Chapter Text
Jason’s nine years old the first time he has a gun pulled on him. It’s four days since he ran away from his foster family. Three days since his last warm meal. Two days since he slept more than a couple hours. He freezes when he sees it, his hands clenched around the paper bag he’d found.
The paper bag with a little over two hundred dollars inside.
“Put it down, shithead.”
The kid’s only five years older than him. Jason recognizes him vaguely. He’d been running drugs for one of the gangs. His little brother had been in Jason’s class.
Jason’s stomach growls. His fists tightens on the bag. His head throbs. Two hundred dollars is food for months. A good jacket.
“Don’t fucking think about it.” The gun cocks. “I don’t like thieves.”
For a single wild second Jason, finds himself looking skyward, hoping for God, or his mom, or hell, Batman, to come save him.
But no one does.
There’s a gradient to the streets. The kids who run drugs do it because it pays, but they’d never steal. Some steal because they refuse to beg. Others turn tricks, but won’t touch a gun. Some will wave a gun but would never hurt an old lady. Everyone has a line. A reason for their stretches in morality. And Jason wonders if that’s how bad guys are made. If he’ll make compromise after compromise and wake up one day to find he’s become his father.
Jason steals.
He’s good at it. Light-fingered, fast, with a knack for reading people. He tries not to take from people who need it, but fancy cars and fancy watches are good targets. He’s stolen from gangs a couple times, would have preferred to do that more, but he’s developed a real distaste for getting guns aimed at him and most of his morals wind up second to survival.
Don’t steal from someone who can’t afford to lose it.
Don’t steal from someone who might kill you if they catch you.
It leaves a very narrow window.
Jason eyes the Batmobile, juggling the tire iron from one hand to another. He stopped hoping for Batman to come save him a long time ago.
And judging by the car, it’s not like he can’t afford it.
He spends the first three weeks after waiting for the other shoe to fall. The butler—and holy shit was he right about Batman being rich—keeps busting him for stashing food and other portable valuables for when he inevitably has to make a break for it.
Because Batman’s a bogeyman where he’s from. His Mom warned him to be good or else Batman would find him. There were people from his old neighborhood who’d been dangled off rooftops, who’d broken bones in a confrontation. Sure, Batman has a soft spot for kids, always seems less violent, happier, when Robin tags along, but that doesn’t save anyone from the medical bills.
Jason was eight when the first Robin went AWOL. The new one was harder to catch sight of, but he’d shrunk a good six inches and wore a suit that looked like it had wings. And in this big ass house? Empty bedrooms. No kids.
He doesn’t like it. Well, actually no, scratch that, he likes the library crammed full with books. He likes eating until he’s full. He likes running water and hot showers. The room’s too big, but having a dry place to sleep…
He hates not knowing how long it’ll last. Not knowing if Batman will turn on him. Not knowing if he’s heading back for the system. Every time someone stops to talk to him, he starts spinning escape plans in his head.
But instead it’s, What would you like for dinner Master Jason?
Would you like to watch a movie tonight?
How would you feel about enrolling in school?
God help him, Batman—Bruce—is starting to grow on him. He’s willing to sit and read with Jason if asked, seems genuinely interested in getting him back up to grade level for school, and teaches him a few tricks for a fight that will be useful. He’s awkward as hell, but he seems as genuinely invested in Jason’s comfort and well-being as anyone he’s ever met, and that might even include his Mom (not on the good days, of course, but there hadn’t been many good days towards the end.)
No one’s asked about long term plans yet. God knows Ma Gunn’s was a disaster and Jason’s last few stints of foster care were just as bad. Once it becomes clear that Jason will actually get some input in where he ends up, he starts staying in the room for the conversations. He vetoes a return to foster care. Refuses to try any of the other group homes in Gotham. Doesn’t want to leave Gotham for boarding school.
Bruce doesn’t seem frustrated at the steady stream of refusals, but it’s almost three weeks before Mr. Pennyworth, serving dinner mentions, “You could always keep the boy here.”
Bruce sputters into his soup. Jason tenses, eyeing the exits. Better to run instead of getting kicked out.
Mr. Pennyworth puts a calming hand on his shoulder as Bruce, face red, coughs and looks up.
“My life isn’t well suited for children,” Bruce says as if the Batmobile parked downstairs wasn’t a giant red flag for social services. “I would love to have you stay with me indefinitely, but I’m afraid it might be selfish to keep you.”
Jason frowns. “There’s no one who wants me.”
“I want you, Jay,” Bruce says. He looks pained to admit it. “I’ve wanted you to stay from the moment I first saw you.”
