Chapter Text
The blanket is much too warm. The corner is a little too tight. The pillow is too flat. The story in his book is words on a page.
And his tea is cold.
There’s this unsettling thing that’s kept Jason off-balance for two days -a mantra, a mantra that’s the opposite of the bitter truth Jason has been forced to live with for over a year, now. It goes Bruce killed the Joker. Bruce killed the Joker. Bruce killed the Joker for me. BRUCE killed the Joker FOR ME.
It is a pipe dream come to life. It is everything he ever wanted, everything he’s been forcing himself to live without. To move on from. Everything he’s been bitter about.
It is an impossibility.
And yet – Bruce killed the Joker for me. He broke his skull on a table.
He saved me, this time.
Bruce hadn’t saved Tim’s mother. He hadn’t offered himself up as a replacement hostage the way he could have – he’s done it before. Hadn’t even seemed particularly affected by her death, the blank look in her eyes as her body hit the floor. Only by Tim’s yell, the pain in his voice.
And when the Joker had gone for Jason, he hadn’t hesitated a second.
If it was so easy – such a clear decision – why hadn’t Bruce made it a year ago, in a warehouse rigged with TNT? Why hadn’t he stood by and let Jason kill his own murderer?
The worst part of the whole business is that Jason has no idea how to get answers. Bruce isn’t the best at talking about things, and either he’s bad at articulating his feelings and the reasons for his actions due to lack of practice, or he was just born with his foot in his mouth and gave up on communicating because of that. Honestly, it’s probably a mix of both, and that just makes overcoming the hurdle all the more difficult.
Ever since Bruce returned home almost immediately after the beginning of the trial due to the Joker’s death being ruled as self-defense, Jason’s father has been alternatively hiding out in the Batcave and sneaking around everyone and everything resembling human interaction. He’s even been avoiding Alfred. Not even Dick has managed to wrangle the man into a hug, which is their family’s preferred way of forcing Bruce into a deep talk, because every other option is a pain and requires either intense plotting or locked doors and threats of violence and caffeine withdrawal.
Jason is going to have to address the elephant in the room eventually, but he has no idea how to go about it. He certainly doesn’t want to hug Bruce – he’s not ready for that. And he might start crying, or thanking B, which he definitely doesn’t want to do. He doesn’t even necessarily want to talk about the whole business, but if they don’t discuss it, it’ll only get worse. The silence bigger. The elephant has lots of conflict to eat and grow fat on.
Jason groans and lets his head thump backwards onto the point where the armrest and backrest join. He knows he’s fucked to hell and back when he can’t even read.
He is still sitting the same way when there’s a knock at the door.
“Come in”, he calls, lifting his head and wincing at the kink in his neck.
The library door swings open entirely silently. Bruce pops his head around the corner like a cartoon character.
“Chum?”
“Yeah”, Jason sighs. Bruce looks constipated, the way he does when he’s trying to get difficult words out.
“Can we… talk?”, he wrangles out eventually, “I mean… do you have time…?”
Well, if that isn’t a surprise. Jason isn’t exactly in the headspace or mood for a Talk, but it’s not like he’s getting anything done. And if Bruce is offering…
“Sure”, Jason says.
Bruce enters the room like a man heading for the gallows. With gravitas, he sits down in the armchair that’s placed at a right angle to Jason’s cough – with his son sitting squiesd into the corner, they’re facing each other.
“I thought we might need to talk about what happened at the gala”, Bruce says superfluously. Jason snorts.
“Yeah. No shit.”
Bruce falters – out of his depth and discouraged, Jasonn realises with a pang. Why does he always have to say the wrong thing? Why does he always have to mess up every good thing between himself and the only decent father he’s ever had?
He doesn’t know what to say to fix it. But still, Bruce visibly steels his resolve – a deep breath, a straightening of the spine, and he’s as ready as he’s going to get. Jason heaves a mental sigh of relief.
“Look”, Bruce says, “I can’t… look into your head, but I suppose you’ve got thoughts on what happened – so if you could maybe tell me…?”
Jason hesitates, trying to organise the chaos in his head into an umbrella sentence.
