Chapter Text
Batfamily ages for this fic:
Bruce: 40
Dick: 26
Barabara: 26
Jason: 23
Tim: 18
Steph: 18
Cass: 19
Damian: 12
Duke: 15
Well this wasn’t what I was expecting today, Tim thought as he and Steph continued to tail their current objective.
It had just been an ordinary, safe, partially boring, day at Gotham University for him and Steph, Cass was at ballet, Barbara was at the library, Diick and Jason were doing something and Damian and Duke were at school.
After the third and fourth Robins had finally been released from their classes for the day, they headed over to Bat-Burger for some food before they headed back to the mansion.
The first problem was by the time they got there, there was only outside seating in the cold, grey November afternoon.
Steph had grumbled a bit about sitting outside in the cold, but they sucked it up and were just their food when they got the next shock of their day.
Tim choked on his food when he saw him. For some god-forsaken reason he’d seen Dick walking by the Batburger…except Dick was now somehow a child.
Steph raised her eyebrow in concern. “Timmy, you alright?”
“Look,” Tim managed to wheeze out, his choking fit having downgraded into merely a really nasty cough.
The blonde turned her gaze to where Tim was looking and did a visible double-take when she saw Young Dick. He was paused standing just out on the street a little off from the Batburger, glancing around the street as if he wasn’t sure of where to go. He was wearing a pair of green trousers, a plain black t-shirt and had what looked like an oddly expensive-looking watch on his left wrist. He took another few nervous glances around his surroundings before he seemed to come to a decision.
He nodded to himself then purposefully strode away, continuing his path to what looked like the direction of the library it was really the only location of note in the direction the boy was heading).
Steph and Tim turned their heads to face each other and almost immediately afterwards came to a wordless agreement. They got up immediately, chair legs scraping against the concrete floor and started to tail him so they could maybe get some answers about why a thirteen year-old version of Dick had randomly appeared in Gotham.
“Five bucks says either Dick’s somehow been de-aged or he has a clone,” Steph threw out as they started following the boy.
“No bet,” Tim answered automatically before his mind registered the full extent of what his friend had actually said. “Wait, why would you say he’s a clone?”
“I thought you were detective heir number 1 in this family,” Steph teased, turning her head to give Tim a victorious smirk. “He had green eyes, not blue so he’s not fully Dick at minimum. Well assuming that Dick isn’t wearing contacts.”
Tim strode forward a bit, ignoring the dig at his detective skills and prepared his retaliation.
“Steph, you can’t stare at people’s eyes. Unless they’re Cass’s obviously or do you have something you wanna tell me-OWW!” Tim rubbed the back of his head where Steph had cuffed him. Goddamnit he obviously hadn’t had enough coffee today if it didn’t occur to him that that was the most likely outcome.
“Actually I was just being perceptive,” Steph sing-songed in a deliberately cheerful voice. “And you won't imply infidelity on my part again or I will destroy all of your coffee stash.”
“Sorry,” Tim replied, not wanting to risk his precious, precious coffee against Steph’s wrath.
Their conversation abated into a mutual companionable silence as they continued to trail the clone. Based on the direction he was heading in, Tim guessed he was heading towards the library as the only location of note in that path.
After having to dedicate quite a bit of effort into trailing him, without making it obvious they were following him, Tim and Steph’s phones buzzed at the same time, bringing their little chase to a crashing halt.
The pair shared a glance and sighed before pulling out their phones to see what the message was
Batchat
Batdad: Everyone get back to the cave now we have a situation.
“Typical,” Steph grumbled. “We’re trying to be detectives here and Bruce decides to interrupt our moment of triumph! Again!”
Tim grunted non-committally, ignoring Steph’s dramatics and cast one more glance at the clone who was wandering ahead and just out of sight.
Batchat
Coffee-Stalker: On our way
He put his phone away.
“Come on, you know what Bruce’ll get like if we don’t show. And besides, I think he might run into Babs soon.”
Steph rolled her eyes but acquiesced as the pair turned away to head back to the car park. Hopefully it wouldn’t take them too long to get to Wayne manor.
It did.
“Made it,” Ben announced to himself, trying to find some cheer and satisfaction in his current predicament, as he bounded up the steps leading to the library door.
