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Chapter Text

Jason Peter Todd-Wayne was fifteen and so full of life, hope and love. He had a bright mind and clear morals and every line he watched being crossed created a new spark to add to the embers burning in his eyes, burning him. He fought like every day was his last, defended innocents as if they were his closest family.

And every fight, everything he lived through and saw happening daily in Gotham, the cruelest city to exist, only fanned the small candle more into a blaze. A burning wall of fire that demanded more and ate away at him more. 

More. 

MORE.

Justice.

Jason Peter Todd-Wayne was still a child when he thought about murdering a man. It'd be easy. So easy. 

Too easy.

Justice for Gloria. Which otherwise would be impossible.

It'd be simple.

Just. A little. Push.

Push.

He had raced forward and the monster had startled. And he tipped over, fearful and he 

F

  E

     L

        L

…

Batman took one look at his Robin's face. He saw that Jason had planned it. Had thought about it. That he could have saved the monster.

Batman saw the fire eating away at him and the ashes spread about as his morals turned colder, harder, the ashes that remained being compressed into a gleaming diamond.

Batman benched Robin.

Batman didn't believe him.

He hadn't done it. He wanted to. But he hadn't done it. And maybe he wouldn't have done it at the last moment after all because he hadn't done it and still had time to choose differently.

Batman wouldn't hear it.

Batman didn't trust him.

That hurt more than anything else.

Bruce loved Jason but he liked Batman's iron rule just a little more. And in his eyes Jason had broken it.

His father loved him but didn't trust him. He had benched Robin, taken away Jason's way to help. To protect and save and help and punish.

And being unable to do anything burned away at him. Turned more of him into ash and more ash into diamond under the building pressure.

A little box fell into his hands. A certificate of birth. The beginning of a name crossed out that was not Catherine's.

Oh, it ached. He had loved her. She was his mother with everything that counted and she loved him.

But she liked her drugs a little more. And so she had died and left Jason to run from the corrupt CPS and disappear into the grimy streets of Gotham, to be just another little street rat.

His mother was irreplaceable but Jason still yearned for a better outcome. For someone who loved him and liked him best and would prioritize him. And so he started searching.

Jason Peter Todd-Wayne was just a boy and so bright and burning and halfway into a diamond, ready to be polished into something truly amazing and one of a kind.

A little research turned into a trap. A gun was pointed into his face until he was tied up so tight even Robin couldn't escape from these bonds. And then the clown raised his crowbar as Sheila Haywood smoked and watched as the boy she bore was beaten bloody.

Of course Karma didn't wait for itself. The fraud was betrayed likewise and bound and a bomb counted down their last seconds.

Jason Peter Todd-Wayne was somehow still conscious and broken in more places than anyone ever should be. But still, in agony he crawled and freed the woman who bore and betrayed him.

The door was locked.

All his training was for naught with his fingers broken and crushed in more places than anyone could endure. He didn't have the time to talk Sheila through getting the lock open.

But…Batman was coming. Jason just had to be brave and protect her until his father came.

He could do it. 

Batman might have benched Robin. 

But Jason was Robin and Robin is magic.

Robin gave Jason magic.

No one could take that away.

Not Batman, not Joker, not Sheila, not that terrible crowbar, not the bomb.

Jason Peter Todd-Wayne was hopeful, burning and idealistic and he was a hero. He draped himself over Sheila. Used his armor and broken body to shield her in his last moments. To protect.

Batman was coming. Batman was going to save them. But until he came, Robin would have to be enough.

Robin would have to be enough for a miracle. But…Robin is magic, so that should be enough, right?

His father would come and save them.

Magically, he survived the crowbar. Miraculously he survived the fire eating away his outside just like his own fire burned him on the inside.

Unfortunately there were ashes not yet turned into diamonds and there was smoke and not enough oxygen where he laid trapped. Tragically Batman was too late and his father never saved him.

Sheila never loved him but she liked him enough to let her last words be about him and his sacrifice. She bore him and she died minutes after him.

Bruce loved him too much and the broken little form in his arms broke him even more than all the bones in said body were when he finally found him between the ashes and wreckage. He broke even more bones in thirty minutes of useless CPR.

Jason Peter Todd-Wayne was just fifteen years old when he died and he was Robin.

The fire had gone out and only ashes remain.

oOo

There was a redheaded woman who was nursing her bruises over a glass of alcohol in a bar. She wasn't from this hellhole of a town. She just needed to hide a little while from her husband. 

She scowled as the TV announced the six month anniversary of some rich brat that died on the 27th of April and the charity event held in his honor. The patrons either mourn the loss of such a young life or rip their mouths off about that dead trust fund baby. Once upon a street rat. The failed charity project. 

The woman takes another swing of glass and her scowl transforms into a sneer. Disgusting people who didn't let the dead rest. Who didn't let a child rest.

The woman didn't have any children and she is grateful she didn't need to feel responsible for a pitiful soul in this damned world. Still, she wished these terrible people would shut up about the dead kid. He didn't deserve this.

No one did.

"Lay off" she said. She said a lot more too. A lot of patrons shrink back at her cutting tongue.

One patron, until then having his head resting on the wood of the bar and not joining the discussion, looked up. His probably once expensive suit is crumbled and he reeks of alcohol and he looks like death warmed over. His drink is strong, stronger than the woman likes hers even in the worst situations. Whispers start up when people seem to recognize him.

The woman couldn't care less. He had shiny black hair and gorgeous blue eyes and she was immediately taken even if they both looked like a truck ran them over and then backtracked to do it again. At that moment she couldn't care less.

She slid into the seat next to him. And they talked about nothing of substance and drunk until no thought remained in place. He was smart and hurting and so different from the man she was hiding from, so for once she allowed herself to lower her walls.

Somewhere, sometime, someone broke reality just a little bit and a spark settled into place. 

The woman awoke in a hotel room she cannot remember entering. She showered, dressed and left, no trace of her presence remaining behind as she left the town to return to her normal life, to more bruises. She didn't know the stranger's name and neither did he know hers so maybe that was for the best. Her husband was mad enough as he was.

Jason Peter Todd-Wayne remained dead, rotting away in his grave. There was no miracle.

But there was still magic.

oOo

Jason awoke. It was dark. A steady, dull pounding was to be heard, almost hypnotic. But it was warm and he wasn't hurting anymore so he fell asleep again.

He must be safe, Bruce must have found him. Surely otherwise he wouldn't feel so comfortable.

Jason woke and fell asleep again. He dreamed and he cried and tried not to think about the weird taste in his mouth whenever he was aware enough to think, no matter how sluggish. He tried to identify the voices. None were familiar even if they were heard often. They spoke English and yet Jason couldn't understand them if he tried.

Maybe he was in an alien device to heal properly from his injuries with the Joker? Those must be people his dad gathered to make sure he would be okay.

He was safe.

When Jason felt slightly more aware, he pried his eyes open to the darkness. For a moment, the child feared. It was so dark. There were walls all around him, much closer than he ever thought. He tried to feel them out but his limbs wouldn't cooperate as he needed. They were moving through the warm liquid sluggishly as he tried to feel about.

He felt them out and couldn't tell how much time had passed until he had managed that feat. He felt around and kicked and felt the weird organic walls in all ways left to him.

Weird, it's almost as if…

He fell asleep before he could think the thought to the end.

Jason couldn't tell how long he stayed in that stupid organic healing tank. He slept a lot but mainly he was bored with what little time he could focus on the present. 

He was however a little unnerved when the walls seemed to close in as time passed. Surely that was no problem, right? His father would get him out before something bad happened, right?

…

The walls pressed down on him. It was too tight. Jason was now officially panicking.

He kicked and struggled and tried to call for his dad but with the alien liquid in his lungs he couldn't scream for him.

Bruce didn't come to get him yet. Jason would have to get out on his own somehow. And then he'd tell him off about stuffing him into an alien machine like this which probably drugged him considering his mental drifting.

Maybe it healed him nicely but this was a little extreme and long. Maybe even months.

…

Months. Wet. Tight. Dark.

It clicked.

Jason was officially horrified. His excuses and denial and purposeful ignorance of all the signs fell away for indescribable claustrophobia, grief and panic.

And then the walls squeezed down on him and the liquid lessened.

What followed best was not described in detail and Jason understood just why babies never remember stuff from their early years. It was fucking traumatizing.

And yet he pulled through, somehow, even if he was after maybe three breakdowns a sobbing, wailing, flailing, inconsolable mess. English was reduced to a loud, piercing scream for his dad that was understandable to no one present though the doctors praised the newborn little boy's lungs.

He was swaddled and refused to drink at first, looking into the world with wide, terrified blue eyes, body trembling as he hiccuped and sobbed and wished to be anywhere but here.

oOo

The husband in the hospital room petted the soft tuft of black hair on the baby's head, brown eyes sparkling in delight at the sight of whom he perceived as his son, unaware of his wife's unfaithfulness.

The woman eyed the newborn with something akin to dread. When asked for the name to be put on the birth certificate, she thought back to the best night she had in a long time - even if she can't remember most of it. She thought of the poor child who died. 

Jason. Healer.

She liked it. It fit.

"Maybe you're the one needed to heal this broken marriage" she whispered to the infant who watched her with too clear, too smart eyes that looked like polished diamonds. He looked terrified, silent tears trickling down his chubby cheeks and yet there was still a fire in him, she just could tell. It sent a shiver down her spine. An old soul, her long since dead mother would say.

Jason Feniks was born August 16, almost one and a half years after Jason Peter Todd-Wayne died.

Chapter Text

A baby with another man could unsurprisingly not fix a broken marriage, no matter how much Jason's new mother made sure her husband believed the boy was his. It sadly didn't matter how much she explained that the boy's blue eyes were normal with newborns even if both their family lines did not sport a single set of pretty blues. It didn't matter that she had red hair and her husband blonde because her mother had black hair and things could be explained that way.

The true problem was because the child himself refused to accept her husband as his father. 

Oh, her smart little magic boy could and would call for his dad. Even so young he took to speech like a duck to water. But the moment the man came running in response to his title, the child gave him the cold shoulder and looked very much disappointed as if he had hoped for someone else to come for him.

It was frustrating.

And it only got worse the first time her husband came home drunk and struck her. The child flinched, wide eyed and then wailed until their neighbors called the police. 

They managed to barely talk themselves out of this mess somehow.

From then on his father would only receive icy glares, burning in their intensity and considering what the child had almost had caused, the man returned them.

Jason wasn't the healer his mother had desperately hoped he would be.

But oh, he was wonderful in so many other places.

Smart, so smart she could swear he read the books she left laying around after bedtime in the mornings. He wasn't fussy. He was independent and sweet most of the time.

Outside of the violence her husband sometimes practiced against her, Jason never truly screamed or caused messes on purpose for her. 

He was adorable too. Black, shiny hair, with slight curls like hers. Beautiful blue eyes. A dusting of freckles around his nose and cheekbones - he got that from her too. So much baby fat on his chubby little cheeks. He was healthy and sweet and a handsome little baby boy who likely would only look more stunning as the years passed and he grew more into his looks.

Also, he seemed to adore her shit stain of a hometown - just like she did - by the way he peaked up whenever the name was tossed around despite not being raised there, merely born during one of her rare visits. She supposed it made sense in a twisted way, this doomed town had this charm on all of her cursed children, near or far.

The woman could admit to herself that she loved her son even if his too old eyes didn't stop intimidating her.

And so she left during the day while her husband was at work just so she could get a moment to breathe. He was smart, he would be fine a few hours a day.

oOo

Jason hated being a baby. He thought dying sucked - oh, he was perfectly aware that happened and that undeniable knowledge absolutely was agonizing. And traumatizing. But no, he found something worse.

It was being a baby.

He couldn't talk properly. He couldn't really move. He was unable to control his body functions. He was clumsy. He was stuck eating terrible mush for food - it still thankfully beat trashcan picked leftovers. He was bored and the toys were about as interesting as a brick wall. He couldn't even tell these adults what was going on with him due to a lack of teeth and his tongue being unable to properly form the necessary vowels.

And when he thought too much about his past memories, his body - unable to properly comprehend what had happened in the newly childish mind - either shut down or send him into hysterics. It was terrible. 

Jason had no idea where his father was. If Bruce was okay. How he dealt with losing Jason.

And he desperately wanted to go home even if his new mother was…okay. She loved him, he supposed. But she liked her freedom more and kept leaving him unsupervised for hours. Which sucked as much as it gave him his own freedom back the moment he could crawl.

And once he could crawl, he carefully practiced standing. Walking - more like toddling. And climbing. The old landline was his ultimate goal.

His newest DNA donors sadly left their phones never in his reach for him to attempt to call home, so the landline would have to do for the moment.

It was a struggle to get there. Took a lot of practice. But at last he succeeded and was on the desk where the landline rested. Chubby little fingers punched in the phone number of Wayne Manor which he knew by heart. He had to lift the receiver with both hands to hold it steady to his ear. 

There was a steady beeping as the phone was working to connect the call.

Then the other side lifted up and Jason held his breath. 

"Hello? Who is there?" A voice spoke. Young. Male. Probably around the age Jason died, maybe younger.

Jason's heart dropped to his feet, shattering in a million little pieces. He exhaled shuddering, his young body responding with tears to his distress.

No.

"You have reached Wayne Manor, this is the private line. How do you know this number?" The boy, Bruce's newest son, Jason's replacement in his father's heart, on the other side demanded firmly to know.

Jason trembled. Words seemed impossible. And yet, he had to.

"Sowwy, w'on' num'e'" the baby mumbled and slammed the receiver down. 

And then Jason burst into a high pitched wailing of pure anguish as the intense and incomprehensible emotions overwhelmed him, crying until he couldn't breathe, body dealing with his grief in the only way it could even with his progressive mind. The world was blurry with tears and he nearly fell as he climbed back down. Once back on the carpet stained with cigarette dust, he allowed himself to curl up and truly feel every bit as the child he was.

His new mother would find him there hours later, concerned. She would pick him up and rock him and hum until his crying tapered off into small hiccups.

Then she would turn on the news of her hometown, hoping to cheer him up, just holding her son.

And Jason, exhausted and weary and heartbroken, would see Batman and his Robin on the screen. As if the universe chose to mock him. 

Something irreplaceably shattered seeing that proof and remembering the phone call. The flame in his eyes was nearly extinguished then and there forever. The child curled into his mother and sobbed, mourned his past life and the family he was no longer part of.

Which he would never be part of again. 

Yet he yearned foolishly.

…

Time passed. Dragged itself as if it was his personal hell. Maybe it was.

The first year was over in the blink of an eye.

Jason became quieter, more reserved. Where before he would always practice moving and have a firm goal in mind, now only lethargic defeat remained.

Concerningly, he also found himself also on a pendulum of hell which consisted of obsessing about knowing everything there is to hear about his former family and not acknowledging their existence at all for weeks on end. It was definitely not the healthiest mindset or even a tolerable one at all but it was enough to make his mother just slightly less concerned about him. 

She was even suggesting therapy but Jason did not intend to end up there and her husband also didn't sound so happy about that suggestion, so it was an idea that was discarded for the moment. Rather, she signed him up for a toddler's gym class. Try to get him to move and be more active. Try to process whatever troubles him until he is ready to talk to her (aka never).

