Chapter Text
Jason knows when he’s in deep shit.
It’s more of an acquired skill than a gift, really - something he’s adapted after years of taking shit from his biological family and then foster care and then the streets. It piles on top of him until he suffocates, until someone drags him up to the surface by his hair, until someone cuts through to him with a sharp word or hateful look or empty promise.
It’s a skill that has served him well, and up until this point, it’s told him how far people have to dig to reach him, how hard they have to hit -- how deep their words need to cut. No matter how pure their intentions are, everyone has an angle, and everyone reaches him eventually, some faster than others - even if he gets a little cut up in the process.
What’s unfortunate, though, is that Bruce Wayne is a fucking enigma .
“Let go of me,” Jason hisses again, but if anything, Bruce tightens his steadfast grip on his arm - fucking sadistic bastard. The man casts him a look as if he has any goddamn right - any authority over him at this private event, and Jason feels the familiar, burning pressure behind his eyes and in his nose.
He’s so fucking stupid.
People glance over at them from where they’re nursing their drinks - a few sympathetic and a few indifferent. Some younger kids giggle at the thirteen-year-old getting dragged off by his bicep, and if it were any other situation, Jason would be utterly humiliated.
He feels every inch of their gazes, every inch of this stupid fucking tailored suit that Bruce insisted he wears - “There’s a time and place for everything, Jason, and you are not wearing a T-shirt that has a cat sitting in a taco on it. Go change. I will not ask you again.” - and Bruce’s firm grip makes it pull and crinkle uncomfortably on his shoulder. He wants to elbow the man in the ribs, in his stupid fucking clean-shaven wrinkly-ass face, but by some act of God, Bruce hasn’t dragged him out of this shit yet - hasn’t hit him or said anything, really.
A part of Jason doesn’t want him to. He doesn’t want this tentative bond to break, the whole ‘let me provide food and shelter for you, and you serve as my Robin. Call me if you’re dying,’ vibe that shines out of Bruce’s ass and straight up into his terrifyingly plastic smile.
But Bruce hardly smiles at Jason, anyway, so why does it really matter?
Ignorance is probably better than the foster parents that constantly kept him under a microscope, and besides, it’s just logical, right? Bruce didn’t even want Jason here, so it’s Jason’s job to dig himself out of his own shit, no matter how much he wants to break a chair over the man’s slicked-back head of hair.
As it stands, he just stares at the ground in front of him as he stumbles over his own feet, trying to ignore the blurry vision — the way his eyes burn.
The way he can’t quite catch his breath. His chest aches, but he hopes Bruce passes off the rapid rise and fall of his chest as a result of the tears scorching his throat.
He hopes Thomas isn’t nearby.
“If I can’t trust you to be unsupervised for ten minutes, ” Bruce mutters in a tone akin to spiders crawling up Jason back, “then clearly I can’t trust you to walk by yourself.”
Yeah. Clearly, right?
He doesn’t trust him. The teen nearly scoffs, because he knew that already, but he knows it would just be a watery thing, broken and pathetic, so he bites his tongue until the heaviness in his eyes nearly overwhelms him, nearly cascades down his face like the champagne that Jason fucking aches to pour over his guardian’s hothead.
Fucking trust.
Jason isn’t used to trust, anyway. No one trusts the street kid, the kid with some kleptomaniac tendencies and a mile-wide chip on his shoulder — the kid who’s been hardened by the streets of Gotham. He’s heard it all, and he’s sure as shit heard enough at this party alone.
“Don’t get too close to him, Cheryl. God only knows what those perverts on the street have taught him.”
“Taking a rat off the street doesn’t make it clean.”
“How kind of Mr. Wayne to take in another orphan… it must be so difficult, dealing with a boy raised in such an… unfortunate environment.”
“You can take the kid out of the Alley, but you can’t take the Alley out of the kid.”
Yeah. He knows that Bruce and his people don’t trust Jason. He’s seen far too many upturned noses and pitying gazes tonight to believe otherwise.
The spiders bite. It hurts.
Bruce keeps his voice low, thankfully, so it doesn’t draw too much attention. But Jason still refuses to look up, and although he’s definitely not meeting Bruce’s gaze anytime soon, he can feel dark eyes pierce through his fucking soul.
