Archive of Our Own

Leaning against the hard stone of his grave, Jason held his head in his hands and allowed the final sniffles of his prolonged bout of crying to escape his body. When he had run from Batman, from his dad, he hadn’t originally intended to end up back where this had all started. He hadn’t intended to abscond to his grave, a place he had little recollection of.

The ground beneath him was cold and wet, it soaked his trousers and dirtied his hands where they dug into the earth, but he didn’t care. With tear tracks staining his cheeks, Jason wondered what he would do now. His plan to reveal his identity had been a success; he didn’t know if the Joker was dead, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. 

Somewhere, in that confrontation with Bruce (because the pure emotion in his voice couldn’t have belonged to anyone but Bruce Wayne, not Batman), Jason’s fury towards the Joker had diminished. That’s not to say that he no longer resented the bastard. He detested the man with every bone in his body, but during the confrontation, he had realised that there was simply no point. What was the point in hating a man who would never change? What was the point in going out of his way to kill him when that wouldn’t change what he had done to Jason? In a way, Jason supposed that all of this, the scheming and the convoluted plan to kill Joker, had been to his own detriment. Was he not just allowing the clown to shape his life? 

After releasing one last shaky breath, full of all of the tumultuous emotions that any thought of his current position brought on, Jason pushed himself up from the grave and stood on shaky legs. Whilst crying, he hadn’t taken time to appreciate how fresh the flowers decorating his grave truly were. They couldn’t have been older than a few days old; it was just another sign of the misconceptions and falsehoods he had been fed about the state of his place in the family he yearned to return to. And yet, despite the evidence of their supposed devotion, Jason couldn’t help the hesitance that blossomed in his chest.

Who were the flowers from? They could be from anyone in his family, or someone else entirely. Maybe Alfred had placed them by his headstone, face solemn and shoulders slumped. Or perhaps it had been Dick, eyes shiny with tears and hands shaking with barely suppressed grief. Impossibly, Jason hoped it had been Bruce. But he knew Bruce, for all that he claimed to have missed him, he would never return to his graveside. Returning would invoke too many complicated emotions, emotions that Bruce avoided with his crusade against crime. 

Gently, with reverent hesitance, Jason brushed his finger against one of the pale petals of the peace lilies that decorated his ‘eternal’ resting place. How fitting, Jason thought, that the giver had chosen peace lilies. Purity, innocence and rebirth. Jason had long since lost his purity and innocence, but the flowers were still fitting nonetheless. A perfect amalgamation of the boy he had once been and the circumstances that caused him to be staring at his own grave. 

Unable to bear the sight of his own grave anymore, and what it reminded him of, Jason turned away only to be assaulted with something else that tore at his heartstrings. 

Catherine Todd * Willis Todd

May their souls rest together in peace

Jason remembered the day Bruce had approached him, hesitance in his usually confident frame, and asked if he wanted a grave for his parents. It hadn’t been long since Willis’ death, and Jason had taken it harder than he had anticipated. He had loved his father wholeheartedly, and yet the years without him hardened that love, injected it with a bitterness that Jason would forever feel guilty for. So when Bruce offered to have a grave created for both of his parents, to allow them to be put to rest together, Jason immediately said yes. He’d only visited a few times to whisper to their grave stone, but he’d appreciated the gesture nonetheless. He supposed he should have expected to be put to rest next to them. Bruce knew how much he missed and loved his parents. 

More tears welled in Jason’s eyes at the sight of his parents’ grave, but he refused to cry this time. He had cried enough for the day. If he cried any more, he was almost certain he would shrivel up into a dry, sad, pathetic husk of himself.

“I guess I should have come by sooner, huh?” He croaked as he aggressively dried his eyes, “I’ve been a shitty son all-around, I suppose. I hope wherever you two are, you’re together.”

Hesitantly, Jason turned away from the grave. Something inside of him, an insidious part that has been battling to be heard since he’d first regained consciousness, told him that he should rejoin his parents. They wouldn’t be happy until they were all together again, the happy family they had desperately wanted to be but couldn’t achieve due to their shitty life circumstances. There was only one way to reunite with his parents, and the thought was so tempting, but he pulled himself away from the precipice of that line of thought. It would do him no good. 

It hurt to be surrounded by reminders of his own mortality. Relics of lost lives that reminded Jason all too clearly that he wasn’t supposed to be alive, that he was a universal anomaly. With his heart in his throat, Jason trekked through the graveyard, away from the last place he had been at peace and towards the daunting task of figuring out what to do with himself now. 

Stumbling into his Crime Alley hovel, Jason felt a sweeping coldness overcome him at the sight of his living situation. The mouldy walls and splintered floors were all too reminiscent of the sorts of places he would curl up in when he’d been homeless. Abandoned drug dens and condemned buildings that not even the most desperate usually resorted to. How was it that he found himself living in such a place? 

Though he didn’t want to admit it, Jason could recognise that his revenge plot had consumed him entirely. He had ignored every facet of himself, everything that made him Jason Todd-Wayne, and instead focused on a doomed mission. He had allowed himself to become nothing more than Joker’s victim. He had always hated being victimised, and yet he’d done it to himself. It was perhaps the only amusing joke that Joker had had a hand in creating. 

Though he desperately tried, Jason couldn’t clear his mind as he shuffled over to his sorry excuse of a sofa and flopped down onto it. The broken wooden frame creaked under his weight, groaning and begging for death. Weakly, Jason chuckled, which soon turned into hysterical chortles, which devolved into barely restrained tears. What was he doing? What was he going to do next? He didn’t want to think about it.

In a desperate bid to drown out the taunting voices in his head, Jason turned the TV on and cranked the volume up as high as he dared. He rarely turned on the TV; he’d dragged it in off the streets so that he could flick to the news on occasion and ensure that they were still covering his mounting attacks against Black Mask. Now, on the cracked screen that was barely functioning, the news was still playing, relaying information that both turned Jason’s stomach and made his heart flutter with an emotion he was entirely unfamiliar with. 

“-said to have been found in the streets of Park Row. Though he is stable, doctors are doubtful that Joker will ever recover, determining that he is medically brain dead. He will be remanded to the custody of Arkham Asylum, where he will most likely spend the rest of his life in a vegetative state.”

The news anchor, a woman with shiny white teeth and auburn hair, did not sound all too sad as she relayed the news. In fact, it looked as though she was battling valiantly against what Jason suspected to be a smile of relief. Her co-host, a blond man with a tan that he couldn’t have possibly gotten from Gotham’s perpetually cloudy sky, nodded along as solemnly as he could, but you could tell from his face that he was not at all sad to hear the news. 

They continued to talk, but Jason had long since tuned out. Brain dead. When Jason had injected him with that poison, he’d honestly expected the bastard to finally kick the bucket, but of course, he hadn’t. He was resilient, like a cockroach. He hadn’t killed him, but he had ensured that he could never hurt anyone again. That was enough. With his head in his hands and his heart pounding in his chest, Jason slowly convinced himself that it was enough.

He had to let go. Not entirely, never entirely. But he had to loosen his grip on the notion that any amount of revenge would make him feel better. No matter what he did, who he fought, he’d never be satisfied. Nothing could fix what had happened to him. He couldn’t go back in time and warn himself of his impending doom. He couldn’t ensure that he never came back, broken and wrong. He couldn’t ensure that Talia never found him. He’d been dealt the shitty cards in life, and he’d known that since he’d understood that his family was living in poverty. 

With the TV droning on in the background, Jason sank further into the carcass of his sofa and stared at the water-damaged ceiling. Bruce’s words from only a few hours ago came back to him unbidden.

“Please, Jay. My Jay…”

“You were never a soldier, Jason. You are my son”

“I love you, you’re my son. Just come home, we can figure everything out.”

Jason wasn’t sure he’d ever seen such desperation in Bruce before. Even with his mask obscuring his face, Jason could read Bruce’s every micro-expression. A father desperate for his son to come back home. A parent desperate to reunite with his child. Pinpricks of hope and floods of love. An emotional Batman was a rare sight to see, and yet Jason had been presented with that very sight, and he had no idea what to do with that. 

Clearly, Talia had obscured the truth from him. Maybe he did have a family to return to, but he wasn’t sure if he was ready to fall back into their embrace. 

With a heavy sigh, he turned off the TV and shuffled over to his sorry excuse for a bed. The day had been tiring, and he had no direction in life now that his plan had fallen apart. Jason was long overdue for a restful sleep.

For an entire fortnight, Jason did nothing but mope. The day after his confrontation with Bruce, he moved out of his derelict lodgings to a (only slightly) nicer apartment. Without his all-consuming mission, Jason couldn’t bring himself to ignore the sorry state of his surroundings. They were far too reminiscent of the way he used to live when he was homeless; it was a period of his life he would rather not be reminded of every time he turned his head. 

He didn’t have much to move, and he didn’t have much to make the plain walls look more homey, even so, Jason was grateful for the change in setting. It didn’t do much to alleviate the heavy sense of purposelessness that weighed his heart down, but it was enough to silence some of the darker voices whispering in his ear. 

He spent his time burying his head in countless books, music blasting through headphones to drown out his errant thoughts. Occasionally, Jason found it within himself to drag himself out of the apartment to restock his meagre food supplies. Every time he left, he found himself hunching into his body, desperately hoping that nobody looked twice at him. He didn’t want to be found, not yet. He wasn’t ready to confront Bruce, Dick or Alfred. He wasn’t ready to return to the family who, apparently, still wanted him. 

