Chapter Text
So… this wasn’t the worst thing that had ever happened to Jason. That was definitely getting betrayed by his mom, beaten half to death by the Joker, and then dying in a very painful explosion, hoping Batman would save him all the while. Easy win right there.
Digging his way out of his own lovely mahogany coffin with his hands and a belt buckle came in at a solid second place though.
He’d been real fond of small spaces as a kid. They’d been a great way to go unseen as people forgot that a kid might climb up and into a small nook. He was pretty sure, as he took gasping, labored breaths, sprawled on the soaking wet cemetery grass, that he was never going to enjoy another closet, air vent, or mostly empty dumpster in his life. Hell. Maybe he’d never go inside anything ever again. Maybe he’d just live outside, under the open gray sky, blanketed by Gotham’s noxious smog. The air had a familiar smell which Jason associated with chilblains and an empty stomach, not pleasant, exactly, but comforting in its familiarity. It was nothing like the dry, motor-oil scented air of Ethiopia.
He had woken, in the dark of his coffin, to the taste of Alfred’s breakfast burritos, made with chorizo and a little of the fancy hot sauce, like he’d just finished breakfast. The taste was probably the result of random synapses firing wildly, still, it was preferable to the acrid fear, and hints of mud that now lingered on his tongue and between his teeth. Some water would be nice, but even if there was a free drinking fountain nearby, he wasn’t desperate enough to risk it yet, not until he knew the current status of Gotham’s most poisonous rogues.
With a burst of will power and tired, though not entirely spent, muscles, Jason pushed himself up to sitting and looked around. His headstone. Nice, nice… and Shelia’s? A Loving Mother. That motherfucker. Oooooh Jason was going to give it to Bruce! He had been very clear when he’d started that fucking Robin business that he was to be buried in the Wayne plot, with the new headstone Bruce had installed for Catherine by his side.
Maybe he’d had daydreams of survival and freedom and university… but he’d also known, with a deep, unnerving instinct that his death was right around the corner. It always had been, as long as he could remember. That eerie certainty within him that Gotham was more likely to reform and become the new Metropolis than he was to make it to adulthood whole and human and sane.
Well he was right… and yet! Look at him! Jason laughed and the sound was a sad, muted thing in the empty cemetery but he didn’t give a fuck! Look at him! He was back, bitches!
He stood without using his hands, which were, in fact, throbbing in pain and thoroughly wrecked. Alfred was going to have a conniption over having to wash off all that mud to pull out all those splinters all to bandage up what was clearly a collection of broken bones. He was grateful to the adrenaline pushing him through but it was starting to fade and oh boy that was going to be a bitch! But he got out of six feet of dirt without passing out and suffocating back to death. Really he was a lucky fucker that he wasn’t buried in a concrete box like most cemeteries outside of Gotham used.
Once upright, he stood, swaying for a long moment. He wasn’t hungry, and he was barely hurt, nothing immediately noticeable other than the wounds from digging his way out of his own damned grave. He was tired, but only from the adrenaline rush and the exertion of digging his way out, with a bit of rest it would pass. He was actually in… shockingly good shape? He looked around a little wider, but there weren’t any ominous figures in dark robes with skull masks carrying dubious looking tomes or anything. Which… even besides his own baffling resurrection, seemed unusual for Gotham.
He hadn’t been to Gotham Cemetery since he and Bruce visited to make sure everything was kosher after winter flooding had led to some opportunistic grave robbing. The cemetery had been built on some of the highest ground in Gotham, but anywhere high-rises went up, the islands started to sink, and the vast swaths of concrete had left waves of rain water cascading through the streets looking for any permeable ground… and so one wet year turned the graveyard into a swamp and old bones, free from their coffins, had floated to the surface.
Bruce had made him learn so much about architecture and different types of soil during that whole investigation. When the whole thing had finally been wrapped up, they’d come for that one last visit. He remembers awkwardly patting Catherine’s headstone, all too aware that there was no point in talking to the empty grave. He didn’t actually know where Catherine’s remains were. Cremated and dumped had been Bruce’s best guess, but there was also a chance her body had been stolen by some weirdo or another who wanted a corpse that no one would look for. If Willis had known where Catherine’s body was, he hadn’t left any records that Bruce could track down.
Well. No point in dawdling. Jason took several minutes to tenderly check his burial suit, but, as to be expected, there was no money. The pants were a little short in the leg, not a lot, but Alfred was a stickler for the single break in the leg of formal trousers. He made a mental note. More of a surprise, there was no tracker he could find either. Hopefully there was one hidden under the smears of mud, or tucked into a seam, or even injected into him somewhere, given the prevalence of rogues and lesser criminals who’d love to mess with the body of Bruce Wayne’s adopted son. Hopefully it would go off when he left the cemetery and he wouldn’t have to make his own way to Bristol. He wasn’t going to depend on that though.
