Chapter Text
Jason's hands hurt. That's the first thing he notices. They hurt, and they feel stiff. His whole body, maybe, does he still have a body? His body hurts. His mouth tastes like mud. The world is dark, which isn't good.
He blinks and— oh, the world was dark because his eyes were shut. That's silly. He should keep his eyes open. The light is nice and dim, but it's there. It's that mean bluish type of light, which Jason doesn't really like. But he also doesn't really like the idea of warm yellow light right now, he thinks, so it can stay like this.
"Kiddo?" Says a soft, kind voice. Like his m— like Catherine. Maybe it really is Catherine, but Jason remembers how Cathrine looked, dead on the couch. So that can't be it.
Dead. Catherine's dead, but he hasn't felt scared like this about it in a while. Sheila, maybe? Is Sheila—
No, she isn't. But Jason is. Was. Should be?
Jason should be dead. His mouth tastes like mud.
"Shh, it's okay. I called for a nurse."
A nurse. For the shroud? To shut his eyes? He doesn't want to shut his eyes.
Oh. He has eyes. Working ones, too. He can just look at the voice.
It's a woman with blonde hair. Jason can't— can't something. There's something he was doing really good a moment ago, but now he's stopped.
"Kiddo, you need to breathe." Oh yeah. That.
That's what he'd been doing.
...How does one breathe, really? It seems like so much effort. It seems like it hurts. And this woman, and her blonde hair and soft hazel eyes, also hurts to— to be around. He can only do one at a time.
"D, let me try." And then the blonde woman is moving away, and Jason doesn't want her to go away. He doesn't want Catherine to die or Sheila to look away while she lights a cigarette.
There's a pressure where Jason's hand should be. There's a, a hand on the bandages, that's why. And the hand leads to an arm, that leads to a neck, that leads to a face with a soft jaw and blue-grey eyes and a mop of black hair. Someone— Someone would laugh at that. Maybe Jason would laugh at that. Or maybe not. Jason is a little scared of his mouth. He thinks it might take up too much of his face. He thinks if he ran his tongue over his teeth they would be sharp and venomous. He thinks maybe Jason doesn't trust himself enough to use laughter.
There was something bad with laughter.
But the hand-arm-neck-face, it would cause good laughter. It would cause safe laughter, Jason thinks.
Yeah, good laughter.
....From Someone.
Jason's chest tries to run away, cool air fills his throat. He's breathing again. Huh.
"Hi," good-laughter-thing. Kid maybe. Yes, probably a kid. A kid, like Jason. Which is why Someone would laugh. Because of another kid. The kid pressing against the bandages smiles.
That's okay. It's a good smile.
"Hi," the kid says again. "I'm Tim, my mom and I are going to make sure you're safe okay?"
Oh. Oh. Tim— the laughter causer— has a mom with blonde hair. That's not good. Jason's supposed to— to do something about that. Maybe.
Maybe not right now. Everything hurts. The light even hurts. Mean light.
Jason closes his eyes.
-------
"—to need a significant amount of physical therapy." The scrubs-person says.
Maybe-Catherine-maybe-Sheila nods. "I could afford it. Heck, I could just do it. I'd volunteer to do it even if you put him somewhere else."
"Yes, speaking of your petition—" The Briefcase says.
Jason shifts, rubbing his head against the mattress because he can't touch it with his hands. He's so bored. He can't even listen because he's so bored. He is— was good at listening. Probably. Maybe.
Someone would laugh at that too, he thinks. Because Someone is a jerk.
Someone shouldn't be a jerk. Jason's been in this hospital bed for forever. For never. For— six months maybe. Maybe six months because Jason thought it was April, but Tim likes to wear a sweater with a pumpkin on it.
"—considering he either isn't capable of speech or just isn't willing to—"
"—John Doe—"
"—might be easier to do another MRI—"
"—the amount of scar tissue—"
"—of course, we're in Gotham, but no records at all makes it—"
Jason turns his head to bite the pillow, mostly because he doesn't have hands and he needs to pinch something. Partly to make sure his teeth aren't sharp enough to rip through it.
Something presses against his arm. Probably the person who had been talking to— oh right. The hand is attached to a voice that had been trying to talk to Jason. Jason can give the voice connected to it interest again.
"Hey," Tim says. Tim says hey a lot. Tim is the thing pressing against his arm, to make his voice interesting. That's okay. It's okay when Tim presses. Jason doesn't like it when other people press. He had a friend who also didn't like pressing. Or was it— maybe it wasn't pressing.
