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Jason was never one to commemorate dates.
To him the passage of time was always marked by the endurance of things. The tattered shoes his mom brought him being the only pair to last as long as it did, having made its way to the Wayne manor of all places. A copy of hitchhikers guide to the galaxy he brought from a second hand shop after hearing it was the first book his mom had read during her school days. The same copy that had endured having been used as an ash tray on occasion, the back tattered that Jason can only understand as a rat attack and splotched pages with the amount of times he got drenched on the streets, his bag only a mere layer of cloth barely protecting this precious precious copy. An empty box of cigarettes which was now just a flat thin board with the name faded out, he kept with him from his time in the streets which Bruce did not have a lot to say about and good that. This was his commemoration. This keeping and preserving of things like time itself is meant to stand still for them as it very well did for him despite all that kept happening.
Commemoration only attests meaning to things which only brought pain at the end of the day. This though, he will allow himself. His red brown hoodie being the final nail in the coffin, quite literally. The last thing his mother had brought him, the memory of her smile and her soft apology when realizing how he swam in the hoodie with how oversized it was. Her slight jab at how if the school were to do a play on little red riding hood, perhaps him in her little gift would be the best fit for it. He loved it. Cherished every second of the last time he remembers her being lucid. The safeguard she left him with that turned into the one thing that helped him survive Gotham’s winter. He didn’t realize how special it really was to him, not until he came to the Manor and was suddenly thrown into a life the semblance of which he had only read in books. His first instinct was to find an out, keep things ready and prepared and keep his hoodie safe.
No, Jason is not one to commemorate. He is not going to, is what he tells himself, as he enters the cemetery, eight minutes to midnight with the clock about to strike 12 on the 16th of August. He is not one to commemorate, he tells himself as he walks in, a bottle of wine in hand and a singular white lily. Not one to commemorate but his mother had loved those and he likes to think she’d leave them on his grave had she been there.
It had been raining, a cold steady drizzle, much like it had on the day he had been born as his mother liked to tell him all the time. Just a mausoleum of memories, his body, his mind, his existence. Jason moved towards his gravestone, his jacket pulled tight around him and the collar turned up against the chill. Only to find someone had beaten him to it. Standing in front of his gravestone, silhouette under the moonlight. Tall, broad shouldered and- Bruce. Who else could it be?
Jason spoke up as he approached, “The city doesn’t need the Bat tonight?”, his voice harsh as it cut through the silence and the soft drizzle of the rain on Bruce’s umbrella. Bruce turned to face him, his face unreadable as he had expected this. Had been counting on it. In his hands, held a bouquet of white lilies much like the one in Jason’s hand, both their petals beaded with droplets of water.
“The city can go-”
“-one night without the Batman lurking”, came the response only to be met with incredulous eyes peeking up from behind the thick hardcover book held in hands too small.
“Aren’t you running from your duties?”
“No, I’m running from one to pay attention to another. Which is equally important, probably even more.”
Jason rolls his eyes, putting his book down and sitting up, “Which is?”
“My son’s birthday”, Bruce says, stretching his hand out inches away from Jason for him to take it. Jason stares, a pout forming on his lips and he glances back at his book.
“It’s not even 16th yet”, he takes his hand. Bruce pulls him out of the library, both making their way down the stairs towards the foyer.
“Well, there’s a little Wayne family tradition to cut the cake at the strike of midnight”, he looks at Jason as they continue walking, something vulnerable in his face. There at the dining table stood a cake, two layered chocolate, a singular candle on top. It didn’t look like much, just a simple cake, small enough for the three present at the moment. Alfred struck the match and lit the candle, beckoning Jason to come over.
“I hope it is to your liking, young sir”, Alfred says, eyes lit by the flame of the candle.
Jason stands there, taking in everything all at once. An itch behind his eyes, a lump in his throat as he thought about all the ways he’s come to learn how this day was not meant to be commemorated. His body remained evidence of that. The evidence he carried of having been a child of Gotham. He’s lanky and bony in all the places no 12 year old should be. His days in the streets having done damage beyond his years, something he's fought tooth and nail to come back from. Everything put in so far to finally be able to mean something to himself. To the world.
