Chapter Text
The first lesson goes like this: in this world, there are hunters, and there are prey, and you are a wolf. You do not need the gun in your hands, or the knife in your boot, nor do you need the sheep’s clothing pulled tight around your shoulders; for you are the weapon. You have your sharp claws and your sharper teeth.
You need only do what you do best.
Hunt.
There is blood in the wind and Jason doesn’t need to lift his gaze to know Cass feels it too. The air is cold and biting. Reminds him of home. Well, a home long gone and burnt to ash. He wonders if Cass shares the same sentiment, feels the same nostalgia that settles in Jason’s limbs like an ache, like the twinge in his wrist from a break not healed right. Knows, deep down, that she doesn’t.
Home for him was Ma’s warm hand on the back of his neck as she praised him for his tenacity. The pristine wooden floorboards. The thick scent of metal. The off-white of the blinding lights. The creaky beds and silence surrounding him that was once familiar breathing patterns.
Home for Cass— Well. It probably doesn’t exist.
If he knows her, believes the words not said and remembers rightly the bloodstains from a particular man on her hands, then she probably never did have a home.
Police cars pass them in steady stream of sirens and flashing blue lights. He checks his watch. Seven minutes. Not bad. Not bad at all for Gotham cops. With the daylight still bright, he doesn’t have to worry about Batman appearing.
From beside him in the car, Cass nods, sensing the question before he can even ask it. He starts the engine and pulls away. They travel away from the burning house and Jason feels something settle inside him, knowing the job is done. Mission complete. A familiar satisfaction fills his veins.
“New job or quick break?” He asks, stopping at a red light, hands tapping lightly on the steering wheel. He’s more tired than expected, due to the job, and Cass’s injury keeps him anxious, tense, and he knows in a few hours he’ll have to swap with her, even though she hates driving.
As if sensing where his thoughts are going, she prods at her ribs and can’t quite disguise the furrow to her brow. It’s always a delight to be able to see her true emotions, her real face, instead of the blank mask of the spider.
“Break,” she mumbles and looks back out the window. He nods, pulls away at the green light, takes the highway instead of the back roads. “How does it feel?” She asks after a moment, and he knows she means being back in Gotham, where it all began. Where he first had a home.
Where he first lost one.
“Strange,” he replies, easily enough. “Not quite right.”
Ma took him in from the cold streets. She opened her arms to him when the world turned its back on him. She wrapped him in her warmth and put food in his belly and gave him a sister, gave him a home, gave him something to fight for.
Cass hums again and then frowns. “I want gummy worms.”
He blinks at her and his lips twitch as he takes a side road to the gas station. “What is it with you and sour things?”
She scoffs at him. “Says you with an addiction.”
“You smoke, too.”
“For jobs,” she hits back with an eye roll and Jason huffs a laugh.
When he pulls into the gas station, she’s out of the car before he can even put it in park. While she dances over to the door, all light-footed and free like she’s playing at some sort of fairy, he steps out and decides to fill up the tank. Might as well while he’s here—
Static.
The smell of ozone.
And a dimensional rift opens just beside the wall of the station. The air rips and tears and Jason is reaching for a gun before he can truly think. He was trained for this. Assess the threat. Keep calm. Remind yourself that whoever the person is, whatever face they wear, isn’t the actual person you may or may not know.
And yet—
Yet that is Batman.
Cowl and all. Striding out and then stumbling when those white lens meet Jason’s gaze.
Jason listens to his training, his instincts, and waits. Assess, rationalise, breathe.
And then, because this world is cruel to him, he has Batman breathing out, all pained and small and nothing like the Dark Knight he knows, “Jason?”
Jason swallows. Makes a few quick deductions in his head in the milliseconds that follow. Batman from another dimension here and he knows Jason. Knows Jason enough to use his actual given name and not an alias. So whatever dimension this Batman is from, somehow Bruce Wayne and him are known to each other. Very well.
He tries to rack his thoughts for information. Did Wayne have a proclivity for younger men? He knows he’s a playboy but maybe Other Jason was a lover of his?
