Chapter Text
Jason wakes with a gasp.
Hit sits up and immediately cracks his head hard enough he’s seeing stars. His hands go to his throat where he tries to stop the bleeding.
His plan went perfectly, right until it all fell apart—he had Batman squared up against him, the Joker between them, gun at the ready. Jason set it up perfectly. Batman was supposed to shoot the Joker, sacrifice his morals to end Jason’s tormentor, but it all went wrong. Bruce used a batarang and ricocheted it—
And why isn’t Jason still bleeding?
It’s too dark to see but when he pulls his hands back from his neck, he does not feel the familiar tackiness of blood. Instead, he feels a stiff collar. His helmet is gone and someone changed him out of his tactical gear. He’s in a wool suit, starched shirt, and a necktie.
Jason reaches his hands forward and runs his hand over a familiar cushioned fabric.
No.
A casket, he’s been buried alive.
Not this again. Jason feels his heart accelerate and forces himself to slow his breathing. Hyperventilating will only make things worse. He does not have time to think about how he got here or who did this to him. Jason’s entire world narrows to a single goal, escape.
He searches his body for something he can use to break the heavy wooden lid of the casket. He finds a tie pin to slice through the silken fabric above him. He uses the edge of a belt buckle after the tie pin snaps, working a deep groove into the casket lid and sawing back and forth.
Clumps of cool earth sprinkle into his face.
“Stay calm, you can do this,” Jason mutters to himself. He’s done it before. His memories of his resurrection are spotty but he knows he must have done this before.
Don’t think about if they buried you deeper this time. Focus on digging.
Jason’s body protests but the wood gives way under the weight of the earth on top of it. Once he’s broken through the wood, it’s easier to chip away at the gash until he’s formed decent sized hole forming.
Dirt keeps falling into his face and Jason pushes it down to the bottom of his coffin to make space. When he has enough room, he starts to leverage himself up. He drops the belt buckle and begins to dig with his hands.
The dirt is cold and Jason fights the claustrophobia as he leverages himself first up to his knees, then to his feet.
Only a few feet to go. Don’t stop digging.
Jason claws and kicks himself through the soil. He keeps spitting it out of his mouth. As he nears the surface, the dirt gets heavier, soaked with rain. It sticks in his teeth and his eyes and under his nails, but Jason does not stop the press upward. He promises himself just a few more inches, just a few minutes more. He feels lightheaded and he’s losing focus so Jason grits his teeth (soil and all) and forces himself to keep going.
He breaks through the surface and hauls himself out of the earth. By the time he collapses on the grass, he’s heaving for air and sobbing.
The night is dark but not as dark as his grave. A flash of lightning cracks across the sky as rain pours down on him, turning the grassy soil to mud. A stone angel stands vigil over him and Jason gets to his feet, suddenly angry. He tries to pull it down off its pedestal but it’s too heavy. He feels too uncoordinated for an effective attack and it drives him to a fury.
Jason reaches within himself for that well of rage that’s so often been his only constant, his only companion, and finds he can’t reach it. The thought sends him into a panic. The Lazarus rage slips through his fingers again and again.
He thinks about Bruce, the way he let him down, replaced him, and now did not pull the trigger with the Joker tied up in front of him to avenge Jason’s death. Any of these should be enough to activate the Lazarus pit inside of him but Jason remains tugging ineffectually at a stone guardian. Even his clouded brain sees the symbolism.
Everything feels wrong, from the fog in his head to his empty rage to his too-small hands. Jason can’t grasp the why of it all. Just that he’s back at his grave, in his teenage body, completely useless.
The storm rages above him and Jason lays down under the statue and lets the rain and the wind batter him. He feels a pull towards the city, towards home but he can’t see the point in it. He can’t go to Gotham, he can’t go to the Manor, so where else is left?
Everything feels so foggy. Everything hurts.
He wants to cry again but he used up any energy left on his tantrum. Instead, Jason lays there as silent as, well, the grave.
