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Jason wasn’t sure what he was doing here.
In all honesty, he didn’t want to be here. Shouldn’t be here, really.
But…
Tim was sick. Again.
And it wasn’t that Jason blamed Tim Tam for getting sick because everyone and their mom knew about Tim’s spleen by now—including Steph’s actual mother, who worried about Steph’s friend endlessly—the actual detailed story about how it went down notwithstanding.
But Dick had called Jason because Batman was on an off-world mission with the Justice League and honestly the birds were ill-equipped to be taking care of themselves.
Of course, Alfred was there, but he had been laid up with whatever Tim had managed to catch, and no one would ever even consider bothering Alfred when he was resting.
So, next best thing: Jason.
But here’s the kicker; Jason, much like little Tim-Tam, does not have a spleen.
Actually—Jason doesn’t have a couple of his organs, courtesy of his less-than-stellar childhood on the streets of the infamous Crime Alley. He spent a lot of his younger years there despite not actually living on the streets until he was about nine, and a childhood of living like that left Jason with more than just a couple of scars.
Jason has also never actually told anyone about his organ deficiency other than Roy, because before Roy, the only people who had ever known were Catherine, Doc Thompkins, and the shit stains that decided they would buy a couple of organs from an eight-year-old.
Catherine is now long dead, and Doc Thompkins would never betray her doctor-patient confidentiality, so Jason had never told anyone before, other than Roy. Jason wasn’t very keen on explaining to the bats and the birds how he had sold some of his organs after his appendix burst because they couldn’t afford the appendectomy and little eight-year-old Jason also had dreams of putting Catherine through rehab, which he did afterward, and she had still died of a drug overdose anyway, so it had been an effort in futility.
All in all, it ended with little eight-year-old Jason being down a pair of tonsils, an appendix, and a spleen, and subsequently so was twenty-year-old Jason.
So, Jason did his very absolute best to not be around whenever anyone got sick, but he knew he couldn’t avoid it this time.
The only one allowed in the kitchen (with supervision!) of those who were at the Manor was Duke, and that’s because Duke hadn’t been at the Manor long enough to necessitate a ban just yet.
And Dick remembered that Jason was always allowed free reign of the kitchen, even without supervision, so Dick called him up.
This is what brings Jason to the present day. Standing in front of the doors to the Manor, keys in hand, heavily debating if he should ditch and just go back to his apartment, screw Tim and his lack of spleen. Tim has long been taken off of Jason’s shit list, but Jason almost wishes being sick was enough to put Timmers back on it.
He hears a myriad of footsteps and voices and Jason knows he’s the one who’s screwed.
“Jaybird!” Dick yells as soon as he pulls the double doors open, and Jason can see the trail of little ducklings behind him.
Duke, Steph, Cass, and Tim are in a neat line behind Dick, and they all look miserable. They’re all wearing pajamas, each with their own tissue box. Damian is standing apart from them with his arms crossed, and Alfred The Cat is perched precariously on his shoulder, but the illusion of an upset healthy prepubescent teenager is very obviously ruined by a very red nose, and the pale pallor of his normally deep tan.
Dick is the only one who doesn’t look miserable, and Jason laments his own health and simultaneously curses Dick’s extremely abysmal culinary abilities and prowess.
Jason has no words. He wants to step back, away from the sick children. He wants to go back to his germ-free apartment and watch the newest episode of Great British Bake Off with Roy.
He takes a step back.
“Jase! Please, you know I’m not allowed in the kitchen without extremely strict supervision!” Dick begins complaining, and the kids offer no comforting words for Jason.
“You said that only Timbo and Alfie were sick, Dickhead.” Jason is going to have a miserable time whenever this is all over. Call it a gut feeling.
“Yeeeaaahhh about that, Little Wing.” Dick smiles. He really shouldn’t. Jason kind of wants to knock his brother out cold, but he generously refrains. Dick continues, “It seems like everyone else caught the bug as well?”
Jason rolls his eyes. He shuts them in exasperation. He takes a deep breath.
He has, actually been working very hard on his anger management recently, and he’s been told to try the meditation method, and so far, he hates it. It's not working. He wants to shoot his oldest brother in the foot.
“Are you asking me or telling me?” Jason asks flatly, despite knowing the answer.
“Um.”
Dick is the worst older brother ever. Fuck whatever he had previously told the kids about how the first Robin was. He is a fucking menace and should erase Jason’s number from his phone.
“How come you’re the only one not sick?” Jason asks, even though he knows the answer, and all the kids immediately begin to clamor.