“Why now?”, he asks finally, “why not when I asked you to?”
Bruce startles, sharpening upright. His ice blue eyes fix onto Jason’s, teal with sparks of venomous green flashing like New Year’s sparklers. Venomous, because they bite.
Consequences of a violent death.
“It’s different”, Bruce says, as if it should be entirely obvious. “Jason, you have to know – I’d do anything to protect you.”
Jason freezes.
“What?”
Bruce looks pained.
“I haven’t done the best job of showing that lately, have I?”
There is not, Jason discovers, an easy reply to that. On the one hand, Bruce has been a whole different person since Jason came back to Gotham – a cold, indifferent man, nothing like the father he remembers. On the other hand, everything that happened at the gala has dad will protect me from anything written all over it. Because he loves me.
Shut up, Jason tells the internal voice that sounds too darn much like a hopeful fifteen-year-old.
Dad will protect me from anything because he loves me, the voice insists.
“Jaylad?”, Bruce prompts nervously, and Jason realises he’s frozen up. He’s been doing that a lot lately.
Fight, flight, freeze, fawn.
Talia, when she scares him (
and he might not like to admit it, but she does sometimes – who is she? Who is she to him? Who does she want to be to him? A mother, or just a mentor? A superior? If he calls her mom, but she uses him as a chess piece whenever she pleases, plays him, manipulates him, uncaring of how it hurts him and the people he cares about – is it even the truth? And then of course there’s not just the fact that she can be such a ruthless killer, but also that she’s the one who pushed Jason to be the same. He agrees fully with his practiced moral standpoint, but sometimes he wishes he hadn’t shifted it.
Talia pushed him down a path that led him away from Bruce, told him not to go home because he remained unavenged – and yet she insisted Bruce missed, loved and needed him.
Jason is aware he owes Talia much more than he owes anyone else. She is the one who resurrected him in the first place, after all. She protected him from Ra’s. She funded the beginning of his entire run as the Red Hood, including his extensive training. The supplies he needed were no joke, either. And at no point did she gain anything substantial from the whole business.
Talia is as much of a wildcard as the Joker, in an entirely different way. Jason never knows whether she’s manipulating him, and it scares the crap out of him. He loves her, but he can’t trust her. And he doesn’t know what it was she saw in him when he was a kid. It’s not like she usually singles out gang kids in Gotham to monitor for years and years without taking them away to train as League assassins. It is not an al Ghul thing to do.
His running theory on Talia and his relationship is one he only thinks about at his very lowest points. It's that Talia, to an extent, gave up on Bruce – the man, the mask, and loving him. And instead, she tried to create a better Bruce and Batman by shaping Jason.
He thought that was his line. But it isn’t really, is it? Talia saw another intelligent, talented young man with split knuckles and a vision for the lost cause city, another young man with black hair and blue eyes, and saw another chance. He was to be the better version of Bruce for her – the son of the father, the same way she sees herself as the new and improved version of Ra’s.
Her son and Bruce's, the best parts of them combined. Like she tried with Damian. But without as much risk attached. As much love.
Sometimes Jason hates, hates, hates her so much it burns like a fire in his gut. And then he thinks of slamming his fist into her perfect face but it makes him want to throw up, because he can’t help loving her, and it’s just like Bruce all over again –)
Well, Talia, when she scares him, inspires fawn – best for assessing the situation. The Joker is flight, even though Jason resents it. And Bruce isn’t supposed to scare him and he doesn’t, not unless he does his whole looming bat thing, but scary situations involving his dad are supposed to mean fight.
And yet he’s still frozen, scrambling for an answer.
The Red Hood isn’t supposed to freeze at all, ever.
“Please, Jay”, Bruce repeats softly. He looks a little bit hurt, but mostly… worried?
It’s a cruel glimpse of the father Jason thought he’d lost forever. The third person to die in the wreckage of Ethiopia. The shell that carried on as though possessed, hardened, unforgiving, cruel, unbending – not embodying his moral code, but hiding behind it. Hiding behind it like suckish narrow-minded people behind a preacher’s sermon.
