Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tim finds himself at Jason’s grave for the fourth time in a week, and it takes him that long to realize he has a problem.

He doesn’t know how many times he’s visited Jason all told, but the frequency has been increasing over time, and that can’t mean anything good. It’s been six months since Robin died, and the longest Tim’s gone without visiting his grave was a two week period when his parents were in Gotham for a series of meetings and dinners and a gala, all of which required Tim’s presence at their side.

But that was a month or two ago, and now he’s here, standing at a dead hero’s grave in the pouring rain.

At least he has an umbrella.

The hems of his jeans are soaked through after he stepped in a puddle at the entrance to the cemetery, and his shoes are coated in mud from slipping his way between the graves.

Lightning flashes across the sky, followed a few moments later by the boom of thunder, and Tim winces as the sound washes over him. He looks down at the muddy grass that’s grown over the dirt, Jason’s grave more orderly than the graves surrounding it.

Tim sees a dandelion stalk growing up through the grass, and he crouches down, tugging the weeder from his hoodie pocket and pulling the weed from the earth with a steady hand, making sure to get the roots so the weed won’t just grow back tomorrow. He puts so much work into keeping the grave clean and tidy, there’s no sense in making more work for later.

He wipes down the weeder and tucks it away, throwing the dandelion at a tree a few graves away. There’s a whole bloom of dandelions there presently, but Tim knows the gardener will mow them down at the end of the week.

He gently presses the grass back into place on top of Jason’s grave, and stands again.

“We miss you, Robin,” he starts, as he always does. “Gotham misses your smile, your spirit, the magic you brought to us all.”

He pauses to think about what else he wants to say.

“I miss you, Jason.”

Tim didn’t meet Jason very many times, always at one gala or another, but the other boy was always kind. Every meeting was memorable, and Jason always made the galas pass by so much more quickly.

Mother and Father were pleased to see Timothy making nice with the newest Wayne, even if he was a ‘guttersnipe.’

Tim looked the word up the first time Mother used it. It made his blood boil, knowing his parents thought so lowly of Jason, of Robin. But he never said anything, because he knew if he fought back, they would see that Jason was influencing him, and prevent him from ever talking to him again.

Because Jason was influencing Tim.

He made Tim laugh, made him look forward to seeing another person for the first time in…

Tim doesn’t look forward to much now.

Jason’s dead and gone.

Bruce is drowning himself in alcohol.

Batman is bringing bloody violence to the streets of Gotham.

It’s a disservice to Jason’s memory, and Tim isn’t sure how much longer he can stand it. He’s already had to buy a burner phone just to call ambulances for the criminals Batman leaves in his wake. Tim doesn’t know why Bruce isn’t honoring Jason’s memory, why he isn’t bringing light and hope to the darkest of places, the way Jason tried to do.

Tim thinks Bruce might’ve forgotten that Jason was more than a broken son. That he was Robin, a being of magic and wonder, the partner Batman needed to bring real change to the hearts of Gotham. That he would want Batman to continue doing just that.

Instead, Bruce is trying to kill himself; suicide by criminal, and he doesn’t care who he ends up taking down with him.

Tim doesn’t want to let that happen.

He can’t let that happen.

But Dick refused to go back to being Robin.

Tim isn’t sure what else he can do, short of putting on the mask himself and throwing himself between Batman and his targets, reminding him that he needs to fight for something. He can’t just fight.

He’s been working up the courage, but he’s not there yet.

Not before tonight.

“I miss you, Jason,” he says again, voice choking up with tears. “Bruce is losing himself. He’s going to die out there, and I’m scared.”

Jason always comforted Tim when he got frightened at the galas, when people were too close and too loud and too much. He’d tuck Tim away in a curtain or an alcove and walk him through breathing slow and even, or take him to the kitchen where he and Mr. Pennyworth would get him hot chocolate to calm him down. Jason has always been Tim’s hero, in and out of the mask.

But Jason’s not here right now.

And it suddenly hits Tim like a ton of bricks.

Jason will never be here again.

He’s really gone.

Tim wraps his arms around himself, like Jason did the last time he saw him, when Tim’s breathing just wouldn’t settle. Jason wrapped his arms around him and put Tim’s head on his chest, letting Tim listen to his heartbeat, slow and steady in his ears.

“J-just, breathe,” Tim tells himself, voice hitching unevenly.

Lightning strikes again, thunder quick on its heels. The storm is closer, and the wind tries to yank Tim’s umbrella from his grasp, blowing ice-cold rain into his face. Tim gasps, the shock of cold startling him into a full breath.

He hugs himself so tight it hurts, and images of Jason’s dead body flash through his mind. He didn’t see him in person, not like the Grayson’s fall, but he hacked into the Batcomputer and saw the photos from the mortuary and–

He wishes he’d never looked. It felt like the right thing to do at the time, but Tim keeps dreaming about it, about Jason’s corpse, beaten and bruised and rotting away below the dirt. Sometimes he dreams that he’s down there with him, that they’re trapped in Jason’s coffin together, scratching at the closed lid. He wakes himself up screaming, thrashing violently against the covers that pin him down to the bed, clawing at the sheets to escape.

And then he has to come out to the grave and check. Just to see. Just to make sure that Jason’s not still alive down there, trying to get out.

Tim kneels down at the graveside, ignoring the way the muddied rain immediately soaks through his pants. He puts his ear to the earth, grimacing at the feel of mud on his face.

He waits.

And he hears…

Nothing.

Chapter Text

Jason opens his eyes and he can breathe.

His first breath is long and slow, an eternal inhale that turns to a shuddering, drawn-out sigh.

It’s dark, and quiet, and the air tastes stale.

He blinks, and it’s still dark. Not even a little bit of light.

Jason lifts his head, and almost immediately his bare face presses into something soft and smooth, some kind of fabric, like silk or satin, and he jerks back, landing on some kind of pillow. He tries to bring his arms up to his face, but the backs of his hands quickly hit the same fabric. He raises his hands anyway, turning them and trying to lift the fabric off of himself. Instead his hands press deep into the plush fabric until they hit a solid barrier.

“Wha–” he slurs, and he feels so strange.

The air tastes stale on his tongue. His mouth is dry, and he wishes he had some water.

“Bruce?” He asks, struggling to bring his hands up to his face. “Alfred? Dick?”

He’s boxed in on the sides too, so he can’t sweep his arms out to bring them up. He eventually bends his arms in, crossing them up and over his chest to bring them up to his face.

He pushes on the fabric, starting to feel a little frantic.

Is he caught in a rogue’s trap? Is he stuck under his bed in the dark? Where is he?

He tries to move himself to the side, but he hits a wall. Then another on his other side. He kicks his feet, and only succeeds in hurting his toes against what must be a box. He’s in a tiny box, oh, shit. Shit, where is Bruce?

“Bruce!” He calls, pressing hard on the fabric, and when it doesn’t give, he starts scratching at it, trying to tear it away and escape from whatever rogue took him this time. He’s not in his uniform, he can only feel normal clothing on him and there’s no domino over his eyes, so he probably shouldn’t be calling out for Batman just yet. “Bruce?!”

He scratches at the fabric, finally managing to tear it a little. He gets his hands into the hole he made and starts ripping, tearing a long rent in the fabric lining of the box he’s stuck in.

He hopes that’ll be the end of it, that he’ll manage to break out of whatever he’s been hidden away in, but his hopes are dashed when he feels only smooth wood on the other side of the fabric.

He pauses, panting for breath, and tries to think.

Okay. He’s in a box. The air is stale.

There’s not much air. Mierda.

He immediately starts to slow his breathing, fighting against the panic threatening to overtake him. If he panics, he dies. It’s just like when he was diving on vacation with Dick and Bruce and he looked up at sixty feet of water over his head and realized that if he panicked, he’d be dead.

Dead.

That– Why– Oh fuck, oh fucking shit, no.

God, he’s dead. He fucking died. The Joker and the crowbar and Sheila and the bomb. No, no, no, no, nonononononononono.

His breath starts coming faster, and he rips at the fabric in front of his face, clawing desperately for more air, more space, more light. He can’t find any. There isn’t anything but him and the box and the choking knowledge that he really died, and they buried him. He’s in a coffin, oh, mother of god!

And then he can’t breathe at all. His heart pounds in his chest and he gasps but he can’t get any air. It ran out. The air ran out already. There’s no air, there’s no air. Jason whines, the sound loud in the confines of the box, and he keeps scratching at the fabric and wood, frantically trying to find a break in the wood, anything he can use to break out.

His vision is streaking with white light, stars exploding in his wide eyes, and Jason finally breaks.

“Dad!” He screams, “Dad! Dad, help me!”

He loses time, screaming and scratching at his coffin, pain and bursting lights in his eyes, his own whimpers and wails ringing in his ears.

He loses time… and he only comes back to himself when something warm drips onto his face. It drops down as he pants for breath, and only when he tastes blood does he realize what’s happened. He presses his fingers to the wood and a hot pulse of pain rushes through him. He can feel splinters and long scratches against his damaged fingers, the feeling stabbing deeper into him than it should. He probably lost a few fingernails to his panic. He scratches weakly at the wood, but he only succeeds in sparking more pain.

It’s not working. He can’t break out on his own.

He has never wished for superpowers quite like he’s wishing now. Except when the Joker was beating him and there was still a chance for escape. He wished pretty fucking hard then too.

Jason forcibly pushes the memory away, trying to think.

“Robin, report,” he croaks to himself, voice raw from his screams.

He doesn’t have his uniform on, so he can’t use a batarang or a knife to break through the wood. He fruitlessly wishes for his gear for a few moments before he gets back on track, taking inventory of what he does have, instead of what he would give anything to have with him.

He has a suit jacket. He could wrap it around his hands and punch the wood. He could bandage his fingers. He could cover his head in case he does break through. He tries to struggle out of his suit jacket, fumbling at the buttons, but his fingers hurt so bad he can barely get the buttons through the holes. And then he realizes there’s not enough space in the coffin for him to wriggle it off his shoulders, so that’s a bust. It’s not like he has enough space for a proper punch anyway, even if he could protect his hand for one.

He slowly slides his hands down to check his pants pockets. Nothing. He finds himself surprised, and he isn’t sure why until he thinks about who would’ve given him anything.

Dick. Dick would’ve given him something. Jason isn’t sure what, but Dick was big on expressing himself through little things and thoughtful, useful gifts. He was also big on hugs, and suddenly Jason wants one so badly. He shuts his eyes and tries to remember how it feels to be wrapped up in his big brother’s arms.

He’s going to feel that again, he decides, his blood burning with conviction.

He’s getting out of here.

His pants pockets might be empty, but maybe Dick left him something in his jacket pocket after all.

When Jason is slowly bringing his hands up again, his fingers slide over his belt buckle and then go still.

Yes.

He unbuckles his belt and pulls it free, his fingers trembling with anticipation, barely feeling the pain at all.

He clutches the belt buckle tight in his hand, weaving his fingers through the gap between the frame and the bar, the prong poking out from between his fingers. The belt hangs down, and Jason uses his other hand to push it up beside his head to keep it out of the way.

He starts to scrape at the lid of his coffin.

The belt buckle scores thick lines in the wood, he can feel them, feel the metal tearing at the wood, sending splinters and wood dust down into his face. He coughs, then turns his head to the side so he can breathe, but he quickly has to turn his face up again, unable to keep his hands steady without at least attempting to look.

