#I just need to talk about Tim Drake so much and appreciate him

[giotanner]

Every time I try to talk about Tim Drake, it's a struggle because there are so many people who stereotype him, damaging the depth of the character. And then there's so many people who hate him because they hate these people who stereotype him/so they don't know/they haven't read much about Tim and so every time Tim in the new comics does something they think "ah, he's stealing space from x-character/x-character would have done that" because they think he's useless and not capable and he is unknown to new readers because it is not even in the new animated movies.

I hate this because Tim is one of the most interesting characters, flattened only by the writers who didn't know what to do with him after 2005-2010. And stereotyped beyond reason.

[an-gothamite-aka-zannalial]

I fell in love with the idea that Damian was doing graffiti with his friends but none of his family members knew it was him, that was a really funny idea

Jason: I have to admit that my graffiti with Roy in Crime Alley wasn't bad

Damian: really. I thought you would be angry because, well, you were made half naked by that person

Jason: Actually I think it's kinda hot

Damian: *Immediately planning to make them kiss later

Steph: I quite like the graffiti that J.B made for me

Damian: I have to admit, Brown, you don't deserve anything that good

Steph: You're just jealous because you didn't get yours from him, maybe he doesn't like you, kid

Damian: I don't need something like that, it just insults my name

Steph: Well if one day he makes you and you smile you owe me 10 dollars

Damian: tt

Dick: That guy captured how hot I was really well

Dick: *starts talking about all the things that should be included

Damian: *Regret following his friend's idea

Cass: Love the graffiti

Damian: That's pretty good but still not enough for you Cain

Cass: still love it

Damian: *Regretting doesn't make it better

Cass: Are you sad, he might want to make you

Damian: I don't need that tt

Cass: I'll ask him

Damian: *Regret again because appeared in front of Cass

Tim: I'm glad someone wants to appreciate my existence since you tried to kill me

Damian: You shouldn't be happy Drake, just because one person makes you doesn't mean you're famous

Tim: look who jealous now, just because he don't get one

Damian: tt fuck you

Harper: that person make better graffiti in one night than Cullen in one week about me

Cullen: Don't pretend to forget that you also tried to make one but failed, sis. This means he is much more talented than you

Harper: Nuh uh

Cullen: Don't use what I teach against me, I dare you

Damian: *Just listen and watch this match

Duke: I guess I'll have to look this guy up and thank him, that graffiti is amazing

Damian: You don't need to do that Thomas, he made it mean he doesn't care if you thank him or not

Duke: I still want to do them, I think there are only a few that he hasn't made yet

Damian: yeah tt

Kate: I'm so hot on that graffiti, and so are you Luke

Luke: Yes, I need to admit it. But aren't there only three left?

Damian: I don't think so because that guy made some for the Rouge's to

Kate: Isn't it true I haven't seen him, I guess he'd make all Gotham freak then

Luke: probably

Selina: So O and I have already gotten one, doesn't that mean the only ones left are the two of you

Bruce: No. I got one too I checked, And it says fuck you

Selina: he doesn't like you then, that means now there's only one left that doesn't have one

Bruce: yeah

Damian: *Makes a super duper big about himself in the middle of the city

[i-yap]

Batboys x quiet! reader(who is not quiet in private)

( some of the reasons for the quietness is a bit traumatic so uhh warning)

Dick grayson -

opposites attract is possibly my favorite trope ever. And that is exactly what you guys are . Not exactly golden retriever x black cat though people who didn't know you guys well assumed such .

Dick would get exhausted spending forever being charming and charismatic for even the most extroverted of people get tired when they had to manage multiple superhero teams, a detective squad and the whole batfamily.

You were silence, peace serenity almost..until you weren't. Grayson was worried about this relationship in the start, after all you guys were really different. He was afraid you were going to be annoyed by his sunshine self, and that when he isn't feeling like talking, the conversations would go silent.

But you really are so different when comfortable with someone, and its tough not to trust and drop your shield with grayson.

It took him by surprise slowly seeing you open up and show your weird side. It somehow made him cherish it more and even want to show sides of him that only you got to see.

When he asked you why you weren't like this with everyone you said " My parents had a habit of talking over me, sometimes outrightly not hearing me speak at all. No matter how loud I spoke..i wondered if they couldn't hear me...if anyone even wanted to you" "why me then?" asked dick , "you're nothing like my parents, I know you care" and he does..he really does. He won't ever let you feel like that every again. He will make sure everything you want said is heard, and if not he will burn it into the skyline

Jason todd

he appreciated it, a quiet person in public. He hated being in public, he hated the buzz the noise the push the touch of humans around him. He felt strange

till he feels you hold his knowing you felt just as strange as him. Leave the gala and walk around the library , one earphone in each ear listening to whatever you wished to play.

Pulling you close in crowded areas- was it for you or for him? Glaring at anyone who dared tease you about your quietness. A single glare usually does the job but don't worry ...other ways exist too.

He loves that when you two are alone, you are a completely different person. It makes him feel special, like he is the only one who understands you. Because you're the only one who understands him.

When he asks " well I guess I never felt like people liked what came out of my mouth.. my humour too dark, my words too dumb and I didn't make sense. So I stopped trying" don't worry about being cringe..he understands you completely

Tim drake

he is intruiged. How do you pull such a perfect facade. How does one look so poised and collected with those rich assholes and so wild and untamed with him?

He could never really perfect the act the way you did. He's seen you grow up, but somehow its like you were born with two people living in your brain.

If you're this mysterious to your childhood lover, how does anyone in the world even think that they could know you, both versions of you.

Dont get me wrong, he loved it, A mystery he never could solve, not even with your help.

" Teach me your ways master" "I remember you wanting me to call you that last night..oh no wait it was si-" "shut upp" "fine ill tell you timmy boy, I just believe those rich stick up their ass puppets don't deserve to see all ..this.." "what about school kids, friends , teemates-" "I don't need anyone to get me as long as you do"

He will never get it, even if someone engraved it into his skin he wont understand everything about you , you'll always be the case he couldn't solve.

AND WE ARE BACK BICHES , send in requests and stuff, inbox open again blah blah I'm feeling much better now but I might push angst stuff more

[fanfic-obsessed]

Smitten

I had this idea for a JayTim that I want to share. 

Obviously there is no canon here, for the record. 

In addition we have a version of Jack and Janet Drake that do love their son, they just have a really bad grasp on age appropriate supervision and activities. They honestly believe that a nine year old can be left alone with only a periodic check from a housekeeper (Also they are aware that Tim leaves the premises almost every night with a camera, they also believe this is a reasonable activity).  Like the very embodiment ‘they’re confused, but they got spirit’. Believe me when I say this will be relevant later.

We are also bringing Jason and Tim’s ages just a hair closer together. This starts with Jason being 14 and Tim being 13, at the annual holiday Wanye Gala. This particular time Jack, Janet, and Tim are in attendance. 

It starts with some boorish rich asshole, a little too drunk and being stupid about it, making an insulting comment about Janet Drake, heard by Tim. Now Tim loves his mother, and does not appreciate this man who insulted her. 

Thirteen year old Tim verbally eviscerates this man, his voice an icy even tone that everyone around recognized from Tim’s mother Janet. Tim’s diatribe of insults and threats leverages this man's secrets, his fears, and insecurities that he didn't even realize he had.  Ten minutes in, this man begins to cry. Just the complete, public, destruction of a middle aged rich drunk by a tiny thirteen year old.  The Drake family proceeds to exit after Tim winds down, never looking back (it was later in the evening anyway).

Jason, standing off to one side next to Dick, falls immediately and completely in love. Smitten through and through.  The first words out of his mouth, after the Drakes leave, is ‘We’re going to get married on that boy’s 18th birthday’.  This was heard by just about everyone present. Jason did not even know Tim’s name yet.

By the next morning Jason has used the BatComputer to discover that his future spouse is named Timothy Drake, he lives next door, and that he is 14 months younger than Jason.  At breakfast Jason very seriously, though a touch maniacally, tells Bruce that he would be marrying Tim when Tim turned 18, and that before that point they would be telling Tim about their ‘nightlife’ on the grounds that “we should not start our marriage off with secrets”. Jason magnanimously told Bruce that he had until Tim was 17 to get his feelings under control about the reveal (to give a full year before the wedding, in case Tim needed an adjustment period or Jason needed to win him back).  

Bruce is already very tired. 

Jason finds any occasion to seek out Tim Drake, to get to know his future spouse (the entire time Jason Mantra-having gotten some good advice from Alfred about becoming friends with and maybe dating Tim before anything else-is ‘Don’t start talking about the wedding, don’t start talking about the wedding’). Also every piece of romantic knowledge/flirting knowledge that Jason has comes from the regency era/Victorian era romances he reads. 

Tim, for his part, believes that Jason (Tim’s Robin and crush) has figured out that Tim knows Robin’s identity and is trying to subtly figure out how much Tim knows and what he is going to do about it; but for some reason Jason is not asking directly and Tim is enjoying getting closer to the other boy, so he does not admit to what he knows. 

This leads to some painfully stilted conversations and weird interactions, but every so often both will forget to be awkward and it becomes clear, whenever they actually act naturally, that they are very well matched. 

To the Gotham Elites, this is the best entertainment in years. Between Bruce Wayne’s ‘Brucie’ act and Dick’s feral behavior growing up, Jason’s bookish politeness makes him the ‘best behaved’ Wayne and honestly the most well liked one. Combined that with how sweet he is acting with Tim and  that this all started with Tim defending his mother, well this is the love story of the ages, happening right in front of them. 

Bruce and the Drakes are already fielding requests for invitations to the wedding. On a slightly more creepy note they are also receiving offers to be a surrogate for the boy’s to ‘continue the bloodline’ when the time comes. 

Bruce is honestly wondering if everyone forgot that Jason is adopted. Dick comes to Gotham more often, because he is also finding this immensely entertaining. 

A few months in, this leads to Batman, Nightwing, and Robin finding Tim taking pictures on a rooftop in the Bowery.  In Tim’s rush to apologize (he is starting to feel a bit guilty about his picture taking pictures of the Bats now that he has an actual relationship-where he believes that they know he knows who they are-instead of a parasocial relationship) it becomes clear that Tim knows their civilian identities and that they did not know that Tim knew their civilian identities. 

Tim gives his explanation (a quadruple flip that only a few people in the world can do and connecting the dots from there). Jason immediately blurts out ‘Go on a date with me?’ and is quite proud that he kept the ‘Marry me?’ behind his teeth (The earliest they could get married in New Jersey is 17, and only with parental consent. Jason had 4 years to convince the Drakes to let him marry their son, 5 if they don’t like him). Tim turns bright red and squeaks out a ‘Yes’. 

The next gala they enter holding hands.  Dick is quickly sought after by the Elite for gossip. Dick confirms that Tim and Jason are now dating, and that Jason insisted on a chaperone for their dates (Jason is still working off the regency/victorian era romantic relationships) so that nothing would ‘besmirch Tim’s honor’.  There is an entire crowd of cooing Gothamites around Dick as they discuss how these two got even more adorable, all the while watching Jason and Tim surreptitiously. 

At some point Bruce has to have a very surreal conversation with Jack and Janet Drake about when it is appropriate to leave one's children alone and for how long and at what ages. Jack and Janet, upon being convinced that they should not leave their 13 year old alone for weeks or months at a time, rearrange their future plans so that one of them is almost always home (and on the few occasions that they would have to Tim by himself, Tim would stay with the Waynes).

By the way, Jack and Janet love Jason, they can see how much he makes their son happy and are glad to support the relationship.  

Now I see this continuing one of two ways. 

The first way is that this derails Ethiopia. Jason still fights with Batman, but runs to Janet Drake (who is home) and Tim.  He does not discover that Catherine is not his mother until later, but is not missing parental influences and does some digging but does not go to meet Sheila. Tim becomes Oracle’s apprentice.

Alternately, it does not derail Ethiopia. Janet and Jack, on one of the few business trips that required both of them, is woken up by a call from an inconsolable Tim who tells them Jason has been killed by the Joker (both Jack and Janet having been let in on the secret at some point). Janet immediately hires Deathstroke and Talia Al Ghul to kill the Joker (Janet contemplated having them bring the Joker to her, so she could do it and make sure he understood why-he killed her future son in law and made her son cry- but realized that the why would never actually matter to Joker) and paid extra to make it look like natural causes (to lessen the attention on the bastard).  Two weeks after Jason Todd’s funeral, the Joker dropped dead of an apparent heart attack, there was not even enough time to get him back in Arkham. 

The Gotham Elite treat Tim like a bereaved widow, despite Jason never getting to have the ‘let’s get married when we are old enough’ talk with him. Jack Drake gets to have his own surreal talk with Bruce Wayne about accepting help, and therapy, after Jason’s death.  Tim picks up the Robin mantle to feel closer to Jason, and to distract himself from grief. 

Jason (Now 17) is brought back and Talia does find him. In this she does have good intentions (She knows that Damian is going to need to be sent to his father eventually, and hopes that helping Jason will endear Talia to Bruce enough that she can still see her son), plus a connection to Janet Drake and the knowledge that Janet had the Joker killed for Jason. So as soon as Jason’s madness ebbs enough to travel she brings him straight to Janet Drake's door. By then enough time has passed that it is three days before Tim’s 17th birthday.   

Jante takes one look at Jason and goes ‘Hmm, I was wondering what we were getting Tim for his birthday this year’.

[snakeredbirdbatkatana]

Calling Dad it's something that Tim has witnessed from Dick and Damian to even Jason.

Backed into a corner scared slightly shitless and it's like an ingrained reaction. Something specific to being a Robin gun to your head and you just scream for Bruce.

Tim hasn't really ever had to do it.

When he was Robin especially after Jason, well say what you will about Bruce but he was never physically far away.

It was supposed to be a slow patrol all of them are out Dick working with Damian somewhere in the Diamond district. Jason in Crime Alley of course talking about a old lady who he helped cross the street. Bruce trying to get everyone to be quiet over the line.

Yet Ninja's are not apart of basic patrol unless your Red Robin. The first five go down quick none of his family is even aware, his breathing hasn't changed. Next seven slightly harder but nothing crazy.

Until he sees Ra's standing at the top of the old factory. He almost paused flashes of Paris, Wayne Enterprises, and the desert practically blind him. He didn't see the blade until it was too late cutting straight into his side.

Twenty more assassins begin to make there way. He doesn't hesitate.

"Dad, fuck...." he can't stop a slight hiss of pain as another cut ends up on his arm.

It explodes.

"Tim what's happening?"

"Red Robin Report."

"Replacement you better not be dying"

"Drake what is your situation?"

Ra's is making his way closer and although it isn't his typical move he starts running.

"Dad, uhm how do I put this I need like so much backup it's really not funny."

Where was Bruce he was about two blocks away if he doesn't turn around he can most likely ignore the swarm of Ninja that is running after him.

"Don't worry I'm bringing the problem too you but if everyone could convene at Bruce's location it would really be appreciated." 

"Red what's going on?"

Seriously? We're gonna need a bit more?"

"Drake if your are dying do inform us."

"Red Robin Report. Now!"

Apperently running for your life really takes a lot out of you he has to be max two minutes away he hopes at least. They are hot on his heels and don't look like they are slowing down."

"Lots of ninjas, also creepy Assassin Lord's who want to have my babies the usual, also I am slightly bleeding. So really I oh my god thank fuck I see you."

Tim's savior at long last a Batman grappling to the ground ten feet away he books it pushing past the woozy bloodloss and the slightly poison feeling because there is always poison he runs to Bruce and without a any real coherence dives behind him shouting.

"Dad thank fuck."

Now behind Bruce he sits down which usually isn't what you do when Ra's wants your bacon but it was either sit and pass out or stand so he is sitting.

Batman can handle it he thinks before his eyes start close ehh the grounds a good place for a nap.

[the-daydreaming-show]

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐎𝐧𝐞 — “I am, I have been, and I was born hungry.”

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: An abandoned son makes a decision. The cared for son is taken away.

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫(𝐬): Bruce Wayne X ScarletWitch!Reader; Jason Todd x Batmom!ScarletWitch!Reader; Tim Drake x Batmom!ScarletWitch!Reader; Jason Todd x Tim Drake.

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠: kidnapping, mention of PTSD, weapons, threats (silent), drugs and forced drug use, death of Janet Drake, and mention of Jack Drake in the hospital, Jason is mansplaining, manipulating and manslaughter his way through this sequel.

𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞: This took a while because I had a precise plan for this sequel, but writing this chapter, something possessed me and changed everything. So, now I'm not sure what's going to happen, it's all in destiny hands now on!!!

Thanks to our beta reader, the wonderful @igotmessymind for her work, as always, I appreciate you very much!!

Now, I would like to make a special mention of @andieperrie18, who made a playlist base on the Batmom Scarlet Witch.

And I need you to admire this masterpiece, because this playlist doesn't just include songs. NOO, It also has dialogue between Batmom and Bruce at the beginning, and it's just gold. Also go to check the other playlist in her channel, they have some good stuff. The small talks and slow dancing with Bruce Wayne is one of my favorites!!!

So, thank you very much to you @andieperrie18 for your love and the dedication it took to make this playlist. I don't have enough words to show my adoration and gratitude for this playlist. So everyone, please go give them love to the playlist while reading this chapter!!

𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐔𝐬 / Prelude / Next Part

Jason knew he was not walking on good ground. He hadn't been since he was revived in the Lazarus Pit. He hadn't been when he had killed criminals to try to control Gotham's crime. Nor when he had to escape from Arkham Asylum after Batman had locked him there, under the excuse that it was best for him.

Lies. 

All were lies.

He knew it now more than ever as he looked at his wall.

Jason was sitting in an old chair facing the wall, where a variety of photos, newspaper clippings, maps, and notes were displayed. 

Seeing that wall told him that he was definitely slipping into a new territory of madness. 

But-he-couldn't-stop. It was like he was on a slide, and he couldn't dig his heels in to stop. A part of him didn't want to stop. 

Just as he hadn't wanted to soften the news of his return to Bruce, that part of Jason wanted revenge with every atom of his true self. And now it was pushing him towards that wall. 

Another part of him, though, didn't want to do this. It was the part that still made him want to put his hands in his mouth to eat his cuticles, like he had done as a child. That part wanted to approach you on the street, and calmly let you explain why you hadn't sought him out. So that he could move on somehow, in a way that would make you proud of how Jason had handled everything.

But you had abandoned him.

After Bruce found out he was alive, Jason had hoped that once he told you all of it, you'd show up at his door. Jason had been ready to listen to your logical arguments and leave the whole killing thing behind. 

¿Who cared about revenge and Gotham if there was a chance to get back with his mom? 

Not to Jason.

You didn't; you never showed up. 

And now the part that wanted revenge was screaming too loud for him to hear anything else.

So there he was, sitting in a chair, arms crossed, as he carefully admired the wall he had created.

There were pictures of you picking up Timothy Drake from school, taking him shopping, hugging him at galas, and chatting with him at fashion events. Events that you had probably only been invited to, but you had convinced the team to let you take someone else, the same way you did with Jason when he was young. You probably took him to eat at your favorite restaurant every Friday after school, like they did with him. You probably also turned off the light in his room every night after saying goodnight, like you did with Jason.

No shame; you had given everything that was Jason's to that boy. 

That's why you weren't looking for him when you found out he was alive. You had replaced him with that kid, the same way Bruce had, and you deserved the same kind of punishment.

You deserved his revenge. And you will receive it.

You were in your office, in your brand's office building, a few blocks from Wayne Tower, where your entire clothing brand has done most of its business since you married Bruce. The official and original store of your brand is still in Metropolis, where it all started, but you moved the main offices to Gotham when you got married. So all of your children spent time between Wayne Tower and your building.

Usually, that was where they ended up after school.

Tim was supposed to go there after school. Typically, you would go pick him up. But that day he was staying a few extra hours at school for his Debate Club, and he would walk with his friends to their houses and meet you before you left the office that afternoon. So you were surprised when, as you were evaluating some new designs, your phone lit up with your youngest son's phone number.

“Mom,” Tim’s voice immediately sounded on the other end of the phone when you answered. He sounded nervous.

“Tim, honey,” you said, looking up at the clock. “Did I forget to pick you up?”, and immediately, your mind goes into paranoia, convinced that Tim had asked you to go look for him, and that's why he was calling you, and you had forgotten.

“No, no. Mom, it's fine,” he assured you quickly. You could hear chatter in the background, like someone was encouraging him to talk. “Mom, do you know today is Friday, right?”

Obviously, you remembered that it was Friday. On Fridays, when Tim came home from school, the two of you would go out to dinner at your favorite restaurant as a traditional mother-son activity.

“Yes, I've noticed,” you said, closing the sketchbook to give the boy your full attention.

“And we always go to eat at Julián's on Fridays after school, without fail,” he continues explaining. You assumed he was going somewhere, so you murmured an affirmation. “Well, you saw Dylan, my chemistry classmate. He and others are going to eat at a pizzeria near the school, and they invited me. After eating, we are all going to go to his house to play video games. If you're okay with that, I would like to go. Or I'll just go eat and go back home early. I-” Tim was already in babbling territory; you could barely contain your laughter when you interrupted him.

“It's okay, Tim. I don’t mind a change of plans, darling,” you assured him, and you could see his shoulders relax even from your building. “I'll take advantage and visit your father's office; I'll ask him to accompany me on an impromptu date.”

“Okay, okay. Yes, that sounds good.” Tim was smiling as big as he could, while around him, his classmates were singing victory for the afternoon they had organized. “I'll let you know where we are and call you when it's time to come home. I love you.”

Before you could tell him that he didn't need to tell you exactly where to be and at what time, Tim hung up the call, too excited about the whole thing. To which you inevitably laughed, happy that Tim had an activity, say a boy his age, and that he was so excited about it. You had met Dylan a couple of times; he was a good kid, so you were sure everything would be fine.

Jason watched Tim walk with his friends all night.

After observing him for weeks, he realized that the chic lived based on a fairly consistent routine. One that repeated itself almost around the clock for some reason, but Jason suspected that it had to do with the post-traumatic stress the boy must have had after the Joker's attack on his biological parents the year before. The boy's mother was six meters underground, and his father was on medical care for life because of all this. Jason almost felt bad for him. Almost.

This also meant that you and Bruce were very aware of the boy's routine, so if Tim were to disappear for even a couple of hours, it would ruin your plan. So he chanced it, waiting for the ideal moment to feed his need for revenge.

So when the sixteen-year-old decided to leave school one afternoon in the company of a group of other kids his age, he was clearly not on his way to your office like he usually did.

Jason took the phone out of his pocket and gave the order to start.

The group of friends went into a hidden, but sufficiently crowded, pizzeria a few blocks from the house of the boy Dylan, to whom Tim seemed closest in the group.

Jason had quickly discovered that Tim was a smart kid. He was too smart for Jay to trick him or accidentally cause him to fall into a trap of some kind.

But he had also discovered that Tim was, like Bruce, an idiot for justice.

He had watched him risk his life more than necessary for civilians while he ran around as Robin, when Jason from afar could have found about five ways to save the civilians without getting in the way. Tim jumped in to save them with his own hands every time there was a lethal risk. It could be that the weight of not having helped his parents was still eating him alive too.

But one way or another, Jason would use that to his advantage.

Jason walked into the pizzeria, followed by five other men he knew Tim would recognize. It was because he had gotten them out of jail, especially because Robin had dragged them and put them there, with the aim of getting them to help him. The proposed men didn't know he was there for that reason; they were just doing their job for the money, unaware of the mental games Jason was playing with the teenager.

And Tim Drake understood what was going to happen the moment he saw Jason. She looked him in the eyes and smiled as she casually glanced at the table of the group of friends, who were still wearing their school uniforms.

“Timothy, little one,” Jason greeted casually, putting his hands in his pockets and watching as Tim's eyes went to the way that movement revealed the reflection of a gun on his hip. “I've been looking for you!!”

Jason knew exactly how Tim would react and looked at the situation. They had both been trained by the same man at the end of the day. They were a reflection of each other, and that is why it was a dangerous game. “Are you hungry, Timothy? Because I am starving.”

Jason wasn't talking about the pizzas, and Tim knew it quickly. But he couldn't do anything, not with Jason so armed and clearly accompanied. Both were surrounded by so many civilians, and Tim's friends. His new friends, who had been patient with him and had accepted him into his group, which he had been joining since they were children. But they still tried to integrate him and invited him to things, again and again, until that day he accepted for the first time in months.

The table had fallen silent at the extra situation, but Tim seemed to know the stranger who had sat down, so they didn't say anything. But Dylan, as kind and caring as he was, saw the way the color had drained from Tim's face. So he spoke.

“Don't worry, Dylan,” Jason told him, which took Dylan by surprise since he had never told the stager his name, and he got genuinely worried now. “He just needs something to drink; he's just dehydrated. Timmy works a lot and doesn’t take care of himself.”

