Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I don’t wanna go”, Jason whines. He’s just being dramatic, Bruce knows. He agreed to this weeks ago, and besides, it’s much too late to chicken out. Alfred is already fixing the tie around his neck.

The sight is painfully familiar and strange at the same time. Seeing the big bad Red Hood wearing a suit with a petulantly Jason expression on his face is surely something, and Bruce is here to milk every second of this. This is the closest he’s gotten to his son just acting like himself ever since he’s gotten him back, never mind all the careful polite conversations over dinner and the medical check-ups. Somehow, it’s even better than the careful-not-to-overstep hugs they’ve managed to bear a couple of times, when all that Bruce could do was control his breathing and stop himself from crushing Jason close and wailing into his shoulder and never letting go.

This? This is funny. This is familiar. There is no pretending, no shields, because Jason will as predicted (and thank God he was right) drop any and all defence mechanisms and grudges to complain about having to attend a gala.

“It’s your gala”, Bruce reminds him, “you’re doing this for the Alley.”

Jason sighs theatrically, defeated.

“Thank your lucky stars I am or I would set the whole place on fire as a distraction while I make my escape.”

A chuckle escapes Bruce before he can stop himself. The situation – Jason might call it a predicament – is lowering his shields, too.

“All done, master Jason”, Alfie interrupts, stepping back. The tie is secured fancily in some knot Bruce doesn’t bother to identify. He probably learned how to tie it once and promptly forgot. It’s not something he’s supposed to do, being Batman and all, but one can’t remember everything and he has priorities.

“Thanks Alfie”, Jason says. Of course he’s smiling. He’ll smile at Alfred no matter what. Any of them will, even Damian, who’s still figuring out the meaning of that word most days.

Speaking of –

“Where’s the rest of them?”, Bruce asks, vaguely annoyed. Cass is getting ready with the help of Barbara and Steph, she doesn’t need any assistance from the men and will no doubt be on time, but the rest of his kids might be anywhere, getting up to any sort of mischief. Intentional or not.

Jason shrugs.

“Dick said summing about having forgotten his suit at the dry cleaner’s.”

Bruce pinches his nose and prays for patience. One errand. One errand he didn’t ask Alfred to handle.

“To be fair, that was the day of the Arkham breakout.”

Right. Maybe his eldest had an excuse just this once.

They’ve still got a little time before they have to be downstairs and Bruce still wants to make an entrance with the entire family, so he goes to sit on a sofa and pulls out his phone. The breakout is handled, they wrapped that up nicely just in time to survey the preparations for tonight, but contrary to popular belief he does check in with his company every now and then. Granted, it’s mostly overlooking the things Lucius does, but he knows what’s going on and puts his two cents in when he thinks it’s needed. It’s nice to talk about the company with Tim. The kid needs to take a break from being a vigilante from time to time, and if that break is business, who is Bruce to deny him that?

Jason is staring at him uncertainly. Alfred is slipping out of the room, probably on the lookout for runaway birds. Some of the tension has returned, but Bruce is determined to get it right this time. If he is happy about Jason being normal, maybe Jason appreciates the favour being returned.

So he does his best to look completely engrossed in what started boring him five seconds ago and doesn’t look at Jason as non-pointedly as possible. After a minute or so there’s motion above his phone screen, and Bruce glances up just for the fraction of a second before looking down again.

There. That’s natural, isn’t it?

Jason seems to agree, because he slowly sits down on the opposite end of the sofa. He pulls something from his jacket. There’s the faint rustling of pages and the crackle of an old receipt being removed from its place as a bookmark. Bruce smiles.

Jason doesn’t seem to realise he’s doing it, but over the next half hour, he relaxes. At first, it’s just leaning against the backrest of the sofa instead of settling his elbows on his knees. Then he tucks himself into the corner. Then he’s got his feet up on the leather, curled up like he used to sit in the library.

Bruce takes a picture. Jason doesn’t notice.

He’s reading Out Of Africa, which explains why the paperback fit into his suit. That wonderfully incorrigible boy.

Bruce still sees the son he used to have in Jason, and he hates that he failed him so much he almost drove out every spark that made him so special.

Before he can spiral into guilt again, Dick bursts through the door like a cannonball, panting and falling over himself.

“I’m here! I’m here!”

Jason, who snapped back into a tense position the moment the silence was broken, scowls at him.

“About time, Dickhead.”

Dick grins.

“Yeah yeah, bugger off, Little Wing. I had to get my special suit for today.”

He gestures to himself, and Bruce does a double take. It’s not unusual in the least for Dick to wear flashy, tacky, flamboyant things. He doesn’t usually wear them to galas, where he likes to settle for whatever Bruce or Alfred get him, but this one he’s obviously picked out himself. It’s not obnoxiously Dick Grayson, in the sense that it’s entirely decent (read: has pants) and lacks glitter. It doesn’t even have any frills or buttons that used to be glow-in-the-dark stars. No, the only special thing about it is that it’s red. A dark burgundy, unobtrusive but noticeably different from the usual blacks and blues he prefers, and his tie – still slung loosely around his neck – is the colour of Hood’s helmet.

It suits him. Not as much as the blue, but it suits him.

Jason rolls his eyes.

“Gee, thanks for the moral support, Cinderella.” 

“Not the most appropriate reference.”

“What, are you offended at being compared to a girl?”

“No, she switches from pink to blue.”

That’s when Damian strolls into the room. He’s wearing a suit identical to Dick’s, but his tie is black. Figures.

“You need to fix your hair, Dick”, Bruce points out. His eldest procures a comb from somewhere and marches to a mirror, where he tames his wind-blown overgrown mop to the best of his abilities. How he stands the long hair Bruce will never know, but that’s Dick for you.

“Will Clark be there?”, Dick asks, which is a valid question, because the Pulitzer winner is present at these events more often than not. Being a reporter gets you into a lot of places once you’re famous enough, or at least the ones that want good publicity. This gala for the Jason Todd foundation fits that schematic to a t.

“He’s off world but he’s very sorry”, Bruce mourns. It would’ve been nice to have him there, if not for himself then for Jason. But the destruction of Earth waits for no one and if Batman already couldn’t go then Superman absolutely had to.

“He said he’ll take you all out for ice cream once he’s back to make up for it.”

“That more than makes up for it”, says Jason, whose opinion is the only one that counts on this particular instance.

“Damian, could you go fetch Alfred so he can fix your ties?”, Bruce requests, “I’ve got to catch up on some new protocols Lucius implemented.”

“Certainly, father.”

There are no protocols. Bruce just wants to enjoy his rare Jason-time.

“Is Tim coming?”, Dick asks.

“He said he is, but he might forget. Or fall asleep”, Jason grins, which is a wonderful thing. Because of the incident at Titan’s Tower Bruce was afraid his sons would never get along almost as much as he’s afraid he’ll never get Jason truly back, not just the hate-filled crime lord who’s more like an imposter than his son. But then they’d gone on a mission together – reluctantly, in Jason’s case, and without showing any particular emotion about it in Tim’s, and when they’d come back they’d been thick as thieves. It didn’t make any sense to Bruce. Not at all. But Jason the overprotective older brother is decidedly less worrisome than Jason the potentially murderous one.

“If he’s late I’ll march over there myself and drag him out.”

“You can’t leave your own gala. Dick can go”, Bruce says, because he is not giving Jason an excuse to run away and start trouble for shits and giggles with his absolute menace of an unofficial sibling. He has already locked away the paintball guns and glitter bombs.

Damian returns with Alfred in tow and his tie already perfectly tied. He looks such a picture, Bruce can’t stop himself from discreetly taking another photograph. It comes out well. That’s definitely going into the next album, right along with the Jason one.

Photography is less of a habit and more of a skill he has picked up from Tim. He has always taken pictures of his children, but it was only after his mortified thirteen-year-old sat him down and walked him through such things as lighting and angles and camera settings that his photos became print-worthy. Ironically, that was also the day he came to think of Tim as his son.

He’s glad the boy still has parents, but, well –

He’d just love to have all his kids in the house at the same time. Legally. And officially. He wants the postman to turn up at his door and say in a bored voice: “Delivery for Timothy Drake-Wayne.”

Did he by any chance ever have an affair with Janet Drake?

Bruce holds back as sigh as he comes to the conclusion that he has not.

Bummer.

He has wasted a little too much time on his reflections. Before he knows it, there’s guests arriving, and he slaps Brucie on his face and strides towards the hall to be a Jolly Good Sport.

Jason snickers as he trails behind him. The little shit.

Cass is waiting for them in the corridor, looking absolutely dazzling. She’s so elegant, wearing the midnight blue glittering dress that flows off her shoulders like dark water, his mother’s jewellery sparkling on her wrists, ears and collarbones. The touch of makeup on her face is perfect and simple but eye-catching. Bruce smiles. His sons might be idiots but he can always count on his daughter. He offers her his arm with a smile, which she takes gracefully.

Behind him, Jason shoves Dick into a table for daring to try and ruffle his hair when he “actually tried for once, dammit”. Damian, who was nearly squashed and is offended by the threat to his favourite brother (and wasn’t that a surprise, too) threatens Jason with a knife. Dick takes it from him, which escalates the conflict.

Idiots.

And idiot number three isn’t even here yet.

God, Bruce is glad Steph insists on not attending galas. He doesn’t think he could handle it.

Dick snatches Damian up and slings him over his shoulder, ignoring all protests and threats of dismemberment, laughing joyfully.

Idiots. But adorable idiots.

Cass is looking up at him. She is smiling, that knowing smile that means she’s reading him. He returns it.

“Ready?”, he asks, and she nods. That’s all the opinions he needs, even though it’s still technically Jason’s day, the day that celebrates the rewiring of the previously alarmingly inefficient million-dollar Jason Todd foundation.

The secret is that now they’re coordinating everything with Red Hood, but officially, he’s just putting Jason in charge, which is technically the same thing.

Not that anybody here knows it.

Eh. All these rich pricks only come for the snacks anyways.

And to suck up to Brucie Wayne, but when has that ever worked?

They enter the ballroom in a parade of perfect suits and expensive perfume. The few guests already there turn to look at them. Their calculating stares still unsettle Bruce, no matter how many times he has done this, hosted something like this. It’s a battle. But not the sort he can win. Not the sort he wants to fight.

So he keeps Brucie up and starts mingling, chatting with people, and winds up with the Drakes after fifteen minutes.

Tim hasn’t had the foresight to wear red. He’s in a default suit, but he has covered up his eyebags. Or he might be getting more sleep with his parents there to supervise – Bruce gathers they go on a lot of trips and the housekeeper Mrs Mac looks after Tim while they’re gone, which isn’t ideal, but who is he to judge other parents? His kids are vigilantes, which, yes, it was their decision and he couldn’t stop them if he tried, lord knows he did, but just look where it got Jason.

Tim says little and looks faintly zoned out, smiling and nodding as his parents prattle on and on. It’s terrible really, and Bruce is only sticking it out for his kid’s sake.

“…said he’s investing in the pharma industry”, Janet Drake is saying when Jason arrives to free Tim from the conversation. He walks up to them with a wolfish grin on his face and his arms spread wide.

“Tim! Hey, mate! Can’t say I’ve seen you here yet. How’s it going?”

