Chapter Text
Bruce's chest slowly rose and fell with each steady breath. He was still in bed, watching the orange glow spread out across the ceiling and down the wall as the day proceeded the dawn. He probably had a few minutes before Alfred came knocking at his door to wake him as he’d done for the last week. He was concerned, though he was yet to voice his worries, and understandably so.
Ever since Bruce had woken up in the past, gasping for breath and clutching his chest, he had spent his days sat on the ground at Jason's grave. He wouldn’t eat unless Alfred brought him food, he wouldn’t speak unless Alfred asked, and he hadn’t even approached the cave, let alone touch the Bat suit.
He’d had the misfortune to be brought back to the aftermath of Jason's death. It had been a couple months after the explosion. Dick was in Bludhaven, making a point not to speak to Bruce under any circumstances, and, while Alfred remained, he was grieving himself. It was all a mess and Bruce couldn’t help but remember his own faults the first time. He’d pushed his only other child away and pushed himself until it took Timothy, a child, to tell him to get his act together. Even then, the damage had lasted long into the future and had created cracks in the very foundation of Bruce’s relationship with his children.
Bruce knew things would change and that Jason would return, but that didn’t make waking up to him gone any easier to bear. He didn’t know when his son would claw his way out of the grave. It wasn’t something an older Jason had cared to speak about, the mention of his death was enough to end all conversations.
With no date to go off from, Bruce stared at the headstone until Alfred came to drag him back inside Manor. Sometimes he talked to the open air, pretending Jason could hear him through the coffin’s walls and tightly packed dirt, other days he remained silent and just waited. It was a morbid kind of peace that he found there, comforted by the whistling wind and gentle breeze. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine Jason sitting there with him.
-
There were forty-two unread messages on Dicks phone. Three were from his coworkers asking for his help on their cases, twelve were from his therapist asking him if he was coming back for another appointment after he’d run out of the last one. There were several from Bruce, almost seven months old which he had no intention of reading- there was nothing that man could say that would be worth Dicks time. Nineteen were shared between Clark and other JLA members, asking if he’d been able to contact Batman for the last week.
The final lone text was from Alfred; short and succinct.
Alfred:
Please come to the Manor, he is getting worse.
As much as Dick resented Bruce, he had been relieved when Alfred alerted him to a change for the better in the man’s state. He’d been terrified that his black suit and dress shoes would see another use that year. To hear that there had been such a sudden downwards turn, when Bruce had been gradually improving, was more than concerning. Though he didn’t want to admit it, Dick was scared. Scared enough to respond to Alfred message and more than scared enough to catch a train back to Gotham the next morning.
“Master Dick,” Alfred smiled at him when he opened the door, ushering the young man inside. He took his coat, taking no arguments from Dick when he’d insisted that he could do it himself, and pulled him into a quick but tight hug “You have no idea how glad I am to see you, dear boy.”
Dick doesn’t say that he’d missed him too, even though he wanted to, and walked with Alfred further into the Manor “Where is he?” He’d returned for Bruce’s benefit, but that didn’t mean he was prepared to talk to the man.
“Ah.” Alfred sighed and wavered in his stride “I am afraid that’s quite the issue I contacted you about.”
“Is he in the cave?”
“No, rather the opposite. He hasn’t worn the suit for over a week now, neither has he reached out to those teammates of his for someone to take on the role.” He wiped at the side of his face in pure exhaustion, looking painfully older in that moment “Every morning, Master Bruce has refused to be anywhere but Master Jason's grave.”
An invisible hand grasped Dicks lungs tight and his breath released in a strangled wheeze. Alfred sent him a pitying glance, patting him on the back to console him.
“I have tried to bring him back inside, Miss Kyle visited yesterday and tried as well, but we've had no luck. He leaves shortly after dawn and will only come back inside in the early hours of the next day.”
“What makes you think I’ll be able to do it then?”
