incogneat-oh:

4: sick!fic

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Bruce’s shoulders are heavy as he walks upstairs. 

Alfred had left a few minutes before to run some errands, and had given him very firm instructions to head on up to check on Damian. He hates seeing his kids sick; it’s one of those inexplicable parent-things that he never would have anticipated before taking in Dick. 

Seeing them sick as adults is bad enough (here his step falters, and he cringes, makes a mental note to check on Tim), but to see Damian, small and pale and weak, breath wheezing in his chest, pains Bruce deep inside. A soft spot he doesn’t like to acknowledge or even think about. 

But days like today, he has no choice. 

And it’d be much worse, he thinks, for his children to be sick and alone… He stops briefly outside Damian’s door, already feeling the corners of his mouth pull down. He raps two knuckles lightly on the door, says, 

“Damian… it’s just me, I’m coming in,” and he doesn’t wait for a confirmation, because he isn’t expecting a response. Damian had been complaining of a sore throat days before his other symptoms, after all. 

And when he enters, his son’s room is dark. Heavy curtains thrown closed, lights off, the conflicting smells of stale air and fresh sheets. Clearly in spite of Alfred’s best efforts. 

There, standing in the centre of the room, is Jason Todd. In his arms is a blanketed-lump, a dark-haired head pressed into his shoulder. And Jason, looking up, shushes him.

Feeling off-balance, blinking, trying to reconcile the image in front of him, it occurs to Bruce that Jason was not shushing him. He was shushing Damian, and keeps murmuring to him, low, gentle. He hears the words ‘just Dad’, and ‘don’t move, it’s fine’, but the rest is too quiet for him to hear.

Damian, still in his pyjamas, weak and ill, his normally caramel skin an ash grey, shifts his arms. Clinging tighter to Jason, who just says, “I got you, akhi. I got you.” 

The boy is a good few feet off the ground, sitting on Jason’s hip like a much younger child. Hands gripped carefully to the back of Jason’s t-shirt. And Jason, he notices, is actually swaying slightly, walking in little circles, arms gentle and fully supporting Damian’s weight. Damian’s face is hidden, but he makes a small sound of discontent, and Jason shifts his grip. Pulling him closer, murmuring something in… Arabic?

“What’s going on?” Bruce says, finally. Voice choked.

And Jason looks up from across the room, frowns at him. Brow wrinkling. Like it’s obvious. Still swaying, shifting on his feet, one hand rubbing up and down Damian’s blanket-covered back, he says, “I’m minding the kid. Lil demon’s sick as hell, he needs rest.”

“… he has a bed,” Bruce says.

Then Jason looks at him like he’s an idiot. “He’s an assassin baby, Boss. Do you know how much it freaks him, to lie down in the same place for hours? He’s too weak to defend himself if he had to, and he can barely move.”

The boy makes another sad little sound, and Jason keeps pacing. Keeps rubbing one hand in circular motions over Damian’s back. Says, “كلشيءعلىمايرام” and “أنت آمن الحبيب” ,and he quiets. 

“We— we have an alarm,” Bruce says, because it still doesn’t make sense, the way Jason is gentle and sweet and kind with his enormous hands and his enormous shoulders– the hands Bruce has seen break bones, the shoulders usually stiff with the weight of guns and knives and anger– the way he moves like a slow-dancer, keeping Damian pressed against him. 

They don’t even get along.

And he remembers, suddenly, vividly, standing with Jason outside of Wayne Enterprises— it’d been windy and they were walking to the car, discussing a case, and the boy had said, grin wide and cocky, “Don’t worry, B, I’m great with kids.” 

Bruce couldn’t help but laugh, then, looking down at him in his rumpled school uniform to say, “You are a kid, Jay.”

The grin had turned immediately to a huff; “Barely. And I mean younger kids.” Then, “Back before, when my mom… just. Sometimes I’d help, with some of the neighbour’s kids in the building, like if they got sick or whatever. And, like, they couldn’t always take off work cuz their kid was sick, so sometimes I’d skip school, to, you know. Mind them and stuff.”

