Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Career Interest Survey Form

Student Name: Jason Peter Todd-Wayne

Grade: 9th

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1. Career Interests

Which careers are you most interested in exploring? (Check all that apply)

☑ Other: I don't know.

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2. Favorite School Subjects

Which subjects do you enjoy the most? (Choose up to 3)

☑ English / Literature

☑ History / Social Studies

☑ Other: Not things with numbers for sure.

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3. Plans After High School

What are you most likely to pursue right after graduation?

☑ Four-year college/university

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4. Skills & Activities

What skills or activities would you like to explore more in high school? (Check all that apply)

☑ Volunteering / community service

☑ Internships / work experience

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5. Additional Comments

Is there anything else you’d like teachers or counselors to know about your future goals?

Ain't it too early for a freshman to think about this kind of thing? Brains mature at 25, ask me again when I'm 25.

When the Batmobile barely parks in the cave, Jason quickly walks out of the car.

"Robin."

Jason does not respond to that.

"Robin." The low-pitched voice continues from his back, with footsteps.

He knows that man is gonna catch him if he doesn't run, but he doesn’t want to. Running would make him look weak.

Sure enough, Batman’s longer stride catches him in time. He grabs Jason’s shoulder. “Jason.”

“Go away.” Jason hisses back vehemently. “I don’t want to listen to you, or your voice any longer.”

“Jason, don’t be like this.” Bruce clasps harder.

“Like what?” Jason pushes his hand away and turns to face his dad. “Why should I be obedient to a man that doesn’t believe me? I did not push that fucking trash! Even though he fucking deserves it!”

Jason sees Bruce grit his teeth. Yeah, he doesn’t like hearing that.

“You are letting your emotion cloud your judgment, Jason,” Bruce says. “You need to step out. You can’t be Robin like this.”

Jason feels like he gets slapped in the face. “What?”

“You’re benched,” Bruce says, voice firm. “No more Robin for you.”

No, please. Dad. No.

He feels like the floor is crumbling. What he builds himself on is being shattered. He wants to cry and plead, but Jason ain’t built that way. Showing your belly is to be fucking stomped on.

“Fuck you,” is what he says. “I ain’t your ideal child soldier, so it’s time to cast me aside, huh?”

In that moment, he sees Bruce falter. Some small part of Jason’s mind says you are pushing too hard, wait for what he says. But he doesn’t know how to stop.

“Or be a fucking insecure ass, and file a fucking conservatorship on me too?”

That falter is gone, turned to what Jason knows from Dad Willis: anger.

Batman looms over him, the hands that Jason pushes out now clasping both his shoulders. He’s tall, Bruce is so large.

“You—”

The voice is low, harsh, and rumbling. He thinks he can almost smell the nonexistent alcohol—

Suddenly, the hands release him. Batman turns back. “Go upstairs, Jason. You are benched until further notice. This is final.”

Jason can’t breathe. He wants to tug at Bruce’s cape, but the man does not look at him anymore. He walks to the Batcomputer, sits down without even giving hom a glance.

Fuck this. Fuck it all.

“You know what, if I did push that garbage down, I wouldn't regret it.”

Bruce does not react.

Jason peels his mask off and goes upstairs.

Jason wipes his damp eyes again and looks at the two letters in his hand.

First is the Gotham High Career Interest Survey Form, which he feels so stupid for thinking about it so much a week ago. He remembers he wants to talk to Bruce about that.

The second is…

Suddenly there’s a knock at the door.

Jason does not answer.

Knock-knock. Knock knock knock.

“Jaaaaaaaaaaay.”

Oh god. It’s the little menace.

He can’t see him right now, or he’s gonna say things he can’t take back to him.

“Jaaaaaaaaaaason?”

“Go away!” Jason shouts.

Silence.

“Oh. Okay,” a small voice says from the other side.

He feels like shit. Shittier shit than before. But Jason can’t look at Dickie right now.

Timmy is back. Dickie is back too. The lost Robins are all back.

Bruce is happy.

Does Jason have a place here anymore? He’s the fucking replacement.

He pulls the second letter out—the one that arrived to him two days ago. It’s his last belonging from his mum’s old apartment, accidentally left behind years ago when he was adopted by Bruce. It’s like fate that it reached him now.

...Your real mother's name is Sheila Haywood.

Jason, you are the only gift in my life. I love you. I love you so much even though I did not give birth to you. I love you so much even though I can't be a good mother you deserve. And if I am not here with you when you are reading this, I know you will find many people who will love you for me, whether it is your birth mother, or anyone else.

Love, always.

Catherine (also forever your mum)

He’s crying again.

Maybe this is the message from his mum, that there is something, somewhere, someone out there for him.

There’s a knock at the door again.

“Jason.” It’s Bruce’s voice.

He does not answer, he doesn’t make any noise.

“Jason.”

Fuck you, Bruce.

There is a long silence. “There’s a League emergency on a distant star system. I will be unavailable for a week. I want to talk to you before I go.”

Silence again. At that moment, Jason sees his phone glow with an incoming call. He cuts the call without looking, switches it to silent, and fucking hides it under the pillow. Damn it, Bruce. He doesn’t want to talk!

Jason thinks it’s at least fifteen minutes of stillness, until he hears a voice again. “I will come back in a week. I’ve asked Damian to cover here in my absence. During this, please follow Damian’s word.”

So he will be with Dami. Yeah, it’s better.

And footsteps echo, further and further away. Jason waits for even half an hour more before he pulls the phone out.

Huh. It’s not Bruce that called from the other side of the door. It’s Damian. Followed by multiple messages.

Dami

Jason. I don’t know why you cut my call, but it's not an urgent issue either way.

I and some prominent members of the Titans were called by the league to join an emergency interstellar mission. I will be out of earth communicating range for a week.

I know your relationship with Father is rocky to say the least, but I can’t be the mediator between the two of you during this. So self-restraint is to be prioritised.

I will be back in approximately 7 days.

D. Wayne

It’s endearing that Damian writes text messages like Victorian letters.

Wait a minute.

Jason looks at the chat again and quickly presses a call.

“You have reached the voicemail of Damian Wayne. He is not available to take your call. Please leave your name, phone number, and the reason for your call, and he will call you back shortly.”

It’s not even Damian’s voice. Just maybe some of WE’s secretary’s voice recordings. Damn his formal, pompous brother.

He calls another person, hoping he didn’t go to space too.

The person on the other end takes the call in one ring. He hasn't gone to bed yet, for sure.

“’Lo, Jay?” Tim answers.

“Timmy! Are you at Titans? Has Damian left yet? Stop him!”

“What? He took the zeta almost an hour ago? He is—” a click-clack sound of the keyboard, “—the ships, both Titans’ and JL’s, have already entered the wormhole. What’s wrong, Jason?”

“Bruce is there too! On the JL ship! They are both there!” He shouts back. “There’s only me in Gotham!”

“It’s ok, Jay. Things are quiet there, right?”

“For now, yeah. But no one is here. Even Alfie is on his British sabbatical right now,” Jason explains. How come all of this happens at the same time?

The sound of Tim hitting the keyboard from far away. “Shoot. Since Dami and Jon and a few others are going into space too, the roster is tight. Tomorrow I have to take the shift, but I can be with you and Dickie the day after. You will be ok without me for a day, right? Need babysitting?”

Having another adult in the manor is good, but… “I’m fifteen. Me and Dickie are gonna be fine, of course. But you, you still can’t go out as RR in Gotham, right?”

A long pause. “Let’s hope it’s just me being there to take care of you two terrors.”

After Tim hangs up, Jason’s phone pings again.

It’s from another person he contacted two days ago.

S. Haywood.

Jason. Honey.

I'm ready to meet you.

Tomorrow evening, at the abandoned cigar factory near Robinson park.

Jason reads the message.

Tim will come the day after tomorrow.

Two days ago

Okay, Jason told himself. He would make a casual talk about the career survey first, which had been a Big Thing a week ago, but was a small thing right now.

Then he would tell Bruce about his mum(?)'s letter.

"You can do it," he hyped himself.

Jason thought this while holding said letters in his hand, standing in front of Bruce's study.

He knew his relationship with Bruce recently was not... smooth, to say the least. He wanted to do more solo, more frontline. Bruce kept pushing him back, saying he was hot-headed and reckless, focusing more on violence than justice.

Fuck Bruce's justice. It was slow. Justice delayed was justice denied. And Gotham judicial was an absolute hellhole of corruption.

Nevertheless, Bruce was his Dad, his Batman.

Jason knocked. Damn, he was really nervous, because he himself rarely knocked. But, oh well. Act normal. Act cool.

"Bruce, it's me."

A brief pause.

"Jason? Come in."

Jason opened the door. Inside was Bruce…and Dickie. Dickie was perching on the back of an otherwise unoccupied chair; they seemed to be in the middle of talking.

Oh shit. He was so deep in thought he didn’t realize there was another person in the room. Jason pushed the letter deeper into his pocket. "Whatcha doing? You both disappeared for a while now." He feigned nonchalance. Act cool.

Bruce gave a small smile. His dad smiled more now with Dickie back. "We were discussing something. I think you being here is good, it's about you too."

"Yes!" Dickie said, excited. He had come far from the nonverbal child assassin they had retrieved a year ago. He still had some spotty memory, especially about his time before he met Bruce (the Court for some reason seemed to focus on that), had severe acrophobia when above twenty feet, and regressed when heavily stressed.

Normal Bat trauma, really.

Dickie flipped and landed in front of Jason. Hands on his hip.

"I want to resume being Robin!" he declared. "Well, officially this time."

What.

Jason tried to act normal. "So soon?"

"It's not!" he said. "It's fourteen years of the rogue's lack of original Robin-ness."

He turned to Bruce. "Are you okay with this?"

Bruce sighed. "It's not like we can stop him. He took the Robin suit and stalked us monthly as it is. Better make it official with a schedule so I can manage all this better."

"But... you can't use the grappling gun to fly yet, Dickie."

"Yeah, but it's not like it held me back from following you before." He shrugged.

That was true. Dickie had his way of following them on the ground that they couldn't track yet. The child was the best assassin of an illuminati-equivalent organization after all.

"Jay! We can be twin Robins!" Dickie hugged him.

"Haha, yeah," Jason faked the laugh.

Dickie was the first Robin. The original, the legend. Traumatized as he was, he was better at sneaking, hiding, evading, fighting than Jason. Everything.

He was the true partner of Batman. Batman that Jason already felt the friction brewing between them.

He was too good, too bright, and too golden for Jason to compete with.

