Chapter Text
It’s unusual, for a child to come back to the office with an FBI team instead of being passed off to Child Protective Services after a rescue. But she had insisted over and over that her papa worked in the New York building, and she refused to go with CPS. They decided to gamble on it; if they could reunite the kid with her dad immediately rather than having her go through the system it would be better all around.
“Alright kiddo, do you know where your dad works?” One of the agents asks, kneeling down to speak with her.
“He works for, uh,” The redheaded girl trails off. “I’m sorry, it's a weird name like shirts or something?”
“Do you mean White Collar?” Someone else asks.
“Yes! That's it!” A few of the gathered agents trade concerned glances. They’d assumed the kid’s dad was a civilian worker, not an actual agent. A White Collar agent losing their child to a trafficking ring? That was…alarming, to say the least. An agent missing a child should be the top priority of multiple departments, and no one had even heard about it? Suspicious.
“What’s your dad’s name, honey?” The girl blinks a few times.
“Um. I’m not really sure.” She scrunches up her face. “I just called him Papa. Or JJ. But it's—it’s been a really long time since I saw him. I don’t really remember very well.”
The situation starts to shape itself in the agents’ minds. The parents are probably separated with little to no contact, so the kid hasn’t seen her dad in years, which could be anywhere from just a couple to over half the kid’s lifetime. She said she was eight. Maybe the reason the kid being missing wasn’t a major crisis was because the dad hadn’t even known she was missing, if her mom has full custody. Yikes.
“Alright, I say we take her up to White Collar and see if anybody is still there this late that recognizes her. If not, we get CPS back involved.”
___________
Peter Burke’s team is working late, to no one’s surprise. Jones, Diana, Peter and Jason are the only ones left in the office, pouring over the financial records of a real estate firm whose meteoric rise had been a bit too coincidental. The ding of the elevator alerts them to visitors, highly unusual for the time of night, but the distraction is welcome so all four of them pile out of the conference room they’ve been holed up in for the past several hours.
Their visitors are a group of agents from a different department, all looking ruffled and sour, as if they’ve seen some action recently.
A familiar redheaded child darts across the bullpen with a shout of “PAPA!” and barrels into Jason’s arms.
“Lian—” He breathes, swinging the young girl up and holding her protectively to his chest. “What’s going on? Why is she here?” Jason barks out to the unfamiliar agents who escorted Lian in. She wraps her arms around his neck and starts crying. “Shhh, Little Red. I’ve got you.” He whispers, patting her hair.
“Her dad is their criminal informant?” Someone exclaims.
“I missed you, Papa.” Lian hiccups. Papa? She must have told them I was her father.
“She was recovered from a raid on a trafficking ring,” one of the agents says with glare at Jason. His heart stops and shatters at once.
“What?”
Peter steps up. “Let's move this into a conference room to get this sorted out.”
They file into a different room, this table free of financial records. No one else is using it in the middle of the night. Jason’s mind races, cataloging the agents who’ve brought Lian in, trying to make sense of the situation. He knows Roy is off-world, but Lian is supposed to be at a boarding school. She must have been taken from the school, he realizes with horror, tamping down the rage that flares at the thought. I’m still undercover. I’m still Neal Caffrey. I have to react like Neal until we can get out.
“Mr. Caffrey, were you aware of the whereabouts of your child?” One of the other agents asks coldly.
“She—she’s supposed to be in school. A boarding school, St. Alicia’s, it's outside Star.”
“Nuh uh, Papa. I wasn’t at St. Alicia’s anymore, that was last year. I went to Cherrywood in Oregon this year.” Jason looks down at her with wide eyes.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t—I didn’t know.” He swallows thickly.
“As I understand, you have been—” the agent glances down at the child in his lap. “—incarcerated for the last five years. Who has had custody of Lian during that time?”
“I didn’t lose custody,” He answers. “Due to the circumstances, however, she’s been with her grandparents most of that time, to my knowledge.”
