it's time the tale were told (of how you took a child and you made him old)

by therisenbird (thesecondsmile)

Summary:

Bruce is racing across Ethiopia to save his son. Bruce is fighting in the Batcave to stop his son.

Bruce is 34 years old. Bruce is 39 years old.

Then Bruce is looking at ...Bruce. Uh oh.

Notes:

Fic and chapter title taken from 'Reel Around The Fountain' by The Smiths.

Please see endnotes for warnings.

Chapter 1: oh, people said that you were virtually dead (and they were so wrong)

 

 

 

Gotham: Batcave

DICK 

 

“I’m not fucking staying!”

 

As always, Jason’s anger is an explosive thing and Dick winces as he faces the full brunt of it alone.  Ever since the Pit Madness trapping his brother in its throes began wearing off and the Red Hood formed a tentative peace agreement with the Bats, tensions between them had settled somewhat, but things were still far from amicable.  Even without the green driving his actions, Jason still had plenty of grievances he needed to air, and with Bruce’s impeccable communication skills, they would probably stay unresolved for a few more decades at least.

 

Trying to keep the naked longing out of his face, an expression Jason has often described as “stupid puppy-dog emotional manipulation”, he lets out an inward sigh.  After all these years, he wants nothing more than to be able to feel like a family again, not like the splintered, half-formed bonds they share today.  He had a chance once, to be the older brother he should have been, back when a scared, uncertain boy with equal amounts of fear and determination in his eyes had first come to the manor, and he had squandered it over petty jealousy and misplaced anger.  He only came to realise his mistake when he was watching recordings of his little brother’s funeral on the television and was presented by a casket too small to match the hole in his chest.

 

Robins love to be dramatic and his choices then certainly gave new meaning to the phrase ‘too little, too late’.  In the times when it is quiet, he sometimes thinks he hears that final call he never picked up.  

 

Dickiebird, it’s me.  I know we’re not close or anything, but I don’t know who else to call.  Please call me back when you get this.

 

When he finally did get around to calling the number back, it went straight to voicemail.  His youth continues to haunt him in more ways than one.

 

Now he has the gift of a second chance, but a twisted gift that only ever seems to slip through his fingers.  Still, it is an incredibly precious opportunity, to cherish what he once threw away so callously and he will be damned if he fails his brother again.  His days at the circus may be long over, but one thing he has never forgotten is the importance of holding on tight no matter what.  He has let enough of his loved ones fall.

 

“Jason—,” he tries to coax but is quickly shut down as his brother’s temper flares again.  The hand that he tentatively reaches out towards Jason’s shoulder is immediately thrown off with a scowl.

 

“You’re a real piece of work, you know that Dickie?  I came down here all ready to help out because you lied to me and told me there was an emergency!  And then I arrive only to find out that this was all just a little ploy to get me to attend one of your stupid family bonding shindigs.”  

 

“It’s not like that,” he protests weakly, because it kind of is exactly like that.  “I just- I just wanted to spend some time with you.”

 

A half-truth.

 

“Yeah, well,” Jason drawls.  “If you haven’t realised yet, today’s not a very good day for me.”

 

He flinches at the reference to the date, but can’t stop himself from nodding intently.  “That’s exactly why!”  As much as he knows he should leave Jason to his own devices, he cannot bear to do that today, especially not today.

 

Jason bristles.  “Did it ever occur to you that I might have had plans?”

 

“Well, did you?” He probes curiously.  Admittedly, Jason hasn’t been the most forthcoming with them about his social life, and understandably so, but from what he’s heard, Roy isn’t in town and Jason… well, Jason doesn’t have that many other friends.

 

Despite the technical reasonableness of the question, it is the wrong thing to say.  He only has a second of regret to brace himself before Jason explodes.  “That’s not the point!  I could have had plans, or I could have wanted to stay home and paint my fucking toenails for all that it matters to you, and that would be my choice.  You don’t control me, and what I do is none of your business, so get that through your thick-fucking-head already and leave me alone!”

 

A pang of hurt blooms in his chest.  It is nothing that has not been said before, but each repetition is a painful reminder of the gaping chasm between both brothers.  “I was just worried, Jason.  You know that I’m always going to be here for you.”

 

“Couldn’t make it for my birthday though?  And you all wonder why I keep saying that my death matters more than my life,” Jason mocks and Dick fails to suppress the flash of hurt that spreads across his face.  It’s not enough to stop Jason though, as he continues speaking those terrible, hurtful falsehoods that he might very well, and Dick prays that he does not, think are true.

 

“As usual, no one bothers to be around for my life, but suddenly everyone and their cat turns up to celebrate my death,” he throws up his hands in exasperation.

 

“Little Wing, no,” he breathes out forlornly, heartbroken that Jason continues to be blind to his place in the family.  “It’s not like that, please—”

 

“What was it, off-world again?  At least this time, you made it back in time for the 27th!”

 

“Jason, please.  I was off-world, but it was really important!” He implores, his tone just short of begging.  He would, if he thought it would do any good.  “I really wish that I had been around for your birthday, but it was an urgent mission and I had to be there with the Titans.  It was the Dokris you see, they were engineering time travelling technology to try and conquer Earth again, and it could have jeopardised the space-time continuum!” 

 

He blurts out the explanation frantically, desperately hoping that he can somehow make Jason understand that he wants nothing more than to be there for his little brother.  Judging by Jason’s unimpressed look, it’s not working.

 

His mind races for solutions, anything that might help to plead his case before his eyes finally land on something.  Fumbling around the table where all of the artefacts the various members of the family had haphazardly tossed — probably not the safest practice when it comes to dangerous and unstable foreign entities, he realises — he lets out a triumphant aha! when he manages to locate one of the objects that he had brought back from that mission to study at a later date.  

 

Not being there for his little brother when he most needed it was the worst mistake Dick could have made and he’s determined to spend the rest of his life making it back up to Jason.

 

“Look, I have proof!  Do you believe me now?” he asks hopefully.  Brandishing the glowing orb proudly, he presents it to Jason, who eyes it with a flat look.

 

“Great, yeah, another gold star for the Golden Boy over here!  Whoop-de-doo, the world is saved yet again, it’s a pity that poor little Jason is too selfish and unimportant that he’s collateral again and even worse, upset by it.”

 

He instantly deflates.  “Jason, please.  Why can’t you just believe that we love you and want the best for you?  We’re family, Little Wing.”

 

“Why?” Jason laughs darkly.  “Well maybe because of the fact that at every turn, you all continue to disregard my wishes or find some opportunity to double check that the Big Bad Red Hood isn’t off slaughtering half of Gotham!  If you’re so worried about me going off the rails again because I can’t handle my death, then why don’t you just throw me in Arkham for the day?  I’m sure there’s a nice empty space that the Joker’s probably escaped from, just waiting for me.”

 

Dick’s face falls.  Speaking to Jason is always an exercise in navigating minefields, but today in particular, he feels like he is facing a nuclear wasteland.  Just when he thinks that both of them are at a permanent deadlock between two equally stubborn people, someone else enters the conversation, fully prepared to escalate the situation beyond repair.   

 

A new voice signals the arrival of Bruce.  As usual, Batman travels noiselessly and melts out from the shadows to join his two former Robins.

 

“What is going on here?”

 

Bruce’s deep voice rumbles through the Cave and above them, a fluttering of bats chitter in annoyance at the latest disturbance.  He hates how now, even years later, the sound of his father’s voice is enough to have him instinctively straightening his spine and looking to him for instruction.

 

“I’ll tell you what’s going on here,” Jason responds immediately, snarling his words viciously.  “My buddy Nightwing decided to lie about an emergency in order to manipulate me into coming down for family bonding at the Cave, just because the Earth’s made one more revolution around the sun since I took a little trip down under.  When I found out that there was no emergency, I tried to leave obviously, but Dickface over here is trying to stop me.  Now can you please just tell him to let me go so there actually isn’t any bloodshed tonight?”

 

Jason bares his teeth in a facsimile of a smile but this grin is all knives.

 

Bruce hesitates.  “Actually Jason, I think it might be better if you stay in the Cave today.”

 

“Excuse me? ”  Jason’s face is screaming barely-repressed danger and Dick crosses his fingers and toes in desperate prayer.  

 

Please Bruce, don’t mess this up.

 

“We all know what date today is, and everyone is concerned about your potential reaction,” Bruce responds stoically.  

 

Dick has to resist the urge to bury his face in his hands.  He knows that he’s hardly the best at picking words or expressing himself clearly, but Bruce certainly takes the cake on that front and if there was any doubt that his poor communication skills were inherited, this is all the proof that is needed.  He’s nowhere close to the trigger-edge Jason is on when it comes to mentions of family, but even Dick can see the many areas for misinterpretation and accidental hidden insults in Bruce’s statement, so Jason is bound to seethe at that as well.  

 

Sure enough, his already hostile sneer twists into a full-on snarl.

 

“Oh so you really do care, huh?  Did you all sit around and have a family meeting to plan for what to do when the newest Rogue inevitably decided to celebrate his anniversary by going on a killing spree?” He spits out, derision dripping off every word.  Then, he turns to Dick, and the pure rage and hurt in his face causes him to balk.  “What happened, Dickie?  Did you pull the short straw and that’s why you’re the one who has to drag me over?”

 

The accusation sends ice straight into his heart, along with the clear hurt underlying his words.

 

“No, Jason, please. It’s not like that,” he begs.  Jason’s posture is bleeding hostility and he doesn’t know how things all went wrong so fast. “No one thinks that you’re a danger, all we want to do is to spend time with you and make sure you’re okay, I swear. ”

 

Jason barks out a short, harsh laugh.  “Sure, you’re all looking for your sweet little brother to complete this happy family.  I’m sorry to tell you, but that boy died a long time ago in a warehouse in Ethiopia and there’s nothing you can do, not even with your fun time travel trinkets here,” he spits out, knocking the sphere roughly, “that could ever bring him back.”

 

“Jaylad, I just want my son back.”

 

“Yeah, well, you’ve already got one!”  He roars, channeling fury in every gesture as he jabs his arm towards — oh no — the memorial.  “ Right over there, in that shiny glass case, that’s where your son is, if you could even call him that—”

 

Bruce lets out a small, hurt sound at that but Jason carries on unperturbed.

 

“—so get that through your heads once and for all and leave me alone!”

 

Dick closes his eyes.  There is an agonising sense of finality in Jason’s words, and if his intense rage was not enough to convey it, then the raw hurt in his eyes certainly would.

 

Still, Bruce doesn’t back down.  After all, why would he?  The dark knight never retreats from a battle.

 

“Jason, no matter what you think we feel about you, you have a place here and right now, you’re too emotional.  I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be out alone today.”

 

As soon as the words escape his lips, Dick knows that they were the wrong thing to say,

 

Indeed, a frightening blankness slips over Jason’s face and his eyes turn to pure ice.  Even before he pulls on his helmet coldly, Dick can sense the sudden chilling of the air.  It is no longer the hot-headed teenager with a temper, but a large, compassionate heart under all of that rage and bluster; it is the Red Hood, the nightmare of Gotham’s underbelly, whose hands are drenched in as much red as his namesake. 

 

A chilling silence comes over the cave when Jason pulls out the first gun.

 

“There’s no way I’m staying here and make no mistake, I will use this if anyone tries to stand in my way.”  The threat comes through clearly, and even through the distorted voice modulator of the helmet, Dick can hear the animosity in his voice.

 

In the absolute quiet that follows, the sound of the trigger arming is deafening as Jason levels the gun unerringly at Bruce, who stands firm, staring back at him just as unyieldingly.  

 

That seems to be the last straw for Jason.  In a lightning-fast motion, he lunges forward and to the side in a break for the exit.  Not to be outdone, Bruce is right in front of him just an instant after Jason makes his move.  

 

Fortunately or unfortunately, a lifetime of experience with Batman’s bulk has accustomed Jason to Bruce’s stonewalling and he meets his new obstacle with a fierce shove.  Bruce lets out a grunt as he loses his balance and stumbles backwards, knocking into the cluttered table and rattling all the objects on it.  A certain orb which had been unthinkingly thrown onto the table after failing to appeal to Jason falls to the floor.  

 

Fuck.

 

Dick blanches.  This was not what he had intended when he decided to try and provide Jason with emotional support on this difficult day.

 

There’s just enough time for him to brace himself before the world erupts into white.

 

---

 

 

Ethiopia: Magdala Valley

 

 

BRUCE (34 YEARS OLD)

 

 

The Batcycle only seats one.

 

Batman has always centered around solitude.  Batman was born out of loneliness, out of the isolation of a young boy who once had his entire world ripped out from under him and never quite recovered from that.  Over the years, with Alfred, with Barbara, with Dick, with Jason …parts of that world had been slowly pieced back together but still, Batman remained a role that revolved around seclusion.

 

He has never once regretted this fact as much as at this moment, when his insistence on withdrawing from the world means that he might not have left enough space for his son to be safe by his side.

 

In the searing red wilderness of the Ethiopian desert, there is only miles and miles of sand stretching out across the horizon.  This area is far from a friendly place and he is endlessly reluctant to have left his teenage son in this hostile, foreign land.

 

Jason is tough, and his survival for years on the streets of Crime Alley is testament to his tenacity.  Training with Bruce has only honed that.  He has faced far harsher terrain so there is little rationality behind his intense fear but still, there is a growing tightness in his chest.  Is there ever a time when a father stops worrying about his son?

 

He has always been a man of few words so he remembers every one that he speaks.  The last thing he said to Robin was an instruction to stay put.  The last thing he said to his son was a plea to be safe.  Jason for once, please listen to me.  Don't go after Joker alone.  He's just too dangerous.

 

Did Jason listen?  Did Jason understand that this was all about keeping him safe?

 

He remembers the words he spoke to Alfred just hours before.  He's a danger to himself.  A danger to our mission.  He realises now, far too late, how little any of that matters now.  He’s not chasing after Robin, he’s racing to his son.  

 

There is a thrumming in his chest and he hopes it is the pulsing beat of his heart bringing him closer to his son and not the ticking of a clock that is running out far too quickly.  Gritting his teeth, he tries to banish the thought from his mind as he cuts through the unforgiving heat of the Magdala Valley, under a blistering desert sky.

 

Once more, he curses himself for driving his second child away, for ever forgetting exactly how much Jason means to him and making him feel like anything less than the absolute blessing he is.  He has spent the last few years working each day to prove to Jason that he is more than the place that he came from and he will be damned if a petty disagreement undos all of that effort.

 

He only worries that he is already too late.

