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Jason wants to make it very, very, very clear this is not his fault. And technically, it’s totally not. He had nothing to do with this specific situation, and that’s a fact.
“This isn’t my fault,” he says, and Talia, who’s practically his mom, snorts. It’s not a delicate sound, but it is familiar, one he hears often. Bruce, Jason’s dad, smirks like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. Like he knows it’s bullshit somehow, even though there’s no reason he should know that.
They’re both hard-ass adults—so really, why should they be any different when they’ve been de-aged?
“It’s not!” He insists anyway. Because it’s seriously, absolutely not.
They both give him skeptical looks, and he’s reminded sharply of all the times he tried to blame things on Tim. His parents don’t let any of their kids pull any shit at all, and apparently never will. And damn it all, the look is working.
For crying out loud, they’re what, ten? Jason is 24 years old! He’s an adult!
“Master Jason,” Alfred says, standing behind the two children. He looks haggard and annoyed and Jason feels small under his sharp gaze. “As much as I would like to believe you, you have a long history of claiming situations aren’t your fault when they are, in fact, very much so your fault. Tell me what happened.”
Jason sighs, rubbing his temples. “I was on patrol like normal,” he says, not looking up. “Crossed paths with Duke and Harper but none of the others. When B sent a distress call, I was closest to the location, so I went and checked it out and found these two standing around.”
Little Bruce had been wearing just the upper half of his batsuit, cowl pushed down and out of the way, as well as a pair of boxers that seemingly got shrunk (or de-aged, whatever) alongside him. Little Talia was wearing the top half of her suit, too, but unlike Bruce, she’d had her mask still on, covering the lower half of her face. He could tell they were both cold, barefoot as they are, but they were good at hiding it.
“When I entered, Talia attacked, but I managed to convince her I wasn’t going to hurt them and she stepped back.” Stepping back hadn’t meant anything, though—she’s just as dangerous that way as she is up close. Even de-aged. Even barefoot. ”Bruce asked me like a billion questions about where they were and what happened and when he could go home. Then they pointed me in the direction of where the bad guys were.”
“And?” Damian demands from across the room, pacing wildly. At 17 years old, he’s gotten better at patience and maturity, but he’s still the baby. Despite all of Dick’s and his own efforts, he can still get snappy from time to time. “Where were they? What condition did you find them in?”
“They were all knocked out or too injured to get up,” Jason shrugs, unaffected by Damian’s mood. It’s not like he hasn’t been in it since he first came to the Manor all those years ago. “I interrogated the ones who were still awake, and they said they were working for this guy Bob The Builder or something.”
“Bob The Builder,” several of Jason’s siblings repeat, either in annoyance or amusement, Jason can’t tell. But by the smirk Cass gives him, he thinks it’s probably amusement. Probably.
“Bob The Brain? Boob The Builder? Something like that. I don’t know, she was slurring a lot, okay?” And she was, but not enough that Jason couldn’t hear what she actually said—the name of a D-list Rogue with a penchant for dumb schemes like this one.
“Could she have meant The Barge?” Stephanie asks. “’Cause like, if she meant that guy, then it’s totally your fault.”
Jason jumps to his feet without thinking, an ingrained instinct from years of arguing with these people. “How the hell—?”
“You’re the one who pissed him off so bad he became a bad guy in the first place!”
And that’s totally true, considering Jason shooting him—to keep him from running away from a crime scene—really was what got him into the villainy game. But Jason’s not going to just admit that. Or let all the blame be put on himself. “Yeah, ‘cause I was just following B’s dumbass rules about rehabilitation!”
“They aren’t dumb!” Damian spits out, stepping forward like he’s actually going to fight Jason over this.
Bruce turns to Talia and says, obviously trying to whisper but not doing a great job of it, “I think our kids need therapy.”
The disagreement—and Jason absolutely refuses to say argument, because they’re on a three day streak without one, and he doesn’t want to be the one to fuck it up—pauses, everyone turning to look at their de-aged parents. No one had told them about the family’s situation, just that they were all part of it. There are rules to this time travel/de-aging shit, okay? And one of them is that you don’t reveal exactly how you’re related unless you have to. It could mess up the timeline beyond all recognition, and no one wants that on their conscience.
“H-how did you know?” Harper asks, sharing a wide-eyed look with Cass.
“It’s not hard to tell with that one,” Talia says, waving a hand in Damian’s direction. “The rest of you act like family with him, like he’s your baby brother. It makes sense, then, that you’re all his siblings.”
“And Alfred called you ‘Master Jason’,” Bruce adds. “He doesn’t call anyone but family ‘master’.”
“And when you were bringing us here, we could hear you when you asked what you were going to tell ‘mom and dad’. Unless there’s some other adults here, clearly that’s us.” Talia actually uses finger-quotes, which is something she’s always sworn never to do in all the time Jason has known her. He doesn’t know whether to be shocked, annoyed, or weirdly pleased to have finally seen it.
“Well,” Dick says, coming forward and clapping his hands together in that way that works well on children. Not any children in their family, of course, but hey, why not be optimistic? “You’re both right, we’re your kids. Most of us are adopted. And about the therapy thing, believe it or not, this is what we’re like after a few years of it.”
“It’s a work in progress,” Duke offers, shrugging. Tim snorts—he totally picked it up from Talia, but this probably isn’t the best moment to reflect on that.
“Yeah,” Dick agrees cheerfully. It’s so obviously forced that Jason just has to laugh—and incur the attention and wrath of Nightwing. His brother gives him the evil eye before turning back to their parents. “Um, look, why don’t Alfred and Damian show you to some guest rooms, okay? The rest of us will talk to Jason, get the full story. And by full, I mean if I have to sit on him to get all the details, I will. Then we’ll work on getting you guys back to normal.”
“Master Dick, what have I said about sitting on your siblings?” Alfred’s defense doesn’t go any further than that, sadly, as he takes Bruce’s hand, who takes Talia’s, and leads them out. Damian follows grudgingly behind after his own look from Dick.
Once they’re gone, little voices echoing against the walls getting quieter, Jason finds himself being stared at by all the others.
“This is totally your fault,” Tim says just before Dick pounces.