Chapter Text
Jason borrowed Steph’s phone the next morning and dialed the number on the business card.
He kind of hoped no one answered. (He hoped beyond hope that someone did.)
“Hello?”
“Bruce?”
“Jason?” Bruce sounded…relieved?
Suddenly, Jason felt stupid and anxious and he almost hung up. What was he doing?
You let him try.
“Do you want to meet somewhere today?”
“Absolutely, you tell me where and when.”
“That French place you went when I, uh, stole your tires. At eleven.”
Jason hung up before Bruce could respond. Steph grinned at him from across the table. Neither of them had gone to school, Jason still had a bit of a blanket pass but Steph just seemed happy to cut class in general. (Even though it wasn't cutting class, really, since Crystal had called in to excuse her.)
“Shut up,” he said, tossing her cell phone back.
“I didn’t say anything,” she said, still grinning.
“Well your face is being very loud right now.”
“Sorry,” she said, clearly not meaning it.
Jason grabbed his jacket.
“You know,” Steph said, “it’s ten forty.”
“I know.”
“It’s probably a thirty minute drive, from Bristol, and that's if there's no traffic on the bridge.”
“I know.” Jason didn’t let himself smile until he was out the door, Steph’s laughter ringing in his ears.
Bruce arrived two minutes late which was, honestly, really impressive. He must’ve been absolutely flying to get there. He looked windswept and dishevelled and actually skidded to a halt in front of the shop. It was a Monday morning, so the bakery was busy, but nowhere near as busy as their weekend rush.
Besides, there was, apparently, always a table open for Bruce Wayne.
They got croissants and drinks — hot chocolate for Jason and a plain black coffee for Bruce, because of course. And then they sat in silence for several minutes.
"I don't trust you," Jason blurted and then grimaced. "What I mean, is that I don't trust anyone, Bruce. My parents did the best they were capable of doing with the shit they had, but they always let me down."
Jason opened and closed his mouth a few times, scowling into his hot chocolate. "I think you mean it, when you say you want to help. That you want to —" he swallowed the lump in his throat. "— take care of me. But you don't know what that means, I know you don't because I don't know what it means."
"Okay," Bruce said after a moment. "Okay, then we figure out what it means, together. We make a plan and set boundaries and clear expectations."
A smile pulled at Jason's mouth. "Tim said you were a planner."
Bruce ducked his head sheepishly, but there was so much fondness and pride in his face, at the mention of one of his sons. Had Willis acted like that, when someone brought up Jason?
"I'm a fearful person, Jason. I've had issues with control, in the past. It's one of the things Dick and I fought over, when he was a teenager, and he was right. I-I didn't want to lose him, like I lost my parents, I was so afraid of losing him."
"Did you figure it out?" Jason asked, stirring the hot chocolate idly.
"I don't know if I'll ever fully figure it out," Bruce admitted. "But I'm trying to. I don't plant bugs and trackers on my kids, anymore." Jason raised an eyebrow and Bruce shrugged. "If I get anxious or scared, I just call them. If they're available, they pick up. If they're busy, they text me.
"Compromises."
Bruce nodded. "I don't expect you to believe me without proof, Jason. Frankly, I'd be concerned if you did. I know people keep letting you down, and I can't promise that I won't, but I will do my best. I don't claim to be perfect — I'm dramatic, and prone to mood swings. I don't always know how to say what I mean and I don't really understand what people want from me, if they're not direct."
Jason smiled and it was a small, hopeful thing. "I can work with that," he whispered, finally look at Bruce.
Bruce, whose blue eyes were huge and hopeful and eager and kind. "You'll come with me? To the Manor?"
"I've gotta take care of a few things first," Jason said, pointedly ignoring the way Bruce lit up. "I'll meet you back here at five, okay?"
"I'll be here," Bruce whispered fiercely.
When Jason left the bakery, he was a little surprised to find that he believed him.