While talking to Dylan, Tim watched as Jason grabbed his glass of soda that he had been drinking while they waited for the pizzas. Without anyone else noticing, Tim watched as Jason dropped a pill into the drink, which was probably intended to knock him out, or at least drug him enough to make it manageable for Jason.

All without anyone else noticing, just so he could see it and know what was going on. He was faced with the reality that he couldn't do anything, and he couldn't fight, not at such a potential price. He was trapped. 

It made Tim feel alarmingly alone, despite being surrounded by people.

“Here, drink something.” Jason handed him the glass, where the gas from the soda easily hid the bubbles that the pill made as it dissolved. “It will do you good.”

The two stood face-to-face for a moment as the older brother offered the glass, and Jason didn't need to make the threat for Tim to understand. 

Or Tim drank the soda and voluntarily sedated himself. Or he would get him out of there in a much more aggressive way. And some bullets could be lost in that situation, so Jason could make sure that his friends were the ones who received them.

Tim could see the decapitated bodies of Black Mask's lieutenants, found shortly after Red Hood appeared in Gotham, before Bruce discovered his identity.

So he grabbed the glass and brought it to his mouth. Tim gave Jason a last pleading look, to which the boy just smiled sweetly. And your youngest son just wanted to scream for you, but you didn't know Jason was alive, and you suspected that's exactly what Jason wanted.

He wouldn't put you in danger.

Bruce would handle everything; Tim trusted that.

Tim downed the glass of soda in four gulps and didn't remember anything else after that.

𝐓𝐚𝐠 𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭: @some-lovely-day @simonsbluee @yuki-chan23 @miyakana @myst3batz @otchae @d3m0n8ch1ld @marsenbie @mynameisnotlaura @andieperrie18 @totallynotme420 @igotmessymind @amarawayne @calsjack @kodzukenmaaa @mellowdiy @noah-uhhh-what @blarba-girl @dead-sane-stuff @huhuhhuhh @ashlynnmalfoy @kimmis-stuff @undecided-shipper @justafanficsreader @poppyalice2001 @holdyuhmuda @jiabae @mara-moon @avitute @lafrone

[dcxdpdabbles]

Is there any way I could request more of Danny's Grill? I keep re reading it and it's so great!

Danny's mansion amazed Tim, which said a lot given that he had lived in the Drake and Wayne Manors. It seemed almost like a castle, with its four floors and a few towers (four at each corner of the fenced-off stone. Danny had his property enclosed. )

Everything screamed old money and was well taken care of. He also was surprised to find that the whole place had a lot of natural light.

The drive out of Gotham got them away from the dark cloudy skies to wide blue, and the mansion had plenty of strategically placed windows that caught the sun to light up the rooms.

It was likely that way since the place was obviously built before electricity. Even the air felt lighter, sweater, and caused ease to rest in his bones. Tim found himself strolling through the place, oddly at peace with the silence.

He had taken a dip in Danny's pool, adoring how it was designed to resemble a natural river, complete with a waterfall. It was still a pool, with the proper level of chlorine and tile floor, but there were rocks and multiple plants all around that really sold it to him.

The waterfall was made from unevenly stacked rocks as if carved out of a cliffside. He enjoyed sitting near it, flouting in in the rippling water and listening to the falling water.

Tim found a makeshift bench from the stacked rocks right under the waterfall, where he could comfortably sit down and have the water reach his shoulders. He found himself in that same spot often over the week since he came to stay with Danny.

He was in a fluffy red bathrobe- and nothing else- having just finished a shower to wash off the pool's chlorine. His bare feet patted against the tile floor as Tim once more appreciated the artistic white and gold wallpaper.

He loved that it had leaf-like designs that weren't all over but small enough to give the place a pop of color.

He was still thinking of a destination, wandering about the large building while waiting for Danny to return.

Danny has also been a gracious host. After the first night, he had made him some food and offered him a room across from his, just as large as the master room. It was a lovely white with gold trimming, matching the rest of the mansion but left room to decorate the walls to his hearts content.

Tim hasn't, but Danny seemed rather insistent that he could if he would like to. That Tim had the option open to him. Danny, he came to find, was all about giving people choices.

What did they want to eat? Whatever Tim was in the mood for.

What should they do? If Tim was okay with being around people, they would go out and take pictures. If he was having an overwhelmed day, then Tim could find his own little corner to sit.

Was it okay if Danny gave him friendly hugs or pats? Only if he asked Tim before going in for a hug.

Could Tim walk around in nothing but a bathrobe? Of course! If it made him feel better, Danny could even avoid the entire west side of the mansion so he wouldn't have to see him if he thought like clothes were a bother.

It was enjoyable but also baffling.

Tim has never met someone who gave him as much attention as Danny did but also respected all his boundaries. He enjoyed talking about them, setting them, and even seemed to glow whenever Tim carefully tested the waters, by placing some that would have upset his past friends and family.

Another thing that needed to be clarified about Danny was that he plainly didn't make any sense at all. Tim had always assumed Danny was middle class- maybe high middle- since he ran his own food truck and all but it was obvious by his house that he didn't need it.

Danny's family- from what Tim had been able to uncover- had always been low, middle class up until Danny had been fifteen. Then their luck turned when a rich distant relative by the name of Pariah Dark willed Danny all his fortunes.

Who was Pariah Dark? What happened to him? Why was Danny the only one he left his money to and not all of the Fentons? Why did this property sit for years without any record of usage yet still look brand new?

There was also the question of whether Danny was human.

Tim is sharp when finding small details that lead to clues that lead to answers.

It's both a curse and a blessing.

In this case, he noticed little things about Danny; his tendency to not notice the cold weather, his slight winces when loud noises were near, his graceful steps that were sometimes a tad bit off of gravity, his eyes seemed to change color- blue and green- and the way he would stare into shadows, gaze following something that Tim could not see.

Tim could have assumed Danny had some mental issues- who didn't at this point?- but he felt that wasn't the real reason or not all of it.

He couldn't explain it, but Danny felt like more. Especially when he returns from Gotham because the air feels aware of his arrival. Like it got excited that Danny was back.

Was the mansion sentient like the House of Mystery? Or was it an extension of Danny himself?

Tim had accompanied Danny on a few of his food truck runs. Mostly as a chasier but Danny had beamed when he asked if he could join him three days into his stay.

He did to observe how Danny interacted with the people of Gotham. Just like the air gane a certain something, whenever Danny sold his ware and the people thanked him, he seemed to puff up in strength.

Not the pride in his work kind of puff up but an actual burst of energy as if though he had taken an energy drink. This was doubly so when he gave the street kids free meals. Helping them seemed almost like a drug to Danny.

It begged the question of whether it was, in a sense, a drug. Because Tim could see all the tiny hints that helping people seemed to do much more for his friend. He had dilated pupils, a droopy smile, and random bursts of energy, and he even got a bit snappy when he went too long helping.

Tim could even claim that it was as if Danny was making Deals, and he did not dismiss his hypothesis because Tim had already dealt with aliens, demons, and gods as Red Robin.

Fae or other magical creatures wouldn't be as far-fetched as he once thought.

Did that mean Danny Fenton was never fully human or that something had happened to him that changed him?

There were many questions. Not enough answers.

Yet despite all of that, Tim couldn't find it in himself to think Danny was dangerous. If anything he could only safely conclude Danny lived and breath to protect others.

Tim, the sole attention to his protective tendencies due to proxy, was all but wrapped in a blanket of affection and respect. It could drive a guy to do something silly, like hang up his cowl, resign from WE and live the rest of his life as a pampered prince awaiting for his King.

How odd.

Tim never wanted to do any of those things, but he felt he would if Danny asked. The best part? He knew Danny would never ask that of him which made him want to stay even more.

It's too bad all good things have an end. Tim thinks wistfully. He would much rather spend his days here, but his family was anxious about the lack of check-in.

Tim didn't want them to find out about Danny and had chosen to send a delayed message from the Nest, letting them know he was undercover, infiltrating a possible new magical court. The Bats knew not to risk his cover but they also wanted some proof he was doing alright.

He had asked Danny if he could go to Gotham for a quick trip, and despit the saddness in his blue eyes, Danny always let him. He even gave him the keys to a his car, walking him to the gate with a promise the gates were always opoen to Tim.

Tim would use those visits to catch up on WE work and deposit information packages at Bat checkpoints. He would also pick up coded folders from other family members who wanted to keep him in the loop should their cases overlap.

It's been three weeks since he came here; in that time, Jason had cracked down on pimps and working people. The family was helping him, as Jason was attempting to fulfill a favor that someone had cashed in and was struggling to find the working boy his contact was worried about.

Apparently, the guy was regularly getting roughed up and was underage to boot. Tim hopes Jason finds the jerks hurting him. He would love to help but he had to figure out Danny Fenton first.

The air brighten, snapping Tim out of his thoughts.

Danny was home.

He turned towards the main gate, scurrying to make it to the front door before Danny could finish driving up the drive way and park his car under neeath the shadow parking spots.

His heart fluttered as he barely slide into the main hall way and the wood of the door swung open. Danny steps in, still wearing his black t-shirt and jeans that he favored when working his truck.

"Welcome home!" Tim tells him, watching Danny's whole face break into a wide grin. It was like dawn breaking over the horizion and it made him feel all sorts of warm.

Danny was definitely beautiful enough to be otherworldly.

"I'm home, Alvin." Danny pauses and then gestures to his robe, his smile turning warm and fond. "Another late swim?"

"I like the water. It helps my bones," He says, shrugging his shoulders.

Danny hums. "I could ask a friend of mine to install a hot watered pool for you."

Tim considers it. He wants to say no but he just knows the mansion will rat him out. Danny seemed to always know when a lie is spoken here. Another check in the Fae theory.

"If....if it's not a bother, that would be nice." He says suddenly overcome with shyness. The feeling vanishes at the utter delight and green eyes of Danny.

"It's never a bother! The east wing has a smaller pool that rarely gets used. I'll make some calls and have it turn into an artificially hot spring for you." Danny chirps. "It would help me relax too. You would not belive the fight I had with Robin today."

Tim stills. "You fought Robin?"

"Not physically." Danny corrected but still shook his head sadly. "We disagreed on the case he's helping Red Hood with."

"What case?" Are Damian and Jason working together on the working boy's case? Or was it something else? And more importantly did he try Danny's food?!

He may come back for more if he did, and Tim's personal cheat truck was no longer his own!

"I'm not sure of the details, but they are trying to map out all the working girl's corners. He was upset when I told him I would not release that information to a child." Danny sighs. "I know he's Robin, but I could sense how uncomfortable it made him feel, you know? It made my core ache, but Robin took it as me not wanting to respect him as a hero. It was a whole thing."

Tim has so many questions he feels like he might just burst. It's only years of training that had him clamping down on all but one. "You're helping the Bats catch prostitutes?"

Danny's eyes widen "No! No! Not the employees themselves, just their sick pimps. I would never rat them out."

Tim nods once. "Okay."

"I mean it, Alvin. I would never"

And the blue eyes have flickered to green again. Interesting.

But he can't help but relax smiling at Danny. "I know. Thank you for helping them though."

Danny's face flushes, and then he hastily looks away. Coughing into his fist, he mutters, "Are you hungry? I still have some leftover Pizza from today's menu."

"Starved. Want to watch a moive while we eat?"

"Yeah, sounds good-are you-I mean, will you be-um" Danny fumbles over his words gesturing at him. Tim tilts his head in confusion, wondering why he sounds so nervous, until Danny finally blurts. "Is that all you're going to wear?"

"Yeah. It's soft." He says playing with the robe's sleeves and Danny swallows.

"Alright. Okay. I um I'll get the pizza. Will you go pick the moive and get it ready?"

Tim beams, twisting on his heel to do just that and catching the reflection of Danny clutching his chest and screaming silently into a closed fist in a nearby wall mirror. His face is redder than before, and the house ripples with excitement, glee, warmth, and happiness.

Interesting indeed.

[froggyfics]

Submissive Batboys Headcanons

This was requested! I was also inspired by another anon to post something for Valentine's Day!!! So, here's a special treat!

Please note that all characters are 18+. If you do not feel comfortable with NSFW content, do not continue reading.

Feedback is always appreciated. Feel free to message me privately or comment below to let me know what you think. Constructive criticism is always welcome! 

Pairing: Batfam x gn!reader

Theme: Smut

Word Count: 652

Bruce Wayne:

takes a good minute to convince him to be a sub

he DESPISES not being in control, so to have him give up control in a vulnerable and intimate setting, you have to be someone special.

he’s not gonna do it with just anybody

this needs to be planned out well in advance

would probably end up loving it, because omg everyone needs a break from being a control freak every once in a while.

he’ll probably be into some form of masochism (duh! he’s Batman! don’t know how you can get any more masochistic than that)

wax and impact play would probably be the most probable kinks in this dynamic (anything that makes him not think his responsibilities)

Dick Grayson:

you probably don’t even need to bring this conversation up. he’d probably do it himself :D

super adventurous in the bedroom, so this would def be a dynamic that is commonplace

probably thinks it’s fun to switch things up every once in a while!

he’ll pretty much be down for anything you want to do

honestly would love be pegged (he doesn’t want to be able to walk tomorrow)

he aims to please! your satisfaction is his utmost priority

however, he would definitely be a bratty sub.

he would talk back and mouth off, just so you could punish him (it’s not really a punishment if he really wants it though, is it?)

Jason Todd:

this is a really interesting one to think about!

i think it’s very similar to Bruce

you have to someone super special for him to even entertain this 

you’d have to go super slow. multiple conversations are required and check-ins throughout the act are necessary 

with that being said, he just wants to be loved and to love! he wants to explore this dynamic, but he holds back due to previous trauma. he would be down with anything with the person he’s comfortable with but!!!!!! would definitely have to be a scheduled event, so that everything is discussed beforehand

he would enjoy it! the liberation he experiences by letting go is euphoric. it’s just the prep that takes a bit of time

delayed orgasms, rope play, and some light impact play would probably most interest him

aftercare would be extremely important and will be the highlight of the entire experience

Tim Drake:

he would probably bring it up first, as well :D

down for anything! super adventurous and with his outstanding detective skills, he probably knows more about you want/like more than you

you’ll be completely surprised at how accurate he is

he’d be so fun to experiment with! again, he wants to do anything you want to do

he wouldn’t be all that bratty - he wants the best of the best for you and he lives to please!

he would likely be into slave/service sub dynamics

delayed orgasms would totally be his thing!!!! he’s also a rope bunny

don’t get my man confused, he is not inherently a sub. he’s just a damn good switch, and it all depends on his mood

he is not quiet whatsoever! he is gonna let you KNOW what he likes

Adult!Damian Wayne:

you definitely would have to bring this up to him

he might take a moment to mull it over, but he will agree to your demands rather quickly 

he thinks it’s funny more than anything, thinking that you could be a dom, but he likes it way more than he lets it on initially

you would have to take baby steps, but soon enough it becomes more commonplace for him to sub

spanking and wax play is at the top of his list. it’s also an ego thing - he wants to show off to you and to himself how much pain he can handle

he’s super bratty, so you just have to smack him around 

lowkey loves seeing the bruises on himself afterwards

[aangelinakii]

BATFAM LOVE LANGUAGES.

characters written about in this piece : bruce wayne, dick grayson, jason todd, tim drake, barbara gordon, duke thomas, stephanie brown, cassandra cain

not proofread !

note : i don't know too much about cass, duke and steph as i haven't consumed a lot of media featuring them, but hopefully i understood their characters well enough !!! thank you for reading <3

BRUCE WAYNE — quality time ( && trust. )

i don't think bruce would be a very obvious boyfriend, especially in the public eye. he's a very private person; i mean, he's managed to keep his secret identity just as it is for years now (if we exclude arkham canon lol). for him, trust is something very important. he needs to be able to know and feel that you trust him, and that you won't tell anyone else his secrets so that he can fully trust you. when he does trust you completely, he will tell you about his secret identity, and feel able to express a more emotional side of him.

as well as trust, his main love language would definitely be quality time. as i said, he prefers a private, calm relationship, and he likes doing things that are exclusive and important to the two of you; something where you can just bask in the essence of each other, and talk about your days, or share secrets you've never told anybody else. or even if either of you have had a long day and don't feel like talking, he'll gladly sit with you in silence and watch a movie you both enjoy (or even one that he isn't too fond of, but knows you love, so he'll push through it just for you).

his favourite ways to spend quality time : going out for dinner together, or even cooking at home and eating just the two of you at the table , spending five more minutes in bed together in the morning , watching favourite movies on the couch (only exclusively at home; he never goes to the cinema) , talking about how each other's day went

DICK GRAYSON — physical touch && acts of service.

dick is an easy guy to impress, and once you have him, he's like putty in your arms. when he's in love, he never wants to let that person go, and quite literally is almost always clinging onto them in some way. he's definitely one for physical affection, but is also conscious of boundaries. at home, away from prying eyes, he is attached to your hip, your essence completely comforting him; but in public, he knows better than to overwhelm with touch, but will opt for holding your hand if that's what you're comfortable with.

when he's in love, not only does dick want to always be with that person, he also is conscious that he's showing his love in a way that is clear to them. he never ever wants them to doubt his love, and so he shows acts of service that won't get mistaken. dick is very deliberate with his actions, and makes mental notes of things you like and don't like, so he knows you'll be happy with everything he does for you.

things he does to show his love : cooking breakfast in the morning, possibly bringing it in to you on a tray so you can eat in bed , offering to help you with your chores or errands , remembering your likes and dislikes

his favourite ways to express love through touch : holding hands whilst walking in public , fixing your hair or tucking hair behind your ear , pulling you away from your work for a moment to give you a hug , offering to give you a massage after a long day

JASON TODD — words of affirmation.

although many iterations of jason in the fanon world see him as a person who adores physical affection, i feel that he would actually be more opposed to physical affection. i think he's been through a lot, and actually physical affection could be quite triggering for him, too overwhelming. instead, i think he would appreciate words of affirmation. when he pays someone a compliment, he truly means it, and often says things to show his love instead of through grand actions. and if someone pays him a compliment, especially a love interest, he knows it's genuine, because people don't ever give him compliments. words mean a lot to him, out of anger, out of love; they all mean something.

words that mean a lot to him : "i'm so proud of you" , "no one makes me as happy as you do" , "i appreciate you so much" , "i trust you" , "thank you for always listening to me"

words that he means : "i'm so lucky to have you" , "you make me so happy" , "thank you for everything you do for me" , "you're so good to me" , "thank you for respecting my boundaries, i appreciate it more than you know"

TIM DRAKE — acts of service.

i saw somewhere that said tim puts his all into everything he does, eager to prove himself somehow, and i think that even follows through to his (romantic) relationships, which is why he opts for meaningful acts of service to show his love. i don't see him being too big on physical touch, but not minding it, and he appreciates little gifts, but is always one to go above and beyond for someone he loves. due to the way he became robin, he feels some sort of guilt, and wants to show that it wasn't a decision made in vain, so he really pushes himself to his limits. in a relationship, he doesn't push himself to his limits per se, but he can sometimes outdo himself.

things he does to show his love : running your errands for you if you're busy , trying (and sometimes failing) to make a romantic dinner for the two of you, but sometimes just turning to uber eats , booking fun activities for you to do when you're both free, like paintball or pottery painting etc

acts that he appreciates : being made a packed lunch, or being brought one of his favourite snacks , being run a bath after a long day/patrol shift , booking out days in your month to spend with him , memorising his schedule

BARBARA GORDON — quality time ( && listening. )

barbara, although she can be upbeat with friends, takes some time to allow the walls around her to thaw. she probably isn't big on physical touch, partly due to trauma and partly due to simply preference, but adores quality time with loved ones. she really enjoys just being in the presence of those she loves, talking about interests or each other's day, or even just those really specific conversations neither of you are too sure how they began. but she loves those conversations the most, where you say something and she listens because you're really pouring your heart out here, and she reciprocates by opening up something sensitive about herself.

her favourite ways to spend quality time : watching movies and tv shows together, and then talking about them over a cup of hot chocolate the next day , doing work side by side, just the fact that you're together makes her work to a better standard , laying in bed late at night just talking

DUKE THOMAS — giving && receiving gifts.

duke is a really lovely guy, and is very thoughtful when picking out gifts. he is attentive to your interests and makes sure to remember everything you like and dislike; so that when he's out and about, if he sees something that he knows you'll like, he'll get it, no thoughts. not only does he shamelessly buy you things, if he gets the time, he'll even make some cute handmade trinkets just for you, and they're even more special because he thought the thought and then made it, just for you.

obviously his actions can't just go unreciprocated, so he also like receiving gifts as well, but would never say it, as he'd feel guilty, so he just hopes you'll do it. and when you do, well, he couldn't be happier. he adores that you remember his interests, or remember that thing he said he wanted a few weeks ago, or even a few months if his birthday is coming up. he's always grateful for anything he gets, and always gets you something in return.

things he likes to give : photo albums of cute moments you shared , little trinkets that reminded him of you , plushies he won at the arcade or carnival , flowers when he comes home after a long day because he wants to make up for being a little late

things he likes to get : lego sets , his favourite snacks from when you walked past the corner shop on your way home, and you had to turn back because you thought he'd like something , the video games he's been raving about for months

STEPHANIE BROWN — physical touch.

this girl is just a bundle of joy, really, especially when it comes to you, and getting to spend time with you. at the beginning of a relationship, she is practically aching to cling to you all the time, but is aware that physical affection may be a bit awkward. it's not her fault she likes you so much! but as the relationship strengthens and continues, she'll slowly ease into her true clinginess. her love language would be a mix of physical touch and quality time, but leaning more towards physical touch, because as you spend time together she likes to be in contact with you somehow.

her favourite ways to show love through touch : linking her arm with yours , holding your face and stroking your cheek with her thumb , pulling you up from the couch when your couple song comes on so you can dance together in the living room , ruffling your hair , leaning against you

CASSANDRA CAIN — acts of service && quality time.

as cass is a woman of few words, she tries to find other ways to express her admiration or affection. specifically, she enjoys spending quality time with her significant other, even if it's in silence. she enjoys working around you, and living her life by your side, and taking time out of her weeks, her days, and her months, just to be able to spend some time with you.

when she can, cassandra will show you, rather than tell you that she cares. it's a lot easier for her than getting all sappy with her words. so she sticks to acts of service, usually small, but still meaningful. she can get quite shy when expressing her emotions, so i don't think she would go above and beyond, but if she did something more obviously meaningful, she would try to act nonchalant about it.

things she does to show her love : memorising your food and drink orders , helping you put on jewellery, like put the backs on your earrings, or clasp your necklaces, watches, bracelets etc , surprising you with having done the chores you'd been wanting/needing to do , picking lint or hairs off your clothes that you don't realise are there , taking time out of her days to spend specifically with you

[rarepears]

I've always wondered.

If we stick to canon Solo Leveling knowing that Sung Jinwoo is immortal (right??), what's he going to do when his wife is dead, his sister has passed away, and like he's got few social connections to stick around for? Oh and the Rulers reminding him again that it's not good for him to keep sticking around Earth any longer.

So Sung Jinwoo hops to another world. Another Earth like planet. And since I'm still on a DC Universe kick, I think you might be able to guess where I'm going with this.

Sung Jinwoo sets up shop. He's still a detective helping solve murders. He thinks this is basically the same Earth as before, minus a few differences. He goes about like how he did before, unrealizing just how evolved technology has become because he doesn't really use it that much. (Wow, what a boomer.)

Things go out of control quickly, not that he realizes it. People NOTICE that this new detective is a suspiciously high rate of solving cases. He's pretty efficient too. Oh and notice how he seems to talk to thin air and the shadows? "He's a meta" is the quick conclusion people draw. "He's trying to stay low key."

"True, imagine what the baddies would try to do if they knew someone could speak to the dead."

"Just imagine what rich people could do. I bet that Bruce Wayne person would pay fortunes to speak to that murdered adoptive son of his."

The Gotham locals keep the secret real quiet. They appreciate the guy. Still, they can't help themselves. Grief hits hard.

Someone approaches him asking if he could help them say a few words to a brother that was just killing in a car accident three days ago on the way to visit family.

Like dominos, more requests starts piling in.

Naturally that's where one Tim Drake with too much time on his hands notices Sung Jinwoo too. He's not yet approached Batman, still hoping that Batman can snap out of his funk, that maybe Nightwing would go back and be the Robin that Batman needs.

Basically give me an AU where Tim gets adopted by Sung Jinwoo instead and everyone's convinced that Sung Jinwoo is trying to hide the fact that he's a meta no matter how much Jinwoo protests otherwise.

Jinwoo was never trained in covert ops after all. Plus he doesn't like fame but he also doesn't mind it. (He's apathetic to it and people's perceptions of him is more accurate way of portraying it.)

[suzukiblu]

Day thirteen of fic NaNoWriMo; obligatory sugar daddy Tim/sugar baby Kon AU.

Tim gets to the Gotham mall Tim Drake is meeting Superboy at fifteen minutes early because on-time is late, and is entirely unsurprised to have to wait twenty minutes for Kon to show up. Actually, if anything he’s surprised to only have to wait twenty minutes for Kon to show up. 

