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If Jason Todd was the kind of person to bother with mottoes or life philosophy, his would probably be something along the lines of this:
Nothing good ever happens in Wayne fucking Manor.
Which was why he tried to stay the fuck away as often as possible.
And it used to be easy, too. After all, the only people in the world who wanted Jason at the manor even less than Jason wanted to be there just happened to be every single person that lived in the manor. Well, besides Al, but he was like, the one magnet that didn't have a similar pole to Jason, so no matter how much he might have claimed that Jason would always be welcome, the combined similar poles of Bruce, Dick, Replacement, and Hell-baby were always more than enough to keep Jason's ass well and truly fucking repelled. It was a happy medium. And it worked for him.
Then, like most things in his life (unlife? Was he a zombie? Because no one had ever given him a straight answer about that and every time he brings it up people either laugh or get all uncomfortable and no one ever just answers the goddamn question) Tim fucking Drake had to come along and ruin it.
He wasn't even really sure how it happened, the whole falling in love with babybird thing. Part of him is still convinced it's a magic spell, and that any day Zatanna is gonna show up and snap her fingers and, boom, spell broken, followed fifteen seconds later by Tim's face. But most of him knows that's bullshit, that it's just his issues and self-loathing and the goddamn fucking Pit messing with his head, and, really, if anyone has a spell on them it's Tim because who in their right mind would ever fall in love with Jason Todd?
(Although when he brings this up, Tim always just says “who ever said I'm in my right mind?” with that stupid, sexy little half smile and then it's all he can do not to tear off that dumb costume and punch Tim in the ass with his cock.)
Anyway, the point of all this is that Tim is a bastard and he totally changed his pole right after Dickie did, and now there were three people who wanted him to “just stop by” the manor and three people who didn't, and since one of those latter three was Jason and Jason was apparently totally fucking whipped he didn't even count because once Tim turned those blue eyes on him and started in on his family bonding shit Jason was as helpless as Dick in a pile of redheads.
So Jason “just stops by” about three times a week now to eat cookies and deal with Dick's hugs and get glared at by Bruce and get glared at even more by Bruce's spawn and occasionally make Tim cum in his pants right before they all leave for patrol. Because if he's gonna be uncomfortable, then so is babybird. Because as has been pointed out, this is probably all Tim's fault.
The only upside is that he's been visiting for long enough to fall into a, dare he even fucking say it, comfortable pattern.
A pattern that was working really great right up until Bruce's demon baby dropped down from one of Bruce's ridiculous, vaulted, rich asshole ceilings, landed right in front of Jason in one of Bruce's ridiculous, dark, rich asshole hallways, and asked Jason about gay sex.
“What. The fuck?” Jason asked flatly.
“It was a very straightforward question.” Damian crossed his arms and glared up at him with an actual fucking blush spreading across his cheeks.
“I didn't even think you could blush with your skin tone,” Jason remarked casually.
“I do not blush!” Damian sneered and blushed even harder. Jason snorted. “Stop laughing at me!”
Jason chuckled. “Yeah, that's not happening.”
Damian started to say something, but forced himself to stop before he could do more than open his mouth. Considering the shit that usually came out of the kid's mouth, Jason was torn between being curious about what he thought needed to be censored and impressed that he'd apparently learned a bit of self-control at some point.
“Todd,” Damian ground out through clenched teeth. “I would very much appreciate your advice.”
Jason blinked at the almost polite way he said that, then forced himself not to flinch or look away or just dive through the nearest window to get away because—
“About gay sex?” Jason asked.
Damian nodded stiffly, and blushed again.
Yeah. That.
Jason sighed. “Aren't you like, ten?”
“I'm thirteen!”
“Yeah, no, still too young.”
