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The idea that Jason was “grounded” was ludicrous.
He was a twenty-one year old man of his own means and there was literally nothing Bruce or anyone could do about it. He hadn’t even done anything wrong, really - the most illegal thing that had taken place on their little road trip was letting Cass drive.
Even if that did wind up having unfortunate consequences (“Cassandra Wayne’s Joyride of Terror Ended by the Batman” was currently pinned on the fridge), it was ridiculous to think that Jason needed to ask permission for literally anything.
“Alfred,” Jason said, fingers drumming on the island counter.
“Master Jason,” Alfred recited back, filling a tray of tarts with custard.
“I’m heading out this afternoon.”
He absolutely did not hold his breath as Alfred fixed him with that neutral gaze.
“Is that right, sir.”
“I -“
“You are of course aware that your leg’s swelling has only just reduced to normal size. And you were forced back on crutches on account of those other… activities.”
“I’m not going looking for trouble alright? But I need to get out of this house. I’ve got apartments to scope out. Furniture to buy? Talia threw out more than half of my stuff.”
Nothing noticeable changed in Alfred’s face or posture, but Jason could swear the room got just a little bit chillier at her name.
“I see.”
“I won’t go alone,” Jason said quickly.
“If I recall correctly that has never stopped you from getting into any measure of mischief. Besides, Ms. Gordon has been quite adamant that your sister stay home for the time being.”
Jason huffed. “Steph then.”
“Miss Brown, who when last left alone with her, the pair of you found yourselves in a burning orphanage?”
“Whoa, whoa, hey. That was a totally different set of circumstances. I needed to protect those kids and Bruce was being a tighta- too uptight about it.” Jason coughed. “I did the only logical thing.”
“I somehow doubt that.” Alfred sighed and ran a colander of dark strawberries under the faucet. “I realize that denying you would undoubtedly only lead to some elaborate and impetuous escape act. So if you’d like me to inform your father that you left the manor with my blessing, I will do so. Provided you do find someone to accompany you.”
“Knew I could count on you, Alfred.” Jason gathered his crutches and made for the elevator.
Even with all of his childhood things sent off to donation drives or the bins (although he suspected that Alfred had squirreled away more than a few mementos) he couldn’t let himself get too comfortable in his old room. Even if he and Bruce had an understanding between them, he had no intention of living under the man’s roof for any longer than absolutely necessary.
Jason hobbled past Terry’s nursery, where Damian was reading a picture book with hilariously serious intent.
“Stay awake, child. This is the part that reinforces the moral,” Damian was saying as he turned a page.
“He’s a little young for bedtime stories, don’t you think?” Jason asked.
“Infants begin language acquisition prenatally, Todd,” Damian said without looking up. “As we have no idea what meager stimuli he was exposed to in that dreadful orphanage, it is on us to make up for lost time.”
“Right. Well I need Steph’s civilian number. You got it?”
“You’d better not be mixing up any trouble. You and Cain have brought enough shame unto our household as is,” Damian said, extracting his phone from his pocket.
Jason rolled his eyes as he entered Stephanie’s number into his new phone. He left Damian to his somber rendition of Where the Wild Things Are and fired off a quick text.
‘ it’s J. round 2 of apartment hunting and I’ll buy you lunch.’
The first apartment complex was situated on the outskirts of the East Side, just across an expanse of parking lot from an old outlet mall. The building’s paint was faded and crumpled newspaper littered the sprawling carpark like the backdrop of a zombie apocalypse.
“There it is. In the distance,” Steph said, stepping out of the car and the sun catching on her dollar store shades. “O, the treacherous sea of cars and asphalt.”
“Hilarious.”
“We will have to ride our trusty garbage pails to make it across this barren valley,” she continued soberly. “Hi ho Trashboat.”
“Are you done.”
“Ride like the literal wind.”
“I am trying to find something that’s a reasonable commute from the action in this city,” Jason said, folding the list of addresses into his pocket.
“It’s Gotham. There’s action everywhere.”
“Well my kind of action, then.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? You’re doing a rebrand. You don’t know what kind of action is yours.” Steph followed, sorting through the various keys they’d collected from the ramshackle realtor’s office.
