"I'm so sorry."

"I'm fine."

"Your ankle is twisted."

"Is not that bad," Jazz said for the tenth time. And it really wasn't, she had worse before, and it would be healed in a few days, tops. She wasn't in top condition since she had to share her last dose of ectoplasm with him; but that didn't mean she would let a sprained ankle bother her so easily.

"Are you sure you are okay? Jason is an absolute unit."

"Hey."

"What? You know it's true!"

Dick nodded at Tim. "I almost broke my back trying to carry him piggyback once."

"Really?" Jazz looked up from where Alfred was kneeling with the first aid supplies. She had already tried to insist she could deal with it herself and had been ignored twice. "Are there photos of that?"

"Sadly, no."

"Damn."

"Aren't you supposed to be on my side?"

Jazz turned to smile at her boyfriend, not-that-secretly enjoying his slightly pink cheeks.

"Hmm?"

Everyone turned to look at Alfred when he hummed. The butler was frowning, eyes fixed on Jazz's right foot — not in her red and swollen ankle he was about to bandage, but on one of her toes. It was crooked and stood out next to the other perfectly aligned ones.

Oh. Right.

"What happened?"

Jazz felt a bit crowded when the siblings leaned in to see her foot. She could feel their eyes scrutinizing her feet, and she never felt more self conscious before. She could have painted her toenails, at least, but she didn't find time to do so before the dinner.

"I broke my toe a long time ago."

Dick wore what she had come to understand was his "that's nice" smile. She had seen him use it many times during gymnastics class, when he definitely had some comments to say but bit his tongue and said "that's nice" instead. He had used it with her a few times, but she didn't hold it against him.

"It didn't heal fine." Tim beat him to the comment. Jazz expected it, and sighed.

She gathered her thoughts as Alfred carefully twisted her foot this and that way, not upsetting her injured ankle.

"I was… eight? Ten? I think I was ten years old. I ran upstairs a bit too fast and stumbled with the last step and broke it." She fixed her eyes on her feet when she continued: "I thought — It was just one toe. I thought I could power through and it would heal on its own."

Someone tensed. From the corner of her eye she saw Bruce shuffle closer. She didn't miss his troubled eyes as she ranted about her childhood back at the dinner table.

"Your parents didn't take you to the hospital?" He asked, trying very hard to mask his horror and disappointment. Cute, but unnecessary.

"They would have, if I had told them." Why did she get weirdly defensive, even after all these years? "But I knew I couldn't afford the hassle of getting a toe splint and the bed rest. Danny — We had to eat. The house wouldn't run by itself."

Jazz had time to reflect and address how unfair it was for her to assume that role so young. She didn't help either, trying so hard to be treated like an adult and shoehorning herself into the parenting position; but her parents gave up control to her too easily and faster than what should have been legal.

"So you walked around with a broken toe? For months?"

She didn't look at Jason, but nodded in response. Memories of the pain coming back to her mind. It hurt so much. It really, really hurt, but she just couldn't give up. Giving up meant not eating. Meant her grades slipping and having the school call her parents. Meant worrying Danny.

"At the time I was dealing with a lot of pain. It wasn't until we discovered the long lasting effects of ecto contamination that we realized that the pain Danny and I experienced for the best part of our childhood and adolescence was the ectoplasm changing us from the inside out. I thought it was just growing pains. So I just… ignored it all and moved on."

It truly was how she lived her life, huh? Ignore the pain and power through. That's how she dealt with things when she was a kid, how she did during highschool. How she managed to just adapt and give up her dreams so she could become Danny's pillar and support during the preparation to be King. How she came out in one piece after fighting at his side for so long.

She had always been such a hypocrite — advocating for staying in touch with your inner child, to address mental health, while ignoring her own. Nagging and pushing Danny to not let things accumulate and talk about them with her or with his friends.

And when it was about her? Power through. Ignore. She would have time to work through it later.

A soft touch on her shoulder brought her back to the moment. She breathed out slowly, looking into the eyes of the one person she knew would poke her until she admitted she wasn't as fine as she thought, and sit with her as she worked through her thoughts.

"I'm okay." She told Jason with a little smile.

And truly, she was.

Someone cleared their throat, and Jazz jumped, feeling her cheeks burn. Oh, Ancients. She hoped she hadn't been staring at his eyes for too long.

By the quiet snickers and how the group that had formed around her dispersed, she assumed she did. How embarrassing!

