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Living at the manor is something Jason’s still getting used to, even after nearly ten months of staying there.
He’s only recently started getting used to the flow of his double-life as Robin and Bruce Wayne’s adopted son, but things are relatively good, in his opinion.
He’s finally settled into a comfortable understanding of Bruce, and he’s finally letting himself believe that he, too, can have good things that won’t be ripped out from under him. It doesn’t take away the doubt completely, of course, but it’s a start.
He has hope. And, as he’s been reading recently (Bruce has a massive library, and Jason plans to read all the books the man has, impossible as it seems) — hope is a thing with feathers.
It’s fickle, and is something that Jason has a particularly difficult relationship with, but as it is, there’s a small but strong flame stubbornly lit in his heart. It still flickers in the winds of occasional doubt, but it’s a flame that he’s confident will keep growing if life at the manor keeps up this way.
The only thing that consistently gets close to snuffing his flickering hope is the fact that he still doesn’t trust Bruce, Dick, or Alfred as much as he wants to.
He knows it’s unfair, considering they give him nothing but their trust and their support, but he’s just not ready. He’s not ready to face them on the off chance that they might change their minds about him should he reveal his secret.
Whether they would sell him, keep him as some kind of fucked up pet, or keep him for other reasons, he doesn’t know. Either way, Jason needs more time, more proof that they won’t stab him in the back or take his pelt the second they realize what he is.
It’s a secret that he’s been keeping since Bruce brought him to the manor, and he intends to keep it until he feels ready. So far they think nothing of his obsessive protectiveness when it comes to the pelt he keeps disguised as a red jacket.
Though, when Jason thinks about how everyone would feel knowing he’d kept it from them so long, he feels a little guilty. Then again, his time on the streets has ingrained it into his psyche that it’s better to prioritize his safety and surety over feelings.
Feelings can be mended and fixed with a little time and apology. Freedom is a hell of a lot harder to get back once it’s taken, and Jason refuses to give it away so easily.
Which, actually, leads him to his current issue.
Jason leaves his coat where he always does — tucked safely under his bed, deep in his closet, or in a drawer that frequently goes unchecked — when it’s not draped comfortingly around his shoulders.
Dick is back at the manor for a few days, and things are mostly alright.
Problem is, it’s laundry day, and Jason can’t find his coat.
Normally, he wouldn’t worry. Normally, he’d be fine with the gentle comfort of knowing that his jacket, his coat, would be tucked out of sight and left alone. Normally, he’d be confident that Alfred would leave it untouched, seeing as the red fabric always remained odorless, and any stains were gone before Alfred could comment on them.
When Jason pulls back the latched box out from under his bed and opens it, though, it isn’t there.
It’s not there.
Surely there’s an explanation. Some kind of logical reasoning besides the terror-inducing idea that someone found it and finally took it.
Even though Jason is pretty sure nobody in the manor knows what he is, the idea of his coat in another’s hands brings an extra few thumps to the rhythm of his heart. Hell, the idea of his coat in the hands of someone who doesn’t know is almost worse, somehow. What if they hand it off to someone who does know, or someone who can put the pieces together?
No, no. Stay calm. He has to stay calm. Surely someone has seen his coat. Surely someone knows where it is, or who might have it.
Jason does a quick search through his room again, just to be sure he didn’t leave it draped over his bed or his chair or something — not that he’d ever be so careless — but it’s nowhere to be seen. So he starts for his bedroom door, trying his best not to look freaked-the-fuck-out as he walks down the main hall in the family wing.
It took a while to get used to the maze that is Wayne Manor, even more so because it’s on land, but somehow the watery tunnels under the house and throughout the Batcave help Jason anchor himself in the labyrinth of ivory walls.
Regardless, there’s nobody in the hall right now, and Jason is sure Alfred is probably already started on separating all the colors in the washroom downstairs. He strains his ears for anyone closer, and hears the tell-tale sound of the single most energetic being he’s ever known somewhere down the hall.
Jason hurries his steps towards Dick’s old-but-still-lived-in room and tries his hardest not to bound through the open doorway.
Dick spins to meet him, shoulders tense like he was expecting someone else, but the defensiveness drops as those bright, diamond-blue eyes focus on the tousled curls in the doorframe. A wide, questioning grin finds its way onto Dick’s face almost immediately, and Jason reminds himself that he just burst into the room unannounced.
“Hey, kid. You, uh…need something?” he asks, and Jason has to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from saying something sarcastic or just ignoring Dick altogether and searching the room without giving an answer.
“Uh…yeah. Have you seen my co — that, um. The red zip-up jacket I always wear?”
Dick blinks for a moment, his grin giving way to an expression of brief confusion that quickly shifts to a look of thinking that is all too exaggerated to be real.
“Hmmm…red jacket, you say? Like…this one?”
The first thing Jason thinks when he turns and sees which ‘jacket’ Dick is talking about — is holding — ends up being nothing short of shit.
