
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/5354492.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Batman_(Comics), DCU_(Comics), Batman_Beyond
  Relationship:
      Jason_Todd/Bruce_Wayne, terry_mcginnis/bruce_wayne_kind_of
  Character:
      Jason_Todd, Bruce_Wayne
  Additional Tags:
      Reincarnation
  Stats:
      Published: 2015-12-05 Words: 1885
****** you are the survivor of more than one life ******
by ohmcgee
Summary
     Terry is young and he’s brash and he’s beautiful, but Bruce can’t
     keep pretending.
Notes
     For Rachel, who wanted Jason reincarnated as Terry. I hope...this is
     that? IDK IDK
The first time Terry says sure thing, boss, Bruce drops the prototype he was
holding and Terry makes some quip about his reflexes and his age as he picks up
the pieces, but Bruce can’t shake that feeling for the rest of the day, like
there had been a ghost in the room with them.
By dinnertime he brushes it off as nerves, Terry’s first official night out in
the suit making him even more paranoid than usual, but that night he dreams of
blue, blue eyes and laughter like sunshine, a smile that could hold all the
world’s secrets, and he wakes up in a cold sweat.
He can’t go back to sleep so Bruce makes a cup of tea that reminds him of early
mornings and sore muscles and everything he doesn’t have anymore, then heads
down to the cave to busy his mind from memories he’s buried for too long to let
resurface now.
 
: : :
 
There are similarities, of course, and all the jokes that go along with them
(gee Bruce, you sure have a type), but the fact of the matter is Bruce didn’t
go looking for this one. Terry found him. Found him, then helped him, then
stole from him, which --
Bruce tries not to think about too hard.
He tries not to think about the last time a reckless boy with a mess of black
hair had the audacity to steal something right out from under him. He tries not
to think about the green flecks in Terry’s eyes, about the way he cocks his hip
against the counter while he takes a bite of apple. The smirk just in the
corner of his mouth when he knows Bruce is staring.
Terry’s not --
He’s not. Bruce is just a lonely, senile old man and that’s all there is to it.
Terry is young and he’s brash and he’s beautiful, but Bruce can’t keep
pretending. It isn’t good for him and it isn’t fair to Terry, so he stops.
He stops looking for things. Stops looking at all, just to be safe. He still
dreams almost every night, of kisses that taste like Coca Cola and bubblegum,
still wakes up smelling the faint scent of cigarette smoke, but he pushes it
down along with the rest of his neuroses.
He tinkers with things in the cave and he goes over Terry’s video feeds until
he knows them frontwards and backwards, until he can tell Terry exactly what he
did wrong so that next time he won’t, so that maybe, this one won’t end up like
the others.
He’s more worried now than ever and he’s doing his best to ignore why that
might be.
 
: : :
 
Terry kisses him in the cave, after a particularly brutal night that lands him
with a few bruised ribs, just tilts his head as Bruce is wrapping him up in
gauze and kisses him, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like they
do it all the time. Or they always have.
“Huh,” Terry says, reaching up to touch his mouth. He almost looks confused.
“Why haven’t we done that before?”
Bruce just sighs and for a moment he lets himself pretend, cups Terry’s face in
his hand, opens his mouth up and kisses him slow and deep, soft, but with years
and years of yearning behind it, kisses him until Terry clutches the front of
Bruce’s shirt and gasps against his mouth and then Bruce pulls away.
“We have,” Bruce says quietly and leaves Terry alone to get dressed, ignoring
the mixed look of confusion and disappointment on his face.
 
: : :
 
It doesn’t happen suddenly. Or slowly. It happens in bits here and there, in
glimpses that Bruce later figures he must have imagined. Sometimes there will
be a certain expression on Terry’s face, a very specific word he’s never used
before (that no one’s used in decades) or just the simple act of tying his
shoes, tucking the laces down inside of them instead of double knotting them
the way Terry always had before.
Bruce lives in a constant state of deja vu and more often than not, considers
having himself committed. It’s dementia, he’s sure of it. Or worse, the truth.
That he’s just a pathetic, lonely old man who wants to see things that aren’t
there.
For the dozenth time that night, before he goes to bed, before he dreams of
chili dogs on rooftops and soft, small hands pushing the cowl off his face,
Bruce tells himself he’s being foolish. Tomorrow he’ll put a stop to whatever
he allowed to happen between him and Terry and he’ll distance himself.
Everything will go back to normal.
 
