Chapter Text
Jason never should have agreed to help Dick, what was supposed to be a standard fight against Mordru ended with Dick knocked out in an abandoned factory and Jason hit with some kind of… spell or something, he wasn’t really sure.
What he was sure of was that his head hurt, his ears were ringing, and he was laying on top of… sand?
He pushed himself to his feet to take stock of his situation. He was in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere in a desert somewhere. He could see the vague outlines of a few buildings a couple of miles away, but that was all.
He turned around, and was surprised to see the warehouse some 200 yards behind him. He felt his side holsters and noticed he still had his guns and his gear, and decided that the best course of action was to head towards the large building to at least get an idea of where he was.
He had only taken a few steps when it clicked into place where he was.
He hadn’t paid much attention to the building the first time around, but he still couldn’t believe he hadn’t realized immediately.
This was the warehouse where he died, a building that had most definitely been blown up-,
his thoughts were interrupted by the warehouse exploding in front of him.
Again.
Oh no, this wasn't- it couldn't be-
He ignored all reason and ran towards the building as fast as he could. He broke through what was left of the door, the big metal door that he couldn't get through-
He burst in, head flying around looking for what he knew could not be there, and yet, there he was, wrapped protectively over the body of the woman that had betrayed him,
his efforts had been in vain, his mother had been hit in the head by a piece of debris as soon as the bomb went off, he remembered that.
He also remembered surviving the blast, but being unable to move his body to get away, and succumbing to the smoke.
He threw himself towards the boy, pulling him from the ground, and into his arms, still breathing , he had been so small , and pushed his way outside.
He laid the boy onto the ground to assess his injuries, they were bad, and they hurt. He had at the very least several broken ribs, a broken nose, what looked like a broken arm, and tons of cuts and bruises. He really hoped the explosion hadn’t given him too much brain damage, or hearing loss.
He needed to stop thinking about all of that and focus on the boy.
He had removed any tracking devices in his robin suit before he had gone to the warehouse, he was pretty sure they were stashed somewhere in the Addis Ababa Bole International Airport. Whatever, that's fine. He had to get the boy somewhere safe and he desperately needed medical attention.
He carefully picked up the still unconscious boy, cradling him in his arms as he started towards the town, trying his hardest not to jostle him too much. The boy was hardly a weight in his arms, had he really been this little?
After a few minutes of walking Jason saw what looked to be an opening between rocks, he glanced down at the boy in his arms, listening to his shallow breathing, and decided he needed medical care sooner than Jason could get him to town.
The opening turned out to be a small cave formed by a few convenient boulders, which made an acceptable place to again set down the boy, this time reaching into his belt bag (no dick, it's not a purse) for his first aid kit.
It was a little more vigilante-aid leaning than your average first aid kit, and was thus equipped with a vial of sedative, as well as strong painkillers.
He started with those to keep the boy from waking up, he knew that it would be easier for both of them if he was asleep.
He took off his jacket to put under the boy, and his helmet and weapons so that they wouldn't get in the way, and got to work.
His robin suit was so tattered that he had to cut it off, carefully maneuvering the knife so he wouldn’t hurt the boy more. He cleaned his hands and the wounds as best he could with just the small bottle of rubbing alcohol from the kit, and used the handful of bandages he carried to patch him up as well as he could.
When he was finished, staring at the boy, wearing nothing but underwear and bandages, laying on a leather jacket in a cave, Jason knew that he would have to find a way to call Bruce. He didn’t have an established presence in the world yet, and despite his medical efforts, the younger him still needed to see an actual doctor, and he couldn’t just bring him to hospital, he didn’t even know where the nearest hospital was.
They were in the desert, they didn’t have any food or water, and he was increasingly concerned the boy had internal bleeding.
His own comms wouldn’t work, as they got updated so often, he couldn’t use a radio, even if he had one, because Bruce would already have to be in range, maybe he could walk to the town on his own and try to get help? He didn’t want to leave the boy alone.
He tried to think of a solution when the answer suddenly came to him. He knew what he had to do.
“SUPERMAN!”
He waited a moment before calling again, “SUPERMAN! CLARK!”
It must have been the name that did it because not 30 seconds later a red blur came flying by, Jason went out to wave him down, and then hurried him towards the boy, who was woken by the noise.
“wha…..wh…..ow” was all he muttered out before returning to sleep.
“It’s Robin, help him, ” Jason pleaded, looking at Superman, whose sharp gaze was locked on the injured boy.
In a blue blur Superman had picked up the boy (and his jacket!) and was gone, flying him to the cave, Jason assumed.
He wasn’t really sure where to go from here, but he figured picking up what was left of the robin suit and putting his gear back on was a start. As he picked up his helmet to begin to try making his way back to …somewhere, (he would figure that out later),
Superman landed again, empty-handed. “Batman wants me to take you to him”
“Whatever, he can interrogate me all he wants as long as the kid is okay”
He grabbed the rest of his gear before placing himself in Superman's waiting arms to be flown all the way to Gotham.
He had been on time. Someone came. He had saved him.