Chapter Text
Barbara calls Jim Gordon while Jason leads Dick into a condemned apartment building to collect his things. Dick can’t keep himself from wrinkling his nose at the pervasive sent of mold, mildew, and rotten wood. It might be workable for Jason, but Dick is glad the kid won’t be staying here any longer.
It takes almost no time for Jason to collect his things, shoving a change of clothes, a few granola bars, and a faded photograph into a ratty backpack. Dick glances around the room as he does. It’s in better shape than most of the building, only accessible from the fire escape outside, but there’s still a significant amount of water damage to the ceiling and there are rusty nails coming out of the floorboards. To the side is a small pallet made of collapsed cardboard boxes and packing blankets.
Jason circles the room one last time before coming back to where Dick is still standing by the window. He doesn’t bother asking, simply moving to the side and following Jason out. Barbara stands at the end of the alleyway, still on the phone. She glances their way as they approach.
“Alright, Dad. We’ll be on our way shortly. See you soon.” She pauses. “Yeah, love you too. Bye.” Barbara tucks her phone into her pocket. “Got everything?”
Jason nods and slides into the backseat of the car, holding his backpack in his lap. Dick and Barbara make short order of climbing in after him.
“Alright. I still need to call Bruce. The commissioner will be waiting for us?”
“Yeah, Dad’s going to make sure there’s a small office free for us to use when we get there, that way we can keep things on the downlow.”
“Awesome. Okay.” Dick pulls his phone out of his pocket and dials the number to connect him to Batman’s comm. The line doesn’t ring, instead it chirps Robin’s tone as he connects to the secure channel.
“Robin.”
“Hey, B. I’ve got a bit of a situation. Nothing bad, but I need you to meet me at the station.” Dick glances back at Jason in the rearview mirror. The boy’s eyes are glued to the back of Dick’s headrest.
Batman grunts, and Dick can just make out the whir of a grapple line. “Sitrep.”
Dick rolls his eyes. “I was about to catch a bus to Gotham U, but I ran into this kid. His name’s Jason, and he’s on his own. I called Barbara to pick us up and now we’re on our way to the station so we can try and get things sorted for him.”
“You’re leaving something out.”
“I was thinking, if things go alright, maybe we could take him in.” Dick accidentally makes eye contact with Jason in the rearview mirror. There’s so much hope in the kid’s eyes that Dick doesn’t know if he can take Bruce saying no.
All he gets is a short, low hum. “ETA twenty minutes.”
“Cool. We’ll be there in about fifteen. Meet you there.”
The line goes dead, and Dick pulls the phone away from his ear. “Well, he’s on his way.”
“Did we interrupt his bedtime routine? He seemed particularly short.”
Dick snorts. “He was surprised I called. Probably didn’t expect to hear from me until tomorrow at the earliest.”
“Because you two had a fight?” Jason leans forward, sticking his head between the driver and passenger seats.
“And how’d you come to that conclusion?” Dick asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Like it wasn’t obvious? You were in Crime Alley and didn’t wanna talk about him when I asked.”
“He’s got you there, Dick. You’re not exactly subtle when you’re fed up.”
Dick huffs, shaking his head. “Yeah, that’s fair.”
Jason goes back to sitting properly. “So, when’s he gonna get there?”
“He said his ETA is twenty minutes, so just a little bit after we get there.” Dick turns around, meeting Jason’s gaze. “With a little luck, we’ll be able to get everything figured out pretty quickly. It’s late in the evening and no one wants to spend several hours processing, especially not when Bruce Wayne’s involved. B’s already had me as a ward, so getting cleared to take you home shouldn’t be too difficult.”
Jason nods along, though Dick isn’t convinced the boy fully understands what to expect. Dick isn’t even sure he fully knows what to expect. Everything from the time his parents died to getting settled at the manor is a bit of a blur. He prefers not to think too hard about it.
Thankfully, Barbara seems to have more of a clue. “When we get to the station, my dad, the commissioner, is going to meet us at the front. He’ll take you and Dick back to an office to meet with a social worker. You’ll both have to speak to them separately, as will Bruce when he gets there. They’ll have to get some kind of grasp on Jason’s records—that means full name, parents, birthday, stuff like that—so that there’s something to put down on the paperwork. Getting the initial emergency placement shouldn’t be too hard.”
“And I’m guessing the hard part is what comes after, right?” Dick frowns, trying hard to remember exactly what the process was like for Bruce to set things up so he could keep Dick. He draws a complete blank. Bruce did his best to keep Dick out of it.
“Basically, yeah, but most of that will be for Bruce to deal with, not the two of you.”
“So, someone’s gonna come ask me questions, then they’ll ask Dickhead here questions, and then they’ll ask Brucie some questions. If everyone passes the test, we’re home free.” Jason lists each step off on his fingers, then pauses, glancing at Barbara. “I get that right?”