Someone to hate for taking the place of one of the people Jason loved most in the entire world. An imposter.
Two dead men, locked forever in a battle for memories. Eternally bound, eternally resentful.
If your heart is still beating and your brain not dead – is there a soul version of CPR? Does that even matter, or is it too late for them?
“I don’t know what to think anymore”, Jason finally heaves. “You can’t just say stuff like that.”
Bruce’s face takes on a sad look, one that’s familiar down to the inch and that sends immediate stabbing pain into Jason’s chest. At first he can’t place it, but then it hits him like a sledgehammer: this is the face Bruce wore fifty percent of the time when Jason first moved into the Manor. It means Bruce thinks Jason deserved better, and is genuinely sorry he didn’t get it.
“You’re supposed to know that”, he says helplessly.
“Yes, but – I’m different. You’re different. Things – everything is different.”
Bruce’s eyebrows furrow.
“What do you mean?”
Jason’s fingers tighten around his book. He has to manually relax them when he realises he’s almost permanently creased a page.
“What do I mean? What am I supposed to mean by that? B, I’ve – I’m a murderer, and you – aren’t – goddamn it, your rules have changed, okay? You used to be about second chances and that was why you didn’t kill. Now, I don’t even know. But you – fuck, okay, I just don’t know, okay?”
Jason knows he’s not being particularly coherent and B is bad at people, but he thinks he at least touched on the issue. Unfortunately, there appears to be no improved comprehension on Bruce’s part.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“You’re not supposed to care about me!”, Jason bursts out before he can think better of it.
Bruce flinches backwards as if he’s been struck.
Jason knows what it feels like to swing his fist at B’s face with all his strength, and rocks away himself.
He doesn’t want to look at B’s face – doing whatever it’s doing now – microexpressions that haven’t changed, even though the person behind them has, even though they lack any warmth now – so he doesn’t. He turns away, ducks his head diagonally downwards – he’s looking at his page again, but the wrong one. Left, not right. There are no words, only black lines on beige. He is looking at the edge of the book, which is protruding a dark forest-to-olive green in the form of rounded cardboard because of course there are no paperbacks in the library at Wayne Manor. Underneath it his blanket of choice for this reading session is green and blue tartan.
He has to breathe manually. The air has the exact texture and density of mayonnaise. His eyes sting, even though there are no tears.
“Jay… what…”, Bruce finally says, and Jason snaps.
“You’re not supposed to give a shit about me, okay? I’m wrong, you’re wrong, and you’re still mourning someone who died. I came back wrong, I know that, but I came back, and I’m not that boy anymore, I’m the opposite of that boy, and you miss that boy, and I’m tainting his memory, so you’re supposed to hate me and you DO, so why did you kill him?”
Why did you save me?
“Jason –“
“Look, I know what you’re going to say, you’re going to say that of course you care and not to say these things about myself but they’re the TRUTH, okay? And I’m not going to lie to myself. I know who I am. I don’t mind who I am. I know I’m doing the right thing. So cut the crap, because if you cared, you would have let me KILL MY OWN KILLER, the man who BEAT ME TO DEATH AND THEN BLEW ME UP, when I ASKED you to. I wasn’t even asking YOU to kill him! It would have been a painless death for him! A mercy for the rest of the WORLD! Closure for ME! Did you even realise I’ve spent the ENTIRE last year LOOKING over my SHOULDER in case he came to KILL ME AGAIN?!?”
At the end, Jason is near-screaming, definitely already yelling, and it gives him the strength to finally look back up at Bruce, stare him straight in the eye. His breath is heaving. Bruce looks like someone smacked him in the face with the cold dead fish of painful truths and revelations.
“Jason –“
“WHY DO YOU GIVE A SHIT NOW?”
Bruce is out of his chair and slamming into Jason faster than human eyes can process.
“I’m so sorry”, he whispers, “I should’ve made sure you knew –“
Jason’s fist connects with Bruce’s ribs hard enough to shove the man backwards. He ducks his head so Bruce’s hand slides right out of his hair as his father shoots away.
