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It took a full week for Bruce to work up the courage to track down Jason. For some odd reason, the task wasn’t hard at all, barely taking more than an hour to connect the dots, leading him to a shabby, run-down apartment in the heart of Crime Alley. Yet, despite the fact that he found it so quickly, Bruce was…hesitant.
He knew it was the logical next step, but his gut churned with guilt each time he reflected on the events that transpired that night. The sight of the blood coating his son’s neck, blood that he drew himself, made him almost sick with regret. Bruce didn’t mean for the Batarang to hit his throat. He was aiming for the barrel of the gun, but he couldn’t stamp down the tremor in his hands, making his throw go wide.
It was just so shocking to see Jason again. Bruce had long ago resigned himself to the fact that Jason was gone, six-feet under and never going to come back. But seeing him again, even if his face was twisted in righteous anger and had hatred burning in his eyes, the sight of him, so full of life, had Bruce awestruck.
His son was alive.
His baby made it back home.
But Bruce messed it up. Despite the urge to scoop Jason up in his arms; to hug him and feel the rise and fall of his chest, to know he was alive, he couldn’t make himself do what Jason pleaded for him to do. God, he wanted to, all he’s ever wanted to do was to force the life drain out of the mad-man’s eyes, watch as the Joker slowly succumbed to the torture Bruce wanted to put him through.
But he can’t.
He knows that deep down, if he let himself pass that line, there was no stopping. He couldn't just rid the world of the Joker and call it a day, no, Black Mask would be dead as well, along with the long, long gallery of villains he had to fight. So, he had to fight the urge to take that gun and shoot the fucker right in between the eyes. It wasn’t easy at all.
So instead, he had to look his son in the eyes and refuse the boy’s pleas. Even when he saw the tears begin to well in Jason’s eyes, and hear the boyish crack in his voice, he refused. But Bruce wasn’t proud of his actions at all.
God, there was so much blood.
He doesn’t think he’ll ever get it out of his brain, the sight of Jason convulsing on the floor, neck gaping with a wound that Bruce himself inflicted, felt as if it was seared into the back of his eyelids. And worst of all, Bruce ran. He couldn’t stand to see the tears streaming down Jason’s face, nor hear the sobbing pleas.
Bruce regrets it so, so much.
Even a week later, Bruce wants to strangle his past self for turning his back on the boy—he doesn’t deserve to call himself Jason’s father. Not when he couldn’t even push aside the horror of his own actions to save him, especially when he couldn’t even save him the last time he truly needed it.
But Bruce was tired of wallowing in his own misery. He was going to see Jason, and he was going to apologize. He can’t let the fragile connection they still had slip through his fingers, he doesn’t know he could live with himself if he does.
Jason’s phone number wasn’t hard to find. For some reason, the phone was insanely easy to track, possessing the same number the boy used before his–before.
However, Bruce finds himself getting frustrated when he reaches voicemail for the second time. It wasn’t like Jason had an obligation to pick up, in fact, Bruce would be more shocked if he picked up. But still. When the grating, electronic voice of his voicemail sounds out for the third time, Bruce has to stop himself from punching the concrete at his feet.
He was shrouded in the shadows of a rooftop directly across the street from Jason’s alleged apartment, and he knows he saw movement through the window not even twenty minutes ago. Maybe Bruce should’ve gone in when he first saw the lights flicker off, but he just couldn’t make himself go in. Not when his heart threatened to beat out of his chest, and he had to clench his fists tight enough to hurt to stop the tremor in his hands.
But Bruce was tired of waiting. He felt off, sick and shaky in a way that he thought he trained out of himself a long time ago. However, something in the back of his mind whispered that if he didn’t go now, he was never going to be able to see Jason again.
And so he found himself slipping into the apartment mere moments later, pausing for a few seconds to allow his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the room. It was… sad. A brief memory flashes inside of his head, the room bearing an odd sense of resemblance to Jason’s original house that he grew up in.
Bruce could see a gun lying innocently on a sunken mattress shoved in the corner of the room, slick with something that bore an odd resemblance to saliva. The floor besides it was strewn with nothing but granola and power bar wrappers, the only sign that somebody was still living here. There was barely anything inside of the apartment, making his search incredibly short. Bruce walks down a small, cramped hallway, leading to only one other room.
The bathroom.
Light slipped through the gaps where the door didn’t quite match the frame it was inserted into, making it the only logical place where Jason could be. Bruce grips the doorknob with a tense hand, unease churning in his gut when it gives with no resistance. He pushes open the door, stumbling back at the sight that greets him.