“And her mother?”
“Her mother is often out of the country, but the grandparents she lives with are on her other parent’s side, not mine.” Jason responds carefully. Peter has the obnoxious ability to tell sometimes when he lies outright, so he’s avoiding it as much as he can. He can’t lie about Lian and have him pick up on it; the situation is too fragile. Jason tightens his grip on her. She’s grown since the last time he saw her.
He’s trying really, really hard to not think about the circumstances that have brought her to him now, because if he does he’s going to burn Neal Caffrey on the spot and tear out some throats.
“Do you have any documentation to back this up?”
“Not in New York. I can have it mailed to me, it would get here in a day or so.” He makes a show of checking his watch, as if thinking about the time it would take to mail things. He’s sure his siblings can craft the documentation needed in a few hours, if necessary.
“One more question: She said her father’s name was JJ. Got an explanation for that, Neal Caffrey?”
Jason’s mind blanks. Think fast, Todd, you’re a conman.
“It’s, uh.” He coughs a little. “It’s a nickname.” Nice job, dumbass. His face reddens with embarrassment.
“Are you blushing, Neal?” Peter asks.
“You expect us to believe that?”
Jason’s blush deepens. “It’s short for an…affectionate nickname that Lian didn’t really understand at the time.” Lian chooses the worst time to join the adults’ conversation.
“Jayjay means Jaybird but I couldn’t say it when I was little! That’s what mom always calls dad cause he never shuts the fuck up.” Jason isn’t fast enough to cover her mouth.
“Sweetheart, we don’t use those words in polite company, okay?”
She looks up at him with big, wide eyes. “Grandpa says you don’t count as polite company.”
“I know, love, but the agents count as polite company.”
“But you said that all cops—” Jason is fast enough to stop her this time.
“That’s enough of that for now, okay sweet pea? We’ll talk more later.” She cuddles back into his chest.
“Okay Papa.” She leans back to look up at him one more time. “You’re not going away anymore, are you? Can I stay with you instead this time?” Jason closes his eyes and kisses her head.
“I’ll do my very best, princess.” He promises softly.
“Alright, I’m not entirely comfortable with this.” Another agent protests. “I say we call CPS back in.”
“Excuse me?” Jason says darkly.
“You’re a criminal, Caffrey. One who has no documentation to prove that that child is actually yours. She doesn’t even look like you, there’s no way she’s seen you in the last six years, so she should barely remember you, and she’s been through a traumatic enough experience that she could latch on to any friendly looking adult. I’m not leaving her with you. Does the work release agreement even allow for you to have a child?” Jason’s blood boils. He races through a dozen rebuttals to the accusations the agent hasn’t even bothered to veil, but to his surprise, Peter speaks in his defense.
“The parameters of Neal’s work release agreement are my concern, not yours. As for the other concerns, I believe that they can be answered with simple verification. Neal sends for her documents, we verify in our systems that everybody is who they say they are. Not complicated.”
“And where does the little girl go in the meantime? I’m not sending her with Caffrey.” Jason opens his mouth but Peter beats him again.
“Both of them will stay with my wife and I until everything is sorted. Good? Let's go, Neal.” Peter stands up and ushers both of them out of the room, through the bullpen, and into the elevator.
“Peter, you didn’t grab any of your stuff.” Jason points out.
“It will still be there in the morning.” He replies shortly.
“Do you even have your car keys?”
“Yes.”
They don’t talk again until they’re standing outside Peter’s car.
“I don’t have a booster seat.” The older man realizes.
“She’s nine, she doesn’t have to use a booster seat.” Jason says, opening the back seat and depositing Lian in it. “You fallin’ asleep, Little Red?”
“I’m allowed to be sleepy, kidnappings are traumatic.” She grumbles. He pats her hair.
“No judgment here, kiddo. We’re just going to Peter’s house, then you can go to sleep, okay?”
