CHAPTER FOUR

Bruce had felt strange all day.

They had been out most of the night before with Dick, securing the location of Penguin's newest pushers, and he'd had two board meetings to prepare for that morning. He and Tim had been up the rest of the night reviewing their presentation- that Bruce ended up having to step out of when he got a call from Damian's school about excessive absences- and then he was on the phone with Clark waiting for him to show up at the Kent's and try to pull Jon in on some mission that he didn't think was important enough to tell him about.

He was exhausted when he stepped into the elevator and gave Tim a look that he smirked at. "What do you say we take a half day?" he asked punching the button for the lobby before Tim could respond and leaned back against the wall.

He felt hot, unbuttoning his collar and pulling it open as a flash of heat ran up his neck and down his left arm. He rubbed it. Tim's words turned to mush as they hit his ears and the sting rocked his bones again making him gasp.

"Bruce?" Tim asked, a report held open in his right hand, the other grabbing his arm to pull his attention. "Everything okay?"

He opened his mouth to tell him that he was fine but there was no air in his lungs and then there was nothing in him at all. His bones fell out of him as he slid to the ground, the hand that he was using to grab Tim's sleeve going numb until he couldn't feel it anymore. His ears were gone. He couldn't hear Tim at all, watching his mouth move wordlessly as he shook him and yanked out his phone dialing frantically and shoving it to his ear. His eyes stopped working, an eerie orange light claiming his vision. And then all there was was the air being forced in and out of his lungs- completely useless to his body that had already given way to the warm nothing that sucked him under.

Bruce had never been under the impression that he would live forever. He had never even fooled himself into thinking that he would be able to fill out his entire natural life span. He had always known that there would be a price to pay for taking on the night- and that Gotham never gave anything away for free.

It was a lonely life, the one he had a chosen for himself. The only kind of life that he was prepared for. With only Alfred to worry about, his world was small enough to justify dying as a noble thing. No one there to rely or depend on him. But also no one to shut him down.

He told himself when he took Dick in as his ward, that the boy was only a precaution. As much as he connected to the story of an orphaned child who lost his parents to the power of the gun, that this child was not his son. He would train him and use him. Mold Dick into being his counter so that if one day Bruce did go too far, he would be able to put him down and take his mantle as the Dark Knight.

He never expected for Dick to make him laugh. For the hurt, angry child he took in to bring a light into the darkness that Bruce had buried himself in for so long. When he took Dick in, he reminded Bruce what it felt like to have a family. What it was like to have something more- than just Gotham and the night. Than himself. But Bruce put too much into him, and when Dick chose to walk away, it hurt.

When he found Jason stealing the tires from his car, Bruce decided that he wouldn't do it again. He didn't need a ward or a partner and if he stepped too far, he would let the superman come and try to take him. He had every intention of dropping him off at a juvenile detainment center, but one look at him caused Bruce to stop. Jason had glared up at him, only eleven years old and not one bit intimidated by the Batman that stood in front of him. His face was dirty. His clothes were torn. He looked like he hadn't eaten in days.

So he took him home. He told himself that he was just keeping him off the street, avoiding an inevitable ending that put a kid like him in the ground before he had the chance to become a man. But Jason was so much more. He was funny and he was smart. Lighter on his feet than you would expect for someone who grew up in the heart of crime alley. He demanded attention and training. And there was so much love in Jason's small body that he didn't know how to give. Bruce wasn't the best suited to teach him that. He didn't know how to be a father, and Jason had been failed by so many people. He'd told Alfred time and time again that he couldn't do it, and it wasn't his place to try.

But he did try. He had always tried. And when it really mattered, Bruce failed him too.

Nothing had ever taken a heavier toll on him, the true loss of a child sending him into a spiral that he consumed in the night- as the Knight. He was done with wards. He was fine without partners. He was unfit to be the father to anyone- and when Dick showed up at the manner with Tim, Bruce knew that he reacted badly.

