Leaf

There comes a point when you realize your children don’t want you around anymore. You’ve tried, to the best of your ability, to show affection in any way you can. But time and time again, you fail.

Over and over. How many times can you fail before everyone becomes sick of you? Does it matter what your intentions are? Does it matter how much you try? Does it matter that you feel your heart breaking every day, and it's your children who are doing the breaking?

There’s not a book out there on how to interact with your child who’s come back from the dead. Trust him, Bruce has searched tirelessly. How could he possibly continue to face the one child he failed irreparably?

So, mistake after mistake, Bruce watched their relationship crumble faster and faster until there was nothing but a thin rope holding them together. Bruce balances precariously on top, always on the verge of falling.

He just wanted to make sure Jason was okay. He had seen that thug land a pretty solid hit to Jason’s shoulder. He knows from experience the kind of radiating pain that could fuck you up for days.

He wanted to cup his cheek and examine the small cut under his eye. He wanted to poke at the bruises spotted on his torso to make sure nothing was broken. He wanted to squeeze his hands to make sure they were still working, that his blood was still pumping.

Somehow, someway, he messed up. He always messes up.

Bruce stands silently, alone, deep in thought, in the cave for a long time. Long after Jason had left. Long after the rest of his children had awkwardly filed out. Long after Alfred had given up on reaching him.

Everything used to be so good between them. But now…

Bruce resists reaching out and ruffling Jason’s hair as he passes by. Instead, he keeps his hand firmly by his side and gives a strained smile as he passes, not allowing his eyes to linger lest he embarrassingly breaks down in tears.

He squeezes Duke extra tight as the boy is going off to school in the morning, pushing away thoughts of younger Jason eagerly waiting by the door for his routine goodbye hug. That was a long time ago.

“You okay?” Duke, the kindest, most considerate boy in the world, asks as he hugs Bruce back just as tightly. “I’m here for you, you know. You don’t… You don’t gotta hold it all in. It’s unhealthy and stuff.”

Bruce couldn’t answer. He feels his throat close up and a pressure build behind his eyes. Instead, he nods and holds on a little longer.

Dick, who had stayed over late to get some advice on a case, is asleep, draped across the couch in his study. Bruce swooped in and covered his shoulders with a blanket. No, Bruce refuses to think of seeing Jason asleep in the library after binge-reading a book series. He tucks the blanket around him tighter, to keep out the cold Bruce keeps feeling.

“Goodnight Dickie.” Bruce pressed a kiss to his eldest’s forehead, smiling softly at the tired, mumbled words Dick replied with.

He sits and talks with Damian, having his son carefully explain his paintings and what they mean to him, all while gently squeezing his hands. He resolutely refuses to think of Jason passionately explaining his annotations and inferences in his novels.

“Baba.”

“Yes, Habibi?”

Damian hugged him around the neck, a very uncharacteristic gesture that made Bruce pause in his aimless wandering thoughts.

“What’s this for?”

Damian shrugged as he set his head down on Bruce’s shoulder, keeping his eyes forward. “I felt as though you required it. Richard told me that my hugs were healing.”

Bruce let out a small huff of laughter and started squeezing Damian’s hands again. “Well, Dick has always been correct about those kinds of things.”

When Jason comes over for the second time in a week, a rarity, Bruce makes sure to make himself scarce. He knows his limits. He won’t be able to keep it together. He doesn't want Jason to hate him more than he already does.

Bruce is ashamed that he can’t even give Jason a fake smile as he brushes past him in the hallway. Just a hoarse grunt before he rushes back to his room, like the coward he is. He's always been a coward.

At dinner, Jason opens his mouth like he wants to say something, and Bruce squeezes his eyes shut, prepared for an onslaught of insults and pointed words on all the ways he had failed Jason that week. Instead, he’s met with silence.

Instead, Jason stares at Bruce with a look he can’t figure out, but it makes his chest hurt nonetheless. He doesn't know if that's worse. When had he stopped being able to understand what his child meant with a single look?

Bruce quickly excuses himself from the rest of supper, the food turning to sand on his taste buds, and goes for a walk out back.

He turns his back on his parents’ graves, too ashamed of his incompetent parenting to face them. He takes step after step towards the woods, intent on getting himself lost before he has to go back and face the harsh reality that he made for himself.

—

“Bruce?”

He startles from his thoughts, blinking up at the night sky and the stars that wink hello at him.

“Jason…” Bruce grunts, his entire body going rigid as he feels his second-oldest son come closer, small twigs breaking under his steel-toed boots. “I was just heading back.”

There’s a small scoff. “Really? From the looks of it, you would have continued staring off into nothing.”

Bruce grimaces, unsure of what to say that wouldn’t set Jason off. If Jason were to yell at him… he might actually cry. If that happened, he'd lock himself away for a week to meditate and get a better hold on his emotions.

What a mortifying thought.

“Bruce-“ as Jason takes a step closer, Bruce takes one back, making sure to put an arm's length of space between them.

He has to make good on his order.

Jason simply looks at him, and from the position where Bruce is standing, most of his son’s face is obscured by shadow. Everything except the hard line of his mouth, his jaw clenched.

He can’t tell. He can’t tell if Jason has an impressed face for actually listening to him or is disappointed that Bruce still can’t take care of himself… he can’t even gather anything from Jason’s body language.

“Good night, Jason,” Bruce grunted, pushing down any emotion that he wanted to feel and turning on his heel, marching toward the mansion without a glance back.