“Yeah—”
“Share your spleen—”
“Actually Jay has a point—”
“Richard is unable to even cook us a meal—”
“Okay, okay. We get it. I have an amazing immune system—” Dick starts but is promptly interrupted.
“—Fuck you!—” Tim yells, which he definitely shouldn’t, based on how rough his voice sounds, but Jason is never not going to encourage anyone to curse out his older brother as a gesture of affection.
“—but the fact of the matter is I am resolutely not allowed in the kitchen without strict supervision, and even though we could just order take-out until someone with kitchen privileges is better, take-out is not conducive to the bettering of anyone’s health, as stipulated by Alfred the many times we have tried to order take-out.” Dick continues, ignoring Tim’s offense regarding his immunocompromised body, and Dick claps his hands together in a mockery of a prayer.
Jason takes a deep breath, and once again laments his own health. He will not be coming out of this unscathed.
He was doomed from the moment his older brother had texted him about Tim three hours ago, but three hours ago, Tim was the only sick person Jason was expecting to come into contact with. Jason was also much more optimistic about his chances of leaving the Manor still as relatively healthy as he had entered three hours ago.
Now? Not so much.
Alas, his family needed him, or whatever.
“Fine.”
The crowd cheers, and about half of them dissolve into miserable coughing fits.
Jason takes a half step back. He kind of wants to shove them all into the decontamination room down in the Cave.
“I need everyone to put on masks.” Jason requests, even though he knows it's an effort in futility.
They all shuffle away from the door, and Jason steps into the threshold, trying to map out all the ventilation systems in the Manor in his head.
Dick ushers the sick birdies away to put on masks, knowing that Jason has always been fairly health-conscious even if he’s never been told the reason, and lets Jason know that they’ll meet him in the kitchen.
Jason immediately begins opening windows wherever he sees them, trying to keep the areas he’s in well-ventilated in hopes that he will be spared whatever stupid cold all the little birds have.
It is entirely unfair that out of the many years he’s known Dick—between the death and subsequent not-death—he has only seen his older brother sick twice, and Dick has only ever always bounced back by the next day.
Tim is absolutely right. Fuck Dick and his stupidly good immune system. Maybe he should share his spleen with the rest of them. Or at least the rest of his spleen-less brothers.
They reconvene in the kitchen. The kids are all sitting on the bar stools, lined up like the good little ducklings they pretend they are in front of Alfred, and Dick is standing, trying to convey with his expression that he is not ill, and very ready to help.
Jason, in the meantime, has pulled on a mask of his own, and already pulled out the necessary ingredients to begin making Lugao, which is a Filipino rice porridge that Jason learned from Miss Agbayani next door to his apartment back when he and Catherine were living in Crime Alley.
Miss Agbayani taught him how to make the simple rice porridge the first time Catherine had ever been down with a bad cold—and eventually down due to other not-cold-related reasons—and Jason would readily admit to anyone in his immediate family that the dish was one of his favorite comfort foods.
Jason usually made the dish with chicken stock, but he didn’t really feel like making two full separate dishes, so he decided to use miso paste and adjusted the seasoning ratio in his head instead.
Dick made a move to help and was met with a smack to his wrist with the bundle of scallions Jason was holding.
“No.” Jason walks over to the sink to wash the scallions, and he could practically hear Dick pouting.
“But Jayyyy, I can totally help!”
“Not on your life, Dickiebird,” Jason replies, and the peanut gallery laughs at Dick, who sits down on a stool, still pouting. He looks completely in place with the rest of the children, ignoring the fact that Dick, Cass, Tim, and Steph are all legal adults.
If you’re not allowed in the kitchen without Alfred-level or Jason-levels of supervision, then you fit in with the rest of the little birds. And yes, this does include Bruce.
Jason holds in a smirk, and turns around, pointing the scallions at the birds. “Shut it, peanut gallery. I can feel your germs getting everywhere.” He begins to saute the onions, garlic, and ginger and starts boiling the rice and miso once finished.
The others quiet down as the sound of simmering water fills the kitchen.
“How come you’re so anal ‘bout not gettin’ sick?” Steph asks, and she sniffles, laying her head down on the bar.
“Come to think of it, I don't think I’ve ever seen you sick, Jason.” Tim comments, after he blows his nose and snaps his mask right back on, “Maybe you should give me your spleen.”
Jason very carefully holds his laughter in, purely because he’s sure no one else would laugh if he made everyone aware of what he thought was so funny. Instead, he stirs the rice, ensuring nothing burns at the bottom.
