a red swan song

by ClarkeStetler, Goosenik

Summary:

The night had promised to be a good one- a rarely and blessedly mundane one.

So why was Bruce staring down at two of his sons... as actual children? And moreover- how did he fix it?

Just another de-age fic, with heaping fluff, moral dilemmas, and hurt/comfort goodies baked in for you personally.

Notes:

This one's fully written, so it's just a matter of churning it out! Heads up that because I locked canon in the basement with the Babadook, she ain't around to complain about the fact that Jason here was adopted at ten, not twelve. If you feel something in you protesting that or anything else you read here, it's probably just canon screaming from below. Just turn the music way up and read on, babes. 😘

Chapter 1: Friday, 11:02 p.m.

Notes:

Dude can you believe that Clarke and I haven't actually posted a DC fic together yet because I can't.

The night had promised to be a good one- a rarely and blessedly mundane one.

“How’s the West End tonight, B?” The sound of a batarang accompanied Tim’s query, checking in the way he did so often through the night to ensure Bruce didn’t need backup.

It’s like he thinks he’s the parent here, he thought in a dry grumble as he swung himself onto a nearby rooftop and grunted noncommitally. Dick was home for the weekend and had promised to take Tim to a new time and space exhibit at the museum while he was in town. It actually sounded relatively interesting, and seeing the way Tim lit up with such effusive delight at the idea of his brother spending time with him, Bruce had casually mentioned that he might go too. Tim had dropped his plate on his way to the sink and had gotten tense and quiet again when he cleaned it, almost painfully surprised when Bruce had mentioned later on that he would still go with them.

Sometimes it was… troubling, the way Tim expected for things to be taken away from him, the way he expected to be punished for saying things a certain way or failing to do something innocuous. Bruce had a list of such moments and was watching carefully for another, concerned by this situation.

Was it Bruce’s fault? Was it some leftover from when Tim had first started as Robin? God knew there had been missteps there. He’d never trained any of them as hard or as long, before or after the boy’s training in Europe. Was this uncertainty a shadow from their beginning that Tim wouldn’t ever be able to shake? He had been brutal at times, so desperate not to repeat the mistakes that had led to Jason’s death that he had made all new ones. The boy didn’t seem to have the same issue with Dick.

Bruce wanted that to improve. Tim had more than earned his place as Robin, and he’d proven himself as Red Robin time and again. It was his place at the Manor he seemed most uncertain of, especially with Damian wearing the mantle now. He didn’t often stay with them, typically at home with his uncle, but…

Surely he knew how Bruce saw him. He was the smartest child Bruce had ever met. Even if their beginning hadn’t been a neat one, surely he knew how important he was to Bruce, how much he meant to the team, how solid his place was.

Regardless, this would be a good opportunity to affirm that. Damian was off on Spring Break at the Kent farm, Dick was home for the weekend, and after this patrol, they’d be able to relax. They could function as the family they had cobbled together, and it would be fine.

“I’m telling you, Mr. Freeze would beat the absolute pants off Penguin,” Tim said in Bruce’s ear as he grappled to a nearby rooftop, resuming the earlier argument, and Bruce smiled slightly. Freeze was definitely the boy’s second-favorite villain, his first being Riddler simply because he liked a challenge. Dick, on the other hand…

“There’s no way Freeze would beat Penguin,” Dick disagreed immediately, as he always had. “He plays way dirtier than Freeze, he’d get him before the doofus even saw what was coming.”

“I think Freeze is the correct answer,” Bruce agreed, perching on the edge of the roof to watch a woman cross the street. She made it safely into her building and he turned his gaze further down the road.

Tim laughed, which was one of Bruce’s favorite sounds in the world. It had been a while before the boy had relaxed enough as Robin to joke and laugh the way his predecessors had. Bruce hadn’t exactly been in the right mind to encourage it or to chuckle at any of his jokes himself, which wouldn’t have helped. But eventually he had started joking, and started laughing, and that had been…

Different.

Jason had been (dead gone buried) away and Dick had been furious and heartbroken, refusing to even speak to Bruce much less laugh with him. His world had been dark and cold, shut tight like a Venus flytrap. Tim had pried it open with his presence, but things hadn’t really gotten brighter until he’d heard him laugh.

He’d missed the sound of a Robin’s laughter so much.

“There’s nothing more exciting than a mugger.” Bruce glanced back to see the man being hauled up by a policeman, pulling himself out of his woolgathering. He watched to ensure the mugger was thrown into the back of a police car, then headed off in the other direction. “What kind of disturbances are you seeing in your part of the city?”

“Quiet so far, but there’s more activity the closer I get to Crime Alley. I won’t cross over the line, but there’s definitely something going on tonight.” He sounded a little tense, and Bruce couldn’t entirely blame him.

Jason.

But he had it handled, and any of them looking to lend a hand in his second son’s neighborhood was a sure fire way to end the night with someone bloody.

“Keep to our side of the line,” Bruce agreed, but headed that way anyway. He wouldn’t interfere, but seeing Jason working, watching him move and breathe and take care of things was sometimes helpful for his anxiety.

His son was (a murderer a criminal so strong so beautiful so alive) a complicated situation for the entire family, but hesitant boundary lines had been drawn and as long as everyone stuck to their side of the deal, there was peace. Bruce could look out at Crime Alley so long as he didn’t step foot in it. He could see Jason- from a distance, so long as he didn’t try to cross over or really interact with him too much. They always ended up arguing if he did.

Dick had more luck, of course. He was relentlessly bright, dedicated beyond measure to his brothers in a way he wasn’t even to Bruce. He had lost Jason, had understood what their relationship should have looked like, and had been ceaselessly supportive and patient with Tim and Damian after. And once Jason was back, all that love and patience and devotion had been aimed back at him again. It was no wonder that Jason wasn’t quite as good at holding a grudge against him as he was against Bruce or Tim.

“Gang fight on North End,” Dick’s voice came, and Bruce redirected, swinging himself into the Batmobile to cross the city. “Corner of 8th and Park, I’m going to have injured, possibly casualties if nothing gets in their way.”

“Do you need backup?” Tim’s voice was sharp.

“I’m on my way,” Bruce assured him. It hadn’t passed his notice that his eldest had been around more often lately, was clearly trying to get Jason’s attention and have him join back in again.

Jason had made his stance clear. Bruce was fairly certain that being around was just upsetting him more, honestly, and when Jason was upset, people tended to get injured. But Dick was hard to resist, and Bruce was silently hoping that he would succeed where Bruce himself always failed.

“Red Robin, how are things in your sector?” He needed to stop with the wool gathering, needed to focus on what he was doing. A moment’s distraction in the field could cost lives.

“The area’s been cleared, no people, no signs of a fight. Looks like a rogue’s work. Maybe Riddler? Is he loose right now?” He hummed. “I’ll look for a calling card.”

“We will.” He could handle any clues Riddler had left, at least for now. That would be fine. “Tell us if anything changes and we will go your way. Nightwing, two minutes to your location.” He spun the Batmobile around a corner.

He had arrived and they were a good four minutes into the fight with the gangsters when his comm caught his attention again. The fight was fine- their opponents were big and stupid, but had the advantage of guns and numbers. Even rival gangsters will fight together to fight the Batman, Jason had once remarked with a roll of his eyes when he had been so much smaller and so much sweeter. It was a time-honored truth by now. They could kill each other later, they only had that moment to try to kill the Bat.

On the plus side, he was always seen more as a threat, so his much more armored suit tended to take the brunt of the bullets. It paired well with Nightwing’s ability to flip around and disarm their opponents while they were distracted.

Much like Bruce was at-

“Whoa, Hood, I didn’t even cross over. The border is that telephone pole right there.” Tim didn’t sound afraid (a problem always a problem he was too fearless Jason had been the same) but was annoyed if anything.

“So why are you sniffing around, then? Spying?” Jason’s voice was masked by his helmet and aggressive, tense and already spoiling for a fight. That didn’t bode well for the ability for them to actually work together tonight.

“Red, come back to our side,” Dick said sharply as he flipped over the back of a taller man, tamping down the sadness in his tone. Bruce could sympathize- it was always somewhere between relief and pain that Jason always used a modulator to mask and distort his voice.

Bruce could barely even remember what his son’s laughter sounded like, now. He desperately wished he could hear it again. How did it sound now? He was older, had his laugh changed?

How much more heartbreaking would it be if the answer was yes? That he’d lost that sound forever, that Bruce would never hear it again, that he’d wasted, so thoroughly, his chances to elicit that sound and make his child’s life easier?

“What’s there to spy on?” Tim laughed, though it was more tense than pleasant. “If I wanted to critique your lack of- there, look at that. Calling card?” Interest replaced the antagonism.

“Baby bird,” Nightwing half-sang as he flipped over his opponent’s head and twisted the gun he’d been aiming to the ground, barely keeping his tension reined beneath his cheerful demeanor, “Get on our side, don’t poke the bear.”

“That’s not the Riddler’s sign.” Red Robin’s voice had a frown to it. “Is this something you’ve been seeing in your territory before now?”

“Because I would tell you, Replacement?” It was amazing how he was still able to sound scathing even through the helmet’s distortion.

“Red Robin.” Bruce was slammed into the brick behind him and a gun was discharged against his side. He grunted- he hated the bruises point-blank shots made- and slammed his fist into the opponent's head. “Get back to our side. Now.”

“Probably should listen to Daddy Bat, Pretender. I told you that you don’t need a license to shoot down birds in this part of town.”

It was unsettling, so wrong and chilling on so many levels to hear such a cold, serious threat and know it was being said by his own son, a boy who had been so bright and funny and bold, but who never would have threatened another hero, a kid younger than himself especially.

“Fine, I’m going,” Tim relented finally, and Bruce breathed a little easier as he ducked, allowing one man to shoot another in the shoulder. “But just- Hood!” A note of distinct alarm, something spine-numbingly close to fear, followed by a violent cracking on the other side of the connection.

Bruce didn’t even think. He tore through the gangsters, slamming them into the walls and ground as he got back to the Batmobile, swinging in. “Nightwing!” He yelled as he fired it up, and his son barely made it in before Bruce was tearing down the street toward the other two.

This couldn’t be happening. Whatever that sound had been, it had to be something they could handle. It had to be something they could control. He could not and would not lose another child. Never again.

“Robin, report.” A mark of how stressed his eldest was that he was reverting to the older moniker and leaving off the Red, an action that Tim would have bristled at and Damian would have fumed over in any other circumstance on any other day. There was no answering voice on the other end of the line tonight, though. “Robin, report,” Dick said again, leaning forward and pressing a hand to his ear, nearly vibrating in anxiety. “Hood! What the hell just happened?!”

Bruce hit the tracker program with one hand, trying not to run them into a wall as the silence continued.

It hadn’t been a gunshot. It hadn’t been a neck snapping. It hadn’t been a gunshot. It hadn’t been a neck snapping. Jason wouldn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t. The only reason he had gone as far as he had in Titans Tower had been because of the fresh Pit rage. It was gone now, he had (grudgingly angrily aggressively bitterly) coexisted with them for nearly two years. He wouldn’t kill Tim. Not for crossing the border, not so unprovoked, not- he wouldn’t kill Tim. It hadn’t been a gunshot. It couldn’t have been a bone breaking.

The tracker blinked to life on the map, directly on the border between Crime Alley and Gotham proper.

It wasn’t moving away or toward either.

It hadn’t been a gun and they were both fine but he couldn’t hear either of them and-

The Batmobile wasn’t even fully stopped when Bruce launched out of it where the tracker indicated Tim was. Dick was right behind him, scaling the wall to head up to the roof. Bruce prowled along the alley, forcing himself to pay attention to where he was going.

“Red Robin!” He called. He was ignoring how his own voice sounded, gravel mixed with broken glass, trying so hard to forget the last time he’d heard it like that. “Report! Now!”

“Cape,” he heard Nightwing report sharply, though Tim didn’t say a word, and he whipped around the corner to find his eldest crouched beside Tim’s cape and his utility belt. His staff wasn’t there though, and there wasn’t any sign of Jason one direction or another. There was no blood, no sign of a scuffle.

Breathe breathe Tim reported similar abandonment in the area it could be a third party-

He turned and found Tim’s watch on the sidewalk, the tracker embedded in it vanishing on Bruce’s phone when he made contact.

Bruce picked up the watch, curling his fingers around it, and allowed himself a beat to try and take in breath that didn’t exist. Two of the children he’d tasked himself with protecting were gone. Again, he was finding pieces of a Robin’s costume strewn behind to let him know what had happened.

The chains of his self-control were cracking and he slowly put the watch in his belt. “Go north,” he said, voice sounding almost disembodied. This wasn’t like last time. It couldn’t be. Not at Jason’s hand. “I’ll go south. Cover as much as you can. Call in the others, have them search too. Whatever happened, they couldn’t have gone far.”

His eldest, the talkative sunburst, didn’t say a word now, just crossed rapidly to put the cape and belt into their vehicle before taking off at a run to flip, catching a lamppost in a swing, and vanishing over the edge of a rooftop again. Bruce gave himself another moment, forcing his breathing even in the same way he had taught to all of his sons, then turned and started moving, searching down alleyways for any movement, any activity.

A calling card, Tim had noted. A rogue’s activity. This could be a trap of some sort, an ambush.

This could even be further theatrics from Jason. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d given into his flair for the dramatic. Maybe he’d kidnapped Tim, taken him hostage to try to teach Bruce a lesson about letting a (former) Robin out patrolling on his own. That sounded plausible… surely it was plausible. Perhaps-

He caught only a glimpse of a shape vanishing through a broken-out window, the briefest flutter of movement, and took off at a dead sprint. If this was a trap, he wasn’t going to call Nightwing’s attention to it, especially if this was going to go sour, or if this was a misdirection, or something entirely unrelated, he had to let him keep searching, but in the meantime-

In the meantime it was becoming rapidly clear that this was a chase, that Bruce was hunting someone quick and light-footed who knew the area well, because every time he shoved his way into a room, he caught the smallest glimpse of a shape whipping around a corner or through a door, out of sight again and again.

If he wasn’t chasing someone who could have something to do with his children’s disappearance he might almost be impressed. This was someone fast, someone capable, someone who clearly knew the area well. It could be a sign that the escape route had been planned in advance… Or perhaps they were just very familiar with the territory. It was hard to say- Bruce had a hard time tracking the players in Crime Alley these days, with Jason’s violent repulsion of anything Bat-related within his bounds.

And he was, truly, in the heart of Crime Alley now, all pretense of stealth abandoned in the face of ensuring that this lead didn’t evaporate on the spot, He sprinted on, ignoring the gasps here and there from those gathered by little fires or relaxing on front porches at the sight of the Bat thundering down the street on foot rather than racing along rooftops.

He rounded a street corner just in time to see a door slam shut to a small one-story building, the front of which had several working girls either chatting up potential customers or wandering to the sidewalk in the hopes of catching other attention.

“Uh-uh, where you think you’re going?” One stepped directly in his path when he headed toward the building in a prowl. There were no obvious entrances or exits aside from the front door, but there were sure to be back windows. “Hey.” The girl, maybe in her late-twenties, clapped hard in front of his cowled face. “Batsy. What the fuck you think you’re doing? Gonna bust us for earnin’ a living? I’ll bust ya face first. There ain’t nothin’ in there you need.”

“Someone just ran in there and I need to question them.” He moved to the other side, stepping around her, and she backed up rapidly to stay in his way. There were absolutely ways out of that room and building, and the lead was probably gone already and his son was missing and the boy he had been thinking of like a son was missing and it was his fault that another Robin had been hurt and he was going to lose his shit.

“I said, there ain’t nothin’ in there you need.” She stepped to the side with him a second time when he tried to push forward, shoulders rolling back a little as she shot a scowl at him, and he gave a quick, brief assessing glance. Slightly curvy, no muscle definition to speak of, not armed- and yes, a flash of fear in her brown eyes, despite the aggression in her tone. Her glare intensified. “This place is protected by the Hood, we don’t need no bats or birds here. You mess with us and you’ll regret it. You go back to the Diamond Diss and keep those pretty skyrises safe.”

A slight movement by one of the windows, the smallest shuffle of the curtain and the sight of what might have been black hair before the curtain closed again fast.

“I respect the Hood’s grounds,” Bruce said through his teeth (he wasn’t about to do anything to Jason’s girls, but the fact remained that this was taking too much time), “And I’m not planning on hurting anyone. I just need to speak to the person who just ran in. Not arrest, not harm. You can supervise if you need to.” And he’d deal with that when it came.

“Nina,” one of the others murmured, and Nina snapped her fingers at her with a sharp look, then eyed him, tapping her fingers nervously on her leg for a minute.

“Text the Hood an’ let him know,” she said to the girl nearest her, and she pointed at Bruce’s face aggressively. “I don’t give a shit if you’re the Batman or Jesus’ firstborn son, you hurt those kids an’ I’ll crack your head like an egg,” she threatened, turning on her heel to head for the front door.

“Kids?” Bruce’s brain took a moment to catch up with his body as he followed close behind her. “It was children who ran in here?”

They hadn’t been the culprit, then, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t seen something. He hadn’t necessarily wasted time here on this chase, and Dick was still running the other leads down.

“Did I stutter, motherfucker?” She shot him a hateful look as she opened the door, then peered inside. “Hey, babies, he says he just wants to talk,” she said, voice gentling as she stepped inside. Bruce had the brief view of a grungy front room as she stepped to the right, and then Red Robin’s bo staff was being swung violently down toward his head.

He caught it out of instinct despite his shock and looked down-

Did I stutter

Maybe she had, everything else certainly was-

Did I stutter,

Because this moment was freezing and replaying, over and over, this one instant perpetuated into at least twenty seconds, time grinding to a halt as he stared down at the angry twelve year-old on the other end of the staff.

Did I stutter?

Messy black hair that had a tiny bit of curl to it, just enough to make it perpetually untidy. Blue eyes without so much as a trace of green in them even when they were narrowed into a ferocious scowl. Teeth bared in a growl that showed off a tiny gap between his right incisor and the rest of the teeth. A hand wrapped tight around the staff, another reached backwards-

Did I-

Bruce couldn’t tear his eyes away, couldn’t process the thought, but the one moment was twenty so he found a spare second in which his eyes moved on their own to extend to the end of the reaching hand, finding an absolutely tiny boy with much softer black hair, two delicate hands pressed over his mouth in horror, almond blue eyes wide with fright at the scene in front of him.

Did I stutter?

Unmistakably, absolutely unmistakably-

These were his sons.

Notes:

We hope you liked it! Give a shout if you'd like the next chapter, or had a favorite part, or just want to tell us to keep it moving! Comments are lifeblood and every one helps weaken the demon that is DC's canonical timelines.

Chapter 2: Friday, 11:43 p.m.

Summary:

Bruce's kids are kids, and he has very little idea of how to mentally process this in a healthy way.

Notes:

Look I was supposed to update these chapters once a week but I'm soft for positive reinforcement and the comments were cute so y'all get another chapter already. Don't @ me, Clarke, my posting schedule is based off whims and bribery, apparently.

The endless second finally passed and Bruce wrenched the staff away more on instinct than on purpose. Jason flipped backwards, all long limbs and Robin grace, landing on the stack of pizza boxes that served as a coffee table and grabbing the television remote for a weapon. He stood firmly between Tim (so small and so scared and so confused) and Bruce, animosity pouring off him in waves as he held the remote in the exact same position he’d always held his batarang.

His children… and they were children.

“Go away,” the tiny version of Jason challenged fiercely, and Nina moved forward, catching Tim’s shoulders quickly before reaching for Jason’s.

“He just wants to talk, baby-”

“He’s not the real Batman! Go away!” Jason threw the remote with shocking force- Bruce felt it connect with the lens of his cowl very distinctly. He opened and closed his mouth, but nothing came out.

He took a slow, careful step forward and Jason flipped again, landing in a crouch directly in front of Tim and Nina as his chest rose and fell hard.

Had he really been so small? Tim was smaller, shockingly tiny, much younger than Jason was, but Jason- Jason was so far from the huge adult he would grow into, so distinctly shrunken from the muscular shoulders and imposing figure he cut as the Red Hood. Bruce had forgotten how tiny, how nearly fragile, he had looked once upon a time. A scrawny, beautiful, angry and protective child all scuffed and scruffy and so perfect it hurt.

“The Batman’s gonna eat you when he sees what you’re doing,” Jason growled furiously, one hand reaching back to squeeze one of Tim’s. Bruce almost couldn’t breathe at the sweetness of the motion in the midst of this kind of righteous anger. “Piece ‘a shit pretender. Stay away from us.”

Bruce slowly raised a hand, touching his comm to activate it. “N, follow my tracker and move slow. I… found them.” He sank to one knee, watching the boys. “Jason,” he said, trying to soften his voice out of the growl shock had formed it into. “And Tim. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m Batman, and I won’t hurt you. I’m not an imposter, I’m him.” He pulled out a batarang and offered it to Jason.

“Bullshit,” Jason growled, but snatched the weapon up anyway, lightning-fast and ready to whip it forward. Bruce calculated the likeliest place he’d throw it and grimly readied to duck.

“Batman knows my name,” Tim whispered, tiny voice awed, and Jason’s jaw clenched.

“It’s not Batman, Timmy, it’s some trick. Scarecrow or Clayface or some asshole wannabe who thinks putting on a costume makes him a hero.” He curled his lip in a sneer that didn’t quite hide the edge of fear in the boy’s eyes as he pushed Tim further into the corner, nearly squishing him.

“But what if-“ the younger boy began timidly.

“That ain’t the Bat’s suit, kiddo, believe me,” Jason snapped, and Bruce paused. It most certainly was the bat-suit, but… it hadn’t always looked like this. It had looked very different years ago, when this small boy had been his child. “No knock-off batarang changes that.”

“I got an upgrade.” Bruce didn’t move. “Sometimes superheroes have to update their suits, that’s what happened with mine. I’m…” he was what? Normally he had a better grasp of how to phrase things and make sense of insanity, but right now he was facing two children who should be almost adults and he was floored. “How can I prove I’m Batman?”

“You can’t. I’d know if the shit was updated.” Jason’s eyes were narrowed tightly, then seemed to realize that Tim and Nina were in the room and pressed his lips into a line, before, “I’m… his biggest fan,” he managed to mutter, ears burning pink with the awkward excuse.

“Wow, really?” Tim’s muffled voice sounded amazed and Bruce almost felt that raise a smile- Tim almost sounded as if being a hero’s biggest fan was a role of some kind, bestowed upon a particular person. He was so tiny.

“Yeah, Timbit. Know all his moves and everything.” Jason’s grip on the batarang tightened. “I know what his suits look like. Ma’am, you can go.”

“What?” Nina stared down at him. “What the hell you mean, I can go?”

“I’m gonna just have a talk with him an’ I don’t want ladies present.” He winked at her and she massaged a hand through her curls.

“I ain’t even gettin’ paid for this shit,” she breathed.

“You’ll know if he takes us outta the house,” Jason pointed out, and she eyed him, then blew out a breath and pointed at Bruce.

“Like an egg, Furry,” she warned sharply. “One single bruise, you done. Hood’s on his way right now, and he’ll have words with you about this shit. Babies, you come get me when you’re done talkin’, we’ll take care of it.” She glanced at the boys, shot Bruce a highly-mistrustful look, and clicked out of the room on high heels. The front door closed and Tim stood on his tiptoes to try and poke his head up enough to peer over Jason’s shoulder.

“How come you sent her out?”

“‘Cause if I’m gonna beat him up, ladies can’t be present,” Jason explained with a roll of his eyes. “It’s rude.”

“Wow, you can beat up Batman? I- I mean you can beat up not-Batman?” Tim amended quickly, and Jason eyed Bruce.

“We’re gonna find out. Take your mask off, douchewhistle, if you’re so goddamn cocky.” He raised the batarang slightly, pushing Tim back again as the smaller boy gave a scandalized gasp of no you can’t ask Batman to take off his mask!

Well, here they went. Bruce studied his face, scanned the room for any sort of camera or monitoring device, then very carefully pulled off his cowl and rested it by his knee. He met Jason’s eyes and gave the closest thing to a smile that he could. “Hello,” he said. “Does that help?”

Jason hesitated, grip on the batarang easing slightly as he searched Bruce’s face. “B?” He asked cautiously.

He knew his name, knew who he was. Bruce held out a hand. “Hey,” he murmured. “Hey, Jason. That was good- you have to be careful if someone takes up the cape. You can’t just trust anyone. Thank you for helping Tim.” He didn’t look around as there was a thump from the roof, but the batarang raised immediately. He knew that sound, knew who was there. They didn’t need to scare the kids any more than they already were. “That’s Dick, you’re safe.”

Jason still didn’t look entirely convinced, but stopped crushing Tim and took a step forward, searching his face. “You don’t…” his eyes flicked to Tim and then back to Bruce. “You don’t look right.” He reached out, touching the edge of the cape, taking in the updated suit slowly, then going back to Bruce’s face, taking in the lines that he clearly didn’t recognize, signs of age and stress Bruce hadn’t carried ten years ago. “You… do smell like him,” he allowed more quietly, under his breath and definitely to himself, eyebrows drawing together. “Dad? What happened to you, old man?” He asked more audibly.

Dad. Bruce’s heart squeezed and he rested his head against Jason’s, trying to stay calm. Jason was so young right now. He hadn’t died, he was still the spiky, bright, kind, secretly-hopeful little survivalist that he’d been before. He called Bruce his dad. He didn’t hate him, and Bruce knew it was wrong to lean into that considering the current circumstances, but…

“It’s complicated,” Bruce offered past the lump in his throat. He had to figure out what was going on and it would be fine. “Do you want to come home with me? Tim can come too. We’ll go see Alfred and get some food.”

“He’s stupid-small and was just wandering around Crime Alley,” Jason reported immediately, straightening as he looked back at Tim, who was fidgeting with his sleeves, big eyes anxiously locked on the pair of them. “We gotta get him back to his parents, I was gonna do it, but then there was you in that weird outfit and I had to get him somewhere safer. When the hell did you get time to make that, anyway?” He frowned at the cape.

Bruce felt a laugh break free and shook his head. “I’ll explain at home,” he promised, and a clatter told him Dick had made it to the ground floor. He looked around to see his eldest frozen in the doorway, his escrima sticks halted midair.

“Jay?” He said in disbelief after a few beats of silence. He looked pale beneath his domino, the sticks lowering slowly. “I don’t- what the fuck?”

“Language,” Jason parroted in an imitation of Alfred, as if he hadn’t been cussing with nearly every sentence for the last five minutes. He put his hands on his hips and scowled at his brother. “You, too, with the new uniform? Wait, am I in a parallel universe? Oh, shit, that’s so messy.” He pressed a hand to his forehead and groaned. “I have a test in US History tomorrow, I can’t be in a parallel universe.”

Dick let out a laugh of shock and focused on Tim. “Oh my god, holy shit Tim, you’re a baby! Hi!”

He crouched slowly and Tim offered him a tentative smile and a tiny wave. Dick gave an enchanted little laugh, then looked around. “B, what the hell is happening?”

“They’ve been de-aged somehow.” Bruce put his cowl back on and very carefully picked up Tim, reaching out for Jason’s hand. “We need to get them back to the Cave and then call Zatanna so we can get this sorted. But for now, let’s get them home.”

“At least you don’t have to worry about that social studies test,” Dick muttered, watching the kids in fascination. “I forgot how scrawny you were, Jason.”

“I’m not scrawny, you’re just stupid.” Jason pointed at him, then paused and patted himself with his free hand. He didn’t swat Bruce’s hand away or snarl an insult for Bruce grabbing him in the first place. “De-aged,” he mumbled, then brightened. “Whoa, wait, so I’m normally older? Man, I bet I’m way bigger than you. I bet I kick all kinds of ass.” He pumped his fist in victory and Tim swallowed, dragging his gaze back and forth between Bruce and Dick as the latter scrubbed at his brother's hair in something like wonder.

“Excuse me,” he said, in a voice that was oddly thin, now that Bruce was able to actually process thought enough to pay attention. It was almost raspy, really, something Bruce had initially missed. Was he getting a cold at this time in his life? Or was he just nervous? “Could you please drop me off at my house? I will be able to provide compen-spation.” He offered a polite smile to Dick with the air of someone who had been carefully trained on what to say if he ever got lost.

Dick covered his face with a hand. “He’s too cute,” he groaned, reaching out to pat Tim’s hair. “He’s too cute, B. I can’t handle it.”

“Nightwing, we need to get them back to the Cave.” Bruce, too, was about to lose it. Jason’s small and trusting hand in his, his little voice calling Bruce dad, Tim’s slight weight and ridiculously giant eyes and proper little pronunciation were going to make him lose his cool entirely and he was not in any way prepared for that right now.

“Okay, okay.” Dick stood and reached out, ruffling Tim’s hair. “Hey, little man. Timmers... you want to go see Batman’s BatCave? You want to ride in the Batmobile?” He grinned at him. “It’s super cool. We’ll take you home after.”

Tim’s mouth fell open in awe, trembling in Bruce’s arm from the sheer excitement of the concept. “The Batmobile?” He ventured on a breath. “Really?”

“He’s like three, you’re gonna give him a heart attack,” Jason scoffed, tugging on Bruce’s hand to lead them out of the room and then the house.

Nina had apparently taken the time to find a metal baseball bat with several nails sticking out of the end, and lifted it into her hand as they emerged, eyes darting across the group. “Kid?”

“It’s okay, he’s the real Batman,” Jason dismissed, and Nina’s eyes tightened slightly at Bruce and Nightwing, her grip not easing. “Really,” Jason assured her, pulling free from Bruce’s hand finally to offer a raised fist to her. “We’re good, he’s gonna get us home. Thanks for lettin’ us crash here, ma’am.”

“Mmhm.” She bumped her knuckles against his, shoulders still tense, and crouched. “I’ll have the Hood check up on you later,” she murmured in an undertone that she clearly didn’t think Bruce could hear. “Make sure you got home alright, aight? He takes care ‘a the kids and the girls, he’ll make sure you’re good.”

“Uh. Thanks.” Jason’s eyes crinkled at her and she nodded, standing and waving a hand. The several small guns Bruce had caught glimpses of, held tightly in the hands of the other girls around the yard, vanished again into purses or pockets, and Bruce was again grimly amazed and proud of what Jason had accomplished here.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Tim offered in his squeaky little voice, and she wrinkled her nose at him with crinkled eyes and a wiggle of her acrylics.

Bruce gave her an incline of his head as they passed and Dick waved to her and the other women. “You guys ever in Bludhaven I owe you one,” he offered brightly. “Thanks for watching the kids!”

“Nightwing, we need to move,” Bruce called over his shoulder, and Dick jogged a few steps to catch up.

“Why were they dressed like that?” Tim whispered to Jason as they walked. Jason snorted, casual and superior.

“‘Cause, Timmy, they gotta earn a livin’. Most of ‘em are real nice though, ‘specially to kids. Most ‘a the time, you can go to them if ya find yourself in the wrong area, but you gotta be careful ‘cause sometimes the guys hangin’ ‘round them aren’t as nice.”

Tim nodded, thinking this over as they walked down the street back toward where Bruce had abandoned the Batmobile before the chase had begun. “They looked pretty.” he said finally, and Jason laughed. Bruce glanced down at him, catching his hand again, and squeezed it, affection rising sharply.

He hadn’t known that Jason was a specific protector for the girls who worked Crime Alley. He’d heard things about Jason tearing through a group of men who had hurt one of the Crime Alley kids, and he’d fully understood that, but he hadn’t known anything about the girls.

This added the context he hadn’t understood- the women who worked in this area protected the little ones around here, gave them sanctuary when they needed it, were willing to put their own safety at risk to protect said little ones. Jason would have experienced that when he had been young, so it seemed obvious that now that he was the one in power, he’d keep them safe.

They clearly trusted him to do that, too. They hadn’t just spoken of the Red Hood as an empty threat, there had been full confidence in every use of his name that he would in fact check up to see if the little boy got home, that the Hood would chase Batman out of Crime Alley if he tried to arrest the girls, that he would fill whatever need they had of him. His people, small in number and distrustful beyond measure in a way that was ingrained in their very bones, did trust him.

His son was so good. Angry, violent, but so good beneath all of that, his intentions and aims every bit as noble as those that Bruce operated under. Bruce was so proud of him every day. The feeling was a complex mix of so many things. There would always be guilt, anger, betrayal, frustration, longing, and desperation mixed in… but pride was always there, among and over it all. Jason had clawed his way back from the grave, carved out his own sanity again, and dedicated his second life to protecting their city. It wasn’t in the way Bruce had wanted for him or trained him for, but he was trying to help people, and that was always his Jay at the heart of it.

They got to the Batmobile and Dick opened the door for Jason as Bruce carefully set Tim down. “Make sure he straps in,” he told Jason, and helped the boy into the car. Tim was so ridiculously young, so delicate. Jason had said he was three, but Bruce wasn’t sure if it was an accurate guess of his age or not. None of his children had been this young when he’d gotten them. It also seemed like he spoke too well for a three year-old– though Tim was incredibly smart, so maybe it was possible…

“Wow,” Tim breathed, just barely muffling his excitement out of a squeal as he looked around the vehicle rapidly. “Wow, the Batmobile,” Tim repeated as he stared at all the buttons and monitors on the dash.

“The Batmobile,” Dick agreed, settling in the passenger seat and turning so he could buckle Tim in. “Super cool, right? Just wait until you get to the Cave, you’re gonna love it. I’m Dick, by the way. This is Jason next to you but you already know that, and obviously Batman. We call him B.”

“Mr. Batman,” Tim repeated quietly as Bruce slid into the driver’s seat, then, “Where’s Robin? Is he coming too?”

“He’s- wait, huh.” Jason paused, speculative with a frown. “B, am I still Robin when I’m all huge and imposin’ and ultra badass?”

“Nah, you get your own name, like me.” Dick fist-bumped him and Bruce was beyond grateful for his eldest’s tact. He had no idea how to even begin to answer that question, the transfer of Robins always being so tumultuous.

“You have your own name,” Bruce agreed. “And once you get your own mantle-” An extremely odd way to phrase it but there was absolutely no way that Jason would learn what had happened to him right now, “-Timothy becomes my Robin.”

Tim startled, staring up at him. “What?”

“When Jason gets his own name, when he gets older, you become my Robin.” Bruce gave him a small smile. “Jason, your name is Red Hood. I’ll show you a photo. Your costume is very impressive.”

“Hell, yeah.” Jason leaned back, utterly satisfied, and Bruce enabled the vehicle to maneuver home on autopilot, well aware that there was no way he’d be able to keep his eyes on the road and not on the two boys in his backseat.

Jason paused, cocking his head. “Hood,” he echoed. “Wait, like what the girls were talkin’ about? That’s me?”

“That’s you.” Dick grinned back at him. “You take care of Crime Alley like it’s your little kingdom.”

“You don’t allow interference,” Bruce agreed, watching them in the mirror. “They respect you, trust you. It’s a good thing. I’m very proud of you.” He could say it right now, could let his son know, and not have it thrown back in his face with vitriol and a snap that Jason never needed Bruce to be proud of him. That was good, at least. Maybe he’d keep these memories when he went back to himself and he’d process it as what it was- that he was proud of him, that this wasn’t a ploy to suck up to him or anything else.

Of course, Jason was absolutely the most paranoid of his children and would no doubt think this was some sort of long-term manipulation plan when he came back to himself, but for this moment at least, it was accepted at face value. Jason grinned out the window, avoiding eye contact but clearly and brightly happy nonetheless.

Bruce wished he could burn that image into his memory, the brightness and warmth that still existed, somewhere, in his grown version but was buried under layers of spikes and anger. “You are a very good Robin,” he told Tim. “I can show you a video of you working, if you want.”

“You’re the smartest Robin.” Dick poked Tim’s nose affectionately.

“No.” Tim shook his head firmly, pulling his knees up to his chest. “Robin’s the coolest and smartest and best as he is. Nobody’s better than Robin.”

Which, when Bruce thought back to do the math, would mean he was referring to Dick. If Tim was around three to six years old, he didn’t know any of their actual names and Jason hadn’t replaced Dick yet. Jason, while clearly having earned some merit of awe on the basis of having been willing to beat up ‘not-Batman,’ was not receiving the full awe and adoration that he would have if Tim had been aged down to twelve.

Bruce bit back a smile and turned slightly in his seat. “You’re much older now,” he said. “But your mind thinks you’re young, so the Robin that you remember is him.” he gestured to Dick, who blinked, then held up a hand.

“Hey, high-five little dude! Thanks. You guys were both pretty cool Robins too.”

“You were Robin?” Tim stared at him in wide-eyed fascination, offering a tentative hand to shake Dick’s raised one. Dick tapped their hands together in a high-five, which Tim looked somewhat bemused by.

“Yup, probably when you were little. I was Robin, and then Jason, and then you, and then Dami. You’ve got your own name now, too. We all age out of Robin eventually.” His tone was light, but there were layers there, and Bruce focused back on the road outside of the windshield. “But there’ll always be one. Robin’s important.”

“Yeah,” Tim agreed easily enough to that, and then his eyes went to the size of dinner plates as he stared at Dick with sudden realization and awe. “You’re Dick Grayson,” he whispered, covering his mouth to muffle the excited little squeak he gave. “Hi.”

Dick blinked at him, then pulled off his domino and gave the little boy an easy grin. “Yeah,” he agreed. “I’m Dick Grayson, it’s nice to sort of meet you.”

“What do you know about Dick?” Bruce asked, curious at this reaction from such a tiny child. What had he known about Dick at this age?

“He gives the best hugs in the world,” Tim enthused in soft wonder, and Jason made a scoffing sound. Bruce was extremely glad that he wasn’t actually driving, his chest aching with the sweetness of Tim and the familiar snort of Jason. “And he- he can fly, he can do a ‘drouple somersault, he did it for me when we went to the circus!”

Dick’s expression softened and almost crumpled as he reached out, touching Tim’s hair. “Well, let’s log in some hugs when we get to the Cave then,” he offered gently, and Tim nodded fast, looking hopeful.

“What’s a Ca-“ he broke off in a yelp, grabbing Jason for balance when Bruce swerved hard to avoid the figure that had just come crashing down for a hard landing directly in the center of the street in front of them. Jason grabbed Bruce’s arm in one hand and secured Tim with the other as the vehicle spun to the side of the road. Dick was in the backseat before the Batmobile had settled to a stop, holding both boys steady as he crouched in the footwell.

Bruce stared at the figure storming toward them as the vehicle halted, then sighed. “This is going to be a very long night,” he observed darkly, and got out. “Conner, it-”

“Where’s Tim?” Kon-El didn’t bother with preamble or formalities, at Bruce’s side before Bruce could even finish his sentence. “His heart disappeared, it’s all fuckin’ weird now and you’re not moving fast enough!”

“He isn’t hurt,” Bruce assured him, uneasy at the idea of a tiny Timothy Drake anywhere near a Kryptonian as occasionally unstable as Kon-El. Kal was an entirely different story, but Kon was still learning. “He’s fine.”

“He is not.” Kon yanked the door open, looking into the car, and paused, not even breathing for a moment as huge blue eyes looked up at him. The teenager stared down at the child, mouth falling open for a long moment as they all waited.

“Hello, Kon,” Dick said, as if this were a very normal way to meet another person. He kept both hands on the boys, clearly as nervous about Kon being near the kids in this state as Bruce was. “Did you have a nice flight?”

“Hi,” Tim offered in his scratchy voice, pulling his knuckle away from his lips as he blinked up at them, and Dick mimed clutching his heart.

Kon pointed at Tim, staring at Bruce. Bruce nodded. “It’s complicated,” he said firmly. “We’re fixing it.”

“Tim’s like two!” Kon’s voice was nearly a shout, panic threading through it. “Why is he almost an infant?! What are you doing to fix it?! How long is this going to last?!”

“We’re taking him back to the Cave so I can contact people, Conner.” Bruce tapped his fingers on the roof of the Batmobile. “Or we were, until we were interrupted.”

“I’m sorry,” Tim offered uncertainly, shifting slightly where he was once again half-squished behind Jason as if he could somehow even be smaller. “I’m four, not two.” He held up an important four fingers over Jason’s shoulder to help illustrate his point.

“Who the hell’s this dude?” Jason eyed Conner with great dislike.

“This is Tim’s-” The joking tone in Dick’s voice broke off and he met Bruce’s eyes. Bruce wished he could shower this day off and be done. Everything was a nightmare.

“This is Tim’s teammate, on his own team. Conner Kent, son of Superman.” Son was the closest they were going to get to the whole clone ordeal right now.

“What the shit.” Kon stared at Jason, clearly finally processing the other boy in the car. “That’s- that’s Hood? What the f-”

“Language,” Bruce informed him in a semi-passable version of Alfred’s chastisement, and Jason burst out into laughter. “Get in the car, we’re going to the Cave.”

Kon slowly moved to the front of the car as Dick settled on the floorboards of the backseat, murmuring gently to Jason and Tim. Bruce caught, “-going to hurt you, no one will. You’re safe with us, okay?” and wished that he had any idea how to parent children this small.

Tim was four.

What was Bruce going to tell his uncle? Surely they could handle this- Tim had already told everyone that he was staying with the Waynes for Spring Break. This had to be something they could recover from in that time… but there had to be a plan for if it wasn’t.

No, that was a later problem, not a right-now problem. Bruce got in the Batmobile and they moved off again as Kon turned to stare at Tim.

“I thought you were all eyes and hair before,” he said, searching the small figure there. His expression looked like he’d been hit over the head. “You’re so tiny.”

Were they supposed to be so tiny, Bruce wondered as he started driving again. Tim was the shortest of the first three Robins, and didn’t have any indication that he might develop muscles or a more sturdy structure as he grew into an adult the way Dick and Jason had. Bruce had no doubt that Damian would likely take after him, which would someday lead to Tim being the smallest of the four. Even so, the kid seemed disproportionately small, more like a three year-old in size than a four year-old. Had he had growth problems when he was young? Or had he always been naturally petite?

“You’re the son of Superman?” Tim asked Kon curiously, watching him in fascination. “You can fly?”

“Yeah, we fly together all the time.” Kon searched his face, his own twisting a little. “I heard your heartbeat stop and change and I came to find you, make sure you were okay. You’re okay? Do you hurt or anything? We’ll get you back to normal.”

“You can hear my heartbeat?” Tim flattened his hands over his own chest, staring down at it with wide eyes. “I’m sorry, is it real loud?” He looked up at Kon nervously. “I was runnin’.”

“What? No, it’s… it’s fine.” Kon’s eyes flicked between Bruce’s purposely stony face and Dick’s gleeful expression and back to Tim, ears turning pink. “I listen for you sometimes. Just cause. Clark listens to Bruce.” He threw it out like a life raft, like a bone before a dog so it would leave a treasured stuffed-animal alone, and Bruce bit his tongue as Dick let out a little snicker.

“He does,” Dick agreed as Bruce thought about Clark with no small amount of longing. Clark, so solid and comforting when the world was falling apart, who had raised an actual child, who knew how to deal with four year olds. Clark, whose voice was one of the best sounds in the world, whose laugh would surely make this situation easier, who would understand all the currents and dangers of the situation without asking.

“We’re teammates,” Bruce added after a moment.

“Exactly. Teammates do that,” Kon agreed, a little too quickly, and Bruce was glad that Dick clearly had decided to let it slide, his eldest’s eyes twinkling a little.

“Wow,” Tim said, thinking about this.

“Teammates who’re gay for each other,” Jason scoffed, kicking the back of Bruce’s seat.

“Gay?” Tim echoed in confusion.

“Jay, it’s not nice to out people if they’re not ready.” Dick flicked his brother’s nose, his voice holding laughter. “Not that you’re wrong.”

“Richard,” Bruce said in a hopefully quelling tone, but it did nothing, Dick snickering.

Kon glanced at Bruce. “I mean, it’s-”

“Do you want to begin this discussion tonight?” Bruce asked in a deadly tone, and the boy mercifully closed his mouth as Bruce maneuvered them into the Cave. He dialed Alfred’s number as they parked.

“When they’re reeeaally good friends, kiddo,” Jason said as he unbuckled. Tim stared at him, then up at Kon.

“You’re my friend when I get big?”

Kon’s expression was helplessly lost as he looked back at the tiny boy, so sweet and adorable, looking back at him. “Yeah,” he agreed, reaching out to very carefully straighten Tim’s hair. Something almost like sadness washed across his face, and Bruce felt a twinge of sympathy for him rise- the boys were so close. To have them so far apart in age right now... “You’re my best friend in the world. One of my favorite people of everyone. We spend all our time together, we hang out and eat and watch videos and fight bad guys and fly together and everything. You’re the best.”

Tim stared, mouth falling open. “Really?” He lit up as Jason slid out of the vehicle. “I’ve never had a friend!”

“Never?” Jason side-eyed him as he helped him unbuckle and exit the Batmobile.

“No, I don’t go to the networking events,” and he pronounced the words very carefully, “‘Cause I can’t keep quiet feet, so I always stay home. Mom says that I can go someday though and I do!” He beamed at Kon proudly.

Kon smiled a little. “You’ve got a bunch of friends,” he told him. “I’ll show you pictures. We’ve got a really good team.” He got out and Dick picked Tim up, hugging him carefully before he put him down, then picked Jason up and squeezed him, wiggling him. “You’re so tiny you can’t fight my hugs,” he said happily as Jason struggled like an angry cat. “Tim likes being hugged all the time but you just try to punch me!”

“Yeah, Dickweasel!” Jason tried to wriggle free and failed as Alfred came out of the door to the Manor, pausing a moment as he took in the group by the vehicles.

“Well,” he reflected as he started down the stairs, “You’ve been busy tonight, Master Wayne. More dark-haired children to add to our merry brood?”