“Young Master, I think you underestimate how much a word from you will mean to him.” Alfred looked away, a faraway look in his eyes “I had tried my best with him when he was a child, but he is a stubborn creature. Since you were as small as nine years old, one request from you would break through his worst moods. I know you do not consider him your father, Master Dick, but he does view you as his son.”
Dick sighed “I’ll try Alfie but I can’t promise anything.”
“Very well, Master Dick.” The old man softly smiled and continued to walk to the kitchen “It is almost lunchtime. After you’ve eaten, I’ll give you a wrapped meal to take out to Bruce. He has been uninterested in eating unless I bring the food to him.”
-
Picnic basket in hand, Dick wandered across the dewy grass to the graveyard. He could feel his socks growing wet through his shoes from the morning rain and how the bottom of his jeans were damp, brushing against his skin. It was a miserable day, as it often was in Gotham, and the sky was smothered with thick grey clouds. A storm was coming soon, or so the weathermen claimed.
The iron gate to the private family plots creaked agonisingly as Dick pushed it open. The paint was peeling away and its latch was jammed, leaving the gate to swing shut behind him and bounce back with a rattle. Dick ignored it, sights set on the figure several rows in, hunched over on the ground. There were only two graves in the plot Bruce had reserved; Sheila Haywood and Jason Todd. Having spent months looking for his birth mother, right up until his death, it had seemed unfair to separate Jason from his last blood relative. Even if it meant not burying the boy in the Wayne family plot.
Dick set the basket down next to Bruce. The man didn’t give him any notice, staring at the ground between his body and Jason’s headstone. He wasn’t crying, nor was he angry, in fact he looked unnervingly peaceful. No wonder Alfred had asked Dick to come home.
“Hey.” He gently nudged Bruce’s leg with the toe of his shoe to get his attention.
“Hey chum.” Bruce hummed “How’s Bludhaven?”
“Uh,” Dick stammered, unprepared for Bruce to start a conversation. He’d been carrying the burden of filling the air for years, interpretating the ‘hms’ and ‘hmns’ as if it were his second language “It’s alright, I guess.”
“Are things going well at the precinct?”
“Bruce, what’s going on?” Dick couldn’t take it and shifted the focus away from himself “You’ve got Alfred worrying that you’re about to disappear and Clark blowing up my phone asking what’s going on. You were getting better, what changed?”
Bruce had the nerve to smile. He patted the earth next to him, gesturing for Dick to join him and reluctantly he did. An arm pulled Dick close and Bruce rested his chin on top of his head “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the funeral. I should have called you; you had a right to know.”
“Then why didn’t you?” Dick wasn’t going to get choked up, he refused.
“I didn’t want it to be real. If I told you that Jason was gone, then I’d have to hear that out loud and I couldn’t do it. That doesn’t make it okay, I know.” Bruce kissed the top of Dicks hair “I am sorry, chum.”
Dick took it all back; he wasn’t scared, he was terrified. The last time they’d spoken it had been raised voices and flying fists, now suddenly Bruce was emotionally competent?
“Why are you out here, Bruce?”
“I wasn’t there for him before.” He spoke in a low voice “I owe it to Jason to be here now.”
-
Unsurprisingly, Dick was not successful in persuading Bruce to go back home that first day and by the time he’d awoken on the second the man had already left the house, back to the graveyard. Alfred had comforted Dick, thanking him for the effort, and handed him another packed lunch. When he’d arrived at his little brothers resting place again, he’d caught Bruce talking to the grave in a one sided conversation, pausing as if Jason could and did respond. He’d trailed off as he heard Dick coming and neither of them mentioned what he’d seen.
Before he knew it, Dick had been staying in Wayne Manor for a full week.