He works hard at the lid, scraping and clawing, the back of his knuckles being torn open and abraded until they’re raw. The wounds slowly get worse the farther into the wood he gets. He tries to rip open a wide area, big enough for his shoulders to get through, right above his face and down over his chest so he can haul himself up once he busts out of the wood.

Once he’s scraped away a wide area, he can hear the wood groaning with the weight of the dirt above it. It’s time to break out. He pulls back his hand to the space beside his head, and he punches up as hard as he can in the limited space. Then he does it again. And again. He’ll keep hitting the wood until he’s through. As many times as it takes.

His heart is racing in his chest, blood rushing in his ears, and he grunts with every assault of buckle on wood, the thudding sound reminding him of how he got here in the first place.

Forehand or backhand? He hears faintly, and he shakes his head to free his mind from the phantom laughter, trying to keep tears from his eyes. He bashes the metal into the coffin lid, panting for breath again.

“C’mon,” he groans. “C’mon!”

His breath speeds up, the thuds reverberate up his arm just like the crowbar slammed into him, over and over and over and over and!

He slams the buckle into the wood with a furious scream, and finally he breaks through the coffin lid and hits dirt. Something slams into his head and pain explodes through his eye as dirt falls onto his face, filling his open mouth.

He turns away, bright lines of fire scraping across his cheek as he coughs and spits. He keeps his mouth closed after that. The panic tries to rise again, but he whimpers and ruthlessly crushes it in his chest. He has to focus now. He can’t afford to panic.

He wrenches at the piece of wood that hit him, pulling and straining and yanking it back and forth, and it comes free with another shower of dirt. He shoves the wood and dirt down towards the bottom of the coffin, then focuses back on hacking at the wood above him, widening the hole. His belt buckle cuts into his hand, but Jason doesn’t drop it. He doesn’t know how long it would take to find it again in the darkness of the coffin, especially with dirt and wood starting to fill the space around his body, so he holds tight and saws away at the wood.

He keeps having to stop and shovel dirt away, trying to maintain a clear space around his mouth and nose. And as soon as he thinks he has a big enough hole in the coffin lid, he starts to dig up, belt buckle still gripped in his hand. It’s painful work, his fingers sending a constant shriek through his brain, and once he can actually get a little upright, he has to duck his head until his chin touches his chest just to create enough space for him to breathe. But he keeps digging, clawing at the dirt, pulling it down into the space he’s leaving behind, and he slowly struggles his way out of his coffin. The dirt presses in on every side, horrible and choking and tight around him, but he just focuses on the slow motions of digging up and pushing the dirt down, using his feet to stomp it back into the empty place he leaves behind him with little twitching movements. It’s all he can do, all he can focus on, all he is, a creature clawing up through the dirt and trying not to think too hard about what it is doing.

It takes so long, an age, an eternity.

He can’t hear, can’t see, can’t think, and all he can do is struggle for the surface.

The dirt slowly turns to mud as he digs, and breathing gets that much harder, water streaming around his face and over his mouth. He takes deep breaths through his nose, trying to stay calm. If he panics he’s dead, so he doesn’t panic. He can’t panic. He just keeps digging, shoving muddy earth down past his face and climbing through the loosening soil as best he can.

And then his fingers break through to open air. Rain wets his hand. Grass tears beneath what remains of his nails as he grips the surface of what must be his grave.

It takes everything in him to pull his hand back below the earth.

He uses his belt buckle to rip through the mud and roots, to widen the hole until he can get his hand all the way up. He has to bring his other hand to his face to create a little space clear of the mud and water so he can still breathe.

And then there’s a touch to his grasping fingers.

Someone grabs his hand.

And Jason feels someone else starting to dig.

Chapter Text

Tim rests his head on the ground for a long, long time, listening to the endless nothing below the surface, and the surety that Jason is dead and gone slowly seeps into him like the rain.

Slowly, bones aching from the cold, he rises from Jason’s grave, swiping ineffectually at the mud coating his face. He sighs and then spits into the grass off to the graveside, mud coating his tongue, grit in between his teeth. He turns to walk away. Now that he’s seen Jason’s grave, checked for himself that Jason is still there, still dead and alone in his coffin, maybe he’ll finally be able to get some sleep without nightmares.

His hair is dripping under his umbrella, and part of him wonders why he even brought the useless thing. There’s another flash of lightning, thunder quick on its heels, and Tim shakes his head, spattering water and mud onto his clothes. He trudges away from Jason’s grave, leaving the stone angel to watch over his hero, the well-kept rose bushes he watched Mr. Pennyworth plant framing the statue, promising himself that he’ll wait at least another day before he comes back.

He’s not going to turn around. He’s not going to go back and sit until the sunrise.

He’s not going to look back.

He’s not.

He’s not.

Tim looks back one last time.

And his eyes catch on something strange.

There’s something on top of Jason’s grave.

It’s just a little lump at first, but then it moves, pulling back down into the dirt, and a shiver that has nothing to do with the cold runs down Tim’s spine.

It’s like the beginning of a nightmare. He can remember one just like this. He knows what that lump was. And sure enough it appears again, lightning illuminating five fingers reaching for the sky before plunging back down into the dirt.

It’s Jason. He’s crawling out of his grave again.

Tim’s dreaming.

He drops his umbrella and staggers back to the grave, rain soaking through his hair once more, sending rivulets coursing down his face. He drops to his knees beside the grave, muddy grass squelching, cold on his legs, squishing into the gap between his socks and the hems of his pants to wet his ankles. He reaches out a shaking hand toward the little hole in the grass and the pale bits of rain-soaked flesh the rain is revealing from beneath a thick coating of mud.

Jason’s hand reaches up again. Tim reaches back.

His fingers brush Jason’s, and unlike every nightmare he’s had, Jason’s hand is warm.

Jason grabs hold, his fingers bearing cracked and missing nails, nail beds bleeding freely onto the mud that streaks his hand. These are details Tim has never seen in his dreams, and he blinks hard, then counts Jason’s fingers.

One, two, three, four, five.

He counts his own. Five again.

Distantly he recalls his research on nightmares, the way he’s been able to count his fingers and assure himself that all his nightmares were only dreams, even before he was able to wake up. The way he counts his fingers when he isn’t sure what’s reality and what’s a dream.

Five fingers on Jason’s hand holding on to him.

Five fingers on Tim’s hand gripping back.

This isn’t a dream.

Tim starts to dig.

Jason’s hand withdraws to push at the dirt from below, vanishing down into muddy soil while the grass threatens to cave in on him. Tim doesn’t dare retrieve the weed puller from his pocket, even though it would loosen the grass with ease. He doesn’t want to risk stabbing Jason’s arm. Instead he grips the edge of the sod that surrounds the little hole and pulls, ripping roots away and flinging the clumps of grass behind him.

He reaches down and his fingers brush Jason’s again, blessed warmth and horrifying blood pressed between their flesh. Tim shoves his hands as far into the dirt as he can, and shovels it away. His breath is frantic, the arms of his jacket quickly covered in mud, his hands squelching with it. He keeps digging, even as more and more of Jason’s arm is revealed with each pull of his hand.

Then Tim’s fingers brush hair.

He speeds up, hands flying back and forth as he starts to mutter under his breath.

“Oh G-d, oh G-d, please, please, please,” he gasps, doing his best not to scratch Jason’s face as he clears the mud from his head.

Jason’s head moves, and it’s like every nightmare Tim’s had the last six months, but he’s never felt like this even in his worst nightmares. Wild hope is singing in his chest, his heart racing, pumping bloody life through his veins, and Tim knows, he knows that Jason’s heart is doing the same.

Jason moves his head, his hair vanishing beneath the mud, and he raises his face to the sky and breathes.

Tim sobs, panic coursing through him, quickly and carefully shoving mud off Jason’s face, clearing his mouth and nose so his next breath comes easier.

“Oh G-d, Jason!” He cries, digging his hero out of his grave.

Jason stops moving, gasping for breath in the dirt, and Tim can’t tell if it’s rain or tears running through the mud on his face, but he wipes the water away regardless, careful not to get mud in Jason’s eyes. And then, as if on some unseen cue, they start to dig again.

The dirt is looser the closer it is to Jason’s body, and Tim can’t stop himself from picturing Jason crawling up through the earth, struggling his way up toward the surface. He must’ve been digging up while Tim pulled the dandelion from the grass, while Tim put his face to the earth, and Tim holds back another sob as he realizes he almost walked away. He almost stopped himself from looking back, almost missed seeing Jason’s hand, almost left his hero to crawl out of his grave alone.

“I’m here! I’m here,” he gasps out, “I’ll get you out!”

He digs and digs and eventually Jason’s shoulders come free, his arms shoving at the mud beneath him as he struggles to free the rest of his body from the grasp of the earth. Tim gets his hands under Jason’s armpits and pulls with all his strength, feet sinking into the churned-up mud. He can feel Jason moving, twisting and kicking and shoving at the dirt, and he comes free with a horrible squelching sound that sends a new flood of tears down Tim’s cheeks.

Jason kicks and Tim pulls, and they collapse to their backs on grass beneath the stone angel that proclaims ‘Here Lies Jason Todd’.

Not anymore, Tim thinks hysterically, Jason half on top of him as they both struggle for breath.

Lightning strikes above them. The storm rages on.

And two boys breathe on top of an empty grave.

Jason moves, slowly turning over to face him, and Tim helps him as best he can, assuming that Jason wants to get off of him.

Instead Jason turns around in his lap, and collapses back on top of Tim, shaking as he buries his face in his chest.

Tim slowly brings his arms around his hero, and when Jason’s shoulders start to shake, he hugs him, pulling him up higher into his arms so he can hold him close. One of Tim’s hands winds into Jason’s filthy hair, and he smooths his curls back.

“You’re alive,” he says in wonder.

Jason sobs, shuddering hard in Tim’s tight grip.

“Jason, you’re alive!” Tim cries.

It’s everything he’s ever hoped to see these last six months, all he’s wished for, every miracle he never thought would come to pass. Tim could die happy, after this.

Then Jason raises his head, and his eyes are glassy and empty.

Tim knows that look. He’s seen it in the mirror. That dull gaze that says nothing is registering, that the horrors he’s seen are still taking over his mind, and Tim knows that a piece of Jason is still down in the dirt.

Tim just dug Jason out of his grave. He’s not about to leave part of him down there.

He leans up and tightens his grip, pressing his forehead into Jason’s as he stares into his eyes.

“Jason,” he says, and despite the way he tries to keep steady, his voice shakes. “Jason, you’re out. I promise you, you’re free. You got out. You’re alive.”

He tightens his grip more, giving Jason the tightest hug he can manage, and a spark seems to race through Jason’s eyes, and between one moment and the next Tim can see the life return to Jason. His eyes aren’t empty anymore.

He blinks slowly, and finally his eyes focus on Tim’s. He pulls away, just a little, and Tim lets him draw back until he can see Jason clearly once more.

Jason’s gaze roves over his face, across his clothes, and when he meets Tim’s eyes again there’s an exhausted confusion on his face. “Tim?” Jason asks, and Tim sobs in response.