Jason must fall asleep, or maybe he passes out, because the next thing he knows someone is screaming.
It’s morning and the sunlight is blinding. His suit is still soaked from the rain but he tries to get to his feet. His brain is still foggy and his limbs won’t respond. The best he can do is get to his knees and raise his fists up to fight. His eyes scan for the threat but the only person he sees is a groundskeeper.
“What are you doing here, kid?” the guy asks, approaching Jason and taking him by the shoulders. Jason tries to shove him off but his arms feel like they’re filled with lead. The guy is saying something but Jason can’t get his brain to process the words.
Someone is talking on the phone and everything blurs and tilts to the side.
Jason fades in and he’s horizontal. People are talking again but he can’t tell if they’re talking to him.
He knows there’s something important he’s supposed to be doing. His plan? No, that already failed. He failed. He wants—He doesn’t know what he wants. He thinks there are sirens happening. Where’s Batman?
“B,” he tries to say.
“Kid, can you tell me your name? Do you remember what happened?”
“I—Bruce—” he fades back out.
He fades back in.
He’s missing time.
He’s not cold and wet anymore, but he’s still laying down. He’s in a paper gown and his feet are cold. Must have lost his shoes. He feels the ground beneath him slide and a massive machine settles over him.
“No!” he shouts, lashing out with his arms. He dug his way out of the casket but he doesn’t have his belt buckle or tie pin. He won’t be able to break the heavy machinery.
“Get him out of there. Jason! It’s okay!”
And suddenly Bruce is there. He holding on to Jason’s shoulders but his grip just makes him fight harder.
“It’s going to be okay, son. I’m here, I’m here,” Bruce tries to soothe him and to Jason horror, he’s crying again.
Jason doesn’t stop fighting Bruce. “Let me go!” he cries. “You did this. You did this to me!”
Jason doesn’t know how Bruce did it, sending him back in time, trapping him in his younger body, but it’s all mixed up in his head. Bruce hurt him. He threw that batarang and Jason bled out and then he was back in his grave. Bruce didn’t kill the Joker. He killed Jason.
Bruce was supposed to save him.
Jason sobs and throws an elbow. Bruce must be distracted or maybe he’s playing it up, because Jason cracks him directly in the face.
“Mr. Wayne!” there’s someone else there but Jason doesn’t know them, doesn’t trust them, and they’re touching him too.
He panics, lashing out as much as he can.
“Hold him still,” someone else says and Jason manages to cry harder. He won’t be restrained again. Not like before. Not with the Joker.
“No, wait!” that was Bruce. But someone manhandles him and Jason feels the prick of a needle. It isn’t immediate, though. Jason fights like a wild animal.
But he fades back out.
--
The hospital is a blur to Jason.
He spends more time faded out than in. But he doesn’t hurt anymore, which is a definite plus side. Or, it does hurt but the hurting feels far away.
When he does wake, the lights are normally dimmed. Sometimes he can hear someone speaking to him. One time it’s Alfred, then he blinks and it’s Barbara. Jason hadn’t seen either of them when he returned to Gotham last time. They weren’t part of the plan.
“Jay, you awake?” Babs asks and he feels another tear sliding down his cheek.
So he fades back out.
--
Bruce is there sometimes. He holds Jason’s hand gently over his bandages. He gives Jason a soft squeeze whenever he wakes up but lets him pretend to be sleeping until he fades back out.
--
Jason doesn’t know how long it takes but he’s moved to the Manor. There aren’t as many machines plugged into him when he wakes now. His head is bandaged but his hands aren’t so he must have healed enough the hospital released him.
He doesn’t know how much time he lost. Weeks? Months? He’s in a bedroom at the Manor but he doesn’t recognize it. Somewhere not in the family wing, then. Probably Bruce’s way of telling him he isn’t family anymore.
Jason’s thoughts spiral but he can’t work out a full narrative and he has a sneaking suspicion why. It’s the same reason Talia threw him in the pit, why his memories before the League are so spotty.
