Work Text:
Bruce was deep in flow state, working on his laptop, when he sensed a presence at the door of his study.
Instantly, he lifted his head and saw Jason standing there, partly hidden by the doorframe. It was slowly feeling more and more natural to see him like this: smooth cheeks, big eyes, and measuring in at under four feet tall. He was wearing the same black track pants and green hoodie that he’d had on at breakfast today, and his hair looked just as messy, too. Bruce felt a strange impulse to smooth it down.
He already knew that’d be a bad idea, though. Jason might be physically six years old, but he wasn’t a typical child of that age. He’d been very clear on that.
Instead, Bruce lowered the lid of his laptop and gave his son a nod. “Hi, Jason.”
“Hi.” Jason stared back. He had his printing workbook held against his chest and a pencil clasped in his fist. “Alfred’s, uh… He went to do some vacuuming.”
“Alright…” There was some other meaning hidden within that statement, but it wasn’t clear to Bruce.
Mentally, he reviewed the facts he knew. Jason had been in the kitchen with Alfred before now. These days, he often did that after breakfast. Alfred would get Jason to help in whatever way he could, although it was often hard to pin down exactly where those skills were while Jason relearned how to navigate a body that was much less capable than it used to be.
Mostly, Jason stayed there for the company. He needed that now. While his mindset was very different from a typical six-year-old child, there were some things that his level of brain development required. Cass had been the first to notice it, of course, and had treated the rest of the family to a stern lecture about the situation. Jason needed to be around people. He needed to feel connection to others. He needed attention and support and companionship. Ever since then, everyone else had tried to be more… mindful. Of what Jason might need but not realize or feel comfortable saying.
Which brought things back to right now. To Jason, who was standing here, not currently able to spend time with Alfred, and with a planned activity held in his arms.
Oh.
Bruce drew in a breath and spoke at the exact same time Jason did. “You’re welcome to—”
“I guess I’m just gonna— Um. Wait… what?” Fidgeting with the printing book, Jason tilted his head towards Bruce.
“Stay,” Bruce said, trying to sound more confident than he felt. “You’re welcome to stay here and… do your work. For as long as you like.”
“Oh.” A defensive wall that had been invisible up until now suddenly crumbled and Jason eased his way into the room. “Okay. Thanks. Although it’s, uh… not like it’s actually ‘work’.”
A pang hit deep in Bruce’s chest. “Working to rebuild a skill that you’ve lost is absolutely work.” It was, unfortunately, the main thing Jason would be doing for years to come.
Jason shrugged, glancing down at the book in his hands.
“Is that one… working well for you?” Bruce asked. “If it’s not, I can order others. Or even if you think it’d be good to have some different options, then—”
“It’s fine, old man, relax. It’s practicing letters; I’m pretty sure all the books are the same.”
Bruce knew for fact that that wasn’t true. When he was first made aware of Jason’s printing regression, he’d combed through countless options of practice books before finally selecting the ones they had now. A lot of the publications were plastered with cartoon characters and cutesy designs, no doubt in an attempt to make a very boring exercise appealing to children.
Children. Not Jason.
Bruce had purchased the plainest book he could find, and although he had skimmed it quickly before actually handing it over, he wasn’t entirely sure if the quality was up to scratch. What even was a good curriculum for an adult who had been reverted to childhood?
At least Jason seemed motivated enough that he’d make good progress no matter what. After coming into the study, he found a spot by the coffee table and got right to work, gripping his pencil carefully and slowly tracing letters out onto the page. Bruce watched out of the corner of his eye, only halfway paying attention to his emails.
It wasn’t often that Bruce had a chance to observe Jason like this, and it was a unique puzzle. In their conversation just before, it hadn’t felt at all like Bruce was talking with a child, but there were a few mannerisms peeking out that were definitely childish. Jason’s toes wiggled as he worked, and he had also begun to hum very softly to himself. After completing his current row, he put down his pencil and yanked his hoodie off, pulling the whole thing almost inside out as he dragged it over his head and wrestled it off of his wrists. He flung it down on the floor in a messy heap and stretched out onto his belly, bending down to work on the next row of ‘m’s.
But then his head snapped up, catching Bruce right in the eye.
“I—” Caught out, it took a fraction of a second before Bruce found a reason to excuse his staring. “Are you comfortable enough there? You could always work here at my desk. There’s plenty of room.”
That would have gotten a hard no from a twenty-one-year-old Jason, but… a twenty-one-year-old Jason wouldn’t have come in here in the first place, would he? It was worth offering, even if Bruce ended up getting shot down. He didn’t like the idea of any of his kids having to work on the floor.
Jason shrugged it off. “I’m okay here.”
Maybe it was a space issue after all. Bruce could fix that. “I could work in a different place. I’m just reviewing emails; I could go to the loveseat—”
“No, Bruce, it’s not that. Seriously.” Jason fiddled with his pencil, tapping the eraser end onto his page. Then he huffed out a sigh. “It’s just that none of that big ass furniture works for me anymore, you know?”
Bruce felt his clenched fists relax. “Oh.”
“Yeah, it’s always kinda awkward having to get the chair close enough to the desk when my feet don’t even touch the floor. And even if I can do that, the desk surface is, like, weirdly too high still? I gotta stretch to get my elbow up into place and then it’s just uncomfortable.”
“That makes sense. I’m sorry, Jay.”
Jason shrugged. “It is what it is. Even the desk in my room from when I was a teenager is too big. And I guess I can try getting a stack of books to sit on, but what kind of book deserves that? Well, maybe one of those really dusty old encyclopedias in the back shelf of the library. You know the ones that Alfred likes but no one else ever uses?” He grinned, propping himself up on his elbows. “But I’m so fucking tiny now! I don’t even think I can lift twenty pounds. Hey, did I ever tell you I tried to use some dumbbells downstairs? I couldn’t really do any actual lifts with them because you only have giant-ass… uh… well the weights are huge and…”
He blinked, gave his head a shake, and then finally ducked his head down.