“Sorry I’m late. You will not believe this, but there was literally a cat stuck in a tree,” Kon says with a sheepish, guilty grin as he lands right next to him in full costume like that’s a perfectly normal thing to do, especially in Gotham. Tim is very glad he decided to wait in one of the security cameras’ more out-of-the-way blind spots. 

“I’m surprised the cat let you save it,” he says, raising an eyebrow at him. It is Gotham, after all. 

“He did not,” Kon says, making a face. “He tried to claw my eyes out and then jumped off my head and down into his owner’s arms, who proceeded to ask me why I thought I was too good to wear body armor.” 

“Well, why do you?” Tim asks, feeling a bit of quiet pride on behalf of his city. Gothamites have priorities. 

“Because anything that could hit me hard enough that I’d need body armor for it would trash the body armor anyway,” Kon replies matter-of-factly, gesturing illustratively at himself. “TTK only works on skintight clothes. Like, I did not go for Spandex as a fashion choice, it’s because anything else would shred right off me in an actual fight.” 

Tim feels his own eyes glaze over. 

“Uh-huh,” he manages vaguely. 

“Also I don’t know where I’d get body armor stronger than I already am anyway,” Kon says. “Cadmus doesn’t have any and that’s pretty much my whole supply chain, you know?” 

“Uh-huh,” Tim manages again, still attempting to reboot his brain. “Shred right off, huh?” 

“Yeah,” Kon says with a shrug. “It’s not exactly dignified, fighting crime naked.” 

“. . . uh-huh.” 

Tim blinks a few times. Blinks again. Then he shakes his head and forces the mental reboot. 

“First things first, are you hungry?” he asks. “There’s a pretzel place and a smoothie shop right over there, or we could just hit the food court.” 

“I could eat,” Kon says with another shrug. “I mean, who doesn’t appreciate a good smoothie?” 

“Well, don’t get your hopes up, Gotham smoothies are fine but unfortunately use a lot more frozen fruit than Metropolis ones,” Tim says, which is the one and only thing he will ever hear said against Gotham. 

“Isn’t frozen better anyway?” Kon asks, wrinkling his nose. “Fresh fruit makes it kinda watery sometimes. Frozen it comes out thicker and stuff.” 

Okay, well, Tim is apparently talking to someone who knows a lot more about smoothie-making than he does. Note to self. Also, what an incredibly weird thing for Kon to know. Like, even weirder than the caffeine. 

“Does it?” he says. “I just always hear fresh is better than frozen.” 

“From pretentious snobs who can grocery shop every day, I bet,” Kon snorts, rolling his eyes. Which . . . is a fair and accurate assessment, admittedly. “And it’s a smoothie, not a juice bar. They’re supposed to be frozen, yeah?” 

“Okay, well, in that case, guess we’re getting better-quality smoothies than I’d assumed,” Tim says. 

“Spoiling me, huh, pretty boy?” Kon says with a smirk. Tim experiences every possible flavor of mortification under the sun and smirks back. 

“If I wanted to spoil you, we’d be getting smoothies in California right now,” he says. 

“I mean, we could,” Kon says with a snicker, tucking his hands into his jacket pockets. 

“I appreciate the offer but that seems like a lot of travel time just for smoothies,” Tim says wryly. “Did you bring a change of clothes?” 

“No, why?” Kon says, looking puzzled. 

“. . . so we can hang out without anyone bothering you,” Tim says, wondering how that could've possibly not occurred to Kon. “Or interrupting the conversation every five minutes.” 

Kon looks–odd, briefly. Tim isn't sure why. 

“Hate to break it to you but I'm not exactly a scintillating conversationalist,” Kon says with a quick, forced smile. “You might want the interruptions.”

Tim thinks there might be a few more people to add to his supervillain vengeance hit list. Like, just possibly. Maybe. 

“What's your size?” he asks.

“Beats me,” Kon says, looking a little odd again. “I don't wear civilian clothes like . . . ever, really. Like, swimsuits at the beach, sure, but that's about it.” 

“What, never?” Tim asks, a little incredulous. Fucking–what is wrong with literally everyone Kon has ever known, for fuck's sake? 

“I mean, I have,” Kon says with an awkward little shrug, keeping his hands in his pockets. “Just not all that often, so I dunno what my size or whatever is.” 

“Okay,” Tim says, internally seething. Fucking Cadmus. Fucking Superman. Nobody ever even taught Kon how to fucking dress himself? How is that even a thing, for fuck's sake?! How is he supposed to ever get even five fucking minutes of being a normal person if he doesn't even own a goddamn pair of jeans?! 

Maybe Tim could do the supervillain thing a little bit earlier than planned. Like. Possibly. As long as he keeps the majority of his villain-ing outside of Gotham, anyway. That'd work, right? 

“Give me five minutes,” he says. “I'll be right back, just try to . . . uh, be . . . subtle, I guess.” 

Kon looks at him. Looks down at his bright costume and striking leather jacket. 

Tim despairs of his own capacity to do, like . . . anything. Ever. 

“Just wait right here, okay?” he says. 

“Okay?” Kon says skeptically. Tim takes the better part of valor and flees the scene. Four minutes and fifty-nine seconds later, he's back with a bag full of clothes that he eyeballed the sizes of that Kon hopefully won't hate, and that he also-hopefully eyeballed correctly enough. He's been learning how to do that more accurately, because you never know when you'll need to immediately get someone in new clothes in this line of work, but it's still a learning process. 

Kon takes out the dark wash skinny jeans and bulky forest green turtleneck sweater that should cover his suit effectively enough, as long as he takes off his gloves and jacket and maybe a belt or two, and the outfit's maybe a little heavy for the weather, especially layered with his suit, but it is Gotham and their chances of getting randomly rained on are higher than zero, put it that way. 

“You can get changed over there,” Tim says, pointing towards the nearest men's room. 

“What is this?” Kon asks, puzzledly rubbing the sleeve of the sweater between his fingers. 

“Cashmere,” Tim says, because obviously he sprung for cashmere. Kon wrinkles his nose, still looking puzzled. 

“It’s really . . . soft,” he says, almost hesitant. 

Tim doesn’t say “to be honest, I’ve always kind of assumed you’d appreciate nice textures more than most people, given the ‘tactle’ part of your telekinesis” and just shrugs. 

“I’ll get you something else if you don’t like it,” he says, and Kon bites his lip. “Or if it doesn’t fit.” 

“I mean–it’s just gonna get wrecked anyway. Like, I have a very developed history of wrecking things. Especially clothes,” he mutters, not looking up from the sweater. Which is, Tim cannot help but notice, not an “I don’t like it”. Actually, it’s just about the opposite of that, he can’t help but suspect. 

“Then I’ll get you another one,” he says with a shrug. “It’s just a sweater. I’ll buy you as many as you want.” 

“That’s very weird of you, man,” Kon says, rubbing the cashmere between his fingers again. “Like, you’re aware that buying superheroes sweaters is not a normal pastime, right?” 

“I wasn’t really concerned with being not weird,” Tim replies reasonably. 

“Uh,” Kon says, glancing at his face for a moment and then . . . pausing, briefly, before zipping off without actually saying whatever he was about to say. 

Well, alright then. 

Tim has several very weird reactions to the idea of Kon putting on clothes he picked out for him and immediately beats them all down because it is really not the time. Not even slightly is it the time. 

But Kon is also currently putting on clothes he picked out for him. 

Tim has possibly made a mistake or two here. 

Or definitely. Definitely Tim has made a mistake here, now that he’s considering how soft and pettable that cashmere actually was and the fact that Kon is about to be wearing it and therefore also going to be very soft and pettable and–

Tim has made so many mistakes here.

[yourmomxx]

Hello! I want to make a request headcandons for jason todd, dick grayson and damian wayne with a reader who basically has a personality and background of yui komori, that is, she is super kind, sensitive, shy and who went through a very traumatic situation related to kidnapping and abuse and who because of that she is very scared and has post traumatic stress disorder, i hope it's not so dark for you and i don't want you to write this if you don't want to, i would also want it to be angs with comfort(because ptsd)and fluff.

here you go! thanks for the request, I hope you’re alright with how it turned out :)

Dick Grayson

Around Dick, you had been hinting at the fact that you didn’t have such a good past

The first time he sees you crying and doesn’t know what triggered it, he holds you tight and whispers sweet things in your ear, and his thumb rubs reassuring circles on your shoulder

Asks you if you want to talk to him and offers you tea or a glass of water

When he tells you about missions (or if you’re a vigilante, too, on missions), he kind of “sprinkles” metaphors in there until you eventually open up to him

For example after a dam break: “Sometimes the pressure is just too much. And if not at least some of it is relieved then things burst.”

Would never pressure you into anything though, he will let you take your time

And appreciates it even more when you open up to him

Jason Todd

Jason met you as a kind and gentle soul, that was always ready to take care of him

But he knew that there was more to your story, he recognized the look you head in your eyes

Jason finds out when he wakes up from you screaming and squirming in your sleep

He knows those symptoms all too well, and is careful not to startle you awake

He catches your fists when you try to hit him as he tries to carefully wake you up

“Hey it’s okay,” he coaxed, “It’s just me. You are in my apartment, it’s okay.”

He definitely makes you a bath after to get your mind off things

And reads to you so you can fall asleep to his soothing voice

Or just holds you tight until you fall asleep again, this time without nightmares, knowing that Jason is there to protect and hold you

Will give you time and space if you need it, but push you into the right direction

“You can’t just keep this forever, you know,” he said, one day, as you were sitting opposite each other. “I’m here for you when you need me. I know that it’s hard. But it will get better with time.”

And you trust him

Tim Drake

almost starts panicking himself when he sees you curled up on the floor, your back to the wall and face pressed to your knees

He doesn’t know how to respond at first

He knows panic attacks can look different for everybody and also that depending on the person it is different how they would like you to respond to it

When he comes to again, he sits down opposite you, with enough distance to not invade your personal space, and starts talking to you in a low voice

“Hey, can you hear me?”

He teaches you new techniques to ground yourself

For example box-breathing*

“It calms your heart rate,” he said.

Will cancel all his meetings the next day, just to spend it with you snuggled up in comfortable clothes

Will also stay more often at night, letting his siblings cover his shifts as Robin

Damian Wayne

The first time Damian noticed something is wrong, is when you flinched as he made a quick movement

And to be honest, he was offended at first

Thrown aback, more like it

He thought (feared) you were scared of him

He distanced himself from you, emotionally, and even got snappy sometimes

He thinks stupid of himself, how could he ever believe that someone like you could be truly in love with him, feel safe around him, see anything other than the boy with blood on his hands that he was

Funny enough it was Bruce that knocked some sense into him, because he had observed an exchange between Damian and you

He told his son to talk about you about what happened - that maybe this was all a big misunderstanding

When you reveal to Damian what happened to you, you break down

He doesn’t know what to do, and at first just stands there, but then he is careful to place a warm hand on your shoulder

After that, he will do everything to make you feel as loved as possible

And he mostly did that with presents

“I saw this and I thought of you.”

“I read in the Internet that those blankets help with anxiety.”

And when he offers to kill someone for what they did to you, you always manage to convince him not to do it - although you kind of appreciate his efforts

*this method does really exist. you breathe in for five seconds, then hold this breath for another five seconds. then you breathe out for five seconds, hold your breath again, and then repeat it all. athletes and swimmers use this technique to calm their heart rate, because it makes us take less breaths than usually in a minute.

[farshootergotme]

What if it isn't Dick losing those qualities?

Instead they are showing the growth of the other bat kids?

Showing how beloved and influential Dick also Nightwing is as a whole?

They aren't all just "the other robins or just Batman's sidekick or clone" no, that they can take that foundation and be that much more, something better than either of the original dynamic duo.

So while you might think he lost something or just because you don't explicitly see it he has changed somehow or it upsets you others possess his good qualities?

I for one appreciate that they show how much the rest look up to him and the dynamics involved.

To be loved is to be changed.

I think I didn't make myself very clear in my post.

I was not only talking about canon, but fanon as well. In fact, it was mostly about fanon.

And I didn't say characters couldn't grow or be influenced by Dick. What I said is that sometimes parts of Dick's character are taken away from him and given to other characters who had no development that could've caused that change in them and now you got a character that "grew" for no reason and another character that was great but now is just a shallow character that's nothing like it should be.

The most common example I've seen of this is Jason (in fanon) being made as the good big brother who the family can rely on and then Dick is either made an asshole or pushed aside as a background character when he could've helped and there was no reason for him not to.

This is nothing against Jason, but he's probably the last person most of his siblings would look for when they need a reliable brother. There's gotta be a very specific scenario for it to work and I can only think of The Boy Wonder (2024) comic #2 as a good example of this.

Dick Grayson is more often than not portrayed as the rock of his family and the person that most people rely on and trust to help when they need it. Jason Todd is completely different in that sense and I don't see this as a bad thing. I love that he's his own character and gets to be different than Dick Grayson instead of a carbon-copy like he used to be at the very beginning.

Sometimes I've also seen this happen with Tim, too. A lot of things (usually struggles) that are canon to Dick Grayson are added to Tim's fanon counterpart and that on occasion ends up influencing Tim Drake's canon which ends up erasing some things that made his character feel more unique.

There's also times where instead of stealing something from Dick's character they just erase it to make the other character who has a similar ability seem better. But tbf this happens to most characters and it wasn't mentioned in my previous post so I'll leave that there.

Anyway, I hope my point is more understandable now.

[yellowocaballero]

New Wave: Jason Todd vs. Annoyingly Perfect Cheerleader Barbie Stephanie Brown

Tim stared at him for another long second, face blank, and a few seconds of hot panic hit Jason before he finally spoke again. “You really aren’t anything like Steph.”

Yeah. Jason fucking got that.

It was always a bad thing. They pretended it wasn’t a bad thing. Oh, nobody ever said it was bad Jason wasn’t Stephanie fucking Brown. But they didn’t need to say it. Jason was a master of tactics and strategy, and he knew he was without resources. 

Resources, in this context, being a goddamn fucking perfect blue eyed blonde haired hot white girl. Being peppy and happy and nice. Apparently being some kind of dumb genius who knew everything and everyone. Jason didn’t have any of that. Without any resources or allies, his idiot new life knocked him flat on his back every time. Jason wasn’t Stephanie Brown, and boy did they let him know it. 

In which the next generation of inferiority complexes rise.

Now that my magnum opus Stephanie Brown superiority manifesto is done, I can FINALLY post its follow-up! This one was very strange to write, but that just made it all the funner. There's a lot I could say here that I couldn't explicitly say in the main story - and, most importantly, four years later I can finally work in MY childhood nostalgia. FINALLY!

If you aren't familiar with the AU, the premise is just that Stephanie becomes the first Robin in 1997. Not much more complex than that.

Story under the cut.

Christmas brought the inevitable. 

Jason always approached the winter like an enemy combatant. He had a military biography phase six months ago, and it left him with a permanent sense he was General Custer in real life. December always left him feeling more like Napoleon embarking on a fool’s crusade against Russia in winter, but Jason knew how to learn from other people’s mistakes. He knew how to make the shelter rotations, whose couch to sleep on, which camps were a no-go and which were alright, and which abandoned buildings the fuzz hadn’t discovered yet. Jason knew how to live his own damn life. He always made it through into March’s other side, and that had always been good enough for him.

But not for Bruce Wayne. Because Stephanie Brown and Tim Drake were coming home, and Tim was losing ground to the colonizers. His worst enemies. The infractors.

(Objectively, Jason was the one moving into somebody else’s home. But he definitely wasn’t the colonizer here. He was gaining no resources but Legos and Nerf guns. The territory was up for grabs and he was going to defend it).

Tim Drake wasn’t so bad, if only because he was a known quantity. Known super obnoxious and ultra pretentious quantity. He had come home from MIT a few times (actual MIT!) to conduct mysterious business that seemed to involve a lot of disappearing into the Batcave and getting snippy with Bruce, and although he wasn’t particularly nice to Jason he wasn’t particularly mean either. Jason had bounced through enough group homes that he appreciated that. 

The second time Tim visited - the first time Jason worked up the guts to actually talk with him - was the time to make his move. The opening gambit would be a scouting mission. He decided to push his luck and slither down into the Batcave, even though Bruce discouraged going down there without him. Guy didn’t make a rule about it. If Jason got caught he could pretend he was looking for Bruce in pursuit of following the rules. It was a gamble but Jason knew the odds.

The Batcave had been empty of Batman. There was only Tim Drake, sitting at a work table, bent over the deflated suit and holding a soldering iron. A chunky laptop balanced on the limp knees, and when combined with Tim’s giant goggles it gave him a creepy Young Frankenstein air. Bent over the Batsuit like that, he looked like a mad scientist dissecting Batman’s corpse.

Jason had carefully sidled up to Tim, keeping a healthy distance from the torch. Tim had split the cowl’s casing open like snapping open a skull to fish out the brains with an oyster fork, and he was doing something mysterious to the wiring inside. Jason couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

Tim didn’t say anything until he finished. He pushed up the welding mask, shucking his gloves and shaking out his hair. “Can I help you?”

It wasn’t telling him to go away. Jason would press his luck until he was chased off. He sidled a little bit closer, gawking at the dissected Batsuit. “What’re you doing?”

“Installing some hardware to run a program I coded. Batsuit has facial recognition now. You’re welcome.” Tim took off the welding mask, carelessly dropping it on the floor. “You don’t need anything.”

Jason was baffled for a second before he realized Tim had meant the question literally - that he hadn’t been prompting Jason to talk, but asking if Tim needed to do anything for him. Practical guy who welded Star Trek tech into a superhero costume. But maybe he was right - Jason did need something from him. A measure of the situation.

Jason didn’t slide any closer, but he did tug a little at the hem of his fancy shirt. It was just red, but a fancy red. “Are we chill?”

Tim stared at him blankly. “Chill?”

“Uh. Cool.”

More stares. “Why wouldn’t we be cool?”

Was that a rhetorical question? Jason hadn’t met a normal person in months. “I’m kinda in your house,” Jason pointed out. “Eating your food. Being up in your space.” Being adopted by your legal guardian, but like in the weirdest way possible.

“I don’t really live here anymore,” Tim said slowly, “so…”

Great. Pure confusion. This guy didn’t have normal people emotions. Jason’s shoulders fell in relief. “Dope. I’ll just stay outta your hair. Won’t even know I’m here. Good talk.”

Tim stared at him for another long second, face blank, and a few seconds of hot panic hit Jason before he finally spoke again. “You really aren’t anything like Steph.”

Yeah. Jason fucking got that.

It was always a bad thing. They pretended it wasn’t a bad thing. Oh, nobody ever said it was bad Jason wasn’t Stephanie fucking Brown. But they didn’t need to say it. Jason was a master of tactics and strategy, and he knew he was without resources. 

Resources, in this context, being a goddamn fucking perfect blue eyed blonde haired hot white girl. Being peppy and happy and nice. Apparently being some kind of dumb genius who knew everything and everyone. Jason didn’t have any of that. Without any resources or allies, his idiot new life knocked him flat on his back every time. Jason wasn’t Stephanie Brown, and boy did they let him know it. 

To be fair, Jason was pretty sure Bruce wasn’t doing it on purpose. His emotional intelligence was somewhere between rock bottom and zero. It was tragic, inconvenient, and not his fault, like he was a three legged dog. Jason got that he missed Queen of the Universe, but he didn’t bring up Tim in the same way. Granted, Jason already got the vibes that Bruce knew Tim was not normal whatsoever. Stephanie Brown was the paragon of normality to Bruce. Which was too bad for Jason.

Oh? You live in the East End? What do you mean you don’t know everybody in the East End? Stephanie Brown knows everybody.

Here’s a map, memorize it in fifteen minutes. What do you mean you can’t do that? Stephanie Brown can do that.

Why are you upset over your crook dad and druggie mom? Stephanie has a crook dad and druggie mom, and it doesn’t bother her -

Whatever. So sue him. Jason sucked. He wasn’t a genius mad scientist or perfection incarnate. It didn’t matter. So long as he stayed over the ‘return Jason like a lost puppy’ bar everything was chill. 

They could throw him out if they wanted. Jason didn’t even care. He had blackmail material, he could squeeze them. He was pretty sure Selina would help him out, even if it was only to spite Bruce. That woman played cute and everything, but Jason had her number. Spite was the gas in her engine and she was moving a hundred and twelve miles per hour. 

Jason was a soldier of life, who approached the world with a strategist’s grim mindset. Goal: stay in the semi-heated mansion featuring hot food and a security system at least until March. Impediment: Stephanie Brown and Tim Drake were coming home, highlighting Jason’s innumerable faults and subpar everything. Potential casualties: Stephanie and Tim’s presence could…end up with Jason kicked out for some reason, that part was fuzzy, but it was definitely a danger. Plan of action: be super polite, hope, and pray.

Tim came home first, blown inside with the blustery wind and spears of delicate ice. Jason had been working on homework in the library when he walked through the door, and pretended he couldn’t hear the clumps and noises of suitcases and warm-ish greetings and thumps of feet on hardwood. He waited several hours until he was comfortably pushing the perceptible threshold of purposeful avoidance before emerging from the library. Make an appearance - not avoiding you, look at my chubby cheeks! - and beat it. Plan of action, commence. 

Tim and Bruce were sitting in the fancier family living room - not the one for guests or the more relaxed den, the one for family but in a slightly more formal way and Jason felt like a fucking idiot stringing these words together in this order - on the fancy couches, talking quietly with each other. Jason absently noted that Tim was sitting in an armchair perpendicular from Bruce on the couch. Sitting closer to each other, but not on the same piece of furniture.

They both looked up when Jason stopped at the doorway, absently clutching the doorjamb and wriggling a little. Bruce’s expression lightened, but Tim just blinked sleepily. Guy always looked half-asleep and a million miles away.

“Jason. You finish your homework?”

“He has you doing the Bat-homework?” Tim asked, blinking slowly. He was like a sloth at the zoo. “That’s a throwback. Stephanie did nothing but read those textbooks for months. They’re pretty tough. Frustrated the hell out of her.”

Bruce just smiled faintly - a big grin on anybody else. “I think the first textbook she read since sixth grade was a college textbook on forensic profiling. Finished it in a week and asked for the next one.”

Thirty seconds. It took thirty seconds. That had to be a new record.

“It’s just normal homework. And yeah, I finished for the week.” Jason swung from the doorjamb, gawking at Tim. He hoped it was subtle. Maybe not. It was still weird to see anybody else in here. Tim didn’t exactly come back a lot, and he always acted like they were work trips. Maybe they were? “Hi, Tim.”

“Yo. Settling in alright?” Jason nodded fastidiously. “Good. Tell Bruce if you need anything.” Tim turned back to Bruce, brushing Jason off. “It’s just too research focused. Everybody’s hung up on theoreticals and theorems. It’s not useful, Bruce. I could be five times as productive in industry right now.” Bruce ticked an eyebrow at him. “It’s not the classroom.”

“It’s just a change, Tim. It’s the change that’s bothering you, not the school. You picked MIT specifically for its resources and access. Those are worth suffering your peers.”

“Its resources aren’t being used properly. All they’re doing is diagnosing brain tumors and providing clean drinking water to Bialyans. Dr. Hagelstein just invented a clean superconductor without a turbine. Like, who cares.”

Jason perked up. “Clean drinking water? How are they doing it? Like, in a fancy new way?”

“Dunno. I skipped the grant acceptance speech. The Queen of Bialya was attending, so I used the window to install remote access software in her assistant’s laptop.”

“Uh,” Jason said.

Bruce didn’t even have the decency to be surprised. “Why would you do that?”

Tim gave Bruce an incredulous look, as if he had no idea Bruce could reach such depths of stupidity. “Nobody’s been able to make the human trafficking charges against Queen B stick. This is how I’m finally going to siphon her incriminating signed orders.”

“Do I need to give you the destabilizing foreign governments talk again, Tim -”

“What do I look like, the CIA? I mostly just wanted the link into the Light’s movements.” Bruce opened his mouth. “I swear to god they exist and I know for a fact Ra’s is a founding member. I need the conspiracy dirt so I can finally have some blackmail on that man. I don’t have anything and it’s pissing me off.”

“Don’t destroy the League of Assassins without clearance,” Bruce said absently. He scratched his chin, for all appearances deep in thought. “The signed orders could give the Justice League probable cause to legally assault her underground bunker system.”

“The one obviously filled with illegal Kryptonite? You just want the League to confiscate it before the US government does.”

“That was implied, yes.”

“I’m gonna go help Alfred in the kitchen,” Jason said.

The kitchen: where nobody committed international espionage. Anymore. 

Tim was cool. He didn’t look, talk, act, or behave like a superhero, but he totally was one. Jason wasn’t certain Tim knew what and wasn’t legal, but everything he did was really important in saving Gotham. And becoming a world power. He was larger than life, strong like steel and just as impenetrable. Jason did not feel obligated to understand or bond with him. It felt stupid to even try, like an intern trying to talk about their girl troubles with the CEO. Tim obviously felt the same way, so Jason was really glad they were on the same page. He was a little worried about what happened to people who were not on the same page as Tim. Were they ever seen again?

