Chapter Text
He comes to somewhere else but it doesn’t take him long to figure out where. His childhood bedroom in Wayne Manor is unexpected but not the worst place to wake up in.
Especially when Alfred Pennyworth is seated at the end of his bed, eyes trained forward on the door as if someone might come in and try to kill them both. There’s a cup of tea cradled in his weathered, wrinkled hands. The scent of bergamot wafts through the air. Clearly, Alfred’s tea habits haven’t changed.
“I see you’re awake,” his gray eyes shift to his, crinkling upwards at the edges, “I’ll have you know- you gave us all quite the shock, Jason.”
He stares blankly at him then looks down at himself. A butterfly needle is still taped in his inner elbow, delicate against the rest of his skin. Needlessly delicate because when Jason was seven he was so insulted by the idea of a needle going into his body that he got physically aggressive very quickly.
“My bad,” Jason says. Alfred chuckles quietly.
“How are you feeling?”
“I feel like I got run over by a semi-truck. ‘M not hungover, am I?”
“I would certainly hope not,” Alfred smiles a bit more openly. He smiles enough that Jason feels like he can smile back, just a little. “Although, I would thoroughly appreciate it if you called the moment you knew you were poisoned instead of several hours after.”
“I tried-”
“Not my line.”
Not the house, Alfred means. The manor line. The line that connects to the three black rotary phones in the manor. The lines that will ring come hell or highwater. Jason didn’t even think to call. He has the number memorized but he just.. Didn’t.
“I’m gonna take a wild guess and say my thoroughly poisoned body helped find the antidote?”
Alfred nods silently. But it’s not the kind of silence that Bruce creates. Alfred’s silence is like a fluffy throw blanket. Inviting, cozy, and always there when Jason needs it most. His silence can be deadly, but he’s never been on the receiving end of that brand of Pennyworth ‘you fucked up and I will make sure you feel it for days,’ silence.
Lucky him.
Jason looks around again. He hasn’t actually been in his bedroom since before he died. Dick told him Bruce didn’t let a damn thing change, and his eyes got all dark when he told him. He’s given up on trying to figure out that look a long time ago.
But his things are still his things. His bookshelf is still covered in annotated paperbacks. Every available surface has some sort of action figure or shitty sculpture from his eighth grade art class on it.
“My stash is still under the bed, isn’t it?”
Alfred takes in a sharp breath of air, “He couldn’t bear to get rid of it.”
“So, there’s definitely a pile of expired food under my bed right now?”
“Indeed.”
Jason leans over the side of the bed and yanks the basket out. He stays hunched over, thumbing through his hidden hoard of food. He never really needed it, but he was so scared that one day he wouldn’t be allowed to eat anymore. Old habits died pretty freaking hard, didn’t they? He still hoards junk food under his bed like he’s preparing for the apocalypse.
“That’s kind of gross- hey, there’s sweet and sour skittles in here.”
“Do not eat that-”
“Too late,” he plucks the package out and peels back the green and pink packaging. A handful is in his mouth before he can think and he gestures towards Alfred, “Want some?”
“Absolutely not.”
Jason shrugs and chews. They’re absolutely stale but the flavor is still there. He wonders if they even sell the flavor anymore- probably not. He used to love them, but what 15 year old didn’t love brightly packaged candy?
Alfred holds his palm out. Jason dumps a handful of skittles and watches Alfred mechanically chew on them, frowning deeply.
“These are horrible.”
“Finders keepers.”
“You know, I’ve never actually liked that rule. It’s rather unlawful.”
Tell that to Bruce and his treasure collection. Jason swallows and covers his mouth to cough. This moment of peace won’t last long. He closes his eyes and takes it in, the scent of Alfred’s cologne has thankfully stayed the same. Even his room smells the same. Like old cedar wood and paper.
Alfred cuts through the silence with a gentle, “Do you feel alright?”
And that’s a question. Physically, yes. He thinks he feels as fine as he can be all things considered. But being in the manor- in his room makes something inside him ache for a void he knows will never be filled. Jason lost his place in this house a long time ago. He does not feel safe here, and he doesn’t know if he’ll ever feel safe here again. Certainly not in the way he used to feel safe, back when he was ten years old and came home from patrol with a nasty cold. Bruce coddled him for ages, stroked his hair and told him he did a good job even though he fumbled a drug bust.
No. Those safe hands would never run through his hair again, or hold him how they used to. Jason stands up silently and makes his way out of the room on weak legs. Alfred thankfully doesn’t call after him. He’s not sure if he would have made it down to the cave without having a breakdown if Alfred called him back.
