Chapter Text
Dick has been having nightmares.
Jason knows, because Jason has been having them too.
When Jason wakes from the nightmares, nursing the phantom pain of a crowbar in his ribs, he’s always hungry. He hasn’t felt full since the day he was turned. Dick says that’s normal for a fledgling, and that he was the same way when he was younger. Alfred had agreed with him, and invited Jason to take as many blood bags as he needed. So every night, between two and three AM, he goes to the kitchen and opens the fridge. He picks a bag of blood from the biohazard box, heats it in the microwave, and goes back upstairs. He stands outside of Dick’s door and listens to the rapid drum of his brother’s heart as he dreams of terrible things. He imagines going inside and curling up against his stomach and pretending to feel safe.
Then he goes back to his own room, cuts the blood bag open, and drinks.
In the morning, he feels as though he hasn’t slept at all. “Are you sure vampires aren’t supposed to be nocturnal?” he asks groggily, resting his forehead against the cool wood of the dining table. “I feel nocturnal.”
“Vampires aren’t,” Dick says, reaching down to ruffle his hair. “Teenagers are.”
Alfred sets down two mugs of coffee brewed with blood instead of water. “Here, young sirs.”
Jason groans in wordless thanks and drags the mug closer, gulping it down as soon as it’s cooled enough not to scald his tongue. Dick sits in the chair next to his and nurses his own coffee more slowly, trying to act like he’s not sliding sideways glances at Jason every few seconds and failing miserably. Bruce doesn’t show. If Jason had to guess, he’s already at Wayne Enterprises for the day. It had taken two weeks for him to pry himself away from the Manor, after Jason’s turning. Jason had ignored the horrible clinging anxiety in his chest and encouraged him to go. Bruce had responsibilities outside of him, and Jason didn’t want to monopolize his time—or, rather, he did, and that was exactly why he couldn’t. Bruce had taken him in as a crime-fighting partner, not a codependent bloodsucking disaster. Jason couldn’t make him regret it. So he ignores his seething anxiety whenever Bruce leaves the Manor, and he pours another mug of coffee.
“I was going to check on my apartment today,” Dick says, hesitant.
Jason shoves down the fear that rises, slick and sour as bile, in his throat. This will be the first time both Dick and Bruce have left the Manor at the same time. It was bound to happen eventually. Dick has been spending way more time than usual here, and Jason’s sure he must be getting tired of it. He’s his own person, with his own place and his own job and his own friends. It’s been really nice of him to spend so much time with Jason after—
After.
But Jason can’t monopolize him, either. He may be a vampire, now, but he’s determined not to be a parasite. “Okay,” he says.
“Do you want to come with me?” Dick offers. “I can drop you back here before dinner.”
The idea of leaving the Manor fills him with a cloying sort of dread. He hasn’t left these walls since he fled to Ethiopia. His palms prickle. “No, I’m okay. Thanks, though.”
Dick hesitates again. “If you change your mind, you can call me. My ringer’s on. I won’t be gone long, but I can always come back early.”
“I’ll be okay,” Jason says, dragging up a smile. “Alfred’ll keep me out of trouble.”
“Quite so,” Alfred agrees, gathering their empty mugs and carrying them towards the kitchen.
“If you’re sure.” Dick ruffles his hair again, then leans down and presses a hard kiss to the top of his head. “I’ll see you tonight. I love you.”
“Eww, affection.” Jason laughs and pushes him away. His brother has been disgustingly affectionate since his turning, and guilt still haunts his eyes whenever he thinks Jason isn’t looking. Jason thinks it’s dumb. It’s not Dick’s fault he made the stupid-ass decision to run off and get himself blown up half a world away from home. He saved Jason; what does he have to feel guilty about? “Get outta here.”
Once Dick has gone, Jason drifts back towards his bedroom.
“Would you like company?” Alfred offers. “I’m going to clean the library today. You are free to join me there.”
“I’m kinda tired,” Jason says, with another crooked smile. “I think I’m gonna lay down for a while.”
He doesn’t miss the worried creases around Alfred’s eyes, but he chooses to ignore them. He trudges upstairs and into his room, locking the door behind himself. The blackout curtains are drawn, shielding him from the worst of the sunlight. At Dick’s bidding, he now applies sunscreen religiously and wears sunglasses during the brightest parts of the day. It’s still nice to have somewhere cool and dark to retreat to. He slips beneath his covers and curls up, staring at the spines of the books on his shelf. Their titles blur.
