Chapter Text
“Okay, so don't be mad.”
“Says the guy I'm about to be real mad at,” Jason predicted, not even bothering to look up from his favourite grappling gun. The trigger felt sticky on the last swing and Jason wasn't dumb enough to take any chances.
“It's Peter.”
That got Jason's attention. His head snapped up and Dick took a step back, hands up like he expected Jason to shoot him.
“What about Peter,” Jason said, choosing to be the bigger man. He didn't set the grappling gun down, though. Dick eyed it nervously.
“So... you know how there was that rumour about a new magic user kicking around Burnley?”
“You're right, I am about to be mad.”
“I didn't even— I told you not to be — crap, doesn't matter. So, Peter and—”
Jason held up his hand. The one with the gun (safety on and pointed at the ceiling because Jason was dramatic, but he wasn’t a fucking moron). Dick's mouth snapped shut.
“Start from the beginning,” he commanded, “and maybe I won't be earning my way to the tippy-top of the sibling food chain.”
“I mean, technically, Cass is older than you—”
Jason tilted his head and cocked a brow. Dick caved.
“Okay, so Peter and Steph were patrolling Burnley when they came across the magic user—”
“They're calling themselves Wild Child,” piped up a Tim who’d up till then been doing a very poor job of pretending not to be listening in.
“Yes, thank-you Timmy. So, they tried to apprehend Wild Child while they were attempting to rob a bank.”
Jason frowned. Stopping the robbery of an empty bank wasn't especially Peter's style. Victimless crimes and all that. But he allowed Dick to carry on. He was feeling temporarily magnanimous.
“Pretty sure Steph just wanted to mock them about their choice of name,” Tim explained, catching Jason's disbelief.
And — yep. Yep, that made a whole lot more sense. Seriously, who thought pairing Peter and Steph together was remotely a good idea? Granted, they had excellent results — most crooks turned right back around the moment word got out that Spider-Man and Spoiler were on the hunt together. Paired up, the two were fucking relentless. On one memorable occasion, they’d reduced Condiment King to tears and it didn’t take long for word to get around after that. Gotham was just as likely to end up embroiled in chaos as it was a resolution with those two in cahoots.
“They came across Wild Child turning an ATM into a cow.” Dick grimaced. “They engaged before Wild Child could take a knife to it.”
“… Cash cow. Seriously?”
“They took the name Wild Child. Do you expect any better?”
“If you're about to tell me that Peter and Steph got—”
“Jason!”
The high-pitched voice — a child's voice — stopped Jason in his tracks. He'd shoved the grappling gun away before he'd even located the origin of the speaker.
Alfred had emerged in the cave, carrying a tray of — milk and cookies? Didn't matter. What mattered was the pair of tiny children — what the fuck, when were kids allowed to be that small? — skipping along beside him, as cool as you please despite the fuckass dinosaur and the giant coin and that stupid fucking jester card, all of which by rights should have stolen their attention.
A blonde and a brunette. The latter had big brown eyes and a grin that was far too familiar.
Jason turned on Dick with dread. The metal stairs thundered as the kids flew down. T-minus ten seconds.
“Tell me they fucking didn't,” he begged.
Dick's grin was wincing. “They absolutely fucking did.”
“Language,” said Tim, smug enough Jason would have thrown hands then and there were it not for the children.
And then the children were barrelling into them, one into Jason, the other into Tim. Dick, wisely, had stepped away to avoid becoming a casualty.
“Jace!” cried the brown-haired boy, wheezing slightly at the exertion. “You made it, finally!”
Goddamn, the kid was so fucking small, Jesus! Barely came up to Jason’s navel and had all the weight behind him of a bag of wet feathers. Jason didn’t even rock upon impact, though his hands did fall on the kid’s shoulders to hold him steady as he looked up at Jason with huge, limpid eyes.
Jason returned the kid’s stare with far less enthusiasm and far more turmoil, though he attempted to conceal it. Wispy brows, shaggy hair, a spattering of freckles spread from cheek to cheek, and a roundness to his nose and jawline that Jason knew would sharpen with age.
“… Peter?” he said cautiously and was rewarded with another toothy grin.
“Hi! You’re super tall now!”
Dick snorted and Jason shot him a glare. But he couldn’t keep his eyes away from itty bitty Petey for very long. It took the Bitsy nickname to a whole new level.
“I’ve always been tall,” he reminded Peter. “It’s just you’re even smaller than usual.”
“Hmm.” Peter pouted, thinking on Jason’s response. Then suddenly he shot up both arms. “Up!” he demanded, and Jason was powerless to disobey.
