Chapter Text
There wasn’t a lot worth remembering, back in the early days of Jason’s childhood, but he remembers regardless. He particularly tries to cling to the memories of a time before his mother was stolen by the drugs and would spend time with him, be engaged. She’d brush his long, thick hair and talk about how pretty it was. She herself could never get her hair to grow lower than 4 or 5 inches past her shoulders, but by the time Jason was 10 his hair was well down his back. Don’t ever cut it, baby. You’re growing up to be such a pretty young lady.
It was fine, back then. “Young lady” didn’t make his skin crawl yet and he liked having long hair for his mother to practice her hairstyles on. He spent his days with twin braids over his shoulders and getting yelled after not to ruin his clothes, not to play too rough, not to make too many friends with boys, here, don’t you want to play with Mrs. Perez’s daughter instead? The confines of being a young lady pinched like a garment fitted in all the wrong places at times, but that was just the way misogyny chafed against all girls: with expectations of daintiness, submissiveness, of being polite and agreeable and taking it with a smile.
He knew a lot of people who took too much with a smile.
When his mother first died and he was left on his own, his father still tucked away at Blackgate where he would die before he ever made it out, Jason pulled his long hair up into a bun and secured it with a baseball cap. Hair was an easy handle to grab onto, and it wasn’t safe to walk around Crime Alley with braids while homeless. He should honestly cut it, he didn’t even have a good way to wash it, but he couldn’t help but feel he’d be cutting away pieces of his mother by doing so.
That was probably where it started, looking back, because Jason learned that if he kept his hat on, wore pants and refused to wear pink…. Well, there wasn’t much at his age that would give him away as a girl. The first time he was called “young man” he was so surprised he could only stammer. The second time he shyly corrected the woman, a little embarrassed. By the fifth time he was starting to wonder exactly why it felt so good to be mistaken for a boy. By the fifteenth time, he stopped correcting people entirely.
He learned that he felt safer as a boy and decided that was probably why he felt happier too. He started running errands for money; at first legal errands, then not so legal. After a while he settled upon stealing tires, and well. If you see an expensive car, you’d better claim that sucker as fast as possible.
It took some work to figure out how to get the bolts off of this one- did it have a security system for the wheels?? Really????- but he managed to get the first three off before he ran into trouble.
Batman made the same mistake as everyone else, calling him young man. Jason didn’t waste time correcting him. It was after hitting him with the tire iron, when he gave Batman his name, that he would apologize and call him young lady, and for some reason the silent apology at getting it wrong the first time rubbed him the wrong way.
Batman refused to leave him on the streets, and Jason wasn’t stupid enough to just trust him when he said he knew a guy who would be interested in taking in a young girl who nobody would miss. So really, it was his own fault that Mr. Wayne got hit in the face the next morning with the first antique vase Jason could get his hands on.
Bruce was actually pretty cool, once you got past the fact that he was an idiot in a bat suit and got to the part where he had a huge library. Jason spent most of his afternoons there, enveloped in the comfort of a captivating story. He’d sorely missed books; the library had shut their doors to him once it was clear he was there not just to read but to try and catch some sleep somewhere safe.
He was put into Gotham prep, and while it was a relief to be back in school it was a bitch at the same time- nothing like being born a dirt poor street rat to help you out socially. He wasn’t there for friends though, he was there to learn, and he greedily drank in the lessons his teachers gave while sticking to his guns and stubbornly refusing the shame his peers tried to make him wear in the hallways and courtyards.
As grateful as he was to be back in school, there was one thing that bothered him even more than wannabe bullies.
“Alfie, do I have to wear a skirt?”
“I’m quite sorry, but the school dress code strictly states that young boys wear trousers and the young ladies wear skirts”
“It’s sexist and stupid! C’mon, can’t Bruce just throw some rich person incentive at them to let me do it and make them shut up?”