“I’m disappointed in you, Jason.”
Not spiders. Maggots. Stupid fuckers that pick away at shit, at any dead or decaying meat-sacks that they can get their malevolent little hooks on.
He’s in deep shit.
He wonders if the maggots will finish him off before Bruce can pull him back to the surface.
Dick was a way easier adjustment.
He hates admitting that, even to himself, and he knows how terrible it would go over if he confessed that to anyone – especially Jason. He doesn’t regret taking the boy in, of course, and he’s just as impressed and amused by his charm and wit as he was the day they met. He’s a good boy – a strong, resourceful, smartmouth boy that’s had to deal with far too much in his thirteen years.
In fairness, Bruce had known that Jason didn’t want to come, and that was fine - he’d told him that he didn’t have to, but the teen had apparently taken that as some kind of guilt trip, even though Bruce hadn’t meant it that way.
Jason fought him tooth and nail on his state of dress, though - oddly defensive, even for him - but in a rare display between the two of them, Bruce had stood his ground. He’s been trying not to push the boy too hard - not now, at least, when Jason is still so sensitive to anything even remotely related to Bruce asserting his authority over him.
Or, well – anything related to Bruce in general.
Naturally, it’s been a slow process. Bruce had expected boundary-pushing, had expected the way Jason cusses him out and comes home late and always manages to steal back his cigarettes when Bruce confiscates them at least twice a day. He’d expected the rule-breaking and the disrespect, and as a dutiful pseudo-parent, he’s been trying to put his foot down in some ways, trying to tell Jason what is and isn’t good for him.
It’s been a… difficult process.
At the very least, he was able to relate to Dick’s traumas and the way he struggled under the thumb of a new authority figure that wasn’t his biological parent. He understood the initial resentment, the need to take breaks when everything became too overwhelming, and he understood that it wasn’t anything personal – that the boy was grieving.
But Jason? Jason never had a real father figure, and he’s not afraid of disrespecting him by respecting Bruce. He’s not worried about Bruce replacing the man that dared call himself a father – he’s terrified of Bruce being like him.
Even if he’d never admit it. His boy is far too proud for that, even if it’s not anything to be ashamed of.
There are plenty of other people that ought to be ashamed of Jason’s upbringing, and Batman is still working to bring them all to justice.
Nevertheless, Bruce has tried making the transition easier for the boy – he’s given him his space, he’s read all the blogs for adopting teenagers (no matter how few of them exist, which he’s made a mental note to fix), and even if that’s turning out to be a bad choice, he’s tried. Bruce has known the lad for the better part of three months now, but Jason has only recently begun his work as Robin – only recently begun to place a tentative trust in Bruce that was entirely absent when they were merely man and ward at the manor.
Unfortunately, that progress seems to have disappeared. It’s been gone since they walked through Thomas’s gold-accented doors – since they approached the relatively small party (compared to Bruce’s typical galas, of course) and Jason’s shoulders tensed under Bruce’s hand.
But above all, he’s tried, both as a parent and mentor.
And right now, he’s trying really hard not to throttle the boy.
He almost feels bad about practically dragging him away from the few friends he’s made at Gotham Academy, but that inkling of remorse has been dwindling down since Jason started digging his feet into the lush, expensive carpet – since he’s started getting louder in his protests and bolder in his colorful use of words. Under any other circumstances, Bruce would be impressed that he knows ‘bastard’ in at least four languages, and ‘fuck you’ in six.
But when Bruce finally makes it back to Thomas’s office – the one area that was made explicitly off-limits to the guests – and once again lays eyes on the man’s desk, the little sympathy he’d retained melts away, drawing his eyebrows down and into an unintentionally-stern frown.
Jason still stares up at him defiantly, of course, eyes settling somewhere on the man’s chin, even though he’s starting to look a little more trapped under the heat of Bruce’s gaze. He doesn’t even risk a glance at his own handiwork.
The man crosses his arms over his chest and levels the kid with a glare that would have his employees slinking to the ground and begging for mercy.
Jason just rolls his eyes. Bruce is sure he’s seen worse.
