Chapter Text
Dick hung upside down on a pole in the Batcave when Bruce entered. His mouth quirked up at seeing the acrobat in his natural habitat.
“The weirdest thing happened to me today, B, you’ll never guess,” Dick said as he did a backflip to land in front of him. Bruce didn’t bother responding. Dick was used to filling the silence on his own. “This kid shows up to conditioning for my team.”
As the captain of the gymnastics team at Gotham Academy, Dick always said my team. Bruce felt a small, fond smile form on his lips. “He wants to join up, I tell him we have new kid tryouts in a few weeks, but he could show me some of his moves now, and he does.” Bruce continued his walk to the console, Dick right by his side. “They’re pretty good. A little messy, but that’s not a surprise. I tell him with a little practice he could really do some things.” Bruce wondered if this was going anywhere. “Anyway, the kid’s name was Jason Dent.” Bruce looked at him. Surprise in his throat, Dick’s blue eyes were bright with amusement.
“Yeah, I know. Dent is a fairly common last name, so I ask the kid about himself. He said he just moved here, which, lie, because he had the thickest East End accent I’d ever heard, which is interesting because we know Selina.” Bruce let himself chuckle. “After he left, I sniffed around a bit,” That most likely meant sneaking into the offices, sometimes Dick had no subtlety. “and you’ll never guess who enrolled him.”
“Who?” Batman said like an owl.
“Roman Sionis! You know the guy who runs the Black Mask Club.” And Bruce felt his blood run cold. “I was like what a coincidence that the club owner of one of the most well-known mob clubs in Gotham would enroll a kid out of the blue, especially one with the last name Dent.”
“That’s not Harvey’s child,” Bruce said, his voice impossibly distant. “Harvey always,” He looked down at his hands wrapped up in their gauntlets. “Harvey always hated Roman, he wouldn’t.”
“Harvey Dent wouldn’t, sure, Two-Face would.” Stand-off. Dick’s voice shifted to serious in a second. Bruce ignored his pointed comment.
“How old did you say the child was?”
“I didn’t,” Dick said. “But he’s about eleven or twelve, maybe thirteen, but you should see him, Bruce, he’s tiny.”
“Harvey was dating Pamela Isley at the time,” Bruce said. Tried not to think about why all of Harvey Dent's dating life was present in his mind. “And unless you’re implying that this young man is Poison Ivy’s child,”
“He’s not.” A quick response. “But I do think he’s at the very least connected with him.” He perched on the arm of Bruce’s chair, the same way he had since he was nine. “Sionis has never done anything out of the good of his heart. And what sixth grader needs three guards to escort him to and from school?”
“You had guards,” He said, but he said it absentmindedly, not focused with his mind whirling the way it always did whenever Harvey Dent came to his mind.
“Yeah, I used to get kidnapped every other week.” He said with a laugh, but it didn’t last. Bruce could feel Dick’s eyes on him, observing him. “What should we do?”
“You? Nothing.” He said, his fingers moving along the console, Harvey’s file coming up without him even really trying. The words on the screen were already branded into his head.
“Bruce,” Robin said, voice impossibly gentle.
“I don’t want you anywhere near him.” There was still a very fresh memory in his head of holding Dick’s body as his blood dripped all over his suit, as his blue eyes clouded and fluttered and his heartbeat slowed.
“The kid or Two-Face?” And like always, Dick saw right through him.
“Preferably both.” A roll of his eyes, a disregard for his words.
“Jason’s got a smart mouth, yeah, but he’s good, Bruce.” He said, ran his hand through his hair, pushing it back. “You should have seen him, brightest eyes, throwing himself in there.” Sounded like the young man made quite the first impression. “He’s joining the team, maybe I could stick close to him, see if he lets anything slip, finally get you that evidence you’ve been wanting on Two-Face and his black mask-wearing partner.”
“No,” Bruce said firmly. “You were gravely injured the last time you ran into them, I don’t,” Dick scoffed, standing up from his spot on Bruce’s chair. He was already so much taller than he used to be.
“Are you still hung up on that?” He asked and Bruce just looked at his partner, wasn’t sure what to do with the annoyed expression on his face.
