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He gets five minutes warning from Barbara that Bruce has disappeared from the Manor. She's trying to track him, but he's laid down leads that show him going anywhere and everywhere in Gotham, even a couple that show him going to Metropolis.
She reassures him that there's no sign of him heading towards Uptown - which if she weren't so stressed about B pulling this shit, she'd realise the same thing that he already has: that that means he's going nowhere other than Uptown.
He says as much to her - but he also tells her that he'll talk to B this time. He would just try it again, and Jason doesn't want to have to stay on his guard when he's at home, just waiting for Batman to appear from a dark corner.
B is making it clear that he doesn't respect boundaries, and that he's determined to talk to Jason. So he'll let him. He'd rather be prepared than caught unawares.
Barbara acknowledges, and tells him that Dick will be down, and will escort B back to the Manor once Jason's said his piece.
Jason presses a comm into his ear, and lets her know, so that she can tell him when Dick gets here. He knows that she might record what happens - she'd told him as much when she gave him this particular comm- but any recordings from his comms normally go into a locked file, and he's fine with it. Only he and O can open it. He shakes his hair out over his ears to help cover the comm: he doesn't want B to know he's got one in.
And then Matches walks through the door.
Jason corners him immediately, and herds him towards a table in the corner.
B lets him do it peacefully. Good. He would have done it as forcefully as was necessary - and B could probably see that in his eyes.
He puts B with his back to the wall, and himself nearer the door.
He nods for B to sit first, then yanks a chair further away from him - he doesn't want to be within easy reach, and sits down.
After a moment it becomes clear that B won't speak first, and Jason doesn't actually have all day to waste on this shit, so he says, not bothering to keep the anger out of his tone, “You, Matches, can call me J. You're not getting anything more than that. Except you're going to push, aren't you. I'll save you the effort. So. Jay Doile.”
He bares his teeth. Now they're both using fake names.
There's a flicker of a frown as B recognises the surname, but isn't quite sure from where. It's fine, B doesn't know what it means anyway.
But BB does. She turns to look at them. Not subtly enough. B turns to look at her.
Jason snarls quietly “Eyes on me, Matches. Don't go poking where you aren't welcome.”
B turns back, narrows those cold ice blue eyes at him.
Jason can hear BB gently chivvying conversation between her girls, so that no-one can overhear them - but she will be listening. Not to Jason's words, but to his tone of voice. His body language. She knows that him using his street name means he doesn't trust the person he's talking to - and if anyone ever tries to get in contact with ‘Jay Doile’, they'll get given the run around. If he needs help, she'll notice, and she'll give it.
B doesn't notice the undercurrents, too busy focusing on Jason as he draws B’s attention towards himself, hissing, “This is a hell of a thing to try and pull, y’know.
"Do you understand what no means? I told you, to your face, and to Clark, that I wanted nothing to do with you, and yet here you are. I told you that you were no one to me, and yet you have come to talk to me. I told you that you were shunned, and yet you insist on forcing your presence upon me.
"What, exactly, made you think I ever wanted to see you again, let alone talk to you?”
B finally speaks, “Dick said that I should be talking to you about this.”
Jason can feel his eyes flicker green. “Is that so?”
B hesitates.
“Tell me the exact words he said.”
“He said ‘God, you really should be talking to Jason about all of this.’”
He what? That doesn't-. Dick knows how Jason feels about B - had backed him all the way.
He gives Dick the benefit of the doubt, takes a second to think about the words Dick had used. …The phrasing doesn't sound quite right for if he was actually telling B to talk to Jason.
Ah-. He's been talking to Dick about the stuff that B really needs to know, needs to learn, and-. And he's been passing it on to B on Jason's behalf. Being the middle man can't be easy. And in a moment of exhaustion, he might-. People sometimes say things they don't really mean when they're tired. Sometimes they mumble it to themselves, and turn what they meant to keep as a thought to themselves into something that was said out loud. That phrasing -the curse- definitely sounds like he might have been talking to himself. If he'd wanted Jason to talk to B, he would have asked Jason, not Bruce. He has to trust that.
So he asks, “And did he say it to you, or to himself.”
B keeps silent.
Great. That's just fucking wonderful.
Of course he took Dick talking to himself as an invitation to violate clear boundaries, and inflict his presence upon Jason. And naturally, worsening his relationship with Jason -even though it's basically non-existent at this point- and also with Dick, because Jason will be telling him what B has done, using Dick's words to do this.
