"Don't you get it?" Jason spat, teetering on the verge of a howl. "I'm not him! Jason Todd is DEAD. He's gone! I'm just what crawled out of his grave."
He panted into the silence that followed, eyes stinging heat.
Bruce said nothing. Jason worried he might stand there, unspeaking, unmoving, til the end of time. Or just turn and walk away. That was what he wanted, wasn't it? For Bruce to stop chasing the ghost of a dead boy? To accept that he was someone different, someone new?
Instead, when Bruce finally spoke, he was quiet, thoughtful. "Did you know that I loved you the moment I met you?"
He wasn't looking at Jason, but down at his hands, as if his gloves were a scrying pool that he could peer into to see that old Jason, twelve years old and desperate but so full of life. Jason thought he could taste dirt.
Then Bruce chuckled, still to himself, still to his hands. "You were so cocky, so unwilling to give up without a fight, even to me. Some things never change."
His smile fade and he looked up, straight into Jason's face. "You were also scared. Traumatized. You had nightmares for months. You lied constantly. Hoarded food. Stole. I was so worried we'd never be able to make you feel safe, the way you deserved to feel."
"I'm notโ" Jason began, voice tight.
"You're not him," Bruce agreed, and hearing it spoken out loud, so easily, cut off Jason's air.
"You haven't been him for years." Bruce stepped forward, pushing into Jason's space. "Part of him is in you, but you're not him. You changed." He shrugged, shoulder somehow expressive even beneath the weight of the armor, the cape, the night. "You weren't the boy I took in off the street even before you died. You grew. That's life, Jay."
Jason was the one unable to speak now, stuck in place like a gods-struck fool.
"You change. You grow. And I'll keep loving whoever you turn out to be next."
