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His knuckles ache as he sets down the china tea set. Bruce’s hands aren’t bandaged anymore, and the worst of the bruising has faded— so has the swelling. There are a few ragged scabs left concealing the worst of his split skin, and though he hasn’t said it, not wanting to concern Alfred and the others, the mottled yellow suits Bruce just fine. Hell, his knuckles are probably better off than the rest of him feels. He swallows. It doesn’t actually hurt, and now that he thinks about it, the faint ringing that’s plagued him since Ethiopia is gone. Eardrums must have healed. It is not a pleasant notion. Just one more sign that he— physically, at least— is moving on. Every breath, every heartbeat, every second he’s alive, Bruce is moving further away from the last time Jason was—
He swallows, and hastily sets the last cup down before it shatters, or he drops it.
Bruce carefully doesn’t think about the inevitability that his son will someday have been dead for longer than he ever lived, gone for more time than Bruce ever got with him; he knows it will come sooner than expected from experience. He remembers that day, with his parents’ deaths, and by God, even imagining it now fills him with simmering anger and noxious dread. Bruce unclenches his teeth and makes a conscious effort to breathe. He rubs a hand over his scruffy jaw to ease the throbbing there. Last week, the League had been dealing with an Intergang robbery, and there’d been an explosion. Batman had frozen in place for 45 seconds, and got socked in the jaw by one of the robbers as a result. A week later, the hit still stings.
The grandfather clock in the corner chimes, and Bruce jumps. Clark will be here soon. Pull yourself together, an ugly voice hisses in his head. Do you want to get back into the field or not? God, he really does. He really, really does. Then maybe Bruce will stop feeling like a walking liability. A danger to everyone who knows him. Dick, who’d been on a mission when Jason— Dick left a few days after the funeral, and hasn’t been back since. If Bruce remembers correctly— and even his usually impeccable memory isn’t trustworthy, these days— his eldest son grabbed an extra duffle bag and packed up the very last of his belongings at the manor. And he’s only sent Bruce a few texts, talked to Alfred over the phone briefly, since then. Dick won’t be back anytime soon.
Alfred himself is gone now too. Bruce saw how hard he was working to hold himself together, and was exhausted by proxy. God, he recalls thinking, we can’t keep doing this to each other. We can’t keep putting on a brave face for one another. For that’s what they’d been doing, using buckets to scoop out the floodwater even as it poured in, spraying a garden hose on a raging wildfire, pretending to be alright, or at least on the way there, for the sake of their mutual sanity. Bruce is sure Alfred had been thinking that if one of them could keep it together, the healing process could occur more quickly for both. The problem is that they had each wanted to be the tough one… when neither of them were. So he’d sent his butler to England, saying that the change of location would be good for him.
Alfred, for once, had gone without question. Hadn’t even asked, “What about you, Master Bruce?”
Privately, Bruce suspects this is because they both know that no matter how far he runs— whether it’s to Kal’s fortress in Antarctica, or the League’s satellite in space— it won’t be far enough. It will never be far enough. Besides, Gotham is still, is always and forever, in need of protection. He’ll be damned if he abandons the city now; any chance Bruce had of analyzing his sunk costs and getting the hell out are long gone. So if the only thing left for him to do is stay, and watch Gotham slowly drown in the mire of its scum and sweat and fear and crime— by God, Bruce will go down with it. He is Batman, after all, and as the younger Leaguers are fond of saying, “Batman may be a bastard, but he gets the job done.”
Well, that’s not exactly true any longer, Bruce thinks snidely. Guess that makes me just a bastard.
The doorbell rings, and his head jerks up. Clark’s here.
__ . . . * . . . __
The walk to the study is terribly quiet. He tries not to let his mind superimpose memories of times when it wasn’t. Bruce wants to snarl at Clark, ‘I’m not fragile’ except that he is. He is fragile, and it’s only been four days since he woke up screaming from a nightmare, and found the Kryptonian suddenly there. It’s only been two weeks since he broke down, sobbing, and Clark Kent held his pieces together. It’s only been one month since Jason Peter Todd— since Jason…
It’s been one month since his youngest son died. Bruce swallows thickly, and carefully stops his hands from forming fists, his nails from biting into the palms of his hands, his breath from stuttering. Somehow, he holds himself together long enough for the pain to pass momentarily, and they reach the study. Then they sit, tea accoutrements already in place.