He was stirred from a dreamless sleep on the seventh day by the harsh wind and rain crashing into the window of his room. Dick had rolled over and retreated further under the covers, trying to drift back to sleep, until he’d jolted up and thrown his bedding to the floor. In a flurry of movement, he pulled on a thick coat and bounded down the stairs, calling for Alfred to bring the car around to the front. As he’s suspected, Bruce had not been in his room, leaving only one other option.
Sure enough, they found Bruce sitting out in the storm and it had taken the last of Alfred patience and all of Dick’s strength to carry him back to the car. The man was drifting in and out of consciousness, dazed and unaware of what was happening around him. His forehead was scorching to the touch.
“Someone’s… got to…” Bruce mumbled, straining against Dick and Alfred's hold on him to turn and look back at Jason's grave “Dick…. Dickie, you have to…”
“It’s alright, Bruce, don’t worry about it.” Dick sighed and swallowed the words he desperately wanted to say instead.
“No, no Dickie, you have to stay… he can’t... he can’t be alone, Dickie.” He shook his head and stumbled again, catching his shoe on a rock, and almost sending Alfred and Dick down with him “I can’t leave my son, I can’t… someone’s got to stay.”
Alfred had driven past the church’s parking area and left the car on the grass so he wouldn’t have to lug an unbelievably heavy and large man further than he had to. The backseat doors were open, allowing him and Dick to tip Bruce inside, admittedly shoving him the rest of the way until they could wrestle a seatbelt over him.
“Dickie, you have…” Bruce scrunched up his eyes and breathed heavily.
Leaning forward past him, Alfred pulled a small wrapped umbrella and handed it to Dick.
“Alfie?”
“He will not rest unless he is certain someone remains, Master Dick.” He sighed wearily and glanced back at Bruce in concern “I would rather not have him jump from a moving vehicle to come back here. It will not be long, just wait until I have him settled in the house and I return.”
Dick deeply inhaled, tempted to glare at his once-parental figure, and took the umbrella “Fine, but if I get sick too, I’m going to kill him.” He grumbled and stepped back, opening the umbrella in one smooth move.
Alfred gave him a nod of thanks, slid into the driver’s seat, and drove away. Dick watched the car shrink into the distance, fading into the torrential rain, and titled his head back to the sky to groan loudly. If he hadn’t been in his mid 20’s he would have stomped his feet in a tantrum. Leave it to Bruce to force Dick into staying at his little brother’s grave just because he refused to go to therapy.
The storm beat at the umbrella mercilessly as Dick stumbled back to the plot and, without nearby shelter or walls, he resigned himself to stand out in the open slowly getting drenched by rain water. He half-wished he had taken up smoking, just to have something to use as a distraction from staring at the cold dead stone.
“Why do you keep bringing him out here?” Dick muttered bitterly. He could barely hear himself over the wind but decided, just for a moment, to pretend Jason was listening “It’s been months. The investigation closed before your funeral, he put away the files a few weeks ago, so what is it about this.”
He shakily sighed “I’m sorry, Jay, about the funeral. I would have been here if I’d… I didn’t even know you were gone until the morning after I got back and went through my voicemails.” Dick took a few steps forward until he was at the edge of where the earth had been upturned to bury the casket “I should have been there. Before, too.”
His face warmed and tears pricked at the corner of his eyes “God, I wish you’d just told us, Jay. We could have helped you find her or- or I could have gone with you, to that warehouse, I… I should have been with you.” Dick was clutching the handle of the umbrella to tightly that his knuckles turned paper white, shaking “I was supposed to be your older brother but I just fucked it all up. I can’t even say I didn’t have the time, because I did, I wasted it being stupid and resentful with Bruce.”
The tears flowed freely and his heartrate sped up as he finally spoke. The storm swelled and the ground thudded beneath his feet, almost matching his heart in pace “There were so many trips I was going to take you on; the other Titans agreed to you staying with us to train if you’d wanted, or my apartment, you could have lived with me for the holida-” He attempted to move closer to the stone but jolted as the earth concaved beneath his shoe “What the fuck?”