“Is there something you’d like to tell me, young man?” He doesn’t even mean for the title to slip out, but he lets it hang in the air, anyway, letting the ominousness seep into his voice. He hopes it’ll help Jason see that this isn’t something small – isn’t like arriving home a couple of minutes after curfew or telling Bruce that he smells like a ‘fucking dead rat that was regurgitated by a rabid cat’ after a particularly rough patrol. If he’d pulled this stunt with anyone other than Thomas, they’d be having a very different conversation right now.
And even though Bruce has been trying to go easy on the boy, he knows that in order to prevent that conversation, they need to have this one – a very different conversation than the ones they’ve had thus far.
“There are lots of things I’d like to tell you, old man, but Alfred’s cuss jar is already overflowing."
Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose, getting a distinct feeling that this conversation is going to be a whole lot more difficult than he would’ve liked.
The kid is always sharp with his responses, though – quick-witted, charming and street-wise, at the very least, and his grades reflect that he’s hardworking and book-smart, too. And no matter how much the boy tries to come across as some kind of hardened, low-life delinquent, Bruce knows that he’s better than this. Jason is trying to prove some kind of point, whether it’s a conscious choice or not, and Bruce knows that the teen should be smarter than to let something as juvenile as this ruin his entire future.
But unfortunately, as it often is with even the smartest of children, his boy can be unbearably stupid at times.
“I don’t know what I did to… upset you, lad,” he mutters, letting go of his nose in favor of dragging a hand down his face, “but this is not okay. You’re incredibly lucky that this is only Thomas’s office, and you have me to vouch for -”
He’s interrupted by a loud scoff, and Bruce closes his mouth, deciding quickly to let the kid ride this out. He waits patiently for the boy to say something, because that smart mouth always has something to say, but after a few moments of tense quiet that raises the hairs on the back of his neck, Jason evidently decides that the toddler route is the best way to go, throwing his hands up in the air in frustration.
“Where- where do you get off acting so high and mighty, you damn narcissist?”
Bruce should have seen those words coming, considering how many times the kid has spouted this type of thing before, but he finds himself raising a brow, not quite expecting that little outburst. It’s clearly different from his past grievances, taking his watery eyes and stiff posture into account, but. Well.
Bruce hopes that this conversation goes a bit differently, too. He hopes that… whatever this is can finally be fixed.
“N-Not everything is about you, and I don’t need you to do shit! Just- would you just stop already?”
Bruce blinks once, then twice, and then a third time to see that yes, Jason is, in fact, staring up at him and finally meeting his eyes, teenage defiance etched into every aspect of his expression and posture, and his voice is still bouncing off the sound-proofed walls of the spacious office.
Some people say that adopting teenagers is nice, since they don’t whine and cry at night and throw tantrums when they don’t get their way.
As a father, Bruce has always been inclined to disagree with that assumption.
It’s unimportant, though. At least the boy is asking questions now.
Bruce lets out a slow breath, staring incredulously at a barely-teenager who seems to be losing some of his bravado the longer it takes him to respond. Jason’s narrowed, irate eyes glance off to the side and lose a bit of their tension before they drop completely, and his dress shoes scuff along the ornate red-and-gold rug. His hang-dog expression doesn’t make Bruce feel much better about this situation, and a part of him wants that cold-shouldered subversion to come back.
He looks a bit too much like the boy from the alley, right now, the boy who’d held that crowbar in front of him like a lifeline and lashed out violently whenever Bruce got too close.
The boy with wide, terrified eyes, defensive as a feral cat but pleading with Batman to let him go.
Yeah. That won’t do.
“You were obviously angry at someone when you did this,” the man says slowly, quietly, shrugging out of his suit jacket and laying it over Thomas’s office chair, and he crosses his arms over his chest, feeling a bit too unsettled to do much else. He can barely even look at Jason without feeling detached, and while he knows Jason doesn’t in any way deserve that, the importance of resolving this issue quickly is starting to weigh on him.
Understandably, it only seems to make Jason more uneasy.
“Don’t even try it,” he says firmly when the boy opens his mouth, undoubtedly about to lie through his teeth, or perhaps cuss him out again. Both of which are completely unacceptable. “If the way you’ve clearly been begging for my attention didn’t make it obvious enough, then I’m pretty sure that drawing a plethora of male anatomy across my colleague’s desk got the message across just fine.”