“You don’t get to do that”, he snaps, “you always do that. You say you’re sorry and you messed up and you failed me or the others and you completely miss the point. I’m fine with you not caring. I’m used to people not giving a shit about me. What I need to know is why you did what you did! I need to know why you could kill him now when you couldn’t let me keep myself and you and countless other people safe a year ago!”
Bruce is sitting on the other end of the sofa. He doesn’t seem intent on moving back to his armchair, but at least he doesn’t look inclined to try and hug Jason again either.
“It’s different”, he says again, “I didn’t have to protect you from him a year ago.”
Jason stares at him like he’s lost his mind.
“He wasn’t an immediate threat”, Bruce amends. “Not to your life, not like at the gala. And I didn’t want you to kill anyone.”
“Bruce”, Jason says, very slowly, “it’s the Joker. The single most dangerous, crazy, bloodthirsty person in the world. And I’d already killed people. Which you knew about.”
“Doesn’t mean I wanted to watch my son kill someone.”
“That was your issue?”
Bruce looks away.
“One of them.”
“What were the others?”
“I’m Batman. If someone can be saved… I have to try. I make it my duty every time I put on the suit.”
Jason scoffs.
“The Joker can’t be saved –“
“I wasn’t wearing the suit at the gala.”
Jason freezes.
“… what?”
“I… Batman… is a symbol. He can’t kill – or he loses that status. If I kill the Joker – if I don’t try to save villains – if I kill people – I’m showing everyone there’s a point of no return. That sometimes people deserve death, there’s no going back, eventually someone isn’t worth saving anymore. For someone in a bad place, someone who needs to know there’s someone out there who believes they can make it eventually if they just keep trying – be a good person with a better life, that – could push them over the edge. It’s about principle, belief, Jason. As Bruce Wayne, I don’t have that limitation. I’m not – breaking anything by killing the Joker.”
“You quite literally broke his skull on a table”, Jason says hoarsely. Bruce laughs like he’s gargling broken glass.
“That was an accident. I was just trying to get him away from you. Shield you.”
Jason leans back, thinking hard even though his mind is cottony as if he’s been crying. Bruce’s speech casts some things into a new light.
“You’re saying Batman is about hope”, he says finally, “I always thought Batman was about vengeance and justice, and hope was Robin’s deal.”
“Batman isn’t about vengeance”, Bruce says, “I might’ve said it was when I started out, but that was – well –“
“You were saying it because it sounded cool?”
Bruce shrugs.
“Not really, but maybe a little? I didn’t have it all that figured out back then. I was angry.”
“I always thought Robin’s the one who’s about hope, too”, Bruce ponders, “But when you put it that way, I suppose you’re right. Batman is about hope.”
“How did you not realise that? You literally laid it out a moment ago.”
“I suppose I thought of it as justice. For the person. I don’t – tend to put words – to concepts like that.”
That’s where they differ. Jason puts words to everything. He always has to formulate things in his head, clearly so he can articulate, explain and defend his ideas and opinions at a moment’s notice. That’s not why he does it, it just happens, but he needs that clarity. Definitions. He needs definitions for everything.
“You don’t kill as Batman because you don’t want people to give up hope”, he summarises for that exact reason, “and you didn’t let me kill the Joker because you didn’t want to watch me kill anyone. You killed the Joker at the gala because you weren’t Batman then, but also because it was an accident and you were trying to protect me. Did I miss anything?”
“Well”, Bruce says, “I also generally just don’t want to kill people. I believe no one has the right to take someone else's life - I don't think I could consciously make myself do it if it wasn't an accident, or I'd never recover from it. And I don’t want you to have more blood on your hands than you already do.”
“I’d have happily carried that clown’s blood on my hands. It would have been a badge of honour, not a stain.”
“It’s a burden”, Bruce says gently. “All blood is. Your blood will always be a burden on mine.”
Well if that isn't fucked up.
“You’re not the one who killed me.”