Jason still appreciated the toddler classes. If only that these simple practices and movements helped train his body control. And exercise always helped him cool his temper. Now it helped push back the numbness and sadness, the unprocessed grief and trauma.

Jason got better, if only slightly.

It was enough for the moment.

oOo

The woman loved her son and so she surprised him by taking him out to eat for his second birthday. She spent the entire day with Jason and even managed to get her husband to come for a few hours. After lunch and ice cream, they visited the zoo.

Jason spend hours looking at the animals, especially the elephant there. Seeing the gray skinned giant seemed to upset her son, so the woman tried to pull him away. He didn't let her. Instead he burst into tears and cursed under his breath.

The woman looked at her husband accusingly. "Did you teach him that word?"

The man raised his hands defensively: "No. I'm not enough around the brat for him to snap up dick outta all insults." 

"Hmph" the woman did not seem pleased though her husband had a point.

They let their son pick a souvenir and then headed home to eat cake. It was a lovely cake, really. Red - because the woman was not stupid and had noticed her son had developed a favoritism for that color. She sang for her child and was gifted with a rare smile in return. Then it was time to unpack gifts.

The woman learned that her son had a love/hate relationship with superheroes. Sometimes he would punch the Batman plush she bought him, toss it around and scream at it with words hardly understandable and none making sense, other times he would sit for hours hugging it silently crying. She learned Wonder Woman merch was a much safer hero to gift her son with and found it welcomed without exception every time.

The woman also learned that clowns are something her peculiar son couldn't stand at all. Jason would hyperventilate at the sound of the pull up clown toy's laughter her husband bought for him and she took the mental note to avoid anything with it after the toy found a rather violent end and the two year old had a panic attack.

The message was driven home when a week later on the Gotham news she sometimes liked to watch despite not living in the hellhole anymore, there was a warning about the Joker escaping Arkham. Jason went downright catatonic and wouldn't react to anyone or anything for a concerningly long two days. And then he would have a toddler tantrum that lasted weeks and couldn't be stopped no matter what they attempted.

Therapy, the doctors at the hospital recommended. And once again, the idea was scrapped, her husband turning to more alcohol to deal with the constant screaming.

It was like a miracle when Jason one day just stopped. No more screaming. No more angry crying. No more destruction. He looked exhausted, world weary and so wrung out.

The woman had no disillusions that she had any idea how to fix this. All she could do was stare into these once creepy, now dulled blue diamonds and wonder what ancient soul tortured her baby boy so, what life he had lived to carry so much anger and fear in his heart and mind. She didn't dare ask as to not destroy what fragile trust and companionship connected them even as she yearned to aid him.

And so she stayed more at home, trying to distract her boy and challenge his mind.

She loved Jason and maybe that'd be enough to make it all worth it, to finally give everything she has to him. To learn his secrets and heal his heart and maybe give the tortured soul some closure.

oOo

Jason was five again and had learned to deal with the cards given to him. Fury still burned him alive when he thought about his murderer alive and well but the ex-vigilante was planning to change that as soon as he judged himself physically able to do such.

He was unavenged, replaced and forgotten but that was fine. Jason would avenge himself. He didn't need the family that never cared.

He didn't need Bruce and his lectures, his mistrust and endless rules. He didn't need Dick who was basically a brother in name only. And he especially did not need the Replacement.

…he didn't like thinking about Alfred because his pseudo grandfather very much still was needed…

But was he worth the rest?

…not with a parent who finally cared.

Jason finally had a mother who loved him and liked him enough to ensure he could train his body and mind as he wanted and felt necessary, gentle and guiding and proud of him. She liked him enough to stay all day and enroll him in a primary school for gifted kids. 

Jason Feniks had everything he needed in a parent at last, someone selflessly, unconditionally loving and supporting. His mother's husband unfortunately was still a good for nothing abusive drunkard but with Jason around and growing in his mobility, stepping up and threatening to expose the crumbling marriage, his violent acts against his wife decreased.

Life at five while still somewhat humiliating was good.

Jason was starting to feel comfortable again, even happy. Somewhat content, at peace, barely thinking of his past life which definitely was helped by the geographical distance he also had to it.

It was good.

Too good.

…

Jason Feniks was five when his mother was struck by a truck in a freak accident and died. He was five when his mother's now widowed husband found her diary and figured out her infidelity. He was five when his mother's husband drove him to Gotham because that's where his mother met his biological father and kicked him out of the car with only a small backpack, telling him to go find his "real father" and that he was glad to be finally rid of him. He was five when the man drove off, leaving him in the familiar grime of the cursed streets of Gotham.

"Well fuck" Jason mumbled and stared at the familiar, cloudy sky of his true home. And then he set out to find the familiar safe spots he still remembered by heart - only to find most of them gone, damn it Gotham, he did remember hearing about an earthquake in the news - and started to plot.

When CPS would get their hands on him - Jason had no disillusion that at five his chances to survive the streets on his own were much worse than they were at eight as much as he hated the sham that was foster care and the idiocy that were orphanages though at least he knew the Wayne founded ones were safe and not a font for traffickers - it'd be necessary for a few years. Alternatively, instead of Gotham's miserable system, he could try leaving town again for a few years to get to a safer town and suffer the foster system or orphanages there. The thought of ditching his grimy home voluntarily now that he was free to be back didn't sit right with him but he had to think rationally here.

Either way it'd be on his own terms.

And those weren't met until the Joker stopped breathing. 

With that, a plan was formed.

Jason Feniks was five years old when he got his hands on a gun and a plan to avenge Jason Peter Todd-Wayne. His eyes were polished harsh diamonds, formed from the ashes of his old life, built under the pressure of hate and grief and polished under the care of a new mother lost. He was just a child and yet he rose to his goals like a phoenix from the ashes, burning so fiercely it might set aflame whoever dared to cross his path.

Jason Feniks was five years old when his plan succeeded.

Jason Feniks was five years old when he shot the Joker right between his eyes with a very satisfying if a bit anticlimactic bang . 

Chapter Text

Jason Feniks was five years old when he shot the Joker right between his eyes with a very satisfying if a bit anticlimactic bang. He wished he could have drawn it out more, made the Joker's death just slightly as terrible as his own but Jason knew the limits of his own current body and was painfully aware that anything else would not end well for him.

And so he prioritized his safety and mental health - for he'd never feel safe as long as the monster lived - over revenge against the creature and took the quickest route to exterminate him effectively.

It still felt as amazing as he dreamed of.

Unfortunately, his revenge plan had one glaring flaw he didn't account for: his broken, traumatized psyche. He had hesitated at the dying laughter, the sick fuck finding some kind of irony in a child ending him, and so he stumbled not quickly enough back to the vents to get away from the alerted goons as his death replayed before his eyes even with the glint of their metallic guns alike that of the crowbar.

If he died again, he thought a bit detached, at least he took the monster out.

And then Batman burst through the skylight.

oOo

Batman - who had been searching for the freshly broken out insane more monster than man - heard the shot and arrived at the crime scene just a minute too late and the small, hooded form of a child held the still warm gun in his gloved hands, staring down at it with glassy eyes as if it was a venomous snake about to bite him.

Batman barely had more than a moment to take in the scene before the goons hired by the now dead Gotham's plague burst into the scene, alerted and thoroughly alarmed. And so the Dark Knight grabbed the unknown boy to save his life and get him to the relative safety of a few roofs away where he disarmed him before setting him down.

The child, so young and frail and already a murderer, staggered a few steps away from him before sinking to his trembling knees which apparently were unable to support him. And then he burst into sobs, shoulders shaking as he buried his face into his dirty gloves, positively hysterical.

Batman just watched him silently for a moment, mentally noted down every detail for later reference. Unfortunately he found himself in fact for once in a situation he did not have a protocol for.

The child wore a dirty red Wonder Woman themed hoodie and slightly ripped jeans, likewise stained, a bulging small backpack probably containing all of his earthly belongings for the moment. 

His clothes, while dirty, weren't in too bad shape and neither was the kid's haircut and nails. It was likely the child had only recently become a part of the ones that lived on the streets, the cases that Gotham's system failed or maybe he was a runaway.

He was painfully young too, potentially aged four to seven, too young to fully comprehend what he had done.

His blue eyes were hauntingly familiar and the matted mess of dark curls tugged on his heartstrings. 

Was he newly orphaned, parents killed by Joker and so he seeked revenge? What motive could someone like this child have to end a life in cold blood because by the way the boy used the warehouse's vents to get in and position himself, clearly spoke of plotting? Or had someone forced the child to do such an act, shaped him into a murder weapon?

The father in Bruce wanted to reach out and hold the child, hug him close and tell him it'd be okay. The Dark Knight meanwhile wanted to interrogate the boy, figure out what had possessed him to cross such a line and if he had done so before.

And so Batman compromised because the child could barely breathe let alone speak between his sobs and reached out to pull the haunting little murderer into a tight embrace, certain that the knife the kid had hidden up one of his sleeves wouldn't be able to penetrate his armor in response, the skinny child lacking the physical strength. Once the boy had calmed, he could demand the necessary answers. It was the most logical course of action to take.

Unfortunately, the action had the opposite of the intended effect as the boy only started sobbing harder, tears and snot soon clinging to Batman's armor where the slip of a kid buried his face into and the father couldn't help but draw his cape around the child to shield him from the night's chill.

The man's thoughts were racing, because regardless of the answer to his question of what possessed the child to do what he did tonight, he couldn't hand over such a child to the police. While most in Gotham would celebrate the boy as a hero, there were some rare supporters of Joker and of course some other rogues likely intending to take the holder of the title "Joker's killer" down. It would paint a target so large those hauntingly familiar blue eyes now blotchy and glassy with tears would soon be foggy with death. And it wouldn't do that such a child, who wouldn't understand what he had done was wrong, was sentenced to such a cruel fate. No, he would need stability and care and understanding, to be taught right. To have a home again.

No, there was only one reasonable option now left and Bruce definitely did not have a problem, thank you very much. His children still would mock him relentlessly, he could already tell.

It would be worth it.

And so he carefully held the boy, wrapped into his cape like a baby blanket, and rose to his feet, gently to not shift him too much and upset him further. He was so light. And tiny. And painfully young, younger than any of his children had been when they came into his life.

The boy's sobs finally ceased to quiet sniffles by the time they reached the Batmobile and Batman found himself able to unlatch him from himself and place him in the passenger seat, his cape unclasped to remain securely around him, a tiny hand fisting the warm material. Both soon in place, strapped in, doors closed, silence fell between them. 

He let the boy look around with wide eyes, allowing him to catalog the things only his family got to see. It seemed to cheer him up well enough and finally the child looked at him, eyes narrowed in suspicion, fiddling with a strap of his backpack as he hugged it fiercely to himself.

They stared each other down for a moment, assessing, and once again Batman felt a sense of familiarity, almost deja-vu as the boy's head tilted slightly in what could only be stubbornness, a challenge for the bat.

He allowed it, found himself delighted with the fire he saw behind now dried tears and offered the boy a handkerchief to blow his nose and a simple: "Why?"

The boy's mouth turned down into a stubborn scowl, shoulders squaring with a challenge and he didn't waste a second to think before answering simply: "Pest control." He escaped immediate further interrogation by blowing his nose quite loudly and pointedly.

Batman's stomach turned and Bruce's heart hurt for the child who probably had been indoctrinated so deeply that the loss of human life was comparable to a rat's…even if it was the Joker.

Oh, it was selfish that a small part of him, the father, was glad the clown prince was finally guaranteed dead. But he also grieved that it had cost a child's innocence for such to occur. It was terrible and wrong. He hated this with passion.

"Taking a life is wrong" he reprimanded finally, voice half Batman and half Bruce, trying to break the message down for the child to understand.

"Well, he took mine" the boy countered with a surprising amount of clarity and intent. His words were confusing, startling, surprising but mercifully he immediately cleared his spiteful statement up. "He took everything I once had."

The fact that this revenge was cold and calculated and claimed to be intentional by the child himself surprised Batman. Maybe he had slightly misjudged the boy's age? No one in the range of four to seven should be able to decide on a revenge scheme including plotted murder with such precision. He had to have had an accomplice. And it didn't change that the child was too young to be responsible for such atrocities and now would have to carry the blood that never dried on his hands forevermore.

Batman needed time to think more and to research so he could handle the challenge this new child would bring to his best abilities. He started the car and began to drive, watching from the corner of his eyes as the boy's gaze was still steady on him. Given time, he would understand what he did was wrong but first he'd need to feel safe and trust to be able to be taught.

The man sighed and reached for the Batmobile's com. "Agent A, we'll be having a visitor. Please prepare a room" he spoke and noticed the child's grip tighten on the backpack, face twisting and going through what could be closest described as speedrunning the stages of grief.

Why, Batman wanted to ask again but reigned himself in. By the look on the boy's face he doubted that he would get an answer if he dared to question him.

Deep in thought over his analysis over the mysterious little murderer's reaction, he almost missed the resigned sigh that came crackling over the com. "Of course, Master B."

That issue settled, the car fell into a semi-comfortable and only slightly tense silence in which Batman gathered his thoughts and the boy's eyes started to drop as his emotional exhaustion no doubt caught up to him. He was adorable and in need of a good bath and warm bed and his hands had yet to release his backpack and the cape.

Unbidden, he almost reminded Bruce of-

No, don't go there. These thoughts hurt, reminded him of the bleeding hole in his heart, the wound that never truly healed, the hollowness in his life where a smiling boy once resided. Of a shrine of a room, of a display case, of a too small coffin, of a chair left empty at the table, of an armchair in the library left untouched. A little beloved spitfire that spoke of magic and now flew with the angels. And what the grieving father wouldn't give to have him back, even after all these years.

He hoped his son would be proud of him that he gave another street kid the chance of a better life.

It was then that Bruce realized a glaring mistake in his actions so far. An amateur's oversight but understandable considering what had happened that night but it would not happen again and rectified immediately.

"What's your name, son?" Batman asked.

The boy stiffened, head straightening out from where it had began to lull. He eyed the vigilante, the challenge returning to his body language despite the clear exhaustion he seemed to scream, a calculated look turning those haunting eyes into dangerous sharp gems one could easily cut themselves on, his grin turning almost predatory even if Batman was sure a child at such an age should not be able to make such an expression. 

"The name's Jason, you big boob."

Batman was proud to report that only one post box suffered the collateral damage.

Chapter Text

The drive in the Batmobile to the cave after that, was a daze. The fact nobody was injured by the time the sleek black car rolled into its parking spot could be declared a miracle.

What wasn't a miracle, was the fact that the boy - Jason, and oh did that name surprise and hurt out of all the names there are, why must it be this one? - was asleep by the time Bruce managed to get out of the car. He was greeted by the sight of Alfred and his scowling youngest, the brace still on his wrist, which had doomed him to remain at home for a while and skip out on their nightly activities.