“Perhaps Jason is simply not an imbecile, like you Timothy.” Damian tries to say sharply, but the coughing fit that befalls him after the comment softens the effect. Tim pouts and drops his shoulders at the barb against his weak immune system anyway. Dick fills a glass of water for Damian, who glares at the glass but takes a couple of sips regardless.
“Who’s patrolling, if you’re all out right now?” Jason maneuvers the conversation towards something he actually was curious about, and Duke answers, “O has the Birds of Prey taking shifts for us until we’re all better.”
Jason hums, and stirs the pot of rice. Dick sniffs and his face lights up, wiping that stupid pout off his face. “Oh I love when Jay makes this dish—he used to make it every time Bruce got sick, and—”
Jason interrupts before Dick can say anything incriminating about 13-almost-14-year-old Jason being happy that his family liked his food, “—an’ you’ll shut ya mouth if ya know what’s good fer ya, Dickiebird.”
His ears are burning. Thank fuck no one can tell. ‘Cept Cass—not like she ever tells anyone about Jason’s many tells—which is why Jason lets her get away with always calling him her little brother all the time, even though it is completely up in the air which of them is actually older.
Duke and Steph sit up a little at the familiar drawl that the East End lends every one of its inhabitants. Steph’s accent that she inherited from the Bowery is the thickest, mainly because she’s not had too much practice with the Central Gotham accent, though she is getting a lot better at it, and Duke’s Narrows accent comes out only when he hears other East Enders, otherwise, Duke tends to mask his accent. Jason almost never lets his Crime Alley accent slip unless he’s either truly in distress or he’s too embarrassed to keep it in.
Not that anyone knows that bit of information other than Dick, and Jason fully intends to keep it that way.
The other birds have never really heard Jason speak in his Crime Alley drawl, mainly because he had picked up the Central Gotham accent after Catherine had died, in an attempt to stop anyone on the streets from identifying him and following him back to the Alley. He had also picked up a slight accent after learning Arabic when he was living in Nanda Parbat during his time with the League, and again when he learned a couple of different languages when he was traveling after the League, and once more when he had moved back to Gotham for good.
In short, he did his best not to let his accent of origin, his comfortable Crime Alley drawl get any attention. It felt too close to his chest to always have on display, even though he was unforgivingly transparent about where he grew up.
But, well, he supposes the cat’s outta the bag now.
“Woah, Jase I never heard ya speak wit’ tha’ Alley accent afore!” Steph exclaims, and Duke nods along excitedly. He sneezes twice and then continues his nodding. “Like, I knew you’re an East Ender but ya know its differen’ when ya actually hear it an’ everythin’!”
Jason can see both Cass and Damian strain their ears, just a little bit, and Jason knows Tim is following his gaze to the other two. An expression of understanding flits across what’s visible of Tim’s face, “Oh.”
“Shut up Replacement,” Jason mutters, and Dick looks between the two, obviously wanting in on whatever silent conversation had just occurred.
Jason turns around to fully face the motley crew, serving up vastly different mugs of tea that he had been preparing, and again thanks whatever kind of higher being there is that he inherited Willis’ deep tan, so the heat he feels creeping up his neck and ears is hardly visible to the others.
“Drink your fucking teas.” He enunciates carefully, disguising it as irritation, and watches in his peripheral vision as the barely-there strain on Cass and Damian’s faces disappears.
The mugs get distributed with modest amounts of grumbling at Jason’s perceived bad attitude, and Jason can feel a headache coming on. He’s already tired. He would never be caught dead (or alive, for that matter) saying it, but he loves his siblings and will always always always try his best to cater to each of their specific needs, but also he knows he’s going to be laid up with whatever it is they have for close to a week after all of this is over.
“So how come you’re such a health nut?” Tim asks, curious, and Jason mentally puts Tim right back on the top of his shit list. Sick birds be damned.
“Obviously Jason is just much smarter than the likes of you,” Damian taunts, but his nasally tone makes Jason want to laugh. He holds it in though, for the sake of Dami’s pride. Damian’s his favorite right now, just don’t tell the rest of the mystery gang.
There’s also something to be said about the fact that Damian always loves to insult Tim’s intelligence, because none of the birds have figured it out quite yet, but Damian has a habit of insulting his loved ones by taking what he perceives to be their strongest trait, and throwing it at them disguised as malevolent taunts. With his enemies though, Damian is all sharp barbs against their weaknesses, always throws the most scathing remarks when they’re on patrol, and has made a couple of their rogues cry at some point.
