Bruce didn’t come here often. Perhaps that was terrible of him but he couldn’t bear to visit his son’s resting place. It was difficult to equate his high-spirited son, bright as the sun itself and endlessly brilliant despite the more he grew up in, to the cold and lifeless stone engraved with his name and words that did not encompass everything his son was to him.
His hands were full of flowers, Jason’s favorite books, a round rock, and his son’s favorite foods.
Bruce didn’t come here often, because it broke his heart even more when he did, but today was a day that love and grief triumphed over his need to avoid.
He walked down the winding pathway, Alfred a silent sentinel behind him. He hated it, but he understood. Today was the only day Alfred allowed himself to be emotionally closed off. He’d lost a grandson.
Bruce didn’t come here often, but his son’s birthday was a day Bruce would remember how to love and live again, just for Jason.
“I will be over here, Master Bruce.” Alfred stopped at his designated spot, where Bruce had added a bench and a draping tree to shade Alfred as he stood vigil.
The first time they’d- it was April, and the sun- after the funeral, Bruce was lost in the throes of grief and had kneeled over the freshly tilled dirt for hours. Alfred had stood there, in that same spot, in the city’s rare blazing sun until Bruce came back to himself.
Bruce had almost lost his second father that day, and what good was wealth if it could not prevent that? And so, water, shade, a bench, and a space heater was added.
Bruce knows better than anyone how stubborn Alfred can be, when it comes to matters of the heart. After all, he didn’t have to raise Bruce after Martha and Thomas died.
“Alright, Alfred.”
Bruce splits from the haggard butler with pointed looks at the water bottles he’d prepared for today for Alfred (who manages, this time, a faint but amused raise of an eyebrow) and walks towards Jason Todd’s grave.
Here where his son is buried, the grass is kept green. In April, Forget-Me-Nots bloomed and dotted the place where Bruce’s world collapsed with bright colors. In August, it is still green, but the tin engraved with the names of the deceased stood out without the flowers.
Bruce kneeled and quietly arranged the flowers before placing them in the tin. He set the platters of food down and uncovered them. The scent of chili dogs made his heart stutter, flashes of a bright smile and book references blinding Bruce with their nostalgia.
He swallowed, grief building, and placed the stone he’d brought atop the gravestone. He sat back, gripping Jason’s book with white knuckles.
Bruce didn’t turn around when clothing rustled behind him. Alfred would have verbally cut down anyone that dared to approach them today, especially here. That he didn’t do so was telling of who it would be.
“I’m still mad at you, for not telling me as soon as you knew.” Dick Grayson sat down, hand over one of Jason’s school bag pins he had carefully attached to the front of his jacket.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“He deserved better. I should have been there.” Dick whispered, placing another bundle of flowers into the tin. It fit, but barely. “I would have dropped everything to come find him. Even if it wasn’t on time, even if it wasn’t enough, I deserved to be there when he was buried. We were family.”
“I know.” Bruce repeated, no less regretful. In his grief, he had wronged his loved ones. “I’m sorry.”
Dick casted a quiet, assessing eye at him. Bruce stayed quiet.
“It’s too dreary,” Dick said. He took out paints, little statutes of robins, bright birds, and bits and bobs Bruce knew Jason would have loved had he been alive out of his pockets.
“It should be more colorful,” Dick murmured as he placed them artfully against the headstone.
They sat there, for a while. Dick glanced at… at Bruce’s hand, and settled down.
It’d been a while since they’ve spoken, but he knew what the man intentioned to do today. This will be the most Dick will have heard Bruce speak outside of his civilian obligations.
Bruce took the cue and gently opened Jason’s book. He’d bought it for Jason- the first gift- and he’d read it to Jason every night. Dick had a similar book.
“Call me Ishmael. Some years ago- never mind how long precisely- having little or no money in my purse…”
——
A boy with black hair and blue eyes wandered amongst the graveyard. They’ve been here for a while, and the man’s low rumble was soothing to listen to. The shades that hung about the graveyard settled as he read out loud from the book as his son sat quietly beside him.
As the boy, invisible and intangible, brushed his hand against the gravestone, he wondered why they were reading to an empty grave.
——
Dick had left long before Bruce did.
And when it was time to go, as stars began to climb and as the cold began to nip at his fingers, Bruce heard a quiet voice.
“Do not stand at his grave and weep,” and Bruce turned, recognizing the poem. “He is not there. He does not sleep.”
But there was no-one.
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Eddie, shoving his phone in Steve’s face: Stevie, Stevie, Stevie, the people want to know…What’s it like being married to me?
Steve: It’s perfect!
Steve:
Steve: Except one time I went to a destination wedding with my wife-
Eddie: Just say Robin
Steve: -the destination being Oklahoma and while I was gone, Eddie built a life size puppet of himself.
Steve: And then he spent the next two months mining it for craft supplies so then we had a half-deformed nightmare version of him sitting in the corner of our bedroom
Steve: And then, he left me with that for a month while he went to play shows in Ohio.
Steve: So, it’s perfect and wonderful. Choosing to spent the rest of my life with him was one of the best decisions I ever made but also, that was nightmare fuel.
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