Chapter Text
The images have always pulsed in the back of Jason’s mind, buzzing with an insistent need to exist, charged with an intoxicating promise of the moment when he would finally be able to see them.A reaction that had even unsettled his doctor.
Eventually, he would dream of his soulmate—of the destiny forged for him. Inevitable. Unmovable.
Jason did not understand why his was forcing itself to appear when he was still three months away.
Bruce had tried to help. Consulting with Zatanna, Diana, even Constantine. None of them had answers. Jason was completely healthy. He simply carried the anomaly of a destiny that kept knocking at his door with insistence—a door for which Jason had no key.
The constant lack of sleep, interrupted by dreams that jolted him awake in the middle of the night, often after long patrols when he should have been resting, began to take its toll on his days.
His body felt heavy. He drifted off in the middle of classes, his focus slipping, his grades following soon after. And worst of all, he could not go out with Batman at night. He was a danger to others and to himself, his head snapping forward without warning as sleep demanded to claim him.
“There has to be a solution!” he demanded one night, planting himself in front of Bruce. “Can’t we speed up my meeting with my soulmate? Stop it.”
Bruce sighed and shook his head. He rested a hand on Jason’s shoulder—warm, steady.
“It doesn’t work like that, Jaylad,” he said, not for the first time. “And your soulmate should know that. Trying to interfere with the decisions laid out by fate isn’t right.”
Jason clicked his tongue and clenched his hands into fists.
“But it’s not normal,” he argued. “It’s the same dream. I know it is, even if I can’t remember it.” He looked at Bruce, pleading. “But I feel it. The happiness. The pain. The anguish. Something tightening in my chest—like I can’t breathe.”
Bruce pulled him close, wrapping him in a firm embrace.
“Breathe.”
Jason closed his eyes. His body trembled, as if the echo of the dream were still chasing him. He forced himself to inhale and exhale, following Bruce’s quiet instructions.
After a moment of silence, as the storm inside him gradually settled, Bruce’s voice reached him again, low and concerned.
“Is the dream bad?”
Jason started to nod, then hesitated. He could not be sure. He remembered nothing of it beyond a pair of blue eyes—cold as ice, and yet warm when they looked at him.
“I don’t know.”
That was the only truth he could offer.
Bruce hummed softly, stroking his hair in a careful attempt to soothe him.
“We could try something,” he said. “But it’s risky.”
Jason lifted his head at once, locking his gaze onto Bruce’s.
“What?” he asked, the word torn out of him, almost desperate.
Bruce looked away, already half-regretting that he had mentioned it. Jason allowed him the space to think—for about three seconds.
“Bruuuuce,” he insisted, widening his eyes in that pleading expression that always made adults give in. “What can we do to stop this? Pleeease.”
“I could enter the dream,” Bruce admitted at last. “One you should be able to remember. If it doesn’t show what it should, Jay, then there may be something else we need to know.”
Jason parted his lips, nearly speechless.
“Enter dreams?” he whispered. “You can do that?”
Bruce gave a slight shrug.
“I know people who can make it possible.”
“Magicians,” Jason said without hesitation.
“Magicians,” Bruce confirmed. “It’s still only a possibility. I’ll look into it. The risks. The consequences. And if I decide no in the end, Jay—then it’s no.”
Jason nodded solemnly. He would wait anxiously for Bruce’s answer, for whatever solution they found so he could finally sleep. And if Bruce said no, he had friends who practiced magic. He would solve this at any cost—no matter what.