“No.” Bruce picked Tim up, the little boy looking too small and forlorn to be left alone on the ground, and rested him with the utmost care on his hip. Tim appeared more or less comfortable there, so Bruce allowed himself to refocus, pulling off his cowl with his free hand and carefully tucking Tim into his side with the other. “We ran into an issue while on patrol, Alfred. This is Tim.” He gestured to where Dick was laughing and flipping Jason upside-down. “And that’s Jason.”

Alfred paused, looking between the boys again, and let out a sigh. “Some day, Master Wayne, you will come up with something that manages to surprise me again, but at that point, I suspect I will have a heart attack. Hello, Master Kent.” He offered Kon a smile. “It’s been a few days since your last visit to the Manor. Thought you’d take the direct approach this time?”

“Yes, sir.” Kon nodded, straightening a little in the way Clark always did when he was trying to make a good impression. “This doesn’t weird you out? Them being kids?”

“Alfred’s seen so much weird crap.” Dick put Jason down finally. “Poor man.”

“We’re going to get this fixed,” Bruce said, shaking his head. “There’s an antidote or spell or something, we just have to find it.” He found it… distasteful, though, to run tests on his children when they were, legitimately, children. Drawing blood from a four-year-old was a horrible thought. It was maybe necessary, but that didn’t change the fact that it was terrible.

Of course, Tim wasn’t his son, his child. He just thought of him that way so often that it was nearly second-nature to think of him as an honorary Wayne. He would have adopted him already, if Tim hadn’t had an uncle so ready to step in and provide care after the death of his parents.

“I will call in some experts on this kind of thing and see if I can’t find surveillance tapes of the incident,” Bruce continued after a moment. “I think we should find a way to prevent Mr. Drake from discovering that his nephew’s age has been reversed- this will be temporary. Conner, if you and Dick can find Tim’s phone I will send his uncle messages from his number.”

“Right.” Kon bounced on his feet slightly, eyes flicking away from Tim. He looked like he’d been stabbed. “Cool. Okay, I’ll go and look for it.”

“Please don’t,” Tim said in a rush, grabbing Bruce’s collar in panic and trying to catch Kon’s shoulder with his other hand. “Don’t send my friend away!”

“Only for a bit, kiddo,” Jason offered. “He’s gotta help us make sure your uncle’s cool with you hangin’ with us for a while.”

“My uncle?” Tim faltered, looking down at him and then at Kon, who had immediately stopped trying to leave when Tim had reached out for him.

Kon curled his fingers around Tim’s, clearing his throat. “Yeah, your uncle,” he repeated. “You’re too young, you- uh. He wasn’t part of the family until later in your life.”

Was Kon-El… lying? Bruce watched him narrowly. Why was he lying? What was he lying about? “Is that so?” He asked, and Kon nodded, not making eye contact with anyone but Tim.

“That’s what he said, yeah.”

“Oh.” Tim puffed out his cheeks in thought for a moment, then peered up at Kon. “Can you stay? We can have a sleepover!” His eyes widened. “With popcorn?”

“Popcorn could be arranged,” Alfred allowed, lips twitching up into a smile. “But it is late, young master, it would be better for you to prepare for bed.”

Tim peered at him and Jason muffled a cackle into his sleeve as Kon helplessly looked down at Tim’s hand on his sleeve, letting out a breath. Bruce internally sighed- Kon-El Kent had never been able to tell Tim no in any circumstance.

The boy whipped his head back around to look up at Bruce instead, eyes wide and pleading. “A sleepover with popcorn, Mr. Batman?” he requested hopefully.

When was the last time that Tim had asked him for anything? When had he ever asked Bruce to have people stay over, when had he ever expressed a desire for any specific companionship like this? Bruce found himself as incapable of saying no to this sweet request as Kon seemed to be in the face of that.

Bruce hugged Tim a little closer to him, nodding slowly. “I’m going to change out of these clothes,” he said, carefully putting Tim down and smoothing Jason’s hair back. “Can you two go with Alfred and Conner while Dick and I change and we’ll be right up for a snack before bed? You can have a sleepover with popcorn, that’s perfectly fine with me.”

“Okay,” he agreed, lighting up like a lantern, and Jason caught his hand.

“C’mon, Timbuktu. I bet with your fancy flyboy, we can sit on top of the chandelier,” he said as he led him away.

“The chandelier?”

“That will not be happening,” Alfred disagreed firmly, sweeping them along ahead of him.

“What?! Dick used to!” Jason protested vehemently, and Alfred’s rationale was lost as the door closed behind Conner.

“Something’s not right with the uncle thing, right? Kon can’t lie to save his life and Tim didn’t know what he was talking about,” Dick said into the quiet, and Bruce nodded grimly.

“I’m aware. I don’t know what needs to be done right now, but we’ll be looking into it. At the moment we need to just stay calm and try to get hold of some people who can help restore them to their proper sizes and ages.” He headed for the lockers, Jason’s smile in his mind.

He would miss that smile, that ease, but he was never going to take from his son. Jason deserved to be what he had worked so hard for, regardless of how difficult it would be for Bruce.

Notes:

Thanks for reading!!

Leave a comment if you want to deal 5 psychic damage to whatever nonsense DC is currently putting our boys through in Canon. Or if you just want to butter me up and get the next chapter out sooner. Either one works.

Chapter 3: Saturday, 12:41 a.m.

Summary:

Bruce uncovers more about the de-aging spell and what it means for his children... with some Superbat on the side.

Notes:

Guys your comments were so good I could hardly take it. I hope this chapter was worth the wait.

When he went to find the children after a shower and forcing himself to type up mission reports for the night, he found Tim asleep, sandwiched between Dick and Conner on the couch while Rapunzel sang about something vaguely romantic onscreen. The popcorn had been eaten, the bowl abandoned on the coffee table. Jason wasn’t in the room, apparently having taken advantage of the adults’ exhaustion to sneak off elsewhere once they passed out with Tim. This was unsurprising and really not terribly concerning, and the image in front of him was so sweet he found himself taking a photo.

Bruce carefully took off Dick’s shoes and laid a pillow beneath his head, then rested Tim in Dick’s side and pulled a blanket over the pair. The older boy yawned, cuddling Tim closer, and fell deeper asleep when nothing else stirred. Bruce dropped a blanket in Conner’s lap with far less care and headed upstairs to search for Jason. Alfred had gone to bed, now that his family was home, and the others were asleep... which meant only Jason was awake to cause any ruckus.

There was a rolling sound from down the hall and Bruce found that he had to force his knees to continue moving, had to manually command his legs to continue carrying him up the stairs and then down toward Jason’s room. Of course he’d gone to his bedroom, why wouldn’t he? It was his.

It was his, and had been untouched for almost a decade, and now-

He forced steady breath in and back out, continuing to trudge up the gallows path. It was fine. It might even be healthy for things to be moved around, no longer a tomb or memorial to a fifteen year-old boy who had been (slaughtered murdered taken from me) gone for so long. And it wasn’t Bruce or Alfred who had to move anything, it was Jason himself, so Jay couldn’t even be angry if he ever came back to the Manor and saw it.

Not that he would.

But if he ever did.

Another rolling sound, and Bruce identified it as the computer chair whizzing back and forth from one side of the hardwood floors to the others.

When was the last time that Jason had done anything so carefree, so silly, as that? When was the last time that Bruce had looked at him and his son had been anything other than simmering with anger?

Sometimes he thought that he was over his grief, that he had processed it. After all- Jason was alive. He had been alive for two years. How could you grieve someone who was alive?

But he did. He grieved the loss of his relationship with his son, grieved the pain Jason had been through that had turned him from a relatively happy (albeit conflicted) teenager to an angry young man who spurned any attempt of Bruce’s to create anything close to family. He hadn’t processed the loss, because it was still a loss, and sometimes (especially when he was faced with the beautiful, angry young man he loved so much) it felt like something was tearing at his insides and leaving nothing but emptiness behind.

He stepped into Jason’s bedroom and found his son standing on his computer chair with one foot, kicking off the wall with his other and riding it like a skateboard across the room in a whoosh that narrowly missed his four-poster bedposts. He waved. “Sup,” he said cheerfully, then yelped when he collided with the wall, clearly having been paying too much attention to the fact that Bruce had caught him doing this rather than focusing on catching himself with the wall first.

Bruce moved forward, chuckling a little and checking him over. “You know better than that,” he informed him, smoothing Jason’s hair back again, twice. He couldn’t help himself from a third. When was the last time he’d been able to touch his son like this? “You’re going to scratch Alfred’s floor and I shudder to think what your consequences will be for that.”

“Yeah, but that’ll be Big Jason’s problem.” His son grinned at him as Bruce set him onto the chair properly, and Bruce was nearly ashamed of exactly how close to catching his breath came. “Far as I know, I’ve got a social studies test and Robin-ing to do. I can do anything I want, and I’m not gonna be the one who has to deal with anythin’ I do. It’s like having No Tomorrow, it’s great.”

Bruce laughed, shaking his head. “You’re a very bad child,” he informed him. It was pull on this mask of being okay with the situation or go insane. Thank god he was a good actor. “But I have missed you. You don’t live here anymore.”

“Cause I’m a grown-up with my own borough and stuff, yeah.” His eyes wandered around the room curiously. Bruce thanked god that he could agree with this statement. “Least I didn’t abandon Gotham like Dickie. Guess she’s not his though, not like she’s ours. The circus traveled ‘round and stuff, so it’s not the same for him. He loves ‘er but he doesn’t… have the same feelings about her.”

“No.” Bruce rested his cheek against Jason’s hair, keeping his breathing calm. “No, he doesn’t get Gotham the way that we do. I’m so proud of what you’ve accomplished, Jason. Your people trust you, they know they’re safe with you. You’re a good man. But I’ve missed you being home.” Would Jason remember this? Would it just be smoke to him, manipulation in his eyes? Bruce squeezed him a little. “Are you tired?”

“Nah,” Jason said, and immediately ruined his own lie with a yawn. He scowled at Bruce when the older man laughed. “Whatever,” he huffed, hopping off his chair to go over to his bed. “I patrolled today and got shrunk and almost got me and Timmy away from you when you were acting like a weird Imposter Batman, and I watched most of that Disney movie. What’ve you done tonight other than harass little kids all across Crime Alley?” He threw his blankets around himself dramatically as he flopped sideways into bed.

Bruce laughed again and tucked him in. “Go to sleep,” he told his son warmly. He could do this. It was fine. He could hold himself together until he got out of the room, it was fine. It would be fine. “I’ll be here in the morning. I’m letting Tim sleep on the couch because he won’t know where he is when he wakes up. But you’re okay here?” He rested his hand on Jason’s head, memorizing the way he smiled.

Years. So many years and so much pain and grief since he had last seen that beautiful, truly happy smile on his child’s face.

“Yeah.” Jason muffled a yawn as he rolled over, snuggling down into his mattress. “Night, Dad,” he mumbled, already halfway asleep with the words, and Bruce stayed where he was for a long beat, inhaling slowly to keep himself calm.

Dad.

When was the last time any of this soft peace between them had existed?

Before he died?

No, even before that. They’d been fighting so much in those last couple months, arguing, and the incident with Garzonasa had only made it so much drastically worse.

What were the chances this would wear off overnight, on its own? That Bruce would wake either to this room empty or a fully grown man laying in this bed? It was the easiest case scenario, and the best-case. A magic user who wasn’t talented, who couldn’t do any kind of lasting spells that would have to be undone manually… They’d run into such situations before, and it was what he should hope for.

It was wrong to want this for even a moment longer. Jason wouldn’t be here by choice. He would be an adult in an instant and nowhere near Bruce, and he wouldn’t appreciate the fact that Bruce had accepted this opportunity to hug him and talk to him like nothing had ever gone so horribly fucking wrong.

Maybe that’s why he dreaded the spell wearing off, really. Not because Jason would be an adult, but he’d be lost to Bruce again. He’d be furious and bitter again, so far removed from the boy in the bed in front of him who called him his father and smiled at him as if Bruce deserved the simple love and trust the boy was giving him.

It hurt to swallow. It hurt nearly as much to turn and leave the room, walking back down the stairs. The three on the couch were still asleep together, and Bruce was about to go back upstairs to his own bed when he caught a flash of color and motion outside.

Clark.

Bruce was outside in an instant, looking up for him and reaching out a hand. He had been planning to call him, partially because he had seen as many surreal things as a member of the League as Bruce had, but mostly because he wanted him right now. He wanted that strength and solidness that Clark Kent exuded as a bulwark with which to steady himself against the fragile peace of his son calling him dad and hugging him back.

Bruce was always in control, steadfastly solid for everyone in his life, self-sufficient to a fault… but when he felt like he was going to fall, Clark was always there to catch him.

“Hey, Bruce,” he murmured as he landed, reaching out to wrap an arm around Bruce’s shoulders and pull him into a hug. He couldn’t quite fight the second-nature impulse to stiffen at being hugged, even after four kids and the past two years of whatever it was he and Clark were doing, but he relaxed after a split second as his partner’s fingers curled into Bruce’s hair, massaging against the back of his head. “Conner texted me,” he said with a smile, pressing his cheek to Bruce’s head. “How are they? How are you?”

Bruce rested his forehead against Clark’s shoulder, sinking into his warmth. He was always like a tiny sun, and it was so comforting no matter what else was happening. “Jason is probably twelve,” he offered after a few more beats. “He knows me, the house, he stated that he had a US History test, and he took US History in seventh grade. He may be about to turn thirteen, but I can’t tell yet. He knows Alfred, Dick, he’s lived with us for two years to his knowledge. He called me Dad.” Bruce was proud of how steady he sounded on that word. Years and years of acting, thank god. “Timothy is four, as he says. He’s confused but likes the boys and Conner, they’re asleep right now.”

“Likes the boys and Conner- not you?” A thread of amusement in his voice. “Do you freeze up and get Batman stoic on him every time you look at how young he is? You’ve never had one that young.”

Bruce sighed, wrinkling his nose a little. “He is… very tiny. I held him.” He’d felt so fragile, so delicate, sitting on Bruce’s hip. He couldn’t imagine how much more nerve-wracking it would be to hold him any younger than he was. “I need you to look at him- he seems so small for his age and I haven’t had a chance to research that yet. We can correct any nutritional delays now and prevent further issues.”

“I can do that. I called Zatanna as well. She’ll be able to Zeta into the Cave as soon as you say you’re ready.” His hand massaged across the back of Bruce’s neck. “She’s handled de-aging spells before, Hal got hit by one last year, and Barry only a few months back.”

“We should have left Hal as a child, he would have been more useful.” Bruce closed his eyes and Clark chuckled, his partner’s hand feeling nearly magical on his skin. “I appreciate you for contacting Zatanna, I was planning on calling you both once the boys were asleep.”

“Mm.” Clark’s lips brushed his forehead and he was quiet a moment, then, “You didn’t answer the question, Bats. How are you?”

Bruce curled his fingers into Clark’s beltloops, thinking through the question. Clark Kent was one of few people Bruce could be honest with, who could understand. “Conflicted,” he said after a moment, ashamed of the answer. “Jason is… happy. He’s happy here, happy with me, content. He protects and enjoys Tim, is acting like a brother to him, and Tim is enjoying it. I would never take his life from him, what he’s built. I saw the people he protects, Clark. They have so much trust in him, and it’s amazing. I want him to be himself, to go back to his life, to continue having that trust and faith that he’s earned. But he wants me in his life, like this. He likes Tim, he enjoys our life.” He was utterly pathetic, wishing this could continue just a little longer. “I will not keep him this way. He deserves to be the man he’s fought to be. But seeing the boy he was is… different than I expected. And Timothy is problematic. There’s something going on with his family that I didn’t know, and I should have known, I should have been paying attention.”

“He’s four,” Clark reminded him, voice low and gentle. “He has been through a great deal of confusion and stress. How he’s acting now is not necessarily an indicator of his normal life.” He combed his fingers through Bruce’s hair and rested their foreheads together. “I’m sorry about Jason,” he murmured, quieter still. Bruce’s hands tightened around his partner’s arms. “I’m sorry he was taken from you in the first place, and that you have to remember losing him this way. Having him here and then having him age up isn’t so different from what happened the first time.” He hugged Bruce a little closer and Bruce leaned into him, inhaling the warmth and the outdoors-scent of him, the way he always smelled like fresh air. “But he’s not being hurt. There’s closure and warning this time. And maybe he’ll remember these good moments when he returns to himself.”

Bruce took in a breath, held it, then let it out and repeated the exercise, a meditation technique to keep calm that he’d been using for years. “Yes,” he agreed when he trusted his voice. “Probably. And he will likely see them as nothing more than a manipulation, as he has seen anything I have tried in the last few years. But maybe eventually, he’ll see it in a different light.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. He’s safe for now, and he will be fine. It’s good to know that he is so well thought-of in Crime Alley. I wasn’t aware how deep it went.”

“He is still Jason, even as an adult,” Clark reminded him, squeezing him once before releasing him. “Angry, bitter, and yes, resentful- of you and of the lines you drew rightly for yourself. But he is also still the boy you scooped out of the Alley in the first place, who you taught to protect others. Not all of that was drowned in the Pit, it’s still there. It just looks different now.” He headed into the house, following Bruce, and shot a smile at the menu Alfred had pinned to the board in the kitchen as they passed through.

“Tell Alfred that Ma sends her regards, if I leave before he wakes up. She was working on a pie for you when I left, I’ll have Conner pick it up and bring it back in the morning.”

“I’d better give him advance notice,” Bruce murmured, pausing to write a note on a pad of paper that Alfred kept on the countertop near the stove. “If he doesn’t have a souffle or something to trade her, he’ll have a heart attack.”

Clark chuckled fondly, pushing his hands into his pockets. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to how cute that is.”

Bruce shook his head, feeling a smile cross his face despite himself and the situation they’d all found themselves in. “One of these days I will arrange for the Kents to come here and your mother can meet him properly,” he informed his partner. “Alfred will be delighted. How are the boys at the farm?” He glanced into the TV room as they continued on, checking that Tim and Dick were still curled up asleep. They were, and he turned off the TV. Conner was snoring, head fallen back over the back of the couch, a hand on Tim’s tiny foot, and Clark’s eyes gentled at the sight.

“Sorry about him breaking into Gotham again,” he said, though he didn’t sound all that repentant as he studied his clone’s face. “They’re getting more attached. It’s any day now that they announce they’re dating… it’s ridiculous that they think we don’t know. You know Conner let Timothy put a tracker in him?”

“What?” Bruce looked at him, then the boys, frowning slightly. “No, I didn’t. Tim hasn’t said anything about it. Why does he have a tracker?”

“The excuse was ‘fair’s fair, I can find him and now he can find me.’” Clark’s voice was dry. “He played it off like he was just leveling the playing ground, but… just for the boy’s peace of mind, I think. I noticed it after a fight the other day when I scanned him. They had to use a Kryptonite knife to cut the skin open.” He sounded equal parts unsettled and unnerved about that, but his hand was gentle when he reached out to ruffle Kon’s hair.

Bruce considered, then inclined his head. He couldn’t entirely blame him- it unsettled him, sometimes, when he couldn’t locate Clark immediately. He didn’t blame Tim for trying to find some form of peace when his ‘best friend’ was concerned.

Conner Kent was as much Tim’s ‘best friend’ as Clark Kent had been Bruce’s ‘best friend’ for the years preceding their relationship as it was now. From what he’d sleuthed, Tim and Kon had started dating three months prior, and it was only a matter of time before they felt comfortable enough coming out as a couple. Bruce wasn’t sure if they felt insecure about the status of the relationship or if they were just avoiding familial reactions to the news.

Dick thought it was two months prior, only having uncovered it last month, and that gave Bruce a constant sense of superiority… although Damian had been the one to scathingly let the secret slip to him in the first place. Apparently the boy’s habit of eavesdropping where Tim was concerned had actually paid off. He had only agreed not to force Tim’s hand when Bruce had ordered his silence. No doubt when the news did break, Damian would have a variety of colorful insults to unleash that he’d been working on for the last two months. Dick meanwhile would be suffocatingly supportive, and Bruce… hadn’t entirely determined how he would offer his congratulations.

It was… awkward to congratulate his pseudo-son on dating the underaged clone of the man Bruce himself was seeing. He was leaning toward a noncommittal hn, an approving nod, and giving Tim entry codes to the gate for Conner to use in the future.

“Timothy is as careful about Kryptonite as I am,” Bruce said, rather than voicing any of these opinions. “He has confiscated most of it from his brothers and put it away where he feels secure about its safety. He would not use it without thought and care.”

“I know. It’s still a lot to think about.” Clark rounded the couch and looked down at them, smiling a little. The smile faded as he tilted his head, eyes turning to an intent searching, and he reached out, lifting one of Tim’s arms carefully to be able to better examine him. His head tilted the other direction and he laid his arm back down, turning the boy slowly onto his back so as not to wake him. “Hm,” he repeated, the sound troubled, and Bruce tensed. “You said he’s four?”

“That’s what Tim told us,” he agreed. “But he speaks very well for a four-year old… though he’s brilliant, so I imagine he was intelligent enough back then to speak as he does.” He moved forward. “I don’t remember Jon being this small when he was this young. It could be genetics- his mother was petite if I remember correctly, and his father wasn’t tall, but still. Do you see something wrong?”

“Yeah.” Clark let out a long breath, expression crumpling a little in something like pity. Bruce felt slayed by that simple syllable. They watched Tim squirm closer to the warmth of Dick again, burrowing his face against his brother’s Superman hoodie. “His bone density is wrong, his lungs have signs of strain to them. He’s too pale, he’s just… not right.” He ran a hand through his hair, eyes tightening. “The Drakes had money. I shouldn’t be seeing this in a boy from Bristol.”

Bruce let his fingers brush Tim’s hair as Dick smiled in his sleep, arms tightening around the little boy. He needed to stay calm. This was fine, they would fix it.

Had the boy he loved like his own been abused and he hadn’t noticed? Had he just ignored it? What had he missed? “Is he being injured? Neglected? What would cause this?”

If the Drakes were hurting or neglecting Timothy Drake, Bruce would-

Would what?

The Drakes were dead. Three months now, Timothy had been an orphan under his uncle’s care. There was no one who Bruce could punish for this, no one he could throw everything he had at. He couldn’t ruin them, couldn’t destroy their reputations, their jobs, their livelihoods. He couldn’t pay them a visit as the Bat and teach them exactly how poor a choice they had made.

He couldn’t swoop in and take legal custody of the boy who should by rights be his.

So what could Bruce do, even if he received confirmation that the worst had been happening years ago?

“Malnutrition.” Clark let out a breath of sharp frustration, blinking at the fireplace to dispel the faint sheen of red to his eyes. “Long-term, typically. I see it more in smaller countries or impoverished areas, but the size, the bone density, it doesn’t lie. There’s no way he was seeing a doctor regularly when he was this small, they would have picked up on the stunted growth. It isn’t dire, it isn’t lethal, but it’s there.”

“He’s a toddler.” Bruce’s voice had dropped to the Batman tone, fists clenched. “Even if they were on their digs- who was watching him? Who was taking care of him?” Thomas and Martha Wayne had always been incredibly involved in their son’s life even as they were busy with their own causes and with work, but he had heard them say that if they didn’t have someone like Alfred to ensure that Bruce was looked-after, they would have cut back on other things.

What the fuck had the Drakes been doing?

He hadn’t met Tim for years, even as Bruce Wayne. He had known the Drakes had a son who wasn’t too much younger than Jason, but hadn’t really thought of it. Everyone knew they traveled for their digs and expeditions, he had always assumed they had taken him with them, and given that he and Jason were vigilantes he hadn’t considered trying to foster a friendship with a neighbor. Therefore, Bruce knew next to nothing about them and their relationship with their son. Were things more difficult when they traveled, so they had cut back on Tim’s food? No, that didn’t make sense, Tim hadn’t seemed even slightly concerned about finding himself in Gotham rather than overseas- and he hadn’t seemed surprised that they weren’t the ones being contacted, either. He had accepted the news of his uncle being the point of contact. That meant he had to have been at home while they were gone.

Was it neglect from his caretakers, then? Whatever nannies had been hired, acting out while his parents weren’t around? Had they threatened him into silence to avoid him telling his parents and that’s why he hadn’t wanted Bruce to contact them? Had they used food as a motivator and a punishment?

“If he’s this smart now,” Clark murmured, almost to himself as he stared down at the three children on the couch, “What would he have been like in a normal family? Growth stunting affects education, affects learning, social skills, all of it. Lord, Bruce, he could have been as smart as Lex Luthor for all we know.” He dragged a hand through his hair, turning away to pace a little as he thought, rising into the air and walking on nothingness. Bruce had wondered before if he even knew he did that when he was stressed. Was it subconscious? Or was it a very deliberate choice to keep himself from walking hard, from cracking the floor beneath his feet with the power he always kept so neatly in check? Bruce had always found it endearing, but not even that normality could keep him calm right now.

“He could have done anything. He’s capable of anything now, but if he had been in a situation where he was treated properly, it could have-” Bruce closed his mouth, aware that his voice was rising slightly and not wanting to wake the sleeping kids. He brushed his hand through Tim’s hair again, tucking the blanket around them as Conner stirred slightly, then snored again. “They’re dead and gone, what can I even do? Where was this uncle when all of this neglect was happening? Where are his nannies, his family’s help? Alfred would have never allowed this to happen, if my parents were neglecting me.”

“Ask him,” Clark suggested, turning and catching Bruce’s arms, running his hands down them in an effort to soothe. Bruce barely felt it, tension thrumming under his skin like a heartbeat. Maybe that was his heartbeat, threatening to pound out of his skin. Some small part of him heard Tim’s tiny is it real loud and he wondered if it seemed overwhelming to Clark when he was so close. “He’s not going to lie well if at all right now about who’s taking care of him, he’d probably tell you who’s responsible for him.” He paused. “Although, that may be immoral,” he allowed with an exhale, rubbing his forehead. “If he wouldn’t tell you normally…”

“Morality is not a concern when he’s been brainwashed and potentially threatened into lying about it.” Bruce shook his head. “It would be different if I was coercing him to do something else, but this is to ensure that he’s safe. It isn’t for my gain, it’s his protection.”

Clark inclined his head and watched them a beat before nudging his shoulder. “Do you want Zatanna to take a look at them now, or later tonight?”

“Now.” Regardless of how sweet they were, how soothing it was to be able to speak to Jason normally, he wanted them put back to rights as soon as he could. “I’ll wake Tim and speak to him before she undoes what happened, however. Thank you.” He met Clark’s eyes. “I do not say it overmuch, but I am grateful.”

“The Bat? Grateful? I’ll have to write an article about it.” His smile was bright and dazzling. Bruce sighed and elbowed him away rather than let himself be swept away with just how beautiful his partner was. “Scoop up Tim, we can bring him down to the Cave without waking him so you don’t have to let Zatanna into the Manor itself. If she can put him back to normal tonight, we can bring Jason downstairs, too.”

Bruce looked down at the tiny boy sleeping and hesitated. “He’s tired,” he said after a moment. “Moving him will wake him.”

“You want to let someone from the League into your home? This really does have you out of sorts.” Clark’s eyes crinkled and Bruce sighed, acquesing the point regardless. “If you put on the cowl though, just the interior of this place won’t tell her where she is or who you are, necessarily.”

Bruce glanced at Dick, unmasked and comfortable, and shook his head. “No,” he disagreed. “It puts others at risk, it’s fine.” He carefully lifted Tim, resting the boy’s head on his shoulder as he did his best not to wake him. “The others could come in without knowing there’s someone else here.”

“They generally sleep pretty heavy at that age, anyway,” Clark said fondly, watching as Tim mumbled something and cuddled up against Bruce’s chest. “Like puppies. I’ve carried Jon off the couch to bed more times than I can count.”

“Really?” Bruce looked down at the soft look on the boy's face and anger rose again as he rubbed Tim’s back. “I don’t know what’s going on with his uncle, but if it is untoward, I will remove him immediately,” he informed them both. “Timothy is… important. I would bring him into our home as soon as he wakes, if I could.”

“It may not be that easy,” Clark warned him gently. “He’s a good kid, but a stubborn one. If he was being mistreated by his parents and not his caretakers in their absence-” Sometimes it was amazing how similar their thought processes worked, “-then that kind of behavior may be normalized to him at this point. He may resist any attempt to interfere in his life or relationship with his uncle.”

“I’m not asking his permission,” Bruce informed his partner as he headed into the Cave. “He’s not an adult. He doesn’t have the choice to stay in an abusive home.”

“Maybe it isn’t anymore,” Clark soothed as he crossed to the Zeta tube to type in a set of commands. “Maybe his caretakers were for the first few years of his life. You said he’s with his uncle presently, right?”

“Yes.” Bruce looked down at Tim begrudgingly. “He has an uncle at the moment… but there’s something going on with that. Kon lied about it.”

“Kon lied?” Clark looked up at him, frowning hard, and there was a chime.

Zatanna, the tube announced, and Bruce looked at his suit, which was still hanging up. He could pull the cowl… but this was Zatanna. She had been part of the League for years. He had known her throughout her entire adulthood. She was about to see two of his sons without their masks, something more intimate than seeing his own face would be.

It was more a split second decision than a plan that had him balancing Tim against his chest rather than reaching for the mask, and then she stepped out, sweeping dark hair out of her face. “Hel-“ she stopped immediately, staring at Bruce for a beat. Her eyes widened drastically, then seemed forced down to look intently at Tim instead. “-lo there, Red Robin. He is so small, ugh. Have you taken photos? That’s always the only good thing that comes out of these spells.”

She was talking just a shade too fast, clearly unnerved by being summoned to the Batcave in the middle of the day to see Clark in civilian clothes and Bruce with no mask, but she seemed to be taking it well enough. Better than Green Arrow or Lantern would have anyway- god, they would have made it a whole spectacle and he was incredibly grateful not to have to deal with that.

As-was, there was actually a slight chance Zatanna didn’t recognize him. She didn’t exactly frequent the same charity balls and events that Bruce Wayne did. And if she did recognize him… It was a calculated risk. She was powerful, and smart enough to keep whatever she learned today a secret. It wasn’t the first time they’d had to call for her aid in Gotham and wouldn’t be the last. She was one of very few in the League that he wouldn’t feel uncomfortable knowing the truth, and her reaction to him just now was further validation of that choice.

And, in the slim possibility of the absolute worst-case scenario that he was wrong and she couldn’t be trusted… he had contingencies for that.

He cleared his throat and settled on one of the chairs. “Yes, I took a photo of him and Nightwing sleeping, and Nightwing took quite a few pictures of him and Red Hood earlier.” Dick had sent him an entire album and Bruce had saved them immediately, his favorite Jason and Tim laughing together as Dick chased them around the room, with Conner taking the photo. His second-favorite might be Dick and Tim sleeping together, though, comfortable and secure. “He is very small, but we would like him to be returned to his normal state. Can you tell what happened? There wasn't any security footage of the area.”

She nodded, holding up her hands. “Tel em ees ruoy cigam,” she murmured, waving the right over Tim’s body as the left stayed steady and stationary in the air. Her eyes glowed gold and she leaned forward, moving her fingers through something they couldn’t see. “Tel em ees ruoy sraey,” she said after a beat, forehead pinching slightly. There was a faint golden blur in the air near her fingers, and then she clicked her tongue, dropping her hands.

“Will it wear off on its own or will they need your help?” Clark looked at her and she blew out a breath.

“It definitely isn’t wearing off on its own, you’ll need me. Look-“ she raised a finger. “Lausiv sdia,” she murmured, and a ball of yarn appeared, hanging in the air on the right, while to its left was a slice of a tree, rings somewhere in the thirties on display.

“Okay,” Clark agreed politely, looking but clearly not seeing the connection in these two items. Bruce frowned, looking between them and running through what he knew about tree rings and the like.

“Memory is tricky. It makes itself up, sometimes regardless of what actually happened. It’s not as bad with cases like these, where the mind is clean and hasn’t ever been tampered with before. Situations like these can be thought of in two dimensional form or three dimensional form. You start out life with a thread, and with every hour, that thread winds round and around, creating your ball of yarn. If you were to slice that ball of yarn in half, it would more or less resemble the tree, with each year of your life being a ring.” She waved between the two images in the air between them.

“Amnesia spells,” she continued, “In essence try to dye the thread, change how it looks without changing how much there actually is, which is why you don’t lose time. De-aging, on the other hand, actually unwinds your ball, so to speak. The yarn is still there, it doesn’t have to be created all over again, but it wouldn’t make a tree ring either because it’s all been taken apart. You lose the years of your life, but they can be rewound to put back exactly what was there before.”

“That makes sense.” Bruce rubbed Tim’s back as the boy shifted a little in his sleep, and stroked his hair. He didn’t like the sound of this, but unfortunately Hal had more or less been the same since his issue, apparently. So this wasn’t necessarily something that would affect him long-term. “So then what do we need to do? They can’t stay like this. How do we fix what happened?”

“That’s the tricky thing here.” Her eyebrows drew together. “Their time wasn’t unwound- it was cut out. Like someone reached in and carved out the extra rings to leave them with fewer.”

“What?” Clark straightened again and Bruce froze, hand on Tim’s back stilling. “You said that isn’t what typically happens?”

“No.” She eyed Tim, dragging her thumb along her lips as she watched the tree sample lose rings until it had only seven left, the ball of yarn suddenly drastically smaller. “Their time wasn’t unwound, it was just taken away from them entirely.”

Bruce’s mind flicked through the remaining options. “Then, it’s simple. We find the person who hurt them, who took the time, and force them to replace it. That’s what we have to do.”

“Yes.” She nodded. “But that can’t be any of you doing it. This is powerful magic, potentially even demonic. Any one of you could have your time taken as well, if not just be killed outright. Especially the Kryptonians.” She looked pointedly at Clark, who frowned at her.

“I don’t see how we are more at risk.”

“Because you are less careful.” She exhaled a sigh, keeping it from being as annoyed as it might have come off otherwise. “And because your time is undoubtedly richer than a human’s. I’ll call John, have him meet me here, and the two of us can look into any residual traces of magic that might be left around. I know the Red Hood prefers him anyway.” She waved a hand as she pulled out her phone.

Clark’s frown deepened and he shot Bruce a did you know that look.

Bruce watched her with a slow frown of his own. He hadn’t known that, as a matter of fact. “John Constantine is not allowed in Gotham,” he said firmly. Although he would bend the rules if it would help the children get back to where they needed to be, but still, how had this preference been created in the first place? “Why would the Hood have any relationship with him at all?”

“Do you really want the answer to that question?” She arched an eyebrow in a way uncomfortably similar to the way Stephanie or Barbara might, not looking up from her phone. Bruce paused, staring at her. No. She most certainly was just trying to irritate him- Jason didn’t hate him enough to start dating John Constantine. “Point is, we’ll handle it. But that means that while we do, the rest of you need to take a break from patrolling. I don’t want to have to worry about what energies you’re stirring up.”

“Are you benching me?” Bruce drew himself up, affronted. “I have a duty to take care of this city, I have people I need to protect. I cannot just disappear, absolutely not. Do you have any idea the sheer amount of chaos that will reign if the Bats all disappear for days?”

“Give me four.” She raised her chin, looking at him seriously. “I can handle anything big. Petty crime will rise, you’re right, but it would take a couple days for people to realize that you aren’t just elsewhere in the city. That only gives two days for common citizens to get up to problems. Constantine and I will root out whatever’s going on here and keep the city from burning to the ground.” Her eyes flicked briefly to Clark and she thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. “No,” she decided. “Sorry, you’ll have to mind your own city. I’ll call in Flash and have him keep an eye on the city with us. He’s fast enough to avoid anything magical half the time anyway, and fast enough to quickly handle whatever problems arise here before getting out of the spotlight before someone can target him.”

“Oh, that’ll get him to calm down,” Clark agreed under his breath. “Bench him and invite three metas into his city.”

“What?” Bruce barely registered Clark’s comment, getting to his feet as he bristled. “You’re telling me that you are going to bring other heroes into my city, to patrol my city, and meanwhile I am benched and so are my team and my children have to remain infants?!”

“It’s a four-day situation.” Her eyes raised to his, a flash of steel in them. “John and I aren’t patrolling as much as figuring out the problem and cleaning up messes on our way. Wally is the one who will be patrolling. But Bat- but Bruce, we don’t know what happened to the time that was taken. If it was destroyed somehow or used somehow, it could be gone. Someone needs to be able to take care of the kids if that did happen and I doubt you want them in Gotham’s foster system.”

Tim garbled sleepily against his neck as Bruce’s hand anchored at his back, his stomach dropping at that concept. But Dick wouldn’t let that happen, and neither would Alfred, even if Bruce weren’t here. They wouldn’t go into the foster system here.

“We don’t know what happened or why,” Zatanna pressed a little more gently at his silence. “But if your team goes out there and doesn’t know what to look for, which we don’t right now, this could happen to more of you. It could happen to you yourself. The Batman won’t be able to help Gotham if he’s six, and he won’t be able to protect his kids that way either.”

Bruce curled his hands around Tim, mind racing. All of his memories with his children, gone. His sons, all of whom had gone through so much in their short lives, suddenly losing the only stable father figure most of them had ever had. Bruce was prideful, he was on occasion reckless with his own safety and absolutely diligent with his city… but he couldn’t leave them entirely alone, throw Dick into a parenting role and Alfred to raising him all over again along with the others.

He shook his head, pacing with Tim. “This is ridiculous,” he growled, well-aware that it was Batman, not Bruce, who growled. “You have four days. I will pull them back for that time period. Superman, we should leave Damian and Jon at the farm. Damian is happy there, content, and Jon is safer than he would be here. Magic that hurts us can have devastating effects on Kryptonians.”

Clark nodded, expression tightening. “I’ll see if Kon-El would be willing to join them,” he said, though he didn’t sound like he expected that to go over well. Bruce was absolutely certain that it wouldn’t- especially with Tim being down. Conner tended to stick wherever Tim was, when his Robin was injured. “I’ll add Constantine’s access in,” he said after a beat, and crossed to the Zeta tube.

“Thank you.” Zatanna nodded at them both. “I’ll message Flash and see what his availability looks like to keep an eye on Gotham.”

This, Bruce decided grimly, was a mess.

Notes:

Thank you thank you thank you for your comments last time and for reading the chapter this time! After this chapter, the rest is more centered on the kids and the Batfam, so we've got the big exposition out of the way!

Leave a comment if you're inclined to make us smile and make DC weep, and have a great day! You're worth all of it!

Chapter 4: Saturday

Summary:

The first twenty-four hours were great, almost unsettlingly perfect...

Notes:

I got a new job and the training is kicking my ass, but I told myself y'all deserved a cute fluff chapter so here I am to deliver it!

Regardless of the mess Bruce’s family had found itself in, the first twenty-four hours passed pretty painlessly. Kon did in fact refuse to leave, which in his defense was a decision no doubt much impacted by how much Tim liked to play with him. The little boy introduced the teenager to Zatanna and Wally as his ‘best and most favorite’ friend, beaming at this accomplishment, and Kon had looked somewhere between happy and disgruntled at the friend label. Bruce could imagine- if Clark were suddenly a child, it would be difficult to really feel comfortable even touching him platonically.

Constantine was not allowed to meet either of the boys, and so he was not given this glowing introduction. Bruce ensured that he stayed away. The fact of the matter was that people died around John Constantine. His allies and colleagues met untimely ends more often than not, with the exception of Zatanna and one Chas Chandler, and Bruce’s nerves were being pushed enough as it was with the man staying in Gotham. Who knew what kind of attention he’d attract to the already problem-riddled city.

Zatanna explained to the boys that she was working on getting them back to normal, then left before breakfast- which was immediately followed up by a video call with Tim’s team.

“He’s so little!” Cassie Sandmark’s voice was nearly a squeal as she pushed Bart Allen out of the way to stare down at the phone, which was cast to the overlarge television in the room. Tim was settled in Kon’s side, Jason sprawled out with a book on the floor while Wally and Dick played checkers next to him, and Bruce paused in the doorway to watch as Tim flushed pink and smiling. “Hera, we should just leave him like that!”

“We are not leaving him like this,” Kon complained, disgruntled. “Absolutely the fu- no. Hell no. He’s four years old!”

“Hi,” Tim offered to them, and Bart nudged back into frame, peering in at them.

“Hi, little dude! You look totally the same if we’re being honest and that’s okay because someone is finally shorter than me and I love it also is that the Hood?”

“Laugh while you can, I’m gonna be huge again soon,” Jason said idly, turning a page in his book without quite pulling off the fact that his ears had gone pink. Bart laughed.

“You’re way less angry this way, we should keep you like this too!”

Jason paused, eyes stilling on the page, and Bruce moved forward quickly, settling on the chair beside his son.

“All teenagers are angry, Jason is merely young enough to still respect his elders,” he informed the group, raising an eyebrow at them.

Kon winced. “Yeah, it’s teenage hormones that get us all in the end, it’s crazy. Tim, this is our team.” He smiled down at him, expression softening a little. “Cassie and Bart.”

“And they’re my friends too?” He looked a little overwhelmed at the concept and Cassie cooed from the other end of the line. Wally, who had been spending the day with Dick in their usual brand of loud, boisterously joyful chaos, grinned from the floor and threw one of Dick’s checkers at the camera. Both boys were noisy and happy people individually, but it was so much worse together. It was good to see Dick smile like that though, and Wally had turned out to be excellent with both Tim and Jason, the latter of whom much preferred him over Kon.

“You’ve got tons of friends, little dude. Even the Titans love you.”

Jason glanced sideways at him, then focused on his book again, turning the page carefully. “Am I a Titan now?” He inquired, and Cassie and Bart both looked immediately askance and alarmed on the massive television, impeding any attempt at playing this off smoothly that they could have made. Jason’s eyes flicked to the screen, then down to his book, and he snapped it shut a little harder than necessary. “Got it. Cool.”

“You’re not really a team kind of guy,” Wally offered, then winced. “Like- you don’t want one. ‘I work alone’ vibes, you know?”

“You stay primarily in Gotham,” Bruce advised, feeling a little uneasy at the look on his son’s face. “Whereas the Titans and Young Justice travel for their missions. You have particular territory that you watch over, while the Titans and the Young Justice do not.”

“You’ve got like a little kingdom,” Kon agreed, a little too quickly. “None of us are allowed there.”

“Huh.” Jason left it at that, and Bart hastily picked up the thread of conversation, babbling rapidly to Tim about what it was like to be four years old.

The sense of disquiet haunted the room nonetheless, lingering for a long few minutes and sharpening the edges of Jason’s tone, but Dick and Wally wrangled him and Kon into a video game after the phone call was over, and the mood lightened distinctly after that.

In the afternoon, they all went to the museum exhibit Dick and Bruce had promised to take Tim to. The speedster in their midst was barely remaining passably human, zipping around and back any time he was confident no civilian was paying attention to him, which was a source of constant tension for Bruce. Dick didn’t even seem to notice, this behavior apparently par for the course. Bruce found himself glad that the freckled redhead was somewhat intimidated by the Bat Stare and therefore didn’t come around very often under normal circumstances.

The positive of this, however, was that Wally easily found the different noteworthy displays that the boys would find more exciting, leading them on from there. Jason was bored by the time and space exhibit, but was interested in the history section of the museum, staring with the same huge-eyed interest he always had at the Ancient Egypt and Meso-American artifacts. He’d loved them since he was a tiny child, and Bruce spent a lot of time there with him, talking over the finer points of the exhibits and the different artifacts.

He’d forgotten how Jason lit for these things, how beautifully his mind spun stories out of them. It was a wonder to watch him, and it was something Bruce had missed so much.

Tim, on the other hand, looked utterly bored by the exhibits the older boy found so fascinating. He was much more interested in being carried around on Bruce’s shoulders to feel tall, or playing tag with Kon, Dick, and Wally when they thought Bruce or the other museum-goers weren’t paying attention. Bruce supposed that was somewhat understandable, given the Drake name that adorned so many of these plaques as to who had brought the items to Gotham in the first place. Tim had probably spent most of his life seeing and potentially even touching these things. It made sense, really, that a constant topic of conversation in his home would bore him.

Especially if said artifacts were the reason his parents left. It would make sense if he was almost resentful of them.

The little group wandered through the museum and then to a pizza restaurant for lunch, where Jason challenged Tim and Dick to a breadstick tower-building competition.

“You can’t pile ‘em like Jenga, that’s cheating,” he advised to Tim seriously as Dick immediately set to work on a masterpiece. “They gotta stand on their ends, Timbers.”

“Okay,” Tim agreed, little face crinkling with intense focus as he carefully tried to lean two breadsticks together. It became immediately apparent that Kon-El was cheating and helping to support the breadsticks with his TTK when Tim’s increasingly-improbable tower began branching out like a tree. Jason stared at it, his own tower half-forgotten as Tim stuck his tongue between his teeth and cautiously added a dip of marinara to the top.

“How are you doin’ that?” he asked, bewildered. “Goldie, you see this shit?”

Dick grinned, sneakily trying to stick a chopstick into one of Jason’s breadsticks. “Kon’s got telekinesis,” he offered, keeping his voice low so it couldn’t be heard by the other chattering patrons of the restaurant. “He mostly uses it to cheat, so we should really not allow him around when we do things like this.”

“That’s hurtful.” Kon grinned down at Tim. “I rarely cheat. I’m just helping, it’s good to be helpful.”

“You have telekinesis?” Tim stared up at him, eyes wide and curious. “Does it hurt?”

Bruce laughed and shook his head. “Conner has what we call TTK,” he explained. “It’s a kind of telekinesis that feels like actual hands, rather than just pressure. It is an unusual gift for a Kryptonian.”