How many times did the Joker beat in his head?
Jason grasps at his thoughts ineffectually before giving up. Maybe it’s a blessing, not being able to remember every detail of his time with the Joker.
He changes focus to getting up from the bed.
Jason is attached to an IV. The text on the bag swims in front of him but whatever liquid in it is clear. He grips the stand and pulls himself to his feet. So far, so good. He can stand on his own at least. He takes a few experimental steps and finds that’s well within his ability as well.
Good.
Jason makes it to the door but it takes two attempts to turn the knob. Okay, so fine motor control isn’t fully back yet, but that could be his brain more than his hands.
He gets the door open and realizes he’s on the ground floor of the Manor. At least he won’t have to brave the stairs. Jason’s legs feel steady enough but he doesn’t want to put that to the test on a twenty-foot drop.
The Manor is quiet. Given the light coming in from with windows, it’s sometime in the morning. Jason squints at it. He can see some of the Manor grounds through the glass and the leaves on the big oak tree are just starting to turn. Autumn, then.
His IV pole gets stuck on the carpet in the hallway but slides smoothly over the marble floor of the entry hall. Jason isn’t sure exactly where he’s walking until he finds a familiar door. The library.
When he first arrived at the Manor, Jason often wished the library was located on the second floor with the family bedrooms. He mentioned this to Alfred who explained the books were too heavy. The floor to ceiling shelves required rolling ladders and there was a whole section that was kept out of direct light. Heavy curtains surrounded the windows and there were plush chairs to read in, but Jason found a spot between the stacks where he could curl his knees up and be out of view from the doorway. It was a hiding spot.
At fifteen, he was probably too big for it. It took some skillful maneuvering of the IV pole, but Jason carefully got on the floor and pulled his knees in. He picked a book off the shelf closest to him and just cradled it on his thighs. A glance at the doorway told him he wasn’t completely out of sight but the short trip to the library exhausted him. There are plenty better hiding spots in the Manor but this was his first and this one feels the most right.
--
“Oh thank God.”
The fog dissipates and Jason registers someone in front of him. At first, he thinks Bruce but realizes the shape of him is all wrong. It’s Dick, down on one knee in front of him.
“We’ve been looking everywhere for you, Jaybird.”
Jason frowns and for a moment he wonders if he’s lost more time. But as he orients himself, he realizes he’s still on the floor of the library. His legs feel stiff and his neck hurts. On his lap, a heavy leather bound book is open somewhere in the middle. He looks down at it instead of Dick.
Jason hadn’t gone to Dick when he returned to Gotham the first time. Too fixated on Bruce and Tim and the Joker… Dick didn’t fit into any plans. He watched Blüdhaven get destroyed on that rooftop with Bruce. He wonders now if Dick was there or if he was off in space again.
“Let’s get you back to your room,” he says encouragingly but Jason doesn’t move.
He turns a page in his book but something is wrong with the words. Jason knows they’re words. He can see each letter, but his mind can’t connect them to any meaning. Jason furrows his brow and tries to refocus, the book more interesting than Dick by a mile.
“Let me help you up,” Dick says and then he reaches for Jason’s book and Jason kicks out his leg as hard as he can, catching Dick in the hip and pushing him back several feet.
“Oof,” he grunts but Dick stays on his feet. He holds out his hand placatingly. “Bruce mentioned you still have your muscle memory.”
A comment like that would normally have green clouding his vision. Jason tightens his grip on his book. He waits for his anger to well up, tries to reach for it, but just like at his gravesite it slips through his fingers. Like the words on the page, it remains out of reach.
If not the overwhelming anger of the Lazarus pit, Jason can still muster up some annoyance at Dick’s tone. He isn’t a child. He was probably older than Dick. The math wasn’t happening, but Jason feels pretty confident.