“Don’ have any pajamas.” Jason finally allows himself to take in her condition as he finishes buckling her seatbelt. She looks a bit thin, but she’s always been on the slight side. Her clothes, face, and hair are dirty, but not ruined. There’s some healing bruises ringing one of her wrists. He grimaces.
“Right,” Jason says, thinking aloud. “We need some stuff for you.” He slides into the front seat. “Do you think we could stop by June’s, Peter? She might have some kid’s clothes from her granddaughter.”
“Alright.” He sighs. “But we’re talking once she’s all settled. I want answers, Neal.”
_________
June, thankfully, has some clothes that will fit Lian. She takes one look at the sleeping kid in the back of Peter’s car and raises a single eyebrow at Jason.
“A child, Neal?”
He sniffs. “I didn’t steal her.” He realizes as soon as he says it that he is, in fact, stealing Lian. Not from Roy, per say, but definitely from Oliver and Dinah, who were supposed to have her while Roy was working off-world. He moves to follow June inside.
“I’ll clear out the bedroom across the hall from the flat.” June says as they walk to the parlor. “You can pick up more things for her as soon as everything is sorted, but what we have should do for a couple of days.”
“The bedroom—” Jason starts, June’s implication cutting through his racing thoughts. “Oh, June, you don’t have to put up with both of us. I’ll look for another place. Hell, I don’t even know if they’ll let her stay with me.”
“They likely won’t.” She says. “It’s much too human for their trained conman to be a good father to his child. However,” June’s eyes twinkle with all the shine of the jazz singer she used to be, “they can’t stop June Ellington from looking after her old friends’ great-granddaughter, can they?” She smiles slyly. “Besides, how could I ever pass up the chance to have Tommy’s great-granddaughter under my roof?”
Jason’s brain short circuits. “Tommy’s—do you mean Thomas Wa—holy shit, how did you—”
“Language, young man,” June parrots in a terrifyingly familiar British accent. “You have Alfred’s upbringing all over you. The way you carry bottles is so telling, dear. And have you ever seen yourself prepare a tea service? You didn’t last a week.”
Jason stares at his landlady.
“Don’t be too discouraged, I couldn’t figure out which one of his boys you are, underneath Neal Caffrey. Unless you really are Neal Caffrey, but—”
“Jason.” June looks up at him. He doesn’t look back, staring at the pile of hand-me-downs on the parlor sofa. “I’m Jason Todd.” June watches him for a minute, the implications of his admission setting in, no doubt.
“It’s a pleasure, Jason.” She says finally. “Does Lian have a preference on color?”
_________
They stop for gas on the way to Peter and El’s house.
“How’m I doing, Jayjay?” Lian asks, leaning forward to whisper through the headrest while Peter is outside at the gas pump. Jason turns around to whisper back.
“You’re doin’ fantastic, Little Harper. We’ll get everything sorted as soon as they give us enough privacy to work, okay?”
“You’re undercover, right? Who’re you supposed to be? I got Neal Caffrey, but who’s Neal Caffrey? This Peter guy is in charge of him somehow, right?” Jason realizes then that Lian doesn’t know about the mission he’s on. She didn’t even know he was undercover, nevermind who he was undercover as. She’d improvised everything based on what little information she had going into it and the clues everyone else had given her. He takes a moment to be impressed. That’s some damned good work, kiddo.
“Neal Caffrey is a convicted felon who’s on a work release program after escaping from prison. He’s a criminal informant for the White Collar Crimes division of the New York FBI office. Peter’s the one who put him in prison, and now he’s his handler, the agent in charge of him on the work release. I’m wearing a tracking anklet that has a two mile radius for this job. Neal was in prison for four years but he escaped and got another four, so that’s how long he has to do this work release program.”
Lian stares at him. “You didn’t get caught by the feds.”
“Nope.”
“So what are you actually doing there?”
