someday - BoneRot19 - Batman (2024)

Chapter 1: if you hide, it doesn't go away

Chapter Text

“How are the nightmares?” The therapist asked. Jason had forgotten her name, or, rather, neglected to remember it.

"What nightmares," he said.

He dreamt about Willis and Catherine almost every night. Sometimes he was sinking into the harbor with their ashes. Sometimes they were dragging him off the docks themselves. Mostly, though, it was Saint Monica’s. The hole, getting smaller and smaller and smaller until he woke up, the sheets drenched in sweat. They were the reason he had a single dorm, the nightmares.

The therapist gave him a look that said I know what you’re doing and I’m going to be nice and pretend I can’t read your mind. He ignored this look.

“And the new brother? How is that going?”

“We’re one big happy family.”

Damian called Tim a pretender and Jason a leach, and that was when he bothered to talk to them at all.

She gave him another look, this one about five degrees more incredulous than the last. Then, very slowly, her face softened and Jason braced for impact.

“Have you been working on taking the elevator?” She asked. He could read between the lines.

“I took the elevator up here today,” Jason lied.

He’d stood in front of the elevator doors for fifteen minutes before running up four flights of stairs so he wouldn’t be late.

The timer on her desk buzzed and Jason stood. “Great talk, see you next week.”

He left before she could say anything else. Before she could do anything more than look a little sad.

"Okay, how did everyone like The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas?" Their English professor, Dr. Stone asked, perching on the desk at the front of the room. "One of the most iconic short stories of all time. Did you like Ursula K LeGuin's use of rhetorical questions? Did you notice the shifts in point of view? Talk to me."

"I liked the way LeGuin includes the reader in the building of her utopia, like how she explains her choices," Steph said, rifling through the lose papers on her desk. "Like, she says: "But even granted trains, I fear that Omelas so far strikes some of you as goody-goody. Smiles, bells, parades, horses, bleh. If so, please add an orgy. If an orgy would help, don't hesitate.""

The class erupted into laughter and Steph grinned as Dr. Stone said, "Very good analysis."

Jason had had to read it a few times. The first time, he'd gone into it with good intentions and a highlighter and emerged with a page bleeding neon yellow. That was the thing with short stories, Jason was coming to realize, every word was important. Every line said something. There was no room for filler. There was not a single moment that didn't mean something.

And then, of course, there was the problem of the story itself. It took a great deal of effort, to engage with it normally. To read the story of joy and happiness, to watch LeGuin build and rationalize and arrive at the problem of the child in the closet.

He knew it wasn't literal, that it was a rhetorical device, that it was something terrible and shocking to get a point across.

He knew that. And he was angry that it made him panic, anyway. Angry that he could not logic his way out of a panic attack. Angry that something meant as a hyperbolic symbol, a representation of the horrors of the world, was a thing that actually happened.

The first time Jason read The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, with good intentions and a highlighter, he emerged with a page bleeding neon yellow.

The second time Jason read The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas — after an angry walk to the library to print it out again — he took a pen to the pages and scribbled his thoughts so furiously, he ripped through the paper.

The third, and last, time Jason read The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas — after a slow, weary walk to the library to print it again — he did so methodically. Carefully. He read it like a person that had never spent any amount of time locked in a closet.

"It's like she's trying to make us part of it, like, complicit," someone else said, and the class murmured their agreement.

"I think LeGuin is saying hey, look at this, now you know about it too, what are you going to do about it?" Stone said, swinging her feet as she spoke. "How does morality play into it? You say LeGuin makes you feel complicit, how important is the happiness of one against the happiness of many? Is it right to stay? Is it wrong to leave? Tell me why."

For several moments, no one moved. No one breathed. Dr. Stone looked a moment away from picking someone at random when a girl spoke up, voice terribly small and nervous.

"If one person has to suffer so that everyone else can thrive, isn't that worth it? It's not good, obviously, but I think LeGuin is trying to illustrate that, like, a real utopia isn't possible. That there can't, like, only be good stuff without any bad stuff."

"Yeah, obviously," said a guy who always wore a Bruins hat and said things that made Jason's blood boil. "And it's not like the kid is contributing to society. LeGuin literally says, "It is too degraded and imbecile to know any real joy. It has been afraid too long ever to be free of fear." So it doesn't matter anyway."

Jason was buzzing. Knee bouncing violently under his desk. He wasn't really one for group participation, didn't love tossing his opinions out there to be analyzed by strangers.

He was a little surprised, then, when he said, "So you'd volunteer? If it's so obviously for the good of society, you would take one for the team, yeah?"

Bruins Hat blanched a little, at the question, and balked hard when he tried to answer. Finally, he settled on: "It's a hypothetical, man."

"Well, yeah," Jason said easily. "So, hypothetically —"

"Yeah, obviously I would," he interrupted, clearly having recovered. Immediately, the entire class was talking. Arguing over whether or not Bruins Hat was telling the truth, arguing over the premise of the question, arguing over the point of the story in general.

Jason leaned back in his seat and shot Steph a pleased smile.

"You are such a dick," she said, but she watched the chaos with glee.

"Alright! Alright!" Stone shouted, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Let's break up into smaller groups, two to four people, and discuss the use of rhetorical voice."

Jason and Steph were not discussing the use of rhetorical voice, they weren't talking about anything. Mostly because Jason could see that look on Steph's face. The one that said she wanted to talk about it.

“Do you ever feel like the things you study in class are weirdly applicable to the things going on in your life?” He asked idly. If they were going to talk about it, he wanted control of the conversation.

“I think,” Steph said carefully, “bringing your real life experiences into your interpretation is, like, part of interpretation.”

She was eyeing him, but trying to be discreet about it. Like she wanted to ask. Like, maybe, she was restraining herself from asking.

It wasn't like she didn't know, like there would be anything to tell her that would be new information. She'd been there, had broken into Saint Monica's. She'd been there after, had woken him up from too many nightmares.

She was there now, climbing five flights of stairs three times a week because Jason wouldn't take the elevator to class.

It wasn't even the closet that was the problem, not really. He could probably get away with saying it was the injustice of it all. That he was angry and tired, that bad things were happening all the time, everywhere. That it wasn't a hypothetical. That it was real.

Except that wasn't really the problem either, no matter how much he tried to pretend it was.

It was this: It has been afraid too long ever to be free of fear.

He didn’t want to say any of that, and he realized it very suddenly, so he said, “Where’d’ya wanna go for lunch later?”

He was saved from Steph's raised eyebrows and any subsequent comments on the sharp change of subject, when the power went out.

The class erupted with laughter and whispers and, some, shouting. Dr. Stone sighed and did her best to reign them in.

“Alright, alright,” she shouted. “Chill out, the power should be back on in a bit.”

“If we’re lucky,” Steph whispered. “Last time it was like ten hours.”

“Weird that no one can figure them out,” Jason said, barely audible.

“It’s not the power plants, that’s for sure.”

“Oh?” Jason raised an eyebrow. This was news to him, but he didn’t spend much time ghosting around the Manor and Cave now that he lived in a dorm. That was an activity reserved for weekends, these days.

“Apparently,” Steph darted her eyes around the room to make sure no one was listening, “it’s like all of the electricity just...disappeared. And then, it comes back on because it just. Reappears."

“How is that even possible?”

“No idea, not a scientist. But all of the electricity-focused rogues are accounted for.”

Jason scrunched his eyebrows together. “The plot thickens.”

“Could be someone new,” Steph said, and it sounded like a prospect that troubled her deeply.

“But it’s not like anything bad is happening. The power goes out, regular crime surges for a bit, general but limited chaos.”

“Unless they’re tests,” Steph hummed.

“You sound like B.”

Steph snorted. “That’s because it’s his theory. I'm surprised no one told you any of this.”

Jason shrugged. "I don't ask. Besides, I'm normal now. It's none of my business."

"Yeah," Steph snorted. "Sure."

The power was not, in fact, back in a bit. Classes were cancelled for the rest of the day.

Even when the power was out, the upper levels of the library stayed open. The large windows provided plenty of light and the quiet study area didn't have an computers to worry about.

That's where Steph had decided to camp out, ignoring the notebooks and textbooks scattered in front of her. She twirled a pen absentmindedly.

Her phone buzzed, the sound monstrously loud in the silent space. She scrambled for it, snatching the phone off the table. Mother was written in bold white text across the screen. She stared at it for a moment, then she sent it to voicemail.

She knew what it would be about. Had known this day was coming for years. It was just that, it had once been years away and it was easier to think of as being years away. Time passed, but in a way that didn't seem to matter. Four years turned into three years turned into two years, on and on. They were all the same in that no denomination of time with the word year in it was soon.

Years were easy to ignore.

It was unfortunate, that the years had turned into two months. Two months was infinitely harder to ignore but, as it turned out, not impossible.

Steph sent Crystal to voicemail three more times — except the last time she glanced at the screen just in time to see Jay disappear.

“sh*t,” she hissed, calling back, phone shoved between her ear and shoulder as she tossed her things into her backpack and smiled apologetically at the people who glanced up at the commotion.

“Yo,” he answered.

“Hey, sorry, thought you were a, uh, telemarketer,” Steph whispered.

“All good, wanna study? My dorm? Pizza?”

“f*ck yes,” Steph said, already out the door, because she needed a distraction.

Because her father had a parole hearing in two months. Because she couldn’t stop thinking about it. Or, rather, couldn’t stop thinking about him.

Arthur Brown hadn’t always been bad. People rarely are. Sometimes, when she thought about him, she couldn’t shake the knowledge that he had been a child, once.

That this was his first time on Earth, too. That, at one point, he had been her age. Had been confused and frustrated and angry. That he'd grown up. That he'd been her dad. That he still was.

Steph remembered the moment she decided she would never speak to her father again. She'd done it with an agonizing sureness. Had known that she could never take it back — was positive she would never want to.

She remembered thinking I’m too young to be making this decision.

She was older, now. The thing she hadn’t realized, at the time, was that it wasn’t a one time decision. It was one she had to make every day. Sometimes, she went days without thinking about him. Weeks, if she was lucky.

Then, out of nowhere, it would hit her. That she had a dad, that he was alive, that he existed, that she could talk to him, if she wanted. She could talk to him, if she wanted. She could talk to him, if she wanted. She could talk to him, if she wanted.

He hadn't always been bad. He'd been fun and goofy and kind, sometimes. He’d been ambitious and confident and charismatic.

Her father had been a person, with things to love and things to loathe. He had been someone Crystal fell in love with, had a child with.

He’d made cinnamon rolls on Sunday mornings and read to her when she was little. He told her jokes when she was upset. Arthur Brown had made her smile and laugh like no one else.

The truth of it was, he’d been bad for less time than he’d been good. Sometimes, Steph woke up and, for a little while, she lived in a world where her dad was in the other room, singing little songs and flipping pancakes. And then she remembered. Remembered the rage, the screaming, the scheming, the violence.

He had always been a liar, at least. That part was no surprise.

Steph didn't bother to knock on Jason's door, she knew it would be open and it wasn't like there was a roommate to worry about.

Jason was sitting on the bed, instead of the desk, his things spread around him in a semi-circle. When Steph jumped onto the bed, his notebooks and pens and books launched into the air, settling in a heap in front of him.

Jason frowned.

Steph grinned.

They fell into an easy rhythm. One where Steph didn't ask about children in closets, even though the subject still hung heavily in the air, because she was afraid Jason would interrogate her back.

Probably, he would ask about New York again, if she pushed him too hard. Maybe he had figured out something else was going on. Steph wasn't willing to find out.

“Do you remember your parents lying?” She asked after a while, without meaning to.

Jason looked up from the notebook in his lap. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” she sighed, in too deep to change the subject. “I just, I remember the first time I realized my dad was a liar. I don’t remember the situation, but he was telling a story, something he and I had done or seen or…something.”

Steph stabbed the tip of her pen into her notebook, digging a ditch in the paper. “And I remember the way my stomach dropped, when I realized he was lying about what happened. And he looked down at me, smiling, looking for confirmation. Just, seamlessly brought me in on the lie. And I nodded, because, for a moment, I thought I remembered wrong. But what he’d said had been so wrong, so off from what I remembered.”

Jason shifted on the bed, but Steph didn’t look at him, didn’t do anything except dig at her notebook.

“Catherine lied, I think,” he said thoughtfully. “But like, a normal amount. Willis was usually, like, brutally honest.”

Steph could hear the cringe in his voice and snorted. She hadn’t spent much time talking to Willis Todd but, from what she remembered, he’d always told it how it was. Or, at least, how he’d seen it.

“Bruce doesn’t lie,” she said eventually and Jason laughed.

“Hard to lie when you speak ten words a day.”

She looked up, then, because she wanted to see the fondness in his expression. It was sickeningly sweet.

"True, he's more of a lie by omission kind of guy." Steph rolled onto her back and stared at the off-white ceiling. It was a different color than the walls, she realized idly. "How's he gonna deal with the whole surprise baby situation?"

"Not sure, but he is, apparently, against the idea of gaslighting Gotham," Jason sighed, sounding genuinely disappointed.

"Excuse me?"

"Dick wants him to pretend Damian has always been around, get Babs to photoshop him into paparazzi pics and create fake articles about him."

Steph threw her arms across her face and groaned. "Of course Dick would want to do that."

"I think it rules," Jason said, and she could hear the grin in his voice.

"You would." Steph rolled back onto her stomach, chin resting on a clenched fist. "How is the baby assassin?"

Jason groaned, tossing the notebook onto the floor entirely. "He hates Tim, like so much. And he doesn't just say: "I hate you," he says, "Your family line is not fit to create someone with the skills and prestige to carry the Robin mantle." Which doesn't even make sense because Dick's bloodline is for sure less rich than Tim's, but he respects the hell out of Dick."

"Jesus."

"He says wild sh*t. Wanna know what the f*ckin' kid said to Bruce like ten minutes after meeting him?"

"Oh god, what?"

"I imagined you taller."

Steph dropped her face into the bed, shaking with her laughter. When she spoke, her voice was muffled. "That must have been devastating for him."

"I'm pretty sure he's still not over it."

Steph picked herself up, settled into sitting position, and said, "He still like the cat better than you?"

Several things flashed across Jason's face in close succession. Too fast to interpret individually. The broad stroke was this: yes, Damian still liked Stephanie the cat more than Jason. No, he didn't know why.

She laughed before she could stop herself and Jason narrowed his eyes.

"I'm sure he'll come around," she said gently, and that only made him scowl harder. "We've gotta get going, if we're late to dinner I'm telling mom it was your fault."

"No," Jason cried, jumping off the bed. "Don't slander my name. Besides, she would never believe you. She knows you too well."

It was a battle, to keep the smile from sliding off her face. Because Crystal did know her so well. Because there would be no avoiding her in person. She'd been working nights the past week, and Steph had expertly timed her comings and goings such that their paths did not cross.

If they never talked about Arthur, if they never acknowledged the parole hearing, maybe it would come and go and their lives could remain unchanged.

Usually, when he joined Steph, Crystal, and Dani for dinner, Crystal taught him how to make the meal. Usually, Jason spent the whole time in the kitchen while Steph and Dani did their best to be in the way.

This time, he was banished to the living room. There was no explanation and no pretending.

They walked through the door and Crystal had said, "I need to talk to Stephanie in the kitchen, why don't you help Dani with her book?" And then they were gone. Steph hadn't spared him so much as a glance over her shoulder.

So, Jason helped Dani with her book. The kind that taught kids math through counting sh*t on the page or whatever. Dani didn't need help, and Jason was trying, in vain, to overhear what they were talking about in the kitchen.

"I miss school," Dani said, so suddenly and quietly that Jason almost missed it. It felt like he'd been handed a very important opportunity, and he was trying very hard not to blow it.

"What's your favorite subject?"

Dani sighed, sounding decades older than nine. "History. But I like math, too. My teacher had these cubes that she gave out and we could build shapes and it helps you count and multiply."

"Very cool. Math was never my favorite, but I think it's alright."

Dani rolled her eyes. "That's because you like books."

"What's wrong with books?"

"Nothing," she said, sending him a withering glance out of the corner of her eye.

"You just need to read more books."

"They're boring," she whined and Jason clutched at his heart and careened to the side, crashing into her. He laid there, limp, feigning death, as she laughed and tried to shove him away.

When his neck started to hurt from the severe angle, Jason sat up and said, "You just need to read better books."

Dani frowned, then, and Jason scrambled to figure out where he'd gone wrong, what he'd said to upset her, when she said, "I'm not too good at reading."

She picked at the carpet, eyes trained down and away. She looked like she was ready to flee.

"That's okay," he said lightly. "We can practice together. I'll find some of the books I liked when I was your age and we can read 'em together."

There was a minute relaxation of shoulders, but barely. "I miss school," Dani said again and Jason felt like he was going to puke, maybe.

"I know, buddy," he said softly. "There are things we could try to do. That judge that Bruce knows, remember?"

Dani was on her feet in an instant, but she didn't retreat. Jason stayed where he was and looked down at his hands, like maybe the answer to all their problems would be there, if he just looked hard enough.

"I can't do that," she said, and he knew she meant can't be in the same room as him. She was terrified of her dad, and of course she was. He was a cop, Officer Romero had friends in high places, just like Bruce.

"I know it's scary," he said, instead of I never did it either. He glanced up at her, then, so she would know he meant it. So she would know he knew what it was like, too.

She was crying big, silent tears. Taking heaving, silent breaths. Jason wondered, briefly, if this was how Bruce felt with him. Helpless and afraid.

"We'll figure something else out," he said and Dani leaned forward and buried her face in Jason’s shoulder.

After a short while, she murmured, “Does it go away?”

"Does what go away?" He asked, brushing her hair out of her face.

Dani shrugged and Jason held her tighter because he thought, maybe, he knew what she was talking about. And it hadn't gone away, not for him.

Jason thought that, maybe, it might go away for her. That, maybe, he could help her in time. That she was young enough to heal before life cut her down too far. He just had to figure out how to do it.

They ate dinner in relative silence. Everyone, it seemed, was a bit too far in their own heads for conversation. Jason hardly noticed, hardly gave a thought to whatever was going on with Crystal and Steph.

He only had room in his mind for this: It has been afraid too long ever to be free of fear.

Because the closet had been real, but he knew the metaphor of it a long time before he knew four solid walls and a too-small space. Because he'd been afraid for as long as he could remember. Because he knew he would never be free of it.

And it was unbearable, the idea that he would be like this forever. That he could grow and heal and try and try and try and try and try and try and still be the same.

It was unbearable, to think that the damage done to him was irreversible. He was supposed to fix himself. He was supposed to get better. He was supposed to change but no matter how much he changed he was still the same kid. A part of Jason would always be in his parent’s home. Hell, a part of Jason would always be in the hole.

No matter how much time passed. No matter how much distance he put between himself and that last apartment, from Saint Monica's, he could not escape the past.

There was not Jason: before and Jason: after. There was only Jason.

He was the same as he’d always been. He was the same as he would always be.

It was unbearable, to know there was no escape from himself. Unbearable, that he would always be afraid. All he learned were ways to deal with it, ways to confront it. To cope.

There had been a time when Jason was afraid he would get better and no longer know who he was. No longer hold an identity outside his trauma. It had been a pointless fear.

There are no cures for a bad childhood, only ways to go on living, ways to try to have a better life.

Sometimes, it felt worth it. When Alfred met him for brunch in the dorm cafeteria. When he studied with Steph in the library. When he played video games with Tim and Dick. When he went to a bookstore with Bruce and talked about everything and nothing.

Everyday on his way to class, he hummed an almost-prayer to Catherine, look where I am. Do you see? How I kept my promise?

Sometimes, it was enough.

Sometimes, though, it was unbearable. The idea of being like this forever. The idea of dealing with himself for the rest of his life. Inescapable.

It has been afraid too long ever to be free of fear.

Sometimes, he was so angry he couldn’t see. Sometimes, he wanted to throw himself through a window, to slam his head into the wall, to break everything in the room, to see if it made him feel better. He knew it wouldn’t, he’d tried a while ago.

He’d broken everything in their sh*tty little apartment before he left with Bruce. Jason had wanted to see, once and for all, if he was like his father. Wanted to show himself what he had always known: his anger would not make anything better.

Sometimes, he wanted to do it anyway.

Sometimes, he went to the school gym and slammed his fists into the punch bag until they bruised beneath the tape. Until someone asked if he was okay.

He’d just thought that, when people said things got better, they meant he would get better.

Someday you'll wake up and realize that you have what you wanted, that it's real, Bruce had said. Someday, you'll wake up and you'll realize that everything is okay.

He’d made it to someday. He had what he wanted. It was real. He no longer dreamt of it all falling away, of losing it all. Everything was okay.

It was just that he thought someday would be easier.

Chapter 2: nemisis of fun

Chapter Text

“This is your son, Damian,” Talia said.

This is your son, Damian. This is your son, Damian. This is your son, Damian. This is your son, Damian. This is your son, Damian. This is your son, Damian. This is your son, Damian. This is your son, Damian. This is your son, Damian. This is your son, Damian. This is your son, Damian. This is your son, Damian. This is your son, Damian. This is your son, Damian. This is your son, Damian. This is your son, Damian.

And truly, there was no denying the boy was Talia's son. He was her miniature in so many ways. They had the same dark hair, the same brown skin, the same bump along the bridge of their noses. The same pinch between their eyebrows when irritated.

Damian didn't look like Bruce, not in the way Bruce looked like his father. Their baby pictures were side by side in the study — had been for as long as Bruce could remember — to display their resemblance.

No, Damian didn't have Bruce's eyes or his completion or his features. And for a moment, on the porch, Bruce contemplated arguing. Denying this child as his own.

He wouldn't do that. Could never do such a thing. (He hoped.)

(Not in front of the child. Not with Jason standing right next to him.)

Bruce had taken in three children that weren't his, he would do it with a fourth, if he had to. And he did, have to, because Talia stayed that first night but she was gone in the morning.

There had been a moment, in the morning, as Bruce searched the Manor, that he thought Talia had taken the kid and left. A moment of relief. And then Damian had stomped around the corner demanding to know where his mother was. That was when Bruce started searching in earnest.

Even though he already knew. He knew without looking, though he did anyway, that Talia was gone. And she'd left the kid behind.

The kid, who moved as silently as any League assassin. The kid, who had a seemingly endless supply of knives on his person and the Manor. The kid, who spoke of Batman and Robin as his inheritance and his birthright.

Almost worst of all, he knew Talia was still in town. For all his (considerable) efforts, however, he could not find her.

The actual worst part, the thing that sunk to the pit of Bruce's belly and tasted a lot like shame, was that he couldn't bring himself to run the DNA test. He didn't want to know, if this kid was actually his. He didn't want to know what he would do if he wasn't.