Because Batman would look at the scrawny kid trying to steal the tires off his car and think I’m keeping this one.
Jason’s habitual sarcasm is slowly bowled over by a growing warmth in his chest. He looks down, afraid he’ll do something stupid like cry or hug Bruce or something and says, “Okay then. I’ll stay.”
Jason’s not oblivious. Even before he found himself in Wayne Manor, he’d heard about Tim Drake’s suicide. His room’s still closed, but Jason finds a small office near the library that clearly doesn’t belong to Bruce or Alfred. There are a pair of laptops and a tablet on a desk scattered with papers. He grins at the stickers on the back or the laptops, unsure if they’re supposed to be bands, logos of lesser known heroes or just weird art.
He opens one of the laptops and plugs it into the wall outlet only to be greeted with a password screen. He takes three stabs at guessing but when a warning prompt tells him he has two tries remaining, he abandons the guessing game, hoping that Tim was the kind of guy who wrote his passwords down.
He’s discovered while digging through the desk.
The man at the door isn’t Bruce, but he looks similar enough that Jason does a double take. He’s noticeably younger, with darker skin, but the same clear blue eyes.
And, hell, Jason’s been expecting the other shoe to drop since Bruce first picked him up.
“Jason?” the visitor guesses.
Jason folds his arms and doesn’t say anything.
The visitor’s mouth twitches upward. It’s not a grin, but it’s close. “I’m Damian Wayne.”
Anxiety curls in his gut as he answers, “Jason Todd.”
“When did Father pick you up?”
“Three weeks ago,” Jason says. “What, did he not tell you?”
“No.” Damian’s mouth dips in a frown. “But he didn’t tell me about Drake either.”
“That’s fucked up.” Jason pulls open a desk drawer and sees what he’d been hoping for.
“I wouldn’t use that sort of language in Alfred’s earshot.”
“I’ve already had the lecture,” Jason says. He peers at the paper he’d found, a hand-printed series of letters, numbers and symbols.
Damian takes two steps towards him, glancing at the list. “That’s Drake’s decoy list.”
“Who has a decoy list for passwords?”
Damian shrugs. “Go ahead and try if you like. You won’t get in. Drake had better security than Batman himself.”
Jason snorts, thinking of the three tires he’d pried off before Bruce found him. “Batman’s security isn’t all that great.”
Something about the comment changes Damian’s posture from assessing to amused and he gently takes Tim’s laptop and the list of dummy passwords from Jason’s hands.
“You won’t tell Bruce, will you?”
“The last thing Father needs is more reminders of Drake,” Damian says. He stands up straighter. “You know what, you’re coming with me for the afternoon.”
“What!” Jason steps back, immediately suspicious. “Why?”
“Because if Father adopts you, we are to be…” Damian’s face flickers and he pauses long enough that Jason has to think he’s conflicted. “Brothers.”
“Brothers,” Jason echoes skeptically.
Damian’s as awkward as Bruce, but less embarrassed by his missteps. He seems to have no real idea about how to talk to a twelve-year-old, so he defaults to offering Jason video games to play. Jason’s never played before, but he picks them up fast enough to trounce Damian’s goofy roommate, Jon. Damian, however, plays with the same relentless efficiency that Jason suspects he has with everything.
The games are a good bridge. Neither of them have seen a lot of movies or television, and between Damian’s unexpected love of science fiction and Jason’s devotion for classic novels, their taste in books don’t have much overlap. And it’s easier to talk when both of their focus was on the game rather than each other.
Jon, the roommate, watches their interactions with an exasperated fondness that Jason suspects isn’t directed at him.
And things are good. He’s been with foster families before, ones with bio kids, and that was always weirdly tiered. But Bruce pays more attention to him than he does to Damian and Damian says they’re brothers often enough that Jason almost believes it.
Still it doesn’t really sink in until Bruce and Damian have their first real fight about him, the two of them screaming over dinner about what it means that Jason’s in self-defense training. He slips out of the dining room in a panic, looking to run when Jon, the roommate stops him. And after a frantic few minutes Jon, finally cuts through his panic. “Look if Bruce kicks you out, Damian and I will adopt you. Deal?”
Jason gapes at him for a minute as he finally recognizes that this is real.
Bruce’s self-defense training starts to take a more offensive tone. Jason honestly can’t tell if it’s the only fighting progression he knows or if Bruce has forgotten he’s not training Robin. Rather than point it out, Jason keeps his mouth shut and learns what he can. With the adoption paperwork marching steadily towards finalization, Jason’s pretty sure that Bruce intends to keep him forever.
