Work Text:
Jason’s putting the final touches to his 5D chess mind game thing designed to give Bruce his comeuppance, when he stumbles upon something he had very much not expected. Literally connecting the dots (and not liking the results much) as he ties a red thread between two pins on his board, mapping out Batman’s routes, habits and behaviour.
He steps back from his wall, where he’s pinned maps and pictures and timelines to plan out his big Gotham takeover, his whole “playing with Bruce like a cat with his food” and sees it clearly. He sees the problem. The weird thing. The discrepancy. The snag in the proverbial plan (snags do tend to crop up at the worst of times after all).
Well, at least he noticed it right now, in front of his mind map and not at the other worst moment: in the middle of the grandiose finale slash dramatic death trap thing he’s setting up for Batman and Joker. That would have sucked majorly, what with all the lead up and scheming he has in mind.
Had in mind. Past tense.
Because the issue is thus: there is no point in setting Bruce up, if his target isn’t Bruce. There is no point in showing Batman how fucking useless his doxa is, if the man he knew and needs to prove this to isn’t here, isn’t the right one.
He ties another pin with red thread, feeling a little feverish with the delirium of what he’s figured out.
“Holy shit,” he whispers to nobody in his cosy little safehouse. “Bruce is a pod person.”
Thing is, there had been something off with Batman since the beginning, he’d sensed it during their confrontation at the cemetery but chalked it up to the general fuckery of the moment. He hadn’t really noticed right away that this wasn’t just spur of the moment weirdness. Maybe because he was so focused on his Monte Cristo two-point-oh thing and it had left him with very little time to check on the collaterals, establish links between separate clues and instances of shit that just didn’t add up.
But once he’d taken just a fucking minute to look, everything had seemed clear as day.
Because, see, the Bruce he’d known, with all his faults and failures, but also his qualities and assets, the Bruce and Batman he’d known, simply didn’t fit with the one he’d tailed, and fought, and toyed with recently.
After the big fight in the cemetery, he’d needed several weeks more of information gathering to set up his masterplan against Black Mask and Joker and Bruce, which coincidentally gave him enough of a breather to notice that the person he’d been fucking with wasn’t the one who’d taken him in, wasn’t the one who’d launched teen Jason into an impossible crusade.
The Batman he’d crossed paths with was practically a stranger.
It was actually simple: Bruce was weird but not a shut-in. Bruce was aloof but not cold. Batman was harsh but not mean. Batman was violent but not unhinged. And these were only just skimming the surface of all the discrepancies he’d noticed. Bruce had always been a hardass with his Robins but he’d never been a fucking… Gunnery Sergeant Hartman or whatever.
All the reasons for Jason to trap Bruce and force him to face his failures were rendered moot if the Bruce he captured wasn’t the one who’d let him down.
Sure, both Bruces seemed to tilt at the same windmills, and fight the same unwinnable battle (and bang the same people straddling the hero-villain line, seriously Catwoman?). Maybe that was why he hadn’t noticed, maybe that was why Talia’s info didn’t contain anything about Bruce being a pod person.
Shit.
Jason sighs as he lowers his binoculars, chewing gum on one lonely Gotham rooftop. He leans against a gargoyle, thinking.
So Batman has been… exchanged. Kidnapped, swapped, captured, mind controlled maybe.
This changes his plans somewhat.
Fuck.
How the fuck hadn’t Dick noticed? Alfred?
Were they pod people too?
Shit.
Originally, Jason’s plan had been to take over Gotham’s underground, taunt the Bats with knowledge of who they are, reveal himself to Bruce, meet the shrimp, death-trap the Joker, hopefully kill him and then fake his own death to come back and haunt them all.
??? Profit, as they say.
Also fuck up the new Robin.
Also also fuck with Dick’s holier-than-thou Nightwing schtick.
So yeah. Fuck up the new Robin would have helped him check out the competition, more so than the brief kidnapping Hush had set him up to perform, and Jason would have given him a piece of his mind. Would have tried to shove his face into the shit bucket that was The Truth: Bruce’s doomed Mission should not be thrusted onto a kid, however much of a hyperactive smartass and hero worshipper that kid may be.
It would all have happened in Titan’s Tower, he’d have broken in, made some noise, maybe would’ve shat on some rugs and kicked down doors, just to show how bullshit the concept of teen heroing was.
But now Bruce isn’t Bruce and he’s got to shelve everything until he retrieves his target, all the while knowing that his window of opportunity with respect to Black Mask’s dealings can’t move.
Ugh. Fucking Bruce, always making stuff about himself.
What an asshole.
Titans Tower is silent as a grave — and Jason considered himself a pretty good specialist in graves. Knowing it would be mostly deserted, Jason makes progress in the dark corridors, confident that nobody would be aware of him roaming the premises — it did sting, in the worst of ways, to know his death had been such a small blip on everyone’s radar that his DNA-activated access hadn’t been revoked. It hurt. Maybe not as much as the possibility that his own Bruce may, like fake Bruce, not care about Jason at all.
But to be sure of this, he needed to confront the real Bruce, so.
Here we are.
He finally locates his target in the 7th floor rec room.
Tim Drake, silhouetted against the light polluted skies of San Francisco, is on his computer, sitting in the dark, all decked up in Robin gear.
He sighs and scratches the edge of his domino mask before sitting back and visibly getting ready to sleep right here, right now?
The fuck.
Jason cracks his neck (sue him: he spent two days driving non-stop cross country to get here). At the noise, Tim jolts in his seat, alarmed.
“Hello, Timothy Drake.” Jason steps out of the shadows and Tim bolts upright, sending his computer and a notepad tumbling to the floor.
He’s ready, bo staff snapped open, in less than the blink of an eye. Not bad.
“Who—” Tim readjusts his stance, seems to run through a whole lot of questions in his head before settling on: “Who the fuck are you?”
“Come on, have a guess. I hear you’re a little stalker, a bit of a snoop. Smart. So go on.” At least that’s what Talia had compiled in her Your-Rival-Timothy-Jackson-Drake-That-You-Shall-Slay file. Twerp had guessed Batman’s identity? Ain’t no way. Although, maybe way, if Batman was a fake.
“Red helmet. Bomber jacket… wait are you the guy some goons have been whispering about?”
Jason smirks under his helmet.
“What’s a B-rate villain like you doing in a place like this?”
Wow. Wow.
“Okay so first of all, rude? Fuck you, shrimp. And second of all, I have some questions to ask you, so I came to you instead of making an appointment.”
He takes off his helmet, so that they can cut to the chase. Drama will only get Jason so far, after all.
“What the- Clayface?” To his credit, surprise doesn’t relax Tim’s stance much. He’s clearly taking Jason’s bulk into account and remembers getting his throat nearly slashed open by Jason in the cemetery.