Gotham Cemetery was set into the center of the lower island, so that locals didn’t have to travel to the mainland to visit their loved ones, while still trying to reduce the chance that the entire thing became a water burial. So he was in the midst of West Harlow, near enough that he could get the Brown Line to the northern edge of the city and then get the bus into Bristol. Sadly that bus only arrived once an hour because rich people avoided Gotham public transport like the plague… and well… That was assuming the trains and buses were running, and that the schedule was the same as he remembered, which were some pretty big assumptions. Still, he wouldn’t learn anymore standing out in the cold like this.
Gotham Cemetery was a finger strip of green in West Harlow, swallowed by the high-rises on all sides. He wasn’t too familiar with the area, actually. It was a business district mostly, and didn’t have a lot of abandoned spaces for mobsters, poor kids, or junkies to set up shop. While Batman tried to cover as much of Gotham as he could, a whole city is a big place, and they naturally ended up spending more time on the Uptown island, which was closer to Bristol, or by the docks, where the shadiest deals went down. It was usually past his bedtime before Batman made it down to this part of the city. The crimes committed in these parts were mostly of the daytime, white-collar variety. At night, there were well paid security guards, and not much else, for the most part.
Jason walked to the street, his limbs warming up with the gentle movement, though the blood pumping made his hands throb in time to his heartbeat. Around him, the bustle of business men and women in their dark suits and coats flooded past, on their way to the office. Gotham got hot in the summer, but autumns were always unpredictable. It was a reasonably nice mid-morning, but there were no promises it would stay that way. He could see the preparation in the scarves lying along the collars of open coats and the gloves poking, unworn, out of pockets. It was a good thing the weather was as nice as it was, while Jason was cold, he wasn’t hypothermia cold. A quick rainstorm and some wind could change that real fast though.
The trees at the edge of the cemetery were a mix of green and yellow leaves, with the occasional bit of red flashing through the other foliage. They all looked a bit sad and undersized, probably couldn’t get enough root space. Maybe Ivy would give the cemetery a make-over at some point… that could be nice.
He looked both ways down the block, but nothing looked quite familiar enough for Jason to know which way to go. Bruce had drilled him on how to get around Gotham, but a lot of the instructions included getting to a high vantage point first, or looking for a subway sign. So, vaguely north it was.
Jason got an odd look or two, but no more than that, so he was a little surprised when he got a glance of himself in a window. There was mud in his hair, and on his face. Obviously. Ugh, once he noticed it, it started itching. The suit was muddy too, but, with the exception of the sleeves, less than his head. He’d been digging for air head first, and that was uh… noticeable. Great! Thankfully Gothamites knew how to mind their own business.
It was only another block before Jason saw the Gotham Superior Courthouse and his mental map snapped into place. One more block north, one block east and he’d be at the Brown Line. He could take the subway over to Wayne Tower, Bruce did work there sometimes, but it’d be harder to get entrance as Bruce’s dead son from a secretary than from Alfred. The thought of getting turned away made his stomach writhe like that awful box of worms the gamekeeper at Gotham Academy had. So, no, not Wayne Tower, the manor was better for a lot of reasons. (It was home.) Alfred knew him, personally. Reporters weren’t welcome to hang around the manor. Jason had gone with Bruce to Wayne Enterprise a few times, but not enough to be on first name terms with anyone. Based on his stories, Alfred had also seen enough wild things go down to know that anything was possible. Hopefully he could even wrap his head around someone coming back from the dead, even well after they’d been buried.
God. He’d died in April. Had it been months, or years? Gotham looked familiar enough, but the city could remain stubbornly the same when any other place would’ve been forced to change and adapt. The cars looked the same too. The fashion looked… similar? He wasn’t a fashion guy, but old pictures of Bruce, or of his parents looked different enough that if it had been a decade or more, he’d like to think he’d know the difference. So… probably less than a decade. Maybe as little as four months, if autumn had come early? Hell, with the Flash being a person who existed and sometimes broke time, maybe he’d died two years in the future and the timeline was absolutely fucked. But he’d put that as less likely unless evidence suggested otherwise.
With the ease of an extremely well trained 15 year old, Jason jumped the barriers at the subway station without using his hands, getting plenty of momentum from a few running steps. It was weird, being in this part of town. Jason didn’t see anyone else hopping the barriers, just the steady trickle of dark suits paying their fare. The subway station near where he used to live with Catherine and Willis, it was weirder to pay than to jump the turnstiles. You could always recognize a tourist that way, and that was just asking to get jumped. Still, Gothamites don’t give a fuck whether they’re homeless kids or respectable bankers and he barely got a second glance. (“Language,” reminded a memory of Alfred, in his smooth upper crust accent, because even Jason’s thoughts were too poor for Bruce Wayne’s manor.)