Act. Normal.

Bruce looked at them, at Dickie, fondly.

Jason did not talk about the letter, whether it was the career choice or the other one.

From his quick research during the last three days, Sheila Haywood is a doctor. She previously worked for more than a decade (after giving birth to him... and giving him away?) in an Ethiopia refugee camp. And coincidentally, she just moved back now.

Jason, in casual clothes, looks at the desert entrance of the abandoned cigar factory. It's ominous and frankly looks dingy. How many years has it been in disuse?

Prior to this, he might change into Robin and survey the building first, but is he even a Robin now?

He sends a text to Sheila:
I’m at the front.

Come in. I want to meet you.

Jason takes a deep breath and steps inside.

"This looks really sus," Jason observes out loud.

"I totally agree. Veeeeeeery sus." A high voice echoes beside him.

Jason does not squeak. He does not.

"D—Robin!?" He turns to his (relatively) younger brother, who is in the OG Robin uniform, grinning his bright, mischievous, devil-incarnated smile. "Where the fuck are you coming from!?"

"Swear jar!" He approaches Jason very closely. "I just follow you silently," he whispers. "I can be very silent. Tee hee."

Tee hee his ass! "The sun hasn’t even set. You shouldn’t come out full costume in broad daylight!" Even though said costume is like a traffic light. Since Damian's era, the Robin costume has been modified to be a bit darker on some pieces. Dick's is like hello rogue shoot me (tee hee).

"But Jay, nobody gonna scold us! Cuz B and N and Agent A aren’t here. We are free, like in the Home Alone!" He jumps up and down in excitement.

Wait. WAIT.

Jason points at the little menace. "You. You arranged both of them to go on that space mission together."

"Not arranged! I did not make some out-there planet request help from Earth. I just ‘went with the flow’ when I saw the Batcomputer screen flash. Just used B’s burner phone that I swiped and typed, 'You take the mission, I’ll take care of here,' and vice versa. More flourish on N’s message style, yada yada."

Wow. The tiny turd is the god of tricksters reincarnated. "How many of our burner phones have you swiped just for 'go with the flow' pranks?"

Dickie smiles. Wide. "If I tell you, I’d have to kill you," and pronounces one single hoot sound.

Haha. Oh god.

"By the way!" Dick fake claps his hands (to avoid making a loud sound). "Why are you here, Jay?"

"Not your business. Go back to the manor, Robin."

He can’t help the venom in the last word, but Dickie, the sunshine boy, doesn’t even falter.

"It’s okay, Jay, I will be really, really, really quiet, promise." He smiles, and this smile makes Jason remember that his relatively younger brother is actually a twenty-six-year-old ex-assassin. He steps soundlessly into a deep dark corridor shadow and vanishes in front of Jason’s eyes.

"Robin. Little menace?"

No response.

His phone pings.

Shaila H.

Jason?

Did you change your mind?

I want to meet you.

There’s a stair on the left, take the descending stairs to the basement.

Jason types a reply back, and walks further into the dark shadow of the corridor.

Turns out, Sheila the doctor is now Sheila the smuggler.

Jason is standing across from his mom in a room filled with crates and boxes.

Sheila explains to him while lighting her cigarette.

"Turns out, my new employer in Ethiopia has much more valuable things lying around than what he pays me. So I decided to make the best of them."

She explains it like it’s a normal workday story.

The smuggler and the backstabber and the traitor.

"Who's your 'new boss'?"

Sheila exhales a cigarette. "Lex Luthor. The man wants to build a secret lab away from Superman’s eyes or something."

"Who's the ‘previous boss’?"

Sheila doesn’t answer directly. "I only know he died four years ago in this damn city. I don’t like that man either, his laughing gave me headaches."

The Joker was shot dead four years ago.

Sheila extinguishes her cigarette on the table. "My first customer has contacted me. You came at the right time. A boy will be better for delivering these goods unsuspectingly. There’s a guy named Black Mask that wants these kinds of technologies. Can you deliver the sample to them, honey?"

Jason feels like he’s standing on quicksand. This is the woman who shares half of her DNA with him.

"It’s illegal, Mom."

"This is Gotham. Everyone does this kind of thing to survive. I have done this since I was just as young as you. You probably know this too? This city keeps pulling you down and down, and the only thing you can do is use your hands and legs to push yourself up above someone’s head. We can split the money, that’s why you contacted me, right?"

"What do you mean?"

"The money. Maybe the foster or the orphanage life is not enough for a growing boy. Or else, why do you contact me now?"

She thinks he contacted her to ask for money. Jason can’t help but wonder what kind of world she grew up in. Even before Bruce, he had Catherine—Mum—and the alley people.

But worse than her speculation that Jason came to her for money is that she doesn’t know.

"Mom, first, I just found out about you two days ago. But, but more importantly, since I contacted you, you didn’t even look for any info about me, right?"

"Why? Is it important?"

"I’m Jason Todd. Jason Todd-Wayne. Adopted by the only family in this city that uses that surname."

Sheila turns to look at him abruptly, maybe really looking at him for the first time.

"You just came back to the States, so you probably didn’t know before, but you didn’t even look after I contacted you. With just a few searches you would know I absolutely did not come to you for fucking money!" Jason continues. He takes a deep breath. "Stop doing this. Turn yourself in. Or don’t even do that, just—just leave this country again, Mom. Luthor will surely hunt you if you are here."

"I can’t do that, honey."

He hears the gun click. And Sheila is pointing the gun at him.

Fuck, he really, really wants to cry. But he is a Bat, and compartmentalization is their game. So he trudges on.

"Mum, put the gun down, and turn yourself in, please," Jason says.

"I can’t," his mum says, face impassive, like the part of her built to feel dried out a long time ago. "I am in too deep to be spared. And no one has protected me from a consequence in a long time."

"You can," he says. "And I will. You have me, Mom." He steps forward.

A gunshot rings out before Jason registers the pain in his shoulder. It’s not deep, but it hurts. Like his heart shatters.

"No, I never have," Mom Sheila says.

She shot him.

I know you will find many people who will love you for me, whether it is your birth mother, or anyone else.

There is an unholy screech from behind her, and Dickie, in full feral Talon mode, jumps out at the woman from nowhere.

The woman who shot her own son.

"Sheila Haywood, I sentence you to die!" Dickie screams.

"No, D—Robin, stop!" Jason grits his teeth and does the Dickie Maneuver.

The Dickie Maneuver is the movement Bruce and Damian invent to remove feral Dickie from his prey. Since Dickie is enhanced and has extreme flexibility and reflex, but still lacks mass compared to others, the maneuver consists of:

1. Tackling Dickie with all your weight.
   
   
2. Quickly hugging him from the front, because he will not hurt you. Hold his hands or disarm if you can.

Jason uses his mass to tackle Dickie away from Sheila. The wound on his shoulder burns.

"Let me go!" Sheila says. At the same time, the box the bullet hit lights up, flashes bright purple and blue, and the light converges into a portal.

A big, giant dimensional portal in the air.

And then it spits something out.

That something flips and lands gracefully on two feet, even though he keeps yelping along the way.

"What the—" The man in black and blue spandex shouts. That suit looks familiar.

And the portal subsequently spits another person, bigger, heavier, with a familiar helmet. He is jettisoned from the portal and crashes into Sheila, rendering her unconscious immediately.

The larger man shouts, "Fuck! A portal!? In the middle of the breakout!?"

The larger man gingerly sits up and looks at Jason and the struggling Robin in his arms. The black-and-blue—Nightwing?—looks at them too.

"Is that a mini-me? And a mini-you? Little Wing?"

"Oh fuck’s sake. This is totally an interdimensional portal."

Jason turns to look at the unconscious Sheila, then back at the two vigilantes who were spit out from the portal.

"Who the fuck are you?" He holds Dickie tight (in case he uses this moment to maul Sheila again).

The Nightwing-that-is-not-their-Dami smiles, bright and mischievous. Jason has seen this smile. And then he removes his domino mask.

It’s—

"Tati?" Dickie says in his hold, and the man falters.

"Oh… people usually say I look like Daj more than Tati, but I guess I look like him too." He smiles softly at Dickie. "I’m Dick Grayson, of the prime universe." And he elbows that Red Robin-helmeted man. Tim from the 'prime' universe is pretty beefy.

The man makes a mechanical sigh, unclasping his helmet, then lifts it up. He reveals a person Jason sees in the mirror every day. Facial features are sharper and harsher, but Jason already started shooting up, so the man looks eerily like him more than Willis. Definitely not Tim.

"Guess I’m Jason Todd." The man shrugs.

Chapter Text

In the Batcave, Tim looks at all of them. "This is my ‘I am not amused’ face," he says out loud. "I said I will be here the day after, so of course you two decide to cause interdimensional havoc now."

"It's not actually us. The one that opened that portal is my, uh, is that woman!" Jason defends himself.

"And you have to, I don't know, go find your bio-mom without consulting any of us now?"

"That's because, because Bruce, I, we—" Jason wants to explain, but it's hard with Dickie here, and two new strangers here.

Tim sighs, then pats his head and holds him loosely. "Nevertheless, I'm glad you are both safe." Then he quietly whispers in Jason's ear, "When we clear all this dimensional mess, we'll talk about the mom thing later, okay."

Jason mutely nods.

"Wow," Adult-Dickie says, and he claps Adult-Jason’s shoulder. "Tim is a big bro, and you are the baby."

"Shut up, Dickface."

The two newcomers sit on the unused Batconsole like it's their home. It is their home? Just from a different universe.

With things going beyond their control, Jason had to call Tim, who screamed in his ear for ten minutes and sent Kon to deal with this, since it's Lex Luthor tech she had stolen and smuggled in, and without Batman, Superman, Nightwing, or Superboy, the Luthor thing falls to his jurisdiction. Kon sent her to the HSI directly instead of to GCPD ("I don't think she should be near you") and quickly collected all the Luthor tech in the boxes to store at the Titans'.

And left only the portal that still ominously hangs open.

Adult-Dick and Adult-Jason (he needs to find a more easy name for them soon) tried to jump back into the portal, but got spit out again and again.

So, they were brought back here, they seem pretty chill with it though.

"You two seem really cool with this."

Big-Jason (hmm, not quite right) shrugs. "Not my first rodeo."

"Me neither," Big-Dick (this is an absolute no) supports. "This is why we are the prime universe. Interdimensional things like to center our universe. Other universes we have contact with don't have interdimensional events more than, like, ten in their human lifetime. I have, like—" Nightwing-Dick (mouthful) mentally counts, "—almost a hundreds?"