Motherfucking Clayface. “Not really.”
“Hush?” Tim tilts his head.
Jason scoffs and pats the helmet he shoved under his arm for good measure. “Red Hood.”
Robin gets even more judgemental, if possible, but he starts to relax. Good. “Sounds lame.”
“Rude much?” At that, Tim shrugs.
That little twerp would benefit to be knocked down a peg or two but—
They had bigger problems, possibly.
“I’ll get your ass for this once this is done, but: bigger fish to fry. Alright so. Questions. I have them. Answers, you’ve got them.”
Tim doesn’t relax, nor does he sheath his weapon, but his stance changes for something more flexible. He thinks Jason isn’t going to go for the easy frontal attack, that he’s unpredictable. Not bad.
“I heard that you were a little bit of a stalker, found out about Bruce’s little secret all on your own?” Tim squints at Jason but Jason ignores the clear sign of suspicion. “Was it chance? Blackmail? Did you follow a bunch of batbreadcrumbs right back to his lair?”
“Nothing like this. I guessed on my own.” Tim takes a step to the left, to get farther from the sofa, more room to move if he has to fight. “How do you know our identities?”
The memory of Talia showing Jason pictures of all the people Bruce has brought in closer since Jason’s death mixes with the memory of a hero decked in black smiling down at Jason, providing warmth, shelter, food when Jason had all but forgotten what acceptance and belonging felt like.
“Got them printed by mistake on my receipt for my WacShake. Now tell me the truth. Cause you can’t be that good, can you?”
“I can so,” Tim answers shortly, his grip on his bo staff unrelenting.
Huh. “Okay so you’re telling me that Bruce didn’t accidentally on purpose let you in on the bat-secret. That he got sloppy enough, careless enough—”
“I pieced the bats’ identities together starting with the first Robin.”
Jason can’t repress a big chortle at the idea that Bats’ preciousest secret got compromised by his favouritest person. “Nice. Good.” Also, take that, Dickface. Serves you right, Bruce.
Tim tilts his head again, now clearly confused. “Who are you actually, Red Hood?”
“A concerned citizen.” Jason steps further into the room, Tim steps to the side again. “Alright now, Tim Drake, third Robin. Riddle me this: how do you explain Batman spiralling into darkness, heart cold as a rock, hate in his fist where there was once mercy?”
Finally, the bo staff goes down, and Tim looks baffled more than suspicious. “What…? Hood, dude? Batman lost a Robin. He was… he’s grieving. You know our identities yourself,” Tim points out, tensing again, “you should know this.”
And listening to someone talk about Jason’s own death is a little weird, for sure, he hasn’t yet revealed who he is after all so… but it’s whatever. He still needs answers. Jason takes a half second to absorb the fact that yes. Bruce had grieved him. Maybe.
Hopefully, his real Bruce, wherever he was, had grieved. Fake Bruce though…
“Good point. But last time Batman grieved he launched himself in an initiatory trip to learn martial arts from fucking monks and secret cults around the globe, so—”
“How the fuck do you know all this?”
“— I’m just saying, his coping strategy? Is not violence. It’s finding some sort of master to learn to do handstands on his pinky fingernails or do criminology with neanderthalian technology or something, ain’t that right?”
Silence stretches between them like Plastic Man. Tim looks like he’s chewing on several things at the same time, hard. He opens his mouth. Closes it. Squints at Jason again. Opens his mouth and just says “uhhhhhh” for a moment.
And then—
“Okay so. One.” And he starts counting on his gloved fingers. “You… aren’t wrong. Second: what’s your point though? Third: I’m gonna feel foolish asking this, but are you Jason Todd?”
“Huh. You’re actually that good.” Jason takes the scaled down copy of his mind map out of his pocket. “Perfect. You’ll want to see this.”
Jason’s totally hinged explanation, Art by Dragonpyre.
“My god… Batman’s a pod person.”
Jason sighs. “Yeah.”
“How did I not notice!”
“You didn’t live with him before the swap.” Jason puts his hand on his successor’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, shrimp. We’ll get him back.”
Tim crosses his arms over his chest. “We know the when, now we need to find out the how this change or swap happened.”
Jason smirks.
Whoever Batman is right now, at least he’s chosen his next in line right…
A road trip with the Robin du jour was not something Jason had on his second bucket list, but here he was, two days in driving across the US of A, more Soder Cola in his bloodstream than actual haemoglobin and a little weirdo riding shotgun and asking him questions about his own Robin days, and how was Bruce back then, and “did he allow you up in the Manor with your gear, because I’m not allowed.”
It feels like the most painful journey he’s ever taken — and he’s had to walk barefoot in the snow when training at Nanda Parbat.
“Why did we take a car though?”
“I’ll give you two guesses as to why.” Jason blinks his gritty eyes. He hasn’t stopped driving and aside from his power nap on the rooftop of Titans Tower, he hasn’t slept… much. In… a long time. Yup.
“You know villains have planes, right? It can’t be because you’re a villain.”
“I’m not a villain, I’m aiming for the sweet spot right on the line between antihero and outright motherfucker. And I don’t have a plane, do you think I’m made of money?”
Tim nods at his helmet. “That’s some nice custom gear so you’re not Ten-Eyed Man poor either.”
“I should have tossed you off the top of that Tower, I swear.”
“I think I should dig into the Batcomputer, see if there are changes in the routines and file handling around the time you narrowed down.”
Jason frowns at the complete non sequitur, his mind sluggish, but not sluggish enough to not ring alarm bells. “Are you stupid or what? Dig in the Batcomputer? Even a fake Bruce will notice, he’ll ask questions.”
Tim shrugs and starts scribbling in his notepad. “Yeah well, I’ll just go home to my dad, Bruce won’t dare come. And I can use some good tactical avoidance and lying. Easy peasy.”
Jason frowns harder. He sees the sign indicating New Jersey but can’t focus on it because what?
“Dad?” Talia’s file hadn’t mentioned anything about dads. “What dad?”
Tim stares at the side of his face, but Jason tries not to pay attention because he’s starting to see every sign in double and that’s not how road infrastructure works, shit. He really should sleep.
“Dad. My dad. Like, a parent?”
“How can you be Robin if you’re not an orphan. This doesn’t make any sense.”
Miles of road pass under the car’s undercarriage before Tim answers. “Okay so, I’ve thought real hard and I’m not sure I can find an ontological argument for my own existence, so let’s just posit that I’m just a person with a dad who also is Robin.”
Jason blinks, parsing the sentence very slowly as he watches the Gotham City sign in triplicate pass them by and mutters, “One more point for Batman being a pod person then.”
Jason sleeps.
Or at least he tries to.