The ride uptown went smoothly, and the train even ran on time. Hot damn. Maybe it had been a few years after all. Bruce’s work as Batman and as CEO of Wayne Enterprise had been making a difference, and Bruce had the statistics to prove it, but when Jason had died… eh even odds on whether a Gotham city train would catch on fire that week, even without the actions of a masked rogue.
The time to sit and think was almost nice, though the chill making its way into his bones was less so. It felt good to be among the people of Gotham again, after the time in Ethiopia, getting fired as Robin, and going to Gotham Academy with its 50 students a year who’ve all known each other since diapers and Alfred working as a chauffeur there and back, he’d barely ever interacted with the city during the day since Bruce had taken him to the manor that first time. The smell of Gotham’s dense humanity was distinct: a whiff of urine, the humid chemical aroma of bubblegum vape, and the layered sweat left behind on seats and hand holds. The smell was nothing like the fresh grass and cleaning fumes of Bristol. When his hands stopped hurting and instead felt suspiciously cold-numb, Jason started pacing the train car, keeping his eye out for anyone looking to start trouble. There was a kid with a massive snake in an Ikea bag despite it being mid-morning on a weekday, a couple of homeless people sleeping, an abandoned shopping cart… it all felt comfortingly familiar.
The bus to Bristol was quiet, only the driver for company, but thankfully it was warmer inside since they were stopping and opening the doors less. He was really thirsty by this point. It was an omnipresent awareness in the back of his head, but while he would trust Bristol water more, they didn’t have free water fountains in this sort of neighborhood. Where would they be? There aren’t any public parks, or other public spaces, just private land, fenced in at the edge of the public roads for miles and miles. Jason’s leg bounced as he thought about the gate to the manor, ringing the doorbell, Alfred answering, all of the many, many tests Bruce would require.
He was fired as Robin… but he also died. Bruce wouldn’t kick him out. He was pretty sure, eighty-five percent sure, maybe ninety. Sure enough that it was worth checking even if it got him funneled into another school for troubled boys and a foster home Bruce had vetted. That wouldn’t be ideal… but it’d be fine. (Bruce liked him. This wasn’t like when they first met, when they didn’t know each other at all.) If Bruce did send him off, and the school or the home was another cover, he’d call Batman, and even if Bruce didn’t want him anymore, Batman would still do his job.
The worms in Jason’s stomach writhed.
He’d died of his own damned stupidity, but he had still died. He liked to think that’d earn him some leeway. Maybe Bruce would put him in a home, but he could stay at Gotham Academy, where he’d get a good enough education to get a scholarship anywhere he wanted. Or maybe the hassle of announcing the return of his dead son, and then immediately disowning him would be too much, so Jason could live in the manor, even if Bruce didn’t want him anymore. Maybe he could prove that he could be Robin again, and everything would be fine. Maybe Bruce would want him regardless of whether he was Robin or not. Maybe he’d already paid his due.
Jason swallowed down hope and fear and walked down the empty lane edged with tall wrought iron fences protecting thick green hedges and glimpses of highly manicured lawns. The gravel path came into sight, the intricate iron work fence forbidding entrance to the hallowed halls of Wayne Manor. It all looked very much the same as it had the last time Jason had seen it.
The code to the gate had been changed.
Obviously, there was no reason for this to feel like a rejection. He’d been dead, they’d known he was dead. They hadn’t been changing the code on him, they had just… changed the code. Not ideal, but there was a call button for a reason. He could try and guess what the code was, but that was verging on futile. Bruce used random nine digit codes which usually only changed once a year, but more often if there was reason to think they’d gotten out. So more than a year since his death then, probably? A year and a half wouldn’t be too bad.
Jason pressed the call button on the keypad.
“Wayne Manor,” came Alfred’s voice after a minute. Jason hesitated,
“Alfie. It’s me, it’s Jason. I— I woke up in my coffin. Dug my way out. I don’t know what happened.”
“In front of the camera please, young sir,” Alfred said, and the quality of the audio wasn’t good enough to hear the tension in Alfred’s voice, but Jason’s stomach dropped at being called ‘young sir’. Still, he did as Alfred asked. The camera was better than it looked, of course, as was the microphone on this end. Bruce tried not to use Batman equipment around the manor, always paranoid about anything that could be a clue to his identity, but Alfred was in charge of the home defense, and he’d walked Jason through some of it over the years. This set up wasn’t quite Batman quality, but it was much better than it looked. The voice identification system on the gate wasn’t foolproof, but it had caught more than a couple idiots looking to make trouble, before or after the fact.
“Very good,” came Alfred’s voice once more. Jason’s own voice seemed to have died and retreated far into his stomach. “Now please confirm the brand of your suit jacket.” Jason pulled off the black jacket. His right middle finger had gone completely numb but the others throbbed as he forced them to move and bend to hold the jacket. There was no tag at the neck which was fine, but then there wasn’t a maker’s label where the inner pocket would be either. Holding it up in front of him, Jason couldn’t see any labels at all.