No.
No.
It can’t be.
His son, his baby boy, was slumped over himself in the corner. The smell of iron, metallic and fresh, invaded his senses until it was all he could register. Blood coated his front, and as Bruce drags his eyes away from Jason's face—away from those unseeing, glassy eyes—his heart only sinks further.
Bruce had seen far, far too many suicides over the years, countless people who couldn’t bear the weight of their actions, finding comfort in the bite of a bullet or the sting of a blade, but nothing like this. It wasn’t the manner of the death that made Bruce stumble out of the bathroom to vomit on the warped floorboards, but rather the look that was on Jason’s face.
A dopey smile, body relaxed in a way that Bruce hasn’t since long before Ethiopia. Jason looked peaceful.
Bruce wipes the bile from his mouth, returning to the bathroom with shaky legs. Maybe–maybe Jason was still alive. Maybe there was a chance to save him. (He ignores the analytic voice in the back of his head that tells him that there was no chance. )
Scooping his son into his arms gently, uncaring of how the blood soaks into his armor, Bruce’s heart lurches in his chest. He was still warm. Instantly, his fingers find the soft inside of his wrist (not the one slashed and coated with blood, he refused to even glance at it), the soft tendrils of hope curdling when he’s met with stillness. There was no pulse.
Jason was dead.
His son was dead.
Again.
He was too late.
Again.
A sob so strangled it sounds inhuman forces its way out of his throat, his cries filling the cramped bathroom. Calling them cries would be a stretch—they were more similar to screams, his throat rubbed raw with his grief.
Dick found him nearly an hour later, curled over Jason’s body, cradling him with soft, rasping cries that shook his entire body with each one. It isn’t until Dick’s speaks is Bruce broken out of his stupor, wide, bloodshot eyes meeting Dick’s shocked ones.
“..Bruce?”
A beat passes, the man taking in the scene before him. He gulps when he sees the blood, a long, shuddery exhale leaving him when he connects the dots.
“J-Jason?”
Bruce can’t bring himself to speak, lest he fall into hysterics once more. His throat feels raw, each inhale rough and painful. Faintly, he can feel himself stand up, cradling Jason’s body like he was fragile. It all felt so distant. Bruce can hear Dick attempt to talk to him, but quickly gives up when the man doesn’t respond. He feels as if he was underwater, everything blurry faraway—other than Jason. He couldn’t stop staring at Jason’s face, carding his hands softly through his soft, soft hair, closing his eyes with a gentle thumb.
He can feel himself follow Dick out of the building—his hands cradling Jason’s head so he doesn’t hit the doorframes—and into the Batmobile that was waiting in a nearby alleyway. Dick takes the driver's seat, and Bruce silently thanks him. If it were him driving, he wasn’t sure if he could stop himself from veering into the murky waters of the Gotham River.
The drive passes by in a blur, Bruce feeling listless as he exits the car, the relief that normally came from seeing the Batcave absent. Alfred meets them quickly, his normally stoic voice melting into that of despair. His voice trembles, his posh accent dimmed with grief. “Oh, my boy..”
Bruce doesn’t reply, throat too tight to force a word out if he could even find words to say. As they near the examination table, he can hear Dick begin to break down, soothed by Alfred who was somehow keeping it together, but only barely. As he lays his son down onto the table, he leans down, laying a kiss right on his forehead—an action he hasn’t done since the boy turned fourteen.
Bruce drifts over to Dick, who had his arms wrapped around himself, tears streaming down the man’s face. He opens his arms for a hug—the two ignoring the blood that was still staining the soft parts of his armor—and envelopes his son. He could feel the man shudder and gasp, and Bruce mirrors his actions. He feels as if he had lost a limb, his entire body screaming for something he could never get back.
Awareness was slowly bleeding back into him, and Bruce hated it. When he finally regains control over his vocal cords again, he can’t help the words that slip out. “I miss him.” Then, as if he couldn’t help himself, he whispers roughly, “I didn’t even get to tell him I loved him. That–” He chokes on his words, swallowing thickly, “That he was still my son.”
Dick seems to hug him tighter, a long beat passing between the two, before Dick breaks the silence with his own hushed words. “I miss him too.”
Bruce can feel a sob wrack his body again, but no sound escapes his lips.
Dick shudders as well, his voice coming out in a broken whisper.
“I know Bruce. I know.”