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“Batman is down.”
Jason’s heart stopped for a moment.
Some crazed witch had been brewing some shit in the sewers of Gotham, and Jason had spent the evening fighting off hordes of eldritch monsters crawling out of manholes on the Eastside, but those words were the first to truly shake him tonight. Sure, Jason still wasn’t on speaking terms with Bruce— In fact, if it weren’t for the supernatural threat, he normally would have shot the Bat on sight if he’d crossed into his territory. But instead, tonight he’d been begrudgingly fighting alongside Batman and Raven, while the rest of the Bats and the Titans spread out across the rest of Gotham.
But now Bruce lay motionless in a dirty alley street—It was almost poetic, just a few blocks over from where it all began for him and from where they had first met.
“The only chance he has is if we send someone in to bring him out,” Raven explained, already kneeling down next to the prone body and setting up—something magical, Jason couldn’t really process anything other than the fact that Bruce was down.
“In where?”
“His mind,” Raven explained. “And we need to do it now. This witch is an incredibly powerful sorceress. If we delay much longer, he may sink too deep to be woken.”
“Then hurry up and fucking get him!” Jason snapped, heart racing. Sure, he didn’t give a shit about Bruce, since the man didn’t give a shit about him and his death, but—but that didn’t mean Jason would just stand by while Bruce effectively died in the street.
He wasn’t prepared for Raven to turn piercing eyes towards him. “It has to be you.”
“What?!”
“You need to go in. She’s placed him in a powerful dream state, it keeps his consciousness captive by feeding it visions of the heart’s deepest desires.” She explained calmly. “It can continuously adjust without internal consistency or logic, much like a real dream, so it can be disorienting and logically inconsistent. You need to find Bruce in his dreams, convince him he’s asleep and that he needs to wake up.”
“WHAT?! No, I—I can’t.” Jason insisted. “You’re the magic expert why don’t you—”
“As I said, this witch is incredibly powerful. I couldn’t force a foreign entity into the dream. It will have to be someone who’s already in his dream. I can slip your consciousness into the dream version of you Bruce sees in the illusion.”
“Woah, back the fuck up.” Jason snarled. “That’s based on the assumption I’m in it.”
“You’re his son,” Raven said placatingly. “I understand your relationship may be strained—”
“Strained is a real fucking nice way of putting it.” Jason hissed. “You want to know what his dream is? I’ll tell you. The Batman wishes he’d never even met me. I’ll bet he wishes he’d left me on these goddamn streets. He—”
The words caught in his throat as Raven leveled him with a deadly serious stare. “If you don’t go, he’ll die.” Her plain declaration cut through his rant and Jason’s mouth snapped shut, heart racing—warring fears stuttering his breath (the fear that he had no place in this dream, the fear of what he would see, the fear of how much it would hurt to definitively know Bruce wished Jason had never been a part of his life—all versus the fear of losing the man himself.)
“Hurry up.” He eventually bit out, holding out his hand impatiently. “I’m only doing this to make sure Dickface doesn’t take up the cowl again.”
A cold hand gently took his, and before he knew it, without asking for further permission, Jason suddenly felt the world slip away
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“Paging Dr. Todd? You ok?”
Jason recognized Dick’s voice instantly, registering it before the rest of his surroundings. His eyes were squeezed shut as his head throbbed under the pressure of the consciousness transference. Jason could feel he was seated, seemingly on stairs. The world was rolling, everything smelled like salt, he just needed a second to adjust before he—
He was abruptly shoved into a body of salty water.
Surfacing in a spluttering mess, the heavy brine of seawater on his lips as Jason was suddenly treading in a sparkling clear ocean, and another splash showered him in more as another person was thrown in. The water rippled as someone surfaced next to him: Dick, laughing as he tossed his hair out of his eyes. Jason couldn’t help but notice his big brother was missing the beginning creases of his laugh lines like he was still in his earlier twenties. “That’s one way to get your attention.”
Damian stood over them both, also younger than in reality—looking to be about the size he was when he’d first arrived at the manor. The brat stood on the edge of the yacht he’d just shoved them both off, arms crossed and a petulant smirk on his young face. “Todd doesn’t have his doctorate yet. Only Grandfather holds the title.” The young boy snipped.
Ok. Jason was officially tripping out. Ras was a doctor—?
“Now Damian, your brother has already put years of work into his thesis.” An unfamiliar voice chuckled as Jason swam over to the ladder to climb back onto the boat, still in a stunned state. A stunned state that only intensified when he looked up to find a familiar face. A face he had seen in portraits looking down on him every day as he first learned to navigate the manor.
Dr. Thomas Wayne.
A face, both familiar and foreign was split in an indulgent smile as the older man leaned a hand down towards Jason. “You’ll be defending it this spring, right dear?”
Jason continued to hang frozen from the ladder until a gentle hand on his back startled him back to attention. Dick had hoisted himself up on the ladder behind him, brow furrowed in genuine concern. “Jay, are you feeling ok?”
