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Jason has been dead for two weeks.
Every time Bruce closes his eyes, remnants of that night are all he can see. It’s as if his mind refuses to show him anything else. All he has are those twisted memories.
The beaten remains of his son, his uniform torn and twisted around his waist.
The Joker’s toothy grin as Bruce pummels his face into the dirt floor.
Bruce’s bleeding knuckles as he kneels down next to Jason’s body and screams.
It’s all he dreams about now, too. Even his parents’ murder has taken a backseat to the newest trauma that has rocked his life. He dreams about broken boys clawing out of their own graves. He dreams about killing the Joker. He dreams about being the one to die in Jason’s place.
Once, he saw Jason murdered by the same person who killed his mother and father. That nightmare had been the worst one.
His waking hours aren’t any safer. The Manor feels empty without Jason - every room and corridor stained by his absence - and the silence seems to stretch even longer because of it.
Grief is a cruel beast; Bruce is all too familiar with its ways by now.
It digs in its claws more when you try to shake it off, its teeth always hovering right above your jugular vein, the low growl in its throat more of a warning than a threat. It isn’t the sort of beast you can kill or incapacitate. The more you fight it, the stronger it becomes.
And Bruce is so tired of fighting.
He’s been fighting for years, and what has it given him?
An estranged family, a dead son and a hole in his heart.
It has been two weeks since Jason’s passing, and Bruce has been trying to destroy himself for most of it. Alfred can’t shake the thought that this is Bruce’s way of punishing himself for his part in Jason’s death.
In all his time caring for Bruce, Alfred has grown familiar with his grief. He can recall the precise expression that had been frozen on Bruce’s face for the weeks after his parents’ death. That shell-shocked look wasn’t one that was easily forgotten.
Worryingly, Bruce has the same haunted look on his face now, three decades later.
One step forward, two steps back…
Grief isn’t a thing that’s easily fixed. It isn’t like broken teacup that can be pieced back together or an upturned stack of linens that can be ironed and folded again. Grief takes a person and twists them up until they’re no longer recognisable, even to those they’re closest to.
Alfred has let Bruce destroy himself once before. He isn’t letting it happen again.
Calling in one of Bruce’s work colleagues might have been a little underhanded on Alfred’s part, but he rather thinks Bruce hasn’t given him a choice. The man desperately needs to shower and wash his hair. It's been two weeks since he's done either.
(He could use a shave too, but Alfred severely doubts that Bruce will let him within five paces whilst he is in possession of a blade. He can’t exactly blame him for his paranoia.)
If it had been possible, Alfred would have taken care of Bruce himself, but he is only one man, and an elderly one at that. While he has retained much of his muscle as he moved into his twilight years, Alfred is not as strong as he once was, and he’s painfully aware of that fact. Besides, Bruce is not a small man by any means. Manoeuvring his bulk and muscle would require a particular sort of strength.
Therefore, the solution to his problem is obvious.
He calls Clark Kent - more commonly known as Superman - to Wayne Manor. Together, they are either going to convince Bruce to get out of bed or drag him to the bathroom themselves.
It ends up being the latter.
Bruce fights them on every single step. He bares his teeth and digs in his heels and claws at Clark as the man shoulders him down the hallway. If it weren’t for Clark’s impervious skin, Alfred would have been worried for his safety. He makes a mental note to send Clark a check to cover the cost of the shirt Bruce ruined by clawing at the man like some sort of beast.
(Batman was often rumoured to be less than human. More beast than man. Alfred sometimes coldly thinks that isn’t far from the truth, though he would never say that to Bruce’s face.)
The feral look in Bruce’s eyes dies down a little when they get him into the bath, submerged in the warm water. As Alfred scrubs his hair clean, he notes the way Bruce’s eyes flutter until they are closed.
He looks enough like he’s dead that it makes Alfred’s heart stutter a little in his chest.
As old as he gets, he’ll never stop worrying about his Young Master.
Bruce returns to the streets of Gotham three weeks after Jason’s death. In his absence, the conditions in the crime-ridden city have only worsened. He hates himself for letting things get to this point.
For wasting time with his grief when people in his city were suffering.
When Batman returns to Gotham, he returns with a vengeance and a cold ferocity that makes even his most hardened rouges more nervous than they want to admit.
Most of the League is avoiding Bruce under some pretence of giving him space to grieve. In reality, most of them are too scared to face him.
Batman has always been fueled by grief. It’s what fuels his kindness to his city, as well as his fury levelled towards those that mistreat or disrespect his home. After losing another member of his family, it’s no wonder that Batman has become more erratic. More aggressive. More violent.
