Chapter Text
In the backseat of Jason’s stolen Toyota Camry, Tim is shivering, Duke pulled half into his lap. The fine tremor has grown into full-body shaking, he looks like he’s going to pass out, if not for the rigid, white-knuckled grip he has on Duke’s arm.
Beside Jason, in the passenger seat, Hadley’s fingers are flexing out over his knee. He’s nervous. He’s tense. He, like Jason, keeps waiting for Clark or Kon to crash into the highway in front of them and drag this whole escape to a final conclusive bang.
“I’ve been told,” He doesn’t mention Roy. the memory of his voice over the phone, terse with worry, if they find out about me it’s over, keeps him silent. Tim would be able to put it together, though, it’s not like Jason has many Leaguer contacts willing to play nice with him, especially not under Doomsday protocol. His leg jumps, wildly, in his seat, eyes darting between the mirrors, cruising in the fast-lane of the Turnpike, hyperaware of the sun above them, beating down on them. When Duke was the biggest threat, it felt important not to do anything at night. Now it feels like impulse.
Tim is looking at him in the rear-view, holding Duke like a baby, not sweeping him like Jason would have done. Their brother’s face is slack, but his breaths are slow and even. Tim’s index and forefinger stay pressed against Duke’s carotid.
“Told?” Hadley prods, his green eyes are sharp. Intelligent. He reminds Jason unsettingly of looking at Dick. That same edge.
Jason swallows thickly. The toyota is outfitted with ultrasound, any Super within fifty feet will hear it and drop out of the sky. It worked well enough on Cir-El, before Wonder Woman pulled the Supers out of the fight. “I was told you’re Lex’s kid, Hadley. That true?”
Hadley huffs, licks his lower lip, Jason sees him make himself bite back something vicious. He glances up in the rearview at Tim, and Jason follows his eyes. Tim isn’t looking at him, eyes fixed on Hadley.
“Biologically? No,” Hadley explains, “he took me in a few years ago. Margaret Lewis is my bio mom, why I was involved in this mess in the first place. How much do you know about me and Tim? The ransom? You know I was behind that, right?”
Bruce called Jason, the night that Hadley came crawling to Dick’s apartment beaten to shit. He explained about the mind control, about Tim, about the fact that Hadley had sex with his seventeen-year-old brother on a yacht and publicly performed sexual acts on camera which served both to out him and socially humiliate Tim. Jason knows his brother, he knows Tim never would have wanted that.
Bruce said they weren’t sure how the drug worked, said that it was over, that he and Dick were taking care of Tim, and figuring out what to do with Hadley. Secondary victim, Bruce described him, then, but not innocent.
Bruce, like Jason, had been trying to edge on the air of caution around the yacht and what happened. Dick blew up at Jason and Cass about it, said that they had every right to intervene. Jason, like a fucking idiot, had said that Tim deserved to be a stupid kid for once. What’s the harm, Dick, be serious? It was one time.
Look where that got them.
“I know all about that,” Jason says, raising his eyes again, to the rear-view mirror, catching Tim’s gaze. It’s not hard, the boy is still looking at him. Jason peels a hand off the steering wheel, accelerating into the middle lane to pass someone. He wraps his hand around his neck, tapping the base of his spine. “What’s this?” He could guess. He just wants to be told he’s wrong.
“The ah,” Hadley licks his lower lip again. Jason is beginning to think he’s dehydrated. “There has to be a physical implant of Simplex into the spinal cord in order to release the dose, I’m not sure what it is exactly, my mom put it in me and Tim back in…June? July? I’m not sure. Lex figured out how to finish it. It’s what makes it permanent. Surgery was eight days ago.”
Five days after Jason got on antifungals. Five days after Jason could have left Sionis and stopped it from happening all together.
Hadley must see something on his face, because his voice get tense, waspish. “You think I wanted to be Lex’s guinea pig?”
“I don’t know, you’re not the one trying not to pass out in my backseat, Hadley.”
Tim, silently, raises his eyes to look at Jason. He looks guilty. He doesn’t say anything, he’s barely spoken since Jason found him, he didn’t say anything when Jason shot his way through a few more of Lex’s security team, or when Jason put him in the car with Duke and slated him in charge of their brother. He’s just watching.
Hadley looks away, sitting back in his seat. He’s too calm, considering what they just did. Too stupid if he thinks Lex won’t send Kal-El after them. If he’s alive, recoverable, after what Jason did. He has Kon, too, and TTK isn’t something Jason has an easy fix for, not while Duke is knocked out.
“That’s my fault,” Hadley says. “I thought if I could make him unfit for surgery Lex would call it off. He just sped up his timeline.”
Unfit for surgery? The hell is that supposed to mean? Jason looks up at Tim. Finally, Tim avoids his gaze, exhaling roughly. Whatever that was, it wasn’t pleasant.
“I had my people take Crane after Dent got captured because I needed a way out from Lex,” Hadley goes on. “If you give me a cell, or something, I’ll call my guys and they’ll make you Simplex. It’ll take a few hours once you give a DNA sample, tops.”
“You’re manufacturing Simplex, you want out,” Jason summarizes for him, and then adds, “do you have Crane working on a cure?”
Hadley’s eyebrows jump a bit. “Trying to. Tim got a chemical compound or… something from Bruce, I was going to have them start making Crane—”
“No,” Tim says. He clears his throat, sitting up, careful not to jostle Duke. The look he gives Hadley is sharp. “Duke and I had sent the chemical structure to Tam. We got it from Bruce, through Clark. We did it over an insecure line. That’s as far as we got before Lex found out.”
Jason exhales. “That’s what the explosion at Wayne Ind. was for. I wondered what the fuck Bruce was doing. That was two weeks ago, do you have any updates?”
Tim shakes his head slowly. Winces. “No, Tam said that Lucius got drafted into a governmental program to try and work on a cure. I don’t know if they’ve made progress or she shared it with him, I don’t have a way to contact her, and… I’ve been…out of commission.”
“Well I have a guy that can get me more diflucan,” Jason says, relieved to be talking to Tim instead of Hadley, who can at least be relied upon to share relevant information instead of lying to make himself look better. “It’s not permanent, but—”
“It won’t work on us,” Hadley interrupts. “Or Duke. We’ve all got the same problem now. Lex explained it to me, explicitly, so I wouldn’t fuck us up with more escape attempts. The fungus mutates too quickly, it killed Duke. If you give it to us, it’ll do the same thing. Or…something? I don’t know, I didn’t understand what the fuck he was saying.”
“It what?” Jason nearly slams on the brakes. “What do you mean it killed Duke?”
