etrayalogs | you must've seen this coming; closed

you must've seen this coming; closed

WHO: Jason (Titans)

copsormasks , Bruce Wayne (Comics)

theknightshift , and eventually Bruce Wayne (The Batman)

batsymbol
WHEN: In the second half of the mission, when things get weird
WHERE: Random alleyway
WHAT: Violence
NOTES\WARNINGS: Violence, descriptions of injuries, etc.

[Jason is out on his own for the first night since arriving and it feels fucking amazing. As much as he has enjoyed life as the dynamic duo again, Jason has always more of a lone wolf. Tonight, he's on his own, on his bike as he makes his way across San Francisco. He pauses when he spots the familiar jewelry store he and Bruce helped save earlier in the mission. However, as he kills the engine of his bike, he hears something. Metal on bone, screams, begging, and Jason stupidly surges around the corner and into they alley without so much as half a plan.

What he sees startles him.

It's... Bruce? The other Bruce? The other Bruce is wailing on this burglar with what looks to be a crowbar. What the actual fuck? Jason dashes forward, again without a plan. He reaches up and catches one end of the crowbar in his gloved hands, trying to pull it back to prevent another strike.]

What the fuck are you doing!

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[ Bruce is...unwell. The descent had been a slow fall down a sheer cliff, steady and unrelenting. No slip, no sudden drop. Just that constant pull forward, inch by inch, until the ground was gone beneath him and all that's left is the wind, shrieking in his ears - and the certainty that the crash, when it came, would be final.

The crash comes when he picks up the crowbar for the first time. When the first skull gives way underneath it. When the hot spray of blood hits him and he doesn't flinch. When the rage boiling inside him doesn't burn out, but roars higher. When no part of him comes to his senses.

Tonight, he isn't Batman. No cape. No cowl. Just all black tactical gear and a domino to keep the blood out of his eyes. Jason finds him in the thick of it, the man beneath him begging for mercy. Bruce doesn't hear it over the wet crack of the crowbar hitting bone again and again and ---

There's a pull, a drag, added weight to the crowbar that wasn't there before. He turns to look, see the intruder. It's Jason. Bruce knows it's Jason but for an erratic heartbeat - sharp and dizzying - it's Sam. Sam's hands. Sam's voice. Sam's face. Like the dream had finally slipped its leash, taken shape with him here in the alley. His chest feels tight, head swims, eyes burn. He shoves Jason back, hard, so he can get back to the work that matters. ]

I'm working. Go home.

Edited 2025-08-10 15:37 (UTC)

[The crowbar is painted with gore, grey matter, and blood and it's easy for Jason to lose his grip on it, even as he tries his best. The shove is not unexpected, but Bruce is at least one if not two weight classes above him. Jason stumbles back into a couple bins before he can get his feet back under him.]

I'm not going anywhere.

[Jason dives for the crowbar again, fingers barely wrapping around the bloodied tail.]

Get the fuck out of here! [He calls to the man on the ground and it doesn't take even a heart beat for the guy to get up and run for his life.]

[ His prey flees into the night and Bruce shifts to give chase, but the tug comes again- insistent, breaking his momentum. He turns on the boy and sees him. Jason. His kid. Someone he loves. The recognition hits like a breath of fresh air. But it doesn't last. The heat of the rage scorches it away clean and all that's left is. Nothing. The hunt. The throb of blood in his ears. The visceral need to destroy. ]

Let go. He's getting away.

[Jason barely keeps his grip as he looks from Bruce to the fleeing burglar. It's a distraction, he's focused on something other than Bruce as the burglar turns a corner and disappears from sight.

It's a mistake that Jason doesn't usually make.]

[ The burglar's footsteps fade into nothing. Bruce strains to hear them, but he's gone. Escaped. The realization strikes like a match on dry tinder - sudden, searing, unstoppable. There's some distant part of him that tries to put it out, but it burns him, scorches his insides until he thinks he might breathe out the smoke. He wrenches the crowbar free, the weight of it an anchor for his rage, and swings it at Jason's face. ]

This is your fault!

[Jason looks up at the movement, but doesn't have time to duck, he brings up his gauntlets instinctively in a boxer's guard, but in the heat of the moment has forgotten that one is broken. His damaged left gauntlet stands between him and a face full of crowbar, but his forearm cracks with the force of the swing and the shock of it sends Jason stumbling back into the bins. He clutches at his arm, his vision whites out for a moment as pain bursts through him.]

What the fuck is wrong with you!

[His voice is thick with pain as he stares up at Bruce.]