“Damian,” Dick scolds, because despite the flock of birds being detectives, they’re all still idiots. Jason thinks Dick is a little bit of a hypocrite since Dick was the first one to throw jabs at Tim’s missing spleen, but Duke valiantly comes to Tim’s defense, “You can’t cite Tim’s bad health to his missing spleen and blame it on him. That’s jus’ not fair. It’s Ra’s fault it’s missing!”
They’d probably be singing a different story if they knew about Jason’s missing organs since he was the one to consent to selling them, but none of them knew, and Jason would like to keep it that way for as long as he could. He doesn’t like the idea that they might blame him for selling his organs, even if he had done it to survive, back then.
Damian rolls his eyes, grimacing, and Jason knows the action gave the baby bat a bit of a headache. “Have any of you had medicine yet?” Jason asks before any more arguments can surface, and Dick sucks in his lip and looks out the window, avoiding Jason’s eyes.
“Fuckin’ Dick,” Jason complains quietly, and goes to the medicine cabinet in the corner, pulling it open and grabbing some Robitussin for the kids.
“Woah I did not know we had that in ‘ere,” Steph comments, and Jason can hear everyone murmur their agreement. He pours them all some medicine, plopping down a little cup with the correct amount for each of the kiddies. He stops in front of Dick, “I wish you were sick so I could force this down your throat too,” and Dick pouts once again.
Jason checks back on the porridge and finds that the rice still needs about five more minutes, the consistency not yet thick enough. After six minutes, he deems the porridge ready and serves everyone a bowl, and Dick smiles happily at his serving.
Jason collects all the empty medicine cups and pulls a no-contact thermometer from the medicine cabinet. He takes everyone’s temperature as they eat, and is relieved to find that no one has a fever, and determines that they all probably just caught the head cold making its way through Gotham right now.
“Holy shit Jason, this is so yummy,” Tim smiles, and Jason can hear the rest of the little Winx club murmur their agreement. He turns around to avoid looking at any of their grateful faces and begins to clean up when Dick stands to help.
“Finish your bowl, Dickface.” Jason says without turning around, and Dick sits back down. Jason pretends he can’t feel his older brother frowning at his back, as if Dick wasn’t exiled from the kitchen without strict supervision for a reason.
Jason can feel his head beginning to throb a little and pauses in his cleaning for a moment. He closes his eyes, just for a second.
“You good, Jaybird?” Dick calls from behind him. Jason exhales softly and picks up the rest of the used utensils.
“Fine, Dickie.” He turns around and happily finds every bowl completely empty, sans Steph and Cass’ bowls, which have left the scallions untouched, but otherwise entirely finished. He files away that information for later and begins to clear the table.
“Go into the den, all of you, and pick a fuckin’ movie to watch. I don’t care what movie it is, but you all need rest right now.” Jason orders, turning on the sink to wash the dishes, and he hears them all shuffle out, already beginning an argument over whether they should watch an animated movie or not.
“Do you want any help?” Dick asks, hanging back, and Jason shakes his head. “I’m good, Dickie. I’ll meet you guys there when I’m done.”
“You’re staying?” Dick asks, a hopeful lilt in his voice, and Jason hadn’t really been planning on staying, the past hour was already wearing him down, but… “Someone’s gotta check on Alfie, and make you all dinner.” He can already tell he’s going to regret his decision.
Dick’s eyes crinkle and he sneaks his arms around Jason’s back, wrapping around his middle, and Jason really really wants to pelt his older brother with the suds on his hands. The arms are gone just as quick as they appeared, probably because Dick knows that Jason would have definitely slapped his soapy hands onto Dick’s chest if the hug had lasted any longer, and instead flits off to join the kids.
Jason makes a pot of Catherine’s hot chocolate, and Jason is forever grateful that Alfred continues to buy the same Mexican chocolate that Jason insisted on getting when he was 13. While the pot of chocolate is boiling, Jason prepares another bowl of the Lugao, and a cup of Alfred’s favorite tea, and sets it aside to bring to Alfred once the chocolate is done.
After a couple of minutes, he deems the hot chocolate ready and cuts the heat. While he waits for it to cool, he brings a tray of the Lugao and the cup of tea over to Alfred’s room and knocks on the old man’s door.
“Come in,” Alfred’s voice sounds from inside. Apart from sounding a little nasally, Alfred sounds practically the same as always, but when Jason opens the door, he can clearly spot the lines of fatigue on his grandfather’s face.
“I made you Lugao. And—and tea.” Jason offers awkwardly, and Alfred smiles warmly.
“You have always been my favorite of all the birds, Master Jason,” Alfred says, after taking a sip of the tea. “I do appreciate it greatly, my boy.”