Despite the questionable supervillain stuff, Tim was navigable. Cassandra Kane was also navigable. Very navigable - apparently she wouldn’t be home this break at all. Jason had never even met the woman, despite her legal status as Bruce’s long lost orphaned cousin.

She went in and out of the manor as she pleased, going wherever she wanted and doing God knows what. Jason was only pretty sure that Cass was a Batman thing and not an actual, legitimate jet-setting foreign cousin. He couldn’t say for sure. He didn’t exactly want to walk up to Kate Kane at a party and ask if Cass was actually her half-sister or if she was a mysterious Bat-byproduct that Kate was in on. Too awkward if he was wrong. 

Apparently she used to stay home a little more often, but since Stephanie and Tim left for college she had left to go do…whatever it was that Cassandra Kane did…by herself. In…Hong Kong? Thailand? Indonesia? It was really unclear. Jason was fine with this. The woman was obviously no threat, even if absolutely nobody had ever explained what her deal was. Bruce and Alfred sounded really fond when they talked about her, and even Tim obviously cared about her. How this translated to ‘Cass is somewhere, doing wherever, she’ll be back who knows when, hope she’s having a blast’, Jason had no idea. Convenient for him, though. It meant he only had to worry about Stephanie Brown.

Apparently Stephanie Brown was coming back to Gotham tomorrow, but she was spending a day with her friends and family in the Bowery before moving into the manor. Jason heard about this at length - from Tim’s long-ass cell phone calls with her to Bruce excitedly talking with the equally excited Tim about their holiday plans together. Excitedly for the both of them looked a little like having a facial expression, but still - excitedly.

Jason’s name was coming up a lot during their plans. This worried him. It might put a crimp into his plans to avoid everybody. 

He could already tell it would be pretty easy to avoid Tim. It wasn’t even that hard to play it cool around him. Cassandra would obviously be a breeze - he wasn’t entirely sure she knew he existed. Cass was another randomly appearing Asian cousin, she’d get it. But he could make no promises around Stephanie. He would stay stone against the chaotic tides of blonde women. He would not be moved. Jason was going to be as polite as Alfred and as saltine cracker as everybody in the house. 

Jason and Bruce had a little ritual. They would hang out in the Batcave for a little while pre-patrol - just Jason spinning around in the chair in front of the Batcomputer as Bruce stretched and got ready for patrol. Then Batman would hop into the car, the revving of engines would scream into the air, and Jason would wave as Batman zoomed off into the night. Alfred would walk Jason back up afterwards - partly because it was his bedtime and partly because Jason still wasn’t allowed in the Batcave by himself. Alfred would get him settled into bed, making sure Jason brushed his teeth. He always forgot.

And when Jason woke up the next morning and brushed his teeth and walked downstairs, Bruce would be there. Every time. Always. 

But Tim sat at the computer that night, doing something extremely scary on five monitors and talking intermittently with Bruce as he prepped for patrol. Jason walked down into the Batcave, saw them, and turned on his heel to walk straight back up again.

“Jason!” Bruce called. Jason froze on the steps. “Why don’t you come down? This is a good time to pick up some of Tim’s programming.”

“Bruce, it’s not going to make any sense to him.”

“He’s a very bright kid,” Bruce told Tim, making Jason flush. “You could teach him a thing or two.”

“I’m terrible at explaining things,” Tim said plainly. “I tried explaining my work to Steph a hundred times and she always checked out two sentences in.”

“Steph has a great attention span.” Bruce paused a beat. “But only for things she cares about. I don’t believe Jason is nearly as ADHD as she is.”

“Jason’s twelve.”

“Can’t stay!” Jason cried. “Making soup with Alfred upstairs! Good night, Bruce!”

He thumped upstairs at lightning speed, taking them three at a time, and narrowly escaped into the dim lights of the study before any more questions could be asked.

Jason had touched a computer, like, twice. Come on, Bruce. Why was he always acting like Jason was capable of doing anything so long as he put his mind to it? What, ‘cause Stephanie Brown could do it?

Jason put himself to bed that night, attacking his teeth with a toothbrush and angrily tucking himself under the covers. By the time Alfred came by to check in on him, Jason was glaring at The Magician’s Nephew and flexing how great he was at going to bed. 

“I remember when that book was released. Created quite a stir among my cousins.” 

“Narnia’s for kids, but sometimes you have to go back to the basics,” Jason said grimly. “Night, Alfred.”

But Alfred didn’t wander away, butler duties satisfied. He just ducked inside instead, walking in to stand by Jason’s bed. Jason curled up tighter with the book.

“Master Bruce has instructed me to subtly discover what you want for Christmas. Truthfully, I understand you would prefer that I propose the question more straightforwardly.”

Jason narrowed his eyes. “Aren’t y’all Jewish?”

“Yes, but far as we understand, you are not. Master Bruce wishes to make you feel welcome.” Jason couldn’t repress the quiet little scoff, immediately embarrassing himself, but Alfred just looked lightly amused. He gestured to the bed. “May I sit?”

Jason nodded and mumbled an apology. “We don’t have to do a whole thing ‘cause of me. That’s totally awkward.” 

“It will be exactly as big of a thing as you want,” Alfred assured him. “Master Bruce is feeling celebratory regardless. This is Master Tim and Miss Stephanie’s first time coming home from college for winter break, and with our new family member I believe Master Bruce will want to make a to-do regardless.” Somewhat cannily, he added, “I also foresee Miss Stephanie forcing a celebratory event in the name of family bonding.”

There it was. “Does that woman control everything that happens in this house?”

Alfred smiled. “Between her and myself, I daresay so. But Miss Stephanie can often lose sight of other’s feelings in light of her enthusiasm, so I wanted to ask you directly what you wanted. All four of us will do our best to make it happen.”

What Jason wanted?

Jason wanted a lot of things. Jason wanted the whole damn world, frankly. Jason had never lost sight of what he wanted, not once - losing sight meant forgetting to work towards what you wanted. Even if Jason wanted a lot of things he’d never have - well, fire and dreams were the only thing that kept a kid warm in a Gotham winter. 

But he couldn’t vocalize any of that. He’d never put any of those desires on his tongue, and he knew they’d stay nestled in his ribcage as long as he lived. What he wanted was no good to anybody but himself, and he wouldn’t devalue them by breathing a word. 

Jason had only ever told one person what he really wanted. That had turned out alright. But it had been really scary too. Jason didn’t want to do it again. He didn’t know what he’d do if he heard ‘no’.

Still, everybody in this house was a dog with a bone, and Jason resolved to give a little just to get the man off his back. “A big dinner on the 25th would be nice,” Jason hesitantly volunteered. And he just knew he’d never shake Bruce from the presents thing, so… “If you want to do presents or whatever, we can do them then.”

Alfred beamed, and Jason gave himself a congratulatory handshake. Successful campaign, total victory, no casualties. Some ground lost, but that was a necessary sacrifice. “It is always nice to have an excuse for a large meal. A suitable celebration of our first year together. Splendid idea, Jason.”

A rousing success! “Oh, no hassle at all.”

But Alfred’s expression just softened, and he carefully smoothed the bedspread near Jason. Jason prepared himself for evasive tactics. “Is there anything you’d like to do with Master Tim and Miss Stephanie?” Jason’s poker face must have said it all, because Alfred gave him another steady look. “Would you be interested in spending any quality time with them while they are home?”

“Uh,” Jason said, internally sweating. “If they…want…?”

“Miss Stephanie will likely insist on it. But you should say no to anything that makes you uncomfortable, Master Jason. She’ll back off if you ask.” Alfred gave Jason a steady eye, making him sweat. “If space and quiet is what you need, Master Jason, you need only ask.”

The prospect was appealing, but Jason was far from lowering the fortifications. Those questions were traps. The last thing Jason wanted to be was trouble. “I’m chill, Alfred! It’s no big deal. Just kinda awkward, ya know? Not used to hearing people in the house.”

“That, I can understand. Adopting Master Tim changed a great deal in this manor. Hearing the sound of young footsteps running down the halls. Music blasting from the den. Messes everywhere. It had been a long time. A very welcome change, I believe.”

“Let me guess,” Jason said flatly. “Tim was super quiet and Stephanie was super loud.”

“Naturally.” Alfred stood up, fixing his slacks a little. “I am excited to see what sort of child you will be, Master Jason. I anticipate meeting the true you. When he is ready to meet me. Have a very good night, Master Jason.”

Alfred turned out the lights and closed the door securely behind him. Jason only rose to lock the door with his personal key that he kept under his mattress, like he did every night, and buried himself under the comforters. 

The enemy hadn’t penetrated his territory. They’d fired a few potshots, but Jason’s fortifications had held strong. Jason was big, tough, impenetrable. Jason couldn’t be seen or touched. You couldn’t even tell if Jason was there or not - he never emerged from his stronghold, and he planned his strategies and tactics from the safety of his base camp. He was not the sort of general who fought on the front lines. 

Jason had thought their goal was to break down his fortifications and overpower his territory. He had assumed them colonizers, trying to take over every inch of Jason’s new life and old heart. He hadn’t known their goal was the general himself. Stupid.

Stupid, stupid, stupid…

*

Today was the day. Huzzah!

Alfred was out picking up Stephanie - apparently her car was still in Jump, so the chauffeur it was - and Jason was left to gawk at Tim thumping away at a laptop in the dining room. He desperately wanted to know if Tim was doing super secret superhero spy stuff, but he couldn’t just ask. Tim never ignored him, but he never paid much attention to him either. The way they both liked it. 

Tim routinely spent most of his time in his study (which Jason had never been inside and would never go inside if he could help it - there were probably lasers). The guy never just sat out in the dining room like this and worked his arcane cybermagic. Jason, sitting at the breakfast bar and steadily decimating an apple, felt trapped. How many times could he flee any room Tim walked into before the guy noticed? It was a toss-up - guy either had Bat-eyes and saw everything, or he only gave a shit about his mysterious computer stuff and didn’t notice anything. Jason was willing to put his non-existent money on Tim pretending the latter when it was really the former. He wouldn’t fall for the tricks.

But maybe he did, because when Tim spoke he was so startled that he almost fell off the chair. 

“I should warn you about Steph.” Tim didn’t look away from his computer, and his typing didn’t slow. “She’s really a lot. Super pushy. Feel free to tell her to fuck off if you want.” Tim paused a beat, undercut by the keyboard rattling. “Am I supposed to curse in front of middle schoolers?”

“I won’t tell Bruce you cursed in front of a twelve year old,” Jason said, faux-loyally. Truthfully, he had the feeling Bruce would ask the same question, but it was good to cultivate a sense of camaraderie. “And yeah, sure. No problem. Super…excited to…meet. Her.” 

“I’m glad it took you two so long to meet. She gave Bruce a really hard time about adopting you. ‘Specially since it was only three months after she left and two months after I did. She said he jumped the gun.” Tim’s fingers froze. “Wait. Did she say it was a good idea or bad idea…?”

That was an important difference, Timothy!

But Jason had no time to interrogate further. The sound of the front doors bursting open resounded through the lobby into the dining room, and Tim bolted to his feet. 

“I’m home!” The voice was impressively loud, and Jason was momentarily taken aback by the thick-ass Bowery accent. That was not a Little Miss Perfect accent. “Wow, Alfie, you put the Ming back out!”

“It was finally safe from you,” Alfred said. “Let me take your bags, Miss -”

“Dope, thanks a million -”

“Steph!” Tim called, moving around the table, and Jason saw to his shock that he was smiling. Actually smiling. Like a normal person. “In here!”

And just like that, Stephanie Brown appeared at the doorway. She grinned brightly, and Tim grinned back, and she wasted no time in tackling Tim in a giant bear hug. Jason - regardless of what he wanted, despite how he felt - was struck dumb.

It was Robin. Robin, in the flesh. He hadn’t really put that together before. He knew obviously but it hadn’t really clicked until he saw her. Jason had seen the pictures and videos of her just like everybody else - seen the graffiti and street art and paintings - listened to every story and heard every tale - but apparently he hadn’t processed that Robin meant Stephanie Brown.  

Seeing her in person hit differently then seeing Bruce in person. Bruce was an idea given a face - Stephanie Brown was a face larger than life, and the idea of Robin in the body of a woman felt like capturing lightning in a bottle. She was wearing low-rise jeans and a purple crop top stamped with a sparkly butterfly that showed off how insanely muscular she was, hair teased into her iconic Robin mane, and she was really super pretty. How could Robin just look like an undergrad? Why did Robin talk like a valley girl?!

Jason had lost before he accepted the challenge. He had lost from day one. He had lost the day Stephanie Brown became a super-smart, super-tough, blue eyed blonde haired hot white girl. And Jason had lost the day he was born. A homeless, go-nowhere kid who would only leave the Narrows when he inevitably went to jail. A brown kid with curly and thick black hair, skinny with an unpleasant and mean face, fucked up forever.

Why did Jason ever think Bruce might let him…

Stephanie Brown hugged Tim so tightly she picked him off the ground, making him wheeze and slap her shoulder. She only dumped him when footsteps came from another hallway on the other side of the dining room, revealing a smiling Bruce. Smiling. Like a guy.

“Stephanie,” Bruce greeted, somehow stiff as ever. “You look…tanned.”

“Six months and that’s what I get?” Stephanie asked loudly. Tim pinched the bridge of his nose. Bruce abruptly looked panicked. “Tanned? I live in California, Bruce, of course I’m tanned! Like, hello! What, no ‘happy to see you’? No ‘welcome home?’”

“Ah,” Bruce said.

“I bulked up! You don’t even care that I totally bulked up!”

Bruce’s panic deepened. “You said it was rude to comment on a woman’s muscles.”

“Muscles are totally in right now, B, keep up.” But Stephanie grinned, smile big and bright. “I can’t believe I missed you so much.”

Jason could only stare in horror as she hugged Bruce, tight and full, and he gently hugged her back. Defcon 5 event. Bruce didn’t hug. Bruce didn’t hug Jason. Well - Jason had told Bruce that he wasn’t allowed to touch him, ever, or he’d cut his hands off with a butter knife. Bruce had stuck to that rule religiously. Jason didn’t really know how to loosen the rule. He had no idea how to ask. 

“He missed you a lot,” Tim snitched, because obviously Bruce wouldn’t. “He missed you so much. It was so embarrassing. I was embarrassed just witnessing it.”

“Say a little less, Timothy.” 

Stephanie separated, unabashedly laughing at the embarrassed Batman, when she finally stopped to see Jason. Jason halted, halfway through eating the core of the apple. They locked eye contact, light blue eyes meeting dark ones, and Jason slowly readied the canons.

His throat was dry. His heart was hammering. The apple core was going down all wrong. Jason…

“Stephanie, I can finally introduce Jason.” Suddenly Bruce was there at his side, smiling encouragingly down at the frozen Jason. “Jason, this is Stephanie Brown. She’s a highly valued partner of mine. Stephanie, don’t overwhelm him.”

“Overwhelming? Me? Never heard of her.” Steph smiled at Tim, warm and happy. This woman did not stop smiling. She had a deadass California valley girl accent and she did not stop smiling. She extended a hand to Jason, who silently thanked God that she didn’t go in for a hug. Did they hug people in California? Californians probably did nothing but hug. “Jason Todd, right? I’ve, like, heard so much about you! I’m super sorry it took so long for us to meet.”

Jason quickly wiped his sticky hand on his jeans before shaking her hand, feeling the rough calluses. “It’s Jason Wayne.” They changed his name with his adoption, on Bruce’s hesitant offer and Jason’s instant acceptance. It was a strategic ploy on Jason’s part - a shared last name would subliminally influence Bruce into thinking of their arrangement as a more long-term, legal one. “Uh - nice to meet you, ma’am.”

“A Wayne with manners! I never thought I’d see the day.” Steph propped her hands on her hips, smile never fading. “Bruce and Tim could stand to learn a thing or two from you. But don’t get formal on me, okay? We’re, like, totes family.”

“Cool,” Jason said. “Thanks.”

Casualties: none. Damage to fortress: negligible. Outcome of first skirmish: rousing success. Jason gave himself a fervent pack on the back. Now he’d stay for five more minutes exactly before running back to the library to work on his workbooks. This family was awesome at forgetting Jason was in the room, if he could just flex that invisibility a bit more -

Steph clapped her hands, drawing the attention of the room. As if it wasn’t already entirely on her. Ugh. “You promised pesto sandwiches for lunch, Alfred! I haven’t had your cooking in six whole months and I’m going insane. Let’s eat as Jason tells me all about himself! Oh, and he’ll totally have to tell us what he wants to do over the break. We have so much family bonding in order. Tim, Bruce, are youse still trying to bite each other’s heads off?”

“Uh,” Bruce said.

“We’re over it?” Tim asked, as if Stephanie needed to tell him.

“Good enough. Holiday planning - go! Oh, but I have the craziest Titans story to tell you guys!”

Wow. They weren’t kidding about the forced bonding. 

Alfred really went all out with lunch, and from Stephanie’s delighted squeals Jason could see that it was all her favorites. They had done Tim’s favorites when he came home too. Jason wondered when they’d do his favorites. Maybe when he went to college? 

College. Hold out for college, Jason. You can make it ‘til college. Maybe Bruce would like him more than Tim by then - Jason wouldn’t try to drop out of Yale.

Jason received the annotated, fast-paced edition of Steph’s life over the next whirlwind twenty minutes. She had something to share about everything - from Jump City weather to how big of a pain it was to do her UC Jump premed college work and lead a superhero team at the same time. She had a mysterious autoimmune illness that let her miss as many classes as she wanted. Very convenient. She and Tim had absolutely no shame in disclosing their rampant lies. Superheroes had no morals. 

Apparently Cyborg was super funky - a jock that could work a computer like magic. Beast Boy was a crazy time and a ton of fun to hang out with, even if he was totally immature. Raven was no fun to hang out with but she was, like, so wild. And Starfire - ha ha, she was super cool, anyway! Her college friends were totally nice too, but the Titans just took up so much of her time. Listen to me recount this entire fight with Mad Mod. Who’s Mad Mod, you ask? I am going to tell you all about it!

The whole table was enthralled. Despite himself, Jason was a little enthralled too. He tried imagining living in a big retooled ex-high rise complex that Tim bought on the cheap with Apple money - whatever that meant - with your four friends as you all fought the weirdest crime with no adult supervision. When your friends were half-demons and half-computers and sometimes-animals and always-aliens. He just couldn’t imagine it - it was a lifestyle too alien from his own. Complete with aliens! No wonder she’d been too busy to visit.

“But the Titans can do without me for one month. Vic needs the practice as a leader. I told them that I haven’t seen my boyfriend in six months and not to comm me for anything short of Raven’s dad picking her up for custody weekend. This month is one hundred percent for my friends, the week my old man is gonna make me spend in Louisiana, and you guys.” Stephanie clapped her hands, smiling broadly. “So! Jason, what do you wanna do? Bruce doesn’t know what money is, we can totally do whatever you want. The world is so your oyster. What are you thinking?”

Jason delicately nibbled at his turkey and cheese sandwich. It had no crusts. His life had gotten so dumb. “I dunno. Whatever youse are down for.”

“Come on, there has to be something. When I was your age I would have sold my left foot to go to Disney World. Bruce would be down for anything anywhere in the world. Or we could go shopping!”

“I have clothes?”

“Do you have clothes from the Disney store? Damn, maybe I was just really into Disney when I was your age. What do you like, Jason, what are you into?”

Jason slowly shredded the sandwich with his teeth. “Um…not much.”

“Jason likes to read,” Bruce volunteered, the traitor. “His reading level is amazing. He’s working on 100 Years of Solitude in Spanish.” Jason had finished that a week ago. He was on a Pablo Neruda collection right now. “But I’m not sure how that translates into an activity.”

“What about sports?” Stephanie asked encouragingly. “You play soccer, Jason?”

Jason mumbled a negative into a tea biscuit. The barrage of cannonballs did not stop.

“What about watching any sports? Bruce could get you tickets to anything.”

“I hate sports,” Tim said.

“This isn’t about you, Timmy.”

‘ “Jason obviously doesn’t care about sports either.”

“Jason cares about something. He’s a twelve year old boy, they’re all brainwashed by commercials and jingles.”

“Not Jason. I’ve never seen him express an opinion on anything.”

“Really?” Bruce asked, surprised. A cannon punctured the outer walls. A watchman pulled the alarm bell. All hands on deck. “Jason’s as opinionated as you, Stephanie.”

Jason’s teeth clenched. Man down. His arm had been blown off by a cannonball. He was bleeding everywhere and screaming bloody murder. The poor man had a daughter. Only five years old. Tragic.

“ ‘Course he is, he’s an East Ender! We’re all grit. I couldn’t believe it when you said you made friends with another kid from my neighborhood. After all that complaining about my accent, too! I’m even going kinda Cali in my civvie ID, it’s super fun. ”

“The Mad Hatter asks you to repeat yourself ‘cause he has no idea what you’re saying,” Tim said, bored. 

“The Mad Hatter’s a punk bitch. The accent’s part of the Robin brand, it’s my whole hometown hero thing. I’m repping me and Jason’s hoods.”

The outer defenses fell, and the enemy streamed in. Screaming, crying, blood. Alarm bells pounded through Jason’s head. His soldiers were dropping like flies, cannonballs blowing their jaws off, and Jason felt the blood build up inside of him. 

That was all Jason had inside of him. Just blood and war. Jason was a brave general who never gave up against the enemy forces, but Jason’s army had been eroded by a long and hard winter that froze most of his men away. The cold had worn parts of Jason down for years, and even when springtime thawed the frost he never saw those parts again. He just couldn’t find them. He was trying so hard to protect himself and Bruce from the blood, but he couldn’t help losing every battle.

“We aren’t from the same hood,” Jason said lowly. A war drum beat in his ears.

Stephanie looked back at him, all wide eyed and innocent and blonde. “Aren’t you an East Ender? I ain’t splitting streets here.”

“You’re from the Bowery,” Jason bit out. “Do I look like I’m from the Bowery? I’m from the Narrows. If I stepped foot in your hood I’d get hate crimed.”

“Ah. Yeah.” Stephanie sombered, putting her sandwich down. “Sorry, kid, I know it’s not the same. Like to think we’re not as bad as we used to be, though.”

“Cool. Awesome. I’ll give your racist-ass Ukranians the ‘not as hate crimey as you could have been’ award.” Jason pushed his chair away from the table and stood up, probably skidding the nice hardwood. “Maybe it’ll finally make up for me not being Doctor fucking Barbie over there.”

Jason ran away from the carved oak dining table sagging with teas and cakes and ices at top speed. Catastrophic defeat. Blame the general’s tactical mistakes. It was all his fault.

He preemptively grounded himself, locking the door to his room and burying himself underneath the covers with a defensive Narnia. When he started hyperventilating he ignored it, and when he cried a little he ignored that too. Jason was super good at ignoring things. He ignored just about everything.

Jason noticed everything. He just ignored it. He’d go crazy if he didn’t. All the shit in the world, all the evils he saw again and again and again. Every woman ever hit and every Mami sliding a needle into her arm.  All the bad guys hurting the guys who ain’t never hurt nobody, just ‘cause they were there…

Jason did want something. He wanted something so damn bad, and he knew he would never ask for it. He wasn’t in the same galaxy as good enough, and there was no point in asking for something you’d never get. Bruce would probably laugh at him if he ever did ask. It didn’t matter that Jason couldn’t ignore bad things happening for one more second, for one more time - it didn’t matter that Jason wanted to do something about it more than anybody in the Narrows had ever wanted it in their whole lives. Jason was the whole damn problem.

He was so embarrassed. His war of attrition hadn’t lasted five seconds. His good streak had been ruined and Bruce was gonna get so pissed at him for being awful. And Bruce and Tim would get mad at him for being rude to Stephanie, and Stephanie probably didn’t feel anger ‘cause she was a saint but Alfred would look so disappointed in him and…

Maybe he should just dip. No, that was stupid. It was literally December. Bruce would give him a hard time but he’d deal with that. Guy wasn’t about to hit him. He was Batman. Batman didn’t do that. End sentence, end of story. 

Batman didn’t hurt kids and Robin always made kids feel safe. Everybody knew that. Even though Stephanie Brown wasn’t making Jason feel too safe right now. But he knew that was his fault - a fault inherent in his own character, in his own heart - and not hers. Jason couldn’t remember what feeling safe felt like. He probably wasn’t sure how anymore.

Nobody came to fetch him or try to talk to him. Jason didn’t know if he was disappointed or not. He just aggressively read and read and read, until the first hints of winter dusk began to fall and he fell asleep much earlier than usual.

*

Bruce liked to tell the story.

He didn’t get a ton of opportunities, since he had to limit himself to people who knew his secret identity. In practicality, this meant that Bruce liked telling the story to his six friends in the Justice League and nobody else. Barry Allen said that Bruce had smiled while telling the story, which had given him a split second heart attack. 

