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Flutter, flutter little bat,
How I wonder where you're at.
Swooping through the darkest night -
You find your way without a light.
Flutter, flutter little bat,
How I wonder where you're at!
The fairy with her wings strapped over a puffy pink coat didn’t even spare Jason a glance as she was ushered toward the idling car by a man in a navy overcoat and scarf. The man, however, did— he raked over Jason with a suspicious sneer, and put a hand on his preschool fairy’s shoulder. She had her entire face shoved into a plastic orange pail with a jack-o-lantern face, chattering excitedly about candy.
Jason ignored the look and trudged up the Manor drive. It was well-lit in the dark October evening, which was both moonless and chilled. Despite the security risk, this was one holiday the gate was left open and the path to the door decorated with pumpkins and glowing white-cloth ghosts. He wasn’t sure who was really behind the Halloween enthusiasm— Alfred or Bruce— but it could have easily been an equal mix, with Alfred’s fondness for traditions and Bruce’s soft spot for both candy and kids.
Not that Bruce would see any of them, of course— the rogues of the city went as all-in for Halloween as the Manor did. The Gotham atmosphere had a genuinely eerie quality, a clouded mania that brought green to the edges of Jason’s vision and left him jumpy at every corner.
He’d fled the police scanners and his mask and left the mess to the others. They’d probably be glad to have him out of the way, and for once, he wasn’t in the mood to spite them with his presence. Let them hold back Hell, tonight— he wanted a cup of hot cocoa and a cinnamon popcorn ball and an hour with someone who might actually smile to see him.
Alfred.
Alfred, who would be handing out candy at the door in his usual suit with added plastic fangs and a waist-length cape, like he always did. There was at least one picture somewhere in the Manor— Jason had found it once while digging through a drawer— of Alfred, decades younger, in the same getup with a very small Bruce Wayne and the elder Waynes. Baby-fat cheeks had propped up the tied mask of a kindergarten-sized Gray Ghost, his parents weren’t in costume at all, and their beaming smiles were unobscured by masks. Jason had left the picture in the drawer, slamming it shut when he heard footsteps in the hall.
At the time, it had been a stinging reminder at just the wrong time that he had no pictures of himself with Catherine, not even of the one time she’d been sober, healthy, and clean enough to cobble together a pirate costume for him: an eyepatch from the RiteAid, a striped blouse from a thrift store, a bandana stolen from Willis’ sock drawer, and a sword cut from a cardboard box she’d taken from the pile in the alley behind the liquor store closest to their apartment. He’d trick-or-treated in a nicer building they’d taken the El train to, and even a few rude adults hadn’t taken the thrill out of a full plastic grocery sack of candy.
He wondered if a picture would have rubbed some of the shine away from that evening in his memory, if looking at it would scour away the rosy tint with the uglier details his mind glossed over.
It didn’t matter, because he didn’t have one. He remembered the stomach ache of the day after, the tearful argument when he found she’d combed the bag and taken all the Laffy Taffy pieces. They were her favorite, and he’d felt cheated because she hadn’t asked— he would have given them. It was strange now, to remember a time he was mad enough to shout at her and then refuse to talk for hours. He wanted to think he’d always been kind to her, always appreciated her nearness and living company. But he had argued, with stubborn tears leaking out, until she teased him about crying over candy.
He hadn’t thought about it in years, and now, he found he didn’t even need a picture to mar things. There was a lot he’d forgotten, maybe. He glanced up at the Manor, looming over him, and shook the lingering memories.
I’m sorry, Mom. We should have just split the whole bag.
Jason paused on the broad top step to adjust his costume— cape, gloves, mask— and then knocked on the door. It swung open immediately, like Alfred had been waiting right in the foyer, and Jason held his plastic Frankenstein bucket out.
“Trick or tre—” His deep, teasing voice shorted out and he blinked, frozen stupidly in place.
It was not Alfred.
It was Bruce.
