Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In an ideal world, Dick would have just driven Jason out of Gotham. Unfortunately, all of the roads in the city were still very much fucked. This meant that they were going with the less ideal option of Donna carrying them both. He’d tried explaining what would happen to Jason a couple of times, but he had no idea how much he understood about what happening. He watched him chew his sleeve and okay, maybe telling him that they’d be hurtling through the sky at high speed was a little bit intimidating for the teen. But it was pretty accurate. Besides, Donna would hold Jason in a harness, he was going to be fine. Dick was the one who’d be dangling from her free hand, running on mutual trust that neither of them would let go. He was honestly looking forwards to that part.

He paced back and forth, flicking his fingers and trying not to think about how fucking anxious he was. He was about to introduce his team to the kid who was probably his dead should-have-been-brother. He was about to find out if Jason really had done the impossible and come back to life. There was no other rational explanation for it at this point, aside from Jason being a clone with all of his old memories at which point, the fact he was a clone didn’t matter. He was still Jason. Just clone Jason.

Argent and Damage would probably end up learning his secret ID with Jason staying at the Tower and he sort of maybe trusted them but they were Jason’s age. They were effectively babies and okay, he trusted Tim who was a couple of years younger, and Lian knew despite the fact she was literally three years old. But Lian was being brought up with the idea that everyone had two names and Tim was Tim, hiding a secret identity from him was pointless in the first place. And oh god, what if someone was a prick to Jason? He’d fire them if it was bad enough. Dick did not need ableist twats on his team. But that would be after the fact. And what about Lian’s babysitter? Sure, he couldn’t find anything worrying about her but he still didn’t… Roy was a lot more trusting person than him and maybe Roy was sane and healthy to be more trusting and Dick had just managed to catch Bruce’s paranoia but that didn’t change the fact that he did not want Jason to be left unsupervised with anyone that wasn’t him, Roy, Donna, Kori, Wally, Garth or Vic, Gar if needed. But what if there was an emergency and they were all required on the scene and Jason needed to be left alone. They could put him in a safe room with some snacks and a drink but what if they were gone a while and even if they weren’t, that would be stressful for him.

“Dick, sit down,” Bruce said just as Donna said she was a second away on the comms. He escaped strained family breakfast.

He stepped out onto the balcony to watch Donna land among the deck chairs. “Sorry about the early wake up,” he told her, forcing a smile.

“I’ve done far worse for you,” Donna reassured him, stepping over for a hug and to kiss his cheek. He kissed hers back. “How are you feeling honey?” She asked as she pulled away, hands resting on his arms a moment. He could tell she was feeling the way the Nightwing suit hung slightly loose on him, they’d all lost weight to the No Man’s Land.

“I’m-”

“If you say you’re okay, I’m throwing you off this building until you say otherwise,” she threatened lightly.

Dick chuckled. “I’m about as okay as I can be after everything that’s happened.” He looked at the horizon, they had a bit of time to talk. “So, the person we’re taking back with us is probably Jason Todd and okay, saying that aloud, I know it sounds like I’ve lost it and by all laws of probability I probably have but every test we’ve been able to do has either said he’s Jason or been inconclusive. And sure that could just be the fact that all of us have been taking an absolute mental and physical beating from the No Man’s Land, but his grave was filled with old blood and he got all excited when I talked about the Tower and-”

“Deep breaths,” Donna caught him from the pacing he didn’t notice he’d started again. “Whatever happens, we’ll work it out.” She dragged him to sit down sideways on one of the deck chairs, sitting down next to her.

“I- if he is Jason, I’m going to have to quit my job and move back to Gotham.” He saw Donna’s confused look. “He has a severe brain injury, potentially multiple brain injuries, as well as probable joint damage and whatever else we just haven’t been able to find yet. He’s probably going to need full time care for the rest of his life. I can’t leave Bruce and Alfred to do that alone, it wouldn’t be fair on him either. Imagine having to have Batman dress you for the rest of eternity.”

Donna rested a hand on his shoulder, “You know that you’ll have support in whatever decision you make.” 

Dick smiled slightly. He had no idea what he’d do without his friends. “Thank you.” He knocked his head into her shoulder.

They remained like that for a moment, just until he felt a little bit calmer. “So, shall we go get Jay?” Dick asked.

“Of course,” they helped each other stand before heading into the penthouse.

Jason was masked up already when Dick and Donna came into the main room. He glanced at Dick then stared at Donna, looking slightly confused before his face absolutely lit up. A fair reaction to the wonderful Troia in Dick’s, somewhat biased, opinion. He then started to look a little nervous, leaning into Bruce for reassurance.

“It’s so good to see you again, Jason,” Donna said, looking slightly shell-shocked, she’d definitely thought Dick had lost it until she saw Jay.

Jason didn’t reply, so Dick prompted, “Do you remember Donna?”

Jason nodded. “Cool.”

That was a new word, “Yeah, Donna’s cool,” Dick smiled. “How do you feel about flying with her to Titans Tower?”

Jason looked utterly delighted at that idea which meant they were heading off.

Alfred handed Dick a bag he’d packed with a couple of things Jason seemed particularly attached to as well as cookies for everyone at the Tower because Alfred was a godsend. That meant they were ready to go.

Aside from the fact Bruce was starting to hold Jason closer to himself protectively.

“We should probably head out before the sun starts to rise,” Dick commended, hoping that reminding Bruce of the security risk of them leaving in full daylight would make it easier for him to let Jason go. “If you’re ready Jay?”

Jason nodded, then looked at Bruce, clearly picking up on the fact he was stressed. He then cuddled into him, headbutting him until Bruce kissed his forehead, Donna biting back a coo.

“Keep him safe,” Bruce said to Dick and Dick would do everything he could to make sure nothing horrible happened to Jason again. “And you keep him safe,” Bruce added to Jason. Dick wasn’t really sure what Jason was going to protect him against but it was nice that Bruce cared he guessed.

Jason grinned anyway, looking immensely proud of himself about something.

Yeah, he definitely still had that vigilante urge to save the world in him. Despite that, Dick doubted either of them would be fighting Darkseid anytime soon. “We’ll be fine,” he chuckled lightly.