“Jason,” he says, smiling, “G-d, Jason.” He sniffles, feeling mud go up his nose but not caring in the slightest. “You’re alive!”

Tim can’t seem to stop saying it, repeating it over and over, stunned and unable to think of anything more substantial to say.

Jason’s still laying on top of him, and Tim’s skin is singing from the pressure and the warmth. He smooths his hands up and down Jason’s back, pressing his fingers in just to feel him, to assure himself that this is not a dream, that Jason is really here and blessedly, gloriously alive.

Jason raises a hand to Tim’s face and presses his fingers to Tim’s cheek. He takes a shuddering breath.

“I got out,” he repeats slowly, and Tim’s smile grows.

“You did.” He says.

“You’re really here,” Jason says wonderingly.

“I am,” Tim agrees.

Jason’s brow furrows. “Why are you here?” He asks quietly, his hand still pressing into Tim’s cheek.

Tim’s smile wavers. He doesn’t want to answer.

But he’s not going to deny Jason anything he asks for right now.

“I was visiting your, well, your grave.”

On his last word, lightning strikes, and Jason’s eyes suddenly shoot up over Tim’s head. He’s staring at the stone angel, and Tim knows what he sees. He’s stared at that angel for many accumulated hours over the last six months.

Their head is tipped down, their hooded robe rests atop their hair and drapes down gently around their body. Their face is kind, a dimple in one cheek. Their hands are clasped in prayer and their wings outstretched to shield Jason’s grave from wind and rain and sun.

Tim knows what the angel looks like in wind and sun and rain. He knows what they look like in the storm raging around them now. Their face is kind. The rain runs along the folds of their robe.

If their face were tipped up, they would be crying. Tim is. Jason is.

“I died, Tim,” Jason says, hushed enough that Tim has to strain to hear him. “I died.”

“I know,” Tim says back, just as quiet.

Jason goes quiet again, staring up at his angel. Tim doesn’t know what he’s thinking, can’t read him at all. Jason’s eyes well up with tears. The rain slowly washes the mud out of his hair, sending filthy water streaming down his neck, and his expression turns almost peaceful as he keeps looking into his angel’s kind face.

“How long?” He finally asks.

“Six months,” Tim tells him. The thunder rumbles above them.

Jason’s breath hitches, and Tim reaches up, pushes his hair back, lets the rain help him comb out the mud and dirt.

“You’re back now,” he says, and Jason nods.

Tim looks down and sees Jason hands on his chest. They’re bleeding, nails torn or missing entirely, one hand holding something metal that presses harshly into Tim’s chest, and he winces at the sight of Jason’s wounds, looking back up at him to check him over more closely. Jason has the beginnings of a terrible black eye and is bleeding from cuts to his cheek and forehead. There’s blood trickling out of his nose as well, and there’s mud and grit in both the cuts and covering his fingers. Tim frowns. They’d better get those seen to.

“Let’s get you out of the rain,” Tim says, already thinking of who they might be able to call for help. Jason’s father, obviously, but Tim only has the number to Wayne Manor, not Mr. Wayne’s personal cell, which would be preferable right now. Regardless, he’s sure someone will answer if he calls the manor. He nods to himself. “I’ll get you home.”

He could always call a cab to drive them to Wayne Manor, but he’s pretty sure Jason’s resurrection should be communicated directly to his father as soon as possible. Actually, considering the fact that it’s a resurrection and that’s probably inherently magical or something, he should probably contact Batman, not Mr. Wayne. Is there a number to the Batcave he can call?

And then Jason throws Tim’s developing plan right off the rails.

“I can’t go home.”

Tim’s thoughts screech to a halt, lurching and crashing in his brain.

“What? Why not?” Tim can’t even imagine a world in which Robin wouldn’t go home as soon as he was able, and he’s plenty able right now. Robin belongs with Batman. Jason belongs with his family. “Why can’t you go home?”

Bewildered isn’t a strong enough word for what Tim’s feeling.

He stares up at Jason’s face in complete confusion, and Jason slowly rolls off of him towards the far side of the grave, sitting up and propping his elbows on his knees. He stares at his empty grave.

Tim sits up next to him, and waits for him to explain. It takes a minute or so, but eventually Jason speaks.

“I ran away from home.” He takes a deep breath, and his next words shake. “I got myself killed.” His voice breaks on the word, then goes quiet enough that Tim has to strain to hear. “Bruce isn’t going to want me back.”

“That’s bullshit.” Tim blurts out vehemently, and Jason hesitantly turns to look at him again.

“Yeah?” He asks, voice wavering.

“Mr. Wayne misses you so much.”

“He does?” Jason whispers, barely audible over the sound of the rain.

“Yes. See the stones on the grave?”

Jason turns to look over his shoulder, and Tim points at the large pile of stones left at the feet of the angel.

“He leaves one every time he visits.” Tim feels his face flush a little, the warmth of his blood rushing to his face. “I leave mine on the other side,” he quietly adds.

“Oh. Like Bruce does for his parents,” Jason says, clearly remembering other visits to the cemetery. He looks back up at the angel’s face. “That’s my mother,” he says nonsensically, and Tim just blinks at him for a moment.

“What?” He finally asks, not sure how to interpret that.

Jason doesn’t look away from the statue. “That’s my mother’s face. On the angel. It’s my mom.” His voice breaks, and he starts to curl in on himself. He turns around to kneel in the muddy grass, facing the angel. “That’s my mom!” His voice is anguished, and he pulls his hands in toward his chest, sobbing, hunching over his knees, his face still turned up to his angel. “Why?!”

And Tim can guess. Jason was – is – Catholic. He probably believed his mother was watching over him in death. And Bruce made sure she was watching over him in the form of the stone angel that stands over him even now.

“He loved you. Loves you,” Tim says, eyes filling with tears. “Jason, he loves you so much.”

“I wanna go home,” Jason gasps, straining for breath, staring up at his mother’s face, anguish twisting his features and pulling at the cuts on his face. “I wanna go home!” he cries, practically shrieking the words.

“Okay,” Tim says, turning to wrap an arm around Jason’s back. “Let’s get you home.”

Jason pounds his fists in the grass, wailing up at the angel, at the stones piled at their feet, proof that he is loved beyond words, Bruce’s love written in stone, his grief and remembrance on display, and Tim aches for them both. He gets his feet underneath himself and pushes up on shaking legs, shivering as blood rushes back into legs stiff with cold, sending pins and needles dancing across his nerves and quivers through his muscles. He leans down and grips Jason’s shoulders.

“C’mon, Jason,” he says, tugging at his hero until he rises up to his feet.

Tim pulls Jason’s arm over his shoulders to help support him, and guides him away from his grave.

Jason keeps his eyes on his mother’s face as long as he can.

He finally turns away with a sob, tears mingling with the rain pouring down his face. They pass Tim's discarded umbrella, and Tim thinks for a moment of stooping to pick it up. It would be rather pointless; they’re both soaked through. But it would make Tim feel better, at least. He doesn’t pause, however. Jason is leaning heavily on him, and Tim’s not sure he would be able to stay upright on his own, even for the few seconds it would take for him to retrieve his umbrella.

Tim leads them through the stones and around the graves until they reach the closest path, careful to support Jason as he stumbles over the stones that border it.

They walk down the paved stone of the path as it rolls over the hills of the cemetery, Jason’s feet slowly trudging over the stones, leaving dirty footsteps behind him to be washed away by the pouring rain. He’s missing a shoe, Tim realizes, watching their feet.

Shoe, sock, shoe, sock.

Tim briefly entertains the thought of offering Jason his shoe, but he dismisses it almost immediately. There’s no way his shoe would fit, and besides, he doesn’t want to take even that much time before he calls Batman.

Jason trips, almost taking Tim to the ground, and Tim grabs for him, catching the back of his pants and hauling him upright with both hands. Tim spares a brief thought to wonder where Jason’s belt is, but then he forces himself to focus so they don’t trip again.

They make it out of the cemetery, and as they leave, Jason’s breath hitches. He puts a hand to his mouth as he sobs. Tim looks over at him, worried, but Jason’s eyes are on the ground. When Tim follows his gaze, all he sees is a pile of matches by the edge of the gate. Strange, but nothing to cry over.

“Dick,” Jason whispers, staring at the matches.

Tim doesn’t know why. It must’ve been something private that Dick shared with Jason, maybe Dick smoked when visiting his parents’ graves? But why would he leave the matches and not the cigarette butts? Tim can’t see whether or not the matches are burnt, but after staring at the pile for a few moments, Jason takes another step, finally making it out of the cemetery.

There’s a bench just outside the gates, presumably for the elderly or for exhausted mourners who can’t spend a moment longer within the cemetery’s gates, but for now it’s perfect for a boy who just dug himself out of his grave and his companion.

They settle onto the bench, Jason first with Tim lowering him down, and then Tim, sinking down to sit on the bench. He’s suddenly exhausted, shaking with cold and leftover adrenaline, and he turns to Jason to see how he’s doing.

Jason’s shaking too, his hands clenched in his lap, and when Tim looks, he finally sees what the metal in Jason’s fist is. It’s a belt buckle, warped and scratched all to hell, covered in blood and mud, and he winces at the sight of Jason’s bloody fingers wrapped up in it.

“Here,” he says quietly, reaching out and taking Jason’s hand in his.

He works Jason’s cold fingers open as gently as he can and pulls the buckle free. The metal leaves behind deep, bloody grooves in Jason’s skin, and Tim is careful not to touch the buckle to Jason’s skin any more than he has to as he slowly moves the buckle over his bloody knuckles and ruined fingertips. Fresh blood bubbles up anyway, but the rain quickly thins it and washes it away.

Tim rolls the belt around the buckle and tucks it into his empty jacket pocket, buttoning the flap closed to keep it safe. He just can’t bring himself to leave it behind. It’s covered in blood, but he knows his jacket is already filthy, so dirtying the inside of his pocket isn’t going to change much. And the belt buckle – Tim takes a steadying breath – he knows if he woke up in his coffin and used something to break out, he’d want to keep it forever. He spent the day after his first nightmare about being buried with Jason looking for the exact knife he used in the dream to break out.

He couldn’t find one just like it, but he went to bed with a knife in his pocket every night after that for a while.

Jason might be the same.

He can decide what he wants to do with the belt, at least. Sometime later, once he’s back with his family.

Tim takes a few deep breaths, and then he turns back to Jason, just in time to watch him tip his head back and open his mouth to the pouring rain.

The water falls into his mouth, and he gets a little mouthful and swishes it around. He leans forward and spits, and mud and blood spatters onto the ground at their feet. Jason tips his head back and opens his mouth to the rain again.

Tim’s got a small bottle of water in his other jacket pocket, he realizes. Water and a granola bar, the same as he always packs for his visits to Jason’s grave, a small bit of food for the trip back home. He didn’t pack any the first few times, and he always got back to Drake Manor with an aching head and a nauseated stomach, so he took steps to avoid those pains. And now he has something to offer Jason. He’s sure the water and bar only stayed in his pocket because he buttoned the flap closed.

He fumbles the pocket open now, snagging the water first and offering it to Jason with a gentle nudge. Jason leans forward and spits again, then looks over to Tim’s hand. His eyes widen at the sight of the bottle, and then he’s grabbing for it, wrestling the cap open with his teeth before Tim can offer to do it for him.