He shot Duke in the head, a while back. Executioner-style, he tried to take himself out with the kid and Roman lost his shit. He was so angry that he actually had Jason beat instead of just starved or sleep deprived or lost privileges for clothes and showers and the bed. Jason didn’t care.
Duke was back two days later like nothing happened.
“Yeah,” Tim swallows. His gaze empties. “Yeah, it… he died.”
“Which is why you need Simplex,” Hadley says. “Or the cure, and either way, you need Crane.”
He doesn’t say, you need me, but Jason hears it anyway. Jason exhales hard, fast, it’s a little too loud. “Right. And then what, I dose Duke? And Tim? You run off into the sunset? Okay, seems legit.”
“You could try,” Hadley says. “So far, Lex hasn’t been able to order me since we did the whole,” he gestures at his skull with his finger in one slow, sarcastic loop. “So I don’t know how well that’s going to work out for you. Timmy and I are exclusive.”
Yeah, and that’s another thing.
“Jason,” Tim says. “Where are we going? You dosed Duke with ketamine twenty minutes ago, it’s going to start wearing off.”
Right. Okay. He needs to focus. All of the equipment he prepared for long-term sedation is there. He was planning to keep Duke for ten days, wait it out, figure out what to do from there. Tim took Duke almost five weeks ago, it didn’t blow up the planet. But maybe it’s different in that Tim was still in Luthor’s control and out of the way of anyone who wants to keep their Simplex slaves.
“I have a safehouse in Gotham,” Jason says, “off-grid, I’ve been setting it up for two weeks. Thanks for the PM, by the way. Saved my ass.”
Tim’s eyes flit away. “Yeah. Um. I’m glad you found it.”
“Hey,” his chest is tight. He feels immature, weirdly annoying, trying to catch Tim’s gaze. He hasn’t seen the kid, hasn’t spoken to another Bat, outside of combat, in months. Every update he gets with Roy is tactical, and riddled with a different vernacular entirely. Tim was trained by Bruce. “How—So, the cure. And Duke, I’ve been trying to figure out how to get to him for months, you took one crack at it, Tim, I—”
“I didn’t,” Tim interrupts. His voice is a little sharp. Jason tries not to flinch back from it. Tim is so much like glass right now, and Jason wants to cradle it, but it’s cutting him. “I didn’t get him out. Lex wanted him. I wouldn’t have been able to do it either.”
“It was luck, mostly,” Hadley says. “I dosed the kid back in June, so I guessed that spiked colony survived with my DNA the whole time.”
Jason looks up at him. He feels his fingers flex around the steering wheel. “When?”
“Before I took out the tracker,” Tim says, “you know about that, right?”
Jason went with Bruce and Dick to Tim’s apartment. Yeah. He knows. God, that was months ago. “Why would Duke not have said anything?” Jason’s brain catches up with him before Tim says anything, “Was this when we thought you gave him a second-hand dose of Endo?”
A contact high of Endo seems so fucking stupid, with retrospect. They just couldn’t wrap their heads around Tim giving Duke Endo. Steph was the one who brought up the fact that Tim hung up on Damian and left him dosed and passed out in the middle of a street.
“Braxton made him forget,” Tim says, nodding.
“I—” Jason makes himself shut up. They’re not talking shop right now. This is an evac, he’s screwing with all the procedures. They should be briefing, or debriefing, or both. “Your hoodie is in the seat pocket, Tim.”
Tim blinks, jolting as if coming awake. His eyes clear, brow furrowing, “What?”
“The hoodie you left me,” Jason explains. “If you’re cold.”
“Oh,” Tim leans forward, reaching for the pocket. “Oh. Thanks. It’s Kon’s.”
With Tim’s hand outstretched, his ring finger catches the light, glancing off the rearview. Jason’s eyes fall on the diamond. It is unmistakable. Jason feels his head cock, he doesn’t slam on breaks again, because he’s not that fucking stupid, but it feels like his brain falls out of his body for a second.
He grabs Tim’s wrist with one hand, arm half twisted behind himself, and pulls Tim’s hand in between the middle console to check. Tim cringes back from him, but doesn’t pull his hand out.
“Hey,” Hadley says, sharp, grabbing Jason’s arm. “What the hell? Don’t touch him.”
“The fuck is this?” Jason says, shrugging Hadley off, lifting his hand between the three of them.
Something unmistakably hunted passes through Tim’s face, he says, fast, “Nothing.”
“Big-ass diamond for nothing, Tim. That’s at least two carats of nothing.” He looks up at Hadley for a second. Then back to Tim’s fingers. He’s my boyfriend, Tim said, one of the first three sentences to leave his mouth.
“Braxton and I are engaged,” Tim says, in a rush, like he’s anxious to get it out.
Jason doesn’t laugh, because his mouth is so incredibly dry that he doesn’t think he could get noise out without strangling himself to death on swollen vocal cords. His gaze flickers to Hadley again, he thinks about the yacht, about this man going down on his baby brother in public while Tim was on a mind control drug, and how much Tim of six months ago would have hated that.
“What do you mean you’re—?”
“You need to focus,” Hadley interrupts him again, he does that a lot, it’s getting frustrated. He’s doing it on purpose, too, Jason can see it. “Give me a cell so I can get in with my contacts or you lose the kid. You don’t have ten days.”
“I’m not Simplexing my brother,” Jason snaps. He lets go of Tim, and watches from the corner of his eye as the boy falls back in his seat, hands curling up against his chest, tucking the ring out of sight. He doesn’t reach for the hoodie again.
“You don’t have ten days.” Hadley repeats. He puts his hands together, the gesture is unmistakably pleading. “How many times do you think I’ve tried to get away from Lex? He’s always ten steps ahead of you, he has Connie. He has Superman. He dosed Wonder Woman, Hood, if you make him pull cards, he’ll send Clark after her and then what are you going to do? You can’t outrun the entire JLA.”
Jesus, fuck. Roy didn’t mention that. It explains a lot about Diana’s paranoia.
“I’m not putting my brother on Simplex.”
“Just be careful,” Hadley says, “I’m careful. Tim knows that. You do what you have to, but this isn’t forever. We’ll get the cure. It’s just a few days, you can’t hold your tongue for a few days?”
“Jason,” Tim says. Jason looks at him. Tim is eying the blood all over Jason’s hands and clothing. Clark’s blood. “Lex loves Braxton, he’s been keeping Kon in that room for months, that’s what he does with his kids. He’s sent Clark after us every time we’ve tried to run. I don’t…I think Braxton is right, I don’t know what else to do. He can’t take the antifungals, Braxton still has his host, but, it would…it would be better to have a secondary back-up.”