Dick had a feeling that he was being a little overprotective putting Jason in as close to full kit as he possibly could. However the ear pieces would protect his ears against the noise from the wind, and meant he could talk to them on the comms and the vitals monitor, okay, there was no plan for Jason to get into any situation where a vitals monitor would be necessary but getting pulse, O₂, BP and location sounded good right now. Jason seemed to remember exactly what the ear plugs were for, letting Dick put them in place and adjust noise sensitivity and comm frequency. “Testing, testing,” he said in his own comm.

Jason laughed a little nervously.

“Are those okay?” Dick checked.

Jason nodded then spun around for reasons Dick didn’t know but he seemed happy.

“Can we get this watch on you?” Dick asked, holding out the disguised vitals monitor. Most of their monitors were built into their suits, this was mostly for covert operations, even came with a built-in alert button.

Jason held out his arm and Dick quickly rolled up his sleeve to put it in place.

“Perfect,” he said. “Ready to go to Titans Tower?” he asked.

Jason nodded.

Jason was absolutely delighted once they took off. Squealing and grinning and testing the force of the air against his hands. Dick glanced up at Donna and found she was grinning too. Most of the time if she was carrying someone at speed, it was either Dick or Roy who had been thoroughly desensitised to the experience, or a panicked civilian who was going through enough horrors without being hurtled through the sky at the speed of the average race car. Someone genuinely just enjoying the experience was definitely a change for her.

Donna rolled onto her back for a moment, letting Jason see the stars before they were in Manhattan. Dick smiled when he heard Jason mutter a quiet, “Woah.”

By the time they got to New York, Jason had fallen asleep in what could only be described as an otter hold. Dick felt a little guilty about the landing waking him up, but he looked so delighted when he realised they were at the Tower. “Glad to be back?” he asked, thinking about how long it had been since Jason was last here.

Jason nodded and Dick freed him from Donna so he could walk in of his own volition. It had been half a year since Dick was back here himself and he was maybe a little bit emotional over it after everything.

In a few hours from now, they’d have confirmation as to who Jason was. Dick could do a retinal scan and get a DNA sequence, and tomorrow they could actually do a full medical scan. Soon Dick Grayson’s little foster brother would be alive and well in the eyes of the world too, hopefully. Dick didn’t know who he was going to have to beat shit out of if this was all some sort of trick. “Let’s get inside,” he said, pushing all of those thoughts aside.

The Tower security system matched Jason with himself and that was an excellent sign. Jason whinged, chewing at his hoodie sleeve again. “What’s up?” Dick asked.

Jason glanced up a moment and then at the stairs going down.

“Yeah, the Tower is a hologram, it’s really an underground bunker. At least this time,” Dick explained.

Jason whimpered, looking even more distressed, a little bit of frustration starting to build up in his posture too.

“It’s okay,” Dick told him. “It’s a new Tower, but it’s still the Tower. Roy and Wally are still going to be here and I’m not going anywhere. It’s going to be okay.”

Jason glowered at him and then clung to Donna. Dick guessed he was in the shit for forgetting to tell him that they’d rebuilt.

Dick felt a little bit nervous as they got down to the main living space. He knew that he didn’t exactly look good, better than he had a few days ago, but it was still obvious that he’d had a rough few months. And that, combined with the whole Jason situation and the quitting his job to go back to Gotham, meant he was probably going to get quite a few concerned questions from his friends.

The things Dick was worried about quickly shifted however as Jason decided to rush over to Roy, not exactly giving Dick the time to broach the concept of him being back from the dead gently. “Hi,” Roy said to the beaming teenager in front of him, giving Dick a definitely concerned look.

“So, No Man’s Land was weirder than I expected,” Dick started. He noted the ‘not at all’ conspicuous absence of Jesse, Damage and Argent. Everyone had expected him to be in a bad enough state to need to drop the mask. “Jason, Roy might need some space a moment.”

Jason looked anxious too now, wandering over to Donna to be picked up and comforted.

“Jason, do you want to come help make breakfast?” Donna asked.

Jason gave everyone another concerned look then nodded. Dick gestured for Donna to take him out of the room.

When the door clicked shut behind the pair, Roy was the first to speak, “What the fuck, Dick?”

“Seriously,” Vic agreed.

“To cut a long story short, Jason is somehow back from the dead, probably. I’m going to do a genome sequence today to make sure but he knows who everyone is, his retinal scans match and his grave’s empty.”

“Humans definitely never come back, right?” Kori asked.

“Dick, bud, I don’t want to question your mental health but you’ve been through a lot lately…” Wally started.

“I know, it seems completely irrational,” Dick said. “I accused Bruce of having snapped when I first saw Jay too. But his injuries match the ones Jason would have, he started calling Bruce Dad unprompted. He has definite opinions on who he interacts with which are in line with Jason’s. He fights like he’s had training from me and Bruce. He knows things that really only someone who’s a part of the hero community would know. Hell, he made a point of trying to give the new Robin his mask. The only logical explanation is that he’s Jason.”

“Yeah, aside from the fact Jason’s dead,” Roy commented.

“I’m going to do a genome test this afternoon. We’ll find out from that,” Dick replied.

“I want him under full time supervision until you’re certain,” Roy said seriously, protective father mode in full swing.

“We’re in full agreement there,” Dick said. “Even if he is Jason, he’s- we don’t know the extent of the brain injuries he has yet, but he’s got a lot of support needs at the moment. I don’t want him left alone or left with anyone who isn’t in this room or Donna.”

“What can we do to support him?” Kori asked.

“You’re going to have to play detective a bit on what he’s trying to communicate. Some of it’s pretty easy to make sense of. If he’s whimpering or whinging, he’s probably upset or scared, if he’s groaning or shouting angrily, he’s angry. If he’s laughing or squealing and bouncing up and down, he’s definitely happy. Keep sentences shorter and wait a while to see if he’s processing them. Don’t get frustrated if he doesn’t reply or his reply doesn’t make much sense. Also, he probably won’t say please or thank you, he sometimes signs thank you but manners really aren’t the priority at the moment. He will probably put random objects in his mouth. Keep an eye on what he’s holding and swap it with something else if it’s not safe to be chewed on, also just generally don’t let him be around plug sockets or hot stoves. No pool if it’s just one of you and him, I’m not sure he’d be able to help if you start struggling. He might need help with food sometimes, particularly anything that requires a lot of coordination to eat. If it requires cutlery, you’re going to have to feed him. Let me deal with bathroom stuff, give him some dignity and privacy. Beyond that, he’s a seventeen-year-old boy who’s been through hell, treat him like his age as much as is safe and just don’t be a prick to him.”