A heavy arm thunks onto Tim’s shoulders as he is dragged into a side hug that makes the air wheeze from his lungs. He returns to reality instantly and half-glares at Jason – Bruce can see him stab his brother sharply between his ribs with two fingers, no matter how sneaky Tim thinks he’s being – before plastering on a smile.

“I’m doing great, dude, how’re you? Foundation work going well?”

“Excellent – I’ll have to tell you all about it – Mr and Mrs Drake, so lovely to see you, please, enjoy the party – I absolutely need to steal your son for a while –“

Then he’s dragging Tim off, probably to supervise Damian and teach him how to talk shit about the guests to their faces in the most backhanded way possible. Bruce watches them go with a fond look, when he spots a situation on the other side of the ballroom that requires his immediate attention.

“Oh, actually, Mr Drake, could you excuse me for a moment? I believe my daughter requires my assistance”, he extracts himself smoothly, and even though Tim’s parents look put out by the missed networking opportunity, they can’t argue against that.

Besides, Cass really does need his help.

She’s being flirted with by some high society dimwit, Alexander Flick Bruce believes his name is, his father is the CEO of a slightly shady supermarket chain called FlickFoods. Seriously, how rude, what a buffoon – can’t he tell Cass isn’t interested? What does she have to do for people to notice she doesn’t want a boy? Kiss a girl for the audience? How inconsiderate of them.

“Cassandra, would you like to dance?”, he offers smoothy when he arrives, and Cass visibly lights up. The tension drops from her shoulders as she takes his hand, and he drops Brucie and lets Batman slide into place as he looks back at Alexander while leading her away. The boy gulps and scurries away.

Good.

The band is already playing, and people notice it when Bruce Wayne and his daughter walk to the centre of the dance floor hand in hand. Conversation quietens. The band begins a waltz Bruce knows for a fact Alfred requested personally, because he recognises it from the man’s treasured antique record player.

Cass dances with astounding grace and great joy as always, and Bruce finds himself enjoying it, too. He used to hate it, waltzing with women he barely knew, either being fully aware they were trying to seduce him or being stuck in mind-numbing conversation as they tried to forge a connection for sweet money’s sake. Both of these types were unpleasant in their own unique ways, and he was stuck touching them for longer than he was comfortable with. With Cass, it’s like sparring but better, like sitting on the sofa with Jason, like practicing gymnastics with Dick, like taking a coffee break with Tim, like watching a movie with Steph, like getting to know his newest, Duke, like going to the zoo or the museum with Damian. It’s just fun family time, sharing something with his child she so clearly enjoys. In a life as strenuous as his where he sees so many bad things, bad people every day, there is nothing better.

They dance, and spin, and laugh and laugh for many songs in a row, enough that Bruce loses track. People join them and they have to start dodging couples who are clumsier and less elaborate than them, but it’s still just as wonderful. The golden lights of the gala look warm and real and beautiful, not glaringly fake and gaudy.

Eventually they take a break to get something to drink. Bruce foregoes the champagne but takes the offered orange juice gladly, downing his first glass in a couple of sips. The dry inside air of these functions always makes him dreadfully thirsty. He gladly takes a second glass and sips it slowly, looking around to locate all his children. The ones attending, at least. Stephanie is no doubt upstairs, binge-watching some brainrot show with Barbara, and Duke is probably studying like the sensible person he is. Good for him.

Good for Bruce’s nerves, too.

Dick and Damian are accounted for and safely occupied by dancing with each other, Damian looking begrudgingly entertained as Dick whirls him round and round. They’re in the way, but they’re not setting anything on fire and they’re having fun. That’s fine.
Jason is stuck at the buffet, smiling at a middle-aged woman who is chattering at him, the champagne in her glass sloshing dangerously. He’s most definitely bored out of his mind, but that’s something he has to suffer through, an unavoidable consequence of being a Wayne.
Tim is back with his parents, shaking hands and making small talk.

Satisfied he doesn’t have to intervene anywhere, Bruce heads over to the buffet and gets himself some food, clapping Jason on the shoulder as he passes.

“Having fun, chum?”

“Sure am, dad”, Jason says with a smile that means ‘I am going to kill you slowly for putting me through this’. Bruce shoots one back that reads ‘you will deal with it and behave, or else, and I will be smug about it all I want’ to Jason and ‘I am genuinely happy to be here and having the time of my life’ to everyone else. Jason’s smile widens as his eyes narrow into a dangerous edge. Bruce copies the expression and heads for the cheese platter. Jason stares after him, betrayed, while he loads a plate with snacks. For reconciliatory measures, Bruce returns to his side to share the plate and the pain of high society for a few minutes. Jason steals all the things Bruce knew he would and therefore got two of, and they listen to Mrs Dupont wax poetic about her late husband’s success in college football. Then she points out Jason reminds her of him, such a fine young man he’s grown into, and reaches out to squeeze his arm. Bruce smoothy pulls Jason out of reach and into his side with an arm around his shoulder, kissing him on the head.

“That’s my boy, taking after me”, he says warmly, “you know, Delphine, Jason’s such a smart young man too, he’s just started majoring in English at college – Gotham University has such a good programme for it. It’s lovely having him home all the time.”

Jason accepts the affection with a rueful grin and a minimal blush, lightly shoving Bruce to get him to back off.

“Yeah, yeah, old man, let go of me.”

Bruce does. Delphine Dupont looks slightly put out, but doesn’t seem intent on trying again.

Take that, you creepy old bag.

“Intelligent and athletic!”, she begins anyways, and nope, no you don’t.

“Yep. Couldn’t be prouder. Jason, Dick was looking for you.”

Jason takes the offered out gladly, shooting Bruce a look that means he can handle himself against some high society widow, which he absolutely can, but still.

“Really. Well then, I’d better get going, lovely talking to you, Mrs Dupont!”

Mrs Dupont looks a little disappointed to see him go. But apparently, she’s not limited to twenty-year-olds, because as soon as Jason is gone and she realises she’s alone with Bruce Wayne, she not-so-subtly eyes him up and down. The gleam in her eye she had when talking to Jason intensifies.

“It’s a lovely venue you’ve put together today”, she says, and Bruce feels at least five of his brain cells die in anticipation of the looming conversation.

He puts up with five minutes of being uncomfortably flirted at by a woman fifteen years his elder before he extracts himself in search of Oliver Queen.

He finds the man talking to some potential business partners in a corner of the room, sipping on a flute of champagne. Bruce listens in for a few moments before joining their circle and offering Oliver a better deal than the others did.

He knows for a fact they exploit their employees in Bangladesh. They can go broke for all he cares. He’s not making a deal with them and neither is Oliver if he can help it.

Catching his old friend’s eye, he taps morse against his plate:

C-O-R-R-U-P-T

Oliver catches it and takes Bruce up on his offer, asking for specifics. They go back and forth for a little while, slowly excluding the others more and more until they’ve physically cut them off from the conversation, leaning against the wall and angled towards each other in that way that makes trying to stand with them very, very awkward. The exploiters drift away eventually, hoping for better luck next time or a good deal somewhere else. Bruce observes they go to the Drakes.

Hmmm.

Should he ask Tim about that?

The kid has more influence over Wayne Enterprises than Drake Industries, but he watches everything that goes on in his parents’ company like a hawk – if anyone knows if something’s going on, it’s him.

“What’d they do?”, Oliver asks him, and Bruce hums tiredly. He’s exhausted from all the small talk. At least with Oliver, he can be open, even if they’re bound to run into a disagreement sooner or later.

“Exploiting workers in their textile factories in Bangladesh. Safety codes not met. Child labour. Low wages and long hours. Also, tax evasion, I think.”

“Ah.”

“Is Roy here tonight?”

Oliver just smirks and nods diagonally to the left.

Roy Harper is talking to Dick Grayson. They look… unsettling.

“Should I investigate?”, Bruce asks tiredly.

“Nah. I want to see what they get up to.”

“It’s my gala. I’m responsible, especially for what my children do.”

“Stop worrying, he’s a grown man, he can do what he wants.”

“Grown man. You say that as if you aren’t perfectly aware of the teenage trouble he gets himself into on a regular basis.”

“Better teenage trouble than what was going on with Roy a few years back”, Oliver says, sounding troubled, and Bruce’s heart contracts in sympathy. Not particularly for Oliver, the man certainly messed up as a parent at least as much as Bruce did, but for a fellow father who had to watch his son’s descent into addiction before the boy dropped off the radar completely. God, he’s glad Roy got back on his feet on his own, because hell would Ollie just have made it all worse if he’d tried to interfere. And Dick and Jason both need their friend – hell, Lian needs him.

And hadn’t that been a surprise. Chaos junkie and ex-druggie Roy Harper being the best father out of all the people Bruce knows.

Maybe with the exception of the Commissioner.

And, if he’s counting Alfred…

Point is, Roy is doing good. Not just that, he’s helping others fix their lives, too.

Nothing like rock bottom to show you the way up, Bruce thinks wryly, and remembers hitting it himself most recently after finding out who Red Hood was and what he did to Tim.

That… hadn’t been a fun time.

Thank goodness for Tim’s resilience, because if he hadn’t forgiven Jason, Bruce doesn’t know if he could have.

“He’s doing well now”, Bruce says when he realises he’s been silent for too long.

Oliver hums.

“Yes. I’m glad. And so is your boy.”

He’s talking about Jason.

“They’re all doing well”, Bruce says with a smile. “I wish Tim would get more sleep, though.”

Oliver snorts.

“You can be such a mother hen, you know?”

“You’d be singing a different tune if you were familiar with the hours he keeps. He’s as bad as I am on my worst days, a complete workaholic, and he’s supposed to be focusing on school.”

“Ah, but he’s almost done, isn’t he? And he’s a genius, he shouldn’t have anything to worry about.”

“Oliver, being a genius only means so much in school. It helps, of course, but the curriculum requires paying attention, handing in work and learning things you aren’t interested in. If you don’t try and are constantly sleep deprived, you can’t excel. Tim’s failing English, Spanish and History. Jason is tearing his hair out and has resorted to sitting Tim down and writing his essays with him.”

“Ah yes, your nerd child.”

“They’re all nerds. My school nerd child.”

“All of them? Even Cassandra?”

“Ballet nerd.”

“Damian?”

“Animal and art nerd.”

“Tim?”

“Photography and business, and true crime I suppose.”

“Dick?”

“Math and gymnastics nerd.”

“Isn’t the second one called being a jock?”

“Not with his attitude it isn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean he fangirls about Simone Biles.”

“In a nerd sort of way?”

“Yes.”

Oliver leans against the wall, whistling through his teeth.

“Blimey.”

Even Oliver has picked up a little British-ness from spending time around Alfred from his teenage years till now, it would seem.

Bruce turns away from him to watch the room. Nothing has changed, still a lot of mingling and some dancing. People are starting to attack the buffet in earnest. Tim could probably get something out of who’s talking to who, but to Bruce, all the suits are starting to blur together. When did that happen? When he was young, these events were interesting to him, sharp. An opportunity to practice his skills. Years of the same have dulled his enthusiasm, he supposes. Business is always the same anyways, and he can’t bring himself to care about it too much these days.

Lucius does a much better job than he could, anyways.

