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What had Jason gotten himself into?!
He stumbled his way into the kitchen window, his broken helmet - another one! - under his arm as his battered and bruised body flopped into the room. Jason could barely stand straight anymore. He had been beaten to a pulp on that night out, doing some business, but he couldn't show that to his opponent.
After leaving the helmet - or what rested of it - over the kitchen table carelessly, all Jason could think about was drowning himself in painkillers and let his body fall over the bed, falling asleep - more like a coma - the next second.
Too bad someone thought otherwise.
As Jason took his gun holsters off and turned around to place them somewhere safe, he was surprised with the presence of a sleepy little girl standing in front of him, holding her teddy bear in one hand with her pacifier sloppily stuffed in her mouth.
"Hey there, pumpkin" Jason greeted the tiny redhead as he bent down to her level, careful not to speak very loud at that time in the morning. "What are you doing up at this time?"
He picked the little girl in his arms, all while gritting his teeth to hold himself back from groaning in pain from his back. Jason had been injured really bad, he knew he needed to pay medical attention to his wounds, but he was way too tired and now he still had a young baby girl to put back to sleep.
The girl didn't reply to her father. Instead, she just dropped her head over his shoulder and took hold of his leather jacket with her tiny hands - definitely her favorite to tug on.
Jason couldn't help but smile softly at the sight of his daughter in his arms. She was absolutely adorable.
Placing his free hand over her little head - that was covered in a huge amount of red hair already -, Jason turned towards the hallway and stumbled his way to Catherine's room, his whole body killing him with all of the pain. But Jason was used to it, so he tried to ignore it.
When he was about to lay the girl down in her crib, she started crying and calling for her "dada", and Jason had to pull her back into his arms and shush her before Artemis woke up with the noise. Gladly, he was successful.
"You want daddy to sleep with you for tonight, pumpkin?" Jason asked, but Catherine was too sleepy to reply, so he took that her snuggling up closer against him would be his answer.
Quickly grabbing her favorite blanket, Jason sat - or better, tried his best to properly do so - on the armchair placed next to the crib, covering Catherine with the blanket and wrapping his arms around her tiny body. Jason watched attentively as she wiggled her way to get comfortable in her daddy's lap, resting her head against his torso with her eyes closed, all while still holding onto her teddy bear. He smiled, placing a kiss on top of the girl's head and whispering a "sweet dreams" before she fell asleep.
Jason had decided he would only wait a little bit after she had fallen asleep, put her in her crib and head directly to bed, but exhaustion was taking over him, and the seemingly uncomfortable position - that turned out to be super comfortable for him with his injuries - was forcing his eyes to close shut. Before Jason could even try to control them to stay awake for just another second, he was already asleep.
------
Blood.
Red.
Red was all Jason could see.
His vision was still blurry, but he could make out the vibrant color he was so familiar with. Jason faced that color too many times on a regular basis, and it was very bittersweet to him.
A quick hit to the head and a wave of pain washed all over his body, feeling the air being squeezed out of his lungs in a matter of seconds.
Jason opened his eyes, his vision still blurry, but less than then. He could now make out a big puddle on the floor, but still not sure of what it was. He could only see red.
The old dirty concrete floor felt colder than ice under his fallen body, burning at every movement.
His vision finally cleared out enough, and Jason could now perfectly see what laid in front of him, dead in a huge puddle of blood: Jason himself, in a Robin uniform.
The yellow in his cape was soaked enough to look like red was its original color, but Jason knew in fact that it wasn't.
He tried to get up, tried to get to his younger self, tried to crawl there as quick as possible, in hopes he could still save him. But another hit to the head, a maniac laugh echoing in his ears and Jason was out cold, black surrounding him all around.
He went from red to black.
Another laugh was heard. Two laughs, in fact. One following the other. But these were soft, these sounded like a melody to Jason's ears.
Following the noise in the dark, Jason finally found what he was looking for under a spotlight. It was perhaps his light at the end of the tunnel.
