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Bruce sits by his son’s bedside, combing his fingers through his son’s greasy hair. The past few days have been a scramble to stop Scarecrow’s rampage through the city. They’re all sweaty, injured, and exhausted. What started with as an orderly operation had turned into a sloppy mess by the time they had just barely managed to apprehend Crane that night. And Jason, who got hit by Scarecrow’s fear toxin during that final encounter, was paying the price for their lapses.
Bruce had administered the antidote immediately and taken Jason back to the Cave as soon as he was certain that Gordon and his men had custody of a very unconscious Scarecrow. Dick had wanted to stay with Jason, but he had been awake for over 86 hours already. Tim had argued that he had napped the previous night, but that was three hours long and the boy had a nasty tear in his arm from being thrown into a broken fence. Steph was uninjured, but her mother had been calling her for the better part of a day, and despite her protests, she needed to get home. Even Damian had claimed that Jason would feel safer with him to keep guard, but he had been awake for two days already and, despite Bruce’s attempts to stop him, skipped a day of school. So, Bruce had sent his other children upstairs (or in Steph’s case, home), assuring them that he would watch over Jason until he recovered. And really, Bruce would never have been anywhere else.
Jason mumbles a bit, shifting around on the medical cot, and Bruce’s hand stills in his hair. Bruce had been uncertain, at first, that his presence would help matters. Jason—this new Jason, the one who carries guns and rants about Batman’s ineffectiveness and kills—keeps his distance, for the most part. He seems to tolerate his siblings sometimes, but Bruce’s presence in his life has been confined to all-hands-on-deck emergencies. Jason rarely even passes information to him directly, preferring to do it through Barbara.
It’s not that Jason doesn’t want anything to do with the family or the Bats. Bruce knows that Tim and Jason have been over at Dick’s place for a movie night, that Damian is picking up his new explosives proficienciessomewhere, that Spoiler was spotted breaking up a designer drug ring in Crime Alley. No, Jason just doesn’t want anything to do with Bruce.
But then Jason, mid-hallucination, had grabbed Bruce’s arm and clung to it, refusing to let go. So Bruce had stayed and told the others to get some rest.
Whatever Jason was dreaming about, it seems to have passed, because his body slowly relaxes. Bruce starts running his fingers through his hair again. When Jason was younger, he used to find it soothing. It seems that he still does, even now.
This close, Bruce can hear Jason’s breathing. When he combs through the tips of his hair, he can feel Jason’s pulse in his neck, steady and alive. Even though Jason will storm out of the cave the second he’s cleared of the effects, Bruce’s son is alive. Nothing can take that away.
And then, Bruce’s fingers fall on a curious, raised section of skin, right at the base of Jason’s neck. He probably wouldn’t have even truly registered it, if Jason had not immediately gone utterly, terrifyingly still.
“Jason?” he asks. “Jason, are you awake?”
And then Jason isn’t still anymore, he’s shaking, dislodging Bruce’s hand as he curls in on himself. His expression, which was peaceful only a few minutes ago, has turned to one of fear, and his arms come up to protect his face and neck.
“Jason, you’ve been exposed to fear toxin,” Bruce says, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Whatever you’re seeing, it’s not real.”
Jason’s hand swipes his away, and then he’s sitting up on the cot, pushing himself as far from Bruce as he can get. Bruce looks at Jason’s eyes, and he doesn’t see the unfocused, glazed-over eyes of a hallucinating fear toxin victim. He sees Jason, awake and scared, slapping one hand over the scar on his neck.
And Bruce, in that instant, knows what it is.
His heart thundering in his chest, the gun in his hands, the Joker’s laughter filling his ears and drowning out the sound of Jason’s voice. Dick in the ruins of Blüdhaven, dead or dying. Jason, in front of him, begging him to choose, counting down, three, two, one—
Bruce threw, and his aim was off, he failed, the Joker was going to die at Jason’s hands, the Batarang was flying through the air nowhere near Jason’s gun, the Batarang was bouncing off a pipe, the Batarang was slicing through Jason’s neck—
And then Jason was on the ground, scarlet ribbons spurting from his neck, and collapsing into a puddle of his own blood.
Bruce had genuinely believed, after the Joker blew up the building, that he may have killed his son and lost a second to whatever had happened to Blüdhaven. But he couldn’t find Jason in the wreckage, and if there was any chance to save at least one of the two lives…
So, he’d left. And then, Red Hood had resurfaced just the next day, and the feeling of relief had been overwhelming. If Jason was going out and killing so soon afterwards, Bruce must have seen it wrong. All that blood—it was a ploy, or a hallucination, or something. Because Jason was fine. And then he was teaming up with Nightwing, and then Robin was calling him for help, and Jason wasn’t shooting at him every time he tried to talk, and—
And Bruce had been wrong. Because the scar on Jason’s throat is thick and gnarled, and when Bruce reaches out to Jason, his son flinches back.
Jason had been so careful. The Red Hood costume had increased shielding on his neck, now, and that was pretty much all he ever wore around Bruce. On the rare occasions where he changed to civvies in the Batcave, he’d worn high-necked shirts and sweaters. Even that one time when he’d stopped by a Wayne Enterprises charity event in Crime Alley, he’d worn a scarf, on the off chance he’d run into Bruce. (Bruce hadn’t been there, of course—too busy, Jason guesses, to hand out food with the volunteers.)
