Pound pound pound

Slowly, agonizingly, Jason's eyelids opened.

Pound pound pound

He made grabbing motions at his alarm clock, unsuccessfully swiping past it a few times before he finally made contact. He dragged it off the nightstand and down, so he could see it from the one eye not mashed into his mattress.

POUND POUND POUND

6:37. 6:37? What kind of psychotic supervillain knocked on someone's door at 6:37 in the morning? The coffee shops weren't even open yet.

POUNDPOUNDPOUNDPOUND

Aw hell. Jason slid out of bed, figuring it would be less effort than actually standing at this point. Of course, once he was there, he had to struggle to get to his feet. Stumbling to the door, he only paused to grab a hoodie and a gun. The first because his sleep shirt wasn't warm enough for this time of day and the second because he fully intended to shoot whoever was at the door in the foot.

He yanked the door open and Damian, who had been all but leaning on it and pounding with both fists, fell forward and would have done a really funny face plant if Cass hadn't caught him. Jason gave an unhappy yawn, the product of both the early hour and the lack of faceplanting ten year olds, and put his gun on the table. He wouldn't need it for these psychos. "Unless someone is dead," again, he added silently to himself, "there is literally no reason for you to be here this early."

Cass gave an apologetic shrug as she stood Damian back on his feet. Damian sniffed and crossed his arms. "Trust me Todd. If there were any other choice, we wouldn't be here. Now are you going to invite us in?" Well, at least Alfred had gotten some manners into him.

"Dunno. Isn't there some myth about vampires and being invited?" Jason dodged the kick Damian aimed at his shin. "Cass can come in. You can go back to your crypt."

Cass, taking full advantage of her invitation, surged forward and rapped Jason lightly in the middle of the forehead. "Play nice."

With a grumble ("He started it!") Jason moved away from the door and made a vague gesturing motion at Damian.

Apparently, vague gesturing motions were enough to let the undead in. Walking in like he owned the place, Damian "tt"ed and sat himself on the couch, dropping his backpack on the floor next to him. "It will suffice. I must say Todd, I was expecting a pig sty."

Instead of acknowledging the kid, Jason turned to Cass. "So, what brings you to my neck of the woods at this ungodly hour?"

She seated herself on one of the stools he kept near the counter, grabbing an apple from his basket. "Damian got benched last night. So I was babysitting him-"

"You did not babysit me!"

"-and he mentioned that he was worried-"

"I never said worried!"

"-because Dick and Tim haven't been eating."

"As if I would worry about Drake."

"Quiet in the peanut gallery!" While the exchange had been going on, Jason sat down on the other side of the counter from Cass. With a glare he pointed at the midget, then dropped his finger and turned back to his quote unquote sister. "So bring it up with them. I'm still not seeing a reason why you're here."

Turning from the angled position she had to directly facing Jason, Cass smiled and shrugged. "Damian wanted to make them breakfast. But Alfred has banned everyone from the kitchen forever after Tim's 'Dorito and Red Bull casserole' fiasco."

With Cass's new position, Damian couldn't pretend he was included in the conversation anymore. So, with a grumble, he stood up and moved to the next stool over. "I am merely concerned that if they continue this behaviour, their effectiveness in the field will drop. And Pennyworth is fully occupied attempting to incorporate Thomas into the Manor."

"Plus trying to keep Bruce fed and healthy is a full time job for six people and Alfred is a miracle worker." Jason added with no hesitation.

Cass nodded and pointed at Jason. "And that. So he can't feed Tim and Dick and we can't use the kitchen."

Jason frowned and looked out his window, at the window across the street that he was very sure belonged to Cass. She liked to keep an eye on him. "What's wrong with your kitchen?"

"Not stocked." Munching the last bit of fruit off of her apple core, she threw it across the room into the trash. Nothing but net, three points. "I went to Hong Kong for a few weeks to check on my agents there."

Well then. Either he was wrong about the apartment across the street, or Steph had crashed at Cass's place last week. "Fine. You can use my kitchen. But don't blow anything up." Yawning, Jason stood back up. "I'm going back to bed."

A light touch on his shoulder brought him to screaming wakefulness. He made a grab for the offending appendage, but it was already gone. Not even Batman moved that fast. "What do you want Cass?"

"Neither of us know how to cook."

Groaning, Jason looked at his clock, still on the floor from where he had dropped it at 6:37. "It took you three hours to realize that?"

"We made something. It just..."

"Inedible?" At Cass's nod, he slid to the floor again. Cass started to move, but, "No no. Leave me. I'll get up when this becomes uncomfortable. Just clean whatever mess you made and I'll be out in a few minutes." She nodded again and left.

Eventually, his back became aware of that one nail that kept popping out no matter how many times he hammered it down and he got up. Bracing himself, he walked out of his room.

It was pretty much the chaos he had expected. There was flour all over the counters, egg shells on the wall, milk on the floor and bacon on his ceiling. Not bacon grease, which would make sense. An actual uncooked piece of bacon.

