Work Text:
Jason Todd knew three things with absolute certainty.
One: Poison Ivy was never “just talking.”
Two: if a plant glowed, hissed, pulsed, or smelled like expensive shampoo, it was probably about to ruin his night.
Three: he did not need Batman.
That third one was important. Foundational, even. A load-bearing belief in the tragic, spite-fueled architecture of his personality.
So when Ivy’s vines exploded out of the pavement in Crime Alley and wrapped around three smug gunrunners trying to unload stolen chemical weapons, Jason did not call for backup.
He had it handled.
Mostly.
“Ivy,” Red Hood said, ducking under a vine tipped with thorns the size of butcher knives, “I love what you’ve done with the place. Really brings out the whole ‘murder garden’ aesthetic.”
Poison Ivy stood in the middle of the alley on a carpet of roots, one hand resting fondly on a giant red flower that looked like it ate tax auditors for breakfast.
“They were transporting defoliants,” she said coldly.
Jason looked at the gunrunners, who were currently dangling upside down and screaming.
“Yeah, and I was gonna break their knees about it. We had a system.”
“You were going to use violence.”
“I was going to use targeted violence.”
Ivy’s eyes narrowed. “I’m using ecological justice.”
“You’re using a shrub with teeth.”
The shrub snapped at him.
Jason shot it.
The shrub made a wounded squealing sound and retreated behind a dumpster.
Ivy gasped. “That was rude.”
“It bit my jacket.”
“It has instincts.”
“So do I.”
One of the gunrunners groaned, “Can you both please stop flirting and save us?”
Jason and Ivy turned on him at the same time.
“No,” they said.
The gunrunner went quiet.
Jason reloaded one of his guns with a flick of his wrist and kept moving. Ivy was powerful, but she had patterns. Vines always went for the legs first. Spores drifted low unless heat currents pushed them higher. He could handle plants.
He was very good at handling things.
Bullets. Bombs. Crime lords. Nightmares. His own family pretending “concern” did not sound like judgment when it came through a comm line.
He was fine.
Then Ivy sighed.
It was a dangerous sigh.
Jason froze.
“Oh, don’t do that,” he said.
“Do what?”
“That thing where you act disappointed right before the botany war crime.”
Ivy smiled.
The giant red flower beside her opened.
Jason had just enough time to think, That is definitely a botany war crime, before it released a cloud of shimmering blue pollen directly into his helmet filters.
His mask caught most of it.
Most.
Unfortunately, Jason had learned the hard way that “most” was one of those words that got people killed, cursed, hypnotized, shrunk, cloned, or emotionally compromised in Gotham.
He stumbled back, coughing.
The world tilted.
His skin prickled.
His fingers went numb.
Then the cold hit.
It was immediate and brutal, like someone had cracked his ribs open and packed his chest with snow.
Jason sucked in a sharp breath.
Ivy’s expression shifted. “Oh.”
Jason pointed a gun at her. His hand shook.
He hated that.
“What,” he snapped, “did you do?”
“It’s not lethal.”
“People always say that before the weird stuff starts.”
“It’s a new variant of pollen, maybe it was the calming one.” Ivy made a considering face, it was hard to keep track of all the different pollens her precious babies could now create.
“I do not feel calm.”
“It encourages bonding behavior… I think.”
Jason stared at her through the red lenses of his helmet.
Ivy winced. “And, in this version, a mild thermoregulatory effect.”
Jason’s teeth clicked together.
“Mild?”
“Well,” Ivy said, watching him shiver violently, “moderate.”
“Ivy.”
“I think it’s the one that makes the body perceive extreme cold until the victim receives warmth from human contact.”
Jason was silent.
Then he said, very flatly, “You hit me with cuddle pollen.”
Ivy looked offended. “That is not the scientific name.”
“I’m gonna call it that in your arrest report.”
“You are not arresting me.”
“I’m gonna call it that on Twitter.”
“You don’t have Twitter.”
“I’ll get Twitter.”
Ivy’s mouth twitched despite herself.
Jason took one step forward and nearly went to one knee.
His breath fogged inside his helmet.
That should not have been possible.
The alley was damp and cold, sure, but not freezing. Not enough for the kind of bone-deep chill spreading through him, numbing his wrists and making his lungs ache.
He hated magic. He hated pollen. He hated Gotham. He hated that the first thought in his head was not to get to a safehouse but to Bruce, he would know what to do.
He crushed that thought immediately.
Bruce would know what to do, and then Bruce would do it in the most emotionally damaging way possible. He would loom. He would lecture. He would say, “You should have called,” in that low, disappointed voice that made Jason want to punch a wall and maybe also be ten years old again.
No.
Absolutely not.
Jason Todd could survive alien invasions, death, resurrection, assassins, clown trauma, and family dinners. He could survive feeling cold.
He fired a line at the nearest rooftop, yanked himself up, and ignored the way Ivy called after him.
“Red Hood!”
He did not look back.
