Work Text:
The night was supposed to be easy.
Doctor Freeze decided to make the city hall his personal snow globe, full with a dome over the square block and snow falling in the middle of July.
Red Hood was the first on the scene and god damn it he was not prepared for the below-freezing temperatures. Gotham was hell during the summer, heat that warped steel, so short sleeves and tactile pants typically cut it but were not fit to withstand the cold. If he knew earlier he would’ve at least grabbed a jacket, or put on long sleeves.
Before he could alert the rest of the Bats, not that they listened to him anyway, Batman was next to him. Jason knew from his own experience with it and the times they worked together that the Batsuit wasn’t built to withstand such low temperatures. But Batman was a tryhard, he’d power through it and well, the Red Hood was similar in that regard. They fought Arctic Expedition-looking goons until Jason couldn’t feel his fingers and Bruce’s teeth were audibly chattering.
Backup came a minute too late, which was just his fucking luck, because he was numb on all of his extremities, and couldn’t throw a punch anymore, let alone curl his fist. Nightwing got them both out, Red Robin and Spoiler took down Doctor Freeze while the Red Hood and Batman went back to the Batcave to rest. Below freezing with a minus forty windchill, they were told. “Just don’t go out in negative ten-degree weather in short sleeves again and you two should be fine by morning.” Jason flipped Red Robin the bird before huddling into himself in the Batmobile passenger seat.
Jason could barely remember stripping, just taking off his boots and his armor. He could also barely remember whether he collapsed on a bed in the cave or if he wandered upstairs to his old room.
But he did know that he felt warmth.
The cave wasn’t ever warm, the blankets not the softest because they weren’t meant to be, but Jason was warm and felt at ease for some reason.
Bruce still snored. It was soft light snores, signs of exhaustion, hard work soothed out of his face by his slumber. Jason couldn’t remember the last time he saw Bruce this- well, vulnerable.
It’d been months since Jason had been this close to Bruce without it being a fight. And years, yeah, damn, years, since Jason had slept next to the man.
It was back when Jason was still small enough to be carried by one carefully placed arm bracing him up, legs wrapped around Bruce’s torso and arms slung around his neck, clinging to the large warm body holding him up. “P’me down.”
Bruce hummed lightly, the smile evident as he muttered, “do what, Jay?”
Jason was tired after patrol, stayed up too late the night before studying for a test, not that he told Bruce but the best detective in the world should have some sort of intuition. “Lemme down.”
“No, Jay,” and a warm hand carded through his hair as he whispered, “gotta go to bed, champ.” He groaned but Bruce hushed him, the softness of the bed welcoming, the softness of his voice a respite.
There was a weight next to Jason and he immediately reached out to curl into the warmth of his father. They were quiet people, few words spoken, the hand that grabbed Jason’s waist louder than anything that could be said, the steady strong thump of Bruce’s heart all the reassurance he needed. “Good job tonight, Jay.”
He hummed in acknowledgment, sleepy and gratified. It seemed that Bruce was most liberal with his praise when Jason was barely cognizant enough to respond. That didn’t matter. Jason was always so content in Bruce’s arms. Praise, verbal or physical, shot up his spine and made his toes curl, had Jason smiling into his father’s chest as Bruce lulled him to sleep with light humming.
Clear in his memory were lips on his temple and fingers in his hair, soft snores, and a hard chest to brace him. It was comfort, Bruce was comfort and security and affection and all the things he thought he couldn’t have before.
They’d wake up slowly, Jason’s head on Bruce’s chest or in his neck, and Bruce held him like he was glass, resilient when cared for, fragile if not careful; to some degree he was as easy to break as the finest china, and Bruce often wanted to shelve him for prosperity.
It was foreign at the time. Willis barely wanted to put his hand on his shoulder to guide him across the street, let alone hold his hand or cuddle with him. “I’m raising a man, not a boy, and men don’t need that.” Echoed around his head. The few times Willis showed him a kindness close to what he and Bruce had, it was in duress. His mother was so ill that he grabbed Jason’s hands and prayed for probably the first time in decades, an arm looped around his shoulders when some sicko was staring too hard at Jason on the bus; when Willis was too occupied with something else to be concerned about whether he was raising Jason to be a man.
There was a difference with his mother. Catherine was affectionate, holding his hand and hugging him, not often but enough for Jason to remember the kindness. She was more tactile when stressed; when her world was collapsing around her she clutched him so tight he could hardly breathe, or when she couldn’t move from bed and all she could do was hold Jason’s hand. His mother hugged him close when Willis came back drunk and angry, kissed his forehead before going off for days and weeks, spun him around when she came back happy, rocked him when that happiness wore down and she could only sob her voice raw.
So being held never felt normal, it always felt like it was reserved for the worst of times, the desperate ones where the only thing that could keep it all from falling apart was someone holding him up.
Bruce helped him accept that.
What Jason would like to say is that he grew out of it, much like Dick did, and that he and Bruce didn’t share a bed any longer and that those moments were relegated to his distant memory but they weren’t. If he were honest, Jason could remember being curled into Bruce weeks before he-
Well.
He imagined that Bruce had his final time holding him that close and with such dedication when Jason couldn’t respond or cling to him like his lost child anymore.
It was always close, and delicate, the thoughts shared on rides back to the cave and while they finished nightly reports, next to each other at dinner and after a trip to a play. Their bond was this deceptively dainty little thing that was as pretty and smooth as silk, rich and worthy of envy due to the quality, something Jason thought was so difficult to puncture.
Jason woke up with a start.
It was dark, still dark- always dark and silent in the cave besides the electric hum of the Batcomputer and Bruce laid next to him sound asleep, wrinkles he didn’t recognize set deep around his mouth and on his forehead.
Right.
