Chapter Text
Jason can't do this anymore
He just can't
He has been through so much in the last fifteen years. Mistake after mistake, death after death.
It all started with Dick. The heart of the family, the man carried the burden of each and every family member.
But no one was there for him. Jason later learned that his brother suffered in silence. He put on a mask in front of everyone, convincing his family that he was fine. But that was the furthest from the truth. Dick had been struggling mentally for a long time, but no one noticed until it was too late. Jason remembers the day like it was yesterday. He stopped by Dick's place to go over a case. After waiting outside for a while Jason decided to let himself in.
Where he discovered that Dick had shot himself in the head...
Bruce took Dick's death hard. He locked himself in the cave, drowning himself in work. Damian quit being Robin after a month and became Nightwing to honor his brother. Tim distanced himself from the family. It was just too painful to step into the manor without Dick.
After a month, Bruce left for a Justice League mission. Alfred and Jason begged him not to go. Bruce at this point barely slept and being in the field would definitely kill him. Their pleas fell on deaf ears and Bruce went anyway.
They got a call hours later saying that Bruce had died.
Tim donned the cowl six months later.
They fought side-by-side, battle after battle after battle, sleepless nights, and open wounds, both physical and emotional.
And then, in a blink of an eye, Tim and Damian were gone too.
It was the largest bombing in Gotham in years. The sky was black from the choking smoke. A random apartment was the main target of the bombing.
Jason was under the rubble at the time. He wasn't stuck so it was fairly easy to get free. By the time he’d dug himself out, Tim was sprawled on the debris after somehow dragging himself out of the rubble. His body was bloodied and broken in a hundred places. There was no way he would survive, but Jason tried anyway.
He held on to false hope as he began putting pressure on one of his many wounds.
Tim grabbed his hands. "I'm not going to make it...find Damian."
Tim's eyes rolled in the back of his head. He went limp, his chest no longer moving.
Jason cried as he looked for Damian. He dug in the rubble for so long that his hands bled.
Eventually, he found him limp and still.
They were both too young, both only in their twenties, and he lost them at the same time.
Jason moved into the manor after the two youngest robins died. Jason took up the mantle of Batman and was CEO of the company. But the main reason why he moved in was to take care of Alfred.
The elder man shut down after the two youngest Waynes' death. He didn't talk, he didn't eat, and he didn't even try to take care of himself.
Jason did everything from cooking, chores, work, and took care of Alfred. Cass wasn't there anymore. Like Tim, she moved out of Gotham. Jason couldn't blame her, the house was dark, cold, and empty.
After a long day, which was every day, Jason would curl up in Bruce's bedroom and cry.
He felt so alone, so empty, so old. Jason is only thirty-five but feels decades older.
He doesn't know what brought him to this point, but he found himself by a window with a razor to his wrist.
A voice in the back of his mind tells him that this isn't a good idea. Alfred needs him, Gotham needs him.
But Jason is tired.
Tired of fighting, tired of this house with empty halls and rooms.
Tired of being tired.
So Jason stabbed the razor into his skin and welcomed the darkness with open arms.
_~~_
Jason was pretty damn sure the afterlife wasn’t supposed to come with a migraine.
Pain? Maybe. Cosmic judgment? Also maybe. But this—this was just a steady, rhythmic pounding behind his eyes, like someone was repeatedly tapping his skull with a Batarang.
…Okay, fine. Maybe not that bad. But still. Dead people weren’t supposed to feel pain.
Which meant—woo-freaking-hoo—he wasn’t actually dead this time.
'…Yay.'
God, even his inner voice sounded done with him.
'This is going to be an unpleasant conversation,' he thought grimly, already bracing himself.
But who the hell dragged him back from the brink? The League was off-world—last he checked, saving space goats or punching asteroids or whatever cosmic nonsense they were dealing with this week. And he wasn’t tied down in some sterile Watchtower infirmary; this felt like the Cave. Old hospital cot. Lumpy mattress. Faint scent of dust and old copper wiring. Fantastic.
Cass? Maybe. She said she’d be around Gotham this week. Or was that last week? The week before? Jason’s sense of time had been shot to hell lately from all the patrols, the insomnia, the absolutely stellar life choices.
Duke? No. Duke was in L.A. now, doing actual healthy-adult things instead of bleeding out on cave cots.
'Definitely Cass,' he decided. Only she would haul him back here instead of the closer, much-less-trauma-laden clinics. Felt like a Cass decision.
He groaned and tried to sit up, immediately regretting everything he had ever done as pain lanced up his skull. He froze. Wait. Shouldn’t his arm hurt more? He slit a vein. There should be throbbing, screaming nerve endings, something.
He opened his eyes slowly, expecting antiseptic and quiet and maybe the soft hush of someone flipping through a file.