“My outfit might change but I’m still the same,” Jason said as they entered the building.
It smelled like dust and cigarettes, and the lightbulb over the mailbox had blown out.
“Wayne Manor’s a short commute to Uptown,” Steph said, covering her nose as they ascended the stairs.
Jason shot her a disbelieving look.
“Alright, alright. Speaking of outfits, did Cass show you her designs?” Steph asked.
“Yes, I saw the drawings.”
“Nah man, while Babs has Cass under lock’n key she’s been showing her how to use some fancy rendering software. It’s coming along. And before you say anything, you know you love the helmet.”
“I’m resigned to it. A deal’s a deal.”
The apartment was a large studio with long cracks in the walls and clouded windows.
“This isn’t bad for the area.”
“I honestly don’t know if you’re fucking with me or not,” Steph said, flinching as the fridge began to rumble loudly. “If Jason Head moves in here the press are going to think you have a drug problem.”
“Don’t care. It’s either that or they think I’m some idiot out-of-town richboy who somehow gets lost in Park Row.”
“Yeah well, you know that last week a columnist called me Damian’s babysitter? There is no dignity to be found within a mile’s radius of this family and that’s a fact.”
“So you want to keep looking.”
“At someplace that isn’t a slum, please.”
The next few places didn’t impress Stephanie either. One had water damage on the bathroom tiles, another smelled overwhelmingly of rotted cabbage, another had an owner who said he’d sometimes need to get in to use the tenant’s storage closet, one was a basement the landlord had repurposed, and another had broken children’s toys littered across the floor and scratch marks under the windows.
She really didn’t like that one.
“Okay, nope. I don’t know what realtor you got this list from and I don’t want to know, but there is no way you are renting an apartment haunted by the Slenderman,” Steph took the paper from Jason’s hand and tore it to scrap. “I get having pride, hoo boy do I get it. But this is out of hand.”
“This is what apartments look like in middle-class Gotham,” Jason said, following her down the sidewalk. “I thought you’d understand that.”
“But you’re not middle class, Jason! Your dad’s one of the richest men in the world, you can’t live in a dumpster because you’re stubborn!”
Jason scowled. When he was Red Hood he’d never worried about where he made camp. It was usually only temporary anyway. He liked staying in the broken down complexes because it meant he constantly had his ear to the ground. When someone made ripples across the local populace, he felt it like everybody else.
It was maybe a little difficult to come to terms with the fact that he wasn’t Red Hood anymore. Everything he did, the whole way he operated, would have to change.
His thoughts were interrupted when Stephanie's phone went off, playing a ridiculously upbeat jingle that Jason didn’t recognize.
“Y’ello? Oh hey man. Nothing huge, just helping a friend hunt for his new place. Really ? Sounds awesome. Sure, sure. See you then.”
She hung up, tapping the phone thoughtfully against her lips.
“Who was that?”
“Someone I know from the university.” Steph sidled up to him and put an arm around Jason’s shoulders. “You never went to college, right?”
“Obviously not.”
“So I guess you’ve never been to a frat either.”
He leaned somewhat out of her grip. “Where are you going with this.”
“There’s a party tonight, and it’s kinda-sorta my turn to pitch in on the booze run. What d’you -“
“I don’t think so.”
“Oh come on! It’ll be fun. Rite of passage and all that,” Steph said. “Help me out and I promise the next time you need to bail on the manor, I’m totally there.”
Jason sighed. “I… guess. We drop off the drinks and you say hi to your friends, but that’s it.”
“Rad.” Steph slapped Jason on the back. “Now we just need to bust out Cass.”
“We need to what?”
Oracle was off working with Black Canary and Huntress for the weekend, but the security she'd left Cass under was tighter than what most countries had for their world leaders.
Yet all Steph had to do was show up on the apartment doorstep with a winning smile, telling a near-invisible speck of a camera that she just wanted to take Cass out for dinner in the university village. No costumes involved, totally harmless. A long moment of silence later, and the door wordlessly unlocked itself.