With every day that passed, the heaviness of Jason’s emotions seemed to fluctuate in intensity. Some days, his anger at Talia’s manipulations eclipsed every rational thought. Some days, his yearning to return to his family made him feel sick with need. And some days, more days than not, guilt ate at him for abandoning his position in Crime Alley. Not his position as a Crime Lord, admittedly, it had been fun to play up the role. His murky position balanced the thin line between protector and boogeyman. Since long before Jason had taken the name, since long before Joker had taken the name, Red Hood had been a ghost story that whispered through the smog-stained streets. Jason was just the newest incarnation of a classic Gotham boogeyman. During the two weeks that he had been gone, Jason had heard the criminals getting more audacious once again. They thought he had abandoned his territory. They were making moves to reinstate the senseless violence and terror that Jason was scarcely putting a dent in. It was that thought, the notion that things may be worse than they were before due to the power vacuum he’d left behind, that caused Jason to finally don his hood once more and take to the streets. 

With the new moon as his companion, Jason hit the streets of Park Row running. Within the first hour of being back out, Jason stopped a mugging, a convenience store robbery and walked a teenage boy home. It astounded Jason, at times, the amount of trust certain members of his community put in him. Rightfully so, some were cautious of him, and yet there was still a large enough proportion that looked to him like they looked to Batman and Robin. 

His night continued like that, stopping petty crimes and making himself seen, for several hours. He hadn’t felt the need to draw either of his guns yet that night, and he doubted he’d have to. Jason was taking a break, leaning against a billboard advertising the latest promotional meal at Batburger, when a little bird found him.

Jason knew, of course, that returning to patrolling the street came with the risk of running into one of the bats, but he hadn’t expected Robin to be the first to find him. After all, the kid had never known him. He’d only had negative interactions with him, why would he seek him out? And yet, from the corner of his eye, Jason watched as the muted traffic light colours that he had once worn in much brighter shades raced across rooftops to arrive at his side. 

“Red Hood.” Robin said calmly. The last time Jason had seen the kid, he’d just knocked him out and smeared a threatening message on the wall above his unconscious body.

“Kid,” Jason huffed. He didn’t bother turning the voice modulator in his helmet off. He didn’t doubt that Robin knew who he was, but he didn’t want him hanging around. The gravelly roughness of his modulated voice was a lot more intimidating than his naturally less deep voice. “What are you doing here?”

“You haven’t got much ground to call me kid,” Robin rebutted, completely ignoring Jason’s question, “You’re only 2 years and a bit older than me.”

“Closer to 3 years than 2, pipsqueak. Now, what do you want?” 

Scowling in a way that Jason struggled to find anything less than mildly endearing, Robin leaned crossed his arms. “I’m here because you need to come home, back to the Manor. They’re not… Bruce and Dick aren’t doing well…”

“Weren’t you taught not to use real names whilst in costume, kid?”

“Jason, you need to come home.” Tim’s voice, which had been firm up until that point, gained a pleading edge. “I understand that you undoubtedly have conflicting emotions, but it would do all of you some good to see each other, don’t you think?”

“Don’t pretend to understand what’s going on in my head. Don’t act like you know what’s good for me.” Jason’s scowl was hidden by his helmet, but he was sure that Tim could feel the intensity of it nevertheless. “Bruce, Alfred and Dick might miss me, but they survived before, didn’t they? They can do it again. This is for the best.”

“They won’t, though.” Tim said, “You know how Bruce is, he doesn’t want to show it, but he’s really struggling. I can tell.  It's kind of like when you… Died… But this time I think it might be worse. You’re right here, close enough to reach out and touch. He’s just too scared to reach out and reconnect with you. I suppose he’s scared that none of this is actually real. I don’t think Bruce likes to admit it, but he gets scared quite often. That’s why I admire him so much, he gets scared, but he keeps going. He’s barely carrying on now, though. He needs you, Jason. So do Alfred and Dick.”

Balling his hands into fists, Jason turned away from the boy who had replaced him. Begrudgingly, Jason had to admit he admired Tim’s perseverance. He was certainly a good Robin, he had that same stubborn streak that Jason and Dick possessed. Jason didn’t doubt that it drove Bruce crazy. 

“They miss the boy who died. They miss the kid they buried, they don’t want me.”

“Did Bruce give up on Dick when he outgrew being in Batman’s shadow?” Tim asked as he stepped forward, trying to put himself in Jason’s line of sight again. “No, he didn’t. Bruce loved him. I know I wasn’t there to see it, but you were. You saw that they always made their way back to each other. What makes you think they won’t welcome you back?”

Jason scoffed as he ripped his helmet from his head and finally confronted Tim with the eye contact that he was so desperately seeking. “I don’t know, maybe the fact that I’ve got a kill count in the double digits? I’m not the boy I used to be, they’ll just be disappointed if I go back to them.”

“You’ve clearly put thought into what you think their reactions would be.” Tim said, “But just like you’ve changed, so have they. They were broken by your death, and they rebuilt themselves, but they’re not complete. I can’t complete them, and I never tried to. The only thing that can make them whole again is you. Bruce may have a no-killing rule, and he may not want us to kill, but do you truly think he’d go so far as to cast you out because you’ve killed?”

Tim paused, waiting for Jason to answer. When no answer was forthcoming, he powered on. 

“Come on, Jason. You know, logically, that he won’t. Despite their differences in ideologies, he and Talia fell in love, he did that knowing she had killed far more people than you have. The Justice League kills, and before you argue, I know that it's very rare and only under especially unique circumstances, but some of his best friends have claimed lives, and yet he still associates with them. Harvey Dent has done so much damage to this city, and yet every time he is in Arkham, Bruce carves time out of his routine to visit him, because they were friends once. They still are in the messiest way possible. Knowing all of that, how can you think that he doesn’t still love you?”

Jason hated being confronted with logic. 

“I get it, kid, no need to keep berating me.” Jason whispered. 

“I’m not saying it has to be tonight, but please come home at some point. They miss you and I…” Tim paused for a moment before relaxing his shoulders and looking directly into Jason’s eyes again, “And I want to get to know you. I won’t deny that your ghost haunts my relationship with all three of them. I want to get to know you as you are, not as you appear through the lens of their memories. You have a family waiting for you, Jason, whenever you’re ready.”

With that final declaration, Robin leapt from the building, disappearing into the night. 

Jason hadn’t expected such a taxing confrontation on his first night back. Though he was loath to admit it, he couldn’t deny the impact Tim’s words had on him. Deep down, far beneath the self-loathing that permeated throughout his entire body, Jason had always known that Bruce would welcome him back. He knew that, for all his faults, he would always be Bruce Wayne’s son. He knew, even when Bruce struggled to convey it, that his father would always love him. Through the ugly and the horrible. Yet, despite knowing the truth of these words, it was still a truth that Jason struggled to reconcile with the image of Bruce that he held. 

Sighing heavily, Jason put his helmet back on and set off for his lacklustre apartment. He’d had enough excitement for the night. 

Jason’s conversation with Tim haunted him for the next few days. Part of him, the bitter part that wanted to lash out at everything around him, wanted to scoff at the idea that Bruce couldn’t even face him himself. That he had to have a 15-year-old deliver his message for him. Another part, the logical part that had been buried under an avalanche of emotions since he’d regained consciousness after his dip in the Lazarus waters, reminded him that Bruce had almost certainly not sanctioned Tim’s jaunt into Crime Alley. The kid had gone rogue, as Robins tended to do, to seek him out. That logical part of him also informed him that even if Bruce had sought him out, he would have run away anyway. Speaking to Tim, listening to his appeals, was so much easier precisely because he had never known him before he’d been killed. He’d seen the kid on the peripheries of the numerous social events they’d both attended; they may have exchanged some impersonal words, but they had never truly known each other. There were no expectations between them. The same could not be said for Alfred, Dick or Bruce. Even more so for Bruce. 

Though he didn’t want to admit it, Jason craved Bruce’s approval more than he did Alfred and Dick’s. That’s not to say that their opinions didn’t matter, if either one of them expressed dissatisfaction, Jason knew it would be a brutal hit to his self-concept. But it wasn’t the same with Bruce. Jason was convinced that if his dad told him he was dissatisfied with him, if he looked at Jason with disgust in his eyes, he’d never recover from the devastation. 

That was why he was infinitely more scared of seeing Bruce than he was of seeing anyone else. He was cautious because one wrong signal from Bruce would send him into an inescapable downward spiral. And yet despite this, Jason wanted nothing more than to collapse into his father’s arms again. He wanted to rest his head under Bruce’s chin, just like he did before everything went to shit, and listen to his father’s steady heartbeat. The thump of Bruce’s heart had always been soothing for Jason, though he’d never gathered the bravery to explicitly convey how much comfort he gained from the action of pressing his ear to Bruce’s chest. 

Everything was just so complicated, Jason couldn’t help but think. 

Despite the racing thoughts that plagued him, Jason still hit the streets of Gotham every night. He broke up drug rings and foiled a robbery (only to take ¼ of the money himself and drop it off with one of the food banks), all the while his mind was a messy maelstrom of angst. 

A week, almost down to the precise hour, after Tim confronted him, Jason was found by another member of his family. At the first glimpse of the blue stripes, Jason set off running. He didn’t want to speak to Dick yet. He didn’t want to confront the painful memories that his brother’s presence would inspire. He leapt from rooftop to rooftop, he ducked into alleys and scaled fire escapes, but Dick couldn’t seem to take the hint. 

When they had been Robin and Nightwing, during the brief stretches of time when Dick and Bruce managed to get along, they had sometimes played tag throughout the city of Gotham. They’d thundered across rooftops and laughed themselves silly, all with the knowledge that Bruce would inevitably lay into them when they got back to the cave. Yet, despite the admonishment, Bruce’s eyes would shine with amusement, and he'd never bench them. Running through Gotham now, with Dick chasing him, Jason couldn’t help but fall back into those old memories. Even a brief moment of distraction is enough to seal your fate when you’re dealing with a bat. 

Jason’s step faltered, allowing Dick to catch up to him. Gloved hands encircled his bicep, the touch was light, and yet it stopped Jason in his tracks immediately. Dick may as well have dug his nails into Jason’s arm. 

