Work Text:
Bruce wasn't ready for this.
To be fair, most people aren't emotionally prepared to embrace the son they buried four years prior at all times. That is not to say that he was not willing. Absolutely not. But Bruce also feels like he is going to break into a million pieces.
Jason is warm and solid and breathing and wet in his arms and it feels like Bruce is dreaming. The sort of dream he has had before, the type where he wakes up crying and is haunted by the specter of his dead son all day. No part of him even slightly regrets the fact that his clothes are getting soaked through with muddy pond water. Nor does he care in the slightest that he has no idea how he gets to be so blessed. Jason is here, by some miracle he is here.
Bruce is a smart man, an analytical sort. His mind is normally running at all times, analyzing and planning and thinking. It makes it hard for him to live in the moment and has earned him plenty of teasing and criticism from his kids and his teammates for never letting his work go. Even back when his world shattered for the second time in his life it did not stop, too busy of all the ways things might have gone different, what Bruce might have done different, anything to distract him from carrying his son's corpse from that warehouse.
Right now the the machinery has gone quiet for once.
Nothing but a quiet chorus of Jason Jason Jason.
Bruce should have questions — all the questions he should want to ask, would normally ask, loom distantly in the back of his mind — but all he can think of is that he does not dare to question this.
Jason is here.
Jason is alive.
Bruce is gripping him tightly and Jason's hands grip the back of Bruce's clothes just as tightly. Like Jason can barely believe that he found his way back home either.
When Dick puts a blanket around Jason's shoulders Bruce barely registers it, he just adjusts his arms to be over the blanket instead.
Jason is in his arms. Jason who is grown now, who was a horse standing in the manor's pond right before this, eating the sausages Bruce's youngest had been throwing at him. But before all that he had been holding a tire iron, had been falling asleep at breakfast after reading too late into the night. Jason who had been so excited to start theater at school next year before he was cradled in his father's arms in the worst way a child ever could be.
"Jason," Bruce repeats. His son is grown and alive and solid and warm and whole and here.
"Dad," Jason replies wetly.
Bruce does not know how long the two of them stand there. Letting go of Jason, even just a little, is terrifying. When he eventually does, Bruce finally gets to look his son in his eyes. His face has changed in the last four years. His eyes have turned from their old gray-blue into a bright green, his face has grown into that of an adult and his hair is a long wild mess, but it is Jason. Undeniably Jason.
He looks like he has had a hard life these last few years. He has too many scars for a nineteen year old and there is a hardness and a sadness written into the lines of his face that hurts to see. It is not the first time Bruce has seen his son worse for wear and it is not the first time he is dead set to make it right again.
Before he can do anything about that, Bruce can gracefully allow the others their own turn at a reunion.
First of all Alfred.
When Bruce looks over Jason's shoulder towards the manor he can see Tim guiding the man outside. He's speaking at Alfred, probably explaining, while they make a slow way down towards all of them. Even from a distance it is clear that grief and disbelief are putting up a solid fight against the British stiff upper lip.
Bruce struggles, but he does manage to let Jason go fully when Alfred gets there.
Between reunions and practical matters it takes a good while before everyone — including Cass who made her way over from Barbara's place in record time — is finally gathered in the sitting room.
The manor has several, but the others are for formal guests. No the sitting room that the family uses is the one that doesn't have to look neat, the one that is actually lived in. It has the most comfortable couches and their mismatched collection game consoles and someone's homework is currently sprawled over the coffee table.
This sitting room now also features Jason. Safe and warm and comfortably dressed in some of Bruce's old clothes and cradling a large mug — a 14 ounce novelty mug of Dick's that had been a gift of his Titan friends — filled to the brim with hot tea. It obviously also contains everyone else.
Alfred has taken the nice arm chair and Bruce has settled next to Jason on one couch while his other sons and daughter have piled themselves on the other one to give Jason a little more space.
There is a notable tension in the air as a room full of people who have honed their investigative abilities try very hard to give Jason enough space.
It is not working well.
"I am a Kelpie," Jason states very defensively, "I thought I might answer one of the questions you are all trying desperately not to ask me." His shoulders are almost up to his ears and his knuckles are white around the handle of his mug. None of them miss the way his eyes dart around, cataloguing all the room's exits over and over again. Exits that everyone gathered here is very deliberately not blocking.