He was harder on Tim than he deserved. Pushing him to limits that he didn't expect him to reach. He was trying to break him, scare him out of the life he had been following so closely. But Tim met every challenge. He surpassed every expectation. Just a boy born into a good life knowing that he was meant for something more. Bruce saw himself in Tim. He saw who he could have been. And he did his best to hold Tim up as he watched his world fall to pieces around him. Bruce didn't know that he could be a father until Tim needed him to be one. And he didn't know how badly he had needed a son until the papers were signed.

But Damian was a surprise. He had never felt so much. So much anger and frustration. So much fear for this little boy who did not know how to fear. He loved him immediately. He just never knew how to tell him that. But Damian knew, this much he was certain of.

He planned for the death that he knew would happen, taking the time to examine his boys. He watched them, the way they fought, the way they lead, and the way they made decisions. He thought that the choice was clear until Jason managed to surprise him. Again. He staged the death of the Mayor and went undercover with Black Mask as his dark heir, living it up as the villian that Gotham needed to hate. But when the time came to make his allegiance and destroy something innocent. Something that even Bruce would have seen as inconsequential, Jason said no.

Bruce looked at him now, face to face with his son in the darkness around them- the bat symbol scarred onto his chest. He looked into his eyes and saw that there was no anger there, even after everything that had been done to him, and in that moment Bruce had never been more proud.

The orange light pulled him back out of the warm darkness and then he was freezing cold. Air was being forced into him, in and out in sharp, rasping breaths that felt like an electric charge through his body. Everything sounded too loud but muddled all at once. His bones grew back into his body and aches he hadn't felt before made him want to curve into himself. But when his eyes fluttered open and Tim's mouth met his, he jolted into himself, his hand pushing Tim back.

"Tim?" he barely got out. His mouth was dry, making his voice sound strange. How long had he been unconscious?

"Yeah, I'm here" he told him, his eyes full of pain and relief as he took him in. It must have been longer than he thought. Bruce turned to sit up, but Tim kept his hand on his chest holding him down. He wasn't in a suit anymore, and they definitely were not in an elevator. He allowed himself a moment to turn his head, seeing the cave appear before him.

How? Why? "How did we get here?" he asked even though every part of him wanted to ask why. Why had they brought him to the cave? He went down as Bruce Wayne, not Batman. If they had brought him here...

"We brought you here." Tim told him, looking over Bruce to Dick who was staring at him as white as a sheet. He was in his suit. Something was wrong here.

He quelled the rising panic with a practiced calm, his last moments in the elevator rushing by him in a blur of memories. "What happened?" he asked. "We were in the elevator. You were crying. I-" his hand went up to his chest just as Tim's came up off of him. The warm darkness poking at the corners of his mind and for some reason he thought of Jason as he said, "-died."

Tim stepped away from him and Bruce saw his own wall fall into place as he asked, "Bruce?"

He frown at him. "Yes?"

"No." DIck hissed. Bruce sat up and listened to him babble in panic as he paced just far away from them that he could still run if he needed to. He looked like he was ready to pass out, fight him, or sprint off at any moment. He watched wordlessly as he bolted up the stairs and turned his attention to Tim who was looking more and more green as each moment passed.

"Tim?" the boy's eyes found him again and he shook his head turning away from him, his shoulders starting to shake.

Bruce stood up too quickly, stumbling a little when his feet hit the floor. He felt different. He felt lighter but also heavier and each movement was a struggle like his entire body was a giant bruise. He grabbed the sheet that had been lain over him and pushed his way to the uniform area, searching for the spare clothes that he always kept as a spare. He pulled the jeans on, but they fit looser than they should have and the shirt fit wrong on his shoulders.

He was confused until he turned back towards Tim and caught sight of his reflection in the glass casing. The air caught in his lungs and his heart fell out into his gut.

And Bruce gave himself one minute. He gave himself one minute to feel the panic and the pain of seeing Jason's face staring back at him. To realise why his sons had looked at him like he was a ghost.

