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Jason thought, being a guardian angel isn't so bad after all.
Had he been dead for three months or four? Time in Heaven flowed strangely, like honey in winter, thick, slow, and immeasurable. His wings were still new, feeling strange, and there was an extra weight between his shoulder blades; he always forgot they were there until he turned too fast and bumped into something. Other angels didn't bump into things. Other angels had been dead for decades, even centuries, yet moved with unbelievable grace.
"You’re too young to be a gatekeeper," Archangel Michael explained at the mission meeting. The archangel’s eyes were kind, but his voice indicated that this was just one of hundreds of conversations he’d had that day. "The gates of Heaven require… experience. Judgment, you’ll acquire that."
Jason nodded, trying not to think about whether he’d been told he’d failed a test he had no idea about.
"Then, the duties of a guardian," Michael continued, glancing at a tablet emitting a soft, unlit glow. "The first task should be simple for a novice."
"Simple" sounded good. Jason's memories of his life were hazy, just fragments, and looking at them was as painful as staring at the sun. Cold. Hunger. The smell of garbage and car exhaust. The angels said that when he was ready, his memories would return, and those painful deaths were usually sealed away to protect the soul. They called it a mercy.
Jason wasn't sure if he wanted this mercy to be lifted.
"Bruce Wayne," Michael read from the tablet. "Gotham City. Billionaire, 32, low risk, wealthy, secure, stable life expectancy."
A billionaire. Jason's eyes lit up. Rich people lived in safe neighborhoods, had bodyguards, and could die peacefully in their sleep at around ninety, surrounded by expensive furniture, with people pretending to care about their money.
"It should be simple," Michael said, and Jason believed him.
That was three weeks ago.
It was two in the morning. Jason floated above Wayne Manor, watching the man he was supposed to protect, cloaked and wearing pointed ears, tumble from the fourth floor onto the fire escape. He thought Michael was either incompetent or had a cruel sense of humor.
Bruce Wayne is fucking Batman.
Jason understood that on his first night. That night, he followed the call of his mission, the invisible thread connecting protector and protected, descending through the absurd mansion. Forty rooms. He'd counted them during the day in the empty, echoing spaces. At least fifty-two rooms, belonging to only one man and his butler, thirty of which looked like they'd been uninhabited for months. Dust clung to the corners. Sheets covered the furniture. The light fixtures, perhaps more expensive than cars, were now dark and abandoned.
The thread pulled him down, dragging him through marble, hardwood, and stone until his head throbbed. The basement. A certain aura in the basement made his skull throb, his vision blurred, and his wings felt unbearably heavy. He retreated, feeling confused and nauseous, but he could still sense Bruce moving somewhere below, sense his presence in a space Jason couldn't reach.
Two hours later, Bruce emerged, clad in Kevlar body armor and carrying enough weapons to arm a small army.
Jason followed him into a narrow alleyway, filled with the stench of rotting garbage and age-old fear. Bruce, Batman, appeared like a normal person suddenly amidst ten heavily armed thugs at midnight on a Monday.
"That's it," Jason muttered, standing on the twenty-foot-high rooftop, watching it all unfold. "Perfect. Rich people always have weird hobbies. Maybe this is like… a billionaire's extreme sport."
The fight was efficient and brutal. Bruce's movements were as if violence were a language he had honed over years; every punch was calculated, every movement precise. He used his surroundings—dumpster lids as shields and fire ladders as springboards—and the narrow alleyway limited the number of enemies he could attack simultaneously. But there were ten of them, all armed, and one was climbing the fire ladder behind Bruce, circling him to find a better angle; his weapon seemed too large for the confined space.
Jason, with the limited strength of an angel, pushed a roof tile. Three tiles tumbled down, shattering the metal staircase. The gunman, startled, dropped his weapon and fled.
Bruce dealt with the others, disappearing into the darkness like smoke, as if he had never been there.
Jason floated there for ten minutes, wings trembling, wondering if it was too late to request a transfer.
That was Monday.
On Tuesday, Bruce walked into the Iceberg Lounge. Jason, having learned from the news he'd been obsessively watching that it was Penguin territory, began asking questions clearly intended to provoke him. A few minutes later, the Penguin appeared, staggering out of the back room, his signature umbrella in hand, a smile on his face, but the smile didn't reach his eyes.
That umbrella was a gun, and damn it, in Gotham, nothing was as simple as it seemed.
