Chapter Text
If there was one thing the Bats were known for, it was their planning.
Bruce made sure every vigilante under his watch knew all the protocols backwards and forwards, especially those regarding stranding without communicators. This, of course, covers all possibilities, including dimension hopping, reality warping, and time travel.
Dick was no stranger to following time travel procedures. It took him only a few moments to adjust to the knowledge of their situation and begin checking off the first steps. But it appeared that Jason was handling the information not nearly as well.
He watched Jason pace the rooftop nonstop for a full thirty minutes until his brother finally broke.
“I’m fuckin’ losing it,” Jason huffed. He had long taken his helmet off, instead attaching it to a clasp on his belt. Now unmasked, his frustration and thinly-veiled anxiety were on plain display.
“You’re fine, everything’s fine.” Dick reassured him. He tumbled out of his handstand in a forward roll, landing on his butt with his legs outstretched before him. Like his cowl, all pretense of pretending to be the fabled Batman was also off.
“We just need to follow protocol,” Dick continued. “And protocol says to stay put and wait for external retrieval. As soon as we went dark, Babs must've figured something was up. She’s probably alerted Bruce and Tim of the situation by now, and with any luck they've intercepted Change-o and they're figuring out how to get us back.”
Dick laid back to look up at the smoky Gotham night sky. “Easy-peasy,” he smiled.
Jason made another lap around the rooftop. “You don’t know that,” he growled. “We could be stuck here for who knows how long waiting for them to figure this shit out. We need to find our own way back.”
“And how do you suspect we do that?”
Jason opened his mouth slightly as Dick cut him off.
“Without making irreversible change to the timeline.”
Rubbing his temples, Jason let out a long groan. “I can’t just wait anymore, we have to do something.”
“What is there to do?” Dick laughed. “There’s no one to contact here. The Justice League doesn’t even exist yet.”
Collapsing to sit next to Dick, Jason scoffed. “Damn, that’s crazy to think about. A time with no Justice League.”
The corner of Dick’s mouth quirked up in an uneven smile. “I know right? They’ve been around for as long as I can remember.”
“Me too,” Jason looked off into the distance, the ghost of a smile graced his expression. “Wow, I guess I would’ve been just a few months old at this point. I’m probably swaddled up at my mom’s shitty old apartment just a few blocks from here.”
Dick thought back through his oldest memories. “And I would be, what, four? I’m probably somewhere in Europe with my parents at Haly’s Circus right now.”
A heavy silence followed this. They both knew that making contact with their long-dead loved ones could damage the futures they had made for themselves. But that did not make it any less tempting. Of course, Jason’s family was much more reachable. Dick had no idea what country his parents were even in at the moment, let alone a phone number he could dial. Still, despite all odds, a deep longing at hearing his mom and dad’s voices just one last time tugged at his heart.
“I guess Bruce is living it up at the Manor all by himself. Him and Alf are probably getting ready for bed right about now.”
Dick shook himself out of his haze. “No, Bruce took a semester at Princeton in fall 2004.”
Jason furrowed his eyebrows. “Oh. He never told me that.”
“Probably because he flunked out,” Dick smirked.
Throwing his head back, Jason let out a barking laugh. God, how Dick had missed that.
Then, Jason asked, “And what about Alfie? He took care of the Manor by his lonesome?”
“Oh, no,” Dick shook his head. “He took a six-month leave to settle some family stuff in England.”
After a beat of silence, the realization dawned on both of them.
“So,” Jason drew out the word slyly, “you’re saying the Manor is just sitting empty right now?”
Twenty minutes later, they arrived in Bristol. Jason paid the cab driver in cash. The lady hadn’t even batted an eye at their outfits. This is why Halloween is a vigilante’s favorite holiday.
As they approached the house, all the lights appeared to be off. The place looked completely empty.
Dick led them around the back, to the loose window on the second floor. As he slid it open, Jason raised an eyebrow at him.
“And how do you know about this?”
“Because I used it to sneak out when I first came to live with Bruce. After my third attempt, Alfred found it and had it bolted shut.”
“You little shit,” Jason said, but in a way that sounded like a compliment.
The two slipped inside to the dark room and Jason immediately began stripping off his gear.
“Hold up,” Dick warned. “Don’t leave anything lying around, if we get pulled back to our timeline suddenly we don’t wanna leave anything behind.”