Jason relaxes his posture, smiles at him, dimples and all. “Hi!” He chirps, cute and easy.
Batman stumbles to his knees and Jason’s face freezes in place. That doesn’t seem like a—
“Oh, Jaylad— my son.” He wheezes and Jason blinks. Oh.
Oh. Wow. Okay.
Tactics change.
“Hi, Dad?” He tries again, a little unsure, mask discarded and a new one slipped on, and Batman positively crumbles into sobs.
Jason is completely lost.
Only for a second, though. Then his training kicks in. He spots Cass lingering at the door, watching through the glass window, making no move to come closer. He twitches his head in Batman’s direction - threat? - and she retreats.
Hmm. Not a threat then, by her estimates, and Jason will never bet against Cass. He darts his eyes back to Batman, puts the gas pump away and shifts on his feet. Batman is still on his knees.
Grief then. Dead son, possibly. Probably. Not a threat to Jason but a threat, because Jason can see the armour, knows what it’s like to try and punch that. No firearms but his own throwing blades in the shape of bats. Very unoriginal but then again, he’s named after a spider, so who is Jason to judge. That would be highly hypocritical.
Grief plus dimensional travel plus Bruce Wayne. Doesn’t seem like a great mix.
And if he’s here, then he came with one goal in mind. Those portals only open with intent – a lot of fucking intent - and it opened in front of what Jason can only reason is a different dimensions version of his dead son.
Jason’s really not liking the picture this is painting.
“Uh, dad?” He tries again, keeping his voice open, easy. He doesn’t need to panic the Bat and he needs him receptive to his questions. “Are you okay?”
First rule of interrogation: start easy. Gain a baseline.
Batman looks up and stumbles to his feet. “Jason,” he whispers, hoarsely. “You’re— you’re alive.”
Jason snorts at that. Easy. Playful. No threat here, no sir, just an innocent twenty-something civilian. Mockingly, he pats himself down. “Uh-huh, good catch.” He tilts his head. “You’re not my Batman, are you?”
Easy, calm. A question that’s more a statement.
Batman still shakes his head. “No- no, I’m not— I shouldn’t be here— Jason- Jaylad, I’m so sorry.”
Jason moves slowly around the car, closer to the Bat. Grief like this can be a very deadly motivator but the man before him is not a concern. Not when the light is dying and that means his Batman could very well be about to head out. There’s a reason the orphanage told them all to stay out of Gotham and it’s not because of the shitty pollution levels.
“Hey,” he says, slowly, like talking to a child, talking to a victim, “it’s okay. We’re okay.”
He needs this man to leave before Batman shows up and decides just how angry he is about his city being invaded by not only a couple of spiders but also another version of him.
“Jason,” Batman mumbles on more time and reaches for him. Jason has to bite back the instinct to lash out and protect himself. Instead, he offers his arm. He’s a son, here and now, not a threat, not a weapon.
“C’mon,” he says, pulling a smile to his face. “Let’s get you home—"
A black glove curls around Jason’s jacket, covering his forearm.
A sudden pull fills his stomach and all he can think is: fuck.
Dimensional portals that open to specific people are opened because of the intent. Which means when the intent is fulfilled, the portal can close. Usually this is in the form of meeting a person and stepping back through said portal.
But Jason - stupid, sloppy Jason - is the intent.
And this man, this Batman, is so full of grief the intent must be extremely strong.
Strong enough, that with a single touch, he’s able to pull Jason back through.
Between blinks, the portal is engulfing the both of them and Jason’s last clear view of the gas station is of Cass’s wide, borderline horrified, eyes.
Then he’s ripping himself away from Batman and scrambling for control of his body, his brain. He opens his eyes, shifts his gaze, and forces himself to focus. Take in his surroundings. Remember the role he’s playing. Keep the mask up. He’s not himself here, not safe like he is with Cass. He’s Jason, Batman’s son.
Looking around he’s in a large, cave-like system. Training mats to one side, tech on the other. The ground is solid beneath his feet, and the ceiling is very high up. The air is cool, but slightly damp, and he can just make out bats nestled in the shadows, hidden away from the bright, industrial lights hung from the stone.