—

“It’s good, right?” Jason grinned, rocking on his feet like he was a little kid again, and he was practically bouncing up and down. It was adorable. Jason would have his head if he said anything like that aloud.

Bruce nodded, finishing off the last lines of the essay Jason had written. Good was an understatement. Jason had always had a way with words. Bruce didn’t know what the essay was for; he doubted Jason would give him a straight answer if he asked, but he was proud nonetheless.

“The structure is impeccable, and I liked your verb usage in this paragraph,” Bruce commented. “While I believe you could have moved this sentence to the end of this paragraph rather than have it as your introduction for the next, it isn’t clunky, and it still flows in your writing style.”

Jason rolled his eyes, but the grin did not disappear from his face. “Yeah, yeah, that just means you loved it.”

Bruce couldn’t help the small chuckle that came out; he raised his hand to ruffle his hair, just like he had always done since he was just a little guy.

But then he remembered. He wasn’t supposed to do that anymore. Bruce’s hand hovered awkwardly in the air before Bruce coughed and lowered it, resolutely not looking at Jason’s face in case he was angry at the attempt.

“Thank you for showing me this, Jason.” Bruce kept his voice carefully monotone as he set the papers down on a nearby table. Handing it to him could accidentally lead to touching him, and Bruce couldn’t do that.

He no longer had that right.

“I have work I need to get done.” Bruce heard himself say, his own words sounding muffled in his ears as he turned and slowly walked away. “Goodbye, Jason.”

Rather than go to his study and pretend to try and focus on his WE paperwork for a few hours, Bruce heads upstairs to his bedroom. He needed to be unconscious immediately.

He thought he had a handle on this.

Sure, it hurt that he couldn’t give his kid affection, but if this is what Jason wanted, he would continue to try his best.

—

Bruce had gotten better. It was almost second nature for him to clasp his hands behind his back whenever Jason was in the room. Almost.

If Jason accidentally walked too close, Bruce would subtly move his body to avoid any point of contact. It was like a dance. One step closer, one step back.

But he had to touch someone.

“You don’t usually care for girl time, B.” Barbara mused, watching as Cass carefully did her best to paint her fingernails an understated green, then alternating to purple in a simple pattern.

Her wheelchair had been pushed into one of the corners of the clock tower and she was seated comfortably on a bright yellow pillow beside Bruce on the floor.

“I could.”

“You don’t like the feeling of nail polish.” Cass pointed out, looking up from her work to give him a flat stare. “But you let us do yours. You’re troubled.”

Bruce looked down at his black and dark blue painted nails, resisting the urge to pick at them till they were off and no longer touching him. “I can handle it…”

“You gotta figure out your shit, Bruce. I say this with love.” Babs lay her head on his shoulder, giggling and murmuring a soft apology to Cass as she glared at the older woman for moving her hands.

“In the meantime, we’ll cover for you,” Cass said, making Barbara hum in agreement.

“My girls… you’re too good to me.” Bruce closed his eyes and leaned against Barbara, smiling as Cass leaned against his outstretched leg.

“I think you deserve a lot of good things, Bruce. You just… gotta let them happen.”

—

“Are you and Jason… okay?” Tim asks him softly, his head tucked against his shoulder as they sat as close as possible on the couch in his study.

Tim’s laptop is off to the side, abandoned after hours working on a case that truly didn’t need as much focus as the two had given it.

Bruce takes a moment and tries to really think of the question. Are they?

He hasn’t given Jason any physical affection for around four weeks. An entire month. He’s surprised he’s lasted this long. But he can’t say it was due to self-restraint, more like deflection. Every time he felt the urge, he would just go to his other children.

He couldn’t tell if they were similarly getting tired of him and only indulging him due to the strange air surrounding him and their brother, or they truly didn’t notice, but Bruce couldn’t answer the question truthfully.

“Yes.” He says because he has to believe that Jason is happy with him, finally leaving him alone. He has to believe that he’s doing good for him for once in his life. He has to believe that this is for the best.

After years and years of letting him down and never being good enough, this is the one time he can truly fulfill a request by his second-oldest.

“Yes, Jason and I are fine.” He repeats, pulling Tim closer and burying his face in his soft, messy hair, trying to distract himself from the million thoughts of self-loathing and doubt racing around.

He couldn’t make this about himself. This was for Jason.

—

“This is the fifth time you’ve asked to braid my hair this week.” Stephanie hummed softly, keeping her head still in the exact position Bruce had gently guided it to one minute and 30 seconds ago.

“Is it?” Bruce made sure to keep his voice light, as if he weren’t painfully aware of the fact that he was annoying Stephanie with his own neediness. “I hadn’t realized.”

Steph hummed again, picking at the stray wool fraying from her dark purple socks. He had gotten them for her many years ago. He had also gotten her twenty other pairs, but these seemed to be her favorite. He'd like to think it was because it was the first thing he had ever gifted her. But that's just being willful.

The fact that she still wears them makes his heart clench painfully. He can’t help but wonder if Jason threw out everything that Bruce had once given him, just like he had thrown away his affection.

But that wasn't really fair, was it? No, Bruce can only blame himself in the end. Everything was his fault. Clearly, he had not been trying hard enough. Or maybe, he had been trying too hard? He always had a tough time figuring out which one it was. Gauging others' emotions was too hard.

Steph opened her mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. “Jason is an idiot. Despite wanting to seem cool and whatever, he’s easily guided by his emotions.” Steph curled a framing strand of hair around her finger. “Takes one to know one.”