Jason spent most weekends at the Manor. On Fridays, Dick would pick him up outside the dorms in his shiny silver Porsche 911. It was, in Jason’s opinion, the coolest, most unnecessary car he'd ever seen.

Historically, weekends at the Manor went very well. Even with Damian haunting the hallways like a tiny, stabby ghost, Jason looked forward to Friday. Even with anxiety rustling in his guts and the ever-present fear that everyone would realize things were easier without him. That, one day, Jason would leave the dorm on a Friday afternoon and Dick wouldn't be there.

Except Dick was always there. Except Bruce would ruffle his hair and ask how his day was. Except Tim would insist on trying to teach him how to skateboard. Except Damian would bring Stephanie the cat into the library, dump her into Jason's lap, and walk away.

So, every Sunday, Jason would leave the Manor and come to the conclusion that, this week, he was being dramatic. The jury was still out on the next one.

It has been afraid too long ever to be free of fear.

Jason could usually hear Dick's car before he saw it, and this week was no exception. It was parked crookedly out front, blasting Kesha. And there was Dick, drumming on the steering wheel. It was too soon to tell, of course, but Jason was willing to guess that this was a good week, too.

"Hey," Dick said, smiling brightly and somewhat unconvincingly. There were cracks in his facade lately. But there were cracks in everyone's facades, ever since a deadly assassin left a baby assassin on Bruce's front porch.

Jason hucked his backpack into the backseat and dropped into the car. "Yo."

"How was your week?" Dick asked very politely as he pulled away from the curb with extreme precision.

"Well," Jason said, "My Poli Sci 101 class is boring as hell, I think Econ is a sham, and English feels like the universe is trying to force me to work through my sh*t. Spanish is fun, though."

Dick laughed, some of the tension seeping from his shoulders. "The first year is supposed to kind of suck, anyway. It's all prerequisites and sh*t."

"How would you know?"

Dick made an affronted sound. "Hey, I did a few semesters before I dropped out."

"Right, right." Jason rolled his eyes. "And that was, what? Ten years ago?"

"I'm going to throw you out of this car."

"I'd like to see you try," Jason said, feigning seriousness. He knew, logically, that Dick could toss him out of the car without breaking a sweat or taking his eyes off the road. But they were both laughing so it seemed unlikely he'd try.

"How's the kid been?" Jason asked, because he needed to know before they got to the Manor. Needed to brace himself, if it'd been a bad week.

Dick's smile flickered, but he recovered valiantly. "He's fine. Being a little prick, but what else is new."

Jason was pretty sure he wasn't imagining the way Dick's eye twitched behind his sunglasses.

"He still hate Tim?" Jason asked and Dick snorted, merging onto the freeway with what could pass as reckless abandon. "He still hate me?"

"He doesn't hate you."

"He thinks I'm a leach wasting his family's resources," Jason muttered, pressing his forehead against the window. “He doesn’t like me.”

"He doesn't like anyone," Dick said.

"He likes you."

Dick laughed bitterly, "He respects the fact that I was the original Robin and he thinks Nightwing is, like, a rank above Robin. He doesn't like me. The brat will only give me the time of day when I'm in uniform."

Jason watched Dick for a minute, the hard set of his jaw, the tightening of his hands on the steering wheel.

“You okay, dude?”

Then, Jason watched the methodical untightening of one Richard Grayson. The tension was released. The grimace replaced by something smoother.

“Yeah,” Dick said, “Sorry, I’m just stressed about it all. It’s been a year of terrible f*cking timing.”

Jason’s heart sank and he went back to looking out the window. Maybe this wasn’t a good week after all.

“f*ck,” Dick sighed, “that sounds mean. It’s just, Talia has always been bad for Bruce, and now she drops off a kid? And leaves? She’s manipulating him.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Jason said softly, face once again pressed against the window, eyes closed.

“And Roy is coming to town after some bullsh*t argument with Oliver, and I said yes even though I know he's just avoiding his problems, because I’m an asshole,” Dick said, and Jason had a feeling he was talking to himself, now, more than anything.

“Oh yeah?”

Dick sat up straighter, shoulders pushed back, smile back in place. “But it’s all good, really. Damian will get more comfortable and Roy and Ollie love each other, they’ll figure it out.”

Dick was, apparently, done with the conversation. He cranked up the music and sang along at the top of his lungs.

Jason had just dumped his backpack on the floor of his room when the door flew back open and Tim launched himself face first onto Jason's bed.

"Oh, hey," Jason said flatly. "Come on in."

"I don't know how it happened, I don't know when it happened, I can't believe I'm even saying this," Tim said into the mattress. "But you might be the only other sane person in this house."

"Oh, god, don't do this to me." Jason flopped down next to him with enough force to launch Tim half a foot in the air.

"Don't do what?"

"Don't make me the voice of reason."

"I don't like it either," Tim groaned. "The kid is trying to kill me, Dick is acting like nothing is wrong, and Bruce is acting like Damian isn't even here."

"I feel like you shouldn't be surprised by either of those reactions."

Tim lifted his head and levelled an incredibly unimpressed look in Jason's direction. "I'm already benched, Robin might as well be Oracle's apprentice at this point, not Batman's."

"How's that going, by the way? You figure out how to sneak into Gotham on your own yet?"

"I'm not doing that," Tim said, and the kid was an exceptional liar. Jason almost believed him.

"Totally, totally."

"I'm not."

"Sure, sure."

"I take it back, I'm the only sane person in this house, you're just as bad as the rest of them," Tim whined.

"Fantastic, my reputation is restored."

It was so much easier for Steph to avoid her mom during the week. She'd been on the night shift so much, lately. All Steph had to do was tiptoe out of the apartment in the morning and she was in the clear.

She almost asked to stay over at the Manor, but she'd done that the previous weekend and a burning ball of shame had settled in her stomach ever since. Steph didn't want to avoid her mom. She loved her.

Every time she slipped out of the apartment earlier than necessary, she imagined Crystal waking up from a post-work nap. Imagined her getting up, exhausted and longing for sleep, to make breakfast. Imagined her finding Steph's bed empty and her shoes gone.

Stephanie already kept monstrous secrets from her mother, she couldn't hide from her in general. It would eat her alive.

So, Saturday morning, with the knowledge that Crystal had the day off, Steph slid out of bed and started making breakfast.

Back when Crystal was newly sober — when she had to fight tooth and nail every single day to stay that way, when Steph searched her things for drugs and watched her every movement — she started to make Steph breakfast. It had been a tiny thing. The kind of thing most families had.

The kind of thing Steph had ago long stopped expecting.

Then, one morning, she woke up to the smell of waffles. Crystal had, apparently, gone out early that morning. She'd bought a second-hand waffle iron and the necessary groceries. Steph had peaked into the kitchen in disbelief.

There Crystal had been, still in her pyjamas, cursing under her breath. Steph remembered trying to push down the feeling of hope bubbling in her chest. She remembered telling herself it's only temporary, don't get attached.

She'd always gotten attached, though. Stephanie Brown loved with her whole heart. She believed with her entire soul. She couldn't help it. She smelled waffles and she knew, deep, deep in her heart, that everything was going to be okay.

So, Saturday morning, with the knowledge that Crystal had the day off, Steph slid out of bed and started making breakfast. She made waffles in that same second-hand iron. She got a bit ambitious and decided to whip some cream by hand and so, presumably drawn out of bed by the smell of waffles, Crystal found her sitting on the floor with a bowl and a whisk and a look of deep determination on her face.

"Hi," Crystal said, smiling with reckless abandon.

"This is ridiculous," Steph said, frowning into the bowl. "I've been at it for, like, fifteen minutes. All I've managed to do is froth it slightly."

"Can I give it a try?" Crystal settled onto the floor beside her daughter. Steph handed over the bowl.

They sat like that, knees touching, passing the bowl back and forth until their arms were rubbery and they had achieved fluffy whipped cream. Steph was grateful she'd had the foresight to put the waffles in the oven so they would still be warm. She was grateful for a lot of things.

"We should wake up Dani," Crystal said, moving to push herself up off the floor.

"Hey, mom," Steph said suddenly, and Crystal sat back down. "I'm sorry."

"For what, sweetheart?" She reached out a hand, brushing a piece of hair out of Steph's face. A single tear traced it's way down her cheek and Crystal brushed that away, too.

"I don't want things to change."

She didn't know how to explain. She knew she didn't have to. Crystal understood, she'd probably known before Steph even said it, that she was thinking about Arthur.

"Things won't change," she whispered, but her eyes were glassy. "No matter what happens, we'll always have each other. We won't go back to the way things were."

She didn't promise. They didn't make each other promises they couldn't keep. It wasn't something they'd ever agreed on, it was more of an unspoken truth between them. Steph knew that what her mom really meant was this: I will do whatever I can.

Steph had decided a long time ago that that was enough.

It was becoming tradition, for Jason to sleep almost all day Saturday and then hang out in the Cave with Tim. Damian was also there, usually. It was turning out to be impossible to keep him out. He did not, of course, consider this hanging out time.

"I am merely making sure you two do not burn the place down," Damian said, when prompted. It was hard to be wholly offended, when the kid was so small in Bruce's desk chair that his feet barely dangled over the edge of the seat.

"And what could you possibly do about it if we did?" Tim huffed, relegated to the lesser desk chair and being quite cranky about it. Jason had only a stool, pillaged from the medbay, so if anyone got to complain, he figured he had first dibs.

"I am trained in fire suppression," Damian said matter-of-factly.

He was always saying mildly concerning things like that. I am almost a master of blades. I am familiar with the vulnerable parts of the human body, Todd. It would take you approximately ten seconds to bleed out if I severed your carotid artery, Drake.

Mostly, Jason ignored him.

Sundays after brunch, and mostly against his will, Jason learned how to skateboard. It was part of Dick's plan to make Tim feel better about the tiny baby assassin that wanted him dead. The only reason Jason showed up for these lessons, held along the Manor's impressive driveway, was because Dick was also learning and was, somehow, worse at it than Jason.

"I thought you had exceptional balance," Jason teased as he dragged Dick out of a magnolia bush.

"I really thought my skills would translate," Dick said, scowling at the skateboard, which had been rocketed across the front lawn when he'd fallen. "Does Tim look happy?"

Jason pretended to survey the damage to the grass to get a better look. "He looks, somehow, more annoyed than usual. You might actually be making things worse."

It was a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much. Tim stood a bit further up the driveway, pinching the bridge of his nose. He acted like he didn't care, like he didn't want to have anything to do with these lessons. Still, every Sunday Tim led them out to the driveway, three skateboards in his arms.

Jason didn't even know where he'd gotten the other two, he'd only ever seen the kid with his own. The underside was littered with stickers, mostly bands he liked or superheroes. The universe could not stop reminding Jason that this was a kid. He acted like someone with a mortgage and three kids at home, but he was fifteen years old. He was wearing a Green Day shirt and a backwards baseball cap, for f*ck's sake.

"All you had to do was stand on the board, Dick," Tim said, exhasperated. He was smiling though. Just a bit. "How is Jason better at this than you?"

"Rude," Jason said, "but fair."

"Incoming," Dick said, and all three boys watched as Bruce made his way down from the house. He stopped next to them, hands on his hips, and frowned at the new dents in the previously immaculate lawn.

"Alfred's going to kill me," he murmured.

"I think Alfred is a bit busy trying to find all of the knives the brat has hidden around the Manor," Tim said scathingly. Bruce cringed harder.

Tim went back to teaching Dick the difficult skill of simply standing on a skateboard. Jason and Bruce stood and watched from a safe distance.

"It'll get better, you know," Bruce said suddenly and Jason raised an eyebrow. "Look how far you and Tim have come."

"I never tried to stab him."

"You only threatened to break his kneecaps," Bruce said flatly and Jason shrugged.

"I threatened to break his and Dick's kneecaps. Not just Tim's. And it wasn't for the terrible crime of existing."

"Damian just needs some time to adjust. He doesn't know what's going on, and Talia left him here with little explanation."

"I know," Jason said gently. "I'm not the one that has a problem with him."

Bruce sighed, long and hard. He squeezed Jason's shoulder and said, "I know."

It was true. Jason didn't have a problem with Damian, not really. It was Damian that had a problem with him, and that was Jason's biggest problem with the kid.

Jason was good with kids, wasn't that what people were always saying? Jason, who went out during Arkham breakouts to make a building of homeless kids feel safe. Jason, who the young ones flocked to in a group home. Jason, who made Bruce Wayne fund an orphanage that was safe and good.

So why was it that Jason couldn't get along with his new little brother? The kid of all kids?

Sure, he'd had a rocky start with Tim, but he'd been preoccupied and they'd both felt out of place. They'd gotten over it. Moved on, etc.

It wasn't that Jason didn't like Damian, he did. He knew the kid was an asshole, who wasn’t when they were six? If Jason had been raised by assassins in a literal palace, he was sure he’d have even more of an attitude problem than he already did.

No, it wasn’t that Jason didn’t like Damian. It was just that Damian got things that Jason never would have asked for. Things he never would have thought to ask for.

It wasn't Damian's fault that he simply had a level of audacity Jason couldn't even imagine.

It was Jason’s fault, that he couldn’t help but hold it against him. It was Jason’s fault, that he still didn’t know how to express his wants and his needs. That he felt them all so deeply all the time that his mind could no longer distinguish what was necessary from what wasn’t.

He wanted a latte with the same furvor that his lungs wanted air. He wanted to be valued with the same urgency that he wanted a turkey sandwich for lunch. Jason did not know how to prioritize when his life was no longer on the line.

For most of his life, Jason hadn’t had time to consider what he might want. Wants were a luxury when you were struggling to buy groceries. Love was a second class citizen in a home where you froze when the front door opened.

It wasn’t Damian’s fault that Jason had never been taught how to exist. They both had that problem, it seemed. Jason didn’t know how to be a person and Damian didn’t know how to act like a human being.

That afternoon, Jason and Dick were on their way out, basically at the front door, when Damian emerged from the hallway with Stephanie in his arms. He was scowling, but that didn't mean much. Damian was always scowling.

"Are you not going to say goodbye?"

Jason scrunched his eyebrows in surprise. "Sorry, bye Damian."

"Not to me," Damian said, making a face Jason did not feel like deciphering. "To her."

He held out the cat and Jason smiled, dropping his bag and crouching in front of Damian. He took the cat and held her against his face.

"Bye Stephanie," he said into her fur. She nuzzled against his face and then leapt back towards Damian, brushing back and forth against his legs. "Can you do me a favor and look after her during the week, while I'm gone? She clearly loves you."

Damian's expression shifted into something like pride, for a moment, before he was scowling again. Jason smothered the smile pulling at his lips, lest he give away the point of his blatant toddler bribery.

Steph watched warily as Jason ducked into their English class ten minutes late. He'd been late every single Monday, and she figured it was something that was just going to happen. Jason Todd was not built for nine a.m.’s.

He slid into the seat beside her, two take out coffee cups balanced, one on top of the other, in his left hand.

"I was starting to think you weren't showing up," Steph whispered as Dr. Stone talked about rhetorical voice and the art of being concise. "Like five people tried to steal your seat."

"You're my hero," Jason said, rolling his eyes and passing her one of the coffees. The paper cup was deliciously hot to the touch and Steph pressed it against her cheek for a moment, trying to rouse her will to pay attention to discussions of the great american novel or whatever.

She had her notebook open in front of her, a hot coffee in one hand and a pink gel pen in the other. She'd done the reading. She could not bring herself to pay attention.

All Steph could think about was her dad and his cell. Her dad, and a courthouse. Her dad, and the intense desire to rewrite history in his favor. She could do it so easily, if she let herself. She could forgive him all his trespasses, could excuse them away, blame them on circ*mstance and mental health and no support. She could remove his choices from the whole situation.

Mostly, Steph could pretend that it hadn't actually been that bad. She could blame herself for being difficult, for not being enough, for putting stress on him when she should have known to keep to herself. She could pretend they were false memories, the shouting and the scheming and the manipulation. She could pretend it was all a lie, that he was innocent or framed or a million other things that weren't true and never would be.

And then class was over and the page in front of her was blank and Jason was looking at her knowingly.

"You okay?" He asked as they gathered their things.

"Don't you have a class across campus?" She asked, and it came out so much harsher than she'd meant. Jason stood there, for a minute. He didn't say anything and he didn't leave, just looked at her with his eyebrows drawn together. And she considered, for the millionth time, just telling him about the hearing. But then it was too late and he was gone.

Steph didn't have another class for two hours and she hiked her gym bag higher on her shoulder as she stomped her way to the Wayne Memorial Recreation Center.

Gymnastics had been her life, for a while. Before everything went to sh*t. She'd been good, had gone to all the practices and the competitions and done all of the workouts and, after she'd quit, replacing the uneven bars with Gotham rooftops, the training habit had persisted.

Stephanie Brown knew her body, she knew what it was capable of, she knew where it existed in time and space, she knew how high it could jump and how far it could be pushed before it broke. It was no longer within her routine to needlessly push the limits of her capabilities. Bruce had drilled that into her, that there was a difference between pushing herself and hurting herself. The hypocrite.

Sometimes, when she felt like she would burst at the seams, she did it anyway.

And so Steph found a treadmill in the back corner and she hit the button to increase the speed like it had personally offended her until black spots pricked at the corners of her vision and she had to sit on the floor with her head between her knees so she didn't hurl or pass out or both.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when someone tapped her on the shoulder.

“What?” Steph said, and she knew it sounded mean. She wasn’t usually mean, but she definitely wasn’t mean to pretty girls in olive green gym sets.

“The hell are you running from?” The girl asked, laughing. She had an accent Steph couldn’t place, something with rolled r’s and soft vowels.

Steph forced a smile as she wiped the sweat off her brow. “Just runnin’,” she said. “Thank you for noticing my hard work.”

The girl laughed again. “I tend to notice people who run like they are fleeing.”

Steph shoved her way to her feet and stuck out a hand. “I’m Steph.”

“Matilda,” the girl said, taking Steph’s hand. “Call me Mattie.”

“Hi, Mattie,” Steph grinned, ignoring the way her knees shook.

And then the power went out.

That night, Steph paced the length of the kitchen, her phone pressed between her shoulder and ear. "And I didn't even get her number, which I totally would have—"

"—of course—"

"—because there was another goddamn blackout and I got a goddamn call from Bruce and I had to leave!"

Jason was laughing at her, on the other end of the phone and Steph narrowed her eyes.

"I just think," he said, apparently sensing her irritation, "that you'll probably run into her again."

"You have no reason to think that."

“It’s just that, maybe, asking Babs to hack into the GCU records to find every Matilda is a bit extreme, but you do you."

Steph had her mouth open to reply, something that was both correct and witty, when someone started pounding on the apartment door.

"Hold on, someone is trying to knock the f*cking door down," she said to Jason. Then, the phone pressed screen-down against her shoulder, Steph called, "Just a second! Chill out!"

It wasn't until she passed Dani, wide eyed on the couch in the living room, that Steph realized something was wrong. Not until the man on the other side of the door started shouting incoherently, and Dani fled the room all together, that she realized who it must be.

She opened the door on instinct, mostly. Though, she realized later, she probably shouldn't have. The man standing in the hallway was big and mean looking and clearly an off duty cop.

It was easy to forget why Dani was staying with her and Crystal. It was easy to ignore the ways she dodged questions about her family — all Steph knew, she'd learned from Jason.

The man took one look at Steph and said, “Where the f*ck is my daughter.”

Chapter 3: it’s not enough to run that dog out of this town

Chapter Text

Jason's heart was in his throat.

Where the f*ck is my daughter. Not a question, a demand.

He allowed himself only the time it took to pull on his shoes, and then he ran. Jason sprinted down hallways and skidded around corners and launched himself down the stairwell a flight at a time. He didn't slow down, when he reached the street.

He ran through Gotham, phone still pressed to his ear, the nighttime chill pulling at his lungs.

"Steph?" He said for the fifteenth time. She didn't respond. She hadn't responded to anything he'd said since the knocking started.

He'd heard a man say: “Where the f*ck is my daughter.”

He'd heard Steph say: "Who the f*ck are you?"

He hadn't been able to make out much more than that. Steph hadn't hung up. She wasn't responding and she hadn't hung up and the line was silent and Jason ran as fast as he could through Robinson Park and the Upper East Side, dodging cars and pedestrians alike. He ran across the bridge and through the Bowery, and then he ran through Crime Alley.

By the time Jason reached the too-familiar apartment building and made his way cautiously, exhaustedly, up the stairs, the man was gone. Steph was still standing in the doorway, phone in a white-knuckled grip against her thigh.

“Steph?” He said, trying desperately to catch his breath. She blinked at him, eyes full of tears.

Eventually, she cleared her throat. “He left.”

“Who was it?” He panted.

“Dani’s dad. I don’t know how he knew where she was,” she said, eyeing the door to the stairwell, like she expected him to come back.

“Did he see her?”

“No,” Steph said sharply, “of course not.”

Jason held his hands out in front of him, inching forward. “Okay. Where is she right now?”

Steph blinked again and a single tear traced a path down her cheek. “What?”

“Where’s Dani?” Jason asked. He made sure to keep his voice soft, to telegraph his movements, to make sure she could see when he put his hands on her shoulders. To make sure she didn’t want to pull away, when he hugged her.

“Hiding, I think,” Steph said into his shoulder. She took a handful of his hoodie in each fist.

“Are you okay?” He whispered into her hair.

“Mhm,” she hummed, unconvincingly.

For Steph’s sake, Jason pretended to believe her. He went in search of Dani, leaving Steph to guard the hallway. He didn’t bother with the living room or kitchen, if her dad had gotten past Steph, Dani would have been in the direct line of fire.

She was too smart for that. Had too much experience, for that. Jason’s stomach twisted itself into knots. He opened the door to Steph’s bedroom and said, “Dani? It’s Jason.”

The little girl didn’t emerge, but she did whimper ever so slightly. He almost didn’t hear it, over the pounding of his heart.

“The bedroom is a great hiding spot,” he said, sitting on the floor in front of the bed. “It has a window, for a quick escape. And a lot of small places to hide. I’d recommend the closet, instead of the bed, though.”

“Why?” Dani’s tiny voice asked from where she’d wedged herself between Steph’s mattress and boxspring.

“It takes too long to get out from under the mattress. From the closet, you can make a break for the window without too much of a hassle.”

And your dad could easily toss the mattress off the bed, he didn’t say.

“Wouldn’t he check the closet first?”

“Most people check under the bed first,” Jason said. “Then they check the closet. So you wait until they’re bent over, looking under the bed, and you go out the window.”

“Oh,” Dani sniffled.

“Do you want to come out, or would you feel better if you stayed a little longer?”

In response, Dani started shimmying out from under the mattress. Jason wedged a hand under the edge and held it up to ease her transition back into the world.