After that Dick ended up having to give a few reassurances. Jason would only be staying a few days, a couple of weeks at most. Just until they could get him legally resurrected. Yes, there would be some shenanigans involved in getting him legally resurrected. If any of them were willing to take the credit of breaking up a human trafficking ring and ‘finding’ Jason, then he would be eternally grateful. Dick wasn’t going to be taking him in long term, but he was moving back to Gotham to be nearer to him. Yes, he had thought this through. Bludhaven would cope better without a vigilante than Gotham would and he really didn’t know if Bruce would be able to manage the same number of hours. Yes, he would let them know if Bruce started being a twat again.

When all of that was established he walked back into the kitchen, heard Rolling Stones then saw Jason looking for his bottle of rolling stones and left the kitchen again in search of it. He hoped to God Alfred had packed it. If not, it wouldn’t be that hard to make a new one.

The bottle of rocks had been packed but it was only now that Dick processed how little else Alfred had packed. They’d needed to pack light and a lack of washing machines and materials for clothing repairs paired with a generally more hazardous environment, meant that most of their clothes were more than a bit ragged. He’d really need to take Jason clothes shopping soon. Maybe today. He grabbed the bottle and headed back into the kitchen. Donna was making pancakes and he was so looking forwards to that.

Jason was immediately delighted by the bottle, shaking it up and down. Dick watched the pebbles bounce too. “Hey that one just bounced off the cap,” he observed.

Jason’s smile broadened a little, gaze skimming Dick’s face for a moment.

“Jason, do you like syrup on your pancakes?” Donna asked.

“Jay?” Dick tried. He then looked to the extractor fan and the whirring fridge and the fact that their voices echoed just slightly against the tiles in the kitchen and this was also a new environment for Jason and neither of them had actually slept yet today. “Put the syrup on the side,” Dick said, grabbing a small bowl for it. “All of this cutlery and crockery was bought new with the new base, right?” he double checked.

Donna nodded.

“Okay, cool,” Dick patted down his suit for a sample bag and miraculously found one. Hopefully they could do a DNA sequence as stress-free as possible.

Everyone gradually trailed in for pancakes. Argent and Damage introducing their selves to Jason. Lian waved at him, Jason not giving any external indication that he’d noticed or cared beyond a quick glance. Jason took a little while to warm up to new people, so this wasn’t that unexpected. “Uncle Nightwing,” Lian said, and Dick got ready for a Jason question, “Why do you look tired?” she asked instead.

Dick guessed he looked worse than he thought. “I haven’t slept in about thirty-six hours, kiddo,” he explained, the thought of sleep prompting a yawn. 

“Are you… um… noc-ernal?” Lian asked. “Like an owl?”

“More cathemeral than anything else,” Dick tried to explain.

“What does that mean?”  

“I sleep when I can,” Dick said. “Like cats do.”

“Does that mean you don’t have a bedtime?” Lian asked.

Dick shook his head then startled when Jason hit the table, looking deeply annoyed that he wasn’t being fed.

“Sorry Jay,” Dick really hadn’t meant to just torment him with pancakes. “Yeah, let’s help you with second breakfast.”

The moment he was done helping Jason eat, Dick rushed the fork he’d been using for Jay to the lab before it could get contaminated with anything else. He put it in a sample bag before throwing himself under the decontamination shower for a moment. Not only did it clean any contaminants off his suit, meaning he could use it as PPE and not have to bother with the latex gloves or the goggles that drove him slightly ballistic, the cold water actually woke him up a little. Wally came in then, “Why are you showering in the lab, in your full suit?” he asked.

“Decontamination,” Dick told him, glancing at his outfit. “If you’re going to stay in here while I work, and especially if you want to help, either suit up or put on a labcoat, gloves and goggles.”

“Yes, Doctor Grayson,” Wally rolled his eyes, taking Dick’s labcoat and goggles before pulling some gloves out of the box. “What are you doing?”

“A couple of genetic tests,” Dick answered, picking up the sample bag. “To confirm that Jay is actually Jason.” He set it down at his bench and then grabbed a few reagents to lyse the cells and precipitate the DNA.

Mercifully, there was actually enough DNA from the fork that Dick could do a couple of tests even if there was a reasonable chance that he’d also get the genomes of some of the pancake ingredients as a side product. Wally didn’t so much help as just look over as Dick eluted DNA and put it into the sequencer. “It will be a few hours before we get confirmation that Jay’s genome matches Jason’s,” he said, although the machine was comparing the two as it sequenced and the first few thousand base pairs were a perfect match.

He got another sample ready to prepare to test methylation as he waited, mixing the sample with sodium bisulphite and putting them in his field genome sequencer.

“What’s the difference between the two tests?” Wally asked.

Dick had a feeling Wally already knew all of this but was happy to ramble anyway. “The big genome sequencer is checking that he is in fact him. The small genome sequencer is checking how much of his DNA is methylated, from which I can work out how old he is. Effectively, it means I can get a good guess on whether he’s a clone or not, and if he’s not a clone, how long he was dead for before he came back to life, assuming that methylation stops during death,” Dick explained. “They should both be done in about four hours or so.” He checked the time, it was nine am now, they could get the results by one pm, be out of the Tower for two, get Jason some very much needed supplies after that and then hopefully get pizza from pizza fish at about seven ish. That meant that he could grab four hours sleep while the tests ran.  

“Cool,” Wally said, looking slightly more confused than anything. “Now get some rest.”

He went to his room to find Garth and Donna watching Jason sleep in his bed. “He started to doze off after breakfast,” Garth said, “He looked exhausted.”