He wonders where Gloria is. He thinks that maybe Someone wouldn't laugh about Gloria. He thinks maybe that's bad, that there can't be happy laughter for Gloria.
He doesn't even know where he met Gloria. He doesn't remember what she looked like. She didn't like pressing.
"Hey," Tim says again. He's smiling again too. Tim does a lot of hey-and-smile. Maybe it's his signature move. "What are you doing, man?"
Jason bites the pillow again, because that's what he's doing, because he doesn't have hands. Or. Maybe the arm Tim's pressing has a hand. But the other one doesn't. Jason has two arms, right? Shouldn't he? A left and a right.
A forehand and a— no. Jason doesn't want to think that thought. Someone wouldn't laugh at that thought. Jason doesn't feel safe when Someone doesn't laugh.
"Maybe don't eat your pillow," Tim laughs, and it's. We'll, it's not Someone's laugh. But it's okay. Tim is trying his best.
Jason growls, because he doesn't have hands and he's is bored.
"Yeah, okay." Tim smiles, again, and just keeps pressing on Jason's arm. Which. Arm pressing is better than feeling drool try to build up and sink into the pillow. Jason lets go of the pillow, because he doesn't want to be gross.
"—they've really connected. Tim asked me—"
"Have I told you about Warhawks yet?" Tim stares at Jason, and Jason stares back. Jason can't be bothered with words right now, too much effort, but it seems like Tim is part mind reader, because he keeps saying interesting things when Jason gets too bored. Not that Jason knows what he's saying every time, but Tim's voice is still interesting. "Okay, so. Warhawks are objectively perfect airplanes—"
------
Jason still has hands. Or— no, he always had hands. They finally took off the bandages. It hurts a little when he touches things, but that's okay. It's interesting.
Tim is— Tim is not here. Because it's either Monday or Thursday, and both those days have school. Instead the— the— Tim's mom. Tim's mom who sometimes Jason thinks might be someone else is here. And he. He doesn't mind, not really, not when she apparently kept him from wandering out into the street in front of a car. He just hasn't figured out what she's lying about yet.
He's...wary.
"Hey kiddo," she says and she smiles. Maybe she's lying about being interesting like Tim. Maybe she only says 'hey' and smiles because that's what Tim does, and Jason likes Tim. "We're still looking for your records, but I thought we could pick something for us to call you while that gets sorted out, since you don't like responding to John. Is that okay?"
They're still looking, but they're going to give up soon. Because even if Jason had been in the system, his fingers got so fucked up it's unlikely he has the same fingerprints. And they don't keep DNA records for Gotham foster care. Better to start new, assume Jason fell from the sky during the flash rainstorm Tim and Tim's mom had found him in.
Like a fallen star. Like a fallen angel. Like Icarus.
Jason has a Daedalus, he thinks. Maybe he had two. He thinks one of them didn't die, maybe. He thinks his family died but his family isn't dead.
Maybe, if he could remember a name. Maybe if he could try to use words, Daedalus would be told Jason didn't fall into the sea. Maybe Daedalus would take Jason and Tim away from this Echo who hides her lies in blonde hair.
"Kiddo?" Jason realizes he's been looking at the IV pole instead of Tim's mom. When his eyes manage to find her again, she doesn't look upset. Hopefully that isn't the lie. She holds up a book with a drawing of blue and pink bows on the cover. "Want to pick a name to go by?"
Jason already knows his name. But he doesn't have words, and from the nodding and shrugging he's managed to do over the past few weeks, someone concluded that he has total amnesia. Which he doesn't. He thinks. But he can't remember anything useful, so it doesn't really matter.
Tim's mom is being nice. She could just rename him, like a shelter dog. So he takes the book, opened to the contents page, and jabs his finger down on a letter after squinting hard for several minutes to bring it into focus. It... never really comes into focus, but he knows the alphabet, so he manages to count slowly down the page until he's pretty sure he's on the right letter.
That's... that's probably normal. His brain is still sort of fried to fuck. It'll go away.
"You want to hear the J names?" Tim's mom asks, taking the book back once he nods—it was the right letter!— and showing off by flipping to the section easily. "Boy names or girl names?"
Jason's face does something that he hopes gives off incredulity. He knows he wasn't labelled Jane Doe.
Tim's mom's smile quirks up a little bit. "Just checking."
It takes a while, Jason spaces out and they have to re-read several names multiple times, but Jason isn't all that annoyed when Tim's mom smiles when they get to 'Jason' and he nods his head hard.
Jason's thinks maybe the smile isn't the lie.
------
It's Jason's last day in the hospital. Tim's mom and Tim aren't in his room, because they're setting things up for Jason. Because Jason doesn't remember anyone alive.