“It doesn’t hurt,” Kon assured Tim. “You’ve done a ton of tests to help me figure it out so I’ve got a pretty good handle on it now. We do all kinds of things like that, you love to work with our powers and test the boundaries.” That flicker of sadness appeared again as he looked back at the stick tower. “You’re the best team leader.”

“Wow.” Tim marveled at this, then reached out, tapping Kon’s hand cautiously with a breadstick. “You can have this,” he offered gently. “We were just playing, you can still eat it. Don’t be sad.”

Kon gave a little laugh, expression crumpling slightly, and Bruce quickly asked Jason if he remembered much about Kryptonians to distract, uncomfortable.

Conner and Tim had been dating. As difficult as this was for Bruce, he had to imagine it was incredibly difficult for the young Kryptonian who was so devoted to the powerful teammate and leader who was now a toddler.

“Just the usual stuff,” Jason agreed with a shrug as they all tuned into the new conversation. “They ain’t as cool as Amazonians. Timmers, when we get grown again, you should set me up with your Amazonian friend. That’s what brothers do.” He pointed a breadstick at him and the boys around the table laughed.

Bruce smiled too, but he couldn’t quite make it strong enough to override the wistful pang in his chest.

Brothers.

Had Jason ever seen Tim as his brother before?

Would he ever see him that way again?

They went home after dinner, and Tim and Jason sat with Bruce and Dick, the smaller boys watching in breathless fascination and awe as Kon and Wally raced circles around the grounds for them. Kon lost, repeatedly, but this didn’t seem to diminish Tim’s joy in the proceedings, since Kon was racing through the air rather than merely running as Wally was. Kon had assured Tim, when the boy had worriedly asked if his older self liked to fly, that older Tim loved it as much as Kon did.

“So this is what it’s like now?” Jason asked Dick with a snort as they watched Wally race up the side of the Manor. Bruce thought the goal might be to jump and see how high he could get, because Kon had actually landed for once and looked like he was also readying to jump, albeit from the ground with no wind-up. “Just metas and Leaguers wandering loose around Gotham all the time? You guys just let anybody in?” He shot Bruce a smirk.

“Wow,” Tim gasped, leaning back in Dick’s lap to watch as Wally and Kon both shot skyward. Dick laughed, ruffling Tim’s hair. Bruce wondered as he watched his oldest play with the now-youngest, how Dick would have liked tiny little brothers like this. He seemed very attached to Tim, enjoying his wonder at everything, and he had always been close with Damian.

He’d noticed Dick watching Tim worriedly, just as Bruce did, waiting for any signs or comments about his family that might shed light useful for later. They were both unsure about the whole thing and having more data would prove useful.

Dick shot Jason a grin, bumping him with an elbow. Bruce’s eldest was, to put it simply and clearly, thriving. He had two of his brothers home and actually getting along, something that had never happened for him before, and both were open to as much affection as he could show them. He’d off-handedly mentioned going to get Damian and Bruce had turned the idea down- he didn’t know how Damian would handle a child at the moment (much less two) and didn’t want to stress him out or make him feel insecure. Damian’s insecurity was typically accompanied by bite- be it physical or metaphorical.

“Well, we don’t just let any Leaguers or metas here,” Dick informed Jason. “Clark and Kon don’t count, since they’re dating Bruce and Tim-”

“Timothy has not told us anything about that,” Bruce reprimanded, shooting off an email to his CFO.

“-and Wally’s in Bludhaven all the time and knows our identities as well as works with Bruce all the time in Justice League,” Dick continued unrepentantly. “So no, it’s no big deal.”

Jason squinted at him suspiciously. “He’s in Bludhaven all the time, huh? Why, you need the help?”

“No, nuisance.” Dick rested his arm on Jason’s head as an armrest with a grin. “He’s my best friend, we hang out. If you weren’t so busy being rude to everybody you’d have people crashing at your place all the time, too.”

“Okay, watch this one,” Kon informed the group, launching into the air, and Bruce obeyed for a moment, considering.

If they really had lost all their years… Tim and Conner’s relationship was a hard-won thing, still new and exciting for them. It had taken them so long to find happiness in each other, and their reticence to tell anyone about it spoke volumes. Losing those years would be cruel to both boys. Although Tim wouldn’t know what he’d lost, he had still lost it. The sweet little romance that had fought so hard to survive, cut down so senselessly.

And, Bruce realized in alarm, Tim would lose his team,who loved him ferociously. A fourteen year age gap meant that even if Tim wanted to be Robin when he grew older again, his team wouldn’t be there for him to rejoin.

Jason would lose the life he’d built for himself, the trust and faith of the people who had come to depend on him. He didn’t have a team to lose the way Tim did, but he had people who worked for him, people who trusted him, people who were his friends even if they didn’t know his dual identities. Regular clients and contacts, kids he volunteered with at the little run-down library on Beattie, food truck workers he never failed to stop by. Jason was a creature of habit and that wouldn’t have been something the Pit burned out of him. He would lose the life he’d clawed together with his bare hands if he lost the years that had been taken from him.

Well, then they just wouldn’t lose the years. Bruce fished a popsicle from the cooler beside him and gave one to Jason. His son immediately stuck it deep into his older brother’s ear, taking off in a wild sprint in the opposite direction while cackling when Dick hollered. Tim whipped around to stare at Dick, scrambling out of his lap in alarm.

“Are you- you okay?” He asked, pale as Dick tried to scoop out the bits of blue popsicle mush from his ear canal. Bruce caught a glimpse of Wally, laughing hysterically and high-fiving Jason at the edge of the field.

“I’m going to go dump that kid in the lake is what I’m gonna do,” Dick informed him, straightening Tim’s shirt gently before getting up. “You’d better run,” he yelled as he launched after Jason, and Bruce snorted, holding out a hand to Tim.

“They’re playing,” he offered. “Dick won’t hurt Jason, he’s his brother. Can I trust that if I give you a popsicle, you will refrain from sticking it in my ear?”

“Yes, sir.” Tim giggled, sitting next to him again, and happily took his popsicle when Bruce cut the end off for him. He watched, still giggling a little as he watched Wally swing Jason onto his back and run out of Dick’s range. The chase’s odds were greatly evened a split second later, when Kon landed and swung Dick onto his own back to continue the pursuit. “They’re so fast,” Tim said, careening against Bruce’s side with a peal of laughter when Dick threw a stick at the other two, apparently going for ranged attacks to make up for the fact that Kon wasn’t quite fast enough to catch the speedster.

“West, you traitor!” Dick yelled as Kon clearly attempted to melt Wally’s shoes and missed, scorching the grass instead. Bruce sighed.

“They’re lucky that wasn’t Alfred’s rosebushes,” he informed Tim. “Alfred fed me only dry sandwiches for a week when I blew up three bushes as a teenager.”

“Least you got sandwiches!” Tim’s eyes crinkled up at him as he slurped on his popsicle.

“I did get sandwiches.” Bruce rested an arm around him with a smile, somewhere in the vicinity of his heart aching. Maybe little kids weren’t so bad, really. “And Alfred does make very good sandwiches. I- Conner Kent, do not-” he broke off as he was too late- Kon had already launched Dick like a javelin at Wally and Jason, his younger brother sticking his tongue out at the elder.

“Woah,” Tim breathed again, eyes going huge as he watched Wally throw Jason up into the air. He caught Dick with his other arm, swinging him around, then spring boarded off Dick’s hand to catch Jason in the air again. It was distinctly and unusually acrobatic, and absolutely something they had to have done or practiced other times before.

“Hn,” escaped him before he’d really thought about it, watching his eldest land with a loud complaint as Wally, Jason safely koala-ed on his back again, landed hard a few feet away. At least it hadn’t ended in Dick plowing into the pair and sending all that momentum into a major crash, he reasoned, though in the next moment, Dick had tackled Jason off Wally’s back anyway.

Tim giggled, though it sounded a little less certain as he watched Jason try to squirm to freedom, shouting insults as his brother sat on him. “He’s okay?” He looked up at Bruce quickly to confirm.

“He’s okay,” Bruce promised, looking down at him as Dick attacked Jason, tickling him with no mercy. “Dick’s always been bigger, but he’s always careful with you guys. He loves his brothers.”

Tim relaxed, paddling his feet with a contented sigh as he finished his popsicle and watched Jason rip out a clump of grass that he tried to shove into Dick’s mouth. “Good,” he said, happy. “I’m glad I have them. Mom said I wasn’t gonna.”

Bruce hmmed, looking out across the grass as Dick picked Jason up, spitting out the grass and running with his cargo toward the duck pond. “I never had siblings. I don’t know if I’d want them or not… but I’ve always wanted the four of you. And I’ve always been glad you four had each other. It’s good to see you guys work so well together.”

Tim smiled shyly at his feet, flexing them back and forth, and Jason shouted for aid to Wally.

“Sorry, dude! Gotta go patrol! Bye, Wonderbird!” He blew an exaggerated kiss in Dick’s direction and blurred out of sight as Jason hit the water with an explosion of cursing and spluttering. Bruce laughed, and handed Tim a second popsicle as his second son emerged like the Swamp Thing and dragged his brother into the pond with him.

The first twenty-four hours were great, almost unsettlingly perfect. It was after that when things started getting a little more complicated.

Notes:

Thank you guys so much for being patient with this release! My plan had been to publish weekly and then that went out the window with my energy levels, so I appreciate y'all coming back to read this chapter!

Leave a comment if you feel the urge, they both fuel me and my night bikes.

Chapter 5: Sunday Morning

Summary:

A movie morning gets slightly more chaotic than planned when Damian comes home. Later, more light is shone on Tim's lifestyle.

Notes:

Happy Halloween week, have an extra-long chapter as a present.

The morning of the second day went fine.

Zatanna had messaged Bruce to let him know that she and Constantine each had a couple of leads they were following up on. The Flash met Bruce in the Cave at 4 am sharp, slightly bleary-eyed, and gave a full night’s rundown. He’d stopped four muggings, two assaults, had put out a car that had been set on fire and abandoned, and had thawed out a two-block stretch of road that Mr. Freeze had iced over. There were various other smaller incidents, but it seemed for the moment that Zatanna had been correct in predicting that no one would realize immediately if Batman was not on the prowl and so it had been a relatively quiet night.

“Your city’s nuts,” he had told Bruce wisely at the end of the report, and then had flashed upstairs to eat an entire five plates of breakfast. Luckily Alfred had been forewarned and there was plenty to be had.

The rest of the family and Conner woke up not too long after, stumbling into the kitchen with yawns and greetings to dive into what remained of the breakfast spread. Wally had fallen asleep on the table in-uniform, so Jason used his back to set his milk on and propped up the copy of Jane Eyre that he had unearthed in his room at some point the day prior against the metahuman’s side. Dick just laughed and helped his brothers braid and hide things in the redhead’s hair, nearly glowing with delight at having them all in the same room.

Dick had the idea to build a blanket fort after breakfast, which had Tim dancing eagerly on his tiptoes in anticipation, and Jason tossed his book aside to help them, Kon floating around on the ceiling to make sure they had the best angles possible. The end result looked a lot like a row of circus tents and spanned across an entire three rooms. Bruce couldn’t help but wonder if some part of Dick felt nostalgic at the sight, but didn’t ask. He left that part of Dicks life alone, knowing how painful those memories could be.

Bruce crawled in with them and helped them sort out rooms in the tent, Jason darting upstairs and bringing down a stack of books to turn one of the ‘rooms’ into a mini library while Tim and Kon turned another into a theater that felt more like a drive-in than anything. Alfred brought them all snacks when they were done, and they stretched out in their theater-fort, watching Moana while munching on popcorn and cuddling into the immense pillows they’d scattered everywhere.

Wally appeared by the end credits and clambered in to stretch out on Dick’s other side, and Bruce didn’t fail to notice that Dick shifted so their entire bodies were pressed together along their sides from ankle to shoulder, Dick’s hand sometimes stealthily moving to massage Wally’s upper back and shoulders. They put on the next movie, which Jason picked to be Anastasia. They were halfway through when Kon got up to use the bathroom, and then-

“Uh- Mr. Wayne!” He called maybe ten minutes later, sounding mildly alarmed, and Bruce had already pushed Tim into Dick’s chest, sitting up as Jason hopped into a crouch. A second later-

“What on earth is this?” Damian’s voice came, prickly and immediately on the offense to bury the undercurrent of confusion there.

Damian was home. So much for the ‘sequester him at the Kent Farm in Kansas’ plan. Bruce got out of the tent and straightened to look down at his son, giving him a small smile. “Damian, welcome home. Your brothers have decided to make a fort.” He glanced back at the feet there. “We have had… an incident with Jason and Tim.”

“What did Drake do this time?” His lip curled slightly, aggravated. “Did he cross over to Crime Alley?”

“Who’s the pipsqueak?” Jason’s head poked out of the fort to frown at Damian, who stilled. Tim’s head appeared below his, equally curious but without the slight scowl on his brother’s face.

Bruce sighed. “They were de-aged,” he said, resting his hand on Damian’s shoulder. “Jason, be nice to Damian.” There was a vague sound from the hallway like Conner might have protested that. He needed to head this off now. “Damian, Jason and Tim are young for now and we’re all benched for a few days while we sort it out. How was the farm? Did you enjoy seeing Jon and the Kents?”

“I came back early.” Damian glowered at him. “Kent is the worst. You’re letting us be benched? In our city?! By who?!” His eyes flashed as he stepped forward, and Jason climbed out of the tent, cocking his head to the side as he assessed Damian’s anger.

“You and Jon fought?” Bruce couldn’t even imagine it. They’d been doing great for the last three months, the cat-and-dog fighting had died down after just a few weeks. Damian had conflict with nearly everyone, but not Jonathan Kent. “About what? As for the rest, I benched us, to maintain the integrity and safety of the remaining members of our team. It isn’t a personal slight to any of us, Damian.”

Granted, he himself hadn’t taken the news all that much better. But the point was to keep the peace between the boys as much as he could, right now.

“Dami!” Dick poked his head out of the sheeting. “Come here, we’re watching movies in the fort!”

“The fort,” Damian scoffed, assessing it. “As if this thing could withstand any sort of siege.”

“Wow, you’re kinda a little shit, huh?” Jason grinned and jabbed his thumb toward Damian, who bristled.

“What did you just-”

“He’s yours, right?” Jason asked Bruce, looping one arm around Damian’s neck and started to grind his knuckles against the shorter boy’s hair. Damian snarled, trying to flip him to twist free, and Jason adjusted with him, sending them knocking backward against the wall instead as he continued. “Same grumpy nature and better-than-you attitude.”

“Todd! Unhand me!” Damian jabbed at his stomach and Jason sucked on his finger, then stuck it into Damian’s ear. The smaller boy shrieked in disgust and rage.

“It’s Todd-Wayne, little man,” Jason said as he cackled.

Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose and separated them as Dick got out of the fort. “Listen,” Bruce said firmly, “You are both going to behave and be friends with each other until this is over. We have to cohabitate, so both of you need to keep your distance if you cannot keep from antagonizing each other.”

“To be fair,” Wally said sleepily, peering out at them from the fort, “I think Damian’s more likely to start it.”

“Why is the metahuman here?” Damian pointed at him, rounding on Dick immediately, and Bruce tried not to smile. His youngest was very protective of Dick’s time and attention, which had led him to be… less than fond of the Flash’s visits to the Manor.

“Dami, Wally’s helping us patrol.” Dick rested a hand on Damian’s head. “Come with us in the fort, we’ve got snacks! Jason gets to pick the movie next, but then you can.”

“This is hardly a fort,” Damian scoffed, bristling a little, and Dick crouched between them.

“Listen,” Dick said seriously, looking between the boys. “You three are the best and the coolest little brothers anybody could have, and we’re not gonna fight each other. Cool? I know it’s weird right now but it’ll be better soon, and in the meantime let’s just be cool and hang out. Yeah?”

“Tt.” Damian looked away, scowling as he crossed his arms, and Jason shrugged, ruffling his own hair.

“Sure,” he agreed, then paused as he looked around the tent. “Hey, where’d ‘e go? Did Tim tunnel into one of the other rooms?”

“He’s not on the right side,” Wally said, leaning over to glance into the adjoining fort rooms on that side.

Bruce confirmed that Tim was not, in fact, in the fort. Had he snuck out of the room to find Conner? He always had been shockingly stealthy, but Bruce hadn’t ever expected that to have been present when he was this young.

Of course, maybe it was more about his small size and less about actual talent right now.

Dick leaned forward, kissing each boy's head and ignoring it as both protested, shoving them at the tent. “I love you both,” he informed them. “Let’s go watch movies and hang out with Wally, he’s cool.”

Bruce turned the corner, satisfied that Dick could handle the boys in the living room. “Tim?” He called, looking around. “Where are you?”

“Over here,” Kon called, and Bruce headed for the front door with a frown, finding the teenager holding the door shut with one hand as he looked down at the little boy with concern. Tim looked around guiltily, paling slightly when he saw Bruce, and he fidgeted quickly with the hem of his shirt.

“Uh. Hi, Mr. Batman,” he offered meekly.

“Tim.” Bruce crouched down, studying his face. “What’s going on?”

“He was trying to leave,” Kon shot, and Bruce frowned slowly.

“Why?”

“Uh- um.” Tim looked at his fingers, shrugging a bit as he twisted them together. “‘M sorry.”

“Sorry for what, Tim?” Bruce reached out, catching his shoulder, then his hand. “You didn’t do anything wrong, it’s all okay.”

He sucked on his lower lip, peeking up at Bruce, then nodded a little. His fingers tightened around Bruce’s and he hesitated, looking up at Kon, then at Bruce. “Mr. Bruce?” He ventured uncertainly. “Um. Could I get my- my whale? It’s at my house.”

“Sure.” Bruce stood, keeping his hand. Well, wasn’t that a perfect opportunity to figure this whole thing out? “Let’s go get your whale, Tim.”

“Really?” Surprise and relief washed over his face as he tightened his grip, catching Bruce’s hand in both of his.

Bruce brushed his fingers along Tim’s hair. So relieved for such a small request to be answered. So young to be surprised that said request would be honored. “Of course. Conner, join the others in the den and I’ll be back shortly.”

“Okay.” Kon looked between them, then vanished, reluctant but obedient as usual in the face of Batman’s orders.

Bruce led Tim toward the garage. “Will we disturb your parents if we come in at this time of day?” His parents were dead, but Tim’s uncle might be there, and he needed to know what Tim expected.

“Nope.” Tim swung his hand a little, twisting around to watch Kon’s back vanish into the living room. “They’re not home.”

Thank God. Bruce had dreaded the thought of trying to explain their absence if Tim had expected to see them. He was sure as hell not going to tell him they were dead. “I see. Who takes care of you, when they go off on their trips?”

“Ummm. The nanny.” Tim watched Bruce peruse the rack of keys, wondering idly which car was the safest for a kid this small. He didn’t exactly have a car seat in any of them, though it was true that the Drake house was at least right next door. Was it safe enough if he drove slowly and made him sit in the back? There wasn’t traffic between the houses, it should be just a well-paved road… he would have to be incredibly careful but it would likely be fine, for only five miles. “Useda be Ms. Shelby, and Ms. Lisa, and Ms. Nah-reen. She was real nice.” He nodded to himself.

“Yeah?” Bruce smiled down at him and grabbed the keys for the sedan. It was the lowest and safest of the vehicles he had in his garage, so this would work for this particular mission. “And you don’t know about your uncle?”

“Nope?” Tim blinked up at him, all blue eyed confusion and young innocence. “I don’t got an uncle. Kon says I meet him later.” He sucked on his lower lip.

That’s what I thought. Satisfied, Bruce nodded. There was a chance that this was true, the uncle having come back into the family later… but something was off. “I was mistaken. So your housekeepers, are they nice? What kinds of things do they do with you?”

“Ms. Nah-reen taught me letters.” Tim brightened a little. “And numbers. Ms. Shelby showed me how to do the microwave. Umm.” He thought back. “I can sweep, too. And use the ladder.”

Bruce led him toward the garage, caging a frown. “You said you’re four? That’s a lot that a four year old can do. Most four year olds don’t know how to sweep or use a microwave.” Most didn’t have to.

Tim all but glowed with pride. “And I know all the buttons on my tablet, and how to read all the stuff in the first aid kid, and-“ he thought quickly, clearly eager to continue to impress. “I know how to write my name and how to take pictures, too.”

“You’re a wonderful photographer.” Bruce helped him into the car, carefully strapping him in. “Many of the photos in the Manor are yours, and the paintings are Damian’s.”

“Really?” Tim blinked up at him curiously. “Wow. That’s so cool.”

“I enjoy showcasing the talent of my Robins.” Bruce carefully pulled out of the driveway, thinking. “You’re a wonderful young man. I’m glad to have you as part of my family.”

Tim’s shoulders hunched a little but he was focused out the window rather than raising his head to meet Bruce’s eyes in the rearview. Bruce resisted the urge to turn toward him more fully- intensity was not the right way to handle questioning a four year-old.

“You mentioned Ms. Nahreen and Ms. Shelby. Who’s watching you right now, while your parents are away?”

“Ms. Elizabeth.” He paddled his feet slightly in the air, watching the greenery go by out the window.

“Is she nice? What kinds of things does she do with you?” Bruce asked, keeping his voice as light as he could.

“She reads me the paper in the morning,” Tim reported chipperly, perking up a bit. “The crime section and the puzzles and the astroloby- uh. -Ology.” He corrected himself. “And she lets me watch the news, too, as long as I don’t get the sitting room messy.”

“She sounds nice.” Bruce agreed with a smile, caging his frown. “Do you like watching the news?” He was four. Gotham news wasn’t appropriate for someone of that age, all sex crimes and drug busts and murders. The astrology wasn’t much better.

“I like the stories,” he agreed, kicking his dangling feet a little, and he fell quiet as Bruce contemplated how to approach the question of food. Should he just ask if Tim got enough to eat at home? He’d questioned hundreds of children as Batman… but for some reason, the words were harder to get out as Bruce Wayne to his own son.

He didn’t get a chance to ask. The silence was broken by Tim first.

“I’m a good boy when I grow up?” He asked tentatively.

Being de-aged seemed to be a hard concept for Tim to understand, regardless of his intelligence or the fact that he was a Gothamite. Instead, he seemed to think he had been somehow transported to the future, which was close enough they’d all more or less just left it. He was only four, after all.

“You’re a wonderful person when you grow up.” Bruce patted his foot. “You are one of the best people I know, Timothy. We’re lucky to have you.”

“Do- do I get birthday cakes?” Tim peered up at him hopefully, feet pressing together. “Dad said I could have a birthday cake if I was good.”

You don’t get birthday cakes? They were contingent on if he was good? Tim was four years old. How could he truly misbehave in a way that earned him a lack of birthday cake? Fury burned through Bruce and he carefully rolled the car to a stop, looking down at Tim, and smoothed the boy’s hair back. “I have had you in my life for two and a half years,” he said quietly, “And we have thrown you a birthday party twice, with cakes both times.” He pulled out his phone, scrolling quickly, and held it out. It was a picture of Tim with a birthday cone hat on his head, Kon hanging off his neck as Bart zoomed into the frame and Cassie laughed, Dick squishing his cheek against Tim’s. Damian was stuffing his mouth with cake in the background, Alfred smiling down at him. Bruce held it out for Tim to see. “As long as you are in my life, you will have parties with cakes, Timothy.”

Tim stared at the picture, taking his phone slowly to stare down at it. “I get birthday cakes and friends,” he whispered to himself, shiny eyes crinkling up as his lips trembled-

And then Bruce had a bawling four year-old in his back seat and he was completely unprepared for the instinctive panic that incurred. He threw the car into park and moved around to sit in the backseat, quickly rubbing his arms the way he’d seen Dick and Tim both comfort each other before. He didn’t know what else to do, but this seemed to work for them.

“Of course,” Bruce said quickly, trying to focus on the tiny crying boy in his arms. “I told you that you’re a wonderful person, you get everything you could need, I’m happy to give you parties and your friends love you.”

Oh god he should have brought Dick, he absolutely should have brought Dick, and now Tim was hiccuping and so small and sobbing into Bruce’s chest like he was heartbroken. Oh Jesus, he’d never been called comforting in his entire life. Even Clark preferred to call him stabilizing or solid or reassuring if anything of the sort.

Bruce pulled him into his lap, rubbing his back awkwardly and attempting to wiggle slightly one way and then the other, almost like the swaying motion that Dick did when he hummed to make people smile. Surely that would help. “You’re happy when you get older,” Bruce said awkwardly. “You’re very happy and I’m very happy to have you with me.”

Tim burrowed deeper into his chest, nodding as his breathing hitched, and Bruce’s hand stilled on his back as one of the reasons this was so terrifying clicked into place, followed by another.

First, he was being completely silent. He was absolutely sobbing, yes, crying his little toddler heart out, but the action was completely soundless, without any wails or blubbering that he vaguely thought he had seen Jon do years ago and knew he had seen children in public do thousands of times. In the wake of the sound was silence, the lack of cries replaced by struggling little breaths somewhere between chokes and gasps that were nonetheless so much quieter than they ever should have been.

The second unsettling aspect of this that Bruce was realizing as he thought rapidly back through his past with Tim was that he’d never seen the boy cry once in the two years he’d known him. He’d seen him beaten half to hell and back, had seen him terrified for Dick or Bruce, had watched him grit his teeth against the pain of a bone be broken, but he’d never actually seen him cry. He’d always assumed he just wasn’t one to cry easily, unlike Dick who as a child would cry if he got too angry or Jason who would wake up sobbing for Catherine sometimes in the middle of the night only to refuse to speak about it afterward. He had never wondered much about it until faced with this version of him crying now, and crying so… abnormally.

Bruce lifted him a little, wrapping his arms around him, and desperately tried to think of absolutely anything he could say. Only one thing stood out- his feelings, which were always terrible to speak about, but worked sometimes in extremis.

“I would adopt you in a moment,” he told the little boy in his arms. “I would make you a Wayne, keep you at my house, give you anything you needed. Birthday parties and… and housewarmings and attending your science fairs or recitals or soccer games. Whatever you wanted, I would do. And I still will. Always, Timothy.”

The crying petered off as the toddler listened, and he gave a couple hiccuping sniffles but otherwise settled, tired and heavy-headed on Bruce’s shoulder. “How come they don’t?” He mumbled, voice thin and rasping like he had in fact been choked. “How come ‘m not good now?”

Bruce was going to wreck their lives, regardless of the fact that they were dead. He was going to destroy the Drake legacy, leave it in ruins until Tim could inherit it and then he would restore it to the glory the young man he’d grown to love so fiercely deserved. Bruce ran his hand through Tim’s hair gently. “Some people… some people are not meant to be parents,” he offered, trying desperately to think of something to say that a four year old would understand. “Some people have children, but they weren’t supposed to. Like your parents, maybe. And some were supposed to have children, but they didn’t, like me. That’s why the world gave me all of you, and then Damian came home and it was right, then. Your parents were so lucky to have you, Tim. You are more than good. It’s your parents who aren’t good.”

Tim made a little noise of thought but didn’t argue with him the way fifty percent of his other sons would have, even that young. He just shifted more comfortably on top of him and nodded a little, breathing finally calmer.

“Can we still get my whale?” He asked hopefully, tiredly, as he traced the logo on Bruce’s old t-shirt.

“Of course we can go get your whale.” Bruce rested his cheek on Tim’s hair. “We’ll go right now.” Hopefully it’s still there. It had been years, after all… but Tim was like Bruce in so many ways. The fact that they were both fond of mementos was just one of those. “You live right next door, so it’s not a problem. Sound good?”

“Mmhm.” Tim nodded, but didn’t move to get back onto the seat, and Bruce glanced out the window. They were more than halfway there anyway, it wouldn’t be more than five minutes’ walk.

So he slid out of the car, carrying his almost-son down the road and pocketing his keys. It was Bristol, not the Narrows, no one was going to touch it. Tim was quiet as they walked, maybe sleepy— oh, children this small were supposed to take naps. Was there a reason why? Bruce couldn’t entirely remember, though he thought it might have something to do with them getting cranky or emotional if they stayed up.

Granted, Tim’s current breakdown was completely understandable even without calculating in the lack of nap, but Bruce should have definitely made sure Tim had a nap.

Within a few minutes, Bruce was standing in front of the Drake house, studying the large manor so unlike his own. It was much smaller, for a start, and much more modern, having been built only eighty years ago from what he remembered Alfred having told him once. Tim pointed to the keypad by the door.

“One-six-seven-three,” he said sleepily, and Bruce half-prayed to hear an alarm when he obeyed. Nothing happened. They hadn’t changed their lock combination in fourteen years? It didn’t matter if they were in Bristol, it was still Gotham.

“Good god,” Bruce muttered, and stepped inside, eyeing the decor. While in theory it was all more ‘fashionable’ than his, being modern and nouveau-riche, it was ugly. It had none of the charm of Wayne Manor- none of the carved wood, the expressive canvas paintings that Damian was so good at, the entrancing canvas prints of Tim’s photog-

Bruce paused, turning. There was none of Tim’s photography here. That was strange.

“Where’s your room?” Bruce asked, glancing around the nearly-sterile foyer. No one was here to greet them, to check and see who was at the door? Certainly perhaps they’d thought it was Tim coming in, but given that he hadn’t been home in nearly three days, wouldn’t whoever was staying with him want to check in?

Not every housekeeper could be as peerlessly excellent at their job as Alfred, he allowed slowly, but even so…

“Second floor,” Tim said on a yawn, pointing the way forward, and Bruce headed down the hall. Instead of paintings or photographs, there were glass boxes set into the walls almost exactly like the museum they’d gone to yesterday, artifacts and antiques on display within, each perfectly lit with little red sensors behind the glass winking at him as he passed.

The unsettled feeling intensified. They had alarms on the displays but not on their front door.

Bruce’s steps echoed in the hallway on the tile floor, his shoes making enough noise as he approached the staircase that it almost felt deafening in the silence. He would have worn sneakers if he’d known. No wonder the Drakes had never hosted events of their own here- the sound would be cacophonous.

He let his eyes flick into the rooms as he passed. A sitting room with an ornate white-brick fireplace. A living room with a large television and a couch so neatly straight-lined it looked like it had never been sat on. A dining room with an enormous cherry wood table and hard-backed chairs. A kitchen with a couple notes pinned neatly to the fridge in the ultra-neat scrawl that Tim used for ‘professional’ work when he wasn’t just jotting down notes or ideas. otherwise completely shining-clean.

This place was truly was a museum, everything ridiculously clean and boxed-in by glass. No wonder the day trip hadn’t interested Tim- he essentially lived in one. “Which room up here?” Bruce asked rather than voicing any of this unease. He was actually curious to see what Tim’s room would look like.

“Last one,” Tim said, rubbing his eyes. Bruce passed a couple guest rooms, a master bedroom, a library, and then opened Tim’s door. The boy in his arms stilled, making a low noise of confusion as he wiggled to try to get down and look around.

It was a mess. Bruce wouldn’t have expected it— the room that Tim kept at the Manor (if you could call it that, he only stayed the night there if patrol had been especially rough, or if he wanted to store something for later) and the room he owned in Titans Tower were both kept meticulously clean with everything always tucked into various drawers out of sight. The caveat to this was the skateboard that Bruce had once seen at Titans Tower, and the camera bag he liked to keep on top of the dresser in the Manor.

In direct contrast was this room, clothes scattered haphazardly across the floor like they’d been stripped off and abandoned or rifled through in search of something else. Dick’s room had looked vaguely similar when he was eleven, Bruce thought vaguely, but Alfred had then had a long talk with him about expectations if Dick didn’t want him going in there to clean and he’d quickly learned to pick up after himself. Tim’s camera was resting on the desk beside his laptop, but when Bruce crossed to pick it up, he noted that there were no memory cards in either of them. A skateboard was buried half-under his bed and a pile of t-shirts (two of which had Superboy’s logo on them) and there were so many rugs on the floor underfoot that it swallowed up the sound of their steps entirely at a stark contrast to the tile and hardwood in the rest of the house.

Bruce took a glance into the closet- this was actually virtually untouched, formal clothes hanging in neat rows, shoes lined up, a few nice watches left in their boxes. The second adjoining door proved to be a small bathroom that was littered with old, bloodied gauze and bits of surgical string. A large, well-stocked medical kit was stored under the sink along with two bottles of absinthe and a bottle of unlabeled pills.

Bruce frowned hard at these last few items, considering. Obviously he was self-medicating. Tim knew enough to be safe… more or less. Or at least “functional.” But that didn’t mean that he didn’t overdo it. What were these pills? How often did he use these things?

He was too young for alcohol, much less absinthe. Did he drink it recreationally? Did Duck know about this? The pills, on further inspection, appeared to be Vicodin and Percocet… both of which could create addiction if not handled properly. What was he thinking? How often did he take these? Surely he was too clever to take them in combination with each other or the absinthe, but-

Tim gave a squeal of delight from behind him and Bruce turned to find that he had unpeeled three layers of rugs (nearly eight of them were flopped half-upside down because of the way they had all been overlapping each other) and somehow pried up two of the hard floorboards nearly underneath the bed. He held a very small stuffed and realistic blue whale to his cheek, rubbing the soft fabric against his face happily.

“Hi,” he cooed to it, flopping back onto the piles of rugs and ignoring the small trove of other random things in the hole he’d unearthed. “Hi, hi, hi.”

Bruce quickly put the bloodied gauze and dirty string in the trashcan (Alfred had drilled into him the nearly sacred rule of cleaning up bloody messes), and moving the clothes so he could sit next to Tim. “It’s good that he’s still here, after all this time,” he offered, watching the tiny boy and glancing down into the hole of floorboards. “What’s your whale’s name?”

“Willy,” he told him happily, squishing him against his chest. “Ms. Nah-reen got him ‘fore she left.”

Bruce murmured some form of agreement, unable not to smile at the adorable child, and glanced down at the handful of objects he had retrieved from the hole. A flash drive, a bottle opener that was oddly familiar though not enough so that he could place it at first glance, a purple ribbon, and then a birthday card. He flipped past the generic front, skimming the indistinct well-wish there quickly, and glanced inside.

Happy sixteenth birthday, Timothy. We’ll try to make it up next month to have dinner at that seafood restaurant you like. It was signed by Jack and Janet Drake- who had actually signed with their names rather than ‘Mom and Dad’ and who also hadn’t bothered to actually individually sign it, considering the signatures were almost identical.

Particularly irritating because Tim hadn’t actually spent his sixteenth birthday at the Manor. He’d been effusively excited about his parents coming home for it, Bruce remembered him mentioning it for over a week or two in advance. They’d had to throw his surprise party nearly four days later, because Tim had been at home, supposedly with his family, on the actual day.

So had his parents not been there? Had they simply sent a card, hadn’t actually come back to spend time with him? He had been so excited and they hadn’t made that a priority, their only priority? Jesus. Bruce shook his head in disgust, putting it back in the hole. He wasn’t a great father all the time. He made mistakes. But this level of shitty parenting was beyond even him- if his child had wanted him to be somewhere so badly, he would do whatever he could to do it.

Behind the card were a pile of photographs that had clearly been self-developed by the lack of any printing on the back. This was immediately explained by the subject matter, being that all the photos were of Batman and Robin.

The photo in front was, he realized with almost a physical shock, of Tim and Jason. Jason was in the Robin costume and was doing a little salute, his other hand clearly occupied taking the photo. Tim, who must have been twelve in the photo, was nervous and beaming, eyes shining with disbelieving delight.

Where had they taken this? Why had they taken it? Maybe Tim had simply gone up to him and asked for a photo- every Robin but Damian had acquiesced to that request immediately. People didn’t ask Damian often- he gave off ‘murder vibes’ as Dick liked to say fondly.

He flipped through the next few photos more slowly. Jason as Robin, sitting beside a gargoyle and smoking a cigarette. Batman on his own, standing feet from Poison Ivy. Dick as Robin mid-flip, expression caught in a moment of pure delight at his own acrobatic ability. Nightwing ruffling Robin’s hair, Batman laughing at Jason who was perched on top of a gargoyle, Dick as Robin ice skating with a batarang under each boot at what was clearly one of Freeze’s crime scenes—

Just happy moments, for the most part, aside from the one of Bruce and Ivy that seemed to maybe have been included just for aesthetic purposes. The majority of these photos weren’t even of Batman and Robin, but rather Bruce and his family, in quieter moments on patrol between or before fights.

A family that Tim hadn’t had, clearly. He wasn’t absolutely positive, but he’d bet a good portion of Wayne Enterprises that Tim hadn’t been given the kind of life he’d needed, the love and affection and warmth that someone like him needed to thrive. So he had found a family, the Bats, and had found the happiness and warmth he’d been lacking in his own life. He’d taken photos of it from afar and sought to be part of it in whatever way he could- even if that was by chasing them across rooftops with a camera and not actually getting to interact with them. No wonder the photo of Jason and Tim was there- it was the only one that Tim himself was actually in, the only one that linked him to the family he’d clearly wished he was part of.

“It’s there,” Tim said, little voice almost making Bruce jump, and he looked down at him to find him pointing at the picture of him and Jason. Clasped in eleven or twelve year-old Tim’s hand was the bottle opener, and Bruce could see two glass bottles of the Sprechers cream soda Jason had loved as a kid sitting on top of a mailbox in the background. “Found it,” Tim said happily, dropping the bottle opener back into the hole. “I’m good at findin’ stuff.”

“Oh, yes. I see that.” Bruce carefully stacked the photos and gently put them back. At least he could be easy that Dick and Alfred had always made Tim feel welcome, even if Bruce so often fell short, so often failed in the simplest tasks of parenting. Not that he was Tim’s parent… although it seemed that he was better, at least, than the ones Tim legally had. At least he could tell himself that in Bruce’s household, not always due to Bruce but at least due to Alfred and Dick’s influence, Tim had something better, more solid, a real family. “It’s a nice picture. We can get some of that soda, later.”

Tim beamed and waited for the rest of the odds and ends to return to the hole, then carefully set his whale aside so he could put the boards back, then roll each of the rugs flat again to hide the actual floor again. He kicked and pushed at the clothes almost like a bird with a nest until they were just right, laying scattered across the floor exactly as they had been before, and then he retrieved his whale and gripped it between his hands again.

“Do you want to go back to the Manor and play with the other boys? You can keep your whale.”

Tim beamed and nodded quickly, watching as Bruce got to his feet. He hesitated, then held his arms up in a clearly-nervous request to be carried, the tension draining out of him when Bruce immediately acquiesced. Bruce slipped the muffin into his pocket and carried his almost-son out of the oppressively silent house, back outside. Tim was asleep before they even made it to the car.

He was asleep heavily enough, thankfully, that he did not rouse through the drive. He didn’t wake when Bruce carried him into the Manor. He continued sleeping soundly on Bruce’s shoulder, and Bruce was smiling when he opened the garage door to the Manor.

That smile would vanish before he even made it over the threshold when he was met with immediate chaos.

Notes:

Thanksssssss for reading, babes! Leave a comment if you want to feed the capybara that lives in my soul.

Chapter 6: Sunday Afternoon

Summary:

Jason and Bruce have an overdue conversation.

Notes:

Sorry for the delay in posting, babes! I don't even have an excuse, my mental health was just garbage for the last couple weeks. But hey, I'm here now, so have a chapter!

“Oh thank Rao you’re back,” Kon said on a rapid breath as soon as Bruce stepped into the hallway, his edges almost blurring with his speed to meet them, “Dick and Wally went to get us pizza for lunch and I said it was fine but- and it’s on me okay, because I said I could handle it and dude I was wrong, but-“

Damian appeared at the end of the hallway, tan skin unusually pale as there was a crashing sound from the second floor. “I’m sorry,” he told Bruce in almost as quick a rush, and Bruce, arms still full of sleeping toddler, wildly tried to understand what train of events could ever have his youngest actually apologizing and doing so without being growled at for half an hour beforehand.

His guess in any other circumstance would maybe be that he had murdered Tim on accident or something, but Tim was in his arms. Dick and Wally weren’t home, so it couldn’t be that Damian had lashed out at the speedster in some way that had snowballed and caused serious damage. He’d never hurt Alfred or Dick, so-

Jason. He wasn’t there, so something had happened, the crashing upstairs was Jason. He quickly put Tim in Kon’s arms. “Stay here,” he told them both, vaulting up the stairs quickly.

There were so many things that could have happened and he had no idea what of the myriad of things that Jason could have learned that was hurting him right now. Now his son, his beautiful, bright twelve-year-old son, had to process something he should have never dealt with.

Bruce should have known better than to hope this happiness would last.

“Jason?” Bruce called, prowling down the hallway. “Jason?”

He passed his office and noted that it had been ransacked, drawers yanked out of his desk and papers covering the floor almost as completely as the rugs in Tim’s bedroom. The framed photo of Damian, Tim, and Dick that Alfred had given him for Father’s Day last year was splintered against the opposite wall.

Another crash from down the hall and Bruce moved more quickly, running into Jason’s room just in time to see his son yank his bookshelf forward, sending it careening down on top of the armoire he had clearly done the same with. Books went crashing everywhere and Jason wheeled around to stare at Bruce, eyes wild as he breathed hard, chest rising and falling violently.

“Where am I? I’m not here, I’m not- the kid said I never graduated high school and that’s bullshit, I would have fucking graduated high school!” He took a wild kick, sending his favored copy of Lord of the Flies flying with a gasping heave of breath. “So I looked and it’s nowhere, none of it’s anywhere, I’m not nowhere. Why am I not here?! Why aren’t there fucking pictures of me?! Do you just not give a shit any more? Because the fucking gutter trash went back to patrol the gutter, not the rest of fuckin’ Gotham proper, you asshole?!” He took in a hoarse wheeze of air, caught between rage and hyperventilation as he dragged his hands through his hair.

This was Bruce’s worst nightmare. His son, his poor traumatized boy, seeing all the repercussions of what had happened to them without having any of the background information to understand what had truly happened.

He slowly knelt in front of his son, not touching him, but staying close enough that he could. “You have never been and never will be gutter trash,” Bruce said, voice unsteady on the words he’d heard so many fling at the residents of Crime Alley but had never allowed anyone to associate with his child. “You are my son. You are Jason Todd-Wayne. I love you and I- I keep photos of you with me.” Slowly, he pulled out his wallet and opened it, pulling out a picture of Jason that Tim had sent him via email, randomly, one day. Bruce had sat and stared at it for almost an hour when he’d printed it. “I don’t have many pictures of you in the house because- it’s complicated, Jason. You are my son. I’m proud to call you my son. You’re everywhere. I keep the books you bought me on my desk, I keep the cards you made me in my office. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t want you here with me, Jason. I go and see you as much as I can.”

The rage seemed to have drained a little, though the panic and fear was still drawn across the young boy’s face as clearly as if he’d used marker. “Why? Why’s it complicated? ‘Cause of the new kid?” His eyes were too shiny and he took a sharp step back when he yanked his sleeve across them, furiously dashing the signs of vulnerability. “‘Cause you and Dick have a real kid now? ‘Cause I dropped-“ his lips trembled and he fought it by baring his teeth in a snarl with, “-dropped outta high school? What, do I get on drugs? Ruin the fuckin’ family name? Did I- did I kill somebody? What, why is it complicated, what did I do that- why am I not-“ he took in several too-quick breaths, swaying slightly in place as he tried to control them.

Bruce couldn’t stand it anymore, and he moved forward, tugging Jason close enough to catch his hands, pressing his son’s unsteady fingers to his chest. Bruce closed his eyes, trying to think of the right words. “You never did anything wrong,” he promised, meeting Jason’s eyes after a moment. “I wouldn’t have cared if you’d dropped out of school. If you’d gotten into drugs, I would have kicked you into shape and put you in rehab, but I would have loved you regardless. You could never ruin our name. You’re a Wayne, and I am so proud of you, Jason.” He squeezed their linked hands as Jason avoided his eyes, shoulders hunching and tense.

“You are my real kid. There is no replacement for you, there is no- there is absolutely nothing that could ever change how I feel about you, how I’ve felt about you from the moment I brought you home. You are my son.” Bruce searched his face. “Jason… you died.” His throat closed up at the words and he felt himself shiver slightly, but forged onward as his son stilled, staring at him. “You died. You came back, thank god you came back, and you’re grown up now and you run Crime Alley and protect everyone, and I am so goddamn proud of you, Jason. But you don’t… you’re angry with me. You stay away. You don’t come here to visit, you shoot us if we try to come to you. You drew a line and we have to stick to it. You’re angry. You have the right to be. And I’m so sorry.” His voice cracked. “Jason, I am so sorry. I’ve made so many mistakes, I’ve done so many things wrong, and never more than I did with you. And I am so sorry that you feel that I could ever stop wanting you as my son, that anything you could ever do would change that you are my child. I’m- I meant it when I said I was glad to have you home. I have missed you here so much.”

Jason opened and closed his mouth a few times, more in shock now than angry or terrified the way he had been before, his gaze drifting slowly around the destruction of his room before finding Bruce again. “I died?” He repeated, sounding thrown. “How old was I…?”

“You were fifteen.” Bruce took in a steadying breath. “I wasn’t going to tell you. I wanted you to just be happy until we got your years back and you were angry again.” He rested his head forward against Jason’s. “I am sorry. You don’t understand how sorry I am for what happened to you, Jason. I was broken for so long, I didn’t even recognize myself. It took almost a year before I saw Dick smile again. Alfred never stopped cooking, I had to force him to sleep. It was… your death destroyed us, Jason.”

“Was it… was it an accident, or a rogue?” Jason searched his expression and seemed to catch the answer there before Bruce could even comprehend what he could begin to say that wasn’t the full, horrific truth. “B,” he said, a little weakly, and pried his hands loose from Bruce’s, raising his arms to wrap around his shoulders. The motion dislodged their heads, dropping Bruce’s to the boy’s shoulder, and he hugged his father a little tighter. “B, Dad, I- I always-“ he gave a minute tremble, fingers tightening in the back of Bruce’s sleeves.