He was dressed in a flimsy, cheap Batman costume in front of Bruce, who was not supposed to be home.
“Uh,” Bruce said, something like confusion lighting in his eyes instead of hard anger. “I’m supposed to, uh…you need…”
Jason, still paralyzed, watched while Bruce shoved a hand into a stainless steel bowl of full-size candy bars, and then withdrew his hand, twitched, and reached forward to dump the entire bowl into Jason’s bucket.
The door slammed.
“What the fuck,” Jason breathed out. He pulled the bucket back and looked down into it, and then his gaze shot back to the door. “What the fuck,” he repeated, loudly. “Did you just shut the door on me?”
“No,” Bruce said, muffled through the thick oak. “It was…the wind.”
Jason felt his face contort into some incredulous, gaping caricature of shock. He was too startled to be properly angry.
“Bullshit,” he said, hollowly.
The door swung open and Bruce had the decency to look apologetic.
“I wasn’t expecting you,” he said, lamely. “Alfred didn’t say you were coming.”
“Because Alfred didn’t know, buttbrain,” Jason said, the old insult falling off his tongue like he was thirteen all over again, and not twenty with piked walls around him wherever Bruce was involved. “I was going to surprise him.”
Bruce swallowed and looked down at the Frankenstein bucket and the thin foam gauntlets on Jason’s arms. One corner of his mouth jerked, like it wanted to smile.
“Don’t let it go to your head,” Jason growled, a warning he felt he’d lost all traction to give. “This was because Alfred would think it was funny. That’s it.”
“No,” Bruce said. “I have no illusions about your willingness to flatter me.”
Jason glared at him and Bruce stared back, as if drinking in the sight of him under the porch lights.
“You look well,” he finally said, softly, too softly, in that way that a year ago would have made Jason’s gut knot with a fuck no, because it wasn’t fair for Bruce to act concerned now, when he couldn’t bother to care when Jason was dead, or struggling, or merely replaceable. But things had changed, not the least of which was digging into the Bane files when he’d come from Santa Prisca over the summer.
There were notes in those files that turned Jason’s stomach, drove him to skirt around Bruce more than usual out of some weird sense of shame, and prodded him to ask Alfred questions that had not been met with the older man’s usual implaccable calm.
They’d already shared burgers on the hood of the Batmobile, and Bruce had made it clear he was trying to approach Jason differently. Jason had cut himself off from lethal methods in tentative reciprocation, hungry for something he’d thought he couldn’t have again.
He had not admitted to Bruce how much the process of honing non-lethal methods and abstaining from that final, furious blow had highlighted just how tangled the Lazarus Pit still was with his thinking. The first time it had flared sickly jade in his vision when he’d walked away, he hadn’t thought much of it— he’d spared people before, after all— but the longer he went the more insistent it became.
It was one of the reasons he didn’t trust himself tonight. It wasn’t quite clear anymore how much he was him and how much he was, well, the Pit. He’d thought for a long time it had been purely him driving things forward, but as he got further and further from that point where he’d come roaring out of the terrible pool, the more things he looked back at and thought, that isn’t me, that couldn’t have been me.
He was now uncertain enough about himself and his understanding of Bruce, and how Bruce had handled life without him (“broken,” Tim had said, the one time he’d worked up the guts to ask the kid, whose brow immediately drew together into a tense line, “like, pretty sure he wanted to be dead, kind of broken,”) that the parental tone in Bruce’s voice didn’t repulse him.
“Come in,” Bruce offered, tugging the door open a bit more.
Jason considered, for a moment, declining. But the air drifting out from the house was warm, and behind him was Gotham and all its howling, fear-flavored madness. Suddenly, the thought of turning away and going back to his apartment alone flooded him with dread. He stepped inside and inhaled, the once-familiar smell of hearthfire and orange oil cleaners filling his nostrils.
A muted hiss snagged his attention and he turned to see Bruce sitting rigidly in a stiff-backed chair by the entry table, his eyes closed for a moment. He forced them open again and met Jason’s inquiring look.
