Chapter Text
Alfred catches him at the foot of the display case for the third time this week. Bruce has never considered himself a religious man (couldn’t afford to, really, what with running around the city in a bat costume and enacting justice), but he’s been sitting on the pedestal, looking up at Jason’s suit, contemplating heaven. He can admit to fearing that Superman had been an avenger, some form of retribution- a sign. He can still remember the anger in his stomach, like a hot coal, when the adrenaline wore off and he was looking at the ruins of Gotham. Not again, he’d thought, I can’t lose everything again. Holding onto the little girl’s sweater, looking up at the war in the sky. The Wayne building crumbled behind him.
A fight between gods. Thunder without lightning shaking the foundations of the city. A building crumbling. Thunder. Explosions from a distance. A child in his arms.
He can’t admit to the weakness he’d felt, the terror, the burning warehouse behind his eyes. He’d heard someone describe Gotham as Hell on earth once, and, in that moment, he was inclined to believe them. The same nightmare, repeated. Losing his faith again. He doesn’t know if he’s torturing himself or trying to ask for forgiveness, but the glass case is the only place Bruce feels connected to Jason any more.
He can’t even open the door to Jason’s room. Six years ago and he can still remember how it looked- how meticulously neat Jason had made everything, like he didn’t truly live there. He wishes he’d left a shirt out of the hamper, a book out of place. He has footage of Jason’s first steps as Robin (something he’d thought the two of them would look back on and laugh at when he was Dick’s age, grown into another costume and name), replays it to hear his son’s voice again. The converted guest room collects dust.
He has a few homework sheets and a sweater vest that had still been in the laundry when they went to find Sheila to remind him that Jason existed. The rest is his memories.
The rest is Robin.
He sits at the edge of the pedestal and wonders at an afterlife. If he closes his eyes, he can still see his son, figuring out how high his kicks can go. “Being Robin gives me magic!” And he laughs, and he laughs, and he laughs. Eyes sparkling, a grin so wide that it’s contagious. Bruce can’t take the uniform out of the glass. He’s afraid he’ll ruin the magic.
Jokes on you, Batman. Bruce reads it over and over until keeping his eyes open burns. Sometimes he cries (quiet tears and a struggling mouth to keep the sobs in his throat), sometimes he blinks and the words are behind his eyelids.
He’s still waiting for the punchline.
When he was a younger man, he used to bother Alfred with questions of morality. He was terrified his idea of justice was maligned- that, whether in an afterlife they didn’t believe in or in the ground, he was shaming his parents. A crusade that began with his parents and ended with him losing his child. He stopped asking because he learned every parent’s fear.
He would give his life to have Jason live again. He answered his own questions.
“Master Bruce.” Alfred calls his name, his hand falling from Bruce’s shoulder. He used to bring food down, but the plate would sit untouched, so all he gives him is ice water and a reason to look away. Few words between them, Bruce takes the glass gently, tilts it to drink. His hands are clammy. He can feel sweat on the back of his neck. November nights are long. It’s an entire month of mourning.
There’s a hotel room under his name in a part of the city where no one cares about Bruce Wayne. It’s the only place where he can get away from the silence in the Batcave. He takes an Audi there, parks on the side of the street, and has long since stopped worrying about people stealing his car, his tires. He has spares.
The woman behind the front desk doesn’t check for an ID. He pays upfront and takes the keys and the room is so small that even breathing seems limited. The linens are scratchy and the pillow is covered in plastic and the showers are communal.
For just a little while, he can pretend he isn’t Bruce or Batman. He can pretend that everything is alright. Close his eyes and fight nightmares while Dick takes care of Bludhaven and Barbara coordinates the GCPD and her Birds of Prey. Scream himself awake in a world that doesn’t demand silence.
The cowl is off during November. He can’t bring himself to feel worthy of it.
-
The only reason Bruce knows the Batcave was broken into is because Barbara calls him, frantically, in the middle of the night, to tell him so. “The weapons vault- it was accessed from the old entrance behind the clo-” Barbara’s voice cuts, and he’s sure she’s talking on another mike to Black Canary. Her voice is tired, a rasp to it, and he’d chastise her if he wasn’t trying to figure out how to put pants on while running on two hours of sleep himself. She cuts back on. “Thermal cameras show a muscular male build, approximately six-foot-two-inches tall- what’s your ETA? I can send Dick over there if you’re too far-”
“Almost out of the door, Barbara-” There was a Batsuit stashed in the old Manor, but it was the only one he’d have access to with the Batcave compromised. “What’s happening on your end?” One sock on, both shoes on, and he’s running out of the door, not caring if he locked it behind him. He didn’t travel with anything important.
