Chapter Text
“Hey. What are you up to?”
Jason snapped his head around and closed out his window on the batcomputer at the same time. Shit, he’d been so into things that he hadn’t even noticed that Tim was done with his workout for the day and had come back over here.
It was all really stupid. Duke’s parents were missing, and Jason really wanted to help find them, but it was turning out to be a lot harder than it should have been.
First of all, Jason sucked at research now. He remembered a lot of the places he used to look at for information like news articles and police reports, but he’d forgotten how to actually understand those things. Plus, there were a bunch of fancy programs on the batcomputer and Jason hadn’t really used those much since he’d been Robin, so he’d forgotten how to do it and it’d been so long that they’d changed way too much for him to use even if he could.
The only thing he’d been able to figure out was that Duke’s parents went missing during a Joker venom attack a couple years ago, but he knew there’d be way more stuff he could figure out if he could read things like maps and patient records and everything else.
And then there was also the problem where he didn’t really want to tell anyone else what he was doing. He was pretty sure it wasn’t against the rules that Bruce gave him for being down in the cave, but… Well, it wasn’t worth the risk. If his dad got weird about him working a real case, then maybe Jason would have to stop or something and that would be the worst thing ever.
So, for now, Jason was stuck between those two problems and had to just be okay with working away at the case on his own. So far, it didn’t seem like anyone had figured out what he’d been doing on the computer; they all just thought he was researching Pokémon stuff again, which… Okay, sometimes that was what he was doing, but that wasn’t what Tim had interrupted this time.
If Tim had been paying attention, he probably would have realized that, too, but instead he looked really distracted with his own thing. He had a tablet in his hand and he was kinda shifting his feet back and forth where he stood. Like he was nervous.
Jason spun his big chair around so he could look at Tim straight on. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing big. Just—” Tim went over and leaned against the desk. Even the way he was walking looked nervous. “Your birthday’s coming up, and I don’t know if you’ve thought about your party, but…”
“Wait, is this about that Lego place again?”
“It’s not about that.”
“Because it does sound fun, but you could do something like that for your birthday, right? If it’s something you’re super into.”
“That’s not what—”
“And you guys keep telling me Lego isn’t just for kids, so—”
“It’s not about the Lego place! At least— not only about that. There’s a bunch of options that I researched. You could… look through and pick something that sounds fun to you.”
Jason gave Tim a look, and then he laughed when he finally took the tablet. It was fun when he got to be the one to do the teasing. That hardly ever happened anymore.
“I don’t even know what I want to do for my birthday yet,” Jason admitted.
“You always say that. But you’re going to invite some friends from school this time, right? That means you’ve got to pick something fun. I’ve organized everything into a spreadsheet that includes possible group numbers and length of activity, plus a set of searchable keywords.”
Jason gripped his fingers even tighter around the tablet. “I don't remember how to work a spreadsheet.”
“Oh. Right.” Tim winced, scratched the back of his neck, and then shrugged it off. “I could teach you. No time like the present to relearn, right?”
Jason clicked the tablet back on. The screen was full of tidy rows and columns that had a bunch of words and numbers written on them. He could read everything that was there, obviously, but the way they were organized didn’t make any sense.
It was annoying to not be able to do the whole spreadsheet thing. A lot of the stuff he was trying to find about Duke’s parents was written that way, and so it was always a dead end when Jason was researching. Plus, lots of the cave stuff was also put into super complicated spreadsheets, so he always had to get someone else to help him with it. Tim had shown him a couple things before, but it was always about something boring, so it never stuck for next time. The only thing he super cared about (Duke’s parents) was still a secret.
Planning a birthday party would be way more fun, though, so maybe some of this stuff would finally make sense? He could get a new skill and have a kickass birthday party.
“Okay,” he finally agreed. “What do I need to look at first?”
It turned out that the whole spreadsheet thing was pretty easy once it was about something that was actually fun, so Jason figured everything out really quick. It also didn’t take him all that long to decide on what he wanted to do for his party. There was a laser tag place close to where Gotham Pathways was, and they had really fun party rooms inside the building, too, so you could do a few games of laser tag and take breaks in between for pizza and cake and shit.
