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Jason woke up screaming. It was not something he did often. He honestly couldn’t remember doing it before at all. No matter how bad his nightmares got he never screamed. He froze up instead; he woke up shaking with the feeling of being crushed and phantom pains blistering through him, choking on smoke or dirt or green water that wasn’t there. But he never screamed. Even as a kid he had never screamed from nightmares. He would trash and kick and fight, but he would not scream. Making noises meant drawing attention to himself, to weakness. And whether with Willis, on the street or with the league that didn’t result in anything good.
The only time he had ever sought out comfort after nightmares – the only time he could – was here in the manor. Back when he was Robin, nightmares could be chased away with hot chocolate and Bruce rumbling voice reading him something in the library. Or Dick’s warm arms wrapped around him as Jason curled up next to his big brother in bed. Arms wrapped around him so tightly and securely that it seemed Dick would be able to keep away all the hurt in the world by sheer love and willpower.
But even back then he hadn’t screamed. Still unconsciously trying to make sure he didn’t alert anyone to his presence or distress, Jason guessed. He would have had now though, there was no way they hadn’t heard that scream. Not with all of them sleeping in the family wing after a tough week of Arkham breakouts, not of them had gone to bed with haunted eyes and bruised bodies. Which meant that in any second, he would have a barrage of bats and birds flocking his bedroom, so Jason sat up in bed, put his head in his hands and tried to calm his breathing. He didn’t want to be hyperventilating when they came rushing in here; this was humiliating enough as it was. Within seconds he had calmed his breath – a perk of dealing with pit rage or panic attacks for most of his life he supposed – and let his back fall against the headboard with a thud just as the door flew open.
First one in was Bruce, which on one hand made no sense at all since his room was the furthest away from Jason’s, but on the other hand made all sense in the world. Bruce had always been the first to rush to Jason’s side when he was scared, hurt, or wounded. He would always come at full speed if he knew one of his kids was in trouble.
Even if he didn’t always arrive in time.
Even if Jason barely dared to count himself has one of Bruce kid’s anymore.
Because what if Bruce didn’t. What if Bruce changed his mind about loving Jason again?
Jason forced the intrusive thoughts out with his next exhale as his siblings and grandfather all started filing in. First was Dick, looking as if he had just woken from his own nightmare, then came Alfred, looking worried in the same way he had when Jason was fourteen and Alfred had found him bleeding on the kitchen floor at five am while sobbing.
(Jason had simply dropped a knife on his bare foot while trying to cut up some fruit after a nightmare. But the concern, love and fear on Alfred’s face was burned into his mind, as well as the realisation of what Alfred had thought might have happened. He had hugged the old butler for a really long time that morning.)
Cass, Damian, Tim, Steph, and Duke all came soon after. Every single one in the family seemed tense and ready to be attacked or to attack. They made for an imposing group standing there cramped in his room, scanning for a threat. Even in pjs, half asleep and exhausted to the bone they all looked like a particular vicious type of danger. Jason’s chest clenched in fear as he tried to remind himself that they would not hurt him. They were scanning for a threat because they had heard him scream and thought someone else had hurt him. They didn’t know he had had a nightmare. No one was going to hurt him, they were his family, they were here to protect him. Not to hurt him.
He couldn’t quite get himself to believe it. Not when he could all to vividly remember how he had hurt them, how his very existence had always seemed to result in nothing but pain for the ones he loved. Not when his nightmare was fresh in his mind, and he couldn’t wash away the blood on his hands they made him see. Jason shivered under their watchful eyes and lowered his gaze to his lap and his shaking hands. He didn’t see them switch out of fighting stance, didn’t see them relax before growing worried in a different sense. His eyes were busy filling with tears and his heart busy with the self-contempt he was learning to battle. It wasn’t until he could feel the mattress shift next to him that he looked up, frantic and fearful he rarely let himself be seen to be. Dick smiled sadly at him with eyes that were too understanding, too knowing, to full of love. Jason didn’t know how to stand it; he knew even less how to look away. Dick raised his hands – a wonder woman blanket held in them – and gently came closer.
“I’m not gonna touch you, okay? I’m not gonna touch you. I’m just gonna reach over to you and give you the blanket because you are shivering. Okay?”
Dick waited until Jason gave a weak nod, before wrapping the soft, worn blanket from their childhood around Jason’s shoulders. And Jason crumbled just a little further under his older brothers gentleness and the knowledge that he would always be safe with him. Somehow being loved, being safe, and knowing it, without a single doubt, had always been worse than the underlying fear he was so used to. Especially after the joker, the grave, the pit. Love was harder when you saw no reasons you could be loved. Yet all Jason wanted to do was to wrap himself in Dick’s arms and hide from all the hurt, like he used to as a kid. But he didn’t know how to ask for it, his mouth was dried up and his brain couldn’t seem to form words or let him reach out for the safety of his brother. Dick, however, didn’t back away too far, he settled on the far side of the bed, a few feet away from Jason, but close enough that it felt easier to breathe.
Jason was dimly aware that he was still shaking, that tears were still silently pouring down his cheeks, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. He focused on his breathing, using it as a tool to distract himself from the still-present fear and the intrusive thoughts that tried to convince him he didn’t belong here, that this wasn’t his family, that he didn’t have a family. Jason wasn’t sure how to battle those thoughts, like his therapist recommended, not when acknowledging them still resulted in them completely overwhelming him.
Dick continued to watch him with careful eyes, “It wasn’t one of the usual ones, was it?”