[ the crunch of bone is a satisfying sound. It cuts the rage, tempers it into purpose. It propels Bruce toward Jason, arm raised to strike him again. ]

You won’t leave me alone. So now I’m going to make you.

What? [Jason reaches for the lid of one of the bins as an emergency shield, deeply unaware of just how flimsy aluminum trash cans really are.] I just want to help.

[ The crowbar lands on the lid. The sound is wrong - ugly, clattering aluminum bending under the force of the blow. I just want to help. It should have broken the fever. Burned out the rage. But it doesn't. It only makes Bruce angrier. ]

Go. away.

[The aluminum crunches around Jason’s good arm and there’s a moment of fear that skitters up his spine but he ignores it.]

No! You told me to trust you. Just stop.

[He doesn’t wait for Bruce to stop. Instead he’s swinging out his leg to try and knockthe crowbar from Bruce’s hands.]

[ Just stop. It should be easy to do nothing. To back away. Put the crowbar down. But something dark inside of him insists Jason has to pay for the interruption. Then he could stop. Then he could finally rest.

The kick lands, but Bruce's grip on the crowbar is iron tight. He sees Jason's face - familiar, beloved - and swings for his jaw. ]

[The swing takes Jason by surprise. One moment, he’s standing back up from the kick and the next, the crowbar is cracking against the side of his head. It impacts his cheek and eye socket and downs him as his ears begin to ring with the force of a thousand bells.

He stares at the asphalt as he tries to recover, but in this moment, he’s helpless.]

[ Bone cracks under the weight of his swing and the fever burning inside of feels like a furnace now. That sickening sound plays on repeat, not as a warning, but as encouragement. This would fix things. This would let him sleep without seeing Sam's face. Close his eyes without that suffocating sense of being watched. Bruce looms over Jason, arm raised for another strike and brings it down as hard as he can, before the kid can escape. ]

[Jason is just trying to defend himself at this point, but his vision is blurred as he tries to find the crowbar in his swimming vision. The crowbar cracks down against his skull and Jason blacks out for a moment. There’s something feral in the panic that seizes Jason. His mouth is full of his blood as he opens it to say something, anything but his mind is so buzzed he can’t do anything but breathe.

In his brief moment of clear instinct, Jason pulls off his ear piece and presses the emergency ping installed.

Please be there, Bruce.]

( Did he go and tell Jason that he installed a tracker within that suit he made for him? No? Well, seems like he was right to, because the second he gets that emergency ping, he's already on his way over to Jason's location like a bat out of Hell.

He'd been close by to begin with — keeping an eye from a distance on Jason what with everything that had happened earlier on that run they did together. However, he's wishing now that he'd been closer and had just been there to begin with when he arrives and sees what he's stumbled into... and that same fear with Alfred — with Damian — overtakes him and is quickly replaced with anger.

Before any more strikes can be dealt to Jason, a batarang is cutting sharply through the air for the hand holding the crowbar, followed by another straight for the head, and he's coming down from the rooftops with his cape flared and his boot striking right for the center of the other's chest. )

[ The batarang does its job. Bruce doesn't register the sharp whistle of it cutting through the air until until it's too late. The kevlar blunts the damage, but the impact shocks his hand open, sending the crowbar clattering somewhere out of reach. The second finds it's mark and without the cowl to protect him, it slices clean through his scalp. Warm blood slips down his temple in slow rivulets that follow the curve of his cheek down into his collar. Pain blooms after it, though it withers under the adrenaline and anger still coiling and twisting in side of him.

His head snaps up, in time to catch the sight of Bruce - a familiar, bat shaped terror - descending on him. As if he were the one wrong here. His boot collides and sends Bruce back into the cans he'd chased Jason into. He recovers quickly, though the crowbar is gone. It doesn't stop him. It doesn't even slow him down. The snarl in his throat is low, visceral as he drives forward again. Metal rattles as he shoulders his way past the trash cans, scattering the contents across the alley. Now Bruce is in the way. He cannot rest with him here. And that winds him up tighter, drives him toward a swing at his younger self he has no business taking. One his right mind would never have allowed. ]

[Jason see’s Bruce’s shadow and that’s it. Jason rolls onto his good side, cradling his broken arm to his chest as he tries to crawl away. Blood rushes from his nose and mouth and his entire face feels cracked and broken with each grimace. His domino mask falls away, cracked and broken as he spits up a mouthful of dark blood.]

( In the fleeting glance he tosses back to Jason, he catches sight of the state he's in — knows he has to get him out of here — but he has, what looks like, a compromised version of himself barreling towards him and he needs to deal with him and quick.

That's fine. He has the anger for it.