But Damian left when he was like sixteen and no kid Jason knows gives up safe shelter unless something’s seriously wrong.
And Jason will kick himself for not getting some offensive training. Batman, despite being built like a grizzly, has a surprisingly vast knowledge of moves that work best against a large opponent. Jason doubts he ever hits the size of Bruce or Damian, too long without a reliable food source, and every move like this is gold if he ever winds up back on the streets.
After a few weeks, he’s even let down into the cave. Nominally because it’s got the best area for sparring. Alfred raises an eye at the arrangement, but didn’t comment.
In the cave is the… shrine? Memorial? Empty costume of a dead guy? Jason’s not sure what to call it, and he definitely doesn’t have the guts to ask. He’s looked up some things about Tim Drake. The newspapers said he was a troubled youth who committed suicide. Alfred quietly tells him that Tim Drake suffered a great deal of loss in his young life. Bruce doesn’t talk to Jason about Tim at all. He hadn’t even known Tim was Robin until Jon put it together for him.
Once he’s looking for it, Jason can see all the ways Damian talks around the issue. It’s in the way he stumbles over the word family, the way he glares at the Robin costume like it’s betrayed him. Doesn’t take long to realize that Damian didn’t like Tim Drake and not liking Tim Drake eats him up with guilt.
Personally, Jason’s not sure if Damian likes him, or if he’s just willing himself to like him. Damian doesn’t really understand people who aren’t named Jon Kent, but he’s trying and Jason can’t help but be won over. It’s been a long time since anyone even bothered to try.
The longer he’s in this house, the more he thinks he has Tim Drake to thank for it.
Jason slips the lock picks back in his pocket, and pushes the door to Tim’s room open. The door draws an arc through the thin layer of dust on the floor. Tim Drake has been dead for ten months. From the dust, the room’s been neglected since then. His first guess is that someone packed up all Tim’s belongings, but a second glance reveals a stack of three laptops on the desk and a book bag tossed on the far side of the bed.
Jason searches it shamelessly. He finds one hundred dollars stashed in a hidden compartment, which he pockets out of habit. He sorts through the school books, a few notebooks with inscrutable handwriting, a water bottle and a half dozen empty protein bar wrappers.
He tosses the backpack aside and considers the laptops for a second, but he remembers the decoy list of passwords on the last set and figures there’s not much he can do to breach that kind of security. Tim’s books are almost entirely non-fiction, and not the fun narrative kind. Jason flips through a couple references on computer programming and forensics before putting them back in their places. He walks instead to the desk where he finds a camera. One of the fancy kinds with interchangeable lenses. He looks back around the room, focusing on the pictures hanging all over the wall. There’s a cityscape of Gotham clearly taken from the top of a building. A few others of different places in the manor grounds, the lighting so well done that it’s impressive to even Jason’s untrained eyes. He lets out a huff of breath and pulls open one of the drawers only to find another stack of photographs. The majority are people Jason doesn’t recognize, but sprinkled through are Bruce and Alfred, all of them candid. He pauses over one with Alfred caught in a full body laugh, wondering what could get the usually restrained butler to cut loose like that. Another has Bruce fast asleep, his cheek half buried in what looks like a bowl of potato soup.
After a moment’s consideration, he pockets the two photos and starts looking through the rest of the pile. His fingers snag on something near the bottom of the drawer and he has to double check the depth to be sure, but it seems like…
His fingers find the catch and the drawer’s false bottom slides out to reveal another set of pictures.
Jason can tell these are the important ones because the very first shot is Impulse, the new Superboy and Wondergirl, arms looped over one another, grinning at the camera. The next page is a selfie, Tim and Superboy, the one after that Tim and Impulse. One has Damian and Jon Kent, both in formalwear suits fast asleep on a couch at a Wayne Charity gala, Damian’s head resting on Jon’s shoulder. He starts flipping through them faster, watching as the faces get younger right up until.
He freezes near the bottom of the pile.
Batman and Robin. An early, early picture. Damian can’t be more than twelve, scowling up at his Dad whose expression is somewhere between fond and exasperated.
“Master Jason,” a familiar British voice says.
Instead of dropping the photos, Jason finds himself holding them tighter, his instincts screaming run.
Alfred takes in the situation and sighs. “Master Jason, this room does not belong to you.”
“You said I could go wherever.”
“You don’t go in Master Damian’s room without his permission. I expected you to extend the same courtesy to Master Timothy.”
“Tim’s dead.”
“A fact that I am very much aware of,” Alfred says sharply. “Master Bruce will be home shortly. If you have everything back in its place, I don’t see the reason to inform him of this incident.”
