Chapter Text
Bruce sat down heavily at his desk, the solid thud of the front door of the manor reverberating through his mind, as he swirled some very expensive alcohol in a crystal tumbler. He couldn't believe he'd just asked—ordered—Alfred to leave, but then, he couldn't believe that Alfred, steady, dependable Alfred, had kept insisting on those wild tales, either. At first, Bruce had thought Dick and Alfred were just playing a silly joke, but after they had adamantly continued with it, far past the point of humor...
Initially, when Dick had shown him those strange bat shaped knives, Bruce had thought they were just some funny metal Halloween decorations. It wasn't until Dick threw one and it sank several inches into the wall that he'd realized they were actually dangerously sharp. Bruce had been terrified that his son would cut his fingers off, but of course Dick, who'd grown up around circus knife throwers, hadn't been the least bit bothered about casually handling them. After that, every day had been filled with the shock of strange equipment and more risky stunts. Bruce knew that Dick sometimes went through periods of sharp wistfulness where he fiercely missed the circus, so he'd tried to be a good audience, but the crazy stories Dick told about how Bruce himself dressed up as a bat and jumped across rooftops were just too much for him to play along with, especially when Dick tried to get him to actually try it himself.
Dick and Alfred had even cut a door sized hole in the wall of Bruce's study and tried to force him into it! Just cutting a huge opening in an wall—that had to be structurally unsafe, but they apparently had no sense of restraint when it came to this prank. He'd asked them a little desperately to stop. It just wasn't funny, if it had ever been, and it was getting increasingly dangerous. Neither Alfred nor Dick had listened to him, though. They had in fact doubled down and insisted that every insane thing they'd told him was absolutely true.
Was there something wrong with Bruce? Had he done something to cause two people he thought of as family to wage a senseless gas lighting campaign against him? Even if that were true, why try to convince him of the blatantly ridiculous lie that he was a master detective and crime fighter who dressed up as a bat, of all things?
Dick had stormed out when Bruce had refused to play along. Alfred had stuck around longer, but only to continue trying to convince him, again and again. Finally, Bruce could not tolerate the farce any longer and had told him to either renounce the ridiculous Batman story or leave before Bruce entirely lost his temper. Alfred had replied that he could never renounce Batman and had swiftly departed after packing his things. With Alfred gone, though, Wayne Manor was far too quiet. Tim hadn't spoken to him in nearly a month, despite Bruce's best attempts to contact him on his “vacation” abroad with his friends. That meant he was entirely alone with his own thoughts, which was never a good state to be in. He kept feeling like there was something more he should be doing, and yet, there was nothing he needed to do.
How had he used to fill all his time? A little bit of charity work, a little business, some rare moments with his family... Was that why Dick and Alfred had been making up wild tales? Had they been trying to tell him that he spent so little time with them that they didn't know him at all? That he might as well make up a fantastic secret, if he was going to fruitlessly continue trying to justify how absent he'd been in their lives? Maybe they were right. Maybe Bruce deserved everything they'd done. Tim obviously didn't want to talk to him, either.
When he'd been young, Bruce could remember vowing that he wouldn't let the sort of crime that had stolen his parents from him continue unchecked, that he would bring justice to Gotham, make the world better. Instead, what had he done? Flirted with socialites and grabbed another champagne glass every time a waiter walked by? Another two glasses? Made plans and then failed to show up for no discernible reason? Said vaguely nice things at GCPD fundraising events and expected that donating a little money to them and to a free clinic in Crime Alley would solve all of Gotham's problems?
He'd gone to Washington D.C. after the earthquake and completely failed to convince the federal government to help Gotham. Lex Luthor was a snake, yet he'd managed to do more for the city than Bruce could. Leslie had left her clinic behind, and his family clearly hated him. Tim wouldn't even reply to his texts or emails or answer any of his calls. Dick and Alfred claimed he was fine, just “unavailable”, but what teenager was that “unavailable” on vacation unless he wanted to be?
As for his last son—poor Jason. Poor dearly missed Jason, dead long before his time. Why hadn't Bruce stayed around to keep an eye on him in a foreign, famine ravaged country? Of course he could understand giving Jason and Sheila a little privacy to reconnect, but if he'd just stayed around the warehouse, he might have seen the fire, might have gotten Jason out in time. Instead, he'd just abandoned his child to what turned out to be his death, because he'd randomly decided to go sightseeing in Danakil Desert.
He was a failure. A complete and utter failure—as a son and as a father. Unable to stand being alone with his thoughts any longer, Bruce slammed the rest of his drink back and stood up, steadying himself with a hand on his desk as he suddenly felt dizzy. Strange—he could remember grabbing glass after glass of alcohol at basically every social occasion he attended, and it had never affected him much, even if he needed to drive right afterward. Maybe he should have a glass of water before he headed for his car, though. A drive with the window down would help him clear his head.
Not even getting into his newest, flashiest car could lift Bruce's mood, unfortunately. Somehow, even the bright color bothered him, although he couldn't understand why. It wasn't like he'd ever wanted a black car before. He started driving aimlessly, humming a wordless song to himself, only stopping when he realized the song was a dirge. At that point, he decided that maybe pulling over and actually physically moving around would do more to get him out of the depressing state of mind he was in.