“But that’s the problem. In nature, killing isn’t a problem – it’s the most natural thing, and no animal would think twice about it – whether it’s in competition or to eat. It’s a thing of mentality that humans have, but not every human. A Roman soldier wouldn’t be as worried about killing someone as a preschool teacher would. And I feel responsible for you, so I feel responsible for your death, so it feels like in a way I killed you.”
Jason looks at him shrewdly.
“Where’d that come from?”
Bruce looks sheepish and rubs the back of his neck.
“Alfred told me to say the entire thought out loud instead of just the conclusion.”
“You should do that more often.”
“There’s a reason I don’t. I’d never stop talking.”
“On second thoughts, don’t.”
Bruce laughs painedly.
“I know.”
He sounds hurt, very, very hurt, but also like he’s trying to cover it up, and Jason examines him. There’s something there that goes deeper than a joke. Does he want to get into that with Bruce?
No. Not now, at least.
They have way too much trauma to process all of it in one sitting.
“You should still do it more though”, Jason tiptoes the middle path, “I’m sure everyone would appreciate the reasons for your bad decisions from time to time so we can argue against them better.”
He’s rewarded with the most touched, relieved microexpression he has ever seen Bruce make.
“I can do that”, B rasps.
They sit in silence for a few moments, staring into space. When Jason darts a glance at Bruce, the man is smiling slightly, looking like the elephant in the room has climbed down from his shoulders and is wriggling its big butt out of the window right now. A little stuck, but it’ll get there eventually – like Tinkerbell in Disney’s Peter Pan, with the keyhole.
“I… really care about you, Jason”, Bruce finally says quietly, voice sitting on top of the silence instead of breaking it.
“I’ve always cared. From the moment I knew you were the Red Hood –“
“You hit me pretty damn hard for someone who cares”, Jason grumbles, “I wasn’t hitting you half as hard most of the time, not that evening with the Joker. I was holding back and you weren’t.”
“I’m sorry. Really. I thought – I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“Bruce, you never think straight.”
Bruce winces.
“I suppose I deserve that, do-“
“There is literally nothing about you that is straight.”
It takes Bruce a moment to process that. Then he groans loudly enough the sound waves push the elephant’s arse entirely through the window frame. Jason hopes it has ears big enough to fly with, because the library is on the first floor. So it doesn’t go splat like the sperm whale in the Hitchhiker’s Guide.
“I wish I hadn’t done any of that”, Bruce mumbles, “I should’ve just asked you to come home. I should’ve brought Alfred.”
Bringing Alfred would probably have worked, Jason realises. Scratch that, it most definitely would have worked. One smile or frown from that man and Jason would’ve been putty in the palm of his hand.
He’s not telling Bruce that, though.
“I was pretty pissed off at you”, he says instead. “If you’d asked me to come home I would’ve shot you in the face for the audacity.”
He also would’ve assumed Bruce just wanted to haul him to Arkham. Another point on the list of things he’ll never tell his father about.
Bruce glances at him.
“Why were you so angry? I know, the Joker, but – why did it matter so much that I killed him? You knew my rules.”
“Garzonasas”, Jason says, because fuck it, he might as well be honest about this old story at least, and Bruce’s eyebrows furrow. It’s evidently not the answer he was expecting – one possible kill, all those years ago, when Jason has so many confirmed murders he’s owning up to now?
“You said it’s natural for a father to avenge his son. Then you said I wasn’t your son. I thought it was just a thing you said because you were angry. And then you didn’t avenge me.”
Bruce looks crushed.
“You thought it was proof.”
“Yes.”
“It wasn’t. It – I need you to know something.”
Well if that isn’t ominous.
“What?”, Jason asks suspiciously.
“I wanted to avenge you. I couldn’t think of anything else – I tried – I did.”
Bold upright, an iron band clamped around his chest, Jason stares as Bruce battles an internal battle of unsayable words and big emotions.
“Ask Clark”, Bruce finally manages.
“You can’t say it?”
It’s not a question with judgement, and Bruce, who knows the difference when it comes from Jason, shakes his head.
“Okay.”
He’ll have to ask Clark. Ice cream is scheduled for this weekend, at that nice place in Metropolis because they have that peach and raspberry marbled flavour.
