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“You’re done,” Batman growled in cold, definitive tones, ending the argument like he’d thrown a bucket of ice water on it.
Jason, trembling, in a costume that felt like it was freezing, certainly got that impression.
“You can’t—”
“I can.” Batman turned sharply away, stalking to the Batcomputer. Dismissing Jason.
“Batman,” Jason tried to say, but his voice cracked after the B and he swallowed the rest. Batman didn’t notice. If he did, he didn’t turn around.
You can’t, Jason didn’t say. You can’t take this away from me. Batman sat down in the chair, harsh, jerky motions, uncaring that Jason was standing frozen to the spot like he’d been speared with a lance. Please. Please don’t do this to me. I can do better. I can do better, I promise, I swear.
Bruce didn’t turn to look at him once.
I don’t have anything else left.
Jason folded up the Robin costume with fingers that wouldn’t stop trembling and took the stairs up from the Cave for the last time.
He spent the night packing. Everything that was his, truly his, went into a backpack. Jason debated the idea of stealing some knickknacks to tide him over until he got back into the groove of living in the streets, but abandoned the idea. He was almost sixteen anyway. He’d find work a lot better than he had at twelve.
Alfred made no comment when Jason tiptoed in for breakfast so Jason supposed he hadn’t heard yet. He loaded his plate with toast, mumbled a good morning, and fled again. The food would have to be packaged carefully, and it would spoil quickly, but Jason could maybe get a few days’ worth of meals if he rationed properly.
Jason stayed in his room the whole morning, as tempted as he was to visit the library. There were so many books he hadn’t read. So many things he hadn’t gotten to do. He’d only gone on one trip with Dickhead, despite the older kid promising he’d take him travelling. He was going to lose all of that. He was going to lose the people he thought of as a family.
He couldn’t believe he’d allowed himself to get attached.
Robin was his purpose here. That was all. And Bruce had fired him.
Bruce wasn’t there when Jason went down to lunch either, but lunch was soup, unable to be transported easily. Jason was forced to sit there and finish it, despite his queasy stomach, fleeing again before Bruce appeared and demanded to know why he hadn’t left.
He decided to try and wait for dinner. It would be easier to disappear in darkness anyway.
That evening, Jason got all the way to the dining room entrance before freezing. Bruce was there, frown lines clearly visible, waiting for Alfred to serve him. But there was a second place setting at the table, in Jason’s usual spot, and waiting there, like it did every Sunday evening, was a crisp white envelope with his name on it.
Jason clutched the doorway so hard his fingers turned white.
His allowance. It had increased throughout the years—sometimes for explainable reasons, like his birthday or Christmas or mastering a new Robin move, and sometimes for no reason at all. Jason had never asked Bruce about it and aside from the quiet jolt of unease he got every time the amount went up, mostly ignored it.
He’d spent money buying gifts for Bruce and Alfred and Dick, and sometimes on a book he wanted or to spend a day out with his friends, but the majority was still there. Most of it was in an account Jason had opened soon after the adoption, but Jason kept about five grand on him in case he suddenly needed to use it.
And it definitely looked like he needed to.
He had been suspicious the first time he’d gotten the allowance, because rich men gave him money for only one thing, but Bruce had never asked that of him. Jason had let his guard down around the man, allowed friendly pats on the back and the rare hug and full-contact sparring. But that was before Garzonas.
He knew. Jason knew he knew. He’d tried so hard not to tell him, but Batman was the world’s greatest detective. Jason had seen the contemplative look in his eyes as when Jason tried and failed to control his emotions over Gloria’s death and the way Batman had asked him if Jason had pushed Garzonas…
He knew.
Jason didn’t have very many skills. At least not ones worth shelling out a thousand a week. If he wasn’t Robin anymore—
No. He wasn’t doing that anymore. Not for Bruce. Not for the man he’d almost come to see as a f—no.
Bruce hadn’t glanced at him once. He was studying his plate like he didn’t notice Jason standing there. A practiced façade, because Jason knew Bruce liked to play the idiot, to pretend like he was some kind of hapless fool when Batman lurked behind the mask.
Jason was never going to be able to run.