God, he’s hungry.
The blood bags only ever seem to sate him for an hour or less. He wonders how long it’s going to take for him to grow out of his insatiable hunger. Alfred says he’s still turning, and his body is using enormous amounts of energy to sustain the change. For Alfred, the process took three months, and for Dick it took five. It’s been three weeks since Dick bit him, so Jason’s got—what, another three or four months? It feels an unbearable amount of time. He is so tired, and hungry, and lonely. He tosses back and forth in his sheets for another hour before giving up and dragging himself upright again. He sits at his desk, and stares at the books from another angle.
“Have you looked over the counseling packet I gave you?” Bruce asks.
Jason blinks back to attention. He’d been staring at Bruce across the chess board—namely, at Bruce’s throat, where he can see the carotid arteries pulsing with every beat of his father’s brazen heart. His teeth ache. Saliva pools beneath his tongue. He hasn’t drunk from Bruce since that first, hazy day of his turning. He hasn’t drunk from anyone, actually. There’s no need for him to. They have plenty of blood bags.
“Jason?”
“Sorry, yes,” Jason says. “I mean, no. I haven’t yet.”
A small frown shadows Bruce’s face, but he says, “It’s okay. I do think it’s important for you to do soon, though. This isn’t sustainable.”
This, Jason thinks. What is this?
Is it all of him? Jason thinks it might be. He knows he hasn’t been right since he came back from Ethiopia. He’s been quieter, more withdrawn. He spends most days holed up in his room thinking about how hollow his stomach feels, and about the smell of burning hair, and about the cracking of his skin as he curled up around his mother’s dying body. When he’s not thinking about that, he’s thinking about the sound Felipe Garzonas’ skull made when it hit the ground. Maybe he was broken long before Ethiopia, because he liked that sound.
“I know,” Jason says.
“I think it will help you.”
“I’ll look at it tonight.”
“Good.”
Jason rocks a pawn back and forth on the chessboard. He moves it forward two spaces. Bruce knocks it over with his bishop.
“Boo,” Jason says.
Bruce smiles, wan. “Remember to look a few steps ahead.”
Jason tries, but these days the carefully-crafted plan he had for his life feels tenuous and untethered. Bruce had benched him from being Robin even before he’d run away, and there’s no way he’s going to let him return to that job anytime soon. School is off of the table as long as he’s a fledgling; Alfred and Dick are worried about his instincts overwhelming him in the presence of so many people. It will be summer soon, so Jason will only miss a month of freshman year. He might be able to do some online classes over the summer to catch up and continue with his classmates in August. The thought should excite him. He likes school, or at least he used to. Algebra sucked, but English and history were always interesting, and he’d already started talking with the counselor about college options.
Now he can’t even sit and read a single paragraph without getting distracted.
He stares down at the board and sees a million overlapping pathways. He slides his rook up.
“Check,” Bruce says, moving his bishop diagonally to the king.
Their pieces dance around the board until Bruce finally corners Jason’s king and sweeps him over. Jason gathers his pieces and lines them back up, unconcerned by the loss. He rarely beats Bruce in chess, anyway. He’d expected to lose the moment they started. Bruce seems more upset about his loss than Jason himself.
“You’re distracted,” he says, as they walk away from the board.
“No,” Jason says, drolly. “Really?”
“If you want to talk about it,” Bruce starts, looking uncomfortable already.
Jason snorts. “No thanks.”
“I am here for you,” Bruce says, stiffly.
Jason laughs. “Don’t sound so enthusiastic about it.”
Bruce claps a hand on his shoulder. “I mean it.”
“I know,” Jason says, suddenly very aware of the thin skin of Bruce’s wrist and the pale violet veins lacing his forearm. He shrugs Bruce’s hand off. “I’m okay, really. I’m just tired.”
“You’ve been tired a lot, recently. Maybe we should speak to Dr. Thompkins.”
As good a physician as she is, Dr. Thompkins doesn’t know much about vampiric biology. Few people do: vampires are a rare, reclusive species. Alfred and Dick are the only other vampires in Gotham, as far as Jason knows, which is probably for the best—he’s not sure Gotham’s blood donor population could sustain any more on top of what Gotham’s nightly violent crime already requires.