Bruce hummed and tied the end of the complex braid with a transparent band and draped it over Stephanie’s shoulder.

“Cool.” She grinned, standing up to look at herself in the mirror.

“You should talk to him, you know.” Stephanie turned to him, trying to catch his eyes, but Bruce purposefully looked away. “It might help. You tend to take things too literally.”

“No… I don’t think it will.” Bruce chuckled. “It would make things worse.”

Stephanie shrugged before walking out of the room, leaving him alone with his thoughts. Great, that’s exactly what he was trying to avoid.

—

“Fuck…” Batman growled, gritting his teeth, as he looked down at the pipe bomb, counting down. He had already disarmed two, and he didn’t know how many were left in the building.

A fire had already been set, which made it harder for him to search while time continued to tick away.

There wasn’t enough time.

“All civilians in the area have been evacuated to a safe distance away, aided by the GCPD.” Oracle crackled to life on his comms, giving him a wave of relief. “Get out of there, Batman. The structural integrity of the warehouse was already compromised before the fire; it's not gonna hold for much longer.”

“Already on it.” He grunted, turning to look behind him, but the hallways he had run through were swallowed up by erratic flames. He would have to find another way.

Batman took off running, eyes scanning everything at once, looking for the perfect way to escape the warehouse. He jumped, kicking off a nearby wall that soon crumbled under his foot, and successfully climbed his way onto the third floor.

“Hey, old man!”

Batman jolted, his head snapping around to see Red Hood running at him. If his respirator wasn’t covering his mouth, his jaw would drop open in surprise.

“Red Hood?” He questioned. “Oracle, why didn’t you inform me Red Hood was here?” Instead of an answer, his comms crackled. Fuck, they were officially cut off from Barbara’s reach. He had been meaning to update his comms to handle more intense heat. It was now at the top of his list.

“Hey, old man, I followed you in. Knowing you, you would get killed trying to save this place.” Red Hood snarked.

“Now isn’t the time for this, Hood. We need to find a way out of here.” Batman growled. Later, when he could take off the cowl, he would try and talk to Jason about his decision on running in after him. He would try and hover till Jason would inevitably snap and push him away.

But at least he would know that he was safe.

The two took off running in the only direction that they could, the flames building faster and faster. While running, Batman continued to try and contact Oracle again, but there was no luck.

“Batman, this place is gonna-“A flaming piece of concrete broke from the caving roof and fell directly onto Red Hood.

Onto Jason.

He was no longer Batman, no, he was Bruce. And his son was in danger.

“Jason!” Bruce yelled, darting back and ripping the debris from his son, watching in horror as a strained, malfunctioning robotic noise came from the helmet.

Bruce’s hands automatically found the hidden release hatch that Jason had thankfully shared with him and ripped off the broken thing. He didn't bother checking to see where it landed. Jason was the most important thing in this moment.

Bruce’s hands hovered, so close to touching, but-

Jason coughed and shook his head. “I’m fine, I’m fine! The debris just knocked my respirator out of the loop.” Jason groaned, covering his mouth and coughing again. Bruce would bet money that if he took off Jason’s domino mask, his eyes would already be watering.

Bruce untied his respirator and pushed it toward his son. “Take it.” He ordered, ignoring the glare sent his way.

“Fuck no, I don’t need it. This smoke doesn’t mean anything.” Jason swatted at Bruce’s hands, an unexpected action that caused the respirator to fall into the flaming sea on the lower floors. “Oops…”

Bruce restrained himself from sighing or doing anything that could take up more oxygen and allow him to inhale more smoke. “Hurry, let’s get out of here.” He wanted to help Jason up, but instead, he focused on finding an escape from this death trap.

“Bruce! Over-“ a loud explosion shook the building, and more debris rained down on them. That wasn’t the pipe bomb he was looking at before, no, it was somewhere on the opposite side.

“Jason, we need-“ another explosion, a completely different place from the one that just happened. The building moaned and swayed as if it were crying out in pain.

Fuck, staggering pipe bomb explosions. The majority of this warehouse would go down in a second if a strong enough breeze came along. But Bruce knew this layout; Gotham had a million of these warehouses built by the same company. There was always one place that would stay standing while the rest of the building fell.

“Move, move, move!” Bruce yelled, screaming at Jason to pick up the pace as he felt the metal walkway underneath them tremble and grow hotter. “Left! Get up there! Press yourself against the wall!”

Bruce watched Jason leap into the one place he knew he would be safe. He was so close, just a few more steps and a leap, and they would both be safe.

Another explosion.

So close. Too close.

Bruce felt a blow on the right side of his body, a searing pain as shrapnel embedded itself into his side. Fuck, a pipe bomb hidden underneath the walkway. It was so obvious and yet, in a panic, he had missed it. His armor was useless against the sharp metal pieces that flew at him from so close in proximity.

Bruce didn’t flail as his body was smashed through a crumbling piece of the wall; he didn’t panic as the only thing he could do was grip onto the railings of the walkway as his body dangled in mid-air. He was Batman. He had been in the position alone a million and one times. He would find a way out.

He did, however, feel his breath catch as he watched his son desperately try and inch over to him, rather than stay safe like he wanted him to.

“Fuck! Jason, go back!” Bruce groaned, his voice quieter than he wanted it to be as he strained to keep himself up. His side throbbed in time with the flames that danced and rose higher and higher. “Get back now!”

“Dad! Dad!” Jason cried out. Once again, Bruce’s breath stuttered. “Dad, are you okay! I’m coming!”

