds as his gaze darts around the room.
Dick nods toward the hallway, “Come get some coffee with me.”
Bruce glances back toward Jason, like he’s unsure if he truly wants to leave, but then his gaze settles on Roy and understanding crosses his face.
He stands without a word, the leather chair gives a quiet groan as he rises. As he passes Roy, one hand lands briefly on his shoulder with a single gentle squeeze. Then they're both gone, the automatic door whispers shut behind them.
Roy isn’t sure why he can’t move once it does.
Jason is asleep on his back, curls spilling carelessly across the pillow. The harsh hiss of the high-flow oxygen is gone, replaced by the quiet flow of a nasal cannula tucked beneath his nose. The bruising stretching across the left side of his chest has darkened into angry shades of purple and black, and the drainage tubing disappearing beneath the blanket still makes Roy's stomach clench despite everything Dick had told him upstairs.
He looks… alive, but Roy’s mind refuses to leave the image from the night before. Jason’s blue tinged lips and half-lidded eyes that couldn’t focus. The awful, wet sound of Jason trying—and failing—to pull in enough air.
Roy knows better. He knows Jason is stable. Alfred wouldn't have let him leave the room otherwise. Dick wouldn’t have been smiling. Bruce wouldn’t have just fallen asleep.
His body doesn’t care, his feet refuse to carry him any closer. Roy just stands there, staring, his heart pounding against his ribs as though he's afraid that if he gets too close the monitors will suddenly start screaming again.
Jason shifts almost minutely in his sleep.
The tiny movement is enough to break whatever spell has rooted Roy to the floor.
He crosses the last few feet slowly, his hand lifting on instinct. Then it stops, hovering inches above Jason’s forehead, trembling.
The redhead can’t quite make himself touch him. He’s terrified of this being an illusion. It wouldn’t be the first, and Roy is afraid to break it if it is. If Jason really is gone and this illusion is truly some miracle, or a fact that could make it possible to lose him again.
He squeezes his eyes shut for half a second before finally brushing one stubborn curl back from Jason's forehead with the gentlest sweep of his fingertips.
Jason wrinkles his nose, one teal eye cracks open. He squints blearily up at Roy.
“...You’re hovering,” Jason’s voice is rough around the edges, still raw from hours of oxygen and coughing, but the words are so perfectly, unmistakably Jason that a startled laugh escapes Roy before he can stop it.
Another follows immediately after.
Then another.
His vision suddenly blurs and he blinks it away over and over again. It isn’t until something warm splashes against the back of the hand desperately clutching now to Jason’s that he realizes tears are slipping silently down his face.
Jason’s sleepy expression melts into concern, “...Roy?”
Roy sighs another helpless laugh, shaking his head.
“I…” his voice cracks. “I didn’t even…” He swallows hard, trying again, “I—was so fucking scared, Jay.”
Jason shifts carefully, every movement deliberate, before lifting his good arm a few inches off the mattress.
“C’mere.”
Roy doesn’t hesitate, he closes the distance, taking Jason's offered hand like it's the most precious thing in the world. His boyfriend's thumb traces slowly across Roy’s knuckles.
His hand is impossibly warm, reminding Roy of all the nights he’d curl against his furnace of a partner. In this case it surprised him more than it should.
Last night it had felt impossibly cold beneath his own, clammy with sweat as Roy tried to keep the oxygen mask pressed against his face. He remembers rubbing circles across Jason's knuckles because it had been the only thing he could think to do while Alfred worked. Remembers wondering if Jason could even feel it.
Now Jason's fingers curl around him with quiet certainty. Not strong necessarily—he’s clearly lacking the strength for that, but it’s present and real.
He gives the smallest tug, more an invitation than a pull, and Roy steps closer until his thighs brush the edge of the mattress. The movement earns Jason the faintest wince. His breathing catches for a second before evening back out into the slow, careful rhythm Roy immediately recognizes as someone trying very hard not to move their ribs more than absolutely necessary.
“Roy I—” he starts, pausing to wet his lips before he continues. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
Jason studies their joined hands for a long moment, his thumb tracing absent circles across the back of Roy's knuckles.
“I don’t have the anything else to say—other than I’m just so so fucking sorry,” the words are so quiet Roy almost misses them.
A frown pulls at his lips, “What?”
Jason lets out a breath that ends in the ghost of a grimace.
“I scared you,” he admits.
Roy’s grip tightens, “You saved my life, Jaybird.”
“I still scared you—I could tell you wanted to go to the cave,” Jason half whispers, more to prevent a cough than to actually speak quietly. “If I hadn’t been so stubborn…”
There’s no defensiveness in Jason’s voice, just plain guilt. It makes Roy’s heart ache. He steps closer till there’s barely any space left between them, careful of the chest tube, of the wires, careful of everything except the words that have been pressing against his ribs since Alfred had said the words ‘he’s stable’
“Jason…”
Jason looks up, teal eyes brimmed with unshed tears.
“You’re alive,” his voice shakes despite himself, and he laughs softly through another tear before scrubbing impatiently at his cheek with his free hand. "That's..." He swallows around the lump in his throat. "That's literally the only thing I care about."
Jason's shoulders sink almost imperceptibly, as though he'd been carrying that apology since he'd first opened his eyes. The corner of his mouth twitches into the smallest smile. His thumb brushes across Roy's hand one more time.
Roy can’t help himself—he leans down slowly giving Jason every chance to pull away if moving hurts too much. Jason doesn't. Instead, he tilts his chin up the barest fraction, meeting Roy halfway.