Why would B do anything else. Like: respect people's boundaries, when he could instead use it as an excuse to do what he wants to do.
Fucking christ.
So he tries to make it clear how unwelcome B is.
“This, here, is my home. All of the Alley is. Street rat, remember? All of the Alley is my home: every street corner, every alleyway, every gutter, dumpster, sewer. All of it is mine. So. You come into my home, where you know you are not welcome, and you want to talk. You better have a goddamn good explanation.”
B opens his mouth, but Jason cuts him off. “I know you're reticent at the best of times, but I'm really not all that interested in what you have to say. Summarise it. And if you're lucky, since you're here to listen to me talk, I will. Choose your words carefully.”
B looks vaguely irritated, but inclines his head in agreement.
After a moment, he says, in that slow and measured way he uses when he thinks he's right and the other person is wrong and stupid and gonna get people killed, “You have no right to retire Batman. He's needed in Gotham. It's clear that you're attempting to manipulate the others into a scheme of yours. I'm warning you now, I will find out what it is, and I will stop you, no matter what it takes.”
What the fuck.
But Jason's not a moron. “Don't say stupid shit you don't believe. Oh sure, you believe that first little bit, but the rest? You're just tryna get a reaction. Try again.”
There's a flicker of something like irritation across B's face, then he says, in the same tone as before, “You were wrong to do what you did. You don't have the right to retire Batman. He is needed. Gotham needs him.
"Moreover, you saying that being Robin is abuse-. I had hoped we would- that we were-.” B cuts himself off, and shakes his head a little. Then he leaves the sentence unfinished, “But even so; I have no reason to believe that Batman is no longer needed- that I am no longer needed in that role.
"I'm here to tell you to rescind your decision about Batman, and my operations in Gotham. It will be better if you do.”
Wow. This fucking asshole. At least when he was talking to Clark, he'd known that he was ignoring what he was saying for a reason. And once he'd realised what he'd done, he hadn't conveniently forgotten it after five minutes. B just doesn't listen. Not even when he needs to. And right now, he's lost any patience he might have had for B's bullshit.
“Fine. I've got a lot to say to you, and it's not fair on Dickie to make him say it. So I'll say it now. And you are gonna sit there and listen, or I'll fucking gag you."
He waits for B to nod before he keeps talking.
“What you do is abuse. Talk to Clark again. I made my point to him, and I know he understood it. Besides, you've hit at least three of your kids. That's abuse, Matches.
"Even if it weren't, you're not a good parent. Just look at your children, and your relationships with them. Or, well, the lack thereof.”
(He's pretty sure B has forgotten. He's pretty sure most of them have actually, if they ever knew. Jason had too, for a while- or, he hadn't wanted to remember his reasoning why. But before he died, he ran away. He'd rejected B as a father, even before everything else. B hadn't been a good parent, not in that last year. Before that, yeah, probably decent. But he'd been a far sight better than whatever he is now.)
Dick isn't even going over to the Manor at the moment - he'd argued with B, and left completely. (After what he'd found out about what B had done, Jason can't blame him.) He's still talking to the kids though. Damian is still in the Manor, but he's made it clear that he doesn't, has never, and will never view B as his father. And Tim’s not even in Gotham, and he's not talking to anyone. (Well, except Jason. Sorta.) Cass, Jason's not sure of - she might still be talking to B. But Duke moved out too. If none of that is ringing warning bells- it's beyond warning bells, it's exploded-. But if B hasn't picked up on the fact that he needs to do better-.
Ah.
He hadn't mentioned the kids first. He'd talked about Batman first. As if that should be his priority.
“Here’s a thought, B: quit fucking martyring yourself inside your own head. Batman is not everything. For one thing, the rest of them are perfectly capable of handling themselves just fine without you - which they have been doing for the last few years anyway. Trust them. What you're doing is just insulting.
"And- better for who. My decision about you? Being the Bat has ruined you. Everything you hoped to achieve, everything you hoped to become- at least, I goddamn hope that was what you were aiming for- it's only gotten further from your reach. Due to your own actions.
"It will be better for everyone, including you, if you stay retired.”
He slips into being Jay (being Robin) for a moment, says this next bit as kindly as he can, “I know you don't believe that. I know you don't want to. I know that right now, you probably can't. But it's true. You've tried being Batman, and it hasn't worked. You know what sunk-cost fallacy is. Just-. Stop. Stop putting effort into it. It won't work, no matter how much more you try and make it work. You have to try something else.”