“How bad are you banged up, anyway?” Jason asked, taking the twin chair on the other side of the table. He pulled a Snickers out of the Frankenstein head and tore the wrapper.
“Not bad,” Bruce said, pressing one hand to his side.
“I’m thinking about going to Nashville this winter, maybe recording an album,” Jason said, around a mouthful of chocolate and sugar. Bruce’s focus narrowed in that calculating way, like he was sifting the words to make sure he’d understood.
“Hnn,” he said.
Jason took another bite of the Snickers and stretched his legs out across the rug. “Oh, I just thought we were telling each other lies.”
The shifts in Bruce’s expression were so quick Jason nearly missed them— they were there in flickers, like trying to piece together a crime scene by strobe light. There was irritation, and amusement, and resignation, and then finally his lips were a flat line and he exhaled through his nose.
“Some broken ribs,” he said. “Collapsed a lung. Bruising and lacerations. It’s not the worst I’ve had.”
“Did you lose a fight with a car?” Jason asked. They didn’t sound like unusual injuries but this was Bruce, who was too fast and too good most of the time to get very hurt.
“Hn,” Bruce said. “I made Killer Croc angry. He…made sure I knew just how much, by throwing me through a sewer wall.”
“Holy fuck,” Jason exclaimed, the last bite of Snickers suspended near his mouth. “And Al let you out of bed?”
“It was a few days ago,” Bruce said. “He put me on candy duty to, I think, keep me from going out tonight.”
“I also booted the Batmobile, as a precautionary measure,” Alfred said, entering the room from the hall, his short cape flaring behind him. He had a box of candy bars in his arms and he peered into the bowl. “Good evening, Batman.”
Jason grinned.
“Evening, Dracula.”
Bruce made a noise that sounded like a repressed sigh.
“Have we had this many stop by, already?” Alfred asked, sounding surprised.
“I gave them to Jason,” Bruce said, waving a hand limply.
When Alfred looked at him and the Frankenstein bucket, Jason hugged it to his chest. “You can’t have them back. I earned them fair and square.”
“All of them,” Alfred said, raising an eyebrow at Bruce.
Jason smirked while Bruce’s eyebrows shot upward in indignant surprise, and then he glowered like a reprimanded teenager.
“Yes. All of them,” he said crisply. “I can give my son as much candy as I want.”
Something secure and soft tightened around Jason’s chest, like being bundled in a blanket.
“Hm,” Alfred said, refilling the bowl. “You’ll rot his teeth.”
“Jason,” Bruce said, his eyes on Alfred. “Only eat one.”
“Sorry,” Jason said, shrugging. He unwrapped a second Snickers. Rather than ruining the night, finding Bruce alone without any of the younger kids around had put him in a strangely good mood. “My dad gave me these and I really think I should eat as many as possible tonight.”
The flicker of emotion on Bruce’s face was one he could have deciphered even with an actual strobe light on. The cozy-blanket feeling inside Jason squeezed even more tightly.
Alfred winked at Jason, and patted his hand.
“You booted the Batmobile?” Bruce asked, looking up.
“Desperate times, sir,” Alfred said. “Take the medication. I’ll return shortly with refreshments.”
There were two teal capsules on the table and Bruce frowned at them and tossed them back to swallow them dry. Jason held out the bucket to offer a candy bar and Bruce shook his head.
There was a knock on the door.
“I’m only answering because it’s a frigging shame you aren’t in costume,” Jason said, dropping his own bucket and picking up the bowl of candy.
Bruce looked down at his button up, his cardigan, his pressed khakis, and stood, too.
“I am. I’m Mr. Rogers,” he said, in such a plain tone that Jason had to choke down a laugh while opening the door.
A dinosaur and a witch were on the front step, chorusing together, with a woman bundled in a bright jacket behind them.