“It’s hot in there,” Dani whispered, dropping down onto the floor beside Jason.

“The pressure is nice, though.” Dani shot him a look and Jason shrugged, slinging an arm around her narrow shoulders. “You okay?”

He didn’t look at her, when he said it. Didn’t pin her down under an analytical gaze. He didn’t want her to say yes just because she thought she should. She didn’t say anything, for a while, which was answer enough. Jason waited, though.

“It was scary,” she said and then, after a moment of consideration, she burst into tears. And Jason stayed still, let her inch closer, let her decide what she wanted. He sat, arm around her, fingers brushing her hair out of her face, and waited.

When Dani had burrowed tightly against his side and her sobs had turned back into sniffles, Jason looked at her.

“Want a sandwich or somethin’?” He asked, because it’s what he would have wanted, when he was her age.

She looked up with a snotty nose and ruddy cheeks and watery eyes and smiled, a little, when she nodded.

“Wanna walk, or can I carry you?” He asked, because he always wanted the latter, when he was little, but was too proud or too afraid to ask.

“You can,” she sniffed. “If you want.”

Jason smiled softly until she was propped on his hip, face buried in his shoulder, a death grip around his neck. Then, for just a moment, he allowed himself to be angry. For just a moment, he looked at the small child in the Batwoman pyjamas and he felt an overwhelming rage that anyone could see her and hurt her. That anyone could watch a kid cry and not care.

For a moment, Jason was small, too. He was small and crying and his dad stared at him, uncaring. Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about. Jason ground his teeth and pressed his cheek into Dani’s hair and breathed slowly through his nose.

Steph was sitting on the floor in the kitchen, knees drawn up to her chest. She didn’t notice when they walked in, not until Jason nudged her with his foot.

“PB&J?” He asked, already pulling plates down from the cupboard with his free hand. He grabbed the bread and peanut butter from the pantry, stepped over Steph to rummage in the fridge until he found a squeezey bottle of grape jam, while she processed the question.

“It’s like eleven o’clock,” Steph said, eventually.

Jason tossed bread onto the plates. “Is that a no?”

He slathered a few pieces of bread with peanut butter and squeezed a glob of jam on the other side. He slapped the pieces together and cut them into messy triangles.

“I would like a sandwich, please,” Steph said, and her voice was so small. Jason handed her a plate. “Thanks.”

Jason deposited Dani onto the floor next to Steph and pressed the other plate into her hands. He put the bread and peanut butter back in the pantry. Tossed the jam back into the fridge. Brushed crumbs into his hand and tossed them into the trash. Washed the knife in the sink, and then he washed the other dishes while he was at it.

“Don’t you want a sandwich?” Dani asked, mouth full.

“Nah,” he said crouching to ruffle her hair. “I’m not hungry.”

Dani frowned and held out one of the sandwich triangles. “It’ll make you feel better.”

“I’m okay, buddy.”

Dani narrowed her eyes.

Jason took the sandwich.

By the time they managed to get Dani asleep in Steph's bed, Jason was crashing. He was not, despite his efforts earlier that night, a runner. It was pure rage that kept him going, after the adrenaline had petered off.

They sat on the floor next to the bed, speaking in hushed tones. Any other day, the conversation would have been an argument. But there was a scared child asleep behind them, and Jason was too tired to be combative.

"We have to do something," he whispered for the tenth time.

"I really don't think breaking into this guy's apartment is the right call," Steph said flatly.

"I'm not making Dani go to court."

"I could file a police report, about him coming down here and being threatening."

"He's a cop. And you and your mom are illegally harboring a child. They would give her back to him and probably charge you with something."

"I wouldn't let that happen," Steph said through clenched teeth. When she looked at him, there was something fierce in her eyes.

"Bruce Wayne couldn't stop the inevitable, I don't think you can, either." He said it gently, wryly, hands curling into fists in his lap. Because it was true, and they both knew it. Because Bruce Wayne couldn't keep Jason out of Saint Monica's. Because there were worse things than Saint Monica's.

Steph sighed, dragging her hands over her face, whispered, "I thought you were normal now."

"Yeah, well, I'm not letting this happen to her," Jason whispered, voice steady despite the pounding of his heart. He didn't want to do it. He wanted to go by the book, wanted to believe the system would protect someone like Dani.

The problem was that he knew it wouldn't. He knew it like he knew the sky was blue. No one that cared about Dani could protect her within the letters of the law. Even with Bruce's orphanage, they couldn't get rid of the bad parents. The ones that wouldn't let go of their kids.

Jason wanted to be normal, he wanted to be a college student that only had to worry about writing a paper on the rhetorical language of Ursula K. LeGuin. He thought he was done running around Gotham at night, leave it to the vigilantes and all that.

But there was a kid on the bed at his back with her little hand fisted in his hoodie and he wouldn't let her go back to her dad. He wouldn't.

It was a quiet Saturday night. Steph perched on a Crime Alley rooftop, shivering slightly. Mid-October in Gotham was always a toss up. Usually it was raining so, in that regard, Steph was lucky.

Still, a chill was in the air and Steph had on a few extra layers under her suit so she could bear sitting in one place for so long. She only left her perch when Babs called her to a nearby crime, otherwise she stayed put. Watching.

Romero's apartment was small, a one bedroom. It reminded her of Jason's parents' old place, when he'd lived across the hall. Dani's dad worked days at the local precinct, and he didn't have the sense to draw the blinds when he got home.

So, Steph watched Officer Samuel Romero — thirty-one, six-foot-two, two-hundred pounds, eight years on the police force — as he grabbed another beer from the six pack at his feet and slouched further into his couch. He didn't even take the uniform off when he got home, just unbuttoned the shirt and wiped condensation from the beer bottle on his undershirt.

As far as she could tell, Romero hadn't gone back out looking for Dani. As far as she could tell, he had no proof Dani was even at the Brown's. As far as she could tell, he'd believed her, when she said she had no idea what he was talking about.

"Spoiler, you busy?" Oracle said gently through Steph's comm. She'd been so focused on the man across the street that she hadn't even noticed when the chatter of the open line disappeared.

It was a courtesy, she knew. Barbara Gordon had to know Steph was lounging on a rooftop. "All yours, babe, what's up?"

"Mind dropping by the Clocktower? I've got something to show you."

Steph sat upright. Babs had something to show her? At the Clocktower? The place that was more the head of the Bat's operations than the Cave? Steph had only been invited there a few times, and always on official business. Always with Bruce.

"I'll be there in forty minutes," Steph said, breathless already. She swung down to street level and uncovered her Bat-issued motorcycle. Bruce had given her free access to the bike after she's gotten her motorcycle license on two conditions: no joyriding, and no Jason.

Luckily, Jason didn't ask about Bat business, so it was easy to resist the urge to break both rules at once.

Thirty-eight minutes later, Steph pulled up in front of a garage door in Old Gotham. It opened automatically and she grinned beneath the purple helmet.

"Hey, kid," Babs greeted without turning around. Her setup was even more intense than Steph remembered, a ridiculously ergonomic-looking chair in front of a ludicrous amount of monitors.

"Hey," Steph said, trying to remain calm, cool, and collected. The Clocktower was pretty open-concept. Just the computer setup in the middle, a small kitchen at the back, and what could pass as a living room at the front, by the huge clock face. Steph tossed her helmet onto the couch and came to stand behind Babs, trying to figure out which monitor she was actually using. "So, what's up?"

Babs clicked between a few screens at lightening speed, too fast for Steph to even pretend she knew what she was doing. There were maps of Gotham, police databases, Oracle exclusive databases, police scanners, a 911 call log, dozens of case files, and a hundred other things Steph didn't understand. In the bottom corner of the biggest screen was a small chatbox open to a conversation with someone called Blue Jay.

Steph could probably guess who was sitting in the Cave on a Saturday night, chatting with Oracle while pretending to work on an essay about the pros and cons of the Parliamentary system.

"I'm gonna be off for about fifteen minutes, ping me if you need something," Babs said into the bluetooth mic hooked around her ear. Then, turning to Steph, she said, "I've got a friend in town who wanted to meet you. She should be here any minute."

Steph's eyebrows shot up on their own accord. Friends of Oracle ranged from members of the Justice League to semi-wanted rogues. She couldn't imagine why any of them would want to meet her. Before she could voice this, an alarm pinged.

"What do you have against my perfectly good doors?" Babs sighed, looking over Steph's shoulder towards the clock face. Steph spun on her heel and came face to face with Black Canary.

"Woah," Steph said.

"I like the challenge," Black Canary said, grinning. "Hi, Spoiler, right? They call me Black Canary."

She stuck out her hand and Steph took it in a daze, resisting the urge to say woah again. Canary was shorter than Steph had expected, she had several inches on the woman. Her blonde hair was pulled away from her face, she didn't look like she was wearing any kind of suit, not her typical fishnets and bodysuit, at least. Just jeans, a t-shirt, and a leather jacket.

"It's so nice to meet you," Steph said softly, forcing her mouth to form the words. "You're a legend."

"I've been hearing good things about you, kid," Canary said, laughing. She made her way to Babs' desk, scanning the screens for a minute. "Slow night?"

"Weirdly slow," Babs said, frowning.

"Anything on those blackouts?"

"Nothing that makes any sense. They're random, like, no warning, no pattern, nothing."

"And all the electricity-focused rogues are accounted for," Steph said before she could stop herself. "It's driving the old man crazy."

"I'll bet it is," Black Canary said, looking amused. "What do you know about the Birds of Prey, Spoiler?"

"Oh, uh, I know Oracle runs point from here, that you guys chase down the bad guys across the country, that you work out of Gotham, sometimes."

"I was thinking," Babs said slowly, "that when the Birds are in town, you might act as their liaison, with the Bats. Help out sometimes. Maybe go on a road trip or two."

Steph blinked at the two women, her heart pounding in her throat. "I mean. Yeah, totally, of course. I could do that. No big deal."

And then she spent the rest of the night hanging out with Oracle and Black Canary. In the Clocktower. They watched a movie. It felt like a dream.

Chapter 4: brother, my brother

Chapter Text

Monday afternoon, Jason snuck through the Manor. Each step was carefully placed so as to not make a sound. If they couldn’t hear him, they couldn’t find him.

He would be safe, if he could just stay quiet.

Ducking into the kitchen, Jason dove behind the island. His heart hammered in his ears as he peaked around the corner, trying to see into the dining room. The Manor was completely devoid of sound beyond the gentle patter of rain outside.

Bruce was at Wayne Enterprises. Alfred was running errands. There was only Jason and, somewhere, Steph. If only he could find Steph, make sure she was okay.

Something creaked to his right and Jason lunged to the side, narrowly dodging the nerf dart now stuck to the cabinet where Jason’s head had just been.

“I told you to avoid that floorboard,” Dick hissed from somewhere in the hallway.

“No, you said to avoid that one,” Roy hissed back.

“You two have stepped on a combined total of fifty squeaky floorboards,” Damian said at a normal volume. “While Todd has only stepped on two.”

“If you aren’t going to play, can you at least f*ck off?” Roy asked pleasantly and Jason snorted, and immediately had to dodge another dart.

Jason crept around the island, trying to get eyes on Dick and Roy. They had to be hiding around the corner from the kitchen doorway.

“Hey brat, if you’re not going to contribute, can you at least tell me where Steph is?” Dick whispered. Jason could just make out a few tufts of orange hair by the doorjamb. He raised his own nerf gun and aimed.

“I am not following Brown.”

Roy leaned forward, leading with his nerf bow and dart arrows. Jason exhaled softly, steeling his nerves when suddenly there was a crash from the hallway.

Dick screeched, climbing over Roy in his haste to get into the safety of the kitchen. Jason shot him in the forehead, pulled back the plunger again and hit Roy in the chest as he followed.

“Bang,” Jason said, standing up from his hiding place and leaning on the island. “You’re dead.”

“Just like we drew it up,” Steph said, grinning from the hallway. Behind her Damian rolled his eyes, clearly unimpressed.

“The two of you have been separated since the beginning, there was not a chance to make a plan.”

“Makes it much more impressive, though, doesn’t it?” Jason asked, tossing the toy gun to Damian.

“This is a childish activity and any victories are not noteworthy,” Damian said, studying the bright green plastic like it might explain to him the appeal of the game. “When is Pennyworth returning?”

Steph ruffled Damian’s hair on her way into the kitchen and said, “He and Dani should be back any minute, I think.”

“Are you still departing?”

Jason raised an eyebrow, sharing a quick where did Talia find this kid look with Dick. “We’re still going to the Alley Slice, yeah.”

Damian looked at Jason consideringly for longer than was strictly comfortable before he said, “May I accompany you?”

Jason was vaguely aware his mouth was hanging open and snapped it shut, managing to nod. “Yeah, of course.”

“I will be in my room, fetch me when it is time to depart.”

And then he was gone, and Jason shared a bewildered look with Dick for a long, long moment.

“What just happened?” Jason asked no one in particular.

“Am I dreaming?” Steph whispered.

“Holy sh*t,” Dick said.

“You’re all being weird as hell,” Roy said.

“Look,” Dick said, “you just got here, and you’re used to, like, normal children. Damian has literally never asked to hang out. Every single thing he’s done for the past two months has been against his will.”

Suddenly the door adjoining the kitchen to the garage opened revealing Alfred and Dani. Jason watched Alfred’s eyes skim over the cupboards, the floors, the walls, all littered with brightly colored suction darts.

“Well,” the old butler said, disapproval dripping from his very being.

“Damian asked to go with us to the Alley Slice,” Jason blurted and Alfred turned on him.

“Did he now.”

“He did.” Jason glanced around the room. “We’ll have all of this cleaned up before we leave.”

“Yes,” Alfred said mildly. “Yes you will. I leave for England tonight, and I expect to return to the Manor in exactly the condition I leave it in. Understood?”

It wasn’t a question, not really. They answered anyway, in unison: “Understood.”

Dani, Jason, and Steph sat around their usual table at the Alley Slice, an extra large cheese pizza between them. Just cheese, because Dick was three tables over, torturing Damian and Roy with his choices.

“Dani,” Jason said, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “We wanted to talk to you about what happened last week.”

Exactly one week had passed, since Dani’s father, Officer Romero, had shown up at Steph’s apartment. One week of Dani and Steph spending all their free time at the Manor. One week of Jason and Steph bickering about their options.

Jason did not want to be having this conversation.

Dani shrunk back against the chair. Immediately, she was blinking back tears. Immediately she was looking for an exit, a way to flee. Jason looked pointedly at Steph, who cleared her throat.

“I want to try to get him to sign over his parental rights,” Steph said gently. “I think if we tell Bruce, he can help us and we can convince your dad to f*ck off. And you could get adopted, have a good, nice family. You could go to school, you could —“

“No,” the little girl said breathlessly. “I’m not — I can’t — you said you wouldn’t make me.”

That last bit was directed at Jason and he felt ill. He resisted the urge to throw Steph under the bus, to tell Dani that it wasn’t his idea, that he didn’t want to do this.

“If he just signs the papers, you wouldn’t have to go to court at all, you wouldn’t have to see him ever again,” Steph said, saving Jason from having to say anything at all. He didn’t think he had it in him, at the moment.

Dani didn’t look at Steph, though. “Do you promise?” She asked and Jason dropped his head into his hands and drove the heels of his palms into his eyes.

“Jay, come on, we talked about this,” Steph hissed and he dragged his hands across his face.

“I can’t make that promise, Steph, not with your plan. If it doesn’t work, you let him know that he was right, she is staying with you. And what do you think he does next?”

“You are such an ass.”

“I’m not f*cking lying to her.” Jason turned back to Dani. “I’m not going to lie to you. I have a different idea.”

“A bad idea,” Steph groaned, thunking her head against the table.

“Maybe,” Jason shot back. “But he doesn’t know who I am, and if this works he never will.”

“You want to threaten a cop, Jason.”

“Yeah.” He looked back at Dani. “It would only buy us some time, hopefully stop him from looking for you, let you feel safe at Crystal’s. But you would have to make a decision after that. You can’t exist in limbo forever, Dani.”

She looked desperately between them, big brown eyes full of tears and panic and fear.

“May I try a slice of your pizza?” Damian asked, appearing at Jason’s elbow so suddenly and silently that Jason nearly fell out of his seat. He could hear Dick and Roy laughing from three tables over.

“f*cking hell,” Jason whispered, a hand over his pounding heart. “Yeah, man, sure.”

“What kind did Dick get?” Dani asked, voice lilting with barely contained emotion.

“Something with anchovies, mushrooms, and jalapeños. It was… fine.”

Jason’s head snapped up. “You liked Dick’s weird pizza?”

“It is acceptable,” Damian said, and he looked pleased with himself when Dani laughed. Jason would have been impressed, if he wasn’t desperately trying to finish a terribly important conversation with a nine year old.

Dick watched the conversation going down with building concern. All three of them looked like they wanted to bolt.

"What did they say they needed to talk about?" Roy asked with his mouth full.

"They didn't," Dick said, frowning.

"It looks... tense."

It did. Jason alone looked so upset that Dick was tempted to go over there, see what was up. Except Jason clearly didn't want them involved and Dick was already juggling too many people's problems. If someone was withholding a problem from him, he wasn't going to seek it out.

Still, Jason dug his hands into his eyes and snapped at Steph more than once — it looked so wrong. It looked intense.

"I must ask Todd a question," Damian said suddenly and, frankly, Dick had forgotten he was there at all. Which was not ideal, when one was looking after a six year old. It was easy, however, when the six year old was a semi-trained assassin holding a grudge the size of Kansas. He hadn't spoken to Dick since they arrived, following an ill-timed comment about Robin.

"Oh, I think they were —" Dick started, but Damian had already closed half the distance between the tables. "Nevermind, I'll go f*ck myself, then."

"You're so good with kids," Roy said in that tone Dick hated. "You should teach them gymnastics or something."

"f*ck off," Dick said, but it lacked heat. He was too busy watching Damian approach Jason’s table. Dick smothered his smile behind a fist. There was no way Jason heard the kid, no way he knew he was there.

"So, Bruce is collecting children at a startling rate. At this pace, he won't even need to build the orphanage, they'll all just live at the Manor."

"Rich, coming from a guy currently staying at that Manor," Dick said, peeling his eyes away from the other table and facing his best friend's gaze.

Roy levelled him with a look Dick didn't know how to read. It was rare that that happened, anymore. Sometimes, Dick felt like he'd known Roy his whole life.

"Hey Dick," Roy said eventually, evenly, flatly. "What did Donna say the reason was? When she said I was gonna visit?"

Dick blinked a few times. "The argument with Oliver?" He said, now unsure.

"So you think you're looking out for me?"

"Yeah?"

"Donna told me to come look after you."

"Oh, she's good," Dick said, but he was too busy watching Roy's face, looking for the cracks he knew he'd been seeing. Donna had shoved them together to look after each other. She knew they wouldn't ask for it.

Roy was good at hiding it, but he was struggling. An unexpected kid, who he now had custody of because he’d put the baby’s mom in jail? It was a lot to deal with. And that wasn’t even taking into account how much Roy still cared about Lian’s mom, Jade Nguyen.

Dick knew the guilt was eating at Roy. He also knew Roy had done the right thing. It was funny, how often the right thing felt wrong.

He also knew that Roy loved Lian more than anything, though. He wondered what Roy and Donna had seen in him, that Roy had agreed to be away from Lian to watch his back.

"Donna basically benched me from the Titans," Dick said, instead of all of the other things he wanted to say, most of which involving the sentiment that Oliver cared about Roy and actually said it out loud. Dick would kill for that, most days.

"Yeah, I know, she told me to make sure you didn't run yourself into the ground."

"Funny," Dick said, throwing a used napkin at Roy's head, "she said the same thing about you."

It was getting late. Dick watched as Damian slouched further and further in his chair, as Jason restrained himself from laughing. Finally, after several minutes of actively and obviously fighting sleep, Damian's head drooped backwards, mouth wide open, and he nearly slid off the chair.

He would have, if Jason didn’t catch him, deftly scooping him up and propping him on his hip. Damian’s cheek smushed into Jason’s shoulder and his mouth moving slightly. Whatever Damian said, it made Jason scrunch his eyebrows.

As he started to make his way over to their table, Dick heard Jason say, gently, “Oh yeah? If you f*ckin' stab me, I will punt you.”

“He’s really cute when he’s asleep, actually,” Roy said, sounding almost surprised.

“You wanna say bye to the gremlin?” Jason asked, absentmindedly rubbing the kid’s back.

“I think he’d sense my presence and wake up,” Dick said with a grimace.

“Nah, he’s out cold. Besides, he loves you the most.”

“Not right now.”

“Oh? What’d you do?”

“Told him I agree with Bruce, about his…aspirations. I can't believe he sat with me as long as he did, honestly.”

“Oh sh*t.”

“Yeah,” Dick sighed, pulling out his phone. “Hold still.”

Jason even smiled, a little, when Dick took the picture.

Bruce was at his desk, when his phone pinged. He was buried in paperwork, stacks and stacks of neglected paperwork. He didn’t have time to check his phone. The ringer shouldn’t even be on. If there was an emergency, Oracle would override the systems to let him know.

Bruce turned back to the email open on his computer. The press release about Jason’s adoption, the cover story they’d crafted was going over well.

The story was this: Bruce knew Catherine in his youth, they fell out of touch over the years and Bruce didn’t know how difficult things had gotten for her and her family. He ran into Jason and thought he looked familiar. Upon learning of Catherine’s death, Bruce decided he wanted to help.

Mostly, it was to keep Harvey Dent away. Partially, it was to keep the press off Jason’s back.

Bruce’s phone buzzed again, a reminder about the unread message. He ignored it.

There were more important things to think about, like where Talia was hiding in Gotham. Or how Tim was coping with being benched. Or how Dick picked up all of the parental balls Bruce dropped. Or whether or not he should put out a press release about Damian. Whether he should say anything to the press at all.

This mystery child. This little six year old boy, a mini Talia in every way. Bruce didn’t know what would be worse, hiding Damian from the world or revealing him. This child he wasn’t even sure was his.

Bruce snatched his phone off the desk. A picture from Dick. Jason, holding a sleeping Damian. Jason, smiling a tiny smile. Damian, with his mouth open, a little pool of drool accumulating on Jason’s shoulder.

And suddenly Bruce couldn’t really remember what he had been so stressed about.

Chapter 5: someone come and save my life

Chapter Text

Bruce was exhausted. He was hardly sleeping, spending all night either out in Gotham or at the batcomputer. With Alfred in England there was hardly anyone to stop him. No one he would listen to, at least.

Bruce knew, logically, that he wouldn’t be able to find Talia. Not if she didn’t want to be found. He looked anyway. She was taunting him, leaving little trinkets around Gotham, things to remind him of their adventures. Reminders that she was still around. Watching.