Jason saw Artemis sitting down on the floor with Catherine over her leg, both laughing at something the little girl had said while the mother braided her red hair. The smiles on their faces were genuinely happy, there was love in their eyes, and Jason wanted to join in. He wanted to get to his family and finally have a nice dream for once.
But at that point, he should know it was impossible.
Jason started making his way towards his girls but was immediately stopped by a loud bang. Looking at the girls, he saw the two of them gasp and falling dead on the floor, painting it red once again. A bullet had gone through each of them as quickly as Jason has moved his foot to begin walking.
The two people he loved the most were dead right in front of him, with their eyes wide open in shock, and Jason couldn't do anything to stop it. He couldn't even reach them! Every time he tried to walk or run towards the scene, he was stopped by some kind of invisible wall.
He looked around in the darkness, trying to find who had taken them away from him, but then Jason looked down at his hands and found a gun in each of them, still hot from the shots fired.
He couldn't believe it. He had been the one who killed them. He had been the one to shoot his family dead.
Guns and knees dropped to the floor as tears rolled down his face, that maniac laugh sounding again louder and louder each time in that dark room, like it was growing closer to him. Jason didn't care.
One last blow to his head was all it took for the light shining over his girls' dead bodies to switch out once again.
------
"Jason?" he almost jumped at the feeling of a hand over his shoulder, opening his eyes to find Artemis standing there, well and alive.
"Artemis? Are you okay?" he tried to pull himself straight up on the armchair, but the wounds and the girl peacefully sleeping in his lap blocked him from doing so.
"Yes, I am. Why wouldn't I be?" upon taking a better look at the man, something in her look changed. "Jason, what did I tell you?"
Jason didn't know what to say. He just knew there was no point in trying to argue, Artemis was right. She had once told him she couldn't understand how masochist he could be. Carefully taking the little girl in her arms, Artemis put her down to sleep in her crib before walking back to stand in front of Jason, hands on her hips while staring at him.
Deciding not to continue this conversation in the nursery to prevent Catherine from waking up, Artemis decided to take Jason into her arms and carry him back to their bedroom. She tried her best to be careful where she grabbed him, but Jason still flinched at her touch. Artemis sat Jason down on the bed, his back resting against the headboard, and left for a few seconds to get a first-aid kit.
"I could have walked here, you know?" protested Jason, contradicting himself immediately by flinching at the simple action of having his clothes removed.
"I am sure you could, Jason" her eyes were still focused on her action, not moving up to look at him.
After some grunting and flinching, his clothes were finally stripped off and Jason was now only in his underwear. With his bare skin showing, the man could now realize his injury was worse than he thought. Artemis worked on taking care of each one of them very carefully, obviously very focused on her handwork. Jason just watched, holding himself up and trying his best not to fall asleep once again.
After a while, Artemis was finally done bandaging him, she left for a quick while to put the kit away and come back with a glass of water and some pills on her hands. Taking a seat by his side on the bed, Artemis handed him the medicine, which Jason was reluctant to take, but one look from the redhead was enough to make him gulp everything down in a second. The soft thud of the glass hitting the wood of the bedside table marked the beginning of a conversation, one Jason knew he couldn't avoid when he looked back up and his eyes met hers.
"What did I tell you, Jason?" Artemis began.
"Red, do we really have to talk about this now?" he tried to slip out of this conversation, Jason really didn't want to have it, but he should have known there was no excuse.
"Yes Jason, we do" her piercing gaze always sent shivers down his spine, and in situations like these, those were not much of a good sign. "Goddesses, I feel like I am taking care of two children sometimes!"
"Why did you sneak out like a troublesome teenager? Why didn't you call for help from anyone?" she continued. "Why did you have to go through it by yourself? Could you not at least have woken me up when you got here to take care of those injuries?"
"I-... I know Red, I just-..." Jason bit his lip, holding back the tears and darting his eyes away from Artemis, looking everywhere but to her. "I'm sorry, okay?! I can handle it by myself! I just had a rough night... That's all..."