"Father! Pennyworth informed me that you picked another one up. What is the meaning of this?!" the thirteen year old demanded quite obviously upset and unhappy by the twist of events. He stepped closer to the car, face twisting further into a scowl as he caught sight of the sleeping child. Mercifully, his volume promptly dropped. "Father, I demand to know what idiocy possessed you to take a random toddler with you."

Bruce sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, using the opportunity to pull his cowl back. "Damian, this random toddler just shot the Joker."

Alfred sucked in a breath upon hearing that. "Is he dead?" He inquired, voice frail with emotion as he had to lean against a wall to catch his balance, as if these words themselves pulled the floor of reality from under his feet.

Another sigh. "He shot him between the eyes. Far as I could tell in the heat of the moment it should be impossible for Joker to have survived that." No matter how mysteriously death defying this man usually otherwise was.

The Wayne family butler and honorary grandfather nodded, looking faint as he carefully approached the car to get a good look at the child sleeping within. He caught sight of black, curly hair and freckles and his expression turned wistful.

"Tt" Damian meanwhile seemed reluctantly impressed at that, eying the newest murder child to grace the Batcave with something indescribable in his gaze before averting it. "I could have done a much more painful and less cowardly execution than with a mere gun at his age" he declared before stepping away to let the adults take care of the boy. It was as close to approval as anyone could get in this situation.

"I wish you didn't, my dear boy" Alfred responded to that, gently reaching out to card a hand through those raven locks, a few hairs remaining in between his fingers as he pulled his hand back.

He glanced at his once ward and straightened out, a knowing look in his eyes. "Did the young Master supply you with a name, Master Bruce?"

"Only his first name" Bruce responded, sounding wrung out as he moved to remove most of his armor so he may carry the child upstairs to sleep in the for him prepared room. Unsurprisingly, it was in the family wing because Alfred knew his once ward.

"He said his name is Jason."

The gasp and newest click of tongue respectively were to be expected at that point.

oOo

Jason was floating on a cloud. Or so it felt. It was soft and warm, the smell of the homely lavender laundry detergent Alfred always used made him feel safe because he was home and it was so unlike the last weeks he managed to survive on the streets so he was perfectly fine to just stay put and doze on forever.

Unfortunately, his restful sleep was quite rudely disturbed because he could feel someone watching him. Creepy.

He was very displeased but slowly forced himself to pry his lead heavy eyelids open.

Jason knew he could've opened his eyes to a prison cell, to the streets, to a social worker's office. He supposed a room in the manor was the luckiest option he could have gotten in his situation - as well as the softest - even if it was the most emotional draining.

The sight that greeted him was unexpected but not strictly unwelcomed. It could be worse, he supposed, especially after his rather embarrassing breakdown in Batman's arms the night prior. Pathetic, if he may say so about himself, he would have thought the past years had taught him better than still to care and seek comfort with him as Bruce was just another one on his long list of parents that had failed him.

The first one not to do so was likely already six feet under, where Jason himself should be.

Once upon a time, they called Jason daddy's little boy with how he always was stuck to Bruce's side, happy to claim him as his father. Unfortunately it seemed he still had a weak spot for the man even if his place in Bruce's heart seemed to be already taken up by an entire zoo of children. 

At least even knowing of Bruce's once more confirmed adoption problem by the fact he woke up in what he quickly was able to identify as a bed in an unused room in the family wing, growing up at the manor again might be slightly preferable to his other emergency plans post the Joker's death. He only had to not get attached again and definitely not be found out so his disappointment of a family wouldn't hurt him when they ultimately replaced him again (or rejected him upon learning who he used to be… But that should not be a problem any time soon, Jason had no intention to reveal himself. )

The sight of Richard John Grayson at his bedside, one of the dickhead's big, glowing smiles drawing itself onto his face upon noticing Jason was awake, was not the worst - mind you, it wasn't the best either. They could've assigned him the Replacement as warden, that would be hell though Jason would've enjoyed giving him his best his mother's husband treatment.

Either way it figured he wouldn't be left alone after breaking the Bat's golden rule. Jason had no doubt he would be lucky to be allowed to use the restroom alone until he was indoctrinated by Batman's strict moral code again and they could be sure the kindergartener murderer wouldn't do such again.

Hell, maybe they're hoping he'd be the next traffic light after the current one, Replacement's replacement, either bit the dust or fled the coop as well. Better start young, seemed to work perfectly well with Dick after all considering he was still breathing.

"Good morning" Goldie chirped energetically like the stupid bird he was, breaking Jason out of his thoughts which earned him an annoyed look he didn't seem to care about. "I'm Dick Grayson. You're Jason, right? Batman dropped you off here last night and asked us to watch you for a while."

And then he waited for an answer, looking at Jason expectantly. Expectantly as if Bruce hadn't already everything about his short second life put onto file somewhere, probably down to what brand of toothpaste Jason Feniks preferred.

And oh, so he was going that route. The Batman made Bruce Wayne watch you and care for you route until the unlucky kid in question managed either by luck or brains to put the pieces of the family secret together. Considering Jason was unlikely to react rationally around the vigilante parts of his former family as last night's break-down had suitably shown, maybe it'd be better this way for a while at least. Get used to their civilian fonts to be able to control himself when faced with their furry sides.

After all it'd be just a little more than eleven years until he should be able to emancipate himself and ditch the lot entirely, something he definitely wouldn't have as an as likely option in basic foster care. The manor was big enough to avoid the worst of them for weeks if he wanted and gave him opportunities he otherwise wouldn't get. Like money, plenty of it. Enough to fund himself once he was big enough to do more for Gotham than just rid it of the cockroach that was Joker.

So…he would have to stay - hah, as if he would have the choice to actually leave after killing the Joker. That did not mean he would play nice or happy family though.

Revenge danced in his veins. Vengeance was singing in his blood. Judging by Batman's reaction to his impulsive childish insult yesterday - a mockery of their former first meeting - Jason had plenty of room to continue down that path to make Bruce suffer until the detective would catch on to just who had declared war upon him. The child decided his warfare wouldn't just be psychological, he would need to pull some practical stints as well. Can't have it be boring after all.

And all that without the rest catching on. He had no wish to cause Alfred any unjust pain.

"Pleasure" Jason finally drawled in response upon noticing Dickface starting to fidget a bit upon having been ignored by whom he probably deemed just a kindergartner. Suited him right , Jason thought with a curl of dark satisfaction. After all, his once upon a time older brother hadn't deemed Jason worthy for his attention for a long time either. 

Unfortunately, the five year old found himself soon in a peculiar situation. His stomach rumbled and before Dickward could make a comment upon it, Jason already spoke up: "You don't happen to have something for breakfast for me, do you?"

The fidgeting stilled and with the energy of a golden retriever, Dick launched himself onto the metaphorical bone Jason tossed him, apparently more than content to not acknowledge that the child in front of him talked slightly like a character from a period drama. "Of course! Come on along, tiny wing, everyone should be downstairs. You can meet them!" 

Tiny wing . Jason had to count mentally to fifteen to keep himself from hissing like a cat in response to that nickname. 

Once upon a time, when he had been fifteen and finally slightly acknowledged by Dick as his younger brother, as the second Robin, Dick had bestowed him with a nickname: Little wing. Ironic that he now got an even smaller version of that particular nickname, possibly a hint towards his own name being the same as the one he had before. 

What made him truly angry about this instant obvious acceptance of himself was that apparently now he'd be used as replacement for himself. And the fact that apparently this particular street kid was better than the last to find immediate acceptance and friendliness. It was so fucking unfair.

What had Jason done the first time around to gain such antagonistic behavior? Why couldn't he have gotten that immediate welcoming warmth when he craved it, not now when it didn't matter?

Jason carefully kept himself from reacting to that name and hopped out of bed, face blank. The older hero did not seem to care for his lack of response, rather he offered him his hand to take, that annoyingly wide smile still in place, a fond look in his eyes Jason desperately wanted to scrub away.

Unbidden, he thought of the last time he held a hand in this lifetime.

Red hair spilled like a fiery halo around the woman's head as she walked and laughed with him, listening to Jason telling her excitedly about the newest book he had read. Then he had spotted the secondhand bookstore advertising a big sale just across the street and he had let go, excitement chasing him away from her and across the busy street, childish impulses hardly curbed even with his older mind.

He heard her shout his name and turned once he was safe on the other side and saw that she had followed him onto the street, a wide smile lightening up her face at his excitement but also words of lecturing already prepared on her lips once she would reach him and then-

Jason of course did not take the hand, slapped it away even, rather pushing past him to the door and out into the hallway, away from more demons chasing him inside his head.

It was only there that he froze, dizzy with more, older memories and ghosts despite the small changes made to the manor - probably due to the earthquake again - and the realization he would have to face everyone if what Dick said was true, his words meaning setting in now that he wasn't blinded by anger at a stupid nickname. The entire set of children Bruce collected like fucking pokemon cards would be present, at last completed with him.

Jason abruptly felt sick, overwhelmed with everything once more. He might not be able to stay here after all, he realized with a pang as his hands began to shake, cold dread setting in. It was so fucking unfair he had to keep dealing with shit like this, he thought, cheeks growing wet.

And annoyingly before he could do anything about the new wave of angry tears that he was starting to have run down his cheeks - whoever decided to make him an angry cryer this time around was a sadist - warm arms wrapped around him soothingly. A split second it send a jolt of alarm through his system, causing him to tense up, then he recognized the arms as those of Dick. And his stupid, traitorous body chose to relax into the hold, used to hugs and comfort this time around and stupidly craving it especially after a few weeks on the streets. It was mortifying, really.

Stupid kid body, stupid Dick with his stupid relaxing octopus hugs he most definitely had not missed at all, fuck you.

"Shhhh…" Dickward soothed softly, rubbing his back in just the right ways to make Jason melt into an emotional puddle. "It's okay, let it all out. I know this situation is scary, but you're gonna be okay. I'm gonna make sure of it."

Lies , Jason wanted to scream. Unfortunately he couldn't trust his voice to remain steady in this situation as anger escaped his clutches in favor for nostalgia and longing. He wanted to punch this stupid idiot and his fake older brother act and defenestrate it all entirely.

Where were you when I needed you , Jason wanted to scream. How can you dare play so nice now from the start? Did I ever even matter to you, even after the Ski trip? 

Where were you when I died? 

Why was the Joker still breathing until I came along?

Dick only held onto the child when his angry tears turned into grieving ones as Jason had the second meltdown within the last twelve hours. Grieving for the past and terrified of the future.

He held him until tears and sobs turned into soft hiccups, nothing but kindness and understanding in every word and action.

Only once Jason was able to pry himself away, his once upon a time older brother released him from the hug.

"If you ever need to talk, I'm here" the elder assured. If you ever need to talk, here's my number , echoed like a mocking chant from memory.

Jason swallowed heavily and his head bopped up and down like lead was attached to it, not alike a conscious decision.

Dick's bright smile made a return and so did his offered hand. This time Jason forced himself to take it, his little legs unfortunately feeling like soggy noodles, unable to fully support him.

"Breakfast" he croaked out, a lot less detached and cold than last time with his newest emotional breakdown.

The duo returned to their journey, Dick filling the silence between them with an unnecessary improvised mini tour of the way the took. Jason unfortunately found himself appreciating it regardless. The chipper words chased the demons away at least for a moment.

Chapter Text

Jason was counting again. Counting his steps, his breaths, his heartbeat. 

He felt like a man led to a guillotine. 

He felt like a child in a house surrounded by overly kind strangers.

He felt like a ghost long forgotten forced back into a suit of flesh, skin crawling with bugs as he dug out of a grave.

He didn't register when Dick squeezed his hand the first time. Or the second. Only on the third, and it was then that he registered the pricking of his skin with all eyes on him.

Reluctantly, he lifted his gaze.

Eyes were upon him, burning him, dissecting him, stripping him bare until nothing but a raw, aching heart remained that beat pathetically where it laid caged between his ribs.

No air was left in his lungs as he spotted gray hair, a gray mustache. He has lost hair , Jason thought detached, feeling like he was floating. But otherwise Alfred still looked the same down to the pressed suit and proper cufflinks he always insisted on wearing. It was like stepping back in time, like nothing bad had ever happened and the world was still okay. His grandfather would cook his favorite foods and teach him to do the same, talk to him about books and school and his dad being stupid.

When Jason talked, Alfred listened like the saint he was, ever ready to absolve the young boy of his hurt feelings when his father stepped on them.

Jason still loved him. And fuck, he'd missed him.

Alfred cleared his throat, Jason blinked and the gazes were gone. Unconsciously, his body relaxed just a little even when the otherwise tense atmosphere made him want to flee. Dick squeezed his hand again and fuck, Jason hated how grounding that was.

"Good morning, young Master Jason. I'm Alfred Pennyworth, the butler of the Wayne family" Alfred greeted kindly and Jason was back to counting to try and keep himself from another attack. Or from crying, running or - worst of all - hugging his grandfather because he couldn't afford that particular impulse even though the elderly man had to reintroduce himself and that stung. His cover would be blown in seconds if it wasn't already.

"Don't let him fool you, he's so much more than that" Dick informed with a stage whisper as if Jason didn't already know that, which to everyone else present he probably didn't. "He's the one who truly has the say in the manor. He raised Bruce after his parents…died." Murdered. Jesus, Dickwing, Jason wasn't some innocent five year old he gotta shield from harsh, violent truth. He shot the fucking Joker.

"Good Morning" Jason finally choked out politely in response, suddenly self conscious about his grimy clothes in stark contrast to the polished plates on the table. 

"Please, take a seat" his grandfather uttered invitingly and Jason wrenched his gaze away to survey the set table, plenty of seats left over. His stomach dropped finding the one he once occupied whenever he could still free but also still set.

…had Alfred set his place all these almost seven long years he had been gone as if one day Jason would just leave the grave and come home?

His mouth felt dry and he blinked to keep a more thorough reaction in.

It was the first occasion he had seen himself not forgotten so far. It was more painfully bittersweet than expected and if someone reached into his chest to squeeze his heart, it'd be less agonizing.

Jason's expression must have shown something broken despite how much he tried to conceal his tidal wave of emotion because before he could take his seat, follow the clear invitation like a man possessed by the summoned ghost, Dick swooped in like his knight in blue hoodie and gently lifted him up to be seated in a free seat far away from where he once upon a time had sat regularly. 

Across from him was a free seat and next to him was a dark skinned teenager - the foster child, his mind supplied from the news a few years back. Duke, if he remembers correctly. Next to Duke sat Damian, the biological child as he had been dubbed by the news and next to Damian was Dick. At the head of the table Bruce was seated - oh god, there was so much more gray hair at his temples, turning the black into salt and pepper and the crow feet, Bruce had gotten old - watching him over the edge of his newspaper, fooling nobody. Across from Dick was once upon a time his own, now still empty seat, next to that was the Replacement ( how dare he sit next to him- ) and next to him sat the Daughter, Cassandra, as the news had called her.

Her eyes were brown like molten chocolate and they seemed to pick him apart, analyze him and then after a thorough investigation put him back together inside out, every secret bared to the world. 

Jason shuddered, trying not to cower, tuning out the needless introduction going around the table, unable to look away. Cassandra screamed danger even when she smiled kindly and tried to look unthreatening, she even waved when it was her turn. Her lithe form was pure muscles and Jason had no doubt in mind that she could kill him easily if she ever felt the need and if the Bats and Birds did not have their golden rule. 