“Y-yeah.” Jason managed to stutter, brain finally kicking into gear and taking Thomas Wayne’s hand (all while noting the older man’s face had also melted into one of concern). He quickly scampered the rest of the way onto the deck, and Dick followed quickly behind. “Yeah, fine. And yeah, the Spring. Uh, yeah.”
“Not very literate for a scholar of literature,” Damian murmured smugly—but before the squirt knew what was happening, Dick scooped him up from under the arms and tossed the boy into the sea. The shocked look of betrayal on the child’s face was enough to get a laugh from Jason—no matter the insanity of the world he’d ended up in, nothing undermined the joy of watching sibling-on-sibling violence.
Dick seemed comforted by the reaction, reaching up and ruffling Jason’s ocean-wet hair. “Good, you’re still with us. You had me worried for a minute.”
“But he could probably use some shade and water.” Thomas placed a hand on Jason’s shoulder. “Why don’t we go join Tim?”
“RICHARD!” Damian shrieked as he surfaced, swimming toward them with the ferocity of a shark.
“And I’ll fight off our pursuer. Save yourselves!” Dick winked, before jumping back into the ocean with the little monster.
Jason passively allowed the mythical figure of Thomas Wayne to guide him around the corner of the ship cabin to where Tim was laid out on a chaise on the shaded deck just a few feet away, tablet in hand and Gucci shades down.
“Timmy? Would you get your brother some water?”
Tim flicked his shades up and gave Jason a glance before pulling his feet in with a frown and reaching into an ice chest beside his seat. “Sit down,” he insisted gesturing towards the newly opened space at the foot of the chaise with the fresh water bottle. “You look like you’re about to keel over.”
In any other situation, Jason would have bit back with a sharp reply, but he actually was reeling from the shock of what he had suddenly been dropped into. He’d seriously expected to find himself in prison or on the street if this was Bruce’s dream world—wherever he would be if Bruce had left him where he belonged and never made the mistake of bringing him home, and for this reality to be about Batman soaring through the sky with an actually worthy Robin.
Not this.
Thomas then proceeded to place a gentle hand against Jason’s forehead, then neck, before his own lips turned down in a worried frown. “Perhaps we should go below deck, I’m sure Alfred and Martha would appreciate your help in the kitchen. Or we could join your father and Selina on shore?”
Before he could process any further, Stephanie’s all too familiar cackle gave Jason only a moment’s warning before she and Cass raced by on jet skis along the starboard side of the yacht, kicking up a massive spray of water—and suddenly he was drenched again.
And falling
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The world turned on its axis
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and suddenly Jason found himself landing flat on his ass on the grassy expanse of the manor’s side yard, just around the corner from the pool, wet from the raining water of a colorful sprinkler.
THE sprinkler.
As if Jason’s day couldn’t get any more—well he really couldn’t name what this feeling was.
The sprinkler was a colorful attachment for a garden hose that made a swirling shower of water for kids to play in. Jason had grown up seeing ads for one just like it—images of happy families in neat suburban houses with beautiful lawns where the kids ran around while the parents stood smiling by. Images that seemed so far removed from his reality at that age, in a cramped Crime Alley apartment, hiding under any available surface when Willis was home or helping his mother board up holes and leaks in their crumbling walls.
Once he moved in with Bruce, Jason had made some sort of off-handed comment about how he’d always thought those types of silly sprinkler attachments were the peak of luxury and Bruce had immediately bought one—THIS one. A multicolored octopus that sprayed eight flailing streams of water for children to play in.
Jason had never actually used it, insisting he was too old already and that it wasn’t the type of toy to play with at a literal manor, so it had sat unused in the storage shed for as long as Jason knew.
He was only jolted out of his shocked reminiscence when he was nearly barreled down by Ace charging past— immediately followed by a young boy, no more than four, water flying from the tight dark coils of his hair as he laughed merrily and a toddler in a swim diaper waddling after with fierce determination.
Duke and Damian.
Far younger than they’d ever known each other, cheerfully running around like... like normal kids?
And for the first time, Jason looked down at himself and realized he too was drastically younger, having shrunken down to only about his undersized ten-year-old self—well before he had even met Bruce.
Jason wasn’t sure how to process any of this. Bruce’s dream... included Jason as a part of his life? In an idealized future, he wanted Jason on the family vacation before he graduated with a doctorate. In an idealized past, he wanted Jason to play with the sprinkler he never had in life. It was... it was all just—He couldn’t understand how—
How could Bruce want him?
He didn’t even realize he was crying until an unfamiliar voice commented on it. “Oh no. No crying on my watch.” An unfamiliar man huffed and suddenly Jason was scooped up into strong arms. Jason stiffened in panic as a stranger set him on his hip with a practiced ease. He was a tall, broad man with South Asian features, dressed in swimwear and clearly wet from chasing the children through the sprinkler spray and Jason didn’t know him. Jason’s first punch caught the man off-guard, but it took a lot more kicking, struggling, and a solid bite to actually escape his clutches. “Shit! Jason?”
