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cetaceans-pls · 19 days

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Hit Me With Your Best Short

happy birthday to @setsailslash, who got me into this (bat) hole and every day helps me dig it deeper. hope u got SO much good food to eat babe c:

jaybru, age regression, established relationship

-🚸-

Jason's pretty used to all types of things, but this one's a doozy. Villain-of-the-week this week's a frazzled-looking woman who keeps flipping between, uhm, Welsh, and shouting about de-throning Circe while she shoots lightning out her hands. Luckily, Gotham's Hot Swamp Summer is in full swing this mid-spring, and between the rocketing temperatures and humidity so full-bodied you're almost under water, the streets are real quiet as she shouts and zaps and, on 3 occasions, summons tigers.

Phew. Jason sends off a quick message to animal control (the genetic diversity introduced by emotionally-unstable magicians bringing endangered species into existence has, somehow, been a boon) and lets off a few potshots. He's trying to corner her into the deadzone between 14th and Bassett, that funny little intersection where magic and mobile data goes to die. Z says it's some strange trick with leylines, coherent magic waves interacting destructively to dampen power, and they'd only found the spot because there's a Mozambican seafood restaurant there that is maybe a little godly, and in her pursuit of a personal record in grilled prawn consumption Z had gotten her nice blouse all prawn'd up and could not prawn down them with just a spell.

Anyways. It's not the time to think about prawns, even if Jason always wants to think about prawns. He's herding sorcerer-lady closer and closer to Cantinho do Aziz, and he knows that once she's on the sidewalk then her power's going to sputter and die out, and he just needs to keep his distance, keep his cool, keep his-

Ah, shit. She's gotten another tiger in (good!), and she's called it right behind him (bad!). He doesn't have much in the way of Options for Escape, with Stripey roaring at him and lady yelling at him, but she's half a step away from losing power and Jason's a quick runner.

"Ah, shit," he says, dropping his gun then dropping his head before bum-rushing the Boss Babe. This is a good plan! Body-tackle her into the no-go zone then knock her out, preferably before he gets zapped and before he gets mauled!

Well. One outta two ain't bad.

-🚸-

When Jason comes to, he's on the cot in the medical bay, and his head is spinning and the floor looks awfully far far away. "Fuck me," he says, and then "Fuck me?" he says again, because that isn't his voice.

"Language, Master Jason," Alfred says, manifesting from the other side of the divider, holding a tray of tea and fried rice in his hands.

"Am I dying?" Jason asks very intently in his terribly high-pitched voice. He Loves fried rice but one of Alfred's very very few weaknesses is an inability to love and be loved by woks, so the only time they get stir-fry is when someone's not doing so hot.

"No," Alfred says, getting him set up. "And as such, this is not my best work. I just presumed you could do with some comfort, given..."

Jason sighs, and flexes his (tiny tiny) hand. "Yeah, given. How old am I, and do we knows how long I'm gonna stay like this? And did we catch the woman that did this?"

Alfred hands over a spoon after he's helped Jason sit up. "Twelve years old, I would say." Not fifteen, he doesn't say, so at least that's one less thing to worry about. "And we have apprehended the sorceress; she's still unconscious, so no help there. And unfortunately, given your condition and the ongoing situation in the 4th circle of hell, it'll be a while yet before we get a magician to come and check on you."

Jason groans. "There goes date night then, unless I'm gonna recover in 2 days." He tucks into his fried rice, and it's hot and a little greasy and kinda spicy and it's not Alfred's best work but it's nevertheless mighty mighty fine. "B handling this okay?"

Alfred inclines his head. "Once we got you home and checked that you were not injured beyond a, ah, temporal displacement, he left to finish clean-up of a little drug bust along Millionaire's Mile. He's handling this better than I've expected, in all honesty."

Jason chugs down his sweet milk tea, licks his lips. "When'd he go and get himself good at responding to stress?" he says, a little glad and a little irritated that Bruce isn't actually right by his side, hunched over looking like his guts are trying to eat him from the inside out.

"When indeed," Alfred says with great sufferance, face calm and eyes definitely not rolling. "He's been wearing a hole into the ground by the computer to avoid hovering. Do go and ease his mind when you can, Master Jason."

Jason rolls his ankles, his shoulders, his neck. Everything well, everything unbroken. He rubs at his chest, through the linen pyjamas that MUST be Damian's because what other child wears linen pyjamas, and notes the marked absence of an autopsy scar.