(He read, once, this: ‘I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that in the world's finale, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, for all the blood that they've shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.’
B believes like that, he thinks. That at the end of it all, it will be worth it. Batman will have been worth it. But that's just not how the rest of them live.)
He lets that sink in for a moment, then stops being Jay, gets harder again, “Like, for example…I told you to learn to be a father. Tim made it very clear he’s upset. Apologised to him yet? If not, you should have done.” Jason's lip is curled with disdain. “And I know Damian drew another beautiful picture. Complimented that yet? What about Cass, talked to her recently? About anything other than masks?”
At B's silence, he tsks. “Hell, you even thanked Dickie for taking on the emotional responsibility that should by all rights be yours? Dick's a better man than you, a better hero than you, and a better father than you. And you should have apologised to him too.”
B stays silent. Fucking- whatever.
Jason wants him to at least react to something, so he digs a little bit, says, “But here's something that'll sting: even if you do improve, you and the rest of them will have to live with the knowledge that you were capable of being a good father the whole time, and instead you chose not to be.”
There's still no response. Verbal response, anyway. Jason's watching him, and behind those shuttered eyes, things are moving. Good.
Then Jason remembers -this is important too. He's barely respecting it for Jason, and they haven't had anything close to a relationship for nearly a decade. If one of the others tries, he has no idea what B will do. He needs to make this clear, now: “But if they decide that your efforts aren't enough, if they walk away from you as a father, let them go. You don't have a right to their lives, and if they've decided that they don't want you in it, you accept that. You don't stalk them, and call it caring, or whatever shit you want to do. You leave them alone. It was you and your choices that led to it, and you need to learn to deal with it.”
And well, B had told him once, “…What was it you said to me? If you ever leave, it'll be your choice. If they ever leave, it'll be their choice, and you have to let them make it.”
Then he levels his gaze at B, sharp as a blade, and informs him, “If you don't? Well, I guess I'll have to enforce that too, understand?”
B inclines his head. Good. He understands. If he'll keep to it, that's a different matter. But he's made his point.
But Jason knows this too - he's seen what B is like. So he says, “And that doesn't mean push them away because you're the worst man in the world, blah blah blah. Quit wallowing in your man pain.
"Tell them, that you love them, that you care for them, that you understand that if they want to leave, you will let them go, but that you will be there for them if they choose to stay. Do not make their choices for them, and don't fucking say shit in an unbalanced way that's leading them in a particular direction.
"Just-. Cut that out.
"Grow up, get your head out your ass, and start caring for your children in an emotionally healthy way. I cannot believe you need to be told this.”
Bruce says quietly, “It's not-. I wouldn't push them away.”
“I know you. I know what you're like. So understand me when I tell you that we aren't-. They aren't things to sacrifice on the altar of your mission. I know how you think. They're people, they're your children. Treat them like it. Outside your head, and inside it too.”
“I don't think of you like that, like things.”
“Don't you?”
Because B not seeing them as people, just as- statistics, or part of his narrative, or whatever the fuck was going on in his brain, that, at the core of it, is the problem.
(He's Batman. Batman, B believes, doesn't kill, and won't let anyone die. That's the narrative that B believes. It doesn't matter if the person he's saving is the Joker, is someone who has made and will continue to make B and everyone around him suffer; Batman will not let him die. (Because here's the thing: the Joker is part of Batman's narrative - he justifies its existence .) And if the price of that is everyone in Uptown, well-. They aren't part of Batman's narrative.)
(Because, see, B has turned the world into a story, inside his head. He shouldn't have done that, because then he'd treated people, real people, like they were characters, like they were things. So Jason had to stop him.)
(B has lines. The problem is, they aren't where he thinks they are. Not even close. And they definitely aren't where they should be.)
(Like-. When he tried to kill the Joker in front of B. B couldn't abide letting someone die through his own inaction. But he's never put together that by choosing to never kill the Joker, he's let so many people die, through his inaction. Jason laid that choice out before him. And he made it. Sure, maybe it's different when the choice is right in front of you, and you can't pretend it's not happening-. But it is still happening. And B still hasn't acknowledged it.)
“We do this shit to help people. You started off like that, I know you did.” More quietly. “I think you did, anyway.”
He stays quiet, “...I haven't heard you trying to help people in a long time. Not by stopping someone being violent, but helping someone…When was the last time you fostered a kid? Hell, when was the last time you just comforted a kid? Because I don't know. Do you? …Batman is supposed to be hope. When did you forget that?”