He'd gone a block before it really sunk in how dark the street was. Too many streetlights were out, and the pavement was cracked and uneven. Without even thinking, he'd driven to Crime Alley, right by the old theater. Since he was there, though, he might as well pay his respects at the last place he'd ever seen his parents alive.
He stopped in the same spot he'd stood all those years ago, just staring into the darkness of the alley. “You'd be ashamed of me, wouldn't you? Your deaths meant something. They should have meant something, but what have I done about it? A few philanthropic pursuits?” Bruce shook his head, disgusted. None of what he'd done was enough to honor the worth of his parents' lost lives.
“You taught me to be a good person, but I've spent my life drinking and chasing women that I never made time for once we were together. I took in three amazingly talented boys, and I've failed all of them. I'm so sorry, Mother, Father. I swear to you, I'll change. From now on, I swear to you, I'll do better.”
But of course, he could only hope to do better for Dick and Tim. Poor Jason would never get to see him turn his life around. Struck with a suddenly restless urge, Bruce turned and headed down the street again, not toward his car, but toward the apartment building where Jason had once lived with Catherine Todd. The place was in even worse repair than it must have been back when Jason had lived there. The earthquake had hit Gotham hard, and the poor areas often were the slowest to rebuild. There was a condemned notice on the front door, and Bruce stared up at one dark, shattered window, feeling an intense grief well up inside his heart.
“I'm sorry, Jay. I failed you as a father, and I'll never forgive myself for that. You were,” Bruce began, but he had to pause to take a wet breath and try to blink the tears out of his eyes, “you were the brightest thing in my life. I used to look forward to seeing your smile more than anything. If only I'd been there for you more often. All I can do now is regret all the time I wasted, when I could have been spending it with you.”
Bruce shook his head. “If only I'd stayed close in Ethiopia, maybe I'd have gotten the chance to make everything up to you. Thinking 'if only' doesn't fix anything, though. All I can do is promise that I've realized how very wrong I was, how misguided my priorities were. I know it's too late to fix anything between us, but I promise you, I'll do my best to treasure and honor the far too brief time we had together. I'll learn from it, so I never make those mistakes again.”
Wiping his eyes on one shirt sleeve, Bruce turned around to head back toward his car. A shifting shadow inside the apartment where Jason had once lived made Bruce pause and squint into the darkness, but in the end he couldn't make anything out. Perhaps it was just his mind playing tricks on him, or perhaps some other young boy had decided to take advantage of a condemned building for a dry place to sleep. Starting tomorrow, Bruce was going to dedicate his full attention to helping the street kids in Gotham. It wouldn't help Jason, but he might be able to help other boys experiencing similar circumstances find a safe, comfortable place to stay.
He was so distracted thinking about his future plans that Bruce didn't see the two men ahead of him until they melted out of the shadows, less than ten feet in front of him. They were both tall and sloppily dressed, but it was less their clothes and more the malicious grins they were wearing that bothered Bruce. With quick, menacing movements, the one closest to him pulled a knife.
Suddenly, with a thrill of panic, Bruce remembered exactly why this was called Crime Alley. His heart rate kicked up, and his breath came faster, even as he tried to push the fear back down. Why had he thought it would be safe for him to walk here at night?
“Alright, time to hand over your money, nice and easy,” the first man said, tilting his knife so that it glinted in the far off streetlight.
“Yeah, we want a full donation—everything you got!” the second added circling around to box Bruce in.
It belatedly occurred to him, with a spike of terror, that he hadn't remembered to grab his wallet before he went out. “I don't have any money with me, but I have keys. My car is just...” He glanced briefly toward it, only to realize he still hadn't walked far enough for it to be back in sight. “It's only several blocks that way. It's a very nice car,” Bruce insisted, holding out his jiggling keys in offering. “New this year,” he said, his voice quivering just slightly with fear as he remembered what had happened to his parents when they were robbed not far from here.
“I don't see no fancy car!”
“Yes, well, there's a slight incline between us and the car, but once you get up that little hill—”
“I don't wanna go on no stinkin' hiking trip! I want your cash!” the mugger with the knife said, taking a threatening step closer.
“As I just explained, I don't have any money on me, as I forgot my wallet at home—”
“Liar! Rich guys like you always got something—watches or credit cards! But you don't wanna hand it over? Fine. We'll beat it out of ya!”
In the next moment, both of them lunged at him. Bruce tried to back away from both of them at once, but ended up tripping over the uneven sidewalk. The impact of concrete against his falling body hurt, but nowhere near as much as the blows that were suddenly raining down on his head and back. A kick caught him in the ribs, and Bruce let out a high sound of pain, even as he curled up to protect the most vulnerable parts of his body. A punch to his head, far too close to his eye, made him briefly see an explosion of light, and Bruce raised his arms to protect his face, only to realize that gave the thugs a perfect opportunity to kick him in the stomach, hard. He wheezed, deeply terrified for a moment as he found himself temporarily unable to draw another breath. Was he going to die here, only a few blocks from where his own parents had been murdered?
“Hey, assholes! Here's a donation for ya!” There was a dull, wet sound of impact and then one of the men cried out in pain. That was soon followed by the sound of something small and metal clattering to the ground.
“What do you—” The other man was cut off by a loud crack of what might be breaking bone. It was followed by another dull, meaty thunk and a scream.