“Pretty much. That’s all you’ll need to worry about for now, anyway.”
Jason nods once, clearly satisfied with the explanation. Dick wonders how much of Jason’s current demeanor is a front he’s putting up. Maybe things will come crashing down later on, once Jason is more settled.
The rest of the drive passes quietly, Barbara asking Jason a few questions about his likes and dislikes, things he’s interested in. It quickly leads into a discussion about resources available at the public library, which Jason is surprisingly informed about.
When they walk into the station, Jason is more relaxed than Dick expected he would be. Dick and Barbara are on either side of the kid, and, as promised, James Gordon is waiting just inside. He takes a short step forward, greeting Barbara with a hug.
Dick holds his hand out to shake. “Thank you for meeting us, Commissioner. It’s very much appreciated.”
Jim nods, smiling lightly. “I’ve known you since you were a kid, Dick. None of that ‘Commissioner’ nonsense.”
“Babs said you’d have a room ready?”
“Follow me.”
Jim leads them down a hallway, away from business of the bullpen, eventually stopping at an unmarked door and pushing it open. Inside is a small sitting area, a desk, and a few filing cabinets.
“I need to go wait for Wayne and the social worker. Barbara, with me. Dick, will you and the kid be alright to wait here?”
Dick glances to Jason for confirmation, but the kid is already settling in, taking a seat in the corner. “Yeah, we’ll be alright. Is there anything we need to know right now?”
Jim shakes his head. “Should be it for now. Hopefully we can knock this out quickly.”
With one last nod to Jim, the door closes behind them. Jason starts fiddling with his hoodie strings, staring at the ground. Dick takes a seat across from him, making sure to stay in Jason’s line of sight.
Neither of them speak. It’s a little awkward.
A few minutes pass before someone knocks on the door, not waiting for an answer before peeking their head inside. The woman is very clearly not Bruce so she’s probably the person who will wind up being Jason’s case worker. She’s on the younger side, but probably still in her early thirties. She’s clearly making an effort to appear nonthreatening, but there’s a stiffness to her movements that Dick can’t help cringing internally over. Jason is staring at her like a deer in the headlights, but Dick’s having trouble trying to get a read on anything Jason’s feeling other than surprise.
“My name is Janice Wheeler, I’m going to be the one interviewing everyone this evening,” she begins. She has a purse over her shoulder and a clipboard against her chest. She glances between the two of them. Dick’s guessing she wasn’t given much information about who she’d be interviewing. “Interviews will be conducted one at a time.” She turns to Jason. “I’d like to interview you first, that way we can get some of your information down and start building your case.”
Dick watches closely as Jason’s throat bobs. The kid’s nervous.
“Yeah, sure. Whatever.”
“Alright, then. We can get started here in just a moment.” Janice turns to face Dick, scrutinizing. Whatever she’s looking for, she seems to find it after only a moment, but she doesn’t seem particularly pleased. “If you don’t mind stepping out into the hall, sir. And, I seem to recall being told I’d be interviewing three people?”
Dick nods, rubbing his palms against his jeans as he stands up. “That’s correct. My guardian will be here shortly.”
“I see. Your guardian is the one seeking the emergency placement, then?”
Janice isn’t subtle. If the way her face relaxes is any indicator, she’s glad to know Dick isn’t the one hoping to foster. “Yes. He took guardianship of me when I was eight. He’s been through this process before.” Or, at least, Dick’s pretty sure he has. How different is the process of becoming someone’s ward versus a foster child? Either way, the lady just looks at him expectantly, so Dick takes his cue to head back out into the hall.
Dick cringes as the door closes behind him.
He stands with his back to the door for a long moment before moving to the bench against the opposite wall. He stares at the door. Something uncomfortable settles under Dick’s skin, itching against the idea of leaving Jason alone with a stranger. The kid is trusting Dick to keep him safe, and how can Dick do that if Jason is alone with a stranger behind a closed door that Dick isn’t allowed to open?
Dick stares at the door, trying to see anything through the frosted glass.
“Thank you, Jim,” a familiar voice rumbles from a few feet away, soft but deafening in the quiet of the hallway. Familiar footsteps pad across the floor, reinforced by the near-silent brush of tailored cotton slacks. Familiar weight settles next to Dick on the bench, a familiar hand on his shoulder. “How are you feeling, chum?” comes the familiar, soothing whisper at his ear.
“I should be in there,” Dick murmurs, eyes never straying. Something makes it hard to breathe, grips his heart in his chest and squeezes. A nameless anxiety Dick does not remember.
Bruce’s fingers tighten, grounding pressure against the fabric of Dick’s hoodie, sinking into his skin. Dick leans into the hold, almost helpless to it. Dick is eight again, staring at the wall in the hallway outside the warden’s office at the Gotham City Juvenile Detention Center. The door in front of him is the warden’s office, not an out-of-the-way office in Gotham City Police Headquarters. Bruce’s hand still rests on his shoulder.
