[backdated]

[prodigaljaybird]

It's taken so long to find him that for the short moment Jason pauses to look, he doesn't trust his own eyes. There's sweat in his eyes, exacerbating an already present sting, perspiration running down his arms to fight Jason for his grip on the batline, but it doesn't falter, aim desperately sure and grip too tight to let him fall, but now.

But now he's found him, Bruce's back to him in the jungle as he gathers wood for purposes Jason's wired too tight to understand. In all the hours he's spent searching, Jason hasn't figured out a damn thing to say, crawling out of his skin ever since he left Cass's side, the depth of it, the weight of it too much to untangle and put into anything like words.

He could die here. In the shape he's in, Jason doesn't have a prayer if Damian's lurking close by, but he doesn't give a fuck. Of all the things he's decided he can live with, live through, he's not sure this is one of them.

Leaving the trees at last, Jason hits the ground on legs almost too tired to hold him, but he stays upright, a croaked sound all that escapes him but for his labored breaths.

Comments

[crusaded]

"She could, but it'll be a fight for many years to come," I say, voice quiet. I'm not sure whether or not it's in deference, or if it's the result of that slow-burning fear that I always have, that the day we return to Gotham will be a day too late, our skills atrophied, the city without a champion.

Or with the wrong people trying to support her.

"Someday, Gotham will be peaceful, and as free of crime as any city of its size. Today's not that day."

[prodigaljaybird]

"You really think we'd see that day in our lifetimes?" Jason grunts. "I doubt it. Not unless I'm gonna get resurrected more than once." He sighs, not as morose as he sounds, just resigned. Accepting. You can't stop crime, you can only control it.

"I should go home."

[crusaded]

"I have to believe that we will," I tell him, with my words carefully arranged and chosen. This hope, however vain or futile it may seem to most people, is the only force which drags me forward on some days. The one constant in my life that has no chance of disappearing, so long as I keep my chin up and my resolve firm.

Exhaling through my teeth, I glance up and in the direction of Jason's hut.

"I'll walk you back."