Which, okay, was pretty hypercritical coming from someone like Jason, who knew just how quickly kids could grow up if they had to. Especially in this “family”. But that was kind of the point. There wasn't a single Robin whose childhood had managed to survive Bruce getting his claws into them, and from what he'd heard over the years Jason was pretty sure Damian never even had a childhood at all. The fact that he didn't know anything about sex and that he blushed like a kid when he asked about it? It was kind of fucking precious. In every sense of the word. That kind of innocence seemed like the kind of thing Bruce would want to preserve in his actual son for as long as possible.
Not that Jason gave a fuck about what Bruce wanted, of course. But, maybe the world wouldn't implode if he and the old Bat agreed on this one, tiny little thing.
“It is not!” Damian insisted. “In many cultures around the world I would already be old enough to start my own family—”
“Yeah and in many cultures around the world you'd be killed for asking about getting it on with another guy. Guess which one I'm leaning towards right now?”
“Please,” Damian scoffed. “You'd have to kill Drake and yourself first if you were going to murder people for committing homosexual acts.”
“Then it's probably a good thing that we live in a culture where we don't kill people for being gay and thirteen year old kids don't start families.” Usually anyway. “But lucky for you we do live in a culture of wonderful inventions like laptops and internet porn. So do what normal kids do and go jerk off to PornHub.”
If his plan was to embarrass the kid into leaving him alone he was pretty fucking disappointed when Damian just crossed his arms and shot him a scathing look.
“I do not want to watch pornography.” He wrinkled his nose in a way that Jason wouldn't admit was adorable as shit even under torture. “And even if I did, Father monitors our internet access ever since Drake spent two hundred thousand dollars on the World of Warchests—”
“Warcraft,” Jason corrected automatically and, dammit, he really hated that he knew that.
“Whatever.”
“Please say that to Tim one day” Jason muttered. Then froze as the implications of what the brat just said sunk in. “So, wait. Bruce watches everything we do online?”
Because Tim sometimes travels. And even though it's kinda pathetic, Jason has never really dealt well with Tim being halfway around the world from him. Skype calls are a daily thing, and he's not even sure if he's more mortified about the possibility of Bruce seeing the ones where they jerk off for each other or the ones where Jason whispers the kind of sweet things that would absolutely kill his rep as the Red Hood.
“Everything we do on the manor's network, yes.”
Jason tried not to let his relief show. He was suddenly very glad Tim had a pillow at his apartment he could bury his face into when he was missing his babybird. Hugging Pillow-Tim pretty much always prompted a Skype call, and if Tim's only pillow was in the manor...
Yeah.
“You know if we were a normal family this is the kinda shit that would get us on Dr Phil, right?” Jason asked.
Damian wrinkled up his nose again. Jesus fuck that thing is gonna be lethal if he ever realizes how to use it. I'm shocked he doesn't already have Dickie wrapped around his finger. “If you say so. I don't particularly care about your awful taste in television, all I want is for you to answer my question.”
Jason groaned.
“No. No fucking way. Look, I'm not giving Bruce's thirteen year old kid the sex talk.”
“Yes you are. Teach me how to fornicate!”
“You're not even old enough to say 'fuck' are you? Jesus Christ, I feel like a pedophile just talking to you right now.”
“I am not a child, Todd!”
“You still watch cartoons.”
“So does Grayson! And Drake does as well.”
Jason actually started to open his mouth to explain the difference between cartoons and anime and it was times like these he gave serious thought to just fucking killing himself.
“Look, Tokyo Ghoul isn't a—”
Oh my god I'm actually fucking doing it what the fuck did you do to me Tim?
“You know what?” Jason asked, hoping to god he wasn't actually blushing right now. “It doesn't even matter. You're still too young to be thinking about this stuff. Does your little orphan even know you wanna jump his bones?”
“C-colin—” Damian flushed again. “I-it.... I am not too young!”
“Yeah, you definitely haven't mentioned this to him. What are you going to do, just jump him out of nowhere once you learn how?”
“N-no! And I am old enough to make sexual decisions on my own.”
“You're thirteen. You should be playing Pokemon and realizing PewDiePie isn't funny, not having sex.”