Timmy says in surprise, "A hundred?"

Richard (too formal) bares his hand. "In my universe, I'm one of the first heroes and the first Robin. You can say I'm the OG."

"Me too! I started at eight and now I'm twenty-six!" Dickie (his Dickie) jumps from nowhere and lands on Not-Dickie (nope) shoulder. The older man doesn’t flinch, and just moves his hand to hold Dickie’s ankle.

This Older-Dick (weird) is calm beneath the cheerful attitude with a knowing smile. It's like he has seen the world end and start again too many times.

It’s a bit scary. Jason fidgets.

"Oh yeah? You are the oldest too? Then we are a pair!" the man says.

"Yeah! A pair! By the way, what should we call you? I can be Dickie and you can be Dick? Is it too similar? Or you want to be like Richard or Richie or Rick?"

"Nope to Rick. But just Dick is good."

And they turn to give their own brothers a wide smile. This is terrifying. They multiplied.

Okay, so the Big D is to be labeled as Dick, what about his counterpart...

Jason looks at Beefy-Jason (no), who, compared to his brother, just sits with arms crossed and rarely talks. The man projects an aura of Do Not Interact.

"Replacement." Ah, he has spoken. "When will I be able to go back to my universe?"

No reaction. Replacement?

"Replacement!" He turns to Tim, who just lifts one eyebrow while slurping coffee.

"Hm, me? Why would you call me that?"

"Whatever, Timtam, just answer my question."

Tim sighs, and one-handed navigates the screen. The screen shows the live feed of the portal. It's lucky that the portal is in a disclosed abandoned factory basement, and no one can see this shit from outside.

"From the data Kon gathered earlier, the device acts as a one-way portal so you guys can't just jump back in. However, the device is outdated enough that once I crack the code, I can reverse and make it an outgoing gateway as long as we don't destroy or move the device before I can crack the code. But—"

"Of fucking course there is a but," Rude-Jason says (this name makes it sound like he insult himself).

"—the reverse process needs to be done onsite."

Oh shit.

"Well, get on it. Re—Timbit," J says (too much like that clown, so no).

Tim's hand on the screen pauses. "I can't."

"What?" Dick (the big one) asks.

Tim stares at the screen and does not turn back to look at them. "I can't go out as a vigilante in Gotham."

"What do you mean?" other-Jason asks.

Tim's hand starts shaking.

"It means he doesn't do vigilante here," Jason interjects. "In Gotham." He steps to stand in front of Tim.

Dick seems to read something in his posture, thus he changes the subject. "If you won't go out, can anyone else do it? Little Jay here, or us?"

"It requires zero misstep of the decoding, or the axis is tilted and the device will lose its anchor in your universe. In Gotham, the only other person with as much chance to accomplish this except me is Batman," Tim explains.

Jason supplies, "He's in space and will be back in a week at the earliest." And I also don't want to see him right now, is what he isn’t saying.

Tim sighs. "With the current condition, the portal is now a one-way track, but in the wrong way."

"Oh come on!" Jacket-Jason shouts.

"A week," Dick says. "That's not good. We are in the middle of an Arkham breakout fighting Ivy when the portal suddenly sucks us out. Suddenly losing two of us won't be good for the team."

"There's an extreme time dilation signal from the portal. I think you won't be absent for long there," Tim explains.

"I don't really care about that. In the end, the big Bat will be fine," Grown-Jason (bah) says, then he looks at Jason. "I don't want to be here long."

What's that look?

Jason glares back at the man. And he has the nerve to smirk back. What the fuck.

"Jay," Dick's voice seems to reprimand him, but he doesn't go further. "Anyway, it seems there is nothing much we can do. If you say there is time dilation there, I guess it won't be terrible. Let's take time to get to know each other!" Dick starts to smile gleefully.

"Oh god," Big Jay (hmmm. Okay?) says.

"It's ice-breaking time! Ta-daa!" Dick opens his arms wide.

"Yeah!" Dickie shouts.

"Kill me," Big Jay laments.

"Never have I ever..." Tim says monotonously. "Die."

Big Jay (temporary name), Dick, and Dickie hold his finger down. "You die too?" Dick asks Dickie.

"More than I can count!" Dickie smiles. "Side effects from being brainwashed into a Talon."

Uh. So unhinged. All three of them. Why did it come to this?

And he also notes that Dick's finger is only one left now. The man seems to have done almost anything in life. If he became Robin at the same age as his Dickie, it’d mean he has been in the game for eighteen years. Longer than most heroes in the JL.

"So you are a Talon for..."

"Thirteen years!" Dickie answers.

"You seem to be well-adjusted for that." Dick comments.

"He compartmentalizes," Jason explains.

"Ha. It's Dickwad's greatest skill too, compartmentalization," Big Jay says.

"Never have I ever..." Jason starts, "Severely compartmentalize."

Dick, Dickie, and Tim put one finger down.

Big Jay and Jason glare at each other.

"Aww, I lose," Dick says. "This is going well! We know each other a lot more!"

"No." Big Jay, Jason, and Tim speak at the same time.

"Come on, it's better than an old boring slide presentation" (Tim objects). "So now we know that our universe and your universe, somehow, all the youngling heroes' age—I'm against calling us sidekicks—are in reverse. Except us."

"Us!" Dickie echoes.

"Yeah, yeah. The Dick Grayson, the multiversal constant, always good, whatever," Big Jay says. "And I was the naughty one that ran away, found the mom that doesn't care about me, and got beat to death."

What.

Jason looks at the man, who seems to not care about Dick reprimanding him.

The man looks back at him intensely. "Ain't that right? I think I saw that woman when I was landing. I don't know why she is here instead of Ethiopia, but same difference. Guess us arriving interrupted the last show."

Why does the man seem to have animosity toward him? Even himself is not on his side. Jason doesn't understand, and do that man's eyes get even greener? Now they’re even greener than Damian's eyes. "What do you mean the last show?" he says while eyeing Big Jay warily.

Dick interrupts, "Don't listen to him. He's talking shit. Jay, you know the rule about timeline interference."

"This is not time travel, this is an alternate dimension, spoilers rule don't apply. And I say this with good intention.” Big Jay scoffs. “Kid, you're gonna get beaten up and bomb'd to death by the Joker without your daddybat come to save you."

Dick does a double facepalm.

What the fuck.

"That wouldn't happen," Tim says, and looks Big Jay in the eye. "Because I shot that bastard in the forehead, ha." Tim slaps a hand on his mouth and coughs. "Sorry, Jay. I need to—my med is upstairs—"

"It's okay, Timmy. I can handle this." Jason touches his arm.

Tim looks very upset. It happens every time his condition needs help from his family. For Jason it's nothing. It's like helping Alfred carry his grocers, but Tim probably doesn't think like that.

"Dickie, go check up on Timmy, kay?" Jason whispers to his relatively baby brother.

"You sure?" Dickie eyes the two interdimensional guests.

"Of course." He pats the kid's head, and Dickie just nods and walks back.

"See ya later!" he says to Dick, then "I'm watching you." to Big Jay, and blends into the shadow like a true cryptid.

So now it's Jason and the other two.

"You ruined my ice-breaking session," Dick says to Big Jay.

"It's already a disaster before I start," he talks back, then he turns to Jason. "What do you mean the re—your Tim shot that shit?"

"It means he's dead. Like, dead-death." Jason crosses his arms over his chest. "Serve him right for what he did to Timmy."

"What did that clown do?"

"It's not for me to answer that."

Yes, that man's eyes do grow greener in a matter of seconds. It's the greeniest green eyes Jason has ever seen.

"Whatever," Big Jay says. "Back to the first topic, what is that woman doing in here and not Ethiopia?"

"She's working for Luthor in Ethiopia, to help him build Luthorland or something, but decided to sell his tech on the black market here for much faster money," Jason explains. "When I got mum's letter, she's already back here in Gotham."

Oh yeah, mum's letter! He has it with him from before all this shitshow. Is it still okay? It's the only word his mum left for him.

Jason quickly searches his hoodie pocket, and sighs in relief when he finds the folding paper. It's wrinklier than before, but still intact.

Jason quickly unfolds it and reads the last sentence:

I know you will find many people who will love you for me, whether it is your birth mother, or anyone else.

The words are still warm, but since Sheila pointed the gun at him, they also feel hollow.

"Kid," Big Jay interrupts his thought, "Is that letter from... mum?"

Jason holds the letter to his chest. "Yes, and?"

Big Jay struggles to find his words, and, okay, his counterpart is definitely not truly a baseline human. His eyes can change from bright green to more viridian blue in an instant.

"Can I... see it. Mine got burnt in all the bombs."

The bomb. He said something like that before Timmy left.

"What the fuck do you mean the bomb?"

"Language, little wing," Dick says.

"Who the fuck is little wing!?"

"For sure it's not me," Big Jay says, while Dick objects. "Come on kid, I won't make even a wrinkle more in it. Just want to see her handwriting."

Jason slowly, gingerly gives him the letter. He outstretches his arm like giving food to a stray dog.

"I won't bite too."

"Your demeanor says otherwise."

Big Jay snickers This is the first time the man shows some emotion that resembles mirth. He takes the letter from Jason and unfolds it.

"Huh, a career interest survey?" he picks one paper up.

"Oh! uh, yeah, I got it at roughly the same time as mum's letter, guess it got mixed up."

"What, let me see!" Dick snatches it from the guy's hand. "Oooh this is so exciting! What do you want to be, Jaybird?"

"Hey, give it back!" He tries to reach Dick, but the man casually handspring back from his breach and continues to read it upside down.

"Hmmm, not decided on a career yet, which is totally ok for your age. It's not like a teenager will write something like 'I wanna be a president' in the form."

"I dunno, I heard Luthor might have written that," Big Jay mumbles while reading his mum's letter.

"Well, he certainly can achieve his dream."

"Luthor is the president in your universe!?" Jason asks.

"'Was', Superman finally dealt with that," Dick answers.

"Yours is the worst timeline."

Dick laughs. "Can't argue with that. Let's see what Baby Jay writes next. English is expected of you. Oh, you want to go to uni? Jay, do you want to go to uni?" He turns to Big Jay, who seems lost in the words of his mother.

"Not your business, Dickface."

"Come back to life and you can go to uni!"

"Fuck you." Big Jay folds the letter back.

Dick tucks the letter from Big Jay’s hand and returns it to Jason with his survey letter. "I tried to persuade him for a while now."

