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Jason hadn’t been small in a long time. He couldn’t even really remember what it was like to feel small, to stretch to reach things and tuck into crevices like a mouse disappearing into your walls. He was a big guy, and no one ever let him forget it. For the most part, it was an asset. The strength, the height, the intimidation. Regardless of whether or not he liked it, he just was, and all the melancholy in the world couldn’t shrink his bones.
But Jason had never felt so large as he did standing next to his dad, all the bulk of age and fortitude stripped away until Bruce was younger than Jason had ever known him.
Bruce was the only one who had ever been able to match him pound for pound in his adulthood, and maybe that was why - while feeling like a giant who might crush those around him with the slightest misstep - Jason also felt a little kid, hesitant and insecure in the face of this…disconnect.
The batsuit was ill-fitting with two decades worth of muscle and personal development shaved off. The cowl was down and Bruce’s face was gaunt, eyes wide and watery. He looked so young, so small.
He was still older than Jason had been when he’d returned to Gotham.
There was a distrustful tension in his whole body that Jason was crushingly familiar with, but no one else seemed to know what to do with it. The lot of them stood in a rough circle in the cave, gawking and murmuring and not-so-subtly taking pictures.
Stephanie seemed to think the whole situation was hilarious.
Damian did not.
Cass was curious. She seemed to be the only one Bruce was warming up to.
Duke had taken the whole thing in a stride and Jason envied him for that.
Dick seemed the least perturbed, but he was also the only one who had memories of something close to the Bruce that shifted from foot to foot at Jason’s left.
Tim was flitting around, fixing things like he always did. His convoluted explanation was already garbled beyond comprehension in the recesses of Jason’s mind. All that really mattered was that it was temporary. In the meantime, there was nothing to be done.
And Jason?
Well, Jason wanted to laugh. Not because anything about their circumstances was funny, but because he couldn’t scream and rip his heart out for the creature next to him that was at once so foreign and so familiar.
At least this Bruce seemed as uncertain as the rest of them. It was jarring. If there was one thing Jason wasn’t used to Bruce having, it was doubt. The regression had apparently included all the stability and decisiveness characteristic of the man he knew.
Or perhaps he just hadn’t learned to hide his fear yet.
“So, B,” Stephanie said, the humor in her voice like a cheese grater on Jason’s raw nerves, “How are you liking the twenty-first century so far?”
The whole group waited with baited breath to hear his response.
“It’s…fine.”
God, he was so quiet. Jason never thought he’d miss the few pitiful social skills his father had scraped together over the years. It had taken half a dozen of them just to get him off the streets after the change, and a significant amount of wheedling to get any information out of him. It wasn’t until Alfred had appeared that he’d abandoned the notion of his own hysteria.
Bruce had taken one look at the man and said, wide eyed, “Alfred. You’re old.”
Stephanie had barked a laugh and said, “Well, it’s good to know he’d always been tactless.”
And somehow between a round of tests and Jason convincing himself not to peel his skin off, they’d ended up in a circle, everyone clearly chomping at the bit to extract potential blackmail material while wary of making this half-baked Bruce shut up like a clam.
“So,” Bruce said, followed by a pause just long enough to make Jason wish he were getting a root canal instead. “We all… work together?”
It didn’t occur to Jason until then that in the range of ages they all represented, Bruce fell somewhere in the middle. It wouldn’t stand out to him how young some of them were. He didn’t know yet that they’d only been children when it all had started for them.
“Yeah, you could say that,” Duke replied with a smile that was equal parts reassuring and teasing.
“When did I…” Bruce cleared his throat before continuing, though it made him no easier to understand. “How did you all find out about…me.”
A round of meaningful glances shot between them like a pinball in a daddy issues machine.
“Well,” Dick answered, his voice wry and amused, “Mostly it happened when you adopted us.”
If it was possible, Bruce’s eyes got even wider. “Adopted?” he rasped.
“Yeah,” Dick said, softer. “We’re all your kids. More or less.”
More or less.