Jason didn’t want to admit that the nightmares were the usual now, didn’t know how to say that they were constantly haunting his mind, sleeping or not even if he wanted them to know. So instead, he shook his head, even though it felt like a lie. His tongue was tied, his mind wouldn’t produce words and he didn’t know how to explain the whirlwind his mind turned into these past months.
Years, if Jason was honest with himself. His childhood had been bad before Bruce, but the joker, and the dying had left scars in him he wasn’t sure how to cope with. He wasn’t sure how to feel alive, let alone if he really was. Never sure that he wasn’t just a ghost who didn’t know it was dead, all he knew was that he wanted to feel like he had been made for something other than dying. But that he never did.
The eyes all around all softened, and they all stepped closer to the bed. Cass was the one to come closest, to sit down next to him on the bed – just too far away to be touching - and ask him in those soft ways of hers if his brain didn’t have words. They had always had a complicated relationships due to their conflicting morals on killing, but she had always been the one to understand how it was to have your brain shut down word-based communication – not only the verbal kind – and how even if you knew every word in dozens of languages there were sometimes simply non that could describe what you felt. How sometimes no words were enough, and then there would be no words at all.
Jason nodded and let his head fall to her shoulders. She was strong and it was comforting to let someone else hold him up for a while. The rest of his siblings all crawled up in his king-sized bed, keeping their distance from him as they all knew physical touch or even closeness was tough for him, especially after a nightmare. Jason appreciated it greatly because despite how much he craved being wrapped up and held he wasn’t sure if he could handle it.
They all sat in silence while Jason let his eyes rest on the family around him, sweeping over them, cataloguing them all in his mind. He was safe, but more importantly they all were. Safe, whole, and here. But however nice it was to just sit in silence and be sad with them, the fear starting clawing at his skin, and the intrusive thoughts got louder. He straightened up from Cass shoulder and wrapped his arms around his knees as he tucked them towards his chest. His family all noticed the shift in his mood, and Bruce asked if he needed them to leave. Jason thought about it – sometimes that did help, feeling too loved, too cared for, could sometimes be too much at times like these, but ultimately shook his head. Dick then asked if them talking would help, not talking to him, but to drown out the silence. Jason wasn’t sure if that would help, so he shrugged. Making decisions seemed harder and harder with each question, so he was grateful when Dick decided to take Jason’s shrug as a tentative yes.
Jason returned his focus to his breathing and the voices of his family flooding over him as they told stories he didn’t pay attention to. He couldn’t hang on to concertation for that long so instead he let their voices wash over him and wash him clean of the mud and stone and dirt from his nightmares. From his past. He closed his eyes and did what Bruce had taught him so long ago. He focused on one thing. One single thing. A noise, a smell, a colour, a taste, a texture, anything, but just that one thing. He found Dick’s voice speaking slightly lower than the others and he clung to it. It felt like comfort, it felt like home. He sat like that for who knows how long, reclining against the wall with his eyes closed, lips slowly curving into a barely-there smile as he drowned himself in warm Dick’s voice.
A hand on his shoulder gently awoke him from his trance and his eyelids fluttered open. Bruce was smiling at him.
“Jason?”
Jason blinked slowly in response
Bruce’s smile softened.
“Goodnight.”
He gave Bruce a small nod in reply, and his family soon filtered out of the room, Alfred being the last to leave with a squeeze on his shoulder and a promise of hot chocolate in the morning – a rare treat as Alfred abhorred the concept of sugar for breakfast.
When they all had left, Jason tried to sink back into the calm, peaceful place he had previously been in, but the dark corners of his mind start creeping closer the longer he was left alone. Just as he wished for the comforting presence of family to be come back to him there was a knock on the door. Before Jason even had the time to process the sound Dick’s voice came calling out.
“Open the door for me, Little Wing?”
Stumbling out of bed, Jason did. Not understanding why Dick hadn’t simply barged in, as he usually would. He quickly understood when he opened the door only to be met with a pile of blankets that should be too much for anyone to carry.
“Help me with this before I drop it all, would you?” And out of pure befuddlement Jason did.
Once they had dropped Dick’s haul on his bed, Dick started arranging the blankets – of which there truly was a ridiculous amount – and Zitka in a way Jason couldn’t quite understand the logic of, but that looked irresistibly comfortable. When Dick was done, he settled down and held out a hand for Jason, who helplessly confused, crawled in next to his brother. His bewilderment must have shown on his face because Dick huffed and pulled Jason into his arms and cuddled him close, in his patented octopus way. Immediately Jason could feel the tension melt out of his body, and he burrowed closer in his brothers arms, tucking his face in the crook of Dick’s neck. He smelled like safety, just like he always had and despite that Jason’s heart was still beating too fast out of confusion and lingering fear he couldn’t help but feel that same unconditional protective love he had felt when Dick did this after Jason’s nightmare as a kid. Abruptly his eyes where swimming with tears again and he sobbed loudly and choked into his brothers warm skin. He desperately grab Dick back and clung to him tightly. Dick just pulled him in closer, tighter, and Jason couldn’t remember ever feeling this safe, this loved.
He felt a soft press of lips on the top of his head before Dick shifted a hand from Jason’s back to start running his fingers through Jason’s hair. Soft slow strokes, with the slightest hint of blunt nails on his scalp and gentle tugs at the end of his curls. Dick’s other hand was still firmly planted on his back, pressing him close to his older brothers chest. Allowing his body heat seep over into Jason’s skin, and with his face tucked into his big brothers neck, breathing in his familiar scent, feeling the steady beat of his pulse under his cheek and the slow rise and fall of his breathing, Jason could finally slip into dreamless sleep, secure in his brother’s arms and the knowledge that as long as Dick was here, nothing could ever hurt him.