Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Nota Bene: Probably obvious but Bruce, Dick and Alfred are all subjective points of view...just because they are thinking it doesn't mean they are right.

Bruce has spent years teaching himself to avoid the awful crushing desperation that he felt in a dark alley as a child. He has learnt more martial art styles than he has fingers or toes, has become a symbol of fear and unrelenting justice within his city, spends his nights prowling the city dressed as his childhood fear and still, it turns out even the Batman can feel desperation, can taste his own despair and failure.

He has felt it before, watching a tiny brightly-dressed child ruthlessly beaten, watching the same boy shot before his eyes or hurt in any number of other ways (some of them of Bruce’s own making). He’s felt it in the first boy’s successor but never so starkly as now, Dick had been hurt before, terribly so at times and Jason too.

But now Jason is gone, forever…

Not laid up with broken bones or bleeding wounds (though those had both been dreadfully apparent on his corpse) but dead, like Bruce’s parents, like Dick’s parents, like Jason’s parents. And while rationally Bruce knows he wasn’t to blame for any of those, he knows with every ounce of his will and conviction that this is, Jason is dead because Bruce has failed, because Batman has failed.

And he can’t, he refuses to accept this. Bruce has never backed down from anything in his life and he won’t from this. He’ll find a way, for Jason who never should have died, for himself because he can feel his carefully constructed façade unraveling and for Dick and Alfred provided that either of them ever speaks to him again. Which is he concedes a tall order given he has just raised a hand to the same boy he had once burnt his own hands with acid to keep from being beaten, had barred him from his home.

Oh, how he already bitterly regrets it, Dick had after all come to him grieving the same death but Bruce’s grief and fear and worry and rage had gotten tangled up as they so often do, and he had given into the fear and the anger and the need to punch something…anything…anyone. And Dick was alive, and Jason was dead and seeing him standing there, putting a voice to Bruce’s own desperate thoughts that without Robin Jason would be alive…he’d snapped.

And now he has one dead son, one estranged (and wronged) living son-in-all-but-name, one angry butler and so very many regrets. If he could just find some way to fix this, to save Jason, to not succumb to the anger that grows like venom in his veins and muscles.

Bruce has never held much love for magic or fate or destiny (unless he is trapped with no other options, than he loves magic). Oh, he has studied them plenty, several magical colleagues and even more magical enemies provide one with plenty of incentive to understand their abilities. But Bruce has always been staunchly reliant on his own talents and abilities. In a league of the superpowered, of gods and magicians and aliens he takes pride in being only human.

But human help can do nothing for him when it comes to a dead child so he must turn to a higher plane. There are plenty of historical instances of dangerous bargains and deals with the devil, Bruce knows enough that it is a bad idea. But he is desperate, and he has every intention of avoiding all literal demons. There are after all other ways to gain your hearts-desire…  

It seems safe enough…these things always do. He bypasses anything that seems to easy, magical artifacts with seemingly no ill consequences always have a catch. He’d rather know upfront exactly what price he is paying. He gives anything with too dangerous sounding a price, a hard pass as well, anything too vague or malevolent seeming. The list narrows down to exactly nothing…

Bruce retraces his research and finds something that might work. It sounds capricious, which was why he’d missed it on the first round but if he doesn’t risk something, Jason will remain dead and gone while Bruce putters around trying to find safe magic for the rest of his life. Nothing risked, nothing gained he decides.

Care take care/what wish thou dare
Nothing from nothing/desire risk trusting
Equal for equal/imperil thou deceitful

Or at least that’s the closest Bruce can come to deciphering the smudged Ogham from the stone he has been studying; while he does speak upwards of eighteen languages and has an excellent understanding as to how languages operate, linguistics are not his area of expertise and even if they were ancient Goidelic is a niche specialty. One that he dares not ask too much help in for fear of giving away that this particular stone exists or that he plans on using it.

Operating parameters seem simple enough, which gives Bruce a sense of confidence, firm believer in Occam’s Razer that he is. Any magical artifact that demands pomp and ceremony is too close to his own use of shock and awe for his taste. The only tricks or sleight-of-hand Bruce trusts are his own.

Every bargain demands some price and Bruce is ready to pay this one, there is only one interpretation that makes sense, given the nothing from nothing and equal for equal sections of the inscription. Bruce is ready to pay it, whether it means simply something of that he owns of value, wealth, skills, health he is ready to sacrifice it. If the more dangerous alternative, his life for Jason’s comes to pass he realizes that he needs back up.

