Chapter Text
Bruce is dead.
Dick hates him. Tim hates him. Damian hates him.
And Bruce is dead.
Jason feels… adrift. Something… something strange happened to him while he was traveling the multiverse. He doesn’t know if he picked it up on Apokolips or if it’s a weird reaction to the virus but… he wakes up sweating, some kind of power crackling across his skin and it scares him that it doesn’t hurt, that it feels good, feels natural.
He wants to talk about it, needs someone to confide in, maybe someone who could help him figure things out.
But he doesn’t have anyone.
He falls heavily, sitting on the edge of the bed in his safe house, and sighs. He’s too tired to deal with this right now. He just wants to go to bed.
“What do you want, Dick?”
A shadow moves out of the doorway to his bathroom to stand, stiff and upright in the slightly less dark bedroom. His arms are crossed and Jason can only make out a bit of his face in the dimness but he knows the stern set of Nightwing’s brow.
“Bruce is gone—“
“I know.”
“—and I have my hands full with Tim and Damian—“
“And Gotham.”
Dick glares at him. “Yes, and Gotham.”
“So, you’re here to ask me to stay away?”
“I’m here to tell you to stay away.”
Jason snorts. “Because that’s always worked so well.”
Without warning Dick tosses something at him. He snags it from the air and peers at it through the darkness.
“A flash drive?”
“Bruce’s… will,” Dick falters and swallows hard, “At least, the part that pertains to you.”
Jason stares at him while his brain stutters.
“Nice to be included,” he scoffs, hoping his humor covers the truth in his words.
“Watch it first,” Dick grumbles in a way that makes Jason tense. It doesn’t sound like it’s an invitation back to the fam— to the cave.
“I know it’s not really your style to forgive or move on or whatever,” Dick says moving to the window, “And I know you’re really only interested in making our lives miserable. But if you ever cared, even a little, maybe give us a few months before bothering us with your own personal brand of resentful craziness.”
Jason flips him off as he disappears out the window.
Ignoring his exhaustion, he gets up and plugs the drive into his laptop.
It actually is an invitation to the cave. To witness the will. Only Dick, in his infallible wisdom, decided to ignore that part and make him a copy.
Which was probably a smart decision, if he’s honest. If Jason had seen this there… well, what he did would have depended a great deal on what kind of explosives he’d been carrying at the time.
As he watches Bruce tell him, again, how inadequate he has always been, from beyond the grave this time, he tries to harden himself against the way his heart shatters. Tries to bury the hurt with anger and stubbornness.
Despite his best efforts, tears fall onto the keyboard.
We think you should stay here.
Wherever you’re from, it’s clearly not good for you.
He takes a deep breath and grits his teeth together. He’d written off ever being able to go back once the Monitor turned out to be a traitor and he no longer had access to the Bleed.
After you’ve saved the multiverse, come back here.
He knows there are other ways, a speedster, a boom tube. But those have never been options. He doesn’t believe for a moment any of those people would help him. They’re all Dick and Bruce’s friends.
We want you…
Jason shivers at the memory. Closes his eyes and feels warm, gentle fingers on his skin, soft lips on his neck…
When he opens them again, ribbons of purple and teal energy lick across his forearms. He clenches his fists and breathes evenly, trying to get it under control before he burns out another computer.
He’s not wanted here. Fine. He’ll do what Dick asked. He’ll stay away.
Very far away.
* * *
“So… let me just make sure I understand. You’re threatening me… in order to get me to send you to a different universe?”
Jason frowns and holsters his gun.
“Maybe that wasn’t the best way to go about it…”
“Maybe?” Palmer looks at him with a single brow raised.
“I wasn’t actually gonna shoot you if you didn’t help,” Jason says through a sheepish smile and a shrug.
“Oh, I know. If I’d thought you were really planning on shooting me, I’d have shrunk down and kicked your ass already,” the Atom smirks.
Jason opens his mouth to argue, then shuts it without making a sound and runs his fingers through his hair.
“Have a seat, kid,” Palmer sighs, “I’ll make coffee and you can tell me why you want me to send you back to one of my least favorite worlds.”
When he returns, he listens. Jason’s under no illusions that he and Palmer are friends. But maybe, since he spent time in a universe where Bruce had died and Jason became Batman and lived in a universe where Bruce was motivated to eradicate super criminals by Jason’s death… maybe Ray is a little more sympathetic than most.
The older man puts a hand on his shoulder after he’s told him everything. Well, everything relevant. “Are you sure this isn’t just because Bruce is gone? Grief makes people do things they might not do otherwise… and it seemed like you were doing better with the fam—“
“It’s not that. Well, not just that,” he looks Palmer in the eye, “There, in that place I—I… belong…”
There’s a long pause while Palmer considers him.