“Little Wing.” Dick gasped. Jason could tell it was a gasp of relief more than a gasp of exertion. It would take a lot more than a footchase to tire Dick Grayson out.

“Don’t…” Jason started, but his words failed him when he turned his head and got a close-up of his older brother’s face. 

Despite Dick’s eyes being covered, Jason could practically see the sheer relief and desperation in his cobalt eyes. Every aspect of his body language screamed a desire to throw himself at Jason, to sweep him up into his arms and cradle him close. But Dick was good at restraining himself when he knew it mattered.

“Don’t call me that.” Jason said weakly. “I’m not… I’m not the boy you used to know. I’ve changed.”

“And so have I. We’ve all changed, Jason,” Dick said. There was a gentleness to his voice that made Jason want to rip his arm away and shout to the high heavens that he didn’t deserve kindness, but he knew that such an action would ultimately be futile. “I’ve changed. Bruce has changed. Alfred has changed. It would be impossible for us not to change after you died.”

Jason appreciated that he didn’t talk around the tragic event. He was grateful that Dick didn’t use stupid euphemisms and colloquial terms. Even still, Jason had always been combative, he wasn’t going to yield to Dick’s soft talk just because his brother knew him well enough to get straight to the point.

“Oh boohoo.” Jason snarled, finally finding the strength to rip his arm from Dick’s weak hold. “You were changed by my death. So what?”

Jason knew he was being a hypocrite. Is that not what he wanted? For his death to have had a tangible effect on the family he had left behind? His brother stood before him, confirming his every hope, and yet he couldn’t accept it. 

If it had been any other person, Jason’s words may have riled them up, made them defensive, but Dick knew Jason. Even before he had been killed, Jason had been prone to assuming the worst when he was feeling emotional. Sighing heavily, Dick took a step back to give him the space he so desperately needed.

“Don’t act like that, Jason.” Dick said, his voice gaining the firm edge that it often did when he didn’t want to deal with anyone’s nonsense. “Don’t act like we don’t love you. You’ve changed, so what? You are still my brother. You don’t know how much I mourned you, how much I missed you every single day you were gone.”

“You didn’t have any problems replacing me with a younger model.”

For a second, Dick’s fists curled and his back straightened. The signs of anger were momentary, quickly rescinded when Dick took a calming breath. 

“I didn’t replace you. We didn’t replace you. Don’t cheapen our relationship, or my relationship with Tim, by suggesting that either one of you is interchangeable.” Dick spoke with a forced calm, “You don’t understand how much your dying impacted us. Bruce was a mess. I was so sure that he was going to kill himself, accidentally or not. Alfred was a shell of himself. And I… I saw you everywhere, Little Wing.”

Dick bit his lip and looked away, “I could hear you every time I went to sleep. Begging for help. That voicemail you left for me is burned into my mind. For over a year, everywhere I turned, you were lingering in the corner. You were just out of reach. Your ghost haunts the family, Jason. We don’t care that you’ve changed, we just care that you’re back.”

Jason was silent for a moment. His eyes roamed over Dick. Throughout the course of the confrontation, his brother had seemingly become more desperate. His shoulders had slumped and risen, his hands clenched and unclenched where they hung at his sides, and his jaw tensed in a way that Jason recalled all too clearly from Dick’s various arguments with Bruce. 

“You don’t know the things I’ve done.” Jason finally said, words scarcely distinguishable over the din of Gotham. 

“Then tell us, and we’ll love you anyway. Nothing could stop us from loving you. I could be unfathomably angry with you, and I’d still love you to my bones. That’s what family is, that’s what our family is.”

It was at times like these that Jason was glad for his helmet, he didn’t think he could bear it if Dick was able to see the tears beading in his eyes. 

“I…” Jason whispered, “I get where you’re coming from, but I need more time. I can’t face any of you right now.”

It felt like he was giving in, but the feeling was not a bad one. Acquiescence, minimal as it might’ve been, felt liberating. A stone, small but substantial, lifted off Jason’s chest so that he could breathe just a little easier. 

“That’s fine. Just come back to us, okay?”

“Okay.”

With his emotions in turmoil, once again, Jason turned to walk away.

“Jason.” Dick called, prompting Jason to look back over his shoulder, “I love you. Don’t ever doubt that.”

With a nod, Jason turned away to resume his exit. 

“I love you, too.”

The words were desperate to escape him, but he held them back. He couldn’t give in to that vulnerability yet. 

Jason’s interaction with Dick played over and over in his mind for the next few days. The firmness in Dick’s voice, that stupid nickname that could hardly be applied to Jason anymore, and those words. ‘I love you.’ If his interaction with Tim had been haunting, then Jason didn’t know what to call the impact coming face-to-face with Dick was having on him. Every second spent away from his family was just confirmation that he needed to return to them. Nothing would stop them from haunting his every waking moment. Whether a confrontation with them ended badly or not, and Jason suspected that it wouldn’t end badly, he knew he needed to face them sooner or later. But he was scared. 

It was something he would never admit to anyone else. Maybe when he was younger, he would’ve been able to verbalise such a thought, the compounding of fear, anticipation and trepidation. But that ability had long since been abandoned in place of the skills required to survive in the League of Shadows. Sitting around and talking about feelings wasn’t encouraged by Ra’s Al Ghul. Jason could scarcely understand his own tumultuous storm of feelings, let alone talk them through with the likes of Bruce and Dick. None of his family members, including Alfred, were well known for the ability to articulate their feelings in a way that didn’t eventually blow up in their faces.

It was so much easier, Jason thought bitterly, when his brain was all but offline, and he didn’t have to deal with complex thoughts. Though he looked upon them with bitterness, he couldn’t deny that those days had been simpler.

With a heavy sigh, Jason pushed his front door open. His trip to the local shop had been completed in a fugue state; he couldn’t describe a single thing he’d done in the past hour with any certainty. All he knew was that he had set out to take a wander and buy some essentials he was running low on. As soon as he stepped over the threshold, something in Jason screamed at him to duck. Following his instinct, he fell to the floor just as the familiar sound of a knife embedding in wood sounded from where his head had just been. 

Jason had rolled and aimed his gun at his assailant before the sound had fully dispersed in the air. 

There, standing with her arms crossed and what some may consider a hint of pride in her eyes, was Tali Al Ghul. 

In the dim light of his shitty apartment, Talia looked imposing. Jason knew that even if he had wanted to, he’d lost his chance to retaliate. Jason was a good fighter, an excellent fighter, but he was no match for Talia. 

Slowly, Jason straightened from his crouch and placed his gun on his scratched countertop. Though he tried to ascertain why she had shown up out of the blue, Jason couldn’t read Talia’s body language beyond the usual air of superiority and regality that seemed to surround every Al Ghul. 

Knowing that Talia was more than happy to stay silent until he made the first move, Jason heaved a heavy sigh “What are you doing here, Talia?”

Talia’s eyes slowly swept over Jason. They were predatory, as if she was thinking of every way she could take his life, but Jason was all too used to that. After a minute of silence, Talia finally spoke. 

“Can I not simply pay a courtesy call to my disciple?” She hummed. There was nothing sincere about her answer; they both knew that. 

“What do you want?” 

“I don’t want anything, Jason. Anything that I could ask of you could be done better, or quicker, by someone far more accessible than you.” Talia said dismissively, “I was simply passing by, and I couldn’t help my curiosity.”

“About what?” Jason said, though he already knew what the woman would say before she even opened her mouth. Her ruby lips curled to one side in a facsimile of a smile, one that Jason didn’t trust in the slightest.

“I couldn’t help but be a bit curious about why you didn’t kill Joker, of course. Afterall, is that not what you spent so many brutal hours training to do?” Talia’s voice, as sincere as it may have seemed to outsiders, was mocking and derisive. Now Jason could start to pick her apart. She was disappointed. Not angry, but certainly vexed that he couldn’t carry through on the mission that he’d set out to complete. 

Jason clenched his jaw and turned away from the deadly assassin in his apartment, usually not the best tactic if one wanted to keep their life, but Jason knew that Talia wouldn’t kill him. She had no reason to, after all. 

“What does it matter to you?” Jason grunted. 

“All that time, wasted.” Talia said in a bored manner, “What was the point in saving you if you were just going to waste your potential and not carry through on the job you set out to complete?”

“Save me?” Jason whipped back around, scoffing and glaring as he did so, “Save me? Do you mean turn me against the only family I have left in the world?”

At this, Talia rolled her eyes. “Bruce replaced you. That is an objective fact.”

“He replaced Robin, not me. Not Jason.” Jason argued, “You made it seem like they didn’t care that I was dead. You made it seem like they were happy that I was gone.”

“Is that not the case?” Talia raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. Even as she spoke, Jason could tell that she was just being pedantic. Though they hadn’t seen each other in a long time, Jason knew that Talia knew Bruce well. Extremely well. She knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t be unaffected by the death of his son. She knew him well enough to know that he inevitably struggled after Jason’s death. And yet, despite having this understanding of Bruce’s character, she had misled Jason whilst he was in a malleable and vulnerable state. 

Though he loathed to admit it, her question made Jason hesitate for a second. Had they been happy that he was gone? The thought flickered across his mind that they were just pretending so that they could more easily apprehend him for his many crimes. But just as fast as that thought occurred to him, it was banished. He wasn’t going to allow himself to doubt their love for him, not whilst Talia was there to prey on any weaknesses he let slip loose. 

“No, it's not the case.” Jason replied sharply. “And you know that as well as I do. You’ve known from the beginning that they were distraught by my death. I bet you butchered those newspapers you showed me, didn’t you?”

Talia didn’t reply verbally, but the roll of her eyes was answer enough. Of course, she’d faked the newspapers. Jason shouldn’t have expected anything less.