“Leave me alone,” Jason snaps instead. Dick looks shocked at his words, like he didn’t expect him to be able to speak. It makes Dick’s face look dumb and Jason hates it. “…Shouldn’t be a problem for you,” he adds just to be mean.
Dick shutters his expression and squares his shoulders. It’s his Nightwing look. Jason let the fog roll back in and disappears into it before his ‘brother’ can respond.
--
Some days are better than others.
The nights Jason goes to sleep of his own accord, he has nightmares. He moves back up to the family wing, if only so it cuts down on the time it takes Bruce to rush into his bedroom to check on him. It doesn’t matter if he pushes Bruce away or ignores him completely, Bruce stays until Jason falls back asleep.
Jason isn’t sure who’s driving when the fog is heavy. Sometimes he can only surface for a few seconds at a time and he takes those moments to lash out at Bruce if he’s around. He shoves Bruce’s hands away or tells him to fuck off and once screams at him for not saving him.
Every time, Bruce looks at him brokenly. And every time Jason waits for it to make him feel better.
Most day, there are appointments.
He goes to a therapist to help him with walking and mobility. Alfred takes him. Those are grueling sessions but they are Jason’s favorite because they involve a long car ride and physically moving his body. He thinks he had a few sessions with a speech therapist but he isn’t present enough to make any progress. If the fog comes during any medical appointments, he lets it.
Then there are appointments in the cave.
He remembers locking eyes with J’onn J’onnz but never feels the Martain Manhunter digging around in his head. Then there’s Zatanna. He wonders what she’d do if he summons the All-Blades. But he’s only lucid for the end of their appointment, long enough to hear her tell Bruce there’s nothing magical about his injuries.
And no explanation for his resurrection.
--
The first time he sees Tim in the Manor, Jason is sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast. He comes to midway through the meal. No more IV pole, no more bandages, but Jason can’t see out the window so he does know if it’s still Autumn. Bruce is reading a paper at the table like he normally does in the morning but Jason knows by now he won’t be able to read the date.
He lifts the spoon back to his mouth and takes another bite of oatmeal.
Then he registers the additional presence at the table.
Tim is wearing a faded t-shirt and eating a bowl of oatmeal as well, eyes locked on a tablet Jason can’t read.
Jason wants to be furious. If anything was going to set him off, surely this would be it.
He came back to life and Bruce still replaced him? What the fuck? Was Tim running around in his uniform too, playing at being Robin when Jason wasn’t even supposedly cold in the ground?
“Replacement?” he asks and the kitchen screeches to a halt.
Jason gets the impression that when he isn’t lucid, he doesn’t do much talking. Everyone’s reaction is always so disproportionately dramatic. Bruce practically throws his paper onto the table and Tim looks like a deer caught in the Batmobile headlights.
Luckily Alfred is there to bail them both out.
“Master Jason, this is Timothy Drake,” Alfred says smoothly, pouring Jason a glass of orange juice and setting it in front of him. “He lives at the Drake Manor next door. He is here to temporarily assist Master Bruce in the evenings and due to the late hour, he sometimes stays overnight.”
“Where’s his dumb camera?” Jason grumbles. Tim honest-to-God squeaks and looks frantically at Bruce.
“How are you feeling today, Jason?” Bruce asks tentatively.
“Partly cloudy,” Jason shrugs with no further explanation. The fog feels far away. He might have a few hours or a few minutes. It is hard for him to tell, but at least his words come easier. He pushes his hair from his face and frowns at the length.
He looks at Alfred. “Can you do a haircut today?”
“Of course, there is some time after breakfast. I’ll grab the supplies from upstairs,” Alfred says easily, as if this is a normal day and Jason makes requests all the time.
Bruce watches the exchange with intense scrutiny which Jason ignores.
Alfred is a pillar in a storm. A safe harbor.
Jason misses him so much it feels like an ache in his bones.