Bruce is predictably sitting in front of the computer, his cowl pulled back behind his neck. Jason walks silently against the stone floor, his footfalls even quieter now that he’s in socks instead of his boots. He tries to clear his head, and he definitely ignores the costume sitting in the glass display case.
He remembers how awful that costume felt against his skin when his bones splintered through it. Anger stabs in him like a vice, but he controls it. He breathes in the sweet, minerally scent of the cave. Stalagmites drip around him. A consistent drip-drop that keeps him grounded in the moment as he approaches Bruce’s foreboding chair.
Medical equipment is still laying around. Jason recognizes the machines. A centrifuge lies next to a microscope, and next to that there’s a vial rack full of test tubes of varying red shades. He spots his initials on three of them. The rest are a mystery. He doesn’t want to ask Bruce where the other samples came from. The idea of Bruce drawing blood from dead or nearly dying bodies makes a shiver run down his spine.
Morbid Bastard.
“So, I hear you found the antidote.”
Brue’s hands freeze over his keyboard and he turns slowly to face him. In the dim, fluorescent lights of the cave his blue eyes look more gray than they do blue. Like storm clouds on a sunny day. Then his brows narrow just slightly over his eyes.
“How long?”
Jason meets his gaze evenly, “A little over three hours is my best guess. I had taken a few samples at the warehouse, didn’t think anything of it until my nose wanted to become one of the plagues.”
Bruce grunts, and turns back to his computer. Images fill the screen. People with bloody noses, eyes shrouded with fever. Jason frowns and steps forward.
“Did I look that bad?”
“Yes.”
Ouch. His frown deepens even more and he glares at the top of Bruce’s head. His eyes return to the screen again. This time it’s full of data from his blood sample, a full blown analysis on what was active in his system, and then the exact way Bruce formulated the antidote. Jason thought he was going to be a dead man all over again. Apparently he has very low blood oxygen levels.
Bruce is staring at him. Jason flicks his eyes down to his and tilts his head, “What do you want me to say? We got what we needed.”
“You could have died.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Jason snaps, turning his head back to the screen. He sighs through his nose. “Krystal was there- what happened?”
Bruce also looks at the screen, and his shoulders drop quietly. His sigh is quieter, more exhausted.
“Would you believe me if I told you she cursed me up and down a wall?”
“Yes,” he grins. “Mother bears and all that.”
“She cursed out Batman.”
Oh, oh.
“Why the fuck didn’t you change?”
Bruce stares at him, and his mouth opens before clicking shut again. Right. Poison, a toxin. Bruce Wayne wouldn’t know how to handle that but Batman definitely would. Gotham’s hero.
“So Batman and Nightwing came to my pretty little number to save me? How sweet,” Jason says through his teeth. “How’d Anika do?”
“What?”
Jason rolls his eyes, “She has a math test on monday, I was supposed to help her with her homework.”
Bruce’s gaze shifts then. Shifts into something Jason really can’t identify. They stare at each other like rabid dogs forced to share the same kennel, waiting for the other to strike. All of this over a normal conversation.
“Dick said she’s a quote, ‘Hot-headed little firecracker. With a painfully silver tongue.’ I think she tried to fight him twice.”
He winces, “Oh, that means she doesn’t like him.”
“What?”
Jason rolls his eyes, “I’ve been watching this girl for like two months, Bruce. Yeah, she’s got one hell of a temper. Never used it against me though.”
“I imagine she gets it from her mother.”
“Heh, probably,” he looks at the screen again. “She’s a damn good mom, you know?”
Bruce hums, “I got that impression, yes.”
“Good enough to curse Batman up a wall, apparently.”
Bruce’s head drops into his hands and he sighs more heavily than he had the first time. Jason watches him massage the bridge of his nose with his fingers before he picks his head back up again. This is the closest thing to civil they’ve had in a while, but there’s something in Bruce’s eyes that’s starting to put him on edge.
Yet neither of them speak. Jason refuses to back away. They stare and stare at each other, and Jason briefly wonders what Bruce will do if he punches that god awful look off his face.
Bruce breaks the silence with a quiet, barely there, “You were seizing.”
“That’s what happens during a seizure, yeah,” and Jason ignores the fact that the last time he had a seizure he was an undernourished seven year old. The knowledge sits between them and sinks in the air. “Krystal’s a nurse, though. Pretty sure she had me covered.”
“She did. You’ve managed to make quite the group of friends.”
Jason swallows down the sudden lump in his throat. They’re not friends, they’re neighbors. They are his neighbor and his neighbor’s daughter that he watches on Fridays because Friday nights in Gotham are wretched, cursed things.