A small part of him — the part that was still soft for her, that would always be soft for her — knew it was actually her way of saying I’m here, I haven’t abandoned you. Maybe one day he would believe her.

Bruce was thinking about Talia, about stolen kisses and late night training. He was filling a mug with black, room temperature coffee, when he remembered.

He remembered rich brown eyes and freckles and a soft smile. He remembered a bright, loud laugh. He remembered laughing.

The coffee date.

The coffee date.

In all of the chaos of Damian and Talia, Bruce had stood up the beautiful woman from the veterinary office two months ago. Bruce shuffled over to the sink and upended his mug, watching the slightly congealed coffee slide down the drain.

He checked the clock on the stove. Six forty-two. Bruce snatched the hand-written grocery list off the fridge and his keys off the hook by the garage door. He was going to the grocery store.

Bruce wandered up and down the aisles of a chain grocery store in Gotham — the only one that opened at seven in the morning — and, for the twentieth time that day, lamented his utter dependence on Alfred.

He was standing, confused and distressed, in front of the spice shelves, when someone materialized next to him.

“This is kind of a cliché,” a familiar voice said. “A guy with your…complexion looking so lost in front of spices.”

Bruce Wayne had long ago stopped believing one could simply manifest good things. He would never delude himself into thinking he had made this happen simply because he had wished for it so fervently on the drive over. Still, there was a tiny part of him that thought it was meant to be. This was meant to happen. He was supposed to meet Selina Kyle again.

Bruce grimaced, but it was the charming version, not the terrible one he used at home that twisted his eyebrows around and made the boys laugh. "I can't cook, either."

"You're a walking cliché," she laughed that bright, beautiful laugh and smiled her bright, beautiful smile.

Bruce stared at her for a moment, a small smile pulling at his lips. He felt lucky. Bruce couldn't remember the last time he'd felt lucky.

He said, "I owe you a coffee, if you're still willing."

“Did you have a good reason for missing the last one?” She asked and he could see past the facade, just a little. He could read it on her face. She’d gone to the bakery. She’d waited for him.

Bruce wanted to tell her. He wanted to say: My ex showed up with a six year old and said he’s my kid. He wanted to say: I’m not positive she was telling the truth and I’m too afraid to find out.

He said: “There was, but I felt terrible about it. I still do.”

She glanced at her watch, and then at Bruce. He’d been in life and death situations. He had diffused bombs and fought aliens and saved the goddamn world. His heart thundered in his chest.

“Yeah,” she sighed, a tiny smile on her lips. “Let’s go.”

Jason had told Steph he was normal now. He wanted to be normal. He didn’t want to contemplate breaking into a cop’s apartment. He wanted to leave the tire iron under his bed. He wanted to leave that whole life behind.

The thing was, he had potential now. Jason didn't know what to do with potential, but he was trying to quit smoking, he cut back more and more each week. He didn't skip class. He did most of the readings and finished assignments on time.

Jason didn't know what to do with potential, but he wasn't going to waste it.

(He wouldn't. He wouldn't. He wouldn't.)

“We should talk to Bruce about it,” Steph said, not for the first time.

“Because he’ll totally go for it.” Jason wove through the crowded hallway. “Can we have this stupid circular argument later? I can’t think before nine in the morning.”

“Look,” Steph grabbed his elbow, pulling him to the side. “I don’t want to be the one that has to suggest going to an adult. It pains me greatly to say this at all, Jason.”

They stared at each other for a while, mirror images with their hands on their hips and mouths twisted into frowns. Then, as one, they turned and carried on towards their English class.

Jason waited until they were seated to say, “I’m doing it. You can be my lookout or you can stay home and keep it to yourself. Up to you.”

Steph scoffed, but didn’t say anything else.

“Alright, kids,” Dr. Stone said, tossing a stack of papers on the table. “What did you think of T.S. Eliot?”

Jason froze involuntarily, his heart suddenly thundering in his chest.

“Ugh,” Steph huffed, “I completely forgot to read that.”

“Me too,” Jason heard himself say. “Which one were we supposed to read?”

Steph made a considering sound, flipping through her notebook to find her notes from Monday’s class, two days prior. “The Hollow Men, looks like. Is that the one with the, uh, ‘democracy dies to thunderous applause’ or whatever?”

“Nah, that’s from Star Wars,” Jason murmured, vision tunnelling. “This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.”

“Right! You've read it before?"

Jason was pretty sure books held memories, tucked between their pages. Some were real. A dollar bill he'd found on the ground, when Willis had taken him to the zoo. Movie tickets. His family portrait. The letter.

Sometimes, though, Jason could remember exactly where he'd been, the last time he'd read a book. The first reading was always imprinted on the paper.Jason remembered the bus stop where he'd first read the Hunger Games. He remembered the bleachers where he read To Kill A Mockingbird. The abandoned building where he read Junie B. Jones.

The closet, where he read T.S. Eliot.

He was in a bright classroom. (Not the hole.) He was sitting at a desk. (Not on the floor.) He could breathe (he couldn’t) he could breathe (he couldn’t) he could breathe (he couldn’t).

“I gotta go,” he whispered, and then he fled.

“Jay,” Steph hissed, as Jason practically ran from the classroom.

Dr. Stone paused in her lecture to watch the door bang shut, then she turned to look at Steph suspiciously. “I know this isn’t high school and you can come and go as you please, but some discretion would be appreciated.”

“Sorry,” Steph said, just as bewildered. “He had, uh, bad tacos yesterday.”

“I’m sorry I asked,” Stone muttered. “Anyway, back to Eliot. What emotions does this poem elicit, how’d it make you feel?”

“Really anxious,” someone said.

“Hopeless.”

“I didn’t really get it.”

“Well,” Stone said, “there are a lot of elements going on in this poem, let's start with the epigraphs. They allude to two different groups of so-called “hollow men.” Does anyone know who Mistah Kurtz refers to?”

“Heart of Darkness?” Steph asked, surprising herself.

“That’s right!”

Steph sat up a bit straighter.

“What about the Old Guy?” Crickets. “That part is referring to Guy Fawkes, the man who tried to blow up the British Parliament in 1605.”

Stone carried on, talking about motifs and a chorus of scarecrows or something, while Steph texted Jason.

Steph: you good?
Steph: where’d you go?
Steph: Jason?
Steph: Jay?
Steph: Jayyyyy

She couldn’t take it any longer. She shoved her things into her bag and bolted down the stairs. When Dr. Stone’s eye twitched at the second disruption, she said, “I also had the bad tacos. Sorry.”

It was a ten minute walk to the dorms, eight, if she hustled. Six minutes later, Steph knocked on Jason's door.

"Jason?" She called. She pulled out her phone, but her messages had gone unanswered. "Are you in there? What's going on?"

Steph stood in the hallway for a long moment. She was just pulling a bobby pin from her hair to pick the lock on his door when her phone rang.

"Where the hell are you?" Steph snapped, instead of hello.

"Steph? Is everything okay?" Babs' voice came through the receiver and Steph cringed, cursing herself for answering without checking caller ID.

"Oh! Hey, yeah, everything is totally fine, I thought you were someone else."

"Uh huh," Babs drawled. "Are you busy right now?"

Steph looked up and down the hallway. She should keep looking for Jason. She should go back to class. She bit her lip.

"Not at all, what's up?"

"Canary is at the Clocktower, we have something she could use your help with, can you come down here?"

"Yes, absolutely, I'll hop on a bus right now."

If Jason didn't want to be found, she wouldn't chase him.

They went to the little French place. They ordered their drinks and croissants and tucked themselves into a table in the corner.

It was then that Bruce realized he was woefully unprepared. He didn’t know what to ask her, didn’t know what to talk about, didn’t know what kind of charm he wanted to put on. He didn’t know who to be.

“So,” he said, “what do you do for a living?”

“Community outreach,” she said with a small smile that piqued Bruce’s interest. A smile like that on a face like Selina’s? She thought she was getting away with a lie. “I’d ask what you do, but I think I already know.”

Bruce grimaced and Selina laughed a little, taking a sip of her mocha. “Don’t believe everything you see in the papers. In fact, please, don’t believe anything you see about me in the papers.”

“It’s all lies and slander?”

“Some of it,” he conceded. “The rest is just embarrassing.”

“Maybe you should avoid doing embarrassing things.”

Bruce tipped his head back and said, “Now you tell me.”

Selina laughed and Bruce hid his own smile behind his coffee. He wasn’t sure why he did it, why he always tried to hide his happiness from the world. From himself, sometimes. It was a weakness, he knew. He’d worked so hard to eliminate weakness from his life, back when he sought out all the training he could get, when he was punishing himself. When all he wanted was to become the best, to save Gotham.

Sometimes it hit him, how weak he’d become. How he’d surrounded himself with people he cared about. Bruce liked to think he was a lone wolf, a man who isolated himself and took on the horrors of the world alone.

He wasn’t though, not really. It had taken him barely any time at all to find Dick Grayson. A partner. A son.

He’d still been able to pretend, for a long time. It was what drove Dick away.

It was hard to stop pretending. It was almost impossible, sometimes. He didn’t want to be vulnerable, even though he was. Even though it was impossible to be alive and loved and without weakness.

“What are you thinking about?” Selina asked, voice gentle and calm and kind.

“You’re quite perceptive, Miss Kyle,” he said, and he let her see his smile, this time.

Jason knew he was panicking. He knew he needed to get out of the the lecture hall. Needed to get out of the building. Needed to go.

One minute he was slamming through the front doors of the Kane Academic Building. The next, Jason was standing outside Mr. Singh’s convenience store. It was raining. Jason did not remember getting there. He did not remember the rain, either, but he was soaked through, hair plastered to his forehead.

Someone touched his elbow and Jason nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Woah, it’s okay,” Mr. Singh said and Jason had a feeling it wasn’t the first thing he’d said.

“Why are you out in the rain?” Jason asked. He felt like a ghost. Like he was a few minutes from being washed away by the rain.

Mr. Singh grabbed his elbow again. This time, Jason let himself be steered inside. He’d never been in the ocean, but Jason imagined he knew, in that moment, what a fish felt like. Suspended in the water. Floating. Sinking, maybe.

“Jason,” Mr. Singh said and Jason had to blink him into focus. He wasn’t panicking anymore. He’d moved past that and into something worse. Like his soul was slowly detaching from his body. “Did something happen?”

“Did anyone tell you what happened?” He asked which didn’t make any sense, probably, so he added: “At Saint Monica’s.”

They stared at each other for a minute, eyes searching. Jason, trying to figure out if the look on Mr. Singh’s face meant yes or no. He had no idea what Mr. Singh was looking for.

“It’s just,” Jason started. Stopped. He turned around, hands on his hips. Mr. Singh turned him back around. “When I was in the closet for, like, days, I read this book of poems? And I memorized one of them and spent a long time reciting it over and over and over and over and over. And I didn’t read the syllabus for class.”

“What class?”

“English 101, and we were supposed to read that poem, but I forgot to look at the syllabus and Steph started talking about it, but she had it mixed up with something from the Star Wars Prequels, and,” Jason scrubbed his hands over his face, “I think I could write a book about that f*cking poem, but instead all I can think about is this tiny little f*cking closet and walking in circles and being pretty sure I was losing my mind and that feeling hasn’t gone away. I thought it would go away, but it hasn’t.”

It hadn’t gone away. It still gnawed at him, burrowed deeper and deeper into his gut. The feeling that he’d really lost it. That he’d finally had one too many. That he couldn’t actually keep going like this. That he had to keep going anyway.

He was sitting on the floor, back against the counter. He couldn't breathe. Or, maybe, he was breathing too much. Too fast. Too sharply.

Jason squeezed his eyes shut and warm hands grabbed his shoulders. Mr. Singh was talking, he was pretty sure. He couldn't hear it over the ringing in his ears.

He ducked his head between his knees with a groan. It was a rotten feeling. There'd been a time when Jason couldn't afford to do this, when he'd been able to stamp it down and hide it away.

It was torture, to be so open and vulnerable against his will.

Jason felt Mr. Singh sit down beside him, their shoulders pressed together. Felt the man's hand on the back of his neck. Always kind, always gentle.

“Who should we call?” He asked, when Jason could breathe again, when he tipped his head back against the counter.

Jason blinked a few times before pulling his phone out of his pocket and handing it to Mr. Singh. “Dick.”

He wasn’t sure why he said it. By all accounts, it should have been Bruce. It was always Bruce, these days, who pulled Jason away from a panic attack. Bruce, who told him it would be okay.

Except he wasn’t okay, and it felt like a betrayal, that he’d been given all these things and still couldn’t pull it together. Besides, Jason had brothers, now, and wasn’t that the whole point of a big brother? To be the person he called when he didn’t want to disappoint Bruce?

Mr. Singh fished his reading glasses out of his pocket and perched them on the end of his nose. It was such a sweet sight, so tender and endearing that it nearly snapped Jason out of it.

“What is your passcode?”

“1981.”

“Really?” Mr. S asked, eyebrow raised. “The last time the Knights won the World Series?”

Jason shrugged. “Also the year Stevie Nicks released Edge of Seventeen.”

Dick was, technically speaking, on vacation. Benched from the Titans and on light Gotham duty, he was supposed to be helping Damian acclimate whilst helping Tim research the blackouts. The latter was, somehow, going better than the former, and they had literally no clue how or why the blackouts were happening.

"You aren't even listening to me," Babs said and Dick looked up from his eggs.

"I was listening a little."

"How much? Ten percent?"

"Twelve?" He said, not meaning it. She could tell, of course. "Okay fine. Two percent. What were you saying?"

Dick was just starting to wonder if he could take a vacation from his vacation, when his phone started buzzing on the diner table. For a very, very brief moment, Dick was annoyed. He saw Jason’s name light up and he thought what now and will this torment ever end. Immediately, he knew he didn’t mean it. Immediately, he felt white hot shame burning in his belly.

“Yo,” he answered, for some reason. He expected Jason’s voice, making fun of him.

“Hello, this is Mahendra Singh, I used to employ Jason at my convenience store. He is here right now and asked me to call you and see if you could pick him up.”

Dick blinked a few times. Looked to Babs for help, even though she hadn’t heard anything useful and was looking to Dick for an explanation.

“Did something happen?” He managed to ask, after a moment of silence. Babs’ eyebrows shot up, asking a silent question Dick didn’t know how to answer. Dick stood up instead, tossing a wad of cash onto the table. “I’m on my way, I just — is he alright?”

“Well, I believe —” there was a moment of hushed conversation, “he would like to speak to you.”

Dick could hear the grimace in Jason’s voice when he said, “Hi. Sorry. I’m fine.”

“You’re a sh*tty liar, Jay.” Dick watched Babs leverage herself into the passenger seat of the Porsche. He tucked the phone between his shoulder and ear as he folded the wheelchair and tucked it into the trunk.

Dick slid into the driver’s seat, but didn’t start the car. He watched rain accumulate on the windshield, and he waited. Babs stared at him, like she could read Dick’s mind, if she stared hard enough.

“I may have panicked, a little,” Jason said, after a minute. He sounded simultaneously small and ancient. “I can get back by myself, actually, sorry, I don’t want to bother—”

Dick started the car and the engine roared to life. “I’m hurtling towards you as we speak.” Then he hung up.

They made the fifteen minute trip to the convenience store in six. Dick jumped out of the car, but he slowed his pace to a leisurely walk by the time he got to the store.The door was locked. The Closed sign looked hastily flipped, it hung practically sideways. Dick knocked, ducking his head to peak inside. Before he could see much, a kind-looking Indian man was opening the door and pulling him inside.

Dick wasn’t sure what he expected. Jason, lounging against the counter, maybe. Rearranging the candy shelves, perhaps. He didn’t expect him to be sitting on the floor, knees pulled up to his chest, forehead against his knees.

I may have panicked, a little.

He remembered a hallway and a gun and blood. A kid that kept his panic to himself. He’d been worse at hiding it, since he moved to the Manor. Dick had been the same way, when he was little. The Manor had a way of easing you into submission. Of breaking down walls built out of concrete and will-power.

Dick grunted dramatically as he sat down, legs sprawled out in front of him.

“Fancy seeing you here,” he said flippantly. “Wait, I meant, uh, come here often?”

Next to him, Jason snorted. He lifted his head from his knees and tipped it back against the counter. He looked tired. He looked both eighteen and eighty.

“I’m sorry,” he said and Dick wanted to yell at him, a little. Mostly, he wanted to cry.

“For what? Asking for a ride? That’s what big brothers are for.”

Jason smiled a twisted, wry smile. “Yeah, we’re just like the Brady Bunch.”

“Do you want a hug?”

He didn’t expect Jason to nod. He didn’t expect it, but he wasn’t going to waste an opportunity. Immediately, Dick twisted so he could wrap his arms around Jason’s shoulders, dragging him close. The angle was awkward and it probably wasn’t the best hug he’d ever given.

Except, Jason hugged him back, hands fisted in Dick’s sweater. Dick squeezed him tighter.

“Thanks,” Jason said after a few minutes, his voice muffled by Dick’s shoulder.

“For what?” Dick said into his hair.

Jason shrugged and Dick gave him one more squeeze before he stood, dragging Jason up with him.

“Let’s get going.”

Bruce had been distracted. Looking for Talia and dealing with Damian. (And thinking about the coffee date, how well it had gone. The phone number written on a napkin he’d been carrying around in his pocket for nearly a week.) He almost didn’t notice that Jason was acting strange.

At first, Bruce thought it was nothing, just stress about midterms and papers. He was terribly still, though. And quiet. It reminded Bruce of how he’d been after Saint Monica’s, and that made him sick to his stomach.

Bruce didn't know how to ask about it, just like he didn't know how to bring up the call he'd gotten from the therapist's office informing him Jason had missed the last two appointments.

So, on Tuesday before Jason's night class, Bruce took him to a bookstore. They usually had lunch together on Tuesdays, something Bruce's therapist had suggested to add Jason into Bruce's routine.

The bookstore was a bonus, a bribe, really. If Jason was going to talk about something, he would do it on the side of the road or surrounded by books. Bruce was hoping, for once, he would choose the latter.

They went to Jason’s favorite bookstore. A tiny place in Coventry called Brilliant Books. It was the kind of place that had three employees, all of whom knew Jason by name. There was a display, at the front of the store. Horror books and children’s Halloween picture books were spread out across a table decorated with little pumpkins and paper ghosts.

Bruce was struck, suddenly, by the knowledge that he had known Jason for a year. That a year had passed, since Stephanie had called him, told him her friend needed help. A year, since he’d given Jason a business card.

Nearly a year, since the convenience store and Joker goons and a knife four inches into Mahendra Singh’s chest.

“Have you seen Mr. Singh lately?” Bruce asked. Jason looked up sharply. He looked almost sheepish.

“Yeah, I see him at least once a week,” he said, with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He’d been like that, lately. Skittish. Reserved. Not entirely present. It had taken Bruce too long to notice.

“That’s great, how’s he doing?”

Jason smiled, a little, and Bruce’s heart soared. “He’s good. His youngest kid, Adithi, she’s eight now and really wants to help out in the store. But her idea of help since, like, birth, has been rearranging the shelves. So he’s just following her around, putting everything back where it belongs.”

“He must be a saint,” Bruce said gently.

“You have no idea,” Jason grinned.

An hour later, they made their way back to the car. Despite Bruce's prodding, Jason hadn't bought any books. He liked to say he just wanted to look at them and, as much as Bruce tried to believe him, he could never tell if it was actually true.

"Can we run back to the Manor quickly, I just want to check that everything is... well..." Bruce faltered.

"Not on fire?" Jason asked with a soft smile as he slid into the Range Rover.

"Yes," Bruce laughed.

"That's fine."

They spent the ride to Bristol politely discussing what Bruce should dress up as, for the Halloween Gala he had to attend.

Jason was advocating for a cheap Batman costume. Bruce simply did not see the appeal.

“Okay,” Jason said with barely contained laughter. “What about a sh*tty Superman costume.”

“Jason.”

“Wonder Woman?”

“Jason.”

Bruce was saved when they pulled into the garage. He practically fled the car.

The Manor was quiet, but not in a way that gave Bruce any sense of foreboding. It was almost…calm. He made his way down to the Cave, Jason trailing after him. Dick was at the computer, working on the blackouts. Damian was asleep under the desk with Stephanie the cat.

Bruce tried not to give that too much thought.

"What's up?" Dick asked, meeting his eyes in the reflection of the nearest computer screen.

"Just checking in before I drop Jason back on campus." Bruce watched Jason's reflection wave lamely and felt a smile pull at his lips.

"All good here," Dick sighed, scrolling through a schematic for the powerplant with a look of hatred.

Bruce nodded, glanced once more at the child under the desk, then headed back up to the house proper.

"Does he sleep under there a lot?" Jason asked.

"That's the first I've seen it."

Jason hummed. "I used to sleep under the coffee table when I was his age. And behind the couch."

Bruce turned around, a few paces from the front door, his eyebrows raised. "Oh?"

Did it feel safe? Was he scared? Was he hiding from something? Someone?

"Yeah," Jason laughed and Bruce felt his eyebrows pull together. "I thought I was a cat, but mom wouldn't let me sleep on top of the table, so I settled for under."

Bruce deflated, a little bit. "So you're telling me Damian is pretending to be a cat?"

Jason shrugged. "Maybe? Or he's just keeping her company."

Bruce was about to respond, when the doorbell rang. He raised his eyebrows at Jason in confusion. No one ever rang the doorbell.

Then it rang again. And again. Over and over, a barrage of sound until Bruce threw the door open in exasperation.

There was a blonde woman on the steps and she smiled this terribly sweet smile and said, “Oh gosh, you must be Mr. Wayne and — oh my god Jason, look even more like Willis in person.”

Bruce blinked at her for a moment, trying to remember her face, trying to decipher what the hell she was talking about. "Sorry," he said eventually. "Who are you?"

“I’m Sheila, Sheila Haywood," she said, beaming, "I’m Jason’s mother.”

Chapter 6: cool about it

Chapter Text

When Jason was little, he'd dreamt of being saved. He'd spent hours daydreaming, running scenarios in his head.

Most of them started the same way: someone showed up and said everything had been a mistake. His parents weren't actually his parents. His real family was out there, had been searching for him his whole life.

These 'real' parents would show up, they would hug him and kiss him and cry and cry and cry.

We've missed you so much, they would say.

We love you and we want you and we are so happy to have you, they would say.

His 'real' parents would have money. They would have a car and a TV and a house on the Upper East Side.

Inevitably, Jason would leave the daydream, sick with shame and homesick for a place he'd never known. A place that was not real. Longing for the home that existed only in his head. For a family that didn't exist. For a family that wanted him.

He'd grown out of the fantasy — realized a long time ago that no one was coming.