It was gonna be awesome. Jason knew his family would be weirdly into something like that, and the kids at school would have fun, too. Bruce said he could invite as many people as he wanted, but Jason didn’t go too crazy with his classmates. He just kept to the ones he actually liked playing with during the day.
They made actual, real paper invitation cards for Jason to pass out at school, too. They were really cool and decorated with a laser design to match the theme of the party. Jason had got a few of those since he’d been at school again, and he’d got some the first time he was a kid, too, even though he’d never been able to go to those parties back then because they couldn’t afford to buy the birthday kid a present.
All the kids at Pathways could afford to buy each other presents, but Jason got Alfred to help him write a polite way of saying not to bring gifts to his party.
“I don’t need any expensive shit,” Jason explained as he wrote Joey’s name on one of the invitations. It was taking fucking forever to write everyone’s names out, but Jason was gonna do that part all by himself because it was important.
“Language,” Alfred chided softly. “And I hope you know that your family will still give you gifts to mark the occasion.”
Jason wriggled in his seat and then shrugged. “I know… But the kids at school really don’t need to. It’s just that— wait, how did it go again?”
“In lieu of gifts, donations to the Martha Wayne Children’s Center are gratefully accepted,” Alfred said.
“Right. I’d way rather the kids there get new Lego or whatever.”
“Hm.” Out of nowhere, Bruce snuck a kiss onto the top of Jason’s head right before he grabbed the stack of envelopes. “Is that the last one, Jay?”
“Almost.” Jason grabbed one more card. “It’s, uh, still okay that I invite Duke, right?”
He felt a little nervous flutter inside him when he mentioned Duke. He was pretty sure Bruce still didn’t know about his researching, and he was also pretty sure Bruce wouldn’t get mad about it if he did find out…
But it still made him nervous to even think about being in trouble, and he didn’t want to feel that way about his birthday party. After the party was all done, he could talk to Bruce about it. Jason could figure out how he could ask to do real case work again, and he could talk the whole thing through with his dad.
Right now, he just needed Bruce to say yes to Duke coming to his party.
“He seems like a nice boy…” Bruce stared at the extra card that they hadn’t labelled yet. “But he’s a lot older than you.”
Oh. That’s what he was worried about? “Yeah, Dad, that’s how buddies work. And I’m allowed to have friends that are older than me!”
“You are, yes.” He gave his head a shake and then shrugged. “Alright. Invite whoever you’d like, Jaylad. It’s your day.”
“Yeah, it is.” With a grin, Jason put Duke’s name down in big, bold letters. This was gonna be awesome.
The next day, Jason got to hand out his invitations to his classmates, and he knew he’d picked the right place for the party because everyone was really excited about it. Donovan wanted to play ‘laser tag’ at recess, and Ethan kept talking about what strategies he used before for other games, which was fun to hear about even though they didn’t seem like that good of ones to Jason.
The only problem was that Duke wasn’t at school that day so Jason couldn’t tell him about it and couldn’t hand over the invitation. And then the next day, the day they were supposed to have their buddy time, Duke still wasn’t there. Mr. Ruiz was kind of frowning about it when Jason asked, which really didn’t seem very good.
On the third day, Duke finally came over to Jason at recess.
“Sorry I haven’t been at school lately. Something came up.”
Jason shrugged. It was dumb, but he was kind of annoyed with Duke right now for being gone for so long. They were supposed to be friends, right? “You missed our buddy time,” he said.
Duke frowned. “I thought that was today.”
“No, it was yesterday. It’s always Tuesdays.”
“Right. Uh, sorry. I’ve been busy.”
Jason looked up at Duke, and that annoyed feeling started to drain away. Yeah, Duke definitely seemed stressed. And way more tired than normal. “Is everything okay?”
“Hopefully, yeah.” Duke gave him a distracted smile. “I finally have a good lead on my parents.”
“Wait, really?” That was good! Right? Sure, Jason had been kind of hoping he could help Duke with that, but the most important thing was that Duke found them. Hopefully, they could be together again. When Jason had been in foster care, that was all he had wanted: for his mom to come get him and take him home again. “So, where are they?”
“Well, I don’t totally know yet. But I… Uh, let’s just say I have a good idea of where they might be.”