Instead, he heard…typing.
Rapid, rhythmic typing.
The Cave’s main computer.
His stomach dropped.
'But no one uses that except— Alfred hasn’t touched it in years...'
Jason pushed up farther, ignoring the way his vision blurred at the edges.
He looked toward the glow of the monitors.
And froze.
“What the hell—”
No.
No, no, no.
Bruce. Bruce. Sitting there like he had never died, never left, never put a hole in Jason’s world big enough to drive a fleet of Batmobiles through.
Bruce, cowl off, eyes on the screen, fingers flying across the keys with that same efficient, controlled urgency Jason remembered from being fourteen and trying not to breathe too loudly near mission briefings. A mug of coffee—Black. Always black—sat beside him.
Jason’s heart kicked into overdrive.
A sound escaped him—more gasp than word, more shock than breath.
The figure turned.
Their eyes met.
Bruce’s brows knit in irritation. Real, tangible irritation. Well, that was comforting in the worst possible way.
“You almost got killed tonight,” he snapped, that familiar mix of anger and worry threading every syllable. “If Red Robin hadn’t been there, you’d have bled out. You do not take on that kind of operation alone. How many times—”
Jason barely heard the words. The voice—God, the voice. He hadn’t realized how much he’d forgotten it. How memory had sanded down the exact timbre, the gravel-soft finish. Hearing it now was like reopening a scar.
'Did I hit my head when I fell?'
Yes. That would explain this. This…fantasy. Trauma-induced hallucination. Easy.
“You’re not real,” Jason said. His own voice sounded foreign to him—tight, small. He swung his legs off the cot, staring at the concrete floor. Anything to avoid looking at—it.
“Jason.” Bruce’s voice gentled by half a degree. “I’m real--Were you drugged? What--"
No. Nope. Not doing this. Not falling for some brain-soothing post-near-death hallucination wearing Kevlar.
Jason looked away. "Don't look, it isn't real, hallucination is probably right, I am drugged, higher than a fucking kite, just need a blood sample,"
"Jason--"
Nope ignore him, at least he isn't reminding him that everyone's death is his fault.
Jason planted his feet on the floor and pushed himself upright.
Bad idea.
The room spun so violently he had to squeeze his eyes shut. Somewhere behind him, a chair scraped back.
“Jason,” Bruce said again, slower this time, controlled, grounding. “You need to—”
“No.” Jason forced the word out through gritted teeth. “You’re not real.”
Focus on something logical, tangible, medical. He latched onto the idea like a lifeline. “Right. Blood sample. Toxicology. Gotta check for… whatever the hell this is. Fear toxin? Crane remix? Joker gas? No, no— .”
He staggered forward, eyes on the supply cabinet like it was a holy grail. His hand shook violently as he grabbed for the drawer.
“Jason, stop,” Bruce said, and it was that tone—firm, low, the one he only used right before grabbing a batarang to disarm a goon with a gun.
Jason’s breath hitched.
“Nope,” he muttered, shaking his head hard, refusing to turn around. “Ignore the voice. Ignore the hallucination. It’s your brain doing… something.” He made a vague gesture at nothing. “Something stupid.”
Footsteps approached.
Heavy. Purposeful. Measured.
He remembered those footsteps from mission nights—Bruce always moved quiet until he didn’t. And when he didn’t, it meant business.
Jason’s whole body went rigid.
“Jay.” Bruce’s voice was closer now, right behind him. “Look at me.”
“No.” Jason opened the wrong drawer, closed it, opened another one. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking. “If I look at you, the hallucination wins. I am not doing that. Not today. Not again.”
A warm hand closed over his wrist.
Not tight.
Not forceful.
Just…steady.
Jason jerked like he’d been electrocuted.
“Don’t touch me!” he snapped, yanking his arm back hard enough to clatter a tray of syringes onto the floor. “You’re not—” His voice cracked. “You’re not him!”
Bruce didn’t flinch. That somehow made it worse.
“Jason,” Bruce said, softer this time, unbearably patient. “You’re panicking. You hit your head harder than—”
Jason barked out a laugh. A broken, humorless thing.
“Panicking? Oh, gee, you think?” He backed away, hands trembling, feet unsteady.
“Jason.”
One word.
Solid. Familiar.
It hit like a fist to the sternum.
Jason’s back hit the metal cabinet. He slid down it unconsciously, breathing too fast, everything too loud— distant water dripping, the hum of fluorescent lights that looked really outdated.
His vision blurred at the edges.
“It's not real,” he whispered to himself. “It's not real. It can’t be real.”
Bruce crouched down slowly, lowering himself into Jason’s field of view with the practiced caution of a man approaching a wounded animal.
“Look at me,” he repeated, softer still.