He drains the bottle in a few long pulls, the plastic crinkling in his hand, and Tim quickly snatches the granola bar from his pocket and opens it so Jason doesn’t have to do so this time. He holds out the bar, and Jason takes it carefully, lifting the granola and chocolate to his mouth and closing his eyes at the first taste. He eats slowly, savoring the food, and when he’s done he tips his face back to the rain again.

He finally looks at peace.

“Let’s get you home,” Tim says again, and he pulls out his phone and dials the number for Wayne Manor.

Jason leans against his shoulder as the phone starts to ring.

Chapter Text

The phone rings in the silent house. Alfred makes his way out to the kitchen, wrapping a dressing gown around himself, and he stifles a yawn as he shuffles in his house slippers to the far edge of the room. If Master Bruce were awake, Alfred would never shuffle his steps, let alone wear his slippers outside his rooms, but Master Bruce is actually taking a night off for once, and Alfred knows he’s deeply asleep.

Alfred should be sleeping himself, but instead someone is calling at – he checks the stove clock – hmph, three in the morning. He’s going to give whoever it is a piece of his mind, unless they have a good reason to be calling. Presumably, they do, he decides as he answers the phone.

“This is the Wayne residence,” he says into the receiver, but he doesn’t get to finish the rest of his sentence.

“I need Batman!” A boy cries, and Alfred stands to attention, fully awake now. Who on Earth would call Wayne Manor asking for Batman? He’s going to have to figure out the identity of their caller, in order to deal with the possible discovery of Batman’s identity. Master Bruce will need to be woken, but Alfred racks his brain for any information he might have on their caller.

The voice is vaguely familiar, definitely a young boy he’s met before, and he decides to stall for time until the name comes to him.

“Pardon, young sir, but–”

He’s interrupted again, this time with words he never thought he’d hear.

“It’s Jason! He’s alive!”

Alfred knows he’s not dreaming. The world is too sharp around him, too real, but everything goes a little fuzzy for a moment. He takes in a little breath of hope.

And then reality crashes back into him, and Alfred’s heart breaks all over again.

Jason is dead. His grandson is dead, and some child is engaging in a repulsively cruel prank.

“Young sir. That is a horrid thing to joke about.”

There’s a gasp over the phone, and then frantic words. “It’s not a joke, I swear, I would never.” The boy sounds horrified, and his next words are a little muffled. “Jason, it’s Mr. Pennyworth! Here!”

There’s a shuffling sound, fabric or skin against the microphone, and then, distantly, the boy says, “Say something, please!”

“...Alfie?” Another voice mumbles, the name barely understandable, but the voice is so clearly Jason that Alfred’s heart stops for a moment.

“Good lord,” Alfred whispers, his voice quivering, “Jason? Is that you, lad?”

“Alfie, ‘m cold,” Jason murmurs, slurring his words just like he always did when he was sick or tired and safe at home. “‘N my hands hurt.”

And it’s Jason. It’s Jason, and Alfred can feel his heart pounding hard in his chest, his breath speeding up. He forces himself to calm as best he can. It wouldn’t do to have a heart attack right now, after all. His grandson needs him.

“I’m on my way, dear boy,” he says, “Where are you?”

Jason’s voice goes distant. “Where are we?”

“Gotham Cemetery!” The other boy shouts.

The boy says something else, but Alfred is already running to the garage, the phone hanging off the hook behind him.

He tears out of the house in his slippers and dressing gown, snags his keys from the wall of the garage, and all but sprints to his car.

He takes a moment to think while the garage door is opening, and he considers telling Bruce for all of a second, but he just can’t. If this turns out to be a trick, some horrid prank by a couple of cruel boys, it would destroy him.

It’s already threatening to destroy Alfred.

The trip to the cemetery is horribly familiar, and it seems to drag into an eternity, but it also passes in the blink of an eye, and soon enough Alfred is screeching to a stop at the curb. He can see two small figures sitting on a bench just outside the gates, and he throws the door open and dashes across asphalt and pavement until he’s in right front of them.

One boy is shivering in a t-shirt while the other is absolutely filthy, covered in dirt and mud, a relatively-clean jacket thrown around the shoulders of a grimy black suit.

The boy’s tie is loose. Alfred’s mind flashes back to every gala Jason ever attended, to the way his tie would be loose between one glance and the next. It’s so familiar it threatens to make him cry, even before he sees the boy properly.

The boy looks up, and Jason’s face stares back at him.

He’s dirty and bloody and exhausted, and when he lifts a hand, his fingernails are ripped to the quick and torn down to the bed. Alfred takes his hand gently, holding onto his grandson for the first time in six months.

“Jason,” he breathes, reaching out with a shaking hand to cup his boy’s face.

Jason leans into his hand the way he always did, always does, and Alfred drops to his knees before the bench.

“Is this real?” His voice breaks, and Jason meets his eyes, pale blues in a wounded face.

“Abuelo,” Jason mumbles, “‘M cold.”

Alfred jumps into action.

He’s on his feet in an instant, knees cracking with the sudden motion, and he scoops Jason up, holds him close in shaking arms. “Come,” he barks to the other boy, but he doesn’t bother to check whether or not the vaguely-familiar boy follows.

Alfred runs to the car, careful not to jostle the precious child in his arms, and when he reaches the car, the other boy jumps ahead and yanks the passenger door open. Alfred settles Jason inside like he’s made of glass, buckling him in with forced-still hands. He hears another door open and shut, and a distant part of him is glad the other boy has gotten in the car, glad he won’t have to spend a second convincing him to get in. That distant part knows they need to contain the breach in Batman’s identity, but the rest of him can’t care even one bit about that.

His grandson is alive.

Alfred blinks and he’s in the driver’s seat, and then he’s flooring it and tearing off back to Wayne Manor, turning up the heat as high as it will go and switching on Jason’s seat heater.

He sees Jason reach out, and he gently takes his bloody hand.

Jason holds on tight.

Alfred hits the voice call button on the steering wheel. “Call Master Bruce,” he says, as calmly and clearly as he can.

The phone only rings once before it’s picked up.

“What’s going on?” Bruce’s sleep-roughened voice sounds through the speakers, and Alfred finds himself too choked up to speak for a moment.

Before he can compose himself, Jason leans forward, the way he always did – does – when on speaker phone.

“Dad?” Jason asks, voice wavering. His fingers twitch in Alfred’s hand.

Bruce makes a sound like he’s been shot.

“Jason?” He says, the word shaking just the way it did six months ago, when he called Alfred with the worst news he’s ever received. “Jason?!”

“He’s alive, Bruce,” Alfred says, and he can hear the tears in his voice, the way it breaks when he tells his son, “Jason’s alive. We’re on our way home.”

Alfred can hear clattering and the thudding of Bruce’s feet through the phone as he rushes out of his bedroom.

Bruce is saying something, asking questions and demanding information, but Alfred has to take a moment to simply breathe. He squeezes Jason’s hand in his, feels the warmth returning to cold flesh, and thanks a god he barely believed in anymore.

He definitely believes again now.

“ETA fifteen minutes, sir,” Alfred says, clawing his way back to familiar respectability. He spares a glance to Jason, sees his bloody hands, his face staring back at him with cuts and bruises. “Prepare the infirmary.”

“He’s injured?” Bruce asks, voice dropping to Batman’s familiar growl. “What happened?”

Alfred has a horrifying suspicion of exactly how Jason found his way out of his grave, judging by his grandson’s dirt-covered form and his ripped-off nails, but he doesn’t want to voice it. Jason is sitting fairly calmly in the front seat, and he doesn’t want that to change due to a few careless words.

But Alfred remembers Jason’s injuries from when Bruce brought his body home, and Jason doesn’t appear to have any of them now. His legs don’t appear to be broken, and while his fingers are in bad shape, they aren’t mangled beyond repair.

“Injuries do not appear to be consistent with previous reports, sir,” he says, and Bruce grunts in answer, the same sound he makes when he’s received a particularly hard hit to the stomach.

Jason takes a shaking breath.

“Dad, I died,” Jason croaks, quieting Bruce immediately, and Alfred glances over to see silent tears start to stream down his grandson’s face. “I died.”

Bruce’s voice hitches, and Alfred knows his son is crying as well.

“I know,” he whispers, the quiet words loud in the silent car, and Alfred speeds up as fast as he dares in the storm raging outside the windows. “I was too late. I’m so sorry, Jaylad.” There’s a pause where Bruce takes a shuddering breath, and then he whispers to himself, just barely loud enough to be heard, “Please don’t let me wake up.”

And Alfred’s heart breaks for his son.

“If this is a dream, it’s one we’re sharing, Bruce,” he tells him, and Bruce sobs into the phone.

“I missed you, Jaylad,” Bruce says, voice strained with tears. “Baruch ha ShemBlessed be G‑d, my son, my son.”

“Papa,” Jason says, choked up. “Papa.”

And Bruce weeps.

Jason is whimpering, his breath speeding up, and Alfred gently squeezes his hand.

“It’s alright, Nieto,” he says, stepping on the gas just a fraction more. “We’re almost home. Take a few deep breaths, lad.”

Jason whimpers again, pulling Alfred’s hand to his chest as he struggles to breathe.

Bruce clears his throat, clearly trying to calm himself as well.

“Wonder Woman came out with a bunch of new merch,” he says, and Alfred blinks in confusion for a moment. Then he realizes Bruce is trying to distract Jason from his distress. “I bought you a new set of sweats and a couple new sweatshirts.”

“What?” Jason croaks, his next breath coming a bit easier.

“I bought you a new mug, too,” Bruce continues, and Jason lets out a short puff of air.

“Does it have her face on it?” Jason asks, sniffling, but when Alfred looks over, he’s smiling, just a little.

“Better,” Bruce says, his own breaths shaky. “The mug has her tiara at the rim, so it looks like a mustache when you drink.”

And Jason laughs.

It’s the most beautiful sound Alfred’s ever heard. He keeps his tears quiet, but Bruce’s breath is decidedly wet over the phone.

“Jaylad,” he sobs. “My boy.”

Jason sniffles, then laughs again. “You crying, old man?”

“Yes,” Bruce says immediately, and Jason goes quiet.

He sniffs hard, then coughs into his hand. Alfred looks over, concerned, and he sees mud and blood on Jason’s palm.

“Jason!” He cries, concerned, gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles turn white with worry.

“Jason?!” Bruce calls, his voice deepening to Batman’s growl.

“‘S’alright, ya big mother hens,” Jason says, sniffling again, his voice trembling. “‘S just a bloody nose. Nothin’s wrong with my lungs.”

“Well, we’ll get you cleaned up once we’re home,” Alfred says, grasping desperately for his usual composure as he relaxes his hand, trying to keep the ride home calm for his definitely-traumatized grandson. “We’ll fix up your hands and face and absolutely blanket you in bandages.”

Jason chuckles, and Bruce is silent, clearly absorbing all the things Alfred isn’t saying, the injuries he’s referencing.

“Then we’ll make sure you’re fed and watered and tuck you into bed. Your room is just as you left it,” he says, and his voice shakes a little as he thinks of the time capsule Jason’s room has been for the last six months. “I’ve kept it clean, and freshened up your sheets.”

“Freesia and cinnamon?” Jason asks, and Alfred scoffs as best he can, just like he would normally.