And the moment Jason’s feet touched the ground he took off at top speed. “Talia! Come get your feral kid!” The man called out rather than chasing after him.
“Minhkhoa!” An outraged and thankfully familiar voice snapped as Talia rounded the corner from the direction of the pool and Jason redirected to dive behind her, childishly grabbing hold of the emerald sarong wrapped around her waist. Just like everyone else in this vision, she was easily a decade younger than in the present, and dressed for a leisurely poolside afternoon rather than any sort of League of Assassins business, but that didn’t make her glare any less powerful as she stared down the strange man. “What did you do to Damian?”
“Nothing! I’m talking about Jason, he just bit me. That makes him your kid.” The man, Minhkhoa apparently, huffed but didn’t actually seem terribly offended by the attack. Instead, his focus remained on the younger duo running circles after the dog. As if on cue Damian stumbled, face-planting into the grass. The man automatically scooped the toddler up under the arms and set him back on his feet, and Damian was instantly back to his pursuit, completely unfazed. “Feral little things.”
Talia simply rolled her eyes at the man’s complaints, before turning to look down at Jason with a smile far softer than any he’d ever received from her in real life—she always walked the line of motherhood with the sharpness of a knife edge, and this level of open affection was a rare sight. “Minhkhoa has no reason to complain, I’m sure he deserved your fangs. Come join us at the pool. Your father should be home shortly.”
“Did you say fangs?” Tim practically appeared from thin air, dripping wet and bouncing on his toes, he grabbed onto Talia’s skirt as well. “Did you see? I’m about to lose another tooth!” He announced proudly, now about six or seven years old, he proudly bared his teeth and wiggled a precariously unstable incisor on the front left. “Jason said he’d knock it out for me like Dick knocked out his, but Dad said he wasn’t s’posed to.”
Then, as if he’d sprouted another head, Stephanie’s wet mop of blonde hair popped up over Tim. “Yeah, well I’m ‘bout to lose a molar.” She had to pull her cheek to the side to show off the wiggling tooth and did so proudly.
Talia tapped a finger under both of their gapping chins, prompting them to close their mouths. “Keep those teeth in their place until your Father gets home. We’ll never hear the end of it if he misses such a momentous occasion as a lost tooth.”
Tim’s hands flew to his mouth as if his teeth might otherwise jump out, while Stephanie merely rolled her eyes and took Jason’s hand, dragging him towards the pool. Cass and Dick were currently engaged in a dangerously intense battle with water blasters, with Dick seated at the top of the waterslide warding off Cass’ attempts to climb up, while Alfred sat off to the side at a patio table with a full tea spread, set for two, and a book.
“Just a moment.” Talia interceded, pulling Jason back from the younger two, and waving them ahead. Stephanie and Tim didn’t hesitate to leave him behind, running towards the pool until Alfred, without looking up from his book, interjected with an emphatic ‘Ahem’ that stopped them in their tracks and set them walking at a safer pace to claim their own water-based weaponry and step carefully into the pool. Talia meanwhile easily steered Jason over to Alfred who gave him a look so full of his particular brand of British concern that Jason’s heart ached for all the times he’d experienced it in real life. “Master Jason, what happened?”
“I-I just got some sprinkler water in my eye.” Jason stammered, unsure what to do but lie. “I-I’m ok. I’m ok.”
“Well, you’re welcome to join our tea party if you don’t want to jump into this roughhousing.” Alfred offered gently.
“Or,” With a sharp smile, a small water pistol appeared in Talia’s hand and she slid it across the table towards him. “You can usurp your brother’s seat.”
And for a moment sincere childish excitement spiked in Jason’s heart—it all felt so real. It felt so right. To be here, to be loved, to be a family of childish siblings and loving guardians in a safe and happy home. To be wielding a water pistol in a sibling battle rather than running the streets at night in armor, alone.
He took up the water pistol.
What would happen if he just... just dove all in on this?
Just accepted this? Let this be his reality?
The distant sound of a car engine rumbled from the front of the house, and Jason caught the sound of Damian and Duke shrieking in excitement.
“BA!”
“DAD! DAD!”
He put the water gun back down.
“I need to talk to Bruce.”
As soon as the words escaped his lips a wave of vertigo swept over him, and he was falling
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This time Jason landed flat on his ass in a bank of snow. Looking down at the gangly legs spread out in front of him, he found himself to be aged back up a bit to his teenage years and a snowboard strapped to his feet.
He was suddenly showered by an intentional spray of powder at tween Tim slid in next to him, “I thought you were supposed to be teaching me.” Tim teased. Until another karmic wave of snow knocked the tween over as Cass pulled up behind him with a mischievous grin of her own.