After the cross country both ways, he thinks he deserves a bit of a break but surveillance waits for no man and Bruce — or whoever that is who is impersonating him — is keeping busy. Jason still has goons to interrogate, patterns to cross check and every time he manages to catch a bit of shuteye, Tim sends him wacky texts like “He changed coffee blends”, “he stopped running monthly defragmentation on Batcomputer’s disks, weird” or even “I think the AI hasn’t been deactivated :(”
None of this makes any sense. Jason changed his mind: this new Robin is useless.
What AI
Brother MKI, folder is flagged deactivated but the AI is still running
Jason promptly decides that he doesn’t care.
Maybe it gained sentience, so Bruce didn’t deactivate it because of his stupid no kill rule
Which would score two points for Bruce not being pod people, but Jason ignores that.
There aren’t any more texts after that so Jason guesses Tim did something with his stupid AI. Either hit the self destruct button or merged with it, he guesses he’ll get to know next time they meet.
First rule of people being bodysnatched is checking what’s been replaced. The person, the mind, the body, the soul, whatever. Jason and Tim (who didn’t merge with an AI, thank fuck for small mercies) have a bit of a squabble at first about what and who to contact for this, but they settle on calling Superman.
Jason’s pretty convinced they should just capture fake Bruce immediately and demand answers just because this would accelerate the process a lot and help him get his own show on the road again (he still has to enact his revenge plan after all and every second where the right Bruce isn’t here is a delay in living his Alexandre Dumas dreams).
Tim manages to convince him that Superman will be:
- Easy to convince,
- a close and concerned party (Jason hopes this doesn’t mean they are fucking, Catwoman was enough psychic damage for him)
- the most straightforward way to scan and x-ray a human fast and for free.
“Worst thing that could happen is him being busy. I always use Kon for x-rays now anyway,” he says, carelessly, dusting off his pants and knee pads.
Jason frowns. “Back in my day, we didn’t get pants as Robins.” Tim rolls his eyes. “No seriously. That’s another hint at this Batman being fake, man.”
“Bro, I demanded to have pants and kneepads.”
“Okay, child. But still.” Jason shakes his head. “That’s another thing that’s slightly off, right?”
Tim smacks his lips. “Again. You aren’t wrong.” He does a little turn, then, approximately in the direction of Metropolis, and calls “Superman!”
They wait.
Jason scratches at the back of his head where helmet meets hair. It’s always itchy.
Between this moment and the next, Superman appears in front of them, hovering a little before touching down.
“Hey Robin, anything I can help you with?” As he asks, Clark scans the whole place with his eyes, casing the joint in a very obvious — but very familiar way — at least the guy didn’t seem to have been bodysnatched himself. “This doesn’t look like an emergency.” He then acknowledges Jason. “Hello?”
Jason waves.
“I just had a question, it’s going to be quick, but it’s a pretty important question.”
Clark nods, his aura of beacon of truth and justice and the american way shining in Gotham’s humid summer air, “Shoot.”
“This can’t go back to Batman though.”
Clark frowns. “Why?”
“For personal reasons,” Jason says, arms crossed in a forbidding gesture.
Tim rolls his eyes with his whole body. “Shut up, Hood. Kal, it’s just that we think Batman has been compromised so until we confirm it, you definitely shouldn’t go to him.”
Clark makes a face, and visibly loses his cool façade to something way more concerned and upset.
Ugh, Superman hadn’t stopped being fucking obvious about his crush on his BFF since Jason died, apparently.
“Have you x-rayed or scanned Batman’s body recently? Brain?”
Clark nods slowly. “Yeah. Yes. Had to. Mission, once back to the Watchtower’s infirmary, I— anyway, yes. Why?”
They both lean forward, attentive. “Did anything seem amiss? All the usual breaks and bones were in the right place? No strange metal parts floating around?”
“I would have—” Clark stops himself, looks at them both, dead serious. “No, I’m trying to recall if anything looked wrong but, nothing. Anything really strange, I would have flagged right away. As for the state of him, well, it was, uh.” Clark clears his throat. “He was fine. He was just as usual. All the bones were broken and mended at the same place. He didn’t sustain a head injury at that time either. For once. Head was fine…”
Jason compartmentalises the fact that, fuck’s sake, Clark and Bruce are fucking, they definitely are. Or were. Or would be. Boy, does he not want any details on what has happened in the Watchtower’s infirmary. Unholy things, that’s for sure. This Greater JLA Polycule thing was a mistake.
“Damn…” Jason sighs, compartmentalising like crazy. “They were thorough.” Whoever they was.
Tim looks at Jason, “you think it’s someone else pulling the strings?”
Clark frowns. “Who’s they?”
“We don’t know yet, boy scout,” Jason says dismissively — damn it felt so good to now be grown up enough to bust Clark’s balls. “But watch out for anybody who might be trying to manipulate your merry little band of friends behind the scenes.”
“And who are you?”
“None of your conce—”
“Ex-Robin, don’t worry about it, Kal.”
Clark flaps his mouth like a fish. “Dick?”
Jason raises his arms in the air and yells at the sky. “I’m going to fucking kill you, Tim!”
Meanwhile Tim ignores them and rambles at nobody. “This must mean this isn’t a bodyswap or kidnapping but brainwashing, magic, personality swap, mind control? We can’t totally rule out alternate selves, he could come from a close enough world his wounds were the same as Bruce.”
Clark blinks at Jason owlishly.
“Don’t you fucking dare scan me,” Jason threatens, finger pointed at Superman.
“Stephanie?”
Jason points his hands at the floor. “Do I look like a fucking girl?”
“We need to go see the Flash.”
“Jason?” Clark asks.
Tim shakes his head, “nah, it’s Cassandra.”
Jason throws his helmet at Tim’s head.
The second Superman takes off (“I really think I need to talk to Wonder Woman about something.”) Tim throws Jason his helmet back and when Jason re-throws the helmet only for it to explode on the rebound five metres behind Tim, well…
There was a bit of a scuffle is what happened. Words were exchanged, punches were traded, but they were fine.
This is all fine.
Jason sticks a tampon up his nose and laces his hands on his belly, waiting calmly to stop bleeding while Tim pukes his guts out on the opposite end of the building, his cape singed by the blast.
“You okay dere?” Jason calls, nose stuffed. He’s seeing double again and isn’t too sure if it’s because of lack of sleep, Gotham fumes, the explosion or the shrimp’s right hook.
“You fly-kicked me in the stomach euuurghhhhhhhh—” Ugly retching sounds. “fucking asshole.”
“It’th called mondin’.” Jason spits some blood from his split lip.
“Called what?”
Jason shakes his head. “Whadever! Less go fin’ Flash.” His blood-stuffed nose is making him incomprehensible, but no matter.
Eyes on the prize.
“We should fetch Bart.”
“No, your boyfriend is a weirdo.”
