Originally posted on my Tumblr : https://ellana-ravenwood.tumblr.com/post/676198500378279936/how-terrible-it-is-to-love-something-that-death
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You wanted him to shut up.
You'd do anything for him to not utter another word.
Punch him in the face with all your might. Leave and never come back. Duct tape his mouth. Throw him in a closet and lock it forever...
Anything for him to stop talking. For you not to hear what he's about to say.
"Jason..."
You can feel your legs buckle under you, as if they just turned into cotton.
You knew what he was going to say. You knew ever since you saw him come back alone, his face emotionless. He could never stay emotionless around you...So you knew. You knew what happened.
But you didn't want to hear it.
"Jason..."
Thanks God Alfred is right next to you, or you would have fall.
You grab the butler's arm, and he catches you.
He knows too what your husband is about to say, he knows to, how broken you two are going to be, and he knows he has to be strong to try and mend you back together.
And so when your weight fall on his side, your surrogate father catches you.
He'll always be there to catch you.
He finally says it. After his explanation of how the Joker got your boy...He finally says it. Those few dreaded words.
"Jason...Jason isn't coming back."
He tries to stay stoic, to not bow down. To not get completely destroyed by the death of his son. He tries to stay strong, for you.
But he cannot hide the sadness filling his eyes when he looks at you, falling on Alfred like that.
You're shocked. And he waits for you to regain your senses. He waits, trying to stand tall, for you to come back from your shock and...be mad at him.
Truly angry because it is his fault you lost your son.
He waits for you to come to him, and hit his chest as hard as you can, he waits for you to let your hatred for him flow.
It's his fault your son died. His.
He should have never allowed him to become Robin, never. It was so selfish of him. Dick left, and went to do his own thing, and he found Jason and...The boy was so enthusiastic.
He couldn't resist him. He trained him, took him in as his son.
And now he was dead. And it was all his fault.
You pulled away from Alfred, wiping tears off of your cheek. The man you came to call "dad" hands you a handkerchief, and you take it, trying to dry the ever flowing stream of salty tears coming out of your eyes.
You finally pull away from Alfred, and look at Bruce.
Your eyes are so filled with pain and misery that he cannot hold your stare. He bent his head down, trying as hard as he can to remain stoic still.
He feels and hears you more than he sees you coming close to him, and he's ready for you to hit him with all your strength. To yell at him that it is his goddamn fault if Jason was now gone.
You're right in front of him.
His eyes close automatically, awaiting your well deserved hate towards him...
He jumps at the feel of your hand on his cheek.
You force him to rise his head, to look at you. There's so much sadness in your eyes that he feels like his heart is going to burst, but there's also...determination ?
He doesn't understand why one of your hand strokes his cheek while the other tangles in his hair. He doesn't understand why you drag him down to you, so your foreheads are touching.
He doesn't understand why you're not yelling at him, why you're not trying to hurt him...With a broken voice that makes you wince, because it's filled with grief and hopelessness, he says :
"I killed our son..."
It's barely a whisper. You can hear him only because you're so close to him.
Your fingers massage his scalp, you know he always found the gesture soothing. With your other hand, you brush his mouth with your thumb, and bring him ever so closer to you. Flush against your body. His arms automatically wraps around you, and his head buries itself in your neck.
"I killed our son..."
He repeats. And you can't take it anymore. Tightening your grip in his hair, the hand that was on his cheek moving to go around his neck, you say :
"No. Bruce. No."
"But I..."
"It isn't your fault. It isn't anyone's fault but the Joker's. He's the one who took our son away. Not you. Hell, if you're guilty then I am too, I didn't do anything to stop him from going out there as Robin either..."
"You've got nothing to do with that ! I won't allow you to even think about it !"
"Then it's not your fault either. It's the Joker's. You know it is. It is his fault. His."
The anger rising in you scares you. You can't allow such feelings to install themselves inside you. And yet...Bruce's voice brings you back to reality :
"It is still my fault. I am..."
You shut him up with the softest kiss on his lips, trying to convey to him that no, no he's not responsible for Jason's death. It's the Joker. It's all him. He killed your beloved son. It is his fault. He has to pay.
You feel the furry climbing inside you, how it overshadows even your sadness.
Turning your grief into hatred. You want to kill him. You want to kill the Joker...But you know it's not the solution.
You know it's exactly what that psycho wants. And Bruce does know it too. He can feel your anger as well, and inside him, it's a turmoil of emotions.
In your arms, he understands though.
He understands that he cannot kill the Joker for what he did to his son. Because if he does, then not only did he lost his boy, but also his soul.
If he kills the Joker, then the clown wins. Everything the Joker ever did was to taunt the Batman to kill him. He will not give him this satisfaction.
He cannot let that happen. For Jason. He'll never let that happen.
He won't let the Joker win.
He can feel you loosing all your strength in his arms, and he goes down on his knees with you, holding you tight against his heart.
"It is not your fault my love, it is not your fault..."
