This is the sequel requested by Luvs2read. Hope you enjoy! :) These stories can also be found on AO3 under my username Avenging_Consulting_Hunter_Lord
Goodbye, Bruce.
Goodbye, Alred.
Goodbye, Family.
Goodbye.
...
Those had been Jason's last words in the bloodstained note that had been folded neatly beside his body when Jason had been discovered dead in the cave.
How he got in, Bruce would never know. He had updated security a thousand and one times after Jason's resurrection, he should never have been able to get in through the front door, let alone the Cave. At least that's what Damian had pointed out, anyway. Bruce forgot to be cold and calculated when he saw the blood and brain matter from Jason's skull all over the floor.
Jason.
His boy.
...Jason.
Jason had always been clever. Smart in ways a child couldn't and shouldn't have been at his age, and even more remarkable and dangerous when he grew up. He managed to get three wheels of his own armored car. And without even triggering the alarm. Bruce remembered he had been so amazed that he had laughed...on the Anniversary, at that. Even now he let out a strangled chuckle at the memory. The tremble in his voice was something Bruce didn't recognize in himself. The trembling in his hand made the note harder and harder to read. Or maybe that was just the blurriness in his eyes.
What?
"Bruce," Dick's soft voice called out from across him. Bruce didn't look up. Couldn't.
The note fell from his hands and spiraled too gracefully to the ground to settle in a puddle of blood that stained the rest of it completely red.
Bruce stayed frozed, his empty eyes never leaving Jason's sightless dead ones. Jason was really gone this time. Not because he was stolen this time. Not because he was a coward and couldn't take the pain. Jason could endure pain. He was made from it, just like Bruce.
Just like Bruce.
Bruce finally choked and fell to his knees to cradle the man's body in his arms just as he had done all those years ago.
Just like me, he thought. That's why Jason did it. That's what Jason couldn't live with. And Bruce knew he was right. No one should live like him...should have to bear the weight of eternal damnation and injustice on their shoulders. Bruce did that to him. Bruce cursed his own partner...his own son.
It's not like he didn't know that already, because he did. But he never thought...Jason had still loved them. He even went so far as to call them family before he put a bullet in his mouth. Jason could have been saved from this. If he had been just a few minutes earlier, he could have told Jason that he was wrong, that he did matter, that-
That you are still my son.
You always were.
He could have saved him.
But then again, maybe not. Jason never wanted to be saved -he really was like Bruce in that respect-, he had only wanted to be heard and understood.
Well now Bruce understood, and since Jason was gone, now Jason's pain was his own. He deserved this, he really did.
"My son," his voice sounded strangled as he bent his head mournfully. For the first time since he was eight years old, Batman...Bruce Wayne, cried.