“… He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Boyfriend’s boyfriend.”
“So Wally then.”
“Don’t like him.”
“Do you even like someone?”
“Hmmmmm… no.”
“Flash, hi.”
“Hey there Robin!” Wally blurs for a second, doing several things at high speed so he could dedicate all his attention to Tim. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Have you recently rebooted the multiverse?”
“Not… that I know of? I mean Barry visited with the Cosmic Treadmill recently, before the memory of me got, uhhh, wiped for everyone… but…”
Up in the Watchtower’s vents, Jason hides his face in his hands. What the fuck is going on with this Robin? Going with what he’s seen up to now, Jason is starting to wonder if he hasn’t guessed everyone’s identities by just asking Dick bluntly something stupid like ‘do you like tassels and backflips?’ and Dick confessing like an idiot.
“… Okay. We’ll… get back to that in a minute.” Great bullshit triaging powers, nice. “Any of the rest of the speedsters came back into the past either?”
“N-no? Tim, what is this about? Is this related to the JLA emergency meeting tomorrow?”
Tim raises his hand to stop Wally’s line of questioning, a move so Batman Jason gags. “Don’t worry, I’ll get there.” He scratches his chin. “Please enumerate all disturbances in the speedforce for the last two… no three years.”
Wally’s jaw works, which Jason understands because if it were him, he’d have told Tim to fuck off way earlier, but it seems the new Robin has a sort of aura of freakiness that hypnotises people into spilling their guts or something. Freakazoid rizz.
Then again maybe Wally is just like that, Jason wouldn’t know, Wally was extra busy being Flash when Jason debuted as a Titan back in the day.
Jason moves a little in the vent, and something plinks, like a screw going loose. What the hell.
There isn’t a lot of space to move around here but with minimal wiggling and silent shuffling Jason manages to get the little bit of… is that a hidden microphone?
“So uhm. That could get long, so I’m just gonna write them down on a piece of paper for you, huh?”
“Sure!” Tim smiles and gives Wally a notepad and pencil from one of his pouches. “Notice any speedforce particles or waves or something around Batman?”
At Tim’s question Wally interrupts his speed-writing and raises an eyebrow, oblivious to Jason’s moment of confusion. “Batman is not a speedster.” His eyes go wide. “Please tell me B isn’t a speedster…?
Tim forgoes any answers about this point. “I know this might be need-to-know, but do you know, as a Leaguer, if there have been reality changes and hiccups, any kind of universe melding or disturbances at some point?”
“Tim.”
Tim’s white lenses squint. “Write it down, Wally.”
Wally sighs, and writes.
Jason blows a chewing gum bubble and pops it, perusing The List, safely ensconced in his bird’s nest on the Gotham cathedral. He pulled an all-nighter yesterday copying the list of anomalous events and reporting them on his timeline, which has now spread to the entirety of his living room wall.
So many warps and wobbles in the speedforce and in reality in the last three years, wow.
If only a time bubble could swallow him for a while so he could sleep.
“How come the League isn’t onto this shit like white on rice?”
In his ear, the woosh and whirr of a Robin grappling between buildings is his only answer for a little while.
“I don’t know. The League’s always doing disaster mitigation and trying to put out fires after fires, maybe that kind of long term trend slipped their notice. ”
Another bubble, he counts to ten under his breath, listening to the soothing sounds of wind and feet running on tin roofs.
“Escaped Batman’s notice?”
“Score another point for him being possessed or swapped or whatever?” Tim doesn’t sound out of breath, fake Bruce had trained him well at least. “But you heard Wally: he got erased from people’s minds for a while there. So anyway, I asked Batman about it and he was like ‘be wary of your teammates, Tim, growl’ growl’, which I found pretty on brand? So maybe score a point for him being himself.”
Jason thinks hard about it through the fog of’ too much shit going on at the same time’. The hot and humid wind of Gotham bay rustles his papers.
“I don’t know, if you wanted to mind control someone you’d try to make it inconspicuous, not have your target behave erratically.” He frowns. “Fake Bruce sounds hella more paranoid than real Bruce.”
“Oh, okay then. Two points for the pod people.”
In his ear, he hears the telltale sounds of a Robin investigating. Scraping noises, doors creaking open, scritches and scratches and vials and evidence bags opening and crackling. It reminds Jason of a time long past.
“How was fake Bruce’s training? Real Bruce was like a six on the asshole teacher scale, how was yours?”
“I don’t know, it’s not like he was my main teacher.” Jason frowns, listening to the sounds of Tim opening a rusty door. “Alfred trained me first, then Bruce and then Nightwing, and then when he said I was ready to be Robin I told him I wasn’t sure I’d be up to the task so he sent me overseas. I’d rate him a solid eight for the bits he taught me.”
“The fuck.” Jason boggles at the page in front of him, because what the hell. “Score yet another fucking point, like how did Dick not notice the swap, man? Batman trains you personally till you react like a machine.”
Another rusty door. “Well Dick was going through a whole will they won’t they with the Titans and he stopped going to the Manor for two years after your death, so. Seeing that there wasn’t a trace left of you ‘cause Bruce had put everything in storage, just left your suit in a display case with a plaque with ‘A Good Soldier’ on it, man, that was making him major upset. So. Yeah.”
Jason doesn’t really know what to say to that. He blinks and does not think about what this is doing to him.
What can he even say? What should he feel?
“Goons in sight, going dark,” Tim whispers.
Jason shakes himself off from his daze. “Sure, knock their teeth out.”
Whatever. If he doesn’t know what to think about this, he just has to not think about it.
A sheaf of papers falls on Kyle’s coffee table. Kyle eyes them warily, and then looks up at Jason.
“Hi.”
“Hi?” Kyle sips at his coffee. “What the fuck?”
“My point exactly.” Jason points at the papers. “What the fuck.”
Kyle looks down, up again.
“I’d have asked what the fuck, again, with another tone, but I’d feel we’d be running in circles.”
Jason pushes the papers towards Kyle. He feels great, he got two hours of sleep yesterday, falling into a Soder induced coma after sticking fifty new post-its on his wall.
“Does this have anything to do with tomorrow’s JLA emergency meeting or—”
“No. I don’t care about your little holiday clubhouse. I need you, specifically. You’re the current Green Lantern, so. Space cop. Riddle me this—”
“Stop quoting the fucking Riddler, dude,” Tim pipes up from behind, like a dweeb.
“Shut up, Timmers, Lantern, why are there reality and speedforce disturbances on an upward trend for the last three years and has anything like a breach in the universe occurred on or near Batman?”
Kyle sighs heavily and pokes at the papers, taking another sip of his coffee. “Not that I know of…” He spreads the papers, his words trailing off, and tilts his head, quite like a cat would. “Okay, that’s weird.”
