As days fade and nights grow and we grow cold

the heat reaches your face and a fluttery feeling sits low in your stomach. he always knew how to throw the words back at you. but alas, the show must go on. you stroke his hair back once more, cupping his face with both hands to kiss his sweet face. jason melts into it immediately, but he shrugs like he were shy from this attention. when you pull away, a piece of him was disappointed.

“you hungry?” you ask him. “i was gonna make something to eat.”

he shakes his head, “don’t worry about it. i came home to take care of you. i’ll cook.”

you raise a brow as you reach for your water bottle, ready to play in his face. “take care of me? i’m a grown adult babe.”

he watches as you lift the bottle to your lips, his eyes trained hard on how they part and press against it. taking in how your throat swallows down the water and he gulps in anticipation as though he was drinking it too. his lips part as he leans in to kiss you again. though this time, you bring the bottle between you and put it to his lips.

“you look dehydrated,” you say like it’s the easiest thing in the world. tilting your head slightly and watching the gears turn in his head. “have you been using the bottle i bought you?”

he sighs and nods, “yeah, but i like using yours better.”

sitting up enough to take the bottle and take a long sip. probably draining your ice cold water from how thirsty he was and didn’t even realize. he makes a sound of approval and hands it back to you when you do the unspeakable.

you take the bottle from him, lift your opposing hand and wipe it with your sleeve. jason is absolutely dumbstruck. his lips part in confusion as his brows furrow. he looks to you, then the bottle and then back to you again. he scoffs softly and then points at the bottle.

“the fuck was that?”

he’s blinking hard at you and waiting for a response. you just take a long sip and furrow your brows back.

“what do you mean jay? i’m drinking water?” feigning confusion.

“you just wiped me off of it i’m some freeloader, with germs and shit.”

you can’t control your laughter and shake your head at him. “i’m just wiping your spit off of it jason. it’s not a big deal.”

he knows you have never cared about germs with him before. besides, you live in gotham, and it’s hardly the cleanliest place to be living.

then he’s stammering, pointing between you and the bottle again. “but babe you just kissed me! how is that any different! wait, does my breath smell?” before he leans back and puts his hand in front of his mouth and breathes out to sniff his breath. “i didn’t smoke or anything and i brushed my teeth i swear.”

this only makes you laugh harder, pushing this chest and grasping tightly at he bottle in your hands. jason only seems to get even more confused. he sits up completely and watches you giggle to yourself, finding this entire thing amusing. jason however, does not.

with a loud scoff, he takes the water bottle from your hands and tongues at the mouth piece. he fully lets his tongue fall out of his mouth, licks it all around before pulling back and handing it to you. you grimace a little at the wet sheen on it.

“ew jay, what the hell.” holding the bottle like something toxic.

“take a sip.” he says with the most stern expression you’d ever seen on him.

oh, he was pissed.

you decide to play along longer and shake your head in defiance at him.

he blinks at you, “i’d let you spit in my mouth and you’re sitting here telling me you won’t drink from the same bottle as me?”

“no, not until i wash your slobber off of it.”

that’s when he huffs out like a kid throwing a tantrum and grabs the bottle from your hand, mumbling under his breath. you watch him with genuine confusion while he is the one to take another sip before grabbing your chin and pulling you closer.

he squeezes your cheeks until your lips part and spits the water directly into your mouth. you make a sound of surprise the sudden intrusion makes your eyes widen but you were definitely not opposed. you swallow it down immediately. he keeps his hold on your cheeks as he squints and a small smile begins to take form on his face.

“you’re liking this,” he states rather than asks.

the contagious smile takes home on your face as you stare back at him and nod. “it’s a prank.”

“ha,” he says flatly, “now can you lay back down please?”

sighing as you lay down for him, he immediately follows after you. weight resting directly over you like a weighted blanket that wouldn’t budge if you tried. when you squirm a little, he wraps his arms over yours so you’re bracketed between him and the mattress. then he really does give you some sloppy, wet kisses that leave a trail in its wake.

he’s mumbling lowly as he starts to tug on your shirt, pulling the fabric up and huffing like he’s still annoyed. kisses getting a little rougher as he starts to bite the flesh beneath it and knead it with his teeth. you can’t help but tilt back for him.

“slobber, huh? i’ll show you slobber.” murmuring against your skin enough to tickle. he pulls his head up to look at you while you’re still giggling, “okay jokes over. was gonna do all the work but—”

jason lifts you from beneath him and places you firm onto his lap. hand tight in your hip as you straddle him and he settles his back on the headboard. he clears his throat and something behind his light eyes darken enough to tell you you were really in for it now. the thick bulge beneath you was unmistakable now. you open your mouth in a gasp and say his name.

“there’s no way that turned you on.” making the horrible mistake of letting a giggle out again.

he breathes out of his nose and pinches your side to make you jolt. groaning like he’s not the cause of you moving around and tightening his hold on you so you’d stop moving.

“i spat in your mouth. of course i’m hard.” he sighs as his fingers slide across the waistband of your underwear and tug them just to let them snap. you jolt again but he doesn’t stop you from moving or say anything about the desperate sound you make at the friction.

instead, jason smiles a little harder, “go ahead then.”

guiding your hips back and forth until your breath caught in your throat and you grips his shoulders for dear life. you breathe out his name again but it’s barely a whisper.

he tsks and bucks up into you, dragging his hard length against your clothed core. your hips with a mind of its own as you chase your own release, dragging your hands down his chest and pushing him further into the mattress. you’re already a mess, panting heavily and saying his name.

dangerously close already and he’s just grinning like he’s won.

one of his hands come up to the nape of your neck and pulls you down towards him, whispering lowly in your ear.

“there you go ma, take what’s yours.”

movements getting sloppy and uneven while he’s keeping you folded against him. one strong palm kept your faces close and the other moved you in accordance what he knew got you there. he knew you were a goner before you even let go, gasping and stilling just for him to continue moving against you. even when you make a whimpering sound he continues and holds you hard against him.

you’re trying to catch your breath when he finally stops and kisses the side of your face sloppily again. his hands rubbing up and down your back like he’s soothing you. it feels like your purring against him as you come back to yourself. but this time, he’s the one laughing while he whispers in your ear like a coo.

“gave the camera a good show, didn’t we?”

vampire!jason who comes into your home while you’re sleeping. he hasn’t seen you in over two years and when you wake up with him crowding over you, you scream at the top of your lungs. eyes wide in a panic as you thrash and he places a firm palm over your lips. his eyes shone a bright green and his lips were stained an unnatural red, still dripping down his chin. his eyes sunken in as he pleads with you despite having the upper hand.

“please help me,” he practically cries before inching closer. when you don’t move, he collapses onto your chest, letting his weight rest on you and burying his face there for comfort.

still reeling from your bestfriend coming back to life, you hold him there against you. hand smoothing back his tangled hair and a new tuft of white that took home on his bangs. you keep him close like he could leave you again.

vampire!jason who explains what happened vaguely because even he didn’t understand. he tells you he just woke up like this. that he’s sorry to scare you and clenches his fists like he’s afraid to see what he’d do if he touched you any more than he already was. afraid to move his hands.

vampire!jason who tries to fight the urge to sink his teeth into your plush neck, but he fails. his head moves from your chest to your shoulders, then his lips kiss your neck. you jolt in his grip and gasp his name, your body betraying you with how much you’d wanted this. never imagining that you’d get a chance with him since you never got to tell him you loved him. he takes a deep breath from the crook of your neck and moans.

“you smell exactly how i remember.” breath ghosting over your skin, “even better now.”

you gulp as his fingers curl around your neck and apologies begin to slip past his perfect lips.

“i’m so sorry. i need to. i have to do this.”

before you could question what he meant, the veins around his eyes suddenly become darker and your eyes widened again. he leaned further into you and breaks your skin with his teeth. the scream quickly dies in your throat as a stinging pleasure takes form. you gasp his name but hold him closer. thankful to have him back in any way.

vampire!jason who moans egregiously while he sucks your blood. the sound echoes from your throat, dancing by his ears while he continues cursing himself for feeling this way about you. you don’t miss how he inches himself closer to you, hands at either side of your head digging in and ripping the sheets. he mewls as he pulls from your neck, his mouth relentless against your skin. his eyes roll to the back of his head as he stuffed himself further ontop of you.

vampire!jason who begs you for forgiveness afterwards. on the verge of tears, he stares down at you and whimpers your name. he pulls your limp body upright in his lap and cradles your head close.

“fuck— i didn’t mean to take so much. i’m sorry. i’m so fucking sorry.”

but you’re smiling in a blissful state because it felt like you were staring at yourself from outside of your body. almost as if you were high from this. floating in a exhilarating way you hadn’t felt in a really long time.

vampire!jason who feeds you his blood while you’re half conscious. something told him this was the cure to him losing control and keeping you alive. in the back of his mind he knew he was teetering with life and death and that you were the only person he needed. the only person he thought of when he awoke. not bruce, not joker, but you. all he wanted was you and nothing could stand in his way now or ever again.

vampire!jason who doesn’t sleep until you gasp awake hours later. he holds a damp towel to your forehead and still has your dried blood on his face, not caring for it but only you. he sighs as you grab at him in confusion, pulling him closer to smell the tasteful nectar that no longer ran through your veins. the scent suddenly gaining appeal as you grasp as him.

you breathe his name back and ask him for some of it without truly understanding the implication. without a second thought, he keeps your gaze and bites at his wrist, holding it to your parted lips.

vampire!jason who thinks he could’ve came from the sight of you like this. his lips part and moan, watching your eyes glow a low red as you wrapped tight fingers around his wrist. a breathless gasp escapes him and a growing heat emerges.

“don’t do this with anyone else okay?” he suddenly says. “just with me.”

you’re too far gone to have register anything but the sweet warmth on your tongue.

vampire!jason who quickly understands the intimacy of this moment. he immediately sees how much of you he wanted and badly he needed you just like this. he held your head close, cradles you in his arms as he leaned against the headboard. his hips mindlessly bucking and stilling like he were holding back. he doesn’t stop you from taking what you wanted and he smiles throughout it all.

“if i had to die to have you,” his green eyes gleaming bright as they watch yours, “i’d do it all over again.”