“Or,” Bruce says, and after a moment’s hesitation persists, “we could go and see the Kents.”
Mr. and Mrs. Kent are both vampires, and have been for decades. Jason found it sort of ironic that a pair of vampires would be the ones to raise an alien child. He’s only met them once before, and he remembers liking them in a distant sort of way. They were nice old people and they made good cornbread. What wasn’t to like? But, somewhat irrationally, Jason fears they’ll see through him straight to the dull, hungry core. He can get away with quite a bit, being both a fledgling and freshly traumatized, but there has to be a line drawn somewhere. What if the Kents are the ones to draw it?
Jason jams his hands into his hoodie pockets and looks away and mutters, “I dunno.”
“I don’t know how to help you,” Bruce says, and for a moment there is a waver in his voice. It has already vanished when he continues, “And it will do you some good to get away from the Manor.”
Jason doesn’t want to leave the Manor ever at all again, actually—but the last time he argued with Bruce, the man decided he was a murderer and fired him from the one thing he was ever actually good at it. So Jason shrugs his shoulders and says, “I guess.”
“I’ll talk to Clark and see if we can schedule a trip soon,” Bruce promises.
“Yeah,” Jason says. “Okay.”
Jason slips back upstairs and into his room, leaning against the door and breathing shallowly. He crawls into his bed and mounds the blankets around himself like a shield, rubbing his face against the silk of his pillowcase. Finding it unsatisfactory, he goes to find the heating pad Alfred had given him. He plugs it in and curls up around it and feels a little better better as the warmth of it bleeds into his stomach and chest. He could almost imagine he’s cuddled up next to his family—which is weird, because he’s never been very cuddly. So why does he wish they’d just fucking hug him so much? He stays there until Dick raps his knuckles against the door.
“What?” Jason calls, sounding crabbier than he means to.
“Can I come in?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Dick pushes the door open and leans one shoulder against the frame, looking in on him. “You okay? Bruce said you seemed upset earlier.”
“I’m fine,” Jason says.
Dick arches an eyebrow.
“I’m fine,” Jason repeats. “Why even ask if you aren’t gonna believe me?”
Dick’s face smooths out, and he sighs. He lowers himself into Jason’s desk chair, fishes a small blue box out of his pocket, and turns it over and over in his hands. “Sorry. I just—I don’t want you to feel like you have to pretend to be fine for us. If you’re not fine, you can say so.”
“Yeah, well,” Jason says. “I’m fine.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
Dick sets the box down on the desk and leans his head over to meet Jason’s eyes. His own are drawn and tired. “Bruce wants to take us to the Kents.”
“I know.”
“Do you want to go?”
Jason shrugs.
“I don’t,” Dick says, abruptly. “B doesn’t get it. I mean, it’s not his fault—he’s not a vampire. But he doesn’t get it. You shouldn’t be leaving the Manor yet.”
“I can leave the Manor.” Jason sits up, scowling, dragging his blankets with him.
“You can,” Dick says, a bit testily. “That doesn’t mean you should.”
“Well, I’m gonna,” Jason says.
“Goddamnit, Jason,” Dick says.
“What’s wrong with you? Seriously, you’re being a jerk. You never want to hang out with me anymore unless it’s to tell me what to do.”
“Because you’re acting reckless,” Dick says, which is rich, considering Jason hasn’t left the Manor in three whole weeks. Where was all this brotherly concern before he died? “You’re always sunburned, and you keep forgetting your shades, and you don’t drink enough—”
“I drink as much as I want,” Jason says hotly, which is true; it’s just never enough. He thinks he could guzzle gallons of refrigerated, artificially-anticoagulated blood and his stomach would still feel hollow. What he really wants is warm, and living, and real, and—and he shudders with revulsion, biting the inside of his cheek. “If I drank anymore we’d run out.”
“It’s not enough,” Dick insists. “Your eyes are red.”
“They always are.”
“They’re not supposed to be.”
“Yeah, well,” Jason spits, “whose fault is that?”
It’s a low blow. He knows the guilt of his turning hangs like a stone around Dick’s neck. Dick hadn’t wanted to turn him, not really—he’d just wanted to keep Jason alive. He’d made the decision in a moment of panic. He is Jason’s savior and sire and he wants to be neither. A lump of grief lodges itself in Jason’s throat, and he breathes thinly around it.