“This will only get worse if you isolate youself!”
Jason lifted one hand without turning around and gave her a gesture that was not League-approved.
Then he disappeared over the roofline.
For the first ten minutes, it was manageable.
Awful, but manageable.
Jason told himself he had been colder.
He had spent winter nights on Gotham streets as a kid, curled into corners where the wind could not find him, hands shoved under his armpits, pretending he was not hungry because hunger was easier to ignore than cold. He had hidden in abandoned buildings with broken windows and slept under stolen coats that smelled like cigarettes and rain. He had been cold before.
This was nothing.
Then his fingers stopped working properly.
His grappling hook slipped.
Jason slammed into a fire escape hard enough to dent the railing.
“Okay,” he muttered, breath shaking. “That’s new.”
He made it to the nearest safehouse by sheer spite.
The place was above a closed pawn shop, behind a fake wall, under three layers of security that no one but him, Oracle, and probably Bruce knew about. It had weapons, medical supplies, emergency cash, protein bars, and one ugly brown couch Jason had stolen from a mob accountant because he liked the principle of the thing.
He stumbled inside, locked the door, ripped off his helmet, and immediately doubled over.
Cold.
Cold.
Cold.
It was under his skin now.
Not on him. In him.
His hands shook so hard he dropped his helmet. It hit the floor with a heavy thud and rolled under the table.
“Great,” Jason rasped. “Dramatic.”
He turned up the heat.
Nothing.
He stripped out of his jacket, then immediately put it back on because the air felt like knives. He grabbed the emergency blanket from the med kit and wrapped it around himself.
Nothing.
He pulled two more blankets from the closet. Then a third, which had a bullet hole in one corner and a suspicious stain he had never identified.
Nothing.
He made hot coffee and spilled half of it because his hands would not stop shaking. He drank the rest too fast and burned his tongue.
Still nothing.
The cold did not care about blankets. It did not care about heaters. It did not care about coffee.
His body wanted something else.
Human touch.
Jason laughed once, harsh and humorless.
“Yeah,” he said to the empty room. “Good luck with that.”
He sat on the floor with his back against the couch, because the couch felt too high and his balance had started to tilt weirdly. He wrapped the blankets tighter around himself until he looked like a furious burrito with combat boots.
His phone buzzed.
He ignored it.
It buzzed again.
He pulled it out with stiff fingers.
Babs: Ivy just got picked up by GCPD. She said you were exposed to something. Status?
Jason stared at the message.
Then he typed:
fine
Three dots appeared instantly.
Babs: Try again.
Jason squinted at the screen. His vision blurred at the edges.
Red Hood: handled
Babs: That is not a status. That is a cry for help in Crime Alley dialect.
Jason snorted despite himself, then shivered so violently his phone nearly fell out of his hand.
Red Hood: do not tell B
No response.
That was bad.
Barbara Gordon not responding was never nothing. Silence from Oracle was not peace. Silence from Oracle was a countdown.
Jason tried to stand.
His knees did not cooperate.
He landed back on the floor with a curse.
The room spun.
“Okay,” he said through chattering teeth. “This is stupid.”
He dragged himself up by the edge of the couch, made it two steps toward the med kit, and had to stop because his muscles locked.
The cold was not just cold anymore.
It was panic wearing cold’s clothes.
His chest tightened. His heartbeat stumbled. Every old, buried part of him that remembered helplessness woke up at once.
Alone in a warehouse.
Alone under rubble.
Alone in a grave.
No.
No, no, no.
Jason dug his fingernails into his palms.
“Not doing this,” he whispered. “Not tonight.”
The window opened behind him.
Jason had a gun halfway up before his arm gave out.
Batman slipped inside without a sound.
Of course he did.
Of course the man looked like a nightmare cut out of the dark while Jason was sitting on the floor wrapped in three blankets and losing a fight to flower glitter.
Jason glared at him.
It was not his best glare. His teeth were chattering too hard for dignity.
“Get out.”
Bruce’s gaze swept the room.
The blankets. The spilled coffee. The heater cranked as high as it would go. Jason’s pale face. His shaking hands.
“Ivy told Gordon,” Bruce said.
“Traitor plant lady.”
“Your temperature is dropping.”
“No, my temperature is being dramatic.”
Bruce stepped closer.
Jason immediately stiffened. “Don’t.”
Bruce stopped.
That was the first surprise.
Usually Bruce stopped physically but kept moving emotionally, pushing into the room with the weight of all the things he refused to say. This time he actually stopped. A full six feet away. Hands visible. Cape still.
“What did Ivy say it was?” Bruce asked.
Jason looked away. “Nothing.”
“Jason.”
“Oh, don’t use the voice.”
“What did she say?”
Jason’s jaw clenched.
Then another shiver tore through him so hard it hurt.
Bruce’s expression shifted.
Not much.
But Jason knew him.
He saw the fear.
That made it worse.
Jason hated when Bruce looked scared. It made him angry. It made him guilty. It made something small and desperate in his chest reach out before he could cut its hand off.
