“I’m sorry.” Are the first words out of the mouth of your son, your Jason, drenched to the bone in freezing Gotham rain. “I-I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t know what he’s apologizing for. Just that the tears on his face are blending with the rain. He might be apologizing for running off to find his mother. For being so weak. For dying? That’s probably it. He’s sorry for dying.

He’s even more sorry for coming back.

He’s supposed to be dead. If the dates on the newspapers are anything to go by, he’s been dead for three months. He stumbled home in the rain, in a body that wasn’t his, in clothes he’d never worn, and he’s sorry for it.

“I didn’t know where else to go.” He sobbed, looking up at you tearfully.

He’s thirteen, blue eyes watery with tears, the makeup caked on his face from his funeral slowly melting away under the onslaught of rain. It’s revealing scars and bruises that never got a chance to heal, that hurt just as much as when he got them. It’s like every one of them has been ripped open, blood staining the suit he was wearing.

“I just- Bruce always said that if I was in trouble I c-could come back to the manor a-and-“ his voice broke on a little gasping sob. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to die. I just wanted to meet her.”

He wants to sink into your arms. When he was dying, he’d had a moment of stark clarity. You and Bruce were the only parents he’d ever really had. He’d died in Bruce’s arms, in the arms of a father, and now all he wants is for you to hold him. He wants someone to hold him, anyone. He needs that connection as surely as his lungs need air.

Jason, the boy long dead, your baby boy, tries to wipe the water from his face. He shouldn’t be crying. Crying makes him weak, and he can’t be weak, he can’t, he won’t be, not in front of you- but it’s no use.

“Please don’t hate me.” He wails, voice breaking. “I’m sorry. If I could crawl back into my grave, I would. B-But I just-“

He needed his family. He needed you. He needed Bruce. His brother. Alfred. He needed something real.