Wait the ten days. Ten days, except Jason escaped Mask five hours ago and Lex had already had the time to cut audio visuals to his fortress and was about to move. The rest of the people holding his family captive are already on the run if they’re smart. And any minute now Lewis will decide she wants to resell him, and send Bruce.
“Tim,” Jason takes a breath. He doesn’t know what he’s going to say.
“You,” Tim has dug out the hoodie, he’s pulling it over his head, switches his sentence up, “Crane’s Simplex has low doses of Fear Toxin in it, but it won’t carry emotional orders. If you can get the antidote then…I don’t…know if Duke can metabolize the cure.” Tim waits a long second, as Jason stares at him, before saying, quietly, “I trust you. Duke trusts you. You won’t mess this up.”
This isn’t Duke’s decision. This is everyone but Duke’s decision, apparently, he’s the only one unconscious. Jason hadn’t planned to keep him sedated for ten days, the kind of medical equipment required for that, he just doesn’t have. That’s why he arranged for the antifungals. They worked last time.
“This is Duke’s choice,” Jason says. "He's up in half an hour, he can make the call.”
“No, the fuck he cannot,” Hadley interjects. “Kid’s freaked the hell out, he’s got orders from Lex, you wake him up, you put him in a seizure if he doesn’t just drop you into his shadow realm.”
“The League can put him on a resp in deep sed,” Tim says. He looks hopeful. “If you have a way to contact them.”
“I don’t,” Jason definitely doesn’t. Last time he pulled strings with Diana on Roman’s orders, he fucked that up. He’d be lucky if she trusted him at all after this is over. Roy can pass him info, but if there’s anything resembling physical contact, the League will excommunicate him and write him off as compromised.
Tim wraps his arms around himself. He looks so much smaller in the hoodie, like the fabric is trying to eat him.
Jason closes his eyes. How is this better? How is this better than what Luthor did? He can’t jump down the throat of Simplex just because it’s convenient. Duke is sixteen, Jason can’t be making shots like that. It doesn’t matter if it’s just ten days, that’s ten days for Jason to fuck this up.
Hadley says, finally, as if he just remembered, or he was holding this back, “The dose only lasts about twenty hours.”
Jason punches him in the arm, hard. “Why the fuck didn’t you say that earlier?” He pops open the glove compartment and digs out a phone. “Make the fucking call, I need directions.”
He gives Tim his Kryptonite magazine, his gun, and the keys to the Toyota, Duke in the back seat. He leaves them in the car together, Tim in the driver’s seat, looking seconds away from hyperventilating.
“The US is on,” Jason says, crouched in front of the open door, a hand on Tim’s knee. He put it there because Tim seemed, cold, but now it’s because he can feel the blade of Tim’s kneecap underneath his skin, and he’s never been able to do that before. It scares him more than it should. “Drive away if something comes up, ditch Duke if you have to. Honk if you need me.”
“What?” Tim looks so scared. “What? No.”
Jason looks over his shoulder, at where Hadley’s trying to get access to the FedEx building they’ve been brought to. “Is there anything you need to tell me, Tim?” Jason lowers his voice, turning back to him, glancing at the ring on his finger. “Any orders Braxton gave you, anything I should…”
That jumping, throbbing fear in Tim’s eyes notches up. “No,” he says, curling back from Jason, “no, it’s fine. He’s my boyfr—he’s my…” he falters.
“We can leave him here,” Jason whispers. Boyfriend. He and Tim need to talk. “He doesn’t have to come with us, we’ll just keep driving without him, figure things out.”
Tim shakes his head, again, it’s pulling at the stitches on the back of his neck. “You—you need Simplex. For Duke. There is no figuring it out. We need him. He’s not—he’ll help us. He loves me.”
He doesn’t know why he’s trying to be delicate. Just because Tim looks like shit doesn’t mean he can’t take it. “Is he hurting you?”
Tim tenses. He winds his hand around his knuckles, grabbing at the engagement ring. “No.”
“He making you say any of this?” Not that Jason would be able to trust the answer. If this were all some sort of convoluted trick, Jason doesn’t understand why the jaws of the trap wouldn’t have snapped down already. Jason walks into that FedEx and Roman is waiting? Not impossible, but it wouldn’t make a difference.
Tim’s mouth opens. And then it closes. “Just—just focus on Duke,” Tim tells him, forcibly, like he’s trying to refocus. “He can’t stay in this anymore. He needs to get out. Braxton and I aren’t like you and Sionis, or Dent. We loved each other first, this came after.”
Jason doesn’t know if Tim’s lying to himself or Jason. He nods, slowly, patting his brother’s leg. “Okay. Honk if you need, it’ll be a while. Shoot to kill.”
Tim’s expression fills with nausea, but he nods. He wraps his hand around the gun in a ready position, finger beside the trigger. “I will. I promise. Please come back.”
“Not going anywhere, kid,” Jason says. He means it. He glances up at Hadley, wishes that he felt less exposed out there. He slides his hand up to tip Tim’s face up to look at him, sees nothing but exhaustion in his eyes. He’s worried Tim might fall asleep before they get back. “Tim.” His brother holds his gaze. “I love you. I’ll see you in a few hours.”
He withdraws before Tim can say anything back, closing the car door, wishing it was more secure. That he could lock them both down somewhere and know without any shadow of a doubt they’d be here when he got back. He wishes he had Bruce’s trackers.
He claps a hand on Hadley’s back, bunching up his shirt in a fist. He let him borrow a jacket, but he’s still wearing scrubs underneath and looks a little ridiculous for it. At least he has shoes, the same can’t be said for Tim.
“If you fuck me over,” Jason says, brightly, while they wait for the door to open. “There won’t be pieces of you left for a funeral. Got it?”
“Kinky,” Hadley says. At Jason’s look, he shrugs, tiredly, scratching the back of his neck. “Sorry.”
The door swings open, a minute later. On the other side is a woman, in uniform pants and a denim jacket, her dark hair loose around her shoulders. She’s got her mouth open already, but the words die on her lips as she catches sight of Jason.
Hadley smiles at her, “Hi, Ash. Need a favor.”
The woman doesn’t splutter. Her shoulders get tight with tension, she blows out a short, unsteady breath.
Jason lets his head tip, threatening, his hair falling over his eyes. He hasn’t been able to clean up, he knows he’s still soaked with dried blood crusted on his clothes and that his skin is a mess of blood spray. He smells, and he looks like he fed someone through a woodchipper and hour ago.
“Oh,” Hadley glances at Jason, still held in place by Jason’s grip on his back. “Don’t mind him, we’re just…”
“Move,” Jason orders, reaching for his gun.