“There aren’t any,” Jason managed, dragging words from the depth of himself after turning the jacket inside out to no avail and staring at the camera for a moment of bafflement.
“Hm. Then I suppose you should proceed inside. I shall meet you at the door, Master Jason.” It should have been a relief, to hear those words, to see the gate open and to be one more step closer to safety in whatever form it presented itself. It wasn’t. With a sigh he put the jacket back on, and focused on the feeling of his breath in his chest as his arms shook a little at the overstimulating pain. The worms in his stomach had started a rave. His body felt like it was walking a foot in front of him. His hands hurt. He’d dealt with a lot of pain in his life, and had learned to work with it. The ache of his broken 3rd metacarpal and whatever the hell he’d done to his distal interphalangeals held him relatively close to his body when the stress offered an escape to another time, another place, as long as he stopped caring about this one.
On the other end of his fear, anger.
He couldn’t be angry. Being angry, being a child, being reckless got him fired and killed. If he got disowned, and Bruce was angry enough with him, done enough with him, then he’d be all of fifteen, legally dead, and on the street. He’d already faced that path in life before and Robin was a million times better than that, for the short period it lasted. Even with all the training and pain and fear… it was magical. Robin was magic, and Jason got to embody that magic for a short while… and that was worth a lot.
He couldn’t get angry, because there was no other local vigilante billionaire to come along and offer him a once in two lifetimes’ chance.
The walk up to the house took a while. It was a long path, and Jason was too tired to run it, or even to speed walk it. Usually Alfred would come along in a car to pick him up if he was walking in through the gate for some reason, but Alfred was probably busy setting up identity tests, or calling Bruce, or maybe just watching Jason from cameras and radar scanners to try and notice any discrepancies.
He didn’t blame Alfie. People do come back from the dead, but there were also zombies and clones and secret identical twins, and how the hell would he even prove himself? He still had some of his old scars. He’d checked on the train, he’s got the scar right under his left armpit where he very nearly managed to avoid getting sliced by the rusty machete some poor sod on fear toxin was wielding, but didn’t manage to avoid B completely freaking out. He didn’t have crowbar or explosion scars though… which doesn’t make any sense! And he has an actively healing bruise along his right arm that suggests a hard rolling landing, maybe a jump between uneven rooftops… but he doesn’t remember ever earning that. If he’d healed from deadly injuries, why not healed into perfect shape? The story doesn’t track, even to himself, and he was living (ha!) it!
Eventually the manor came into sight. It was a bit past noon and he was uncomfortably hungry. He’d been spoiled, living with Bruce, he’d gotten used to eating food that he liked, whenever he wanted it. Sure, he’d needed to eat a lot of vegetables and protein to be in crime-fighting shape, but Alfred had been thrilled, in that quiet, reserved way of his, to have someone who ate easier than Bruce did, and more heavily than Dick’s steady nibbling through the day. Alfred had made sure Jason always had delicious and healthy options available, and Jason had taken advantage. He’d eaten four meals a day, sometimes five if he was peckish after school. Never once had Alfred turned him away to wait for dinner time. On top of that, he’d been so excited, learning to cook properly, instead of the make-do methods he’d learned by necessity when he was younger. It had been a secret pleasure of Jason’s, to have Alfred’s entire focus on him, to please Alfred with his curiosity.
Anyway.
As a kid, Jason could manage a day without food well enough, it wasn’t nice, but his stomach knew better than to grumble when there was nothing coming. Now though, it rolled, probably giving the worms in his stomach a serious shake up. He felt a bit nauseous, but whether that should be attributed to nerves or hunger, Jason couldn’t say.
The front door opened as Jason walked up the steps and Alfred was there, looking older than Jason remembered. Tired in a way that seemed to have weighed the man down. It was unnerving. Alfred had always seemed… steady. Stable. Unchanging. It wasn’t all that dramatic of a shift, but was unsettling nonetheless. His fluffy white hair seemed a little thinner, his skin a little more wrinkled, his lips a little thinner.
“It’s good to see you, my boy,” Alfred said. He looked Jason up and down and pulled him into a hug. There was a handgun holstered on the left side of Alfred’s chest. He probably had a knife somewhere too. “Now, tell me, what is Master Bruce’s big secret?”
“He’s scared of bats... and he’s Batman.” Now that he thought of it, Jason wished he had a weapon of some kind on him, he’d take a nice solid stick, just for the comfort of being armed. It wasn’t necessary now, but he felt a bit… naked in retrospect at the idea of having crossed just about all of Gotham with nothing but broken hands and brand new dress shoes.
“Good lad, now lead us both to the best computer we have, and I’ll do what I can to confirm your story before your father wakes up.” Jason looked at Alfred in confusion— Bruce had adopted him, but they didn’t… really talk about each other like that. And Bruce slept into the morning most days, but he rarely did so into the afternoon unless it’d been a particularly hard night. Still, the comment wasn’t made in a tone that suggested it was expecting rebuttal, but rather was Alfred offering a comforting plan.
