Chapter Text
Izzy was sleeping in a bed that wasn't hers, blankets around her, wearing the same clothes from the day before. She was exhausted, cheeks dry with stale tears, as she noticed the familiar surroundings of Jason's bedroom. A weight on her arm told her someone had woken her and saw black hair in the corner of her eye. Part of her wanted it to be Jason. Part of her was relieved to find it wasn’t.
"You've never slept in here before." Tim pointed out, removing his hand from her arm. He'd probably been shaking her awake. "Are you okay?"
Izzy rubbed her eyes, turning to him.
"I had a dream." She said dismissively, trying to rub away the salt from her tears, "Must've accidentally wandered in here."
Tim nodded, a flicker of concern dancing over his face, "Alfred asked me to come find you for breakfast."
She tried for a reassuring smile as she nodded, "I'll be down there in a minute."
He left and that's when Izzy spotted something on the bedside table. Her hearing aids. Assuming Bruce had replaced them for her but hadn't wanted to wake her up, she put one in her ear. They were her broken ones from the night she'd met Red Hood.
Jason had come to the Manor to return them.
She walked to her own room and got dressed mechanically, throwing on Jason's old jacket. She tried to calm down, remembering the feeling of his pulse against her fingers and the sounds of his sobbing in her ear.
It hadn't been a dream.
Jason was alive.
Jason Todd was alive and nobody had bothered to tell her.
When she came down for breakfast Bruce was sitting down, reading the newspaper as outwardly emotional as a brick wall. She glared at him until he looked at her and put down his paper and continued to glare when he quirked a brow in confusion.
"Good morning." He signed, not bothering to speak the words
"We need to talk." She signed back, ignoring Alfred and Tim who seemed concerned at the signed conversation happening in front of them.
"Okay. What's going on?"
"In private."
Bruce followed her into the living room and the minute the door had closed she was almost snarling at him.
"Jason is alive and you didn't tell me." At such a volume that she could hear it clear as day. It occurred to her, to a small part of her enraged mind, that speaking in private meant nothing if she was screeching like a banshee. Izzy couldn't find it in herself to care.
She signed Jason's name over and over and Bruce's eyes finally widened in understanding.
"He came here last night." Bruce determined, and all Izzy could hear was the words though the harsh anger was clear in his eyes, "What happened?"
"No, you answer my questions," She hissed back and there were tears gathering in the corner of her eyes and clouding her vision but her voice was harsh and clear. "Why didn't you tell me Jason was alive?"
And in an instant, Bruce's anger bled out of his body. For the first time in years, Izzy saw the man she'd known to linger in the door of Jason's empty room: grief stricken and at a complete loss.
"I thought you were better off not knowing. Jason…He's changed." If Izzy hadn't read his lips she wouldn't have known he'd spoken.
"He'd never hurt me. He saved me." Izzy argued at a normal volume, feeling the ghost of her best friend's sobs on her shoulder as a shudder of grief ripped through her. The signals being formed by her hands were more out of habit, she wasn’t even sure they were understandable.
"I couldn't be sure of that. He's angry, Izzy." And it looked like Bruce was pleading with her, signing as sloppily as she'd ever seen them.
"You don't know-" he spoke, stepping close enough that she could hear the sadness in his voice.
"I don't care." She snapped anyway, biting back a sob. So maybe she wasn't done crying. "You've trusted me with everything else. You can't trust me with this?"
"I knew you'd go looking for him if I told you." Bruce explained and took another step forward as if to comfort her. "I didn't think he would approach you. I didn’t think he would come here."
Silence fell and Izzy felt hot tears flow freely down her face as she struggled to get the rock out of her throat. Some cruel, masochistic part of her knew that, given the choice, she would take this frustration and pain over the emptiness she'd felt for so long.
"He… he came to his room last night. He told me who he was." Izzy murmured, seeing Bruce's face flicker through a barrage of emotions before settling on stoney and unreadable. "He thought you had already told me."
"You have a soft spot for Jason." Bruce explained, and a heavy hand laid down firmly on her shoulder, "I couldn't see you get hurt."
"Then you should have told me." Izzy said again in a choked voice, twisting carefully out of his grip and walking out of the living room. If he said anything else, he said it low enough that she didn't catch a single word.
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Izzy went back to her apartment that morning, her leg healed enough that it only hurt if she overworked herself. Alfred insisted on driving her home and Tim insisted on riding with her. She hadn't seen Bruce once since their conversation.
"Jason's back." She said simply when she was tired of seeing Tim's worried eyes and the flit of Alfred's pupils towards her in the rearview mirror.
"I know." Tim agreed and set a hand on her arm from his side of the seat.
"Of course you do." She cursed,"Because he'd tell everyone except me."
"To keep you safe." Tim defended flatly.
"To keep himself safe." Izzy spat, "Bruce doesn't want to acknowledge that his son is a murderous vigilante because it means he has to think about whether that's his fault or not."
She wasn't sure where the malice was coming from but she tried to reign it in anyway.
"You're right." Tim said before she could apologize, "But I wanted to keep you safe. Dick wanted to keep you safe too." He assured her, squeezing her arm.
Tim walked her up to her apartment while Alfred waited for him in the car. As she slid her key into the lock, a box appeared in her vision. She followed the hand that held it and looked up to where Tim was giving a small encouraging smile next to her.
Inside the box were her replacement hearing aids and with a twinge of guilt she had to wonder if Bruce had been intending to give them to her that morning.
She put them on, glad to hear Tim's full laugh when she cranked the volume too loud and made a little "ope" sound. She could hear the traffic and the planes overhead and people inside their apartments and momentarily, it made her forget about hearing Jason beg her for forgiveness the night before.
She decided against sitting alone and moping in her apartment, directing Alfred to the park nearby.
People were shouting at each other happily and she could hear burgers on grills and children screaming at each other as they played tag. The three of them (Izzy had insisted Alfred join them) sat on a bench together and Izzy took everything silently in, glad to be out of the Manor and away from places she had responsibility.
As Izzy considered it all, the noises in the park combined in their own little song as she felt the sun on her face, she felt the color had been renewed, somehow.
Jason Todd was alive.