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Tim quietly padded down the hall to Jason’s bedroom. Most likely, he’d get the door slammed in his face, but Jason was acting weird, weird beyond the rest of the hurt and fury, and Tim didn’t like it.
Jason had every right to be mad and solitary of course. Bruce hadn’t meant to, but he’d basically accused Jay of pushing Felipe Garzonas off a fourth-story balcony into the street. Tim had drawn up a PowerPoint for the whole family, using the footage from Batman’s and Robin’s masks, crime scene photos, physics equations, and pages and pages of hand-written math calculations to prove Jason was innocent, before Bruce had finally gotten his words together to swear that he had not thought Jason murdered Garzonas, and had admonished Jason about his temper mostly because it had caused him to charge after an armed and dangerous criminal without backup.
So yeah, even with that cleared up now, Jason deserved to be a little cold-shoulder-y. But he’d never shut out Tim before.
Well, too bad for him, Tim was a detective.
He didn’t bother knocking, because only Bruce did that, and Jason would definitely yell at him to go away if he thought Bruce was trying to apologize again.
“What do you want, Tim?” Jason snapped irritably.
There was a box on his bed, and a bunch of old dusty things scattered across the comforter. Jason was staring down at a small book, his expression twisted and foreign.
“What’s all that?”
“None of your damn business.”
Jason snapped the book shut and tossed it behind him on the bed. He glowered at Tim, folding his arms across his chest.
Tim ignored the hostility and wandered closer, until he could start to identify some of the items. Regular household junk, mostly, and a few papers that seemed to be school assignments and art projects. The book Jason had failed miserably to hide was an address book.
“If you’re not gonna say anything then get out of my room.”
Tim blinked and looked up at Jason’s glare. He looked… unsettled. Also like he was planning, and planning in secret.
Jason’s secret plans didn’t usually turn out well unless they involved cooking, and Tim seriously doubted that surprise brownies were on his brother’s mind.
Tim pursed his lips a little into a pout. He looked down at the floor, scuffing his heel against the carpet. “I just wanted to ask if you were ok.”
Jason sighed heavily, turning it into a growl halfway through.
“I’m fine. Now go away.”
Tim glanced up, raising his eyebrows and curling his pout to the side.
“Don’t look at me like that! I. Am. Fine. I’m great, actually, if you’ve just got to know.”
But every word carried bitter anger. And yet even still, something in Jason’s eyes that he was pleased. Or at least captivated.
“Ok,” Tim said, shrugging.
He flounced over and flopped on Jason’s bed, squirming until he could grin charmingly up at his brother, head in his lap, fingers creeping wholly unnoticed towards the address book.
“Tell me one of your stories?”
Jason wrote as much as he read, though Tim was pretty sure himself and Alfred were the extent of his audience.
“Once upon a time,” Jason said flatly. “There was a cute, little boy who was basically a teddy bear. He grew up and became a clingy, nosy pest, so his big brother drowned him in a stew pot and served him for dinner. The end.”
Tim scrunched his face so tight he could only see Jason through slits. “Boo!” he huffed, as his hand curled around the book. “Then the big brother was so overcome by grief and guilt, he cried on Teddy’s grave until a tree grew to mark the spot.”
Jason squinched his nose and stuck his tongue out. Tim stuck his out right back, adding a whiny “Nnn!"
Then he gracefully rolled right off Jason’s lap and darted away, clutching the book to his chest.
“Hey!”
Oh, shit. Jason sounded really mad.
“Give me that the fuck back right now!”
He lunged, but Tim was smaller and faster, if only by a hair. He ripped open the door and sprinted down the hall, frantically flipping through pages to pick up any clues about what had Jason acting so weird.
“Timothy Jackson Drake, you give that back!”
A folded slip of paper dropped from the S pages. Tim stumbled to a stop and scooped it up, hurriedly unfolding it as Jason pounded closer.