Incandescent, Jason gritted his teeth harder. His jaw ached and his nails bit into his palms, but he knew that there was no point in directing it towards Talia. If he shouted, she would remain frustratingly calm. If he tried to attack her, she would knock him out.

After a moment of gathering himself, Jason finally asked the question that had been plaguing him since he’d first opened his eyes and seen Talia looking down at him.

“Why was I even in your possession?” He asked, “How did you get me?”

Before, Talia may have hesitated to tell him. She’d argue that such information was inconsequential, that it would only distract from his training. Now, however, she had little reason to obscure the truth from him. With poise, she folded herself into the derelict sofa and rested her chin on the palm of her hand.

“Some assassins had been watching over Wayne Manor, from a suitable distance, since your death. They were there on my father’s orders. I suppose he wanted to see if Bruce would have a moment of weakness, in which he could attack and assess whether Bruce was still up to par. Or maybe he was feeling guilty for his vague association with Joker’s scheme, I’m not sure. I just so happened to be there the night you came stumbling up the road.”

Talia, who had previously been looking out into the dreary street, looked back at him. Though Jason couldn’t call it softness, there was certainly something in her eyes that was different from the sharp predatory look that often pinned him in place. 

“I had been worried for him. My Beloved had been acting recklessly, and I only intended to stay in Gotham that one night. Fortuitously, it was the same night that you emerged from your grave. We don’t know how you came back to life. I suppose you just did. You were walking down the road, shambling is a more apt description, mumbling to yourself. It was the only time you spoke whilst you were in that state. I instructed some of my father’s assassins to capture you and bring you back with us.”

Before Talia could continue any further, Jason interrupted, that rage from before boiling to the surface once again. “Near the manor? You mean to tell me I was near the manor, probably walking back there because it was the last place I remembered, and you kidnapped me? I could have been with my family for the past few years, but you took that from me!”

Jason’s yell echoed around the room. Talia didn’t flinch, he knew she wouldn’t. If anything, she gazed upon him with nothing but pity.

“The Pit restored your mind. If we had not taken you, trained you to be the man you are, you would still be in that catatonic state.” Talia said.

“You can’t know that!” Jason shouted. “Bruce has resources, he could have helped me. It might have taken longer, but it could’ve been done. I could’ve been with my family.”

He ran out of steam by the end of his outburst. Anger was swiftly replaced by a deep melancholy. Grief for a life that he could’ve had swept through Jason. A life where he’d never taken that first step in his anti-hero career. Jason regretted very few of the deaths he had caused, yet despite this, he wished he had never had to start that tally to begin with. 

“Maybe that is true. But that’s not how it played out, is it?” 

“Why? Why did you take me? Why did you train me?”

Finally, a flicker of uncertainty passed across Talia’s face. “I knew that Father would find you useful. You were malleable, you’d been trained by Batman, you had the perfect foundation to be built into an assassin that was of use to us. I suppose that was the primary reason.” Talia replied slowly. Jason expected her to stop there, it was a perfectly plausible explanation, but she continued, “But the other reason, the more personal reason, was that I wanted to restore you, restore your mind, so that I could return you to My Beloved.”

Despite the selfless veneer to her words, Jason sensed Talia’s selfish intentions. It had never been about him, specifically. It had been about making Bruce happy. Jason supposed that Talia had only turned Jason against Bruce because of some unexplained personal vendetta that she held against him. Clearly, it wasn’t enough to diminish her love for him, but it was enough to permanently alter Jason’s relationship with his dad. 

He wasn’t sure if he could take much more of this. 

“Get out.” Jason whispered. Though they were quiet, his words were sharp and venom-filled. Jason knew he would never be able to fully express his rage and grief directly at Talia, it was an effort in futility. 

Without argument, Talia gracefully stood from the sagging sofa and walked towards the front door. As she passed by him, words attempted to claw their way up Jason’s throat. Scathing words, but also words of thanks and grudging gratitude. The sentiments were mixed and confused. He wanted to hate her, he did hate her, but he also wanted to thank her. Because maybe Bruce would have found a way to cure him of the death-induced catatonia he’d resurrected with, whether through science or magic, but who knows how successful he would’ve been. He wanted to thank her for keeping Ra’s Al Ghul at bay when the old man had wanted to dispose of him for being useless. He wanted to thank her for many things, but he refused to allow his gratitude to show. 

Talia didn’t look back as she walked down the derelict hallway, her rich clothing extremely out of place in the mouldy and damp infected space. Jason didn’t know if he would always hate Talia, he doubted he would. His dislike would wane with time, most likely rising again whenever he ruminated on the time he lost with his family, but he didn’t think he could ever let it go. She was just another person in the long list of people for whom Jason held complicated emotions. 

It felt like Jason just couldn’t catch a break. Everywhere he turned, he was scared that he would be confronted by a familiar face from his past. Would Tim pop back up and implore him to return? Would he round a corner and find Dick reaffirming his love for him? Would he enter a shop and come face-to-face with Alfred? Every second of Jason’s life was spent on edge for the next few weeks. After Talia’s invasion, not even his derelict hovel of an apartment was safe. 

Yet despite the almost constant anxiety and the numerous what-if scenarios that wouldn’t leave Jason’s mind, there was still that burning core of yearning that had never truly left Jason. Since he’d been a child, beneath the anger, uncertainty and fear, there had always been the fiery desire to be loved. There was a clear path to that love, now. It was clearer than ever, every step had been laid out for him by both Dick and Tim. All he needed to do was return. According to them, he’d be welcomed with open arms. According to Bruce, he’d be welcomed with open arms. But, for all that Jason wanted to believe every word that they said, he didn’t trust the situation. How could they possibly want him back? They may have missed him, but he wasn’t the sort of person they wanted in their family. Of this, Jason was sure, despite being told the contrary. 

Every waking moment was spent in a fierce battle. Two sides of him waged war with each other, one side argued that every sign pointed towards it being safe to return home, whilst the other demanded he stay away to protect his fragile heart. He couldn’t take rejection from anyone in his family, especially Bruce. Though he loathed to admit it, so much of his sense of self was linked to his dad. It was a problem he needed to work on, he could acknowledge that, and it would be so much easier to work on if he had the support of his family. 

“What am I gonna do, Mama?” Jason whispered as he sat at his parents’ graveside. His skin crawled being so close to his grave, but he didn’t know where else to turn. His mum and dad had been dead for a long time now, but the thought of them still inspired blurry memories of the days they had together. 

He could still feel the worn-out fabric of their sofa, rough under his youthfully smooth hands. He remembered the feeling of weightlessness as his father scooped him up into his arms and peppered his face with kisses. He remembered, faintly, the smell of his mother’s perfume. She didn’t wear it every day, but when she did, Jason always buried himself in her neck and took comfort in her thin arms surrounding his body. 

“I think you’d both tell me to just get over myself and go and see them, wouldn’t you?” Jason chuckled to himself. He fiddled with the grass beside him as he spoke, eyes unfocused and heart beating a bit too quickly. “Maybe not that harshly. Actually, you’d probably say it like that, right, Dad? You’d be right. I know I should just reach out, I could walk to Wayne Manor right now, if I wanted. But… I just can’t bring myself to do it.”

There was silence for a moment, as if Jason was listening to his parents’ responses. He could almost hear the advice they’d give.

“Oh, Honey,” Catherine would sigh, a sad smile on her face, “You know what you need to do. I know it's hard.”

“Cathy is right, Little Man.” Willis would say, smirking as he nodded, “Shit’s hard, but you’ve got to man up. Grab life by the balls.”

“Willis,” Catherine would sigh. Though her tone would be admonishing, her eyes would sparkle with mirth, and her lips would be tilted ever so slightly into a loving smile, “You could phrase it a bit better.”

“No point in mincing words, Cath.” Willis would huff.

“I ain’t exactly little no more, Dad.” Jason whispered. He felt crazy, having an imaginary conversation with his dead parents, but he didn’t care. Not at that moment. 

“You’ll always be my Little Man. Even when you’re old and grey.”

“And you’ll always be my perfect boy.” Catherine would whisper, she’d pull Jason into her arms and hug him tight. Just like she’d done when he’d been a kid. When she’d had her good days.

“I love you both so much.” Jason couldn’t stop the tears that trickled down his cheeks, even if he’d wanted to. Despite years having passed, their deaths still hurt. It wasn’t the same stabbing pain as before, now the grief was a dull ache that pounded against Jason’s ribs. Always constant. 

“We love you too, son.” Their imagined voices blended into one. Memories of every time they’d declared those words whilst alive echoed in Jason’s heart. 

He knew what he had to do, he knew that his mum and dad would have wanted him to return to the family he’d found for himself. And that was what he planned to do.

Jason knew he couldn’t return to the Manor straight away. For all that he yearned to return to his childhood bedroom and the cosy family room, he knew that he had to make contact with his family on neutral ground first, an objective that was hard to achieve when he didn’t actually want to alert his family to his presence. It was counterintuitive, he knew, but he wanted to observe them first. Part of him, the petty part of him, wanted to give them a dose of their own medicine. They’d turned up out of the blue to confront him multiple times, he thought he was well within his rights to do the same to them. 

Thankfully, the opportunity to observe his family in the wild fell across his lap only a few days after he visited the graveyard. As was the annual tradition, Bruce was hosting a charity gala at the Gotham Art Museum to raise money for the in-need people of Gotham. Jason remembers, with a fondness that he couldn’t hold back, listening to Bruce explain why he hosted this particular gala. It was used to raise money to increase the number of people the homeless shelters could take in over the winter period. Jason was all too aware of how hard it was to live on the streets during the winter. He’d stumbled across more than enough people who’d met their ends on the snowy Gotham streets. The gala had always held a special place in his heart, so it seemed the perfect setting to quietly stalk his family.

