Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to Warner Bros. Entertainment, DC Comics, and/or their otherwise respective owners.
Author's Notes: Hello, everyone! Here is the next chapter. Had quite a bit of fun writing this one. Still trying to figure out what the direction of this story is going to take; idk, we'll get there.
Next chapter might be a while. I'll try to get it out before the end of next month, but I make no promises.
As always, I hope you enjoy,
~TGWSI/Selene Borealis
~a turn of events~
~chapter 3~
The first thing that Jason did when he got back to his apartment was grab his packet of birth control on his nightstand, popped today's pill out onto his hand, and downed it without any water. It was several hours before it would be the full 24 hours between his doses, but he didn't care about that. Then he went into his bathroom and fished the box of Plan B he had in case of emergencies out and took it next, this pill with a sip of water straight from the tap.
He'd told Bruce that there wasn't going to be a Wayne child running around from him in the future, and he was adamant about that – about all children at this current time, really. Had he thought about having kids before, after the Pit? Yeah. It was a complicated subject for him. On the one hand, he would like kids. On the other hand, he wasn't exactly parent material, and combined with how he wasn't sure how the dysphoria he'd mostly pushed through would react to pregnancy...
Whatever. That was an issue for the future him years from now, presuming that he lived that long, to think about. He was only twenty-one. There were no babies popping out of him in the near future, no siree.
His medication taken, he went back into his bedroom to get changed into his clothes. Panties, dark-washed skinny jeans, a black shirt, and a red plaid flannel over that. Plaid wasn't usually one of his go-to choices, but right now it felt like it was a good choice. He probably didn't want to be going to dinner tonight wearing one of his leather jackets that had more knives hidden in them than reasonable. Probably.
Despite taking one of Bruce's fancy cars to get to his apartment, he didn't immediately go back once he'd done these things. The apartment building he'd been living in ever since coming back to Gotham was actually pretty nice with underground parking. That wasn't a guarantee that somebody wouldn't try to steal it, but he knew Bruce had come a long way with safeguarding his cars since he'd stolen the wheels off of the Batmobile nine years ago. He'd like to see somebody try to so much as break the window. They wouldn't have any luck.
He needed to collect his bearings. So much had just happened. He needed to acclimate himself to this new reality.
While he was doing that, he turned on the TV in his living room to the news and went into his kitchen to make himself a sandwich – baguette bread, roast beef, provolone, lettuce, hot peppers because he'd liked things spicy ever since being resurrected (the pain gave him proof that he was alive), but not tomatoes because fuck tomatoes. The news wasn't reporting anything interesting. It was just the same old shit: politics because the US couldn't get its shit together, some segments about international stuff or some national-worthy thing, then more politics stuff, and etcetera. It was obvious why Americans were so ignorant about the current events of the world outside their own country.
Before he knew it, after spending his afternoon doing fuck all, it was time for him to go. He looked at himself again in the mirror before he left, at the older face with the scar on his left cheek, the green eyes that were even greener than they had been before he'd been submerged into the Pit, and the white streak in his hair. "Remember," he said to himself. "You're not that little kid anymore they're going to want you to be. He's dead. Keep yourself together."
There were no other cars out front or in the garage besides the ones already accounted for, which meant Dick hadn't gotten here yet – or so he presumed. He parked the car he'd borrowed in its spot in the garage and turned it off. His eyes closed as he inhaled deeply, gripping the steering wheel so far he could feel his skin tightening around his knuckles.
It was now or never.
Time to face the music.
There was no guide to how to deal with people who thought you were dead for the past six years. Jason kind of wished there was. He wanted some sort of easy solution to seeing Dick again and meeting the kid. The chaos from earlier was becoming less and less appealing to him.
He heard voices as he headed towards the kitchen. "...Right. The last 'important' person that Bruce had over besides Selina was...I don't even know who," the voice of who he assumed was Tim said. God, he sounded young. And tired. "It was before my time. Who are they?"
"As Master Wayne told you..." Alfred began to reply.
Jason could've busted in on them, but he didn't feel like doing that. Mindful of those floorboards near the kitchen that creaked, he snuck past the room, his feet leading him towards the one that he had well and truly missed since he'd last been here: the library.
Ra's and Talia had had their own private library that they'd allowed him to use, of course, and it was one that was more extensive than Bruce ever possibly could've replicated due to Ra's collecting the books over hundreds of years, but there was something about the Wayne manor library that was irresistible to this day.
