Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They stood in the remnants of the space station together, looking at the destruction they had caused by killing Rockwell’s final form for the final time. A dozen worlds and dozens of bosses finally conquered. All things had led them to this, the death of a man who had lost all humanity. Their creatures were swiftly retrieved into cryopods as the ship started to collapse. Was this it? Would this be their final ascension, for real this time?

With their inventories laden with their most beloved companions and important gear, they watched their bodies start to disintegrate into those telltale particles. At the very least, they could rest for just a little while. They smiled at each other, knowing that they’d see each other again soon enough.

The last six months have been hell for Bruce Wayne. Not Batman, Batman was fine. Rogues were still around but manageable. Justice League business was going swimmingly. Cases actually hadn’t been too strenuous for the past few months.

But for the man behind the cowl, the past half a year had driven him near insane. He was exhausted, irritable, and more brooding than ever. Periods of sleep were shorter, and bouts of it were growing farther between by the week. The entire family was concerned about him, but they weren’t faring much better. Dick was more skittish than usual, always coming and going and motherhenning whoever was around. Damian was glowering more than his normal amount. Duke was increasingly more sullen in the manor that seemed to hold its breath. Steph was nervous and flighty and never stuck around for too long. Cass more often was lost in her own quiet thoughts. Barbara was even more sleep-deprived from never-ending nights on the hunt. Alfred was worried in his own quiet way, still caring for the others but mourning the reality of their situation in solitude.

The reason behind their current misery? Six months ago, Jason Todd and Tim Drake had disappeared off the face of the Earth. No one knew where they were. No one knew how they disappeared. No one knew if they were even alive or not. They were simply gone.

It could be some sort of inter-dimensional shenanigans or time travel bs that made Bruce weary just thinking about it. Even some extended friends had been checking in. Roy and Dick were becoming closer again, the mutual grief over Jason bringing them together. Arsenal sometimes even called Bruce himself to ask for updates, for anything. Bruce knew that he and Kory were on the lookout.

Wally called because Bart was worried, because something-something-this apparently didn’t happen in his timeline. That on its own was concerning, seeing as Bart was typically good about not slipping future information. Tim’s disappearance had clearly set him on edge though. And because Bart worried, Wally worried, and now Wally was frequently meeting up with Dick and Roy to do…who knows what, really. They could all be getting blackout drunk, and Bruce would be none the wiser.

Which led to the head of the Wayne family’s current position, hunched over the Batcomputer with his head in his hands.

The screens showed nothing, just glaring tiles of blue peering down at him. The shadows they created made Bruce appear much older than the forty-two-year-old man that he was.

“You still down here, B?” A soft voice called from the staircase. Deliberately loud steps grew closer, and Bruce didn’t need to guess to know who it was. His eldest son’s footsteps were always recognizable to him.

He didn’t lift his head but grunted in acknowledgment. He was just…too tired for anything else.

A hand settled on his shoulder and squeezed lightly. He didn’t say anything. Didn’t need to.

“Alfred’s gonna have your head if he knew you were up right now. It’s almost four.” Dick tried to push a chuckle into his words, but it fell flat in the solemn atmosphere of the cave.

Bruce had made a lot of mistakes over the years. Many of them were mistakes born from his subpar parenting abilities. He had hurt his children too many times, more than any father should, but he was getting better now. The family was getting much better, or at least, they had been.

And then his first middle sons went and fell off the edge of the universe.

Still, he wouldn’t let himself go back to that place he was in after Jason’s first death. Not to the circumstances that led Tim to latch onto him with a grip of steel and never let go. He had made too many mistakes during that time.

He reached up with one of his own hands to settle atop Dick’s. “I don’t know how to find them.” He muttered, finally admitting to not knowing what to do. It was better than what he used to do, having just grunted or snapped at his kids like it made the situation better or the route to understanding clearer. That method never had helped anything. Bruce knew that now, should’ve known it a long time ago.

Dick hummed, dropping his hand, and sprawled across the Batcomputer’s desk. He let the silence marinate for a moment, with nothing but the hum of machines and quiet clicks and shuffles of bats far above to fill it.

Bruce, though normally accustomed to the quiet, couldn’t quite stand it right now. “I refuse to believe that they’re…” He trailed off, once again returning his hand to the side of his face to lean against.

“I know…I don’t think they are either.” Dick filled in.

Neither of them would say that dreaded d-word. If they didn’t think about it, it didn’t happen. Denial was cool like that. Death though…Death was not very cool like that. Death didn’t care if you were ready for its visit or not.

Bruce tried not to think about it too hard.

Another, much quieter, pair of footsteps echoed against the cold floor of the Batcave. The small frame draping itself over his shoulders told Bruce that his daughter had decided to make an appearance.

Cass said nothing, but Dick grumbled a tired, little “Hello”, and Bruce moved his hand again to smooth over her dark hair.

It was a quiet moment with his children. It should have been comforting or at least proof that he wasn’t alone he’d never ever been alone, but all he felt was a deep ache in his heart. There were two children who should be here, but they weren’t. It wasn’t like Jason and Tim hadn’t gone off-the-grid before, even for extended periods of time, but it was never like this. Even in the years when Jason was angry at the family and wanted little to do with them, Bruce still knew that he was at least around.

Jason wouldn’t leave Crime Alley unattended, but all evidence pointed to Red Hood no longer being present. In honor of his son, he’d made sure to frequently patrol in Jason’s turf, to keep Black Mask’s men away if anything.

Tim usually left some sort of notification that he’d be leaving or going no-contact for an extended period of time. He did recall hearing about his escapades during the “BruceQuest” that had transpired three years earlier though. During that time, he’d apparently went off on his own for multiple months and no communication with anyone.

Sighing, Bruce finally lifted his head and brought the Batcomputer back to life. He should try to use his restless energy to accomplish anything productive. Inwardly, he cursed the fact that things were so quiet. If there was more criminal activity, he could at least pretend that all was well and that his sons were just busy with their own cases.

Soon, he was tapping out a few new reports. Dick was now dozing, still flopped on the desk like a bendy walrus. Cass had curled up in his lap and fallen asleep as well. He really should be doing the same.

It proved to be for the best that he was still awake though, as a low, gurgling hum roared from behind him in the main part of the cave’s platforms. Whipping around, Bruce stared at a bluish disc that roiled and bubbled like the surface of a witch’s cauldron.

His children awoke at the sound as well, and all three of them practically leaped to standing positions when two armored bodies dropped from the disc and landed on the metal floor with two loud, rattling thuds.