If Alfred could confirm Jason’s story before Bruce woke up, then… then could they have a reunion based on their own feelings, rather than Bruce’s paranoia? It didn’t particularly feel like the better option, but Jason also knew that it would hurt to see the distance in Bruce’s eyes as he withheld judgement— withheld trust. Maybe it would be there regardless, maybe he had fucked up too much and Bruce didn’t want him anymore, but… but he had earned that. He was the real Jason Todd though, he hadn’t earned Bruce’s distant suspicion, and he would only be able to tolerate that for so long before it pissed him off and he ruined everything. He’d take trouble he’d earned over trouble he hadn’t any day of the week.
Jason moved steadily up the stairs towards Bruce’s study, towards the grandfather clock, toward the secret entrance to the cave.
“How long has it been, anyway?” He asked, to break the silence of Alfred’s steady steps behind him.
“I will need some more details, how long since what?”
“Since I… you know… died? I woke up in my grave, dug my way out, and headed straight here. There weren’t any convenient newspapers drifting in the wind with the date on it, because no one uses them anymore.” They weren’t even offered at the subway anymore since they were covered in some explosive powder and used in an attack that killed half a dozen people and closed three subway stations for weeks.
“It’s October 27th, so six months exactly.”
“Well, that’s a relief! I was a little worried it might’ve been years. That would’ve been worse.” God. Imagine if enough time had passed that Bruce had gotten over Jason’s death— because as much as he feared how Bruce might feel about him, he had no doubt that the man would have been emotionally upset by his death —then he really might’ve been screwed. Imagine if he’d returned, Bruce with a new, better son, and no interest in his old screw up. Jason probably wouldn’t have started taking drugs and checked out, but damn it would’ve been tempting. Maybe he would’ve run away and become an assassin as a fuck you, or maybe he’d just join a street gang and accept his fate as a crime alley street rat destine to be nothing and no one. Not a bright future either way. Odd that Alfred looked so much older after only six months.. Though, people always said that change was more noticeable when you weren’t seeing it every day.
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“Why the suit jacket?”
“Ah. I made it myself, as you may have guessed. Your funeral was held privately and the gossip rags were rather annoyed by that… There was quite a fuss over every element that they could manufacture, and the consensus seemed to be that you were buried in a Magoth Elite suit. Any imposter who’d done their research would have likely been wearing one of theirs. That, or one of the other contenders, it didn’t matter either way.”
Bruce’s study felt odd when Jason walked it. There was no dust anywhere, of course, and there’s nothing obvious like broken glass, or a light flickering. It’s just… the blanket over the sofa that Jason used when reading was gone. Bruce’s desk was completely free of paperwork, which Jason wasn’t sure he’d ever seen before. The curtains were drawn shut, despite it being midday. It was another odd thing on a growing list of odd things. The trousers, just a touch short, the bruise on his arm, Alfred looking more than six months older, and now Bruce’s study. It was all creating a cognitive dissonance that made the manor feel like a liminal space instead of home.
The grandfather clock opened just like it should, and Jason felt Alfred’s presence follow close behind. The air got cool and slightly damp. The sensors turned on the lights, bright and ever so slightly warm in hue because Alfred joked that if Bruce wouldn’t go out into actual sunlight then he’ll get the second best thing. Jason stops in front of the batcomputer but Alfred shoos him on.
“Let’s get your hands tended to first. I can collect a blood sample while I’m at it.” Alfred nodded to the med bay and Jason hopped onto the exam table easily enough. He turned down the offer of painkillers, as he always did, but accepted a local anesthesia. He only had to make that mistake, and receive the following explanation on how it worked and its non-addictive nature, once. It was soothing, to have Alfred washing his hands with warm water, carefully rubbing off the grave dirt. It felt like being Robin again, back when things were… if not good, then better. Good enough.
“How can we even prove anything?” Jason asked, twitching back a little when it came out whinier than intended. Alfred was quiet for a moment, grabbing tweezers and disinfecting them.
“I’m not too worried about it, lad,” Alfred said, slowly but steadily pulling a nasty splinter out from under the nail of Jason’s middle finger. “I called up Gotham Cemetery while you were walking up and while the groundskeeper was not on site, there was a gravedigger for another funeral present and he was able to confirm that your grave had been disturbed in a way that looked very much like someone crawling out. I’ve hired a private detective who’s cooperated with Batman before to collect photographic evidence, and after the funeral that had been planned is held, the gravedigger will be exhuming your empty grave to confirm its state. The investigator will be collecting DNA evidence, as will I.
