Chapter Text
The Gotham City Public Graveyard got far more funding these days than it ever accounted for when it was first founded. The Wayne Foundation made yearly donations worth more than the entire plot of land, and they were able to maintain a much higher safety and cleanliness standard than ever before. There was a new position of a security guard as well, who made the rounds once every half hour around the perimeter of the graveyard to watch for intruders.
Of course, the man was not infallible, and it was fair to reason that he wouldn’t be able to bring to task everyone who crossed onto the property illegally.
One of those successful intruders sat on top of the administration building as David went merrily on his route, ears serenaded by Christina Aguilera as he swung his flashlight back and forth along the fence line.
A long shadow fell on the ground in front of the building, moonlight broken by the hunched figure with two pointed ears and wings flapping with the wind. It was unmoving except for its slow steady breaths as it stared unblinkingly into the fog of the graveyard. There was nowhere it had to be, except here, waiting and watching for something bad to happen.
The pale glow of the moon was interrupted as the air fluttered on both sides of it, and it stiffened for only a second before unraveling to its full height with a deep sigh.
“Wonder Woman. Superman,” He greeted tiredly.
Clark dropped a sturdy hand on his shoulder, “Hey Bats.”
“Hello, Batman,” Diana responded, touching down on the roof next to him. The two supers bracketed him, pressing warmth onto his skin in blooming patches where their hands touched him. He shivered at the contact, unused to softness any longer. It had been too long since someone had initiated contact without aggression and Bruce had almost forgotten the distant memory of tiny hands pressing into his own, a small body slotting into place next to his.
He gave them a moment of silence to explain themselves- an intimidation tactic that usually worked wonders on the scum of Gotham, but two of the trio of Justice League founders were unmoved by the attempt, and Bruce was forced to use his words.
Groaning quietly, the Dark Knight of Gotham asked his partners, “What are you doing here?”
“We heard the news. I’m sorry we couldn’t be here earlier, but we’re here now. How are you feeling?” Clark immediately said, and it was easy to deduce that he had been bursting to speak first all along but Diana must have restrained him, with the way a small smile hid among her features.
Bruce turned back to face the graveyard, eyes locked on the horizon right above the middle row of headstones. “I’m fine. It’s been busy, I can't- I haven’t thought of anything else.”
He couldn’t let himself think of anything else. The past two weeks had been a whirlwind of putting out fire after fire that stemmed from the fallout of Joker’s death and the upheaval it had caused in Gotham’s villainous population. On top of that, all his daytime was taken up by Wayne Enterprises meetings and desperate shareholders wondering if Gotham was going to go up in a flash of smoke now that the Joker was gone.
All that should mean that Bruce had absolutely no time to think about the man that had killed the Joker, the one who had taken vengeance for Jason. No time to think about the son he had lost and if he was resting easily. No time to simmer in every mistake he had made that had led to the death of his son.
He was not thinking about any of that at all.
“I think that’s not quite true, Batman.” Diana said slowly, “I think you’ve had some very big things on your mind lately. I know how you get, and I know what this means for you.”
An arm wound itself around his shoulders, and another twined around his arm. Diana rested her head on his shoulder, Clark dropping his own to lean against Bruce’s head.
Batman was as still as the famous gargoyles of Gotham for a moment longer before his tense posture snapped, and he sagged against the other two heroes with a ragged breath.
“I don’t- I don’t know how to feel. I’m glad he’s dead. I shouldn't be. Maybe Jason is finally at peace for it. I don’t know if I can be. It goes against my beliefs. It brings me a modicum of peace. It brings me a lot more work too. He can never hurt anyone ever again. It’s… It’s what Jason deserved.”
Clark and Diana sat quietly, letting Bruce work out his thoughts, externalizing them in a way that allowed him to process without interference. They weren’t here to tell Bruce what to think, they just needed to make him think about it in the first place, and figure out how he was feeling.
Not that they didn’t have their own opinions about the situation that had been Gotham for the past two weeks. Diana felt that it was simply the cycle of violence; that a bad person had been taken out by someone worse, and that people would always kill others in human society, but for now, the death held net positive results. The Joker was gone, the mysterious player held no real threat, and once Gotham was resettled, there would be one less major threat to worry about.
Clark, on the other hand, didn’t believe in the inherent evil of man, but since it all worked out for the better in the end, he didn’t see the point in Bruce beating himself up about something he could have never stopped.
But they both knew Bruce better than that, and they didn’t try to convince him either way on the subject, just sat there to bring him strength as he stared out at the orange haze of the Gotham night sky pockmarked with a faint haze of stars where it rose behind the small grave marked ‘Jason Peter Todd’.
The sun would rise in the morning.
The world would keep turning.
And Bruce would continue to mourn his son.
But, perhaps, now with a heart just a bit lighter.
-
Jason tucked the blanket tighter around them, shivering lightly in the cool air of the mid-October Wyoming night. Daniel had dragged him out tonight, promising that the effort to climb the roof of the observatory was well worth it, but so far he hadn’t seen anything that couldn’t be witnessed from their sitting room.
There was a small platform on top of the round building that they had installed themselves on, snacking on crackers and cheese as the sun set into the mountains surrounding the campus, lighting the sky aflame in beautiful pinks and oranges.
They’d played several rounds of twenty-one questions, kill-marry-fuck (which had gotten real weird real fast when billionaires had come up), and conversation had petered out around the eighth round of stupid knock-knock jokes. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence between them though, it was familiar and easy and Jason basked in Daniel’s presence without the pressure of having to make conversation.