And then he squashed it. He pushed his way back to Tim with a purpose, taking him by his shaking shoulders and pulling him around. "Tim," he said again but it wasn't a question. He had seen Tim break before and he was not about to let that happen now. "I need you to tell me exactly what happened. All of it. Now."

But Tim didn't say anything, he turned again and heaved sick across the stone floor again and again. Bruce pat his back but Tim shivered away from his hand. He opened his mouth to call him again but just managed to move out of the way as the blade of Damian's sword hit the ground hard where his feet had been. "Damian," He tried in a calming tone but that only seemed to make him more angry.

He kicked at Bruce, who parried the blow and shouted, "Imposter!" as he yanked his sword out of the stone and jumped at him again.

They didn't have time for this. Bruce stepped easily out of the way and grabbed his hood as he flew past him, pulling Damian over his shoulder and hard onto the ground. He tried not wince as he kicked his sword away from him and held him down with one hand holding both of his.

Dick was back and he was staring again as Tim continued to dry heave next to them. "You are Bruce." he breathed looking like he wanted to be sick too.

"I am." he agreed stiffly and let go of Damian. "So tell me what the hell is going on."

He sat on the exam table as Zatanna and J'onn poked at him. They pulled blood and cast spells and went through every test they could think of for hours on end. No one said anything to him. Clark had been following them around since they got to the tower right around the time that they did. His face had fallen when he saw Jason's body come out of the Zeta beam, "I heard Bruce's heart." he said sounding unusually breathless- which was nothing compared to how he looked after Tim told him what had happened.

"This isn't possible." he said standing against the wall.

"You've said that," Zatanna told him annoyed, sweat glistening across her forehead as she concentrated.

"Well it's not." Clark snapped pushing off of the wall and pacing across the room. "You don't remember anything?" Clark asked him. Again. "Nothing at all? You were dead for eight months."

"The last memory I have is of Tim in the elevator." He told him calmly as he looked over at Tim who was still cowering in the corner, barely able to look at him. "Then everything was warm. I thought about the boys. I saw-" Jason. He swallowed hard, wondering if that was the moment, The moment that Jason had died. The moment his son had fallen in yet another line of fire that Bruce had lead him into.

"Jason?" Zatanna asked, her eyes looking surprisingly clear as she asked. He nodded and she pursed her lips looking at J'onn who was reading his reports, the most worried that Bruce had ever seen him.

"I didn't see this in my last test." he admitted looking up at Clark who stopped pasing. "It seems that Jason's genetic structure is not entirely human."

"What do you mean?" DIck demanded.

"I mean to say that Jason is a meta human."

"How do you miss that?" Clark asked.

"I was not looking for it before." He said simply and threw the report up on the screen. "In one look at Jason he seems completely normal- but when you did deeper, you can see that his cells are cancerous in nature. When they are torn apart or broken down they can multiply at a rapid rate, essentially regenerating all tissue and bodily fluid."

"So Jason…" Bruce closed his eyes wondering how he could have gone so long without figuring this out. "Is immortal?" he asked.

"No one is completely immortal." Zatanna cut in, her gaze piercing. "This last death was different than the other ones. He fell too hard and when he hit the ground it knocked his soul completely out of him." She looked back to Bruce. "This is more Constantine's area of magic." she told him apologetically.

"Call him." Clark told her and she nodded rushing out of the room. Clark turned his attention to Bruce then and looked him over with hungry eyes. "You should stay at the tower. Until we know what's going on."

Bruce shook his head and stood up. "I can't do that." he told Clark who looked like he wanted to argue more than anything but Bruce didn't let him. "I am on borrowed time, Clark." he told him softly, "I don't know how much time I have, but I do know that I am not supposed to be here." He glanced over at Dick and Tim, Damian was still standing next to him, clinging onto his arm in stone silence since he had gotten up. "I need to be with my sons while I can." he muttered and Damian clenched only his arm again, effectively breaking his heart.

Tim left as soon as they got back to the cave, walking straight from the zeta port to the door back to the manor without saying a word. Bruce watched Dick watch Tim curiously but he didn't ask. He let Damian and Dick take him upstairs to their home, pleased to see that the only change was the sign of it being lived in. There were jackets hanging at the door and shoes in the closet. Books had been pulled off shelves and brought into the sitting room and the television was still on from before they had left for the mission that killed Jason.

