Chapter Text
Ever since Duke had come to live in the manor, Jason’s Saturday mornings had changed. He still got up around the same time, and he still tidied his room with Alfred helping him, but now he also hung out with Duke for a few hours before everyone else got up.
They’d go swimming in the pool or play videogames together or each pick a book and read silently in the library. Sometimes, Duke would show Jason something new and cool he was working on with his powers. It was all really fun stuff, and Duke seemed to actually like it, too, instead of feeling like he was babysitting Jason or whatever.
It was good for Bruce, too, because it meant that he got to sleep in a little more. He was always up early on school days to take them to Pathways, and he was always awake the second Jason ever needed him in the middle of the night. That was happening way less than when Jason had been seven, but it still happened sometimes and Jason remembered how it felt to be a grown up and be tired from not sleeping enough. He didn’t want that for his dad. Now, he had a way to be a little more grown up himself and keep busy all the way until eleven o’clock when Alfred served Saturday brunch.
That’s exactly how it went today. Jason skipped into the dining room with Duke right beside him. They had been swimming in the pool and Jason’s hair was still wet even though he’d changed back into his regular clothes.
Damian nodded at them, and Bruce smiled one of his secret smiles. “Good morning, boys.”
“Just barely still morning,” Duke joked.
“Morning!” Jason chirped. “Me and Duke— Oh! Hi, Tim!”
That was another good thing about Saturdays. Sometimes, Jason’s other older siblings ended up staying the night because they were out so late on patrol. Then Jason got to hang out with them after brunch.
He climbed up onto his chair and nodded when Alfred offered him French toast. Swimming always made him starving, and it felt like a long time since he’d eaten that quick breakfast when he first woke up.
“Were you working on your new mask?” he asked Tim.
There was a pause while Tim took a big gulp of coffee. “...yeah. Got sucked in trying to work out a smaller power source and lost track of time.”
Jason nodded. He knew that’s what it had to be. Tim had been trying to figure out how to fit even more fancy technology into the little domino mask that he wore, and when he got on a roll he never wanted to stop. Maybe a whole night of working on it meant he’d finally figured out some new things, but Jason didn’t get a chance to ask about it.
Bruce was looking at him a little more closely. “Jay, you need to remember to comb your hair after you’ve been in the pool.”
“I know.” Jason ducked his head down. Yeah, Bruce reminded him about that literally every time he went swimming, but it was… so much work. His hair was always tangled and even though he didn’t fall asleep after swimming anymore, he was still tired.
“It will only be worse the longer you delay,” Damian lectured.
Jason knew that too. A couple times, his hair had been so tangled that his eyes had teared up a bit when Bruce finally combed it out for him. It was annoying, but he liked wearing it a bit long and floppy. It made him feel warm and safe and it tickled his ears in a fun way.
Bruce had taken his napkin off of his lap and stood up, circling around to where Jason’s spot at the table was. He’d gotten a comb from somewhere. Trust Batman to have one ready the second he noticed his kid needed it.
“Perhaps a leave-in conditioner would make things easier,” Alfred suggested as he went around the table refilling coffees. “You’d simply spray it in once you’ve dried off. Any one of us could help you comb it through afterwards.”
“I can remind you, too,” Duke said.
“I know how to do it myself,” Jason muttered.
But that wasn’t the point. The whole problem was that Jason didn’t do it, even though he could and he knew he should. He just… had other things he wanted to be doing. Maybe the spray was a good idea? If it kept his hair from getting super bad until someone saw him and took care of it.
Bruce was starting to fix Jason’s hair now. His big gentle hands pulled the tangled curls into sections and then he slowly worked through them with the comb, starting at the end and then combing more and more with each stroke. It felt really nice, and it weirdly made Jason less embarrassed about the whole thing, even though it was literally his dad doing his hair for him in front of everyone.
“How long are you staying?” Jason asked Tim.
He looked up just above Jason’s head. To where Bruce was standing.
“A while. We’ve, uh, got some stuff to figure out.”
“Kay.” It was probably a bunch of boring schedule stuff. Bruce and Tim always talked about that, both for the cave and for W.E. Jason really didn’t want to have to sit around for any of it. “Can we do some more forensic training together after? Downstairs?”
“Uh, well—”
“And Dami, you said we could do sword practice today, right? But maybe that could be after… um…” He stopped when he saw Tim look up at Bruce again. It seemed like…
“You need to finish that homework assignment first, Jay,” Bruce said. He ran his fingers through Jason’s smooth, tidy hair one last time and then tugged on Jason’s earlobe.
