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Progress: Complete
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Bruce/Jason
Pairing: Bruce/Jason
Warnings: Description of previous major character death.
Word count: c.3800
Disclaimer: Characters are not mine.
Summary: On the night of Samhain, spirits of the dead are said to walk the Earth again for one night. And Jason knows he's not imagining the voices of the ones he left behind long ago calling his name.
***
“Jason.”
That voice is in his dreams every night, but this is no dream.
Just like Clark will always love Lois, no matter how long he has to live on without her.
Samhain or not, the ones they loved and lost will always haunt them.
“Just let me in, will you?” Jason mumbles from around his cigarette.
Leila eyes the cigarette distastefully, but doesn’t say anything, just steps aside and closes the door behind him. “So what’s wrong?”
“So what did you do?”
“I went to the Fortress. To see Clark. He told me to see you.”
Leila stares at him. “You didn’t talk to Bruce? Did you do anything?”
Jason shakes his head. “What was I supposed to do?”
“Jason, you only have one night. When Samhain ends, the spirits leave the land of the living.” Leila leans forward. “If you can see him again…”
Jason doesn’t have many friends. Leila is one of the few, and even she doesn’t see him often. But she doesn’t have to know him well to recognize that look in his eyes. To see how much it hurts, to understand how afraid he is of that pain.
Leila doesn’t know what else to say to Jason, but it doesn’t matter. Nobody can make his choices for him, even if they tried.
Jason goes straight back to the Cave, bracing himself for a sight he never thought he’d see again. But Bruce isn’t there.
Dick is.
And Jason’s not ready for that.
He’s not ready for the whisper of “Jaybird” that he hasn’t heard in over eighty years.
That sad smile.
“Little brother.”
“Dickie…” Jason’s shaking where he stands. He starts as Tim and Damian suddenly appear. “I. I don’t.”
“Jay.”
“Todd.”
“B-babybird. Damian.”
Jason’s not ready for any of this.
Dick can tell, and he jerks his head in the direction of the staircase that leads up to the Manor. “Bruce is up there. He’s waiting for you.”
When Jason hesitates, Tim says, “We’ll still be here.”
Damian narrows his eyes at him when he still doesn’t move. “Go, Todd.”
Bruce is waiting there in the study for him. “It’s the same. It’s all the same.”
“I couldn’t change it. I couldn’t change any of it.”
“But you don’t come up here very often.”
Jason shakes his head and smiles a little. “You haven’t changed either.”
“Jason. Have you been. Are you…alright?”
“No.” Jason wonders if anyone else could see Bruce and the others. If Clark can hear Bruce speaking now, or if it just seems like Jason is talking to himself.
He’s exactly the same.
And God, Jason has missed him.
Bruce frowns when he lights up. “You’ve started smoking again.”
“It’s not as if it’s gonna kill me, B,” Jason says bitterly, taking a long drag.
“It’s like you’re thirteen again,” Bruce murmurs.
“That goes for both of us,” Jason comments. At Bruce’s confused look, Jason gestures towards him. “You look exactly like you did when I was thirteen.”
Jason follows when Bruce motions to him to, trying to savour the sight of the brother he never got to again. He’s not sure whether what was worse - getting there too late, having to watch his love die, or not being there at all.
When Jason focuses on Tim again, the smile has slipped away, and his voice is quiet and hesitant. “Did…did I save them?”
“Yes.” Jason nods vehemently, and Tim sighs in relief.
“Good. Good…is Kon…?”
“He makes a good Superman.”
“I knew he would.” Tim smiles, and then he’s gone.
Jason is left standing alone in the room, and he only has the time to stub out his cigarette before Damian enters the room.
“He’s…”
“Gone.” Damian nods.
“Is that…”
Damian nods again. “I think that this is the last time. I think we will not come back again.”
When Jason looks Damian, he wonders if this is how Bruce felt when Jason died. This crushing guilt. The knowledge that if he had have done something differently he might have saved someone he loved bearing down on him.
“You’ve been there.” Damian’s eyes are suddenly completely serious and his mouth is set in a hard line.
“Yeah,” Jason replies.
“And you remember it.”
Jason lights another cigarette. He’s never forgotten it. And he knows Damian hasn’t either.