Jason feels the familiar tendrils of warmth creep up his neck and turns around abruptly. He clears his throat, “Yeah—‘f course, Alfie. D’ya need anythin’? I’m feedin’ the Scooby gang and givin’ ‘em medicine an’ everythin’, so ya don’ have’ta worry ‘bout ‘em.”
Alfred gives him one of his trademark smiles and raises his cup of tea at Jason, “I’m okay, Master Jason. Thank you for keeping an eye on the young ones. Go watch over your siblings. I will call if I need anything.”
Jason nods his head along with Alfred’s words, “‘f course Alfie, ‘f course.” He shuts the door behind him, and on his way back to the kitchen, he sneezes. His nose is already feeling a little runny. Shit.
He heads back to the kitchen, to start prepping mugs of hot chocolate for the kiddos, and pours himself a little medicine cup of Robitussin too, just to be proactive. After he cleans the mess from the hot chocolate, he preps one of the carts that Alfred usually uses and brings it to the den.
They’re all cuddled into the huge sectional that Bruce had gotten after he took in Cass, since family cuddles had warranted a larger couch with her addition and everyone after. They all peel their gazes away from Hiro Yamada’s nifty little presentation about his little robots.
“Ew, you all looked like a parliament of owls just now, that was creepy,” Jason complains, and everyone scrambles over each other as soon as they spot the cart of hot chocolate. After they distribute mugs and settle back onto the couch, Jason settles into Alfred’s armchair by the window and resigns himself to watching Hiro Yamada grieve his older brother on screen.
—
“Is he sick?”
“No way, Jase doesn’t get sick!”
“Shhhh, you’re gonna wake him!”
“Fuck off Dick, you’re literally louder than me by like, three octaves.”
“We have to wake him though, Richard obviously cannot make dinner.”
“Oh I definitely could make dinner—”
“No Dick, I don’t want cereal for dinner and I don’t think anyone else does either.”
Jason should have left before it was too late.
His head feels heavy, and he can tell even without peeling his eyelids open that he’s going to have a thundering headache whenever the artificial lighting of the den hits his eyes.
He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he also only remembers watching up until Hiro tried reprogramming Baymax to the martial arts chip, and from the lack of movie sounds, he can tell the movie has been long over. They probably watched a couple more while he was asleep, since there’s no more breeze from the window behind him, which means someone got cold enough from the evening air to shut it.
“So what, are we just going to wait until he wakes up?”
Jason opens a single eye, just barely, only enough to see who’s crowded around him—which is the entirety of Santa’s reindeer—and just barely misses Cass’ signing.
“What? No, Cass, he’s obviously still asleep—oh my fuck he’s awake,” Tim jumps, as Jason blearily glares at him over his mask.
The Scooby gang is all gathered around the armchair, and Jason watches as Dick lightly smacks Steph’s arm, “Obviously you woke him up,” Dick blames, but the crinkles around his eyes is showing his insincerity.
“Is it time to make dinner?” Jason questions from his puddle of blankets, and he wants nothing but to go back to his very comfortable nap, but he can already hear some of the grumblings of tummies around him and sighs.
“Guess it is.” He begins to get up, and Dick scrambles to push Jason back down.
“No no, I can—I’ll make them something—you rest, Little Wing,” Dick says, and all the little ducklings begin to complain about not wanting Dick’s meals—which one hundred percent would’ve been cereal—and Jason rolls his eyes.
Jason hasn’t been around the mystery gang when he was sick yet, because he has been very carefully avoiding getting caught out by the amateur detectives. Still, Dick has seen him laid up with a cold for two full weeks when Jason was 13 and freshly off the streets of Crime Alley, and while Dick has always attributed that to Jason’s malnourishment, Dick knows that when Jason gets sick, he goes down hard, even if Dick doesn’t know the real reason for it.
And it’s only been a couple of hours, but Jason can already feel himself succumbing to the stupid little cold that everyone has. He can tell though, that he won’t be properly sick until tomorrow morning, and he’s by far the better option for cooking between him and Dick, so he gets up anyway, ignoring Dick’s protests.
He stretches out his back and hears several satisfying pops, and watches as some of the birds’ jaws drop in surprise. It's commonplace with their night job to have little aches and pains, but they’ve all been pretty decently trained on how to properly care for their bodies before and after patrols, which is why they’re probably surprised to hear just how bad Jason’s back is.
But—well, you don’t get tortured and killed and crawl outta your own grave without receiving some permanent aches and pains.
Jason’s fingers still spasm on really cold days, and Jason laments the fact that the pit really didn’t fix anything about him other than strengthen his body to its top condition, and fix whatever made him catatonic.