“No! No baby, go back!” Bruce screamed, gritting his teeth, and he felt blood start to pool inside his suit. “It’s not safe!”

Jason's movements were frantic and wild, as if he weren't really there. Obviously, no matter what Jason tried to claim, an exploding building would have an effect on him. Bruce distantly wondered what Jason was really seeing. Was it him, or his mother?

The warehouse shook again, not an explosion this time, but he still didn’t know how many were left and still able to work. It was breaking apart; he could hear the wall underneath him crumbling away and falling into the harbor.

Another explosion.

The railings creaked under his weight before giving. Bruce’s eyes widened as he was suddenly weightless, his stomach dropping and bile rising in his throat.

“Dad! Grab my hand!” Jason screamed, the sound ripping from his throat sounding raw and terrified. His hand was stretched so far, and Bruce reached up, a millimeter away from reaching him. From being saved, rescued.

Blinding fear zipped up Bruce’s spine. He couldn’t. He fucking couldn’t.

Bruce ripped his hand away just as Jason was about to grasp him, pulling it close to his chest and curling in on himself. Time seemed to stop as he stared, shocked that his body moved on its own.

In the last second before he felt his free fall, Bruce looked at his son. His sweet baby boy, whom he loved, lost, and somehow gained back. His son, who had grown into a strong man who was now even taller than he was, who didn’t need Dad to protect him anymore. Who didn’t need him at all.

Jason’s mouth was open like he was screaming at him, but over the roar of the inferno surrounding them and the shock from the explosion earlier, all Bruce could hear was an incessant ring that drowned out any other sound.

Jason’s arm was still outstretched, his hand holding nothing but air as Bruce slipped away from him.

And then, he was falling.

When Bruce hit the water, he felt an intense, sharp pain radiating to every point in his body. He felt as though he had smashed into a thick layer of concrete, but that was to be expected, falling into still water from 40 feet in the air. He could feel his nerves alight, and he couldn’t do anything but go limp.

There was nothing he could do. That wasn’t the scariest part. Neither was his slow sinking, nor the way his vision was blacking out, nor the debris from the blown-up warehouse battering against his broken body, nor even the way his body moved from searing, blind hot pain to all-consuming cold.

No, it was his mind clouding in pain, causing his thoughts to drift away into nothingness as the dirty Gotham harbor water filled his lungs, suffocating him.

‘I really want a hug…’ Bruce couldn’t help the last coherent thought from drifting through his mind before he closed his eyes.

—

The next thing he knows, he’s in the cave, hooked up to various machines, trying their best to keep him stable, to keep him alive. The beeping and the whirring hammering into his skull, the sound almost too much for him.

Faint, blurry memories of being pulled from the harbor and having his ribs broken by chest compression surface fleetingly before disappearing in the corners of his mind.

Bruce could always examine them later if he got the chance; there was no way he could forget. A curse brought to him by a photographic memory.

There was nothing Bruce could feel that didn’t ache. He was sure that if he wasn’t hooked up on so many medications and wasn’t so out of it, there would be other areas that hurt as well. The consequences of hitting the nasty Gotham water with only burning rubble pieces around him to break his fall were apparent.

When he finally cracked his eyes open, he winced softly at the harsh white light in the cave’s medical room.

“Dad, thank fuck! You had me so fucking scared, pops! Y-you wouldn’t wake up…!” A voice sobs out in relief. It’s Jason. Jason is at his bedside. Jason, his little boy who had grown up and seen Bruce for who he really was and hated him, was here. For him.

“J-Jay…” Bruce rattles, looking at the exhausted face of his second eldest. He looked so tired.

Jason mumbled something, his voice hoarse and desperate as tears streaked down his cheeks.

He wanted to reach up and wipe away those tears, to fight away whoever made Jason cry, but Bruce was fighting a losing battle trying to move his body in the way he wanted.

“I’m sorry…” Bruce's voice cracked painfully as he tried his best to squeeze Jason’s hand. He’s gotten so big. Before, Bruce could almost perfectly hold both of Jason’s hands in one of his own; now they’re basically the same size.

“I… I know you don’t like it.” Bruce coughed, trying to suck in more oxygen from the breathing mask. “P-please… let me hold your hand…”

Just his hand. That’s all Bruce needs. He doesn’t want to be greedy.

Bruce thinks he hears Jason sob. “D-dad… I’m so fucking sorry… It’s my fault! I don’t know why I said that. I was being stupid! Hug me, ruffle my hair, tousle with me, just don’t fucking leave!” Jason clutched his hand tightly and continued to babble more apologies, but Bruce could no longer hear him.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce murmured again, the world buzzing around him, a soft hum that weighed on his bones and made him feel exhausted. It was a strong pull to get him to close his eyes. “I know… You hate it. I’m so f-fucking sorry…”

“Dad-!”

“One… one last time… please… please…” Bruce begged, his voice a faint whisper, the light in the room growing brighter, but strangely it didn’t hurt. No, nothing hurts anymore.

Too bad Jason would hate him for having the audacity to touch him. Being hurt wouldn’t be an excuse good enough for Jason. He was lucky he wasn't getting yelled at right then. Alfred must have persuaded him to not yell in the med bay.

Bruce tried to squeeze Jason’s hand one last time, but it fell limp. He was too tired. He was just glad to be able to touch his son again, even if it wasn’t the hug he had longed for.

Bruce closed his eyes and went to sleep. It was so quiet.