Water spirit from Scottish folklore, Bruce's brain manages to dredge up from somewhere, a creature from the broad category of 'be careful around bodies of water'.
"I am glad to have you back here with us," Bruce says out loud because his children often tell him he has to remember to do that. The tension in Jason's shoulders eases slightly at his words, which confirms that that was the right thing to do. "Please tell me if there is something you want us to do for you or change about the way we used to act around you, but it does not have to change anything else."
Jason takes a deep breath and a sip of his tea. Even through he is now incrementally more relaxed his eyes still seek out all the doors and windows before they find Bruce's again. Then they hop over to the other bats in the room.
That makes sense.
Bruce and Alfred are equal parts astonished and relieved to have Jason back — something they had thought impossible — very few other emotions or thoughts can manage to be louder than the roaring of soothed grief.
This is not the case for all other inhabitants of the sitting room.
Cass, Tim and Damian never really knew Jason. They have heard of him, have felt his ghost haunt the manors halls, but today is the first time they met the man. That is not the whole story for Damian, perhaps, but there is a difference between the relationship between a heir and his suspiciously competent assassin horse and a child and the 'dead' older brother he never got to meet.
It seems that for his two youngest sons curiosity has the upper hand. Tim and Damian are leading in, with a million unspoken questions on the tips of their tongues. They are more than ready to provide the interrogation that Jason seems to expect from Bruce, probably only withholding because Bruce is. It is heartening to see that there is one situation left where Robins still defer to Batman.
Cass doesn't join them. She watches, sure, but Bruce is sure that she sees quite a lot too. She had her own experiences with the league's cruelty. He will have to ask her later, one on one, about everything she has seen. Her unbiased view might have picked up on nuances in Jason's reactions that Bruce is missing.
Dick, though, is left in the middle. He has too much history with Jason to not care. They might not have been as close as Bruce might have liked, but that did not spare Dick from grief or regrets. The opposite. But Bruce can also see that his eldest still has that detective spark in the corner of his eye, that drive to seek answers from the family's lost son.
Bruce has wondered — many, many times — that if he hadn't been fighting Dick's need for independence so hard back then and if that had led to Dick being around more, if they would still have lost Jason. If he had just had a brother 'on his side' when he was on the outs with his guardians he might have confided in Dick. Maybe he would have gone to sleep on Dick's couch instead of running into the arms of his birth mother. If that would have changed enough…
If Bruce had just been a better father back then, would that have…
But-
But Jason is here now. He is whole. He is alive. He had grown in all the ways that Bruce had mourned that his son never would, he has been hurt in ways that Bruce had prayed to spare him. But he is here now, on this one couch in a faded Gotham Knight's hoodie. Bruce will have to remind himself a million times that he's back before he will finally feel like he can believe it.
"Is there anything you actually need us to do or to change?" Dick asks. It is an important question that Bruce is sure he would have tried to verbalize already if his brain was in any way shape or form available to do something other than memorizing his son's face again. Dick rubs the back of his neck. "I'm sorry if any of us were a bit of an ass while we were still operating under the assumption that you were mostly, like, a horse…"
Jason frowns slightly and waves his concerns away. "That was fine. The horse shape is my baseline anyway."
"It.. is?' Bruce had not seen Jason exhibit any sign that he wasn't human in too short years that he had lived in the manor.
Jason folds into himself as soon as Bruce asks the question, trying to make himself smaller the way he used to when Bruce had just taken him in. Being noticed isn't safe when you are a homeless child, terrified and hiding of Gotham's foster care system. Being noticed isn't safe when you are, as it turns out, hiding a very big secret all on your own. As a skinny underfed teen he could easily fold himself into nooks and crannies. He is now too tall and his shoulders too wide to really pull it off.
Not that Jason is not underfed. Despite the muscle and his broad frame. Bruce and many of his friends are mere humans who are trained to stand shoulder to shoulder with enhanced humans and gods. He is very aware of the diet and exercise needed to pull that off and the end result that goes with it. There is supposed to be some fat to go with it, no matter your build. Fuel to turn into speed and power.
