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Dick was in the middle of a fight with a handful of Two Face’s henchmen when an alert started buzzing in his ear. He swiped it away on his communicator between punches, scarcely taking the time to note what it was before returning his full attention to the fight at hand. Four months into being Batman and he already understood why Bruce had been so dour and convinced that vigilantism was only for the best of the best -- everyone came at Batman twice as hard as Dick was used to. There absolutely were downsides to the legend preceding you.
He was dodging a burst of gunfire when familiar colors flew by, and Robin was kicking the henchman with the gun in the face, sending him sprawling to the concrete floor.
Another henchmen got a lucky hit on Dick’s side, and he focused on the matter at hand, though something about what had just happened bothered him. Familiar colors, familiar grin, the flash of bare thigh as Robin kicked the henchman---
Oh, shit. Dick punched the henchman he was fighting with more force than necessary, knocking him out cold as he turned to stare at Robin, who was finishing up with the last goon
“You’re welcome,” Robin said, giving the goon a nudge with his green pixie boot. Yellow cape, red suit, green panties, and Jason’s unabashedly bright smile. He’d forgotten how innocent that smile had looked.
Dick continued to stare, then looked back at his communicator. The alert he’d brushed aside was still flashing. Temporal anomaly.
“We need to go,” he said gruffly, turning on his heel and letting his cape swirl around him as he headed out of the warehouse. He wordlessly typed in a request to Oracle to call the henchmen situation in to the GCPD as he went, unwilling to say even that much aloud. Jason didn’t know who Oracle was. Jason’s Barbara was still Batgirl, was still running around in those yellow boots---
He nearly stumbled as he thought of all the things he could say to Jason, of all the things he could keep from happening. He glanced back, and Jason was following, earlier brightness dimmed somewhat. He looked suspicious, Dick realized suddenly.
“Hey, Mr. Grumpypants,” Jason said loudly, as though he was reading Dick’s mind. “What was that back there?”
Dick didn’t want to turn to face him. He’d forgotten how whip-smart Jason had been even in the early days, how Bruce had bragged on him in their phone calls while Dick had been trying his damndest to leave Gotham and the Bats behind.
He led them up a fire escape, onto a rooftop. A few jumps and they were on a building that was mostly abandoned but still within sight of the warehouse so they could observe if something went wrong before the GCPD arrived. By the time Dick perched on the ledge, he could practically feel the suspicion radiating off Jason. Off Robin.
God, he was tiny. Bigger than Damian was, but contrasted with the Jason he knew now, the Jason that had reached his adult height? This Jason was scarcely more than a baby.
“What do you remember from before the fight?” Dick asked, and braced himself. He knew there was no way Jason would think he was Bruce, no matter what he was wearing.
“What do you-- wait,” Jason said. The narrowed-eye look he gave Dick was all too familiar; Dick saw that one regularly on the Jason that had grown up. “You’re not Br-- You’re not Batman.”
“I am Batman,” Dick said, voice as gruff as it always was when he said those words. Bruce would have known how to handle this. Bruce wouldn’t have been tempted to alter things. “What happened before you entered the warehouse?”
Jason moved away, fists tight at his side. “Nothing. Just patrol. Who are you?”
“Batman,” Dick said again. “Just not Bruce.”
Jason’s fists slowly raised, held in front of him defensively, and he barked out, “What did you do with Batman?”
For the thousandth time since he put on this suit, Dick wished Bruce was still alive. “Jason, I was asking what happened before you joined the fight in the warehouse because this isn’t your time.”
“Isn’t my-- Are you fucking kidding me? Time travel?” Jason said, fists dropping back to his sides. He looked out over the Gotham skyline, and Dick knew how much it had changed.
“We need to figure out how it happened,” Dick continued, watching Jason’s expression shift as he realized the truth of what Dick had said. “Do you remember anything?”
“There was a light,” Jason said slowly. “It’s why I went into the warehouse, I thought it was a flash-bang.”
“Anything before that?”
Jason paused. “Batman-- My Batman -- mentioned seeing something strange. An orb? He was going to investigate and I was supposed to stay put.”
Dick had been Robin, too. He knew perfectly well what Robin did when Batman insisted he stay put. “You followed him?”
Jason rolled his eyes. “Obviously. I’m here, aren’t I? I went after him, and when I came around the corner, I saw the light, and then I was in the warehouse kicking ass and taking names.” He illustrated this point by doing a kick in the direction of an imaginary bad guy.
Dick refrained from pointing out that Jason hadn’t, in fact, taken any names, though he had done an admirable job of kicking ass. “We should go to the spot where you traveled through. Get some readings. Figure out whether it was magic or tech.”