Slowly, silently, Jason crept to the table and took his seat. He pocketed the envelope without looking at it. Dinner tasted like ash in his mouth.
Jason waited up that night for Bruce to come. And the next. And the next. The man all but refused to look at him, the frostiness affecting the rest of the Manor, and Jason waited to bear the results of his fury.
But Bruce never came.
Never put a hand on his arm during dinner or yanked him into a room while Alfred was cleaning or tiptoed into his room after dark. Never demanded Jason’s presence in the study or bedroom. Didn’t ask anything of him, in fact.
Maybe…maybe Jason was wrong. The allowance—it could’ve been for the past week. A severance check of sorts. And Jason wasn’t getting kicked out…because if the tabloids picked up on it, they’d go nuts. Bruce was probably arranging to ship him off to boarding school, like all the rich parents with their problem children. Not ideal, but Jason could escape from school more easily than the Manor.
Jason had managed to mostly calm himself down by next Sunday only to stop dead at dinnertime.
Another envelope.
There was another envelope at the dinner table.
He fled the room to go throw up in an out-of-the-way bathroom. There was no other explanation. Except that Bruce had—Bruce had finally figured out what he was useful for, and it wasn’t Robin.
Jason made his way back to dinner, but couldn’t manage to eat a single bite. He discreetly checked the envelope and swallowed thickly.
The amount had increased.
Jason couldn’t handle another sleepless, anxiety-ridden night. He didn’t particularly want to initiate, but the weight of dread hanging over him was a torture all on its own. So he screwed up his courage and adjusted the hands of the grandfather clock and stepped into the Cave for the first time in a week.
He wasn’t trying to be silent, but he was anyway, footsteps hesitant as he descended the stairs. Twice he had to convince himself not to run away and by the time he made to the Cave main floor, his stomach was twisting so tightly he couldn’t breathe.
He didn’t want to do this. Please, please—if there was any other option—
“What are you doing here?” Bruce asked, flat and cold, not turning away from the Batcomputer. He was dressed in the suit with the cowl off. Jason wondered distantly if he would have to wear the costume too.
He couldn’t force any words out—he wanted to be defiant, snarling and vicious, but all he could do was stand there, in the crumpled remnants of the only life he’d enjoyed living.
Bruce heaved a heavy breath. “Go to bed, Jason,” he ordered without turning around.
Some part of Jason slumped in relief at finally getting a direct order. The rest of him went cold. But Jason turned around and headed back up the stairs, through the clock, up to the second floor, and into Bruce’s bedroom.
He’d never been in here before. The bed was soft. The sheets were soft. One of the pillows smelled faintly of a woman’s perfume and Jason wondered if Selina had been by recently.
The pillow he was hugging was gradually growing damp.
He needed to stop crying. He was nearly sixteen. He’d known this was a possible outcome—Dick had left the Manor the moment he turned eighteen and that was no coincidence. He just thought—he just—
He’d gotten complacent.
He thought this was a family, not a job, and he hadn’t been prepared.
That was Jason’s mistake. He’d learn from it, like he learned from every other cruel lesson life spat his way.
Jason planned to stay awake waiting for Bruce, but the string of sleepless nights took their toll and the bed was disappointingly comfortable and Jason drifted off without realizing he’d fallen asleep.
It didn’t make sense.
It didn’t make sense.
Jason woke in the morning, pleasantly rested, tucked into bed, with no sign of Bruce. All his clothes were still on and everything looked to be untouched. Jason spent an entire shower scrutinizing his body for new bruises or marks but couldn’t find a one.
It didn’t make any goddamn sense.
Jason didn’t try again, too bewildered. Bruce didn’t look at him any differently, didn’t treat him any differently—he spent the majority of the time ignoring Jason while Alfred grumbled in the background. Jason didn’t understand it.
The next envelope was the final straw.
Jason opened it with trembling fingers, confirmed the amount inside, and sat like an automaton all dinner, taking mechanical bites as he tried to make sense of it. He was getting paid for doing nothing at all. He was accumulating debt and Jason hated it, hated every single bill tying him to Bruce like they were physical chains.
He was tired and hurt and he just. He needed this to be over.