“Right?”
Kyle stares at Jason. “Robin, who’s this guy?”
“My big brother.”
Jason looks at the ceiling and counts to ten as Kyle’s eyebrows jump to his hairline. “You have a brother?”
“Yes,” he says, with the aplomb of someone who has never ever told a lie in his life. He points at Jason. “He’s right here.”
“Right. Well. Nice to meet you…?
“Jared,” Tim interrupts, and Jason’s stare in his direction is so hairy it’d give the yeti a run for his money.
Kyle smiles and shakes Jason’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Jared. Now I’ve gotta call this in to John.”
Resolved to now be fucking Jared, Jason nods. “Good. It’s been a concern of mine and my… little brother. Will you scan Batman for anything amiss whenever you can? And like, just tell us, we fear he’s been caught in something and won’t tell us.”
“Sure thing, Jared.”
“Jared? Jared??”
“I panicked,” Tim lies, like a fucking liar.
“What is wrong with you?”
“I’m not sure we have that kind of time ahead of us.”
Tim slurps his drink obnoxiously and points at the timeline pinned on top of the board.
“I think you could tie Bruce choosing to give his cowl over to Jean-Paul with the third disturbance uptick there. Also it matches the time Superman died and then came back alive.”
Jason singsongs “sounds like a pattern!” and adds yet another red thread on the now very crowded board slash wall (at this point, it was less of A Board and more of a collection of boards and most of his safehouse’s living room’s west wall plus some spillover on the door to the kitchen).
Jason takes a step back and joins Tim on the sofa. He steals his drink and slurps grape flavoured Zesti (yuck) until he’s convinced that he can see beyond the veil of reality.
Maybe that’s how real Bruce has fallen through the cracks of their universe.
“Did Kyle call you about his scan?” Tim asks while trying to get his Zesti back, except Jason is a head and a half taller, so his attempts remain in vain.
“Uh yeah, he told me that the scan showed him that Batman is Batman and not a shapeshifting alien, parasite or an ethereal entity, whatever that means.” Jason scratches his head, and gives his Zesti back to Tim. “Can’t rule out ectoplasms, ghosts or magic I guess, as well as all forms of mind control but that’s something.”
Tim chews on the end of his straw. “Yeah. Then again, we’re starting to have pretty compelling evidence that this is some sort of reality swap. Ugh, we’re gonna have to figure out in which reality Bruce fell. This sucks.”
“Stop chewing your straw, it’s disgusting.”
“You can’t steal my drink anymore if I make it gross.” Tim slurps his Zesti while staring Jason right in the eyes.
“I can’t believe you.”
They both look at the wall for a long while.
“If it’s magic we maybe should go ask a magician,” Jason wonders aloud. “Zatanna available?”
“I’d rather we avoid Zatanna. I don’t know what happened but there’s something iffy between her and Bruce. And don’t suggest the other ones, we’ve got enough problems without adding more on our plates.”
Jason, used to Bruce’s own brand of fuckery, sighs. “He banged her again?”
Tim purses his lips, thinking. “Nah. I think it’s something more fucked up? Honestly I haven’t dug too deep though, but it’s weird. Between this and my questions about the ‘did Wally really get erased from our memories’ thing, Bruce was starting to get you know…” He hunches on himself and makes claws of his hands. “Batty. Anyway. Definitely not touching that with a ten foot pole.”
“O-okay.” Jason scribbles Zatanna on a post-it and goes to the wall. He turns to Tim, and wordlessly shows himself sticking the post-it in the ‘pod person’ section or the ‘???’ section. Tim points at the ‘???’ section, and Jason sticks the post-it there.
Jason comes to sit back down. “Maybe we should show all this to Wonder Woman. She’d know what to do.”
Tim shifts on his seat and looks away. “Nah, she must be busy.”
What. “Busy doing what?”
Tim closes his eyes and drinks the rest of his zesti in one go, which, wow.
“You know how I sent the bug you found in the vents to the JLA?”
“Yeah.”
“So, I heard through Wonder Girl that they found a culprit and Wonder Woman snapped his neck.”
Jason blinked. “What.”
Tim stares at Jason, snake eyed. “His neck. Snapped. Like a neck that his snapped.”
Jason works his jaw and then stands up to add a new post-it on the wall, marked ‘Wonder Woman’ in the ‘pod person’ space they have arranged on the left side for all people they suspect of being bodysnatched.
“So no Wonder Woman then.”
“Nope.” Tim popped the ‘p’ and resumed chewing his straw.
“Too scary.”
“Too scary. By the way, could you blow up an empty building. Or fuck up some mafia.”
Jason leans against his wall, left shoulder right next to the list of pod people they have identified.
“Bruce is starting to get suspicious of all my questions and the stuff I’m poking my nose into.” He opens his empty drink and gobbles up an ice cube like a gremlin. “I bet some warehouse exploding would distract him a little. Maybe I could even check out the Batcomputer again.”
“Let’s do that, then. I don’t need you for the next step of the plan anyway.”
“What’s the next step?”
“I’m gonna go see an old friend of mine and you’re gonna go back to the Manor and play house with fake Bruce.”
Dick’s flat is a fucking shithole. Years of Alfred showing them the ropes of how to live as functional adults and nothing has been retained in the first Robin’s colander brain.
“This sucks, shit’s sake, this is ghastly,” Jason mutters to himself while folding Dick’s own fucking laundry (he first had to straighten up the kitchen, do the dishes and then clear up most flat surfaces before he could get to the laundry pile).
The door to the apartment bangs open and Nightwing comes in, sticks crackling.
“Who the fuck are you?!!”
“I don’t know, Dick!! I shouldn’t be your fucking butler and yet here I am!” Jason retorts, aggressively folding yet another sweatshirt.
Dick flaps his stupid fucking mouth like a fish. “What… are you doing?” Jason’s nostrils flare and Dick regains confidence, asking way more aggressively. “What are you doing, Red Helmet?”
“Folding your fucking laundry, you pig. Do you ever change your sheets? They are crusty.” He pushes the finished pile of folded jeans. “Crusty. Alfred would cry. I can’t believe this shit.” He mumbles, folding the last of Dick’s shirts. “And it’s Red fucking Hood not helmet, do I call you Fizzy Nightstick? No!”
Dick’s escrima sticks powers down and he looks at Jason as dumbfounded as a domino mask allows one to appear.
“How do you know Alfred?”
Jason rolls his eyes heavenward, absolutely 100% done with this shit and at this point, ready to throw in the towel about his Monte Cristo plan — he’s missed the window for the black market Amazo anyway, he’ll find something else to make true-Bruce cry, whatever.
Jason sighs, and unlatches his helmet, takes it off and unglues his domino mask from his face, throwing it on Dick’s folded pile of boxers. “Because I’m Jason, you dumbass.”