 

He remembers receiving that heart-stopping call from Alfred, the butler’s usually calm voice wracked with worry as he frantically reported that he had found a hurriedly scrawled note in Jason’s familiar hand, explaining how he was leaving to seek out his birth mother and thanking them for everything they had done for him.  As if it, he, had been a burden on them.

 

Jason is no stranger to running away — he recalls the smattering of foster homes dotting his early childhood reports until Gotham City Child Protective Services gave up on him, the early days at the manor where a ready-packed duffle bag was stashed conveniently under the bed for a quick getaway — but Bruce had hoped that he had earned Jason’s trust enough to make that a thing of the past.  

 

Apparently not.  

 

Though with how the past few weeks have gone, Bruce doesn’t blame him.  Robin, did Felipe fall, or was he pushed?  When it was not being populated by shouting, the manor’s halls had been filled by cold anger.  Bruce is ashamed to say that arguments had become the main form of communication between them.  Somehow though, this latest episode holds a special finality to it, a notion that strikes a cold bolt of fear into his heart.

 

Gritting his teeth, he presses down the accelerator even more and urges the Batcycle to go faster.  His son is calling to him, and he will not let him down.

 

One moment he is speeding through an expanse of desert, the next, everything turns white.

 

•  
•  
•  

 

When he opens his eyes again, the world is black.  Blinking rapidly, he gradually begins to  make out a few silhouettes in front of him as his vision adjusts to the new shadows.  He lets himself be disoriented for a few seconds before he is automatically seeking, searching.  Against the dark of the space, the first spot of colour he sees is a striking splash of red, yellow and green.

 

Immediately, he reaches out.  

 

A wave of relief rushes through him as he grasps on to that sole piece of brightness in this desolate space.  To be able to feel the solid presence of his son by his side, the sensation is indescribable.  Ignoring the squeak of alarm Jason makes as he startles at the sudden contact, Bruce pulls Jason closer to him and the sound is swallowed by the shelter of his cape.

 

He can practically feel the fear leech out from Robin’s skin.  “B,” Jason sobs into his armour, “you’re here.”  Almost without thought, he feels his arms instinctively tighten around the boy and he tries to tamp down the similar crest of emotion swelling in his chest.  

 

“Jason, son, I’m so glad you’re safe,” he chokes out in a gruff voice before he manages to clear his throat.  They bask in the warmth of each other’s safety until reluctantly, Bruce pulls himself away.  As wonderful as this moment is, he has not forgotten the circumstances under which he has been reunited with his son.

 

Once he has sufficiently convinced himself that Jason is free from immediate danger, he is back on alert.  

 

Even without looking around too much, he knows exactly where he is.  There is only one place on Earth with a darkness as chilling yet comforting as this.  He’s in the Batcave.

 

His eyes narrow and sharpen on the figures in front of him, and he is acutely aware of the growing number of presences in the Cave, as well as the fact that not all of them are unfamiliar faces.  

 

The very opposite, in fact.

 

There is something quite chilling about seeing a copy of your own face staring back at you, down to the identical expressions of suspicion layered over deep mistrust.

 

Still, Jason’s body pressed against his is a comforting weight amidst a sea of uncertainty.  For creatures of instinct, it speaks volumes that when confronted by a room full of strange, threatening people, Jason’s first response is to lean into Bruce.  It is a precious gift indeed that to Jason, Bruce is still synonymous with safety.

 

With critical eyes, he assesses the rest of the occupants carefully.

 

In the time that he spent looking over Jason and reassuring himself, all of the unknown persons have retreated back into the shadows.  Not for the first time, he curses the deliberately dim lighting in the Cave.  It places him at a tactical disadvantage, missing those first few critical moments of observation, but he will never regret placing his son’s well-being first.  

 

At the very least, he remembers quite distinctly, in the first chaotic seconds when he and Jason were unceremoniously dumped into the Cave, having caught a glimpse of three figures before they faded away from sight.  A too-solid reflection of himself alongside two other well-built men.  One, a slim and lanky figure, the other, with a bulky, muscular frame.  For some reason, he thinks of the colours red and blue.

 

His hand itches to reach for a batarang, or something to protect himself but he refrains.  In such a dark and enclosed environment as the Cave, the chances of a ricochet are too high to risk.  He knows this, and if the similarities extend beyond appearances, his counterpart knows this as well.  Neither of them reach for a weapon.

 

Those three, he is fairly certain, were the only ones that had originally been in the Cave at the point of their arrival.  Since then, more children seem to have popped out of nowhere and trickled into the Cave, each one wearing their own specially coloured uniforms.  He has registered at least four new presences, from the rustling of boots on the ground to a near-imperceptible shift in the wind.  They move like Bats, he notes to himself.  He does not know if this revelation puts him more or less at ease.

 

Then, he feels a prickle at the back of his neck.  All of a sudden, the Cave feels ten degrees colder.  In the rafters above, the bats flutter their wings restlessly.  Stiffening instinctively, he scans the shadows even more intently.  

 

The flutter of a cape.  The glint of a polished boot.  A ripple runs through the colony above them.

 

There.  

 

If not for the faintest flash of yellow in the darkness, he might have missed it entirely.   There is new danger in the Cave, he knows.  The hunch is founded on nothing more than a feeling, but after years of acting as a vigilante in the most dangerous city in the world, he has learned to trust his instincts.  

 

Then, as quickly as it had tensed, the Cave settles.  Whoever just entered the room has stilled.  Finally, both sides seem ready to engage.  

 

“State your business,” the other man in the suit, in the cowl — him? — growls.  Bruce straightens instinctively.

 

“What’s going on, B?” Jason whispers with trepidation, tugging his side anxiously and it is all Bruce can do to pull him closer into his cape into a shielding embrace.  A wave of protectiveness surges over him.

 

“Don’t worry about it, Robin.  I’ll handle this,” he murmurs, just loudly enough for some of the tension to drain out of Jason’s shoulders.  True to his words, he fully intends to deal with this situation by himself and he will die before Robin is threatened by these strangers, even if one of them wears his face.

 

Drawing himself to his full height, he looks his counterpart straight in the eye and addresses him clearly.  

 

“I am Batman, vigilante protector of Gotham City, New Jersey.  With me is my partner, Robin.  The two of us did not intend to enter here and have no knowledge at this point of the circumstances surrounding our ...travel.  Nonetheless, we wish you no harm and request the same courtesy in return.”

 

After a brief, tense pause where they are looked over with a cryptic gaze, the other man nods in acquiescence.  If not for the fact that it is his own face and he is well aware of his tactics at maintaining his blank mask, he might have missed the brief flicker of respect that flashes under the stoic demeanour.

 

Like a switch has been flipped, the gesture of acceptance seems to signal to everyone else that it is safe to approach and engage the new visitors because they all begin cautiously stepping closer to them.

 

“Father?  Is that you?”

 

The first of them to step into the light is a young boy, who asks the question in a young, high voice, peering at him with poorly disguised hope.  As his features are slowly revealed, a sense of thrilling dread curls in his belly.  He then processes the words.  

 

Bruce chokes.

 

Father?  This is his son?

 

No, I’m not, he wants to say, but he takes a look at those arched brows, a familiar pair of dark eyes, all steely calculation on a familiar complexion of olive skin and he knows.  For all that Talia told him about their lost baby, there is no denying that this is his child.

 

Oh god, I have more children.

 

If he had to guess, he would place the boy around twelve years old, but granted, he hasn’t had much experience dealing with children despite his other-self’s apparent propensity for collecting them.  Looking at the way he watches, the way he stands, however, you never would have imagined that this was a child.  There is something far too cautious, far too jaded in his eyes to coexist with any sort of innocence.  He can infer from the other half of his son’s parentage where he might have acquired his behaviours from, but he thinks he would almost rather not know.  A child should never have to be that on guard.

 

Beside him, he feels Jason shift uncertainly but he knows that he can see the resemblance as well.  A thousand questions are ready to spill out from him but he finds himself unable to speak.  Helpless to do anything else, he lets himself stand there and gape.

 

The alternate Batman seems to take pity on him.  “I think some introductions are in order,” his counterpart states in a deep, bland tone.  “I am also the Batman of my world and we are presently in Gotham City, New Jersey as well.  I suspect that the cause of your arrival here has to do with some alien artefacts that were recently procured but we will have the opportunity to acquire more information later on.  While you are in our world, you will face no harm from us.”

 

Bruce nods in acknowledgement.  It is the courtesy he had hoped to receive, but one can never be too certain about where you end up when participating in involuntary dimension-hopping.  

 

“This is Damian, who currently holds the mantle of Robin,” other-Bruce says next, gesturing to the aforementioned boy.   Beside Bruce, his own Robin tenses.

 

Then, the other man shifts to indicate a new vigilante dressed in a red and black suit with a dark cape bisected to look like wings.  “That is Tim Drake, also known as Red Robin.”

 

The teen in question, a small figure with quiet, intelligent eyes (and quite likely a caffeine addiction and/or workaholic problem judging by the bags under his eyes and frequent twitching) gives a small wave.

 

The yellow-boy standing next to him shifts uncomfortably, seemingly realising that it is his turn to introduce himself.  “Uh, hi.  I’m Duke Thomas.”  “Oh yeah, and I go by Signal in the field,” he adds hastily.  Bruce nods his understanding and commits the name to memory.  

 

Next up is a pale, willowy girl with dark hair and dark eyes that have a fathomless depth to them. There is both a danger and a grace to her that Bruce would be a fool to disregard  

 

“Cass,” she says simply and that is that.  Silent but deadly, he notes.  “She goes by Black Bat,” Tim intones helpfully.

 

“Must be a lot to take in,” a cheeky-looking blonde girl comments.  “I’m Steph, or Batgirl, by the way,” she offers off-handedly, flashing a bright grin at them.

 

Her smile is one that Bruce returns automatically, because there doesn’t seem any other way to respond to her infectious energy.  He really has a lot of children.  He wonders where he picked them up from.  

 

“What I’m wondering though, is how you got here in the first place?”  The blonde girl, Stephanie, he remembers, asks curiously.  

 

He’s just about to shrug cluelessly when someone else interjects.   “I think I might have some idea about that,” a familiar figure in blue steps out sheepishly.

 

Bruce stops short.  The boy, no, man is older now and with longer hair but he knows that face, those eyes, that smile.  His face softens immediately.  That is his son.

 

It is a precious thing, to see him without the unease for once, not needing to be on edge.

 

In fact, even seeing Dick is a gift unto itself.  After their terrible argument that ended with Dick storming out of the manor, he wondered if he would ever see his son again.  If the last time he left the Cave, it would be for good.  

 

Every visit afterwards was a rare treat that he cherished dearly, even if he didn’t know how to express it.  Past the first rush of joy however, there was a growing sense of worry as well.  Regardless of whether Dick wanted it or not, Bruce was still his father, and he would never stop wishing for the best for his child.  On the few occasions that he did drop in from Blüdhaven, Dick vacillated between angry, tired and lost.   Compared to how he was then, he looks worlds apart.  No longer uncertain about his place in the world as he carves out his own identity, he looks settled in his skin.

 

I’m trying to make sure that you make something of yourself!

 

Well, he did.   Judging by the brilliant, radiant smile on his face, his son was successful at making something of himself.  He lets out a shaky laugh.  

 

His son is happy.  

 

“Dick?  Oh chum, you look so good,” he chokes out, meeting his eldest son’s eyes through the domino anxiously.  “Are… are you well?”

 

“Yeah, B,” he rasps, twisting his fingers around restlessly in the same nervous gesture he’s had since Bruce took him in all those years ago.  I’m… yeah, things are good.”

 

This Dick is healthy and confident and (dare he say it again?) happy, and he feels tears mist in his eyes.  This is all he’s ever wanted for his eldest child, and to see all of it come to life in front of him when the last conversation he had with his son ended in shouts and slammed doors and …  It is overwhelming, to say the least.

 

An awkward hush falls over the room as everyone pretends not to stare at the burst of emotion that even he can admit is uncharacteristic.  Ever the conversationalist, it is eventually Dick who takes the lead in breaking it, clearing his throat meaningfully.  

 

“So,” he starts, nervously wringing his hands together, “I guess you’re all wondering how all this happened…”

 

Bruce can’t help but let out a dry laugh at that.  “You think?” He deadpans, cocking one eyebrow at Dick, who reddens.

 

“Yeah, so um, long story short, I recently went on a mission to stop some aliens from trying to take over the world, you know, the usual stuff,” he babbles rapidly.  “And I brought back this time orb-thingy, which I guess someone accidentally knocked over or something, and next thing we know, the two of you appear!”

 

“Tada!”  He completes his explanation with shameless jazz hands.

 

Bruce blinks.  That is a ...surprisingly sensible account.  He takes the information easily in his stride; it’s not as if he hadn’t raised it as a plausible solution himself prior to Dick’s explanation after surveying his new environment.  There aren’t that many reasons why he would be transported to a bizarre similar-but-not-entirely-similar version of the Batcave and confronted with a slightly older doppelganger of himself and his son, after all. 

 

“By my best guess, since Jay’s here as well, you guys must have travelled at least five years into the future,” he says, a thoughtful expression coming on his face.  Bruce tilts his head in confusion.  Why at least five?  As if sensing his thoughts, Dick seems to panic, and hurriedly adds, “Or um, maybe six!  Yeah, just a rough estimation,” he ends off with awkward laughter. 

 

Bruce narrows his eyes in suspicion.  That was a rather odd remark.

 

He decides to dismiss it for the moment in favour of answering the unspoken question.  More clarity couldn’t hurt.

 

“Where we came from, the date was April 27th, 2008,” he offers instead.  “Jason and I were in Ethiopia when we were suddenly transported here.”

 

Instantly, it is like all the air has been sucked out of the room.  All of the people from the future pale at least two shades, and Dick looks vaguely sick.

 

“Why?  What’s going on?” He demands.

 

After a long pause and several not-at-all subtle glances exchanged, Dick’s body relaxes entirely and he lets out what is clearly forced laughter.  “Oh, it’s nothing,” he waves his hand dismissively.  Bruce can still see the undercurrent of tension running through his body.

 

Despite the obvious fact that something is going on, Bruce knows that nothing good will come out of pressing the issue for now, so he grudgingly chooses to accept that bald-faced lie, letting out a curt nod.  The rest visibly relax at his acceptance, and Bruce mentally files all the information he’s gathered away for later consideration.

 

In the silence that ensues, it is Jason who speaks up.

 

“So, you’re ...Dickiebird?”  He asks, peering up at his older, older brother, testing out the words cautiously.  At the all-too-familiar nickname, his teenage-son-who-has-now-grown-to-be-a-man, laughs wetly and tears off his domino to reveal a pair of bright blue eyes glistening with tears.