He’s not alone. Batman is still beside him, staring at him somewhat helplessly.
Jason tries to rack his brain for the appropriate response and finds that at no point in his training did they cover: possible vigilante father travels dimensions to find dead son and you, known assassin, are said son. He’s a little more than fucked.
Should he be screaming in anger? Crying? Should he be confused? Playing at the victim?
Instead, he stands there and decides, well, he’s in for a penny with no way home for at least until he can work out a spell, or find a caster, or a piece of technology, or even, worse comes to worse, find another spider, to send him back. That’s going to take patience and time. He’s got to be more than careful. He’s got to play a game of What Would Cass Do?
He slips into Jason, not-dead son, calm, as easy as breathing and shoots Batman a befuddled smile and eyebrow raise. “Right,” he drawls, stuffing his hands in his jacket pocket, portraying slight anxiety with his fidgeting. “Where are we? And what just happened?”
Batman stares and Jason is slightly worried that something is seriously wrong with the man. Obviously, he’s stuck in grief but this? This seems somewhat insane. Possible mental illness, then. Not outright concerning but Batman is a danger on a good day, let alone whatever version of him is before Jason now.
Then again, look who Jason is. He’s not really in a position to judge.
He opens his mouth, ready to question Batman again when footsteps sound from above, rapidly approaching down what must be concrete steps. They’re fast but light and Jason slowly tilts his body to face the person as they skid to a halt.
“B? What the fuck? Where have you—" A man with black, shaggy hair speaks, blue eyes sparkling. He’s lithe but built, and Jason doesn’t need to scan him too heavily to sense this man is a fighter.
Possibly a gymnast with the shoulders and arm muscles.
And then he scans him again because something about him is familiar.
“Jason?” The man wheezes out and Jason pulls that confused smile to his face.
“Um, hi?” He says, lifting a hand to wiggle his fingers a wave before dropping his hand back to his pocket. “You already know me, I see. Who are you?”
“Dick,” the man mumbles, his face losing all colour and that paleness, that greyness is stirring more of a memory— “Dick Grayson. I’m— You’re my—" He turns to Batman with a sudden ferocious snarl. “What did you do?”
And that’s when the puzzle pieces click.
The last time Cass and Jason were in Gotham. The last time they saw Batman standing amongst his Court. The first and last time they encountered the new Talon beside him, with black sclera and yellow iris’, with grey tinted skin and black veins. His new pet. His reason for wanting a spider to add to his collection.
“I had to!” Batman is snapping at Dick. “I couldn’t— Not again. Never again.”
“You kidnapped a random guy!” Dick shouts and Jason blinks at them. Clearly this behaviour is normal. Hackles raised but not bloodthirsty.
These people are fascinating.
“Uh?” Jason interrupts and they both spin to him like they’ve forgotten he’s there. Maybe they do this so often they truly lose sight of everything else. “Not to interrupt but… where am I?”
Despite whatever emotions he’s feeling, Dick is the one to point out, “You don’t seem surprised by the man in a batsuit.”
Jason cocks his head and shows off his dimples. “I have Batman in my world.”
“And I’m his father,” Batman says, rather waspishly, to Dick. When Dick gives Jason a look, he’s quick to nod.
He technically did imply that, didn’t he? Well. That’s fine. He can work with this.
“Yeah,” he agrees, easily enough. “He adopted me.”
In a sense, it’s not really a lie. His Batman did want both Cass and him. Maybe not as children but certainly as weapons. Due to some, unforeseen circumstances, they had to refuse and that declaration nearly cost them their lives.
Then again, Cass always presents the most delightful cases whenever Jason starts to grow bored. It’s probably why they work so well together. Her calm to his storm. Her scalpel to his hammer. Her Widow to his Wolf.
“I wasn’t there,” Dick breathes and Jason shakes his head. Raises his shoulders slightly, scuffs his boot on the cave floor. Picture of perfect apology.
“Sorry,” he says. “Bruce didn’t have any other children.”
After all, his Talon was more of a pet than anything else. A weapon. A pretty one, dressed in the finest armour, with the best dagger money could buy, but a pet nonetheless.