“That rug has to go” “No way! The texture is the only reason I get out of bed” “It’s an allergen trap is what it is”

You snort softly, fingers bunching instinctively in the fabric of his jacket. Somewhere over the last few weeks, touching Jason stopped feeling terrifying and started feeling natural. The Outlaws’ jet is already running behind you, engines rumbling low across the rooftop, but Jason has somehow managed to completely forget he is supposed to be leaving Gotham, and is instead discussing your decor choices”

You are tucked against the front of his jacket near the edge of the landing pad, hidden just enough from the worst of the wind by the broad line of his body. Snow drifts lazily through the floodlights overhead, catching in his dark hair before melting away again. Jason’s gloves are off. Which means his hands are warm.

Which means your brain has not processed a single coherent thought in at least three minutes.

“I was thinking,” he murmurs, “I could bring more stuff over when I get back.”

Your stomach flips instantly.

“More stuff?”

“Mm.” His hand squeezes around yours once. “Already got the backup gear there.”

“You mean the one you left on purpose?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“And the books.”

“You’re the one who made me a reading nook.” he points out reasonably.

“And the coffee beans,” you continue weakly.

“I had to intervene.” He sounds deeply serious about this. “All you had was instant coffee. I couldn’t morally allow that.” You laugh again, softer this time, because he’s smiling now too. It still feels a little unreal every time you see it.

“I’m just saying,” he continues, “if I’m over there all the time anyway…”

Your heartbeat stumbles.

All the time.

Before you can answer, a voice bellows from the jet behind him.

“HOOD. WE ARE LITERALLY ON A TIMER.”

Jason doesn’t even blink.

“Ignore them,” he says immediately.

You bite back a smile. “Your team sounds upset.”

“They’re dramatic.”

“You’re making them wait.”

“They can’t leave without me.”

The jet engines hum low behind you. Snow hisses softly against concrete. Jason’s heartbeat sits slow and steady beneath your hands.

You suddenly become very aware of how close he is.

Again.

His gaze drops briefly to your mouth before returning to your eyes like he caught himself doing it.

Then his hands slide lower, fingers hooking lazily through your belt loops and tugging you in closer. 

“You gonna miss me, angel?”

The rooftop suddenly feels about ten degrees warmer.

“Maybe,” you mumble.

“Mhm.”

“A normal amount.”

Jason hums thoughtfully like he’s considering this very seriously. “Interesting.”

“What?”

“Cause your arms’ve been around me for,” he glances at the jet casually, “roughly the last twenty minutes.”

Your face burns instantly.

“You’re clingy too!”

“Never denied it.”

Unfortunately, that is true.

His grin softens slightly at the edges as he looks down at you, snow catching briefly in his lashes.

Then his attention shifts.

To your wrist.

His fingers slide gently from your belt loop to your wrist instead, hooking his pointer under the lilac beads. Before you can blink, he slides the bracelet off your wrist and presses a quick kiss against the skin underneath.

The sound that leaves you is deeply humiliating. Jason maintains eye contact while he slips the bracelet onto his own wrist. 

Against black leather and scarred hands, the lilac beads look impossibly smooth. 

“I’m taking it with me,” he says with a dumb grin. 

And god help you, the retreat really has ruined your emotional stability because that is somehow the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to you.

“You better bring it back in one piece,” you mumble. “It’s very special to me.”

You see it happen in real time, the teasing easing out of his expression until he’s just looking at you again. Snow drifting between you. Gotham roaring somewhere far below.

You haven’t kissed since the motorcycle ride weeks ago.

Suddenly the space between you feels very, very small.

Jason leans in slightly.

You do too.

“I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU MISS THIS EXTRACTION WINDOW BECAUSE YOU’RE FLIRTING—”

You’re still laughing when he kisses your forehead quickly, almost like he can’t help himself.

“I’ll be back soon” —

.

.

.

—

“Batman?”

The word leaves Jason before he even knows he’s saying it.

Dust chokes the air around him, thick enough to taste. Something heavy presses across his back and legs. Concrete. Metal. Smoke. His ears ring violently, drowning out everything except the distant crackle of fire and… Laughter.

High. Sharp. Wrong.

For one awful second, he’s fifteen again.

The warehouse smells the same.

Explosives. Blood. Burning plastic.

His chest seizes so hard he almost can’t breathe.

“Bat—”

The Joker’s laugh echoes somewhere beyond the rubble, warped by memory and concussion and pain until Jason can’t tell if it’s real or buried inside his skull.

This is how it happened.

This is—

Something digs sharply into his wrist.

Jason’s eyes snap open.

Purple.

The lilac bracelet is tangled against a slab of broken concrete, beads pressed hard into his skin.

The rooftop flashes through his head instantly.

Snow. Your laugh. I’m taking it with me.

His lungs finally drag in air.

No, he is not fifteen anymore.

He is not small enough to die like that again.

Jason grits his teeth and shoves upward with a yell that tears through his ribs. Concrete shifts an inch. Then another. Pain explodes through his side, hot and vicious, but he keeps pushing anyway, muscles straining hard enough to shake.

The rubble gives.

Cold air slams into him all at once as he drags himself free, collapsing onto shattered pavement with a rough cough.

Someone is shouting his name in the distance.

Roy, maybe.

Jason barely hears it.

He rolls onto his back, staring up at the ruined ceiling above him while snow drifts through the hole in lazy white flakes.

His ribs are definitely broken.

Again.

But he’s alive.

Alive enough to crawl out this time.

Alive enough to survive it.

The thought barely settles before something taps weakly against the concrete beside him.

Clack

Jason’s breathing stutters.

Another sound follows.

Clink

Small. Fragile.

Wrong.

He turns his head slowly.

The lilac bracelet lies half-buried in the dust beside him.

Broken.

For a second, his brain refuses to process it. The beads are scattered across the cracked pavement, some lodged between chunks of concrete, others rolled farther into the rubble. The string hangs loose and snapped, one fractured bead dangling from the end like it’s trying not to fall apart completely.

Jason just stares.

Then his pulse drops straight into his stomach.

“No, no—”

The words leave him rough and breathless.

He pushes himself upright too fast and immediately regrets it. Pain rips through his ribs sharp enough to blacken the edges of his vision, but he barely notices. His gloves scrape uselessly against broken concrete as he reaches for the nearest bead.

One of them has split clean down the middle.

He grabs another one.

Cracked.

Another.

The rubble shifts under his knees while he searches frantically through ash and shattered concrete, fingers shaking hard enough he keeps dropping the beads as soon as he finds them.

You better bring it back in one piece.

The memory hits so clearly it almost makes him nauseous.

Jason swallows hard and digs deeper into the debris, ignoring the wet warmth spreading beneath his armor where something in his side definitely should not be bleeding this much.

There has to be more.

There has to—

A bead slips from his fingers and disappears somewhere beneath the rubble.

“No, come on,” he mutters hoarsely, shoving broken concrete aside with bare hands now. “C’mon…”

Pain tears through his ribs hard enough to make his vision pulse white, but Jason barely registers it. Dust grits beneath his gloves while he digs frantically through fractured cement and twisted metal, searching for tiny flashes of lilac between the debris.

Another rolls loose near his knee when he shifts a slab aside. He grabs for it too fast and nearly drops it again because his hands won’t stop shaking.

“Jay.”

Roy’s voice sounds distant. Muffled.

Jason ignores him.

“There was another one,” he mutters instead, eyes darting across the rubble. “I saw— there’s still another—”

“Dude.” Boots crunch against broken concrete beside him. “The building’s coming down.”

Jason finally looks up long enough to glare. “Then help me look.”

Roy blinks.

Because Jason Todd is kneeling in the middle of a failed mission, bleeding through his armor, digging through rubble for little purple bracelet beads like his life depends on it.

Artemis lands beside them both with a heavy thud.

“We need extraction now,” she snaps. “Whatever that is can wait.”

“It can’t,” Jason says immediately.

The words come out too fast. Too sharp.

Roy and Artemis exchange a look.

Jason hates that look.

The concerned one.

Artemis swears under her breath. “That was not a suggestion, Todd.”

Roy crouches suddenly, reaching into the debris near Jason’s knee.

“There.” He lifts something small between two fingers. “Got one.”

Jason’s gaze snaps to it instantly.

A tiny lilac bead. Intact.

Something in his chest clenches so hard it almost feels like gratitude.

His expression softens just slightly as he places the bead into Jason’s waiting palm.

“C’mon, man,” he says carefully. “You can put it back together on the jet.”

Jason stares down at the collection in his hand.

Broken beads. Whole beads. Frayed string tangled through his fingers.

Put it back together.

This time Jason lets Roy haul him upright.

Pain explodes through his side immediately, sharp enough to pull a rough sound from his throat. Artemis catches his other arm before he can stumble, already steering him toward the extraction point while snow drifts through the collapsed ceiling overhead.

Jason barely notices.

His fist stays closed tight around the shattered bracelet the entire walk back to the jet.

—

The jet is loud enough that nobody tries talking to him.

Good.

Jason sits hunched forward on one of the side benches, elbows braced against his knees while Gotham disappears beneath the clouds outside. The medkit Artemis dropped beside him sits untouched on the floor.

His ribs hurt.

His shoulder hurts.

Something is probably concussed.

None of it feels important.

The bracelet lies in pieces across his gloves.

The elastic string snapped almost completely through. Half the beads are cracked, tiny fractures spidering through the lilac surface. Three are missing entirely, still buried somewhere beneath a collapsed building halfway across the world.

His hands feel too big for this.

He fumbles another bead immediately when he tries threading it back onto the string. It bounces once against the jet floor before rolling beneath the opposite bench.

Jason swears under his breath and bends down too quickly trying to grab it.

Pain detonates through his ribs instantly.

“Jesus Christ,” Roy says from across the cabin. “Sit down before you puncture a lung.”

Jason ignores him completely.

The bead finally catches beneath his fingertips. He grabs it carefully and sits back again, breathing harder now.

One by one, he starts trying to rebuild the bracelet.

It goes terribly.

His fingers are clumsy even on a good day, and this is delicate work made worse by turbulence and blood drying stiff against his gloves. The elastic keeps slipping loose. The cracked beads refuse to sit properly together.