At least he isn't 15, though it sure is April. It's a miracle that Bruce hasn't run off to space, or come in here to shout at him. "No time like the present, huh."

Even if right now the definitions of both 'time' and 'present' are a little, uh. Uhm.

-🚸-

As expected, Bruce is by the computer, on a call with Superman and Wonder Woman, likely discussing the last apocalypse they averted in preparation for the next one coming in. Superman sees him first, obvious in his smile widening, sees him clear and dear even through the privacy blur Bruce has on, though the darkness of the cave and the limited quality of even the Bat WebCamera.

(Of course Superman isn't limited to regular human senses, of course of course, but Jason has this, hah, sense that Clark has some typa supernatural eye just on him, just for him, because he's the one that Died and Clark's very human in that he grieves and that he's not maybe too good at grieving, and Clark's very not because some nights when Jason's riding awful close to an edge he'll Feel that he's being watched, like a loving Sauron's got his eye on him in a way that goes beyond X-rays and electromagnetism.

It's almost off-putting, but Jason thinks if he can peer through the fifth-dimension unto a child that died then un-died but keeps doing things that could get themselves killed, he'd be all ogling all the time, so it's hard to keep a grudge.)

Superman's face is gently dissolving around the force of Clark's dimples, and Jason grins with his gappy teeth and says "Hi Uncle Clark!"

"Jason," Diana is smiling now too. "My, how you've grown."

It's silly, and she's laughing at her joke and she's laughing at herself, and Jason can't help but laugh too. "Yeah, yeah, laugh it up." He pauses, clears his throat, because his voice had cracked a little bit and 2/3rds of the Trinity are looking at him so warmly they could melt diamonds, but it's the last third that he's worried about. "I just got up, and I gotta talk to B. Is it okay if I steal him for the night?"

"Of course," Diana says magnanimously. "We will, after all, be seeing you for breakfast."

"Will we now," Bruce says flatly.

"No force on Earth's gonna keep me away from taking young Robin for a joyride 'cross the Eastern Seaboard, B," Clark says, grinning hugely. "If you're interested, that is."

Oh, man. What a flashback to times before. Jason knows he's a cute kid at the moment, mussed hair and big eyed and bare-toed, but he still feels like him, and it's been a while since he as himself had any type of one-on-one time with his (former?) idols. He feels a little wrong-footed, a little like saying 'I'm actually still an adult' and 'where were you when I was young and fresh out the grave', and the spitefulness comes sudden and comes ugly.

Something must show on his face, this soft round one whose muscles he's forgotten, because Clark's dimples smoothen out and it's Superman again, and the eye of Sauron that's on him turns a little cool even if it doesn't turn away. "Plenty of time to discuss this in the morning, so we won't keep you. Speak soon."

Diana frowns a little, before she nods. "Yes, we shall speak soon," she says like it's a blood oath, and then they're both gone, and now it's just Bruce in his BatChair and it's Jason in this body that just barely comes to Bruce's shoulder while he's sat down.

Bruce still hasn't looked at him.

"At least I'm not 15," Jason says at long last.

"That does not make it better," Bruce says, tight-jawed and facing his darkened screen.

"Can't make it worse." Sick of being ignored, sicker still of being yea tall when he used to have the barest height advantage, Jason clambers up on the chair, straddles Bruce's lap and grabs him by the chin as tightly as this child's hand can get. "You look at me when I'm talking to you," he says, voice still too too high to be menacing.

Bruce looks at him, then pointedly looks away. "Did Alfred tell you? I went back out, finished up my work, even after you got brought in like this."

Jason frowns. "Yeah, he did. We both thought that was mighty adult of you, doing the right thing."

"Was it? The right thing?"

Ahhh, there we go. The slightest sliver of eye contact, because say what you will about his obstinacy but once you've earned it, Bruce is so so good at following instruction. Jason snorts, and slides his hand down so it rests gentle gentle on Bruce's neck. "Yeah. I was fine, even if I'm like this, and needs must. Man's got a mission after all, right."

Bruce closes his eyes, and doesn't open them again like they're too too heavy. "You don't think there's something deeply wrong with a person who can look on the unconscious body of their, their, lover son-not-son and make themselves get up and leave? That I made myself decide that the mission is more important? That there's any singular thing would be more important than you?"