Jason frowned. Dammit. Obviously, that would be a thing.
And that was another embarrassing problem. He’d known that he hadn’t been doing as much work on his science project as he was supposed to. Gotham Pathways let kids choose a lot of the stuff that they learned, but ‘drawing Pokémon for friends’ was not one of the choices you were allowed to make during science time. When Ms. Cheryl found out he hadn’t really done anything at all for his independent project, she’d sent Bruce a note and now Jason had his dad on his case about the whole thing.
“I will help you work on the project after we finish eating,” Damian offered. Bruce did a little thankful nod as he made his way back to his spot.
“Okay.” With a sigh, Jason stabbed his fork into another bite of French toast. It wasn’t too bad. With Damian helping him, it shouldn’t take a super long time, right? “Thanks, Dami.”
He was such a kid now. Needing people to comb his hair, to make sure he did his schoolwork. Even the thing with Duke on Saturday mornings counted because it wasn’t like he was actually being all that independent. If he didn’t have an older brother to spend time with, he’d end up getting lonely and being clingy with Alfred or waking up Bruce or something like that.
People around the table started talking about the driving test Duke was going to take soon, but Jason wasn’t paying attention to that. He just kept thinking as he finished up his French toast and moved onto his strawberries.
When he’d first decided to grow up all over again, he never thought it was gonna be like this. There was so much stuff that was different about him compared to before, and he probably would have freaked the fuck out if he known all about it before it all happened.
But also… It was hard for him to even understand what it was like for him back then. ‘Big Jason’ felt like a totally different person and, yeah, Jason remembered being that guy, but sometimes that didn’t matter. He couldn’t always figure out why he’d thought and said and done certain things. It didn’t make sense for him anymore.
Did it even matter if Big Jason would have hated Bruce combing his hair and reminding him about his homework and all of that? Little Jason didn’t mind it at all. Actually, it was really nice to be able to let go. To not have to worry about taking care of himself. His body and his brain were eight years old, and eight-year-olds really couldn’t handle life by themselves.
Instead of stressing about being ‘responsible’ or whatever, Jason could give up all that shit and concentrate on other things: learning as much as he could, spending time with his friends and family, having fun. Just… all the normal growing up stuff. And this time around, he didn’t ever have to worry about food or money or having a place to live. It was really nice.
Even if it meant sitting through a whole Saturday brunch while everyone talked about all the ways that Jason needed help, it was okay. After all this time, this is what felt right.
When brunch was done, Damian took Jason into the library and put him right to work. Even though he complained about having to do his homework sometimes, he was always so serious about Jason doing his.
“What is the topic for your project?” Before he even waited for an answer, he opened up Jason’s folder and started looking through the papers.
“It’s, um, circuits and stuff.” Jason got up onto his knees so he could rest his elbows on the big study table that were sitting at. “I thought it’d be cool cause, um—”
“Because Tim is currently working on his own electrical engineering project.”
Jason shrugged. Yeah, that was exactly why. It wouldn’t have been hard for Damian to guess; Jason was always copying his older siblings in some way.
“But it’s not like I can do any of the shit Tim’s figuring out,” he admitted. “The only stuff Ms. Cheryl had was just… I dunno, ‘make this light turn on and off’ or ‘make this motor spin’. And it’s all with those, um, Snap Circuit things? It’s like Lego but with electricity.”
And it wasn’t even close to the fancy soldering equipment they had down in the cave. Jason should have already guessed that that kind of thing wasn’t gonna be in his elementary classroom, but he still got kind of disappointed when he saw what he’d actually end up building. No matter what he made, it wasn’t going to be cool. It’d just be… a kid’s project.
Damian nodded, still reading the instructions. There were maybe a couple sneaky Pokémon drawings on those papers, too. “Yes, those are the options you’ve been given. They seem like an appropriate starting place.”
“A boring starting place.”
“The basics always are. At the same time, they are a necessary foundation.”
With a groan, Jason flopped across the table, letting his cheek press right into the wood. “I hate how everything has to be the basics for me!”
“I know.” Damian’s hand settled on Jason’s back. “I can only imagine how frustrating it is for you.”
Jason nodded. Then, with a big sigh, he dragged himself back up to sitting. Yeah, having to learn all the beginner stuff all over again was really frustrating, but that was the only way he’d learn how to do anything actually interesting again, so he knew he had to suck it up.
“Let’s do the motor one,” he decided. “Then we can figure out something cool to attach it to.”