Jason made his way down to the Cave after dinner, each step like he was heading to the hangman’s noose. He didn’t bother to muffle his footsteps as he walked across the stone, but Bruce didn’t turn around until Jason was up on the platform with him.
“What is it?” Bruce asked, faintly irritated. There was a casefile open behind him.
Jason swallowed. Get it over with. Like a bandaid. Only bandaids didn’t keep hurting after you took them off.
“What do you want?”
“Excuse me?”
“What do you want from me?” Jason repeated. “I messed up, I know that. I know—I know you’re not going to give Robin back. So what do you want?”
Bruce didn’t deny it. Merely frowned, forehead furrowing and eyes narrowing. “I don’t understand.”
Jason had the envelope in his hand. He tossed it at Bruce. “One thousand two hundred dollars. That’s more cash than anyone working in Crime Alley sees. I’m not Robin, so what the fuck do you want?”
His voice ended up in a shout, loud enough to send the bats fluttering overhead, and Bruce’s frown deepened further.
“Calm down,” Bruce said, inflectionless. “I don’t want anything from you. It’s just your allowance. If you’d prefer a check instead of cash, I can do that too. Or just directly transfer the money to your account—”
“Don’t,” Jason cut him off, wincing as his voice cracked. “Please don’t. I’ll—I’ll give the money back. I don’t want it. I don’t need it.” He’d give all of it back, all three years’ worth of it, and he’d work to pay off the rest if it meant he’d clear the debt.
The inscrutable expression was beginning to crack. “I don’t want the money back,” Bruce said, a thread of something in his voice that sounded like anger.
“I don’t want it either!” Jason shouted, hands balling into useless fists because he would never be able to take Batman in a fight. He could feel the trembling taking root in his muscles, like he was one step away from crumpling, and he couldn’t make it stop.
“I don’t understand.” Bruce was the one looking confused now. “It’s just an allowance. Why are you so upset?”
Jason stared at him. At the perfectly composed look of bewilderment. Like Jason was the crazy one here.
“There’s only so many reasons you pay someone that kind of cash,” Jason said, hollow.
Bruce still looked confused, staring blankly at Jason for a long, stretching moment before something flickered across his face.
“I don’t—Jason—no.” Bruce looked furious and upset at once and Jason found himself backing up without meaning to. “What are you—did you seriously think—why would you think—”
“You were paying me for Robin and now I’m not Robin anymore,” Jason retorted.
“Jason.” Bruce looked upset, as deeply upset as Jason ever saw him, and distant alarm bells were ringing in Jason’s head that he’d fucked up. “I wasn’t paying you to be Robin. Why would you even think that?”
Because—because why else would Bruce be paying him?
“Then what the fuck was it for?!”
“It’s an allowance,” Bruce said weakly. “Kids get allowances. They don’t—they don’t have to do anything for them.”
Jason stared at Bruce because what the fuck.
“Yes, they do! They do chores or get good grades or-or something, but it has to be earned! And it’s like ten bucks, maybe twenty, but definitely not a thousand!”
“Jason—”
“You started giving it to me after I started Robin training and you gave me more if I did good, and I tried, I swear, Bruce, I tried so hard, I did my best—”
“Jay—”
“And I didn’t kill Garzonas though I wish that I had, he’s hurt so many people and he wouldn’t fucking stop and it hurts, and I’m not asking for Robin but please just take the money back,” Jason took a shuddering breath and blinked furiously, willing himself not to cry.
Bruce was staring at him like he’d seen a ghost, pale and trembling. He was clutching the back of a chair and looked unsteady on his feet.
“I’ll leave,” Jason said, voice breaking despite his best intentions. “I’ll walk away, I swear. You won’t ever have to see me again.”
Bruce took a high, sharp breath and almost choked on it. He was staring at Jason so intensely that Jason half expected to feel a laser burning through his face.
“Three years,” Bruce said faintly. Jason stared quizzically at him. “Three years, and you—you thought I was paying you for Robin all this time?” Bruce’s voice dropped to a whisper, like he was saying something awful.
“Why else would you be giving me cash?” Jason asked wearily. He cast an arm out at their surroundings and the line of it ended at the Batmobile, shrouded in the shadows. “Why else would I be here?”
