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Maybe hurling yourself in front of an unidentified beam is not the best choice of actions, but to be honest, Bruce couldn’t care less about his own safety these days.
Jason is gone. The bridges are burnt beyond repair with Dick. Even Alfred has grown tired of Bruce’s reckless abandon for his own life and his bloody rampage he’s taken on the city he had once protected.
So, when Bruce sees the opportunity to go out while doing something worthwhile on a Justice League mission, he takes it.
The world warps around him and he is not where he just was.
He takes in his surroundings.
Different location. Night instead of day.
First course of action, reconnaissance and confirmation.
Space displacement, time displacement, dimension displacement, or all of the above.
It takes Bruce just a few more moments of observation to realize that he is in Gotham.
It’s not his Gotham.
And, as he looks down at himself, this is his suit.
Not body replacement.
There is no indication yet to imply that this is not a hostile version of his own Gotham, so he can’t return to Batcave just yet.
He’s about to investigate what the current hero lineup is when there’s a soft thump of someone landing behind him.
“Jesus, B. You look like you’re having a crisis.”
Bruce turns around, shoulders tight, coiled up and ready to fight, and pauses when he’s met with an unfamiliar figure.
The man is taller than Bruce, built with dense muscle, the bat emblem on his chest in a bright red to match his bright red helmet.
“Uh, Earth to B?” the man says flatly, waving his hand in front of Bruce’s face. “Do we need to get Agent A to check you for a concussion?”
Bruce shakes his head tersely. “I’m uninjured.”
“Okay… yeah. That’s super sus and I’m totally not taking your word for that. I’m tattling to Wing.”
Bruce wants to shout in disagreement but doesn’t want to reveal his hand to this stranger.
“Yeah, hey Dickhead,” the man says into his comm. “B is being super weird. Come pick him up. I’ve got better things to do with my night than to babysit Batman.” The man sighs and looks at Bruce. “And don’t think you can slip away to go back patrolling. I’ll fuckin’ sit on you if I have to.”
Bruce huffs in reply.
“We’re back to the grunting, huh? I see how it is.” His hand taps over his heart. “Really feeling the love here, Dad.”
This makes Bruce tense. He’s suddenly reevaluating everything he had inferred about this man. This isn’t just a new vigilante colleague. This is his son that he’s never met. Or, perhaps, hasn’t met yet.
Time and/or dimension travel for certain considering he had called for Nightwing.
Even so, the man isn’t built like Dick. Nor is he built like Jason. Bruce will never get to see Jason grow, but he knows with his years of being malnourished that it would be a miracle if he got to Dick’s height, let alone the bulk of this man.
So, clearly, someone new. He’ll have to investigate further and the best way to do so is to follow this man’s lead.
“Ugh, are you fuckin’ kidding me?” he says in his common, presumably to Dick considering the nickname. “You’re really making me waste my night — yes, because I have things I planned on doing tonight — and, yeah, no, fuck you too.” His head tips up and he groans. “Fine. Only because there’s no one else available and we all know what B did the last time. Okay. Okay. I’m muting my comms now.” He sighs and turns back to Bruce. “Did you get plastic surgery?”
“Pardon?” Bruce says, startled so much that his usual Batman gravel falters.
“You just…” He groans again. “Oh for fucks sake. You time traveled, didn’t you?”
Clearly this man (his son, somewhere in the future or in a universe different from his) has formidable perception.
“How far back are you— no. Wait. Let’s go back to the cave. I’m not doing this on a random rooftop for anyone to hear. And I need a drink.”
There’s a somewhat awkward ride back to the Batcave with them both on the man’s motorcycle. He still hasn’t introduced himself and Bruce wonders if it’s to preserve the timeline or if he just hasn’t realized he needed to.
When they enter the cave, it’s already distinguishably different from his. It’s… brighter. Full of life in a way that it hasn’t been since…
And it seems to be used by much more than just himself. Telltale signs of Dick’s presence are immediately obvious but there’s others that he can’t make sense of like the bo staffs and katanas that he himself would never use.
Well, perhaps not never, considering it’s a time and place unlike his.
The man pulls open the fridge and cracks open a beer on the corner of his helmet before lifting it just enough to down half of it in a few gulps.
“Alright, okay,” he says, his voice no longer distorted. It’s rough and a low baritone with a thick lower Gotham accent. “I notified the rest of the birdies to not come down because, you know, wanna avoid any anachronisms or paradoxes or whatever the fuck, so you’re stuck with me. So, when are you from?”
Bruce tells him the date and the man stills.
“Fuck,” he swears under his breath. He places a hand where his forehead would be beneath his helmet and then leans over and screams again, “Fuck!” He starts to pace. “I didn’t fucking sign up for this shit. Why’s it gotta be me?”
“Because—”
“I know the fuckin’ protocols, B, shit.” He looks up at the ceiling holding his hands behind his neck in a painfully familiar pose. “Okay. Cool cool cool. So how exactly do we get you home as soon as fucking possible?”
