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“I still don’t see why we couldn’t just go to Kmart,” Jason said, even as he looked all around him. The shop Mister Pennyworth had insisted that they go to wasn’t very big. The walls were beautiful golden wood, though, and the curtains covering the windows were thick and dark blue. The pale carpet was so plush he would have sworn his feet sank into it. He surreptitiously checked his shoes again. He’d tried to wipe his feet coming in, but...just in case.
“As I told you earlier, Master Jason, money is not a concern.”
Well, duh. Batman had said the same thing. That was why he’d suggested Kmart. All Jason’s clothes had come from Goodwill and the donation box at old St. Mary’s. New was nice all by itself.
A man appeared from the curtained opening in the back of the shop. He looked expensive.
Jason swallowed hard. Okay. This was what Batman had asked him to do. It was weird, it was uncomfortable, but he was Jason Todd, he could handle this.
“Mister Pennyworth,” the expensive man said, “a pleasure, as always. Who is it today? Yourself? Mister Wayne? Mister Grayson?”
“No, Mister Baldini,” Mister Pennyworth said. “We are here today for Mister Todd.” His hands on Jason’s shoulders were gentle, and somehow inescapable, as he drew Jason in front of him. “He requires an entire new wardrobe.”
“I see,” Mister Baldini said, and winked at Jason. “We shall take his measurements and bring him a new world.” He snapped his fingers.
Two muscular young men appeared out of a back room. One held back, with a pad and pen, and the other produced a tape measure and unceremoniously wrapped it around Jason’s shoulders. Jason barely bit back a squawk of protest when the man slipped the measure under Jason’s arms, and drew it tight across his chest.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mister Baldini drawing Mister Pennyworth over to speak to him, occasionally glancing over at Jason, in a voice too soft for Jason to make out. Mister Pennyworth also kept glancing over his shoulder at Jason.
The assistant with the tape measure kept going lower and lower with it, down his torso, and his waist, and his hips. Finally, the man wrapped the tape measure around Jason’s upper right thigh, and pulled it firm.
In just one second, everything went white, and blind panic overtook him.
No, no, no!
Jason ripped the the tape measure off of him and threw it to the side, and then he kicked the perv in the crotch, then again in the head after he fell, just so he’d stay down, and Jason high-tailed it out of there, ignoring the shouts and the scrambling behind him.
***
He was ten blocks away and halfway up a fire escape in an alleyway when he started to second guess himself. Batman—Bruce Wayne—hadn’t put a move on him. Mister Pennyworth, the butler, hadn’t put a move on him either. (Who had a butler? What the hell was a butler? Jason had watched the last half an hour of Gosford Park on PBS, so murderer didn’t seem entirely out of the question.)
What if he was wrong? Had he just run away from the best thing that had ever happened to him?
But the man’s hands on his thigh… Run, his instincts said. So he had.
“Master Jason,” he heard a voice calling. It was the butler. “Master Jason, please.”
What if he was right, and this was all just to get him ready?
Jason stayed where he was.
“Master Jason, I know you’re in there,” the butler called from the mouth of the alleyway. Jason debated whether to keep climbing the fire escape and hope the old man wasn’t spry enough to follow, or to stay still and hope he wasn’t spotted. He regretted having worn his favorite red shirt this morning, despite the novelty of it being clean for once.
“Ah, there you are, Master Jason. Please come down.” The butler was standing directly beneath him, now, but making no move to climb up after him.
Jason shook his head. “No freaking way,” he said. “That guy was trying to grope me!”
“I assure you, he was doing no such thing, Master Jason. He was merely taking your measurements.” When Jason didn’t budge, the old man sighed, and asked “Would it perhaps help if I were to call Master Bruce, so that you could discuss it with him yourself?”
Jason considered it. There was definitely something shady about rich, single men interested in the company of kids, and if it was just Bruce Wayne who’d offered to whisk Jason off the streets and into a gigantic fancy house, he wasn’t sure he’d have taken him up on his offer.
