#hope it makes sense that jason didn't come back to life until they'd return to gotham and he was covered in her dirt

[brucie-baby]

Eldritch Batman who finds Jason's corpse and uses his own blood to put his son back together and bring him back to life.

bruce who gets his power from gotham, and the farther he is the weaker the connection is. he holds jason's body in his arms, still and quiet and bloody and bruised. he's never done this before. never had to bring somebody back. never thought he could. but he looks at jason's body, looks at jason, and something inside of him screams that he can. that he should. he doesn't quite know how he knows what to do, but he does it anyway. he grabs the first thing he finds in his belt, doesn't pay attention to what it is beyond the fact that it's sharp, and he slices his arm. his blood is different to most humans, because he is different to most humans. it's deep and dark, almost black, but there's also something bright about it, something hard to explain, something hard to see unless you're looking for it.

the deep, dark, bright blood pools on his arm, sliding slowly down until it drips drips drips into the wound on jason's chest, right above his heart. bruce can feel the blood leaving his body but it doesn't feel like a loss. it feels desperate and right and like it's working, like jason is about to open his eyes any minute and he'll be fine and they'll be okay and--

nothing happens. the feeling fades. he tries to chase after it but how do you reach for something that you were never meant to grasp?

his boy is gone. he couldn't save him. all he has left is a bloody batarang and the body that used to be his son's. what else is there to care about?

it doesn't matter what he does next. he doesn't like to think about it.

later there's a man in a red helmet. he's got these skills and this knowledge that jason never had but always had the potential for. he's got a smirk that's just a little too bitter, like a smile that's been burned, that's been scarred. but it's still his smile. it's still jason's.

and bruce doesn't know how. he goes to everyone he knows has been resurrected, tries to find out what brought his son back when he couldn't do it, when he failed.

and then his other son might be dead, blown up just like jason was, and if bruce couldn't save one then he has no hope of saving the other. bruce doesn't know what to do and then suddenly jason is holding a gun to the clown's head and suddenly he's counting down and suddenly bruce's arm is raising and suddenly there's a batarang soaring through the air and ricocheting off a pipe and--

and jason bleeds.

bruce has seen jason bleed before. hazard of the job, he tells himself. he's seen jason bleed, but never like this. never quite so deep and dark, almost black, but with something bright about it. something so very bright.

all he has left is a bloody batarang and a body that might still be his son's.

he doesn't know what to do next.