“Of course, Young Master,” he says haughtily, and Jason laughs again. “As if I would use anything else for your laundry.”

Each of his boys has a different scent they prefer, and Alfred doesn’t mind doing each of their laundry separately. Dick selected mint and patchouli for his laundry and shower products, scents that remind him of the circus and the incense his mother burned in their caravan. Bruce prefers leather and vanilla, for his father’s gloves and his mother’s hand cream, the scents on their hands when they ruffled his hair or gently touched his face. Alfred himself uses bergamot and mandarin, some of his favorite teas to help him relax and sleep deeply for the few hours he is able to rest.

But Jason chose freesia for those lucky days when the flower vendors would sell him bouquets of his mother’s favorite flowers for cheap, and cinnamon for his favorite spice in all the world, one that his mother used extensively in their little kitchen. Alfred has been indulging in private mourning each time he washes Jason’s sheets since he – Alfred quietly sniffs – since he died, that particular combination of scents filling the laundry room as he pulls the warm sheets from the dryer. Right now the car smells of mud and blood, and Alfred is looking forward to smelling cinnamon and freesia on Jason’s hair when his sweet grandson hugs him in the mornings again.

He takes another moment to calm himself, letting his tears silently run down his cheeks and drip off his chin.

God above, his grandson is alive. It’s a miracle he never thought to pray for. He prayed for Bruce’s endless anguish, for Dick’s deep anger and pain, for his own fathomless ocean of grief. He prayed that Jason was happy in the heaven he believed in, held in his mother’s arms, watching over them like he knew she was while he was alive.

Alfred has long come to terms with his own belief that every religion is valid and real in its own way, and he knew Jason’s soul was at peace right where he believed it would be. It comforted him in his grief.

But he’s been granted a miracle, and he’s overwhelmingly thankful.

“Jaylad,” Bruce says again. “I’m so glad you’re alive.”

“Yeah?” Jason asks quietly.

“Yes,” Bruce says vehemently.

“But I ran away,” Jason suddenly wails, holding Alfred’s hand so tight, Alfred can feel blood running over his fingers. “I left, and I got myself killed! I disobeyed you and I ran away and I’m sorry!”

“Jason!” Bruce barks, and Jason’s voice cuts off on a sob. Bruce takes a deep breath to steady himself, and continues before Jason can say anything more. “I love you so much. You’re my son, and there’s nothing you could possibly do that would change that, and I’m sorry I ever made you think otherwise. I love you, and I’m so glad you’re alive.”

Jason sobs, putting a hand over his face and smearing tears and mud and blood on his cheeks, wincing when his hand runs over the cuts on his face.

“I love you, Papa,” he finally says, his voice choked with tears.

The car is quiet for a few moments, and Jason sighs shakily.

“Where’d that even come from?” He wonders, “Did you get therapy or something, old man?” He asks it with a watery chuckle, but Bruce’s voice is serious when he replies.

“Yes. I got grief counseling. My counselor told me to write you a letter with everything I wished I could tell you.” Bruce’s voice hitches, but he continues anyway. “I’d like to read it to you sometime soon, Jaylad.”

Jason sniffles. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

“Okay,” Bruce says.

Alfred smiles at his boys, at this second chance Bruce has been granted with his son. At this second chance Alfred has been granted with his grandson. He never thought he’d be able to make up for his mistakes, to make sure Jason feels that he can come to him with his problems, with his fears and woes. This time he’s going to make sure Jason knows he’ll support him. Alfred’s been a neutral party in their family disputes for too long. He’s going to support them all properly, this time. He’s going to love them the way they need him to, instead of the way that’s easier for him, the formality he’s lived and breathed for so long. Jason needs more than that, and Alfred’s going to make sure he gets it. Bruce and Dick will probably benefit from it as well, but Jason’s going to be Alfred’s main focus for a long time.

He doubts Bruce and Dick will feel any differently.

There’s quiet again, just breathing over the line, and Jason is once again the one to break the silence.

“Abuelo?” Jason says, and Alfred wants to close his eyes and just bask in the sound of his grandson’s voice. “I’m hungry.”

“I shall prepare your favorites, dear boy,” Alfred says, the words trembling, on the verge of tears. Words he never thought he would tell Jason ever again.

“Champurrado y hojarascas?” Jason asks, and when Alfred glances at him, he’s looking back, a soft and weary grin stretched across his face.

“Of course, Nieto,” Alfred says, so grateful for this second chance to love his boy. “Anything you’d like.”

Jason tilts his head back against the headrest and smiles.

Chapter Text

The gate to Wayne manor opens as they draw near, and Alfred tears up the driveway, the tail of the car sliding out a little as he presses hard on the brakes to avoid hitting Bruce where he stands in the middle of the driveway in front of the manor, his pajamas soaked by the rain. Alfred blinks, and Bruce is at the passenger side.

Bruce rips the door open hard enough that Alfred has a distant worry that the door might come off, but he honestly wouldn’t care at all.

Bruce’s hands are shaking, he sees, and Alfred watches his boy drop to his knees, tears mixing with rain on his face as Bruce stares at his son with wide eyes.

“Jason?” He whispers.

“Papa,” Jason whines, fumbling to get out of the car.

Alfred quickly reaches over and undoes the boy’s seatbelt, and Jason all but falls into his father’s arms, leaving the rain-soaked jacket behind him.

Bruce holds him close, lifting him out of the car and into his tight grip. He draws him in and presses his face to Jason’s hair, sobbing into his muddy curls. “Jason,” he cries. In the next instant he’s frantically pulling back to look into his son’s face. “Jason.”

Jason whimpers, struggling to draw closer, and Bruce gathers him up again before he stands and rushes toward the house.

Alfred shoves his door open and bolts after him, leaving the car doors open and the engine running, his feet flashing faster than they ever have in his life, and the only reason he catches up with Bruce at all is the fact that he has to wait for the elevator.

They rush inside, and Alfred spends the ride down to the Batcave stroking up and down Jason’s back while Bruce presses kiss after kiss to their boy’s hair.

“Jason. Jason.” He keeps saying, a prayer and a plea and a berakahbenediction .

Jason just snuggles as close as he can, little hitches of breath giving away his overflowing tears.

Alfred realizes he’s struggling to breathe himself, and he forces himself to take a deep breath of the chill air. He’ll have to call Dick, he realizes, a strike of lightning-clear knowledge. His other grandson will be just as frantic as he and Bruce were to get to his little brother’s side, to witness this incredible miracle they’ve been given, and there’s no way he can leave him to find out any later than he already has.

Bruce sprints to the infirmary as soon as the doors open, and Alfred rushes after, but before he can speak, Bruce is already calling out to the Batcomputer’s AI.

“Computer,” he says, and the Batcomputer flashes around the edges of the screen in response. “Call Dick.”

The phone rings as Bruce settles Jason onto a medical bed, and Alfred passes him the safety shears, discarding his soaked and muddy dressing gown and briskly washing his hands at the sink.

“‘Lo?” Dick’s groggy voice comes over the speakers, and Alfred answers, knowing Bruce will be lost for words for too long. They can’t take a chance that they’ll annoy Dick into hanging up on them.

“Get to the Cave, Dick,” Alfred says firmly, and the lack of honorific clearly sends Dick scrambling to comply.

“What’s wrong?” Dick asks, wide awake now.

“It’s Jason,” Bruce calls, and his voice wavers. He clears his throat while Alfred puts his hands into the air dryer for a quick blast of warm air to blow the water away. Once the machine shuts off, Bruce speaks again. “He’s alive.”

“What?” Dick says, faint and disbelieving.

Alfred rushes to grab sanitary wipes and towels to clean Jason up, and he hears the sound of Bruce cutting through cloth with firm snips.

Jason groans loudly over the sound. “Dick?” He calls.

Dick gasps. “Little–” his voice breaks. “Little Wing?”

“Dick, where are you?” Jason says, pleading for his big brother, and Dick cries out.

“Jason! I’m on my way, I’m on my way!”

Alfred can hear him rushing through his apartment, and the door slams quick enough that Alfred knows he’ll be seeing his grandson in his pajamas in under an hour.

He distantly hopes no one sees Nightwing’s bike and Dick Grayson’s pajamas and puts two and two together, because he knows there’s no way Dick will settle for his street-legal bike right now. Nor should he. The lad’s brother is alive, and Alfred wishes there was a faster way for Dick to get to the Cave.

Dick will have to settle for staying on the line and getting to them as quickly as he can while he listens to them treat Jason for his injuries.

Bruce draws a quick breath, and when Alfred finally turns to the gurney, he sees what his son is looking at.

There are no wounds on Jason’s body.

Though his skin is filthy, covered in clumps of dirt and smears of mud, the only injuries are to his hands and face.

Alfred doesn’t know how it happened, how Jason is back from the dead, but he had been expecting to see him covered in wounds from what the Joker did to him. He remembers the reports, the horrible photos seared into his memory.

Come to think of it, the autopsy–

Alfred has to shut his eyes for a moment and just breathe, pushing down the rush of horror in his mind.

He opens his eyes and bustles forward in the next instant, sanitary wipes ready to clean his grandson of the evidence of his struggle back to life.

“I woke up in my coffin,” Jason says as Alfred wipes the dirt from his face, avoiding his wounds for the time being, and his hands start to tremble again. Dick gasps, and they can all hear the sound of the call transfer to his helmet. His motorcycle starts up, and the Batcomputer quickly filters out the sound of the bike, leaving only a low grumble in the background.

Bruce takes a wipe and moves to Jason’s other side, cleaning out the wounds on his cheek and forehead as gently as he can as Jason winces. Bruce wipes the blood from beneath his son’s nose. Alfred can see his hands shaking too.

“I used my belt buckle, broke the lid,” Jason continues through lips bitten bloody, and when Bruce gently wipes them, he hisses at the sting. His eyes go wide, a little wildness sparking in them. “Where’s my belt buckle?” His next breath comes faster, and his bloody fingers spasm, reaching up to grab hold of Alfred’s wrist. “I need it.”

“We’ll get it, lad,” Alfred says. “For now we have to treat your wounds and get you cleaned up.”

“What if I wake up in my coffin again?” Jason asks, frantic. “I couldn’t get out, I couldn’t get out.”

Dick sobs once over the line, and Alfred isn’t far behind him.

Bruce turns away from his son.

Jason cries out as Bruce’s hands leave his face, but Bruce is already running across the room towards the equipment cupboards. He throws open the cupboards and something clatters inside, and then he surges back across the room to Jason’s side.

He presses a batarang into Jason’s shaking hand and slips a comm into his ear.

“Use that,” Bruce says, voice choked and horror-filled. “Call for us and we’ll hear you. We’ll come for you. You’ll never wake up alone again.”

Jason sobs, gripping the batarang tight enough that his fingers start to bleed anew, and Alfred knows they’ll have a hell of a time treating his hands after this, but he’s not going to try to take the weapon from his grandson. If he needs a batarang to feel safe, he can hold it for as long as he wants, as tight as he wants. They’ll find a way to work around it.

“Let’s get you patched up, lad,” Alfred says, soft and kind as he smooths one last sanitary wipe across Jason’s cheek, clearing away the last of the mud and blood.