Initially, Jason was going to linger in the shadows. Maybe peer in from the windows and track his family’s progress through the room throughout the night, but he’d quickly discarded that idea. It was far too reminiscent of the sort of stalking he’d done whilst working as an assassin for Talia and Ra’s. Instead, despite knowing it increased his chances of getting caught, Jason infiltrated the gala on the ground. He stole a waiter’s uniform and snuck in through the kitchen, darting through fast enough that nobody could assail him with a tray to ferry around the ballroom. The flimsy fake moustache he’d pasted to his top lip was the only thing keeping him from being immediately recognisable. 

Very little had changed about the Gotham Society scene since Jason had died. Every conversation was still a thinly veiled bragging war, people were still clothed in outfits expensive enough to feed the people in the slums for weeks on end, and people were still clambering to get into Bruce’s good graces. Jason supposed the only difference now, compared to when he’d been younger, was that people were trying to ingratiate themselves with both Dick and Tim to get closer to Bruce. It was almost amusing to watch as Tim nodded politely to the ancient old man babbling away at him, his eyes glazed over with boredom. It was hilarious to watch as Dick put his charms to work on a slew of middle-aged women, all of whom hung on to his every word. Though he couldn’t be part of it, Jason felt his heart warm slightly at the sight of his family. 

Smiling covertly to himself, Jason took another turn around the room, eyes peeled for any more amusing sights. He was just preparing to make his quiet exit when he felt eyes on the back of his head. Subconsciously, Jason knew that this wasn’t the first time over the course of the night that he’d been silently observed. His disguise was lacklustre at best, so it was no surprise that when he turned to ascertain who was observing him, he came face to face with Bruce, recognition shining bright in his stormy eyes. 

Despite knowing it was a fruitless ordeal, Jason spun on his heel and darted towards the closest exit. It was almost guaranteed that Bruce would catch up with him, but he couldn’t help but hope that one of the many simpering socialites would slow his dad down just long enough for him to escape. He’d known that this, coming face to face with Bruce, was a risk of coming to the gala, but he couldn’t temper that burning desire to see his family again. He wanted to see them engaging in the regular mundanity of life, not just when they were dressed up to tackle the endless slew of corruption and crime in their cursed city.

“Jason.” 

He knew it was pointless to try to run away from Bruce, he never should have doubted the man’s ability to wriggle out of seemingly every situation that he found himself in. Even when he wasn’t donning his cowl, Bruce was an extremely competent and resourceful man. 

Frozen in place, Jason slowly looked over his shoulder. 

Bruce looked older. Jason knew that, of course, from their confrontation only a few weeks prior, but it was still hard to see. Grey was starting to creep in at his temples, and the lines around his eyes had deepened, but not to a degree that aged him dramatically. Bruce was scarcely in his 40s, and yet the deep look of sorrow in his stormy blue eyes aged him more than the strands of grey ever could.

“Jason.” Bruce repeated. There was something so hard about hearing the awe and sorrow in his dad’s voice. 

It was on the tip of his tongue, he was going to say ‘Bruce’ as neutrally as he could. He wasn’t going to give away his conflicted thoughts of returning home; he wasn’t going to give Bruce an inch, because he’d inevitably take a mile in return. But he couldn’t bring himself to respond so impersonally, so casually. There was nothing casual about the desperation that surged and roiled in Jason’s chest. Nothing casual about the tears beading in his eyes at the sight of his dad.

“Dad.” Jason’s voice cracked. If Dick had been there, if it had been three years ago, he’d have ruthlessly teased Jason about it for months. But they weren’t three years ago, they were standing in the opulent corridor of the Gotham Art Museum. Jason was nearly a foot taller and significantly more unstable, and Bruce was greying at the temples and gazing at him like the world had delivered him his greatest wish. Maybe it had. 

“Jason… I didn’t expect to see you here.” Bruce said slowly, “Tim and Dick said that you were…”

Jason could guess what Bruce was going to say. Resistant. Difficult to talk to. Acting like an asshole. 

“That you were taking time to think. I hadn’t expected to see you for quite some time.”

Though it took great effort, Jason finally turned his entire body to face his dad, scoffing all the while in a valiant effort to appear less affected than he was. “Don’t sound too happy to see me, old man. I’ll be out of your hair soon.”

“You don’t have to leave, Son.” Bruce Wayne rarely sounded desperate. Desperation was not an emotion that he tended to adopt, not in his civilian life and not as Batman, but Jason always seemed to bring it out of him. Whether it was desperately clutching his son’s dead body to his chest or desperately begging for him to come home, Jason was one of the very few people who could get Bruce to act desperate. 

“You can come home. We want you to come home.” Bruce said, eyes pleading, “We don’t have to talk about Joker, or where you’ve been, if you don’t want to. Not yet. Just come home to us. Come home to me”

It was always uncanny to see your parents act in a way so vastly different to the image you had of them in your head. To Jason, Bruce had always been an immovable object. Standing strong against the tide of crime and catastrophe that came with the job of being Batman. Whilst he wasn’t an emotionless husk of a man, he didn’t allow himself many outward expressions of his deep and caring nature. The man in front of him, tears wetting his eyelashes and face crumpled with need, was not the image that Jason had retained in his head for all of these years. And yet… Jason didn’t love him any less for it.

“I won’t force you, Jay,” Bruce said gently, “Just know that you’re always welcome. I love you, Son.”

With his emotions swelling, yet again, Jason just nodded and absconded into the night. Yet again, his response was trapped in his chest, refusing to burst forth no matter how much he wanted to let the words out. 

I love you too.

Four simple words. 

Silently, Jason promised himself he would return to the manor soon. He promised himself he would tell his family how much they meant to him, no matter how hard it was to get the words out. 

There were only so many times that Jason could deny himself. After every visit from a family member, after every deep spiral of loneliness and self-loathing, and after every dream reminding him of what he used to have, Jason’s resolve to stay away from Wayne Manor weakened. Coming face-to-face with Bruce at the gala was the final event that snapped his resolve. 

Even as he kept to the shadows, skulking towards his former home, Jason knew that it was a stupid idea to return. If not because he still wasn’t sure if his family could accept the man that he’d become, then because returning would inevitably cause a slew of hard-to-confront memories to surface. He’d found happiness in Wayne Manor, he’d found a new family, but he’d also screwed that up. Nevertheless, despite his conflicting emotions, Jason powered on. He’d decided to break in during mid-morning, when it was very unlikely that anyone would be about. Bruce and Dick would be at work, Tim didn’t live in the manor (and even if he did, he’d be at school), and seeing as it was a Wednesday, Alfred would be out doing his mid-week errands. The Manor would be empty, and Jason would be free to roam it until he saw fit to leave. He still wasn’t sure if he’d stick around until his family returned home.

The cameras were easy enough to avoid. Their positions hadn’t changed in the years since Jason’s death, and he’d spent many a night evading their views towards the end of his stay at Wayne Manor. When the arguments with Bruce got worse, and he wanted to get away from the all-encompassing feeling that the Manor inspired. It was odd to look back now, how had Jason ever viewed the Manor as a prison? Looking at it now, with its imposing Gothic architecture, Jason didn’t see the prison that his 15-year-old self had seen. No, instead, he saw a safe haven that he didn’t deserve entry to.

With hesitant steps and stuttered breaths, Jason eased the front door open with the key that was always hidden beneath the faux flagstone to the left of the door. The pin to the key safe under the flagstone (30031939) was still the same. Jason would say it was unlike Bruce to be so lax about his security in this manner, but he knew that the number was sentimental to Bruce for reasons he wasn’t privy to. And for all that Bruce was sometimes over the top about security, he wasn’t immune to sentimentality. 

Stepping into the entry hall was like stepping back in time. Jason hadn’t truly expected much to change in the time that he’d been dead. In a place like Wayne Manor, things rarely ever changed. A rug may be exchanged on occasion, a vase’s position may be changed, but nothing truly ever changes. Bruce had told him, once, that he found comfort in that fact. Most of the house looked just as it did when Bruce was a child, when his parents had still been alive. He’d explained, whilst gently running his fingers through a 12-year-old Jason’s hair, that it felt like he could turn a corner and run into his parents at any moment. Jason had replied that it probably wasn’t very healthy, and Bruce had shrugged and agreed with a slight smile. 

Those times had been simpler. 

Jason shook himself out of the memory and continued through the hall, eyes sweeping over every unchanged detail. The mahogany table was still by the door. The navy runner was still carpeting the stairs. Nearly everything was the same. Nearly. 

Before Jason had died, a painting of Martha and Thomas had hung directly opposite the entryway. It had been a recreation of their wedding picture; they’d both been smiling widely with love shining in their eyes. Bruce had insisted it must remain there, where it had been since before he was born. Every time Jason had entered the house, the smiling eyes of the grandparents he’d never met had greeted him. That was no longer the case. 

In place of Martha and Thomas’ portrait, there was another painting. Jason scarcely even remembers sitting for the picture that was taken as a reference for the painting. Bruce has corralled him and a sullen Dick into the library and had the painter pose them to her liking before a picture was snapped of them, and they were dismissed. Looking at that painting now, Jason felt his heart clench. 

In the painting, Bruce was sitting in his favourite wingbacked chair, eyes forward. His eyes were filled with love, and his lips were tilted into the gentle smile that he always got when he looked at both Jason and Dick. It was his fatherly, loving smile. So few people were privy to that expression, and yet the artist had captured it perfectly. To Bruce’s left, Dick was leaning casually (but artfully) against Bruce’s chair. Hair roguishly ruffled, a teasing smirk on his face. And to Bruce’s right, Jason stood with a beaming smile. He was twelve, nearly thirteen, when the painting was completed. He’d still been small for his age, so he looked much younger in the painting. 