It’s like Tim and school. Lucius finds business interesting. He doesn’t struggle paying attention, dedicating his life to it. Bruce could do it if he tried, but his life is dedicated to Batman. It’s his calling. His way of doing meaningful work, of seeing the world up close.

As Bruce Wayne, all he can do is throw money around. As Batman, he can make sure people are getting home safe. And for some reason, that feels more like being in touch with reality than running a company does.

It’s just – out there, he can touch safety with his bare hands instead of conceptualising it until it’s grown so vague in his mind all he can do is throw money in useless corners. He can see the results, the real ones, instead of graphs and numbers, which are all right and pretty dam great, but can be manipulated so easily.

People can make fun of him all they want. Bruce is doing good things as Batman, necessary things, and backing that up with Wayne money and foundations is just the optimal outcome. Really, he wouldn’t have made it so far if he wasn’t rich. But he could still keep people safe.

And Bruce has learned the hard way throwing money at Gotham without asking people on the street where it ends up doesn’t work.

So.

They work well together, Batman and Bruce.

Since last week, Jason Todd-Wayne and Red Hood are doing the same. It warms something in Bruce’s chest, his son stepping into his footprints without even realising it.

Jason can wax poetic about Batman’s hypocritical rules all he wants. In the grand scheme of things, Bruce knows he’s made a positive difference, even if he can’t save everyone.

Even if he couldn’t save his son.  

He grabs the edge of the metaphorical cliff and hauls himself out of the whirlpool. Thanks, Harls.

“Do you think anyone would mind if we ditched?”

The words are out of his mouth before he’s even processed the thought.

Oliver bursts out laughing.

“My God, Bruce, what are we, seventeen? Did you seriously just suggest we leave your own gala? With the words ‘Do you think anyone would mind if we ditched’? Holy shit.”

Bruce regrets his life choices while Oliver wheezes.

“That’s a terrible imitation.”

“It’s a perfect impersonation of your teenage self.”

“Hn. Outdated.”

“You just figuratively travelled back in time.”

Yes, Bruce supposes thinking about his college days with Harleen Quinzel will do that.

Harley now.

So much has happened.

Another sweep of the room proves to him they’re mostly good things.

Wait a moment, Dick is standing all alone, no Roy in sight – what’s he staring at like that? That’s a Nightwing threat assessing look. Bruce follows his line of sight, and discovers the missing redhead is standing next to Jason, now. Bruce frowns. Dick knows Roy and Jason are friends, surely he wouldn’t get jealous –

Jason is blushing.

Roy is blushing.

Bruce panics.

What does he do now? Is this a good thing or a bad thing? He’s not ready. He wasn’t prepared for this possibility. Sure, Dick has dated, and he’s talked Bruce’s ear off about a million crushes, and Tim gets that look sometimes, and he and Steph were together, and yes, Cass is absolutely in love with her brother’s ex, but Jason? Jason has never mentioned anything of the sort. Ever. Except for coming out, but even then, it was just a general realisation and not a specific person. Bruce thought at least one child was safe from the clusterfuck that is romance.

Oh well, they’re all doomed.

“Oliver”, he says, catching his friend’s attention. “What do you think of that?”

Oliver looks where he’s pointing and almost drops his champagne.

“Well I never. That’s the cutest shit I’ve seen all evening.”

Bruce shoots him a wary side eye.

“Really? It doesn’t concern you at all?”

Oliver snorts. “Relax, mama bear. They’re both grown-ups, they’re friends. Responsible kids. They deserve to unwind.”

“Dating is the polar opposite of unwinding.”

“Geez, yes, okay, but it’s a different kind of stress, isn’t it? Be glad they’re thinking about themselves and their own feelings for a moment. I think Roy has mostly forgotten he’s got a life outside of his job and taking care of Lian, and knowing Jason, I’d say he’s much the same.”

“Hn.”

“Yeah, isn’t he going to uni, too? C’mon, Bruce, let them enjoy their lives a little while they’re young.”

“I worry.”

Oliver nods sagely.

“Don’t we all. Let your little big bird spread his wings, it’s just Roy. He’ll take good care of him. Besides, we don’t even know if they’re dating. Might just be a crush.”

“Hn.”

What Bruce doesn’t say is that he just really, really doesn’t want Jason to get his heart broken. And he doesn’t want to have to yell at Roy, which would be the consequence of the aforementioned contingency, because his no-kill rule still applies, and he doesn’t want Dick to lose his friend. That’s unlikely, but Dick can be boneheaded and unforgiving just like Bruce. It’s one of the worse traits he’s picked up, or rather, that Bruce didn’t help him overcome.

Roy is in over his head, isn’t he?

“Bruce. I can tell what you’re thinking. Chill. If Roy’s in for a penny, he’s in for a pound. He’d never risk his friendship with Jason for a small crush. If they date, he’ll be serious about it. With Lian around, he wouldn’t risk a short-term relationship with an old friend that risks losing his kid an uncle. He’s grown responsible.”

“Hn.”

He supposes Oliver knows Roy better than he does.

Oliver is grinning.

“I for one am rooting for them. They’re cute as fuck.”

Bruce lets the corner of his mouth twitch upwards. Yes, he supposes they are, even though that might be the last word people would usually apply to two six-foot-tall mountains of muscle. Then again, they look more like middle schoolers than vigilantes right now.

Or is that just a parent thing?

Bruce passes his full flute of champagne to Oliver.

“I’ll go talk to Dick.”

Oliver snorts and waves enthusiastically after him, nearly sloshing champagne all over himself.

“Have fun and good luck!”

Bruce ignores him.

Dick notices him approaching. He barely turns away from where he’s watching his brother and friend with eagle’s eyes.

“B”, Dick acknowledges him.

“Hello, Dick”, Bruce answers, “what do you think of that?”

Dick stares at him in surprise.

“You’re… asking my opinion about that?”

Bruce shrugs, uncomfortable.

“Well… I think you could… assess the situation better than I can.”

Dick’s piercing stare gives way to a snort.

“If you wanna interrogate someone, you’d better interrogate Jason. I’m just supervising.”

Bruce raises an eyebrow at him. It’s not as effective as Alfred’s, but…

Dick cracks.

“I think it’s probably fine.”

Bingo.

“But?”

“But I’m not happy about it. I mean, I’m happy for them, but if it goes wrong…”

“You think it’s going to go wrong?”

“Not necessarily? But you know Jason, and Roy used to be a powder keg. He’s calmed down now, especially with Lian around, and he’s been good for Jason, but you know.”

“Hn.”

“Yeah.”

They’re silent for a while, watching discreetly. That Roy and Jason don’t notice is a testament to their emotional situation.

“I think it’d be good for them”, Dick finally says. “We’re just being overprotective.”

“Jason has never been in a relationship before.”

Dick snorts.

“Bruce, I think that’s just because he has ‘romantic ideas’. That’s a quote. From one of his books. You know, the endless Jane Austen books he memorises? He probably knows more about relationships than all of us put together.”

“Hn.”

“Sure, experience is important, but he’s not going in blind. That’s something, isn’t it?”

“Hn.”

Dick shoots him a wry look.

“Social skills exhausted for the evening?”

Bruce pauses, then nods. He can feel Brucie becoming heavy on his face. Oh, how he longs to drop the smile and faceplant into his pillow. He’s starting to feel like he was hit by Joker gas.

Across the room, someone laughs and it sounds a little like his old acquaintance Jack Napier. Bruce’s head instantly snaps to Jason, who doesn’t seem to have heard it.

Maybe he’s just tired.

“Bruce?”

“I’m fine, Dick. Just thought I heard something.”

There’s a creeping feeling on the back of his neck. Trust your intuition, the first thing he taught every Robin. Their senses pick up more subconsciously than consciously. That, plus the ability to read one’s environment, honed and sharped by years of experience and trust, is a powerful weapon. The most powerful one in their arsenal, because it lets them react accordingly.

“Right. I know that look on your face.”

“Hrn…”

“Okay, you’re freaking me out. What’s wrong?”

“Just –“

Bruce gestures vaguely, and Dick nods.

“Ah. I’ll go look for Damian.”

Bruce nods. Then he heads for Tim, who has the worst situational awareness of all his sons. While walking, he catalogues the location of each of his children.

Damian, checked out from the party and petting Titus in the far corner. Dick is en route, which his youngest has already realised.

Jason, still standing with Roy. They don’t seem unsettled, but they have moved closer to one another, apparently subconsciously. They aren’t blushing anymore, their demeanour serious.

Cass, also heading for Tim, who is with his parents.

Bruce just about scowls at the sight of the Drake parents. They’re laughing obnoxiously at something some old golf geezer has said, paying no attention to how forced Tim’s cheer is. The poor boy looks ready to jump off a cliff, dammit.

He’s usually better at galas, but he doesn’t usually have Janet’s hand on his shoulder, clutching possessively. Bruce looks closer and sees how deeply her long, sharp nails are digging into the fabric of his suit.

Oh, hell no.

Cass reaches them before Bruce does, and she taps Tim on the shoulder with a sweet, innocent smile that is as fake as Dick’s preferred abomination of maple syrup supplement.

“Dance?”, she asks, and Tim accepts politely even though she’s not exactly being very proper, asking like that. Bruce watches his parents’ smiles go strained and hates them all the more for it.

Really, he can just tell the only reason they aren’t stopping Tim is that Cass is a Wayne. Tim has mentioned before how the Drakes are only letting him get away with his open “pleasant acquaintanceship” with Alley boy Jason because they’re hoping he’ll ingratiate himself with the richest family in Gotham.

As Tim and Cass head for the dance floor, Bruce’s daughter catches his eye. She gives him the tiniest nod, and he returns it.

Thank goodness for Cass.

Bruce’s intuition has been wrong before. Hers? Never. So if she thinks something is up, something is up.

And Tim is as safe as can be with her.

Bruce stops in his tracks and reassesses the room. He is at the edge of the dance floor, quite in the thick of things, closest to Tim and Cass, then Jason. Dick and Damian are the furthest away if he’s not counting the kids upstairs.

Jason is still with Roy. They have migrated towards the buffet, where the crowd is thickest right now.

Do they know something is up and are positioning themselves for crowd control?

Smart of them, Bruce thinks and follows.

His senses are dialled up to eleven. The lights of the ballroom appear flickering to him, small suns that overlap and break where the light hits mirrors, dark suits, shiny glass. Textures of fabric and loose strands of hair stand out to him, faces razor-sharp, all peculiarities highlighted. Shapes are outlined with thin white lines. Movement bobs in high resolution. He can see the gracelessness and joint pain of those pretending to glide. Chatter booms in his ears, feet tapping slightly out of rhythm; the second violin is out of tune. Across the room, he catches Dick’s voice. Alcohol smells burn painfully against his sinuses, the dry air grates against the back of his throat, his shirt collar snags against the short hair on the back of his neck.

It's overwhelming. He channels it by laser-focusing his mind on taking it all in, no thoughts, not yet: there’s enough time for that when he knows what’s going to happen. Until then, his instincts will guide him.

It’s the smell that hits him first.

Everywhere in Gotham, even in Bristol, the cloying scent of pollution is prevalent. It seeps into the pores of every living being, they carry it round all their lives, forever marked. But there are scents native to Gotham that cannot be found on every Gothamite or in every part of the city. The sweet scent of slow decay, the burn of acid, that’s only found in a very specific kind of Gothamite.