In fact, giving a quick glance about he had no doubt every single one seated at the table could easily end him in his fragile, younger state and even if he still had to fear broken bones because he killed a monster, he found himself suddenly irrationally grateful for the no kill rule.

"No more looking" Cassandra said suddenly. "Explain. He is scared."

Geez, thank you, creepy woman who could snap him in half. She smiled as if she could read his small relief as the subtly prickling gazes on him turned away once more. He only dared to meet her eyes for a split moment before looking down again, still feeling painfully exposed and emotionally raw like a live wire, like a festering exposed wound.

Upon her prompting, Bruce lowered his newspaper and spoke: "Good morning. Jason Feniks, right?" They had researched him, of course. He knew that already. Why did hearing his new last name still make him jump? "It's nice to meet you. I am Bruce Wayne, but please call me just Bruce. Feel free to help yourself with anything that's been laid out for breakfast. Batman brought you here last night. He told me you're currently homeless so if you'd like to make your stay more permanent-"

Stupid Bruce. Stupid adoption tendencies. Stupid replacing him again and again and-

"Following" Jason spoke up sharply, interrupting him, noisily using the knife he quickly snatched from Duke because his setting didn't have one - fucking kindergartner murderer treatment - to freely put an enormous amount of Nutella on a warm pancake, his younger body making him an unholy sugar addict. He scowled as he spread the chocolate treat, all eyes on him again so he marched through this, focused on nobody so they couldn't intimidate him with their stares. 

"I don't want to be here. I was basically kidnapped for doing the right thing. I do not want to play happy family. I had a mother, she was hit by a truck and her husband left me on the curb. I do not want or need a family. At all. I do not want a father or any siblings." One could hear a pin drop.

Dick looked off put and opened his mouth but Jason soldiered on, cut him off with a glare and put sprinkles on top of the thick layer of Nutella because maybe he could give himself a sugar shock and get an instant ticket out of the staring and this talk via death. As claustrophobic as it had been, at least it was peaceful. "But guess what? The foster system sucks even more than being kidnapped and being here. So I can stay here, fine, but it'll be on my terms. Which do not include any adoptions and shit. You can foster me until I can get emancipated and nothing more, capiche? I do not want any family at all ever again."

The others were speechless for a moment and so Jason dared to look up to try and gauge their reaction, before loudly biting in his sugary delight just to do something with his mouth that wasn't throwing verbal poisonous barbs. Tears welled up in his eyes at the familiar, godly taste and this time he couldn't fight them back. Let them think he is missing his mother, grieving and crying because of that. That really would sell the act, drive home the earlier statement and demands.

Bruce looked emotionally constipated - nothing new there - and Dickwing had the gall to look hurt, downright crushed. Suited them right , Jason scoffed.

Damian was clutching his knife like he wanted to throw it at him. Duke looked startled. Replacement blinked slowly at him over his cup of coffee like a fucking mindless zombie asshole that steals families. Jason didn't dare look at Alfred, afraid of his reaction. Afraid of seeing if he hurt him.

Cassandra's eyes were narrowed. "You kill. You are wrong." Ah, so there goes the innocent we don't have anything to do with Batman act because why else would anyone defend that dirtbag's run out mortal lifespan? Idiots.

And of course, that's what Bats and Birds focus on when they can't get the emotions handled. Typical. Their adopted father's emotional coping skills were really showing.

Couldn't handle the emotional bear trap Jason just set because no thank you to being adopted to be replaced again so back to their prayers and preaching about their golden rule.

"Cass" Dick uttered softly, sounding like a wounded animal, trying to keep the peace without much success. "He's just five years old. He doesn't know better."

Wow. The age card, seriously?

Surprisingly Cassandra seemed to agree with Jason in this at least, subtly shaking her head to deny Dick's statement as if she somehow could tell that the boy they were debating about did in fact have the emotional and mental capacities to fully understand what he did.

Jason's heart skipped a beat for a split second. Did she know something? Suspect? Was she a mind reader? How would she-

Jason paused and then found himself bristling, anger overriding fear in the face of a predator about to tear his whole existence apart with a mere gaze. He did not need the big bird to step up for him, to protect him when it never had mattered before. And he especially did not need a free pass for being a kindergartner for doing what should have been done ages ago by his so-called family. He shouldn't have had to avenge himself. "It was the Joker. It was the right thing. I should get an award."

His award for now were more sprinkles on his half eaten pancake of deathly sweetness, an abomination of sugar Jason would have mocked Dick for ages ago.

"No. You kill. You are wrong" Cassandra repeated firmly, leaving no room discussion, eyes stripping him from his defenses until all she could see was likely a traumatized, grieving child. Fucking humiliating. Or even worse, the dead boy hiding behind an innocent facade. "No more killing. You will be good."

Good was the child who believed in magic. Who flew through the night bringing hope and laughter. Good was dead. Murdered.

Jason, the broken, burned out wreck was all that remained. He maybe wasn't good by their standards but he was right.

The child opened his mouth, about to say something incriminating, something like I was good until that bastard killed me and none of you bothered to avenge me but someone else was faster.

"Miss Cassandra, please let the young Master Jason eat without reminding him of his trauma" Alfred the saint spoke up, ever so patiently if a bit reprimanding. "This is not a topic for breakfast."

Jason closed his mouth with an audible click, his retort choked down with his grandfather's words. He took another bite of his pancake, the taste no longer discernible from the taste of paper. 

He definitely would have said too much if he had answered just now, had revealed himself in a way he didn't want them to ever know.

Maybe it was better this way.

"Alright" Bruce finally said heavily. "I can see to have it arranged as you want. Just tell us if you ever change your mind."

Bet, old man , Jason thought, still peeved. Nothing would change, ever. He wouldn't fall into this family trap ever again.

The tense silence lasted a moment longer.

Then Dick gently managed to prompt Damian into talking about school and an apparently infuriating group project. Attention mostly off of him for the moment, Jason found himself relaxing just the slightest bit. This was survivable.

He could do this.

Just breakfast and then hide away until lunch. Then rinse, rise, repeat until dinner

He definitely could do this.

Chapter Text

"Oh, there you are, I've been looking all over for you" Dickface greeted, that infuriating smile back in place, of course completely ignoring that the reason he had to look all over was because Jason didn't want to be found until he couldn't avoid the siren call of the library any longer. His smile didn't reach his eyes but Jason couldn't care less. In fact, he was severely tempted to smack the man with "Frankenstein" which he was currently reading while holed up in his favorite chair in the library.

"What do you want?" Jason asked tensely, eyes narrowed with suspicion especially after his frankly tense and disastrous introduction to the family. Eh, still better than the alternative of being found out.

Mr. No bones decided to fold himself like an annoyed oversized pretzel all over the back of Jason's chair in response, a brief flicker of something crossing his face at the sight of the book no five year old should be reading before he's back to all wide smiles. "Weeeeell….I've been thinking. You didn't come with much so your room is still pretty bare and therefore…how about we go shopping. Whatcha saying, tiny wing? How about a few nice new clothes and toys?" He paused for a moment, after which he found himself probably bitterly disappointed by Jason's lack of enthusiasm in response.

Didn't come with much is still an overstatement. Jason had exactly one change of clothes, his beaten Batman plush, a battered version of the book "Pride and Prejudice" and a wrinkled plastic folder with his most important documents - like the birth certificate where his mother's husband had quite viciously crossed his name out after learning the truth. It was a folder Jason had no intention of handing over any time soon. The rest of space in the backpack had been taken up by food he was squirreling away - and once upon a time the gun he had stolen from a crime scene, its owner long dead.

The ex-cop's expression twisted a bit, then his eyes flitted around and that annoying smile returned full force this time as he seemed to reach a conclusion. "Hey, so maybe I got a feeling you like to read which is really amazing at your age." No duh, Captain Obvious. "How about we go shopping and you can also pick some books up as well?"

…okay, that's cheating. A dirty, dirty move.

Jason hated that it worked so effectively.

"Fine" he gritted out, placing Frankenstein aside without smacking Dick with it like he wanted. He hated that the annoyance lightened up like a particularly sparkly Christmas tree with Jason's reluctant agreement.

…

"And why exactly is he here too?" Jason asked, eying the stabby tween also seated in the car with not a small amount of skepticism. Mentioned green eyed little monster was playing with one of the many, many concealed knives on his body before Dick promptly reached over and in a practiced motion plucked it from his grasp.

"Richard, give it back" Damian demanded in response, perpetual scowl only deepening.

"No knives in public, baby bat" Dickwing only responded cheerily, letting the knife disappear…somewhere in his car.

Jason inhaled deeply and let out a loud sigh at completely being ignored. Nothing new since he was a kid again, it's just the usual baby and toddler treatment. Unless you're crying or screaming, it's not pressing. He just learned to count to deal with it and not explode every time.

Hah, take that old man, Jason very much can be patient and handle his temper!

At thirty, he repeated: "Again: why is Damian going shopping with us, Dick?"

"The more the merrier" golden boy declared cheerily while Damian sneered.

"I require the new set of art supplies as I have heard they are better suited for my needs than my current one." Ah yes, luxury problems. Man, had Jason missed them. 

Also, seemed like Damian didn't just have green eyes but his monster had them too by the way he subtly glanced at Dick when the other ruffled his hair in response. The spoiled brat seemed to have decided to find an excuse to come along as if to chaperone and ensure Jason wouldn't steal his oldest brother away.

Lovely. 

Seemed like Jason had not made it clear enough during breakfast that he had no interest in being anyone's son or brother. And he had thought he was very explicit.

For a family of self proclaimed detectives they all were rather dense, weren't they? Or purposefully blind. Either worked.

"You do realize I'm not gonna steal Dick from you, right?" Jason told the kid flatly. "You can keep him. He's the one who asked to take me shopping."

"Tt, of course he did, that is Richard for you" Damian responded, scoffing but not reacting to the assurance Jason wouldn't steal Dick away. "He does tend to insist on these…bonding activities whether someone is worthy of them or not." Well, yikes, by the way the kid looked at him Jason could estimate decently well where he fell on the worthy or unworthy scale. 

And seriously, who spoke like that kid did? That was so stiff the stick shoved up his behind looked out of his mouth. What did Bruce teach his bio kid to make him like that?

Or was he just born as an ancient stuck up old man that spoke like a fucking politician or long dead pompous king? Hey, Jason was a reincarnation. At this point he'd not be surprised if others were as well so Damian's uncanny maturity and stuck up-ness would be explained by that at least. No normal tween should talk like he did.

"Yeah, I figured" Jason noted and finally decided to leave the uncanny valley talk and the knife loving other to stew, rather looking out the window as they drove, refamiliarizing himself with the changed streets of his beloved shit hole of a cradle.

At last the car entered the parking lot of a particularly large mall. It was big, colorful and new and would look more at home in Metropolis than it was in Gotham. Jason gave it a remaining lifespan of about six months maximum before a rogue would take it out.

There better not be one here while they were there. Jason would throw hands with fate if that happened.

Mercifully, it seemed to be peaceful enough and they went through the clothes shopping easily enough. Well, easy being a relative term because Jason had to fish out multiple mortifying shirts and socks Dick attempted to smuggle into their shopping cart despite Jason refusing to even try them on. Mercifully Damian seemed much more rational than Dickwing and helped Jason find some more neutral clothes that while tiny was something he would have been fine wearing at 15 - or even the theoretical 22 he was supposed to be had he not died.

And that was when Damian decided to backstab him by putting a Nightwing hoodie into their shopping cart much to Dick's delight.

"No" Jason said, attempting to scrabble up the side of their shopping cart to fish the cloth out so it would be left behind like the rest of the clothes he did not approve of.

Damian gave the younger child a deadpan look, not budging. "Yes. It is of high importance for you to wear this, Feniks."

"I don't want anything with any bats or birds. No" Jason tugged on the cloth. "If you want to support Nightwing, wear a hoodie like that yourself. I won't."

Dick gave him a kicked puppy look - suited him right - while Damian's face twisted into a determined scowl. Jason kept his gaze focused and didn't budge.

And that's when Goldie decided to be an oversized idiot with no care for his secret identity and rather a massive ego and promptly snatched two more Nightwing hoodies in various sizes to drop on top of the one Jason was attempting to get rid off. "How about we all wear the same hoodie, huh? Matching looks!"

Damian's "tt" wasn't a protest while Jason glared, realizing that he was completely outvoted in this situation and would not be getting rid of the hoodie while they were still in the mall. He watched as Dickwing only seemed to light up further at the prospect as the duo's team up seemed to result in their small victory which the eldest celebrated with a hair ruffle for Damian - which the child surprisingly did not respond with violence to, merely displeased words Jason couldn't hear over the ringing in his ears.

Because that was when another realization hit Jason. The way they looked at each other…that wasn't just oldest brother and youngest brother. No, this could be called…

Father and son.

It felt like the floor had been pulled out from under his feet and Jason fell a bit behind as he just stared, just watched. The easy, deep connection the two displayed…

After Bludhaven's destruction it made sense that Dick would have moved back to Gotham. It made sense he'd be around to help out with Bruce's by far youngest child when he got dropped off - as the official news coverage had claimed. It made sense with the worrisome months Jason had seen Dick as Batman on the news, Damian as his Robin beside him.

Batman and Robin. Father and Son.

Dick was basically co-parenting with Bruce.

Dick was basically a fucking dad.

No wonder Damian wanted to support him and didn't fight off his affections despite the displays of prickly personality Jason had spotted during breakfast. Why Dick was the one to coax Damian into talking about school, so interested in his life. Why he was the only one to get to first name basis with this weird kid. Why Damian was obviously so damn jealous he found an excuse to be dragged along on a boring shopping trip.

Dick the dad did not fit into Jason's worldview and especially not into the character-profile of the person which Jason knew him as.

The angry young adult screaming at Bruce, at the unfairness of the world, far removed from everyone and anything, the firstborn charming golden boy socialites adored, the extremely distant, barely decent but well meaning older brother Jason had gotten after years of being casted aside and being ignored. The person who didn't even show up to Jason's funeral (and yes, Jason had googled that when he had access to a library computer).

And now Dick was suddenly a good older brother - or at least a thousand times better than before, trying so damn hard it was painful to watch. Jason had seen the ease he handles the other bat-kids. And not just that, he seemed to be a good dad to Damian, giving him the emotionally open side the kid needed which Bruce seemed to struggle to provide even with his best efforts.

Dick had grown up, changed.

Jason was acutely, painfully aware that he himself hadn't.

The five year old blinked frantically to hold back the tears of helpless fury about the unfairness of it all as he ran to catch up.

…

Clothes shopping after that was finished soon enough, thankfully. 

Which meant part two of the not as fun part of their shopping tour came now: toys.

Jason would need to fake actual interest in some in order to not stand out as a too weird kid and raise too many questions - like he didn't already with his love for books…but better be declared a second Matilda than be stuck with no or rubbish books. He found himself dreading that particular task.

Surprisingly…it wasn't as hard as he actually feared. 