“I am so sorry,” Bruce said, voice sounding more like he’d swallowed gravel than it ever had.

“I always knew I was gonna probably die before I got old,” Jason offered unsteadily. “I’m from the Narrows. My mom didn’t- I worked so hard for a year and I couldn’t keep her going.” His voice trembled almost as bad as his arms, the way it always did on the subject of Catherine, and Bruce hugged him closer. “An’ I knew I’d prolly end up like that or gettin’ over my head with Willis or- or maybe tryin’ to take care ‘a one of the workin’ girls.” He swallowed. “And then there was you and there was Robin and I knew I wasn’t gonna be as good as Dickie but I could help somebody. I didn’t hafta sit by like with Mom or let shit happen to me like with Willis, I could do something and help somebody and I wasn’t gonna be great at it but better to go out in a blaze of glory, right?” He tried to go for humor. “It’s- dyin’ young’s part of the gig. Not the Robin gig, just… the Jason gig. It ain’t your fault, old man. My number was stamped down when I was a kid.”

“It shouldn’t have been that way.” Bruce shook, gripping his son. “I’m so sorry,” he repeated, unsure what else to say.

He thought, vaguely, that Jason had actually said something similar once as an adult, right after he revealed himself, maybe during the confrontation with the Joker. The entire situation had become such a blur of shock and hope and horror, the exact details of that memory were blurred to oblivion. But it had been something like I forgave you for not getting there in time. But why in the hell is he still alive?

Jason could make peace with dying. It was the Joker’s survival that he held against Bruce.

“I’m so sorry,” he echoed again. “I’d go every day if I could keep it from happening to you.”

Jason nodded a little, burying his face in Bruce’s hair. “I know,” he agreed, squeezing him a little tighter. “I know. ‘S okay. Least I’m not still dead, right? Most people stay dead.” A vague effort at humor. “And I probably don’t even look like Frankenstein’s monster. Oh wait, oh god, is that why I wear the hood? Do I have bolts sticking out?” He released Bruce to grab at his own throat theatrically, watery eyes crinkling up a little.

Bruce gave a weak laugh. “No bolts. You do get a white steak in your hair.”

“Is it cool?” Jason frowned a little.

“It’s very cool.” Bruce brushed his hair from Jason’s face. “I can show you pictures.”

“Okay,” Jason agreed. He still looked a little off, subdued and confused and tense, but what else could be expected? He was a kid. He wasn’t ever supposed to know any of this. They both looked around at the sound of raised voices from downstairs and Jason yanked his sleeve across his face again rapidly. “Dickiebird’s done makin’ out and got the pizzas,” he determined, stepping away from Bruce and pausing a beat to study his room. He crouched down, starting to pick up the books that had fallen everywhere, picking each up with gentle, apologetic fingers.

Bruce helped him tidy, lifting the bookcase and then the armoire back into their places for him, then pulled him into a hug, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Jason,” he murmured, trying to continue breathing evenly when his son pressed his face against Bruce’s chest. “I love you.”

Dick appeared in the doorway, pale and drawn as he took in the room and their positions. “I got you your crime of a pizza, Jay,” he said, and Jason pulled away quickly to rub a rough arm over his eyes and avoid eye contact. “Doing some redecorating? About time, your room’s a menace.”

This, Bruce knew, was where the adult Jason would have made some sort of biting remark about how death would do that or something on that tune. Young Jason just scoffed, rolling his eyes as he turned away to set a stack of his books back onto the bookcase.

“You’re one to talk, Bludhaven boy. A stack of takeout boxes ‘cause you never learned ‘ta cook is not the same thing as decoration, Dickweasel.”

“Wow.” Dick pressed a hand to his chest and moved forward, brushing his fingers along Jason’s back. “B, go ahead down, I’ll help Jason with this.”

“Yeah.” Bruce squeezed Jason’s shoulder and headed downstairs. Dick probably did want to check in with his brother, figure out what was going on and soothe where he could. He caught a glimpse of Dick catching Jason’s shoulders as he left, his eldest sinking into a crouch to look up at his little brother, and turned away as Dick gently pulled his brother into a hug.

Damian met Bruce at the end of the hallway, looking uncharacteristically serious. “Did he hurt himself?” He asked quietly.

“No, he didn’t.” Bruce moved forward, crouching in front of Damian and searching his face. “I’m not angry with you, Damian.” Bruce couldn’t be angry with Damian about this. He should have known that something like this would happen- Damian threw around insults like candy, and most of them were based in what he saw as imperfections or failings in someone’s character or choices. Being unsure of his position with two new ‘younger’ brothers, of course he’d been defensive and spiky and had said something he shouldn’t. And just as obviously, he was upset about his mistake and felt bad. Bruce reached up and straightened Damian’s hair gently. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I did not know he would react so strongly to not having graduated.” He straightened his shoulders but continued avoiding eye contact. “Drake no longer attends school and he doesn’t care. It did not occur to me that he would realize what had happened.”

“School doesn’t matter to Tim. Tim was always expected to go to school and college, and his parents were…” Assholes, apparently. Worse than. “Expecting that. Like mine were. When you’re expected to do something, sometimes it doesn’t matter.” He shook his head a little. “But Jason was told when he was young that he’d never become anything, that he wasn’t capable of anything. So when I took him in and he did so well in school, it mattered to him. No one expected him to graduate or go to college, so it mattered to him that he could.”

Damian gave a small nod and took in a breath. “I will be more careful in the future,” he determined, and turned, returning down the stairs to find his vegetarian pizza.

Jason and Dick came down shortly thereafter and Dick cajoled them into family game night, unearthing several games that would allow all of them to play at once. Jason was still a little out of sorts and clearly was avoiding drawing as much attention to himself as usual, but he relaxed more as the games wore on. Tim fell asleep in Bruce’s lap halfway through the second one, Kon somehow won three rounds in a row, and Damian was clearly making an effort to keep his usual insults to a minimum.

It was good, and nearly painfully perfect, and Bruce wasn’t even lying when Clark texted him to ask if he was okay and Bruce confirmed that he was fine.

All of his children were together, they were all getting along, and they were all more or less happy. Everything was fine, and things were easier than he had ever imagined things like this could be. He found himself laughing, relaxing, enjoying the first family night they’d had in years and years.

Eventually it was late enough that they all scattered. Dick went down to the Cave, theoretically either to practice some exercises or to man the comms for Wally and direct him on where to go. Kon helped Alfred tidy up in a shameless attempt to raise his own standing in the household, then took Tim from Bruce to drop him off in his room before going into the guest room to sleep. Damian and Jason vanished to their respective rooms, yawning, and Bruce collapsed into bed to stare at his ceiling.

He’d seen Alfred with the camera in the doorway during the games. He hoped distantly that he’d gotten a decent photo of them all. It would be… good to have something printed with the entire family in it, even if several of them weren’t their actual ages.

He roused at some point in the night to motion in the room and was already half-ready to investigate the activity when a smaller body climbed up into his bed, a massive comforter dragged along with him.

“Jason?” He asked, concerned, but the boy just made a noncommittal noise, burying his face in Bruce’s shoulder with a yawn before fluffing himself down into the blankets against his father.

Bruce rested an arm around him, closing his eyes and gently rubbing his back as he drifted back toward sleep. “You’re safe,” he murmured into his son’s hair. “You’re here with us.”

Notes:

Oof, my poor sweet babies...

Leave a kudo or a comment if you feel the urge to boost my serotonin and/or guilt me into getting the next chapter out sooner!

Chapter 7: Monday Morning

Summary:

Constantine and Damian take turns in the spotlight.

Day three dawned bright and early. Jason had returned to himself for the most part, teasing Damian and Tim and sticking Cheerios into the sleeping Wally’s hair during breakfast. Bruce had never seen a younger Jason with children aside from being Robin, and it was a fascinating dynamic to watch. With Tim, he was playful and protective, honestly relatively similar to the way Dick treated Jason rather than the way Dick treated Tim.

With Damian, who was only a few years younger than Jason currently was, he was much more of the ‘tease him and get him in a headlock’ personality. Bruce wasn’t sure if it was the similarity in ages or just a reaction to Damian’s typically prickly personality, but it was actually somewhat funny to watch. His teasing never had any real weight to it, his physical contacts with Bruce’s youngest always rough but careful. Unlike Damian, whose insults were typically rooted in fact or somehow the insecurity of his target, Jason’s remarks were typically just based on the kid’s shortness or youth.

It was harmless, and clearly the only way he felt comfortable showing any degree of what could very well be affection or connection to Bruce’s biological son.

Damian didn’t appreciate it, of course, but true to the promise he’d given Bruce, he was careful to stick to insults in Jason’s present rather than anything about who he would grow up to be. A few times when Jason was flicking Cheerios across the table at him or resting his elbow on the shorter boy’s head, Bruce actually thought he might have caught the edge of something pleased in the set of Damian’s face before he protested or hissed and moved away. It was… very nearly cute.

Bruce’s blood son had always been difficult. Determined to earn his own place, even if it meant ripping it away from Tim, determined to prove himself more worthy than his older brothers to inherit the mantle of Batman when he grew up, determined to demonstrate how much more capable he was than any of them. He whipped cracking insults like he breathed and was only genuinely comfortable with Bruce and Dick.

But watching him with Jason was interesting, because Jason ignored the majority of Damian’s insults or physical attacks and retaliated with pushing him onto the couch, giving him a wet willy, or lobbing a harmless insult back at him. Damian wasn’t met with a true escalation or any sign that his aggression meant anything, instead just treated as a younger brother rather than an inept child. Bruce suspected as he watched them over the next couple hours that his youngest actually liked it.

That was something that was fascinating to Bruce to consider. So often, they treated Damian like a very small adult… but maybe they should be treating him more like a child here and there, like the twelve year old that he was.

They ended up in the Cave around eleven so that Damian could try squaring off against Jason with their similar ages. Kon and Dick immediately started taking bets in an undertone, with Bruce absolutely refusing to put money on either side, given that they were both his children and it would hurt their feelings… but also because he didn’t actually know how it would go.

It was a fair debate. Jason at this point in his life only had two years of training as Robin. Damian only had four months of training as Robin, but had been raised to fight by assassins from infancy. However, Jason had been raised to survive since infancy, and this difference was clearly demonstrated as the sparring match begun.

Damian’s movements were as fluid, controlled, and graceful as they had ever been. He flowed from one hit into the next, one position into the other, with nearly the same ease as walking. Jason on the other hand (god, it had been so long since Bruce had seen the way Jason used to move, before the Pit, the League training, the development of his bulk) was instead more distinct, each attack or parry a punctuated sentence with a point and a breath of pause at the end to evaluate the need of the next moment.

Damian’s attacks were graceful, elegant, powerful. He had been trained and raised in a mix of martial arts and weaponry, and at times he was nearly as fluid as Dick was. No matter how hard the hit, there was always a degree of beauty to it.

Jason’s attacks were those of someone born in Gotham, someone who wouldn’t blink an eye at radioactive mutated rats more than he would at a meth lab being raided in the building next door to him. They were brutal, graceless in their ferocity even if he were as flexible and agile as any of the other Robins, but most importantly- they were dirty. Jason didn’t care if the move was honorable or if it was the most effective. He would go for the knee, kick for the balls, pull a fishhook in the corner of his opponent’s mouth if he needed to. It was a piece of Jason that would someday grow and morph with the boy, warping into the piece of the Hood that shot off a man’s testicles or snapped his spine without blinking but at present was still just the vivid drive to win long enough to survive that had been bred into him from a childhood in the Narrows.

Damian didn’t quite fully seem to know how to react to that, and that along with Jason’s larger size did seem to be giving the older boy a bit of an edge despite his lesser amount of training.

Bruce let it go on until it was clear that this was going to end up with Damian being upset- although likely winning, and he stopped the sparring. “That was excellent,” he agreed. “Now, both of you work together against Dick.” He pushed his son forward and Dick immediately sank into a crouch with a grin. Kon lifted Tim to his shoulder. He was floating two feet in the air with him, and Tim looked extremely delighted about it even though he was no taller than he would have been with Kon standing and holding him.

This match went better, though the boys clearly didn’t know how to fight alongside each other. Damian’s expertise came in handy in this bout however, as he had gotten used to fighting as a team and to adjusting his personal style to Bruce, Dick, his mother, and god knew who else through his life. Having just fought Jason, he seemed better able to predict how his now-partner would go for Dick and adjusted accordingly.

The match ended with both boys on top of Dick, pinning him to the mat, and Kon cheered as Tim quickly clapped. Bruce leaned down to help all three up, then felt his hackles rise at a low whistle.

“Quite a show, boy-o,” a thickly-British voice said, and Bruce turned to see John Constantine stub a cigarette out onto the edge of the Batcomputer desk. Jason looked at him curiously as Damian frowned hard beside Bruce.

“Constantine,” Dick greeted him, and Bruce leveled them both with a stare.

“Pick that up,” he told Constantine. “You are not allowed to smoke down here. And you aren’t allowed to come into the Cave without prior permission and vetting per visit.”

“Huh. Hafta remember that, won’t I?” He lit a second cigarette, but pocketed the remains of the first one.

“Who’re you?” Jason wandered over to drop into the immense leather of the computer chair.

“Constantine. John Constantine.” The Brit looked him over slowly and gave a tuneless whistle. “Damn, you’re young. The Lantern called me a cradle-robber before.” He snorted and Jason startled, staring up at him.

“I- what? You and- me?”

“Nah,” Constantine said before Bruce’s fingers could close around the nearest batarang. “You an’ me and Zee, few times.”

“Zee?” Jason repeated faintly, staring as his mouth fell open. Bruce wondered vaguely if he could lock John Constantine in the Phantom Zone and how long Clark would let the man stay there.

“Zatanna. Magician and way outta both our leagues. More in your daddy’s League, actually.” He barked out a laugh at his own joke, blowing smoke into the air, and Bruce took in a long breath, focusing on not throwing the batarang he’d picked up. Imprisonment was fair, murder was not.

“Oh my god.” Dick pressed a hand to his face. “Wally isn’t here, why the hell isn’t Wally here right now to help me with this?”

“Constantine.” Bruce took in another long breath. “If you say anything like that again, you will need to put your leg bones together like a jigsaw puzzle. We need assistance returning Jason and Timothy to their proper ages, and then you will keep your hands off my son.”

“Huh. Yeah, don’t know what I was thinking, trying for a sense o’ humor with the Bat.” Constantine rolled his eyes and offered the pack of cigarettes to Jason. “You started when you were ten, yeah?”

“Oh, thank God,” Jason breathed, snatching the pack up and pulling a cigarette out rapidly.

“Those are bad for you,” Tim piped up from Kon’s shoulder in obvious concern, and Bruce moved forward sharply, snatching the cigarette from him and the pack from Constantine, throwing both in the incinerator slot.

“Constantine, do not make me regret allowing you in Gotham,” he snapped over Jason’s immediate protests. “Get on with it, we don’t have all day.”

“Why are you even here?” Damian growled, and Constantine arched an eyebrow down at him.

“‘Cause I owe Hood a favor, don’t I?” He flicked the butt of his old cigarette at Bruce’s son, who glowered violently at him. “Zee says she’s found your laddies’ time. We’ll be back with it ‘round three today, ‘eh? No fourth day needed.”

“You’ll be able to put them back to normal? Properly?” Damian’s eyes narrowed and Constantine chuckled.

“You know, your predecessors were more friendly,” he informed him as he pushed off the wall. “Gotta go help Zee, just wanted to check in on things here and let you know.” His eyes wandered slowly around the group, lingering a beat on Tim and then Jason. “We’ll be back in the afternoon,” he said, and then vanished from sight, the world rippling slightly around him before settling again. Jason sat bolt-upright, looking around rapidly.

“Whoa. Did he teleport or is he invisible?” He picked up a folder and threw it where Constantine had been standing, but it didn’t collide with anything.

“He probably moved into a different dimension or something.” Bruce crossed his arms over his chest, and Dick eyed them.

“B, do you think that Constantine and Jay and Zatanna really-”

“I need you to stop that train of thought,” Bruce growled. “Right now.”

“I’m… bi,” Jason said slowly, as if this was a revelation and Jesus Christ, it might be, he was a kid. Bruce dragged his hand down his face.

“Most of us are, it’s fine,” Damian muttered under his breath as he passed Jason to grab a water bottle from the fridge, and Jason’s head whipped around to stare at him as Bruce startled. Had that been… had that been kindness?

“Mo- wait, were you just nice? Oh my god, you can be nice?!” Jason kicked off from the desk, sending the computer chair rocketing that way, and tackled Bruce’s youngest to the ground. The sparring match resumed from there and Bruce played with Tim, contentment soaking into his bones as he thought about it all.

Maybe they’d both remember this happiness and warmth later. Maybe.

They sat down for lunch, waking up Wally (who had actually just stayed sleeping on the dining room table through the morning) and digging into the absolutely massive spread of sandwiches, soup, and breadsticks that Alfred had created for them. Damian and Jason began arguing about what weapon was the most versatile, and though Jason had to resort to using a fork to parry Damian’s attempt to stab him with a butter knife, it didn’t get too heated. Dick, Wally, and Kon delved into a detailed discussion about a joint vacation day that Young Justice and the Teen Titans were planning on taking together at the end of the month. Tim, Alfred, and Bruce sat at the end of the table, talking respectively about Willy the whale, how the mechanics of undoing the spell would go, and whether or not Zatanna would be able or willing to do a memory spell to wipe Constantine’s knowledge of their identities.

Perfect and easy and so fucking beautiful. It would only be better if Cass and Stephanie were back in town, though he knew they were busy with their own work.

After lunch, Dick dragged them all in front of Wally and a camera for several group pictures afterwards, because there was no way in hell that Jason and Tim would be willing to let them do that any other time. They then settled in for a movie, and Bruce went in search of his youngest, who had snuck away during all the excitement post-pictures.

He found him in the art studio on the first floor, where his youngest glanced up from a paint-streaked canvas. He rotated it away immediately but didn’t stop working.

“Hello, Father,” his youngest greeted him, brow furrowing in concentration as he mixed paint on his palette. “It is not yet time for Constantine to return. The others are still watching the movie?”

“They are.” Bruce sat in front of him and to the side, carefully not looking at the painting. Sometimes Damian was very touchy about his art, and it was something Bruce tried his best to give him space about. “It’s good to see you working on something new. I was thinking of taking one of your next pieces to Wayne Enterprises and putting it in my office- it’s terribly boring at the moment.”

Damian paused a moment to consider this. “I would have to have forewarning,” he said finally, “To ensure it was of adequate quality to be displayed.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow, feeling a smile start. “I have not seen any of your work that I would not be pleased to have displayed,” he informed him, but relented. “Whenever you’re happy with one, I’ll have it framed and hung in my office. I apologize for all of this chaos, and not speaking to you privately or warning you earlier.” Damian hummed without looking away from his work and Bruce leaned forward slightly. “So you and Jon fought, you said? Which is why you came back early. What happened?”

Damian scowled again. “I do not see how that is pertinent to our family’s business.”

“My question about you and Jon isn’t pertinent to our family business, you’re correct, but I still want to know. You’re my son, I like to know these things.” Bruce snuck a glance at the canvas and found a beautifully rendered landscape, the sky light enough that it might be dawn. It was gorgeous, especially from someone as young as Damian. He was so talented already, so gifted in what he did.

The boy scowled harder and changed paint brushes, adding a white blur to the hill the barn stood on. Bruce thought it might be some sort of animal down the line. “They killed a chicken.” His voice was as tense as the newfound line in his shoulders.

“Oh.” Bruce hadn’t even considered that but of course it was natural for them, but for Damian, who treasured his pets so much and protected the animals under his care so carefully… it made sense. To the Kents it was dinner. To Damian, it had been cruelty. “I’m sorry. I imagine that was a shock for you, especially given that you’ve gone vegetarian now.” A stance of morality that Bruce was surprised and proud of, considering Damian’s background. “The two of you fought about it?”

Damian’s jaw clenched as he gave a short nod of confirmation, adding red to the top of his chicken’s head gently.

“That’s understandable. You try to preserve the life of every animal that you come across.” Bruce squeezed his son's ankles gently. “It was very surprising for me, too, the first time I visited. And I do not have the feelings about it that you do.” He thought about it, watching Damian bringing life back to the chicken who had probably been dinner. “I am sorry. I know you don’t like fighting with Jon. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I just don’t understand it.” Damian’s shoulders hunched inward slightly, and he had to stop on the chicken because it was too tiny and his movements were too angry. He changed brushes again and went back to the corn. “They won’t kill any human because it is irreversible and humans have good in them but an animal who does not know how to do anything but exist is an acceptable thing to snuff out of the world? I- understand you and the others purchasing meat at the store and eating it, but living with and caring for an animal to then kill it and consume it is just-“ he threw his paintbrush down angrily.

Bruce let him seethe for a few moments, trying quickly to think of something he could equate it to, then leaned forward. “To the Kents, animals are not pets,” he said. “They only have as many as they need, no more. They keep them clean and healthy, and then they use them for the utility they purchased the animal for. To the Kents, and other people who raise animals for food, a chicken or a pig or-“ not a cow, Damian didn’t need to think about Batcow right now- “-a turkey is like our vehicles, or a weapon. It has a specific purpose, and when that purpose is complete, it is done. They are conditioned, socially, to fundamentally see animals in a different way than you and I do. They have to. Historically, animals that they raised were the only clean and affordable form of food they had access to.”

“I know that in theory.” Damian stared down at Bruce’s shoes, looking unhappy. “But it was hard to think of when I saw the feathers.”

Bruce moved to sit beside him, resting his arm around his back. “I’m sure it was upsetting,” he agreed quietly. “I’m sorry that it came so quickly and you were upset by it. You have a fondness and kindness for animals. That is a very good trait.”

“Grandfather said it was a weakness that I would do well to grow out of.” Damian glowered at his paint palette. “I probably ought to have listened.”

“Damian.” Bruce gently brushed his fingers along his son's arm. “Loving something else isn’t a weakness. You and your brothers are vital to me, as is my city. Am I weaker for caring for what happens to those under my care? No. Neither are you for caring about animals and protecting them where you can. Your grandfather is wrong about many things, and that is one excellent example.”

Damian glanced up at him, then nodded as he began to paint again. “I will consider this,” he allowed.

Bruce smiled, leaning down to briefly rest his head against Damian’s. “It’s okay to be upset,” he assured him, “but don’t let it become a problem between you and Jon for very long. You two seem good for each other.”

“Tt.” Damian looked equally pleased and annoyed by the statement, and Bruce settled beside him more comfortably as he watched him paint.

And then it was ten to two, and they were going downstairs to join the group traipsing down to the Cave, spirits high and chatter filling the air.

Notes:

Thanks for reading, lovely people! Leave a comment if you're feeling especially benevolent, it'll give me the motivation to get through working in the office tomorrow!

Chapter 8: Monday Afternoon

Summary:

The meeting in the Cave between magicians and Bats doesn't go quite as planned.

Notes:

Happy December, everyone! Have an early chapter, and buckle in for a LOT of plot in this chapter!

Bruce relaxed when he found Clark already waiting in the Cave with his usual trademark Superman smile. He was dressed in his suit rather than civvies, apparently and wisely uninterested in letting John Constantine know anything more about him than he did. “Hey, Bats,” Clark murmured when Bruce stopped beside him, and Bruce was so glad that his partner understood just how comforting that tone and name were. “Zatanna said that they’re on their way over, I figured I would be here for the main event. You ready to have them back?”

“Yes.” He would miss Jason terribly, would miss the smile and the soft comfort of his relationship with his son. He would miss the bright curiosity of Tim… but he’d missed Tim’s witticisms too, his bright laughter and his voice. He missed Jason’s cutting snark, the beautiful way his eyes flashed, even some of the banter of both. “I’m ready to have my sons back,” he agreed, letting his fingers brush Clark’s briefly, taking comfort from him before he moved to pull Jason into his side, running his hand through his hair. “It’ll be good to have you tall again,” he offered, lifting Tim to rest on his other hip.

“Am I gonna forget?” Tim peered up at him curiously, fingers curling tight into Bruce’s shirt and his whale’s back. Jason looked up as well, obviously just as curious for the answer.

“I don’t know.” Bruce squeezed them both. “That’s a question for Zatanna and Constantine. I hope not. I’d like you to keep it.”

Tim beamed and Jason squeezed him back, then looked around as the Zeta Tube hummed, then opened for Constantine and Zatanna to step out.

“Hello,” Clark greeted them, smiling as he shook Zatanna’s hand. He was slightly more cordial than warm when he nodded to Constantine, but still smiled. “You said that you found the time? Who took it?”

“Does it ma’er?” Constantine raised an eyebrow as he lit a cigarette. Zatanna rolled her eyes at him and nodded to Clark.

“A sorcerer with a low-rank demon under his contract.”

“In Gotham?” Clark straightened, frowning, and she nodded.

“I know, you don’t often see it. The city naturally repels most of the actual supernatural entities, she prefers to make her own out of the living, but hey, every so often someone comes in.”

Bruce frowned hard. A sorcerer, here? Why here? And why had they targeted his sons?

“Do you know why they chose Red Robin and the Hood?” Wally was uncharacteristically serious, seated beside Dick with their knees pressed together.

“Red Robin was in the wrong place at the wrong time, from what I could see. The spell was aimed at Hood and he must have gotten in the way or tried to block it.”

Hood! Tim had shouted before the crack on the line. It tracked. Bruce flexed his hands around his son's shoulder. “Why did they target Hood?” He growled.

Constantine laughed, and it wasn’t a pleasant one. “‘Cause your boy’s got a nasty shine to him,” he said, blowing smoke into the air.

“A shine?” Clark crossed his arms, and Constantine seemed to remember that he had enough strength to crush him as easily as a cigarette, because he elaborated,

“Yeah. Going through trauma like that, dying like that, being resurrected, then surviving a Lazarus Pit?” Constantine chuckled as he shook his head in admiration. “His soul’s all kinds of fucked, scarred up and shiny. Just in the handful o’ years taken from him, his time could feed a sorcerer’s spells for two decades.”

Jason moved back slightly, staring at Constantine, and Bruce pulled him closer. “Then we need to put a mask on it,” he said bluntly. “Find a way to hide the shine, as you call it, so it isn’t attracting people to do this again. We need to figure that out.”

“Is there such thing as a glamour for that?” Clark leaned forward and Zatanna and Constantine exchanged a glance.

“We’ll work on it,” Zatanna said firmly, and took a deep breath. “Alright. Mr. Drake?” She gave him a smile. “Do you mind standing on your own for a moment?”

Tim twisted around, looking up at Bruce for confirmation, then nodded to her. “Okay,” he agreed, and Bruce set him down. Constantine cracked his knuckles and stood beside Zatanna, turning two of the many rings cluttering his fingers. He held his hands out as if framing a picture, glowing cigarette still held between two fingers.

“I’ve got the present, you’ve got the future?”

“Yeah. Alright, big breath in.” Zatanna crouched in front of Tim, offering him a smile, and he obeyed. “And… dniw sih kcolc kcab, nruter sih emit dna sraey devil,” she murmured, gold and an electric blue glowing in her eyes as her fingers splayed in the air. Tim hiccupped, blinking at her, then coughed. He coughed again, harder, doubling over as he caught at his chest.

It was, far and away, the most disorienting thing Bruce had ever seen in his life. One moment it was a four year-old there, struggling to breathe, and his skin was nearly glowing, bright like he was a living ember, too bright to see the details of.

And then the light faded and it was a teenager who was doubled over on his hands and knees, still coughing. He was dressed in the black undersuit from his Red Robin uniform, shaggy hair sticking to his face with sweat as he took in unsteady breaths and raised his head to look around at them.

“‘S a whole party,” he mumbled, dragging a trembling hand down his face. “Hey, guys.”

“Tim.” Kon got there before Bruce could, picking Tim up and supporting him quickly. “Hey, hey, how do you feel?” He ran his fingers through Tim’s hair.

“Like I need half a dozen cups of coffee?” His lips curled into a smile and he dropped his forehead to Kon’s shoulder. He remained there for a beat, grateful and soft, then, “Pumme down, I can stand, ‘m just tired.”

Kon looked somewhat reluctant to obey, but he did after a moment, and Bruce moved forward to check him over. “How do you feel?” he asked, looking him over. Regardless of what Tim had grumbled at his friend, he was still leaning back against him for support and balance.

“Skin feels weird,” he reported in his usual mission breakdown voice. “Sensitive. I’m tired, maybe a side effect of fueling the spell. Mild shakiness, drowsiness. But I’m me.” He offered Bruce a smile. “Sorry, B.” He cleared his throat, grimacing as he forced his weight fully onto his own feet so he could straighten. “I should have realized it was a trap sooner.”

“Do you remember anything about what happened to you?” Dick leaned forward and Bruce checked his son’s joints quickly.

“Before or after?” He offered his older brother a chuckle and Clark hummed.

“Both.”

“Yeah. I remember. I was…” he allowed Bruce to move him around, but massaged at his eyes with his free hand. “Oh my god, is this headache from the spell or from the fact that I haven’t had caffeine in three days?!”

Wally laughed and Zatanna’s eyes crinkled. “Probably both. Do you remember the last three days?”

“Uh- mostly.” He opened his eyes and squinted at them all. “You guys are all… so much shorter. Except you, Damian, you’re mostly the same.”

“Tt. You waste of oxygen,” Damian scoffed acidly, crossing his arms, and Tim laughed as he swayed on his feet.

“You were nicer when I was little.”

“He did a wonderful job when you were small,” Bruce agreed, and Kon helped Tim sit, carefully. “Thank you, Conner,” he allowed, and Tim shot his boyfriend a warm smile.

“I think Damian missed you being older.” Dick grinned, relief spilling over his face like a sunrise. “Let’s get Jason fixed now.”

“Alright.” Zatanna offered Jason a smile and Bruce took in a breath, looking down as well, then paused. His son, rather than smiling back at her, was staring instead at Constantine, who was studying him in turn with mild interest. Jason was pale, shoulders rigid. “It won’t really hurt much,” she assured him with a smile, but he ducked a step back before she could squeeze his shoulder. She winced. “Sorry,” she told him a little more gently. “Alright. John, you’ve got the present?”

“Yeah,” the demonologist agreed, though he wasn’t raising his hands the way he had for Tim, instead still holding eye contact with Jason.

“Alright, Hood. Big breath in-“

But Jason was darting forward, ducking under her arm to skid to Constantine’s side. He caught his arm, fingers digging in. “Do you really owe me one?” He demanded, and the Brit raised his eyebrows.

“Uh. Yeah.”

“Get her away from me,” Jason demanded, nearly white as paper.

“Jason?” Tim and Zatanna asked at the same time, sounding equally concerned, and Jason’s fingers dug further into the sleeve of Constantine’s trench coat.

“Get her the fuck away from me right the fuck now!” He demanded hoarsely, and Constantine’s eyes flicked up to Zatanna. She stared at him.

“Don’t you dare-“

He flashed his hand out with a sharp word that slid away from them before Bruce could try to process it, and the world rippled, swallowing her up before flattening back into place again.

Bruce was immediately on alert and he saw the others moving in his peripherals, shifting into fighting stances. Bruce slowly moved a little closer to Jason. “Jason,” he said in a low voice, “What’s happening to you?”

“I don’t want this.” Jason whipped around, backing away from him shakily. “Don’t let them, I don’t want to do this.”

“Jason, Jason.” Bruce lowered to a crouch, holding out a hand. “Come here and explain to me what’s happening. I’m not going to make you do anything, you’re safe. Come here and talk to me.”

“No, I don’t want her to do this to me.” His hands shook as he tried to back up further, running straight into Clark’s legs. He jumped away from him like he’d been burned, eyes flashing around the group and very clearly noting where Kon, Wally, and Constantine were. Marking possible threats, mapping possible obstacles.

“Jason, it doesn’t hurt,” Tim said, leaning forward as his expression pinched. “It feels weird, but once you catch your breath, it mostly just feels like you’re tired and have a sunburn.”

Jason’s eyes skated over Tim’s shoulder, lingering a beat on the motorcycle just behind him, then focused around on Bruce again when he moved forward, reaching out a hand.

“Explain to me what you’re thinking,” Bruce murmured. “Tell me what’s wrong and we can discuss it. What are you worried about?”

“I don’t want to do this.” Jason’s jaw clenched, but he allowed Bruce’s hand to skim over his. “I don’t want her to give it back, I want to stay the way I am, I don’t want it to change.”

“Okay.” Bruce curled his fingers around Jason’s very carefully. His son’s entire body was taut and tense like a wire ready to snap, and Bruce was confident that he was keeping himself ready to dart around to the left, ready to launch over the back of the couch and onto the motorcycle at any second if Bruce’s grip became confining. Bruce very carefully shifted so Jason had a way to run if he needed. “What are you afraid that will change? You will always be my son. Your brothers are always going to love you.”

“It’s not about them.” Jason gave a hard shake of his head and Dick, who had moved forward, brushed his hair.

“Little Wing, then what-“

“I don’t want to die!” The words exploded out of the boy in Bruce’s hand like a bomb. “I don’t want to die! I don’t want to come back wrong, I don’t want to be angry, I don’t want to drop out of school or not see my family and I don’t want to be shiny! I don’t want any of that! I don’t want it back, I don’t want to die!” His voice cracked as he stared at Bruce, lips trembling.

“Oh, Jaylad.” Bruce stared at him, then very carefully pulled him into a hug, pressing his lips to his son’s hair. “It’s okay. I’m sorry, you’re okay.”

“I don’t want to grow up and be that,” Jason mumbled into his shirt, wrapping his arms around him tightly. “I don’t want to, I don’t- why do I have to? Why do I have to hurt, why can’t I- why can’t I just stay like this and do it over?”

Bruce’s fingers curled into his son’s hair, letting out a sharp breath.

He was a child. He didn’t know any better, he was just afraid.

But didn’t he deserve to have that chance? To do everything over? To be himself, to grow up and finish school and live the life he’d always wanted and deserved?

“Please, B,” he rasped against Bruce’s neck, fingers digging into the back of his shirt. “I don’t want it. Dad, I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be crazy or angry or that, I just want to stay. I’ll give up Robin if I have to, I’ll do anything, please don’t make me.” He peered at Dick with red-rimmed eyes over Bruce’s shoulder. “Don’t let them make me,” he repeated of his brother hoarsely.

Dick made a little pained sound and Bruce tucked Jason more carefully into his chest, throat aching. “Constantine,” he said after a moment, rubbing Jason’s back. “What are the issues with this?”

“I’m assumin’ you aren’t asking morally?” He snorted. “Yeah, I wouldn’t ask me that, neither. Physically, he’s fine and would grow just like any other kid. Zee probably explained it, but his time was taken, not rewound. It won’t be bustin’ in to repeat itself, if that’s what you’re asking. He wasn’t resurrected or dipped in the Pit yet, so he ain’t shining. He’s just a kid.”

He was just a kid. He was a child, able to grow and change as he should. He hadn’t died, he hadn’t gone through hell and back. He was happy. He loved his brothers.

“Bruce,” Clark murmured, and Jason froze at the sound of his voice, grip tightening on his father as his heartbeat started hammering against Bruce’s chest again.

Bruce stroked his hair and looked up at Clark. “I don’t know what to do,” he murmured. “Is it wrong to let him just… grow?”

Clark looked down at them for a moment, then took in a deep breath and knelt beside him. “Jason,” he said gently, and Jason tensed further. “I understand this is frightening,” he said, and Jason’s shoulders were practically stone under Bruce’s fingers. “And I understand that you don’t want to remember everything right now.”

“Stay away from me.” Jason tried to pull away from Bruce, trying to back up toward Dick, and Bruce let him go, watching carefully. Dick wrapped an arm around him, looking ready to run with him, and Damian and Tim straightened subtly where they were both sitting.

“Jason,” Clark soothed quickly, holding a hand up. “Jason, stop and listen for a moment.”

“Constantine-“ Jason whipped his head around to look at him frantically and the magician snorted.

“Laddie, I just got myself couched for a month for you. You’re out of favors, boy-o.”

“I’m not saying to age you up,” Clark said firmly when Jason ripped away from Dick and tried to move past him quickly. Dick tried to catch him and Clark blurred to the other side to stop the terrified boy. “Stop for a moment, Jason. I’m not saying you have to do this.”

“Then what are you doing?” Jason glowered at him, but it didn’t do nearly enough to cover the fear in his voice.

“I’m saying that you should make an informed decision.” Clark held his forearms firmly but carefully, keeping Bruce’s son from trying to run again. “And there are moments that you don’t want to have lost. You were fifteen when you died, you lived another three years as Robin and as Bruce’s son and Dick’s brother. All of that time will be lost to you.”

“I don’t care.” Jason bared his teeth and Clark’s expression softened.

“I’m saying that you should get at least those three years back, if that’s possible,” he told him, voice gentle again. “Not to the moment of your death, of course not, but within a few months if that’s something Zatanna and Constantine are able to do. You’ll get the memories of that time back- with your family, with your education, your friends, your cape work. You’ll be a teenager again, and you’ll be in a more mature place to decide what you want from there.”

Bruce relaxed, giving him a smile, and caught Jason’s shoulder. “Just three years,” he offered. This was a good start to the plan, a good option. “Not all of it. A few years, give you back that much. How does that sound?” He studied his son’s face, pressing his leg against Clark’s as he did so.

He loved his partner so much.

Clark’s eyes crinkled slightly at him and he pressed his shoulder against Bruce’s. Jason pulled free successfully of the Kryptonian when Clark opened his fingers, and Jason backed up a slow step before looking up at Dick with a painfully uncertain expression.

“Hey.” Dick wrapped an arm around Jason, resting his head against his brother’s, cuddling Jason close for a moment. “Constantine fucks it up and I’ll yeet him back into the Shadow Realm, cool? Fifteen. Until you’re an obnoxious little teenager.”

“You’re such a fuckin’ nerd,” Jason muttered, fighting a small smile and Constantine murmured something. The world rippled, Zatanna reappearing, and she took just a second to take in her surroundings before turning and swinging a savage punch directly across Constantine’s face. There was a distinct pop of his jaw and he worked it, grimacing with a hiss of breath.

“Jesus, Zee-“

“Piz ti,” she snarled, and his mouth snapped shut, lips pressing tight together. He made a sharp, muffled noise of anger or offense and clawed at his lips as she turned back on the others in the room. “What just happened?”

“You are only restoring Jason to the twentieth of April of his fifteenth year.” Bruce looked up at her, making the executive decision on the date. Weeks before he’d been killed, but close enough he wouldn’t miss much. “He’ll then make a decision about if you’re going further.”

She watched him for a moment, then raised a finger in Jason’s direction. “Sisats,” she murmured, and he stilled against Dick’s side, an unmoving and unbreathing statue. Clark’s jaw clenched in disapproval as he stood.

“He’s a minor, Zatanna.”

“Which is why I just put him on pause so the adults can have a conversation. What just happened?” There was a muffled sound from behind her and she scowled. “I’m asking them, not you.”

Dick shook his head, prickly and fierce the way he always was when his brothers were upset and he felt the need to step in and protect them. “He wants to try again, not go through hell and die and hate his family. He has the right to make that decision.”

Bruce stood slowly. “I don’t care if you have a relationship with him,” he said firmly, and Zatanna turned slowly to level Constantine with a deadly look. He paused immediately in trying to burn his lips apart with the cigarette lighter and turned away quickly. “If he chooses to stay without his development, that is his choice, not yours. I fully realize what that would cost you to lose him and I’m sorry, but he deserves to try to live out a normal life.”

“You are extremely in the doghouse,” Zatanna growled at her partner, then pinched the bridge of her nose for a moment before turning to Bruce. “Okay. First of all, relationship is an extremely generous word for a loose series of one-night stands inbetween aid on missions.”

“I’m gonna vomit,” Tim groaned from the couch.

“Kind of hot, actually,” Wally disagreed, and there was a sound like something hitting him.

“Dude, that’s our brother.”

“Oh my god, how do you have so many children,” Zatanna exhaled, then focused on Clark again. “Is this…” she crossed her arms in thought. “Okay?” She asked with a grimace. “Hood fully-grown probably wouldn’t agree to this.”

“He also had to be murdered by the Joker, has the Lazarus Pit poisoning his mind, and was trained by assassins who hate B and hasn’t felt safe at home for years,” Dick said sharply. “He’s been twisted into something else, he’s not thinking normally.”

“I don’t know,” Clark admitted honestly to Zatanna.

“The Morality Police doesn’t know?” Damian’s voice muttered, and Kon laughed. Clark’s eyes crinkled very slightly at the sound.

“I don’t,” he agreed. “It’s true. Jason’s mind is hardly his own after his death, resurrection, and the effects of the Pit. I don’t know if it’s more right to accept the fully grown Jason’s decision or the version of him that exists now, who doesn’t want to ever become the Red Hood.”

“Give him back until fifteen,” Bruce said. This was the best option for now, the fairest and closest thing they could do to getting a real answer from Jason. “Give him until that and see what he thinks then. We will… we’ll explain things to him. We’ll show him videos, mission reports. We’ll let him understand who he becomes and why. Then he can make a decision.”

“Are you going to tell him about how he died?” Zatanna watched him. “And what happened after?”

Bruce gave a small, jerky nod. He would have to look his son in the face and explain to him, in a way that he never had been able to vocalize, what had happened with him and Joker. Jason deserved that. “Yes.”

Zatanna pressed her lips together for a moment, then, “Piznu,” she snapped, and Constantine sucked in a breath.

“Jesus, you she-bitch, that was-“

“What do you think?” She turned to look at him and he paused, eyebrows raising.

“Oh, love, I really don’t think I’m a good judge of what is or is not fucked up,” he said honestly, lighting a cigarette immediately with his newfound freedom. She didn’t move, just raised an eyebrow, and he blew out a breath once he’d taken a drag. “Fine. You want my opinion, I say let ‘im stay young. Todd’s fucked in the head. We all are, but wow, he’s got genuinely stunning levels of fuckery.” He snorted. “It ain’t about getting to keep him cute and compliant. It’s about him not having to live through being murdered. Who doesn’t want to avoid that shit? He doesn’t have friends, doesn’t have a home, doesn’t have good memories he’ll lose. Is it fucked to just make this decision based on the whims of a past version of him rather than what he would want today? Possibly. Am I onboard? Yes.”

Bruce looked back at Clark, searching his face. “Am I agreeing to this for the wrong reasons?” He asked under his breath. “Am I doing this for a good reason?”

Clark’s eyes flicked to Zatanna and Constantine, hand flexing, and Bruce felt a small, fond rush under his skin. His partner was such a tactile man when it came to comforting others. It always drove him up the wall to see Bruce stressed in a professional setting and be unable to touch him.

“I don’t think this is you being selfish,” Clark said finally. “You were going to put him back to rights up until he begged you not to. You are still going to give him the option. If he asks for it back, you’ll let him age up regardless of what that means for your relationship. You haven’t done or said anything to try to persuade him not to do this. But your son is frightened and wants to avoid losing the life he knows. Jason Todd of five years ago would not have chosen the life he received if given the choice between that or actually living the future he should have. And we can check that by asking him. It isn’t your choice, it’s his.”

Bruce nodded, a little of the tension draining away. Clark was never afraid to tell him off when he was wrong, was never loathe to inform Bruce when he was making a bad decision. If he thought Bruce wasn’t doing something wrong, it probably wasn’t.

He focused on Zatanna. “Give him back those years,” he said. “And then we’ll talk.”

“Alright. Constantine?”

“Yikes. Last names.” The magician pulled a face, but framed Jason between his hands. “I’ve got the present.”

“Hold it steady,” Zatanna ordered, then started murmuring fast under her breath, too quickly and fluidly for Bruce to catch. It wasn’t what she had said for Tim though, the spell obviously more intricate than what she had done before. Jason started breathing, then coughing, grabbing at Dick for balance as he hacked out breaths. He glowed, exactly like Tim had, and then-

Jason was on his knees on the floor, wheezing for breath, and he looked-

It felt like the world was stuttering again.

Bruce couldn’t quite tell if his son was gasping in breath on the floor of the Cave-

Or were they in Ethiopia, Jason’s body in bloodied pieces clutched in Bruce’s hands?

Because it was the same form that was just starting to show signs of height he’d someday grow into, black curls messy and in need of a trim, a half-healed bruise on his neck from where a gangster had hit him with a bat a few weeks before his death. He was starting to have broader shoulders, a figure that wouldn’t fit into the Robin uniform for too much longer if his growth spurt kept taking off the way it had started to, and Bruce couldn’t-

“Bats,” Clark murmured too low for the humans in the room to hear. “It’s okay. He’s fine.”

Bruce tried to breathe but it wasn’t coming in normally, he wasn’t able to take in any breath at all. He sank- or maybe fell- to his knees, pressing his hands to his sons arms to prove to himself that he was real.

He was vaguely aware of Dick ushering Kon, Tim, Wally, and Damian up the elevator. He was vaguely aware of Constantine saying something, but none of it mattered as Jason’s eyes met Bruce’s and it was the boy he’d lost so goddamn long ago.

“Jason,” Bruce said, and he couldn’t even process how he sounded right now and he was so glad that they didn’t have an audience at the moment, most of the people in the room having left. “How do you feel?”

“Tired with a sunburn,” he mumbled in an echo of Tim, offering Bruce an unsteady smile as he fought to catch his breath again. “Timmers wasn’t… kidding.” He blew out a breath, dropping his forehead to Bruce’s shoulder.

“No?” Bruce wrapped his arms around him, focusing on breathing normally, on not losing his mind, on staying calm and still and pressing them together. “I’m sorry. You can sleep however much you need to, if that’s what you want to do.”