Besides Sheila, but Sheila got him killed. So.
Jason can't remember. He doesn't remember anyone or anything besides the people who have left him. Catherine, blonde hair short and messy, trying to get clean and shivering in pain as she held him close, whispering 'sorry's into his ear. Gloria, blonde hair limp like her eyes when— when— because she didn't like being touched. Sheila, wisps of blonde curling around her face as it glowed from the light of her cigarette in a dark room, in the room where—
He thinks he had a dad. And maybe he died, or maybe he was supposed to save Jason from— from that dark room. He thinks he had a friend who liked books. He thinks maybe he remembers wrinkled hands pressing his into dough, but he doesn't remember where or how or why. He only remembers blonde hair and greif.
Jason thinks, maybe, that he only remembers Catherine and Gloria and Sheila because Tim's mom has blonde hair too, and she was the first thing his fucked-up brain saw. He thinks maybe Someone with good laughter sort of looked like Tim, and he knows that because he saw Tim second.
So Jason doesn't remember if he has a dad, and since he doesn't have any records they've given him new ones and placed him in Tim's mom's care.
And he's sitting here, with his fingers that are mostly scars and mostly-healed skin grafts, and his brain that remembers ideas of people sometimes but never faces or names or places. And his name is Jason Doe because he doesn't remember his actual last name and he really wishes Someone would laugh about his name being J. Doe but the someone won't and—
Jason whines and buries his head in his knees because he can only breathe if he takes big shuddering gasps that pull at the scar that everyone's been extra worried about on his chest.
"Jason?" Jason registers his name, vaguely, and then there's a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Jay, hey, are you alright?" Tim.
Jason leans against the hand, and just tries to keep breathing. Because— because he has to keep Tim safe, right? Jason thinks maybe he kept a lot of people safe before he died. Just not Catherine or Gloria. He didn't keep them safe.
Sheila— he thinks he kept Sheila safe, but she let him die. So.
Jason coughs, and something— Tim— moves him, and his head is resting on Tim's shoulder. Tim's mom is somewhere in the room, humming, but Jason can't be bothered to keep an eye on her. The song is... if he's heard it before he doesn't remember. But it's nice.
"Awesome." Jason blinks, and Tim scootches back enough to smile at him. "It would be embarrassing to asphyxiate right before getting out of the hospital, man."
Tim's mom comes over, but doesn't try to touch Jason. "Are you alright kiddo? I know this has all been a lot."
Jason may not trust her, but it's nice she still asks questions even when she knows he can't answer.
-------
Jason hates questions. He doesn't have a way to answer without them having to use a thousand yes no options, and the world feels like syrup, and he can't listen right now.
It feels like one of those games, on the playground, where Jason is the boss and Tim's mom and Tim ask what they can do, but he doesn't have any words. So it's just Mother May I? Mother Mother Mother—may I may I may I?
And Jason isn't a mother. Mothers leave and die and Jason couldn't even do that. He's supposed to be the one asking but his teeth are too sharp and his throat is made of mud and mothers never listen anyway.
Mother may I hold your hair back while you throw up and die? Mother may I cut that rope, you shouldn't be so high. Mother may I smoke with you while death laughs and pulls me away? Mother may I? Mother may I—
There's a hand. On his— oh. Right, Jason has shoulders. He looks at the person holding his shoulders. They have— she has blonde hair. Hmm. Is it? Jason gets distracted by his eyelids as he blinks.
Blonde hair. Is it Sheila? No, she wouldn't hold him. Catherine's dead, and Gloria doesn't touch the ground.
Maybe Gloria's Icarus, maybe Jason is just the wax that melted off her wings. Hm.
Whoever she is, her words sound nice. Her voice is— maybe her voice is pretty. It's not interesting enough for him to know what she's saying, but it's pretty.
Tim's mom also has a pretty voice. Maybe...
It is Tim's mom. Look at that. Jason is practically a detective. That makes Someone laugh, and Jason relaxes. Maybe it's okay that the world is a bit syrupy.
----------
Jason has lived with Tim and D— apparently sometimes Tim just calls his mom D, which makes Jason's chest hurt for a reason he can't remember— for a month now. It's...okay. His room is nice. D helps him practice using his hands, and it's getting easier to pick things up. To hold things. D gives him stress balls and cubes with bumps and buttons and gears to hold. It helps him focus.
