Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Category:
Fandoms:
Relationship:
Characters:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Series:
Part 3 of we're totally like the mob
Stats:
Published:
2016-08-11
Words:
2,838
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
74
Kudos:
1,312
Bookmarks:
131
Hits:
12,607

history has its eyes on you, jason

Summary:

"So," Tim says, "I hear you're alive now."
"What the fuck," Jason says, and hangs up.

Notes:

  • Inspired by [Restricted Work] by (Log in to access.)

okay so this whole thing started when I read catmeghum's GREAT batfamily-sees-hamilton fic and I left it, you know, laughing and happy and also wondering, "wait... what about paparazzi? what about people wondering "who's that guy with the waynes that looks like jason todd, who's supposed to be dead?" that was months ago. today I give you this! it's not based directly off of it, but when I thought about the gang seeing hamilton I thought about that fic. seriously, it's great.

I'm thinking about doing other stories in this 'verse, so it's tagged as a series. hope you enjoy!

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

Jason initially blames Lin-Manuel Miranda for everything. Then he blames Tim. Then, inevitably, he blames himself.

It starts like this: Tim keeps an eye on the press, even after Vicky got smart. Jason is hooked on Hamilton. Oracle invites Jason to go to the Hamilton premier with team Batgirl, because she’s amazing. Paparazzi catches Jason (and team Batgirl) at the premier, in the Wayne box (courtesy of Cass). Tabloids spend a week speculating on who Jason is and why he’s at the theater with Bruce Wayne’s sons’ ex-girlfriends (and Bruce Wayne’s fourth stray child). Babs is not a fool, but she still doesn’t do anything. Just as the tabloids dry up, Lois Lane publishes an article with the Gazette. Headline: JASON TODD ALIVE?

The first congratulatory phone call comes through at about nine, which in vigilante time translates to about three a.m. Because Oracle protects the batfamily (past and present), Jason doesn’t bother checking the caller I.D., he just answers, trying to shake the sleep off. “Lo?”

“ So ,” Tim says, unmistakably amused. “ I hear you’re alive now.”

“What the fuck, ” Jason says, and hangs up.

He doesn’t get the actual article for about twelve hours. He does, however, in those twelve hours get approximately sixteen congratulatory phone calls. He wonders, after hanging up on a laughing Roy, if everyone’s playing an elaborate joke on him.

No, he figures, because no one could rope Bruce into it, and Bruce was the seventh call. (He really did sound amused, too. “Congratulations, Jason, you’re looking well for someone who isn’t dead. Alfred wants to know if you’re still on for dinner Saturday?”)

(Or maybe it’s not that Bruce actually sounded amused, but that Jason’s just really good at reading him again.)

He goes out on patrol, because that’s what he does, and stops by a corner store on the way through Crime Alley, and finds himself a newspaper stand. He takes a copy of the Gazette up to a very secluded rooftop so he can read it and laugh until he cries, and then actually cry, and then call Oracle and ask why she didn’t put a stop to this.

“ Easy, ” she says. “ Because people would suspect. Erasing the story from existence would mean she knows she’s right, and that can’t be allowed. The family will just “no comment” everything for a while, and you just do your thing-- maybe avoid trips to the theater, though, that was our slip-up.”

“Why,” Jason says, “Do I suspect our slip-up was deliberate?”

“ It could have been, ” Barbara says. “ Inviting you actually wasn’t my idea, it was Tim’s. Apparently you’d been enjoying the cast album, he said? Anyway, he found out Steph was talking us into seeing it and told me to invite you. ”

“Oh, Babybird,” Jason says thoughtfully. “Yup, this was deliberate. You know how he gets, this is one of his… schemes .”

“ Schemes, ” Barbra says thoughtfully. “ If this was Tim’s idea all along, that must mean he’s decided something needs to change. And there’s no stopping him now.”

“Which is what I’m suddenly afraid of,” Jason says. Barbara laughs and signs off, and Jason sets the newspaper on fire and enjoys it for the thirty seconds it takes to burn before getting back to work.