It was an old, stained birth certificate, reading Jason Todd. And though the father read Willis Todd, the mother didn’t say Catherine.
As Tim stood staring, Jason shoved into him, ripping the paper and the book out of his hands.
“Tim, you fucking little bitch, what the fuck, you damn sneak thief!”
He shoved Tim again, hard enough it felt like he'd hit him. Tim stumbled back and fell over, gaping wide-eyed and open mouthed, because Jason had never, ever turned his rage on Tim before.
Jason was standing over him, absolutely furious, fist clenched and eyes flashing, and on instinct Tim curled around himself.
And then Jason collapsed, like someone had cut his puppet strings, and he sagged against the wall and sobbed.
Hesitantly, Tim got up on his hands and knees and crawled over. Jason didn’t acknowledge him, kept crying into his knees, until Tim cautiously sat beside him, pressing their shoulders together and leaning his head on Jason’s arm.
Jason went rigid, but after a moment he dropped one arm to grab Tim’s hand, squeezing it tight.
“I’m sorry,” he choked out. “Tim, I’m so…”
“It’s ok,” Tim started slowly.
“No, it’s not!” Jason cried. “I hurt you, Tim, I made you afraid of me.”
“I forgive you--"
“Bruce was fucking right. They were all fucking right.”
Tim could only stare as Jason kept sobbing. His face was hidden, but he sounded furious as much as remorseful. Tim carefully wriggled closer, keeping hold of Jason’s hand, wrapping his other arm around Jason’s shoulder.
“Right about what?” he whispered.
“My goddamn temper.”
“I stole your private stuff,” Tim said quietly. “You had every right to be mad at me.”
Jason finally looked up, face blotchy, glaring into Tim’s face, but he didn’t think the anger itself was aimed at him.
“To be mad at you. Not to call you a bitch and shove you to the ground and make you think I was gonna hit you!” He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his face against Tim’s hair. “They said I’d turn into my dad and they were right.”
It was starting to make sense to Tim now. Why Jason had been so off, probably what the address book was for, and almost definitely what Jason had been planning. Tim was very relieved he'd figured it out in time.
Right now though, he needed to help his brother see himself the way Tim saw him, the way Dick and Bruce and Alfred saw him, or he might just run away before Tim could talk him down. Run away and get hurt.
“Bullshit,” Tim said quietly.
“What?” Jason sniffled.
“I’m calling bullshit. Your dad wouldn’t have stopped. He wouldn’t have apologized. He wouldn’t have felt bad for making someone feel afraid. You aren’t him at all.”
“It’s trajectory,” Jason sighed tiredly. “If I’m not yet, I will be.”
“Bull. Shit. You’ve taught yourself all along to be different, Jay. Even if you get mad and it gets the better of you for a minute you stop! You don’t want to be like your dad, so you won’t be.”
“He’s my dad, Tim!” Jason snapped. “I look like him, my voice is starting to sound like him, I’ve got his blood, his anger, his--"
“So what?” Tim exclaimed. “Your genes are only like half of you, Jason, and your genes are only half him, anyway! Catherine raised you, and then you raised yourself, and now Bruce is doing it, and if you ask me, you’re a hell of a lot more like our dad than like yours.”
Jason scoffed.
“You care about people. You want to help people, and protect them. You try to make things right, and you’re super smart, and maybe you’re not the greatest at Feelings, but you always try.”
Jason opened his mouth, but Tim cut across him before he could complain that being Bruce-like wasn’t exactly better.
“And you know what’s really special, Jay? You did it yourself. You made yourself kind, and smart, and brave. Nobody taught you those things.
“And. . . and you know Bruce doesn’t think you’ll turn into your dad. He’s just bad at saying what he means.”
Jason sighed heavily. He absently rubbed his thumb in circles over the back of Tim’s hand. Tim nuzzled closer and whispered, “We all love you, Jason.”
“I know,” he mumbled. “I just want to find my family.”
"But we're your family, Jason!"