Artemis noticed the change in his posture and quickly moved to sit closer to him on the bed, gently lifting his chin up to look into his eyes. Moving one hand to gently brush his locks as she admired every line of his face, Artemis brought him in for a hug, where a few silent tears escaped from the man's blue orbs and wetted her bare shoulder.
"You were having a nightmare" she whispered, after she felt Jason calm down in her arms. "Before I woke you up"
"I-..." Jason took a deep breath. "I couldn't save me. I couldn't save you. I hurt you two really bad"
A sob escaped from his bruised lips, and Artemis couldn't help but tighten the hug around him, careful enough not to hurt him.
"I was watching that day" was all it took for Artemis to understand what Jason was talking about - the usual nightmare. "But then, it was different. I was in the dark. And you were there. And..."
Jason choked on his own words from just remembering it.
"I killed you" he whispered. "I killed you and Catherine"
Jason couldn't hold the tears back anymore. These nightmares were tiring, absolutely draining, but it seemed like he could never get rid of them. They had, for a fact, diminished. But Jason still had them a few times. And it was exhausting.
Gladly, he knew he had someone there for him always.
"You didn't, Jason" Artemis whispered back, moving a hand up to stroke his hair while the other gently rubbed over his scarred back. "We are here. We are alive, little one. We're alright. You're alright"
Soon Jason was hugging Artemis back, wrapping his arms tight around her as he cried it all out on her shoulder. Showing weakness had once made him feel bad, but he had slowly learned that it was okay to let his guard down to the redhead. He couldn't wear his armor all the time, and she was there to help and protect him in those times.
After a while, when Jason was finally calmer, Artemis pulled away from the hug and held his face in her hands, wiping away the remaining tears on his cheeks with her thumb.
"It's alright Jason, trust me" Artemis said before brushing Jason's hair away from his forehead and placing a soft kiss there. "Have some rest, alright? It will make you feel better"
Jason nodded, feeling the sleepiness hitting him back, all of a sudden. With Artemis help, he slipped under the covers. After adjusting his position to feel comfortable enough under the covers, he closed his eyes and immediately felt the matress sink in by his side. It wasn't long until a warm touch was against his back and the usual coconut scent filled his nostrils. After that, it was only a matter of seconds until Jason was back asleep, and this time, peacefully.
------
Stumbling a little bit, Jason still managed to make his way downstairs after waking up the next morning, following the eletronic noise into the living room. There he found the TV on playing some colorful cartoon which Catherine watched attentively while sitting in her mother's lap. Turns out the animation had gotten Artemis' attention as well, as she was equally focused on it. Jason admired how peaceful they looked from where he stood by the door, so absent from the world around them and so focused on a kids cartoon show. Whoever knew Artemis before she had Catherine would probably never believe such view.
He enjoyed the view for a little while, until his leg began asking him to sit down and he was forced to make himself present in that room by sitting by their side.
"Dada!" Catherine screamed joyously at the sight of her father entering the room.
She tried to throw herself from her mother's lap to her father's, but Artemis' arms securely wrapped around her little body prevented a disaster from happening.
"Calm down, little girl!" Artemis smiled, handing her to Jason to sit on his lap. "Your daddy isn't going anywhere, no need for such rush"
"Good morning to you as well, pumpkin" Jason giggled after placing a kiss on her soft cheek, then wrapping his arms around Catherine after she settled in his lap and directed her attention back to the television.
After a few seconds, Catherine was brushing her head against Jason's arm, and he already knew what that meant. Moving one of his hands up to her head to brush her red locks softly made Catherine smile, then leaning back in against Jason's chest while watching the rest of the cartoon. Jason and Artemis had long ago understood what Catherine wanted when she made certain gestures or actions, just like that one.
Artemis rested her head on her hand, now ditching the television and admiring the two people sitting by her side.