Everything else—the childhood malnutrition, the chronic aches and pains, Jason’s childhood asthma, his numerous scars, and his missing internal organs were all still the same. Which—Jason is a little happy about since this means Jason’s appendix won’t maybe burst a second time, but it also means he still doesn’t have a spleen or his tonsils either.
From little Jason’s rigorous reading after getting the three removed, eight-year-old Jason found out that while having either an appendectomy or a tonsillectomy is pretty standard, having both and a splenectomy means Jason is extremely susceptible to infection and pretty much very immunocompromised, similar to little red. Jason has been cautious of his health ever since—not that that makes a difference when you're starving out on the streets of Crime Alley.
“Damn Little Wing, you should go to a chiropractor,” Dick winces, and Jason rolls out his neck next, as he starts folding the blankets that he was using.
“Watch another movie, I’ll get started on dinner and get you guys once it's finished,” Jason evades, and the kids all sigh, relieved that Dick will not be ‘making’ them dinner when Jason suddenly sneezes four times in succession.
Everyone stares, and Tim coughs into his mask and comments, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sneeze before.”
Jason mumbles out a “Shut up,” before leaving the room to head to the kitchen. He makes them something quick because Jason really cannot be assed to make anything intricate at the moment, so baked mac and cheese it is, and Jason is so very grateful that none of his siblings are lactose intolerant, because Jason has no patience to make them something else.
Everyone is absolutely elated to have Jason’s mac and cheese because according to Steph and Dick, Jason puts some kind of crack in it, and none of Snow White’s dwarves are picky about this home-cooked meal despite their various food preferences.
Jason serves dinner in the dining room rather than the kitchen, and while everyone eats, he cleans up the mess he had made while cooking but stops short at the sink, suddenly feeling nauseous. He shuts his eyes, trying to take some deep breaths, even though they never help when he feels nauseous. Instead, he places a hand on the counter, gripping it tightly as he crouches on the floor, leaning his forehead against the cool surface of the cupboard under the sink. His head is pounding, but the urge to vomit masks the thudding in the back of his skull.
Once he’s sure he won’t start gagging, he digs around in his pocket, pulling out his tab of Zofran and popping one under his tongue. It tastes absolutely disgusting in his mouth as it dissolves, but the relief he feels from his stomach no longer trying to turn itself inside out definitely outweighs his dislike of the medication.
He stays crouched for a little bit longer, just to let the rest of the vestiges of nausea dissipate, but it's clearly a couple seconds too long, since loud chatter filters in through the kitchen entryway, and Dick’s voice is echoing throughout the large kitchen, “Little Wing?”
Jason’s head is honest-to-god slamming behind his eyes, and he knows he probably needs an Excedrin or two, but he can’t force himself to stand or open his eyes, and this has got to be the worst way to get caught.
He tries very hard to ignore the field trip the birds have taken, and Dick nearly slams the empty plate he has in his hands onto the counter when he sees Jason on the floor.
“Jace? Hey, buddy you okay?” Dick asks softly, crouching down beside his brother, and Jason can hear the rest of the class worry quietly from a distance. He takes a few more measured breaths before forcing his eyes open and sees Dick crouching in front of him with a glass of water that Jason didn’t hear Dick grab, and is wearing his I’m-extremely-worried-but-will-postpone-freaking-until-after-everything-is-okay face.
Jason reaches his hand out and grabs the glass gratefully from his brother, downing half of it quickly. Dick is frowning at him, clearly worried, and Jason can hear the other birds chattering quietly around them, finishing the cleanup from his making dinner. There’s a clear undercurrent of worry in their chatter though, clear pauses in the conversation where Jason assumes they’re glancing at him and Dick on the floor, and—Jason does not remember transitioning from his crouch on the floor to just plain sitting on the floor with his back to the cupboard.
That’s probably why they’re so worried, barring the fact that the last cook standing in the Manor is currently no longer standing. “Are you injured, Jay? You gotta tell me what’s going on or I’m bringing you down to the cave to figure it out,” Dick urges in his scared-child-victim voice that he uses on patrol, and Jason shut his eyes again.
There are a couple of coughs rattling around in his chest, trying to get out, but he knows from experience if he starts coughing now, he won’t stop until one of the others deems it serious enough to call Alfred, even if their grandfather is resting right now. Jason would rather Alfie get his rest, so he expertly confines the coughs to his chest and weakly clears his throat a couple of times.