The moment the Penguin pulled the trigger, Jason poured a bucket of water from a roof beam. He didn't know why there was a bucket of water in the nightclub's hallway, and he didn't ask. Inexplicable things were everywhere in Gotham. Water splashed onto the penguin's head and shoulders, the umbrella sparked and crackled, and Bruce slipped out the skylight before anyone could react.
Jason noted, "The Penguin's umbrella was electric. Water disabled it. "
He started taking notes now. Learning patterns. He felt it was important, though he couldn't explain why.
Wednesday, a car chase erupted in downtown Gotham. Jason was helpless against the cars; they were too fast, too heavy, and too real for his limited physical abilities. But he could possess birds. He'd discovered this ability by chance, and though it felt undignified, he sent a flock of pigeons swooping down to attack the windshields of the pursuing vehicles. The lead car crashed into a lamppost, and the chase ended.
Jason felt both absurd and terrified. What if the pigeons weren't enough? What if Bruce crashed his car? What if…
On Thursday, a building exploded.
Six minutes earlier, Bruce had been inside, searching for hostages, only to discover it was a trap. Jason flicked the lights in the building. Somehow, he could do it, manipulating electronic devices in some inexplicable way, creating flashing patterns he himself didn't know. Perhaps it was Morse code. Bruce found the exit. Thirty seconds after Bruce was out of the blast radius, the building collapsed with a roar. Jason looked down and saw concrete and steel crumbling in a cloud of dust and flames.
For hours afterward, his wings felt as heavy as lead.
On Friday, the Joker appeared.
Jason had heard of the Joker in Heaven.
He had escaped from Arkham Asylum Thursday night. He had killed two guards on his escape. Their photos had been on the news; they were both young men with families.
At one in the morning, Bruce found him in the amusement park, in an abandoned playground filled with the smells of mold and rotten cotton candy. The entire structure was decaying, crumbling, and on the verge of collapse.
Jason only glanced at the Joker's smile before a chilling, terrifying feeling washed over him. Not entirely fear, but a deeper sensation. A sense of déjà vu, as if his body had recalled some long-buried memory. His wings trembled, and his chest ached. He wanted to scream, to run away, to rebel all these feelings surged within him simultaneously.
The Joker spoke, his voice echoing in the distorted mirrors and on the sloping floor. "Missed me, Batman? I missed you! Well, not specifically you; I missed our little bird. What was its name again? Jason? Jackie? It must be something with Jason…"
Jason’s vision went blank.
That night, he tried harder than ever. He threw things, created chaos, and at just the right moment, had a mirror fall to distract the Joker; he made a support beam creak to divert attention from Bruce. The string lights above the Joker flickered a few times and then went out, plunging half the amusement park into darkness. The already crumbling floor suddenly collapsed beneath the Joker’s feet, causing him to stumble.
Bruce won. The Joker returned to Arkham Asylum laughing maniacally.
But Bruce’s fighting style, mechanically precise and controlled, terrified Jason more than the chaos itself. He seemed intent on smashing the Joker’s skull in.
which meant Bruce had been working on this for a long time. He had been putting himself in danger for a long time.
At six o'clock on Saturday morning, Bruce returned home with broken ribs, a concussion, and a dislocated shoulder. His butler, Alfred, patient and exhausted yet kind, silently helped him upstairs without a word of complaint or judgment, skillfully repositioning his shoulder—clearly not the first time.
Bruce remained silent.
Jason watched all this from the hallway, thinking that angels' duty was to protect people, not to desperately follow them, trying to prevent their deaths.
By Sunday, Bruce had only slept nine hours that week.
Jason counted each hour.
Sunday afternoon, the sunlight was weak, and the air was bitterly cold. Strictly speaking, Jason had no bones left. He couldn't feel temperature, yet he could still feel it. This was strange. Angels shouldn't have a sense of temperature. They shouldn't actually feel anything, only the warmth of their mission and divine will.
But Jason felt cold. He felt the damp February air. He felt the oppressive grayness of Gotham's sky, making it hard to breathe. He gradually noticed many strange things about himself.
At one o'clock in the afternoon, Bruce carefully emerged from the manor, carrying a paper bag. The injuries from Friday night likely still ached all over. His ribs would take weeks to fully heal, but Bruce had given them only a day. Dressed casually—jeans, a dark sweater, and an expensive-looking but worn-out jacket—he looked almost normal for a moment. Almost unlike someone who hadn't spent the previous night fighting a deranged clown in an abandoned amusement park.