Every time he thinks he’s fixed part of it, another section falls apart.

Like the bracelet itself knows it’s ruined.

Jason stares at the mess in his hands for a long moment before finally pulling his phone from his pocket.

The screen lights instantly.

Missed notifications flood across it.

Mostly from you.

His chest tightens before he even opens them.

you better not die btw

followed immediately by:

that sounded threatening. i meant on the mission. not like. in general.

Another one.

i know you probably wont see these till later but i passed that bench you like today :)

Then:

made cookies. accidentally made enough for a family of six again. this is your fault somehow

Jason’s mouth twitches faintly before it disappears again.

There are more.

A picture of fatson todd sitting on his chair in the reading nook captioned your son is taking over

And then another photo loads: Two M&Ms sitting side by side on a countertop. One normal-sized. One absurdly oversized.

US!!!!!!

Jason actually laughs once at that.

Another notification appears at the top of the screen.

Newest message.

Jason opens it automatically.

NEED the bracelet back asap btw so you should come over the second you see this message. to return it obvi ;)

His breathing stops.

The cabin noise dulls instantly around him.

Jason looks down slowly at the ruined bracelet in his hands.

A cold feeling settles heavily into his stomach.

Of course.

Of fucking course.

Nobody ever did see his timer disappear. Because he never had one.

Not after the Lazarus Pit. Not after death hollowed something out inside him and stitched it back wrong.

Somewhere out there, years ago, there probably really had been a fifteen-year-old boy whose timer stopped the same night yours did, and the same night he also died. Some kid who died before he ever got the chance to meet you.

And then Jason stumbled into the empty space afterward like a fucking imposter.

You saw meaning where there was only coincidence.

Because you wanted it to mean something. Because you looked at him with those soft hopeful eyes and decided the universe had finally given you your person back.

Meanwhile Jason had just taken it.

Taken the apartment. Taken the reading nook. Taken the hot chocolate and forehead kisses and domestic little routines like they belonged to him.

Taken you.

His chest tightens violently.

No wonder the bracelet broke the second he almost died again.

Like the universe itself finally trying to correct the mistake.

Jason turns the phone face-down before he can do something stupid like answer, already feeling the shape of the loss settling in around him. The apartment. The couch. The reading nook. His books still stacked crooked beside your bed. 

You.

Jason closes his eyes briefly.

Then he turns his phone off.

-----

a/n: people are gonna read this and say i should have not continued this story fr. but dw!~ the next chapter will be up tonightish for surel:). like it was all going to be one giant thing but i feel like it reads better in two so i am just editing that also some updates!! i had my winter depression arc but things are great now. i have moved out of uni and graduated thank goodness. i am also in the final round of a really really great job. just need to not mess up my fourth round interview on tuesday,, and i will have a great career for life.

------

taglist: THE TAGLIST IS NOW CLOSED (cause i am bad at it and its not working). to stay updated with the story follow: #goblin-writes

The first day you thought he was just napping. 

By day three, you stop checking the window every time headlights pass your apartment building.

By day five, you start doing it again.

Jason should have been back by now.

Because logically, Jason being gone longer than expected is not unusual. Vigilante adjacent mercenary work probably does not operate on clean scheduling. There are explosions involved. International airspace violations. 

Still.

A week feels strange.

The apartment feels wrong too.

His stupid boots are not by the door. His jacket is not slung over the couch. Nobody is stealing bites of cookie dough directly from the mixing bowl while claiming it’s “quality control.”

The reading nook sits empty. Fatson Todd has somehow migrated into Jason’s usual corner like he’s inheriting territory.

You stare at him suspiciously while curled beneath a blanket.

“This is bad, right?” you ask the plushie.

Fatson Todd offers no useful insights.

Which had not actually answered anything.

Next, you texted his family. Unfortunately, all they had to say is that Jason is fine. Dumb, but fine. Apparently he threatened them with bodily harm if they gave you any details. 

After that, you waited. Because Jason had a key.

And the thing about Jason was that he appeared in places unexpectedly all the time now. Fire escapes. Balconies. Your couch at two in the morning claiming he “was in the area.”

So naturally, you kept expecting to hear the lock click.

You figured eventually he’d appear in your apartment like nothing is wrong. You even rehearsed your response. Or variations of responses depending on how mad you want to act. 

Cool and casual: oh wow look who remembered i exist

Maybe slightly emotional: i was worried, idiot

Possibly dramatic: i almost filed a missing persons report with batman

But the lock stayed still. The apartment stayed quiet.

By day six, desperation won and you decided to try the old faithful. You dragged your cooler down to Crime Alley with enough cookies to feed a small militia and left a note tucked beneath the lid.

for jason <3 pls stop acting mysterious and text me back

It had felt solid at the time.

Romantic, even.

Unfortunately, when you returned the next morning, five homeless men had somehow picked the cooler lock and were happily eating chocolate chunk on the curb.

One of them waved. “Those peanut-free?”

You blinked.

“…yes?”

“Oh good,” another said around a mouthful of cookie. “Frank’s allergic.”

So now this was your life. You got bullied by five homeless men and volunteered to bake them cookies weekly. You stared darkly at the tray of fresh snickerdoodles sliding into the oven.

That is when an idea struck you. If being nice and baking cookies doesn't wrok… you will have to get Jason’s attention some other way. 

You have to become a criminal. 

—

Post your latest cookie drop off (Anthony loved the snickerdoodle but asked if you can add caramel next time), you are contemplating your life of crime as you walk home. 

You needed to do something dramatic enough to get the Red Hood’s attention. Preferably not dangerous-dangerous. Just a little concerning.

A little criminal.

You chew on your lip thoughtfully while waiting at a crosswalk.

What crimes even existed?

Grand larceny?

Absolutely not. You did not have the upper body strength for grand anything.

Auto theft?

You pause.

“…I don’t even have my full license yet,” you mutter to yourself.

Also Gotham cars probably exploded when hotwired wrong. That felt like important information.

Arson was obviously out.

Tax fraud sounded boring.

Blackmail required confidence.

You pass a tagged wall.

Graffiti, though…

Now there was something with flair.

Low stakes. Artistic. Very Gotham.

Batman probably saw graffiti constantly.

The Red Hood definitely did. And it is enough a crime where people intervene but criminals don't get arrested. 

A tiny spark of determination settles in your chest.

Yes, this could work. You nod to yourself decisively and step off the curb—

A horn blares beside you.

You freeze mid-step.

The walk signal is still red.

Oh my god.

Oh my god.

You just jaywalked.

Your heart launches directly into your throat while a taxi speeds past, the driver glaring at you through the windshield.

For one horrifying second, genuine panic grips you.

This was it.

Your descent into criminality.

First jaywalking. Then graffiti. Then somehow you’d end up with a rogues gallery nickname like the baker or something and several unresolved issues with Batman.

You stand there for a moment, breathing hard.

Then slowly you push the panic down. 

You needed to get used to this feeling now.

The adrenaline. The danger. The lawlessness.

This was your life now.

You were living a life of crime.

Baby steps. —

CRIME ATTEMPT #1 — The spray paint situation is your first obstacle.

“This is criminal discrimination,” you mutter under your breath while standing in the Michael’s craft aisle at eight thirty at night.

The shelf stares back at you mockingly.

Neon pink. Pastel blue. Matte sage. Glitter silver. Glitter gold.

No black.

No red.

Nothing remotely intimidating.

Apparently Michael’s Arts & Crafts did not cater to aspiring vigilante bait.

You pick up the glitter silver can with deep resentment.

“…Fine,” you whisper. “We adapt.”

Ten minutes later, you are speed-walking through Gotham with a tote bag full of craft-store spray paint feeling profoundly unqualified for organized crime.

The December cold bites instantly through your coat. Wind whips down the alleyways hard enough to sting your eyes, but you keep going, scarf pulled high over the lower half of your face like the world’s least threatening supervillain.

Honestly, you look less like a criminal and more like someone about to lose a fight with seasonal allergies.

Still.

Commitment mattered.

You finally find the wall near Crime Alley by complete accident.

Tall brick. Mostly empty. A battered NO TRESPASSING sign hanging crooked nearby.

Your pulse spikes immediately.

Perfect.

This was exactly the kind of place vigilantes probably monitored.

The Red Hood would absolutely investigate suspicious graffiti activity here.

You glance around nervously before ducking into the alley, boots crunching against thin patches of snow.

Time to become mysterious.

You pull the silver spray can from your tote bag with trembling fingers. The little metal ball inside rattles ominously. Your breath fogs through the scarf while you stare at the blank brick wall.

Then you realize something horrifying.

You never actually planned what to paint.

“Oh no,” you whisper.

Your brain immediately empties itself.

What did criminals even paint?

Threats? Symbols? Cryptic warnings?

You panic instantly.

The spray can hisses accidentally when your finger jerks.

Think.

What would get Jason’s attention?

Something dramatic. Something meaningful. Something—

A snowflake drifts past your face.

You stare at it.

Then slowly look back at the wall.

Twenty minutes later, the alley is covered in glittering silver and blue snowflakes.

The glitter paint catches the alley light beautifully, sparkling softly against the dark brick while snow falls around you in lazy white drifts.

You step back slowly, breathing hard through the scarf.

“…Wait.”

It’s actually kind of cute.

Not intimidating.

Not remotely criminal.

But cute.

The problem is that now you’ve committed to the bit.

So you shove your hands into your coat pockets and linger awkwardly near the alley entrance waiting to be arrested.

Or confronted dramatically.

Or at minimum mildly questioned.

This was still Gotham.

Surely suspicious alley graffiti would trigger SOME kind of vigilante response.

You wait ten minutes.

Nothing.

Fifteen.

Still nothing.

A stray cat walks past and ignores you completely.

“Oh, come on,” you mutter.

By twenty minutes, your toes have gone numb.

The Red Hood does not appear from the shadows. Batman does not descend dramatically from a gargoyle. Nobody even yells at you.

Eventually you trudge home offended.

Honestly? Rude.

You committed crimes for him.

The least he could do was acknowledge them.

—

The next morning, Gotham Instagram discovers the alley.

