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The room was exactly how Jason left it. Not messy, Jason never let his room get too messy, but lived in. The sheets of the bed made but slightly rumpled, a half-empty glass of water perched innocently on the bedside table, a schoolbook laying open on the desk, the page half-full of Jason’s writing. A room unaware that it was frozen in time, unaware that its owner would never be returning to the rumpled sheets, to the glass of water, to the scribblings of the schoolbook.
Because Jason was gone.
One day he was here, his sneakers squeaking against the manor’s hardwood floors and his childish peels of laughter echoing off of the walls, and the next he was gone, the manor hauntingly, painfully silent.
Bruce stood in the centre of Jason’s room, and all the air left his lungs. Never again was Bruce going to see Jason sat at his desk, legs swinging wildly beneath the chair as he completed his homework, never again was Bruce going to come down the stairs and see Jason at the table, eating his cereal with a grin and a silly milk moustache, never again was Bruce going to arrive home and not instinctively listen for the pounding of Jason’s feet against the floor, eager to tell him all about the next chapter of the book he was reading.
His baby was gone, and he was never coming back.
God, Bruce couldn’t breathe. How was he supposed to live, how was he supposed to function when his son was in the ground? He wanted to scream until his throat was raw and torn with the metallic tang of blood, dig at the earth until his nails were mangled and cracked, and lay down next to his son and wait for the world to take him too.
Bruce sat down heavily on Jason’s bed, the creak of the mattress springs under his weight deafening in the silent room. It had been five weeks since Jason’s…since Jason. Alfred no longer spoke about him. Clark no longer spoke about him. Dick wasn’t speaking to Bruce full stop. The only mentions of Jason now were from shameless paparazzi who threw Jason’s name at him like a grenade, their eyes sparkling with greed, waiting for his grief-crazed reaction that would get them the front page picture. Like Jason wasn’t a person, like he wasn’t a little boy with hopes and dreams and a life ahead of him and that Bruce’s carelessness, his utter inability to be there when it mattered hadn’t killed him.
There was something under his hand.
Bruce pulled back the comforter, and there was Jason’s hoodie, as ruby red as it had been the day they first met. A little more threadbare, a little more stretched, but Jason had refused to get rid of it, even as he began to outgrow it, the sleeves steadily moving up from his knuckles to grazing above his wrists.
Bruce brought the hoodie to his nose and inhaled, his eyes slipping over as a wave of pure grief washed over him.
It still smelt like him.
God it still smelt like him and Bruce wanted to curl up into a hole and die because what was the point in living, in breathing and blinking and existing when Jason wasn’t? Jason was supposed to grow up. He was supposed to walk across that stage with an embarrassed smile to receive his diploma as Bruce cried and Dick cheered from the bleachers. Jason was supposed to go to college, he was supposed to get a job he loved, he was supposed to fall in love, make mistakes, have fun, travel the world. He was supposed to outgrow Bruce, outlive Bruce.
But he hadn’t.
Bruce laid down and tucked Jason’s hoodie under his nose, breathing him in. If he closed his eyes and gathered the comforter in his arms, it was almost like Jason was here. He could pretend it was Jason’s inky black hair that was tickling his nose instead of a threadbare hoodie, Jason’s warmth in his arms instead of a bundle of blankets.
Bruce wept.
Time passed in that distant, intangible sort of way; it could’ve been minutes or it could’ve been hours. All Bruce knew was that his head hurt and his mouth tasted like cotton. There were no more tears left in him, he was utterly wrung out. He could feel the dried tear tracks itching against his cheeks, clumping his eyelashes together to sting at his eyes. Bruce just felt numb. The world was static around him, and Bruce’s body was simply there, useless, as his mind floated away.
The door to Jason’s room clicked open, but Bruce’s eyes remained shut, fists curled around the hoodie.
Footsteps hesitated slightly before walking in, and Bruce recognised them instantly.
“Bruce.” Came the voice of his eldest son.
Bruce didn’t respond. He didn’t deserve to call Dick his son, not after everything. Dick was better off far away from him. Bruce had already ruined enough of Dick’s life.
The footsteps got closer, until Bruce could tell that Dick was next to the bed, staring down at him. What did Dick see when he looked at him? A mentor? A pathetic old man? A murderer?
It was the mattress’ creak and dip that finally got Bruce to peel open his tear-crusted eyes. Dick had laid down next to him, head on the pillow and those angry blue eyes staring at him.
“I’m sorry.” Bruce whispered, his voice wrecked and tremulous.
And God was he sorry, for all of it. Sorry for being too cowardly to tell Dick that Jason had been killed. Sorry for not inviting him to the funeral. Sorry for not being the man Dick needed him to be. Sorry for the life he had pulled Dick into with the misguided belief that he was helping him. Everything.
“I’m so fucking pissed at you, Bruce.” Dick replied, his voice low.
“I know.”
“You should’ve told me. I shouldn’t have had to find out from the fucking newspaper.”
“I know.”
“He was my brother, Bruce. He was my little brother.”
“I know.”
“He was my little brother.” Dick choked, his voice becoming ragged as the tears finally came.
Dick crying shattered Bruce’s heart all over again, cut him open and flayed him alive with the complete and utter wrongness of his bright boy sobbing. Bruce wanted to find the cause of it and attack it, hurt and maim whatever had dared to upset Dick. But that cause was him. He had hurt Dick, and Bruce would never be able to forgive himself for that.
Bruce uncurled one fist from around Jason’s hoodie and slowly placed it over Dick’s hand, waiting for his son to snatch his hand away like it burnt. Instead, Dick’s tears turned into anguished wails, loud and agonising as he moved into the space between them, tucking his head under Bruce’s chin, Jason’s hoodie tucked safely between them. Bruce brought his hand up to card through Dick’s hair, rocking him slightly in comfort.
“I know,” Bruce muttered over and over. “I know, I’m sorry, I know.”
“I miss him so-o mu-u-ch.” Dick bawled.
“I know. I’m sorry. I know.”