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Heat – that was the first thing he was aware of. Heat, so present, so close, pressing in on him on all sides. Tearing across his face, ripping the seams of his suit, choking him with it’s smoke, blinding him with its light.
He was sore, he noticed as he tried to pull away. So, so sore – bleeding in more places than he could count, a fuzzy haze that had nothing to do with the smoke obscuring the broken remains of the battered building from his view.
Then, the pressure, shifting against him when he moved. God, the pressure. Something heavy, so heavy, pressing against his chest until he couldn’t breathe. Until his ribs cracked and his voice broke, giving out as he screamed and screamed and screamed and –
Jason woke up screaming, hot – so hot, and pressed down by something heavy in the darkness. He choked, shoving the weight off – and heard his weighted blanket as it thumped down onto the hardwoods. The sound helped to ground him, along with the shaky breaths he forced himself to take slowly. He gripped his sheets with sweaty hands, tossing them to the side as well so the cool night air could reach his skin. Sliding his legs out of bed, he dropped his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, trying to fight the nausea that rolled through his stomach as his dinner threatened to make a reappearance.
It wasn’t the first time it’d happened, and it definitely wouldn’t be the last. If Jason knew anything, he knew that trying to go back to sleep would be futile – he’d just get dropped right back into the flashback he’d been having before he woke up.
Jason sighed, running a hand through his damp curls, and stood slowly, leaning on the bedside table until he was sure his legs would take his weight. They shook, but held him, and he made his way into the living room of his apartment, socked feet shuffling in the dark. He considered turning a light on, even flipped the one over the kitchen sink on for a second, but the brightness immediately reminded him of the nightmare, so he settled for the darkness instead.
Cold – he wanted something cold. He opened the freezer and grabbed a handful of ice, pressing it directly against his forehead when his brief search for a hand towel came up dry. He focused his breathing, on the movement of his shoulders up and down as his lungs expanded and contracted and his pulse finally started to settle. He dropped the ice in the sink, flinching slightly at the clatter it made against the metal, and filled a glass with water before making himself drink all of it in one go.
Gasping, he swiped at the water leftover on his chin, wiping it with the hem of his t-shirt before pulling the nasty thing over his head and letting it drop on the floor.
It smelled. It smelled like sweat and fear and smoke, and even though he knew that last part was all in his head, it didn’t make it any less real. He’d pick it up and wash it in the morning, but for now he let the night air play across his skin, the slight draft from the AC raising goosebumps on his arms and chest. It felt good. It felt real.
He dragged a hand across his face, feeling the rough three-day stubble on his chin and cheeks, and brushed at the still-wet strands of hair on the back of his neck, rejoicing in the small victory that was the chill running down his spine.
You aren’t burning. You’re not, because how could you be? You’re cold. Cold and in your safehouse and very, very much alive.
You’re not dying, Jason. Not again.
He sighed, switching on the kitchen light again, but moving back into the living room so he could sit in the half-light that filtered through the doorway. That was manageable; that wasn’t too bright and it most definitely wasn’t hot, like the main overhead lights had an annoying habit of being.
Jason dropped onto the couch and reached underneath the coffee table to pull out the handgun he kept stashed there. Among the myriad of weapons he kept around him at all times, this one was one of his favorites – a sleek Colt Government, the custom grip worn down and fitted to his hand after years of use. He ran his hands over it, reaching first for the button to dislodge the clip, popping the piece out and setting it gently on the table. He pulled the slide back, tapping the Colt against the palm of his left hand to catch the bullet that had been left in the chamber.
Then he took the gun apart.
It was slow, focused work – the full-length guide rod he’d added to put some extra weight in the front of his pistol also meant that the thing was more difficult to take apart than a regular model. He was fine with that. It gave him something focused, something calming to do on nights like these. Something to put his mind to that he knew would keep him from falling back into whatever hellscape he’d woken up from. Dick had caught him at it, once, back when he still lived at the Manor, and hadn’t managed to catch the look on Jason’s face before making a joke.