It looked like a fairly old, well-worn but warm building, more traditional and less modern than Bellwood’s public library. Ben smiled in memory as he recalled the many afternoons off he and Rook had had to spend there so the Revonnahgander could increase his knowledge of Earth and Bellwood itself.
He shook his head, then powered on through and opened the door. No-use getting lost in his head when he had work to do.
It was a fairly homely and well-lit interior with loads of shelves and bookcases full of books, separated by category and alphabetical authors names and-score! There were a couple of computers at the back. Granted they didn’t look that modern but they’d probably do for what he had in mind.
He glanced around for the desk and found it fairly quickly and the librarian who was sitting there.
She was a pretty hot young woman, in a wheelchair wearing a blue jumper, with flowing red hair and piercing blue eyes behind a pair of glasses, typing away at the computer screen
She reminded him a lot of Gwen really in her appearance and bearing.
Wow so much for not thinking about that stuff.
Ben walked over to the desk and cleared his throat to get her attention.
She turned her gaze away from her work and towards him. She froze, her face twisted in shock and surprise for a slit-second before she just as rapidly relaxed her expression into a warm, welcoming smile.
Interesting. Ben filed that away in his head to try and figure out why she looked so shocked upon seeing him.
She was good as well, most people wouldn’t have been able to notice that split-second reaction.
But as everyone kept forgetting, Ben was very good at paying attention. Just…not the best at demonstrating it.
“Hi, how can I help you?” she questioned, almost imperceptibly reaching for a notepad and pen beside her. Ben decided to ignore it.
“I was just wondering if I could use the computers you’ve got here?” Ben asked in the politest tone he could manage. Goddammnit his thirteen year-old voice wasn’t the best for that sort of thing.
“Yeah sure,” she replied brightly. “You’ll just need to fill in a library card.” She passed a form and the pen over to the centre of the desk so Ben could fill it in.
“Thanks, Ms…uh” Ben looked for a name tag, they usually had these for employees didn’t they?
“Just Barbara’s fine kiddo,” she smiled. Ben scowled a bit at being called kiddo but got his expression under control. It wasn’t fair for him to get annoyed over it-she had no way of knowing his actual situation.
He shook his head and looked down to fill in the form. It asked for his full name, address, phone number and age. The first question was easy, the third one was a running joke between him and Rook to just use the Omnitrix as his communicator and its phone number.
So Ben filled that one out as 01010 010000. For his age he just put 16 since that was listed as the minimum age for your own card without an adult doing it for you. Besides it technically wasn’t a lie (well it was, he was 17 but that was beside the point).
That just left the address.
Crap.
He hadn’t really memorised or paid attention to any of the locations in Gotham yet beyond “go down this street then take a left” to get to the library.
Time for Plan B.
Lying through his teeth.
“Uh, sorry but I just moved here so I don’t really have the address down yet, is that ok?” Ben asked, trying to give a puppy-dog eyes expression even if it annoyed him to do it.
Barabara raised an eyebrow, obviously seeing through his bullshit, but her lips still quickened into an amused smile.
“Yeah it's fine, don’t worry,” she replied, taking Ben’s sheet of information and rolling over to the printer to get his card printed out.
Ben fidgeted nervously as the library fell quiet, the only sound being his feet tapping against the carpet and the printing thrumming as it fulfilled its duties.
“Here you go!”.
Ben was drawn out of his musing to see Barbara’s hand outstretched, offering him his ticket to free information, uh he meant library card. Ben took it and pocketed it.
“By the way, we’ve got showers upstairs if you need them in the bathroom,” Barbara added, running her gaze up and down over Ben.
“..Thank you,” Ben replied, confused as to why she was bringing it up…then groaned and felt like smacking himself in the head for not realizing the obvious-he hadn't cleaned up after his fights with Croc or Malware and the latter left him pretty badly bruised and bloodied.
He sheepishly looked at Barbara who was grinning at his reaction and gestured up the stairs. Ben sighed and trudged up the stairs, letting her think he hadn’t noticed that beneath her amusement, her eyes were flaring with concern.
Ben wasn't quite sure how to feel about that.
And so it was in the library upstairs bathroom that Ben finally got a look at himself. Because finally there was a mirror.
