Chapter Text
Batman had parked the Batmobile deep in the bowels of Old Gotham, under the train tracks and overpasses in Anchorage, near Newman’s Hotel. It was a desolate place, the cavernous alleyways under the city packed with debris. Nashton’s flood all those years ago had wrecked absolute havoc on the first two floors of this section of the city, this neighborhood never being repaired. There had been countless like it, right after the flood, in much worse condition and packed with the unlucky trying to survive in floodwater and rot.
It was largely deserted because of the lack of anything but trash, rats, and roaches. The homeless who did currently camp around the area tended to cling to the outskirts of the alleys, where running might be possible if it started to flood. The seawalls here in Anchorage were too close in proximity to Crown Point to be more than simply sufficient, and sometimes even not that when it rained heavily.
Tonight’s patrol had been particularly grueling. They all were nowadays, it seemed, fighting and fighting and nothing to show for it. No bright spots of light in the night very often. Especially not now that the star that was Robin was fleeing as far as it could across the night sky from his darkness. Dick would have been helpful on this patrol, the little boys in the illegal facility Batman had just raided were terrified of him. It was ridiculously difficult getting them warm while they were waiting for the police to arrive in full capacity and the children were determined to stay as far away from him as possible.
God, it was cold this time of year. The rain had long since seeped past the slick, waterproof cape, soaking Batman’s underarmor and chilling him enough that he was fighting the stray shiver. The heated cloak was something of a miracle at times like these, wet and all.
The rain had paused for a bit, clouds hanging heavy enough in the icy November air that it was certainly going to rain again soon. Puddles shone with a glittering emptiness, reflecting shadows and trash and the occasional glancing beam of light. The puddles of black, oily brackish water dotting the asphalt were fringed with ice in places, sharp little halos around the ones hidden close to walls and under overhangs.
Bruce had been mistaken in thinking no one would venture quite this far into such a bottlenecked, debris-filled alleyway. When he returned alone and exhausted, black and blue under the cape in the early hours of the morning, someone was stealing his tires.
Batman froze in the shadows of the alley’s mouth, peering down the right side of the charger. Both passenger side tires were already removed, lined neatly up against the nearby dirty brick wall, cinder blocks jammed under the heavy frame to keep it level.
He swiftly crouched, squinting under the car where he had seen a flash of movement a moment ago. A pair of small, ratty boots and dirt-stained pants was all he could see, as the person, clearly quite young, knelt amongst the trash and metal scraps close to the front door. Actively removing his front driver’s side tire.
Bruce closed his eyes for a moment, mourning the warm, quiet drive back and the instant sleep he was craving when he finally fell into bed. He moved silently around the front of the car, ducking behind the brick corner so he could lean out and properly examine whoever was pinching his tires.
The boy’s dark-haired head was down, fiddling with the tire iron in his hands. It looked almost comically large in his small, worn hands, and any ideas of intimidation or scolding flooded Bruce’s head in an instant when he saw the state of the kid’s clothes and the matting in his dirty hair. His single faded red jacket was definitely not thick enough to be running around down here. Bruce could see that he was wearing at least three shirts on underneath, at least, but that still was far from enough insulation. His jeans were stained with grease and mud, and shoelaces tied them tight around his calves, lashed haphazardly into his boots. He was left feeling wrong footed and unsure, a feeling that was only amplified when the boy’s head came up, allowing faint lamplight from the street over to fall onto his face, illuminating a sturdy jaw and strong, determined eyebrows.
His left eye was blackened and nearly swollen shut, and there was a healing cut on his bottom lip. His tongue was peeking out of his clenched teeth just slightly, the way Dick sometimes did when he was particularly engaged in something. Bruce looked at the boy crouched on the asphalt in front of him and ached.
He stepped further away from the wall, ghosting back in front of his charger so that it didn’t look like he was completely blocking the kid in. The kid's hands were still grasping the iron, pressing hard, knuckles white. Bruce could see the scabs and bruises littering the backs of his knuckles, and the bloody cracks in his callouses, blue and swollen from the cold.