It takes all his vaunted courage to call Dick. He has already secretly exhumed Jason’s coffin, no point in going through all this only to let the boy suffocate if something goes wrong. He leaves it closed for the moment. It takes an eon of small eternities before the call picks up and he briefly considers that Dick might have blocked the number.

“Bruce?” Dick sounds breathless and uncertain and hiding an odd spark of exhilaration, and Bruce considers that he has no idea what he is doing, his relentless search has given him tunnel vision and for all he knows Nightwing is leading a battle against some enemy of the Titans. But it is unlikely, given the use of Bruce’s civilian name.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce lets the unfamiliar words out with faint surprise, he is after all feeling repentant and if he does indeed end up trading his life Jason’s he’d rather die at peace with one of the few people in his life that he truly loves.

“Bruce?” Dick repeats, “Are you ok?” his voice dips slightly, “are you being held hostage?” And while he can’t argue with the sentiment, it feels slightly insulting that Dick’s logical conclusion from this conversation is that he would never of his own free will use the words “I’m sorry”.

The image of Dick as he’d last seen him, curled into himself on the floor of the Batcave, the mark of Bruce’s fist on his cheek and a demand to never return in his ears makes him reconsider. How had he ever let it get to this? Once they’d swung across the rooftops of Gotham together, the Dark Knight and his brighter partner, sworn by oath together to never swerve from their path. There had been so much good in those early days, before the bitterness and anger between them, danger yes, but hope too.

If he lives through this, he won’t let it get any worse, he needs his bright-eyed first Robin as much as he needs the second.

“Bruce! Bruce! Answer me!” Dick’s desperate voice brings him back a half-moment too late.

“Dick, I’m not in any danger, I need you…in Gotham.” he explains.

 “I…I can’t, Bruce what else could you possibly want from me?” Dick asks, voice bleed of concern now that he knows that Bruce is not in any danger.

Bruce winces, if he tells Dick what he is planning he might try to stop him, if he doesn’t Dick may very well stay with the Titans indefinitely.

“It’s Jason,” he says carefully ignoring the sharp intake of breath on the other end, “I found a way to bring him back.”

“No, Bruce…stop.” commands Nightwing, “You know these things always have a cost, you can’t, please wait until I get there. There is always a catch.”

“I know Dick,” Bruce says softly, “I know there’s a cost, but I am willing to pay it. I can’t live like this. And I am sorry, I need you here though if the cost is what I think it will be.”

If Bruce dies, Jason will need someone, someone who he already sees as an elder brother and he knows that he is being selfish, that he is putting a heavy weight on Dick’s shoulders…but Dick is strong and brave, and he’ll have Jason and Alfred.

He ends the call. If Dick speeds, he’ll be back at the cave in two hours or less and Bruce has fences to mend with his oldest friend. At least Alfred will be happy to hear that he is trying to reconcile with Dick. Bruce hasn’t had a properly cooked meal in nearly a month, even when he does remember to eat.

This is not the eighteenth birthday that Dick wanted. He is out running when he recognizes the Imperial March ringtone that Wally had changed Bruce to as a joke. It’s been nearly two years but the Titans and even Clark all thought it was funny and he still hasn’t gotten around to changing it. He almost doesn’t answer it. His last conversation with Bruce had been nothing short of a catastrophe, but Bruce could be in danger…or he could (very unlikely admittedly) have remembered that Dick is turning eighteen.

Bruce as it turns out is not in danger, nor has he remembered Dick’s birthday, he just wants his help and normally Dick would take a stand. In fact, he does try, right up until he finds out what Bruce is planning and realizes exactly what Bruce is meddling with.

Dick isn’t sure exactly what Bruce is using, but his gut is telling him that it is dangerous and that there is likely nothing that he can do to stop it. From what Bruce had said, it sounds an awful lot like he is planning some sort of Faustian bargain.

And he knows Bruce knows better. They see the disastrous consequences of these sorts of deals all the time in their line of work. But he also understands, Bruce has been slowly disintegrating under the weight of Jason’s death. And there is a reason these sorts of deals are so tempting, Bruce is skilled and intelligent beyond anyone else that he knows, but he is only human in the end.

And Dick cannot say that if he found a way to trade himself if one of his team died, if he ever becomes a father and his son died that he would not succumb to the same desire. The people he knows regularly throw themselves in front of bullets (and worse) for each other. The only difference here is that meddling with the balance of life and death is dangerous, that magic is uncertain and often cruel, and that Bruce would remember of this if he was thinking straight.