Jason followed him, less out of duty than out of habit. Jason followed Bruce across the manor to the east corner. There, an ancient gargoyle huddled in the thick ivy, its face eroded beyond recognition by decades of Gotham's weathering. Jason thought, Someone must have placed it there deliberately. The location was too precise, too carefully chosen. It faced the manor, as if guarding something, never sleeping.
Bruce sat down beside it, his movements slow and deliberate, as if he were in pain, but determined not to let anyone see it. He took a hot dog from the bag, carefully unwrapping it as if handling something precious and fragile. Then he placed it on the statue's pedestal.
Next was a hamburger.
Then another hot dog.
Finally, fries, still in a greasy box.
Jason crept closer, remaining hidden, trying to understand what was happening.
Bruce was initially silent. His hands moved steadily as he laid out the food, arranging the wrappers like he was setting a table. It was all perfectly natural. Feeding the statue was just part of his Sunday routine. His face was expressionless, the kind of expression one wears when trying to suppress emotions.
"I brought lunch," Bruce finally said. His tone was natural, normal, as if he were talking to someone who might respond to him. As if he were expecting a response.
As expected, the gargoyle didn't respond.
"I know," Bruce continued after a long pause. He opened another burger and placed it next to the others. "I know you probably won't like these at all. Sorry. I thought you would."
His hand rested lightly on the gargoyle's wing. Just for a moment. His fingers traced the weathered stone, following its curve.
"You like this place, don't you? You used to. I shouldn't have said that if you ate like this, you wouldn't live to 40."
Bruce's hand lingered on the stone for a moment, then withdrew.
A bird landed on the gargoyle's head. Bruce stared at it expressionlessly.
"Even if you died at fifteen," he said softly, so softly Jason could barely hear, "you know gargoyles don't eat burgers; you always understood the practical things. The things that really mattered. More than I did."
Died at fifteen.
Jason died at fifteen. Or rather, he was once fifteen. The tense remained complex, perplexing to him. He had been fifteen. He was fifteen. Forever fifteen, forever frozen at the age he died.
Jason told himself, "There are kids everywhere who die at fifteen." It's just a number. A statistic. Dozens of kids die like that every year in Gotham kids caught in gunfights, kids overdosing on drugs, kids freezing to death in the dead of winter because they're homeless. It makes no sense. It's just a coincidence.
Bruce sat there for forty minutes. Jason counted the time because he didn't know what else to do, counting the number of times Bruce touched the stone and counting the silences between words.
Sometimes Bruce would speak. Small things. The case he was working on was about smuggling at the docks. What Alfred had said at breakfast. The weather forecast said it would snow later this week. Once, he laughed, a short, bitter laugh, barely a laugh, and said, "You’ll hate this weather. Remember when you used to complain about the cold? You’d steal my coats, and Alfred always found them in the strangest places. Behind the sofa. Under your bed. And once, somehow, in the fridge."
Sometimes he was silent, just placing his hands on the stone, his eyes vacant.
He had said, "You know, I’ve been trying. I’ve been trying to keep going, but it’s so hard."
Jason’s wings trembled.
When Bruce finally got up to leave, he picked up the untouched food and went back, the whole ritual seeming meaningless. Or perhaps it was meaningful. Jason couldn’t tell.
But Bruce did one more thing before leaving. He pulled something from his pocket, a small, worn photograph, the person in it… He carried it with him, staring at it for a long time. His thumb lightly traced its surface.
Jason tried to see what it was, but his vision immediately blurred. His head began to throb, that familiar pressure building behind his eyes. He withdrew his hand in frustration.
Bruce put the photo back in his pocket, touched the gargoyle's wings again, and walked back to the manor. He walked as if each step required a conscious decision to continue, as if gravity were stronger for him than for others.
Jason stood beside the gargoyle.
Someone had recently cleaned it. There was no moss or bird droppings on the stone, and the ivy had been carefully trimmed. A few withered flowers, white, sat in the small vase at the base. White lilies and blue forget-me-nots, their petals edged with yellow, were carefully arranged. Someone often came here. Someone cared for it.
This was a tombstone. Not strictly a tombstone; the body wasn't here, not beneath the stone, but it was close. This was where Bruce remembered the past and where he mourned.
Jason gazed at the gargoyle's weathered yet gentle face. Someone had specially chosen this statue and placed it here to guard the manor.
A guardian.