And there’s only one whose reek is strong enough to fill an entire ballroom.

Bruce speeds up. He’s not fast enough; speed-walking as he is, he has only crossed half the room when laughter rings out. The cackles don’t leave him cold, even after all these years, bile rises in his throat.

The crowd in front of him is moving, stumbling back, motions jerky and hounded, everyone trying to get as far away as they can, giving Bruce a clear sight of –

The Joker, laughing manically, his face splitting the way it does, only worse here, where he looks out of place under the golden lights.

Out of place, and somehow not at all.

The flaps of his cheeks split open, ever so slightly, where his natural grin ends and the carved scar begins. Red is smeared haphazardly around the mangled mouth, like tomato sauce on a child’s face. A skinny arm, dressed in the same fraying, grimy purple, is wrapped around the neck of a hostage. The thumb belonging to that arm is digging into Janet Drake’s cheek, while the Joker’s other hand is holding a gun to her temple. She’s frozen, terrified.

“Mom”, Tim says somewhere behind Bruce.

“Lovely little party you’ve put together here, Brucie”, the Joker cackles, “why wasn’t I invited?”

“Get lost”, Jason snarls from where he’s braced before a group of civilians, arms and legs wide-spread, a human tank ready to jump in the way of any bullet for these people he hates so much. Bruce’s breath hitches.

No.

“You weren’t invited”, Bruce manages, strangled, drawing the Joker’s attention back to himself.

The bastard’s smile widens.

“Feeling brave, are we?”, he coos. “Unfortunately for you, Brucie, there’s something I have to do. It’s overdue, really – called your buddy Batman already, Wayne? I’ve got a package for him.”

Bruce takes a step forward.

“You can give it to the police when they get here.”

“Ah, but I’d rather not”, the Joker says offhandedly and shoots Janet Drake in the head.

“No –!”, Bruce gasps, leaping forwards.

“MOM!”, Tim screams. A grunt tells Bruce Cass is holding him back as Janet slumps, dead-eyed, and the Joker drops her onto the floor without sparing her a glance, missing a beat.

Jack Drake is running, screaming for his wife. The Joker raises his gun without looking and fires.

Roy Harper lets out a pained grunt as the bullet hits his shoulder. Oliver and Jay yell, but don’t charge – Bruce takes a moment to gauge the spot where red is blooming on Roy’s suit, and determines the place and size of the spot non-fatal, for now.

If they get him out of here fast enough.

“You see, Brucie”, the Joker carries on, “a while ago, I had a little tea party with a birdie of the big bat’s. He knows about that, all right, that’s not the package – the package is what I gave the little birdie. Can’t pull a stunt like that without a failsafe, can you?”

He cackles, and Bruce freezes. His head snaps to Jason before he can stop it, and Jason looks – horrified, furious, a million things at once.

“The show must go on”, the Joker laughs, “and that little birdie is mine forever, now, Brucie, mind, body and soul. Tell Batsy that, will you?”

The Joker draws a small parcel from a pocket.

“Won’t Bats just be delighted when his new-old little buddy becomes my new-old little buddy?”

Bruce’s blood freezes in his veins. What did the Joker do to Jason that he thinks he can claim him now?

The Joker waves the parcel around in the air.

“Come out, Batsy! Come out, Batsy! Come out, come out, I know you’re here!”

He throws his head back and screams laughter at chandeliers and golden stucco and small, smooth-skinned gargoyles. The black ones out in the city are pockmarked from the acid rain. Jason’s favourite gargoyle Steve looks like he has freckles.

Steve has survived three battles with the Joker on his rooftop and five on his street. All of the others are chipped by now.

But Steve is special just like Jason because Jason said so. When Jason was gone, Steve’s ongoing undamaged state was a balm to Bruce’s grief, a small one, like Jason left that precious magic of his behind – just a sliver of it – to protect his dear imaginary friend and secret nightmare protector.

Jason is back, and Steve is still whole. Jason is back, and he still goes to sit by him and wrap his arms around the gargoyle’s neck when he’s had a nightmare and doesn’t want to go to Bruce or Alfred. Jason is back, and both he and the gargoyle are still magic. Jason is back, and the Joker wants an encore. Jason is back, and the Joker thinks he can take it all from Bruce again.

Fucking never.

“I am not calling Batman”, Bruce says steadily. He can’t find Brucie, somehow. There are cameras on them, probably still recording. The cameramen have run a long time ago.

“I do not have Batman’s number, or email, or anything”, he says and holds his hands up as he takes a cautious step forward, “I don’t know who he is. I’ve never even met the man.”

The Joker smiles. All yellow teeth. Like a Komodo dragon’s. Bruce is pretty sure the Joker could kill someone with these by giving them blood poisoning, just like the lizards. An off-colour tongue flickers out and across them, like a snake scenting the air. It’s pointed but not split, which is even more disturbing – no neat little ribbon, no unfolding party horn. Instead a meaty slimy glob dashes across teeth that have seen no other method of cleaning in a long time. He looks like Godzilla had a baby with a sad clown who just ruined his entire career in one spectacularly disastrous session, or maybe a Jack-in-the-box.

“That’s all right. I’ve all the time in the world I suppose”, the Joker hums, “and we’re live after all. He’ll be here eventually. But you’re getting a little too close for comfort, Brucie. Come on, did you really think I wouldn’t notice – “

He looks around, and Bruce’s stomach lurches the moment the Joker does. His body follows not a beat later, leaping forward – he shoves hard, getting an arm between the two men, and spins his back to the Joker, a fatal mistake in any fight, but this is no fight, he’s doing something different here – no move he’s ever learned, he’s acting purely out of an instinct that was born before mankind was a classification.

His left arm is angled with his thumb upwards and the back of his hand to the Joker, the inside to the hostage. It slides outwards in a smooth arc, like a paddle cutting cleanly through water. Usually that would spin him leftwards. It’s how Cass gains momentum for a pirouette. With the opposing force of the Joker in the way of his swing, weaker though it may be, he is shoving himself in the other direction. Bruce spins to the right. His right arm is already open, already wrapping around Jason, and when momentum pushes him around to the right he gets his left arm in there too and tears the two of them to the ground, covering Jason with his body. He is still broader, still just big enough to shield the Red Hood. His hand shoots up from Jason’s back to his hair and presses his son’s face into his shoulder.

“Don’t look”, he prays, “don’t look, Jason, don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look, Jaylad. Just don’t look. Please. Just don’t look.”

There is silence. A sharp intake of breath, then another.

“Oh my God”, someone mutters.

Someone vomits.

The ballroom erupts into a cacophony of noise.

Bruce loses track of it all.

There are three things he is aware of.

There was a wet loud crack a second and three-quarters after he shoved the Joker away from Jason. He knows the sound of that crack, and he knows the location of the table corner. His brain performs the calculation of the trajectory without having to think about it.

He can see the Joker out of the corner of his eye. Slack in death his face is more horrible than ever. The flaps of his cheeks drape limply across his teeth, bared open with a limp jaw, blanketed by uncooked floppy rotting beef sides. The fangs are yellower than ever as they catch the golden glow of the chandeliers – not reinforced in this room, because Dick doesn’t swing on them here. Soulless eyes with too-small irises and too-small pupils and too-yellow sclera stare mindlessly at the ceiling. Malice lingers even though thought is gone, beaten into the face by years of religious practice. Gangly limbs are askew and awkward. The Joker was dead before he hit the floor. The soup seeping out of the back of his head and onto Bruce’s ballroom floors is mostly whiteish grey and a little red, in some places.

Jason is shaking in his arms and clutching at his suit jacket like it can pull him up from drowning. Fine. But not fine. Not fine at all. He is breathing shallowly, erratically, like if he had enough air for it, if he dared make any louder sounds whatsoever, he would be sobbing.

“Don’t look”, Bruce breathes, and gives in. “Just don’t look at him, Jaylad. Don’t you look at him ever again. Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look, don’t look – ”

Somewhere in there the whisper rises to hysteria, louder and louder. Bruce is not an expert in crying. He is not mourning anything, not like the hundreds of generations of women who did so professionally in cultures all across the world. Who crawled on the floor and tore their hair and clothes as they screamed for the deaths of strangers to make a living. What they did, he couldn’t even do for his parents, not even his son. He can growl and glower but not sob and scream. He has not had any practice, he has his own ways to make emotions work, but he’s coming close now. Hiccups tear breath apart in his windpipe. Jason, who is better at the whole normal thing, is crying in earnest with great sobs breaking in uneven halves in his throat and trying to stifle them down, hyperventilating enough to make Bruce afraid he is going to pass out.

He is in no state to stop that from happening. Not a single first-aid procedure will be summoned, no ounce of sense or clarity. Batman is doubled over on the floor losing his shit with his face digging into his son’s hair somewhere above his ear. Jason cannot get close enough, cannot get safe enough even though the Joker is dead now. Bruce’s strength is not enough even with Jason hefted into his arms like a much younger child, tear-stained snotty face screwed up in terror and tucked into Bruce’s shoulder where he’s supposed to feel safest and where he’s instead sobbing like it doesn’t even matter. Bruce can’t blame him, not after everything that’s happened, not when he’s crying himself – he’s hanging on now, the way he has needed to for as long as he can remember, to the person who has shredded him the most in his thirty-five years of life. The way he has needed to since the day Robin stopped breathing in the rubble before he made it there to hold his son in his final moments. The way he has needed to since a DNA test pinged positive on the batcomputer. His arms are shaking, worse than they do after the worst of fights, as he clings on for dear life and squeezes Jason so tightly he can feel both their ribs bend and both their hearts beat, right out of their chests like colibri wings. Jason’s hands are shaking where they grip at Bruce’s jacket like bear traps worked askew so they try to close further than they can, metal grating against metal. There is nothing but that for a while as the world around them erupts into chaos, metaphorical flames, flashes of gold and red and black and blue, like the fire, charred wood, stone, the beginnings of a blue sky that day – thrown from place to place, time to time, nothing can be done but cling on and try to breathe. There is a dead body in the rubble. There are young men, running up to them and shaking them in a panic, begging for response, Nightwing, Red Robin, even Robin for a minute before Nightwing hoists him into his arms and carries him to the edge of the whole thing, where he can process, where he can cry without being observed. Robin is not crying for the death of a killer. Robin is crying with the realisation of what it was that his brother experienced, what tore his father apart – where his sons feature in his father’s life.

Robin is not a child who cries often. He is a child who insists that despite his brain’s developmental status he is not a child at all and in fact never has been. Robin is talking bullshit, because that day, he cries.

So does Nightwing. So does Red Robin. Orphan does not cry. She sits and holds Red Robin – she knew. She always knew. And she was ready.

Green Arrow holds Arsenal’s hand as the bullet is dug out of his shoulder with local anaesthetic. The man looks shaken, dazed, silent tears tracing jagged intertwining paths across his cheeks. He has had a hundred bullet wounds and worse, but he keeps glancing over at his friends – one of them in particular, clutched in his father’s arms even as paramedics try to pry them apart.

“Sir, you might be going into shock –“

“Mr Wayne, we really need you let go of your son now –“

“Mr Todd-Wayne, there is an ambulance waiting for you –“

Roy Harper almost snorts. Good fucking luck with that.