Jason was a mess, he knew that. He knew things wouldn’t ever be what they were before between him and Bruce, even if they found something else for things to be. But in that moment, watching out of the corner of his eye while a warm and real smile almost exactly like his own spread across Bruce’s face— he had a spark of hope. He’d thought that because he wasn’t Robin, they’d bury that part of their relationship. Working together as Batman and Red Hood had never felt the same as the magic they’d had before. It felt stupid that the thrill of working together, being in sync and doing something good, came while holding out a bowl of candy for two excited kids, but it did feel like magic.
The dinosaur was roaring at Bruce and the witch was showing Jason her glittery black wand when the woman put her hands into those of the kids and said, “Alright, let’s say bye to Batman and Robin and keep going.”
When the door closed, Jason looked at Bruce with a hawkish gleam.
“No,” Bruce said, before Jason spoke.
“Yes,” Jason said. He steeled himself for disappointment, knew it was likely. The wisp of that magic wasn’t going to last, and if he pushed his luck a little now and ended it too soon, then at least he’d had that moment. He hadn’t been this at ease with Bruce in years, and inside he was terrified it was going to horrifically fall apart— better to let it shatter now than later.
Bruce sighed.
“Alright,” he said.
“What,” Jason exclaimed, the fear of disappointment slowly draining away. He adjusted the thin polyester mask on his own face. “Okay, don’t move, I’ll be right back.”
Five minutes later, with Alfred’s brief assistance finding items, Jason returned to the foyer just as Bruce was saying goodbye to some small zombies and shutting the door. His face was taut with pain the instant the latch clicked.
Jason held out his armful of things, gripped with unease that maybe Bruce had already changed his mind.
“Red shirt, yellow belt, green gloves, green pants. I think pants are unfair but Alfred says Bristol doesn’t deserve your legs. Well, he used the phrase ‘sparing the children’ but I think he was being polite. I got you a domino and these.”
With a flourish, Jason produced the green pixie boots he’d pilfered from a case downstairs, where they’d been kept with the last size Dick had worn of the suit.
“You are aware that Dick is small.”
“Dick’s not that small,” Jason said, relieved when Bruce took the pile. “Besides, this is just the shell. I took the fitted liners out.”
“Hn,” Bruce said. “No pictures.”
Jason couldn’t wipe the grin off his face. “Hurry up, Robin. Al wants one for his scrapbook.”
Bruce muttered under his breath, but disappeared down the hall, moving with a limping gait. It almost made Jason feel bad enough to call him back and say never mind. Almost.
He returned, his hair tousled out of its brushed neatness over the mask, just as Alfred came from the other hall with a camera. Bruce spared the camera a single withering look, but his face softened when he turned to Jason.
“Sexy?” he asked, in a quiet grumble, a corner of his mouth twitching.
“Good lord,” Alfred muttered, adjusting the camera settings.
“Serious,” Jason said archly. “This is a noble profession, Robin.”
“Hn,” Bruce said, taking his spot at Jason’s side for the picture. A click, another click, and it was over. Alfred said something about things in the oven and there was a knock at the door and squeals of delight when they opened it to a much smaller Batman and Robin duo.
It didn’t burn in Jason’s stomach the way it did when he saw the costume combo at the store.
They handed out candy for almost an hour, the time between visitors filled with conversation that was all too easy to slip back into— discussion of motivations in Lord of the Rings, and a disagreement about sandwiches that was entirely without sting. Jason found himself enjoying it, enjoying the way Bruce listened when he shared thoughts about Mirkwood that had been tumbling in his head for months with nowhere to go.
Jason also found himself in the dangerous territory of wishing that he could have this again, all the time, and he shoved that wish away wrapped in green-tinged warnings to himself.
He ate another Snickers near the end of the hour, and offered Bruce one, which he accepted.
It was five minutes after those vanished that they said farewell to a small mummy and Bruce abruptly walked away when Jason shut the door.
“B?” he asked, confused. He set the candy down and followed until he realized Bruce had gone straight to the first guest bathroom.