His response is cut off by Peter’s return to the vehicle. They drive mostly in silence. El is waiting when they pull up to the house. She ushers Lian inside and to the table for dinner, then whisks her away to the bathroom to get cleaned up while Peter and Jason do the dishes. Peter finally breaks.
“A kid, Neal?”
Jason sighs. “I don’t even know what you want me to say in response to that, Peter.”
“She’s nine years old.”
“Yes.”
“You’ve had a child the entire time I’ve known you?”
“Yes.”
“How did I not see that?”
“I’m a professional, Peter,” he says, drying a glass and handing it to Peter to put away in the cabinet. “If it weren’t for the awful circumstances—that I am not thinking about right now—you would never have found out about her. My personal and professional lives are not supposed to mix like this.”
“Neal, you might have gotten a lighter sentence or a better deal if you had a child waiting for you to come home! Fuck, I sent a toddler’s dad to prison—”
Jason sets down the glass he’s drying a little bit too hard. “What kind of a man do you think I am, Peter? Using my kid to beg pity off of prosecutors? Absolutely out of the question.”
“Why all the secrecy, then? You’ve been out for two years, and you haven’t seen her at all.”
“Because she has to be a secret! I have enemies, Peter. The only way I can protect her like this is to keep her far away from it all. That was why—all those isolated schools—they were supposed to protect her! How did it go so fucking wrong? It was all supposed to protect her.”
“Neal…” Peter trails off. Jason braces his hands on the counter, head hanging low, thoughts racing through the ramifications of Lian’s appearance in his deep cover mission. He’s still carefully skirting the circumstances that got her to New York, because he knows himself, and he knows that until he can re-center himself he’s a risk to the mission if he lets himself acknowledge that Lian Harper was trafficked. She may not actually be his kid, but she’s Roy’s kid, his best friend’s kid, Roy who’s been off-world for months and was counting on them all to take care of her. To protect her. Jason knows that he wasn’t the one who was in charge of Lian at the time, but he still feels the weight of that massive failure, knowing what it’ll do to his closest friend once he finds out. You’d better get your ass back on Earth damn soon, Harper, he thinks.
“You have no idea how bad this is, Peter.” He says aloud. The agent sets a hand on his shoulder.
“It’s going to work out, Neal. We’ll figure it out.”
Jason wishes he could believe him.
_________
Peter is laying awake when he hears the door to their guest room open and sees a shadow slip down the hall. He immediately moves to get out of bed and follow, but El stops him.
“Neal hasn’t seen his daughter in six years, Honey. Let them be.”
“I’m supposed to be supervising them, Hon.” He whispers.
“There’s no court order that you have to supervise them, just the bias the other departments have against Neal. He’s your friend, Peter. Don’t you trust him?”
_________
Jason is on the phone with Barbara when Lian comes creeping into the living room.
“—might have to send someone up with the documents.”
“I don’t know if they’ll accept that as well as the postal service, though. The official United States Postal Service packaging might give us that extra edge of credibility, where one of you showing up is only going to distract more by adding people to Neal’s background. They won’t trust anyone connected with Neal.” Jason argues.
“They won’t have the choice to trust the documents when they’re all verified in the database, though.”
“You haven’t seen how these people treat Neal Caffrey, Barbie. They wouldn’t even let me take Lian back to June’s, we’re at Peter’s place for the night. Oh, one sec Babs,” he pulls the phone away from his ear. “You want a say in your new identity, kid? We’re getting the papers you need created.”
“It’s gotta be Lian, obviously, cause you kept calling me that.” She comments, sitting down on the other end of the couch.
“I don’t think we can use Harper, do you have something else in mind or should we make one up? We weren’t gonna put Caffrey on the birth certificate since Peter’s already looked into the Caffrey name so much.”
“I’ll use Nguyen.”
Jason hums. “I don’t know if your mom will like that.”
“If mom’s pissed about it, she can stop leaving me behind then.”