Damian glared. “And when did you first engage in sexual activity?”
Jason grit his teeth. He was uncomfortable, and annoyed, and feeling just emasculated enough to ignore the tiny little voice in the back of his head that tried to remind him that he didn't need to do stupid shit to prove that he was tough. It was a pretty terrible combination of shitty feelings, and while Jason had gotten a lot better at handling negative emotions over the past few years, he still didn't have the best self-control; or the common sense he'd had before he died. Which was his excuse for what happened next.
Jason met Damian's eyes and said evenly, “When your mom sat on my cock.”
Damian's eyes flashed, his cheeks flushed with rage, and that was pretty much the end of their conversation.
The fight was short, but brutal, and ended with Damian nursing a split lip and dislocated shoulder and Jason snapping his nose and more fingers than he'd care to count back into place. Damian stalked off in the direction of the Cave spitting what Jason could only assume were Arabic curses under his breath. Jason stayed in the hall and taped up his fingers, muttering about horny, psychotic Bruce babies.
No matter what Tim said, or how pathetic he looked when he did the puppy eyes thing, Jason vowed to himself that he'd rather go back to Arkham than set foot in this house of nutjobs ever again.
He managed to stay away for six whole days.
Not for any lack of trying on his part, but he kind of forgot that he actually needed to show up at the Cave occasionally to top off his supply of—gag—non-leathal ammo and gas and shit and check in with Bruce so the old man doesn't send Dick out to his place to check on him. And for a guy named after one, Dick is pretty much the biggest cock-block in the world. After three days of Dickie's stupid, perfect face showing up to tap on the window right as Jason's about to get Tim out of his pants he decided that even seeing the demon baby can't be worse than another fucking cold shower. And besides, the Cave is technically under the manor, so he's totally not even breaking his vow.
Until two days later when Al shows up smelling like a bakery and casually mentioning the mountain of sugar cookies he'd just happened to have spent all day baking that are just now coming out of the oven and. Well.
Better men than Jason have succumbed to such temptation.
And it's like that one step from the Cave into the manor proper is some kind of white flag, because all of a sudden Jason is expected to Show Up For Family Gatherings once again.
It ends up being just as uncomfortable as Jason knew it would be, at first. Although he very quickly came to realize that it's so much easier to avoid someone when you get to leave at the end of the night as opposed to when you live with them. So Jason adopted a policy of strict Damian-avoidance, and stuck to it religiously.
Still, Jason has always been curious, and living with a human Google like Tim hadn't done a single thing to curb his curiosity, so after he starts to get comfortable—or as comfortable as he can get in close proximity to Bruce—he can't help but start to wonder about what the fuck is going on with Damian and Colin.
So he starts to watch.
As a rule, Jason doesn't really give a shit about couples and romance and all that crap. Put him in a room with a romantic comedy playing on TV and he's asleep in seconds. Talk to him about how beautiful the new royal couple looked at their wedding and he's wondering why the hell the colonists ever bothered with a Revolution in the first place if everyone was just gonna end up obsessing over some ginger dude in a ridiculous outfit while his wedding preempts all of Jason's favorite TV shows. And not even Tim at his most persuasive could get him to give a crap about whatever stupid fictional characters were “just perfect for each other Jason I really have no idea why the writers are scared to let them be happy together please massage my feet while I blog about it.”
All of this is really just a long winded way of saying that Jason had no idea what it is about couples that get otherwise normal(ish) people to go so fucking crazy.
Until he started paying attention to Damian and Colin.
Because they were (and he hated to use the word almost as much as he hated that he knew what a fujoshi was) cute. Kind of sickeningly so. And it wasn't even like the kid was over all the time, but that only made it that much easier to notice how different Damian was around him. The first time he really paid attention to them together he was kind of really shocked to notice how much tension Damian carried around on a daily basis, because it all just bled away when Colin looked at him. And the smiles. He didn't even think Damian's mouth could form a smile. The first time he saw him smile at Colin Jason actually walked into a door frame. Which was fucking embarrassing enough, but Tim and Dick saw it and, yeah, he'd be hearing about it until the next Crisis.
