Getting shot is always more painful than you rememember.
It isn't sleek and heartbreaking like you see in detective dramas, oh no; it's bloody and messy and causes an awful lot of inconvenience for anyone else involved.
Luckily, nobody is there for Jason.
He has his index and middle finger pushed deep into the wound, stubborn spurts of blood from a major artery of his escaping through the gaps as a misplaced dyke from a volcano would. The stench is unbearable. His meagre breakfast barely keeps itself down; a mix of half-eaten garbage Subway and bruised fruit the local produce shop deems unfit for selling.
As his heavy boots drag across the ground of one of Gotham's less favourable piss-stained alleyways, all that comes to mind is Barbara.
Barbara, and the sprinkle of freckles across her nose and the high parts of her cheeks. It reminds Jason of paprika seasoning before it's cooked, and burns into an ugly dark mess.
Burns.
His shaking, yet less bloody hand rises to trace over the J on his left cheek. Property of Joker.
No, no. Keep your thoughts on Barbara. Her hair falls perfectly, even on so-called bad hair days. She looks -
Property of Joker. Burns. Burning. You are burning.
His abdomen is burning. He pushes his fingers in further and whimpers at the pain.
Keep looking forward. Keep moving. Stop bloodflow.
Joker and Barbara mix, merged together so well in his mind's eye that he almost doesn't want to keep his mind on her any more.
Come home, she'd said. As if it could be that easy. As if he could up and leave his legacy behind, toss it into the dirt with whatever spare change he had left and tell it to get on with its life, just like his parents had done to him.
Jason shakes his head. Keeps his fingers firmly in. Drags his tired feet along the ground. Keep moving.
Dick! He can keep his mind on Dick. He'd gone to see him not long ago, and a shy smile that belonged to someone else entirely had spread Jason's lips, and contorted the branding on his cheekbone so badly that it was as if it was never there to begin with.
Dick wasn't as chipper. He'd snapped, yelled. This is all your fault. You left us. You tried to kill Bruce.
Dick's face joins with Barbara's and Joker's, and they swirl around him, encircling his throat tighter and tighter with every breath he takes.
He ducks into a warehouse - his warehouse, an abandoned Sionis Steel packaging centre, one of many to be decked out by the infamous Red Hood - and lets his knees give out once he's located his mattress and what remains of a first-aid kit. Blowing his Arkham Knight money on a semi-useless visor was a bad call.
Jason curls up, nose picking up on the fluids of whatever stray had sought shelter from the lashing rain outdoors. The visor comes off. His hair is stuck, bloody and matted, to his forehead. Warmth is a gift now, no longer a right. This isn't the silk bedsheets in Wayne Manor. This is a safehouse off 4th, decrepit and unused for decades.
He tries to come to terms with the fact that he won't make it to the morning. It, unfortunately, doesn't register as quickly as it did five years ago.
He doesn't want to believe it.
His back is against the wall, head leaning back to stare upward at the large, crinkled steel sheets of the ceiling. Rain patters on the roof like bullets.
His last thought is of Bruce.