He calls Alfred as back-up just in case and leaves a message when the call doesn’t pick up. If he remembers correctly and his routine is the same the butler is probably out shopping at this time of day. If anyone is going to stop Bruce it is up to him, and while Dick Grayson can’t just go speeding from New York to Gotham, Nightwing can. So, he pulls on the suit and holsters his eskrima sticks and prays that he’ll get there in time.

And be able to convince Bruce that this is a bad idea…

Dick barely has time to swing off his bike before he catches sight of Bruce bent over Jason’s muddy casket, one hand wrapped around an oddly shaped chunk of granite with orderly and faintly ominous looking scratch marks covering the entirety of its surface.

“Bruce, stop! We’ll figure something out.”

Bruce sways slightly before spinning to face Dick, eyes as desperate and wild as Dick has ever seen them, lips moving as he recites something under his breath. It’s not a language that Dick recognizes, and he knows nearly as many as Bruce. This is bad, there is a slight sheen of something forming around the wretched piece of rock and while Bruce may have kicked him out, attacked him, told him to never return, the call this morning had only reminded him of the best of both of them. Of a time before Dick felt stifled and confined, before Bruce was overprotective and controlling. Whether Bruce has ever felt that way, he no longer knows, but Dick can’t lose another father now.

“Please, Bruce!” he repeats desperately, “Dad, stop!”

Bruce stops whatever he is saying, and Dick has all of thirty seconds to be thankful that he’d gotten there in time, before he notices that the shadows in the cave are too long and dark to be natural, that the soft sheen around the stone is brighter and then he is spending all his attention on the sudden agonizing pain that rakes across his chest. It takes him far too long to realize what Bruce has done, his suit is shredding around him, cuts racing across heathy skin, fragile fingers shattering under invisible blows before he manages to raise his agonized eyes to his mentor, his partner, his father…

Who has traded one son for another?

Bruce looks horrified, perhaps he hadn’t realized just how violent the switch would be? But he’d told Dick that he needed him, had said that he was willing to pay the price demanded. It just hadn’t occurred to Dick, to foolish naïve Dick who had still held out hope that he meant something to his erstwhile mentor, that he was the price. Bruce is saying something, probably muttering an apology as insincere as the one this morning but Dick is in far too much pain, physical and emotional to hear a word.

He’d only just been remembering the good days, had they been good after all? Is Dick just remembering everything through the rosy-tinted blindfold people accuse him of wearing? How could the Bruce that he remembers do this to him, on today of all days? Who is he kidding, Bruce had taken his name, his colors, his home and he given them all to the new model, why not offer Dick himself in Jason’s place? It’s oddly appropriate if nothing else, one Robin sacrificed on the altar of another. Joker would be delighted.

But Dick is if not an optimist at least the sort of person who does his best to find a sliver-lining. If he can just find something to pin the rest of his considerable willpower on, this might be bearable. And he finds one, some good will come of it he supposes dully. The stone is definitely working, which means that Jason will be back, that he won’t be dead or caught in the misery that Dick is.

And he suddenly feels selfish, he’d been horrified and guilty when he found out what had happened to Jason while he was gone. That maybe if he’d just been there, he could have helped, could have stopped it, could have traded places with Jason. Well, here he is with his half-thought wish granted in technicolor horror, the original Robin, the one that started it, the one Joker had hated, here to pay the price that Jason shouldn’t have had to.

Vaguely, he wonders why Bruce couldn’t have just asked. If he’d told him exactly what the price was, did Bruce not trust him that far? Does he trust himself that far? It’s hard to tell now, collapsed into a bloody mess, legs far too damaged to hold him up any longer, but he’d like to think that if Bruce had just told him what he intended, that he would have said yes.

Bruce is still shouting, Dick’s hearing is long gone, and his vision is quickly following but having worked through everything in his head, he doesn’t think that Bruce knew the full cost, he seems half frantic as he looks down at Dick after all, holding him with surprisingly gentle hands. If nothing else, he does seem genuinely upset and Dick feels his anger and betrayal drain away into utter exhaustion. They don’t seem worth holding onto here at the end and anyways Dick would rather go out on his own terms. He’s seen far too many people die angry and resentful and suddenly he doesn’t mind so much, he’d always planned on dying saving someone if he had the choice. He’s survived almost ten years of this life and been far luckier than he deserves. In the Titans alone he has survived near apocalypses, demons and demi-gods and he is just human. The Titans, he is never going to see his team again, or Clark or Alfred or even Jason, when this works.

