Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
But then begins a journey in my head,
To work my mind, when body’s work’s expired

Jason wishes he’s one of those people who are so good at pretending they don’t need anyone, that they not only resist the urge to reach out, but also get successfully annoyed when someone else tries for them.

He has ignored Dick on the comms. He has ignored Dick’s calls and texts. He has ignored Dick’s WhatsApp messages. He is having a lot of trouble ignoring Dick on Animal Crossing, which is why he starts typing, to tell Dick to get off his island.

He types, Get off my island.

Dick types, But I love you :D

And then, what Jason could have done is to fling the phone and the pastel themed little world into the far corner and sink deeper into his ruined uniforms. But the incoming call startles him. He hits the screen in a fumble and all of a sudden there is his big brother saying Hey Little Wing on the other end, softly, and Jason’s throat tightens. 

He hums and grunts through about twenty minutes of very one-sided conversations until Dick pauses with an implication heavier than the easy flow of their chat.

“Have you had something to eat, and stuff?”

Jason eyes the crumpled cans of Red Bulls he has thrown at the wall. “Yeah. And stuff.” His voice is hoarse. Solely from screaming at a particularly asshole-ly Bruce. Dick makes a contemplative noise.

“You might have heard this already, but we got to the kids.”

Here Jason has to fight extra hard to leave what he is feeling out of how he sounds. “How? I was told two hours ago that the ship is coming in tomorrow.” Did every Bat vigilante minus one Red Hood swoop in when he wasn't looking?

“No, not the trafficking case. The kidnapping on the Upper East Side. We got to the kids and O tracked down the kidnappers.”

Right. Jason is disappointed at himself for having forgotten about the other major incident of the night. It had already wrapped up by the time he ducked underground, but he should have made sure to check. “Good. That’s good.”

Then Dick says “this is not me taking his side or making excuses” and Jason gets so mad at the both of them. Dick for saying that, and himself for believing it. He wishes he could hang up and chuck the phone out the window, but Dick follows up with “B was really spooked” and he finds the hand holding his phone pressing into the side of his face with a sudden spike of concentration.

“What do you mean?” He asks.

He could hear the way Dick is looking up to search for the right words in the sky. “He... one of the kids, there was a little boy, 5 or 6, maybe. Cute little guy.”

Jason doesn't know for sure how this will lead them down the road of explanation for Bruce’s becoming of an asshole tonight, but he knows he won’t like it.

“He, uh, sort of reminded me of you. Actually. And of Tim. But more you.”

He needs to relax. The receiver is probably picking up the sound of him grinding his teeth.

“You know, we troll him, but I think B does get more affected when it’s –”

“He didn’t know me when I was 5, or 6,” Jason says loudly. He has no idea why this is the point he decides to focus on. “None of you knew me when I was 5, or 6. I’m going to hang up now.”

The anger propels him up even though what he wants to do, what he really wants to do, is to curl up on the floor and fold into himself so tightly that he starts sinking through the floor and never stops sinking, but he picks himself up, snapping apart the lead lines weighing him down. That’s all there is to it, one second to the next. He’s been dancing this dance since the time before, clenched muscles and teeth and nails, all swing and all miss – on your feet, Robin –

He lets anger drive him through the mundane motions of stripping out of mud-caked layers and rinsing off his everything in the shower, then he allows exhaustion to punch him into his crappy mattress. There is a sagging hole in the middle where he could almost fit in. He balls one hand up into a fist and presses the trembling knuckles into his mouth to stave off the sounds that want to come out, as he listens to Dick’s voice message.

“I’m sorry I hurt you, Jay. I’m not saying this to hurt you. OK? I’m not telling you this so you could understand him or anything like that either. Because I don’t think it justifies anything. I just, if anything, what I can only hope is you would feel less bad. I know it’s not fair. It’s just- it’s just how it is.”

Why? He asks silently. What is so bad about him now that whatever used be to akin to love always comes out of Bruce wrong and lands on Jason with cold words and colder looks?   

He falls asleep in the hold of the sagging mattress. In his dreams, he could almost pretend it’s what a hug used to feel like.

He has never made it a point to actively contradict anyone on this, but Bruce isn’t thrust into instantaneous stupor whenever a black haired, blue-eyed boy just happens to walk by.

He lets the jokes roll harmlessly off his back. Of course, statistically speaking he also doesn’t have the best track record. Bruce is well aware of that. It’s one of those things that the family seem to enjoy at his expense, so he has learned to enjoy it with them. Over the course of several decades and the coming and going of half a dozen young ones in his life, he has developed the ability to think of many things with fond exasperation. It’s a sleight of hand no less horned than his myriad of combat tactics.

If only he could deploy some – any of those now.

The air dries up, moisture burnt off by a heat violently quick and rapidly growing. This is when he lifts an arm to shield himself against the sudden explosion, flame and force rivaling that of a white tropic sun. Hard to imagine how the desert is going to follow this fire with such a cold night. Cold nights. In his head, he knows the Magdala Valley gets cold at night. In his head, he knows every detail, everything there is to know, every fact about the climate, every shape of every grain of sand at 11°12′N 39°17′E.

Between one unbreathing moment to the next, he is suddenly kneeling beside the form of his dying son.

In his head he relives the brief seconds before, the lift of an arm, the pause, a fleeting and human second. The pause, because there is an explosion that has claimed his son. Imageries compress until they are only lurid lines, pulled taut, looping around him, round and round and etched into bones, blending into the fat of the marrow. How could he have lived, knowing the feeling of his son’s brain matter cooling off on his hands? How could he have walked away from that place, that day, a defining line suspended in the continuum of life, weighed down on one end, by the impossible pull to reach Jason, and the humanly damning instinct on the other? He feels the tightening of the line, this eternity that cuts him into two halves of a man.

In his head, he asks Jason.

“How could I have stopped before I got to you?”

Bruce comes out of the dream like breaking surface tension of water. The knowing and remembering does nothing to soften his fall. He shatters upon plummeting into the world of reality nonetheless.

His phone sits on the bedside table. One tap and the desert sky is washed out by ceiling lights. He does not allow himself the gentle awakening illuminated by the lamp. No. This way he is thrust under the full force of frontal assaults on his eyes and it –,  it’s a good thing, because it yanks his attention away from all the things inside him that are wrong, like how a single seam of pain is hammering away at his heart or how his hands are desperately cool against an unrelenting heat or how he is alive and Jason is –     

Sensory memories.

That’s what they are. Sensory memories.

Bruce knocks his head into the headboard and breathes a long sigh through his nose.

That’s what ultimately knocked the air out of him when he clasped a hand around Red Hood’s forearm and pulled him out of the sewer, roughly, panic tapering into fear and voice rising with anger. Some commander he was. Nightwing and Robin were with the victims. The little boy they’d just rescued had been terrified. He should be over there, scouring the crime scene and talking to witnesses. Instead he had sped across half a city to be here, to have a fight with the Red Hood.

They fought. They always fought over this sort of things now: who plunged recklessly into Killer Croc’s lair and who should no longer consider himself in any position to give orders. Batman pressed his lips together, into a thin line.

“Put your helmet back on,” He gritted out. “Why’d you ever think to remove it –”

“Jones gets more aggressive and, imagine this, cagey when he feels threatened. This is me trying to get the intel we need without punching my way to it!”

He was a mess. No one emerges from the sewer looking pristinely well, but he was a mess: where there was a patch of bare skin, there were signs of bruises and scrapes accumulated through at least a week of vigilante works, but the small cut right above his cheekbone that had been dripping blood? That stood out. That cut was taunting Bruce, insulting him like nothing else could. He took it personally. He pinned down the arm that wanted to lift up and reach out, and with bitter resentment began counting all the instances where Jason had practically tossed his life into a game of luck and odds, had practically flaunted his mortality in the face of danger, and the next thing out of his mouth became “I’m taking you off this case.”

The silence after was chopped up by Gotham weather, a downpour, which Jason punctuated with choice words, which Bruce countered with his own, an itemized list of Red Hood’s mistakes. Reckless. Reckless. Running into things. He’s lucky that he’s still –

Out of all his children, Jason had always been the most like him in temperament.  A clash of roars, old wounds scorched by new fire. Between the two of them, a lifetime’s worth of those. It’s the ability to hopelessly think one thing and end up saying another that this boy had precariously inherited from him.

