theknightshift | inbox (etraya)

( one of the few times when he'd consider meeting in person to be fine.

it doesn't take him all that long to reach the ping — helps to have his batmobile and, in having that, of course he arrives in his batman suit. the car is parked, tucked away within the shadows much as he himself often keeps himself, only slipping from them to make his way closer to the safehouse, cape flowing behind him as he does.

his steps are slow. almost heavy. much like the expression he wears on his face is. one that, despite the greasepaint and the cowl he wears, is easy enough to spot for anyone who might know him, regardless of iteration. )

[ Jason isn't a safe topic. And if Bruce had his way? They wouldn't be discussing it at all. He doesn't like that he doesn't really have to guess why this younger version wants to talk about Jason because it seems the kid can't catch a break in any universe. He doesn't like it and doesn't want to talk about it. But he will. If only help this Bruce avoid his mistakes.

The safehouse isn't ideal. He sweeps it for bugs regularly. After finding Langstrom's tucked away, he moved the space to an adjacent room and set up shop there instead. He's sure Kirk's figured it out by now, but if he hasn't, it's not really Bruce's problem.

He's under dressed when the other Bat arrives, while he works at repairing the armor plates damaged during his time here. He doesn't look up from his work even when the Other Bruce shows up. ]

So, talk.

( he’d rather not talk about this at all, but. this isn’t entirely about him. this isn’t for him and given the subject matter of this conversation they’re about to have, he doesn’t really know who else to discuss this with. maybe dick, if he wasn’t already here at this safehouse with his counterpart tinkering with whatever it is he’s currently focused on. nope. doesn’t like that. too much like him beneath the tower in wayne terminal. hiding away from everyone.

again, he’s not here about himself.

standing a little ways from where his older counterpart is, he stares to him for a moment before he’s looking down. looking for the words now that he’s here. )

Jason went back to his Gotham.

( silence and it’s heavy. )

Are we wrong for not doing something more with Joker?

( each and every one of them. that’s really all he needs to say for the older man to piece together what happened, isn’t it? )

[ He says it and Bruce already knows what the silence that comes after means. A deep, unending sense of regret and anger and pain. He stops for a moment because there's always some part of him that has to mourn his son all over again. Even if he's alive and well back home and they're not at each other's throats. He's still a loss. Someone he loved had died again and there'd been nothing he could do about it.

The grief is silent and piercing but Bruce puts it back where it belongs and then he gets back to work. ]

Like what? Arkham is the best solution we have.

Edited 2026-01-02 05:41 (UTC)

( there’s a lot to feel here. a lot he wishes he didn’t have to. when he’d returned to his own gotham, he’d seen that alfred had pulled through — that the riddler, in his quest to kill bruce wayne, hadn’t taken alfred away from him by mistake with that package. with that bomb addressed to him. alfred had been lucky. jason… hadn’t and he doesn’t know exactly what it is he’s feeling or trying to process in knowing that, in another gotham somewhere, this boy he’s taken into his life here in etraya has died at the hands of the joker… and there’s nothing he can do about it. just like he couldn’t with alfred.

the older man asks and the silence from him is still heavy as he stares to the floor, jaw tight. he’s had this sort of conversation before albeit lightly and with damian when he was older. how he fails to protect his son by not allowing himself to permanently end the joker and how he’ll have to carry that with him for the rest of his life and how the joker knows that. the joker, who, he’s only dealt with for a year now back in his own gotham. completely unaware of the lengths he’ll go to hurt him. to get his attention as it were. as though they’re forever locked in something together and everyone else around them is merely decoration to be taken down and destroyed whenever.

he can’t kill him. just as he couldn’t kill riddler. if he does, he won’t be able to stop. won’t be able to draw the line anymore. but with his refusing to, so many around him end up hurt. end up dead. even those he’s yet to meet. )

Is it?

( it’s all he can ask initially before he takes a moment to swallow. )

What do you say to your son who comes back from the dead — who’d been killed by Joker because of you? Sorry?

