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There was blood on Jason’s neck.
A thin, rust-colored line just below his jaw. Faint, but stark under the lights. Jason hadn’t wiped it. He didn’t seem to know it was there. The cut was small. Shallow. Already scabbing over. Not even worth a bandage—but enough to lodge sharply in Bruce’s mind like a splinter he couldn’t dig out.
Because it had been close. Too close to the beating artery in Jason’s throat. Had the cut been any closer, sliced any deeper, there would have been more blood still, gushing out to pool beneath him, enough to choke on, enough to drown in.
Bruce willed himself to look away, to turn his eyes back to the computer.
The summary of the night’s patrol—a few muggings, clean arrests, no serious injuries—sat on the screen, cursor blinking patiently at the end of the file. He had written it within ten minutes of returning to the cave. Barely enough had happened to warrant more than two paragraphs. His hands hovered over the keyboard anyway, tapping in minor edits, moving things around that didn’t need rearranging. He added a line about patrol rotations. Then deleted it. Then typed it again, slower.
The cave had thinned out almost an hour ago. Tim had gone first, Steph trailing behind him with a running commentary about the snacks she was calling dibs on. Then Cass, silent as always, ghosting past with a nod to Bruce. Damian had followed in a huff over losing a rooftop race, Duke with a hand on his shoulder to settle him. Only Jason and Dick remained, gear mostly stowed, trading lazy quips over a half-latched weapons case.
“Look, it’s a universal rule,” Dick was saying. “You don’t put pineapple on a deep-dish.”
“It wasn’t deep-dish,” Jason said, arms crossed. “It was New York style.”
“Worse. That’s sacrilege.”
Jason shrugged. “I like the contrast.”
Dick groaned. “You’re a monster.”
That earned a short, dry laugh from Jason.
Bruce didn’t look over. He told himself he didn’t need to. He knew the rhythm of their voices better than the cave’s acoustics. Knew the shape of Jason’s laughter—the reluctant kind, the half-smile Jason wore when he was relaxed but pretending not to be—and the way Dick nudged conversations forward without seeming to. It was easy to hear, not just what they were saying but what they weren’t: familiarity without weight. No sharp edges tonight.
There had been a time, not long ago, when Jason wouldn’t have allowed even this much closeness. When his voice here would have meant tension thick as smoke—or worse, nothing at all.
“You could stay,” Dick offered. “We’re putting on a movie upstairs. Probably gonna argue for twenty minutes over what to watch, but that’s half the fun.”
Jason didn’t answer right away. Bruce turned his head slightly, enough to catch Jason’s profile.
“Can’t tonight,” Jason said, almost idly. “Got something to handle.”
Dick didn’t flinch, but Bruce saw the pause. A subtle tightening around the shoulders, a twitch of disappointment hidden behind a loose shrug.
“Suit yourself,” Dick said lightly. “You coming by tomorrow?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s not a no.”
“Don’t get your hopes up.”
Dick held his smile a beat longer, then let it fade gently.
“All right,” he said, easy as ever. “Rain check. You know where the popcorn is if you change your mind.”
Jason’s only reply was a faint tilt of the head. Dick clapped him once on the shoulder, a touch Bruce wasn’t sure Jason welcomed. But Jason didn’t brush it off. That, Bruce thought, counted for something.
Dick passed by the terminal on his way to the elevator, giving Bruce a pointed glance as he went.
“Don’t brood too hard,” he said.
Bruce didn’t dignify that with a response. Dick gave him a mock salute and disappeared upstairs.
The cave fell back into its usual hush, all flickering monitors and echoing silence. Bruce didn’t turn from the screen. He kept still, reading the same line of data again and again.
Jason didn’t leave.
For a moment, he simply stayed where he was, leaning against the weapons rack with one foot up on the lower shelf. Helmet tucked under one arm, the other hand dragging briefly over the back of his neck, fingers brushing just past the bloodied cut without noticing it.
Then he wandered closer, boots quiet against the concrete. Not toward the stairs, not toward his motorcycle. Just closer. He came to a stop a few feet from the console, resting one hip against a table’s edge, stood far enough back that Bruce couldn’t see him without turning.
The hum of the computer servers filled the space between them, low and steady, a mechanical heartbeat in the dark. Bruce tapped one key on the keyboard. Backspace. Re-typed the same sentence.
“You’re still working on that report,” Jason said, “or are you just married to that chair now?”
Bruce didn’t glance over. Kept his voice even, distracted. “Just being thorough. There’s always more to file.”