It wasn’t the full story. Jason couldn’t imagine that being the full story - plucky street rat tries to steal the Batman’s tires, the Batman takes pity on him and takes him home forever to live in his house and eat his organic cucumbers, happy ending for everybody. What kind of story was that? Jason would have yelled pedophile in two seconds. Stephanie would have berated Bruce for three hours instead of one. 

 Bruce didn’t mention this part of the story, but the minute Jason’s retaliatory attack with the lead pipe utterly failed he had dropped his weapon and booked it. Jason hadn’t exactly been terrified, but he knew getting caught would mean serious juvie. Worst case scenario, besides all the others. But he had worried his hair out for nothing - Jason ran ten blocks before realizing that Batman wasn’t chasing him at all. A clean escape.

Batman showed up at Jason’s squat the next night. Go fig.

That was the first time they really talked. Batman wasn’t exactly a talkative guy, but Jason had a unique skill for riling Bruce up into an actual argument, and they spent ten pointless minutes going around at each other about how Jason totally had people he was staying with - they’re on vacations, that’s why I’m not staying with them - fine, their pimp had come back and kicked him out - but I stayed with Mrs. Jiminez for three weeks! - well, her son got whooping cough, and I sure as hell couldn’t stick around to catch it - I’ll go back once he’s better, that’s all - yes, obviously I hit up the Church food banks, but you’re more likely to get mugged for food than actually walk away with food, and they prioritize the moms anyway - I don’t need goddamn foster care -

“You can’t keep couch surfing forever,” Batman had said. “You’re spending weeks on the street in-between shelters and friends. It’s not stable.”

“But it’s fine,” Jason had said. He knew it wasn’t great, but things didn’t need to be great when they could be fine. “The Narrows looks out for each other. I’ll just keep like this ‘til I’m old enough for a decent job, that’s all.”

Completely neutrally, Batman had said, “You could drug run.”

“This is entrapment.”

“You could have. You’re the right age for it. Why aren’t you doing that for money?”

“Because I’m not an idiot! That shit shortens your lifespan and lands you in juvie. And I don’t wanna help assholes sell meth to my friends, anyway. Bad enough they’re doing it. I don’t wanna be responsible for that, even a little. Life’s too bad for me to make it worse just for some extra cash.”

Batman had stared at him for a long time. Jason had decided he had won the argument, and thereby had obtained bragging rights forever that he had won an argument with Batman.

Then Batman put him in a foster home. Go fig.

Everybody knew social services was insanely evil and terrible, but Batman had spun half a dozen promises about how he’d personally assure that Jason found a good placement. Apparently he even put in a word with his contact at social services and everything. It landed Jason in a super awesome combo group home/boarding school (See, Jason, an education! Yipee!) under the benevolent hand of a sweet old lady called Ma Gunn. Look, Jason, if you’re so worried, the Batman will take time out of his busy schedule Being Batman to check up on you. Alright? Eat some cookies.

The first day had been fine. Nice, even. That was what he told Batman. He really had come to check up on him, knocking on his window in the middle of the night and helping hoist Jason to the roof so they could sit and talk. He had kept his promise. 

“This doesn’t make you right,” Jason had grumbled. 

Batman’s lip had twitched upwards. “I have it on good authority that I’m not right nearly as often as I think I am.”

“Atticus Finch you are not,” Jason agreed. “More like Odysseus.”

“Why do you think so?”

“Because you know how to beat up mooks, but you obviously like winning your fights through tricking people instead. You’re both, like, theatrical.” Jason had thought about this. Extensively. He’d also gotten into arguments about it, but they were really arguments nobody else wanted to have. “And taking on crime in Gotham’s like taking on the gods. Equal amounts of impossible.”

Batman’s lip twitched up again, a little higher. “Would you call pride my fatal flaw, then?”

“Probably,” Jason said promptly. “You need a lot of pride to take on the gods. But that’s probably the only reason you started doing this at all, so I guess it’s a pretty good thing you have that fatal flaw in the first place. The best fatal flaws are the character’s greatest strengths. That’s when a story is really good.” 

Batman slowly sat down next to Jason. It was pretty weird seeing him like that - sitting down like a guy, cape carefully tucked to his side like any theater performer would do it. Jason could see his jawline. He needed a shave. Batman, shaving! Jason wished he could shave. Maybe he’d be more like Batman if he could.

“What’s your fatal flaw, Jason?”

“Mami always told me I was too angry.” It was one of his clearest memories of her - the disappointment on her face. The way she looked at him. Jason never wanted Mami to look at him like that again. “Too much like my dad. She said I’m gonna lose my temper at the wrong person and get myself hurt one day.” Jason scuffed a battered shoe on the wobbly shingle, making it creak. “But I dunno. The only times in my life I’ve ever really helped people was when I got too angry to see straight. I’m always throwing logic out the door and deciding to do what’s right even if it’s a bad idea. If the trouble I’m always getting into helps other people out, then that’s trouble I’m okay with. Do you know what I mean?”

“I do.”

Jason had the feeling he would.

They talked for hours, long after Jason’s bedtime and probably long into Batman’s own work schedule beating up mooks. They only stopped when Jason couldn’t repress the yawns anymore, and Batman ended up carrying Jason back to bed. Jason had insisted he wasn’t tired, mostly because he wanted to keep talking about Emma and how Jason’s life dream was to be rich and set up all his friends with boyfriends who deserved them, but he fell asleep the minute his head hit the pillow anyway

When he woke up the next morning he thought it might have been a dream. What a weird dream that would be. What a weird and magical dream - one where Batman listened to everything Jason had to say and more, and one where Batman only left him because they couldn’t stay up talking any more. Jason hated himself a little for falling asleep at all. He wanted that night to go on forever. Now that he was in a nice little boarding school he would never see Batman again. For such an obvious sentence it was a little disappointing. 

Two weeks later Jason stood in front of a burning brick building, flanked by a mob of rabid children, tying up an evil old lady and cracking open crate after crate of evil child brainwashing drug and dumping it on the cement sidewalk. 

The police found him very quickly. They didn’t listen to a word he said, no matter how much proof Jason waved in their faces. He had been super careful to dig up a ton of proof, even taking pictures of the secret basement and the kid’s bruises and an audio recorded confession. Nobody wanted to hear it. Jason had to bite his way through a police station and dump his evidence on the Commissioner's desk just to get anything done around here. 

The Commissioner had pinched the bridge of his nose. The bridge of his nose had thumbnail creases. “Kid, you just committed five different felonies.”

“She was brainwashing children!”

“I believe you, kid, I believe you.” Commissioner Gordon grabbed the first sheaf of pictures, flipping through them quickly and squinting at each one. Under his breath, he muttered, “Never thought I’d miss Robin. She’d know what the hell to do with you.”

“Is Robin dead?” Jason asked, freaked. He loved Robin. She was literally Robin!

“What? No, she’s off doing…Batman never said. Either ninja training or college, it’s a toss-up. I think she cried when she hugged me goodbye, I couldn’t believe -”

The landline on the desk rang, and the Commissioner obviously intended to ignore it until he saw the flashing ‘Priority’ button. He picked up the headset, bushy mustache wagging. “Andrea, what - Jesus Christ! How the hell did you - dumb question, never mind.”

Jason perked up. Something told him… “Is that Batman? Is Batman calling you on your phone?”

“Do you see a Gordon signal?” The Commissioner asked him. Jason shrugged, and the Commissioner turned his attention back to the phone. His eyebrows furrowed closer and closer at Batman talked. “Already? What do you - I can drop the charges, but that black mark on his file isn’t going away.” He grimaced apologetically at Jason. Jason, who had no intention of returning to Social Services ever again, shrugged. “He’ll probably have to spend the night in the cells until we drop the charges and find him an emergency placement, but - you can’t be serious.” He was silent for a long moment before exclaiming, “What kind of favor does he owe you - how big is that favor? You can’t be - it’s three in the morning, I - Batman! Batman! Dammit!”

The Commissioner dropped the headset back on the cradle and groaned, falling back into his seat. Jason cautiously sidled backwards from the desk. He was prepared to do a runner. He’d bitten his way into this office and he’d bite his way out. 

“Kid, you sit right down in that chair. You are not moving until your emergency foster placement comes to get you.” The Commissioner kneaded his forehead, groaning. “Out of all the favors for all the Gothamites, why did it have to be this one…”

“Eh?” Jason said.

“You’re a very lucky kid, Jason Todd. And I’m praying for you.”

“Eh?”

It was the only appropriate response. Jason found out an hour later that the emergency placement was Bruce fucking Wayne. Bruce Wayne, who practically crashed into Gordon’s (he had been downgraded - Jason and Gordon were homies in Christ now) office, tie half-done and suit jacket limp over his shoulders. Jason wondered who the hell put on a suit at three am. He also wondered who the hell looked that panicked to be dealing with Jason, of all people. Had he heard about the biting?

“I’m so sorry I’m late, I’ve been having a heart attack for the past hour - you ever get woken up by Batman, Jim? That ever happen to you? How’d he even get my number?” Gordon opened his mouth. “Stupid question, sorry. Is that the kid? Hey, kid!”

Then Bruce Wayne grinned, big and anxious, and held out his hand. Jason shook it. Bruce sat down in the chair next to him, slouching and tucking himself into the chair a bit. It was pretty slick - Jason almost hadn’t noticed how freaking huge the guy was. 

“Uh,” Jason said. “It’s Jason Todd.”

“Well, Batman could have stood to mention that!” Bruce Wayne exclaimed, offended beyond belief. “You know what he told me? He called me up and was all like - you remember the Rose Bowl? Yes, I remember the Rose Bowl, hard to forget - and then he’s like, I’m calling that in. He’s all like, you’re still registered as a foster parent, right? And of course I am, after that whole thing with Tim - Tim’s doing great, Jim, by the way, I would say that he says hello but we kinda aren’t talking right now, but he would say hello if we were talking - which Batman knows about, because he was the one who called me up about Tim in the first place - why me, Jim! Why is it always me!”

“I cannot possibly say,” Gordon said.

Bruce barrelled through, ignoring him. “So he tells me to get here pronto, there’s a kid who needs a roof over their head and apparently I’m the only one he trusts to provide that roof right now. Me! Can you believe it! He said the same thing about Tim! The kid could have had the mob after him - actually, it’s kind of common knowledge I don’t touch the mob, that’s probably why - none of that’s important right now. Oh, and then he hung up on me. Go figure, right? Have you eaten, Jason? I brought you lunch. And some hygiene stuff and a change of clothes. The butler fusses.”

Jason stared at Bruce. Bruce smiled anxiously at Jason.

“No hablo inglés,” Jason decided. 

Without changing his facial expression at all, Bruce repeated the last few sentences in Spanish.

“Hindi ako nagsasalita ng ingles,” Jason rapidly made up. 

Bruce repeated the last few sentences in Tagalog, poker faced. 

“What the fuck,” Jason said.

“Rúguǒ nǐ yuànyì dehuà, wǒ yě huì shuō zhōngwén,” Bruce said, still smiling. “Dàn wǒ hěn quèdìng nǐ de yīngyǔ hěn hǎo, suǒyǐ rúguǒ nǐ yuànyì, wǒmen kěyǐ jìxù shuō yīngyǔ.”

Jason felt his psychological control over the situation slipping away. He had to maintain the upper hand. Establish dominance over rich people. “I’m a gutter child, my English is terrible,” Jason lied in Spanish, completely unapologetic. “If you make me speak English I’m gonna rack up more arson charges.”

“Whatever makes you comfortable, Jason!” Bruce said in Spanish. He turned to Gordon, switching to English. “There’s a lot of papers to sign, right? Just give them to me right now. Actually, can I duck out and grab Jason’s food first? Faking monolingualism takes a lot out of a kid.”

The food was good. It was super fancy rich people sandwiches. Bruce said that one of them had pesto before explaining what pesto was before Jason had to ask. Thoughtful of him?

That was roughly how Jason ended up in the passenger seat of a Porsche, nibbling his third sandwich and staring at the man in the driver’s seat. Gordon had muttered something about how Bruce was “as neurotic and awkward as ever” before giving Jason his business card and telling him to call before set another building on fire. Jason could definitely see the neuroticism: he went over the emergency foster placement papers once, twice, three times. He had detailed to Jason in completely fluent Spanish what exactly was going to happen the next few days and what he could expect, that he was going to get a key for his room and nobody would go inside if he didn’t want them inside, do you have any rules for me and Alfred (the butler - what was this, the Prohibition?) that you’d like us to follow? We can talk about my own later. Understood about touching you, thanks for telling me.

Jason watched Bruce drop the papers in his lap and slowly thunk his forehead on the steering wheel. His index finger was tapping the leather cover repeatedly in a steady staccato, a silent nervous tic. 

Eventually Jason felt too bad for him to bear the silence any longer. In Spanish, he said, “Chill, man. It’s just for a few days, right?”

Bruce raised his head, glaring intently at the steering wheel. He still seemed a little half-manic. “Right. Just a few days. Then we’ll find you a good placement. I know people. It’ll be fine.”

“Oh, I am totally booking it,” Jason said sympathetically. “Nice try, though.”

“Jason, please stop trying to sleep on the sidewalk.”

“Why not?” Jason demanded. “It’s better than foster care. How am I supposed to believe that you’d find decent people, huh? Batman said he’d find decent people and he dumped me in an evil crime boarding school!”

Weirdly enough, that made Bruce outright wince. “Batman fu - Batman messed up. He really, really messed up. There is no excuse for how badly he messed up. Alright? But that’s not happening again. We’ll -”

“Who the hell would take me?” Jason asked, and Bruce quieted. “Who would want me, dude? Nobody in this goddamn city wants me around. I had to do something about that crazy old lady before she started baking kids into pies or something, and now I’m legally an arsonist. And if I meet any more evil people messing with kids then I’d do an arson on them too. I’d do a thousand arsons if I had to! Why the hell would anybody want me in their house?”

“Who wouldn’t!” Bruce cried, and Jason fell silent in bizarre shock. “You - you’re smart and passionate and kind. You took down an entire drug smuggling ring by yourself, Jason, that’s incredible. You’re a good kid. You’re a really good kid. Any parent would be lucky to have you.”

Jason’s eyes were burning, and his stomach was churning in thick knots. He was tired and confused and far away from home - far away from everything he had once considered home, and from everything he knew. He was in unprecedented territory. In a Porsche. As some rich guy told him he was a good kid.

“How would you know, huh?” Jason asked, voice thick. “I’ve never met you before in my life. How would you know something like that?”

“It’s obvious, Jason,” Bruce said quietly. “It’s obvious just looking at you.”

Jason stuffed the rest of his sandwich in his mouth and refused to say anything more. 

An emergency placement. Bruce Wayne said the phrase frequently, almost as a shield - against a very unimpressed butler, during a very heated phone call which left him wincing repeatedly. It’s an emergency placement, I’m not - this has nothing to do with - not everything is about you, you know - it’s not about Tim either! - it’s an emergency placement -

When he hung up he looked haunted. Jason gave him a sympathy banana. 

“That your girlfriend?”

Bruce took the banana, dead eyed. “It’s somebody who you do not want to get on the bad side of.”

“You on her bad side?”

“I might be in the dog house.”

“Ouch.” Jason started unwrapping his own banana, carefully peeling off the strings and dangling them into his mouth. “Hey, you ever read The Fellowship of the Ring? I heard they’re making a live action movie.”

“How on Earth are you supposed to capture the scale of Lord of the Rings in a live action movie?” Bruce asked, appalled. “It’ll be worse than that cartoon I saw as a kid.”

“There was a cartoon? Can we watch it?”

“Sure,” Bruce said. “I don’t have anything else to do right now.”

Even back then Jason knew it was a lie. He didn’t say anything about it. When Bruce took his big stack of scary CEO papers and sat next to Jason in the library, signing papers with a ballpoint pen silently as Jason read East of Eden, Jason didn’t say anything about that either. It always ended up with Bruce getting distracted and asking him about what was happening in the book, and then they would both get distracted as Jason explained the Biblical allegories, and the work would go forgotten. 

He should do his work on time. Guy was always super tired every morning. Jason got in the habit of secretly making him extra-strength coffee and slipping him a big mug when Alfred turned his back. Bruce almost cried the first time he did it. Jason leveraged the gratitude to score free reign in the attic and upper floors. 

That made for an incredible day of digging through heaps and heaps of boxes shoved away in dusty corners, digging his hands into antique World War II memorabilia and 19th century pocketwatches. Every box held the fragments of a dozen stories, and Jason eagerly took notes whenever a new object sparked a new idea. 

This Vietnam soldier’s helmet obviously belonged to a brave soldier who died trying to save innocents during the My Lai massacre…some say that his ghost haunted the perpetrators until their dying breaths and cursed their family lines for a hundred generations. That cuckoo clock was obviously a gift from a baron to a baroness, aching for her love - but she had promised her hand to the baron’s brother, a humble watchmaker born out of wedlock. He made that antique gold pocketwatch stuffed in the bottom of the box, obviously.

He only got a little embarrassed about the whole thing when Bruce asked at dinner where he had gotten the inspiration pocketwatch stuffed in his jeans. He had no idea how to explain how important it was for literary purposes. But Bruce just listened seriously to the story of the baron, the baroness, and the peasant watchmaker. Then he asked if the enamel birds in the watchface had some sort of symbolic meaning between the watchmaker and the baroness, and of course they did, and Bruce listened to everything he had to say for hours on hours.

Jason meant to book it his second night there. But he got distracted staying up reading, and he slept past his escape window. The night after that he didn’t feel like it, and the night after that it was raining way too hard. The night after that Jason didn’t think about it at all.

On the seventh night in Bruce’s house, Jason heard a tapping on the window. His heart leapt, and he eagerly threw off the covers. There was a dark shadow shrouded over his window, and he eagerly unlatched it and worked the creaky wood open until he could shove it all the way to the top and see Batman hanging out on the windowsill, cool as you please. 

“I thought you weren’t coming!” Jason cried, backing up a little in an attempt to give Batman space to swoop inside. He didn’t - he just stayed at the window, expression unreadable in the black night. “After everything that happened you aren’t bothering to check in on me again?”

“I trust Wayne. And I’ve been occupied.” Batman withdrew a file folder from his cape - what, did it have a kangaroo pouch or something? - and passed it to Jason. He flipped it open, squinting at the small text in the darkness. “Dossier of potential foster parents. Most of them are same-sex couples who are being stonewalled for regular adoption. Normal, middle class couples. One couple are both Mexican, and another couple is a Black woman and a South Asian woman. If you’d prefer…same race.” Batman paused, suddenly a bit awkward. “Are any of those the same race as you?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

 Jason did not know. Mami spoke Spanish and that was all he knew. He didn’t look anything like her. Jason was a bit lighter than Dad and had different hair, and Dad had Indian reservation stories from his dad. Scary ones. That was all he knew about that too. The de la Cruces down the hall, who had half-raised him, were certain he was mostly Filipino. They were the first ones to blame for the rampant Taglish, and the Mendezes on the second floor who also half-raised him were to blame for the Spanglish. The foul mouth was all Todd.

Sometimes it left him kind of confused about himself - like he was a lot of things that he wasn’t and some things that he was. That there were a few things that he should be but was not. That there were some things he could never be even if he wanted to. He had a lot missing that everybody else he knew just took for granted - but you could say that about a lot of things in Jason’s life. 

Every family in the dossier looked good. A lot of them were lesbian couples. That was really appealing. Not a single man but Jason in the house. No need to worry about anybody. Nobody to protect anybody from.

Somehow, Jason found himself saying, “Are these emergency placements too?”

“They’d be permanent. If you find no cause to burn down the house.”

“And what if I run away?”

“We’ll find something else,” Batman said. “We’ll keep trying.”

Middle class lesbians in the suburbs. People who’d speak Spanish or Tagalog with him. People who’d stay. It was a nice thought. 

When Jason spoke his throat was dry. He didn’t really know why. Maybe he just didn’t want to know. “Bruce said he’d see Fellowship with me when it came out.”

“You can still do that,” Batman said instantly. “Wayne would keep up contact with you. If that’s what you want.” Batman halted hard before saying, “Is Wayne - satisfactory? As a guardian?”

“He’s not exactly an option,” Jason said, ticked off.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Why did you ask it?”

“Call it curiosity.” 

“What good does curiosity do?” Jason asked. Man, Batman could be so frustrating. New sentences. “He’s an emergency placement. He’s said it, like, ten times. Nobody’s going to let me stay with the top bajillionaire of Gotham. He only adopted that other kid ‘cause they were neighbors and family friends already. Bruce and I aren’t in the same universe.”

“If you could.” Batman was still perched on his windowsill, a long streak of night in the already absolute darkness. Nothing like the city. Night descended in the suburbs. The city never slept, and Batman never seemed so far away. “If anything was possible. And if you could have anything you wanted. What would you choose, Jason?”

Jason was silent for a long second, but in the end it wasn’t so hard to say. Moments with Batman never felt quite real, and Jason always found himself letting his guard down. He could tell Batman his heart’s desire - something he could barely even admit to himself.

Finally, Jason had to say, “This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever said in my life. But he’s kind of like me, you know? I’ve never met anybody else like me before. Especially not in a mansion in Bristol. Isn’t that weird?” Jason paused, weird and uncertain. He felt new. He wasn’t sure if he liked it or not. “I don’t care about the money. I don’t want any of it. I’ve just never met anybody who thought the same way I do. It’s kinda dumb that we’re so similar…I dunno if I’m ever gonna find that again. I don’t want to ditch it, you know…isn’t that dumb? It’s dumb of me, right?”

Batman was silent for a long second, just long enough to embarrass Jason. Way to go off about how you’re BFFs with a billionaire, Jase. He definitely sounded like he just wanted the money. Like, hello! The money was what made things weird! He would rather they all live in a normal house that still had a butler for some reason. Less walking and better heating. Definitely less ghosts. What would Jason do with a mansion, anyway?

Batman didn’t say anything. He just gestured for Jason to move back a little, and once Jason scrambled back a few steps he effortlessly slid through the window into Jason’s guest bedroom. Jason had never really stood in the same room as Batman - all of their rendezvous were always outside - and it gave him a subtly different air. Less like a byproduct of natural and mystical forces and more like a guy. It fit better. 

“He doesn’t fit the profile of your ideal placement.”

Weird fucking sentences from Batman today. “People aren’t profiles,” Jason said, baffled. “What am I, Robocop?”

“He’s almost completely inexperienced with actual parenting. You’d probably need somebody better suited to helping you process your life so far.”

“I’m pretty inexperienced with being parented, so we’d be even.” Jason was growing more and more confused. But something else was rising in him too - the exact opposite of confusion, small and strange and persistent. He didn’t want to look too closely at it, but he couldn’t turn away. “And I dunno who’d be perfect at dealing with a fuck-up like me. You know ‘em?”

“There has to be somebody.”

“I don’t want to live with somebody,” Jason cried, “I want to live with Bruce! I’m not saying he’d be perfect, but I want to give him a shot. He’s a good guy!”

“You don’t know him well.”

“I can tell just by looking at him,” Jason said. “I dunno what he wants, Batman. Or if he wants me here or not. But I can tell he’s a good person. Can’t you?”

Batman was silent. He was hard to see in the dark, nothing but an outline and smear of black amidst the empty bookshelf and creaky window, and impossible to read. But Jason could feel something in the darkness, something clearer and clearer, and he didn’t need to see it to believe it. 

“Can you turn on the light, Jason?”

Jason silently turned around and walked across the room to the door, flipping the lightswitch and blinking hard as bright white light chased away the shadows. He turned around slowly, heart thumping a hard rhythm in his chest, breath catching.

But there had been no reason to be scared. He saw exactly what he had expected.

Bruce Wayne stood in his bedroom, cowl pulled down. His eyes were rimmed with thick purple bags, and even though his face was implacable stone there was something tight and fragile about the way he stood, like a glass ornament spinning on a Christmas tree. 

“If Bruce Wayne could have anything he wanted,” Bruce rasped, “he would want you to stay. He would like that very much.”

Hot tears pricked at Jason’s eyes, and he knew his heart was burning. He knew Bruce was searching for something in his own face - shock, betrayal, confusion - but he knew Bruce couldn’t find it. Jason mostly just felt kind of overwhelmed. His life had gotten super dumb.

“Bruce Wayne’s a rich asshole who always gets everything he wants. What the hell do I care about that!”

“I’ve never met anybody else like me either,” Bruce said, and for the first time he was calm and sure - as if he’d come to a resolution in the last few seconds, at some invisible tipping point, and there was no turning back now. “Kids like you are one in a million, Jason. I’d hate to let that go.”

Ugh. Ugh! This sucked! This was so embarrassing! Jason wasn’t going to cry! He rubbed hard at his nose, reiterating his point that he was not gonna cry. Teenage boys didn’t do stupid shit like that. 

“I’ll burn down your house if I have to,” Jason warned.

“I would probably deserve it.”