Jason tucks his hands into his pockets, and even though he turns his head to the side, Bruce can see the workings of a smirk cross his face.
“This is not a laughing matter, young man,” he asserts sharply, and the soft laugh tapers off when the words register, Jason staring at him with wide eyes.
Good. Maybe he’s finally getting through to him.
“Now, I don’t know what your intended implications were with your little... illustrations, but you will be finding a way to get rid of them after we’re done talking. Is that understood?”
Jason is still staring at him incredulously, eyes a little too glassy, but Bruce keeps his gaze level, even though he knows what’s coming. He can see the outburst building in the boy’s posture, the way his confusion makes way for anger – ironic, when he thinks about it. Jason should know better than anyone that people fear what they don’t understand, and he should empathize with the victims of that, given what he’s been through.
But he’s barely a teenager. Bruce is the adult.
And it’s his job to make sure Jason turns out better than those who’ve wronged him.
“It’s… It’s permanent ink, dumbass. Did all that goop in your hair finally seep into your thick skull? Or are one of your little work friends borrowing the brain cell?” It’s a weak insult, especially comparing it to Jason’s typical snark, but Bruce can read the tenseness in his posture, the underlying question and fear in his wide-eyed gaze.
Bruce doesn’t exactly blame him; it’s not like he’s ever been this stern with him before. There’ve already been accusations of favoritism from Dick, and really, Bruce knows he’s to blame for letting it get this far. Punishing any kid is difficult, but punishing Jason? Punishing the kid that had been punished far too many times for things outside of his control? Punishing the kid that had been abused because of Bruce’s negligence as the biggest charity coordinator of Gotham?
Punishing the kid that he couldn’t save, because he didn’t know?
“There’s more than one way to skin a cat, Master Bruce. You’re a smart boy. You’ll surely figure something out.”
Alfred’s voice seems to ring in his head at the worst of times, but somehow, the man’s advice for a trigonometry test that he took as a teenager is what comes to mind. It’s completely irrational, and Bruce knows that – he knows that he needs to be able to adapt quickly as unforeseen circumstances arise.
But when he stares down at those watery eyes, at the blind panic buried beneath thirteen layers of teenage angst, Bruce knows what he has to do.
He knows that he has to be better.
“Sit down, please,” he utters, only after a brief moment of silence, just a split second before the slow-building rage on Jason’s face was about to come crashing down. He takes a step away from the kid and leans against the desk, dragging a hand across the expensive mahogany wood, sweeping his fingers over the many dried blotches of ink.
Honestly, if Jason hadn’t chosen to draw a good thirty or so penises, of all things, Bruce would probably be impressed by the boy’s artistic skills. He certainly has good attention to detail, even if he’s slightly concerned about how good. Junior high really isn’t what it used to be.
Oddly enough, the cool, familiar smoothness of the desk allows him to center himself, if only slightly. He breathes in slowly, and the fresh lemon scent that has always seemed to linger in Thomas’s office is just enough for him to open his eyes, fervently pushing down any remaining annoyance with his son.
Despite his best efforts, though, he feels some of that irritation pull when he looks back at Jason, and he knows by the pain behind his eyes that a pulse is visibly throbbing in his forehead.
“Jason,” he repeats with as much patience as he can muster, and at least that seems to get the lad’s attention. He straightens minutely, but predictably, doesn’t make any move to do as he’s told, not unlike a deer in headlights: trapped, a little scared, seemingly unaware that its life is at risk - and incredibly frustrating. It makes Bruce sigh, because really, he should’ve expected this.
But he should’ve expected a lot of things.
“You can’t change the past, Master Bruce, but you’re the playing hand of your future.”
But, well. He has another future to worry about, now.
“You don’t have to sit if you don’t want to,” Bruce decides, then immediately wonders if that was the right decision at all. Either way, it doesn’t matter, but Bruce just backed out on a direct order. Will Jason respect him at all, now? “I just want to talk to you.”
Jason shifts on his feet, eyeing him wearily. It’s a blessing that Bruce can pick up on those subtle cues now, that Jason is willing to express them, because he doesn’t know what the hell he’d be doing otherwise.