He heard him puking before he reached the door, and he shoved it open gently, calling again.
“Bruce?”
Jason found him hunched over the toilet, shoulders shaking. There was a low groan and Bruce shoved himself back, panting and holding his chest. He ripped the domino off and unfastened the cape at his throat.
“B?” Jason grabbed a tissue from the box on the vanity and handed it to Bruce, while crouching in front of him.
“Painkillers,” Bruce said roughly, wiping his mouth with the tissue. “They don’t get along with me.”
“Who does?” Jason said, trying to joke. It was too full of worry to be amusing, though, and he stood and offered Bruce an arm. Once Bruce was on his feet, Jason said, “I can handle candy. Why don’t you go lie down?”
Bruce nodded, and made a listless gesture for the domino he’d left behind. Jason snatched it and the cape up, and followed Bruce out into the hall, where he turned back toward the foyer.
It was a relief to see Alfred there, as if he’d known somehow from wherever he was in the house. Jason wondered how close he’d actually been staying all evening, listening.
There was knocking at the door.
“I’ve got it,” Jason said, making sure his mask was in place. He let Alfred take over with Bruce, quietly argue with him, murmur something soothing, and disappear into the parlor just off the foyer.
A brightly colored cat and owl were picking candy bars out of the bowl when Alfred appeared at his elbow with a gracious smile down at the kids.
“I can do this,” Jason said, when the kids had left. The chilly wind that had gotten into the foyer felt soothing now, cooling on his flushed face. He was tense all over and didn’t know why.
“If my company would not prove a nuisance, I’d be delighted to spend the time with you,” Alfred said, in that dry and sincere way he had. When Jason had first come to the Manor, he’d had a hell of a time figuring out when Alfred was joking and when he was serious because it all sounded serious and scripted. Nobody really talked like that.
Except, of course, Alfred did— and Jason knew when he meant things now, knew the acid-lilt to the things meant as jokes or warnings or reminders.
“Sure,” Jason said, with a lopsided grin. “I’d love that.”
Bruce stretched out on the stiff, velvety sofa in the formal parlor and willed his rebellious stomach to settle. The Snickers had been a mistake and he rued himself for it. Alfred had picked up on that, perhaps, which is why he hadn’t had to argue very hard to stay here: nearby.
The hard sofa would have been uncomfortable in most circumstances— it wasn’t meant for lying down on, or even very relaxed sitting— but it eased pressure on his aching spine and let him attempt to focus on the voices in the foyer instead of his ribs and lungs and everything else.
He closed his eyes and let the sounds drift over him.
What had tonight been, anyway? He was grateful that Alfred had insisted he not go out, aside from his questionable physical condition. What if he’d missed this?
Jason showing up on the step in the obviously fake Batman costume had stunned him so much that he, who prided himself on his control and quick-thinking, had legitimately panicked in a thoughtless, stupid way.
And somehow that hadn’t ruined it.
He’d spent an hour with his boy, where they weren’t arguing or on the cusp of arguing. It had been getting easier and easier, each meeting, each midnight burger, he thought— but this was bounds away from the last shared hour with milkshakes. This was something else entirely. It wasn’t even getting Jason back, like an hour with the boy he had been. This was something better.
He didn’t want to miss any of it.
In the foyer, he could hear Jason and Alfred talking. Jason was quoting something, poorly, on purpose Bruce thought— it was making Alfred laugh, that quiet, unassuming chuckle that meant he was actually amused. He closed his eyes, took a breath as deep as his aching chest would allow, and listened with a soft smile as Jason butchered Shakespeare.
It was…it took Bruce’s painkiller-dulled mind a moment to place it…Much Ado About Nothing. He was doing lines alternating between a deep southern drawl, and the nasal chop of Gotham Narrows. Another man’s voice joined, and Bruce flinched into readiness to get up, investigate…until he realized it was Alfred, using an American accent straight out of North Dakota. There was a you betcha added to the end of one of Shakespeare’s crafted lines and Bruce could hear Jason breaking character to laugh, deep and hoarse. He’d always laughed like that— it was startling to hear it pour out of a scrawny, underfed, short kid. Jason had grown into it, with the help of the Pit.
