Chapter Text
Catherine should have realized as soon as Willis brought the baby home that something was horribly wrong.
Willis wasn’t exactly what someone would call paternal. He was a rough man, had little patience for things, and sometimes explosive anger. But he was a good man, honest. Or at least, he had been then. Or maybe he hadn’t, and Catherine had been too blinded by love to see it.
But one night in September, he brought home a baby. “It’s mine,” he said. “Mom didn’t want him.”
While she’d been mildly upset at him admitting to sleeping with someone else, she also knew they’d been having an on again off again relationship for close to a year now. It made sense he’d done other stuff during their frequent “off again” moments. But it was fine, if this baby didn’t have a mother, Catherine would happily provide herself. She’d always loved kids anyways, and maybe with a baby around Willis would be less inclined to leave.
So Catherine accepted the child with few questions and open arms, immediately falling in love with his dark hair and bright blue eyes.
“Name’s Jason,” Willis offered. Catherine’s smile grew.
“Hi Jason,” she cooed, tickling his soft round cheeks. “Jason Todd. A handsome name for a handsome boy.” The baby gurgled up at her, pudgy hands flailing around to grasp at her finger. If it was even possible, Catherine fell more in love.
She was so distracted with the babe she didn’t see Willis off to the side shooting someone a text, a small smirk on his face.
Maybe if they’d had a TV, or read the news, she would have caught on sooner, noticed something was wrong. Maybe then she would have known that billionaire Bruce Wayne’s infant son had just been stolen away from him that very night.
On the night of September third, 1999, Jason Thomas Wayne disappeared from Gotham Memorial Hospital. Born prematurely just two weeks ago on August sixteenth, the baby had been staying in the NICU until stable enough to go home with his father, billionaire Bruce Wayne. Reports say that it was most likely an inside job, as there was no evidence of tampering with security or personnel.
So far there have been few leads into the disappearance, but police have detained a paramedic under allegations of aiding and abetting. Security cameras show him entering and exiting the NICU within the time frame Jason Wayne went missing. So far the police have not released a statement on the matter.
The father, Mr. Wayne, refused to give a comment upon reaching out. However, sources close to the man confirm his desperation to get his infant son back. Jason’s mother, Sheila Haywood, gave a brief quote, stating: “I gave Bruce full custody. Whatever happened after is not my business.”
If anyone has any information on the disappearance, we urge you to reach out to the authorities.
Vicki Vale, Gotham Gazette
Bruce Wayne was a wreck.
Empty bottles and shattered tumblers littered the study of the young billionaire. The twenty-three year old was slouched on the floor in front of his desk, head in his hands, as bourbon seeped into the carpet at his feet. Next to him lay the newspaper clipping published that morning. He must have read it ten times by now, each time his vision getting cloudier with tears till the words were nothing but smudges of ink. Or maybe all his crying really was making the ink run.
He had barely even had the chance to hold the boy. Sheila went into labor prematurely, and as such Jason had been confined to the NICU. He’d wanted to hold him so bad, to kiss his downy little head, to see those big blue eyes stare up at him. Eyes so like Bruce’s own.
Bruce had been hesitant when Sheila had first told him. She’d been a one night stand months ago, and now here she was, heavily pregnant with no interest in keeping the baby. But then Bruce had thought about it and had grown more excited. A family. A child. Something bright in his gloomy life. Someone to truly fight for. And not as the Batman. But as Bruce Wayne.
And now he was gone. Taken. The only good thing life had given him in the last fifteen years and he was gone.
In a moment of blind agony, Bruce picked up the tipped over bottle next to him and threw it at the wall. It shattered against the old wood, raining glass and drops of alcohol onto the floor below.
Some distant part of Brice recognized that this wasn’t healthy, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.
The sound of the door creaking open broke him of his revery.
“I see you found your fathers liquor stash,” the voice of his butler sounded through the haze of his mind.
“Not now, Alfred,” Bruce slurred.
He felt more than saw the older man crouch down beside him, resting a comforting hand on his shoulder.
“I’m sure a ransom will be posted,” the man attempted. And wasn’t that sad, that that was the best case scenario. Sometimes Bruce wished he wasn’t so far in the public eye. It would definitely make his life easier. It would make it safer.
“Yeah.”
It was just….
Jason was so young . How would he survive outside of that little incubator he’d been living in for the past two weeks. Who would feed him? Burp him? Play with him? Bruce’s mind ran through every fact those parenting books had given him, certain that whoever stole him hadn’t done the same.
Another round of tears welled up in his eyes, hot and clogging up his throat. A sob tore unbidden from his throat. Immediately the hand on his shoulder snaked around to encompass his whole side, pulling him into a hug.
“I just want him back, Alfred, ” he sobbed. “I just want him back.”
At first it was great. Catherine loved Jason. Whatever mother had given him up was a fool. The baby was inquisitive and bubbly, always ready with a smile on his face whenever he saw his new mother.
He was sickly though, but only at first. He might have been born premature, Catherine figured. He was small after all. Well, smaller than a normal one month old should be. There were many nights spent up with him, making sure his cough didn’t get worse, that that sniffle wasn’t anything serious. Willis never helped with that, but Catherine didn’t mind.
When Jason turned one she wanted to throw him the biggest party possible. Willis didn’t allow it.
“It would just be a few friends,” she argued, not understanding his aversion to a child’s birthday party. “Cake, presents, that’s it. Maybe some drinks for the adults, I don’t see what the issue is!”