Dick stands up, shooting Jason a haggard look. “Forget it,” he says, and leaves.
God, Jason hates himself sometimes. He hates himself even more when he picks up the box Dick had left on the desk. It’s small and flat, wrapped in paper the color of a robin’s egg. He picks the paper off to reveal a set of colored contact lenses. When he puts them in and looks at himself in the mirror, he recognizes the dark blue of Dick’s eyes when he was a fledgling himself. It’s a color Jason has only seen in old family photos. As an adult vampire, Dick rarely gets hungry enough for his eyes to redden and require contacts, anymore. His irises now retain their cheerful sky blue, but this particular, sad shade he’s given to Jason?
This shade was his when he was struggling, too.
Jason cries, which at least has the benefit of moistening his contacts so they feel less scratchy in his eyes. Pros and cons and all that.
That night, Jason throws up.
Desperate to rid himself of his persistent hunger, he had gorged himself on blood bags. They had settled poorly in his stomach. He had curled up in his bed afterwards, trying to ignore the way his stomach cramped and his skin flashed hot. Nausea crept up and over him like a wave, and when it crested he had no choice but to lurch over to his trashcan and empty his stomach. He spat out mouthfuls of bile and blood, the stinking scent of it roiling up into his nose.
When his stomach settles, he’s hungry again.
God, when is it going to stop?
He digs his teeth in against the flesh of his wrist just to feel the pressure in his aching gums. His canines are still blunt and human, unable to pierce through skin like an adult vampire’s would. They leave shallow red impressions over his veins, and he rubs his thumb over them again and again to lull himself back to sleep.
“You’re losing weight,” Dr. Thompkins says, frowning at him. “Have you been drinking?”
“Lots,” Jason says.
“Have you been able to keep it down?”
“Yeah,” Jason says, because it’s true, mostly. He only throws up if he drinks too many bags at once.
Dr. Thompkins taps her pen against her notepad, lips pursed in thought. “The same thing happened to Dick, when he was newly turned.”
“Really?” Jason turns to face her more fully. Dick rarely talks about his own turning or the aftermath, and Bruce has been equally recalcitrant. He always directs Jason back to Dick, which is fair—except the guy always clams up about it. At this point, Jason’s stopped asking. It just feels like rubbing a fistful of salt into his brother’s open wounds.
“Yes. Maybe this is a normal part of vampiric development,” she muses, “or maybe not. As I’m sure you know, I am no expert in supernatural biology.”
“I know.”
“You’re going to visit the Kents later this month, I hear.”
“Yeah.”
“I do hope they know more than me,” Dr. Thompkins says. “In the meantime, we can ask Alfred.”
But Alfred tells them, “I sustained my pre-turning weight with some ease. I am sorry to say, but I don’t know why you’re losing weight. Are you quite sure you’re eating enough?”
“Maybe not?” Jason says, helplessly, because what else could it be? “How much did you drink?”
Alfred thinks, and says, “Four to five liters—that is to say, eight to eleven pints. Of course, that would be an average. Some days I had significantly more, and some days I had nothing at all. How much have you been drinking?”
“Six or seven pints,” Jason says. “So maybe I do just need to drink more.”
“Try for at least eight,” Dr. Thompkins agrees, jotting something down on her notepad. “We’ll weigh you again at your next appointment.”
“How long did it take Dick to start gaining again?” Jason asks.
“I would have to look at my notes from that time,” Dr. Thompkins says. “You might ask him.”
“Yeah,” Jason says, picking at a hangnail, and swiftly decides not to do that.
Dr. Thompkins runs through the rest of her exam—listening to the habitual rise-and-fall of his lungs, the gurgle of his stomach, the unnaturally slow lub-dub of his heart. He looks at the corner of her jaw, the edge of her wrinkled throat, and he thinks about biting. He works his teeth together, instead, until Alfred scolds him for grinding them.
“Look,” he says, to distract himself, and them. He wiggles one of his front canines with his tooth. “It’s loose. Think the Tooth Fairy will come a second time?”
“I am assured of it,” Alfred says primly, “and I am assured she pays twice as much the second time around.”
Jason grins. There are some perks to having a billionaire father after all.