He can hear her tapping at her keyboard- attempting to switch camera views. “You shut off the surveillance cameras.” She notes, with a touch of surprise. “Why would you turn off the surveillance cameras?”
For his own privacy. Seeing their old mentor frequently cry on camera for a month would ruin morale for them, and he didn’t want to hurt them like that. They also didn’t need to see how often he slept on the floor, for similar reasons. “Can you tell what’s happening from the thermals?”
“It, uh.” Barbara stops, and he can hear her pinkie nail tapping rapidly at the edge of her keyboard. Her nervous habit. “They look like they’re doing an inventory check.”
Bruce pulls up short on his way to the parking lot. “What?” That didn’t match any of the Arkham residents’ profiles. There weren’t any that would check his inventory before robbing it, exactly. He realizes he’s in the middle of a crosswalk and starts moving again, long strides to his car. “Are you sure Dick is in Bludhaven?” The height profile didn’t match Dick, but thermal cameras could only be so accurate...
“I have eyes on him right now.” The static on the other end cuts out for a second, leaving Bruce with silence as he unlocks his car and starts it. Starts driving to the Manor, thinking about how he can’t be Batman, not now-
A fundamental truth he ignored during every other month: Batman was nothing without Robin. In the quiet of his thoughts, the bright lights of Gotham at night, he’s left with the thought- how he’s going to have to suit up and fight when he wasn’t even sure there was a reason to any more. How long he’d fought for Gotham, how long it had remained irredeemable.
But this wasn’t a fight for Gotham- it was a fight for his home. Whoever knew about the clock entrance was a problem- it was something he’d managed to hide, no matter how famous he and his house parties had become. The rest of the house was in ruins, but the clock still ran, was still coated in varnish.
He wonders if Alfred visited the Manor more often than he let on.
“Intruder moved out of the weapons vault.” He’d thrown the cellphone into the passenger’s seat, put it on speaker so he could put his full attention on going the proper amount of speeding for the GCPD not to care. Barbara still sounds confused- her nail tapping drowns out any other background noise. “It- it looks like they’re trying to access the Batcomputer.” She swallows- she knows it isn’t normal either. “Must be a new player in Gotham- I’ll remote access the computer so I can see what they’re-”
Her voice cuts off in a raw, long gasp. The finger tapping stops.
Bruce pulls up to the Wayne property, grabs the cell phone, and starts walking into the manor, pitching his voice to a whisper. “Barbara? Is everything alright?”
“They’re trying to use Jason’s password.” Bruce feels the twin horror they both experience, the way his heart feels like it’s trying to wring itself out. “Bruce- Bruce, did you- did you revoke Jason’s access?”
He can’t answer that. “He’s dead.” It’s the only thing he knows is true. No matter who fell from the sky, what woman rose from myths- Jason Todd was dead. “I- I didn’t see the reason to- it was a security risk I couldn’t-”
He’s not sure when he set the phone down and put the Batsuit hidden in the supply closet on, but he looks down and sees his hands in the gloves. Flexes his fingers and watches them respond. “I’ll keep you posted, Oracle.” Which he only says because he wants to let her know that he could be overheard- but also because he knows that it started off as a personal, courtesy call. Barbara wasn’t his personal security system announcer- she was a member of the family that wanted to do him a favor. “Thank you for informing me.”
“Call back if you need anything.” The line goes dead, but not before he hears her adjacent monitor’s output- the distant sound of gunfire. He never forgets that she’s managing her own group of superheroes- he couldn’t be prouder if she were his own blood. They both know he won’t call back if he needed anything- he’s never grown out of thinking he’s the one to go to for help, not to ask for it.
Bruce had forgotten how cold it was, going through the clock entrance. He wonders if it’s age biting at him, or if there’d been a heating system that he’d been neglecting. He tended to prefer driving directly into the Cave, instead of taking the stairs. They’re long and winding, and it gets darker as he goes down, before exploding into the clinical white light of the Batcave.
As always, he’s blinded before his eyes adjust. He hears two clicks in the dark- the safety coming off of two guns. His costume isn’t ideal for hiding under what are essentially spotlights, but he dives to the right, where a medical table held instruments for stitching. He doesn’t hear any firing.