__ . . . * . . . __
“Where’s Alfred?” Clark asks after they’ve sat for a while and started drinking their tea.
Bruce blinks. “In England.”
Clark sets down his cup, frowning. “Then who’s that for?”
Bruce follows his gaze, and swears his heart stops momentarily. He feels all the blood drain from his face. There is a third cup, saucer, napkin, and sugar spoon on the low coffee table. It’s for Jason, who always looks for Bruce after he gets home from school. For Jason, who loves when Clark and Diana visit. For Jason, who also loves to drink tea and do sophisticated adult things with them (at least if they involve Alfred’s baking). It’s for his son, because some part of Bruce must have noted that Clark’s visit was scheduled a little before school ends, so Jason would surely want to join them when he got home.
The empty cup and saucer and napkin and spoon and hole in Bruce’s heart are all for Jason, who isn’t coming home. Who is dead. I must have put them out automatically, he thinks, feeling suddenly, terribly vulnerable. Bruce realizes that the irritating clinking noise is coming from him. His cup, held in one numb hand, is hitting the saucer in his other. Because he is shaking. Bruce sets the china down before he spills his drink. Or gives in to his desire to throw the cup at the far wall. This tea set was his mother’s.
I still haven’t answered Clark. Bruce takes a breath and meets his best friend’s waiting gaze. “It’s three o’clock,” he says stiffly. Clark blinks, seeming confused. Bruce suppresses his desire to grimace. He’s really going to make me spell it out. “Jason gets— got— out at 3:15.” Clark’s eyes widen for a beat, then his expression stills. In the background, the grandfather clock keeps ticking. His jaw twitches. His knuckles spark with pain as his hands clench into fists. In his mind’s eye, Bruce sees himself stand abruptly, sweep everything off the table and watch as it lands in a great, crashing, wet heap on the floor. He takes one breath, and then another, until the red haze fades from behind his eyes. Clark, evidently keeping an eye on his vitals, relaxes too.
The manor is still silent, save for the grandfather clock’s ticking, Bruce’s robotic breathing, and the fading echoes of a young boy’s presence.
“I’m sorry,” Clark says.
Bruce snorts. “Don’t be. Do you know how many times I—” he cuts himself off, sighs. Flexes his hands, and reaches for his tea. After taking a prolonged sip, Bruce sets the cup down again and stares at the table. “Alfred made an extra plate of food for a week, after. Every night, when I did a bed check, and forgot that… forgot,” he inhales shakily, and is faintly embarrassed by the breathy quality his voice takes on, “that he died, I’d have a mini heart attack until I remembered.” Bruce sits back, and runs a hand through his hair, squeezing his eyes shut to stop their wetness from spilling over. Fuck. There’s a lump in his throat the size of Texas, and Bruce feels himself spiraling. Damn it. No way you’re getting unbenched now—
The couch cushion dips beside him, and there’s a warm hand suddenly squeezing his shoulder. Bruce opens his eyes and looks at Clark, who smiles hesitantly, eyes soft with kindness and understanding. Then Clark frowns, and looks away. He doesn’t remove his hand, though. The room is quiet once again. A sigh eventually breaks the silence.
“You know, for all my powers, there are times when I feel so fucking useless—” Clark cuts himself off abruptly. His brow furrows, and he stares down at the coffee table. “I wish I knew what to say, to make this easier on you, Bruce. Sure, I can smell when you’ve been crying, hear you screaming from nightmares, know you well enough to tell when you’re lying about being okay... but none of that does anything to fix it.” He grimaces momentarily, then his expression turns thoughtful. “I could at least repeat the advice Ma gave me when I first got my powers and was hurting.”
Bruce blinks, realizing that that’s a question. Directed at him. “Sure,” he says apathetically. It probably won’t help him, but at least Clark will feel better. So why the hell not let him talk?
“Alright then, here it is: ‘Life is like hiking a long trail. Some days are gonna be tougher than others, and there will be times when taking even one more step feels impossible. Do it anyway. Get up and keep walking. Someday when you look back, you’ll be surprised by how far you’ve gotten. And most important,’” Clark smiles hesitantly, “‘find people to travel with, and don’t be afraid to ask them to carry the supplies for a while.’”