Thing is, the “family” has been doing pretty alright lately. Jason broke out of Arkham within four months of being put in (cheers to group breakouts, no one was going after him and he could quietly help put everyone else back first), and spent a long time after that drifting; the family grew and shrunk and grew again around him, and when Tim called him for a few words about the Titans and other such shenanigans, he felt level-headed enough to remember he owed the kid one. After that it was Barbara, and then the Outlaws, and after that he had a bit of a rapport going with team Batgirl, and after that he shared a rooftop with Dick and the kid long enough to look Batman in the eye and not shoot anyone.

And then…

Well, considering where he is now, it’s easy to put the pieces together.

“Was it a good musical?” Damian asks (demands to know) from where he’s commandeered Jason’s sofa. Jason shoots a look over the top of his laptop and sees the kid: seemingly immersed in a book, feigning nonchalance. Okay then.

“Why?” Jason says. “Thinking about getting the old man to take you?”

“Just answer the question, Todd,” Damian grumbles. Jason grins and says,

“It’s no Coriolanus, but it’s good. You might enjoy how the main character deals with his issues.”

“Is it anything like how you deal with your issues, because if so I’ll stop you there.”

“Wow, brat, I’m stung. Nah, it’s more like how Tim handles his issues. ‘ If I’m going down, I’m taking everyone with me!’ ” Damian snorts. “Also,” Jason says, “The music is good. And the battles are intense.” Damian raises his eyebrows.

Four days later, Jason has an invitation to go see Hamilton again, this time with his “brothers”. Dick calls separately and offers him one of the holo-masks they occasionally employ in the field, but he can’t stop laughing when he says it. Jason hangs up and calls Tim.

“So,” he says. “Is this your plan? Family bonding and paparazzi?”

“ You catch on quick, ” Tim says. “ Yes, you’ve been played, yes, it was my intention for the press to catch you. If the Red Hood and the Family keep working together--” Jason read between the lines here, if we keep getting better at being a family-- “someone’s bound to put the pieces together anyway, and I want to be on top of what the press does and doesn’t know.”

“You are a smart, scary man,” Jason says. “So what’s the next move?”

“ Next move is that you appear at Hamilton with the family, and the move after that is we invite Lois to come to us demanding the truth. We give her some bullshit to publish like, ‘the body we found was the wrong one’, and somehow Jason Todd woke up in Tibet with no memory, et cetera. Very tragic, close to the truth, and Jason Todd coming back to the family now keeps our covers safe in case of emergency. ” Tim sounds smug. Of course he’s smug, he’s staying ten steps ahead and not tripping over his own feet. He’s probably been thinking about this since they started talking to each other like normal people.

“Alright, I’m in,” Jason says. “But when it comes down to it, I want Lois and I to do the story together. Front-page interview, media circus type deal. Lots of theatrics.”

“ Just what I was hoping you’d say, ” Tim replies. “ And you get to see Hamilton again in the process. Win-win? ”

“ Such a win,” Jason replies. “See you at the theater?”

“ See you there, ” Tim replies.

==

The first act goes by quietly, with Dick and Tim and Bruce paying rapt attention and Damian quietly admitting to Jason that the music is quite adequate, actually. There are a few high points-- Tim whistling every time Hamilton says something particularly stinging, Dick’s sharp breathing all through Story of Tonight, Bruce and Dick’s exchange of glances during History has its Eyes on You, but the Wayne boys are a well-behaved bunch when the society pages are watching.

(That doesn’t stop Dick and Damian from high-fiving when Hamilton and Lafayette declare that immigrants get the job done.)

And, okay, maybe in the adrenaline rush of dodging the paparazzi during the intermission (something he hasn’t had the joy of doing since before he died), he forgot to mention that a good musical is ten pounds of emotion in a five pound sack. Or that Hamilton resets the bar for a good musical. Or that the whole box got a little misty-eyed last time he went to see it, so god knows how anyone will react.