The painting had once hung in the family room. Bruce had hung it there, under Jason’s watchful eye, with pride-filled eyes and a small smile. Jason had thought it an honour to be hung in the family room; he’d never even considered that Bruce would replace the painting of his parents with that same painting. It was inconceivable, and yet here he was, staring up at the painting that had made him feel like he truly belonged. 

What did it mean? Why had Bruce replaced the painting of his parents with the painting of the three of them? Was it a self-torture method to remind himself of the son he had lost? Was it a way of keeping Jason close? Jason didn’t know. He couldn’t pretend to fully understand the confusing depths of Bruce’s mind. 

After minutes of staring at the portrait, Jason managed to pull himself away, tears beading in his eyes. It felt like all he did was cry, these days. 

Jason traversed the Manor slowly. He ran his fingers over the sofa in the family room, memories of arguing with Dick over video games and films were embedded in the soft upholstery. He breathed in the comforting old-page scent of the library, remembering the numerous hours he’d spent huddled in the chair closest to the window, the one that had a perfect view of the ‘pond’ (it was a lake, Jason didn’t know why Bruce insisted on calling it a pond). He peered into Bruce’s office. He couldn’t bring himself to actually step inside, but the sight of numerous pictures of himself, both alone and with Bruce and Dick, caused his throat to swell with suppressed emotions. Bruce spent the most time in his office, the fact that there were reminders of Jason on practically every surface in the room said everything that Bruce was too emotionally constipated to express properly. 

Jason’s last stop in his little tour of the manor was his bedroom. 

His last memory of the room was blurry, at best. His mind had been too hazy with fear and an impending sense of doom, convinced that his family hated him, for him to have truly paid attention to the state he left his room in. Paradoxically, despite his certainty that Bruce was going to kick him out, he’d left that manor that day with the belief that he’d return in just a few short days. If only to collect his more sentimental belongings. He hadn’t planned on dying that day, though he supposed very few people actually planned to die.

Standing before the door to his childhood room now, Jason couldn’t help but hesitate. Would he enter and find it converted into a guest room? He couldn’t see that being true. Though he may have returned to Gotham with the notion that he had been swiftly forgotten, he’d been disabused of that notion several times over. Just walking through the manor had demonstrated the little (and not so little) things that had been changed to keep his memory alive. To keep him a part of the family, even if they were only clinging to the memory of him. No, he doubted his room had been changed. But had it been cleaned? Did Alfred go in there once every two weeks to dust and straighten the pictures littered around?

There was only one way for Jason to know. With a deep breath and sweaty palms, Jason entered the room.

Stepping into his bedroom was like stepping back in time. His homework was still open on his desk, abandoned that fateful night. His favourite jacket, the one Dick said he only had because he was copying him, was still hanging from the back of the chair. Every surface was dustless, confirming his suspicion that Alfred still came in to clean, despite the futility in such an action. The only sign of anything being out of place was the indent in his bed covers. They hadn’t been pulled back; it simply looked as though someone had lain on the bed without thinking to push the covers back. The room was a shrine, a perfect memorial to the 15-year-old boy who had once taken up space in the lives of the people around him.

Jason had long since run out of tears to shed. Even the sight of the picture on his bedside table didn’t bring a tear to his eye, though his chest did pang tightly with dull grief. It was the picture his mother had taken of them, outside the cinema, on his ninth birthday. His mother had died just a few weeks after the photo was taken, but you wouldn’t have known it. Her smile was wide, her emerald eyes shining with such love. Her arms, thin and pale, were wrapped adoringly around Jason’s frail shoulders. He hadn’t known he had missed the picture as much as he did until he was holding it in his hands. It was the last picture he had of her; it had been his treasure whilst he’d been on the streets, never leaving his person. 

“What would you think of me now, Ma?” Jason whispered as he ran a finger over her printed face. Once, he’d promised his mother he would go to college and help people. He supposed he had halfway fulfilled that promise, and whether he truly believed that varied from day to day. 

Slowly, Jason lowered himself onto his bed and looked up at the crimson canopy above him. He’d fallen asleep to that sight more times than he could remember, from the ages of eleven to fifteen. As his mind wandered and his eyelids grew heavy from the emotions of the day, Jason allowed himself to believe that things could be better again. He’d never have what he once had with his family, he wasn’t naive, and he knew they weren’t either, but there was hope for him yet, and that was all that mattered.

Ordinarily, waking up was a jarring experience for Jason. One moment, he was fast asleep, and the next, he was jolting awake, eyes searching the room for any foes. Being trained by the League of Shadows will do that to a person. This time, however, Jason didn’t jolt into consciousness. This time, Jason woke up slowly, his awareness floating into his body gently, a much nicer way to wake up in his opinion. 

With a contented sigh, Jason shuffled on the bed, burying his nose into his pillow. Vaguely, he was aware of a scent, it was familiar. The woodsy smell reminded him of hugging his dad by the River Avon in Bath, that one time Bruce had taken him to the UK. In his sleep-hazed mind, Jason decided not to dwell on why his pillow smelled like Bruce’s cologne. Instead, he just took comfort in the familiarity, allowing the tension to bleed from his body. 

It took a few minutes for his murky mind to notice, but Jason eventually realised he wasn’t alone in the room. He could feel eyes on his back, presumably, his observer was sitting at his desk. His first instinct was to pull the knife from his ankle sheath and attack, but his logic kicked in before he could follow through with that plan. He was in Wayne Manor, there were very few people in the world who could get into the fortress of a house without triggering the numerous alarm systems, and the majority of those people would not have any plan to hurt him.

Slowly, his prior tension firmly back in his frame, Jason turned over in his bed. Opposite him, his hair a shade greyer than the last time he’d seen him, Alfred sat smiling at him with sad eyes. 

“Alfie.” Jason said near silently. He should have expected Alfred to find him, especially given that he had fallen asleep. A glance at the clock on the wall told Jason it was 2 pm; Alfred had likely finished his errands over an hour ago. Had he been sitting there, watching Jason sleep, that entire time? It wouldn’t be the strangest thing someone in the family had done.

“Master Jason, my boy,” Alfred said, his voice thick with emotion “Welcome home.”

Jason immediately wanted to rebut. This wasn’t his home anymore. But everything he had seen told an entirely different story. It was hard to deny that he still had a place in the family when there were reminders of him spread throughout the entire manor. 

The tears that Jason hadn’t been able to cry prior to falling asleep finally fell. The sight of Alfred, visibly older but still as strong as ever, was the final nail in the coffin. He was home. 

The ease with which Alfred wrapped his arms around Jason’s much larger frame was comforting. Like sitting next to a fire after a day spent trudging through skin-numbing winds. His fingers ran through the thick hair at the nape of Jason’s neck as he hummed an old song that Jason had heard him singing whilst cooking. He didn’t feel eighteen, at that moment, fresh off an anger-fueled rampage, he felt eleven again. His tears slowed, and his breathing calmed, but Alfred didn’t let go. He pulled Jason tighter into his chest and continued to hum the little melody on loop.

“I missed you, Alfie.” Jason whispered brokenly, “I missed you all, even though I didn’t want to.”

“We missed you too, Master Jason.” Alfred hummed in reply, “More than I think any of us could possibly verbalise.”

“Try.” It was said with hesitance, Jason didn’t like to demand things of Alfred, but he couldn’t help the insecurity that nagged at him. He’d heard, time and time again, from Dick, Tim and Bruce that he’d been missed, but he wanted to hear it again. He wanted to hear it from Alfred, the man who seemingly glued the family together in more than one way.

“We were all distraught, as you’d expect.” Alfred started, not even hesitating, “I think watching Master Bruce come down the jet ramp with you in his arms was one of the worst days of my life. He… I don’t think I’ve ever seen Master Bruce like that. He was completely unresponsive; he’d go days without eating. Every second of every day for an entire month was spent right here, in your bedroom. He’d stare at pictures, he would refuse to eat. When Martha and Thomas died, it was similar, but the shock was shorter. After three days, he started crying and having nightmares, but it wasn’t like that when you died. Losing a parent is different from losing a child. After a month, he finally got up again, but he was reckless. He threw himself into cape work. I was sure he was going to get himself killed, until Master Tim showed up.”

Jason listened to this with his heart in his mouth. The depths of Bruce’s despair had been alluded to, but to hear it so frankly was both refreshing and heartbreaking. 

“Master Dick, was away, as you may recall, when you died. And Master Bruce was in no state to tell him when he finally returned. The fallout from that… I try not to dwell on it, but their relationship was extremely fraught for the year following your death, even when Master Tim started training with both of them for the Robin role. As with most things, they reconciled eventually, and they came to share their grief.”

“What about you, Alfred?” Jason asked after a moment’s silence. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you haven’t spoken about yourself.”

Alfred chuckled quietly, “As perceptive as ever, my boy. Of course, I was upset. It hurt me to my very soul that you were gone, it was painful to see what your death did to Bruce and Dick. But someone had to keep everything ticking along, did they? I’ve lost many people in my life, Jason, and it hurts every single time anew. But I carry on, because that’s what’s needed of me.”

It was sad, Jason couldn’t help but think, that Alfred had relegated his own grief as less important than that of Bruce and Dick. He knew that was simply the type of person that Alfred was, but he deserved the space and time to grieve, too.

Alfred’s arms squeezed Jason’s shoulders a bit tighter for a second, “You were missed, Jason, and we would like nothing more than for you to come home. Whether you stay until you feel ready to leave again, or whether you only visit once a month, you will always be welcome.”

“I’m not the boy I used to be, Alfie,” Jason said, “How can any of you love me with the things I’ve done. I’ve broken Bruce’s number one rule, and I’ve hurt so many people. I’ve changed.”

