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Bruce arrives just in time to watch the warehouse explode with his son in it.
“No,” Bruce gasps to himself as he runs into the fray of flames and smoke, the heat of it slamming into him like a brick wall. He plunges in anyway. “No. No. No.”
The warehouse is nothing more than a pile of brick and ash, fire blazing everywhere Bruce can see. It’s erupted into its own miniature Pompeii. The rational part of Bruce informs him that no one could survive a blast like that. He tells that part to shut the hell up.
“Jason!” Bruce shouts, uncaring about secret identities. He has just enough forethought to press the button sewn into his utility belt that alerts the local authorities of their location. Jason will surely need an ambulance. It will take at least a half-hour for help to arrive from the nearest town. It will be enough. They have no other choice.
“Jason, answer me!” Bruce’s chest heaves with effort as he overturns chunks of cement and picks through the damage. He can feel the heat of the fire through his cowl and kevlar, feel the smoke collecting in his lungs with every inhale, and all he can think is: Jason is feeling this heat. Jason is breathing this smoke.
Bruce covers his mouth with his arm, coughing on the poisonous air. “Jason!” His heart is pounding in his throat, shattering his ribcage, pummeling in his fingers and toes. He strains to listen, hoping for and dreading the sounds of his boy calling for help. Please.
He warned Jason not to take on the Joker himself. He begged Jason to wait for him. Why couldn’t he listen? Just this one time, when it counted more than anything. Why did he have to be so damn heroic? Bruce knows it’s his own fault. All of it. Jason is too good, too noble to back down from a fight. How could Bruce have been so stupid, letting a little boy step into the line of fire?
Bruce’s heart stop beating in his chest when he spots a splash of blood in the debris. No, he pleads with the universe as he stumbles for it. No, not Jason, please not Jason, please not my boy. He arrives at the body, crumpled in the debris, limbs twisted at unnatural angles. And blonde hair, streaked with blood.
Bruce hates himself for the relieved breath he lets out as he identifies the corpse as that of Jason’s mother, Sheila. He knows without checking for a pulse that she’s dead, but he checks anyway. She’s already cold to the touch.
Bruce gives her a few seconds’ mourning before he stands up again. He leaves her there in the rubble to be handled later. Jason can decide whether they’ll bury her here or in the States. Jason is the priority here.
“Jason!” Bruce calls again, more desperate than the Batman has any right to be. “Jason!”
It takes an eternity of picking through rubble and ash before Bruce finally sees it. Red and green. A yellow cape. “Jason!”
He’s pinned beneath a cracked support beam, half-obscured by hunks of debris and charred brick. But it’s undeniably him. “Jason. Talk to me, son.” Bruce lifts the beam off of Jason’s body, almost not wanting to see, not wanting to know, because once he knows, there won’t be any going back.
Then Jason’s chest jerks. He coughs, faint and raspy. “B-Bruce?” His eyes crack open, blearily searching and landing on Bruce.
Bruce’s lungs quake with relief. “Jay.” He’s dropping to his knees beside Jason in an instant, pulling down his cowl to expose his face.
Even a cursory glance tells Bruce that Jason is in bad shape. There’s blood and bruises over every exposed inch of flesh. Bruce can see where skin has been torn and charred from the explosion. He can smell it. Jason’s uniform is ripped and blackened and bloodied beyond recognition. Bruce’s hands hover over Jason’s broken form; he doesn’t know where to touch without hurting him.
“Robin,” Bruce says, his voice uncharacteristically weak. He clears his throat, touching Jason’s face as gently as he can until Jason’s eyes meet his own. “Report.”
“C-Crowbar,” Jason gets out, coughing painfully. “Beat me. Hard t’breathe. Broken ribs. Left leg too.” He drags in a grueling breath. “Prob—prob’ly brain trauma. Burns from—from the blast. Internal bleeding.” He makes a quiet sound, then—a whimper. “Hurts really bad, Dad.” His split lip trembles like a child much younger than he is.
“Shh,” Bruce tells him, sweeping his hand gently through Jason’s bloodied hair. He’s removed his gloves so there is no barrier between him and his son. “You’re going to be okay, Jay. You’re okay.”
“It hurts,” Jason cries, and god, he’s so young. He’s just a boy. He’s too young to be in so much pain. He’s too young to die. Tears trail down from the corners of Jason’s mask, leaving pale tracks through the soot on his face. Bruce gently peels the mask off so he can see Jason’s eyes properly.
One of them is blackened and swollen, the iris red from broken vessels. He’s looking up at Bruce. “I’m—I’m sorry,” Jason says, quivering. “Thought—thought I could save her. Is she…?”
“Don’t worry about that now, sweetheart.” Jason is in enough pain. He doesn’t need to know his mother is dead.
Jason coughs, his throat gurgling as he chokes on his own blood. It stains his teeth. One of them is chipped where it wasn’t before. Bruce quickly but carefully lifts Jason’s head and rests it on his knee so he won’t aspirate on the blood. His torso gets draped across Bruce’s lap, held close to Bruce’s chest.
“It’s okay,” Bruce tells him, his voice clogged with emotion. “You’re going to be okay, son. Help is on the way.” Jason just needs to hold on for a little while longer. He brushes the hair from Jason’s forehead, trying to keep him calm.
Jason’s eyes are filled with an agony he doesn’t voice besides the quiet whines under barely-there inhales. “I’m—’m I dying?”