“He won’t hurt you,” Hadley assures her, stepping past her, shoulders brushing.
“That’s cute. Move faster.”
Hadley is irritated by him, or maybe he’s just tense. He’s spent the last few hours playing casual and in control, but he’s freaking out as badly as Tim is, he’s just hiding it better. Tim never hides his fear with anger. Not like Jason does.
“How do you keep Crane in check?” Jason asks, eyeing the towering warehouse aisles. The building is sprawling. Does FedEx know they took hold of one of their distro sites?
“He doesn’t really have a choice,” Hadley says, “he’s on Simplex, I have his host. He keeps slipping his stupid toxin into his doses somehow, I think he’s just that fucking depraved. Doesn’t recognize it as an order.”
Jason huffs. That sounds like Crane. He’s aware of the woman—Ash? —falling into step behind them, and catches her resting her hand on her holstered gun out of the corner of his eye, but she doesn’t draw it for whatever reason. Maybe out of trust for Hadley.
“There’s a lab here?”
“Makeshift,” Hadley agrees.
That seems safe. Someone’s definitely getting cancer from this in a few years. Jason keeps the thought to himself. The two of them move through the aisles. There are people here, all of them avoid Jason’s eyes, even though he’s not sure everyone recognizes him. He’s just a blood-soaked man without his helmet.
“Who knows about Crane?” Jason asks, scanning the faces. He only recognizes a few, none of his. These are the fucks behind Endo.
“No one,” Hadley says. “Tim only figured out I took him a few weeks ago. Maybe Lex, now, but,” he shrugs. “Figured it was safer that way.”
“Smart,” Jason walked into a trap. He keeps his grip on Hadley. There are over two dozen people in here, Luthor wanted him alive. Sionis did, too, and they’re making Simplex here. He needs to keep his guard up, he wishes he had another helmet so none of his skin was exposed for a dose.
Hadley doesn’t strike him as the type of person who wouldn’t want to yank some leashes. He already has Crane’s. Tim’s.
“I, uh,” Hadley says, as they slip into a hall, long rows of doors, no windows. “I don’t have control anymore. Asha’s going to help us out. Whatever Lex did in the surgery—it pushed everyone out of my head except Tim. Not sure I can host anyone else.”
Jason glances at Asha. She glares at him, unrepentant. “Hudson,” she says, terse, venom layered in her voice. “I don’t know if your eyes are working, but that’s Red Hood.”
“Aw, sweetheart,” Jason glances up at her, “I do something to piss you off?”
Hadley waves a hand. “We’re on his side now.”
“He’s the whole reason Endo almost failed,” Asha protests, gesturing wildly at Jason. “He shot out someone’s knees with a shotgun.”
Right. Udofia. He screamed a lot.
Jason shrugs. He’d find some level of guilt for that if the fucker hadn’t been dosing kids and getting them exploited, trafficked, and raped. Mostly he feels nothing. Maybe satisfaction somewhere.
“Well, I feel like the situation has changed,” Hadley says. “And by changed, I mean he’s my current only ticket away from a billionaire ego maniac, so we’re giving him whatever the hell he wants, Ash. Deal with it.”
“He’s going to fuck us all over.”
“We already negotiated that kink.”
Jason stumbles. It hits him, all at once, that he’s out. His shoulders are light, his neck numbingly bare. He’s being snarked at by an annoying wannabe gangster twenty-something. His brothers are in the car just outside, he’s wearing his own guns, his own armor. He’s out.
Hadley doesn’t comment on it when Jason runs into his back, just pats his shoulder with the back of his hand, gesturing them to a door that leads out of the warehouse.
Jason drops his hand on his gun, and tries not to think of how some of these drug trafficking fucks could have circled back and ambushed Tim and Duke in the car, they could be miles away right now, they could be dead or Simplexed or on Yukimura’s fucking yacht.
“You Waynes ever take a breath?” Hadley mumbles, walking them down a boring looking admin hall, lined with cubicles and lockers. “Unclench?”
Jason bares his teeth. “Last time we did that some ugly blond fuck took Tim and mind controlled him.” Hadley laughs. Jason tries not to think about Tim on the security footage of the FedEx months ago. Jason teased him about having a thing for blonds and Tim had flushed.
Tim has been here before. Why didn’t say anything to Jason in the car? Did he really not know why he was here the first time or did he lie to everyone’s faces? He hadn’t seemed like he was lying, but he was just—weird. Spacing out. Jason remembers asking Dick if Bruce thought the kid was having focal seizures or something.
The room Braxton walks them to was probably once used for storage or records. It’s dusty, windowless, long instead of wide. The lights are far enough apart to cause eye strain. When Hadley said makeshift lab, he meant some fold out tables and second hand drug lab equipment. Everything is covered in scorch stains.
Crane looks rough, where he’s standing behind one of the foldable tables. Clean, dressed, physically fine, but there’s mania in his sunken eyes. His glasses are cracked on one lens.
He looks up when they enter, thin, plastic blue gloves torn on one finger.
Jason pulls his gun, and aims it at him. The man doesn’t tense. His gaze wanders from Jason to Hadley to Asha, lips setting. He’s silent, and Jason doesn’t realize it’s because he can’t speak until Hadley says, “Let ‘em talk, Asha.”
“Speak until I tell you otherwise,” Asha orders behind him. Jason feels enclosed. He tenses up, feels his neck shuddering.
Crane’s eyes snap to Jason immediately, his head cocking. Blood trickles from his nose, sluggish, thick. “You know I killed the littlest of you,” Crane says. His smile is a little too wide. “Hi, Robin. It was…well, that was an accident, but I’m not sorry.”
Jason’s jaw sets.
He thinks about Damian’s bracelet on Tim’s wrist right now.
“He’s not going to kill you, Crane,” Asha snaps, but she doesn’t sound sure, glancing at Jason from the corner of her eye. Jason’s not sure, either.
“How is Duke?” Crane asks, ignoring her. His glazed eyes wander away, come back. “Has he, ah, figured out his bites yet? Have you seen him die again? I watched Dent beat him, you know, it was—” Crane’s lip curls down, he picks the word deliberately, “funny.”
“You’re gonna make some Simplex for him,” Hadley says, gesturing at Jason.
Crane laughs. Thin and chortling, wheezing. “How the mighty have fallen, Robin. Is Wayne proud of you? Letting these pissants yank your chain?”
“Actually,” Jason doesn’t ungrit his teeth. He thinks if he tries he’ll pull the trigger, and he can only do that after he has a way to wake Duke up. “That’s you, buddy. I need you to make me a host dose.”