After Bruce left, Jason lingered here for another hour, simply staring at the stone, trying to understand what had happened here. What kind of loss was so deeply etched into Bruce Wayne's life that he would bring a hamburger to a statue, apologizing for not remembering someone's preferences? What kind of grief was so profound that a billionaire philanthropist, a man who could have had everything in the world, would converse with a stone on a Sunday afternoon?
He couldn't understand.
But he could feel the heaviness. The sorrow was so profound, almost permeating the air, like a fog shrouding the land.
The manor by day was completely different from the one at night.
Jason spent his days familiarizing himself with the building's layout, sketching spatial diagrams of people and memories. He drifted through the corridors like a ghost, invisible and insignificant, watching Alfred meticulously repeat his daily tasks with a precision that seemed the result of decades of practice.
Alfred cleaned the neglected rooms. Upstairs, there was a study, its law books and business journals covered in dust, and a table piled high with documents unfiled six months ago. There was also a living room, the furniture arranged as if for a conversation that never took place: two chairs diagonally opposite each other, a coffee table between them, magazines from last spring neatly arranged. Someone had furnished this room for chatting, for entertaining guests. Someone had hoped it would be used.
The library's books were arranged by subject, but the shelves were empty; some books had been taken and never returned. Jason found a missing book in Bruce's bedroom—a collection of poems, its pages curled and worn. In the kitchen was a cookbook with a chocolate chip cookie recipe and a note attached that read "J's Favorite," the handwriting neither Alfred's nor Bruce's.
The dining room seated twenty. Every Thursday at noon, Alfred would set the table for one person, where Bruce would sit for a full thirty minutes, eating the prepared food. He always sat in the same spot, never in the head seat. The chair to his right was always empty.
Jason observed this ritual three times before realizing it wasn't about eating but about maintaining a daily routine, clinging to order when everything else was falling apart. It was about pretending life was normal, pretending that an empty chair was only temporarily empty, pretending someone would return to sit there at any moment.
On the fourth Thursday, Jason floated to Bruce's plate and saw that he had barely touched his food. He had simply moved the food around, cut it into smaller pieces, and rearranged it. It was all just routine.
Alfred said nothing. Thirty minutes later, he cleared the dishes and returned to the kitchen.
The house was filled with photographs, but not many. One was a picture of Bruce as a child with two adults, presumably his parents, Martha and Thomas Wayne. Jason had actually seen them in Heaven, at a celestial ceremony he had to attend. Some kind of ceremony to welcome a new angel.
Martha gave him a glass of lemonade, though angels don't need to drink. She placed the glass in his hand, a gentle yet sorrowful smile on her face. "Maintaining social etiquette is important," she said, "even here."
Thomas asked about his wings, whether they hurt, and whether he missed being alive. Jason shrugged, unsure how to answer. Thomas nodded, as if he understood. "It takes time," he said. "It takes getting used to. Dying is harder than people think."
They both looked at him with a strange focus, as if they saw something he himself couldn't. As if they recognized him. Martha gently stroked his face. "Your eyes are so gentle," she said. "You were gentle when you were alive. That’s important; it always will be."
Jason didn’t know how to respond. He didn’t know now.
There were other photos in the room. No. Bruce and a young man in a suit, whom Jason later learned was Dick Grayson. He would come occasionally, probably every other weekend, for a day, leaving looking more anxious than when he arrived. In the photos, they were attending various events, charity events—the kind of places where you had to smile for the camera. Both were dressed formally, looking uncomfortable, like they were playing a role-playing game.
A photo of Dick in another outfit hung in the hallway, blue and black, with a bird embroidered on his chest. He was leaping, the pose frozen, and grinning at the camera. Someone liked this photo; they framed it and placed it prominently.
There was also a photo in Bruce’s study, face down on the table.
Jason had tried to look at it seven times. Each time, his vision blurred, like looking through frosted glass. The picture frame remained motionless against the wooden table. Thirty seconds later, his head began to throb, the pressure mounting until he had to look away.
After the seventh attempt, he gave up. Clearly, there was something he was destined never to see.
The basement remained inaccessible. The following Tuesday, Jason tried again, descending three steps. A sharp, direct pain shot through him, as if nails had pierced his skull. It was as if his entire being were repelling him from approaching that space. He retreated quickly, panting, though angels don't need to breathe.
During a routine check, he asked other angels, but the answers were vague.