"Technically, you aren't, though," he muttered.
"Technically, we are, though," Tim shot back, pulling away to force Jason to meet his eyes. "We're your family because we called dibs." He blinked several times, looking down as his lip started to quiver. His voice trembled when he added, "Or don't those count?"
“Aw, hell, Timmy. . .”
Tim sniffled and grinned widely as Jason tugged him into his lap, cupping his head against his shoulder.
“I’ll always have dibs on you, you little teddy bear,” Jason huffed, stroking his fingers through Tim’s hair. “But there’s somebody else out there who. . . she just might have dibs on me. And I’ve got to find her.”
“Ok,” Tim said quietly. “But I wanna help.”
“You’re going help me whether I want you to or not, aren’t you?” Jason asked wryly.
Tim ducked his head sheepishly, nodding against Jason’s chest. Jason sighed, but dragged them both to their feet, and started back down the hall to his room. He flipped open his laptop, pulling up a website that listed various airline prices to. . .
“Hold up!” Tim squawked. “Israel? Lebanon? Ethiopia?”
Jason tossed him the address book. “Sharmin Rosen, Sandra Woosan, Sheila Haywood. I figured the addresses were cold, so I looked them up on the Batcomputer.”
“And then stopped?”
Jason’s cheeks colored. “It felt weird internet-stalking people who might be my mother.”
“So you were gonna fly off to the Middle East alone, knock on their doors and go, ‘Hey, ever fucked a guy named Willis Todd?’”
Jason’s shoulders hunched and he scowled. “You’re not allowed to say fuck yet,” he muttered.
Tim facepalmed. Jason was just freaking lucky Tim was here to take care of the research, that was all. It wasn’t exactly safe in those places for normal Americans, let alone teenage sons of billionaires.
“We’re going back to the Batcomputer,” he said flatly. “And I’ll internet-stalk them if you’re too squeamish.”
Jason muttered something under his breath that Tim graciously decided to ignore. He did follow Tim down to the cave, though, and he didn’t go for the jet.
“If you looked them up on the Batcomputer,” Tim asked, logging in, “How’d you miss that Sandra Woosan is Lady Shiva?”
“I didn’t miss it,” Jason sulked. “Lady Shiva could be my mom.”
Tim tried to imagine Lady Shiva actually carrying a baby to term. Nothing was impossible, he supposed. But he could see how an in-person confrontation might actually be the only way to confirm or deny her motherhood status. He decided to start with Sharmin Rosen.
Jason looked kind of excited, despite the way he kept cringing away from the pages and pages of documentation Tim pulled up. Having an Israeli spy as a mom would be pretty cool, Tim thought. And the nature and extent of her fieldwork was as good an excuse as one could give for leaving a baby with Willis Todd and never making contact. She did leave Gotham only shortly after Jason was born, but there were no records of her in any hospital around.
Tim moved on to Sheila Haywood. She was a doctor in a refugee camp in Ethiopia, which also seemed pretty cool and noble. And then he found that all-important document. The hospital record with her name, her room in the maternity ward, her partner’s and son’s names that ended Todd.
“Oh, my God,” Jason breathed. He leaned over Tim’s shoulder, grabbing his wrist. He was grinning.
“You did it, you found her! Mom… she’s beautiful.”
She was. It was just a driver’s license photo, but Ms. Haywood was very pretty. Jason had her eyes.
Jason’s other hand lifted, hovering for a split second halfway to the screen before he let it drop. Tim pretended not to notice.
He felt a little like maybe he shouldn’t be there, but then…
Tim’s codes kept pulling up more and more information. Information that… followed patterns that had led Batman and Robin to catching white-collar criminals.
He processed the numbers and what they meant only seconds before Jason, and lunged to shut it down, but Jason’s grip went painfully tight and his breath stuttered.
“Maybe it was an entry error,” Tim breathed.
He couldn’t close it down. More documents flicked across the screen. They told arguably worse things.