Below, the GCPD finally showed up at the warehouse, sirens blazing, and officers rushed inside to secure the henchmen and evidence.
“As soon as they’re gone,” Dick amended.
They sat side-by-side, Jason keeping a healthy distance but Dick could feel his eyes on him. Trying to place his visible features, most likely. Finally, Jason burst out with, “What happened to him? My Batman?”
He was unwilling to use Bruce’s name, even though Dick already had. It hurt, seeing a Jason who loved Bruce wholeheartedly, without reservation. Who hadn’t yet been dealt the blows that had turned his relationship with Bruce sour.
“He’s away,” Dick said vaguely.
“Away like hurt? Away like with the Justice League? Or away like--” Jason’s voice cracked on the last word. “How far in the future am I, anyway? Things don’t look better.”
Things look worse, he clearly wanted to say. It was true, too -- Gotham, for all the work they’d poured into her, remained resolutely corrupt and vile. Dick almost admired that about the city.
“Away,” Dick said firmly. The temptation was still there -- he could warn Jason about his mother, could keep him from making so many mistakes, could keep so many terrible things from happening.
The only problem were the good things intertwined in there -- if he warned Jason, if Jason never died, would Tim come into their lives? Would Cass? What about all the lives Barbara had saved as Oracle, what about all the things they’d all done-- was the future a house of cards that could crumble with a single warning?
Dick had dealt with time travel plenty over the years and the same questions always lingered. He hated the choice he knew he had to make. Hated that he was essentially going to condemn this bright, caring boy to death when he sent him back to the past unwarned.
But he just couldn’t risk it. Couldn’t speak up.
Jason scoffed at him. “You’re not him, you know. I knew immediately.”
“Not trying to be.” That was mostly a lie, too. Dick wished that Jason would steer to more comfortable conversation topics so he wouldn’t have to skirt the truth so much, but then it really wouldn’t be Jason, would it? “But I am trying to get you back to him.”
“Worried about fucking up the time stream?” Jason pushed himself up, began walking along the edge of the ledge with his arms held out to either side, looking like an amateur tightrope walker. Dick resisted the urge to correct his form. “That’s why you’re not telling me shit, right?”
“...Right.” Dick seized the chance to actually tell the truth for once. “It’s inadvisable. Part of the time travel protocol.”
“You knew my name, so that means you know me,” Jason continued, easily ignoring concepts like time travel protocol. “Or will know me? Either way, that means this can’t be too far in the future, since you definitely recognized me.”
Dick tensed, even though Jason had no way of knowing how accurate that statement was. Or why. He was still at the age when your own mortality was something you took for granted.
“So that means Batman should still be Batman. He isn’t that old.” Jason narrowed his eyes at him. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
There was no way in hell that Dick was answering that question. “If you figured out that much, you know there’s no way I’m going to confirm or deny that. He’s away from Gotham at the moment. That’s all you need to know.”
Jason sat down heavily. “You have to tell me something so I can save him. You can’t… you can’t send me back now knowing how to save him.”
Jesus. Dick was at a loss. He’d been so preoccupied with worrying about Jason’s impending death that he hadn’t thought about what the presence of a strange Batman -- and Bruce’s absence -- would mean to the kid. Bruce was his world.
Words failed him.
“You have to tell me something, you bastard!” Jason snapped, realizing that Dick wasn’t going to cooperate. “You have to. He saved me, I can’t let him… I have to change whatever went wrong.”
His breath was coming fast, and he looked like he was ready to punch Dick if he didn’t say something soon. Dick knew that particular snarl, that arch of his eyebrows-- it was the same fury as when he talked about his own death.
Dick briefly, intensely hated Bruce, for leaving him to face all these mistakes, but that feeling couldn’t last in the face of all of Jason’s love and righteous anger in honor of the man.
“I-- There’s nothing you can do,” Dick said, finally. “You’ve always done everything you can.”
It wasn’t enough, but nothing could be. There were no words to bridge the years, to fix things preemptively. Dick knew he couldn’t change things, not without--
Not without sacrificing everything they’d all become, the people they all were.
Jason seemed to deflate. He looked desperately in need of a hug, but Dick didn’t have that right. Jason didn’t even know who he was, didn’t need reassurance from a stranger. Dick knew what he needed.
Below, the last of the cop cars were pulling away from the warehouse. The diagnostic he had run on temporal signatures indicated that the orb Jason had seen was still there, and likely still active. It should be a simple thing to return him to his time.
Dick could only hope that he hadn’t screwed up this interaction too badly, that Jason hadn’t been altered by the conversation they’d just had. Maybe for once things would be merciful for Jason and he wouldn’t remember any of this.
“Come on,” he said, gesturing. “Let’s get you back to your dad.”
Jason nodded mutely.