Chapter Text
He makes the deal still soaked in his children’s blood.
"I do not perform resurrections," the thing says, in a voice that is and is not his mother's. "I only perform unwindings."
The thing, summoned by his rage and pain and fear, here in the remains of the building where he had, not long ago, slit his own son's throat, wears Martha Wayne's face. It is not a kindness.
"Yes," he says. "Yes, anything."
Cass had been just outside of Bludhaven when it happened. Far enough to not to be killed instantly, like Dick. Close enough to go in after him before Bruce could get there.
She's fine for now; she might stay that way. He doesn't know how much radiation she was exposed to. She's injured, a broken arm, a nasty gash down her leg, but alive, sleeping in Tim's room—Tim, recovering now from Jason's attack, but it'll be weeks before he's—and in the morning they'll have to tell him Dick is dead.
He'd been Nightwing, when it happened. Bruce thinks, based on the injuries, that the fall killed him before the radiation could. He's covered in Dick's blood. A little of Cass', too. The thing, he thinks, is standing in the drying pool of Jason's.
"Anything," he says again.
"And how far shall I unwind you?"
"What is an unwinding?" he thinks to ask.
"Time unwound. Reality undone."
Curiosity, briefly, overshadows all the ugly things. "And that's easier than a resurrection? Than just sending me back?"
"Imagine a sweater. One snip, one tug, and it is a pile of yarn. Easier, yes, than to insert a new row without disturbing the rest of it?"
"Unwind me to before Jason died," he says.
"The deal was for a single life. I will not unwind you for two."
"Jason does not stay dead. It would not be a second life restored, only some pain spared."
"A single life. If I unwind past Jason's death, you must choose which of them will live. Something will happen to the other; it will be part of your price."
"And Cass?"
"What of her?"
"The radiation."
"She is not dead yet; she is not part of the deal."
"But if we unwind, she will not have been radiated."
"She will not have been radiated," the thing agrees. "But you must make the deal while she is still alive, if you would save her too."
She had been fine, hadn't she, when he left? Not nearly close enough to death that he needs—that he needs—
He'll hurry.
"Nothing will change but what I choose to do differently? Cass will not be killed early, Jason will not stay dead?"
"Not unless you make a change," the thing agrees.
"And I may choose the time?"
"You may choose the time. But you may only undo one death."
"After Jason's death," he says.
He can't save them both, can't spare Jason the death itself. But he can spare him everything else.
How far back? He doesn't know the exact date, but the earliest reports Talia could find were six months after his death. If he went back to right after, it would let him undo all the things he did wrong with Dick in that time. It would give him fresh grief to explain away any changes. But if he goes too early, he risks losing Tim, losing Cass. Without past Bruce and his fresh, destructive grief, Tim won't come to him.
He's already come too close to losing Tim. Tim would be safer, without him. But a life without Tim in it—he can’t decide.
"After Jason died. A week before he came back. Exactly a week. To the minute." Dick's blood, Cass' blood, are on his hands, on his suit, on his face. The thing stands in Jason's. He doesn’t know exactly when Jason woke up, when it was in relation to Tim becoming Robin. He’ll give himself time to prepare for Jason, and he'll leave Tim to chance.
"Very well. It will be done."
"And what is my price?"
The thing smiles with his mother's mouth. "Anything, you said. I will take anything I please. You will see, in time."
-
Dick is woken, far too early, by a phone call from Bruce.
He hasn't spoken to Bruce in months. He doesn't want to speak to Bruce ever again. He sends it to voicemail.
Bruce calls four more times over the next hour. It's not really a surprise when he shows up at Dick's door.
Dick doesn't let him in. He stands at the threshold, staring like he's seen a ghost, and doesn't speak. Dick stares back, and tries to think what could have Bruce acting like this, and the only—the only—someone must have died. Someone else must have died.
"Alfred?" he asks. There's—there's no one else left.
Bruce frowns, confused. "What about Alfred?"
"Is he okay?"
"He's fine. He's at home."
"Then what are you doing here?"
"You wouldn't answer your phone. I came to see you."
"And since when do you have any interest in seeing me?"
Bruce looks—stricken. Dick, realizing he's not getting rid of him anytime soon, steps out of the doorway so he can come in, and they at least aren't making a scene in the hallway.