When Bruce lands another criminal in the hospital, the League decides to step in.
Clark is the one to draw the short straw, given the impossible task of reasoning with a man who, by all measures of the word, does not want their help.
After a Justice League meeting, Clark stays behind for a moment to help Bruce pack up his presentation. Even now, at the Watchtower, he has a look of quiet rage on his face. Clark wonders if he’s planning to assault anyone else tonight.
Does it make you feel any better, Bruce? I doubt that it does.
Clark is snapped out of his thoughts by Bruce snarling out, “Why are you staring at me?”
Desperate to regain his footing, Clark replies, “We’re worried about you, Bruce. Ever since Jason-”
Bruce’s eyes narrow slightly. To anyone else, it would have been imperceptible, but Clark notices. “Don’t say his name. You haven’t earned that right.
“We know you’re not doing well. I know how you-”
“No. You don’t. You have no idea how it feels,” Bruce grits, gripping the table hard enough for the metal to give way beneath his fingers.
Clark wants to say that he understands. He’s had a whole lifetime to grieve the loss of the family and the culture he never got to know. He knows - perhaps better than most - exactly how Bruce feels.
“We’re done here.” Just like that, Bruce is gone in a whirl of black leather and kevlar, leaving Clark alone in the meeting room.
Bruce likes to think that he’s smart enough to keep his secrets, but Jim knows him too well by now.
He’s known that Bruce is Batman for years. While he wasn’t happy about it, he understood why Bruce felt the need to keep his identity a secret. His life was a lonely one; always had been.
Even when he had Robin.
Once he’d made the connection between Bruce and Batman, it had been all too easy to connect Dick and Jason with Robin. The difference between them was that Dick grew up, moving on to become Nightwing.
And Jason never got that.
The official story, the one Bruce is feeding the press, is that Jason was abducted and killed while on a trip in Ethiopia. While Jason’s passport did indeed show that he made a trip to Ethiopia a few days before his death, Jim has a sneaking suspicion that there’s more to the story that Bruce is telling.
Perhaps that would explain why the Joker’s been in hiding since Bruce reported Jason’s death to the police.
The thought settles deep in Jim’s chest, more of a burden than he anticipated.
Here’s the thing: Jim knows Bruce better than most people do.
Bruce has spent decades making himself into an enigma, but Jim can see right through him. When things get hard, being able to make his city safer is what helps Bruce the most. It’s probably not the healthiest coping mechanism, but Jim can’t exactly fault the guy for that.
Taking another drag of his cigarette, Jim waits on the roof for Batman to respond to his signal. With any luck, this unsolved case will be just what Bruce needs.
Jim is as close to a friend as Bruce has.
He can’t watch him destroy himself for a moment longer.
Despite his rules against it, Bruce thinks about killing more than he likes to admit.
That’s why he has the rule in the first place.
Because Bruce is always thinking about it, turning the idea over in his hands. Wouldn’t it be easier? If a criminal is planning to kill again, surely putting them down before they get the chance is the logical choice? How much suffering is he going to allow because he cannot bring himself to eliminate the dregs of society?
At least, that’s what the logical side of his mind supplies, when he’s musing on the subject late at night, sleep refusing to come to him.
When he’s angry, a different side comes out. A side that insists - through bared, snarling teeth - that people have to pay for their crimes. He imagines wrapping his hands around a rapist’s throat and squeezing the life out of them. He imagines beating child abusers until their bloody broken bodies give out underneath him. He imagines making killers feel the terror their victims felt, as he approaches, blade in hand.
He thinks about how it would feel to kill the Joker.
Would he laugh? Scream? Beg for mercy?
Or would he simply look at Bruce with an empty look in his eyes and a smile on his face?
Would that be what Jason wanted from him? If it was, would Bruce sacrifice his morals for the sake of his son?
Batman doesn’t kill.
That doesn’t mean that Bruce doesn't want to.
As Bruce brings the heel of his boot down on the back of the trafficker’s shoulders, he has to remind himself of the rules.
He doesn’t kill.
(But he wants to.)
Scum. These men are fucking scum. They’ve been kidnapping and trafficking children in his city for years, clearing thinking Batman wouldn’t find out.
How wrong they were…
Bruce lashes the last man to an exposed pipe, zip-ties digging tight into his wrists. Gordon and the rest of the police force are on their way; this man and all his associates are going away for a long time.
“How come Robin ain’t with you?” asks the man. His Crime Alley accent reminds Bruce of Jason, before he began to mask it as a teenager. “You get bored of him or something?”