( the word comes off heavy, angry, filled with guilt. he doesn’t know what to do and that’s a dangerous thing for someone like him when he’s fighting tooth and nail to keep all that anger within him checked. )

[ It lives with him. Every terrible moment he's ever had to live through lives in every fiber and atom of Bruce Wayne. Jason's death always weighs heavy because in some visceral way, it felt like losing Thomas and Martha all over again. It had pulled out something dark in him and he channeled all of that anger into this - the suit and tools scattered around him like macabre little mementos.

Jason's death hadn't been any different. It twisted that dark ugly thing into something deeper. He doesn't like to think about how close he'd come to killing the Joker. How he's always wanted to visit every horror he's ever inflicted on the people of Gotham to him until the light bled out of his eyes. He didn't like the kind of man killing the Joker would make him.

He works and works to give his hands something to do. To illustrate how much he doesn't want to think about this. To not think about heads in duffel bags and that glass case holding Jason's suit still stained with his blood. Or that moment when his batarang sank in deep in Jason's neck. He doesn't want to think about any of this.

Why is this man bringing all of these terrible memories up again? ]

Say what you think is best. Then let it go. Killing the Joker won't fix what he did to Jason. It won't fix your guilt. It won't make Jason better. It won't do anything except make you exactly like him.

[ In every terrible way. ]

Why are you asking me this? Did something happen?

( that’s not good enough. it can’t be. he knows he can’t give in to his anger and kill the joker like so many want him to. if there’s anyone who truly understands that heaviness and the anger and guilt that comes with making that choice, it would be his counterpart. his older self. who’s lived through so much more than he has. who’s carried so much more than he currently does. regardless of how uncomfortable they might make each other, he can’t deny it and it’s why he’s here.

somehow it seems fitting their children or the joker himself would be a reason for his coming to him. )

Because I found our son on the kitchen floor beaten and scarred and in a panic. ( our son, because no matter their feelings towards each other, their children are both of theirs. ) He left here and went back to his Gotham. Joker killed him.

( and he has absolutely no idea what to do for him, if the inflection of anger in his tone wasn’t obvious enough. )

[ It isn't good enough, but it has to be. Because life as the Bat isn't going to be cut and dry. It's going to be messy and painful and unfair. He's going to be faced with impossible choices and impossible odds and he's got to rise to meet them all or they are going to crush him as decisively as it very nearly crushed this Bruce.

It has to be enough because there are too many lives hanging in the balance.

Bruce expects the answer he's given, but it still digs in deep and leaves a fresh wound behind. Because it's another moment, another chance to save Jason and his counterpart failed again. It twists inside of him and he feels the loss all over again. ]

If he's been dipped in the Lazarus Pit, he's going to be angry. At you. At me. At all of us.

[ Bruce keeps working. He has to. ]

I suggest you prepare for it.

( no. he still can’t accept that. can’t accept that no matter what they do, they can’t protect them. can’t protect the people they care for and love. can’t protect their children.

it bubbles over inside him. still young, still emotional, still angry and scarred with the past he carries on his shoulders. it’s enough to make him move — to stalk his way over to his other self, steps heavy, and he grabs at his arm, demanding his attention. )

That’s not good enough.

( as quickly as the anger comes, he lets go of his counterpart’s arm and he turns away, staring in silent anger across the safehouse. it’s difficult not to feel it bleeding off him. his anger, his guilt, his heartache for their son. it’s only after a moment he lets his eyes fall shut and it takes everything within him to steel himself there in his emotions. )

This is our fault. We shouldn’t have brought any of them into this life.

( they should go it alone, he means. as he’s done the past two years in his own gotham. )

[ He knows that. He knows it's not good enough. Because Jason's death will be a guilt that eats away at him for the rest of his life. He's had to learn to live with it and all of the failures that came with it. Just like he had to learn to live with Thomas and Martha's deaths. Just like he had to learn to live with Dick's and Tim's and Damian's and Alfred's. He takes all of that pain and anger and grief and he turns it into a weapon to wield against the forces that make Gotham the dangerous place she can be.

But it still doesn't give him the right to take a life. Not if it can be saved. If you can save the life, Thomas said, You save the life.

Being grabbed is what finally gets him to stop working and he looks down at the gauntlet gripping his arm. ]

No. I didn't want this for any of them. But Dick was going to get himself killed. Jason was going to become another statistic. Tim wouldn't take no for an answer.

[ He won't say he saved them. But he tried to give them something better. A place for all of that energy to go. ]

( he hasn't lived this yet. not back in his gotham. he doesn't even have a young, newly orphaned dick grayson in his care. he'd only just put a stop to the riddler — has only been at this for two years so far. he doesn't even know how far off he is from potentially meeting those who will come to be seen as his as they have for his counterpart and, with everything that he learns... with everything that keeps happening to them... he doesn't know if he should come across them.

he turns again. faces the older man. expression hard and filled with... things. so many things. all the things that bruce wayne continuously swallows down and refuses to speak about, even when it starts to taste like bile and begs to be coughed up. he refuses. to no one's surprise. )

We fail them. Time and time again. Nothing we do is good enough. We're not good enough.

If you can't handle this then don't take them on.

[ If he feels this strongly about it. If he doesn't think he can handle losing them in the worst ways. Because them dying isn't the worst way. Batman was made to be solitary. Having a Robin made the loneliness a little less crippling. Made it a little easier to keep his hope alive. Made the world a little less bleak. But he didn't need that. Not to complete the Mission. ]

Send Dick into foster care. I'm sure you have the resources to make sure he ends up in a good home. Use a Wayne charity to redirect Jason. His mother is a drug addict. Help her and you'll likely help him. [ And without Jason there is no Tim. ] And live this life alone.

[ This Bruce should. But he won't. His children are too important to ever push them away that completely. ]

( five words. five little words — if you can't handle this — is all it takes for the parts of him there to crack. )

All I've ever done since coming here is handle this. Handle your messes.

( with damian, mostly, as it had been the two of them for a year together almost, before he left and came back... smaller... different. but then there'd been jason who he'd taken in — who he'd made the effort to try and bring around so as not to be on his own given how much of himself and his anger he saw in the kid. anger over things the bruce wayne he knew had done or said or hadn't. )

Trying to fix what you and him broke in these children.

( damian, jason. the things he's heard about their fathers — the bruce waynes they know. )

[ It's subtle, but Bruce's jaw tightens. His messes like this man had any right to judge him when he's not even taken off the training wheels. Like he knows what he's talking about when this life hasn't squeezed him until he broke. He's not had his back broken across Bane's knee. He hasn't sucked down Ivy's pollen or Crane's toxin. He hasn't had his heart broken over and over and over again and been expected to keep going.

He doesn't know shit. ]

Then why are you here whining to me? Go fix them. Since you seem to know how.

[ He has a suit to repair. Run along, baby Bruce. ]

( this is pointless. he doesn’t even know why he bothered coming here. why he thought this man — this other version of himself could offer even the slightest bit of help with this — with their son that isn’t just deal with it.

so his own jaw tightens, hand curls into a fist at his side and it takes everything within him to not lash out with all that anger and guilt and heartache boiling over through the cracks in his armour right then and there. it takes everything within him to not and yet, as he turns, cape billowing behind him and steps heavy as he starts to leave, he can’t help but say and with such vitriol: )

Yeah. While I’m at it, I’ll be sure to save Alfred, too, since you couldn’t even do that.

[ Bruce had been content to let this argument go. He'd been content to let this man walk out of here without another insult because it was pointless to keep speaking with him when he was letting his emotions cloud his judgement. He's still young. He hasn't learned how to stop doing that. So he gets back to work, picks up his tools and tries to forget this conversation happened at all.

Then he says that and Bruce's grip on the tool in his hand tightens. He had a million ways to drive in the knife. It seems he chose the worst one. In an instant he whirls around and throws the tool in his hand, aiming for where the suit connects, where it's typically weakest. Bruce would make him eat those words, if he had to punch them back into his mouth. ]

( he knew the reaction his words would spark the moment they left his lips. that had been the point after all. to twist the knife between the cracks of his armour just a little harder — make him really feel it as a sort of screw you for everything that’s happened. he knew the topic — the loss of alfred would be too difficult of a pain to ignore or swallow down and it’s why the moment he feels that tool lodge itself between the weak spots of his suit, he accepts it, even if he stumbles forward from the impact.

the sound that leaves him is sharp and gargled and he wastes no time in throwing a batarang of his own back towards his counterpart, hearing the way it slices through the air for him. the tool is pulled out — clatters to the ground the moment it’s dropped, and he’s coming at him. fast. heavy. filled with an anger and a heartache that neither of them ever truly admit to. not even with themselves. it overrides the pain from the injury, an adrenaline all on its own. but he comes at him regardless. intending to throw a punch at him even if he knows it’s charged with emotion. just like at the subway station. just like in the alley. )

[ He hates himself for it because he recognized it for what it was the minute it seeped into his brain: bait. He wanted a reaction and Bruce, stupid, silly, emotional Bruce gave it to him. But those words had cut deep and this man had the audacity to say them like he understood that kind of pain. Like putting on the cowl gave him permission to judge when he'd barely even scratched the surface of what this life meant.

And Bruce couldn't let him get away with it.

The batarang slices into his shoulder, cuts deep across the skin and some of the muscle before he embeds itself into the wall behind him. But Bruce didn't care, not about the pain or the blood seeping out of the wound and soaking his shirt. He only cared about pushing forward. The punch lands against his wound as Bruce pivots his body toward it, aiming to drag the other man close so he can use his weight to send him into the workbench. ]

( they've done this dance before. an intimate one of unchecked emotions and exchanged blows against bone and batsuit, some even landing deep across broken hearts. because for all he says about their children being broken in ways neither of them are so sure they can fix, they're both just as broken themselves, if not worse, and their inability to either admit or compromise that with one another is a surefire way for this right here to always happen at some point.

it's a strange and jarring form of self-loathing no one should ever have to endure, yet if anyone would, it would be bruce wayne. of course it would.

he's knocked into the workbench, materials scattering to the floor as he falls over onto the other side of the bench and hits the ground hard. there's a gasp — a possibility of something having lodged itself between the spaces of his suit, but he ignores it as he reaches up to grab the workbench and just barely pulls himself up. spitting out a mouthful of blood, he allows himself a few breaths before he's looking up to his other self, blue eyes shining with a mix of everything there beneath the thick greasepaint. )

Why do we keep losing them?

( he manages to get the words out despite how difficult it is. )

Everyone we care about... why can't we protect them?

( and there's genuine pain there in his voice as he asks that. not from any physical injury having been endured, but from a heart that still breaks every time he deals with a loss. )

[ The worst part is he doesn't have an answer. The question hits him square in the chest and Bruce doesn't know what to say. He can't explain why he can't keep the people he loves more than life itself safe. Knowing that he's not fast enough, good enough, that he can't stretch himself thin enough to cover them all eats away at him like a parasite. It's why he pushes himself so hard. So he can do better. So he can be better and so they won't ever have to suffer again.

The question hits and bites deeper than the batarang had and it takes the fight out of him. He looks at the other Bruce, almost envies him because he hasn't had to live with this gnawing sense of guilt for nearly as long. He still has the choice to keep this life a lonely one. It isn't the same without them. Bruce won't ever say it would be better without them. But at least he'd be spared the heartache. ]

I don't know.

[ the words fall out of his mouth as he presses a hand against the bleeding wound. ]

But I wouldn't trade them. Not any of them. Not for anything.

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