"What do you want, Bruce?" he asks, and Bruce just—steps forward and hugs him.
This is such a weird day. Maybe he woke up in the wrong dimension.
"You were dead," Bruce says. "You were dead, and Cass was, and Jay and Tim—"
Okay, maybe Bruce woke up in the wrong dimension. Because Dick doesn't know who those people are. And he woke up in his own apartment, exactly the same as usual, so he would have noticed if he was in a world where he was supposed to be dead, right?
He hugs Bruce back—he's still pissed, but if this is some different Bruce, some Bruce who loved him and lost him—they'll figure it out later. He hugs Bruce back.
-
"I'm so sorry," Bruce says. "I'm so sorry."
It hurts, being here with this Dick who's so angry—so rightfully angry—at him, this Dick who hasn't spoken to his father in months. Not as much as it had hurt, last night, carrying his body into the cave. But it still hurts.
They sit across from each other on two ratty little thrift store arm chairs, because Dick was too angry to use Bruce's money for anything when he left.
"Bruce," Dick says slowly, carefully, "I think you might be in the wrong place."
"The wrong place?"
"I'm not dead. And I don't know who Tim and Cass are. Have you fought anyone lately who can mess with dimensions?"
"I'm not from a different dimension, Dick. I'm from a different time."
"The future?"
"I came back to save you."
Dick stands abruptly. "Get out."
"What?"
"You had the chance to go back in time, and you used it to save me."
"Yes?"
"Not Jason."
“I had to—”
"How could you let him—he's your son. I'm not your anything. Not anymore."
"You didn't want to be my son, Dick. You already had a dad. And I didn't know how to be one yet. But you're still—I still love you. I love you too much to live in a world without you."
“You should love Jason that much.”
“I do, Dick. I do.” He wouldn’t have thought of doing something like this, when Jason died. He’s been through so much since then. And now he’s getting all of his kids back. “Jason will be all right. I couldn't save both of you this way, but he'll be all right. We'll get to him in time. He's coming back, and we'll be there."
“What are you talking about?”
“He came back, Dick. He woke up in his coffin. I don’t dare to dig him up early—I don’t want to change anything, and prevent him from waking up at all. But we’ll be watching, and we’ll be there as soon as he comes back, this time.”
Dick processes the information quickly, and believes him, or seems to. Dick still trusts him, even as damaged as their relationship was in this era.
Dick is alive.
“What happened last time?” he asks.
“He woke up, and got lost, and we didn’t know for years. He never—he was alive, but he never really came home. He went through horrible things alone, horrible things I only half know because he wasn’t speaking to us, but he doesn’t—it won’t be like that, now. We’ll be here for him.”
“We’ll be here,” Dick agrees. “What else do I need to know?”
“That depends. Has there been a boy trying to convince you to come back to Gotham?”
“No. Should there be?”
No Tim, then. If he doesn’t show up in the next week, Bruce won’t have Tim.
And Tim will be safe, and it will be for the best. It will have to be.
-
He sets his alarm for two hours before Jason's resurrection, though he doesn't sleep at all that night. When the alarm goes off, he drives to the cemetery. The trunk is full of digging equipment, blankets, and emergency medical equipment. He doesn't tell Alfred. He's going to have to make up an explanation, eventually, but he just—can't, right now.
Dick meets him at the cemetery, and they unload the trunk. Bruce stands in front of the grave, eyes on his watch, waiting.
"When can we start digging?" Dick asks.
"Not until I'm sure he's back. I don't want to risk disturbing anything."
Twenty minutes before the resurrection, Bruce spends several seconds working himself up into a state of convincing panic, and calls 911. His son can't breathe right. His lips are turning blue. There's something wrong. There's something wrong. Send help.
He gives an address, then hangs up before anyone can question him about an emergency that doesn't yet exist. Twenty minutes is the longest the ambulance could possibly take to reach them, which means he's probably going to spend ten or fifteen minutes trying to convince EMTs he's not insane while he digs up his son's grave, but he can't risk them showing up too late.
