terrible but capable of being charming

tantalum-cobalt:

High fevers suck. That is all I have to say about this.

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Why am I here?

He doesn’t even mean it in an existential way. For once, it’s not a question of why did I get a second chance? Why did the universe bring me back? It’s just a confused, curious question.

What am I doing in the Manor?

He hadn’t been here when he’d… gone to sleep? Gone on patrol? What had he been doing before he woke up here? Jason doesn’t like the way his memory muddles together and stretches thin over the last twenty-four hours. He’d been fine yesterday, he’s sure, and all he knows is that now he’s not.

His head is pounding, each throb making the world blur and spin a little. It makes walking down the staircase difficult, but he manages. Just. Even if he has to collapse sit down on the bottom step for a few minutes and just. Breathe. Be still.

He almost doses off like that, legs stretched out, leaning against the banister. Startles back to awareness, groaning when it cause pain to slice through his head, at the featherlight touch of a hand on his shoulder.

“Jay?” a voice murmurs. Bruce. Jason doesn’t want it to be Bruce. He wants it to be anyone but Bruce. He doesn’t want to see him. He doesn’t want to fight right now. Doesn’t want… want…

He wants. Wants his dad to make it go away. The headache, the dizziness, the way the world just doesn’t make sense. It’s almost like he’s been drinking but he hasn’t and it’s so much worse.

“Bruce?” It’s not a sob. It’s not.

Bruce has this surprising way of reacting to distress. Not like he responds to other emotions. It’s like that special combination of almost-tears and near-panicked, choked pleas hits his ears and a switch is flipped. He knows exactly what to do.

Or maybe it’s just that Jason is his kid and his kid needs him.

He tugs Jason into a hug, curls a hand around the back of his neck, stroking a little with his thumb. He says, “Shh, it’s okay, Jason, you’re okay.”

Jason shakes his head. Regrets it immediately. There’s so much pressure in his head that he thinks it’s going to explode. The pain is seeping into his nerves, spreading through his body until everything aches. “Hurts,” he says, not even caring that tears are streaming down his face and soaking into Bruce’s shirt. Something silky and expensive and utterly ruined.

He feels thirteen instead of twenty, all of a sudden, sick with the worst sinus infection he’s ever had and missing his mum more than ever. He feels fourteen and almost delirious from fever, writhing in sweat-soaked sheets and calling out for Bruce. He feels fifteen and dying. Burning from the outside in and the inside out. In so much pain and none at all. And all he wants is a parent to hold him and make it all go away.

Bruce pulls back slightly, cups Jason’s face with one hand and brushes his bangs back with the other. He hisses through his teeth. “You’re burning up,” he says. “You should be in bed.”

“No,” Jason groans because he doesn’t want to be thirteen or fourteen or fifteen, he wants to be twenty and fine. And twenty-year-old Jason doesn’t want to be here. Twenty-year-old Jason doesn’t want his dad. Twenty-year-old Jason is fine by himself. “‘M okay. ‘M leaving. You can’t… can’t stop me.”

“You really don’t look so hot, Jaylad,” Bruce says, hands rough and gentle as they card through his hair. Jason is still leaning against his chest. He wants to leave but doesn’t want to move.

It occurs to him, through the weird shimmering quality brushed over the world, that Bruce was surprised to find him here. Alarmed that Jason was half-conscious on his staircase. Which means Bruce didn’t find him like this on patrol and drag him home. Dick didn’t, because he wouldn’t have left Jason’s side. Tim would have reported to Bruce. Damian would have had to call someone big enough to carry Jason.

He has no idea how he got here. Just that he’d woken in his old bedroom and panicked. Thought dad instead of Bruce and home instead of Manor. Words he hasn’t associated with this person or this place in a long time. Too long.

He starts crying all over again. Harder, this time, hands coming up to clutch the back of Bruce’s shirt. He doesn’t know why, doesn’t know where all these tears are coming from, and it just makes him cry even more.

Bruce rubs his back. Up and down along the bumps of his spine, just like he did all those other times Jason was sick. It’s soothing. Comforting. Coaxing him to relax, melt bonelessly against his dad. “You don’t have to leave,” Bruce says, quietly, like he doesn’t want to break whatever this moment they’re having is. “You can stay. We’ll take care of you.”

It’s tempting. To let Bruce pick him up and carry him to bed. To let him tuck him in and stroke his hair until he falls asleep. To let him bring him tea and soup and that disgusting cherry flavoured medicine Alfred always has on hand. To let him read to him when he can’t sleep. To let him care.

Temptation is dangerous. A setup for disappointment.

“I’m fine,” Jason reiterates.

Bruce squeezes him. “If you’re sure,” he says.

But when Alfred finds them twenty minutes later, Bruce is still hugging him and Jason is still letting him. Eyes closed and breaths even, somewhere between sleep and awake, caught between memories and reality. He’s starting to think that maybe he found his own way here. That he’s feverish and his head hurts and he wants his dad to make him better.

But Jason isn’t thirteen or fourteen or fifteen anymore. He knows Bruce can’t fix everything, can’t heal every injury or cure every illness just by being there. Jason’s head still hurts and the world is still fuzzy. He’s still confused and miserable and sick.

But. He isn’t alone anymore. And maybe that makes the rest of it bearable.

He’s still not going to let Bruce carry him back up the stairs though. He can walk.