“What the hell?” Dick whispered from next to them.

His words echoed what Bruce knew they were all thinking. What the hell indeed.

Chapter Text

The warping blue disc that floated over the cave’s central platform flickered and began to shrink. It had to be a portal of some kind, and it made Bruce’s gut coil at the thought of possibly dealing with magic. He hated dealing with anything arcane or supernatural.

Now, there were two suits of armor (probably with occupying bodies) on the floor of his cave. Why couldn’t this have waited until morning? Why did the weirdest things have to happen at the most irritating of times?

Bruce very tiredly pinched the bridge of his nose. He was getting too old for nonsense like this, at least if its origin wasn’t one of his children.

Dick returned to his side (when had he left in the first place?) with his escrima sticks in hand. He flicked his hand around in several gestures that usually Bruce would understand. All he did now was nod tiredly and grab a nearby batarang. Cass had pulled a knife out of somewhere (of course she did) and was methodically picking her way towards the bodies.

The bodies that were starting to move.

One of them, the taller of the two, moaned and reached up to put a hand against their dark faceplate. “Hurts like a bitch…never gets old.” The voice was deeper than Bruce was expecting, with a sort of gravelly croak to it that made Bruce wonder what sort of injuries the armor could be hiding.

The shorter one slapped a lazy, boneless arm onto the taller’s helmet. “I don’t…see the sky? Where d’ya think we landed this time?” The voice was a little higher than the first one, but it was still masculine. And…disturbingly familiar? That had to be his sleep-deprivation finally kicking in.

Bruce and his children rounded to flank the intruders, and he made some interesting observations. One, both people were wearing the same style of armor. It was very clearly high tech and of high quality. In some spots, it glowed an eerie sort of aqua like Jason’s eyes. The heavily armored gauntlets had clawed tips on the fingers, green on the shorter’s and red on the taller’s, that were definitely put there after the armors’ initial construction. Two, they were painted differently from each other. The armor had a base color of gray, but each suit had distinct colors and patterns that set them apart.

The shorter’s armor had splotches of black and red skillfully painted on various parts of the armor. However, on parts of the limbs, the chest plate, and the helmet, there was a winding depiction of some sort of feathered, draconic creature in shades of indigo, blue, and black. A few shiny, indigo feathers curled out from the sides of the helmet, around the ear/temple area, and off the back of the elbows. They perfectly lined up with the painting of the beast’s head that took up most of the helmet.

The suit had a cape that was composed of what looked suspiciously like black, ash gray, and crimson scales. They were woven in a complicated pattern, like creating long fingers of a bat’s wing with the largest, longest scales, and filling the gaps in between with smaller scales. Glints on the tip of each “finger” told Bruce that there was metal hiding underneath. Did the person build blades into his cape? Bruce filed that thought away for later. The cape’s length came to an end around the person’s ankles, from what he could tell. Additionally, it was shaped…oddly. He couldn’t tell exactly what it reminded him of, but the unknown shape nagged at his mind. Was it shaped like a wing? Bruce couldn’t tell.

The taller individual’s armor was similar in that the black and red colors that were painted over the base gray the same way, but the creature adorning this one’s armor was different. It looked like some sort of porpoise or dolphin, but not any that Bruce had ever seen. The creature had four eyes and long, trailing fins. The illustration on the armor was painted in aqua, black, gold, and dark red, and with astonishing detail. Smaller red and aqua colored fins extended off the back of the elbows and sides of the knees, similar to the feathers on the shorter’s. A cape, similar to the shorter’s, was composed of the same trailing fins from the painting. It was woven in the same shape, and the edges of the fins glowed red to reflect off the now obvious blades hidden on the cape’s underside.

“Who are you.” Bruce growled roughly, wishing that he had his suit on but knowing there was no time for that.

He had expected retaliation of some kind, maybe the drawing of weapons or at least a jolt of surprise. But there was…nothing. Literally no reaction from either people aside from them lifting their heads up to look at him.

“Yo…” the shorter began, very slowly moving to sit up cross-legged, “Are we on Earth-5062?”

The question made Bruce falter minutely. That wasn’t at all what he was expecting.

Dick made up for his lack of answer. “Yeah, you are. Why?”

The dragon-themed man gasped lightly and started jabbing lightly at his companion, though his head never left Bruce’s direction. “We’re home…We’re finally home!”

The dolphin(?)-themed one rolled over, practically crashing into the shorter man’s side, and pushed himself up into a sitting position. “Took long enough.”

If Bruce had to guess, he sounded out of breath and plain exhausted. He didn’t voice that though, and pushed through his confusion to demand answers. “Once again, who are you.”

At that, the dolphin man snorted a laugh and waved a dismissive hand. “Can’t recognize your own sons, old man? You must be losing your touch.”

Bruce froze completely, and his children did the same. What?

The dragon man laughed and tapped something on his wrist. Suddenly, the helmet disappeared completely, simply vanishing like it had never been there to begin with. The face of his third son, though much more scarred than before, stared up at him with playful eyes and a relaxed smile. “Hey, B. You miss us?”

The dolphin man’s helmet disappeared, revealing his second son’s face, just as scarred as Tim’s and even more lazy-looking. Jason gave him a little mock-salute and tilted his head onto Tim’s armored shoulder. “Sorry it took us so long.”

Bruce Wayne, the Batman, a founding member of the Justice League, had seen a lot of things. He’d seen the worst and best of the world, the most unexplainable and horrifying things. He’d witnessed seeing his son come back from the grave once already.

Now, his two missing sons were blinking up at him and looking like they’d just returned from a relaxing vacation they’d simply forgotten to inform him of. But Jason and Tim weren’t that close to do such a thing.

He was, in all sense of the word, absolutely gobsmacked.

His children also seemed stunned, but Dick was the one who recovered the quickest. “Jason? Tim? What-Where did you two go! We’ve been looking for you for six months! Why in the world are you asking what Earth you’re on?”

The barrage of questions made the brows of the two in question furrow. Tim and Jason side-eyed each other, and Tim opened his mouth, only to snap it shut again.

Jason sat back up and swept his gaze over to Dick. “Six months? We haven’t been gone for six months.”

Bruce lowered the batarang he was holding as his own brows furrowed. “How long did you think you were gone for?”

His two sons, sitting on the ground next to each other, seemed to scoot a little closer together. They looked wary, uneasily so. He could practically hear the gears grinding in their heads.

“So, for you guys, we disappeared just six months ago?” Tim asked, regarding the three of them with a growing expression of confusion and mild horror.