Long story short, it winds up being his job to hold the Babybird down in his seat when the going gets rough. Bruce and Dick and Damian are doing an effective enough job of keeping each other in their seats, but that’s because Dick’s having one of those moments when he wants to remember that his family’s right there and not, you know, dead.

(It’s one of those musicals.)

Jason clears his throat and thumps Tim on the back as the lights dim, and thinks about the irony of he and the gang watching a musical stating that no one has control of their story as a ploy to take control of who’s telling the family’s story. Then he comes back to the manor with the family, because Bruce still looks a little queasy and he suspects the family sticking around will be good for his emotional health. (Bruce’s emotional health. Not that he has any.)

It occurs to Jason, as he follows his brothers into the house and runs into a very smug-looking Cassandra, that everyone has been doing a little better in recent days. Tim tells people when he’s upset (sometimes), and Bruce acknowledges people more often (because Cass steps on his toes when he doesn’t), and Cass is, well, around, and Steph and Bruce can look each other in the eye, so on and so forth.

“How did it go?” Cass asks, when the knot of people hugging (see: Dick hugging everyone) disperses. Jason looks at her smug smile and smiles back, shrugs.

“We enjoyed ourselves,” he says. “And, hey, maybe traumatized Dick again, but in the name of art.”

“I heard that.”

“We know,” Jason calls over his shoulder. “Anyway, it was good. And there’ll be lots of pictures for the papers tomorrow, so Tim can call Lois anytime he likes, thanks.”

“Wait, what?”

“Wait, what?”

Jason laughs and pats Cass on the shoulder on his way out, leaving Tim to deal with this impromptu confession on his own. It was Tim’s idea, he can survive being thrown under the bus.

==

“You threw me under the bus,” Tim says, when Jason takes a turn into his territory later that night. Jason grins at him and his honestly affronted expression.

“You really didn’t see that coming, Detective?” He says. Tim rolls his eyes-- the motion barely registers behind his stupid-looking cowl-- and replies,

“I did see it coming, I just hoped that I’d misjudged you.”

“Ouch,” Jason says. “Did B read you the riot act?”

“Nah, he just said something about ‘I’m sure you have it under control’ and left me to the tender mercies of Big Bird and the Brat.” Jason laughs.

“Must’ve been a nightmare,” he says. “Got that interview scheduled?”

“Lois is free next week. She wants to know if you’re the Red Hood, so I told her you’d answer any of her questions personally. ”

“Your faith in me is inspiring,” Jason said. “Want to go beat something up?”

Tim smiles. “Let’s go beat something up.”

They go and beat something up, and Jason goes back to his hole-in-the-wall safehouse after and Tim, after a moment’s hesitation, follows, muttering something about filling in reports tomorrow. He’s gone before Jason wakes up, but Jason suspects it’s more about the proximity than the actual company. He’s not complaining.

The following Wednesday, he sits down with Lois Lane over coffee, in Wayne Manor, and first he establishes that there’s nothing incriminating in the room, and then together they spin some bold faced lies. They get a congratulatory call from Clark later, which Dick laughs about over dinner. Clark apparently also sent Jason a dinner invitation, which will serve to have him in Metropolis for a quick photoshoot. (He has made this bed. Now he’s gotta lie in it.)

==

Over dinner, the day before the article comes out-- it makes it sound like they spend a lot of time together, which they don’t, but coming back from the dead should apparently be reason enough for celebration-- Bruce brings something up.

“Seeing as you’re coming back into the public eye a little,” he says slowly, “What do you think about being legally declared alive?”

“Well, seeing as I’m being conveniently forced into the public eye,” Jason says, shooting a stage-glare at Tim (Tim doesn’t look impressed), “I’ll think about it.”

“Ooooh, he’s serious,” Dick remarks. “I don’t remember the last time you thought about something, Jay.”

“Speak for yourself,” Damian says, making everyone look up. In the half second it takes for everyone to realize he’s joking, Jason thinks about being legally declared alive. (It would feel nice to have a real driver’s license.) Then Dick bursts out laughing, and he returns to the present.