His heart clenched at that. Even when he was in his body and knew that there was still a chance he was there somewhere, he couldn't bear the thought that Jason had died. That he kept dying. What kind of life was that to live?

They sat together for a long time, Alfred making a fuss to show that he was happy to get to see him but worried about the man he had taken over. Damian fell asleep after a few hours and Dick watched the boy with heavy eyes. "Bruce?" he asked after silence fell over them again.

"Yes?"

"Why did you leave it to Jason?" he asked, a flush running up his face at the resentment that he wasn't able to hide.

Bruce frowned at Dick before he let his eyes fall onto Damian. He ran a hand over his hair and pressed his lips together when the sleeping boy swatted it away and turned into the couch. "I asked you to do the job before." he told Dick slowly. "You did everything right, Dick. You stuck to the code, you kept the streets clean. But most importantly, you took care of my son when I couldn't. You earned his respect, his love. In a way you are the first real father that Damian ever had." Dick was watching Bruce when he looked back up. "He needs you. More than Gotham needs you. You always saw the night as a job, Jason sees it as a life. He needs it more than you do. You needed Damian. Jason needed Tim."

Dick frown again, nodding. "Did you know… About Tim and Jay?"

Bruce nodded, his heart throbbing again as the incident that brought him there crossed his mind. "How bad was it."

And when Dick met his gaze again, it was hard. "It was bad. Really bad." He ran a hand through his hair. "He dove off the roof after him and didn't even try to stop his fall. If I hadn't caught him- and I almost didn't catch him… it would have… he wouldn't."

Bruce put his hand on Dick's shoulder. "You did catch him." he reminded him, but when Dick didn't respond he asked, "What are you not telling me?"

DIck swallowed again.

It felt odd to be so unnoticed walking through Gotham. Everyone had known Bruce Wayne, his face was as commonplace as the bat signal. He drew attention no matter where he went and as he walked anonymously through the streets of his city, he got an eerie feeling in his stomach that had nothing to do with being dead or the conversation he was about to walk into.

Tim's building was familiar. He had been there hundreds of times. Only a few when he was invited, but sometimes he would stop by when he patrolled on his own, looking in to see if Tim had actually gone to sleep or if he was burning the candle at both ends again. It was almost always the latter. Tim had a busy mind, Bruce related to that. Sometimes it was a blessing but most of the time, it just made it easier for it to snap. The doorman greeted him with a nod and a kind smile and Bruce wondered just how often Jason came here. Often enough for the doorman to remember him, to like him? He stepped into the elevator and punched in the floor number, closing his eyes as he traveled up.

He didn't knock. He checked the scanner with his thumb and the door opened easily at his touch. He could hear things being moved around, Tim mumbling to himself as he threw things out of his room and stopped dead when he walked into the living room and saw Bruce there.

There was panic in his eyes and he looked around for any means of escape. Bruce took a second to collect himself, knowing that he had to be the one to start this, before he was gone and they never had the chance. "I thought about doing it." he told him and Tim froze, completely still. "After Jason died and they brought back the autopsy. I memorized every detail, every break and ever hit that he put on him I told myself I would put back on him. I told myself that everyday for months. I thought that that loss, the death of a fourteen year old boy in my care would be what finally broke me."

Tim's lip was trembling and he breathed in deeply through his mouth, watching Bruce like he wasn't sure is he was going to vomit or start crying again. He looked so much like he did after his father died that Bruce had to fight himself to stay still. "Why didn't you?" Tim asked. It was an accusation more than a question. An accusation that he made to the man wearing his dead boyfriend's body.

Bruce took a full breath through his nose, staring up at the ceiling, the smallest of smiles twitching at the corner of his lips. "Dick brought you to the manor. And I let all of my anger out on you." he swallowed, his throat swelling as he looked at the boy he'd helped to pull apart. His son that he had left behind. That he'd hurt, maybe more than anyone, without ever wanting to. "I pushed you too hard. I made you stronger than any of them because I couldn't let you break." Tears were streaming down Tim's face now as he stood in the center of the living room. "I left you an impossible job to do." He stepped forward and this time Tim didn't move. "I wanted you to stay with Jason because you balance each other. You are the logic and he is the fire. And I knew that if he was gone, if you had to go through this again, that you may not come back from it." He held Tim by his shoulders, his own eyes filling. "This is not your fault." he told his son slowly, letting every word sink into him. " What happened to me was not your fault."

His lip trembled and he looked at Bruce- no he looked at Jason with a guilt and a hunger that shot pain through his core. "This isn't fair." he choked. "This, you here as... him." a sob rocked him. "It's such bullshit!"

Tim.

He saw when Bruce's attention was drawn away from him. His eyes darted to look over his shoulder. He'd seen Jason do the exact same thing too many times. They'd be talking and Jason would look over his shoulder as if someone else has spoken. He'd seen it. Tim knew that Jason had been hiding something. He'd never been open about how the Pit had affected him. So he let him keep it to himself.

"Bruce." When Bruce's eyes moved back to him he looked confused, and a little sad. "What just happened?"

"I thought I heard Jason," Bruce said quietly.

He turned as Bruce looked past him, but they were alone. He'd known they were alone from the beginning, but he wanted nothing more than to turn around and Jason be standing there, grinning at him. "What did he say?"

Bruce looked at him. "Your name. It was so clear like he was right here."

"I think. I think Jason might have been hearing you. He'd get distracted when we were in the cave. I couldn't tell you how many times I walked in on him having an argument with himself. But it always sounded like he was arguing with you." Bruce made a face, so he explained. "There's just something that changes about his voice. Like he's forcing himself to sound irritated. He only does - did - it when he talked to you."

"But I was dead."

"He told me I made you cry. I thought he was just being an ass to make me laugh. But if you were there… Do you remember anything?"

Tim saw Bruce thinking, trying to remember. Bruce touched his chest. He bit his lip against the pain of that memory, of being in the elevator again flooded through him. "Damian," Bruce said. Jason's voice was rough with emotion.

"What?" he asked, his heart pounding in his chest. "What about Damian?" he reached for his phone.

"No. I remember being disappointed in him, and upset."

"Why would you - Damian has barely even been here. Were you with him too?" he opened his phone and scrolled to Dick's name.

"I don't think so. Jason was angry with me. I don't know why, but I remember being upset and Jason just looking at me with so much anger."

Tim closed the phone. He was pretty sure he knew what he was talking about. "That was the morning he died."

He moved toward his laptop sitting on his coffee table. He had Wayne Enterprises paperwork open on it but he minimized it quickly and pulled up the manor's security camera feeds. It was a quick search. He knew the time and the room.

It felt strange listening to his own voice and watching himself start to cry. He could see it coming in the deep breath he'd taken seconds before the first tear dropped. Jason moved immediately, wrapping him up like he could shield him from the world.

"Jason," Bruce said. "Tim, I can see him." Bruce was looking just beyond him.

He couldn't look. He couldn't look and not see Jason. He paused the feed. "Ask him if he knows how he can get back," he only looked to Bruce. He kept his voice steady even as his emotions were pressing at the wall he'd put them behind.

"He said he doesn't know. He just woke up and has been following his body ever since." Bruce was studying him. It was a little surreal. He shut his laptop and stood up.

"We should do tests. I have some things here, but the cave has more equipment. If that's okay?"

"Yes?" Bruce said, the tiniest lilt to his voice belied his curiosity.

"He's standing by Dick, making faces," Bruce said. Dick waved his arm to get him to stop. Bruce pointed to the other side and Dick did it again. "I didn't see him while we were driving over here."

"We'll figure that out later," Tim commented and placed two files on the table next to Bruce. "We have Jason's original autopsy report, and his new one. He's come back twice now from massive trauma. If this has happened before there should be signs on his body."