Bruce looked up to see a third man in faded jeans and a red hoodie, casually twirling a bloody tire iron. “Since I'm feeling so charitable, who wants some more?” he asked, some blood dripping off of his improvised weapon as he raised it in preparation for another swing. In reply, the two thugs immediately fled, wincing and cursing in pain as they went. Bruce stared after them for a moment, stunned at the sudden reversal.
“Thank y—”
“What the hell was that?” his savior shouted, rounding on him. “Why didn't you fight them?”
“I—there were two of them. One had a knife.”
“So? What does that matter?” the man asked, taking a step closer as Bruce very cautiously got to his feet. Bruce squinted past the pounding in his head to try to see his rescuer better. He could just make out a youthful face in the shadow of the hoodie. The man, possibly actually an older teen, didn't even look old enough to drink at a bar, but there was something so familiar about his features...
“I can't just—”
“Whoa,” the boy said, stepping back. “Is that alcohol on your breath? Did you get wasted?” He shook his head. “No, what am I saying, of course not. Someone probably drugged you.”
“I'm not drugged,” Bruce told him. So, maybe he'd had a bit to drink. He should have the tolerance for it built up, right?
The boy snorted. “Oh, is this some disguise measure? You found a way to make your breath reek without actually getting drunk? But if you have your full faculties, then why didn't you fight?” Bruce was sure he didn't know the boy's voice, and yet something about it tugged at his heart.
“I just...I wasn't prepared.”
“You? Not prepared? Is the world ending?” Suddenly, the shadowed features and the familiar yet unfamiliar voice dragged up a memory: a grinning young boy, teasing Bruce about double checking his briefcase before heading out.
“Jason,” he whispered, anguished. This boy looked and sounded so much like Jason.
“...Yeah? Jason, what?” the boy said, his face expectant and his voice demanding. “Jason, I have a perfectly good explanation for all of this? Jason, I've suddenly developed a terrible habit of saying people's names as if I'm going to give an answer—before just trailing off. If so, I suggest you kick that habit now, Bruce, because my patience is wearing thin,” the boy growled. The way his features folded into a scowl, the way he crossed his arms and tightened his jaw, even the way he held that tire iron—Bruce knew this boy. His head said it was impossible, but his heart knew this boy.
With a trembling hand, Bruce reached up and tugged the hood down. In response to having his face fully revealed, the boy sunk immediately into a defensive stance, but fighting was the last thing on Bruce's mind. That was Jason's face. Older, more angry, but definitely his face.
“Jason, is that really you?” Bruce asked, wild hope surging through him and briefly drowning out the various sharp aches of his body. He was aware that there were people who could impersonate others, but Bruce knew his son so well, surely a stranger couldn't have fooled him?
“What the hell is wrong with you? Of course it's me! You just came to talk to me, remember? I don't even know how you figured out I was taking a stroll down memory lane tonight, but you gave your little tearful speech outside my old place not five minutes ago.” Suddenly, Bruce remembered the shadow he had seen in the window. He hadn't been sure whether he'd actually seen someone or whether his mind had just been playing tricks on him. Now, the truth was clear. He went to Jason's old place to feel a sense of connection with his lost son, longing for the sort of reconciliation and closure that he could never get, and suddenly, magically, his dead child appeared in front of him? Of course not.
“Oh. I'm hallucinating, aren't I?” Bruce asked sadly, reaching up to gingerly feel the swollen lump that was forming beside his eye. The pounding in his head was only getting more painful. Had he passed out from the attack? Was this the sort of strange vision people had as they lay dying?
“I knew it! Why didn't you just admit you were drugged in the first place? It couldn't have been those two bottom feeders who attacked you. What is it? Some sort of stealth drug that kicked in as soon as your heart rate spiked?”
“No. Just...just a man who has made so many terrible mistakes that he can't accept the cruel reality of them.”
The illusion or dying dream that looked like Jason sighed. “What am I doing, talking to someone who's actively hallucinating? No wonder you're not tracking the conversation. Who knows what you're hearing instead?” The hallucination scowled. “It's not my job to babysit you, you know. So, you finally came to apologize. So what? You shed a few tears, and you think that makes up for all the ways you've failed me?”
“No. No, Jay. There's nothing I could do to make up for that,” Bruce replied. He knew that if he wasn't unconscious, he must look crazy, talking to thin air, but seeing something that looked like Jason demanding his attention, he just wasn't able to ignore it.
“Damn straight. There's nothing. So you can't expect me to just forgive you,” the maybe near death experience said, but in a voice that sounded hurt and unsure, rather than cold and certain. Bruce wished he could gather his son up and hold him in his arms one more time.
“I would never expect something I so clearly don't deserve.”
“Right,” the hallucination confirmed without any sign of conviction, as if it didn't believe what it was saying. “You said it yourself: it's too late to fix anything between us. Even, even if we wanted... I mean, not that I do, but even if I did...”
“I know. I am so, so sorry, Jay.”
“Yeah. Yeah. There's no salvaging this,” the hallucination said dejectedly, before turning to walk away. A dangerously powerful piece of Bruce's heart wanted to chase after what looked like his son, even though he knew Jason wasn't truly there. He closed his eyes against his throbbing headache for just a moment, and when he opened them again, Jason was gone, as if he'd never been there—because he hadn't been, of course.