“You’ll have to get your act together.”

“I’ve been meaning to get around to it,” Bruce said, straight faced.

“We aren’t that similar,” Jason insisted, feeling the need to save face for some reason. Batman saying that you were like a mini Batman should have put any kid over the moon. But Bruce Wayne was kind of embarrassing. Miss Jason with that rich boy shit. “Your teeth are too good and you’re super neurotic.”

“Just around children,” the Dark Knight said seriously. “It’s a weakness.”

“I am your second foster placement.”

“If your first exposure to children as an adult were Tim and Stephanie as middle schoolers you would also be frightened of children.”

“Are you calling the Narrows orphan the least scary child you’ve dragged in here?” Jason paused a beat. “Wait. Who’s Stephanie?”

The beginning of the end, mostly. But Jason had no way of knowing that at the time.

*

Jason did not take evasive action. 

That would imply he was avoiding anybody. A retreat. But that was far from the situation. The terrain (Wayne manor, for those following along at home) was an ideal site to take cover from the enemy, and that was exactly what he was doing. If they found Jason in the library then obviously he wasn’t hiding from everybody else. 

That would imply he was scared of anybody. Jason was not scared of anything. He didn’t even know the meaning of the word, despite all of the other words he knew the meanings of. An enemy thinking you were scared (erroneously!) was a weapon in their hands. 

Man, Jason really couldn’t wait until Stephanie and Tim left. He missed Bruce. Jason-and-Bruce, specifically - when Bruce let him read old Batman case reports and they talked for ages about the mistakes made by the bad guy, the cops or the city, Bruce, and Stephanie, and how to avoid making them next time. It was kind of fascinating watching the sheer quantity of mistakes Stephanie made in her first and second years as Robin before they quickly began to taper off into the stupidly competent vigilante everybody knew she was. It was downright funny how many mistakes Batman made. Less than Stephanie by far but still super noticeable in hindsight. Jason knew that the Batman-and-Robin perfection had been a bluff. 

 Bruce hadn’t taken him to the Zen garden in the museum district for ages. Yeah, it was winter, but Jason wanted to feed the koi. He hadn’t exactly asked to go, but what if Bruce was too busy and said no? It’d be super embarrassing. 

Max embarrassment would be Bruce thinking he was scared. He might think Jason was a coward. Imagine Batman thinking you’re a coward. Other kids didn’t have this problem. If their parents thought they were lame then they were probably lame parents. If Batman thought you were lame then that said something about your character. 

Jason set up camp in the library, but he couldn’t really focus on his books. He even lowered himself to check out the shelf of comics and manga (did Bruce buy Stephanie Sailor Moon? All of Sailor Moon!?), but after four volumes of Sailor Moon he was too restless to keep reading. 

A sticky note was used as a bookmark halfway through volume three. It read: GEOMETRY PROBLEMS 1-10; PIAGET BOOK; PARTY DRESS - LAVENDER; MAKE TIM GO OUTSIDE (DATE?)(BRUCE →?)

Ugh. He was reading her Sailor Moon. Whatever, it was Wayne Sailor Moon now. Jason didn’t know what Stephanie was doing with the foundations of child psychology, but he didn’t want to find out. 

The only times Jason outright asked Bruce if they could go outside and have fun was when he noticed Bruce hadn’t really gone outside and had fun in a while. He did not like sharing this trait. But that was mostly because Jason got kind of shy about asking for things, and he could only really summon up the grit if it was for the other person’s own good. Who spent so much time and energy on other people’s Vitamin D? She was obviously busy enough. Had she done all the emotional labor? No wonder everybody acted like she was in charge - they couldn’t really be bothered to do her ‘job’ themselves.

Jason was not Stephanie Brown. He quietly resolved not to go above and beyond doing emotional labor for Bruce. It wasn’t the kid’s job to take care of the parent. Stephanie was his partner, she could do that all she wanted. Jason wondered if she was a partner before she was a kid. 

The library had a computer, a stocky PC with a chunky mouse and keyboard attached. A big tower sat next to it, and there was a little binder leaning against the side. Jason had always avoided the computer out of obscure fear and confusion, but he found himself reassessing now. He used to hang out in internet cafes. He’d seen people use computers, even if he’d barely touched one himself. He could figure it out, right?

Turned out the hardest part was looking for the letters on the keyboard. It took a few minutes, but figuring out the mouse and the menus were pretty easy. He wiggled his mouse around the Windows XP, pressing on a little picture of a spiky ball and opening up a game called Minesweeper. He messed around with it for a while, but he couldn’t really figure out the rules, so he quickly closed it out. 

He considered clicking on the ‘N’ picture and using the internet. The last time he’d used a computer was to check the internet - he had asked Bruce to search the news to see what people were saying about his adoption. He quickly regretted it. Jason didn’t really want to go on the internet again. 

On impulse, Jason grabbed the binder leaning on the computer tower and opened it. He was surprised to see that it was full of CDs, tucked neatly inside sleeve after sleeve. He flipped through the binder, the sheer quantity of CDs shocking him. He had no idea rich people loved computer games so much! 

Jason picked out the first CD he saw with people on it - The Sims - and fed it into the computer. He wiggled the mouse impatiently as the screen froze for a few seconds before it went dark. Just when he thought he’d broken it the screen lit up again, showing a menu and blasting a jazzy tune through the speakers.

You could make your own people? You could build them a house and make them get married? You could make them cheat on each other? This was like writing a story, but if the characters could move themselves around and start beating each other up. This was great. Jason wished he’d had a computer way earlier. 

The weak winter sunlight shining through the windows dimmed, and eventually extinguished itself completely. Jason, wrapped up in discovering the easiest ways to murder your own Sims to facilitate a Hamlet-esque plotline (the key was a swimming pool and a deleted ladder), didn’t notice until he heard the echo of footsteps down the aisle. He frantically tried to close his book before remembering he was using a computer, and he wasted precious moments trying to figure out how to do the computer equivalent of closing your book before realizing it was too late. 

“Alfred says it’s time to wash up for dinner.” Unsaid: you did not skip dinner. Jason ‘Malnourishment’ Wayne did not skip anything, under literal doctor orders.

Jason startled, looking around the library for the first time and realizing that hours had passed. He hadn’t even noticed. Tim walked forward, moving to stand a few feet behind Jason. Bruce had given him the personal space talk. Saved Jason the effort.

“Sorry,” Jason said, half-defensively. “Lost track of time.”

“Yeah, Bruce said you normally weren’t in here for so long.” Tim squinted at the computer monitor, watching Bella Goth cry at her abandoned wedding altar as her ex-fiance ran away with his mistress. “Is that my old copy of the Sims?”

“What, do you want it back?” Jason snapped.

“I only really played Sim City and Civ. Do you hate me?”

Jason choked on his spit, the sheer whiplash sending his head spinning. Tim just blinked at him, expression neutral and posture loose with his arms folded against his chest. He said it like he was asking if Jason preferred cheese or pepperoni. As if he didn’t give two shits about the answer. 

“Of course I don’t hate you!” Jason cried, solely on reflex. Tim squinted dubiously, silently asking if he had said that solely on reflex. “I mean - look, man, we ain’t beefing! We’re cool!”

“You refuse to be in the same room as me.” Tim didn’t seem particularly offended by this. “It’s fine if you do. I just think Bruce wants to know.”

“I don’t! Jeez, who just asks that! Who’s gonna say ‘yeah, I hate you!’. Just take a hint or something!”

“Sorry,” Tim said, not sounding altogether that apologetic. “I don’t like beating around the bush on things. Steph says I’m straightforward. You aren’t. If there’s a miscommunication we ought to clear it up.”

God. He was worse than Bruce. Jason didn’t know that was possible. He rolled his eyes, going back to his game and refusing to look at Tim. It made the whole conversation a lot easier. He made Bella go flirt with the neighbor, just to help her feel something. “There’s no miscommunication. We talked about this ages ago. Remember? I asked if it was cool that I was playing your video games, you said you didn’t live here so it was whatever? There was an understanding, dude.”

Judging by Tim’s face he didn’t remember that at all, and he may in fact not actually understand, but that wasn’t Jason’s problem. Tim’s terrible memory was his own fault. “Sure. But that doesn’t answer my question.” 

Bella Goth was rejected. Her snotty tears grossed out the other Sim. The realism in this game was off the chain.“I answered your question. I don’t hate you. Can you drop this? I know you’re only bugging me ‘cause Steph told you to.”

“She told me to leave you be, actually. I honestly have no idea where she is right now.” So he had gone rogue. Great. “She told me months ago that you were probably avoiding me because you were worried that I would make Bruce kick you out or something. I thought you wanted some space to figure out the reality of the situation on your own, but I guess you didn’t. Maybe I should have said something.”

Frankly, Jason couldn’t believe that Tim had strung five thoughts together regarding Jason at all. “And what would you have said, huh?” Jason asked. He couldn’t muster the energy to be polite or diffuse or distract anymore. He was just kind of tired. Life couldn’t be a war on all fronts. It wore you down too far. “You’re such a big fat genius. What would you have said to make me feel better and convince me that you aren’t a threat?”

“I used to blow up buildings.”

Jason stared at Tim. Tim stared at him. 

“Uh,” Jason said.

“Can I sit down?”

Jason dumbly nodded. Tim shrugged and sat down next to him, keeping the careful foot of distance between them. Sitting closer like this, Jason could see the bags under his eyes and tired lines around his mouth clearly. A guy that young shouldn’t have frown lines. 

“I won’t go into it,” Tim continued, even and easy. “It’s not really a time in my life I like to remember. It was only a few months after the mob gunned down my parents and I came to live with Bruce.” Jason’s eyes widened, and he couldn’t help sucking in a breath. Tim looked distantly amused. “You don’t remember? It was big news five years ago.”

“I was, like, seven. I wasn’t really watching the news.” But it did sound pretty familiar. Tim had to have been Jason’s age. The thought made Jason’s stomach churn uncomfortably. “Sorry that happened. Must have sucked.”

“It happens to a lot of kids in this city. I’m probably the luckiest.” That was one way to look at it, but kind of a weird one. “I was angry. So angry I couldn’t see or think straight. I wanted to hurt them back. I started out doing smaller stuff, hacking into accounts and setting the IRS on people and everything. But it wasn’t violent enough. What had happened to me was violent, and I wanted to be violent too. Started blowing up warehouses. Fucking miracle I didn’t kill anybody. I almost killed a lot of people. Almost killed Steph.”

If Jason had been scared of this guy before, he was pants-shittingly terrified now. Holy shit. He didn’t know Tim could get scarier. Or more criminal. 

He knew Tim was ashamed of it. It was obvious just from the look on his face. But it was really only when he mentioned hurting Stephanie that he actually seemed pained. 

“All that to say, Jason,” Tim said, “Bruce still adopted me. The adoption hadn’t even gone through. He could still back out. But he barely even punished me. Steph was unconscious, I was sitting at her bedside - and he told me I’d already learned my lesson. I had.” He paused a beat. “He also said that Steph herself was punishment enough. Which was also true.”

Wow. Batman and Robin were family members with a domestic terrorist. And they just, like, kinda gave him a hard time about it. It was incredible. It’s like being superheroes made their standards lower somehow. It definitely explained why Bruce saw a homeless asshole like Jason and randomly decided he was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Tim Drake-Wayne had put the bar on the ground. 

He could be the good kid. 

“Bruce is the most stubborn person you’ll ever meet. He’s Steph with a rich white man’s confidence. He’s implacable and I’ve never seen him change his mind on anything. If he makes a decision, he does it. There is literally nothing you can do that would jeopardize your place in the house, up to and including domestic terrorism.” Tim paused a beat. “And he’s already way more attached to you than he was to me at that point. I can’t think of a reason to worry.”

Jason mumbled something vague and incoherent about how Steph could probably change Bruce’s mind.

“Why would she do that?”

Jason made garbled noises about how he had been a jerk at dinner, so…

“When you think of an actual reason why Steph or I would want you gone let me know so I can refute it.” Tim paused, pointedly waiting for Jason to summon up an actual halfway decent logical reason why Stephanie Brown or Tim Drake-Wayne would somehow want him dead, gone, and onto the street. He completely failed. Tim didn’t seem surprised. “Cool. Stop flipping over nothing. Bruce likes you ten times as much as he likes me. You’re fine.”

Tim didn’t sound resentful or upset about it, but he was hard to read. The words struck Jason oddly - that even as Jason sat there stressing over being the expendable one, Tim was already writing Jason off as the favorite. Were any of them on the same page? Did Stephanie secretly think that Tim was the golden kid? Did anybody in this family actually understand it, or were they all blindly stumbling around, desperately trying to find the right way to love each other?

It didn’t cohere with Jason’s militaristic viewpoint. There was an enemy. There had to be. Otherwise nobody knew what was going on. It felt like a worst case scenario.

Jason found himself shifting uncomfortably on the very comfortable chair. He stared hard at the screen, aimlessly clicking his Sims around and watching them set food on fire. He pretended hard that he wasn’t talking to Tim. He was just doing what he always did and speaking to himself, playing with the figures in his head and keeping them neatly tucked inside his own mind, where nobody had to see and nobody had to know.

“What’s you and Bruce’s relationship anyway?” Jason hoped to god the question sounded casual. He was aware it probably didn’t. “He never refers to you as his kid.”

“I’m not,” Tim said shortly. Jason wondered how often he’d had to say it. Maybe people were typically too polite to ask? “I had a father. When I came to live with him I wasn’t exactly in the market for a new one, and I never decided I needed one.”

“So what are you, then?”

Tim hesitated.

Jason knew more about how Bruce’s guardianship of Tim ended than how it began. Alfred had really only shared two things about it: that Tim and Bruce loved each other but didn’t always get along, and that they had a gigantic blow-out fight that ended up in Tim packing his bags and leaving for Boston two months early, the week he turned eighteen. The subject of the fight was uncertain. It was either about everything or nothing, or maybe a lot of little things blown up in everyone’s face. They never really stopped working together on Batman stuff, but Bruce and Tim stopped talking as much.

They had chilled out. They still argued a bit, but it had never really felt like father-son arguing. They always sounded exasperated with each other, as if they were mutually shocked that they were telling each other what to do. From the sounds of it they always thought the other person was trying to make them do the stupidest thing on Earth. 

“I don’t know if I can describe it in a word,” Tim said finally. Jason didn’t fight the weird satisfaction that Tim had taken the question seriously enough to stop and think about it. “Definitely not a dad. More like a much older brother, I guess, but not really that either. Not a teacher and responsibility like he is for Steph. A friend on some level, maybe. Batman and Red Robin are teammates, so there’s that element. I don’t know. I guess we never put a name to it. Do we need to?”

“I guess not.” 

Jason had a lot of people in his life who he couldn’t dredge up the right names for. ‘Neighbor’ or ‘babysitter’ or ‘friend’ rarely cut it when the neighbor fed you when Mom was too high to put together a meal or grocery shop, and friends didn’t let you couch surf when you were turned out on the street. Sometimes people are more important than words.

But Jason found himself hesitating anyway. Despite that - despite all of that, despite everything he knew and everything he had convinced himself he didn’t care about - he couldn’t help but ask. It shouldn’t have mattered. But it did, at least to Jason. 

“What are you and me, then?” Jason asked. He hoped it sounded casual. He knew that it didn’t.

He couldn’t see Tim’s face, which was very much on purpose. He didn’t know what Tim was thinking, and he couldn’t tell the look on his face. Maybe he looked like Jason had dropped a dead rat on his table and asked him to love it. Not that Jason had asked him to love it. Jason wouldn’t do that. That would be a really weird thing to ask someone who destabilized foreign dictatorships. He just…he just…

Sometimes you asked a question you didn’t want to know the answer to. You had to ask the question anyway. You just couldn’t stand not knowing - you couldn’t stand living in a world where you hadn’t even asked, where you hadn’t even tried. 

Jason was always scared. But he always waged the war anyway. He couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t. 

“What do you want us to be?”

Why did Jason always choose to wage the war? Why did he always take up arms? Why did he always fight for it?

“Whatever you want, I guess,” Jason said. “But it’s kind of a pain in the ass stressing out about you all the time.”

Tim was silent again. Whatever. Jason played in silence next to him, heroically attempting to drown as many Sims as possible. It was a hard world out there. Sometimes you drowned in swimming pools. That was life.

“So,” Tim said, somewhat awkwardly and very much on purpose, “you made a house yet?”

Jason glanced over at Tim for the first time. He was leaning forward a little, arms folded on the table as he watched Jason play. Had he been watching the whole time? “Yeah, duh. I’m doing a practice house right now with five bathrooms and a room that’s just windows.” Jason halted, considering everything before tossing it out the window. “The library has a ton of architecture books. I'm going to borrow the ancient Rome one and make an exact replica of a Roman senator’s villa.”

“That’s…incredibly cool.” Tim looked a little surprised to say it, as if he hadn’t expected to say the words and mean them. “You’ll have problems finding Sims with enough money to live in it, though. Do you know about the cheat codes?”

“The what?!”

“Here, click over to the Goths. I’ll show you. Can I see your five bathroom house?”

“Yeah! Look, I made a statue garden!”

Jason scooted his chair to the right, beckoning Tim in to bring his own chair closer so they were sitting next to each other. It was necessary for a better view of the screen and mouse access. 

“I like the way you placed the statues. Lots of feng shui.” Tim took the mouse as Jason nodded ardently. He had worked hard on it. “Here, let me show you how to access the debug menu. We can put your Sims in funny NPC costumes too.”

“Seriously?! How do you do that?”

“Look,” Tim said, “I’ll show you.”

Jason looked, and saw…

Jason saw…

*

They missed dinner, but somehow they got away with it. Tim was clearly kind of embarrassed about it, and kept on muttering to himself about bad influences, but Jason figured that Tim should probably focus on dealing with his more important character flaws that he shouldn’t pass onto children, e.g. domestic terrorism. 

Domestic terrorism. 

God, he was cool. 

Alfred barely twitched an eyebrow when he saw them again, settling for telling them that dinner itself had been postponed. Tim looked shocked, so Jason guessed that this wasn’t a very common occurrence. Come to think of it, if Bruce refused to come up from the Cave for dinner Jason usually just made himself a plate and went downstairs to sit at the desk next to the Batcomputer and munch potatoes as Bruce worked. He tried to munch quietly, but other times he couldn’t stop himself from asking questions about the case. He liked to think it helped - sometimes asking Bruce to explain the case helped him take a step back and catch things he would have otherwise missed. Bruce always told him ‘good job’, as if Jason had really done anything. Bruce had done all the work. But Bruce always acted like he had single handedly cracked the case anyway. What a dork. 

“Master Bruce is concerning himself with a case downstairs,” Alfred said, confirming one suspicion. “You two were otherwise occupied and we couldn’t find Miss Stephanie, so we agreed to postpone the meal for a few hours. Master Timothy, I believe Master Bruce would like your help tracking some financial statements for this case.”

“You couldn’t find Steph?” Tim said, surprised. “You tried calling her?”

“The call was declined.” Alfred raised an eyebrow and silently interrogated Tim and Jason in tandem. “Would you two know anything about that?”

Tim just shrugged. “Last I saw her, she was working out while I was installing the software updates for the Batcomputer. I went upstairs for lunch and didn’t come with me. And Jason’s been in the library all day. She seriously didn’t even come out for dinner?”

“It’s unlike her,” Alfred agreed. “Master Tim, would you -”

“I’ll go find her!” Jason piped up. He remembered too late that it was rude to interrupt Alfred, but he was forced to ignore the skyrocketing eyebrow and dazed blink anyway. “I’ll go grab her so we can eat dinner. Be right back!”

With that heroic proclamation, Paul Revere accepted his sacred duty and set his horse off at a sprint, galloping through dangerous territory mired in darkness so he could share his life saving rhetoric with the village. With words themselves - ‘The British are coming!’ - and a fast horse, the tides of war could be turned.

Or maybe he was more like Pheidippides? A simple messenger’s twenty five mile sprint carrying news of a vital victory towards Athens, a hero from Herodotus given recognition in -

Jason tripped over the stair runner.

“Master Jason, please do not run in the halls!”

Every Greek hero had his tragedy.

Stephanie wasn’t in her room, which Jason definitely had never peeked inside and which for sure wasn’t painted a garish shade of purple. That was no surprise - it was definitely the first place Alfred would have looked. Similarly, she wasn’t in any of the common areas. The door to Tim’s study was locked too. She wasn’t in the library, and Bruce was already in the Batcave. It was weird. Had she wanted to be alone or something? 

For a brief red-hot irrational second, Jason wondered if he had hurt her feelings. Nope. No way. Stephanie Brown didn’t a) sulk, and b) get her feelings hurt by rude gutter children. Adults who let kids hurt their feelings were super embarrassing, and everybody knew Stephanie Brown wasn’t embarrassing. 

Well, if she was sulking, she could get over it. The minute Jason got up from the computer he realized he hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and his stomach was seriously rumbling. All these regular meals and big portions were turning his body seriously whiny, but Jason liked to view it as the opposite of storing fat for the winter. If Stephanie was actually a fellow gutter child then she knew the hustle.

Jason aimlessly poked his head inside rooms and wandered into random hallways for a few minutes, but it wasn’t until he stumbled inside an actual small dance studio that he realized he had to be methodical about this. The Manor could probably eat an unsuspecting gutter child who let his guard down. He was already working on a short story with that premise - it was a metaphor for capitalism - but he really didn’t feel like making it a reality. The world was weird enough already. He didn’t want to accidentally speak anything into existence. 

Maybe he should check his own favorite hiding spots? Jason wasn’t dumb - he always saw little initials or doodles carved into the wooden frames in his hiding spots left by generations of delinquent children. Some D.W. really wanted you to know that A.W. was ugly. A.W. was four feet two inches tall - or so a post proudly proclaimed. R.W., U.W., and T.W. were, indeed, there. 

Jason secretly loved it a little. He had started keeping a log of every little piece of switchblade graffiti he found, marking its contents and location. Maybe he could sit down and match them all up with the ridiculous genealogies he found. 

He always wondered how Abraham to Uriah Wayne would feel about him sitting in their hidey holes, tracing his fingers over their initials. He knew they had not been writing to him. People like him only went inside Wayne Manor to clean. Whatever future generations of Waynes they had been writing to, Jason had never been in that picture.

So Jason wrote it large. He had grabbed an awl from the Batcave and found the most popular graffiti spots, the ones crowded with generations of names. He wrote his own, big and blocky and loud, right at the top.

J.W. ESTUVO AQUI. It was the first thing anybody would see when looking at it. He wrote it again and again, wherever he saw everybody else leaving their mark. J.W. ESTUVO AQUI. Jason Wayne was here. 

Even if he left - even if he was kicked out - Jason had been there. For those strange few months, Jason had been there. You’d have to chop down the house to tear him away from it.

Bruce hadn’t kicked out Tim. Tim was a domestic terrorist who wanted to drop out of MIT. They hated each other half the time and Tim couldn’t even name their relationship. 

Bruce had told Jason that he wanted him to stay. What had he meant? It had seemed so complicated at the time - that there was a secret message in those words that Jason had to divine, that it couldn’t possibly be that simple. And obviously the reality of the situation was hideously complex. But what Bruce said - Bruce’s feelings, somehow just the same as Jason's - Jason couldn’t figure out a way to complicate it.  

No matter how hard Jason looked, he could only find one recent-ish B.W. - tucked high in the eaves of the popular hide-away attic, the initials gashed into the wood before the graffiti artist surrendered all pretense and started gouging the wood with a switchblade in long, straight lines. The marks were made over and over again, so methodical that parts of the post were almost carved out. Nothing to say. Just anger. Nothing to tell the world - just a desire to gouge it all out.

Jason didn’t know at what point Bruce decided to become a superhero, but the world probably dodged a bullet on a pretty insane supervillain when he did.

Jason thought about those marks as he climbed up his favorite hidden stairwell to the favorite hideaway attic, clutching his Power Ranges flashlight in one clammy hand as he crept into its heights. There were easily three different attics (maybe the house had eaten two smaller houses?), but the smallest one had the best spot - a view straight out of the round window at the front of the house, tucked under the highest eave, giving you an unmatched vantage point over the grounds. Somebody had set up a large armchair underneath that window a long time ago, complete with battery powered lantern, and the windowsill was covered in initials and graffiti. Even Jason had left his own. But Stephanie Brown was the only one sitting on the armchair, curled up with her chin on her knees as she stared at a Polaroid picture.

The battery powered lamp was turned on, casting a soft circle of light around Jason and Steph, and Jason cautiously flicked off his own flashlight and stuffed it in his pocket. Stephanie had undoubtedly noticed him approaching, but she didn’t really pay him any mind. She just stared at the picture, mane of blonde hair wild around her face, eyes far away.

Jason opened his mouth to tell her that dinner was ready. 

“What are you looking at?”

Stephanie glanced at him for the first time, smiling faintly. She bent a finger inwards, and Jason trotted over to look. “Just a picture we took at our post-mission pizza place. See?”

