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There is this dream he keeps dreaming. It’s not a nightmare - not in the strict sense of the word - but it’s still unsettling, and when Jason wakes up from it he’s always covered in sweat, heart in his throat, taste of blood between his teeth.
It’s a simple dream: a dark, empty alley, moving shadows on the walls, and the sound of a child crying. He can’t see himself or the child, can’t see what’s making the shadows move, and he only knows he’s in an alley because of the omniscience granted by the dream itself. Nothing happens. He doesn’t move, the child never stops cry, no enemy steps forward. Just seconds, minutes, hours, filled with darkness and tears.
Jason usually dismisses it as quickly as he wakes up, but it’s difficult not to think about it right now, in the cave filled with the heartbroken sobs of a scared child.
He’s never heard Damian crying before, and it’s startling to realize how much it’s affecting him. He feels the anger burn through his body, fueled by the need to hurt whatever caused those tears in the first place, the need to destroy whoever dared to touch a kid that, by bonds he’d never be able to explain to anyone outside this family, belongs to him.
There’s another urge, one more foreign to his nature, and as such, one Jason has more difficulties to acknowledge. It’s the need to comfort. To whisper soft lies of protection and reassurance. The need to promise everything, possible or impossible, just to make the pain and the fear go away.
Luckily enough, Dick’s got that last one covered.
Jason stares at him from across the cave and through the transparent glasses surrounding and isolating the med bay, and yeah, Dick doesn’t need any help there. He’s got Damian cuddled up close to his chest, arms wrapped around him like barriers against whatever evil dared to cross the threshold of the room, and he’s half talking half singing, all the needed lies and promises mixed up with Beatles’ songs and proper lullabies. In their family it doesn’t get any better than that.
He turns towards the computers then: since the kid’s being taken care for, it’s time to do the same for Scarecrow - something Jason’s eager to do with his own hands.
But there are no files piling up on the screens. No maps and no battle plans, just the black Batman logo on the plain glass, and motionless fingers hovering above the keyboard.
“Bruce?”
Weirdly enough, the first thing Jason notices are the deep wrinkles around Batman’s eyes. It takes him a moment to recognize the wetness on his cheeks as tears instead of just a ghastly trick of the blue lights.
Jason’s astonished by the sight of them, and he’s already regretting calling him out because if he has no idea on how to deal with his little brother crying, how on earth is he even supposed to know what to do with the Batman crying?
“He kept calling for his mother all the way back to the cave”, Bruce whispers in the silence filled with childish screams, and Jason really, really wants to tell him to stop. He doesn’t need to hear this, not by a long shot. “And for Dick. He kept calling for Dick, too.”
And Jason could say something really mean in response to that. Something about knowing how much it hurts when you are someone’s second choice in the father and sons game. But he doesn’t have the time or the will, and Bruce’s not throwing accusations of betrayal anyway.
“Dick and Tim, they used to do the same thing. Crying, screaming for their parents, and I could never-”, Bruce’s voice falters as he closes his eyes. “Stephanie and Barbara too, sometimes. But Cassandra never screamed. And you-”
Jason never called for his parents as a kid, he knows. Loved his mother to the moon and back, but never expected any help from her. As for his father, well, no help there at all for anyone. The ones he used to call for - hoped for - were the ones he knew would always come, or try to. Bruce, and Alfred, and maybe Dick, once or twice.
So he tenses, waiting for the blow to land on him, but Bruce catches himself in time. Clears his throat, wipes his eyes, sits straight again. Batman’s back in charge.
“Sorry”, he says, and his voice is back to the usual low grumble. “I’m sorry, Jay. It’s been a long night.”
Jason nods, relaxes a bit, and then, knowing that Bruce will look at anything but him, decides to try his voice.
“Yeah, sucks”, he agrees weakly. “And it’s not over yet.”
It’s Bruce’s turn to nod now, as his fingers quickly start tapping on the keyboard, finally pulling out Crane’s files and all the video feeds he can access on the screens.
Everything it’s back to normal in the blink of an eye, and Jason’s still confused about what just happened. It was too quick, too strange. Too emotional.
Silence seems a good strategy, though. So he follows it.
Even the cries from the med bay are getting quieter now. Lonely sobs and hiccups, tiredness taking over fear, sleep over hallucinations. Dick’s voice, in contrast, is more clear than before, and Jason recognizes the soft humming as verses from Blackbird. He’ll be sure of making fun on both of them later, much later, after throwing Scarecrow’s ass in Arkham and drinking a couple of beers.
For now, he’s content with just watching his brothers while he waits for Batman to find their target.
Dark head against dark head, foreheads pressed together, Dick smiling while probably saying something stupid, Damian choking back tears and trying not to smile back. Brothers, he realizes with a bittersweet pang.
Then a hand lands heavily on his shoulder. Big and warm and solid, the firm squeeze a familiar touch and a much more concrete promise than whispered words. He remembers what that promise meant to him back in the days, what it still means now. Crying children in dark alleys, and shadows always ready to protect them.
“Let’s go”, Batman says.
Without thinking too much about it, Jason reaches out and pats the hand on his shoulder with his own.
“Yeah, okay.”
Bruce gestures for Dick, and Dick raises his head and nods, Damian now almost asleep in his arms. Smiles tiredly at Jason, too.
And, for whatever reason, Jason winks back at him before following Bruce to the Batmobile.