——

Inspired by on ao3:

My Name is Richard by thinkingthroughmyfingers

There comes a point when you realize your children don’t want you around anymore. You’ve tried, to the best of your ability, to show affection in any way you can. But time and time again, you fail.

Over and over. How many times can you fail before everyone becomes sick of you? Does it matter what your intentions are? Does it matter how much you try? Does it matter that you feel your heart breaking every day, and it's your children who are doing the breaking?

There’s not a book out there on how to interact with your child who’s come back from the dead. Trust him, Bruce has searched tirelessly. How could he possibly continue to face the one child he failed irreparably?

So, mistake after mistake, Bruce watched their relationship crumble faster and faster until there was nothing but a thin rope holding them together. Bruce balances precariously on top, always on the verge of falling.

He just wanted to make sure Jason was okay. He had seen that thug land a pretty solid hit to Jason’s shoulder. He knows from experience the kind of radiating pain that could fuck you up for days.

He wanted to cup his cheek and examine the small cut under his eye. He wanted to poke at the bruises spotted on his torso to make sure nothing was broken. He wanted to squeeze his hands to make sure they were still working, that his blood was still pumping.

Somehow, someway, he messed up. He always messes up.

Bruce stands silently, alone, deep in thought, in the cave for a long time. Long after Jason had left. Long after the rest of his children had awkwardly filed out. Long after Alfred had given up on reaching him.

Everything used to be so good between them. But now…

Bruce resists reaching out and ruffling Jason’s hair as he passes by. Instead, he keeps his hand firmly by his side and gives a strained smile as he passes, not allowing his eyes to linger lest he embarrassingly breaks down in tears.

He squeezes Duke extra tight as the boy is going off to school in the morning, pushing away thoughts of younger Jason eagerly waiting by the door for his routine goodbye hug. That was a long time ago.

“You okay?” Duke, the kindest, most considerate boy in the world, asks as he hugs Bruce back just as tightly. “I’m here for you, you know. You don’t… You don’t gotta hold it all in. It’s unhealthy and stuff.”

Bruce couldn’t answer. He feels his throat close up and a pressure build behind his eyes. Instead, he nods and holds on a little longer.

Dick, who had stayed over late to get some advice on a case, is asleep, draped across the couch in his study. Bruce swooped in and covered his shoulders with a blanket. No, Bruce refuses to think of seeing Jason asleep in the library after binge-reading a book series. He tucks the blanket around him tighter, to keep out the cold Bruce keeps feeling.

“Goodnight Dickie.” Bruce pressed a kiss to his eldest’s forehead, smiling softly at the tired, mumbled words Dick replied with.

He sits and talks with Damian, having his son carefully explain his paintings and what they mean to him, all while gently squeezing his hands. He resolutely refuses to think of Jason passionately explaining his annotations and inferences in his novels.

“Baba.”

“Yes, Habibi?”

Damian hugged him around the neck, a very uncharacteristic gesture that made Bruce pause in his aimless wandering thoughts.

“What’s this for?”

Damian shrugged as he set his head down on Bruce’s shoulder, keeping his eyes forward. “I felt as though you required it. Richard told me that my hugs were healing.”

Bruce let out a small huff of laughter and started squeezing Damian’s hands again. “Well, Dick has always been correct about those kinds of things.”

When Jason comes over for the second time in a week, a rarity, Bruce makes sure to make himself scarce. He knows his limits. He won’t be able to keep it together. He doesn't want Jason to hate him more than he already does.

Bruce is ashamed that he can’t even give Jason a fake smile as he brushes past him in the hallway. Just a hoarse grunt before he rushes back to his room, like the coward he is. He's always been a coward.

At dinner, Jason opens his mouth like he wants to say something, and Bruce squeezes his eyes shut, prepared for an onslaught of insults and pointed words on all the ways he had failed Jason that week. Instead, he’s met with silence.

Instead, Jason stares at Bruce with a look he can’t figure out, but it makes his chest hurt nonetheless. He doesn't know if that's worse. When had he stopped being able to understand what his child meant with a single look?

Bruce quickly excuses himself from the rest of supper, the food turning to sand on his taste buds, and goes for a walk out back.

He turns his back on his parents’ graves, too ashamed of his incompetent parenting to face them. He takes step after step towards the woods, intent on getting himself lost before he has to go back and face the harsh reality that he made for himself.

—

“Bruce?”

He startles from his thoughts, blinking up at the night sky and the stars that wink hello at him.

“Jason…” Bruce grunts, his entire body going rigid as he feels his second-oldest son come closer, small twigs breaking under his steel-toed boots. “I was just heading back.”

There’s a small scoff. “Really? From the looks of it, you would have continued staring off into nothing.”

Bruce grimaces, unsure of what to say that wouldn’t set Jason off. If Jason were to yell at him… he might actually cry. If that happened, he'd lock himself away for a week to meditate and get a better hold on his emotions.

What a mortifying thought.

“Bruce-“ as Jason takes a step closer, Bruce takes one back, making sure to put an arm's length of space between them.

He has to make good on his order.

Jason simply looks at him, and from the position where Bruce is standing, most of his son’s face is obscured by shadow. Everything except the hard line of his mouth, his jaw clenched.

He can’t tell. He can’t tell if Jason has an impressed face for actually listening to him or is disappointed that Bruce still can’t take care of himself… he can’t even gather anything from Jason’s body language.

“Good night, Jason,” Bruce grunted, pushing down any emotion that he wanted to feel and turning on his heel, marching toward the mansion without a glance back.

