I want to thank Chaseha-Wing for the inspiration for the Bruce/Dick dialogue, though I changed it a little bit.

Enjoy!


Lesson Learned

Jason thought he was dreaming. He was having a nightmare. A very bizarre nightmare.

It was strange enough to be caught by the Bat and not being beaten up for stealing his tires. It was even weirder that he hadn't dragged his ass to the nearest police station or called the social services.

Let's make a deal, he said like he actually cared about a kid like him. No cops, no social workers, but you have to go to Ma Gunn's School for Boys right here on Crime Alley.

He thought about food, a warm bed with clean sheets and blankets and hot water when he wanted to take a bath. He wanted to believe, very badly, that his luck was going to change for the better this time.

Jason should have known that was too good to be true. If he had run away like his gut was telling him, he wouldn't be surrounded by a bunch of teen punks while an old, two-faced bitch sneered at him with glee.

"I want that brat quiet as a little baby, do you understand?" Ma Gunn ordered from the top of the stairs.

Three of her punks closed in on Jason, their bodies ready to pounce.

"Leave him to us, Ma" the blond, hulk like guy groaned. "We'll handle his schooling."

"Yeah! We'll walk him over to the river for an in-depth swimmin' lesson."

"We'll learn him how to hold his breath under water… for an expensive amount of time!"

Geez, even their stupid remarks were dumb as fuck.

Just as one of them tried to grab him from behind, Jason elbowed him right on the gut while kicking the one in front in the balls. With a small grin of satisfaction at the dumbasses squeals of pain, he swiftly punched the remaining thug.

"What are you doing? He's just a little kid, for crying out loud" Ma Gunn hissed in exasperation. "All of you get him!"

Jason tried. He punched, kicked and even tried to bite but they were too many and soon he was being tossed to the ground like a rag doll.

"I'm sorry, Ma… Ouch!" the dumb kid with the pink jacket whinned while the old hag pulled one of his years.

"It's 'we'll teach him', not 'learn him'. And it's 'extensive amount of time', not 'expensive'!"

Finally, they grabbed Jason and pulled him towards the old hag. Though he glared at her with a bloody lip, she smiled like they had invited him over for tea instead of beating him up.

"You're a brave one, aren't you boy? I like that. Too bad you're one of Batman's friends."

"Batman is not my friend! I stole the tires of his dumbass car!" Jason cried out in rage as the other boys laughed at his high-pitched voice. "The bastard said I wouldn't go to juvie if I came here!"

"Oh, really?" Ma Gunn answered, still sneering like the old witch she was. "Find him a bed, luvs. He's gonna be a model student."

Jason felt a slap on the back of his head and two huge guys dragged him up the stairs. There was no way to escape. Not now.

Everything hurt, he was trapped with a crazy bitch and her gang and it was all Batman's fault. The crazy Bat had ditched him there with those maniacs. All that talk about caring about him was all bullshit! Unless… unless he didn't know who Ma Gunn really was…

No! He was the Goddamn Batman. The freaking Dark Knight. How could he not know?


When Bruce got home, it was a little past seven. He knew Alfred should be worried since he usually came back before sunrise and, sure enough, his butler was already waiting for him on the cave.

"Busy night, Master Bruce?" the old man asked politely, though his eyes were filled with concern.

"Not really" Batman said, pulling down his cowl and heading for the showers. He wasn't lying. The night itself had been rather boring and uneventful until his encounter with the boy. The kid had definitely left an impression on Bruce, though he wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad thing.

He hoped Jason was alright.

When he left the shower only wearing his pants, Bruce heard one of the doors to the cave open and saw Dick. The boy had clearly been training, his face blushed and sweaty but smiling the moment he saw his mentor.

"Morning, Bruce" Dick greeted cheerfully. "How was patrol?"

"Monotonous" Bruce answered reaching for his locker.

"Wow! Were you hit on the gut?" the boy exclaimed.

Bruce stared down and saw that his abdomen had a long, purplish bruise. Jason had hit him harder than he thought.

"It's nothing" Bruce said, dressing his shirt.

"Who did you fight? Two-Face? Killer Croc? Don't tell me it was the Joker."

Bruce frowned at his ward and sat at the computer. "Take a shower and go eat your breakfast, Dick. You're going to be late for school."

"I have time. I was hoping I could talk to you…"

The black-haired man turned around to face him. "What is it?"