Yet the domino mask could not hide the hurt on his face when Jason turned to walk away.

Bruce sighs again and pushes his forehead into one raised knee.

It was still raining when Jason left. He hopes he had managed to grab a hot shower and get out of those dirty armors. He hopes he was headed somewhere warm and clean. He hopes he has somewhere warm and clean to turn to, a place of safety when he deems the manor unwelcoming.  If given a choice, he would spend hours, days, simply pondering about Jason, the whys and hows of his son, the where and what. But he isn’t.

He counts to ten and turns off the light so he could lie still with open and unseeing eyes. In the dark, he doesn’t think about how his fingers have hovered over one name on his screen.

Chapter Text

His children, were they ever to find out, would be furious, given that Bruce has spent half of his career drilling the same knee jerk reactions out of them; given the countless quarrels and combusting fights it has resulted in. The other half of his career, Bruce spent getting yelled at by angry tiny traffic lights who would grow up and break his heart over and over, making him regret not saying it a whole lot more often than he did.

“Because I said so.”

Jason actually tore his helmet off in a display of incredulity. “You–, I–, Wha–” And then, failed by words, he simply pointed the helmet in Bruce’s direction like it was one giant red fist. “How dare you!” He settled on. “You don’t make the rules! I was the one who brought in the intel. I was the one who brought this case to you!”

“Precisely,” Bruce said. He hadn’t even bothered to turn around. “You brought this case to me, and I have made the decision to take you off it.”

Jason was so mad he was tripping over his words, which came out with a swish-swoosh. “So that’s it then? Just like that. You don’t– You just do whatever, whenever you feel– And you don’t have to jus-, justi–” He’s so mad his throat was getting tight and his eyes were getting red around the rims and Bruce still had his back turned to him. “Why don’t you say it then? Tell me you don’t trust me on your little team. Say it to my face!”

The last bit he finished on a proper yell, which finally got Bruce’s attention, right when he was beginning to fantasize about lobbing the helmet at the man's head. His voice was still infuriatingly calm but he peered at Jason over his shoulder with a frown. “What?”

He got nothing in return other than harsh panting as the younger man tried to rein in his tempest of emotions. Bruce turned to face him fully. “Who said I don’t trust you?”

That caught Jason in such a surprise that he actually managed to calm down a smidge and bring some air deep into his belly. “OK? So you are being a –” He stuttered. Why the hell did he stutter? Gone were the days when Bruce could make him think twice about what was going to rush out of his mouth with a single disapproving eyebrow. More importantly, Bruce was no longer in charge of what Jason could and couldn’t do, the very point he’d marched in here to contend. But it was useless. Once a word got lodged in your mouth with weird angles and thick edges, it became a lost cause. “A, a you for absolutely no reason at all?”  

Bruce paused. He eyed Jason for a moment, then shifted his gaze towards the depth of the cave. Then he took a deep breath and leaned back on his hand and looked at Jason again.

“Jason,” He said his name slowly, like he’d asked why the sky is blue and Bruce was both troubled by his lack of knowledge and determined to remedy that. “Actions have consequences.”

Oh, right.

What?

“You worried that I’ll mess this up?” He demanded hotly. “I’m the idiot who runs in, guns a blazing, setting stuff on fire?”

Bruce did not seem to want to rise to the bait and take them down their usual scenic route of trading blow for blow. Infuriating infuriating infuriating. He gave Jason another one of his looks, the one that said today you are going to learn about light waves and particles, and it’s disturbing no one has told you this yet. “You being suspended from this case is the consequence of you running off last night.”

Jason could practically taste the sparks from how much his brain had been short-circuiting in the last five minutes. First off, he did not run off. To be off implies that there existed something for him to be on, which there wasn’t, because Bruce, and by extension, Batman, was no longer the boss of him.

Hence the second thing: he didn’t get to do anything about anything that was done by Jason!

It felt like they’d been talking in circles around this thesis, except Bruce had no idea that this was the problem. Instead, he’d ventured into the realm of giving examples in the span of time Jason took to fight it out in his own head and forget to voice his clear protests.

“...and last week, when I caught Damian trying to sabotage Red Robin’s report, I made the same decision to bench Robin until the end of the school term.”

Jason blinked. “Why was Damian trying to mess with Tim’s thing?”

Bruce sighed. “I suspect it was a misled endeavor to initiate some interaction, which was the only reason why I did not ground him completely, and for much longer.” He aimed a flat look at Jason. “And for the same reason, I am taking you off this case.”

The flame inside Jason that went on a little confusion induced smoke break slammed the door so hard on its way back to the workstation that he felt the rattling echo in his skull. “You are doing this to punish me?!”

For a second, for a barely there, imperceptible-to-untrained-eyes second, he saw the hard shell around Bruce’s eyes crack and somehow the soundless motion sent his core through a shivering reverberation.

His first week as Robin, if even that, he’d stared down at the barrel of a potential punishment, and literally lost it on Bruce. It started with him getting a little overly enthusiastic in pursuit of a petty thief and didn’t hear (ignored) Batman’s sharp “Robin, come back!” and ended with his face planting into kevlar armors. Bruce was disproportionately grim considering he’d caught up with Jason before he’d even rounded the corner.

And that was probably the first mark his brain, his entire body recognized. On the palm of Jason’s right hand, spreading all the way from just above his wrist creases and all along the metacarpals, rested the second, third, fourth, twelfth, seventeenth mark.

He’d struggled against the strong hold on his shoulder with everything he had and screamed and screamed until Batman had to declare the call it a night and in the Batmobile, he’d kicked at the dashboard and thrashed at the window and Bruce flipped autopilot on so he could reach over with an awkward bend and wrap himself around Jason. He’d given up as they drew closer to the cave, thinking about what’s waiting, what form of punishment, what kind of –

He was 4, maybe 5. It wasn’t the first time but it was the first time he could remember, the day when Willis decided Jason was old enough for the more robust, physical form of discipline, he’d been conveniently and suitably drunk. Convenient, so that when Jason fell to the ground with a kick to his ribs, there was a ready row of beer bottles standing at attention. He tried to scramble away as soon as they started landing around, but there were so many, and he was so scared of being hit with one because he was 5 and he already knew the sound of glass shattering against laminate tiles would haunt him in years to come. In his state of panic, Jason shoved one hand right into one of the little mountains of shards.

Did they take him to a hospital, eventually? Probably not. He could vaguely recall climbing on top of the trashcan to reach the sink, and the stark clear question buzzing around in his head as he cried for what must have been hours.

What did I do?

Willis’ idea of punishment. Willis’ idea of discipline. Pour three fingers of gutrot, brewed from three generations worth of failed social welfare, into their aluminum pot that was missing both a lid and a handle, mix in one cup of Gotham harbor water, chug it while only pausing to loudly tell your wife and kid that they are the reason you got stuck in this piece of shit rat hole, punishment is the word that wafts up from your breath.

In second grade Jason had a classmate who was firmly devoted to palmistry and educated them on all the mounts and markings.  Jason would look down at where Venus and Moon were supposed to be on his right hand, and all he could see were the scattered stars of the reminiscence of his childhood. The words on Willis’ tongue.

All that, he’d told Bruce, after anguished hours spent in the whirlwind of memories, before he found himself held securely in a cradle carry, Bruce’s head bent down over his, and he could still feel the trembles in his father’s arms, how Bruce kept a steady hold of him despite them. He could still hear their conversation, those words that stood out reverently from an ocean of soft nothingness and warm reassurances.   

I would never do anything remotely like that to punish you. I would never do anything to purposefully hurt you.

What if I deserve it?

You could never deserve that. That’s not how it works. That’s not how it is. No child should ever be subjected to that.

And Robin? You won’t take Robin away?

You can be Robin for as long as you want. Some days, we might decide together that you would need a break, or you might choose something else, but no one will take it away. You will always be my Robin, and you will always be my son.

Bruce never used the word “punishment” in his time as Robin. Alternatively, he would say “I gave you direct orders,” or “I understand that you are unhappy about this, but these are the consequences,” or “let’s talk about this later”, or “why don’t we take a moment to calm down?” like he was 5. Bruce had never met him when he was at that age. Bruce was not there. It took Bruce forever to learn that he didn’t want space and alone time to quiet down.