“That is simply part of growing up, my dear boy.” Alfred replied gently, “We all change. Bruce has changed so many times in his life, from the energetic boy he once was, to a brooding teen, to a hesitant but loving parent, to a closed-off man scared to let anyone else in lest it break his heart. But through every evolution, I have loved him, just as he will always love you. We will love you, come rain or shine, because that’s what our family does. Yes?”

“Okay.” 

Jason followed Alfred around the Manor, like a lost duckling, for the rest of the day. He accompanied him into the garden to pull weeds, he helped start the dinner preparations for the night, and he sat quietly in the corner as Alfred dusted Bruce’s office. They didn’t speak all that much, they didn’t have to. Simply existing in a comfortable silence together was good enough for Jason. Unfortunately, their peace couldn’t last. 

One by one, people started to return home. Tim pushed through the front door, head buried in his handheld gaming console, waving a vague greeting to Alfred. Jason, upon hearing the boy’s steps, had hidden, though he wasn’t sure Tim would have noticed his presence anyway, given how absorbed he was in his game. 

Next, Dick returned. With heavy bags beneath his eyes and slumped shoulders, he’d hugged Alfred in greeting before shuffling upstairs towards his bedroom. Jason didn’t doubt that he was going for a quick power nap before dinner started. Once again, Jason had eluded being spotted. Part of him, the childish part that had never truly died, wanted to save his surprise appearance for the dinner table. It would be much more dramatic, he felt, than just standing in the foyer. 

Finally, with only fifteen minutes until dinner was going to be served, Bruce walked through the side door, the one that opened into the garden. Jason was very nearly spotted, it was only by luck that he hadn’t been. Bruce had been looking at his phone, eyebrows furrowed and lips silently moving as he’d marched across the kitchen, towards his office. Absentmindedly, he’d muttered a greeting to Alfred, who hadn’t even been in the room. 

With everyone now home, Jason knew that there was very little time before he would have to reveal himself to the family. Of course, he could’ve just left. He hadn’t promised anyone that he would stay for dinner; three of the house’s occupants didn’t even know he was there, but he couldn’t bring himself to turn his back on this opportunity. Not this time. If he’d had any doubts about returning to his family before setting foot in the manor, they had swiftly been brushed away. That’s not to say he wasn’t still cautious. He expected things to go wrong, he expected there to be disagreements, but he at least wanted to try. He wanted to give them the chance to prove that they loved more than the boy he had once been, and he wanted to give himself the chance to return to the family he’d never stopped loving. 

Taking a deep, rattling breath, Jason squared his shoulders and marched towards the dining room. It wasn’t the formal formal dining room that was reserved for very specific and special events, but it was still wildly elaborate nonetheless. Just a symptom of living in a historic manor. 

He was the first to enter the room, which he supposed made sense, seeing as there were ten minutes left until dinner. He spent half of that time staring off into space and fiddling with his fingers. Every other thought was a desperate plea to protect himself, to run away and try again another day. After five minutes of this internal strife, the door to the dining room squeaked open and Tim shuffled into the room, his head still buried in his game. 

Jason couldn’t help but wonder where the kid’s parents were. He knew they were still alive, surely they should be questioning why their son was having dinner at the neighbour’s house? Jason didn’t know Tim’s family situation, but he was endlessly curious. 

For such a smart and observant teenager, Tim didn’t look up once from where he was absorbed in his gaming. He muttered what may have been a greeting to Bruce, most likely mistaking the tall, muscular figure in the peripherals of his vision for the older man. Jason wasn’t sure whether he should address Tim or not, he couldn’t help but think it would be awkward to speak to him outside of their costumes. They weren’t that different in age, only separated by nearly three years, and yet they were so vastly different. Jason supposed that was both a good and a bad thing. He wouldn’t wish what he’d been through on Tim, even with the lingering vestiges of quiet resentment that smouldered in his chest. 

Before Jason could work up the nerve to address Tim, the doors swung open once again, though this time with more force. Dick bound in, still looking vaguely sleepy, but awake enough to have a pep to his step.

As soon as his eyes landed on Jason, Dick froze in place. His eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open rather comically. For a moment, there was a loaded silence, it was enough to prompt Tim to tear his eyes away from his game and look at Dick with open curiosity. 

“Jason…” Dick whispered, almost as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.

Tim’s head whipped around so fast that Jason was surprised the kid didn’t give himself whiplash. His mouth also dropped open with shock, eyes wide and shining.

“How long have you been there?” He all but demanded. His video game was the last thing on his mind now. 

“Since before you came in, kid. Some detective you are.” Jason scoffed. 

Suddenly, Jason was knocked backwards by the flying force of Dick launching himself at him. Arms wrapped around Jason’s shoulders, and ebony strands of hair tickled his nose and assaulted his tongue.

“Your hair is in my mouth!” Jason tried to push Dick away, but his older brother wasn’t having any of it. He squeezed Jason tight, seemingly doing everything he could to annoy him upon their reunion. He wouldn’t put it past Dick to annoy him on purpose. 

“Little Wing, you’re here!”

“Yeah, I’m here, and you’re crushing me! Get your fat ass off of me before I make you!”

“Just a little longer.”

“Get off of me, Dickhead!”

“Boys, why are we shouting in the dining room?” 

Jason’s stomach dropped out of his ass. Conflicting emotions arose at the sound of that deep, but soothing, voice. 

“Bruce, Jason’s here.” Dick said as he pulled away and finally restored Jason’s sight of the room. 

Standing in the doorway, an expression of shock on his face, was his dad. For all that Bruce usually disguised his emotions with carefully constructed masks, it seemed he wasn’t able to hide his shock in this circumstance. Jason revelled, just a bit, in causing such an outward display of emotion yet again. He never got tired of prompting Bruce’s more noticeable displays of emotion.

“Jason…” Bruce muttered, “I… We weren’t expecting you.”

“Don’t sound too excited, old man.” Jason grumbled, “I can leave if you want.”

Jason loathed the thought of leaving. He was here, he was trying to reconnect, just like they wanted him to. Like he wanted to. If he was turned away, he didn’t know how he’d handle it. 

“No! No. Stay. Of course you’re welcome, Jaylad.” Bruce said as he hesitantly took his seat at the head of the table. 

After the excitement of Jason’s sudden appearance at the dinner table, the meal carried on in its normal course. Alfred brought the food out at 7 pm on the dot. They maintained surface-level, menial chatter as the meal continued. Nobody was willing to address the elephant in the room, and a gentle tension simmered throughout the course of the meal. Jason complimented Alfred’s cooking, he asked what game had Tim so invested, he made general small talk with Bruce and Dick. 

All in all, Jason would say it was a successful meal, but he knew that his peace couldn’t last.

“Dick, you’re on table-clearing duty today. Tim, you’re washing up, and I don’t want to hear any complaints. It will do you good to get away from that screen. Thank you, Alfred, for a wonderful meal, as always.” Bruce said, “Jason… I think we need to have a talk.”

Jason knew it was coming, yet his nerves mounted, and his breathing sped up all the same. He pushed these bodily reactions down and nodded as calmly as he could.

“Yes, I think so.”

“Come on, we can talk in my office.”

The walk to Bruce’s office had been done in silence. There was an air of awkwardness around them that made Jason want to fidget with his sleeves, but he stopped himself. He couldn’t show Bruce that he was nervous; he knew it was unlikely that his dad would use it against him at this point in time, but you never knew what could be used against you in the future. Living with the League of Shadows had taught Jason to always be aware of how your actions could be used against you.

When they arrived at his office, Bruce took a seat next to the fireplace, the large wing-backed chair managing to both dwarf him and make him look regally powerful at the same time. It was a juxtaposition that should’ve been impossible, and yet Bruce managed it. He had always been in the habit of managing seemingly impossible things. 

Hesitantly, Jason sank into the chair opposite Bruce, eyes roaming over the mantle in an effort to avoid Bruce’s piercing eyes. Even when he wasn’t trying to be intimidating, his sharp intelligence and wit shone through in his eyes. Jason didn’t understand how he maintained his vapid persona when you only had to look into his eyes to see that he was constantly assessing his surroundings, psychoanalysing every person he came across.

For some time, they sat in silence. Bruce’s eyes rarely strayed from cataloguing Jason’s entire being, and Jason only darted his eyes over to look at his dad when he ran out of things to scrutinise in the office around them. The stalemate could have carried on for an age; neither man was opposed to long silences, but it was Bruce who finally fractured the awkwardness between them. 

“Its good to see you, Jason.” He said. Someone unfamiliar with Bruce Wayne may not have heard the blatant relief in his voice, but Jason could hear it. 

His automatic response, the one on the tip of his tongue, was snarky denial. He wanted to refute Bruce’s claim with acerbic words and threatening sneers. But he withheld that response. It wouldn’t be constructive, Jason knew that. When he came to the manor, he knew he was setting himself up for some hard conversations, and the only way they would be productive was if he pushed his defensive reactions to the back of his mind and allowed himself to be fully truthful. If he wanted Bruce to be truthful with him, it was only fair that he do the same. 

“Yeah, it's… I missed the manor.”

They could both read between the lines. Of course, Jason had missed the manor, but he also missed his family. 

“I was worried you wouldn’t accept my offer to return… to the manor.” 

“You weren’t the first to ask. Tim and Dick got to me first, practically hunted me down to beg me to come back.” Jason tried to inject some humour into his voice, and he was sure he was somewhat successful based on the uptick of Bruce’s lips, but it wasn’t enough to dispel the tension between them. 

“I’m glad your brothers took initiative, even if I told them to give you space.” Bruce paused, his eyes finally darting away from Jason to look at one of the pictures on the mantle. It was a picture of him and his parents, all smiling toothily. “I think we need to clear the air about some things. Given what you said when… When we last saw each other in uniform.”