Dick looked down and rubbed his foot against the ground. "I wanted to know if… if you're going to need me on patrol tonight."

"Yes. Why? Do you have other plans?"

"Huh… no. Not really plans. It's just… Wally texted me last night. He said the team was thinking about going to the movies tonight since Conner, M'gann and Kaldur never went to a movie theater before. He asked if I wanted to go."

Bruce rested his arms on the chair and noticed how uncomfortable Dick was feeling. "Do you want to go?"

The boy seemed torn between his duty as Robin and his wish to be with his friends. "I… I want to go, but I won't if you need me. I'll just text Wally and tell him I'm busy."

"Wait" Bruce said with a sigh. He kept forgetting that Dick wasn't like him. Dick wanted to bond with people, build friendships and relationships… everything Bruce felt awkward about. It wasn't fair to force his adoptive son to live in the same isolation, especially since he didn't want to. "You can go with the team. We'll go on patrol tomorrow."

Dick stared at Bruce with his blue eyes wide. "Are you sure? It's no big deal, Bruce. I can go with them any other time. If you need me…"

"I'll be fine. Just come back as soon as the movie is over."

Dick's smile shone as brightly as the sun. "Thank you, Bruce! I'll be back before midnight!"


After Bruce ate breakfast with them and went to sleep for a few hours, Alfred finally allowed him to go back to work on the cave.

He was planning on researching more about Vandal Savage, but he kept getting distracted. He couldn't help thinking about the angry, street boy he met.

Jason Todd had bothered him in a way he hadn't felt since he met Dick. Maybe it was because he looked physically like him and Dick, maybe because he was gifted and powerful at such a young age, or maybe because his eyes reminded Bruce too much of his own.

Since he wasn't getting any work done on Savage, Bruce opened a new file on Jason Todd and began his research using the fingerprints the kid had left all over his car. It wasn't difficult to find data about him. His full name was Jason Peter Todd, age eleven, son of Willis and Catherine Todd.

Willis Todd had a long criminal record even before he married. From stealing to murder suspect, Willis had never been able to keep a steady job all his life. Then, he had married eighteen year old Catherine who was already pregnant with his child.

Jason's life had been harsh from the beginning.

There were a few incidents after Jason's birth. Willis had been caught using his son to steal seven times before his fifth birthday and both the child and Catherine had been admitted to the hospital with broken bones and bruises from "falling down the stairs" in more than one occasion.

When Jason was nine, his father was finally arrested after Batman busted one of Two-Face's drug dealing operations and sent the names of his men to Commissioner Gordon. After that, Catherine's health took a turn for the worst when she began to use drugs to try to ease her depression.

Social workers were reluctant to take Jason from his mother, since he seemed to be the only motivation she had to go to rehab. Even when she was first hospitalized, the boy ran away from the foster home and returned to his mother. A year later, Catherine died from an OD.

Willis Todd was still in jail and all of his brothers and sisters had already passed away. Catherine had been an only child and her parents died from a car accident several years ago. Literally, Jason had no one and was going down the same path to become a criminal like his father before him.

Rubbing his eyes, Bruce got up from his chair. He had done what was best for the boy. He had given him the opportunity to get an education and build a better life for himself; the rest was up to him. Bruce had no reason to feel responsible, even if he had been the reason Willis Todd was in jail. If the man had stayed, his family wouldn't be doing that much better. He was a drunk, violent and abusive father who should stay as far away from Jason as he could.

The boy deserved better and Ma Gunn's school could be the solution. Still, there was no reason why Batman shouldn't keep an eye on him.


If Jason didn't know the old hag was nuts, he sure as hell knew it now.

She wasn't teaching the boys math, history or any of the other subjects like in a real school. She was teaching them how to use guns, how to break into safes, how to hack into security videos and programs. No wonder she was filthy rich, she was no different from the mobsters on Crime Alley.

They were going to rob a museum that night. During the day, she and her boys looked like another innocent field trip but no one noticed the kid who stayed there to cut the alarms and hack the cameras. Tonight, they were going to come back, get rid of the guards and steal the jewels from the exhibit.

Jason had enough. He wasn't going to stay there another second. The guys he had kicked before were already planning to kill him and dump his body into the river and he seriously doubted Ma Gunn would give a shit unless they screwed up and got caught.

As soon as the sun was down, the raven ran away through a window and came back to his rundown apartment. It could be a dump, but it was safer. He'd learn his lesson. The only one he could really count on was himself.