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Jason sits up at the faintest sound of footsteps in the hallway outside his cell in the bowels of Nanda Parbat. He’s not sure if he’s by himself down here or if the other prisoners have been beaten so far into submission that they won’t speak to him, either way he’s as good as alone. He hasn’t had any sign of another human since he’d been thrown down here, a few days by rough estimate. The scuff of boots on stone could be a great sign, Tim finally come to get him or even a guard with some fucking water , or it could be a really horrible sign. He readies himself for a fight.
“Jason?” Tim’s stage whisper echoes on the walls, the beam of his flashlight wandering in the pitch darkness from around the corner.
“Tim.” Jason calls out, dropping his stance, “About fuckin’ time.”
The flashlight whips to his face and Jason immediately cringes away from it, “Jesus, Tim.” He snaps, head lighting up with a vicious spike of pain as it shines in his eyes.
“Sorry.” Tim mutters, not sounding particularly so, as he jogs up to Jason’s cell door. “Status?” He prompts as he sticks the flashlight into his mouth and pulls out a couple of metal wires Jason assumes are his makeshift lockpicks.
“Fine.” Jason answers, “No food or water in however the fuck long we’ve been here.” Tim cringes at that answer. With the light pointed somewhat downward to illuminate the lock, Jason can make out the silk robes Tim’s been dressed in, embroidered with the deep forest green and glittering dark gold of the Al Ghuls. Jason almost laughs, Damian would throw a fit. “You?”
“Fine.” Tim echoes from around the flashlight. “They haven’t hurt me.”
Jason raises a skeptical eyebrow but Tim doesn’t look up from the lock to see it. It clicks open in his hands and he swings the door open with a self-satisfied little hum. It’s ultimately drowned out by the screech of the unoiled hinges, which they both cringe away from.
“Come on, let’s get out of here.” Tim steps into the cell and duck’s under Jason’s arm to support him, pressing the flashlight into his hand, “I’m tired of awkward dinners with Crazy Uncle Ra’s.”
Jason lets out a weak chuckle and Tim lifts a free hand to his cheek as they stumble out into the stone hallway, checking his temperature, “Shit.” He mutters, he maneuvers the hand around beneath Jason’s jaw and presses into his pulse point, “ Shit .” He says again, with feeling.
“‘M fine.” Jason mutters, slapping his hand away. Tim takes the flashlight from him, unsatisfied with the vitals he’d managed to collect but unwilling to stop.
They stumble down the tunnels at a brisk and somewhat clumsy but carefully silent pace. Jason leans as little of his weight as he can manage on Tim’s shoulders, to keep from burdening their speed as much as to keep from burdening Tim’s mind with the heaviness of his limbs.
“Here.” Tim pauses after they’ve made their way down several twisting tunnels, sweeping the flashlight over a thin trickle of water that’s running down the wall and no doubt contributing to the wet sheen on the stones beneath their feet. He waits while Jason shoves aside his pride for a moment to collect some water in his hands and slurp it up like a dying man. The water tastes clean enough, and at this point dehydration is a more immediate threat than whatever might be in it. It has a slight, all too familiar bitterness, being this close to Ra’s’ pit. After a few handfuls, Jason steps away, flicking droplets off his fingers.
Tim gives him a brief, disapproving look, but continues to lead the way, well aware that they’re short on time. They don’t make it far, however, before a barely perceptible shuffle alerts them to another presence in the tunnel.
Tim’s flashlight drops to the ground, the whitish beam swinging wildly over the walls. Jason can hear the harsh sound of Tim’s breaths, the impacts of his fists on flesh. Before he can move to help, dim yellow light swells in the passage, light footsteps echoing at both their front and back.
Jason curses harshly under his breath and readies himself for the fight.
The shadows converge in fractions of a second, and Jason throws all the remains of his energy into fighting them off. There’s whispers of hands on the tattered remains of his costume, sweeping blows with little warning. He’s forced to move at speed, with brutal attacks, strikes that bring short cries of pain echoing down the tunnel. There’s enough of the assassins that Jason has no doubt their little escape attempt hadn’t simply been foiled by a few passing guards, but broadcast somehow to League leadership. Enough of them that he’s out of breath a few minutes in and feels as though his mind’s been painfully wrenched backward in time by several years, to a cloudier, barely-remembered period.
He wrenches a wrist here and sweeps a leg there, rolling bodies over his back in complicated grapples as much as he’s pushing and shoving and kicking in crotches. It’s a delicate dance between the graceful martial art taught to him by the All Caste and the League itself and the dirty street fighting he learned as a child and perfected as Robin. It’s second nature at this point and brutally effective.
Something silvery glints in the darkness, right at Tim’s throat. And as much as Jason logically knows that Tim will duck out of danger and disarm the hand at the end of that sword, his instincts take over and he freezes. He knows a threat when he sees one, a command. And he especially knows it when it comes from Ra’s al Ghul . He stops moving and fighting for just a millisecond , but it’s enough.
Hands dart forward to grip onto his arms and wrench them behind his back, just as a line of fire erupts in his stomach. Jason grunts and jerks, body lurching and rebelling against the sensation of a blade driving through his flesh.
Tim jerks forward with a shout, already raising his hands once again for a fight. But then the knife in Jason’s gut twists before sliding free of his body, bile swells up in his throat and he can’t hold back the sound that’s ripped from his lips, halfway between a scream and a gag. Reflexive tears spill down his cheeks as he forces himself to breathe, blood warming his lap.
Tim is still, pale, and staring at Jason with wide eyes. Even his fingers don’t twitch, as if deathly afraid that if he dares to breathe too hard they’ll slice Jason in half.