And then, suddenly, he was standing in the doorway of Bruce Wayne’s house and there was a woman with perfect blonde hair and a crisply ironed blouse and her lips were moving but Jason hadn’t heard anything past: “I’m Jason’s mother.”

Next to Bruce, Jason went statue-still. His arms dropped to his sides. He stared, unblinking, at the woman in the doorway and, barely, he started to shake his head. Something terrible flickered over Jason's face before it was gone, before everything was gone from his expression.

Bruce didn't try to stop him, when he went back into the house, even though they had been heading out. Even though he had a class to get to. Because Sheila was still talking, hardly paying attention to the fact that her kid just left her on the porch.

"I saw it in the paper," she was saying, and she pulled one out of her purse. It was horribly crumpled and from a publication Bruce didn't recognize. "You see, I've been working for a charity in Ethiopia for years, I'm a doctor, but I saw that Jason was orphaned, all alone and, well, I had to come back for my baby!"

It sounded rehearsed. It sounded like a scene from a play. Bruce blinked at her some more.

"I'll talk to him," he said softly, "can I have your contact information?"

She rummaged in her purse for a minute before pulling out a business card and a pen. "I'll put my hotel on the back, I'm just staying at the Orchard, over in Old Gotham.”

"Okay. Like I said, I'll talk to him."

He was trying to figure out how to ask her to leave, when she smiled and said, "Please, have him call me." And then she was gone, walking back to the taxi waiting in the driveway.

That was, somehow, the strangest thing. She had the taxi wait. Sheila Haywood had, apparently, come all the way to Wayne Manor from Ethiopia, announced her parentage to a kid she, presumably, hadn't seen in eighteen years, and she'd had the taxi wait?

He flipped the card over, where she'd written in beautiful, neat cursive: Orchard Hotel room 921.

Dick was tired of learning about electricity and powerplants. Mostly because he still didn't understand it and Roy, who probably would understand, was back in Star City with his beautiful baby. They'd promised to call each other, if they needed anything.

Not to mention the small child under the desk who was pretending to sleep but was actually attempting to tie Dick's shoelaces together. Dick pretended not to notice, because he was not in the mood to deal with it.

When shoes scuffed on the stairs, Dick thought maybe Tim had skipped out on school early. It wouldn't be completely out of the ordinary, but Bruce had taken to picking him up from Gotham Academy after dropping Jason off for his night class, so it was unlikely. At least on Tuesdays.

He watched in the reflection of the monitor as Jason made his way into the Cave. Which was strange, because he and Bruce should have left already.

"Forget something?" He asked, still scrolling through schematics. He stopped, however, when Jason walked right past him, like he hadn't said anything at all.

“Jay?” Dick called, pushing his chair back.

“It is rude to ignore a superior,” Damian called, from under the desk. When he received no recognition, Damian crawled out and watched Jason make his way to the training area. The boy looked up at Dick. “Something is wrong.”

“Yeah,” Dick murmured. “Fix my shoelaces.”

Damian huffed. “They are only untied. I have not yet mastered the knot.”

Dick snorted and reached down to ruffle his hair. “That’s why all your shoes are velcro.”

He decided to brave the untied laces and jogged carefully over to the mats where Jason was laying on his back, staring at the ceiling.

“You okay, buddy?”

“Peachy.”

Dick hummed, kicked off his shoes, and laid down next to Jason. He wanted to say something. He thought that, maybe, judging by the look on Jason’s face, there was nothing to say. He laid next to Jason in silence.

The small, nearly silent patter of Damian's footsteps did not surprise Dick. The kid wanted to know what was going on at all times. He wanted to be involved in everything, always. Unless he didn't. It was maddening.

What surprised him was that Damian laid down on Jason's other side. No one said anything. Dick felt like, if he breathed wrong, the whole cave would come crashing down.

Not long after, Tim’s light footsteps echoed throughout the Cave as he made his way down the stairs. He was, in fact, home early from school and Dick smiled to himself. He wondered if Tim had told Bruce he was leaving early, or if he had planned on letting the guy wait outside Gotham Academy until he figured it out.

Tim stood over them for a long while, hands on his hips, mouth opening and closing. Eventually, he said, “Why?”

“It took you five minutes to come up with something to say, and that’s what you land on?” Dick laughed. Next to him, Damian snickered.

“He’s not very creative, or observant.”

Tim rolled his eyes. He was hovering on the edge of the mats, maintaining his usual ten foot distance from Damian. “Then tell me, oh wise toddler, what’s going on?”

“Jason is being strange,” Damian supplied.

“No I’m not,” Jason said strangely. Then, very suddenly, he stood and mumbled, "See you later."

“Jay!” Dick shouted. Possibly, Jason had never moved so quickly. He was across the Cave and, presumably, out the hidden garage by the time Dick fully registered what was happening. He shared a look with Tim. “Was it a mistake to let him leave?”

“If it was I’m giving you full blame.”

Moments later, Bruce appeared at the top of the stairs.

"Where's Jason?" He called, and he looked unlike Dick had ever seen him. He looked almost...flustered. The Bruce Wayne he knew didn't get flustered, not like this, not unless he was putting on an act.

"He just left." Dick sat up. "What's going on?"

"Well," Bruce started. Stopped. Put his hands on his hips. Looked around the Cave. "Someone just showed up claiming to be his mother."

"I thought she was dead."

"She is, this was someone else." Bruce said, scowling. "He didn't seem surprised."

"What?" Dick stood, using Tim's head for leverage. "He looked plenty surprised to me."

"That she was here, yes." Bruce looked up at the ceiling, like it held the answers he was looking for. "Not that she existed."

"Oh sh*t," Tim said.

"What do we do?" Dick asked, feeling a little nauseous. He'd had enough with surprise parents and children to last him a lifetime.

"I'm going to steal this woman's toothbrush."

"Yeah," Dick sighed. "Sounds logical."

After a moment and still looking at the ceiling, Bruce said, “Did you even go to school today?”

Tim grinned. “I suggest you maintain your plausible deniability.”

Bruce buried his face in his hands.

“You’re not going after him?” Dick asked, when it became clear he wasn’t.

“I think,” Bruce sighed, “if he wanted to talk about it, he’d still be here.”

“Wow,” Tim said, “that’s awfully mature of you. Are you feeling alright?”

“Okay,” Bruce sighed, turning towards the stairs.

“Should we check his temperature?” Dick asked. Bruce waved dismissively over his shoulder.

“Are we sure he hasn’t been replaced by some sort of pod person? Or a clone?” Tim said loudly, making sure Bruce could hear him.

“Mind control perhaps?” Damian said, hands on his hips. Dick beamed at him, resisting the urge to praise him for joining in.

“I love you all, too,” Bruce called down the stairs as he disappeared into the Manor.

Jason chain smoked as he made his way to Stephanie's apartment. Uncaring that he’d worked his way down to one cigarette a day. He tried not to think about the last time he'd walked to Gotham from the Manor.

At least this time he had his dad's old jacket and a pack of cigarettes. And his tire iron, tucked into his jeans, just like old times. He also had a voice modulator in his pocket, swiped from the Cave on his way out.

"Jason!" Mr. Singh called as Jason ducked into the convenience store.

"Hey Mr. S, how're you?"

"Very good, Jason, how are you?" It was a question posed with purpose and Jason turned quickly to the shelves with winter supplies, pretending to browse before grabbing a black ski mask.

"It's a normal Tuesday," he said.

"Is it?"

Jason grimaced at the mask then at the concerned man. "You don't want to know."

"Are you in trouble?"

"No, I promise," Jason said and, at the moment, it was the truth.

Mr. Singh looked at him for a long moment and Jason tried to reign in his anxious, angry energy.

"You would tell me, if you were?"

"I would," Jason lied.

He called Steph as he left, ski mask in his pocket, another cigarette already between his lips.

"Hey," she chirped. "What's up?"

"Are you in or not?"

"Jason, I just think —"

"I'm almost to your place," he interrupted. "I'm going right now. Are you in or not?"

"What? Jesus f*ck, Jason —"

"Steph."

"Yes! Obviously! I'm not letting you do this by your f*cking self, f*ck." Then she hung up.

Jason stuffed the phone in his pocket.

She didn't ask what was wrong, when he knocked on the door. She didn't ask why now or what's the plan. She just pulled out an all black sweat suit of Arthur's and a pair of his shoes from the front closet and said, "So there won't be any evidence of you being there, no stray hairs or anything. And the shoes are the wrong size so that'll throw anyone off."

"He's not gonna call it in," Jason said. "Not officially."

Steph shoved the clothes and shoes into his arms. He put them on.

Dani watched them from the couch, a small frown pulling at her lips. Jason crouched in front of her and, for a moment, they just stared at each other.

"You can tell me to f*ck off," he said, and her eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. "If you don't want me to do it, you can tell me to f*ck off."

She laughed a little, and it was a sad, scared sound. All she said was: "Don't get hurt."

"I'll be fine," he said, standing to plant a kiss on the top of her head.

It was dusk, by the time they made their way to the rooftop across from Romero's apartment. Steph wasn't in uniform, she had also donned all black.

Jason tucked the walkie talkie into his back pocket. They'd hooked it up to a pair of earbuds, so Steph could warn him if anyone else showed up. He threaded the wire under his shirt so it couldn't be grabbed and put one earbud in his ear, the modulator on his face, and the ski mask over his head. Then he darted across the street.

It was easy, to climb the old fire escape. Easy, to jimmy open the window lock with a pocket knife. Easy, to slip silently into the apartment.

This is the way the world ends.

The TV was on. It was the only light in the apartment. It reminded Jason of the bad nights, when he came home from a shift at the convenience store, and Willis was haunting the couch with a pack of beer, when Jason slept fitfully on the mattress with Catherine.

This is the way the world ends.

He pulled out the tire iron, squeezed it with gloved hands, crept down the hallway. The light from the TV flickered on the wall. Romero laughed humorlessly at a commercial.

This is the way the world ends.

Jason didn't have a plan. He had no course of action. There was only the present, placing one foot in front of the other. There was only the TV, a replay of the baseball game from earlier. There was only Romero, twisting the cap off another beer bottle.

This is the way the world ends.

He was behind the couch, close enough to reach out and touch Romero, when the power went out. They made eye contact in the reflection of the TV.

Not with a bang but a whimper.

Romero launched himself over the back of the couch and Jason had to duck a swinging fist.

"Who the hell are you?" Romero roared. "Who sent you?"

Jason ducked again, backing up into the hallway.

"Are you okay?" Steph yelled into his ear.

Romero snagged Jason by the front of his sweater and flung him back into the living room. Jason rolled back to his feet, throwing a punch that caught the cop in the face. He swung the tire iron into Romero's gut.

"If you don't answer me in two minutes I'm calling for backup."

Romero doubled over, sputtering for air. Jason slipped behind him, kicking at the back of his legs to bring him to his knees. He grabbed the cop by the hair, the tire iron swapped for the pocket knife. He pressed it to the man's throat.

"I heard you were looking for your kid," he said, the modulator making his voice robotic and emotionless. "You should stop doing that."

"Who the f*ck are you?"

"A concerned citizen," Jason said flatly. "Are you gonna leave the kid alone, or do I have to come back and finish what I started?"

Jason pressed the knife harder against his neck.

"Answer me you absolute ass," Steph hissed.

"Fine!" Romero shouted.

Then, miraculously. Amazingly. Beautifully. The power came back. The TV roared to life, Romero jumped, Jason shoved him forward, sprinted down the hallway and all but dove out the open window.

"I'm fine," he said into the walkie talkie as soon as his feet hit pavement. He ran towards the alley, behind the building. "I'll see you tomorrow. Thank you."

"What?" Steph shrieked.

Jason turned off the walkie talkie. His heart was pounding, but he wasn't scared. He stood in the alley, blood roaring in his ears, and he smiled.

A moment later, he was overcome with nausea. It hit him fast and strong. Jason yanked the ski mask up to his forehead and tore the modulator off his face.

It has been afraid too long ever to be free of fear.

He stopped short in his frantic unmasking when he saw a kid climbing out of a manhole to the sewers. The kid, upon seeing Jason, also froze. They stared at each other for a long moment, the kid halfway out of the sewer, Jason halfway out of a ski mask.

“Hi?” The kid said, more of a question than a greeting. He had an accent similar to Jason's, something further south.

“What’re you doing?” Jason asked.

The kid made a face and said, “What’re you doing?”

“That’s fair.” Jason pulled the ski mask the rest of the way off. The accent was so familiar but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. “I was, uh, threatening a cop into leaving his kid alone.”

“Oh. Cool. I’m looking for my parents.”

“In the sewer?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

“What?” The kid asked, almost smiling. “No follow ups?”

“Uh, how long have they been gone?”

“Since the big Joker gas attack.”

Jason’s heart clenched. That had happened nearly two years prior.

“If I was looking for that long, I’d probably resort to the sewers too.” He looked the kid up and down. “You good?”

The sound of shouting had Jason whipping his head around. He recognized that voice, and he didn’t like the sound of a door banging open.

“f*ck,” Jason said. “f*ck, f*ck, f*ck.”

“Are you good?” The kid asked.

“Well, that’s probably the cop.”

The kid scanned the alley, sighed dramatically, said, “f*ck it. Follow me.”

And then he started climbing back down into the sewers.

The kid navigated the sewers with a concerning level of familiarity. He didn’t use a flashlight and Jason’s phone was back at Steph’s apartment. Besides, it was best to let your eyes adjust to the dark, rather than relying on a light. Too many things lurked in the sewers, and none of them appreciated a flashlight beam.

“Where do you need to go?” The kid asked when they reached a fork in the tunnel.

“Uh, GCU, or as close as we can get.”

The kid nodded and turned left. “Kind of stupid to threaten a cop, you know.”

Jason sighed. “Well, he deserved it.”

“They usually do.”

It hit him very suddenly, the realization. Jason snapped his fingers and pointed at the kid. "Narrows?"

The kid nodded, laughing a little. He pointed at Jason and said, "Alley?"

"Guilty," Jason said. "Easier guess, though, considering we're in Crime Alley right now."

The kid shrugged. "I'm still right."

Jason followed along in silence. The adrenaline was seeping out of his body. He was disastrously tired, all of a sudden, and he became very aware of every bruise and sore muscle. A chorus of aches and pains that screamed violence violence violence.

The kid stopped at a ladder and gestured up. “This will take you into an alley like two blocks from GCU.”

“Thanks, Narrows,” Jason said, leaning against the wall and looking him up and down. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Worry about yourself, Alley.”

“Yeah,” Jason sighed, heaving himself up the ladder.

Stephanie Brown was losing her mind. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so angry at Jason.

All she wanted was to talk about what happened, to talk about Romero’s apartment, about him ghosting her afterwards. Except she had his goddamn phone.

So she waited until the next morning. She got up, she got ready, she walked to campus, and she waited by the stairwell. Jason didn’t show up. Steph stomped her way to the elevator — no need to take the stairs alone — and tossed herself into her usual seat.

After a moment of contemplation, she put her backpack in the seat next to her. If Jason didn’t show up, it would be the last time she saved him a goddamn seat, that was for sure.

He did show up — fifteen minutes late to a fifty minute class and moments before Steph was going to text Babs to ask her to track him down.

He looked like sh*t. He looked like he hadn’t slept and like he’d rather be anywhere else and like, maybe, he’d realized there was nowhere else to be.

Jason took his seat silently. When Steph passed him his phone, he took that as well. Not once did he look at her or the phone, the latter of which had been buzzing all night with texts Steph hadn’t looked at but now wished she had.

Neither of them took notes. Steph hardly listened at all. They just sat next to each other, Steph staring the side of Jason’s head, Jason pretending like he didn’t notice.

An excruciating thirty-five minutes later, Jason finally looked at her and said, “Batburger?”

“Don’t you have Poli Sci?” She asked, annoyed and tired and angry.

“Yeah,” he said flatly.

They went to Batburger.

Jason popped the lid off his cup and dunked a fry in the chocolate shake. Steph tapped her own milkshake against the table, but he didn’t look up at the noise.

She didn’t want to ask. She didn’t want to know, even. Stephanie was so far beyond being able to guess what was going on in Jason’s head. Normally, she could figure it out, she could look at what had happened and make some educated guess.

But, ever since he’d run from their English class at the mention of T.S. Eliot, Steph had been at a loss.

He didn’t look at her. He dunked fries in his shake and popped them in his mouth. He looked like a ghost. A shadow.

“What the f*ck is wrong with you?” She snapped, and then cringed, softened her voice only a little. “Sorry. I mean, what’s wrong?”

Jason sighed, slouching in the booth and looking at the ceiling. Steph waited. She drank half her milkshake before he said anything at all.

“Alfred has a lot of poetry books in the library,” he said, and Steph waited because she knew he was working his way up to something. “I was reading this little T.S. Eliot collection last year around Thanksgiving.”

Several things fell into place, but he wasn’t finished, so she waited.

“I kind of forgot I had it on me, honestly. I couldn’t sleep the night before we went to the police station and it fit in my back pocket. It was the only thing I had on me at Saint M’s.” Jason stared at the tiled ceiling, unblinking, his voice completely devoid of emotion. “I read it the first night, in the Hole, until the lights turned off. And I read it, later, over Christmas.”

“Oh,” she said, because there was nothing else to say.

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you why I left and didn’t answer your texts.”

Steph watched him closely. It made sense, it explained some of it. It explained the panic attack and the running away.

She could tell, though, that there was more he wasn’t telling her. She could tell that this was only half of it, and she could tell he wasn’t going to tell her the rest.

Chapter 7: let the rock roll

Chapter Text

Jason did not like Halloween even before some Joker-wannabes tried to kill him and damn near almost killed Mr. Singh. He didn't like dressing up and he didn't have anyone to reliably take him trick-or-treating after the age of seven.

Unfortunately for him, Stephanie loved Halloween. She talked about it for months ahead of time. She did not, however, plan a costume ahead of time. Stephanie Brown was not that kind of person. Too distractable, bless her heart.

"It'll be fun," Steph said for the tenth time and he knew that, in a way, she was doing him a favor. It was a distraction from what he’d done only three nights before. A tire iron and a cop.

Jason dropped his head onto the table. They were camped out in the library, studying for the last round of midterms.

"I don't like parties."

"Okay, but I do, so."

He didn't have to look up to see the look on her face. The do this one thing for me was clear from her tone alone.

Jason didn't want to go to a party. He didn't like drinking, he didn't like being around people who were drunk and high and loud and he certainly didn't want to be around them in costumes. He wanted to sit in his dorm alone and contemplate all the ways he was turning into his father.

"It's what normal college kids do, Jason."

He lifted his head and narrowed his eyes and Steph grinned sweetly and Jason groaned and said, "Fine."

She squealed happily, clapping and shoving her things into her bag. "Let's go!"

"Go where?"

"We need to get you a costume!"

They walked arm in arm to the thrift store. There was a section of packaged costumes, but Steph dragged Jason towards the racks of clothes.

"You know," she started, and Jason almost fled, just from her tone of voice. "You could do your all black thing and a cowl and be Batman."

"No."

"But—"

"No."

"I'd be so cute—"

"No."

"Jason, he'd cry—"

"No."

Steph was laughing, big, gasping laughter that echoed through the racks of clothing. It took every ounce of his willpower to not smile. To keep a straight face.

"You could be Bruce Wayne—"

"No."

In the end, they settled on a classic: the humble cowboy. Steph found a cowboy hat, a plaid button up, and a fringe vest that Jason found particularly offensive. He outright refused the cowboy boots.

"You're lucky they're half a size too small or I’d hold you down and put them on you," she sighed, and Jason found he believed her.

They got ready at her place. It took two minutes for Jason to tuck in a plaid shirt, scowl at the best, and perch the hat on his head. Some thirty minutes later, Stephanie emerged from her room, grinning.

"Are you...a basketball?"

"Obviously," she chirped. She had taken an oversized orange t-shirt and drawn the lines of a basketball. She was also, inexplicably, wearing fishnets and combat boots.

Steph crouched down and pulled the t-shirt over her knees, making herself as round as possible.

"Ball is liiiiife," she sang.

"What does that mean?" Dani asked, interrupting their giggling.

"I will not be explaining vine to you today," Steph said, ruffling Dani's hair.

"What does that mean?" She directed that one at Jason who just shrugged because he, also, was not in the mood to explain defunct social media platforms to a child.

Jason had been to parties before but he had, admittedly, not participated in good faith. When Steph went to parties, she made friends. She danced and laughed and had a good time. When Jason went to parties, he stood silently in the corner with a beer. Sometimes, when he was feeling particularly social, he would stand silently next to Steph. He had resolved to not be so antisocial in college.

Something something, he was normal now.

So, Jason greeted the hosts of the house party with a smile. He took a beer and followed Steph around, that would probably never change, but he was determined to participate in conversations.

It was a sh*tty, old house, but Jason wasn’t one to judge peeling paint and scuffed walls. Besides, it was a college house, they probably hosted parties every weekend. Kids didn’t live in these walls, they were allowed to have holes in them.

There were mounted speakers in just about every room save the kitchen and the bathrooms. Music thrummed through the entire building and Jason was equal parts overwhelmed and at ease. It was a strange combination. He didn’t want to sneak away, but if Steph decided she wanted to go he would happily accompany her.

“This is my best friend, Jason,” Steph shouted, pointing at Jason. “Jay, this is Evan, he’s in my program.”

Jason fist bumped Evan, who was tall and narrow and probably a few years older than him and Steph. It was hard to tell, though, with the Storm Trooper costume the guy was wearing.

Pink Pony Club by Chappell Roan started playing and Stephanie screamed before sprinting towards the dance floor in the middle of the living room. Jason laughed and shook his head, took a sideways step towards Evan and a long swig of his sh*tty beer.

“Sup,” he said.

“Hey, Steph’s told me a lot about you,” Evan said, pulling off the Storm Trooper Helmet.

Jason grimaced. “f*ck, I hope not.”

Evan laughed and Jason took another long drink. He didn’t know how Steph did it, didn’t know how she held conversations so easily, how she switched between topics so seamlessly. Jason felt like nearly every conversation he had was clunky and awkward. He didn’t know how to be like Stephanie Brown.

“How long have you known Steph?” Evan asked, leaning close to be heard over everyone screaming along to the song. Jason resisted the urge to lean away. He didn’t like the feeling of someone’s breath on his neck. It made his skin crawl.

“Forever, probably,” he said, suddenly very aware of the nearly empty beer and his definitely empty stomach. He needed a water.

Evan laughed again and Jason thought that, maybe, this wasn’t as hard as he’d thought. Or, maybe, Steph’s friends were easy to please. Or, Evan was just being polite.

Steph danced with her hands, one of which held a can of beer, above her head. She swayed back and forth with reckless abandon and managed to only slosh beer onto herself once or twice. It didn’t matter, she was busy singing the song at the top of her lungs.

