A Basket Full of Bats

Broken Heart

At the beginning of week three Richard had open heart surgery. Jason flipped out. Bruce had to forcibly restrain him, containing the kicking, the punching and the outright fury. He carried him out of the hospital and banned him from the NICU. Jason was such a mess Bruce had to pull him from school.

"HE'S NOT ALLOWED TO DIE BRUCE! JOKER CAN'T F'n HAVE HIM! HE'S MINE! MINE!" A lot more swearing followed. Eventually the fury turned to pleading. "He's tiny. How big can his heart even be? I don't understand how they can fix something that small. Are they going to cut him open and crack open his ribs with a spreader like Tim said they do with grownups then dump ice on his heart to stop it and use all kinds of machines and stuff before stapling him back together and.. It's not fair. It wouldn't even take one ice cube. He so little."

"Jason, the doctor's will give him medicine to make him sleep. They'll fix him and because he's so little, he'll heal," Bruce tried.

Bruce, Terry, Jason and Alfred waited a long two hours in the hospital waiting room. Terry and Jason played 489 silent games of rock, paper, scissors. Bruce counted. Terry won 129 times, there were 254 ties and Jason won 106 times. Alfred brought everyone drinks and cookies. No one felt like eating or drinking but it was Alfred and at times like these he'd stand strong and stoic and be there for everyone. All he asked was in return for someone to eat the bloody cookies. The hospital was still refusing to let Alfred see his grandson.

Jason who was too young to understand would one day think back and wonder why Bruce and Terry kept eating cookies slowly, crumb by crumb they ate cookies. Bruce would eat one, then Terry would eat one.

Richard survived the surgery. The first few days after things were touch and go but then finally things started to get better. Richard started gaining weight and breathing better. They were weaning him off the various breathing ... stuff. Bruce was exhausted. Stuff was about the limit of his vocabulary right now.

Bruce holding Jason's hand firmly, let him back in the NICU to see his baby brother. Dickie now had an alarming looking drain tube leading from his chest and a lot of bandages but by some miracle they had managed to catch him when he was awake and looking around at the world curiously. His little fingers would occasionally reach out and brush one of the tubes and wires leading in and out of him. He would touch the blankets rolled up around him that snuggled him securely.

"Dickie bird?" called Jason tentatively. "Dad can I touch him?"

"Not right now Jason. He's still at risk for infection."

"Dickie are you feeling better? So, umm... Do you have a really cool manly scar now?" Jason leaned his forehead against the clear plastic of the incubator bed. "Tim says lots of babies get the same surgery you had and that it does a really good job of helping so your gonna be chill okay?"

Jason's favorite NICU nurse knelt next to Jason and gave him two beads for the milestone necklace.

"What are these for?" asked Jason in a small voice.

"This one is because he was an awesome little trouper with his surgery and this one is because he's breathing without the ventilator. He's doing it on his own." Richard had switched to a CPAP.

Jason smiled and threaded the beads onto his necklace. "Good job Birdie."

"Umm Dickie? Cassie made you a get well card. I know it looks like a Valentine but I guess she figured since they were fixing your heart you needed a card shaped like a heart. She made about a million but this one was the nicest." Jason shuffled around in his pockets and pulled out Cassie's card holding it up against the wall of the incubator. "Ummm..." Jason found a roll of surgical tape and stuck the card to one of the IV poles.

Richard wasn't supposed to get visitors for another two days but Jason's visit had been considered an emergency measure.

"Okay little bro. Gotta go now."