The Wonder Woman plush and the stuffed dog that reminded him of his first childhood's dog Sparky weren't a hard task to put in the cart. Neither were the 500 and 1000 piece puzzles that depicted stunning fantasy medieval settings though Dick looked slightly dubious Jason wouldn't choke on some of the pieces. Excuse you, he's five. Choking usually is only up to three.

Jason found himself actually delighted when he got his hands onto marbles. Tripping criminals up was only the least damage he could deal with them and he definitely looked forward to seeing them in action again. Dick once again had that pain in his eyes, probably aware of Jason's past self also favoring them.

The next step were various arts and craft supplies Jason should be able to use in his revenge quite nicely. Damian raised an eyebrow at the probably demonic smile Jason wore after putting those in their shopping cart.

And lastly for now…Legos. One does not wish their enemies for no reason to step on a Lego after all and Jason knew of multiple people who would soon enough have the pleasure of falling prey to that particular phrase.

Dick meanwhile seemed delighted that Jason chose some toys for himself, unaware that he armed Jason for a war. How could he with the child's big, "innocent" blue eyes and his soft curls which were making him look like a little angel? 

Yes, Jason was very aware he was annoyingly adorable in this lifetime and was not above weaponizing it for his cause. You don't survive the streets with pride and dignity intact. You do not survive if you don't take every possible weapon you possess and if it's fucking cuteness, you turn it up to the maximum.

And so he did get that Nerf toy gun he asked for with big, big puppy eyes which Dick definitely was hesitant to buy him because of the reason he ended up with the family. Seemed like the older vigilante was a sucker for this particular shade of baby blues, probably because it was closer to his own than it was to Jason's past life. Fucking dick .

Calm down, count to thirty, snatch up some particularly blazing shades of glitter pens that were on the reduced pile that would look perfect on the faces of the others and don't think about the unfairness of it all. Why couldn't he have had that the first time around? He'd never have run off for the faint hope of a better family if Dick had shown so much care for him the first time around.

At least now Jason had something he could use to easily activate traps remotely. Perfect.

Even if the weird murder kid was now muttering about the tastelessness of guns and seemed to plot something while staring Jason down. He suppressed the urge to shudder and rather focused on the final and most important part of their shopping tour. Books.

Dick had no idea what he had done when he gave him a basket and told him to go wild in the bookstore.

((Dick didn't regret it when he saw the five year old's face light up like Christmas had come early, running around face split in two by a wide, truly joyful smile, whatever invisible burden and hidden anger constantly seemed to weight him down being chipped away with every book added to the growing enormous pile. He didn't regret it even when his arms hurt having to carry all that to the car afterwards.))

Chapter Text

Jason was definitely eager to put everything newly purchased away in his new room and start properly plotting by the time the trio made it back to the manor. Unfortunately he found there was one major hitch in his plan he didn't expect at all.

Namely, it was the blonde annoyance named Stephanie "call me Steph or else " Brown who apparently came over for free lunch and some time with her best friend, Cass - which explained the set plate next to her during breakfast. The menace apparently came over whenever she pleased and often without warning.

Jason definitely had not expected to meet someone like her. She apparently had absolutely expected someone like him. "I knew he would get another one! Pay up!" Steph demanded gleefully, hand outstretched towards any boy in her reach…a reaction Dickface elegantly sidestepped while carrying Jason's bags up the stairs and Damian threatened with a knife.

Jason blinked at her accent, surprised for a moment to hear the Narrows within. Oh, so Bruce failed one project from the worst parts of Gotham so he just took up another one? And only mentors this one so no parenting was necessary?

Showed how much he cared…

And then Jason scowled, her words registering: "I'm not jus' another one! I'm not his son!" As if in reaction to her accent, his own poked through and he worked to reel it back in, shooting a glare at Timothy who apparently decided to observe the disaster of a meeting from afar, drawn to the voices. Fucking stalker.

Stephanie only seemed more delighted at his exclamation. "Oh shit, he's adorable" she declared, grinning as she crouched down in front of him and reached to pinch his cheeks. Her laughter when he smacked her hands away in response was only adding insult to injury.

"Feisty. I like him, he got fire" she declared, still grinning and rudely ruffled his hair, laughing at the once more present swatting. "And he fits the adoption bait scheme perfectly. Say, where was he picked up?"

Her question was directed at the others but Jason saw it addressed at him. He's five. He can talk for himself. 

"In front of the Joker's corpse" he informed flatly, no remorse in his tone. "I put the monster down."

Steph's eyes widened for a moment, something flashing across her expression before her grin turned almost feral. "You go, little man" she told him much to the sounds of protest from the peanut gallery. "Can you do Black Mask next?" It was clearly meant as a joke but something in her eyes revealed that it wasn't one entirely.

And oh, Jason felt surprise slither through him before burning satisfaction curled around him like a purring cat. Seemed like she wasn't as annoying as her first impression made her seem. She got fire herself. 

Jason approved.

…no surprise she wasn't adopted yet with that kinda attitude.

It only gave her bonus points in Jason's opinion. Family friend was a neutral ground, no place taken from him. Jason Feniks probably would end up the same at most if everything went well. 

"Stephanie, Cass is waiting for you in her room" Bruce's voice slid through the more pleasant meeting and Jason found himself annoyed at the moment ruined.

Steph straightened out and ruffled Jason's hair, something the child didn't fight off this time. She was annoying….but probably the so far most tolerable person to be around. "Okay, okay, boss-man, no corrupting the impressionable youth, got it" she waved Bruce off and gave Jason finger guns. "See ya around, squirt." 

And with that she was off, heading up the stairs.

Jason turned to look at Bruce, unimpressed deadpan to show his interruption of their introduction definitely had not been taken to well. The man merely gave a small sigh…something that really showed that Steph was giving him gray hairs. Good going, girl.

"What do you want?" Jason asked tensely, on the edge once again. His former life's adoptive father merely gestured in response.

"Please follow me, Jason" he instructed calmly and led the way to one of the many, many sitting rooms. Jason grimaced and rolled his eyes, casting another glance back before deciding to follow him. Here comes the lecture, oh boy. Let's see if he could deal with this and how to best fuck with Bruce while doing so.

Once in the room, Bruce took to an armchair by the small table placed in front of a very comfortable looking couch. The child hesitated in the doorway before heading further into the room, eying what looked like a toy model train and tracks built upon the table from afar for a moment before glancing questioningly at the man.

"Did you have a nice shopping spree, Jason?" Bruce spoke and Jason raised an unimpressed eyebrow, quickly spotting the parenting book half shoved under the table. Well, that explained that pitiful attempt at small talk and getting involved in his life.

"I guess" he finally said awkwardly, seating himself on the couch across from the man's seat. Dubiously he looked at the toy train and tracks carefully built on the table, brows furrowing slightly. Beside the tracks laid a box with toy figurines probably to go with the tracks and train set.

What the hell, Bruce? Didn't Jason make it clear he didn't want anything to do with him? Why would he want to play with him with toy trains?

"Do you like trains, Jason?" Bruce asked, voice forcibly calm and kind, body obviously purposefully drained of any tension.

The child gave him a noncommittal shrug and instead looked at the toy closer, sensing in it one of Bruce's stupid lessons, dumbed down for a five year old.

It was a simple enough set up. A single path split into two, the right train track was a bit longer and more winding while the left track was straight to the point of where the tracks met again to curve around and back to the beginning. Jason frowned, unsure what his former father wanted to prove with this model.

"It's nice, yes?" The billionaire continued, offering Jason the toy train to enter the tracks with. "Now…imagine you're a conductor. Which train track would you use to get to your destination?"

What kind of play in the name of bonding is this?! The child eyed the tracks dubiously, waiting for a trap to snap shut on him.

Nothing came. Bruce only waited patiently, still relaxed. Unwilling, some tension drained from the five year old. 

"Left? It's shorter. Faster. Easier to not fall outta the tracks without so many curves" Jason finally settled on, eying Bruce still cautiously. And then he impulsively followed that track with his given toy. The sleek plastic wheels nicely ran on the wooden tracks. Jason found himself wondering how fast they could go if he built a ramp with them…

Bruce nodded, smiling slightly at the childish impulse the boy across from him had followed. "Good reasoning" he praised and set all sorts of alarms off in Jason's head. The boy quickly withdrew his toy train, hugging it to his chest and eyed Bruce dubiously, once more on the fence about his motivations despite the brief setback that had made him drop his guard.

And then Bruce put up a little toy figurine and placed it on the left track. "But what track do you choose if there's someone in the way of the left track, Jason?"

Jason froze, brain lagging before promptly rebooting. Oh, fuck no. He's so using this as an ethics lesson. Good job, Bruce. Going really metaphorical here. How many parenting books did he read for that lesson to come up?

Taking Jason's silence as answer, Bruce gently reached out to take the toy train the child still holds onto and gently drove it along the right, more winding path. "You take the right path. Because the right path is the right way to go in this scenario. It might seem like the harder way at first but ultimately it's the better one because the man on the tracks doesn't get killed by the train. Makes sense, right?"

Jason let the elder drag his hand and train along the right train track for a bit, staring at the figure with a scowl, not dignifying him with an answer yet.

"That's what Cass meant at breakfast. She asks you to use the right track in life, not the left one. Someone forced her to use the left track while someone was on it before and she really didn't like that. It hurt her too, you know?" Wow, showing empathy. And trying to teach it. Wonder how long it took daddy bats to learn that one."Do you think you can do that, Jason? Just use the right track if there's people on the left one?"

Jason let the words sink in for a moment and then quickly snatched his hand including the train away from Bruce and his stupid right way.

"But what if the guy on the left tracks is bad? If he's doing great evil?"

"Then you'll still take the right track. Just because the person on the tracks is bad doesn't give you the right to be just as bad or worse as him, Jason" Bruce lectured, voice still kind but tone gaining a stricter edge. "Other people will take care of punishing the bad person which doesn't include running him over with a train."

Jason swallowed. Something ugly twisted in him.

"But what if they don't?" His voice is more fragile than he liked. "If other people are too scared to do it? Or too powerless? Too late?"

Bruce raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow. Fuck the rich and their stupid bought prettiness. Something indescribable flashed across his face for a moment before settling into something bittersweet akin to resignation.

"...I suppose that's what the heroes are for. When all else fails then-"

"No!" Jason called out, interrupting him, jumping from his seat before pointing accusingly at the figure, something frantic entering his expression as ugly anger and frustration curled  "Most heroes won't do what's necessary to really stop people like that! Some heroes are late! What if when you keep driving the right track, the bad guy you just spared uses the time you take longer to tie innocent people to your tracks to be run over no matter how much you try to break in time? Or if he takes apart the tracks to derail your train entirely, leading to death, injury and destruction?! There's people so evil they aren't people anymore! They're monsters!"

"We are not judge, jury and executioner" Bruce looked like he bit on a lemon, the strict tone intensifying into a full blown lecture. "Killing preemptively to save potential new victims doesn't make it right. You don't know if the bad man on the left tracks won't turn around at any time and leave the right tracks alone, leading to no casualties."

Jason blinked back tears of helpless fury before reaching to throw a bunch of toy figurines on the right track. Each sound of plastic hitting wood sounded like nails being hammered into his coffin, like frantic knocking of a forgotten boy against the lid of his eternal resting place.

"But if he is known to keep doing the same thing over and over because you keep going on your stupid right tracks then their blood is on your hands!" He spit out venomously, empathically underlining his statement by loudly slamming the toy train on the right track full of innocent toy figurines.

Bruce watched at the seething boy in front of him and something akin to grief flickered in his eyes for a moment, expression otherwise stony. The air between them was tense, like a ticking bomb in a warehouse in Ethiopia.

"Jason" Bruce finally spoke up, voice firm and tone detached, bastard probably shoving his emotions so deep down that even archeologists won't have good chances at finding them in a thousand years. "Only take the right path in life."

Jason exhaled sharply, not feeling any less hurt if he had been punched. Stupid, self righteous bastard! 

"I'm done with this" he declared, pettily shoving the entire construction off the table before turning on his heels to head to the door.

Jason elbowed asshole family stealer Timothy out of his way in the doorway, the creep just watching the entire spectacle like a tennis match on TV, completely ignoring that this was a private discussion. The small grimace the Replacement made, filled the child with deep satisfaction before he kept going, only narrowly avoiding running into Alfred. 

"Young Master Jason, lunch is ready if you'd like to join us?" The old man's voice had Jason briefly stop in his tracks and glance up at the familiar kind face. The man wore a polite, if slightly sad smile.

Jason swallowed, then shook his head. "...no, can I please eat in my room, please? I wanna get settled." 

Understanding flitted across the elderly gentleman's expression and he nodded after a moment, gently reaching into his black suit jacket to offer the child a tissue. Jason startled, only then registering the wetness on his cheeks and gratefully accepted the cloth to furiously scrub at his face, giving a quiet and mumbled "thanks".

Alfred merely reached to gently squeeze his shoulder and Jason leaned into the touch like a starving man would throw himself into a buffet, turning the butler's expression sad for a moment. "Of course, young Master Jason. Head right up, I will bring you a plate immediately."

Jason swallowed thickly. "Thank you" he croaked out, nodded jerkily before practically fleeing upstairs, skin itching with the eyes on his back.

Thankfully when he reached his room, Dick wasn't in it, probably carrying the bags with newly purchased clothes to the laundry room, the bag with toys and other things waiting neatly on the floor by Jason's bed.

Jason closed the door, leaned against it and then slid down to sit. Then he allowed himself a moment to just breathe and cry in silence.

…

After finishing lunch, the plate he had been given basically licked clean, Jason unpacked his purchases and put them away. Then, armed with notebook and pencil, he seated himself at the desk and set onto drawing his war plan.

Some easy things to start with to warm himself up.

Step one: Show this self righteous hypocrite left is just as important as right.

Let's see how well Bruce would like to only have his stupid right. Here symbolized by shoes. It'd be quite a bit of work but hopefully worth it. Jason would only need a good place to make his stolen cargo disappear.

Which meant scouting would be necessary before he could enact his plan while Batman was outside at night on his stupid only right warpath.

Nodding to himself, Jason squared his shoulders and hopped off his chair. He is good at sneaking around so this should be easy as eating pie.

Chapter Text

Mission scouting for a good base of operation to hide Jason's stolen goods was officially a go. And that was only step one in his great revenge plan which he would need to build up step by step. Unfortunately Jason was well aware that his greater plans and later steps likely were doomed to fail unless he could convince Alfred to let him do however he pleased. Jason could swear the old man knew everything that was going on at any time in the manor so unless he agreed, Jason wouldn't have much of a chance to sow chaos.

It was frankly amazing and intimidating.

It seemed the earthquake had taken some of Jason's past secret spots and destroyed them, small changes in layout making the child discover new ones as well thankfully. But none of them were big enough to hide the massive amounts of however many left shoes Bruce had. He only had two feet, why did he need enough shoes to clothe an army? And those were just the number of shoes Jason found during his first scouting within the house. Seriously, the billionaire was ridiculous in that aspect.