Jason watches as Alfred leaves.
And Jesus, he can admit—if only to himself—that he loves Alfred and Bruce, but they are weird and emotionally constipated and Jason is not going to rearrange the room so that it looks just like a dead boy left it. Because that might actually be insane.
In the coming weeks, he makes a habit of sneaking into Tim’s room to read, splayed out on Tim’s oversized chair underneath a photo that he’s seriously considering stealing for his room.
He’ll stop doing it when Bruce stops flinching.
He plans out the Dad thing.
Tim, to his knowledge, was Robin for about three years and lived with Bruce for less than one, but he’d never been adopted officially. Jason’s adoption papers had reportedly been started within a week of him being brought into the Wayne household. Jason wasn’t even aware of the fact until Bruce brought him the conditionally approved papers and asked how he felt about last names.
Jason Wayne is a terrifying prospect, one made that much scarier by the fact that Tim died a Drake. He would be stupid not to take the offer and all the privilege that the Wayne name gives him.
He’ll just keep taking and taking until he finds the catch.
Only he’s starting to think there might not be a catch. And that gets his guard up as much as anything else. Makes his feet itch and his stomach turn and…
The Dad thing.
It’s a test, really. He waits until Sunday for family brunch (which shouldn't count as a family event considering it’s the one day that Jason doesn’t manage to cajole Alfred into eating with him. Granted, it’s also the only day that Bruce drags himself downstairs before noon, so it may just be Bruce that Alfred avoids in the morning.) Damian and Jon show up while Bruce is staring, silent, at his morning cup of coffee. He’s said precisely two sentences this morning, both of which were the habitual questions about Jason’s schoolwork which he had finished within an hour of getting home Friday afternoons.
“What’s wrong with him?” Jon asks as he slides into his seat next to Damian. “He hasn’t blinked since we got here. Is this some kind of test?”
“Master Bruce had a rather late night,” Alfred says, leaning over Jason’s shoulder to pour him a cup of tea.
“You realizes you can mitigate some of that need for overly late nights, Father,” Damian says in haughty disapproval. “Jon and I are only a phone call away.”
Jason doesn’t let himself think, he’d been waiting for the cue ever since Damian got her. “He’s got a point, Dad.”
Jon’s the only one who reacts immediately, turning to face Jason with his mouth open. Jason’s face grows hot. Shit, shit, shit. He’s made a mistake. Made a grab for something that isn’t rightfully his like the thief he’s always been and…
Bruce blinks a couple time as if this was finally the thing to wake him up. Jason shrinks back in his chair, but he doesn’t run. Even as uneasy as he is, he knows that Bruce will never physically hurt him. Bruce licks his lips and turns to Jason to say in an overly casual tone, “Your brother has an overinflated sense of his own fighting style.”
Damian puffs up in indignation.
“Oh,” Jon cuts in smoothly, “we all know Dami was talking about my fighting prowess, not his.”
“Your punches are feeble, Kent,” Damian snaps, and Jason’s getting better at reading which of Damian’s tones are teasing, even if he can only reliably spot it when it’s directed at Jon. “Jason’s punches are more technically sound than yours. I’ve sparred with you with kryptonite.”
Now that’s interesting in a whole new way. Jason pushes towards the edge of his seat. “Can I try a krypotonite spar?”
“No sparring over family brunch,” Bruce says.
They all fall silent as Alfred reemerges from the kitchen with a platter of French toast. Jason can smell bacon frying in the kitchen, the sizzling pops a low static under the rumble of the heater. Jason reaches out and spears a pieces of the toast with his fork.
Bruce leans over, but instead of going for the food, he ruffles Jason’s hair.
Jason asks if he can be Robin, just once.
It’s right after Bruce tells him he can stay and shows him a room that could fit his mom’s old apartment twice over. Jason’s an awkward mix of skittish and awestruck and he’s half sure he’s dreaming so he asks.
Bruce goes very still, the color drains from his face, and after a long moment he says, “You don’t want to be Robin.”
Bruce is wrong. Jason’s wanted to be Robin since the first time he saw Robin even if he’d never admit it out loud. Before Jason can formulate an argument, Bruce gives him a perfunctory pat on the shoulder and leaves the room.
But he never outright bans it.
There are voices from the cave. Jason hides just out of sight even though he knows the security system must have logged his presence.
Damian and Bruce are in the cave-or rather Nightwing and Batman. Bruce’s cowl is down, the chest plate unhooked so that Damian has enough space to examine a slash on his back. Damian’s domino mask is still in place and he holds a needle and thread as he scowls at the wound. “You get hurt more often than you used to.”