His efforts are rewarded with a metal stick to the face.
For the second time since his revenge plan has been shelved to make time for Sherlock Holmesing what has happened to Bruce — and wasn’t that such a Bruce thing, fucking Jason’s best laid plans, what an asshole. For the second time, Jason finds himself with a tampon up his nose.
“You thuck so much.”
“I’m sorry, you surprised me,” Dick answers, cowed and looking a little guilty on his now cleaned and crumb-free sofa, thanks for that Jason.
Jason palpates his cheekbone gently and winces. Not broken, but it’s going to bruise nicely.
“So.” Dick clears his throat. “You’re alive then?”
Jason stares balefully at Dick and unsticks the bit of tampon from his nose to spit blood on the sofa before resticking it in his nostril.
Dick looks down in horror. “This is so gross.”
“Not ass gross ass whut I hud to wipe from you’ kitch’n cou’ters.”
“Right… Right. So you’re alive. And you’re… Here.” Dick accompanies this with jazz hands. Man, how had Jason forgotten how lame Dick was? “I’m… still taking this in, but you should know I’m… happy you’re here, I am. But what the hell is going on, Jason? You’re… Red Hood? Tim said there was a new villain in town named Re— oh no.”
At least this proves Dick isn’t a pod person. Perhaps.
Boy, this is going to take an age and a half. Jason unsticks the tampon from his nose, checks that he’d stopped bleeding. Satisfied, he goes to throw it in the trash and stays standing in the kitchen — or swaying gently, because he hasn’t entirely flushed all the caffeine from yesterday’s Soder binge from his bloodstream —, gathering his thoughts on how to present the situation to Dick.
“I am Red Hood, but that’s not the issue right now.”
“I’m pretty sure it is, actually.”
“The issue is that Bruce has been bodyswapped with an alternate reality Batman. At least that’s the driving hypothesis. He might not be the only one, either.”
Dick steeples his fingers and leans his elbows on his knees. “When have you slept last, Jay?”
Jason ignores Dick’s frankly stupid question and takes his shrunk and abridged version of his safehouse wall case-map out of his pocket. “I have proof.”
He unfolds the A1 paper flowchart.
“You have a conspiracy board.”
Jason, holding the huge paper sheet in front of him like a bath towel, frowns. “This isn’t a conspiracy board.” He looks down, and back at Dick. “It’s a printed paper timeline and mind map.”
“Jason…”
“Do you have somewhere I can pin this?”
“And you deduced all this from the fact that Bruce has become violent with criminals after his charge got beaten to death by a criminal.”
Jason points at the first third of the timeline. “Yes.”
“And that he was rude to the new Robin, showing a newfound roughness in approaching a teen, after having been nothing but caring for the two former teenagers, one of whom got estranged.” Dick points at himself. “And the other who got killed.”
“Yes. Yes. You get me.” Why is Dick mansplaining Jason’s own explanations to Jason? Jason is a man himself, that makes no sense.
“And there’s been trouble in the speedforce. A notable unknown entity constantly in flux. As well as hiccups in the fabric of reality, something that has happened before, several times.”
Jason points at the second chart, feeling on the brink of delirium here. “Yes. Here. And here.” Is Dick slow now? Should he revise his hypothesis that Dick is not a pod person?
“And you thought that Bruce, having lost a teen under his care, whom he considered his son or as close to it as can be, for whom he was responsible, Bruce, who lost it to his biggest foe and villain, was weird for being… closed-off, aloof and cold, and deciding to take a hands off approach in the training of the next Robin.”
“Yes, Dick! Yes to all of this! Oh my fuck, why are you making that face?” Jason points at Dick who feigns ignorance, like he doesn’t have a face. “I had forgotten how annoying you could be, fuck. I shouldn’t have crawled out of that fucking grave.”
Dick pales. “You… crawled out of your grave?”
“Yes! Who cares?” Jason groans and puts his palms on his face, imploring the skies to open up and ascend him to another plane. “Stop changing the subject!” He hears Dick’s soft footfalls and feels his hands land on his shoulders, gripping Jason tight.
“Jason. Jason, look at me.” Jason uncovers his face and looks at Dick’s concerned blue eyes. “Jason. You died.” Jason opens his mouth but Dick shakes him. “No, shut up, you died and Bruce was shattered by your death. He nearly bludgeoned Joker to death. It’s Clark who stopped him or the clown would have been beaten to death.”
Jason blinks, and Dick shakes him again a little, gently, softly, but firmly shaking Jason like this is going to make sense at some point.
‘Nobody recovered from your death. Nobody was the same after. Not me, not Bruce, not other heroes, your death changed things. Bruce spiralled out of control, because he couldn’t cope with the guilt and the grief. He could face his failures so he buried all traces of you because even the memories of your happiness hurt.”
Jason shakes his head but Dick doesn’t relent.
“And you, you died, you weren’t even sixteen years old. You died a hero but you died betrayed and alone. And you crawled out of your fucking coffin? And went who knows where to come back jacked up and threatening to gut the new Robin like a fish, associating with Hush and who knows what else unsavoury sorts. That is bound to have consequences, even if you compartmentalise these consequences behind a wall of justifications and rationalisations.”
Silence reigns in the flat, the only sound that of their breaths getting caught in their throat.
“That’s what happened, Jason. That’s what happened.”
Jason tries to breathe, but his throat is kind of closed up. And his nose and eyes and everything itch like mad, his vision is swimming a little. Maybe because of the whole getting hit in the face. Or he’s had too much Soder and Zesti. Maybe it’s last night’s WacDonald’s. Surely that’s why. A cold. Rooftops are notoriously draughty.
He puts his hand on Dick’s chest, and pushes him away.
Because he’s wrong. He’s wrong.
“Bruce doesn’t grieve like that. He wouldn’t grieve me like that,” he says with feeling. Which one, he doesn’t know. “Bruce is a fucking idiot and an asshole, but he wouldn’t— He wouldn’t.” Jason shakes his head. “Fuck you. He wouldn’t.”
Jason grabs his jacket and bangs the door shut on his way out.
Jason stares gloomily at Gotham’s skyline. “Dick was a bust.”
There’s the sound of wind whooshing in his helmet’s comm, and the scratchy noise of someone landing on pebbled ground. “Oh jeez, what happened?”
Jason closes his eyes and does a little breathing exercise, because fuck Dick and his high horse and his dumb tassels. “Nothing that won’t get him thrown into Gotham Bay next time I see him. I’ll spray paint his dumb motorcycle too.”
“Wow, rude.”
“He was rude first. Anyway, do me a solid?”
Tim hums over the line, and Jason marvels at how well he and the new Robin work together. He isn’t half mad that his initial plan for confronting Tim at Titan’s Tower has been derailed. Sure, what with working with Hush, he hadn’t given the best first impression, but Tim seems like he doesn’t give a shit.