Jason's pretty sure D is the Catherine-type of mom, not the Sheila-type. And she's not sick, and Jason couldn't find any medications the time he decided to check the bathroom for them, so Jason thinks maybe he and Tim won't have to—
Jason thinks he was okay when Catherine died, but he'd also been hungry and cold. Jason doesn't want Tim to be hungry or cold. Tim makes Someone laugh, a lot. Tim makes Jason want to laugh, too. Jason doesn't, but sometimes he lets out squeaky amused noises that make Someone and Tim laugh even more.
It's nice, when he makes Tim laugh. Jason wishes he could make Tim laugh by being clever, by saying the things in his head, but the few times he's tried to talk it hasn't worked. Jason is doing a pretty good job pretending he doesn't care, he thinks.
Apparently D doesn't.
"Hey, Jason." D sits down, which means Jason has to look up from the cereal he'd been concentrated on eating, lifting the spoon impressively steadily for the way it sent tiny sparks down his hands. "I have something we should figure out, if you're up for it."
Jason shrugs, because he doesn't know what it could be about. Giving him a middle name? That probably should've happened sooner. Do they want to fingerprint him again, despite the fact that they've confirmed his fingerprints have been completely changed, or changed just enough, by all the damage? Maybe D's finally decided to ask if she can ditch him on the side of a road; Mother May I?
That's all just Jason's head trying to run away without going sticky and slow, though. He— he likes D. She's done enough nice things that he doesn't mind if she's lying a little.
Case in point, D smiles at him. "Since you haven't started talking, which is perfectly fine, Dr. Bern suggested we look into a communication device for you. I would've brought it up sooner, but they recommended giving you some time to try to start talking. Dr. Bern actually suggested waiting a bit longer, but it seems like you've been getting frustrated recently."
Jason is barely breathing.
"There are several options, if you want to go through them with me this weekend?"
Jason nods so hard his head spins, and he can't help but lurch up from his seat to hug her. Because D wants to give him something— something so he can do more than nod or shake his head or fucking shrug, and—
D sucks in a surprised breath, but hugs him back. For the first time, he takes notice of the slightly artificial sweetness of her orange scented shampoo (not pallidly-sweet sickness, or alcohol and tears, or disinfectant and cigarettes) and Jason lets himself enjoy the smell as he breathes and breathes and breathes.
------
In the process of getting an AAC device, they discover that the problem Jason had with finding the letter J in the book of baby names at the hospital wasn't a thing that was going away with time. Because the universe hates him, this is how Jason remembers that he fucking loves reading. He doesn't have a great day.
Luckily, he still knows what shapes look like, so the AAC device is still a viable option, but said shapes at that size are also a bit blurry, which is a little hard to explain without words. He ends up sobbing loudly in irritation, but somehow a week later he gets a vision test that is luckily made up of yes-no questions, and a prescription that actually makes the world a lot... crisper.
For whatever remaining sanity Jason has, he's going to pretend that he would've needed the glasses even if he hadn't died.
The AAC device... maybe Jason would've hated it if he'd been given it right away, but it's everything. Sure it sounds a bit robotic, but he has words again, words that can exist outside his head, and everyone who's part of him getting it— including D, especially D— tell him that no one else is allowed to touch it, that it's his voice, and it. It.
Has Jason ever had something other people couldn't touch? Even though he's working on it, D still folds his laundry, and there's no rule about D or Tim picking up the fidget he sets down and forgets about to put them back in their basket. And before— he thinks it was like that before, too.
The first thing he says with his new voice is "Thank you," directed at D. Someone— Jason wonders if he should give Someone an actual name— laughs along with the pride bubbling in Jason's throat.
The next twenty or so things he says, as he sets it up, are answers to the questions spewing out of Tim's mouth. Tim looks about ready to vibrate out of his skin, grinning wider with each answer. Jason still has to nod or shake his head, when it isn't clear if he's answering Tim or pressing a button to figure out what one of the less intuitive symbols means, but it's still a stupid amount of delight running around in his lungs.
"You have some memories, don't you?" Tim asks almost casually as they wait in the living room for D to come back with pizza. Jason startles. Tim looks sort of tired, but he's still smiling, so.
"Yes." Jason picks out, "No, important. " Jason is too excited still to care that he sounds a bit like a caveman. He'll figure out how to organize and add more important words. And! The person that set up all the app stuff said they could program a symbol based keyboard! So he'll be able to write eventually too.
Tim hums, "Okay, Anastasia."
"What."
"Yeah, amnesia is the only good explanation for not knowing that movie. We'll convince Mom that Thursday is a reasonable day for a movie night when she gets home."
------
Jason thinks D is just as surprised as he is, when three months after bringing Jason home from the hospital (which makes him sound like an infant, Someone snickering in agreement) Tim bursts into tears over popcorn. Not even real popcorn, the concept of popcorn being shot down by D because Tim had already brushed his teeth.