This had been the part that Jason was dreading. He knew they couldn’t avoid talking about it, the gripes Jason had with Bruce, but he had hoped for a bit more time to gather his thoughts. He shouldn’t have expected that time, Bruce had always been direct when it suited him. 

“I want to make it clear,” Bruce pushed on, “That I never stopped loving. I have loved you since the moment you became my son, and I will continue to love you no matter what happens.”

Swallowing the desperate need to deflect, Jason dug his nail into his palm and spoke.

“I understand that in theory, but it's hard to reconcile that with the look you gave me when you thought I killed Felipe. I didn’t kill him, but you didn’t believe me. My place in the family, my worthiness in your eyes, felt like it was contingent on me being a good Robin for you. When you looked at me that night, all I could see was your disappointment and disgust in me.”

“I have never believed that you killed Felipe on purpose,” Bruce said, holding up a hand to forestall Jason’s rebuttals, “Whilst I didn’t have a clear view of what happened, I saw you try to grab him as he fell. I saw you try to save him. You… You were angry at 15, Jason. And you can’t deny that, and I can’t blame you for it. You had a lot to be angry about, with the state of Gotham and Dick and me being on the outs again. I may have suggested a break from Robin, had what happened not happened, but I would have made it clear that you’re still my son and that I love you.”

Jason could feel a tight ball of emotion rising from his chest to clog his throat. He refused to cry, not yet, but Bruce was making it incredibly hard. 

“When I realised what you had done, where you had gone, I immediately flew to you. Looking back on it, I wish I had called Clark or Diana, but I was so scared that it felt like all logic abandoned me. In part, aside from making you feel as though you had lost your place in the family, that is why I blame myself for your death. If I had actually thought before acting, I might have been able to save you. I… I arrived just as the warehouse exploded.”

“You were there?” Jason’s voice, a whisper of a sound, was shocked. He’d died thousands of miles away from home, but apparently, a piece of it had been just steps from him.

“I was there.” Bruce’s voice was choked, thick with emotions that he never allowed himself to feel. It was only now, in front of the son that he thought he’d lost forever, that he allowed some of the grief-filled tears to spill over, “I was there. I held you in my arms as you took your final breath. I remember, so clearly, how you smiled, just a little bit, when you died. It was like you were trying to reassure me.”

Jason didn’t remember every detail of his death. He remembered being beaten, but not so much that he recalled every hit and how much it hurt. He remembered dragging his battered body across the floor, Sheila’s wails accompanying his every movement. He remembered red numbers ticking down on a clock; he couldn’t look at digital alarm clocks without feeling a sense of foreboding dread suffuse his body. And, he remembered warm arms surrounding him as he passed away. He had always thought that last memory was just a consequence of his dying mind, a hallucination to ease him into the quiet depths of death. Apparently not. 

“After your death,” Bruce continued, it seemed he was going to lay out the entire story for Jason, “I was a changed man. There is something about losing a child that truly fractures a person. I was scarcely living. I caught up to Joker, and I nearly killed him with my own two hands before letting a helicopter crash do the work for me. Sometimes, and I need you to know this, Jason, I regret not killing him. Of course I do. But… I just can’t do it. I’ve come closer than I like to admit more times than I’m comfortable with, and I can just never do it.”

Jason watched guilt and anger flicker across Bruce’s face. 

“I was a changed man. I was harsher, less careful. I threw myself into fights and didn’t care about the consequences. The crooks I fought emerged from our fights barely clinging to life. I was excessive. I think, when I donned that uniform, I was looking for something to kill me, so I wouldn’t have to do it myself. You were dead. Dick was furious with me. I felt like a burden on Alfred. The Justice League tried to help, to reel me back in, but I stopped answering their calls. Clark and Diana tried to talk to me, but I have ways of dodging them. It went on like that for six months. Only one person pulled me from that spiral, and that was Tim.”

A small, almost reluctant, smile broke out on Bruce’s lips. It was the sort of smile he allowed to emerge when he used to watch Dick and Jason playing video games way too competitively, or when Jason perfected a move during training. Jason wished he could bring himself to be jealous about the fact that such a smile was being directed at Tim, his replacement, but the stirrings of jealousy he’d come to Gotham with had long since faded. Perhaps he was a little envious, but not enough to be angry at Tim. Not anymore.

“One day, I turned around, and there he was. He’d figure out who I was because of one of Dick’s over-the-top flips.” Bruce rolled his eyes and chuckled, “He was a pipsqueak, much like you were at his age. He was maybe only slightly taller than you were. I recognised him from the few times his parents brought him along to galas. He looked me dead in the eye and said that I needed to take Dick back as Robin because I was hurting myself. Obviously, that wasn’t going to happen. And then he risked his life to save mine.”

Shaking his head, Bruce’s gaze was once again pinned on Jason. “Its a habit all of my Robins seem to have. I knew he wouldn’t give up. I could see my stubbornness in him, so I agreed to train him, I knew he’d get himself killed otherwise. Training him made me focus on someone else. I had to keep him safe, so I had to be safe. I can’t say he cured me, but he made me more responsible again. He made me the Batman I should be, again. I… I understand why it felt like you were replaced, but nobody could ever replace you. Just as you didn’t replace Dick, Tim could never replace you. You’re all my sons, to varying degrees of legality, and you always will be.”

There was silence for a moment, Bruce’s eyes implored him to understand his side of the story. To understand what he’d been through in Jason’s absence. Silently, Jason nodded. The tension in Bruce’s frame eased a bit, though Jason could now see the questions swimming in his dad’s eyes. He supposed it was time to lay out his own little story.

“I don’t know how I’m alive. I know I dug my way out of my grave. I remember that, but after that, everything is a bit of a blur. Apparently, after escaping my grave, I tried to come here, but I was taken.”

“By who?”

“I was about to tell you, old man, I didn’t interrupt you when you were monologuing.” Jason rolled his eyes and ignored Bruce’s quiet amusement. “It was Talia. The League of Shadows kidnapped me and kept me while I was in a catatonic state. They hoped to train me so that I could be a weapon of sorts, I guess. And whilst my body was taking all of the training on board, they couldn’t do anything with me whilst I was in a catatonic state, so they threw me in the Lazarus Pit to fix my mind.”

Jason rushed through his explanation. He didn’t want to linger on the details, lest he be pulled back into blurry half memories of his initial time with the League. He watched as Bruce’s face transformed, bit by bit, from careful neutrality to the kind of rage that Jason had never truly seen before. 

With a lethal silence, Bruce stood from his chair and paced closer to the fireplace. His head was bowed, and his back was to Jason as he said, “What happened after that?”

“I had Lazarus Fever, obviously. I…killed some people when I emerged from the pit. Talia, she was the only one who ever really communicated with me. She told me that you had replaced me, that you didn’t love me anymore, that I didn’t have a family. She gave me purpose; I went on missions for the League. Eventually, I decided to come back to Gotham to kill Joker… and confront you, I guess.”

Jason shrugged awkwardly. He didn’t know what else to say, especially when Bruce had his back to him, and there was clear tension in every muscle of his body.

“Talia knew you were alive this whole time, and she didn’t think to tell me.” Bruce muttered scathingly, though his anger wasn’t directed at Jason. 

They were silent for some time. Jason could practically see Bruce’s mind whirling as he sorted through his anger. Jason had more to say, but he didn’t know if Bruce was in the right headspace to hear it. Would his words just upset Bruce more, make him turn the anger stewing inside of him on Jason? He wasn’t sure. He knew his dad very well, but this was an uncharted situation. He had never seen so much restrained anger in his father.

“I will be having a talk with Talia very soon, I think.” Bruce finally said after seemingly reining in his mounting anger. 

“I’m just gonna rip off the bandaid,” Jason blurted. He kept his head bowed as he spoke, unwilling to look Bruce in the eyes. He couldn’t bear it if the love he saw there transformed into apathy once he'd finished speaking, “I don’t think I can ever fully forgive you for not doing something about Joker. I understand that you feel that you can’t, and I understand that you thought that you had done something, but it still hurts me on a level much deeper than logic that he was allowed to exist when you thought I didn’t. I know it's illogical of me, but-”

Arms encircled Jason for the first time in a very long time. Their warmth was exactly the same, and even if he was bigger than he had been at fifteen, Jason still found himself sinking into the warmth of his dad’s hug like he was still that little boy Bruce had plucked from the streets. 

“We all have people that we can’t fully forgive.” Bruce whispered into Jason’s thick hair, “Even knowing that my parents’ murderer was so inebriated he doesn’t even remember killing them, I still can’t forgive him. I understand his circumstances, I understand why he did what he did, but I can never fully forgive him.”

“I don’t think it's the same, Dad.” Jason muttered into Bruce’s shoulder.

“It's similar enough.” Bruce disregarded, “Are you going to hate me forever and never love me again?”

“I never hated you. I was angry, but I never hated you. I never stopped wanting to be your son.”

“Then I don’t care if a small, illogical part of you will always blame me a little bit. I’m sure Dick has many things he can’t forgive me for. Family is messy, it's difficult, but we love each other anyway, right?”

Silently, Jason nodded into the crook of Bruce’s neck. He did love his family. Who knew, maybe one day he would forgive Bruce. Despite what he’d said, he could see that forgiveness would find him one day if he let it. None of that mattered now, though. All Jason cared about was the hug his dad had wrapped him up in, and the feeling of belonging that had overcome him. He hadn't realised how fractured he’d felt until Bruce had hugged him again. 

Things wouldn’t always be perfect; Jason wasn’t naive enough to think that. He would have his spats with every member of his family. They hadn’t touched on the blood that stained Jason’s hands. There was still a lot they had to figure out. But, for the first time since he’d emerged from his grave, Jason felt a spark of a long-lost emotion flare to life in his chest. Hope. As a child, he’d always been very hopeful, even in the face of his various adversities. 

Now, finally back where he belonged, Jason allowed hope back into his life.