I’m having wicked dreams of leaving Tennessee

There were enough people dancing with her, enough people singing too, that she wasn’t embarrassing herself. Sometimes, Steph would leave a party and dissect every thing she’d done, in case she’d been too much.

Won’t make my mama proud, it’s gonna cause a scene

She knew some of the bodies around her. A girl from chemistry dressed as a sexy Cinderella. Some guy from English that Jason hated, whose costume she didn’t understand. Half a dozen other people she recognized but couldn’t place, not when she was so caught up in the moment.

She sees her baby girl, I know she’s gonna scream —

Steph threw her head back, bouncing on the tips of her toes and screamed, “God, what have you done? You’re a pink pony girl and you dance at the club—“

A girl next to her grabbed her by the shoulders and they laughed their way through the next few lines before breaking apart.

She was grinning. She finished her beer. She finished the song. She found Jason and Evan.

“Having fun?” Jason asked and she grinned harder. She had the overwhelming urge to tell him she was proud of him. She wanted to hug him, actually. And then, because she was well on her way to being drunk, she did.

Steph threw her arms around Jason’s neck with so much enthusiasm she nearly knocked them both over.

Jason laughed, automatically returning the hug. “Is that a yes?”

“Thank you for coming even though you didn’t want to,” she said into his shoulder. She pulled away in time to see Jason’s expression soften.

“‘Course, Blondie.”

The first few notes of Rasputin blared over the speakers and Steph jerked away. She said, “Love ya, bye!” and ran back to the dance floor.

“She’s something else,” Evan said, laughing.

“You have no idea,” Jason said fondly, watching the basketball weave her way back through the not insubstantial crowd.

“Your girlfriend is a firecracker,” a voice said from Jason’s other side and he jumped, a little. A guy, who was just wearing jeans and a leather jacket, had materialized next to Jason.

“Not my girlfriend,” Jason said.

The guy shrugged, pushing dark hair out of his face. “She know that?”

Jason laughed, “Well, she’s a lesbian, so I’m pretty sure we’re on the same page. What’re you supposed to be, anyway?”

“I’m whatever comes to mind.”

Jason cast a sidelong glance at Evan who rolled his eyes and said, “You look like you think you’re too cool to dress up for Halloween.”

“What? You can’t make the leap to greaser? What about Alex Turner from Arctic Monkeys?” The guy said, arms spread wide.

“If you’re a greaser you gotta cuff the jeans,” Jason said, gesturing with his empty can. “Whip a comb out of your back pocket and I might be willing to give it to you, though.”

He frowned regretfully. “Okay fine, I did not plan on going to a party when I went out tonight.”

“You didn’t plan on going to a party when you went out on Halloween?” Evan laughed. “I’m afraid that’s still on you, buddy.”

“Damn, tough crowd. You guys know where to get a beer in this place?”

Jason sighed at his own empty can and turned toward the kitchen, gesturing over his shoulder for the guy to follow him.

The kitchen was significantly quieter than the living room and Jason was suddenly confronted with the realization that this was where he was supposed to say something.

“You want beer, beer, or, uh, beer?” Jason asked, head in the fridge.

“Hmm, well, I’m gonna have to go for a beer.”

“Good choice.” Jason tossed him a can and popped the tab on his own.

“I’m Luis, by the way. I think we’re in the same Spanish class.”

“Jason,” he said, trying to place Luis’ face. “You the guy that’s obviously pretending to not speak Spanish?”

Luis grinned, a hand placed delicately over his heart. “Me? I’m one of those no sabo kids, just trying to connect to my heritage.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Then you might want to connect to a worse accent, Señorita Bas is getting fed up with you.”

Jason tossed Evan a beer when they were close enough and the poor guy nearly fumbled it, practically juggling the can before he finally secured it.

“Sorry,” Jason laughed, not meaning it.

“Smooth recovery, bro,” Luis said.

“I have terrible depth perception,” Evan said. Abruptly, his expression changed. “No f*cking way. Can you believe that guy?”

Jason followed Evan’s gaze, past the bodies on the dance floor to the entryway. His heart nearly stopped.

There were a few things that, as a general rule, Gothamites did not dress up as for Halloween. The more murderous of the rogues were at the top of the list. Black Mask. Scarecrow. The Riddler, for some reason. The Joker.

“Some people are such assholes. Why would anyone want to see that?” Luis was saying.

There were always a few, though. People who had never been affected by the attacks or just didn’t care. One such person had just entered the house, their putrid, greasy green hair pushed back from a chalk-white forehead. The guy had used fake blood to give himself a bloody smile. He was even wearing an orange jumpsuit.

“I think that guy is in my bio class, what a dick,” Evan said.

Jason thought that, maybe, he was going to throw up. He put his beer can on the windowsill at his back and plastered a neutral look on his face. “I’ll be right back,” he said, flashing the pack of cigarettes.

He took off the cowboy hat the moment he stepped outside and was grateful, for once, that Gotham was cold at night. He was also grateful that the backyard was relatively empty. A group of girls huddled in one corner of the porch, smoking weed.

Jason put his hat on the railing and sat on the porch steps, lighting a cigarette as he did. He tossed the vest onto the railing beside the hat. He unbuttoned the flannel, it was suddenly suffocating. When that wasn’t enough, he pulled it off entirely. The chill air cut through his t-shirt, clinging to the sweat on his skin.

What can you see? Yellowing grass. An old shed. His own slightly scuffed converse.

He closed his eyes.

What can you hear? Laughter, the normal kind. Some Ariana Grande song. Birds.

What can you feel? Rough wooden stairs. Cold breeze on his skin. Sweaty hair on his forehead.

What can you smell? Cigarette smoke. Rain, it would probably drizzle sometime during the night. Stephanie’s shampoo.

He opened his eyes. Steph was sitting beside him. Goddamn vigilantes and their goddamn sneaking.

She’d put her hair up in a bun on the top of her head. He had a sneaking suspicion she’d done it while dancing, judging by the level of messiness and the strands that had already escaped.

“I thought you were quitting,” she said, gesturing with a beer at the cigarette. She was slurring, a little. He’d have to get her a water, too. Once he remembered to get one for himself.

“It’s a process,” he said, blowing smoke into her face.

She nodded. “You good?”

He nodded. “Go back inside, I’ll be back soon.”

She looked at him, for a minute. Eyes searching. He could tell she was torn. She wanted to stay. She wanted to go. He nodded again, trying to look more encouraging, this time.

“Text me if you need me,” she said, ruffling his hair as she left.

Stephanie Brown was not, generally speaking, a liar. She tried to tell the truth whenever she could and even a lie by omission ate away at her.

She was, however, quite good at lying to herself. She knew she was chasing the happiness of the club in NYC. She knew she was searching for the bliss of that kiss on the sidewalk. She knew she was blocking out what followed.

She wanted to feel that level of joy, again. Wanted to be sweaty and laughing and happy. She didn’t want to think about her dad. Didn’t want to think about Dani. Didn’t want to think about Jason. Hell, she didn’t even want to think about school. Was she in nursing because she wanted to be, or because she was following in Crystal’s footsteps? Did she want to help people that way?

How would she ever stop being a vigilante?

She finished her beer. She drank another one. She danced with strangers. It wasn’t the same. She found herself searching the crowd for Veronica. It wasn’t the same.

She drank more. She’d been wasted in New York, maybe if she could just find that, if she could just get to that level, she would feel what she’d felt back then.

Steph stumbled back over to Evan, who was chatting happily with some guy dressed like Alex Turner.

“Why do none of you dance,” Steph said testily. “Also, who are you?”

“Luis,” Alex Turner said, laughing.

“Do you dance, Luis?”

“Not really, sorry,” he said with a shrug and Steph threw her head back.

“You’re all so boring.”

“Baby steps,” Jason said, having appeared next to her, arms full of bottled water which he then distributed to their little group. "Give me like, five more years. Then I'll dance at a party."

“If you really cared about me, you would dance,” she said, taking a long drink of water. His costume had disappeared. She was honestly surprised it hadn't happened sooner.

Jason, apparently unoffended, just shrugged. “I can think of several friends of yours who would dance with you.”

Steph narrowed her eyes and pointed at him in what she hoped was a menacing way. “I’ll kick your ass, Todd.”

“So I’m right?” Was all he said and Steph kicked him in the shin, seeing as her hands were full. He laughed, dodging the follow-up kick she aimed at his knee.

“You’re such an ass.”

Jason was about to say something, something Steph was positive she would not like, when his smile fell completely. She had already kicked at him when it happened and the blow landed harshly.

“sh*t, sorry,” she said.

Jason didn’t respond, just stared right past her. Steph turned, brows drawn together.

“Someone should tell that dickhe*d to leave,” Evan said, also frowning at something across the room.

Steph had never been short, but she was below the height required to see over the crowded dance floor. “Who?”

“Some douchebag is dressed like a f*cking Joker goon,” Luis spat. “Like, read the f*cking room.”

“Oh,” Steph said. “Hold this.”

She pressed the beer into Luis’ hand and the water bottle into Evan’s and stomped across the room. The guy was easy to find, once she knew what she was looking for. The orange jumpsuit wasn’t exactly subtle.

“Hey!” She shouted over the music. The goon didn’t turn. Steph grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. “What the f*ck is wrong with you?”

“f*ck off,” he said and Steph laughed one sharp, angry laugh before she punched him in the teeth.

The blow laid him out and the people around them shouted their surprise — or support, or disdain, it was impossible to tell.

“Jesus f*ck, Steph,” Jason said, but he was laughing.

“I’m right.”

“Well,” he said, looking down at the goon with utter contempt. “Yeah.”

The guy hauled himself off the ground and, for some inexplicable reason, decided to get in Jason’s face. As if Steph hadn’t just knocked him on his ass.

Besides, every line of Jason’s body screamed danger. He looked a hair’s breadth away from rocking the guy’s sh*t himself.

“Okay,” Steph said, suddenly anxious. She looked between Jason and the goon and chose to reason with the goon. “I know I started this, but I think he might actually want to kill you so I’m ending it.”

She grabbed Jason’s arm and jerked him away from the greasy, pasty idiot. Luis grabbed the goon and pulled him in the other direction. They took a moment to share a wide-eyed look.

“Jay, chill out,” she said, when he wouldn't immediately allow himself to be lead away from the jumpsuit-clad asshole. When they were outside, when the crisp fall air hit her sweaty skin, Jason finally looked at her.

“Sorry,” he said, pulling away.

“It’s okay,” she whispered.

“I wanted to f*cking kill him, Steph.” Jason turned around, hands behind his head. His hair had grown quite a bit, since Saint Monica’s and sweaty curls stuck up in every direction.

“Let’s get a cab, call it a night, okay?”

When he turned back around there was something desperate on his face. “You were having fun,” he said. “Don’t leave ‘cause of me.”

“I don’t mind.” She meant it. She would have said it even if she didn’t mean it, but she hoped the sincerity came through. She would do it, she wouldn’t hold it against him, she wouldn’t mind.

“It’s okay,” Jason said, snagging her by the shoulders and pulling her into a hug. It caught her off guard, but she returned it immediately. “You stay, okay? It’s all good. Text me when you get home.”

He was trying to convince himself as much as her, that much was clear. But Stephanie was trying to learn how to let go. If Jason wanted to be alone, she would let him be alone. There was no grenade to jump on, she didn’t have to make an unnecessary sacrifice. Everything would be fine.

“Tell the guys I said bye,” he said, and then he was gone.

Stephanie woke up in her bed. She could not quite remember getting there. Dani’s face was inches away, when she opened her eyes.

“Hi,” Steph said.

“You were really drunk last night,” Dani said, her big brown eyes full of concern.

“I’m sorry, kid.”

Dani frowned. “Are you going to throw up?”

Steph was, in fact, going to throw up. She wasn’t sure how Dani knew before Steph did, but the kid had a trashcan shoved under Steph’s face moments before she projectile vomited.

“Wow,” Steph panted, when she was done. “You just saved the carpet. Thanks, buddy.”

Dani was not smiling. “Are you going to do this again?”

“Puke?” She was definitely going to puke again. Dani’s frown deepened and Steph pushed herself into sitting position. “What’s wrong?”

The kid regarded her for a moment. Something in her face closed off. She stood up. “Nothing.”

“God,” she groaned, dropping back onto the bed. “You’re just like Jason sometimes.”

Jason spent the entire morning in bed. Not sleeping. Not on his phone. Just laying down and staring at nothing. He wanted to call Steph, to talk about it.

The problem was, he was angry beyond his capacity to feel at the moment, and he wasn’t even sure why.

He remembered the rage that had consumed him, for a moment. When the asshole pressed his nose into Jason’s. He hadn’t meant to curl his hands into fists. Hadn’t, really, intended on using them. He would have, though.

So he stared at nothing until his stomach growled so intensely he had to get up. He dressed at a snail’s pace and, when he got outside, was hit with a powerful wind that told him he had not put on enough layers.

He would tough it out. He’d get to the cafeteria, get some food, make it back to his dorm in just a t-shirt and his dad’s leather jacket. He’d certainly been colder.

He was almost there, when someone grabbed his elbow.

“Jason,” Sheila Haywood said and Jason froze. He couldn’t do this, maybe ever but definitely not at the moment.

“Look,” he said, “I really don’t —“

“Is that your dad’s jacket?” She asked, voice barely above a whisper, the sleeve of the jacket caught between her fingers. When she looked up, there were tears in her eyes. He couldn’t do this.

He wanted to tell her to go f*ck herself. He wanted to turn and run away. He wanted her to hug him. So, so badly. He wanted this woman, this stranger, his mother, to hug him.

It was as though she’d read his mind, because she smiled softly and tugged at his sleeve, pulled him forward and wrapped her arms around his neck even though she had to stand on her tiptoes.

She smelled like cigarettes and cheap perfume and, for a millisecond, Jason could pretend it was Catherine. Because, when he closed his eyes, mother still meant Catherine, would always mean Catherine.

When he closed his eyes and dropped his face into blonde hair and wrapped his arms around narrow shoulders and inhaled the smell of smoke, he could pretend.

Shame hit him so suddenly and so hard that his stomach rolled with nausea. He jerked away and stared at her. There was no way for Sheila to know who he’d pretended she was. There was no way for her to know that the hug was meant for anyone but her.

She was smiling at him, a gentle and pleased look on her face. He didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to do. He pitied her, a little, for having him as a son.

Jason’s phone buzzed in his back pocket and he fumbled for it, waves of relief and fresh shame rolling over him.

“Hello?”

“Jason,” Bruce said, his voice devoid of emotion. Clinical. “Tim and Damian had an argument and —“

“Argument?” Tim shrieked in the background. He sounded furious. “He STABBED ME, BRUCE.”

“What?” Jason asked, hoping he’d misheard.

“Tim is okay, but Damian did use a kitchen knife and Tim does require stitches —“

“Which would be easier to administer if he would stop f*cking moving,” Dick snapped, also in the background. Jason could picture the scene: Bruce, by the batcomputer, Dick and Tim in the medbay.

“We can’t find Damian,” Bruce said, and his flat affect cracked a little. Jason could just make out the fear. The concern. The exhaustion.

“What can I do?” Jason ignored the look Sheila was giving him.

“Barbara has broken down the city into sections, everyone will receive their assignment. Do you have time to take a section?”

“Yes, absolutely. I just have to run back to my dorm and grab a hoodie, tell her to text it to me.”

“Thank you,” Bruce whispered, and then he hung up.

“I have to go,” Jason said, trying to hold back his relief.

Sheila nodded but dug around in her purse for a minute. Jason thought about leaving anyway, but there was an urgency to what she was doing. She pulled out a business card and pressed it into his hand.

“Here’s my phone number. Please, please call me. I would love to hear from you, and I’ll stay in Gotham as long as I need to. I love you, Jason. I’ve thought about you every single day.”

He blinked at her, then at the card, cleared his throat, said, “Okay,” then he fled.

I love you, Jason. I’ve thought about you every single day.

He couldn’t deal with that, actually. He couldn’t think about it. He couldn’t decipher what the f*ck it meant.

It was a kindness, probably. It felt like cruelty. Jason was angry, he realized, when he threw open the door of his dorm room. How dare she think she had any right to say that, how dare —

Damian was sitting on his bed.

Damian was sitting on his bed, nose red, eyes wide and watery. A small sweater Jason recognized as belonging to Damian was on the floor, blood on the sleeve. Damian was wearing a too-big sweater Jason recognized as his own.

“I seek refuge,” he said, clearly aiming for demanding and authoritative and confident. Instead, he just sounded like a scared kid. Jason pushed the door closed with much more care than he’d used to open it.

“You can come here any time you want,” he said easily. “Is everything okay?”

“I know father has called you by now.”

“He has.” Jason settled on the bed next to Damian, leaving a solid foot of space between them, just in case. He wasn’t trying to get stabbed today. “Are you okay?”

Damian nodded, then he sniffled, which greatly diminished the believability of the nodding.

“Why did you leave the Manor?” Jason asked, after several minutes of silence.

“I acted in anger. I shouldn’t have.” Damian didn’t look at Jason when he said, voice exceptionally small, “Nothing here makes sense.”

Jason was out of his depth. He didn’t know what kind of life Damian had lived, before Gotham. He didn’t know what made sense to a baby assassin. “Bruce probably just wants to talk to you about appropriate use of kitchen knives. And, sure, he’ll fumble his way through it, but he means well.”

Damian looked at him, then, a sharp glean to his eyes, and said, “I read your file.”

“You what?” Jason swallowed. He’d been working hard to not think of Damian as older than he was. The kid talked like a Victorian ghost, but he was still a child. Now he wondered how advanced Damian’s reading level had to be.

“You always run away,” Damian said.

Jason blinked at him. He had no argument for that, mostly because it was true. Jason ran away from home more than once. He ran away from group homes. He ran away from the Manor, a few times.

He had just contemplated running away from Sheila, mere minutes ago.

“I’ve been known to avoid my problems by leaving.”

“Why haven’t you run away from the Manor?”

“I did,” he said and Damian watched him carefully. It was the kind of hypervigilance, the kind of on-edge he was used to seeing from street kids. Kids who learned from a young age that they had to take care of themselves. Jason hoped beyond hope that Damian’s sharp gaze and careful movements were from baby ninja training. He knew that was probably just as bad.

“Why did you come back?”

Jason dropped back onto the mattress and stared at the ceiling. He was exposed, like this. With his hands at his sides and his belly vulnerable.

“I didn’t, at first. Bruce came and talked to me and I basically told him to f*ck off.” Damian made a sharp tt sound and Jason smiled, a little. “Then Dick and Tim talked to me and I threatened to break their kneecaps. Then I talked to Steph. She said Bruce tried his best, and that he means what he says. He doesn’t promise things he doesn’t think he can deliver, and he won’t lie to you. He won’t keep things from you. He’ll tell you, if he doesn’t think you need all the details. Steph said to let him try.”

Damian made a considering sound, but Jason kept his eyes on the ceiling. Eventually, the kid said, “Okay.”

“I’m gonna let him know you’re here,” Jason said, not yet pulling out his phone. “You can stay for a while, if you want. Or I can have him pick you up?”

“I can stay?” Damian’s voice was terribly small. Jason nodded and waited. “I would like to stay.”

Jason called Bruce.

Jason’s call had been unexpected and incredibly brief. Practically this: Damian is at my dorm, I’ll let you know what you can pick him up. Bye.

Bruce paced the length of the Manor. He wanted to go right away. He wanted to run all the way to Gotham City University. He wanted to go get his son.

He was a fool, he’d know that his whole life. He was fearful and suspicious and controlling. He could hardly ever admit when he was wrong, he could hardly convince himself he’d ever been wrong. But, moments before Damian lunged at Tim, there had been a moment.

Bruce had managed to find evidence of Talia in nearly ever aspect of Damian. In his eyes and his nose, in the scrunch of his eyebrows and the tilt of his head, in the goddamn cadence of his voice.

As much as he’d tried to pretend the opposite, Bruce had not been looking for evidence of himself. He hadn’t been looking for it, but he’d seen it. The scowl, more a look of concentration than real emotion, as Damian launched himself at Tim. That had been all Bruce.

He’d seen that look on his own face a thousand times. Every bit of footage he reviewed after a fight, that expression greeted him.

Bruce was so overwhelmed by the realization, by the sudden certainty that this boy was his own, that he hadn’t reacted to the attack on Tim. He’d found himself shocked, rooted in place as Dick wrapped a tea towel around Tim’s arm. Rooted in place, as Damian fled.

The doorbell rang and Bruce ignored it, for a moment, before he remembered that Alfred was out of town. He threw the door open petulantly.

“Ms. Haywood,” Bruce said, barely restraining his surprise.

“I’ll be brief,” she said, sniffing a little and god Bruce didn’t know what he’d do if she cried. “I don’t think Jason wants me here. As much as I want to try and change his mind, I can’t live in a hotel forever. I’ve decided that I’ll go away, if you help me start a new life outside of Gotham.”

She was good. She played it so well, the devastated-but-holding-it-together mother. It almost didn’t sound like she was asking for money.

“He’s your son,” Bruce said dumbly. He knew everyone was different. He knew blood relation did not mean there would be love. It was just that Damian and Jason were in the latter's dorm, Tim was pouting in his room, Dick was no doubt waiting to yell at him, and Bruce could not imagine an amount of money that would be enough for him to walk away from them.

She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and looked away, ashamed. Her voice was strained when she said, “I want to stay, I do. But I’m being blackmailed and if I can’t pay them, I’ll have to run again.”

Bruce watched her. There were too many things swirling around in his head to properly analyze the situation in front of him. He was letting his emotions get the best of him, he couldn’t do that. He needed to be logical. Analytical.

“Why didn’t you just say that?” He asked gently, playing the rich playboy with a heart of gold.

“Nothing’s ever free in Gotham,” she said darkly. “I used to be a doctor, you know.” He did. “I did illegal abortions, for people who couldn’t go to a clinic or a doctor’s office. For people who couldn’t have anyone know they had been pregnant.”

“A noble thing to do,” he said, because it was.

“One day, things went wrong. There was nothing I could do to save her,” Sheila whispered, a single tear trailing down her face. “A teenager died on my watch, Mr. Wayne. I had to leave Gotham. Someone must have found out, because I started getting letters the moment I returned. They’re threatening to expose me. I was just trying to help her.”

There were more tears dancing down Sheila Haywood’s face. They sparkled in the late afternoon sun.

“How much?” He asked.

“Hundred thousand,” she said.

He had Sheila wait on the front porch, while he went to the safe in the study. Bruce told himself it was for the best, as he pulled out ten stacks of ten-thousand dollars.

He shoved the bundles into a tote bag, the reusable kind you got from the grocery store, and brought it to Sheila.

“Pay your debts, get to know your son,” he said.