"You mean pestering," Big Jay grumbles.

"What do you mean come back to life?" Jason asks.

"As said in Dickhead stupid game, I was like dead, there, and back again, by that fucking clown."

"How?"

"That woman is in Ethiopia, working for Joker. She sold me to that clown. He broke every bone in my body and then finished me with a bomb."

Jason can't think of what to say about that, so he says the lamest thing he can ever think of: "I'm sorry."

"That's all you have to say about your potential death, kid?"

"I, I don't know. I don't have any hands-on knowledge about the Joker. He's gone even before I became Robin."

"That is strange. A Gotham without a Joker," Dick says.

Big Jay smirks "I'm glad that your Tim did it. 'Cause Bruce won't have the stomach to do it himself."

"Don't say that!" Jason snaps.

"What, kid?"

"I, I don't care if that man should be dead or alive, but don't say you're glad that Timmy did it. Because it haunts Tim so much. He still thinks himself as tainted because of that event. And, and Bruce…"

He hates Bruce right now. But he also loves his Dad.

"Bruce doesn't, doesn’t have the stomach to do that, but he built all of his being, his morality on not killing or not getting people killed. Just because your belief isn't aligned, you can't force your view on his actions."

Silence.

Why the silence.

Big Jay turns his head down. He is shaking. Dick looks at his brother concernedly.

"Jay—"

The man laughs, loud and long, but it's a mirthless laugh. It takes time until his laughter dies down.

"What's so funny?" Jason challenges the man.

"Everything from your tiny mouth," Big Jay answers. "Oh God, I forgot how I was at being a good little soldier. A true daddy boy."

He looks up, and his eyes are viridescent.

"Why do your eyes keep changing?"

The man ignores his question, and also slaps Dick's hand that lands on his shoulder when he's standing up, slowly walking to Jason.

He's a big man, on par with Bruce, towering above Jason who is sitting.

"He won't choose you."

The man sneers.

"You got beaten by the clown, you tried to be brave, but really you just kept screaming in your mind for him to come save you from the pain, but he wouldn't come.

"Then you were left for dead in an empty warehouse with a bomb, you tried to be good, crawled on your four to cover that trash of a mother with your body, you still died, alone. He made a little monument for you and the epitaph that wrote a good soldier, not a son.

"You woke up in a coffin, six feet under, all alone, you were screaming out of your mouth for him this time, but he wouldn’t come, you were born again in dirt and mud without a father or a mother.

"And when you came back, asked him to choose between that fucking clown or you, he wouldn’t choose you."

Jason thinks he might be having a waking nightmare.

"You and he will never fit together," The man continues. "Because while you said you don't care if that bastard Garzona is alive or not, I am you. I know deep down when you see that man lying down below with a broken neck, you think 'hah, serve you right' and only feel the satisfaction! A little murderer in the making. How long can you play pretend in this family!"

"Jay!" Dick rushes up between Jason and that Asshole, both hands pushing the man back. "Stop it! You are terrorizing him."

"I'm educating him for the future to come. That boy's me." The man pushes Dick back.

"That boy is you on the day that you run away from your dad to discover that your biological mom betrayed you! This is the worst day of his life."

"Well, mine can get even worse by that clown!"

"And mine is getting even worse by you!" Jason screams at him.

Tears streak down his face. They must be angry tears. They must be.

"Fuck you," he says. "If I grow up to be like you, you are my worst nightmare. I would literally better be dead than—"

Above the Asshole, a small shadow drops from nowhere, feet landing perfect on the Asshole's shoulders.

"The not-Jason Todd," his Dickie says. "I sentence you to die."

And at least the Asshole seems to have good Robin training, because he is still fast enough to avoid Dickie's Damian's katana in Dickie's hands. It quickly becomes a wrestling between feral Talon and League-trained(?) vigilante, which evolves into something like 'Florida man defending himself from a rabid raccoon.'

"What the freaking fuck!" the Asshole yelps. At least his unmanly sight on the floor quells Jason's turmoil a bit.

Jason turns to Dick, who watches the scene with a face undecided between terror and awe. "We need to do the Dickie maneuver."

"The what!?”

Dickie maneuver commenced by Dick and Jason. Now Dickie is in Jason’s hold while the Asshole is nursing his scratches, bite marks, and bruises in the medbay.

The Asshole’s eyes turn vague teal blue again. He looks at Jason.

"Look—kid."

Dickie hisses. The Asshole can’t hide his flinch.

But Jason probably doesn’t look any better, with red-rimmed eyes and tear tracks on his face. If Jason is in a bit of a lighter mood, he might smirk at the man’s condition, but alas, he is not.

He can’t be here, and see what he will become, any longer.

"I’m going upstairs," Jason says, very quietly, tucks the letters in his pocket, and runs up the stairs, out of the cave, Dickie in tow and leaving the two guests behind.

Chapter Text

Career Interest Survey Form

Student Name: Jason Peter Todd-Wayne

Grade: 9th

---

1. Career Interests

Which careers are you most interested in exploring? (Check all that apply)

☑ Other: I only know who I do not want to be.

---

2. Favorite School Subjects

Which subjects do you enjoy the most? (Choose up to 3)

☑ English / Literature

☑ History / Social Studies

---

3. Plans After High School

What are you most likely to pursue right after graduation?

☑ Not sure yet

---

4. Skills & Activities

What skills or activities would you like to explore more in high school? (Check all that apply)

☑ Other: do I still have 'high school'?

---

5. Additional Comments

Is there anything else you’d like teachers or counselors to know about your future goals?

If I’ll grow up to be like him, I don't want to ever grow up at all.

Jason slaps the damn survey letter on his table and flops back down on his bed.

Fuck that survey. He can’t believe last week this was a Big Thing for him.

Fuck Lex Luthor and his hyper-scientific device, and fuck the woman who shot it.

Fuck that shit Garzona. And big F to all the political protection he has. Somebody should do something about that.

Fuck that muscled asshole with skunk hair.

Fuck Da—Bruce.

Jason turns to look at the full family picture that was taken just a few months ago, standing on his desk. It’s Jason’s continuation ceremony at Gotham Academy.

Gotham Academy middle school students are little prestigious babies that advance to the high school section automatically, like ascending an elevator, as long as you finish the 8th grade. So many students do not give the ceremony much thought, more excited for the high school prospect.

For Jason tho, it is also the Big Thing for him. He graduated middle school with an honor roll, and if Jason had not enrolled in the middle of his first year, he may have been chosen as the student speaker, said by the teachers that actually cared for his performance more than his background.

Jason, who once only hoped he might get by pickpocketing and stealing enough until he reached legal age, then maybe get some labor job that does not involve drugs as the best he could do, was so excited for the day.

But since his peers didn’t care about it much, Jason tried to be a cool teenager™ and acted nonchalant too. Of course, it did not escape Batman’s insight.

On his continuation ceremony day, all the Waynes arrived, dressed in pristine suits. Clapping and whistling so loud at Jason’s name startling all the other parents. Bruce flaunted his Brucie-ness to the extreme. Bruce kept telling the other parents, "That’s my son, Jason. He’s on the honor roll."

Jason was so embarrassed. "You all gonna get me bullied in high school!"

"Let them try," Damian said. The legend of Damian Wayne is still a precautionary tale to this day. It’s an epic that starts with some bullies who targeted someone in the art club, ending with a stainless art spatula piercing through a wall. The fact that in the next semester, when the bullies tried to get revenge on Damian, he shot up and became a 6'2" giant also cemented the legend.

Now Damian, at 6'4", glared murderously at anyone who looks at his brothers wrong. He even startled the nice teacher who just walked up to congratulate Jason.

Jason was so embarrassed. His cheeks were so red.

He couldn’t stop smiling.

Jason was smiling so wide in that picture, in the middle between Bruce, whose hand was touching his shoulder, and Dickie, who did a full hug on him while smiling at the camera.

At that moment, he thought of the lamest thing, like, next time, he will get the Valedictorian, and see how proud Bruce would be.

Jason looks at the picture. A few months ago he thought, this is a place where I belong. These are my people.

Now he doesn’t know who he is, where his place is at all. Or even who he will become.

Dickie becomes Robin again, how can he compete? Actually, Bruce already benched him. Guess it’s for good. And his bio mom is, frankly, a bitch.

Jason wipes his eyes again. When he quarrels with Bruce, which happens more and more now, he’d call Dami. His brother is awkward with feelings as hell, but he knows how to tackle Bruce, and understands the hardship of being teenage Robin.

Dami is not here.

Knock-knock. Knock knock knock.

There is that Dickie’s signature quirky knock again.

"Dickie, I said I need some time alone." That’s what Jason says to the boy after they go upstairs. With all that happens, Jason doesn’t think he would be good company to the boy now, and sends him back to Tim.

"It’s not your Dickie." A much lower voice than his relatively younger brother comes from behind the door.

"Well, that alone still does not include you," he says.

A pause. "Please let me come in."

Jason glares at the door.

A minute passes. "In my world, when Jason needed his big brother the most, I was out in space, and the worst event in our family happened. Let me try it this time."

The voice is so heartbroken. That manipulative grown-up little shit.

Jason waits for a full five minutes, and the waiting game is always hard on the Bats, because everyone can be so silent.

He slowly opens the door, and he doesn’t know whether he’s glad or disappointed, that Dick from the prime universe is still standing behind his door, dressed in casual Dami’s forest green turtleneck that is quite loose on the shoulder.

"It’s so weird when I realize there is no one in this manor that has clothes my exact size. Your Dami is buffed."

"Who gives you casual clothes? Dickie?"

"Tim, actually." He lets himself in. "The mini-me dragged him down, and said to my brother, 'Here. I bring the person who can start group sessions with you instead of starting a new generation trauma on my Jay.' Your Tim looked reluctant, but mini-me promised him he would reveal where Alfred hid his coffee."

"And where’s Dickie?"

"Downstairs also. Supervising the session." And Dick perfectly imitates Dickie’s accent, with only difference in the baritone of his voice: "'If you try to bully this one too, I’m going to sentence you to die,' and gave a very creepy hoot."

Dick proceeds to sit crisscrossed on the floor in Jason’s room. "How are you, Jaybird?"

"Your brother is an asshole."

Dick chuckles. "That he is."

"I name him in my head 'The Asshole.'"

"He deserves that. But let’s talk about you more than my asshat of a brother."

Jason really doesn’t want to answer that, but Dick’s gaze is… strangely intimidating. He seems to be in late twenties (notably the same age Dickie should be if he was not Talonized), but his eyes say he has seen much more than a 26-year-old vigilante could have seen.