Two clicks again.
“Batman?” The voice is mature, disbelieving, the sudden slip into a sharp Mexican accent. A shaky breath into the sterile air. Bruce still hasn’t gotten a good look at him.
Before he can find out whether or not the safety is on or off on the intruder’s guns, he throws a handful of smoke pellets down on the ground in his general direction, springing up from his position to take a running start at him. In close proximity, he sees a red helmet.
A red hood.
He rolls out of the way before the intruder can land a hit on him, strikes at the back of his knees with his foot. The guns go back into the holsters while the Red Hood copycat bends his knees to avoid the hit. “Batman? I’m-” Frustration. The helmet can probably filter through the smoke. Bruce lands a hard punch to his stomach- enough to knock the breath out of him- he can hear the exhale through the helmet. “Fuck, didn’t we get enough of this the first time?”
“Who are you?” Interrogation mid-fight was never his strong suit, but he can’t afford to get this man to the police headquarters while he knew so much about Batman- about Bruce Wayne. “Another Joker copycat, I can see that much- but why here? What do you know?” His anger is slipping. His anger is slipping out, and Bruce can feel it- how good it feels to hit something and ignore the knot of dread in his stomach. It’s not the logical way, it’s not the smart way, or the best way- but the idea crosses his mind that the intruder is walking into Jason’s space.
It doesn’t leave.
The Red Hood keeps taking hits- obvious hits, ones that novices could dodge. He’s knocked to the floor, and, jarred by the crash, frozen and staring upwards. He keeps trying to speak, but Bruce keeps swinging, and he knows he should stop, but he’s afraid he can’t stop- if he stops he loses- the joke just keeps being told over and over again- “Bruce.” The Red Hood catches his hand. Bruce aims for a kick, and he curls away from it. The helmet is pushed in- the bottom fully broken. Crushed inwards, he can see a swollen and split lip under it. “Stop. Stop.”
If he hadn’t said his name, he’s not sure he could’ve.
He doesn’t move his hand out of his grip. “How... how do you know my name?” He doesn’t fix his stance. He leaves himself open for attack, because he’s paralyzed in this man’s grip. He uses his arm to shakily get to his feet, and Bruce lets him. He used Jason’s password. He did an inventory check.
The stranger’s eyes widen behind the hood- he can see the reflection behind the white. “Bruce, it’s- it’s me.” He lets go of his hand, and it drops limply to the side. His fingers hook underneath the jaw of the hood, triggering a locking mechanism. The front of it pops out, and the first thing Bruce sees is a broken, swollen lip. A broken nose. He peels the mask off quickly, leaving the skin underneath raw. Wet green eyes and brown skin. He sets the helmet down onto the adjacent table, the mask crammed into his pocket. “I- We’re not on the best of terms, sure, but-”
Bruce’s voice shakes. “Jason?” He pulls himself to full height, until he’s looking up at the man in front of him that shares such uncanny resemblance to his son. It’s weakness. He doesn’t beg as Bruce Wayne, as Batman. “Jason?”
But he does as Jason Todd’s father.
“Yeah, old man, I-” Jason reaches out to touch Bruce, clap him on the shoulder, but his hand shrinks away. Bruce is suddenly reminded that he had him on the floor, punching his helmet inwards. “I was just here the other day and-” His eyes dart around the room. “It didn’t look like this when I was here. None... None of this looked like...”
“Would you mind if I... took a blood sample?” Bruce has to twist his tongue to sound so formal. He doesn’t think he can afford hope- afford the defeat, the resignation if this wasn’t Jason. He wants to apologize- the eye color is wrong, the age and body is wrong, but the eye shape is the same, the nose is the same, the skin color, the freckles...
“I... Again?” Bruce doesn’t know when he’s referring to- he did take blood samples for Jason every other month (after finding out that Dick had had a major hypoglycemic attack as Nightwing from not eating properly), but it sounds different. Like a reference he doesn’t quite understand. “I mean, I guess...?” But he’s still looking at Bruce out of the corner of his eyes. Like Bruce is the thing that’s wrong with the picture.