The research on vampires is sparse. While they’re not considered an old ghost story any longer—in fact, they were officially recognized as citizens a few decades ago—they’re still extremely uncommon. Most live in small, tightly-knit covens that rarely venture beyond the boundaries of their defined territories. Older vampires tend to avoid the public spotlight after years of being hunted and scrutinized, and they pass those habits onto their fledglings. Jason’s frequent late-night Wikipedia dives leave him more confused as to what’s truth and what’s legend. There are no official publications on vampiric biology, at least that he can find.
“Good evening, young Master,” Alfred says, pouring hot blood into Jason’s mug.
“Hey, Alfred.” Jason closes his laptop and pulls his knees up, sitting cross-legged in the armchair.
“Researching again, are we?”
“Yeah.”
“And did you find anything of interest?”
“I found an article about the twenty best ways to ward off vampires,” Jason offers.
“How delightful,” Alfred says, wry.
“Hey, Alfred?” Jason asks, taking a sip from his mug.
“Yes?”
“What were you like, when you were a fledgling?”
It’s not the first time Jason has asked. Alfred had told him, some years ago, how he had been turned by an enemy soldier during an SAS operation when he was still working with British military. He had killed the man, after, and said no more about the subject. He, like Dick, rarely talks about his first few months as a vampire.
But now he takes a seat in the armchair next to Jason’s, and says, “I was quite wild.”
“You?” Jason asks skeptically. “Really?”
Alfred smiles at him. “Indeed. Most young vampires are quite instinctual, and I was made in less than ideal circumstances. There were no older vampires around to temper me, and my superiors found my bloodthirst to their advantage.”
“Oh.” Jason looks down at his hands, and wonders what it would be like to go to war right now. Maybe his circumstances aren’t as bad as he thought. He’s got a roof over his head, he’s kept safe from crowds that might trigger his hunting instinct, and he has a coven to teach him how to be a proper vampire. Alfred had none of that. “That sounds hard.”
“It was,” Alfred says, “though I didn’t know it at the time.”
“Did you ever bite anybody?” It’s a stupid question, and Jason knows it. Alfred was a vampire born into the middle of a war. Of course he bit people. “Sorry. You don’t have to answer that.”
“I did,” Alfred says, and for a moment his eyes are far-off and clouded, “and regret it even now. Master Jason, you must never bite anyone if you can help it. It is an act of abhorrent violence, and these days there are many more ethical options available. We have plenty have donated blood here, and will make sure you never go without. But you must promise me you will not seek out living blood.”
“I promise,” Jason says, sitting on his hands. “I’m sorry I bit you.”
“What?”
“I bit you,” Jason says, “the first day, and Bruce and Dick, too.”
Alfred shakes his head. “Think not of that, young Master. You were freshly turned, and had little control of yourself. I don’t mean to guilt you for that.”
Jason nods and looks back at his lap.
“Do you struggle much with it?” Alfred asks, gentler now. “The bloodthirst?”
Jason shrugs. There’s no good way to say sometimes I look at your throat and I want to gnaw it out so he settles for, “A little.”
“It gets better with time, and age,” Alfred assures him. “You are coping admirably.”
Jason offers a sideways, tired grin. “Thanks.”
“Drink up, now,” Alfred says, and goes to dust the bookshelves. “Dr. Thompkins will be disappointed if you don’t stick to your diet.”
So Jason drinks, and tries to ignore the uncomfortable curdling of his stomach.
“Hey,” Jason says, leaning awkwardly against the couch.
“Hey,” Dick says, not looking at him.
Jason made sure to wear the contacts Dick had given him, today, and is disappointed that Dick won’t get to see them. So he crawls over the back of the couch and wedges himself onto the cushions opposite his brother. A few months ago he might have flopped himself over Dick’s shoulders or reached over to poke him to get his attention. Now he keeps his distance, because getting too close means his teeth throb and his mouth floods with saliva and he thinks feed and mine and please.
“Look at my eyeballs,” Jason says. “You’re not looking at my eyeballs.”
Dick snorts and looks at his eyeballs. “Very nice.”
“I’m wearing your contacts.”
“I can tell.”
“Thanks,” Jason says, “for them.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m sorry I was a dick before.” Jason wraps his arms around his knees. “I know you didn’t want to turn me. I’m not actually mad at you for it. Like I said, you’re the reason I’m still alive, and being a vampire is pretty cool.”