Not only had had he gone from 17 to 13 from 1 interdimensional trip, but just to make things even better, the remnants of his injuries from his fight with Malware were still there
The dried blood that he’d forgotten about was still there, trailing down his neck. There was a pair of really ugly bruises around his head from where Malware had grabbed and piledrived him into the ground. His eyes were bloodshot from the stress of the fight and the mini-emotional breakdown he’d had earlier. Scars lined and dotted his arms a patchwork of battle-wounds. Ben guessed they were remnants of brawling with Malware and Killer Croc. He really needed to invest in a hoodie or something to cover them.
His chest wasn’t much better when he pulled his t-shirt-off. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, considering how many times he’d been hit in the chest, but it was still bruised quite badly, his skin having a series of blue splotches from some of the impacts
His legs were better, just slightly skinnier and paler than usual but otherwise fine.
Ben let out a content sigh as the warm water rushed down his back soothing the ache in his joints, stinging slightly as the water entered his cuts and injuries but that feeling quickly receded as the water washed the sweat and grime from his limbs.
The Omnitrix wielder deliberately pushed all thoughts out of his head-he’d worry about what to do next after he got out, for now he just wanted a few minutes to relax and not have to overthink anything.
He emerged from the bathroom feeling a lot more refreshed and at peace than he had done since all this bullshit started.
He turned back around to shut the door only to see a sage-green hoodie hanging off the door handle. He picked it up and found there was a note attached to it reading:
“You looked like you needed it, so don’t worry about paying it back.”
Ben hesitated slightly but decided to ignore his pride and he accepted the gift that Barbara (who else would have it been) had left for him, sliding the hoodie over his head and atop his torso.
He quietly made his way down the stairs, catching Barbara looking at him out of the corner of his eye as he sat down at the chairs and fired up the computer.
Wow this is fucking slow.
Ben eventually managed to get Google up and running and typed in Gotham, the name of the city he was in, picked up by him having to trek through half of it just to get to the library.
“Gotham City is a city in the U.S State of New Jersey in the Northeastern region of North America. It is most famous as the home of the vigilante Batman and his associates and as having the highest crime rate in the Western World.”
Okay guess this city has even worse prison security than Plumber HQ if that’s the case.
Ben spent the next half-an-hour or so reading through the various articles detailing the vigilante Batman who must have had some rich guy backing him, based on the sheer amount of vehicles and gadgets he had, all of which had been documented and all of which had some very uncreative names like “The Batmobile” and “Batrangs”. Seriously, did he just make everything bat themed? He also read up on Batman’s close allies the oh-so creatively named Batfamily. There were several incarnations of Robin, he was on his fifth one now based on what the media said, while three of the former Robins had ascended into their careers, Nightwing, Red Robin (seriously what was it with superheroes in this dimension and their naming conventions?) and Spoiler. The Bat family was joined by Orphan, an almost perpetually silent vigilante who also seemed to be a really good martial artist, even compared to the rest of the family, based on what videos Ben had managed to find online.
Next came up the Batfamily’s Rogues Gallery as Ben decided to name them. Honestly a lot of them weren’t too dissimilar from some of the bad guys Ben had to deal with on a regular basis, except for one.
The Joker.
A psychopathic, nihilistic clown (god even if Ben wasn’t scared of them anymore he still didn’t like clowns so that was a point against the Joker) with a serious death count on his hands. Gotham seemed to live in terror for what he’d get up to when he next broke out of Arkham.
Ben read the list of his crimes with increasing horror, sucking in his breath and questioning to himself how this guy hadn’t been killed yet.
Now obviously Ben preferred not to kill if he could avoid it but he knew full well that sometimes there wasn’t really a choice, especially if the person in question was blatantly never going to change (he deftly shoved the memories of when he’d tried to kill Ultimate Kevin aside).
The Joker quite obviously fit that bill-even if Batman didn’t want to do it, how come somebody hadn’t arranged for him to have an accident in prison or out in the streets or something.
Or he'll find somewhere like the Null Void to throw him into.
(Ben put that on the top of his to-do list as soon as he got ahold of a Null Void projector).
Time seemed to flow by after that train of thought as Ben continued to research the various superheroes and villains of this world. The main heroes were a group called the Justice League, composed of a variety of heroes, from demigods, to cyborgs to aliens of borderline absurd power, even by the standards of his universe, particularly Superman, even if the lack of creativity in his hero name made Ben cringe.