“Hello,” he rasped, forgetting his voice mod was still on.
He winced imperceptibly as the boy leapt to his feet; wide, scared eyes focusing on Batman as he squared up, holding the tire iron like a bat in front of him. He was about twelve or thirteen, Bruce thought, built like a Great Dane puppy. Big paws and ears, and shoulders too big for the malnourished amount of meat he had on him. It was hard to tell under the ill-fitting clothing, though.
“What’d’ya want?” The kid snarled out a gust of white frost, eyes darting all over Batman’s frame, taking in all of the weapons and armor.
“I would like my tires back please,” Batman replied, eyebrows raising a bit under the cowl.
He was about to turn his voice mod off but it seemed like that was the least of his worries at the moment. He raised a slow hand and flicked it off anyway. The kid took a couple wary steps back, glancing behind him into the alleyway and then past Bruce before settling on him again, sharp and accusatory. He adjusted his feet on the uneven surface, bracing his left against a sturdy piece of rebar that had been mangled into the ground. Christ, that had to be from the flood in ‘22. This place really was forsaken.
“They ain’t yours anymore,” he refuted, and Bruce noted the heavy Crime Alley drawl in his words.
Batman resisted the urge to hold his head in his hands.
“I don’t think that’s how that works.”
“I don’t give a shit what you think, creep,” the kid was backing up subtly, more fear in his body language than was displayed in his voice despite the strong stance he had. He glanced once more behind him, just the tiniest movement of his head.
“If you run that way you’ll be hemmed in,” Batman remarked. “The back of the alley is up against the office building on the other side of the interstate.”
The scowl on the boy’s face intensified, fog heaving in the air around his nose as he breathed hard and Bruce braced himself for the kid to either attack or run. To his surprise, he did neither, just sagged slightly, some of his false bravado evaporating with the mist as the scared little kid shined through. He kept the tire iron in his left hand, knuckles white around it.
“Let me go and you can have your tires back,” he bartered, and Bruce resisted the unusual urge to huff a laugh in disbelief.
“Help me put them back on and then I’ll let you go,” Batman sighed, cracking his sore neck as he leaned his weary body against the front of his car.
The kid didn’t respond for a moment, still scanning him suspiciously, fear hidden in the depths of teal eyes.
“I dunno how to put ‘em back on.”
“Probably the same way you got them off.”
There was a beat of silence as they studied each other, the sound of the city above and around them blurring into an ominous distant roar. A bat dipped into the alley, wings frantically flapping around the kid for a moment. He didn’t even blink.
“Who the hell are you, anyway?” The kid asked, the tire iron shifting in his grip to point dramatically at him. “You that guy they call the Batman?”
“Do you usually ask questions you know the answer to?” Bruce asked wearily.
“Hey,” both arms came up non-threateningly, if you ignored the large metal bar in his left hand, “I just wanna clarify. There’s a dude over in West Mall who pretends to be Superman and he was good enough that he actually nabbed someone’s kid. Last time I seen him he was after the lil girl’s family beat the shit out of him and left him in the street, butt booty naked.”
Bruce blinked.
“Does he still do that?” Was the first question that formulated in his mouth.
“What, sleep naked and unconscious in the middle of the street? Fuck no, I haven’t seen the guy since.”
He was being a shit on purpose, Bruce just didn’t exactly understand why.
“He hasn’t been impersonating anybody since then?” He clarified. Unnecessarily, might he add.
“Nope.”
The kid scuffed his beat-to-hell boots against a chunk of black, icy sludge under him, crushing it.
“You’re really Batman?” He asked quietly, not looking up from his shoes.
“Yes,” Batman said, anticipating literally any reaction. He’d learned his lesson on anticipating how civilians feel about him.
“You got my pops a couple months ago,” the kid said, glaring at Batman, eyes glittering like sea glass in the warm light from a street lamp a dozen yards away. The only warmth in a place like this.
“What is your name?” Bruce asked.
“His name’s Willis Todd. You took him on December 12th,” he avoided Bruce’s question.