Mostly from Tim, because he was the only one who knew the real reason behind Jason and Damian's fight.
(Tim was equally horrified and amused at the idea of Damian wanting to learn about sex. And once he'd gotten over his surprise, he had a whole load of really terrible “advice” for Jason if he ever decided to help Damian out, ranging from “use fruit, that's what they did when I was in school” to “I have a few uncensored BL games you could show him.” Which was all really funny for Tim until Jason threatened to tell Damian the combination to Tim's new Harry Potter safe.)
So he kind of got it, the thing about couples. It was...kinda nice, seeing Damian and Colin huddled together in the corner of a couch watching a movie, or resting their head in one or the others lap as they read—tablet for Damian, book for Colin, which automatically made Jason like the little redhead even more than he did when the kid started getting proper haircuts—or just sitting around doing nothing and being totally content and shit.
He just couldn't square what he saw with the demon brat wanting to know about sex.
They were just so fucking...innocent. Like kind of how he imagined Mormons would be if they were dating. He hadn't even walked in on one single heavy make out session, and by this point he was long past denying that's why he started randomly barging into rooms he thought they'd be alone in together. He wasn't even sure they knew that tongues had a place in kissing for fucks sake. And, yeah, okay, maybe he and Tim weren't all over each other in public either and just look at the shit they got up to in private, but they weren't hormonal teenagers just hitting puberty. But Damian and Colin were, and they still acted like a pair of ten year olds who blushed when they held hands.
The whole fucking situation was a mystery, and fuck Bruce and his training for this, but Jason was long past the time in his life when he could stand an unsolved mystery.
So when he literally ran into Damian in the middle of another hallway three weeks after their uncomfortable as fuck conversation, he clamped down on his knee jerk instinct to turn around and walk away and decided to see what the brat wanted.
Jason didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed that he was relaying a message from Bruce about wanting to talk to him in the Cave.
He gave serious thought to blowing Bruce off and following Damian—who had taken off down the hall the second he'd told Jason that Bruce wanted to see him—but he'd promised Tim that he'd try being nicer or whatever to the old man and he'd more or less come to terms with the fact that he'd eventually do pretty much whatever Tim wanted these days. So even though he kinda wanted to talk to Damian, maybe even give him some advice—not about sex, but maybe about his relationship with Colin and how it was a pretty cool thing the way it was and he shouldn't be in any rush to change it by trying to grow up too fast—he decided he might as well give the latest episode of the Bruce and Jason Show a chance to maybe shake up its stagnant plot line.
Except, when he got to the Cave, Bruce was nowhere to be seen.
“Fucking typical,” Jason muttered.
He briefly wondered if just coming down here would count as “making an effort”, then remembered that he didn't actually give a shit and he could probably wipe any potential disappointed looks off Tim's face with a blow job. The thought of Tim's dick in his mouth cheered him up—as it does—and so it was with a tiny smirk on his lips that he started making his way over towards the elevator that led to the secret passage to the garage.
He got three steps before Damian materialized out of the shadows in front of him.
“Ah!”
Damian crossed his arms. “Todd.”
“What the fuck?”
“We never finished our conversation.”
“No, really, what the fuck? How the hell did you even get down here before me?”
“-tt-”
“Jesus Christ, you know that noise isn't actually an answer, right?” And now that Jason's heart isn't trying to beat its way out of his fucking chest because he thought the demon brat was a demon ghost and, yeah, he was going to kill Tim for making him watch Paranormal Activity, his brain caught up with what Damian said. “And what conversation? There was no conversation. You just told me Bruce wanted to see me and then walked off. Not a conversation, even by Bat standards.”
Although if someone was going to argue Bat standards with Jason, he was pretty sure Damian would be able to hold his own because the look of I can't believe you're actually this stupid why do I bother with you the brat was giving him was disturbingly similar to Bruce's.