Bruce continues, “She kept telling me that you’re only a 20 year old boy.”
Right, because she asked about his age once. She wanted to bring over a bottle of wine in an attempt to pay him. Jason looked her dead on and told her that he wasn’t of age. Which is true, he isn’t. But the way her eyes went glassy and her lip caught in her teeth made him feel odd, and very out of place.
The look is even more out of place on Bruce’s face. There’s a distance to his eyes, as if he’s looking beyond Jason instead of at him.
“I mean- I’m 20. Did you want me to lie to her or something?”
“Hn.”
Very insightful. Jason watches him pull up the encrypted file he keeps for all of his underlings. His is labeled distinctly in red. Organized by color, and name. His updated photo comes up first. Red Hood in all of his glory, and his information follows.
There’s two question marks next to his age. A blank spot where the number 20 should be. Jason curls his lip, watches the blinking cursor erase the two question marks and replace them with the right number.
“You didn’t know,” he says hollowly. He doesn’t expect a response, really. Jason rakes his eyes over all the information he can. Highly Dangerous. Potential Threat. Right, he did try to kill Robin once or twice. Oh well, that’s par of the course. Jason was basically hazing him. That was two years ago though. He hasn’t tried to kill him since (even if the thought had crossed his mind, listening to the little shit squawk and squeak over the comms) is he still dangerous?
Who’s he fooling? Of course he is. One can’t paint over a shitty wall and call it brand new, the foundation still sucks, and the studs are in all the wrong places.
“You were 17,” Bruce says through his teeth. His voice strains and whines out like steam through old metal.
Yeah, he was. But he doesn’t say it out loud. The idea of confirming makes his throat feel tight. Jason drops his eyes to the floor, rubs the back of his neck with his hand, and shrugs at him.
Bruce tenses. Jason hears the click of his teeth in his jaw. The things that neither of them will say are swarming around and around. Jason was 17 when he attempted to kill Bruce through the Batmobile, he was 17 when he forced Bruce to make a choice, and he was 18 when he felt the kiss of a batarang in his throat.
A lot can change in a handful of years. The rage he felt back then was unparalleled, the grief, the anger, all of it. Some of it was the effect of the pit, but the rest was him. The rage is still there, just quieter. A dormant volcano resting under his heart. A wolf nipping at his heels when he’s on patrol and everything is going to absolute shit.
Yet, the wolf wasn’t by his side when he was poisoned. Instead he was.. Calm. He could remember that calm in his mind. A cool sheet pulled over his face in summer. He was calm, alarmingly calm. Until he realized Bruce was there, and then he was briefly angry and perhaps a little scared.
Just a little. Nothing to write home about, that’s for sure. Still, there’s something Bruce isn’t saying and that is disrupting his train of thought.
“If you have something to say, spit it out. I’m not gonna stand here all day listening to your jaw crack around the words you can’t figure out. I can take it.”
Bruce’s eyes flick to meet his, and then they stay there. Jason stares at him, and waits to spot anything. A crinkle in the corner of his eye, a twitch in his jaw, anything.
Instead, Bruce’s face does that weird thing it does when he’s feeling a lot of something and isn’t quite sure what to do with it. His lip twitches. Jason thinks he might even be biting into his cheek.
“You’re 20,” Bruce finally says, and those two words hover in the air like a thick cloud of smoke. He doesn’t even continue, he just leaves it out there. Because god forbid he actually explains what he means. Jason’s fists curl by his sides. He wonders if Bruce would be able to block him. They’re too close to one another, closer than they’ve been unless they were fighting.
He’s had five years of fighting, and he’s starting to get tired of it. Maybe that’s why he picked that apartment of all places. He wanted to fool himself with a minute sense of normalcy. His lease is up in three months anyways.
“Jay-”
“What?”
“I’m proud of you.”
Jason stills and raises a brow, silently prodding him to continue. Decking him in the face is becoming more and more of an attractive idea.
Bruce clears his throat, “The girl. You didn’t have to watch her, but you did. That’s…” he trails off, eyes flicking back to his. Before he can get another word in, Jason cuts him off.
“That’s what we do. We help each other. There’s nothing else to it,” and because the conversation is turning more intimate than Jason would like to be, he hunts down the packet he mindlessly stuffed in his back pocket, “Skittles?”
Bruce blinks and tilts his head, then he shrugs. He holds out a cupped hand and Jason quietly dumps him a handful. He watches him methodically chew, grimacing.
“Jason, these are stale.”