Tim was instantly packing a snowball for retribution, but before the first shot of a full-on snowball fight could begin, a sharp whistle pierced the frigid air. The trio in the snow turned towards the sound, and Jason found a picturesque winter chateau with a perfect swirl of smoke trailing up from the chimney decorating the snowy landscape, and the distant figure of a heavily bundled Dick, and an even more bundled child Jason could only assume was Duke, waving from one of the many balconies.
“Cocoa!” Tim cheered, pushing himself to his feet and rushing to board the rest of the way home.
Cass meanwhile hesitated, reaching a hand down towards Jason. “Are you alright?”
He slowly took her hand and rose to his feet as Barbara and Stephanie came sliding to a much more considerate stop by their side. “Are you ok?” Barbara asked as well, but Stephanie just laughed.
“He’s standing. I’m sure it’s nothing Alfred’s cocoa won’t fix.”
“Yeah, I’m good.” Jason gave them both his best shot at a reassuring smile. “I just—Do you know where Bruce is?”
Stephanie shrugged, but Barbara at least offered. “Not since breakfast this morning. He and my dad were having coffee on the balcony when we left.”
“Selina said they were going skiing.” Cass supplied as well.
“But no matter where they went, they’ll have to come back for cocoa.” Steph grinned, grabbing Jason’s hand and pulling him towards the chateau. “Come on! Tim’s got a head start on us!”
Then again, as Stephanie pulled him forward, the vertigo swept over him as if the world itself was trying to stop him from reaching his father, and he was falling
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Jason blinked awake in a warm dark cocoon.
After a bit of wiggling, he realized the cocoon was in fact a sleeping bag and he wormed his head out to find himself in an otherwise empty tent—there were two more sleeping bags spread out, but clearly neither had been touched. He himself had been aged back down a bit—now to about when he first met Bruce as a pre-teen. Peeking out of the opening flap, he spied two more tents circled around an extinguished campfire in the center and a pile of sticks for roasting marshmallows piled next to the site. It was a quiet, starry night. He paused for a moment, unable to resist staring up at the bright twinkling lights, so far from city light pollution and smog.
Jason quietly peeked into the tent to his right to find the sleeping forms of Tim and Damian and the Kents? Jon and Kon were included nestled among their little line of sleeping bags. Family and friends camping trip?
Next, he made a quick peek into the tent on the left to find his Cass, Stephanie and Cassie Sandsmark sleeping peacefully in their own little circle of sleeping bags.
Batkids, wondergirls, and superboys.
Turning back towards the smoldering fire, Jason spied the glow of another lit fire just past the circle of kids' tents—but before he could approach, he was caught in a chokehold from behind and his hair was being ruffled violently. “Uh oh, a baby has escaped containment. What should we do, Donna?”
“Dickface! Let me go!” He hissed, but Dick only chuckled and shook him some more. Just like Jason, he was about the age when Jason first joined the Manor—and was at his peak teen menace.
“Donna! You have to help me! The baby’s going to escape.”
For a moment Jason expected Donna to be the voice of reason and call off this unjustified attack, but instead, the superpowered teen swept him up into her arms like a child. “When did the baby get so big?” She laughed teasingly.
“Notababy.” Jason mumbled defensively, even as he felt his face flush red.
“Where are you sneaking off to?” When Dick started trying to pinch his cheeks, Jason wiggled his way out of his captor’s arms.
“Where’s Da—uh, Dad.” The word caught unexpectedly in his throat.
‘Dad.’
It surprised him how natural it felt somehow, despite the fact he hadn’t called Bruce that in years.
“They’re at the campfire.” Dick tilted his head towards the glow on the other side of the children’s tent, before his face became more concerned. “Nightmare?”
“No, I—uh.” Jason’s stomach churned uneasily at the thought of his task at hand—this was literally the opposite of a nightmare. Rather, he had to end this dream and return to a reality that was nightmarish by comparison. “I just need to... to ask him something.”
Dick raised a skeptical eyebrow but gave him a final hair ruffle before pointing off in the opposite direction. “Donna and I are going back down to the stream. Come get us if you need anything, or if you just don’t want to sleep alone right now, ok Little Wing?”
Donna also took the opportunity to pinch his cheek before following Dick in the direction of the river.
Gathering his courage, Jason turned his attention towards the plume of smoke, rounding the circle of children’s tents and approaching the hushed and relaxed tones of familiar voices. Bruce, Clark, and Diana were all seated around a comfortably crackling fire, camping mugs in hand and relaxed smiles on their faces as they talked quietly amongst themselves, careful not to wake the children. All dressed in casual flannels and jeans perfectly suited for a family camping trip.
And for the first time since arriving in this strange dream world, Jason saw his dad.
The same face Jason had seen the first time Batman pulled off his cowl. A younger man’s face than what Jason had last seen in reality, with eyes that creased in a gentle smile as he saw Jason for the first time. An arm outstretched towards him, an open invitation to come into his arms. “Jaylad? What are you doing up so late?”