After he finally finished reading all the publicaly available files (Ben thought he might turn into Grey Matter and see if there were any hidden serves with more info he could hack into), Ben pushed himself away from the desk and stretched his arms as the chair rolled back.
Ben turned his head to look out the window only to start in surprise slightly as he saw the sky had taken on an amber hue.
It must have been longer than I thought.
He turned his gaze away from the window back to face the rest of the library, seeing it was still fairly populated…and that Barbara had been glancing over in his direction, probably wondering why a thirteen year kid had spent hours researching the city he was in and the most well-known group of superheroes on the planet.
Well shit.
Ben guessed he’d better prepare to lie through his teeth again if he got held up by Barbara on his way out.
Which of course he did.
“Where are they?” Dick muttered to himself pacing around the Batcomputer, waiting for Tim and Steph to show.
It had been a fairly normal day in the Batcave so far, all things considered. Cass had just got back from ballet school, Damian and Duke came wandering in after school finished, watching him perform his acrobatics with varying degrees of applause and interest.
Jason alternated between reading a book and fixing his motorcycle, which had been the loudest, most ear-scraping sound to assault Dick’s eardrums in the quiet, cool, open space of the cave.
Bruce had been typing away at the Batcomputer, probably something really boring like the Justice League’s budget or PR rating or updating the list of games he and his siblings weren’t allowed to play anymore (not like they’d ever let that stop them)
Then the power went out. And in the small timeframe for the backup generators to kick in, and for the surveillance camera feeds to be restored on the Batcomputer, Killer Croc had broken out of Arkham, started a fire, caused mayhem and got into a fight with some kind of crystal being.
They hadn’t even had time to suit up before said crystal-being (which named itself Diamondhead apparently according to the footage they got of him interacting with the clean-up crew) managed to defeat Killer Croc, one of their more dangerous rogues single-handedly and with what looked like barely any effort.
Dick really wasn’t surprised to see Bruce’s mouth set into a thunderous frown as he watched and kept replaying the footage. He loved him but he knew Bruce well enough to know the man hated new things popping up and upending his control and knowledge of a situation. Especially when that was a new superpowered being or meta in Gotham, who was visibly really powerful and capable.
“Tim probably dragged Steph to a coffee store just so he could function for the drive here,” Jason quipped from his side of the computer,as Bruce kept replaying the footage.
“Or Brown distracted him with her incessant babbling and now they're lost-Ow!” Damian rubbed the back of his head and swivelled round only to see no-one was standing behind him.
Dick caught Cassandra’s grumpy but satisfied glint in her eye as she slid next to him from her successful revenge and perched herself up on one of the counters
Oh well. Damian should have really learned by now not to insult Steph with Cass in earshot.
Dick turned his gaze back to the screen then at Bruce again, slightly surprised that he hadn’t admonished them for bickering in this situation. Guess he’d been more lazer-focused on “Diamondhead” then he thought.
His brow was furrowed and his eyes gazing at the screen with the intensity of a thousand sons as he kept replaying and scanning the footage. Probably looking for potential weaknesses, Dick surmised.
And given by Bruce’s increasing grimace he wasn’t finding any yet.
The Batfamily members fell back into silence, broken only by the sounds of the file playing repeatedly. Granted from what they could see, Dick didn't think they had too much to worry about.
Diamondhead had publicly helped law enforcement and if he was powerful enough to defeat Killer Croc without much difficulty then he probably didn’t need to bother with pretending to be a good guy if he did have any nefarious intentions.
Though he didn’t think B had thought of that yet, Dick thought as Bruce started to grind his teeth the more he reviewed the footage.
Jason being the little chaotic gremlin that he was, started whistling cheerfully, his face set into a cheeky grin, purposely oblivious to how Bruce visibly tensed up in frustration.
Jason started tapping his foot obnoxiously loud, his face a smug smirk as he waited for B to lose his composure. Dick shot him a semi-disapproving look, one his younger brother duly ignored.
After a full minute of foot-tapping (and Cass, Damian and Duke also starting to get visibly annoyed) Bruce snapped.
The billionaire swivelled his chair round to level his wayward son with a fierce, uncompromising deathly cold stare. Jason just smirked wider.
“Jaylad,” Bruce ground out. “Would you please put an end to that racket?!”
Before Jason could open his mouth to retaliate and escalate it into a full-on verbal spar, the elevator door hummed and out burst Tim and Steph.