Alfred made an incredibly sour expression. “Unfortunately, Master Bruce has to pick his battles with that school as he discovered with young Master Richard. He would like to save that for more serious obstacles than a displeasing wardrobe.” Jason would bet money that that was Alfie speak for the superintendent was a piece of shit who didn’t like lower class brown kids in his uppity school, so he grumbled and finished his measurements. Bruce wasn’t the only one picking his battles, it seemed.
As it turned out, school would be the least of his worries. Jason had already hated the idea of a gala, rich snobs rubbing elbows and talking about meaningless shit like how rich they were. He hated the idea of having to act the part of the proper little lady while everyone cooed over him patronizingly, knowing all the while that they would rather him not be there at all. But then Bruce announced that Alfie was going to take him dress shopping, and something in Jason felt like a piece of aluminum crumpled into a tight ball.
“I’m not going,” he announced right back.
Bruce sighed. “I know you haven’t been wild about the idea of going to a gala, but I’ve put it off as much as possible. The public expects to see you here and there, and frankly, it’s suspicious if I keep you on lockdown from them when I didn’t do the same for Dick. It’s time to make an appearance, just for a couple hours.”
“No! I’m not doing it!”
“Sweetheart, I know that it’s- uncomfortable for you”
Jason stood up.
“You don’t understand anything!”
Jason shot up the stairs ignoring the shouts after him and locked the door to his room.
Bruce wouldn’t make him go to that gala. Couldn’t make him.
He ended up at the Gala, in a dress, and it was exactly as horrible as he thought it would be.
He didn’t speak to Bruce for a week.
The reprieve from all of this was Robin. Something about Robin was magic to him. It was the way he flew through the air, the people he helped, the thrill of the fight. It was the way people sometimes stuttered over themselves, still so used to calling Robin the boy wonder that they forgot and let it slip.
The fact that he was a girl was rarely relevant when he was Robin. Instead, it was relevant that he could handle himself, could pack a punch, and was ruining bad guys’ plans. He didn’t have to worry about acting ladylike to set himself apart from anyone else, didn’t have to worry about impractical skirts and looking pretty, he just had to focus on the mission. The constriction around him loosened, and he would forget the feeling of being wrong, shoved into his ski like a pillow in a too-small pillowcase. Robin flew, and Robin was free, and Robine was magic.
But then high school started and the world ended. Puberty came for Jason and it came for him hard. It started with his hips, noticing that they had more of a shape than they used to. Then, where there had barely been anything at all on his chest, there was now much more to where it was noticeable, and Jason swore he would take the oil and acne forever if it just meant the other parts would go away.
He supposed it wasn’t all bad. He was gaining weight rapidly, something useful for being Robin, and while he didn’t grow much he managed to stack on another inch and a half before it slowed down again. But the rest of the time it felt like he was being twisted around like Play-Doh into a parody of himself, something he hated and didn’t know why.
He thought back to the words of the primary care physician that he’d seen a few months ago for a checkup, who had explained that because of his malnourishment he may not go through puberty until later than other girls. That meant a late period. Jason held his breath through the entirety of freshman year. He almost thought that maybe he’d be lucky. Maybe he’d have more time and make it to fifteen, or maybe he’d have some freak medical condition that would save him from having to put up with that.
It didn’t last.
Bruce and Jason rode in silence. Jason, personally, was hoping to pass away spontaneously.
Bruce cleared his throat. Jason prepared to perish.
“You know. My experiences are…. Obviously different from your own. But I know it’s a strange experience going through these kinds of changes.”
Jason said nothing, hoping that Bruce would leave it at that. He continued.
“And I know it’s probably not easy, being in a family of all men like ours. But if you ever need to talk to someone, I’m sure Selena could-”
“How bout we just stop talking for a while?”
“Sweetheart. You locked yourself in a bathroom stall for 3 hours. No one was able to find you. That’s not…” Bruce searched for the right word to use.