“Ok.”
Jason starts. “Just like that? No strings?”
“Well… I’m sure you didn’t tell anyone about this, so when someone goes looking for you, I’m telling them exactly where you went.”
Jason snorts. “Sure. Go ahead man. ‘When’ someone goes looking. Deal.”
The look on Palmer’s face is unreadable until he smiles. “You really don’t think they’ll care, do you?”
This time Jason laughs out loud. “Look, no offense doc, but you don’t really know me. Or them for that matter.”
Palmer shrugs. “I suppose you’re right. I guess that means you’re ready to go?”
Jason looks around. All he sees is the Atom’s home, full of memories and pictures of people who care about him.
“Yeah,” he gulps, “Send me back.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“It absolutely is not.”
“It’s close.”
Apollo frowns at Midnighter. “I thought you wanted this too. If you don’t, it’s fine, I’ll drop it but—“
“I do,” M sighs and takes his husband’s hand, “I just don’t want you to keep getting your hopes up. Your plans are getting more and more… um, creative.”
The look that gets him is not a nice one.
“I don’t like it when you treat me like I’m fragile,” the superpowered, invulnerable, sun god objects, “There’s no need to be so delicate with your words. Just say what you have to say, and do it straight.”
“Fuck that. I don’t do anything straight,” Midnighter jokes.
He sighs in surrender when Apollo just scowls at him.
“It’s been months, babe. He’s the one who knows where we are and has the handy universe hoping ride.”
“We have a universe hoping ride too.”
“Yeah, but we don’t know where he is and…”
He trails off, not wanting to finish. Apollo’s pretty invested in this and he doesn’t want to hurt him with what Midnighter thinks is an increasingly obvious truth.
“And what?”
“Andrew. It’s been months, the universe hasn’t ended, and he hasn’t come back,” Midnighter pauses and smiles sadly up at the bigger man, “It’s… possible, even probable that—“
“Dads?”
The stare at each other for beat before answering their coms.
“What is it, Jenny?” Apollo responds.
“There’s a security breach—“
“What?” Midnighter exclaims, incredulous. It’s not everyday they get uninvited guests on the Carrier.
“Port side, two levels below you. The others are on their way but you’re the closest.”
They’ve already started to make their way to the lifts, even as Jenny continues to fill them in.
“Two different types of energy signatures. One there for a moment and gone again. Like a teleport.”
“That’s unlikely,” Midnighter has learned that the word ‘impossible’ is only used by fools.
“And yet.”
They rush out of the lift the moment the doors open and hurry down the corridors. The Carrier is a big place and there many areas that they don’t use much. As his mind subconsciously takes stock of their surroundings and runs scenarios, he remembers the last time he was in this hall. A fierce, pretty boy pinned to the window.
“What about the other signature? A person?”
“Something like that. Carrier is picking up some kind of being but the weird energy is interfering. Angie’s working through it, but you’ll have eyes on it before she finishes.”
“Oh. We have eyes on it alright,” Midnighter mumbles as he and Apollo approach the trespasser.
“Well report then! Jesus.”
“Jenny, call off the others. It’s fine. We’re on our way to the med bay.”
“Fuck that. What’s going on?”
Midnighter heaves a put-upon sigh. “Remember those kids from that other universe…”
“…Yeah…”
“It’s the one with no powers.”
Apollo kneels and gently lifts Jason’s unconscious body off the floor, ignoring the way it glows a pale pink while lines of neon purple and turquoise flicker all over him.
“Careful,” he mutters. They don’t know what the energy is, and M knows Jason didn’t have it the last time they saw him.
They only make it a few steps toward the lift before Apollo freezes. Midnighter watches, eyes wide, as the pink energy around Jason dims and the aura around Apollo brightens.
“Ah-uh… oh my god,” Apollo gasps. Midnighter’s eyes narrow and he inches closer. It doesn’t sound, or look, like a bad thing. More like… ecstasy. But should it turn out to be malicious, he won’t be able to help his husband if he gets infected too.
“Apollo?” He asks cautiously.
“I-I’m good. I’m… spectacular!” When Apollo looks at him, his eyes are glowing brighter than Midnighter has ever seen, his halo almost blinding. “I feel… energized. Like, I’ve been plugged in to a battery. I feel stronger than ever.”
They both glance down at the kid in his arms. Jason is no longer glowing, but the colors still dance across his form.
“What happened to him?” Apollo breathes.
“Only way to find out is to get him to wake up.”
They make their way to the med bay, get the kid tucked into a bed and hooked up to the Carrier’s machines.
Then they wait.
“Hey, M?” Apollo’s silky voice breaks through the comfortable silence after about 20 minutes.
“Hmm?”
Apollo smiles slyly in his periphery. “What was it you were going to say earlier? About how the universe didn’t end and how he’s had months to come back?”