Jason thought the first stop would be the easiest, which was stupid. He realized his error as he stood, rooted in place, outside the convenience store. The broken door had been boarded up with plywood and most of the glass was gone, but some pieces still littered the street, tiny stars that glittered in the meagre sunlight.
It took several minutes of internally berating himself. Of breathing exercises and trying to recite soliloquies in his head and then, when that didn’t work, under his breath.
“To sleep,” he whispered, “perchance to dream, ay there’s the rub, for in that sleep of death, what dreams may come.”
He wasn’t even sure that was right. It didn’t matter.
He pushed the door open.
Mrs. Singh was in the back corner, a broom in her hand. “Sorry! We’re not open right now,” she called over her shoulder. She sounded so tired.
“Just me,” Jason said, voice small.
Mrs. Singh whirled around and he braced himself for the worst. For her to shout at him, to be angry. He didn’t think she would, but he had to be prepared, just in case.
He didn’t expect her to cry, throw the broom down, and drag him into a crushing hug.
“Oh, Jason,” she cried into his shoulder. “I’m so glad you are okay.”
She hugged him for a very long time and Jason tried to build up the courage to ask the question that had been burning a hole in the back of his mind for days.
“Mahendra is doing well,” Mrs. Singh said, pulling away slightly, but only to take Jason’s face in her hands. “You saved his life.”
Something unnameable twisted in Jason. Something he didn’t know how to acknowledge. Something precious and fragile and unbearable.
Mrs. Singh saw it on his face, she had always been able to read him with ease, and she pulled him back into her arms.
“Thank you,” she whispered, over and over.
He left the Singh’s apartment above the convenience store with a full belly and a gallon of unshed tears in his eyes.
Jason walked, unsteadily, back to his apartment building. Jason walked, like a ghost, past Steph’s apartment. He stopped in front of his own, staring at the door for several minutes.
The chair was still in the living room, cut ropes on the floor beside it.
That wasn’t why he’d come, though.
Jason glided into the kitchen, opened the cupboard, grabbed a plate, and hurled it at the wall, barely registering the sound of it shattering.
He was angry. It was another unbearable emotion, but he knew its name well, was well acquainted with its kind of weight. Jason grabbed another plate and smashed it on the floor.
It didn't help.
Was this how Willis felt? When he broke their things and terrorized his family? Did he keep doing it, in the hopes that one day, it might actually make him feel whole?
Was this Jason's inheritance?
Bruce got a fucking mansion and Jason got — What? Anger?
“In my heart there was a kind of fighting / That would not let me sleep,” Jason whispered. He rested his forehead on the counter for a moment, trying to catch his breath, trying to breathe.
He stood up sharply and threw open another cupboard. He emptied the contents of the kitchen into the wall, one at a time. He threw cups and mugs and forks. He hurled a box of long-stale crackers onto the floor and stomped on it until its contents were dust.
The violence didn't make him feel any better, the anger was not dispelled. Each act of destruction was like trying to empty the ocean of his rage one bucketful at a time.
He screamed into a couch cushion until his throat was raw. He tossed the furniture and kicked the coffee table until it splintered.
It didn't help. It didn't help. It didn't help. Jason put his hand through the drywall like Willis had, right next to Jason's head all those weeks ago. He didn't feel strong. He didn't feel powerful or safe or happy. It didn't fucking help.
All it did was hurt.
Jason scrubbed the tear stains off his face and walked to the crematorium. The police had instructed Jason to pick up his mother’s ashes within a week, or they would be disposed of.
With bleeding knuckles and aching fingers, Jason signed for the box. It was impossibly small. He would never see Catherine’s face again, would never touch her hair, never feel her arms around his shoulders.
He left the crematorium, his mom tucked under his arm, an envelope tucked into his back pocket.
Jason didn’t know what park Catherine had taken him to, when he was a kid. He just walked until he found one and sat on a swing. He let his toes drag in the mulch, moving just enough to rock himself back and forth.
The envelope, clutched in his hand, had blood on it, now. He’d have to deal with that, eventually.