Jason swallowed. “Cuddle pollen.”
Bruce blinked.
Jason would have enjoyed that if he were not freezing to death from affection deficiency.
Bruce said, “Cuddle pollen.”
“Don’t make me say it again.”
“Ivy called it that?”
“I called it that. She called it something with too many syllables because she’s pretentious.”
“She got Clark with it before, it must be different on a human. What are your symptoms?”
Jason pulled the blankets tighter. “Makes you cold.”
Bruce waited.
Jason stared at the floor.
Bruce’s voice softened. “And?”
Jason hated him for that.
For knowing there was an and.
“For warmth to register,” Jason said tightly, “it has to come from human contact.”
Bruce went still.
Jason laughed, sharp and defensive. “Yeah. Hilarious. You can go now.”
“You’re hypothermic.”
“It’s artificial.”
“It’s affecting your body.”
“I can ride it out.”
“No.”
Jason’s head snapped up. “Wasn’t asking.”
Bruce took one slow step closer. “You can barely stand.”
“I’ve had worse.”
Bruce’s mouth tightened.
Wrong thing to say.
They both knew it the second it landed between them.
Jason looked away first.
The safehouse was quiet except for the heater roaring uselessly and Jason’s uneven breathing.
Bruce said, very quietly, “Yes. You have.”
Jason closed his eyes.
His body would not stop shaking.
He wanted Bruce to leave.
He wanted Bruce to stay.
He wanted to be someone who could ask for help without feeling like he had handed over a weapon.
He wanted to be warm.
God, he wanted to be warm.
Bruce removed his gloves.
Jason stared at him.
“What are you doing?”
“Helping.”
“No.”
“Jason—”
“I said no.”
Bruce stopped again.
The gloves were in one hand. His bare hands looked strange in the dim light. Human, almost. Not gauntlets. Not armor. Just hands.
Bruce crouched, still several feet away, lowering himself until he was not looming.
Jason hated that too.
Hated how careful he was being.
Hated how much it mattered.
“I won’t touch you unless you say I can,” Bruce said.
Jason’s throat tightened.
“Great,” he snapped. “Then problem solved.”
Bruce nodded once.
He did not move closer.
Jason stared at him, waiting for the argument. The order. The growled command about medical necessity. The classic Batman routine where Bruce pretended control was the same thing as care.
It did not come.
Instead, Bruce sat down on the floor.
Cross-legged.
In full Batman armor.
On Jason’s safehouse floor.
Six feet away.
Jason blinked.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Waiting.”
“For what?”
“For you to decide.”
Jason barked out a laugh, then regretted it when the cold stabbed through his ribs. “That’s new.”
Bruce’s face flickered.
Jason wanted to take it back.
He did not.
Bruce looked at his bare hands. “I know.”
The words landed softly.
Too softly.
Jason clenched his jaw.
Bruce continued, “I have not always given you choices.”
Jason went very still.
“I have not always listened when you said no,” Bruce said. “Or when you said stop. Or when you said you were fine and meant the opposite.”
Jason’s mouth twisted. “To be fair, you also say you’re fine when you’re actively bleeding out of five places.”
“This is not about me.”
“Miracle.”
Bruce’s lips twitched.
It was gone almost instantly.
Jason saw it anyway.
Then the shivering got worse.
His vision spotted white.
Bruce leaned forward, but stopped himself.
Jason noticed that too.
“Your heart rate is irregular,” Bruce said.
“Stop listening to my heart.”
“I’m not using equipment.”
“That’s worse.”
“Jason.”
“Don’t.”
“You need warmth.”
“I’ve got blankets.”
“They’re not working.”
Jason knew that.
Of course he knew that.
He was so cold his bones felt hollow.
But letting Bruce touch him felt impossible in a completely different way. It was not that he thought Bruce would hurt him. Not physically. Not now.
It was that Bruce being gentle might hurt worse.
Jason could fight cruelty. He could throw it back. He could survive anger because anger had handles.
Gentleness had nowhere to grab.
Bruce shifted slightly. “I can call Dick.”
Jason’s head snapped up. “No.”
“Alfred.”
“No.”
“Barbara.”
“No.”
“Tims out of the country, what about Roy.”
Jason hesitated.
Bruce noticed.
Of course he noticed.
Jason glared. “Don’t psychoanalyze my hesitation.”
“I’m not.”
“You absolutely are. Your face is doing the thing.”
“My face is covered.”
“Your jaw is doing the thing.”
Bruce was quiet for a second.
Then he said, “I can call whoever you want.”
Jason looked down at his shaking hands.
He thought of Roy, warm and loud and easy with touch in a way Jason had never understood. He thought of calling him and hearing the immediate panic under the jokes. He thought of explaining cuddle pollen.
Absolutely not.
He thought of Dick, who would arrive in eight seconds, crying and carrying six blankets and possibly a stuffed animal.
Also no.