"There are places where echoes remain," one angel explained. She was older, deceased since the 1950s, her hair styled in victory curls, a look that even seemed natural to an angel. "If you die in a traumatic place, your essence might repel you from getting close. It’s self-preservation."
"But I can’t remember where I died."
"The body remembers what the mind forgets. Or, in your case, what the soul forgets. The knowledge is there, locked away for your own good. When you’re ready, you’ll remember."
Jason had pondered this question for a long time. He wondered what terrible things even Heaven wanted to hide from him. He wondered what painful things even his soul refused to look at.
The night was different. The night belonged to Batman.
Jason quickly figured out Bruce’s patrol rhythm. He usually set off between 11 p.m. and midnight, the exact time depending on the police radio communications Jason could hear, even though he didn’t have ears in the traditional sense. Bruce focused on different areas of Gotham on different nights: the Narrows on Mondays and Thursdays, the East Side on Tuesdays, and Crime Alley on Wednesdays.
Nights in Crime Alley were always more grueling. Bruce fought more fiercely there, took more risks, and always came home covered in blood. And Jason… Jason felt something inexplicable in Crime Alley. A pull. A familiarity deeper than memory.
He began wandering Crime Alley during the day, when Bruce was asleep. He would float above the streets, feeling as if he were returning to a place he never wanted to see again.
Street smarts. Survival skills.
Angels shouldn't possess these.
But Jason did.
Jason learned to anticipate danger before it fully materialized. He knew which alleys had cameras and which didn't. He knew the sound a gun makes before it jams—a mechanical click. He knew how to precisely disable security panels with water, how to flash lights to create chaos, and how to create minor electrical malfunctions to give Bruce an advantage.
He understood Gotham.
Not from the perspective of heaven, not from the perspective of angels. But from the ground, from the streets, from the cold, hunger, and fear.
This shouldn't be happening. Angels don't understand the streets. Angels don't know which rooftops are safe and which have loose tiles. Angels didn't know how to escape through narrow passages, nor did they know the blind spots of Gotham City Police Department's surveillance network.
But Jason knew it all.
Sometimes, watching Bruce fight, Jason would think things like, "Left, he's about to lower his left-side defense," or "Grappling hook, there's a bump at two o'clock," or "He's about to throw a batarang; watch out for the bounce." And he was right every time.
This information existed so clearly and distinctly, as if he had learned it from an experience he couldn't remember.
Once, in Crime Alley, Jason watched Bruce nearly get surrounded by a group of thugs, muttering, "This kind of stupidity is what got Robin killed." He suddenly stopped, looking confused.
Robin.
Why did he say "Robin"? The word seemed important, carrying a heavy meaning he couldn't comprehend.
Dick Grayson arrived on a Saturday afternoon in late February, eight weeks after Jason's mission.
He was twenty-five or twenty-six, with an athletic elegance in every gesture, clearly the result of years of training. Alfred smiled easily as he opened the car door.
"How is he?" Dick asked softly, his voice so low that only an angel could hear it.
Alfred’s hesitation told Jason everything.
"Barely," Alfred finally said.
"Is it that bad?"
"He’s eating more regularly. That’s progress."
Dick made a sound, a sound that was both agreement and resignation; Jason couldn’t quite tell.
He carried the takeout bag into the kitchen, smelling like Chinese food, and began skillfully unpacking the containers, his movements as practiced as a seasoned pro. Jason realized this had become a routine. Dick would bring food, make sure Bruce finished eating, and then try to talk to him, but these topics always lingered on the fringes of what they didn’t want to discuss directly. This was concern, disguised as a casual visit. This was love, expressed through omelets and noodles.
Bruce appeared at two in the afternoon, looking like he'd only slept four hours. He probably really had. Jason had calculated it: three hours after returning from patrol at five in the morning, then another hour and a half after Alfred brought him tea at noon.
"You didn’t have to come," Bruce said. His voice was hoarse and unnatural. He hadn’t spoken to anyone since returning home.
"I know." Dick placed a takeout box in front of him. "Eat."
They ate in silence for a while, then Alfred went to sit at the kitchen counter. The house, which could have housed twenty people, now had only three sitting around the takeout box, like survivors around a campfire. As if it were normal. As if every family would spend a Saturday like this.
Jason watched all this from the ceiling.
"The patrol," Dick finally said, cautiously, as if testing the ice on a frozen lake. "How are they?"
"They’re fine."
"Bruce."
"They’re fine. I was careful."
Dick’s chopsticks stopped at his lips. "And you?"