—

“It’s good, right?” Jason grinned, rocking on his feet like he was a little kid again, and he was practically bouncing up and down. It was adorable. Jason would have his head if he said anything like that aloud.

Bruce nodded, finishing off the last lines of the essay Jason had written. Good was an understatement. Jason had always had a way with words. Bruce didn’t know what the essay was for; he doubted Jason would give him a straight answer if he asked, but he was proud nonetheless.

“The structure is impeccable, and I liked your verb usage in this paragraph,” Bruce commented. “While I believe you could have moved this sentence to the end of this paragraph rather than have it as your introduction for the next, it isn’t clunky, and it still flows in your writing style.”

Jason rolled his eyes, but the grin did not disappear from his face. “Yeah, yeah, that just means you loved it.”

Bruce couldn’t help the small chuckle that came out; he raised his hand to ruffle his hair, just like he had always done since he was just a little guy.

But then he remembered. He wasn’t supposed to do that anymore. Bruce’s hand hovered awkwardly in the air before Bruce coughed and lowered it, resolutely not looking at Jason’s face in case he was angry at the attempt.

“Thank you for showing me this, Jason.” Bruce kept his voice carefully monotone as he set the papers down on a nearby table. Handing it to him could accidentally lead to touching him, and Bruce couldn’t do that.

He no longer had that right.

“I have work I need to get done.” Bruce heard himself say, his own words sounding muffled in his ears as he turned and slowly walked away. “Goodbye, Jason.”

Rather than go to his study and pretend to try and focus on his WE paperwork for a few hours, Bruce heads upstairs to his bedroom. He needed to be unconscious immediately.

He thought he had a handle on this.

Sure, it hurt that he couldn’t give his kid affection, but if this is what Jason wanted, he would continue to try his best.

—

Bruce had gotten better. It was almost second nature for him to clasp his hands behind his back whenever Jason was in the room. Almost.

If Jason accidentally walked too close, Bruce would subtly move his body to avoid any point of contact. It was like a dance. One step closer, one step back.

But he had to touch someone.

“You don’t usually care for girl time, B.” Barbara mused, watching as Cass carefully did her best to paint her fingernails an understated green, then alternating to purple in a simple pattern.

Her wheelchair had been pushed into one of the corners of the clock tower and she was seated comfortably on a bright yellow pillow beside Bruce on the floor.

“I could.”

“You don’t like the feeling of nail polish.” Cass pointed out, looking up from her work to give him a flat stare. “But you let us do yours. You’re troubled.”

Bruce looked down at his black and dark blue painted nails, resisting the urge to pick at them till they were off and no longer touching him. “I can handle it…”

“You gotta figure out your shit, Bruce. I say this with love.” Babs lay her head on his shoulder, giggling and murmuring a soft apology to Cass as she glared at the older woman for moving her hands.

“In the meantime, we’ll cover for you,” Cass said, making Barbara hum in agreement.

“My girls… you’re too good to me.” Bruce closed his eyes and leaned against Barbara, smiling as Cass leaned against his outstretched leg.

“I think you deserve a lot of good things, Bruce. You just… gotta let them happen.”

—

“Are you and Jason… okay?” Tim asks him softly, his head tucked against his shoulder as they sat as close as possible on the couch in his study.

Tim’s laptop is off to the side, abandoned after hours working on a case that truly didn’t need as much focus as the two had given it.

Bruce takes a moment and tries to really think of the question. Are they?

He hasn’t given Jason any physical affection for around four weeks. An entire month. He’s surprised he’s lasted this long. But he can’t say it was due to self-restraint, more like deflection. Every time he felt the urge, he would just go to his other children.

He couldn’t tell if they were similarly getting tired of him and only indulging him due to the strange air surrounding him and their brother, or they truly didn’t notice, but Bruce couldn’t answer the question truthfully.

“Yes.” He says because he has to believe that Jason is happy with him, finally leaving him alone. He has to believe that he’s doing good for him for once in his life. He has to believe that this is for the best.

After years and years of letting him down and never being good enough, this is the one time he can truly fulfill a request by his second-oldest.

“Yes, Jason and I are fine.” He repeats, pulling Tim closer and burying his face in his soft, messy hair, trying to distract himself from the million thoughts of self-loathing and doubt racing around.

He couldn’t make this about himself. This was for Jason.

—

“This is the fifth time you’ve asked to braid my hair this week.” Stephanie hummed softly, keeping her head still in the exact position Bruce had gently guided it to one minute and 30 seconds ago.

“Is it?” Bruce made sure to keep his voice light, as if he weren’t painfully aware of the fact that he was annoying Stephanie with his own neediness. “I hadn’t realized.”

Steph hummed again, picking at the stray wool fraying from her dark purple socks. He had gotten them for her many years ago. He had also gotten her twenty other pairs, but these seemed to be her favorite. He'd like to think it was because it was the first thing he had ever gifted her. But that's just being willful.

The fact that she still wears them makes his heart clench painfully. He can’t help but wonder if Jason threw out everything that Bruce had once given him, just like he had thrown away his affection.

But that wasn't really fair, was it? No, Bruce can only blame himself in the end. Everything was his fault. Clearly, he had not been trying hard enough. Or maybe, he had been trying too hard? He always had a tough time figuring out which one it was. Gauging others' emotions was too hard.

Steph opened her mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. “Jason is an idiot. Despite wanting to seem cool and whatever, he’s easily guided by his emotions.” Steph curled a framing strand of hair around her finger. “Takes one to know one.”