It takes all of his dwindling strength, “say goodbye…Babs n Commish an Titans an Clark and Alfie, tell Kori love her” he rasps, “happy f’r Jason, take care ‘f him Bruce. Forg’ve you.”

There’s something glittering in Bruce’s eyes, like a memory of waking up after his encounter with Two-Face, if he isn’t imagining it.

And then there isn’t anything.

Bruce has the timing down, he is mostly confident in his pronunciation, he has loosened all but two of the nails in Jason’s casket…

Dick gets in even faster than he was expecting, if this goes wrong, he knows what Bruce is attempting, he’ll will know what to do. He’ll make sure that Jason isn’t trapped…

He starts saying the words before Dick has even turned off the motor, he refuses to be talked out of this, he focuses on the words, on the thought of Jason alive and unhurt, ignoring Dick’s pleas though he turns and faces him.

He doesn’t expect Dick to call him “dad”. Almost, almost he falters, at the thought of making Dick watch another parent die. He can feel the change in the air as he finishes, the shadows coming alive, of something closer to light than water misting around his hand. It is working…

And Dick stumbles, shock and pain written across his face. Bruce drops the rock, heart-stuttering dread filling his thoughts. It’s just a coincidence he argues desperately, he’d studied and researched this, there has been no deceit, this is a clear bargain Bruce for Jason. Dick is just a bystander.

There is a tearing sound and kevlar rips violently through the blue bird on Dick’s chest, followed by a bleeding gash and the sound of breaking bones. Bruce stands petrified as the kevlar tears with no apparent cause. One of Dick’s legs gives out with a snap that Bruce will never be able to unhear and he stumbles to one knee, eyes midnight blue with pain and betrayal. And Bruce realizes suddenly how this must look to Dick.

Like Bruce had asked him to come to Gotham, fully intending on trading Dick for Jason, the ward he had thrown out for the son he had lost. He’d never actually explained why he needed him. And he can’t let Dick think that, it’s so far from the truth, that he loves Dick as though he were truly his son, that he’s been scared and lost and angry, that he’d missed him desperately, that he would, never intentionally trade one son for another.

He has snapped out of the torpor and is leaning over Dick’s beaten form before it occurs to him that he has already traded Dick, his partner, his Robin for Jason. He doesn’t regret finding or taking the second boy in, but he can no longer deny that he had missed Dick and had taken in Jason, black-haired, blue-eyed, brave and bright because he couldn’t live without his partner anymore. He loved Jason in his own right in the end, they are as it happens as different as they are similar. But his intention, his equal for an equal, a Robin for a Robin, a son for a son, that is the trade he had carelessly made, not his life for Jason’s as he intended.

He is shouting now, he knows, surprised that Alfred hasn’t appeared yet. Cursing the stone and his bargain, pleading to reverse the deal, begging Dick to look up at him, to understand that this was not the trade he meant to make. This is worse than watching Two-Face beat his Robin, than watching his boy shot and falling, than finding Jason, still and broken in Ethiopia, than watching his parents die.

Because this is Bruce, it is his words that have placed every gaping wound, that have broken Dick’s fingers and shattered his quicksilver legs, that have dragged unwilling tears from his eyes and painful breathes from his stuttering lungs. And worst of all Dick is as aware of it as Bruce is, Dick who had tried to warn him, had reminded him of how treacherous these types of bargains are, who had reached out and called Bruce his dad as Bruce mistakenly condemned him to this agonizing death.

He can’t express how utterly sorry he is, how determined he is to fix this, but he tries. He spills apology after apology, for once ignoring the tears in his eyes and focuses on gathering his son as gently as possible into his arms. Dick’s eyes are dull, the blue swallowed up in the black of the pupils and he is barely responding save for exhausted flinching when some new damage appears. Damage that Bruce recognizes intimately, stripe for stripe, wound for bloody wound, exact matches to destruction the Joker had wrecked on Jason.

“Please chum, Dickie, look at me,” Bruce begs helplessly, “It was supposed to be me, Dick, son please believe me. I’m going to fix it. I don’t know how but I will…”

Dick’s eyes clear just a little, a rim of blue peeking out like the sun from behind a cloud and Bruce has a couple of seconds to imagine that Dick has heard him that he knows that Bruce would never willingly put him through this, even to save Jason.

His hopes are dashed, Dick has clearly heard nothing of what he has been saying. He makes a titanic effort before stuttering out farewells “say goodbye…Babs n Commish an Titans an Clark and Alfie, tell Kori love her” he stutters, and Bruce knows this is it, as Dick presses on desperately, “happy f’r Jason, take care ‘f him Bruce. Forg’ve you.”