But it wasn’t just Bruce Wayne, kajillionaire and the subject of frequent, lurid, tabloid rumors. It was Batman. There were a lot of rumors on the street about him, too. Scary stuff sometimes—that he was a vampire, or an actual man-bat hybrid who’d been grown in a lab, or that he could kill you just by glaring at you—but most people seemed to agree that he’d never hurt a kid. (Tommy Rollins swore that he’d once had an encounter with the Batman. He’d been spooked enough to point his old man’s piece at him, and all the Bat did was disarm him. Didn’t even sprain Tommy’s wrist.) Jason was pretty sure Batman wasn’t a pedo. And it wasn’t like he’d just taken Jason in out of the goodness of his heart; he’d done it because apparently he thought Jason might make a pretty good Robin. And, not to toot his own horn...Jason thought so, too.
Jason trusted the word of the Batman.
“Okay,” he said. “Call him.”
***
Bruce was poring over the papers when the phone rang. Yes, yes, it was all a little fast; even he agreed with his lawyer on that front, but he wasn’t exactly planning on springing them on Jason tomorrow. He just wanted to have them on hand for when the time came. Bruce groped absently at the desk phone, before remembering that that was the customized ringtone of his smartphone. He picked it up. Alfred—wasn’t he supposed to be clothes shopping with Jason today?
“Alfred?”
“Good afternoon, Master Bruce,” Alfred said. “I’m afraid there’s been a bit of an incident.”
Oh good Lord. “What kind of incident?” he asked, his heart sinking.
“We were at Baldini’s for a clothes fitting, and young Master Jason misinterpreted the actions of one of the attendants taking his measurements. He assaulted him, and then fled. I have managed to catch up to him, but he’s currently sitting in a fire escape, and he’s refusing to come down.”
That would explains the faint sounds of traffic in the background. Bruce rested his forehead on the fingers of his free hand. Assaulted. Damn. This could be trouble. “Can you put him on the phone?”
“That was the idea, sir. One moment.”
There was the sound of metal creaking, and then Jason said indignantly, “I didn’t assault anybody, I just kicked him in the crotch so he’d stop touching me. And then so he wouldn’t follow me.”
Bruce decided to save the lecture about what constituted assault for a little later. “Jason, I—” he was about to assure Jason that of course the store attendant’s actions were harmless, and normal for a tailor, when it occurred to him that while he trusted Baldini and all of the staff he’d ever interacted with there himself, he didn’t actually know what had happened. “Can you please ask Alfred if he was watching you the entire time you were there?”
“Yeah, sure,” Jason said. Over the phone, Bruce could faintly hear Jason calling down the fire escape to Alfred, and Alfred’s indistinct reply. A few moments later, Jason reported, “He said no, he was talking with the tailor guy about the stuff I would need.”
“All right then, Jason. Can you please tell me exactly what the man did, right up until you—kicked him?”
“He had a tape measure, and he was putting it around me. My chest, my shoulders, my arms…” Jason sounded uncomfortable reciting this. “And then he started going down. He put it around my thigh, up real high.”
“Did he put his hands on your genitals?”
“...no.”
“Did he let his hands linger on you at any point?”
“No,” Jason said. “It was on and off pretty quick.”
“Did he squeeze anything?”
“No.”
“Okay, then,” Bruce said gently. “I wasn’t there to see it, Jason, but I’ve had dozens of tailors’ fittings in my life, starting from when I was a young boy into adulthood, and what you described to me sounds like a normal—and harmless—fitting. The point of going to a tailor is to have clothes made that fit you as exactly as possible, and one of the things tailors need to do is to take measurements of your body. It doesn’t sound to me as if the store attendant did anything not required of him by his job.”
There was an extended silence. Bruce sat, patiently.
“I’m sorry,” Jason said eventually. “It’s just…”
An ugly thought occurred to Bruce, and he cursed himself for not having had it right away. “Jason,” he said, keeping his voice calm and even with great force, “May I ask—has anyone ever actually put their hands on your genitals in the past?”
There was a little pause, and Jason said, “Yeah. Once. This older guy.” His voice wobbled slightly.
“What...what happened?”
Jason laughed, nervously. “Uh, the same thing as today, basically. I kicked him where it hurt and then I ran until I was sure he wasn’t following.”