Now that Jason’s face is clean, Alfred can see that most of the cuts on his face are shallow and probably only need plasters. He ends up using butterfly bandages to hold one wound together, a wide slash right in the middle of Jason’s forehead that bled all the way down the center of his face.

The entire time, he narrates his actions, letting Jason know what he’s going to do next and simultaneously keeping Dick aware of how Jason is doing, what wounds they’re treating.

Jason watches them, eyes wide and exhausted, and Alfred knows Bruce is fighting with himself, wanting to help treat Jason, but also just wanting to keep his hands on his boy. Bruce has Jason’s cheek cupped in one hand, the other holding Jason’s bloody hand and stroking gently over his wrist to ground them both.

He takes a deep breath, and then moves to help Alfred with his work.

Jason has a massive black eye that’s gradually darkening, and Bruce slowly moves his hands over to it. Bruce gently palpitates the eye socket to check for broken bones, and Jason hisses in a pained breath, but doesn’t protest. When Bruce sighs in relief, Alfred knows nothing’s broken.

“What happened there?” Bruce asks quietly as he quickly turns and retrieves an ice pack and a small towel to wrap it in.

“The lid broke in on me,” Jason says, just as quiet.

Dick must be straining to hear, but he doesn’t try to interrupt.

“The boards slammed into my face.” Jason’s breath is speeding up, his grip on the batarang tightening. “Dirt was in my mouth. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see. I just started clawing up, pushing the dirt down into the coffin and digging and digging and digging.” Jason’s gasping for breath, and Bruce drops the ice pack and simply grabs his son and holds him close.

“You’re out,” he rushes to say, the words tripping over each other on their way out of his mouth, “you’re here, Jason. I’ve got you.”

Jason cries out, loud enough to startle the bats, and their screeching joins his own. “I died! I died!” He scrabbles at Bruce’s back, the batarang ripping holes in Bruce’s pajamas and drawing blood from his flesh. Bruce doesn’t falter, and Alfred doesn’t even consider taking the weapon from Jason’s hand. “He killed me!”

Bruce is sobbing now, holding his son close, and Alfred wraps his arms tight around his boys and holds on. He can hear Dick’s hitching breaths from the speakers, and he feels his own tears streaming down his face as he takes in little gasps of air.

“Papa!” Jason screams into his father’s chest, and Alfred knows it’s all Bruce can do to keep from screaming with him.

“I know,” Bruce moans, hugging Jason so tight it has to hurt. “I know, Jason, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t there, I wasn’t– I’m sorry.”

Jason wails, the bats shriek, Dick sobs over comms, and Bruce and Alfred just hold tight as they grieve.

The bats fly from the Cave, their squeals fading with the flap of their wings, and the lessening of the cacophony slowly spreads. Dick quiets, Bruce and Alfred calm, and Jason cries himself out, sniffling and whining, held close by his father and grandfather’s strong arms.

“You’re here now,” Bruce finally says, voice wrecked, each word cracking with emotion. “You’re back, and I’m never letting you go again.”

Jason’s breath shudders out in a sigh, and he collapses in their hold. Bruce keeps him close for a few more moments, then Alfred pulls back and Bruce gently settles Jason back onto the bed. Alfred gently dabs at Jason’s face with a wet towel, clearing away the tears and bloody snot.

He knows he should eventually treat the small wounds that he can see on Bruce’s back, but he doubts either he or Bruce will be able to bring themselves to focus on anything other than Jason for tonight.

He slowly moves to work on Jason’s hands next, and Bruce follows suit. Jason doesn’t say anything while they bandage his fingers, working around the batarang as best they can. He’s too tired to comment, but he watches them work with wide eyes, clearly fighting his exhaustion.

“Mom was watching over me,” he finally says quietly as Bruce lifts one finger off the batarang to cover it in ointment and wrap it carefully in gauze.

Alfred thinks of the face of the angel Bruce commissioned to stand guard over Jason’s grave. He made sure the angel would look exactly like Catherine Todd does in the photo that still sits on Jason’s bedside table. Alfred has spent enough time with that angel to know that the sculptor perfectly mirrored Catherine’s visage down to the wave of her hair and the dimple in her cheek.

“Yes.” Bruce answers. “Yes, she was. She is.”

“You don’t believe that,” Jason says, looking up into his dad’s eyes.

“But you do,” Bruce says, and just like that, Jason’s crying again. He lurches forward into Bruce’s arms again, letting Alfred treat the rest of his fingers while he cries quietly.

And Alfred watches as Jason cries himself to silence and stillness in Bruce’s arms, the batarang still gripped tight in his bandaged fingers.

Chapter Text

The first time Dick goes to Jason’s grave, he doesn’t know what to think.

He’s still injured from his mission, hurt from his fight with Bruce. He’s left his friends behind him, left his Nightwing suit in his apartment. He’s not going to put it back on for a long time. He listened to Jason’s voicemails and sobbed until his throat was raw.

He stands there before the carefully-laid sod and stares down at the earth that covers the boy who should’ve been his brother.

The boy he rejected. The child he treated so cruelly.

Would he have changed, if he knew Jason was going to die?

He has to think he would’ve. He has to believe that he would’ve been a better person, a better brother. He had tried a little, just before he left for his mission. Jason had reached out, and Dick had finally reached back for him.

And then, when Jason truly needed him, he wasn’t there.

Was he waiting for Dick to save him? Was he waiting for his big brother?

Did Jason know Dick loved him?

Did Dick love him?

He does now.

But it’s too late now. It doesn’t matter anymore.

What is wrong with him? Why couldn’t he love Jason? Why couldn’t he treat him the way he was supposed to? Why didn’t he accept him as his brother sooner? Why did he have to leave his little brother alone with their fucking useless fath– with Bruce?

Didn’t he know better than anyone how Bruce could fuck up his son? How cruel Bruce could be, how horrible?

Why did he leave Bruce to hurt and mistreat and fail another child in his care?

Why did he leave Jason alone?

Dick sobs. He locks his knees to keep from falling to the surface of the grave.

He can’t stay, he can’t be here a moment longer.

He staggers to the gate, fumbles a match out of his pocket and throws it over his shoulder.

And then, despite everything he’s been taught, every custom he practiced when one of Haly’s people died, when Daj o DadMom and Dad died, despite himself and all his beliefs, he looks back.

He shouldn’t have.

And as soon as he sees Jason’s grave and the stone angel looming over it, he knows he’s made a mistake.

Because Jason is standing over his grave.

Dick turns on his heel and runs back, grass and dirt flying in his wake, his hand outstretched to grab his little brother and hold him close.

But as soon as he tries to touch Jason, his little brother fades away.

And Dick knows he’s fucked.

He looked back, and now Jason’s mulospirit is attached to his soul.

He’s taken Dick. Dick always wondered what that meant, when his parents taught him why they didn’t look back when leaving the cemetery. Daj told him that the dead would take him. Dad told him he wasn’t sure what it meant, but that he didn’t want it to happen to Dick.

Dick turns around toward the exit of the cemetery again, and Jason is there, standing at the gate, just beside the spot where the match fell.

Dick knows what it means now, to be taken by the dead.

He walks up to Jason and tries to hold him.

Jason drifts away like the breeze that blows past him.

And Dick trudges on, shadowed by Jason’s mulo the whole way home.

He spends his forty days of mourning in his apartment, locked away from the rest of the world. He eats nothing. He doesn’t bathe. He neither shaves nor combs his hair. He drinks coffee and brandy and liquor and thinks about his little brother in silence and pain. Jason’s mulo comes and goes. He speaks to Dick sometimes. Sometimes he cries. Sometimes he screams. He blames Dick for not being there. For not protecting Jason from Bruce and the Joker alike. He screams obscenities and admonishments, and Dick drinks and drinks and drinks it in.

Sometimes, he asks him if Dick ever loved him at all.

Those are the only times Dick tries to touch him. He can’t stop himself from trying to hold Jason close, reassurances and promises pouring from his lips.

But Jason vanishes every time.

And throughout that period of mourning, Dick knows he should be burning every object Jason left behind, but he already screwed up his mourning customs. Jason’s mulo has already taken him. What more wrong can Dick do?

So he keeps what little of Jason’s possessions he has close. The sweatshirt Jason left behind on his first and only visit to Dick’s apartment in Bludhaven. The beat up and broken little pocket knife he asked Dick to fix for him.

He would’ve buried it with Jason, given the chance. He would’ve buried the R with him too. He knew how much Jason loved it, how much he loved being Robin. He deserved to have it with him in death, no matter how paranoid it would’ve made Bruce.

But Dick didn’t get to give it to Jason. He didn’t get to pass on Robin on his own terms, and he wasn’t even given the chance to give Jason the R in death.

If Dick had been there for Jason’s funeral, he would’ve asked Alfred to tuck the R into Jason’s pocket. He would’ve asked Alfie what Jason’s favorite book was, and made sure it was buried in his hand, to make sure he would have it in the other world.

Jason was Gadjonon-Roma , but he was family, even if he wasn’t Roma, and Dick would’ve done everything for Jason that he did for his parents if he’d just had the chance.

Dick comes back to the Cave once after Jason’s death, and he’s horrified to see a fucked-up memorial standing there. Jason’s suit on display, ripped and torn. ‘A Good Soldier’. Like that’s all Jason was. Like that’s how he would’ve wanted to be remembered.

Dick sees Jason’s mulo staring at the suit, his hand on the glass, and Dick is glad he can’t see his face, glad the mulo casts no reflection. He doesn’t want to know what Jason looks like in this horrible moment.

Dick breaks the glass to pieces and carefully removes the R from Jason’s suit.

Bruce hadn’t let him attend the funeral, and there’s no way Dick can go back in time and bury the R with his little brother. But he can do something with it now. He has to.

He ends up putting the R under Jason’s pillow. He presses his face to the pillow and kisses the place where Jason’s head would’ve lain. Jason’s mulo has already taken him, so even if this counts as touching the dead, it doesn’t matter to Dick. He doesn’t feel like it’s wrong to grieve here, anyway.

He sits at the edge of Jason’s bed for a long time that day.

And then he leaves the manor and never goes back.

Until now.

Dick’s never had a hallucination that involved Alfred and Bruce before, but there’s no way this is real. He can't help but wonder whether they're actually calling him at all, or whether he's going to race into an empty cave. He can’t stop himself either way.

He can still hear them, discussing Jason’s resurrection in falsely-calm voices, quieting and comforting Jason every time he so much as makes a sound.

Dick finds himself echoing them without a thought.

“Jason, I’m coming, I’ll be there soon,” he promises what must be empty air. Is his comm even connected? He doesn’t lift a hand from the Wingcycle to check, focusing instead on whipping his bike through Bludhaven’s streets as quickly as he possibly can.

Dick doesn’t know what things Jason will want to hear right now, if it really is him. It’s impossible, but he can’t stop himself from hoping.

Why didn’t he spend any time with Jason before?

He’s spent the last six months berating himself for not getting to know his little brother, and it’s all he can do to keep from speaking his thoughts aloud. If Alfred and Bruce really are there in the Cave, he doesn’t want them to hear him mourning.

He mourns Jason. He mourns the time he wasted. He mourns the things he could’ve done with Jason, if only he had loved him sooner.

They never spent much time together.