He thought of Alfred, whose kindness would be unbearable.
He thought of Bruce sitting six feet away on a dirty floor in full armor, waiting to be allowed closer.
Jason swallowed.
“Don’t call anyone.”
Bruce’s voice was low. “All right.”
The cold surged.
Jason hunched forward, breath catching. For a second, he was not in the safehouse. He was somewhere darker. Smaller. He was clawing upward through damp earth with blood under his nails and cold in his lungs and no one coming, no one coming, no one—
“Jason.”
Bruce’s voice cut through it.
Jason sucked in air.
He realized his hands were over his ears.
Bruce had not moved.
But his face had changed.
Fear. Grief. Helplessness.
All of it carefully controlled and therefore somehow worse.
Jason laughed weakly. “This is so stupid.”
“No.”
“It’s pollen.”
“It’s not stupid.”
“I’m freezing because a flower decided I need a hug.”
Bruce’s voice went rough. “You’re freezing because you were poisoned.”
“Don’t make it sound serious.”
“It is serious.”
Jason looked at him.
Bruce looked back.
And Jason was suddenly too tired to keep holding every wall upright.
His voice came out smaller than he wanted. “I don’t know how to do this.”
Bruce’s expression softened.
“Do what?”
Jason gestured vaguely between them, hand shaking. “This. You. Help. Whatever.”
Bruce was silent for a moment.
Then he said, “We can start with simple instructions.”
Jason huffed. “You would.”
“May I move closer?”
Jason stared at him.
Every instinct screamed no.
Every nerve screamed cold.
Jason nodded once.
Bruce moved closer.
Slowly.
Not like Batman approaching a threat.
Like Bruce approaching a wounded animal that still had teeth.
He stopped an arm’s length away.
Jason could feel heat coming off him now. Not enough to fix anything, but enough that his body leaned toward it without permission.
Embarrassing.
“May I check your pulse?” Bruce asked.
Jason rolled his eyes. “You can hear it.”
“I’m asking.”
That shut him up.
Jason looked away.
Then he held out his wrist.
Bruce took it gently.
Bare fingers against Jason’s skin.
The relief was immediate and humiliating.
Jason’s breath hitched.
Bruce’s hand was warm.
Human warm.
Not blanket warm. Not heater warm. Not coffee warm.
Real.
His body recognized it instantly. The artificial cold loosened around his wrist first, then up his arm, like frost cracking under sunlight.
Jason hated the sound he made.
Small. Broken.
Bruce’s hand tightened slightly, but not enough to trap.
“Better?” Bruce asked.
Jason stared at the wall. “Shut up.”
“Jay.”
Jason’s eyes burned.
“Yeah,” he said roughly. “Better.”
Bruce exhaled.
For a minute, that was all they did.
Bruce held Jason’s wrist between both hands, carefully warming cold fingers with his palms. It should have been ridiculous. Batman sitting on the floor of a safehouse, holding Red Hood’s hand like a worried parent after a nightmare.
It was ridiculous.
It was also working.
Jason’s teeth stopped chattering.
The cold retreated from his fingers, but still dug deep into his chest and spine.
Bruce noticed. “It’s not enough.”
Jason groaned. “Don’t say it.”
“You need more contact.”
“I said don’t say it.”
“Jason.”
“If you suggest spooning, I’m jumping out the window.”
Bruce stared at him.
Jason stared back.
Then Bruce said, completely deadpan, “That would be medically inadvisable.”
Jason wheezed.
It was almost a laugh.
Bruce’s mouth twitched again.
Jason hated that he wanted to see it properly.
The cold pulsed hard, punishing him for feeling anything besides miserable. He curled inward, shoulders shaking.
Bruce’s humor vanished. “Jason.”
“I’m fine.”
“You are not.”
“Reflex.”
“I know.”
That hurt too.
Jason pressed his fist against his chest. “It’s worse there.”
Bruce’s eyes dropped to his hand.
Then he looked back up. “A hug would probably be most effective.”
Jason squeezed his eyes shut. “This is a nightmare.”
“It does not have to be.”
“You say that like you’ve ever hugged someone normally in your life.”
Bruce paused.
Jason opened one eye. “Oh my god. You haven’t.”
“I have.”
“You’re hesitating.”
“I am planning.”
“You’re planning a hug?”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
Jason’s chest cracked in a place the cold could not reach.
He looked away quickly.
“Yeah,” he muttered. “That’d be a first.”
The words were out before he could stop them.
Bruce flinched.
Not visibly to anyone else, maybe. But Jason saw the impact. Saw the way Bruce’s face tightened, the way his eyes dropped for half a second.
Jason immediately hated himself.
Then he got angry because hating himself was old and boring.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Yes,” Bruce said quietly. “You did.”
Jason shut his mouth.
Bruce’s voice stayed steady, but there was something raw beneath it. “And you’re allowed to.”
The safehouse went silent.
Jason stared at him.
Bruce looked down at their hands. “You’re allowed to be angry with me.”