Dick thanked his lucky stars for their intervention before Bruce and Jason ended up descending into a shouted argument (not a serious one obviously but he still didn’t want to sit through it).
Although any hopes for a quieter atmosphere he had were immediately dashed as the two former Robins came barrelling towards the computer, mouths running at a mile a minute and words coming out in extremely quick, indecipherable jumbled mess.
“Whoa, whoa, slow down you too,” Duke exclaimed, slightly alarmed at how animated his brother and pseudo-sibling had become for some reason.
“Tim, Stephanie what’s the matter?” Bruce asked, raising his tone slightly to overcome his apprentices’ jabbering.
That failed miserably.
Dick saw Cass roll her eyes in fond exasperation at her girlfriend’s and brother’s antics. She propped herself up off the counter, casually strode over to Steph and pinched her cheek, abruptly bringing an end to Steph’s rambling.
“Steph,” Cass grinned fondly. “Slow down.”
“Sorry, “Steph said, catching her breath and elbowing Tim to get him to shut up as well.
“Dick’s got a clone running around Gotham!”
Dick’s head shot up in a flash.
“What…what are you too talking about,” Dick asked, his voice tighter than it had been for a while.
“Well…Tim and I saw him wandering around Gotham and he looks just like you when you were younger. We tracked him until you called his back but we think he was heading in the direction of the library,” Steph explained, her expression becoming increasingly concerned as she observed Dick. “So we don’t know for sure but he looks like he’s a clone of you.
“How…how old did you think he was?” Dick breathed out. Why is there a clone of me? Why is there a clone of a younger me???!!! Why is he just running around Gotham
Steph hesitated, so Tim picked up the slack (Dick tried to ignore how Steph’s hesitation really wasn’t helping his nerves. It was normal to be on edge hearing a clone of yourself had just randomly popped up out of nowhere right?).
“He looked like he was about thirteen-ish I think,” Tim answered, rubbing the back of his head, almost sheepishly, before his face grew serious. “And… he looked like he had a lot of bruises. Like he’s been abused or something.”
Dick felt his blood run cold and his heart thud. Even in Gotham, child abuse was one of the few things that really got to him. He didn’t know why it just did. So hearing that not only was there a child clone of him in Gotham but that he’d been abused…
Who made him? Who hurt him. Why did they make him? Why, why, why?
“Dick!?” Bruce asked, clearly alarmed as the former Boy Wonder’s face went white and he started wobbling on his feet. That movement finally seemed to break the spell of silence over the other members of the family, as they moved closer to Dick.
“Dickie-wing, are you alright?-” Jason asked, trying to inject a bit of levity only to be cut off as Dick toppled over as his vision went white, the last thing he heard being the panicked cries of his siblings, the last thing he felt was a pair of strong arms reaching around his body and embracing him, the last thought sounding out in his head being:
Why?
Steph winced as she saw Dick pass out into Bruce’s arms, the latter’s face uncharacteristically ashen as he carried his son to the medbay, whilst Tim made a huge racket as he sprinted to the elevator to go get Alfred.
That was… bad. Steph didn’t think she’d ever seen Dick react so badly to something before. Granted she supposed the news wasn’t great but still…, maybe Dick had some issues even he himself wasn’t fully aware of.
And you had a part in it, her mind whispered treacherously, as she was trying to ignore that fact. She and Tim probably should have privately informed Bruce first then went from there, but no they had to rush in and-
“Hey.”
Steph looked up from where her eyes had diverted to staring at the floor to see Cass. Her beautiful, wonderful girlfriend.
Cass gently took Steph's hands in her own and locked eyes with her.
“Not your fault. You couldn’t have known,” Cass said in her reassuring, gentle voice, gazing at Steph intensely.
Steph sighed. She withdrew her hands from Cass's and straightened herself.
“I know and I know he needed to find out but still…” she trailed off, still feeling a little guilty at helping cause Dick’s distress.
“Well…”
The two Batgirls turned to face Damian, who for some reason had his face twisted oddly.
“Now that you and Drake have made us aware of this Brown, we can take steps to solve this situation once Richard wakes up,” Damian said, frowning, probably from having to say something positive about her. Score 1 for Steph! “So therefore, as much as it pains me to admit this, this was for the best and you need not blame yourself Brown.”