“I’ll pay you back,” she whispered and he shook his head.

“Consider it a gift.”

She cried harder. He didn’t believe her, not really. He didn’t think there was a blackmailer, but he hoped the money would make her comfortable. That he had given her a chance to be there for Jason, to be a good mother. It was a second chance, one he could easily give. He hoped beyond hope that she wouldn’t waste it.

Bruce decided, with shaking hands and a pounding heart, that he wouldn’t tell Jason. That would be his second gift to Sheila Haywood.

Chapter 8: learn to love ourselves better

Chapter Text

It had only been four days since Sheila Haywood showed up on Bruce’s front porch. It felt like years. Bruce had called Jason a few times but had, apparently, taken his silence as the answer it was. He felt bad, sending Bruce to voicemail. He didn’t know what else to do.

In a way, Jason was avoiding everyone except Dani. As far as he was concerned, she got a free pass to hang out no matter what was going on in his life. He would have shown up to Steph’s apartment to pick up Dani come hell or high water, because Jason had gotten Dani into baseball and she would not, apparently, miss a single playoff game.

So, the evening of November first, a day that seemed to be lasting forever, Jason stood on the the sidewalk outside a building he used to live in.

Dani scampered across the street in a Gotham Knights jersey Jason had bought for her birthday even though the Knights were decidedly not in the playoffs. Neither of them cared about either of the teams that were, but that had never stopped Jason from watching anyway.

The jersey dwarfed her, but Jason wanted it to last a few years. He could buy her a new one every month, if he wanted, but he hoped he never shook the habit of making things last.

They walked to the Singh’s, the convenience store closed for the evening, and watched the game huddled around the TV.

“That was a ball!” Mr. Singh shouted at the home plate umpire for the eighteenth time. Every time, Dani laughed hysterically. She had, apparently, figured out immediately that there was no real aggression in Mr. Singh’s voice and found his irritation with the umpire hilarious.

“Who are we rooting for again?” Mrs. Singh asked, leaning her elbows on her knees and squinting at the TV.

“We are rooting for baseball,” Dani recited, looking at Jason as she said it. “Hits, runs, errors, catches. The whole deal.”

He nodded his approval and she grinned. It didn’t matter who won, not when neither of them were his team. Gothamites were loyal like that. There was none of that “second favorite” sh*t.

It was the Gotham Knights or no one, which meant they spent a lot of time rooting for baseball in general.

Some f*ck he didn’t care about lobbed a meatball over the plate and they all screamed in despair. Then, when the other f*ck he didn’t care about smoked the ball out of the park for a game-winning two-run home run, they screamed their excitement. Because, baseball.

“Steph said you played baseball,” Dani said, as they walked back to the apartment building. She buzzed with excitement, high on the joy of watching team sports with no skin in the game.

“Yeah,” he said, shaking his head. “Got kicked off the team in high school, though.”

“Why?” Dani bounced, sounding utterly enthralled.

“Well,” Jason frowned, choosing his words carefully. “I did not get along with the coach. He thought I stole his f*ckin’ tires.”

“Did you?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know it was his car. Besides, he had no reason to think it was me!”

Dani cackled and Jason hip-checked her gently. “Steph played, too. We should play sometime! Like today!”

“It’s past your bedtime, squirt.”

“I am not a squirt!”

“Are too,” he said, intercepting her charge with a hand on her forehead. “You’re puny.”

“You’re puny!”

“Get him!” Steph laughed and Jason dropped his arm in his surprise. Dani rammed into him, but it was more of an aggressive hug than anything.

“Can we play baseball?” Dani pleaded into Jason’s hoodie. “Please, please, please, please, please, please?”

“We could get the other kids in on it,” Steph said gently. “Hubie and Layla and the others. Plus those kids from Saint M’s? Make a day of it?”

“Tomorrow’s Sunday, it’ll be perfect,” Dani said. She looked up from where her arms were still wrapped around his waist. She jutted out her bottom lip and Jason found that, suddenly, he wasn’t nearly as mad at the universe as he had been, moments before.

He tipped his head back and stared at the dusk pale sky. He was defeated. He knew it. Dani and Steph certainly knew it.

“Morgan High diamond, tomorrow, two o’clock sharp. I’ll get bats and balls.”

“I can get some gloves from the rec center, that bitch owes me a favor,” Steph said darkly, and Jason decided he didn’t want to know.

He pushed Dani at Steph and backed up down the sidewalk. He watched them disappear into the building and then he lit a cigarette, for the walk to the bus stop.

Jason took the bus to Bristol. He should have gone to bed. He should have gone back to his dorm.

If he was avoiding everyone, he certainly shouldn’t have gone down into the Cave. But he’d expected everyone to be gone. He’d expected, maybe, just Tim at the batcomputer.

Instead, they were all there. Bruce in full Batman garb, minus the cowl. Dick, in his Nightwing suit. Clearly they had been about to go out. Bruce and Dick stood between Damian and Tim, both of whom were shouting.

"It's my right," Damian said with so much conviction, so much vehemence that it would have been easy to forget he was six years old. Easy, if he hadn't also stomped his foot and clenched his little fists at his sides as he made this declaration.

"Damian," Tim groaned.

"It is my destiny, mother said," Damian insisted. "Mother said it’s what I was made to do. Mother said."

He was pleading. Even if his voice was shrill and his body language petulant, there were tears in his eyes. Damian was six years old, and he trusted his mother. Of course he did. They were all watching a child lose faith in his mother, and no one was doing anything.

"Just because it's what you were made for doesn't mean it's what you have to be," Jason said.

Damian dragged a sleeve across his face and rolled his eyes. "You were made in a slum."

"Damian," Bruce said severely, but Jason ignored him, just dropped to his knees in front of the boy, so they were eye to eye.

Jason spread his hands and flicked his gaze around the room. "And yet, here I am. Destiny is bullsh*t. Your parents make you, and they raise you, but you get to decide where you go from there. You get to decide what you want to do with what they give you."

"I want to be Robin," Damian said.

"You don't even know what that means," Tim snapped.

"That isn't the point, Tim," Dick started, sounding exhausted. "This is about Talia raising him to believe this is his sole purpose."

Bruce grunted.

Jason stopped listening. The devolving argument behind him turned into pointless white noise. "What do you like to do?"

Damian scowled. Truly, a tiny Bruce. "What do you mean?"

“What kind of things do you do by yourself? Do you like to color? Are there any shows or movies you like?” Jason thought about Dani and Steph and he sighed. “Do you like baseball?”

Damian wrinkled his nose and said, “Baseball?”

“We’re playing baseball tomorrow, do you wanna play? The other kids are a bit older than you, but I think you could hold your own. I’ll show you what to do.”

Ever ready to tackle a challenge, Damian puffed up his chest and nodded.

“Sweet, thanks buddy. You’ll be on my team,” Jason said. Still crouching in front of Damian, Jason flicked his eyes up to Bruce, who was looking on with something like fascination. “You know anything about baseball, Richie Rich?”

“That’s the one with the ball and the bases, right?” Bruce said and Jason grinned.

“Your old man has jokes now,” he said, conspiratorially, tapping Damian on the shoulder. “Who would’ve guessed.”

“Not me,” Tim said, and he was still scowling.

“Timmy, baseball?”

“God, no.”

Dick slung an arm around Tim’s shoulders and said, “We’ll spectate.”

“What is it you want me to do, exactly?” Bruce asked and Jason shrugged.

“I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

Steph got up early. She put on her softball pants and a t-shirt, tossed her cleats and glove into a bag, and made her way to the rec center. To Steph's simultaneous delight and dismay, Dalia Kramer greeted her as she walked in.

Delight, because it meant she could acquire the baseball gloves. Dismay, because Stephanie hated her.

"Dalia," Steph said coolly. "I'm here to cash in that favor."

Dalia snorted, tossing her dark hair over her shoulder. "I don't recall owing you an favors."

"Don't be even more of a bitch that usual, Dalia," Steph said tightly. "You owe me for the thing with the guy and you know it."

"As if!"

"Don't f*ck with me right now! I need some kid's baseball gloves so I can enrich the lives of children, Dalia."

"Stephanie, I'm being so serious when I say you'll have to take them from my cold, dead fingers."

Steph pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath. "Dalia," she said, practically choking on the words, "I'm sorry I said your hair was brown in third grade. You have beautiful, level seven blonde hair."

“Eight.”

“Excuse me?”

“Level. Eight. Blonde. Hair.”

“Fine,” Steph said, her voice pinched and high. “Level eight blonde hair. Beautiful, luscious, definitely not obviously f*cking brown.”

They stared at each other for a moment before Dalia nodded solemnly and said, "Put it on instagram."

"Excuse me?"

"Take a pic with me. Put it on instagram. Caption: two blondes hanging out. Then you can have the gloves."

Twenty excruciating, humiliating minutes later, Steph walked towards Morgan High, a box of gloves propped against her hip. It was shaping up to be a nice day, for once. The sun was actually out, the wind had died down. It might, actually, be a beautiful day for baseball.

She heard the kids before she saw them, as she approached the baseball diamond. It felt impossible, that Jason had managed to round them up so quickly. Then again, most of the kids would kill for Jason. Of course they would come play baseball just because he asked.

Jason stood at home plate wearing sunglasses and a backwards baseball cap, a bat slung over his shoulders, a sea of kids sitting in front of him.

“Who has played any amount of baseball before?” he asked and about a third of the hands went up.

“Steph!”

She turned towards the sound of her name and stopped dead in her tracks. Tammy, Veronica, and Jessica jogged over. They were all wearing athletic gear. Tammy, who had played on the same softball team as Steph, had a pair of cleats slung over her shoulder.

“Hey,” Steph said, forcing her legs to move again. She dumped the box of gloves on the rickety bench that served as a dugout. “What’re you guys doing here?”

“We ran into Jason, he mentioned the game and it sounded so wholesome,” Tammy grinned.

Steph shoved her anxiety down and plastered a smile onto her face. There was nothing to be upset about, nothing to worry about. These were her friends, even if she’d spent several months ignoring them entirely.

She was saved the labor of a conversation when children suddenly surrounded her, and she started handing out gloves.

“Okay!” Jason called over the noise. “Once you have a glove, find a buddy, grab a baseball and start playing catch.” Several small hands grabbed at Jason’s shirt and joggers and he added, “I cannot be your buddy, find someone else.”

Several children made sounds of despair. Jason ruffled their hair and came to stand next to Steph.

“Quite the turnout,” she said, nodding approvingly.

“Yeah there’s like almost two full teams here,” Veronica said.

“Not quite,” Jason said. “We’re down a few, but I don’t think we’ll play a real game anyways. Can you guys, like, teach some kids how to hold a baseball?”

The girls laughed and split up, targeting the smaller kids that looked the most confused.

Steph was pretty sure Veronica hadn’t looked at her once. But she couldn’t be sure, seeing as she hadn’t looked at Veronica. Instead, Steph scanned the field and the bleachers behind the backstop where a small group of parents sat.

Bruce sat with Dick and Tim, looking for all the world like a normal guy. Sure, he was wearing a polo, and his jeans probably cost a thousand bucks, but he just looked like some dad. It was beautiful and appalling all at once.

“What is the point of this exercise,” Damian demanded, having materialized next to Jason. Both he and Steph jumped, practically recoiling from the six-year-old.

“Jesus. f*ck,” Jason said.

“I think I just died,” Steph whispered. “Am I still breathing? Is my heart still beating?”

Jason reached over and pressed two fingers against her carotid, paused dramatically, and said, “You killed her. You scared her to death and now she’s dead. Are you happy?”

Damian looked between them, unimpressed, then turned away from them entirely when they started to laugh. They watched as he drifted over to a small group of the younger Saint M’s boys.

“Oops,” Steph laughed.

“He’s fine,” Jason said, but he didn’t stop watching Damian until he reached a small group of kids and was accepted into the fold. He turned back to Steph and said, “Now what?”

“Batting practice?”

“I’m not positive I remember how to swing a bat.”

Steph snorted. “Think of it like a longer, well-balanced tire iron and I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“I can’t tell if that’s nice or rude.”

“Well, I was going for rude, so I can rephrase, if that’ll help?”

Jason shoved her gently. “When was the last time you swung a bat, huh?”

Steph blew a raspberry and shrugged. “Dunno, but I bet I can hit better than you.”

Jason narrowed his eyes, held up a finger, and jogged over to Bruce. They had a brief conversation. Dick laughed once, loud and sharp, immediately covering his mouth with his hands.

Bruce stood slowly and when Jason turned back around he was grinning. It was an expression Steph was not used to seeing on Jason’s face and it filled her with unease.

“What?” she called, crossing her arms. “Why are you making that face?”

“What face?” he called back.

“Why is Jason smiling?” a guy asked. It took Steph a moment to recognize Jason’s roommate from Saint M’s, Will Conley.

“It’s freaky, right?” Steph said.

“Come on,” Jason said, still grinning. He picked up his bat.

“Aw f*ck,” Steph murmured.

Bruce made his way to the pitching line that they could not, in good conscience, call a mound. It was neither raised nor distinct in any way other than the fact that the grass had been worn down in that spot.

Steph grabbed her bat.

It wasn’t a home run derby, not in any way that mattered. There was no fence to mark a home run. There were no predetermined rules. Jason was fairly certain no one was even keeping count of their hits.

It was this: Bruce tossing underhanded pitches that Jason and Steph took turns absolutely demolishing while approximately fifteen teens and children bumbled around in the outfield.

It was pure joy.

Eventually, when their arms were jello and Jason had just hit a ball that he was fairly certain landed on the moon, they called it quits.

Behind the backstop, someone whistled. Luis and Evan sat on the bleachers with Tim and Dick.

“Yo,” Jason said fist bumping the new arrivals.

“Jason,” a voice that sounded suspiciously like Dani screamed and Jason spun around. He expected broken bones and blood and, maybe, something on fire. Instead, he saw Dani and Hubie squabbling over a bat.

“Bye,” he said flatly, jogging over to the children. He took the bat from both of them and held it above his head when Dani tried to grab it from him.

“Godspeed,” Evan laughed and Jason waved over his shoulder.

“I had it first,” Hubie said, bottom lip jutting out.

“Did not,” Dani shouted, stomping her little foot on the ground.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Jason asked. He scanned the field, searching for an ally. Anyone to give one of the kids to. “Will! Brennan!”

The boys responded immediately, which elicited an emotion Jason wasn’t entirely sure he could handle, at the moment.

“Yes, dear?” Will asked, slinging an arm around Jason’s shoulders.

“At your service,” Brennan said with a little salute. His expression turned to one of disbelief when he looked past Jason, toward the road. “Oh my god, no way — MARCUS!”

Marcus Murray scowled as he approached. He was wearing baseball pants and carried a bat and Jason found he was beyond delighted.

“Hey man, thought you couldn’t come,” Jason said, toning down his happiness to an amount he thought Marcus would tolerate.

“I wasn’t going to,” Marcus said and Jason tried not to laugh.

“You’re so social, man,” Will grinned.

“You wanna angrily teach these knuckleheads how to swing a bat?” Jason asked, gesturing to Dani and Hubie with the bat he still held over his head.

“I know you!” Hubie said, bouncing a little. “You taught me how to punch someone!”

Hubie demonstrated his punch and Marcus watched carefully before nodding. “Not bad.”

“You play basketball with Jason on Sundays,” Dani said, narrowing her eyes.

Jason blinked at her. “How do you know that?”

“I’m observant,” she said. Then, to Marcus, “Can you teach me how to punch?”

“Sure,” Marcus shrugged. He led them away and Jason shared a look with Will.

“That can only end well,” Will said with a curt nod.

“What should I be doing?” Damian asked, having suddenly appeared next to them.

“Can we get him a bell?” Jason yelled over his shoulder. Bruce, to his credit, seemed to consider it, before he shook his head.

Bruce had no idea what he was thinking, when he invited Selina to the impromptu baseball game. Probably, he thought she wouldn’t come. Maybe it had been temporary insanity.

He had no idea what it meant, that she showed up. She was wearing jeans and a t-shirt and cat-eye sunglasses. She was smiling that smile that tugged at the corners of Bruce’s mouth.

“You came,” he said and it sounded lame to his own ears.

“You asked,” she said, and it was just as lame but she said it with a tilt to her head and jutted out one hip and it didn’t seem so lame, actually. “So, who are all of these children?”

Selina settled onto the bleachers next to him. Close enough that her knee pressed against the side of his leg.

“You remember Jason?” he asked. Selina nodded dutifully. “Those other boys are his friends from when he was in a group home last year. The red mohawk is Will, he was Jason’s roommate. He spray paints murals around town and I’m pretty sure he’s the one tagging the top of the bridge into Bristol.”

“Impressive,” Selina hummed.

“The shortest one is Brennan, he volunteers at the library and gets the boys together on Sundays to play basketball. The bigger, angry-looking one is Marcus. He started taking boxing lessons in the winter and is, apparently, something of a prodigy.”

“Who’re the little ones?” Selina asked, leaning forward and resting her elbows on her knees.

“The little girl with the curly hair and Knights jersey is Dani, she helped Jason steal the tires off my car a year ago. She’s practically a tiny Jason, a real good kid. I think we’re going to have to get her into softball or something. Maybe gymnastics. Something to channel all that anxious energy. The boy is Hubie, he’s currently dedicating his life to being a BMX champion, apparently. I think he learned how to ride a bike last month.”

“Oh, that’s precious,” Selina cooed. They watched Dani and Hubie trailed unhappily after Marcus and Bruce laughed, a little. “Wait.” She sat up straighter. “They stole your tires?”

Bruce laughed. “They did, but they also gave them back.” Bruce didn’t mention the eight-hundred he’d paid for them. There were parts of the story that were too much Jason and Dani’s business. That weren’t Bruce’s to share.

“Those two,” Bruce said, pointing covertly at the other, older boys who had joined Jason, Will, and Brennan, “are Jason’s new friends from GCU. We have yet to be properly introduced.”

He felt his heart swell with pride, when he thought about it. About Jason making friends. The boys were laughing about something. Jason shoved Will gently, then he snagged Damian by the back of the shirt when he tried to sneak away.

Bruce thought about telling her about him. Damian. But talking about Damian meant talking about Talia, and he didn’t know where to start that story.

“Over there,” he said instead, pointing across the diamond at a small group that were decidedly not doing anything baseball related. “Are my other two, Tim and Dick. It appears they are teaching some of the kids how to do a somersault.”

“At least they’re participating?” Selina said, a hand to her mouth to hide her smile.

“If you can call it that,” Bruce sighed. He turned his attention to a group of girls watching the somersaulting with varying degrees of disapproval. “The blonde girl over there is Jason’s best friend, Stephanie. I think she’s friends with those other girls, but reports have been mixed.”

“Things are so complicated at that age,” Selina sighed. “Oh, she does look upset, though.”

She did. Her arms were crossed and she took a step back and Bruce was about to do something, about to call her over for who knows what, but Jason beat him to it. Of course he did, he saw everything, Bruce was pretty sure.

“Steph,” Jason yelled, just enough urgency in his voice that it allowed her to extricate herself from the other girls. There was something sad on their faces, once Steph had gone.

Whatever Stephanie had been upset about, she masked it remarkably well, by the time she made it over to Jason.

“I wish I knew what that was about,” Bruce said, frowning.

“You seem to know a lot.”

He did. He knew that it was probably excessive. He also knew it wasn’t enough.

“I don’t know all that much about you,” Bruce said

Selina sat back a little, something coy and teasing on her face. “What do you want to know?”

The sun was low in the sky, by the time they dispersed. Jason waved off Bruce’s offer of a ride back to his dorm. Then he waved off Will. And Brennan. And Hubie’s foster parents. Even Marcus offered to walk him back to the dorms.

Eventually it was just the two of them. Jason and Steph. It felt like it had always been just the two of them. Like it would always just be them.

They sat on the bench together. For a long while, neither said a word. For a long while, they stared straight ahead and inched closer and closer until their shoulders knocked together.

“I’m sorry,” Jason said.

“No,” Steph said and Jason snapped his head in her direction. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“Well,” she said, looking down at her hands. “I’m sorry that I got too drunk and tried to start a fight when we should have just left. I know you better than that.”

Jason dropped his head into his hands, dragged his nails over his scalp. “I don’t want people to have to deal with my bullsh*t. I don’t want you to leave a party because I can’t keep it together.”

“Jay,” she said and her voice was so gentle and so goddamn understanding and it burned. Jason stood up. “You can’t keep running away.” Steph grabbed his arm and pulled him back onto the bench. “There are people that care about you and I know you find that hard to believe, Jason. I know you think it’s impossible. I know your parents did a real number on you and f*ck, dude, I don’t blame you. But if you keep running away, one day you’ll look around and you’ll actually be alone.”

“And you’re not running away from anything?” he said. Her hand was too warm around his wrist but he didn’t pull away. “I know I have my sh*t, Steph. I know I’m dealing with it pretty f*cking poorly. But you know what my bullsh*t is. You won’t even tell me what happened in New York. How am I supposed to help you if you won’t even tell me what’s wrong?”

“This isn’t about me,” Steph said, letting go of Jason’s arm.

“What do you want from me?”

“Nothing.” She stood up. Walked a few feet away. Came back.

“What happened, Steph?” he asked, quietly. Gently. In the tone he hated, when it was being used on him.

“I kissed Veronica, okay,” Steph shouted and Jason blinked his confusion. He stood up slowly.

“Isn’t that good?”

“It was,” she whispered and very suddenly she was crying. “It was good, and it was fun, and then, in the morning, she acted like it hadn’t happened. She acted like it didn’t count.”

“Oh. What the f*ck.” They stared at each other for a minute. The tip of Steph’s nose was pink. Her cheeks were shiny with tears. Jason felt tears prick in his own eyes, and he decided to take a page out of Dick Grayson’s playbook. “Do you want a hug?”

Steph wiped her nose on her forearm and propped her hands on her hips. Her bottom lip wobbled. She shook her head and Jason pressed his lips together.

“Okay,” he said.

“Goddammit,” she snapped. And Jason thought she was going to tell him to f*ck off. Instead, she jerked forward as though possessed. She punched him in the shoulder twice, rapid fire, before she pulled him into a hug. “You look so pathetic.”

“I look pathetic?” He scoffed into her hair. “You look f*ckin’ pathetic.”

“I thought she liked me,” Steph whispered, her voice tight. “And then they were here today and were asking where I’ve been, and why I don’t want to hang out, and I didn’t know what to say.”

“I’m sorry, Blondie, I shouldn’t have invited them, I’m so sorry,” he whispered back. “Want me to kick her ass?”

Steph laughed wetly and hugged him tighter. “That would probably be a bad look.”

Jason moved his arms from around her shoulders to around her head and squeezed. “Since when have I cared about my reputation?”