Batman makes a non-committal grunt.
“You never got hurt like this when I was Robin.”
“I did, Damian,” Bruce admits. “I just didn’t let you see it.”
“-tt-” Damian says. “I didn’t observe major injuries such as this when Drake was around either. You need someone watching your back. I have duties elsewhere.”
“Batgirl…”
“She hasn’t been Batgirl in a while, Father,” Damian cuts in. “And while she’s more than capable of patching you up, she’s not exactly field ready.”
Jason’s eyes drift to the costume in the Robin case.
Damian’s apartment has always been weird. There are grab bars in the bathroom. The sink is low, even for someone Jason’s size. There is a militant lack of clutter on the floors despite the fact that Jon’s kind of a disaster when it comes to cleanliness.
When he meets Stephanie Brown, it all crystallizes.
Stephanie Brown is blond-haired and blue-eyed with a big smile and a bright purple wheelchair. She rolls through the door without bothering to knock and it becomes clear within the first thirty seconds that she’s in command of every room she enters.
Jason’s a little bit in awe and it’s not just because he vividly remembers hearing Spoiler cuss Batman out through an open window in his mom’s old apartment. When she suggests they go out for waffles, Jason agrees instantly.
The streets of Bludhaven have a reputation for being rougher than the ones in Gotham, but even in a wheelchair, Stephanie moves with enough confidence that no one seems to tag her as a mark. He wonders how much of the confidence is genuine and how much is the fact that Nightwing is clearly tailing them from the rooftops.
When he points Damian’s surveillance out to Stephanie as they settle into the diner and order themselves some waffles, she cackles, whips out her phone and starts texting Jon.
The chat for a while about Stephanie’s nursing degree, about how bad Damian is at people and how different life around then Waynes is compared to growing up in Lower Gotham. It’s not Stephanie’s plowing through her second plate of waffles until she says, “It’s okay if you ask, you know.”
Jason looks at the purple wheelchair.
They’ve danced around Stephanie’s vigilante career. Jason knows the outline. Knows she was Spoiler and can guess that she was Batgirl, too. There were even rumors for a while about a girl Robin and Jason has to think that was probably Stephanie, too. “So did you just have one big identity crisis after another?”
Stephanie bursts out laughing.
“What?”
“Not a lot of people picked up on the fact that Batgirl and Spoiler were the same person.”
“Most people are stupid,” Jason says. “And most people haven’t met our family.”
“Don’t you lump me in with the rest of you lunatics.”
“You and Jon are at least as adopted as I am.”
“Blatantly false,” Stephanie says. “We lack the paperwork. Even Jon, and he’s basically married in.”
“But you had a costume,” Jason insists.
The smile fades slowly from Stephanie’s face. “Yeah, I do. Or at least I did.”
Jason looks back to the wheelchair. “Did it hurt?”
Stephanie taps the rim of her wheels. “I don’t remember a lot of it, but yeah. It did.”
“Did they catch the guy?”
“No,” Stephanie says. “And to make things worse, the thing with Tim happened just a couple weeks later. Same guy.”
That’s… information that Jason didn’t have before.
“Joker?” he hears his voice crack. “But they should have… Stephanie, after what happened to you they should have stopped him.”
“Oh, we all know it.” She pushes her food through the river of syrup, frowning. “Only reason Joker’s not dead after what happened to Tim is Flamebird stepped in and threw him in jail. B has a big thing about not killing anyone but Damian was willing to bend that rule. Jon said killing the Joker would tear them back apart.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“That’s Batman,” Stephanie says.
They’re quiet for another minute. Stephanie gets a refill of coffee. Jason clears his plate even though he’s well passed stuffed. The waitress brings them a check when she confirms they’re done with the food, but lets them know they can take their time. Stephanie grabs it and fishes a wallet from her backpack.
Jason, remembering that Bruce routinely gives him money says, “I can pay.”
Stephanie raises an eyebrow. “Brucie’s allowance, huh?”
“I swear he has no concept of how normal people function.”
“Awesome,” Stephanie says. “I’m in school. Bruce can definitely treat us.”
They’re back out to the street when Stephanie finally asks, “You snuck out, yet?”
Jason, who has snuck out a couple dozen times just to make sure he has the escape routes mapped, frowns at the questions. “Of course I have.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Stephanie says, her eyes flickering to the top of the building where Nightwing is still observing. “I meant out.”
“Not allowed,” Jason says.
“I wasn’t allowed either,” Stephanie says. “And I know I should probably regret it, but I don’t.”