"Three days ago, Dick said he wanted to get back to being Robin," Jason says, while looking at his Continuation Ceremony photo.

"Uh huh."

"How can I compete with him, I mean, he is you. The heart of our family, even after all this years he was gone. Look at you. You are—"

"Good-looking with fantastic fashion sense."

"Golden."

Dickie keeps his smile, but he looks saddened.

Jason continues, "And then Garzona shit happened. He took Robin away from me." He pauses, and lifts his head up to look at Dick. "If you think you really know me; I didn’t push him."

"I believe you," he says, sincerely.

"But I’m glad he’s dead."

"Thank you for telling me that," Dick answers. It is a minute until he speaks next. "I think, if it’s only my opinion, I would only feel relief too, if a man like that is dead."

"You are?"

Dick nods. "Yeah, but in my honesty, if I consider many things else—the consequence, the Bat’s code, the JL or the Titans’ role, the social response, the political leverage in some cases—I would be against killing in general."

"That’s a lot of things to consider."

"It’s who Dick Grayson is, the man who takes many roles in his life." Dick plays with the hem of his shirt. "I killed him, once."

"Who?"

"The Joker."

Jason looks at the man.

"Really, it just didn’t stick. Bruce CPR’d him back to life. The ability to CPR a beaten human pulp back to life is extraordinary. That man should really be a doctor."

"He brought him back to life!? The nerve!" Jason shouts.

"Right? I almost became Gotham’s legendary savior." Dick chuckles. "But, in truth, he brought that man back because he partly didn’t want me to be irrevocably changed, and partly, because of who Bruce is. The man builds himself on one simple concept: no one should die by other people’s hands."

"But he should not force his opinion on others too."

"I agree with that. I headbutted him sooooooooooo many times about that. But. You see, Jay, I am not golden, I’m just a person who has been many things: a performer, an acrobat, a vigilante, a brother, a friend, a leader, Robin, Nightwing, Batman, lists of who I am go on and on and on. It makes me flexible. However, Bruce is on the other end of the spectrum from me. He is only one thing: Bruce, a man who doesn't want to see anyone die. It makes him rigid, but the most reliable person you will ever have in your entire life. You will always know, he will be there, stiff and solid and blunt and never fit with you, but there for you all the same."

Bruce, whose core will never change, while his children grow and change until they aren’t fit like they used to be.

"While I’m busy being many things, becoming someone new for some important people of mine, oftentimes I change too much to be the same person for another set of important people. Sometimes I forget Bruce. Sometimes I forget Babs. Kori. The Titans. Tim. Dami. You. You all shouldn’t depend on fickle people like me."

Jason doesn’t know how to respond to that. He doesn’t even know who ‘Babs’ or ‘Kori’ are.

"There is only one other person who is so sure of his value, like him. The one the family should rely on," Dick continues.

"Clark?"

"You." Dick gestures to Jason. "You and B are the only two people in my life that are unbendable to the extreme, that I know if I fall at the right spot, one of you will surely catch me."

"Is this a compliment?"

"Think of what you will, Jay. But know that you and B will clash so many times not because your beliefs or morality are different, but because you both are so alike. You both are so sure, so rigid. Jason, even with the conflict you two currently have, even with hearing all my potty-mouth brother has said; you being dead, Bruce will not come, and all of that. Do you stop loving Bruce?"

Jason knows his answer.

"And for Bruce, it's the same too. If you are sure he loved you once, then he will always love you."

Dick stands up to pick up the photo frame on Jason’s table. He makes a bittersweet smile at the picture of a happy Wayne family in the other universe.

"Jaybird, give my brother a chance. You are not him, but he is one possibility of you. My stubborn stick-in-the-ass brother is one of the two people I know will surely catch me. He is good, and so are you. Different person or not, what you are is enough."

Jason wipes his eyes. "Am I really enough?"

"Always, Little Wing."

"I don’t know what a Little Wing is, it sounds like a KFC promo menu."

"Oh, yeah, I’m not there to nickname my younger siblings. I should reckon that."

Amidst the nonsense small talk, Jason blurts out, "This week is the shittiest week of my life."

"Uh huh."

"I may have lost Robin, Bruce benched me, my bio mom is a selfish immoral smuggler that shot her own son, my counterpart is an absolute asshole, I—" And Jason can’t control his hiccups. "It feels shittier than the first week after Mum died."

After Jason says all this, Dick asks, "Can I hug you?"

Jason nods weakly, and the man puts the photo frame down and hugs him tight, swaying him back and forth like a baby. It’s humiliating, it’s calming.

"Shhh, Jay. You are not lost. You belong in this family. In any iteration this universe gives, you will always have us. You will see soon enough that what you perceive is not true at all."

"You mean Bruce will start having emotional intelligence?" Jason mumbles.

"No, I’m still working on that in my universe."

Jason chuckles wetly. Dick’s embrace is warm, but not like Dickie’s hug. It’s a secure feeling of having a big brother behind your back, and even though their ways are so different, it’s like he has been talking with Damian.

Oh, so even if they’re the same person, different circumstances and experiences can shape them into two distinct people. Maybe he can be a different man too.

All of this is hard, his feelings are tangled with frustration and insecurity, but Jason rests his head on his big brother-stranger from the other universe for now.

It’s an awkward morning when Jason comes to the kitchen. Yesterday is exhausting emotionally for him, and Jason sleeps for ten hours straight before he wakes up, brushes his teeth, and descends the stairs to the kitchen.

The Asshole is cooking, currently flipping the pancake on top of the already tall stack.

Sitting at the table is Tim, rapidly swallowing a cup of coffee until it’s empty without any soul in his eyes. And there is Dickie, with his tiny bowl of ultimate sugary cereal, glaring daggers at the Asshole. There is also Dick, with his large bowl of ultimate sugary cereal, eating like he doesn’t care about the murder that is absolutely being planned in his counterpart’s head.

"Hey, Jay," Dick says.

"Uh hi," he replies. It’s very awkward when yesterday you were bawling your eyes out in his arms.

The Asshole pauses his flipping a bit, but resumes his feeding of the Birds.

"Jay! You’re up!" Dickie says excitedly.

Jason rubs Dickie’s hair. The boy looks so happy, like a dog. Then Jason proceeds to sit next to Dickie.

Tim does not acknowledge the event around him at all, just keeps consuming the coffee.

The Asshole puts a large stack of pancakes on the table. "Here, I bestow all of you The Pancakes That Are Not Soggy."

Dick quickly grabs multiples of them, and soaks all of it in an unholy amount of maple syrup.

Dickie and Jason glare at the pancakes suspiciously.

"It’s not poison, kids," Dick says through his mouthful. "Trust me, it’s the most amazing pancake you will ever taste." And he pulls the fork from his mouth to pick one onto Jason’s and Dickie’s plate each (ew).

At that time, the Asshole also puts down a plate of eggs and bacon on the center of the table. Perfectly crispy, greasy bacon that Jason likes, but rarely gets because Alfie insists on healthier protein.

Jason gingerly puts the bacon on his plate to build the classic bacon-and-pancake, contrasted to Dick’s hyperglycemic abomination. He puts the pancake in his mouth.

It’s amazing. It’s fluffy and definitely not Alfred-soggy at all.

"Jason? Are you dead?" Dickie nudges him.

"I’m dead and in heaven," Jason replies. "How can you do—nevermind." He doesn’t want to talk to him.

"It’s Old Betty’s recipe that you vaguely recall from the time you, um, I lived with Mum in that dingy apartment. It took a few tries, but I got it eventually," the Asshole says without meeting his eyes, and sits down next to Dick.

"Plus a lot of repentance," Dick says, and avoids the Asshole’s incoming headslap.

Dickie takes his own bite of pancake, and then he quickly grabs two more. "Ish really amashing," he says with his mouth full. Dickie requires much less food than a baseline human his age, this means it's a really exceptional pancake.

Suddenly, Tim’s caffeine level is enough to summon his soul back into his body. He blinks. "Oh, hello Dick, Jay, other Dick, other Jay."

"Hey Timmy. How’s yesterday?"

"Huh, oh, you mean my talk with Jay?" Tim points his fork at the Asshole. Tim calls that guy Jay now. Great. "Good? We share that same trauma, both Joker and Bruce’s worst parenting moments, and roughly the same age. But I won’t tell you what we talk about, squirt. What happens in Red Club stays in Red Club. But, have you apologized to my little brother yet, Jay?" Tim looks at the Asshole.

The man points at the pancake and crispy bacon.

Dick sighs. "From your mouth, Jay. The action alone is hard to interpret. You are so like B."

With that sentence, the Asshole’s cheeks turn red. He looks at Jason, and tries to say, "Kid, I—"

Tim’s phone blares so fucking loud.

"Silence your alarm! Timmy!" Jason covers his ears.

"No, this is the alarm from the Batsurveillance I set up. Oh shit. We gotta go down to the cave now."

Dick and the Asshole said they were in the middle of the Arkham breakout, fighting Ivy. Now Ivy is out and wrecking havoc in the factory.

"Guess the time dilation is really extreme, it seems only a few minutes have passed in your world. Ivy probably got sucked just after you got pulled in."

In the Batfeed, Ivy is still thrashing in the factory basement, trying to go back in the portal, but soon she’ll probably get bored and decide to go out. They need to contain her before that happens.

Dickie and Jason are suiting up. He’s never truly fought a rogue alone, but he can do it. Dickie is coming too, gremlin instinct and self-control aside, Dickie is still the best agile fighter they have.

The pang in his heart when seeing Dickie as a Robin has to be set aside for now.

"We’re coming too." Dick, in his Nightwing getup, tests Dami’s Wingcycle (named by Dickie). While that Asshole is in his leather jacket and metal red helmet. He’s not called Red Robin, he said he was called Red Hood.

"But you ain’t familiar with our world." Jason says.

Dick straps his escrima sticks. "But it’s our rogue, and you two are kids."

"I’m 26 and not a kid!" Dickie objects.

"A kid," everyone says.

Both Robins are on the R-cycle while their extradimensional guests are on the Wingcycle. It’s a bit of a struggle to fit the beefy Red Hood on the back of the motorcycle, but no way Jason will let that asshat on his bike.

"Dickhead, can you move a bit? My ass is not even half on the seat."

"It’s not my fault your ass is so big."

Jason snickers.

The extradimensional Ivy is wreaking havoc in the building, mostly just in confused rage, but if she keeps going, the building might collapse, and they don’t know how that will affect the device anchoring the dimensional gate.