“Behold,” Steph said as they slid back into her car. “The power of being vivacious and likable.”
“Funny.” Jason nodded at his sister from the back seat, which he was now sharing with several bags of soda and liquor. “Hey Cass.”
“Little brother,” she said, fiddling with the hem of her blouse.
And then she ripped the bottom half of her shirt off.
Jason hit his head on the car roof. “Whoa my god -“
“Dude chillax. Cass doesn’t have party clothes so she just rips up the ones she has. She totally rocks that post-apocalyptic chic.” Steph turned to Cass. “Jason’s never been to a party before.”
“How sad.”
“This... isn’t something you guys do often?” Jason looked between them. “Right?”
“Hm, not often. But every now and then. Cass likes to dance, but I haven't seen her drink. You've drunk before though, right?”
“Yes, Stephanie I have drunk before. You can’t deal with gangsters unless you can hold liquor.” Jason rolled his eyes. “Is this a good idea though? I mean -“
“Dude. Bruh. It’s Saturday. You’re twenty-one and friends with the most popular, esteemed babe in all of Gotham University-“
“Who?”
“Cass, smack him for me.”
A second later a rumpled scrap of shirt was tossed in his face.
“So don’t be such a stick in the mud.” Steph grinned at him in the rearview mirror. “Unless you’re scared of what Bruce would say.”
Jason glared.
“Why would I be scared?"
It was dark when they arrived at the fraternity house and Jason could already feel the bass of the music through the floor of the car.
“Ease your shoulders a little. You look like you’re squaring up for a fight.” Steph took off across the lawn, met with many shouts and hollers from people who recognized her. “The point’s to have fun!”
Cass rubbed Jason’s arm comfortingly as he unloaded the car.
“Aren’t you cold?” He couldn’t help but ask, glancing at her bare navel.
Her soothing gesture turned into a pinch.
“Ow, okay I was just asking if you wanted my jacket or something, Christ.”
Cass stuck out her tongue. “I am fine. Keep the jacket. It’s cute.”
“Cute?” He echoed, bordering on offended.
“Very.”
The frat practically erupted into fanfare when they saw the fresh shipment of alcohol they’d brought, and Steph didn’t waste any time introducing him to her seemingly endless supply of civilian friends.
Each of whom seemed extremely keen on getting him a drink. Of the alcohol he’d brought.
“I remember being warned about peer pressure like this,” Jason said, looking dubiously at a jello shot.
He’d never gotten drunk off of anything bright blue before.
“Oh yeah? Between lessons on flossing and stranger danger?” Steph asked before downing something with sugar glitter in it. “I weep for you, Jay. You look nineteen and you go around like you’re a forty year old man. Look at all the life you’re missing!”
At that moment a flaming sofa fell past the window from the second floor.
Steph waved it off carelessly. “Didn’t you want to go to college as a kid?”
“Yeah, of course,” Jason said. “But more for, you know. Getting the degree.”
“You worry t’much about the destination. It’s the journey!” Steph swished some beer around in a red cup. He didn’t know when or where she’d got it from. “I bet you haven’t had a real weekend in years.”
“Weekends were for patrol. I wasn’t allowed to go out on school nights.”
“Never?”
“Not really.”
Steph solemnly handed him her fireball. “You need this more than I do.”
Jason stared at her blandly before turning his gaze to the jello shot still in his hand.
It was sweet. And slippery. But the burn it left behind wasn’t bad.
He stayed by Steph for the next hour, watching her mix drinks at the makeshift bar and every now and then grabbing her something from the kitchen. On his last ice run Jason passed a guy who was allowing his friends to brand a penis on his arm using a twisted coat hanger they’d heated over a stove.
“Steph,” Jason said, putting a steadying hand on the “bar” (a surfboard propped across an end table and a bookshelf). “Who is driving us home?”
“Uh.” Steph looked down at the shooter in her hands. “Cass.”
“Cass? Cassandra Wayne, terror of Toronto’s streets?” Jason stabbed his finger to the dance floor, nearly slapping some poor girl in the process. He didn’t know when his arms became so hard to control. “That Cass?”