Dick knows Jason enjoyed the classics, but he doesn’t know his favorite book. He never took the time to read it and talk with Jason about why he loved it best of all. He knows Jason listened to a lot of music, but not which genres or artists he was drawn to. He knows Jason loved to cook and loved to eat, but he never ate any of his food, never took him out for lunch or ice cream. Hell, he never even took Jason to Bat Burger to make fun of their terrible Batman toys with their sunny smiles.

All things he should’ve done, all things he was too angry, too blind to see that he should’ve been doing all along.

Dick never wanted a little brother. He thought his little family of three was perfect. Dick o Daj o Dad. Dick and Bruce and Alfred. But he knows that Dad would’ve loved Jason. Daj would’ve given him his very own name, called him something Dick can only guess at now.

Dick should’ve given Jason his mother’s name, should’ve been the one to pass on Robin to his little brother.

He hates himself for it, but he knows he wouldn’t have, before, even if he was given the chance.

He was too focused on Bruce, too wrapped up in his own anger at the man who should’ve raised him well, who should’ve supported him when he wanted to fly free. He didn’t focus on Jason more than the time it took to throw him aside, and he bitterly regrets it now.

Why is Jason calling him back to the Batcave now, of all times? Why is his mulo bringing other people into his hauntings? Or– Dick can scarcely think it, but what if– What if Jason really is–

What if he’s really back?

It’s going to break Dick all over again when he makes it to the Cave, when he tries to touch Jason and his hands grasp nothing but smoke, but he hopes all the same.

What if it really is Jason?

Why is he back now? Why not any of the other times that his mulo appeared to Dick? What brought him back? Is it really Jason at all? It could be a trick, could be a clone or an imposter, couldn’t it?

Dick dismisses the thought as soon as it occurs. That would’ve been the first thing Bruce checked for, paranoid asshole that he is. He probably didn’t even tell Jason he was glad to see him before starting his tests.

So if Jason really is in the Cave, as impossible as it is, it must really be Jason.

“I’m coming, Jason,” he says, and suddenly he knows what Daj would’ve called him. What name he can give his little brother, even if it is only in death. “I’m coming, Blue Jay. I’m on my way.”

Jason whines over the line.

“Blue Jay?” He sniffles.

Dick laughs brokenly. “Daj named me Robin. She would’ve loved to give me a little brother, would’ve given you your own name, Jason. You’re my Blue Jay now, Little Wing.”

Jason lets out another heart-breaking whine, and Dick hushes him, soothing him over the comm as best he can. He can hear Bruce saying something else, but he doesn’t care what he’s saying. This is Jason’s mulo Dick’s talking to, and a hallucination of Bruce doesn’t get space or time to talk.

“Jaybaby,” Dick coos, a sob caught in his throat. “I love you. I’m sorry I wasn’t there, I’m so sorry. I love you so much.”

And Jason just cries.

“I’m sorry I was cruel to you, I’m so sorry, Blue Jay. I’ll be here for you now, if you’ll let me. Please let me.”

Dick knows what Jason’s mulo will say, he knows that he will reject him, reject his offers and his love out of justified anger, but he has to try. He has to. If he ever stops, Dick isn’t sure what will become of him. It’ll mean he’s turned into someone even worse than the person he was when Jason was alive. He has to change, has to be a better person, a better brother, even though it’s too late.

But–

But Jason’s mulo doesn’t reject him.

Not at all.

“Dick,” Jason whimpers, “Please.”

Svunto DelHoly God.

Maybe this is real after all.

Jason’s mulo doesn’t turn cold and mocking, doesn’t rail against Dick for his cruelty, and Dick listens as his little brother breaks down in tears again. All he can do is try to comfort him from a distance.

He can hear Alfred and Bruce faintly, but their words aren’t nearly as important as his little brother’s cries.

Dick still remembers the face Jason made, the first time they met. The way his little brother reached out his hand, eager and excited to meet him, the distrust Dick could see him fighting back. He remembers the way he rejected Jason, the way he ignored his outstretched hand and turned to scream at Bruce instead of welcoming his little brother. But even with his focus on Bruce and his indifference to Dick and his place in their fucked up family, Dick saw how Jason shut down, how the light faded in his eyes, how the hope in his face crumbled and tired acceptance took its place. Jason’s mulo wears that face often, now, and Dick hopes against hope that Jason won’t be wearing it when he finally makes it to the Cave.

The Wingcycle screams across the bridge into Gotham, and Dick’s thoughts scream along with it.

What if this is real? What if, against all odds, Jason truly has been resurrected?

How can Dick show him that he’ll treat him differently now? How can he ever make up for his failings, for the way he left his little brother all alone in the world?

Dick knows why Jason went looking for his birth mother. How many times has he wished for more family, himself? How many times has Dick dreamed of some blood relation popping up somewhere in the world, some grandparent or aunt or uncle reaching out to comfort Dick and support him through his fights with Bruce, through his struggles as a hero and a boy trying to find his way all alone in the world.

He understands Jason now. How could he not? He understands Jason’s longing for more family, but he never would’ve had to go looking for more family if only Dick had been family to Jason at all. Or maybe they could’ve gone together. Dick could’ve taken Jason with him, could’ve done research and found out what kind of person Sheila was before Jason was betrayed by her.

Dick could’ve fought Sheila and the Joker both. He could’ve protected and saved his little brother.

He could’ve gotten one more hug. Even just one more.

How could he have only hugged Jason once before his death? How could he ever have thought it was okay to leave him alone in that manor with only Alfred and Bruce? He knew how hands-off they both could be. The only time he got hugs from Bruce was when he jumped him.

Dick can’t imagine a former street kid would have been comfortable doing that. He knows Bruce wouldn’t have been the one to offer.

And he remembers crouching down just before he left for his mission. He remembers opening his arms to his little brother, the way Jason fidgeted and shyly leaned in.

Dick remembers feeling Jason relax into the hug, the way he eventually slumped against Dick, the shaky breath he took. He hid his face in Dick’s shoulder and just breathed him in, and Dick promised himself then and there that he was going to give Jason all the hugs he could stand.

And then of course, he never could.

He’s lost count of the amount of times he’s tried to hug Jason’s mulo.

He’s lost count of the times Jason’s wisped away from his grasping hands.

He’s going to try again, as soon as he gets to the Cave.

Dick races through Gotham’s streets, and all he can think about is finally hugging his little brother.

“I’m in Gotham, Blue Jay, I’m on my way.” He promises. “I’m going to hug you so hard when I get there, so prepare yourself.” He tries to make it a joke, but it comes out on a wobble and a sob, and Jason’s crying hitches.

“Please, Big Bird,” he whimpers, and oh, that’s what it feels like when a heart shatters.

Dick had forgotten that feeling.

His bike almost weaves into oncoming traffic, and he quickly zips it back on track. He can’t get in an accident now, not now, not when there’s finally a chance he might see Jason again, hold him again.

“Jay,” he cries, “Little Wing!”

He’s called Jason’s mulo Little Wing so many times, but this feels different, and Dick can only pray that this really is Jason he’s talking to, that Jason’s finally hearing all the words Dick should’ve been saying to him all along.

Khama, Shona, thaj Devla, ashun ma!Sun, Moon, and God, hear me!

Dick races toward the Cave with desperate hope pulsing through him with each too-fast beat of his heart.

Please.

Chapter Text

It’s been six months and a day since Jason died.

Dick knows because he spent yesterday mourning, thinking over the things he didn’t get to do with Jason and crying almost as much as he did on Jason’s birthday.

August sixteenth was a terrible day for Dick. He spent the day crying over the thought of the presents he and his friends had planned to get for Jason.

Jason had shyly asked him to help him plan his sixteenth birthday party, just before Dick left for his mission, and Dick had looked forward to it the entire time he was in space.

He had missed every one of Jason’s other birthdays, left him to celebrate with just Bruce and Alfred and whoever else Jason may have invited, and he bitterly regretted his actions even before Jason’s death. He regretted missing Jason’s birthdays. He regretted not inviting him over for his own twenty-first birthday party, even though Jason would only have been able to come to the early dinner. He wouldn’t have been able to join Dick for the bar crawl his older friends took him on, but Dick could’ve spent at least a little of his day with his little brother.

On that fateful mission to space with the Titans, Dick spent his downtime thinking of what he could do for the party, and when Kori asked him what he was thinking about so hard, he had told her. Of course, Kori being Kori, she had then told the rest of the Titans all about Dick’s forming plan to throw Jason a party he would never forget.

“He’ll definitely never forget it if the Titans show up!” Garfield crowed, transforming and flying around Dick in his excitement. He perched on Dick’s shoulder and started to preen his hair, tucking it behind his ear. “We’ll all bring him awesome gifts or take him out somewhere or–”

“No taking him out,” Dick immediately vetoed. “I want him to have a good birthday, not a crazy mission that comes out of nowhere.”

“That almost never happens,” Victor argued. Dick glared at him in answer, remembering his own recent birthday and the ensuing mission they had to handle while drunk off their asses. “Okay, that’s fair.”

“I’m getting him a t-rex ride!” Gar declared, swooping off Dick’s shoulder and transforming midair, landing on his feet and turning with a wide grin. “He’s never had one of those before!”

“Most people have never had one of those before,” Raven said in her even voice.

“That’s why it’ll be extra special!” Gar said, darting around her to smile up at her from inches away. “I’ll be a party animal!”

Raven calmly set her hand over Gar’s face and pushed him down, and he cackled as he whirled away and transformed into a monkey, leaping up to perch on Dick’s shoulder again.

Raven’s lips twitched into a smooth smile. “I’ll make him an amulet of protection. He’ll never have to worry about malicious attacks on his mind while he wears it. What do you think would be the best piece of jewelry for him?” She turned to Dick with a raised eyebrow, and his mind blanked.

“Uhhh…” he said, thinking fast. “Maybe an earring? Earrings are cool.”

Vic snorted. “Jason better choose for himself. If Dick thinks it’s cool, then–”

“Hey!” Dick shouted, offended. “I’m cool!”

Victor flicked the popped collar of Dick’s suit. “Sure thing, Discowing.”

“Disco is very cool!” Dick retorted, running his hands up along his collar to make sure Vic hadn’t messed it up.

Raven chuckled. “I will make him a set of stones, and he can decide how to arrange them to his liking.”

Dick pouted, though he’d fight them if any of his team pointed it out. Kori swooped in and kissed him briefly, right on his lower lip, and, well, he didn’t really want to fight her for that.

“I shall fetch him a snogblat from Tamaran!” She declared, swooping in a tight loop-de-loop in her joy. “It is a traditional coming of age gift among my people, and I would not deny him the well-deserved pleasures in life.”

Dick’s eyes widened in slight dismay. Vic was making a cutting motion over Kori’s shoulder, and Gar was tugging at his ear. Donna didn’t appear worried, but she hadn’t spent enough time around Kori to know whether or not she should be alarmed. Raven was hiding her mouth behind her hand, and Jericho was biting back a smile with dancing eyes.

“Uh, what exactly is a snogblat, Kori?” Dick asked, not sure what answer he was hoping for exactly.

“A special gift to grant Jason the most relaxing of dreams,” she said with a happy giggle. “He will find it most helpful, I assure you. Every Tamaranean needs their rest, especially through the growth and changes of this time in life.” She pursed her lips. “Is it not so with humans?”

The Titans collectively sighed in relief.