Jason gets it. He’s been there. Hard not to empathise with the guy a little.
However, that same guy did try to gut Cass like a fish, and Jason had to pull some unconventional methods to break him so they could get away.
Life, huh? All swings and roundabouts.
“Hey, it’s— I didn’t mean it like that,” Dick hastens to explain, looking guilty, like a kicked puppy. From the same stairway, another set of footsteps. “And I’m not- I’m glad you’re here, okay? But this is— It’s a lot.” He turns back to Batman, who’s removing his cowl, and hisses, “We buried my little brother last week, and you’ve been missing since and this? This is what you were doing? Replacing him!”
“I had to apologise,” Batman— Bruce (he’s going to have to use his name, now that he’s here, now that this is his faux father) tells him. “I didn’t do it before he— I had to, Dick.”
“Oh,” Jason interrupts again, softening his voice, relaxing his posture. There’s another person lingering at the edge of the stairs, watching. “Your Jason died. That’s why you popped in to see me. I get it now.” He looks around the cave. “I guess this is home, isn’t it?”
Bruce mouth thins. “You’ve never been to the Batcave?”
Jason smiles again, all dimples and playfulness, using the humour of the idea of a grown man calling this place the Batcave to really sell it. “I have a job that isn’t kicking ass. Dad refused to let me down here.”
Both truth and lie, all mixed together. It’s usually why it works best.
Dick blinks, thrown. Even Bruce looks surprised and then his face twitches into something agonised. Something astonished and hopeful and so, so pained.
“What do you do?” He asks, voice like cracking ice.
Jason grins because this is something he is proud of. “Administrator for the Department of Defence.” He laughs at their faces. “Before you ask, yes, we do have a Burger King and it’s great. I think Sandy’s a little sweet on me because I always get extra fries.”
All true. Jason, when he graduated, was pushed to pursue a career in the Pentagon. He did become admin staff, and Sandy was a brilliant woman with three kids and an obsession with ice hockey.
When the staring doesn’t stop, he cocks his head, asks, “Was your Jason not book smart?”
Bruce makes a choking sound and Dick actively starts crying. Jason frowns, confused. Nothing he said was wrong. He’s playing his part accurately. Sure, he’s no Cass, or a Widow, but he can infiltrate. If he couldn’t, he would’ve died before Graduation. Hell, he would’ve died before his tenth birthday.
“You used the watch.” The person from the stairs speaks up, appearing into the light, and Jason fakes jumping a little.
The boy that appears is maybe seventeen, eighteen. He is lithe, like Dick, and around the same height, but his hair is softer and pulled back from his face, his eyes are the same startlingly blue. His face is more angular, though, and he doesn’t have the shoulders Dick does.
Still a fighter, though. It seems this Batman is much like Jason’s, only instead of building his own army of already trained weapons, he’s made his own out of black-haired, blue-eyed boys.
“Tim—" Bruce huffs but the boy shakes his head.
“No, B.” He says, calmly, blankly. Jason doesn’t squint but he knows what an apathetic tone sounds like. That type of blankness, not put-on either, is only ever used by very few people.
Psychopath, maybe?
Batman really does surround himself with fascinating folk.
“That watch was a prototype,” Tim says, evenly. “You used it, against what I told you. And you used it to bring an alternate Jason here.” He tilts his head like a bird, crosses his arms. “The whole reason I became this, was so I could stop you, and B— This has got to stop. Jason is dead.”
Became this? Interesting turn of phrase. Something else is going on here.
“Jason is—" Bruce tries but Tim shakes his head, clicks his tongue, and the man stops.
What a strange power dynamic.
Dick steps forward. “This is highly unconventional, I agree, but,” Dick pushes on, voice tight, hands spread like he’s trying to physically hold the situation together, “this isn’t some random guy. Look at him. He is Jason. He sounds like him. He—” His voice breaks again, furious and helpless all at once. “He even smiles like him.”
Jason very deliberately keeps smiling. Unassuming Jason, who simply works an admin job. Just a normal, everyday man.