Bruce nodded and stepped towards them before dropping to a crouch. Dick and Cass followed his movements, and they all were soon huddled on the floor in front of the wayward boys.

Jason looked…disturbed wasn’t quite the word for it. Jaded? Exhausted? Done with the multiverse’s crap? Bruce’s second eldest groaned and dragged a hand across his face. “Oh my god…Just. Kill me now. I’m too tired for this shit. I’ll pop a poly if you don’t.”

Bruce knew his son was dramatic, and this seemed par for the course (not that he knew what a ‘poly’ was but still), but Jason’s words seemed aimed at Tim, even more so when Jason flopped his head in his brother’s direction.

And Tim, his wonderful genius of a son, opened his right hand, the one farther from Jason. A crossbow materialized in it, and without breaking Jason’s eye contact or wasting a second, he whirled the weapon on him.

Dick screamed when the twang of the crossbow echoed in the cave and Jason tipped over onto the ground. An arrow was neatly embedded in-between his eyes.

Bruce had never felt so horrified in his entire life, and Tim didn’t even look sorry about it.

Chapter Text

Bruce couldn’t believe what he’d just seen. He was rarely speechless, but this, looking at his dead son’s body again. He let it happen again, was too much. Why would Tim do that? Did they hate each other so much that Tim would kill him as soon as they got home? But Jason had requested death, not in an edgy or exhausted way that just got across the sheer tiredness one might be feeling. It was said with such a definite finality that told Bruce that Jason was expecting the exact outcome. The concerning thought that this had probably happened before made his mouth go dry. What had happened to his sons?

He was glad he was crouching already, because his knees gave out on him as his legs turned to jelly. “Tim-“ He whispered, breathless in disbelief. Now, he was kneeling on the ground in front of Jason’s body. His hands ghosted over his son’s cheek, close but not touching.

“Ah, dammit.” Tim mumbled, squinting from Jason’s body to look at him, then up around the cave, and at them, before settling on his wrist. The red diamond in the armor glowed when Tim tapped it, displaying a tiny, floating screen in which Tim started furiously scrolling through and tapping on.

Distantly, Bruce realized that Cass had disappeared, probably to go wake up the rest of the family. He was grateful that Steph had stayed over tonight. It had taken a lot of coaxing and pleading, because Bruce had just needed one night with all of his remaining children present for his mental state (according to Dick), bar Barbara, who refused to leave her post in favor of searching for rogue energy signatures, but most of his children were somewhere in the manner.

Speaking of his children, Dick was still right beside him, his face unable to decide on pure rage or confusion, but there was an underlying horror that was constant. Bruce knew that it was showing on his face as well. He wasn’t sure whether to be start shaking Tim and screaming at him or pass out and hope this was all some sick nightmare. Dick was probably thinking the same, by the way his hands were twitching.

“I’m gonna skin him if he doesn’t come back.” Tim muttered, finally finding whatever he needed on the screen. Suddenly, a red glow of something vaguely sleeping bag-shaped appeared on the floor around and through them. Bruce almost leapt back in surprise, and he saw Dick grip his escrima stick just a little harder.

Tim, still muttering, something about floors and foundations better working that Bruce didn’t quite catch, moved his hand, and the shape followed. An outward twitch of his fingers sent the shape farther away. When the shape was out in the open, the glow switched from red to green, and Tim hummed, pleased, and tapped his index finger and thumb together.

Indeed, the sleeping bag-shaped blob turned out to be an actual sleeping bag, one made of some sort of hide or leather and materializing out of the glow.

“What the hell?” Came a feminine whisper behind him.

Bruce turned his head to face the rest of the family that had come up to them. Stephanie looked all manners of horrified and disheveled as she took in the sight of Jason’s limp dead body with an arrow stuck out his forehead, Tim mumbling to himself and again scrolling through the little screen floating above his wrist, and the weird sleeping bag nearby.

He could almost cry.

“Master Bruce-“ Alfred started, looking more outwardly composed, but Bruce saw the roiling emotions in his eyes. They were dominated by confusion. “…Master Tim?” Alfred’s voice had pitched up just slightly as he examined the scene.

Tim, either oblivious to their shock and terror or simply not caring about it, waved a hand in Alfred’s direction. “I’ll be good to talk in a sec just- DON’T TOUCH THAT!” He bellowed, in a lower, thundering voice that Bruce had never heard from his boy, and opened his right hand.

Nothing good seemed to come of the gesture, because this time, instead of a crossbow, a long, metallic pike appeared in his hand. With more force than probably necessary, he smacked down on Damian’s hand to move it away from Jason’s corpse. There was a wild fierceness in his eyes that made Bruce recoil internally.

“What have you done, Drake!?” Damian spat, venom lacing every letter as he stood. He cradled his hand closer to his chest, and Bruce worried if it had been broken somewhere. The loud crack that had echoed through the cave certainly suggested as much.

Tim, without a care in the world, simply shrugged and snorted, even having the audacity to roll his eyes. “Relax.” His lazy drawl did not at all match the situation, nor the fact that he had just killed Jason. “He’ll get me back anyway. Tis tradition and all. But don’t touch the body. We need that.”

Every word out of Tim’s mouth just brought more questions up in Bruce’s mind, but before he could speak up, a very tired-looking Duke decided to chime in, albeit hesitantly. “So, you’re saying Jason will…wake up?”

Before Tim could answer, movement from the sleeping bag caught everyone’s attention, causing all heads in the room, bar Jason’s corpse, to turn to it. How exactly the sleeping bag suddenly filled up with…something…was beyond Bruce’s understanding. He felt the beginnings of a headache pressing into his temples.

No one could move fast enough to stop Tim from lunging towards the bag and, more gently than with Damian’s hand, start repeatedly smacking the lump with the pike. “What happened in there, dude? What’ja see?” He sounded genuinely excited about…whatever was going on.

There was a disgruntled gurgle from under the leather, and suddenly, Jason’s head and bare torso popped out from the sleeping bag. Despite the sound he’d just made though, the look on Jason’s face was nothing short of a ferally wild grin. “I’ve got good news, Timmers.” He said while slithering out of the sleeping bag.

Bruce felt like his brain short-circuited and the color drain from his face as Jason was fully revealed. He was only wearing black shorts, but that surprisingly wasn’t the most shocking thing. It was the sheer amount of scar tissue on his son’s skin that made nausea pool in his gut. There were little circles dotting Jason’s body that Bruce recognized as old impaling wounds. Slashes and bite marks littered his body like he’d been fighting against wild animals for the past six months. One of the most concerning things was the rings that circled every limb. Most of them weren’t clean cuts, like the limb had been torn off and sewn back on…had Jason lost his limbs? Had Tim had to reattach them? Did Tim have similar injuries underneath his armor? And why was the vertical part of Jason’s Y-shaped autopsy scar wider than before, like it had been ripped open from the inside and never properly stitched back together?