Bruce stood there shakily for a few minutes just breathing and cataloging the aches in his body so he didn't have to think about the ache in his heart. He'd certainly be well bruised tomorrow, and his head was killing him. Thankfully, he didn't seem to have been stabbed. He didn't think anything was actually broken, either. He discovered the keys he'd held out lying on the ground, and he reached down carefully to pick them up. Had the thugs just left, then, when they realized that Bruce truly didn't have any money?
It was a slow and painful walk back to his car, and Bruce was wearily looking forward to driving home, until he noticed the cinder blocks the car was propped up on—three tires were gone. He looked around, but the street was deserted. A moment later, the sound of cursing from a back alley reached his ears, though.
“Damn it,” Jason said as he came into view, somehow holding two tires and a tire iron in his arms, while kicking the third tire along in front of him. “I know how this looks, but this wasn't me. It's just, I realized maybe I should stop you from driving since you're hallucinating, so I doubled back to your fancy car which you stupidly left unattended in Crime Alley. Big surprise: I'm not the only tire thief who ever lived here. I had to give out a little more charity tonight to get your tires back, so you're welcome,” Jason said, making good use of his tire iron to put the tires back on with practiced ease, before pulling the cinder blocks that had been used to prop up the car out of the way.
Of course, the tires had probably been there all along, and Bruce had just hallucinated that they were gone. It was very disturbing that the hallucination was this persistent, though. Was it the result of some magnificently bad combination of painful memories, alcohol, and traumatic cranial assault? Even that didn't seem like enough to justify something this realistic.
“Okay, now give me the keys.”
“Jason...”
“I don't forgive you,” he said with a scowl. “One apology does not make up for anything, especially when you've done absolutely nothing to back it up. But I'm also not going to let you drive while hallucinating. You might feel certain you were on your side of the road, even while you accelerated into a head on collision with some hapless driver. You don't deserve to get off that easy. You have to stay alive, because you owe me a lot more apologies, Bruce. So many.”
“Of course, Jay.” Bruce finally settled on holding out the keys in his cupped hand. It wasn't like a hallucination could actually take them, right? Except it certainly felt like Jason had just plucked them out of his hand.
“Hop in,” Jason said, getting into the driver's seat. Bemused, Bruce got into the passenger seat, fairly sure he'd end up going nowhere. But if not Jason, who had unlocked the car for him? His sense of proprioception matched up to the turning and acceleration of the car, as did the sound of the engine, and the detailed scenery they were passing by all looked real. This didn't feel like a dream or a vision at all. Bruce stared longingly at the boy in the driver's seat. He had Jason's eyebrows, his curly hair, and his intent, focused frown, but he also had the strong jaw and the wide shoulders which a younger Jason had only shown hints of.
This was what Bruce's boy would have looked like, if only he'd had the chance to grow up, and Bruce had to blink to keep the tears from blinding him to this beautiful lie. This couldn't possibly be real, could it? He was going to wake up, and Jason would be gone. The manor would be cold and dark, and he would be alone.
“Why are none of the kitchen lights on?” Jason asked as he used the automated gate opener, which every one of Bruce's cars had, to get through the manor gates.
“Alfred's not home.”
“Great. So I guess it's my job to get you into the house, then,” Jason said with a downward twist of his lips, before using the car's garage door opener to get them inside. He hadn't had to look. He'd known right where the custom openers were installed on the underside of the dash. He'd known the gate button was on the left and the garage door button was on the right. The real Jason would have known, of course, because that's where they were always installed on Bruce's cars, but that wasn't the sort of knowledge some random person who was trying to take advantage of a hallucinating Bruce Wayne would possess. The boy had immediately noticed how unusual it was that the kitchen lights were off, too. Bruce almost expected the dream to end when they got out of the car, but it kept going.
He could faintly detect the smell of oil in the garage. He could hear the way two sets of footsteps echoed in the enclosed space. Every moment that passed made him more and more convinced that this was real, and a part of Bruce's heart soared a little higher, despite his lingering doubts. Logically, it was impossible. He knew it was impossible, but could Jason actually be here, alive?
“Hmm. Dick's car is here. Engine's still warm,” Jason said, with his hand on the hood to test the temperature. “Maybe I should make myself scarce before—”
“Bruce! You're finally home,” Dick said, bursting into the garage though the door that led into the house. “Alfred told me how you basically kicked him out—” Dick paused, mid-sentence. “What happened to your face?”
Two things occurred in quick succession: Jason took a step back from Dick's car, and Dick's gaze snapped toward him. His eyes narrowed venomously. “Jason. What did you do to him?”
“It wasn't—” Jason never got to finish his denial, because Dick was on him in an instant, lashing out with a high kick that would have caught Jason in the head if he hadn't ducked.
“Sto—” Again, Jason was cut off as Dick struck at him. Jason tried to avoid the downward punch and it glanced off his shoulder rather than coming down on his neck. He seemed to give up on talking at that point and instead tried to sweep Dick's feet out from under him. Dick jumped over the sweep and lashed out with another kick that Jason didn't completely avoid. The next moment, he tackled Dick, and then to Bruce's horror, his two sons were rolling on the concrete of the garage, growling and attempting to hit each other. After a flurry of activity Bruce could barely make out, somehow, they both got to their feet again, but they were still fighting close and dirty. He could see Dick's pained flinch when Jason got an elbow into his stomach, and a dribble of blood was flowing from the corner of Jason's mouth, although Bruce hadn't even seen that hit.
