They all hear the explosion over the comms. There's a moment of silence where Bruce sees the flash of an explosion in Ethiopia against the back of his eyes, and then it's disrupted by the the sudden burst of noise over the comm system.
" - was that - "
" - I can't get Black Bat to respond, does anyone have her location - "
"Black Bat, come in!"
Bruce's heart is in his throat, but he's already running toward the Batmobile, leaving the trussed-up mugger behind him in the alley. Oracle's voice cuts over the racket.
"I've sent her coordinates to everyone. Her tracker's still broadcasting."
"ETA two minutes," Jason says. "I'll need transport."
Bruce had taken off as soon as Barbara sent the coordinates, and is now speeding through the streets of Gotham. The hum of the Batmobile's engine underlies the tightness in his chest, the panic that he's ignoring.
"I'm on my way," he manages. He speeds around a corner, runs a red light. He can't be too late this time. Not again.
It feels like an eternity, but is actually closer to four minutes, when he finally reaches the warehouse. It's half-collapsed, the front almost completely destroyed in the blast. The dust hasn't settled yet, and the smoke from the fire fills the air. He leaps from the Batmobile.
The heat strikes the lower half of his face as he approaches the remains of the building. He frantically digs through a heap of debris, barely processing the smoke that stings in his throat, throws a half-burned support beam out of his way. For a second, he thinks he sees a hint of yellow out of the corner of his eye, but when he turns his head to look there's nothing there.
"B!" Jason yells from the other end of the building. "I found her!"
Jason's hunched over a small mass of black half-concealed by a pile of smoking rubble beside the still-standing rear wall, his head bare. Cass is sprawled out loosely. There's a small, ragged rasping noise as she breathes. Her legs are trapped under a chunk of debris. Jason's already removed her cowl and placed a rebreather over her mouth when Bruce gets there. Her skin is pale, almost grey. There's blood on her side, leaking out from around a shard of glass. Bruce's head feels oddly fuzzy, and his breathing hitches despite his normal control.
Jason glances up at him. He looks pale, but focused, determined. "We need to move her, fast."
Bruce nods abruptly, and moves toward the wreckage that's pinning her legs. Jason grabs Cass, and waits for him to find the corner of a metal roofing panel in the debris to lift before tugging her smoothly away from it. Bruce drops panel with a grunt.
"At least two of her ribs are broken," Jason says worriedly, checking her pulse with a gloveless hand. Bruce's trying not to look at the bloody trail left behind from Jason moving her. "Her mask probably helped filter some of the smoke but her breathing's still rough. We need to - Bruce?"
Bruce is frozen, staring down at Cass's deathly pale face. His mind is replaying the way he'd found Jason, sprawled face-down in the ruin, unbreathing, his drying blood staining the bright yellow cape, his hair singed, his head at a strange angle.
"Bruce," Jason says again, turning to look at him. "We need to get her to the Batmobile."
She's not dead. He can still save her. It's not too late.
He ignores Jason's concerned expression and carefully, gently picks Cass up. Her breathing falters for a second, and he thinks he can hear her ribs shifting. Jason's already heading to the Batmobile, so Bruce follows him, endeavouring to keep his movements slow and steady.
The drive to the Batcave is a blur. He's vaguely aware of Jason talking to Alfred on the comm, giving him a list of injuries so that they'll be able to prep the medbay. Jason's the one who carries her to the operating table when they finally pull up into the cave.
It's too similar, too familiar. Cass is covered with ash and blood, her body completely limp as Jason sets her down gently. There's a flurry of action as Alfred and Stephanie start to work, carefully cutting off her uniform so that they can start removing the shrapnel. He tries to to focus on her breathing; the small, regular movement of her chest that's mostly obscured by Alfred, who's removed the shard of glass from her side and is starting to stitch her up. Stephanie stands on the other side, disinfecting a cut on Cass's arm, looking pale but confident.
He should probably file a report. He can't remember if everyone's been updated on Cass's condition. Damian was patrolling with Dick in Bludhaven, and Tim had been staking out a new gang in Midtown. Bruce glances down at his hands. They're shaking, and ash and dust and blood cover them. He clenches his fists, trying to will them to stop.
The sound of the explosion in Ethiopia and the one barely an hour ago still echo through his mind.
He's running toward the warehouse, desperation fueling his movements. It feels like he's moving through molasses - his limbs move impossibly slowly even as he struggles to force himself forward. He has to move. He has to save -
The building explodes, bright and hot, when he's halfway up the hill. He stumbles, his cape suddenly heavy on his shoulders, an inexplicable weight pulling him toward the ground. He can't fight it, can't force his body to get up, to -
He's suddenly standing in the midst of the smoking rubble, the collapsed walls and shattered glass. He sees a hint of bright yellow out of the corner of his eye and he turns and sees -
There's two bodies, bloodied, limp, one wrapped in the canary-yellow cape, the other a tattered black. Jason. Cass. They're facing each other, as if they had been clinging to each other when the bomb went off. Their masks gone, and their eyes are blank, unseeing. He kneels by their bodies. He can't breathe. He stretches a hand out, to check their pulse or something, and it's dripping with blood - there's blood everywhere, and his children's dead eyes stare at him accusingly and -
Bruce jolts awake, not with a yell, but with a quiet gasp. His heart's beating too rapidly, and he's breathing raggedly. Stephanie is standing beside him, her hand on his shoulder, her eyes wide with concern. She steps back and smiles weakly at him. "It looked like you were having a nightmare?" she says. "You were breathing funny. So I, uh. Woke you up."