Cassandra was at the center of some kind of dance circle with a bottle of ale in each hand.
“So we’ll call a cab J-man, it’s no big.” Steph shrugged loosely. “Here, try this.”
Jason looked at the cocktail. It was smoking.
“What is it?”
“Magic.”
He did not feel the need to question this.
It was soon after when he found himself staring at the bottom of a glass, unable to remember if it was the same one he’d been holding a few seconds(?) earlier.
And someone was touching him.
"You’re Stephie’s friend, right?” A girl was sitting across from him, absently toying with the lapel of his jacket.
“Uh.”
“You know I used to light my tits on fire for a party trick.”
“Really?” Jason asked, genuinely impressed.
“You wanna se-“
“No.” Suddenly Cass was there, hand in a ‘stop’ gesture less than an inch from the girl’s face. “This is my little brother. He is young. And impressionable. Be gone now.”
She smushed her hand into the girl’s face to push her off the bar stool and back into the crowd.
“She was gonna show me a trick,” Jason said dumbly, his tongue unwieldy. “And you can’t call me that. I’m ‘posed to be your cousin. ”
“Little brother,” Cass repeated stubbornly, clumsily patting him on the face. “… You are drunk.”
“You don’ even have any shoes.”
“Shoes were holding me back.”
At that moment one of the frat guys burst into the house. “Dude, someone called the cops! Hide the children!”
Jason was mostly sure the guy meant ‘underage drinkers’. He pondered on this as the sluggish cogs turned in his head.
“Steph!” He realized, grabbing Cass’ arms and giving her an urgent shake. “Stephanie’s a child!”
Nineteen, the less-slow part of his brain said. But close enough.
The pair of them ran up the stairs, fighting against the current as everybody else stumbled down and out the back. Jason didn’t mean to barrel straight through the bathroom door, but the thing just crumpled against his force like cardboard.
Steph shrieked, toppling back from the sink and into a bathtub full of empty beer cans. “Jason! What the hell!”
“Police,” Cass said tersely, practically slinging Steph into her arms and towards the fogged-glass window.
They kicked the screen out and the three of them squeezed through, finding themselves on the roof of the house. They lay low upon the shingles, watching the police cruiser pull up onto the curb. The yard was still smoldering around the ruined couch, and someone was passed out in the shrubs.
“Jason,” Cass patted his shoulder before pointing into the sky. “Look.”
He followed her gesture straight to the bright bat-symbol seared across the clouds.
“Oh.” For a moment Jason wondered if Batman was on his way to them, but quickly shook that off.
Bat-Signal meant real crime. Crime that needed Bat-help.
“We’re Bats,” Jason said. “We wear bats.”
“We do wear bats.” Steph nodded seriously, like they were speaking some profound wisdom.
The cruiser was now empty, and if Jason craned his neck he could see flashlights sweeping around the backyard. Cass was already climbing down the side of the house.
Cop cars weren’t much harder to steal than regular ones, really. And they were far easier than any of the Bat-vehicles, which they couldn't drive in civilian clothes anyway. So doing this instead made perfect sense, right? At that moment Jason felt invulnerable; of course they could do this. They were Batgirl, Black Bat and Red- well. It was all fine.
They tore down the street, lights flashing and civilian cars parting for them which was just so convenient. The voice on the radio helpfully told them about a stand-off happening in East End.
“Nightstick?” Steph asked, having extracted a police baton from under the chair.
“What do I look like, Dick?”
“Handcuffs?”
“I will take,” Cass said, making grabby hands from the back seat.
“Military-grade pepper spray… I actually want that one.” Steph jimmied the bottle into her purse. “Oh hey, you want my brass knuckles?”
“Are they studded?”
“‘course not, ya psycho.”
“I’ll take ‘em anyway.”
Jason distantly realized that his accent was slipping and lolled his tongue around to shake the Crime Alley off of it.
The second the radio began to chatter about a stolen cop car, Steph turned it off.
The distance from campus was far less than from the GCPD station Downtown, and it was definitely closer than the Batcave. A loose crowd of Gothamites with their phones out were watching from the opposite end of the street, but they there the only cop car yet on the scene.
