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Jason's fingers twitched. It wasn't because it was still a bit odd to be back at the manor, sitting on the couch sandwiched between Tim and Damian, who was nibbling on a chocolate chip cookie he was not supposed to be having at this hour, according to Alfred. But Dick was weak and insisted it was okay for Dami to have just one and that Alfred didn't have to know, which had earned the eldest respective scoffs from Jason and Tim. As if anything under the roof of the manor could remain a secret to the butler who might or might not be metahuman, whose superpowers might or might not include advanced omniscience.
Nor was he so fidgety today because said butler and grandfather was feeling a bit under the weather and retired early for the night. It wasn't because Dick and Bruce were patrolling Gotham alone tonight either, leaving him as the de facto responsible adult to watch over the little ones. Yeah. Responsible adult, Jason was not. Tim and Damian were supposed to be in bed hours ago and the demon spawn was eating his probably twentieth cookie out of the allowed amount of one, and the movie they were watching was most definitely not PG. Blood and gore splattered freely as the annoying jerk of a victim was beheaded by Jason's trusty machete. Jason Voorhees' machete that is.
Damian's lips pulled into a gleeful smirk as he watched the carnage with rapt attention. Jason Todd blinked. Okay. There was a weird sensation stirring deep in his stomach. What kind of message was he sending them when he had them all gathered for a little family bonding time that included watching a serial killer with his name slaughtering people left and right? But, the actual question was why was he even worried about the messages he was sending the people he used to resent and attack on a regular basis? And before he knew what was happening, he had snatched the remote from Tim's bony fingers and switched the channel.
“Hey!”
“Why did you do that?!”
Jason closed his eyes. Indeed why? He knew why, but he really didn't feel like analysing the reason beyond Why Not? He leisurely leaned against the backrest, folding his arms behind his head as he gave them a smirk.
“I already watched the movie. Sucks. Spongebob is better.”
And indeed, he'd rather have Damian being bored out of his mind watching a seasponge than delighting in chaos, blood, mayhem and spilled guts of the literal kind.
Tim and Damian blinked in unison and shared a gobsmacked look.
“And you realize that almost half-way into the movie?” Tim asked, crossing his arms. “Even though you suggested we marathon these movies in the first place?”
Jason's eye twitched and before he could reply with something stupid and hypocritical like you're too young to watch that shit or I'm your older brother and because I say so.
“Tt. Maybe Todd found himself yearning for his old lifestyle when he saw his namesake on screen acting like he used to,” Damian grumbled snidely, chin raised like the haughty little al Ghul offspring he was.
“Hey!”
“Hey!”
Jason stared at Tim, oddly touched that he'd feel offended on his behalf, or maybe he just wanted to antagonize the little demon. Regardless, Jason felt stupid emotions that made him want to do stupid things like ruffle the little bird's hair. The flash of righteous anger left Tim's eyes as his brows creased with concern.
“But if it does make you feel uncomfortable after all..." Tim trailed off uncertainly.
Jason didn't quite manage to ward off a grin as he rolled his eyes just on principle. “It did not make me uncomfortable. I've seen worse things on the streets.”
Tim didn't look entirely convinced, but then his expression smoothed over in the same way Jason had seen it happening with Bruce so often and, oh God, who were they even fooling? The middle kid was Bruce Wayne's true heir through and through.
“If you say so,” Tim said neutrally as Damian made a grabby hand for the remote, cookie balanced precariously between the forefinger and thumb of his other hand. Jason raised his arm high above his head as the little demon let out an outraged gasp. Heh. Cute.
Jason's eyes widened as he nearly choked on his spit, the remote falling from his fingers right into Damian's small hand. Fuck. He had been here for only two weeks and he was already going all mushy and soft surrounded by these kids. By his, he grimaced, little brothers. He blamed Dick entirely for this.
He could feel the force of Tim's stare against the back of his head, but Jason was far too overwhelmed by the image of Damian eagerly sitting back down as he switched from Spongebob reruns to the Friday the 13th marathon. His green pajamas were a little too big on him, weren't they? His feet barely poked out of the leg holes, tiny toes wriggling a little as he made himself more comfortable and bit down on his cookie. He smiled softly at the carnage on the screen, his little button nose twitching at the high pitched screech of the next victim.
Jason Voorhees continued his menacing stride and Jason Todd let out a mortifying cross between a squeal and groan. Or he would have if he didn't have perfect control over his vocal cords, yes.
“Jason?” Tim tapped him on the shoulder, cautious and hesitant. “Are you... okay? We can always watch something else, I'm sure Damian won't mind--”
Damian interjected, “I will not--”
“--especially when Alfred finds out about his cookie intake.”