It also reminds him that Jason isn’t a toddler, and deciding to revoke his previous statement isn’t going to make him suddenly lose all respect for Bruce – if he had any of that in the first place.
Bruce missed out on the toddler years, anyway. Apparently, every adult in Jason’s life did.
“I don’t want to talk,” Jason snarls, mirroring his posture and crossing his arms over his chest, but he tilts his head up to glare at Bruce as well, mouth pulling back in a grimace. It reminds Bruce that his own body language isn’t particularly calm to begin with, and Jason is probably picking up on that.
But he needs to be better. He needs to not punish first, ask questions later.
He needs to figure out why panic is still lacing Jason’s expression, still present in the way his eyes are slightly wider than usual and flash around the office, even if he tries to hide it behind his glare.
“Jason,” he begins slowly, trying to dredge up any advice from the copious amounts of books he poured through about parenting troubled teens, “I understand that you don’t want to talk, and you are perfectly valid for having those feelings. However, this behavior is completely unacceptable, and we will need to talk about it sometime tonight.”
Jason pulls a face, and Bruce doesn’t exactly blame him. The words taste like pamphlets from the Gotham Children’s Services center.
“If you’d like,” he powers through, trying to be gentle – gentler than he ever would have been with Dick, had his son done something like this. But, as Bruce is keenly aware at the moment, they come from very different circumstances, “you can take a time-out here for a few minutes, and we’ll talk about it once you feel more… settled.”
Bruce instantly knows it’s the wrong thing to say when Jason’s face twists.
“I’m not a child,” he insists – rather childishly, but Bruce won’t be pointing that out any time soon, “I don’t need a time-out. Just– Fucking, just beat my ass or ground me or whatever. I don’t care, but can we please just… stop this?”
Bruce closes his eyes briefly, a stone settling in his chest. They’ve been over this.
“I’m not going to hit you, Jason,” he says evenly, opening his eyes to settle his hands on the boy’s shoulders. He tries not to let the subsequent flinch deter him – he knows it would only ruin Jason’s pride if he gave any indication of noticing. “I’m never going to hit you – not as punishment, at least, and never intentionally.”
Bruce isn’t frustrated that he has to repeat it. He isn’t, because he’s read enough parenting blogs about caring for abused children to know that it takes time and patience to earn their trust, and even if he repeats it a thousand times over, it doesn’t necessarily prove anything. He needs to show it through his actions, because Jason has learned the hard way that words are hollow.
That’s what he tries to remind himself, when Jason opens his mouth to speak. He’s angry, and he probably doesn’t mean what he’s saying.
“Yeah, but obviously you have no problem dragging me across the whole freaking house because someone’s precious mahogany got dicked down, huh?” he questions sharply, pulling away jerkily from Bruce’s touch, and Bruce crosses his arms over his chest instead. He resists the urge to rub his temples – he should have known that Jason wasn’t ready for this. “Take your double standards and shove them up your ass, Bruce, and let’s just leave. Dickwad was right about you.”
Words are hollow. Words are hollow.
He takes another breath. If you can’t speak without external signs of anger, you shouldn’t be speaking. Count to ten, first. “Is that why you did this?” he manages, opening his eyes. He hadn’t even noticed he’d closed them. “Did you just want my attention? Or did you want to get back at me for something?”
He tries to sound calm, non-judgmental, but it seems he failed, if the way Jason’s nostrils flare despite his red-rimmed eyes is any indication.
“Fucking - not everything is about you. I didn’t want your attention,” he hisses, as if the very notion of wanting Bruce to notice him was so disgustingly unfathomable that he couldn’t even suggest it. Maybe he and Dick aren’t so unalike, after all. “And you didn’t do anything, I just…” .
He stops. Right when they were finally getting somewhere, Jason stops, and he ducks his head down to his chest, so Bruce can’t even see if he’s stopping because of anger or embarrassment or anything.
“...Jason?” he encourages after a few long seconds, hoping against hope that he’s not making the wrong call. Hoping that he doesn’t make the boy clam up anymore than he already is. “You just what, lad?”
A soft sniffle. Bruce’s crossed arms loosen despite himself.