“Master Bruce will be up by then I expect, but the final step will be looking through all the footage we can find to confirm your trip through town up here, and when your grave was last seen undisturbed. Master Bruce was there this past weekend and he didn’t remark on anything unusual at the time. I suppose your father might call on one of his magical contacts to see if they have anything of value to say, but I believe that to be unlikely, unless it’s to confirm that your return is already permanent.” Alfred briefly placed a hand on Jason’s wrist, and Jason looked down at the contact, wordless. He watched as his hands started to look like they belonged to a human once more, but they didn’t look good. “I believe you may need Dr. Thompkin’s attentions, we wouldn’t want these to heal wrong. I’ll brace them for now, and then give her a call. Have you eaten?”
“No, no money.”
“I thought that might be the case, I’ve set up lunch on the workbench. Let me know if you need any help. I shall try to make some progress at the computer, just getting the footage of you leaving the cemetery and no one of suspicion entering since Master Bruce’s last visit will be most helpful.” Jason nodded and Alfred stepped away, settling into Bruce’s chair and typing in the Agent A credentials to begin his data collection.
Sure enough at the work table Bruce used when he was inventing his own equipment, a bagel sandwich— prosciutto instead of his preferred salami, but neither Alfred nor Bruce were particularly fond of salami, and prosciutto was fine. Alfred’s sandwiches weren’t his best dish, he always buttered the bread, even when he then put mayo on top, which was weird, but it was still really good.
Thankfully Jason’s thumb and pinky fingers were both still in commission, so it was awkward, especially given their numbness, but possible to eat on his own. He’d never been hurt badly enough to need to be spoon fed, but Bruce had and it had looked humiliating.
For dessert, a thermos of the nostalgic cheap hot chocolate that Alfred had originally gotten for Dick. Jason had found it brought back good childhood memories as well, so Alfred kept stocking it, despite preferring to melt blocks of chocolate and whisking in half-and-half to make a much richer version out of his own sense of what proper behavior for rich people looked like. Jokes on him, Jason might be theoretically rich as Bruce’s adopted son, but he was a gutter rat at heart and in habit.
Without music or really any noise besides the quiet hum of the equipment, the distant chirping of the bats, and Alfred’s typing, Jason drifted to sleep, muddy suit, increasingly throbbing hands and all.
“Alfred! Alfred, where are you?” Came Bruce’s urgent voice, and Jason sat bolt upright. “The sensor on Jason’s grave just went off!” Bruce’s heavy steps came down the stairs. Bruce could be shockingly light on his feet for a man who weighed in excess of 200lbs, but only ever when he’s wearing the Batman costume. He made a point to be audible at all times when he was being Bruce Wayne.
“A little late, I would say,” Alfred said in an amused voice, from his position in front of the batcomputer. Jason swallowed against a dry mouth. Dr. Freeze had shown up at the worm party in his stomach. He’d thought the sandwich had ended that, but apparently not enough to keep it settled in the face of Bruce’s upset.
“What. Does. That. Mean.” Batman’s voice returned, and with it Bruce’s figure emerged from the stairwell. Alfred gestured to Jason and Bruce’s head turned so fast Jason was almost surprised there wasn’t a snapping noise.
“Jay?” Bruce understandably looked like he'd seen a ghost. Perhaps specifically the ghost of his adopted son and sidekick, six months dead, risen from his grave. Jason did that awkward acknowledging smile, compressing his lips together in a half smile, half grimace.
“Hi... Bruce.” Bruce… didn’t look good. He looked… really bad actually. There were shaving nicks on his chin, like his hands had been shaking, and bruises on his face that he hadn’t bothered to cover with makeup. He was still wearing the base layers for the Batman suit, even though he was clearly woken from sleep by the belated alarm from Jason’s grave. Jason took a single truncated step forward, forward from hope at the tears welling in Bruce’s eyes, forward at the hope on Bruce’s face, and truncated the fear of Bruce turning him away. Jason wouldn’t break, but god it would hurt.
It didn’t matter, Bruce ran dead at him across the cave, pushed the work table away and pulled Jason into one of those hugs that he’d learned to love under Bruce’s care. He felt as Bruce placed a kiss on his muddy hair and that was it.
The dam broke and Jason was sobbing.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry I shouldn’t have gone! I’m sorry I scared Garzonas, I wanted him to fall, and I didn’t want to break your rule, but I knew what I was doing, I’m sorry. And I shouldn’t have trusted Sheila, I knew better, I’m sorry.” He knew better but he’d hoped. He’d wanted so, so badly to receive the unconditional love that the world and his own experience always told him a mother would feel for their son.
He’d wanted to feel Catherine’s love again.
“Shh, lad, it’s okay. It’s okay, you’re here. That’s all that matters,” and when Bruce spoke to Jason like that, he couldn’t do anything but believe it. He sobbed into Bruce’s chest and it was such a relief. For months before… He’d been all over the place, finding ordinary annoyances rage inducing, and everyday tragedies heartbreaking, but it’d been like all his tears had dried up the moment his first beard hair had sprouted and with them his ability to let shit go. When his tears finally subsided, Jason felt like he’d been cored. His head and hands throbbed.