Almost got frostbite that night, Nightwing had to set the Batmobile to autopilot, and he had collapsed next to Bruce in the spare beds in the cave.
Bruce was sound asleep. The most peaceful the man has looked in weeks, the most ease he’d had around Jason in months. Probably a dreamless sleep, unbothered for once. Exhaustion would do that to you, overexertion as well. If anyone needed an uninterrupted rest, it was Bruce.
No use waking him.
Jason slowly turned to leave, his legs stiff but-
There was a hand on his arm and Jason whipped his head around, eyes wide as he saw Bruce, entirely lucid, gripping his bicep.
“Stay.” A shot of heat up his spine. “Tonight.” Then ice worse than Freeze’s went down through his veins, a slow trickle. “Stay, Jay.” And the wind was knocked out of him, feet swept from under and his head met his heels and he was dizzy.
If it weren’t for that stupid nickname that he’d heard a thousand times from a dozen other people, Jason wouldn’t have been stunned so long that Bruce trailed his hand down to his forearm, then his hand. And if it weren’t for how careful and gentle his touch was, Jason wouldn’t have stayed stunned, entranced by the promise of warmth and care like he used to be.
Jason put his head back down on the pillow and closed his eyes just as Bruce pulled him closer, as he’d always done, and held him like they were father and son again.
The next time he woke up, he felt the heaviness of Bruce’s arm over his torso, the methodical circles rubbed tenderly into his cheek, hearing the stable breaths of his security.
Bruce was looking at him with an emotion he hadn’t seen on his face in years. “Breakfast is on.” Speaking words he hadn’t heard in years in a tone he pushed to the recesses of his mind. It was like seeing a ghost, his father pleased to wake up next to him, unguarded for once, as safe with Jason as Jason had felt with him.
Yeah.
Jason pulled away slowly, eyes focused on the cloudy steel blue of his father’s, both gauging how the other would react. He made it out of the bed and onto the floor, Bruce sitting up at that point, disheveled and well-rested, worry somehow gone from his face, though Jason knew it was temporary. The words were loud and clear to him but Jason wouldn’t fall for it twice.
Blood rushed in his ears and his vision shifted before he grabbed his duffle and shoved all of his gear into it, pulling on his boots and slinging the bag over his shoulder. Bruce sat and watched and it somehow hurt, because there was a simplicity to them moments prior, no tension, no grief. What he’d give to have that ease back, the small peppered kisses to his cheeks and brow, the broad solid mass pressed to him, how damn natural it felt, then and before and how it wouldn’t always but it could have, and they could have had it all back.
He almost knocked Tim over on his way out. “Tried to wake you two earlier,” there was a small knowing smirk growing on his face, “but Alfred said you both needed the rest.” His younger brother blocked the exit standing in the doorframe to talk to him.
“Move, Timmy.”
“You two were so peaceful, I almost felt bad.”
“Move-”
Tim shrugged. “Almost.” Then he pulled his phone out and showed him a picture that-
“Last time before I’m not so nice.” Jason tried to grab the phone but Tim slipped it behind his back. “And give me the fucking phone, Tim.”
He hummed. “Nah.” Then scrolled to show him another angle of the camera, Bruce’s hand in Jason’s hair and Jason’s face in Bruce’s neck. “It’s adorable. Might be my favorite picture of al-”
“Not above beating the shit outta you again, Tim.” He gritted.
Tim didn’t miss a beat. “I’m a bit more experienced now, it wouldn’t be so easy.”
“Delete that or I break the phone.”
“I said, nah, right?” Then Jason snatched it out of his hands and threw it as hard as he could at a grouping of stalactites at the far end of the cave. “That was-” the device shattered into a hundred different pieces, “-entirely unnecessary and probably really dangerous.”
“Fuck you and your phone.” That should teach him. “Should’ve just deleted them.” Then he pushed past him and into the hall above.
Tim called after him. “Billionaires, remember?” Right, what’s fifteen hundred dollars to a kid poised to take over a thriving business.
“Lost all your cutesy pictures of your girlfriend and boyfriend.” Hoped it hurt, jerk off.
Another passively smug hum. “Everything’s saved in a cloud now anyway,” fucking hell, these new phones and- “no harm no foul, except those stalactites might be less-”
“Don’t give a shit.” Dick was in the parlor with Damian, “get to my signal faster next time, okay?”
Dick looked at Damian with an incredulous look then blinked. “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”
Unfortunately, that was probably the best night’s sleep he’d had in a while. “I doubt it,” Tim responded from behind Jason, “him and Bruce slept pretty well if you asked me.”
While Damian took on Dick’s confused expression, Dick frowned. “What would Father have to do with Todd’s sleeping habits?” Then Dick frowned deeper.
“Dick, let me see your phone.” Tim spent no time unlocking it and going through the device. “See,” then he showed it to their other siblings, “they both slept like babies.”
Wow! Even signing in on Dick’s device. “You little-”
“Just like old times, isn’t it, Master Jason?” Alfred was too optimistic sometimes, and his pleased tone was not missed on Tim or Damian.
Dick squinted at the photo, then at the corner as Bruce rounded it. “Morning.” Their father muttered, coffee in his hand.
“Afternoon,” Dick responded, still eyeing the photo. Geez was it really-
“Yeah, I’m gonna go.” Jason hugged Alfred, who gave him pleading eyes, “I’ll take a plate to go, Alfie,” then ruffled Damian’s hair, “Gremlin,” and flipped off Tim, “asshole,” and met Dick who stared at him with unamused eyes, “Dickie.”
While he waited on his plate of breakfast, Jason could hear Bruce’s voice, light and well-rested, jokingly saying, “send me that photo.”
Tim must have laughed while Dick huffed. “Not this again.”
“Not what?” Bruce sounded much too satisfied.
Not what indeed.