This chapter was partially inspired by Jason's most cherished memory. By now, I'm sure a lot of you know which one I'm talking about and probably have read a dozen stories devoted to it. Precious, though, right? Also, partially inspired by a scene in the comics that sadly did not involve Jason, but totally should have.

This chapter is for Velkyn Karma. Hope this helps make you feel better!

He was dying. This was it. The end. He could see a bright light and hear choirs singing. It was so… so…

"Dick, stop singing that stupid song!" Jason yelled. At least, he tried to yell. What came out was more of a high-pitched honking that sent him into a coughing fit. Violently shaking from the effort, he held onto the staircase bannister for fear of tumbling down the rest of the way.

"I thought you liked listening to music," Dick asked, somehow managing both a worried look and one of amusement.

"Not whatever the hell that is, and not from you. Your voice sucks. There's a reason you were never fucking called 'Canary.'"

"Hey, you should be happy I don't sound like Black Canary. Your eardrums would be on the floor."

Jason attempted to roll his eyes, but the rising headache forced him to stop halfway, turning it into a half-assed blink. "Keep going and they will be."

"I don't think that's from me singing, Little Wing," Dick offered. "Probably from whatever plague you have."

A slew of curses halted behind his throat as another coughing fit had him doubling over. Damn it, this thing really had to clear up within the hour or patrol was going to be a bitch! Not to mention he'd have to sit in the Batmobile during any stakeout. There was no way in hell Batman would let him come along if he was going to alert half of Gotham they were there.

"Jay, you should probably lie down."

"I'm fine, Dick. Just allergic to your voice, is all. I'll be fine in a few minutes."

A deep throat cleared behind him. "I doubt that, young sir…"

Jason groaned, throat protesting, as their trusty butler made himself known, swooping in like the wise, gray owl he was. Owlman? Was there already an Owlman? Jason shook his head at the ridiculous thoughts now running through his mind thanks to his fever.

No, not fever. He was not sick.

"I'm fine, Alfie. I just need some water or something and I'll be fine. Good as new. Really," he insisted between hacking.

Too bad Alfred was never one to listen to the all-knowing words of a preteen with a chip on his shoulders. Instead, he gently escorted Jason into the downstairs bathroom, helping him to settle onto the closed toilet when the boy's equilibrium decided it needed to recalibrate. Once he was secure—woozy and a bit clammy, but secure—Alfred hunted through the medicine cabinet for a thermometer and whatever cure-alls he could find.

"I'm fi—"

"Master Jason, I must insist you stop saying you're fine. Not only is it a lie, but it sounds ridiculous with your throat in the shape it's in. Now, open up."

Minutes ticked by as Alfred assessed the situation. Never before did Jason feel so much like a bird in a cage. As sad as it was, he almost missed his old way of dealing with illness when he lived on the streets. Some stolen chicken noodle soup and a pack of cigarettes would have been all he needed to be back to his old self.

Another cough burst from his sore throat. Well, maybe the cigarettes wouldn't be such a great idea, after all.

"I'm afraid to say you seem to have contracted a rather nasty case of the flu," Alfred diagnosed, satisfied after his tests.

"That your professional opinion, doc?"

The butler arched an eyebrow at the boy, the rest of his face unchanged. "If you do not trust my word, we could always venture to the city and spend several hours in Dr. Thompkins's clinic."

"…Touche."

Jason could sense a lecture coming on about the needs of taking care of himself when the grandfather clock in the hallway chimed, blissfully alerting the household to the hour. Patrol time, which meant no more sitting on cold toilet seats being prodded and inspected like he was some lab experiment. Beating the hell out of bad guys was the only medicine he needed.

Muscling through his dizziness, he rushed as fast as he could to the cave before anyone could tell him otherwise, holding on to the stair railing to keep from falling. If he could just get into costume, he'd be fine. Everything would be better as long as he was Robin. Being Robin made everything better, it could certainly handle a flu.