“I—” Dick’s voice breaks. Bruce’s arm comes around to his other shoulder, pulling Dick against his side. “I don’t really remember much, you know, from when I was—”
Dick’s breath stutters in his chest.
Bruce hums thoughtfully.
“I guess—I guess I don’t want to remember it, if it felt like this.” Dick presses closer against Bruce’s side, settling under the reassuring weight of an arm around him, a protective shield against the ghosts stirring up an old fear in Dick’s heart. “Did you—when you were taking me in, did you have to do all this?”
Dick can feel the subtle motion of Bruce’s shoulder as he nods. “I did. You hated it then, too. So did I.”
“Can you—what was it like?”
“It was different with you. The interviews all happened after you’d been at the Manor for a few weeks. They would have sent someone from GCJDC, but they were wading through a legal nightmare, so they had to find someone new, vet them, make sure they were qualified, get them to sign more NDAs than they’d ever seen in their life.” Bruce pauses. Hesitant. Bruce doesn’t have hesitant pauses.
Dick looks up, finally tearing his eyes away from the door, brow furrowed. “What happened?”
“I’m not surprised you don’t remember. Those first few months were difficult for you.”
Dick watches as Bruce’s face does something more complicated than he’s ever seen it do before in all eleven years he’s known the man. Something pained, almost grief-stricken, guilty.
“They interviewed you first, and you were scared to go with her. You—she tried to lead you into the other room, and you broke away from her, begged me not to let her take you.” Bruce takes a deep breath, tightening his grip around Dick’s shoulders. “I think you thought she would take you back to juvie. It was the most I’d heard you speak since you came to live with me and it was to beg me to do something I couldn’t do.”
As Bruce describes the scene, Dick can almost see it, feel it, almost like he can reach out and touch it. The memory isn’t there, but the phantom of it is. “I don’t remember that.” He pauses, looking back toward the door, head against Bruce’s shoulder. “I didn’t talk?”
Bruce huffs. A laugh. “I know. Now you don’t stop.”
“Going after Zucco, flying again, that helped, didn’t it?”
“It did.”
Another long pause. Dick can almost hear Bruce thinking.
“I’d rather have you shouting at me every day than ever see you that quiet again.”
Dick freezes in the face of more honesty out of Bruce than he’s thinks he’s ever gotten in his life. It almost makes him feel bad for getting angry. Almost. An honest conversation is great, but benching Dick was still unnecessary. He snorts, sitting up and looking at Bruce. “I’m still mad at you, by the way.”
And, in awe, Dick watches the corner of Bruce’s lip twitch up into that crooked smile Dick remembers fondly. The one that’s made fewer and fewer appearances over the past few years, and even less often been pointed in Dick’s direction.
“But you will be coming back to the Manor tonight, won’t you?” Bruce’s eyes flick to the door. “He might settle better with you there.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be back tonight. Can’t abandon the kid to your intimidating ass. He’s skittish already.”
By the time the lady—Mrs. Wheeler, she’d said to call her—is done interrogating him—and yes, it was an interrogation, as gentle as her voice may have been—Jason’s shoulders sag with exhaustion. His nose is running and his face puffy and red. He hates it. The lady holds the door open for him, and he shuffles out into the hall, staring at his shoes. She calls for Dick, says it will only be a few minutes, and Jason looks up, finally noticing the other person on the bench.
The man is huge, is the first thing Jason registers. Even sitting down, he looms over Dick, slowly sitting up from where he was leaning against the man’s shoulder. It takes longer than it should for Jason to put two and two together. The man is Bruce Wayne, Jason’s future guardian if all goes well.
Jason swallows and walks over to the bench as Dick walks into the room with the lady. Mr. Wayne slides across the bench to sit at one end, so Jason takes the other, as far from the man as he can manage. He sniffles, wiping his nose on his sleeve, eyes turned down to the floor. Really, he doesn’t know why he started crying, or why his nose is still running, or why his face is still tingling in that I’m about to cry but not yet kind of way. Mrs. Wheeler was nice. For an interrogator, anyway. The questions sucked. He hated answering them.
Jason starts chewing on his hoodie string.
He wonders what questions the lady is asking Dick, if any of them are the same questions he got asked however many years ago it was when Wayne took him in. Jason wonders if she’s gonna make Dick cry, too, or if that was a just for Jason thing.
Jason stares at his shoes, kicking his legs just a little. His feet don’t touch the ground.
The weight of eyes on him feels suffocating. After having all of Mrs. Wheeler’s attention, one might think they could handle being under scrutiny, but Mr. Wayne’s gaze is heavier than anything Jason thinks he’s felt in his life.