“We’re the first ones here."
“And that is why a good commute is important!” Jason insisted.
“You are not moving into a haunted woodshed!” Steph said, slamming her fist on the dashboard.
The stand-off was happening between two organized crime factions, the names of which Jason kept mixing up in his head. Apparently one mob family had decided to hit another in their own restaurant.
In the past Jason would have loved to jump into the fray, his own guns blazing until he was the last man standing. But noo, because this was Batman’s city and Batman was anti-fun.
So instead he pressed hard on the acceleration pedal, bailing out onto the sidewalk with the girls just before the police cruiser barreled through the front of the restaurant lobby.
There was shattered glass, dust and shouting.
Cass was helping Jason to his feet. His body suddenly felt heavy. Before it had felt warm, tingly, electric. Now he really, really wanted to take a nap.
Through the shattered restaurant front there was only shadow, the remaining light within flickering more off than on.
Steph cautiously nosed past the ruined threshold and squinted into the dark.
“I see movement. But uh, I think they’re pinned down by debris. It's not a big restaurant... the car's separated them and is kinda blocking the exit too.”
There was the howl of approaching police sirens. Using their ingrained sensors the Gothamites seemed to realize the danger was reduced enough to approach, and Jason blinked owlishly at the various phones and cameras pointed in his direction.
“We lost our getaway car,” Cass said, almost inappropriately calm as the sirens grew closer.
“Yeah,” Jason said, helping her navigate her bare feet away from the broken glass. “We should’a just let Steph get arrested for underage drinking.”
The GCPD holding cell was way sleeker than most Jason had seen, courtesy of Bruce Wayne’s many generous donations to the precinct. Said money was also probably why the three of them had been given their own lock-up away from the night’s collection of petties and prostitutes.
“I’m an upper class twit who gets the cushy trust-fund cell because of my parents’ money,” Jason said numbly to himself. “How did it all go so wrong.”
“Oh my god shut up.” Steph was lying on the floor with an arm over her eyes to block out the light. “I’m gonna be sick on your shoes.”
Cass made an affronted noise and lifted her feet up onto the bench.
An officer walked over and hit the cell door with his baton. It was the same cop Jason had all but begged not to call Bruce, proclaiming that he was absolutely ready to live in the station forever. If anything it had only made the guy more determined to have him leave.
“Alright kids, up and at ‘em,” he said with a drawl. “Daddy Warbucks bailed you out.”
This was the worst.
The three of them trudged the walk of shame through the GCPD, ignoring the lingering, judgmental or amused glances being thrown their way. They heard Bruce’s voice before they saw him, smiling and charming a gaggle of officers around the reception desk. Beyond the glass front doors a light flurry of autumn snow was falling.
“Oh, there you are. Stephanie, Cassandra.” Bruce’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Jason.”
“Mr. Wayne,” Jason said, the words heavy with contempt.
“I was just telling these upstanding officers that I got off the phone with mayor this evening,” Bruce said, his smile turning cold. “I communicated my deepest apologies to him, and assured him that this was all a very terrible mistake that you are not ever, ever going to repeat. Yes?”
Steph and Cass nodded while Jason continued to glare. He couldn’t quite see straight, but the slight blur of Bruce’s face definitely seemed punchable.
“We’ll talk more about this at home." Bruce eyed Cassandra with a frown before removing his long black coat and draping it around her. “What happened to your shoes?”
“Lost them.”
Bruce sighed, but lifted her up without hesitation.
They pushed through the doors and were met with an immediate explosion of camera flashes and shouting. A police escort was keeping the press at bay so that they could make it to their car.
“Why did you steal the police cruiser?”
“Is it a coincidence you happened to crash into an active conflict between the Galante family and -“
“- can tell us who was driving the car?”
“Mr. Head, do you have any comment on the rumors that you’re Bruce Wayne’s illegitimate son? And that this is all some act of rebellion?”
He stopped dead in his tracks, making bewildered eye contact with Vicki Vale.
“Jason,” Bruce said warningly. “Let’s go.”