"In any case," she tried to get back some of her dignity, "that's the story why the toe looks weird. It healed wrong but," she shrugged, not really wanting to dwell on that.

"Well," Alfred continued after a brief tense silence, "we may not have recent pictures of Jason at hand, but I know where the old albums are stored. If you want to see."

Old albums? As in, Jason when he was a kid?

Jazz perked up at the thought — he must have been such a cute kid! — but looked to check on him if it was okay. Jason was very private and he didn't talk much about his days at the Manor.

He looked… relaxed? He was lifting an eyebrow and looking at Bruce with a little smile. "I didn't know you kept the pictures."

The other man looked a bit tense. "I keep all the pictures of my kids."

"Awww," Stephanie leaned over where she was resting over Tim and Bernard's laps on the other sofa, arching her back to look at Bruce upside down. "Even mine?"

"You are not one of my children, as you like to remind me every day." Bruce said with a tired sigh, but that made it obvious he was joking.

"Damn right."

Jazz giggled, a numbing cream Alfred was applying on her ankle tickling her a little. She stayed put as he bandaged her ankle with practiced moves, with just enough compression to support her injured ankle but not enough to cut her blood flow. Jason mentioned that Alfred usually patched them up after patrol.

"Thank you." She said to the butler when he was done, a conversation about "baby pictures" and half hearted threats flowing around the room.

Alfred smiled at her, softly patted her foot and then gathered the first aid kit stuff and left quietly.

"Picture time!"

Jazz had little time to prepare before Dick dropped a thick album on her lap and sat down on her free side, opening the album on the first page.

The pictures were old and some were shaky and off-focus. They had this homey feeling that reminded her of the days before her parents became obsessed with the portal and family time took a backseat in their lives.

They watched her thumb through the pages and answered questions about the pictures — mostly Bruce, Dick and Alfred — and tried to not crowd her too much. Jason kept himself distanced from the situation, maybe to give her space too, maybe to be able to watch her react to the stories and the pictures of a faraway past. Jazz was polite and showed genuine interest, laughing at the memories with the rest of the group.

Soon they got to the pictures that featured the second addition to the family. Everyone breathed in relief when any reaction from the estranged family member was overshadowed by their guest's high-pitched squeal.

"So cute!" She murmured, hand hovering over a picture with a much younger Jason covered in bandaids and glaring daggers at the camera.

"It was shortly after he arrived at the manor," Alfred supplied the information, "and young master Jason didn't like posing for pictures."

Her cheeks colored pink, eyes fixed on the picture of a frowning child with curly hair. They watched in silence as she went through the pictures of her boyfriend, wondering what she was thinking. Back then Jason was a completely different person, did she notice the differences? Did she mourn the kid that he was? The man he could have been?

Jazz turned the page and a pile of pictures slid down the album. Jason was the fastest, picking up everything before it hit the floor.

They were Batman and Robin pictures.

"Oh shit," Tim grumbled, trying to reach for the pictures, "forgot those were there."

Jason moved his hand, and the pictures, out of his reach.

"I thought I told you to remove them, Master Timothy." Alfred's disappointment was perceptible, but his worried glances at Jason's face minimized the impact.

Everyone held their breath as the man looked at the pictures, smiled, and showed the one at the top of the pile to everybody.

"I forgot how ugly the old uniform was."

Jazz yanked the picture from his hand and held it close to her chest. "Don't say that!" She reached for the rest of the pictures. "I liked it."

"But that's because you were a groupie."

"You were a Robin fan?" Bernard jumped at the opportunity to keep the mood light.

"A me fan!" Dick smirked, flipping his hair like a diva. "Our dearest Jasmine was the club president for years!"

"Just two." She grumbled, face red as a tomato. "And yes, I may or may not have been a Nightwing fan —"

"But you said—"

"I know what I said!" Jazz huffed, keeping her eyes on the pictures. The Robin in those pictures was Dick, given the wavy hair parted on the side. And the giant smile on his face, showing his dimples. "This is so embarrassing."

"And yet you keep looking." Did Jason focus on messing with her to ignore everything else? He was as calm and collected as he had been during the whole evening.

"Robin pictures have always been very difficult to come by. Good quality ones, at least."

Tim smirked, pleased. "Some of my best work, if I do say so myself."

"These are yours?"

"Yep," he popped the 'p', "although I didn't catch Dick until his last few months as Robin."

Jazz hummed in response, eyes still focused on the pictures. "The resemblance is uncanny." She murmured.

"With?"