 

“Yeah, Little Wing, it’s me,” he answers kindly, face melting into a bright smile.  “Aw, look at you, I almost forgot how cute and tiny you were!”

 

Little Jason scowls at that, and lets out a few indecipherable grumbles at Dick’s cooing.  Bruce is too busy being amused to censure him for his language.  “So you did get rid of the Discowing suit then?  And the mullet too?”  Jason pipes up curiously.

 

Behind them, a low strangled laugh is choked out of the ominous, foreboding figure dressed all in red.  Until now, he has been silent, a dark, brooding presence lurking in the background.  Bruce has no background or information about the man, but years of honing and surviving by his instincts tell him unmistakably that this man is dangerous.

 

But he laughs, and the sound is much lower, and more gravelly, and is laced with an undercurrent of bitterness although that is still not enough to disguise the genuine humour in it and that is his son.

 

“Jason?” He asks tremulously, the hand on his own Robin’s shoulder tightening unconsciously.

 

“Yeah B,” the figure rasps, pulling off their helmet to reveal a strangely familiar face.  “It’s me.”

 

In an instant, the whole world picks up speed.  Something in him is falling, falling.

 

The face that was hidden under the hood is one that he has seen many times before, but with some distinct changes.  First and foremost, he is older, with the soft, youthful edges of his face having given way to hard, sharp planes.  Before knowing the identity of the man, Bruce had been struck by his impressive musculature, which closely resembles his more than anyone else’s.  There is an indisputable strength coiled up in his frame, along with an aura of power that screams danger.  Then, there is the clear age in his eyes, the spark of what little innocence and naiveté he had growing up on the streets long gone now, replaced by an unsettling flicker of something he cannot quite identify.  Most striking of all is the strange white streak in his otherwise black hair and the eerie shade to his eyes.  Snatching a quick look at the Jason standing next to him, he confirms that yes, both of those features are new.

 

This Jason has aged over the years, no doubt, but Bruce isn’t sure that he likes all of what he sees.  His Jason doesn’t seem to have the same reservations.

 

“Woah,” he breathes, jaw dropping as he takes in the hulking figure of his future self.  “Look, B!  I grow so big in the future!”  He exclaims, clear delight in his voice.

 

“You really do,” Bruce echoes softly, raking in the sight of his Robin all grown-up.  Five years has introduced a world of difference, that much is clear, and even with the drastic change in physicality, the most obvious difference is in the eyes.  There is an edge to his boy, a certain hardness to his expression that wasn’t there before, even when he had pulled an angry and combative twelve year old off the streets a while back.  This Jason is angry and scarred and holds a frightening amount of anger in his frame and Bruce feels like a failure.

 

And of course, there is the disturbing moniker that he’s chosen.  Why ‘Red Hood’, of all the names he could have picked?  He instinctively pulls up an image of a laughing clown and shudders as he pictures the Joker next to his son.  The two could not be more different.

 

The more he looks, the more he notices that concerns him.  A sinking pit begins to form in his stomach.  It is not lost on him the hostile stance this older Jason takes towards this timeline’s Bruce, nor the vicious glare that seems permanently etched on his face.  It is a far cry from the bright, playful boy he has by his side, and a pool of dread slowly fills.  

 

Oh my boy, what’s happened to you?

 

Older Jason turns defiant eyes on him in a clear challenge, his lip pulled back in a mocking snarl.  It hits him like a knife to the chest.  Then, as his gaze falls on the smaller figure of his younger self, the hostile exterior seems to fall away, and in its place, an almost tender expression surfaces.

 

“Hey mini-me,” he says gruffly.  “Yeah, I can confirm, we get a massive growth spurt somewhere down the line.”

 

Seemingly oblivious to the dark side that has emerged. his Jason bounces up excitedly at that.  “Oh yeah!  I’m gonna be so cool in the future!”  Then, he stops short, turning contemplative eyes to his older self.  “Do I need to start taking vitamins now or something?”

 

The harsh bark of laughter that older-Jason lets out sends shivers down Bruce’s spine.  He never wants to hear such a harsh sound from any of his children ever again.  “Nah, don’t worry about that.  We get something a little more potent than some vitamins,” he answers cryptically, and Bruce only hopes that he is imagining the sinister edge to his smile.

 

Seemingly alarmed by the sudden turn of the conversation, Dick hurriedly jumps in.

 

“Hey, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m getting a little confused about calling everyone ‘Old Bruce’ and ‘Young Jason’.  Any suggestions on nicknames to clear things up?”

 

Immediately, the room seems to thaw a little.  No one responds, but the silence doesn’t seem to faze Dick as he cheerfully carries on.

 

“Let’s take a leaf out of Dami’s book and go last names then!  How about it, Todd and Wayne?”

 

This gets a reaction.

 

“Tt, that makes them sound like a pair of bad sitcom stars,” Damian scoffs disgustedly.  His glare turns murderous.  “Besides, I’m not calling Red Hood ‘Jason’.”

 

Bruce furrows his brows in confusion.  Having to accept that there is another, alternate version of his son around is certainly bizarre, but now there are apparently more of them, and some of them speak like they are haughty eighty-year-old men.  In fact, the kid carries himself almost like a third-generation Mafia don.  Come to think of it, other than disturbing resemblance the child bears to him, Bruce wouldn’t be surprised if he were a mini-assassin who was accidentally sent to the wrong address during a botched mission and promptly scooped up by his future self.  Oh wait.  His mother is Talia.  That is a distinct possibility.

 

God, he thinks to himself with growing horror, I really do have a problem.

 

Dick laughs brightly, good mood not at all dampened by his younger brother’s obvious surliness.  

 

“Aw, don’t be like that, Lil’ D!” He laughs with good cheer, easily ignoring the angry protests that erupt at the nickname.  

 

“You can call him Jason, and call me Hood.  Dark Knight 2.0 over there can take Bruce, and our very own first edition can go by Batman.  He’s more Batman than Bruce nowadays anyway,” grown-up Jason snipes, and he sees his other self disguise a flinch. 

 

A pit opens up in his own stomach.  It had always been one of his worries, that he would be sucked in or overrun by his persona, that in the attempt to save the rest of Gotham, he would end up losing himself instead.  To know that this fear becomes true someday, well, it hurts.  But more than that, he worries about what that means for his children.

 

If he really is more Batman than Bruce one day, would they even still be his children, or just glorified child soldiers he sends marching to their deaths?

 

Surprisingly, Damian objects to the first part of Dick’s suggestion and not the second.  “I have no problems with your recommendation regarding Father’s manner of address, but let me clarify — I’m not about to call either of the Todds ‘Jason’.”

 

Yup.  Definitely an eighty-year-old man in disguise.  Note to self: try and remember the last time he slept with Talia.

 

Then, quiet, unassuming Tim pitches in with his two cents.  “You could keep calling our Jason ‘Todd’, and call the other Jason ‘Robin’, instead,” he offers ‘helpfully’.

 

Bruce doesn’t need to look at Tim’s face to know that there is a devilish grin there now.  Right on cue, Damian prickles.  “Never!  I am the one true Robin, as the most well-trained and skilled fighter of all.  This,” he looks over at them and sniffs, “inferior, street rat does not deserve to bear the name.”

 

At the same time that Dick cries out a horrified ‘Dami!’, his Jason frowns, and Bruce is immensely proud of him for not rising up to the blatant insult.  “Well I was Robin first, so I think I should have the rights to the name.”  Bruce silently agrees with that argument, but knows better than to further inflame tensions.

 

Even so, it doesn’t take long at all before Damian starts screeching.

 

Bruce has only been around the family for a few minutes, but even he can sense an explosive conflict brewing.  As if reading his thoughts, Dick skilfully defuses the situation and draws the conversation away to less contentious matters.  

 

“Actually, maybe it isn’t that hard to differentiate between the four of them!  In fact, it’s getting a little chilly in here, don’t you think?  Why don’t we head upstairs and talk in the Manor instead?” Dick suggests.  Still shooting death glares all around, Damian grudgingly nods, grumbling all the while.

 

Eager to escape the unsettling environment of a Cave which is not his own, Bruce agrees easily and the group begins to traipse up the stairs.  Behind him, he hears his counterpart gruffly instruct Dick and the older Jason to stay behind in order to research into the orb that brought all of this about.  He hasn’t had nearly as much time as he would like to learn about his sons who have now grown up, but he understands the need for them to hang back.  Still, he hopes that he might be able to speak to them later on.

 

As they ascend the stairs, he unconsciously begins running his fingers along the stone walls, cataloguing each bump and groove, trying to see what new holes and scratches have been added to their surface over the years.  For a moment, his eyes glaze over as he loses himself in the memories.

 

A feather-light touch on his skin quickly draws his attention back to the present.  “Hey B?” Jason prods his arm hesitantly and Bruce bends down to reach him more easily.

 

“I didn’t kill Garzonas,” he whispers quickly, and Bruce has to close his eyes in grief.  Is that what Jason has been so concerned about?

 

“I believe you,” he responds immediately, squeezing Jason’s hand reassuringly.  “I never should have accused you of it in the first place, and I’m sorry that I made you think that I don’t trust you.”

 

Jason’s relief is palpable, and painfully so.  “I’m sorry I said those things about you.  I’ve never regretted you adopting me and I’m so glad that you took me in that day, Dad.”

 

It is nothing that he does not already know but hearing the words from Jason directly is a sweet comfort.  

 

“I know, Jason.” and his heart swells.  “The day that I found you trying to steal my tires was one of the best days of my life.”

 

Jason frowns at this and tugs his hand.  “I didn’t try to steal them, I already got three off by the time you found me!”

 

Bruce just laughs.

---

 

 

JASON (15 YEARS OLD) 

All of the other kids are crowding around Bruce, staring at him with thinly-veiled curiosity.  To be fair, Jason was pretty fascinated by Bruce the first time he met him as well.  (Then again, he had been carted away in a dodgy kidnapping van by a man dressed in a bat-suit in the middle of the night, so he thinks he might be excused on that front.)

 

He doesn’t want to admit it, but knowing that his father figure went on and found so many other kids, knowing that he wasn’t enough, hurts.  Especially since all these other kids, they make sense with Bruce.  

 

The small, scowly one is the easiest.  Clearly, that one is Bruce’s biological child, whose blood ties him permanently to the Waynes.  

 

Then, there is the thin, scrawny boy, the one with the smart, intelligent eyes and clean Bristol accent.  In his few years as Bruce’s newly adopted son, he’s made his fair share of appearances at various galas and so he knows that name, the Drakes.  Knows that Tim is clearly one of Gotham’s elites in his own right, with an impressive pedigree and the good upbringing to match Bruce’s own. 

 

Not like street rat, thief, criminal Jason, who’s already gotten far more than he deserves.

 

The other three are harder to parse.  There’s the mouthy blonde, who comes into every room like a firework, all untamed energy and spark.  Her polar opposite: the silent, dark wisp of a girl whose eyes are deep and knowing.  Last of all, the quiet, contemplative boy dressed in a suit that is very ...yellow.  (Then again, he dresses up in green panties like a traffic light.  Although, he inherited those colours, so he thinks he gets a pass on that one.  At least older-him seems to have settled on a pretty cool and intimidating outfit.  And future-him is big. )

 

All of them speak with a familiar cadence that is all Narrows, and pure Gotham (at least, when they speak at all, that is — the Asian girl is a character of very few words, he’s learned), and the rhythms of his childhood sounds wash over him in comforting waves, putting him at ease.  If the faces of the Wayne household are changing this much in the future, he almost thinks that one day he could truly fit in there, rather than forever masquerading as a cheap imitation of what he is supposed to be.

 

But there is one difference.  The three of them might look the same, speak the same and act the same, but at the very core of them, they’re still good.  Which means they still fit nicely into the black-and-white, just world of Batman.  None of them were born angry, reckless, impulsive, vengeful like he was.  

 

He’s cleared up the Garzonas situation with Bruce as much as possible, and reconciled with him as well, but part of him knows that whatever peace has been forged is only temporary.  He will always be waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Every time he meets a drug dealer on the street selling their goods to kids barely out of elementary school, or sees the familiar faces of pot-bellied johns from his days on the street, he grits his teeth a little harder and counts down the days until Batman’s justice will just not be enough.  God knows he’s already come close enough to that before.

 

Back on the streets, when he wasn’t jacking tires or scrounging around for food, Jason would go to the library.  At first, it was just a safe place to stay.  Compared to the harsh streets of Crime Alley, the library was clean and warm and dry.  As long as he was quiet and respectful, the librarians were generally fine with him staying there for hours on end.  Some of them would even smile at him when they saw him.  He never intended to fall in love with reading, but there frankly wasn’t much else to do in a library other than read, and once he picked up a book, he was hooked.  

 

Reading became an escape, a doorway out of his hellish life into a world of hope.  Where he could dream of being more than what he was, of having a future.  He loved reading so much, he almost thought he might one day want to become a literature professor.   Wishful thinking, really.  It’s not like a homeless juvenile  criminal who dropped out in the third grade would ever be able to go to college.  For someone like Jason, there were really only three things he could have ended up as: a whore, a thug, or dead.  At the ripe old age of twelve, he has already been two out of three.

 

(Maybe with Bruce though, things could be differe—)

 

But that’s all besides the point.  Suffice to say, Jason reads a lot.  So he knows that a common theme in literature is the concept of nature versus nurture.  Whether a child’s fate is determined by their parentage, or their upbringing.  Although it features quite prominently in many of the books he reads, the debate has never quite mattered to Jason.  After all, he was screwed on both fronts.  Regardless of which stance you took, Jason never quite had a chance.  

 

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree — Willis Todd was a no-good criminal lowlife, and Catherine was a drug addict.  Is it any surprise that Jason is rotten to the core?

 

You are what you eat — well, Jason had been eating out of the dumpster since he was three years old.

 

At the end of the day, it is simple enough.  The rest might have been born into their situations, but Jason is a product of it.  He has Crime Alley in his veins, and more than just righteous anger in his blood.  Bruce might have adopted him and taken him in as his son, but Jason’s true father will always be the one he becomes.  There is no room in Batman’s world for street trash like him.

 

And so, he can’t help but feel the slightest bit insecure and put-out that in the future, he finds himself having to compete with a whole new brood of children, on top of the Golden Boy as well, for the love and attention he almost believed he had to himself.  

 

Still, Jason is a fighter, who grew up brawling and scrapping for everything he’s ever owned, so he knows that you never let a good thing go without fighting your hardest for it.  And Bruce has been the best thing that’s ever happened to him, so you better believe that he will go down swinging for him.