Shit. Oh god. That’s his coat.
Oh, fuck, shit, he shouldn’t have left it out, shit.
Something must show on Jason’s face, because the familiar red fabric is no longer just hanging limply in Dick’s hand. Instead, Dick is slinging it over his shoulder with a light smirk, raising an eyebrow like Jason knows he always does when he’s about to start a game of keep-away.
Both he and Dick are perfectly aware of Jason’s height — of his stunted, slowly-maybe-recovering growth, and usually it only bothers the younger a little bit — but now is not the time.
Jason’s face must shift just a little more, because the older teen is suddenly taking a step back with a goading look.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, god damn it, Dick–
Jason immediately lunges at Dick as his coat is held aloft, fingers outstretched towards the soft, worn fabric that he feels so empty without.
He knows Dick doesn’t know, but the mischievous glint in his eye and the way he pulls the coat up and away at the last second like some kind of matador has Jason’s heart beating wildly against his ribs.
He’s made it so long keeping his coat, so long without anyone else getting their hands on it, on him, but Dick is waving around the hoodie like it’s nothing at all, like it’s not something everyone in the manor knows Jason is particularly protective of.
He tries to remind himself that Dick doesn’t know how much it matters, but the way he’s using it to tease him, like it’s just some game, is more than Jason is prepared for. He’s been glad to get to know him a little better the last few months, but it’s still a little rocky, and whenever the topic of Robin comes up, both their walls go back up and they spend another few weeks not seeing each other. Right now, though, he wishes he knew Dick well enough for the older boy to take one look at his expression and stop.
Jason wishes he could be happy about this little game, wishes he could smile and laugh knowing it had no consequence — it’s what any normal brothers would do to horse around — but the sight of such a fundamental piece of himself being handled so carelessly, being kept away from him like he’ll never get it back — fuck. It’s terrifying.
He can’t go through this again. He just can’t. He hates the feeling of losing control so much, and even if Dick doesn’t realize, the prospect of it alone sends an icy shock of panic through Jason’s veins.
“Give it back, Dick! Give it back!” he demands, continuing to reach fruitlessly for the red fabric dangling from Dick’s hand.
Dick just grins wider and holds it higher, jerking it in the opposite of whatever direction or angle Jason tries to snatch it back from. He reaches and reaches and reaches, but he’s not getting any closer, and suddenly this feels less like a misunderstanding and more like cruelty.
“Dick, I mean it, please just give it back–”
“Oh, c’mon, Jason, you can do better than that, can’t ‘cha? You almost had it that time!” he laughs, and Jason can feel his eyes starting to sting. God, this sucks, it sucks so much, why can’t Dick just understand that it’s not funny anymore?
“Dick, stop, just give it back –”
“Oh shut up, Jayce, it’s right here. Should have thought about eating my last fry on monday, huh, shortie?” Dick says lightheartedly, clearly not catching on to the increasing distress. He still thinks he’s just playing, just doing what an older brother is supposed to do — but it’s more than Jason can handle.
It’s more than he can take, because that– that was a command, unintentional as it may have been.
Jason’s mouth snaps shut before he can give another plea for the hoodie, and his eyes widen at the realization that, despite his best efforts, his freedom — his soul — is once again in the hands of somebody else. Tears well faster than he can stop them, and a sharp, heavy dose of terror lances through him.
He tries again, in vain, to protest this game, to demand that Dick give him stupid hoodie back, but the muscles in his jaw don’t move. His lips stay firmly sealed, and not a single sound leaves him besides the huff of his rapidly shallowing breathing.
Jason tries to lunge at Dick again, but his vision is blurry and his senses are suddenly overwhelmingly sharp in the way they get when he’s under someone’s command.
“Oooh, so close, bud! You’re a fast little bugger!” Dick comments cheerily, all but leaping out Jason’s path before turning back around to get a fuller, longer look at the younger boy.
And, with that one glance, Dick’s smug expression slips, dropping into something closer to an uncomfortable grimace mixed with a drop or two of reluctant concern.
“Woah, hey, Jason, I– don’t cry, man. It’s just a jacket,” he says awkwardly, clearly unsure what to do in the face of such distress. And sure, Dick is trained to deal with distressed civilians and victims and the like, but it’s different when he and the kid know each other just enough past surface-level for the performative smile and charm he’d learned from his time in the circus to be ineffective.
“I– shit, kid, I’m sorry,” As much as Dick hates it sometimes, Jason is a good Robin, and his observation skills are something that frequently prove it. Even in situations like this. There’s no doubt he can tell that Dick is blanking and scrambling for what to say, and the thought makes something twist uncomfortably in his gut.
Despite how obviously out of his depth he must look, Dick is surprised to find that Jason isn’t commenting on it, and his eyes look wild with a panic akin to a frantic, cornered animal.
