Chapter Text
He spent the rest of the day avoiding every girl in any of his classes. For some reason, a baby sent every single female into some kind of craze. It was scaring him. Him. He had faced down Bane, Two Face, Joker (though that hadn’t ended well). But this was more unsettling than any of them.
He never knew women could be so scary when it came to children. Well. He knew women were plenty scary. Hell, he’d been raised for a few years by Talia al-Ghul. But now he was essentially being harassed by some random girls in his classes who seemed to get really worked up over the fact that he now had a baby. Even if it were his brother.
He hid in the library, ignoring the dirty looks the librarian shot him at carrying a baby. He was also praying that Tim wouldn’t start crying, Jason glanced down and the boy seemed to really be enjoying that his older brother had started running. Maybe it was like a baby thing? Jason ran a hand through his hair. He thought that maybe babies enjoyed being bounced? He really didn’t know anything about babies.
Huh.
He was in a library.
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Twenty minutes later, he had a stack of books the size of now Tim next to him, one open in front of him while said baby was gumming happily on a snack in his lap. The boy had been surprisingly cooperative with Jason after the crying fiasco in class. Despite having drool all down the front of his shirt and being slightly terrified of the girls in his classes, Jason was feeling good about being with a baby now.
The other books he had tried hadn’t been very useful, but he had found a book, tucked away behind all the others, about teen pregnancies. He definitely wasn’t having a teen pregnancy, but the book did have some helpful advice on managing both a baby and school. So, that was good.
Now all he had to do was get through the rest of his classes while simultaneously avoiding all the cooing girls.
Great.
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Aside from all the hiding he did, the rest of his day passed in relative normality. Barring the girls and the odd side glances he got from all his teachers. Yeah, being Bruce Wayne’s son ward had its perks, however odd. Distantly, he wondered if any of Tim’s friends were wondering where he was. He laughed at the thought.
They would all be too used to the other boy disappearing for days on end without contact only to pop up a week later smelling like shit and looking like a raccoon.
He stroked baby Tim’s hair. He’d been asleep since Jason had last fed him around an hour ago. Without hordes of people around, he, himself could coo at how cute his little brother was as a baby. Even if he would never admit it. Ever. Not even he died again.
Right now, he was waiting for Dick to pick him up, since his older brother had messaged saying he had an update on the whole baby thing.
Jason was praying that he had a solution to turn Tim back to normal. He was getting attached to this baby version of him. It was terrible.
He never thought he’d be overcome by baby fever of all things. Hell, he’d never even thought he’d be in such close contact with one, other than his time in the League with Damian. But his memories of that time were patchy at best, non-existent at worst. He still wasn’t entirely sure what he was feeling about the situation at hand, but he shoved it in a box in the back of his mind and locked it. He needed to focus on getting normal Tim back.
He was half-asleep, Tim drooling on his chest when Dick finally arrived. The older boy made sure to take as many photos as possible of the two before Jason was alerted to his presence. Oh, these were totally getting sent to the group chat, they didn’t have any previous photos of Tim as a baby but now getting them with Jason being all paternal was simply the best.
Jason grumbled slightly as his eyes flickered open, and he noticed Dick looming above him. Internally, he freaked out and jumped, outwardly he glared at Dick. “What took you so long? It’s fuckin’ cold out here Big Bird. In case you didn’t notice, babies don’t do very well in the cold.”
Dick had to suppress a coo at his baby brother being so protective and just shrugged, “Sorry Little Wing, was having trouble getting the solution to our situation.”
“This is in no way an ’our’ situation. You weren’t stuck with a one-year-old in a three-hour lecture.” He poked Dick in the shoulder, “And you most certainly were not harassed by hordes of ovulating girls. It was the fucking worst. Never doing this shit again. Tim can stay at home if we don’t get this sorted by tomorrow.”
Jason continued to rant the whole way to the car and all the way back to the Manor. Dick simply had to suppress his mirth and let his younger brother rant about why baby fever was a terrifying thing. He was just glad his brother was so open again. Not that he’d ever been that closed off to him but still. It was the principle of things.
Somewhere between Jason’s ranting petering off and his head drooping sleepily against the window, Tim had woken up. He was blinking, wide eyed and innocent, at Dick, while the man tried to focus on the road and not explode with how cute his brother was (both of them).
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Jason woke up when the car stopped, he hadn’t even realised he’d dozed off but Tim was wriggling in his lap, reaching for Dick as the older boy got out of the car.
Jason almost cried with relief, the baby finally could be handed off to someone else and he could finally sleep. Almost tripping on his way out, he scrambled out the car and practically thrust Tim into Dick’s outstretched arms.