Thinking of the Pit, concern sank into him again. It knocked into him like an ocean wave, one he should have seen coming. Jason had been so eager to get along tonight, Bruce hadn’t complained a bit, but there was a wariness in his son that made Bruce want to break his usual mold and ask, “How are you? Are you alright?”
Questions like that from him could break open a kid’s anxieties or start a small war— Jason especially, he thought, regarded it with suspicion. Stephanie was like that, too, hearing a challenge and a doubt in the question. And Damian, now that he thought of it.
Tim and Dick and Cass and Duke might not, but they’d still respond like it was a warning flag, something wrong.
Bruce supposed that was his fault for not asking enough.
He wondered if he could find a way to ask Jason tonight, risk the rejection, just because he was worried. And he was worried in a way he couldn’t define, because Jason didn’t telegraph as anything specifically dangerous— just unsettled. Uneasy. Eager for something and reserved all the same. He had a sudden spike of fear that this, the getting along, was some sort of farewell. That seemed like an explanation that made a lot of sense— he’d come hunting for Alfred, expecting to avoid Bruce. He’d played along to have one good memory, and maybe the endgame was that he was leaving Gotham.
Bruce’s rules were too strict, or he wanted to find himself outside of the city— Bruce didn’t know. But the suspicion spurred him to decisive planning. He would ask. He’d ask if he had to shout it down the steps because Jason was already leaving.
He wasn’t willing to let him just slip away again.
“Ahh, it’s eight o clock post meridian,” Alfred said. “That’s the end of it.”
“I’ve got the light,” Jason said.
Bruce forced himself to sit.
“Al, I was wondering…” Jason said, clearing his throat. “Do you think…”
Bruce stood, wincing.
“A film and hot cocoa?” Alfred prompted. Bruce frowned, caught off guard.
“Yeah,” Jason said, sounding relieved. “Yes, I mean. Yes, please. Do you think he’d…hey, B? You awake?”
The volume rose and Bruce almost could have cried with…gratitude? His own relief? That the night wasn’t over, even if he still needed to ask, even if the worry was still there.
“Yes,” he said, crisply. “You choose the film.”
“Hey, Al, I don’t want to be a pest,” Jason said. “Aw, never mind. If I ask and you don’t have any, you’ll miss the movie just to make some. Don’t bug me about it, either. I’m not trying to hint.”
“Popcorn balls?” Alfred said. “They’ve already been prepared.”
“You’re the best,” Jason said, grin clear in his voice. “Have I told you that you’re the best?”
Bruce didn’t realize he’d let his eyes close again until Jason was behind him, chewing. He turned, moving far more jerkily and slow than he liked. The painkillers were already wearing off, which annoyed him.
“Den?” Jason asked. He was eating another Snickers.
“How many of those have you had?” Bruce asked, an intensely paternal regret sharpening in him. He didn’t have the place to actually dictate this anymore but that wasn’t going to stop him from trying.
“Not enough,” Jason mumbled around the chocolate. “I haven’t finished half of ‘em yet. Halloween rule. You gotta eat everything in the bucket before midnight.”
“You’re making that up,” Bruce said. “We never had that rule.”
“It’s my rule,” Jason said, something humored but underlaid with sharp knives. It was a yellow light, a signal that maintained boundaries around where he’d even let a joke go.
“I’d offer to help more,” Bruce finally said, “but I don’t think that’s wise.”
It was a poor attempt but it worked. It diffused the biting atmosphere and settled it into something more peaceable again.
“I wanna watch Rebecca,” Jason said suddenly.
“The Hitchcock?”
“Yeah. It’s got the right mood for the season.”