Midnighter scowls at him.
“So… you invited him back?”
“Yes.”
Jenny raises her eyebrows and her lip quirks up around her cigarette. “Wow. He must be a spectacular lay.”
“No need to be vulgar,” Apollo frowns, first at Jenny, then turning it on Midnighter when his simultaneously quipped “He really is” processes.
Jenny laughs, casting her eyes back down to her right where Jason still lies unconscious, heartbeat beeping softly and steadily from the machine’s speakers.
“He’s my age.”
“He’s older. You cheated your way to adulthood,” Midnighter replies, unconcerned.
“I’d wager he’s still closer to my age than yours.”
“You don’t know how old we are.”
“And you don’t really care about the difference, do you?” It’s rhetorical. Apollo knows Jenny doesn’t care about shit like that so long as everyone’s an adult.
“I’m not calling him ‘dad,’” she jokes, eyes bright and amused.
“Of course not,” Midnighter teases, grinning evilly, “You’re too old for that, even if you did use your powers to skip ahead. When your dads bring home another man and you’re a grown up you can call him ‘uncle.’”
Jenny scrunches her face in distaste and flips them off as they laugh. “Ha. Ha.”
Apollo leans forward in his chair, attention returning to the readings on the equipment. Checking, again, to make sure everything is optimal. He feels M’s hand between his shoulder blades and relaxes, just a little, as it starts to rub reassuringly along his spine.
“He’ll be alright,” his husband mutters.
“You don’t know that. We don’t know anything about how he got back here or that energy coming off of him. And it’s been hours.”
Like he overheard them, Jason shifts and starts coughing.
Midnighter is out of his seat almost as quickly as Apollo, a fact that warms his solar powered heart.
The three of them crowd around the bed as the boy in it swallows, licks his dry lips, and finally starts to blink his eyes open.
Apollo cups a hand to his face, letting his internal warmth pulse out, hoping it feels familiar to Jason and can help ground him.
Recognition quickly settles into the boy’s sharp, blue-green eyes as he glances between the three grinning faces above him. He puts his weight on his elbows and moves up the bed a fraction, sitting up just a bit straighter.
His tongue darts out to wet his lips again and he looks up from under thick, dark lashes. Apollo realizes his memory hadn’t done the kid’s looks justice.
“Guess I made it,” Jason says, perhaps a little timidly.
“Guess so,” M smirks back.
“We’re so glad you did,” Apollo adds, letting another wave of heat flood into the boy where their skin meets.
Jason leans into the touch and his eyes flutter closed. Apollo allows himself the indulgence of running his thumb along the kid’s bottom lip. Despite everything he had said to Midnighter, Apollo had indeed been starting to doubt Jason would ever return to them.
The lips part and he’s already accepting the invitation, dipping his thumb in, when Jenny smacks his hand away, leaving a light sting.
“Uh-uh,” she chastises, pointing her finger in his face as Jason’s eyes flicker open again, “Not while I’m here. It’s one thing to joke about sex. But I don’t need to see it.”
Midnighter snorts but squeezes the bit of Jason’s thigh where his hand is resting.
“Uh… you’re Jenny, right?”
Attention snaps back to Jason whose eyes dart from one face to the next before landing back on the woman’s.
“Yeah. Good memory.”
Jason blushes and the memory of that pretty pink color creeping across a broad expanse of bare skin makes Apollo hungry and his blood rush lower. It’s all he can do to stop himself from asking Jenny to leave right now.
“They…” Jason pauses and clears his throat, “Um… talked about you. You’re… their kid, right?”
She looks between Apollo and Midnighter quickly. Her smile is a little more sincere when her gaze returns to Jason.
“I am,” she responds. She moves towards the exit and when she turns back at the doorway, the sincerity has been replaced by playfulness, “While you were napping, I made my position perfectly clear. I will not be calling you ‘dad’.”
Jason chokes on his saliva as Midnighter shakes his head. Apollo just huffs.
“I—fuck… no. Don’t ever call me d—that. Or anything like… Jesus. Jason. Just—just call me Jason.” The light blush from a moment ago has fanned into full scarlet, getting brighter and hotter the longer he stammers.
Apollo doesn’t need a supercomputer in his brain to know that Midnighter is as turned on as he is by Jason embarrassment. But he leaves it to his husband to note for later.
Jenny grins. “Good. Then welcome to our fucked up little family.”
The way Jason stiffens and swallows hard at those words, staring at the door sliding shut as Jenny leaves, breaks Apollo’s heart.
Or rather, it makes him want to break someone else’s. Physically. Not metaphorically. With his bare hands.
That can wait, though. First, they have to mend Jason’s. Then they can take their universe hopping ship and find the kid some closure.