“There’s nothing. And that’s not gonna change, little demon.”
Damian just nods. He seems almost reconciled with that fact, but Jason can see the fear. An expression that Jason was never used to seeing on his youngest brother’s face. Damian was never afraid of death - not until he experienced it. Like Jason.
His words make Jason think. Remembers looks and comments and it starts to make sense. When Tim had died, he’d been too wrapped up in his and Bruce’s own grief to really notice that it had shattered Damian too.
“He did care, in the end.” Jason has never been good at this, but he has to try anyway. And he knows Damian understands.
“Yes.” Damian pauses. “You and Father are being fools again.”
“What are you talking about?”
Damian snorts. “As if you do not know. Why are you wasting the time that you have?”
Jason shakes his head. “You don’t get it, Damian.”
“I understand that you are irrational.” Damian narrows his eyes. “Do not make a mistake.”
“Little brother!”
Dick’s voice comes from behind just as Damian disappears, and Jason tries to ignore the issue that Damian spoke of while he still can.
“Sadder than you’d looked in a long time.”
Jason shrugs. “You died first. You didn’t get the chance to see me sad.”
He regrets his careless reply immediately. He’s forgotten what it’s like to have to hold back for someone else’s sake. He only ever did that with his family - and even then, not very often.
And just like that, Dick’s expression turns sad again. Jason hates seeing him like that. “Wish I could give you a hug.”
“You can’t…touch?”
Dick shakes his head. “We’re just…spirits, Jay. We don’t have physical forms here. And I don’t have any time left.”
“Dick, you—”
“I’ve missed you, little brother. Thanks for everything.”
Jason’s left cursing everything, because it wasn’t worth it. Dick had saved that woman’s life. But he could only do that once, and three nights later the gang who were after her left her dead in the street.
Except they don’t get to start again this time. This is where they end.
Jason finds Bruce standing in the middle of the Cave, taking everything in with an air of regret.
“I had hoped that things would be…different.” A pause. “How long has it been?”
“Fifty-one years since you left me.”
Bruce’s winces at the implication of his last few words. “Jason…are you all right?”
Jason hasn’t been all right for fifty-one years. He tells Bruce as much, with the open honesty that they learned from each other. The kind of honesty that they never used with anyone else. That Jason hasn’t used since Bruce died.
“There’s nothing there, Jay. You know that.”
“I don’t care.” Jason looks away. “There’s nothing here, either.”
“So why do you stay in Gotham?”
“Because I can’t do anything else, Bruce!” Jason gestures around the Cave. “I don’t know anything else. And even if I did, I wouldn’t want it. This is the only thing that means something anymore.” He shakes his head determinedly. “There’s nobody else, Bruce, and I won’t leave Gotham to be overrun.”
Bruce smiles for the first time - only slightly, because he knows the sentiment is a painful one. “Thank you.”
Jason’s remaining anger fades at Bruce’s sincere gratitude. Now he just feels lost.
It always happens. Just as he thinks he’s gotten his ground, he loses his footing again.
When Bruce took him off the streets, he thought he’d finally found a place in Wayne Manor with his new little family, and then he lost it all. When he came back to life, he thought maybe he had some meaning again, until he realized that he still loved Bruce. When he thought he was finally fitting in with his considerably larger family, he found out that he wasn’t aging. When he believed he had come to terms with that, his family started dying around him.
Everyone he loved.
And now he has to say goodbye again.
“Alfred’s not here,” Jason suddenly realizes.
“Perhaps it’s because he had a peaceful death,” Bruce suggests.
“He died of a heart attack. Alone. You probably had a more peaceful death.”
Bruce shakes his head. “He wasn’t leaving the person he loved the most of all alone when he went.”
Then why didn’t you stay?
The unspoken question hangs in the air for a moment.
“Jason, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.”
“You’re different. I haven’t seen you this angry in a long time.”
“Well, fifty years of being alone can do that to a guy, B.” Jason sighs. “I saw Clark today.”
Bruce looks almost hopeful at news of his best friend. “How is he?”
“He hides up in his Fortress, unable to face the world because everyone he loves was gone. You saw what he was like after Lois died. For years after she was gone, you saw what happened to him. It only got worse after you went.” Jason smiles a little. “He loved you, too.”