He wasn’t sure what was the definitive catalyst, being compared to Damian, or hearing the familiar words of “That is a direct order. Disobey and you won’t be working on any cases for at least a month” and knowing profoundly that they were not the words he wanted to hear. He blinked and his helmet was out of his hand. He blinked again and his helmet was a glistening pile of old wounds and older blood. He realized that words were tumbling out of his mouth, unbearable, embarrassing heat of a train wreck, except the train was a toy model and Jason had caused the crash by picking it up and throwing it away in a tantrum. He had even succumbed to the urge of lifting his foot up and stomping down, the compound motion oddly satisfying.

What am I doing? He thinks to himself. What is this?

He watched Bruce watching him, not taking a step anywhere since the helmet had landed so far away he couldn’t have been hit if it were a ricocheting bullet. The man looked flabbergasted. Jason could hardly blame him, given what was happening.

The words he was screaming were, you are so stupid and your orders are stupid and this cave is stupid and I don’t care what you say.

The words he wanted to say were, why is life always these waves of roaring unforgiveness, and why were you the only safety that had ever held me steady in a sea of turbulence?

The last thing Bruce thought, before throwing himself into the water, was Jason is going to be furious with me.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t a choice.

No. No that’s a lie.

At the time, it didn’t feel like he had a choice.

One moment, they were in control –– spotting the ship coming into Gotham Harbor, waiting for the pilot to board so they could trace the traffickers to the local connections, taking over the vessel and subduing its crews; the next, some low-level henchman had grabbed a little boy who was dashing by like a jackrabbit.

He was trying to get off the ship, Bruce realized. He was tiny and scared and spent days at sea, likely in the dark, likely without enough food or water, and still he’d bolted the second he was free. Somehow, he managed to dodge all four vigilantes on board, Batman included.

And ran straight into the only person stupid enough to hold him hostage.

It’s a panic move, Bruce could understand that. What he could not understand was what could the idiot possibly hope to achieve. There simply was nowhere for him to run to, a point he made very clear while approaching the pair slowly. The boy, a fierce little thing, never stopped thrashing and screaming, not even when the man plucked him up and had him dangling over the water.

Bruce could have talked the man down. He could have made him see reason. There is nowhere for you to run. Let the boy go. Don’t make this worse for yourself. The situation was dire, but he was still in control.

Until the boy kicked off the stomach of the man and rocked wildly forward, breaking free effectively.

And falling straight into the sea.

He was so fast that Bruce didn’t have a chance to break eye contact with the man yet, and in the split-second before he bent down with a pained grunt, Batman saw the desperate fear mixed with absolute bewilderment in a criminal, and for once he was able to empathize completely with them.

And then he didn’t have a choice. One of the biggest myths in the superhero community, one that they collectively try so hard to sell to the younger generation, is that you should always think first and act second. Bruce would stand by it till he dies, but that is because he knows those children. The bravery, the guts, the unleashable drive to help, to put others before themselves. He needs to put down whatever speed breaker he can so that they are not always running into burning buildings headfirst. But at a certain point, the choice, the question becomes, do I risk my own life for someone else’s?

It wasn’t a choice for Bruce.

He was vaulting over the railing and diving into water, without evaluating, without pausing. He’d spent every waking second of the past four years training the remnants of human instincts in the face of danger out of him, be it treacherous waters or sudden explosions. He taught himself a different lesson, the one opposite to what he told his allies, his children, those who fought by his side. He wouldn’t stop. Would never stop again.

He’d spent every second in his dream reliving the consequence of stopping.

It was a wonder to discover that the boy was, in fact, able to swim. He’d kept himself afloat, though not without a significant amount of effort, and he was treading further and further into mortal danger. Gotham Harbor on a balmy day is, in the very least, unpleasant and a petri dish of biohazardous waste. This late in the year though, the cold alone poses the biggest threat before rip currents could pull you out and claim your life. Bruce could not see the color of his lips in the shadow, but he knew they didn’t have long, underneath the heavy armor, his own body was becoming numb alarmingly fast. He unclasped the cape while he still had fine motor skills, and reached out to the boy.

It was absolutely not a wonder to see how much defiance was left in the small body despite everything.

He actually tried to get away from Batman, attempting to, do what, exactly? Swim ashore by himself? Bruce could not begin to fathom the ridiculous thoughts going through this stubborn little thing in front of him, nor did he want to. He nearly snarled as the boy flailed and kicked, not for fear of drowning, but only to fight against Bruce who was struggling to wrap him up in the cape.

Oh god, he thought, please don’t let him die of this obstinacy. I could save him. Just let me save him!

He seized the too small limbs with more force than he’d have wanted to and pressed the bundle against his side firmly with one arm. His other hand reached down for the compact distress signal in his belt. The flare automatically engaged once the pouch was open, and Bruce raised his arm up as high as possible, treading water and restraining a squirming child. In small relief and large dismay, he sensed him moving less and less, as strength was finally lapped up by the frigid water.

Surely the others had assessed situation once he went overboard. They’d heard him through the comms, and they were setting up for a water rescue.

He shifted the boy so he could hold him closer, breathing directly into dark curls, in a futile attempt to transfer the meager warmth from his own body to this body held in his arms. 

In the water, with the red of the flare, his hair looks familiarly tainted, wetness of blood clinging, lifeless. Lifeless.

He doesn’t let his thoughts drift on the job. He cannot afford it.

But in the red water, lips pressed against the drenched curls, in the seconds they spent waiting, he thought of Jason. And because he was a wretched man, he thought please, let me see him again. I made him cry the last time I saw him.

It was the fire from Spoiler’s grappling gun that landed in the water next to them, the claw replaced with an ahiller carabiner clip, lighted end of the cord blinking a bright yellow and purple.  

Bruce didn’t bother with the hook mechanism. They didn’t have the time. He snatched up the cord, wrapped it around his less-occupied arm in three haste loops, then gave the line three tugs. It retracted. Even at half speed, the wind was cutting on skin that had been in freezing water. He curled in more to shield the boy against it.

Another second, and they were there.

Another second, he was pushing the boy up the dock and he was dragging himself up the wood planks.

Another second, he was watching people rushing in towards the boy and he was watching them removing his cape and wrapping him up with thermal blankets.

Another second, he was shoving the same blankets off him and grabbing bony shoulders in his hands.              

“What were you thinking?” He thundered. “Why did you do that?”

Several voices complained and tried to push him back. Bruce however was expecting the most spirited protest to come in the form of a tiny fist to his nose.

Except he didn’t get punched. The little boy, so terribly young under the port lighting, looked up with huge brown eyes that suddenly filled with tears, and all the bravado vanished as he stood there and bawled, no longer defiant, no longer stubborn. He was a scared baby deer who looked and sounded like he’d just had his heart broken, and the fear–turned–anger melted out of Bruce.

He had protocols. He had priorities. He knew how to handle child victims – which never involved yelling at one to begin with. He had control.

He forgot it all as he crushed the sobbing boy to his chest.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, over and over again, their bodies trembling together. Alive. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Furious could not even begin to describe how Jason was feeling, but it set the overall tone. He was mad when Bruce refused to acknowledge him and talk like adults when he first came into the cave, in good faith, even though it was unreasonable and unfair that Jason was taken off the case. He was livid when Bruce continued to treat him like some unruly kid and talked about actions and consequences. He was ready to burn all the bridges, spread the wood ash in a vegetable garden, harvest the pumpkins, bake them into a giant pie, and throw the pie at Bruce’s face, when he heard the beginning of the sentence “Disobey and you won’t be working on any cases for –”.   For how long? Forever? He was ready to scream, to tear down everything on his way out of the cave, starting with the damned glass case – Remember? How you used to be a Bat?,  and finishing with­ all the rest of Bruce’s tokens and mementos – Remember, you ain’t a Bat anymore.  He was ready. Ready for the blows. Ready for how it was always going to end this way, with the once-was-never-to-be on one side, and him on the other. So let it all crash and burn to hell. It would be good for his health. He could shrug at questions and say hey I tried and it didn’t work out, and let it be that.