It was less a question and more an incredulous statement.
"I’m alive," Bruce said.
"That’s not what I wanted." Dick carefully put down his chopsticks. "I saw the news about the Joker last week—"
"It’s all taken care of."
"You went after him alone."
"I kept things under control."
"Really?" Dick’s voice was soft but sharp. Beneath the worry lay an iron will. "Because it seems to me you want to—"
He paused. He took a deep breath. Then, changing his tone, he began again.
"It’s been two years." He changed his words.
Bruce’s jaw tightened. That was his only reaction. A muscle twitched. That was all.
"Two years, Bruce. I know it won’t get any easier, I know, but you can’t go on like this. Those night patrols, not getting home until dawn. Those fights where you were alone against eight or nine men. And…" Dick’s voice choked slightly. "And that feeling of not caring whether you came back alive."
"I care."
"And you?"
The question lingered between them like smoke. Bruce didn’t answer. He simply picked up his chopsticks again and mechanically continued eating.
They finished their meal in silence. Dick cleaned up the lunchbox, threw it away, and washed his hands meticulously. Small things, things within his control, things you can manage when everything else is a mess.
"Want to go see?" Dick finally asked, his voice much softer. Gentle.
Bruce nodded slightly.
They walked towards the cemetery in the faint February sunlight, Jason following behind, as he always did. Three graves stood in a neat row, well-maintained. Someone, probably Alfred, regularly cleared away fallen leaves and debris. Every few days, flowers would bloom.
Martha Wayne, beloved wife and mother. Thomas Wayne, beloved husband and father. And a third, the newest, with inscriptions still fresh.
Jason tried to decipher the inscription again. He'd barely read the first letter, the J, when his head throbbed. He retreated, frustrated and confused.
Dick knelt before the third grave, removing his gloves. His hands trembled slightly.
"Hey, brother," he whispered, as if speaking to someone who had just fallen asleep. "I’m still trying. I’m still trying to take care of him, but you know his personality—stubborn, unyielding, unhelpful."
Bruce stood five feet away, hands in his pockets. His face was deliberately expressionless, the kind he wore when trying to suppress his emotions. Jason was learning to decipher that expression; Bruce always wore it during his most painful moments.
"I miss you," Dick continued. His voice was steady and calm. "We all miss you. Alfred misses you too. Bruce—" He paused, swallowing hard. "But I believe you’ll be proud of him no matter what. He’s still trying. Still fighting. Still trying to make Gotham a better place. Even if he does it the stupidest way imaginable."
He gently stroked the tombstone, his fingers tracing the words Jason couldn’t see.
"Two years feel like it happened yesterday, and like it was ages ago," Dick said. "Sometimes I forget, you know? I think of something funny, turn to you, and then remember. You’re gone. You’re never coming back. What hurts me most are the little things. Your laughter, the way you stole food from my plate, and always telling those terrible jokes at the worst possible time. You always argued with people, even when you knew you were wrong, just because you liked to argue."
Bruce’s hands were tightly in his pockets.
"Without you, the Cave doesn’t feel right," Dick continued. "It’s too quiet. Bruce won’t. He won’t change anything. Everything is exactly the same as when you left. He put your suit in the box. He kept your…" His voice choked. "He kept everything."
Jason’s wings trembled. "I love you," Dick whispered. "Wherever you are, I hope you’re alright; I hope you’re no longer in pain. I hope…" His voice choked again. "I want you to know we tried. We desperately wanted to find you. We never gave up the search. It’s just… We weren’t fast enough."
Fast enough? Jason wanted to ask. What happened? Who died? Why didn’t anyone say the name?
But he couldn’t ask, couldn’t say it.
They stood there for twenty-three minutes, Dick kneeling, Bruce standing. Neither of them cried. This wasn’t recent grief; it was old grief, smoothed by two years of torment, like a pebble in a river.
As they walked back to the manor, Dick put his hand on Bruce’s shoulder.
"He wouldn’t want this," Dick said. Jason suspected this wasn’t the first time. It sounded like a line they’d acted out before. "You know he wouldn't; he’d be furious if he saw you torturing yourself like this."
"He can’t see it," Bruce said coldly.
They went back inside. Dick stayed for dinner. Alfred made beef stew, and Bruce ate half of it. For recent times, that was progress.
At eight o'clock, Dick left, embracing Bruce goodbye. Bruce stood stiffly in the embrace, uncomfortable, before driving away.