 

Scowling lightly, he places himself in front of Bruce and narrows his eyes at the other kids in clear challenge.  Surprisingly, none of them bar the small-angry-one — and even then, he seems to always be angry anyway, so who cares? — return his gaze with any hostility.  In fact, they almost seem ...intrigued.

 

Un surprisingly, it is the chatty blonde who speaks up first.

 

“So,” she drawls, “how are you finding the future?”

 

He blinks.  This is not quite how he expected the discussion to go.  “It’s fine, I guess,” he shrugs.  “Kinda weird seeing all these new kids that B picked up.”

 

The girl, Stephanie, smirks.  “Yeah, he’s got a bit of a thing about collecting strays.”

 

Despite himself, Jason giggles.  It’s hard not to like such a genuine personality, and her brash, unfiltered humour speaks straight to his own.  As much as he loves them, Bruce and Alfred aren’t the most ...uninhibited conversationalists, so it’s refreshing to meet someone who speaks their mind just like he does.

 

She brightens at his smile.  “Anyway, tell me something about yourself!  I’m dying to know some juicy details about the past and grown-up you isn’t nearly as talkative as you are,” she gushes.  A thoughtful look comes over her face.  “Hey, wasn’t it your birthday a while back?  Why don’t you tell us what you did then?”  

 

He looks up in surprise.  “You know when my birthday is?”

 

“Yeah, it’s August 16th,” the Drake boy answers automatically, seemingly without thinking.  Jason startles a little at how quick the response was, and Tim’s face immediately flushes with colour.

 

“Of course we do,” Steph scoffs.  “You’re our brother after all, and besides,” a devilish grin spreads over her face as she turns her head towards Tim, who squeaks in alarm.  “Timberly here,” she continues, nudging him in the stomach with her elbow, “knows all about you because he used to follow you arou—”

 

He doesn’t get to hear the rest of her sentence because she is rapidly tackled by Timberly (Jason mouths the name in wondrous amusement) who flings a hand out to cover her mouth, eyes darting in panic.  They tussle on the floor for a bit and Jason swears he hears someone shriek “no biting!” in the chaos.

 

“You swore you wouldn’t say—”

 

“I did no such thing!”

 

Bruce stares at the pair grappling on the floor with wide eyes but the rest seem unconcerned so Jason just shrugs.  No one seems in any danger of mortal injury anyway.  From what he’s heard from Steph so far, he’s got a pretty good idea of what she was going to say and isn’t sure if he necessarily wants to hear the rest.  (It was a little creepy.  But also kind of flattering.  If anyone asks, he will eternally deny blushing.)

 

Cass steps up next, bringing the rest of the group back on track.  “You.  Brother,” she states simply, poking him decisively in the chest.

 

Something in him flutters at that.  For all he has thought about losing Bruce, he never quite considered what he might gain instead.  He clenches his fists with slight trepidation.

 

“So you’re my big sister?”  He peers up at her hopefully.

 

A wide smile breaks out across her face and she nods eagerly.  “Yes.  Little brother,” she declares proudly, beaming all the while.

 

He grins back at her, a bright thrill spiralling up his spine.  

 

“So, what did I miss?”  Just in time, a breathless Stephanie pops up from the floor, casually dusting herself off.  Behind her, he sees Tim stagger to his feet, and ...is he missing a few tufts of hair…?

 

Jason decides that he’d rather not pursue that line of thought.  He makes a mental note to not mess with scary blonde girls in the future.  “Uh… not much.”

 

Then he remembers what they were talking about before and his face falls.  “About my birthday,” he scratches the back of his head uncomfortably.  An image of Garzonas’ smiling face flashes through his mind.  “We were going through some ...stuff, at the time,” he sees Bruce wince—

 

“I’m benching Robin.” 

 

“—So we didn’t really do much to celebrate…”

 

A brief silence lapses as his eyes glaze over with the memories but then feelings of warmth and laughter and family suddenly surface and he cannot help the grin that spreads across his face. 

 

“Oh!  We went out bowling for B’s birthday a while back—”  He starts, but doesn’t make it far before he’s interrupted.  

 

“Wait, you know his birthday?”

 

“Batman goes bowling??”

 

“...who won?”

 

He blinks.  “Yes, I know B’s birthday,” he says slowly, forming the word carefully while looking cautiously at the rest.  The sudden onslaught of questions was unexpected, to say the least.  “Um, well, he went out as Bruce who is Batman so I guess Batman does go bowling, and Alfred won, duh.”

 

“What about his favourite food?”

 

“Does he have any hobbies besides brooding and pretending to be a ditzy playboy?”

 

“Does Batman actually like bats?”

 

The questions pour out in a never-ending flood of chatter and by the end of it, Jason is feeling slightly overwhelmed.  Hell, even Bruce doesn’t look like he knows the answers to all those questions.  

 

Brows furrowing, Bruce looks at them with a mildly constipated expression.

 

“Don’t you already know this stuff?  You’re five years ahead of me, so shouldn’t you know better than me about, well, me?”

 

They all exchange glances.  An uncomfortable beat passes before Stephanie speaks up sheepishly.

 

“Ah yeah, our Bruce isn’t the most ...communicative or open about his life…”

 

Jason frowns.  Sure, he gets Bruce isn’t the most pro-sharing of all people, but certainly in five years he must have told his children or adjacent-children something about himself?

 

Then again, he thinks about the grim man downstairs who is supposed to be his father, the man who does not smile and Jason does not recognise him.

 

What happened, Bruce?

 

As his thoughts swirl rapidly on the subject, he absent-mindedly watches Bruce continue interact with the rest of the group.  In either of his personas, Bruce’s social skills land at a solid ‘awkward’, and it is no different when confronted with a group of curious, probing children.  Still, he meets their questions with an admirable spirit.  Mostly, he sounds confused but Jason can hear the smile in his voice.

 

A brief spark of jealousy flares in him but he quickly tamps it down once more.  Somehow unconsciously sensing the new worries in his mind, Bruce reaches a hand back to rest on his shoulder.  Jason relaxes.  

 

He hasn’t been forgotten.

 

This isn’t a competition and there’s no need for him to feel possessive over his father.  If there’s one thing he’s certain about Bruce, it’s that as much as he struggles to show it, his heart is big enough for plenty of children to share.

 

Besides, it would be nice to have some more siblings.

 

While he’d been born an only child, back on the street, he was always surrounded by other children who were also just trying to survive like him, and had also come to think of many of the working girls who slipped him an extra blanket when it got cold as sisters.  Fond memories rush through his mind, filling his chest with warmth.  Playing cards behind the old Chinese restaurant with a crappy deck of cards one of the kids had scavenged from the dumpster.  Learning how to store his extra food in a tin to prevent the rats from getting into it from some of the older street kids.  They didn’t have much, but they had each other, and they were almost like a big family.  Maybe Jason can have another one again.

 

His and Dick’s relationship had started out frosty, the older boy angry and hurt that his family’s colours had been given to some strange new kid without being asked about it ( seriously B!), but it had been improving lately.  Just a few weeks ago, Dick had stopped by when a mission in Bludhaven had brought him back to Gotham and the two of them had gone out for ice cream.  Dick even taught him how to do a triple somersault that day!

 

Anyway, even if it didn’t work out with the two of them, more siblings would mean more people to chat with around the Manor, where despite how much he loved Alfred’s company, it sometimes did get a little lonely there.  And younger siblings meant that he would have the chance to be the big brother this time, and he would be the best big brother ever!  He just hoped at least one of them liked reading classic books too. 

 

(Surely one of the five new kids would be a Jane Austen fan as well …?)

 

From a distance, he watches the group banter with each other happily and something in his chest unclenches.  He’s pulled back to the present moment when Duke looks at him eagerly and asks, “Got any more interesting stories we should know?”

 

In that moment, he thinks that maybe it isn’t so important for him to go and find his birth mother anyway.  Bruce has proven to him time and time again that blood doesn’t matter to family, and so had Catherine, who raised him with love and compassion despite knowing clearly that he was not her biological son.  Maybe with these new people around him, he could do the same.

 

Shaking his head slightly to dispel all these heavy thoughts, he recovers quickly and offers a wicked grin back to Duke.  It only widens when he sees Bruce try and fail to hide his wince.  “Did I tell you about the time that B and I were at the zoo and…”

 

If this is his future, he can’t wait to grow up soon.

 

 

---

 

 

BRUCE (39 YEARS OLD)

 

When he follows Dick and Jason, his Jason, he corrects, deeper into the Cave, he leaves the other man upstairs, surrounded by the gaggle of children he had collected over the years.  The last glimpse he had caught of his face showed a clearly bewildered expression, unsurprising given the sudden onslaught of unfamiliar faces accosting him with questions, but above that, an easy, happy smile that he has not seen on his own face in years.

 

Five years.

 

Has it really only been that long?  The other Bruce’s hair is still clear of his streaks of gray, and his face is free from the seemingly permanent shadows that have plagued his own.

 

The distant sound of laughter echoes down into the Cave from upstairs and his jaw tightens.  He wonders what they’re discussing that has everyone in such high spirits.  It’s been a very long time since he has heard many of his children laugh.  Somewhat irrationally, he feels a burst of irritation towards his other self.  What is he doing that makes them so happy?

 

He hadn’t missed the way that the former-or-current Robin had walked steadily by his younger counterpart’s side, keeping tightly to his father’s figure with all the posture of someone who believed his dad to be invincible.  Had his Jason once trusted him the same way too?

 

Flicking a glance at the children who are by his side, he frowns as he registers their matching stony expressions.  How long has it been since he last saw them smile?

 

He loves his sons, he does.  If that powerful swell in his chest is not love, he does not know what is.

 

He had never imagined a life full of children for himself, but somehow he had ended up with just that.  He cannot bring himself to regret a single one, except for what he has done to them. 

 

Bruce thinks of his oldest child, his first son, the original Robin.  He doesn’t tell him nearly enough, but he is proud of the man Dick has become.  Dick has always been a dreamer, a bright, endlessly cheerful child with boundless joy and hope and optimism.  Bruce has only just started to realise that he has never quite understood his son.  Unlike Dick, he has never had the ability to easily connect with others, or brighten a room just with his smile.  Dick has a magic in him that allows him to fly, while Bruce’s feet have always been firmly planted on the ground.  

 

Dick was never meant for college, for the corporate life, for becoming a carbon copy of Bruce.  He had always been more special than that.  Bruce only wishes he had seen that earlier.

 

In his futile efforts to tether his son to the earth, to safety, to him, he had unwittingly been preventing his bird from soaring.  It wasn’t until the tension and distance between the two of them snapped the string that he discovered that he had been using their relationship as a chain.  The moment Dick had turned eighteen, he had flown away from Bruce.  

 

It never occurred to him that his son might have wanted to come back of his own accord.  Now, he sees how loving and caring Dick is as an older brother, as a hero, as a son, and he realises his error.

 

Out of everything, his biggest mistake was not trusting his son to fly back home on his own.

 

Jason was different.

 

Jason had always been marked by suffering.  As callous as it is to say, his second son’s life has been a series of misery after misery, and he was a fool to think that he could end that cycle.  From a deadbeat father, to a loving mother ripped away too soon because of a poisonous addiction, to the streets, then to an excruciating, fiery death.  Jason came out of every inferno with more tenacity and resilience than Bruce could imagine.  Fate had brushed Jason’s life with suffering, but he had chosen to define himself by his strength.  

 

Through the Lazarus Pit, then betrayal, he had continued to endure.  Pain was a constant companion to Jason, but he weathered it with a grace that never fails to leave Bruce breathless with wonder.  The last thing he wanted to do was to add on to that hurt, but even so, he found himself starring as the antagonist to Jason’s hero all too often.  

 

His son had suffered far more than he deserved, and he deserved the world.  Bruce only wishes he could tell that to Jason, or that Jason could see it himself.  

 

Oh Jaylad, how did we get here?  Where did it all go wrong?

 

There is an obvious answer to that question.  

 

When his son had laid half-buried under rubble, lungs crushed by the weight of the crumbling warehouse on top of him or maybe by the weight of his own shattered bones.  Still gasping for breath, although no air ever reaches his lungs.  His heart lets out a few stuttering beats even as the trauma and smoke inhalation had already stopped his brain.  

 

(At that time, he had dug wildly through the debris for the slightest hint of his missing son, screaming indistinctly all the while.  When he finally managed to pull that broken, ruined body from under a slab of stone, he knew that he was already too late.  Bruce decided then that he would never be happy or whole again.  Cradling the limp, bloodied form of his son, something in his chest cracked.  The world dissolved into a blur of screams.

 

Now, when he thinks back on this scene in the seclusion of the Cave, replaying the memory of when he first stumbled upon this nightmare, this time with the benefit or torture of infinite time, Bruce thinks about the foolish resilience of the human body.  How it does not know to quit even when there is no more hope for life.  Dying, like the rest of Jason’s life, had not been an easy process.  He screams and rages at the injustice of the world but regret is a worthless currency.)

 

Or maybe it was already too late when Jason boarded a plane to Ethiopia.  Or when Bruce told him that he wasn’t good enough to be Robin.  Or when Batman found a sullen, spunky child stealing his tires and decided to give him a home.

 

At the very least, he was absolutely certain that it had all gone wrong at the point where he was lowering a fifteen year old into the ground.

 

But then his son came back.  Risen from the grave, clawing his way back to life, his miracle child.  His second chance. 

 

But Jason hadn’t come back to him.  He came back hurt and angry and a killer.  Everything had gone wrong in ways he never had thought of before.  Even compared to when he was six feet under, Jason had never seemed so far away from him.  

 

Bruce has always believed that killing was unacceptable because it was too final, too destructive.  Of everyone he knows, Jason has come the closest to changing his mind.  Not because he agrees with his reasoning, or point of view, because he doesn’t — he still maintains that no one person should decide to appoint themselves judge, jury and executioner — but because of what refusing to kill has done to their relationship.  

 

He once thought that Jason’s death would be what ruined their bond. The final nail in the coffin, he can almost imagine Jason saying with a sardonic grin.  A fond smile flickers its way onto his face.  (At times like this, he sometimes almost thinks that all is not lost.)  

 

In the end, there were worse things to come.

 

That terrible night, on the roof, with Jason and the Joker and an ultimatum.  A batarang in the throat, a heartbreaking look of betrayal, an irreversible choice.  A wrong choice. In times of pressure, he has always been quick to respond.  He needs to be, in his line of work.  But years of working alone and in the shadows had coloured his world black and white.  He only realises what a mistake that was when he saw the horrifying sight of two grisly red smiles staining the night sky.  One on the unnaturally pale face of his greatest enemy, the other on the throat of his greatest regret.  He created another one when he chose to pull the wrong person from the rubble.

