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It starts as a normal night for Jason. He wanders the manor like always, plays the piano to confuse the shit out of his family, and slams doors to designate his presence. He reads to Damian, his usual nightly routine of reading at least one family member to sleep. It’s only once he’s curled up in the library, Ace at his feet, with Sense and Sensibility in his hands, does his day take a sharp left turn.
Bruce walks in. Into the library. He doesn’t normally go to Jason’s favorite places anymore–once, that had hurt Jason. Not anymore. And, to his utter surprise, their eyes lock. Jason tenses immediately, mirroring the rigid set to Bruce’s shoulders.
Will he look away? Is it a fluke? Please, please, don’t be a fluke.
Bruce does not look away. But he does close his eyes. And when he opens them again, he stares clean through Jason. Jason almost sobs. His ghostly copy of Sense and Sensibility is still in his hands, and he’s tempted to throw it at Bruce just to see if he’ll turn his head to look at the ghostly book as it passes by. Jason considers it, then throws the book.
It passes clean through Bruce’s head and slides across the tile of the corridor behind him. Jason slides out of his chair and curls into a ball on the floor.
It was a fluke. It was just a fluke. Bruce didn’t see me. Dad didn’t see me. Why’d I go and get my hopes up? It’s been three damn years. If I was gonna become visible, it’d have happened by now.
Bruce quietly closes the door and leaves. Jason gets up, and walks clean through the door to follow him to his bedroom. As a second thought, he stoops and picks up Sense and Sensibility. He sits there with Bruce all night.
Bruce starts by lying in bed, tossing and turning. Everyone else returns from patrol, making a soft racket. Bruce doesn’t get up to greet them. Alfred retires, wishing Bruce goodnight. Jason watches as Bruce climbs out of bed, and paces the length of his bedroom. Jason settles on the corner of Bruce’s bed, and watches.
The next morning, Jason’s usual efforts to be noticed doubled. Jason leaves more notes, slams more doors, plays the piano longer. Jason moves the furniture.
Bruce saw me. I swear he saw me. Does he not want me back? He grieved for so long, and now that I’m back, he ignores me? What bullshit is that?
And where did Jason get? Absolutely nowhere. All his notes vanish, and his family brushes off the piano and slamming doors. Damn. Jason keeps this up for another day. He’s going to get their attention, one way or another, damn it. Jason pours himself coffee in his usual green mug. Bruce hadn’t had the heart to get rid of it, and neither had Alfred. The coffee pot becomes its usual translucent copy when it’s in Jason’s equally translucent hands, and the coffee he takes in the translucent mug is translucent. Oh, what he wouldn’t give to touch something opaque and have it stay that way.
And, finally, it happens. Bruce sees him again. He’s walking past Bruce, who’s brushing his teeth, and he sees it. His reflection. He hasn’t had a reflection in years. Jason pauses, and Bruce does too.
Oh, so he can see me. He’s just ignoring me. I see how it is.
Bruce quickly rinses his mouth, and promptly leaves the room. Jason throws his ghostly copy of Sense and Sensibility as Bruce leaves, and sits on the floor. Bruce is ignoring him. Bruce does not want him back. Bruce….Bruce.
Why? Does he regret it? Making me Robin? Taking me in? And now that he knows I’m back…he’s regretting it more?
Jason sits on the floor for a good few minutes, countless scenarios racing through his mind.
Maybe it is a fluke. Maybe I’m going senile from being a ghost for so long. Yeah, yeah, that’s it. Bruce didn’t see me.
Jason picks himself off the floor, brushes the imaginary dust off his book, and sets off to the kitchen. He sits in his usual seat and finishes his coffee. His family is looking at Bruce in concern, but Bruce doesn’t acknowledge them at all. He doesn’t look at Jason once through breakfast. Jason leaves with the rest of his family. Once the mug is out of his hands, it returns to being solid.
Jason still hasn’t given up on making Bruce acknowledge him. He becomes omnipresent in Bruce’s life. When Bruce is on patrol, he follows. He follows Bruce out to the gardens. He sits in Bruce’s office at the Wayne Enterprises building. Sometimes, Bruce looks and sees him. Jason knows Bruce can see him. His eyes widen, almost imperceivable, and he pales ever so slightly. Then he always looks away.
Bruce is never rid of Jason for long. He still reads to Damian and Cass. He still leaves books on Duke’s desk. But Bruce cannot keep ignoring him if he pushes like this. Bruce may have an indomitable will, but Jason does not need rest. He does not need food. Jason will not stop until Bruce acknowledges him, either to accept him, or to tell him to leave. Jason doesn’t know how he’d cope with the rejection, but the closure would be greatly appreciated.
Jason keeps up this routine for weeks. During week two, Bruce goes and sits at Jason’s grave for the first time in a long, long time. Jason wonders, rather morbidly, how much his body has decayed. He’s tempted to sink through the ground and take a peek, but he decides against it.
Let the sleeping bodies lie.