You learn this while eating cereal in your pajamas and scrolling half-asleep through your phone.

@gotham.city.aesthetic:  ❄️ whoever made the snowflake alley downtown… i owe you my life actually

Attached is a professionally edited reel of your graffiti set to melancholy indie music.

You sit bolt upright.

“What.”

More notifications flood in.

People are taking photos there.

Someone proposed there apparently. A local influencer called it: “a symbol of fragile beauty surviving gotham’s darkness 🥺”

There is now a location tag called: #snowflakealley

You stare at your screen in horror.

This was not the intended outcome.

This was supposed to summon Jason Todd.

Not accidentally improve Gotham morale.

—- CRIME ATTEMPT #2 —-

Mugging, you decide, is probably the fastest way to get the Red Hood’s attention.

Vigilantes loved muggings. That’s how Jason and you met after all. 

Which means all you have to do is create one tiny robbery scenario where you steal from a sweet grandma and Jason will practically materialize from the shadows himself.

Perfect.

Unfortunately, Crime Alley at nine p.m. contains absolutely no muggable people. 

This city was unbelievable.

Where were the old ladies with purses?

Where were the businessmen carrying suspiciously robbable briefcases?

You specifically picked nine p.m. because movies suggested that was prime mugging time.

Instead Gotham apparently believed in bedtime.

A taxi splashes through a puddle nearby.

You sigh dramatically into your scarf.

Maybe you needed to think bigger.

Big risks equaled big rewards.

That was probably what criminals said.

Your eyes narrow on the next pedestrian approaching down the sidewalk.

Not an old lady.vBut non-threatening.

Average height. Beanie. Holding grocery bags.

You could absolutely rob that man.

Probably.

Your pulse immediately skyrockets as you step into his path.

The poor guy startles hard enough to almost drop his groceries.

“HEY,” you blurt.

Excellent opening.

Very criminal.

The man blinks at you cautiously.

“…Hi?”

Okay.

Commit.

You square your shoulders and point at him dramatically.

“Hand over your money.”

Silence.

A car alarm chirps somewhere in the distance.

The man stares at you for a long moment. “Are you lost?” he says.

You panic slightly.

Stay focused.

You lower your voice another octave, which unfortunately just makes you sound congested.

“Give me money.”

The man’s expression shifts instantly from confused to deeply concerned.

“I mean…” He adjusts the grocery bags awkwardly. “I can buy you a bus ticket if you need help?”

You stare at him.

“No,” you say carefully. “This is a robbery.”

The man goes pale. “Oh my god.”

Finally.

Recognition.

Fear.

Respect.

“You’re being robbed?”

“What?”

His gaze darts around the alley frantically. “Did somebody take your wallet? Are they still here?”

“No! I’m robbing YOU.”

Then his entire expression softens in a way that immediately offends you.

He lowers his grocery bags carefully onto the pavement like he’s approaching a frightened animal.

“Okay, sweetheart,” he says cautiously. “Can I call someone for you?”

You stare at him.

“What.”

“A friend? Your parents? Somebody who can pick you up?”

“I’m committing a CRIME.”

“You seem overwhelmed.”

“I’m threatening you!”

Before you can recover, headlights suddenly sweep across the alley.

A police cruiser rolls slowly past the entrance.

The man’s eyes widen immediately. “Oh thank god.”

“No no no no—”

The cruiser stops.

A cop steps out, one hand already resting near his belt while he looks between the two of you.

The man points directly at you.

“This poor girl needs help.”

You actually recoil. “WHAT.”

The officer’s expression shifts instantly into concern.

“Miss?” he asks carefully. “Are you alright?”

“I’m robbing him.”

The cop blinks once.

The man gives him a deeply sympathetic look. “I think she’s having some kind of episode.”

“I AM ACTIVELY THREATENING YOU.”

“You’re shivering pretty badly,” the officer notes gently.

“That’s because crime is stressful!”

Ten minutes later, you are sitting in the back of the police cruiser wrapped in an emergency blanket while the officer gives you hotline numbers and tells you that “vigilante-adjacent emotional situations” are more common than people think.

—-

By late Christmas eve, you are officially out of ideas.

Crime has failed you.

The Gotham Police Department had gently encouraged therapy.

And Jason Todd was still ignoring every single attempt you made to reach him.

Which meant you were now curled sideways in his armchair in the reading nook at one in the morning feeling deeply, catastrophically pathetic.

Fatson Todd is tucked beneath one arm like emotional support artillery while snow taps softly against the apartment windows.

Your chest aches.

Maybe honesty really is the best policy.

No more crimes. No more emotional terrorism. No more failed muggings.

Just try talking to him.

You open Twitter for the first time in years because it’s probably the only place where he hasn’t blocked you yet. You smile when you see the handle. @boomeringue. It used to be the username you used for everything from twitter to club penguin. 

You try to keep it brief. You don’t want to seem overbearing: 

@redhood city square. christmas eve. 8pm.

You stare at the tweet for a long moment before hitting post.

Hopefully, by some miracle, he’ll see it and you can finally talk. 

—

Wayne Manor is miserable on Christmas Eve.

The tree is lit. The garlands are up. There’s music playing softly somewhere down the hall.

And yet the entire manor somehow feels like somebody kicked a puppy directly into the holiday spirit.

Jason is sitting in the armchair nearest the fire looking like human seasonal depression in a leather jacket. Which means everyone else is suffering too.

Dick breaks first. “This sucks,” he announces.

Nobody disagrees.

Even Alfred pauses briefly while serving dessert.

“Master Richard,” he says diplomatically.

“No offence, Alfred,” Dick says immediately, “but if she was here we’d have chocolate mousse right now instead of fruitcake.”

“None taken, sir.”

Tim pokes at his slice with visible despair. “She would’ve decorated the cookies.”

“She would’ve made hot chocolate,” Steph mourns.

“She would have laughed at my joke about superman and mistletoe," Duke adds quietly.

Damian scowls down at his tea. “Todd has ruined morale.”

Jason doesn’t look up from the glass in his hand.

“Can all of you shut up.”

“No,” Dick says instantly. “This is weird. You’re weird.”

Jason’s jaw tightens.

For the last week he has been moody, snappy, and Cass once caught him sobbing to All too Well on his bike. 

Which, in fairness, narrows his behavior down very little.

Steph finally snaps.

“Okay, I’m saying it,” she declares. “Go apologize to your girlfriend.”

Jason’s expression hardens instantly.

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“Oh my god,” Tim mutters.

“And she’s not my soulmate,” Jason says flatly. “Drop it.”

Silence falls across the room.

Even Alfred stops moving for half a second.

Dick stares at him. “Jason.”

“I mean it.”

Something ugly twists briefly across Jason’s face before disappearing behind that familiar hard expression again.

“We got confused,” he says shortly. “That’s all.”

Nobody responds immediately because that explanation makes absolutely no sense and noody believes it. 

And because Bruce, unfortunately, now looks like he wants to have a father-son conversation.

Before that catastrophe can occur—

Ping

Barbara’s laptop lights up on the coffee table.

Everyone turns automatically.

Barbara frowns down at the incoming alert. “That’s weird.”

“What?” Duke asks.

She opens the file.

Then immediately straightens.

“Oh, that’s bad timing.”

The room shifts instantly.

Jason sits forward slightly. Bruce is already on his feet.

Barbara answers the incoming GCPD call on speaker. “Oracle.”

“We’ve got a flagged threat tied to tonight’s Christmas market,” a dispatcher says quickly. “Cybercrimes escalated it to major incidents.”

Barbara’s eyes skim rapidly across the report.

The dispatcher lowers his voice ominously.

“We think the suspect may be operating under the alias Eringue.”

Silence.

“Potential extremist,” the dispatcher continues confidently. “Possibly foreign.”

Bruce’s expression sharpens immediately. “What’s the threat level?”

“Potential bombing,” Barbara says grimly. “Christmas Eve market. High civilian density.”

That gets everyone moving instantly.

Finally,

Action.

Dick stands so fast he nearly knocks over the fruitcake. Duke’s already reaching for comms. Tim peers over Babs’ shoulder for the report. Damian actually looks excited for the first time all evening.

“The mayor doesn’t want the festivities disrupted publicly,” she says. “So GCPD’s sending bomb squads in plainclothes while we establish perimeter positions.”

Bruce nods once. “Assignments.”

“Nightwing and Spoiler cover east exits. Robin with Red Robin on rooftop surveillance. Signal monitors crowd movement.” Barbara pulls up the city map. “Red Hood takes the central market.”

Across the city, entirely unaware you had accidentally triggered Gotham’s anti-terror response, you were standing in a flower shop holding two bouquets with increasing distress.

“Do these look too breakup-y?” you asked nervously.

The cashier blinked. “The… roses?”

“No, roses are romantic.” You frowned down at the white lilies in your other hand. “The lilies feel profound.”

Outside, Gotham police quietly established a bomb perimeter around the Christmas market.

You picked carnations.

—

The Gotham Christmas market is operating under active anti-terror surveillance.

Fortunately, none of the civilians know that.

Families drift between vendor stalls beneath glowing string lights while Christmas music crackles softly through overhead speakers. Kids clutch cups of hot chocolate with mittened hands. Someone nearby is aggressively roasting chestnuts.

Meanwhile every available vigilante in Gotham is perched somewhere overhead waiting for a potential bombing.

“East side clear,” Nightwing says through comms.

“Couple arguing near the skating rink,” Spoiler adds. “The boyfriend definitely cheated but probably not terrorism related.”

Robin crouches at the edge of a rooftop overlooking the market, cape snapping sharply in the winter wind.

“A man near the fountain has been pacing for seven minutes,” Damian reports.

Red Robin glances down at his scanner. “He’s waiting for his wife. Elevated heart rate but no weapon signatures.”

“Disappointing,” Damian mutters.

Below them, plainclothes bomb squad officers weave carefully through the crowd pretending to browse holiday stalls.

Oracle’s voice cuts cleanly through the comm network.

“Reminder: the mayor's office does not want panic. Keep movement controlled unless we confirm a threat.”

Jason stands on a roof closest to the square with his helmet on, arms crossed tightly over his chest while snow drifts slowly onto his jacket.