“That was a ruse,” Damian said flatly. “To lure you down here so I could lock you in until we finish our conversation.”
“You locked us in the—” Jason shook his head. “You know what, never mind. Just let me the fuck out.”
“Not until we finish—”
“'Our conversation', yeah I got it.” Jason rolled his eyes. “And now I repeat my bit: what conversation?”
“Our conversation about sexual intercourse.” Damian flushed slightly as he narrowed his eyes. “And do not mention my mother.”
Jason groaned. “Oh for—”
He paused thoughtfully.
Hadn't he just been wishing he could talk to the kid about his relationship with the orphan? And okay, this wasn’t exactly an offer to do that, but maybe he could take advantage of the opportunity. Not that he was going to give Bruce's son the gay sex talk, that shit was so far off the table Titus had eaten it off the floor days ago. But if he couldn't manipulate a thirteen year old into talking about his boyfriend (and oh how the mighty Red Hood had fallen if this was actually a goal for him now) he'd finally give into Tim's less than subtle mockery and ditch the helmet for a domino only.
“Okay,” Jason said slowly. “I'll tell you what. I'll tell you all about sex if you can tell me why you wanna know.”
For the longest while, Damian stayed stock still. Like, pure deer-in-the-headlights shit. It was actually kinda funny. Then it turned hilarious when the kid's entire face turned Robin red and he started sputtering.
“Wh—It—” Damian squawked. “Why do you think I want to know?” he hissed.
“No way Bat-lite, you don't get to answer a question with a question if you want me to answer your question.”
“Just tell me about intercourse!”
“See, you can't even say sex! This is what I'm talking about. It's all 'fornicate' and 'intercourse' and shit.”
“Not all of us are as crude as you.”
“Sex is crude,” Jason said bluntly. “It's dirty and wet and it can get a whole lot messier when it's between two guys, especially when neither one of them knows what the hell they're doing.”
“That's why I want you to tell me! So that I know.”
Jason raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? And who gets to give Colin the talk? Because if you think you're gonna be able to talk him through it based on one conversation with me without even browsing Xtube for some visual assistance then you really have no idea what you're getting into.”
Damian, somehow, turned even redder. “N-no one needs to talk to Colin!”
“Have you?” Jason asked, trying not to hold his breath as he waited for the answer.
“I...” Damian growled and looked away.
Yeah, that's what I figured.
Jason sighed. “Look. I can't even believe I'm saying this, but...you and Colin? What you've got is pretty damn good. Especially for two teenagers and even more especially for two teenagers who've been together since they were ten. That childhood sweetheart thing? That shit's pretty rare. And—and I really can't believe I'm saying this—but you shouldn't be in any rush to change it, okay? You're kind of the sweetest little couple, you know? And that's...just. Trying to do too much too fast could ruin that, okay?”
Damian still refused to look at him, but that was totally cool with Jason, because he was sure his face was quickly catching up to Damian's in the redness department.
“...how do you know anything about my relationship with Colin,” Damian grumbled.
“Because I've been watching you two for the past few weeks,” Jason said, not seeing any point in trying to deny it. Especially not when he was trying to make a point. “And I've never seen you guys do anything more than a few closed mouth kisses. Hell, you guys don't even make out. There's no way you're gonna go from that to sex just because puberty hit and you're getting all hormonal—”
“I am not hormonal!” Damian shouted and, yep, there was the glare. “And you know nothing about Colin and I. Of course we...make out. Do you truly think we are that innocent?”
“Yes,” Jason answered simply. Because there was no way he was gonna go into just how thoroughly he'd been spying on them.
“Well we aren't.”
Jason rolled his eyes. “Look, I'm not making fun of you, okay? You don't need to pretend to be all experienced and shit—”
“I am not pretending,” Damian said, crossing his arms again and giving Jason the most scathing look he'd ever seen on the demon brat's face. And that was saying something. “Neither me nor Colin are idiots. Do you truly expect us to do more than kiss and hug and...and cuddle while we're in a house that is filled with surveillance cameras installed by my father?”