“Yeah, he doesn’t sleep great at the best of times and then none of us went to sleep this morning so he wanted to stay up too,” Dick explained. He then looked at the space on the bed next to Jason and decided that he was going to take it. “On Wally’s orders,” although he guessed it was probably a mutual agreement between all of them, “I’m also going to get some rest. If my alarm doesn’t wake me up when the results come in, please do. I need to take him shopping after this.”

“Sure,” Garth smiled slightly. 

“Thanks,” Dick sat down on the bed as gently as possible to avoid waking up Jason. “Are you sitting guard?” he asked with a bemused smile at the pair.

“Just in case,” Donna said.

Dick guessed that if this wasn’t Jason, there was a risk of him getting killed in his sleep. And that, for reasons primarily about Jason liking the clicking of the igniter on the gas stove, he’d never been left with just a sleeping person in the room with him. “And you call me paranoid,” he joked softly.

Chapter Text

Hand touching his face. Lying prone. Dick forced his breathing to remain calm.  Surface beneath him was soft, covered in fabric, mattress, it was his mattress at Titans Tower. He was sharing the bed with Jason. He opened his eyes, pushing down the adrenaline from waking up like that. Jason was crying and Garth was awkwardly running a hand through his hair. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

That just made Jason cry more. Dick rolled onto his side and pulled Jason into his arms, letting him cry into his chest. He then looked to Garth, he was guessing this was just a nightmare but he wanted confirmation.

“He started crying in his sleep, just a few moments ago,” Garth explained.

“Yeah, he does this sometimes,” Dick agreed. “But, everything’s going to be okay, Jason,” he kissed the top of his head, then took some long, deep breaths in the hope that Jason would feel the calm breathing pattern and start to regulate his own breathing too.

Eventually, Jason calmed down, just as Dick’s phone went off to tell him it was time to wake up. Sod’s law, he guessed. He felt fairly well rested now anyway. Jason sat up and grabbed the phone. “It’s making a lot of noise,” Dick commented.

Jason prodded at it, looking confused.

“It’s an alarm,” Dick explained, “I set it to wake me up when your results are done processing.” He then held out a hand for it, he had accidentally conditioned himself into feeling immense hatred towards his phone alarm and really would have liked to turn it off.

Jason passed it over and Dick switched it off. He was then hit by the realisation that he’d know in a few minutes whether Jason was actually back. He reached for his mask, ready to head out. In an ideal world, he’d take Jason into the lab with him, let him look at all of the equipment. The problem was that Jason still very much liked to mouth objects and as much as Dick made sure everything he used was thoroughly cleaned afterwards, he didn’t want to risk it. “Can you hang out with Garth for a few minutes, Jay?” he asked.

Jason looked at Garth for a moment and then nodded.

Dick found himself feeling slightly shaky as he buttoned up his lab coat and gloved up. There were three options in this situation. Either they’d found David Cain’s son and they’d been calling him Jason for the past few months and that was fucked up. Sure he’d said he knew people but he may have just been lying because it made them happy. Or they’d been well and truly tricked and now someone knew all their secrets. Or Jason had come back to life which meant that theoretically anyone could and that led to so many questions and concerns and hopes and effectively destroyed all understanding of biology and thermodynamics and reason. He looked at the main sequence first. It was a near perfect match, well within the margin of error. Jason was alive. Jason wasn’t meant to be alive. Jason had been dead. Dick had- he hadn’t seen him but he’d read the autopsy report. He’d had more lethal wounds than healthy tissue. Clone, he was probably a clone. Which, if he had Jason’s memories and Jason’s cells then he was Jason. He was just Jason grown from a test tube. He then processed the fact that he could test that by looking at mitochondrial DNA, but that would only really be necessary if the methylation didn’t check out.

The methylation did in fact check out. Jason had slightly less methylation than expected for seventeen and four months, but it was still roughly within normal range. He’d probably been dead a few months but not years. Dick was about ninety-five percent certain that Jason had been dead for around five to eight months. Which meant there was over a year where he was alive and none of them knew. “I’m so sorry Jay,” he murmured to the gene sequencer. But that meant Jason was alive and in the other room. Dick took a deep breath, pulling up a stool and sitting down for a moment. Jason Todd had come back to life. Assumedly without a Lazarus Pit. He’d just woken up in his own grave. Dead cells returning to their healthy states and turning back on. Brain and heart and lungs and spine and bones returning to a state that would at least make him mobile. Dick could accept a lot of things. Solar powered aliens with god-like powers, people who live deep underwater with extreme strength and resilience, the children of deities. All of that, that was part of his reality. But this, who else was going to come back. Terra? Joe? His parents? Shit, what if the next resurrectee was someone dangerous? He reached to run his hands through his hair before remembering gloves, lab, touching his face was not a good idea in the lab. He needed to call Bruce and Alfred and Babs and STAR labs and holy fucking shit, he’d just found the first ever proven case of spontaneous human resurrection without aid from external forces.

He dialled Bruce first, the comm line picking up immediately. “Nightwing.”

“B, the test results came back. He’s him. Perfect match, DNA methylation shows he’s somewhere between sixteen and seventeen. He’s back.”

Bruce was silent for a long moment. “Arrange a full examination at S.T.A.R Labs for tomorrow.”

“That will be my next call.”

Arranging an appointment at S.T.A.R was remarkably easy, Dick would drop Jason off there with Bruce in the morning. They’d take blood, do a full body scan, full neurological and physical assessments and they desperately wanted to look at his genome too, see if they could find a metagene that Dick couldn’t. Dick checked Jason’s full genome again just in case there was anything unusual. Jason it turned out was genetically boring, enough genetic quirks to show he wasn't some sort of horribly unethical designer baby, but there were no particularly rare alleles in his genome, nothing that would explain coming back from the dead.

Once that was sorted, Dick ditched the PPE and went back to his room to find Garth reading to Jason. Jason was alive. This was his little brother and he was here and okay, and it wasn’t possible but it had happened. He lifted him into his arms and squeezed him tight when he walked over. “You are an absolute miracle,” he told him.

“Miracle,” Jason roughly echoed.

“Yeah, it seems this is to make up for all your bad luck,” Dick teased softly. “All of our bad luck.”

Jason didn’t have a response to that but Dick just held him a moment longer.

Then he rearranged Jason so he could actually see his face. “Do you want to go shopping?”

Jason nodded.