“West perimeter,” Signal says suddenly. “Guy in the green parka keeps touching his pockets.”

Jason’s attention snaps over immediately.

The man pulls out:

“A candy cane,” Nightwing sighs.

“Oh come ON,” Steph groans.

A child drops hot chocolate nearby. Jason flinches instinctively at the sound hitting pavement.

Oracle’s voice crackles suddenly through the comms.

“Hold.”

Every channel goes quiet instantly.

Barbara’s typing echoes faintly in the background before she says:

“Red Hood.”

Jason straightens automatically. “What.”

“Your soulmate just entered through the west gate. I see it on camera three.”

Silence detonates across the network.

Every Bat immediately turns toward the west entrance.

Jason’s stomach drops hard enough to hurt.

“No,” he says instantly.

And then he sees you.

Winter coat. Scarf. Flowers tucked carefully against your chest.

Flowers?

Nightwing squints through binoculars from the rooftop.

“…Is she on a date?”

Jason’s grip tightens so hard around his gun holster it creaks.

Spoiler gasps dramatically. “OH MY GOD SHE’S ON A DATE.”

“She brought flowers,” Duke says weakly.

“Perhaps she finally located a man with emotional intelligence,” Damian offers.

Jason genuinely considers violence.

Not because you’re on a date.

You should be on a date.

You should move on from this entire disaster and find someone normal and alive and uncomplicated who doesn’t vanish for two weeks because he’s too damaged to process affection correctly.

Still. It's been two weeks.. Did you move on that quick?

The sight of those flowers in your hands makes something ugly twist low in his chest.

Dick’s voice softens slightly. “Jay…”

“She deserves better,” Jason says flatly before anyone can say it first.

The words land heavily across the comms.

For one brief second, nobody jokes. Then Oracle cuts through the silence sharply.

“Can you people be serious for ONE second?”

Barbara sounds genuinely appalled.

“There is an active potential bomb threat at this location,” she snaps. “And his soulmate is standing in the middle of it.”

Jason freezes.

Right.

The threat.

Your flowers suddenly stop looking romantic and start looking terrifyingly vulnerable.

Oracle’s voice hardens instantly into mission mode.

“Red Hood, get her out of there now.”

Jason moves before anyone can say another word.

“One minute,” Batman says sharply through comms.

Jason ignores him completely.

The rooftop door slams hard enough behind him to rattle the stairwell as he tears downward three steps at a time. Snow and cold air still cling to his armor while Oracle continues talking in his ear about evacuation routes and threat containment.

He barely hears her.

All he can think about is you standing in the middle of a potential bombing with flowers in your hands.

Idiot.

His idiot.

Jason yanks the helmet off halfway down the stairs and shoves it into an abandoned maintenance cabinet without slowing. Next go the guns. Holstered beneath his jacket where civilians won’t see them.

By the time he hits street level, he barely looks like Red Hood at all.

Just Jason.

Just a man sprinting through Gotham Christmas crowds with panic clawing up his throat.

He spots you near the center fountain immediately.

You’re standing on your toes slightly, scanning the market crowd with your bouquet tucked against your chest. When he shouts your name. Your head snaps toward him instantly.

Your entire face lights up.

Relief crashes across your expression so openly and immediately it almost stops him in his tracks.

“Jason!”

You hurry toward him through the crowd, smiling so brightly it physically hurts to look at after two weeks of silence.

Jason reaches you and immediately grabs your hand.

“We need to go,” he says.

“What?”

“There’s a threat. C’mon.”

He starts pulling you quickly through the market crowd toward the nearest exit, grip tight around your wrist while his eyes scan rooftops and civilians automatically.

Behind him, Oracle is feeding him updates through comms.

“No suspicious movement near the north barricade—”

“Bomb squad entering west side—”

“Red Hood, keep moving.”

You stumble slightly trying to keep up.

“Jason, wait”

“No time.”

“What do you MEAN no time??”

“There’s a potential attack here.”

Your eyes widen instantly.

“Oh my god.”

“Exactly.”

Jason keeps moving, pulse pounding violently now.

If something goes off before he gets you clear—

“Jason,” you say again, tugging against his hand this time. “Wait, hold on.”

“We are literally not holding on.”

“No, listen to me first!”

Jason finally slows just enough to look back at you.

You stare up at him, confused now.

“…Did you get my message?”

Jason pauses.

The crowd noise dulls strangely around him.

“…What message?”

“The tweet,” you repeat slowly. “I asked you to meet me here at 8”

Jason stares.

Snow drifts lazily between the market lights while Gotham continues bustling around you completely oblivious to the active anti-terror operation currently unfolding in the background.

“You…” Jason says faintly. “You sent that?”

“Yes?” Your eyebrows knit together. “Why else would you be here?”

Oh my god.

Behind Jason, somewhere across the rooftops, half the Batfamily is currently preparing for a bombing because of a twitter account you made when you were 12.

You keep talking before he can process that information.

You shift awkwardly beneath his silence.

“…Okay, well now I feel stupid,” you mutter. “But you blocked my number, which was honestly insane behavior by the way, and nobody would tell me where you lived, and I even tried the cookie cooler thing again but homeless people stole them—”

Jason actually stops breathing for a second.

“Who?.”

“That’s not important.” You wave it off immediately. “The point is I had to escalate.” You sound genuinely defensive about this.

Jason’s eyes sting suddenly. There is no threat. For a moment when he saw you standing there, he was terrified. All his neurons fired with a single message of get her out. 

He pulls you into him so suddenly you gasp.

The bouquet crushes awkwardly between your coats while his arms lock around you hard enough to almost lift you off the ground. Jason buries his face against your hair immediately like he’s trying to convince himself you’re real.

His shoulders shake once.

“Oh,” you say softly.

His breath catches sharply against your temple.

“I missed you.” You keep talking. “I almost became a criminal.”

“Almost?”

“I jaywalked.”

“…Oh my god.”

“And then I did graffiti but it accidentally became an Instagram spot instead of a threat to society.”

You keep ranting on but Jason is barely hanging onto your words because a realization washes over him like warm water. You came here for him.

Not because fate told you to. Not because a timer forced you to.

But because he disappeared and you refused to let him go quietly.

Your voice keeps tumbling out in nervous little bursts.

“And then the mugging thing didn’t work either—”

“The WHAT.”

“Again, not important.”

Jason’s chest cracks open.

Because suddenly he sees it.

Not a mistake. Not confusion. Not some dead soulmate’s empty place he accidentally crawled into.

You.

Choosing him over and over again anyway.

All his life Jason had wanted one impossible thing: Someone who would fight for him back.

Willis didn’t. Catherine couldn’t. Bruce loved him, yes, but even that love always came tangled in grief and rules and distance.

But you committed crimes for him.

Badly.

Terribly.

Emotionally.

But still. His shoulders shake once before he can stop them.

He is such an idiot. He was so scared that he wasn't your soulmate that he failed to consider that you are exactly what he needed. Someone who’ll fight for him. Of course the universe gave him you. 

You’re still talking softly against his chest.

“…and honestly the graffiti turned out kind of nice actually—”

Jason laughs once.

You pull back just enough to look at him properly and see that his eyes are wet.

Your entire expression crumples instantly.

“Oh my god,” you whisper. “Jason.”

He looks wrecked. Like he’s been holding himself together by force for weeks and finally ran out of strength.

“I’m sorry,” he says roughly. “Fuck, I’m so sorry.”

And that’s when you realize.

He thought you were really angry.

“Oh no no no,” you say immediately, grabbing his jacket. “Wait, Jason, it’s okay. I’m not really mad, you’re here now!”

That undoes him completely.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, like the words aren’t enough but he has nothing else to offer. “God, I’m so sorry.”

Then quieter.

Smaller somehow.

“I thought…” His jaw tightens painfully. “I thought I was ruining your life.”

Your face falls instantly.

“What are you talking about?”

“The bracelet broke,” he blurts suddenly. “And your timer stopped before we met and I just—I thought maybe your real soulmate died and we got it wrong somehow and you deserved someone better than—” 

You cover his mouth with your hand. “Do not finish that sentence, Jason. That is the dumbest thing I have ever hear” He laughs into your palm before gently removing it.  “I love you so much.”

Your breath catches sharply enough that Jason’s expression immediately shifts into panic like maybe he said too much..

So you kiss him.

Immediately.

One hand grab his face at once as you pull him down into you, flowers crushed hopelessly between your coats while Jason makes this startled sound against your mouth before kissing you back like he’s starving for it.

Jason’s hands slide into your hair while your fingers curl tight into the collar of his jacket, pulling him closer every single time he tries to breathe. The cold air disappears beneath the warmth of him entirely. Snow melts against your cheeks. Christmas music hums faintly somewhere behind you but it feels very far away now.

All you can process is Jason.

Jason kissing you back like he means it. Like he’s relieved. Like he’s still a little afraid this might disappear if he stops.

Around the square, Gotham’s vigilantes are collectively witnessing far more intimacy than anybody signed up for tonight.

Then Jason’s comm crackles violently in his ear.

“HELLO?” Oracle snaps. “Potential bomb threat? Massive public gathering? Ringing any bells??”

Jason breaks away just enough to rest his forehead against yours, both of you breathing hard.

His eyes are still half-lidded when he presses a hand to the comm.

“There’s no threat,” he says hoarsely.

“…What.”

Jason glances down at you.

At your flushed cheeks. Your crushed flowers. The fact that you are very obviously not an international terrorist.

His mouth twitches helplessly.

“Go home,” he tells Barbara simply.

He kisses you again.

The bouquet finally slips from your hands somewhere between kisses.

Flowers scatter across the snow near your boots.

You pull back suddenly.

“Oh!”

Jason looks alarmed for half a second like maybe something exploded after all until you crouch quickly to grab the roses.

“No wait,” you mumble, laughing breathlessly now. “I forgot.”

Jason’s still staring at you like he hasn’t fully recovered from the fact that you kissed him back.

You straighten again and hold the bouquet out toward him properly this time, cheeks pink from cold and kissing and emotional terrorism.

“I got you these.”

Jason blinks.

The market noise seems to disappear completely around him.

“…You got me flowers.”