Jason blinked. He...hadn't actually considered it. But that was kind of a really good point.
“-tt-” Now it was Damian's turn to roll his eyes. “Of course you forgot about the cameras. Everyone in this family does. It's the reason for half of the embarrassing stories you all tell about Grayson. Well, I don't forget. Me and Colin do all of our...making out—” He scrunched up his face at the term. “—at Colin's orphanage where there are no cameras.”
“Oh.”
“And,” Damian continued, barely even seeming to notice Jason anymore, “we don't just make out, we sometimes touch as well. It makes me feel things and I don't understand what I'm feeling and then we always stop but I can tell Colin doesn't want to and I know the only reason he does is because he knows I'm scared but what if whatever is happening is wrong? What if I'm doing it wrong? Colin is so much more knowledgeable than me and what if he realizes that I don't know anything about this and leaves me because I'm so terrible at fornication?”
“Wait, dude,” Jason interrupted. “Colin's had sex?”
“Of course not!” Damian shrieked. Jason let out a silent breath. That was...good. That was good. Because the only ways Colin could have lost his virginity are if he'd cheated on Damian or if he'd had sex before they got together and...yeah. Either one of those would be horrible, albeit in totally different ways. “But he lives in an orphanage with older children and they all know and they talk and he hears things and tells me and I have no idea what he's talking about. It's so confusing and everything is a euphemism and nothing is clearly explained and I am so tired of being embarrassed because I don't know what a 'dutch oven' or a 'golden shower' is or how to 'superman a ho' and I need to learn how so I can impress Colin and sweep him off his feet and take our relationship to the next level!”
By the end of his rant Damian was shaking and practically hyperventilating. Jason had never seen the kid so worked up and upset over everything in his entire life. Unfortunately, his brain was still stuck somewhere around 'superman a ho' so he couldn't really be as comforting as he probably should have been in retrospect.
“No. Just.” Jason shook his head. “Just no fucking way. 'Golden'—no. You don't need to know any of that shit. Fuck! What the fuck kind of orphanage is that kid living in? How the fuck has Bruce not adopted him yet?”
“Todd...” Damian scrunched his face up and with a visible effort of will that Jason wasn't even sure Bruce could have pulled off if he were similarly worked up, forced himself to stop shaking. He opened his eyes and looked up at Jason and, oh shit, those were actual tears, weren't they? “Jason. Please. Please just tell me so I don't embarrass myself. I promise I won't try to do any of it. I just want to know. I can't stand the idea of Colin looking at me the way you all do. He's the only person who has never treated me as a child and I...I don't want to lose that.”
I am so fucking in over my head with this shit.
A large part of Jason—hell, pretty much the entire part—wanted to just wash his hands of this shit and walk the fuck away. He wasn't Damian's father, or his brother—not really. Fuck, he wasn't even the kid's friend. There was no way he should be feeling this goddamn guilty. And it wasn't even the guilt that was getting to him. It was the sympathy. Because he'd been there. Okay, maybe not in this exact situation (which would have been impossible before the invention of urban dictionary) but he totally got how lonely it could be being the only kid in a sea of adults. Hell, he was probably the only one who could get it the way Damian did. Dick and Tim both had their Titans, and Steph and Cass came into the whole thing when it was more like an actual family instead of a Jedi padawan deal. Jason was really the only Robin who didn't have any other kids to relate to when he was doing it. It was just him and Bruce and Al and occasionally Dick and sometimes he just wanted to scream when he ended up getting the same lecture or warning three times from three different people. He would have killed for a Colin back then. And if he had one he probably would have been willing to do more than beg the family mistake for the sex talk if he thought he might lose him.
So he understood the desperation Damian was feeling, even if he didn't think it was warranted. And if there was one thing that had stuck around even after the Joker and Talia and the Pit, it was that he'd do almost anything to help a kid feel less desperate and alone.
