Chapter Text
“You’re dead.”
Jason, his dead son, the son whose broken-burned-bloody body Bruce held, sits on a stool at the kitchen counter.
“No?” He shoves a hand into the bag of fancy popcorn he’s holding—milk tea flavor. Alfred, bless his soul, would never buy it.
Bruce stares at his dead son and is forced to evaluate what he’s done in the past 24 hours. 36 hours. 48 hours? He slept last night, right?
The hallucination slides off the stool with his bag of popcorn, wags crumby fingers at Bruce, and vanishes into the hallway.
He stares at the empty stool for a long, long time before searching for the sleeping pills.
Dick nods along to the music blasting from his earbuds when he walks into the gym. The trapeze takes up most of the space, the net a few feet above his head on the ground. He hums along to the music as he chalks up.
It’s not till he turns around to climb up that he notices the person on the platform. Jason lounges, one leg hanging over the edge, staring at the ceiling. He’s not as young as he was as Robin, but he’s not old, either. Maybe a year of baby fat shaved off.
Hallucinating his dead little brother is usually regulated to high-stress situations, but there’s a first for everything. Dick’s due for a doctor appointment anyway; he can bring up his medication dosage and see if it needs to be increased.
Real or not, he stares at the mirage of Jason, soaking in the could-have-been. Then he climbs the ladder on the far side of the trapeze.
By the time he swings to the other platform, Jason’s gone.
Stephanie’s wandering through the house when the clack of balls draws her to the billiard room. The door’s partially open and a young man–teenager?–leans over the table, lining up a shot. He must be waiting to meet with Bruce, although usually Alfred hovers near guests. B’s got some kind of program through Wayne Enterprises for high school entrepreneurs.
The man glances up, but says nothing.
“Hi,” she says, because she’s got manners at least. Nothing. “I’m Steph.”
A nod, but nothing else.
“And you are…?”
He puts a hand to his throat and shakes his head.
Shit, now she looks like an asshole. “Shi–oot sorry. Uh.” How can she save this? Steph nods at the pool table. “Want to play a game together?”
Another nod and he re-racks the balls with quick movements. She grabs a pool cue, and soon they are sinking balls into pockets. It’s nice, actually, not having to make small talk. Just the clack of balls.
He’s good–but so is Steph. She grew up in the Narrows, and pool is as much a part of the culture as the poverty.
“Stephanie! Hey! Steph!” Tim’s voice interrupts her shot, and the ball glances wide, ruining her shot.
“Sorry,” she tells the man, “I’ll be right back. Go ahead and take your turn!”
Tim is two hallways over and one level up, so it takes some Marco-Polo yelling before they can carry on a conversation about pizza toppings. Rich people’s houses, man. Way too many hallways.
Steph slides back into the billiard room, apology on her lips, only to find it empty. The pool cue is put away, and the table is empty. The man must have gone to find Bruce.
The empty table mocks her for missing the finale. All that’s left is to pull the pool table cover back in place, Wayne crest impressing no one.
Tim is not narcoleptic. The fact that he fell asleep on a roller coaster during a date just means he’s good at conserving energy in boring situations. Most situations are boring. Thus, more sleep. Robin is the only time he really feels awake.
There’s something about free running across the city that wakes him up and gets the blood pumping. Something about outsmarting villains smarter than him that wires Tim the way nothing else does.
Unfortunately, case work is part of being Robin. Tonight, that means cataloging incidents from the past month. Oracle’s system gives it a tentative flag, but a human still needs to skim the data and fix errors.
For the fifteenth–or maybe fiftieth–time, Tim jerks in the office chair and resettles his eyes on the screen. He’s missed the playback and has to rewind to set it going again. It’s average citizen #483, somewhere between awe at talking to Batman and annoyance at being delayed on a late-night errand.
Sometimes Tim plays a game when watching interactions like this: how horny are they for Batman? The results are often surprising. Right now, though, even that can’t hold his attention.
Tim drags his eyes away from the screen, letting them slide through the cave in an attempt to stay awake.
Jason Todd, former Robin, is standing in front of the display case with his outfit.
“I told him to take it down,” Tim’s mouth says without input from his brain.
Jason glances at him, then turns back to the case. “Pretty poor taste, considering I’m not dead.”
“Huh,” is all Tim can come up with. “It was covered in blood, dude, something went down.”
He gets an airy wave, wiping valid facts away like dandelion fluff. “Jumping headfirst into method acting isn’t a good strategy.”
That’s–that’s–Tim’s brain genuinely shuts down, because there’s no good way to respond. It’s almost psychotic enough to be true if he didn’t know for a fact that Jason Todd was beaten, blown up, and buried.
“You should smash it,” is what comes out instead.
Jason sucks his tongue against his teeth. “Nah, man, I’m thinking explosion. Fireworks. Gasoline. Confetti. Really go all in.”
Maybe Tim can arrange for a little accident to befall the glass case. Possibly a lit flame that happens to catch the suit, burning up Batman’s guilt to a pile of ash.