“Yeah,” the here-and-now Jason is saying, voice heavy with sarcasm. “Because feelings are always rational. Especially when you’re ten years old and have goddamn-pneumonia.”

And Bruce… shakes himself, takes a few steps forward. Quietly, “How’s he doing?”

Jason looks down at the boy, frowning slightly. Shifting his grip. “ ‘bout as good as you could expect. Poor brat.”

Bruce reaches out, rubbing a hand through Damian’s sweat-stiff hair. Alfred had helped him wash it yesterday, after they’d come home from the hospital. Bruce had had to piggy-back him from the car.

At his touch, Damian stirs, lifting his head from Jason’s shoulder; mumbles tightly, “Father?” 

He blinks tiredly, confusedly, at Bruce.

“Yeah, Damian,” he says. “It’s okay, just try not to talk.” And then, to Jason, “You want me to take over?”

Jason shakes Damian very gently, then, to get his attention; his head had already fallen back to Jason’s shoulder, his eyes closed again. “Hey, baby brat. You comfy here, or you want Dad to take you for a bit?”

The boy shifts effortfully, wrapping his arms more tightly around Jason’s neck. Hiding his face completely once more. 

And Jay actually smiles at that, says, “Uh-huh, okay.” A beat. “You know we’re gonna keep you safe, yeah?”

Muffled from Jason’s shirt and what has to be at least two blankets, Damian says, “… tuh.”

“Did you just try to click your tongue at me?” Jason asks him. “Jeez, you must be messed up. Don’t worry, your condescension is implied.”

And Jason makes another two short trips around the room, which actually seems to help help soothe Damian. He falls into a doze somewhere around the chest of drawers, the painful-sounding rasps of his breath slowing. Bruce just stands there, uncomfortable, unsure what to do.

“What time did Alfred say he’d be back?” Jason asks, after a minute. Quiet. 

“Less than an hour,” Bruce says, and Jason nods, like that’s what he expected. He explains, “Kid needs his next lot of pills at four, but I don’t know the dose.”

“I didn’t know you spoke Arabic,” Bruce says, after a moment of relative silence, broken only by Damian’s breathing and Jason’s footsteps on the carpet. 

“I don’t, really,” Jay dismisses. “Just a couple phrases I learned, when Talia. From when I was upset.” 

And that’s when Damian stirs, fidgeting uncomfortably. He pulls back far enough to see Jason’s face and gives a whine, says “Where’s Grayson.” and then sags again, clearly exhausted by his outburst.

“We’ve had this conversation a couple times already,” Jason reminds the kid, without heat. Rolling his eyes, but there’s a sympathetic twist to his lips, and his hand doesn’t slow on rubbing Damian’s blanket-covered back. “He’s on a plane, remember? He called us a few hours ago, when he was going to board. He’s still in the air now. And you know he’s gettin’ here as quick as he can.”

And Damian says something that sounds a lot like “Hrrrmmm,” sounding, for once, like a regular child his age, and doesn’t move.

Jay presses the back of his hand lightly to Damian’s cheek, then, frowning. “Hey, B? You mind getting the thermometer? I think his temperature’s back up.” 

And Bruce says, “Of course,” and is halfway out the door when Jason says, “It’s in the third kitchen drawer.”

“Thanks, Jason.”

“Sure,” he says easily, still pacing. 

And Jason’s back is to him, when he turns around. Pausing. His older son is keeping up a low murmur, half-Arabic, half-English, and his hold is exceedingly careful. Like Damian is something precious and fragile.

And this, too, is another thing he could never have predicted about parenthood; this feeling of awe and warmth, overwhelming pride. He knows his boys well enough to know they will never talk about this. As soon as Damian is strong enough to walk on his own, as soon as the colour is back in his cheeks, it will be back to constant insults and barely-contained violence. 

But for now, Bruce thinks, at least there’s–

“Nn… Todd?”

“Yeah, kid?”

“Your accent’s … ‘ttrocious.”

“Excuse you, demon. Jesus. You try to do something nice…”

– well, something there. Probably.

END.