Chapter Text
It wasn’t really hard to figure out where their timelines diverged. They’d hit all the major milestones of Jason’s childhood, and then Jason said, “and then I died, and you… killed him.”
And on the other roof, Tim whipped his entire body around to stare at them both, and Bruce said, rather brokenly, “Jay, I can’t-”
There was a time when he would have been so angry at this version of Bruce. Maybe he still should be, on behalf of his unavenged counterpart running around Gotham covered in heavy weaponry, but he wasn’t. How could he be, when he’d almost lost his dad because of it? Jason had thought about it, a lot, and he was certain now. He never would have paid for the Joker’s death with Bruce’s life, and even from the few details that Alfie, Uncle Clark and Auntie Di had let slip over the years, Jason knew that they’d come too damn close to that.
“I know,” Jason said, “he couldn’t, either. He tried to hand himself in, but Agent A and Oracle threatened to out themselves as members of the team. They all would have died. Nightwing too, probably. Then they were at an impasse, and in the end the JL took care of it.”
“I wouldn’t ask them to do that for me.”
“You didn’t have to ask,” Jason said, and it was true. He’d never had the exact details of that day perfectly nailed down, but in the end he thought every one of the original founders of the Justice League, and a few later members, had helped cover up that murder. All of them had done it for Bruce – and some of them, perhaps, for Jay – without hesitation.
“And so I… quit.”
“You tried to push everyone away. Managed it, even, with Nightwing and Oracle. I wasn’t there yet. Talia didn’t send me home. It was never public that he was dead, and they managed the news of Batman’s disappearance for a long time. If it wasn’t for Lois Lane writing an article about it, I might have taken weeks to figure it out.” Bruce’s gaze had shifted, just a second, to the other roof, where Tim had sat himself down on the edge, no longer making any effort to pretend not to be listening in.
“It’s not a surprise to see him,” Jason said. “Not even as Robin. My version, Peregrine, is still embarrassed about his fanboy thing. When I finally showed, him and two other vigilantes around our age – that’s Spoiler and Black Swan to me – were trying to patrol Gotham all by themselves. It was dumb as hell, B, two of them didn’t really know how to fight and the third one didn’t want to, but they saved my ass. Showed me how to believe in this again. Believed I could be good, still.”
“I let three children patrol Gotham alone.”
“He didn’t know. And when he came back, we brought them all home. Even Spoiler moved in when she turned 18, but she was living out of Peregrine’s pocket for a long time before that. I don’t know who you’ve got in your universe.”
“All three, I think,” Bruce said, which was a quiet relief, “but not quite in the same order. And another.”
The million dollar question: had Talia considered this world’s Bruce good enough? “Agent D? Or Superboy?”
“...Robin,” Bruce said, like Jason might hit him for it, and, actually, he might.
“You made him Robin?”
The subsequent explanation did not improve Jason’s mood at all, though it was a relief to learn that Damian had been slightly older when he came to them than Jason’s Damian had been.
“Fuck kid sidekicks,” Jason said, eventually. “I know why it happened, and God I was on board when it was me, but we’re phasing them the fuck out in my world. It’s a bit like playing whack-a-mole, but we’re working on it. Helping them with their shit, instead of having them help us.”
“Now you sound like my Jay.”
“Now I sound like my you.”
--
“So you just killed him?” Jason asked, not for the first time. He liked himself a little less every time he did, because this Bruce had gotten progressively paler and more unsteady every time he brought their conversation back to that point.
“I blacked out,” Bruce ventured, the first time he’d said as much. “I remember when I spotted him, and he saw me with Jay’s body and started to laugh, and then the next thing I remember, I was kneeling over him and it hadn’t done anything. You were both gone.”
“Well it clearly did something. Your Jason’s not a fuck-up like I am.”
“You’re not a fuck-up,” he said, like he fucking knew anything. “And Jason did that entirely on his own. I wasn’t here for him the way I should have been.”
“He’d hate you if you hadn’t done it.”
“He did hate me, and he had good reason to. Killing the Joker didn’t help Jason, and when I could have helped him, when he needed me, I wasn’t even paying attention.”
“You couldn’t have helped him either way. You’re not fucking omniscient.”
Bruce didn’t seem entirely convinced of the fact. “If I could, would you have preferred that, or him dead?’
Jason knew damn well what he wanted, what the anger he’d carried for so fucking long said, but the words caught in his throat, and, in the end, he didn’t say anything at all.
--
“I’d like to ask you something.”
“You should probably ask your me,” Jason said.
Because it was Bruce, he still asked, “why do you think he hasn’t killed the Joker himself?”
Now that was something. “I’m not a mind reader, I just live here.”
“If you were guessing.”