Bruce looked nothing short of shattered. “Jason,” he said, slow and awful, like he was struggling with how to break some truly dreadful news—“you’re my son.”
“Because of Robin,” Jason retorted. Like he was too stupid to put together two and two. He’d only been adopted after he started training. But Bruce looked like he was going to argue, and Jason cut him off. “Why else did Dick leave the moment you fired him?”
“I didn’t—he didn’t—is that what he told you?” Bruce demanded, immediately stalking to the Batcomputer. He looked ready to demand Dick return and account for his actions…and that’s exactly what he was doing.
“Dick’s off-planet,” Jason pointed out, more than a little exhausted. He didn’t want to be there for Bruce v Dick, showdown number whatever they were on right now. He was tired, nerves worn from being on edge these past few weeks, and it appeared like Bruce had really just forgotten about the payments. “If you don’t want the rest of the money back, fine. I’ll be out of your hair tomorrow.”
Bruce spun back around and Jason took a hasty step back. Looked like he was leaving tonight. “No,” Bruce said sharply, advancing until he’d blocked the easy path up to the stairs. “No, you’re not leaving.”
Something sank deep into the pit of his stomach. Jason had always known, when it came down to it, that he couldn’t outrun Batman.
No Nightwing to run to. No Titans. He knew Crime Alley better than Bruce, but that didn’t mean anything when he factored in all of the technology Batman had access to, along with the GCPD and—
“Jason,” Bruce’s voice almost cracked, “Jay. No. You’re not—I’m not kicking you out.” There was a big difference between I’m not kicking you out and you can’t leave. “You—” Bruce cast his glance wildly around the Cave before landing on something. “You can have Robin back.”
What.
“What,” Jason said out loud, unsure if he’d heard correctly.
“You can have Robin back,” Bruce repeated. He was wincing, but his gaze was locked on Jason, intense and almost pleading. “If that’s what you need, you can have it.”
“You said I was done,” Jason pointed out, voice smaller than he intended. The ice had never gone away, growing and growing until he felt cold both inside and out. “You said—”
“Jay,” Bruce said, and then sighed slowly. He sank into a nearby seat and rested his face against his palm for a long moment. “Jay,” he finally said, lifting his gaze, “I haven’t done a very good job of—of separating Batman and Bruce. Of separating being your leader and being—being your father.”
Jason couldn’t stop the sharp inhale.
“As Batman, I was…concerned. I believed you needed a break from Robin, that your judgment was getting clouded. I still do.” That struck, scoring a deep wound. “But outside the cape, you are still my son. You will always be my son. Dick will always be my son—whether he is Robin, Nightwing, or even on the planet.” Bruce looked at him with something akin to hope. “Do you understand?”
Jason understood. Whether he believed, on the other hand…
“You can be Robin again,” Bruce said. “If that—if you need it, you can have it. Okay?”
“Okay,” Jason murmured hesitantly.
“And,” Bruce ventured, “if you don’t want the allowance, I can stop giving it. If that’s what you want.”
“I don’t want it,” Jason said immediately. That much money had been a weight around his neck and he was already breathing easier with it gone.
“Okay,” Bruce allowed. “Okay.” He was still watching Jason, something flickering underneath his even stare. “And—I realize that this misunderstanding has been going on a while, but I didn’t adopt you because you’re Robin. I adopted you because you’re Jason.”
That didn’t make any sense. Jason narrowed his eyes. What the hell did Jason offer him, besides Robin? Tire thieving skills?
“I’m sorry I didn’t do a good job of showing it,” Bruce said quietly. “Either of you, as the case may be.” He looked abruptly weary, shoulders curving under the weight of exhaustion, until he no longer looked like Batman or Brucie Wayne.
He just looked tired.
“Will you give me a second chance?” he asked, soft.
Jason wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but he was pretty sure that a no was going to break Bruce’s composure and he was definitely sure he didn’t want to see that.
“Okay,” Jason answered, equally soft.
Bruce’s answering smile looked a lot like Batman’s proud expression whenever Jason mastered a new trick, a smile he hadn’t seen in weeks, and he found an answering grin tugging at his own face.
He didn’t have to leave. B wanted him here. And Jason had time to figure out the rest.