Jason squeezed his eyes shut.
If he looked, and Bruce wasn’t real?
He’d break.
If he looked, and Bruce was real?
He’d break worse.
“I can’t,” Jason whispered, voice small, raw.
There was a long, quiet pause.
Then—
“Jay-lad,” Bruce said in the exact cadence he used during training sessions, when he needed Jason laser-focused, anchored to the moment. “Look at me.”
Emotion punched Jason square in the chest.
“No,” he said again, but this time it was a plea. A whimper. “Please don’t make me. I can’t—if you’re real, I—” His breath hitched sharply.
Silence.
Then—
The slightest shift in Bruce’s voice. Something cracking beneath the gravel.
“I am real. Jason you look flushed, and pale. You're sick--"
Jason’s eyes flew open.
Because hallucinations didn’t sound like they were trying not to fall apart.
And hallucinations didn’t have shadows under their eyes from sleepless nights.
Or a five-o’clock stubble Bruce always shaved clean before patrol.
Or the tiny scar above Bruce’s left eyebrow from the time Jason was thirteen and accidentally elbowed him in the face during a sparring match and Bruce insisted it was “a good learning opportunity.”
Jason’s breath stuttered.
Bruce looked…
Hurt. Worried. Alive.
Alive.
Jason’s whole body shook.
“Bruce?” he whispered.
Bruce inhaled sharply, just once, like someone who’d been underwater too long.
“Jason,” he said, voice steady but thin around the edges. “I’m right—”
He didn’t get to finish.
Jason moved.
Not logically.
Not consciously.
Not with any of the restraint or combat precision drilled into him since childhood.
He lunged.
One second he was trembling on the floor—
And the next he threw himself at Bruce with the sudden, messy, uncalculated momentum of a child who’d been told their parent came home early.
Bruce made a startled noise—half grunt, half gasp—as Jason collided with him, arms locking tightly around Bruce’s neck, legs wrapping around his waist in a long-forgotten motion.
Bruce staggered back a step, boots scraping on concrete, catching Jason by instinct before they both toppled.
“Jay—!” Bruce’s hands went immediately to Jason’s back, steadying him, fingers curling in the fabric of his shirt like he expected Jason to vanish if he let go. “Easy. Easy, I’ve got you—”
Jason clung harder, burying his face into the curve of Bruce’s shoulder.
Warm. Solid. Real.
He made a sound—God, it wasn’t even a sob. It was younger than that. Rawer. The kind of broken, relieved whine you only made when something inside you finally snapped under the weight of too much hope and too much fear.
Bruce froze.
Completely.
Like Jason had just pressed a gun to his heart.
Then he slowly, carefully, wrapped both arms around Jason’s torso and lifted him fully off the ground, supporting him as though the man clinging to him weighed nothing.
“Dad,” Jason breathed, voice cracking right down the middle. “Dad—”
Bruce’s eyes squeezed shut. His breath hitched so sharply Jason felt it.
“I’m here,” Bruce murmured, holding him tighter. “Jason, I’m right here.”
Jason’s grip tightened, legs cinching around Bruce’s waist, fingers curling at the back of Bruce’s neck like he was terrified Bruce would disappear if he loosened even a fraction.
Bruce tried shifting his weight to better hold him, but Jason clung like a drowning man to a lifeline.
“Jay,” Bruce said softly. “You’re burning up. You’re feverish. When did this start? Were you exposed to something? Did you—”
Jason shook his head violently against Bruce’s shoulder.
“No. No talking. Don’t talk. Don’t—” His voice fractured on the next words. “Don’t let go.”
Bruce’s hands, large and steady, spanned Jason’s back, one settling between his shoulder blades, the other bracing under his thigh.
“I’m not letting go,” Bruce said quietly, fiercely. A vow. “I won’t.”
Jason shuddered hard, then softer, then again, the tremors rolling through him as every frantic, painful emotion finally shook itself loose.
Bruce adjusted his stance, supporting Jason with ease, one hand coming up to cup the back of Jason’s head.
“You are scaring me,” Bruce whispered, voice barely audible.
Jason only held on tighter.
Eventually his breath evened slightly, though his grip never loosened—not for a second.
Bruce lowered himself slowly to a seated position on the cave floor, Jason still wrapped around him like a limpet refusing extraction.
He didn’t force Jason down.
He didn’t ask him to let go.
He just kept one hand rubbing slow, steady circles along Jason’s spine, grounding him in a way no hallucination ever could.
Jason’s voice came again, quiet and exhausted and heartbreakingly young:
“Don’t go.”
Bruce pressed his cheek to Jason’s hair.
“I won’t,” he murmured. “I promise.”
And Jason—finally, finally believing him—let out a sob that shook both of them.