And Jason ran towards them—
Or tried to, as the world pulled out from under his feet with a lurch, spinning around again and he was falling
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Jason crashed into Duke in a domino effect that rippled through the rest of his siblings as the train picked up momentum.
“Hey!”
“Jason!”
“Watch it!”
It was disorienting for a moment to suddenly find himself back as an adult, in fact, even older than he was in reality—and even more disorienting to find his siblings a touch older than in reality as well. They were all dressed as if they were coming back from some sort of formal event or show, all in matching finely tailored suits, but with ties and buttons loosened and expressions relaxed. Tim and Dick hadn’t changed drastically, but Duke now on the cusp of adulthood stood even with Dick, and Damian too had hit some sort of teen growth spurt that had shot him up past them both (getting dangerously close to Jason, and that was not acceptable).
To add to the unreality—the train itself was hauntingly recognizable. It took him another moment to place it: another phantom memory so familiar from its display in the manor but foreign to actually see in front of him. It was the special public transit system Thomas and Martha Wayne had been designing. There was a model on display in Bruce’s study, and diagrams as well. They had dreamed of creating a transit system that would not only increase accessibility and provide affordable, green transportation but that people of all walks of life would utilize, sharing in the common human experience of life. But in reality, after their deaths, the funding and direction for the project all fell apart under the mismanagement and corruption of Gotham officials. But here, here it was fully realized. Well-maintained, fast, and comfortable, with a mix of seats and standing spaces, it sped over downtown Gotham, flashing past clean, well-lit streets filled with smiling faces and thriving businesses while carrying passengers of all ages, creeds, and status: from the wealthy Wayne Clan clustered together in their suits, to a group of school students laughing over their phones in one corner, a young mother with her child balanced happily on her lap, wage workers and businesspeople and an elderly couple peacefully leaning together in their seats at the front. It was utopian—and so foreign in comparison to the reality of Gotham.
It was the vision Martha and Thomas Wayne had for the city.
And speaking of, the two were here on the train with them: Martha and Thomas were seated beside Bruce and Cass. Like everyone else, they were aged up as well—salt and pepper littering Bruce’s hair in a manner it didn’t in reality (although Jason knew he was graying in reality as well, but there Bruce kept it dyed for his public persona). And Cass was dressed in the peculiar mix of heavy make-up and meticulously arranged hair with casual and comfortable athleticwear that surely meant she’d just finished a performance. And sure enough, Jason caught sight of a program in Tim’s hand—Swan Lake.
“You leave me in awe every time!” Just like with Thomas, seeing Martha Wayne in the flesh was a disorienting experience—her face was so familiar, but in Jason’s mind, it was frozen in time in portrait. Yet here she was before him, aged beautifully as if she’d always been here, had always been a part of their lives. The woman was beaming as she praised her granddaughter. “You brought me to tears yet again.”
“Pretty sure I saw a tear or two from Dami—” Duke started before being cut off by an elbow from the teen in question.
Damian bristled as he cheeks flushed. “No, I didn’t I—I—Look! Todd is crying right now!”
Everyone turned to Jason.
And he was. Again.
This was all just so... beautiful. It made his heart ache. Was it wrong that Jason was really wishing this was reality?
Bruce’s brow creased ever so slightly—a dramatic display of concern for him—and just like before, he raised an arm, beckoning Jason towards him. “What’s wrong, Jay?”
And just like before, Jason lurched forward trying to reach his father’s arms, but this time he actually reached his destination, practically collapsing at Bruce’s knees on the train floor. Immediately Cass jumped up from her seat, and together with Thomas and Bruce he was pulled up into her now vacant spot and suddenly Jason was surrounded by a huddle of his family as
the grandmother he’d never known rubbed a gentle circle on his back.
“Jason?”
“Are you ok?”
“Dear boy, what’s wrong?”
“What happened?”
But he couldn’t let that distract him from the very reason he’d come.
The words felt like a desperate plea as they finally broke past his lips. “Bruce. This isn’t real.”
Instantly the floor dropped out from under him, more violently than before. Jason’s stomach lurched as if he were on a rollercoaster, plummeting in free
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until suddenly he was caught and gently lowered into plush blankets by strong hands. Jason’s own hands were now infant-small, grasping up towards a young Bruce’s smiling face as he lay Jason gently beside an infant Cass in a large crib. He was so young, barely in his twenties, and even though it was nighttime, he dressed in a comfortable sweater rather than any sort of vigilante gear.
Their nursery was sweetly decorated with robins, the closest thing to a reference to anything from their real-world night-time habits Jason had seent his whole time. The little birds were painted on the pastel blue walls and dangling above him from a quietly spinning mobile.
The double-wide crib was soft and spacious enough for the two babies to share, as if they were twins.
A five or six-year-old Dick in denim overalls peered through the rails at him with a mischievous grin. “All the circus animals are back in their cage for the night.” The young child narrated as if he were a part of a wildlife documentary.
