I Loved You Like The Sun

Bruce often blamed himself for a lot. For deaths that he wasn't fast enough to prevent or his family crumbling. For Dick's refusal to talk to him outside of the other kids, for Tim's maladjustment to everything, for Damian's general issues. But more than anything, he blames himself for Jason's death.

The Batmobile's tires had been changed several times since that night. Batman couldn't afford another incident of someone stealing an integral part of his transportation. But he kept the originals. They stand not too far from the Robin memorial. All three, plus the fourth not too far away but not on the same regard.

Bruce comes down to stare at the displays. To sit with the ghost of his second child. In another world, this wouldn't have happened. In another world, Bruce would have paid more attention, been more sympathetic, been enough for Jason to realize that he was loved. That he didn't have to run away. That Bruce would have understood the longing for a parent, enough to accompany him to another continent just to meet, no matter how suspicious the circumstances felt. But that isn't this world. Jason had run in his Robin suit, met his mother, and was beaten to death with a crowbar. Bruce had held his child's battered body after digging it out of the rubble of exploded warehouse.

Jason's first few weeks in the manner were a difficult adjustment. He had been so little, easily overwhelmed by the size of the manner, and even more by the mountain of affection waiting for him at every corner. It had taken a lot of trial for Jason to gain comfort in a shoulder pat, let alone a proper hug. But when he finally wrapped his little arms around Bruce, it was the happiest he had ever felt. To hold this child and to truly call him his child.

Bruce and Batman had always been one and the same. When Dick came around, he became a part of Bruce, and so he became a part of Batman as Robin. Jason was much the same. Bruce remembered when he got a new suit tailored just for the boy. He remembers the realization that, despite Jason starting older than Dick had, the boy was still so much smaller at 10 than his brother at 8. He remembers thinking, for a brief second, maybe this wouldn't be the right call, letting such a small child aid him in his night job. He now lays awake every night wishing he listened.

Bruce never packed up Jason's room after his death. He never let anyone near it. Not even Alfred. Bruce had refused to go in there himself. But he'd stare at the door. He'd stare at the stickers Jason and Dick had covered it in as one of their strained bonding activities. On quieter nights, he'd stare at Dick curled up beside it.

Time passed as it always does. Bruce held on to the anger that has festered since having to put his baby in the ground. Dick had just about completely stopped talking to him after Bruce elected to not tell him about the funeral. Bruce never blamed him for that. He'd have done the same.

When Tim came into Bruce's life, he has held on to his refusal to put another child in that costume. He couldn't go through that again. But Tim had been insistent, went as far as blackmail. Bruce should have pushed back harder, retrospect tells him. He is an adult. But maybe a part of him was craving that affection that had been cut short. So he took this boy under his wing. Maybe, if it were a better time, if Bruce had actually tried working through his emotions, if it had never happened at all, he could have been a better father to Tim.

He remembers the first time seeing Tim in the suit like it was yesterday. It had been modified for maximum safety and practicality. It looked so different from the suit Dick and Jason had worn, but Bruce couldn't help but think about Jason. He couldn't help but note that Tim, at 9, was still bigger than Jason at 10.

Bruce doesn't think he would have seen light again had it not been for Tim. The boy, shy, polite, unobtrusive, yet so excitable, had been such a close call yet far cry from Jason, timid, anxious, but rambunctious all at the same time. He wasn't a replacement. No one could ever replace Jason, and Bruce knew that the manor could never again feel truly whole without him, but Tim had reintroduced love to it. Reintroduced love to him. Tim's never ending curiosity had encouraged Bruce to focus on the fondness he had felt with Jason, not the various circumstances that led to his demise, through stories upon stories that the kid would ask. He had brought Dick back to the manor and allowed the former duo to begin rebuilding a relationship. Bruce couldn't speak with absolute certainty, but he knew Dick had found the same light in his new younger brother.

When Jason had come back, Bruce didn't know how to take it. It had been half a decade. Five years without his baby. Five years of learning to re-live life. He had been furious at first. This couldn't be his son, he told himself. Jason was never a violent child, not without a strong trigger, and even then he would never kill someone. Even through the jadedness, Bruce knew his kid would never cross that line. Or, he thought he did. He had double, triple, quadruple checked the DNA results. Each came back the same. His boy was somehow alive. His sweet baby, the one whose beaten body he had held, was alive. He had cried. Cried for what felt like hours. Cried for the mistakes he made that led Jason down this path. Cried for the anger Jason must have felt. Cried for what he now knew was certain death of his child. Cried for the rebirth of his son.

Bruce isn't proud of the decisions he's made. Of his actions. If he could do it all again and do it differently, he would. If he couldn't stop Jason from running, he'd have followed. If he couldn't have followed, he would search. If couldn't find, then he'd keep searching. If the search took five years, he wouldn't have been so hostile. If hostility wasn't an option, he wouldn't have thrown that Batarang. If the Batarang had still been thrown, he would have searched through the rubble. Just like the first time. It ate him away that he had left his son in the debris of that building. That he left him cold, alone, half-dead just like the first time. He'd give anything to try again.

It killed him to have Jason eyes, a sea green now instead of their original crystal blue, look into him with a mix of anger and fear. Like he was a pin drop away from yelling but a loud clap away from turning tail and never coming back. Bruce wanted nothing more than to hold his child, now taller than he had ever been as a baby, taller than Bruce even, and tell him everything would be alright. And it would be a promise. One that Bruce would rather die than break again.