Batman nodded, acknowledging the runaround information. Willis Todd, arrested for second degree homicide and assisting in tampering with evidence, under the thumb of the Triads. He’d been laundering money and assisting in drug trafficking for the Loboys. He distantly remembered that several of the traffickers had children, and he had trusted GCPS to disperse them to appropriate caretakers. Clearly he had misplaced his trust, he thought as he looked at the drawn, bruised little face in front of him.
“What’s your name?” Bruce insisted.
“Jason.”
Jason. Jason Todd. Bruce felt shame deep within him. He didn’t recognize that name from the case.
“I’m sorry for taking your father away from you,” Batman rasped, not a lie.
“I’m not,” the kid scoffed, although both hands were tightly gripping the tire iron again. “Piece of shit deserves to die in there, for all I care.”
Bruce blinked, surprised by the vehemence. He didn’t know how to deal with this.
“You’ll help me put the tires back on, and I’ll get you some food,” Batman bartered, deciding to ignore the kid’s statement about his dad for now.
And a warm place to sleep, he added to his sentence mentally.
The suspicion deepened the lines on his young face, pink and chapped from the cold air.
“Alright, man,” he eventually grumbled, gesturing dramatically at the rear driver’s side tire. “I’ll put it back on and you let me go, capiche?”
“We will put all three back on, and then you can go, yes,” Batman corrected.
Jason rolled his eyes, hard. He was very expressive, in a different way than Dick. Dick was very performative, loved the show, was aware of his image. Jason seemed to show exactly how he felt, very aggressively. Bruce resisted the amusement pulling at his face.
The boy backed up, moving casually but not for a second did he turn his back on Batman or let go of the tire iron in his hands. He crouched next to where he’d propped the rear driver’s side tire, ducking around behind the car and using his boney shoulder to push it off of the car’s frame. He darted up quickly to balance the big thing, gripping hard and pushing his whole body against it. He glanced toward the rear rim, judging distance.
Batman ghosted forward and crouched next to the front tire. He clicked on a strong flashlight in his hand, pointing it at the wheel that Jason was manhandling back into the correct general direction, ignoring the huff of annoyance he got for his assistance.
“How did you manage to get these off without damaging the studs?” he asked, genuinely curious, shining his light over scratched but intact steel.
A feral snap of the kid’s teeth was the only answer at first for startling him by getting so close, but once he’d made sure Batman saw the acidic stare he was pointing his direction he gave him a verbal answer.
“Didn’t. Go check your passenger side.”
This was said with a very wolfish grin, every tooth on the kid’s mouth on display.
Batman did not take the bait, staying on Jason’s side of the car. He groaned internally at having to replace the studs out here tonight, on the icy, debris-covered asphalt. He sidled closer to Jason, reaching his right gloved hand out towards the tire slowly. Jason froze, and Bruce felt once again like he was dealing with a wild animal. He moved closer, steady, despite the flinch, and laid his hand on the tire. Jason’s eyes never left his hand.
“If you help me get it into place, I’ll pop it back in,” Bruce offered.
Dark eyes darted to his. He nodded.
With slow movements Bruce lifted the tire onto the top of the rim, letting Jason steer him. Once it was there, Bruce murmured “push,” and they both pushed the top part as far in as it would go like that.
“Okay, Jason, push onto it so it doesn’t come out and I’ll pry it back in.” Batman said it casually, knowing he was asking Jason to give up the only tangible weapon he had on him (visibly), knowing it was a risk.
A thought flashed through his mind and he casually started pulling at his gloves, unlatching the wrists and yanking first the right and then the left off of his fingers. He tucked them away into his belt and refocused on the wheel in front of him, as though that was entirely necessary to do to replace a tire.
The kid handed the tool over after a minute of side-eyeing him, the steel freezing to the touch where the boy hadn’t been holding onto it and warmed where he had. He got a solid grip on it and wedged it under the bottom rim, metal leveraging against metal as he pulled at the rubber tire with the flat end of the iron. The tire slipped partially into place, and Batman glanced at Jason to check he was still fine holding the tire. Bruce had been holding much of the weight, of course, but the boy was certainly giving it his everything, watching under his curly bangs as Batman repositioned the iron and heaved with a muted grunt, the tire slipping fully back into position.