If someone asked Dick what he’d be doing today a year ago, he probably would have said that he would have just finished training as a police officer, would be working in Bludhaven. He would have assumed anyone who told him that he would be taking his deceased little brother shopping for new clothes because they’d found him wandering around the ruins of Gotham was probably going through some sort of mental health crisis. Yet, here he was, crossing the river to Manhattan with Jason Peter Todd.  

Jason seemed to be delighted by the sight of the city, staring at the buildings in the distance and jumping up and down on what was effectively a raft, Dick shifting back slightly to counterbalance the movement “You like New York?” he asked.

“You like New York?” Jason sort of echoed, looking confused.

“I think the buildings look cool,” Dick rephased.

Jason nodded then muttered “Cool” in agreement.

Dick smiled. The city was getting pretty close now and he could already hear a siren in the distance. The noise was only going to get worse once they were in the city proper. “It’s going to be loud in the city.” He said, “Do you want me to adjust your earpieces so you don’t hear it as much?”

Jason nodded again and Dick leant over to adjust the volume and filtering a bit.

Jason was even more delighted once they got to the city proper. He was excitable today and Dick was glad that he didn’t seem to be missing Bruce too much, yet. “So, first on the agenda is to buy you some new clothes,” he told Jason.

Jason spun around again, doing some sort of strange gesturing with his arms. Dick still had no idea what that was about but he guessed it was probably some sort of stim.

They’d gotten most of the way to the clothes store when Jason decided it was time to run directly into the middle of a busy road. Dick caught him just before he’d left the sidewalk, holding him under the armpits. Jason then kicked him, clearly panicked about being suddenly lifted. Dick set him down again, holding onto one of his arms as he turned to face him. “Jay, please never do that again.”

Jason whined, looking over to the other side of the road.

Dick followed his gaze to see the giant Newfoundland getting head scritches outside of a café. “Were you trying to say hello to the dog?” he asked.

Jason nodded, proceeding to run his hands up and down his hoodie.

They were right next to a toy store. Dick didn’t want to infantilise Jason but maybe something soft to hold would make him less likely to try to run away. “The dog is on the other side of the road and the next crossing is a little while away. How about we get you a plushie?” Dick suggested. “You can pet and squeeze it and it will have good sensory feedback.”

Jason’s eyes immediately pinned on a T. rex with short dark green fur which, while inaccurate, looked soft.

 “Let’s go buy a plushie,” Dick said.

Jason prodded at a variety of toys before finding the T. rex plushie again on a shelf. He then hugged it tight, rubbing his face against it. Dick guessed they were getting it. He noticed there were some fidgets around too. He probably needed a new chewable necklace and he thought Jason would maybe benefit from one too. He thought about the bite marks on Jason’s water bottle and decided an extra durable one was probably best for him, lest he shred it. “Jay, do you want Batman, shark tooth or a pendant shape?” he held out the three options, expecting that Jason would probably pick the Batman symbol.

Surprisingly, Jay picked the shark tooth necklace.

“Good taste,” Dick picked up a softer Superman necklace for himself. Clark would probably be deeply flattered until he saw Dick subconsciously trying to shred it whenever he was pissed off at a case. He picked up a maraca as well, twirling it around between his fingers and listening to the sound it made.

Jason reached for that too and Dick grinned, handing it over and watching Jason tilt it from side to side a little before shaking it vigorously. “It makes a cool noise, doesn’t it?”

Jason nodded before doing a few jumps with it.

“Is there anything else you want?” Dick asked.

Jason hummed, looking around before shaking his head.

“Let’s go check out then,” Dick said. He held out a hand for Jason to take, not wanting to repeat the road incident of a few minutes ago.

Jason seemed to be fascinated by the barcode scanner and the cashier was somewhat endeared. “These two are very different strengths,” the cashier said about the chewies.

“Yeah, the Supes-erman one is for me,” Dick explained. “Honestly tempted to steal the maraca too,” he said, mostly to wind up Jason who turned out was still far too interested in the bar code scanner to respond. “You really like the bar code scanner, huh?” he said to Jason.

Jason placed his hand under it.

“Beep,” the cashier said.

“Beep,” Jason echoed sadly.

There was a family waiting behind them, “We’ve got more shopping left to do,” he told him. He gave a smile to the cashier and then paid for the plushie and the fidgets. Mercifully the beeping of the card machine distracted Jason from the bar code scanner. But now he seemed very focussed on that instead. Dick hoped to God that the dinosaur would distract him too. It did and Dick said a quick goodbye to the cashier before leading Jason out of the store with it.

Jason did not seem to like the clothes shop much, immediately leaning against Dick when they entered. “Let’s sit down for a moment,” Dick said. Sometimes, at least for Dick, waiting a few moments could tell if it was the newness of an environment was overwhelming or if it was the sensory input. He led Jason over to one of the seats used for trying on shoes and just sat down with him, holding him tight when he leant into his side.

After a moment, Jason stood up and started to walk over to some fleece pyjamas. They were from the women’s section but Dick didn’t think either of them particularly cared right now. Jason ran his hands up and down them, examining the feeling of the white fabric compared to the blue. They were a nice colour and had a decent feel to them. Dick picked up one pair in large for himself and one pair in small for Jason. He then realised that getting a cart was probably a good idea. “Let’s go get a cart,” he told Jason.

Jason tried to climb into the cart once they got it and Dick blocked his path with one arm. “You’re kind of big for that,” he said. He’d ridden in shopping carts before. Jason probably wasn’t too big for them but he was old enough that someone would probably try to complain about it and Dick would rather avoid that. “Do you need a break from walking around?” he checked.

Jason looked around for a moment and then looked at something a small ways away. “Dad!” he shouted before running over to it.

Dick followed his gaze, it was a fucking Batman t-shirt, of course it was. He turned the cart in that direction and jogged to catch up.

Jason had been absorbed by the clothing rack by the time Dick came over. “What are you looking for?” he asked, fishing him out.

“Dad,” was Jason’s response.

“Yeah, I think we should buy that t-shirt for Dad,” Dick purposefully misinterpreted. He was going to have to have a lot of talks with Jason about pretending he didn’t know vigilantes if there were other people around.