Crane bows his head mockingly. “Well, I live…” his eyes drift to Hadley, smirk twitching up, “to please. How is your beloved doing? Hallucinations stopped?”
Hadley’s fingers flex out. His face doesn’t change, but Jason is relieved to see he isn’t the only one who wants to hurt him.
He only realizes that Crane is talking about Tim when Hadley says, “Fuck you. I don’t need you anymore. I don’t give a shit what Asha does to you know, have fun.”
Crane’s smile drops. Asha grins at him, sharkish.
Hadley was giving Tim the toxin-laced Simplex? The fuck?
Crane gestures for Jason, “I need a DNA sample, boy. Come, give me your blood. Promise I won’t do anything bad with it.”
Jason, gritting his teeth, rolls up his sleeve to expose his arm.
He waits with Hadley outside of the lab while Crane works, Asha inside waiting on him. Hadley stands across from him, arms folded over his chest, looking anxious again. His hair is messy across his eyes.
“Relax,” Jason tells him, “take a fucking pill, Hadley. Unclench.”
Hadley’s gaze raises to him. “I can’t actually. I’m worried about Tim.”
“Yeah,” Jason looks away, down the hall. The FedEx is busy. Trucks probably come in and out of here all the time, it’s the perfect place to go international with any kind of smuggling, or trafficking. And it’s set up enough it couldn’t have been Hadley’s project. He’s just the benefactor.
“He’s been through a lot. We’ve been through a lot, together.” Hadley says, like Jason might not get it.
Jason bites his tongue, knee bouncing. Hadley falls silent, fidgeting badly. It takes him a few minutes to pull out his pack of cigs, which is longer than Jason was expecting, given that he has the voice of a tenured smoker.
“Want?” Hadley asks, offering the pack after he tucks one between his lips.
Jason does. Badly. He can’t afford it right now. Any high is too relaxed for what has to be. Hadley could have laced it with something. Endo’s being passed through cigarettes right now, has been for weeks. Jason hasn’t had a cigarette since Roman learned about it. He didn’t want to take the risk.
“Are you trying to marry my brother?” Jason asks. Hadley tucks the pack into his pocket, jaw setting.
Hadley’s expression is carefully composed. “Why? Jealous?”
“What’re you, four?” Jason snaps. “Answer the question, before I start jumping to conclusions.”
“What conclusions?” Hadley sounds genuinely confused, or at least frustrated. “We’ve been dating for months, we thought Lex’s surgery would kill us. Yeah, I proposed, just in case. I wanted him to know I would have.”
Jason stares, a little incredulous. He tries to imagine Ro getting down on one knee in front of him, and the image is so wildly incongruent he feels his brain skip like a scratched tape. Jason should pick his words better, but he and Dick have always had the same flashy temper, and it always gets them into the same shit. “You started a relationship with my seventeen-year-old brother after you mind controlled him? Is that what you’ve been doing with him, Hadley? Playing house?”
Hadley pulls the cigarette out from between his teeth, his fingers clenched on it. He looks frustrated. Angry.
He’s going to hit you, animal instinct in Jason’s brain says. He feels himself bracing for a shock from the collar. It doesn’t happen. It can’t, anymore.
“I’m not playing anything. He loves me. I’ve been trying to get us both off Simplex for months, I’m not—whatever you think is going on here, it’s not that.”
“He’s eighteen,” Jason says.
“I’m only twenty-two,” Hadley says, like that makes it much better. “I’m not some old fuck in his thirties looking for a fast lay. I love your brother, Jason. I want to protect him, I’d die for him. Why do you think we’re out here instead of me blowing you off and taking him?”
He still could. He thinks about Kon. Don’t trust him.
Jason regards him, steadily. Leans back against the wall, straightening his spine. “I don’t trust you for shit, Hadley. You’ve got a liar’s face.”
“You shouldn’t trust me,” Hadley agrees. “You should do what keeps Tim safe. That’s what I’m doing. You should know that if I think you’re hurting him, we’re leaving. His life is infinitely more important to me than this.”
Jason opens his mouth to tell Hadley that if he thinks about taking Tim, he’ll kill him, or something of the like. It dies on his tongue. What, they just keep exchanging threats? What the fuck is the point. Jason can’t leave Hadley before he gets Simplex, and Hadley can’t change what Lex did to sew them together. Until Jason can find a place to drop him, they’re stuck together.
He just needs to talk to Tim, get some sort of idea what the fuck is happening here. If Tim knows what’s happening here. If Braxton hasn’t mind fucked him into believing whatever he wants.
Jason rubs at his face, over an eyebrow, agitated. How the fuck does he fix this? What does he say to Tim? He’s not Dick, he’s not gentle, he’s not good, he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Bruce should be here. Cass. Barbara. Anyone but Jason. He’s not the gentle one.
Jason asks, he doesn’t really know why, maybe just to see if Hadley will admit to it. “Have you been fucking him?”
“We’re dating,” Hadley says. Flippant, not even defensive. He takes another drag, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m not a fucking nun. Neither is he.”
Tim’s a prude. He’s seventeen. He gets antsy around weed, he’s doing his wholesome will-they won’t-they shit with Kon, and his somehow even more wholesome lovers to friends shit with Steph. He’s immature and stupid in so many ways, sometimes Jason just wants to shake him until he stops recreating his own version of Baptist guilt for the millionth time over stupid shit like being gay.
And this piece of shit is fucking him.
Best-case scenario, Callum Hadley is the type of fucker who waits until kids are legal until he takes them even though they’re in High School, dates young, crashes out, dumps them when they’re a little less exploitable. Tim is naive enough Jason can see him falling into that, he was seventeen when he met him, what else is he supposed to be?
The kindest scenario ignores Simplex. Jason doesn’t know how to fit that into a marriage proposal.
Or, Hadley kidnapped Tim and threatened to rape him, got him drunk or high on a yacht and did rape him, and has screwed with Tim’s head enough that they’re getting engaged after less than six months.
Tim and Steph basically had a baby together when she got pregnant, and Tim was with her the whole time and they only kissed. Tim and Kon have been running circles around each other for two years. Tim wasn’t even out yet. Why would he jump into marriage? He was seventeen weeks ago.
Braxton flicks his cigarette to the ground, stomps on it with his heel, grinding it out. Jason blinks slowly, looking him up and down.
I think you raped my brother. Jason doesn’t know what to do. I know you raped my brother.
He exhales. Threatening Hadley gets him on guard, it gives him a reason to run and that puts Tim at risk. Playing amicable is the only thing he can do here. He’s not losing Tim. That’s not an option. He can’t help himself. “Are you happy?”