“I get it, it was a stupid thing to do. I panicked, ok? I’m not talking about this anymore.”
“...Okay.”
But something had to give, or else his chest would cave inward and he’d be left with no way to breathe.
Which led to this.
Jason sat with his back against the door, scissors clutched to his chest and sobbing. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. He should know better than this. He was acting out like a *child* and Bruce was going to be so mad-
He was already waiting outside the door.
“Sweetheart, I just want to help,” he said again. “If you don’t open the door for me, I’m going to have to open it for you.”
Jason tried to get his sobs under control. “I-I’m f-f-i-ine”
“You’re not fine,” Bruce said. “I can hear you crying.”
“You’re gonna be mad.”
“I’m not.” Bruce paused. “Have you hurt yourself?”
Jason looked around at his hair, littering the counter, floor, and the clothing he had on. “I don’t kn-know how to answer that.”
“I’m coming in,” Bruce said, unlocking the door.
“No- don’t!” But Bruce was already coming in. Jason stood to avoid being crushed between the door and the wall and watched as Bruce took in the scene before him.
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
And then Bruce said his name, trailing off, and Jason snapped out of it.
“I’m sorry!” he cried “I don’t know why I did it, I just felt like I was going to explode, I- I shouldn’t have-”
Bruce held up a hand to cut her off.
“Listen- Sweetheart- I’m just glad it’s hair”
“But-” Jason tried.
“Hair grows back. It’ll take a while, but if you want it back then all you have to do is wait. And if you don’t regret it… well, it’s a good thing you look good with short hair.”
“I look ridiculous.”
“That’s because you’re a fourteen year old with scissors. A proper barber will be able to even if out.”
“What if I want it shorter?”
“Then we’ll get it shorter,” Bruce replied.
“What if I want to be bald?” Jason challenged.
“Just as long as you don’t tattoo your head.”
“You can’t just be ok with this!”
Bruce paused. “Do you want me to be upset?”
Jason stared.
“Listen to me,” Bruce said, “This is very important. Did you do this… because you wanted someone to punish you for something? Because you need attention, even if it’s bad attention?”
“No!”
“It’s ok if you did,” he said. “Sometimes we do things as a cry for help, and that just indicates a need not being met-”
“No, it’s not that, I promise you. I don’t know what it is, but it has nothing to do with you.”
It was true. Whatever this was, it was a problem with him.
Bruce made him go to therapy about it.
It was weird, having no hair anymore. Jason shaking his head to feel the lack of resistance from his new, shorter hair. He got called a dyke in the hallways a couple times after the big chop, but he also got a few stray compliments from girls who said that they wanted to but they could never work up the courage to go through with it. Mostly, Jason just looked around him at other boys who had dark, curly, short hair and felt something in his chest ease.
But then.
It was a rude comment from a classmate who thought it was cool to throw slurs around. It was Jason retaliating by knocking his front tooth loose and Bruce lecturing him in the car about how violent he was becoming and how you can’t hit civilians like that and how this was unacceptable. It was Jason slamming the door to his room and trying not to shake because he’d been called that slur before but this time it stuck like a name tag.
Something was wrong.
He knew, on a basic level, what the slur meant. That someone was transgender, transsexual, a transvestite, something like that. He’d known from his time on the streets and talking to working girls what that was. But how did someone know that about themselves? Were they born knowing? Did you just decide it one day? Was there a criteria you met?
As soon as Jason was ungrounded from the internet he jumped into the rabbit hole of information that opened and drank. He read about the barest definition. The technical. Looked at pictures. Discovered there was medicine for this. That you could take shots, take pills, that there were surgeries. He read personal accounts. Feeling out of place in their own body. Liking the “wrong” gendered terms. He read and read until the light shone through the morning and then he cried, because there was no way Bruce was going to be ok with this. He’d lose everything. Bruce, Alfred, Dick, Selina, the Titans, everyone.