You frown slightly. “Well, yeah.”

Like that’s obvious. Like people bring Jason Todd flowers every day.

“It’s a date,” you explain softly. “I was trying to be romantic before you started your mysterious self-destructive disappearing act.”

His throat works visibly.

“Oh my god,” you say immediately. “No wait, are you crying AGAIN?”

Jason laughs once through it, embarrassed and wrecked all at once while taking the bouquet from your hands with absurd care like it might break.

“Thank you,” he mutters hoarsely.

You smile a little helplessly at that, shifting closer automatically beneath the market lights while snow drifts softly around you both.

Around you, the Christmas market buzzes warmly with music and laughter and the smell of cinnamon.

A perfect date setting, honestly.

You open your mouth.

“So,” you say carefully, “do you maybe wanna—”

“Can we go home?”

The words leave Jason immediately.

Jason looks suddenly overwhelmed by the entire concept of being perceived.

“I just…” He exhales hard through a laugh, eyes still suspiciously wet. “I think if we stay here much longer I might actually lose my mind.”

Your chest aches so violently it feels unfair.

“Okay,” you say softly.

Jason reaches for your hand automatically after that, intertwining your fingers like it’s instinct now. The flowers remain tucked carefully against his chest while the two of you begin walking slowly out of the market together.

You bump your shoulder lightly against his while weaving through the crowd.

“I still cannot believe you ghosted me over a bracelet,” you mumble.

Jason looks offended immediately.

“It was broken.”

“I have, like, twenty bracelets.”

“It symbolized you.”

“It was from a retreat gift shop.”

Jason tightens his grip on your hand slightly. “It mattered to me.”

Your expression softens instantly.

Then you remember something and squint at him again.

“Well I can’t believe you thought I’d stop talking to you forever.”

“You accidentally became a terrorist to contact me.”

“I became emotionally resourceful.”

“You triggered bomb squad deployment.”

“You blocked my number.”

“That does not justify federal crimes.”

“I also jaywalked, did graffiti, and tried mugging.”

He shook his head at that and slung an arm around you, pulling you closer to kiss your temple. “I’ll let you know the next time I have a self destructive spiral” “That’s all I ever wanted” You say, “Now come on, Fatson missed his papa”

---

a/n: so you can probs tell how long this sat in the drafts from the christmas eve setting. also add me on club peguin @boomeringue

---

taglist: THE TAGLIST IS NOW CLOSED (cause i am bad at it and its not working). to stay updated with the story follow: #goblin-writes

Bruce Wayne was only thirty-one years old when Jason first said that he hated him. 

He said it quietly, with teeth, which was how Bruce knew that Jason meant it.

His son hated him. 

He should be hurt. He should.

He should feel like a knife has been slid neatly into one's guts; pulled out with a decisive sort of viciousness. He should feel like his insides were strewn across the dining room tiles. 

But instead, Bruce took a deep breath and gazed into his son's face.

Green eyes, he thought. Not blue. Looking at Jason no longer looked like looking at the sky. 

"I know," he said.

He did. He wishes he didn't, but he did.

He wishes that he would feel the hurt, but at the same time, he only felt a strange sort of relief: his son could still feel anger, could still feel hate.

This was not another thing that Bruce had taken away from him.

Jason stared at him, his features tight. There were new lines on his face, now, right where his eyebrows knotted whenever he was angry. Odd, for one so young. Perhaps because he frowned so much, these days.

Or perhaps they were scars, ones that even the Lazarus Pit couldn't get rid of. 

Bruce wouldn't know. When he had finally found Jason that night, his face had been a bloody ruin. Bruce had been unable to tell the fresh wounds from the scars.

When Bruce didn't reply, Jason tried a new tactic. 

"I can't taste food anymore, did you know that?" he snarled. 

Bruce didn't know this. But he suspected something like it.

It was the reason he invited him here, after all.

He knew that Jason had been eating less and less. His apartment had been filled with the styrofoam shells of endless takeouts. Only the barest spoonful scooped out from them, then the rest was left to rot. 

Bruce's gaze traveled to the feast that lay between him and his son. He had used one of the dining room tables, the kind that would usually seat at least a dozen guests. 

But tonight, it was only the two of them. 

And yet, the wood practically groaned from the weight of the food it bore. Alfred had outdone himself, the dishes astounding in both quantity and quality. Strong black tea, the pot upturned and left to stain the tablecloth. Steak so rare that it was almost bloody, left to congeal on the table. 

Fruits imported from Southeast Asia, carefully peeled and sliced into small pieces for easier consumption. 

Bruce could see the remains of them on Jason's plate, where he had bitten into them, hopeful, only to then spit them out in disgust. 

"No," Bruce admitted. "I didn't." 

Jason analyzed him for a few seconds, then decided he wasn't lying. 

He snorted.

"Well, I can't. And you know what the worst part is?"

"What?"

Jason swept his plate off the table, where it shattered against the tiles. Half-chewed bits of meat strewn across the floor like insides. 

"I'm still so fucking hungry." 

He was thirty-three years old when he first saw Jason smile again. 

It had been entirely on accident, on a sunny day.

A rare thing for Gotham City. When the sky was such an aching blue that it would have been a crime not to go out and enjoy it. 

The thought crossed his mind, the way it always did whenever the sun came out: he would see more days like these in Metropolis. Or perhaps Star City. Or even somewhere far away like Santa Prisca. Where the heat would chase away the cold that seemed to have made a home in his bones.

The thought crossed his mind: he did not want to be doing this forever.

Bruce chose a small cafe in Old Gotham. It had been tucked away behind a twisting alleyway, all dark wood that should warped in the constant rain but somehow didn't. He had seen it months ago while on patrol, and something about it had made him want to step inside. 

On that day, all Bruce had wanted was to sit somewhere warm, somewhere far away from the roar of car engines and the babble of the crowd, and the constant rumbling of his own dark thoughts. 

Here was what he got instead.

On that day, on one of those rare warm days in Gotham City, Bruce Wayne got to see his son smile again. 

Jason had been sitting in one of the corner booths, near a window where the light streamed through.

It was a strange realization, that after the warehouse, Bruce had only ever seen his son in shadows. In the darkest corner of the room, his face turned away as if he couldn't stand to meet Bruce's eyes. 

Always, after the warehouse, his son seemed to hide from him.

And the sight of him, sitting in sunlight stunned Bruce so much that it took him a secon to realize that Jason wasn't alone. 

You were there.

And Jason's attention was so focused on you that he didn't even notice Bruce. He laughed at something, perhaps a joke you made, and it was an odd and wondrous thing, to hear him laugh without sharp edges or hurt. 

He was eating, too. Taking small bites of a croissant as if it didn't taste like sawdust in his mouth. Taking small sips from your cup across the table, as if it didn't taste like rusted metal.

It took his son a second or three to realize that he was being watched.

Too long, Bruce would have said, scolded even. Time was the difference between life and death on the field. 

But this wasn't the field. 

And perhaps, like Bruce, Jason did not want to do this forever.

He glanced at Bruce, he met his eyes.

The Lazarus Pit had changed them. No longer as blue as the sky, they were now the same swirling green as those strange waters. 

But this time, looking at them did not make Bruce think of that cursed pit or emeralds taken from illegal mines or bits of broken glass.

This time, looking at Jason made him think of grass, of trees in spring, it made him think of the forest after a storm, when everything had been washed clean and turned new. 

Jason didn't frown or scowl, the way Bruce expected. Instead, he goes back to looking at you.

And for just a second, his son looked almost happy.

He was forty-one years old when he received the message, three days after your funeral. 

I need to talk to you. 

It was brief, concise, and came from an unknown number. But there was no mistaking who it could be from.

It was a cruel sort of joke, he thought. The kind only Gotham City laughed at. A drive-by. The kind of thing that happened all the time in Gotham. All for the five dollars in the cashier till. 

Better an illness, he thought. Predictable and drawn out and long enough that it would allow the reality of it to sink into one's bones.

But this? 

The sudden, random viciousness of it. To watch the building blocks of your life come crashing down. All in the space of a day, an hour, a single blinding second. 

Yes, Bruce knew where the message came from.

He stared at it for a few seconds longer.

Then, he deleted it. 

He was thirty-two years old when he realized that Jason no longer had the scars.

It was a bad night, a mission gone wrong. Just another in a string of bad luck that seemed to have no end. Bruce was so used to the sight of his own blood that it barely even fazed him anymore.

But his son's blood?

The color of it never failed to make his skin crawl.

Bruce's stomach twisted painfully. 

A part of him wondered if there was a hell and if there was, what layer he would end up in, for recruiting his sons into his mission.

A part of him wondered if he would do it all over again.

The thought rose in the back of his head, like dead things washed up on the shore: he would. He would.

He thought of Dante and how the deepest circle had always been reserved for betrayers.

Jason's voice came as if from far away, sharp and irritated and far too deep for someone his age.

He had only been fifteen when he died.

"I'm fine." He was saying. "Go see to Bruce first." 

It was this that roused Bruce from his stupor, blinking away images of sheep and abattoirs. 

"No, you're not." 

He tried to inject some authority in his voice, swallowed back the exhaustion that was rising in his throat.

"I saw Killer Croc take a bite off you. Let Alfred see it."

He didn't just see Killer Croc snap at Jason. He had seen the gush of blood, he had seen gristle and exposed bone.

He had seen the explosion, so bright that it burned even when he closed his eyes. He had seen Jason's face so mangled, the flesh so burned that the blackened bones shone through.

Oh God, his son, his son, his son.

"Seriously, Dick, I'm fine. Stop hovering."

Jason shoved Dick off and ripped off his gloves. 

And Bruce watched in horrified fascination at the way Jason's flesh was knitting itself closed. The bones snapping into position, the muscle renewed, the skin the boiled-pink color of a newborn. 

"Do you see what I mean?" he snarled. "Go tend to Bruce first."

Not even a scar, he thought. 

And Bruce thought about what a horror that was in itself, to realize that your own history is erased from your skin. He thought of his own scar, the one in his spine where Bane had shattered it. The cut on his lip. The burn scars on his hands, his arms, when he had held the mangled remains of his son.

It was its own kind of horror. To be denied your own history.