After they left, Jason remained at the grave, floating above the tombstone, trying to comprehend it all.
The third grave belonged to a young man. A man who died two years ago. A man both Bruce and Dick deeply loved. A man whose name began with J. A man who used to steal food, tell corny jokes, and argue about everything.
A man Dick called "Little Brother."
Jason stared at the weathered stone, feeling something huge and terrifying surge deep within his consciousness, something his reason refused to let him look at. Like looking directly at the sun, like touching a flame.
"Who are you?" he whispered to the grave. "What do you mean to them?"
The stone did not answer.
Three months into the mission, Jason had to admit that something fundamentally went wrong.
It wasn't Bruce who was the problem, though Bruce certainly had many issues; it was Jason.
Angels weren't supposed to know how to fight. They were supposed to be messengers, spiritual guardians, observers, and those who prayed and intervened gently. They weren't supposed to be tactical geniuses, able to predict ambush patterns and identify weapon types by sound.
But Jason knew it all.
He knew Bruce's left shoulder posture on Tuesday meant he'd strained his trapezius on Monday night and was compensating; even if it caused imbalance, he was trying to use his right side. He knew that when someone reached for their waist in a certain way—palm flat, fingers spread—there was definitely a gun concealed there, likely a 9mm pistol based on fingerprints. He could distinguish between someone who knew how to fight and someone who just wildly brandished a weapon, between controlled violence and a panicked attack. He could see through an entire room in three seconds, identifying exits, threats, and advantages.
He knew Gotham's streets like the back of his hand, as if he'd walked them for years, even a lifetime.
Crime Alley was the worst place. Every time Bruce went there. Every Wednesday night, punctually. Jason felt a surge of emotion. The streets there looked incredibly familiar, a familiarity that transcended memory, transcended cognition. It felt like returning to a place you'd been happy to leave but could never truly escape. He knew which dumpsters. He knew which homeless people sought refuge in his house: "Big Joe" behind the Chinese restaurant, Maria and her children near the old church, and the reticent veterinarian Tommy behind the pawn shop. He knew which alleys were gang territory and which were neutral. He knew the grocery store at the intersection of Fourth Street and Glendy Street was open until 3 a.m. and never asked questions; he knew the owner would give free food to children who looked starving. He knew the sounds of Gotham City intimately: sirens, ambulances, and fire trucks; the differences between the engines of Gotham Police Department patrol cars and civilian vehicles; and the echoes of gunfire in narrow alleyways and open streets.
He understood the rhythm of street life. When drug dealers changed shifts. Where prostitutes worked and which street corners they occupied. Which buildings were abandoned and which only looked abandoned? Where to find discarded newspapers for warmth. Where the relief canteens were, and what they served each day.
Street wisdom. Survival wisdom.
An angel who died at fifteen shouldn't know these things.
Once, he found himself hovering around a particular street corner. The intersection of Monroe Street and Fourth Street, feeling his wings begin to tremble. What had happened here? Something important, something that changed everything. This realization weighed heavily on his chest, but when he tried to understand it directly, to recall what it truly was, all he felt was static, pain, and a deep unease that made him want to escape.
Even away from Crime Alley, his skills continued to improve. More refined. More precise.
When Bruce fought, Jason was no longer just a spectator. He anticipated. He could foresee openings and anticipate danger. His actions became increasingly precise, placing the right tile at the right time, using water to short-circuit the right wire at the right spot, and directing birds to attack at the right angle, creating maximum disruption.
It was like muscle memory he'd never possessed before, like training he'd never received, like experiences he'd had but couldn't recall.
"How do I know all this?" he muttered to the empty air one night, watching Bruce interrogate a thug in the alley. "How do I know he lied about the armory? How do I know there are three guys waiting around the corner?"
Of course, his premonition was correct. There were indeed three guys around the corner, baseball bats in hand, waiting for their chance to retaliate. Jason knocked over a trash can to warn Bruce, who immediately adjusted his strategy, subduing them before they could attack from behind.
But Jason shouldn't have known. He shouldn't have been able to foresee it all.
Angels, of course, learn the habits of those they protect over time. The guardian's duty is to observe and to understand rhythms and patterns. But this isn't pattern recognition. It's instinct. It's training. It comes from knowledge deeper than observation.
It's an experience.
The uniform in the basement—he'd glimpsed it once before the pain dragged him out—was red, yellow, and green. Primary colors. Bright and striking, designed to attract attention. Designed to draw eyes.