Jason walked off, still very obviously looking for Bruce. Dick needed to find some sort of distraction.

Jason found his own distraction, thoroughly examining an ugly Christmas sweater that was on clearance. Dick would normally wonder who was buying Christmas sweaters in early January. Now he knew the answer to that question. Jason. Jason was buying Christmas sweaters in early January, more accurately, one of Dick’s burner identities was buying a Christmas sweater in January because Jason seemed enamoured with it.

Once they had an ample amount of clothes for them both, Dick considered getting Jason to try them on in the changing rooms but he seemed tired and Dick didn’t really want to make him go through the process of having to get undressed and redressed repeatedly in an area he probably didn’t feel comfortable in. So, instead they checked out, Dick deciding that anything that didn’t fit either of them could either be offered around the Titans or donated to charity. The cashier here noticed Jason’s interest in the bar code reader and let him run a few things under it, Jason bouncing in delight. He grinned up at Dick and Dick couldn’t help but beam back. His little brother was back from the dead and that was incredible. He pulled him into a hug, the cashier catching looking fod too as Jason hugged him back.

With Dick covered in shopping bags and Jason holding his new T. rex close, Dick decided they were going out for dinner. He checked with Jason first that he liked pizza, holding up a picture of it when Jason didn’t respond to his spoken question. That got a response, Jason’s face lighting up. “I’ll just text the others then we’ll go get pizza,” Dick could imagine how pissed the others would be if they went to Pizza Fish without inviting them.

“Pizza,” Jason sort of echoed.

“Pizza,” Dick echoed back.

“Pizza,” the sounds were a little bit more distinct this time.

“Pizza,” Dick over emphasised the vowels and put on a made up accent, probably wasn’t the best for relearning language but sometimes things just had to be fun rather than a learning experience.

“Pizza,” Jason echoed back, staring at Dick for a moment before bursting into laughter.

Dick chuckled too, “Come on, let’s go get food.”

Roy, Wally, Donna and Garth met them outside Pizza Fish, Roy finally giving Jason the hug he’d clearly wanted before. There was a definite awe at Jason in all of them. Even if none of them were close with him, him coming back brought so many questions and a tiny bit of hope for all of them. “You ready to get pizza?” Dick asked before he could lament on the fact Jason was back any longer.

“Pizza,” Jason echoed, laughing to himself before leading Dick towards the door.

It had been way too long since Dick had last had pizza. “Fuck that’s good,” he muttered around his first bite of pepperoni. Because they didn’t know what Jason liked or didn’t like aside from the fact he really hated having a lot of options listed at him at once or fish shaped crackers, they’d ordered a little bit of everything. Whatever was left would be taken back to the Tower for everyone who couldn’t come to Pizza Fish in person for various reasons.

He noticed Jason staring at his pizza slice and handed him a slice of pepperoni too. Jason was getting pizza everywhere, but he seemed delighted about it. Dick guessed it was probably nice to have food that was relatively easy for him to eat independently.

He spent the next while tuning in and out of conversation with his friends, more than the words he watched their body language, specifically between Donna and Roy and oh. They were definitely sleeping together. Fair play. Part of Dick could see this ending in disaster but no, these were two of his best friends and this wasn’t a strategy meeting, he did not have to analyse the synergy between them. Garth also seemed to have something going on. He had a girlfriend at the moment, Atlantean woman, Dolphin, that had resulted in some interesting conversations about why Garth was dating a cetacean But now Garth kept looking around at the families, looking somewhere between excited and nervous, quelling the expressions down to twitches of the mouth and eyebrows, but Nightwing’s job was to analyse things, he wouldn’t miss the micro expressions. Garth also gave the occasional glance at Donna’s ring finger, she still had the slightest tan line where it used to be. Dick wondered which one of them was going to be best man at the soon approaching wedding, and if Dolphin would be showing that she was pregnant yet or not.

Wally kept glancing at his phone too and shit, Dick was the single friend, again. Which was fine aside from the fact that he maybe wouldn’t have been single if he didn’t keep self-sabotaging.  

He tuned into the conversation again to the words “Dickwing, what store was that from?”

Dick blinked, “Sorry was lost in thought,” and definitely not trying to work out all his friends’ secrets so he wouldn’t be blindsided by breakups or wedding invites or surprise nieces and nephews. Roy was looking at the dinosaur, “Toy shop a couple of blocks from here. It was the last one there though. I’ll check if they’re selling them online later.”

“I can sort it,” Roy said. “Just thought kiddo would want one. Also toys like that are generally machine washable, just don’t put them in the dryer afterwards.”

That was useful to know, Dick thought as he noticed that the T. rex had tomato sauce in his fur.

“So, what’s the plan for tomorrow?” Wally asked.

Dick stretched, entire body feeling viscerally wrong sat in a chair with his feet flat against the ground and his back straight and his hands taking none of his weight. He pushed that thought aside, he was no longer in No Man’s Land and crouching like Gollum was not socially acceptable in public, at least until he could put on the mask and, ironically, stop masking. “Jay’s heading to Metropolis while I work out some things for getting him back legally,” Dick said. 

“Will you both be okay?” Donna asked.

Dick smiled at Jason who was delightedly tearing through as many pizza slices as he could, “B will be with Jay at the appointment. And I’ve got what I need to do planned out.”

Eventually, they made their way back to the Tower, overstuffed on pizza and having to order more for everyone else, Wally as always had eaten his own body weight. Jason was sleepy again by the time they made it back to the island and Dick carried him into the Tower and into their currently shared room. “Pick a pair of pyjamas,” he said.

Jason reached for the star ones so Dick put the others away for the moment and led Jason into the bathroom to get him ready for bed.

Jason, as expected, loved the shower and luckily seemed happy for Dick to clean him. He did however decide that he was living in the towel forever more and Dick ended up persuading him to wear the pyjamas under the towel. Jason then twirled around a bit in his bright yellow towel cape and suddenly the spinning and gesturing earlier made so much more sense. He’d been asking for or at least thinking about, wearing a cape. “Hey, do you want a drier cape?” Dick asked.

Jason frowned, more confused than disapproving.

“I’ll show you what I mean,” Dick told him, gesturing for him to follow him back to their room.