He lets out a low whistle. “Not touching that one. Okay, Barbie, Lian Nguyen it is.”
They spend the next few minutes confirming the details and getting their story straight with Lian’s input. Barbara signs off of the call with the promise that everything will arrive the next day, and they’ll have a proper meeting about the situation as soon as Jason and Lian can get back to June’s.
“Alright, kiddo, what's up?” Jason asks, setting the phone down. Lian pulls her feet up onto the couch and tucks her chin onto her knees.
“Do you know where my dad is?”
Jason takes a deep breath, thinking for a minute before exhaling.
“What do you know about your dad’s job?” Lian glances around the room.
“He’s Red Arrow, and you’re the Red Hood.” She whispers back. “You founded the Outlaws together. Dad said he might be gone for a while, that he had been called in for an off-world mission, but I stopped hearing from him after a couple months. Do you know anything?”
“I haven’t heard from him since the week he left,” Jason says, shaking his head. “I’ll ask around, see if I can find out what’s up. He’s with Kori and a couple others, as far as I know. I’ve been kind of disconnected though, this Caffrey thing is deep cover, low contact mission.”
“I’m sorry,” Lian whispers. “I didn’t mean to mess it up, I just didn’t know where to go. Dad told me if anything happened to me and I couldn’t get him I was supposed to find you. He said you were working in the New York FBI before he left.”
“You did the right thing, Little Red.” Jason assures her, reaching over to pat her on the head. “I’m just glad we found you.”
“You didn’t find me,” Lian protests quietly, leaning over and curling up against the armrest of the couch. “I found you.”
_________
El comes downstairs in the morning to find both Caffreys asleep in the living room, Lian curled up underneath a blanket on the couch and Neal sitting on the floor, back against the couch at his daughter’s feet.
_________
Breakfast the next morning is omelets. Peter and Lian set the table while El and Neal cook. Peter listens intently while El chats with Lian. Neal stays mostly silent, which is a surprise to him, but one look at the conman tells him that he’s still off-balance. Neal doesn’t look like he slept much at all.
“Do you like traveling, Lian? Have you ever been to New York before?”
“Mom took me on a trip home last year for summer break.” Lian smiles up at her. “It was awesome! The food is always so much better than at school.”
“And where’s home, honey?” El asks her.
“Hanoi.”
“Her mother is Vietnamese.” Neal explains.
“I—Kate’s not her mother?” Peter asks, shocked.
Lian wrinkles her nose. “Kate? Auntie Kate? That’s gross.” Neal leans over and whispers something in her ear, setting the dish of food on the table.
“I’d thought…with her hair, at least. It made sense that Kate was her mother.” El wonders aloud.
“She doesn’t take after you very much, does she?” Peter observes.
Neal mumbles something in response.
“What was that, Neal?”
“I said,” Neal pauses, grimacing. “‘I’m naturally a redhead.’”
Peter turns to stare at him. “What?” Neal glowers back.
“I am naturally a redhead.” El and Peter just stare at him. Lian giggles.
“Eat your breakfast, young lady.” Neal orders, pointing at her with a fork.
“You’re so unthreatening it's funny.” She replies, giggling harder. “Now I’m imagining you with red hair.”
“Wait, so that stuff I found that you said was shoe polish—” Peter starts to say. El’s laughter joins Lian’s. Neal glowers.
__________
All of the documents that the New York office receives concerning Neal’s daughter are verified. They try to argue against it anyways. It’s Hughes who finally puts a stop to it.
“If he was anyone else in this building you would have let the kid go the minute she ran across the room to her father. Leave them alone.”
Peter watches Neal’s grateful nod to Hughes from the corner of his eye as their opposition files out of the room. Neal gathers his daughter up and takes her to his desk in the bullpen, but Hughes motions for Peter to stay back.
“Keep an eye on them both, and see what you can learn. We’re going to need to go over the terms of his work agreement, but let's let things settle for a few days. I want progress on that real estate case.”