He’s devolved a lot quicker than he usually does, and it’s honestly most likely because everyone in the Manor barring Dick is sick. He could’ve sworn he was going to be okay until at least the next morning, but at this rate, he was going to need some fluids, antibiotics, and serious bed rest. Fuck, he could already feel the lecture he was going to get from Roy when he finds out.
Jason squeezes his eyes shut and tips his head back, ignoring Dick completely. The kids are all done cleaning up the kitchen because despite the fact that none of them are allowed to cook in there, they all have plenty of experience with fixing the kitchen after various pranks and mischief pulled on each other over the last couple of years.
Jason most likely loses a bit of time, because suddenly he’s in the Cave, on a cot in the med bay. Dick’s hooking him up to some equipment while Tim stands off to the side, on the phone with what sounds like Doc Thompkins. The rest of the various bats and birds have scattered themselves across the med bay, lounging on the other cots and chattering worriedly amongst themselves.
Jason accidentally makes eye contact with Damian, who sits up immediately with a nasally “Akhi!” and everyone’s attention turns to him immediately. Dick brushes Jason’s curls away from his forehead, and Jason coughs harshly, the action making his head pound even worse, and he bites back a pathetic whine.
Tim must have finished up on the call because he says something to the others that makes them all clamor in a cacophony of distressed birds.
Dick shuts them all up with a sharp glance, and Tim takes the stage, with a hacking cough, and rasps, “Leslie says you’re gonna need antibiotics and fluids—Jay, why did she say it’s the same protocol as when I’m sick? Why are the dosages she gave me for the meds so much stronger than mine?” There’s a rising suspicion in Tim’s voice, and Jason winces.
Sometimes, Tim can hardly piece together how certain ingredients come together to make a specific dish, and sometimes, Tim makes connections far too quickly for Jason to even comprehend the clues. Jason wishes his little brother wasn’t so sharp.
The birds are quiet, and Jason just knows they’re beginning to connect the dots, and he sighs. It turns into a hacking cough, rattling away in his chest, and Dick gently pushes a straw into his mouth, giving Jason some sips of water.
“Sold some ‘f my organs as a kid, so ‘m a little ‘mmunocompromised,” he rasps, and there are no audible gasps of shock because they’re all bat-trained, but none of them decide to hide their expressions of shock, so Jason can clearly read the what-how-why on each of their faces.
After the silence stretches just a bit too long, Dick pipes up in a horrified voice, “Jason, why?”
Jason rolls his eyes and stares at the ground. He isn’t ashamed, per se, but it did feel extremely judgey since he knew the plethora of birds mostly came from better, because they had never reached the point of no option in the way that he had, and just simply wouldn’t understand. Not in the way that would make what he did as a child okay.
He takes a breath and tries not to let his voice shake.
“It's like this,” he starts, because he knows none of the little chicks will leave him alone until he helps them understand, even if he knows they won’t like his answer.
“Little six-year-old Jason was very proficient in reading. Way above his grade level. Spent a lot of time at the shitty public library in the Bowery, because there, he didn't have to deal with Willis Todd’s beer bottles and fists, or Catherine Todd’s needles and tears.”
Everyone winces at the mention of Jason’s shitty childhood, not that Jason sees, since he's too focused on actively avoiding his sibling's gazes.
“So little six-year-old Jason read, and he read a lot. Anything he could get his hands on. From children's books to adult fiction novels. Eventually, when Catherine overdosed for the first time, and Miss Agbayani next door taught little seven-year-old Jason how to administer Narcan, little Jason found all the medical texts in the goddamned library and read those too.”
There’s a stilted silence in the room, an air of awkwardness, because Jason knew everyone had something to say but no idea how to say it.
No matter, because Jason isn't done with his story, and it isn’t any of the peanut gallery’s turns to interject yet.
“Little Jason had been out on the streets of Crime Alley since he was four—much too young to be on his own—I can at least acknowledge that now, but little Jason had been on and off the streets for like, half his life by then. He knew things,” Jason subconsciously cracks each knuckle on both fists as a self-soothing gesture.
“He knew that the working girls only came out at night, and the ones that came out during the day were close to starving most of the time. He knew that the gangs of Gotham’s slums liked to gather on the weekends, and never on Mondays, so Mondays were the safe days on the streets at night barring an Arkham break. He knew that nobody touched the hair salon off Twelfth Ave and Fisher, because the owner won a bet against Two-Face back in the day and was subsequently protected by some of Gotham’s worst. And Mrs. Vo gave all the homeless kids free haircuts on Mondays, which meant she also had the protection of the street rats. Little Jason knew what people on the streets were interested in—the things they were buying—drugs, guns, sex, info, labor, and even organs.”