“I see.” Bruce pinched his nose. “Jason, I’m not going to ask you to go back there. I don’t think that man meant to hurt or scare you at all, but I think I understand, son.”
“I’m sorry,” Jason said again, in a small voice. “I just—I panicked. I was just—I guess I shouldn’t have hit him.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Bruce told him. “I’m not angry at you. I’ll call Baldini and talk to him. Can you please give the phone back to Alfred?”
“Yeah, sure.”
More creaking metal, and then Alfred’s voice back on the line. “Master Bruce?”
Bruce sighed. “I think we’d better skip Baldini’s for today. Jason overreacted badly, but I think understandably so, given his...experiences.”
“Ah,” Alfred said, sounding sad. “I think I understand.”
“Maybe something a little more casual for now. Nordstroms, or Barneys. Something like that.”
“Understood, sir. Sir, about Baldini’s…”
“I’ll call them, Alfred. Explain, and smooth things over.” And hope to god that poor store attendant wasn’t interested in pressing battery charges against a traumatized 12-year-old boy. Bruce was already guiltily thinking of things he could offer to that end. Any medical expenses paid in full; a paid vacation (on his account); maybe a tropical cruise… “Oh, and you can tell Jason to get down, now.”
***
Jason was seeping with guilt, and also burning with the bright, furious sense that he hadn’t done anything wrong. “Why do we have to do this?” he said, as Alfred escorted him into Nordstroms. “Clothes are just clothes! Why can’t we just go to Kmart? Why does everything need to be fancy?”
“Please, Master Jason,” Mister Pennyworth said, wearily. “It’s been a long day already. Let’s just please find you some proper clothes, so that we may both go home at a reasonable hour.”
“What the hell is proper?” Jason snarled.
Mister Pennyworth sighed deeply. “Proper clothes are those that you wouldn’t be embarrassed to be seen in or that would date things too badly ten years, or fifty years, or more, in the future, should you happen to be photographed wearing them.”
Jason rolled his eyes. “No one’s gonna care about me in ten years or whatever,” he scoffed.
Mister Pennyworth’s hand fell on his shoulder again. He’d thought it was gentle, before, but now he knew it was steel.
“You are family, now, Master Jason,” Mister Pennyworth informed him. “You will always be family. Master Bruce’s family, and my own.”
Jason’s discontent almost bore him through a series of clothing tryouts: slacks, khakis, plain-collared shirts, button-ups and sweaters.
It dried up, though.
Jason looked at himself in the changing room mirror, wearing the latest outfit Mister Pennyworth had sent him in with: grey slacks, a white button-up shirt and a bright red pullover sweater.
This isn’t me, he thought, looking at himself. Today, he’d gotten up and put on his best jeans, (and okay, yes, they had a hole on his left knee), and his favorite red shirt (the Poison Idea shirt that Mom had gotten him from Kmart two years ago because she’d seen him thrashing along to the band once when they’d been standing at an intersection for a really long time, listening to the stereo of some guy’s convertible, and she thought it was cute) and which he knew was worn thin on the elbows and under his armpits, and was starting to not quite fit.
These clothes aren’t who I am, he thought, looking at his arms and legs, enclosed in these strange new silhouettes.
And then he thought, in a dizzying whirl, but maybe I could be this?
***
Master Jason was quiet on the ride home.
All in all, Alfred thought, the day had been a huge disaster. Their long-standing professional relationship with Balidini’s was damaged, potentially forever. Master Bruce’s new charge clearly did not trust Alfred, or appreciate his function.
Alfred couldn’t help but cast back bitter thoughts to Master Dick, who’d taken Alfred for granted as a natural element of his new household. Master Richard hadn’t quite known what to think of Alfred, either, but he hadn’t objected to him.
In the passenger seat, Master Jason stirred, and cleared his throat. “Mister Pennyworth—”
“As I’ve said, Master Jason, you may call me Alfred.”
Master Jason went silent. Alfred cursed himself. “Master Jason...please say whatever it was you wanted to say, and don’t worry about the form of address.”
“The...oh, never mind,” Master Jason said. “You said I was going to be...photographed.”