The kid clamped his mouth shut, puffing his cheeks out indignantly.
And Jason lost it.
It had been a quiet night. Perhaps that in itself should have alerted Bruce to the things to come, before they had ended up inevitably escalating into chaos and mayhem well beyond his control. He had stopped a few robberies, saved a young couple from getting mugged and made sure they made it safely home before he had resigned himself to a few hours of uneventful patrol before he and Nightwing had called it a night. Dick had insisted on a detour to the Clocktower and promised he would be back later.The small hairs on the back of Bruce's neck prickled when he entered the cave as he clenched his fists, unable to fully ignore the churning feeling in the pit of his stomach.
It was ridiculous. As rare as quiet Gotham nights were, they were not nonexistent. He pushed the cowl back with a sigh, took off his gauntlets before he sat down in the big chair in front of the computer, his muscles sore, his bones weary. Before he could so much as touch the keyboard to look over the reports Tim had left him from last night a shriek tore through the thick silence of the cave.
Bruce inhaled deeply through his nose and dug the heel of his palm into his right eye. There it went, the quiet night. A blur of green dashed down the stairs, a blur distinctly shaped like his youngest in his pajamas. Damian was clutching both of his hands over his nose as he came to a standstill right in front of him, chin raised haughtily.
"Why are you not in bed--"
“Father,” he began with all the righteous indignation that made his small body tremble as he dropped his hands to his sides and clenched them into tiny fists. It could have been adorable if it weren’t for the severe scowl on the boy’s face or if he hadn't just rudely interrupted Bruce. “I can no longer stand by this!” Damian snapped, his voice overpowering the agitated squeaks of the disturbed bats above. “Not only do I have to passively accept Grayson’s ridiculous and entirely unnecessary displays of… affection, but now this?!” He raised his hands in an all-encompassing gesture, while Bruce focused on the way the nostrils of his son’s nose flared. His lips twitched yet he was wise enough to mask it from the boy.
There was no need to contribute to his fiery anger.
“Have I not suffered through enough indignities in this household already? First Grayson, then your and everybody’s insistence of me attending--” Damian’s mouth curled into a sneer as he spat, “school. And now this!”
Bruce was stuck somewhere between the need to ruffle Damian’s tousled hair and for the first time in years to ask Alfred for a glass of the most potent wine they possessed. Instead, he settled for a low grunt that might have sounded like a question mark was tacked on at the end if he had been less tired.
“Damian, what happened?” he eventually asked as the boy’s eyes narrowed into tiny slits. But any further comments were cut off by the slight commotion that came from up the stairs as the pajama-clad forms of Jason and Tim made their way down. Damian’s spine immediately became ramrod straight as he squared his shoulders and gritted his teeth. Bruce’s eyes flitted back and forth between his youngest and Sons Number Two and Three. Even the overwhelming joy that never failed to make his heart threaten to burst out of his chest cavity at seeing Jason strolling so casually through the halls of the manor or into the batcave, didn’t manage to lessen the ugly sense of foreboding in Bruce.
Tim bit his lip, his face bemused as he kept himself more or less to the background, while Jason looked mostly dazed and vaguely horrified. Ah, so this was something between Jason and Damian then, and Tim was here to observe. Or if Bruce allowed himself to be more cynical than usual, Tim was here to gawk and amuse himself at the expense of his brothers. Bruce sighed as he discreetly rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Todd,” Damian snarled, yet he made no motion to attack, which Bruce counted as a sign that this situation was still salvageable. Whatever it was that had his youngest so incensed.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened?” Bruce asked in what he hoped was an appeasing tone. Yet he went ignored as Damian hissed something under his breath, threats and curses Bruce was glad didn’t have any form of physical manifestation. Tim’s lips twitched into a smile as Jason fired back, less muted with his curses, but there was a certain shakiness to his movements, an uncertainty that made Bruce nearly doubt that this was just a spat between siblings.
He needed answers, damn it! But everyone was adamant about being uncharacteristically cryptic about the ‘indignities’ Damian had had to suffer through tonight. It couldn’t have been that bad of a thing, Bruce surmised, since none of them were bleeding or even looked like they had been fighting. Verbal barbs were too commonplace for Damian to be so ruffled about, except if Jason had gone too far and the only topic that could push Damian’s buttons was that of his mother. Then again, if Talia had indeed come up during a dispute, blood would have flowed.
“I didn’t mean to,” Jason said eventually, staring at his outstretched hands, eyes hazy. The confounded tone with which he spoke only served to unsettle Bruce more and he wanted to reach out, perhaps place a placating hand on Jason’s shoulder, but then his son’s head snapped up so quickly Bruce was afraid he might have given himself whiplash. “I wasn’t even aware I was doing it.”