“You almost died Richard,” Bruce said. It was a fact. Two-Face, Harvey, had almost killed Dick, and it had almost ruined them.
“And we got over it,”
“You quit being Robin for six months.” Dick left the manor and Bruce’s help over not being able to be Robin.
“You fired me!” Dick snapped, and Bruce blinked at his hostility. “Now this kid obviously needs our help. You’re letting your fear of Two-Face stop you? You had no problem with me befriending all the other mobster’s children,” Gotham Academy was one of the best schools in Gotham, everyone wanted their kid there, everyone. “Or does it only matter when that mobster used to be your best friend?”
“Enough,” Bruce told him. “This discussion is over.” Dick would get over this, he’d put in a call to a social worker. They would not make this into more than it was.
“Fine,” Dick said, just as sharply in return. “I’ll go get ready for patrol.” He walked away, his yellow Robin cape flying behind him.
Of course, it wasn’t over; it sat with him.
He watched the boy with his backpack walk out of school after gymnastics practice. Curly black hair, a bright innocent grin, and he was tiny. Possibly had been malnourished in the past.
Interesting.
Jason Dent, ward to Roman Sionis, owner of the Black Mask club (his old schoolmate who lost both of his parents in a suspicious fire, who had lit Bruce’s first cigarette and taken him to his first club) had appeared from out of thin air. The boy’s file was full of dead ends.
“See what I mean?” Dick asked as they headed home. “He’s just got a face that makes you want to help him, but you should hear him talk Bruce, the things he says, they’re a riot.”
“Mmm,” Bruce said back, his mind alight with possibilities about the child.
So then Batman investigated. When he went out on the streets, no one cared. Why would they? If he was correct, Jason was one child from the East End who had gotten lucky enough to be taken in by Two-Face and The Black Mask.
Catherine Todd was dead.
“Her old man was a piece of shit,” One girl on the corner said to Matches, her hands sliding down the tacky polyester suit in search of his pockets. “And she couldn’t stay off the junk long enough to be any good for her boy,” snapped her gum in his face, before pressing a kiss to the side of the bushy mustache.
“You know what happened to him?”
“Why?” Her brown eyes narrowed as she looked him up and down. Protective. Most people were with the children around this neighborhood. Bruce used to think that the people who lived on the east side only looked out for themselves. He had found that the working girls on the corner were some of the people who stepped between predators and children, even at the cost of themselves. Gotham always found ways to surprise him “If you’re trying to find Willis, you’re barking up the wrong tree, Mista Malone. No one seen him in weeks.”
“He dead?”
“Maybe,” tilted her head, her hand sliding under his suit. “Could probably tell you more after you pay up.” A smirk slid across her face. “or put out.”
He took the information he learned from her and added it to the theory that he and Dick had put together. Willis Todd, also known as Slick Willy, son of Ma Gunn, was one of Two-Face’s men that had basically been there ever since Harvey got acid splashed in his face. That he vanished and his son, little Jason Todd, had also stopped showing up at his usual haunts, one being the library.
“I hope nothing bad happened to him, Mr. Wayne,” the librarian said as she shelved books. “He was such a smart boy.”
“My son was mentoring him,” He told her. “it’s good to see someone worried about him.”
“You of all people know how hard this city can be,” she said, her point illustrated by the hard lines around her mouth. “But if anyone could find a way to survive, it would be that little boy. He’s special.”
“I can see that,” He said. “Do you happen to have the last book he checked out?” Followed her to the front desk and didn’t leave until he had the book, a fantasy novel, in his hand.
Matches went down to his favorite bar, kept his head down as he sipped his whiskey. Listened to Two-Face’s men complain about a child who had distracted their boss.
Corroborated that fact as Batman with reports of a child sitting beside Two-Face in business meetings in a little black and white suit, smoking a cigar. On the boy’s other side? A man in a Black Mask.
“I’m not happy to be right,” Dick said to him as he slid his mask off, his blue eyes serious and clear. “I just want to help him, you understand that right?”
They make plans for Jason to come over to the manor the following week.
Gymnastics practice.