It took a bit of fishing about in his closet to find the item in question but Dick tracked down the bright yellow fleece blanket that Kori had bought him when he’d gotten anaemia from a pretty bad injury. He then turned around to see Jason mouthing on the metal plate Superman had carved him, which he guessed was Jason’s at the end of the day. Jason looked conflicted about it and Dick wasn’t sure it was the best thing to chew. “Hey, I’ll swap you,” he offered.

Jason reached for the blanket immediately.

Dick swapped the towel for the blanket and wrapped it around Jason’s shoulders. He could probably attach some sort of clip to it at some point so Jason could wear it as a cape without it slipping as much.

Jason wrapped the blanket around himself, metal plate now forgotten. Dick quickly popped it away as Jason curled up in the blanket like some sort of cocoon.

Eventually, his head poked out of it again, and Jason looked utterly delighted about the whole situation. New pyjamas, a good blanket and full of pizza, Dick could agree that few things in life were better than that. He looked at the time, it was all of eight pm. “How about we go into the common room and I’ll brush your hair as we watch something on TV?” He signed as he spoke, hoping it would help Jason a bit.

Jason nodded, then wiggled around a bit before making puppy eyes at him. “Dick.”

He wanted carrying and Dick couldn’t really say no. Even “Come on,” he lifted him into his arms. “To the common room!”  

Dick tossed Jason onto the sofa as they entered the common room and then sat down too, twirling the hairbrush between his fingers. They didn’t have any specific curl creams or products for Jason’s hair texture, something Dick maybe should have thought about. For a moment he wondered if Kori would have some before remembering that her hair followed somewhat different rules to humans. Jason’s hair didn’t look too frizzy without many products anyway. He tried to think what he knew about Jason’s interests and he certainly knew about cars considering the Batmobile incident. He went on YouTube and found himself putting on some sort of car restoration video that seemed interesting.

Vic joined them after a while, “Hey Shortpants, Shortpants the second,” he teased lightly. Jason blanked him, utterly engrossed by the second car restoration video of the evening.

“Hey,” Dick smiled slightly, “There’s pizza in the fridge if you want any before Wally gets the midnight munchies.”

“Maybe later,” Vic sat back. “Loving the burrito impression, Jay.”

That got Jason’s attention. He stared at Vic for a long moment and then prodded his leg, flinching away afterwards.

Dick did his best apologetic smile at Vic. He didn’t think Jason was acting out of any sort of malice.  “Jay, it’s just a new type of prosthetic,” he promised. “It helps Victor move about.”

Vic looked a little pained, he was used to questions but they were also in a space where he was meant to be comfortable in his own skin, so to speak. And Jason wasn’t really asking questions in a way either of them could easily answer.

Jason stopped his staring match with Vic’s arm to look up at him, humming to himself and rocking. He then looked around the room, eyes pinning on Donna’s photography book on the coffee table, picking it up and handing it to Vic.

"Jason likes books,” Dick explained.

“Do you want to read this together?” Vic asked.

Jason nodded, he then shuffled over, knocking his head into Victor’s shoulder. Vic looked a little bit surprised in response but then smiled slightly at Dick and started to read.

Eventually, Dick did in fact have to get Jason to bed. He brushed his teeth, found the now clean T. rex and handed it over before sorting out his own pyjamas and teeth and hair. By the time he returned, Jason was curled up in the blanket again, T. rex in his arms and face pressed into the pillow. Dick grabbed his own stuffed elephant as he pulled the covers over them both. “You still awake?” he asked Jason.

Jason nodded, yawning slightly.

“So tomorrow, you’re going to have some tests done,” Dick told him, trying in part to remember what Bruce had told him when he’d been assessed for autism.

After a moment, he decided that “Your teachers think you might be autistic and want you to go through an assessment. Whether you are or not doesn’t matter, however, they will also likely assess your learning abilities. You cannot get full marks on the WAIS, so we’re going to practice it until you get a score that is reliably and believably between ninety-five and one-hundred-and-five in all areas” wasn’t actually what he wanted to tell Jason.

Instead, he said “These tests won’t change anything about you. You’re you and you’re great. They’re to help us understand the long-term effects of what happened to you.”

Jason took his hand then and judging by his eyes, he was definitely falling asleep. “Good night, Jay.” Tomorrow was going to be rough, but Jason was alive and right now he was safe and happy and that mattered so much more than anything else.

Chapter Text

As Bruce Wayne dealt with the rebuilding of Gotham, Batman dealt with the sudden rise in crime that came with the return of many of Gotham’s citizens. There had been little time to contemplate the news Nightwing had given him yesterday. However, right now, Batman was in a STAR Labs institute in Metropolis and the second Robin was running at him. Bruce picked his son up, his son who was alive, somehow, and in his arms. He kissed the side of his head, smiling when that elicited a happy squeal.

Today was going to be difficult. Bruce’s main worries were about health risks, if Jason needed extensive surgery or even transplants, or God forbid if he was only back temporarily. Beyond that, he knew that today he was probably going to hear the prognosis for Jason’s recovery, that it was likely they were past the window for neural plasticity, that it would most likely be slow and eventually plateau, that he’d have significant disabilities for the rest of his life. Bruce was prepared for that. Even if Jason stayed at his current abilities then Bruce would still had the miracle of having a son who loved being carried and doted on and playing in the rain. Jason had a quality of life and he would bend the world to make it better if he had to. He was prepared for that, but it was different to be prepared for the possibility of something and to know it was happening. And he wanted Jason to finish high school and learn to drive and go to college and get the life a fifteen-year-old had once dreamed of, to get confirmation that that wouldn’t happen was going to sting.

Dick approached, a duffel bag held under one wrist. Bruce shifted Jason onto his hip to take it, and so Jason could see Dick more easily. “The bag has sanitary items, a spare change of clothes, his full genomes and epigenomes from before and after are on the USB stick, as well as my own reports on both of them. I couldn’t see anything particularly unusual, heterozygous CFTR mutation but nothing rarer than that. The yellow folder is every cognitive report he had as Robin, the red is every physical report he had as Robin and all of his medical records as Jason Todd. There’s also a plush T. rex that he likes to hug sometimes. Jason had avocado toast and a peanut butter smoothie for breakfast and he’s spent most of the morning swimming.”