“And I him.”
“I know.” Tilting his head, Jason says, “You loved a lot of people. More than you pretended you did.”
“I loved them all. And you. You in a different way than anyone else.”
“There were others, Bruce. Talia…Selina…”
“And there never will be.”
Bruce knows he should probably say something about it being okay for Jason to have other loves in his life, but he can’t bring himself to. And Jason doesn’t really mind. He knows there won’t ever be anyone else. That even though they’ll never meet again, he will always love Bruce.
The chiming of the grandfather clock upstairs can be heard faintly in the Cave, and suddenly they realize that it is Bruce’s time again.
They always do this. Ever since the first time – the first blissfully clueless time, when Jason was still just a giddy Robin in love – they’ve both been painfully aware that it all has to end eventually. But they’ve never exactly had a normal relationship, and it always starts the same.
“I know, Jay.” Bruce’s low, soothing voice helps a little, hushing Jason gently. “I love you. Don’t forget.”
“I could never,” Jason swears, but the last echoes of the final chime are fading, and Bruce is gone.
***
Jason.
He shakes his head, just keeps walking.
Jason.
Makes sure to keep an even pace.
Jason.
There’s nothing wrong.
Jason…Jason…Jason.
Maybe the Lazarus Pit has finally driven him crazy.
Jason!
He turns around, not sure what he’s expecting to see. Whether it’s a tall figure with the cowl and cape, a scowl twisting his lips, or the charming playboy with a fake smile plastered on. Or even the old man, silver haired, the splitting image of what Thomas Wayne would have looked like if he’d lived to that age.
But he sees none of those things. There’s nothing.
Jason.
Except the voice.
He has to go home, back to the Cave, to get ready for patrol tonight. It’s Halloween; too many people will be running wild. A lot has changed in ninety years, but people still get too drunk on holidays and, as a consequence, too violent. People, if nothing else, are consistent.
Everyone assumes that the Red Hood, like Robin, are a series of different people. They don’t know that it’s just Jason. Still Jason. And it’s been Jason for almost the past century.
The voice only gets louder when he gets home. And others join it.
After so long, he would have thought that he’d forgotten some things. But his dreams are so vivid and come so often that it’s impossible to forget.
He can’t forget any of it. How he ran into that alleyway too late, how Dick was already lying there, blood spilling onto the cement, and the civilian that he had saved trying to comfort a hysterical Tim. How he walked into the kitchen to find Alfred’s heart stopped and rushed him to the hospital only to be told that he was long gone. How he was told that Tim’s last words before he sacrificed himself to save his teammates were “I won’t lose anyone else”. How he watched that building explode while Damian was still inside.
He relives these failures every single night.
But most of all, he can’t forget the years when he stayed by Bruce’s side, watching his life slip away day by day, while Jason stayed at twenty-six.
It was the Lazarus pit, they were sure. But there was no explanation for why after that one resurrection, Jason stopped aging, and why it wasn’t until years afterward that it happened. Not even Ra’s had answers.
The Lazarus pit never had answers. And both Jason and Bruce agreed that it wasn’t an answer for Bruce, either. But Jason still hadn’t wanted to give up. There must be something, something, that would let them stay together. Anything.
But Bruce only said, “It’s my time, Jay.”
Jason wanted to cry and shout and scream. When’s it my time?
Bruce didn’t die how everyone expected him to. He wasn’t murdered by the Joker or Two-Face. Didn’t die throwing himself in front of a hail of bullets to save someone. He survived for his hair to turn grey, for the colour in his eyes to fade. He survived long enough to die an old man, with Jason by his side.
Jason will never forget that.
He knows the difference between dreams and reality, but what greets him when he enters the Cave is neither.
“Jason.”
That voice is in his dreams every night, but this is no dream.
Jason ignores what he’s seeing and goes straight to the teleporter and selects a destination. He knows it’s rude to show up unannounced, but Clark’s best friend was Bruce. He should be used to it.
Holding a hand up to shield his eyes from the glaring sun, Jason scans the Kansas farmyard for who he’s looking for. The man in question walks out of the barn, holding a bales stacked on top of each other in one hand.