Except there was a cold that curled up in his gut when he thought about a future where he wouldn’t even fight with Bruce anymore. Where they wouldn’t exchange any word, heated or not. No banters. No aggrieved sighs and furrowed brows. Nothing. It made him feel...empty. He wanted to cover up his hollowed-out body and just...stop.

He’s so tired of living on the edge of waiting and not knowing though. He couldn’t live in this in-between anymore either. It made him feel that he was not even real.   

So maybe it would be better to let it end. Maybe it would be better if they could go out on a silent note, even. Jason would walk out, all stoic. And Bruce wouldn’t stop him. And it would be OK. He could handle the cold. What he couldn’t do, was to spend a lifetime wondering whether he was real and alive and there.

Then the old man flipped the script and said “For at least a month.”

He said it with an almost-wince too, as if it was still his job to regulate Jason’s behaviors but he didn’t want it to be, not because Jason was a pain in his ass, but because –

He was 14 and Oberon was being a huge jerk and so was Bruce. All he wanted was to finish the second act.

“–and I don’t care what you say because you are stupid and your decisions are stupid!”

Bruce sent him up to his room, which would have been a much more effective punishment if he didn’t follow Jason in immediately when he heard muffled cries. Jason remembered big, warm hands wiping his tears away and Bruce’s baritone pitched high for Puck’s voice, the pinched expression on his face when he said “You still need to remember to turn on the lights when it gets dark, Jaylad. No more hurting those eyes, or I’ll set a limit to your reading time for...at least a week.”

He’d pouted through a reluctant agreement. Bruce was ridiculous. So was his idea of punishment.

Jason burrowed into the embrace and thought, I’m so glad you found me. Please don’t ever leave.

In the empty cave, his cheeks burned with shame.

He didn’t know what possessed him to give Bruce the satisfaction of witnessing him act exactly like a toddler and thus cementing the idea of Jason needing to be sat in timeout whilst the others set up ambush for the trafficker ship at Gotham Harbor, or what possessed him to stay put and not hop on his bike and feed Bruce’s orders to Batcow on his way out.

What is wrong with you? He hissed to himself. You were ready to take off when you thought he was kicking you out, and now you are just waiting around for Daddy to come home? He didn’t even ask you to stay!

It’s true. All Bruce said was, Jason, I’m taking you off this case. He did not ask him to stay in the cave, likely because they both knew there was no way Jason would have listened. So it was truly a mystery when, hours later, a flurry of Dick’s messages found him where he shouldn’t be, sprawled out on the training mat and scowling.

He read the messages. Then he read them again. Then he cursed and sat up.

He was ready to leave again.

He started to walk towards the bike, and saw what was left of his helmet on the floor.

Bruce was pulling on the cowl as he strode off to the Batmobile, past Jason. He paused by the pile of shattered mess and frowned.

“Jason,” he called out. Jason tensed all over.

“What?” God. The man was in such a rush to get out yet he could spare a few seconds to give Jason a lecture on controlling his temper –

“Be careful around that.”

Bruce was ridiculous. Jason was wearing combat boots. He was also the one who made the mess to begin with. It’s not like he’d get hurt by accidentally tripping and falling into a pile of fiberglass.

He was leaving.

He looked at the shattered helmet.

He was leaving.

He looked at the shattered helmet again.

He was going upstairs.

Jason muttered angrily as he burst into Tim’s room and rummaged through the large dresser. The little shit stole it from Cass, and Cass stole it from Jason. He knew it was there somewhere –

His eyes glinted with determination and scheme as his fingers brushed across soft fleece.

Bruce was going to regret leaving Jason behind.  

Chapter Text

Bruce takes one step into his bedroom and freezes.

This could be a hallucination. It usually is a hallucination. He sometimes sees Jason, in various states between dead and alive, wandering around the manor. One particularly bad (or good) month, not that long after the burial, he went everywhere with glimpses of a little ghost who’d chosen to take the corporeal form of 12-year-old Jason bouncing along at his heels. At night, he’d stayed close to the edge of the bed but turned to face Jay. Wet soil seeping moisture into his sheet, dirt pebbles crumbling underneath his body weight. He walked around knowing he’s dragging the wormy smell of rotten leaves from hours of laying in that bed – Rotten. Once on patrol, he swung by a clueless man consoling a young family who’d just buried their pet by the unfinished foundation of a suburban house. “Don’t worry. The body will decompose within a year.” Bruce had pulled off the cowl in a shrubbery two blocks down and vomited into Annabelle hydrangeas. His whole identity would have been blown if a dog-walker just happened to walk by too closely, but to this day, Bruce’s biggest regret from that incident was ruining those flowers.

Still, night after night he kept a light on because, what if, what if Jay hated the dark? He must do. He kept the light on. He’d gladly forgo sleep and soak in the scent of death if it meant getting to keep Jason, even like this. It was spring when they shoveled heaps of dirt onto the small box that contained his son. Bulbs of snowdrops almost transparent against April sun. Daffodils swayed delicately in the wind. A starling chick landed on the wing of the praying guardian angel. How his boy would had laughed at that. Nay, I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak nothing but Mortimer, and give it to him to keep his anger still in motion.

Anger was the only thing that kept him in motion. Anger was the only thing left in his bones. If Bruce let himself think, if he dared to stop and ponder, he’d have thought about how there was life blossoming carelessly all around, but not for Jason. How he wasn’t really lying there, a small corpse in his father’s bed. He was alone and six feet under. Beyond Bruce’s reach. He kept the light on and stared. It’s a mercy that he could cast his eyes upon this face. It’s a torture far, far less than what he deserved. He could cut himself open and bleed gallons each day, for the rest of his life, and it wouldn’t have changed anything.

He could have jumped into a hundred, a thousand oceans, and it couldn’t wash the smell of graveyard dirt off him.

Jason glares at him from where he’s lounging in the bed, arms spread out along the headboard, feet propped up by a pile of throw pillows. He leans back and crosses his legs so purposefully villainously, and Bruce hesitates.

In his hallucinations, Jason doesn’t tend to be wearing fuzzy hooded...pajamas.

He even has the hood pulled up, fluffy black ears flop around as he jerks his chin up. For half a crazed breath, Bruce distantly wonders if there is a tail too, before he shakes himself back into reality. Jason looks exactly the way he did hours ago, down to the cut above his cheekbone. If this is a hallucination where Jason is alive and well, Bruce would have fixed that in his mind. Which means he’s really there. He clears his throat, unsure whether retreating out of his own bedroom without a word would be viewed as an act of provocation.

“I can come back lat–”

“Turn off the thermostat.”

They speak at the same time and Bruce blinks. “What?”

Jason moves his jaw around like he’s trying to dislodge some chewable air from his mouth. He waves a hand at the door. “Turn off the thermostat for this room.”

Bruce reaches a hand towards the device, ready to comply but hesitates. “Are, are you hot?” It’s 30 degrees outside. That fleece...nightgown? Can’t be that warm. Jason glares some more. “No. And neither will you be. Turn that thing off and grab me some blankets.”

He’s much more certain that this isn’t the product of his cowardly mind. An unhurt Jason is one thing, an unhappy Jason is another, more consistent thing, but he never imagines the boy willingly speaking to him either way.

He’s terrified that he’ll be gone before Bruce could come back from the linen closet.

Setting cashmere throws, jersey knit and cable knit – he knows with certainty that Jason used to prefer the softer material, rubbing his face against it contently, but he doesn’t know what he likes now – down on the bed gingerly, Bruce feels completely lost.

And, if honest, uncomfortably cold. His body temperature has raised above the point of potential hypothermia, but not quite where it could be in an otherwise heated house. He watches Jason shake out layers of blankets and wrap himself up in a tight but messy cocoon.

Leaving a good half of the blankets trailing out unused.

Bruce’s entire body itches with the intense need to fix them and tuck him in properly. He doesn’t. It’s not a thing that he gets to do.

Minutes pass. Jason stares at him. And Bruce makes a sound before aborting. He thinks he can’t stand there indefinitely but then promptly realizes how very wrong he is.

More minutes pass. Jason’s stare turns wrathful. He might be building up to another explosive fit, Bruce observes warily. Although this circumstance seems...unprecedented.

The ire cools down and when Jason addresses him again, it’s with vindictiveness but a degree of flippant calm. “Do you know why we are here, old man?”