 

Up until that point, he thought there still might have been a chance.  Truth be told, he doesn’t think that Jason’s grievance is truly about his stance on killing.  

 

The reason he doesn’t kill is because it is too easy to kill and once you start, you wouldn’t be able to stop.  

 

He says it often enough, because it’s true.  It is a quaint little truism that sounds wise and righteous when he says it, but when he digs down into what it reveals, there is only shame.  When he says that once you start killing, you wouldn’t be able to stop, what he really means, is that he wouldn’t be able to stop.  

 

It is less a universal moral statement than an indictment of his own moral failings.  Falling down a slippery slope is only a concern for those who do not have firm ground to stand on.  

 

After all, Jason managed to do it.  Even in the midst of his Pit Madness, when he was driven half out of his mind by the need for violence and vengeance, he had clear lines that he did not cross.  The only people he killed were rapists, child traffickers and those so incorrigibly evil that they couldn’t be stopped any other way.  Looking at Red Hood’s kill list, there is not a single name there that Bruce can say did not deserve to die, or left the world worse off with their death.  

 

The truth is, the problem is that Bruce doesn’t have enough moral fibre to know right from wrong without the clearest, most uncompromising boundaries.  At the end of the day, there is one big reason why Jason cannot come home, and the problem is Bruce.

 

That should have been the end of it.  Any other sane person would have seen that horrible action and decided to leave Gotham, cut ties with the family for good, save themselves from more misery.  

 

But not his stupid, beautiful, brave, incredible son.  

 

No, Jason decided to continue to subject himself to the unending torment of his capricious father’s treatment.  Gotham is his home and the people of Crime Alley are his to protect.  He shields himself in biting words and acerbic tones, but never does enough to protect himself from more hurt.  Doesn’t understand that he is worth so much more than what the world has given to him.  

 

Jason, my boy, haven’t you suffered enough?

 

As the Pit Madness began to fade, Jason slowly drew closer to the family, but still, a chasm of five years and far too many mistakes lay between them.  He would describe it almost as torture, having his son so close yet still just out of reach, but he knows that he has no right to claim any pain in this instance, having been the cause of so much of it.

 

He in no way deserves any of Jason, but he cannot stop himself from wanting.  He is a billionaire after all, so he knows all too well that some people just have far more than they should.  It is an evil, twisted thing to prey on, but part of him still hopes that Jason’s history of pain will allow him to forgive even all of Bruce’s failings as a parent.  Above all, Jason is fiercely loyal, and strong, and has known more anguish in his short life than any one person should have to bear.  If anyone has a big enough heart and enough fortitude to give him another chance, it is Jason.  

 

A good man, a good father, would tell his son to love himself enough to run, or better yet, be the one to leave Gotham.  Bruce hates that he is too weak to do that.  Jason will pay the price for his avarice.

 

The thought causes him more sorrow that he can handle.  And as always, when things become difficult, he pushes the guilt away and focuses on what he can do.  He drags his attention back to the monitor.

 

“Are you absolutely sure?”  He pauses.  “Yes, alright, thank you for looking into this, Zatanna.”

 

He hangs up the phone and pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to stave off the incoming migraine.  There is a pounding in his skull and it is from more than just his headache.  He’s spoken to all the magic practitioners and experts in alien artefacts he can think of, from Zatanna to Constantine — and wasn’t that a conversation he never wants to have again — he even called up Flash, who had been the one to deal with the Dokris the first time round, on the off chance that he might have some insight into the workings of the orb or this specific brand of time travel.

 

All of them arrive at a conclusion he refuses to accept.

 

The matter of sending the two time travellers back to their period is a simple one.  The orb was meant to quickly send beings back and forth between timelines, after all.  

 

The bigger issue is what happens after that.

 

Clenching his fists, he turns his attention back to the Batcomputer and resolves to do another search.

 

All of a sudden, Jason stands up, chair sliding back with the force of his movement.  Throwing his hands up in the air, he whirls around to level a ferocious glare at both him and Nightwing. 

 

“Why are we even bothering with this?  We all know what needs to happen.”

 

Despite all of his guilt and remorse on how he has been treating his son, his temper is always the first to act and Jason is uncannily skilled at provoking it.  

 

“Well what do you want us to do then?  Just roll over and accept it?” He snaps.

 

“It’s what you did the last time, isn’t it?” Jason spits out, and the scorn in his voice cuts deep into Bruce’s heart.

 

“That’s not what happened at all, Little Wing, please—” Dick tries but is quickly cut off by a dismissive wave of Jason’s hand.  As usual, Jason hides his hurt with bitterness.

 

“Hey no, really, it’s no big deal!  Just cry a few tears, buy a luxury coffin or two, then erect a neat little memorial for your poor, fallen soldier.  Don’t worry, you’ll find a replacement before my body cools,” he laughs lightly and there is pure venom in his voice.

 

“Not like it matters anyway, it was bound to happen sooner or later.  After all, you know what they say, can’t wash the scum off the alley!  There really was no other outcome for me,” he shrugs in a what-can-you-do sort of way.  

 

Bruce wants to protest but the words are trapped in his throat.  Jason carries on, unbothered by their silence.

 

“It’s alright, I’ll just let the kid know what’s coming.  It’s not a big deal, really.  This house is full of ghosts,” he says before letting out a twisted smirk.  “What’s one more to add to the collection?”

 

There are so many things that he needs to say, but at this moment, he just feels so tired.  There is a bone-deep weariness in him, and he is on the brink of giving up.  “We’re trying, Jay.  What do you want from us?”

 

“What I want?  What I want?”  Jason laughs darkly, and the sound, all too reminiscent of a sadistic, eerie grin and a duffel bag dripping with red, sends shivers down his spine.  “I want nothing from you,” he hisses.

 

Jason is on a roll.  Bruce readies himself for the fallout.  Even then, he is still not prepared for what comes out of Jason’s mouth.

 

“What I wanted was to not be beaten to death with a crowbar by a deranged clown in a broken-down warehouse in Ethiopia, to not have woken up in my own coffin only to be called a monster by my family! ”  Jason shouts, all the pain and agony he experienced wrapped up in his voice.  “What I wanted was to live to see my sixteenth birthday!”

 

Bruce stares back, stricken.  Each word Jason speaks feels like it is carving a piece out of his chest.  “Jay-lad, I’m sorry,” he begs, his voice full of grief.  “I would do anything if it meant that you wouldn’t have died that day.”

 

Jason laughs once more.  “Yeah?  That’s a bald-faced lie if I’ve ever heard one.  There is one thing you could do, one easy little thing that would end with all the people of Gotham sleeping a little easier tonight, make the world a better place, made sure your teenage son wouldn’t have died a horrific death.”

 

Bruce knows what is coming.  

 

“Kill the Joker.”

 

Jason waits for a mocking beat and when he’s greeted by a struggling silence, only rolls his eyes.  “That’s what I thought.  See, for all your big talk about being willing to do anything to save your children, we all know now that that’s a lie.”

 

Once more, Bruce feels like the air has been sucked out of his lungs.

 

“Anything but that, Jay, please,” he tries hopelessly.

 

“No.  You’ve had your chances.  Now there’s nothing that we can do anymore, so let’s go join the rest of them for a nice family meal, shall we?”

 

His smile is like daggers as he waves a perfunctory hand towards the staircase and Bruce feels his heart cleave in two.

---

 

 

DAMIAN 

With the two visitors entertaining the group with a steady stream of anecdotes, the hours pass by quickly.  Damian was certainly too mature to be amused by many of the more juvenile tales about pranks and other antics like Brown and Drake were, but he did appreciate learning more about his usually distant father, and even about Todd.  It was ...strange, to say the least, seeing such light and carefree expressions on their usually scowling faces, but he had soon come to welcome the change.  

 

All too soon, their time is cut short as Todd-the-elder comes storming up the stairs, Grayson and Father trailing gravely behind him.  Damian narrows his eyes and resolves to investigate the findings that have brought such sombreness to them later.  Unfazed by the sudden gloominess that descended over the room, Pennyworth swiftly interjects and ushers them to the dining room for dinner.  

 

Wisely, Brown, Cain and Thomas decide to flee the Manor with rushed excuses about upcoming college exams and pre-arranged meetings with Oracle to get to.  Ten minutes into the meal, Damian wishes he had the foresight to slip away as well.

 

Grayson tries to keep up the good mood with light jokes and puns but of all the siblings, he has never been truly skilled at deception and there is no disguising the strained quality to his smile.

 

Even their guests have apparently picked up on the undercurrent of tension running through the room, because alternate-Father and young Todd have been pushing their food restlessly around their plates despite Damian knowing full well that the meal is perfect as usual, with Pennyworth’s efforts.  

 

Finally, it seems that the building pressure has gotten to be too much and young Todd has had enough.  Standing up abruptly, his chair falls back with a clatter that has everyone’s eyes instantly darting toward him.  “What’s going on here?” He yells, face bright red with frustration and worry.  From under the table, his fists are clenched tightly, and Damian can see that his knuckles have gone bright white.

 

Brash and impulsive as always, part of him wants to sniff, but given the circumstances, Damian cannot bring himself to censure the former-current-Robin for his discomfort.  Despite his scowl, there is only a weak attempt at malice on young Todd’s face.  It is strange, almost unnatural, to see such innocence and softness shining through Todd’s features.

 

“Oh Little Wing, it’s nothing,” Grayson tries to laugh it off nervously, reaching out a comforting hand to ruffle his hair or perform some other superfluous gesture of affection no doubt, but Damian can hear the unease in his tone clear as day.  And so can young Todd.

 

Sure enough, the blatant denial sets him off even more and he expertly dodges Grayson’s hand, rushing to the corner of the dining room with his back facing the wall.  Positioning himself in a defensible location, ready to fend off threats, his mind absently supplies.

 

Triggered by his obvious and jarring spike of fear, Todd’s Bruce immediately stands up and follows in his tracks.  That Bruce overtly moves to place a gentle hand on his Jason’s shoulder, seemingly in an effort to soothe away his worries, which could very well be the case, Damian concedes, but he also notices the subtle way that Bruce shifts his body in front of Jason, shielding the young boy from the rest of the room’s view.

 

Just as quickly, Grayson rises as well, drawing his hands up in a well-practiced gesture of placation, hunching his large body to deliberately present less of a threat.  His mouth is moving slowly, forming a chain of words that Damian cannot discern over the roaring in his ears.

 

At the table, Hood continues eating like nothing has happened, the rhythmic clinking of his utensils against the plate endlessly testing the hair-trigger of Damian’s patience.  Beneath the supposed calm, Damian can detect the faint tremor running through his body.

 

Across from him, Drake has gone completely still, but after years of living and fighting together, he knows not to mistake the sudden glint in his eyes for anything less than the analytical, calculating gaze it represents.

 

Father doesn’t move.  Anything he is feeling at the moment is shrouded by an all-too-familiar mask of apathy and the blankness in his expression makes Damian want to scream.  You’re our father, do something, damn you!

 

All he does is clutch the knife in his palm a little tighter.

 

The room is at an impasse, and a dangerous energy coils underfoot, ready to unfold at any point.

 

The tension proves to be too much.  Finally, someone cracks.  

 

He is surprised to find that it is him.

 

“You died.”

 

The words bubble over in a torrential downpour, and once he begins to unload all of the secrets he has been harbouring, they spill out like sand.

 

“You died,” he repeats and watches as everyone instantly stiffens.  “And you came back but you came back killing people and things are different now and everyone knows it but no one wants to say it.”

 

Drake instinctively brushes a non-existent lock of hair out of his face, an action Damian has come to recognise as a nervous tic.  Grayson swallows nervously, his Adam’s apple bobbing  in his throat, but Damian pays them no mind.  Father is still sitting down.  Damian’s eyes are only on two people.

 

Although he has a surprisingly large frame of reference regarding people being made aware of their impending death, he still does not know what to expect.  It could go anywhere, from a hysterical screaming match to placid, resigned acceptance and Damian does not know which end of the spectrum would be more frightening to see.

 

Young Todd lets out a heartbreaking whine that conveys the sheer terror he feels at the moment.  It is the type of sound a child might make, a desperate, last-ditch effort to beg someone not to hurt them.  Damian has been the direct cause of such intense fear in others countless times before, but somehow this time, even if he is merely a messenger of unfortunate news, it feels worse than ever before.

 

Bruce is another image of misery.  Between fear, disbelief and overwhelming grief, he is a picture of warring emotions even as mounting horror spreads across his face.  He turns a ghostly pale, a sickening chalky white that seems to suck all the colour out of the room along with it.

 

“What?” He whispers hoarsely.

 

Damian has never seen his father cry before, but he thinks that might change today.

 

“What happened to him?  Jason would never…” He trails off, looking lost in the conversation, as if he cannot imagine a world where his beloved Robin would go rogue and become an enemy that needed to be put down.  For as much tragedy as he has seen, Bruce at this stage of his life has not yet endured all the hardships the world has to offer.

 

Still, it doesn’t take long for the realisation of what must have happened to hit.  Bruce turns to Older Todd shakily, visibly assessing him with a critical eye and Damian can see the moment when it all comes together for him as his eyes come to rest on that white streak in Jason’s hair and the unnaturally green tint to his eyes.

 

Lazarus Pit, he breathes, with a dawning sense of horror.

 

Bruce speaks the words just as he forms them with his lips and the chill that settles over the room is unmistakable.  

 

As he comes to terms with that revelation, Bruce slowly turns towards Father.  

 

“Where were you?  Why was he going through any of this alone?  How could you just turn your back on your son like that?”

 

The outrage as well as the accusation in his voice is clear.

 

“It wasn’t so simple,” Father snaps back defensively.  “You don’t understand.  He came back wrong.”

 

The other man rears back like he’s been slapped.

 

“How can you say something like that?  He’s Jason,” Bruce cries, distraught.  Although Damian has come round to accepting the presence of another version of his Father, the sheer amount of emotion captured in what is still his Father’s voice briefly takes his breath away.

 

(It is impossible not to notice the obvious triumph that Hood feels at Father’s own counterpart, his past self, articulating all of the very same grievances he held so deeply, but to his credit, he does not crow about it.  

 

Perhaps the tight clenching of Father’s jaw is enough to satisfy him for now.)

 

“He was killing people.  He brutally attacked Tim and tried to wage a gang war in Crime Alley!”  Father roars, and although he has been feigning nonchalance the entire time, even Hood flinches at the pure rage in his voice.

 

“He was your son,” Bruce repeats stubbornly, as if that alone is meant to explain everything.  Perhaps it is.  

 

Family is ...meant to be there with you, through everything, he remembers Grayson once telling him haltingly, back when he was new to the manor and love was an unfamiliar concept.