And here he was, still standing, in a place his own parents could never conceive of. How far he had made, only because of them and only to lose them in ways that feels so far from reality even still. He steps back, dropping his hand from Bruce’s and shaking his head, “I… I can’t.”
Bruce and Alfred exchange a look. Bruce shifts, getting down to his knees to meet Jason’s eyes. “Why, Jay?”
“Thank you but I… I don’t want to”, he says, trying to keep his voice steady. He glances at Bruce to momentarily meet his eyes, only to find them peering back at him with something akin to concern, a sympathetic smile on his face.
“I’m sorry, I should’ve asked before-”
“No! You’re okay. You’re… I’m grateful.”
Bruce shakes his head, hands finding Jason’s own and bringing them together, clasped in his palms. Jason doesn’t dare meet his eyes this time, scared of what he might find.
“It’s not about that, Jason. It’s about what this day means to you and I should’ve considered that. All this is still pretty new to you and I shouldn’t have assumed that this might just.. help.”
Jason bites his inner cheek slightly, eyes fixed on Bruce’s hands. He thinks about his last one, and the one before and the one before and so on. How hard his parents had tried to make something out of it until they weren’t around anymore. From a day at the beach, to a second hand bike with punctured tires Willis had found in an alley, to a cupcake Catherine brought on clearance to a day-old donut after a morning of running errands for his neighbours to get some money in hand instead of going to school. He’s too young to fully grasp, he thinks. This deterioration that fell his family apart. Someday he will see it for what it is and maybe it will help alleviate the guilt or maybe it will only make it worse.
“I just…”, he shouldn’t say it. He can’t make it about himself. But it's like one of those things that settles inside your chest, pulling at your flesh and tugging at your bones until every thought feels corrupted and every decision wrong. He breathes and starts, “How can I… everything they did for me and I’m here when they’re not-”, His breath hitches ever so slightly but still unmissable to the listening ear. “I don’t…”, deserve it, he wants to say. Lets it trail off and keep this bit to himself, a reflection of his guilt for no one else to carry.
Bruce gently tugs his hands, “Come here”, he says gently and with a pull, lets go of his hands to hold Jason in an embrace. Jason feels his body stiffen before he leans in a bit, then a bit more. Then lifting his hands up he wraps himself around Bruce’s torso, eyes blurring with an intensity he had not anticipated and his breath coming in short gasps as tears start gushing.
“It’s okay, it’s okay lad”, Jason shakes his head at Bruce’s reassurances all falling to his ears with all its earnestness. “It will be”, Bruce continues, shifting gears, “I’m sorry, I should’ve known better-”
Jason sniffs, beginning to pull away and Bruce loosens his grip letting him take a step back. Jason rubs at his eyes, a sleeve to his nose and looks at Bruce’s shirt to make sure he hadn’t left a mark. Then he meets Bruce’s eyes again. “No… We can have the cake. I know Alfred made it, I don’t wanna… It just doesn’t have to be a thing.”
Bruce nods, a smile tugging at his lips. He looks back at Alfred who picks out the candle and takes the cake away to cut it in slices.
“I just don’t want you to think that…”, Jason starts, sighing and playing out sentences in his mind before letting them out, unsure what to say and what not to. “Birthdays just aren’t my thing, I guess”, is what he lands at.
“It’s okay lad, we can do something casual, spend the day out?”
Jason nods.
“Pick up those chilli dogs from the park that you like so much?”, then Bruce pauses, voice turning into a whisper, “As long as you don’t tell Alfred.”
Jason’s eyes widen ever so slightly, still red rimmed but something in his face lights up. Only momentarily before he pulls in again. He nods. Bruce stands up, wrist up to his face as he checks the time then with a soft smile on his face, leans down to ruffle Jason’s hair.
“Happy birthday, Jay”, just as Alfred walks out of the kitchen with three plates on a tray and a jug filled with what looked like milk. Jason smiles, both Bruce and him finding their seats and digging in.
“...Thank you. Really”, Jason says, voice soft, and watches as both Bruce and Alfred’s face does something funny where they’re both smiling but their eyes look so deeply sad.
“Anytime, Jay.”
