Chapter Fifteen
Jason woke up to a pounding headache. His shoulders were sore and he couldn't feel his fingers. Blood was dried in a tacky trail down the left side of his face. He blinked his eyes open to see a stained cement floor beneath him.
He was tied to a chair, and he couldn't feel his fingers because his arms were tied behind him so tightly. The room was bare, and the more his eyes focused the more he was able to see the grimy walls and decrypt ceiling. A heavy-looking door was situated across from him.
Jason squeezed his eyes shut, trying to remember where he was. He was on the roof, away from the party guests...and then Nico was there- Nico!
Where was Nico? Jason remembered trying to protect the younger, but apparently Nico has just as much of a temper as Jason does, because he basically cussed the Joker out. Jason also remembered the sickening sound the bat made when it connected with the side of Nico's head.
"Nico?" He whisper-shouted. "Nico, can you hear me?" A pained grunt sounded from behind Jason, and when he craned his neck, he could barely see the chair that was sitting nearly back-to-back with his.
"Ugh, la mia testa..." Nico groaned. Jason did not speak whatever the fuck kind of language just came out of Nico's mouth, but he did know that the combination of head trauma and suddenly speaking another language was probably not the best.
"Nico, you better wake the fuck up and start making sense, because I do not want to face Bruce if you get stuck speaking Spanish or something!" Jason wiggled a bit, trying to twist his chair to be able to see Nico better, to no avail.
"Italiano," Nico murmured, more clearly than before. "That was Italiano. Where are we?"
"Fuck if I know," Jason said. "Wherever the Joker took us, I suppose."
Nico started spitting rapid-fire Italian, and Jason could feel and hear him pulling at the rope that tied them to the chairs. "Quel fottuto di merda fottuto figlio di puttana ha un fottuto desiderio di morte–"
"Calm down, would you? You're not getting out of these ropes. Joker doesn't mess around when it comes to kidnapping people."
"Fuck!" Nico spat. "Things were finally normal!" Before Jason could ask what Nico meant by that, the door was forced open and a certain villain waltzed in. He was grinning and holding his hands behind his back as he kicked the door shut behind himself. Jason's spine went cold.
"How lucky am I?" Joker crooned as he danced around the boys. "To not only be meeting the newest addition to the family, but an old friend, too!" He revealed what was in his hand, which turned out to be a blade, about the length of Jason's hand, wrist to fingertip. He pointed it at Jason. "I haven't seen you for a while. Rumour has it that you died in an accident." The famous red smile stretched dramatically into a frown. "So tragic. But what lovely news to learn that you're actually alive!" A maniacal cackle.
The Joker grabbed Jason's chair and swung it out and around, so Jason was facing Nico's back. Then he did the same with Nico's chair so the two boys were almost knee-to-knee and facing each other. There was blood, old and fresh, staining Nico's left temple and down the side of his neck. Despite the traumatic injury, Nico was glaring at the Joker with every ounce of venom in his soul, which was a lot.
"What do you want, you fottuto stronzo?" Nico spat. Jason was beginning to suspect what some of these Italian words meant.
"That better not have been anything offensive. It's rude to call people names, especially your uncle J."
"You are not my uncle, you're a psychotic son of a bitch with an unhealthy fixation on this family who can go ficcaglia un autocarro con cassone ribaltabile nel culo e salta da un ponte!" The Joker slapped Nico.
The brunet's head snapped to the side and the knife left a slice on his cheek where blood slowly welled up. "In this family, we do not use tone!" The Joker sang, his fingers twitching spastically on the knife's handle. Despite his song-song voice, there was a deadly glint in his eyes.
Jason knew what was going to come next. He had seen that look in the man's eyes before, everytime he and his brothers were kidnapped, as civilians or as heroes, and then again the night he was killed. He knew what was about to happen, and he also knew as much as he could beg for it to be him instead, the Joker would completely ignore him, letting Jason watch as he beat and cut Nico to shreds.
...↞⇹↠...