“Ugh,” Jason groaned, rolling his eyes, but reclasped the straps of his armor.
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” Dick smirked. “There’s got to be a duffel we can stash our suits in so we can carry them around.”
The pair traveled downstairs to Bruce’s bedroom on the first floor. But as they approached, they saw a chain lock circling the door handles. Dick shook the iron links and they clinked together, not budging an inch.
“Looks like the old man was just as paranoid then as he is now,” Jason snarked. “Let’s just get something to eat, I’m fucking starving.”
“You read my mind,” Dick grinned.
The brothers raided the pantry, finding nothing but boring flavorless protein bars and canned goods. The fridge was likewise empty. But the freezer held a hidden delicacy.
“Holy shit,” Jason marveled at the gallon of ice cream. He opened it and immediately began scooping it into a mug. Dick did the same, making their way to the couch. But as they passed the door to the dining room, Dick noticed something off.
He stopped in his tracks as he spied the mug sitting on the dining room table.
“Shit,” Jason shouted under his breath. “Shit, shit, shit, shit. You said everyone was gone!”
“Wait,” Dick said, approaching the mug. He placed a hand over the rim, then touched the side. “It’s ice cold. There’s no telling how long this has been sitting here.”
“Phew,” Jason sighed. “So the place is empty?”
Dick opened his mouth to answer when a heavy thud sounded from above them.
The two exchanged a glance as more thudding sounds erupted from upstairs. A silent decision was made as they quickly but silently made their way upstairs.
They both knew what to do. The Batman had trained them well.
Observe. Assess. Organize. Act.
Make no moves until the situation is understood.
Jason and Dick turned to the corner to the upstairs hallway where the sounds were coming from. The door to Dick’s bedroom – which was just a guest room at the time Dick came to stay at the Manor – was creaked open. From a shorter distance, the sounds were identified as the slamming of cabinets and drawers. It seemed like this person was searching for something.
The pair backed up against the wall, listening and using the narrow viewpoint to watch their target. Through the creak, Dick could spot the absolutely horror show inside the room. It was like a tornado had blown through. Alfred would have had a stroke just seeing the state of it. Clothes were strewn about haphazardly, pulled from open drawers. All the books on the shelves had been thrown off. Crumpled pages with sporadic, scrawled writings laid in piles on the ground. Shattered glass littered the floor and was accompanied by tipped-over bottles of various different alcohols.
The person was muttering under their breath in an almost manic manner. It was too low to hear exactly what he was saying, but Dick could feel the desperation in his voice. He was elbow deep in a drawer, facing away from the door. His dark hair was a rat’s nest. He was short and skinny, wearing an emo band t-shirt and tight black jeans. Whoever this guy was, he had definitely chosen the wrong house.
“Hey buddy,” Jason called out, pushing the door open, “what do you think you’re doing?”
The guy spun around, eyes wide and panicked. Suddenly, a bottle was flying at their heads. They both ducked, dodging the projectile as it smashed and exploded against the wall behind them.
“What the hell?” Jason grunted.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” the guy demanded.
“Us?” Jason scoffed. “What are you doing here?”
The guy looked between them, incredulously. “This is my fucking house, dipshit.”
The realization hit him like a truck. Dick’s jaw fell open. “Bruce?”
The young man looked over to Dick, and despite all his unfamiliarities – the weird clothes, that awful haircut, the frailty to his build – that sharp glare was truly and undeniably Bruce. He had those same stormy grey eyes and the same hard edge of his jaw. But he was younger than Dick had ever seen him in person. Doing the math in his head, the Bruce before him would have been about nineteen. His hair was long and greasy, almost brushing his shoulders. Choppy bangs laid across his forehead and kept falling into his eyes. He was pale. Even for Bruce. His cheeks were sunken in and the bags under his eyes were so dark they could have been bruises.
“No way,” Jason gibed. “This skinny rat is Bruce?”
Bruce scowled. “Who’re y’calling a rat, ya’ fuckin’ jagoff?”
“What the fuck did you just call me?”
“Jason, don’t–”
“And what the hell are you two wearing?”
The pair looked down at their costumes, and no explanation came to mind.
“Uh…”
“Nice eyeliner, freak,” teen-Bruce said, looking at Dick.