During his scouting, Jason at least was already making a first good use of his new Legos. Every pair of shoes he came across that could belong to the Replacement was graced with a Lego. And if some of them were potentially Dickhead's, even better. He had been nice during the shopping trip but that didn't make up for the fact that he had done all that for Jason Feniks and never for Jason Peter Todd-Wayne, his so-called little brother, his little wing.

Hella lotta good did the little wing nickname do in the end for their basically non-existent brotherly bond which Dickwing very much had with the rest of them…which is just insulting to the dead kid who just never was enough.

But speaking of the dead kid...Jason's eyes widened with an idea and he quickly wiggled out of the current tight spot he had crammed himself into to explore. He knew a room full of great secret spots.

Considering how long he's been gone and how there were basically no pictures of him around the manor, he could expect probably an empty bedroom. Jason paused in his track then for a moment and grimaced. Or even worse, the room could have been taken over by someone else.

Only one way to find out.

Tissues, check. Nerf gun for a quick getaway if caught and thus necessary, check. Batman plushy to discreetly let his fury out on to not draw any attention to his abnormal emotional responses, check.

Jason headed up to the familiar door, head held high and shoulders set in grim determination. He was prepared for the emotional devastation of any potential outcome of this scenario. Definitely.

( Liar )

He quickly checked the hallway, glancing up and down to make sure nobody was coming. It'd be deadly for his cover if someone caught him during this.

Reassured that he was good to go, he reached up - curse the stupid manor for stupid high ceilings and big doors and his stupid child body for being stupidly short - and balanced on his tippy toes for a moment before pulling the handle down. It went down nicely, silently and Jason pushed the door open and quietly slipped inside, immediately turning to push the door quietly shut.

And then Jason Feniks stood there, alone, in his first life's bedroom, staring at the door as if it held all the answers in the world, back facing the truth, unable to turn. 

Immediate doubt filled him, made him unable to turn and look, even if the ghost of the child whom this room once belonged to seemed to scream at him to do so.

His breathing hitched and shaking hands reached and squeezed the Batman plush until the poor thing's seams almost popped as Jason focused on breathing, on willing his racing heart to calm, suddenly lightheaded.

"Breathe with me, Jaylad. In for four, hold for seven, out for eight" a ghost in the room whispered kindly, cradling him in a gentle hold like one would a baby. Bruce had always been big. Tall and strong in a way in which he could break him so easily…and yet held him so sweet, so gentle. Jason always had felt protected by his side, like nothing bad could ever touch him.

The child stared at the toy and eased his grip on it, breathing adjusting to follow the instruction.Once he didn't feel like fainting anymore, the boy hiccuped and rubbed at his face, grimacing when his hand came back wet.

"Good job, son" the specter of a memory whispered proudly and Jason used the tissues he brought to erase the traces of his emotional breakdown. 

"Not your son" he told the memory quietly that once carried the title of dad.

Scrunching the used tissues up, he quickly stuffed them in his Hoodie's pocket. Better to not leave such evidence at the crime scene behind.

Calm again, silence wrapped itself around him like a comforting blanket. Jason stood a moment longer just facing the old wood and breathing. 

A soft sound escaped him as he found the small scratch that came from Jason shoving a chair under the handle on the first night in his new home. Gently he reached out and traced it. It had given him quite the fright, thinking he might get punished for damaging such expensive doors. Bruce hadn't minded or even noticed until Jason confessed to it under tears. And then he only had held him comforting, reassuring that nothing Jason could do could make him throw the child out.

The warmth of the memory beckoned and the five year old's face twisted into a snarl. "Nothing, eh? Let's see you eat your words, big guy" he whispered vengefully.

And with that he took a sharp breath and turned around.

…………..

" Oh " the ghost of Jason Peter Todd-Wayne whispered brokenly.

"Oh" Jason Feniks echoed numbly, face once more wet.

…………………..

It was like stepping back in time. Like nothing ever happened. Like the world was still okay.

Except it wasn't okay because everything was much bigger than it should be because Jason was much smaller.

The boy wandered forward in a daze, feet buried in the thick carpet of the shrine of the dead boy and yet feeling detached from his body, floating a bit above everything.

Nothing was out of place, probably everything even slightly knocked out of place by nature's force carefully restored to its prior placement by Alfred. Alfred who obviously still regularly changed and washed the sheets and dusted. 

The room was exactly as he had left it when he ran away on a fool's quest for a snake of a woman just because she was the one who bore him. 

The room was just waiting for Jason, for the ghost, for the corpse who was roommates with worms and other bugs now.

Jason, the kindergartner, the intruder, felt sorely out of place while ghosts caressed him and called him beyond the grave.

And yet he still dared venture deeper. Dared to have his fingers wander over his CD collection, over the spine of every one of his books. Dared to pick up the special edition Wonder Woman figurine he had wanted so badly just to look at her signed stand and then to gently place her back. Dared to stare at the posters of movies and bands he remembered loving. Dared to sit in his desk chair and look at his unfinished, long overdue homework. Dared to sit under the glow in the dark stars on his ceiling, guiding him home.

The shrine of the boy who died had been disturbed by the boy who had been reborn.

He was beyond crying, beyond numb by the time he heaved some of the floorboards with practiced movements soundlessly aside. Tiny fingers reached inside the hole and lifted out a shoebox to place on the ground. 

Tears almost dared to damage already waterlogged photos further. One of the many things stolen from Jason had been the face of his former mother, of Jason Todd's true mother. And here she was, smiling into the camera, holding a curly haired baby. Various other pictures of her followed the first one, some with and some without the dead boy, some with and some without Willis. The dead boy featured alone in some of those pictures too, adorable and innocent, sweetly unaware of his cruel future.

A sob tore from the living boy, then another and another as he thought of clammy cold skin, of glassy eyes and the stink of vomit. Catherine Todd looked healthy and happy, more so than Jason could remember in what little fragments and impressions of smiles his new life had allowed him to keep from his past one.

When his fingers fell onto the cursed paper that doomed him, he was almost tempted to tear it to tiny pieces, to open the window and let it fly like confetti into the wind. But he couldn't. Couldn't do that to the ghost of the boy who died to find the answer to his birth certificate.

He stared at the crossed out letters and at Catherine and Willis names and he only took out a single picture out of the box, the first one that had greeted him, and carefully put the lid back on to place the box back. 

Back it goes, down, down, down, kept safe in a paper box like the dead boy was kept safe in a wooden one, buried under the wood of the floorboards like the dead boy was buried under six feet of earth.

Jason felt queasy but hugged his stolen treasure against his chest, careful not to damage it as he stumbled on shaking legs like a newborn foal to the door. 

And there he paused. 

As he glanced back to the shrine, realization settled heavy upon him. A smile so innocent and wet with all kinds of emotion formed on his face.

"Jason, I promise you, I will never set foot into your room without your permission" one of the ghosts said kindly, warm and reassuring. The other ghosts laughed and laughed and laughed so haunting and glee flickered beyond the melancholy, beyond the blind trust formed by the fact that this promise even held beyond his first lifetime.

Jason had indeed found the best place to put Bruce's shoes for the first step of his revenge plan. If he stashed them under the bed or in the wardrobe, they likely wouldn't even be found for a while by Alfred. It was perfect.

Nodding to himself, he reached for the doorknob and slipped out the room as silently as he came in, no trace left behind, returning unseen to the safety of his new room, his stolen scrap of happiness disappearing into the safety of his backpack. He would need to buy a frame for it during the next shopping trip.

And with that, all that was left to do for the moment was to climb into bed and nap until dinner so that when it was time to strike while the bats and birds were out to play, Jason would be awake, well rested and alert for his first of many plots.

…

Jason hadn't accounted for the ghosts to follow him out of the shrine of a room. He hadn't accounted for the mischievous laughter of a prankster to turn into the cruel one of the monster. To hear the laughter, laughter, laughter underlined with every metallic smack resonating through the crowbar deep into his bones. To feel the wounds once more, the cold settling in as more and more warm, life giving liquid left him. To feel the searing heat again before everything went blissfully numb.

His shirt clung to his skin, wet with sweat, curls sticking off into every direction, throat sore from his screaming. The child rolled out of bed and stumbled out the door, already halfway down the hall before he stopped and remembered that he was furious at the man he was running to and seeking comfort from a night terror in Bruce's arms would therefore be counterproductive. And extremely revealing.

Jason couldn't.

And so he swallowed down his emotions, clutched tighter onto all three of his stuffed toys that were piled in his arms regardless of the terrors shaking him awake and instead changed his trajectory and headed back towards his new room.

What Jason hadn't accounted for was that someone had heard him during his nap night terror. And that this other person just so happened to be another person he could hope to be comforted by. He was stupidly craving a hug and he knew exactly who could and would deliver and as his luck for once would have it, it was exactly the one who stuck his head out of the door of his room, peering very alert into the hallway.

"Jason?" Dick said softly before leaving his room entirely behind. His motions were slow and deliberate, nothing too quick to startle the frightened, trembling child.

Jason figured he must be making quite the pitiful picture. Tiny, clothes still the same dirty and rumpled ones he came with to them, hair a sweaty, uncombed mess, face wet with tears, eyes red rimmed and blotchy from crying, frame thin and shaking while clutching onto a Batman, Wonder Woman and dog plush respectively. Pathetic, simply said.

"Oh, Jason" Dick repeated, voice so fragile, kneeling before him and reaching out before stopping himself. "May I hold you?"

Jason nodded jerkily and then mercifully was drawn into a tight, reassuring grasp. It wasn't an octopus hug this time, it was a different Dick Grayson patented hug, one that was solidifying but not too harsh that Jason felt the need to get away in his stressed state. It was…simply perfect. Overwhelmingly so, almost.

Jason felt new tears build up and buried his face in the blue fabric of Dick's hoodie. It was soft, warm, and smelled slightly like cologne and sweat and while normally Jason gladly would have pointed that out maliciously to the elder, now the dissonance between good and bad was grounding.

And then Dick lifted a hand to gently card through his curls and Jason was a goner. He melted and burst and sobbed, little hands fisting into the fabric as he clung onto him.

It was so unfair. Jason killed the clown, why couldn't the monster leave his dreams alone?

It was so unfair. Jason just wanted family, why wasn't Dick like this the first time around?

Dick didn't speak, didn't ask, merely lifted the child up, up, up. Cradled like a baby, he gently carried him back to Jason's new room like something precious. He didn't speak as he settled the two of them on the bed, holding Jason and letting the child experience all the ugly emotions that came with trauma in the safety and comfort of his arms.

He cradled him close, protectively and quietly started to sing a Romani lullaby, repeating it whenever the gentle tune found its end. The words of his mother tongue flowed through the air and settled like a safety net under the child falling into the depths of his haunting nightmares until they eventually lifted him from the daze, catching him and bringing him back to the real world.

Jason blinked a few times, utterly wrecked and exhausted, grip on the hoodie slackening.

Once upon a time when Jason Peter Todd-Wayne was just newly adopted and hadn't yet met his older brother to be, he had asked about him. He had learned that Bruce Wayne's ward was Romani and so Jason, wanting to be a good younger brother and always hungry for learning, had decided to sit down and study the language, trying to greet Richard John Grayson in the way he hoped would be accepted best. 

His hopes were trashed quite cruelly and the language learning attempts ceased entirely. 

And yet the gathered knowledge remained and helped Jason Feniks recognize some of the words sung. He watched Dick with blotchy baby blue eyes and waited until the tune finished once more, the elder's likewise baby blues settling upon him, a bittersweet smile entering the man's face.

"Feel better?" Dick asked softly.

Jason nodded and swallowed twice against the lump in his throat before he dared to speak. "Yeah" he croaked out at last. "You sang nice. It's a pretty song."

That smile smoothed out and turned a little bit wider but nonetheless remained still bittersweet, probably likewise haunted by memories. They all had their ghosts they couldn't get rid off even after years. 

"Thank you" the former circus artist spoke softly. "It was a song my parents would sing for me whenever I had a nightmare" he revealed quietly, words hushed like he was sharing a dangerous secret, an indecipherable emotion flickering across his face.

Jason didn't care to chase it, to take it apart and figure out what lay behind it. Already his eyes were falling shut again and so he only snuggled closer into the warmth and decided to leave all the complicated thoughts, memories and emotions behind for a later moment.

"Stay" he whispered, adrenaline fading to deliver him back in Morpheus arms.

"Always" Dick vowed and the child fell back to sleep with that reassurance.

Robin and Nightwing swung through Bludhaven's sky, a few brave stars peaking through the thick smog of the city.

They stopped their patrol for ice cream and just for a little while they actually were brothers. And it was almost, almost enough.

"If you ever need to talk, here's my number" Dick said after the Ski trip. Jason took the small slip of paper reverently, eyes wide and hope blooming.

(Too bad that there was no connection in space…)

…

Jason woke to hushed voices - disoriented as one is after a really good nap. He blinked and squinted and Dick chuckled at the way Jason drowsily rubbed at his eyes. The sound led the child back into the present.

Alfred's warm smile appeared in his vision and the child quickly untangled himself from Dick's arms and climbed out of the bed, getting a whiplash from the way he found himself immediately missing the warmth and comfort.

And yet he soldiered on, turning to his honorary grandfather. "Is it dinner time?" He asked.

"Indeed it is" the British butler confirmed. "And you, young Master Jason, might want to take a good bath or shower right after. I was free to sort your freshly washed clothes into your wardrobe so feel free to serve yourself from there. If you need anything, I'm sure Master Dick will be more than delighted to help you."

"Of course" Dickwing immediately agreed without a single moment's hesitation, watching the child like a hawk. 

Jason nodded but inwardly grimaced. Ugh, kindergartener treatment, of course. Dick's brief stint with the police probably had him see a few horror stories of young children in bathtubs so as mortifying as it was bound to be, Jason couldn't fault him too much about wishing to be there. No matter how much the five year old hated it. But hey, at least he wouldn't be stuck in the same dirty clothes anymore.

And while being a child had heightened his tolerance against being dirty on top of his renewed time on the streets, he definitely looked forward to being clean again.

But first he'd have to survive a dinner that was likely only slightly less awkward than breakfast had been. Joy.

Well, time to get to it.

Chapter Text

Did Jason ever mention Stephanie was probably the second best thing after Alfred to ever happen to the Waynes? Because she was.

She was still admittingly annoying, a near endless chatterbox but with her sitting right across from him and talking, talking, talking, but she kept Cassandra's creepy all-seeing eyes off of him and firmly on herself. It made dinner actually bearable even though now instead of the off-putting gaze of Cassandra he had to put up with Replacement's simply annoying staring. 

But Jason decided he'd get payback for that too. His method was that of pretending that his fork, which was resting on the edge of his salad bowl and was still loaded with a small tomato, slipped and accidentally made the fruit be catapulted across the room - right into the stalking Pretender's face the one moment he turned away to talk to Stephanie over Cassandra's head. Something about her smacking him in the face with a brick. You go, girl. Had he mentioned she definitely was his second favorite person in this house now? Because she absolutely was.

Either way, back to the tomato that landed and perfectly timed popped against Replacement's face, causing tomato juice to dribble down his forehead…and into his left eye. 