: : :
 
Bruce wakes up to the smell of hot coffee and for a moment, he thinks he’s
still dreaming. He hasn’t been able to make a decent pot of coffee since -
- well, he was never able to make a decent pot of coffee. But it smells like
Alfred’s and Bruce lets his fingernails bite into the skin of his palm just to
make sure he’s awake before he slides out of bed and pulls on a robe before
making his way down stairs.
Once he gets halfway down the stairs, coffee isn’t all he smells. There’s also
the sound of bacon or possibly sausage sizzling in a pan and something that
smells absolutely mouth-watering, definitely not comparable to the cup of tea
and oatmeal he normally has for breakfast.
When he gets to the kitchen, Bruce comes to a dead stop.
Terry is standing in front of the stove, a pair of earbuds in his ears, rocking
his hips back and forth as he hums the words to the song, something he had to
have downloaded from an oldies station, turning the sausage over in one pan,
then flipping an omelet in another.
Bruce moves without thought, as if by muscle memory even after all this time,
moves up behind Terry and curls his hand around his hip, presses his mouth to
the nape of his neck and whispers Jay, into his skin, his eyes squeezed shut.
He half expects Terry to clock him. Or worse, to look down on him pityingly.
“Well yeah,” Jay says -- it’s Jay now, his Jay, finally. Just Jay. “You know
anyone else who looks this cute in a checkered apron?”
Bruce growls and grabs him by the waist, lifts Jay up and sets him on the
counter, frames Jay’s face between his hands and presses their foreheads
together. “I’ve missed you so much,” Bruce breathes out like he’s been holding
the words in for centuries, doesn’t wait for Jay to reply before he’s kissing
him again, kissing him this time, his mouth, his face, his eyelids, everywhere
Jay will let him.
“B,” Jay giggles, poking him in the belly with the spatula. “My eggs are
burning.”
“I don’t care,” Bruce says and kisses him again. And again and again. “Let the
house burn down around us.”
“That’d be dumb,” Jay just laughs and reaches behind him to turn the stove off,
Bruce following him with his mouth, to pepper kisses down the column of his
throat.
“When did you remember?”
“Dunno,” Jay shrugs, hooking his ankles behind Bruce’s back. “It was weird.
Just little flickers at first, then kind of like flashes. I kept having these
dreams --”
“Yes,” Bruce says, running his fingers through Jay’s hair. It’s different now,
not as curly, but still just as soft. “I’ve had those too.”
“And then when you kissed me.”
“Yes?” Bruce asks, wanting nothing more but to do that again, to do nothing but
that ever again.
“I just kind of woke up,” Jay says, linking his fingers in between Bruce’s.
“All of me.”
Bruce kisses him again because he can’t stand not to, squeezes Jay’s hands in
his -- still so soft, so small -- brings them up to his mouth and kisses the
back of each hand, each knuckle.
“I’m taking you bed now,” Bruce says, almost not recognizing his own voice. He
sounds forty years younger. He sounds completely wrecked. “I plan on spending
the rest of the day and possibly the rest of the week learning this new body of
yours, inside and out.”
“Bruce --”
“I wonder if you’re still ticklish here,” Bruce says and ghosts the tips of his
fingers right beneath the hem of Jason’s shirt, into the little hollow of his
hip, and Jay shrieks and shoves Bruce away, but all Bruce can do is smile. He
hasn’t truly smiled in so long he wasn’t sure if he’d remember how. Now he
isn’t sure if he’ll ever stop.
“Right,” Bruce says, grabbing Jay and throwing him over his shoulder. “Bed.”
“Beast,” Jason mutters, but he grins the whole way up the stairs.
 
: : :
 
Once they get to the bedroom, Bruce wants nothing more than to get Jay naked
and just wrap around him, feel the hot press of skin against skin, to taste
every inch of him, but once he starts to undress him Bruce gets lost in
worshipping this gift he was given, takes his time sliding Jay’s pants off and
lifting his leg up, pressing a kiss to the arch of his foot. He looks down into
Jason’s eyes as he presses another kiss to his ankle, another to the back of
his knee.
“Bruce,” Jason whines, but Bruce just sets his leg down and starts to unbutton
Jay’s shirt, pausing to kiss him between each button, then leaving a trail of
wet kisses down his throat as he pushes Jay’s shirt open, tracing his
silhouette with scarred, wrinkled hands, making him shudder. He moves down to
suck kisses on the inside of Jason’s thighs, in the hollow of each of his hips,
until Jason is trembling and leaking all over his belly.
“B,” Jay gasps and Bruce swallows him down, moans at the heat and salt of him
and Jay just buries his hands in Bruce’s hair and says his name over and over,
crying it loudly when he shakes apart beneath Bruce’s strong hands and comes
for him.
“Jay,” Bruce says, his throat marvelously wrecked, stroking Jason’s side as he
comes back to himself. “I need -- I need to feel you.”
Jason just nods, sits up far enough to hold Bruce’s face in his hands, to kiss
him slow and lazy. “I need it too.“
When Bruce finally pushes inside of him, after nearly embarrassing himself just
from the noises Jay had been making for him with two of Bruce’s fingers in him,
when he finally sinks into the tight, slick heat of him, Bruce blinks and feels
the warmth of a tear sliding down his cheek.
“I'm sorry I took so long,” Jason says as he looks up at him, thumbing away the
tears.
Bruce smiles down at him sadly. “I got old.”
“Yeah,” Jay says, reaching back to tug at his hair. “But I got stupid hair. “
Bruce just laughs, a full body kind of laugh that jostles both of them, kisses
Jason in the middle of his forehead. “I love you.“
“I know,” Jason says with a wry little smirk and Bruce laughs again.
“Now I know it's you.”
“You had doubts?” Jason asks, cocking an eyebrow at him.
“With you?” Bruce says, leaning down to murmur against Jason’s lips, “Not
ever.”
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