It wasn’t as boring now that he was working with Damian on it. Damian was good at pushing Jason to try hard and also at keeping things interesting. He helped Jason from getting distracted, and obviously he knew all about the wiring stuff that Jason was just starting to learn. It didn’t take long before they were sketching out the design that Jason would get Ms. Cheryl to look at on Monday before he went to build it in their little makerspace.
“We should still have lots of time for sword fighting after this, right?” Damian still had Jason using the blunt practice swords, but they were still fucking swords, so it was cool.
But Damian just sort of shrugged. “Maybe we can do some outdoor training instead. The weather has been warming lately.”
Jason bit his lip. That was kinda… weird, wasn’t it? Damian loved training downstairs; why would he want to go outside instead? They weren’t supposed to do any weapons stuff out there, and usually Jason was the one dragging Damian out for a bike ride or whatever.
And now that he was thinking about it, other things were feeling weird, too. Jason hadn’t seen Bruce since brunch. Usually, Bruce made a lot of time for Jason on the weekends and even though what they did sort of depended on the day, they always ended up doing something together. Yesterday, Bruce had made it seem like he’d be the one working with Jason on the school project.
But now he just let Damian do it all without even sticking his head in to check on things? That meant that there had to be something else keeping him busy today. Something that he couldn’t put off.
Jason snuck a look at Damian. It didn’t seem like his brother was hiding anything from him. But, also, Damian was pretty good at keeping things hidden when he wanted to. He could for sure figure out how to act normal while working with Jason.
Should Jason just come out and ask if there was something going on? Everyone had promised not to keep stuff from him anymore, so they’d have to say something if he asked, right?
But maybe not. Maybe they’d still try to pretend for a little longer. That was one of the bad things about being a kid that everyone was taking care of. Sometimes, people got it wrong. And Jason was smart enough to figure this out on his own; he just needed to think.
He worked on the drawing for a little longer, doing his very best job of labelling all the little snap pieces and showing where he was going to put them. Ms. Cheryl was probably really going to like it.
Then, just before they started the outlining, he finally got an idea.
“Hey, Dami, can we use your fancy markers to colour this?”
Damian lifted his head. “It’s just a simple diagram.”
“I know. But… Your markers are really cool. And you already promised you’d let me practice with them more sometimes, remember?” Jason put just a little bit of his ‘cute kid’ energy into the smile he gave to his big brother. He knew that if he kept his eyes big and tilted his head up just right…
Damian’s expression softened. “I do remember.” He tapped his pencil on the page a couple times and then decided. “Very well. I’ll go fetch them. You finish up the rest of this linework.”
“Okay!” Jason got right back to work with his pencil and eraser, and he didn’t stop until he heard Damian leave the library completely and start to go upstairs. Then, he put the pencil down, hopped off of his chair, and left the library, too.
He headed for the study right away. Damian wasn’t gonna be gone for very long, and Jason couldn’t waste any time. He just needed to open up the grandfather clock, sneak down the stairs, and check to see what Bruce was doing. Either it was some kind of boring casework that he’d gotten really distracted by, or it was… Something more serious. No matter what, Jason would have his answer and that’s what he needed more than anything right now.
The study was totally silent. That’s exactly what Jason had expected, but it still felt kind of spooky as he crept into the room. He hadn’t turned on the light because it was daytime and the curtains were open, but now the shadows were feeling a little extra dark, and he almost wanted to go back and hit the switch. There was a jittery feeling in his hands, and a flutter in his stomach.
No one had said he couldn’t be here. He wasn’t breaking any rules. But he was still… nervous. Partly about what he might find, and partly about how people would react to seeing him sneaking around when he was supposed to be doing homework.
He was tall enough now that he could reach the hands of the clock if he stretched way up on his tiptoes, which meant he didn’t need to drag a chair or a step stool over anymore. And even though it still took him longer to read clocks now, he had 10:47 memorized. It was easy for him to reach up, move the hands, and make the secret door pop open.
But out of all the things he’d thought to get ready for, he hadn’t expected this.
There was a person standing right there, like he’d just been about to walk out of the clock and come into the study. And it wasn’t just any random person. It was him. Jason.
But not the kid version that Jason was used to seeing in the mirror and in pictures and everywhere else. This was the old, big version of him. He stood there all tall and giant, with that white streak in his hair and whiskers on his chin from not shaving the night before. He wore brown cargo pants and heavy black boots, and he stared down at Jason like he was seeing a fucking ghost.
And how the fuck— Who even was…
A heavy frown started to appear on Big Jason’s face. That meant he recognized Jason, right? He knew that Jason was… was a version of…
Then, the only words that Jason could think to say burst out of him in one big rush:
“Who the fuck are you?”