Hadley blinks. He frowns at Jason. “What?”
“Together,” Jason adds. “Are you happy?”
“I— yeah. Yeah.” Hadley only falters after he says it. Jason watches him work the question over in his mind. “We’re working on it. We will be again. After we get out of this.” He looks up at Jason. “Thank you for getting us out, I don’t think I said that yet. Lex would have killed us.”
That’s the thing that’s tripping him up. The part of his intel that’s fault. Roy said Hadley was working with Lex. Like he was a handler for Tim, not another captive.
“Why was he keeping you?”
“I tried to take Tim and leave,” Braxton says. “So that he wouldn’t permanently bond us. I fucked it up, bad, Tim—I,” he looks away for a second, confesses, “I hurt him, I didn’t mean to, but I did, and… Lex likes to be the only person who hurts his things. Tim is one of his things now. Like me. I saw it coming, I tried to keep him safe, I promise, but Lex is—” Hadley’s gaze gets far away. “He’s Lex.”
“Hurt him how,” Jason leans forward, elbows on his knees. The movement makes the hair that’s grown out at his nape brush his neck, and Jason shudders.
“The fungus needs glucose to survive, I thought if I could starve it out of him, then maybe…” Hadley exhales. “Like I said, I was desperate. Thank you. You can’t let us go back, I’ll do anything you want, he’ll kill us if you send us back.”
Starve it out.
Tim is cadaverous.
Jason rubs a hand over his wrist, squeezing at the leather for Tim’s bracelet. The silver beads move along the row. Tim used to bite them when he was anxious. He should give it back to Tim now, except he thinks he might lose his shit if he does.
Hadley has Jason’s on right now. Why the fuck would Tim give that to him?
“I’m not trying to work against you,” Hadley mutters. He reaches for his pack again. “I know Tim is glad you’re here. I want him to be happier. He wasn’t happy with Lex.”
And what about you? Was he happy with you? Jason doesn’t know how to play this. Aggressive is getting him nowhere, it’s difficult to play nice.
“All I want is for Tim to be happy,” Jason allows. He glances back at the door, exhales shortly, holds out a hand. “Bum me one.”
Hadley’s lip quirks, like he was waiting for it. He offers out a cig to him. The silence settles over them again. They don’t start braiding flower crowns into each other’s hair or anything, but it’s less stiff this time. He works on the cigarette slowly, trying to get his nerves to settle into something more manageable, trying to stop feeling every single minute passing.
The sound of the horn shatters the silence.
Braxton’s head raises only briefly, eyes dropping again, unconcerned. Jason feels his heart catch in his throat, the cigarette falling to the ground as he reaches for his handgun.
“What?” Braxton eyes him. Jason pushes off the wall, wincing as his feet throb at the extra weight, cocking his head to hear it.
The horn comes again. Again. Again.
Tim.
Yukimura’s trafficking ring. This is one of his ports. He left his kid brothers alone with only a gun for protection. Hadley is benefitting from this place, he doesn’t run it, Crane is here for convenience. It could have been a trap. They could be taking advantage.
Jason starts running.
No one steps into his path. Jason is peripherally aware of Hadley following him, shouting after him. He goes out the same back exit they came in, retracing his steps, and feels that same surreal rush of euphoria when he breaks into open air. The skyline is growing dimmer above them, but slowly, the air is cooling. Jason takes a long breath, gaze falling on the car in the parking lot, still there, whole, untouched.
Not that it means anything. Jason doesn’t bother with the stairs, vaulting over the stoop railing, his boots crunching on gravel, squinting through the tinted windows. He can see Tim in the driver's seat, or the outline of him, still hitting the horn, over and over.
Did Duke wake up? Fuck.
Braxton bursts out of the building as Jason is rounding the side of the car, grabbing the driver’s side door and yanking it open, his heart somewhere in his throat.
“Tim?” Jason grabs him by the arm, pulling him out of the vehicle and against himself, not even looking at him for a second, checking the back seat. Duke is still slumped motionless, breathing chemically even.
“Tim,” Jason pushes him back, taking him by the shoulders, looking between his eyes. The panic makes his words come out jumbled instead of calm. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
“I—” he’s pale as a sheet, breathing in stuttered bursts. Slow, not fast, and not taking in much air, like he’s choking on something. His nose isn’t bleeding and his eyes aren’t glazed. His hands tremble when they grab Jason’s shoulders.
“Do you have an order?” Jason doesn’t let go of him. He brushes Tim’s hair out of his face, trying to get his eyes to focus on something. “Take a breath.”
“I’m sorry,” Tim says. He sucks in a breath, squeezing his eyes shut, throat bobbing. Jason hesitates, before dragging him into a hug, clutching at the back of his skull, careful not to put pressure on any of the bandages, he holds Tim close while he looks back into the Toyota, watching the even rise and fall of Duke’s chest.
He’s fine, he’s okay. They both are. They’re both still here, flesh and bones, right in front of him.
The mantra doesn’t stop his heart from palpitating. Jason kisses Tim’s head, looking up to scan the parking lot, and the street beyond it.
“I thought,” Tim wheezes, “I— I thought—”
“I’m still here,” Jason promises. He’s shaking, too. “I’m not going anywhere. I won’t let them take either of you.”
He doesn’t know what them is. Luthor? Lewis? Yukimura? It doesn’t matter. It’s not fucking happening. It’s not. He’ll make it not.
“Tim,” Hadley finally rounds the car, setting his hand on Tim’s lower back, below Jason’s arm. There’s relief in his eyes when they find Tim and Duke untouched. “What’s wrong, baby? Did something happen?”
Jason takes a step back, pulling Tim with him, stopping himself from glaring at the last moment. Tim doesn’t react to him at all, but Hadley looks up at him, brows pulling. Confused or maybe irritated.
“I need to stay out here,” Jason says. He puts one hand on the roof of the car. “They can’t be alone like this.”
Go inside, Hadley. Go finish your end of the deal. Jason just needs a few minutes alone with Tim. To talk with his brother.
“I’m sorry,” Tim reiterates. He shifts back, like he means to grab the gun from where it fell into the footwell of the car under the steering wheel. “I’m sorry, I can—I’ll deal with it. I’m fine. Just—just—” He shivers, his teeth chattering together and silencing him.
Jason makes himself take a breath. He doesn’t trust Hadley, that’s why he took the man inside with him. He doesn’t trust him not to fuck with Duke’s Simplex, he trusts him even less alone with Tim. This was the same dilemma he came to the first time.