“Jace? Buddy? What the actual hell happened to you?” Steph asked the question they were all thinking. Bruce, for once, was grateful for it. Personally, he felt like throwing up. Not even Batman’s patent-pending compartmentalization techniques were quite enough for this. He’d just seen his son die right in front of him, got to actually witness it this time, by his younger son of all people. And now his dead son was alive again, but he was moving around like he’d just woken up from a particularly refreshing nap.

Jason stood up, and as soon as he stepped out of the sleeping bag, the thing seemed to crack and fall apart. In an instant, it completely disintegrated, and then the dust itself disappeared. It was like the sleeping bag had never been there in the first place. Magic? Something else? Bruce knew that he absolutely didn’t know what to do about this. The surprised sound from Dick told him that they were thinking along similar lines.

Jason tilted his head at Stephanie and raised an eyebrow, making him look very much like a confused bird, “Huh?”

Duke gestured to him. “Dude, you were not that messed up before you…disappeared. You look like you were mauled by a polar bear.”

Instead of being angry or dismissive, Jason snorted, and his grin turned lazily amused. He looked over at Tim, who was snickering equally as much. “A polar bear? Really?” He looked back to Duke. “That’s like rookie shit, Duke. I haven’t been killed by a bear in like…ages.”

Bruce didn’t know whether to cry or yell at his sons. Everyone was thinking that, right? Bruce couldn’t be the only one who was having problems with this…right?

He couldn’t get too far in his thoughts before Tim piped up again, “So tell me what it was like, Jay.”

Jason hummed and crouched next to his corpse. He grabbed the body’s wrist and tapped the red diamond, which was no longer glowing and looked more black than anything. Bruce also noticed that another red diamond, which was glowing, on living Jason’s wrist looked like it was embedded into his skin. The sight of something so blatantly implanted was…unsettling.

When Jason touched the dead(?) diamond, a little screen floated above his own diamond, identical to the one Tim had. “So, we actually have a map for here like everywhere else. But catch this, it starts as a map that I’m pretty sure is just Gotham, but I was able to zoom way out. I think the whole planet is open to us.” He was tapping at the screen, and suddenly, the armor on Jason’s corpse was transferred to him, leaving the corpse only wearing those same shorts. It materialized over his skin, all but the helmet, and Jason huffed in satisfaction. “I think we’ll be able to keep operating as per the usual, baby bird.”

Whatever all that had meant was apparently a good thing, because Tim’s eyes lit up in delight. “I wonder how far the teleporters will go then. All the other maps were a lot smaller than this one. So, we could really get some good testing in!” He was bouncing on the balls of his feet as he rambled.

Bruce wasn’t sure what to make of Tim referring to the Earth as a “map”, but he didn’t really get too far into that train of thought either, because leave it to his boys to strip him of all coherent thoughts and make him grasp at oil-coated straws.

Jason seemed to nod along thoughtfully to Tim’s ranting. He scrolled through the screen a little as he stood, but what happened next was something future Bruce wished he could bleach from his memory.

Without losing the lazy smile on his face, Jason stood up over his corpse. The screen disappeared while a giant, black chainsaw materialized in his hands.

Tim laughed and smacked him on the shoulder. “Why did you bring that to the fight?”

Jason revved up the machine. “It was in Tuna’s inventory. I grabbed it when the vines started coming up.”

“Master Jason, I must implore you to not do whatever it is you are about to.” Alfred spoke up, sounding slightly less put together than when he last spoke.

“Don’ worry, Alfie. It’ll alllll be over soon.” Jason drawled. That was the only warning the bats got before the chainsaw plunged into Jason’s corpse. Blood and gore whipped around in ribbons, and Tim was looking at them, and he was cackling.

Bruce wanted to vomit, and he had to cover his mouth with his hand to keep himself from doing exactly that. This had to be one of the most horrifying and disturbing five minutes of his life. Somewhere behind him, someone fainted, being caught by either Cassandra or Alfred probably, unless they were the ones who fainted. Bruce didn’t exactly look back to check. Dick, unlike Bruce, actually did turn away and puke up his guts. Damian paled about six shades and cringed backwards.

For a few seconds, guts flew and blood pooled, but then the corpse disappeared. No slow fading, no gradual dissection of the corpse, just…nothing. Completely gone, just like the sleeping bag. The gore on the ground and on them stayed, but otherwise, nothing remained.

“First time watching a body get cut up by a chainsaw?” Tim chirped, peering over Jason’s shoulder to look at his screen but obviously addressing them.

“What’s wrong with you two!?” Dick screeched, gesturing to the blood and picking off a coil of small intestine off his shoulder. He threw it away from himself like it had killed his whole family.

“I got forty-six raw meats. Not a bad haul.” Jason commented, tapping his diamond/implant and making the screen disappear. He looked up again, finally, and actually regarded them for the first time since his temporary death. “What’re we talking about?”

Bruce squinted at him. All…unpleasantness aside, there was something different about Jason now. The way he carried himself was more relaxed than Bruce had ever seen him. The way he let Tim drape himself over his shoulder without so much as a flinch was brand new. Even the way he spoke, calm and light, sounded foreign in Bruce’s ears. He didn’t know how much that said about himself and the others that this was the first time he’d heard Jason like that.

What was really the most stunning part was his eyes. Bruce sucked in a breath when he looked, really looked, into his son’s eyes. There was no hint of green at all in them. They sparkled like jewels the color of a tropical ocean, the color that Bruce hadn’t seen since before Jason’s first death. They weren’t filled with the rage that they all had grown so used to. He looked at peace, with even a glint of harmless playfulness in his features.

Jason caught his gaze and held it for a beat of silence. His smile turned soft for a moment. “Dad?”

The feelings of horror and nausea melted away at the word. Jason hadn’t called him Dad since…since before. Maybe it was the overwhelming, bizarre circumstances they found themselves in. Maybe it was the wave of relief that swelled when he saw his sons home again, safe and sound from the looks of it. Whatever it was though, it made Bruce’s heart clench and ache. In an uncharacteristic show of emotion, he surged forward, stoically ignoring the pool of blood on the floor, and wrapped an arm around each of his son’s shoulders, pulling them close and standing in-between them.