Tim doesn’t look impressed. He looks… analytical. Cold in that way that pretends to be calm but is really razor sharp. His gaze drags over Jason, cataloguing. Whatever he sees, he doesn’t like, considering the way he scowls.
“He’s not our Jason,” Tim states finally. Flat. Certain.
Jason almost laughs. Well, obviously Tim, he didn’t get to grow up in this mansion. He grew up on the streets, starving and cold and a nobody. Jason was nothing but the ratty clothes on his back and the mean smirk to his lips and then—
And then, Ma came.
She took his weak, fragile, bird-like bones, fed him and clothed him and gave him a warm, bed to sleep on, and made him strong, made him deadly, made his bones as tough as steel. Made him something. Made him someone.
Instead, of cackling like he wants to, he tilts his head, lets confusion soften his face. “I don’t know what your version of me was like,” he says gently, and God, he hates how easily the words come, “but I know I’m not… him.”
Bruce flinches like he’s been struck.
Dick exhales shakily and rubs his face. “Tim, he doesn’t even- he doesn’t know about the Batcave—”
“—Which makes him worse,” Tim cuts in, stepping closer. Jason feels Cass’ absence like a phantom limb; she’d be able to make him feel more in control. After all, this kid is dangerous. Not physically - yet, anyway - but mentally. “If he were a perfect match, we wouldn’t let him anywhere near us. But he’s close. Close enough to hurt people. He’s not a stray we keep.”
With that, he sends both Dick and Bruce a look. Dick winces but Bruce just stares Tim down like he’s a misbehaving puppy. Maybe he is. Maybe this Batman is closer to Jason’s than he originally thought.
Jason lifts both hands slowly, palms out. Non-threatening. Just a civilian. “Hey,” he says, calm as still water. “I didn’t ask to be here. Your Batman grabbed me in the middle of a gas station while I was filling up my car.”
At that, both Dick and Tim turn to Bruce and it’s somewhat amusing to witness them give him disbelieving, almost angry looks. Jason relaxes a little, as the attention is taken away from him. Don’t get him wrong, he’s trained for any and all possibilities and dealing with people is second nature. But considering his job, he prefers people to not look too closely. It can very quickly make them threats. Make them dangerous. Make them a target he needs to quickly dispose of.
“B, what the fuck?” Dick hisses and Bruce doesn’t even look concerned or bothered by the venom in his tone.
“I needed—” He straightens. “It’s none of your concern.”
Both Dick and Tim twitch at that and Jason contains the urge to narrow his eyes.
Oh? Maybe this Batman is a lot like his. Maybe instead of a Talon at his side, he’s got boy-soldiers. What with that reaction being much like his own if his Handler gave an order.
“You wanted closure,” Tim accuses. Ballsy. Jason wouldn’t be caught back-chatting his Handler, not with the very creative punishments he’s already had to live through. “And instead you replaced your dead son. Well done, B. Brilliant plan.”
At that, Bruce does clench his fists. Jason perks up, wondering if he’s about to witness him discipline his soldiers, but he simply huffs. No fists thrown. No threats issued. He simply wipes the expression from his face and takes a breath.
Interesting.
He can’t help but wonder what the line in the sand is. what it takes to get him to crack. What does this Batman consider an infraction? What does he consider a fitting punishment? Maybe allowing his boys a little leeway, a little freedom to snap back keeps them compliant. Just like how the Room gave them downtime for an hour before dinner. Just like when they graduated, they were allowed to choose more, rather than simply being given orders.
“I didn’t replace him,” Bruce says, evenly, blankly. “The portal closed when we made contact—”
He keeps speaking but Jason tunes it out as he becomes aware of another in the room. Quiet feet. Even gait. He tenses a little, prepared for a surprise attack when—
“Tch, Drake. As if you cannot make another device for Father to use.”
Jason freezes.
That voice.
And those words. Drake. As in, Timothy Drake?
But that barely registers. Not when—
Jason turns his body just enough to be face to face with him.
Damian al Ghul. The Demon King.
