Work Text:
Jason couldn’t stop shivering. He was so cold that he wasn’t even hungry anymore. He was so cold that he didn’t even think that he was tired anymore. This wasn’t his first winter on the streets, but it was turning out to be the harshest. He knew that not being cold anymore wasn't very good, but it kind of felt like it was right now.
And that was probably because he had tried to take Batman’s tires.
He hadn’t even managed to take them! He had been caught before he could take more than two of them, and then he had put them back!
Maybe it was getting so cold and horrible because he hadn’t gone with the demon? Batman had tried to get him to go with him, but Jason had been terrified. He had blurted out that if he couldn’t keep his first Robin safe and with him - why would Jason want to be the second Robin? He would probably fail the demon worse than the first one had - he’d probably get tortured before getting killed.
He’d probably end up as a message for Batman - don’t let children fight your battles.
It was probably why he hadn’t been able to sell any of the books he had stolen, either. Batman was angry at him, so he wouldn’t be able to do anything in Gotham without being hurt for it.
Though… he hadn’t thought that Batman was mad. When he had yelled those things at Batman, he had looked… surprised. Jason hadn’t thought demons could be surprised, and yet - Batman had seemed to be.
Maybe Batman wasn’t a demon after all…
But it also could have been that Batman was surprised that Jason had known so much as Robin and that he was gone, and not just not fighting because of an injury. Maybe he had been surprised that Jason had known that - like how his teachers had always been surprised when Jason had known an answer to a question they didn’t think he’d know.
Jason might have been a street rat, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t smart. Jason was really smart, and he read a lot. On her bad days, Jason would sit beside his mom’s bed and read to her from whatever book he could get his hands on. It didn’t matter what the subject was, he would sit beside her and read.
He read about magic castles and atoms, medical breakthroughs and dragons. He read about cats and superheroes.
And on his dad’s good days, Willis would take him to the library and help him look up the information about what he had read so that he could understand it.
So yes, Jason was very smart - he just happened to live on the streets. And that was also a smart thing, because if he didn’t live on the streets he would be living in with a family that would either belong to a mob or a family that would sell him to a mob.
So it was safer for Jason if he lived on the streets. He might be cold, he might be hungry, he might be scared - but he was his own person. He wasn’t a servant or a slave or a drug runner - he was him, and being him meant that he was still allowed to be smart.
But maybe he should have gone with Batman.
Everyone knew that Batman didn’t belong to the mobs. Batman was the reason why the mobs weren’t as everywhere anymore. They had been forced to go underground, because otherwise Batman would find them and beat them up. He’d also use them, and then start to methodically dismantle the entire mob.
Jason wished that he could be that smart. Managing to dismantle an entire mob through one lowly drug runner was impressive. What was more impressive was that he managed to do it in a way that the mobs didn’t even try to get lawyers involved when they went to trial, because the amount of evidence that Batman found - and that was usable in court - made it so that the cases were extremely easy to win.
In fact, a law school had started to let their students use those cases to build up experience in an actual courtroom.
So maybe Jason should’ve gone with Batman. Maybe he would’ve survived better. Maybe he would still be able to sell the books he had, and that would let him get some blankets or something.
But it was too late for that now. No matter how Jason looked, he couldn’t see Batman or anything of Batman’s in the alley. Batman likely wasn’t going to come back - it was probably too cold even for a demon.
Jason huddled down on some cardboard, not that it did any good because of how the snow melted and made it wet. It was cold enough that the edges of the cardboard were beginning to freeze.
Jason tucked his favourite book under his head, using it as a pillow. He closed his eyes tightly, and tried to imagine that he was in the book, dancing and having found a family that would take him away from the cold.
Jason let himself dream, hoping that the dream would take away the cold.
It must have worked, at least a little, because Jason sensed someone coming to him - and it wasn’t cold anymore at all.
He looked up in confusion, and then he beamed - his mom was right there! His mom was right there and she looked healthy, and his dad was standing behind her. Jason got up and got picked up, snuggling close to his mom as his dad put his hand on his shoulder.
They might have been smiling sadly, but Jason thought that this was the best day. His parents were back. And that made everything so much better - they would keep him from being cold and hungry and scared.
He was right to not go with Batman.
He was right to stay away.