Jason laughed once, bitter and tired. “Thanks for the permission slip.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Bruce lifted his eyes.
Jason’s voice shook from more than cold now. “You don’t know what it was like. Coming back and finding out everything moved on. Finding out there was another Robin. Another kid in the colors. Another body in the Cave. Like I was just—”
He stopped.
His throat closed.
Bruce’s face had gone ashen.
Jason looked away. “Whatever.”
“No.”
Jason swallowed hard.
Bruce’s hand was still around his wrist. Warm. Steady.
“No,” Bruce said again, voice low. “Not whatever.”
Jason’s laugh broke halfway. “You wanna do this now? While I’m high on affection frostbite?”
“No.” Bruce’s thumb moved once against Jason’s pulse, barely there. “But I don’t want to miss another chance.”
Jason froze.
Bruce took a breath.
“I did not move on.”
Jason’s jaw tightened.
“I know it looked that way,” Bruce said. “I know bringing Tim in hurt you. I know I failed you in ways I cannot undo. But I did not replace you.”
Jason’s eyes burned.
Bruce’s voice roughened. “There was never another you.”
Jason stared at the floor.
The cold twisted in his chest, but it was not the only thing making it hard to breathe.
Bruce continued, “After you died, I broke.”
Jason closed his eyes.
“I became someone you would have been afraid of,” Bruce said. “Someone Dick was afraid for. Someone Alfred was afraid of losing. Tim came because he saw that. Because he believed Batman needed Robin.”
Jason’s mouth twisted. “And he was right.”
Bruce was quiet.
“Yes.”
Jason flinched even though he had expected it.
Bruce’s hand tightened—not trapping, just there.
“But that was not because you were replaceable,” Bruce said. “It was because losing you almost destroyed me.”
Jason could not look at him.
He wanted to say something cruel. Something easy. Something that would shove this conversation back onto familiar ground.
Instead, all he managed was, “You never said that.”
“I know.”
“You never say anything.”
“I know.”
“It messes people up, you know.”
Bruce’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “I know.”
Jason looked at him then.
Bruce looked older than he had a minute ago. Not Batman-old. Not immortal gargoyle-old. Just Bruce. Tired. Sorry. Human in the worst possible way.
The cold surged again.
Jason’s shoulders jerked.
Bruce shifted forward. “May I?”
Jason’s automatic no rose up.
It hit the back of his teeth.
Stayed there.
He hated this. Hated needing. Hated that Ivy had turned his body into a traitor begging for the one thing he had spent years pretending he did not want.
But Bruce was asking.
Not ordering. Not taking.
Asking.
Jason gave one sharp nod.
Bruce moved carefully, sitting beside him with his back against the couch. Then he opened one arm.
It was awkward.
So awkward Jason almost laughed.
Batman, Dark Knight of Gotham, master of fear, was visibly uncertain about the logistics of a floor hug.
Jason stared at him. “You look like you’re defusing a bomb.”
“I have more experience with bombs.”
“Comforting.”
“I’m trying.”
That shut him up again.
Jason shifted closer before he could talk himself out of it.
The second his shoulder touched Bruce’s side, warmth rushed through him so fast he gasped.
Bruce’s arm came around him.
Not tight.
Not restraining.
Just solid.
Jason’s body gave up so abruptly it was embarrassing. His muscles unlocked. His head dropped against Bruce’s shoulder like he had been cut from strings.
The cold retreated.
Not gone. But less.
So much less.
Jason made a sound he would deny until the end of time.
Bruce went very still.
“Don’t,” Jason muttered.
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“Good.”
Bruce adjusted the blanket around them both.
Jason snorted weakly. “Are you tucking me in?”
“No.”
“You are.”
“I’m containing heat.”
“That’s tucking with extra steps.”
Bruce did not answer.
Jason’s eyes drifted shut despite himself.
Bruce was warm.
Of course he was. The suit had thermal lining. The cape held heat. Bruce himself ran warm after patrol, all muscle and controlled breathing and steady heartbeat.
Jason could hear it now.
That annoyed him.
It comforted him more.
For a long time, they sat there in silence.
It should have been unbearable.
It was not.
Eventually Jason said, “This doesn’t fix everything.”
Bruce’s answer came immediately. “I know.”
“I’m still mad.”
“I know.”
“I’m probably gonna be mad for a long time.”
“I know.”
Jason swallowed. “I don’t know how to stop.”
Bruce’s arm tightened slightly around him. “You don’t have to stop all at once.”
Jason opened his eyes.
That was not what he had expected.
Bruce stared at the opposite wall, jaw set, expression carefully blank in the way Jason now knew meant he was feeling too much.
“I can live with your anger,” Bruce said quietly. “I deserve much of it. I just don’t want you to think it means you can’t come home.”
Jason’s breath caught.
Home.
What a cruel little word.
“What home?” Jason asked, trying for sharp and landing somewhere broken. “The Cave?”