Pulled out from under his cape, he grips a compact baton in his one hand, the other coming up to block the hit with his forearm. Shadows burst up from the ground at the seemingly behest of the younger bat and they shroud him within wisps of darkness, obstructing the other's view. Through those shadows comes a swing of the baton for the man's neck — he pivots. Rams the end of it against the man's chest and stomach then chest and stomach again and again in quick and heavy succession, pushing him back within the shadows and out of them entirely. )

[ Shadows burst from the ground and for the first time Bruce stops. He tries to navigate his confusion with the same kind of efficiency he's used to in the field, but it feels like it's happening slowly. Like he's trying to wade through fog.

The plates of his armor aren't heavy, not like the ones he'd have in his batsuit, so when the first blow comes, it knocks the wind from him. Leaves him trying to catch his breath, regain his bearings, keep his balance. He can't see through the shadows and it leaves him open, vulnerable to each of the other Bat's rapid-fire hits with his baton. The last hit drives Bruce to his knees, coughing and wheezing. ]

[Jason finally comes to a stop less than a few feet from where he started. He collapses onto his back as he enters the street and the blood covering his face drips down onto the concrete as he falls unconscious.]

( The moment his other self drops to his knees, he knows he should relent — that he should focus on Jason and getting him out of here. But the anger inside him swells to a point of being unable to see or feel anything else and he grips the compact baton in his hand so tight, his fingers feel as if they might break. He wants to crack it across his face — to do to him what he’s done to Jason, but. It’s only because of who he is to Damian that he shows even a drop of mercy to him and, instead, he slams the back of his closed fist against the man’s face, strong enough to knock him over to the ground.

Breathing ragged, he stares down to the other version of himself and points the end of the baton towards him, voice thick with anger. )

Stay away from Jason and Damian. You come near either of my sons, I’ll end you myself.

( It’s not a threat, but a promise. )

[ The blow blow snaps his head to the side, a sharp crack that leaves his ears ringing. Blood floods his mouth and he spits it out while he works through another painful breath. Through the haze, Bruce's gaze finds the baton pointed at him. Whatever warning the other Bat is giving is lost in the pounding in his skull and behind his eyes.

He doesn't care. He will not yield. Sleep would have to wait. ]

( The baton is strapped to his back as he eyes the state of the other man. There’s still that part of him — the rush of adrenaline that comes from his anger that wants to lay into the other man until he’s in worse of a state than Jason is, but. He doesn’t. It takes every ounce of willpower within him to not give into the anger still there in his veins and turn away from the other man towards Jason. Whether or not his words were heard, he figures his point has been made.

Steps are heavy but quick — he drops down to a knee and carefully touches the boy. His heart aches, his mind screams with fear, with anger, and he forces himself to grab hold of Jason’s fallen items before he goes and lifts the boy’s limp body into his arms. He doesn’t stand, just cradles Jason there against him before he looks over to the other man a ways from them. Eyes narrowed, shadows begin to bleed out from under him, crawling along the asphalt. Gently, he turns his attention back to Jason there and how utterly broken he looks against him. )

I’ve got you.

( Words soft and unheard, he sinks into the shadows around them, Jason cradled against him, disappearing from sight and leaving the other man alone. )

[Jason doesn't wake up the entire trip to the hospital. He doesn't wake up as he's assessed, or as he's wheeled in and out of surgery to put pins in his arm, to reconstruct his broken eye socket and mend various facial fractures. There's talk of how he's lucky to be alive, how he will need extensive time to heal, but Jason misses all of that.

Instead, he stirs in the middle of the night, his mind still buzzing as he tries to figure out where he is. He turns to see a dark figure next to him and fear shoots through him. He tries to crawl away, his vision still foggy and his left arm strapped to his chest.

It takes a moment for the dark shadow to clear up and for the younger Bruce to come into view. Jason breathes out and sags back down to the bed. Pain replaces the fear as he watches Bruce.]

Bruce? [Jason's throat is dry and sticky from multiple surgeries.]

Edited 2025-08-11 19:17 (UTC)

( Bruce hasn't left his side.

Aside from the moments of surgery when he wasn't allowed, he's been right there beside him, much as he had been with Alfred back in his Gotham. Like that, he's there, slumped over some in a chair, having given in to the moment of rest his body had been unable to fight off. The moment he hears his name, however, he instantly stirs from the light slumber he'd fallen into and looks over to Jason with tired but concerned blue eyes. )

Yeah. ( The word soft, he takes a second to swallow as he straightens up there in the armchair. ) I'm here.

( Like back in Gotham, given the "status" he has for himself here in this world, they're on a private floor and in a private room of the hospital. It's just them, save for when a nurse comes to check on Jason every now and then. )

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