The child weighed practically nothing at all. Without even conscious thought, Jason perched Peter on his hip, only to realise belatedly that perhaps that was a strange thing to do. Peter however, looked nothing more than immensely pleased with his new altitude. A sticky hand gripped the back of Jason’s collar, fingers cold against his neck as the kid steadied himself.
“That’s better!” Peter exclaimed. His other hand dug into the front of Jason’s shirt and — fuck — his fingers were so little.
Jesus Christ, it was like Jason had never come across a fucking child before.
They were eye-to-eye now, and Peter’s eyes — a lighter brown than Jason was used to, who knew they’d darkened with age? — drilled into him. He returned the stare, hunting for — shit, he didn’t know what. A sign of his Peter? Any hint of the kind of slyness that usually crept into Peter’s expression whenever they got so close? The coy curve of his mouth when something wicked came to mind?
There was none to find. Child Peter merely regarded him with a mix of curiosity and excitement, as if seeing a relative they’d not come across in a long time.
Jason swallowed back his misgivings. “How old are you, Pete?”
“Dunno.”
“I believe the two are somewhere between six to seven years old,” Alfred said, having taken the stairs at a far more sedate pace. “Their heights and baby teeth would suggest so, although Master Peter is a fraction more diminutive than Miss Stephanie.”
Peter’s brow creased. “What’s diminative mean?”
“It means you’re itty bitty,” Jason teased. Peter’s mouth fell open in scandal.
“‘M not small!”
“You’re the smallest Peter I know.”
“What Master Jason means to say, young sir, is that you are a delightful size,” said Alfred, tone neutral but gaze amused. He offered Peter the plate of cookies — oatmeal and raisin — and Pete squeaked with delight.
Jason disguised his laughter into a cough, hidden further behind his free hand. Fortunately, with cookies on offer, Peter’s ire was swiftly forgotten. He picked out one — Jason noted it was the one with the least raisins. Then a thought seemed to occur to the boy, and he glanced shyly at Jason.
“You want?” Peter asked.
Fuck. Was Jason having a heart attack? No, those pains were meant to be on the left. A stroke? Did he smell toast? No. Don’t be stupid, Todd. But this kind of reaction wasn’t normal, right? He didn’t think he’d had this kind of reaction to any of the kids in Park Row… but then again, none of the kids in Park Row wore Peter’s de-aged face.
Too fucking cute.
“Sure,” he rasped. The cookie was deposited into his left hand, only for Peter to squeak with alarm and Jason halted, cookie’s journey towards its untimely demise on hold.
“This one,” Peter said decisively, and swapped Jason’s cookie for a different one.
The cookie positively teemed with raisins. Jason wrapped his fingers around it while Peter began munching happily on his raisin-lite.
This little shit. Tooth-aching fondness nearly bowled him over. He suddenly understood the comment Steph made a few weeks back, about the desire to shake something while screaming into the void. Cuteness aggression or whatever.
Rather than allow the urge to take over, Jason kept his hold firm on both wriggling child and his cookie. Peter was nibbling around the edges of the cookie, steadily working his way inwards. It was a habit Jason had never seen from adult Peter. Perhaps it was lost with the bite and the insatiable hunger that came with it. Adult Peter was more likely to resemble a chipmunk than a rabbit.
The thought filled him with an overwhelming sense of undeserving loss.
“Are you ‘kay?” Peter asked through a mouthful of cookie.
Don’t squeeze him like a toy, don’t squeeze like a toy, don’t squeeze like a toy—
“‘M fine. Thanks, Pete” Jason rasped, honestly surprised he even managed to get anything out through the wads of cotton shoved down his throat. He tried to wash it down with the cookie and only choked a little on the stupid raisins.
Halfway through his cookie, Jason made the mistake of looking away from the miraculous child in his arms to catch Dick taking a multitude of pictures of the two of them, his widest and worst grin plastered across his stupid fucking face.
Jason crammed the last of the cookie into his mouth, eyes promising death.
— 🦇 —
“No. Absolutely not. No way.”
“C’moon, it’s for the best!”
“For you lot, maybe.”
“They’re attached at the hip! It’d be cruel to separate them!”
“I will gut you like a fish, Grayson.”
Promises of death apparently held no currency these days, because not a single person in the cave was interested in taking Jason seriously. Second-eldest sibling privilege (sorry Cass, but Jason came first) meant nothing to these people. All it took was for a beleaguered Tim (Steph was very obnoxious in her affections… Jason might even have said spiteful. He’d bet good money that ‘accidental’ finger in Tim’s eye hadn’t been an accident at all) to suggest that Peter and Steph stick together with Jason and suddenly it was all his siblings could talk about.