His heart tingles secretly at the end of the question but he really has no idea what is happening. Bruce shakes his head honestly. Jason lets out a dramatic sigh. “Well actions, have consequences.” Sharp green eyes meet his own blue, traces of mock solemnity, annoyance, the ever so present defiance, and one more thing Bruce could not untangle. “You decide to go freediving in Gotham Harbor, you deserve to feel like a quick-frozen sardine.”

Oh.

Oh.

Jason nods along at his own sage argument. “Yeah. Yeah. Dickie told me everything. How you gave them the cold shoulder, drove off by yourself and turned off the comms after, too.”

“I needed time to think,” Bruce interjects. He couldn’t get genuinely riled up though, not in the face of the 5% of Jason that’s poking out from rolls of downy beddings. “Are you...here to ensure that I stay cold?”

He definitely is, going by the glacial stare. Jason narrows his eyes. “Well,” Jason drawls. “I’m here to remind you that actions have consequences.” So this is still about their fight. “And that you always have the choice to act differently next time.”

Bruce has never felt more undeserving of his detective title.

Jason looks away, moves his jaw a couple more times, then looks at him with new found determination. “If you have somewhere better to be though, you can just go. Don’t let me keep you.”

No. He wants to say. No. Never. How can you even think that.

Bruce stands by the bed stupidly. “You are not keeping... I can just stand here.”

They go back to a brief silence, which is smashed with a sizzle when Jason hops into the air, blankets and all. “Bruce!” He booms. “You are in a room that is getting colder every second, and I’m literally the only source of warmth!” He pulls an arm out and flaps the rest of the blankets around violently. “The only source of warmth!”

His voice breaks on the last syllable and Bruce rushes forward with new found clarity. He still has no idea of, well, basically anything, but Jason is upset, and Jason is implying that he wants Bruce to fix his blankets.

That is what Jason is implying, right?

So why does he bare his teeth and yank the blankets roughly out of Bruce’s tentative hand?

He backs off at once, surrendering to Jason’s apparent, and justified, oh so justified, repulsion. He won’t go near him. He won’t ever taint the boy with his existence again. Bruce swallows, taking another step back as Jason lets out an indignant “aargh!”.

“I won’t touch you,” he tries to reassure. “I understand. And I promise. I won–”

“Why the hell not?!” The blankets are truly and remarkably tangled now, laying in a mess, along with the rest of the bed: the duvet, the throw pillows, the regular pillows, the boy who’s burst into tears. Two times in less than a day. Some kind of father Bruce is. He hurries back, only to halt by the edge of the bed, inches away from where his back used to be, on those sleepless nights spent keeping vigil of his son’s body. The body will decompose in a – Jay. Jay, Jay, Jay.

“Jay,” he says, in a hushed tone, numbly and to himself. What if this is a hallucination? What if it’s all been a hallucination? What if grief has turned him mad years ago, and Jason is still, still –

A pillow smacks him in the face.

“Why the hell not!” Jason repeats. He’s shrieking now, picking up chunks of soft things and throwing them one by one at Bruce. Were they boulders, Bruce would allow himself the act of atonement by standing there and becoming a vessel to hold Jason’s rage. But they are not, and rage is not what flows out of Jason. He deflates as suddenly as he’s erupted, and falls face down into the mattress as loud, wrecking sobs shake his body.   

Bruce knows he need to do something, but he doesn’t know what to do. The man who did, the father he was, is kneeling next to a warehouse fire that’s been burning for the past four years.

Jason kicks at the bed and the exertion interrupts his breathing. His cough bouts take the air out of Bruce’s lungs. The sound seizes his heart in a steel fist and squeezes. His feet carry him over and he’s kneeling on the bed, putting hands under armpits and pulling Jason to him. He doesn’t deserve to touch this boy. He doesn’t deserve to feel his warmth as life pumps steadily through this body, but he has to wedge himself between Jason and the source of Jason’s pain and distress. The fact that he encounters no resistance means nothing. Soon Jason will feel better, and soon Jason will go back to hating him. Soon the universe would go back to what it’s supposed be.

For now though, Bruce arranges them so he’s leaning against the headboard with Jason held in his arms. There are parts of him that still fit – comfortably as well – in Bruce’s lap, he discovers mournfully. The rest he supports with an arm behind the boy’s back, pressing him closer, head on Bruce’s shoulder and tears trekking down Bruce’s collarbone, to be soaked up by his shirt. He cards his fingers through tousled hair, slowly, carefully. They were presumably damp from the shower when Bruce first came in and now they are damp with sweat. Sensory memories. Moisture migrating from the tip of dark curls to the tip of Bruce’s fingers. He closes his eyes. He won’t enjoy this. He doesn’t get to enjoy this. He will stop the second Jason feels better. He tightens the embrace.

If Dick were the full range of emotions emblemed on the glossy and bright cover of a picture book, then Jason came to him with a heart as battered as saddle-stitched repair manuals that were jammed behind a rusty toaster. He never cried, all alert eyes, a stiff grip on self-sufficiency and a despairing view on the world. It had made him hardy, but it also made him grow up too fast. He never cried and then when he did, they were silent tears that disappeared before Bruce could even wipe them up.

Until he got scared. That night on patrol. Later on, Jason confessed his fear of being abandoned and hurt by both Batman and Bruce, but in the moment it was happening, the sudden burst of emotions had startled Bruce just like now. He remained useless until Jason was so upset that he almost threw up before they reached home.

It had been a while since he’d employed a cradle carry for comfort. Physical affection was one of the many things his oldest had outgrown at that point. The mechanism was the same though. Bruce counted his steps from the car to the central computer console, pacing along the limestone walls. He hummed and murmured and eventually when the tears subsided, Bruce sat down and held Jason through jumbled words. He’d vowed then, to never let Jason get hurt like that again, and before his ultimate failure, he’d managed to coax out the delicate remainder of a childhood from his little boy. He cried in earnest. Hands covering reddening face and eyes peeking through parted fingers to make sure Bruce was in the room. And he always was, heart impossibly soft at the tender trust placed in his hands. They were making progress. The first time Jason thought to use crocodile tears to get out of trouble, Bruce was so enamored he let a smile broke through. He wonders when did Jason start feeling secure enough to dip his toes in all the tried and tested ways of children who knew they were loved. 

He wonders when he stopped.

A fist rubs at screwed shut eyes harshly and Bruce has to wrap his own hand over it. “None of that,” he tells Jason gently, in the same hushed tone he used to whisper his name. “None of that. Breathe slowly.”

Jason ignores him and goes back to crying with renewed gusto. It seems his stamina has grown too. For the umpteenth time, Bruce feels utterly lost. He has no strategies except the obsolete ones, no way out other than muscle memories snaking through a torched map. Jason’s next breath gets stuck in his chest and Bruce finds himself floundering to gather the boy up even more and press him even closer.

“Alright,” he murmurs into the space between Jason’s eyebrows, “Alright. I’ve got you. Whatever this is, it’s not as bad as you think. I’m here. I’ve got you.” 

The responding breath comes out uneven and with another raspy, sad little sound, Bruce feels wetness pricking in his own eyes. Why can’t he make this better. All he wants is to make it better. He presses his lips to the crown of the dark head. “What happened, sweetheart?”

Puffy eyes peek out from the crook of his neck, Jason whispers something he doesn’t catch. “What was that, honey?”

Jason pulls back. Bruce can see his entire face now, blotched and miserable. The boy barely looks at him, eyes shining under lowered lids, Lazarus green. He opens his mouth and it feels like someone just shoved Bruce off a cliff.

Quietly, Jason asks, “Why don’t you like me anymore?”

Chapter Text

Atlas the Titan fathered the constellations Pleiades and Hyades, and went to war against the Olympians. He failed. He was condemned by Zeus to hold up the sky. Unable to bear the forever weight of heaven with his flesh and bones, he asked Perseus to turn him into stone. A coward’s way out.

The room is cold.

He tugs loose the duvet and pulls it around Jason. With numb fingers, Bruce finally manages to wrap up the little star he never could have dared to dream to hold again. He remembers their first embrace, the love he’d felt for this boy ever since. This brazen little thing, the blood that courses through his body is not mine, but he is.  