 

He never quite understood it when his brother said it then and now he thinks he is even more confused than before.  Is everything truly redeemable?  Does everyone have a second chance?

 

“He was going mad and slaughtering people by the dozens!  He needed to be stopped,” Father shoots back, uncowed.  “I swore to protect Gotham from anyone who threatened her, and if the Red Hood refused to abide by my rules, I had to put him down.”

 

“He’s your son!” Bruce cries, horrified.  “How could you do that to him?” 

 

At those simple, naive words, Damian closes his eyes and his heart aches.  He yearns for a time when merely being family was enough to fix everything.  If only things were that easy.

 

Father just stares back sternly, unmoved by the argument.  Sensing that their discord will bring them nowhere, Bruce lets out a resigned sigh and almost seems to deflate where he stands.

 

“Fine, fine,” he hisses one last angry breath through his teeth, throwing his hands up in the air.  “Let’s table this discussion for another time.  What’s done is done.  Now, why don’t we focus on what we can change?  If you’re right about this, Jason and I will be returning to our time period in just a few hours so we need to concentrate on how we can make sure he doesn’t die this time.”

 

Oh no.

 

Despite the apparent olive branch being offered, Bruce’s face, if possible, grows even colder at the new topic.  Behind him, Grayson’s face shutters as an ocean of grief surges in him with the knowledge of what is to come.  Immediately, the tentative, superficial smile slides off Younger Bruce’s face as his expression grows suspicious.

 

“What’s wrong?  Why are you all looking at me like that?”  

 

The weighted atmosphere is not lost on him and in the face of their continued silence, his face grows stormy.  “Tell me the truth, damn you!” He snarls and there is a dangerous edge to his voice.

 

Unsurprisingly, Grayson is the one to cave first.  He lets out a shaky breath before plastering on a false smile and adopting his trademark diplomatic tone, the one he uses to comfort victims and break bad news to loved ones.  In this case, Damian thinks, it is probably fitting.

 

As it stands, the only thing his conciliatory approach achieves is to put Bruce, who responds to this perceived coddling about as well as can be expected, further on edge.  In the end, it seems that the two Bruces are not that dissimilar after all.

 

He bristles, prompting Grayson to wince before hurriedly commencing with the demanded explanation.  Taking another moment to steel himself, he raises haunted blue eyes up to meet the gaze of his father from another time.  

 

“I’m sorry Bruce,” he says gently but firmly, “but we can’t afford to disrupt the timeline, so you and Jason are going to have to return to your time period and carry out your future exactly as it happened here, no matter the costs.”

 

“You’re lying.”  The response comes immediately.  

 

Grayson’s eyes are sympathetic and sorrowful at the same time.  “I’m not.  We’ve researched this extensively and spoken to countless magic practitioners.  They all say the same thing: we cannot change the past.”

 

Once Bruce overcomes his denial, it quickly turns to anger.

 

“How can you expect me to just stand by and do nothing, knowing what’s going to happen?  What kind of father would I be?”

 

He does not turn to Father, but he doesn’t need to.  The unspoken accusation is clear.  What kind of father were you?

 

Damian suspects this is a question Father has asked himself countless times before.  He has yet to arrive at a satisfactory answer.

 

“And- and I know he comes back, but he suffers so much and we lose him," Bruce babbles on, his voice verging on hysterical.

 

All Grayson can do is restate the words once more, as if they are anything other than the cold comfort they appear to be.  “I’m sorry Bruce,” he repeats quietly.

 

Once again, Damian is reminded of how much respect he has for his oldest brother, who sometimes holds the weight of the world on his shoulders but never fails to do what needs to be done, still keeping the light in his eyes all the while.

 

Damian grew up with the League of Assassins, where the Lazarus Pits were much more than a myth.  He had been raised with the knowledge of a centuries-old legacy that would one day be his to bear, under a patriarch for whom immortality was far closer than a distant dream.  As a result, the concept of time travel is hardly a foreign or even unfamiliar one to him, so he knows that Father and Grayson are correct when they say the past cannot be changed lest it jeopardises the present.  

 

He also knows that hope is a dangerous thing, but part of him still desperately wants for them to be wrong.  For all of the differences between the Bruces, he wants to believe that they at least have in common the fact that they at one point, loved their son.  He wants to believe that that matters.

 

These thoughts are voiced by Bruce.  “No!  That’s my son!  There is no way I’m going to stand by and let you send my child off to die a horrific and violent death,” he shouts furiously.  

 

Grayson just averts his eyes.  No one misses what that means.

 

As quickly as it comes, Bruce’s anger dissipates and instead, his eyes fill with tears.  Something in his face shatters as he begins to tremble.

 

Wordlessly, Damian turns away.  This intimate moment of sorrow is not one that he should witness.

 

“There must be another way.  There has to be another way,” he begs, and Damian sucks in a breath at the rare vulnerability Bruce showcases.  There is an aching in his chest and Damian does not know what to do.

 

Batman’s eyes go light with sympathy and for the first time, it seems like his mask slips just a little to show the ocean of grief in his face.

 

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly.  

 

Bruce crumples.  He looks around desperately, as if someone is playing a cruel trick on them and if he would just apologise enough, it would all go away.  “I’m sorry, please.  I’ve learned my lesson.  I shouldn’t have benched you, Jason, or distrusted you, or ignored you, or been such a bad father.  Please, I’ll do better.  I just need another chance.”  

 

There is nothing that can be said in response to that.  Throat choked up with sorrow, Young Todd reaches out and squeezes Bruce’s hand tightly, as if seeking to convey even a glimpse of his overwhelming emotion through that contact.  The tears in his eyes speak mountains.  It’s okay.

 

“No, please, not my son,” Bruce begs, and Damian is struck by the raw, undisguised agony in his voice.  Bruce wears an awful look on his face and Damian would give anything to not have to see his father look like that again.  “Please, he’s just a boy.”

 

At this show of grief, Damian’s breath hitches.  He has no doubt that if he were able, Bruce would switch places with his son in a heartbeat.   

 

“When does this happen?”  Bruce asks quietly.

 

A silence full of regret hangs in the air for moments before Grayson finally speaks.  The words that come out are soft, but ring through the room for seconds afterward.  

 

“Jason Todd dies on the 27th of August, exactly five years ago.”

 

Bruce pauses, looking sick to his stomach.  “But that’s…” His voice goes ragged.

 

Grayson nods grimly.  “That’s today.”

 

This time, when Bruce begins to cry, no one is surprised.

 

Then, one small voice rises upon the din and instantly silences the room.

 

“Will, will it hurt?”

---

 

 

TIM

“Don’t answer that.”

 

Jason, who has been silent this whole time, immediately bristles.  “Fuck off, old man.  Like hell am I going to let you tell me what to do.  This is my life, and my death we’re talking about, in case you happened to forget!”

 

At the mention of baby Jason’s impending death, other-Bruce stiffens.  Not only that, he knows now from this exchange that the answer is not going to be good.

 

He sees other-Bruce’s jaw clench.  “It doesn’t happen easily, does it.”  His voice is deadened, grim.  Phrased as a question, it is anything but.  They all know the truth.  If there even is such a thing as an easy death, that is.  

 

For a split second, baby Jason’s face flashes with fear but then that stupid, stupid brave boy stares defiantly up at Batman and there can be no disguising his intentions.

 

Tim knows exactly why Bruce doesn’t want Jason to answer the question, because they all know that there can only be one answer.  Still, the kid, Robin asked, and if knowing what’s going to happen is something that will ease his burden, Tim thinks that it maybe is a request that can be, should be, fulfilled.  

 

It is a good and valid question, but it is also with a clear and obvious answer.  How strange it is to think that some things can be both at once.

 

Ultimately though, having been in baby Jason’s exact position before and knowing best of all the exact answer to the question, it seems clear that Hood is best positioned to make the decision on whether or not baby Jason needs to know more.

 

As usual however, Batman refuses to back down. 

 

“Don’t answer the question.  He doesn’t need to hear it,” he repeats in that bland, infuriating tone which only serves to further incense Jason.

 

“God, I’m really sick and tired of people all thinking that they know best what I need!”  He throws his hands up in the air in exasperation.  “I’ve been taking care of myself since I was six years old and running drugs to make rent so my asshole father wouldn’t beat us into the ground.  I knew what I needed when I had to scrape my drug-addled mother off the floor so she wouldn’t waste away from starvation first.  I was nine years old and on the streets and had to …” he begins furiously then comes to a sudden stop.  A beat passes before he picks up where he left off.  Tim doesn’t want to even try and fill in those blanks.  (Some things are better off unsaid.)

 

“...when no one else cared about the poor little street rat enough to make sure he didn’t freeze to death and become another corpse on the pavement.  And sure, sometimes things go wrong—”

 

His furious tirade is cut off.  

 

“Oh yeah?” Bruce challenges, unmoved by the volume of and hatred in Jason’s voice.  “I’m sure you needed to come back and torture your brother, an innocent thirteen year old child,” he spits out, sarcasm dripping off every word.  Tim immediately lowers his eyes, looking uncertainly at the ground as Bruce carries on with his rant.  He doesn’t want to be part of this.  All too often, he finds himself caught in the middle of the fiery confrontations between Bruce and his predecessor and it never fails to leave him floundering.

 

“You definitely needed to return to Gotham a murderer, a monster, who wasn’t happy with just killing people, but cutting their heads off and stuffing them into a duffel bag!”  Bruce is shouting now, but Jason remains defiant, rage still seething in his eyes as his former mentor’s words wash over him.    

 

“You always know what you need best, huh?  Did you know what you needed when you ran off and got yourself killed in Ethiopia?”

 

At this, both Jasons and the other Bruce immediately flinch back and the impact of his words seems to stop Bruce’s monologue in its tracks.  Tim was there when Batman was falling apart at the seams following Jason’s death, which is why he is shocked by the deliberate cruelty in those words.  (He is almost certain Bruce doesn’t mean any of them.)  

 

With how fresh the wound is, the time travellers look especially taken aback, but Jason has had years of scar tissue built up to absorb blows just like this so it doesn’t faze him for more than a moment.

 

“Fuck you,” he grounds out, and the viciousness in those words along with the tears in his eyes are unmistakable.  Tim sucks in a breath at the undercurrent of hurt that he also sees.  He knows to expect worse now.  Based on previous patterns and personal experience, he knows that Jason responds to hurt by lashing out.  It is not uncommon to see Jason angry — in fact, given the nature of their relationship, it is usually the default mode he’s in — but so rarely is he ever pushed to the point of tears.  The sight of fierce, aggressive Jason looking so wounded strikes him as just wrong.

 

When Tim came into the (stolen) role of Robin, Dick had been the one who spent the most time with him, who mentored him, but confronted by this situation he remembers that Jason was his Robin first.  Looking at how vibrant, how happy, how alive this Jason is, it takes his breath away.

 

Tim expresses love through touch and knowledge, so he makes it a point to know everything about his family’s skin.  Through little peeks during injury-treatment and stealthy glances when his brother is relaxing in civilian gear, he has catalogued the strange collection of scars on Jason’s body.  There are bruises, burns, still-healing lacerations, all somehow not as out of place on his still-malnutritioned body as they should be — and this, he always thinks, this is what he signed up for, when a small plucky twelve-year-old with a tire iron and a belly full of nothing but fire made the choice to not be a victim anymore, but a protector.  The odd injury, a sprained ankle maybe, still dangerous but manageable.  Not what is coming, not what had happened, not a miserable solitary death in a burning warehouse in the middle of nowhere.  No, never that. 

 

It’s not fair, he wants to say.

 

Then again, when had the universe ever cared about what anyone deserved?

 

“You think you know everything, don’t you?  World’s Greatest Detective,” Jason scoffs, and the once-fond nickname comes out like a curse.  “Well guess what?  Even when I went to Ethiopia, I still knew that even if it was just a sliver, I had to take any chance I could to try to have a family who loved me!”

 

Tim’s heart clenches painfully in his chest as he witnesses the conflict unfold but another part of him can’t help but feel exhilarated.  For someone who began his vigilante career as a voyeur, the exchange is almost thrilling, for lack of a better word.  Tim watches with a near rapturous sort of attention.  In a twisted way, it is like seeing Batman and Robin in action again.  He will take what he can get.

 

Something in Jason has always been larger than life, and Tim knows that it is also more enduring than death.  Beneath the ice-cold hostility of the Red Hood’s demeanour, he sees in it the soft, tender care he shows to orphans on the streets of Crime Alley, in the wistful, luxuriant expression on his face as he revels in the indescribable experience of flying through Gotham’s crisp night sky, in the soft flickers of hurt that ever so briefly flash across his face when Bruce unconsciously hints that he will never be family again.  Dick and Bruce are blinded by the betrayal of nostalgia, but there is a humanity to Jason, in its rawest, most unpolished form, and it is this rawness that had first drawn a small eight year old with a camera and cavern of loneliness in his chest to his very first hero. 

 

With that thought, Tim pulls himself back to listen to what his hero is now saying.

 

“I guess Demon Brat is right after all,” Jason laughs sadly and Damian instantly stiffens at the mention of his name.  “Blood does matter, because no matter how many times you say it, I never was your son.  No, my parents were criminals and murderers, which is exactly what I am.”  

 

Damian fails to suppress his flinch at that.  Despite being a frequent victim of his younger brother’s haughty and disparaging taunts, even Tim winces in sympathy.  He knows that when Damian goes around pronouncing himself ‘the one, true blood son’, it is more an expression of uncertainty about his own self-worth than a denigration of anyone else.  For all he speaks about being the clear favoured child, years of indoctrination by the League have convinced him that his only value comes from his birthright, which he clings to with all the desperation of someone who thinks he has nothing.  Damian’s selfishness is no more his fault than Jason’s parentage is a reflection of him.  

 

Even so, Jason lets out a truly terrible grin and Tim cannot help but see an echo of a villain in it as he turns towards Bruce.  “In fact, I don’t think you should have any say in this at all, should you?  After all, you have the easy path.  You’ve made your stance clear.  If you’re not going to do the one thing I’ve ever asked you to do, why the fuck are you still sticking your nose into my business?”

 

Jason’s hurt is dizzying to think about so he lets himself float.  For a moment, he is flying through the sky, weightless, empty.  But all Robins fall down eventually.  He lands at his father’s feet.

 

“Because you’re my son.”  Bruce’s voice is deadly quiet.  “How can you expect me to just let you keep destroying yourself?  I’ve told you before, you can’t come back from killing.  That’s why I can’t do what you want me to do.  No matter what, I’ll always be your father which means that I have a duty to protect you from everything, including myself!”  

