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The warehouse is a familiar nightmare. The heat, the sand, the despair. From inside, he hears the wild cackling of the Joker, and he thanks the years of therapy that help him push forward towards the hellscape waiting inside. He’s doing this for the kid, he reminds himself. This isn’t about him anymore—at least, not for the present him.
Under the laws of the multi-verse, Jason knows that he won’t be able to fix his own fate. Any change made here will not alter his life upon his return to his own time. He wouldn't be here if it did.
The League has studied time travel extensively, and according to their findings, changes to one’s own past simply create an offshoot alternate universe. Now, someone could travel to that new universe if they really wanted to escape their current timeline, but… somehow, against all the odds, Jason is happy with the life he’s built. He doesn’t want to escape or run away to some “better” alternate reality. Not even when handed the proverbial time travel golden ticket.
Somehow, Jason’s lucky enough to be happily married to Roy, the man he loves, and a proud father to Lian who’s finishing a Master’s at the end of the month, soon to be the most educated person in her family. He’s older now, well into his forties, and he has people who need him. He’s running social programs in the Alley, and he’s gone back to school. In the same week Lian walks across the stage, he’ll be picking up his GED so that he can apply for college in the fall. Despite never reconciling with Bruce, he has a relationship with his siblings and has a family in the Arrows.
It had all been an uphill battle—his journey for happiness—filled with hardship and tears and bruises, but it had been his battle. He would never want to erase all the events that make him… well, himself.
He’s fought hard to bring himself to this place in life where he’s able to look at the future instead of the past.
To see a future for himself.
To have a present where he’s loved.
All that being said, his own current happiness aside, when a witch gave him a magic orb that would let him go back in time to change one moment of his past, he knew he owed it to the fifteen year old boy who’d died to at least try to give him an easier life. Some other Jason Todd might not have to have that same uphill battle. That’s something he can live with.
If nothing else, it would mean finally getting to kill the clown without any fucking repercussions. When Jason pictures the Joker rotting away in Arkham, alive in his old age thanks to Bruce’s non-lethal decree from on high even after his retirement, it still makes his blood boil. After all these years, he still believes the Joker deserves to die. He knows Bruce is wrong in his views of justice. His therapist probably won’t be happy, but fuck it. Jason deserves to treat himself.
Some may call this trip back in time to the warehouse where he'd died a PTSD nightmare; others might call it a self-care retreat. Why couldn’t it be both?
Jason strides into the warehouse, sees the Joker cackling, a crowbar prized over his head ready to bludgeon a young Jason’s already beaten face. Sheila Haywood is tied to the post. The ticking time bomb primed to explode sits where it always sits in his nightmares.
But this time, Jason can actually do something about it.
With absolutely no fanfare, not even a quip, before the Joker even notices he's walked into the room, Jason takes out his revolver and fires a bullet right into the back of his head. Blood splatters as his skull ruptures open, and the Joker falls.
Just like that.
For good measure (and to treat himself one more time), he fires three more shots into the body. Maybe he can burn the corpse too before his time is up, just to make sure there’s no return. He smiles at the thought. A little arson, just for fun.
He feels something unknot in his chest, a tension that’s been his companion since his revival. The Joker is really… gone. He faced him and ended him. Just like that, one Jason Todd doesn’t have to die. Fuck fate. His smile stretches wider.
Lian is always saying that he needs to take time for himself, that he works too hard since Bruce retired. This is proof that he could think of himself every now and then. He’d be riding this high for months.
Unceremoniously, Jason walks over to the bomb and quickly cuts the wires he knows will disable it. It was Bruce, actually, who’d mapped the bomb out in the years following his death just so he’d know how close he was to arriving on time; Jason had, of course, studied it—the bomb that haunts his waking nightmares.
And here he is now: a simple cut of a wire, and he’s disabled it.
The Joker dead, and now the bomb disabled? It’s been over thirty years, and he still feels almost giddy from it.
The next order of business: Sheila Haywood, the mother who betrayed him. She stands tied up, trembling, eyes wide, begging him, pleading with him. She’s pathetic. He wants to feel resentment, but… in the end, she was a victim too. And somehow, she looks like a kid herself to Jason’s wisened eyes. How old had she been when she’d had Jason in the first place? He's probably older than she is now. Roy always says he’s too forgiving.
He cuts her rope and says through his voice modulator to the mother he never knew, “Get out, and don’t bother the kid again. You don’t deserve him, and he’s under my protection. Now get lost.”
For a moment, she stands frozen before she’s nodding furiously, frantically, and stumbling out the door like a newborn foal.
Good fucking riddance.
Jason breathes a sigh of relief, and for the first time, truly turns to look at himself.
He’s tiny. His face still has some baby fat, the bruises not fully disguising it. The Robin costume is torn, bloodied, and he’s staring wide-eyed with fear and hope blended in equal measures.
Something softens in his chest. For a moment, he forgets why he came here. This isn’t supposed to be for him; it’s for this little Jason who hasn’t been hardened yet by pain and disappointment and rage.
He’s just a kid.