“He doesn’t want the murder,” Jason said, “he only thinks he does. Pit’s probably gone at this point too, which makes murder a bit less desirable in general. But mostly I don’t think that’s ever really what I wanted. I just wanted to come home and I didn’t know how I could. The murder seemed like a talisman for me, before I knew that it really had happened, like a sign that my dad really did care about me enough that he’d take me back. But if he’d been there when I woke up instead of Talia, if he’d been the one walking me through the rage after the pit, I don’t really know if I would have cared.”
Talia had her reasons, of course, but no matter how much he loved Damian – and Jason did love that brat, even with all the dog hair and cat hair and probably fucking ferret hair that covered the entire damn manor – he couldn’t honestly say he’d ever forgive her for those years he’d lost, where he might have had a chance to get back something like a real childhood with his dad.
--
“I think the differences have to start before you killed him.”
“Why’s that?’
Jason wished he had a cigarette, but he didn’t think this version of Bruce was going to be any more likely to give him one than his. Maybe he’d have better luck asking for a joint – this version seemed kinda hippie.
“Because my Bruce had written me off for fucking ages by then. He’d never have given me Batman even if I came back with all my boy scout badges and olympic gold in Judo. He already thought I was a killer – didn’t trust me for shit.”
Weird Bruce just shook his fucking head and said, “I hadn’t.”
“Bullshit you hadn’t. You wouldn’t give Batman to a killer, you can’t think your Jason was one.”
“Jay,” he said, like he thought Jason was an idiot, “how do you think your counterpart made it through League training?”
Fuck every Bruce Wayne in every universe. “So why’s he good enough, forgivable enough, lovable enough, and I’m not?”
“Of course you are.”
It was almost like hearing it from his dad. Shit. Jason tilted his head back slightly. He was not crying in front of this weirdo.
--
Tim migrated back to their roof eventually, when B and Jason had been sitting in awkward silence for some time. He retrieved his listening device, dusted it off slightly, and stuck it back in his belt.
“Questions?” Jason asked him. “I’m getting the sense my counterpart might not be very forthcoming.”
“Maybe he has reasons not to trust me.”
It was hard to take him seriously when he was being contrary like that. “Sure. You definitely could be a real supervillain if you put your mind to it, but you wouldn’t need to be out here hitting people with sticks if you had. You’d do that behind a screen with a fake moustache and a persian cat. Or a falcon on your arm to fit the theme.”
He could tell Tim was rolling his eyes under there. “We’re not friends.”
“But that’s on him, isn’t it? What did you do to start it?” Tim stayed murderously silent. “You were Robin, right, and that was enough to piss him the fuck off. But that’s not on you. That’s on him, and on not being able to control the pit rage. And I get it, it’s fucking hard to pin that shit down – I shot Superman, I was so pissy – but that’s not on you. I’m sorry you’ve ever thought it was.”
“I know that’s not my fault.”
“Then why the fuck shouldn’t I trust you?”
Bruce was listening to them, of course, but it was hard to know what he was thinking about it, body language giving off all kinds of signals.
“Maybe because I’m still angry?” He never wanted to hear that tone in Tim’s voice again. “Maybe because I don’t forgive Hood and I never will, even though I took his whole life – his place, his family and didn’t leave anything for him. Maybe you should have some sense and trust that your counterpart doesn’t like me because I ruined his fucking life, and despite him literally being a mass murderer, I’m still not half the Robin he was.”
“Red Robin,” Bruce said, but it wasn’t his fucking business.
“Shut up,” Jason told Tim. “You’re a little shit, you know that? In two worlds. I trust you because I know you. I know exactly what you’re capable of, and I know you’re a good man. I haven’t seen you as Robin, sure, but I’ve seen you as Peregrine, with no fucking tools, no fucking teachers, putting your fists up to protect people who needed you. Spoiler and Black Swan would walk through fire for you, and they’d have a good fucking reason to. Maybe you weren’t a good Robin. I don’t believe it, but I’ll take you at your word. Maybe you weren’t like me. But maybe that’s because you’re too damn smart for it.” Tim made a face. “I said shut up. I’m serious. This is what I was made for, right? I was a good Robin, and I’m a good Batman, because I’m fucking excellent at taking the title and parsing out the best of it and making my own. But you and Nightwing chafe like hell against shit like that. B too. The only one of you fuckers who could do what I do is Spoiler. So, instead of being a little bitch about it, take the damn compliment. I know you, and I trust you, and I’m fucking glad that if anyone else was ever going to be Robin, it was you, and I’m just as fucking glad you’ve spread your own wings now, because I know you’ll make something amazing. Got it?”
Tim was almost never speechless, but sometimes he forgot how to say anything important. “Was that a pun?”
“Maybe.”
“You know I just came back over here to tell you I got a text from Impulse saying that if I spotted any ‘dimensional weirdness’ it was his and Flash’s fault, and they’ll have it fixed soon?”