“You’re welcome, young sir. Oh but I have to-”
“-ask”, Jason groans, dropping his duffel in the dirt. “Are you actively trying to set this up wrong, or is that just a natural talent you’ve been hiding?”
Bruce glares at the poles, then at the twisted aluminium, “I’m adapting the traditional method.”
“You’re burning the poles, B”, he steps forward, grabbing at the tarp and the wreckage, “Just give it here.”
Bruce lets him, in a way that was too unlike… Bruce. Maybe he’s tired, Jason thinks to himself. They’ve been at it for what feels like hours and the woods carry a humidity Jason wasn’t sure Gotham could be capable of, at least not in the middle of August. Jason pulls the tarp aside, ties the rope around a tree trunk, does the same on the other side and steps back to present his flourish, his makeshift tarp overhang, to Bruce.
“Boom. Shelter. Taught by the best”, he pauses for effect. “The streets of Gotham.”
Bruce chuckles, coming under the tarp and poking at it, “That’s not a tent.”
“What you don’t see is ambition. Does the job, doesn’t it?”, Jason moves to pull in their duffels under the tarp and starts digging through them. “It’s multipurpose. Unlike spending the night under your fire hazard.”
Bruce smiles a smile all too knowing which only makes Jason frown at him in return, “Wait…”, he stretches it out. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?”, Bruce says, his voice clearly feigning innocence.
“Like you knew exactly what to do but you just wanted to test how I’d do it?”, Jason says, quirking an eyebrow at him with his hands crossed across his chest. Only for Bruce to smile even wider. Jason gasps, “No way! No way, you actually just Batman-ed me on my own birthday!”
“Jay, we’ve talked about using that as a verb.”
Jason stares for a long moment. Then, absurdly enough for the moment, he laughs. With a sigh he says, “Why did I even agree to camping?”
“Because it’s appropriately reasonable for a birthday and I needed to prove I can do normal.”
Jason shakes his head, “You still can’t do normal”, He flops down, rustling the dried leaves and lies on the ground, head peeking out of the tarp. “But… thanks. For trying”, the sun long set and stars beginning to twinkle, one by one coming into view. Bruce lies down next to him with a sigh, shifting closer and finding Jason’s line of sight up ahead fixated on the stars.
“My old…”, Jason trails off for a moment, side-eyeing Bruce as he thinks through his words, he clears his throat. “My dad”, he blurts out, voice low. “He took me out once, out of the city. It was supposed to be a father and son night but it was a disaster”, a smile on his lips. “Later he would show me the stars, visible on the outskirts. Just that one right there”, He pointed up, a singular really bright star burning through the night. “Was all he knew. Sirius. The dog. That one star that made up for everything”, Jason hadn’t realized how heavy his voice had gotten by the time he ended his sentence.
They both lay like that, staring up at the sky, considering, the words seeping in. And only after a good moment had passed did Bruce move, shifting closer to Jason, his arm pointing up at the sky, “You see those right there? Forming that shape”, he traced along the lines with his finger in the air. “Like a lopsided hourglass.”
“Orion?”
Bruce smiles, “Good guess. It’s the hunter. Some say it was Artemis and Leto’s way to honour him by making him constellations. Some say he wasn’t so honourable to begin with. It is, however, one of the easiest to spot, you can tell by the row of three stars for his belt.”
Jason looks around, pointing at a different one, “And is that something?”
“The W? Or an M? Depends on how you’re looking at it. That’s Cassiopeia.”
“Read about her, how her pride got her eternal punishment to be tied to her throne.”
Bruce hums and they fall back into comfortable silence, shoulders touching. Jason lets it sit, simmer in the comfort of a rare moment of peace. Every star burning a hole in his brain as he memorizes what the sky looks like, how the night serves them.
“Happy birthday, Jay. I know I could’ve done bett-”
“Bruce, you have given me the gift of watching the Batman fail at survival. I couldn’t have asked for anything better.”
“Seriously? Since-”
“-when do we have a post patrol tradition?”
They stand on the rooftop adjacent to the park, Pete’s tiny food cart visible on the corner of the 5th, the lane to the park entrance. The street lights above the cart flickering. Jason wrinkles his nose, something nostalgic hitting his olfactory senses where he wasn’t even close enough but his senses knew of the hotness of the peppers.