You repeat that for hours and hours. You repeat that until he almost believes it.
Here, on the floor of the batcave, you repeat it, while you hug him with all your might, and let him burry his face in your neck. He needs it too.
He needs to let go. You make him understand he doesn't have to be strong with you. He just lost a son. You just lost a son.
"We...we lost our son..."
His voice cracks, and finally, his tears run freely, his hand fisting in your shirt, bringing you even closer to him. You let him. Of course you let him. You let go too. And together, you let your grief run freely out of you.
You can feel at some point Alfred coming close to you, wrapping the both of you in a warm blanket, even in pain he makes sure you don't catch a cold...you want to tell him "thank you", but all you can say is :
"It's not your fault."
To Bruce. Over and over again. Holding him close. And he repeats the same words too, until you're both too tired, exhausted because of the sorrow, of the heartache you feel. He repeats the same thing too, here, on the batcave's floor, wrapped in your loving embrace, voice full of remorse and guilt :
"We just lost our son..."
************
It was the same nightmare all over again.
Jason came back to you years ago. It took him a long time to forgive you and Bruce for not killing the Joker. It took him ages to realize why you didn't do it. And though he finally understood, the boy he used to be, the cheerful and mischievous boy he was, had forever disappear.
Sometimes, you could see some remnants of what he used to be. Some fleeting moments, when he was with you or his brothers. But it was often gone rapidly...In a matter of seconds, he was all serious and broody, just like his father. Just like his father, though your Bruce would give anything for him not to be.
Jason came back to you years ago, but the boy he was died the day that fateful day. Your boy was gone, forever, replaced by a man. But at least, he came back...
And now, it was the same nightmare all over again.
"Damian...Damian isn't..."
"Please Bruce. Shut up. Don't say it. Please. Don't say anything else."
The wave of despair that hits you right there and then, makes you fall backward, and Bruce can barely catch you before you hit the floor.
Here you are again. Laying on the batcave's floor, in his laps, grieving a son.
Damian isn't coming back, you already know it.
His own biological mother killed him. His own biological mother killed him ! Keeping yourself from going on and just kill Talia Al'Ghul is the greatest challenge you ever faced...but it wouldn't be fair to Jason to do so. It wouldn't be fair to your principal. She doesn't even deserve to die.
You feel Bruce shake while he holds you against him. Sat on the floor with you in his arms, in his laps, not ready to let you go.
You can see Alfred collapsing in Dick's arms. Your beloved butler cannot handle it this time. He cannot be the strong one everyone needs. Not again.
On your oldest son's face, there's nothing but misery, but he tries to keep it in, because it's his turn to take care of you, of Alfred, of his father...He wasn't there for you guys when Jason died, busy doing his own things, not even knowing his little brother died...He would be there this time. He would be there this time...
You can also spot, in the blur of your teary eyes, Jason holding a shaking, crying Tim. It wasn't always the biggest love between Tim and Damian. Far from that. But he was his brother. The teasing didn't mean there was no love however. And Damian was so young. Damian was so young...He wasn't even able to protect his little brother, how could he help protecting the city ?
Your eyes meet Jason's, and the strength in his wonderful orbs make you feel a tiny bit better. You know he'll be here to. You know he's not going anywhere. Not this time. It took him a long time to forgive you and Bruce, but now, he wasn't planning on leaving ever again. Especially not now, he knows you need him more than ever, and he'll be there. Yes. He'll be there.
This time, no words are exchanged between you and Bruce. You just hold onto each others, because that's the only thing you can do, the only thing you can bear. His breath warms your forehead as he holds you close to him. You can hear his heart beating slowly, sadly.
This time, no words are exchanged between you and Bruce. No. This time, you can't speak. Surrounded by your grieving family, by your sons who are shaken to the core, by your surrogate father who seems to die of sadness, by him, by your Bruce...You can't utter a word.
You can just hug your husband tight, making sure he won't go.
He can just burry his face in your hair, not holding back his tears and sadness. Once again, he lost a son, and it was his fault, because he wasn't able to protect him.
This time, you don't have the strength to tell him it isn't his fault. It's Talia's. This time, years after you lost Jason, you don't have the strength to handle it anymore.
Couldn't your family catch a break ? So much grief, so many bad things happened to your beloved sons, to your Bruce, even to your surrogate father...
This time, you don't have the strength to reassure Bruce.
You just lost a son. He just lost a son.
"We just lost our son..."
You hear him whisper, so lowly that you're not sure he actually said it, or if your brain is playing tricks on you. If it's some kind of flashback from Jason's death.
Damian isn't coming back. He's never coming back. You lost a son. He lost a son. Your kids lost a brother. Alfred lost a grandchild.
The reality of all of this delves on you, and the same sadness you felt when you thought Jason was gone forever washes over you, taking away all of your hopes, all vision of a bright future.
Damian. Your son. Your youngest little boy. Isn't coming back.
He's never coming back.
Yes, how terrible it is, to love something that Death can touch.