Unlike the kitchen, everything here was truly exactly how he remembered it. The various pieces of furniture were precisely where they had been before the Joker had kidnapped him, the books ordered the same way. Even the end table next to the old armchair he'd always preferred had the book he'd been reading at the time sitting on it, still with the bookmark inside it. He knew this could be no accident; it wasn't like Alfred to not clean up after them. He must've left it out because...
Jason picked up the book, flipping through its pages. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. It'd been a fascinating read, most of all when he'd bought another copy and finished it a couple of years after he'd been resurrected. Although their stories weren't even the opposites of each other, he felt like he had a lot in common with the character of Cal. It was hard for him not to. They'd both lived the first several years of their lives thinking they were normal, only to find out or become the opposite. And there was no going back, once you discovered the truth.
He didn't sit down in the same armchair as he opened up the book to where he'd been so many years ago, choosing a different one instead. The words called to him like sirens, tantalizing, captivating.
He didn't know how long he spent reading. Eventually, however, he heard a dry chuckle that made him look up. It was Alfred.
"Somehow, I'm not surprised to find you here," the man said. His eyes flitted about the room fondly, making it clear a good part of him was lost in memory. "You always spent so much time in the library."
Jason's shoulders tensed. "Alfred."
Alfred ignored his slight admonishment, nodding to the book. "Neither I nor Master Wayne could bring ourselves to put it away after what happened," he spoke. "It felt like it would've disrespected your memory."
"It wouldn't've." Not anymore than not killing the Joker did.
Alfred's mustache twitched. "Ah, but you weren't around to ask. Have you liked getting back into the book?"
Nice save, Jason thought. Out loud and with a sheepish grin, "I already read the rest of it a while ago. It's a good book."
"I'm glad," Alfred told him. But there was a bittersweet edge to his voice. He cleared his throat. "Dinner is ready. Masters Dick and Tim are waiting with Bruce for you in the main dining room."
Jason grinned crookedly as he got to his feet. "Still calling him Bruce, are you?"
"As long as Master Tim is not nearby, I will," Alfred answered stiffly.
He couldn't hide his snicker.
Yeah, Bruce was definitely not living this down for a while, if ever.
The closer they got to the main dining room, the more his heartbeat began to pick up. His palms became damp, forcing him to wipe them off on his jeans. There was no reason for him to be this nervous. He was only facing the man who he'd thought to be his...brother, once upon a time, and the boy that apparently idolized him.
Okay, so maybe he did have a right to be this nervous.
One of the double doors was slightly ajar. Jason stared at it, trying to decide what to do. Did he just go in there without any announcement, or did he say something as he did? If so, what did he say?
After several seconds of him not moving, Alfred stepped in front of him. "Perhaps I should announce you first?" he suggested.
Jason nodded numbly. That sounded like a good idea.
Alfred slipped into the room through the other door so that he wouldn't be seen. "Master Bruce," he began. That was the second time he had called Bruce by that moniker, and the first time he'd done it had been before he'd found out that he and Jason had had sex last night. It sounded...new. He idly wondered what was up with that. "Master Dick, and Master Tim, may I present Master Jason."
Sucking in a deep breath, Jason followed after him, entering the room.
The silence from Dick and Tim was eerie.
Jason wasn't sure what he had been expecting from them. Well, he hadn't really been expecting anything from Tim at all, given the fact that he hadn't even met him until now. But Dick? Had he been expecting him to get up from his seat and cry before hugging him and telling him how much he'd missed him? If not that, then to declare that he wasn't him, that he had to be a decoy, a fake, because the Jason Todd he'd known had been killed by the Joker six years ago?
Whatever it was he'd been expecting, it wasn't this.
Both Tim's and Dick's faces were pale, the kid's in particular – but Jason had a feeling that was just how he looked on a regular basis. He had deep bags underneath his eyes, making it clear he probably never got much sleep. His hairstyle was rather stupid, looking like something that would've been popular when Dick had been a kid, not now. Maybe that was the trend these days, kids dressing up like they were older than they actually were. Hell if he would know.
Dick's expression was hard to place, outside of the shock. Jason had always been pretty good at reading his emotions, but now he felt completely out of his depth. Dick didn't seem completely happy to see him like Alfred had. He didn't seem pissed, either, or...anything at all, really, besides flabbergasted.
"You're Jason Todd," Tim breathed, sounding awed.
Jason briefly glanced over at Bruce for any advice on what to do with him. Bruce, who had a hand positioned so that it was hiding his mouth, gave him a minute shrug of his shoulders.