"I'll take the x-rays," Dick said sounding too forcefully chipper. Bruce went with Dick over to the x-ray machine.

He stared warily at the old dogeared file. He didn't need to go over those again. Tim knew what Jason's scars from his time with the Joker looked like. He'd spent entire nights, unable to get back to sleep, studying them.

Bruce walked back in after a while. He coughed awkwardly. Tim blinked and focused on the skin in front of him. It was Jason. Jason's body, his freckles and ticklish spots, the arm in his hand jerked as he pressed on one unintentionally. He moved across to the next, mentally cataloging each new mark. There were so many. He counted eight bullet wounds, three stitched up cuts, and a jagged tear around his thigh that he couldn't place. He was almost done when he caught a two inch cut, the edges were clean and he couldn't see any stitch marks. "Tim, are you done?" Bruce asked, his voice was tight.

He realized where he was in that moment and quickly stood. "Yeah. Yeah. I'm done. I'm going to go compare with Dick," he rushed out of the room, his face on fire. Thankfully, Dick didn't say anything.

"His neck was broken. There are two nicks on his ribs that look like they would have hit a lung. If it was strong enough to mark his bone it would have killed him right?"

"I count five certain deaths and one that is a possibility." He pointed to the x-rays. "There was a cut on his inner thigh that looked new, and it didn't look like anyone had sewn it up."

"How new?" Dick asked.

"I don't know, kind of like my ribs? Maybe a little older." His scar itched as if it knew he'd been talking about it.

"He would have been here when it happened. If we could see it on camera, then maybe we can figure out how it happens."

Tim was already moving to the computer before Dick had finished his sentence. They would have noticed him if he'd passed out in the cave, he had to have if he died from that wound, it could only be blood loss.

He pulled up the camera to Jason's room and set it to the fastest it could go. He started from the day Jason died and worked back. Bruce joined them after a few days passed on the screen.

"There," Bruce said hitting keyboard and pausing it on his bed without sheets. Alfred always replaced sheets as he changed them. They scrolled through the time slowly. Jason walking backwards into the room with a ball of stained sheets in his hand came on screen. They jumped to eight hours before and played the video.

Jason went to sleep like normal. An hour or so into his sleep he started tossing and turning. He hit mute as Jason's voice rose. Dick looked over at him. He knew what he'd say, Bruce didn't need to hear it. The stain appeared a few minutes later, and it grew slowly. He gripped the edge of the table as he watched the nightmare grow worse. Then Jason went still, too still.

Tim leaned forward. Jason was dead, there on screen. He'd died in the manor and no one had noticed. No one had been there. Jason had died six times without anyone noticing. Jason jolted up like he was waking from the nightmare six hours later. He pulled the sheets off the bed and left the room. They all were silent as the screen played through.

A thought hit him. "He died during the alien attack. The broken neck. Clark tried to tell me. I didn't want to believe him though. I think he just thought he misheard when Jason was alive when they dug us out. I had thought he was dead when I reached him. I'd begged him to wake up, and he did. I was just so relieved that he was okay, I didn't want to think about how he'd looked when I found him."

"People aren't meant to come back to life. It's not your fault you didn't notice." Dick said.

"Then whose is it? Is it Bruce's for not realizing he had meta abilities? For burying the body of a boy that would wake up in his grave? Talia's for putting him in the pit and warping his mind until he forgot who he'd been? All of the thugs and villains in Gotham for killing him seven times? He died seven fucking times and none of us noticed. I didn't even notice he'd been stabbed that night." he pointed to the screen. "Do you know why? Because I'd been shot after you disobeyed orders?

"Everyone keeps saying it's not my fault. But you know what. It has to be. Everyone around me dies. My mother, my father, my best friend, all of you... Everyone I care about has died. So maybe it's just fate that Jason's immortal since I'm just going to keep getting him killed. Maybe I should just kill you now and Jason will come back."

"Tim-" An alarm blared through the cave. The Justice League was calling. Cyborg came on the screen a few seconds later.