Jason follows Bruce everywhere like a baby duckling. He starts talking, but quickly realises that Bruce cannot hear him. He realises, rather belatedly, that he cannot both speak and be visible at the same time. Whoever designed his mechanics really had it out to get him. Not for the first time, Jason considers combing through Barnes and Noble for guides to being a ghost -– there aren’t any in Wayne Manor. He’d already had 3 years to check.
Bruce is still ignoring me…coward. Can’t face your own son, old man? I’ve been here every day for almost three years, and you refuse to even look me in the eyes? I know you can see me.
Jason knows that Bruce can see him. Jason knows Bruce is ignoring him. It hits Jason like a bus — what if Bruce has been getting his notes? What if he’s just taking them down so he can pretend like they don’t exist, like he’s been doing with Jason this whole time? The thought makes Jason’s stomach sink through his shoes, then the floor, and deep into the Earth.
Does Bruce hate me? Does he really hate the idea of having me back that much? Is it my fault? Was I not good enough when I was alive? Does he not want me back now that I’m dead?
Jason’s head is spinning. It’s been three weeks since Bruce first locked eyes with him, and Jason has made no progress. Realistically, from his experiences, he knows ghostly progress is slow. It’d taken him years to learn how to write — he’d only figured it out less than two months ago.
Why would I be brought back, just for Bruce not to acknowledge me? Is this some universal power’s idea of a cruel joke?
Jason sits in his bedroom, his mind a mess. He picks up Frankenstein. A book about a grotesque creature seeking nothing but acknowledgement by its creator, only to be ignored and shunned. A fitting read for the situation. He’s read through the book before — it’s the copy he’d been given for school. It sat in one of his desk drawers, unopened and unaffected by the passage of time, other than the dust gathering on the surface.
Jason is thumbing through the book when Bruce comes in. Jason looks up with wide eyes. Bruce never came into his bedroom. It showed in the dust gathering in his drawers and the old origami still decorating his desk. Bruce makes a face that Jason had never seen, and it hits Jason for the first time.
Bruce looked old, in the same way Alfred had the night he’d first returned to the manor after his death. Jason’s stomach turns at the thought of Bruce wasting away before he ever gets to speak to him. Realistically, he knows that he’s being silly. Bruce has decades of life left. But he feels sick in a way he hasn’t since Steph died.
As Jason’s lost in his thoughts, Bruce takes out his cell phone. He raises it and clicks a photo. Jason gives Bruce a bewildered look. Of course he won’t show up in photos. He’s noncorporeal, for one. And everyone and their mother knows you can’t photograph things that light doesn’t reflect off of. Jason watches as Bruce pulls open his camera roll with shaking hands, and watches as despair crosses Bruce’s face.
Oh, he knows. He knows. He took a photo. And he still won’t look at me.
Bruce kneels by Jason’s bed, sinking down to sit. He presses his face into Jason’s blanket, dust and all. Jason watches as Bruce’s shoulders shake, before he tentatively puts a hand on Bruce’s head. Just for a second, Bruce’s shoulders draw up and Jason regrets touching him. But just as he’s about to withdraw his hands from Bruce’s hair, Bruce’s shoulders go slack.
Jason slowly cards his fingers through Bruce’s hair, tracing the silver. It's proof of the years passing after his death. Does Bruce’s body ache now in the mornings, from age and years of injury? Will he need glasses as his eyesight declines? Will Jason at least be able to say goodbye before all of Bruce’s hair is white?
As Alfred speaks up, Jason is dragged from his thoughts, and judging from how he startles, Bruce is too. Jason’s hands pass clean through Bruce’s hair once more. Damn it. He’d been so, so close. He’d almost been fully there, capable of laughing, speaking, touching, and being heard. Felt. Seen. To be so close to physicality, only to have it ripped away is just as cruel as putting him in the manor but not allowing others to see him, or waking him up just to send him on the world’s slowest and most pathetic training arc.
“Master Bruce, are you alright?”
Looking at Alfred, Jason sees the signs of age on him as well. His hair, which had been a dark grey when Jason had been alive, is turning white. The possibility of Alfred passing without learning of Jason’s presence suddenly feels very, very real. Unlike Bruce, Alfred cannot see him. None of his siblings can, either.
Am I going to have to watch them all die, even when Bruce can see me? Will he refuse to acknowledge me for years and years? Will I rot with this house?
“I’m fine, Alfred. I just miss him."
Jason feels hysterical laughter bubbling up. His shoulders shake as his body is wracked with it.
Miss me? Is this a fucking joke to you? I know you can see me. We both know you can. You miss me? Ha fucking ha. I’m right here, Bruce. If you missed me, you’d say something. You’d talk to me. You’d acknowledge me. Why won’t you? I’m here. I’m here, Bruce. I’M HERE, BRUCE. AND YOU WON’T EVEN LOOK AT ME.
Jason doesn’t hear Alfred’s reply, nor does he hear Alfred leave. His laughter continues as Bruce presses his face into Jason’s blanket before he leaves. Once Bruce shuts the door, Jason’s hysterical laughter slowly turns to sobs. And those sobs turn into screaming that nobody can hear. In his old room, Jason cries.
The failure Robin. The dead one. And even when you see me, you close your eyes and refuse to look./
The sobs continue well into the night and then the early morning.