“If you want.”
“The Manor?”
“If you want.”
Jason’s fingers curled in the blanket.
Bruce looked down at him. “Or this safehouse. Or a rooftop. Or anywhere you call me from.”
Jason closed his eyes.
Bruce’s voice was rough. “Home can be where I show up.”
Jason laughed, but it came out wet. “That is so corny.”
“Yes.”
“Disgusting.”
“I know.”
“Did Alfred write that for you?”
“No.”
“Dick?”
“No.”
“Then I’m embarrassed for you.”
Bruce’s mouth twitched. “Noted.”
Jason wiped at his face quickly with the edge of the blanket. “I’m only crying because Ivy poisoned me with Hallmark pollen.”
“Of course.”
“And if you tell anyone, I’ll blow up your car.”
“The Batmobile?”
“I said what I said.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
Jason sniffed. “You’ll tell Alfred.”
Bruce hesitated.
Jason lifted his head just enough to glare at him. “You were absolutely going to tell Alfred.”
“He’ll need to know for treatment.”
“Treatment, my ass. You’re gonna go home and say, ‘Alfred, Jason required emotional thermal assistance.’”
Bruce’s lips definitely twitched that time.
Jason pointed a shaky finger at him. “Don’t you dare smile.”
“I’m not.”
“You are on the inside.”
“That’s where most people smile.”
“That is not where you smile. You smile in classified locations.”
Bruce huffed.
It was almost a laugh.
Jason stared.
Bruce looked away.
“Oh my god,” Jason said. “You laughed.”
“I exhaled.”
“You Bat-laughed.”
“I did not.”
“You did. That was a full Batman giggle.”
“It was not.”
“I’m telling Dick.”
“Then I’m telling him about the cuddle pollen.”
Jason gasped. “You wouldn’t.”
Bruce looked at him.
Jason narrowed his eyes. “You absolutely would. Wow. Growth looks ugly on you.”
Bruce’s arm was still around him.
Warm. Steady.
Jason’s smile faded slowly.
The quiet returned, but softer now.
He rested his head back against Bruce’s shoulder. This time it was a choice.
Bruce did not comment.
Smart man.
The cold came in waves after that. Each time it surged, Jason tensed, and each time Bruce held him a little more firmly until it passed. Not too tight. Never trapping. Just enough to remind Jason he was not alone on the floor of a safehouse fighting his own body.
At some point, Bruce said, “I should have held you more.”
Jason went still.
Bruce’s voice was barely above a whisper. “When you were younger.”
Jason stared at the blanket.
“I should have told you I was proud of you more often,” Bruce said. “I should have told you that you were not a burden. That you were not too angry. That you were not hard to love.”
Jason’s chest hurt.
Bruce swallowed. “You were never hard to love, Jason.”
Jason covered his face with one hand.
“Shut up,” he whispered.
Bruce went quiet immediately.
Jason shook his head. “No, I mean—don’t actually shut up. Just—”
His voice broke.
Bruce waited.
Jason hated that he had gotten good at waiting.
Jason dragged in a breath. “I thought you regretted me.”
Bruce’s whole body went rigid.
Jason kept going before courage abandoned him. “After. When I came back. Before, too, sometimes. I was angry and reckless and loud, and Dick was the golden boy, and Tim was the smart one, and Damian was blood, and I was just—”
“My son,” Bruce said.
Jason stopped.
Bruce turned toward him as much as he could without pulling away. His face was open in a way Jason almost never saw. Open and devastated.
“You were my son,” Bruce said. “You are my son.”
Jason’s eyes burned again.
Bruce’s voice cracked on the next words. “I never regretted you.”
Jason pressed his knuckles to his mouth.
The cold inside him broke like ice under weight.
Not gone.
But broken.
He was shivering for a different reason now.
Bruce shifted, giving him room to pull away if he wanted.
Jason did not pull away.
Instead, after one long, brutal moment, he turned and pressed his face into Bruce’s shoulder like he had not done since he was fifteen and pretending nightmares did not follow him out of Crime Alley.
Bruce’s other arm came around him.
Slowly.
Carefully.
A real hug this time.
Jason made a sound that was half laugh, half sob.
“Your armor sucks for cuddling.”
Bruce’s voice was rough. “I’ll make adjustments.”
Jason laughed harder, which made the crying worse, which was unacceptable, so he punched Bruce weakly in the side.
Bruce did not even pretend it hurt.
“Don’t make a cuddle-friendly Batsuit.”
“I said adjustments.”
“I will burn it.”
“Noted.”
Jason breathed.
For the first time all night, the air did not feel frozen.
An hour later, the pollen finally started to fade.
Jason knew because the heater suddenly felt like a heater again and the blankets became too much. He was still tired, shaky, and emotionally compromised beyond all reasonable limits, but the cold had loosened its grip.
Bruce did not move away until Jason did.
That mattered too.
Jason sat up, scrubbing both hands over his face. “We never speak of this.”