Bruce’s gentle knuckles brushed Jason’s cheek, “let’s get you cleaned up. Alfred, what are you doing?”
“Confirming Master Jason’s identity. Dr. Thompkin will be here soon, sir. Perhaps you can get Master Jason clean and into a fresh pair of clothes, while keeping his splints in place, before she arrives.”
“I’ll do that… and Alfred, there’s no need to— Why don’t you go set up Jason’s room, put on clean sheets or… something.” Bruce sounded odd. Reluctant. Jason looked up at Bruce’s stony features but couldn’t suss anything out besides some ambiguous ambivalence
“I shall do that in a moment sir, I believe I have collected sufficient evidence to prove Master Jason’s miraculous return in the court of law, but you know I prefer to have my t’s crossed and my i’s dotted.”
“Right…”
“While I don’t have a clue as to how Master Jason returned, I’m confident that he has. As for explanations… The Flash has been active recently, and hasn’t filed any new reports with the Justice League for over a month, so anything could have happened. There was a large fight happening this morning, though nothing has been filed for it yet, the timing would align there. Or perhaps your investigations into the idea that there may be a Lazarus Pit in Gotham has a new location to investigate, though the timing and lack of other revivals does make this seem unlikely. Perhaps it’s worth retesting Master Jason for evidence of a meta gene. Either way, I am quite content with the results of my own investigation.”
“Very good, Alfred,” and that was definitely relief in Bruce’s tone.
“I will take the liberty of calling Master Dick,” Alfred said, in a tone that did not welcome objection. Bruce’s lips thinned but he obligingly held his silence. Jason just focused on breathing. He focused on the feeling of Bruce’s heat as it radiated off of him. He felt the way Bruce’s hand didn’t leave his head, his thumb now stroking Jason’s hairline (where Joker had bashed him with the crowbar and turned his vision into a smear). On the inhale, he smelled Bruce, a little ripe, but a comfortingly familiar smell all the same.
“A bath, or warm cloth and just wash your hair for now?” Bruce asked, and his voice was so soft, like it had been when Jason had first been adopted and Bruce had wanted so badly for Jason to stop being scared. Jason had smiled and laughed and kept his guard up as much as he could. He stayed an arm’s length away and Bruce had let him.
“A… a bath would be good.” Jason’s voice was rough and he cleared it. “I hate being dirty.” His voice had just settled into its new, lower register when he’d died. He hadn’t been entirely used to it, jumping once when Bruce played back a recording of a mission and he’d heard his own words in Willis’ voice.
“I know, lad. We’ll get you all cleaned up. Nice clean clothes, nice clean bed, nice clean towel, nice clean body.” A little joke between them. Jason had been so pleased, and so baffled, by how often Alfred washed everything. He only wore a shirt once before Alfred wanted to wash it, even if it didn’t smell or nothing. Bruce’s hand left his head and moved to his back, guiding him up the stairs and Jason let himself lean on Bruce.
He had to… he had to make sure that Bruce kept him. He wasn’t… he wasn’t easy and likable like Dick was. He wasn’t as smart as Barbara. Bruce had liked him once though. Jason just had to make sure he did again, before the law came back into the picture and Bruce realized how much work it would be. Jason had seen Catherine, and other women who had no other option, had seen how they’d made men act against their own self interest, against their own greed. So he leaned against Bruce and ignored the sick nostalgia. He just had to be likable, or better yet, lovable. He had to.
Bruce leads him to Bruce’s own bathroom, the nicest in the manor, with a tub big enough to fit five people who were willing to get cozy, or three comfortably. Jason strips down, slow and awkward with most of his fingers splinted, but he doesn’t want to wait for Bruce to help. He really, definitely does not want to stand still while Bruce unbuttons Jason’s shirt, or unzips his pants, so he turns away and Bruce lets him, even when it takes way longer. Bruce just starts the bath, testing the water, pulling out the bubble bath and an extra towel.
There are so many mirrors in the bathroom. It’s one of the spaces shared by Bruce and by the persona of Brucie Wayne, so there are mirrors on every wall, there are condoms and lube and few sex toys in one the drawers, there are extra towels and candles beneath the sink. Jason sees himself in the mirror. He had the milky pale skin of someone who is semi-nocturnal, who lived under the sun-less skies of Gotham, and was also a massive nerd who did most of his workouts in a home gym. There were hairs on his chest now. That was nice. When he swallowed, Jason’s throat was tight. He looked like himself, but staring in the mirror, he felt he was seeing a stranger.
“All set?” Jason asked, watching Bruce’s back in the mirror. Bruce checked the water temperature once more and poured in the bubble bath, waiting for it to foam before nodding.