Jason found it hard sometimes to talk candidly about himself or his life when so much of it had to be filtered or sanitized or censored entirely. Any questions he did end up answering usually ended up leading to even more curiosity that Jason couldn’t sate, so he gave up talking about himself. But with Daniel, Jason knew he wouldn’t push for anything beyond what Jason offered, even going so far as to reword questions to him without blinking if he ever felt Jason might not want to answer.
He was lucky to have such an understanding guy as his roommate. If it had been him with a dorm mate of mysterious origin and background, Jason thought he might lose his mind with curiosity, but Daniel never let anything like that seem obvious, even if he did want to know.
Instead, Daniel talked about his own family, telling Jason all about the latest drama in his extended relatives, or the gossip he heard at reunions when everyone forgot that he spoke Korean. Often Jason would be pulled into Facetime calls with Daniel’s family, and he’d even learned how to greet the Kims properly in Korean, much to Daniel’s fond exasperation.
“Why are you so good with my parents? No like, all adults actually! They all love you!”
The efforts of Alfred’s lessons in respect and manners still showed, and Jason hoped he was making Alfred proud.
It made Jason want to share what little he could, just to show his gratitude. He wanted Daniel to know how much he appreciated his friendship, but as well as Jason was doing, that level of communication was nowhere in his wheelhouse.
Jason’s eyes blinked slowly as he started tipping into unconsciousness, lulled into sleep by the steady rise and fall where he was perched against Daniel, but he was rudely jerked awake with a shout.
“There! It’s here!” Daniel was pointing up into the sky, and Jason had to shake his head to refocus his eyes into the distance.
But there, over the tops of the mountain peaks shot glowing streaks of light, passing over them slowly, leaving behind a trail of space dust and gasses that lit up the night sky.
“It’s the first meteor shower of the school year. They happen all during the term, but this is one of the first, and personally, one of the coolest, so I wanted to show it to you from one of the best spots to see it.” Daniel explained excitedly, and even as Jason was listening, his eyes didn’t look away from the majesty of the night sky. The stars studded through the rest of the darkness sparkled like brilliant diamonds, and the trails of the meteors slashed across the sky like a heavenly swipe of paint.
It was the same sky under which Jason had spent so many hours of his life. Running, fighting, thriving, but it was so different here. Jason could scarcely believe that it was that same celestial body that hovered over both Gotham and Laramie, but the moon, shining and clear, undeniably the same. Even though these stars were new to Jason, the twinkling lights that he could have never seen behind the thick smog of the Gotham skies, the reflected light of the moon was oftentimes the only thing that he had to see by in the dark streets of Gotham.
Jason could almost see it now; the dirty almost-orange haze that coated the city both day and night. A consequence of industrial pollution and a blend of a truly noxious blend of toxins purposefully expelled into the air by villains, night after night- most Gothamites were long immune to it.
But sitting on top of the observatory, the air clean and the sky clear for miles ahead of him, Jason couldn’t be further from his nights in Gotham.
“-mmy, Tommy!” Jason flinched as he finally registered Daniel calling his name, blinking blankly as he turned to face his friend.
“Sorry, got lost for a bit.” Jason apologized, but Daniel shook his head in understanding.
“Lost in the space sauce, I get you, bro. It’s mad pretty out here. Make a guy feel real speck of dirt like.” Daniel pulled out his phone and opened up an app that showed the night sky marked with all its constellations, holding it up between them. “Like, I spend a lot of time outside, but there’s nothing like sitting down after a long day of logging samples crouched in the dirt to witness the glory that is the entire universe spinning above us.”
“When you think about what we are compared to what’s out there, I feel like, so much better about myself. Like, who cares what I do except make myself happy? All I am is this one being in an unfathomable universe, so it’s not gonna hurt anyone if I decide to make the decisions that make me feel fulfilled.” He stopped, face pinking in the dim light of a lamp in the distance, “Or- at least, that’s how I feel anyways. We should get to be selfish, yanno?”
Jason hummed, “I know,” he said quietly.
“What do you want, Tommy? What’s your selfish decision?” Turning away from the sky, where the meteors had finally passed, Daniel looked at Jason intently- and Jason held his too-knowing gaze for only a minute before he looked away. Sometimes, it felt like Daniel could see deep into Jason’s soul, see what was missing, what had been burned away.
“I made my selfish decision a while ago; you’re right, it made me happy.” Jason finally admitted. As many arguments as could be made about the bigger picture, and the greater good, in the end, the only reason Jason had killed Joker, was for vengeance. And it felt damn good.
Daniel knocked his shoulder against Jason’s, “Well I’m proud of you then, dude. Good for you.”
“Can I make another one?” Jason wondered, but his tone was questioning and Daniel clocked it immediately as something that was going to be personal to them.
“‘Course, dude. Whatever you want.”
It took a second of silence for Jason to confirm his impulse decision, but then he thought about Daniel’s words, and made the choice to be happy.
“My- I used to be called Jason. There was some legal shit that went down, and I had to change my name for it but- I trust you, and I feel like you should know the real me. I’m Jason, and it’d be cool if you could call me that.” Pulling explanations out of nowhere came quick to him, but Jason hoped that there weren’t any holes in his nervous chattering. It felt monumental, to reclaim a part of himself that had been lost to him.
“You know what, I can absolutely see it. Jason suits that mug a lot better,” Daniel said, pausing for only a second as he tilted his head and squinted with one eye shut, “Thanks for trusting me, Jason. I’m glad we ended up being roommates”
“Me too, bro. Me too.”