Work Text:
Wayne Manor was a very old house. A very old house, that has served its family for a very long time. Generations of Waynes had been born there, lived there, loved there, and were buried there. And generations of Waynes still walked its halls, from time to time.
When Bruce was a small child, the ghosts were fun. Ancestors he knew from paintings hanging along the halls might stop by to sit and read in the library with him, or knit in their old bedroom while he was adventuring. Occasionally his great-grandmother would stand at the stove stirring a pot while he had his afternoon snack. There was nearly always somebody in the corner of his eye, even if not all of them had the energy or the connection to fully appear.
After his parents died, Bruce longed for and feared seeing them appear in equal measure. While it was warm and comforting to look over and see his mother at his bedside, humming a soft song, or his father flipping through papers in his study, their flickering back out of sight always brought a fresh wave of grief. For years, Bruce was reluctant to turn to the flickers, always a little unprepared to see his parents at his side. But, as time wore on, and the pain grew softer, and he found a mission, and a family of his own, he began to find joy in the visitors again. His heart leapt to see Dick sitting at the table next to his father, and Jason and Martha curled side by side on the settee before the fire. Wayne Manor began to feel full, in a way it hadn’t even before his parents’ death.
After Jason, after Ethiopia, Bruce did his best to refuse to see the flickers. He had never dreaded seeing a ghost so much as he dreaded the first time he might see Jason again. And yet, wouldn’t it be worse, if he never saw Jason at all? Would that mean he was adrift? Would Jason be stuck in Ethiopia? Or Crime Alley? Or simply gone, forever? Bruce shut his eyes, and turned away, and avoided even the hint of a shadow around a corner.
Until one night he couldn’t. Stumbling into his room, bruised and frozen from patrol, a little body, far too small to be Dick, lying in his bed. A little scruffy dark head on his pillow, curled up tight with the covers pulled close to his chin. Breath catching in his throat, Bruce sat down shakily in the armchair by the fireplace, afraid to climb in bed and disturb anything. And there he sat, watching, until that soft tousled hair gently faded away with the morning sunlight, 7 AM sharp, as the alarm clock nobody dared to reprogram began to beep down the hall.
Despite the riptide of sorrow in the wake of that first appearance, Bruce began to watch eagerly for the apparitions once more. And to his bittersweet joy, Jason was a frequent visitor, playing around on the uneven bars in the Cave, lying on the rug of the study with worksheets, sat on the kitchen counter as Alfred mixed cookies. Several times a week, nearly daily sometimes, Bruce got a few minutes more with his boy.
And then, abruptly, the visits ceased.
It took three or four days before Bruce began to worry. Gaps in appearances weren’t unusual- ancestors with less tying them to the manor may only appear once every few years. Even his parents occasionally went a week or two without a visit. But Jason’s visits had been regular- everything he owned in the world was in the manor. The physical remainders of his life sat undisturbed just as they had been 5 months prior- strong ties that should help to anchor his energy.
After ten days, Bruce called Zatanna. The best she could tell him was that she couldn’t find Jason- his energy was not currently in the manor- but why, or where he had gone, or whether it was permanent, she could not determine. Shaken, Bruce began to spend his daylight hours searching all of Jason’s bolt-holes and quiet places. Hours sitting in the attic next to a cigarette packet with only one missing, an afternoon in the coat closet in the closed wing where a dozen cans of food had been stashed away. He spent his daylight hours searching, and his nighttime hours trying his very best to follow.
Another little boy began to demand first Bruce’s daylight hours, and then his nighttime hours. At first, these hours were shared with resentment, resignation at best. But slowly, Tim began to smooth the jagged edges of Bruce’s misery. It was never with joy the way it once had been, but still, Tim sitting in the conservatory working away at his computer while Patrick Wayne paced was, at least, nice to see. A touch of family once more, broken and strained though it may be. Dick even began to come by more often, turning cartwheels to make Tim giggle, even if conversation with Bruce himself remained short and stilted.
Time passed, years slid by, and Jason never visited, not even a flicker. Bruce even managed to persuade Constantine to stop by, for as much good as that did him. As far as anybody could tell, Jason was just gone, apparently for good.
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A gang war. A rooftop battle. A red helmet. A grown man, wearing a dead boy’s face.
It took time. It took a lot of tears, and fighting, and gnashing and wailing. And then-
Joint missions, carefully negotiated. Tea with Alfred, Bruce only daring to stop in for a moment. Slow, careful, cautious.
Then, one day, out of the corner of his eye, a shadow. A dark head, tucked into an armchair with a book. For an instant, Bruce felt the same bittersweet swell as he always had. And then he remembered, and slowly, carefully, cautiously
he reached out and touched.