The polaroid was small, but Stephanie tilted it slightly so he could get a better look. There was a blue blur at the corner of the frame, as if someone had leaned back very quickly so they would be out of the shot. Jason could see most of a tall Black guy, skin half-covered by glowing blue metal, holding up a piece of pizza threateningly and shaking a finger at the photographer. There was a big bite taken out of the pizza. Environmental storytelling.

But most of the picture was taken up by two figures talking to each other. Robin, sitting tall and happy, mouth open as she said something probably very funny to the giggling girl next to her. The girl was nuts - giant hair, half a foot taller than Robin sitting, with burnt orange skin and glowing green eyes creased in laughter. Their bodies were angled towards each other, a private moment between two women frozen onto film. 

“Wow,” Jason said.

“I know, right? That’s everyone’s reaction to Kory. She thinks it’s funny. Apparently nobody on Tamaran really thought she was anything special. Crazy planet.” Steph smiled softly. She hadn’t taken her eyes off the photograph. “We were so excited to introduce her to pizza. First time she has it, she loves it - eats a whole pie. Then an hour later she’s in the bathroom yelling about how we poisoned her. Turns out she’s lactose intolerant. Now we’re practically the mascots of the weird yuppie California vegan pizza places. Gar’s, like, so smug about it.”

“Vegan food? Like for hippies?” Jason was appalled. “There’s restaurants that just sell vegan food? Who goes there?”

“Californians, I guess! Those people are insane. It’s like another world over there. It’s, like, sunny and shit. Vic says I’m a bigger baby about different cultures than the actual aliens and extradimensional witches.”

“Right.” Jason hesitated, stomach boiling awkwardly. “Um. I’m sorry for…”

“You’re fine. I deserved that one. It made me think, anyway. And I don’t do that nearly enough.” Stephanie didn’t look up from the picture. Jason was worried that she couldn’t. “Hey, squirt. You’re smart, right? What do you do when…when you aren’t the person you thought you were?”

 Since when was Jason the smart one? Why was an adult asking him for advice? Jason didn’t know. But he thought about it anyway, hopping on the carved oak back leg of the armchair and hanging off the winged back. “Uh…I don’t know. You change your opinion about yourself, I guess.”

But Stephanie just shook her head. “Who you are is, like, a thing. It’s always been a thing to me. Steph or Robin or…whatever. But what if you - you do something, or you think things, and they aren’t something Steph or Robin would ever do or think? Are you something else now?”

Jason really didn’t understand this woman’s psychology. “You’re Steph. You’re thinking it. So it’s a thing Steph would think. I’m not following you.”

“Steph’s always been this. She can’t start being that.” Jason began experimentally climbing up the chair, digging his feet onto the arms and scrambling up to the top. “Robin’s always been Robin. She’s always been the girl I wanted to be. Robin can’t be…that isn’t really what I anticipated for her.” Quickly she added, “Not that there’s anything wrong with being…that. Some of my best friends are that. But Robin’s not that. She’s not an alien or a mute assassin or anything. Robin’s a normal person, not a - more interesting person. Her relationships aren’t really where she always thought they would be. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

“I’m not really where I thought I’d be six months ago either,” Jason said philosophically. He hoisted himself up until he was gripping the back of the chair, elbows locked straight as he swung his feet. He could see straight down onto the top of Stephanie’s head from this vantage point. He could see from the very top of the window - from the very top of the world, with everything spread out underneath his feet in harmony. Undisturbed and eternal. Simple, if only when viewed from high above. “Things change. That’s not bad. Maybe who you wanted to be when you were my age isn’t who you want to be when you’re an adult. Shocker.”

Stephanie was quiet. Jason experimentally tilted himself forward, leaning over the back of the chair until his legs were high in the air too.

“You’re going to fall off.”

“I’m not gonna fall off,” Jason lied. “Look, I got balance.”

“I’m a gymnast. You’re going to fall off.”

“How can you tell? You ain’t even looking up.”

Stephanie sighed. She waited three seconds before getting off the armchair, almost at the precise moment that Jason over-balanced and fell ass over teakettle onto the overstuffed cushion. He bounced, blinking hard to clear his spinning vision, and when his eyes finally rightened themselves he saw Stephanie Brown standing in front of him, arms crossed and amused. 

“Right,” Jason muttered, world spinning. “Big damn superhero.”

“I think the proper term is ‘Wonder Girl’, thank you very much.” Stephanie crouched in front of him, expression softening. “Jason. Is there something you want to tell me?” Her tone was kind and gentle, and it abruptly panicked Jason. He shook his head. “Are you sure? There’s nothing you want to talk to me about? It can be anything.”

“I’m fine!” Jason did not break under torture. “I just came up about dinner, honest!”

“Is that what Alfred said?” What did that mean? But Stephanie just sighed, looking at Jason intently. Her gaze could be surprisingly intense - as if she was really looking at you, ready to crack you open and read the future from your entrails. “The boys warned me about overwhelming you about five different times, you know. I think they were worried I’d try to force you into family togetherness before you were cool with that.”

Jason mumbled something about how Steph obviously, like, didn’t even want Bruce to adopt him, so…

“Seriously? Who told you that?”

“You yelled at him for, like, an hour,” Jason said, desperately uncomfortable. “Look, it’s fine. I don’t care. Water under the bridge. Everything’s cool. I don’t want to make it into a thing.”

“A thing? I don’t - oh, man.” Stephanie sighed again, putting her elbow on her knees and propping her hand on her chin. Jason squirmed uncomfortably. But she didn’t seem upset or frustrated - just a little exasperated, as if her day was long enough without dealing with this too. “Jason, Bruce is…I dunno if you’ve noticed, but he’s kinda fragile.”

“He’s actually Batman?!”

“I’ve been watching Batman’s back and taking care of Bruce for ages. I was so worried about leaving him. I needed to get out of Gotham, I knew the guys needed me out in Jump, but…I was so worried I was ditching the people that needed me here. And then he and Tim had that blow up a month after I moved out, which totally felt like my fault, and…” Stephanie sighed, blowing a strand of hair out of her face. “I was stressing out over him constantly. And then he’s calling me in a panic over emergency placements and I’m sitting here like - he needs me to help take care of him, what makes him think he can take care of a special needs kid! He’s already called me for parenting advice three times in the first week, again, before I told him he was on his own with this one and - ugh. It was seriously like - I turn my back for two seconds…I was just worried about him, Jason. That’s all.”

Jason couldn’t believe this. Well, he could - he had kinda gotten a picture of this just from listening around - but it was still ridiculous. “Bro. He’s, like, thirty. He’s on the Justice League. He has a company. And I’m the houseplant of adoptees. It’s chill.”

“It would have been fine if I had just been here,” Stephanie sighed. Jason couldn’t believe that this was the woman’s beef with him. Did this even count as beef? Was it more like tofu? Had Californian soy byproducts rotted her mind? “But I just had to run off to lead an undergrad superhero team. I hadn’t meant to start A League of Her Own or anything. They just needed me, that’s all. I wouldn’t have left if I thought Bruce would randomly start adopting children…I’m sorry, Jason. It really has nothing to do with you.”

With a slow and creeping horror, Jason realized that his new older sister was stupid.

He had to set this record straight. What the hell. He couldn’t let things continue like this. This was the most ridiculous thing Jason had seen in his entire life, and he once saw a homeless guy climb a gargoyle to try and eat a pigeon. 

Jason took a deep breath. He pinched the bridge of his nose. Stephanie stared at him, somewhat incredulously. Finally, like a teacher delivering the lesson of their short life, Jason said, “You are not Queen of the Universe. You are an actual teenager. You can’t control everything that happens in Gotham, and it’s dumb to try and control everything that happens in Bruce’s life. Why don’t you trust him? Why do you think he’s not good enough?”

Steph looked away, somewhat awkwardly, and muttered something about how he had literally been calling for parenting advice again, so…

“And you stopped helping him, and he did just fine! You’re an adult. Adults are supposed to leave him and go to college and start superhero teams.” Or they did in his books and Fresh Prince, which Jason had to assume was what the world was ‘meant’ to be like. Jason firmly believed that his life wasn’t the way lives should be. He had to believe that really, really badly. “It’s stupid as hell to try and give that up so you could keep babysitting a guy who doesn’t need it. It’s not your job to take care of him.” 

“It totally is, though,” Steph complained weakly. She was powerless in the face of Jason’s rhetoric and she knew it. “I’m Robin, of ‘Batman and’. We’re partners, we cover each other’s bases. Even if Steph doesn’t have to take care of Bruce, Batman needs Robin.”

“You live in California. You can’t exactly do that anymore. If Steph’s thinking things that Steph doesn’t think, then maybe Steph isn’t who she thought she was. And if Batman’s partner is doing her own thing with her own friends now, then maybe she’s gotta take Robin back to the drawing board. And, like, stop mothering Batman.” Jason shrugged, crossing his arms and scooting back into the armchair until he could fold his legs up. “But what do I know, right?”

Steph stared at him for a little while, just enough to make Jason feel awkward. And enough for him to start kicking himself. What was he on about? This wasn’t a parking lot fight with the other street kids over if Robin could beat up Green Lantern (“She hasn’t tried, but she took down Oliver in two minutes. I have footage. Why do you ask, Jason?”). He couldn’t exactly sit here and tell the actual Robin who and what Robin was. What did he know about it?

What did he know about Bruce? What did he know about this family? He knew where Steph was coming from. Jason had heard more than enough stories to grok that Steph had kept Bruce on the straight and narrow for a long time. She was the one who had taken Batman from a monster into a hero. Apparently she was the one who defused what probably would have been a super messy first meeting between Batman and Superman. Batman said that it was only because of Robin that he understood the importance of the Justice League in the first place. 

And that was just Batman. Bruce himself could be kind of a disaster sometimes. Jason could already tell that she always mediated Tim and Bruce. And Bruce got sad sometimes, and other times he obviously couldn���t find it within himself to talk to people or to take off Batman and go back to being Bruce Wayne. Jason didn’t know how to handle all that. If he did know, if he could do something - then wouldn’t he? Wouldn’t he do whatever he can, to help the guy who helped him out the most?

But it still wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to Bruce, who believe it or not hadn’t actually adopted Jason on impulse. And it wasn’t fair to Steph. Just because you were the only girl in the house didn’t mean you had to do your job and take care of all the guys too. She hadn’t been much older than Jason when she took up vigilantism. Other people should have been taking care of her. She hadn’t looked out for Steph first for a really long time - had she ever? 

“Can I sit?”

Jason startled, and he quickly scooched to the side to make room for Steph. He was still pretty small and the armchair was obviously super big, so they fit together just fine. Her bare arm brushed against Jason’s chunky red sweater, but she didn’t act awkward about it. She just settled in with him, pulling her own legs underneath her. She smelled like strawberries. Jason tried extremely hard not to notice.

It was hard to read her. Her expression was blank and controlled. It made Jason sweat a bit. Was she mad at him? Was this when the prophesied Stephanie Brown hatred campaign against Jason began? Why was she sitting next to him? Should he make a run for it?

“If you could decide who Robin was,” Steph said quietly, and Jason stiffened. “If you were in complete control of that. Who would you want Robin to be?”

What a weird question. What a weird question for Robin herself to ask him. Maybe she was having a bit of an identity crisis. Jason probably wasn’t helping there. The least he could do was give her an answer. Maybe he should pretend to think about it first. He really didn’t have to think about it at all, obviously, but maybe he should pretend. But he ended up saying it immediately anyway.

“He’s like Robin now,” Jason confessed. “I mean - he or she or whatever. Gender doesn’t matter. Uh, they’re a kid, though. Not that there’s anything wrong with being an adult. I mean - I have a really good imagination, Bruce says so, so -”

“You can just go for it, squirt.”

“Oh. Okay.” Why was Jason on fire? Why did even thinking of this set something deep in Jason aflame? “He’s like Robin now, ‘cause when he saves people he always makes them feel safe. People trust him. But he’s really different too. Because he’s really strong and powerful, and everybody’s scared of how powerful he is. When people look at him, they see…they see that he’ll save them no matter what. That he’ll never stop until everybody in the Narrows is safe. If he dies, that wouldn’t stop him - he’d just get back up again, ready for round two. He’s the most stubborn son of a gun in all’a Gotham.”

Jason took a deep, shuddering breath. The oxygen stoked the fire in him, but he couldn’t stop for the life of him. 

“He’s not really who you think of when you think of a hero. He doesn’t care about glory or fairy tale endings. But people - people who have nothing, they have him. People who have nothing in their pockets have Robin. Kids, the babies on the street - they’d have a big brother in Robin. He saves the unsaveable kids.” Jason’s breath hitched, hot tears pricking at his eyes. “Robin would have saved me. He wouldn’t have stopped until he saved me.”

The image was clear in his mind. He’d imagined it a thousand times. He had a good imagination, and Jason never had anything fun to do but read and think. He knew what Robin’s costume looked like - he couldn’t have the same costume as a girl, come on - and he knew the shape of his domino mask. He had the skin of anybody in the Narrows, so the people who needed him most knew that he was always on their side. 

When people had nothing, they would have Robin. They would know that they hadn’t been abandoned by God. That they could be saved. That any of them, any one, could save themselves. They could save each other.

A warm weight fell around his shoulders, and he realized Steph had slung her arm around him. She was soft and warm, and for a crushing moment Jason could almost feel his own mother’s hugs. 

She’d never hug him again. Not ever. Jason didn’t know how many more hugs he’d receive over the course of his life, but none of them would ever feel like Mami. There was no getting that back. There was no going backwards. 

Where could he go from here?

“Jason,” Steph said softly, “what do you want?”

What did he want? He wanted Mami, obviously. He wanted to stay in Wayne Manor forever. He wanted to read every book and go to that fancy prep school and he wanted Tim to play the Sims with him again just like he promised.

Jason could admit all of that. He’d been pretty insistent about the Gotham Academy thing, despite Bruce’s reservations. The one thing he couldn’t admit -

How could he admit it? How could he begin? He couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t tell her that the figure in his beautiful picture holding out his hand to Jason, the figure so tall and strong and smiling with bright teeth, who wore her own costume and wore it proudly, only ever looked like himself. That Jason never once daydreamed of Batman and Robin saving him - not once in all those long and lonely years. That he had only ever imagined himself, wearing a coat of many colors, holding a hand out to a boy with nothing. That he had saved himself. He couldn’t imagine anybody else doing it. 

“I dunno,” Jason lied. “I dunno…”

“That’s fine.” Steph squeezed his shoulder a little, and despite himself Jason leaned against her side. It was nice. When Steph spoke again her voice was tight and hoarse, and Jason couldn’t figure out why for the life of him. “Jason…who you are is who you’re meant to be. Okay? There’s nobody else in the world like you. There’s nobody else as thoughtful and heroic and insightful as you are. Jason Todd or Jason Wayne - you’re amazing. You’re wonderful. Just as you are.”

“Shut up!” Jason said, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes hard. “You don’t even know me!”

  “I’m a pretty good judge of people, you know. And I know there’s people in this world who need someone like you. Someone who keeps people safe.” Jason’s chest hitched a little, making him hate God and all of his creation. Crying. In front of Stephanie Brown. Dante never visited this circle of hell. “I want you to have whatever you want, Jason. Whatever that is. I want you to have what you want.”

Jason wanted to push her away. He wanted to stop crying. He meant to. But somehow he could only lean against Steph and cry, and could only let her hug him, and he thought maybe he didn’t really know what he wanted at all.

*

Bruce stayed with Jason that night, foregoing their usual goodbyes in the Batcave so he could see him to bed instead. Jason knew it had been his own idea  - he thought Jason might have been avoiding him that day. Jason had solemnly told Bruce that it was a military maneuver, and that he didn’t understand the rules of engagement. Bruce had agreed, if only out of confusion.  

He reminded Jason to brush his teeth and helped him clean up his scattered room. Jason carefully placed a tin Green Army Man he found at the bottom of a dusty box at his headboard right behind him, so he could read over Jason’s shoulder. He pulled up an armchair next to Jason’s bed, and Jason settled in at the corner with a copy of Edith Hamilton’s Mythology. He had spent ten minutes recapping his favorite chapters from the book, sprinkled with some creative zest. Bruce was very interested in the story of the Golden Fleece and Jason and the Argonauts, but Jason thought maybe he might be making fun of him.

Batman was a formidable foe, and Jason was forced to surrender eventually. Jason dropped the book, throwing his hands up. “Fine! I was named after the movie! Happy? You finished interrogating me, officer?”

“What interrogation? I never asked.” The man’s poker face was impressive, but Jason couldn’t be fooled. “I didn’t even imply it.”

“There were no ulterior motives,” Jason hissed, jabbing a finger at the faux-innocent Bruce. “She liked the zombie skeletons. She thought they were cool and creepy, and she liked the name Jason, and that was it. Don’t read into it!”

“So your namesake has nothing to do with why you have that book memorized?”

Jason threw his book at Bruce. He caught it effortlessly. Damn him.

Dinner had been nice. Everybody finally sat around a table and talked like real people, even if Jason was flip-flopping at lightspeed between feeling extremely awkward and silently threatening to kill Steph if she ever let on that she saw him crying. She had mimed zipping her lips shut, but Jason didn’t trust like that. It was no good for siblings to have blackmail on you so quickly. 

At least they were chill now. They had shook on it and everything. Steph said that Jason had given her a lot to think about. Jason really didn’t know what that meant. He was a little worried he might find out. 

She had promised to teach him how to backflip before she left. And Tim had promised to play the Sims with him tomorrow. Jason interpreted the promises as white flags. He wasn’t sure if he was victorious or not. 

Jason quietly took the Green Army Man off his headboard. He rubbed his thumb over it, feeling the worn tin and letting the shard of rifle poke into his thumb, before carefully putting it back in his nightstand drawer. Bruce noticed, but he didn’t comment on it. 

The clock chimed eventually, and Jason’s eyelids were growing heavy. Bruce stood up from the armchair, carefully pulling it back to the side, and told Jason goodnight. He turned off Jason’s nightstand lamp, and his hand half-raised before he let it fall. 

“I’ll see you in the morning, Jason,” Bruce said. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight…”

Jason hadn’t really meant to say it. But he didn’t want to leave it on his tongue anymore - unspoken and unknown. He opened his mouth, trying to say it, but the words stuck in his throat. But Bruce turned his back to him and opened the door, light tumbling into the room, and the rise of a deep well of courage in Jason’s heart punctured the intangible barrier between them.

“Bruce?” Jason piped up quietly. Bruce stopped at the door, turning around. The dim yellow glow of the hallway cast light over Bruce and crept into Jason’s bedroom. Jason found himself wishing it would stay away just a little bit longer - that Bruce would remain in the darkness for just a little while. “...can you stay?”

Bruce halted, looking at him with a shadowed expression for only a second, before he closed the door again. “I have to prepare for patrol soon. And you do have a bedtime.”

“Steph’s home. Can Robin patrol by herself? Just for a little bit?”

Jason felt his courage dwindle. He felt like a spoiled, selfish idiot for asking. But he didn’t feel like an idiot for wanting Bruce to stay. It felt like the most natural thing in the world.

But Bruce just shrugged and turned around, as if the ask was nothing at all. “You’re right. She’s more than capable.” Bruce walked back to Jason’s bed, and Jason daringly patted the space next to him. Bruce stopped, surprised. “You’re sure?”

“Steph’s a hugger. The dam’s been broken.” It was different with a girl than with a man - much, much different - but it was easier to blame it on her. Bruce cautiously sat down next to him on the bed, motions careful and precise as only Batman could make them. Something in Jason loved that - that Batman helped Bruce care about him. “You know, in Percy Jackson I’d be a son of Nike.”

“For victory? Wouldn’t you rather be the child of an Olympian?” Bruce settled in next to him, and Jason was suddenly acutely aware of the heat of Bruce’s body. He was tall and strong, but he wasn’t so strange. 

“Nah. I wouldn’t want anybody going around saying I only won fights ‘cause my parent’s a powerhouse. I’d win fights for my parent. And it would psych everybody out. Like - oh, we’ll lose against Jason, he’s victory himself! That kind of thing. I got it all planned out. So Nike would be my secret Mom, except she would have had me with Mami, because she’s a god and gods can do that.”

“Congratulations on your mother’s bisexuality.”

“Nike would have turned into a guy. Or something. She can be gay if she wants. Jeez, Bruce.” Jason shifted a little until he was pressed against Bruce, warm and strong. “There’d be this whole secret love affair thing. They met because the Louvre put the Nike statue on tour, and Mami went to go see it at the Gotham Museum of Fine Arts - they had a free museum day. And she saw the statue and she fell in love with it instantly. 

“And Nike saw her looking, and fell in love with her too. So Nike uses her power and makes the statue move right in front of Mami. Mami sees its headless body turning to look at her, and she knows that it can see her clearly even with no eyes and no face. But it’s still beautiful to her. The statue steps off the pedestal, wings beating, and walks towards Mami. Nike’s thinking that Mami can’t love an old statue with no head, so she tries to turn the statue into something beautiful that Mami could love. A really attractive man or a cute woman if Mami’s bisexual or something. But Mami tells Nike that nothing’s as beautiful as the ancient statue. It’s the most beautiful statue in the world. She doesn’t need to see Nike’s face to love her. Then they fall in love together.”

“That’s a beautiful story,” Bruce said gravely. “How does it end?”

“With me, obviously,” Jason said. “Mom and Nike never met again. But Mami gave me magic, and that means I’ll always be okay. This is where I’m going to start my own memoir. I’m working on that, by the way. It’s more of a diary now, but it’s pretty good. You aren’t reading it.”

“Wouldn’t dare,” Bruce said. “But why start it here? Not during your life in the Narrows? I know it’s important to you.”

“That’s in flashbacks,” Jason said condescendingly. “It’s a literary device. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Clearly I do not.”

Obviously. Jason settled back in bed, leaning against Bruce just a little more. Little by little. “It starts here because here is where it starts. This is when it begins.”

“Here?” Bruce asked. He sounded a little surprised. Jason didn’t know why. It was obvious. “Right now?”

“Sure,” Jason said. “Right here.”

Jason fell asleep like that, warm and safe with somebody who loved him, and for a brief moment as he slid from consciousness to sleep he thought that he might have something he wanted.

He would get the one other thing he wanted soon. Stephanie was changing, and Jason was fulfilling his potential. Batman needed a Robin. They’d see.

Jason would show them. 

[igotanidea]

Glimmer: Jason Todd x reader

request: Jason Todd x fem!reader who is optimistic, sees good in people and gives him hugs and kisses when he comes from patrol.

****

She never knew it, and even if she did she would totally refuse to believe it, but there was something in her eyes that always made Jason feel better about world and about himself. A bit.

He met Y/N on one of his night patrols and not-so-surprisingly rescued her from a mugger. Typical Gotham occurrence, but unlike any other citizen of this god-forsaken city she did not seem shaken or terrified or even sad.

“How are you so fine with what happened?” instead of taking off the second the robber was dealt with Jason found himself captured by her unusual behavior

“I’m not” she sighed deeply and her e/c orbs focused on him, making him shake inside due to the intensity of the gaze “I’m not all right with how Gotham affects people. That the poor had to go to the great lengths to survive on the streets while crime lords have everything. I’m not fine with the fact that kids here suffer because their parents abandoned them. I hate that GCPD seem helpless when it comes to dealing with all this shit and vigilantes have to take matters in their own hands.”

“So, pretty much you hate Batman?” Jason scoffed, trying to act casually, not showing how touched he was by the mention of kids on the streets. After all, he was one of them many years ago and the memory of what he went through was still hunting him sometimes.

“I never said that!” she laughed. She laughed a few seconds after a traumatic events. “I admire everything he does. But unlike our fierce protector, I’d rather focus on seeing good in people.”

“Good?” Jason scoffed, his helmet muffling the sound a bit “There’s nothing good in this shithole.”

‘Maybe that is your problem, Red. Your aim is to get rid of the crime lords. Arguably by killing them all off….”

“I don’t do that anymore.” He chimed in

“Then hurting them. Injuring them. Making them remember the pain. I’d rather spread the good emotions. Like in the homeless shelter where I volunteer after work. Or at the child center. You should see the smile on those people faces just because you gave them ten minutes of your time. To talk, to actually ask them how they feel, if there’s anything they would like to do. Elders have so many to say, yet no one ever listens. And children, those poor little souls, who did nothing wrong in their life, except for what’s necessary to survive. A hug or a joke is enough to make them cry happy tears.”

“You’re being awfully optimistic, aren’t you?”

“Can’t help being who I am” she smiled so bright, Jason could swear that it lighted up the whole alley “you should try that sometimes, Red Hood. Anyway, sorry for keeping you this long, bet you have another parts of the city to patrol.” Once again her beaming, hopeful, sincere eyes landed on his face (or rather helmet) “thank you for helping me. I know you do not see yourself this way, but what you do matters. The method may be a bit extreme, but still, I appreciate what you did. What you do.”

“I……” Jason stuttered. It was the first time someone actually said something like that to him. Was he really good in her eyes?