“Yeah, humans need rest too, that’s a perfect gift,” Dick said, settling his hands on Kori’s arms and pulling her close for a long kiss.

Gar shrieked in his ear and leapt off his shoulder. “Gross, man! Not when I’m right here!”

Dick rubbed his ear while Kori laughed at them both.

“I shall also give him the most romantic of literature from my people!” Kori declared, looking deeply into Dick’s eyes. “It will be most helpful in his life as he desires to woo a partner.”

“Yeah,” Dick sighed as he dreamily stared into Kori’s gorgeous eyes. Then he realized what she said and shook himself. “Wait, what? No, Kori, don’t get him romance, that’s a terrible idea, don’t do that.”

“Poetry and romance are the language of the soul, Dick,” Kori insisted. “My people are encouraged to learn all parts of ourselves and our souls to prepare to offer ourselves to our partners.”

Dick didn’t want to think about Jason learning about romance and partners. Gross. “That’s my little brother you’re talking about, Kori, no way are you getting him Tamaranean romance books.”

Kori only laughed and flew out of his arms.

Dick definitely didn’t want Jason to read about romance, he would end up coming to Dick for answers! Oh shit, was Dick going to have to teach Jason about romance? Fuck, that was going to be so awkward. It was way better to nip this in the bud and hope someone else would be willing to teach Jason what he needed to know.

Before Dick could protest more, Jericho stepped forward and caught Dick’s eye to sign, Does he like music?

“I think so,” Dick answered, a little distracted by Kori and her devious plan to corrupt his little brother. He forced himself to focus fully on Jericho. There would be plenty of time to talk Kori out of it. “I’m not sure what he likes, but he had headphones in when I saw him before we left.”

Jericho nodded. I can put together a few playlists for the party, and maybe get him a guitar if he expresses an interest. Or another instrument, if guitar doesn’t interest him. I can play quite a few, so I can teach him, if he’d like.

“I’m sure he would love that,” Dick said with a smile, relieved that at least one of his friends was planning to get Jason something normal. “I’m not so sure Alfred and Bruce will feel the same, but that’s at least half the fun.”

Jericho laughed, short breaths of air puffing out silently. Cheeky, cheeky, he signed with a little smirk.

“Always,” Dick laughed. “Gotta keep the old men on their toes.”

The Titans laughed with him.

Donna hesitantly raised a hand. “I can find him some other books he might enjoy reading. Or I can ask him what he truly wants for his birthday, so you can make sure he gets it.”

Dick hums in thought. “He does like to read, so some books would probably be welcome. I’m not sure what kind, though, so you’ll have to make your best guess. As for your truth powers, I wouldn’t go out of your way to use them on him. I don’t think he trusts easy, and we don’t want to coerce him into anything, you know?”

Donna nodded, thankfully looking thoughtful rather than offended. Dick guessed that being impossible to lie to probably gave Donna a thicker skin than most.

“He might like something from Themyscira, actually,” Dick said, thinking hard. “He was wearing Wonder Woman sweats when I saw him before we left.”

“I’ll get him a Themysciran staff then,” Donna decided, “and teach him how to use it. Or I could teach him the way of the blade, although it is not my preferred mode of combat. Tell me, would he prefer a staff or a sword?”

“Uh,” Dick floundered. “You know, I’m not sure, but I have a feeling he’d love a sword. I don’t know how Bruce would feel about it though.”

“An Amazon's Honed Blade made of Amazonium, then,” Donna decided. “I will teach him to cut through his enemies so that none will stand before him.”

“On second thought, maybe a staff would be better,” Dick hedged, but Donna was already turning to discuss design options with Kori.

Victor spoke up, distracting Dick from his increasing worries. “That leaves me, and I know just what to do!” Dick had a bad feeling about the crazed grin stretching across Vic’s face. “I’m building Jason a gravity-defying motorcycle!”

Dick’s eye twitched in horror. "He's sixteen Vic, he doesn't need a flying motorcycle!"

Vic scoffed, rolling his eyes. "Sixteen is the perfect time for a gravity-defying motorcycle, fuck you, ya dick."

Gar burst out laughing, stretching an arm out along Victor’s shoulders. “Hell yeah, Cyborg! Take the kid out for a joyride and show him how to really fly!”

Gar and Vic high-fived, and Dick groaned into his hands.

“No flying motorcycle!” He insisted. “He already has a regular one, and Bruce will flip his lid if you give the kid something even more dangerous!”

Victor rolled his eyes again. “Psh! What the old man doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

“You’ll hide the flying motorcycle,” Dick said in a deadpan voice, “from Batman.”

Gar and Vic both went silent.

“He’s got you there, man,” Garfield admitted.

Victor sighed heavily. “Fine, be boring and old–”

“Hey!”

Victor flapped his hand at Dick. “Whatever, I still know the perfect thing to get him– video games! I’ll get him a VR headset and all kinds of games for it. I bet he’ll kick ass at Beat Saber, he’ll totally beat all your high scores. And now I know you love Mario Party, Dick, but you can’t start with that, no way am I letting your relationship get worse, that’s for when you’re like this.” He lifts up his fingers and twists them together. Dick laughs, and Victor drops his hand with a wide grin. “I can get him my favorites, too, teach him how to play! Breath of the Wild, Baldur’s Gate, Elden Ring, Hades, and my personal favorite, Cyberpunk!” He leaned over toward Gar to mutter, “It’s gotten so much better with the updates and the new expansion.”

“Rad!” Dick laughed, “I’m sure he’ll love that. Thanks guys, this is going to be perfect!”

“And you, Dick?” Kori asked.

“What about me?” Dick asked, still smiling.

“What will you give to your little brother?”

Dick paused, his smile sliding away as he realized that he too would need a gift for Jason.

A good gift. A perfect gift. A real gift, to show Jason that they were really brothers.

What could he possibly give him?

The Titans quieted down, as they saw the shift in Dick’s face and sensed the change in atmosphere.

“I never wanted a brother…” Dick said quietly. “And so I haven’t been very kind to him. I haven’t been kind to him at all, in fact.” He was ashamed of himself, ashamed of his actions, ashamed of his lack of love for the boy who was supposed to be his little brother. “I don’t know what I can give him that can even begin to make up for that.”

“Making up for your lack of love will take time, dear one,” Kori said, flying around Dick to wrap him in a hug from behind. “He will need your time and attention to know that he is truly your brother.”

Dick leaned back into her hold, thankful as ever for his girlfriend’s support and care. Kori always seemed to know just what to say. He wondered if she always would. If she’d ever stop giving him her love and her time.

“Time…” Dick mused. “That’s it! Kori, you’re a genius!”

Kori laughed, holding him close. “Why thank you, but whatever for?”

“I can give him my time! I can buy a second controller for my Xbox and a bunch of two-player games! There are so many two-player games I’ve wanted to buy, but Bruce never wanted to play any video games with me, and Alfred definitely wasn’t going to do it! Oh! I can buy him Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, and we can play it together! I’ll be the big brother and he can be the little one! It’ll be perfect! I can take him out for Bat Burger, and we can get their ridiculous smiling Batman toys and glue them to the Batmobile’s dash! And I bet he’s never been to a real amusement park, I can spend a whole day with him there! Oh, Kori, that’s perfect! I’ll give him time! Time for us to spend together, as brothers!”

“It sounds as though we are in agreement!” Kori cried happily, then kissed Dick’s cheek. “Gifts for young Jason’s coming of age, time to spend with him, and a celebration of his life so far and the many joys which are yet to come! When is his day of birth, Dick?”

“Well, his birthday is in August,” Dick said, “so we’ve got plenty of time, even with this mission.”

And with that, they all focused back on the mission at hand. Dick’s teammates refined their ideas over the course of the mission, and Dick was looking forward to surprising Jason with the Titans and their thoughtful gifts, and he thought of so many things he and Jason could do together.

And then the mission ended.

And Danny broke the news. Kori touched down to the ground for the first time since Dick told her about Jason’s birthday. The soft tap of her boots sounded like a gunshot.

And Dick raced to the computer and learned what had happened to the boy he had planned to finally accept as his little brother.

The Titans tried to comfort him, but Dick pushed them all away. He didn’t deserve them. He had neglected his little brother until he died. All Dick deserved was his suffering and his lonely apartment as his life fell to pieces around him.

The loud blare of a horn pulls him out of his thoughts, and Dick swerves out of the way of an oncoming semi, darting across the lanes of traffic and kicking the bike into high gear to zip through the slow-moving vehicles in front of him.

He whips through the surface streets, going as fast as he possibly can. He already burned through his boosters on the bridge, and he curses himself for not adding larger tanks for the nitrous oxide. It would’ve been a negligible speed boost, considering the trade he would’ve had to make with the streamlining on the Wingcycle, but would’ve given him a tiny bit of extra speed that he really wants right now.

He barely triggers the gate opener before he corners around the sharp turn that leads into the first tunnel to the Batcave, leaning the bike so far his knee almost touches the ground, and he sends up a wave of water as he pulls himself back upright and guns it down the tunnel as the entrance closes behind him. The lights flash by faster than they ever have before, and Dick cranks the throttle again, uselessly trying to push the Wingcycle for one more boost. He’s already flying across the asphalt, using every bit of speed his bike has to give him.

He can hear Jason’s quiet sniffles over the headset, and he murmurs – to Jason or to his mulo, Dick’s not sure – “I’m almost there, Blue Jay. I’m in the tunnel, just wait for me a little longer.”

Alfred and Bruce are still talking quietly, but Dick strains his ears to listen to Jason instead.

Jason sniffles again, louder than before.

“I missed you, Jason,” Dick says, all but flying through the tunnel, cursing himself for not being there already. “I missed you so much. Please be real. Please, DelGod, please be real.”

Dick’s mind fills with all the things he planned to do with Jason on that fateful mission with the Titans.

Maybe he can do those things now, if this is real after all.

He can take Jason to the amusement park. Drive him out to a clean beach. Take him out shopping and teach him about real fashion.

They can sneak snacks into the movies, finally go see Shakespeare in the park even though Dick hasn’t even gone before, because Jason has quoted enough old classics during patrol for Dick to know he enjoys them. They can play video games and go to Bat Burger and oh.

Oh.

Dick can teach him to fly on the trapeze.

The way Daj o DadMom and Dad taught him when he was small. He can work Jason up to a quadruple somersault so there will be one more person who knows the trick, one more Flying Grayson, one little brother who Dick can claim all for his own.

“You’re my little brother, Jay,” Dick says, and Jason sobs over the comm.

Dick finally makes it into the Batcave and skids into a slide, leaping off his bike and rolling out into a sprint.

There.

There’s Alfred and Bruce and Jason, all in the medbay, and Jason’s covered in bandaids and butterfly bandages and he’s got a massive bruise on his face and he looks nothing like his mulo has ever looked before.

And Dick slides and leaps and lands with his arms already outstretched to wrap up his little brother in the tightest hug he can give him–

And he reaches out–

And he takes Jason in his arms.

His little brother.

Home at last.

“My little Robin!” Dick sobs, just as Daj did for him, after close calls and his first long fall where he almost missed the net. “Blue Jay, Jason! You’re real, you’re really alive!” And Dick makes a vow, to himself and to Jason alike, “I’m never letting you go again. Never again.”

And Jason lets his big brother hold him close, and cries.