Hadley’s gaze catches Tim’s. He mimes breathing, reaching out to put his hand on Tim’s arm again. Jason resists the childish urge to slap it away. “I know you’re freaked out, but we have to take care of this together, baby, I’m sorry. Just another hour, maybe two. I’ll see if I can get Crane to work faster.”
Jason drops his voice, his mouth next to Tim’s ear, turning them away again, his shoulder to Hadley. “What spooked you?”
“There’s street cameras,” Tim mutters. Jason follows Tim’s gaze across the block, to the shittily mounted traffic cameras pointed at the road adjacent to them. Jason grimaces. “Dad—” he exhales. He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t have to.
Ro’s probably called up Lewis by now, either threatened her like he did last time, or making a fuss. Bruce was the one who found him in August and dragged him back. He got seven hours then, after he finished with Gordon, he tried to run. He didn’t even make it to Metropolis. It’s been what? Four? Five? Six?
Roman has definitely called. Bruce is on his way.
“If they were connected to any sort of network, Oracle would have found us by now,” Jason says, slowly. It’s been an hour. “And Bruce would be here already.”
He wants to believe it’s true. But Bruce has a longer lead than even Jason did. He could be watching them right now, waiting until they’re more vulnerable than they already are, waiting to strike when it will be most beneficial to Lewis.
Maybe, Jason wants to think, waiting out orders to give them a head start.
“You didn’t come back,” Tim wraps his arms around his stomach, pulling back from Jason. He looks hollow-eyed.
“Sorry kiddo.” I want him to be happier. Hadley’s so full of shit. It’s not Luthor who put that look on Tim’s face. “Hadley, go wait with Crane.”
Hadley’s head turns a fraction, eyes darkening. “And let you run off with them? I don’t trust you not to fuck this up, Hood. I can watch them.”
Jason sneers at him. “Little trust would be nice,” but the thought of leaving Hadley here is a nice one. He can handle sedating Duke for ten days, if Tim’s away from his Host.
Hadley barks a laugh, harsh and mean-sounding. “Fuck no.”
Tim’s throat works. He doesn’t quite shudder. “I’m sorry. Just go. You don’t need to babysit us.”
“Clearly,” Hadley mutters. Tim’s eyes drop.
“Hey, lay off, asswipe.” Jason takes a step away from Tim, towards Hadley, challenging.
Tim grabs his arm, bony fingers like little needles in his skin. “Jason, don’t.”
Hadley exhales, eyes closing. He rubs a hand over his face. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Tim, I shouldn’t have said that. This is just a fucked-up situation, I’m just worried about you.”
“You try being the one in this car out in the open like a sitting duck,” Jason shakes off Tim’s hand, putting himself firmly in Hadley’s space, pushing him back with a hand against his chest. “See how you feel when Wayne shows up to drag you back to your bitch mother, Hadley. I bet you pissed yourself last time.”
“Jason, please,” Tim’s so quiet. He was never this quiet before. He sounds desperate. Scared, but still quiet. Tim was never someone he could talk over before.
Hadley meets his gaze, jaw set. “Are you done? I apologized.”
“Shove it up yours,” Jason doesn’t push him again, because he’s not twelve, and Hadley could kill Tim with one wrong word.
The tension is palpable and uncomfortable. Jason doesn’t try to break it, because deep in his stomach, he’s an asshole and he’s glad Hadley doesn’t know what to do. Tim takes a half step closer to Jason’s back, almost in between them, but Jason puts a hand on his hip to shut that shit down before it can go anywhere. He’s not playing martyr.
“Just… just go back inside,” Tim says, “Braxton can order me not to leave. Bruce can’t take me, and we won’t leave without each other.”
Hadley eyes him, Jason can feel it on the back of his neck.
Jason swipes a hand underneath his eye, rubbing at it roughly. He looks at Tim’s face, wishes that he had a different option. He needs Duke back. He can’t wait for almost two weeks.
Tim grimaces. “It’s like you said, if Bruce were coming, he’d be here by now.”
It’s more optimistic than they can afford to be. “Start moving Hadley,” Jason says, putting a hand on Tim’s back, guiding him back into the car. “I’ll catch up to you.”
Tim sits down, and Jason grips the door frame, ducking his head into the car to check on Duke one more time.
Tim exhales roughly. His fingers are clenched taut, he looks like he’s going to be sick. He shudders, then reaches down for the gun. “I’m—I’m sorry,” he says, “I don’t, I don’t know why I’m like this, I’m being crazy. I won’t do it again.”
You’re only eighteen years old, Jason wants to say, you can freak the fuck out as much as you want to.
“Hey,” Jason wraps Tim’s fingers around the gun himself to make sure it’s secure. They’re cold to the touch. “Apologize again and I’ll break one of your ribs, Pretender.”
Tim laughs. It’s bitter more than amused, startled out of him. His eyes are brimming with tears. “I’m useless, Jay. Worse than useless.”
Jason could not, with all of his chest, give less of a fuck. So what? He doesn’t deserve to be rescued just because he’s sick? “You just point and shoot,” Jason says, mildly, searching Tim’s face. “It’s not hard. I’ll be back.” He doesn’t move away, he can’t make himself. Tim just looks so fragile.
“I’m sorry.” Tim says again.
Jason catches his chin, forces the boy to look at him. “What’d I just say?” he says. “I’ll tell you when to be sorry. Just buy me another two hours, Robin.”
“Right,” Tim drops his gaze. The word is faint. “Right. Okay. Go find Braxton.”
“The hell does the name Braxton come from anyway?” Jason mutters, he pulls off, patting Tim’s cheek.
“It’s his middle name,” Tim explains, pointlessly. His eyes get distant, entire body wracking up with a shudder that curls up his spine to his neck. “He…he doesn’t…like being called his first name. Don’t try.”
Jason nods, slowly, cataloguing that. He gestures, and Tim tucks his bare feet into the car. He must be cold. Jason slams the door, waiting until he hears the lock click before he turns around.
Hadley is standing at the door to the warehouse, watching him.
Jason flips him off.
Crane delivers ten Simplex pills to Jason in a sandwich baggie. It doesn’t even seal at the top. They’re non descript and blue, all of Jason’s pills have been white. When he asks, Crane smiles and shrugs, says, “Well… it all works the same, doesn’t it? A fungus is a fungus.”
Jason turns to Asha, who’s been staring at him unsubtly since he came back inside. “Order him to tell me if there’s any shit in this that’s not necessary for it to function. Don’t say Fear Toxin, or Toxin, those exact words. Unnecessary shit.”
Asha does. Crane’s expression falls. “Mild traces of Toxin. You’ll hardly notice it’s there.”
“Fuck that.” Hadley says, “I noticed with Tim, you fucker.”