That was just fucking like them. Still, it was nice that Tim had trusted Jason enough to send a message to his friend after all.
“You should probably clear out, then, if you don’t know what he’ll be like when he comes too.”
“And give him his guns back?”
“Nah, let him sweat a bit. He could use more hand-to-hand practice if he’s been relying on them this much.”
“That’s it then?” Bruce said.
“I love you very much and you were a good father to me before the divergence point,” Jason said, because someone probably needed to. “Oh, and can I have a pen and some paper?”
--
Spoiler was the one who came in, eventually, to tell them, “so we just got a call from the Flash?”
Either she hadn’t noticed the fact Jason had been crying, which would have made her frankly embarrassingly stupid, or she was smart enough not to say anything.
“I thought he was off-world,” Bruce said.
“Ours, sure. His dimension’s, not so much. Apparently they’ll have it fixed in five-to-ten, if you have any shit you want to say.”
Jason told her, “you, Nightwing, and Oracle are the only ones who don’t have different names in my timeline. But I think maybe your counterpart was Robin for a bit? And also possibly Batgirl?”
She laughed. “I told Tim that Spoiler was a banger of a name.”
“Not as good as Robin though.”
“Maybe,” Spoiler agreed, “but it suits me better. And anyways, I always thought it would be kinda fucked to go back to Robin after you died there. No offence.”
“I would pay so much money to watch you say that to my Bruce.”
This world’s Bruce laughed, but Spoiler, rather thoughtful, said, “have you ever really talked to your universe’s version of me?”
“She doesn’t like me.” She was friends with Red Robin, after all.
Rather too perceptively, she said, “that’s not the answer to my question, though. Maybe she’ll surprise you. Swan too. Perry’s always been the one with the unending faith in the great Jason Todd, but we’re the ones who crawled out too. We might get it, if you’d actually talk to us.”
“Because Black Bat, the only person who likes killing less than Batman, will like me?”
“Maybe start actually trying then,” she said, “and then talk to us.”
“That won’t do shit.”
“Wanna bet?”
“Spoiler,” Bruce interrupted, “we don’t have much time.”
What should he do, before he swapped back to his own world and found out what their Jason had been doing while he was gone?
“Hey,” Jason said, “can I have another piece of paper?”
--
Dear Jason,
I forgive you. I know you feel unforgivable – I know, because I sometimes feel unforgivable. But I forgive you. You are not the worst things you’ve done, and you are not the worst things that were done to you. And they were fucking awful things. On both counts. But they are not everything you are. You are also a person with a tremendous capacity for empathy, with a desire to fight for people who have been categorically left without people left to fight for them. It’s one of my favorite things about us, actually. One of B’s favorites too.
He forgives you too, you know. In your world, not mine. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t expect better from you – and why would it? You sure as shit expect better from him – but it’s true.
When was the last time you really thought about the ‘no kill’ rule? No, don’t burn my fucking letter, asshole. Listen. Why does B insist on that so fucking hard? Because it’s not like he can’t love and forgive people who’ve broken it. Leaving us aside, it’s not like most of the JL holds so fucking hard to it. God, have you met Talia? Anyways, the point is, I’ve thought about it a lot, right, because I decided to be Batman, and that meant I had to understand what Batman really was, and why Batman was. You can’t change shit without understanding it, that’s how you fuck it up.
So there’s two reasons, right? The first is the obvious one: he doesn’t think anyone – even him, maybe especially him – has the right to choose who dies, to kill as a punishment, because killing doesn’t fix shit. That’s not to say he thinks everyone who’s ever killed was guilty of something. My Bruce told me once that he didn’t think he would have regretted it if killing the Joker was the only way to save us. What really broke him was the fact he’d done it for nothing at all. Just, for his own feelings, not to help me. Because he thought he had the right to choose. But you know that. The fact B thinks nobody has the right to kill is exactly why you’re still too chicken shit to talk to your Bruce about the fact you miss him.
It’s the second reason I’m more interested in, though. Because that one’s the reason why I know that, as long as you’re trying, Bruce will always have time for you. See, he believes – really believes – that killing is wrong because he believes all that shit about people having infinite capacity for growth and change. And he’ll always take the option that creates another chance for that, if he can. For the people he fought as Batman, the vast majority of whom never wanted to be in the shit situations they ended up in. For Talia, and Selina, and Harley – and if she’s still with the Joker in your world, you really do have to keep an eye out, alright, because we like Harley, and she’s not safe with him – and us.
And you know what the really crazy part is? I believe all that shit too. Because I look at what’s broken in Gotham, and I know damn well the most broken shit isn’t something a bullet can kill.
Jason
--
J,
Be grateful for them, alright? Be fucking grateful every damn day of your fucking life. If I ever find out you aren’t, I swear to fuck I’ll find the way back here and beat the shit out of you.
Jason