Jason nodded a little, leaning into him, and then he reeled backwards, staring at Bruce for a moment. He seemed to be struggling to think, blinking repeatedly in the same way he always had when he’d gotten hit on the head. Bruce wasn’t sure if he was trying to think through his exhaustion or if it was something more, but then,

“I pushed him.” The words were exhausted and urgent, Jason searching Bruce’s face. “I lied when I told you I didn’t. Garzonas, I- I pushed him off the balcony.” He shuddered, swallowing hard. “He hurt her, he hurt her and she died and he was just going to leave and get away with it. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t- I couldn’t let him get away with it. I pushed him and I killed him and I’m not- I’m not sorry.” His teeth chattered together as he started to shake under Bruce’s hands. “He was a piece ‘a shit monster and he was gonna hurt more people, Dad, and I couldn’t- I didn’t-“ he shook his head hard.

“Jason.” Bruce rested his head against Jason’s. “It’s okay. Breathe for me. Four in, hold for seven, breathe out eight. Do you remember that? Do it for me.” He brushed Jason’s hair out of his face. “Breathe for me.”

Jason’s eyes sank shut and he obeyed, curling one hand into his shirt. Four in, hold seven, out eight, three times before his breathing loosened and he opened exhausted blue eyes to look up at Bruce again. “I’m not sorry he’s dead but I’m sorry I- broke your rules.” He shut his eyes again quickly, forcing in another regulated breath. “Is that why we- why I’m not around when I come back? You can’t forgive-“ he stopped, forcing another breathing repetition as his hand fisted Bruce’s shirt more tightly.

“No.” Bruce rested his head against Jason’s. “Nothing you have done is something I can’t forgive. Nothing you do later, either. You are my son. We can talk about what happened, but let’s wait a minute, let you even out.”

Jason swallowed and nodded, focusing on his breathing again as he sagged forward against him. Fingers ghosted down Bruce’s back.

“I sent Zatanna and Constantine back to the Watchtower,” Clark murmured, lips pressing briefly against Bruce’s hair, then his temple. “She needs to rest as well anyway. I’ll make sure that everyone upstairs gives you space until you’re ready to have them down again.”

“Thank you.” Bruce reached up, pressing a hand to Clark’s cheek as he looked up at him, drowning in the blue warmth looking back down at him. Clark might gain strength from the sun, but he shone its benefits right back at everyone around him. “Thank you, Clark. He needs time.”

“Anyone would,” Clark agreed, turning his head and kissing Bruce’s palm slowly. “I’ll be upstairs. Just call me if you need me and I’ll be here. Jason?” He focused on Bruce’s son, who opened his eyes to blink slowly up at him. “Would it be alright if Alfred brought some soup down for you whenever you’re ready to eat?”

“Yeah, course.” Jason nodded and Clark squeezed Bruce’s shoulder, then headed up the stairs and out of the Cave.

Bruce soaked in the quiet and very carefully stood, lifting Jason with him and resting him on the nearest cot. “Okay,” he murmured. “Let’s get you in some pajamas, something more comfortable, and Alfred will bring you food. You’ll get something to eat and drink and then you’ll sleep, and when you wake up we can talk.” He searched Jason’s face. “But I do need you to know that there is nothing you can do, have done, or ever will do, that would make me want to leave you out of my family. You’re my second child. Yes?”

“Even Garzonas?” He sank into the mattress, eyes heavy-lidded, but his fingers hooked around Bruce’s wrist. “You were so angry, B.”

“Killing is wrong.” Bruce pulled off Jason’s boots gently with one hand, leaving the other in Jason’s fingers. “I still punish that severely when one of you does it, because it’s against what we do. But that doesn’t change what you are to me. Nothing you are capable of doing could.”

Jason shuddered, expression washing in relief as he shut his eyes, and something clenched tightly in Bruce’s chest. If he had said that before, would things have been different? If he had understood the stakes, if he had known that a wedge between them would lead to a schism, would lead to Jason running off to find his mother (to find a parent to find family), would lead to his death, would he have been able to overlook the rage and betrayal at what Jason had done?

He’d always known that Felipe hadn’t slipped.

Jason wasn’t nearly a good enough liar to get away with the denial of what he had done- and honestly, he hadn’t tried that hard to convince Bruce of it. He’d been furious that Felipe was going to walk in the first place, and then when they had found Gloria’s body… he’d been so shellshocked, so horrified that what they had done to intervene hadn’t been enough, that the justice system had failed, that there was no punishment coming for the man who had drove her to that point.

Bruce should have known what Jason would do, should have realized when something snapped in his son, but he’d never actually expected it until he saw the body on the pavement and Jason standing stock still on the balcony. He’d said the man had slipped, spooked by the sight of Robin, and then he’d grappled away. The fighting had gotten worse after that on both sides. Jason had been furious that Bruce’s moral code hadn’t been enough to protect Gloria or condemn Garzonas, and Bruce had been…

Hurt. Betrayed. Angry. Ashamed. He had trained Jason as Robin, he had given him that power, that responsibility, and Jason had used it to exact lethal vengeance. Without Bruce accepting Jason as Robin, a man would be alive. He’d been disgusted with himself, ashamed of the consequences of his own actions just as much as he was furious with Jason for breaking their code and Bruce’s trust.

But if he had known where it would all lead, would he have been able to swallow all that anger and betrayal to hold his son? To tell him that he was still loved even if what he had done was wrong on so many levels?

If he had, would Jason have lived?

Bruce didn’t know. He wouldn’t ever know for sure. All he knew now was that he couldn’t ever cage his son into feeling so trapped again. All he could do was try to swallow that anger the way he couldn’t years ago and let Jason choose his own path forward.

He couldn’t make the wrong decision again.

He just didn’t know what the wrong decision looked like here.

Notes:

I caved and did the chapter a couple days early because y'alls comments were cute, so thanks for being the amazing writer-fuel that you all are.

I know, a lot went down this chapter. It's honestly one of my favorites because of this chapter alone, it was just a lot of fun to write and to consider the morality of every angle. Without the League's influence and the Pit's poison, I think Jason would have tried very hard to become someone other than the Hood. That said, there's a lot of dubious morality in letting a child make adult decisions, so this isn't going to be a straight line. Where they'll go from here? I wonder...

Leave a comment if you have a thought or reaction you'd like to share, this chapter is a big one! ❤️

Chapter 9: Monday Evening

Summary:

The fallout of the meeting in the Cave begins.

Notes:

Y'alls comments were so good that I couldn't help but give in and give you a chapter a few days early.

“Master Bruce,” Alfred murmured, a hand resting on Bruce’s shoulder to drag his attention away from his sleeping son’s face, and Bruce stirred with a glance at the clock. It had been three hours already. How had that happened?

He looked around, focusing on his father-figure’s face, and tried to smile. “Hello,” he said. “Jason’s sleeping, I’ll put the soup away and give it to him when he wakes up.”

Alfred studied him for a moment, then sighed, gently setting the bowl in his hands aside. “Oh, my boy,” he murmured, and wrapped his arms around Bruce in a rare hug. “I know. It has all been so very much.”

Bruce leaned into him, focusing on regulating his breathing. What would he do without Alfred Pennyworth? “I have to tell him what happened,” he said. “How he died. What I did… what I didn’t do, after. I have to explain it to him and he’s going to hate me again. I’m going to lose him again, Alfred.”

“You don’t know that.” Alfred’s hands smoothed slowly across his back. “When Master Jason came back, so angry and so resentful, he was not himself. He had been murdered. He had woken up. He dug himself from his own grave, was put into a poison to cure his body and break his mind, and then he was kept by the same monsters that denied your blood son any love or kindness for his youth. There was so, so much burden on his shoulders when he was told that the Joker lived and that you had a new Robin. I doubt such information was presented to him without framework or objective, either.”

“No.” That, he could be absolutely certain of. Jason had been given that information in precisely the way that would hurt him most, that would create the largest rift. “I was angry, Alfred, but I would have never wanted- he keeps asking me if this problem or that action is the reason why I stopped wanting him here. I’m trying to explain that it was never my choice. What happens if he runs again, Alfred?”

“Then he runs,” his almost-father said gently, as if it was simple. “He knows how to survive. He always has. He doesn’t have the heart to leave the city. You and Ms. Gordon, Master Richard, Master Timothy… maybe even Master Damian,” a little chuckle there, “We are more than capable enough to be able to track where he goes and make sure he stays alive. Even if he runs for a time, even if he is furious with you and you lose his affection for however long… that doesn’t mean you lose his actual love.” He hesitated, then, “And it would still be a second chance at his life, without everything that happened to him clouding his mind and his decisions.” His fingers combed gently through Bruce’s hair, sweeping it back from his face the way he had always done when Bruce had been a kid scared in bed after a nightmare.

Bruce closed his eyes, shaking his head a little. He was right, of course; it was a second chance at life, something that Jason never had and could use, now. It was a way for him to try again, to live his life, to complete what had been cut off so sharply.

He was right. Jason had the right to be angry, to run. He had every right, and Bruce would let him, as long as he needed to run. And he would protect him the best he could while that happened. “We need to begin patrolling Crime Alley,” he said. “Jason had people there he protected, they’re without a guardian now. I need to put patrols there as well.”

“From what the boys told me, this is a decision Jason gets to make himself. If he does decide to try starting over, he may decide to keep Crime Alley’s protection for his own.” Alfred pulled back and tucked Jason into the blankets on the bed, then settled on the edge and looked at Bruce. “Do you forgive him for killing? What he’s done in his past and what he may do in the future, despite how wrong it is? Despite that it goes against everything in you and what you stand for, so you accept that it may be something that he does so long as it is limited to criminals?”

Bruce looked down at Jason. “Killing is wrong,” he said. “It doesn’t solve problems. More often than not, it escalates them, it begins a new series of violence that never stops. But Jason… has a different view. He works differently. Many of my cohort do as well, and I don’t hold it against them. I wish he would stop killing.” Bruce tucked the edge of the blanket down gently. “But I forgive him. He is my son, Alfred. That can’t be changed. He targets criminals only, that is different than what I would not be able to forgive. Damian is different. His upbringing told him the wrong people were criminals, and my forgiveness for that isn’t contingent on his targets being criminal.”

Alfred smiled slightly, looking tired but fond. “Master Bruce, repeat what you said until you accept it yourself. Family like this is family. Regardless of how antithetical to your belief system and your life some of his actions are, you still love him. Sweet boy.” He brushed his knuckles lightly over Bruce’s arm as he stood. “You deserve that same love. If you can forgive Jason for killing, then should not he be able to forgive you for being unable to? It isn’t a matter of love. It is a matter of soul, and accepting that for what it is. It doesn’t mean you love him any less that you did not end the Joker for him, no more than he loved you less for killing Garzano. You simply are different.”

Bruce looked down at Jason, thinking, then, “Would you have killed him? Joker? If you were in my position?”

Alfred thought about it for a moment, then let out a sigh and stepped into the room again. “I am going to tell you something that I never intended to,” he said, meeting Bruce’s eyes. “Shortly after Jason’s death, after Ms. Gordon was paralyzed, I struggled a great deal with the knowledge that that monster still breathed.” He shut his eyes briefly. “I still do,” he admitted wryly, smiling slightly at Bruce. “But at the time, I could not accept it. I placed a hit, Master Wayne, to arrange for the Joker to be killed while incarcerated in Arkham.”

Bruce stared at him. “You what?”

“I paid a man to murder the Joker.” Alfred inclined his head, looking at him steadily, and then he shut his eyes as he let out a breath. “But I thought about it, and I canceled the hit. Nothing happened, and he continues to rot in that psychiatric hellhole to this day.” He reached out, resting a hand on Bruce’s head, and met his eyes. “Because, Master Bruce, some ideals are worth preserving,” he told him gently. “Killing a man in cold blood, regardless of the deservedness, would never be something the Batman could accept or condone. I am deeply, deeply proud of who you are, Bruce. Even for your shortcomings, even for your missteps. The fact that you could not break who you are and kill a man does not mean you loved your son any less. The fact that I honored that does not mean I did not grieve him with every cell in my being. It merely means that we know our limits, and who we would become if we broke them.”

Bruce took in a shaky breath. “If I do it, just once, how could I stop?” He shook his head fast. “No. I love him, and I grieved him. His death was…” Bruce would never be able to explain. Someone who had lost their spouse was a widow or widower, someone who lost their parents was an orphan. There was no word, no label, for someone who had lost a child because the loss was beyond understanding or reason. “But I couldn’t take that step, and he hated me for it. I’m praying he won’t hate me for it again.”

Alfred nodded, squeezing Bruce’s shoulder. “I know,” he agreed. “Give him time, and let the others catch him up on what happened. Richard and Timothy can do that, or Clark could. Let it be information without your explanation, and then he can make his choices from there.”

Bruce nodded a little, catching Alfred’s hand. “Thank you. I just want him to be happy, to be able to live his life. He has a chance to redo it and he deserves that if he wants, but it needs to be his choice. Can you stay with him for a minute?” He pushed himself to his feet. “I want to check on Tim.”

“I will,” he agreed, and Bruce squeezed his shoulder again, then left, grateful for the millionth time that he had someone like Alfred in his life.

Tim was asleep when Bruce found him, stretched out almost completely on top of Conner Kent with his face turned into the Kryptonian’s chest. They were both laying in Tim’s bed, and Kon looked around almost guiltily when Bruce opened the door and found them that way.

“Sir,” he said almost awkwardly, fingers curled into Tim’s hair.

“Conner.” Bruce studied them for a long moment. “How is he?”

“Tired.” Conner shook his head a little, still clearly very nervous. “But he’s himself.”

Bruce nodded, then stepped back. “If you upset him, I will set Alfred on you,” he informed him, and Kon grinned, nodding as he relaxed.

He moved on to check on the rest of his children and found Damian with his pets, sitting cross-legged on the floor as he combed out Alfred the cat. He didn’t look concerned in one way or another, focused on soothing his fingers across the cat’s scalp as he worked, so Bruce left him to it for the moment. He’d have to check on how Damian was taking the concept of keeping a younger Jason around at some point, but decided to let him have time to process it first.

Besides, they didn’t know for sure yet if Jason would choose to stay with them or even if he would choose to stay young.

He located Dick next, which was more difficult than the other two as he wasn’t in any of his more obvious haunts. It was nearly fifteen minutes into his search that Bruce went into the Manor’s overlarge attic. When Dick had been fresh into the home, he had loved and hated it in turns. The attic had large beams that traveled high up to the ceilings, and at times Dick had swung from them like they were an enormous wooden jungle gym just for him. Other times, the high beams and pointed ceilings seemed to remind him too much of the circus, and he wouldn’t approach it for weeks on end. He hadn’t gone up in Bruce’s knowledge for a couple years now.

He was up in the rafters then though, and from the faint sheen of sweat on his skin, he had maybe been reliving the old days, darting across them, flipping through the air as fluidly as he ever had. He had either chosen to take a break or been forced to, as he was sitting on one of the cross-beams, Wally straddling it beside him to face him.

“-going to be fine,” Wally was murmuring when Bruce emerged from the staircase, the speedster resting his fist on top of Dick’s shoulder and resting his chin atop that. “Constantine’s on your side, which okay yeah is kind of a blessing and curse because it’s Constantine, but Supes didn’t seem against it, and if Supes and the Bat are for it, Wonder Woman probably will agree with them.”

But the fact that it wasn’t a given went unsaid. Diana had disagreed with Clark and Bruce before. It was somewhat unusual, as typically she and Clark would agree with Bruce being the odd one out. Most often if Clark and Bruce were able to agree on League business, it was because it was the obvious or logical decision and she accepted and supported that.

It didn’t always go that way, though, and when it was Batman and Superman disagreeing with Wonder Woman, it always got messy. Sides were called faster than children in recess, infighting started, arguments between the entire Justice League that became larger and larger the longer the three held their public stalemate. On more than one occasion, it had actually led to friendly fire with squabbles turning into actual fights in the Watchtower.

If Diana felt that Jason needed to be returned to his actual age regardless of what his younger self wanted, it would turn into a disaster. If she agreed with them, any quiet mumbling about ‘is this okay’ would remain that, but if she disagreed…

Zatanna could change her mind in an instant.

Bruce stayed low, watching as Dick took in a breath, eyes fixed on the beams ahead of him. “And if she disagrees then the League will lose its shit. We’re not going to let them take Jason without a fight, but he’s young and Damian’s unsteady about it and Tim’s trying to recover and I just-“ he closed his eyes. “It’s all fucked, Walls. I’ll take on whoever I have to, to keep him okay, but it’s not gonna be good.”

“I know.” Wally watched him, looping his other arm forward to hook loosely around Dick’s waist. Dick leaned back into his boyfriend’s chest, letting his head fall back to Wally’s shoulder, and Bruce grimaced in the shadows, tempted to leave before he saw anything untoward.

Wally was quiet a beat, tipping his head forward to press his lips against the top of his fist rather than his hand, then, “You’ve got us too, though. It’s not the Bats against the League. I dunno, the Kryptonians might just call it Switzerland and stay outta all of it, but the Titans won’t.” He met Dick’s gaze as the other man turned his head to look at him, his own hard. “We lived through you losing him once and it was fucked,” he said bluntly. “No one’s gonna take him from you again. Gar’ll be on our side. So will Raven. That gives us magical defense, so Zatanna will have to go through her. Victor means we’ll have protection from any sort of virtual interference, so tracking us or disabling the Tower’s defenses won’t go well for any of them. And push comes to shove… well. I am the fastest man alive.” He winked. “I’d like to see them catch us.”

Dick laughed, relaxing as his eyes warmed and softened, and raised a hand to poke Wally in the cheek, fingers briefly tracing the lines of freckles that dotted the speedster’s skin. “The Bats and the Titans against the League,” he mused, turning his head to rest his forehead against Wally’s neck, still resting back on his shoulder. “I’d take that bet. Supes might go with the League, depending on Diana, but Kon won’t. So we’ll have one Kryptonian too, at least. I think that’s a damn good team.”

“Right? And I’m pretty sure that I could get Bart on my side. Baby Flash’s gotta stick with the family, plus Timbo and Kon will be with us. That makes it pretty likely we’d get Wondergirl… although she might stick with her mentor.” He made a face. “I bet she wouldn’t be overly effective though, actually fighting against her own team. She might end up just sitting out of it entirely. Plus, some in the League might agree with your dad.” He shrugged. “None of us have had an exactly normal life, like Constantine said. If you had the choice to go back to a moment before the most horrific and painful thing that had ever happened to you, and try to do it differently… I don’t think it’s that weird to decide to take it. Some of them will feel that way too.”

Dick’s smile was softer as he reached up again, brushing his fingers through Wally’s hair. “Thank you,” he murmured. “I just… miss my brother. I love Jason, I’m proud of what he’s accomplished, but he hates us all so much and I just… we fought all the time when he was brought home. I was still mad about not being Robin, and it sucked. But by the time he died, he was my brother. I was here a lot, taking him around, doing brother shit. And then he died, and he came back, and he was so angry, and I can’t even talk to him.”

“You’ve been making some progress, though,” the redhead pointed out gently. “Okay, yeah, progress like ‘he didn’t shoot me today’ sort of progress or ‘we fought the same gang at the same time and he didn’t let me get shot’ but that’s something!” He leaned back, resting one hand on the beam behind him to support his weight. “You’re probably the only one who’s even semi-successfully talked to him in the last two years without being maimed or apparently sleeping with him. Speaking of, having hookups with Zatanna and Constantine? At twenty? Boy’s got game.” He grinned at Dick, who shook his head with a rueful laugh.

“I don’t know if I should be grossed out or proud,” Dick informed him drily.

“Seriously though,” Wally continued, chuckling, “From the recon I’ve done on the Hood, he doesn’t have a ton of friends. Just associates, and then you. You’re the only one who might know what he’d want. Do you think he would choose to take this chance if he could? If he weren’t so angry about everything that happened.”

Dick considered, eyes far away and his fingers tracing shapes on Wally’s arm that was still wrapped around his waist as he thought. Bruce sank a little deeper into the shadows of the stairwell, listening and watching.

Dick blew out a breath after a few moments. “I think… I think he has a lot of regrets. I think he could want to try again. Sometimes I think he even wants to come home. But he’d want to know everything. He’d want to know what happened, he’d want to have the full picture. I put Babs on getting videos together to show him, so he knows who he was and can make a decision with all the information. We’re trying to make it as impartial as we can. I think he’d want to have the option, more than anything, no matter what direction he goes. I don’t think he’d want it decided for him.”

“Mm.” Wally watched him, then reached out, combing gentle fingers through Dick’s thick hair. “What matters is that this is his choice, Wonderbird. He’s gotta make the decision. And we’ll back whatever decision that is. If he sees all the info, good and bad, and wants to stay young, we’ll be with you making sure no one takes that choice away from him. And if he sees all the data and wants to age up again… then we’ll be there with you to process that.” He pressed a kiss against the top of Dick’s head.

“I know it won’t be easy if he decides to go back to being the Hood,” he continued gently. “I see why he’d do it. He’s survived a lot, and he carved out a place for himself here against the odds. That’s not nothing. And yeah, his relationship with you guys isn’t great, but it’s on the mend. Ish. He may see the good he does for the Alley, the progress he’s made for his people, the work he’s put into his training, the effort into overcoming the Pit, and he may decide to honor that and accept it. He might decide to be the Hood because that’s where his life led him, regardless of where he wishes it woulda led him.”

“I know.” Dick’s voice was quiet. “And I don’t- I’m not gonna fight that if he decides it. It’s his right, you’re right about that, and it has to be his choice without the rest of us pressuring him one way or the other. But if he does want to stay young and try again, I’m… shit, Walls, I’m scared of someone else just coming in and taking that choice away from him all over again. It’ll be like he died a second time.”

“That’s not going to happen.” Wally’s voice was sharp. “I’m not going to let anyone hurt either of you, Wonderful. We’re gonna take care of you. Either way this goes, it’s going to be his choice, and no one is going to change his mind for him..”

Dick closed his eyes, a smile crossing his face. “Is it dumb that I missed you last week when you were off with Barry and Bart on vacation? And not just ‘cause you were sending pictures of the beach like a douche.”

“Hey, I offered to pick you up. Coulda had you there in ten minutes or less.” Wally’s eyes crinkled at him. “You were the one who was all like ‘no, Walls, keep your family time,’” he mimicked Dick’s tone.

“Yeah, well.” Dick leaned up slightly, fingers curling into Wally’s hair to pull him in for a slow kiss, and Bruce moved quickly out of the attic, using every technique of stealth that he could to escape without them detecting his presence.

The Bats and the Titans versus the League… that thought warranted some contingency plans to be drawn up.

Just in case.

Notes:

Alfred putting the hit on the Joker is one piece of canon that I can actually get behind. I love it so much.

Also, it's important to note that Wally West, my beloved boy, is an optimist. He and Dick both are assuming the Titans are going to back them 100% because they're a team. They are absolutely not thinking about the issues one teammate in particular is going to have with this whole situation... curious to see if you'll guess who it is.

Thank you thank you thank you so much for all the comments and discourse on the last chapter! They were so good in fact that Clarke and I added several scenes that ended up bumping up the chapter count by two! Please leave a comment, reaction, or prediction again if you feel the inclination! We have a while yet before the end!

Chapter 10: Interlude

Summary:

We'd like to take a moment to talk to you about where we're headed, if that's cool with you.

Hey, guys! It's ya girl, ya Goose!

First off, hello and thanks for stopping in.

Second, thanks so much for all your comments. Clarke and I have been blown away by the response this fic has had and by how many people are interacting with it. Genuinely, thank you so much for sharing your opinions and reactions!

That said, those opinions and reactions were stronger than we had maybe anticipated, so we decided to take this little beat to have a conversation about where it’s all heading.

If we’re being honest, this fic was written solely as a response to Jason Todd missing his youth. I’ve read countless deaging fics, and in 99% of them, the spell wears off. I wanted to write a fic where that wasn’t the case, but where Jason was able to choose to stay young and live the life that was taken from him. I wanted him to be given the option to try life over again and for him to take it.

So we wrote this fic, Clarke and I, and I honestly really loved the way the next few chapters play out even despite the fact that they do so in a different direction than people were wanting. There’s a scene of young Jay talking to adult Jason that I wrote on my own, and it was just… perfect for what I wanted to portray. A sort of sincerity, a moment of clarity between your past and present self, the chance for you to communicate about how you didn’t expect to be where you are. It’s a chapter I really enjoyed writing and it did give adult Jason some agency in this decision, which is important.

As a side note, I also want to clarify for some who had asked that this is a much darker timeline for Jason. He doesn’t have the Outlaws or any connection to Kory and Roy here. (Though we are Joyfire shippers in general and they will be featured in future fics.) This is a version of Jason only a year or so back to Gotham, who hasn’t made any friends in the hero community or the world outside of Crime Alley. He’s self-destructive on more levels than one and has struggled to create positive connections. And yes, the Pit does have lasting effects in this world- though more important than the magical acid trip is the experience of his death and the information he was given (and how he was given it) when he returned to life.

We wrote this as a chance to give him a do-over without erasing the actual impact he’s had on the world- rewinding just him rather than rewinding time itself back to the moment before he died.

But, all that said, your comments have given us both pause. Characters we never intended to be villains, just mixed-up people with traumas and hopes, are being taken as selfish and cruel. That wasn’t our intention. We were trying to make it as clear as we could that whatever Jason chose was what they would honor, that they were actively working to avoid influencing that decision. In coming chapters, he’s given the good and bad data about who the Red Hood is, impartially and clearly. Obviously there are biases toward what each character wants to happen, and Dick and Bruce both fall on one more selfish side of that line, but the intention was always to show their willingness to honor who Jason is as an adult, to give him as much clear information as possible, and to respect his choice if he did want to be aged up again. Obviously that intention didn’t always bleed through clearly, and that was our failing in presentation.

But seriously? Thank you for talking to us. We asked for your opinions and reactions and you gave them. Thank you for that. Engagement and feedback is why we publish here, so we’re grateful for it. We wouldn’t ask if we didn’t care what you had to say, so we’re glad to have heard back. If all we wanted was our own opinion and our own plan, then we wouldn’t ever have hit that publish button. We take the feedback and feelings of our readers seriously. Because we do, we noticed that as we continued forward with posting the last couple chapters and reviewing the feedback, it has become very clear that the chapters and ending we had written for this world are not necessarily the chapters or the ending that the public wants to see.

From the feedback we’ve been getting for the last couple weeks, it seems likely that the next few chapters would be seen as disappointing, frustrating, or worse to some of those who’ve been following along. We didn’t want to spring that on you week after week and leave you feeling in the end like your time was wasted on this story. That just isn’t why we write, and it’s not the experience we wanted to take you on.

We thought about going on hiatus. I had an entirely different announcement post written out saying that we were going to put the work on pause indefinitely, but then someone commented and said that ‘Jason Todd is at the top of my list for DC characters that deserve second chances.’ I was ready to leave this fic here and be done with it for months if not forever, but… that commenter was right. I still believe in the ending of this fic. I’m still a believer in the way we took it. I think we handled it well in the end, and I hope you’ll agree if you stick with us.

So this fic is NOT going on hiatus, but we decided to warn you all about the ending, and those of you who are firmly against Jason staying young can… perhaps choose not to read it? Honestly, we don’t know what the right choice is here— we’ve never run into a situation or controversy like this with our fics before. We don’t know if you’d rather the story end here than end in a way you don’t want to see, or if you’d rather carry on even if it’s not the journey you expected or wanted from us.

In a funny way, it’s a lot like Jason’s conundrum itself. Would you rather move forward and face a future you didn’t expect or want to see? Or would you rather just stay where you are and live in a world where the future is unknown but open to your imagination?

What happens next is up to you. The next chapter will be up tomorrow (as an apology for this whole interlude moment) so long as people still want to see it. If you don’t want to see it, then feel free to unsubscribe and find a work that better suits what you’re looking for. We hope you stick with us though- we hope you trust us to take you somewhere good at the end of this.

Overall, we’re sorry if this direction of the fic is upsetting to anyone who’s stuck with us this far. Thank you all for following along, for reading, and for commenting all along. As always, if you have any thoughts, feelings, or reactions, we welcome them, and we hope to see you again, on this fic or another. ❤️

And if we don’t see you again? Well, we wish you the absolute best lives anyway.

Notes:

If you have something to say but your feeling or reaction is unkind, please choose not to share it. We're both doing the best we can with our mental health, but writing is giving away part of your soul. We do it for free, to hundreds of strangers, because we love these characters, we love each other, and we love bringing you joy on this journey we took ourselves. It hurts to disappoint you, and your words hold real weight with us, so please weigh your words before you leave them in a comment here.

If you want to see the next chapters, let us know! If you don't, then that's okay too, and we still wish you the best in the world. You've stuck with us this far. You deserve it.

Chapter 11: Tuesday Afternoon

Summary:

We return to our regular program! Tim has a long-overdue talk with Bruce, and Damian's argument with Jon returns to center-stage.

Notes:

And we're back! I'll get all my feels out in the end comments, but just know how grateful we are to be here and with your support.

The next day, Bruce only got to spend ten or so minutes eating breakfast with Jason in the Cave before he was ushered out by Kon, Wally, and Dick, who had decided to be the ones to catch Jason up on everything that had happened. The idea, Bruce thought vaguely, was that Dick was familiar to Jason, Kon was close to his current age, and Wally was not part of any of the events that had happened during Jason’s Hood era.

It was a physical struggle not to pull up video feed on his tablet to watch how Jason took it all. There was so much that his son was hearing for the first time. All of the details of his death, his resurrection, his training with the League, his attacks on Tim and the rest of the family, along with his rise as a crime lord, the cleaning up he had done within the Alley’s streets, the murders under his belt, how strictly he kept to his territory, how protectively he kept an eye on those under his name, his resentment of his once-loved ones, the good he’d done in the Alley… it was an overwhelming amount of information even for Bruce to think about, and he had not been sat down and told it all point-blank.

Bruce knew that Barbara was helping, that she had pulled up a wide variety of videos and image clips from the past few years to show him. She was also familiar to Jason, and Bruce prayed that it helped ease some of the shock of what he was hearing.

Would he be frightened? Angry? Proud? What was he feeling? What was he thinking? Bruce couldn’t stop thinking, couldn’t keep his mind off it. He couldn’t relax at the thought of Jason going through all of that again, even just verbally.

The four and Alfred had told Bruce that he was to steer clear of the Cave though, and with Herculean effort he didn’t watch through the cameras. (Yet.) Maybe later, maybe after it was all finished.

To distract himself, he went looking for Tim. He found his second-youngest (although not now, strangely enough- Jason was fifteen to Tim’s seventeen, and wasn’t that disorienting?) sitting on the railing of a third-floor balcony that overlooked the back acres of the estate.

“Oh, hey, B,” Tim said quickly when he realized Bruce had stepped onto the balcony beside him. His hands pressed flat together quickly, squishing Willy the whale flat and obscuring him from view. “They talking to Jason?”

“They are.” Bruce moved to stand beside him. “I always liked this view. I came out here to think a lot when I was younger.” He leaned forward against the railing, watching the leaves drift in the wind.

“Yeah?” Tim offered him a smile as he looked out at the trees. “Me too. You can see the same thing from the roof of my house. Just woods and quiet.” His hands rolled slightly, squishing the stuffed animal between them, and Bruce nodded.

“I always liked it. You don’t have to hide your whale, Timothy. I helped you find him when you were small.”

“Huh? Oh.” Tim’s pale cheeks pinkened slightly and he made a face, opening his hands as he looked down at the whale. His thumb traced along its belly. “I… Yeah. Thanks, for that.” He cleared his throat. “I was confused for a minute when I woke up and saw him in bed, but it makes sense.” He glanced at Bruce, then back at the whale. “Mr. Kent said that I probably would remember things less clearly than Jason, since I was four. I guess it’s like the new memories were just put in a bubble and sandwiched in beside the old ones. My past didn’t change, everything’s the same as it always was, but it still feels… like it all happened back then.” His eyebrows drew together. “Funny, how it works,” he murmured to himself.

“That would be disconcerting, I understand.” Bruce shifted slightly so his arm was resting against Tim’s side and let silence fall for a few beats, considering his next words. “Timothy, you don’t have an uncle who watches you now that your parents are gone, do you?”

“What?” Tim blinked at him rapidly, then laughed. “Oh, my god. Yeah, no, Uncle Eddie wasn’t around when I was a kid. He’s actually my great-uncle, if you’re being technical, so he and my parents weren’t really close until I was ten? Eleven?”

It was very nearly convincing if Bruce hadn’t seen the absolute silence of the Drake home.

“Is that so?” Bruce raised an eyebrow at him. “You showed signs of serious malnutrition even at four. I have never spoken to him, you never talk about needing to make excuses for being gone for a long time. He has never contacted me for any reason. I don’t think there’s an uncle at all, Tim. I think you have been lying to me, because they conditioned you to lie for them from the age you could speak.”

Tim’s lips pressed together briefly and he looked away, shifting the fins of his whale back and forth. “It’s not like that,” he said finally.

Bruce watched him, feeling that same sense of angry helplessness he’d felt in the car when Tim had cried in front of him, and he reached out, resting a hand on Tim’s hair. “I am a foster parent,” he said. “I can take you in. Legally. I can keep you here, with us. I understand that you’re almost eighteen, but we have months before that happens. You are important, Timothy. There is a reason I call the boys your brothers. I refer to you as my son. Anyone would be lucky to do so.”

A slight catch of breath, there and gone before Bruce could analyze it, but then Tim was shaking his head. “B, my parents were fine, and I’ve got things handled. I don’t need a foster parent,” he said, clearing his throat and giving him a small smile. “I really, genuinely appreciate the offer, but the only reason that I made up the uncle thing was because I knew you guys would read more into it than is actually going on. They were just gone a lot, it’s okay. It’s not like I don’t know how to lock up the house or feed myself, I’m almost eighteen.”

“You deserve better.” Bruce didn’t look away from him. “You deserve to be part of a family that treats you the way you should be.”

Tim swallowed, ducking his head and looking away. “They did what they could. They’re just- they had different priorities than some parents. They were busy when I was little, so they weren’t able to bond the way other families do. I was hard to handle.” He shrugged. “It’s not their fault.”

“I took care of you when you were four, Timothy. I was a stranger. You weren’t hard to handle.” Bruce put an arm around his son's shoulders and pulled him into his side, resting his chin briefly on Tim’s hair.

“Yeah, but you were also Batman,” Tim pointed out with a hint of a smile to his voice as he leaned into the contact like a sunflower seeking the sun. “I wasn’t going to misbehave with Batman, was I?”

“That’s true. You were appropriately in awe about that.” Bruce smiled a little, fingers smoothing down his arm slightly. “As far as I am concerned, you are a Wayne. And if you’d let me, I would make you one.”

Tim twisted around, looking up at him in such obvious surprise that it was almost painful. He opened and closed his mouth, then shook his head. “You don’t have to do anything like that, B. I wasn’t even supposed to be part of this family, I just took the first opening and wedged myself in anyway because you needed help.”

“And Jason stole my tires and tried to attack me when I confronted him. Damian appeared on my doorstop, conceived and birthed without my knowledge. Dick I adopted on purpose, but I had no concept of being his father past giving him a place to live.” Bruce snorted. “None of my children have come to me in a traditional way. You coming into our lives when we needed a little brightness was not a mistake, Tim.” He shrugged. “Timothy Drake-Wayne sounds like a fine name to me. It should have been your name for years.”

Tim’s fingers curled tightly into his whale. “My parents weren’t gonna go for that, B,” he offered, trying to joke slightly as he bumped into Bruce’s chest slightly.

“I would have done whatever it took,” Bruce told him seriously. “If I had known what was happening, I would have done something about it, Timothy.” And it was his fault for not seeing the signs before, for ignoring the signs that had been so obvious. “I still can. I can ruin their reputations by finding ways to prove that they neglected and borderline abused their only child, if you just say the word. Everyone can know. They should have seen what they had in you, and they didn’t. That’s their failing.”

“It wasn’t abuse,” Tim protested immediately, shaking his head. “Bruce, they were just- they weren’t great at the parenting thing, but it wasn’t abuse.”

“Not getting you enough food, not allowing you the attention and protection you should have had? Parental neglect is a form of abuse, Tim.” Bruce searched his face. He needed to know what was going on, needed to understand Tim’s mind. “What do you want?”

And Tim, who had always been so intelligent and so sure of his next steps, looked lost. “I don’t know,” he admitted quietly. “I’m not… I’m okay. And I’m not like Dick and Jason and Damian, who you had since they were kids. If he stays, Jason’s going to have to adjust to everything, and Damian might struggle with him too. The last thing you need is more mess on top of that.”

Bruce considered, then shook his head. “You’re moving in here,” he said firmly. “Tomorrow we will get your things and install you into the house properly. I will start the procedures for guardianship as well. This is your home. We are your family. It can be a simple guardianship for now, but if you ever want to be a Wayne, I will sign the papers.” He let him go but let them stay close, looking out across the grounds again. “Although, considering the way that boy looks at you, I suppose you may be a Kent here shortly.”

“Oh my god, B.” Tim stared at him, cheeks flaring pink. “You can’t just say things like that! Kon and I are- we’re friends!”

“Friends,” Bruce informed him gravely, “Is how Clark and I began, how Wally and Dick began. Conner looks at you like you hung the stars in the sky, Tim. You are not simply friends.”

The pink in his face deepened. “And you… approve?” He peeked at him, flapping his whale’s fins up and down slowly.

Bruce sighed. “I hate his hair, and the fact that he exposed himself to Kryptonite for the express purpose of piercing his ears is insanity,” he shot, and Tim laughed warmly at the memory. Bruce smiled. He’d missed the sound of Tim’s amusement. “But yes, I approve. For all his posturing, foul mouth, and ridiculous aesthetic, he is his father’s child. He has a good heart, he’s a good man beneath all the differences.”

“He’s amazing,” he agreed emphatically. “I can’t believe how good of a person he is.”

Bruce shook his head. “Kryptonians are a uniquely fascinating species,” he agreed. “I’m glad you are happy, regardless of his choices in outfit. Is there anything you need?” He rested his hand on Tim’s hair. “Anything you want?”

Tim hesitated, then shook his head. “You’ve got enough going on, B. Thank you for taking care of me.” He gave him a tight side-hug.

“No, no.” Bruce blinked down at him. “Things are getting resolved, I’m fine. What were you going to say? What do you need? Or want?” Had Tim ever asked for anything?

Just Robin, he determined, thinking back quickly. And that hadn’t lasted. He’d had it only two years before Damian had come home and his title had shifted.

“Nothing.” Tim shook his head quickly. “Seriously, I appreciate you looking into things and being concerned about me. But I’m here to take care of you.” He poked his forehead with a grin as he got to his feet, balancing fluidly on the railing. “That’s the whole point of my Robin.”

“No.” Bruce watched him. “The point of your Robin is that you did take care of me, that you saved my sanity when I was about to lose it. But I’m better now, so tell me what you were going to say.”

“I just… really appreciate that you took care of me.” Tim offered a crooked smile, sinking to a crouch on the railing. “Like I said, they were gone and busy a lot, so my dad and I never really- I don’t have many memories like that.” He shrugged self-consciously. “So I appreciate having this one now.”

“Yeah? I’m glad.” Bruce brushed his fingers through Tim’s hair affectionately. “But that isn’t you asking for something.”

Tim shook his head with a dry chuckle and Bruce let his fingers linger a moment on his inky hair. Tim didn’t ask for anything, just tried to figure it out or earn it. He would accept dinner after patrol or staying the night in the Manor if Bruce offered or offhandedly invited him, but now that he thought about it, Tim didn’t take the initiative for those moments on his own. He thought back briefly to the ‘am I good,’ followed by the statement that his four year-old self had made about how it felt like he wasn’t good enough for his parents to be home with him.

Why would somebody ask for something they know they’re not gonna get? A voice in Bruce’s head that sounded a lot like Jason’s scoffed.

“Timothy.” Bruce searched his face, then pulled him into a proper hug, speaking into his hair. “Ask me for anything. Anything at all, and it’s yours. Except for death or disowning one of my children… or being kind to the Lanterns.” Tim muffled a laugh against his shoulder. “You saved my sanity, you are a credit to the Robins, and you are a wonderful team leader and addition to my family. Spit it out.”

“It was just this,” Tim admitted on an exhale, hugging him back just a shade too tightly. Bruce felt his heart break. “I just wanted to see what it felt like now that I’m bigger. Still feels the same.” His voice was a little unsteady on the last word and he cleared his throat.

Bruce squeezed him a little more. “Very well. Then I will make sure it’s a regular part of our routine. I enjoyed having small Tim, but I am very glad to have you back. Needing affection and physical touch isn’t wrong, Tim. Asking for it is okay.” Not that he ever had, but he was desperately trying to raise his children as healthier people than he was.

Tim made a noncommittal noise to the last statement, but relaxed fully in Bruce’s arms for a few beats before pulling away and sitting on the railing again. “You okay?” He searched his face, and Bruce couldn’t quite follow for a beat before realizing he was changing the subject. “Everyone’s all mixed up about the Jason thing. How are you doing with it?”

Bruce turned to lean back against the railing, watching the house. Tim, always taking care of him. He never changed.

“He deserves to know what happened, to have all the information so he can make an informed decision. And he deserves to have his time and skills back as the adult he is, or to restart and live his life the way it should have been. Either way, he deserves to make the choice when he’s fully informed. It needs to be him, no one else, who makes that decision.”

“Nah, I didn’t ask what he deserves. I know all about what Jason Todd deserves.” Tim shrugged, unconcerned. Bruce smiled a little- miraculously, Tim had never held a grudge against his older brother for what Jason had done or said to him. He’d been frightened and traumatized after the Tower, but he’d always understood. “I asked how you’re doing with it. Seeing him be the same age is a lot. Maybe letting him stay this age is a lot.”

Bruce crossed his ankles, forcing himself not to cross his arms or retreat into sarcasm or grumbling. He wanted his sons to have better emotional health than he did. That meant sometimes modeling what that might look like. He glanced down at Tim, then away. “Either way it goes, it will be an adjustment. I miss him. He was always… a little more violent than the rest of you, more outwardly angry, but he was still a funny, bright child, as you all have been in whatever way. Seeing him like this is strange because I grieved this boy already. Having him go back will be just as strange, after having him be so young for a week. None of it will be easy.”

“You think he’ll go back?” Tim cocked his head to the side. “You don’t think he’ll want to stay young?”

“I don’t know.” Bruce shook his head, thinking. “I can see both. Knowing what he went through and not wanting to do it again makes sense, wanting to make something else of his life. But at the same time, he has responsibilities. He has earned respect. He has created a place for himself in the Alley. It’s a difficult choice.”

“It is.” Tim sucked on his tongue for a moment, then, “I’ve been through a lot, and I’m glad I aged back up,” he said carefully. “I don’t know what the right decision is, B, but… I know what I would choose. And I would have chosen it even when I was a kid. But my present and his present look pretty different, too. So I’m not going to say what I think will happen. I’m just going to prepare for both options. I think you should, too.”

Bruce nodded. “I think that wise,” he agreed, and they were quiet for a moment, then,

“On that note… About the Red Hood thing.” Tim looked out at the trees, fingers drumming on his thighs. “Mr. Kent said you want us to start patrolling Crime Alley if Jason stays like this. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“No?” Bruce blinked at him. “What problems do you see? We have to do something. We can’t leave his people.”

Tim ran his tongue along his teeth, tilting his head in acquiescence. “There is a reason that they trust the Hood and not the Bat, B. They’ll never trust any of us the way they do him. Batman works with the police, for one, and so many of them break the law just to survive. Drugs, sex, theft, whatever. Yeah, maybe you’re there to help them, but also maybe you’re there to help them be arrested. They don’t know what lines you stick to and what crimes you’ll punish them for. They won’t ever trust you, and they know you watch all of Gotham. They can’t trust that you’ll be around or take care of them when you’re covering the whole city.”

Bruce nodded, considering this. “You’re probably right. What do you suggest, then?”

“Giving the mantle away. Maybe Jason will grow back into it down the line, or maybe he’ll do something entirely different. But in the meantime, the Alley does need and deserve a dedicated guardian.” He hopped off the rail, landing on the balcony. “Someone who’ll stick to their borough, put them first, use excessive force if needed, and not turn it into something like Sionis would. I’ve got a lead on a possibility, I’ll let you know if it pans out if that’s what ends up happening.”

“Let me know,” he agreed, giving Tim a smile. His control issues wanted to ask more questions, vet this person himself, but Tim was absolutely brilliant and loved Gotham with a fierceness that rivaled Bruce’s. He wouldn’t choose someone unworthy, and Bruce maybe needed to let up on the reins a little. “That was good thinking. It’ll help us with issues coming up.”

“I’m nothing if not up for contingency plans.” He grinned and waved, heading back inside.

To Bruce’s immense chagrin, the conversation in the Cave still wasn’t over and in fact seemed to have swallowed Alfred up as well. Bruce glanced over a couple files for Wayne Enterprises, then abandoned the efforts and went to find Damian. He found him back in his art studio, washing out his paintbrushes, and offered a slight smile at his son’s back.

“I was proud of how you handled both boys when they were small,” he said gently, and Damian lifted his head slightly. “How are you doing with all of this?”

“I am glad that Drake is his proper age,” Damian said immediately, scowling slightly as he carefully scrubbed the handle of a brush. “He was pathetically small and more useless than he typically is in that state. It would have become a problem had he been targeted at any point during that time.”

Bruce bit back a smile. That was Damian’s version of being glad that Tim was safe again. “That’s very true,” he agreed seriously. “I’m glad that he’s the proper age now, as well. What do you think about Jason’s situation?” Damian had connections to Jason and the Lazarus Pit, as well as the League, that no one else did. He was in a unique position and Bruce was genuinely curious what he thought about it.