“Who are you?” asks the teenager from his place on the floor. He’s putting on a brave face, but Jason knows his own tells. The kid is terrified.
When Jason removes his helmet (red, modified with bat ears), he expects his younger self to recognize him—his future self come back in time to do what Batman couldn’t, finally one-upping the man in a way he could never outdo. He’s unsurprised when the boy’s face morphs through confusion and into hope, even beneath the tears. He’d come to rescue himself, and he expects to be bombarded with questions and thanks.
Instead, the hopeful words that leave the child’s mouth freeze him where he stands.
“Bruce, you came.”
Only years worth of controlling his face keep his mouth closed because— what?
The kid thinks… he’s Bruce (an older Bruce, obviously, since he’s gone a bit white now, his white patch finally looking like it belongs). He’s had it pointed out to him that, of all of Bruce’s children (even Damian), he looks the most like Bruce, but he’s never really seen it before.
The kid thinks Bruce has come to save him. He thinks his dad—because Bruce had still been his dad then—has come to save him.
Jason wants to scream and cry and throw Bruce under the bus, say everything that Bruce has done to him since his resurrection, all the failures and betrayals, tell him about the batarang, that Joker sits comfy in a cell thirty years later, that he’s never avenged… But he looks down at his tiny crumpled form, beaten, bruised, tears streaks down his face, and he can’t.
This kid deserves to have the Bruce that could have been. He deserves to be loved just like Jason had deserved to be loved. Maybe this time, Jason could get the happy ending he wanted—not the ending that Bruce deserves but the one he’d deserved.
So Jason puts on his best imitation of Bruce, the one that all the past Robins had tried to perfect at one time or another, and tells him, “Of course I came, Jaylad. I’ll always come.”
He manages not to choke on the words.
Little Jason’s eyes widen, and the tears start again. “You really came for me! I thought— I thought that because I disobeyed orders that you wouldn’t come. I thought it was too late.”
Shit, he really had felt that way, hadn’t he? How often had he blamed himself for things outside his control?
Jason takes a deep breath to steady himself, and he says the words he always wished he could hear from Bruce as he walks over to kneel down in front of his younger self. The words he’d always needed to hear.
“I love you, Jason. You’re my son, not just Robin or a soldier in my fight against Gotham. I’ll always come for you no matter what, even if I have to break the laws of time. Nothing you do can ever change that. That’s what it means to be family.” He forces a soft smile on his face. “Now let’s get you out of those bindings.”
“Dad, I was so scared,” sobs the kid. He’s hurrying to untie the kid, doing his best not to jostle where he knows the worst of the bruises will be. “I tried to be brave, but I was so scared. I really thought—”
“I know, son,” he soothes, and there’s a part of him that’s breaking from the deception and another part that’s healing along with it. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you safe.”
As soon as the ropes are off, his younger self is clinging to him, and Jason holds him and rocks him in his arms, soothing the sobbing child. Hiccups and sniffles and full body heaves. The tears keep coming, and Jason rubs slow circles on his back the way he wished were done for him. His younger self is safe in his arms.
From out of the corner of his eye, Jason sees Batman sprint in at full tilt, looking thirty years younger than the man he knows, fear plastered on his cowelled face. Seeing the two of them on the ground with instant recognition, Batman freezes in his tracks.
Before he has a chance to acknowledge the Bat in the room or explain himself, the kid in his arms breaks away for just a moment. “But— Your rule?” he sputters. “You used a gun! You killed the Joker. I thought that you said Batman could never kill. That was your one rule.”
He looks away from Bruce to focus on the child, but Jason is talking to them both. He talks to them both, knowing Bruce could never do for Jason what he’s about to do for himself. He’s the father that he wishes Bruce was and maybe the one he still has a chance to be with Jason’s interference.
“You’re more important than a rule, son. I love you,” and his voice is cracking as he tries not to cry, “and I will always love you. Even though I have a hard time saying it, I will always put the lives of my sons over my mission. Jason, you are precious to me, and I’m sorry for not telling you.”
“I— I love you too, Bruce,” replies the boy, hope and wonder in his still so very young face. Wow, he’d really been just a kid, baby fat and everything. “I’m sorry for running away. I was just… I was scared you’d kick me out. You got so mad, and… My mom— She sold me out to the Joker, but I thought, maybe—”
“That’s not your fault,” Jason soothes. “It’s mine. I should have told you my love isn’t conditional. Robin or not, you’re my son, always. That can never change. I’m just glad I could come back in time to save you.”
The Jason in his arms sniffles. “Did— Did the Jason from your time die?”
Fuck. He normally tries not to lie to kids, but… He glances over at Bruce, just for a moment before answering. “He did, and I’ve missed him every day since.”
“Really? You’d really miss me if I were gone?”
Jason swallows the lump in his throat. “Yes, chum. Of course I missed you. I miss you all the time.” Thinking about how he feels towards Lian, he adds, “I miss you when you’re at school or spending the weekend with Dick. I miss you when you’re out of my sight for even a minute. Before you died, losing you was my greatest fear, and I’ll live with the shame and grief of not being there when you needed me for the rest of my life.”