“Can you get Batman at the corner of Dahler Road and Royal Street? Rooftop of the old cinema.”
“Dramatic. Yeah, I can. When?”
Jason waits until the sounds of scuffle stop over the line. “You good?”
“Yeah.”
“Tomorrow, eleven.” Time to stop this masquerade.
“Gotcha.”
Batman lands on the roof, silent as a shadow. Jason spies him from his hiding place, crouching behind a big skylight.
“Hey, B!” Tim steps up to him. “Thanks for coming.” He makes to get something out of his belt pouches.
“What’s going on, Robin?”
Jason stands up in an instant. “Yeah, what’s going on, Replacement?”
Fake Batman turns but doesn’t get the time to shield himself before Jason shoots him in the chest, right where the chest plate can’t protect him.
“Replacement? Really?”
Jason grunts under Bruce’s weight. Real or fake, Batman is a brick shithouse and isn’t easy to fireman-carry. “Yeah, well. He’s replaced Bruce, no?”
“Right. Right.”
The jarring thing was that fake Bruce looked exactly like Bruce. It was the whole point, after all. But he did. It was uncanny.
They’d retreated to Jason’s safehouse, because he didn’t frankly didn’t give a shit anymore since he’d need to start entirely over with his revenge plans anyway once they would get the real Bruce back. Tim had sat himself in a corner, doing something on a notebook, like a nerdy nerd, dressed down into his civvies. Jason kept his helmet and all his gear. Because fake or not, this was a Bruce and being restrained on a chair meant very little when you dealt with the Batman itself.
Case in point.
“Dipshit, I know you’re awake.”
Fakebat growls and looks up. Even without the cowl’s blank white lenses, you wouldn’t want to fuck with Fakebat, he just had that kind of icy blue gaze you just did not want to cross.
Unless you were Jason, that is.
“Hey B!” Tim greets from behind Jason like this is all normal. A friendly chat.
This Robin either has a death wish or he thinks himself immortal.
“Robin, what are you doing?” Fakebat grunts, irate, pissed off as all get out. Truly a caged tiger ready to pounce. Someone was going to get grounded and benched foreveeeeerrrr…
“Well Red Hood here had some things to say to you and I felt you both needed a safe space to be able to air your feelings so I aided and abetted that safe space.”
“Tranqs,” Jason says. “You aided and abetted tranqing the Big Bat.”
“I mean, the cinema’s rooftop could have been a safe space too, but you decided to tranq B, not me.”
Jason is going to wring his neck after he’s shanked Fakebat and brought Bruce back and enacted revenge on Bruce (depending on the state of said real Bruce, of course).
“Alright. Safe space. Let’s go.” Jason claps his hand, feeling jittery and feverish with lack of sleep. Maybe Dick had a point. No. “Hi, Batman. What have you done with the real Batman?”
If possible, Fakebat’s face purses even further into a scowl.
“Yeah, thought so. Okay, let’s go first for shock and awe, and then we’ll talk, huh?” Jason takes his helmet off, smirks and then unglues his domino mask.
Fakebat legit gasps.
Convincing.
“So you know me.”
“J-Jason? You’re not… Hush. Clayface? You’re… You.” Jason has never heard Bruce’s voice go so weak and faint. Fakebat himself looks about to keel over when a second earlier he’d looked ready to break his office rolly chair in half by sheer willpower.
“Don’t lose your marbles just yet. I need you wholly present for the next bit.”
And Jason kicks the chair to flip it around, putting Fakebat face to face with Tim and Jason’s investigation. Jason gets up close and personal with Fakebat, using his momentary stupor to hammer in some of the biggest, most important facts and questions.
“Around October fifteenth three years ago a severe disturbance occurred next to the Manor’s grounds, corresponding to a day you were present at the Manor, but not Alfred, while I was also present. In the ground.” He jabs his finger in Fakebat’s sternum. Fakebat looks like he’s going to fade into nothingness, what a weakling. Bruce would never. Never. “And guess what happened, Replacement?”
“Jay… I—”
“Shut up!” Fakebat blinks at Jason’s yell. “I crawled outta my own coffin, and you!” He jabs his finger in Fakebat, again, harder. “You took Bruce’s place! Now: where is he!”
“Wh- What are. Jason. You—” Fakebat stops. Looks behind Jason’s shoulder at the wall and seems to shake himself awake. “Jason you worked with Hush? You’re. Coffin? What are you talking about?”
Jason makes a sound of disgust and stands up. “Drop the act.” He walks back and slaps his hand on the wall. “I have proof. I’ve followed you ever since I came back to Gotham. Ever since that night in the cemetery. And I know you, the real you, the one you replaced. I knew him and I’ve seen you and you might play a good game and you might have fooled everyone but they don’t know him like I do, you’re nothing like Batman. So. Where. Is. He?”
Fakebat’s becoming agitated. “Jason, untie me! For fuck’s sake!”
“Ha. Bruce would never swear.”
“He totally would, though.”
“Shut up, Shrimp, I’m the resident expert. Now you, Replacement,” Jason says a little more softly than the start of his accusations, “maybe you didn’t willingly end up here. I don’t know, I, myself, didn’t ask to resuscitate in my grave and have to go Prison Break out of the fucking ground. So maybe you were just chilling out there in your reality, and then, got shlupped into ours. And it all was similar enough, cool enough and you decided eh, let’s stay, right?”
Fakebat’s now looking at Jason like he’s hypnotised. Weird.
“Well time is up. You’re going to show us where you come from and we’re going to swap you back and then you can go terrorise your own city, be a violent asshole on your own criminals and stop sullying the good name of Bruce Wayne.”
“What… what makes you think I’m from another universe?”
Jason frowns, and looks at Tim over Fakebat’s head. Tim mouths “safe space” at him, because he likes being useless like that.
“Because, barring the fact that we can pinpoint exactly when you were swapped, and how, because the real Batman would never stoop so low. I know he nearly beat up Joker to death and someone else stopped him. That… actually, it—” Jason blinks, thinking back on why he’d wanted to fuck with Bruce in the first place. Fuck.
“Anyway. But then he came back to Gotham. And I’ve been trained by the guy. I’ve been raised by the guy, for the three best years of my life. He would never, never, perpetuate the memory of me through unnecessary violence. He wouldn’t see a Robin and treat him like the trash I was before he took me in. Because he saw me, and knew I wasn’t that. Trash. He sees people. He wouldn’t avenge me, and his Mission is never ending and useless and impossible and making more Robins is such a fucking dangerous idea but while we may not see eye to eye about that — and I plan to have some choice words about it with him — the rest?”
Jason makes a cutting gesture with his hand.