He considered asking Clark to run them to the emergency room, but he was worried about the speed or the wind resistance worsening something. Besides, if the timing works out (or even if it doesn't—he brought his own supplies) they'll have Jay on a respirator and a heart monitor within a couple seconds of clearing the ground. And he can still call Clark, if anything goes wrong.
The ambulance arrives fourteen minutes later—convenient for his purposes, but an abysmal response time for respiratory distress. Dick runs out to stall them; if they think Bruce is having a mental breakdown and take him to the hospital, everything falls apart.
He waits until the exact minute he landed in the past, and then sixty seconds more, just to be sure. And then he starts digging.
He's barely started when Dick vaults over the still-locked cemetery gate and grabs the second shovel. It will take a few minutes for the EMTs to get in. Sometime in the last ten minutes it's started pouring, and he does feel bad they're getting wet. Hopefully they don't give up and leave.
"Mr. Wayne!" one calls. "Mr. Wayne, are you all right? Can you open the gate?"
"I don't have a key," he shouts back.
"Are you in danger? Is anyone hurt?"
Bruce flings another shovelful of dirt away. "I think my son has a collapsed lung!"
"The son who just jumped the gate?"
The shovel hits wood. "No, the other son," he calls back, and he drops to the ground to clear some space. This close, he can hear Jay's scrabbling and thumping over the pounding of the rain. "Let them in," he tells Dick, and takes his prybar to the coffin lid, making a mental note to buy the cheapest, flimsiest coffins available in the future.
"Bruce?" Jason asks, when there's a hole large enough they can see each other.
The EMTs are on top of them before he can answer, and Bruce forces himself to step back, to stay out of the way, as they clear enough debris to get him out, determine he's safe to move, lift him onto a stretcher, and give him an oxygen mask.
Dick stays behind. Bruce rides along in the ambulance, holding Jason’s hand. He'd almost forgotten how small Jason was when he died. So small for his age. So young.
He’s going to be fine. It’s going to be so much better.
Jason is rushed into surgery as soon as they reach the hospital, and Bruce waits in the lobby until Jim shows up. He looks down at himself, covered in mud, just a little bit of blood at the edge of his sleeves. Someone from the ambulance must have called the police. He’s lucky Jim came over himself. They wind up in an empty exam room.
“So everyone’s wondering why you were in a graveyard with a shovel at the exact moment your son somehow came back from the dead.”
“I had a dream,” Bruce says, “and it was—it was so real. I was sure it was real. So I called Dick to meet me, and I called the ambulance to meet me, and I went to get him.”
“And when you told the ambulance your son was experiencing respiratory distress? Before you dug him up?”
“I didn’t want them to think I was a crazy person. He would have had respiratory distress, if he’d stayed in the coffin long.”
“All right,” Jim said. “Given the…unique circumstances, I doubt there’ll be much trouble about breaking into the cemetery after hours. Or lying to the 911 operator. Good luck with Jason, Bruce. Is it okay if I tell Barbara?”
“Of course.”
-
Dick loads everything back into Bruce’s trunk and drives his car to the manor; he’ll have to come back for his own car later.
It’s going to be his job to wake Alfred and explain things. Which he gets—of course Bruce should go to the hospital, of course Jason should have his dad with him. But Bruce hasn’t even told Alfred about the time travel, and he doesn’t want Dick to, either, and this is just going to be a weird conversation.
Everything with Bruce is weird right now. They’ve talked every day this week. Bruce is obviously trying super hard, and he’s obviously really shaken up by Dick’s future death, and, like—Dick is glad to know how much Bruce really loves him, after the absolutely terrible last six months. But it was—it’s just so different, so suddenly.
Alfred meets him at the door.
“I saw on the cameras—thank goodness you’re here. Master Bruce is not in the house, he isn’t answering his phone, and he didn’t go out as Batman. He’s been so reckless, ever since—ever since Jason—I don’t know if—”
“It’s okay, Alfred. He called me. From the cemetery.”
“The cemetery? At this hour? In a storm?”
“Yeah, um, he was saying—he was saying Jason was alive. Was really insistent on it. I was worried, so I went to meet him. And he was right. Somehow—somehow—he dug up the coffin, and Jay was alive in there. They’re at the hospital now. I said I’d come get you.”
Alfred looks somehow both older than he ever has before, and very young. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure, Alfred. Let’s go see him.”