"Oops" Jason said with the perfect amount of childish innocence after a perfectly timed moment of faked shock, staring as if he couldn't believe he just did that while he watched the Replacement scrambling off to the nearest sink to get the tomato juice out of his eyes. That's gotta sting. Take that, family stealer. 

And then Jason used his theater kid background to promptly burst into tears under all their assessing gazes and declared: "I'm sorry!" 

He absolutely wasn't. This was very satisfactory. Not that they would know that…yet.

Not even a second passed before he suddenly was snatched out of his seat and hugged tightly by Dickwing in response, who basically encompassed him to shield him from everyone's gazes. "Shhh, it's okay, tiny wing. Timmy's not mad. It was just an accident." 

Jason buried his face in Dick's hoodie, hiding the twitching of his mouth, keeping his body language regretful best he could. Pull off the innocent act for now. 

If Jason had looked, he would have seen Cass press a hand to her mouth, mirth in her eyes, the petite woman very much aware that Jason was in fact not sorry. He would have seen Tim return, face still moist, left eye red and irritated but ultimately unharmed.

Dick meanwhile very much was able to see the two,  while by now he was most embarrassingly rocking Jason like a fucking baby. "You're not mad at him, right, baby bird?"

Tim gave the duo an indecipherable look, good eye narrowed while the bad one was still tearing up trying to cleanse itself. "...right" he confirmed after a moment, sitting back down.

Dick seemed to take this as confirmation that everything was fine again and promptly headed back to his seat, plopping down. Infuriatingly, he apparently decided that Jason still needed comfort and thus kept the child in his lap, cuddling him like a toddler and letting Duke get Jason's plate over so he could still eat. 

It was embarrassing. Jason chose to suffer it for the look of sheer jealousy in Damian's face who apparently had thought he had a monopoly on Dick's affection. Well not anymore, take that, sucker.

To put the cherry on top of everything, Jason then  pettily decided to steal from the tween's plate. The look of sheer offense was well worth the gagging the taste of the surprise vegan sausage caused him - screw his picky childish taste buds. The girls apparently found both things hilarious regardless especially when Damian let out a cry of outrage at the theft. Dick meanwhile only fussed more over Jason.

Talk about mother henning. Dick was apparently attempting to become the new definition of that in the dictionary.

After dinner, Jason was dragged into a family movie night despite his insistence that he was not family. Dick's suggestion of a Disney movie was apparently accepted only because it was child appropriate. If anyone had bothered to ask Jason, he would have asked for Pride and Prejudice.

Then he was spirited away for bath- and finally bedtime. To be fair, he had desperately needed the former and then pretended to agree to the latter just to get Dickface off his back. And it was admittingly very nice to be clean in soft, comfortable pajamas in a very warm bed after everything else.

But even after tucking Jason in, Dick didn't leave. 

In fact, the menace decided that he was going to read Jason a bedtime story while cuddling him. He didn't even stop after just a page or two. No, he continued until Jason had to fake falling asleep to avoid actually falling asleep lulled by the other's steady voice.

Thank goodness for his memories of his former training, really. 

And even then weirdly enough Dick lingered in his new room for a good five minutes after turning the lights off. Jason forced himself to remain calm, breathing even and deep, to keep his eyes shut, to not as much as twitch.

Finally, a gentle hand petted through his hair in a way that made Jason want to rub into it like a fucking cat. 

"I love you, tiny wing" Dick whispered tenderly, almost like he was forbidden from saying it. Considering Jason's declaration at breakfast, it might as well be. 

For a moment, Jason considered forgiving Dick. To accept his affections from then on. He was after all just a teenager when Jason was adopted. He was reasonably angry at being replaced. But letting that out on a twelve year old…

They had parted on decent terms. 

But one good day did not make up for everything else bad that had piled up between them.

Dick hadn't ever called him back in response to his voice message. He hadn't been at Jason's funeral. Dick hadn't done anything against the clown either.

Dick could get the cold treatment a bit longer.

At least he wasn't lecturing him like Bruce was, just genuinely trying to be a good…what exactly was Dick now trying to be to him?

This definitely felt like going beyond older sibling territory. Was Dick trying to pick up the slack with Jason like he had with Damian? Or was this something else?

Dick finally slipped out silently and left a very confused Jason behind to stew in his thoughts.

The child remained still, thoughts racing, pinching himself whenever he almost fell asleep while waiting for the manor to fall silent with everyone heading out for their nightly business.

And finally it was go time.

Jason climbed out of bed, rolled his shoulders and cracked his knuckles. Payback time.

And with that he was off, heading into Bruce's room first to gather all left shoes he could find there to drag and carry painstakingly - fuck his tiny body - over to his old room. He piled them into the closet and stuffed them under the bed and quickly was off again to get more. This was time sensitive after all. Thoughts still occupied, he wasn't as focused on being extra quiet as he was trying to get this done fast before the bat and birds returned from patrol.

Admittingly he wasn't too worried about making noise generally, after all everyone should be away and even Alfred should be occupied with running coms and-

Jason flinched when suddenly the lights in the hallway flickered on, caught in the doorway to his old room, arms full of left shoes. For a moment he blinked frantically, trying to regain his sight, then he carefully squinted at who caught him red-handed. Could he talk himself out of this?

Oh.

Oh no.

Alfred apparently was in fact not running coms.

"Dear heavens, young Master Jason, I didn't expect you up at this hour. What are you doing?" The elderly gentleman asked, standing prim and proper in his suit there, brows creased as he took in the scene he had come upon. 

And because Alfred asked, Jason had to answer. No one says no to Alfred.

"I'm showing Mr Wayne that there's more than just the right way and that the others are just important" the child spat, blood boiling just remembering the earlier attempted lecture.

Alfred paused at that, gaze flickering between the shrine Jason had broken into, the left shoes piled into his arms and Jason's angry face.

"So you take all of Master Bruce's left shoes?"

"Yes! See how he likes it with only his stupid right way!"

Alfred was a professional but he could absolutely see the potential of such a harmless prank and so his mustache twitched with a smile. "That is certainly a creative way to showcase such an important lesson." 

Jason found himself smiling at that support for his cause. But before he could answer, Alfred continued: "However such an enormous task should not be done alone and at such an ungodly hour. Please, come to the kitchen. I will make something warm to drink and if you may, I am offering you a listening ear so you may not return to bed stewing in anger and thus have a much more restful sleep. Trust me, I have dealt with quite a few young and angry charges who succeeded much better in their retaliation after a good night's sleep and settled heart."

"Oh" Jason brought out, mind blank. A moment passed, neither moving.

Then a mischievous grin entered Jason's face, nearly splitting his face in two, realization setting in. Alfred was on his side! He was so going to unleash hell upon the manor.

"Sure, thank you" he said, nodding before tilting his head towards his former room's door. "Mind if I put these away first and then come?"

"Certainly not, young Master" Alfred, the ever patient saint, responded kindly and Jason quickly rushed off to stash the shoes away as well before closing the wardrobe and the door. 

"Alright, let's go" the five year old said, coming to a stop beside his honorary grandfather. And then the duo headed downstairs to the kitchen together.

Jason soon enough found himself seated at the kitchen island, legs dangling as he balanced on a stool. Alfred bustled around but it was clear he was listening whenever Jason would be willing to talk.

And so Jason sighed and bit the proverbial bullet.

"Bruce tried to lecture me on killing" the child started, making a face. "Came up to me on his high horse of black and white and wrong and right." Like B didn't break so many rules every night. "He…doesn't get it that reality isn't like that and won't take no for an answer. It's frustrating and like talking to a brick wall! Who even gave him the right to define all that?! To teach and preach about his morals as if he has a high ground?!"

Alfred hummed in acknowledgement, not yet judging, only listening. It was encouraging and slightly soothing, allowing Jason to breathe deeply and calm a little.

Tiny fingers drummed on the table, face twisted in an angry snarl. "I mean…I don't hear him bitching about the police shooting someone. Yeah, sure, in theory he might have a point that generally killing is bad but I never said everyone who places a toe out of line needs to be put down."

He gritted his teeth. "But there's special cases, exceptions, that definitely need to be put down. It's basic pest control. Those that have proven over and over and over that they refuse to change, to get better. That they will keep hurting and killing. And then just get back to Arkham, no further repercussions. And soon they're back out because that mockery of an asylum has a fucking revolving door and is corrupt to no end. And every time those cases get out, new people will suffer and die. No question. So why is it wrong to put those exceptions down? These cases are a threat to everyone. One can't fault people for self defense, right?"

Jason looked up sharply after saying that, tiny hands balling to fists. "I don't regret killing the Joker. I did the right thing. Given the chance, I would do it all over again. That sadistic bastard's very existence is a threat."

Silence followed that for a long, long moment that felt like forever. Alfred quietly poured tea into two cups a bit away.

Then he finally spoke. "Oh, out of the mouth of babes" he whispered solemnly, bittersweetly meeting Jason's gaze across the kitchen. The old man's face was calm but beneath the facade laid the special force agent with blood on his hands. 

"First of all, language." Jason ducked his head at that, admonished but Alfred carried on: "And outside of that my boy, trust me, I will be the last one to blame you for what you did."

A solemn smile. "In fact, you did me an enormous favor. The Joker took something irreplaceably precious from me, from us all and there was a time I was moments away from using that revolving door while carrying my shotgun to do pest control myself as you so nicely phrased it."

Jason sucked in a breath, latched onto every word. "Why didn't you?"

Alfred lowered his gaze grimly, something akin to regret flickering across his expression. "Forgive this foolish old man for his lack of resolve when faced with the fate of his ward. Master Bruce was in a very fragile state of mind at that time and this might have pushed him over the edge. I did not wish to have a cause in that so I refrained myself to rid us of the Joker outside of my personal wishes. Master Bruce, that foolish guilt ridden boy, unfortunately always had quite the complicated situation with that clown and even years after this hasn't changed as regretful as it is, binding my hands. I wish I had insisted more strongly on him attending therapy, especially after our loss, it might have ripped their twisted connection and enabled me to finally do as was necessary. It hasn't helped their complicated situation especially as Master Bruce always blamed himself for the Joker's very existence and was therefore insistent he could be helped even beyond hope." 

A sigh, a weight of a hundred worlds on these aged shoulders. Jason sucked in a breath, the truth harsh like a punch. Oh.

"No one blames you for what you did in this family at all - outside of Miss Cassandra who abhors killing in general, no matter who or why, and Master Bruce with his complicated relationship and strict rule he may not cross. I'm sure if you took the time to listen and ask, you might be able to hear why the others are quite pleased the Joker is gone and why you are more than welcomed in this family even without the additional ties binding you to us."

Oh.

"Thank you, Master Jason, for freeing us from this curse" Alfred spoke kindly, sincerely. " Thank you ." There was so much more behind these two words than was just said in a dozen more.

And then Alfred placed a cup of tea in front of him with a soft clink .

Jason stared at his tea, his former life's favorite tea, for one long moment before his gaze flickered up to the butler who was watching him with a kind, if tired expression. Anxiety fluttered in his throat and twisted his insides until he felt nauseous. 

He hadn't lasted twenty four hours.

" Alfie " he choked out the familiar nickname he alone used instead of the how he was dying to ask. Quickly he looked down at his tea again, blinking frantically, rapidly, a losing battle. 

Alfred merely smiled, eyes shining with unshed tears. "My dear boy" he spoke quietly, softly, voice only slightly unsteady with emotions, a wrinkled hand reaching out to gently cup Jason's cheek and make him look at him, thumb moving to gently wipe a stray tear away. "I have listened to your complaints about your father and his code so many times I could recite them by heart. I would have done anything for the miracle to hear them just once again. And…here we are, under circumstances I never would have suspected. None of us would. But I'm so, so glad. This is a miracle. You are a miracle."

Jason found himself shattering at that, breaking. He launched forward over the island to do what he wanted to do since breakfast: hug Alfred.

"Alfie" he wheezed out between hiccuping sobs of joy and relief and overwhelming nostalgia and grief for the life and time lost, tears soaking into that finely ironed suit. He missed him. He missed him so much.

Warm arms embraced him, so soothing and achingly familiar and just for a moment the world was okay again. Alfred held him and rubbed his back and Jason sobbed.

"I-I'm sorry for r-running away" he barely brought out, in near hysterical broken babbles, snot and tears unable to be stopped. 

"Shhh…" his honorary grandfather soothed with no judgment, only understanding. "None of that now. You came home, my boy. For that I would forgive anything."

And oh, there's painful beauty in those words, healing something so broken within the lost boy like a magic spell, gluing lost parts back together, guiding him like the glow in the dark stars in his room.

Home.

Nothing could take that away. 

Not a misunderstanding. Not a false accusation. Not Bruce's golden rule. Not running away. Not Sheila. Not Joker. Not even dying.

Not B's stupid ironclad hypocritical rule.

No, Jason was home. 

Home with his grandfather. 

And whoever else was home would show itself given time.

But for the moment the two clung to each other as if letting go meant allowing the other to be lost forevermore. 

oOo

Morning came to Wayne Manor and brought quite the surprise for some of its residents. But none was more so surprised than the patriarch of the family. 

All of Bruce's left shoes, gloves, socks and cufflinks without exception were suspiciously missing.

Meanwhile a child slept peacefully away tucked in bed, a blissful smile on his face.

Chapter Text

Dick had a normal morning. Well, relatively. After all he was staying at the manor for now to get Jason settled so they could break the news to the kid. And knowing the cute but feisty little spitfire and his declaration during the breakfast yesterday, he would take the truth horrendously so they definitely needed to get him used to the family first or he might have the knee jerk reaction of running away.

Dick would know. He was fueled by rage, spite and a free spirit when he was a child too after all and while three years older when he had lost his parents, he had just about the same response to Bruce's attempts to adopt him. Namely: shutting them down and declaring he only had one mami and tati and did not want a new family.

There's karma there somewhere.

Rolling out of bed, he forewent the house slippers and instead stumbled out the door to get downstairs for breakfast…only to jump back when the rug in the hallway made popping noises under his feet. 

"...what the…?" He mumbled, heart racing, and carefully placed a foot down again. 

Pop , made the thick rug. Blinking, he dared another step. Pop pop made the rug and Dick found himself grinning and bouncing. 

Pop Pop pop pop pop . Someone put bubble wrap under the ancient rugs lining the hallway of the family wing. 

Oh, and Dick had a suspicion which vicious adorable little beast decided to let his distaste of his current living arrangements known with pranks.

Cute.

Getting downstairs, he greeted Alfred, the man preparing some eggs for the family and seemingly in a very good mood. Then Dick moved to raid the cabinets for his favorite cereal and grabbed a milk carton from the fridge. Pouring cereal into a bowl, he paused, frowning. That's…not his favorite cereal. 

Okay, good one, kiddo. How he snuck past Alfred is quite the skill. Or maybe the man allowed the child to switch cereals around and knowing of the amusing prank allowed it to happen, hence his uncharacteristically extremely good mood.

Giving a sigh, Dick got up from his seat to search the various cereal boxes until he finally found his favorite one. Sugary goodness secured, he returned to his seat once more in a good mood, happily pouring himself from the milk carton.