Jason barked out a laugh, reveling in the irony of the statement.
Dick frowned, but saw how Bruce used the distraction to step back, his fingers reaching back into the drawer. In a split second, he was turned back around to them, and in his trembling hands was a small handgun.
“Get outta my house,” Bruce demanded.
“Hey, hey, Bruce, just put the gun down, it’s alright,” Dick tried to soothe him. He took a step forward, but Bruce waved the gun in front of his face.
“I don’t have time for this! Get the fuck out of my house!”
“Bruce, give me the gun.”
“Shut it! Stop talking!”
His aim shifted from Dick to Jason, and Dick just watched in horror as Jason acted on instinct. It was like the world slowed down, moving in slow motion with Dick powerless to stop what was unfolding before him.
As Jason stared down the barrel of Bruce’s gun, his hand immediately snapped to his holsters, taking out his own weapon. The second Bruce saw it, he froze. His grip went limp, and the gun tumbled from his fingers onto the floor. Dick saw how the rise and fall of his chest quickened. His breathing turned ragged, sucking in breaths like all the oxygen had left the room.
“Bruce,” Dick approached him slowly, palms out. “Hey, Bruce, you’re okay. You’re safe.” He glanced back at his brother. “Jason put the damn gun away.”
The younger vigilante immediately holstered his own firearm, now just starting wide eyed at their teenaged mentor experiencing a violent panic attack.
Bruce breathed in and out in rapid succession. His eyes flashed around the room, but Dick could tell they were not seeing anything. Dick rubbed his hands down his shoulders.
“Bruce, listen to me, follow my breathing, okay?”
The man nodded shakily. But it was clear he was not truly comprehending anything.
“You’re not there, you’re in the Manor. You’re safe. Can you describe your surroundings? Can you name five things you see?”
“I–” Bruce choked off the rest of his words. He took a choppy inhale, then his breath cut out. His eyes rolled back into his head and his knees gave way. Dick caught him before his head hit the ground.
“Shit,” Dick grunted. “He must've hyperventilated. Jay, help me get him to the bed.”
Jason, momentarily stunned, shook himself off and grabbed Bruce’s legs. They laid Bruce atop the blankets and Dick began layering pillows under his feet to elevate his legs. Looking at the bare bottoms of his feet, Dick saw the cuts caused from stepping on broken glass.
“Jason, can you get me a damp washcloth from the bathroom?”
When there was no response, Dick tore his gaze away from Bruce to his brother. The younger man was just staring, slack jawed at the young man’s unconscious form.
“Jason,” Dick waved his hand through Jason’s line of sight. “Damp washcloth?”
“Oh,” Jason blinked forcefully a few times. “Right, sorry.”
With that, he disappeared into the connected bathroom. Now this close to him, Dick could smell how much the man reeked of alcohol – it was not lost on Dick how dilated his pupils were before.
All of these signs were painting a very unpretty picture.
Looking away from Bruce, Dick took in the details of the room. Of course, it was a mess, but there were several unfamiliar aspects to it as well. When Dick had first been given the space as his own, it had been mostly bare. Just a bed and a dresser and empty space he could fill however he pleased.
But now, the room looked more like how it did in Dick’s time. It looked lived in. There were posters hung on every wall, most of which were of bands Dick had never heard of. Each member shared that signature choppy hairstyle, some accenting with neon colored streaks. Their outfits were just as eccentric. Striped undershirts with black graphic t-shirts over them. Jeans so tight he wondered how the guys could even breathe. Dick smirked. He knew Bruce had an emo phase, but the man had never described just how deep it had run.
There was a desk shoved in the corner with a few downturned picture frames. He walked over and picked each up with care. Each photo Dick had seen before. Their enlarged replicas were framed in the gallery hallway on the first floor. But it did not make Dick’s heartstrings twinge any less to see them again.
The first was of a teeny-tiny Bruce dressed in a miniature suit at his first gala. His face was tucked into his mother’s side, like he was trying to hide from all the snapping cameras pointed his way. His mother looked down at him with a soft smile on her face. His father knelt down beside him and had his arm around his son’s shoulders, saying something to him. Dick smiled at the image. He knew exactly how Bruce must’ve felt at this moment. He could remember his own first gala with an older Bruce after living with the man for a few months. But the commemorative picture Alfred hung in the gallery was not of him cowering behind his guardian, but instead of his legs wrapped around the chandelier, swinging from the fixture upside down with his hands outstretched and a beaming smile.