Jason usually gets real fed up real quick with Bruce's angst, on account of only one them having been the one beaten to death then exploded then resurrected into a thing of trauma and rage, but... Well. It's April. And dying Sucked Bigly but the whole time through he got to hold on to the truly unshakeable confidence that none of it had been his fault, a 15-year-old dumbass who had wanted so dearly to love so's he would feel all right to be loved in return.

Bruce doesn't get that unbearable clarity of being; the joker did the killing, but Bruce and Jason both know that Bruce has some portion of Jason's blood on his hands. And Jason can say don't mind it and just love me right right now and he gets to mean it because, y'know, it's his own damn blood, but Bruce doesn't have that right. Doesn't get to wash it off, doesn't want to wash it off, and it's his strong point (nobody this damn good at keeping tally of their sins) it's the thing that will kill him (nobody got this much hard hard earned guilt 'round their neck).

Jason presses his thumbnail against Bruce's jugular, and the reach of his fingers looks nonsensical next to the bulk of Bruce's neck, but still the man's breath stutters in response to this thing they've carefully carefully built between them. "First off, babe, I've never once said there wasn't something wrong with you. There's so much that's deeply, intractably wrong with you. You are not regular, you are not normal. None of us expect you to behave the way a regular well-adjusted person should be."

Bruce just grunts, lashes still lowered, demure and gray around the edges, stuffed up with regret and an inability to ease up.

"Secondly, I wasn't bleeding out with a bomb ticking down when you left. I was fine and healthy and whole, in warm jammies in a comfortable bed, and you rightly figured that you could leave me in Alfie's hands while you went and got shit done. When you gotta run for me, you do. Sometimes you don't make it," Jason says, tugging Bruce's hand and resting it on his chest, where a massive scar doesn't rest, "but you're always at least trying. Got plenty for you to beat yourself up over, don't need to be making shit up to add extra."

Bruce finally does look at him, full-on heavy-browed eye-contact. "Glad that you think I'm finally acting like a somewhat reasonable adult." His grip tightens over Jason's shirt. "I don't feel terribly reasonable at the moment. I look at you like this and there's a countdown in my head."

Jason grins, and it's not cute because this isn't a cute conversation. "Well, at worst you got 3 years to figure out how to get better, Bruce." He leans in closer, nuzzles their cheeks together. "I take it you're not a fan of me in this form."

Bruce carefully, tenderly nuzzles back. It's probably not unlike those Cute Animal videos, a panther kowtowing to a bossy tabby cat. "I like the one that came back the best," Bruce says in a quiet murmur. "The you that got to grow up and stayed good and kind despite all of the universe's efforts to the contrary." He chuffs a laugh. "Can't say it didn't feel good to be pursued by the Jason of the present, either. Unfortunately for you, seems like I like my men built solid enough to kill me."

Jason play-snarls, pretends to try and choke Bruce out. "You're such an asshole. Go back to being tormented 'bout how you've failed me, go on. At least you're cute and you're quiet when you're brooding."

Bruce nods along sagely. "Plenty of time yet in the rest of this month for me to put a good brood in. And one more thing, Jason. One more, ah, show of feelings felt."

Jason blinks, a little lost. "The hell are you on about?"

"If this doesn't work, we will not talk about it," Bruce says sternly, before ducking down to kiss Jason very lightly, very sweetly on the lips.

Oh, man, thinks Jason. This exact scenario has played in almost this exact same body, hey. Wait, what did Bruce mean, about feelings-

The combined mass and sudden force of Jason's rapid return to form is enough to destroy the axle of even the BatChair, and they go tumbling down. Damian's pyjamas are tattered beyond repair, torn even further when Jason reaches 'round to cushion Bruce's head before they hit rock(!) bottom(!), and he's Hulked out of his clothes with Bruce in an awkward embrace while a broken chair stabs him in the ass, and all he can see is Bruce's stupid smug face, all he can feel is a rough calloused hand on his autopsy scar, and all he can think of is true love's kiss ass bastard-

God. You can't say they're normal, but you sure can say that when push comes to shove, they sure as shit don't miss.

A/N: ah shit it was supposed to be a little spicy-horny but then it got real depressing but nevertheless kuro hope u enjoyed this!! i think a lot about how conceptually dying isnt worse than being the cause of death!!

#whale writing #jaybru #happy birthday kuro!!#squeaks in just uhhhh after the stroke of midnight #wrote this in one sitting but i did give it a quick lookover #i think i will expand on this more when i prep it for ao3!!#im fr sooooo obsessed w the concept 'who has it worse between the victim and the survivor' and who else does it like brujay!!

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