Catherine had been an unexpected surprise to both of them - but still, a blessing. That tiny girl had stayed hidden in her mother's womb for almost nine months, without anyone's knowledge - not even her mother's! It was very rare to happen, but her pregnancy went by without a single symptom, and everyone was alarmed when she took a blow to the stomach during a fight and was in so much pain. That was when she was told she was in labor, and that they were about to have a baby.
Artemis and Jason were nowhere near ready to be parents, neither psychologically nor materially. They became parents from one day to the other, absolutely out of nowhere! It was too much to process, but they had to get through it.
Sure, you could say they had Bizarro and the Outlaw kids, but this time there was an actual baby depending on both of them, 24 hours a day. At the same time that none of them could process that Artemis had been pregnant this whole time and no one - not even herself - noticed, they also had to process that there was a tiny little girl in their arms now and that they had zero experience on how to take care of a baby, not to mention they hadn't even bought a single diaper!
However, after lots of ups and downs and mixed emotions, Artemis and Jason got a hang of it pretty quickly, almost naturally, and now here they were, happily living together with a little 18 month old redhead named Catherine.
Jason had been calling Catherine "pumpkin" since the first time he saw her, justifying it with the puff of red hair she was born with - which only got longer as she grew older, much like her mother's. Since then, that nickname stuck, and gladly she seems to enjoy it very much.
Truth be told, Artemis had never in a million years imagined herself having kids. She never thought she was fit for the task. However, Catherine came to prove her wrong, and now she couldn't imagine her life without that tiny and adorable human being.
Moving to sit closer to Jason's, she rested her head on his uninjured shoulder, Artemis reached her hand down to brush the wavy red locks away from Catherine's face, as she attentively focused on the colorful cartoon playing.
"How are you feeling today?" Artemis asked in a soft tone, reaching to grab Jason's free hand and intertwine their fingers.
"Feeling better" he replied with a soft smile. "But still a bit sore..."
"You should eat something and get some rest for today" she spoke, her thumb rubbing the back of his hand gently. "I think you know it already, but you are grounded for the next few nights. There is no way you are going out when you're injured like that. And no file or research work either. You are going to get that mind and body in place, Jason"
"Alright, mom" he joked with a giggle. "I won't! But what do you suggest me to do instead of working?"
"Hm..." Artemis bit her lip. "I think we could enjoy some peaceful days as a family, don't you think?"
"Sounds like a plan" Jason said before placing a kiss on top of the woman's head.
"Jason?" Artemis called out for his attention, now looking up at the man. "I mean it. No work. I want you to be as healthy as possible, and that includes your mental health"
"Red..."
"No, not Red" she cut him off. "I mean it, Jason. You better hope I don't catch you working on any of it, or you will wish you had never met me"
"I will take care of everything, little one. Do not worry" she continued. "I just want the best for you, and you know it. Please"
"...Alright" Jason sighed. "I promise, I will not touch anything during this period of time, princess"
"Very well" this time, it was Artemis who kissed the man on the cheek, avoiding his still very bruised lip.
"Now, should we go have some special breakfast today?" the cartoon had finally finished playing and Artemis spoke, catching the little girl's attention. "Maybe Catherine could help mommy cook it, since daddy is hurt and needs some rest"
"I help mama!" she replied excitedly, jumping on Jason's lap until Artemis picked her up in her arms.
"Need help walking to the kitchen, Jay?" Artemis joked, a tiny smirk appearing on her face as she stood in front of Jason, adjusting the young girl's weight in her arms.
"I do, babe" he joked back, holding out his hand. "Would you mind carrying me as well?"
"I take it someone liked being carried to bed last night" she teased, taking his hand to help pull him straight up, then throwing his arm over her shoulders for support.
"You know there's a lot of things I like" he whispered in her ear in a teasing tone as they made their way to the kitchen, earning an eye roll from Artemis.
"Specially chocolate chip pancakes" Jason spoke louder this time, earning his daughter's enthusiastic smile when hearing her favorite words.
In that simple moment, as a family, the couple understood that even after all of the ups and downs along the way, they would always have each other, as well as the person they loved the most: the happiest mistake of their life, Catherine Grace Todd.