He seats Jason on the Batcomputer’s desk chair because he used to love spinning in it- treating him like his Jason until proven otherwise. He pulls the medical supplies out from their sterilized compartment- taking out a syringe with a tube attached to the end of it. Jason sits in silence as he rolls his black sleeve up and exposes his arm. It’s the first time Bruce notices the giant red bat on his chest, and he’s frozen, still staring at it. “Do you need help?” Jason asks, apprehension still on his face, looking at the syringe.
Bruce jerks back into reality and shakes his head, swiping the site with a sterile wipe. It takes him a while to keep his hands from shaking as he searches for a vein- and, when he does find one, the first thing he thinks about is that he would be much happier if he didn’t go through all of the trouble and just pretended that this was Jason. Even if it wasn’t.
He finishes taking the blood sample while Jason looks right at him, the needle in his peripheral. His teeth slightly grit. “I’m sorry.” Bruce’s voice is hoarse, and he pulls the needle out, twists the tube out and caps it. He puts a cotton ball and a bandaid over the drawing site. Throws the needle out in the trash can underneath the computer. “I know you don’t like needles, but I just need to-”
“Make sure it’s really me. Got it.” But the tension in Jason’s shoulders doesn’t relax. It occurs to Bruce that his chest is rising and falling too quickly- the onset of a panic attack. He shoves the tube into his utility belt and darts for a paper bag- Jason snatches it out of his hands before he’s all the way there, his fist tight around the base of the bag while his breath forces in then out. In the midst of it all, he hears him wheeze out something that sounded like, “Again.”
Bruce doesn’t know what to do. He reaches out for Jason, but he shrinks back, one hand barely moving up and off of the chair to halt him. Bruce remembers he just beat his son down on the floor.
Bruce remembers how Jason just laid there and let him.
“Jason, I-” Bruce holds up both of his hands. He doesn’t know what to do. “Jason, is there anything I can-” His breathing is slowing down. Bruce isn’t sure if it’s because he’s calming down or if he’s about to pass out.
When Jason pulls the bag away from his mouth, his lip is split all the way open, blood from his nose running down his chin, mixed with tears from the panic. He swipes at it with his sleeve, smearing it, rooting Bruce to the spot, horrified. “Run the test.” He says, and it’s weak, and Bruce wants to apologize- he doesn’t know what’s going on, he doesn’t know what to do- his dead son is alive and had a panic attack and-
He runs the test. Jason is quiet and clenched-jaw the entire time, his eyes constantly darting around the Batcave. Bruce watches Jason, how his feet finally comfortably touch the floor from the chair. It takes five minutes for the Batcomputer to analyze the blood sample and match it to the one on file for Jason Todd.
Bruce cries big, ugly tears when it matches up, mouthing ‘Jason’ to himself while wiping at the tears that slipped out from under the cowl. He rips it off at the nose, turning to face his son, who- who he just beat and- “Jason, one secon-” He’s going to get a cold compress for his lip and nose, but he’s reminded of Alfred- he quickly pins in the emergency code for Alfred, an automated response reporting his location in the guest house out back- ETA five minutes.
He comes back with a cold wash cloth and moves very, very quickly in cleaning up his face- smoothing over a nose that had healed wrong to begin with- that he’d messed up- “Tell me if I’m pressing too hard- I don’t want to hurt you.” The silence hangs in the room. Jason is staring at him. “I... I didn’t know it was you earlier, Jason- there’ve been a lot of resurgence Joker groups and- that doesn’t excuse what I did but...” His hands are shaking.
Jason stands up and grabs his hand with both of his and takes the towel out from it, cleaning up the rest of the blood. “You’re... You’re gray, Bruce.” He says, as if it’s a new observation. His words are slightly lisped through his fat lip. “You’re gray, and the manor’s gone to shit, and the Batcave is under a lake, and... Where is everyone?” He looks around, his eyes stilling when they rest on his costume’s case.
“Jason, I don’t really understand what you’re talking about- who you are talking about. Barbara and Dick?” Bruce leans against the back of the monitor’s counter, but his heart's still beating out of his chest- he can’t believe his eyes. So he blinks, quickly, just in case this might be some elaborate hallucination.
“No- well, yeah, but-” Jason makes a wide-armed gesture. “Cass? Tim? Damian?” His voice cracks on the last name, and Bruce is thinking of every person he’s ever met with similar names- but there were none that Jason had met or cared about before.