“Yes, sir, I’m afraid so. It’s a hazard of becoming a Wayne. There are the official photographs, and the family photographs, and there will be the unofficial photographs taken by the papparazzi. You’re going to be captured on film quite a lot, young sir.”
Master Jason learned over against a door, and didn’t say anything for the rest of the ride home.
When they arrived back at the Manor, car parked in the garage, Master Jason slammed open the car door and ran out, and up into the Manor.
Alfred looked at the bags upon bags of new clothing he’d selected for Master Jason, his burden to bear, and sighed.
***
Jason hurtled himself up two flights without a thought, and threw himself onto his bed.
His bed. His. They’d given it to him. And it was just for him. Only for him. In his room, which was only for him. His room locked from the inside, and the hinges on the door were on the inside, too. It even had its own bathroom, and that had a door that had its own lock. The room had a window, but that also locked from the inside. Maybe the window was a way in—someone could break it—but it was also a way out, and if someone came in, well, at least he would hear them coming.
He’d been worried, so worried about that when he first got here, last week. When Batman had opened the passenger side door to the Batmobile barely a day after he'd caught Jason lifting its tires, and invited him in. Jason knew he was taking a terrible risk when he got into the car, never mind that they’d just fought back-to-back against a crew of jewel thieves.
And today, he’d let himself become convinced that he’d made a mistake. He’d almost ruined everything.
It’s a hazard of becoming a Wayne.
He was going to be...family?
There will be the family photographs.
He was going to be family.
Jason had a family.
This wasn't just about Robin after all. Mister Pennyworth, and Bruce Wayne, too, they were planning and thinking like Jason was already family.
Jason shoved half his hand into his mouth, and put a pillow over his head, but if he hadn’t been safely alone in his locked, hinges-inside room, nothing could have hidden his raw, brutal sobbing.
***
When Alfred reached Master Jason’s bedroom with the bags of clothing, he found the door shut and locked. He rapped his knuckles, but the room’s occupant made no answer. “Master Jason?”
Again, there was no response, but as he leaned in closer, Alfred thought he could hear the faint sound of crying.
He sighed. Perhaps better not to push things at the moment. Alfred left the bags in the hall beside the door, and retreated to start the roast he intended for tonight’s dinner. Hopefully, by the time it came out of the pot, Master Jason would be calm enough to eat it.
***
Jason heard the knock, and the call, but he couldn’t bring himself to answer. He curled up even tighter, and tried to cry more quietly, but he couldn’t stop it.
I don’t have to be afraid anymore. He chewed on his knuckles, trying to get himself to stop crying, the way he had when he was little, but it wasn’t working. I don’t have to be afraid anymore.
He thought about Mom. They’d never talked about it, but he knew she was terrified what would happen to him when she died. There weren’t...options.
Jason had known she was going to die, and he’d tried to prepare for it. He’d decided he would take to the street. It seemed like the best of all possible plans. Safer than the gross cops and CPS and foster care. He was smart and savvy, he would plan for it. He’d met a lot of kids who used to be in Gotham foster care, and they liked the street better, too.
But he hadn’t realized just how bad it was going to be. He hadn’t realized how right Mom was to be scared for him. He didn’t know how frightened he was going to be without her, all the time, until she was actually dead and even the idea of having a mother slowly diffused into the air, leaving nothing behind but yearning. Then, and only then, did Jason understand that there was no one, no one at all who cared if he lived, died, starved, froze, was hit, or raped; was used for sport, or killed and left to rot in some forgotten alley.
No one. There was no one. There was only Jason.
But not any more.
I have a family, Jason thought, and he broke down all over again.
***
As it happened, Master Jason did muster himself in time for dinner. Alfred had just added the carrots and potatoes to the pressure cooker when Master Jason knocked on the doorframe, and came into the kitchen. Alfred was slightly startled to realize that he had washed and changed into some of his new clothes—the grey slacks and red sweater. Master Jason’s face was red and puffy, despite his shower-damp hair, and even if he hadn’t guessed, it would have been obvious to Alfred that Master Jason had spent the last hour or so in tears.