Did Atlas look up at the night sky and think, at least I get to be close to my children? A pointless act. But did he lie to himself, thinking that he too was holding something precious aloft?    

Bruce’s body is locked in marble.  He wills for his mind to become as still as his body. He wants – he would rather serve the eternal punishment, standing alone at the edge of the world, until eternal breaks him down from rock to soil, until moss covers his eyes and trees grow, until cattle graze beside the mountain path, and maybe, maybe redemption will come. Maybe then he would be able to look up at the stars and not have every love he’s ever felt for the boy in his arms eclipsed by his brutal and bloody death.

He can hear Jason sniffle. His lips are granite, tongue obsidian. He doesn’t remember a time when speaking didn’t feel like moving mountains, but he can hear Jason sniffle. Bruce stares ahead, and when he does talk, his words are gravels.

“I love you very much, Jay.” He says. Atlas and his children of stars. The punishment that is never to end. He can’t bear to look at Jason. He’s not mine, not anymore.  

He does not have a defense for the way his heart still longs to claim this child, so he fixes his eyes on the far wall and waits for Jason’s scorn.

“Yeah, no, I know that. I mean, maybe. I guess. I just, I hoped you – ” There is that watery tremble again when Jason mumbles the rest of his words. Bruce tears himself away from the meteoric acceptance of “I know” and forces his chin to rest on top of messy curls. It might be wishful thinking, but it might be that Jason is actually wiggling to tuck more of him into Bruce’s chest. “What do you hope, Jay?”

No answer. Instead a hand grabs a fistful of his shirt, twisting and squeezing, as if he’s trying to hold on, too. Grief swells up in his throat and Bruce bends down to kiss him on the temple. This is not a glimmer of something new for him. This is about the old promises that he once made, to Jason. “What do you hope, Jaylad?” The word tastes foreign. It tastes like lava. It tastes like ash.

But bright, green eyes lift up to meet his at sound of the old nickname. Jason tilts his head cautiously, but he’s looking at Bruce the way he always did, as if this shell of a man isn’t a poor relic of a bygone father. Jason licks his lips. “I hope you can love me more than an idea, you know.”

“What do you mean,” Bruce croaks, gravels tumbling down the collapsing mountain of stones. Tears fill up his eyes but Jason doesn’t let them fall. “I, I understand it, you know. From your point of view. Like if I were you, I wouldn’t be able to – But – I mean I understand. I got myself killed and you could never just be my dad again. You were just my dad and then you were my mortician.”

Please, God, anything. I don’t want to go back there again.

“So you don’t – You can’t look at me the same way anymore. But, I, I don’t want to be the thing that’s just a reminder of a better thing you used to have. I don’t want to keep being an idea.”

The tears are clinging on desperately. Can’t they see it’s a losing battle? Somethings are indomitable. Gravity. The rise and fall of stars. Six feet of grave dirt Bruce has put between himself and the world. He drags out a breath from deep, deep inside. “Jason,” he begins, and words almost die again with that name. “Jason,” he continues, hoarsely. “I’m not – , It’s –. You are right in that things have changed, and –”

“ – And so you don’t like me anymore.” The fight has gone out of him. The temper too. He’s the same little boy who tried and tried to not cry because he was convinced no one cared. “Because I’m a di, different person now.”

Tattered body. Burning fire. His entire life, the universe has granted him one mercy in the form of his wonderful children. It has also granted him a miracle, the quavering boy convinced that the trench of rotten blood between them is his doing, rather than Bruce’s. Bruce swallows the rising tears. “No. Jay. It’s not because you are a different person. It’s because I am.”

Jason blinks at him owlishly.

“Oh,” he says.

Yeah.

He doesn’t lean back on Bruce. Of course. Who can blame him.

“Well…can’t you change back?”

Bruce startles.

“Can’t you change back?” Jason repeats, in a small voice. “Please?”  

It’s childish and naive and indelicate. He was so young when he was –

Bruce thinks about red sand paste and grave soil and sharp line sawing through his core. How? How does he go back, how can you ask stones to come to life?

He looks at Jason’s face. Teardrops finally succumbed and they are rolling down cheeks ruddy with emotion. When did he stop making demands on Bruce, so certain that he was going to get his way? He looks at this face, instead of the one in his mind, the one in a birch photo frame perched on his nightstand. You don’t like me anymore, because I’m a different person.

Can’t you change back?

It’s childish and naive and hopeful, that evergreen Robin faith. He doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t deserve him.

Another tear rolls down Jason’s face.

Bruce reaches out to pull him back against his chest. “I’ll try,” he whispers. Each word feels like trying to swallow a handful of rocks, but he hears himself say it. I’ll try.

He fully intended to serve up a dish of cold revenge and lord it over Bruce forever when the man eventually begs for one blanket. That’s on the same bed. With Jason. Who is coincidentally, also the peak of coziness. He’s fluffy. He’s fuzzy. He’s irresistible. Who wouldn’t like a chance to surreptitiously feel his panda fleece pajama (with a front pocket too!). The kind of chance that typically comes up when you are sharing blankets?

The longer Bruce stood there and did none of the above, the stupider he felt.   

He got the same feeling listening to B drone on about old rules. Familiar voice delivering familiar words that made him feel...helpless. He used to believe in everything Bruce told him, about how Jason was his son and it was his job to take care of him. He wanted to believe them now, but he couldn’t. He wanted to run but he didn’t know where to go. There was one direction he could, but it’s not the direction he wanted. There were no strong arms that meant safety and whispered words in that direction. The world was waiting to swallow him whole and spit him out bit by bit over there.

So he came here, like an idiot, thinking that perhaps Bruce would actually be happy to see him.

Dick texted him about the way Batman threw himself after the little boy and the way he gave everyone instruction to go home without him.

He texted Dick that he’d handle it.

That was the initial plan. In his mind, Bruce would be trapped in his downward spiral, too emotionally drained to fight against Jason’s eccentric demands, and he would give in to both the blatant hint from Jason and the human need of a core temperature above 95F. They would bicker and Jason would protest, and later, Bruce would wake up to his well-rested, grumpy, grumbling self, and they could have a better discussion about Jason’s very unfair grounding last night. No big deal.

They used to do stuff like that all the time.

It didn’t happen. Bruce was not the one who fell apart. It was Jason, crestfallen but not knowing why. Not knowing how. Not knowing when. He was entangled in the same rapid whirlwind that had been taking him away from the blur of his past, the softer, warmer things he tried so hard to hold on to.  He was heaving in the horrible realization that Bruce probably didn’t actually want to see him like that. The dinner invitations and family gatherings were more of a polite gesture than anything else. He walked out of this manor a son, and came back a mangled solider. What business did he have, hanging around, demanding Bruce’s time and attention.

He couldn’t stop the sounds coming out of him, not even when he was dragged forward and up, and his arms were trapped between his own body and a firm chest. Jason buried his face in Bruce’s shoulder and wailed. There were so many things he wanted to say, wanted to ask. He couldn’t. He was too scared. But Bruce was patient, the closest to the person Jason remembered, a version that he sometimes feared only existed in his imagination. Part of Jason would always be tethered to the dingy second floor apartment in the Narrows, cleaning glass shards out of his hand.

At one point, when Bruce must have run out of ways to subtly sway them side to side and rub a hand up and down Jason’s arm, he started talking. Words that melted into his hair with drops of kisses. He just wanted to see Bruce’s face again. All they do now is fighting but when Jason was little and scared, Bruce looked at him like how Dads in those story books did, except it was better, because he was real and he was there. The thought of never getting to see that look again struck him harsher than the blows of a crowbar. He stumbled through their conversation still not being able to say the one thing he’d really wanted to say: I just wanted my Dad back.

He got the next best thing though, which is a promise from Bruce that he’ll try, and it made the thorny wires around his chest loosen a bit.

In the empty room, Jason sighs a breath. He would feel embarrassed if he’s not so tired.

And dehydrated. How long does it take to get a bottle of water? The manor is not that big.

He’s almost dozing off when a hand rubs gentle circles over his back. “Sit up for a little while and drink this,” Bruce murmurs. “Then you could take a nap.”