“No,” Bruce answers quickly. “You’ll be fine, Jay. You’re fine.” He’s careful to avoid the sticky wounds on Jason’s head while he brushes through the boy’s tar-black curls, working out the bits of rubble and ash. “The medical team will be here any minute.”
“I’m sorry,” Jason chokes out, trembling in Bruce’s embrace. “It was a t-trap. I should’ve…should’ve listened to you. ‘m sorry I didn’t listen.”
Bruce shushes him gently. “I’m not mad, Jay. You did good. You tried to save her. I’m so proud of you, son.”
“Don’t—don’t leave me, okay? Don’t—” Jason tumbles into another coughing fit, making painful raspy sounds as his broken ribs are jostled.
Bruce wipes away a stray tear from Jason’s temple with his thumb. “I’m not going anywhere, Jay. You hear me? I’m with you. You’re not alone.”
Jason drags in a painful breath, wheezing. “B-Bruce. I don’t wanna die.” Jason shudders, even the act of crying being too much for his broken body. “I don’t wanna go.”
“You won’t,” Bruce promises him, and he’s crying now, too. He doesn’t care that Batman isn’t meant to cry.
“I wanna go home,” Jason whispers.
One of Jason’s hands is bent and swollen, clearly broken. Bruce holds the other one. “We’ll go home. We’ll get you fixed up, and then we’re going back home, Jay. You and me.”
He’s so young. He’s barely lived. He will never go to his prom or graduate from high school or go off to college. He’ll never get more than these brief fifteen years. Jason wanted so badly to go to college, to prove everyone wrong who told him he’d die in a gutter on the street.
Jason releases a pitiful sob. “I’m scared,” he whimpers, so uncharacteristic of the Jason Todd that Bruce knows. Knew. “I don’t want to die, Dad. I don’t want to.”
All Bruce can think is, I can’t go through this again. Not with Jason. I’m not ready.
But he needs to be. For Jason’s sake.
“You don’t need to be scared, Jay,” Bruce soothes him, trying to sound steadier than he is, even when his insides are crumbling apart. “I’ll be right here with you the whole time, okay? You don’t have to be afraid. I’ve got you.”
Jason nods, still crying. “Tell Dick I was brave, ‘kay? Don’t—don’t tell ‘im I was crying. Tell him I d-died really brave.” Bruce can’t muster the words to respond. He just nods, petting Jason’s hair. “An’ Alfie. Tell him I’ll miss him and I loved him a lot and I—” He erupts into another coughing fit, barely able to drag a full breath in now.
“Easy, son. Just breathe. Stay here with me.” Keep breathing. Don’t ever stop breathing. “I’ll tell them. I promise.”
Jason whimpers. “It r-really hurts.”
Bruce shushes him, kissing his forehead. He tastes blood. “It’s going to be okay,” he whispers against Jason’s temple. He wishes he could keep Jason just like this for as long as he can.
“You…y’know I love you, right, B?” Jason swallows thickly. A line of blood trails from the corner of his mouth. “You were—y’were a really good dad. I never—I should’ve told you that. You’re the best dad I ever had.”
Bruce can feel his heart splitting in half. He doesn’t know how he’ll be able to keep living after this day. He can’t fathom it. His continuing existence will forever be tainted by this one gut-wrenching, unthinkable moment. “I love you too, Jay. So much.”
Parents aren’t supposed to lose their children. Batman isn’t supposed to lose his Robin.
“Dad?” Jason says after a moment. He blinks like the action takes all of the energy he has. His crystal eyes lock onto Bruce’s, teary and pained. Bruce doesn’t ever want to see them closed again. “It doesn’t hurt anymore. That’s—it’s bad, isn’t it? That I don’t hurt?”
Bruce’s soul is cleaving in two. “Yes.”
Jason just nods, resigned. He’s trying so hard to be brave. He’s always been so brave. He looks up at Bruce, his eyelashes clumped with tears falling freely still. “You’ll stay with me? Y’won’t leave when I go?”
“I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart. I’m right here.” Bruce isn’t ready for this. He’ll never be ready. He doesn’t let himself think ahead, even for a moment. He’ll have to tell Alfred that he lost their boy. He’ll have to tell Dick. He’ll have to plan his son’s funeral. Bruce refuses to think about the paralyzing fact that his future won’t include Jason, and that’s no future worth living.
Jason squeezes Bruce’s hand weakly. He’s shaking. “I was…I was a good Robin, right? I wasn’t bad?”
“You were the best,” Bruce tells him. He cups Jason’s cheek. A tear drips onto Jason’s tunic. “You were the best partner I could ever ask for.”
“Yeah?”
Bruce smiles sadly. “Yeah.”
Jason sniffles, mustering a weak smile of his own. It’s stained with his blood. “That’s…that’s good. That…” He trails off, his chest jumping feebly under Bruce’s hand. His eyes are looking off someplace past Bruce’s head. He lets out one last exhale, and then his chest goes still.
With trembling fingers, Bruce slides Jason’s eyes closed for the final time. “I love you, Jason,” he whispers to the small body in his arms. “I love you. I love you.” He presses his forehead to Jason’s cold cheek, hugging his fractured body close as sobs wrack his frame. “I’m so sorry, Jay.”
He can hear sirens in the distance, but Bruce pays them no mind. Bruce’s son is dead. Nothing will ever matter again.