“You hate fluffing reports.”
“I don’t fluff.”
Jason set the helmet down beside him with a quiet thunk. Bruce could see his reflection on the monitor. The gauntlet on his left arm was partially undone—a sign, maybe, that he hadn’t made up his mind yet about leaving.
“Dick’s gonna talk my ear off if you pull another all-nighter down here,” Jason said after a pause.
“I’ll head up soon.”
“Yeah? That why you’re typing at the speed of molasses?”
Bruce hesitated. He didn’t have an answer he wanted to give. Certainly not the truth—that he was lingering because Jason hadn’t left yet. Because this was one of the rare nights when Jason was actually here, and leaving first felt like ending something Bruce wasn’t ready to let end.
“I wanted to give them space,” he said. “They’re probably still fighting about who gets the middle seat.”
Jason made a soft noise in his throat, half-smiling. Not quite a laugh, but close. “Sounds like them.”
“There’s a new projector in the den,” Bruce said, still not turning. “Good sound. If you head up now, you could probably rig the vote.”
Jason arched a brow. “Was that your version of a subtle invite?”
“Was it subtle?”
Jason said nothing. Bruce let the question hang.
Then he added, “There’s food. Alfred made that popcorn you like. You wouldn’t have to stay long.”
He kept his voice mild. Nothing pressing. Just facts, laid out.
Jason shifted his weight, glancing off toward the shadowed corners of the cave, absently running a hand over his gauntlet.
“Tempting,” he said flatly. “But like I said. Busy.”
“With what?”
“Nunya.”
Bruce had to tamp down a smile. He could play along, he supposed, and let Jason finish the joke. He spun his chair around instead. “Is it for a case?”
“Could be. I’m not sure yet.”
“You didn’t say anything during patrol.”
“Because there’s nothing to say,” Jason said, in that offhand way of his that Bruce knew was anything but offhand. “It’s just some rumors I need to follow up on, that’s all. Might not even be anything.”
Bruce frowned. “You could have done it tonight. Your brothers would have helped.”
Jason rolled his eyes. “Jesus Christ, B. I know how to do my job.”
“If it’s only a simple reconnaissance, I don’t see why you couldn’t have done it with backup.”
Jason snorted. “And have your little birds flying around my territory? No thanks.”
He moved to straighten the collar of his jacket, but as he did, his hand brushed against his neck. He winced and looked down, making a face at the red stains on his fingers.
Bruce felt his heart twist in his chest.
“You’re hurt,” he bit out.
“It’s barely a scratch.”
“If you had been any slower—”
“I wasn’t,” Jason said, and there was an edge to his voice now, a tightness. “Cut me some slack, Bruce. I don’t hear you nagging Dick about how he got an elbow jammed into his nose tonight.”
Because a broken nose isn’t the same as nearly getting your throat slit open, Bruce didn’t say. Because if you had, you would have bled out in front of me, and I wouldn’t have known how to stop it. Because I almost failed you—I did fail you, because it was close, so close, and I saw it, I was there. I was right there, and I still would have been too late. I swore I never would be again, and here I am, failing you.
Things were better between them now. It was nothing like the first time Jason had returned to Gotham, nor those first faltering months of their truce when Bruce hardly ever saw his face under the helmet, when every other conversation ended with bruises and screaming matches over rooftops. These days Jason could stand to be in the same room as Bruce for a minute or two without his siblings acting as a buffer. Sometimes they even spoke about things beyond the masks they wore—small things, like what book Jason was currently reading or the last impromptu trip to space he took with his team. Conversations Bruce cherished and dreaded and longed for, no matter how stilted they could be, because of the little glimpses it allowed him into Jason’s life, at once so close and out of reach. It was nothing short of a miracle that Bruce was allowed even this. He didn’t know what he’d done to earn it, but he was desperately grateful all the same.
Things were better now. Civil. But there was still a gulf between them, an impassable chasm Bruce hadn’t realized he had carved between them until his boy, his baby, his son—his heart that he’d taken out of his chest and given legs, his heart outside of him and out in the world—had been buried in the dirt. They used to talk about anything and everything, but now there was so much they couldn’t give voice to without freefalling into that chasm.
They didn’t talk about Gloria Stanson or Felipe Garzonas. They didn’t talk about his mother. They didn’t talk about Ethiopia.