It takes fifteen, twenty minutes for Red Hood to come back to himself. He stays, breathing heavily, exhausted, Batman still muttering in his ear.

“Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look.”

It takes Batman another five minutes after that. Another two, three, before he can raise his face. Paramedics and a concerned-looking Commissioner Gordon crouch in front of them.

“You can arrest me”, Bruce says hoarsely, “I won’t cause any trouble. I’ll come with you. Just let me get my son to the ambulance.”

The words come out unsteady. They sound unpractised, rough, nothing like Brucie Wayne who does nothing but babble nonsense all day. There is no Batman in them either, no practiced animalistic growl. The Commissioner’s face grows more concerned.

“Bruce – Mr Wayne – no one is going to –“

“Just a moment”, Bruce replies hoarsely. He readjusts his grip, trusting Jason to keep his head steadily in his shoulder – not looking – not looking at anything. Not lolling lifelessly, like it was the last time he slipped an arm under his son’s knees and the other around his shoulder blades. The memory sends him right back to his knees the first time he tries to rise, but Jason clings with his arms around his neck and his face stays put. The flashback hits and passes with every blink, and Bruce Wayne staggers unsteadily across his now cutlery and glass shard covered ballroom to the ambulances parked right outside the French doors. Their lights are still rotating blue, blue – blue, not red.

“Don’t look”, Bruce mutters a final time, “don’t look back.”

Jason nods into his shoulder.

There are many ambulances. One just at the front has been kept free for them, waiting. Bruce enters it easily, sets Jason down on the stretcher. Both of them are immediately wrapped in shock blankets.

“You gotta let go now, chum”, he says quietly, “I have to go with the police.”

“That’s bullshit”, Jason says into his shoulder. But it’s not the batsuit Bruce is wearing. He killed a man today. He will have to be held accountable like a normal person, and there is nothing Jason can do about it.

“Shall we give him a sedative?”, a young voice asks quietly – a paramedic.

“I’d advise it”, an older colleague replies.

Jason lets go.

“No sedatives.”

“Mr Todd-Wayne, are you sure –“

“No. Sedatives.”

“You heard him”, Bruce says scratchily, “respect it.”

He leans close one more time and presses his forehead to Jason’s.

“I’m so sorry. I wish I could stay. You shouldn’t have to watch another father go to prison. Come – come visit me sometime, okay?”

Jason gives the most are you fucking kidding me look he can convey with a fish-eye view of Bruce’s haunted face with its eyes closed.

“Bruce, what the fuck are you –“

“I can’t keep the police waiting.”

A kiss on mussed-up curls and he’s gone, and Jason is staring after him. It is raining. It has been raining for weeks. Bruce is invisible in the sea of flashing neon and twisting shadows within moments. Jason is better, not alright, certainly not at full capacity, but is Bruce really that stupid, is that really what he thinks will happen?

“Huh”, one of the paramedics says.

“That’s a funny thought process your dad had there”, says the other one. Jason stares gormlessly, for maybe a few seconds or so – time isn’t really flowing right now, it’s ticking backwards and forwards at light speed all at the same time, and the rain is trying to make patterns but they don’t match up with the seconds and he still feels all woozy – before another body in a suit and tie slams into him.

“Little Wing”, Dick breathes into his hair, and Jason reaches up to return the hug.

“Tim”, he says urgently, “Where’s Tim? His mom –“

“With his dad, in an ambulance. He’s been – trying to see you, but – they won’t let him away –“

“Damian? Cass?”

“With Babs, Duke and Steph – I’m s’posed to check up on you ‘n Bruce – Alfred’s on his way –“

“The fucking moron is handing himself in.”

Dick just snorts into his shoulder, and Jason sighs and tips his head so he doesn’t have to expend energy holding it up.

“There’s no way any judge is gonna send him to jail over this, is there?”

“Hell no. They’re more likely to give him a title, British-style. Lord Wayne, or something like that.”

“Reckon Alfie would like that?”

“He’d have field day, Jaybird.”

Bruce Wayne, meanwhile, is not having a good time.

“What do you mean you won’t arrest me?”, he exclaims, the confusion of Brucie Wayne real for the first time in decades, “I just killed a man right there!”

“You shoved a known serial killer away from your son, whom he was trying to take hostage. Said serial killer happened to hit his head unfortunately on the edge of a table. There are hundreds of witnesses. We have multiple video sources, taken from different angles – oh, goodness gracious, someone pull up his shock blanket, and get us some paramedics over here –“

Bruce Wayne cannot, in fact, adjust his own shock blanket while he is holding his wrists out in front of him to be handcuffed. He does not seem to care much about his blanket slipping off his shoulders, or even being tugged back up by two rookie policemen who eye him warily.

“But, Gordon –“

“For goodness’s sake”, Gordon grunts. “Does anyone know where his butler is? We need the butler. Right now.”

“You’re calling Alfred on me?”

“I am calling Alfred on you. SIT DOWN, Bruce. And pull that bloody blanket up, before your dad sees and grounds you. Then we won’t need a trial.”

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.

Chapter Text

Only a few days later Jason and Bruce find themselves standing at an open grave in the rain.

The last funeral I went to was mine, Jason thinks and tries not to have a crisis about that. He’s had enough time to weep for himself. Today, it’s Tim’s turn.

He wishes he could be sharing his umbrella with his little brother instead of Bruce, but Tim is – as is appropriate – standing next to Jack Drake. And besides, he has his own umbrella. Black, all of them – appropriate for a funeral. Appropriate. Appropriate. Appropriate. Meh meh meh.

What’s not fucking appropriate is that Tim and Jack each have their own umbrellas, and are therefore standing at least a whole-ass metre apart. Jack is stony-faced, and Tim is crying silently. He doesn’t look like he’s aware he’s doing it. His face is pretty blank, and he is staring at the coffin being lowered into the ground with downcast eyes. They are such a light blue that when there is something dark in front of them they reflect it almost like a mirror. Today, they look grey. Gravestone grey.

It’s his dissociative crying face.

Jason wants nothing more in the world than go over there and yank Tim into the world’s firmest hug so he can snap out of it, and cry properly now. You’re supposed to say goodbye to other people at funerals, not to yourself.

The wooden handle of the umbrella creaks as Jason’s fist tightens dangerously around it. He bets his eyes are glowing green.

That is not good. He should calm down. There are reporters here.

The Drake family was, at the best of times, a staged performance. Meant for the cameras and for eyes that think they are prying but are actually being deceived.

The fact that they’re playing that game even at Janet’s funeral instead of having it private says more about them than Tim ever will.

“Jay?”, Bruce asks quietly, and Jason rips his eyes off Tim to look at his dad. They’re almost the same height – he doesn’t have to look up to look Bruce in the eye.

Bruce’s own light blue eyes are reflecting grey, too. Well, they were a moment ago – now they’re green, like Jason’s, and hooded with dark memories and clouded with concern.

The last funeral Bruce went to was Jason’s.

Jason nods to Tim.

“Look at him.”

Tim looks like a wet cat even though his perfect black suit is dry as bones. He’s still disassociating.

“I know”, Bruce mumbles unhappily, and his hand clasps Jason’s shoulder. Jason leans into it before he can overthink it.

“We’ll talk to him this evening, okay?”

“Mhm”, Jason agrees, even though he’s unhappy with having to wait so long.

The first few days after the incident, he was a little too wrapped up in himself and Bruce to take much notice of Tim. Then they had their talk, and he ran into Tim in the corridor, and the “Oh Shit” hit him like a punch from Bane. He’s been trying his best to be there for his brother so far – all of them have – but Tim doesn’t do well with sympathy. He doesn’t do well with emotions either. It’s frustrating how much he is like Bruce.

Bruce’s hand is rubbing up and down Jason’s shoulder, which he’s surprised to find helps. Still helps.

Bruce used to do that when Jason was Robin.

He’d forgotten about that.

That’s another part of old Bruce that’s still there, or there again, or whatever it is, and the realisation feels more like resurrection than waking up in a Lazarus Pit did. Jason didn’t realise how much of the noxious tangle of emotions attached to the memories of old Bruce was grief until he started getting him back.

Jason loosens his grip on the umbrella and looks around at his family. They’re all there – even Steph and Babs, both with invitations. Tim hacked the records for that, not caring whether it potentially endangered their identities. He wanted them there and that was that. The rest of them, even Bruce, refrained from saying anything.

How surprised is Jason about that?

Not very, he finds. A week and a half ago, he would’ve given a different answer.

Dick and Damian are standing together, unsurprisingly. Both of them are watching Tim instead of the coffin, and not bothering to be discreet about it.

Cass is with Alfred. Her eyes are averted – she is looking at the ground, clearly overwhelmed, most likely unwilling to see more of Tim’s pain while not being able to ease it.

Like all of them, she hates feeling helpless.

Alfred is watching Tim, an old, sad look in his eyes. It’s the expression of someone who’s seen too many people go and too many people grieve. A quiet acceptance, maybe. The sadness of someone seeing someone young discover the sadder realities of life.

Jason has to look away. Like Cass, he can’t bear watching.

Steph is standing next to Babs and Duke, holding the umbrella for herself and Sunshine because Babs’s is at a different height. The commissioner is with them as well, flanking his daughter on the other side. He catches Jason’s eye and gives him a long, deep look of knowledge and healed grief, followed by a nod of the most sincere respect.

It punches the fucking air out of Jason’s chest.

The Commissioner went to his funeral. The Commissioner will never admit he knows who Gotham’s vigilantes are. The Commissioner cared about him when he was Robin. The Commissioner does not actively pursue the Red Hood since he’s started working with the Bats more often than not.

Jason is a criminal and a murderer, and Gordon is a cop. He’s not supposed to respect him. Tolerate? Yes. But more as a favour to Batman, and an unfortunate point in their unspoken peace treaty.

Bloody hell.

And maybe Jason is interpreting the whole thing incorrectly, but he doesn’t think he is.

He has to look away from Gordon. But he catches that twitch of the moustache, he knows that twitch, so stop laughing at him, Commissioner.

Babs is no better. She is looking at Jason with the very same look of amusement on her face. Like father like fucking daughter. Oracle knows everything.

Under any other circumstances, Jason would have stuck his tongue out at her, but at Tim’s mother’s funeral he just blushes furiously and looks away again.

Steph and Duke are blessedly not looking at him. Duke has his umbrella at his side, dangling forgotten from his hand. It’s starting to catch a bit of a puddle. His eyes are fixed on the grave, and he’s leaning into Steph’s side hug.

Steph, like the majority of the bats, is staring at Timmy with a big frown on her face.

Jason turns to examine Bruce and finds the man looking at him. Bruce is frowning, too, but more in an investigative way that Jason’s gotten all too familiar with. The grief it contains means Bruce is figuring something out about Jason’s death or his return or all the misconceptions about his family he’s been carrying around.

“What?”, he whispers.

“I just realised Tim was at your funeral”, Bruce replies just as quietly, “I didn’t notice him then and I didn’t connect the dots when he was Robin but I remembered it just now.”

Jason doesn’t know what to say to that so he responds with “Oh.” It’s become his default answer for a lot of the things Bruce says recently. Bruce squeezes his shoulder.

“I’m so glad you’re here.”

He’s been saying that a lot. Jason knows he’s being manipulated, but he doesn’t have it in him to tell Bruce to stop, not when it fixes a tiny little bit of cracked soul forever every time he hears it and patches the rest up for a little while.