Just until Justice League Dark gets back to us, Jason! They’re bonded, Jason! You know it’s for the best, Jason!
Hyenas, the lot of them.
Then again, like hell was he staying at the manor at such late notice: they had Dog to worry about back at the apartment, for one. And for two… well. Jason felt better about it these days, but he still needed to build himself up before he willingly slept under the same roof as Bruce.
Likewise, leaving Peter alone at the manor was out of the question. Turned out, tiny Peter was a shy kid. Frankly this was a fucking revelation to Jason when adult Peter was far from it. But besides from Alfred, Peter wanted nothing to do with anyone else in the cave (Bruce included, to Jason’s everlasting relief and glee. He refused to feel guilty for the strange look of yearning on the man’s face as he regarded Steph and Peter. If he wanted another kid, he could do as tradition dictated and steal himself a new one). The moment Dick came closer, Peter’d hidden his face into Jason’s neck. Jason did very little to hide his satisfaction.
All of which meant that the rest of his traitorous family decided without Jason’s input that letting Peter and Steph stay in the apartment was the idea of the fucking century.
“It’s a terrible idea,” Jason insisted. “One kid I can reasonably explain to the neighbours. But two?”
“I fail to see why that would make any difference,” Damian scoffed. He kept staring at Peter and Steph with the oddest expression, as if childhood was an alien concept. Fucking rich, given he was technically still the youngest in the cave.
“Tell them you’re babysitting your cousins. Or niblings or something,” Dick suggested. “It’s not like anyone there thinks you’re an only child.”
Momentary contemplation of fratricide aside for the ‘nibling’ comment, Jason already knew he was cracking under pressure. Peter was a warm weight tucked tight against his chest, breath puffing gently over Jason’s shoulder. Alfred’s cookie and warmed milk chaser had conked him out and Jason didn’t feel far off himself. Home was a siren’s call and Jason wanted desperately to get away. Maybe have a breakdown in the privacy of his own shower or something. According to Peter it was the perfect place for them. Great acoustics or whatever.
The need for a private freak out was well placed, he thought. They were all reasonably confident whatever Wild Child had done could be reversed… but what if it couldn’t?
Jason’s hands tightened reflexively around little-Peter. Breath stuttered in his throat.
No. No. No use contemplating futures that wouldn’t exist. Couldn’t exist.
Eventually, as they all predicted would happen. Jason gave in.
“Fine. But Dick’s driving us there.”
“Fine with me.” Dick jumped up and headed for the lift. Bruce’s garage was well supplied but was separate to the cave.
Alfred immediately took over. “I’ll make you an overnight bag. Although, I recommend you return tomorrow for more supplies. Or we shall come to you, if that is more convenient.” He turned to Bruce. “There is a box of suitable clothes in the nursery. Master Damian may still own some that are small enough for Miss Stephanie. At least until we can source a more appropriate wardrobe in the morning.”
Bruce nodded. With one last parting stare at little-Steph, he clapped Damian on the shoulder. “C’mon, chum. Let’s go hunting.”
“Tt.” Damian’s face was fixed in his customary scowl, but he allowed Bruce to steer him away without resistance. “I cannot think of anything I own that would be suitable for Brown.”
“I don’t think she’ll be too fussed—”
“I’ll, uh, go and see if Dick needs any help?” Tim offered, once the elevator doors closed again.
“Perhaps you would collect a few toys for the children?” Alfred offered instead. Steph, who had attached herself to Cass’s leg once she’d grown bored of tormenting Tim, twitched at the T-word, but otherwise seemed too tired to do more. “I fear Master Jason’s sanity in the morning without something to keep them entertained.”
“Lego,” Jason said without hesitation. He knew his man, even if the man wasn’t his man right now and — fuck. That bathroom breakdown couldn’t come soon enough. “We got any kid’s books?”
Alfred nodded.
“Those too, then. Fiction and non-fiction.”
Tim fled. And then there were five.
Cass stooped to pick up Steph, the kid immediately wrapping around her deceptively slender frame like an octopus. When their eyes met, Jason found kin.
Love and terror, in equal measure.
“You wanna stay with us?” The invite escaped before he could even register what he’d offered. Cass’s brows lifted with surprise but lowered as she thought about it.
A glance down at Steph’s cherubic face — she was a cute little hellion, Jason’d give her that — was all it took for her to agree. Jason firmly ignored Alfred’s approving smile.
“Come,” Alfred said. “Let’s get you situated in the kitchen until you’re ready to leave.”