“Not quite.” Bruce scooped up Dick under the arms, and dangled him over the crib, dramatically lowering him closer as the boy giggled and squirmed. “There’s one more circus animal on the loose.”
“No! No! I’m too big!” Dick insisted between cackling laughs.
Jason struggled to move any of his limbs—he was so small, it all felt foreign. The motor skills of his tiny vessel were frustratingly limited.
“Kisses! Kisses!” Dick cheered, and Bruce gently flipped him upside down, dangling him into the crib by the ankles so he could press a kiss to his baby sister and baby brother’s cheeks. “Good night babies.”
Bruce then fished the boy back out of the crib, setting him on his hip, before gently running his hand over Cass’ cheek who coed in response, and then Jason’s.
Jason struggled with his baby hands to grab hold, just managing to wrap tiny fingers around Bruce’s thumb.
He attempted to open his mouth, to speak, to insist this wasn’t real, but all that he could manage was a gurgling babble. Bruce just smiled softly down at his baby sounds, pressing a gentle kiss to his tiny hand. “Good night, Jaylad.”
Despite his best struggles, Jason could only watch as Bruce walked away, flipped off the lights, and left the room in a soft darkness, still dimly illuminated by a nightlight casting stars onto the ceiling.
Internally Jason grumbled. The world itself had effectively silenced his attempt to wake Bruce. But that wouldn’t stop him.
With far too much effort, Jason eventually managed to roll onto his stomach. Then once again, with great strain, he rolled onto his back, inching closer to the bars. He rolled and he was falling
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THUMP.
Jason landed on plush carpeting, now tiny toddler-sized. A vast improvement over being a literal infant. Rolling up to a seated position on the familiar living room rug, Jason looked around. He had rolled off the couch, where Kate Kane was sleeping as the afternoon sun trickled through the shades. The two were alone, but now Jason at least had the motor skills to slowly, with support from his hands, manage his way onto two feet, and toddle out to the hallway.
Jason quietly pushed open the heavy door and traced his hand along the hallway wall (mostly for balance) as he began his search for his target.
Until he noticed the décor. Jason couldn’t help freezing at the sight of the hallway—lined with framed portraits documenting a reality that didn’t exist.
A young Bruce posed perfectly with his parents, Martha seated in a familiar arm-chair with Bruce smiling happily beside her, and Thomas standing over them both, a protective hand on each shoulder—an exact replica of the family portrait that hung in the manor.
Then an update, a decade further along with a now teenage Bruce, now almost as tall as his father, smiling proudly as he stood next to him on either side of his mother who now held a giggling toddler in her lap—Dick.
The next photo caught Jason’s off-guard, though he should have expected it. Martha had been moved from her central position and now sat leaning against one arm of the chair with Thomas standing beside her, and Bruce sat leaning against the opposite arm, with his own arm circling along the back of the chair, perfectly framing the new center of the photo. Now, in the center of the chair sat a beaming six or seven-year-old Dick, with a dark-haired toddler carefully nestled in on each side, with all three in coordinated matching outfits. All together, Dick, Jason, and Cass sat at the center of the Wayne family portrait.
He was standing staring when Bruce rounded the corner, with Cass on his hip and a strangely familiar blonde woman at his side. “Jay? Where’s Kate—”
The blonde woman stepped forward, picking Jason up and it suddenly clicked—She had Kate’s same face. Beth Kane, Kate’s twin sister. “Since Kate lost your kid, does that make me your favorite cousin?”
“That honor belongs to Bette.”
“Buh.” Jason once again opened his mouth with the intent to speak and still couldn’t quite manage intelligible speech. “Buh ehs nahb eel.”
Bruce obviously couldn’t interpret anything meaningful out of that, but he did take it as a cue to take Jason, now balancing a child on each hip. It was only then Jason noticed he and Cass were dressed in matching overall sets.
“Buh.” Jason utilized this closeness to tug on his father’s shirt, “Buh! Buh! BUH!” He chanted his best attempt at Bruce’s name with escalating intensity until his head began to swim and he was falling
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Jason blinked back to himself, again just a bit bigger—chubby toddler fingers clasping a worn cardboard book of Peter Rabbit and his small body tucked up against Bruce as his father sat at his desk in the family study. Bruce himself was reading what appeared to be a medical textbook.
And they weren’t alone.
An unscarred, young Harvey Dent had an armchair pulled up beside the desk as well, pouring over an excessively annotated legal casebook of his own. And Dick, probably around seven or eight-years-old, was sprawled on the floor, flipping through another one of Dent’s legal books.
A medical student, a law student, and two children each with their own ‘studies.’
“Aha!” Dick declared, jumping to his feet and hefting the heavy book he’d been searching through onto the desk. “According to the Fifth Amendment, you can’t deprive me of dessert without due process of law! So, what you said earlier is unconstintutional!”