"Danny, my brother." She smiled up at Dick. "He dressed up as Robin one Halloween. Costume was really good, my parents bought the good quality stuff." She chuckled. "I threw the biggest fit ever — Danny didn't even like Robin! He thought he was lame and not as cool as Superman. But it was what my parents got him and everyone at school told him he could pass as the real thing; and well, he caved and didn't give it to me."

"You wanted to be Robin?" Dick asked, amused.

"Yeah! I was sooo mad. 'Girls can't be Robin, Jazzypants'" She scoffed. "Of course my parents weren't helpful."

Stephanie hollered, not looking up from her phone screen. "Yeah, girls can't be Robin. That's absurd."

"In the end I went as Wonder Woman, since I didn't have time to get another costume."

"You don't like Wonder Woman?" Jason asked her.

"No, I like her just fine. It's just—" she sighed, leaning on the backrest of the sofa, gathering her thoughts. "Robin, for me, was more than a celebrity. I was… Growing up, I felt so helpless. Everyday I ended up exhausted and wondering when it would end, counting the days until I turned eighteen and I could take my little brother and leave that house. I think —" her voice got tight for a moment, but she cleared her throat fast, " — I think that I was a huge fan because Robin was such a capable hero while being a kid like me. If he could do so many amazing things then I could, too."

Jazz was suddenly pulled into a muscular chest, arms squeezing her so hard she was about to beg for mercy when Dick finally let her go. "That was so nice to hear, my dear number one fan."

She chuckled, unsure of what to say, feeling everyone's eyes on her person after such an embarrassing speech. She patted the man's forearms a few times before moving out of the hug.

"I don't think I've ever shown you guys a picture of my brother. The one with the costume should be somewhere in my childhood house — I remember taking pictures that day — but, here."

She pulled her phone out and went to the gallery app, quickly finding a selfie of her with Danny. It was at the Nasty Burger and was a bit old, about a year old, but it was safe to show it. No Realms business.

"Tim, he could be your clone." Bernard murmured, eyes on Jazz's phone.

Jazz giggled. "Doubt so. We would know"

"What?"

"What?" She answered Tim, a nervous smile on her lips. The other narrowed his eyes, pondering her words, but let it go.

"I can see what you mean about the resemblance," Dick moved on, "and I'm sure you could have passed as Batgirl, with the red hair. Babs' is a bit darker, but it's close enough."

"I thought about it the next year but Danny said he was 'too old for trick or treating' and I also didn't see the point of spending money on an expensive costume and, well, life happened." She sighed, going back to the pictures, maybe looking for one of Batgirl. "I should have insisted, who knows. Is in the past now."

"I mean, if you want the suit, it's in the basement."

She gave Dick a look, raising an eyebrow. "No, thank you."

Dick opened his mouth to insist but he choked with the words, watching Jazz pick the next picture on the pile, showing a much younger Robin. It was Jason, of course, who was pictured running and flying around Gotham's rooftops.

Everyone watched Jason. Jason watched Jazz.

"You look weird without the white streak," she smiled up at him, lifting a picture where the kid wearing the bright colored uniform was clear and in frame, placing it next to his scowling face. "Yeah, I think I like you more with the punk hairstyle."

"It's a death souvenir." He said, trying to act nonchalant, but everyone noticed the slight tension in his jaw as he watched her reactions.

"Oh I know. I knew it wasn't dyed since that day in the elevator." At his incredulous look she added: "I told you. I know death, buddy."

He rolled his eyes, but picked up the pile of Robin pictures in her hands. Eyes somewhat distant, the now young man went through the pictures without really stopping at any of them.

"These are really good." He commented.

"Thanks…" All Tim got in response was a grunt.

Jazz leaned in to look at the pictures too, one of her hands softly placed on his without drawing attention to the gesture. Jason didn't comment on it either, choosing to continue looking at the pictures.

"Hm." He finally said. "The short pants were a mistake."

Bruce exhaled slowly, realizing he had been holding his breath. Jason looked calm enough, even after everything that happened. Was this a sign that things were going to get better?

"If you hated them so much then you should have changed them," Jazz's voice lacked actual bite, and her glare was playful.

"Didn't have enough time to change anything." He stopped at a picture where the little kid looked more adolescent. Maybe it was taken the year of his passing. "And I knew Dickolas would flip if I changed the outfit. He hated me—"

"I didn't—!" Everyone jumped at Dick's outburst. He shrunk in his seat. "I didn't hate you," he started again, softer, "I was mad at Bruce. I shouldn't have misplaced my anger like that."