"Just contain her and bring her into our containment chamber until the real adults arrive for now," Tim echoes in their ears.

"I’m a real adult!" Nightwing supplies.

"A local dimensional real adult who can configure the device," Tim clarifies in thier comm.

When they arrive, Ivy is now starting to sprout a jungle on the factory rooftop.

"She’s up there. I’m gonna try talking reason into her, she probably wants to go back too," Dick says when he parks the motorcycle.

"She knows she’ll go back to Arkham if she cooperates with us. Harley is out now, she won’t go back in," Red Hood comments. They pull the grappling gun out. "Let’s go."

The rooftop is too high and too open, and Dickie, with his trauma-induced acrophobia, can’t go that height on the grappling gun.

"We will go by the stairs inside," Jason says.

"Why, squirts?" Red Hood turns to them. Jason averts his eyes. He still doesn’t want to talk to him.

"I have acrophobia," Dickie explains himself. "It’s from the Court."

"Oh." Dick looks at the small Dickie. "You can’t fly."

"One day I will be able to again," Dickie says, and leads Jason inside while Nightwing and Red Hood pull themselves up top.

It takes time to ascend the stairs, because Ivy is fucking already making the inside a jungle with moving plants. Jason has to cut them down with the birdarang in his hand, and Dickie brings Damian’s katana out to swipe at the sentient vines around him.

"If his katana gets chipped, we're gonna be so screwed," Jason mumbles, while listening to Nightwing try to persuade Ivy to go with them peacefully. It is not going great.

"Bring Harley or Selina here and I will believe you!" Ivy’s scream can be heard in his comm.

"Come on! I can’t bring her across the alternate dimension!" Nightwing shouts back, with the sound of wind in the mic, probably means he’s evading something.

"If you can’t negotiate within this minute, I’m thinking we need to change to the hit-first-explain-later tactic," Red Hood’s voice staticky echoes back amidst some sounds of yelps and Ivy’s angry screech.

"Robins, do you have a Harley or a Selina here?" Nightwing asks.

"Harley moved to San Fran at the same time as me after serving her sentence. We formed a Joker’s victim club. She’s a civilian now and never got close with our Ivy," Tim explains in their communicator. "Selina is in the off phase with Bruce and cannot be reached."

"I’m readying my gun right now," the Asshole says.

"Rubber bullets!" Dick barks, sounding winded.

"It’s Pam, of course it’s only rubber bullets and flamethrower. Why don’t you guys have a flamethrower?"

"Due to some recent gremlin wrecking havoc, the flamethrower was locked out of the children’s reach," Jason says.

"I just want to warm the Iceberg Lounge," Dickie says. "I hate the cold! No cold!"

"He burned all of the club down, and all the nearest three buildings."

"It’s all Cobblepot-owned and no one is dead!"

The sound in their channel changes to fighting noises, then the sound of Red Hood shouting, "Hah! Bull’s-eye!" and more screams from Ivy, so it’s probably good?

Then the building shakes, hard.

"What’s she doing up there!" Jason shouts.

"No, we just subdued her, it’s not—"

"J—Robin." Dickie tucks his cape. "No cold."

"Yeah, little menace, no—"

No, it’s really cold. The plants stop moving because the ground is not earth-moss-damp that Ivy summoned with her powers, but the dry hardness of winter soil.

Jason touches his comm. "You two above, you said you were in the middle of fighting Ivy, from the Arkham breakout."

"Yes." Nightwing confirms.

"Do you know another confirmed escape?"

"When we got alerted, it’s only Harvey and Ivy. Batman and our Robin are dealing with Harvey."

"Well, I can confirm that Mr. Freeze has also got out."

Chapter Text

Dickie, a 26-year-old ex-assassin, is undeniably a better fighter than 15-year-old baseline-human Jason. But he has two prominent weaknesses that are borderline crippling.

One, Dickie has acrophobia at heights 20 feet or above, the trapeze’s exact height, because the Court of Owl bastards punished him by letting him fall to death like his parents. Dickie compensates for this by stubbornly rushing up any available indoor stairs in any building. The kid is fast as hell since he requires less oxygen than a normal human.

Two, he’s still half-Talon. The reverse process is paused at 60 percent until Bruce can confirm no long-term serious side effect. Come to think of it, it’s almost time for the full evaluation. As of now, Dickie’s Talonized cells are still severely affected by the cold.

He becomes slower. And the psychological effect is prominent too. He had been frozen to death and defrosted to work again many, many times.

Mister Freeze, a classic villain that lacks new tactics compared to others, is normally considered not a big threat outside his stubbornness. But now, he’s Dickie’s true nemesis by nature. And with Dickie being half-human, half-Talon, they don’t know what will happen if Dickie gets frozen. He might just hibernate, or truly die.

In this universe, Bruce decides to fund the lab to help cure both his condition and his wife’s disease. It makes steady progress, and Victor Fries is a willing prisoner-scientist-test subject in Wayne Medical’s laboratory.

Guess he’s not, in the prime universe.

"Robin, Robin!" Jason shakes Dickie hard. He’s more sluggish in response now.

Jason pulls him out of a sudden freeze ray that gets shot their way. The guy adopts the shoot-first-ask-later policy, and seems to have fun turning the factory into a block of ice.

"J-Jay." Kid now forgets using the codename. "C-cold. No cold."

The factory temperature quickly drops. It’s maybe around 40°F now. Workable for humans, not for Dickie.

"He came from the portal in the basement, we need to go upstairs, quick!" He clicks his comm. "This is Robin, we have a situation. The little menace is starting to hibernate from the cold, I need to bring him upstairs. Is the rooftop clear?"

"Fuck, with the building shook earlier, the top is wrecked. We just grappled back down with a contained Ivy," is what Red Hood answers. "The ground is crackling, but yes, it’s clear from any fighting."

The ice sheet starts creeping up the wall, spreading from down below as Mr. Freeze’s laugh echoes. At this rate even the rooftop might get frozen too. Jason needs to distract the man from Dickie.

"Robin! You need to run upstairs alone." Jason pushes Dickie up the stairs. "Don’t let the frost get on you, the rooftop is safer for you."

"No. Don’t. Don’t leave me, Jay."

"I won’t. I need to lure him down. Mr. Freeze is not that hard to deal with for me, but you need to go up, Robin. Go. Fly."

At the word fly, Dickie grits his teeth and runs up.

Jason turns to the source of the freeze ray. "Hey popsicle, come play with me."

Jason has dealt with Victor a few times before now (with Batman presented). If he doesn’t bring new invention in and relies on his old freeze gun, the key is just keep evading until you can punch him.

And avoid slipping on the slippery floor. The shaking building does not help. The mayor should put more effort into building integrity regulation. What if some homeless kid hid here and got crushed? Actually, no kid should be homeless. The mayor should focus on that too.

"Stay still, you mongrel!"

Nope. And with the floor probably reaching subzero now, if he stands still, his feet are gonna stick frozen to the floor.

While he’s evading and looking for an opening, he keeps listening to the comm.

"Mini-me, are you up there yet? I’m gonna go back up." A sound of the grappling gun firing. "Shit! The bricks are crumbling. This building is really old. Let me find a new spot for the gun."

"It seems Ivy’s roots have eroded the foundation, the building is unstable. Up is not safe," Tim communicates.

"Down is not safe for him either, it’s subzero here now, I will lure Mr. Freeze deeper," Jason says. He makes a feint, and runs past him down the descending stairs. "Hey Victor! Ya big useless glass head. Over here!"

There’s a sound of hard thumping in the comm. "The ground floor door is freezing shut now. Really need a flamethrower," it’s Red Hood’s voice.

"The Batdrone is bringing it to you guys now. ETA 15 minutes," Tim supplies.

"Drone for specific gadget delivery in traffic hour? Good idea." A thumping sound again.

"I-I have reached the rooftop," the sound of Dickie in his ears. "It’s c-cold. And in ruins."

"Jump down!" Red Hood says.

"C-cant," Dickie’s voice is shaking. "It’s too high. Please don’t punish Talon again."

Nightwing speaks through the comm, "I can climb up."

Red Hood still tries breaking the door. "No you can’t, if the building is this cold, you gonna stick to the wall like licking a pole in winter."

"It’s g-getting colder. No cold death, master."

"Jump down." It’s Dick’s voice this time. "I can see you at the edge, jump down."

"It’s too high. Talon is gonna fall. Hurt. You fell. Tati. You're gone."

"No." And somehow, amidst his evading and hide-and-seeking with Mr. Freeze, Jason can imagine Dick as Nightwing standing straight with two feet perfect, arms open wide. "Even when they fall, they are not gone. I rise again and again in their legacy. So are you. You’re gonna fall and it probably hurts, but it will not be the end of the world. We are the Graysons, what do we do?"

"We fly," a small voice whispers.

"Fly, little Robin!"

And Jason knows what Dickie will do. The kid is the bravest kid he has ever met.

The building shakes again. Mr. Freeze himself loses his own footing. A sound of bodies clashing with each other in his comm.

"I got him," Nightwing says, while Jason sees a chance and punches the guy in the face, well, his glass helmet. It’s a good solid punch that Damian is gonna praise his form for.

With his glass helmet cracked, the next step is easy. Jason sidesteps the freeze ray again and shoots the tranquilizer into the panicked Mr. Freeze’s neck. The man stumbles, and falls to the floor.

He did it. He defeated a Rogue one-on-one! No Batman!

During that, a conversation in his ears continues on.

"Tim, the mini-me is very cold and lethargic, what should I do?"

Tim responds, "The Batmobile is also coming, you need to bring him in to gradually rewarm him back at the cave."

"Mister Freeze has been dealt with," Jason reports. "I’m gonna find a more structurally stable place and wait."

"Good job, Robin. It seems the shaking has stopped. The foundation of the building will not collapse soon. Wait for us," Tim says.

Jason tries to lift Victor up. Nah. The man with his cold-suit is too heavy for him. He has to leave him there. Hope he’s not crushed to death by a collapsing ceiling or something.

The ground floor of the factory is now a mess, icy vine and thorns, rubble and pebbles everywhere. The entrance that Jason walked through to see Sheila is frozen shut for now.

Oh, there’s a fire exit on that far opposite wall, hidden in the vines. That place seems stable, and less icy than the front entrance.

Jason lifts his hand up to open the comm, but before his hand reaches it, he is hit by something, hard, on the back of his head. He falls down to the icy floor, with his head ringing.