“I just,” he begins, voice breaking, and Bruce’s hands twitch with the urge to run through the boy’s hair, along his cheeks – to take away whatever made him do something so stupid. Jason scrubs roughly at his own eyes with the inside of his wrist, finally lifting his head slightly. “I just didn’t realize that it would… be like this,” he manages, and Bruce blinks.
He didn’t realize that the party would be like this? He didn’t realize that he’d get in trouble?
“Jaylad,” he says after a few seconds, once the boy seems to have gotten his tears at bay. He still looks rather unhappy, anger dancing in his green eyes and bottom lip pushed out sightly, his chin jutted as if daring Bruce to mention it. As if his feelings are a bad thing. “You didn’t realize… what?”
Jason’s nostrils flare again, and his eyes seem to glow with rage, the kind that’s highlighted by his defensive posture and tensed shoulders.
His feelings aren’t a bad thing. But sometimes, especially with Jason, it’s what he does with those feelings that’s bad.
“I didn’t realize…” he grits out, as if Bruce is the one being slow and vague, “that the… people… would be like– this.”
Bruce is definitely starting to feel a little slow, and it must show on his face, because Jason tosses his hands up with a frustrated growl.
“Never mind – it’s fine, okay? Can we just– Can we leave? Please?”
He has that look on his face, again. The fury-filled look of a caged animal, as much as Bruce hates to make the comparison, and Bruce has studied body language enough to understand the nervous shift of the boy’s feet. There’s anxiety written into every aspect of his face and posture, no matter how much he tries to cover it up with a sneer.
Bruce’s lips tighten. “We can leave soon, bud,” he promises, because like hell is he staying here after all this. It’s doubtful they’ll be missed. “But I want to finish our talk first. Can you just let me know why you thought this was a good idea? Did you not like the… Did you not like how much people are flaunting their money?”
Jason scoffs, loud and obtrusive, and Bruce forces down any annoyance. Count to ten, first. “Yeah, because the Alley kid definitely can’t handle being around money, right?” he asks, voice dripping in the sarcasm that must be covering his upset. “We don’t want my fleas getting on the authentic fur rugs, huh? Can’t have me getting too turned on at the sight of those diamond earrings, cause let me tell you, my palms were itching–”
“Jason,” Bruce interrupts, tone far louder and more admonishing than he’d intended, judging by the way Jason’s mouth snaps shut. He can only stare at the boy for a moment, exhaling heavily, and it’s only the slight tremble of Jason’s lips that make him take a mental step back, voice softening. “Jason. That’s not what I meant, and you know it. Was it your friends? Did they dare you to?”
Jason uncrosses his arms briefly to scratch at his chin, then folds them back over his stomach, tighter than before.
“No,” he mutters gruffly, glancing briefly at Bruce before redirecting his gaze to the wall on his right. “They didn’t even know about it. Said I was– just going to the bathroom.”
Bruce isn’t surprised. But he still doesn’t get it.
He doesn’t want to punish him until he does, because if any single one of the books he’s read or Wikapedia articles he’s browsed through are correct, that isn’t constructive. Jason needs something constructive, something stable.
He’s never had that before.
“So what do you mean about the people, Jay?” he asks, distantly wondering if he should be sterner. Would that be constructive? Would that make him shut down or make him listen? “This is Thomas’s office, you know, and I doubt you have anything against him. I just want to understand.”
There’s no way Jason has anything against Thomas, after all. Bruce hadn’t even been able to introduce them before Jason was running off to join his colleagues’ children, but at the very least, the boy had caught sight of him after the butler took their coats. He doubts that two seconds of eye contact would be enough to warrant this.
But, from the way Jason turns to him with wide, red-rimmed eyes, Bruce questions that for a moment.
The boy hesitates, opening his mouth only to close it, and Bruce nods encouragingly, not sure if he should verbalize his pleading. Just say what’s wrong. Something is wrong.
There’s a knock at the door, and every muscle in Jason’s body tightens.
At that moment, Bruce knows that any progress they’d made in the past ten minutes has been undone.
He withholds a sigh, settling a hand on Jason’s shoulder. Even though he knows the boy has been building muscle mass over these past few months, it still feels a bit harder than it should be. A bit tenser. “Could you give us a moment, please?”