There’s a sharp intake of breath from Jason’s audience, and Jason takes measured breaths, steady and even.
“Little Jason had read up on every medical text he could get his hands on—just in case. That just in case came at the age of eight, when Catherine had gotten significantly worse with her addiction, and my little eight-year-old appendix burst.”
Jason stares at his hands and studies the various scars on them, in an attempt to ignore the reactions around him.
“So Catherine took little eight-year-old Jason to the sketchy-ass emergency room in the Alley, because Doc Thompkins’ clinic wasn’t operating in the Alley back then, only the Coventry, and that was much too far at the time for doped-up Catherine to get to, ‘specially with a sick kid.”
Jason remembers all too clearly the extreme pain he had been in at the time and the way the guys running the Alley’s worst emergency room had stared at Catherine, who was clearly worried about her kid but also clearly not all the way there.
“They told Catherine how much the appendectomy would be, and ten minutes later, they found her in the women’s bathroom, overdosed on stolen drugs. They administered Narcan and asked little eight-year-old Jason what he wanted to do, and where he was gonna get the money from. As if I was gonna have some kinda satisfactory answer for them—I was eight,” he scoffs.
Jason licks his lips, and tries not to envision the way the guys had stared him down back then as if an eight-year-old would understand the weight of an eleven-thousand dollar bill, plus the extra one grand they wanted in exchange for not pressing charges against his mother who had stolen their property.
“I had read so much on organs back then, because I wanted to know what would be the best bet for me if worst came to worst. The idea of hitting the streets and turning tricks must’ve been too much for me back then because I had somehow decided that selling an organ or two would’ve been less harmful than turnin’ tricks,” he closes his eyes.
“I still don’t know which is the better option when you’re at that point. Little eight-year-old Jason decided he could live without his spleen, and offered them twelve grand for it, and they took the deal. And after thinking about it a bit, little Jason thought, what the hell, and decided that for another two grand, he would throw his tonsils in, and they found it a good deal.” He remembers feeling helpless back then, in a way that all kids tend to, except it was worse because Catherine was still out of it due to the OD.
“I think... I think I was mainly thinking that two grand would get Catherine into a rehab program and—I don’t know, maybe—maybe I could get my ma back. That it would—that rehab would help.”
Jason feels the back of his eyeballs burning and clenches his jaw tightly. He’s much too embarrassed at the admission to even consider looking at his siblings, even though he can hear some of them sniffling—in part due to their colds, but mostly due to their upset at Jason’s tragic little story. He was only embarrassed because Catherine ended up kicking it anyway, so little Jason had sold his tonsils for nothing, in the end.
“They harvested my spleen and tonsils, took out my ruptured appendix, gave me two grand, and sent me and Catherine on our way. The story’s pretty cut and dry after that. I put Catherine in rehab, it worked for a year, and then the next time she shot up, she OD’d, and I was laid up with a cold at the time. Because of my compromised immune system, my cold was horrible and very not-fun, and by the time I had gotten over the worst of it, it was too late for me to administer the Narcan. You all know the story after that. I skipped out on CPS, and the streets of Crime Alley officially welcomed a new street rat.”
Jason finally looks up at the gaggle of siblings and is surprised to find only caring sincerity and loving worry in each of their expressions, rather than the pity and disgust he was initially expecting.
Dick doesn’t waste a moment after Jason meets his gaze, and pounces onto Jason, hugging him close to his chest gently.
The others don't move closer to create a cuddle pile, only because Jason just barely misses sneezing into Dick’s shoulder, turning his head away, and everyone is struck with the realization of why Jason has always been a health nut.
“So I guess this means you can’t give me your spleen,” Tim comments, obviously trying to break the tension in the room, and the paw patrol all laugh, some dissolving into sporadic coughs into their masks.
Jason knows there will be more to the conversation, because Alfred still hasn’t been updated, and Jason knows that he’s also gonna have to tell Bruce, and there are a million other little things that the wayward vigilantes will have questions about, and he knows they’re going to start hovering, worried the same way they do with Tim, and Jason knows he’s in for a lecture from Bruce and Alfred and Roy but his siblings are all here with him, and none of them are judging him the way he thought they might have, and he thinks that everything would probably turn out alright.
He has no idea what they’re gonna do about breakfast later though, because after all this he can just tell they won’t let him get up to cook, and Jason decides that is a later problem.
Later, Dick makes them all oatmeal that Jason painstakingly directs him on making in the little kitchenette in the Cave, and decides that maybe Dick can be taught, if only with the most strict supervision and absolute bare minimum of recipes.