Chapter Text
It took Bruce a few months of living with his son to notice that Jason had an… interesting relationship with food.
The first time Bruce realized something was off was over breakfast one morning when Jason barely picked at his eggs and toast. Usually, Jason all but attacked his food, cheeks bulging as he shoveled and shoveled. He could finish a full meal in minutes.
Now, he was morosely pushing a speck of egg around his plate with the corner of a piece of toast, his chin resting on his other hand.
“Jason?” Bruce asked. “Are you alright?”
Jason startled and dropped the toast. Blinked like he was coming out of a daze. “What? Oh– yeah. Yeah, yeah. All good.”
“You’re not eating.”
Jason gave Bruce a thin smile and pushed his plate away. “Just not hungry, I guess.”
“You have school today,” Bruce reminded him. Jason never skipped breakfast. He had a late lunch hour at the academy and god help anyone caught in his orbit when he was hangry. “Are you sure you don’t want to eat anything? Alfred can make you something else if–”
Jason almost looked a little green at that. “No, it’s fine. Really. Can I be excused?”
Bruce nodded, watching Jason all but run from the table.
His detective senses were itching. He was missing something, he just didn’t know what.
Jason hadn’t looked sick when he saw him an hour ago in the bathroom, wearing a holey t-shirt with a foamy trail of toothpaste running down his arm. Jason had smiled, and given Bruce a mock salute. Bruce replied by reaching over and ruffling his gravity defying bedhead. Jason pushed him off and rolled his eyes, but it was all an act. Their usual scripted morning dance, performed flawlessly with gusto.
In short, Jason had been fine earlier. What changed from then to now?
Alfred came into the dining room and furrowed his brow. “Did Master Jason want something else? His plate looks like he didn’t eat at all.”
“He didn’t,” Bruce confirmed.
Alfred looked worried. “Do you think he’s ill?”
Maybe that was all it was. Sickness.
Or even anxiety. Bruce had seen the havoc anxiety wrecked on Jason’s gut first hand. The cramping stomachaches and persistent nausea.
Yet, something in Bruce told him to guess again.
He’d seen Jason sick. This wasn’t that. And Jason’s anxious tell was always in his hands. They would shake and fidget and scratch whenever he was nervous. His hands had been steady.
So, what was it?
Bruce realized that Alfred was still waiting for an answer. “I don’t know,” he finally said, pushing his own half-finished plate away. He saw the irony in not finishing his own meal, but he wasn’t concerned with it right now. He’d eaten enough to fuel himself through the morning.
He needed to treat this like a case. It would make it easier to crack it. Get down to the Batcave before Alfred caught on and suggested that he–
“You could always ask Master Jason what’s wrong,” Alfred offered, unprompted. Damn it. Bruce had been too slow. “Sometimes the most straightforward path is also the most effective.”
“Hn.”
Alfred gave him a look. Bruce reluctantly deciphered it.
Alfred understood Bruce’s reply as a dismissal and wanted him to understand it would be a mistake. One he would let Bruce make, but remind him of later when Alfred turned out to be right (like he often was).
“I’ll… take it under advisement,” Bruce mumbled, pushing up from the table.
“That’s all I ask.”
Bruce ducked down the hall and mulled over his options.
While Alfred was usually right, the longer he thought about simply asking Jason what was wrong, the more fully he was reminded that it never worked. Jason would just brush Bruce off as being a worrier, or snap about wanting personal space. Getting Jason to open up to him was also a herculean effort. High risk, low reward.
Bruce cringed just thinking about it.
No, Bruce would have to figure out what was wrong first. It was always easier to come to Jason with details and a hypothesis than to create space for “open and honest dialogue” like Dr. León suggested.
She may have a PhD in counseling but she had clearly never met his son.
Honest? Sure.
Open? As Bruce himself was at that age. (Which meant tight-lipped, secretive, and an excellent liar.)