“...Stop,” he whispered, hoarse. Whatever was going on here, he didn't think it was a hallucination. If this was Jason, if this was truly Jason... “Stop this, now!” he boomed, but his two sons were past hearing. It looked like Dick was trying to wrench Jason's arm out of its socket, and desperate, Bruce threw himself at Dick's back to try to get him to let go. The next instant, his already sore body exploded in fresh pain as he landed hard on the concrete, scraping more skin and flipping over once before his momentum was expended. He wasn't even sure how he'd ended up on the ground.
“What are you doing, Dick?!” Jason exclaimed, sounding outraged. “Why did you throw him?”
“I—someone came at me from behind, and I didn't know... If it was him, I thought he'd just evade the throw! Or at least land right!”
“He's drugged and hallucinating! What do you expect!”
“You drugged him, too?” Dick roared.
“It wasn't me!” Jason retorted, just as loudly.
Bruce forced his sore lungs to cooperate and give him air, before Dick got past listening again. “It wasn't him, Dick,” he insisted. “He didn't hurt me.” He painfully levered himself back up to his knees so at least he could see what was going on. Dick and Jason were standing only a few feet from each other, breathing heavily. Both of their postures were tense and aggressive, as if they might start attacking each other again at any moment.
“Really?” Dick asked skeptically, angling his head slightly back toward Bruce but keeping his wary eyes on Jason. “Then where did you get those scrapes and bruises?”
“You mean the ones that aren't from you?” Jason asked snidely.
“I was in Crime Alley,” Bruce explained before they could start arguing again. “Two men tried to rob me at knife point, and when they realized that I didn't even have my wallet on me, they got violent.”
“And?” Dick asked, as if there should be something more to it than that.
“And nothing, Dick,” Jason replied. “They attacked him, and he didn't fight back,” he continued in a nearly incredulous voice, as if that were some sort of shock. Maybe his childhood in Crime Alley had given him different sensibilities. “He was letting them kick the shit out of him until I chased them off with my tire iron. He's lucky he didn't get shanked. When I asked him why he didn't fight, he started spewing some garbage about how there were two of them, and he wasn't prepared. Obviously, he's been drugged.”
“I have not been drugged,” Bruce disagreed, getting very gingerly to his feet. Dick looked skeptically from him to Jason (could it really be Jason?), as if unsure who to believe.
“His breath smells like a still,” Jason asserted, although Bruce didn't think he'd had that much more than normal. “He told me he wasn't drugged before, but then, not two minutes later, he said, 'Oh. I'm hallucinating, aren't I?', so that pretty much cinches it.”
Dick stepped closer to Bruce. “Is that true?”
“I...Dick, how can you be concerned about me when Jason is right in front of us?”
Dick looked briefly back over his shoulder with a scowl. “If he can manage not to stab me in the back for one minute, then I think I can afford to deal with him later. I need to figure out what's going on with you, Bruce. You have some weird sort of amnesia, and now you're hallucinating?
“Wouldn't anyone who suddenly sees his dead son think he's hallucinating?” Bruce retorted. Both Jason and Dick frowned at him in confusion.
“This has to be part of the weird amnesia thing,” Dick murmured, almost to himself, and Bruce scowled at him, angry over more than just the long scrape Dick had given to him.
“What amnesia thing?” Jason demanded.
Dick sighed, before turning to face Jason. They were both slowly relaxing out of their fighting stances, and Bruce hoped that now that Dick was being confronted by someone other than Bruce, he was going to finally come clean about the tasteless prank he'd been pulling with Alfred's help. “It's been going on for almost a month. Bruce hasn't lost all his memories. He knows what date it is, and who Bruce Wayne's friends are, but he doesn't remember anything about being Batman. Apparently, not even how to fight, if tonight's any indication.”
“Because I'm not Batman!” Bruce growled, furious that Dick was continuing this lie even under the present circumstances. “I know you're angry with me, but how can you think now is the time to persist with these wild lies when my dead son and your dead brother is miraculously in front of us, alive?! How could you recognize Jason—and then attack him anyway? You may claim there's something wrong with me, but perhaps I should ask what is wrong with you!”
“Oh, looks like the golden boy's not so golden right now, huh?” Jason taunted with a smug little smile. He still hadn't wiped the blood off his face.
“Shut up, Jay,” Dick told him with a fierce scowl. Bruce thought one of his cheeks might be just starting to swell. “I need to get to the bottom of this.”
“No. I don't think I will shut up,” Jason replied defiantly, stomping closer to Bruce. “Something doesn't add up. Bruce, if you didn't know I was alive, then why would you come talk to me?”
Bruce shook his head. “I didn't know you'd be there. I just—sometimes I go to Crime Alley, to where my parents were killed.” He took a deep breath, trying to force the painful words out. He'd promised that he would do better, and now that he had a miraculous second chance standing in front of him, that meant actually talking to his family, even when the topic pained him immensely. “When I visit their graves, I only remember that they're dead, but by the old theater, I remember when they were last alive. Ethiopia is a long plane flight away, so I thought I could do the same thing at your old apartment building.”
Jason frowned. “Then you've been thinking I was dead for a month?”