Bruce raised an amused eyebrow and Harvey snorted a laugh. “Oh really?” The law student chuckled, making a show of flipping through his notes. “Strange, I don’t remember any constitutional rights to dessert.”
Dick turned the book towards Dent now, pointing confidently as he read, “No person shall be,” his finger trailed across the words searching for his point, “de-prey... deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. And my ice cream is my property, because I bought it with my ‘llowance when I helped Alfred at the store.”
Bruce laughed so hard Jason nearly toppled off his lap in surprise, but his father easily pulled him back into the security of his arms. “You’ll have to take this up with my lawyer, chum.”
Dick turned towards Harvey expectantly, and the unscarred young man laughed as well. “Sorry Dickie, but you’re going to need state action to have standing to bring a constitutional case.”
“That just means the government did it right?”
Dent raised an impressed eyebrow as he nodded. “Very good.”
“Well, a dad is basically like, the government so by anol... anology?
“Analogy.” Harvey supplied supportively.
“By analogy, it works?”
“I’m telling you Bruce, you have a future lawyer on your hands.”
“He certainly knows how to argue.”
Dick blew a raspberry and rolled his eyes. “I’m not gonna go to school.”
Bruce nodded his head wearily. “Just getting him through elementary school is going to be difficult enough. Let alone law school.”
Harvey smiled at Jason. “Maybe you can be the scholar.”
“Dis isn’t weal.” Jason finally managed to declare, tongues still tripping over some consonants, but at least he’d regained basic speech.
“What are you talking about Jay?” Dick asked confused.
“Buce.” Jason looked his father in the eyes with all the seriousness his two-year-old body could manage. “Dis. Isn’t. Weal. You need to wake up.”
The rolling swell of vertigo swirled in Jason’s mind, but Bruce’s grip on him tightened, seemingly anchoring them in the moment.
They didn’t fall.
His father’s brow furrowed in confusion, but he looked at Jason seriously. “Jaylad? What are you—?”
The world around them seemed to flicker—Harvey and the walls of the office disappeared and they were sitting on Bruce’s bed, Jason still secure in his father’s lap and Dick looking up at him with concern. “B, is Jay sick?”
Jason latched onto Bruce’s shirt once again, clutching as tightly as possible. “Pease, Buce. You need to wake up.”
The roiling sensation of vertigo swept over him, but again, Bruce held him firm as their surroundings and bodies flickered, and they were suddenly sitting at a picnic table, a few years older now.
Jason breathed a sigh of relief, looking down at his much more solid six-year-old form. Surely now he could use all of his consonants.
The trio was just removed from the rest of a large barbeque set up in Robinson Park. In the distance, a variety of Justice League members and young future members of the Titans and Young Justice socialized and chased frisbees and set up a loose game of soccer. “Bruce! Get over here!” Barry called, kicking a ball back and forth between his own feet as a tweenage Wally weaved around trying to steal it. “We need a fifth man.”
“Dick! Jason!” Roy Harper called. “Come on!”
But Bruce didn’t look away from Jason, and Jason kept his iron-tight grip on his target. It was time to switch tactics. To point out the inconsistencies. “Where did we come from!” Jason demanded.
Bruce cringed and twelve-year-old Dick’s hands flew to his ears. “I’m not listening to this talk again!” His brother exclaimed before bolting off towards Roy.
“Don’t mind Dickie. Reproduction and birth are a natural and beautiful part of life—"
“No! I mean, where are our parents?” Jason pressed.
Bruce’s face crumbled with a hurt Jason didn’t know he was capable of expressing. “Well, I’m your father aren’t I, Jaylad?”
“That’s not what I mean! You adopted. If you adopted us as soon as we were born, you would have barely been in high school when Dick was born.”
“Our family certainly isn’t conventional, but that doesn’t change anything.”
“But where did our parents go?” Jason cried, “Where’s my mom, what happened to her!?“
At this Bruce actually seems confused, and the world around them again began to flicker once—the colors and sunlight itself shorting out before-
The two were suddenly standing in Wayne Manor once more. Both finally back to their present age. But before Jason could breathe a sigh of relief, the sound of laughter and chatter caught their attention. Jason and Bruce shared a mutually confused glance before turning towards the sounds drifting from the sitting room.
In the sitting room a familiar and foreign sea of women caught both of them by surprise. They were all spread out with tea and brunch spread out between them, making friendly conversation. Martha Wayne, Selina Kyle, and Mary Grayson were laughing as they flipped through a photo album. Janet Drake, Crystal Brown, and Elaine Thomas were circled together, sharing a platter of tea cakes. Talia and Lady Shiva stood by the window, cups of tea in hand chatting idly. And then Catherine Todd stepped out in front of them.
Jason’s breath caught at the sight. His mother (his real mother, even if not biologically so), healthy and smiling here in Wayne Manor instead of their dirty rundown flat in Crime Alley.