—
The second time Bruce realized something was off was when he was searching the house for a missing antique sword.
Dick swore he didn’t touch it, which Bruce was more likely to believe now that there was a younger and even more impulsive culprit living under his roof. He could picture Jason happily running up the Batcave stairs with a sword in hand so easily he didn’t even bother checking the security footage before checking Jason’s bedroom.
Jason’s room was, as always, surprisingly neat, almost meticulous. An unmade bed, but no dirty clothes strewn about. Errant books piled up on his nightstand and desk.
Bruce knelt by the bed to check under it, and spotted something shiny and metallic between the box spring and mattress.
Gotcha.
He would need to lecture Jason later on leaving weapons in the Batcave, and asking before he played with a historic artifact (one that Diana was definitely going to yell at Bruce for letting leave his sight).
Bruce pulled the mattress up and almost dropped it in surprise.
The metallic thing he’d spotted wasn’t a sword, but a protein bar wrapper. And it was one of dozens of empty, crumpled protein bar wrappers all squirreled away between Jason’s box spring and mattress.
“What in the… Why would he put them in here?” Bruce asked himself out loud. It was so weird and out of character. This was something Dick would’ve done, too lazy to walk to a trash can, or feeling rebellious about Alfred’s rules on keeping food downstairs. But Jason was a neat freak and took Alfred’s rule seriously, especially considering his personal trauma with bugs and vermin. He would never leave food waste in his bedroom like this. Or at least, Bruce didn’t think he would.
Another weird detail was the type of protein bar. It wasn’t the high quality type Alfred kept in the pantry for the kids, but the cheap, purchased-en-masse brand Bruce kept in the Batcave for his tool belt. He didn’t even eat these himself. They were for emergencies– a low energy hero in need during a team up, or a rescued hostage in need of food. Bruce never gave them to either of his sons.
Why was Jason eating them at all? And hiding the wrappers between his mattress and box spring?
Carefully, Bruce cleaned them out, brushing them into Jason’s small bedroom waste basket.
He would ask Jason about it when he got home from school that day.
(He forgot. There was a parent-teacher conference that evening that had slipped his mind, and it was just long and stressful enough for Bruce to forget all about the protein bars.)
—
The third time Bruce knew something was off was because Dick had noticed, too.
“Hey, B?”
Bruce grunted.
Dick cleared his throat and Bruce finally looked up from his computer. He had been staring at search results for “common reasons for loss of appetite in children” but Dick’s worried expression made him shut the device off, giving his son his full attention.
“Have you noticed anything off with Little Wing lately?”
Bruce had. Besides not consistently eating during meals, Jason was becoming more frantic and anxious. Every little noise made him jump. His face was a constant portrait of pent up anxiety, mouth tight and eyes shifty. His legs trembled when they were sitting at the table, on the couch. His mood had turned toward sullen, impassive.
He’d been avoiding physical contact, too. Artfully dodging Dick’s casual hugs, ducking from Bruce’s hands in his hair. Spending more and more hours alone.
None of it made any sense. A few weeks earlier, Bruce had thought Jason was finally adjusting to life at the manor. But this last week, Jason had looked so physically uncomfortable at dinner that Bruce had finally told him he was free to leave the table and Jason had scrambled off to his room without taking a single bite.
“Did he say anything to you?” Bruce asked. “He’s not eating.”
“Or sleeping,” Dick added. “He’s slept in my room every night this week. But he’s getting up at weird hours and disappearing. And when he comes back, he won’t let me touch him.” Dick crossed his arms and tugged at a loose thread at the hem of his sleeve. “I don’t know what’s going on, B, but it’s... Something’s wrong.”
“I didn’t want to push him,” Bruce murmured, settling back in his chair. “He’s gone through so much already, and it seemed like he was finally getting comfortable enough to tell us when things were upsetting him or when he needed help. I didn’t want to disrupt that.”