I was bleeding. A lot. From everywhere. I had barely woken up when the Joker had come prancing in and let his fists and knife loose on my skin. I didn't know how long he had been here, but the whole time, I had never once cried out or made a single sound. I had experienced worse pain, and I would never give him the satisfaction.
Jason wouldn't shut up. He was constantly begging for the Joker to stop, to leave me alone. Even now, he wouldn't stop asking if I was okay, if I could hear him. It was getting annoying. I just wanted him to be quiet.
In addition to the concussion I undoubtedly had that was making it hard for my mouth to separate English and Italian words, I now had a handful of broken ribs, more cracked and bruised ones, my right wrist was sprained, and I was bleeding from the thigh, where there was a 'J' carved into my skin, my cheek, several shallow cuts along my arms and a wound on my left shoulder were the knife blade was still buried, pining me to the chair. Oh, and also probably internally, as well.
Jason, as far as I knew, was unharmed, except for his own head wound. And his apparent inability to shut up. "I swear to God, Nico, if you die–"
"Oh my Gods, will you shut up?" I snapped, finally peeling my heavy eyelids open to glare half-heartedly at him. "I have the worst headache right now."
He glared right back. "We have to get out of here. By now, Bruce and the others should be looking for us. I thought we might have more time before..." He looked me up and down. "That happened. I don't know how long we can wait for help to come to us."
Privately, I agreed with him. I was bleeding pretty heavily, and the longer I continued to sit here and do nothing, the worse I would get. We had no idea how far out help might be, and I didn't want to risk the Joker coming back for round two.
If Jason was able to get out of his own bonds, he would have done it already. At full strength I might be able to, but definitely not weakened as I was now. That left pretty much one option. I sighed.
"I'm going to do a thing, and you have to promise me that you won't freak out, okay?"
"That...depends on what you're about to do." He answered.
"I'll explain everything later, okay, just don't freak out." Once Jason nodded, I closed my eyes and focused as much as I could. I had improved my zombie-summoning skills a lot over the last couple years, but I wasn't sure it would work with how scattered my thoughts were right now.
A few seconds passed and the ground at our feet began to crack. Jason sucked in a breath and I could hear him mutter a quiet 'what the fuck' but to his credit, he didn't freak out as the reanimated corpse of a dead 1930's soldier crawled out of the ground.
I muttered quiet orders to it, and grimaced as it pulled the knife out of my shoulder, inducing a fresh gush of hot blood. It cut first my ropes then Jason's, who visibly flinched away from it. After we were free, I let it go back to the Underworld. Jason was staring after it, definitely on the verge of freaking out.
I wobbled when I stood. "I'll explain everything later, Jason. Just trust me, okay?" He nodded again, white-faced and a little shaky as he tried to take some of my weight. I pushed him away and leaned on the chair instead.
There was a window, about ten feet off the ground. The glass looked thin and the frame was big enough for us to fit through. My options were to either shadow-travel us out of here, or use my wings and carry Jason.
Either way would be revealing my powers, which I guess I already had revealed, the only question was which option was better. I had no idea where we were right now, or how far Gotham might be, and with the way my head was pounding and spinning at the same time, I might not even be able to shadow-travel us where I was aiming.
On the other hand, flying would leave us open to external attack or being seen. I was willing to bet that Jason wasn't a very light person, and my muscles felt like half-cooked spaghetti.
If I used shadow-travel, it would undoubtedly be faster but it might incapacitate Jason, since I know it tends to have that effect on people, especially the first time. Since I had no idea how long I could hold out while bleeding like this, I needed one of us to be alert.
Flying would be slower and more vulnerable, but it did seem like the more viable and dependable option.
I reached down and started fumbling to undo the straps of the boot I was still wearing, bracing myself heavily on the back of the chair. I kicked it away once it was off, and Jason watched, very confused.
"I'm going to get us out of here, but I'll need you to direct me, okay? I have no idea where to go but we need the closest, safest option to land, alright?"
Jason nodded. "Wait, land? Nico, what exactly are you doing?"
"I'm saving your ass is what I'm doing," I muttered, rolling my shoulders, feeling the familiar burning along the inked design. I grunted as my wings pushed out, spine trembling. While I was in so much pain, it was nice to stretch them out. Jason, on the other hand, was not taking this new development well at all.