“Clark.” Jason nods at him. “Still here?”
“Where else would I be?”
Jason shrugs. “You could be out there somewhere.”
“I don’t want to leave my home.” The grey streak in Clark’s hair is wider than Jason remembers. It’s been a long time since he visited.
Shaking his head, Jason says, “This isn’t your home, Clark.”
“It is now.” Clark narrows his eyes. “Why are you here, Jason? You rarely ever leave Gotham.”
Their conversations are always brief and brusque. They’ve never really been close, not like Clark and Dick were. And time has changed Clark. Losing his parents, Bruce, Lois, everyone, has changed him. Living on so long while everyone around him dies has changed him.
Like it’s changed Jason.
“I heard him, Clark.” Jason closes his eyes. “He spoke to me. And I saw him. He was there, in the Cave. Looking like he did when I was thirteen.”
When he opens his eyes again, the farmyard hologram is gone, and they’re standing in the Fortress.
“Bruce?”
Jason nods. “It was him, Clark. And I know I…it could be the pit…but. I know it was him.”
Clark regards him silently, thoughtfully for a minute. If Jason thinks it’s Bruce…it is. He knows. “Go see Leila.”
“You think she can help?”
“It’s Samhain,” Clark says simply. “She’s the daughter of Zatanna Zatara and John Constantine. I’m sure she can shed some light on the situation.”
Jason nods, then steps back towards the teleporter. “Thanks, Clark,” and he’s gone.
Clark slumps against the wall. There’s a reason he doesn’t like seeing Jason very often. Kon comes and visits every few weeks, but he doesn’t see anyone else much. Like Jason, most others bring back too many memories. Jason reminds him of some of the most powerful memories.
It’s obvious from the look in his eyes, the beat of his heart, the sound of his voice. That Jason is still in love with Bruce, and always will be, no matter how long he’s gone.
Just like Clark will always love Lois, no matter how long he has to live on without her.
Samhain or not, the ones they loved and lost will always haunt them.
Jason teleports straight to San Francisco. Leila’s taking a break from touring - a short-lived one, no doubt, for like her mother, she can hardly bear to be away from the stage - so it’s just luck that she’s at home when Jason knocks on her door.
“Jason?” Leila starts; it’s unusual for Jason to even leave Gotham, let alone come visit her. “Why are you here?”
“Just let me in, will you?” Jason mumbles from around his cigarette.
Leila eyes the cigarette distastefully, but doesn’t say anything, just steps aside and closes the door behind him. “So what’s wrong?”
Jason stays silent until they’re sitting in Leila’s kitchen, only blows smoke towards the ceiling. She waits for him to speak, and he does eventually. “It’s…Samhain, right?” Leila nods. “So what exactly does that mean?”
“Well, it was a Gaelic harvest festival held at the beginning of winter. It’s a very significant time, but also potentially dangerous. The spirits come from under the earth to walk among humans.” Leila’s eyes widen as she realizes why Jason is asking. “Has something…what happened, Jason?”
Jason stands abruptly and starts to pace around the room as he talks. “Bruce was speaking to me. I could hear his voice, I was hearing it all night. I heard the others too. And he…Bruce, was there, in the Cave, when I got back. He was right there, Leila, right in front of me.”
“So what did you do?”
“I went to the Fortress. To see Clark. He told me to see you.”
Leila stares at him. “You didn’t talk to Bruce? Did you do anything?”
Jason shakes his head. “What was I supposed to do?”
“Jason, you only have one night. When Samhain ends, the spirits leave the land of the living.” Leila leans forward. “If you can see him again…”
“You don’t get it!” Jason stops pacing in front of the table, slamming a fist down onto the wood. “We had our time. And it wasn’t enough. But he’s gone. And if it really is him. If I see him again. I don’t think I can say goodbye again, Leila.”
Jason doesn’t have many friends. Leila is one of the few, and even she doesn’t see him often. But she doesn’t have to know him well to recognize that look in his eyes. To see how much it hurts, to understand how afraid he is of that pain.
Anyone could see it. The one thing that’s impossible for Jason to hide.
Leila doesn’t know what else to say to Jason, but it doesn’t matter. Nobody can make his choices for him, even if they tried.