"Oooooooh. This is truly an Alice in Wonderland experience. A new bird! …but seem very familiar?"

A laughter.

Chapter Text

Jason suspects Dickie will grow up to be a scary person. Not like Dami-scary, but know-too-much-scary. The boy has very remarkable interpersonal social perception (re: emotional intelligence), a skill many Bats lack.

Even with the conflict you two currently have, even with hearing all my potty-mouth brother has said; you being dead, Bruce will not come and all of that. Do you stop loving Bruce?

Grown-up Dickie is scary as he thought. He knows Jason, a brother-stranger to the core.

Stop loving Bruce?

The embarrassing man that brought all of the family to the stupid ceremony that other teenagers won’t care about, except Jason.

The flawed man who really doesn’t know how to tell his sons he’s scared, and decides to file a fucking conservatorship instead.

The sad, sad man who never lets go of any tragedy in his life, whether his parents’ death, or his son’s disappearance, or many other heartbreaks and betrayals he experiences.

The man with many scars. Inside and out.

Jason watched Bruce pull the unsigned adoption paper of Dick Grayson while nursing a glass of scotch in his hand, and thought: I won’t be like him.

Jason wakes up in some place he does not know. Dark. Dingy. His vision is blurry. The back of his head is throbbing. His comm is gone from his ear.

"To think I got whoomp’d by some portal, and arrived in some…dimension? Universe? Dream? And seeing you again? Must be a good dream."

Metal drags on the concrete floor.

"My bestest boy." A hand pulls his hair and lifts his head up. He does not know this voice. "I reminiscenced this scene in my head so many times. I always think I can make it a bit better? Don’t you?"

Jason cracks his eyes open again. Green hair, too-wide smile. He knows him, vaguely, the rogue who has hurt Timmy so, so much.

"I don’t know whatcha talking about," Jason slurs.

"Don’t say it like that! We have spent so many bonding moments together. You in binding, I am hitting."

A first swing suddenly lands on Jason’s leg. He shouts in pain and surprise.

"Continue what I said earlier. While ending it with a bomb is so flashy! I think it will end too soon, don’t you think?"

Another swing, on his left arm. There is a loud crack radiating from inside his arm.

"Let’s redo it again. Forehand? Or backhand?"

Crack.

Crack.

SNAP.

Crack.

It hurts.

Everything is getting hazy, but it's still hurting. No more. Please.

He doesn't want to die. It hurts. He wants it to stop. It hurts, Dad.

A crack on his chest. He can't breathe.

He doesn't want to die. He wants to try his chance at being the valedictorian.

A crack on his leg, again. Please stop.

He doesn't want to die.

Jason watched Bruce pull the unsigned adoption paper of Dick Grayson while nursing a glass of scotch in his hand, and thought: I won't be like him. I won't go before my dad.

He doesn't want to die. His dad has had so many bad things happen to him already.

"Don't go silent so soon. This time I spare your head to make this last much, much longer. Try screaming? Try laughing? HahahaHAHahaHa—"

A gunshot rings, and the laughter abruptly stops.

Footsteps rush to him, a silhouette of a very large, towering man in front of him. Dad?

"Kid, kid. Robin?" He shakes Jason, and it hurts. Jason sobs out loud. "It's over now, kid. It's over."

A big hand lifts him up, holding him close to his chest. It hurts. Dad. He's scared. That Asshole said you won't come.

"He will. He will always come for you."

In these strong arms he is being moved somewhere. Dad, he wants to go home.

"I'm bringing you home. Mine might be late, but I won't let him ever be late again."

Jason drifts in and out.

He’s in a cave. Timmy’s face is so distraught. "I should be his last victim."

Don't be sad, Tim. We haven't finished our co-op yet. Come back home more often.

A machine beeps.

He’s on a stretcher, being rushed into some room with a bright light.

"I'm going to do the RSI now," Leslie's voice says. A burn in his right arm. A pressure on his throat.

Darkness. Intense, timeless darkness. He dreams of himself trapping in a box, puching the lid, using a belt buckle to dig himself out. This is him, but this is also not him. Whose dream is it?

A machine beeps.

Then, A smaller hand holds his. "I'm better now, Jay. You gotta get better too. You gotta."

You get better and better everyday, Dickie. I’m glad all the bad things have been put behind you.

"Most are internal blood loss. We have to cut a third of his ruptured liver. It will grow back but—"

A frustrating British accent. "This old man can't move his eyes away from you rascals for just a week. Master Jason, please get well soon."

Sorry, Alfie.

"Finally I can fucking contact them!" Tim shouts excitedly.

A door quickly opens. A shout. The sound of a fist landing on flesh.

"Jay! He's not our B!"

"This is for him, not for me."

A machine beeps again.

"It's sepsis on top of the trauma. It's to be expected with how many blood bags we had to transfuse—"

"Jason." It's Damian's voice. "The maneuver you did to apprehend Fries is well executed. I rarely offer praise, so your awake attention is warranted."

Next patrol I’ll show you. Let me come with you.

A chair scrapes on the floor, and a warm hand rests on his forehead. Then his cheek. Petting his hair.

"Jay-lad, don't do this to me."

Only a dork calls his children with pre-war nicknames. You are so ancient.

I won't die before you, old man.

Jason slowly wakes up in Gotham General Hospital.

Chapter Text

Jason is fully alert, oriented, and lucid on his fourth wake-up. Before that, it’s a blur of opioid haziness. Turns out, ten days have passed.

So. He has four fractured ribs and pneumohemothorax on the right side, both bone fractures on his left leg, midshafted right femur fracture, left forearm fracture, and a Grade IV liver laceration. And he got transfused a total of 14 PRCs and many more components. Got mean looking scars from his hepatectomy too.

Goodbye his next semester. Hello physiotherapy. Yay.

And with more than a week passed, it means Bruce and Damian have come back from their duo space mission, courtesy of Dickie’s scheme. (Tim said the little menace got scolded by both of them, not much, because Dickie started spiraling into thinking Jason was hurt because of his prank. And it turned into a consolation session.)

Dickie guarded the door vigilantly, too vigilant that he almost hurt one doctor and three nurses. Dickie maneuvers were repeatedly executed.

Now, with Jason stable and proceeding to solid recovery, the Waynes move Jason out of Gotham General into a private luxury recovery facility (re: the cave medbay), and currently he is surrounded by all of his family members, plus two extradimensional guests.

"You two are still here?"

Dick smiles, "Well, it turns out the time dilation is really strong, even 10 days is still just 10–15 minutes there. With your B back in town, he has reversed the portal, so no more rogue will slip in. And, someone is really worried about you."

That someone is his counterpart, sitting on the folding chair without looking at him.

"You saved me," Jason says to him.

The man shrugs.

"So I guess I can’t call you The Asshole in my head now,” he continues.

The ex-Asshole snickers. "You can call me, I dunno, Jay or something. Your Tim has been calling me that."

Okay, Jay it is.

"He has joined our Joker Victim San Fran club," Tim, who is doing some photo editing at the faraway desk says.

"Too bad I’m a temporary member."

Jason asks him, "Gonna be back soon?"

"Well, since you are on the mend, and the man who can finally fucking reconfigure the damn Luthor’s device is back…" Jay shrugs his shoulder in the direction of Bruce, who is sitting on the other side, with a face showing a large fist-shape bruise.

He looks solemn.

Jason doesn’t know how to speak with Bruce, so he looks at Jay, and points at the bruise location on his cheek.

"For Garzona," Jay says. "For not believing you."

Bruce glares at Jay. "It’s reasonable."

Jason’s heart pangs.

"B."

"Father."

Dick and Damian walk in together, both glaring daggers at Bruce. Dick quickly walks to put a hand down on Jay’s shoulder, who looks like he wants to punch Bruce again. Damian walks to Bruce, and gives him a new ice pack to nurse his bruise.

"Let me go," Jay says.

"It’s not what you think, Jay. B, care to explain further?" Dick pushes his brother back.

But Damian holds his hand up. "It’s my family, let me handle this."

Oh. Here it comes.

Damian turns to Bruce, crossing his arms. "Father, do explain the logic behind you benching Jason."

"As I said, it is reasonable."

"Not good enough," Damian states. "Be better when explaining reason to your children. Do you want them to scrutinize your dedication?"

"Of course not. It is reasonable benching him, a standard protocol when there is a questionable judgment that needs investigation. Police forces do this too."

"Inadequate," Damian insists. "We have established this many times, Father. When dealing with family members, you are Bruce Wayne, not Batman."

"But this is in the night activities—"

"Is my ice pack too cold? Your jaw seems too stiff, because it seems to produce words in the incorrect way. Or is it just because you yourself are unable to talk like an adequate parental figure."

Ooh. The burn.

"Damian." Bruce glares.

"Father." Damian shoots back. "You know you are in the wrong. Correct this. Or I won’t stop. Here, in the comm, in the League meeting."

Dick and Jay are whispering to themselves, "Jot that down, Dickhead," "This is somehow working," "Brat’s tongue has its use," "I’m so proud."

After an intense double Batglare™. Bruce is the one to avert his eyes, because adult Damian is the final manifestation of the Al Ghul bloodline and Batman himself. Bruce slowly speaks, "...Jason is already in distress as it is. I don’t want him to be further stressed while I investigate to confirm his innocence."

"Why don’t you fucking tell me that?" Jason blurts.

"He’s Bruce," Dick and Jay say simultaneously.

"Better, yet lacking," Damian gives a review. "There’s more."

Bruce fidgets. Damian glares. Actually, Jason doesn’t know what needs to be said more either.

"May I, little D?" Dick raises his hand.

"Call me that again and I will cut your tongue."

Dick smiles, unfazed. "Bruce, all of this—Garzona, Robin, the benching. Do you know why Jason runs to his mom without telling anyone?"

"Because Damian is not available in contact?"

"That’s not it." Dick shakes his head.

"Because he’s angry with me?"

Jay holds his face and silently screams in frustration. Timmy puts his forehead on the desk.

Dick sighs, "No. If only that, he’d wait for Damian to come back."

Bruce looks at Jason, and Jason can see Batman’s cogs turning in his head. "Jason thinks he has no place in this family if he’s not Robin."

Dick makes a ‘there’ gesture while Bruce suddenly looks alarmed. Damian releases a long sigh.

"No. Jay-lad. I, I don’t mean that. Robin or not. Angry or not. You are my son. Always."

"And." Now Damian, Tim, Dick, and Jay say together.

"And I’m sorry."

Bruce looks at Jason.

"Do you believe I didn’t push that bastard down?" he asks his dad.