Same young face, same intense gaze, same curled lip. But he’s… softer here. There is not a tenseness to his shoulders, nor the scar across his face. His cheeks are fuller, his hair fluffy. There are not robes on his shoulders, no sword attached to his hip, no harsh look to his eyes.
Jason has to fight the knee-jerk reaction to kneel.
This is the Demon King. This is his Handler. Only with a different face, free from death-defying injuries and seemingly younger than Jason remembers him ever being, even at eight, when they met.
He turns to Jason, scans him head-to-toe (so familiar in his disdain it makes him ache) and raises an eyebrow at Bruce. “Really,” he drawls and then scoffs. “Mother would be disappointed in you.”
Bruce’s eye twitches. “Talia’s opinions of me are irrelevant.”
“Hmm,” his Handler— Damian responds blandly, turns back to Jason and he finds himself instinctively straightening. “Where did Father find you?”
“Gas station,” Jason replies and then has to remind himself that whatever version of Damian al Ghul this is… This isn’t his Handler. He shouldn’t be rushing out answers, shouldn’t defer to him when he’s clearly the youngest amongst Bruce’s boy-soldiers. He needs to treat him like a kid and, by the father comment, he needs to treat him like Bruce’s kid.
Then again, Jason never did know who his Handler’s father was. He knew Talia, the Queen Mother, in passing. His ownership handed over to her before passing to her son.
Of all the times he was loaned out, being by the King’s side was good. Easy, in ways many jobs aren’t. His Handler had clear expectations and requests and Jason, as much as he doesn’t want to toot his own horn, is good at his job. He did what was asked and to a high standard. Working there - he stayed for a few years and even when he was eventually moved on - was a good gig for him to the point that he still would work the odd job if asked of him.
That base holds many memories for Jason.
This face before him holds more.
“—saying we can’t send him back?” Dick says as Jason tunes back in to the conversation. Something like numbness, like ice, settles in his bones. He can’t go back?
Bruce turns to Tim, who scowls. “I can rework it but— It’s fried. It’ll take time to make another, and even that may not send him back to the right place, or possibly, the right time.”
Jason can’t help but think of Cass. She hates driving but he assumes she got out of Gotham. Maybe she’s planning on going back to their base, maybe she’s going to find another job.
Part of him hopes she is looking for him but he knows she’s always been more practical than him. She’s the one with the steady head, the calm thinking. Jason, despite his training, still struggles sometimes with impulsivity, with throwing himself into things in the name of the mission. Cass has always balanced him out. Worn at his jagged edges until they were smooth.
He knows if she was taken, he would stop at nothing.
He knows, because it’s happened before, and he tore an entire institution down in her name.
“I can’t go back?” He whispers, out loud, and gets to see matching agonising stares from Bruce and Dick. Tim scrubs a hand across his face while Damian tuts, but even he looks annoyed.
“Jason—” Dick starts but Tim steps towards Bruce, hand outstretched.
Bruce simply reaches into his pouch and pulls out the device, that is completely melted. Tim frowns down at it and walks away, ignoring Bruce’s call of his name. Bruce doesn’t retaliate in a way a Handler would. He simply exhales and swallows, watching Tim disappear into a side room. Jason wonders if there are some labs down here, or maybe some offices.
With Tim gone, Damian spends a second looking at Jason before also leaving the way he came, feet silent and posture straight. The sight makes Jason want to follow, like how he used it, lingering half a step behind his Handler, right at his heels. But he turns away instead. He can’t let that version of himself be here, now. Not when it has the possibility of affecting his head. He needs to be sharp here, what with being surrounded by Batman, and the boys that might be his soldiers.
He’s faced with Bruce and Dick again, and he gives them a slightly wobbly smile. “Right,” he starts, “I don’t really know what’s happening, or who any of you are… but I guess I’m staying.” He blinks at them, tears appearing in his blue eyes. “What happens next? Where do I go?”
Dick reaches out and for a moment, his hand hovers over Jason’s arm before he makes contact. There, he squeezes. “We’re going to work something out, okay? I promise.”
“Okay,” he says, with a slight smile. “Okay, I trust you.”
If the twin sharp inhales fill him with a certain mission satisfaction, well. That’s for him, and only him, to know.