“I’m glad I’m here, too”, Jason whispers.

“I’m worried about Tim, though. He’s doing what you always do when you push people away.”

The frown on Bruce’s face looks hurt.

“Do you think he learned that from me?”

Why do parents always assume every negative trait or experience of their children is their fault?

“Don’t give yourself too much credit, old man”, Jason says because Bruce doesn’t respond to soft assurances, and Jason only keeps those for victims and occasionally his siblings and Alfie.

“That’s his parents’ fault.”

So maybe not every issue is every parent’s fault. Usually it’s just one or two of them at a time. Maybe that’s why the batkids are so fucked up – they just have too many parental figures.

Tim’s birth parents are the only ones to rank that high on the fuck-up scale other than Sheila, Cluemaster and Deathstroke, though.

That’s okay. Jason never liked Jack and Janet anyways.

Not that he’ll say that out loud at Janet’s funeral.

Jason watches silently as Jack steps forward and tosses the first handful of earth onto the coffin. Tim, jerked out of his stupor by the motion next to him, copies him mechanically. One by one, the guests follow. Jason blends into the rocking line of faceless, shapeless scarecrows, queued up to do the same. The ceremony continues on, and Jason’s frown remains fixed on his brother’s face, blurry in the rain.

Drake Manor has been done up in a parody of a family home. The guests pass through the foyer, more lamps lit in it than Tim ever does when he’s alone. Jason can’t recall ever seeing the lights on in the corridors ever, or having his coat taken off by staff instead of wearing it all the way up to Tim’s room to toss it over the back of a chair.

The main reception is of course in the ballroom, which Tim sometimes likes to spend time in because it’s very big and he can run around as he likes. He always shuts the doors when he does, and he never turns the lights on. They might’ve done it together once or twice. Jason might’ve hummed Once Upon A December just for the hell of it, and gotten teased by Tim. It might’ve turned into an impromptu karaoke contest in which Tim was absolutely demolished. The room might’ve felt infinitely big, echoing their voices back to them. Jason might’ve felt free and whole and like a kid and a Disney Princess all at once for a couple of hours.

The doors are open and people are spilling into the glowing, overheated hall, yellow instead of golden because the Drakes don’t pay attention to buying the right sorts of lightbulbs the way Alfred does. A buffet is set up against one wall. People mill around, small-talking and networking. Occasionally, an inappropriately loud laugh rings across the room, hushed instantly by the amused.

A stark reminder, each time, that Janet Drake is not mourned. Not here, not today, not truly by anyone but Jack and Tim. This is merely a chance to see and be seen, to make people aware of one’s position. I’m invited to a Drake funeral, they get to say. Why yes, I knew Janet personally. Jack, too. They were such a wonderful couple, as in love as the day they married. It’s the shared passion for archaeology, you know, and both of them being so good-looking. It’s such a shame, her dying so young. And with their little boy, too!

Jason wants to throw up.

Instead, he shrugs off Bruce’s hand.

“I’ll go find Tim”, he mutters, already disappearing into the crowd. They’re all wearing comms, so he knows Bruce caught it.

Tim and Jack are standing next to each other at the entrance into the hall, shaking hands and receiving condolences with paper smiles. Jason joins the line of slimy socialites and waits his turn. The crowd pushes and pulls, and people give him odd, disapproving looks, but he doesn’t bother with folks with that little in their brains.

Tim is startled when Jason appears in front of him – still disassociating, then. That’s not surprising in the slightest. Jason gave Jack the usual handshake and condolences. When he shakes Tim’s hand, he grips it tightly and holds it for a moment. Tim’s not big on eye contact and neither is Jason, but now he holds Tim’s gaze fiercely for a moment. He can tell there is still a little Lazarus in his eyes, from how they prickle like mineral water drank too fast and how the green is reflecting back from Tim’s mirror eyes.

“Do you need anything?”, he asks quietly. Tim stares up at him for a second or two, uncomprehending, forced out of his blank state and into feeling all of his emotions at once. Confusion, shock, grief, stress, doubt, anger – all of that in a place he doesn’t feel safe, because he’s surrounded by vultures.

He isn’t even sure whether he mourns his mother, Jason realises with a jolt. That’s an odd sentiment, considering he himself mourns his mother to this day. Jason and Tim are very different people and so are their mothers. Jason will never hold Catherine’s shortcomings against her – she was powerless to stop them – it was the cancer that took everything and the meth was her band-aid. But Janet chose to leave her son. And that’s not something either of them will ever be able to forgive.

Finally, Tim shakes his head minutely. Jason nods. Then he lets go of Tim’s hand and leaves. On his way back to Bruce, he fiddles with his phone for a moment until he’s got the confirmation click of a private line between Tim and himself.

“Find me if you need anything. Or anyone. I won’t make you talk about anything”, he says quietly into the comm.” Tim doesn’t reply. Jason didn’t expect him to – he has to make small talk with shitty people, after all. And so does Jason, he supposes. He tunes Tim and himself back into the main comm channel, takes a deep breath and plunges into the fray.

It’s not much later that he and Tim lock eyes across the room. Tim nods to a small door that leads somewhere most likely very secluded, and Jason excuses himself from his conversation with a nod. It’s just Roy, anyways – they keep gravitating towards each other and getting stuck in conversation even when they should be strengthening their civilian covers. On the plus side, Roy doesn’t get offended when shit happens. He gets it.

Tim is sitting on a small balcony when Jason finds him, legs dangling between the railing and forehead resting against freezing marble. He is taking deep breaths. Jason recognises the grounding technique.

“Oh, Timmy”, he mumbles, joining him on the edge. He’s teetered over the exact same brink and he’ll sit here with Tim now. Misery loves company, after all. Not comfort. Grief, and people who have hardened themselves like Tim and Jason, hate comfort. Understanding, on the other hand, solidarity, the simple act of being a walking talking tether are appreciated. Which is why when Jason puts an arm around Tim the kid tips into the side hug instead of punching him.

“I don’t know if I have the right”, Tim croaks, face hidden in Jason’s suit. The right to what? Jason doesn’t have the foggiest. The right to hate Janet? The right to love her? The right to mourn her? The right to condemn her? The right to blame her for leaving him again? And again and again and again?

“You have every right, Tim”, Jason says quietly, staring out at the cloudy sky of Gotham. It has stopped raining, but that doesn’t mean there are stars.

“You have every right. To anything you need. I’ve been there. You take it or you break.”

“I- I’m so angry”, Tim stutters, and his shoulders seize, and then he’s crying like he means it. Jason wraps his second arm around his brother and rests his chin on Tim’s head, staring off into the distance with dry eyes, becoming drier by the second from the wind. They sting. Facing away from Gotham as they are, he is staring into a wall of half-lit countryside, hills speckled with thorny shrubbery interspersed by the occasional wind-beaten tree. From behind them the sounds of the gala are muted, the clink of glass and the chatter of voices. Light shines from the windows all around, but their little nook is unlit and cast in such deep shadow it feels private. It’s not their place that feels separated, it’s the world that does – these rich assholes who are a caricature of people in Jason’s opinion and all those things they do. The way they talk and walk and what they eat and all their champagne and their faked emotions.

And here in the real world with him and Tim there is grief and there is wind and there is a weather-beaten landscape. He can taste Gotham’s pollution.

Jason is a product of this city and of his grief. So is Tim. Jason has so far grieved his first mother and himself and the man Bruce used to be. Tim has grieved his relationship with his parents and Jason and the man Bruce used to be and now his mother for real. Despite their backgrounds, they are not so different.

Tim is shivering.

“I hate her”, he says quietly, “her and dad. How could she?”

“I don’t think any of us will ever understand that.”

“I want to ask her. How she could leave me alone all those years.”

“Tim…”

“We always knew our time together was limited. We’re human. Not immortal. We didn’t know how much we had. So how could they stay gone all the time?”

“How could my mother do drugs when she was already dying of cancer?”, Jason counters.

“That’s different. She was in pain.”

True enough.

“Alright.”

“I’ll never get the chance to ask her.”

“No.”

“I want to love her but I don’t know who she was.”

“Didn’t you?”

“I hate who she was. I don’t want to.”

“Do you really hate her?”

Tim is silent. For a long while.

“No.”

“That’s okay.”

“How can I want to hate her and not want to hate her and want to love her and not want to love her and hate and love her all at once?”

Jason’s eyes are dry from the wind. They sting.

“People do that.”

“It fucking sucks.”

“I know.”

“Fuck, Jason –“

Tim starts crying again. Jason rubs his shoulder blades the way Bruce always does and hopes it helps. How sad is it the only physical affection he got enough to copy was from Bruce, Dick and Alfred? And Roy, Kori, Artemis and Biz lately.

He was too young when his mother got sick and was hurting too much all the time to hug him very much. He’d curl up next to her and she’d put an arm around him, but that never did much at all with how bony she got. Then she died and there was no more of that.

The first time Bruce hugged Jason he froze for a solid five seconds. Then he bawled like a baby and tried unsuccessfully to get Bruce to let him go, who of course instantly clocked he only wanted to protect his dignity. The inhabitants of the manor hugged him an awful lot after that. It didn’t take Jason long to grow confident enough to start returning the favour.

“You can hate her and you can love her”, Jason reflects. “I won’t ever stop loving my mom but I won’t be able to forgive the heroin, either. It killed her quicker, even if it did ease her pain.”

“It’s not fair”, Tim sobs, “I hate her so much but I still want her back.”

Jason remembers libraries and jumpers and diamond moments that only hurt you more in the long run.

“I know. Believe me, I know.”

They don’t leave their perch until the gala is over and car doors have long stopped slamming in the Drakes’ parking lot-sized driveway. Eventually Tim is ready, and they climb their way down Drake Manor’s wall and walk along the road back to Wayne Manor.

“We don’t need to go out tonight if you don’t want to”, Jason says, and Tim nods tiredly. It’s already morning anyways – the others have been flying around Gotham for hours now, and will be home soon. There’s no use in leaving now.

"Can we just do nothing? And not talk?" 

"Course, Timbers." 

When Bruce mounts the steps from the cave to his office, he is worried. It’s not like Tim and Jason to miss patrol, especially when under a strong emotional strain that can be lessened by punching people. He is so lost in his thoughts it takes him a few minutes to notice the faint music wafting through the manor.

The old grand piano in the music room. Dietro Casa, Ludovico Einaudi. Jason’s playing again.

Chapter Text

The sun is brilliant, almost blinding Jason as it glints off his motorbike. He has gotten here last –the others are already seated at a gaggle of tables in the very corner of the ice cream parlour’s terrace. Tim – who has spent the past week and a half in Titan’s Tower with his team – looks ages better than he did the days before and after the funeral.

“Jason!”, Dick beams, waving his arms wildly left and right to his head. “You’re here!”

“Sorry I’m late”, Jason says, approaching the table with his scarlet motorbike helmet tucked under his arm, “there was a holdup at work.”

Considering his only work at the moment is Red Hood, he can’t blame his siblings for instantly switching into vigilante mode.

“Anything we need to worry about?”, Dick asks seriously.

“Nah. B just wanted me to double-check some intel. We gonna get that ice cream?”

