Chapter Text
Jason has seen a lot of things, felt, thought, and lived through them. His father died at a young age, his mother was a drug addict, and he was ten years old when he became Batman's second Robin. Then he died, came back to life, and all that shit he hates. He definitely expects anything, but not this.
Shit, Jason hadn't even seen it, he hadn't even felt it. He trained and specialized in combat, he knows how to better anticipate his enemies' moves and can even sense they'll do something. He's no fool, but that kid made him feel like a fool. Look, first of all, it was just his normal routine, which he hates: a kid being attacked by two grown men in The Narrows. He got really angry and beat them up enough that they wouldn't attack him again for a long, long time.
Only, by the time he finishes his violence and turns around to steady the boy—who Jason knows is no more than eleven years old, has a baby face—he's pointing one of the knives he must have slipped from his things during the fight, because he recognizes the design from wherever, the bat-blades he stole from Batman. He doesn't press, he doesn't try to kill him, at least not now. He just aims, barely touching the crook of his neck, but his grip is shaky, too much, almost clumsy.
In any context, he would have become extremely agitated, but he's just a kid; his body language says nothing but confusion and fear. He knows full well that he hasn't tried to attack him out of malice, and that's why he raises his hands in a sign of surrender. It's then that the boy raises his face, and Jason can see him better.
He's Asian, his pupils are dilated and his skin is terribly pale. He looks deranged, tears are barely fading in his eyes, and his hands are almost blue. He has blisters on his fingers and marks on his neck, as if he's bruised. His face is a little dirty, his clothes too, but he's wrapped in some kind of red cloth, which doesn't seem to have been stained.
Jason knows the kid is in a terrible situation on a Gotham night at curfew time, after being attacked—or attempted to be attacked—by two men twice his size. And if what he thinks happens, The Narrows will have two dead by tomorrow.
The communicator in his ear crackles, a brief burst of static, and then the signal becomes clear.
—Oracle to Red Hood. Are you there?— the woman says, her tone serious and direct.
The boy practically seems to be struggling to stay on his feet, but barely a second after Oracle speaks, he collapses, and Jason has to catch him. He frowns; the boy's skin is terribly cold, hypothermic.
His hands go to the boy's neck, pressing on the side. “He still has a pulse” he thinks,, then his hand goes to turn on the communicator.
—Yes. I'm here.—
Another brief static signal is heard. —Good. I need you to leave The Narrows. There are a lot of gangs and the mob on edge in Crime Alley.—
Jason clicks his tongue, looks at the boy in his arms, and his grip tightens. —I have a little problem right now. Can't you send Red Robin to Crime Alley or someone else? I don't know, I'm busy. — He really doesn't want to sound angry, but he has a child in that situation and he's feeling a little upset.
She doesn't answer; she takes too long than he expects, and he gets desperate. —Fine. I'll try to contact Red Robin.— There's a slightly annoyed tone in her voice, and Jason knows his attitude has upset her quite a bit.
Oracle cuts the transmission, and Jason looks back at the boy.
Well, Jason has two options. The first is to turn him over to Gotham authorities so they can provide him with a place to stay while they locate his legal guardians for leaving a boy alone in that state late at night.
But Jason doesn't trust Gotham authorities, much less The Narrows, much less those who have left such a young child in a mild state of hypothermia for who knows how long. Jason doesn't even know why the boy has hypothermia.
Option one: ruled out.
The second is to take him to an expert in taking in abandoned children so he can have a horde of Robins all over Gotham: Bruce.
Bruce is an expert at taking in children, that's something even he can admit. Jason knows that B would find out everything about this child and see if he can take him in or not, but, just like with the police, Jason doesn't trust B at all.
Not because he'll do a bad job as a father; he's improved a lot in recent years, and that's why Jason has stopped blaming him for his own death. He has regained respect, affection, and trust. Jason trusts Bruce will do a good job, but he doesn't trust Batman.
He doesn't trust him to refrain from giving him the position as Robin, from training him for it, from inciting him to do it. Even whether he adopts him or not, because if he saw the courage the child had to pull those Batman knives on him, who knows what he would see in him?
Jason simply can't allow another child to be put in the same situation.
Option two: ruled out.
The third option, to his dismay, is to take the boy himself. The reality is that Jason isn't a kidnapper—like Batman—and he couldn't possibly keep an unknown child without doing something illegal.
Jason doesn't want to justify himself either, but when hasn't he done anything illegal? It wouldn't hurt his record too much. Besides, no one would find out if Jason only kept him for a short time before returning him to his parents, and if he didn't have the Gotham foster care system.
Jason really doesn't want to let Batman win—Batman doesn't even know there's a competition—and prefers to have him as the last person he contacts. He doesn't need Batman. He can babysit for a couple of days!
Of course he can.
-
Jason has been feeling pretty nervous, and to be honest, it's harder to deal with a kid who doesn't speak any language you know and who is extremely distrustful of you. Especially a kid with mild symptoms of hypothermia—in fact, Jason deduces he almost died from it—but the kid, the damn kid, isn't nearly as bad as he thought or expected.
The first few hours after he took him to his small apartment in Crime Alley, Jason practically changed his clothes, warmed a cloth to place on the boy's chest, laid him down in his bedroom, and let him rest. Then he went back to cleaning up Gotham's slums and fell asleep on the couch.
By daylight, the kid was still sleeping, so he made soup and while he slept, he checked his blood pressure. It was stable, still.
Then he made sandwiches, because he was nervous about his new guest, and when he's nervous, he does three things: read, cook, and beat up bullies.
Only, as soon as he finishes making the third sandwich, the kid walks out the fucking door, too sleepy.
It's not abnormal to walk through a door; it's abnormal to casually walk through one after nearly dying of hypothermia. Usually, the person is too tired to move, and it can even cause cardiac arrest. But no, the kid walked normally, looked at his face, and gave him the most terrified face a kid can ever give him. Jason almost forgot he had him in his house illegally.
He's scared, but when he makes a move to run, he falls. Jason stops cooking and gently takes him by the back, picks him up, and carries him back to bed. The boy just stares at him for a long time, looking around the room.
Jason can also recognize that he's too scared and tired to react normally, but he scans the room for anything, even a single thing out of place that might allow him to escape or attack, and it reminds him of his first few days after the Lazarus pit.
It's going to be hard taking care of this boy.