Damian frowned at the painting to his right, and Bruce allowed himself the quickest of glances at it, letting a smile cross his face when he found what was unmistakably the Kent farm atop the background he had painted yesterday, with a storage barn and the wood shed now up on the sloping hill in the distance, a sea of corn in the foreground, and a chicken happily eating in front of the corn.

“The Lazarus Pit is a serpent,” he said finally. “One that bites anything that comes too close. It’s venomous. I never had to be healed by it… but I came close twice.” He swallowed and leaned in to continue washing his brushes. Bruce felt cold- Damian had been close enough to almost need the Pit twice? His fierce little son, all spikes and carefully concealed care. “Todd did not deserve his death. He also did not deserve the Pit. I would advise him to choose a life without its effects.”

That was shockingly sweet, for his spiky son. Bruce nodded, letting Damian dry the brushes off in quiet for a few moments before squeezing his son’s shoulder. “Thank you for your opinion on it. You have a unique perspective on the situation.”

“That is what I would advise,” Damian clarified slowly, “But not what I would necessarily do myself. Or what he will. He has become a notable warrior. His skills are exceptional and hard-won. He came back from death and clawed a place for himself here, and that is not easy. If it were me, I would likely choose to return to my grown age, but with the memories of my family’s care still fresh. Then I could navigate my life moving forward with clearer information on where my family stands in regards to me, but with the skills and age I earned myself. I believe Todd will do the same.”

Bruce leaned back, processing this for a beat.

So far, everyone had remained carefully neutral. Dick had admitted to wanting Jason young, but had clarified that he wanted Jason to make the choice more than anything. Tim had essentially side-stepped the issue of giving his opinion entirely and checked how Bruce was feeling. Bruce himself… he had no idea what Jason would choose. He didn’t know what to begin to expect, all he knew was that it had to be Jason’s choice rather than a decision he was pressured into.

But Damian thought he would age up again. Damian would choose it himself, were he in Jason’s situation. Tim had also said he would choose it himself were it his decision, but Damian’s opinion carried a different sort of weight to it.

Damian and Jason were similar in many ways, both in their ethics and in their attitudes toward family. If Damian thought Jason would age up, it was likely he actually would. Bruce would go back to a life of glimpsing his son across rooftops from a distance, or monitoring him through the Oracle’s programs to know that he was safe. He would go back to killing and running his crime empire, back to being the good but bitter young man that never even looked at Bruce if he could help it, much less speak to him with anything but acid in his voice.

It was a painful thought, and one Bruce resolved to make peace with. It wasn’t his choice. He couldn’t force Jason to love his family. He couldn’t force him to try things with them again. He couldn’t demand he stay young and with them, and he wouldn’t want to. That wasn’t love. That wasn’t freedom or respect. And Bruce owed Jason both those things. Regardless of how good it was to have his son back in his life, he understood that adult Jason didn’t want to be there. He didn’t want Bruce’s rules and guidance, he didn’t want their family pressing in on him. That was his right, after all that had happened, and Bruce needed to continue accepting that as he had been for Jason’s last year in Gotham.

If he chose to age up, he would probably immediately retreat to Crime Alley and be gone from all monitoring for a week at minimum while he processed. There was a chance he’d even assume that they’d been trying to manipulate him into staying young or into caring about them again, and he’d be even angrier.

Or perhaps he’d be mixed up and confused about his new, sweet memories and how they conflicted with his adult feelings about his family, and he’d lash out in that confusion and hurt. That was very like him.

Damian roused Bruce from his thoughts. “Todd understands, of course, that he will not be inheriting the mantle of the Bat if he does remain young? Or returning to his role of Robin?”

“I would be making him a new mantle if he wanted to continue hero work, yes.” Had this been bothering him? Bruce gave Damian a hopefully reassuring smile, shaking off his inner monologue. “None of the others want to be Batman. They’re all working on their own things. It, and Robin, belong to you.” The tension bled out of his son’s shoulders and Bruce smiled, then continued, “I’m very glad that you’re here with me,” he said sincerely, then headed back down the hallway. He hadn’t gotten further than the kitchen when he paused again at the sound of his phone.

It buzzed in his pocket, the specific beat pattern he had dedicated to Clark before they were even all that friendly, and he pulled it out, glancing down at the text on the screen. What are the chances Damian’s cooled off?

Bruce should have texted him earlier, to help him and Jon understand what had happened. There had just been so much going on at the Manor- Dick was the only person Bruce wasn’t overly worried about, but that was only because Wally West was still around and the speedster seemed to have a strangely calming effect on his eldest’s moods.

He’s upset rather than angry now, Bruce typed back. He’s upset that the Kents killed what he saw as a pet. I tried to explain the difference between pets and farm animals. Logically he understands, it just bothered him. I don’t think he’s angry anymore, just upset and embarrassed that it affected him the way it did.

“The Kents killed a chicken for dinner while Damian was at the farm,” Bruce said aloud with a sigh to Alfred rather than interrogating him on how Jason was doing the way he so wanted to. “That’s why Damian came home. It upset him, so he and Jon had a blow-up about it. Let’s not have chicken for a few days, if possible.”

“Hmm. Noted.” Alfred eyed the turkey in the oven, clearly wondering if any fowl would be a faux pas. “I’ll make him a mushroom risotto for tonight,” he decided, and started gathering ingredients. Bruce’s phone buzzed again.

Upset enough that he doesn’t want to see him right now? I’m ninety percent sure the kiddo’s on his way over, but I can intercept him if it’s a bad time.

Bruce got up. “I need to go referee the boys, speaking of,” he informed him, and gave Alfred a smile. “Thank you. I’m sure everything will be delicious. How is Jason?” He hesitated in the doorway, and Alfred gave him a patient, inscrutable look.

Bruce took the hint and grimly headed out, shooting Clark a text. I imagine he’ll be fine. I think it’s closer to embarrassment now, so Damian may just pretend nothing happened. I’m on my way to supervise.

Clark sent him a thumbs-up, because the man loved emojis, and Bruce nudged the door open to find Damian sprawled out on the floor of the studio now with Titus, who was flipped over so the boy could rub his belly. “He has grown one and one-quarter inches since we got him,” he announced without question at Bruce’s reappearance.

“One and a quarter inches?” Bruce raised an eyebrow. “That’s impressive. I thought he was mostly grown when I purchased him. How is his training going?” The dog wiggled excitedly as he got belly rubs, tongue lolling out as he made happy sounds. “Clearly he isn’t in need of extra attention.”

“I have been careful to ensure it isn’t excessive attention,” Damian assured him, fingers gentle as they scratched at Titus’ belly. The soft bells of the front doorbell chimed up the staircase and he cast a glance at the hallway, but didn’t seem overly curious, likely assuming it was one of many deliveries to the Manor.

Bruce leaned against the doorway, leaving plenty of room for Jon to pass by when he got there, and inclined his head. “I think, given Titus’ previous home life, that excessive attention isn’t a problem,” he corrected gently. “I was attempting a joke because he’s obviously very happy with you.” Titus’ tail beat the carpet and Bruce snorted. “He is very pleased with himself, apparently.”

“He is a very well-behaved dog.” Damian sat up, smiling down at the canine in a way he never really smiled at anything but for his pets. “I’ve been training him to track as well, and I think that he holds promise.”

“You should try-”

“Dami?” A small voice asked, and Bruce glanced around despite himself to see his partner’s eight year-old son standing in the hallway, arms tight around a large cardboard box, eyes red-rimmed and watery. Bruce’s own son scowled.

“You don’t have permission to be in Gotham, Jonathan. Metas aren’t allowed here.”

“Metas have been here all week, Kon’s here!” Jon protested, hugging his box to his chest.

“You have my permission to be here,” Bruce told him, giving him a smile as Titus perked up at the sound of Jon’s voice, tail wagging again. Damian’s head whipped around to stare at his father in angry betrayal. “Hello, Jon. What is in the box?”

“I got Damian a present.” He looked into it, then back up when Damian scoffed.

“Bribery? Pathetic.” He stood, crossing his arms, and Jon’s lips trembled as he kept his eyes on the box. Bruce just barely kept his mouth shut, forcing himself to more or less fade into the background of this. Damian needed to learn how to deal with these things on his own. Damian twitched, looking more uncertain and wrong-footed by the second, and shifted on his feet. “Stop that.”

“‘M really sorry, Dami.” Jon scrubbed the back of his hands over his eyes with a hiccup. Bruce bit his tongue to keep himself in place. He’d rarely seen Jon cry, and it was bothering him more than he would have expected. “Please don’t hate me.”

“Cease that immediately,” Damian said more quickly, looking distinctly panicked at the sight of the tears. “I don’t hate you. I was angry.”

“But isn’t that the same for you?” Jon hiccuped again and Damian stared at him, then shifted his weight back and forth again, clearly thrown.

“I… no. What did you bring me?” Damian took a step closer and Jon pulled the flaps of the box open, causing a small eruption of cheeping from inside. Damian moved forward quickly, joining Bruce, and peered down to stare at the four baby chicks that were milling about the box.

“They’re for pet chickens instead of farm chickens.” Jon’s voice wobbled slightly but he reached in, scooping out one of the chicks and holding it out to Damian, who stared at it.

“They hatched? They are… so small.” He reached out, taking the chick in both hands carefully, and Jon gave a watery laugh when the bird cheeped. “Don’t they need their mother?” Damian looked up at Jon sharply, though the edge that would normally accompany the question was lost in the wonder of the small chicken in his hands.

“No.” Jon wiped his face with his sleeve and a shaky smile. “Chickens aren’t like that, you can use lamps. And we left some of them with Amma, so she won’t miss them. They don’t know how to count how many they have.”

Bruce surreptitiously took a photo of the boys and sent it to Clark as Damian looked back down at the chick in his hands. Bruce rested a hand on Jon’s head. “That was very nice of you, Jonathan,” he said gently. “Do you want to help Damian set up their coop in the Cave? You have a good idea of what they need. Damian, if there’s anything you don’t have, just let us know and we will go get it so they’re fine.”

“I brought one of the farm’s warming lamps,” Jon assured his friend, taking the box while Damian continued to cradle the chick carefully two-handed. Damian glanced at him, then down at the bird, and fought a smile.

“Good,” he said shortly, sweeping out of the room, and Jon relaxed, hugging the box to his chest.

“He’s okay now, right?” He looked up at Bruce.

God, the kid looked exactly like his father, all eyes and curls. Bruce squeezed his shoulder, fondness for the boy rising in a wave. “He’s okay now,” he agreed. “Go with him and help him set up a coop. Thank you for bringing him the gift.” Jon ran off after Damian as the chicks cheeped and Bruce called Clark.

“Your child brought more farm animals into my home,” he informed his partner, fighting to keep the laughter from his voice. “Four more. Four chickens. What if one becomes a rooster? It’ll crow and wake us up the moment that we go down to sleep before work and school.”

“I’d say that you could drop it off at a butcher shop, but I don’t think that would end well.” Clark burst out laughing. “And knowing Damian, he’ll have them tattooed or something so he can always identify them by the end of the week. I’d DNA test them asap so you can swap one out secretly soon if you need to.”

“Oh god.” Bruce stared at the door ahead of him. “I hadn’t thought about that. What if they get sick and die? I need to get hold of a cloning machine and make DNA profiles of all of them, this could end so badly.”

Clark’s laughter increased and Bruce nearly missed a step. His laughter was one of Bruce’s favorite sounds, so warm and bright and gorgeous. “You’re going to clone them? I meant that you should test them to find out if there are any males so you can swap them for hens!”

“Clark. If any of his chickens die, he will lose his mind. I need to have backups for if that happens so I can fix the problem.” Bruce shook his head darkly, heading to his office. “Can you imagine his devastation? No. I need to be prepared for that eventuality.”

Clark’s voice had a smile to it when he spoke. “You’re a good dad, Bruce. I am mostly apologetic that my child brought animals into your home without asking permission first. Did it work?”

Bruce settled into his office chair, relaxing. “Yes, it did. The boys are downstairs building a coop as we speak to keep the flying vermin. We’re going to have an actual farm down there soon enough, with the cow and now chickens. What will be next, a pig?” he paused. “The Kents don’t have pigs, do they?” His luck, they’d butcher a pig for dinner and Damian would be upset and then Jon would come in toting a pig. “I cannot have a pig here, Clark. I won’t allow it.”

Clark chuckled fondly. “He’s a good kid, stabbing habits aside,” he said fondly.

“He’s been working on a security system for the duck pond, Clark. He’s built them a hutch and he’s tagged them so the doors only open when they get close because Dick mentioned we have foxes on the property. They are wild ducks.”

“I’m sure you can find a way to make a secure barn topside. I can help carry in some steel beams and concrete, it can be an above-ground bunker. With windows.” He laughed again.

Bruce smiled, closing his eyes and soaking in the sound of his partner’s laughter. “I suppose that could be manageable. I’ll pull the plans back up and have him approve them. Maybe he and Jon can finish the design together. All the boys would like to have animals around, and it can’t be good for the chickens to be in a cave.” His smile faltered a little at the thought of boys. “I haven’t heard anything yet.”

“He’s still processing,” Clark said gently. “Give him time. Give yourself time. Call me back when you know more.”

“I will,” Bruce agreed, and hung up on a long exhale.

Time had never felt so hard to give.

Notes:

Well, that was fun! Jon and Damian are the cutest little menaces to Bruce, and it's about time that Tim admits the uncle nonsense is nonsense.

Guys, seriously, thank you so much for all the comments on the interlude chapter. We were hesitant to even post it, unsure if it would be seen as weird or unwelcome in some way. You were so supportive and overwhelmingly kind. My plan is actually to go through and answer each comment to show just how much it means to us.

As always, leave a comment or reaction if you have one. Even if it is frustration with the characters! You know where this is going now and stuck with us, so let us know how you're feeling about it!

Chapter 12: Tuesday, 3:00 pm

Summary:

A quick chapter wherein Bruce ruminates on the situation and a Titan comes calling at the Manor.

The hours dragged onwards without any word on how Jason was doing. It was nearly nine hours after Bruce had been banished from his own Cave when Alfred emerged and began preparing dinner. “He’s out for a ride,” he said when Bruce immediately stood up.

Bruce sat hard, glancing out the window. “How is he?” He couldn’t even focus, his anxiety about how Jason felt making it impossible to sit still. “How did he take it?”

“My honest assessment?” Alfred arched an eyebrow, stirring the risotto. “I expected worse,” he said frankly. “He has always been a boy who feels so much- even too much at times. It drove so many actions in his youth and determined so much of his actions as an adult as well. Ms. Gordon and Master Richard did an excellent job with their presentation, presenting him with both the bad and the good of who he became.”

Bruce nodded. He’d had no doubt that Barbara and Dick would do a good job with the presentation, he hadn’t been concerned about that. Alfred thought it could have been worse, so that was… good. In theory. “It’s good that you were down there to help them talk,” he said after a moment. “Who’s with him now?”

“Ostensibly? No one. He said he needed space to think and took Master Timothy’s eloquently-named Red Bird.” He shook his head with a small smile. “I imagine Oracle will be keeping an eye on his progress through the city. The others promised to stay back.”

Ah, he’d taken the motorcycle. That made sense. The one he currently had was probably too heavy for his younger frame- if he decided to stay small, Bruce would need to build him a new one. He picked up his tablet and pulled up the schematics for Tim’s motorcycle, duplicating it into another file.

He could adjust it. That would be something to do, at least. Something to take his mind off his child for a moment.

What would his and Tim’s relationship look like if he chose to stay, he wondered as he worked. When they had both been de-aged, Jason had treated him like he had treated most kids while he was Robin. Sweet, teasing, protective, a little gruff. It hadn’t been the much more mischievous and taunting older brother dynamic he’d shown to Damian, but just a gentle one. That made sense, considering the age differences. But now Tim was older than Jason, nearly eighteen to Jason’s fifteen. Would he treat him as a younger brother, or an older one? How would he and Tim interact? They had been so antagonistic toward each other before this all came about, but Bruce was well aware that Tim had hero-worshipped Jason Todd before his death and the photo they’d found only underlined that.

And what would their relationship look like if he didn’t stay young?

Jason before had initially despised and resented Tim. He’d attacked him, nearly killed him. He didn’t hesitate to fight any of them if a Bat got too close, but Tim was always targeted a little quicker than the others, despite the boy’s perseverance and belief that Jason would come home someday. Would some of that anger have cooled now that they had been in the same household for a time, now that Jason had soft, childhood-sized memories of Tim? Would they be able to coexist? Or would Jason resist those new memories and the fact that Tim was still close with the rest of them?

“Master Timothy grumbled but was not angry that his vehicle was taken,” Alfred offered along the same line of thought.

Bruce smiled a little. “He’s a good young man,” he murmured. “We finally were able to have a conversation about his parents and we were right, Alfred- they neglected him horribly. I told Clark and Tim that I would ruin the Drakes’ legacy and adopt Tim, but Tim wasn’t sure. I’m going to give him time to adjust to the idea and then we can discuss it again. He deserves better than the scraps they gave him.” He tapped a little too hard on his tablet. “I am, however, moving him in here tomorrow and starting the guardianship paperwork. He can choose if he wants to be adopted formally, but he isn’t living there any longer alone.”

Alfred inclined his head. “A rather wise decision,” he agreed. “I did note that he had a habit of taking the protein bars we keep in the Cave when he first came. Not enough to be considered stealing, but he would take about one a night that he didn’t eat in-house. It was enough like Master Jason’s first few weeks here that it concerned me at the time. I started bringing you more snacks before and after patrols.”

Bruce ran a hand through his hair. “Clark verified that he had malnutrition when he was small, and talking to Timothy and going to the Drake Estates proved it. He deserves more, but he doesn’t believe that he does, so he isn’t doing anything about it and lets it go. I should ruin their legacy as well as doing what I can for Tim now.”

“That would only make Timothy feel guilty,” Alfred advised gently. “It is not an easy thing to turn your back on someone you loved, even if they mistreat you, even if they betray you. Look at you and the Red Hood. No matter how angry he was, how resentful and hateful, he never could actually kill any of the four of you boys. He got close to it with Timothy but backed off, and you, who his anger was ostensibly rooted in, never was targeted in that way. Regardless of how Timothy may feel betrayed by his parents, despite that he logically knows on some level that they failed him and did not treat him correctly, that doesn’t eradicate the piece of him that craves their love and approval.” He sighed heavily. “If it did, it would be much simpler for him,” he allowed.

Bruce shook his head. “We’re going to take him in where he belongs,” he informed him, but accepted the point. It wasn’t always that simple. Bruce had been lucky; his parents had been truly good and loving people, and after they’d died he had had the good fortune to be given to Alfred to raise, one of the best people that he knew. But he understood it could have gone differently, and he’d seen enough broken families to know that it was complicated.

Hell, he’d been in love with Selina for years and had a relationship with Talia, and neither of them had been exactly a supportive partner. Clark had support in spades, but that didn’t mean their communication was anywhere close to what it perhaps should be.

He glanced up at Alfred, then back at the tablet. “Do you know what Jason is going to do?” He tried to sound off-handed about it, unworried.

“I believe he will stay as he is,” Alfred said after a moment, carefully. “Though he has surprised me in the past. Truthfully, I don’t know how all of this will impact him, Master Wayne. He may still feel that the Red Hood was taking the correct approach in utilizing lethal force… or maybe the sight of what he could become will frighten him back away from those methods. Ms. Gordon included some news interviews with individuals from Crime Alley who were in support of Hood, but there was also coverage of the duffel bag incident and of Master Timothy’s recovery after the Tower. He is scared of living through his death and of losing the future he could have had growing here, but I believe it is also frightening for him not to recognize who he turns into as a result of those things.”

Bruce put down the tablet, looking sightlessly at the table in front of him. “It’s not a choice anyone should have to make. It’s too much for someone so young, but at the same time, he’s the only one who has the right to make that decision. I don’t know what else to do.”

“You’re doing all you can,” Alfred assured him, voice soft and soothing as he put the turkey in the oven. “All you can do is give him all the information, nothing censored, and let him decide. It’s the choice he never had before. Even giving him this option is more than he could ever have expected.”

Bruce nodded, feeling helpless. His son was struggling, of course he was, and there was nothing that Bruce could do about it, nothing to help him feel better about the situation or correct things. Everything was probably overwhelming for him right now, and unfortunately the best thing for Bruce to do was leave him alone… at least for a bit. Until he came home.

He headed up for his room and, after a beat, called Clark. “Jason is out,” He said, hoping the words came off impassive and not helpless. “He took Red Bird and is driving around the city, apparently he needed time.”

“Do you want me to tell you how he is?” Clark’s voice was steady.

Bruce tapped his feet on the carpet. “Just… generally. I don’t need to know what he’s saying or doing, just his general state. Is he safe?”

Does he hate me? Does he hate us? Will he stop running? Is he angry with me again? Am I going to lose him again?

Clark was silent for several beats, obviously listening. “He’s safe,” he confirmed. “He’s in the Alley, but his heart rate and respiration are even. He isn’t under any influences aside from maybe a few cigarettes, and he doesn’t sound hurt or like he’s panicking.”

Bruce rested his head back against the chair. “Okay,” he agreed quietly. “Thank you. I shouldn’t be surprised that he’s in the Alley, that’s where he spent so much of his childhood and his older life, he would probably gravitate there.” he gently moved a folder to be more even with the mat on his desk. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything, then. I appreciate your help.”

“Likewise. Do you want me to come over tonight, or do you anticipate having your hands full?”

Asking for reassurance isn’t a bad thing.

Hadn’t he just said that to Tim, only hours ago? Bruce shifted slightly in his chair, then, “If you aren’t busy, I would like to have you here tonight. You can take Conner and Jon home in the morning, if things are settled. I already have three metas in my city, what’s one more?”

Clark’s voice was warm. “Couldn’t possibly hurt,” he agreed. “Are you patrolling tonight or staying in?”

Bruce thought this through. “I need to speak to Zatanna and Constantine about it- the reason we aren’t patrolling is because they didn’t know who it was that had taken the time, but it’s been dealt with now, so I assume it’s perfectly safe for us to go back out. I will probably go out. I need to make an appearance, ensure that Gotham knows I’m still here. But that will depend on what’s going on with Jason.”

“Then I’ll be around afterwards to greet you home in the morning,” Clark determined. “Zatanna told me that they handled the sorcerer who had attacked them, so they’re doing what they need to contain him safely from here on. You’re good to go.”

“I’ll let you know what’s going on with Jason, when I hear from him.” If Jason was having problems, if he wasn’t ready to be alone, then Bruce would have to stay and talk to him. If he wasn’t back by patrol time, Bruce might send the boys out and stay.

“Okay,” Clark agreed, and they disconnected the call, leaving Bruce to pace around his office and try to find his thoughts.

Said thoughts scattered again when he caught the echo of yelling, and he turned, opening his door quickly and heading down the hall.

“-can’t believe you’d think I’m behind this!” It was a woman’s voice, and it took Bruce a second to place, colored as it was by anger and incredulity. He’d never actually heard Raven yell.

“Rae, hang on,” Wally was trying to intervene, but there was a crackling sound like lightning, and he gave a light yelp of protest. Bruce came around the corner and found the two in a sitting room, Dick sitting heavily on a settee while the other two faced off. Wally whipped his hand back and forth quickly like it had been burned. “That was rude,” he told her, and she glared at him.

“Why did you think I’d ever be on board with this? Because it’s what Dick wants? It’s wrong. Of course he’ll be conflicted, he’s fifteen! How could he ever make an ‘informed decision’ when he’s an actual child?!”

“Rach, it’s not that simple,” Dick protested weakly. “He’s not- it’s not our decision to make, it’s Jason’s. We don’t get to choose what he does, we don’t get to make any of these decisions for him. It’s as informed a decision as we can make it. He knows everything that happened to him now.”

Bruce very nearly stepped forward to try a clumsy sort of comfort as he studied his eldest’s face; he had rarely seen Dick so upset.

“He’s fifteen,” she reminded him flatly, lilac eyes narrowed and angry. “And not because of a simple de-aging spell, but because his time was removed from him. Carved out. Dick, that’s dark magic. That’s demonic magic. There’s a reason de-aging spells wear off or can be simply broken- because they were never meant to be permanent. Something has been taken from him, removed

from him.”

“We didn’t do the taking!” Wally protested, eyes widening slightly, and her expression softened very slightly, some of the anger easing.

“I know that. But you want to leave it gone. It shouldn’t even be a choice, it should just be righted and returned to him. Why would you ever consider letting him stay like this?”

Dick looked up at her, gaze hardening, and Bruce sank back into the shadows, watching closely as his son’s shoulders straightened. “Because,” he said, “He deserves a choice. My little brother went through literal fucking hell. He died, and he was reawakened, and it was a disaster and none of us handled it right. And that’s our fault. That’s my fault. I’m as culpable for what happened as anyone. If I’d been here, if I’d been a better brother to him and been around more, helped him more, things would’ve been different.” He held up a hand as Wally opened his mouth and shook his head. “It’s not an argument, it’s true. If he’d had someone to confide in, someone he trusted the way Tim and Damian trust me, he wouldn’t have gone off on his own. I could’ve stopped it.” He shook his head a little. “So yeah, part of me wanting him to stay is guilt. Sure. I can have a Jason who has a normal life and is happy and I don’t have to feel like I killed him and dragged him through hell every time I look at him. I won’t lie- part of it’s me being selfish.”

Dick dragged a hand through his hair as silence fell, and Bruce tried to think of any argument for later. It hadn’t been entirely Dick’s fault. Bruce was more responsible for what had happened. If he’d been paying attention to what Jason was doing, if he had been less harsh, if he had followed up on where his son had gone… he could have stopped it. It wasn’t Dick’s fault.

But he knew that his son carried this burden too, and it weighed on them both.

“But it’s not all selfish,” Dick continued after a moment, voice tight. “He deserves a chance. A chance he didn’t have before, a chance we didn’t give him. Every single thing that happened to him, happened to him. He didn’t get to choose any of it. Now he can. I get that it feels weird to let a kid choose, but no one else has the right and adult Jason isn’t here. I think if he was able to decide, he’d choose to be a normal kid, have a normal life.” His lips twitched very slightly. “Well. As normal a life as a Wayne can have. If he chooses to go age up, I won’t say anything. I’ll support it. If he wants to stay young, I’ll support it. You can’t blame me for wanting him to have some goddamn agency in his life when everything was ripped away from him before. I’d do anything to give him that option. I’d do it for any of you. All of us have had rough goes of it, but Jason’s had it worst and I’m not going to stand in his way if he wants to take that chance to be a kid again, to grow up and go to school and learn and build his own life instead of putting one together with what he had left after Joker and the Pit were done with him.”

Raven studied him, arms crossed tightly over her chest, and then she let out a slow breath. “It shouldn’t be a kid’s choice.”

“Is it possible to give his years back, age him up, and then let him choose?” Wally asked tentatively, and she pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Do you ever listen? No. It’s dark magic. I’m not interested in getting that filth on my hands, Zatanna probably can’t do it, and Constantine’s got too black a record already. It can be returned, because that’s light work, but carving it back out would be wrong. Especially a second time- it could actually do damage to him or the caster.” She dropped her hand, studying them for a long beat, and then she shook her head. “I’ve got to go.”

Dick reached out, catching her hand. “You’re right that it shouldn’t be a kid’s choice,” he agreed quietly. “But a kid is what we have. It’s not right to make him choose, to put all that weight on a kid, but I don’t know what the other option is. We can’t make that choice for him. It would just be taking something else from him, and he’s been through enough. He deserves to make the choice, even if he’s a kid when he makes it.” He grimaced. “And sorry for the craziness here. I figure it’s probably giving you a headache.”

“You think?” A dark eyebrow arched down at him, but she gave his hand a gentle squeeze all the same. “Choosing to age him up wouldn’t be all bad,” she told him, as gently as if he was spun from glass. “It would be choosing the brother you have. That would mean something, too. But I get wanting him to make the decision.” She looked around, gaze distant, and hummed as Dick nodded. “I’ve got to talk to the others,” she murmured, almost to herself. “Give him some space to think,” she advised as she pulled her hand free, and Bruce slipped down the hall, back into his office before he could be caught eavesdropping.

Bruce settled into his chair, looking down at the hardwood surface before him and following the grain with his gaze as he had for years when he was trying to think. Dick was right- this was the offer of agency in a way that Jason had never had before. It was right to give him the option.

It wasn’t right to put all that weight on a kid, though.

But no one else had the right to choose this.

Bruce pressed his hands flat to his desk, taking in a long breath and letting it back out slowly. Choosing to age him would be to choose the brother you have. Bruce loved his son. He loved Jason, as fierce and violent and angry as Jason was as an adult. He was proud of what Jason had clawed into being, the respect he’d earned from his people. He was deeply proud of what his child had accomplished.

And he loved this younger version- still angry sometimes, but vulnerable in places too, still warm and soft and bookish, all ambition and drive and emotions the boy didn’t know how to control and didn’t try to. He was proud of both versions of his son, and choosing either was… nearly impossible. The older version of his child was the son he had, and he loved him deeply. The younger version of his child was the boy he’d lost, the potential of what that bright life could be. Both of them were perfect and imperfect in their own ways.

He would miss either one, no matter what happened.

Bruce needed to make that clear to him when he was able to see him next.

Notes:

That chapter wasn't shorter than usual but it felt quick!!

Truthfully, a few of the Titans would be on the 'I'm conflicted about this situation' side, because it is a very complicated situation! They didn't show up in this fic because some of them haven't heard yet or aren't decided in how they feel, while Raven found out immediately as she's more pertinent to the whole situation as a magic user and would have been aware of the whole de-aging thing from the beginning when Bruce and Dick first asked for help fixing the boys on Day 1. Raven, as someone who's struggled with being associated with dark magic and dubious morality her entire life, felt like the right Titan to step in as Adult Jason's champion since the Outlaws aren't a thing here.

The next chapter is a big one, and I'm so excited and nervous to see how you guys take it. It may be up sooner than usual, depending on how fast I succumb to the peer pressure! (My DARE instructor would be so disappointed but at least I'm drug free so it's like a 50/50 success rate for him?)

Chapter 13: Tuesday, 4:02: Jay

Summary:

Jason gets a say.

Notes:

For ease of reading/writing, when referencing them in this particular chapter, “Jay” is younger and “Jason” is older. That will make sense in a minute!

Jay walked through the apartment slowly. It was odd, being in a place that was his and wasn’t his all at the same time. It was strange to walk through this quiet space, taking in the knives in their display cases, the bookshelves full of secondhand copies of well-worn, well-loved editions, the amount of cooking utensils in the kitchen. He found the first-aid box in the bathroom and went through it slowly, mechanically organizing through it and familiarizing himself with the usual ingredients. These things all felt half-familiar, things he’d expect from himself.

But he found several bottles of bourbon, whiskey, and beer in the kitchen, and opened one of the beers. It still tasted foul- apparently he got a taste for it later in life, because as of now, it was as gross as he remembered from when he’d tried Willis’ as a kid. He didn’t find any photos on the walls and spent several minutes playing with his security system, then finding his weapons stash in the various closets and hiding places scattered throughout the apartment. Interesting- he definitely showed a preference for guns and it looked like he’d been dabbling with designing his own ammo rounds. It hadn’t been going well.

He’d never much been one to innovate, leaving Bruce to the engineering and creation of new gadgetry. This, much like the alcohol, like the holes punched in walls, like the old bloodstains that rugs couldn’t quite cover up, like the layer of dust on the books that indicated they had been collected but not read, did not feel like him.

Adult Jason was strange to think about, and stranger still to try to decipher.

Why do you collect what you don’t read? He wondered as he glanced at the bookcases. Why didn’t you buy new rugs or scrub out the floors? Why didn’t you patch the walls?

The silence in the house was oppressive and there was only one radio in the place that could be used to drown it out… except that it was a police scanner, not an actual musical radio. The entire place rang of half-mended disrepair, like something someone was half-heartedly trying to put together but without the drive or the energy to actually make it a home. Jason would almost think it was just a safehouse… but Babs had said this was the one place the Hood seemed to actually live.

“Are we depressed?” he asked the mirror, which had a crack running along one side that was held together by clear packing tape.

Jayhad experienced depressive episodes before, though it typically manifested in anger and irritability rather than sadness. This low energy and quiet didn’t quite seem like him… but maybe it was all that was left after a day of being the Hood. Maybe when the anger drained away after a long day of work, there was only this little bit of drive left. Enough to buy a book, enough to put it on a shelf, enough to make a dinner more creative than just a boxed mix… but not enough energy to read the book, to mend the walls, to fill the apartment with something like life.

He was halfway through nosing through the pantry when there was a knock at the door, and he paused, lifting his head and looking back at it. His family likely would have come through the window, unless they were doing some weird ‘respect your privacy’ thing for once in their lives and were trying the door in order to be gentle. It wasn’t likely to be them though, as they’d all promised to give him space before he’d rode Tim’s motorcycle out of the Cave. Even Barbara had promised not to monitor him too closely through electronic means…

So that left someone visiting Hood.

Jason crossed to a display cabinet and took out one of the polished daggers within, spinning it carefully around his hand and wishing it was a batarang for comfort as he edged toward the door. He had a security system in place, he reminded himself, and checked in the monitor nearest to him to see who it was as his hand curled around the lock.

He paused, tilting his head, and then disengaged the locks to open the door and let three magicians into his older self’s apartment.

“So we’re going to let you two talk,” Raven explained gently, and Jay blinked slowly at her as Constantine and Zatanna drew a circle around his bed with chalk.

“I’m… sorry, what?”

“Well, we have your years and your memories, still,” Zatanna explained from the floor with a quick smile. “We can use those to create a sort of copy of you that you can interact with in your mind. We can’t actually create a physical double of you, but we can let your psyche communicate with itself, in a way.”

“For safety and logistical purposes, that copy and you yourself are going to be in a dreamstate,” Raven elaborated as she led Jason to sit gingerly on the edge of the bed.

“Why is this happening?” He searched her face, crossing his arms.

“The only one who can make an informed decision on this is Jason Todd. Both halves of you- the adult and the teenager right here.” She offered him a reassuring smile.

“Is this because of Clark?” Jason felt his eyes tighten and she shook her head.

“He doesn’t know we’re doing this. Neither does your father, or your siblings, or anyone else for that matter. It’s not about them. It’s about you and what you need.” She rested her hand on his shoulder. “It’s up to you and Jason in there, Jay. You two have to agree and make a decision. In the end… you have to agree. Either he bends or you do. You can’t just erase him because you’re afraid of growing up in a way you didn’t approve of. He can’t just mow you down either. You have to resign and accept it, or he has to acquiesce and give his blessing here.”

“What if we don’t come to an agreement?” Jay stared at her in alarm. “I’m stubborn as hell, lady, and I doubt he’s become more agreeable.”

“It’s a dream,” Zatanna said simply. “Years in there can be accomplished in a single night. You’ll agree eventually. Sooner or later.”

“And he can’t shoot you without hurting himself,” Constantine added as he chalked a sigil onto the nearby rug. “That’s a guarantee, sprog. So he won’t try that.”

“Shit,” Jay said with feeling, anxiety bubbling up in his chest that he hoped wasn’t visible to the three gorgeous, talented individuals who were about to be privy to the workings of his brain. Raven’s eyes crinkled as if she’d heard that. Maybe she had. She was an empath, after all, she probably knew exactly how nervous he was beginning to get.

What if adult-Jason didn’t want to listen to him? What if he just hurt them both? What if they couldn’t agree and years went by in the dream? What if they never came to an agreement? What if Jay had no choice but to accept that he was screwed?

“What if I can’t fall asleep?”

“I promise you will,” she said gently, and she moved back so he could lay down and stare up at the ceiling. “If you agree to stay young, no one in the League will be able to protest it because the three of us will be able to attest to Jason’s agreement. If you agree to be aged back up, then your family will accept it as they must, and we’ll give you an opportunity to say goodbye before we do it. Alright?”

“Alright.” He could feel his pulse in his throat, almost choking him, and Raven rested a hand lightly on his forehead. The burning, boiling, frothing fear and anxiety slowly seeped away, reduced to a simmer and then stillness, and it was gradually replaced with a sense of exhaustion so severe that he was unable to keep his eyes open even a second longer.

“What the fuck do you think is going to be accomplished by this shit?” A caustic voice asked as soon as the world settled around them. Jay realized distantly that they were standing in the living room of the Beat Street House, the place he’d raced with Tim to for sanctuary at the beginning of this whole mess. The pizza boxes were still askew from the fight with ‘fake’ Batman, the remote still abandoned on the floor. Through the window, he could see the girls talking in the yard, clearly uninterested in what was going on inside the house.

Somewhere neutral. Somewhere safe, to them both.

Had Jason visited here often as an adult?

Jay looked at Nina, her waves and braids visible even through the taped glass, and could for a moment see her younger, as the teenager he had first met her as when he was an actual kid. He’d known her face when he still lived in the Alley, and had learned her name when he first started to be Robin. Adult Jason had likely seen her only a week ago, before the whole de-aging thing had happened. She’d said the Hood’s name with so much confidence, so much trust that he would come and put a stop to Batman’s interference in the Alley. Did she know him on a personal level? Or was he just the Hood?

Did Jason have friends he’d lose if they went through with this?

No one seemed to know.

He didn’t have any close friends or allies in the hero community at least. Constantine and Zatanna were friendly with him, but they’d clarified to him during the video call this morning that they had more of a professional relationship than a casual one. Even the hook-ups they’d admitted to (sheepishly, probably a bit uncomfortably considering the fact that he was currently a teenager) had apparently been post-mission and more to blow off steam than anything.

As far as the Alley went, there were subordinates in the Red Hood’s control. There were people who respected and liked him. But did he have friends? People he went to just to be around them? People who knew his face, his voice without the modulator?

“Hey,” Jason snapped harshly, and Jay looked back at him quickly. “You done sightseeing?” He raised his eyebrows sharply. “The fuck do you think is going to be accomplished by you and I having this little rendezvous?”

“I want to talk to you about this.” Jay cleared his throat and Jason gave a bark of laughter.

“Bullshit, you didn’t even think about doing this until Raven told you that you had to. You begged Dickbird and B not to make you grow up and now you’re fuckin’ scared shitless that you’ll have to anyway.”

“I’m not scared,” Jay snapped, and Jason’s eyes gleamed with a sharp, mean green.

“Don’t lie to me. You’re terrified. You don’t want to see me.” He stepped closer. “You don’t want to talk to me.” Another step closer. “You just want me to go away like I’m a fucking boogeyman under your bed.”

“I never said that,” Jay bit back, and Jason’s grin was as sharp as if his teeth were made of nails and broken glass.

“You thought it. I’ve got your memories and mine, baby bird. I know exactly what you were thinking when you laid down for this little nap. You have this one shot to argue with me, and then your little swan song is over. One last performance for Peter Pan, trying to stay in Neverland, and then you have to grow up.”

“Stop.” Jay’s throat tightened and he shook his head. “Stop arguing and just listen for a minute. You aren’t-”

“I don’t have to listen to shit you have to say. You’re full of B’s brainwashing. He wants you to stay small so he can have a second go of it, so Dickie doesn’t have to feel bad about neglecting you, so they can both just pretend they never made any mistakes and so they never have to ever live with the consequences of those mistakes. It works out perfect for them.”

“It’s not like that,” Jay snarled, stepping forward himself. “You should know that. Or did my memories just slot back where they would have been at fifteen? How clearly do you even remember this past week? Is it the memory of an eleven year-old? A fifteen year-old? Five years aged and dusty and buried under the Pit and the League and your own self-righteousness?”

“Whereas you’re shiny and new and wide-eyed like a newborn fuckin’ fawn?” Jason glared at him. “Don’t start with that shit. I remember it fine. I remember enough. I remember being scared shitless, being naive, being out of my league. I know what you want and the answer’s no.”

“Fuck you!” Jay clenched his hands into fists, storming forward another two steps so that they were closer, and Jason turned, walking away from him. “Jason! Don’t be such a coward, you gotta listen to me, we’re here to talk-”

“You have no fucking idea what you’re even asking me for!” Jason turned on him sharply, taking rapid steps forward, and Jay, despite all his time as Robin, despite knowing that this teenager before him was himself, couldn’t stop himself from flinching backwards. Jason froze, staring down at him, then raised his open hands slowly and took the several steps back. He retreated until his legs hit the back of the couch, and then he sank to sit there, staring at his hands.

“You didn’t,” Jay said before he could stop himself.

“I wasn’t gonna hit you, kid,” Jason muttered, clenching and unclenching his palms.

“That wasn’t what I was gonna- you didn’t look like him. Willis.” Jason flinched slightly at the words- a tightening and untightening of his eyes like he’d trained the rest of him to stay perfectly still in the presence of pain too long ago to remember. Jay knew he’d hit the nail on the head, caught the unspoken thought that had caused his older self to retreat dead in his tracks.

There was nothing more unsettling, more startling, more bone-deep terrifying than the idea of becoming Willis, than the idea of becoming a man who would vent his anger on a child.

“I just wasn’t expecting it ‘s all, you didn’t scare me,” Jay defended his older self.

“You’re a shit liar.”

“We were always shit at lyin’ if it wasn’t life or death,” Jay pointed out, and Jason gave a harsh little laugh.

“Fuck you,” he said, but his curse was without any of the heat Jay had issued his own with a moment prior.

Jay studied the man he would become. He took in the scars at the edge of his neck, the faded burn that curled at the shell of his left ear, and let his hands unclench slowly out of the fists they’d instinctively made. Jason looked like he’d lived through a war. He had lived through a sort of war, from what Barbara and Kon had shown him, both physical and mental.

“You want me to talk, to listen to you, and for fuckin’ what?” Jason asked slowly. “If I were to let you take the reins and do this,” and there was still so much derision with the words, making it clear he had no intention of carrying through that reality, “Then what the fuck was it all for? Me goin’ through all this shit, scraping my survival outta tin cans and knives, getting through the League, growing past the Pit, cleaning up the Alley. What the fuck was any of it for?”

“For me!” Jay stared at him. “For us, still. For them!” He gestured toward the window, where the faint ever-present hum of voices from the girls outside was still half-audible even as they spoke. “You still made a difference, Jason. You still changed yourself, you still got better, you still saved lives. Yeah, it wasn’t how B or the others wanted, but it was still there! They told me about it all.”

“Oh, I’m sure they did. Didn’t spare a single gorey fuckin’ detail, did they? Probably tried to scare the everlivin’ pants off your scrawny ass, keep you far away from ever wanting to be the Hood.” Jason’s glare was as scathing as his voice, and Jay shook his head.

“They told me all of it. Every gorey detail and every good one. Babs showed me footage. You help kids in the Alley with their homework. Every Thursday at the library, you show up, and everybody knows not to fuck with any of you there. None of them are runners for the bad shit anymore. Everyone knows not to sell to them, or to hire them, and they feel safe with you. The girls don’t have pimps that beat them anymore. The gangs don’t do drive-bys. Collateral damage is at an all-time low. You made a difference, Jason. No matter what we do, that ain’t changing and it ain’t goin’ away.” Jay searched for the right thing to say and failed to find it. “I’m not saying that you’re a bad person,” he said, a little helplessly.

“Just a person you don’t want to be.” Jason’s lip curled slightly, eyes flat and tight at the corners as they looked down at him.

“Would you?” Jay took a step forward, searching his face seriously for the answer. “If you had the choice, would you want to be this? Or would you want to be a version of you slightly to the left?” Jason shook his head, beginning to scoff, and Jay took another step forward, more sharply this time. “No, I fuckin’ mean it, think about it. We have this shot and we’re not ever gonna have it again. We can go down a different road if we want to. It’s not gonna fix what we’ve done wrong and it’s not gonna erase what we’ve done right. We can pick where we want to end up. It’s in our hands.”

“It’s in your hands,” Jason disagreed in an acidic snap, eyes glowing green. “You decide you don’t want to be me and I’m done, dust and gone. I don’t get a choice.”

“You get the only choice here.” The words tasted like garbage on Jay’s tongue, bitter as roots dug from slushy Alley earth in the coldest heart of winter when there was nothing else to eat. “Raven and Zatanna and Constantine are creating this. They see all of it, they’re just not here to have a say. You think the word and this is done, I’m gone, you’re back in charge but I want you to listen to me first.”

Jason looked up at him flatly, teal eyes so strange and half-familiar, and Jay shook his head, pressing his hands to his ribs for a moment.

“I don’t want to be you,” he said quietly. “Not because you’re a bad person. Not because you’ve done bad things or because you don’t talk to B or because you hurt Tim. Not because of the duffel bag of heads thing or the guns shit or any of that.” Jason muttered something like you fill a duffel bag with heads one time, but Jay continued on. “I don’t want to be you not because of any of that, but because I think we weren’t ever given a choice before. We survive. We’ve always survived, we’ve always made it through just one shitshow after another. The only choice we ever got was Robin and that’s when we were magic. And then- and then it all gets just taken away? Our family, our identity, our life? School and college and dating, getting a hero team, getting to travel, it all just happens on someone else’s terms? We get twisted up and spat out and nobody even asks how we feel about it? Why?”

Jay’s voice cracked on the question but he forged forward when Jason’s expression twisted slightly. “Why the fuck does it have to be on someone else’s schedule? Willis beatin’ us, scraping through school, Mama dying, Bruce finding us- shit’s just been happening our whole life and it kept going through yours! We were supposed to pick who we became when we grew up! It was supposed to be an opportunity! It was supposed to be-” his voice broke finally and his eyes burned. “It was supposed to stay magic,” he whispered, and Jason’s eyes slid shut.

“It’s naive, kid,” he said without opening them. “To think that life doesn’t just happen to you. You never get to pick what comes and what goes, what hurts and what doesn’t. You don’t get to pick when you die.That’s just life. It just fuckin’ happens, no rhyme or reason to it. You don’t get to decide.”