The sad thing was, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Cass was dumping a dustpan full of flour into the garbage, which meant it had been on the floor too. And the place under the eggshells looked very scrubbed. Damian was partway through a mountain of dishes.

Not even a little surprised, Jason grabbed a spare washcloth, dunked it in Damian's dish water, rung it out, ignored Damian's outrage at getting splashed, and went after the batter on the counter. A piece of paper towel made short work of the majority of the flour and his cloth got the rest. The same paper towel got the milk from the floor.

Eventually, sooner than he had expected, the kitchen got clean. "So. What are we making?"

Cass and Damian looked at each other and shrugged. "Bit of everything." Cass grabbed a few recipe cards from the stool and showed Jason. "I took these from Alfred's recipe box."

Jason looked them over, then raised an eyebrow. "The black one?" Cass nodded. "Ok. Those are the ones he gets from this cashier at the market. She always tries to experiment with stuff and ninety percent of the time, it fails. He's gotten maybe three recipes from her that actually tasted good, but she keeps giving them to him and he keeps trying them out." He looked up from the cards and they were both giving him this look.

Yeah, they really didn't need the history on this one. "Just... don't grab from the black one. The solid green one has some decent beginner recipes, the white one with blue flowers has his fancy stuff. But for now," he said, dropping the dud recipes back on the stool and opened one of his cupboards. He had to pull out a flower pot, a grenade, and a spice box before he could reach his recipe book, "we can use these."

Damian raised an eyebrow. "That's larger than I would have expected from you Todd." He lifted the cover of the binder and started leafing through it. It was basically a photo album with recipes instead of pictures.

"That's just breakfast. Lunch and dinner are in another cupboard." He pulled the book back to himself and asked again, "So what are we making?"

"Pancakes." Damian said immediately. "Those are easy, right?"

"Depends on the recipe." Jason grabbed a few dozen pages and flipped them to get to the pancake section. "I have recipes that take three hours and twenty or more ingredients and recipes that you can make with whatever you steal from the store and a take out container from the dumpster."

Damian curled his lip, but Cass looked thoughtful. "Risk versus reward," she declared.

"You got it." He shot her a finger gun, then turned to the pancake recipe that was delicious despite being easy, and easy despite being delicious. "Most bang for your buck."

The Basic Pancake Recipe, as the card was titled, was simple enough that Jason felt comfortable supervising with a high-caffeine tea and a book while the other two did the work. Right up until the third time he had to say, "slower Damian," when the kid tried to cause an egg-nado with nothing but a whisk. He took over then, teaching as he went. "And this is what sifting is." "Don't over mix or you'll get tough pancakes." Et cetera.

Finally, the three of them stood staring at the finished batter. They were covered in flour, and the bacon had fallen off the roof and landed on Damian's head. "And now we cook it, right Todd?"

"Not quite yet." He moved over to the stove and turned it on, to give the pan time to heat up, then headed for the fridge. "I have blueberries and raspberries. Which ones are we adding?"

Damian said, "blueberries," at the same time Cass said, "raspberries," so they opted for both. The berries were strained and tossed in flour, then lightly folded into the batter.

As the pancakes were sizzling away, Jason asked, "so how are you getting these to Dick and Tim hot?" Not that cold pancakes were any less good than warm. Then again, Jason would eat nearly anything, regardless of temperature.

"We snatched a thing from the Cave," Cass said, staring at the pancakes with laser intensity.

Jason raised an eyebrow. "See the bubbles on top? That's when you flip them. A thing?"

Damian nodded and grabbed his backpack. Setting it on the counter, he pulled out something that looked like the most sci-fi microwave ever. "J'onzz constructed it for Father. It is designed to keep samples in a state of suspended animation for up to four hours. Put it in simple terms, Todd, pancakes go in hot, they come out hot."

Cass lifted a pancake to check the bottom. "He doesn't need that one anymore because J'onn made him a belt sized version that lasted five hours for Christmas."

"Well alright then." Jason rolled his eyes. "As long as you don't change the flavour with any weird alien radiation, it's fine."

Cass and Damian took turns at the grill. Jason watched over them for a while, then went back to his tea when he figured they were fine without him. Five pages later, the microwave-thing was full to bursting with pancakes. He helped them put it back into Damian's backpack, then grabbed his bottle of maple syrup out of the fridge and stuck that in too.

"Thanks for letting us use your kitchen Jason," Cass said, then nudged Damian.

"Tt." Damian scowled, but it was one of those Bat-scowls that was actually a smile. "We appreciate you sharing your expertise in breakfast making. Although you can't be a complete failure at everything."

"Thanks Damian," he retorted dryly. "I feel really appreciated. Now get out and don't come back unless someone dies."

Swinging the door closed behind them, he wondered if he should bother going back to sleep. Despite the fact that he got maybe four hours sleep total, he was way too awake to bother. So he grabbed his book and the plate of pancakes that Cass had left for him (Damian's idea, although he claimed that he had only suggested it because they wouldn't fit in the thing) and settled in on the couch.

Not a bad morning, all things considered.

AN: This one was written as a birthday gift for Arrow!