“The rest is not the real Bruce. You’re a fucking pod person and I need you to go back the way you came from.”
After his last words, you could hear a pin drop in the living room.
Fake Bruce starts crying. What the shit?
“Pod person. I failed… fell… so low… I am a pod person. Oh my god…” He burbles.
Jason makes desperate gestures at Tim to which Tim responds by miming a hug. Jason raises his arms, because what does this mean? What does this fucking mean?
And then Dick kicks the door in.
“Alright, nobody move!”
“Dick?”
Bruce just sobs quietly.
“I swear to fuck if you all don’t take a fucking nap for fifteen hours I’m going to tranq you all.”
“We literally just tranq’ed Bruce, though.”
“Tim, for fuck’s sake!” Jason hisses.
“I’m just saying.”
Dick raises two guns. Bruce gasps. Jason squints in suspicion.
“You wouldn’t, Dickwad. And it’s too late anyway. He confessed everything.”
“I mean he’s mostly pleaded with you and then started crying.”
Dick ignores them both and actually points a gun at Bruce. “Bruce, Alfred told me everything. This is the last time you pull such a stunt, I have his express permission to drag your ass back to the Manor.”
Bruce blanches. “Oh no.”
“Eighty-nine hours without sleep?”
Jason gapes and looks at the fake Bruce. “Are you insane?”
Bruce stares blankly at Jason’s wall. “Oh son, maybe I am. Maybe I am.”
Tim taps his lips, thoughtfully. “Not gonna lie, Jason has been drinking thrice the maximum recommended amount of caffeine by the FDA the last two weeks.”
“That’s it, everyone is going to take a nap.”
And Dick tranq’ed them.
“I’m not carrying them.”
Jason looks at Dick, fighting the effects of the tranq dart. “Dick, you cunt.”
“I feel like this is an oxymoron.”
“You’re… the… moron.”
Jason’s safehouse falls finally silent, enough for Dick to take a look around. It’s neat, tidy. Apart from the giant conspiracy wall and a tower of soda cans in the corner.
“You believed him? That Bruce… or whoever were pod people?”
Tim scratches under his chin, thoughtful. “I don’t know, he made some compelling arguments. Especially about basically everything else. And he did stumble upon a whole lot of stuff…”
Dick sighs. “I think I need holidays,” he mutters before he goes to drag the trolley he brought to load up Bruce and Jason.
“Are you going to roll them out of here?”
“They should count themselves lucky I’m not tossing them down the stairs.”
Clark scarfs down another pancake and manages to talk at the same time. “So thanks to some good PR and now that we know that the increasing number of major incidents had been coordinated by Lord and Checkmate, we’ve managed to get ahead of the damage.” Bruce nods like a puppet, listening but not engaging. “Also seems like most of Brother MKI’s protocols that were hacked would have put a target in all the heroes backs so it’s a good thing we got the info early enough to go obliterate the satellite.”
Bruce pushes his eggs around with the tins of his fork while Jason moodily drinks some orange juice, pretending he isn’t sitting at this table, in this Manor.
Clark continues, undeterred, sunny and frsh as a fucking daisy. “Anyway, dick move on your part, keeping Brother MKI, most Leaguers are apoplectic, but at the same time, the work Jason and Tim did in uncovering this reality warping event helped us all band together and we managed to thwart Luthor and Prime’s plans in due time. Sadly they died n the explosion that dismantled the Cosmic Tuning Fork. Good thing we could prepare for it, I don’t know how it would have panned out if we’d been caught flat-footed, huh.”
Tim munches obnoxiously on a blueberry muffin and talks with his mouth full. Gremlin. “I guess we would all have died?”
Jason grunts, and ignores Bruce’s sidelong glance. He keeps trying to look at Jason, and Jason has no idea what to make of it.
“Stop looking at me like a wet dog.”
Bruce sniffs and returns to pushing his eggs around as Clark pats his shoulder.
Jason hears Dick enter the kitchen, but the pamphlet being slapped in front of him (and the second one in front of Bruce) still surprises him enough he jumps in his seat.
“What the fuck, Dick?”
“Grief counselling. Tomorrow. Nine in the morning.”
“Nine?”
“In the morning?” Bruce whispers, aghast. Clark chuckles.
“I bet you’ve never had a normal sleep schedule. You’ll see, it’s incredible. Or else I still have tranq darts. After all, we wouldn’t want a repeat of our last sleep deprived fever dream slash conspiracy theorist supreme moment, right?”
“I don’t know, Dick,” Tim says, and sips at his orange zesti, “Jason’s sleep deprivation kinda helped uncover and foil a possible world ending event.”
“I could also tranq you, Tim.”
“You can’t do that.” Dick squints as Tim insists. “You can’t. I have plans. Four months vacation with my dad in Hawai’i.”
Dick looks at Tim. “Riiiiiight…”
“I’ve been an innocent bystander this whole time.”
Jason sets his hot chocolate (“no more caffeine for you, master Jason”) down on the table so hard it sloshes over the rim. “How do you lie so much? Why?!”
Tim takes another muffin bite. “It keeps everyone on their toes.”
Clark seems caught between appalled and amused, which makes for a very complex expression. Bruce looks, if possible, even more like a kicked puppy.
“Well since this is settled.” Dick slaps his hands on Bruce and Jason’s shoulders. “You’re both benched until you get five sessions minimum. Jason, I’m so happy you’re back, Bruce, hope you use this downtime to get your shit together and fuck Clark instead of Catwoman, please, please, I’m begging.”
Clark’s fork clatters on his plate. “Dick?”
Jason raises his own to point at Clark menacingly. “Don’t think we don’t know about the Greater JLA Polycule, boy scout.”
“The what now?” Bruce asks weakly.
Dick sighs and stands up. “Anyway, I’m going to a beach on a deserted island for the next two weeks, call me never, Stephanie is patrolling, she thanks you ever so much for your faith in her abilities, she’ll do so with Cass, so don’t bother trying to unbench yourselves, she’ll kick your heads in.”
Bruce purses his lips and continues pushing his eggs around now with Clark looking at him in the least furtive and the most longing way.
Jason clears his throat. Everyone stares, except Dick, who has decided that he doesn’t know any of them and is buttering his toast with the delight of someone who will soon be getting a tan in Bora Bora.
“So. Bruce.”
“Hn.”
“Now that being an orphan isn’t a pre-requisite for Robin anymore… Do you plan on fetching Damian to make him Robin one day too, or?”
Dick stops buttering his toast. Clark stops longing longingly. Tim even stops being weird for a hot second.
“Damian?” Bruce looks pretty puzzled.
“Yeah. Damian. Your son?”
“My son?” Bruce asks, softly. “I have a son?”
Jason blinks owlishly.
Oh.
Oh no.