Willis, the envelope said.
“Why,” Jason whispered to the crumpled paper.
Dear Willis, his name is Jason, and he's your son.
This doesn’t change the fact that Catherine Todd was your mom, Steph had said.
Catherine Todd was your mom.
She’d taught him how to use a fork and how to read. She’d taught him how to love and how to keep going. She’d taken him to the park and to school, to the movies and, when they stopped having movie theatre money, to the rec centre for free movie night.
Catherine loved him, with everything she had. Jason knew that like he knew how to breathe — without question, but, sometimes, with difficulty.
Jason hadn’t been the biggest fan of To Kill a Mockingbird, when they’d read it in school. It was just so unbearably sad, but he latched onto something Scout said that — Fine Folks were people who did the best they could with the sense they had.
He thought that, maybe, it was good enough, that Catherine had done the best she could with the sense she’d had. That, probably, he didn’t need to know anything else, about any other mother. Not one that left him with Willis and nothing but a letter. Not a peep since.
He thought that, probably, there was a reason they’d never told him. That it didn’t matter who the woman was that birthed him, because Catherine was his mom in every way that mattered.
He didn’t need to replace the mom he lost. (Her ashes rested atop his knees, swaying with him.)
Jason crumpled the letter into a little ball and, as he left the park, tossed it into the garbage.
He took a bus across Gotham, it would take too long to walk all the way to Gotham Harbor on the southernmost side of town.
Catherine’s ashes a heavy presence on his knees, Jason stared out the window, watching the Upper East Side pass by. He caught a glimpse of Robinson Park through the windows on the other side of the bus before he turned his attention back to the Fashion District.
He got off the bus in Old Gotham, strolling past Wayne Tower, his neck craned to stare at the gleaming building.
All too soon, Jason stood at the docks. A sharp wind pulled at his hair and dragged at the back of his neck. It sliced through his jeans and goosebumps prickled across his skin.
Jason kneeled on damp wood, setting the box of Catherine in front of him. A pocket knife sliced open the tape along the top and then poked a hole through the plastic bag inside.
A little bit, he put into a small jar from Mrs. Singh.
“Bye, mom,” he whispered, pouring the remaining ashes into Gotham Harbor. He watched as they sank into the murk and the muck. He watched until his eyes blurred with tears. He imagined her sinking all the way to the bottom, mixing with the silt and the sand and the rocks and the garbage.
He imagined part of her finding her way to Willis, wherever he was in the harbor.
Because Catherine and Willis didn’t get to know the other died. Because they didn’t get to say goodbye. Because they both died alone. Because they’d loved each other, once, and Jason had to hope the old versions of them existed somewhere. Because maybe Willis and Catherine could try again, in another life.
Maybe they would have better luck, next time around.
"Bye, dad," Jason said to the man who watched Sunday morning cartoons. To the man who blew raspberries on his belly. To the man who loved him, once. To the man who went to prison, not the one who came back out. To the dad he deserved, not the one he got.
Jason walked back to the French bakery, which took an obscenely long time. Still, he hadn’t needed the nearly six hours he’d budgeted.
It was barely four, Bruce probably wouldn’t be back for another hour.
Except, Bruce was exactly where Jason had left him. Several more cups littered the table in front of him. He had a book in one hand and an espresso cup in the other.
Bruce hadn’t left at all. He’d stayed — he’d planned on staying for nearly six hours. Waiting for Jason.
“What’re you reading?” Jason asked and Bruce jumped, looking up in surprise at Jason’s windswept hair, face red from the cold. Eyes red from the crying.
Bruce held up the book so Jason could read the cover. Hamlet.
“Stephanie mentioned it was your favorite.”
“It is.” Jason said, smiling a tiny, hopeful thing.
“You ready to go?” Bruce asked, tucking a napkin into the book to mark his place and smiling a tiny, hopeful thing.
“Yeah,” Jason said. “I’m ready.”