Bruce knows the man is trying to provoke him, and he isn’t planning to let him succeed. Instead, he busies himself with checking that none of the man’s associates are going to wake up.
The man’s eyes are cold and dark as he levels his gaze at Bruce. “You know, if you let me go, I can get you a new kid. Free of charge and all that. You like ‘em small, don’t ya? I reckon I can manage that; get you a good replacement.”
This isn’t the first time a criminal has tried to appeal to Batman’s rumoured cruelty.
It is the first time one of them has offered to sell him a child.
Hot fury runs down Bruce’s spine. How many times does he have to prove that he’s good before people start to believe it?
(He tries not to think about how scared Jason had been the first time they met. How he had unwittingly loomed over the boy as he returned Batman’s tires, only frightening him further. How he let Jason think that he was going to hurt him because he didn’t notice how the kid was shaking until they were already halfway to Bristol.)
“Maybe you won’t kill this one,” the man adds, like it’s some sort of sick joke. “Then again, if Robin got too old for you, that can’t be helped, can it?”
He grins up at Bruce, yellowed teeth showing, and Bruce feels that hot fury once more.
In one slick moment, Bruce pulls the knife from his utility belt and cuts the zip-ties around the man’s wrists. For a moment, the man looks relieved.
Then, Bruce grabs him and shoves him to the ground.
The first punch eases some of the fury twisting in Bruce’s gut, but it isn’t enough.
(It’s never going to be enough.)
So he keeps going, even as his knuckles become bruised and bloody.
He doesn’t stop punching until Dick forcibly hauls him off the man. It is only then that Bruce becomes distantly aware that the police have arrived, along with Nightwing. A few of the younger officers look disgusted at the scene of carnage before them, and the others are glancing towards Gordon for signs of how they should react.
Gordon’s lips are a tight line against his face. His eyebrows twitch ever so slightly.
Jim isn’t easy to read, but even Bruce can tell he’s pissed.
Bruce stumbles to his feet, his heart beating so loud he can hear it in his ears, and takes in the twisted diorama he created. The trafficker’s face is so severely beaten that he’s unrecognisable. There’s a high probability that the doctors at Gotham General won’t be able to reconstruct his face from what remains. It’s a miracle that the man is still breathing, as laboured and shallow as each breath is.
“Nightwing, I think it’s time for Batman to finish his patrol,” Gordon announces, refusing to look Bruce in the eyes.
Bruce isn’t sure what he would say to him, if he had the chance.
He’s never been one for apologies…
Dick falters for just a moment. “Commissioner…”
Gordon shakes his head, gripping at the bridge of his nose above his glasses. “Take him home. Now . Before I change my mind.”
Mumbling an apology, Dick drags Bruce away from the scene.
They sit in the Batmobile in complete silence for several minutes before Dick drives them both back to the Manor.
Dick swears Bruce was never this bad when he was a kid.
It feels near impossible to reconcile the Bruce who tucked him into bed when he had nightmares with the Bruce who just beat a criminal within an inch of his life.
If they had shown up a minute later, would Bruce have killed that man? The thought draws a full-body shiver from Dick, but the more he considers it, the more worryingly realistic it seems. As reprehensible as the criminal had been, Dick wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone.
It’s even harder - somehow - to reconcile the man Dick had to haul off the criminal with the man sitting next to him, shoulders hunched over, hands pressed to the back of his neck, like a chain pulling him down.
“Alfred’s not going to be happy about this,” Dick says, by way of conversation. “You’ve changed and he’s noticed. We all have.”
Bruce hunches even further over until he’s almost bent in two. He doesn’t say anything.
Drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, Dick asks, “Why did you do it? What did he say?”
“... he deserved it.”
“Bruce…”
“Dick.” Bruce’s voice is so strained that it makes Dick frown. " Please ."
“Fine, but I’m not covering for you,” Dick mutters, gesturing to Bruce’s bloody uniform with his free hand. “You’re explaining this to Alfie.”
Bruce still doesn’t reply.
Dick sighs, turning his attention to the road.
It’s the middle of the night, so it’s pitch black. None of the street-lights are working. Dick can hear a stray dog howling somewhere close by.
Fucking Gotham.
The city never changes.
It will always amuse J’onn to see how much reverence Bruce has for Alfred. Even as a mature specimen, he holds the same amount of fearful respect for the man that a juvenile might have for their caregiver.
Considering Batman’s less than ideal behaviour during his most recent case, the man has been benched for the indefinite future, barring any serious, world threatening events.
Such a thing would not come easy to a man like Bruce. J’onn has probed his mind before - on Bruce’s request - and found that his surface thoughts were almost completely focussed on whatever case he was working at the moment.