Instead of being pushed away like he was fully expecting, Jason only slightly tensed, and Tim hummed contentedly against him. Bruce squeezed them a bit tighter. “I’m so glad you’re home, but never ever do that again.” His voice came out a little more hitched than he wanted it to, but he could ignore it in favor of knowing that both of his boys were safe.

Tim laughed a little and patted Bruce’s shoulder. “Can’t promise that, B. Since our immortality remains, our self-preservation will remain nonexistent.”

“Immortality?” Dick questioned, stepping towards the group. Bruce knew that the second he pulled away, Dick would be on his brothers in an instant like a shark to a seal.

“Technically not true immortality.” Jason clarified, “We can die, technically, but we can respawn. So, like…yes, we’re immortal in the sense that we don’t age and can’t stay dead, but also not immortal because we still can die.”

The implications of Jason’s explanation hit Bruce like a sack of bricks. “So, because you will always come back from death, your existences will be able to carry indefinitely through time, hence immortality, but your bodies can still succumb to injuries or illness. Am I correct?” He pulled back just a little so he could look at his sons, but his hands never left their shoulders.

Jason shrugged, and Tim nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, that’s the gist.”

Dick approached and lightly shoved Bruce out of the way. “If I ever see you die like that again, I’ll wring you out myself. And if I ever, ever see a chainsaw be used like that again, I will give you a concussion.” He hissed, grabbing one shoulder per brother.

And okay, that was absolutely warranted, but it wasn’t the approach that Bruce was expecting from his eldest.

The two boys in question looked completely unbothered though. “If you give us a concussion, then we’ll just die anyway.” Tim smiled, looking way too proud of himself for the implications of his words to be anything else other than something unhinged.

“No promises. Chainsaws are surprisingly effective sometimes.” Jason added, “Plus, we gotta keep feeding the flock anyway. Some eat fruits, but a lot of ‘em eat meat.”

“What flock?” Damian questioned, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“We’ll discuss that later.” Dick cut off further discussion of the ‘flock’. Bruce didn’t know whether to be grateful for that or not.

“You still haven’t told us how long you thought you were gone.” Dick looked pointedly at them before stepping back and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Huh? Oh, yeah.” Tim supplied, very helpfully, “Well, I did the math, and I’m pretty sure that, with all the correct conversions, every day for us was like…forty-fiveish minutes for you, not over an hour though.”

Jason nodded in agreement. “We’ve been keeping track.” He opened up the small screen on his wrist again, and several sheets of paper appeared in his hand. “We put a tally mark for every day we were gone, and each side of a sheet has 365 marks.” He waved the papers around to show the concerning amount of them. “We’ve been gone almost fifteen years.”

The silence that fell over the cave was absolutely deafening. With a gasp, Dick dropped his arms to his sides in shock. Steph’s jaw dropped. Alfred’s eyebrows shot up higher than Bruce had ever seen them. Duke, Steph, Cass, and Damian looked equal measures appalled and terrified.

Fifteen years. His sons, in their perspective, were gone for over a decade. That meant that Tim and Jason were now technically thirty-five and thirty-seven. Almost half their lives were spent in some unknown world that pushed diamond implants into their skin and cursed them with a sick sort of immortality. In time passed, they were older than Dick by a minimum of seven years. They were just younger than Bruce himself by only seven and five years respectively now.

But how? They didn’t look any older, scars aside, than when they left. How had so much time passed with their physical features remaining unchanged? Immortality, his brain supplied him. His boys would never look older than they did right now.

Maybe the worst part was the quiet acceptance showing on his boys’ faces. They weren’t even bothered by the time dilation anymore. Whatever emotions they did have on the matter were processed in mere seconds. Maybe they had already been thinking about this possibility. Maybe this was why they both seemed so calm and at ease. They’d had fifteen years to work through their differences and come to terms with whatever they needed to, though none of them still knew what even happened to them in the first place.

Now, Bruce really felt like crying. He was pretty sure a tear might have slipped through all of his emotional defenses. Just this once, he couldn’t find it in himself to be upset about it.

Chapter Text

Jason had been prepared for a lot of things. He and Tim had spent months discussing the possibilities of time dilation and how different their world could be. There were also discussions on whether or not they would ever return at all. They had, apparently correctly, assumed that taking Rockwell Prime down would bring them back. Killing the element-mutated psycho-scientist hadn’t been too terribly difficult, given their extensive preparations, but it was the actually being back in Gotham that made Jason’s brain trip just a little and make his battle exhaustion that much more prominent.

For all the conversations about the possibility of time warpage, Jason was fully expecting to come back to a world in which either the family was much older or completely dead. He and Tim had already grieved that possibility. They had carved their family’s names into rocks to mourn time probably lost, lives taken before they’d gotten a chance to see them again, goodbyes unsaid, I love you’s unsaid. They had talked about it often, just in case they came back to a world that left them behind and moved on without the bats. They had mourned and let the loss sting.

It wasn’t that they hadn’t talked about being gone for little time at all, but Jason was expecting the former option. He had not at all anticipated that every day for them equaled roughly an hour for their family. He hadn’t thought about fifteen years passing in only six months for their family back home. He couldn’t even remember what was happening around this time. If it wasn’t for the fact that they were now immortal in their own way, then it would’ve been them who had aged dramatically, not their family.

Not that it was all too surprising though, honestly, but it made his mind have to take a step back and reset. Dying for a second definitely helped him, but now his family looked like they were about to start sobbing. And then Dick threw up when he cut up the corpse. Really, it wasn’t the worst thing in the world, and chainsaws were really useful for collecting resources! Maybe it had just been too long since he’d been bothered by gore. He couldn’t afford to let it put him off considering the amount of it he’d seen and been the cause of the past decade and a half.

Seeing a tear actually leave Bruce’s eye at the mention of fifteen years gone by was a bit shocking though. Jason glanced at Tim, receiving a little shrug, and put the papers back in his inventory.

“Why don’t either of you look worried about this?” Steph asked, her voice barely above a whisper. She seemed to swallow over a lump in her throat.

“Oh, we had a lot of time to talk about it.” Jason replied, popping his sword out of his hotbar and idly spinning it, “I mean, we were actually expecting all of you to be either a ton older or already dead. Made you all gravestones and everything, just in case. So, this is a nice surprise, y’know? Plus, I don’t see the issue for you guys. We’ll never look old or wrinkly anyway. So, it’s like we never left.” He grinned, flicking his sword in slow, practiced loops.

His siblings just gaped at him, and Dick dragged a hand across his face. “You…You pretended we were dead in the event that we’d actually be dead when you got back?”