“Except we can,” Jay protested quietly, leaning forward. “Right now, we have the choice to change direction. We could choose to live. We could choose to hang up the cape and just be normal if we wanted. We could choose to stay the Hood even as young as I am. We could choose to be Robin again. We could choose anything. It’s right here in front of us. I’m right here in front of you. You could go back, Jason. We could try it again.”

“At what fuckin’ cost?” Jason sounded tired, but he opened his eyes again when Jay moved forward.

“At the cost of you.” Jay crouched in front of his older self, searching his face. “And I’m- I’m so fuckin’ sorry for that. I get it. I do. I get what I’m askin’ and I get how big it is and how awful it is and I still want it.” Jason made a snorting noise, shutting his eyes again, and Jay gave a small, twisted smile. “I know. It’s shit. It’s awful. But it’s true. And I wouldn’t take it for granted. I’ll honor you every day, Jason, if you let me try this again. I can do it better this time, I know I can. I’ll learn from what we did wrong, and I’ll do it better this time. I’m not sayin’ I’ll be better than you, I’m saying we can grow to be someone better than either of us.”

“And how the hell you plan on doing that?” Jason’s smile was crooked and a little bitter as he finally looked at him again, and Jay took in a slow breath.

“I won’t take any of B’s shit, for one. His protectiveness, his ideals, his bossy-ass bullshit. He can shove it. I’ll make my own choices and if he can’t handle that, then I’ll find a way to move forward without him but without getting caught as collateral damage this time. And I’ll protect my little brothers. Both of them, I don’t give a shit if Timbo’s grown like a damn shroom, he’s still my little brother.” That earned a short bark of a laugh out of the older boy, and Jay grinned a little before continuing. “I won’t isolate, I’ll join a team. A good one, the best one I can find. I’ll have friends outside the Bats, maybe even in the Alley, and I’ll run off and hang out with them when the family pisses me off instead of running to fuckin’ Ethiopia lookin’ for blood family. I won’t live for cape work. I’ll get a degree and get a job and I’ll be somebody outside of all this.”

“That’s a real rosy picture you’re paintin’, kid,” Jason said, and for a minute he looked so tired that all the breath escaped Jay in a rush, leaving him looking up at his other self.

He looked so tired. So worn. Like he couldn’t even see the picture he was painting, or like he couldn’t believe it. He just looked bitter and hurt behind the flat facade, and it made something in Jay’s chest crack right in two. How had they become this? How had they forgotten to find anything light in all the darkness that was Gotham?

Jay reached up, catching the teenager’s face in both hands. “Jason,” he said, and his voice came out in a whisper. “I’m so sorry.”

“What?” He reeled back slightly, looking a little alarmed, but Jay leaned up, sliding his arms instead around Jason’s neck and pulling him forward into a hug.

“I’m so sorry,” he repeated against his own self’s temple. “You’re been through so much and we never deserved it. You’re still just nineteen, and you’ve seen so much shit. And none of it is what we would have wanted. It’s been so hard, it has to have been so hard, and you did your best with what you were feeling and told at the time. It’s okay.” He tightened his hold. “It’s okay. All of it. I don’t regret that you exist. I see how it happened. I see all of it. I see why you’re mad and I see why you’re sad, and I see how you’re hurt and I see why you’re where you are. Doesn’ mean I agree with it, doesn’ mean I want it, but I see it. I see you. And I’m so sorry.”

Jason shuddered, leaning into the hug, and made a low noise that might have been pain, his arms coming up to encircle Jay. “The older you’s supposed to tell the younger one that it’s gonna be alright,” he said, voice croaky, and Jay gave a small, weak laugh. “The hell’s this shit?”

“What you deserve.” Jay squeezed his eyes shut. “Comfort from somebody who gets it and isn’t bullshittin’ you. It’s okay. You did what you could. You’re not a bad person. You didn’t ask for this. You made it through. Thank you for taking care of us the best you could. I don’t know if I could have. I’m sorry there’s no one there to tell you to read and relax or make you dinner. I’m sorry you’re so alone. I’m sorry for all of it, J. I’m sorry you feel like you can’t go home for Thanksgiving and that your apartment’s so damn quiet and that you’re trying to put together a life with what’s left to you. You deserve better than that.”

Jason’s shudders had turned to full-on shaking and Jay buried his face in his older self’s shoulder, gripping him tighter.

“And if you decide you do want to come back,” Jay whispered unsteadily, “That you don’t want to let me try, that’s… that’s okay. It scares me, but it’s okay. But please take a break. Go somewhere warm. Make some friends there. Read some of your books. Learn how to be Jason again and not just the Hood because we can’t live like this. It ain’t living. You’re so much more than this. We’re so much more than this and we always have been.” He squeezed him tighter still, so much now that it was almost painful. “I don’t regret that you’ve been alive, that we survived, that we made it through all that shit. I don’t think it’s bad that you’re pissed and hurt and sad. I don’t think it means you’re not worth keeping around or that you should just go to sleep forever so we can be new and unhurt. I just… want something different. I think you deserve something better. I think we deserve that. I think we deserve to try again.”

They were silent together there then, Jason holding on while Jay hugged him, and then Jason let out a slow breath and pulled back, letting Jay rock back onto his heels. Jason wiped his eyes, Jay mirrored the action, and then Jason spoke.

“You know this shit wouldn’t just be easy the second time. You can’t just redo it every time you make a mistake. You’re a kid, you’re gonna make thousands of ‘em. It’s gonna hurt no matter what you do. It’s going to be rocky no matter how many times you do it. That’s just livin’.”

“I know.” Jay flexed his hands on his knees. “But I can learn from your mistakes. I can make different ones. Better ones. I’m not going in blind this time, like you were. I have your path to learn from.”

Jason’s expression ached and he reached forward, brushing a lock of Jay’s hair back. “You really think we can be happier this time.”

“I do.” Jay caught his wrist and gave it two squeezes. “But if you don’t want this, it’s your decision. I said it earlier- you just think the word and it’s done. Raven will know.”

“Not a huge fan of us havin’ an audience to this little shindig,” Jason muttered, and leaned back against the wall, eyes roving around the room slowly, tracking the evidence of their skirmish with ‘fake’ Batman. “So what happens to me, then? I just die? I vanish?”

“I don’t know,” Jay admitted in nothing more than a whisper. “I didn’t ask.”

Jason nodded, running his thumb over the butt of his gun in a slow circle. “‘To be, or not to be, that is the question,’” He murmured.

“‘Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. To die, to sleep… perchance to dream,’” Jay continued, and Jason looked at him with something like fondness.

“You skipped a few lines there.”

“By choice, not by forgetfulness,” Jay challenged immediately, and Jason laughed.

“You’re a hell of a kid,” he told him, and leaned forward, resting one elbow on his knee and his other hand on Jay’s head. “We were… a hell of a kid. I… fuck, baby bird. Think it over, and decide on your own,” he said finally. “Make sure B isn’t going to pull any shit and try to force you into anything. Make sure all’a them aren’t just going to expect you to be some perfect fuckin’ soldier. Make sure they get that you’re not just going to fall in line. We still killed Garzonas. We don’t regret that and you can’t lie to me about that. We’re never gonna accept B’s ideals again.” His eyes tightened at the corners. “Sometimes it takes hard justice. Harder than what he’s willing to dole out. We can do that. Make sure he’s willing to accept that.”

“I will,” Jay agreed, breath catching in his throat. “And if I do, you’re okay if I…?”

“Yeah, I know what you’ll probably do,” Jason agreed with a roll of still-damp eyes. “Just make sure it can actually be this life you’re imagining. Make sure B doesn’t just want a do-over and that he’ll actually let you out. Make sure you can get back in school and do all this shit you’re imagining. And if ya can, if they can… bundle this time up somehow and put it in a box… trot me out in ten years and let’s have another talk. You can tell me what you did with all this second chance you’re so hungry for. And if ya fuck it up, I’ll shoot you in the face. Got it?” He cracked a grin and Jay returned it, heart squeezing with something both painful and bright all at once.

“I won’t fuck it up,” he promised. “I swear. If I take this, I’ll honor you. I’ll protect your legacy. I’ll take better care of us. I won’t bend to B. I’ll make our own path. A new one, but one you’ll be proud of. I swear.”

Jason leaned forward, resting their heads together for a minute, and then the dream dissolved around them, leaving just the feeling of soft pressure around Jay’s hands and against his forehead before that, too, faded.

He opened his eyes to see the ceiling of his safehouse and turned his head to look at Raven, who was carefully checking her makeup in the mirror. Her eyes were rimmed with red beneath the eyeliner, and she cleared her throat and gave him a smile through the reflection.

“It’s up to you now,” she told him. “Make your decision and let Dick know. If you want to go back to Jason, I’ll get Zatanna and Constantine and we’ll age you up. If you stay like this, you’re on your own from here on out.”

“Was he right? Can we keep those years somehow?” Jay searched her face. “So we can do this again? So I can show him in ten years like he asked?”

Her expression softened. “I don’t know,” she admitted gently, sending Zatanna a quick glance across the room. She must have forgiven Constantine at least slightly for siding with Jay in the Cave, because the magician was tucked into the Brit’s side for comfort and also looked like she’d cried a little. He was studiously focused on his cigarette rather than the rest of them, but inclined his head to show he was listening now. “We’ll talk about it and see what we can do.”

“Okay.” Jay laid back down, studying the ceiling for a long minute. “Okay. Thanks. I… I gotta think and… talk to B. Can you guys go?”

And with that, they did, leaving him alone in Jason’s apartment to think over his dream and his reality.

Notes:

Phew! That was a super nerve-wrecking chapter and I wrote it on my own, with the lovely and illustrious Clarke beta-ing for me. There's a lot to it there, and hopefully the flow felt okay to y'all as we explored Jay and Jason's minds. It was a big chapter and one that your feedback largely influenced the writing of!

It's always so much more intimidating to write alone, and this chapter bled really personal in a few different areas, so please leave a comment or reaction if you have any in you!

Until next time, cherie!

Chapter 14: Tuesday Night

Summary:

Bruce and Jason have a long overdue talk.

Notes:

*drags self out of the abyss* Hey demons it's ya Goose here with a new chapter. Buckle in because it's just straight emotion from here.

Jason wasn’t back from his ride out in the city by seven, when the sun had set, and Bruce was starting to get a little panicky about it. He had resorted to working on the new motorcycle in order to give himself something to do with his hands so he wouldn’t leave the house and go find him, but that unfortunately left his mind to stew on the subject matter at hand. He went in endless circles, on one side of the argument one moment, on the other in the next. Raven’s arguments and Damian’s simple statements rang hard against his own feelings and Dick and Wally’s certainty that a choice was the best thing to offer him. Tim simply had avoided the question, so that was no help, and it left him evenly-matched in his mind, both sides conflicting and contrasting painfully.

He was about to go out and patrol to get moving, finally able to vent some of his frustration and anxiety on the night, when his phone buzzed with a notification from Oracle with an address. He’s at his apartment, she had written below it. He said you can come by if you want.

Jason was okay with at least seeing him, with at least having that much contact. He said you can come by if you want had to be code for he wants to see you. Bruce let out a breath and dressed quickly, getting on his own motorcycle and speeding toward Crime Alley before his son had the chance to change his mind.

He had, of course, known where Jason lived. He knew a number of his safehouse locations, but the apartment was a different matter entirely. He knew that Tim and Dick had discovered the place, the former through extensive research and hacking and the latter through actually following Hood in person, but he hadn’t asked for the information, hoping that would endear Jason to him at some point. He had accidentally happened across the location himself when he was chasing Selina through Crime Alley several months beforehand, and had immediately vacated the area to keep from spooking his son.

It was an apartment on the fourth and top floor of a building in the Narrows. There wasn’t any movement in the lower three floors, and when he took in the surroundings, he decided that the two buildings to the left had likely been foreclosed on. He didn’t scale the wall or grapple to the window, instead taking the stairs and going to knock, every move carefully calculated to give him the best odds of coming away still speaking to his son.

“C’min,” Jason called, and it was so breathtakingly disorienting to hear that voice. Not the young, easy call of his twelve year-old self and not the growl or modulated buzz of his adult voice, but one that lay perfectly inbetween, not one hundred percent dropped but much lower than it had been two days ago. It brought things forward that he hadn’t thought of in years, and he took in a deep breath before he could think about going inside.

Bruce opened the door and stopped, looking around to give himself a moment to adjust.

It was surprisingly neat, considering the level of grime and poverty in this specific area of the street. The floors were clean and the walls at least didn’t have any blood spatters on them- although there was a stain on the couch that was clearly old blood. There were a few boxes on the counter that had various food ingredients inside, and guns had been laid out in neat rows on the table in the kitchen. It was a safehouse, functional and temporary, but the small stack of secondhand books on the end table and bookshelves against the wall gave it some flavor of Jason, at least.

His son was sitting at the table, inspecting the guns without touching them, busy pressing his thumb against the pages of an extremely battered book and dragging it backwards so the pages whirred softly as they fluttered fast. “Hi,” he said after a moment, dragging his gaze away from the weapons to look up at Bruce.

Seeing him in Crime Alley, in front of a line of guns, was so strange. Seeing him older, but not as old as he would be normally, threw Bruce for a loop and was giving him cognitive dissonance of the kind he hadn’t experienced before. This was the Jason he’d lost, in the world of the Jason he’d gained back. Both versions of his precious son together in the same room, the second one only a ghost.

He moved forward and carefully sat on the edge of the couch near Jason. “Hello,” he said quietly. “How are you?”

“Babs said I lived here.” His eyes flicked around the apartment, lingering a moment on several spots where holes in the wall had clearly been patched, then on a set of four knives that had been hung in a display case in the hallway. “I always figured I’d have more art,” he said after a beat, dryly. “Guess that wasn’t my priority, huh?”

“No. It wasn’t.” Bruce looked around. “It’s not so bad. Could use a rug, I think.”

Jason snorted. “Yeah. That’s what’s throwin’ the place off.” He flipped the pages of the book again, then a second time without looking down at it. “It’s the sound,” he said when he caught Bruce watching him. “Willis used to play cards, which sucked ‘cause all his dick friends would come over too, and they’d be loud and the whole place stank of cheap beer. But Catherine would shuffle, and I always liked that bit.” He glanced down at the book. “Cards ‘emselves, I don’t like hearing anymore. But pages are better. It’s like the good parts of the memory without the bad parts.”

“I understand.” Bruce settled back into the couch a little. “Sometimes the sound of trains makes me feel that way. I like the sound of the wheels, but not the horn.” The horn of a passing train had drowned out his cry, when Chill had run off. But he had spent countless hours riding the trains with his father, so the wheels brought back the brighter memories. “Did Catherine do any interesting shuffles? I always liked watching my mother do bridges.”

“She could do all kinds of card tricks,” he agreed, eyes warming slightly, losing some of that disconnected blankness. “She told me one time that she wanted to be a magician, when she was little.” He flipped the pages again and blew out a breath. “It’s weird, huh? All this.” He tossed the book onto the table with a wave toward the guns, the apartment, and them.

“I haven’t been here before.” Bruce looked around at their surroundings. “It is a little strange. Having you the age you are, but being here, is… yes, it’s strange. How are you?” He focused on his son. “I’m sorry, Jason. For all of it. There is nothing I can ever express enough to you for you to understand how sorry I am for what happened, or how I handled any of it.”

“I mean, it’s not like you coulda brought me back from the dead,” he pointed out, shrugging as he cast one arm over the back of his chair. “Babs said you guys don’t even know how I came back, that Other Me just said I woke up, dug free, and then wandered around until the League of Assassins found me and put me in the Pit. There was no way you coulda known I was going to come back.”

“No. But still.” Bruce shook his head, feeling wrong-footed and unsure. He cleared his throat. “You were angry with me. Rightfully so, but you were. And I was still glad, Jason. I would rather you be alive and hate me or hunt me down than have you gone and be the way we were. I can’t explain how it felt to see you alive, on that roof. I’m grateful that you were brought back, although I’m sorry that the League hurt you and you were kept away and hurt for so long.”

Jason pulled one leg up, looking his free arm around it and settling his chin on his knee as he thought about it. “It’s weird,” he said after the silence had stretched out between them. “Two days ago, Garzonas fell, and you were so angry and I was so angry. But two days ago I was also twelve.” His brow creased. “And at the same time, it feels like that was three years ago, around the same time as when I fought Penguin the first time. Everything’s here and not here, it’s… weird.” His eyes traced over the guns again. There were twelve in total, three rows of four, though the lines had been scattered slightly when Jason tossed his book at them. “If I want to keep being the Red Hood while being like I am now, what are you gonna do?” He looked up at Bruce, eyes tightening slightly.

Bruce leaned forward so his elbows were resting on the table. If he wanted to be the Hood now? He thought about it for a few beats, then inclined his head. “I would train you. Help you learn how you used to fight, drill you on the people who have issues with you. I’d connect you with any allies you may have had here. I would do everything in my power to make sure that you understood what you needed to, to be the Hood and to do it safely.” He hesitated. “I… it’s hard for me too, Jason. I would rather you live at the Manor, with us. I’ll help you patrol, I’ll work with you. I’m working on a new bike for you, that will fit your frame now.” He searched his son's face. “I don’t want you killing, but I’m also aware that things are different for you, that being the Red Hood is not like being the Batman. I can be unhappy about it, angry even, but it won’t change your place in my home and family. You are my son, Jason. Both versions of you are my son, and I simply want you safe.”

“So… what?” Jason frowned at him, crossing his arms over his chest. “If I stay like this, you teach me how to be the Hood, I kill some abusive assholes, we fight about it, and then you just invite me over to Sunday brunch?”

Bruce considered. “Fight might be a little extreme,” he offered. “How about ‘strongly disagree?’ And I wouldn’t need to invite you anywhere, you would be living there.”

Jason stared at him, leaning back in his chair, and searched his face slowly. “B… Jesus.” He stood, crossing around the edge of the table, and then wrapped his arms around Bruce’s shoulders tightly. “And I thought you were kinda fucked up before,” he mumbled into Bruce’s hair as he squeezed him. “World’s been shittin’ all over you, huh?”

Bruce gripped him, hugging him tightly. “It has been a rough few years,” he agreed, voice more of a growl than anything.

Jason was hugging him, he was staying close, he wanted to be the Hood but he wasn’t pulling away from Bruce. He didn’t hate him. He wasn’t going to lose him again, at least not right now. He knew the worst bits of Bruce’s failure and still wanted to be with them. Bruce felt his hands shake a little.

“I want you to stay with us,” he said, voice painfully hoarse, “Either way you go. The older version of you who fought so hard to do good, who has made such a difference here, he matters to me. The younger version you are now, so ambitious and wild and good and full of possibility, you matter to me.” He squeezed Jason tightly. It was funny- even at fifteen, he was starting to show the bulkier frame he would have when he became an adult. It nearly felt strange after days of the lanky twelve-year-old Jason. He squeezed his eyes closed.

“Jason, it’s your choice what you do, and I will support you in either direction, but I need you to know that I am proud of both versions of you. I will miss either version of you. Your adult self is a good man and I am so damn proud of him. Of you. No matter what you choose I will stand behind you and make it work, but I want you to stay with us either way. I will make things up to you, as much as I can. Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

Jason chewed on his lip for a moment, hugging him, then, “I’ve thought about it. And I talked with him about it.” Bruce paused, but Jason kept going. “And it’s a lot either way. One version of me’s gonna have to go away.” He smoothed his hands down Bruce’s back in a soothing motion, either for himself or for Bruce, though the man couldn’t tell which. “You’re right, I’m not planning on goin’ anywhere either way. I…” his voice wobbled a little and Bruce took in a deep breath, then forced himself to speak.

“I think you should age up,” he said, just as Jason continued,

“I want to stay like this.” His flattened fingers curled again, bunching the back of Bruce’s jacket in them, and then he pulled back, startled, to look at Bruce. “Wait, what?”

“I think you should age up.” Bruce offered a small, tired, genuine smile, resting his hand on Jason’s head. “I think it’s what you would want as an adult. You’ve been through so much, Jaylad. And I know it’s scary to think of growing into someone you don’t recognize… but he’s not a bad person to be. You’re still my son. You’re still a good man. I still- I still love you. I always will. I’m so sorry if I ever gave you reason to question that.”

Jason stared at him, shivering a little as he took in a tiny breath. “Really?” he asked quietly, voice so small, and Bruce felt his heart break a little further as he caught Jason’s hands and squeezed them.

“Really,” he agreed, just as quietly, just as seriously. “Nothing will ever make me stop loving you, Jaylad. Even if you break my rules, even if you resent me, even if you lash out, even if you kill. You are always going to be my son.”

Jason stared at him, and then he lurched forward to catch Bruce into a hug again.

“No,” he mumbled into Bruce’s shoulder finally, after a few long moments dragged out between them, and Bruce shifted in surprise. “I’m gonna stay. I don't- I don’t want to die, and be twisted up and angry and- lose all of what I’ve got. But it’s not just that. I want to choose me. I want to go to school and prom and college and have a life and- and be Jason Wayne.” He muffled the words slightly into Bruce’s hair by the end, but it was still clear and distinct all the same.

And Bruce felt himself crumble a little, pieced-together resolve falling back apart under his small son’s confidence.

“I want you to stay with us.” And there it was, the selfish reality that he hadn’t allowed himself to say aloud or even really think with full clarity; much like Dick, he had hoped his son would take this chance to try again. He wanted him to stay, happy and complicated and exactly as he was supposed to be. He wanted to send him back to school, to watch his son grow and learn and develop. He wanted him to have another chance, to become what he should have always been if the Joker hadn’t cut his life short.

He would grieve for and deeply miss his adult Jason, so loud and fierce and problematic, beautiful and imperfectly perfect. He would miss him just as much as he would rejoice in giving his son another option to live his life a little differently this time.

Bruce squeezed Jason, nodding a little as his son gave a muffled little hiccup and clung to him. “We’re going to fix up this safehouse,” he said gruffly, “And get you some bookshelves and carpeting and paint, and medical supplies. And we’ll get you a new suit, and a new motorcycle. I’ll put you in school. It will work out.” He squeezed his eyes closed. “Can you play nice with Timothy and Damian?”

“Depends, what’s your definition of nice?” He broke out into a laugh as Bruce sighed. “I ain’t gonna be Dickiebird. Timmers seems fine, just skinny and nosy. The little twerp’s mouthy, but he’s yours, so that makes sense.”

Bruce laughed too, holding Jason for another long moment before he sat back a little and gently smoothed Jason’s hair back. “When I mean be nice, I mean just be their brother. On occasion Damian needs someone to treat him like a kid, rather than a small adult or a superhero, and you’re capable of that. Tim’s hero-worshipped you for years, he just needs a family. As long as you don’t flirt with Conner Kent and you help Damian take care of his animals, you should be fine.” Bruce studied his son, then rested his hand on Jason’s cheek. “Is there anything I can do for you? What do you need?”

Jason hesitated, thinking it over for a moment, then, “Well, I won’t be Robin anymore. Sounds like I haven’t been for ages and I was ‘bout to grow too big anyway.” His eyes wandered across the room and he followed his own gaze, taking down one of the brown leather jackets that was part of his typical uniform and studying it. “Huh,” he murmured, then, “So I’ll have to see about a new outfit, maybe new weapons. I was thinking about how Green Arrow has all those different types of arrows, you know? The exploding and electrified and normal and all that shit. Could be cool to have different ammunition clips for a gun, you know? So not all of them are lethal rounds, or as dangerous or whatever.” He ruffled his curls, setting the jacket on the couch. “Big Jason was thinking about that, but he didn’t get very far.”

Bruce nodded, pleased at this turn of events. He didn’t like guns regardless, but non-lethal rounds were worlds better than regular bullets. “You could do that, I think it’s an excellent idea. Talk to Alfred, he used to talk about weapons he had that did things like that.”

“Hey, yeah, me and Alfie could put up a shooting range together.” Jason’s eyes crinkled. “I’ll have to get good and then have contests with Wing to see if he’s better with a knife or me with a gun. I must’ve been pretty good, from the videos.” He let his gaze wander around the apartment again as Bruce watched him in wonder that he didn’t even know how to disguise.

He was talking about a future so far removed from anything Bruce had ever thought would be possible for them. It was more than surreal, it was almost dizzying. Like this was a dream he was about to wake up from, like everything was about to turn and sour violently because it was all one of Scarecrow’s toxins.

“I don’t know if I’m going to be the Hood right now,” Jason admitted after a beat. “I don’t know who I’ll be. But I’ve got time to decide that, right?”

“Right,” Bruce agreed, voice a little short from the sudden lack of air in his lungs, and Jason nodded decisively.

“Aight. Well.” He pushed his hands into the pockets of the leather jacket he’d just pulled on. “Let’s go home. Full offense to me, this place is creepin’ me out. Looks like somewhere fuckin’ Bane would hang out. Like, seriously, Big Jay?” He picked up one of the boxes of food and started putting the guns on top of the cans inside. “Hanging knives? Bloodstained couch? Rows of guns on the table? Looks like I’m workin’ for Falcone, like damn.”

“You were busy.” Bruce watched him, then cleared his throat and stood. “Let’s go home.” Home. Jason was referring to Wayne Manor as home.

“Cool.” Jason shot him a smile and headed out the door, and Bruce took in a breath that shook on the way in.

His son wanted to stay. He had another chance to do better- they both did. Jason was coming home to stay and that was the most beautiful thing Bruce had ever heard, no matter what age he heard it at.

Notes:

Well, well, well. Look at all that emotional progress from Bruce and Jason both. Given family therapy, these kiddos just might learn how to actually continue communicating.

So here's the rub, babes. There is a WHOLE ASS SECOND ARC to this fic. It's a lil arc, a baby arc, that just happened to create itself when we were writing the epilogue. I think it's going to end up being a short three-chapter second fic if there's interest in seeing it, revolving around handling the Joker Problem.

Let us know what you thought of this chapter and if you'd like to see the little sequel fic! Comments keep sustaining us no matter what real life throws in the way, so we genuinely cherish each and every one!

Chapter 15: The Next Four Months

Summary:

The next four months passed… almost effortlessly.

Notes:

Back from a brief hiatus! This fic is always a little hard to work on because we're so nervous about audience reception, but we hope the chapter was worth the wait! Have some fluff and existential dread!

The next four months passed… almost effortlessly.

Despite Jason’s scoff that he wasn’t going to be like Dick with his brothers, he did appear to be good with them. He messed with and teased them both, most often treating Tim as younger than him despite the differences in age. The only time he’d acknowledge that he was not, in fact, older was after he’d been enrolled in school and needed help on science or math homework. He liked to make Tim laugh and to dare him to work or fight harder, ending in multiple sparring stalemates in the Cave.

Jason was rougher with Damian, louder in the same way he had been even when he had been twelve, but unlike when Damian and Tim argued or insulted each other, there was never true heat or barbs under Jason’s statements. Damian’s retorts, in turn, were equally toothless as a result. The few times that pattern did not hold up inevitably ended in a physical fight that had Jason laughing loudly while Damon fumed, regardless of who won.

Bruce loved watching them interact, watching Damian slowly settle as his position in the family was unchanged, as Bruce continued to treat them the same, as Jason’s entry didn’t shake him from his place. Bruce enjoyed patrolling with all three of them, watching the boys learn how to fight together in a way that Jason and Tim never had; Jason had been so early and Tim had been after Jason had passed and long before Damian had come along. Damian, surprisingly, seemed to like having a full group together, even though he grumbled about the other boys ‘getting in his way.’

Toward the end of the second day, Jason took Damian and broke into Drake Manor. Bruce only knew this because his sons returned with ninety percent of Tim’s belongings stuffed into three comforters that had been tied up in giant balls to transport their contents. Tim had been less than pleased with the development, and Bruce had tried to referee, tiredly telling Jason that not breaking into places was something they had agreed on.

“No,” Jason snapped at them both. “Shut your goddamn mouth, Timmy, that place was a hole. And I lived in a box one weekend and I still know yours was worse.” He threw one of the overlarge bundles onto the floor of the manor and scowled at his brother, crossing his arms in defiance as he raised his chin. “What are you gonna do about it? You gonna drag all this back to your creepy-ass house? Mr. Freeze could live comfy in there, Timbo.”

“The heat isn’t on all the way if I’m not there,” Tim said, exasperated, as if that was remotely the argument at hand, and Jason’s eyes narrowed at him.

“Timbit.”

“Jaybird.” Tim narrowed his eyes back and Jason’s scowl deepened, then put on a deeply disappointed look,

“I mean… I guess. You could go back to your sad, shitty, creepy-ass house full’a memories of your shitty parents.”

“Hey, that isn’t-”

“It isn’t like what I want matters. I’m just your favorite Robin, asking you to be my friend and my little brother, but what does that make a difference?” Jason kicked at the comforter nearest his foot and Tim stared at him, gaping openly as Bruce used every method he had ever learned in his life to keep from reacting at all, staying stone-faced as Tim gaped.

“Jason,” their new apparent housemate managed.

But he hadn’t protested when Jason grinned, grabbed two of the bundles, and darted up the stairs with them. He hadn’t said a word when Dick and Bruce had helped Jason unpack his stolen things, or when Damian hung his painting of the Kent farm in Tim’s bedroom with a glare that could sour milk. He also hadn’t said anything when Dick, very concerned, asked if Jason actually had been his favorite Robin, which of course became a family-wide ordeal for the next two weeks.

And Bruce had locked himself in his office and laughed and laughed with the kind of freedom he hadn’t felt in years.

They debated for a while on what to do about Jason’s civilian identity. Jason Todd was, after all, dead and buried and had been so for five years. At the same time, that grave was empty. They lived in Gotham, after all, and while resurrections were unheard of, it also wouldn’t truly surprise anyone if someone did come back to life. In the end, Damian pointed out that someone could try to target Jason to figure out how he had come back to life and if they could repeat the process by learning something from him.

It was too dangerously good a point, so they decided to go for a different route, no one willing to allow this.

It was Tim who had the idea in the end, and Bruce and Dick who put it into action. One trip into Arkham later, Wayne Enterprises had created a new foundation for research into Nora Fries’ illness and diagnosis. They shortly thereafter announced to the news that Victor Fries had kidnapped Jason Todd and put him in a cryostatic state for the last several years, but he had finally come clean and given them the location where Jason had been held.

Gotham being Gotham, this was accepted with the usual flurry of newfound paparazzi attention, but little else. Cryostasis was believable, even expected, and aside from the fanfare of Bruce Wayne’s son being back, there wasn’t much else about it that was that attention-grabbing. Gothamites had seen far stranger things than Bruce Wayne dropping several million dollars into blood disease research in a ‘deal’ to get an incarcerated supervillain to release his frozen son.

And Gotham itself had seen stranger things than Victor Fries agreeing, much more quietly, to make a deal with Bruce Wayne to lie about where his son had been in order to keep the boy safe in exchange for that same research.

“Told you he’s the best,” Tim said smugly when Bruce laid down the newspaper at breakfast the morning after the news broke.

“Somewhere, Riddler is clutching his broken heart,” Dick had returned with a grin, and when Jason had laughed, Bruce had felt some broken piece in him heal and settle into peace.

Red Hood’s role was filled. Tim and Jason had vanished for nearly twelve hours halfway through the first week, and then Bruce was getting reports that Hood had been seen on the move again, his iconic helmet and jacket spotted on several rooftops. Bruce had nearly had a heart attack and had confirmed via timestamps that Jason had been home at each of these sightings, then had looked further into it.

“Who did you have take over the mantle?” he asked Tim as soon as the hero stopped by the Cave for patrol two nights into the Hood sightings. Tim hummed, blue eyes dancing as he went through his stretches.

“I told you before. Someone who upholds his ideals- the protection of specifically Crime Alley and its women and children, someone capable and willing to use lethal force, who won’t align directly with the Bats or GPD or cause arrests for lesser crimes. Someone who can handle rogues but who might be willing to liaison with us as necessary if needed to protect the city as a whole or for a bigger situation in Crime Alley. Plus… as an added bonus, someone who would approve of stealing the moniker from the Joker.”

Bruce frowned slowly. There weren’t a lot of people who matched that description. It took a few moments before Bruce was able to whittle down the list of suspects and when he arrived at the correct answer, he stared at his son as he realized exactly who fit that description. “No. You would not.”

Tim laughed. “C’mon, B, it isn’t so bad.”

“Harley Quinn cannot be relied on,” Bruce protested, staring at him. “We can’t give her our costumes, weapons, mantle, and legacy! We can’t rely on her to do anything for the greater good!”

“Well, not relied on by us, no.” Tim bent backwards in a stretch with a laugh. “But we’re not the ones relying on her, are we?”

“It is a solid choice,” Damian said from where he was cleaning out his chicken coop. “She will fill the power vacuum and is both familiar enough with the criminal underworld and lethal enough to handle it.”

“Plus, she says she’s reformed now. And yeah, that mostly means she’s not with the Joker and doesn’t blow up civilians, but isn’t that mostly the situation with the Hood, too?” Tim shrugged and Bruce let out a deep breath to attempt to calm himself down.

His son was, unfortunately, correct.

The Red Hood had gotten distinctly smaller, and it wasn’t long before people understood that this was a different Hood than the one who had taken Crime Alley and toppled Black Mask originally. This Hood was also, however, equally combat-capable and determined to keep a tight grip on the reins, so the attempts at uprising and power-grabs failed harshly. She was eccentric and wild, and it was true that they still had to more or less stay out of Crime Alley as they had before, but Jason and Tim had both snuck in undercover a few different times and asked different civilians if the Hood was taking care of things.

She was, by all accounts.

Jason himself stayed back from vigilante work for the time being, although with extreme discontent. He was obviously extremely put out by being benched, but was using that time to learn. He was becoming more and more adept with the guns he had taken from his own house and the ones Bruce oh-so-grudgingly and carefully created for him. They were less lethal, the bullets a variety that could be of aid. Acid coated in a thin shell, rounds that spread open and dug barbs in to hold on while they electrocuted on impact, sedatives covered in thin shells, rubber bullets, actual bullets that were small enough not to rip anyone apart too badly or designed to hit more like buckshot over a spray that remained shallow rather than anything too deep. It was almost fun in a way to think up the different types of ammunition, and really weren’t all that more dangerous than Oliver’s arrows, as projectiles went.

He and Jason had more or less come to the unspoken acceptance that Jason would not try to kill, would try to stick to their rules, to save lives and allow the justice system to do what it needed to. If he lost control and slipped up, he would admit it and they would face what had happened. If the justice system turned its back, then… Jason would investigate and act accordingly.

Once he was old enough at eighteen, anyway.

Gloria’s death haunted the boy in ways that was still so obvious, and in a way that made Bruce ache. The woman had died five years ago, but to Jason, it was only a handful of weeks, then months. She had been assaulted, and Jason had sat in the chair at the station with her, had been beside her as she tried to give a statement. They had both seen Garzonas simply walk back out. They had both heard his threats to her. They had both found her body.

The justice system was something that could be bent or broken by those they were fighting, and because of it, Gloria had died. It was irrefutable. So in those rare circumstances, Bruce had to accept that these were situations that Jason was more likely to lose control than others during. Bruce and Jason had several long conversations about it, and they came to the consensus that things were complicated but Jason would make an effort, and Bruce would accept it if something did happen.

Jason was doing well though, with picking the nonlethal rounds when practicing in the range they had set up in the Cave. He tended to grab for them first, and was clearly trying to make it a habit of going from the nonlethal ammunition, using all of it, and then reaching back to the back thigh pouches where he kept the lethal rounds. He was training muscle memory, endeavoring to keep their agreement just as diligently as Bruce was.

Dick, meanwhile, didn’t last a full month before moving back to Gotham.

It was in the middle of the second week Jason had been back when Bruce woke to the Manor’s alarm going off. He sat up immediately, moving quickly through the house, and pinpointed that it had been Jason’s room where the alarms had gone.

Bruce nearly took the door off its hinges as he came into Jason’s room, thoughts of who could have targeted his newly fifteen year-old son whirling through him, and paused as he saw Dick sitting beside Jason on his bed, hugging his brother as one hand gripped Jason’s wrist tightly enough his knuckles were white.

“Dick?” Bruce asked, confused, and Dick gave a small nod, pulling away from the hug but not releasing the younger boy’s wrist.

“That’s me,” he agreed, pale and not quite making eye contact.

“You’re supposed to knock when you enter peoples’ rooms,” Jason said, the rule vaguely mocking, but he didn’t look alert enough for his sarcasm to really shine through. He yawned widely, shuffling backwards on the bed and tugging Dick to lay with him. “‘E had a bad dream,” he said on a second yawn, squinting up at Bruce.

“What happ- oh,” Tim said, skidding to a stop behind Bruce in the hallway. Judging from his alert gaze and the coffee mug still clasped in the hand that wasn’t gripping his bo staff, he hadn’t been to sleep at all yet. Bruce made a mental note to send him to bed immediately.“Dick? Thought you were in Bludhaven for the week already?”

“Yeah, I just was really hungry for Alfred’s quiche tomorrow,” Dick said, aiming for lightness and failing as he wiggled a little closer to Jason. Bruce glanced down at Tim.

“Jason said he had a bad dream,” he murmured. “It’s fine, Tim. Go to bed.” He took the boy’s coffee. “No more coffee. Sleep.”

“I can sleep when I’m dead,” Tim pointed out, reaching for the drink.

Damian appeared down the hallway, scrubbing sleepily at his eyes with a scowl. “Did you sneak Conner in again?” He demanded immediately of Tim. “Drake, I have a test tomorrow, I cannot be kept up because you are incapable of quashing your hormonal urges for the good of this family.”

Bruce paused, then eyed Tim. “Do you sneak Conner into the house?” he asked, narrowing his eyes slightly and keeping the drink away from him.

“What? I would never.” Tim stared at him. “I’m not gonna take this, I have to go to bed.” He turned on his heel, vanishing into his bedroom, and Damian muttered something under his breath as he crossed over to Bruce’s side and found Dick and Jason laying side-by-side in the bed. “Richard?” He assessed him quickly, scowl fading. “Are you well? You look terrible.”

Dick looked around at him, then gave a half-smile, eyes dark. “I’m okay,” he assured him, shaking his head a little. “Just- you know, nightmares suck. Figured I’d come home, it’s better to have bad dreams here, right?”

“I guess so.” Damian looked at him, troubled, and Jason yawned again with a grumble.

“Stop darkenin’ my doorway,” he growled. “There’s a reason these damn beds are so damn big. Get in and shut up an’ go to sleep or leave me alone.”

Damian blinked quickly, looking up at Bruce, then crossed to the bed and hesitated a moment before sitting on top of the covers on Dick’s other side. “Just since you are so pathetic,” he said after a moment, laying down. “So childish, still having nightmares.”

“Shut up, Dimmadome, or I’ll kill you with one of these pillows,” Jason mumbled, and Dick wrapped an arm around his younger brother too, burying his face in Jason’s hair. Bruce smiled and closed the door, leaving them in peace.

Dick arranged shortly thereafter to transfer, and by the second month of Jason being fifteen again, he was working for Gotham Police Department. Wally spent a couple minutes every evening and morning to meet him at the Manor, race him to Bludhaven, and then return for pickup at the end of the night to bring him back home again. Some nights Dick would stay and help them in Gotham, but he was determined not to abandon his city either, and so he took up a balancing act to support them both.

Dick seemed almost jumpy at first, checking on his brothers frequently for the first few days, but calmed down after a while about it and was back to his teasing older-brother self soon enough. He took over most of the third floor and they treated it like an apartment, knocking before they entered and refraining from going up there uninvited. Bruce, unfortunately, had to make a few exceptions for the ‘no metas’ rule, because he continued to trip over Wally Damn West every time he turned a corner.

Once he was settled in, Dick seemed delighted to have his brothers all close, teasing Jason about the social problems he had in school and helping him with homework, assisting Tim with adjustments to costumes or mechanics, working next to Damian to clean out animal pens and the like. He had, apparently, missed the family, and was happy to be here, especially since Bruce was ignoring that Wally was also often there.

After all; Bruce enjoyed having him there, too. Seeing his children and Alfred sitting together at a dinner table and talking with the Kent boys as Clark’s fingers wound through his was the absolute best thing he could imagine.

Jason was in school by the second month and was as dedicated a student as he’d ever been, reading his English assignments voraciously and grudgingly, bitterly, loudly, but devotedly doing all the rest. His teachers, who Bruce had strongly encouraged to keep in frequent contact with him, said that he was a bright boy and was working hard- as if there was a question of that. Still, it was good to hear that he was adjusting well. Bruce assured him that they’d get him a tutor if he had any issues with anything, but it seemed like for now his brothers and the school were enough.

During the third month, they built a barn out back for Damian’s cow, chickens, and whatever else he was sure to get. Not a pig, Clark had assured him, but he also hadn’t warned him about the chickens, so Bruce didn’t entirely believe that. Kon-El and Jon both came with Clark to help, and Jason and Alfred decided to have a cook-out while everyone worked. Alfred taught him how to use the grill, something that had never happened during Jason’s first youth, and he looked so excited by the burgers (including several tofu for Damian) that he was shuffling onto a platter for them all that Bruce had to step away and try to breathe in peace away from the others for a few minutes.

It was still hard, sometimes, to believe it was all real, that this beautiful reality was his to keep.

Tim was legally Bruce’s by mid-month. The nonexistent uncle was disassembled, the forged records of his existence wiped away, and the adoption was processed quietly. They kept this one out of the media, paying off reporters to keep it on the down low for the time being, and celebrated with just the family, with one of Alfred’s feasts and Young Justice and half the Titans in attendance. Tim was pink through half the meal and couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the Wayne cufflinks that Bruce had handed down to him from his own father, and Bruce wasn’t sure he’d ever seen him smiling the way he did that night. Bruce himself couldn’t seem to keep his hands to himself, constantly reaching out to squeeze Tim’s shoulder or ruffle his hair- just blissful in the fact that he could, that Tim was his, that his third son was finally, truly, legally, officially, his son.

By the end of month three, Jason was chomping at the bit to get back on the street and Bruce had to acknowledge that he was ready. Every single one of his shots made the target, even if said target was moving. He practiced day in and day out, both hand-to-hand, with his knives, and with his guns. He was fluid, he was strong, he was capable. He was ready.

It was Bruce who wasn’t. He knew that. It didn’t make it any less potent when Jason stepped out in a gray-and-red suit, Red Hood’s red bat stretched wide across his chest and a white domino on his face. There were geometric white and black lines against the gray that Hood had never worn.

“What do you think?” He grinned, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“Nice!” Tim threw a protein bar at him and Jason caught it. “That actually turned out pretty solid.”

“Right?” He did a flip and landed in a neat crouch. “No movement restriction either, and the fabric breathes enough that it should be fine in the summer.”

Bruce cleared his throat. “The suit fits you well,” he agreed, pulling on his cowl. He couldn’t tell Jason that he had to stay. It wasn’t right for him to keep him here, after everything. He deserved to fight and run and do what they were all best at.

But having him in a suit, ready to go on mission, was making Bruce’s heart rate accelerate into dangerous territory.

“I know.” Jason stood cheerfully and started clipping on his belt and various ammo pouches. The sign of weapons on him was at least reassuring, something concrete and steadying– although he’d had weapons the last time, too.

“Hey, B,” Tim murmured, elbow jostling against Bruce’s armored ribs, and he pulled on his gloves, trying to shift his stance. Always, always watching out for Bruce.

“I’m fine,” he told his son, glancing down at Tim. The boy didn’t need more to worry about. “Just- keep him in your sightline. Everything’s fine.”

“I’ve got Kon in Blud tonight,” Tim said, keeping his voice too low for Jason to catch it as the other boy squabbled with Damian. “He’s going to listen to him all night, he’ll be here in seconds if anything goes wrong.”

Bruce glanced at him, then relaxed and ruffled Tim’s hair affectionately. He was such a good kid. “I suppose Kon-El may earn himself a free pass,” he sighed. “The boy has been doing a decent job of not being an annoyance these days.”

“Hey, don’t get too generous, I asked him to. I’ll take the credit if that’s all you’re giving out.” Tim grinned at him and turned, hauling Jason bodily off the Red Bird by his shoulder harness and turning him toward his own bike, which Jason whined about and tried to dodge just to annoy his brother, despite liking it perfectly well.

The Mockingjay did very well on his first night of patrol, and the fact that he was still injury-free by the end of his first full week of cape work was almost enough to let Bruce relax. He was doing extremely well, and things were quickly leveling out into what promised to be a beautiful new normal.

One of the best things in the world was watching his three youngest work together, he realized quickly, and Bruce found himself enjoying patrol more than he ever had. The truly best times were those when Dick joined in as well rather than having Wally run him to Bludhaven for a night of patrol instead.

Bruce let himself breathe, let himself start to lower his guard, let himself start to accept that this was his life and his family’s future.

It was in the fourth month when the ever-present fear that had been simmering under Bruce’s skin from the moment he’d heard Jason agree to come home came to a boiling point.

Notes:

And there you go, there's the chapter! Honestly, we thought about taking that last line out and ending it there. BUT. There are some major unresolved issues still at play, despite how much wrap-up this chapter had. The big one? The Joker. He needs to be Handled, so if you feel like sticking around for a few more chapters... feel free to see. 😉 We thought about making those next three chapters their own lil baby fic, BUT. The story is still central to this one. And Jason's psyche isn't quite sorted out yet either. Hood Jason still had some things he wanted to say, so we're going to hear a little more about their choice before it's all said and done.

That said, please leave a comment if you have the energy! It gives us strength and reassurance to come back here and offer up the next bit of story. Thank you for sticking around this long, and hopefully the next few chapters will be out much more quickly for you!