After breakfast, Alfred doesn’t bat an eye. He just holds open a coat for Jason that takes him an embarrassingly long time to negotiate his arms into before leading him to the patio. Alfred already set up a chair out there with a blanket for Jason’s lap. The weather is cool, not cold. But it could be due to the day rather than the season.
It occurs to Jason he can just ask. “Alfred, what day is it?”
“Saturday the fifth of February,” he answers, spraying a bottle of water on Jason’s hair and combing it through. Ah, a warm day in winter then.
Jason lets himself relax into the feeling of Alfred combing out his hair, the quiet snip of the scissors. When he was on the streets, Jason wouldn’t get his hair cut for months. It was an unnecessary expense like cigarettes and toothpaste. The only time he would go to a barber was if it was free, or if he could trade something he stole for it.
Then he moved to the Manor and Alfred, every two weeks like clockwork, would cut his hair for him. Alfred would listen to Jason vent about Bruce or complain about the kids in his classes. Then they would discuss novels and plays and the antics of the Gotham social elite. He knew the haircuts would go faster if Alfred didn’t make him laugh so hard, but Jason never felt rushed out of Alfred’s chair.
He couldn’t remember the last time he and Alfred did this, just the two of them.
Alfred keeps up a steady commentary for him about planting tulips. He got a late start this year so he isn’t sure they’ll bloom come spring.
“Alfred? Is Tim Robin?” he asks.
“Would you be upset if he assumed the mantle during your convalescence?”
Jason appreciates how Alfred doesn’t change the way he speaks to him like sometimes the doctors or therapists do. He speaks to him like he expected Jason to understand every word, like there isn’t any anything wrong with him.
“Yeah,” Jason admits. “But it’s not like I can do anything about it like this, huh?”
“You’ve made remarkable improvement these last few months, Master Jason,” Alfred says, trimming another stray lock of hair. Jason wonders if he’d recognize himself in a mirror.
“Months,” Jason breathes to himself.
February. He should be in school. It looks like his lessons have been replaced with the appointments. It was supposed to be his junior year of high school. He remembers wanting to go to college, trying to figure out a way to convince Bruce to let him stay as Robin if maybe he went to GCU--
Jason shakes his head, accidentally throwing Alfred off with the scissors. “Sorry,” he mutters. He can feel the fog rising. “Alfred?”
“Yes, Master Jason?”
“Don’t let Bruce ship me off somewhere, okay?” he says almost desperately. He’d been so certain Bruce was going to kick him out after Robin, that his love and Jason’s place in his house were conditional.
“Oh my boy, he would do nothing of the sort,” Alfred assures him. He moves in front of Jason and leans down so he can look him in the eye. He says with surprising vehemence, “If he so much as suggests it, he will have to go through me.”
Jason nods. He feels the fog moving in. “Okay Alfie. I believe you.”
--
Some days, Jason feels closer to fifteen than he does twenty. It’s like there are two versions of himself superimposed on top of each other. The longer he spends as a teenager, the farther away his adult self feels.
He feels his teenage insecurity more than his adult anger. As much as he wants to be mad at Bruce, without the pit fueling him, there are only so many times Jason can wake up in the care of his family before he starts to believe they really do care about him.
It’s deep into winter, now. There’s a heavy blanket of snow on the Manor grounds. Maybe still February but maybe March. Hell, if Mr. Freeze is on the loose then it could be June.
Jason watches fat flakes fall on the oak tree outside. It’s not… a bad life.
The fog inches away and Jason finds himself in Bruce’s office. He’s sitting by a window, the book in his hands unopened. Jason wonders if his catatonic self just enjoys holding them. At his desk, Bruce reads something on his computer screen. Jason recognizes it as Wayne Enterprise work even if he can’t make out the specifics.
The winter sun sets early and the office is already starting to get dark.
Bruce is too focused on his work to notice. Jason recognizes the little crease between his eyebrows he gets when he’s squinting.
Before he can think too much about it, Jason stands from his seat at the window and turns on Bruce’s desk lamp for him. It floods the office with a warm light. Bruce looks up at him and Jason stands in front of him
“Thank you, Jason.”