“Hn. Alright,” Bruce said. He had a thought. He had a fuzzy memory of Alfred watching shows with him while he recovered from gunshot wounds in those days when it was even harder to laugh, when a brief smile was the closest he got to showing anything that wasn’t numbness or anger. “I have something to show you.”
Jason gave him a wary look, but Bruce grunted— it was a noise of it’s not anything like that and Jason read it well enough, because the wariness faded but that spark of curiosity was still in his gaze.
“Den,” Bruce said. If he sat down again on the sofa in the parlor, he didn’t think he’d be able to get up again soon. And he needed to sit down in the next few minutes or the blackness at the edges of his vision was going to win.
Jason took off parts of his Batman costume as they walked, draping them over an arm. He tucked them neatly on a side table before sitting down with Bruce on the couch— not close enough to be touching, but closer than Bruce expected. It was then that Bruce realized he’d not seen a single firearm on Jason all evening, not even concealed. He wondered what that meant, and filed it away to consider.
“Hand me that, please,” Bruce said, gesturing at the controller left on the table. Damian, probably— he had a habit of not putting the thing away.
Jason tossed it to him and Bruce found the clip, the one that had gotten a rare smile out of him when he’d watched with Alfred, whose own mustache had twitched above his cup of tea.
“What is…” Jason breathed, eyes on the screen.
By the time they’d gotten to the first line about a space being reserved for the Second Mrs. DeWinters, Jason was laughing. Bruce was too, despite his chest— not as deep or full, but real. He was watching Jason as much as the screen, studying the ways he could still see the young boy hidden in the angles of his face, and learning who he was now: the swooping curls, the hint of stubble, the hard ridge of his adult brow.
The video ended and Jason exhaled, wiping tears out of the corners of his eyes that were dusky green like pine needles. They had been blue once, but not piercing. They’d been a gentle blue, the fogged blue of a cloudy evening. Bruce had loved them then and loved the murky green they were now, even if it reminded him he had reasons to be worried.
Now. Now he had to ask.
Right now, even if it meant maybe giving up the movie, now while spirits were high and Jason might actually answer or brush him off and ignore it if he didn’t want to.
“Jay,” Bruce said, his voice like gravel. It was too harsh, he didn’t know why he always sounded so hard when he didn’t mean to be, when the inside of him was the most raw and tender. He tried to put that into his voice instead. “How are you?”
Jason looked at him like a deer caught in headlights, the timid creatures that crept out of thin spits of Bristol wood onto the highway roads leaving the Manor.
His eyes flicked toward the doorway where Alfred would appear with hot cocoa and popcorn balls. His gaze dropped to his hands, which he was now clasping together.
“Is it that obvious?” he asked, husky and wounded. “That something’s wrong?”
“I’m your…” Bruce began. He stopped himself. Tried again. “I’m concerned. I want you to know you can come to me. I’ve…” his throat tightened nearly shut, the tears were in his eyes and he couldn’t blame the painkillers, it was like cutting himself open across the gut to acknowledge things he often buried so he wouldn’t be torn apart by them. “I’ve missed you, Jason. You. Not the boy I, uh…buried. I’ve missed getting to know who you are now.”
“Al gave you the strong stuff,” Jason joked awkwardly.
Bruce shook his head.
Jason blanched and ducked his head.
Bruce was a patient man. He could be patient for this. Alfred appeared, and Bruce saw him from the corner of his eye, observe and make a quiet retreat.
Jason rubbed his face and took a shaky breath in.
The moment was there and it was going to pass him if he waited too long. He could feel it slipping by, each breath drawing more sweat out of his palms and screwing more tension into his jaw and shoulders. He thought for a wild, frightened second that he’d missed it when Alfred had darkened the doorway, then he’d left and Jason was grasping for it. That was what finally forced the words out of him.
“Roy said, uh, there was someone…like, the League had someone for people to, uh…talk to,” Jason said, his arms snaking around his middle. He looked at the carpet, because he couldn’t look at Bruce. “Is that someone I could, well, that I could talk to, or am I like, on some sort of blacklist for that kind of League thing.”