“I don’t hate you for coming back different”, Bruce says suddenly. It appears to take some battle, but this he can say. “I don’t hate you at all. I could never hate you.”
“Don’t be stupid, B”, Jason says, sighing. “I thought we weren’t pretending right now.”
Because he totally isn’t either. But Bruce doesn’t have to know that, and Jason is already being unreasonably honest today.
“That’s how trauma works”, Bruce insists. “I just – wish – you didn’t have it.”
“Yeah. And that wishing grows into resentment, and then into hate – I read, B, I know how these things work.”
Bruce draws his legs up onto the couch to sit curled into the corner, just like Jason. He’s fiddling with his fingers, staring down at them with furrowed eyebrows and his figuring-things-out face. Probably his emotions, now. It looks like it’s his emotions.
Jason averts his eyes.
“Look”, he says, “I kind of hate you for changing, too, okay? It’s normal. We’ve just got to deal with it.”
Bruce’s head darts up. Jason can feel him staring.
“I’ve changed?”, he asks, sounding completely startled. It doesn’t surprise Jason he hasn’t noticed.
“Yeah. You’re – cold, I guess. You weren’t then.”
“Is that why you stay away?”, Bruce inquires with a soft, wan voice that sounds as if it’s coming from miles and miles away. Through the Misty Mountains, calling Jason to Mordor.
You don’t want me, Jason wants to say. I don’t want the new you. I want my dad back, the guy I knew back then.
“Yeah”, he sighs. “Kind of, I guess.”
For a moment there is silence. Like the elephant left a little smelly present behind and the fumes are everywhere, now.
“Oh”, Bruce whispers in the same bring-the-ring-to-me voice.
“Look”, Jason says, “Here’s the thing: I’ve changed. You’ve changed. We both want a person that doesn’t exist anymore but we’re stuck with the new versions. So maybe we can just, I don’t know, keep avoiding each other and get on with our lives, okay? Thanks for killing the Joker by the way, that makes life a hell of a lot easier for me.”
Conversation over. Hopefully. Maybe with the facts on the table Bruce will leave it alone now.
“You want the old me?”, Bruce asks, sounding so flabbergasted Jason almost wants to punch him for the audacity.
“You don’t hate the old version of me, too?”
Oh.
“I thought that was obvious”, Jason grumbles. “Old you was fuckin’ great most a the time. Now you just suck. All the bad parts, all the time. And I kinda thought old you was a lie in the first place, and it was just now you pretending, but – old you was great.”
Bruce mouths an astonished oh like a man seeing the sunset for the first time. In Gotham, that’s something that happens to twenty-or-so-year-olds every now and then.
“So you miss old me”, he summarises, “but you don’t think old me exists anymore. Because I didn’t let you kill the Joker, and because I’m… cold?”
Jason snorts.
“Because you’re a fucking asshole who doesn’t pull his punches.”
They’re going round in circles, but he supposes the circles are getting a bit bigger, or smaller, whichever way you want to turn the metaphor. Covering more ground. Circling in on the issue.
“I want to fix that”, Bruce declares determinedly. “I can pull my punches.”
“I mean that in a metaphorical way too. You’re entitled. You’re mean. You’re controlling for no reason at all other than that I used to be your Robin.”
“I just want to protect you.”
“You’ve said that already. But why? I’m just a stain on the name of your dead child.”
The child Bruce tried to avenge, apparently.
There is a sharp inhale, painful sounding-like. Suddenly, out of nowhere like split-second teleportation, a gentle hand rests on the back of Jason’s neck. Bruce has moved without sound or shift of the air, as usual, but this is not a punch flying at him from the abyss.
“You’re still my child. And you’re not a stain on your own name, Jason. Please don’t say that about yourself.”
Jason freezes. That’s old Bruce right there.
“Jaylad?”, Bruce asks, concerned, and begins to withdraw. Jason flinches, and almost lunges for his hand before he stops himself.
“Whoa”, Bruce says, both hands in the air, concern in his eyes and voice.
“You with me, Jason?”
“Don’t just do that”, Jason chokes.