Bruce nodded. “Of course.”
“You’re already planning a medical file.”
“Yes.”
“Password protect it.”
“Yes.”
“From Dick.”
“I can try.”
“From Tim.”
Bruce paused. “That will be harder.”
“From Damian.”
“Impossible.”
Jason groaned. “I hate this family.”
Bruce’s eyes softened.
Jason caught it.
“Don’t,” Jason warned.
Bruce said nothing.
Jason looked around the safehouse at the spilled coffee, the blankets, the helmet still under the table, the whole pathetic scene. Then he looked at Bruce sitting on the floor beside him like it was the most natural place in the world.
His voice came out quieter than intended. “You really came.”
Bruce looked at him. “Always.”
Jason swallowed.
“Don’t say stuff you don’t mean.”
Bruce’s gaze did not waver. “I mean it.”
Jason looked away first.
His chest hurt again, but not like before.
This was warmer.
Worse, maybe.
Better, definitely.
Bruce stood and offered a hand.
Jason stared at it.
Then he took it.
Bruce pulled him up.
Jason wobbled a little and immediately scowled. “Say nothing.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Your silence is judgmental.”
“My silence is medical observation.”
“Your medical observation is judgmental.”
Bruce picked up Jason’s helmet from under the table and handed it to him.
Jason took it.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Bruce said, “Come back to the Cave.”
Jason’s guard snapped up on instinct.
Bruce seemed to realize it immediately.
“Not permanently,” he said. “Not as an order. Just tonight. Alfred can check the pollen exposure. You can sleep somewhere with monitoring.”
Jason arched an eyebrow. “You mean a bed.”
“Yes.”
“You know I have beds.”
“You were sitting on the floor.”
“I like the floor.”
“You do not.”
“I like being difficult.”
“That, yes.”
Jason snorted.
The Cave sounded like too much.
The Manor sounded worse.
But Alfred would make tea and pretend not to fuss. Dick might show up and cry. Tim would pretend not to hover. Damian would call him weak and then leave a blanket somewhere obvious.
Bruce would be there.
Jason hated that the thought did not make him want to run.
He looked at the window. Gotham’s night pressed dark against the glass.
“Fine,” Jason said. “But if anyone hugs me without consent, I’m biting.”
Bruce nodded gravely. “I’ll warn them.”
“And if Dick cries—”
“He will.”
“—I’m leaving.”
“He will cry quietly.”
“No, he won’t.”
“No,” Bruce agreed. “He won’t.”
Jason grabbed his jacket tighter around himself. “And we’re not calling this cuddle pollen.”
“What would you prefer?”
“Thermal contact toxin.”
Bruce considered it. “That sounds worse.”
“It sounds less stupid.”
“It is less accurate.”
Jason stared at him. “Did you just defend the phrase cuddle pollen?”
Bruce opened the window. “Get in the car.”
Jason grinned despite himself.
The ride to the Cave was quiet.
Not tense.
Just quiet.
Jason sat in the passenger seat of the Batmobile, wrapped in one of his ugly blankets because Bruce had insisted and Jason had complained but not removed it. The city blurred past them in streaks of yellow streetlight and rain.
Halfway there, Jason said, “When I was a kid, I used to pretend the cape was warmer than it was.”
Bruce’s hands tightened slightly on the wheel.
Jason kept looking out the window. “On patrol. When it was cold. You’d do that thing where you’d stand in front of the wind without saying anything. Thought I didn’t notice.”
Bruce was silent for a moment.
Then he said, “I noticed you noticed.”
Jason huffed. “Course you did.”
“I should have given you the cape more often.”
Jason glanced at him.
Bruce stared at the road.
Jason looked away again. “Yeah. Maybe.”
A pause.
Then Jason added, “You can start now.”
Bruce looked at him.
Jason did not look back. “Not all the time. Don’t get weird.”
“Of course.”
“And not in front of people.”
“No.”
“And if you make a speech, I’m jumping out of the car.”
“We’re moving at one hundred and twenty miles per hour.”
“Then don’t make a speech.”
Bruce’s mouth softened.
“No speech,” he said.
When they arrived at the Cave, Alfred was waiting at the med bay with a scanner, a blanket, and an expression so carefully neutral it was basically screaming.
Jason pointed at him. “Don’t.”
Alfred blinked mildly. “I have said nothing, Master Jason.”
“You’re thinking British thoughts.”
“I assure you, all my thoughts are presently medical.”
“Lies.”
Bruce removed his cowl.
That made Jason pause.
It was one thing to be helped by Batman in a safehouse while poisoned. It was another to stand in the Cave, still wrapped in a blanket, and see Bruce looking at him with tired eyes and messy hair and no armor over his face.
Alfred’s gaze softened, but he did not comment.
A miracle.
The scan took ten minutes. The pollen was breaking down. No lasting damage. Hydration, rest, and continued warmth if symptoms returned.
Jason narrowed his eyes. “Define continued warmth.”