“I've been thinking you were dead for five years!” Bruce exploded. Nothing made sense anymore, and the only thing holding him together was the hope that the miracle in front of him was real. Dick wasn't acting like this was his little brother returned, but he obviously recognized Jason. It wasn't only Bruce and his own desperate longing to see his lost son.
“Wait a minute,” Jason said, rounding on Dick. “You've known he was amnesiac for a month, and you never told him anything about me?”
Dick shifted uncomfortably. “We were focused on other areas. It didn't really seem important—” Bruce wasn't even aware that Jason was going to punch Dick, until he saw his eldest taking a step back from the force of the blow. Dick gingerly probed at his newly bleeding lip with one finger, his stance tense and ready for movement again.
“You didn't think it was important if he knew whether I was alive or dead?!” Jason roared, looking like he wanted to start fighting again. While Bruce was frankly enraged himself that Dick had apparently known and hadn't told him (how could Jason's life not have been the very most important thing?), he didn't want to see his sons start fighting again. Perhaps unwisely, he stepped between them, hoping he'd actually be able to control his two eldest. Until that very night, he hadn't realized how slow and old he'd gotten, but when they wanted to, his sons seemed to move like lightening. Maybe there wasn't anything he could do to reliably stop them, but he couldn't just stand by doing nothing while his children geared up to hurt each other.
“...Okay, when you put it that way, I deserved that,” Dick admitted quietly, and the admission seemed to calm Jason down a little. “It wasn't intentional or malicious, though, Jason. It just seemed like his amnesia was entirely centered on his identity as Batman,” Dick said, making Bruce clench his jaw in anger. Would he not let that lie finally drop? “It didn't occur to me how important it might be to check on every other fact that he should know. In retrospect, that was obviously a huge oversight.”
“...Bruce Wayne never spent any late nights meeting dangerous people in Crime Alley last year,” Jason replied, face stony.
A look of dawning realization passed across Dick's face. “Shit. You're right. Bruce Wayne never met Red Hood,” Dick muttered. Bruce vaguely remembered a crime lord by that name being in the news about a year ago, but he wasn't sure what that had to do with anything. “He might only know things that Bruce Wayne is supposed to know, and as far as Bruce Wayne knows, you're dead,” Dick said, which made absolutely no sense as an explanation, because of course Bruce was Bruce Wayne. It was basic logic that he only knew what he himself knew.
“But...but Jason's not dead,” Bruce said, wanting to be confident about that, but his voice trembled with fear. Dick was still clinging to his other wild lies, but surely he wouldn't lie about this? It occurred to Bruce with an awful pang that Dick could teach an impostor how to act like Jason. But would he? As angry as Dick was at Bruce, he couldn't believe a man as good as his son would do something that unspeakably cruel. “Is he?” Bruce turned his full attention to the curly haired boy in front of him.
“Obviously, I'm not dead. You want to run another DNA test? I'll give you a sample. Fingerprints, whatever you need.”
“You've already run all the tests—multiple times, just so you know,” Dick said. “Whether you remember the results or not, this is definitely Jason Todd.”
If joy were a physical thing, Bruce felt like someone had injected it directly into his heart. Finally, unambiguous external confirmation, and he could at last let himself truly believe. “My son—Jay, lad, you're really here. And so grown up! I never thought I'd see you get so tall!” Bruce exclaimed, giving in to his instincts and pulling Jason into his arms. He could feel himself starting to cry again, but they were the happiest tears he'd ever shed. His lost son was solid and healthy and whole. “You're home.”
Jason was tense as a piano's wires in his arms. “I am not home! I was just dropping you off because clearly something is wrong with you. I'm not going to stay.”
Bruce's arms tightened on pure, terrified instinct. “Jay, no. Please don't leave.” He'd just gotten Jason back after five long, horrible years. He couldn't even imagine letting him go just them. “I know, I know I failed you as a father, but I love you so much. Give me another chance, please! I'll do right by you this time, I promise you!”
“Yeah? You gonna kill the Joker for me, then?” Jason asked, somehow breaking out of his hold. There was something hard and ugly in his expression. Was this about Barbara Gordon? Bruce knew Jason had been very upset when he'd found out Joker had paralyzed her from the waist down, but he hadn't realized it would still go this deep, five years later.
“Jason, he can't!” Dick hissed at him.
“He won't! There's a difference!”
“By your own account, he got beat up by two Crime Alley lowlifes!” Dick retorted. “He couldn't evade my throw or even land correctly! He can't!”
Jason's eyes suddenly went wide. “Damn it. He actually can't. If the Joker got a hold of him like this, he'd murder Bruce.”
“Exactly. So don't give him any crazy ideas, Jay. He can't even defend himself right now!” Bruce wasn't exactly happy to be described as some sort of decrepit old man, but the fact of the matter was, his body was still aching from the beating he'd taken earlier. Although, even at his best, there was no way he could take on a violent, mass murdering maniac like the Joker.
“Jay, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that what happened to Barbara would still be hitting you this hard. But I'm going to be a better father from now on. I'll pay attention, spend so much more time with you.”
“What happened to Barbara...?” Jason looked confused for a moment. Then his eyes narrowed. “Of course I'm still upset. She's still crippled, isn't she? But you know, the Joker has done much more than that. He's killed a lot of people.” The look on his face was angry but calculating. “You think I died in a warehouse fire, right?”
