hyuk

“With a rifle?”  

Humming, Dick drops his head back against the tiles. His eyes slip close. "Should see the other guy."

Knowing Dick, fuckface is probably sitting pretty in some holding cell.

Jason crouches beside the tub. Studies Dick's leg, then reaches down and tightens the tourniquet until the elastic bites into Dick’s thigh.

Dick rears, thigh clenching beneath Jason’s hands as he arches away. His face screws up in a rictus, eyes wild. “Fuck!”

“Stop bitching.” Jason palpitates the wound edges, watching Dick’s face. The furrow between Dick’s brow deepens, mouth pinching white. It’s not until Jason applies deep pressure than Dick rebounds.

Dumbass has only given himself a local. What the hell was he thinking? There was no local for these kinds of injuries. Fucking idiot probably skipped the adrenaline because it would make his hands shake. Morphine dulls reaction time. I can’t suture under the influence. Stupid. Fucking stupid. Dick’s not thinking. He’s in shock, operating on hindbrain instinct rather than reason, fleeing to Jason’s like a deranged dying animal bolting into an empty den.

Jason knew what that was like.

Dick smacks his hands away. “The hell, Jason? I—Jesus.”

“Wrong resurrection, but I’ll play savior.” He'll need to. Dick's not in any shape to stabilize himself for transport; instinct might say close the hole, but logic dictated shock first. Jason’s safehouse isn’t equipped for anything beyond field triage, and those dinky little sutures aren’t going to cut it if Dick wants to regain full use of his leg. 

Pulling the kris from his thigh, Jason slices through the Kevlar to better visualize the exit wound. Dick's been lucky over the years; his suit can catch a 9mm or .40, but anything beyond that—the right caliber from the right gun at the right angle ... It's ugly.

Jason swears. Sitting back on his heels, he pilfers through the open medkit for a saline bolus and hooks the line over the towel rod.

“What’s that?” Dick asks as Jason screws a syringe onto the three-way stop.

“Drugs,” Jason says idly. He primes the line. “An all-natural high. Only the best for you, Goldie.”

“I don't need those,” Dick says, hands fluttering on the tub like he'd jump up half-pinioned if Jason approached him with a syringe. "Lidocaine is fine." 

Dick, Jason is realizing, has zero concept of the word fine. “Yeah? Then I guess you don't need my tub either. Go on, hobble away. Door’s right there.” It's not like Dick's going to get far, and Jason's not going to both paying to have the carpets cleaned. The safehouse is already burned, who gives a fuck if it smells like an abattoir? Worst case scenario, Dick faints. Best case, he'll shut up and just accept the damned drugs. Either way, he's getting a nice fat shot of vasopressor.

Dick's hands flex around the tub once, twice, then bite white onto the lip. Taking a deep breath, he pushes himself upright and immediately goes gray, swaning forward against the toilet. "I'm fine," Dick says, as if he's trying to convince himself that he can operate on sheer willpower alone. If it weren't so stupid, Jason would almost be impressed at Dick’s fortitude.

“Think it, believe it, manifest it,” Jason chants.

Dick smiles just wide enough to tease at his dimples. It still looks like a grimace. 

He hovers there, sweating and shaking and white, as Jason primes the line and snags the Everclear from the freezer. "Shot?" Jason offers when he returns from the kitchen. 

Slowly, as if dazed, Dick shakes his head. 

Jason presses his lips together and manhandles Dick onto the toilet lid. Immediately, Dick slumps against the sink ledge. "Are you going to pass out on me?" Jason asks, two fingers pressed against Dick's clammy skin. His pulse rabbits wildly. 

Dick’s breath stutters and slows. “No,” he exhales.

He's totally going to pass out.

"Great. Keep manifesting," Jason coaxes as he takes his blade to Dick’s wrists and rips through the fingerstripes, flaying the sleeve. He uncaps a bottle of alcohol. The first slosh wets Dick’s arm. The second douses the bullet hole. 

Dick's leg kicks out, scream clenched behind his teeth.

Jason peeks up at him. "Still okay?"

Mouth pressed against his fist, Dick slowly nods.

“Good. It's two for flinching.” Jason aims a little more alcohol on Dick’s leg, hitting the spots he missed. God knew that tub was probably rife with bacteria; without the stench of bleach, Jason had to assume Dick didn't sanitize it. Smacking on a fresh pair of gloves, Jason cinches an elastic and begins fat fingering up Dick's veins. Fumbles the first prick at the confluence of veins mid-way up Dick’s hand, all the way up the forearm, until he finally manages to set the cannula along his bicep. 

He gives the syringe a tiny tap and starts the drip. "Still with me?"

Dick's head lolls against the sink counter, forehead wrinkling. He's rawboned, sweaty hair matted along his cheeks. "Jay?"

"Yeah, I'm here." He checks Dick's pulse and pupils, then injects a fractional more vasopressor. "You need an OR, Dickie. Where am I taking you?"

Dick shifts. Grates out a pained noise, curling in on himself. 

Jason gives his cheek a little smack. "Hey. Dickie. What hospital? SBH? A clinic?"

"B," Dick slurs.

“Fuck Bruce.” Bruce was unreliable, a half-step behind and a second too slow. By the time he swept in and carted Dick off to an OR, the tourniquet would’ve have been on for well over two hours. "Where?"

Dick makes a soft, disagreeable sound.

Jason thumps the back of his head against the tile. Swears. Tips his head back against the wall and watches Dick’s lashes rake dark shadows across his cheek. "Bruce isn't going to make it. If you don't give me a contact, I'm dumping you outside the ER."

"Will," Dick says. The norepinephrine was starting to kick in. He was still a wreck slouched against the sink—still stupid—but more cognizant. 

"Fucking hell." Jason scrubs a palm over his face. "Bruce isn't here. It's just you and me, and if you don't tell me, I'm making the choice for you."

"He'll come," Dick stresses. 

Jason presses his lips together. Part of him hopes that Bruce would let Dick down, too. Part of him knows that had Dick been killed by the Joker, Bruce would've loved him enough to exact retribution; that already, Bruce was probably racing across the state line. He wants to scream at Dick, let him sit here until his leg gnarled and withered, until the tourniquet couldn't be removed without going septic. He wants Dick to prove to Jason that they were the same: a boy, whose hope sustained him right up until it didn't. That Bruce's recalcitrance was his own faulty pride and ignorance, rather than Jason being less. 

"No, he won't," Jason whispers, half-prayer, half-fear, because even if he did ...

It would be too late.