Jason cocked a brow at him. “Yeah? We were gone for a while, Dickie. Wasn’t sure if we’d even get back in the first place. But hey, the stones were nice. We didn’t even put any nicknames on them! Got the flock out for an audience and had a whole little ceremony, just in case.”

His family stared at him, slack-jawed and utterly dumbfounded by the looks of it. He didn’t really get the surprise. It had helped him and Tim get over the initial grief of the unknown, and it did help in the long run to be able to focus on the jobs at hand. It was even better that they were, in fact, alive, but the mini-not-but-kinda-a-funeral kept them sane. So, it really was just a win-win all around. And goodness knows that Bruce and Dick hadn't taken it well when he died the first time around. So, they shouldn't be allowed to say anything about coping mechanisms.

A whisper of “Why?” came from Duke.

Jason couldn’t help but snort, because now he had to explain everything to his clueless family. Not that it was their fault, but they really couldn’t have saved their questions for later? Oh well, at least Tim was gone from his side. That meant he was off doing setup or something and would probably appreciate the privacy. “Because the most likely option for us was you all being dead or like…old. Helped us to cope with the fact that we might never have gotten back or seen any of you again. Don’t know what’s so hard to understand about that.”

Dick looked several seconds away from either punching him or running to the edge of the cave platform and diving off of it, with no grapple. An overreaction really.

He hadn’t even said any of the more gruesome stuff yet!

Bruce’s eyes suddenly narrowed, and he glanced around behind Jason. “Where’s Tim?”

“Hmm?” Jason turned around too, and yeah he knew Tim had left, brother proximity senses and all that, but he couldn’t see Tim anywhere obvious.

“What is that obstruction?” Damian snapped, pointing an accusing finger at a structure.

Ohhh, so that’s where Tim went. “That’s a foundation.” He started, pointing at the square box, created from hexagonal plates, reinforced metals and polymers, and just a few glowing strips to fit the vibe, “A tek foundation to be exact. It’s like a floor made specifically so we can place certain objects on them, mostly storage vessels, fabrication tables, and more high tech machines. Or...y'know, building a house. The thing on top of it-” He pointed at the tall, thick pole that had flatter pieces coming off the top in each cardinal direction like a futuristic lamppost, “is a terminal. We were lucky enough to be able to rip it out of the ground on Extinction.”

The others blinked at him, and he sighed. “Extinction is the name of one of the maps we went through. I don’t think the terminals should’ve been able to come out, but we were able to pry it up and cart it around with us. It lets us transfer stuff from other maps. Like an upload and download of objects.”

Jason turned and looked closer at the foundation, and that was where he found Tim. At least…his body anyway. Sighing, he trudged over and grabbed the single foot that was sticking out from behind the blocky floor. Tim’s corpse went willingly, and its existence answered all of Jason’s questions. Tim had offed himself to go check out the death map. Typical Tim behavior. He dragged the body back over to the family, who was watching in varying degrees of horror, and dropped him on the floor.

“What happened?” Dick breathed, in shock or disbelief, Jason wasn’t sure.

But if someone threw up again, then so help him. “He died. Very normal, don’t worry. He’ll be back after he’s done gawking at the map.”

“Again, how are you calm about this? How is dying a normal occurrence for you?” Steph asked, clearly agitated in some way, which was silly, really. He’d already said that it was normal.

“I’m calm because it happens literally all the time? Like…we get to a new map, and usually the first thing we get to do, if we’re lucky, is look around a little bit, and then we die, either killed by something or starving or dehydration or whatever. Then, we respawn and keep going until we have enough stuff to not die so easily.” Jason explained, trying to put together how exactly he and Tim survived without getting too long-winded. Frankly, he just wanted to set up shop and take a nap. Killing Rockwell hadn’t been crazy difficult, but it was a long, tedious fight. Incredibly annoying one-liners from the monstrosity, yelling orders back and forth with Tim, hopping from creature to creature to get the best vantage points.

All in all, Jason was tired, probably a bit crabby, and a whole lot mentally drained. Don’t get him wrong, he was thrilled to see his family alive and well, but now they were all upset and wound up over things that were out of his control.

The next question came from Bruce, uncharacteristically quiet and lacking the classic Batman grit. “How did this happen?”

Shrugging, Jason pulled his sword back out and positioned himself well enough so he could tap it against the side of Tim’s corpse without too much gore coming out. It wasn’t nearly as effective as the chainsaw method, nor did it get him as much raw meat, but he didn’t want to look at another puddle of vomit, thank you very much. A moment later, the body disappeared, leaving a small leather satchel, which held all of Tim's item, behind. It looked like one of those brown paper bags, but replace paper for leather and add two straps around the top. Luckily, the family only stared at it with wide eyes but didn't comment. Thank goodness.

“I don’t know how any of it happened.” He answered truthfully, “I forget how we ended up there. It’s been a long time, but we just woke up on an island with these implants-“ He paused to gesture at the glowing red diamond on his wrist, “which weren’t always this color, by the way. It started out this dull sort of purple with no glow or extra bits. We had to kill the bosses of the whole map on three separate levels to get it to this red one. Every time we beat the final boss of one map, our bodies sort of disintegrated, and we’d be beamed to another map. We’ve been through a dozen, and now we’re back.” Jason shrugged again and scratched at the implant. It hummed lazily in his skin. He could feel the energy of it, it's bond with him making the skin around it buzz softly.

“Can you remove it?” Damian questioned, staring suspiciously at the implant with a disgruntled face.

“Nope. It’s there for good. Plus, it’s where all the important stuff is. We’re theorizing that it opens a kind of mechanized pocket dimension in our bodies, because we can store things in it that you wouldn’t see otherwise, but even though you can’t see the objects, they still have mass and exist. It also has information on it, like our different stats- please do not ask about them right now. I don’t know either. We’ve just accepted it and moved on. Anyway, it’s got information like maps, tribe info- again, do not ask, the status of tames in progress. Other stuff like that. Very handy.”

There. That should be enough explanation, right? Maybe enough for them to leave him alone so he could sleep. Hmm…Who should he bring out to sleep against? Tason Jodd was always a high choice, and the magmasaur was in his inventory right now, sleeping away in his cryopod. Or maybe Gizzard would be better? The giant bird was always up for cuddling too, and she was also in his inventory, safe and sound.

“-ason?”