“But you didn't actually die?” There had to be some explanation for why Jason was standing in front of him, alive.
Jason laughed darkly. “Oh, no. I died. Was buried. Dug myself out. All that.” Bruce shuddered. Just thinking about his boy trapped in a coffin under six feet of earth, alone and frightened, was nauseating. “No, what you probably don't know is that the Joker set the bomb that blew up the warehouse I was in. He beat me nearly to death with a crowbar first, though, left me to crawl on broken limbs to untie my bio mom. We made it all the way to the door—but it was locked. Before we could get out—the whole place exploded. The Joker murdered me.”
Bruce stared at his son in horror. “No...oh, no, Jay—” The threat of death couldn't have stopped him from wrapping his arms around his son just then. “Oh, my poor boy,” he whispered, trying to rock him, even though Jason was nearly as tall as Bruce now and stood like granite in his arms. But Jay had been so much smaller when he'd died, and the Joker was so depraved. The thought of his child suffering at that monster's cruel hands... “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should have been there.” Why hadn't he? As a father, how could he have failed so completely?
“Bruce, I don't blame you for that,” Jason said, because he'd always defied expectations. “I blame you for what you did afterward,” he continued accusingly. Suddenly, he broke out of Bruce's embrace again, and when he spoke next, his voice was all venom. “I blame you for letting that psychotic sack of shit—”
“Jason, he can't!” Dick cut in.
“He can't now. So I guess you get a pass on that Bruce, temporarily.” The angry twist of his scowl said that Jason wasn't happy with that pronouncement, perhaps because he knew deep down that Bruce would never be a match for the Joker. In that moment, though, if he'd thought he could actually take down that monster, Bruce would have been sorely tempted to march straight out and do so. The agony his poor son must have gone through at the clown's twisted whims...
“Jay, lad, I understand that you're hurting. I don't know how you came back, but I can see it was your body that was healed, not your heart. But I'm here for you now. Whatever I can do to help you get better—”
“I'm not some charity case for you to fix!” Jason snarled, and how could Bruce have forgotten that, how proud and defensive Jason had been when Bruce first took him in? It had taken months to truly gain his trust. Perhaps that was shattered now, but where there was life, there was hope. If Bruce had to painstakingly rebuild their relationship piece by piece, he'd do it gladly. He had the patience and will to defeat the trial of Jason's doubt a thousand times over, if that offered even the chance of having his son back in his life. This time, he'd even have a head start, thanks to his hard earned knowledge of how to get past Jason's emotional defenses.
“I don't think you're a charity case, Jay. I think you're my son. Just having you in my life brightens it. I only want to see you as happy as you've made me,” Bruce told him sincerely.
Jason still regarded him suspiciously, but he didn't look as angry. “Yeah, somehow, I don't think you'll keep saying that once you get your memory back.”
Bruce still couldn't believe Dick's crazed stories that he was some sort of bat cosplay crime fighter—he couldn't even handle two muggers!—but he was beginning to believe that he might have some sort of amnesia. There were some parts of his life that just seemed so disjoint, as if he remembered a selection of public highlights, but the interstitial tissue was gone. Then, of course, there was the issue of Jason.
Dick hadn't been at all surprised to see him alive, and that was a very large secret to have kept. Jason, also, seemed to believe that Bruce had known he was alive, and he'd actually punched Dick when he'd realized that Dick hadn't told Bruce. Bruce couldn't imagine Dick voluntarily colluding on a plan that involved getting punched in the face, so it made sense to accept that there were some things Bruce had forgotten. Probably, Dick had thought it would be hilarious to take advantage of Bruce's amnesia to get him to believe ridiculous things about crime fighting bats. Bruce didn't find it funny at all, but considering his wide and varied failures as a father, he probably had only himself to blame for his son's treatment.
“Jay, I don't know what exactly I've forgotten, but the fact that you're alive—that will always make me happy.”
“Don't be so sure,” Dick muttered darkly, causing Jason to give him an angry scowl in return.
“Dick! I can't believe what I'm hearing from you,” Bruce said, staring at his eldest in horrified shock. “It's one thing to make up ridiculous lies about me, but to do that about Jason's very life... Jay, please don't listen to him. Having you here in front of me is the greatest miracle I could ever ask for,” he assured his second son. Jason settled slightly when Bruce put his hands on his solid shoulders, but Dick made a pained sound.
“Bruce, I know when you look at him, you think you've got your son back, that you can finally fix every mistake you ever made with Jay. I look at him, and I want to believe that I've got a second chance with my first little brother.” For a moment, the grief Bruce knew had to be there was plainly written on Dick's face. “I want to,” he continued, his expression suddenly going cold and grim, “but I don't have that. Your son is dead, and what came back in his place may be Jason Todd, but he's not the boy you knew and loved. I know how much that hurts to accept, but he's not our family anymore. He doesn't want to be. He came back wrong—”
Bruce caught the flash of pain on Jason's face an instant before he was ripping away from Bruce's hands to charge at Dick. Bruce tried to grab at him again, but he was too slow. Even when he tried to rush between them, Dick just flipped around him, as if Bruce were merely a statue or a pillar in the way, as he went after Jason just as ferociously as earlier. Frantic, Bruce kept moving to try to intercede, but blows sailed around him, his sons sidestepping his efforts as if Bruce were moving at glacial speed.