Neal and Lian are standing at the CI’s desk when Peter steps out. A couple of other agents are gathered around, most of them talking to Lian. A second Caffrey is quite the news.
“Grab your things, Neal. I’m taking you home.” Peter says. Neal looks surprised.
“It’s morning, Peter. I haven’t done any work today.” Neal protests tentatively. Peter looks at the clock and sighs. He’s right, but Peter also knows that it's going to be hard for anyone to get much done with Caffrey 2.0 around. They’re not really supposed to have a kid in the office with all the protected information they process, anyways.
“Do you have a babysitter? I didn’t think so. Take the day to figure things out, Neal. We’ll just take it from your sick days.” Neal gives up and starts grabbing his things, but pauses.
“Wait a minute, I get sick days?”
“Let’s go, Neal.”
__________
Jason calls home as soon as he and Lian are alone at June’s.
“Right,” Dick starts out as soon as the call connects. He’s at the table in the kitchen, Alfred visible in the background over his shoulder. “What’s going on?”
“Where’s B?” Jason asks immediately.
“He’s got a monitor shift at the Watchtower.” Babs explains, her voice coming from a video feed showing the empty clocktower. She rolls back into view a moment later. “He’s planning to listen in, at least. Tim and Steph should be joining in a minute, we’re all still waking up from patrol.”
Liam walks over and pokes him. “Do you have food?”
“Yeah, of course. You hungry, kid?” He stands up and carries his laptop into the kitchen, his temporary ward trailing after him like a redheaded duckling. The laptop is deposited on the island. Jason drags a stool around the counter to sit in front of it, picks up Lian, and drops her onto the stool. “You get to man the communications center. What do you want to eat?”
“Um,” Lian ducks her head. “Anything is fine. Whatever is easy. I really was just wondering if you had any snacks.”
“Noodles or bread?” He asks. She tilts her head, spinning back and forth on the stool.
“I don’t think I get it.”
“Do you want something noodle-y or something bread-y.” Jason repeats. Lian stares blankly, blinking.
“What’s bread-y?”
It’s Jason’s turn to blank.
“Uhh, like…pizza? Or pierogis? Something dough-like, I guess.”
“I’ve never had pierogis.” Lian says. “Aren’t they a kind of dumpling?”
“Yeah, they’re a polish potato filled—“ The laptop screen flickers when Stephanie joins their call and Jason becomes abruptly aware that half of his family has been watching his exchange with Lian. Cass waves when she notices him looking at the screen. He waves back. Lian spins back around on her stool, spying the new people.
“Hi Tim. Should we have something noodle-y or something bread-y?” She asks.
“Noodles. Always.” Tim answers, still looking at another screen. “You got taller, I think.” He comments, glancing up. “Noodles with a rich broth would be a recommended food for recovery when dietary standards have been—” Tim cuts himself off, looking back at Jason standing behind Lian. “I’ll, uh, send you some stuff, okay?” Lian spins back around.
“Tim says we should have noodles, Jayjay.”
“Gotta listen to Timmy, then.” Jason nods seriously. “What kind of noodles do you want, kiddo?” She spins around on the stool a couple more times. “I can do pasta fagioli, I can do miso udon, I’ve got some broth left over so I can also do beef pho, I can do a classic chicken noodle—“ Lian’s spinning falters.
“Can we have pho?” She asks. Her voice is steady, but Jason can see the tension, the tentativeness.
“Absolutely we can.” Jason assures her, and turns to the fridge to start grabbing ingredients. “Is the crew gathered yet?”
“Just waiting on Duke.” Babs calls out from the computer, just as his yellow mask pops up on the screen. “Nevermind, I guess.”
“What did I miss?”
“Nothing, we’re just starting.”
“Aww, you didn’t have to wait—” A dark picture pops up, someone else joining. Jason squints at the screen from where he’s pouring the container of broth into a pan on the stove. He starts soaking the noodles.