He blinked, trying to focus on where the sound had come from. Okay, so maybe he was a little more tired than he thought if he was zoning out so much while standing up. That was exactly why sleep had become so important to him and Tim over the past decade and a half. If he spaced out like that in the swamp or redwoods? Dead. Dead as a doorknob and needing to take an irritating trek to find his corpse while hoping whatever mount was there hadn't been killed too. “Huh?” Oh, a cryopod had appeared in his hand too. Thanks, subconscious movements.

“You good? You looked…distant for a second there.” For his part, Dick did look worried, if you pushed aside his pale, slightly green-tinged face and twitching fingers.

Jason sighed, contemplating just kicking back a few of the narco cups he had on him and checking out for a while. Sure, the drug was usually used to keep creatures sedated while taming, but every once in a while, when sleep would evade them, it wasn’t uncommon for either him or Tim to knock one back. “I’m tired. Scratch that. I’m exhausted. The whole boss thing I mentioned? We literally got finished fighting the final one before we got here. Sue me for wanting to take a nap before any other nonsense can happen.”

“Ah, so you are getting slow in your newly advanced age?” Snarked Damian, seemingly over his shock at everything and back to his old sassy self.

Jason wasn’t really in the mood, honestly. He could easily handle a sassy Tim- had been for years now- but he didn’t really want to beef with a thirteen-year-old. He tried not to think about how wild it was that he’d been gone for over Damian’s entire lifespan. “I’m faster than you’ll probably ever be, kid. Dodging dinosaur jaws isn’t exactly a sport for slowpokes.”

Damian sneered and pulled a sword out from who knew where. "Prove it."

As he put the cryopod back in his inventory, Jason wanted to smash his head against he wall. He was too tired for this crap. Someone take him back to the islands so he wouldn't have to deal with an insufferable teenager. In lieu of voicing his complaints, he simply lunged, feeling his cape snap out behind him, and grabbed the sword, edge and all. It wouldn't really hurt him, and the shocked look that overtook Damian's face for a split second was worth it. Without a second breath, he twisted the blade out of his brother's hand and pinned him to the ground, knees pinning the younger's arms, with one hand pushing down on his neck and the other against his chest to restrict movement.

After a beat of silence, longer than the entire maneuver had taken, Jason stood up and pulled the cryopod back out. "Satisfied? Because I'm not doing that again."

Everyone stilled again, and what was with that, honestly? Dinosaur, shminosaur. Old, shmold. He’s seen weirder. They’ve seen weirder. It shouldn't be that shocking that he's faster than he was before either. He'd gotten leaner muscle over all the time running, chasing, and generally being on the move even more than he had been. So what if he could beat out a tiny assassin in terms of reflexes? He's rolled raptors over his back, wove under the legs of a giant spider queen, and dodged flying, acidic spit. His reflexes probably couldn't be more honed than they were now.

Jason sighed, a long-suffering, mournful sound, and pulled a cryopod out of his inventory. The lack of sleep was getting to him, and where was Tim when you needed him? Let his little brother chatter on about the intricacies of their world to their none-the-wiser family members. Was a small nap really too much to ask for?

Regardless, the small, cylindrical object pulsed a bright blue in his hand. He hadn't planned on pulling out this specific companion, but maybe the shock of a real dinosaur would shut them up and let him nap. “Yes, dinosaurs. Woooo.” He deadpanned, tossing the cylinder a good distance away from himself.

There was a flash of light, and suddenly, a massive therapod stood before the group, grumbling at being awoken again after a hard-fought battle. Jason could relate.

There was a fearful squeak from one of his siblings, but Jason’s eyes were on his friend, a gorgeous X-Yutyrannus with jet black scales, bright aqua feathers down her head to her tail, and topping it off with blood red stripes along her face, sides, and underbelly. She had been one of his main mounts in the battle previously, providing support with her courage roar that helped all of them rally together.

“Hey, big girl.” He crooned, reaching a hand up and letting her large snout rub against it. For all she was, an apex predator with the ability to send most living things running in fear or gather them together in a tight alliance, her temperament was much sweeter, caring in a way that only long-bonded, imprinted creatures could be. She rumbled to him, the low sound reverberating into his chest, and bumped her head against his.

“Don’t think I got to tell you how good you were out there.” Jason whispered, electing to ignore his gawking family for the moment. He scratched above her eye ridge and cracked a small grin as a large, amber eye focused on him. She was intelligent, most of their creatures were, but her kind always had an incredible grasp on the emotions of others. They had to, considering their abilities and tendency to hunt in inter-species packs of other therapods.

“Jason.” Bruce sounded exasperated, and a glance over revealed his father pinching the bridge of his nose and trying to probably suppress a lecture. Or maybe he was trying to ignore the perfectly spherical ball of dung that the dinosaur had let loose immediately after being released from the cryopod. That could’ve been it, but at least it still held its shape and didn’t turn into something more…realistic. It didn’t even smell anyway. So, it really wasn’t that big of a deal.

Jason’s soft smile for his friend turned wide and smug as he turned to face his family. “Yes?” He tilted his head for effect, because damn this was hilarious. Their faces were priceless, really, all shock and slight fear and maybe a bit more than mild horror. He supposed that they weren’t used to dinosaurs showing up in random places. Oh well. He’d fix that soon enough.

“What is that?” Bruce continued, suddenly looking like he’d aged the fifteen years that had passed for him and Tim.

“’That’ is my Yutyrannus. Her name is Chantra. A beauty, isn’t she? Raised her myself.” He beamed, scratching under Chantra’s jaw and earning himself another purring rumble.

The following silence held such an uncomfortable feeling that he started nervously petting Chantra's scales. They really didn't need to stare at him like he'd grown three new heads. Whatever, at least they weren't asking anymore questions...for the moment.

Chapter Text

“That’s a dinosaur. Like…almost a T-rex kind of dinosaur.” Duke stated, still trying to pick his jaw up off the floor, apparently.

“Yeah? And?” What was wrong with therapods? Sure, they were a hassle to get away from in the wild and popped up out of nowhere way too many times for his paranoia to decrease any. But, when they were tamed, or even better, raised by hand, they were an absolute joy to be around. Nothing was more badass than riding a giant, carnivorous dinosaur into battle while wielding a tek rifle or pump-action shotgun. Except maybe riding into battle on a reaper or wyvern…Or a fully contained submarine built on a mosasaur’s back, but whatever. That wasn’t the point.

“Chantra is a pretty name.” Steph hummed, staring at the saddle and harnesses wrapped onto his yuty’s back.

Jason carded a hand through the soft, downy feathers of Chantra’s head. “Well, a lot of people find chanting either soothing or deeply unsettling. Considering her species’ whole thing is roaring to either encourage those around them or send their prey running for the hills, it seemed like a fitting theme. Tim raised her twin sister, Chantress.”

“Is she friendly?” Damian piped up, looking halfway between starstruck and constipated. What a noob. Just admit the dinosaur is cool and move on.

Jason shrugged, dreading the infodump he had to give them. “Friendly to me and Tim anyway. Since you guys aren’t in the tribe, I’m not sure how she’d react to you trying to touch her or something like that. Before you ask, the tribe is a thing to do with the implants. Tim and I made a tribe together, and all of the creatures we tame or raise and all of the structures or tools we build fall under the tribe. Only we can interact passively with them, as far as we know. But, this is the first time other people are involved. So, who knows.” Please don’t ask anymore questions. Please don’t ask anymore questions.

Damian shifted on his feet, and Bruce put a hand on his youngest’s shoulder. “You can’t pet it.”

Jason’s nose wrinkled in irritation. “She, Bruce. She’s not some stupid brute, y’know. Yuty’s are some of the most intelligent therapods. They hunt in inter-species packs and command a lot of respect. If you insult her, you’re really just insulting me.” He paused for a moment, opening his inventory and scrolling through to find a sleeping bag. He slapped it on the ground, just in case Tim decided to go the easy route, though that was highly doubtfull, then pulled out another cryopod. It materialized in his hand, and he patted the side of Chantra’s head with the other before looping his arm over her snout.

She huffed and pulled her head up, taking him off the ground with her. A choked sound came from Dick, and Duke’s hands flew to his mouth, like he was trying to force prospective vomit back down his throat.

Jason just sighed and looked down at them, unimpressed. “You’re gonna have to get used to this.” He threw the cryopod in his hand near the sphere of dino poo, a phoore as Jason and Tim so affectionately called them, not far away. A large dung beetle came out of it and immediately made a beeline for the phoore, and it disappeared at the beetle’s touch.

A disgusted exclamation of “What the hell is that!?” came from the group, particularly Dick and Steph, who hated bugs. Again, noob behavior. Imagine if he’d thrown one of the venomous dragonflies the size of a small dog at them. What would they do then? Scream? Cry?

After climbing up to sit on top of Chantra’s head, Jason narrowed his eyes at them, because despite their noob behavior, he didn’t trust any of them to keep it together for long. “If any of you hurt Shitmaster in any way, I’ll gut you.” He hissed, jabbing a finger in their direction.

“Shitmaster?” Jason wasn’t sure if he’d ever heard Bruce sound so simultaneously confused out of his mind and disappointed with every life choice leading to this moment. If only Tim were there to see it.

“He is a fully-maxed out dung beetle who can carry over my body weight in poop and can simultaneously disembowel you, and I will not stand for any cell of his body being harmed. Don’t even dare to try it.” It was a little bit difficult to be intimidating when Chantra was carrying him away from them and to area next to the stairs that led to the Batcomputer level, but whatever.

Without waiting for them to recover, he dropped another cryopod. This time, an Argentavis, pretty much an eagle from Lord of the Rings, came out, also dropping a phoore before looking up and tilting its head at him. Chantra sat with a heavy thud in the alcove in-between the two sets of stairs.

“Heya, Gizz.” Jason said, smiling when Gizzard stretched up to nudge his dark beak into his chest while Chantra lowered him down. The bird was a bloody red color for the most part, with aqua feathers on his underside and scattered black patterns along his body. In Jason’s humble opinion, he was completely and unabashedly majestic. A moment later, Shitmaster, Shim for short, came scuttling over to take care of Gizzard’s significantly smaller phoore.

Jason settled against Chantra’s side, with Gizz ruffling his feathers before dropping in front of him. Feathery warmth enveloped Jason from all sides, and he quickly felt himself losing the war with wakefulness. Before he forgot, he put his armor back into his inventory and swapped it for a pair of cloth pants, deciding to not bother with a shirt for the time being. He whistled softly, a special tone that told his creatures to not attack anything. They eased against him, and all was well with the world.

“You won’t believe it!”

Well…all was well for all of two seconds. Jason didn’t even bother to open his eyes as the sound of running echoed through the cave.

“Tim!? What the hell are you doing? Why are you wet?” That was Dick.

Jason, against his better judgement, opened his eyes to see his family standing in an uncertain cluster slightly closer to him than they were before, and a near naked- thank goodness for the boxer shorts they always spawned with- Tim sprinting towards his fallen inventory bag. That was one question answered, why the sleeping bag hadn’t been activated.

“One of the spawn points is in Gotham Harbor.” Tim said, not even panting or breaking a sweat. His legs wobbled suspiciously though. He was probably dehydrated or starving at the rate he must’ve been running. As soon as he grabbed his inventory bag, Tim was materializing cups of stimulant in his hands and chugging them, looking about as crazed as he always did after. He put his armor back on and whirled in Jason’s direction. “The stats remain!”

Jason snorted and gave a thumbs-up, lacking the energy for much else. “Sick.” It was sick, definitely, but he would let Tim handle the outward excitement. In reality, he hadn’t been sure if their altered states from the ARKs would carry over back home, but to know they did, that their increased movement speed, stamina, and overall durability stuck with them, was a comfort. A larger one than he thought it’d be.

It made sense, he supposed, considering that almost half of his life had been spent out of his world. Still, it was a weird feeling but a welcome one nonetheless.

“The map is definitely filling, and the detail doesn’t fade with zoom distance. Markers work the same too.” Tim chirped, bounding over to him and play-wrestling with Gizzard’s head for a moment.

Jason yawned, knowing that even stimulants wouldn’t save him now. “That’s good, Timbers. Can you take watch for a while?”

Tim, immediately sensing the request, grinned and reached out to clap Jason’s shoulder. “You got it, chief man.” After all, this song and dance had played out for them many times before, exchanging duties with each other to stay alive. It was familiar, the knowledge that Tim could and would handle everything for him until he woke up.

Tim turned around and lunged enthusiastically towards the rest of the family, babbling about the temperature of the water not bothering his natural resistance, giving Jason unspoken permission to let go.

Slowly, Jason’s felt himself drifting again. With his family distracted, and Tim’s overwhelming energy directed elsewhere, he could finally take a rest. It had been a long week, grinding out resources for ammo and saddles and making the trek to Rockwell Prime. After everything, he deserved a little break.

With Chantra’s deep breathing, Shim’s chittering, and Gizzard’s gentle trills surrounding him, Jason fell into an easy slumber, knowing that he would still be safe when he woke up.