“It’s not a tradition. It’s a special day.”
Jason rolls his eyes, biting his inner cheeks to hide his smiles. Things have been… getting weird between them lately. They haven’t been spending a lot of time together outside of the costume, outside of Batman and Robin. Bruce isn’t around the manor the way he had been intentionally when Jason was fairly adjusting. And Jason would be lying if he said this didn’t matter to him. It mattered a lot. He understood Bruce and the mysterious ways he functions and this was his way to signal at the end of the day, this day was important because Jason was important.
“I don’t know about this old man, maybe sit this out. Last time just one gave your sensitive stomach food poisoning.”
Bruce crouched on the ground, ready to glide down to the crate as he threw the smile Jason’s way. “I think I can handle a bit of food poisoning.” Jason followed suit as soon as Bruce leaped. Landing afoot in front of the stall, seemingly startling the guy who took a good few seconds to recover.
“Well, well, well”, the guy spoke with a chuckle, moving forward to lean on his counter comfortably. “If it isn’t the dynamic duo, gracing my store yet again.”
Jason looked at him confused, hoping onto the curb, “You remember us?”
“Hard to forget a man in a bat costume jonesing around for a chilli dog at two in the morning", his eyes crinkled further, “With a little bird who talks to much.”
“Hey”, Jason said with a grin, “I don’t talk too much”, his words slipping into their natural “alley” thickness.
The guy only chuckled more, “You talked your old man’s ear off last time about some book you were reading. Something about a whale?”
“It’s rude to eavesdrop, y’know.”
“So… what brings the two a yous here today?”
Jason glanced at Bruce then waved, “One dog, extra cheese, extra chilli and a side of onions for me and one dog, plain, for Mr Broody McBroodster right here”, he said with a mock bow.
“Is that right”, he said as he got to it and Jason turned to Bruce with his hands on his waist.
“I’m fine, Robin.”
“I’m not taking my chances, old man.”
The guy only chuckled at the interaction, “Seems like a treat after a nice night of crime fighting or is it something special?”
“Well y’know… just Gotham being Gotham, I guess”, Jason says with a shrug, as they both get handed their dogs and Bruce pulls out a few notes from his belt, passing it to Jason to give it on the counter.
“Thanks, kid.”
Jason throws a salute his way as he and Bruce make their way to sit on the curbside. It's as he remembers, as he had remembered all these years down the line. The chilli is perfectly hot, the special cheese his dad always guarantees you’d only get at Pete’s and the bun ever so slightly stale. It’s the best thing he’d had, best thing he’ll always have in his years. Jason glances and catches a small smile making its way into Bruce’s face.
“What?”, he asks, voice a little sharp yet teasing.
Bruce looks at him, considering. It takes a beat, more than one, before he exhales and looks up at the sky, “Happy Birthday, Jay”, he says, his voice soft and low, a mere whisper.
It catches Jason off guard for a while, there’s something in Bruce’s voice that oddly tugs at him. A yearn, a pride, a contentment. His face heats up and Jason punches him on his elbow, a light touch, communicating just enough.
“Thanks, dad.”
Looking away, pretending to focus on his chilli dog as he takes another bite despite the fact that his throat is growing heavier by the second.
“Now lets wrap this up, Alfred’s waiting-”
“-with the cake upstairs.”
The rain’s beginning to settle a bit, not as relentless as it had been as if their meeting had quelled something in the atmosphere. Or perhaps syphoned the storm within themselves.
Jason blinks, “What?”
“He bakes one. Every year. It’s his way to-”
Jason scoffs, “Right, some sick remembrance for the dead kid.”
Bruce sighs, “For you, Jason. For you.”
Jason doesn’t know what to do with that. Doesn’t know what to do when Bruce is forthright. When Bruce doesn’t bite back but resigns with an earnestness in his voice that seems to feed some part for him wishing for himself to gravel and beg and go back. Go back home. Believe he has one to call his own. Believe he is still wanted the way he had been when things hadn’t been so difficult.
Bruce gestures at the lily in Jason’s hand with his own, “The first few years were… I could never decide what to pick until I’d think how you would have a whole lot to say about even leaving flowers in the first place.”