The doorknob twists open, and Bruce almost jumps when he feels Jason grab the hem of his suitjacket.
Thomas walks in, albeit sheepishly, and Bruce relaxes a little. It’s just Thomas, and while he probably isn’t the happiest with Jason, it could have been worse. He even shoots Jason a soft smile, and Bruce squeezes the boy’s shoulder reassuringly when it seems to tense further beneath his hand. “I suspect you’re our little artist of the hour? It’s… Jason, correct?”
He doesn’t know Thomas particularly well – the man has attended a few faculty meetings with him, has helped out at a few youth fundraising events – but from what he’s heard, he’s a good man. Jason is lucky that he didn’t vandalize someone else’s desk, especially so crudely.
Thomas has always seemed so good with kids, but Jason isn’t like other kids – isn’t nearly as trusting.
Bruce is reminded of that when Jason’s jaw seems to work around something, stiff and angry, before he only nods jerkily, eyes glaringly hard.
Bruce sighs softly, moving his hand to nudge Jason between the shoulder blades. They should really get going, if their conversation isn’t getting anywhere. “Again, I’m really sorry about this, Tom,” he says for probably the tenth time since Thomas’s head maid approached Bruce, having the decency to whisper what the security feed in the office had picked up. He begins guiding Jason toward the door, praying that his ward’s growing distress wouldn’t lead to him lashing out until they were in the privacy of Bruce’s car. “I’ll pay for any damages, or Jason and I can work on getting this cleaned up for you.”
Thomas’s smile is easy, and as they walk past, his hand brushes Jason’s shoulder. The boy twitches in response, but to Bruce’s surprise, he doesn’t move out of the way.
He glares hard at the floor in front of him, and Bruce feels his own brows furrow.
“I’m sure Jason and I can work something out, right?”
Jason doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and Bruce briefly considers slapping down a few hundreds and calling it a night. It would be nice for Jason to take some accountability for his actions, and maybe it’s not a bad idea for them to work it out amongst themselves. He may not know Thomas very well, but to his knowledge, he’s a good man. He spends plenty of time around kids, so he may have better luck than Bruce at getting through to the boy.
But Jason isn’t like other kids, through no fault of his own. He doesn’t have the same needs.
The boy nods. The movement is shaky.
Bruce glances between them, but Jason refuses to look up, gaze seemingly fixed on the wall in front of them. His hand is still firmly grasping the back of Bruce’s jacket.
“Good boy,” Thomas says quietly, rubbing a thumb over Jason’s shoulder, and that’s when he finally pulls away sharply, yanking open the door of the office before Bruce can say otherwise.
“We’ll be in touch,” Bruce mutters quickly, nodding at the man politely, but he doesn’t have much time to do more than that. Jason’s footsteps are already halfway down the hallway.
He speedwalks after him, thankful that the back hallways – the areas off-limits to guests – are nearly empty, aside from a couple of servants. It doesn’t take long for Bruce to catch up, and Jason can’t duck under any adults’ arms to get away.
“Jason,” he grits out, reaching out for the boy’s arm, only for him to flinch away. Violently.
More violently than he’s flinched in months.
Bruce pauses in his stride, and Jason stops, too. His face is down and turned away, but he lifts a wrist to scrub roughly at his cheeks, hand trembling slightly.
Bruce feels any lingering frustration rush out of him.
“...Jay?” he calls quietly, reaching his hand out to cup the side of the boy’s head. Throughout the night, he’d rubbed out most of the mousse that kept his curls from looking as shaggy as usual, but it’s still a little stiff under Bruce’s hand.
He tries in vain to ignore the way Jason cringes away from him. “Jason… is everything alright, son?” It’s an idiotic question. It’s unnecessary and redundant, if anything, because his boy is clearly not alright.
Was Bruce too hard on him? Did Thomas’s unfamiliar presence scare him? Was it just the anxiety of the whole party finally crashing over him?
Jason nods his head, giving his eyes one last scrub before pulling out of Bruce’s grasp, shoving off the wall and trudging toward the front of the house.
Bruce can only follow him to the doors, hand hovering behind his back without touching.
Dick was so much easier.