“Sweetheart,” Catherine beamed, holding out her arm and beckoning Jason towards her. “Where’s my ‘Happy Mothers Day?’”
But it wasn’t real.
All he wanted was to run to her. But Jason clenched his fists so tight his blunt nails cut into the flesh of his palms, squeezing his eyes shut and turning away from the vision he wished could have been reality. “N-none of this makes sense.” He insisted to Bruce through the beginnings of tears. “If all of our parents are here, why did you adopt us?”
“Because I love you,” Bruce answered so easily that Jason’s resolve nearly shattered.
Taking a shaky breath, Jason knew he had to end this.
He grabbed Bruce’s hand and ran out of the manor, dragging his father behind him to their destination.
“Jason?” Bruce asked in confusion as they arrived at the graveyard. The ancestral family grounds were still largely the same, with the same rows and rows of familiar names from distant Wayne's past were still in order, but one row had some conspicuously empty gaps.
Jason swallowed heavily as he knelt down, touching the undisturbed ground. But even without a headstone to mark it, he would never forget this spot.
“This is where I was buried.”
Reality itself, the sky and the images of the stones around them fractured like glass. All the color vanished and suddenly Jason and Bruce were standing alone in a black and white void.
“What?” Bruce’s voice cracked. “No. No. No, you never—”
Their world flickered and Jason suddenly collapsed overwhelmed by a horrifically familiar pain (broken ribs, collapsed lung, shattered orbital) he was fifteen, battered and bleeding, wheezing for breath as a bomb ticked down. Horrified, Jason realized the spell was changing its approach. With a wheezing cry, Jason turned his eyes towards Bruce. But right as Bruce dove towards him, the empty space reverberated with a haunting voice.
“You failed all of us.” Thomas Wayne growled and he and Martha stepped forwards out of the void, bullet wounds prominent, blood pooling down their bodies and pearls dripping like tears from Martha’s eyes. “We died.”
Instantly Bruce fell to his knees.
Two-Face appeared, scarred side sneering. “Harvey died.”
A skeletal Flash staggered slowly closer, along with a wave of more of the friends they had lost over the years, each time chorusing with: “I died.”
Finally, a bruised and bleeding Superman appeared. “I died.”
“Father.” Damian stepped out next, chest wound gaping and bleeding. And behind him Dick hung from a horrific machine, eyes hollow and frightened. “You failed us.”
“Bruce. You can’t go back.” All of the voices chorused, and suddenly the pain was gone. Jason gasped for breath as his body was healed and he was once again an adult. And so was everyone else, restored and now healthy and smiling family and friends chanted. “Stay. Stay here where we’re alive. Where we’re happy. Where you’re our friend, son, and father.”
All the while, Bruce had remained penitently on his knees, head in his hands. “I’ve failed so many people, I’ve cared about,” Bruce whispered, looking up to meet Jason’s eyes and the man Jason saw was finally familiar. This whole time, Bruce’s eyes had been alight with an easy happiness and peace but now, that inescapable sorrow that his father always carried weighed them down. “I don’t want to live in a world where I failed you.”
The world flickered again, restructuring itself until they were back at the barbeque, all of their family and friends laughing and eating and cheering. Meanwhile, Jason and Bruce remained on the ground, kneeling on the soft grass of the park.
And Jason wasn’t giving up. “But this world isn’t real, Bruce. I didn’t stay dead. Hell, half of these people didn’t stay dead.” Jason insisted, half laughing with morbid humor.
“But that doesn’t change the fact I let you die.” Bruce reached out a gentle hand, brushing it through Jason’s hair, right over the white tuft. “Nothing can make up for that failure.”
“Yeah, I’ll be honest. I’m not over that shit and I don’t think I ever will be. But I can tell you one thing for fucking sure. Running away to live in some fantasy world instead of being there for me now that I’m back would be even worse.” Jason snapped. “If you stay here, you’ll orphan me again. You’ll orphan all of us again. You need to wake up. You need to come home to us.”
A beat passed before slowly Bruce stood, the Batman cowls hazily coming into focus around him.
The sky flickered and their fictional friends and family froze, turning to face them. “No nono no no nono no no no no no no” The chorus of phantom voices chanted, hands reaching out and clawing into the cape, pulling him back.
But Jason reached out in turn, grabbing Bruce’s hand. “Please, Dad. I need you to come back.”
The world around them froze. The people flickered. The sky cracked. The wave of vertigo swirled, but instead of falling backward, Jason was overcome with the rushing feeling of being pulled upwards from deep underwater toward the surface—
.
.
.
.
.
.
Jason gasped awake, but before he could even confirm he had made it back to reality, he was wrapped in a crushing hug.
He was sitting in a dirty alleyway, wrapped in his father’s arms.
That didn’t really seem like it should be reality, but here they were.
“Thank you. Son.” Bruce said simply.
And against his better judgment, Jason relaxed into it, letting his father hold him. It may not be the manicured perfection of the dream world, but it was still pretty good.