Also, happy Pride, y'all!

Chapter 16: Thursday, 3:15 pm

Summary:

The Joker makes the first move.

Bruce was at Wayne Enterprises for a board meeting when it all went wrong.

It was always a pain because he simultaneously had to look like he wasn’t paying attention at all while in actuality not only listening closely but actually watching those in his board as well. One of his preferred things to do to get away with this was to go through his office mail while they were talking, because it looked completely disrespectful while being theoretically important enough that they couldn’t say for sure that Bruce shouldn’t be doing it right then. It also gave him something to look at and pretend to read while analyzing undertones and murmurs in the room.

He was through the first four pieces of mail by the time the meeting was halfway over. There had been two contracts to sign, a request for aid from a charity organization based out of the West End, and a not-so-subtle threat from a politician regarding his open support for the upcoming election that he likely thought ‘Brucie Wayne’ was too stupid to pick up on, all boring and normal and nothing surprising.

The fifth of his pile felt like a card, and when he opened it, he was met with a vague ‘Congratulations!’ in sparkling letters above a drawing of a stork carrying a bundle in its beak. He wrinkled his nose at the tacky thing in his hands, turning it over.

Someone had officially found out, then. They’d known it would happen sooner or later, Tim’s last name was Wayne now after all, and it just took someone counting the current Wayne children and then realizing that this black-haired, blue-eyed boy was not actually one of the others for them to realize he’d officially adopted another one. It was inevitable, even if inconvenient. They couldn’t have honestly expected Bruce’s bribes in the press to last much longer than a month or so. It was stupid and ugly, but he understood the gesture more or less, and it wasn’t necessarily a surprise. Tim had undergone an entire talk with Dick and Jason about paparazzi and how to handle the press- while he’d dealt with some of it as a Drake, the Wayne fame was in a completely different stratosphere. Bruce was confident that Tim would do great, even if he wished this wasn’t something his children had to deal with.

Of course, Damian had attended the talk (he’d been given instructions on paparazzi years ago) and had scoffed through it rather than offering information- the pappos seemed to sense somehow that the youngest Wayne wasn’t to be bothered and they usually kept their distance from him. Jon had gleefully said before that it was because Damian gave off ‘rabies vibes’ and as such was seen as unsafe to approach. Bruce privately agreed to an extent and was glad that at least one of them was somewhat immune.

“-and the stockholders feel that we are meeting the quotas acceptably, so I don’t see the problem there,” Lewis was saying, and Bruce flipped the card open as he bit back a sigh at the impatient man.

He lost the sigh entirely, lost the sound of their chattering voices, lost the feeling of the cardstock in his fingers, as he looked down at the playing card that had been slipped into the card. Right below ‘it’s a boy!’ and a drawing of a man holding a baby with a bright smile on his face was,

Heard there’s a birdie in the nest! Written like fingerpaint in messy red that could be marker or blood, could be syrup for all Bruce knew (wrong the viscosity is blood you know that), but he’d seen that scrawl, had seen this card before, and the implications hit him like a freight train.

He couldn’t swallow, couldn’t breathe, could feel every single pound of his heart shake his entire body as he stared at the cartoon clown on the playing card. He could hear ringing, high-pitched and screeching in the background, but no one else was looking around with any concern, so they couldn’t be hearing what he was.

Maybe it was a lack of oxygen.

Maybe that’s why things were spotting with black, too.

“-ayne? Mr. Wayne, are you-”

Bruce ripped backwards out of Lucius Fox’s hands and ran, sprinting down the stairs with the card gripped in one hand and his other snatching his keys from his pocket. Looking like Bruce Wayne didn’t matter right now, pissing off the board members didn’t matter, keeping his identity didn’t matter, nothing mattered but finding Tim and Jason right now-

He couldn’t breathe and he couldn’t see and everything was ringing, and he couldn’t feel his fingers as he tried twice to shove the key into the hole before he was able to send the ignition screaming to life. He tapped at his watch desperately as he peeled out of the parking garage, avoiding side-swiping another car by a split second.

He was a good driver, it was fine, he could get home in less than ten minutes when things were really bad and even though it was the Lambo, not the Batmobile, it didn’t matter. He could get there fast, he could take care of this. It was fine, it was fine, it was-

“B?” Barbara asked, sounding concerned, and he nearly took out three cars as he spun through a light and over the sidewalk, maneuvering through the tangles of traffic.

“Oracle,” he managed to get out, though it came out ground out and hoarse like he’d been gargling with broken glass. “Where is the Joker? Is he in Arkham?”

“Wh- hang on.” Shock, confusion, and fear immediately tamped down for the job, professional and efficient beyond measure, but it didn’t make it any easier to get breath through scraped lungs. She was good, but no one was good enough to make this screaming panic stop.

A birdie in the nest!

No, not again, not again-

“He’s out.” Oracle’s voice felt especially disembodied in this moment, as Bruce turned a corner so hard his car slid and took out a mailbox. It didn’t matter. Traffic laws didn’t matter, arrests on Bruce Wayne’s record didn’t matter, he just needed to get home right now-

He was driving as fast as he could and the dirt was whipping around the car, the warehouse coming into view-

“-since this morning, they didn’t know because he’d been in solitary,” Barbara was saying, and Bruce slammed his foot down against the gas, crushing it to the floor so the Lamborghini would all but fly. She said something else, but the ringing was stronger than ever, the world swimming in front of him.

He was out of the car before it had stopped, saw it keep skidding until it crashed into the front of the house but didn’t stop then either- the Manor didn’t matter, it could all burn as long as the kids were okay. He yanked the front door open before Alfred could get to it, saw Tim and Dick poke their heads out from the second parlor in alarm at the crash.

“What the hell-”

Tim’s okay it isn’t Tim he’s right here he’s perfect he’s fine-

“Jason, where’s Jason,” he ground out, or begged, or gasped. He wasn’t sure, couldn’t focus, couldn’t think, he just needed him he wasn’t too late it wasn’t possible-

What if he went on patrol early and got caught, what if-

“Library,” Dick was saying, looking nearly as pale as Tim. “B, what-”

Bruce was already halfway to the second floor, breath almost entirely cut off as he grabbed the handle to the library Jason had claimed his own since the day he’d first set foot in the manor. He ripped it open and his son looked around, looking sun-warmed and comfortable with an Anne Rice novel spread across his lap. He frowned, sitting up. “Dad?”

“Jason.” Bruce moved forward, nearly collapsing as he pulled Jason into a hug, ignoring the book hitting his feet. “You’re okay. You’re here. Where’s Damian?” He looked around to see Dick and Tim in the doorway and didn’t release Jason. “Tell Barbara to come here, we’re shutting everyone down until I track- Tim, call Harley. Dick, get Damian.”

“Hey, B, what’s going on?” Jason caught his shoulders, alarm running through his voice. “What happened, somebody attack you?”

A shuffling sound and Bruce jumped, turning to find Tim crouched on the floor, picking up the congratulations card and the Joker card from where they had fallen in Bruce’s scramble. He paled, lips pressing together in a line as his gaze flicked over the words, and held them up for Dick to look at.

Dick picked it up, stilling, then lost all the color in his face as he turned, lurching for the door. “Stay here, I’ll go get Dami,” he said sharply to Tim, disappearing down the hall.

Bruce took in a shallow breath. “The Joker is out,” he said, every word painfully slow as it came out, “And he sent me a card. Congratulating me on a new child.”

Jason froze, staring up at him, and didn’t move for a moment. “The Joker,” he repeated, and his entire body shivered. Bruce immediately helped him sit, keeping a hand on his shoulder. “Bruce, is it-”

“No,” Tim said automatically, cutting him off as he stood.

“You don’t even know what I was gonna say,” Jason protested, shooting him a look that wasn’t nearly as spiky as he might have hoped it was.

“The answer is no, Jay. There’s no such thing as Fate, and if there was, this wouldn’t be yours. The Joker lives to watch everything he can burn. It doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

“But I’m young and now he gets out of Arkham, what if it ain’t coincidence?” Jason twisted around to stare at Bruce. “Is that possible? That I’ll always- that it’s some sort of- of pattern?”

“No.” Bruce shook his head hard. His stomach was roiling- it was impossible that Fate existed. They made their own way in the world, there was nothing dictating this was Jason Todd-Wayne’s destiny. He wouldn’t allow it. He would rip the gods from the sky if that’s what it took. “There’s no pattern, Jason. I’m not going to let that happen to you, ever again. None of you are going to be hurt by the Joker again.”

He would think of something. He wouldn’t go through that again, he couldn’t. Everyone knew Batman was just barely hanging on, but no one knew how close to the edge he was.

Losing his son again would vault him over.

“It’s going to be fine,” Tim said sharply. “Just- you two stay here, I’ll contact Babs and let Alfred know. I’ll call the girls too.” He turned, vanishing into the hallway at a jog, and Jason took in a slow breath, then released it.

“Okay,” he said, flexing his hands around Bruce’s arms. “Okay. It’s gonna be fine, B. We’ve kicked his clown ass before, we can do it again.”

“I can’t have you in the same room with him.” Bruce froze, then stared up at him. “Jason, he sent it to Wayne Enterprises. He sent it to Bruce, not to Batman.” He leapt to his feet. “Come with me, we need to lock down the Mansion now.”

“B, hang on,” Jason tried to slow him down but ended up just being dragged along, down to the kitchen where Tim was holding two mugs and talking to Alfred urgently.

“-out again, you can’t just be sitting in here-“

“B thinks we might be compromised, he wants us in the Cave,” Jason translated when Tim broke off to turn to look at them.

“We are compromised,” Bruce snapped. “Joker sent that card to my work, addressed to Bruce Wayne. The three of you get downstairs, I’ll go find Dick and Damian and we’ll pull the girls back too.”

“I’m already working on it, I just let them know. Come on, get downstairs with us.” Tim handed one of the mugs to Jason and turned to look at Bruce. “Dick’s on his way, you hovering here waiting won’t change it. Come on.”

“He’s right,” Alfred confirmed, and Jason took a drink from his mug- hot chocolate, identified the still-functioning part of Bruce’s brain that wasn’t screeching out survival orders. “Down to the cave, young masters, I will be down with the others as they arrive.”

“No, I’m going to find them.” Bruce shook his head. “Alfred, go with Tim and Jason, I’ll be right there. I need to find Dick and Damian.”

Because the card had been addressed to Bruce Wayne.

And Damian was the other newest Wayne, other than Jason reappearing and Tim’s adoption, since Joker went down. And Bruce was going to lose his mind.

“Dick’s with him,” Tim pointed out, grabbing his arm. “Come on, we can watch their trackers in the Cave, but if you try to go get them, you could pass them and be stuck out on your own even longer.” His fingers tightened on Bruce’s arm. “You’re freaking him out worse,” he said, voice lower, and Jason made a scoffing sound.

“What? I’m fine, Timbo.” He took another drink of his chocolate, but the liquid sloshed slightly inside with the trembling in his hands.

Had he been shown pictures? The autopsy record? Did he know exactly what had happened to him? Bruce worked his jaw, then forced himself to relent, hauling both his sons toward the grandfather clock on the second floor.

Once they got into the Cave, they could all suit up. They’d be safer in armor, and Tim was correct that they could watch Damian and Dick’s progress back to the Manor there as well. It was heavily defensible and had enough weaponry inside to ensure they could protect themselves.

Get your family, bunker down, make a plan, Bruce repeated in his head, over and over as he forced his breathing to regulate, watching the elevator descend as he kept Jason’s shoulder locked in one hand and Tim’s arm in the other.

“Alfred, when we get down there, the boys are going to suit up,” he said, watching the indicator. “I want you to put on the suit down there I have for you. It’s a mock Gabbana. There’s weapons in there for you, too.”

“Master Wayne, I respect your level of concern, but I must insist that you breathe,” Alfred remarked. “You need a clear head and you aren’t capable of that in this state.”

“I’m fine.” The doors flew open. “We all need to be suited up. Go, quickly.” He kept an eye on them and led Alfred to the panel on the side. “It’s Kevlar and armor, it’ll be heavier than what you’re used to but it’ll keep you safe.” And it had trackers in it. He moved to the computers, quickly typing in the login. Where were Dick and Damian? Why weren’t they here?

On their way, he confirmed silently with a rush of relief. Two minutes out, driving the Mercedes, headed home.

“I’ll watch them. Get changed,” Alfred ordered. Bruce opened his mouth to return the command and the old man straightened, looking at him coolly in a way that made him feel all of eight years old again. He worked his jaw and turned, storming across the room to change quickly into his suit. He swapped places with Alfred just as the Mercedes parked and heard the hum of the elevator as it rose to retrieve his eldest and youngest.

“Here.” Tim’s voice was quiet, and Bruce glanced down to find him offering the second mug of hot chocolate. He opened his mouth, ready to dismiss it in favor of pulling up the Arkham video feeds Oracle had forwarded to him, but then could remember so clearly a tiny hand on his knee, a muffin set on his leg in an act of the most affection and appreciation the little boy could muster. “It’ll help you relax, it’s a sense memory,” Tim offered, looking away and shrugging self-consciously, and Bruce took the cup, taking a drink.

It was good, really, even if it did taste like it was maybe a mix rather than the melted-milk-and-chocolate kind that Alfred’s British proclivities preferred. Tim gave a small laugh, rubbing his arms.

“I know,” he admitted. “I’m not great at it, and it’s just the Swiss Miss stuff. I used to save a pack from Christmas when I was a kid, and when I got anxious or upset, I’d pour a teaspoon from the pack into some microwaved water.”

“Thank you.” Bruce pulled him into his side briefly, making a mental note to get some hot chocolate for Tim and bring it to him next time he was upset. “It’s good. I’ll remember that it helps, if I need it again.” He turned to watch the elevator, keeping Jason and Alfred in his peripherals.

Dick and Damian stepped out, the latter bristling and clearly unhappy with being all but manhandled by his older brother, who remained almost painfully pale and shaken. Bruce couldn’t blame him. Bruce, Dick, and Alfred were the only ones who had lived with the Joker’s cruelty before. To the younger boys, he was a boogeyman. To the older three, he was a very real monster, and one whose fangs had ripped a hole in their lives.

“Babs has locked herself in her own safe house,” Tim said, watching his phone. “Cass and Steph are headed our way, but it’ll take them a few hours.”

“If anyone can protect themselves, it’s those two,” Jason said, slightly admiring and slightly joking. Alfred rested a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it, and Bruce gave him a small smile.

“Father, we should not be burrowing down like rabbits,” Damian fumed. “We should be hunting him! Trussing him up and delivering him back to Arkham again!”

“And we will,” Bruce agreed, feeling a little of the air returning to his world now that his children were in his sight. “We need to regroup and ensure everyone’s weaknesses are covered and we know what we’re doing.”

“So let’s go over it,” Tim suggested.

Damian and Dick got changed and joined them at the table in the forefront of the Cave. Bruce activated the computer and they went through several screens, reviewing confirmation that the Joker had escaped by killing a nurse and swapping places with him, that he had been gone for eighteen hours so far but it had only been known for two.

Everything was a rush of adrenaline and nausea, but it was becoming easier to think the longer he sat in the Cave and looked at the facts available to them. Step one of the plan was done- all but the girls were in the Cave, and the girls were together and as safe as they could be that way.

Step two was in process. They just had to make a plan. It was only when one of them was isolated that Joker truly posed a threat. So long as everyone stayed in groups, it would be fine. Everything would be fine.

Dick, Damian, and Alfred went upstairs to retrieve dinner from the kitchen while Tim and Jason stayed put. Bruce kept an eye on their trackers and was at peace that they stayed fine. Tim was going through some of the CCTV footage Barbara had sent over, and Bruce was forcing himself to continue breathing evenly and to continue drinking the hot chocolate, because it was a rare thing that any of the kids except Jason were able to semi-successfully feed any of them, and because this had been a sweet offering of comfort from Tim. He felt some of the tension in his back and his breathing both ease a little as he read through the Arkham guards’ incident reports, and felt himself relax as the next few minutes spun out.

Spun out too fluidly, in fact, and his eyes narrowed on Tim, who was busy tapping something on his phone. Bruce had assumed it was perhaps to Kon or the girls, but now everything had taken a distinct edge of paranoia as he felt his own thoughts become clumsier, blunter. He recognized this sensation, he knew what it was. He’d been drugged.

“Timothy,” he said slowly, alarm a muddy thing in his mind, and felt Jason’s head droop onto his shoulder before crumpling into him completely.

“Hm?” Tim hummed without looking up.

“Did you-” he wanted to finish his accusation, to shake answers from his son if he had to, but drug our drinks turned into druhourhinks and didn’t come out as anything more than a slurred garble. Tim set his phone down, turning to look at Bruce evenly, and nodded.

“Yeah,” he agreed, reaching out and catching Bruce’s shoulders to gently tilt him back against the wall, Jason ensconced against his side. “I did.”

“Buhwhaddyou-” his tongue felt clumsy in his mouth and black was blooming. There was a sensation almost like panic, almost like fear, because why did Tim drug them, why did he need them asleep, what was he about to do that he needed-

And then the world turned off for Bruce Wayne.

Notes:

Hope you liked the new chapter!

The next chapter should be up within the next couple days-- it's a short one, but an important moment to see. We're coming up on the end now, finally! Thank you to those who've stuck around this long for the update!

Leave a comment if you feel so inclined or moved, it makes our days so much sweeter and makes writing so much easier!

Chapter 17: Thursday, 11:43 p.m.

Summary:

Tim holds a war conference.

Tim watched his adoptive father for a long time before he moved. He took in a deep breath as he rested a hand over Bruce’s chest to feel his heart for a moment, then moved it to Jason’s head. “Sorry, guys,” he murmured, looking between them. “It’ll wear off by morning. Even with your tolerance.”

It wasn’t an easy thing to betray his family’s trust. If anything, it was the hardest thing that Tim Drake had ever done in a life filled with sharp decisions.

This was the trust of a Bat he was betraying, after all. Trust that had been hard-won, trust that was rarely-given, trust that was more a gift than anything he’d ever been given in his life. Putting that trust in the ground like this could be irreversible. It could be catastrophic. It could cost him everything.

But so could the Joker.

Tim straightened and left the room, crossing silently up the stairs, into the elevator, and then down the hallway to slip into the den. Everyone else was already gathered, Damian absolutely fuming as he whipped around to glare at Tim the second the door opened. “What do you think you are doing?!” he snarled. Dick had one hand around the boy’s wrist, no doubt keeping him in check, and Tim inclined his head.

“Bruce and Jason needed to stay home and out of the way.” He shook his head, crossing his arms.

“Dude, you’re so dead,” Stephanie murmured, eyebrows high with admiration but tone grim. “He’s going to kill you. Or bench you into your grave.”

“The Joker’s already killed Jason Todd once.” Tim looked away from her, looking at Cass for a moment, then at Dick, whose gaze he held a beat. Dick studied him, expression calm and thoughtful, but ultimately unreadable. Would he forgive Tim for what he’d just done?

Would he forgive him for what he was about to do?

“I’m not going to let it happen again. O, you’ve got his location?” Tim broke eye contact with Dick to look at her.

“Tracked him to an abandoned motel on the outskirts of the docks,” she confirmed, voice unsteady but determined as she glanced up from the laptop resting on her knees. “No movement out of there, I’ve checked. He’s still home.”

Tim nodded, and had his phone at his ear before the first ring was even finished. “Hey,” he greeted his boyfriend.

“Don’t hey me, what do you mean, ‘stay out of Gotham tonight?’ You can’t just text me shit like that. You know it only takes a Google search to find out the Joker’s escaped?” Kon was furious, but there was an undercurrent of worry there that there always was when it was them against someone alone. The fact that the Joker had successfully killed a Robin once had sharpened that worry to fear. No one took him lightly- no one had been dumb enough for that for years.

“Stay out of Gotham,” Tim repeated, shaking his head. “Just like I said in the text. This is Bat business. Just stay out and keep everyone else out too.”

“Tim, like hell-”

“It’s Bat business that we have to take care of on our own. Stay out, and keep everyone else out too.” Tim stared at the wall over Damian’s head, gripping the phone harder as he put every ounce of authority in his body into the command. “That means no metas, no Kryptonians, in or out of the Manor or the city, Conner. It’s our problem to handle. Got it?”

Silence, then, “I’m gonna fucking listen. There’s shit you can do about that. But I’ll stay.”

Tim slipped his phone into his pocket as Kon hung up and looked back at the others. That took care of Clark or Jon interceding… which was the only real obstacle left, aside from those watching him in this room.

Stephanie sat back slowly, fingers tracing the shape of a batarang. “Are we really doing this?” she asked.

“We don’t have to, unless you’re going to try to stop me,” Tim said- an offer to keep her hands clean, to keep all of them clean if they wanted it. As long as they didn’t stand in his way, they didn’t have to take part in this firing squad. Tim could do it on his own, he could shoulder this, it was his family, it was-

“No,” Cass spoke up, soft voice low and quiet as she studied him.

Dick, who had remained quiet for this whole time, shook his head. “It’s been too long that this went on,” he said.

Barbara’s fingers were bone-white around the wheels of her chair, and she inclined her head without a word, lips bloodless and pale.

Damian’s eyes were sharp, and his fingers closed around the sheath of his katana. “I’m with you,” he agreed after a beat. “For our family’s protection.”

“Alright.” Tim shut his eyes and held the weight in the room for just a moment more, accepting the gravity that came with the word. Then he opened his eyes again and rolled his shoulders back.

“Wheels up in four, let’s get hunting,” he said, and headed for the Cave.

Notes:

Suuuuuper short and sweet chapter but one that was so much fun to write. Hopefully it was just as fun to read!

We're at the end now, just one chapter and then maybe an epilogue, depending on a vote I'll ask for at the end of the next chapter! Thank you all so much for reading, and leave a comment if you feel so inclined!

Chapter 18: Friday, 8:02 am

Summary:

Bruce wakes up and confronts his children as our story winds to a close.

Bruce woke feeling heavy, like he’d been half-smothered in molasses. He pried his eyes open and found the Batcave laid out in front of him, quiet and still. A slight movement against his ribs and he found Jason there, head pillowed against Bruce’s shoulder and mouth slightly open as he slept.

“Good morning, Master Wayne,” Alfred greeted him, appearing in the doorway. “You’re up bright and early. The children are in the dining room ready for you, and breakfast is there, if you’re hungry.” He offered him a glass of water.

“What?” Bruce blinked at him, trying to focus. “It’s- it’s morning? Where are- are they all alright?” He sat up, careful of Jason as he rested him down on the cot behind him.

“Indeed. They’re having breakfast,” Alfred agreed as Jason stirred with a yawn. “Go ahead up, I’ll bring Master Jason once he’s roused himself.”

Bruce stared at him for a moment, then slowly pushed himself to his feet, heading upstairs and to the dining room as he’d been instructed. He pushed open the door, looking around at the teenagers and young adults sitting there. “What the hell did you do?” He growled.

Barbara was seated beside Dick, and kept her eyes on the cup of tea between her hands. Stephanie was slightly pale and avoided eye contact to focus on the small braid she was making in Cass’ hair. Cass held eye contact, steady and unwavering, and for some reason Bruce couldn’t hold that gaze, let his eyes move on because maybe he wasn’t entirely ready to understand what it implied. Tim was on her other side and was looking ashen, genuinely almost gray in almost a mirror of Babs’ position, his eyes locked on the coffee cup he was grasping for dear life. Dick was beside him and was slowly spinning the salt shaker between his fingers. Damian was, as usual, scowling, though he looked a little nervous. His chin raised.

“Drake drugged your hot chocolate,” he said immediately, and Stephanie blew out a breath.

“Jesus, Baby Bat, you can tell you didn’t grow up in America. Snitches get stitches, babe.”

“I did,” Tim agreed haltingly, glancing up at Bruce before focusing hard on his cup again. “Do that.”

“And you did that because?” Bruce moved forward, resting a hand on the table. He looked around again- they were all tired and unhappy, but alive. “What did you all do?”

“We made a democratic decision,” Stephanie offered.

“No vote was taken,” Barbara murmured under her breath, barely actually correcting her.

“Because it was unanimous,” Tim muttered back, glancing at her, then back at his cup. He flexed his fingers around it and swallowed hard. “It was- my idea,” he offered, though he still didn’t look up at Bruce yet. “Sir. I determined that there was too much risk inherent in the Joker running free and that we needed to make a move on him as quickly as possible. Without you and Jason.”

Bruce stared at him, then the kids around them. “And then you did what?”

“I still have an apartment in Bludhaven,” Dick muttered to the girls. “We can go there.”

“I have a place in Hong Kong,” Cass offered under her breath, very quietly to Dick, Stephanie, and Tim. Damian straightened.

“And then,” he said, like it was a normal mission report, “He arranged for the clone to keep Mr. Kent, Jon, and all other metas out of the city so there wouldn’t be interference.”

“Damian. The day after you turn sixteen, I’m going to punch you so hard you hit the mat and don’t get up for a week,” Tim informed him, squinting down at his coffee. Damian whipped around furiously to snarl something back at him and Tim finally raised his gaze, looking up at Bruce with exhausted but clear eyes. He didn’t see any remorse in them, he noted with a sinking sensation.

“The goal wasn’t necessarily biological death,” he said, unsettlingly matter-of-factly. “But it was some sort of death. Brain damage, or maybe physical long-term paralyzation. Something to take him off the board permanently.”

Wasn’t necessarily, Bruce heard again, and then again. Necessarily. So that meant that he was, in fact, dead. The world threatened to swim around him and he forced his breathing into a pattern.

“We were protecting you and Jason,” Damian said, shoulders straightening with his usual defiant ‘I see nothing wrong here.’ And he likely didn’t. He was a kid, raised by assassins, but the others-

They knew better, they knew the rules and why they stuck to them and they had involved Damian in this when he was trying so hard to turn a new leaf. To unlearn every toxic, poisonous thing the League had drilled into him. How could they involve him in this?

Which of them had done it? Which of his children had chosen to bloody their hands forever, to change the very nature of what they were? Which had lost that piece of themselves because he hadn’t been able to years ago?

“That’s not the only reason why I helped,” Barbara said, breaking the quiet as she lifted and lowered her teabag. “Some of it was revenge, for me.” The admission was quiet and heavy, and Bruce took in a deep breath. On occasion he forgot just how much Barbara had lost to the Joker as well, that she carried weight just as he did but on her own merit.

“What happened?” He forced out, and they exchanged looks before Tim started up a report of his own.

They had left the manor and surrounded the motel Joker had gone off to. They had taken out the three men who had been hired as muscle without any problems, and had fought very briefly with the Joker before getting him down. And then (which of them is it, which of my children did I give power and allow to become a killer it wasn’t Jason this time)

Tim broke off, uncertain of either how to confess or how to rat out whoever had done it, but then there was a soft clatter as Alfred sat down a silver tea tray.

“And then I shot the Joker with the shotgun that is currently cleaned and hanging in the den,” Alfred said simply, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and setting it on the table in front of Bruce. A chunk of bloodied green hair was folded neatly inside. “It was a head wound, he will not be resurrecting in any state.”

Bruce looked at him, then the children, and frowned, sinking into a seat. He wasn’t sure in the slightest that this was true. He studied him, then the faces around him. “Is that what happened?” He asked Damian, choosing his target wisely.

“I-“

“The truth,” Bruce repeated.

Damian was a little pale when he shook his head. “We thought he was going to stay with you and Jason,” he said quietly, eyebrows pinching together. “He followed us and was- confused. He is not used to being near the fights, he got panicked-“

“I assure you, I was not,” Alfred informed Bruce’s youngest. “I guessed your intentions as soon as I saw Master Timothy make the drinks, and I was prepared when I packed a weapon into my vehicle and followed you. The Joker has hunted my family for ten years now, Master Wayne. That is more than long enough for an old man to bear.” He looked down at Bruce evenly. “I told you before that I could not order a hit on him, murder him in cold blood even if it was to avenge a loved one. This was not cold, and it was not vengeance. I could pull the trigger and take him out of the equation, or allow that responsibility to fall on one of the children. So I made a decision and put him down.” He poured a cup of tea. “If you would like to arrest me, I will come quietly, although I suspect that finding the body would be quite difficult. Your children are singularly gifted in stealth.”

Bruce massaged his temples. “Timothy, get me aspirin,” he informed him, a migraine coming on. “Alfred, do you honestly think that I would allow you to be arrested?”

“Does anyone think any judge would actually convict somebody for it?” Dick muttered to Stephanie.

Bruce looked at Tim, fixing him in place with a look. “You’re grounded for a week,” he informed him, desperately trying to regain control.

“A week? Wait, you grounded me for two when I cut his grapple line!” Damian protested hotly.

“Here, B, you probably don’t want to take meds from Tim right now,” Stephanie said with a snicker, pulling a bottle of aspirin from her purse and throwing it to Bruce. Tim buried his face in one hand and Cass leaned back in her chair to catch his eyes, signing to him with a comforting look on her face.

“What’s goin’ on? Why do you all look weird?” Jason asked sleepily, and Bruce turned to find him in the doorway, still in his suit.

Safe. Regardless of the potential effects of killing the Joker… Jason was safe from him. There was no pattern, no Fate. He would never touch Bruce’s sons again.

And so when Alfred passed him, Bruce caught his father-figure’s arm and squeezed it, looking up at him wordlessly. “All of you at this table are grounded,” he informed them as he looked away from Alfred, conflicted and upset but glad they were all alive. “For two weeks, Damian’s right.”

“I’m an adult, you can’t ground me,” Dick said, pulling Jason into his side to hug him and muss his hair.

“Try me,” Bruce growled.

“I still don’t understand what happened,” Jason said, frowning hard, and Dick explained to him quietly as Alfred started serving breakfast. Jason gaped at them all, particularly Alfred, but didn’t press the issue there in front of Bruce.

It was a quiet breakfast to say the least, but that did allow Bruce the opportunity at least to somewhat process what had happened. The Joker was dead. Alfred had chosen to kill him so the kids wouldn’t, so their hands wouldn’t be bloodied, so their morals and relationships with Bruce wouldn’t be compromised the way his and Jason’s relationship had been.

Bruce had dealt with Alfred shooting people before- even in his house, once. It had been a calculated risk and it had paid off. Bruce felt scattered, uneasy, but at the same time… sickeningly relieved.

After breakfast, the children scattered, vanishing like smoke. Barbara went home, and Stephanie and Cass mumbled something about a movie as they followed her out. Tim all but evaporated on the spot without any attempt at an excuse. Damian went out back to check on his barn and its inhabitants. Jason went to the Cave to get changed into real clothes, and then Bruce caught a glimpse of him heading back up toward his library. Dick mumbled some sort of excuse about needing to get homework done and vanished down into the Cave as well.

Bruce rested his head in his hands, letting out a long breath. He didn’t know how to feel. The way he was feeling was wrong. Everything was mixed up and complicated.

The Joker was dead.

He couldn’t hurt Bruce’s family again.

“You don’t have to be grateful that he was killed to be grateful they’re safe, Master Wayne,” Alfred said, the soft sounds of plates being stacked accompanying the words.

Bruce looked up at him, trying to process that. “It’s all tangled up together,” he said, shaking his head a little. “But I am grateful that they’re safe. When I saw the card, I-“ he stopped, fingers gripping the edge of the table painfully. “I’m just glad they’re safe.” He looked up at Alfred. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

Alfred’s expression softened and he rested a hand on Bruce’s shoulder. “As I am you, dear boy. The Waynes have endured enough loss, I think, for several lifetimes. I mourned the death of my grandson once, and I had no intention of doing so again. Not when it was a situation that could be rectified with these old hands, which are by no means clean as it is.” He dipped his head to hold Bruce’s gaze. “Understand that just because I crossed a line you were unwilling to, that does not make you weaker and does not make me more devoted to the children than you are. Your ideals, Master Wayne, are worth preserving. The fact that you will not kill even the lowest scum of humanity is a remarkable one. You are giving them the opportunity to change and to grow, even if they do not. You are giving the system a chance to work. You are accepting that it is not your call to end another’s existence on this planet, and that is noble.”

Bruce rested his hand over Alfred’s on his shoulder, squeezing gently. “I’m not angry with you,” he told him quietly. “I can’t… I’m sorry that I can’t thank you for it, but I’m glad that none of the children had to do it, and that the threat is over. It’s good to know everyone is home safe again. Even if they are grounded.” He snorted and squeezed Alfred’s hand again. “You will always have a home here, Alfred. No one could have a better father or grandfather than you.”

“Hm.” Alfred’s other arm came up and around him, giving a firm squeeze. “You are getting soft in your old age, Master Wayne. It’s all the children.”

“I know.” He sighed, biting back a smile. “That’s where all the gray is coming from as well. It’s pathetic.”

Alfred chuckled and released him. “I hardly have a leg to stand on there. Give yourself time to adjust, Master Wayne. You can love us, hate what decision was made, and still be grateful for it. Life is complicated in that way.” He picked up the dishes and carried them out of the room.

Bruce watched him go, then pushed himself to his feet and headed to Tim’s room. He had been so obviously worried, had been so concerned about Bruce’s anger, that he needed reassurance now. Bruce would check on everyone and chastise them as needed.

He passed the library, glimpsing Jason sprawled on his couch again with Dick sitting on the floor beside him as they both read, and continued on to Tim’s room, where he was met with the sight of his third son packing.

“What are you doing?” Bruce wasn’t even surprised, honestly- it was the reason he’d come up here first. Tim’s worry about his place in their family would obviously lead to this. He closed the door behind him to give them privacy. “You’re grounded, Tim. Not evicted.”

“I know, you told us that.” He didn’t stop, busy with checking his camera bag to make sure all of its contents were in their places. “Which was really nice of you to say.”

“Timothy.” Bruce moved forward, stilling his hand by curling his fingers around the straps. “I’m not kicking you out. I have no intention of asking you to leave, nor do I want you to. This is your home, where you belong. What happened doesn’t change that.”

“I broke your trust.” Tim didn’t move, didn’t raise his eyes from his bag, but spoke steadily. “And drugged your drink, and led your kids to- mutiny, basically. And I- I might have. If Alfred weren’t there. I might have.” His hands shivered under Bruce’s. “Or maybe Dick would, or Cass again, or Damian again, and it would be because I was the one who brought them there and told them it was okay. You can’t trust me in your house or on your team after that. I knew that before yesterday night was even done.”

Bruce searched his face, then moved forward again and pulled him into a hug, resting his cheek on the boy’s hair. “You are my son,” he said into the soft strands. “And I would disown you for this no more than I disowned Jason for all that he did. Your intentions were good. Everyone is safe. I am angry, and frustrated, and I will continue to punish you for it for two weeks, but your place here is not changed.”

Tim shuddered, but didn’t pull away. “It isn’t about disowning, B, you can’t- you won’t be able to trust me now.”

Bruce carefully carded his fingers through his son’s hair. “I trust you with my life, and the lives of your brothers. If I wasn’t as angry as I am, I would let you all go out on mission right now and I would feel fine to allow you to be there with them. I need to think of some consequences for drugging me,” he let a little edge enter his voice there even as he continued stroking Tim’s hair, as Tim’s head dipped lower, “But my trust in you is not gone, or shaken. I understand what you did and why. You were trying to protect us. You are still my son.”

“You didn’t see you back then, B. You don’t know how you guys were when you lost him before.” Tim shook his head, sagging against him slightly. “Or how you looked yesterday. I couldn’t let that happen to you again, and if you were awake, you weren’t going to take your eyes off us, you wouldn’t let any of us be alone or go to him without you, and if he got away or something again… it felt like the only strategic choice.” He sounded miserable.

Bruce rubbed his back, thinking through this as logically as he could, attempting to separate emotion from it. What would their lives have looked like, if they hadn’t stopped Joker last night? Constant terror and panic, anxiety, everyone confined to groups. There would have been no freedom. Bruce wouldn’t have been able to work, wouldn’t have been able to sleep.

Dick would have been no better; Bruce’s memories of losing Jason were sketchy at best, but he remembered how his eldest had dropped twenty pounds in a flash, how his skin had been almost yellow by the time Bruce had pulled himself together enough to notice and do something about the self-harm Dick was allowing to happen.

Tim, the only one other than Alfred who had seen the fallout before, who loved this family fiercely as much as he forced himself to stay separate from it, had done the only thing he could think of. It had been an act of desperation, of fear, to keep his family safe. And he had done it thinking that it would result in his being severed from the people he was trying to protect.

Bruce sighed, squeezing Tim again. “I understand,” he said. “It doesn’t mean it’s okay, and I’m unhappy about what happened. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t understand why you did it, and it absolutely does not mean that I want you to leave, or that I don’t trust you. I trust you with my life. You are still my son, you are still grounded, and you aren’t allowed to run off and get away from your punishments.” He attempted to inject a little teasing into the end. “This is your home, and it will be for the rest of your life. Unpack your things and go help Alfred with cleanup.”

Tim searched his face, shifting his weight uncertainly from one foot to the other the same way he had when he was little, and then he gave a nod, setting his camera bag back on the bed. “Okay,” he agreed. He paused again only a few steps away, stalling at the door. “I didn’t lie, by the way. It wasn’t me trying to manipulate you or anything, about the hot chocolate.” His pale cheeks were pinkening. “I did get three packs a year, and I’d try and make it last all year. I wasn’t- wasn’t lying.”

Bruce gave him a smile. “I did like the hot chocolate,” he informed him, fondness like a punch to his gut. “But it may take me a few weeks to try it again. I’ll make sure that you have a few packs in the cabinet.”

The pink darkened to red and he nodded before darting off down the hall. Bruce looked after him, checked on Dick and Jason again who were still reading, and headed down to see Damian.

He found his youngest sitting in the new grass, watching the chickens peck at their food. “Hello, Damian,” he said, settling beside him. The chickens clucked nervously at his presence, becoming a small feathery huddle, and Damian made a soothing sound to them, scooting them all a little closer to his leg in comfort.

“Hello, Father,” he said, one finger running down a chick’s feathery back.

Bruce let the quiet spin out for a moment or two, listening to the chickens softly clucking against the birds in the trees singing and the lowing of Batcow in the barn. It really was peaceful out here. Bruce looked up at the leaves. “When I couldn’t find you, when I had Dick and Tim and Jason but you weren’t there, I couldn’t breathe,” he said when he found the right words. “I thought the Joker probably meant Jason, in his card. But it did occur to me that it could mean you. And you weren’t there. It was difficult for me.” Very carefully, he wrapped an arm around Damian.

Damian was so unique in so many ways. Dick had always been comfortable with touch. Jason and Tim were both like cats, soaking it up like sunlight, although Tim was usually afraid to even ask for it. But Damian… Bruce never knew how his youngest would accept physical contact at any point, and so when he did touch him, he tried to make sure it was telegraphed, that his son always had a way out of any hold. Bruce tried his best to be as clear about his feelings for Damian as he could be, verbally, but he understood that physicality was still strange for the youngest Wayne, sometimes.

Bruce cleared his throat. “I couldn’t see straight again until you stepped out of the elevator with your brother. I’m sure it was confusing and you were angry, but I’m very glad that you didn’t fight Dick when he got you and brought you back.”

Damian was quiet for a moment, then leaned into Bruce’s side, letting his head rest a moment against Bruce’s chest. Bruce smiled, closing his eyes. “I am well,” his son said easily when the second had passed, and he pulled away from the touch to scoop up a chicken and offer it for Bruce’s inspection. “As are you.”

Bruce nodded, stroking a finger down the chicken’s head. “As am I,” he agreed, ruffling his son’s hair gently. “Thank you, Damian.”

“I will try not to side with my brothers in mutiny in the future,” Damian offered after a beat, breaking the quiet, and Bruce let out a laugh that almost boomed as it escaped, some of the lingering tension lifting from his shoulders,

“I’m sure that if you do, you’ll have a good reason,” he chuckled. “But try not to, chum.” He pushed to his feet and left him in the barn with his chickens, going to linger in the doorway of the library. Jason was reading aloud to Dick now, eyebrows drawn together.

“There is an old belief that swans normally are mute, but burst into beautiful song moments before they die,’” he read from his phone. “‘The term ‘swan song’ has come to mean instead a final gesture or performance before retirement. The first Red Hood, wherever he has gone, has left Gotham quite the swan song in leaving Crime Alley in the smaller hands of the second Hood.’”

“That sounds… ambiguous,” Dick hedged, and Jason snorted as he scrolled down slightly.

“‘He never did wrong by us,’ says Nina Denners, a Park Row resident. ‘And neither has she. The Hood is by us, for us, and we’ve got nothing else to say about that.’” He studied the phone for a moment, smiling. “The article goes on then about a couple pimps who were admitted to the ER down there.” He cracked up. “It says their genitals were eaten by animals, you think it was the hyenas?”

Dick started laughing, covering his face with a hand, and Bruce gave a sigh and a smile as he shook his head. His son’s legacy was secured, and it was the kind of legacy that even Jason post-Pit would have appreciated. Crime Alley, his home and heart within Gotham, was safe in Harley’s hands. Something about that gave him just as much peace as the sight of his children laughing together. The people of Crime Alley were safe with their new Hood, and if Jason ever wanted to take back over, he could.

“That wasn’t his swan song,” Tim piped up quietly, and Jason and Dick’s laughter died down a bit as they looked around, Bruce turning to find the teenager in the hall beside him. Tim glanced at Bruce, then cleared his throat and shook his head. “He tried to cover me when the spell hit. He tried to knock us both out of the way.”

“He did?” Bruce blinked at him, and Dick startled as Jason sat up to watch Tim.

“Yeah.” Tim offered Jason a small smile, raising his coffee cup to his lips for a quick drink. “I know you’ve got a lot of feelings about Hood-Jason, Jay. But you were still you. He took care of your people, and the last thing he did was try to take care of his family. It was a good song, if it was the last one he sang.”

Jason searched Tim’s face, then leaned back into the couch, letting his shoulder brush Dick’s. “Thanks, Timbit,” he said after a beat, expression softening, and Bruce wrapped an arm around Tim, tugging him in for a quick hug as Dick did the same to Jason across the room.

This was his life. How had he ever managed such a beautiful life?

Things settled for a few days after that, nearly returning to the normal they had built over the past four months. But clearly Tim’s speech on the Hood’s swan song had stuck with Jason, because it wasn’t more than four days before Bruce caught a glimpse of Jason up on the landing when he was heading down the stairs. He glanced up after his middle son as he crossed, then paused and doubled back two steps.

“Jason,” he said, and it came out sharper and more startled than he’d intended but he couldn’t help it, the brief glimpse burned into his eyelids like he’d looked at the sun.

“What?” He groaned, and it sounded right, mouthy, whiny grumbling rather than simmering anger and aggression, but…

“Come here,” he ordered.

“Old man, I’m doin’ somethin,’” he grumbled, but poked his head over the railing to look down at Bruce, who stared up at him.

No, he determined as he scanned his son’s face for changes. This was still the face of a teenager, slim shoulders that hadn’t hit their growth spurt, a face that hadn’t entirely grown out of its baby fat. But at the same time, very-blue eyes were flecked with green, and a vivid shot of white curled at the forefront of his hair.

“Jason Wayne, get your ass down here now,” Bruce demanded. “What did you do to your hair? What did you do to your eyes?”

He sighed, all teenage irritation and sass, and slowly traipsed back down to stop in front of Bruce. “I think it looks cool.” He shrugged, pushing his hands into his jacket pockets. “I liked the way Big Jason looked and figured I’d keep it. What?” He arched an eyebrow.

Bruce grabbed Jason’s jaw and turned his face this way and that. “How the hell did you change your eyes?”

“I told you I was going out last night,” Jason scoffed, and Bruce paused a beat. “I met up with Zatanna.”

“Who is twenty-nine,” Bruce agreed in a slow rumble, frowning hard.

If Zatanna had taken advantage of his son…

Jason rolled his eyes. “Yeah?”

“You are fifteen,” Bruce snapped. “What is she doing with a minor?”

“Relax, B.” Jason huffed, pulling his face free. “I asked her to meet me. I didn’t want to have to bleach my hair every time it grew, and I wanted my eyes to be right without contacts. Now I’m both. Me and coulda-been-me.”

Bruce eyed him, then inclined his head. In a way, he had almost missed Jason’s hair and the green in his eyes. “Fine. Be prepared for skunk jokes from your brothers.”

“Psh. They can blab all they want, I look cool,” Jason scoffed, and started back up the stairs.

“I like your hair,” Bruce called after him.

It was… good to see that hair again, he reflected quietly during dinner. It was reassuring in an odd way, comforting somehow. He knew Jason the fifteen year-old was still Jason, still the boy he’d raised. But, in an odd way, he did miss the adult Jason.

It was hard in strange ways. It was hard to hear of the Hood and not picture his son’s face. It was hard not to hear the crackle of his helmet on the comms, threatening them for getting too close to Crime Alley. It was hard not to get little updates about what he was doing from Tim, who always somehow kept tabs on what Jason was up to despite never getting close enough to risk another fight.

Bruce’s life was beautiful and whole, his family complete in a way that hadn’t been possible when Jason was an adult… but that didn’t mean it always felt that way. And it didn’t mean that had come without a cost. All Bruce could do was honor that cost and provide his son with every possibility available to them.

He would do that with every second spared, every cell in him, every breath in his body. He would never take his family for granted again.

Notes:

Alright, people! I hope you liked it, leave a comment if you have a thought or feeling!

We have one last chapter to go, and it is the epilogue. So, in honor of Jason Todd, we’re going to put it to a vote. Let us know in the comments which path you want to see, because I’ve considered both options and still don’t know which to write and post. Jason can either merge his adult self’s memories with his current fifteen year-old body, so he is both in a sense without the physical effects of the Pit rage. OR, he can wait until he’s an adult to do this and catch his other self up on what he did with his life first, in a callback to chapter 13. What would y’all rather see?

Notes:

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