The colors of a robin.
And Dick, in the photograph, is wearing a blue and black uniform. Another bird. Not a robin. Something else. Maybe a Nightwing. Jason's heard of that name.
But the Robin suit was smaller, a child's size.
Jason tried not to think about what this meant. He tried not to but failed each time.
On the ninetieth day of the mission, Jason began counting the days, as if time truly held meaning, as if numbers could imbue the meaningless with significance. Bruce returned home at 5:17 AM, suffering from a concussion, a dislocated shoulder, and a rib wound requiring seventeen stitches.
Alfred reset his shoulder in the bathroom without anesthesia. Bruce remained silent, gripping the edge of the sink tightly, his knuckles white. Jason felt his strength would shatter porcelain.
Jason stood in the doorway, watching, feeling something solidify within him. In his chest. A decision was forming, resolute and inevitable.
This could not continue.
Bruce was going to die. Perhaps not a dramatic death. Not a spectacular sacrifice, nor a final, inspiring battle worthy of headlines. Just… dying, bit by bit. Suffering again and again. One night, he slept only four hours. On one patrol, his reaction was half a second slower because he was exhausted, because his body had finally given out, because even Batman was only human.
Someone had to tell him to stop. Someone had to make him understand that his life had value, that people needed him to live, not to be a martyr. Not to die.
Jason was just a child. He knew it himself. A fifteen-year-old angel might not be the best person to offer this kind of advice. Perhaps it wouldn't be taken seriously. Perhaps Bruce wouldn't understand.
But guardian angels can visit dreams. This is permitted, even encouraged in some cases. To deliver important messages. To bring divine guidance. To warn those on the path to darkness.
This mattered.
This was a warning.
This was Jason's last chance to save Bruce Wayne.
He waited for Bruce to fall asleep, and after Alfred finished stitching up his wounds and forced him to take painkillers, Bruce finally drifted off to sleep. He waited until Bruce's sleep sank from the nightmare into a deeper dream, a dream always accompanied by smoke, fire, and laughter, entering a more settled state. Around 6:30 in the morning, Bruce's breathing became steady. Jason estimated that, regardless of whether his ribs were broken, he could sleep for about three more hours before his body would wake him again.
Three hours wasn't long. But it had to be enough.
At 6:45, Jason took a deep breath, though he didn't need to, and stepped into Bruce's dream.
The dream was silent.
Jason had expected darkness, the smoke-filled, fear-shrouded scenes common in nightmares, with the clown's laughter seemingly echoing from all directions. But Bruce's exhaustion drew him deeper; the dream was like an empty room, waiting to be filled. Perhaps the drugs had worked, pulling him out of the abyss of trauma.
Jason used his angelic abilities to construct a simple space: four walls and a floor. A window let in a soft, unobstructed light, creating a comfortable atmosphere. There was no threat. Nothing would trigger Bruce's defenses. It was simply a place to talk.
Bruce appeared slowly, as if wading through deep water, each step a struggle towards clarity. He looked younger, perhaps simply relieved of a burden. The wrinkles around his eyes had faded. The tension in his shoulders had disappeared. He was dressed casually, in jeans and a T-shirt, the color perhaps blue or gray; Jason couldn't tell.
Not Batman, just Bruce.
He saw Jason and stopped.
Jason had adjusted his posture perfectly. Fifteen years old, jeans, and a hoodie that might have once been red. He hadn't yet learned how to fold his wings; when they were up, they wouldn't look intimidating, nor would they remind Bruce that he was talking to a dead man. Just a child.
They looked at each other.
Jason had prepared a speech. He practiced while watching Bruce sleep, rehearsing repeatedly until it felt right, until he felt he could truly say those words, his voice no longer trembling. He wanted to talk about the value of life, about those who cared for him, about how self-destruction neither commemorates the dead nor makes things better, but only brings more pain to the living.
Bruce took three steps to bridge the gap between them and pulled Jason into a tight embrace.
Jason froze. His wings first spread, then curled up, encircling them both. It was instinct, protection.
Bruce's arms held him tightly, suffocatingly, desperately. As if he were trying to grasp something slipping away, as if he knew it was only temporary, as if he were trying to remember the feeling before it vanished.
"I'm sorry," Bruce whispered into Jason's hair. His voice was hoarse and broken. "I'm so sorry. I should have been faster. I should have found you sooner. I should have been with you..."
Jason's prepared words vanished like morning mist.