“No! Stop!” Again, neither son listened to him, and Bruce was worried for both of them, though more so for Jason. Jason shouldn't have re-started the fight, but after the vicious way Dick had attacked him physically for simply driving Bruce home and then verbally because coming back home breathing somehow wasn't good enough, Bruce could deeply sympathize with Jason's fraying temper. Dick's utter failure to tell Bruce the crucially important fact that Jason had come back to life certainly couldn't have helped. Had Jay thought that Bruce was deliberately ignoring him for an entire month? His son was so obviously hurting—he'd apparently been murdered by a monster and Dick hadn't looked the slightest bit surprised when Jay had spoken of that or when he'd talked about digging himself out of his own grave. Given the circumstances, Dick should have managed some compassion, instead of provoking and continuing this completely unnecessary violence.
“Dick! Jay!” His children only continued to hit each other mercilessly, moving so quickly it was hard to make out every move, but Bruce could hear grunts of pain, see drops of blood left behind on the concrete floor. The fight left a noticeable dent in the door of Bruce's bright red Ferrari as they fought past it, and how hard must they be going at each other to leave that sort of casual evidence of force behind?
Dick threw Jason—threw him, although he was nearly as big as Bruce!—and Bruce saw him flip around midair to land hard, crouched on the concrete of the garage. He happened to have landed only a couple of feet from Bruce, and for just a moment, Bruce caught sight of Jason's snarling face, blood dripping from his nose and all over his teeth... The last time Bruce had seen him bleeding so badly, he'd been dead.
“ENOUGH!” Bruce roared, seizing the moment to physically throw himself over Jason like a human shield. Jason was crouched with his back to the green Lamborghini, so it would be difficult for Dick to get to Jason without physically throwing Bruce out of the way. Jason himself made an unhappy, frustrated sound, but he didn't actually attempt to throw Bruce off. Dick, on the other hand, took several menacing steps toward them.
“Stop! Dick, you are the older brother!” Bruce shouted over his shoulder, shocked at Dick's aggression. “Act like it and stop this right now!” He was sure Dick would never have acted this way with Tim.
“Bruce, you don't understand. You're only thinking this way because you've forgotten everything you knew as Batman—”
Bruce felt his sorely tested temper snap. “I said ENOUGH! Enough of your games, enough of your lies! How dare you use that ridiculous story as an excuse for attacking your own brother, who has come back to us from death itself! You can apologize to Jay and promise never to bring that lie up again, or you can get the hell out!”
“I am trying to help you!” Dick shouted back, sounding supremely frustrated. His clenched fists were trembling. “Don't you think I'd like to believe in the fairy tale resurrection story, too, if I could?” he continued, his face some odd mixture between anger and grief. “You're not the only one who knows how to drown in his own guilt, Bruce, but we can't let our logic be overruled by our emotions. If you only remembered being Batman, then you'd know that being exposed to the waters of the Lazarus Pit twists people, and—and we don't have any way of curing that madness,” Dick said, his face crumpling. The Lazarus Pit—was that what had brought Jason back?
“I am not crazy!” Jason roared, standing up despite the fact that Bruce's full body weight was still draped over him. He'd been so small once. It was amazing and a little terrifying how strong he'd gotten.
“Don't listen to him, Jay,” Bruce urged him, holding onto his younger son tightly. Between the two young men in front of him, it was obvious which one was acting crazy right then, still insisting on that ridiculous “bat man” lie. “He's wrong. We both know that he's wrong, Jay.”
“Hear that, Dick? I'm in the right,” Jason taunted angrily, but at least his bulging muscles relaxed slightly. Was his physical conditioning part of some coping mechanism he'd acquired after what had happened to him? Had Jay started working out enough to put on so much more muscle in order to feel a little safer again, after he'd been so violently murdered? If he was fearful for his safety, then a vicious fight with his own brother was the last thing he needed.
Dick took another aggressive step forward, and Bruce reluctantly let go of Jay to round on his oldest son. “If you're not going to apologize, then get out, Dick.”
His eldest son made an inarticulate sound of frustration, deep in the back of his throat. “Why do you never listen to anyone?”
“Why are you not listening to me? Take one step closer to your brother, and I will call the police.”
Instead of being cowed by the threat, Dick chuckled bitterly. “You? You'll call the police?”
“It's not funny, Dick!”
“No, you're right. None of this is funny,” Dick said grimly. “You know what, Bruce? You think Jay's so wonderful? You're welcome to him. You know how to reach me when you realize the truth.” Dick narrowed his eyes at Jason. “You won't get away with hurting him.”
“You're the only one here who attacked him tonight,” Jason growled back.
With one last furious glare at the both of them, Dick got into his car, slammed the door, and floored it out of the garage. Jason watched warily until the garage door closed again and blocked Dick's car from sight. Bruce felt his stomach churning with anxiety. He'd thrown both Alfred and Dick out of the manor in one day, despite promising himself that he was going to do better by his family. Then he looked at the blood still streaming from Jason's nose, the way one of his eyes was bloodshot from burst capillaries, hinting that a black eye was close in Jason's future, and his righteous anger returned. Much as it pained him to have thrown Dick out, clearly it was necessary to keep his younger son safe. He'd already failed him once. He was never going to fail to protect Jason ever again.