Who knew that the Red Hood would be the most meticulous gun cleaner in all of Gotham City!
Jason smirked to himself as he pressed down on the spring to turn the bushing on the end of the barrel, releasing pressure on it slowly so the spring didn’t shoot across the room. The slide caught his finger as he slid it back this time, bringing a curse out of him as pain shot across his hand. “Damn it! I knew that was gonna happen.”
He waited for a second, half afraid that the stinging would pull him back, that the pain would remind his body of what it had been through – but it didn’t, and he could still see straight and hear himself think after thirty seconds, so he figured he was okay.
He slid the receiver out and set it on the table next to the little pieces he’d been lining up neatly since he first started working on the gun. There was order to this, a process, a right way of doing it and a wrong way – just the way Jason liked things.
Unlike when he’d come back, when he found out that Joker was still alive and Bruce hadn’t done anything but replace him and he hadn’t had any idea what to do.
He set the gun down and pressed a hand against his eyes, seeing spots as he pushed hard against them. “Stop,” he said out loud to the empty room. “Don’t do that. Don’t go there again.”
He blinked the spots out of his vision, inhaling deeply before reaching for the gun once more. He pulled the spring all the way out, smiling just a little at the weird way the metal wobbled in his hand, and laid it gently down with the other pieces.
The inside of the receiver had a lot of buildup, he noticed when he took the barrel the rest of the way apart. The Red Hood had been busy, and it had been a while since his last nightmare.
A while since the flames had licked his skin, the rock in his chest tearing angrily at his muscles as he waited for Bruce.
Jason’s breath hitched, and he quickly took a rag to the dirtiest parts of the weapon.
And he waited, and waited, and waited, until his body finally gave up and his mind descended into darkness. And still, Bruce never came.
The slide clattered to the table as his grip on it went slack, followed by the rag.
He was alone. Completely, utterly alone, at the bottom of a pile of rubble put there by his own actions. It was his fault, all his fault, and there was no one coming, and the pressure was building in his chest, pressing him down as the flames moved closer and closer -
He rocked forward, elbows on his knees, and hung his head as bile rose in the back of his throat. He knew his breathing was rough, knew he needed to slow it down before he ended up hyperventilating, so he called Alfred’s voice to his mind, forcing himself to remember one of their training sessions from years ago.
In for seven, Master Jason, Alfred had taught him, his accent cool and smooth in the young boy’s ears. Hold for two, then out for eight. Again.
Hold for two, out for eight, he counted, the fabric of the couch just a little scratchy against his back. If only he could get his hands to stop shaking.
Again.
He replayed Alfred’s voice in his head for what felt like hours, willing his muscles to relax as he stared at the ceiling, the Colt all but forgotten on the table.
Sudden noise rose up from the kitchen as his phone lit up on the counter where he’d left it before going to bed that night. It jolted him, pulled him out of the reverie he’d entered into where the only thing he could hear was his own breathing.
“Who the hell is calling at . . .” He glanced at the clock on the microwave. “Two thirty in the morning?”
Dick’s face registered in his mind as he saw the caller ID on his homescreen. He considered letting it ring, but thought better of it at the last second and put the phone on speaker. “Hello?”
“Jaybird, you up?”
Jason breathed out a laugh in spite of himself, feeling some of the tension leave his shoulders. “Obviously.”
“Good. Because I’m kinda on my way up the fire escape right now, and I did not want to have to deal with trying not to wake you up.”
“You’re – wake me – what?”
Dick. His brother was coming, was almost there.
Dick had come for him.
Dick laughed on the other end of the line, then there was a clang and a muttered curse. “I hope you aren’t partial to the downstairs neighbors, because they are definitely no longer partial to you.”
Jason pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Dick –”
There was a tap on the window, then another, more insistent one. “Let me in, little brother. It’s cold out here.”
The phone beeped as Dick hung up, and Jason let out a sigh of relief, leaning his forearms against the counter. He wasn’t alone. He would be okay, would be fine now that there was someone else here, and whatever reason Dick had for being awake at such an hour, it was sure to be a good one.