“Damian? Aren’t you supposed to be at school?”
“I am at school. I have merely removed myself from the active teaching environment.”
“Holy shit, are you hiding in a janitors’ closet?” Tim asks, leaning close to the screen.
“Language, Master Timothy.” Alfred calls out distantly from the background of Dick’s feed.
“Is Lian joining our council, then?” Duke asks.
“Yup.” Jason answers. “Do you know everybody, Lian? These are all my siblings.”
“Signal is your brother?”
“She didn’t know?” Steph exclaims. “You said she knew!”
“Sh-oot, I should’ve unmasked, I forgot—”
“Well, she knows now.”
“I know Dad’s Red Arrow and Jay’s Red Hood and Tim’s Red Robin but I didn’t know everybody else was somebody too. Were somebody too? Were heroes too.”
“Nice job, Thomas.” Damian mutters.
“You literally just made it worse.” Steph points out.
“Okay,” Jason says, chopping vegetables. “Introductions then, I guess.”
“Hi Squirt!” Stephanie starts. “I’m Steph! Spoiler number one, Robin number four, Batgirl number three!”
“I’m Duke, I go by Signal in the field.”
“I’m Babs, also known as Oracle and Batgirl number one.”
“I am Damian, the fifth and most superior Robin.”
“Broom closet Robin.” Tim mutters. Lian giggles.
“Cass. Black Bat, Orphan, second Batgirl.”
“Hi Lian! I’m Dick! I’m Nightwing, sometimes I step in as Batman if he can’t, and I was the first Robin! I was the on the original Titans team with your dad, back when we were teenagers.”
“Wait a minute,” Lian says. “Your name’s actually Dick? I thought Dad and Tim and Jay just didn’t like you!”
The call erupts into laughter, drowning Dick’s protests.
“It’s short for Richard,” the oldest Robin grumbles.
“Bruce says to stay on track.” Babs relays.
“Killjoy.”
“Right, so they accepted all our documents for Lian Nguyen. She is officially Neal Caffrey’s child. Where do we go from here?” Tim says.
“Would it be too suspicious for her to leave right away? They barely let Neal take her, then for her to immediately disappear…” Duke trails off.
“Thomas is right, that would be suspicious.” Damian agrees.
“So Lian’s hanging around for a bit.” Tim’s keyboard is audible in the background. “We’ll need to move you out of the Ellington house then.”
“No need, June says Lian can have the bedroom across the hallway.” Jason pauses, knife halfway through the cut of beef he’s slicing. “She, uh, she’s onto us, by the way. Clocked me as a Wayne. Apparently I carry bottles like Alfred does. Sorry about that.” He grimaces a bit.
“As I recall,” Alfred says over Dick’s shoulder. “This course of events was foretold as a possibility before the operation began. Underestimating Mrs. Ellington has never been an advised course of action.” He stares pointedly into the camera. Jason can envision Bruce cringing under that stare in the monitor room at the Watchtower.
“So no moving needed.” This time its Babs’ keyboard clicking in the background. “Someone will need to stay with Lian during the day, who’s free?”
“I can stay by myself.” Lian offers. The broth simmers quietly on the stove, nearing a boil.
“The FBI is watching you both right now,” Dick explains. “We have to be really careful about how we proceed, in order to preserve Jason’s undercover identity and safely extract you.”
“Has Queen mentioned anything about his apparently missing granddaughter, Father?” Damian asks.
“B says no.” Barbara relays.
“Yikes.” Steph says. “I vote we don’t give her back, ever.”
“I will prepare a room, then.” Alfred says.
“B says he’ll speak with Damian’s school.”
“Still no word from Roy’s team?” Jason asks over the bubble of the soup boiling on the stove. He starts making a bowl for Lian, ladling the broth into the bowl over the beef, vegetables, and noodles.