"Tim? Sweetie?" D stands from where she'd been sitting next to Jason, reading book synopses to him from the kindle she'd gotten somewhere so he could see if he liked books as much when he doesn't get to be the one reading.
"You—you never let me do anything!" Jason can feel his eyes get wider and wider as Tim rubs at his teary face angrily. "You—you're too busy spending time with Jason. And working extra hours because you have to pay for stuff for Jason. And— and we haven't gone to see Mom or Dad since we found Jason and it's— it's Dad's—" Tim devolves into sobbing, and D finally just tugs him into her arms and carefully lowers them both to the floor.
Mother may I spend time with my own fucking Mom?
Jason stands up, and goes to his room. Something inside him burning with guilt.
The next day, Tim sits next to him on the couch, eyes still puffed up from crying a lot last night.
"Sorry. Tim."
Tim doesn't look at him. "'S not your fault. I'm being stupid."
"We, are. Kids. Kids, can, be, dumb."
"And you aren't." They both look up at D. "You aren't being dumb, Tim. You're right that I haven't been spending as much time with you. We talked about this last night."
"Yeah."
"And Jason, none of this is your fault. I'm the adult, so I need to figure out how to balance better. Okay?"
"Ok."
"Awesome. I love you both."
Tim smiles, "Love you too."
Jason blinks.
The others don't seem to notice the lack of response, arguing playfully over what to have for breakfast.
------
Jason's mouth is too big again.
His mouth is too big and his chest keeps doing this annoying thing where it moves up and down, and Jason can't be bothered to stop it but it is annoying and he wants to scream but he can't trust his mouth.
He wishes he could trust his mouth enough to bite the table, or something, but he doesn't want to damage D's furniture. And his teeth are sharp. Right?
Because His teeth were sharp.
Footsteps.
Why is his chest moving?
"Jason?"
It's—is it Gloria? Gloria also, she also wanted her chest to stop moving. He thought she—
No. It's not Gloria. It's D. But he thought she was Gloria because. Because her shirt is choking her.
"Jay? Kiddo?"
Jason stumbles out of his chair, because her shirt was getting (or was already) too close to her neck, because Tim loves D, because Jason— Jason didn't save Gloria. And Gloria chose choking over breathing.
D's taller than him, but Jason manages to get his hands on the, the part trying to choke her (how is D still breathing?) and—
D catches his wrists and doesn't let him save her. Jason whines; scared and sad and furious that she wants to leave them behind.
"Jason," D uses her annoying calm tone despite the fact that she is dying. "You're panicking right now. I promise, you are safe and I won't hurt you." Jason makes a very distressed noise, because she is still dying and being stupid about it. Of course D wouldn't hurt him; that's why he's trying to save her. "Can you use your AAC?"
Jason shakes his head, because if he can't get rid of the noose he has to keep his eyes on her. If he loses sight of her she'll be hanging from the ceiling, and Tim doesn't deserve to see that.
"Okay." Her hands shift from his wrists to intertwining with his hands, which feels better. "Do you need me to leave?"
Awful hiccupy sobbing noise as he shakes his head hard.
"I'm right here." He knows, he can smell her shampoo. He's keeping her alive. "Did you have a reason for reaching toward my neck?"
Nod.
D smiles for unknown reasons. "Okay. Was it because you need help?"
Shake.
"Was it because I need help?"
Nod.
"Can you show me what I need help with on your body?"
Jason regretfully takes his hands back, which D allows, and places them on his own neck, pretending to choke. He even tilts his head and lets his tongue loll out to make it abundantly clear that she's going to choke to death.
But it doesn't seem as urgent, since she's still breathing, and she keeps smiling at him (Gloria didn't smile). And Jason's teeth feel less sharp.
"I'm choking?" D reaches a hand up, and it brushes against the awful strangling fabric. "Oh. Are you worried about my collar, Jason?"
Nod. D reaches up with her other hand and—
Undoes the button. Just like that. Nothing is wrapped around her neck, and she can't choke.
Jason's eyes burn, and he falls into her arms. Blubbering against her shoulder.
"Shh, it's okay Jay. We're both breathing, see? We're okay. You did so good, kiddo."
-----------
D stops buttoning her shirt collars altogether, though Jason doesn't realize until a few weeks later, when Tim puts on a polo for a class presentation and undoes the last button at the breakfast table after a quiet whisper from D.
It makes Jason feel... it makes him feel...
Mother.
Mother, may I love you?
Mother, may I stay?