Jason pulls his hoodie sleeves up over his palms.
The man—Mr. Wayne—clears his throat. “Jason, right? My name is Bruce.” When Jason doesn’t respond or look up, the man continues. “Dick wasn’t able to tell me much on the phone, but I want to let you know that I will do everything in my power to make sure you are safe and taken care of and that you are comfortable.”
Jason nods, still staring at his feet. He wiggles his toes, watching them peek out of his shoe.
“I understand that it may be difficult for you to trust me or Dick or anyone else on this, but I will do my best to prove it to you. You won’t be on your own again. I swear it.”
The hoodie string falls from Jason’s mouth as he bites his lip, taking a quick breath. He’s still a little weepy—crybaby, his dad would have called him—but he really doesn’t want to start crying again. Especially not in front of this massive, hulking gazillionaire. He pulls his feet up onto the bench, tucking into a ball.
“This is a lot all at once. I can appreciate that. It’s okay.”
And Jason doesn’t need permission to cry. He doesn’t. It’s kind of nice, though, and the tears start falling again as he hides his face in his knees. His head hurts, he’s tired, and he really just wants this to be over.
Jason must miss it, when Mr. Wayne and Dick switch off. He rouses slowly, groggy, with gunk caked around his eyes from falling asleep crying. He notices the switch when he turns his head, and Dick’s sitting there, head bowed, hood up over his head. He’s got his phone to his ear, and when he speaks quietly to the person on the other end of the line, his voice is a little bit hoarse.
“I’m okay, Walls. Really. It’s just—” A stuttering breath. “It’s been a really long afternoon, evening, whatever.”
Another of Dick’s friends, then.
Then Dick is laughing, a little choked still, but laughing. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Not gonna get all weepy on you, I promise.” Dick pauses, probably while his friend responds. “Yeah, Wally. I’ll let you know. I’ll probably be staying home for a while to help the kid get settled.”
The friend—Wally, apparently, and that’s a much better name than Walls—must say his goodbyes, because then Dick is, too, and he glances over at Jason as he hangs up the phone. Dick smiles softly when he sees Jason staring.
“Hey, kid. Nice nap?”
“I wa’n’t nappin’.” And Jason’s voice sounds as groggy as he feels.
“Sure. Bruce is probably wrapping up right now, then it’ll be signing a few things and we can head home.” Dick glances at his phone as it chimes three times in rapid succession. He sighs. “This is what I get for turning my phone off all afternoon.”
Jason snorts. “Popular.”
“You doing okay? Bruce said you were crying.”
“’m fine.” Jason mutters, turning away, staring at his knees.
“Alright. You can talk to me, though, if you want to.”
Jason nods and looks up at the door as it swings open. Mr. Wayne holds it open, letting Mrs. Wheeler out ahead of him.
“I’ll just need to print off some of that paperwork, but anything we have to get Jason’s records together for can wait until tomorrow. I’ll get you my business card, and you can swing by my office to finish getting things settled, if that’s alright.”
She’s blushing.
“Of course, Janice. I appreciate all your help, really. I’ll be sure to clear my calendar.”
Jason glances at Dick just on time to catch him rolling his eyes.
“I’ll be right back, then!”
It’s way too late in the day for anyone to have skip in their step, but apparently Janice doesn’t care about the rules, because she’s practically bouncing all the way down the hall.
“You know she’s wearing a wedding ring, right, B?”
Mr. Wayne huffs. “Not my fault.”
“You couldn’t turn down the charm just a little bit? God.”
And Dick sounds irritated, but Jason can see a little bit of wry amusement in the smirk he’s trying to hide.
Mr. Wayne huffs again, and Dick chuckles, and holy shit is that little huff how Bruce Wayne laughs? Well then. Mr. Wayne leans up against the wall, even though there’s space on the bench between Jason and Dick, and maybe the guy won’t be so bad. Dick seems to like him, even if they fought. Maybe this will work out. Maybe it won’t be one hell for a slightly cushier hell.
“Janice still needs to get all of Jason’s information in the system, make sure all the ducks are in a row, but we’re clear for tonight. We’ll see how things go tomorrow.”
“Ah yes, ever the pessimist, Bruce. You really think things might turn sour over night?”
There’s a slight tug on Bruce’s face, almost like a frown. More like a twitch. “Realist. Janice has to confirm Jason’s history. If he has living relatives, they’ll be notified. Social services typically prefers placing children with family members. It leaves foster homes free for more pressing cases.”
Dick glances at Jason, raising an eyebrow, like a get a load of this guy kind of expression. Jason grins, then frowns, looking up at Mr. Wayne.
“I have any family left, they’d be deadbeats. Shit people like m’ dad.” Jason narrows his eyes. “You promised I’d be safe, old man. Imma hold ya to it.”