“Nothing yet. I’m sorry, to both of you.” Babs apologizes. “We’re still trying to reach them.”
“What things will Miss Lian be requiring? Is there anything that we can retrieve from her former school?” Alfred asks. Jason sets the bowl in front of Lian and directs her to the utensils drawer.
“Is anyone looking into that school yet?” He asks, serving his own bowl and dragging another stool over.
“Don’t worry Jay, we’re already on it.” Tim assures him. “Do you have what you need for Lian to stay there for a while?”
“I was planning for us to go shopping after lunch, there’s a Marshalls a few stops up if we take the subway.”
“Jay, there’s no way Neal Caffrey would take his daughter shopping at a Marshalls.” Dick says. Jason frowns back at him.
“Neal is supposed to be living on $700 a month.” He counters. “It’ll have to do for a bit, until Lian goes to Gotham.”
“None of you have asked Lian if she wants to go live in Gotham.” Damian points out. The call goes quiet. Jason turns to his redheaded ward, who looks down into her bowl as she slurps the noodles.
“Lian.” He asks, “Where do you want to live?” She doesn’t look up, even after finishing her bite of noodles.
“Do I actually get a choice?”
“Yes.” He confirms. “You do actually get a choice, on the stipulation that it’s a safe place for you.” Lian looks around the apartment, staring out of the windows to the balcony.
“I want to stay with you.” She says, carefully but decisively, and scoops up another spoonful of broth. The call remains silent, surprisingly, while Jason’s thoughts race through all of the implications of what Lian staying with him would mean. What it would do to Neal Caffrey, how he could continue his undercover work. It's almost too much. He can see dozens of worst case scenarios already. It’s a bad idea, to let Lian stay with him in New York.
But the late morning sunlight, almost at its noon peak, slips through the windows and reflects off Lian’s hair just the way it does off of Roy’s, warm light turning the rusty orange to gold. I can’t let him down, Jason thinks. She glances up at him through the loose strands of her hair. He sent her to me because he trusts me to look after her, to protect her. I won’t let him down.
“Okay,” Jason says aloud, “okay, you’ll stay here. I’ll get things sorted with June. It’s gonna work out.” He can see the disagreement on some of his siblings' faces, but they hold their tongues for now. Or Babs muted them. He takes a deep breath. “I guess we need to find you a school, then.”
“I’m on it,” Tim says. “I’ll send you a couple of options in a bit.
“What if the FBI protests?” Steph asks.
“Technically, Lian is staying with June Ellington, an old family friend, not Neal Caffrey.” Jason’s phone buzzes with a direct message from Bruce.
I hope you know what you’re doing - B
I do too, Bruce. Jason thinks. I do too.
__________
Lian sits on the bed in her new room in Miss June’s house, surrounded by shopping bags. Jay and June had both offered to help her unpack, but she declined.
She hasn’t had a chance to be truly alone in months.
Her window has a nice view of the street and if it weren’t for the leaves on the trees, she thinks she might be able to see the Hudson.
It's pleasant.
She’s glad Jay let her stay.
She hopes it lasts, if only for a little while. The others said they had a plan for if the FBI tries to take her away from Jay, but honestly? Lian isn’t particularly hopeful. She’s learned long ago that adults don’t put kids first. At least none of her adults do. She doesn’t want to say that she’s resentful, because she was raised in this life. She knows that the fate of thousands of people, the fate of worlds, comes before a nine year old who wasn’t even planned on.
She’ll enjoy the home cooked meals and kind smiles and worried glances while they last, and when she gets shipped off to another isolated boarding school, she’ll at least get to have memories of the busy streets of New York to tide her over between the rare visits she’ll get. Maybe, if she’s especially lucky, her dad will get back to Earth before she gets shipped off again and she can see him in person.
She wants to kick him in the shins.
At least Jay makes good food. She won’t tell him so, but the pho was really comforting. She’s only met him a few times before, but she can see why he’s her dad’s best friend.