And that was when Cass came in to join him for breakfast, a towel around her shoulders, obviously freshly showered. Dick had to do a double take because the girl's hair and skin were bright pink. Had…had someone snuck dye into her shower head? How?

Thankfully Cass didn't seem too bothered. "Good morning" she greeted, smiling as Alfred served her a plate of eggs. 

"Good morning, Miss Cassandra" Alfred greeted back, heading back to the stove, not a single comment slipping about her appearance.

Cass, if anything, only looked amused. She took the saltshaker to put some salt on her eggs and hummed: "Jason was up tonight. He played with marbles. Left them out. Be careful."

Ah, that explained why Dick's tiny wing wasn't up yet. But marbles were quite the tripping hazard. He'd have to talk to him about that. Hopefully the boy would take Dick's lecture better than he had Bruce's. The young man mentally winced remembering the shouting that was audible even through thick wood doors.

He loved B, really, but that man really didn't have much emotional skills which are necessary for young children. Especially traumatized ones.

Shouting at him sadly had a fifty-fifty chance of improving his emotional capacity to understand or worsening it by having him double down stubbornly. Dick would know. He had experience trying to shout emotional competence into his adopted father's head for years and usually was left to clean up the emotional messes he left behind.

Shaking his head, he took a spoonful of his cereal at the same time as Cass taking a forkful of eggs.

Both vigilantes froze.

The milk in the milk carton was water with flour.

The salt in the saltshaker was sugar.

Okay, so maybe the pranks weren't as cute as Dick first had thought.

oOo

Tim had a feeling about this. It itched at him in ways that was going to drive him insane. Something big was going on. Something admittingly potentially bad for himself - his shoes were suspiciously filled with Lego, which was just cruel however he had learned after the first one and it felt just like a warning call - and at the same time he found himself anticipating what was coming. 

Because he could tell it would be worth watching. The photographer in him wanted to take out his camera to document the masterpiece in motion. 

Because whatever it was, Alfred was in on it. Which meant this was going to be big and amazing to watch. Not as much to be involved in, unfortunately.

But more than dealing with his feelings of unrest and foreboding, Tim was researching to uncover a different happenstance. A different mystery.

It bounced in his head until Tim couldn't unsee it. Until he couldn't think of anything but that. 

The young man took a swing of his coffee and shuddered, looking betrayed at the cup as he placed it down. Why was this decaf?!

When breakfast was finished, everyone had set out to do their own thing. Tim had decided to seek Cass out, a new cup of coffee in hand.

"You know...B told us not to bring it up. To try to separate ourselves from our vigilante personas until he is old enough to understand the importance of a secret identity" Tim informed his sister with a small frown. "Why did you do it regardless?"

"He knows" Cass responded with a nonchalant shrug, going through a particularly hard ballet movement. Her brother temporarily set his cup down and applauded her in response, awed by her grace. 

And then he goes straight back to the topic in typical blunt Tim fashion.

"You were very harsh to Jason earlier" Tim pointed out with a frown. "Why?"

"He killed. He is…" Cass tried to find the right words, moving fluently, words underlined with graceful movements. "...not young inside his head. Older. Angry. Hurt. He knows we do not like killing. He still does. Does not care it hurts us because of his old hurts."

Tim's brows furrowed, gaze intently focused on Cass, trying to decipher what she saw. What she was trying to share with him.

Her words stuck with him all day and even now, the day after, like a magical book with seven sigils he would need to find all clues to open. Thankfully Tim liked mysteries and this was one he intended to solve.

Because why would a child just head into Gotham after the unrelated death of his mother and decide to take a gun and shoot the Joker?

oOo

Bruce did not have a normal morning. In fact, it was downright evil . There was a new budding supervillain in Gotham and he lived in Wayne Manor.

And Bruce personally had brought him here. He didn't dare regret it yet but the urge to kindly ask Dick to take him to the penthouse for a while to give him a chance to even out and be a little less bloodthirsty was admittingly growing. It had worked well enough with Damian after all…even if it hadn't been Bruce's tool of choice back then.

And this sentiment was just after he had noticed that the toilet paper was in fact a roll of white duct tape.

After that particular ordeal, Bruce wanted to brush his teeth in a typical morning routine. Thankfully the world's greatest detective noticed that his toothpaste was not toothpaste but some sort of fishy goop before putting it into his mouth. Whoever had squeezed that in his toothpaste tin had some serious dedication. 

With a sigh, Bruce opted for a shower to get somewhat calm and clean at least. Normalcy.

At least until the longer he stood under the spray, the more it suddenly smelled like chicken soup. Immediately the man scrambled to turn the water off and unscrewed the showerhead to check he wasn't going insane. Someone had put in a bouillon cube. 

Evil. Bruce had called it. But hey, he raised plenty of teenage boys, it takes more than that to knock him off track and in his experience thirteen year olds can be a lot more creative, ruthless and mean than five year olds.

At least it was an easy enough fix.

…that his deodorant turned out to be cream cheese unfortunately warranted another shower.

But after, Bruce was finally prepared to get dressed and head down for breakfast. 

…if only the same could be said about his clothes.

A quick check showed that all of his left shoes, gloves, socks and cufflinks without exception were suspiciously missing.

Resigning himself to mismatched socks for a while, Bruce gave a heavy sigh.

Even emotionally constipated - as his children loved to call him - it was getting abundantly clear that Jason was very, very angry at him and had not appreciated yesterday's lecture in the slightest.

Maybe giving him and Dick some room to acclimate really would be the best way to deal with this…

oOo

Shifting the mouse to get the computer out of standby so he could start to compile evidence, nothing happened. Frowning, Tim shifted the mouse more, then leaned to check if it was correctly connected to the computer. It was.

Then why…?

He moved it a bit more, shook it even and still nothing moving. 

Frowning, the young man turned the mouse around to see if the sensor below was broken…and groaned as he spotted the little slip of paper carefully taped over it. Ugh. 

Admittingly stupid pranks and throwing tomatoes at him were still a step up from actively trying to murder him so Tim would still give their newest family member a solid 7/10 for now. He really was evil however for going after his coffee…

Grimacing, he took the paper off the mouse, everything once more working smoothly and finally got to work.

Tim's first thought was to research Jason's family to try and gather clues so he could get his question answered. It was pretty quick, neither were particularly noteworthy.

Caleb Feniks, aged 34. Parents were Gabriel Feniks, deceased aged 60 by cancer, and Sarah Feniks, nee Porter, dementia patient in an old people's home in New York, aged 69. Had an older sister Sophia Feniks, aged 40, who went no contact and was last sighted somewhere in east Europe. Blonde hair, brown eyes, broad shoulders, average sized in height. Owner of a small business which he prioritized over his family based on his frequent presence there. Suspected of being domestically abusive against his wife and having an alcohol abuse problem. Decently popular with his employees however described as being impulsive and having a bad temper but being otherwise tolerable.

Barely tolerable but definitely guilty of child abandonment even if Jason was not his biological son, Tim thought sourly of himself. Child abandonment and neglect cases usually tended to leave a bitter taste on his tongue. 

Okay, that one was a dead end.

Rebecca Feniks nee Bacher, deceased aged 31 - about a month ago, shortly after her birthday. Father was unknown, mother was Corinna Bacher, deceased aged 45. Red hair, green eyes, tall, slim but not frail statue, freckles. A former secretary - she quit after her marriage at 21 to be a housewife. She worked out a few times a month, was part of the local bookclub and was known as quite the spitfire in her circle of colleagues and acquaintances. 

A bit more digging revealed that Jason's mother died in a car accident, ran over while crossing the street by a truck in which a bunch of bank robbers sat who where fleeing the scene of crime. Her autopsy ruled her as dead upon impact.

The robbers were later caught by the police.

Tim grimaced surveying his findings. Nothing to indicate any direct connection to give a motive. 

Digging even more revealed that Jason Fenik's maternal grandmother apparently had died in one of Joker's larger scaled gas attacks a few months before Mrs Feniks married her husband. That would count it back to ten years ago…basically right near the beginning of Jason Todd's Robin run.

Years before Jason Feniks was born. 

Potentially that meant that Mrs Feniks could have told her son about that incident to ignite the hate of Joker in him.

But to go to such extremes for a grandmother Jason hadn't even met?

Tim was very sure that there was way more to it than that. Call it a gut feeling. Still, it was a first hint to a potential motive.

oOo

"Do not under any circumstances come to the manor today?" Duke read out loud from his phone, guessing from the emotions Cass sent him, before frowning at the front door in front of him. Sounded like a trap, if he was being honest. Like something really bad was going on.

And ever the dutiful hero, of course the Signal needed to check on what was going on. And of course if the family was okay. Because it had to be bad if Cass was worried.

Steeling himself, he squared his shoulders and prepared himself for the worst.

Cautiously, he pushed the large front doors to the manor open.

…nothing seemed amiss. Well, except for that fan. That should not be standing where it does.

Huh. He steps closer, curious what's up with that and the weird bag in front of the rotor.

A moment later he heard a pop over his head from a nerf bullet colliding with the rubber of a ballon, shot from who knows where and the next thing he knew there's wetness all over him. He sputtered and wiped at his face, coughing and spitting disgusted.

Holding his hands a bit in front of himself, he stared at the sticky white-ish liquid. 

"What the…?" He whispered flabbergasted. A moment later he realized that it was in fact glue.

And that was when the fan whirred to life with another sniper-nerf gun and Duke was attacked with a barrage of feathers.

….

" Do not come to the manor today if you can somehow avoid it is seconded " is written very enthusiastically in the group chat.

Stephanie's laughing emojis did not help.

oOo

Tim was an observer. Always outside looking in. Watching. Waiting. He would follow those he was interested in and gather everything he needed to know about them ever since he was young.

Stalker, they called him fondly. He supposed he was if he was being honest with himself.

It was something he was really good at.

Watching, waiting, observing….until one moment, suddenly he started to notice, to see what Cass had seen. 

To be fair, looking back on it now that could also be his lack of caffeine talking. Someone had apparently decided that not just the coffee in the manor but also in his apartment and every single one of his safe houses was swapped for decaf. It was simply pure evil. As if someone was pointedly targeting his greatest joy.

Was it to dissuade him? A warning to leave that trail?

No, Tim wasn't to be dissuaded that easily.

And with that he started gathering data, compiling it into neat little folders in his head, filing down every word, every movement, every habit. Down to every micro expression.

And it seemed…Cass was right. Jason did not act like a little child should. At all. Not like any of them ever did, himself included. But Jason even more so.

Trauma, probably.

However the stinging familiarity he was starting to compile made another option more likely.

The accent when talking to Stephanie…

The phrasing of the too late …

The hyperfixation on Joker…

Tim knew this. He knew it as he knew the back of his hand. And he wasn't as emotionally compromised as Bruce and Dick were to be blinded by that familiarity.

And so Tim started looking not just for clues but proof.

…if he was right it'd certainly make one hell of a motive.

oOo

Dick sat still for a long moment, then looked at the tiny chef before him. "You made a sandwich for me?" He said, voice heavy with emotion, seemingly deeply touched.

"Uh-huh" the tiny terror before him confirmed with innocent eyes and the sweetest little smile. In fact, with his freckles, large blue eyes and curls he looked like a little angel.

Dick barely resisted the urge to scoop him into his arms to cuddle until they're old and gray, never letting go. He settled for petting that soft hair and accepting the plate.

Then he looked at the sandwich that seemed innocent enough. But Dick also had witnessed the havock Jason had wrought upon this family all morning and honestly, he was impressed, proud and just a bit intimidated. And this was all without the kid having access to the Batcave. He did and didn't want to know what Jason could unleash if given access to all their tools down there.

Dick already would never be able to look at Legos the same way again. They're evil.

…but he also thought with a pang of regret that his little brother Jason would have loved this new little Jason in all his smartipants hellion glory. They both enjoyed strewing marbles about as trap to trip over and loved books and dramatics…

Okay, focus. Dick survived years living off of food which was made in a kitchen where only teenagers - some of which weren't even restricted to the limits human taste palette - cooked. He could do this.

And so he bravely took a bite.

It was good.

……

Ah, and there's the but . It's fucking spicy, as if someone poured a tiny slip of hell all over the bread. Alas, Starfire had managed hotter. Alien plants for the win, huh?

Still.

Ouch.

Dick was a bit out of practice and so he teared up and sniffled, turning red. And then much to the child's obvious horror, He took another bite. And another.

And even as he had tears running down his cheeks, he smiled: "This sandwich is really good, tiny wing! Thank you." So much gag worthy sincerity. It was after all the first gift the boy made for him even if it was meant as a prank and Dick wouldn't be Dick if he didn't treasure it to the fullest with every hellish bite therefore.

God, he loves his kid already so much.

Jason meanwhile turned bright red, mortified and horrified: "Y-you!" He sputtered, his current plan trashed. And now he looked worried, awww. "You can't eat that! It's not meant to be consumed that much! Take at least a few of the Carolina Reapers off!"

He cared and that warmed Dick more than the hottest chillies in the world. 

(Where even had Jason gotten them overnight? Probably the wonders of riches and Alfred…)

…still, ouch.

Worth it.

oOo

The Batmobile's automatically recorded audio recording crackled to life without problem, Tim able to overhear what had been said the night Bruce picked Jason up. It wasn't much so Tim wasn't surprised that the log showed he was the first one to look into it for clues.

"Why?" B, do not interrogate small children. Tim could only sigh and shake his head. This was not as bad as how had been first interacted with but it also wasn't particularly good. This is a five year old, Bruce!

"Pest control." What a snarky and pointed answer and it's quite clever from the child to have blown his nose to shut down immediate further questioning. Tim could appreciate that.

"Taking a life is wrong" Batman reprimanded finally, voice half Batman and half Bruce, trying to break the message down for the child to understand. Kudos for B but Tim doubted it'd do anything to dissuade the child that sounded so determined, spiteful and almost…angry. 

Like someone with a personal vendetta.

"Well, he took mine" Jason's voice countered with a surprising amount of clarity and intent. And especially spite. "He took everything I once had." The clarification didn't distract from the message.

Tim sucked in a breath, pushing the chair back from batcomputer as he impulsively stood up, eyes wide as saucers. Puzzle pieces clicked into place in his head. 

No fucking way.

The detective swallowed, then glanced at the enormous monitors displaying a paternity test, something grim settling into his expression. "You all are in such a mess" he informed the pictures, graphs and analysis he had opened. 

And finally the glass case.

Tim had done his part. Satisfied his curiosity. Solved the case.

But this was something Tim couldn't even be paid to fix. This was something they all would have to figure out alone entirely.

And with that he took a satisfied sip from his energy drink and nearly gagged, pulling back to stare betrayed at the very much not energy drink apple juice. 

…how dare he .

oOo

Damian's scream of rage - apparently he had found his pencils all glued together and was cursing all of their newest ward's maternal bloodline - bid Bruce goodbye as he headed out to work. Alfred had not been helpful at all even as the man had hoped that the British gentleman would be his savior in finding his missing shoes…or at least just one.

Well…at least the newspapers would have a field day reporting about Brucie and his two right shoes which were extremely uncomfortable. That should at least help boost his reputation as a lovable idiot a bit more.

Positives.