Bruce flinches as though struck, “I’m so sor…I love you, chum”, he whispers desperately, but he can tell that the coveted words go unheard as Dick’s entire body shudders and blast injuries layer over the rest of the damage. He remains there holding his second dead son, for how long he doesn’t know before a frantic knock brings him out of his misery and he remembers Jason.

Jason for whom he done this unforgivable thing.

He lays down his burden as carefully as possible, as though Dick was not already far beyond injuring and races towards his other son. He barely notices the pull of the remaining nails as he rips off the casket cover and looks down, pulling Jason small and scared and miraculously alive and well into his arms.

And he can’t help but feel glad, that Jason is here unhurt and alive and then immediately feel unbearably guilty for the dreadful price he had paid for this joy. So, he hugs Jason and prays that he will never know what Bruce had done to save him, that there is still some way to make this right, to have both of his sons safe and alive.

“Bruce?” Jason whimpers, “Batman! You saved me; you came for me.” And Bruce can’t think, can’t breathe, can only wrap his arms around his living son and let the bitter tears fall silently. Because he had not gotten there in time, he never has when it counts, and it was Dick who had saved Jason in the end. He is so caught up in the tangled misery and joy of having Jason back that he almost misses the soft tread on the cool floor of the cave.

“Master Bruce?” Alfred asks, “Master Richard called, he seemed worried that you would try something foolish and…”

Bruce can feel the moment that Alfred realizes that it is Jason that he is holding, can hear the surprise and the relief in his voice as he sighs “Master Jason, my dear boy,” can taste the horror as he takes in the rest of the cave and zeros in on the red-dyed blue and black figure crumpled where Bruce had left him.

“Don’t Alfred,” he pleads desperately, “I’ll explain everything, please help me get Jason upstairs.”

Bruce can count the number of times that Alfred had let his unflappable demeanor drop on one hand, this is one of those times. He spins back towards Bruce, a dark look in his eyes that suddenly and abruptly reminds Bruce that Alfred was not always a butler.

His gaze softens as it lands on the shivering boy in Bruce’s arms.

“Very well, let us get you upstairs and warm Master Jason,” he says quietly. He doesn’t say anything to Bruce until Jason is safely tucked away, warm and happy in his own bed.

Bruce can feel all the pent-up anger came bursting from behind the dam of the ever-calm butler.

“What have you done?” he nearly snarls once they are descending back to the cave, “That boy called me for help, to stop you from doing something dangerous or foolish in your grief and I find you holding Master Jason who has been dead these past months alive and well and Master Richard dead, or are you going to claim that that body is not his?”

“No,” Bruce says, infinitely tired and infinitely sad, “Dick is dead and it’s my fault.”

Alfred says nothing until they reach what is left of his ex-ward. He is laying as Bruce left him, curled in slightly, hands limp on the floor and no anger under his empty eyes, just pain and grief. Looking down now, without the distraction of his shock or worry for Jason it looks even worse than he remembers. He is not surprised to find Alfred staring daggers at him from across the body.

“Your fault, you say?” the butler repeats, “What did you do?”

And Bruce explains as much as he can, describes what happened and why he theorizes that it went wrong the way it did, while Alfred’s face grows darker and darker.

“You knew as Master Dick and I did, how dangerous meddling with life and death is,” he says finally, “I can understand your reasoning and even your wish to save Jason at the cost of yourself. But you are right, this is your fault despite your intentions, your fault for refusing to let go of the past, for dragging us down in your grief and especially in your penchant for lying to yourself, the moreso in Master Dick’s case. And my fault too, for allowing you to get away with it over the years.”

Alfred can make you feel as though he is staring straight through to your soul at times and this is no exception.

“I always knew that this mission of yours might kill one of you, but I thought when Master Jason died that nothing could hurt more. I was wrong, to know that you, not one of your enemies killed that boy is far worse.”

“Alfred,” Bruce says quietly, “I will get him back, I made a mistake this time but now I know and…”

“Stop,” Alfred commands, “Stop, you have your dead son, you killed your living son. I may not be an expert in magic, but I know that these trades get worse and worse the more you make. However unintentionally, you traded one son for another, and you managed to take his life the same day that he was born. That is old and dangerous magic, and you know it. Mourn and repent all you want but be satisfied with what you have, or you will lose everything.”