“Do what?”
“Act like you used to – and then just – take it away again. You keep doing that.”
Jason can see the penny drop.
“Old Bruce showed you affection”, Bruce realises, “that’s what you mean, don’t you?”
“Old Bruce gave a shit”, Jason spits.
“Oh, Jay”, Bruce says softly, old-Bruce-assuring-Jason-he’s-here-to-stay written all over him, “of course I care. I didn’t –“
His face does some complicated words thing again.
“I didn’t want to scare you off. I didn’t want to overstep. I thought you wanted nothing to do with me.”
“I didn’t ‘cause I thought it was all a lie”, Jason grumbles.
“Can I hug you now or will you punch me again?”, Bruce asks. Jason thinks it over for a second or two.
“Don’t push your luck, old man.”
“Okay. Okay”, Bruce says, thinking hard, “I can… we can… we can fix this, okay? I can try to be less… cold.”
“And controlling.”
“And controlling”, Bruce acquiesces. “If you want me around – I can be around. I want you around. Maybe you can visit more?”
Because despite what he said to the crazy lady, Jason does still safehouse-hop in the city instead of living at the Manor.
Jason sniffs.
“I can do that. For Alfie’s sake.”
“For Alfie’s sake”, Bruce agrees with a smile.
Silence creeps into the cracks in the conversation again and settles in this one, like water eroding a mountain crevice into a small rainwater-filled hollow clean enough to drink from. It’s clear and comfortable. Jason readjusts his blanket and leans back, breathing in clear air and peace. A faint trace of Bruce’s lemony cologne has settled into it, enough to be noticeable. It smells like a wave of a past life, like that impossibly beautiful, achingly familiar scent you smell on the street but can never pinpoint.
“I can’t believe you were an asshole for an entire year because you didn’t want to overstep”, Jason eventually grumbles, quietly enough that it doesn’t disrupt the moment.
“I think I was being pretty stupid”, Bruce agrees easily. He turns to Jason from where he was looking at the books to the left of him, which is Jason’s right.
“Jason – I’m so glad you came back. You know that, right?”
No. No, Jason did not know that. Normally, he’d argue against it – but not after that conversation, not after the gala.
Things really have changed, haven’t they?
“I… didn’t”, he says instead. “I thought… well, you said not to say that about myself.”
Bruce shuffles across the couch, until he’s just in front of Jason. One leg up on the sofa, the other on the floor. He used to sit like that when Jason was sad and holed up in the library, and Bruce thought he needed a hug. True to the tradition Bruce carefully reaches out and tugs Jason’s head against his shoulder. It’s not quite a hug, due to the awkward triangular space in between them, but that’s fair enough. They’re not quite there yet.
“I’m so glad you came back”, Bruce whispers, hand running through Jason’s hair, “so, so glad. I still don’t know how I survived it, losing you.” The rough, lingering kiss he presses onto Jason’s hair says more than the words ever could – choked as they are.
It’s a statement, that’s for sure. Jason doesn’t have a reply, but Bruce gets that, of course he does. Instead, he buries his face in B’s smooth, woollen jumper and closes his eyes. It seems like that’s the response Bruce was waiting for. He pulls Jason closer. The hug feels warm and real and not fake like all of the hugs Bruce has granted him since he came back, cold, formal things that they were, with that painful, unbreachable chasm of distance that made getting a hug worse than not getting one. Now, there is no chasm. Jason remembers this jumper from when he was Robin. He hasn’t seen Bruce wear it since – a dark grey turtleneck that’s not really fancy and not really casual. A little worn but not enough to be described as anything other than broken in. They bought it together, and B used to wear it all the time. Seeing him in it now and feeling the fabric against his cheek feels like having old Bruce back, the version of Bruce that was his dad. It’s too good to be true – too good to last, at least.
But you’ve got to live for the moment, right?
(The moment only hurts you more in the long run.)
Jason sets his book onto the coffee table and flings himself into the hug.
“Don’t ever, ever make me lose you again”, Bruce mumbles roughly as his arms lock tightly around Jason like a suit of armour.