Jason goes straight back to the Cave, bracing himself for a sight he never thought he’d see again. But Bruce isn’t there.
Dick is.
And Jason’s not ready for that.
He’s not ready for the whisper of “Jaybird” that he hasn’t heard in over eighty years.
That sad smile.
“Little brother.”
“Dickie…” Jason’s shaking where he stands. He starts as Tim and Damian suddenly appear. “I. I don’t.”
“Jay.”
“Todd.”
“B-babybird. Damian.”
Jason’s not ready for any of this.
Dick can tell, and he jerks his head in the direction of the staircase that leads up to the Manor. “Bruce is up there. He’s waiting for you.”
When Jason hesitates, Tim says, “We’ll still be here.”
Damian narrows his eyes at him when he still doesn’t move. “Go, Todd.”
Bruce is waiting there in the study for him. “It’s the same. It’s all the same.”
“I couldn’t change it. I couldn’t change any of it.”
“But you don’t come up here very often.”
Jason shakes his head and smiles a little. “You haven’t changed either.”
“Jason. Have you been. Are you…alright?”
“No.” Jason wonders if anyone else could see Bruce and the others. If Clark can hear Bruce speaking now, or if it just seems like Jason is talking to himself.
“Is…that why you don’t come up here anymore?” Bruce is still as emotionally awkward as ever.
He’s exactly the same.
And God, Jason has missed him.
Bruce frowns when he lights up. “You’ve started smoking again.”
“It’s not as if it’s gonna kill me, B,” Jason says bitterly, taking a long drag.
“It’s like you’re thirteen again,” Bruce murmurs.
“That goes for both of us,” Jason comments. At Bruce’s confused look, Jason gestures towards him. “You look exactly like you did when I was thirteen.”
“Oh.” Bruce shifts. “Perhaps we should go back downstairs. The others will want to see you.”
Jason nods. They don’t know what to say to each other, when Jason’s keeping Bruce at arm’s length, so they just walk back down to the Cave together in silence. Jason blows smoke and his boots scuff on the stone, but Bruce’s footsteps make no sound and don’t disturb the dust.
Tim steps forward when Bruce and Jason enter, tilting his head a little and heading into one of the side rooms in the Cave, where the others won’t overhear.
Jason follows when Bruce motions to him to, trying to savour the sight of the brother he never got to again. He’s not sure whether what was worse - getting there too late, having to watch his love die, or not being there at all.
“I wish I had seen you again,” Tim says, not sounding angry or accusatory, only wistful.
“Me too.” It’s so hard to be here, seeing Tim like this. He looks younger than he did the last time Jason saw him. Some of the lines in his face are gone, and—he just looks peaceful.
“I never said it,” Jason blurts out, all of a sudden. “I’m sorry. I never apologized for…everything I did. At the start.”
“You never needed to.” Tim smiles. “But thank you. I’m sorry too.”
Jason has wanted to do this for years. He and Tim had stopped fighting seriously long before Tim died, and they’d become almost affectionate with each other, but…there was always some lingering guilt for not reconciling properly.
When Jason focuses on Tim again, the smile has slipped away, and his voice is quiet and hesitant. “Did…did I save them?”
“Yes.” Jason nods vehemently, and Tim sighs in relief.
“Good. Good…is Kon…?”
“He makes a good Superman.”
“I knew he would.” Tim smiles, and then he’s gone.
Jason is left standing alone in the room, and he only has the time to stub out his cigarette before Damian enters the room.
“He’s…”
“Gone.” Damian nods.
“Is that…”
Damian nods again. “I think that this is the last time. I think we will not come back again.”
When Jason looks Damian, he wonders if this is how Bruce felt when Jason died. This crushing guilt. The knowledge that if he had have done something differently he might have saved someone he loved bearing down on him.
And seeing that person one last time, completely aware that this will be the last time.
“Don’t look like that, Todd.”
“What?”
Damian rolls his eyes. “That look on your face. You look like Grayson. It doesn’t suit you.”
Jason smiles wryly. “Right, little demon.”
“You’ve been there.” Damian’s eyes are suddenly completely serious and his mouth is set in a hard line.