Dick crouched and pressed a hand into the mud. It dipped down under his touch and, having moved close enough to see it that time, the earth seemed to shift across the graves area. The ground was thudding beneath him, but not because of his panic (though he was panicking) and instead due to someone hitting against something solid. Something sturdy.
Like a coffin.
The umbrella was thrown to the side and Dick darted forward to scoop at the mud with his bare hands. It was disgusting and seeping into the sleeves of his coat, but he didn’t stop. He probably looked insane, knee deep in a grave and digging down. Superman looked at him as if he were. Dick was unsure when he’d called out for him but with the way his throat ached, he must have screamed for Clark at some point.
“Dick, what’s going on?” His hands hovered over the young man, debating whether to pull him away.
“The- There’s something down there, I swear, Clark, look!” Dick rambled. He was drenched, his hair stuck down into his face, with mud up to his elbows and not once did he stop digging.
Clark, horrified with the state of his honorary nephew, looked down. His sight carried past the remaining feet of dirt and thick wooden walls. Whatever it was he saw must have been bad because a second later he joined Dick to dig.
-
By the time Bruce woke up, the storm had passed. He was back in his bed and, as he attempted to sit up, terribly woozy. A damp small towel fell from his forehead and landed on his lap. He touched it; it was lukewarm and it must have been a while since it had been placed on him. The towel had done the job though, bringing his temperature down to almost-normal. Bruce shrugged off the blankets, took a moment to steady himself as the edge of his mattress, and stood.
The hallways were quiet. They had been for weeks and it took Bruce off guard every single time. He couldn’t turn the corners without expecting one of his children to come barreling into him. Stephanie on the run after messing with Tim, Cass with her feather-light footsteps that he could never hear coming, Duke with his nose stuck into a revision guide for his exams, or Damian, who barely came up to his waist even if he carried himself as though her were 6”4. His kids, every single one of them, were gone. Forever, or at least that version of them.
Nonetheless he’d been granted a second chance and, if the disturbed dust around Jason’s bedroom and the ajar door was anything to go by, it wouldn’t go wasted.
Bruce leaned heavily against the doorframe as he pushed the gap open further. Laying in his childhood bed was Jason, covered in bandages with an IV extending from the crook of his right arm to a saline bag strung up on the bedframe, alive. For better and for worse, he looked the same as the day Bruce had lost him. The man moved forward and sat down gently at the edge. He reached out to cup the side of Jason's face, his thumb brushing back his black curls, and bent forward until their foreheads were pressed together.
“Thank you.” Bruce shakily exhaled “Whatever you are, that brought my boy back, thank you.”
His hand moved and he pressed two fingers against the underside of his son’s jaw, just to listen to the heartbeat that steadily pulsed beneath.
A gentle knock against wood brought his attention back to the doorway where Dick stood, dark circles beneath his eyes, watching him.
“What did you do, Bruce?” He didn’t smile and looked at Bruce with a mixture of concern and fear.
“I don’t know what you mean, chum.”
“How did you know?” Dick stepped forward until he was in Bruce's face, forcibly moving his hand from Jason’s jaw “How did you know that Jason was going to come back?”
Bruce gently released his wrist from Dicks grasp “I didn’t do anything to him, son, I didn’t know he was going to do this when he did.” A twist on words but still truthful “He’s alive, Dickie, he’s going to be alright.”
“He was trying to dig his way out of his grave.” He was shaking and Bruce couldn’t help but pull him into a hug “Clark got to him just after he broke through the lid. He could have choked before we got to him, B, he could have died again and we would have never known.”
“You got to him in time, chum.”
They sat for a while, Bruce leaning down from the bed and Dick crumpled onto the floor, held up only by his father figures arms. Dick eventually calmed down and went quiet. He had poked his head out from Bruce's hold to stare at Jason.
“Hey, chum?”
“Mhm.”
“Have you ever met our neighbour, Timothy Drake?”