Crane cackles. “Oops.”
Jason pockets the baggie. He’s struck with an odd sense of surrealism for a moment at the fact he’s trusting him. With Duke’s life. Crane may be insane, but he would only fuck it up as an ego trip, and Jason knows what he’s looking for.
“You said you killed a Robin,” Jason says, pushing Hadley a step back, out of his way. He’s gotten what he wanted, Crane’s outlived his usefulness. The man seems small, standing in front of the three of them, dwarfed even by Asha.
Crane’s smile quavers on the edges of his lips, mocking. He has thin lips, it makes his mouth look too wide for his face when he contorts it like that. His glasses are gone, two of his fingers are taped, broken definitely. It doesn’t stop the pleasure that practically rolls off of him. “Are you sad, Mr. Wayne? Did that make you upset?” Crane leans forward, curious. Eager. “Afraid? You are just mortals after all. I thought he would last longer than he did.”
Jason swallows, feels his molars grind. He makes himself look away from Crane, trying to figure out if this is rational, or the anger talking. The last thing he needs is a self-made problem.
“He was so small,” Crane keeps going, he’s goading him now. He wants Jason to hurt him, maybe to kill him. Fucker’s probably miserable as shit on Simplex, just like the rest of them. “His body was all twisted up like a dead bug. He couldn’t move his hands, well, just before. He was so…well, he was upset.”
“Shut up,” Asha murmurs. Crane coughs a little, jaw snapping shut, holding out his hand and spitting blood phlegm.
“Just ignore him,” Hadley tries, catching Jason’s arm. There’s something like commiseration in his gaze.
Jason thinks that Hadley must assume he’s pissed off, or he’s lost his shit, two seconds away from descending into madness. It is, in fact, a very conscious, calm decision when he withdraws the knife at his thigh.
You’re like a trained hunting dog. I just point you at what I want to kill, there you go. My little bloodhound.
For a split second, before he can twist it into mocking, Jason sees the relief pass over Crane’s face, eyes dropping to the blade. He adjusts his grip on it, sinking his fingers into the knuckle grip.
Jason descends on him. He grabs him by the back of the neck and slams his face into the metal table, rattling the equipment scattered across it. Something crunches at the force, Crane cries out in pain before he starts laughing.
Distantly, he’s aware of Asha yelling for him to stop, and Hadley holding her back. Neither of them get in his way, as he drags Crane back, throwing him to the ground. The man’s body impacts like a sack of potatoes, the breath wheezing out of him. Jason steps over him, looking down into Crane’s pale blue eyes.
Damian is dead. He made Jason tea after nightmares sometimes, they patrolled together, he used to complain about his homework and try to bribe Jason into purchasing things for him. He smelled perpetually of expensive anise.
He’s dead.
Crane took that. Damian didn’t die. Damian wasn’t killed. Damian was murdered. Jason’s brother was murdered.
Jason straddles him and plunges the blade into his stomach. It squelches, vanishing inside. Crane isn’t wearing any armor, it pierces through layers of tissue easily, parting like cloth. Crane wheezes. He squirms, but it’s all biological. He’s still laughing.
The blood pools quickly, soaks Jason’s hands in seconds. Phantom fingers card through his hair, a weight on his neck, good boy, good dog.
Jason wrenches the blade up, until he can’t anymore, sawing at the flesh and connective tissue, cutting through the softest part of the underbelly. Just because it’s painful, it takes force. Crane can’t fight him like this, and Jason wants a fight, he wants to beat Crane to death, not perform a mercy kill.
The man realizes he’s dying, after a few seconds. Jason watches his brain functions kick down, instinct setting in. The laughter keeps up, and Jason seethes imagining Damian listening to that, the last thing he ever heard. He almost can’t breathe through the thoughts, hands shaking badly.
Jason digs the knife out of Crane and slits his vocal cords through his throat. The noise stops. Jason doesn’t stop. He can’t stop.
The last thing that ever looked at his brother was Crane. Jason digs the blade of the knife into the eye socket and digs out an eye until it’s hanging by strings from the socket. Crane’s whole body convulses at it. The laughter just deescalates into gasps, gurgles. Pitched, warbling minute, broken off screams, blood gushing and then spraying from his split carotid. He has seconds, Jason wants it shorter.
He slices at Crane’s face, his chest, anything he can reach, hitting him. Hitting him. Hard and deep, just to feel the bruising on his knuckles.
He keeps scraping the knife along the skin, takes off some section of his shoulder in the process. He doesn’t care.
He twists Crane’s face to the side, what’s left of it, and punctures his brain through his ear, punching down until the skull breaks. It takes effort, Jason heaves from it. Every inhale he tastes copper, blood thick on his tongue, as though it’s gotten into the air. There’s cartilage and bone flecks in the masticated mess of the dent, his skull caving into that one part.
Jason’s fingers are blood slick. He drags the knife across Crane’s cheek, cutting R deep into it, the blood rolls down his face in rivulets.
Jason spits on him before he makes himself crawl back up to his feet.
The world is in grayscale. He stands and blinks for a while, feet planted, listening to his own heartbeat thrumming in his ears, breathing through the knot of grief twisting him up. Waiting for orders.
Hadley is the one who brings him back to himself. A hand on his shoulder, fingers light, Jason twitches badly, snapping in his head to the side. He makes eye contact with green eyes—Damian, he thinks horrified, but it isn’t.
Hadley presses something into his chest. It takes a beat too long for Jason to look down at it, turning over the rag in his hands.
“We need to go,” Hadley says, quietly. He looks disturbed. He should be. Jason knows what he is. “Tim’s outside.”
“String him up somewhere people will see,” Jason points at Crane’s corpse with his knife. His voice sounds unnatural to his own ears, too loud, too present. He shakes his head until the world stops listing sideways.
Hadley’s lip curls, he hesitates, looking over Jason’s shoulder, at Asha, and then nods once. “Yeah, okay. As long as you clean up a little.”
Jason sneers. He uses the rag to wipe the blood off his knife—it’s good steel—and tucks it back onto his belt. “Queasy, Hadley?”
“Don’t make Tim see you like this,” Hadley says, taking a step backward when Jason moves too quickly. He’s afraid. Like a child.
Jason feels insane and volatile. Someone else’s voice answers Hadley. It’s Sionis’. “He should get used to it.”
“Fuck you man,” Hadley says, but he falls into line, when Jason pushes him again.
Jason laughs at him, hysterical. He turns, unsteady, to the exit. He’s got more important things to focus on right now. His fucking kids.
He tucks Sionis’s dog away; he can’t be that right now.