 

The small confession at the end is surprising.  Tim doesn’t know if Bruce intended to let it slip out in a fit of emotion.  By the end of his speech, he had escalated to full-on shouting, and it is impossible to miss how his voice is wracked with guilt and grief.  Tim knows that if he looks up, his father’s face will be streaked with tears.

 

“There is no world in which I will ever give up on trying to protect my child.”

 

There is a rare, raw earnestness in Bruce’s voice, but Jason’s eyes are still red and wet and furious.  “Yeah, well, you did a stellar job of that when you slit my throat with a batarang and chose to save the Joker !  I felt real protected then,” he snaps.

 

The minute the words come out, the room falls silent.  Jason immediately looks like he regrets sharing that secret, but then reverts back to his previous challenging, defiant expression as his gaze hardens.  

 

Tim chokes down a gasp.  Plenty of hurtful, vicious barbs have been thrown out tonight, but this accusation, no, this fact seems far worse than all of them.  Suddenly, the thick, dark band of scar tissue across Jason’s neck makes sense.  

 

Tim has spent hours tracing the scars that dot his family’s bodies, brushing over each healed bullet wound and stitched laceration, mind drifting with macabre wistfulness over the worlds where one of those injuries ended up being fatal instead.  He’s seen that scar before, and he’s had his suspicions, but all of his theories were too terrible to even think about and so he brushed them away.  Jason doesn’t even come around much anymore, not like it matters, he would say.  

 

(Despite all the lies that he tells to himself, he’s always known that cuts that clean can only be caused by something as sharp as a batarang.)

 

Bruce, Bruce looks stricken.  ( As he should, a vengeful little voice in him snipes.)  Tim hasn’t seen him look this broken since he first lost Jason five years ago in Ethiopia.  Then again, Bruce never did quite recover from that day, ever.  With Jason’s death, he didn’t so much lose part of himself, as become lost himself.  This is why Tim insisted that Batman needed a Robin.  It’s too bad he didn’t realise that what Batman needed was his Robin, and more importantly, that Bruce needed his son.

 

The other Bruce looks like he is experiencing a waking nightmare and in a way, he is.  Tim wishes more than anything that he won’t have to see himself become what he did in Tim’s world.  The laws of time travel dictate otherwise.

 

Even Jason seems a little broken by that accidental admission.  “If you want so much to be my father, then…”  Jason cuts himself off furiously but no one has missed the way his words tremble unconsciously.  It is the desperate plea of a child.

 

...then why can’t I ever come home?

 

Jason never says the words, but Tim knows what is meant to fill in the blanks.

 

For once, Bruce has no excuses.  “Jaylad, I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry,” he says in a defeated, guilt-ridden voice.

 

Jason closes his eyes at that, and the pain in his face is impossible to look at.  Tim turns away.  

 

When Jason finally does respond, it is in a whisper.  “It’s not enough.  Not anymore.”  

 

All the strength seems to leach out from his body.  

 

On cue, other-Bruce is more than happy to take over.  It seems that he is only just starting to understand how truly broken their relationship is.  Until now, the arguments between Tim’s Bruce and Tim’s Jason have been bitter and hurtful, but no more, perhaps, than the ones other-Bruce had been having with his own Jason.  From what he can remember, there had been no small amount of cruel words thrown around before Jason ran off to Ethiopia for the last time, part of what had left Batman so haunted in the aftermath of losing his son.

 

“How could you do that to him?  What have you become?” He asks, horror-struck, disbelieving, staring straight at his counterpart.  His eyes reflect the loathing in both of their faces.

 

Bruce hunches over as the words go straight to his heart.  Everyone remains silent.  There is no need for words.  The room rings with the breathless accusation.  Nothing more can be said.

 

Finally, Jason breaks the miserable silence with a faux-impatient growl.  “Now that that’s settled, can I give the kid his answers now?”  He tries to feign casualness, but Tim can see how he’s permanently on edge.  In the absence of any obvious defence, Jason’s default strategy is always to return to the comforts of hostility.  Drive them away so they don’t have the chance or desire to hurt you.

 

Everyone turns to look at Bruce.  He shrinks at the attention and Tim can see him very carefully thinking over his words before he says them.  “Jayl— Jason,” he starts haltingly, correcting himself the instant he sees Jason begin to scowl again at the nickname.  Hesitation is rife in his voice.  “I still don’t think it’s a good idea.  You know how ...troubling it can be when we find out information that we weren’t supposed to know and the past is not something we want to change.”

 

Tim winces.  This is clear evidence that Bruce’s apparent callousness truly is a product of social ineptitude, rather than heartlessness.  He almost wishes J’onn were here to help translate the strength of Bruce’s emotions to something that Jason could feel as well.  In a way, their entire relationship has been Bruce struggling to form love into a language that Jason can understand.  

 

What Bruce doesn’t know, or think about, is how others perceive his remarks, and how their perspectives are informed by the lens of their experiences.  Just as Bruce never quite left that Alley, some part of Jason still and will always have one foot in the grave.  The flashbacks are only worsened by the fact that his memories of a young, naive child and a protective, loving father, of a simpler time, have now come to life.  This entire situation has wrenched Jason back to the point of his death five years ago and Tim can almost taste the pain and longing on his mind.  When he tries to think like Jason, it does not take a leap to misinterpret Bruce’s words.  

 

What Bruce means is:

 

Hearing all these details at once and having to knowingly walk into a horrific situation will be very distressing for both of them.  The last thing I want to do is to increase your suffering in any way.  The space-time continuum might be damaged beyond repair if we don’t replicate the past exactly as it happened, and the consequences would be disastrous.

 

What Jason hears is:

 

You shouldn’t have gone meddling and trying to find your mother.  Look at what ended up happening to you.  I’m glad that you died.  Good riddance to the reckless street rat.

 

In fact, Tim has to try very hard to resist the urge to bang his head against the table.  It really isn’t that hard to communicate your thoughts clearly by not being obtusely vague and ambiguous in your word choice.  

 

He is entirely unsurprised when Jason’s simmering temper is inflamed once more.  Whirling back around with a flourish, he pins Bruce with a scathing glare.  “Well, fuck you too old man!  This wouldn’t have happened if you had told me the truth in the first place,” he rages, and there is a new but also all-too-familiar sheen of green slipping over his eyes.  

 

Bruce looks equal parts confused and resigned at Jason’s anger.  Tim unconsciously takes a step back.  He does not know when his hands started trembling. 

 

Jason smiles, and bares his teeth in a truly terrifying snarl.  “In fact, let me start off by reciprocating.”

 

“Here,” he says, turning to other-Bruce with a twisted grin on his face.  “To make things fair, I’ll give you the lowdown.  All you have to do is go back, cry over your son’s still-warm body for a bit, not tell his older brother about his death until the funeral is over and engage in self-destructive behaviour instead.  Oh, and don’t forget to adopt a few more dark-haired orphans along the way!  Shouldn’t be too difficult to do that since you’re already so practiced in it.”

 

Other-Bruce looks like his insides have been torn up and scooped out with a rusty spoon.  Jason pointedly ignores him and moves to face his Bruce again.  

 

“There we go, happy now?  I’m not about to go on blabbing government secrets or anything,” he spits with a deliberate eye roll.  

 

Almost like a tribute to the gargoyles that decorate Gotham, Tim’s Bruce stands still as a stone, his expression unreadable under a mask of blankness.  Tim does not need to see any outward emotion to know that his heart is crumbling inside.

 

It doesn’t stop there.  Of the streets, Batman and the League, two out of three of Jason’s teachers have shown him that the way to protect yourself is to hit the other person, and to hit them hard, until you are absolutely sure they cannot get up again.  Jason has already dealt a paralysing blow to both of his former fathers in this world, so he does it again, and again.  The words tumble out of him like water, spilling cruelty over the room.

 

Tim lets the shouting wash over him, and he feels like he is underwater.  If he could get his arms to move, he might even have pressed his hands over his ears.  Instead, he just lets guilt and sorrow for all the pain in this family build up in him and what seems like hours pass like this.  It is only when he surfaces abruptly that he realises that Jason’s anger has dried up and been replaced with desperation.

 

“...and I’ll be damned if I don’t let a scared little kid who is hours away from having to walk into his grave that he later has to climb out of any bit of information I know can bring some comfort!”

 

Jason’s voice at last dims down to a dying and desperate flame, threatening more so with a flashy show of fire than any actual, dangerous heat.  Bruce seems to realise this as well.  Throughout Jason’s rage, he has remained silent and passive even though Tim knows how much it has hurt him.  As a credit to his stubbornness, he still opens his mouth to challenge Jason’s arguments again, knowing full-well that he is only inviting more pain.  

 

Before he can get a word out, a small but firm voice speaks out.

 

“Please.  I-I want to know.”

 

He sees the moment when Bruce folds like a house of cards.  

 

It is one thing to argue with a hardened, grown-up Jason who has caused and endured so much pain.  It is another to have to face his still-innocent son.  All too often, it is easy to forget who will be the one to bear the sacrifice.

 

Broken out of his trance by baby Jason’s words, young Bruce immediately rushes to his Robin’s side and cocoons his small body in a protective embrace.  At the same time, Tim’s Batman steps back into the darkened edges of the room and almost seems to withdraw into the shadows, leaving his Jason, still fuming, behind.

 

For two men who wear the same face, it is unsettling how different their reactions to the same situation are.  Not for the first time, Tim finds himself at a loss for words.

 

How can this be the same person?  What could have happened in five years to make a man almost unrecognisable?

 

In the end, he thinks he can probably guess.  The death of a child, he supposes, is as good an answer as any.  

 

---

 

JASON (20 YEARS OLD)

He feels worn-out, turned upside-down and shaken vigorously for good measure.  The last time he felt like he had just been put through the wringer like this was when he was actually put through a wringer during his time with the League.  (Thousand-year-old ninja societies that don’t speak English as their first language sometimes take things too literally, okay?)

 

Still, he has a scared kid that he needs to help out, and the Red Hood has never given up on a child in need.  Despite the aching in his bones, he walks over to his younger self and crouches down so he can meet his eyes.  

 

Still blue.

 

“Okay Jay, I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen and what you need to do.  It won’t be pretty, or pleasant to hear,”  he laughs wetly, but no one can move nearly enough to mention or begrudge the tears welling up in his eyes.  “In fact it’ll be downright miserable and pretty fuckin’ awful, but you’ve lived through awful your entire life and I know you’re strong enough to get through it.  After all, I did.  So you gotta be strong for me, alright?”

 

The poor kid is shaking, but nods dutifully anyway.  Jason gives him a tiny smile in return.

 

“So, you already know that when you go back, you’re going to be alone, waiting outside that warehouse for Bruce to come back.  Spoiler alert: he doesn’t make it on time.”  He snickers at his little joke but no one else is laughing.  Tough crowd.  

 

“He did tell you to stay put and not go and confront the Joker, but then Sheila tells us all about her sob story and we fall for it hook, line and sinker.  She tells us that she needs help, and that the Joker isn’t around, so like idiots we follow her in.  And what do you know?  The Joker’s inside!  Turns out, your- our birth mother Sheila Haywood is a lying, traitorous piece of scum who sells us out to the Joker to cover her ass.”  

 

In the corner of his eye, he sees his Bruce startle.  Huh.  It’s almost like he didn’t know that Jason hadn’t wilfully gone in disregarding orders.  Not like any of that matters now.  One more retroactive instance of obedience is hardly enough to outweigh the many murders he’s been committing.  On that note, he turns his attention back to younger-Jason.  

 

“You know that now, so it’s not going to hurt as much when you find out later on.  That’s something.”  He takes a long, shuddering breath.

 

“Next comes the hard part.  Simply put, he beats you over and over again with that bloody crowbar while he laughs and mocks and taunts (This is going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me!) until you can do nothing but wish you were dead."  

 

Stupid fucking clown.  

 

“God, all you want is for that god-awful clown to leave you alone but he doesn’t and it feels like you’re with him for hours.  And all you can hear is his demented laughter, the whistle of the crowbar through the air before agony explodes on your skin and the sound of each of your bones breaking into pieces.”  He laughs.  He seems to be doing an awful lot of that today.  (He won’t be the only one.)  “You never really do forget what it sounds like as every bit of you is being broken.  Even now, I still hear his voice ringing in my ears.”

 

Which one hurts more?  Forehand, or backhand?  A, or B?

 

He closes his eyes in misery and stands there frozen, breathing heavily as visions of cruel grins on white faces and a crowbar swinging wildly by flash behind his eyelids.  Let’s see if little birdies really have hollow bones!

 

“But you’ll know.  When you start to feel your breath start to come a little easier, and your hands and feet get a cold little tingle that means you’re about to lose all feeling in your limbs — just like that time when we almost got frostbite in ‘08, remember? — and your vision gets dark and hazy, that’s when you know it’s almost over.”

 

“There’s no coming back for you, not from broken ribs, a caved-in skull and smashed everything and we all know that Sheila Haywood does not deserve even a ratty old sheet of newspaper to dry her fucking tears, but you’re a good kid, I know that Robin, and your Batman, your dad—” They all notice how he stumbles over the word and both Bruces can’t help but let out a choked, hurt noise but Jason pointedly ignores that and pushes through, not acknowledging the way that his voice falters as his words grow thick with tears. “Your dad taught you about the importance of life and how doing everything you can to try to save people is the most important thing for a hero, and fuck, you have to know that you’re going to go out a hero, okay Robin?”  

 

“So you’re still going to try to save her and drag your broken, torn up body over to help free her, and that’s fine, okay Jay?  You’ll just about make it over to cover her body — not that our shrimp body manages to do much — but the bomb’s a nasty piece of work and it won’t be enough and there is nothing you could have done about that.  You hear me Jay?  You did your very best, and her death is not your fault, and it’s not on you.”  He pauses for a moment and the stiff silence that follows his frenzied words is filled with echoes of everything he has just poured out.  When he starts speaking again, his voice is soft and gentle.

 

“When the bomb goes off, you’re still hoping that Batman, Nightwing or even Alfred will suddenly swoop in and save you because if there’s anyone that could do it, it’s them and you know that Robin is magic.  You’re not deluded enough to think that they actually will because even you know it’s impossible, but it still hurts just a little bit to know that they didn’t manage to come for you.”

 

Laughing wetly, he shakes his head once more.  How foolish he once was, to think his father could do anything.

 

“And when the bomb goes off,” he continues, voice trembling, breaking.  “God, the agony is unbearable — you can practically feel yourself disintegrating until you want to rip off each layer of your skin but then the fire does that for you…”

 

He shudders, the phantom echoes of that nightmarish pain rippling down his body and for a second, it’s almost like he’s back in that warehouse, burning to death, all over again.  