He feels the prick of tears starting to form. Fuck, he needs to get out of here before he breaks down.
He gives the kid a kiss on the top of his head and lowers him back in the ground, careful not to jostle his injuries. “Now I have to go back to my own time, but don’t worry—your Bruce is here to take you home. I just have to say a few words to myself first, so just wait here and be safe. And remember, you are good, and the world is a better place with you in it.”
He hurries, grabs his helmet off the floor, and steals himself. He reminds himself he’s doing it for the kid, and he strides up to Batman who’s still frozen near the door.
“Are you really—”
Fresh off consoling his crying self, he cuts Bruce off. “I died here, in my time.”
And Jason watches as realization crashes down on the man he’d considered his father, but he steamrolls ahead. These are words he needs to hear, and they’re words Jason needs to say. For the sake of himself and the beaten kid on the concrete floor. This time, he’s doing it for both of them.
“I died, and I came back. I came back to a living Joker, a replacement Robin, and when I asked you to kill my murderer, you slit my throat.”
“What?”
“You betrayed me, again and again,” Jason powers through. “You chose your mission over your kids, and you let us all, each and every one of us, down. Over and over, you showed me I wasn’t worth it. Over and over, you showed me I’d never be enough."
If Jason thought Bruce looked broken before, he was shattered now.
“The kid over there—” He gestures with his head at the teenager sitting on the floor, rubbing at his wounds and waiting oh so patiently because he just wants to be good. Jason had always just wanted to be good. “He thinks you only want him to be Robin. He thinks you believe he’s a murderer. You told him that you didn’t want his teenaged rebellion, that you weren’t his dad, and he thinks about that every night you send him up to bed. He was more your soldier than your son. We’re here because of your failure, not his.” Jason takes a breath to steady himself. “I could have told the kid the truth. I could have ruined you in his eyes. I could have ruined this—for you and for him—but instead… I’m giving you a shot, not because you deserve it, but because he does. Because I deserved a shot.”
“Jay, I’m sorry—”
Jason cuts him off. “It’s too late for that Bruce, or at least it is with me. But it’s not too late for him.” Jason places his helmet back over his head, a red bat facing a black one. “Now don’t you fucking make me a liar. You’re a father, so be a fucking father. I just wanted to be loved, so fucking love me. He deserves better. I deserved better.”
Thinking of another kid who deserved better, he adds, “And Bruce?”
Bruce nods, trepidation in his face.
“Talia didn’t lose the baby. His name’s Damian. You should look into that.”
Years of reading Batman’s micro-expressions help him see the understanding in his face as he nods. “Thank you, Jason.” He sees as Bruce steals himself. “And for what it’s worth, I am sorry.”
“It’s not me you need to parent. I’m fucking older than you. Now go to your son.”
Jason steps aside and finally allows Bruce to pass. From his place by the entrance, he watches as Bruce runs to the boy and hugs him, being so incredibly gentle with his injuries, and the boy clings to his father, despite how sore he knows him to be.
“Bruce!” younger Jason exclaims. “A really old version of you came and saved me! You shot the Joker for me!”
“I sure did.” Batman holds him in his arms, running his hands through his matted, bloody hair. He rocks him, cradling him against his chest like a much younger child. “Jaylad, I love you.”
He sees as the younger boy gazes up in wonder, knowing he’s hearing the words for the first time from his adoptive father’s mouth. He thinks how much it probably means for him to hear it. How much it would have meant back then.
“And I’m sorry.” Batman almost chokes on the words, but Jason watches as he forces them out. “I’m sorry for making you feel like you weren’t my son, and I’m sorry I wasn’t here quicker. I’ll—” Jason’s heart jolts when Bruce’s eyes meet his. “I’ll do better this time. I know that communicating with words is a weakness of mine—I’ve always spoken better through my actions, and I thought that was enough—but I failed you. I promise I’ll try harder. I’m going to be a better father. I swear it on my parents’ life.”
A single tear slips through the cowl, and then another. Batman rips off his mask, and then it’s Bruce Wayne who’s sobbing, holding his son tighter.
“I almost lost you, Jay. He almost took you from me.”
Under his mask, Jason feels a tear slip past. He’s blinking to clear them away, glad he put on the mask to save face.
They’re happy tears though.
Healing tears.
Bruce’s words aren’t to him: They’re to this Jason. Despite that, he feels a fracture healing inside his chest, a residual hurt he’s carried for most of his life. They won’t mend things with the Bruce he’ll go back to—the man in his sixties who he’d long decided he couldn’t forgive—but it means something to know that, somewhere out there in the multiverse, this version of Bruce and Jason would be there, living a happier life. It means something that Bruce could say the words and that he’d heard them.
Jason smiles, and he walks out of the warehouse.
It’s time to go home.
And that night, if he holds Roy extra tight in bed and he calls Lian to remind her how much he loves her (and she calls him a sap), the world will be better for it.
Because he loves his life.
And he’s really, truly happy.