“Me, either,” Dick sighed. “But he’s even started to look sick, B. Like, it’s all over his face. When’s his next appointment with his therapist?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
Dick huffed and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Okay. Maybe that’ll help. Should you call her and let her know what we’ve noticed? I’m sure she’ll figure it out when she sees him, but it might help to know what he’s been doing. Or, you know, not doing.”
“I’ll call her right now.” Bruce lifted his phone up. Paused. Set it back down. “What do you think he’s been doing in the middle of the night? Can you hear where he’s going?”
Dick threw up his hands in exasperation. “It sounds like he’s just going to his bedroom. But I don’t know what he’s doing once he’s in there. For a little while, I was worried he was– I don’t know– hurting himself or something like that.” Bruce’s entire body froze. He hadn’t considered– surely not… Dick grimaced and Bruce snapped out of it, returning his focus to his son. “But I don’t think that’s it.”
“Have you–” Bruce swallowed. Even saying it burned his insides. “Have you seen any signs that he’s… hurting–”
Dick’s face softened and he reached across the desk, squeezing Bruce’s arm. “No, no. Like I said– I don’t think that it’s. I’ve been on the lookout. There’s no mysterious injuries or seasonally inappropriate clothes. Really. That’s not it, B.”
“Then what is it?” Bruce coughed into his fist to hide a ragged inhale. Just the idea of Jason– he hadn’t been able to breathe. “What could he be doing in the middle of the night? Maybe he’s just reading?”
“Yeah, maybe.” But Dick didn’t look convinced. His usually tan complexion was sallow with worry. Bruce felt a new rush of guilt. It was easy to forget with the never ending concerns and worries that came with Jason, but Dick was also only a child. His child. And here he was, helping Bruce as if they were co-parents, and it was upsetting him enough to be etched into his face.
“I don’t know, B,” Dick finished, shrugging. It was feigned nonchalance.
Bruce saw right through it. “Dick, none of this is your fault. You’ve been an amazing brother to Jason since he moved in.”
Dick shook his head. Bit his thumbnail. A previously broken bad habit that Dick had taken back up since Jason moved in. “I know, B. But it’s still messing with me. I feel like I should know what’s going on, but it’s Jay, and he’s so damn secretive. I know his therapist can’t tell us anything, but if she says something, will you–”
“Of course. I’ll tell you anything I learn.”
“Thanks.”
Bruce looked down at his phone, thumb hovering over the call button. “Do you know where Jay is right now?”
Dick’s brows knotted. “Probably in the library. Why?”
“Would you check?” Bruce didn’t want Dick to feel like he didn’t trust him– it was a wound they were still patching between them– but he also didn’t want Dick there when he called Jason’s therapist. “This whole conversation is making me… worry.”
He didn’t know what the not eating, and the protein bar wrappers, and the late night disappearances meant, but he owed it to Jason to keep his secrets, even from Dick. At least until he knew what all of it meant. How he could help.
“Sure.” Dick smiled wanly. “I’ll go check on him.”
Bruce wanted to say more. Thank Dick for all of it– for giving him a second chance. For the selfless way he cared for Jason. For seeing all the ways Bruce was trying not to fail Jason, but had failed Dick, and never once getting as angry or jealous or indignant as he had every right to be. For being so steady and flexible that Bruce knew he could wait to say all of these things because Dick was, on top of everything else, patient.
But Dick was already gone. Looking for his little brother and caring for him in a way that should’ve been entirely Bruce’s job.
He didn’t deserve his boys. He really didn’t. But he was going to work on that. Being the kind of father they deserved. For both of them.
Starting, right now, with Jason. And after that, with Dick.
Bruce glanced down at the blinking contact one more time.
“You’re trying,” he whispered. Echoing his own doctor’s words. An affirmation he was supposed to repeat whenever he started to feel overwhelmed. “That’s the best you can do.”
Then, he exhaled and dialed Jason’s doctor.