Alfred looked at him. “A blanket may be sufficient now.”
“Great.”
“However, if symptoms recur, human contact may again be necessary.”
Jason groaned.
Bruce said, “I’ll stay nearby.”
Jason looked at him.
Bruce looked back.
Alfred busied himself with the scanner in the most unsubtle act of pretending not to observe that Jason had ever seen.
Jason swallowed.
“Yeah,” he said. “Okay.”
Later, in one of the Manor guest rooms that everyone pretended was not Jason’s room even though it still had three of his old books on the shelf, Jason lay under too many blankets and stared at the ceiling.
Bruce sat in the chair by the door.
Not too close.
Not leaving.
Jason turned his head. “You don’t have to watch me sleep like a Victorian ghost.”
Bruce looked up from the case file he was pretending to read. “I’m monitoring.”
“You’re hovering.”
“Yes.”
“At least you admit it.”
Bruce closed the file.
The room was dim, lit only by the lamp on the bedside table. It was strange how normal it looked. How untouched. Like a version of Jason had gone out one night and might still come back, younger and loud and alive.
Jason’s throat tightened.
“Why’d you keep it?” he asked.
Bruce did not pretend not to understand.
“I couldn’t change it,” he said.
Jason looked back at the ceiling.
“That healthy, huh?”
“No.”
“Good talk.”
Bruce’s voice was quiet. “I used to come in here after patrol.”
Jason closed his eyes.
“Sometimes I sat in that chair,” Bruce said. “Sometimes I stood at the door. Alfred told me it was not good for me.”
“Alfred was right.”
“Yes.”
Jason breathed out slowly.
The cold was gone now, but something in him still wanted warmth.
Not the pollen.
Just him.
That was worse.
“Bruce.”
“Yes?”
“If I call…”
Bruce waited.
Jason hated how hard the words were.
“If I call,” he said again, “you’ll come?”
Bruce’s answer was immediate.
“Yes.”
Jason looked at him.
“No conditions?”
“No conditions.”
“What if I’m angry?”
“Yes.”
“What if I yell?”
“Yes.”
“What if I say I don’t need you?”
Bruce’s face softened with something sad and sure.
“Especially then,” he said.
Jason looked away before his face could betray him.
“Corny,” he muttered.
“Yes.”
“Disgusting.”
“I know.”
A small smile pulled at Jason’s mouth.
He settled deeper into the pillows.
After a long silence, Bruce stood to turn off the lamp.
Jason’s hand moved before he could stop it, catching Bruce’s wrist.
Bruce froze.
Jason stared at his own hand like it had committed treason.
Then he sighed.
“Just until I fall asleep,” he muttered. “In case the pollen comes back.”
Bruce’s face did something complicated and painfully gentle.
He sat on the edge of the bed.
Jason did not look at him.
Bruce rested one warm hand over Jason’s.
No armor. No gloves. No distance.
“Just until you fall asleep,” Bruce said.
Jason closed his eyes.
“Don’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t.”
“Not even Alfred.”
A pause.
“Bruce.”
“I won’t tell Alfred.”
Jason relaxed.
The room went quiet.
For once, the silence did not feel like abandonment. It felt like someone keeping watch.
Jason drifted slowly, warmed by blankets, by a steady hand over his, by the strange and fragile knowledge that maybe home had not been locked behind him forever.
Just before sleep took him, he heard Bruce say softly, “Goodnight, Jay.”
Jason should have pretended to be asleep.
Instead, without opening his eyes, he mumbled, “Night, Dad.”
Bruce stopped breathing.
Jason fell asleep before he could panic about it.
In the morning, he woke up warm.
There was a glass of water on the bedside table, painkillers beside it, and a note in Bruce’s handwriting.
I’m downstairs. Call if you need anything.
Under it, in Alfred’s handwriting, someone had added:
Breakfast is at ten. Attendance is not mandatory, but strongly encouraged.
Under that, in Dick’s handwriting:
I am not crying. I am simply emotionally available.
Under that, in Tim’s:
Glad you’re okay. Also, cuddle pollen is already in the group chat. Sorry.
Under that, in Damian’s sharp script:
Todd, if you require thermal assistance again, I own several animals that produce body heat and are less emotionally embarrassing than Father.
Jason stared at the note.
Then he laughed.
Loudly.
For real.
Downstairs, Bruce heard it.
He froze in the kitchen, coffee cup halfway to his mouth.
Alfred glanced at him knowingly.
Bruce ignored him.
Mostly.
A minute later, his phone buzzed.
A text from Jason.
Tell the gremlin I want the cat.
Bruce smiled.
Small.
Private.
Unclassified.
Then he typed back:
I’ll ask.
Jason replied:
Also don’t get weird about last night.
Bruce looked at the message for a long moment.
Then he answered:
I won’t.
Another buzz.
But thanks. For coming.
Bruce’s fingers tightened around the phone.
He typed carefully.
Always.
This time, Jason did not argue.
And that was a start.