“I gotta go.” She shook he head, hair falling all over her face and Jason had to use all his strength to fight the urge to brush those strands of. There was something about this girl…. ”Stay safe, Hood, will you?” she turned around and started walking away, but he called after her, making her stop.

“Can I get your name?!”

“Wonder why that matters to you.” she laughed, but decided in favor of answering “It’s Y/N. My name’s Y/N.”  with a single wave of the hand she was gone, leaving Jason wondering and muttering that single word over and over again.

***

“Hey, Drake. I got a favor to ask.”

“And out of all the people in the world you came to me?” Tim raised an eyebrow “You must be truly desperate, Todd.”

“I can always go and ask Barbara. Bet she’ll deal with the search I need much faster than you. She’s an expert after all.” Jason smirked knowing well enough how the reverse psychology affected Tim.

“Better!? No way!! What do you need?” the younger boy spun around on the chair, now facing the bat computer, fingers hanging over the keyboard, twitching in anticipation.

“I want to find a person. I only got a name, Y/N, possible living location and I know she works at the homeless shelter and kid center. Can you target her?”

“don’t know.” Tim tapped his chin, wondering “Is he a Red Hood’s object of interest or Jason Todd’s one?”

Fuck. There was no good answer to that question and Jason found himself falling right into Tim’s trap. 

“Let’s say a little bit of both.”

“Whatever you say……”

***

Tim was faster than Jason anticipated and with just a few clicks and searches he managed to locate the girl. And just a few minutes later, after breaking some speed limits (Bruce would pay for the tickets obviously) Todd was in front of the building she was spending her evening at.

It’s been a while since Jason seen so many hurt and scared people in one place and that reminded him how much crime actually was in Gotham. He was fighting some part of it, but the rest…. Damn it. The view was just painful. Starting from a few-years old, ending up on the elders, every age group has a representation in this place. And amongst all those citizens he saw Y/N. With messy hair and a smudge of something that seemed like a paint, but was awfully similar to blood she was telling a story to a bunch of kids, one of them placed on her knees. That little dirt on her cheek made Jason shudder. In the depths of his mind he already saw her injured, bleeding in some alley, after being attacked or raped, her optimistic attitude not serving as a shield.  But apparently her positive attitude was not a result of obliviousness and being raised in separation from the bad aspects of life, but rather the opposite. She experienced the sadness and pain everyday while working with those people and yet, remained cheerful. That was….. strangely alluring.

“Hey there.” She put the kid down, noticing him standing in the aisle, looking confused “Are you lost? Are you hurt? Do you need help?” she was so tiny in comparison with a tank Jason was and she wanted to help him. Not even expecting anything in return.  

“No…. I ……”

“Hey, it’s ok.” she reassured, putting a hand on his shoulder and he immediately felt the warmth coming all over his body. “You’re safe here. We can give you any aid you need.”

“I don’t need help. “ Jason shook his head.

“You sure?” she tilted her head “Cause it seems to me like you got a strained muscles, a bruise on the jaw and some cuts on the forearms.”

“You are quite observant, aren’t you?”

“Did my time as a doctor assistant.” She shrugged “never get to finish though”

“Why?”

“Um… you know, typical Gotham stuff. Parents getting shot. No one to help me pay for college…. I had to tend for myself and that required a full time job, not just studying. So I dropped. Became an assistant nurse instead. Shitty job, shitty pay, shitty work hours, but  get to make ends meet.”

“And you still find time to volunteer?”

“Like I said to someone before, I’d rather help people by spreading good. Seriously, can I help you with anything…..?”her voice hanged a bit and it took him a while before realizing she was waiting for hi name.

“I’m Jason. And I …. I think I want to be a volunteer as well.”

***

It’s been three years since then.

Three years in which she was constantly surprising him with her attitude, her smile, her uptake on things.

Three years of her being his rock, getting him through the shittiest, lowest day, never letting him give up or his darkness and shadow consume him. She was his ray of sun on those days when he had no power to push through.

Jason was not the first person to trust people, but somehow she managed to gain it quite quickly. After a few months of acquaintance, shaking because of the emotions (mostly fear) he told her about his alter ego, awaiting abandonment, terrified, judgmental gaze and her leaving him for good.

There was a moment of silence after his confession, two young adults just sitting on the couch opposite of each other. Jason looking down, silent begging for her to not leave him, missing the fact that Y/N’s signature honest gaze were focused on him.

“Jason….” she said quietly, careful not to startle him “Jace, please look at me.” The boy hesitantly raised his head, scared what he might see on the girl’s face “did you think I would leave you?”

“Yes.” He blurted not able to control himself anymore.

“You silly boy.” She leaned forward slightly, reaching for his cheek, not touching yet, since she learned how hard physical contact was for him “Can I?”

“Please….” He mumbled, and once she cupped his face, immediately leaned into the touch. So touch starved, so desperate for her, without even realizing this.

“Listen to me, Jason Todd. I am not going anywhere.”

“You’re not?”

“Of course not.” she whispered “I’m honestly a bit offended you could even think something like that. Do you even know me?”

“I know you see good in place where there is none. And I’m no good. I’m bad news, always have been and….”

“Oh, for crying out loud.” She hissed and not giving a shit about being gentle put her lips on his, the urge being just too strong to hold it anymore. “Sorry….” Just a few seconds later she realized what she did and pulled back, her face turning apologetic. “I didn’t mean to push….”

“Come back here” Jason breathed out, wrapping an arm around her waist and claiming her lips again, this time fully. God, he never knew how much he craved her and how much fear of rejection on her part he had.  “I need you.” he whispered pulling her flush to him “God, I shouldn’t  but I need you so bad.”

“Good thing it’s mutual.” She smiled, brushing a curl from his face and connecting their foreheads

“But….” He tried to say.

“if you start talking about that shit about darkness and everything else I won’t kiss you for a week.”

“Are you threatening the Red Hood, princess?”

“Guess, I am” she laughed, realizing that little fact “is it working?”

“Sure as hell it is.” Jason gasped before closing the gap between them.

***

Y/N was quickly accepted into the Wayne family, turning into a valuable member of the team. And damn, she was good at working with Oracle from the cave. But the most important part of her job (in her own words) was still giving the good vibes. Keeping the batboys (and batgirls) up and running, showing them how much good they were doing and how grateful people were for that.

Jason needed it more than anyone else, still doubting himself and dealing with past trauma, not that anyone blamed him for that. If nothing else, dying and resurrecting definitely have an effect on one’s mentality. And that was precisely why, Y/N would always stay up in the night, waiting for Jay to come back from the patrol to welcome him in the most caring and loving way she could.

“Jace!” she jumped off the couch as soon as she heard him walk thought the door, his helmet and jacket already discarded on the floor. She practically jumped into his arms, wrapping legs and arms around him, tugging her boyfriend tightly, feeling his muscles relax under her touches and caresses.

“Hi, baby….” He sighed deeply feeling her in his arms. The only person that made everything he did worth the effort.

“My hero.” She tugged him even tighter, hands tangling in his hair massaging gently.

“Hero? That’s funny princess. Are you sure you’re not mistaking me for Grayson? Do you wish that it was someone else in your arms?”

“What are you…..?” she pulled back from him slightly, but his arms kept her in place, familiar smirk forming on his face. “You are incorrigible Todd! Why are you constantly playing with me?”

“Cause you look cute with that surprised Pikachu face” he kissed the top of her nose and she pouted.

“Stop it! It’s my job to kiss you and hug you. You’re tired and hurt. Let me take care of you.” her hand travelled down from his neck and rested on his heart “Please, love. I just want to take all the pain from you. Let me, Jason.” she was practically begging him now, and the fact that he truly had someone who was willing to do that for him was making him melt. Since the words failed him, he just nodded, closing his eyes not to show any vulnerability. Almost three years of being together and it was still hard for him to show her his emotional side. “Open those eyes” she commanded, once he put her back on the floor and they just stood in place. “I love you, Jason.” Y/N said with fully convinced voice “whatever you think about yourself, you are a hero to me.” a little kiss on his forehead “A protector.” Kiss on his nose “a fighter” one on each of his cheeks “I can never see you differently” a peck on his lips, too short, leaving him wanting more and chasing her lips “but it’s me. You don’t need to act strong with me when you are tired. You don’t need to hide your emotions. You could never be too vulnerable for me. I accept and somewhat understand Red hood, but it’s Jason Todd I fell in love with. My Jason. The emotional one. All right, baby?’ she caressed his cheek, grabbing his hand and leading him backwards towards the bed “will you rest with me?”

“Yes.” He whispered “Please……”

“All right.” She helped him lay down and once he rested head on her chest, feeling her fingers play with his hair, the other hand caressing her back, Jason slowly let the tension and the burden of opinion, judgments and expectations go.

She was making him feel better about himself.

She was making him feel better about world.

And maybe it was wrong and selfish and careless, but he loved her.

And he was going to tell her that.

Soon.  

[ms-nesbit]

Sweet home chicago (jason todd x afab!reader)

chapter one

Rating: 18+

Warnings: eventual smut, swearing, father figure dick grayson, skater tim drake, sad jason todd :(

Summary: dick and tim trick jason into taking a vacation in chicago. There, he meets someone he hopes to never forget.

Note: im sorry for dipping, yall. I really had some important things to take care of.

ao3

Amber and rose peeked through the hedge between the array of buildings on Michigan Avenue. Jason blended himself with the sea of tourists and chic aristocrats. He didn’t necessarily stick out like a sore thumb, as there were a few Chicagoans dressed casually like him; even in the late-November evening, he sported his signature red hoodie and straight fit jeans, tattered and dirty near the hem. No matter what, he wanted to appear mildly stressed, only mildly, so as to not draw more attention to himself than his six-foot-four frame already did.

He wondered how he got here. Was it the phone call from Dick, or the two dozen from Tim? Could it have been neither, and he perhaps wanted to rush the plane during the busiest season, nudged in a lousy middle seat between an obnoxious preteen and a middle-aged woman watching poorly edited, extremist conservative media? To be fair, Jason treated himself to Portillo’s once he left the airport - a well-earned reward for not lashing out at the self-absorbed individuals beside him.

He stepped briskly, moving in sync with the less-anxious of the crowd toward the shopping district notoriously named Magnificent Mile. On his left ear, he heard the excitement in the tune of indistinguishable conversations and the season’s final water taxis boarding; in his right, a wireless earbud, softly playing his childhood favorite, Diana Ross and the Supremes.

Once he reached the other end of the bridge, he strolled to the sidewalk in front of Tribune Tower, pulling his phone out and indiscreetly sending a message of his coordinates to-

A call. “As much as I love the smell of fish, garbage, and the crooked CPD, why did you and Tim want me here?” Jason was more curious than upset, but he’d rather not disclose his true feelings to his brothers.

“C’mon, Jay, it’s the Windy City! You ever been to Chicago?” Dick asked. “Beautiful everything here. Tim’s at the Van store up the street, and I’m grabbing a slice of pizza across from ya. You wanna come over and get a slice, grumpy? You get a little hangry sometimes.”

Jason sighed, and his stomach grumbled in response to the offer. “Alright, but I’m not goin’ outside. I sat next to some wackjob on the flight who sounded like she needed to be in the looney bin, and I’m not lookin’ to make friends.” As he spoke, he quickly turned his head before dashing across the busy street, waving off a car blaring its horn at him. “What’do’ey have?”

“How about you see?” Dick approached Jason, smiling mischievously. Jason ended the call, moving his eyes to Dick’s hands behind his back. “Guess what I got?”

“Dick, I’m not in the mood for games-”

“Ta-da!” Dick shifted in his coat, revealing a white box with a drawn pizza and the name Lou Malnati’s on it. Jason pretended like his mouth didn’t water at the smell of grease and garlic. “I had ‘em make a classic cheese with those square slices. How about we sit down on the riverfront and talk?”

And talk. No matter the temptation, be it a buttery, gooey pizza right under Jason’s nose, he still believed it wasn’t worth the compromise of having to make more than small talk with others. “Listen, Dickie, as much as I appreciate the offer, I don’t think I’m ready to talk about-”

“Dude, this isn’t about Artemis, if that’s what you’re about to say.” Dick shrugged in his beige peacoat, a piece of his thick, navy, knitted cardigan spilling from his waist. “I just want to, y’know, see if you want to go to this thing tonight.”

Jason cocked a brow in his theatrical manner. “So you and Tim badgered me, had me fly all the way to goddamn Chicago, all to just talk over some overpriced pizza?” Around him, he felt the glare of customers, but he doubled down, giving them knowing looks. “I’ve been here. Want a real place? Go to the goddamn place off Clark and Dickens. You’ll thank me later.”

Dick rolled his eyes, already tired by Jason’s heels in the sand. “Always gotta be a drama queen. Just…come with me. I’ll explain once we’re out of earshot.” His voice was hushed, signaling Jason to follow suit. They walked together to the riverwalk, sitting on the cold high-risen edging. Dick delicately opened the lid of the box, revealing the savory American delicacy and motioning for Jason to take the first slice.

Once Jason reached for the slice, taking his first bite and stretching the rosemary-seasoned cheese from its bed atop the crust, Dick began. “Tim and I were thinking that the three of us could use a break.” Jason grumbled indistinctly into his pizza slice, swirling the string of cheese around his tongue in a tight noose. “Bruce has been a handful lately - I mean, he always is - and I think it would be a good lesson for him to finally be on his own instead of taking us for granted, y’know?”

Jason nodded, rearranging his food to one side of his mouth so he could speak with the other. “You do know that Bruce is probably better off without me, right? Since I-” he swallowed the food, kissing the excess sauce and garlic from his teeth, “leave a ‘pretty big mess’, as he says.”

“You also help. Gang-related crime decreased about 37 percent when Red Hood regularly patrolled, and the Gotham Gazette did a poll, based on before and after Red: thanks to Red Hood, 6 out of 10 female Gothamites feel safe walking home at night, compared to the 3 out of 10 prior to Red Hood’s introduction.”

The statistic surprised Jason. He was used to the smearing from Justice League’s best, so it was nice to hear a compliment for a change. “And Timmy’s on board with this?” He didn’t hesitate to take a second slice, while Dick left the pizza untouched.

“He was the one who coined it.” Dick looked out at the river, mildly put off by Jason’s shameless eating habits. “We were patrolling one night and he just said it out of the blue. I get it, though.” He pursed his lips, staring wistfully. “I couldn’t tell you before because then you wouldn’t agree to it.”

Dick was right: when he’d offer to take Jason in after they reconciled, Jason refused. Though not Bruce’s blood son, Jason was comparably stubborn, sometimes surpassing the Dark Knight. “And where are we gonna stay?”

“That’s the best part.” Dick finally reached for a slice, folding it in half and dipping a chunk into his mouth to cut from the slice. “Tim hacked into Bruce’s business travel account and used some of his points to book a stay at some fancy place called Waldalf…lemme check.” Dick reached into his peacoat pocket and pulled out his phone, checking the reservation. He continued to chew, as did Jason, and Dick leaned over to show Jason the reservation email. “Astoria. It’s a couple of blocks here, I think. Worst case, we can just use a taxi or Uber there or something.”

“I’m banned from using Uber.” Jason said nonchalantly, squinting at the details on Dick’s pristine phone screen before looking the name up for himself. “I can walk as long as I can have another slice.”

Dick blinked at Jason blankly before glancing at the remnants of the pizza. “Take the small one right there.” Removing a wrinkled, discolored restaurant napkin from his back pocket, Jason snatched the slice with an asymmetrical, genuine smile, now holding a slice in each hand. Dick bit his tongue in his mouth to keep himself from laughing. If he hadn’t held a slice in his, he would have snapped a photo to send to the family group chat. “We’re already checked in, so just bring whatever luggage you have with you.”

Jason looked up from his slices like a deer in the headlights. “Sorry, I didn’t think to bring anything other than the usual.” With a slice, he vaguely gestured to his dirty clothes.

“I was…expecting that.” Dick chuckled lightly. “I brought you some clothes so you could go out and enjoy yourself for a change.” He spotted Jason’s eye roll. “You’re in your twenties, for crying out loud. Enjoy yourself! Make a friend. Would it kill you to just live?”

As Jason shook his head, a few strands of grey fell from his messily combed back hair and onto his forehead. “What, is coming back from the dead and seeking vengeance to blood-thirsty psychopaths not living?”

“No, it’s not.” a voice came from the other side of the riverwalk, by the bustling street: a lanky-built male, wearing a beige Santa Cruz sweatshirt and dark jeans, strolled on his skateboard toward the brothers. “And by the way, Jason, you look no different than the bourgeoisie skimming the racks at Urban Outfitters over there.” Jason’s frown dropped at Tim, already bugged by him. “Me and Dick were basically wanting you to, y’know, socialize like a normal human being. I know you’re an introvert, I get that, but you’ve gotta, y’know…converse.”

 Jason stood from the platform, brushing the suggestion from his broad shoulders. “Jesus, and you wonder why I don’t want to hang out with you guys.” he made an excuse and walked back toward Michigan Ave, finishing his slices along the way.

“By the way, Dick.” Tim nudged Dick with his elbow, showing him a photo of zoomed-in Jason, a few minutes earlier, smiling goofily with his two slices of pizza pie.

Dick erupted into laughter, doubling over and nearly knocking over the box.

-

“You got the terrace suite?” Jason muttered in blustering shock. “Bruce is going to be so pissed.” His lips stretched into a wide smile.

He plopped onto the sleeper sofa, sprawling his limbs out to relax. Dick assigned Jason to the couch (“Finder’s keepers!”), while Dick and Tim each slept in their separate rooms. “We already received a warning about how you’re dressed, Jason, so if you could please promptly change into something more appropriate, I’m sure this stay would be more enjoyable for all of us.” Dick managed to remain calm while conveying, despite the fatherly-level of disappointment underneath his skin.

Heeding Dick’s advice, Jason made his way to Dick’s room, where he opened up the luggage Dick neatly packed for him: a pair of dress shoes, two pairs of socks and boxer briefs (all red, for continuity’s sake), along with a lightweight, tightly knitted sweater, t-shirt, long-sleeve undershirts, and two pairs of slacks (one beige, one black). Jason sighed halfheartedly, bummed by the array chosen for him. He knew, of course, it was his responsibility to select his own attire, but of course he’d forgotten it, lost in the chaos of his everyday life; Dick anticipated Jason’s reaction, and packed something nonetheless, and although grateful, Jason still hesitated to express it.

While Tim and Dick explored the depths of downtown, Jason immersed himself into the room, quietly exploring the channels that Astoria offered.

Knock, knock. “Housekeeping!”

Jason yelled back, “Come in.” while munching on a bag of corn chips on the couch, eyes lasered on the television screen.

The housekeeper, wearing a black and sky blue uniform, pushed his trolley in. “Are you enjoying your stay, Sir?”

Jason shrugged. “My ma was a housekeeper for a bit. Don’t worry about the ‘sir’ stuff, it’s all good.” The response was new to the employee, who stood for a moment before excusing himself to clean the bathroom and bedrooms.

“Sir,” the housekeeper returned, gripping the trolley behind him with a single hand. “Would you mind vacating the room while I clean, or should I return if you are…busy?”

Jason looked at the chip crumbs on his hoodie before looking back at the housekeeper. “I’ve no problem leaving. I’ve gotta change, so I’ll go the other room. Could you just lock the door when you leave?”

“Absolutely, Sir.” the housekeeper said before Jason shut the bathroom door, slacks and sweater in hand.

—

Stepping out from the courtyard of the hotel premises, Jason wandered down the corner, unable to prevent himself from making grotesque faces at the high-end stores nearby. The breeze chilled the skin on his face to the point where it eventually felt like he was kissed by needles, and he unlocked his phone to find a place to settle down and (hopefully) eat. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed an approaching blotch of yellow and blue, to which he immediately hailed down. A taxi parked along the curb, and Jason hopped in. “Could you please take me away from here? Some place with some good food?”

The driver gave Jason a look of uncertainty, pondering before nodding and starting the meter.

Jason sat back and relaxed as giant metallic letters standing proudly on top of clear, godliness glass storefronts began to disappear, one by one, until they were replaced with bulletins and signs, and tented storefronts matched with painted, worn down brickwork.

He exhaled in relief. Despite living with Bruce and his luxurious lifestyle, the unspoken language of wealth was still foreign to Jason. He didn’t understand why the affluent would whisper, and why evil would poison their tongue and burn away at their heart once their financial wealth accrued.

After slipping the taxi driver a couple of hundred dollar bills, Jason abruptly left the vehicle, reading the name of the restaurant to himself. “Like the song…?” he asked the driver, who nodded.

“Different spelling, different things.”

Jason inhaled nasily, chest rising. “Alrighty, thanks, man.”

The driver nodded once again before waving and merging back into traffic. Jason entered the restaurant and was instantly greeted with sweet and savory notes, causing Jason’s stomach to cramp in pain. He walked up to the counter, so clean that he could almost make his reflection out, and waited for an employee to serve him. While he waited, he studied the menu: sandwiches, soups, and more appetizers to choose from. He chewed on his bottom lip, distressed when deciding between pasteles (mix of plantain mix and meat, wrapped in a banana leaf) or mofongo (stuffed plantain).

“When you’re ready, I can take you.” A voice notified him as he stood like a bronze statue before the menu.

He didn’t take his eyes off the photos above the counter. “Sorry about this, I’m a first timer - what are your pasteles filled with?”

“Usually pork or chicken, but we make them with cheese now since there are some vegetarians.”

“Could I have just pasteles, one with cheese filling and one with chicken?” Jason asked.

The clerk pressed a button on the register, which was a tablet with a brightly lit screen. “Sure thing. Anything else?”

“Yeah, and…pastellitos de guayaba? Can I have that, too? And water.”

The clerk pressed the screen a few times, noting down Jason’s order. “Of course. For here or to go?”

Jason finally tore his eyes from the menu to look at the clerk, and his mouth fell open at the sight of the clerk: hair was tightly curled, coiled from their roots; lips plump and glossy, appearing much more enticing to Jason than the food he ogled at.

“Here.” he stuttered, feeling heat rise up to his neck. The clerk smiled at him, and they placed their hand on their wide hip, bringing Jason’s eye to it.

“It’ll be ready in a bit. We’ll bring it to your seat, yeah? Sientate.” They motioned with their nose at the dining area, a selection of polished wooden chairs and tables to choose from.

Before he could ask for their name, the clerk rushed to the kitchen of the restaurant, repeating his order to the rest of the staff. Jason watched them walk away, their bottom half swaying in the leggings they wore, before he realized his leering and chose an empty seat and table near the colorful mural.

Thoughts rushed to the tall man’s head, some impure ones welcoming themselves for the first time since he and Artemis parted. Their relationship was, in short, complicated, and neither of them were fully transparent toward another, leading to the inevitable diffusion of the once-kindled fire; it didn’t break Jason’s heart, but rather disappointed him, and he felt that his fate of inescapable loneliness was encapsulated.

The clerk reappeared from the kitchen, holding two plates of food. They walked past Jason, ignoring whatever eye contact he attempted to make at them, and attended to the table diagonally from his. “Y te quedas a tu mama, ok?” They spoke warmly but sternly to the couple, before leaving with a grin. “And you,” they pointed at Jason, “your pastellios should be ready in one to two minutes, okay?”

Jason nodded frantically, popping an optimistic grin. “Can’t wait.”

“I know.” they winked at Jason before turning back around and walking through the revolving door leading to the kitchen. Jason felt something distant in his stomach. Perhaps hunger?

In a few minutes, the mysterious clerk returned, holding what Jason hoped was his food. When they arrived at his table, settling the plates down delicately before handing him cutlery and a glass, he beamed first at the food, then at the beautiful clerk. He didn’t know which he was more excited for. “Thank you!”

“Not a problem.” they returned his smile, eyes glistening at him. “Our chef is working on something else for you to carry out, free of charge. Can’t let you starve out on us, right, big guy?” their eyes briefly scanned Jason’s figure, which caused Jason’s cheeks to flush a bright pink.

They’re hitting on me, the fuck. “Thanks! I was hoping maybe I can come back, get your name?”

“Oooh, I like the sound of that.” their voice dipped an octave, and Jason swore he felt his pants tighten under the table. He shifted in his seat uncomfortably. “How about I save you the trouble and tell ya now, that way next time you can take me out for dessert?”

Jason smirked at them, slowly checking their figure out before focusing his attention back on their eyes. “Sure.”

“It’s y/n.” they purred, reaching their hand to rest on Jason’s bicep. Their skin was soft, yet calloused. “And you are…?”

“Jason.” he grinned. “Sorry, I’m new at this.”

“Don’t worry.” they assured. “I’m here if you need anything. And if you decide to take me on that offer, my number is in the check right there.” they pointed to the black checkbook beside the plates of food. Jason’s skin was burning under their touch, and when y/n had to leave, Jason felt a twinge of sadness when they retracted their hand.

Unraveling his cutlery from the napkin, Jason made sure to make an important phone call before his vacation ended.