Great. Just great.
"And you're Tim," he replied after a moment, keeping his voice even. "Tim...?"
"Drake," Tim said. "Tim Drake."
Drake. Was he related to Dinah or Laurel?
Question for later.
"You're the new Robin," Jason deadpanned. "You stole my suit. You've got a lot of nerve, stealing from an undead guy, you know that?"
Tim's cheeks flushed. He cringed. "Yeah..."
Dick's chair rubbed against the rug beneath the table, creating a frictional sound. He stood up and walked over to Jason until he was right in front of him, staring him dead in the eye. The past six years had been good to him. He looked good. More self-assured in his identity, like Jason, just in a different way.
"It really is you," he said.
And now came the bone-crushing hug that Jason had been expecting. He grunted as the air was quite literally squeezed out of him. "You're alive," Dick went.
He snorted. "Way to state the obvious, why don't you?"
His sarcasm only set Dick off further into his babbling. "We thought you were dead. And you were dead, I guess, but – Jason." He pulled away, laughing wetly, that grin on his face the exact same one Jason remembered. And maybe there were tears in his eyes, too, but he wasn't going to admit to it as Dick shook his head. "I – I don't understand. How? People don't just – " That was when the pieces put themselves together inside his head. His expression darkened. "It was Ra's, wasn't it?"
From behind Dick's shoulder, Jason saw Tim become confused. "Ra's al Ghul?" he repeated for clarification.
Had he not been told about the Lazarus Pit, or was he just assuming like everybody else had that resurrecting the dead wasn't one of its powers, despite its name? Or was he just too tired to put two and two together for four? He didn't think Bruce would have recruited an idiot to do their kind of work.
There was so much context Jason was missing.
Bruce chose at this moment to intervene. "We can talk about that later, Dick," he spoke. "Let's shelve it for now."
Dick turned around to look at him nonplussed. "You've known he's been alive now for a while, haven't you?" he demanded, gesturing to Jason's entire form.
"Dick."
"Haven't you?"
"I have," Bruce agreed. Alfred made a face over this, but he kept his mouth shut. Now wasn't the time to get into all of the nasties. "But let's focus on the fact right now that he is alive, please. The specifics of it...and a few more things, we can discuss afterwards."
Dick's eyes narrowed. "Things like what?"
"Master Dick, please," Alfred pitched in.
The older sidekick – he had a different name and costume, sure, but some things didn't change – sighed. "Fine." He pulled Jason into another hug for good measure, making him wince. He wasn't really used to human contact outside of fighting and fucking. "Sorry," Dick whispered. "But you can forgive me. It's been six years since I last saw you, little wing."
"Little wing."
Jason could write an entire essay on all the complicated emotions that term of endearment made him feel, but he wouldn't.
He gave a strained smile. "It's fine. Not the worst reaction I've had since last night."
Bruce's masking of his panic before Dick could notice made the comment worth it. Jason wasn't really trying to give him a heart attack, but it was funny.
Dinner that night was simple, at least as far as where Alfred's standards were considered. Salad, spinach and cheese ravioli, and cheesy garlic bread, all in one course. Jason's mouth watered at the latter. "Oh, fuck yes," he stage-whispered. While he didn't care too much to admit it, it was a simple fact of his life since dying that he'd dearly missed Alfred's garlic bread. There wasn't anything else like it.
"Jason," Alfred spoke. He was eating with them. Another oddity.
"I'm not going to apologize for cussing, Alfred."
"Still, I would prefer for you to not do it at the dinner table."
...Fair enough.
The food was delicious, if nothing else. He'd gotten used to eating a large variety of foods from a plethora of cultures, but there was something that remained comforting about Alfred's food after his rebirth. It was a delicate balance in him trying to savor it and wanting to inhale it.
He tried to make conversation with the kid as they ate their food. "So, what grade are you in, Tim?" he asked. It sounded like something a distant family member would say, and he wasn't that by a long shot, but he wasn't going to mention anything Batman-related right now. He didn't think Bruce, Alfred, and Dick would be able to handle it...or himself.
Tim's wan face brightened some. Jesus, he really did idolize him. "Tenth grade," he said. "I'm a sophomore."
Jason speared one of his ravioli with his fork. "And your favorite subject?"
"Engineering I." So the kid was smart. That sounded like the sort of class Gotham Academy had probably started to offer to the advanced students, presuming that he went there. "And yours was English, right?"