He set the picture down carefully, seeing that, along with the framed pictures, there was a newspaper on the desk. It was crumpled and torn, the headline face down.
Dick was about to reach for it when he realized he had yet to hear any running water from the bathroom.
“You good in there, Jay?”
For a heavy moment, there was silence.
“Dick, could you, uh…” Jason sighed heavily. “Can you come in here?”
Furrowing his brows, Dick entered the bathroom. When Jason came into view, Dick noticed the glistening wetness in his brother’s eyes. Dick following his line of sight to the bathtub ledge. A bloody trail of footprints led to the shattered remains of a plastic razor lay discarded on the tile. But from the pile, one piece had been lifted onto the counter.
A single, silver blade.
Dick’s entire body went cold.
“Dick,” Jason said, voice soft, “you don’t think he was going to–”
“I don’t know. If he did, he never told me. I don’t think he would’ve told any of us.”
Jason nodded slowly. “Do you think he told Alfred?”
Dick hesitated. “Maybe?”
Scoffing, Jason forced an uneasy smile. “Yeah right, the old man’s probably as unlikely to ask for help now as he is in the present.”
Despite his joking tone, Dick could see the tears welling up in his brother’s eyes. He took a step over, closing the distance between them, and placing his hands on Jason’s shoulders reassuringly.
“Hey,” Dick said, “everything’s gonna be okay, yeah? We know it, because we’re living it.”
He watched Jason process his words, then nod slowly.
“Bruce is gonna be fine. Now c’mon, let’s go fix him up.”
Jason glumly followed Dick back to the bed, damp washcloth in one hand, tweezers in the other. He sat at the foot of the bed and began plucking out the fragments of glass with a steady hand. Dick watched him work in silence.
“Earlier,” Jason spoke suddenly. “You said you didn’t know why B hated Halloween so much. But you were lying.” Jason stared at him, expression pained. “You knew. You said he never told you, but you knew.”
Dick shook his head. “No, no, never about this. I just–” He cut himself off, fishing for the right words to say. “I figured it was the anniversary of something. Maybe from a bad fight with a rogue, or something to do with his parents, or anything… Anything but this.”
Jason looked back to Bruce’s sleeping face. The muscles in his jaw were slack, causing him to look less pissed off than before.
“God, he looks so young,” Dick sighed.
Returning to his work, Jason spared a glance at his father. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him like this. I mean, sure there’s the pictures of baby Bruce down in the gallery and there’s photos of him from when you first came to the Manor, but never like this. Never this Bruce.”
Dick considered the concept. This Bruce. Who even was this Bruce?
This was a Bruce before the Batman. Before going off to travel the world. Before training his body into a weapon fueled by anger and vengeance.
But it was clear that all those emotions were still present. Still there, but with no outlet. None except to be numbed away with alcohol and pain, it seemed.
Suddenly, a soft grunt was heard escaping from Bruce’s throat. His eyes fluttered open to stare listlessly at the ceiling. He took a breath in, then choked on it. Body racking with coughs, Jason dropped his tweezers to immediately help the cup of water into Bruce’s hands. Bruce immediately began gulping it down.
“Woah, hey, take it slow,” Jason said in a soothing voice.
Bruce wordlessly nodded, handing back the cup to Jason. He blinked a few times. His eyes snapped back and forth across the room, trying to take in his surroundings, but it was clear from the confusion on his face – and his dilated pupils – that his vision was still fairly hazy. After a few moments, his squinted gaze landed on Jason’s face.
“You’re alright, Bruce,” Jason spoke, brushing the hair out of Bruce’s eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Am I…” Bruce hesitated, “dead?”
Jason scoffed. “What? No. You just passed out. You’re gonna be fine.”
Bruce swallowed, and opened his mouth to speak. Then he immediately burst into tears.
Dick and Jason exchanged a panicked look. Bruce buried his face in his hands as he sobbed.
Jason put his hands on the younger man’s shoulders, trying to comfort him. “Bruce, what’s–”
“I’m sorry,” Bruce bawled. He looked at Jason with a harrowed expression. “I’m so sorry, Dad.”