Jason doesn’t know what to do with that either. Doesn’t want to hear what was left behind in his wake, not today. And yet a part of him wants to see, is curious to know, is desperate to understand. If he had meant something, then why? If his loss was nearly as painful, then why not? And if him being back even changes things ever so slightly, then why now?
“When-”
Jason moves, walking past Bruce, his shoulder hitting Bruce’s just enough to make him stumble where he stood. He doesn’t say a word, walks over to the gravestone and places the lily just under. Giving himself a moment as he stares at the cold slick rock. His name engraved with a weeping angel looking over the plot. It never quite struck him before but Bruce did have a thing for dramatics didn’t he. His hands reached for the stone before he stopped himself. Standing back up and walking past Bruce again, making his way out. He got what he came for even though-
“Jason, I-”, Bruce reaches for his hand and as soon as they touch, Jason pulls himself out of reach.
“Whatever you’re going to say, don’t.”
Bruce holding his hand up, palm facing Jason as if putting his own guard down, showing him he’s not here for a fight. He can’t. Not today.
“Just… come home..”
A laugh lodges itself in Jason’s throat but doesn’t come out. Doesn’t let off and release the weight. He thinks maybe it wouldn’t sound much like one. He simply shakes his head.
“Ja-”
“I can’t”, he starts, “I can’t, we don’t… I come home and what? We pretend everything is okay and that you didn’t bury me and that you don’t hate the person you see in front of yourself-”
“No, Jay. That’s not-”
“Don’t call me that! Don’t say my name like it doesn’t kill you to see what I’ve become. Like I am the same kid you buried and then moved on to a new one.”
Bruce’s facade crumbles just a bit, the foundation leaving traces of the various ways the guilt and grief had become a part of his being. A hundred different things he could not put to words even if he tried to.
“I’m sor-”
“I don’t want it. I don’t know what to do with it, Bruce”, Jason stared at him, chest heaving without even having exerted himself in any capacity. Just a heart shuddering in his chest, begging for something to go right in the moment but his brain doesn’t oblige. “I don’t know what to do with myself”, he mutters, soft. Low enough for his voice to just reach his ears. “I am so… I don’t know how to stop. I don’t know how to forgive you. I don’t have it in me.”
Bruce takes a step forward, “Then let's not. Let's not pretend. Let things be as they are. But just for tonight…”, his voice trails off, unsure what he’s asking. Unsure in himself and his own capacity to breach this gap and pull things together with sheer force itself. He can’t do that. He can’t be that.
Jason’s throat works, “I-”, and it clogs. He meant when he didn’t have it in him. Not that night. No when everything that had happened and every way they had hurt each other only seemed to drive the wedge further deeper.
Bruce shuts his umbrella, the rain a mere drizzle now, and moves forward. His steps cautious, each one gauging Jason’s reaction who seems to be observing him with similar intensity. It’s okay, the space between them seemed to say. You don’t have to and I’m sorry and look at us and how did we get here and-
Bruce places his hand on Jason’s shoulder, testing, then with slow, testing movements he closes the distance between them. Both arms wrapping around him, slowly finding their way on his back and chin just above his shoulder and Bruce’s eyes blur. He’d grown so much. He only reached his lower ribs the last time Bruce might have held him like this and he’d grown so very much.
Jason stills, trying to control his breath as his face contorts and he can’t hold back the tears. He tries. And it takes monumental force to keep himself just the way he is until he gives up and gives in and his hands reach up, landing on Bruce's back, feeling his own heart against his. Only for tonight, only for this moment, as short as it is, he wants his dad.
“Happy birthday, Jay”, Bruce chokes out, his voice heavy and the sentence ending on a crack.
Jason pulls back, not meeting his eyes, not looking at his face, simply stepping back with a nod as he turns and makes his way out of the cemetery. Bruce doesn’t stop him, Jason hopes he wouldn’t and they part with all that’s unsaid yet again lingering like a ghost of some past/ They’d forgotten how to be around each other. They’d forgotten how to handle each other’s pain and grief without inflicting more and Jason knows this. They can’t come back from this and he knows this.
This isn’t commemoration and his only hope is that Bruce knows the same.