“Son-” He sees Jason’s eyes go wide and watery. He doesn’t know why, and it breaks his heart. “Son, I- I live alone. It’s just me and Alfred, usually- Dick and Barbara might stop by, but-” Bruce wants to help (he wants to be his dad again, fix everything and help him with his homework), but he’s only working with half of his brain- the other half chanting alive, alive, alive, alive. He reaches for Jason and, this time, he lets him hold him, and Jason is so tall now- he doesn’t know how, but he missed his little boy growing up into a man. He feels his chest constrict before he lets out a choked sob. “You’re alive, Jason. Alive.” And he keeps smoothing his hands up and down his back, as if he’s going to lose him- like he’s going to blink it all away.
Alfred enters through the smaller lake entrance- a set of stairs triggered by a set of branches being jostled on a tree. His footsteps are soft and light, but Jason still hears them and tenses up. The pump of a shotgun.
Bruce stops breathing when he feels Jason turn the both of them so that his back is to the threat, shielding Bruce, one hand on his gun. And then he pushes Jason at arm’s length, his lack of tension saying all that needed to be said about a lack of a threat, and Jason relaxes marginally, looking right into Bruce’s eyes.
Alfred interrupts a teary reunion and, holding a shotgun that he’d brought in case of another assassins’ break-in, stands still and wary. “Master Bruce-” Because Bruce never pulls the cowl down in the Batcave with other people- always trying to keep the line between Bruce Wayne and Batman from blurring. Alfred almost doesn’t know what to call him. “I... Am I interrupting something?”
“Alfred.” Bruce says, with the voice of a long-suffering man. He shakes Jason, just slightly, presenting him with a watery smile and tight hands on Jason’s shoulders. The results of the blood test are still up on the screen. “Jason.”
Alfred’s hands start shaking- Jason can see it even in his peripheral, and he pulls away from Bruce to take the shotgun out of his hands, setting it softly onto the table. He’s the one to embrace Alfred, not the other way around, and Alfred lets out a shuddering breath at the fact that his head can easily rest on Jason’s shoulder. “Hey, hey- shhh.” Jason’s attempt to articulate splits his scabbing lip again, but he doesn’t seem to pay any attention as he rocks Alfred slightly. Bruce watches the distant look in his eye, the worry in his brow- the way his cheeks suck inwards to bite on them. “I’m here, I’m here- don’t worry, I’m real.”
They stay that way for several minutes, until Alfred breaks the silence with a quiet offer of food, pulling back and holding Jason at arm’s length in a similar manner to how Bruce had. “The oven in the manor doesn’t work anymore, but I can- I can still make you sugar cookies and...” He breathes, long and forcing himself to steady it. “Tea. I don’t... I don’t have any piloncillo to make you champurrado, but-” He rushes to assure him, eyes wide- like not having his favorite hot drink might suddenly snatch Jason back out of existence. “I can still run to the store- the international market is twenty-four hours in the Na-”
“Alfred, really, you don’t have to go through all of the trouble.” Jason looks over at Bruce, who looks just as rattled, then back at Alfred again. “I saw the emergency protocol on the screen- you live in one of the guest houses?”
Alfred nods, quick and short (he often protested to it being called a guest house- Bruce like to bring it up to joke with him, to which he’d point out how he’d definitely earned it through his many years of service), then cranes his neck to look between Jason and Bruce, including him in the conversation and taking his hands off of Jason’s shoulders. “It’d be best to talk there- this cave is certainly no place to be discussing your- your resurrection! At least my house has a couch- for God’s sake, Master Bruce, you would give your son an office chair to get comfortable in?”
Jason touches his heart, somewhat touched by Alfred’s offense on his part, but then rests it on Alfred’s back. “You lead the way, Alfred- I’ll be honest, I have no clue where any of the exits are, outside of the one behind the clock.” Under his breath, almost to the point where Alfred couldn’t hear him. “‘Place is more like goddamned maze than it was before.”
“Yes, come on.” Alfred moves to take his hand, like he’s still eleven and needs help finding his way back out of the manor, but hesitates, pulling back. Instead, he tilts his head slightly to indicate Jason and Bruce follow him, like Jason was fifteen and still needed help finding his way back out of the manor. He shares a brief but telling look with Bruce, and continues the train of thought that his mind had turned to. “You have a lot to tell us, certainly.”
Jason takes one last look around the unfamiliar Batcave, picking his hood up from the table. He feigns confidence. “Yeah, ‘course.”
Bruce is the only one that notices.