"As Bruce Wayne, always, wholeheartedly. But as Batman, I need to inves—"

"That’s, that’s enough for me, B."

With his teenage years coming, they’re gonna butt heads so many times in the future, but the words he needs are that.

Jason drops his head back on a pillow. "Anyway, with so much surgery and physiotherapy I will need, I think my budding high school life has to be delayed for at least, what, three months?" He looks at Bruce.

Bruce, eager to catch the less emotional topic, says, "I have discussed with Leslie, if you don’t want to miss school much, it could be two months with some online studying."

"Nah. Just let me reroll high school again next year."

"But Jay-lad," Bruce objects, "you love school."

Jason looks at the medbay ceiling. "Well, I want a pristine high school record. Me not being there half of the semester will not do that." He turns to Bruce. "I want to be a valedictorian with a full scholarship. Gotta make ma old man proud."

He thinks he almost, almost, makes Bruce speechless, but the man recovers himself enough. "I’m already proud of you plenty, Jason. And next time the Waynes and co. will come cheer you on in the flashiest luxury RV the world ever sees."

Jay looks at Jason and Bruce, deep in thought.

"Um." A sound echoes from behind Jay and Dick’s back. They both flinch a little.

"Jesus, how are you so quiet!? This is Cass level," Jay shouts at Dickie, who does not acknowledge him and walks to Jason’s bedside.

"Jason, does this mean me being Robin makes you sad?" He sits on Jason’s bed.

"Uh. Yes. No. I mean. Just insecure, but Bruce has explained that—"

"You fought with Bruce because I asked to be Robin, right?"

It’s hard to hide this kind of thing from Dick(s).

Dickie tilts his head down. "Then I’m sorry, I don’t want to be Robin now. But then Talon has to go back to being Talon again."

Oh shit, fuck. In his teenage angst Jason forgets that the kid just recovers from a decade-long brainwash. He’s so selfish. "No, Dickie, what Bruce has said applies to you too. Bruce! Fix this!"

He turns to Bruce, who quickly responds, "Of course, chum. Both of you. You can be Robin, or not, or no one is a Robin. All of you will still be here with me, as Dick, as Jason, as my sons."

"Yes, Dickie, and fuck my insecure ass, we can be Robin together!" Jason uses his only remaining hand to ruffle the kid’s hair.

Dickie looks at Jason and Bruce. "Oh." His eyes go wide. "Oh! If it works like that, then nope, Jay! You are a very good Robin, you go on being Robin, I will be something new."

"What."

Dickie jumps on the bed excitedly (ouch). "It’s time for an all-new Flying Grayson debut!"

"You gonna let Robin go, just like that?" Jason shouts, incredulous.

"Yes. I held on being Robin for so long, but it’s time to let Robin help others! I hereby officially pass the baton to you, Jay. Oh! And Dami and Timmy too, backward. Seeing other me not being Robin is a call for me to find a new stage name anyway! New catchphrase, new costume, new acts!”

He flips down from the bed, landing two feet perfect together, and runs out.

Unhinge gremlin.

Jay nudges his brother. "Mini-you letting the name Robin go, he’s more mature than you."

Dick looks at the door with wonder. "The mantles of Nightwing and Batman in this universe are already occupied, I don’t know who he will be. This is a new possibility that the two of us will never know."

Chapter Text

With Jason in steady recovery, it’s time for their guests to say goodbye.

Jason is in the wheelchair in front of the dimensional gate, with Dickie pushing it since Jason only has one functional arm. Bruce, in Batman’s suit, adjusts the final preparation. Dami and Timmy aren’t here. Timmy is at the cave, while Damian patrols the area just in case.

“The destination is set, you two can go back now.” He turns to Dick, in the Nightwing suit, and Jay, in Red Hood gear sans helmet. Behind them is a sedated Ivy and Victor, and a seal-shut urn of the Joker.

After intense discussion, they concluded that the Joker’s body should be sent back, to prevent the universe from seeing double Joker causes as errata and doing something irreversible. But since bringing one corpse and two rogues back in the middle of an Arkham breakout may be too chaotic, they vaporized all of Joker’s body and put all his atoms into the urn.

Bruce is, frankly, okay with the Joker’s death yet again. Dick explained to Jason later that when Bruce knew Jay killed Joker, he said, “I always condemn killing, but if it’s already happened, and you aren’t burdened by the act, then there is nothing to be done further.” The man can be a tight-ass idealist and a pragmatist at the same time.

“Will you be okay to go back with two rogues in the middle of the breakout?” Jason asks.

“Of course,” Jay shrugs. “It’s roughly fifteen minutes past now over there, with three rogues already dealt with here, I think we and the guys over there will be okay.”

Jason turns to look at Dickie, who is still in the Robin suit because his new design has a deep-cut V-neck that no one approves. When Dami methodically berated the suit design, Jay laughed so much while Dick somehow turned so red.

Dick bends down to look the kid in the eyes. “Remember, the Grayson legacy is within you. Daj and Tati are within your eyes, your face, your heart, and in every smile you give to the world. You will be able to fly soon, I know it.”

Dickie nods and hugs him tight.

Jay watches them and snickers. “He’s so tiny when you hug him like that… Oh yes! B!” Jay turns to Bruce, maybe the first time he directly talks to Bruce in this universe, except the punch. He smiles gleefully. “That precious little sunshine and rainbow? He will turn to a hormonal nightmare when he reaches puberty.”

Bruce seems confused under the cowl.

“Uh. Yeah. Come to think of it,” Dick says while he still hugs little Dickie. “It’s so embarrassing. Hormones.”

“The most rebellious of Robins,” Jay starts. “Much rage, so angry.”

“Dropping uni out of nowhere,” Dick says.

“Dealing with questionable mercenaries.”

“Shotgun marriage.”

“You just can’t keep it in your pants, really.”

“Shaddup! I get better, okay? But admittedly, it’s not my best era.”

“B got so many gray hairs from you.”

They both laugh, but Bruce turns pale while looking at Dickie.

During this, Jason approaches his counterpart. “Uh, hey, thanks for saving me.” He tries to act cool. “Tim said I still haven’t reached the trauma threshold to join his club yet, thanks to you.”

“No, kiddo. It’s you who I need to thank,” Jay says back. “You make me remember… when I reached you, I only thought ‘I gotta save the kid,’ the anger, the revenge, it wasn’t in my head at all at that moment.” He pauses. “You make me remember who I really am.”

“An asshole.”

Jay snickers. “Yeah.” He raises his fist to Jason, who bumps it back, because they’re both allergic to hugs.

“Oh and, I copied this for you.” Jason pulls a letter from his jacket’s pouch. “Mum’s letter. You said yours was gone.”

Jay takes the letter and opens it. “Thanks, kid… Huh? You put your survey in with the letter again!” He laughs and gives it back to Jason.

“Survey letter,” Bruce says. “What survey letter.”

“Shit! Don’t read it, Dad! It’s embarrassing. The letter is void anyway since I’ll re-enroll!”

“Embarrassing!?” Both Dicks turn to him like the pain-in-the-ass brothers they are and compete with each other to swipe the letter from Jason’s hands. It’s Dick who gets it.

“You completed the survey, Baby Jay! Let’s see. Ooooooooooh. Oh. My. God. Jay. See what mini-you writes. Damn.”

Jay stretches his neck to look at it. “Whoa. This is new. I never thought about this, just maybe a teacher or nonprofit organization worker.”

Bruce, the helicopter dad, moves to look too, and turns to Jason. “Jason, this is a remarkable aspiration. I wholeheartedly support you. I’ll start the trust fund for this immediately.”

“Lemme see!” Dickie jumps and pulls it from Dick’s hand. “Government… JASON, YOU WANT TO BE A PRESIDENT!?” He clicks his comm. “Dami, Timmy! JAY WANTS TO BE A PRESIDENT.”

Tim whistles in his comm. “Either go big or go home, eh?”

Damian’s voice also echoes in the comm. “Admirable commitment.”

“No!” Jason snatches the survey letter back. His cheek is on fire. “I did not write that. I’m not Lex fucking Luthor! But, with shit like Garzona, and many criminals like that, I think maybe I can fight them above the ground too! Change the rules, change the world. Maybe a prosecutor that makes the charge stick, or maybeifIcanthemayorofGotham.” He holds the letter to his chest.

Bruce puts his hand on his head. “I’m so proud of you, son.”

Jay looks at him and Bruce. “Heh, I might talk with my own old man, hear what he’ll say if I want to be a teacher.”

Dick checks his gear “He will be proud of whatever you choose, Jay. He’s already proud.”

“If he is, he ain’t showing it.”

“Let me be there when you speak to him. I got the manual from Damian on how to make B spew his feelings.”

Jay laughs and puts his helmet on. “Mini-you gonna be a hero you never heard of, mini-me gonna take a career I never thought of. I like this universe.”

“Too bad it’s a one-way track.” Dick points his thumb at the portal.

“Ain’t life always a one-way track?” Jay tucks the letter in his jacket.

They both lift Victor and Ivy like potato sacks, Dick has the Joker’s urn in his other arm.

“So long, kids.”

“Nice to meet you! Adios!”

And they jump into the portal at the same time, which vanishes with them. Gone the shittiest and greatest week of Jason’s teenage life. For now. ’Cause he knows he’s gonna grow and experience many more things. Shitty things. Awesome things. And all that’s in between.

Batman touches both his sons’ shoulders. “Let’s go home.”

“Yeah. Let’s.” He holds his dad’s hand.

Chapter Text

Career Interest Survey Form

Student Name: Jason Peter Todd-Wayne

Grade: 9th

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1. Career Interests

Which careers are you most interested in exploring? (Check all that apply)

☑ Law / Government Prosecutor, Lawmaker, Judge, Mayor?

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2. Favorite School Subjects

Which subjects do you enjoy the most? (Choose up to 3)

☑ English / Literature

☑ History / Social Studies

☑ Other: still not math.

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3. Plans After High School

What are you most likely to pursue right after graduation?

☑ Four-year college/university Gotta follow your dream.

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4. Skills & Activities

What skills or activities would you like to explore more in high school? (Check all that apply)

☑ Leadership (student council, clubs) Really don’t want to, but need must.

☑ Public speaking / debate Same as above.

☑ Volunteering / community service

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5. Additional Comments

Is there anything else you’d like teachers or counselors to know about your future goals?

You know what, my dad is filthy mega-rich, it’s time to use his money for a good cause. If Lex Luthor can do it, I can do it too.