Jason considered his brother for a few seconds, ignoring everyone's stares, and nodded. Without any other comment, he turned towards his girlfriend and asked:

"What did you think about the second Robin? Wasn't he also a child hero?"

Bruce didn't know what hurt more; that he spoke of that child like he was a stranger, or that "hero" was obviously not Jason's first choice of words.

Jazz snorted and looked down at the picture of a serious-looking fifteen year old Jason Todd wearing the Robin costume.

"I hated him." She answered in the middle of a tense silence. "He wasn't as funny."

Bernard was the first one to break into incredulous giggles, shortly followed by Stephanie. The rest watched in horror, waiting for the trainwreck to happen, unsure what to do at their guest's statement.

Jason blinked once, twice, and joined the laughter as he grasped Jazz's face with one hand, squishing her cheeks.

"You are weird."

"And I'm right. You weren't as funny." Her words were almost incomprehensible since she couldn't move her jaw.

"What are you talking about? I'm hilarious." He leaned in, pulling her towards him so their faces were very close. His smile wasn't kind but the corner of his lip twitched with amusement. "You love my death puns."

Jazz rolled her eyes. "I've heard every death joke under the Sun. You are not special." She said as best as she could articulate.

Everyone saw the young man's eyes travel down her face to her lips, and what was once a tense silence became charged with the obvious attraction between the couple. If there was ever a doubt they cared for each other, it was gone now.

But instead of kissing, he let her go and leaned back to his lounging position. Jazz chuckled and let her body fall so she could let her head rest on his shoulder. She picked up the picture, admired it for a few seconds and gave it back to Dick to put it with the others in the pile.

"Thanks for showing me these," she gestured at the album. Whatever else she was going to say was drowned by a big yawn she hid behind her hand.

"I think—"

"You guys could stay the night." Bruce interrupted Jason. He smiled nervously. "I mean, it's late and," he vaguely gestured towards Jazz's bandaged foot. "Alfred could give you a lift tomorrow."

It was easy to see through the attempt, even for those that knew Bruce the least.

"Everything is as you left it. Your room—"

"Are you fucking serious?"

"Or I can prepare a guest room immediately." Alfred manifested out of thin air, having left during the picture time to tend to his duties.

Jazz looked up at her boyfriend's face, worried. She picked his hand but stayed leaning on his side, maybe hoping her weight kept him grounded. Jason was very tense, and she could feel his breaths grow quicker and shallow.

"You can show me your room another day." She muttered, unsure if it was the correct thing to say.

He looked down at her eyes, searching for something. Exactly what he wanted, she didn't know; but Jazz held his gaze with determination, letting him know she would follow his lead with whatever option he chose. If he really didn't want to stay, she was fine with riding back to their apartment with her injured foot.

Jason clicked his tongue and breathed deeply once. "My old room is fine. Just for tonight."

Goodbyes were brief and hasty, the mood ruined after the uncomfortable exchange. Tim left with Bernard and Stephanie, since the couple was giving her a ride home, and Dick decided to stay the night as well. Duke made a tactical escape to his room with barely saying good night. Cass disappeared for a moment and came back wearing her pajamas, picking up Jazz' bag and discarded shoe to bring back to Jason's old room, leaving a spare pajama set for Jazz on the bed by Alfred's orders.

Bruce watched all happen from his loveseat with a worried face. He glanced at Damian as he passed by with Titus behind him, both coming back from the dog's last walk of the day.

"They are staying the night?" His son asked when he approached, watching Jason pick up the young woman in his arms.

The older man smiled at her blushed face and embarrassed antics at being carried like a princess. "It seems so."

Damian considered the situation and nodded, his thoughts concealed. Bruce was positive his youngest's opinion of the new addition to the family changed during the evening; but he didn't know how Damian felt regarding having Jason back. His son didn't deal well with change, even less when it was regarding family dynamics, and he was worried about the whole situation.

For the moment everything seemed okay — Damian nodded again and went upstairs to his room without asking anything else.

And so, Bruce was left alone with Alfred.

"I like her."

The butler hummed at his master's words. "Shall I prepare a new suit, Master Bruce?"

That finally made the man laugh. "She's not a vigilante, Alfred." He said when he calmed down. "I wouldn't drag her deeper into this life than she already is."

Alfred gave Bruce a look, lifting one thin eyebrow, like he knew better but was biting his tongue.