“Aww thanks, Little D,” Steph gasped, pulling a shit-eating grin which only worsened when Damian’s face flushed in embarrassment. She could hear Duke and Jason start to chuckle and Cass started grinning alongside her. “You actually said something nice about me. Never thought I’d see the day!”
“Argh-Shut up Brown! Damian snapped, his face now burning red. “Only Grayson may refer to me by that juvenile nickname. And I wasn’t complimenting you, just observing reality.”
Steph covered her mouth in a mock-offended gasp and caught Cass’s eye as the two girls
shared a smirk. Jason and Duke obviously caught it and did the wise thing and backed up. Damian didn’t. Big mistake.
“Oh really,” Steph faux-pondered, placing her hand on her chin adopting a thoughtful expression as she started to approach Damian. “Cause it sounded like you thought Tim and I were smart enough to do the right thing in this kind of situation. That sounds like a compliment to me.”
Damian scoffed. “As if Brown, the day I compliment you for anything is the day I-aack!” He was cut off, as air was expelled from his lungs by the pair of slim but toned and strong arms that wrapped round his waist and hoisted him up into the air. Duke stared at the sight disbelieving while Jason had already doubled over laughing at seeing his most annoying little brother get pranked like this.
Steph grinned at the success of her and Cass’s unspoken plan, laughing her head off internally at the sight of Damian’s woe from having been caught off guard and lifted up. Damian really needed to learn not to underestimate Cass when it came to pranking.
“Cassandra put me down!” Damian protested, scowling when he saw the other Batfamily members’ amusement at his predicament.
“Hmm,” Cass considered. “Trade. Admit Steph was good and mean it and I let you down.”
“Ok fine! Yes Brown you were helpful, now Cassandra will you put me down!”
Cass smirked as she released Damian from her grip and let him drop to the floor, then moved back around to take Steph’s hand. Several Arabic curses flew out of his mouth as he impacted and when he heard the rest of his siblings just laughed harder at his expense.
With a huff, Damian pulled himself to his feet and shot multiple heated glares at the rest of the Batfamily. They just grinned cheekily at him completely unfazed.
Damian was just about to open his mouth and fire off some undoubtedly scathing retort when the sound of someone clearing their throat cut in and drew everyone’s attention.
Bruce was standing behind them, a tired but wryly amused expression adorning his face. His shoulders were a bit less tense now, but he still clearly wasn’t in the best state. Tim was standing behind Bruce, not looking much better himself.
“Dick’s fine, Tim and Alfred got him in the medbay he should be waking soon and he’ll be as good as new,” he stated without preamble, getting the point across before anyone could ask what they were all wondering about.
Duke breathed out a sigh of relief, Cass’s grip on her hand loosened a bit and even Damian looked somewhat mollified and now looked much less like a murder-happy, grumpy twelve-year-old.
“So uh, why did you call us here B?” Steph asked, abruptly realising that in the chaos of what had happened and her and Cass’s attempts to relieve some of the tension, neither she or Tim had actually gotten an answer on why they’d been randomly called to the Cave.
For once Bruce actually shot her a grateful look for the change of subject. Dick’s…episode must have affected him badly.
“For this.” He gestured to the screen, which was still set to replay the footage. He sat back down in his seat and tapped the start key.
Steph leaned in and started in surprise from what she saw. Killer Croc (how had he even escaped from Arkham) locked in battle with some kind of crystalline humanoid as the fires blazed around them.
She and Tim watched the video of the crystal being, which she found out from him introducing himself as Diamondhead, defeating Killer Croc pretty handily and putting out the widespread fires Croc had caused by his little gas truck destruction while barely breaking a sweat.
Now Steph did appreciate his moves and his help in putting a stop to Croc’s rampage (in fact if he stuck around, the blonde suspected their jobs might become easier), but she didn't think she entirely liked where this was going. Bruce was…prickly at best when it came to this sort of thing.
And of course that suspicion was confirmed with Bruce’s eye twitching unceasingly as he watched the footage alongside the rest of them.
“So to recap,” Tim said after the video finished, his voice slightly strained, eyes darting to Bruce’s reaction. “We’ve got a new Super-being in Gotham and Dick somehow had a clone running around here on his own.”
There was a brief moment of silence in the cave.
“Well…shit,” Jason muttered.