Bruce hummed and tied the end of the complex braid with a transparent band and draped it over Stephanie’s shoulder.

“Cool.” She grinned, standing up to look at herself in the mirror.

“You should talk to him, you know.” Stephanie turned to him, trying to catch his eyes, but Bruce purposefully looked away. “It might help. You tend to take things too literally.”

“No… I don’t think it will.” Bruce chuckled. “It would make things worse.”

Stephanie shrugged before walking out of the room, leaving him alone with his thoughts. Great, that’s exactly what he was trying to avoid.

—

“Fuck…” Batman growled, gritting his teeth, as he looked down at the pipe bomb, counting down. He had already disarmed two, and he didn’t know how many were left in the building.

A fire had already been set, which made it harder for him to search while time continued to tick away.

There wasn’t enough time.

“All civilians in the area have been evacuated to a safe distance away, aided by the GCPD.” Oracle crackled to life on his comms, giving him a wave of relief. “Get out of there, Batman. The structural integrity of the warehouse was already compromised before the fire; it's not gonna hold for much longer.”

“Already on it.” He grunted, turning to look behind him, but the hallways he had run through were swallowed up by erratic flames. He would have to find another way.

Batman took off running, eyes scanning everything at once, looking for the perfect way to escape the warehouse. He jumped, kicking off a nearby wall that soon crumbled under his foot, and successfully climbed his way onto the third floor.

“Hey, old man!”

Batman jolted, his head snapping around to see Red Hood running at him. If his respirator wasn’t covering his mouth, his jaw would drop open in surprise.

“Red Hood?” He questioned. “Oracle, why didn’t you inform me Red Hood was here?” Instead of an answer, his comms crackled. Fuck, they were officially cut off from Barbara’s reach. He had been meaning to update his comms to handle more intense heat. It was now at the top of his list.

“Hey, old man, I followed you in. Knowing you, you would get killed trying to save this place.” Red Hood snarked.

“Now isn’t the time for this, Hood. We need to find a way out of here.” Batman growled. Later, when he could take off the cowl, he would try and talk to Jason about his decision on running in after him. He would try and hover till Jason would inevitably snap and push him away.

But at least he would know that he was safe.

The two took off running in the only direction that they could, the flames building faster and faster. While running, Batman continued to try and contact Oracle again, but there was no luck.

“Batman, this place is gonna-“A flaming piece of concrete broke from the caving roof and fell directly onto Red Hood.

Onto Jason.

He was no longer Batman, no, he was Bruce. And his son was in danger.

“Jason!” Bruce yelled, darting back and ripping the debris from his son, watching in horror as a strained, malfunctioning robotic noise came from the helmet.

Bruce’s hands automatically found the hidden release hatch that Jason had thankfully shared with him and ripped off the broken thing. He didn't bother checking to see where it landed. Jason was the most important thing in this moment.

Bruce’s hands hovered, so close to touching, but-

Jason coughed and shook his head. “I’m fine, I’m fine! The debris just knocked my respirator out of the loop.” Jason groaned, covering his mouth and coughing again. Bruce would bet money that if he took off Jason’s domino mask, his eyes would already be watering.

Bruce untied his respirator and pushed it toward his son. “Take it.” He ordered, ignoring the glare sent his way.

“Fuck no, I don’t need it. This smoke doesn’t mean anything.” Jason swatted at Bruce’s hands, an unexpected action that caused the respirator to fall into the flaming sea on the lower floors. “Oops…”

Bruce restrained himself from sighing or doing anything that could take up more oxygen and allow him to inhale more smoke. “Hurry, let’s get out of here.” He wanted to help Jason up, but instead, he focused on finding an escape from this death trap.

“Bruce! Over-“ a loud explosion shook the building, and more debris rained down on them. That wasn’t the pipe bomb he was looking at before, no, it was somewhere on the opposite side.

“Jason, we need-“ another explosion, a completely different place from the one that just happened. The building moaned and swayed as if it were crying out in pain.

Fuck, staggering pipe bomb explosions. The majority of this warehouse would go down in a second if a strong enough breeze came along. But Bruce knew this layout; Gotham had a million of these warehouses built by the same company. There was always one place that would stay standing while the rest of the building fell.

“Move, move, move!” Bruce yelled, screaming at Jason to pick up the pace as he felt the metal walkway underneath them tremble and grow hotter. “Left! Get up there! Press yourself against the wall!”

Bruce watched Jason leap into the one place he knew he would be safe. He was so close, just a few more steps and a leap, and they would both be safe.

Another explosion.

So close. Too close.

Bruce felt a blow on the right side of his body, a searing pain as shrapnel embedded itself into his side. Fuck, a pipe bomb hidden underneath the walkway. It was so obvious and yet, in a panic, he had missed it. His armor was useless against the sharp metal pieces that flew at him from so close in proximity.

Bruce didn’t flail as his body was smashed through a crumbling piece of the wall; he didn’t panic as the only thing he could do was grip onto the railings of the walkway as his body dangled in mid-air. He was Batman. He had been in the position alone a million and one times. He would find a way out.

He did, however, feel his breath catch as he watched his son desperately try and inch over to him, rather than stay safe like he wanted him to.

“Fuck! Jason, go back!” Bruce groaned, his voice quieter than he wanted it to be as he strained to keep himself up. His side throbbed in time with the flames that danced and rose higher and higher. “Get back now!”

“Dad! Dad!” Jason cried out. Once again, Bruce’s breath stuttered. “Dad, are you okay! I’m coming!”