There was totally more to it than Duke was saying. Jason could tell he was fudging things and avoiding saying some stuff. Probably cause Jason wasn’t even eight years old yet and Duke was trying to protect him or some shit.
But before Jason could figure out how to tell Duke he could fucking handle it, Duke started talking again.
“So, Mr. Ruiz said you wanted to ask me something?”
“Oh, right. Um… Well, it’s just, uh, my birthday coming up. I was gonna invite you to my party.”
Duke took a breath to say something, but Jason could see the expression on his face, and it didn’t look good.
So, he kept right on talking. “The invitation’s in my backpack, but I can tell you everything now. It’s gonna be laser tag at this place right by the school, so it shouldn’t be too hard for you to get there. And, um, I really don’t care about presents and shit as long as people come. Plus, there’s gonna be free pizza and cake and everything!”
Jason had thought a lot about all of that because he’d wanted to show Duke that even though he had a rich dad now, and even though he was technically a rich kid, he still remembered what it was like when you didn’t have any money. He knew how hard going to a birthday party actually was when you didn’t have someone to drive you and you couldn’t afford to buy a present.
But it still wasn’t doing the job because Duke was giving Jason a kind of look that made it seem like he was a lot older than Jason. Like he was thinking something that Jason was too little to understand.
Jason’s stomach dropped. Fuck, that’s what the problem was, wasn’t it? Duke was way older than Jason and yeah, they were ‘buddies’, but it didn’t mean they were actually friends. Bruce had been worried about the same thing, hadn’t he? That Duke wouldn’t want to come to a party with a bunch of dumb eight- and nine-year-olds.
“And, um, there’s gonna be other people there besides just little kids,” Jason added hastily. “Dami’s fifteen so he’s just a little bit younger than you, and Tim’s nineteen! They’re both super cool and also teenagers, so—”
“Jason, it’s not about that.” Duke nudged his hip against Jason, and it seemed like he was actually telling the truth, not just trying to get out of hurting Jason’s feelings. “Your party sounds like it’d be a lot of fun. I just… I’m so close to finding my parents. I have a list of hospitals to check, and if I miss any more school to go searching, then—”
“Oh.” Okay, now Jason felt bad. Obviously, Duke’s parents were more important than his stupid birthday party. He should have thought of that.
And he should be helping. He knew how to read a spreadsheet now, so he just needed to figure out how to find records of the people in hospitals, if that’s where Duke thought his parents were.
The only problem was that Jason had no idea how to do that kind of hacking anymore, but… maybe Tim could show him? But then that would mean that Jason would have to tell Tim all about it, which would mean it would be a secret from Bruce and that made it even more complicated.
Plus, there was the whole problem of getting that information to Duke without, like, Red Robin knocking on his bedroom window one night. There was only so many times you could do that before it got stupidly suspicious.
“But, hey,” Duke said, “I think I can make something work. It means a lot that you invited me.”
The guilty knot twisted tighter inside of Jason. “You don’t have to come. Not if it’s cause you’re looking for your parents.”
Duke smiled, and it looked like he really meant it. “I want to come. We’re friends, right?”
“Well— yeah.” A warm feeling lifted up inside of Jason.
“Right. And friends go to each other’s birthdays, don’t they?”
“Yeah…”
“Plus, I’ve never been to laser tag before.” Duke nudged him again. “It always seemed pretty cool.”
“Oh! Me either! But, yeah, I think it’d be so cool. Tim’s gone lots before, and he says that it’s really awesome. Dick’s never been at all and he’s trying to get me to do this alliance thing with him? But then Dami says it’s just because Dick’s trying to get some kind of advantage even though I don’t really know what that would be.”
The flood of words kept coming out of him, which is what always happened when he was feeling relieved or excited or anything like that. Duke listened to all of it, though. He even kept up with the whole thing enough so that he could say a couple words here or there.
He was always really nice like that, talking with Jason like he was a real person instead of an annoying kid. Even though he was way older. Even though he had a bunch of serious shit to be worrying about.
He really deserved to find his parents, and he especially deserved to get his family back together. Jason was going to help with that. No matter what people in his family might say or no matter how tricky it might be.
Duke was a really great guy, and he deserved to have good stuff happening in his life.
Jason was going to make sure of it.