“Maybe I’m just cursed.”
The grip left Tim’ wrist. Jason started to walk away. Tim spun around, starting to reach out before thinking better.
“Where are you--"
“Don’t follow me.”
Jason was gone.
Chill wind ruffled through his hair, biting at his arms, making his cheeks sting where the tears had dried. The warmth the sun has given him was mostly gone now. The sun was nearly too low to see over the woods.
The roof creaked.
“Jaylad?”
Jason scrunched tighter into a ball, glaring down across the grounds.
“Guess Tim told you everything.”
“He was afraid you might not come back. Safely, at least.”
Jason dropped his head on his arms. He didn’t mean to scare Tim. Again.
“May I join you?”
“Your house,” he muttered.
“Your space,” Bruce returned, just as quiet.
“Sure.”
It didn’t make that much difference. Jason didn’t have to explain anything because Bruce already knew. And Bruce sure as hell wasn’t going to start the conversation. Might give him an anaphylactic reaction to emotions.
Bruce was warm beside him. Many other times Jason had pressed close against that warmth, and Bruce had wrapped an arm around him, and they'd just sat companionably while Jason worked out his thoughts.
He'd been trying to work out his thoughts for hours. It was like trying to untangle knots in the middle of a storm, while your crewmate ran around re-tying every rope you touched, and you only had one working hand.
Willis was abusive, a drunk, and a criminal. Catherine was kind, but an addict, and had left Jason alone long before she actually died. Sheila was embezzling and had lost her medical license before she even left Gotham because she performed an illegal procedure and someone had died. Bruce was never satisfied with anything, and he was brilliant and protective but pain was at the heart of everything he did. These people had made Jason. But what had they made him?
Bruce cleared his throat. Jason looked up at him, trying not to gape as the man opened his mouth and actually used his words.
“In every field of science,” he started. “There’s a debate about the influences of nature versus nurture.”
Oh, goody. Jason dropped his chin on his arms, but he kept listening.
“The conclusions are that they’re about equal, in most areas. Some things – even beyond what we look like and how are bodies are put together – we inherit from our parents’ genetics. Some things we learn by watching them. And there are still many things that can’t be explained either way.”
“The people who bore me are criminals,” Jason snapped. “The people who raised me were addicts. You’re not exactly the picture of healthy and law-abiding yourself. And if you want to talk human sciences, there’s a thing called labeling theory. Just how much did Tim tell you, huh? Because I proved everyone who told me ‘Jason, you’re violent,’ and ‘Jason, you’re trash' right.”
“No.”
Jason jumped. He blinked rapidly, looking over at Bruce. He almost looked angry. But… hurt, too. For some reason.
“Jaylad…” Bruce reached up to brush Jason’s bangs out of his eyes. He didn’t pull his hand away, cupping it around Jason’s cheek. “You are so much more than the sum of your parents – their good or their bad. Yes, there are pieces of them inside you – good and not – but how they formed and how you use them are all yourself.”
Jason stayed quiet, looking away from Bruce’s intent gaze. That sounded a lot like what Tim had said. Hearing it again… it still made sense.
“And what happened between you and Tim does not prove anything, except that you are human, but more importantly, that you love stronger – far stronger – than you hate.
“You are not… trash, or any other foul thing anyone may have called you.”
Jason could feel tears sliding down his cheeks again. Bruce brushed them away, folding Jason against his side, surrounding him in warmth.
“You are my son,” he said, voice shaking, just a little. “And to me, you are more precious than all the world.”
Jason was wholly cradled in Bruce’s arms when his sobs died away. His hand was fisted in Bruce’s shirt, over his heartbeat, and his face was hidden against a broad shoulder.
He still felt too much. Anger and confusion and shame and the ache of broken wishes. But also warm, and protected, and maybe a little less burdened by other people’s mistakes.
“Love you… Dad,” he whispered.
He thought it would get lost on the wind.
Lips against his head.
“I love you, too, Jay.”