“You bet”, Clark smiles warmly, and before he can move away, Jason’s hair is being ruffled.

“Hey!”, he squawks, jumping away. “Cut it out, Clark!”

Clark does so, and walks up to the counter, chucking.

“What do you kids want? I’m paying.”

“In other words, go nuts”, Dick translates.

“Always do”, Steph declares, scanning the flavours with the fervour of a general going into battle.

“Once iced coffee with chocolate and vanilla ice cream, please”, Tim orders first, like the predictable basic-ass rich boy he is.

“I feel like I shouldn’t buy you that”, Clark says with a pained smile, but makes no attempt at an actual intervention. Tim smirks in victory. Never let it be said he isn’t still salty at Clark on Kon’s behalf.

Damian orders next, cookies and cream and pistachio, like a fucking freak – with chocolate sprinkles. Dick is even worse than Damian is, of course he is, with birthday cake, rocky road, chocolate and rainbow sprinkles, and Steph follows suit with a gargantuan number of scoops of any ice cream vaguely purple and a double serving of rainbow sprinkles. Duke picks peach and chocolate chip. Cass goes for chocolate, chocolate chip cookie dough and raspberry with chocolate sauce. Jason decides to cut ties with everyone except his only two sane siblings, and orders chocolate, cherry and peach. Clark and the cashier watch them all, looking as if they’re debating the likelihood of catching rabies from one of them. Clark only wants one scoop of raspberry ice cream. The cashier looks at him as though he’s salvation descending from heaven. Jason snorts to himself.

“Why’d Babs skip?”, Jason asks Dick as they’re sitting back down outside.

“She’s still with her dad”, Dick says, “he doesn’t trust the peace yet – Joker has turned up after being presumed dead before and he wants to keep her close, in case he comes back and comes back with a vendetta.”

“Can’t blame him”, Jason mumbles. He, too, has been finding himself hard-pressed to leave his family for too long. Mostly Bruce. They’ve been getting their shit sorted out, and even though there are still too many things unsaid that are hanging in the air between them they have recovered their sentiment of family. For the first time since weeks before he died, Bruce feels like Jason’s dad. He feels safe with him, in a way he doesn’t anywhere else – shaken as he is, and destabilised by the pit, Jason doesn’t like to be far away from him at the moment. He is only here because Clark promised him explanations.

Explanations have to wait, though. On the phone, they agreed they wouldn’t talk with the others present, separating ice cream and vigilante business.

Jason can feel Dick’s eyes on him, studying him intently.

“What?”, he snaps finally.

“Are you okay?”

Jason shrugs.

“Better. ‘specially after I talked to B.”

Dick smiles his ‘aww-my-family-is-getting-along-the-world-is-fluffy-rainbow-cotton-candy’ smile.

“I can tell. You guys have been almost as close as you used to be.”

Jason glares murder and punches him in the side.

“We are not.”

“But you worked some things out, right?”

“B finally pulled the right apology out of his ass, if you mean that.”

Dick blinks, as if stupefied.

“He did?”

“He did. I couldn’t believe it either.”

“Do you think there’s hope for him yet?”

“Dunno. I don’t think he can keep it up.”

Dick hums, laying his head onto Jason’s shoulder and getting comfortable.

“I don’t know, Jason”, he says quietly, “he used to be… like that… all the time. Before you died. Maybe – if he’s healing now – he can be that again.”

“Has he been an ass to you, too?”

Dick snorts.

“More than usual. He’s been getting better, but he pushed all of us away after you died. I know it’s a defence mechanism, but it still hurt. We were grieving, too, Alfred and me, and we would’ve needed him.”

Jason tries not to let those words sink in too deep, let the admission become part of his soul like a cancer, corroding him with guilt for something that wasn’t his fault.

Wait a second. Guilt?

His ice cream rises back up as his throat constricts and bucks, and he claps a hand over his mouth and swallows heavily, several times, to force the sticky liquid back down.

He feels guilty for dying.

But it wasn’t his fault. He was betrayed.

But it hurt his family. His actions that day, uninformed as they were, were within his control.

They led to his death.

If he hadn’t followed Sheila – if he hadn’t offered to help her, told her about Robin – if he’d followed Bruce’s orders without taking anything else into consideration –

They were only following orders, is said in defence of soldiers who commit atrocities in war. They were doing as they were told. They were being noble, they were innocent, their only crime was doing as they were told. They would’ve been shot if they’d deserted.

Jason had deserted.

Becoming Robin – becoming a hero – had been a promise to never blindly follow orders. To never be a coward. To stand up for what was right, no matter on which side of the law that put him. Red Hood was doubly that.

And besides, Sheila could’ve always made the Joker come out. The Joker could’ve found him without her ever interfering. There were so many other ways the whole Ethiopia business could’ve gone wrong.

But… Jason feels guilty for dying. For being brutally murdered. And why? Because it made the people who hadn’t prevented it sad?

“Fuck it all to hell”, he grumbles.

Dick is peering up at him.

“What’s going on in that big brain of yours, Little Wing?”, he asks, sounding worried, and Jason almost laughs at the sentence usually meant for Tim directed at him.

“Just realising exactly how fucked up we are”, he smiles bitterly.

Dick pushes up from his shoulder so he can look Jason over properly.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m still figuring shit out”, Jason says quietly enough the arguing gremlins can’t hear.

“And I’m not telling you shit here. Clark doesn’t need to know everything that goes on in my head.”

Dick nods and puts his head back onto Jason’s shoulder.

“You’re telling me about it later”, he declares with conviction. He speaks with the voice of a man who knows the addressed has no choice in the matter. Dick has his ways of making his little siblings spill, even if he has to resort to physically trapping them by sitting on them or something equally obnoxious.

“I’m just glad we can finally do things like this”, Dick smiles, “just a few weeks ago I wasn’t sure whether you’d shoot me every time I wanted to ask whether you wanted to get ice cream after patrol.”

A lump rises in Jason’s throat.

“I never said no to ice cream”, he says hoarsely.

Dick is silent.

“No, I suppose you didn’t”, he says quietly, a minute or two later. Jason snorts.

“Did you seriously check?”

“Well, duh.”

“You’re such a dork.”

“Says the one who reads Austen.”

“That makes me a nerd, not a dork.”

“You’re both.”

“Your mom’s both.”

Dick hums, and Jason realises with a pang that Dick lost his parents when he was eight – who knows how well he even remembers them? If Jason’s memories weren’t as traumatic and if he hadn’t made new ones while he was dead, he doubts he would be able to even recall his mother’s face clearly.

Maybe – possibly – being the third oldest and sixth most emotionally competent person in their family – he should ask Dick about it sometime. Let Mr Bottle-It-All-Up-For-Everyone-Else’s-Benefit get some things off his shoulders. It’s not like anybody else will. They’ve all gotten too accustomed to Dick bearing the emotional burdens of the family. The person helping Dick through his own issues used to be Babs, but the two of them aren’t in the best place right now. One of their downs.

Jason is so not jealous of the clusterfuck that is their relationship. Even from the outside, it looks like the world’s worst emotional rollercoaster.

Jason sighs and leans his head against Dick’s. From his deep breathing, he’s pretty sure his brother is falling asleep – he was out as Nightwing all night – and Jason doesn’t feel like talking. Watching his siblings bicker, he slowly stirs his ice cream into paste, the colours merging bit by bit in increasingly smoother spirals.

Clark approaches him when the others are all bundling into Bruce’s-but-really-Dick’s minivan with the baby on board stickers on the back, ready to head home.

“I know a place we can talk”, he says, and leads Jason to a spot where they’re unobserved. One flying piggyback from “Uncle Kal” later, they’re sitting on top of one of the tallest skyscrapers in Metropolis – Superman in costume, Jason with a domino plastered over his eyes. He scrubs angrily at the sticky ice cream stuck to his cheek – a nice little “thanks for waking me up” present from Dick.

“Fucker”, he grumbles, earning himself a laugh and a quiet reprimand from blue boy scout #1.

“Bruce told me what you want to talk about”, Clark says, sitting with his elbows braced on his knees and his legs dangling over the edge.

“I can just outline what happened for you, if that’s okay? It’s really a rather straightforward series of events.”

“Sure”, Jason says and tries to swallow his heart back down into his chest. He knows he can’t hide his anxiety from the man who can literally hear his heartbeat, so he indulges in pulling his legs tightly to his chest and picking at the laces of his sneakers.

Huh. Probably shouldn’t have worn those on the motorbike. There’s bound to be something in the tabloids about Waynes and reckless driving, now.

“Bruce wanted the Joker dead, after you died”, Superman says into the wind. It is cold and Jason shivers in his thin woollen sweater. The air, unbarricaded up here, passes right through. It smells crisply of cold water. Not all that far from them, the buildings of Metropolis haze over with the faint atmospheric blue of distance.

“He tracked him down, followed his trail all over the globe.” This city reminds Jason of Piltover, the City of Progress, from Arcane – Gotham the Undercity to its Topside. Here is all gleaming white stone, arching blue sky, golden accents. Planes in the sky, pulling white lines of puffy romanticised exhaust behind them. The price of progress.

Kal is the first-season Jayce Talis of this world, all naïve hope for a better world and the belief that he can do anything just because he was born with some uncommon talents. Believing that there is no way his intervention in the world’s natural order can make things go terribly, horribly wrong.

The Man of Tomorrow. Jayce, later, darker, the Defender of Tomorrow.

Jason supposes that if he is anyone from the series, he is Jinx.

“Yup, that’s me. You ever need to curse a family or a sibling or a society – my card.”

Or, more depressingly, Mylo. A ghost, a hallucination, living boy turned poltergeist, that haunts the living and ruins their lives with the reminder of their mistakes. Not letting them move on and be happy with the people who love them.

He promised Bruce he would try not to think about himself that way.

“He finally found him, and he was going to confront him. Only the Joker had blackmailed and threatened his way into being the UN-deputy for Iran – he had diplomatic immunity.” The skyline of Metropolis is clear-cut, perfect rectangles rising into the sky. All of them are parallel, none listing to the side. Beyond anything, this city is neat-looking, as unrealistically perfect as its hero himself.

“Batman was going to kill him anyways – I found him outside the United Nations building, watching the Joker get out of a car.” This place suits Kal-El, certainly. Clark Kent the Kansas farm boy however is a little too much flannel shirt and messy curls for the scope of it. Maybe that’s why his friends call him Smallville. You don’t fit here, it seems to say. You’re too small. Not enough. And we can’t overlook it so we have to remind you.

“I tried to talk Batman out of it – not that I disapproved of killing the Joker, mind you, but I couldn’t stand by and let my best friend get arrested for doing the right thing.” Idealism, Jason thinks bitterly, is such a double-edged sword. A beautiful dream, but always doomed to be nothing but a butterfly. It is a dream that breaks people.

“The state was directly involved. They were in a delicate situation with the Iranian government at the time, in the middle of some negotiations I can only guess the contents of. If Batman had killed the Joker like he was planning to, he would have caused an international incident. They would’ve had the CIA hunt him down.” Sometimes, Jason wonders who is truly the idealist out of the two of them – Kal or him. Bruce or him. Do Kal and Bruce think they can solve problems? Or are they aware they are only gauze pressed onto a septic wound? Is Jason right that by cutting the infection away, the wound can heal?