B doesn't answer.
“What I have heard, implied, and implicit, is that you do this because you're the Bat. Because you need it. Because it's what you are. You're saying right now that Gotham needs you, that it needs the Bat, that it needs you as the Bat. But you weren't in Gotham for what, a year and half? And there's so many people who wear the bat nowadays. You're lying to yourself, or to us. You think you need to be the Bat. And you're wrong to.
"You used to know this. You have to remember why you do this: and if the reason is not ‘to help people', you're probably doing it for the wrong reason.
"You've said it yourself: a person's got to have his head screwed on right for this line of work. If you're hurting, if you've got a lot of anger and pain inside of you, you've got to work that out first, before you can be out on the streets.”
B had said this to him, before. He knew it should be something that vigilantes stuck to. But god knows he didn't apply it to himself, because he was the Bat.
Then he gets to the point, and says, “But recently, I'm pretty sure you were doing it, at least partly, to hurt yourself, and to hurt others -and you used the pain of hurting others and put that back on yourself to make your pain worse.
"Cut it the fuck out.
"Because you don't even-. You don't accept the responsibility for the pain you caused. You accept the guilt for it. And yes, those are different things.
"You push your family away to hurt yourself.
"That- you say that you make the sacrifice of hurting us. And then you say it's for the mission, that it's the price of being Batman. And aren't you so noble for paying it. God, you fucking-. Narcissist. It's all about you, isn't it.
He leans forward, says, solid as stone, “Suffering is not a virtue. Don't treat it like one.”
There's a moment where Jason thinks that he's got through to him, and then-. But instead B disregards everything he's been trying to say, and focuses back on the Bat again. He says, “You claim that being Batman is bad for me, that everything I hoped to achieve and to become is further from my reach due to my own actions. And yet, Jay, several years ago, you attempted to drive me further from my purpose that I would ever go. And now you claim to care about what I should try to be?”
Jesus christ. B hadn't understood a goddamn thing that Jason had tried to tell him up on the Watchtower.
B continues steadily, “What you asked me for, then: If I started killing, I wouldn't be able to stop. The power I have, as —, and also as —.” The pauses are weighted and deliberate. It's easy to fill them in: Batman, and Bruce Wayne. “The money, the tech. I would be unstoppable. So I could not let myself slip. Because if I did, even once, I'd never stop. And thousands would end up dead.”
The unbridled arrogance-. It makes Jason sick. Red Hood says this kinda shit too sometimes, because he's playing the boogeyman. He doesn't actually believe it, and B clearly does. Jesus christ.
(He's pretty sure…-. B doesn't get why Jason does what he does. He's pretty sure that B thinks that Jason is like Raskolnikov, that he kills people because he thinks he's better than them. That he thinks he's not ordinary, and is instead extraordinary, and therefore has the right to commit any crime and transgress any law. …B might think, unconsciously, that he himself is an extraordinary man. But that's not why. Jason kills in order to stop people from hurting others. He doesn't kill because he has the right to do so, he kills because some people need to be stopped, and killing them is the only way to do it.)
(Besides. It's not like it's hard to figure out that Pete is Red Hood. If someone needed him dead, he wouldn't be hard to take out, not as Pete. Poison in his food, bullet to the head, whatever. He's not unreachable. No one is.)
He tells B, “Okay. So that's what you think.
"One. You have killed. And then you stopped. So that's the first part disproven.
"Two. You have been stopped. By me. In case you've forgotten.”
Something flickers across B’s face, lightning fast. Jason marks it. He's going to go talk to Barbara after this, make absolutely certain that B doesn't have access to anything.
He continues, “But even ignoring that, my god, the arrogance. Unstoppable? Oh sure, you've got contingency plans for the League, I'm sure. But you don't account for everything. Someone would get you.
"And for another. Oh, Matches. You weren't even able to control the Alley when you tried. You think killing us would be more effective? And that's just one neighbourhood. You think you could take on more than that? Nah, jackass.”
“It seems to have been effective for you.”
“Wow, you arrogant asshole. No. Sure, the killing helped a bit. But the rest of it, no. It was everyone else that helped.
"And for your information, the way you stop from killing fucking everyone for even the most meaningless stuff -yeah, I picked up on what you didn't say- is by seeing them as people. You having more than anyone else in the city doesn't make you better than us.