They'll have to make sure Jason catches up.
"I-," Jason starts and then stops. Each time he speaks he has to really think about all his words in a way his teen aged self never had to. Bruce wonders how long he has spent unable to speak these last few years. "Yes. Uh. I need my silver," his hand lays on his chest presumably over his necklace, "to choose. Taking it is how they controlled me."
That explains why Jason had always been so protective over his necklace. To the point that Damian, despite the lack of a full picture, had known to take it with him when he left the league. He's a smart kid.
Bruce can only imagine the distress Jason must have felt when it was taken from him at some point between being buried and being recruited. Having it held over his head… Bruce will do whatever he can to make sure Jason will never have to go through that.
Between his own skills, Zantanna's wonderful help and a favor Constantine still owes him he can probably figure something out. Some sort of backup or something with implanted silver that is impossible to take. Bruce doesn't know the 'rules' behind Jason's magic but he will learn them. His child's peace of mind is more than enough reason to engage with the irrationality of magic, to learn it.
Not that Bruce expects Jason to be ready to engage with that sort of thing. Not now and not for a long while still. When Jason is a little more settled Bruce will be calling around to find a good and cape-safe therapist first. Maybe schedule in some additional sessions with his own while he is at it, because he's going to need it. It won't be until Jason feels safe again that he's going to bring up the idea of modifications and experiments to what seems to be Jason's anchor.
There is a curious twinkle in Tim's eyes and what seems to be a question he is gearing up to ask. But even with all the years he has missed Bruce knows Jason well enough to know him. Bruce recognizes that the way he is looking into his mug of tea — when he isn't cautiously glancing at exits and the gathered crowd — is a sign that Jason needs some time to process.
He has a rather lot to process.
Bruce gives Dick a look. Dick looks back. There are advantages for working together as long as they have. "Jason," Dick starts with the gentle voice he had work-shopped as Robin and perfected as Nightwing, "would you rather stay in your old room or a neutral guest room? Your old room is pretty much still the way you left it."
Jason doesn't seem to react to the question at first, though his knuckles are slowly turning white and the tea is a little shaky. "Guest room. At least for now."
Nobody mentions the tension in his hands.
"Alright," Dick says with a sunny smile, "C'mon Tim, Damian, lets make sure Jason has all the basics he needs for the next few days. We can't leave him to his fate with everyone's spares." Within seconds he has herded his younger brothers out of the room. Any signs of protest are quickly snuffed out before they can pull Jason into it. There is a reason Bruce trusts Dick to take his mantle whenever he has to leave Gotham.
Dick might have used it as an excuse to get the busybodies out of here, but it is actually useful that the guys are going shopping. All Jason's possessions are aimed at a fifteen year old and probably emotionally fraught. Jason cannot live in other's spares forever. He deserves something of his own to do whatever he wants with. Agency and choice are important. Taking him shopping himself is probably the best, but that will take some more grounding before Jason is ready.
When the Inquisition leaves the room and give Jason respite from their curiosity a bit more of his tension fades. Enough that he takes a few more sips of tea with notably less white knuckles.
Bruce, Alfred and Cass are all in their own ways happy to let the silence settle. There is so much Bruce wants — needs — to know. So many more things to ask. But Jason is not ready for that. Knowing when to press a witness for a statement as soon as you can so they don't forget salient details and knowing when a victim needs time to process and heal before they are ready to talk is a skill. Bruce knows Jason is the second — knows it as a father and as Batman both at once.
He wants answers, because knowledge and control are his attempts to assuage his worst fears and his children being hurt terrifies him. He wants to make sure everyone who hurt his son pays for it, because there is no way to go back in time and keep that 15 year old safe and sound. But more than anything he wants Jason to be alright and do everything in his power to support his path to get there.
For now, it is plenty a miracle just to have Jason sitting here. His son is alive. He is drinking tea out of a stupid novelty mug on Bruce's couch.
Sure. Jason is traumatized and not even close to being well, but he is alive. And alive is much more than Bruce had expected he would ever get, more than any parent in his position would have dared to dream of. He cannot imagine a version of himself that would be anything but grateful at this turn of events.
Sitting here, watching his son carefully sip on some tea, is the happiest Bruce has been in a long time.