“I’m going to sleep. Fix him. Thanks.”
Without another word, Jason dashed up the stairs, leaving behind a very confused Dick with a one-year-old drooling on his arm.
Safe to say, once he crashed, it was the best sleep he had gotten in ages. Looking after a one-year-old all day does that. He really didn’t understand how parents did it every day.
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When he finally woke up, it was late evening and the house was shockingly quiet. He assumed the gremlins were all in the Cave. Tugging at the hem of his sleep-worn sweater, he wandered downstairs, his socked feet making no noise. Not that he made any noise either way.
The Cave was in an array of chaos when he got down there. And that was really saying something considering who usually resided there.
Stephanie and Duke were falling over each other in their laughter while Cass cradled still baby Tim. Dick looked slightly distressed as he noticed Jason, hovering awkwardly in the corner.
Everyone immediately sobered when his presence was widely noticed.
They all exchanged heavy glances and he sighed. Of course, something had happened while he was asleep.
“Bad news first. Spill.”
A collection exhaled echoed through the Cave.
“You sure you want the bad news first? Cause- “ Dick is cut off by Jason sharp glare as he seats himself next to Cass.
“Right. So, uh. Tim can’t exactly be changed back to normal.”
Jason’s glare intensified and Dick practically yelped.
“It’ll be a natural process. Like growing up but at two times speed. He’ll be back to normal within a week. Until then…”
Jason tilted his head back and sighed. “Okay. And the good news?”
There was a pregnant pause.
“There was no good news, was there? That’s all the news you have.”
There was a murmur of agreement and Cass leaned into him. “Good news is that Tim goes to others. No longer just you. Take a break. Sometimes.”
Jason looked at his sister and the baby she cradled. Huh. He guessed that was good news. He smiled, “Guess so. That’s something. Does that mean I can leave him with someone else while I have class?”
She nods, offering him Tim back. Jason begrudgingly took the child, refusing to admit his attachment but not bothered to deny the comfort he took from cuddling with the small boy.
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The rest of the evening passed in relative calmness; a fuss only being made when Stephanie made Tim cry by making a face at him (honestly what an odd baby). Without thinking, Jason took Tim up to his room when he headed to bed, he couldn’t very well go back to his apartment with only his bike. Plus, he now had a shit ton of baby stuff, and he didn’t see any of his siblings (or Steph) volunteering to take care of Tim for the night.
Even Alfred had mysteriously disappeared when it was time to go to bed. In all his nineteen years from when he was twelve and first started living in the Manor (bar the ones where he was dead/MIA) he still hadn’t figured out where Alfred slept at night. Or ever considering Bruce typically stayed out all night.
Tucking the child in next to him, he decided to ask the older man tomorrow when he was more awake.
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The next morning, he woke up with not one, not two but three children piled into his bed. The first he had gone to sleep with, obviously Timothy but the other two. He peeked at the head of dark hair, pressed into his chest and side. Ah. Cass had made a habit of sneaking into his bed whenever he stayed over, claiming he made her feel safe. Or something following that gist. The other form was much smaller (than him, not Cass. The girl was slight anyway).
His first baby. Damian had never really shaken the habit of sleeping next to (read: on top of) Jason after the League. He had subconsciously grown very attached to the older boy, sometimes slipping back into old vocal habits of calling him brother in Arabic. Sometimes he would even slip back into his apartment after patrol and find the boy curled into his sheet and about a million missed calls from Bruce. The younger boy simply slipped away from his father, rather than telling him where he went. Not like the man didn’t have any idea of the bond his two sons had formed under the tutelage of the League and his ex.
Trying to move without waking the pile of humans on top of him (Tim was cuddled in the crook of his other arm, right where he was when Jason had fallen asleep) he felt another body pressed to his other side. Glancing down, he spotted a blond head pressed against his hip. Him and Steph weren’t especially close, only really bonding over growing up poor before Bruce found them. And the joint mischief they got up to when unsupervised. Really what did you expect? They were still teenagers despite the responsibilities they carried.
He suspected the girl wanted to be closer to Tim. The two of them had a special bond, even after breaking up. Maybe because they once dated, they were close friends, the only one closer to Steph being Cass. But those two were opposites and her and Tim were eerily similar in some respects. He wriggled his arm out and grabbed his phone off the bedside table. It was 7:30. He should probably start waking up his gaggle of children so they wouldn’t be late for school. Ah fuck. He had school. But at least today he wouldn’t be harassed by hormonal girls since Tim would be staying at home.
Oh, how wrong was he.