— 🦇 —
With half the Bats on the case, Jason, Cass and the kids were good to go in less than half an hour. Peter barely roused when taken upstairs to the kitchens. He was a dead weight against Jason’s chest while the SUV — Jason didn’t miss that it was Bruce’s most heavily fortified civilian vehicle — was loaded up. And yet, in what Jason though was a perfectly Peter move, the moment Jason attempted the set him into the booster seat, he woke up and made a fuss.
Without pause, Jason held his hand out and a Rubik’s cube was slapped into his waiting palm by Tim.
“We’ve got a bit of a drive, Petey,” he said. “Think you can solve this by the time we get back? Each side’s gotta be one colour”
The Rubik’s was plucked from his proffered hand.
“Maybe.” A sly glance up at Jason had his chest constricting. That wasn’t Jason’s Peter’s sly look. Just one of a child who thought they were about to scam an adult. “What’ll I get if I can fix it?”
Peter was Peter, but he was also not Peter, too. Alfred had explained it to Jason as he made up the to-go bag (fruit and frozen meals, mostly. The kinds of things that could be easily reheated). The news was distressing. It wasn’t a complete regression: there was a haze over Peter’s memories, as if they’d been locked away, waiting for a particular key. Peter knew who Jason was, for instance, but Alfred noted that before he’d caught sight of Jason, he’d reacted to the name as though Jason was an abstract concept. Peter knew Jason was important but couldn’t articulate why.
In an attempt to maintain some modicum of sanity, Jason redubbed the child experimentally twisting the axes of the cube, Petey. The kid who was Peter but also not-Peter. Fuck — fuck he was not okay. This was so messed up.
“If you’re good,” Cass piped up. She was pulling faces at a truculent Steph. “You’ll get to meet Dog.”
“Dog?” Petey echoed, and — yep. That abstracted recognition. Like he knew the name but couldn’t pin it down on the thing it represented. Jason abruptly straightened and rested arm, then face, against the door frame.
Deep breaths. JL Dark would get back to them. Things would get fixed. He entertained the slow and complex murder of Wild Child (whom by all accounts was not an actual child) until the burning of his sinuses was soothed.
When he straightened, Dick was there, watching him carefully.
You good? he mouthed.
Jason flipped him the middle finger and got in the car.
— 🦇 —
Petey, who at whatever age he was between six and seven, had clearly not been taught how to solve a Rubik’s cube, promptly decided that the best way to tackle the ‘biks cube’ was to peel off the stickers. Unable to respect the hustle, Cass stopped him before even the first sticker came off. Cramped between the two car seats while Dick and Jason sat in the front, she showed him the pattern. White cross, white corners, second layer… Jason stopped paying attention quickly and took to staring at his window’s haggard reflection instead.
At least Petey picked it up well enough, though that probably had more to do with his own intelligence than Cass’s teaching skills, which were monosyllabic at best. Stephie had tried to follow but dozed off again almost as soon as they crossed the Robert Kane Bridge into Gotham proper.
“Are you guys gonna be okay?” Dick asked quietly. Apparently, he could be a sensible driver when there were two people under ten in the back seat. Who knew?
“Sure.”
“It’s okay if you’re not going to be.”
No it wasn’t. “Sure.”
“Zee or Constantine will be here before you know it. They’ll sort this out.”
“Fixing things isn’t exactly Constantine’s speciality.”
Dick, wisely, did not dispute this claim. Jason only ever turned to Constantine in those early days because he could trust the man to keep his mouth shut — to others, at least.
“Bruce is already on the hunt for Wild Child,” Dick said, having decided upon a different route for comfort.
“They’re be lost on the wind by now, if they’ve a head on their shoulders.”
“You know he’ll find them. He always does.”
Jason grunted noncommittally. He was doom-spiralling, as Peter would have said. He knew he was, but was helpless to stop the turbulent, nauseating thoughts. What if there was no fix? How long would he be tormented by a Peter who didn’t know who — what — Jason was? What if there was a fix, but Peter came back wrong? What might have happened to Peter and Steph if Batman and Robin hadn’t reached them fast enough?
“Jay.” Jason didn’t jump at the hand on his arm, but it was a close thing. “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
Petey’s delighted laughter bounced off the SUV’s hard interior and Jason closed his eyes. Deep breaths. De~ep breaths.
Dick squeezed his arm. “You’ll see,” he promised. “Thing’ll work themselves out.”
Voiceless, Jason merely nodded.
He fucking hoped it would. Jason wasn’t sure how he’d cope if this was to be the way he lost Peter for good.