“Don’t want no people poking their noses in our business,” he growled. And that didn’t make any sense to Catherine.
Eventually they dropped the argument, Catherine agreed not to throw a party, but secretly took him to the zoo a day or two after, not that Willis knew. They shared a cupcake in the park and he got frosting all over his pudgy cheeks. Catherine wanted to save that image in her mind forever.
She remembered walking home a few days later and seeing a clipping in a news article about a memorial service for Bruce Wayne’s missing son, who’d be a year old next week according to the paper. She felt bad, but forgot about it upon arriving home.
She should have paid attention.
Two years had passed and no news of Jason. Bruce has scoured every inch of Gotham looking for him. Practically torn apart the gangs of the East End and the mobsters in Crime Alley. Yet nothing had come of the fruits of his labor.
The Batman was now a symbol of fear to the lowlifes he fought. Less forgiving, especially when it came to kids. He wasn’t sure if the traffickers he’d faced could ever walk right again, but truthfully he didn’t care. He once apprehended a child molester. Last he’d heard the man was still eating through a tube.
And then the circus came to town, and Bruce found himself taking in an eight year old named Dick. He was angry, and rightfully so. His parents had been murdered and he wanted justice. Bruce gave him that in the form of Robin.
They were having breakfast when the topic finally came up.
“I know you lost your son,” Dick said one day. Bruce stilled where he had his coffee mug raised to his lips. “It was all over the news. Did you take me in because you miss him?”
Nothing could be as blunt as a child, Bruce figured.
Slowly, he lowered his mug to the table, clearing his throat before trying to speak. “Yes and no,” he admitted. “I saw myself in you. And I knew the anger and the hurt you were feeling. I couldn’t just abandon that.”
Dick watched him expectantly, spoon frozen over his bowl of cereal.
“But I would be lying if I said it wasn’t also because of Jason.”
In that insensitive yet earnest way only kids could manage, Dick asked, “How’d you lose him?”
Bruce needed to take a moment before answering.
“He was born prematurely,” he started. “Early,” he amended, noting the confused look on the boy's face. “He wasn’t healthy enough to come home yet so he had to stay at the hospital until he could. Then one night….” The worst night of his life. “Someone took him. We still don’t know why.”
“Maybe they just wanted a baby of their own,” Dick offered guilelessly. Bruce forced a wane smile onto his lips at that. How did one explain hostage situations to an eight year old? Or how people in power are often targeted for their money in ways that would sicken most others. That kidnapping a baby for money wasn’t beyond the purview of those desperate or sick enough to try.
Instead he just ruffled the kids' hair. “Maybe,” he said.
“Well, if you ever find him, I swear to be the best big brother for him. No one's gonna wanna touch him with Robin looking after him!” He jammed a thumb proudly into his chest to complete the statement. This time Bruce’s smile was real.
“I’m sure you will, chum. Now finish your cheerios before they get soggy.”
Jason was six the first time Willis ever hit his mom.
He’d been hiding in his room at the time, not wanting to listen to his parents shouting at each other. They were arguing about him again. It was always about him.
It had started because Mom had wanted to see if they could enlist him in one of those fancier schools on a scholarship. Jason was smart, like really smart, so Mom had no doubt he would pass the entrance exam. When she’d brought it up to Willis though he’d freaked out. As soon as they’d started arguing Jason had scrambled to his room, hiding in his closet with his copy of Percy Jackson, pretending to block out the screams coming through the paper thin walls.
“I told ya, I don’t want nobody messing with our business!” Willis shouted.
“He deserves more than what we can give him, Willis,” Mom argued. “This can give him so many opportunities-”
SMACK!
Jason sucked in a breath.
“I told you dammit,” Willis growled deeply, the sound sending shivers up Jason’s spine. “He stays where we can keep an eye on ‘im, got it woman?”
Jason couldn’t hear if Mom had responded, but Willis made a hum of approval before stalking off, door slamming behind him.
Silence hung in the apartment like an oppressive cloud. All he could hear was his own heart beat thundering in his ears and the occasional hitch of his breath. Was Mom okay? He couldn’t hear her walking around. He should check on her. Why wasn’t he moving? Why couldn’t he leave?
A moment later the door of the closet opened and he was greeted with the sight of his mom, a large red mark swelling on the side of her face. She was crying.
“Hi baby,” she said softly, tears seemingly forgotten as she crouched down to be at his height. “I’m sorry. That was scary, wasn’t it?”
Jason could only nod.
“Daddy’s not always like that, I promise,” she soothed, pulling him into a hug. He let himself be, too shocked to do anything else. He felt a hand start rubbing circles in his back, the other gently petting his hair. “Daddy loves us, he just has trouble showing it sometimes.”
If Willis loved them, why had he never hugged Jason? Why had he never bought him ice cream after school like Mom did, or even smiled at him?
“He hit you,” he finally breathed out.
His mom stilled in her ministrations. “He was angry, baby. People do bad things when they’re angry, but they don’t mean them.”
Was Willis angry when he threw Jason’s comic book collection away? Was he angry when he refused to let Jason hang out with his friends? When he threw that bottle of beer at the wall last week, then made Jason clean it up?
“I promise you, Jay-jay, it’s gonna be alright.”
Somehow, Jason knew deep down that it wasn’t. That this was only the start.