“Come now, chelb , this is no way to treat your superiors.” Ra’s says smoothly, down his nose. When Jason looks up, he has a possessive hand settled on the back of Tim’s neck, nails digging deep into his skin. “ Bow .” He orders.
Tim looks appalled, and turns against Ra’s’ grip, who only tightens his fingers in warning. Jason gathers up the thick metallic glob of blood in his mouth and spits, the stain darkening Ra’s’ pant leg. Before he can revel in the way that Ra’s’ face twists up in disgust, the assassins are kicking in the backs of his knees and forcing him down by their hold on his arms. The heel of one of their hands hits the center of his back and bends him in half at the waist. He squirms when the pain in his abdomen erupts, hot and sharp, letting out another broken groan. He presses up against the weight as much as he can, but ultimately they move him easily, body weak with blood loss and thirst.
“That’s better.” Ra’s hums when Jason’s nose hits the stone. “Come, Timothy.”
Jason tries to breathe past the way his organs seem to be spilling out of his body while he listens to their footsteps echoing down the hallway.
He tries to lift his body again, maybe to chase after them, maybe just to know he didn’t go down easy, but another hand digs into his hair and forces his head back down, shoving his nose into the ground until a sharp ache lights up in his sinuses.
He lays like that, struggling to get air in, hands like iron bands around his body and holding him down, until the echoes of their footsteps entirely fade away.
Abruptly they drag him to his feet, his wound yawns open and blood gushes down his front, it feels like his body’s going to be torn apart at his navel and he screams. The weak yellow light of the lanterns they carry begins to spot black and Jason sags, dead weight in their arms. His head is the last thing to give out, still squinting down the hallway and hoping, praying that Tim will come back around the corner. His muscles fail him, and his chin lolls against his chest, falling unconscious.
-
They’re dragging Jason’s limp body toward a cliff when Dick manages to catch up. Tim had shrieked frantically and near unintelligibly about finding Jason when Dick, Bruce, and Cass had finally dropped in on him and Ra’s. Snow whorls around the three shadows as they trek toward a rocky drop off.
The assassins go down quick, even if Dick’s a little out of practice dealing with actual, trained enemies as he spends more and more time down in the streets. Jason’s completely passed out, and doesn’t stir enough to keep himself from collapsing like dead weight when the two assassins are out.
“Jason-” Dick sputters, shuffling through the snow on his knees, “Little wing, c’mon, please wake up.” He presses one shaking palm to the bloody hole in Jason’s abdomen and brings the other hand to his pulse point. “Come on, please ,” He begs, feeling a weak, sluggish beat beneath his fingertips. He moves both hands to Jason’s stomach and presses hard, holding back a gag at the squelching noise of blood and flesh that echoes past the whipping wind. It brings some sort of weak awareness to Jason, who squirms weakly and screams into the sky, blood bubbling up on his lips.
“Thank- Thank Gods.” Dick breathes, “Jason, Jason, little wing .” Jason’s eyes slide over to him, half-lidded as he lets out a broken moan, “I know, I know, it’s gonna be okay,” Dick murmurs soothingly, even as he says it, tears well up in his eyes. He watches as a drop slips off the tip of his nose and splatters onto Jason’s cheekbone.
“Dickie-” Jason breathes, it’s broken and choked up and caught in his throat but Dick can’t help but let out a sob, one bloody hand scrabbling to grip Jason’s own, to intertwine their fingers.
“You’re gonna be okay, you’re gonna be okay, I promise.” He chants.
Jason, eyes slip closed, his hand, almost imperceptibly, squeezing Dick’s, “It’s okay,” He stutters, “It’s okay, Dickie.”
It’s not . Dick wants to rage, wants to scream. He can’t lose his baby brother again, he can’t .
For a moment, he hates himself for thinking it. He almost dismisses the whispered inclination because he knows, he knows Jason will hate him for it. But… he’d rather Jason hate him for the rest of their lives than not be there.
Ra’s’ pit is right here .
Jason screams again when Dick drags him to his feet, pulling an arm over his shoulder. It's a gut-wrenching, broken thing, but Dick forces himself to move forward. It’s tough finding his way, it’s not like Ra’s has set up signs saying “ Magical Green Powerade this way! Warning: Will fuck with your brain ” with helpful arrows. But following tunnels that lead downward and look more and more regal proves fruitful when a green glow starts to illuminate their path.
That’s when Jason seems to come to life, snarling and jerking against Dick’s hold, “No, no- ” He growls. He spits and fights, digs his heels in even as Dick overpowers him again and again.
They reach the ledge, the swirling, luminescent liquid is steaming, a wash of sound like whispers in some ancient, long forgotten language rises up from the surface. Jason digs his blunt nails into Dick’s arm when he brings him closer, “ Please, ” He begs, scrabbling at the seams of Dick’s suit with bloody fingers, voice guttural, “Dickie please, I- I can’t, I can’t, ” Dick pulls him closer, ignoring the way Jason thrashes weakly against his hold, expression indifferent, determined. Jason screams again, something that sounds like another plea.
Dick breaks, letting out another sob of his own. He thinks for a moment he should convince Jason to let him, should beg him to give in and go himself, gift him some autonomy he didn’t have the first time. But hearing him beg, Dick knows there’s no convincing him. He won’t lose his brother again.
He slips an arm around Jason’s back and one behind his knees. Even as Jason screams, his struggles are weak, he barely has the strength to hold his eyes open.
Dick gently, ever so gently, lowers his brother into the waters.