“No! No baby, go back!” Bruce screamed, gritting his teeth, and he felt blood start to pool inside his suit. “It’s not safe!”

Jason's movements were frantic and wild, as if he weren't really there. Obviously, no matter what Jason tried to claim, an exploding building would have an effect on him. Bruce distantly wondered what Jason was really seeing. Was it him, or his mother?

The warehouse shook again, not an explosion this time, but he still didn’t know how many were left and still able to work. It was breaking apart; he could hear the wall underneath him crumbling away and falling into the harbor.

Another explosion.

The railings creaked under his weight before giving. Bruce’s eyes widened as he was suddenly weightless, his stomach dropping and bile rising in his throat.

“Dad! Grab my hand!” Jason screamed, the sound ripping from his throat sounding raw and terrified. His hand was stretched so far, and Bruce reached up, a millimeter away from reaching him. From being saved, rescued.

Blinding fear zipped up Bruce’s spine. He couldn’t. He fucking couldn’t.

Bruce ripped his hand away just as Jason was about to grasp him, pulling it close to his chest and curling in on himself. Time seemed to stop as he stared, shocked that his body moved on its own.

In the last second before he felt his free fall, Bruce looked at his son. His sweet baby boy, whom he loved, lost, and somehow gained back. His son, who had grown into a strong man who was now even taller than he was, who didn’t need Dad to protect him anymore. Who didn’t need him at all.

Jason’s mouth was open like he was screaming at him, but over the roar of the inferno surrounding them and the shock from the explosion earlier, all Bruce could hear was an incessant ring that drowned out any other sound.

Jason’s arm was still outstretched, his hand holding nothing but air as Bruce slipped away from him.

And then, he was falling.

When Bruce hit the water, he felt an intense, sharp pain radiating to every point in his body. He felt as though he had smashed into a thick layer of concrete, but that was to be expected, falling into still water from 40 feet in the air. He could feel his nerves alight, and he couldn’t do anything but go limp.

There was nothing he could do. That wasn’t the scariest part. Neither was his slow sinking, nor the way his vision was blacking out, nor the debris from the blown-up warehouse battering against his broken body, nor even the way his body moved from searing, blind hot pain to all-consuming cold.

No, it was his mind clouding in pain, causing his thoughts to drift away into nothingness as the dirty Gotham harbor water filled his lungs, suffocating him.

‘I really want a hug…’ Bruce couldn’t help the last coherent thought from drifting through his mind before he closed his eyes.

—

The next thing he knows, he’s in the cave, hooked up to various machines, trying their best to keep him stable, to keep him alive. The beeping and the whirring hammering into his skull, the sound almost too much for him.

Faint, blurry memories of being pulled from the harbor and having his ribs broken by chest compression surface fleetingly before disappearing in the corners of his mind.

Bruce could always examine them later if he got the chance; there was no way he could forget. A curse brought to him by a photographic memory.

There was nothing Bruce could feel that didn’t ache. He was sure that if he wasn’t hooked up on so many medications and wasn’t so out of it, there would be other areas that hurt as well. The consequences of hitting the nasty Gotham water with only burning rubble pieces around him to break his fall were apparent.

When he finally cracked his eyes open, he winced softly at the harsh white light in the cave’s medical room.

“Dad, thank fuck! You had me so fucking scared, pops! Y-you wouldn’t wake up…!” A voice sobs out in relief. It’s Jason. Jason is at his bedside. Jason, his little boy who had grown up and seen Bruce for who he really was and hated him, was here. For him.

“J-Jay…” Bruce rattles, looking at the exhausted face of his second eldest. He looked so tired.

Jason mumbled something, his voice hoarse and desperate as tears streaked down his cheeks.

He wanted to reach up and wipe away those tears, to fight away whoever made Jason cry, but Bruce was fighting a losing battle trying to move his body in the way he wanted.

“I’m sorry…” Bruce's voice cracked painfully as he tried his best to squeeze Jason’s hand. He’s gotten so big. Before, Bruce could almost perfectly hold both of Jason’s hands in one of his own; now they’re basically the same size.

“I… I know you don’t like it.” Bruce coughed, trying to suck in more oxygen from the breathing mask. “P-please… let me hold your hand…”

Just his hand. That’s all Bruce needs. He doesn’t want to be greedy.

Bruce thinks he hears Jason sob. “D-dad… I’m so fucking sorry… It’s my fault! I don’t know why I said that. I was being stupid! Hug me, ruffle my hair, tousle with me, just don’t fucking leave!” Jason clutched his hand tightly and continued to babble more apologies, but Bruce could no longer hear him.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce murmured again, the world buzzing around him, a soft hum that weighed on his bones and made him feel exhausted. It was a strong pull to get him to close his eyes. “I know… You hate it. I’m so f-fucking sorry…”

“Dad-!”

“One… one last time… please… please…” Bruce begged, his voice a faint whisper, the light in the room growing brighter, but strangely it didn’t hurt. No, nothing hurts anymore.

Too bad Jason would hate him for having the audacity to touch him. Being hurt wouldn’t be an excuse good enough for Jason. He was lucky he wasn't getting yelled at right then. Alfred must have persuaded him to not yell in the med bay.

Bruce tried to squeeze Jason’s hand one last time, but it fell limp. He was too tired. He was just glad to be able to touch his son again, even if it wasn’t the hug he had longed for.

Bruce closed his eyes and went to sleep. It was so quiet.

——

Inspired by on ao3:

My Name is Richard by thinkingthroughmyfingers