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Dick knows it’s a bad night when he wakes up to a sharp ping and a notification from Babs that shows him a zigzagging line with no discernible pattern.
Below the file is just one letter.
B.
Dick squints through bleary eyes, pulling up the map again and sincerely hoping Babs didn’t just ring him out of bed show him an optimized patrol route—
Dick frowns, lifting his head from his wonderfully fluffy pillow— honestly, Dick can basically hear it calling his name, not going back to sleep is probably a crime — as his vision adjusts to the bright screen and the wobbly blots of color become street names and landmarks.
The map doesn’t show Blüdhaven.
It shows Gotham.
Dick sits up with a sinking feeling in his gut, pillow forgotten as he zooms in to analyze all the waypoints that show a sharp turn in directions.
Gotham Cemetery, a stop on the outskirts of the Bowery, Gotham General, Crime Alley again, Monarch Theater, Wayne Tower, Crime Alley again, the cemetery, and finally—
The manor.
Dick gets up out of bed with his heart dropping way past apprehension and straight to dread.
There’s mud in the hallways when Dick reaches the wing holding Bruce’s room.
There’s mud on the floor, and Bruce’s room is empty, pristine, untouched, and Jason’s bedroom door is open.
There’s mud on the floor and Jason’s bedroom door is open.
Dick’s hands are shaking when he steps up to the threshold.
(“Get out of my room!”)
They’re shaking when he grips the doorknob.
(“Is that a chili dog? …Fine. You can come in.”)
There’s mud on the floor and it leads Dick inside Jason’s room like the curling trail of a snake.
(“You’re gonna catch me, right?”)
The door swings open soundlessly.
Funny. Dick almost expected it to creak.
(“I could really use your advice right now so uh, please pick up the phone? Or call me back, I guess.”)
The mud tracks stop by the foot of Jason’s bed and Dick’s breath stutters in his chest when he sees the silhouette of Bruce sprawled on the covers, arms wrapped around— holding— carding his hand through the dark hair of—
Dick catches himself against the doorframe, breathing in-and-out, in-and-out, fighting against the swell of nausea as he tries to process what is happening— what he’d just seen—
Bruce snapped. He finally snapped.
Oh, god. Oh god.
He thought- Dick thought Bruce was doing better. He thought they were getting better.
Dick can finally- he can finally sleep more than five hours without waking up to the phantom panic of a missed call. He can finally look at Tim without seeing the concave of Jason’s skull where Joker had hit and hit and hit-
And Bruce- Dick thought he was getting better. Tim’s presence on patrol, Robin and Batman, he thought it was helping. Bruce hasn’t shown up to randomly check on Dick in the middle of the night for months now, and the autopsy files aren’t permanently open on the batcomputer anymore. He finally wasn’t sleeping at the foot of Jason’s bed anymore, if he slept at all.
Something must have triggered this- relapse. Although this is so much worse than a simple relapse, because Bruce had never- he’d never actually—
“Dick?”Bruce shifts, the dark outline of his silhouette blurring slightly, and Dick has to look away again lest he the sparse light filtering through the window manages to fall on— Jason.
Dick doesn’t think he could stomach looking at his- at—
“Bruce,” he says, voice tight with leashed anger-horror-despair, “What is this?”
His baby brother is two years dead. Each birthday that passes that Jason stays the same age like a gut punch.
Bruce hums, the rustle of sheets reaching Dick’s ear as he brings his hands up again to run his fingers through Ja- through his- through the hair again.
“Sh, chum,” Bruce’s voice is soft, affectionate, almost lilting like when Brucie pretends to be drunk and slurring his words, “He’s sleeping.”
Bruce is cradling the corpse of Dick’s dead baby brother.
His baby brother, who’s two years dead.
“Bruce,” he says again, hysteria climbing up his throat and pinching his airways, making him sound almost shrill “Bruce, what the fuck is this?”
Dick found a dead body during an investigation, once. Only six months dead, but he’ll never forget the sight of blackened, bloated skin and hollow eye sockets.
His baby brother is two years dead, and Dick thinks that if he looks at Bruce and sees him embracing that— shell— he’ll never be able to find peace again.
“He came back,” Bruce breathes, genuine wonder on his voice that sets Dick’s teeth on edge. He wants to hope that this is some drug. That a rogue hit Batman with a shiny new toxin that made him hallucinate things that aren’t there— gods know Dick’s been there, too— but- “Jason came back to us.”
But fact is, he simply knows better. Bruce never handled loss very well. And Jason… Jason broke him.
Dick thought Tim would be enough, that he managed to pull Batman back from the brink, but evidently it just delayed in inevitable.
“Bruce,” Dick says slowly, carefully, studiously avoiding looking too closely at the— lump, laying on Bruce’s chest, “Jason is dead.”
“He was,” Bruce agrees, an echo of old grief deepening the admission before mellowing back out, “But he’s alive now. He came back, Dick. It’s okay now. Just look-”
Dick snaps.