That was automatically dangerous territory, delving into his past like that. He kept his voice level. "It was." His eyes went over to Dick. "What about you, Dick? What have you been up to?"
"Like you don't already know," Dick jabbed – not incorrectly, either. He humored him anyways. "I graduated college. Went to the police academy, became a police officer in Blüdhaven."
"Do you give them just as much shit in your daytime as you do as Nightwing?"
He ignored Alfred's glare. Listen, he could keep himself from saying the most "atrocious" cuss words, but he wasn't going to just stop saying "shit" for him. His vernacular was his own, finessed through the years in order to make Ra's as annoyed as possible whenever they met and Talia as amused as possible when they did. She got a kick out of it just the same as he did.
Dick barked out a laugh. "Sometimes. It was actually easier at first to be the police officer instead of Nightwing. Blüdhaven wasn't fond of having a vigilante. They've warmed up in the past couple of years, though. It helped when Tim became Robin and started helping out Bruce here."
The silence from earlier returned at the mention of the sixteen-year-old kid before him being a vigilante in his free time instead of doing other things. Normal things.
Jason went back to focusing on his meal.
The dinner was ultimately awkward, there was no other way to slice it. They didn't know what to make of him after so long, especially not with him being Red Hood, as he was sure Dick at least had already figured out. He had no idea how to interact with them in a group setting.
He wondered if him stabbing out his own eye would resolve the tension.
Kidding. He'd never do that.
(Most likely. Never say never.)
There were some more attempts at conversation. "So, you've been staying in the city, right?" Dick questioned. "Where have you been staying?"
"An apartment," he said.
Dick was not satisfied at the lack of information. "Yeah, I figured that. But where?"
It was his turn to shrug now. "Oh, you know."
Dick bristled, but refrained from arguing that aspect of it further at the last second, which was a good thing. He was notgoing to tell him or the rest of them where he was living. He needed his privacy, dammit. "And how long have you been staying in the city?" his former foster brother inquired in lieu of it.
"A couple months."
Tim's mouth formed a small "o." "You've been in the city for that long?"
"...Yeah?" He'd needed time to get his plan set up. He couldn't have just gone at it with no resources.
Even Bruce seemed to have a reaction to that, a subtle jerk that he doubted he would have noticed without all of his years with the League. Dick and Tim certainly didn't notice it, despite Dick having known Bruce for longer than him.
At last, after what felt like an eternity, they were all finished with their food. There was no mention of dessert. Jason didn't think he would've had room for it even if there was; he'd stuffed his face way too much with the dinner, even the salad. Gone were the days when he'd been a bit of a picky eater due to living below the poverty line for so long. Not as picky of an eater as Bruce and most of all Dick, though. He took more pleasure than he should've in that fact.
But with the food being eaten, it was as if a spell over the room broke. Dick clasped his hands together on the table, looking at him expectantly. "You didn't just decide to eat dinner with us after the events of the past week," he stated. Yep, he definitely knew he was Red Hood. "What happened last night? What's going on?"
Jason glanced at Bruce. For this conversation, no words needed to be said. Only facial expressions and body language were.
Bruce shifted in his seat. "Tim, why don't you go work on your homework?" he suggested.
Except, it was not a suggestion.
The kid was gobsmacked, probably understandably so. It wasn't like Bruce to keep things from his sidekicks. "What?"
"You were telling me you had that Biology report," Bruce said. "Why don't you go do that?"
Tim scowled. "It can wait until later."
"How much later? Until after patrol?"
There was a point to that specific question. Tim's cheeks flushed. "Maybe..."
"Master Tim, need I remind you by your own volition, you told me this morning that you did not get any sleep last night," Alfred cut in.
That made Tim's glare worse. "Fine," he spat, getting to his feet. "I can tell you don't want me to be a part of this conversation. But I'm not a kid, you know. You don't need to keep secrets from me. I'll just find out what they are, anyways."
You're sixteen. You definitely are a kid.
But also, because he was a kid, Jason didn't know if he could properly process his reaction to the news at the same time as Dick's. The older sidekick's reaction was already going to be amusing enough. He could wait for the finale.
"You better not try to listen in," Dick called after Tim's retreating form.
Tim flipped him off, which made Jason roll his eyes. Teenagers.
You know, there was a song about that...
Thirty seconds to the dot after Tim had left, Dick looked at the rest of them expectantly. "Alright," he said. "Just what the hell are you so on intent on keeping from Tim?"
Word Count: 3,708