He knew what was wrong with him now, and it was going to ruin his life.
So he tried to fix it. Tried to fix himself. He tried wearing more feminine things, forced himself to experiment with makeup, and when Bruce commented that it looked like it was time for a haircut, he stamped down on the sick feeling in his gut and said, “Actually, I’m gonna grow it out.”
Bruce frowned.
“What?” Jason snapped.
“Is that what you want? You don’t like it short anymore?”
Jason scowled. “I’m growing it out.”
“You just….. Don’t sound happy about it is all.”
“That’s none of your business.”
Bruce put down the paper he was looking at.
“Sweetheart, it’s my business to make sure you’re as happy and healthy as possible. So why…?” He gestured to Jason’s everything.
“I’m growing up. It’s not like I can be a tomboy little kid forever.”
“You can be a tomboy. You can be whatever you want to be.”
Not this Jason thought. Not a boy.
“Whatever makes you happy, sweetheart, I’ll support it”
A boy. A boy. I want to be a-
Jason turned away from Bruce.
“Yeah…” Jason said, “Whatever.”
It all went down the crapper pretty quick. Bruce and Jason fought more often, and Jason closed himself off tightly. The final nail in the coffin was the Garzonas case, Bruce’s refusal to take his word that he hadn’t killed the man.
And then Ethiopia happened.
And then there was nothing.
It goes like this: One moment, Jason is fresh out of a grave he just had to dig out of, looking at a name that isn’t his on a headstone next to the woman who got him killed. The next, he is gasping for air, and he is angry, angry, angry.
He is told he was replaced. Told he was unloved. Told his murderer was still alive.
He is no longer unable to control himself, but he listens, and he feels his blood simmer with rage.
Over the next few months, Jason grows like hell. Cured of the stunted growth that plagued his childhood and adolescence, he gains several inches and more muscle than he’d been able to put on before. He trains through the intense growing pains. His period returns heavier than it had been before, and for more days. The cramps are somehow less than they were before. He’s shocked, upon the third month, to realize that his period is actually regular now and not just a spotty mess that shows up a few times a year. That sends him into a tailspin nice and good, and Talia confronts him over the length of time that he spent in the washroom.
And he thinks, well, what have I got to lose? She’s not a loved one, and he may as well die here anyways if this is going to be his life. So he tells her everything. Talia is silent throughout the entire explanation, but she seems to be thinking.
“And this causes you distress? Pain?” She asks when he is done explaining.
“God yes,” he replies.
She stands. “I see,” she says. “A warrior must always be in top form. This… situation you are in is unacceptable. We shall fix it.”
And then she leaves him there, like that is a completely normal thing to say to someone who has just come out to you.
Well. At least he can know that this time, when he dies, he’ll at least have told someone.
Except they don’t kill him. They’re offering him surgeries, hormones, a new, male identity. Jason takes back what he said earlier. Not only is Talia a loved one, she is now his favorite loved one, she’s the best person he’s ever met. He accepts. He goes through top surgery and a radical hysterectomy- no more periods, no more breasts, just a body that feels free. He takes T and his voice drops like a brick. He seems to get more hair everywhere but his face for a while, and his jawline looks more defined.
It’s an investment for the League of Assassins for sure, but one that pays off. He needs time to heal from his surgeries, but once he does he fights twice as well as he did fresh out of the pit. His training goes faster, and he gets better, and before he knows it Talia is handing him a red helmet and sending him off to Gotham to get his revenge.
She’s set him up with a new identity, too: Jason Peter Moore. He snorts a little, because really, Moore is one of the most common names in New Jersey and in the U.S., she might as well have just gone with Williams. But even then nothing can overshadow his ecstasy at seeing his name, his proper name, on an I.D. for him. He’d almost forgotten about the pit rage until Talia embraces him, wishes him luck, and reminds him to have no mercy on those who have wronged him.
And off to Gotham he goes.