Bruce is the sort of man who doesn’t know how to turn off.
That’s where J’onn comes in.
Ostensibly, J’onn’s visit to the Wayne Manor is a social call.
If he were being more candid, he’d admit that his primary motivation was to get close enough to discern Bruce’s current mental state in order to report back to the rest of the League. However, he is hoping that his presence might bring some ease to the man, even if he has to use his abilities to do so.
Alfred seems fond of J’onn, at the very least, and shows him into the Batcave, despite the fact that J’onn certainly could have found his way himself.
When he sees Bruce sitting at his computer, flicking through his files idly, it becomes obvious that Bruce is still trying to work, even if he isn’t actively in the field. Bruce’s most admirable trait is also one of his most frustrating.
“I don’t need to be watched over,” Bruce grumbles, not turning to look at J’onn.
J’onn floats himself over to the metal cot in the medbay, taking a seat. “That isn’t why I’m here.”
Bruce whipped around and snapped, “Then why are you here?”
“Losing one’s offspring is a unique pain,” J’onn remarks, his tone cool and level. “That’s why I am here.”
Sullen, Bruce refuses to reply. That doesn’t put a damper on J’onn’s plan.
“If you would allow it, I would like to connect to your mind. Allowing me to see your current mental state would be beneficial for us both.”
“You’re not going to like what you see,” Bruce grits.
J’onn merely fixed Bruce with a cold look. “That is something that I get to decide.”
Sighing - long and laboured - Bruce nods, opening up the back of his mind.
On the surface, J’onn finds information about the cases Bruce is currently working on. Below that, he finds everyday memories, as well as Bruce’s short-term memories. Probing slightly deeper, he manages to find the deeper areas of Bruce’s subconsciousness.
From there, J’onn is able to pull out the memories Bruce has of Jason, which are mixed in with his thoughts and emotions.
He knows that, if he delved any deeper, he would be able to find the memories that created Batman.
Examining the memories he finds there, though he’s careful to not probe too deeply into them, for both Bruce and Jason’s privacy, J’onn picks up general themes of discontentment, loneliness and regret.
J’onn pulls back.
“You want to talk about him,” he says simply.
Bruce flinches at the declaration of his deepest thoughts, but he doesn’t deny it.
“Jason… he was a good kid,” Bruce begins, his voice cracking as if he’s about to cry. “All anyone cares about is how he died, not how he lived. I can’t stand that.”
“Then tell me,” J’onn states. “Tell me how he lived.”
Bruce’s gaze flickers away from J’onn for only a moment, before he takes a deep breath and starts talking. Hours later, and he’s still thinking of new stories to tell.
J’onn listens.
Somehow, it’s exactly what Bruce needed.
It’s been two months since Jason died.
Bruce still isn’t doing great, but he’s doing better.
Leslie got him the number of a licensed grief counsellor and a family therapist. Though cautious due to some bad experiences with therapists as a child, Bruce begrudgingly agreed to go, mostly at Alfred’s insistence.
Frustratingly enough, it does help. If he had started sooner…
What would he have been able to stop from happening?
His relationship with Dick, while still strained, is stronger than before and he feels more stable. Discussions of Batman returning to the field have been floating around, but Bruce isn’t looking to rush back into things.
He’s helping Alfred set the table for dinner when the doorbell rings. “I’ll get it, Alfie,” he calls, stepping out the dining room and into the hallway. “Are you expecting a package?”
“I don’t believe so…” Alfred replied.
Bruce is at the door, hand on the handle, before he can register how strange the whole situation is. They live too far out to have neighbours - barring the Drakes, who are almost always travelling - and the usual suspects of door-to-door salesmen and Jehovah’s Witnesses wouldn’t dream of knocking on the door of Wayne Manor.
When Bruce opens the door and sees a little boy standing in front of him, his brain just about short-circuits.
“Batman! I knew you were alive! Everyone was saying you were dead, but I knew you were still alive.”
Scratch that, his brain has completely short-circuited. No hope of saving the program. All the data’s gone.
How does this kid know he’s Batman?
It takes him a moment longer than he wants to admit to recognise the boy as Timothy Drake. Shouldn’t he be in Barbados with his parents? Is his home alone? How worrying…
“Why don’t you come inside, Timothy?”
“Oh, uh… okay?” Timothy sounds unsure, but he doesn’t seem scared as Bruce leads him into the house.
Bruce has made too many mistakes in his life.
Maybe this time, he can make the right decision.
Maybe he can help Tim.
Maybe he can make Jason proud.
… maybe.