“Nevermind. Sorry. You got work to do and I’m talking your ear off.” He picked up his pencil again and turned to the next line on his page.
The atmosphere began to shift, like colour draining from the room. Bruce rushed to say something. Anything.
“I don’t mind, Jay. I like hearing what’s going on with you.”
He shrugged stiffly, doggedly working through his row. “I swear it’s like sometimes my entire mental filter just shuts off.”
Bruce shrugged silently. There were a lot of things that weren’t working for Jason as they used to, but this one wasn’t all that terrible. “I, uh… can’t say I mind. Before, it seemed like I never got to hear anything from you.”
It felt dangerous, bringing up that comparison of how things used to be. Not that long ago, a thoughtless comment could easily ignite a bitter argument between them, and at one point or another, both of them had accused the other of a lack of communication.
But Jason just snorted and shrugged it off. “Yeah, well, it’s not like there’s anything for me to keep secret anymore.”
“There’s still things I don’t know,” Bruce said. “Like… how it went downstairs with Dick yesterday. You both just said it was ‘good’.”
Jason raised an eyebrow. “You want details, old man?”
“Only if you’d like to give them.”
There was another beat as Jason thought about it, and then, finally, he said, “Well, it was good. We didn’t lie about that. But it, uh, looks like I’m actually making some decent progress with the acrobatics. It’s crazy how fast things are coming back. And how flexible I am now! Seriously, it’s a little disturbing. And oh! You know that climbing wall? I think I want to try training on that next because being tiny also means I’m crazy light now, so I figure…”
Jason continued on and on, spilling out a steady stream of words that meandered around to a variety of different topics. He picked away at his printing as he talked, occasionally pausing for a moment as he worked at a particularly tricky spot. Bruce managed to keep him going for a while with a small comment or a question here or there, Eventually, though, he petered out for good, going back to the soft, tuneless humming from before as he worked through an entire page.
It was perfect. Bruce craved more. And he had an idea for how to make sure that happened.
It took a week for the desk to arrive. While he waited, Bruce cleared out a spot in his study, moving a set of reference books to the library and putting an end table into storage. Like most areas of the manor, there was plenty of space to play with. On the day of delivery, Alfred received the package just like he always did with that sort of thing, but Bruce was the one to put the furniture together and stage the little space he’d had in mind.
The end result was perfect. A child-sized desk now sat against the wall with a matching chair placed beside it. The design complemented the rest of the furniture in the room, and the colour of the wood was almost a perfect match to Bruce’s own desk. It was far enough away from Bruce’s workspace to look like it was in its own place, but close enough that they could keep each other company. To complete the look, Bruce added a few stationary supplies into a pencil cup along with the copybook Jason had left in here the other day.
He was confident in his decision all the way up until he showed the desk to Jason. Then, in the face of Jason’s quiet, pensive expression, Bruce started to worry.
“The desk is adjustable,” he explained, pointing to the legs. “We can make it taller as you grow, all the way up to twenty-two inches.”
That was a positive, Bruce knew. Jason hated waste and frivolous expenses, and that wasn’t what this was.
“And… Well, I know the chair is simple, but we can look at exchanging it for something else.” There hadn’t been any swivel desk chairs made for Jason’s size, and Bruce had looked for a long time before he’d realized that the lack of supply was probably because very few people would want to give one of those to an actual child. There had to be something they could find that Jason would like, though.
Jason still hadn’t said anything, and Bruce’s stomach tightened.
“Of course, we could always set this up in your room instead. If you’d prefer.” Dammit, that should have been Bruce’s first instinct anyway. Jason had said that his previous desk in that room didn’t fit him anymore; it had been an obvious hint. How the hell had Bruce missed it?
Then, finally, Jason spoke. “No! It’s… it’s cool that it’s here.” He lifted his head up and flashed Bruce a small, cautious smile. “I just, uh… wasn’t expecting this. I didn’t know anyone made anything like this.”
“I found it online. There’re other things on that site, too. Armchairs and end tables and—”
“Whoa, whoa, slow down, B. You don’t need to buy me a whole miniature house. Most of the time, I can figure the big stuff out just fine.” Carefully, Jason pulled the chair away from the desk and then sat down on it. He planted his feet on the floor and pulled himself closer to the writing surface. A bright smile burst onto his face. “Holy shit, did you see how easy that was?”
The corner of Bruce’s mouth lifted. “Yes.”
Jason rolled his eyes good naturedly. “Look, you go a whole month with your feet dangling off of every single chair you sit on and then tell me that this isn’t a big deal.”
Bruce threw his hands up in surrender, although none of this was actually a loss for him. Jason was sitting, happily, at the desk Bruce had chosen. The one set up in Bruce’s study, just a few feet from his own desk. Now, they’d have a very good reason to be together for hours. Bruce could listen to his son’s voice and hear about his day and everything else that came from that.
Jason was fiddling with the corner of his workbook. He hadn’t started anything yet. “So… I guess this means you’re okay with me hanging out in here every once in a while?”
“Jason, I—” Bruce dropped himself down, crouching beside the desk so he was at eye level with his son. “I’d very much enjoy having you here. Whenever you’d like.”
“Oh.” A million different expressions flitted across Jason’s face, and he finally settled on something that Bruce couldn’t quite read. “Okay, well… cool. Thanks.”
Bruce looked at the desk, the workbook, the pencil that was ready to go, and then finally back at Jason.
“It’s my pleasure, Jaylad. Really.”