"What in the ever-loving son of a motherless goat–"
"Jason, now is not the time or place. I promised I would explain everything and I will, just please let me save us first, okay?"
He nodded, mouth gaping. "When I suspected you were hiding something, this is not what I thought!"
I straightened as much as I could, grimacing. Yup, definitely internally bleeding. Yay. My legs were shaky but I managed to make it to the wall under the window. Jason followed like a lost puppy, still very confused, probably in some form of shock, and definitely a little concerned about my wellbeing, which was sweet, but health would have to wait.
"Okay, I'm gonna need you to hold onto me, okay? Like, tightly or I might drop you."
"How? Like, a hug?" Jason looked vaguely terrified and disgusted by the idea. "Yes, sure, whatever, just grab on."
Jason wrapped his arms around me from behind, being careful to avoid my wings. I reached down and grabbed under his knees, forcing him into a sort of piggy-back position and Gods, I was right, he was not light.
Jason yelped as I lifted his weight and I locked my knees to keep them from buckling. I backed up a few steps to get enough momentum before launching myself up with a powerful swoop of my wings. It was definitely harder to fly with a passenger, also while heavily bleeding and concussed, but beggars can't be choosers.
The window was as old as the rest of the building, and gave way easily after a few kicks. Jason recognised where we were pretty quickly, and I could see the Gotham river not too far away. We were still in the city, and Jason muttered for me to head southeast, towards what he called 'Bludhaven', where he had a safehouse located. He assured me it was closer than the mansion.
Our mistake was assuming the Joker would have left the window unguarded. He didn't, and I had just begun to believe that we were in the clear when a gunshot rang out, and something tore hotly through my right wing, near the shoulder.
I screamed through my teeth and Jason swore as we dropped several feet through the air before I managed to catch us. My wing was screwed. I could hardly move it, and I was already dizzy with blood loss, the red drops that flew off my feathers as I struggled to keep us aloft were not helping any.
"Jason," I huffed. "I'm gonna need you to tell me which building is your 'safehouse'." We were below the level of the rooftops, shielded by a couple buildings, and I was immensely grateful for the protection it offered us from the sniper.
"Shit, okay, do you see that really tall, grey-ish apartment building? It's right next to that one."
Close enough. I pulled the two of us through the shadows offered by the night and we fell out of the air halfway down the really tall grey building.
Jason pointed to a window on the smaller brick building to the left and told me to aim for that one. I did, and the two of us crashed through the glass, shattering it over a hardwood floor as we skidded to a stop.
I coughed, curling up into a ball as my body shook and bled. This was bad. This was really bad. Jason was on me in a second, picking my limp self off the floor and carrying me into some sort of bedroom before gently setting me on a bed. I groaned.
"Okay, stay here, I'm going to call Bruce and he'll–"
"No."
"I'm sorry, no? Nico, you are fucking bleeding out in my apartment. You can't even stand right now. I get to make the decisions."
"No. Jason, no one else can know about me. This is serious. Please."
He stared at me, chewing his tongue for a good thirty seconds. "Fine. But you better have a way to heal yourself or something, because I will not put my family through another loss."
I rolled over, reaching into the dark at the edge of the bed, into my shadow-pocket. I kept a small amount of ambrosia in there, and a couple spare drachmas. I stuffed a square of the godly food in my mouth, even though I knew it wouldn't be nearly enough to heal me, it could at least stop the bleeding.
"I need a rainbow," I rasped, falling back on the bed. Jason stared at me like I had fully lost my mind. "Why on earth do you need a rainbow?"
"I need to call someone. Just do it!"
Jason shook his head, but left and returned a second later carrying a glass prism that had probably been a shelf trinket. He shone his phone flashlight on it and a billion rainbow shards scattered over the room. I picked the nearest one and tossed the drachma at it.
"Oh Iris, Goddess of the rainbow, accept my offering and show me Will Solace at Camp Half-blood."
Hey so uh I was bullied into publishing this by a friend while I'm literally at work so idk how well it formatted everything but here ya go.