Danny sighed.
He had been living at Wayne Manor for over a semester, and he was already pretty fed up with the way Jack and Bruce interacted.
Every time something upset the resurrected man, he would start yelling at Bruce—harping on what a bad father he was, pointing out his communication issues, and all the rest.
And every time, Bruce would just tell him to stop being impossible to reason with, to quit using lethal ammo, and a few other things.
Honestly, the halfa was just a breath away from heading to his room to wait out the storm with everyone else; however, the last thing Jackson shouted made his blood boil and stopped him dead in his tracks.
"Right, as always, you look down on the failure I was, and you won't accept me as I am because you're a loveless hypocrite!" That was what the gang leader had screamed.
"Funny," Danny said—his voice quiet, yet carrying enough volume and weight to cut through the argument and draw both men's attention to him. "Funny you say that, Jackass. You know what I've seen since I got here? You acting like an idiot."
"Shut up, you don't have the right—"
"Heh, don't have the right? Don't have the right to what? To want something you're too blind to see? To tell you that you're being an idiot?"
"Compare you?! HAHAHA, don't make me laugh! I'm not comparing you; I'm just telling you to stop acting like an idiot! You know why I'm telling you this? BECAUSE BRUCE NEVER SAW YOU AS A FAILURE! He never has. And the reason he's so hard on you about the guns? Because he doesn't want you to become the very thing he swore to stop! He's trying to keep you from becoming the reason someone else has to put on the cape in this damn city.
Even if they don't know how to say it, it’s obvious how much he loves and accept you, and how he try to help you realize that you're being an idiot right now"
Jakson scoffed.
"You only know what you've been told! You crawled in here like the low-life bastard you are! What could you possibly know?"
"Know about what? Seeing what's right in front of me? Knowing that Bruce is at least trying? That he learned from his mistakes and tries to be what you need without becoming a hindrance? You want to talk about negligence? About not noticing things? About not trying? I died in the damn basement of my own house, murdered by my parents' masterpiece—something that forced my sister to grow up at the age of five. Do you know what they did? You want to know what they did? Well, I don't care what you want, because I'm going to tell you anyway"
"THEY PUSHED ME IN TO CELEBRATE THE FACT THAT THEIR PORTAL WAS MIRACULOUSLY WORKING."
Silence reigned for a few seconds.
""Oh, yes, darling, I see you hurt yourself. I told you not to play around; go put a Band-Aid on it. Dad and I have so much science to do! We have to catch a specimen and take it apart molecule by molecule to study it. isn't that exciting? Stop being dramatic; it was just a little electric jolt. You look fine. Jack, dear! Call the Nobel committee! They have to recognize us at last!" he moked the Fentons.
Danny's eyes were filled with a whirlwind of emotions; and not only thatBruce, Tim, and Damian watched as the hand bearing the electrical scar began to turn red and swell.
"Bruce told you not to go; Bruce tried to get there in time; BRUCE CARRIED YOU AND BURIED YOU! … And do you want to know the worst part? My parents loved me… I knew they loved me, but they loved the idea of exterminating the race I now belong to even more."
Danny let out a few breaths to steady his emotions; amidst the shouting and admissions, he had frosted over a large part of the kitchen, and he could feel that at least two chandeliers were on the verge of an electrical overload.
"Tim… how long did it take Bruce to notice Jackson wasn't in his grave? How long did he mourn?" the new kid demanded to know.
"It took him a month and a half to realize it, and he launched a worldwide hunt for Jackson's body. He was Batman—even out of the suit—searching desperately. And as for mourning… the worst phase lasted two and a half years," came the matter-of-fact reply from the boy who had witnessed it all.
"Three years. It took my parents three years to realize their son was dead. Three years of them shooting at me, of them talking at dinner about how they’d vivisect me the moment they caught me… three years of me being stupid, careless, and far too obviously not entirely alive, and they never noticed. The worst part? When Jazz asked rhetorically what they’d do if one of us died prematurely, they said: 'Study them, obviously.' I wasn't mourned; I have no grave. No one cried for me or remembered me. And to rub salt in the wound? The site of my death was desecrated in the name of 'scientific merit'. AND IT WAS FUKING MAD SIENCE! nothing of what they did was etical or sientifyc metod"
"Three years, and they only realized it because I told them. Yeah, it’s true I’m here because Bruce messed up back in the day—and I shouldn't have had to come here—but… what other choice did I have? Ending up tortured by the people who were supposed to love me? Being revived just to be studied and tortured all over again? Going to my damn godfather, who just wanted to groom me until I became the perfect image of the son he and my mother never had? I’m not saying you had it easy, but that’s no reason to keep acting like an idiot and failing to see that Bruce is actually doing everything for you."
Frozen tears streamed down the dark-haired boy's cheeks; he looked increasingly pale, his breathing growing ragged.
"You have ten minutes to get dressed and grab whatever you can from the Cave… I can't hold the power back anymore. No-it's not that I'm going to wreck the place on purpose; I just can't control the power surge anymore…"
Jack sighed, not knowing what to say or do.
And to think he used to believe his own Pit induced episodes were bad.
He would give him space. That was all.
A USB drive appeared in his hand in the blink of an eye, and a quick glance to the side told him why.
"I think… I should have given you this a long time ago. It’s… everything Bruce, Dick, and Alfred did while you were gone, and everything they did once they found out you were back… plus stuff Tucker (Danny’s friend)sent me. Everything He just said? That’s only the tip of the iceberg."
With that, Tim ran off likely to finish getting ready to head out as Red Robin in under ten minutes.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.---.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.--.--.--.---.-.--.--.-.--.-.--.-.-.-.-.-.--.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Dawn found Jackson sitting in front of a computer, gazing up at the sky, with the shadows of tears on the floor.
The proof was undeniable: Bruce had always loved him.
It wasn't that he was allergic to emotions; he just didn't know how to interpret them with other people, given how he’d grown up—and possibly due to some unspecified diagnosis.
Jackson had a lot of therapy ahead of him, and far too many things to talk about and apologize for.
He picked up his phone to ask Alfred about the specter's favorite dish, only to find a message from Damian.
´The intensity of the argument caused Daniel’s death mark to flare up again. According to the guide Jazz gave us, this is normal—a sign of an episode similar to PTSD.´
He’d really screwed up this time.
Not only had he let the heat of the moment get the better of him and said incredibly hurtful things, but he’d apparently triggered a severe PTSD episode in the ghost.
He really had been an idiot since he got back, hadn't he? To think it took pushing a kid to the brink of something even worse than a PTSD episode for him to finally see that he was the only one seeing flaws.
To realize that Bruce had always loved him. He just hadn't known how to say it.
He owed the kid, and the old bat, more than just a simple apology.
His phone chimed with another notification.
'Daniel’s death anniversary is in two days. Father wants us all here. Daniel is going to relive it all as if it were a time loop. Alfred is asking for supplies to treat electrical burns and temporary blindness.´
Damn it.
If that little argument had caused his scar to flare up… he didn't know if they could survive watching the kid die all over again. This time from a non existent electric shock.
Jack sighs. He’d be there simply because he owed it to him, and… because a part of him wanted to know if the new little bird had truly suffered more than he had.
How stupid.
He really was an idiot.