They were both laughing, now. The hug devolved in a sort of scuffle that ended when Stephanie tossed Jason over her shoulder like a rag doll.

He hit the ground with an oof and a laugh and made no attempts to get up. Steph dropped down into the grass beside him.

The sun had begun to set. The sky was a wash of blue and pink and purple. Words formed and died in Jason’s throat five times before he managed to speak.

“You remember that letter I found in Catherine’s stuff?” Jason said. He didn’t take his eyes off the sky. It really was a beautiful day the likes of which they hardly ever saw in Gotham.

His name is Jason, and he’s your son.

Steph grabbed his hand and squeezed. She remembered.

“Well, some lady showed up on Bruce’s doorstep, said her name is Sheila and she’s my f*cking mom.”

Stephanie sat bolt upright. The sky disappeared, replaced by a blonde ponytail and a concerned face. “No sh*t,” she said.

“I think Bruce stole her toothbrush or something cause he ran a DNA test, and what’a’ya know, Sheila Haywood is my mom.”

“f*ck.”


Jason nodded. “f*ck.”

“What are you gonna do?”

“I have no idea.”

Chapter 9: I thought you didn't even like to leave

Chapter Text

Things were better, in the weeks that followed the day of baseball. It was almost like something had settled in Jason. That, or he’d been too busy to think about his problems.

It was the day before the Thanksgiving long weekend. Jason and Steph had term papers for English class due at midnight. They’d been holed up in the library for hours when Luis and Evan showed up.

“Did we accidentally make them best friends?” Steph asked out of the corner of her mouth, as though they couldn’t hear her.

“If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s yours,” Jason said. He didn’t look up from his laptop.

“We can hear you,” Luis said sweetly. He took out a notebook but, instead of reading or writing, he ripped out two pieces of paper and handed one to Evan.

“Don’t you have sh*t to do?” Jason asked.

“Nope,” Evan said, ripping the perforated edge off his piece of paper and throwing it at Jason.

“Kay.”

“I’m about ready to just submit this,” Steph whined. She’d been threatening to give up for hours.

“Did you do all your citations?”

“Kind of.”

“Dude, if the citations are right that’s literally a free ten percent, we talked about this.”

Steph threw her head back and groaned. “I survived chem and bio midterms this week, I don’t have anything left in me.”

Jason pushed his computer away and grabbed Steph’s. “I’ll do it.”

“Don’t you have an essay to finish?”

“Nah, I turned mine in like two hours ago. I’ve just been doing the reading for Poli Sci.”

Steph snapped her mouth shut and sank deeper into her seat, pouting. “What’re you guys doing?”

“Seeing who can make a better paper airplane,” Luis said. “Wanna try?”

“Yeah,” Steph said miserably.

Steph submitted her paper, edited and approved by Jason, and tried to think of a way to thank him. They took their time walking to her apartment. Crystal worked the next day, Thanksgiving, so they were doing a small dinner to celebrate.

She stared at his hair. He kept a small section of the sides short. The rest was curly. it was actually suspiciously close to being a mullet. It was also pretty damn frizzy.

If there was one thing Steph and her ten-step hair care routine hated, it was men with curly hair and their ability to have perfect curls with a routine of four-in-one shampoo and water. She was almost happy, to see Jason’s hair frizzy.

“Oh!” she said and Jason looked at her out of the corner of his eye.

“What?”

“Can I wash your hair?”

He stopped walking and looked at her, incredulous, eyebrows drawn together, said, again, “What?”

Steph could see the apartment building and she found she was suddenly very excited. She grabbed his hand and dragged him the rest of the way down the block. She didn’t let go or slow down until they reached the apartment door.

“Hi, mom!” she yelled, pulling Jason straight into the bathroom.

“What’s going on?”

“Hi honey!” Crystal called. “Can you two help me with some food in a bit?”

Steph sat Jason on the toilet lid and pointed at him. “Stay here,” she said, then poked her head out of the bathroom and called, sweetly, “‘Course, just let me know when. I’m gonna teach Jason how to wash his damn hair.”

Crystal laughed. “Have fun, sweetheart.”

Stephanie wrapped a towel around Jason’s shoulders and wet his hair over the tub with the detachable showerhead.

“You have curly hair. I have curly hair. I’m quite certain no one has ever taught you have to wash your curly hair. That ends today.”

“So the waterboarding is purely accidental, got it,” Jason said, spitting a mouthful of water into the tub.

“I would recommend keeping your mouth closed, dumbass.” Steph grabbed a bottle of shampoo off the edge of the tub. “You’ll notice this is only shampoo. Not shampoo, conditioner, body wash, dish soap, laundry detergent—“

“I got it, I got it.”

“It’s also explicitly for curly hair. Buy some with daddy’s credit card.”

“Oh, my god.”

Steph shoved his head back down and lathered the shampoo in her hands. She gave him a little scalp massage, as a treat, and he stopped complaining.

“See, I’m being nice.” Steph rinsed the shampoo and held up a bottle of conditioner. “I think you can guess the spiel. Just conditioner. Just for curly hair. Not multipurpose.”

He laughed, she worked the conditioner through the mids and ends and rinsed that, too.

“You may be thinking: we must be done now. You would be terribly mistaken.”

“Oh good.”

She walked him through the steps, the same way Crystal had done for her. The same way she had for Dani, months ago. She explained the products and he listened intently the whole way through.

“This will help with the frizz,” she yelled over the blow dryer and he nodded dutifully. “I like to blow dry until it’s, like, eighty-percent dry. Then it can air dry. Then, when it feels all dry, you just scrunch until the curls aren’t crunchy anymore.”

“How do you know it’s eighty-percent dry?” he asked, only a little petulantly.

“Vibes,” she said flatly.

“Of course.”

“Kids,” Crystal yelled, “come help with dinner.”

“The vibes are telling me it’s dry enough,” Steph said with a grin.

Sheila Haywood was once again on Bruce’s front porch. They stood there, staring at each other for a long time. Bruce had never been one to speak first, both in and out of the cowl. Sheila, it seemed, caught on to that.

“They asked for more money,” she said and a single tear rolled down her cheek.

“Did they?” Bruce asked, feigning shock. The disbelief was real, though. He didn’t want to believe it. He didn’t want to believe that Sheila Haywood was really standing in front of him and asking for more money.

“I don’t know what to do,” she sniffed.

Bruce clenched his hands in his pockets against the sudden, violent urge to put his fist through her skull. He said, “We have to go to the police.”

“What?” Sheila asked, momentarily shocked out of her act. She recovered remarkably fast, the panic returned to her voice and she genuinely started to shake when she said, “They said no police, they’ll kill me.”

“We’ll go to the commissioner, they have protocols for things like this. They can protect you.” Bruce placed a hand on Sheila’s shoulder. “You shouldn’t have to live like this.”

Bruce knew it was a flaw, his inability to give up on anyone. It was the reason the Joker was still alive and able to periodically break out of Arkham. It was the reason he’d given Edward Nygma a P.O. box to send his puzzles to. It was the reason Harvey Dent still walked around with his little coin.

He had to believe people could change, and he would give them a million chances to do it. He couldn’t help himself. Bruce Wayne couldn’t give up on anyone, no matter how much they deserved it.

Sheila Haywood was Jason’s mother. Bruce would steer her to the right choices if he had to.

“It’s what we have to do,” he said, firmly but gently.

Sheila looked at him, for a moment. Irritation flashed across her face, there and gone in an instant before she said, “Okay.”

Jason was asleep. Peacefully. Dreamlessly. It was a beautiful, blissful sleep aided by a belly full of Crysyal’s turkey dinner and it was interrupted by someone shaking him awake.

This was unusual for several reasons. One: Jason rarely slept well. And two: he did not have a roommate, therefore no one should have been shaking him awake.

In a daze of confusion and instinct, Jason threw a punch. Only a sharp, familiar: "Ow!" kept him from swinging again.

"Dick?" Jason asked, voice thick with sleep and disbelief. He wasn’t entirely sure this wasn’t all a dream.

"Jesus, kid," Dick said, his voice muffled. "Sorry, I need you to come with me."

"What? Why?"

"No time for questions. Get up, get dressed. I'll explain on the way."

Blearily, Jason snagged a pair of jeans off the floor, pulled a hoodie over his head, shoved shoes onto his feet, and followed Dick out the window. Because, apparently, that was how he'd gotten into Jason's room.

"You need to lock your window," Dick scolded, as they made their way down the fire escape.

"I'm on the fifth floor," Jason said through clenched teeth, a white-knuckled grip on the rusty railing.

“And yet I got in.” There was something about Dick’s voice that was different. A tightness where there was usually ease. It made Jason anxious.

“I think you’re an anomaly, Dick.” Jason had the decency to wait until his feet were on solid ground before he said, “What the f*ck is going on?”

Dick tossed a motorcycle helmet at him and gestured to his bike. Jason shook his head. Dick pointed sharply at the bike.

“Dick.”

“Jason.”

“Tell me what the f*ck is going on. Then I’ll get on your f*ckin’ bike.”

Dick tipped his head back and stared at the sky, like it would help him. “It’s about Steph, I swear we’ll explain everything when we get there. It’s ten minutes. It’s important. Get on the f*cking bike.”

Jason got on the f*cking bike.

Dick wove through the late night traffic with ease. Jason’s heart was in his throat. It’s about Steph — what the f*ck did that mean?

Approximately ten minutes later, Dick dropped down to a leisurely pace and cut the bike’s headlight as he pulled into an alley. If Jason hadn’t spent the better part of a decade running around Gotham at night, he probably wouldn’t have seen them. But his eyes adjusted almost immediately, and he recognized Batman’s silhouette even though he was crouched over someone else.

It’s about Steph.

Jason vaulted off the bike and ripped the helmet off his head. “What the f*ck is going on?”

Bruce shifted backwards and Jason could see her, leaning against the alley wall, hand pressed against her shoulder. Pale and grimacing. He could see the blood, so much blood.

“Spoiler was shot on patrol, we could treat it at the Cave but there’s no easy excuse for how she was hurt,” Dick said and Jason thought he might throw up. “We need a cover story for how it happened. So, you and her were hanging out and someone mugged you.”

His vision was tunnelling, a little. He couldn’t take his eyes off the hand pressed against the wound. The blood seeping through her fingers. People didn’t usually bleed out from shoulder wounds, right? That’s where people got shot in action movies and they always went on to participate in, like, five to seven more fight scenes.

Dick’s face was suddenly very close. He had Jason by the shoulders and gave him a firm shake. “Jason. Listen to me. I need you to get her blood on your hands, okay? Then I need you to give me your wallet and phone. We’ll get you new ones. Do you have change for a payphone?”

Jason blinked. “What?”

“You need to run over to the payphone by the laundromat and call 9-1-1, tell them you were mugged and your friend was shot. Then you tell them it’s the alley behind Knight Liquor Store. Then you come back here and you put pressure on that wound until the ambulance gets here. Do you understand?”

Jason nodded. He was propelled towards Steph. His hands were pressed over top of hers and she made a small, terrible sound.

She was wearing street clothes. The jeans and sweater she’d worn to class that day. He wondered if they’d ripped a hole in the sweater, over the wound, or if they were hoping the paramedics wouldn’t notice. Knowing Bruce, it was the former. He wondered how long ago she’d been shot. He threw up in his mouth. Swallowed it down. Handed over his phone and wallet.

Dick got back on his bike. “She’s gonna be okay, I promise,” he said, but the tightness was still there. Jason had the distinct feeling that Dick Grayson was lying.

Batman was there, very suddenly, right in his face, pulling him to his feet. He said, “It’s extremely important that Stephanie’s identity is kept secret. I know this is a lot, Jason, it’s to keep her safe.”

He did not promise it would be okay. He just left.

Jason ran to the phone booth. He had enough change. He wasn’t sure if he always had, or if Dick slipped the coins into his pocket. Blood smeared against the keys as he dialed 9-1-1.

A small, hysterical part of Jason was grateful that the panic, at least, was real. He didn’t have to feign his surprise. His terror.

“9-1-1 what’s your emergency?”

“Hi,” Jason said, voice thick with panic. “We were just mugged and my best friend was shot. I’m calling from a payphone. She’s in the alley behind Knight Liquor Store. I have to go back, I have to put pressure on it. But we need an ambulance, like, yesterday.”

“Okay hun,” the operator soothed. “Knight Liquor Store on Martin Avenue?”

“Yes,” he breathed, growing more and more certain he was going to puke. “I have to go, they took my phone, I can’t stay on the line. Is someone coming?”

“They’re on their way just —“

“Thank you.”

Jason slammed the phone back onto the receiver and sprinted back to the alley, crashing to his knees next to Steph.

“‘Sup,” she said weakly.

“Hey,” he whispered, easing her away from the wall and into his lap so he had the leverage to press down against the bullet wound. It was a through and through, and he used his extended leg to staunch the bleeding from the exit wound. He tried not to pay too much attention to the terrible sounds Steph made, as he did all of this. His tears dripped down onto her face and she grimaced.

“I’m sorry,” she said roughly and that just made him cry harder.

“It’s okay,” he said. Blood soaked his jeans. Blood covered his hands and his hoodie. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.”

Jason dipped forward and brushed a kiss across her forehead. Steph’s eyes fluttered shut and then snapped back open. She was fighting to stay awake and he was grateful that he didn’t have to ask her to.

She knew the drill. Had done this before. Had probably been the one staunching the blood and urging someone to keep their eyes open.

Stephanie Brown was a f*cking vigilante, and people shot at her. People tried to kill her on a fairly regular basis.

Jason thought that, maybe, he hadn’t actually understood what any of that meant until this exact moment. Someone had shot her. Bruce and Dick had a plan for that kind of thing. They had a plan that got help and protected her identity because they couldn’t just call for help for f*cking Spoiler.

Because Spoiler was a vigilante.

Someone had tried to kill Spoiler. They didn’t know they had tried to kill Stephanie Brown. They didn’t know that she was going to school to be a nurse. They didn’t know she wrote her notes in colorful gel pens. They didn’t know she loved to have breakfast for dinner and had one-sided beef with a cat.

At some point he’d stopped crying. Stopped panicking. Stopped thinking. There was just the ringing in Jason's ears and the cold ground and hot blood and Steph’s slow blinking and shallow breathing.

Then, very suddenly, there were paramedics.

He’d done this before. In the convenience store. This time, at least, he got to ride in the ambulance.

Bruce showered and dressed in his dishevelled-but-put-together outfit that he wore when he pretended to be called out of his home in the middle of the night. Then he sat in his study with Alfred and Dick and waited for his phone to ring.

“He’s going to be pissed,” Dick said.

Bruce didn’t respond, just as he hadn’t responded the ten other times Dick had said it.

“Master Timothy and Miss Barbara have reported that everything looks calm in the city,” Alfred said, eyes on his own phone screen.

“Well,” Dick said sharply, “as long as everything is calm in the city.”

“Dick,” Bruce said.

“I just dragged Jason out of bed. Literally shook him awake and dumped him in an alley with his best friend who had been shot, Bruce. It's not going to be okay. It's traumatic.”

Bruce dragged his hands over his face. “I know,” he whispered. God, he knew. He wished there had been any other options. He wished he’d seen the gunman. Wished he’d taken the bullet instead. Wished Stephanie had stayed home. Wished, wished, wished.

“Bruce.”

His phone vibrated. It took all of Bruce’s self control to not answer right away. But they were calling Bruce Wayne, and Bruce Wayne should be asleep. So Bruce waited. One…two…three…four…he picked up on the fifth ring.

“Hello?” He answered, injecting sleep and confusion into his voice. Bruce listened as a police officer explained things he already knew.

He said: “Oh my god” and “Christ” and “Are they okay?” and “I’ll be right there.”

He ignored the look on Dick’s face. Said, “Stay here, make sure Damian stays in bed and Tim actually goes to bed.” And then he left.

Two police officers were waiting at the hospital. Jason hadn’t thought about that part. He hadn’t thought about the fact that gun shot wound meant police.

They took him into a small room with mismatched furniture and too-bright lights that was, he assumed, for grieving families to receive bad news. It was also, apparently, for traumatized teenagers to be grilled by cops.

They’d introduced themselves, the cops, but Jason hadn’t been paying attention. He was too busy trying to remember the fake story and how to breathe.

The police wouldn't let him go to the bathroom to wash his hands. Stephanie's blood was drying under his fingernails. They wouldn't let him leave until he gave his statement three different times.

Blood smeared on the paper as he fought his shaking hands to write out a fake story.

It had been a while since Jason had recited anything in his head to stay calm. It was a comfort sullied by the hole. If anything, the practice made him more anxious, these days.

Besides, what comfort could be found in his favorite soliloquy?

To die, to sleep—
No more—and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks

What solace could he find in Hamlet?

To sleep—perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub!
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

Jason didn’t want to think about death. He felt, at times, that he had only ever thought about death. That every single action, every conscious thought, everything for as long as he could remember had been about death and dying.

Had someone asked, only hours before, if he feared death, Jason would have said no. He was not afraid to die. But that was a fundamental misunderstanding of the question. Jason was not afraid to die. He was, however, utterly petrified by the fact that the people he loved were capable of dying.

Eventually, when he was really and truly about to lose it, the door banged open. Officer Whatever stood up and Jason felt the tension drain from his shoulders when he laid eyes on Crystal Brown.

She was wearing maroon scrubs that highlighted the redness around her eyes and the determined set of her jaw.

“Do you have his statement, officers?” She asked with equal parts contempt and respect.

“Well, yes,” Officer Something said, balking under her gaze.

“Then get out, leave the kid alone.”

Amazingly, wonderfully, beautifully, they did. Crystal waited until the door was shut before she rushed forward.

Jason stood to meet her and she crushed him in a hug that lasted a long, long time. Long enough that it started to fuse the broken pieces of him back together. Long enough that he realized he would have to lie to her, too.

“I’m sorry,” he said, when her tears soaked through the shoulder of his hoodie.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she whispered, pulling away enough to hold his face in her hands. “It’s not your fault.”

Her eyes flicked over his face and shoulders, her hands prodded around his scalp. Making sure he was okay.

(He remembered Catherine and a hallway.)

Jason felt tears work their way down his face. He felt Crystal’s thumbs brush them away even though she was still crying. He wondered, distantly, if some people were just born knowing how to comfort others. Because it was Crystal’s daughter that had been shot. Because it was Crystal, who deserved to be comforted.

He didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to make her feel better. All he had to offer were lies that died somewhere between his stomach and the back of his teeth. Lies, that tasted a lot like bile and burned when he swallowed them back down.

Jason wished, vaguely, that the floor would open beneath his feet. That he would sink into the earth, that it would swallow him whole because he knew the truth and he couldn’t tell her.

Jason said, “I need to wash my hands.”

It sounded much more desperate than he’d intended, but he did mean it, desperately. He could feel the blood drying on his skin and he needed it gone.

Crystal nodded solemnly and it was not lost on him, how she did not look at his hands.

She led him out of the terrible little room and into a bathroom. He was surprised that she stayed. He was grateful beyond words that she did not leave him alone. Even when he waved his hands under the motion activated faucet and no water came out.

Even when urgency and panic punched the air from his lungs. Even when he frantically took two steps to the side and tried a different faucet.

Crystal grabbed him by the elbows, gentle and calm and it wasn’t fair. She needed comfort, this was terrible for her, not Jason. He shouldn’t be on the receiving end of her kindness, he was lying to her.

Water ran from the faucet, not doubt coaxed out by Crystal’s firm insistence. She pulled his hands under the stream and rubbed soap over his knuckles and he watched as the water turned red and then pink. He watched the stained suds work their way down the drain.

He watched Crystal’s weathered fingers wash her daughter’s blood off his hands.

Jason wrenched out of her soft hold and darted into a stall, barely able to contain the vomit before he reached the toilet. His stomach continued to heave long after it was empty

Crystal rubbed small circles into his back and then, when he fell away from the toilet, back against the stall wall, she reached over him to flush the toilet.

“I’m gonna grab you some water, okay?” There was nothing but softness in her eyes. There was nothing but love and care and concern and her daughter had been shot and she thought Jason had seen it. She thought she was taking care of someone who had been through something terrible.

Jason nodded, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that she would not do any of this, if she knew the truth.

“Is Bruce here?” he whispered, as she started to stand.

“Of course he is,” she said, looking alarmed. “Did they not let you see him?”

Jason shook his head and Crystal made a quiet, angry sound.

“Do you want me to have him come in with the water?” She asked, once she’d collected herself.

He didn’t, actually. He didn’t want to see Bruce for a while, actually. There was a burning, terrible, horrible rage ignited in him at the mention of Bruce, actually.

All Jason could do was nod, though. Because at least Bruce knew the truth.

Crystal handed Bruce a paper cup of water and steered him into a bathroom. He didn’t see Jason, at first, and his heart rate skyrocketed.

Then he saw the bottom of a shoe — Jason’s converse — visible under the walls of a stall. Jason was sitting on the floor next to the toilet, terribly pale. Eyes ringed with red.

There was so much blood on him, his jeans and hoodie were stiff with it. It was under his fingernails. His hands were stained pink. There was a smear of crimson on the side of his neck.

Bruce had to remind himself that it wasn’t Jason’s blood and then he had to remind himself that it was Stephanie's. And then he had to remember how to breathe.

Slowly, Jason dragged himself off the floor and took the water from Bruce. He rinsed his mouth and spat in the sink three times before he raised his head. They looked at each other in the mirror.

Bruce had been expecting anger. He’d been bracing for it for hours. He hadn’t been ready.

It was a look he’d never seen on Jason’s face. It was a white-knuckled grip on the counter. It was measured breathing and a clenched jaw and flared nostrils and something else Bruce didn’t know how to quantify. It was something that looked a whole lot like betrayal.

He didn’t try to stop Jason, when he left the bathroom.

Jason sat on some steps outside, the door behind him propped open. He lit a cigarette, eyes unfocused, staring at nothing. He smoked it down to the filter and, when that burned down to his fingertips, he dropped it on the concrete steps and watched the paper smolder on the ground.

Then he lit another one.

Steph was going to be fine. The doctors and nurses all said it. They’d praised him, said he did a remarkable job staunching the flow blood. One even joked that he had a future as a paramedic, since he’d remained so calm under pressure.

Everything was going to be fine.

Except it wasn’t. Not really. Because he cared about goddamn vigilantes. Because they were probably going to die. Because he didn't want to love people if they were just going to die.

He pulled his phone out of one pocket and a business card out of the other.

The phone rang and rang and rang. At some point, Jason realized it was five in the morning. That she was most likely asleep. That she might be angry with him, for calling so early, if she answered at all.

“Hello?” Sheila said, sounding tired and confused and a tiny bit annoyed.

“Mom?” he said. He felt five years old. Tiny and afraid and alone.