Bruce makes a vague noise of assent, his attention focused on Cass. She's breathing evenly, and when he puts a hand on her wrist to reassure himself that she's alive, her pulse is steady. He breathes in deeply, ignoring the ache in his chest.
Jason's asleep in the chair on the other side of the bed. He looks incredibly young and vulnerable. The roots of the white streak in his hair - a reminder of of his death, his encounter with the Lazarus Pit - are starting to show.
Bruce is suddenly reminded of the nights that he'd come back from patrol and find Jason asleep in the den, a half-completed homework assignment sliding to the floor. How he'd carefully pick up the strayed papers and books, gently lift Jason from the couch and carry him up the stairs to his room, tuck him into bed. How much it'd hurt when he came late, afterward, still expecting to see the tousled head of hair on the couch, the sprawling sheets of history notes and pages of neat handwriting where there was nothing.
Stephanie yawns, jolting him out of his reverie. She looks exhausted, and there are dark shadows under her eyes.
"You should get some sleep," he says quietly. "I'll stay here with Cass."
She looks like she might argue, then changes her mind as she yawns again. "Yeah," she says. "Guess I'll do that." She looks at Cass for a moment, then turns and heads toward the stairs.
Bruce stays in the chair for a few minutes, trying unsuccessfully to quell the urge to get up and pace. He needs something to do.
He still hasn't written the mission report, but his thoughts are too disorganized, too restless for him to be able to sit down at the computer and type out the details. The regularity of it and the detachment might give him some sense of normality, but it will be temporary at best. Normally, he'd be going a few rounds with a punching bag at this point, but he doesn't want to wake Jason up. So he stands at the foot of the medical bed, watching both of his children sleep, and tries to calm himself with one of the many breathing techniques he knows.
He's never noticed how similar Cass and Jason look.
It's late the next evening when Cass wakes up. They'd moved her upstairs earlier in the day, to get her out of the cool, damp air of the cave. Her skin is still abnormally pale, aside from the burns on her neck, but she doesn't look as...dead as she had before. He'd been keeping a vigil beside her bed all day, half-dozing sometimes, but mostly staying awake, alert.
He's reading Santiyana by the fading light coming through the window when he notices her stirring. Her eyelids flicker for a moment, before they slide open. She looks barely half-awake, but she manages to smile under the oxygen mask when she sees him hovering over the bed. Bruce squeezes her hand, overwhelmed with relief. She grabs onto his fingers as he moves to stand up, intending to tell Alfred that she'd finally awoken, an unspoken plea in her eyes.
Stay.
He stays.
It doesn't take long for her eyelids to drift back to a close, but he holds her hand the whole time, and quietly reads aloud from Santiyana while she lies there, breathing slowly but steadily. Only after he's certain that she's asleep does he close the book and stand up. He smooths the hair back from her forehead gently, before turning and leaving the room.
Jason's in the hallway when he silently closes the door behind him, leaning casually against the wall. He straightens when he sees Bruce.
"She was awake, for a few minutes," Bruce says after a moment, breaking the stiff silence. "She was fairly aware, considering the pain meds she's on."
Jason looks relieved. He glances at the door, then down the hall, as if assuring himself that he still has an exit. "That's...good," he breathes.
They stand there in the hall awkwardly for a moment, avoiding eye-contact, before Jason shifts and shoves his hands into his pockets. "I guess I can head back then," he says, sounding a bit strained, and starts toward the stairs.
"Jason," Bruce says as he brushes past him. He stops, turns to face Bruce. His face is neutral, but there's a tightness around his eyes that belies the relaxed way he stands.
"Thank you," he says gruffly, quietly. Jason is taken aback, his eyes flicking from Bruce to the bedroom door. He looks conflicted, torn between engaging Bruce and fleeing the Manor.
Bruce reaches out to put a hand on Jason's shoulder, then changes his mind and pulls him into a hug. Jason stiffens for moment, then relaxes, and Bruce doesn't miss the way his breathing hitches.
It's a long hug, all things considered, but for Bruce it feels all too short. He'd never forgotten the Jason's bony arms could wrap around him during the (few) times he'd shown physical affection...before - but this is completely different. Jason's almost as tall as he is, now. He's fully grown, and Bruce missed him growing up and it adds to the guilt and regret that is heavy in his chest.
Jason tenses again, and Bruce starts to pull away, not wanting to push his boundaries, but Jason clings fiercely to him. Bruce stands, shocked, as Jason sobs, his body shaking with the intensity of it.
"I thought - " he chokes, and Bruce's heart wrenches.
"I know," he murmurs, softly. "It's all right. She's all right."
He doesn't say "You're all right", but he hugs Jason close, takes his weight more solidly into his arms, hoping that it says it as well as the words could have.
And even if they aren't all right, this - Jason's warm, living body - his son alive and well - is more than he ever deserved, more than he could have hoped for.
And it's enough.