"You see us as thugs, henchmen, mere criminals, inevitable evil, because we've killed, or we break the law, or because we're not you. No. We are people. We breathe, we live, we love. You just don't see any of that, because you've never cared to.
"You need to learn that there are shades of grey beyond ‘killing bad’ and ‘criminal evil’, and even, shocker, ‘a mental illness excuses absolutely everything you do, and putting you in a mental asylum that doesn't help you is the way to fix your problems’.”
B says, “Killing mentally ill people isn't the way to fix problems either. Even if it's the Joker. You gave him what he wanted . Clark said you were fond of quoting ‘Night Watch’. Very well. This, then: ‘You didn't have to do what it wanted. If you did, Carcer won.’”
Jason lets the sudden rage roll through him and snarls, “And why the fuck would I give a shit what the Joker thought? He might have had all the fucking aces, but I wasn't playing cards.”
B leans back a fraction.
Jason takes a breath, calms down again. “ None of us here are playing cards. This is our life.
"You sit up there, and you think of us as some kind of idea. We're real people. We're not statistics, or inevitable scumbags -and those who are, are still people- or criminal elements. We definitely aren't inevitable casualties, written off for an impossible redemption for a man who doesn't want one. We are people. We suffered and we died at the Joker's hands. It's not a sin to celebrate that never happening to anyone ever again. No matter how much you wanted to keep him alive, at the cost of our lives.”
B isn't reacting. So he hisses “Kol hamerachem al achzarim sofo litachzer al rachmanim.”
B flinches.
But this isn't what he's trying to talk about. “We aren't things for you to hit.
"You feel hurt, fucking emotionally hurt, and you think that's a good enough reason for you to go round hitting other people, hurting them physically? Down here, you're just as bad as any Rogue for the amount of harm you've caused. You hurt people here when I died, and you hurt Dick, and then when Selina left you, you hit Tim.
"And did it make you feel better?”
B grunts a negative.
Jason leans back slightly, takes in what he said, then lets the scorn he feels show itself on his face. “So you know it doesn't make you feel better, and yet you did it anyway. You came here, and irreparably hurt people for…absolutely no reason at all.” He clicks his tongue, and looks away.
Oracle says quietly in his ear, “Dick's just outside.” He subvocally hums a dot dash dot to acknowledge.
Then he tells B, “I think you'd better leave.”
Bruce says, “Jay, please.”
Jason looks at him. And- he's not talking to Batman right now, he's talking to Bruce. And that makes a difference. (A little. He's not too sure there's much of Bruce left, if it's not just Batman all the way down.)
But before today, it's been years since he talked to Bruce. He hasn't talked to him since before he died.
He says, very quietly, “I’ll remind you. I tried to talk to you once. I asked you to help me. Sure, I didn't use those words, but that's what I was doing. And I wasn't asking the Bat, I was asking you. And you killed me to save the Joker's life. You made your choice.”
And what Dickie told him-. He opens that box in his head, lets himself remember that knowledge, no matter how much it hurts-.
“You made your choice, a hundred times over. Him, over everyone here. You made that choice. Live with it.”
B’s solution to the trolley problem, as long as the Joker was the one man on the tracks, no matter if he was tying himself to them, was to let the trolley kill the many on the other tracks. Because they were from Uptown. Because he could tell himself that he wasn't choosing that. Because he could tell himself that he tried. But he made that decision, over and over again. And everyone else suffered for it.
(Shit. He realises-. He needs to tell Duke. This is something he needs to know. -If he doesn't already.)
Then he folds it up, and puts that knowledge away again. (God, but he's glad he only found out about this after T killed the Joker, and after he stopped believing in B. If he'd found out before-.)
But- Jason had believed in the Bat, for a few years. And more importantly, he's talked to Pip, and Aunty, and the others, over and over. Restorative justice, not punitive.
And he knows B. Punitive wouldn't work on him. If he doesn't tell B how to move forward, he won't. He'll sit in the ‘Cave and brood. Or the equivalent of doing that, now that he's been barred from lurking endlessly in the ‘Cave.
So-. He'll give B this - not for his own sake, but for Dickie, and the others. For them to have, if they want it.
“However, you may have this to comfort you: you are Jewish, and therefore you can work towards redemption. Every day, you can work at it.”
He smiles thinly, “Just like you want to believe, you have a second chance. To show that you are capable of being a good father.”
And the fact that B came to him first, when so many of the others need him to come to them, and want that from him? Except this: they want Bruce to come to them, not Batman.