And for the first time since he made his decision, Bruce realizes that a part of him is sorry.

When Jason looked at him, Bruce's eyes skittered away from his like frightened spiders.

He was forty-one years old when he got the call.

"It's her. She's hurt, she's not breathing."

Bruce thought of the alleyway and that awful, ugly sound his father made as he drowned in his own blood, eyes spinning madly in their sockets. 

His mother had died almost instantly.

When he spoke, his voice was that of a little boy's.

"Where are you?"

"The flower shop. There's been a shooting. I—"

Jason's voice cracked, and for just a second, Bruce could almost hear what he would have sounded like as a child. He had been a teenager when he and Bruce met. By then, he already knew not to ask for help. 

"Bruce, I need you." 

And Bruce wondered then, for just a second, if he was cursed to always be too late to save the ones he loved. 

And yet he would try.

God, help him, he would try.

He would arrive only just in time to pronounce you dead, to see your blood spilled on the floor in a way that made him think of abattoirs.

He would arrive just in time to peel his son's hands from you and let Jason cling to him as if he was drowning.

He would arrive only just in time to say this: 

"She's gone." 

And the sound Jason made brought him back to the warehouse, cradling the blackened husk used to be his son.

 He was still forty-one years old and yet, somehow, infinitely older when he came back to the mansion to find that his sins have finally followed him home.

Jason was waiting for him. 

"I'm not asking this time, Bruce. Tell me where it is." 

He swallowed back exhaustion and despair. Images of the pit came clawing up his throat, and he had to swallow them down lest he start screaming. 

"You shouldn't."

Jason snorted. 

"You shouldn't have, either. But here we are." 

Bruce sat down across his son, and more than ever, he felt the yawning chasm between them. There were so many things he wanted to say too talk him out of his plan. 

She'll hate you, Bruce wanted to say.

Because Jason did.

She wouldn't want anything to do with you, Bruce wanted to say.

Because Jason didn't.

He looked across his son, and with a jolt, realized that Jason was the same age Bruce had been when he had used the Lazarus Pit. 

Ten years. 

The Lazarus Pit had given them ten more years. And only God knew how many more.

Years in which his son fought him, avoided him, hated him. 

Staring at his son, here was what Bruce truly wanted to say: You're going to spend the rest of your life knowing that, given the chance, you would do it all over again.

Here was what Bruce wanted to tell Jason: It was an ugly business, exhuming a body. It was an even uglier business, exhuming a loved one. Jason would not want to be there when the mortician's work has come undone. When the putrefaction has set in and he would be able to smell the stink barely three feet down.

Jason would not want to be there, when the gums retracted and the lips peeled back, so that when he opened your coffin, you would smile back at him like a ghoul.

Here was what Bruce wanted to tell Jason: when he opened grave, his eyes had been boiling with maggots. And the broken sound that came out of his mouth could have been laughter, it could have been sob.

His son. Food for the maggots.

It was what had given him that final push. The thing that strengthened his resolve. For all of his faults, Bruce couldn't leave his son, alone in the dirt. Cold and frightened and eaten by maggots.

But he had always been a coward.

And so, he said nothing at all. 

And still, Jason nodded as if he understood. 

Bruce was thirty-years old when he first used the Lazarus Pit.

It was underneath the Monarch Theatre, where the fumes would rise and soak into the wooden floors of the stage. For years, it had been a mystery why the actors of Monarch Theatre went insane. Why they would act out fights scenes with actual swords, why the crowd would cheer whenever someone's oily guts would spill tonto the floor. 

Here was the answer: the strange, unspeakable pit that soaked the foundations of the building. 

It had taken hours for Bruce to find the entrance. Hours carrying his dead son in his arms, covered in the stench of death and rot and his own sour sweat.

Hours in which he could have changed his mind. 

He didn't. 

And when Jason came to life, he did so screaming, the raw, bloodcurdling one of an animal.

For years after that, Bruce would wonder what sort of peaceful rest he ripped his son away from, for him to scream as if he was being murdered all over again. 

He had torn apart the shroud with his hands, and when Bruce reached for him, he had torn at him too, nails carving bloody ribbons into his arms. 

And when he held him, the way he used to whenever Jason would wake from nightmares, his son tried to tear out his throat with his teeth. 

He was forty-two years old when he next stood at the Pit again. 

His arms ached, and he was covered in the familiar stench of death and rot and his own sour sweat.

The waters of the Lazarus Pit bubbled eerily at his feet, and the fumes that rose from it made him think of sheepand abattoirs.

She would hate you, Bruce had wanted to say.

He knelt at the edge of the pool, and he was so close that he could feel the heat rising from it. It was an animal sort of heat, the kind he associated with frothing, heaving horses, of pigs trapped in small cages to never know fresh air their whole lives. 

She would spend years fighting you. 

He unravelled the shroud. Underneath, you were naked, and he could see the blackened hole where the bullet had torn through you and stolen your life. 

She will try to tear your throat out with his teeth. 

He had always arrived too late to save the ones he loved.

But at least, let him save his son from this. 

He let you go.

Bruce Wayne was only thirty-one years old when Jason first said that he hated him. 

He said it quietly, with teeth, which was how Bruce knew that Jason meant it.

His son hated him. 

He should be hurt. He should.

He should feel like a knife has been slid neatly into one's guts; pulled out with a decisive sort of viciousness. He should feel like his insides were strewn across the dining room tiles. 

But instead, Bruce took a deep breath and gazed into his son's face.

Green eyes, he thought. Not blue. Looking at Jason no longer looked like looking at the sky. 

"I know," he said.

He did. He wishes he didn't, but he did.

He wishes that he would feel the hurt, but at the same time, he only felt a strange sort of relief: his son could still feel anger, could still feel hate.

This was not another thing that Bruce had taken away from him.

Jason stared at him, his features tight. There were new lines on his face, now, right where his eyebrows knotted whenever he was angry. Odd, for one so young. Perhaps because he frowned so much, these days.

Or perhaps they were scars, ones that even the Lazarus Pit couldn't get rid of. 

Bruce wouldn't know. When he had finally found Jason that night, his face had been a bloody ruin. Bruce had been unable to tell the fresh wounds from the scars.

When Bruce didn't reply, Jason tried a new tactic. 

"I can't taste food anymore, did you know that?" he snarled. 

Bruce didn't know this. But he suspected something like it.

It was the reason he invited him here, after all.

He knew that Jason had been eating less and less. His apartment had been filled with the styrofoam shells of endless takeouts. Only the barest spoonful scooped out from them, then the rest was left to rot. 

Bruce's gaze traveled to the feast that lay between him and his son. He had used one of the dining room tables, the kind that would usually seat at least a dozen guests. 

But tonight, it was only the two of them. 

And yet, the wood practically groaned from the weight of the food it bore. Alfred had outdone himself, the dishes astounding in both quantity and quality. Strong black tea, the pot upturned and left to stain the tablecloth. Steak so rare that it was almost bloody, left to congeal on the table. 

Fruits imported from Southeast Asia, carefully peeled and sliced into small pieces for easier consumption. 

Bruce could see the remains of them on Jason's plate, where he had bitten into them, hopeful, only to then spit them out in disgust. 

"No," Bruce admitted. "I didn't." 

Jason analyzed him for a few seconds, then decided he wasn't lying. 

He snorted.

"Well, I can't. And you know what the worst part is?"

"What?"

Jason swept his plate off the table, where it shattered against the tiles. Half-chewed bits of meat strewn across the floor like insides. 

"I'm still so fucking hungry." 

He was thirty-three years old when he first saw Jason smile again. 

It had been entirely on accident, on a sunny day.

A rare thing for Gotham City. When the sky was such an aching blue that it would have been a crime not to go out and enjoy it. 

The thought crossed his mind, the way it always did whenever the sun came out: he would see more days like these in Metropolis. Or perhaps Star City. Or even somewhere far away like Santa Prisca. Where the heat would chase away the cold that seemed to have made a home in his bones.

The thought crossed his mind: he did not want to be doing this forever.

Bruce chose a small cafe in Old Gotham. It had been tucked away behind a twisting alleyway, all dark wood that should warped in the constant rain but somehow didn't. He had seen it months ago while on patrol, and something about it had made him want to step inside. 

On that day, all Bruce had wanted was to sit somewhere warm, somewhere far away from the roar of car engines and the babble of the crowd, and the constant rumbling of his own dark thoughts. 

Here was what he got instead.

On that day, on one of those rare warm days in Gotham City, Bruce Wayne got to see his son smile again. 

Jason had been sitting in one of the corner booths, near a window where the light streamed through.

It was a strange realization, that after the warehouse, Bruce had only ever seen his son in shadows. In the darkest corner of the room, his face turned away as if he couldn't stand to meet Bruce's eyes. 

Always, after the warehouse, his son seemed to hide from him.

And the sight of him, sitting in sunlight stunned Bruce so much that it took him a secon to realize that Jason wasn't alone. 

You were there.

And Jason's attention was so focused on you that he didn't even notice Bruce. He laughed at something, perhaps a joke you made, and it was an odd and wondrous thing, to hear him laugh without sharp edges or hurt. 

He was eating, too. Taking small bites of a croissant as if it didn't taste like sawdust in his mouth. Taking small sips from your cup across the table, as if it didn't taste like rusted metal.

It took his son a second or three to realize that he was being watched.

Too long, Bruce would have said, scolded even. Time was the difference between life and death on the field. 

But this wasn't the field. 

And perhaps, like Bruce, Jason did not want to do this forever.

He glanced at Bruce, he met his eyes.

The Lazarus Pit had changed them. No longer as blue as the sky, they were now the same swirling green as those strange waters. 

But this time, looking at them did not make Bruce think of that cursed pit or emeralds taken from illegal mines or bits of broken glass.

This time, looking at Jason made him think of grass, of trees in spring, it made him think of the forest after a storm, when everything had been washed clean and turned new. 

Jason didn't frown or scowl, the way Bruce expected. Instead, he goes back to looking at you.

And for just a second, his son looked almost happy.

He was forty-one years old when he received the message, three days after your funeral. 

I need to talk to you. 

It was brief, concise, and came from an unknown number. But there was no mistaking who it could be from.