Jason thinks of the empty Robin costume in it glass case, the one that mysteriously a few months ago, no longer included any weapons, of the open wound at the mention of Tim’s name. At the observation that Batman’s been getting hurt more often. “They took all of Robin’s weapons out of the cave.”
“That was Damian,” Stephanie says. “And he hid them in his apartment.”
Jason nods once, his heartbeat suddenly thundering in his throat.
“You don’t have to,” Stephanie says. “In fact, you probably shouldn’t. Everyone looks back at Tim and says the same thing, but they don’t remember that he loved it. And it’s hard to watch people you love fighting without trying to help.” They hit a crosswalk and Stephanie snaps the breaks on her wheelchair as if punctuating the sentiment. “Believe me, I know.”
The weapons missing from Robin’s costume are under the loose floorboard in Damian’s bedroom. Jason listens for a second at the door, but Stephanie is chatting with Damian and Jon in hushed voices in the kitchen—probably about him—and Jason has no shame at all in sliding a few birdarangs and what appears to be a collapsible staff into his pockets as he goes to pick out a videogame from Damian’s impressive collection. He has no idea how to use Robin’s bo staff the proper way, but he’s pretty familiar with the concept of beating someone with a stick.
Jon looks at him funny as he comes back into the room. Bruce has vaguely mentioned that Superman could function like a human lie detector by listening to heartbeats, but Jason’s never been sure if he believes it. He holds up the game he picked without even looking at the title. “This one okay?”
Jon’s face splits into a wide grin and Stephanie busts out laughing as soon as she reads the title. Jon turns to Damian as he enters the room. “Why do you own the Lego Batman game?”
“Research,” Damian says, completely deadpan. “Had to see if our identities were compromised.”
“This is perfect!” Stephanie plucks the game from Jason’s hand. “Is Nightwing playable? Because dibs on Nightwing.”
Back at the manor, Jason hides the weapons in the same place he used to keep one of his food caches. One of the few he’s pretty sure Alfred never found. He plots for about a day about how to best steal the old uniform, but Tim was a few years older than him and Jason’s painfully aware that malnutrition probably robbed him of the height he deserved. Besides, he doesn’t want to wear the same uniform some kid died in.
And the costumes are kind of stupid if he’s honest. Jason gets the Kevlar, but the Bat thing’s excessive. The throwing weapons are bat shaped. There are bat logos on the soles of Batman’s boots. The tricked out cowl definitely doesn’t need the pointy ears to function. Honestly, even the intimidation factor of the suit is gone after the first time Jason saw him doing a quick change.
The safety stuff isn’t under lock at key like the costume. He finds a set of Tim’s old shin guards and a decent pair of gloves in the attic. Bruce has R&D at Wayne tech working on lightweight body armor and Jason manages to slip a chest plate into his backpack when he visits Bruce at work one afternoon.
The chest plate will fit under Jason’s dark red sweat shirt and he has a pair of cargo pants with enough room to accommodate the shin guards.
Stephanie solves the last piece for him when he winds up crashing at her apartment one day after school. She doesn’t even blink when he turns up an old domino mask. “Why do you still have this?”
“Because I was Robin for a hot second,” she answers without flinching. “I put it on anytime Bruce or Damian ask for medical attention when they’re still wearing a mask. I am one hundred percent okay with matching stubbornness with equal amounts of petty.”
“Can I keep it?” Jason asks.
Stephanie raises an eyebrow. “It’s got a GPS tag.”
“Perfect,” Jason says. “B can’t call it sneaking out if I know he could know exactly where I am.”
He’s had a Robin emblem since he was a kid. His mom gave it to him. It was a plastic thing, the stylized R closer to the look of Damian’s old logo rather than Tim’s. He’d kept it on his backpack before he had to stop going to school and after that he’d kept it in his pocket, the familiar shape mingling with the loose change he’d scrounged from the ground.
When Bruce got him a new backpack for school, he’d almost pinned the thing back in its place, but it felt weird. Bruce hasn’t called him Tim yet, but he’s called Jason Robin more than once, always in the middle of training when he delivers a particularly good hit or a particularly bad one.
And as soon as it happens, the session is over. Just like that.
He’s not planning to actually do it.
Or at least he’s not planning to do it like this.
But Bruce is gone. He’s been gone for almost a week and even Alfred is getting worried.
So Jason sneaks down to the cave and shifts through Bruce’s research, figures out that Batman had been looking into disappearances in the homeless population. People who could have easily been Jason just a couple months ago.
He tries Bruce on his cell phone again and taps a hand on the side of the computer.
There’s a tracking program in the Batsuit.
He bites his lips and pulls it up, imputing the last known coordinates into his phone.
