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The hand that cups Bruce’s face is rough and calloused, it’s a mirror of his own. There are wrinkles on its back, age spots that were always meant to come but never did. He looks at his father’s face, its soft, caring eyes lined with crows’ feet. He was younger than Bruce is now when he died. And now he’s here again. The child that buried his parents and the father who buried his son, a universal collapse and they’re back together. “It’s going to be okay now, son,” Thomas Wayne says gently.
There’s smoke on the horizon and as Bruce looks, his face is tilted away from it.
“That’s not for you to worry about,” his father tells him. “Let me deal with that. You’re just meant to be happy, remember?”
There’s a golden mask in the back of Bruce’s mind and so much static. He remembers the dark, he looks down at his hands and they bear the same scars as his father’s. This isn’t right. There’s something he’s been made to forget…
“Don’t worry,” Thomas tells him. “Go spend time with your family.”
Tim, Damian and Cass idle on the other side of the room. They’re never usually idle but something… something isn’t right. Damian and Cass in particular seem blank.
Tim is writing something down and Bruce isn’t sure what or why. This is just a nice family evening, right? A nice family evening while there is smoke on the horizon.
“Your family is waiting,” Thomas says again. He pulls Bruce to his feet and leads him over to the others.
Damian frowns at him. “Father… I…” he trails off.
“Everything is fine, dear grandson,” Thomas ruffles his hair. “The confusion will ware off before too long.”
“You’ve done something,” Tim accuses.
Cass looks up at that phrase, she looks between Tim and her grandfather and then her face clouds again.
Something is wrong with all of them. But no, everything is fine. “Everything is fine,” Bruce says.
The cloudiness returns to Tim too. “Everything is fine,” he agrees, voice flat.
It’s a lovely little evening, and the broken door means nothing.
“I’ll be back soon,” Thomas tells them all. “See you in a few hours. I love you.”
Everything is fine. Everything has always been and always will be fine.
…
Jason knows fear toxin. He knows the way it makes his heart lurch in his chest and his lungs seize. He knows the way it makes organs revolt and his throat to close off and he knows the way his thoughts turn into a volley of arrows, crashing into him all at once. Jason knows fear toxin, and he knows the hand on his face. “It’s going to be okay, breathe, lad, you’re okay,” Bruce is here. Of course, Bruce is here, he did this. He did this.
“What did…” he can barely speak, of course he can barely speak. There’s so much fear. Adrenaline, it’s a positive… it’s a positive feedback loop. The adrenaline makes him scared which causes him to release more adrenaline. “I need to…”
“You need to breathe,” Bruce tells him. “You need to breathe. Seven, four, eleven. Just keep breathing. Slow breathing will force your heart to beat a bit slower, everything will settle.”
Jason listens. Of course he listens. At the end of the day, listening to Batman is the difference between death and survival. He’s learnt that lesson the hard way. Green, sand, steel. The fear strangles him. He chokes.
“Ducktales,” Bruce says.
Jason stares for a moment, he'd almost forgotten Bruce's penchant for cartoon theme music as a way to startle people out of panic attacks. It's not really enough to stop the spiral now though.
“You’re going to be okay, just breathe.”
Eventually, his own heart isn’t trying to lurch out of his mouth. “What did you do to me?”
“I made you safe,” Bruce tells him. “You can live a normal life. You won’t harm anyone anymore, not even yourself.”
“You…”
“I love you,” Bruce says. “I love you and I can’t see you destroy anymore lives, not even your own. You can meet someone, settle down. I got you a lovely place in Metropolis. You can start anew Jason. This is a good thing.”
The tightness returns to his chest. He’s not sure how long his heart can take this. He forces himself to breathe.
“Good boy,” Bruce praises him like a dog. A hand on his face, the callouses match his own. “Everything’s going to be okay.”