It was a cruel sort of joke, he thought. The kind only Gotham City laughed at. A drive-by. The kind of thing that happened all the time in Gotham. All for the five dollars in the cashier till. 

Better an illness, he thought. Predictable and drawn out and long enough that it would allow the reality of it to sink into one's bones.

But this? 

The sudden, random viciousness of it. To watch the building blocks of your life come crashing down. All in the space of a day, an hour, a single blinding second. 

Yes, Bruce knew where the message came from.

He stared at it for a few seconds longer.

Then, he deleted it. 

He was thirty-two years old when he realized that Jason no longer had the scars.

It was a bad night, a mission gone wrong. Just another in a string of bad luck that seemed to have no end. Bruce was so used to the sight of his own blood that it barely even fazed him anymore.

But his son's blood?

The color of it never failed to make his skin crawl.

Bruce's stomach twisted painfully. 

A part of him wondered if there was a hell and if there was, what layer he would end up in, for recruiting his sons into his mission.

A part of him wondered if he would do it all over again.

The thought rose in the back of his head, like dead things washed up on the shore: he would. He would.

He thought of Dante and how the deepest circle had always been reserved for betrayers.

Jason's voice came as if from far away, sharp and irritated and far too deep for someone his age.

He had only been fifteen when he died.

"I'm fine." He was saying. "Go see to Bruce first." 

It was this that roused Bruce from his stupor, blinking away images of sheep and abattoirs. 

"No, you're not." 

He tried to inject some authority in his voice, swallowed back the exhaustion that was rising in his throat.

"I saw Killer Croc take a bite off you. Let Alfred see it."

He didn't just see Killer Croc snap at Jason. He had seen the gush of blood, he had seen gristle and exposed bone.

He had seen the explosion, so bright that it burned even when he closed his eyes. He had seen Jason's face so mangled, the flesh so burned that the blackened bones shone through.

Oh God, his son, his son, his son.

"Seriously, Dick, I'm fine. Stop hovering."

Jason shoved Dick off and ripped off his gloves. 

And Bruce watched in horrified fascination at the way Jason's flesh was knitting itself closed. The bones snapping into position, the muscle renewed, the skin the boiled-pink color of a newborn. 

"Do you see what I mean?" he snarled. "Go tend to Bruce first."

Not even a scar, he thought. 

And Bruce thought about what a horror that was in itself, to realize that your own history is erased from your skin. He thought of his own scar, the one in his spine where Bane had shattered it. The cut on his lip. The burn scars on his hands, his arms, when he had held the mangled remains of his son.

It was its own kind of horror. To be denied your own history.

And for the first time since he made his decision, Bruce realizes that a part of him is sorry.

When Jason looked at him, Bruce's eyes skittered away from his like frightened spiders.

He was forty-one years old when he got the call.

"It's her. She's hurt, she's not breathing."

Bruce thought of the alleyway and that awful, ugly sound his father made as he drowned in his own blood, eyes spinning madly in their sockets. 

His mother had died almost instantly.

When he spoke, his voice was that of a little boy's.

"Where are you?"

"The flower shop. There's been a shooting. I—"

Jason's voice cracked, and for just a second, Bruce could almost hear what he would have sounded like as a child. He had been a teenager when he and Bruce met. By then, he already knew not to ask for help. 

"Bruce, I need you." 

And Bruce wondered then, for just a second, if he was cursed to always be too late to save the ones he loved. 

And yet he would try.

God, help him, he would try.

He would arrive only just in time to pronounce you dead, to see your blood spilled on the floor in a way that made him think of abattoirs.

He would arrive just in time to peel his son's hands from you and let Jason cling to him as if he was drowning.

He would arrive only just in time to say this: 

"She's gone." 

And the sound Jason made brought him back to the warehouse, cradling the blackened husk used to be his son.

 He was still forty-one years old and yet, somehow, infinitely older when he came back to the mansion to find that his sins have finally followed him home.

Jason was waiting for him. 

"I'm not asking this time, Bruce. Tell me where it is." 

He swallowed back exhaustion and despair. Images of the pit came clawing up his throat, and he had to swallow them down lest he start screaming. 

"You shouldn't."

Jason snorted. 

"You shouldn't have, either. But here we are." 

Bruce sat down across his son, and more than ever, he felt the yawning chasm between them. There were so many things he wanted to say too talk him out of his plan. 

She'll hate you, Bruce wanted to say.

Because Jason did.

She wouldn't want anything to do with you, Bruce wanted to say.

Because Jason didn't.

He looked across his son, and with a jolt, realized that Jason was the same age Bruce had been when he had used the Lazarus Pit. 

Ten years. 

The Lazarus Pit had given them ten more years. And only God knew how many more.

Years in which his son fought him, avoided him, hated him. 

Staring at his son, here was what Bruce truly wanted to say: You're going to spend the rest of your life knowing that, given the chance, you would do it all over again.

Here was what Bruce wanted to tell Jason: It was an ugly business, exhuming a body. It was an even uglier business, exhuming a loved one. Jason would not want to be there when the mortician's work has come undone. When the putrefaction has set in and he would be able to smell the stink barely three feet down.

Jason would not want to be there, when the gums retracted and the lips peeled back, so that when he opened your coffin, you would smile back at him like a ghoul.

Here was what Bruce wanted to tell Jason: when he opened grave, his eyes had been boiling with maggots. And the broken sound that came out of his mouth could have been laughter, it could have been sob.

His son. Food for the maggots.

It was what had given him that final push. The thing that strengthened his resolve. For all of his faults, Bruce couldn't leave his son, alone in the dirt. Cold and frightened and eaten by maggots.

But he had always been a coward.

And so, he said nothing at all. 

And still, Jason nodded as if he understood. 

Bruce was thirty-years old when he first used the Lazarus Pit.

It was underneath the Monarch Theatre, where the fumes would rise and soak into the wooden floors of the stage. For years, it had been a mystery why the actors of Monarch Theatre went insane. Why they would act out fights scenes with actual swords, why the crowd would cheer whenever someone's oily guts would spill tonto the floor. 

Here was the answer: the strange, unspeakable pit that soaked the foundations of the building. 

It had taken hours for Bruce to find the entrance. Hours carrying his dead son in his arms, covered in the stench of death and rot and his own sour sweat.

Hours in which he could have changed his mind. 

He didn't. 

And when Jason came to life, he did so screaming, the raw, bloodcurdling one of an animal.

For years after that, Bruce would wonder what sort of peaceful rest he ripped his son away from, for him to scream as if he was being murdered all over again. 

He had torn apart the shroud with his hands, and when Bruce reached for him, he had torn at him too, nails carving bloody ribbons into his arms. 

And when he held him, the way he used to whenever Jason would wake from nightmares, his son tried to tear out his throat with his teeth. 

He was forty-two years old when he next stood at the Pit again. 

His arms ached, and he was covered in the familiar stench of death and rot and his own sour sweat.

The waters of the Lazarus Pit bubbled eerily at his feet, and the fumes that rose from it made him think of sheepand abattoirs.

She would hate you, Bruce had wanted to say.

He knelt at the edge of the pool, and he was so close that he could feel the heat rising from it. It was an animal sort of heat, the kind he associated with frothing, heaving horses, of pigs trapped in small cages to never know fresh air their whole lives. 

She would spend years fighting you. 

He unravelled the shroud. Underneath, you were naked, and he could see the blackened hole where the bullet had torn through you and stolen your life. 

She will try to tear your throat out with his teeth. 

He had always arrived too late to save the ones he loved.

But at least, let him save his son from this. 

He let you go.

You just can't help it. He's such an implacable wall of muscle with just the right amount of give in the middle of his shoulder blades, so that you can nestle your temple in perfectly there, feel the thrum of his heartbeat that thuds in perfect metronomic timing through the shell of your ear.

So that you can hear his humming chuckle of amusement as you wrap your arms around the stolidity of his stomach. As your hands struggle to make junction between each other but cannot given the width of his size.

"Gotta let me go so that I can make food for us," He mutters to you, so that you can feel the chord of his voice more than you can hear it. "Aren't you hungry?"

"Don't want you to leave," You grumble from where you've kept the two of you stationary in the hallway, preventing him from making return to the pasta noodles that are cooking. The pasta noodles that are boliing in merry roll, if the ear that isn't pressed up against the soft chafe of his hoodie is any indication.

"Don't want to get everything spilled all over the floor," He teases back in gentle manner, "Or else I'm gonna have to be away for longer."

"Mmmm," You grumble in chord against the inside of your lips, feeling the way that the muscles shift under the grip of your hands, "Take me with you, then."

"On your own or with my help?" He asks, and there's a humorous noise in his voice as he already knows the answer. From the way that you release his arms and finally relinquish your hold over him, over the comfort of his body, over the soothing rhythm of his heart.

"Come on, sweetheart," He groans as he turns around, allows you to see the vivid green of his eyes in handsome squint as he offers you sweet downward smile. A smile that is only reserved in privilege for you. "Let's get you up here."

And without hesitation, you close the distance into the spread of his arms that are already opening up for you. That exert no effort to ruck an arm under your thighs, to carry you into his embrace. It's instinctual, the way that you tuck your arms around the width of his waist that radiates power, reserved privilege in this moment.

To let your arms slink around his neck, to duck your head into the junction of his neck and shoulder and breathe in his scent. Of something that is uniquely his, uniquely a bouquet that you are given blessing to breathe in. When his arms wrap around yours, holding you to him in protective means, you can't help but sigh in relief.

"All mine," you swear fealty into the minutiae of his skin. Letting your arms huck more protectively over him, and being rewarded by the parallel clutch of his own arms over you.

"All yours," he pledges his loyalty, "Promise."

There's the scrape of chapped lips behind your ear that makes you giggle at the touch—he chuckles at your reaction. "Now lemme cook the pasta."

"Can you cook one-handed?" You ask with a teasing angle to your voice, already knowing what he will do for you. He makes a contemplative noise that rumbles through him.

"Might be a little burnt," he offhandedly comments, his hands tucking a little more assertively under your thighs. "But I don't think you'll mind."

"No," you smile against the pulse of his heart that is yours to know, "I don't mind at all."

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