“I’m so proud of you, Dami,” Dick’s saying, and Damian’s looking smug, and Tim’s gone back to his dinner but he looks happy, which is a good look for the Babybird. Makes him look closer to his age for once.

Jason and Damian don’t patrol together-- never do-- but at 2 am when team Batgirl sends out an APB ice-cream invitation, they’re somehow the two non-Batgirls that show up at Frosty’s on Forty-Third. There’s an awkward pause as they land at roughly the same time and stare at each other-- neither of them quite sure how to proceed-- and then Stephanie-as-Batgirl says,

“Cut the posturing, you two, the ice-cream’s melting. Hey, Hoodie.”

“Hoodie?” Jason says, stuck between amused and affronted. Damian snorts, but he listens to Stephanie and goes to sit down, which is the most surprising thing Jason has seen in weeks.

“They have an understanding,” Cass says from behind him. Jason doesn’t jump. It’s a deliberate thing, and when he turns around Cass is smirking.

“I get that impression,” he says blandly. She grins.

“Ice-cream?” She says. “It’s good.” Jason nods.They follow Damian and Stephanie to the outside table already secured for them, and Jason takes his helmet off and plops it at the head of the table like a mascot. It stays there as Stephanie says something about paranoid weirdos who wear two masks, and it keeps on staying there as they bicker over flavors and trade bowls and throw surplus spoons and as Stephanie insists on a not-actually-dead-Robins selfie (featuring Cass). And sometime after that, when the sugar high kicks in and the sky above Gotham starts turning grey, they play what’s possibly the most epic game of Batkid tag ever.

On his way to bed, glancing at the two Batgirls (and Robin) crashed on his couch, Jason decides that bonding in the Family should always go like this. It works off the typical aggression in much healthier ways.

==

Batgirl’s selfie goes to Instagram and Lois’s article hits the streets roughly twelve hours apart. The one, on the Official (non-verified) Batgirl Instagram, racks up a like for roughly every person in Gotham and a surge of disbelieving comments (The Red Hood helmet sitting just in frame probably helps with that one). The other, on roughly every newsstand in the city, sells out by noon. Jason finds a copy on his kitchen counter (courtesy of Black Bat and Robin, who are conveniently gone, unlike Stephanie) when he finally gets up. He makes coffee and he reads the article; he knows what to expect, considering as he had a key hand in putting it together, but there’s still room for surprise.

The picture Lois paints of him is. It’s surprisingly close to genuine, for all the fabricated stories they spun together for the occasion. Perks of having a friend in your corner for publicly coming back from the dead, he supposes.

(He looks good in the pictures, too. Dang.)

“Enjoying your fifteen minutes of fame, Jay?” Stephanie says, slouching into the kitchen. She’s still in uniform, sans cape, cowl, belt, and boots, and her hair is everywhere. It’s adorable. Jason appreciates knowing that not all Batgirls (looking at you, Babs) roll out of bed fabulous.

“Enjoying the death of my anonymity, maybe,” he replies, folding the newspaper and setting it aside. “Coffee mugs are behind you. At least it’s for a good cause, I guess.The Family will be stronger for it.”

“I might believe you,” Stephanie says, getting out a mug and shoving him out of the way to get to the coffee pot, “If you didn’t phrase ‘The Family’ like you meant ‘The Mob’.”

“Aren’t we, though?” Jason says.

 

Jason Todd: Life After Death

By Lois Lane

I had the pleasure of meeting Jason Todd once, at a charity gala his adoptive father hosted not long before his supposed death. At the time he was charming, exuberant,  proudly explaining to me that he’d received his black eye ‘pushing some bourgie off a kid who was just minding his own business.’

The man I meet at Wayne Manor is quite obviously Jason Todd, but before he even shakes my hand I can tell he is far from the person he was.

“Ms. Lane,” he says, his smile a smaller reflection of the one I remember. “Been a while, hasn’t it? You haven’t changed a bit.”

Notes:

if you liked it, please do remember to comment and stuff, writers THRIVE off validation. seriously. also I'm on tumblr @captainpeggys if you'd like to hit me up there! bye!

Series this work belongs to: