“You worked with him.” Jason repeats it, confirming it to himself, like saying the words will make them take a more solid shape in his mildly stunned mind. She worked with Batman. He fired her. And -

“And he let you die, too.”

He failed her. One more way she and Jason are alike, and the second he makes that connection, any anger he might’ve felt for her concealment of the entire truth from him immediately dissipates, swallowed up in the wave of intense sympathy that overtakes him. He can’t be angry with her over this, with how genuinely miserable she looks and sounds.

Jason doesn’t know if she’ll appreciate the comfort he can try to offer her, but he knows when he was in a similar situation, it’s what he would’ve wanted, so he takes a gamble. Carefully, with a murmured c’mere, he shifts closer toward her and gently wraps his arms around her to collect her in a sideways hug.

“I’m gonna punch his teeth in if I ever see him again,” he says over the top of her shoulder. How dare Bruce abandon her like this. The desire to protect her blazes hot in his chest, a concurrent rhythm with the beat of his heart.