The key was just getting to Batman and into the Batmobile before anyone noticed or voiced an objection.

Bruce was the easy part. Once in Batman mode, the man was oblivious to anything as trivial as a case of the sniffles. Unless Robin's leg were hanging on by a thread, everything else could wait.

"Master Bruce…."

Damn it! Damn Alfred! Damn the cough that nearly split his lungs the second Alfred entered the cave. Most of all, damn the flu he definitely didn't have.

"Might I have a little assistance? Master Jason's sick with the flu. It wouldn't be at all prudent to allow him to join you on patrol tonight."

Bruce didn't look up from the computer. "He's a smart kid. He knows if he's well enough."

If Jason weren't so miserable, he'd be elated. While he left the hugging and happy feelings to Dick, he was tempted to rush over to the man and at least give him a high-five or fist bump. Except, in that moment another cough saw fit to escape his breaking throat, the boy trying to cover it was some seriously lacking bravado.

"That's telling him, boss… Ready?" he managed.

Bruce took one look at him and let out a sigh. "Alfred's right. You're not coming, Jay. You're sidelined until you get better."

Jason made a face behind the mask, his shoulders slumping in miserable defeat. If he had just kept his mouth shut, if he had just kept from coughing for a few minutes longer, he would have been home free. Figured…

"Yes, sir," he mumbled.

The walk back up to the mansion was less of a struggle than the walk down, mostly because he no longer had his pride forcing him to stand upright. Alfred was there at his side this time, ensuring he didn't fall face-first into the stone floors. As they climbed, Dick passed them on his way down to the cave, giving his little brother a supportive glance.

"I guess you're going instead, huh? Back to the old 'dynamic duo'?"

"Not really… Jason—"

Before Dick could explain, Jason let Alfred lead him the rest of the way up the stairs and into the opulent downstairs living room. Resigned to his fate, he took a seat, curling his legs under him and deciding he didn't give two damns he was still in costume upstairs. If he couldn't be Robin out on the streets of Gotham, maybe being Robin in the living room would fix whatever hellish flu he had contracted.

Before long, Alfred settled a bowl of hot chicken noodle soup in front of him and turned on the 72-inch television, leaving him with God-like powers over the entertainment center. Still, it wasn't enough to perk up his mood, knowing full-well that Dick was out there with Bruce cleaning up the mean streets of the city.

"So, what are we watching?"

Jason's head turned so fast at the source of the voice, for a second he thought he got whiplash. There, also in costume save for his cowl, stood a smiling Bruce Wayne. Not Batman, not lost-in-thought detective, but Bruce Wayne: foster father extraordinaire.

"I thought you and Dick were going on Patrol… What about patrol?"

"It's not a crime to take a night off, Jason," the man told him.

"But… Dick…"

"Dick is downstairs monitoring Gotham from the computer. If something big happens, he'll let me know. If it's something the police can handle, then we'll just stick to a night off. So, what are we watching?"

At those words, Jason couldn't help but let a smile stretch across his face, the dull ache in his limbs seeming to ease with the happiness washing over him. Sure, he had thought of Bruce a few times before now as his guardian, as a legal foster parent and an all-round all right guy.

Now? Now more than ever Jason could see Bruce Wayne was his foster father. Sure, there was a small technical difference in calling it foster father rather than guardian, and legally it was the same thing, but in this moment they were worlds apart. Jason was his kid, and the billionaire was choosing to spend his evening next to him watching the stupid television—a device Jason was confident they only got because Dick came into the picture.

"I don't really know. Don't really know what's on," he shrugged.

Bruce smiled down and took a seat next to him, pulling the cape off his ward's back and wrapping it around him like a blanket. Jason never really noticed until now how comforting the cape was. Like down feathered folded around him.

"From what I hear, these days there are over a thousand channels. We can probably find something, huh?"

"Probably…" Jason agreed.

They sat together, letting the sound of flipping channels and interrupted dialogue fill the spaces between them. Though most of him felt happy, as the time stretched on Jason was unsure how he should sit. He had never been so close to Bruce for such a long period of time. Not in a child and parent sort of way. He had clocked hours next to the man as Robin to Batman, but the son thing was still new months after the fact.

Suddenly, Bruce stopped on a channel, his eyes fixed on the black and white images ahead of him. The old-fashioned sounds were jarring coming from the absurdly expensive, high-definition television. Of all things to stop at, Jason was surprised Bruce paused some junk from what looked like the 1930s.

"What's this?" Jason asked, careful to keep his tone respectful thanks to the look on his foster father's face.

"The Mark of Zorro. The very beginning of it," he said.

"What's so important about this movie?"

Bruce sighed, and Jason could feel him tense just slightly next to him. For a minute he thought the man was going to seize up or, worse, stand and head back down to the cave, figuring that patrol was better than a movie with him. Except, Bruce didn't move. After a while, he turned to give Jason a sad, strained smile.

"It's the movie I went with my parents to see the night they were killed…"

Well, that was one hell of a downer. And Jason thought having the flu was bad!

"Shit, Bruce, I didn't know. We don't need to watch it. We don't have to watch anything," he rushed, the exclamation ripping his throat in another coughing fit.

Bruce gave Jason as close to a pitying look as he would ever be able to manage barring a hospital visit, patting him on the back until his fit died down. "Of course you didn't know. I was just surprised to see it on, is all."

"Oh. Well, we still don't have to watch it. Whatever you want to put on is fine with me."

He watched as Bruce hesitated, finally placing the remote on the table beside him. "No, I would actually like to see it with you. I remember enjoying the movie before what happened. It was one of the happiest moments I had with my parents, and I think it's better to remember the positives, instead. Watching it with you would help, if you wanted to see it."

Jason smiled so hard and, if only briefly, he forgot all about his flu. He let the black and white flickering and the fuzzy sound fill the room and keep him grounded. Sick or not, he was sure he'd float if he didn't focus on staying put.

"Is this what kinda got you started on the hero thing?" he asked after a while, still firmly on the couch.

"It certainly helped," Bruce chuckled.

They continued to watch the film, Bruce choosing to ignore Jason's battle with his cough except for some well-placed pats on the back when they became particularly nasty. As the hour wore on, the boy could feel his eyelids grow heavy, the weight of his warring immune system exhausting him. He struggled to get comfortable, adjusting a few times in the overstuffed couch.

In one of his attempts to adjust, he placed his head on Bruce's shoulder. Though it was probably the most comfortable he'd been in hours, he soon realized his mistake and bolted up right, wincing as his limbs objected.

"What's wrong?"

"I… sorry, I didn't mean to lean on you or anything," he said.

"Jay, it's fine. Do whatever makes you comfortable, okay?"

Jason chewed his lip before nodding, slowly lowering his head back down on the man's shoulders. Bruce didn't say anything more, simply replacing the makeshift blanket over his foster son's shoulders.

Jason wasn't sure when he fell asleep. He couldn't quite remember the last half of the movie, no matter how hard he tried to picture it in his mind. All he knew was the comfort of resting on Bruce's shoulder, feeling warm and safe under his cape and in the glowing fortress of Wayne Manor.

In a few hours, Bruce would carefully lift the boy up and bring him up to his room. In a few hours, Jason would pretend to be asleep the whole way and Bruce would pretend not to notice when his eyelids fluttered. In a few hours, Jason's fever would break and he'd remember the night he felt like he had the plague was also the best night of his life so far.

But, that was in a few hours. Now, Bruce just let his son lie there, choosing not to say out loud how comforting it was for him, too, having Jason there beside him.

Ah, fluff after the previous chapter in my other story felt pretty good. I really do prefer the little brat alive...

- Defective