Of course, it’d be cooler if he wasn’t vacillating between starving and nauseous all the time—but hey, beggars can’t be choosers. He’d rather deal with this than be dead.
“It’s okay. You’re going through a lot. You’re allowed to be a dick about it sometimes, I guess.” Dick’s shoulders relax, and he sets aside the book he’d been reading. “Are you doing okay, though? Seriously?”
“I mean, it could be worse,” Jason says, because it most certainly could. He could be buried six feet under, or he could still be in the Joker’s clutches. All things considered, he’s actually pretty lucky. “How come you don’t want to go to the Kents’?”
Dick sighs, raking a hand through his own hair. “It’s just a long ways to go, and you haven’t been out of the Manor in almost a month. Why couldn’t we have started with somewhere nearby, like Batburger? Why does it have to be Kansas of all places, and with other vampires?”
“Bruce says they can help.”
“Help with what?” Dick demands. “You’re doing okay, aren’t you? You’re drinking way more than I ever did, and we’ve been keeping you safe here. Your injuries have healed and your nightmares are getting better. I don’t see what the Kents are going to do that we can’t.”
“Oh my god, you’re jealous,” Jason realizes.
“I am not jealous,” Dick huffs. “I just don’t need a pair of strangers telling me how to take care of my fledgling. If I wanted advice, I’d ask Alfred.”
Jason laughs. “Dude, they’re just a couple of friendly old people. Way to be territorial.”
Dick scowls and looks away from him, curling his lip enough for Jason to see a flash of fang. In a weird bout of instinct, Jason scoots closer and ducks his head. He half-expects Dick to bunt their heads together like they’re a pair of bonded cats, but Dick doesn’t. The rejection makes something chilly and uncomfortable cling to Jason’s skin. He straightens up and ruffles a hand over his own hair, instead, trying to pretend he’s just fixing it.
“It’s only for a few days, anyway,” he says. “You don’t have to come with us.”
“Of course I’m coming with you.”
“Then quit moping about it.” Jason scoots off the couch. “I’m gonna go pack. You can come hang out or you can stay here and be a grump.”
“I’m not being a grump,” Dick says, grumpily.
As Jason makes his way back towards the residential hall, Bruce appears in the entryway. “Boys,” he greets. “The staff have just finished opening the pool for the summer. I thought we might have dinner on the pool deck once the sun begins to set.”
“Dinner sounds good,” Jason says, swallowing hard at the scent of warm human blood. He remembers his promise to Alfred and tears his gaze away. He’s not going to bite anyone, and certainly not anyone in his family. He’s not a monster. Bruce already suspects that there is violence in him, and Jason is determined not to give him any reason to look further into that. The truth is that he didn’t kill Felipe Garzonas—but he watched him fall without lifting a finger to save him, and in Bruce’s mind that will be just as bad (worse, still, when he learns Jason doesn’t regret it).
“Reapply your sunscreen!” Dick calls after him.
“Yes, Mom,” Jason says, rolling his eyes and disappearing into his room. He packs his bag for the trip to Kansas, then changes into swimming trunks and reapplies his sunscreen. He’d ignored that advice only once, and had been scalded pink by the end of the day despite spending most of his time inside playing Mortal Kombat.
Before he goes outside, he chugs another pint of blood. It sits uneasily in his stomach but doesn’t immediately come back up the way some of them have been lately. Vomiting feels like such a waste—it always has, but even more so now that he’s drinking blood people have donated. He’s considered trying to throw up in a clean bowl, so he can try to force the blood down again. He just hasn’t managed to get over his disgust with the idea, yet. He’s sure it won’t taste nearly as good going down the second time.
They swim as the sun sets, and recline in the poolside chairs for dinner. Jason dozes, after. He naps a lot, these days—just another effect of the turning, and one Dick promises will wear off eventually. Bruce smooths a hand over his damp hair, and lays a thick towel over him as the air begins to cool. He sits in the chair next to Jason’s until Jason wakes, and then walks with him back to the residential wing.
“Good night,” he says.
“Night,” Jason says, and yawns so widely his jaw cracks. He recalls the splinter of bone in his cheek when the Joker swung and hit him, and lifts a hand to rub the side of his face. “Love you.”
“I love you too.” Bruce pulls him into a hug, and Jason imagines reaching into his chest and pulling out his heart and drinking straight from the warm hollows of it. “Sleep well, son.”