“Hi Mister...Alfred,” Master Jason said, almost shyly. “Look, can I—can I help out with dinner? Or something?”
Alfred dried his hands on a dishtowel, and regarded the boy. He said, in his gentlest tone, “Perhaps you have not yet realized it, Master Jason, but my function in this household is to serve you. And Master Bruce, of course.”
There was a pause.
“I’m not sure I get it,” Master Jason said, at length.
“In this household, I handle the domestic responsibilities, young sir. Cooking, cleaning, shopping, bills, and so forth.”
There was another long pause. “What does Bruce do?”
Lord help him. “He bears a great many other responsibilities. I know you are aware of the chief among them, Master Jason.”
“Do you have to call me—” Master Jason shook his head. “Never mind. Can’t I just set the table or something?”
Alfred hesitated. The china was delicate, and the silverware—do it, his heart said. “If you insist, Master Jason,” he said. “You’ll find everything you need in the dining room. It’s just a right into the servery, and then two quick lefts. I’m sure you’ve already seen the way.”
Jason nodded, but he lingered at the door. “Alfred?” he said. “Thank you for the clothes. I’m sorry about before.” And then he vanished.
Alfred blinked.
***
Alfred didn’t always choose to dine with the family, no matter its configuration.
But tonight, he felt he ought.
He’d brought all the dishes to the table, and Master Bruce was carving the roast when Alfred went back to the kitchen for drinks. He was returning with them when he heard them speaking, though, and he froze in the little hall between the servery and the dining room, helpless not to listen.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that, Jason,” Master Bruce rumbled. “We hadn’t realized.”
Master Jason’s voice was a little shaky when he said, “I messed up, Bruce. I’m sorry. I should have…” he broke off.
“It’s all right, Jason. I talked to the people at Baldini’s. Everything is going to be fine.”
“I should say sorry,” Master Jason said, in a voice laced with guilt. “I hit that guy pretty hard.”
“I think that’s a good idea,” Master Bruce said. “Maybe you could write him a letter.”
***
Master Bruce vanished after dinner, no doubt to begin his preparations for the night’s work. Alfred began gathering the emptied dishes from the table. Master Jason followed suit, collecting as many dishes in his hands as he could without risking a smear on his new sweater. Alfred’s lip twitched to see how careful he was about it.
“You really don’t need to do that, Master Jason,” he said over his shoulder.
“I want to help,” Master Jason insisted. “It’s really not a problem.”
Alfred allowed Master Jason to proceed to the kitchen ahead of him. Master Jason piled up his dishes on the counter. He looked around. “How does this work? Is there a garbage disposal, or do we scrape everything into the trash, or what?”
Alfred sighed. “The way this works, Master Jason, is that I bring back the dishes to the kitchen, I rinse them, and that I load them into the dishwasher.”
“Oh,” Master Jason said. “Well, I can rinse.”
“Master Jason, as I’ve said—”
“I always helped my mom around the house,” Master Jason said. He didn’t look at Alfred at all as he moved over to the sink and turned on the tap. “That’s just how we did things in my family. Before.”
Master Jason’s voice was even, but there was a discernible tremor on the word family.
“...I see,” Alfred said. “If you are so determined then, Master Jason, perhaps you could help me prepare Master Bruce’s patrol snacks, while I attend to these dishes? It may seem too soon, but he’ll be ready for a midnight snack once he’s out and about, sooner than you’d think.”
“Okay,” Master Jason said, already heading for the refrigerator. “Is there...oh, it’s the cheese, right? And this salami?”
“Indeed, young sir.”
Alfred, sleeves rolled above his elbows, rinsing and stacking dishes in preparation, let his mind drift for a few precious minutes.
The afternoon’s incident had been so dramatic, and so concerning, that it had blinded him to the deeper distress. He felt absurdly grateful, somehow; at least now he had an idea of how to proceed. If Master Jason needed to be helpful around the house in order to feel that he belonged in it, Alfred would not begrudge his help.
Alfred rinsed his hands, and turned towards his newest charge. “If you will, Master Jason: first, you lay out the bread, and then the gouda—pardon me, sir, that would be the cheese—and then the salami…”