Jason twists around. “No,” he informs the old man. “I don’t need a nap.” He doesn’t. He’s a grown-up, recent events notwithstanding. He grabs the bottle out of Bruce’s hand and pauses, waiting, for a dreadful moment, for the man to disappear again.  

He reads Jason much better this time and settles back down on the bed. Once Jason is done with the water, Bruce pulls him close again and smiles a whisper of a smile when Jason unceremoniously throws both legs over his.
“Better now?” Bruce asks softly, brushing his hair back. Jason answers by shoving his nose into the spot right under Bruce’s shoulder. They stay in the silence that shimmers with ripples of unsaid things, but at least it isn’t festering this time.

Not until Jason decides to open his mouth again.

“Why do you yell at me so much?” He mumbles with closed eyes. “You never used to yell at me.” Please, tell me what changed between us, the irreparable thing, it was a thing that happened to you and me. Tell me it’s not because of who I am now.

He feels a muscle jump in the arm holding him. Bruce doesn’t answer straight away, Jason sighs. “It’s because I’m not a little kid anymore, isn’t it?” He asks. “You were...nicer. Not as mad at me.”

Bruce’s breath hitches. “I’m not mad at you,” he sounds like he’s in pain. “I’m never mad at you. I’m just, worried. I can’t stop –”

He couldn’t finish the sentence so Jason picks up the slack just like they are supposed to for each other, Batman and Robin. “When you don’t show me that you are worried, a lot of times it just sounds like you are being mean,” he tells the familiar shoulder.

Each time Jason speaks, Bruce becomes that more convinced that he needs to be locked up in the darkest corner of hell. He thought that the problem with Jason is he’s never scared enough. If only he could drill the concept of fear in, he could keep him from danger. He has been regurgitating that notion, raising frustrated voice higher and higher, in a blind attempt to make him listen and stop and think and stay safe. But Jason, stubborn, defiant Jason, he never listened, and he never stopped. Countless times Bruce has wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake some sense into the boy. “Why would you do that? What were you thinking?!”

Image of the crying little boy resurfaces, so upset at Bruce’s apparent anger. Turns out he was scared, too scared.  

Has Jason been scared all this time too?

He picks up a hand and turns it over in his own. This hand is calloused and almost as big as Bruce’s, but he brings it to his lips nonetheless, and presses one kiss over every invisible scar, exactly where they used to be, a lifetime ago. There are two people in this whole wide world who have memorized those scars: it’s Jason, and him. He forgot to ask who else is going to do this while he’s on an exile, stripped of the old title. Who’s going to fill that role, if not him? What other father does Jason have, if not Bruce, with all his faults and sins and ruined heart?

“I was trying to do better this time,” Jason tells him. Bruce grits his teeth against the pang of despair. “I know, Jaylad. I’m sorry.”

But Jason isn’t done.

“I was trying to be better. And you just started yelling at me.” Bruce wishes he could reach back in time and claw at those words until they are nothing but sand, but he can’t. All he has is the here and now. “I’m sorry,” he tries again. “I’m sorry I made you feel bad.”

Jason looks at him like he’s trying to search for something on Bruce’s face. Finally, he puts his head back down. “It’s OK,” he murmurs. “I know I make you feel bad too. I don’t mean it. Most of the time.”

Bruce lets out a wet little chuckle. Jason’s breath evens out. He seems peaceful and ready to fall asleep. Bruce retracts one arm and –

Burning emerald eyes fly open. “What are you doing?” Jason hisses. “Where are you going?”

Bruce quickly puts his arm back. “I was just going to reset the thermostat. This room is getting cold.”

Jason sits up straight and glares at him, seconds later, a pillow hits Bruce in the face with a flux of déjà vu and the boy swings his legs off the bed and drags one blanket along – a jersey knit throw, Bruce notices.

“I’m so mad at you,” he declares. “For your information, a lot of people consider me very delightful to be around –”

“I know, Jay. I –”

 “Forget about free hugs. They’d line up to cuddle me for a hefty fee –”

“I agree. I –” 

“Like Alfred. And Roy. And Dickie. And –”

“I would –”

“And here I was. And you’d rather swim laps in your freezing cup of suffering soup –”

Bruce is now trailing after a grumbling and mumbling Jason through the house (he catches words such as “payback” and, “like I’m five” and “explain why the sky is blue”).

They arrive at the sunken living room, one of Martha’s favorite, with renovated large glass panel windows and a midcentury conversation pit that is mostly used by Dick. The original coffee table has been replaced with a giant futon mattress and an obscene number of pillows. Bruce lets Jason shove him into the pit.

He hesitates once they are both lying down. Jason looks very comfortable with only his eyes peering out. “I have a blanket.”

“That’s right, Jay.”

Jason huffs. “Don’t you wish that you also have a blanket?”

Frankly, yes. Bruce shifts slightly closer. “...Yes?” He can back off at the first sign of rejection.   

Jason wiggles one hand free and peels back a corner of the blanket. “Take a hint, old man.”

Bruce does.

Chapter Text

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WE Smart Home Control Center: West Wing – Family Room – Uncharted Den (Last Line of Defense: no one will find me here) 

A/C is at 73° COOL mode

Alarm Set for:  15:25

Do Not Disturb on.

Bruce sets his phone down with a sigh of relief. Last night was hectic, and this morning was even worse. He is not looking forward to the Summer Solstice Party tonight. But at least he’s horizontal now, nothing is broken, and he is looking at over three hours of quality naptime.

A bird chirps outside. It lands on the windowsill and starts singing a pretty song.

“Shhhh,” Bruce tells it. “Dad needs to close his eyes for a while.” Three hours, if decades worth of pursuit of justice should amount to anything.   

Sunlight filters in through sheer curtains and sprays all over the other side of the room. There is absolutely no sound and there is nothing on Bruce’s mind but sleep, peaceful, calm –

“It is like a furnace out there!”

His children are good kids. If he feigns to have a coma, they would probably let him rest. They’d leave him alone and –

280 lbs lands across his torso, with a running start and a high dive too. Bruce adjusts his breath to maintain the even, slow pattern. He’s asleep. He can’t hear anything. He can’t feel –

A hand smacks him in the face.

 His children are ruthless, evil, little chaos monsters, but Bruce is positive he can outlast them. All he has to do is staying still and keeping his eyes closed.

“Bruce?”

He’s fine. He doesn’t need anything. If there is an emergency, Bruce would have gotten an alert or he would have felt the roof when it collapsed.

“B?”

Two hours of sleep doesn’t sound too bad either. He’s gone longer on fewer.

“Master Bruce.”

They need to take family members out of the roster for drama character nights.

“Na na na na na na na na—”

No more musical parodies allowed. No more sitcoms in this house.

“Mr. Wayne?”

Oh that’s just dirty. That’s what they all called him in the first month.

“Boss?”

Is he deliberately going for a higher, young Robin pitch?

“Dad?”

Bruce’s heart promptly skips a beat.

“Daaaaaaaaaad?”

Positive reinforcement, that’s the key. He will reap what he encourages.

“Dad. Dad Dad Daaaaaaad.”

And what he wants is to encourage more of this. Bruce peels one eye open. He will say hi to his son, then he will go back to that nap.

“Dad Dad Dad,” Bruce parrots with a smile, and pulls an arm free to wrap around Jason. It really must have been hot outside. The boy is radiating heat solidly. He feels for his phone to turn the AC up. “I thought you weren’t coming tonight, Jaylad.”

Jason rolls the majority of his bodyweight off Bruce, leaving one arm and one leg draped over the man. “Do you not want me to come?”

“Of course I do.”

“Well I’m not. I saw the photo by the way. Why is Dick getting a mochi shop and not me?”

“Because he took the picture. And you can have one too. Do you want a mochi shop?”

“No.”

“OK.” Bruce lets his eyes drift close. He has got the perfect setup here – perfect temperature (or it will be soon), cuddly son, quiet room –

“I could do with a bookshop that’s also a bakery though.”

He’s willing to offer up a football stadium in exchange for some shut-eye. “OK.”

“Are you listening to me, Bruce?”

Bruce forces his eyes open. “Yes, love. A bookshop that’s also a bakery.”

“I want one.”

“We’ll make that happen. Aren’t you tired, Jace?”

“I took a nap. I want it to also serve food. Like sandwiches and soup. But then we’ll have to be extra careful and divide it into book zone and food zone. It will be hard to monitor because what if people just brought their own book?”