Their lips brush together in the gentlest kiss Roy thinks they've ever shared. There’s no usual teasing or stolen grins. No hands tangled in or up shirts or Jason trying to pull him impossibly closer. Just warm, familiar lips lingering for one quiet heartbeat before Roy eases back again.
When he opens his eyes, still barely inches from Jason’s face his boyfriend is looking at him with that same lovesick look he always wears.
“...Hi,” Jason murmurs with a grin.
Roy huffs out a quiet laugh, resting his forehead lightly against Jason's for just a second.
"Hi."
The moment lingers between them, quiet enough that Roy can hear the soft hiss of oxygen through the cannula and the steady rhythm of Jason's heartbeat announcing itself on the monitor beside the bed.
He’s alive.
Roy has to remind himself. Even though every rise of Jason’s chest still catches Roy’s attention before his brain reminds him it doesn’t need to anymore.
Neither of them really say anything for a while—not that they need to—the silence feels different now. Taking on a peaceful edge where the fear and panic had been living.
The silence, however, is broken by the automatic door sliding open with a familiar whisper. Roy smiles to himself before he even turns around.
Of course Damian would arrive exactly twenty minutes on the dot.
Lian doesn’t wait a second longer before shouting, “Dad!”
She tears across the medical bay at full speed, little sneakers squeaking against the polished floor as she launches herself toward the bed. Roy catches her around the waist just before she can throw her entire body onto Jason's chest.
"Whoa, whoa," He laughs, lifting her easily despite the lingering ache in his shoulder and neck from the hit yesterday. "Feet first, Bug."
She blinks, looking from Roy to Jason and finally noticing all the tubing she'd missed in her excitement.
“Oh…” he voice drops to an almost sad whisper. “I’m sorry… I forgot.”
“It’s okay, we just gotta be careful, alright?” Roy coos, brushing her unruly hair from her face, before setting her carefully on the edge of the mattress nearest Jason’s good side. She climbs with exaggerated concentration, making a very obvious effort to avoid every wire and blanket wrinkle as though navigating a field of sleeping dragons.
Jason watches the entire performance with open fondness. The ever constant scowl usually prevalent on Jason Todds face when he’s at home is so far removed you’d think there was someone else lying in the bed.
“Thank you for being careful, kiddo,” Jason says through a tired smile.
Lian beams at the praise, before her expression shifts and she takes in a little gasp.
“Oh, oh, oh! Jay!” she exclaims, eyes bugging out. “I made you something!”
She nearly dives off the bed again before catching herself. Very carefully this time, she reaches into the pocket of her little strawberry hoodie and produces a thoroughly crumpled sheet of paper that’s been folded at least six different times.
“I had help…” she admits, suddenly seeming nervous, glancing back at Damian.
Roy doesn’t see what he does but whatever it is is enough for Lian to puff out her cheeks in determination and hand the paper to Jason.
Slowly, he unfolds it. Roy peers over his torso to reveal another dragon. Similar to the one from the prior evening. Except it’s obvious Lian had a bit of help from Damian and his skills considering the outline of the dragon looks more like an actual rendition of one.
This one is much bigger, covered in what must be Lian's coloring choice of streaks of red and orange crayon spilling outside the line. Flames burst from its mouth in every direction, and somewhere near the corner Lian has drawn what appears to be three smiling stick figures waving at it.
Jason studies it with complete seriousness humming intently while tapping his chin.
Lian leans forward, hung on every word he makes, “What?”
He tilts the page ever so slightly as if trying to inspect it closer, “...needs roller skates.”
“It absolutely does not,” Damian protests immediately with a huff.
“But it could be faster,” Jason explains in full seriousness, inclining his head toward his brother.
“It is a needless addition, dragons fly,” Damian exasperates, Roy turns in time to see him pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Sounds like you’re limiting creative potential there, Dami,” Jason says thoughtfully.
Lian giggles so hard she has to clap both hands over her mouth to smother it.
“I told you it could be extra speedy!” She exclaims between breaths.
Damian lets out a put upon sigh, not unlike Bruce, but there’s a slight smile beneath the hand he draped over his face, “I fear I have made a terrible lapse in judgement.”
Roy laughs, real laughter this time and not the frantic relieved kind that’s been escaping him all evening. Just the kind of laughter that bubbles up from somewhere deep in his chest until he’s wiping the corner of one eye, though this time the tears come from smiling too hard.
The automatic door slides open again behind him. Roy turns his body fully this time as Dick steps through, two more steaming mugs balanced carefully in his hands. Bruce follows a step behind, apparently having changed out of his suit and into joggers and a hoodie.
They both pause just inside the doorway, taking in the scene.
“...what’s so funny?” Bruce asks, with a furrow in his brow.
Roy exchanges a bemused look with Jason who winces at the slight laugh that escapes him.
“Nothing, old man,” He says, the corner of his mouth curling into the faintest smirk. Jason carefully smooths one of the wrinkles from the paper before adding, "Just talkin’ ‘bout dragons."
Bruce’s gaze flicks to the drawing then to Lian's giggling fit. Something softens almost imperceptibly around his gray-blue eyes.
“...I see.”
“I told Dami it needs roller skates, personally—”
“It does NOT need roller skates,” Damian shouts, cutting Jason off with the same complaint he's had since walking into the room.
Lian doubles over in laughter, unable to contain it anymore.
Jason simply smirks like the devil he is and folds the drawing closed with exaggerated care, laying it on the bedside table like it’s the most valuable piece of art in Wayne Manor.