They didn’t talk about what came after. The gray mornings when crawling out of bed was a torment, when even a mere glance at the empty seat at the dining table was enough to rip the air from his lungs. The long nights when only the anger singing in his veins felt real, felt right, in his deadened haze, when he had to curl his shaking hands into fists, desperate to make something bleed, desperate to follow his son to the grave.
They didn’t talk about Jason’s return. Not about the hows and whys, not about what had happened that night on Crime Alley. The Joker. The gun. The impossible choice. The explosion after.
Bruce didn’t know how long he had been unconscious after the blast. He had clawed his way back to awareness to the sound of the Joker’s wheezing laughter and had found only a puddle of blood, smeared on the ground as though Jason had been hauled away from the wreckage. Bruce had looked for Jason for what felt like hours, unable to decide if the hollow ache in his chest was fear that he wouldn’t find his son or fear that he would.
I looked for you. Sometimes it feels like I haven’t stopped looking.
“Dick is staying over,” Bruce said instead. “I have all night to nag him.”
The corner of Jason’s mouth twitched. It was almost a smile. “As if you would.”
Bruce didn’t know what that meant, and he didn’t know how to ask. Jason, though, didn’t seem to expect a response. He was shifting his weight again, this time looking toward his motorcycle and preparing to put on his helmet.
Panic sliced through Bruce. He opened his mouth, grasping for words, scrabbling for a foothold on the steep slope that was his relationship with his son—
“Jason.”
Jason lowered his helmet. He looked back at Bruce with narrowed eyes. Bruce tried to think of something to say, some excuse to stall Jason, to draw the moment out, but no words came.
Swallowing the shame at his own weakness, Bruce stood up before the silence could stretch on too long. He grabbed one of the wet towels Alfred had laid out and approached Jason, careful not to let his hesitation show.
Jason stiffened, his jaw tight. But he didn’t move away when Bruce gently gripped his chin, tilted his head to the side, and began to wipe away the blood on his throat.
It still startled Bruce to remember how much Jason had grown. Standing this close, there was no mistaking it—Jason was almost as tall as he was and just as broad, healthy and strong and alive. It wasn’t that Bruce had never noticed before, but somehow the knowing didn’t quite sink in when Jason was out of sight. He needed to see Jason in front of him to remember that his boy was grown—that Jason had grown up, and Bruce hadn’t been there to see it happen.
He used to be so small. Small enough that he could huddle under Bruce’s cape to hide from the rain. Bruce could picture it with perfect clarity: Jason and his little head of dark curls, looking up at him with a beaming grin and an unwavering faith he had never deserved.
I’m sorry, he ached to say. For Ethiopia. For everything that came after. For all of it.
Sometimes Bruce could still feel his son in his arms. The phantom weight of him, his skin too cold under the desert sun. It was the last time Bruce got to hold him.
Jason would never allow him that now. It pierced through him like a knife between his ribs, the knowledge that Jason would never let him get so close again. Not after he had broken his promise to protect Jason, to keep him safe, and he’d had to carry that broken promise away from the rubble. Not after he had failed to welcome Jason back as he should have. Not after he had answered Jason’s ultimatum with a panicked, thoughtless, mistimed batarang throw.
Jason could have died that night. For weeks after, Bruce had woken up with Jason’s voice in his ear, clogged with tears as he counted down, and Bruce had been sick with uncertainty, not knowing if Jason had returned from the grave only to be sent back by his own hand. Knowing that he had squandered the gift, the second chance, the miracle he’d begged for all those years ago. Even now, there were nights when Bruce woke up with his throat bone dry, hand reaching up instinctively, waiting to find his fingers dripping with blood.
I looked for you. I’m still looking for you. I’m still there in the rubble, and I don’t know how to find you.
There was very little that Bruce wouldn’t do for his children, but that night Jason had asked him for the one thing he couldn’t give. It was a failure he didn’t know how to remedy—might never remedy—and so all he could do now was breathe through the ache in his chest and wipe away the blood on his son’s skin.
When it was done, Bruce took a step back. Then another. He clenched his hands at his sides, hidden under his cape to keep them from trembling.
“Thanks,” Jason grumbled, not quite looking at Bruce. He had gone even more tense, his shoulders tight like a coiled spring, poised for fight or flight.
“Let me know if you find anything,” Bruce said, his voice stiff with the effort of calm.
Jason nodded. “Sure thing, B.”
Then he put on his helmet, got on his motorcycle, and rode away.
When the rumble of the engine was nothing more than a distant echo, Bruce dropped back down at the computer, boneless, and pressed his face into his hands, swallowing the words still burning in his throat.