“If you want to talk to someone, you can talk to someone,” Bruce said gently. “You aren’t on a blacklist. You’re one of us. Just tell me when and I’ll set it up. I don’t have to be there.”
Bruce not asking why, just accepting it, maybe should have made Jason stand and stomp and yell. See? You do think I’m broken?
Jason was too shattered inside, too struggling, to be angry. He opened his mouth to say okay, yes, somewhere neutral, and instead what poured out were the thoughts that had been eating him alive. They’d been tangling in his brain for so long, mixed with the Lord of the Rings thoughts and a dozen others he used to try to distract himself.
“I’ve been, the Pit. It’s getting harder. I’m fighting and I’m tired and I don’t like who I feel like when I let it take over. I don’t know how to stop it. I feel like I’m losing and I don’t want to…I don’t want to lose everything again.”
He was crying and fucking hell he hadn’t meant to cry in front of Bruce. His hands were shaking even though he had them clasped against each other now, and he felt turned inside out.
An arm slipped around his shoulders, hesitated and hovered above him for a second, and then hugged him. He didn’t sag against Bruce but he didn’t shrug him off, either. He sniffled, trying to get control of himself again.
“I’m tired, B. I’m mad at you and I’m mad at myself and I hate that it’s so hard, that everything is so fucking hard. I just want a break. I know that makes me weak but I don’t care, I don’t…and I can’t tell Roy because he’ll pester me and mother hen me and it won’t fix anything.”
The arm around his shoulders squeezed and he did lean in a little this time. There was a kiss pressed against the side of his brow. It felt surreal, like a remnant of a life he could have had and didn’t. He was starving for it, for the chance to maybe make that his life again after all.
“You’re not weak,” Bruce said, quiet and firm. “And don’t underestimate Roy. I’ll set something up with a League counselor. Do you want to get out of town for a while?”
“Like…” Jason’s brow creased in confusion. He stiffened. “Are you…are you kicking me out?”
There was a scratchy noise huffed against his forehead. “No, Jay,” Bruce said gently. “I’m offering to take you somewhere. A vacation. It doesn’t even have to be with me, if you don’t want.”
“A vacation,” Jason echoed, disbelieving. “Just us?”
“Eventually,” Bruce said, “I would like to take you and your siblings. All of you. But yes, just us. I’ll have to leave Alfred with Damian. Or, I could send Alfred with you.”
“A vacation sounds nice,” Jason said, feeling dazed. “Yeah. I’d, I think I’d like that. With you. Somewhere warm.”
“Let’s hammer out the details tonight,” Bruce said. “After the film.”
Alfred was in the doorway again, with the tray of hot cocoa and snacks. He glided into the room and set the tray down on the table, retrieved the film and put it in the player. His cape and plastic fangs had been discarded somewhere.
Jason sat up and stretched. Bruce’s arm fell away, but the lightness in Jason, the fragile hope, didn’t dissipate.
“If it is not considered an imprudent intrusion—” Alfred said, standing by the table.
“Sit down,” Bruce said. At Alfred’s raised eyebrow he added, “Please.”
“C’mon, Grandpapa,” Jason said, in a childish whining beg. “Watch with us.”
It was teasing to break the hush over the room and it worked. Teasing or not, Jason was delighted to see the pleased little expression Alfred had when he took one of the arm chairs.
The movie started and Jason grabbed a popcorn ball, glanced sidelong at Bruce and considered. How far could he push? How much could he get tonight that wasn’t pretending, but rebuilding?
Bruce was still in the pixie boots.
Jason leaned back on the couch, scooted until his shoulder was pressed again Bruce’s and then he did sag a little.
“This okay on your ribs?” he asked, low, his eyes on the opening shots of the film.
Bruce patted his knee and gripped it for a second with reassuring firmness.
“It’s fine, Jay-lad. You’re fine.”