“…I'd bet that you came to me first because I was the first to tell you that you couldn't be the Bat anymore. All of the rest of it, everyone else leaving, they came after I told you no. It's-...You think you need to be the Bat to function, so that 's your starting point.
"If you have to, you can blame me. I don't give a shit. If you can't deal with the fact that being the Bat has made you worse, has made you despicable; lie to yourself, and say that it's Red Hood’s fault you can't be the Bat. Give yourself that lie, so that you can pretend it's not that everyone around you finally realised how appallingly you deal with everything and everyone. -So that you can keep going. But either you learn to live without the Bat, or you don't live at all.”
(If Dick hadn't backed him up, if Babs hadn't backed him-. If B had done it out of sight, with no one else around-. If no one had seen him be physically abusive to another child-. Jason wouldn't have given him another chance. He wouldn't have made it clear that B had crossed a line. He would have just made sure that B just…wouldn't wake up the next morning. No forced retirement from Batman necessary.)
(Dick had told him, miserably, that without Batman, Bruce wouldn't even know what to do with himself. If he had to be just Bruce Wayne for the rest of his life-. B didn't even like Bruce Wayne. But quite frankly, Jason doesn't care. B made the choices he did. He has to deal with that. And B made the choice to take in children. He can build his life around that instead. God knows most of his kids have built their lives around him.)
So he says, “And if you have to pretend to care about your children-. Brucie is a mask, and he doesn't care about a goddamn thing. So make yourself a mask that can care about your kids.
"…If you actually want to get better?
"You need to apologise. And you need to know what you're apologising for. Teshuva, B, you know this. Or you should.
"That's part of the problem. You haven't once apologised, to anyone. An apology needs to be your starting point, not this. You've had years, and you've not once said the words ‘I’m sorry’.
"I will not accept your apology. Not any more. The others might. And you do need to apologise to them, for a great many things. But you cannot lean on being the Bat anymore. You have to be Bruce. If that's a mask or not, I don't care. If you have to fake it until it's real, that's what you have to do.
"Just- go and apologise to them. They'll have the grace to hear you out, I reckon. You can go from there.”
But he needs to make this clear, again: “But I will not extend that grace to the Alley - you are not allowed to come here and try to become a better man, to try and show repentance to us - no matter how much we deserve repentance from you. You aren't welcome here. Not after what you've done.”
He takes a breath, moves on. “I’ll remind you, though, that that second chance, it is a process. You can't make one big gesture, or one big apology, and then it'll be okay. You can't even just promise to change, and be forgiven beforehand. You have to change first . Do the work. Then and only then can you even ask for forgiveness. Only after you have earned it.”
Bruce says quietly, “How can I earn it from you?”
Fury shivers through him. Bruce isn't listening to him.
He takes a slow breath, lets it out again.
“You earn it by leaving me alone.
"Understand this. We've now had the conversation you wanted. I've told you pretty much everything I think you need to hear. If that changes, Dick and Barbara will be the ones to tell you, not me. If that ever changes, not that it will, I will come to you, not ever you to me.
"Because I do not ever want to see you again. I do not ever want you to see me again either. I want nothing to do with you, and I want you to have nothing to do with me. I want you to stay away from me.
"And understand this: if you decide to ignore that-. I won't kill you. Well, I won't kill you myself. But I will make it clear to the Alley exactly what you've done, and you will be dead at the end of it.
"I am not joking. I am not using hyperbole. I am not exaggerating. Come into Uptown again, and you will die. I do not want you here.”
He looks Bruce in the eye, and lets loose just a little of that insane fury he'd felt up on the Watchtower, just to make it clear.
From the way he flinches back, the message came across.
Then he says, very quietly, “Jay. I didn't realise it was lethal. I didn't mean to-.”
Jason stares at him blankly for a second. This is what he chooses to apologise for, first and foremost? (He locks the box in his mind again, adds another bolt, and chain. He doesn't want to know it, what B had done. He can't bear it.)
Then he jerks backwards, out of his chair, away from B, letting his rage twists his features, “Oh well if you didn't realise it killed me, if you didn't mean to, that's fine then. Is that what you think? Really?
"You've ruined countless lives. But at least you can tell yourself you didn't mean to. That it was an accident. That you didn't know what the consequences of your actions would be.
"You decided to go out there and do everything you did. Grow up, and accept responsibility for it. You're not a child.”
He turns away. Says over his shoulder, “Get the fuck out. Don't come back.”