“So… you’re all…”
Stephanie picked up on where his train of thought was headed and announced, “Orphan, orphan, orphan, orphan-” followed by a point at Dick, Jason, Tim, and Duke, “-shitty family-” a point to Cassandra, “-psycho family-” a finger at Damian, “-and me - well, you’re blessed with my presence despite the fact that we’re not related legally or biologically.”
“Stephanie’s kind of like a virus that I caught and accidentally spread to everyone else,” Tim called from his spot in front of the batcomputer. She made an offended noise followed by a snort from Cass.
“Stephanie…” Bruce murmured, probably too quiet for anyone else to catch, but Jason did, and Dick on his other side did too.
“Should we go around and introduce ourselves like an AA meeting?” Dick offered. “Well, I’m Dick, your oldest and first kid. Umm, you adopted me when I was eleven, right after both my parents died. I live in Bludhaven now and teach gymnastics when I’m not fighting crime, I guess. Okay, somebody else go now.”
Damian took the opportunity to announce, “I am Damian, your only biological child and blood heir. I came to live with you three years ago at my mother’s bequest.”
“Uh, my name is Duke. I’m not actually your kid legally either, but, uh, my parents are in a long-term care facility so I live with you and am Gotham’s first official daytime vigilante. I was part of this Robin group first, and we actually met when you lost your memory this other time, it’s kind of a funny story actually - but, umm, that can wait.”
“As we’ve established, I’m Stephanie and I was fighting crime before we even met. I used to date Tim and now I’m dating Cass, so one way or another, I’m gonna weasel my way into your inheritance.”
Cass’ introduction was accompanied by a small wave. “Cass. My dad died a while ago and you adopted me after.”
“Tim!” Stephanie hollered. “Introduce yourself!”
Tim swiveled around in his chair, sipping from a mug before saying, “Hey. I’m Tim. I figured out your identity when I was, like, nine. I became your partner a few years later after-”
Tim’s eyes darted to him.
That was the elephant in the room, wasn’t it? Everyone had a complicated history with Bruce, but Jason…
“After I basically forced you to take me on,” Tim finished smoothly.
Silence sat heavy on them after that. Jason knew they were all waiting for him to say something, but the words sat heavy in his throat.
There were a lot of unspoken tragedies that sat in their shadows. Dick hadn’t brought up the lasting trauma he had from Bruce’s blundering first attempts at fatherhood, and Tim didn’t say that he had met Bruce at rock bottom, and Stephanie didn’t mention the emotional manipulation. Damian left out his cold welcome to the manor, Duke ignored the fact that Bruce was really the last of the family he’d gotten to know, and Cass skipped over the dark blanks in her history with Bruce.
So did Jason have any right to look Bruce in the eye and say " You ruined me ?”
But looking around the circle, Jason thought he’d had one thing none of the rest of them had had: a chance.
Because Dick had been on a quest for vengeance before Bruce had taken him in, Tim was a little lunatic jumping over rooftops from the beginning, Stephanie’s father was a C-List supervillain, Duke got drawn in by Alfred of all people, and Cass and Damian had been born into the whole mess. Even if any of them had never met Bruce, they probably wouldn’t have made it out of adolescence in better shape.
Jason had just been a hungry kid.
Bruce never had to hand him a costume and teach him to fight. He could have just given Jason a home and a second chance at a normal life.
“And you?” Bruce asked, looking up at him. Looking up at him.
He wanted to run. He wanted to dissolve into the ground and never come out. He wanted to say, “ Fuck you, old man,” and stalk off with some shred of dignity intact so he could go home and cry himself to sleep about it later. Jason had learned that perfect parents didn’t exist because perfect people didn’t exist. But there was a difference between making a few parenting mistakes and doing… whatever Bruce had done to him.
He looked down at Bruce - down - and felt so impossibly large. He needed something and he didn’t know what it was, but he knew he needed it desperately. The pale face staring at him was so different and yet exactly the same as the one that would look at him with regret and guilt and fragile hope. The voice was young, but it was the one used to invite him over for family dinner and the one that stayed silent when Jason stole his gear or cussed him out.
This was the only father he had ever really known, and the only one he ever really wanted.
“I’m Jason,” he managed to whisper. “I stole your tires.”