He turns back to the computer, rerunning the interview with non-horny woman again. The words meld together, mushing into a tangent about the environmental impact of glitter. Then his mom is there, telling him to stop cleaning his room because that’s what the help is for. But Tim’s got to pick up all the glitter or the mice will eat it and–
Tim jerks, yanking his head off his folded arms. Shoot, he fell asleep again. Maybe the interview woman can remain uncategorized, and Tim can skip off to bed instead. She’s probably not saying anything important.
Groaning, he reaches out for the mouse, jiggling the computer awake again. The interview is gone, as is every other clip waiting for verification. When he checks the folders, each one is labeled.
The display case remains untouched; the Batcave is empty save for Tim.
Huh, maybe narcolepsy has its positives if he can do work while asleep.
When Bruce opens the door to the back parlor, it’s to find Jason working on a jigsaw puzzle. Someone–probably Dick–dumped it out on the table, and now whenever someone goes through the room, they stop and put a few pieces in. It is, fittingly enough, a puzzle depicting a robin. Definitely Dick.
Jason glances at him, then turns back to the puzzle. “Just going to hover in the door, old man?”
How long has it been since he heard that particular nickname? It’s a knife to his chest, reopening the wound left by his child’s death.
Bruce eases inside, letting the door click shut behind him. No need for someone to hear him talking to the air and interrupt. “Jason,” he breathes.
An eyeroll. “That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”
“I’m so sorry, son.” Even if it's a hallucination, Bruce has to say it. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get there in time.”
“Jeez, B, it was a study abroad. It’s not like I’m dead.”
The blunt phrase, even from a figment of his own mind, still slices sharper than any blade. “You’re…gone,” he manages, strangled.
“Ok, I know the League of Assassins sounds like a bad thing, but Talia’s got me learning all sorts of useful things. I’ve picked up two new languages to conversation level, I help with accounting for resources, and there’s lots of politics to consider.” Jason giggles–giggles!–as he puts another puzzle piece in place. “Talia says I’m an unconventional world traveler.”
Bruce can’t hold back his watery smile at this phantom of a life Jason might have had. Talia is a uniquely odd individual with a sharp mind and sharper wit.
“We don’t need to be a couple,” she told him six months into his time with her, “because we are already married.”
Bruce, reasonably, panicked and spiraled on when he was drugged before she followed it up with, “Beloved, we’ve been married five years! You cried during your father’s speech, don’t you remember?”
She delighted in gaslighting him on the oddest topics. While they didn’t work out as a couple, he still had fond memories of their time together, both in and out of bed.
Talia would have loved Jason. Bruce never got a chance to introduce them. She’d fall in love with the way he smiled, eyes squinting in delight.
Bruce closes his eyes, trying to hold on to the memory of that smile, of the little gap between Jay’s front teeth.
When he opens them again, the room is empty. The adjoining sitting room is empty as well. The puzzle pieces hold no heat, but the eye of the robin bores into his. Someone’s drawn a tear under its eye.
He grips the table too tightly, fighting every instinct to flip it and scatter the puzzle on the floor. It won’t bring Jason back.
Nothing will.
When Dick feels nostalgic—read, tortures himself—he gets a chili dog from Jason’s favorite vendor. Bruce funnels a steady stream of money to the man just so he won’t close and take away one more reminder of his dead kid. Chili dogs were never his favorite—he’s more of an ice cream guy—but he went with Jason a few times.
“I’d kill to have another chili dog,” Jason says, dropping onto the roof ledge next to him.
Slowly, Dick pulls the wrapping further down, stealing half-glances at the apparition on the roof. Jason’s bundled in a too-big sweatshirt and sweatpants; his preferred clothing to wear around the Manor. It made him feel safe, he told Dick once, after being on the streets. Warm.
“They always were your favorite,” he says, finally taking a bite. It’s hot–the chili burns his tongue.
“Pete won’t sell me one. Went white as a sheet, started trying to ward off ghosts or some shit.” Jason doesn’t turn to look at him, shrouded in shadows. Hunched up against the wind like this, he looks small and fragile. Just a little kid killed by trying to follow in his brother’s footsteps.
“You’re—dead,” Dick manages, and then promptly considers throwing himself off the roof for saying it out loud. He’s used to hallucinations as a manifestation of guilt–and what does that say about his mental health, that he’s used to seeing the ghost of his dead baby brother? But it’s the only way he gets to see Jason again and reality can fuck right off.
“Bullshit. I’m sitting right here, aren’t I? Gimme!”
“I’m sorry, Jason.” He makes no move to break the illusion by holding out food. His eyes burn as tears well. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“Why won’t you share, Dickie?” It’s all whining little brother—something he’ll never hear again.
Dick says nothing, unable to voice the truth again. Because a ghost can’t eat. Because you’re not real. Because it’s my fault, my mantle that killed you.
When he looks over, Jason is gone.
He doesn’t finish the chili dog.