It was always easier to talk to Bruce when they were doing something. Jason can’t have this conversation here. “I want to go outside.”
Bruce raises his eyebrows. “Okay, I’ll call Alfred up for you.”
“No,” Jason tells him. “I want you to go with me.”
Jason doesn’t know what Bruce is working on for Wayne Enterprises or if it’s even important but he shuts his computer down and gets to his feet. “Let’s find some coats.”
Jason gets on a coat, hat, and scarf. Alfred can’t find his gloves and Jason is no help because he has no memory of the last time he used them, so he gets an old pair of Dick’s. He purposefully does not watch Bruce get bundled up because the look of hope on his face makes him look stupid.
They go outside and Jason starts to walk the manor grounds. The snow comes up to his ankle but his thick boots keep him warm. Outside, the sky in beginning to get dark but in his head, Jason feels perfectly clear.
They follow a gravel trail around the grounds, their boots crunching through the snow in sync with each other.
“Are you going to send me away?” he asks Bruce. He can’t do Arkham. He won’t.
Bruce doesn’t seem startled by Jason’s line of questioning which means Alfred probably got to him already. Jason is disappointed he missed that chewing out.
“No one is going to send you away,” Bruce says, steady as the falling snow.
“You have a new Robin,” Jason says. One of the perks of his brain injury is no one chastises him for mentioning code names outside of the cave anymore.
Bruce sighs. Jason doesn’t know for sure, but if Tim is already at the Manor working on cases, then it’s only a matter of time before he steps into the pixie boots. If he hasn’t already.
“Robin or not, you will always be my son.”
“That’s not what you said before.”
Two versions of Bruce rattle around in Jason’s head. There’s the one who told him I’m not your father, Jason. I don’t need your teenage rebellion. Then there’s the one who looked down on him on that rooftop and said This changes nothing.
Jason doesn’t turn to look at Bruce now, afraid of which one he’d see.
For a long moment, Bruce doesn’t say anything. They reach the farthest point of the path where they begin to circle back to the Manor and Bruce stops.
“I was wrong to say that, Jason.” Bruce looks back at the Manor. Its gothic silhouette looms large in the distance but the lights from within give it a warm glow. To Jason, it looks like home.
“You don’t mean that,” Jason says quietly. “I’m awful to you all the time. I broke your rules. I killed. I don’t even feel sorry about it.”
Bruce puts his hands on Jason’s shoulders and Jason looks away from him. Bruce's voice breaks when he says, “None of that changes that you’re my son and I’m so, so grateful that you’re here.”
Jason looks up at Bruce then and sees the emotions written on his face. “Why didn’t you kill the Joker, B?”
Bruce closes his eyes and exhales shakily. “Is that what you need me to do?”
It’s everything Jason thought he wanted. There’s no doubt in his mind that in this moment, if he asks Bruce to kill the Joker then he will. It would destroy him, but he’d do it. But is that what Jason really wants?
“Don’t send me away, B. Don’t replace me.”
Bruce pulls him into a rough embrace. “Never, Jaylad. No one’s could ever replace you.” Jason grips Bruce back just as tightly. No one is crying, the fog is out, and the moment seems to last forever. He doesn’t know how long they stand there, but it’s long enough the sky goes dark and stars start to blink over them.
“Come on, old man. Let’s go back in.” Jason taps twice on Bruce’s shoulder like he’s ending a spar.
“Yeah, Jay. Let’s go home.”
Jason’s mind drifts to thoughts of hot chocolate and an evening spent with Alfred. He could sit with Alfred in the cave while Batman goes on patrol. Or maybe Bruce will take the night off and join them for the evening. Not everything between them is fixed but Jason cultivates a small hope of his own.
In the end, Jason will realize he didn’t have to worry about Bruce sending him away.
Because in the end, it’s the League of Assassins that comes for him.