“Very reasonable concerns.”

“My favorite sandwich is bánh mì.”

Bruce is aware of that. Complacency makes him forgo a verbal answer.

“I said my favorite sandwich is bánh mì, Bruce.” Right. This a conversation that Jason wants to be happening. Bruce rallies. “That’s great, buddy. We’ll get you some...” He couldn’t help the yawn. “When we go by that place in Tricorner.”

“OK.”

“OK,” Bruce agrees. He counts to ten, then closes his eyes again. For a while there is only the blissed sound of leaves ruffling outside and Jason’s soft breathing. Bruce sighs contently and is ready to be carried away into the far, far away land of dreams.

“What’s your favorite sandwich?”

Bruce’s favorite sandwich is the one he ate last night, before going out to patrol, when he was under the illusion that he could be paying a visit to his bed sometime this century. “I dunno, Jaylad.”

“Everyone has one.”

“I haven’t thought about that, champ.”

“So if there is a row of every sandwich that exists in the world, right in front of you –”

“I think I would pass.”

“You are not allowed to pass.” Is he allowed to pass out? Bruce buries a hand in Jason’s hair and scritches at his scalp. If he can lure Jay into sleep, then maybe there will be hope for himself too. “Hmm. In that case, I’ll pick the bánh mì and give it to you.”

Jason nuzzles up to him. “That’s nice.” He pauses. “But what is your favorite sandwich?”

“...Alfred’s cucumber sandwich.”

“You are lying. Are you trying to shut me up?”

Bruce turns to the side so he could pull Jason back on top of him. “No, baby. I’m just...” he yawns again. “A little slow today.”

“Oh. OK. Did you hide here so no one can find you?”

“...no.”

“That’s what I thought. Why would you buy a daybed the size of Hawaii for a den of solitude? I have never seen one that could fit three people without being pulled out.”

“You are right.” He probably is. Bruce is an enabler and a saboteur to all kinds of rests.

“So what is your favorite sandwich?”

He can practically hear the gears in his brain honking on the freeway in a rush to get home. “Define a sandwich for me please.” That should buy him a few minutes.

“I define it as some sort of non-bread thing, stuffed between two bread things. I’ll allow the exception of Ice cream sandwich though. Do you like ice cream sandwiches?”

That’s not a few minutes, and Bruce does not. He also doesn’t want to explain his rationales for ice cream sandwich disapproval. “Sure, buddy.”

“OK.”

He wants to go back to petting Jason’s hair, but his arm has stopped cooperating. He’s also fairly certain that he just started hallucinating the bird from earlier laughing.

Silence. Bruce slowly closes his eyes.

“If ice cream sandwiches are sandwiches, would Oreos be sandwiches too?”

Bruce cannot open his eyes. Bruce cannot recall what Oreos are – in fact he cannot recall what sandwiches are. “Do you want Oreos to be sandwiches, bud?” This is his new strategy going forward. It’s not that he’s trying to actively participate in this conversation less and less, it’s just that he loves listening to Jason talk.  

“Maybe?”

“OK.”

He stretches his neck and tilts his head to rub against Jason’s hair with the side of his jaw. It tickles nicely. Was that the last question of this pop quiz?

“Do you prefer the O part or the Re part?” No it was not, and Bruce is failing. He pauses, refocuses, and realizes he still cannot grasp the context of this question. “Do I...?”

“The O, or the Re part, you know. Of an Oreo.” So they are still talking about Oreos. Does he prefer the O or the Re part? Bruce blinks slowly.

Jason nudges at his rubber-made arm. “Can I have your phone? I want to show you this meme.”

He hands over the phone, with great difficulty, and stares at the ceiling in a haze until Jason found the picture he wanted, then Bruce stares at the dissembled parts of biscuits in a haze.

“So?” Jason inquires. “Do you prefer the O part of the Re part?”

“Hmm. Is this like the sandwich where I have to pick?”

“Obviously.”

“Even though I don’t like biscuits?”

A gasp. “Cookies! Say it with me, Bruce. Cookies!”

“Cookies,” he amends. “I don’t like cookies.”

“You have to choose though.”

“The O part then.”

“OK.”

“OK.”

He doesn’t even close his eyes this time, partially because Bruce doesn’t know if he’s asleep or awake anymore, partially because even at 4% of capacity his detective brain can still see the pattern. And sure enough, Jason crawls up to look at him. “Do you really though?”

Bruce has no idea what the question is. “Yes.” He might have to pay for this later. As a preemptive strike, he decides that he should start his own, new topic for once. If only there is anything he can think of.

The bird chirps again.

Bruce interlinks their fingers when he feels Jason’s hand reaching down. That’s all his body has energy for right now. “Do you like...birds, Jay?” A million years ago, he came into this room to take a nap, but now he isn’t sure about that anymore. He can feel Jason laugh though. It’s such a nice, soothing sound that vibrates down his ribs. “Yes I like birds, Bruce. Do you like birds?”

“I do.”

“What’s your favorite bird?” Jason can barely contain the knowing laughter in his voice. They are both anticipating the same answer.

“Robins,” Bruce tells him. Even through the fog he can feel the jolt of absolute wonder that word brings, like an icefish fliting across the reflection of a muddy sky. He braces for the next question. This could be tricky terrains they are heading into now.

“What type of robins?” Jason asks innocently. This comes as a ray of grace for two reasons: one, it’s not the question Bruce was expecting (“Which Robin is your favorite?”), given all the preceding ones and the “if you have to choose”s; two, he actually does have an answer.

“I always thought that you are European robins,” he admits.

“Because of Dickie?”

“Because – maybe ­– but mainly because I thought European robins are – ” Cuter. “– more majestic.” Personally, Bruce considers them tiny fur balls of the sky. Jason makes an acknowledging sound. “If I’m not Robin,” Oh no. “What other bird would I be?”

Oh, OK. Fortune favors him today, a little bit. Bruce also has an answer for this one. “A button quail.” He understands Jason’s temporary silence is only a result of surprise, which is a result of how quickly he came up with that. Then again, Bruce has pondered about it.

“Why a button quail?”

“Their babies are so small. A button quail chick is the size of a pistachio.” He can feel everything sloshing around in his skull, drowning out the warning bell that usually rings at what not to say. “I can put you in my pocket and take you everywhere.”

There is something new in Jason’s voice. A little more substantial than amusement. “Oh yeah? What if I grew up then?”

Such a silly question. Bruce doesn’t need his eyes open to answer this one. “I’ll just get bigger pockets, Jay.”

“Will I fit in your utility belt? You’ll give me a designated pouch and everything?”

Sleep is overrated. He can rest his eyes for twenty minutes, snuggle with his son, then inhale a pint of triple espresso somewhere between the party and patrol. Maybe two pints. Bruce summons all his might and folds both arms over Jason. “I’d never put you there,” he whispers. “It’s too dangerous.”

Something pokes at his nose, then squishes it. Then there is another wave of silence. A strong heart beats, right over his. Bruce floats. This is as close to happiness as he’s ever gotten.

“Bruce?” A voice whispers. He hums in reply. His body no longer knows who that voice belongs to, but it knows profoundly that it’s his boy. If he wants Bruce to come awake again, he’ll do it. He can try with a hum first though.

“I turned off your alarm. Dick said he’s taking Damian to that thing tonight and gaslighting people into thinking that you eloped with someone.”

“OK.” That sounds like a good plan. Doesn’t he have a son named Dick? And one named Damian? 

“And there is some Titans team-bonding scheduled for later. Guess what lead they are going to follow?”

A lead. He was supposed to follow a lead, on patrol tonight. It has something to do with the –

“– And I already paid the Maroni’s gang a visit, all stealth and such mind you. Everything checks out.”

There is a hand playing with his hair now, Bruce has forgotten how tranquilizing it feels.

“I lied about taking a nap before. But now we can both do it.”

A nap sounds heavenly. He can take a nap. But there is something else he needs to do. Something paramount. Bruce can’t sleep until he does, even though his tongue feels like an Australian braid knot. He clings to the buoys of reality for five more seconds, until he hears the reply.

“I love you too, Dad,” the voice says.

Bruce lets go.

Chapter Text