And Bruce knows that he is right, but he has never left well alone, has never backed down from a challenge and the thought that he had forgotten that it was the first day of Spring, that that hidden spark of happiness in Dick’s voice only this morning was because he thought that Bruce had remembered. He can’t let it end like this…

Old magic, Alfred had warned, well Bruce will find magic older still and fix it. 

Chapter Text

It takes Jason several days to realize that first, something most have gone wrong with his rescue or else his understanding of the seasons is completely false and that second, Bruce and Alfred are being really, really weird.

If Jason was could just manage to not feel so ridiculously sleepy all the time, he is sure he could puzzle it out. In fact, he is sure of it, it still takes what he guesses is a week to slip away under Alfred and Bruce’s watchful eyes and do some detecting, instead of laying in bed trying not to think about Joker and Shelia and something that hovers in on the edge of his subconscious.

When he finds the calendar in Bruce’s study, he almost regrets looking, cuz March, it’s freaking March and he was apparently in a coma since December? No wonder Bruce and Alfred are being weird. Wait, did he miss Dick’s birthday? And speaking of which where is Dick? He knows that Bruce and he have their issues, there is a reason that he mostly sees Dick in Bludhaven, or out on patrol or at Titans Tower but still.

He knows Dick would be here if he knew, regardless of any issues with Bruce…

He holds off using this as an excuse to try calling the Titans and (hopefully having Donna answer the phone) right up until he notices that while he remembers what Joker did to him, there is absolutely no evidence of scaring??? Or muscle damage from being in a coma for more than three months, and Raven has to have something to do with that because it has to be magic.

And if Raven healed him, where is Dick?

Donna does not answer the phone, but Wally West does judging from the “HelloyouhavereachedTitansTowerifyouneedimmediateassistancegivemeyourcurrentlocation.”

The Flashes have always had difficulty doing anything at normal speeds and Jason breathes a sigh of relief, if nothing else Wally will know where his best friend is.

“Hi, umm I need to speak to Nightwing.” He says carefully, Bruce will not be happy if he uses civilian names on his cell.

“Sorry, Nightwing can’t come to the phone right now,” Wally says at normal speeds, “Who is this?”

“I need to know where Nightwing is,” Jason repeats, “I…I need to talk to him.”

“I’m sorry I cannot comment on the whereabouts of Nightwing without knowing who I am speaking too.” Wally repeats, but Jason can hear worry in his voice and screw names over the phone. It’s not like the Titans don’t know who he and Dick are.

“It’s Jason,” he says quietly, “Jason Todd, and I really need to speak to Nightwing. Something happened and I can’t remember...”
“Jason!” Wally yelps into the other end, “Ohmygosh, but you’re…wait are you sure? You are definitely Jason? Where are you?”

“I’m at home” Jason says with a sinking feeling in his gut, he was right, something is definitely rotten in Denmark. What the hell are Bruce and Alfred hiding?

Judging from the flock of birds that just freaked out on the edge of the manor Wally probably dropped the phone and raced straight here utterly forgetting about secret-ids and alter-egos. Which gives Jason just enough time to sneak downstairs and prevent Wally from ringing the doorbell.

“Oh my gosh! Jason, it’s you!” Wally repeats bouncing, “Is this why Dick rushed off here last week? Wait you said you didn’t know where he is? Were you not dead after all?”

Jason is still trying to process the fact that Dick had been here…around the time that he woke up when the last part of Wally’s sentence trickles into his brain…

“Dead?” he yelps, “What do you mean dead, I woke up like a week ago and I thought I was in a coma, but Bruce was being weird, and I don’t look very exploded and I definitely remember a bomb and I thought maybe Raven helped out?” So, what if he is talking nearly as fast as Wally…this is important.

Wally looks…ill. “I don’t know,” he blurts out looking younger than Jason has ever seen him, sometimes it is easy to forget that Dick and his team are not actually that much older than Jason himself.

“We got back from space and we were told that the Joker killed you. Dick freaked out and came here, he was really upset man and I think he and Bruce yelled at each other cuzwedidn’tseehimforlikeatendays…and then last week Bruce called him, and he just said that he was heading here and took off. He texted later and said he was going to be out for a while and not to worry.”

“So, Raven didn’t help fix me? Maybe Zatanna?” Jason wonders, “This doesn’t make any sense, I’ve been not-in-a-coma-or-dead for almost a week and I haven’t seen Dick at all.”

“Well, I have some questions for Bruce,” Wally says with a smile that shows an unnecessary number of teeth, “Want to come?”