“Yeah,” Jason replies.
“And you remember it.”
Jason lights another cigarette. He’s never forgotten it. And he knows Damian hasn’t either.
“There’s nothing. And that’s not gonna change, little demon.”
Damian just nods. He seems almost reconciled with that fact, but Jason can see the fear. An expression that Jason was never used to seeing on his youngest brother’s face. Damian was never afraid of death - not until he experienced it. Like Jason.
Apologizing to Damian is harder than it was with Tim. It won’t make the guilt go away. It may only make it worse. But when he finally manages it, Damian simply shakes his head.
“Do not say sorry. There is no need. If there is something I regret. Then it is my fault.”
His words make Jason think. Remembers looks and comments and it starts to make sense. When Tim had died, he’d been too wrapped up in his and Bruce’s own grief to really notice that it had shattered Damian too.
“He did care, in the end.” Jason has never been good at this, but he has to try anyway. And he knows Damian understands.
“Yes.” Damian pauses. “You and Father are being fools again.”
“What are you talking about?”
Damian snorts. “As if you do not know. Why are you wasting the time that you have?”
Jason shakes his head. “You don’t get it, Damian.”
“I understand that you are irrational.” Damian narrows his eyes. “Do not make a mistake.”
“Little brother!”
Dick’s voice comes from behind just as Damian disappears, and Jason tries to ignore the issue that Damian spoke of while he still can.
“It’s good to see you, little brother.”
“You too, Dickie.”
“You look sad, Jay.”
Funny. Jason was just thinking the same thing about Dick. The expression didn’t suit the older man. He hadn’t realized how much he misses the joyful way Dick held himself, or his blinding smile when he was flying.
“Sadder than you’d looked in a long time.”
Jason shrugs. “You died first. You didn’t get the chance to see me sad.”
He regrets his careless reply immediately. He’s forgotten what it’s like to have to hold back for someone else’s sake. He only ever did that with his family - and even then, not very often.
“Jay, I’m so sorry,” Dick says, looking stricken.
“It’s not your fault.” Jason shakes his head. “Everyone else died, too.”
“Did that woman die? The one I tried to save?”
“You did save her, Dick.”
At that, Dick finally smiles. “Then it was worth it.”
“Yes.”
And just like that, Dick’s expression turns sad again. Jason hates seeing him like that. “Wish I could give you a hug.”
“You can’t…touch?”
Dick shakes his head. “We’re just…spirits, Jay. We don’t have physical forms here. And I don’t have any time left.”
“Dick, you—”
“I’ve missed you, little brother. Thanks for everything.”
Jason’s left cursing everything, because it wasn’t worth it. Dick had saved that woman’s life. But he could only do that once, and three nights later the gang who were after her left her dead in the street.
It’s never been worth it. To Jason - losing his family, another family was not worth it. That woman wasn’t worth it, nor were Tim’s friends in the Titans, or even Jason himself, who might have died in a warehouse for the second time if Damian hadn’t gotten there first.
Bruce doesn’t come in like the others did, and Jason has to wonder why every time they start again, it has to start like this. With stubborn denial and clumsy interaction until they fall back into their pattern.
Except they don’t get to start again this time. This is where they end.
Jason finds Bruce standing in the middle of the Cave, taking everything in with an air of regret.
“I had hoped that things would be…different.” A pause. “How long has it been?”
“Fifty-one years since you left me.”
Bruce’s winces at the implication of his last few words. “Jason…are you all right?”
Jason hasn’t been all right for fifty-one years. He tells Bruce as much, with the open honesty that they learned from each other. The kind of honesty that they never used with anyone else. That Jason hasn’t used since Bruce died.
“They told me what you were like. Dick and Tim and Alfred, they said that you lost it when I died. That’s why Tim became Robin in the first place, right? Because you were out of control. And you weren’t all right until long after I came back, Bruce; I know you weren’t.”
“Of course I wasn’t, Jay. You died.”
“So did you.” Jason gives Bruce a long, hard look. “And you’re not coming back again.”
“If I could stay, Jason…”
“You left me. We could have found a way.”