“Perhaps you should be glad it wasn’t the Batman taking you into custody,” Vale continued, “as he did to Cassandra earlier this month.”
Jason whirled around, grabbing the mic of the reporter next to her and shouldering him aside before staring dead-on into the news camera.
“I am not scared of a goddamn furry.”
He dropped the mic as Steph roughly pushed him forward, her hand clapped over her mouth in a mix of horror and mirth.
The four of them climbed into the car, Jason and Steph tucking themselves into the backseat. Bruce didn’t waste any time peeling away from the police station.
Steph cleared her throat. “Bruce -“
“When we get home. ”
They all fell into silence at the tone of his voice. Jason slumped back into his seat, head pounding in time with the windshield wipers as they swept away the specks of snow falling on the glass.
“I just wanted to warn you that there’s like, an 80% chance I’m gonna to be sick down the back of your neck.”
Bruce pressed harder on the gas.
The three of them stood in an awkward row down in the cave, trying their best not to wobble or wilt under Bruce’s stare.
“Do you realize,” he said finally, “how terribly this could have all gone. You stole and drove a police vehicle whilst under the influence! You’re under the influence right now! ”
The three of them exchanged sheepish looks. Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Jason. Do you have any idea how many deaths occur due to DUI’s each year? Drivers and innocent bystanders alike?”
Jason felt something in him sink and fold in on itself.
“Look it’s my fault alright?” Steph said. “I wanted to go to the party and I encouraged Jason to drink.”
“Stephanie you are under the legal drinking age and I have half a mind to call your mother,” Bruce said sternly before turning. “Cassandra. Oracle is on her way back to Gotham, and I can tell you now she was not impressed. I was really hoping you would be able to set a better example -”
“I don’t need anyone to be settin’ examples for me, I can make my own bad decisions just fine,” Jason said. “I’m twenty-one years old and a grown ass man, alright?”
“Really. Well I’m fairly certain that falsified birth certificates can be easily changed,” Bruce said coldly.
Jason felt his jaw drop.
“You wouldn’t.”
Bruce met his gaze with the most dead serious, call-my-bluff-I-dare-you look that Jason had seen since he was fifteen and Bruce had installed parental controls on the tv, locking out everything except educational programming. Since he was fourteen and Bruce put his bedroom lights on a timer so he’d stop reading past bedtime. Since he was thirteen and Bruce somehow rigged his bicycle brakes to lock in place unless he was wearing his helmet.
He would.
Jason felt his shoulders slump. He hated how small Bruce could still make him feel, how that stern, fatherly disappointment made his stomach clench and eyes sting like he was still a clumsy, loud-mouthed kid.
“When you are all sober, we will be having a very serious conversation about your recent behavior. I honestly don’t know what’s gotten into you. It hasn’t even been a month since your last incident.”
“Yeah, well that’s clearly my fault, isn’t it!” Jason snapped. “It’s ever since I came around, right?”
“That’s not what I said,” Bruce said. “I am holding all three of you responsible for your actions; whether you each bring out the worst in each other is another matter entirely. You not only committed several crimes this evening, but you interfered, as civilians, in an active case. There is major upheaval taking place in Gotham’s underworld due to the power vacuums left behind by Black Mask and Red Hood. Jason Head, Cassandra Wayne and Stephanie Brown could very well have made themselves targets tonight with this little stunt. We’re lucky no one was killed.”
“I wasn’t goin’ that fast.” Jason grumbled, rubbing at his treacherous eyes with the back of his hand. It was too fucking dusty in this damn cave.
“If there’s one positive thing we can take from Cassandra’s Toronto story, it’s that we can try and brush this off as a rebellious phase and not have the organized crime world think anything more of it,” Bruce said wryly. “In any case, it’s best if the three of you are kept safe for the time being. Stay out of the public eye for as long as possible while things calm down.”
“Why don’t you just say it,” Jason said tightly. “Say it like it is. We’re all thinking it.”
“Alright.” Bruce folded his arms across his chest.
There was a long moment of silence. Steph and Cass both seemed to be holding their breaths.
“Jason, you’re grounded. Please go upstairs.”
It took both of them to stop Jason from tackling him.