Jason wakes to white lights, soft and warm and the smell of sea air.

"Isn't this a bit stereotypical?"
Blinking, he realizes he's under sheets, the fresh cotton wafting under his nose. And secondly, he's naked and not alone.

Turning his head to the right, a pair of green eyes meet his, and Jason is staring at the most beautiful woman he's ever seen.

Sparing a thought o modesty, he opens his mouth to speak. She beats him to it.

"Hello, Lover."
"Lover?"

She merely grins.

"... and I dreaming?"

A soft chuckle.

"Something like that."

Unable to help himself, Jay scoots closer to her. She doesn't move. Let's him.

"Are you an angel?"

She laughs full out this time.

"Something like that."

She stares into his eyes, allowing him to brush a lock of flaming hair out of her face.

"What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to meet you."

Jason blinks, and understanding floods his eyes.

"After all," She continues "You got away from me once. It'll be a while before we truly get to meet, face to face."

His breath catches.

"You're... her... aren't you. You're-."

Death.

"Shs, Lover." She whispers, leaning forward

Jason pulls her to him, warm and soft and lithe for a kiss.

She chuckles.

"Not this time, handsome."

Jason wakes alone in the cool deep dark of his safe house.

He wipes a hand over his face, swiping the wiping the sweat from his brow.

'That was new'

Usually when he dreamt of death it was all fire. All crowbar and falling and the Pit. Never that. Never... her.

His com goes off and he sits up to reach for it. But, he sees the problem before he answers.

"Hood." He says, leaping from his bed towards his armor. Oracle is in his ear, reading updates and mission plans.

Gotham is on fire.

X

It's summer time. Jason is 20 and Gotham is burning to the ground. Not in a metaphorical sense, quite literally. The city is literally on fire, embers and smoke rising into the sky. The heat was blistering. Time like this, he regrets not putting a cooling system in the suit.

'But, that would mean talking to Bruce which would mean him realizing that I'm using one of Dickie's costumes ... and talking to Bruce.'

The com beeps in his ear.

"Hood."

"The children's hospital is on fire. Crews are there, but they're out gunned and can't reach the top floor.

"Got it."

"Nightwing is incoming, but he's far out. You'll get there faster."

Jason is already leaping off the roof, flipping and turning, priming for the next roof top.

"What, don't think I can handle it on my own?"

A pregnant pause.

"Oracle out."

Jason makes it to the hospital in under 5 minutes, grabs an inflatable slide and grapples to the top floor.

'Okay. Time to play hero."

He rounds a corner into a lounge where a nurse huddles with several children. The smoke and flames are encroaching in and they cower away from him.

'Awesome.'

"Look. I'm here to help." He inches forward, guns on his hips, helmet on his face. He freezes for a moment, before spreading his jacket, showing the Bat symbol emblazoned across his chest "See?"

The group visibly relaxes.

"Is this everyone?" Jason asks the nurse, blasting out one of the windows and setting up the slide.

She glances around. He can see the moment the nurse in her switches on and she takes action, counting heads and herding the kids towards the window.

"No. We're missing three. Two boys and a girl." She points down the hall "Their rooms are-."

Jason is already taking off, rounding the corners. The flames are rising, warping the plastic on the walls. He kicks open the door, time too short to bother with grace.

He finds the two boys huddled under a bed, one still hooked into his IV. He hesitates a moment, before deciding to simply cut away the lines, hefting them into his arms and running towards the hallway.

'Just one more.'

"The girl." He shouts to be heard over the alarms "Is there another girl?"

They look at each other, before one speaks up.

"Cassie... she's probably still in chemo."

"Chemo?"

"At the end of the hall."

Jason sets them down, pointing to the window

"I've gotta go get her. Can you make it?"

They nod and take off. Jason turns on his heel and takes of running down the end of the hall, dodging falling tiles, flames now hiking up the walls, the smoke making it hard to see.

He reaches the last room and kicks open the door, mentally preparing to give his 'I know I look terrifying but I'm a good guy' spiel when he freezes.

'Just one more.'

The room is bright as the sun, engulfed in flames. The chemicals on the walls bursting, glass shattering every where. The girl is on the bed, skin melting off her face, hair in flames, mouth hung open in a silent scream. She reaches for him and he freezes and then there's a blue blur and a pressure on his chest and he's flying backwards, crashing through the window behind him and he doesn't understand what's happening. Can only see her melting face and her arms, her voiceless scream until Nightwing appears in front of him, leaping from the windows, falling towards him in perfect free form towards him, as the floor finally gives and explodes and Dick is framed by fire, some sort of warrior angel and Jay hits the water and everything goes black.

Jason will swear that that was the moment he fell in love with Dick, but in truth, it was much much earlier.

Jason awakes with Dick's lips on his and water flooding his throat and mouth.

"Come on, Jay." Dick is muttering, pumping his chest "Come on."

Jason attempts to make a sound, to let Dick know he's awake, that he's .5 seconds away from puking water everywhere but Dick's lips are back on his and they're soft and this is so wrong. He can still see and smell the little girl. Flaming lady of death.

"Jay!" Dick tries again and unable to hold back anymore, Jay makes good on his unspoken promise and pukes water up. Dick is at his side, rolling him into the recovery position and patting his back.

"Easy. I've got you." He soothes and Jay makes an attempt to sit up before his head starts swimming and he stops halfway to the ground, refusing to give Dick/himself the satisfaction of admitting total defeat.

"When did..." Jay chokes out, coughing up a bit more water "When did... how did..."

"The chemo drugs." Dick says by way of explanation. "Room was pretty much a bomb. We were lucky to make it out."

"'Lucky'." Jason repeats, with emphasis, finally able to pull himself to his knees.

Dick raises an eyebrow.

"The girl."

'Just one more. One more and I could've-.'

"Yeah." Dick says, and there's a beat of silence between them."

Jason pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to push the images out of his mind. He's seen worse He knows he has. It's just..

'Not today, Handsome.'

"Are you good?" Dick asks, extending a hand to pull him to his feet

"Why?" Jay asks, taking the help "Prince Charming wanna lay another kiss on Sleeping Beauty?"

Dick stammers and blushes. Dick will deny it, and Jason will tell himself it was just the fire but Dick bounces back.

"Sleeping Beauty, huh? Bit of a stretch, if you ask me."

Jason shakes the remaining water from his helmet, and fastens it back on.

"Oh. You know I'm hot stuff, Dickie."

Dick scoffs, but there's a smirk there that sends a not entirely unwanted pulse to Jays' groin.

"Sure, Jaybird. Whatever you say."

X

This is my first DCU work, so please please please review and let me know how I'm doing.

So I read on the Batman wikia that Jason no longer ages, and while I couldn't find any sources for it, I thought it was an interesting concept and ran with it. Majority of this is already written, except for the bitter end.

This is going to be a multi-chapter work as part of a series. It moves pretty fast at some points, but many points will be expanded on in one-shots later.