“A Lazarus pit was not the answer.” Bruce shakes his head. “We have no idea what it could do…”
“We could have tried!” Jason’s hands are clenched into fists, his knuckles white. “But you didn’t want to. You were fine with leaving me. And if I could go with you now, I would.”
“There’s nothing there, Jay. You know that.”
“I don’t care.” Jason looks away. “There’s nothing here, either.”
“So why do you stay in Gotham?”
“Because I can’t do anything else, Bruce!” Jason gestures around the Cave. “I don’t know anything else. And even if I did, I wouldn’t want it. This is the only thing that means something anymore.” He shakes his head determinedly. “There’s nobody else, Bruce, and I won’t leave Gotham to be overrun.”
Bruce smiles for the first time - only slightly, because he knows the sentiment is a painful one. “Thank you.”
Jason’s remaining anger fades at Bruce’s sincere gratitude. Now he just feels lost.
It always happens. Just as he thinks he’s gotten his ground, he loses his footing again.
When Bruce took him off the streets, he thought he’d finally found a place in Wayne Manor with his new little family, and then he lost it all. When he came back to life, he thought maybe he had some meaning again, until he realized that he still loved Bruce. When he thought he was finally fitting in with his considerably larger family, he found out that he wasn’t aging. When he believed he had come to terms with that, his family started dying around him.
Everyone he loved.
And now he has to say goodbye again.
“Alfred’s not here,” Jason suddenly realizes.
“Perhaps it’s because he had a peaceful death,” Bruce suggests.
“He died of a heart attack. Alone. You probably had a more peaceful death.”
Bruce shakes his head. “He wasn’t leaving the person he loved the most of all alone when he went.”
Then why didn’t you stay?
The unspoken question hangs in the air for a moment.
“Jason, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.”
“You’re different. I haven’t seen you this angry in a long time.”
“Well, fifty years of being alone can do that to a guy, B.” Jason sighs. “I saw Clark today.”
Bruce looks almost hopeful at news of his best friend. “How is he?”
“He hides up in his Fortress, unable to face the world because everyone he loves was gone. You saw what he was like after Lois died. For years after she was gone, you saw what happened to him. It only got worse after you went.” Jason smiles a little. “He loved you, too.”
“And I him.”
“I know.” Tilting his head, Jason says, “You loved a lot of people. More than you pretended you did.”
“I loved them all. And you. You in a different way than anyone else.”
“There were others, Bruce. Talia…Selina…”
“It still wasn’t the same.” The intensity of Bruce’s eyes almost scares Jason, but he can’t look away. The fear isn’t from the look – it’s from the thought of staying in a place where he’ll never see that blue again.
“There was nobody else for me.” Jason almost reaches out to touch him, but draws his hand back when he remembers. Just a spirit. Bruce watches the action longingly.
They both want it. Want to feel each others’ warmth again. They remember the way they used to touch – Bruce’s strong arms around Jason after a rough patrol, Jason’s fingers tracing the lines on Bruce’s face.
“Ever?”
“And there never will be.”
Bruce knows he should probably say something about it being okay for Jason to have other loves in his life, but he can’t bring himself to. And Jason doesn’t really mind. He knows there won’t ever be anyone else. That even though they’ll never meet again, he will always love Bruce.
As much as he hates being left behind in a world that’s too hard to face without the ones he loves, Jason is still terrified of the nothingness he knows is death. And yet he’d follow Bruce back there without a thought. But even though they wouldn’t really be together…
It would be as close as they ever would be again.
The chiming of the grandfather clock upstairs can be heard faintly in the Cave, and suddenly they realize that it is Bruce’s time again.
They always do this. Ever since the first time – the first blissfully clueless time, when Jason was still just a giddy Robin in love – they’ve both been painfully aware that it all has to end eventually. But they’ve never exactly had a normal relationship, and it always starts the same.
It ends differently every time, though.
Now Jason is desperate, pleading though he knows it’s useless, but begging nonetheless. “Bruce, I love you. Please. Please, don’t leave me again. I love you. Always have and always will. I love you.”
“I know, Jay.” Bruce’s low, soothing voice helps a little, hushing Jason gently. “I love you. Don’t forget.”
“I could never,” Jason swears, but the last echoes of the final chime are fading, and Bruce is gone.