He’s not losing B.
He finds Batman in the sewers marching with a bunch of half-hypnotized drone. He tugs on his shoulder, pleading, “B, come on, let’s go.”
Bruce’s eyes are unfocused behind the cowl. Jason feels his heartbeat pick up. They’re a little bit surrounded and an army of mindless drones seems a little more intense than the fights he’d had with other street kids.
“Dad,” he says. “Come, on.”
Bruce seems to respond a little more to that, his head turning to Jason’s voice.
“Robin?” Bruce asks, his voice thick.
They so don’t have time for this.
Jason smacks him.
Bruce blinks hard, some of the fog clearing only to be replaced with horror. “Jay? You… you can’t be here.”
“You were in trouble.”
They look around at the room full of drones, all of them suddenly staring. Batman steps forward, as if putting himself between Jason and the danger. But if the swaying in his step is any indication, Jason’s going to have to fight.
His brain clicks into autopilot when the first one attacks and he dodges out of the way in time to toss it at the one circling behind him. At his side Bruce has set his feet and is delivering punches of his own, but he’s already flagging and Kevlar can’t absorb everything.
Bruce’s training had been good, but from talking to Alfred, it wasn’t up to Robin’s standards. Too defensive. Too reliant on making space to run. His focus narrows to just his fists. There’s nowhere to retreat. Batman’s fading, already injured and Jason’s never fought this many people at once before.
He’s not sure how long he has to hold out, but his knuckles are bruised under his gloves and he’s pretty sure he cracked one of the lenses in Stephanie’s mask. “Robin,” one of the drones growls and Jason almost freezes up at the name.
“Robin!” a different voice shouts and oh thank God that’s Damian, Nightwing, dangling from Flamebird’s arms.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” Damian shouts.
“Dad was…”
“You should have called me! You didn’t need to get all dressed up and risk your life. You know what happened to Tim!”
“I’m not Tim!” Jason roars. “And you really think it’s easy for me to just be here and watch? I know what it’s like out there. I lived out there.”
“You could die!”
“So could you!” Jason’s shaking with rage, angry tears building in his eyes. “Dad almost did.”
“We don’t need you to save us,” Damian says and then he leaves the room.
Jason sits down hard on the floor. He’s still wearing his makeshift Robin uniform, the Robin insignia crooked against his dark red sweat shirt. He peels the domino mask off of his face. The adrenaline is leeching out of his veins. He probably has a few more lectures to look forward to. Alfred. Bruce.
“You all right, Jay?”
Jon’s standing in the doorway.
Jason swipes the tears from his eyes. “Is Dad okay?”
“Batman’s fine,” Jon answers. “He’s got some weird stuff in his blood work. Alfred and Steph are working to flush it out of him. Are you okay?”
Jason turns the mask over in his head. “Dad was pretty fucked up when I found him. I think… I think he really needs someone watching his back.”
“It doesn’t need to be you,” Jon answers immediately.
“I saved him though,” Jason says. “And yeah, I guess you and Damian saved us after that, but I woke him back up.”
“You nearly gave him a heart attack,” Jon says.
Jason waves a hand. “He was gassed or something.”
“You know it would break them if you die, right?” Jon cuts in. “I mean Tim was… it was bad after Tim, but you? The one thing Batman and Damian agree on right now is keeping you safe.”
“I can take care of myself,” Jason snaps. “I’ve been taking care of myself for years.”
“I know, kid,” Jon says, ruffling his hair. “For what it’s worth I think Damian was a little impressed.”
“Didn’t notice with all the shouting,” Jason replies sullenly.
He’s grounded for two months.
He doesn’t argue, but he does ask if he’s getting kicked out.
Bruce sits him down very seriously, points at the adoption papers framed on the wall on his office and explains that there’s nothing Jason could do that would make Bruce throw him out.
He sneaks out the next night in his makeshift costume.
Damian finds him and brings him back.
The next day, he does the same and Alfred’s the one who shows up in the middle of his planned patrol route.
Before he gets a chance to go out again, Bruce confronts him. “What can I do to make you stop following me out?”
Jason stares him down. “You said you wouldn’t send me away.”
“Jay.”
“You’re my Dad,” Jason says. “I’ve got to make sure you come back.”
Bruce stares for a long moment and Jason can see the moment when he relents. “There will be rules.”
Jason nods vigorously.
“If I tell you to go home or stay out of a fight, you’ll listen.”
“Of course.” Mentally Jason amends, unless listening will get Batman killed.
“I’m going to step up your training program. Damian has consented to help as well. You will wait until you are ready.”