“Doing what?” Bruce asked, teeth gritted. Why did nobody tell him what had happened? Jason’s haunted gaze bore right through his soul as Bruce’s heart leapt up to his throat. “Jason?”
“I--” Jason looked down at Damian and shuddered, before he continued in what was barely a whisper, so that Bruce had to strain his ears to hear, “I booped the brat’s nose.”
Bruce blinked. What?
Tim let out a bark of laughter he halfheartedly tried to disguise as a cough, and Damian looked ready to throw all the lessons about life, death and moral high grounds that had been drilled into him in this household out of the window.
“You...booped Damian’s nose? That’s it?” Bruce tried again, because even though he had been given an explanation, it still made no sense. And the urge to ask Alfred for that wine was getting stronger. Jason stared at him with such an achingly stricken expression that it convinced Bruce that there had to be more to the story than the boys were telling him.
“I don’t know what got into me!” Jason shouted, his voice echoing through the cave. He raked an agitated hand through his hair as a nerve in his neck jumped. “He was just sitting there and eating his damn cookie that Dick was not supposed to give him and he looked so...normal? So small and cute--” Jason’s features twisted into an expression of utter disgust. “And...and his nose sotinyandadorable! Oh God, what’s wrong with me!?”
Damian gasped, appalled. “I am not cute!”
Bruce was sure his left eye had started to twitch and Tim was not pretending to hide how much this exchange delighted him. Damian’s sneer smoothly morphed into a vicious snarl, all teeth and ready to tear out Jason’s jugular. But instead of making a dash for his brother’s neck, Damian turned towards Bruce again.
“Father,” he whined...whined!
“Oh man, Jason,” Tim cut in as he patted Jason on the back. “You’ve become such a big brother.”
“I think I have,” Jason whispered despairingly as he stared down at his hands again as if he could suddenly wash it all off. “Tim. I couldn’t even resist it. I had to touch his nose and-- oh no! Nonononononononono! I’m starting to sound like… like--” he gulped heavily as Tim smiled serenely, giving his arm a squeeze that might have been a gesture of sympathy if Bruce didn’t know better. He was having the time of his life. And then Jason spoke with a grave air of resignation: “I am starting to become like Dick.”
His words hang heavily in the silence between them. Damian sucked in a deep breath and crossed his arms over his chest, looking even more offended than before.
“Tt- as if you could ever compare to Grayson, Todd.”
“Damian!” Bruce interjected, scandalized. All of the comparisons between Jason and Dick had been a big part of why things had turned so sour between them in the first place. He didn’t need the boy to rub more salt into Jason’s wounds.
“You must punish him, Father,” Damian whispered menacingly, pointing an imperious finger at Jason. Bruce felt oddly proud because Damian did not suggest that he cut Jason's hand off. Dick's influence was a wondrous thing. “An eye for an eye.”
Or perhaps, Dick was not spending nearly enough time with him after all.
“I'm a grown ass man,” Jason said, running his hand through his hair. He needed a haircut, but yes, Jason was an adult and gone were the days where Bruce had any control over the unruly mess of his children's hair. “Meaning too old for Dad to scold me.”
Damian tugged at his cape, while Bruce tried to recover from hearing Jason call him Dad, irrelevant of the fact that there was a clear sarcastic undertone to it all. Damian gave another, more forceful tug, and Bruce was starting to believe his children were playing a prank on him. It was hard to tell nowadays, but no, Damian could not fake this amount of sheer outrage, and as good as Jason was at acting, the annoyance radiating off of him in waves seemed genuine enough.
Bruce heaved a sigh.
“Alright,” he said, taking two steps towards Jason, who blinked at him, confused, but didn't so much as flinch beyond that because he knew Bruce would never raise a hand against him after everything they had gone through to reach these times of relative peace. Tim watched them curiously as Damian's shoulders squared with satisfaction at imminent justice to be served. He lifted a hand towards Jason's face and flicked his nose, grinning at the spluttered curses and utter bewilderment spreading over his face.
Turning to Damian, he muttered, “An eye for an eye.”
He observed the brief reprieve of flabbergasted silence smugly, feeling more victorious right now than he had during patrol. The three were quite the sight to behold. Tim's eyebrows nearly reached his hairline, Jason stood frozen on the spot, hands raised at his sides, and the tension in Damian's shoulders had eased, making him slump, eyes wide, mouth agape.
“Good night,” Bruce said with finality as he ruffled Damian's hair, smiled at Tim and repeated the gesture before he patted Jason's shoulder.
And then Tim burst out laughing, clutching his stomach, his glee ricocheting off the damp walls of the cave.