"There's an emergency." Dick was already heading for his suit.

"Go. They need Batman. You're it."

"I was angry." He admitted when Bruce got back from fighting with the Justice League. Dick had gotten a call from the Titans, so it was just them in the cave. He knew that it was the only reason Bruce was even bringing up his words.

"It's not a terrible idea," Bruce said.

"Yes it is. I'm not killing you."

"Tim. It should work."

He looked at Bruce. He was serious. He closed his eyes against the idiocy of the idea. "And if it doesn't? Then both of you will be dead."

"There is a risk with anything we do."

"It's not a risk I'm going to take." He spread his palms across the desk trying to stay calm. "There has to be another way."

"I don't think there is. Jason agrees with me."

His hands tightened into fists. "You can't do that," he looked over to Bruce. "Why me? You could do it yourself, could ask anybody else."

"It would lower the risk. Jason wants to come back to you."

Tim's heart fluttered at those words. It would be easy, he would make sure it was painless. But when he thought of Jason going still in his bed on screen, he shook his head. "I'm not doing it." He pushed off the desk. "Let me know if Zatanna comes back with anything."

"Where are you going?"

"Home. I have work in the morning."

I told you he wouldn't do it. Jason told Bruce, annoyed from being ignored for the entire conversation. He'd been hard to block out- but Bruce had had lots of practice controlling his expression.

Bruce took his time changing. Setting Jason's suit back up in its case next to his own. It was strange seeing it there. Next to Jason's Robins costume- a retired relic of its dead owner starting to collect dust. He was careful as he pulled Jason's sweats on, not to look at the scars that he now knew were fatal. Scars that had ended Jason's life over and over without the family even knowing he was hurt. He wondered what would have happened if Jason had not been meta human. If he had still somehow managed to come back and just… died again. Would Bruce had known? Would he have tried to find him if he'd been gone for too long or would he have just let him go?

He avoided Jason's gaze as he moved to type up his report on the Justice League mission, expecting to feel the familiar ache in his back but that still belonged to his body. Jason was younger, and even though he was scared, his body was healed. Just another reminder that he was on borrowed time.

You were wrong to ask him that. Jason told him as Bruce let his hands clatter over the keys. He ignored it. But Jason had never taken well to being ignored. Don't you think he's been through enough? Jason demanded, moving to pull the chair back, but his hands couldn't grab it. He growled, frustration leaking out of him.

Bruce closed his eyes, taking a moment to breath deeply through his nose and collect himself, righting his thoughts before he shouted at the boy. "You don't think the others have been through enough?" he asked Jason pushing the chair back from the desk, he stood up, staring into the angry mirror that was the spectre in front of him. "Damian was raised to be a killer. He has worked so hard to get that out of him. To set his head straight and focus on being a hero instead of a weapon. Do you think it is a good idea for me to ask him to push that aside and murder his father? His brother?" Jason seethed silently and blinked back at him.

Bruce continued. "Dick lost everything before this. He was stripped of his identity and murdered in front of millions of people. And when he came back, I asked him to lose himself further, to dishonor our code- all to keep the League safe. I have already asked too much of him. I will not ask him to do this as well."

Bruce swallowed, focusing on the heart beating in his chest, focusing on keeping it even and slow. "Yes, Jason. Tim doesn't deserve this. He's been through so much. He had lost so much. But you-" Bruce shook his head, feeling his wall slipping. The pain and the shame that always came up in a bile in his throat when he thought of all of the ways that he had failed Jason tainting his mouth with a sour taste. "We should have known. All of us should have known that you weren't okay. Even when you made it hard and even when you ran away- we failed you. I failed you." his voice cracked and Jason looked up from where he had been staring at the floor, his hands balled into fists at his side. "You deserve to wake up to the person you love. Even if it's hard."

