Work Text:
The first dinner he has at the Manor is so good Jason thinks he might die. He has seconds and then thirds and he doesn’t care if Bruce Wayne is smiling into his glass of water or if the butler is raising an eyebrow at him. And then, when he’s reasonably sure they aren’t looking at him, he snatches three more dinner rolls and wraps them in a cloth napkin and shoves them in his pocket.
He’s stuffed. If he forces another bite into his mouth, he’s gonna puke all over the Persian rug that probably costs more than his life on the south docks black market. But that feeling’s gonna go pretty fast and when Bruce comes to his freaking senses tonight or tomorrow morning, Jason will be ready. It’ll stave off hunger pangs that vending machine crackers with pity change from a social worker won’t touch, when he’s inevitably stuck in a office with a flickering fluorescent light for hours until he runs or they find someone to take him.
And he won’t run right away, so the rolls will help. He won’t run because he’ll hold out as long as he can stand for someone to agree to take him for a night or two. He won’t be holding out for Real Parents or any stupid nonsense. He doesn’t need love. Hell, no. All Jason needs is food.
Food.
***
Bruce does not change his mind that night or the following morning or in any of the weeks that follow. Jason suspects that Bruce will eventually tire of him though, once the novelty has worn off. So he’s still always prepared.
A sandwich half from lunch, an apple from breakfast, a whole napkin full of homemade crackers from when they have soup (homemade crackers– fucking homemade; he’s in heaven and he’s gonna flunk out soon, he just knows it), a few more rolls. He skips the waffles even though they’d probably keep well, because he can’t imagine any emergency where he’d willingly revisit those. A few pizza crusts (didja know you could put green sauce on pizza and it’d still be pretty good?), a yogurt because they don’t really need to be cold, another yogurt, a brownie.
Just in case, just in case. He’s always got one of them in his pocket, but he’s collecting enough other stuff here that he banks on having a few minutes to gather his shit into a plastic bag if someone does come for him, so he spares his jeans and finds places around the room. It’s a massive room.
There are lots of places.
***
“Master Jason,” is the first thing Alfred says to him when he gets in the car after school. The bus only comes as far as a parking lot on the outer edge of the surburbs, by a gas station and an herbal tea shop. Because it’s the sort of neighborhood that just has herbal tea shops.
It’s the butler’s tone that alerts him. He’s getting the boot, he can tell.
“There is something we ought to discuss when we have returned home,” the butler says, and Jason slumps back in his seat and crosses his arms.
“Whatever,” he mutters, uncrossing his arms for a minute to pat the tortillas from lunch he rolled into a napkin. It makes him feel a little better, knowing they’re there.
At the Manor, the butler leads him into the house and up the stairs to the bedroom that Jason has been using. It smells like cleaner even before he opens the door. From the threshold, he can see that the room has been stripped down and scrubbed and furniture has been moved and in the middle of the floor there is a garbage bin full to the brim with months’ worth of his contingency plan.
“This,” the butler says, “cannot happen again. You attracted and sustained a formidable colony of ants beneath the bed.”
Jason’s eyes are wide as he stares around the sterile room and all he can think is, “What the hell am I gonna eat tomorrow?”
“You know, of course, you are always permitted to ask for food or come to the kitchen for a snack,” the butler is saying when Jason whirls on him.
“This is my stuff!” he screams, his panic mounting. That was gonna keep him alive. “Why the fuck are you in my room? If you ever touch my stuff again I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”
Jason can’t stop shaking and Alfred wordlessly picks up the garbage can and leaves the room.
And if he’d suspected earlier that he’s gonna be out on the streets again tonight, now he knows he is.
***
Jason can’t for the life of him figure this house out. Not only did nobody come to get him that night, it seemed like Bruce didn’t even know about the food hidden in his room or didn’t care. He didn’t say a word about it at dinner or act any differently. And the butler was nice to Jason, which makes Jason suspicious.
By the time he’s at school the next day, he’s convinced that Alfred was just biding his time. A social worker is gonna pick him up at the end of the day. They’re just gonna sever things hard and fast, a clean break. Loaded people are good at pretending nothing’s wrong, right? Maybe that’s all last night was. Pretending.
But it is Alfred who picks him up and Jason’s stomach is in such knots that he’s got most of his lunch in his jeans and jacket pockets. He couldn’t make himself eat it but he’s gonna need it later.
At the Manor, Alfred says, “Come with me, Master Jason,” and goes up the stairs again. Jason clings to his backpack strap, knuckles white against the blue canvas because maybe this guy is crazy, maybe he’s not gonna call a social worker he’s just gonna kill Jason. But Jason’s got a few of his own tricks and he’s a fighter. He just has to be ready.
He’s not ready.
Alfred leads him into the bedroom and sitting on the bed is a payload of snacks. It looks like the vending machine resupplier got lost and gave up in his room.
There are packaged crackers, chips, trail mix, cookies, jerky, pretzels, those little trays with peanut butter and dipping sticks, tuna salad in sealed foil bags, sunflower seeds…
“If it would be a comfort to you to have access to food round the clock, I’d prefer it to be foods that do not attract insects or put oil stains in your pockets,” Alfred says. “Please let me know if you are running low.”
Jason bursts into tears.
The older man, despite Jason’s suspicions that the guy is a robot, gathers Jason into a hug.
“You ought to always feel secure here. This is your home,” Alfred says.