“Jason, I– are you alright? I’m sorry. I was just kidding around, don’t– don’t cry, buddy,” he says again, clearly uncomfortable with Jason’s silence and shift in demeanor. The sharp, sarcastic wit that he usually uses, the confident bravado Jason usually wears — it’s all gone, and Dick is making it painfully obvious that he doesn’t know what to do about it.
Jason still can’t open his mouth, and despite the fact that Dick is trying to soothe him, the unintentional demand not to cry only puts more fear racing through every inch of him. Even as his body forces him to blink away his tears hard enough to give him a headache, Jason can’t contain the sorrow and heartbreak on his face.
The kid just shakes his head, eyes scrunching shut as he tries and fails to take deeper breaths through his nose. He’s practically hyperventilating, but there’s next to nothing he can do about it, because he can’t control his body, and Dick still has his coat, and Dick is giving him commands without meaning to, and Jason can feel the void in his chest, and it’s terrible and something he never thought he’d have to experience again, and it’s all so awful and just too much and he can’t breathe or see or speak or make any of it stop —
“Jason? What’s wrong? C’mon, talk to me, man. I didn’t mean to make you upset, I was just joking,” Dick slings the coat back over his shoulder, and god, why does Jason have to be so short?
A gasp and a weak, keening sound of distress are the first sounds to burst from Jason’s mouth the second he gets permission to speak again, and it sounds pathetic even to his own ears, but he doesn’t care because he can breathe again.
“Dick– Dick, please, just give it back, just give– just– just stop it, please,” he chokes out, a shaky breath hitching in his chest when his body forbids it from becoming a heaving sob, still tangled up in the order not to cry.
Dick tilts his head like a bird, like he’s having trouble understanding Jason — and it’s probable, with how his lips are trembling — but he seems to understand after a moment of slow, concerned blinking. He sort of jolts, all but scrambling to take the jacket slung over his shoulder and hand it back to the shivering boy.
“I– alright. There you go. You’ve got it, Jase, okay?”
The second the familiar fabric brushes Jason’s fingers, he yanks it towards himself, letting a sob choke out of his throat as the cold, icy grips of control melt away. His breath stutters and for a moment he wants to yell and scream at Dick, to ask why — but he forces himself to remember that Dick doesn’t know. He doesn’t know, and Jason just broke down in front of him over what appears to everyone else as a jacket.
Still, the relief he feels in having his coat back surpasses the flood of embarrassment. He doesn’t care if Dick thinks he’s a weirdo, because at least his coat is in his own hands, and he’s under his own command. He has control of his own will, and that’s worth anything else a thousand times over.
“Th– thank you. I just…” he manages to squeak out, shrugging his fur-lined coat over his shoulders in a way he hopes doesn’t look too desperately frantic. He’s not sure he can say much else at the moment. Even if he could, what would he say? He just finished a major freak-out.
But god, the relief of having the sea-borne part of his soul melt back into place is so strong that he thinks he might fall over without the strength of his dwindling adrenaline rush.
“...You sure you’re okay, kid? You look…” Dick trails off too, but whether it’s because he also doesn’t know what to say or because he's not sure it's correct, Jason doesn’t know. (Or particularly care. He has his coat. That’s all that matters.)
Jason just tugs his coat’s collar up around his face and soaks in the warmth it brings, breathing deeply and getting a brief, faint hint of sea-salt that soothes what’s left of his fried nerves. He’s, admittedly, exhausted from the panic-induced frenzy he was in, and — even though it was only two — the orders always take a toll on him.
Hours later, Jason still isn’t really talking. He accepted Dick’s apology, but the older boy hasn’t asked what all the fuss was about, and if he isn’t going to ask, Jason isn’t going to explain. He’s sort of hoping that Dick will just write it off as a weird temper tantrum and let it go. Maybe even forget about it.
But who is he kidding? Dick never really lets anything go. He’s a lot like Bruce in that way, but Jason knows better than to ever actually say that to…either of them, really.
It’s not something that Dick will leave unanswered forever, though.
Sure, the guy can tell when to leave something alone (unlike Bruce), but Jason knows it’s going to eat at him for however long he waits to ask. He just hopes that Dick will leave it for a much, much later date, because Jason’s not certain he can handle telling Dick what he is so soon after having his coat stolen.
And, yeah, Dick didn’t mean any harm, because he doesn’t know, but Jason is still a little bit ruffled about it. He’s not trying to be petty, per se, but he’s certainly still shaken by the fact that he hadn’t been in control, and Dick was the one who had the idea of ‘keep-away’ in the first place.
So, if Dick’s brightly colored Nightwing suit ends up in one of the canals in the Cave for a day or two, he thinks it’s fair. Even if it has a small handful of tears in it.
(Bruce will wonder why the holes look suspiciously like they were made by some kind of animal. Jason will tell him that he’s crazy for thinking anything could live in the tunnels under the Cave.)