“I had encountered a magic user—”
“Of fucking course. It just had to be magic.” The man goes to the batcomputer and starts typing. “If we’re from the same timeline, you’d have left a note, and if you’ve branched, then… then nada, right?”
“Or if this is dimension travel—”
“I really don’t think it is.”
“You have to consider the possibility—”
“There’s no note,” he cuts him off. “So… you’re most likely a branch.”
“You should really factor dimension travel—”
“We’ve dealt with dimension travel shit and… we know. There’s a way to just… tell, alright?”
“But what is a branched timeline if not—”
“Don’t give me that blabla bullshit, alright? I’m having a fucking crisis here. Just give me like one second.”
Bruce presses lips in a tight line unhappily as he watches the man start to pace again.
“What the fuck am I even supposed to do in this situation? I can’t… I can’t fix it, right?”
“Tampering with the timeline, even when branched, is dangerous enough—”
“You haven’t gotten another Robin yet, right?”
Bruce stops, not expecting the question. “No. I… no. I won’t have another Robin. Not after—”
“Okay there you go again with the blabla bullshit because yeah, you definitely do.”
“When my son died as Robin, Robin died with him,” Bruce snaps.
The man goes silent, the hand that was pointing accusatorially at Bruce suddenly falling limp to his side. “But you… you did.”
“I don’t know why I did, but right now, I… I can’t imagine why I would ever have another Robin.”
“You… you really don’t want another Robin? You don’t wanna… replace—”
“He could never be replaced. And how dare you even insinuate that he— that I—” Bruce stops, tamping down his anger. He should not be showing this much vulnerability to a virtual stranger, even if it is his son from this unbelievable future where he takes in more Robins and somehow forgets everything he vowed to himself after Jason…
“It’s been a couple months, right?” the man says.
Bruce’s head falls. “Five months and twelve days.”
“You count it.”
“It’s not like I can forget about it.”
“I always thought you… that you just moved on.”
“How could I possibly move on? My son was tortured. My son died in agony alone and it was my fault.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” the man says. “It was his. He was a stupid kid. He didn’t listen and he was impulsive and—”
Bruce slams the man against the wall, arm pushing into his throat warningly. “You will not talk about him like that. It was not his fault, it was mine and mine alone. He was not stupid, he was hurt and when I betrayed his trust and didn’t trust him, he looked for someone who cared because clearly I didn’t— he didn’t think I— and that is on me. So don’t you dare blame him for wanting to be loved. And don’t you dare spit on his life by implying that he wasn’t not the smartest, most passionate, most loving person I ever got the honor of knowing.” And with that he pulls away from the man, who clutches at his throat, coughing slightly, helmeted head frozen as he stares at Bruce.
And to Bruce’s shock, the man’s shoulders begin to shake, tiny hiccups escaping his throat before morphing into full sobs.
Bruce doesn’t know what to do. He’s never been good with emotions and he definitely doesn’t know how to handle this man’s.
The man pulls off his helmet and Bruce’s instinct is to turn away, but he can’t, because standing there, impossibly taller and broader and alive is Jason.
Bruce rushes to his son, his son who is crying and who reaches out to him, clutching onto him like he always did when he cried but too big, fitting so differently in Bruce’s embrace, and they both slide to the floor, Jason half in Bruce’s lap and Bruce clings to him, rocking him lightly as they both cling to the other.
“Jaylad. Jay?” Bruce whispers, ripping off his glove so he can card his fingers through his hair.
“I didn’t know,” Jason cries. “I thought you didn’t care. I thought you moved on and replaced me.”
“You can never be replaced.”
“But you did. You replaced me.”
Bruce pulls back and holds Jason’s face in his hands. “Even if I got another Robin, they would never replace you as my son. They would never replace you, Jason, because you are irreplaceable. And I— I hope to whatever Gods are up there that you were right about this being my future because to get you back is the greatest gift I could ever ask for and I will not waste it. I will make sure you know how much I love you because you… you clearly haven’t been told that here and now.” Bruce wipes Jason’s tears away with his thumb. “I love you, Jason. I love you and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. And I’ll spend a lifetime trying to make up for every way I’ve failed you. And I’ll spend that lifetime proving to you that you are loved and your life is precious and I could never, ever be disappointed in the man you’ve become.”
“You don’t know—”
“I don’t have to know,” Bruce says. “Because you’re you. And that’s all that matters. And if the me here is so much of an idiot that you don’t know that already, I’ll knock his head around until he does.”
Bruce begins to feel a tug, slowly engulfed in light.
“I love you, Jason. And I bet he does too and just doesn’t know how to say it. But know that there’s no possible way that I could ever stop loving you.”
When the Bruce of the present returns, cradling a teary Jason, his heart lurches, immediately pulling Jason to his chest.
“Do you love me, Bruce?” Jason asks, searching Bruce’s face tentatively.
“Of course I love you,” Bruce says. “I’ve never stopped."