Fuck me I'm going to regret this.
“All right,” Jason said, sighing. “I'll help you out.”
Damian's glistening eyes widened in surprise and hope. “R-really?”
Shit, that's too fucking adorable. ...goddammit.
“Yeah,” Jason said reluctantly. “Yeah. Let's do this.”
Damian closed his eyes and swallowed heavily, then looked up at Jason with a small, tremulous smile. “Thank you, Jason.”
Jason squirmed. “Yeah, uh. You're welcome. So, uh. Where do you wanna start?”
“Umm...” Damian bit his lip hesitantly. He glanced away, then back at Jason, then down at the floor, then back and Jason, then off to the side. Jason was just about to grab the kid and shake him until he said anything when he looked back up at Jason with wide, bright eyes.
“Can you tell me what 'felching' means?”
It had been two minutes since Bruce last glanced at the video feed on the computer in his office and he was utterly disgusted with himself that he considered it an accomplishment. He tried telling himself that he was only taking a reasonable precaution. After all, it wasn't everyday Damian and Jason went down to the Cave to have clandestine meetings in the only area of the manor where the cameras didn't pick up sound. Or had clandestine meetings—or any voluntary interaction at all—anywhere else for that matter. It was a development in their relationship that he hadn't anticipated, at least not for another few years, and it was perfectly normal to want to keep an eye on it. Especially since neither Damian nor Jason were being anything but suspiciously evasive whenever he tried to get them to talk about the reasons for their fight a few weeks ago. And yet, he still felt like he was intruding on something private. They weren't doing anything suspicious right this moment, and he was pretty sure he'd read something about parenting that said trust was an important part of any parent-child relationship. He didn't quite understand why, Tim at least never seemed to mind the constant surveillance (although he had his suspicions that, before he moved out, Tim had learned how to create flawless feedback loops for when he needed privacy), but he promised Alfred (and, also, every single one of his kids, multiple times, in various situations) that he'd try to be a better father. Hence the slight guilt at watching two of his kids in a private moment, and his frustration at his own inability to stop doing it. And speaking of...
He looked at his watch.
Three minutes and twenty seven seconds.
Bruce waited three more seconds just to prove that he could, then looked back to the feed.
And frowned.
They were both gone.
He rapidly flipped through the rest of the Cave cameras, his frown deepening when neither one of his most difficult children were anywhere to be seen. Where were they? How did they get out of the Cave so quickly? Was there some secret passage he didn't know about? This was all...troubling. And suspicious.
Bruce smiled slightly.
At least he didn't have to feel bad about violating his children's privacy anymore.
An hour and thirty minutes later the smile had long since disappeared as he tried to decide if he should finish the last of his WayneTech paperwork (which should really be something Tim dealt with, he had no idea how so many of these files made their way back to him. Once again he suspected Tim had done...something) or try to find either Jason or Damian. Or maybe Dick. Dick always seemed to know what was going on even though he spent almost less time at the manor than Jason. Perhaps he should gather more information on the situation before confronting his suspec—children.
His deliberation was rendered moot a few minutes later when the door to his office burst open and a flushed and irate Jason stormed over to his desk and slammed several pamphlets down on top of his paperwork. The top pamphlet read, in bold, rainbow colored letters “Gay Sex, Your Teenage Son, And You”.
Bruce really hoped that was just poor wording.
“Talk to your fucking kid about this shit Bruce, because he's asking us about it now and he's got some really fucked up misinformation and I am not clearing it up for him. And you really don't wanna wait until he asks Dick.”
And with one last incoherent growl of frustration he stalked out, slamming the door shut behind him.
Bruce looked down and moved the top pamphlet to the side just enough to see what looked like a picture of a condom being rolled over...some sort of fruit before he stopped and dropped his face into his hands.
He took exactly three seconds of personal time to scream silently before turning every ounce of his not-inconsiderable brainpower towards trying to figure out the best way to beg Alfred to deal with this.