Tim stared at the wall as Zatanna ran her final test, Constantine chattering next to her as they went over their options. He was still in his suit from the office, tie discarded on their way over and his shirt unbuttoned enough to show the collar of the white shirt under it. Bruce watched him, looking for any sign of the conversation that they'd had yesterday. But Tim had always been very good at hiding what he was really thinking about. He wasn't like Dick and Jason who wore everything on their sleeve or in their fist. Jason was watching him too, uncharacteristically quiet since the cave. The way he watched Tim was the worst part. The silent need for him screaming across the distance between them. Bruce had seen it before. When they were younger, thinking that they were hiding their relationship from everyone.

He forced his attention back to Constantine who was in the middle of saying something about spirits and asked. "If Jason was killed again, is it possible that his soul would come back to his body?"

Tim stiffened and the Mystics both blinked in shock. Bruce. Jason snapped, but he kept his eyes forward.

Constantine was the first to speak. "Well… yeah?" he said after the silence turned awkward. "I mean it seems like that would be the clearest method." He looked to Zatanna who looked horrified. "The worst that could happen is that Bruce comes back again and then we try something else."

Or something else comes back. Jason added only for Bruce. He chose not to share that.

They spent an hour discussing the best methods, going over what they had found out by looking into the autopsies and various wounds. They were going between cutting an artery or shooting him when Tim finally chimed in. "We should break his neck." he deadpanned, still staring at the wall, his arms crossed over his chest to hold himself together. "He came back in two minutes. We would know almost immediately."

Zatanna nodded and headed for the door. "I'll get Clark then."

But Tim stopped her. "No." he said staring at Bruce, an anger in his acceptance that even his expert wall could not mask. "This is a family matter."

The League watched as they left, all of them lined up silently at the Zeta without saying a word of the goodbye that was in the air. Bruce watched them, his friends and colleges as they disappeared and fell back to the cave- and for the first time Bruce thought about what was going to happen. He was going to die again. And he would not be coming back. He'd expected to feel more afraid, sad that he was leaving everything behind again. But mostly he felt at peace. At peace with the decisions that he had made. At the life he could see his sons living without him. And he felt at peace in the way he would leave this world a second time, in the same arms that held him in the first.

It only took an hour to get everyone together. An hour to tell them what was about to happen and to let things settle in. Dick fought the hardest, not that anyone was surprised, insisting that they could find another way to get him back- and when that failed, that he could stay a little longer. But that wouldn't be fair. He looked at Tim who had been avoiding him since the Tower and at Jason who was staring pointedly at the ground. He wouldn't tell Bruce that he had to leave. He would let him stay, holding his body hostage for however long that he wanted. He had always been the most demanding an unselfish child, to take advantage of that was wrong. He wouldn't do anymore wrongs in this life.

But there was one thing. One moment that he needed to take.

Damian followed him quietly through the manor and out onto the lawn. Out past the well shaped bushes and flower beds, past the great Oak tree his grandparents has planted, past Titus' dog house, passed his own grave and coming to a stop in front of the two well worn headstones that he had come to know so well. They stood there not saying anything for a long time until finally Damian broke the silence. "Why are we here?" he asked.

Bruce swallowed and looked around them, if Jason was there he had given him as much privacy as he could. "I never got to say goodbye to my parents." He told him softly to cover the gruffness of his voice. "They were good people. Good parents. I never got to thank them or tell them that I loved them, that I was sorry." He put his hand on Damian's shoulder, still staring at the stones. "I'm sorry, Damian. Thank you. I love you."

Everyone was waiting in the cave. Damian slid in next to Dick who was holding Barbara's hand. Kate was behind Stephanie and Cass, her own wall held up. Everyone was grim and silent as Bruce dropped to his knees in front of them, looking around at his odd little family that had collected over the years. Everyone accept Jason. Jason deserved to be there too.

Alfred was holding Tim up at his shoulders, helping him step forward until he was right in front of Bruce, his hands trembling with his bottom lip. Tim placed his hands on his chin and one on the back of his head. His eyes were glassy as he looked down at Bruce and he could not imagine how hard this must be for him. KIlling his father while looking at his lover. But he didn't say anything. He just nodded and Tim nodded back and then everything ended with a loud crack.