“No, no, Bruce, I know you’re grieving, but it’s been two years, you can’t just dig up my baby brother’s body and expect me to be okay with this! Jason is dead! And you- you-“
Dick exhales shakily, pushing his fist against the doorframe with a dull thud to center himself. Get his temper back under control.
“Chum, I know how this looks-”
he really doesn’t, “-but he’s alive, Jason is alive. Look, he’s breathing-“
“I see you breathing,” Dick cuts him off sharply, voice bordering hysterical. Screw keeping his cool, this is a scene straight out of his personal nightmare and, dear god, his baby brother is two years dead, “I can’t believe this, I can’t fucking believe this, I- I can’t do this again, Bruce. I can’t-“
“Chum,” Bruce rumbles, quiet, like he would when Dick visited and Jason felt safe enough to fall asleep leaned into his side, “Please just-“
“No, I don’t want to hear it! I’ve been getting better, Bruce! I’ve been- I-“ he slams his fist back against the doorframe, the pain radiating from his knuckles a blessed distraction to the horror show unfolding right in front of him.
He can’t do this. He can’t do this. He can’t go back to frantic calls at random times of the day and panic attacks when he misses just one of them. He can’t go back to desperate calls of ‘I can’t find Jason! I can’t find him!‘ Only to have to remind Bruce that Jason is dead.
He just- he can’t.
And now Bruce is cradling this— this thing.
And Dick’s baby brother is two years dead and he can’t stop seeing the bloody concave of his skull against the sterile autopsy table.
“I’m getting Alfred and then we’re- then we’re bringing Jason— back,“ Dick wishes he’d stayed in Blüdhaven. Dick wishes he never got that notification from Babs. Dick wishes he never opened that stupid file. “He deserves to rest, Bruce. This isn’t fair to him. And then we’re calling Dinah.”
Bruce dug up his baby brother’s corpse because he convinced himself Jason magically came back to life.
And quite frankly, Dick wishes he could live that illusion with Bruce together, but he can’t. The dead don’t come back to life. They rot, and they disappear, and everyone else will be left with a handful of memories that fade with each passing day.
And now— and now Dick will— he will probably have to take Jason back to the cemetery himself. Because Bruce won’t, and if there’s even one person Dick can spare from this pain then it’s Alfred.
Oh, oh god, he will have to put his baby brother back in his grave and bury him.
Dick wonders if this is the universe’s revenge for missing the funeral.
Bruce’s silhouette goes rigid, and when he next speaks his voice is cold and laced with steel, “I can’t let you do that, Dick.”
Dick wants to scream.
“Bruce, don’t test me right now. I will call in Clark if you don’t-“
“He’s alive,” Bruce snaps, arms visibly tightening around the- the corpse in his arms, oh gods, “And you will not be bringing my son back to the graveyard to bury him alive.”
He’s not alive! Dick wants to scream. To cry. To sob. He’s not alive! My baby brother is two years dead and you dragged him from his grave!
But before he can voice any of that, the corpse suddenly— bolts upright. And then promptly rounds on Dick with a fierce snarl twisting too familiar features, “Fucking try stuffing me back in that coffin, Dickface. Try it. And I’ll guarantee they’ll have to lower you down beside me.”
Dick feels the blood leave his face, the pit dropping out of his stomach.
Oh god, he thinks. Oh, god.
This is- this isn’t right. It can’t be right.
Dick’s baby brother is two years dead but he’s sitting up in Bruce’s arms, stubbornness and defiance radiating from him like he didn’t die alone and hurt in a warehouse in Ethiopia. Like Dick didn’t see the concave of his skull-
“Jason?” He asks eventually, his own voice feeling far and distant.
This isn’t real. It can’t be. But god does he wish— does he hope-
Bruce sighs quietly, patting the corpse’s— Jason’s arm. Fond and exasperated and so much more at ease than Dick remembers seeing him at any time during the last two years.
“I told you, chum. He’s alive.”
Dick’s baby brother is two years dead, but his eyes are bright with an unholy glow and his face is streaked with dirt and blood.
Jason bares his teeth in a nasty grin, “Yeah, Dickie,” he sing-songs, “I’m alive. Wanna hang? I promise I won’t even bring a crowbar to the party.”
Bruce flinches.
Dick just stares, eyes moon wide. Stock still, clutching the door frame.
His baby brother is two years dead, and he’s grown tall enough to rival Bruce’s bulk, his face matured to lose most of the baby fat Bruce and Alfred had done their utmost to put on the malnourished child, but Dick can still see traces of it in the soft lines of his cheekbones. See the smatter of freckles on the bridge of his nose.
His baby brother is two years dead, but now he’s sitting on his bed, in Bruce’s arms, and his chest rises and falls with a steady rhythm screaming alive-alive-alive.
Dick tries to take a stumbling step forward to do— something, anything, maybe to clutch at Jason and never, ever let go again. To tell him he’s sorry. To cry, to apologise. To beg for forgiveness for the call he didn’t pick up— and then promptly collapses to the floor in a heap of limbs.
This is a dream, are Dick’s last thoughts as the ground comes up to meet him.
This is a dream, and I don’t want to wake up.