Jason isn’t sure he believes it yet. But he might be starting to buy it.
Because food.
***
In the summer, it doesn’t matter how late he’s out patrolling with Batman. Jason never, ever misses out on going to the grocery store with Alfred on the days Alf calls “market days.” And today is no exception.
He pushes the cart, draping his upper body across the handlebar and letting his feet dangle while Alfred examines cucumbers. The front wheels tip off the ground from Jason’s weight and he drops his feet back down. The wheels clack against the linoleum and the cart rattles.
Alfred bags a cucumber and Jason looks around.
“Strawberries are on sale,” he says, his eyes falling on the red fruit in plastic cartons.
“Check for bruises,” Alfred says with a nod. “And mold.”
Jason knows how to do this; he’s already been through Alfred’s grocery boot camp. He turns each carton over in his hands, peering inside to examine the contents. There’s only one he can find that he thinks will live up to Alfred’s freaking strict standards.
They load the car with paper bags of food and then drive home.
***
A boy waits by a dumpster in an alley outside a restaurant.
He doesn’t remember what the restaurant is called.
He doesn’t remember what he is called.
He just knows sometimes they throw away French fries. He’s holding out for those French fries. If they throw enough away tonight he’ll save some for breakfast, too.
He’s cold and it’s starting to drizzle but he stays and waits.
Because food.
***
Jason has been back in Gotham for a few months the first time he returns to his apartment and knows somebody was there while he was gone. It’s not that any alarms went off as much as it is the sense that somebody was there, that something has changed. It also feels empty, like whoever it was didn’t stick around.
Still, he checks over the whole apartment anyway. There’s nothing missing or changed and he doesn’t find a soul. So he sighs and goes to get a beer; maybe it’ll take the edge off the way his whole body aches from that last fight before he sleeps. And he knows without looking what he has in the fridge, because he always knows how much food he has and where it is, and it is: three cans of cheap beer, half a package of cheese slices, a jar of jelly, a few eggs.
He opens the fridge.
It’s full.
He checks the cabinets.
They’re full.
There are crackers and dry pasta and cans of sauce and olives and refried beans and bread and spices.
He goes back to the fridge and looks again, blinking like maybe it’ll vanish if his head clears.
There’s a gallon of milk, there are trays of meat, there are lidded glass dishes with labels like chicken casserole and enchiladas and pork roast, and a pie and a crisper full of fruit.
Jason sits down in front of the open fridge and cries.
***
Another three months pass and Jason hasn’t once caught Alfred in the act and he knows it’s Alfred. It’s not every week, but every time the fridge is getting close to empty, Jason will come home and it will be full again. He leaves the clean glass pans on the counter in a reusable bag and Alfred takes them.
He isn’t sure if Alfred is intentionally avoiding seeing him in person or if it’s shitty coincidence that they never run into each other. And he isn’t sure how he feels about the idea that it might be intentional: is it deferential to Bruce? To Jason and his own (admittedly) unpredictable feelings?
Jason isn’t even sure he wants to see the old man.
No, that’s a fucking lie. He really wants to see Alfred. But he doesn’t try too hard to catch him.
Then one day he limps upstairs and into the apartment and the fridge and cabinets are full again and Alfred is sitting at the table with a cup of tea.
“I think you ought to come home for dinner,” Alfred says to him while he’s standing there.
Jason gets a bottle of juice out of the fridge and limps to the table and sits down next to the older man.
“That sounds like a recipe for a frickin’ disaster,” he says. “B would flip a lid.”
“Frankly, I do not care how Master Bruce chooses to conduct himself. But I miss you and I’d very much like it if you would come for dinner.”
Jason glances over at the older man, who is not crying or trembling or showing much emotion really at all. Jason sighs and rubs the knee that he twisted a few hours ago.
“Okay,” he says. “For you.”
Alfred pats his shoulder before he leaves and Jason stands at the stove and makes an omelet because he can, because the fridge is full, because he knows how, because Alfred taught him how to make a perfect one, and he hasn’t forgotten.
***
The dinner he has at the Manor three days later wasn’t made especially for him because he didn’t tell anyone he was coming. He just showed up. And he’s been eating Alfred’s reheated meals for months now so it’s not like he hasn’t had food. Still, it’s so good he eats seconds and then thirds. He doesn’t think he might die– he knows what dying feels like. This is too good to be dying.
He doesn’t care and doesn’t pay attention to the way Bruce frowns into his glass of water. He notices and sort of basks in the way that Alfred almostsmiles while he eats. He’s stuffed and wants to stretch out and take a nap. He leaves the leftover rolls in the basket because he can’t stomach another and he has a bag of pretzels in his cargo pocket.
Jason knows he should get up and leave but Bruce beats him to it. The chair scrapes back across the floor and when Bruce is at the doorway to the hall, he stops and half turns and says, “I’m glad you came tonight, Jay,” and Jason has known him long enough to hear that it’s genuine.
So Jason stays and sits at the table with Alfred and talks long into the night, and he knows the older man is neglecting the dishes and whatever he does in the evening to sit with him, but he’s so hungry for it, for the conversation and the time that he can’t stop himself once he’s gotten started. And Alfred himself seems in no hurry to go; he sits patiently, calmly, with one leg crossed over the other and his eyes on Jason’s face the whole time.
And Jason already had food, he could go, he could get up and head back to his apartment or suit up for the night and bash some heads together. But he doesn’t.
Because home.