The kid pushed off the side of the supercar in triumph and looked up at Batman with a half grin on his face. It was crooked and looked real.
Batman allowed a little bit of the amusement in him to show on his face, a tiny smile in return.
“Show me the damage you did on the other side.”
Jason’s smile dropped into a scowl.
“Alright, good.” Batman praised, standing from his crouch with an inaudible grunt.
The damage really hadn’t been bad at all, one of the studs was a little bit mangled but functional and the rim of his rear passenger wheel was dented some, but nothing he couldn’t drive on and nothing he couldn’t fix.
The kid had been surprisingly helpful, picking up on things immediately and with a quickness that showed Bruce that not only did Jason want to know, he wanted to learn. The remaining two tires were replaced within fifteen minutes of kneeling on the cold, muddy ground.
Jason remained seated on the filthy asphalt, absently bonking his tire iron against the rubber of the tire they just put back on. He was looking up through long dark lashes and deep eye bags— only one really since his left eye was so swollen— eyeing Bruce in a way that made the last fifteen minutes appear to dissolve right there.
Suspicion, that had never left. There was anger there the whole time, but now it was hidden behind a sudden shield, one that was wary and almost resigned.
Silence spread like tar through the alleyway, choking and engulfing them both.
Batman sighed again, reminding himself disturbingly of Commissioner Gordon and throwing his train of thought off for a millisecond.
“There’s a facility two streets over, down on 8th, that would take you in, no questions asked.”
Jason’s head twitched back, not a startle but a more feral aggressive expression.
“Tried that one.”
His tone was haunted. Bruce did not want to press right now.
“Okay.”
Silence stretched in the freezing air between them. Jason was still giving him that awful goddamn look.
“There’s a McDonald’s on the corner of 4th and the Thoroughfare, let’s get something to eat.” Bruce said, praying the boy would allow him this one thing.
“How’re we gonna get there?” Jason asked, hands and eyebrows rising in emphasis.
Bruce tilted his head at the very usable Batmobile they were standing right next to, wheels and all. Jason’s face did several indecipherable things, ending with a sense of scornful bewilderment.
“I thought it’s a bad idea to get in cars with strangers. You sure these things even work right anymore? I kinda fucked this one up,” he bonked the rubber tread of the rear passenger tire with the iron in his hand.
“They work,” Batman responded, ignoring that first bit.
“‘Sides, why would I get into your vehicle with you after tryin’ to steal your tires?” Jason asked, dragging himself to his feet from his seated position, wary eyes still locked onto Batman’s.
He emphasized the syllables in ‘vehicle’ so it sounded like ‘vee-hickle’, the way old midwesterners tended to do. Bruce once again had to fight the urge to laugh.
“You could use a good meal. You helped me put my tires back on, so I don’t care that you took them off.” Batman paused, scanning Jason, whose brow had risen in slight disbelief.
“And you’re cold and probably hungry, so I think we should get something to eat.”
“I’m fine,” Jason muttered, likely a reflex.
His hands and lips were blue, at this point, and his teeth were a gust of wind away from chattering. His many layers of baggy clothing didn’t distract from how thin the boy was, all big, prominent bones.
The sounds of the city shifted slightly, cars on the overpasses to the West muffled, and he knew it would start to rain again in just a minute.
Jason looked at him, and he looked back. Silence stretched, and then like thousands of little needles, raindrops fell from the sky. A light spatter across Jason’s exposed face made him grimace and hug his arms closer to himself, and the rain was quickly picking up.
Batman sighed, opening the passenger door.
“Let’s go to McDonald’s. I’ll drop you off anywhere after, as long as it’s safe. I’m not going to hurt you, you just have to trust me.”
And Jason, with his red nose and cheeks, curls dripping with rainwater, lowered his head and ducked into the car.