“Batman didn’t care. He was going to kill the Joker no matter what – and I was prepared to stop him.” Sometimes, Jason thinks his way won’t work either. Because there are no clean bandages, are there? And a dirty patch job might be better than no patch job at all, but gauze that used and crusted in dirt and blood and pus and no antibiotics at all are a surefire way to another infection.

“Bruce was in the audience as a civilian while the Joker held his first – and last – speech as an ambassador. Of course, it was a trap. He had gas canisters under his clothes – he was going to kill everyone there.” The real problem, Jason mulls, is that maybe they’re trying to save something that’s been lost a long time ago. But what’s the point of burning it down and building it anew when humanity always seems to cut itself over and over again? The French Revolution is an excellent example of this, in his opinion. The people rising up against their oppressors and shaking them off, only for the new state they have created themselves to start another reign of terror.

“I sucked up all of the gas, but he also had bombs planted all around the building. When he detonated them, I had already left to get rid of the gas somewhere without people – I couldn’t help them. Neither could Bruce.” But still, some smaller cuts do not need gauze in the first place. An infected paper cut can be dangerous. If you cut a tiny infection away, the little wound can heal on its own. Wounds of non-threatening size heal faster when exposed to air. If the Joker, an infected papercut of a person, had died, it would not have had any negative consequences for anyone at all.

“The Joker escaped the building, and Bruce went after him.” Unless of course things went spectacularly, unpredictably wrong in typical Gotham fashion.

“The Joker got into a helicopter, and Bruce jumped on after him.” Maybe that was what Bruce had been afraid of? The Joker’s death bringing new, even worse evils to the city?

“They fought – Bruce was winning, he was going to kill him. Then one of the henchmen started firing in a panic. He didn’t care who or what he hit, and he killed the pilot. The helicopter was going down. It was on fire, too – no one should’ve made it out, by any accounts. If he hadn’t jumped at the moment he did and if he hadn’t been wearing his suit, Bruce would have been dead for sure. The Joker crashed into the docks with the burning helicopter. No human should be able to survive something like that. But he did. Bruce had me look for his body. But there was nothing. I’m sorry, Jason. We both wanted him dead. But there was just something about the man – no matter how hard you tried to kill him, he always seemed to make it out. Until two weeks ago, of course.”

Jason is watching Clark now. The only reason he can bear to is because his uncle hasn’t looked at him once this entire time. He is just staring out across his city, because he always seems to know what people need from him. The bright white metropolis sun is casting Superman’s perfect profile into sharp relief, glinting blue and white off his outer-space hair. They almost look like a star up close in space, the light refractions. Human hair would never look so glossy and solid, so much like obsidian.

“Thank you”, he finally says.

“I needed to know that.”

Clark turns inhumanly blue eyes on him. Jason returns his gaze steadily, aware his own are burning kryptonite green.

“Does it help?”, Superman asks.

“Will it help you and Bruce?”

Jason turns his eyes away, back to Metropolis. He lets the silence stretch a good minute or two.

“Yes”, he finally says, “yes, it helps an awful lot.”

Superman smiles, and the smile is all Kal. No Clark to be found.

“I’m glad.”

“Why did he stop?”

“What?”

“Why did he stop trying?”

“I think you know the answer to that question as well as I do, Jason.”

“It shouldn’t have been too much for him”, Jason says quietly. “He should’ve gotten that closure. I should’ve gotten that safety. Sooner. When I came back.”

“Yes. But the Joker was nothing but tenacious.”

“That’s all he was in the end. Hell, he didn’t even have any special skills – he was just lucky and twisted.”

He can still feel Kal’s bright blue eyes on the side of his head.

“I got rid of his body myself. I put it at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. He isn’t coming back this time.”

“No”, Jason says, shaking his head, and, “no”, shaking it a bit faster.

“Chuck it into a dying star. Anywhere on Earth is too risky.”

Kal nods, entirely serious.

“Okay. I’ll chuck it into a dying star. Right this evening. I promise.”

“I’ll hold you to that”, Jason says distractedly, staring out across Metropolis. The light is dimming, the sky turning a darker shade of blue. The sun will be going down soon.

“Can you fly me home? I’ve got my bike here, but…”

“Of course”, Clark – and he’s all Clark now – says kindly. “I can bring your bike to the manor for you, if you’d like.”

Jason swallows down the lump in his throat.

“Thanks, Uncle Clark”, he says hoarsely.

Clark floats off the building and offers his hand to Jason, who takes it and easily jumps onto Superman’s back. The world blurs with superspeed, Clark’s subconscious tactile telekinesis letting Jason hang onto him despite Newton’s laws.

“I’ll be right back with your bike”, he says, letting Jason down right in the middle of Bruce’s office. Bruce raises a bewildered eyebrow at his friend.

“How’d you even get in here?”

“Alfred is watering the roses with Tim. The terrace door was unlocked”, Clark smiles. “See you tomorrow, Bruce.”

“See you tomorrow”, Bruce responds mechanically. Then Superman is gone, and it’s just Bruce and Jason. Bruce looks at his son, raising an eyebrow.

“Hello, Jason. How was your talk?”

Jason sighs deeply and crosses the room to flop onto the couch Bruce keeps in here for his children. It’s worn out beyond belief, and always a little dirty, with broken springs and threading armrests. It was added for Dick’s benefit when the freshly adopted eight-year-old kept having nightmares and has been jumped on very much over the years. Other battles it has survived include juice spills, coffee spills, cookie crumbs, whole acrobatic routines, nosebleeds, miserable children with the flu and the ensuring snot and further bodily fluids, horrible rich people, being lit on fire, subsequently getting soaked when the sprinklers went off, mental breakdowns, panic attacks, Bruce’s workaholism, energy drink spills, being drooled on by sleeping vigilantes, being bled on by dying vigilantes, Tim Drake, Tim Drake’s self esteem, Damian’s pets, Damian’s oil paints, Damian’s acrylics, Damian’s watercolours, Damian’s oil pastels, Damian’s charcoal, and even that time Duke gave himself a concussion by tripping over it just the wrong way and knocking his face into the wall.

Logically speaking, they should have replaced it years ago, but everyone except Steph (who, to the outrage of the rest of the family, suggested getting a prettier one) and Duke (who has not been around long enough to care) is way too attached to the disgusting old lump to even think about getting rid of it.

The familiarity of it soothes Jason’s sparking high-tension cable nerves even now, after everything that’s happened. He drops an arm over his eyes and hooks a knee over the armrest. It’s easier to breathe when the air smells like Alfred’s desperate attempts at cleaning and scorched thread.

“Enlightening. Thank you. For what you did.”

“I’m glad”, Bruce says. His footsteps on the carpet are near-silent. The sofa dips when he sits down.

“It’s not fair”, Jason says. “He should’ve died that day.”

Bruce sighs.

“I agree. But at least he’s gone now.”

“Thank fuck”, Jason coughs out roughly.

“Dunno how I managed all year, being in the same city as him.”

Bruce hums in agreement.

“I’m sorry I didn’t realise earlier.”

Jason lowers his arm and peers up at Bruce.

“Realised what?”

“Why you wanted me to kill him. I thought it was all the pit, making you ignore your morals because it was easier that way.”

Jason scowls.

“It was never that simple and if you’d used your big brain for anything except feeling sorry for yourself a single minute you would’ve realised.”

Bruce laughs quietly.

“I suppose that’s fair”, he smiles sadly. “Though I still don’t understand the logic behind the whole crime lord thing.”

Jason stares at him, incredulous.

“Seriously? It’s basic logic.”

“Then explain it to me”, Bruce says with a simplicity that would’ve been unthinkable just weeks ago. A simplicity that means he’ll listen to Jason and actually try to understand him.

“It’s math. If I control the drug market, I control what goes in the drugs and who they’re getting sold to. For example, kids aren’t allowed to buy drugs – aren’t allowed to throw their life away before they know what they’re doing and have finished school or at least gotten the shot to do so. And if I say no one’s cutting the drugs with dangerous crap, no one’s cutting the drugs with dangerous crap that kills people. Less people get hooked in the first place, less hooked people die of overdoses. Also, I make the gangs kick up forty percent of their profits to me, all of which goes straight to rehab centres that were criminally underfunded before because all the money without threats attached – even yours, sorry Bruce – gets embezzled. But now there’s more money for the actual rehab, so people who are hooked but don’t want to be can get actual help, while having to pay less themselves because that money’s coming straight from the drugs now. Better rehab equals more recovered people and less relapses. With that and the decrease of young people coming in, the drug market shrinks. Also, they have less funds because they’re paying for the rehab, which makes it more difficult to recover economically. I’m ruining the whole business from the inside out, on all fronts”, Jason explains. “I’m not compromising my morals – if anything they’ve radicalised. I hate drugs more than ever so I’m throwing acid at the cogs in the system instead of the chainmail on the outside. It’s a bit like working for some sort of secret service, in my opinion. Like Alfie.”

Bruce stares at a completely ordinary piece of wall panelling for a good minute or so.

“Huh”, he finally says, “that makes a lot of sense.”

“No duh”, Jason sighs and drops his arm back over his eyes. “But it’s not your fault you grew up privileged. And were born so supremely uncreative your superhero persona is animal-inspired.”

“Funny”, Bruce says, and Jason can hear his smile, “I remember a certain eleven-year-old being very excited to run around with a bird name, himself.”

Jason groans.

“Oh cut it out. That one was Dick’s fault, and besides, it’s more creative than BatMAN. Seriously, what is it with superheroes attaching man or woman or girl or boy to their names? Like, come on. Gender is an entirely unnecessary social construct made of bullshit.”

Bruce hums.

“You got something to tell me, Jay? You know I wouldn’t care, right?”

Jason shakes his head.

“Nah. Not me. Just – you know – general statement. Also, in case you hadn’t realised, I’m gay.”

“Oh no, I realised. Roy Harper, right?”

Jason rips his arm off his eyes.

“HOW did you –“

“The two of you are not nearly as subtle as you would like to believe, Jaylad.”

Jason sighs.

“Nah B, ‘s just me. I’ve had that stupid crush since I was, like, thirteen.”

Bruce smiles, secretive all over.

“Oh Jay, for such a brilliant detective…”

He brushes Jason’s bangs out of his eyes, and Jason smacks his hand away. He is bright red in the face.

“Dad! Cut it out!”

Bruce pats him on the shoulder, deliberately patronising.

“Maybe one day you’ll figure it out.”

“I’m his childhood friend’s little brother! He doesn’t like me like that. He doesn’t.”

“Mhm. I can see you’re not going to believe me no matter what I say, so I’m going back to work. For your sake, I hope Mr Harper declares his wish for a dinner with you soon, against his own better judgement, and should be silenced on the matter forever if you do not feel so inclined.”

“Knock yourself out”, Jason grumbles, rolling onto his side and turning his back to Bruce.

“I’m going to sleep. Wake me for patrol.”

“Okay. Sleep well”, Bruce says. Jason can hear him rummaging through a cupboard. Something heavy that smells like wool and feels an awful lot like a blanket is draped over him.

“You’re ridiculous”, Jason gripes, pulling it higher. Bruce chuckles and drops a kiss onto his temple.

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

Jason is almost asleep when he rips his eyes open in shock. Oh shit, he realises, I totally called the fucker dad, didn’t I?