He hadn’t dared bring up that night. The Joker, the Batarang, the ultimatum. Bruce had made his choice, and Jason had accepted it and moved on. Bruce wasn’t his father. That was fine. Jason didn’t need a father. He would kill the Joker when the opportunity next presented itself, and in the meantime, he would protect his home.
It had been surprising, then, when Bruce had extended him offers of team-ups—hesitantly, and through Dick, but Bruce putting out an olive branch nonetheless. Jason had tentatively accepted it, but he knew that any mention of that confrontation would destroy everything.
So, yeah, Jason had been careful. But he’d been slipping over the past few days. Everyone had been. So after his new Red Hood costume had got torn up in a fight, he’d switched to an older version of the costume—one without the same protection on his neck—without a second thought.
Two minutes ago, Jason was waking up with that familiar sense of shakiness that came from a countered fear toxin dose, but Bruce was right there by his bedside, running a gentle hand through his hair, so he’d dared to relax. And then, Bruce’s hand had fallen to the scar on his neck.
“Jason?” Bruce asks, voice horribly quiet. His hand is hovering in the air, halfway between them. Jason had flinched away from it like he was still a child. Even now, he’s cowering, knees pulled to his chest, as far away from Bruce as he can get without falling off the cot.
It’s pathetic. Jason can’t bring himself to stop.
“Jason, was that—on your neck. Was that me?”
Jason looks up. Bruce’s eyes are startlingly wide. Does he even have to ask? Did he expect that there wouldn’t be a scar? Jason longs to snap back at him, but it seems like this strain of fear toxin makes him just want to hide. He can’t bring himself to do anything except stare back at Bruce or look away. And really, he’d rather see the threat coming.
“I didn’t mean to,” Bruce says. He swallows. “That was never—that was never meant to happen. I was aiming for your gun.” Jason doesn’t know what he means. The gun…the gun he was holding to the Joker’s head? That was nowhere near where the Batarang hit. “But I thought…I thought I saw wrong. That you were okay. You were out the next day, killing.”
But he wasn’t. One of his lieutenants had gone out. Jason had made a plan for if he didn’t return. A way to carefully disentangle Red Hood’s empire without a gang war, without collateral damage. Jason had gone out that night knowing that it could be his last.
Bruce raises a hand to Jason’s neck. Jason holds his body still, refusing to flinch. Surely, Bruce isn’t going to hurt him right here. Not in the medbay. Not while he’s pretending he made a mistake.
Bruce’s thumb brushes against the scar, and Jason’s breathing stops.
“That wound…it could have killed you. I could have killed you. I’m—” And then Bruce’s eyes go impossibly wider as he seems to take in Jason’s stillness and the fear that must be rolling off of him in waves. Quickly, Bruce draws his hand back. “I wasn’t thinking,” he says. “I shouldn’t have—I didn’t mean—” He stands abruptly and takes several steps back. Jason, at last, sucks in a painful breath. “It was an accident,” Bruce pleads, trying to meet Jason’s eyes. “You know that, right? It was an accident.”
Jason has heard that many times before, but not—never from Bruce. Bruce looks at him, like he’s waiting for a response. “Okay,” Jason says, because Bruce is standing there in front of him, and he’s saying it was an accident, and what else can Jason reply?
“It was,” Bruce insists.
“I believe you,” Jason says, the words slipping off his tongue. His mouth feels numb. He thinks he could close his eyes and just start talking, and words would come out that are not his own. When he tries to uncurl himself, he finds his hands still shaking from the aftereffects of the fear toxin.
If Bruce is telling the truth, then he didn’t choose Joker. He also didn’t choose Jason. That would still be a choice, but Jason doesn’t know what it would mean. He’d have to reassess, have to determine where he stood, what he was. Jason doesn’t know if he can do that.
So he tells Bruce he believes him and doesn’t allow himself to think about whether or not he’s lying.
“You don’t,” Bruce says.
Jason watches him warily. “I believe you,” he says again. There’s nothing else he can say. He lacks the energy to be any more convincing.
“I’m scaring you,” Bruce says, voice almost a whisper. Like he’s afraid of his own words. Well, Jason is still suffering the after-effects of fear toxin. For all he knows, he could get scared by a piece of broccoli right now. But he doesn’t know how to voice that, so he just watches.
It’s only when Bruce’s face falls that Jason realizes Bruce was hoping for him to deny it. Before Jason can try to hurriedly assure Bruce that no, he’s fine, he’s not scared, well he is but he’s under fear toxin right now, what do you expect?, I’m fine, it’s fine, let’s just forget about it—Bruce is already rushing away and leaving the cave.
Jason waits in the medbay for what feels like another hour, but Bruce doesn’t come back. Eventually, he stands up on his shaky legs and walks over to his motorcycle. He’s lucky that he went out together with Spoiler last night, rather than taking his own bike, because now he at least has an escape method.
It’s only once Jason is out of the Batcave, racing down an empty stretch of Bristol road, that he allows himself to cry.