Jason narrows his eyes. “You’re never going to say I’m ready.”
“Damian and I have developed clearly defined goals. Alfred certified them. You’ll know.”
Jason sticks out a hand. “Guess we’re partners then, huh Batman.”
“Not partners.” Bruce blanches. “You’re my son.”
Jason blinks but reaches a step farther and grabs Bruce’s hand to shake it. “Fine then. Family.”
Jason puts his head down and throws himself into training. He’s met all the stipulations within the first two months, much to Damian and Bruce’s surprise. He can tell that the first few patrols are suspiciously quiet. To the point where he’s pretty sure Nightwing and Flamebird cleared out the worst of the criminals before he even got there.
But he loves it. The grappling hook propelling them rooftop to rooftop. The way a mugger looks when he drops out of the sky. He kept the costume casual, the red sweatshirt, the utility pants. No wings like Tim’s suit, but the hood at least echoes of Damian’s. Jon defends him at the criticism citing his old Superboy costume. Bruce and Damian both try and get him to change the name, but no matter how different his suit looks he likes being Robin.
Everyone in Gotham knows Robin is Batman’s kid.
He spends less time on the rooftops than the old Robin used to and is rewarded with a slightly different network of information than Batman tends to have. He gets better at the rest of it, laughing as he tears through the city his cape flapping out behind him.
“You’re a natural,” Bruce tells him, conflict obvious in his voice.
He doesn’t have the brains for forensics that Tim did, but he understands people better. Give him a few years to pack on muscle and catch up on height and he might be his equal for fights. Bruce stops keeping him on the sidelines during fights, starts including him in plans.
Then, all at once it stops.
He puts together the reason pretty much immediately. Hard to miss the assassinations in the city. The way the whole of Gotham seems to be holding its breath. The corruption cases break slowly over the next few hours, each dead body tied to a scandal. The morning newspaper implies that Batman had been sitting on the information.
Damian drops his business overseas and shows up at the manor the same night.
And Jason is shut out of the cave. Shut out of the streets. He listens where he can, gleans enough to know that someone called Red Hood took out a bunch of corrupt city officials like some kind of murderous but incredibly effective Batman. It takes him another day to place the unease in Bruce and Damian’s chatter.
Someone’s threaded enough clues together to suggest that Red Hood might be Tim Drake.
Robin 2.0 who has supposedly been dead for the better part of two years.
It can’t be him.
Except Bruce is reviewing the identity reveal protocols and he found Damian in Tim’s old room frowning at the list of passwords Jason found in Tim’s desk. He calls Stephanie to ask if she’s heard anything from Tim but she hangs up on him. A day later he gets an incredibly graphic autopsy report which is an unusually passive aggressive way for Stephanie to say go to hell. She usually just does it verbally.
It makes him feel a little better to hear Stephanie has also been kept out of the loop.
He’s probably wrong anyway. Damian and Bruce obviously think it’s someone who knows their identity. And the impossible answer, the one no one seems willing to voice, is also the obvious one.
That Tim Drake is alive.
That Tim Drake is Red Hood.
Jason shoves his costume into his bag and tells Alfred he’s spending the night with a friend from school.
He’s not hard to find. Most of Lower Gotham keeps tabs on the various supervillains and this one managed to take down the city planner that was going to replace one of the affordable housing developments with some high end town homes. They’re understandably a bit protective on him. Jason has to promise not to rat out the location to Batman unless he starts taking down people who don’t deserve it.
Jason nods, filing every piece of it away.
He’s starting to think he’s right.
When he finds Red Hood, he’s surprised to see he’s not as physically intimidating as most of the vigilantes. He’s still a few inches taller than Jason and he moves with a slight slouch in his step, like he’s too tired to hold his back straight. He has a pair of guns strapped to each thigh, and a bright red helmet that prevents any positive identification.
As they talk, Jason’s hunch crystallizes into something like fact. Even when a taunt about the helmet earns him a gun trained on his chest.
They’re dancing around an issue and Jason’s never been a fan of that. If he’s needed something he’s always just taken it. If he’s had a question that needed asking, there isn’t much point in beating around the bush.
“Are you the second Robin?”
Red Hood’s mask gives nothing away, but the hesitation does. It’s Tim Drake. The second Robin. The brother that Damian lost. Bruce’s biggest regret.
Jason feels his eyes widen, a grin spreading across his face despite the gun still pointed at his chest. Because his research shows that Red Hood has never hurt someone who didn’t deserve it.
“No,” Tim Drake answers.
Jason’s too surprised to hear the gun go off, but he definitely feels the bullet.