“All set.” Bruce looked away while Jason slid into the water, under the bubbles and heat, even his hands. When he got out, they’d need to take the splits off to let the foam dry but there was no way he was going through this with his hands on the edges of the tub. It hurt, as heat returned to his feet, and small scrapes on his arms burned just a little. It felt good. It felt so good. He’d only been cold for a few hours but he hated being cold so fucking much.
Bruce stood like a lone scarecrow in a field until Jason gave him a sideways glance and offered, “wash my hair? I don’t think I could do a good job.” Bruce always did better with a task, with a job to do. If he’d wanted to be somewhere else then he would’ve left when Jason had turned his back. If he was here then he wanted to be here.
“Of course,” Bruce’s voice is unbearably soft and Jason knows, logically, that he’s six months dead to Bruce’s experience, but Jason is only a few hours out from death, only a few weeks out from being fired as Robin. It feels so jarring, so fake. It had hurt, to realize that Robin’s magic could be taken from him, and a terrifying stare into a future that had become completely opaque. He would probably never know what would have happened if he’d lived. Maybe Bruce would’ve sent him to a boarding school in Switzerland, that had happened to a few of his peers at Gotham Academy, usually in response to drug use or poor grades or some other disappointment. Maybe something else entirely. He’d had no idea what to expect, other than a sense that having another parent could only be useful.
Now, Bruce ran his fingers through Jason’s hair, letting the water loosen the mud. Now he massaged shampoo into his scalp. Now Bruce was touching him with a gentle fondness that made Jason want to cry and crawl out of his own skin. He didn’t move, except as Bruce wanted him to. He didn’t speak. He just sat and was good.
He needed to get surgery. That many fractures in his fingers would probably cause problems unless they were carefully aligned. Which led to a couple of problems, getting surgery without media attention… and Robin.
Dr. Thompkins had stared hard at Bruce as she had explained how his hands would have to be treated very gently while they healed if he wanted to avoid chronic pain, numbness, and maintain mobility. Bruce had only nodded, agreeing profusely.
Bruce hadn’t mentioned Robin at all. Neither had Dr. Thompkins, out loud. Nor Alfred. It was starting to feel taboo.
Bruce started discussing logistics with Dr. Thompkins. Jason had always wanted to know everything when it came to his medical care. He had opinions, and he wanted to make sure they were adhered to… but it was an area where he trusted Bruce, still. Bruce, even if he hated Jason, would make sure he received good medical care, wouldn’t be given opioids, wouldn’t end up with some crank who would remove his kidney to sell on the side, wouldn’t get nanobots injected into him as an experiment unless Jason knew the risks and consented. He stood and Bruce and Dr. Thompkins went silent.
“I’m tired.”
“Of course, lad, Alfred should have everything set up for you.”
“Not a problem. And Jason,” Dr. Thompkins met his eyes, “it’s very good to see you again. This is a miracle, and I’m glad for it.” Jason returned a tired smile and left. She meant that now. Bruce felt the same, right now. He could only hope they continued to feel that way.
Alfred was in the kitchen. It was always the first place to check for him, when he was working. Jason stood in the doorway for a second and watched Alfred move through the kitchen, that comfortable machine-like efficiency that decades of experience provided him. He thought about asking for food, or tea, or which room Alfred had set up for him, or what Dick had said.
The worms in Jason’s stomach were long dead of exhaustion and he felt like there was a coating of soap on his skin from his bath and then Dr. Thompkins had insisted on doing a full physical… He’d grown. When he’d first checked for cash in his funeral suit, he’d noticed that his pants were a bit shorter than Alfred’s preference. This had become all the stranger when Alfred had said he’d sewn the suit himself. It almost made more sense that he’d grown while dead, than that Alfred had made a mistake while sewing a whole suit in only a couple of days, while also caring for Bruce. His hair had grown too. Bruce had commented on it, once Dr. Thompkins had confirmed his growth. He’d had an autopsy, but no autopsy scar.
Jason turned and left.
His room had been cleaned. The mug on his desk was gone, as was his homework, and his backpack was no longer lying on the floor next to it. The stack of books on his bedside table were gone, returned to the bookshelves or libraries respectively, most likely. His laundry basket was empty. There were fresh sheets on the bed, and not a speck of dust on any surface. Fresh vacuum marks ran parallel on the rug. His closet was full of his clothes, but they had been reshuffled. His attached bathroom was hotel-room clean, which it hadn’t been for months before his death. He’d asked Alfred to leave his room alone after he’d realized there was no way Alfred wouldn’t know why there were so many tissues in the trash can. He’d done an alright job of keeping the bathroom clean, but nothing like Alfred’s level of work.
With a grimace, Jason checked both rooms for bugs as best he could without messing his hands up further, then collapsed into his bed, not even bothering to change out of the admittedly comfortable clothes he’d put on after his bath. Things would be different tomorrow.