 

From across the room, he can see Dick startle at that obvious show of fear, instinctively moving to comfort him and despite their disagreements, their animosity, the fragility of their bond, despite all of that, Jason wants nothing more than to melt into his brother’s embrace and the unspoken promise of refuge that he so desperately craves.  But he looks up, and there is a shaking fifteen-year-old standing in front of him, pupils blown inky black with fear and he shoulders on through the discomfort.  In a wavering voice, he gives that terrified expression a weak smile and addresses the boy.

 

“You asked me if it hurt, and yeah,” he laughs, voice thick with tears. “It hurts so goddamn much but what I want you to remember, and look forward to, Jay, is that after the bomb hits, it doesn’t hurt anymore.”

 

The conviction in his tone is unmistakable, because it’s true.  

 

“I’m not gonna lie to you, one Jason to another, you’re going to die scared, alone and in a lot of pain, but it ends.  When the countdown finally starts, it’s over really fast, in a flash, and afterwards, it’s the most incredible sense of peace that you can imagine.  All that pain, all that agony, a lifetime of suffering, just disappears.  Vanishes in an instant.  Gone.  And you can look forward to that, okay Jaybird?  I promise you.”

 

With each detail he reveals, the room seems to darken a shade, as if he is literally sucking the light out.  How long, he wonders half-hysterically, will it take to become as dark as the grave?

 

“Of course, it won’t last forever, because we’re a real special snowflake and we get the dubious honour of being one of the few real-life zombies to come back from the dead.  And because Bruce loved us so much, and also is a disgustingly rich bastard, we wake up in a goddamn monstrosity of a coffin lined with fucking satin trim, dressed in a surprisingly stylish outfit — thanks by the way Alfred, I can appreciate a good death suit in hindsight.  Anyway, we freak out for a bit about you know, suddenly coming back to life in a freakin’ coffin and hyperventilate a little — try your best not to do that if you can, yeah?  Really uses up the oxygen supply, and trust me, there ain’t much of that down there.”

 

He laughs wryly.  The other Bruce is sobbing now, clawing the open air in front of him as if he could somehow help his once-dead or soon-to-be-dead son out of his grave instead.  Jason quickly tears his eyes away from him before he loses his nerve, or worse yet, his anger.

 

“So, you’re alone in a coffin with no tools, no way to communicate with the outside world and a growing sense of tightness in your chest.  What you’re gonna do next, after you finish screaming and crying, is to start to dig.  Yeah, that’s really it.  Not much finesse to it.  You’re gonna dig until you tear through that obnoxious thousand-count satin lining, until you hit a frankly inconsiderately sturdy mahogany lid and shred your fingers into splinters and then, after your fingers are bruised to hell and your nails have been ripped off, you hit dirt.  God, I remember having never been so happy to see a worm in my life.  Bit less amazing when it landed in my mouth and tried to suffocate me along with a metric ton of dirt, but still.”

 

Nervously, he braves a glance at the rest of the room.  Revulsion hangs over the air like a cloud.  Yeah, just be happy it wasn’t and isn’t going to be you.

 

“After that fucking wood, soil is a godsend so just hold your breath and continue clawing your way out towards the top, you know the drill.  The old man really didn’t skimp when he said six feet under, so it’s going to take quite a while, but right around when you think that you’re going to have come back to life only to drown in a pit of dirt, you reach air and that’s about the second-most glorious feeling.  A light at the end of yet another one of the many tunnels you’re going to experience, you could say.”  

 

Again, no one even cracks a smile, not even pun-meister Dickiebird Grayson.  He sighs inwardly.  Everyone’s a critic.

 

“Anyway,” he continues, waving a hand dismissively.  “After that, it’s a bit of a blur, really.  You see, we don’t quite come back all the way, and definitely not right in the head, so I’ll gloss over this part.  Long story short, you wander aimlessly around a bit looking like an extra from School of the Dead: 2 and because this is fucking Gotham, no one bats an eye or does anything about it.  So of course, the one who finds you is our beloved Talia al-Ghul, daughter of the Demon’s Head, occasional lover of dear old dad and mother to our very own darling demon brat.”  He finishes off the statement with a sardonic grin and a sarcastic flourish.  Behind him, Damian bristles, and it is testament to the horror of the tale unfolding and the raw pain in the storyteller’s words that that is all he does.  Under any other circumstance, it would be wise to expect a bloodbath.

 

“So, Talia brings us to the League of Assassins where we’re pretty much in a coma for a while until Ra’s has enough of our pretty catatonic looks and decides that we have outlived our usefulness.”  He pauses for the reaction to the joke but again, not even Nightwing, proud purveyor of puns, laughs.  Shrugging it off, he carries on speaking.

 

“For some reason, she doesn’t carry out his instructions and tosses us into a Lazarus Pit instead, and if the radioactive green wasn’t enough of an indication, yes I can confirm, it burns like acid.”  He says it in what he hopes is a casual, offhand manner, but a familiar, dreaded fire starts to burn in his chest.  For a moment, he thinks he can see green in his eyes again.

 

“That wakes us right up, and thus begins our journey as a trainee-assassin where we get a full-resort tour of Nanda Prabat and its auxiliary locations.  Greatest hits include introduction to killing 101 by Lady Shiva, up-close-and-personal time with Ra’s al-Ghul himself and the old favourite, emotions are weakness and will be beat out of you by, well, everyone.  Zero out of ten stars, don’t recommend at all.”  Understatement of the century.   “Don’t worry too much about the details.  At that point, you don’t have much control or choice over things and good ol’ Lazarus is a rather domineering co-pilot.”

 

“But it wasn’t all bad,” he whispers, and for the first time, there is a pure, unabridged honesty in his voice.  “Talia really did take care of you, and, and ...it was almost like having a mother again.  A strict, manipulative and violent assassin of a mother, but she truly wanted to help us.”  A painful silence follows his words as all the occupants of the room try to process them.  

 

Clapping his hands unceremoniously, he perks up in obvious artificial cheer.  “Oh, and you learned Arabic, and some other cool tricks” he adds as a forced afterthought meant to dispel the sobriety of the atmosphere.

 

“So, she preys on your deepest fears about being meaningless and reinforces those pesky self-worth issues with a few well-timed snippets from conversations in the Cave and some suggestive photos of Replacement over here,” he explains with a quick gesture to Tim, who stands silent and pale-faced by his side.  Sucker.  “That quite effectively sets you on a course straight for home with a directive largely about creating as much deserved death and destruction as possible,” he continues, with a deliberate emphasis and pointed glance towards older Bruce, who stares back with a surprisingly impassive expression.  Jason can still see tear tracks and the remnants of sorrow on his face and figures that the uncharacteristic lack of opposition to his words can be attributed to that.  

 

Still, he decides to offer up an olive branch.  “Deserved in our mind, at least.  We took on the old moniker of our friend, the clown, out of spite and began our reign of terror.  Hunted down tons of dealers cutting their shit with all sorts of dangerous stuff, peddlin’ to kids, messing with the working girls…” He trails off, before a vicious grin comes onto his face.  “Made sure to visit some of our old friends that we met in the alley or on corners back in the day!”

 

At this revelation, everyone stiffens.  Shit.  Didn’t mean for that to pop out.  

 

Much of Jason’s early life was unknown to everyone, and the former street kid was notoriously fierce and territorial about his privacy.  Everyone knew that he had been born in Crime Alley to a drug-addict mother and deadbeat thug for a dad before being foisted onto the streets after their deaths up until that fateful day that he tried to steal the Batmobile tires.  Judging from his living situation and early brushes with crime, it didn’t take the World’s Greatest Detective to guess that some elements of abuse, neglect and violence were commonplace in his childhood, or that he had had to turn to various unsavoury methods for survival.  Still, it was an unspoken hope, or a child’s dream, that he hadn’t been victimised in that particular way.  As if that was a particularly egregious form of hurt, beyond everything else that he had so vividly detailed for them in the past few minutes.  

 

Perhaps it was because as terrible as the rest of Jason’s life was, there was something especially horrifying about such a young child being exposed to the very dregs of the adult world.  Perhaps because everyone else also drew a mental line between young innocent child Jason Todd and the older, more hardened former-Robin Jason Todd who grew up to be the Red Hood and therefore might have deserved what happened to him.  He scoffs.  Even as a blur of tears overtakes his eyes, he grits his teeth through fury and swallows down his bitterness in a practiced motion.

 

“Little Wing,” Dick breathes out.  “Why didn’t you tell me …?”

 

Jason rolls his eyes.  “That’s what you want to focus on?  I told you guys, that was way back in the day, and then I paid them a visit afterwards.  And for all of you sceptics, I can now say from personal experience that all your ‘vengeance doesn’t help victims!’ bullshit is just that — bullshit.  Because I feel a hell of a lot better about knowing that they won’t ever be able to do that to anyone else again and no one can tell me otherwise, but if anyone still wants to, you can go right ahead and shove your self-righteous vitriol up your pompous, entitled asses!”  

 

Throughout everything, Jason has stayed relatively calm.  Even as he describes the horrors of his past with false good humour and cracks off-colour jokes about his traumas, he prides himself on having largely maintained his facade of detachment.  He’s already been through all of this once and he knows exactly how horrific it was, and how scared his fourteen-year-old self is, so he knows that he has to be strong for the both of them now.  And that means staying calm and being impervious to emotion.  

 

All of that just went out the window with his recent outburst.  Whoops.

 

The morality of vigilante killing and the extrajudicial exaction of justice has long been a contentious issue in their ...household, to say the least, but he surprises even himself with the intensity of his response.  It seems that he has not done nearly as well as he thought he had at distancing himself from grievances of the past.  

 

But he should know better.  He does know better.  The League ensured that he understood fully the folly and error of emotions.  

 

Now, baby Jason needs him to be strong, so he will be.

 

Finally managing to calm himself down, Jason takes a few more deep breaths, feeling his lungs expand in the cavernous expanse of his chest as his furious heart gradually slows down.  The only good thing about his past tirade is that it seems to have stunned everyone else into equal silence.  Aside from staring at him with wide, hunted eyes, Dick doesn’t speak.  As unexpected as it is, Jason is grateful for the silence and takes the space to pull himself together.  

 

When the anger and rage is sufficiently at bay, he shakes the last whispers of it off and looks up at everyone.  “Anyway, I’m not here for another debate, so you’ll have to book an appointment with my secretary if you want to continue this conversation,” he says nonchalantly, cracking his knuckles.

 

“Where were we?  Ah right, I’ve told you about all the small stuff and some of my side missions, but the real juicy stuff comes during our family reunions.  We hunt down Replacement and give him a serious beatdown leaving him near-death as a dramatic announcement of our return, but don’t worry too much about the specifics — the Pit’ll do most of it.  Sorry about that, Replacement, it wasn’t personal.  No hard feelings, yeah?”  He quirks an eyebrow at the kid, but the Replacement doesn’t respond.  Oh well, can’t win them all.  

 

“B and I dance around a little and act out the climax to the love triangle story with the Joker, and ...some things happen,” he says with a furtive glance towards older Bruce that he tries and fails to disguise.  

 

“I don’t want to get into the ugly details about that, so… just know that all of us make decisions and we try to do the best that we can in every situation, do what we think is right.  And things don’t always work out well, and there isn’t always a happy ending.”  Lifting one shoulder in a half-shrug, he offers a sad smile.  

 

At Jason’s words, younger Bruce flickers his eyes to his older counterpart and pins him with a piercing, searching gaze.  Older Bruce determinedly ignores the clear question and looks straight ahead.  The briefest flash of what seems like regret glances past his face and he looks away for a split second before resuming his stoic posture.  They both shift uncomfortably.  

 

Do you regret it? He wants to ask, but this is neither the time nor the place.  

 

Jason decides to draw the attention back to himself, a decision he quickly regrets when he realises that he doesn’t know what else to say.  “So ...that’s about it, really.  The Pit fades away after a while and we haven’t been killing for a few months now, so I guess things turn out alright.  Not sure there’s any more that you need to know, so I guess you’re all good to go…”

 

The meaning of his words hits him as they leave his mouth, as he realises exactly where he’s going to go.

 

All the bravado from before falls away.  The air inside his lungs rushes out in one long motion as he closes his eyes and gathers the fractured bits of his mind together for one last, important thing.  Crouching down, he lowers all two hundred and twenty pounds of his impressive and imposing bulk — scars, flesh, skin and all — until he meets the terrified, shaking eyes of his younger counterpart again.  The kid is trembling uncontrollably, still dressed in that stupid traffic-light-green-panties costume.  

 

Oh god, he’s so young.  

 

With a trembling and tender hand, he reaches out and brushes the tears away from his face, uncaring about the endless stream that trickles down his own.  “It’s a lot to take in, Jay.  And it’s not fair,” he whispers, the biggest secret he’s held on to this entire time.  Across from him, younger Jason sobs.

 

“It’s not fair, because we were good.  We were trying, trying so damn hard to do the right thing, to be better, to be more than the gutter we were born into.”  Looking up for a brief moment, he blinks the stars out of his eyes as his throat closes up with tears.

 

“And we were, okay?  We made ourselves more, but sometimes it just isn’t enough, and the world likes to take and take and take from people like us who have nothing left to give.”  They are both openly weeping now, at the evil, at the injustice, and Jason lets himself mourn for the boy that he once was, that he still is, that was lost and is going to be lost all over again.

 

“It’s not fair, it isn’t right, and it’s going to happen all over again.  And you’re going to let it.  You’re going to go back to your time, hold your head up high and walk into that warehouse and into another lifetime of misery and pain and utter fuckin’ shit with nothing more than the strength that you have inside of you because it’s the right thing to do, and you have to do it.”

 

His hands are shaking.  

 

“Because at the end of the day, we were so many things at once,” he sobs.  “A child, a street rat, a son, a brother, a Robin, but the most important thing that we were is that we were a good soldier.”

 

A loud, guttural cry escapes from the group but Jason only has eyes for himself and his voice holds strong.

 

By the time he finishes speaking, his voice has gone hoarse.  The ugliest parts of his world have been made a public spectacle but he cannot bring himself to regret it.  Not when it might in some way be a comfort to a young boy who will have to suffer too much.  Still, he feels stripped bare, scraped raw, cracked open for everyone to see.  His next words are soft.

 

“And like all good soldiers know, sometimes you need to go through hell and sacrifice your entire soul for the good of everyone else, and you do it gracefully with your head held high.”

 

And finally, with that, there are no more words to be said and Jason breaks.  He grips himself so tightly that he can almost believe that things might be alright and then he lets go.  

 

Wordlessly, he turns and leaves the Cave.