“Thank you,” Bruce replied, glad to hear Jason had had a good morning at least. He really hoped that they wouldn’t have too many meltdowns over testing. They’d already discussed doing the MRI last in case he needed to be sedated for it.

“I’m going to go get everything set up for the next step of our plan,” Dick said. “Jay,” he caught his attention again. “I’m off now, see you this evening, okay?”

Jason pulled Dick into the hug, Bruce awkwardly patting his eldest’s back.

Dick then left and they headed into the lab.

The neurologist introduced himself to both of them when they entered the lab, Jason not really responding much until he informed him that they’d be playing some games. Bruce in the meantime, handed over the medical records and the genome tests, hating the violation of privacy but it was important so they could understand what had happened to Jason. Anything was worth it for his kid.

Jason did not thrive on the tests. He scored a one on the alert and orientated scale, being able to say that Bruce was “Dad.” But despite their attempts at establishing where he was and why, he didn’t seem able to recall or at least reproduce that information. Worryingly, he also didn’t seem to understand the question, “What’s your name?”. After that the WAIS just wasn’t accessible to him, and the modified tests flagged him up as having moderate to severe learning disabilities in all areas. By this point he was obviously getting frustrated and Bruce called for them to give him a break. Jason then said very much the same by shoving the WNV book to the floor with a slight look of vindictive glee behind his eyes.

 To give Jason some different activities, they decided to do his physical fitness tests next, Bruce standing off to the side to give the neurologist information about Jason’s activities of daily living as the physio introduced a rather excited looking Jason to the treadmill.

Seeing Jason’s ADLs scored up was another slightly jarring experience for Bruce. He was fully independently mobile. Even if they carried him regularly, he was perfectly comfortable walking from place to place unless his leg was bothering him. Self-feeding he could do to an extent, with the right foods, he could feed himself mostly independently, even if it got very messy. They had proof that he wouldn’t starve if no one physically put food in his mouth. His scores went down from there, he was incontinent, he needed total support with bathing and dressing and brushing his hair and teeth. Sometimes he’d try to help with tidying or cleaning things but he’d get distracted or they’d have to distract him because he’d try putting objects in his mouth. He couldn’t help out with cooking because he wasn’t safe around hot stoves. While Dick hadn’t thought to assess anything at the time, when they went to the shops, Jason didn’t seem to have much understanding of what was going on, although he could pick out items for himself. They hadn’t even tried managing bills. Bruce took a deep breath as he looked at the results on paper. None of this was fair on Jason. He was seventeen, he was meant to be finishing up high school and making mistakes with his friends and working out who he was and what he wanted to be in life. Instead, he was almost totally dependent on others, disorientated in unfamiliar environments, and had significant difficulties in even his strongest cognitive skills.

“None of this is a death sentence,” the neurologist told him.

Bruce nodded even as the reality of the situation was beginning to hit. Jason was alive, he was likely going to need round the clock care for the rest of his life, this was all Bruce’s fault.

The physical tests came back with remarkably good results. Jason had significant problems with fine motor skills but his gross motor function was fantastic, he was physically fit, exceptionally strong and fast, good heart health, good lung health. “A bit of training, and you could easily get an Olympic gold medal,” the physio told Jason who beamed in response.

“Hn,” Bruce pulled him close again.

It turned out that Dick had contacted someone else as well as STAR Labs, Lilith coming in and for whatever reason making Jason look very unsure, not quite scared but definitely nervous. “Do you remember Lilith?” Bruce asked, unsure if they’d ever met.

Jason looked at her again. “Cool?” he asked.

“Lilith is a good person,” Bruce promised before thinking it might be easier for Jason to follow if he used his words, “Lilith is cool.”

Lilith explained the procedure to Jason, that she’d be talking to him in his thoughts and made sure to get Jason’s consent for all of this. When she had it, she led him through to the meeting room.

Bruce sat awkwardly for most of it, unable to really do much but wait. Then Jason whimpered to himself as Lilith’s expression showed she was back in her own head again. Bruce found himself immediately feeling angry. What had she done or said to upset his kid? He hugged Jason protectively, trying to reassure him that he was okay. “You’re okay, kiddo,” he promised.

“I really didn’t mean to upset you, Jason,” Lilith said. “And I’m glad you told me when you wanted me to stop reading your thoughts.”

Jason nodded again, still looking unsure. Bruce wished he could just help him not feel anxious.

“I’ll get in touch with you soon,” Lilith told Bruce. He hoped she’d gained some insight into the situation that the rest of them lacked right now.

There were only a couple of tests left to do now and Bruce found himself dreading them even if he was making sure Jason didn’t realise that. If anything was going to reveal major complications, it would be the blood test or the MRI. “We’ve got a few tests left,” he told him, “Then you get to go back to the Tower.”

Jason whinged slightly. He looked exhausted and Bruce could appreciate that, it had been a long day for him and he hadn’t even had lunch yet.

“You get to eat lunch right after the first test,” Bruce said. The hope was that if he could keep Jason very distracted, he wouldn’t be too bothered about the blood draw. “Someone’s going to have to get a little bit of blood from you.” He tried to explain, “Do you remember having blood tests done before?”

Jason whinged again.

“I know, lad,” Bruce sighed. “But I can get it done in less than a minute.”

Jason’s expression was still a definite no.

“We need to do this to check that you’re healthy,” Bruce explained, “Looking at your blood will tell us that everything’s working as it’s meant to.”

Jason grumbled some more.

“You’d be helping a lot of people,” Bruce said, feeling a little manipulative but Jason would be helping a lot of people’s peace of mind if not saving his own life.

Jason nodded. Bruce wondered if it was better to do the test now while Jason still had the nerve for it.

“Thank you,” Bruce kissed his forehead and then got out the kit. Jason was going to need checks for pretty much everything, hormones, nutrients, antibody serology both to check his vaccines were up to date and just in case he was now HIV or Hep positive. Bruce looked at the ten millilitre vials and felt more than a bit guilty. They needed to do this and Jason would be fine, he was taking thirty millilitres, the average person gave almost sixteen times that whenever they donated blood. It was just a blood draw and there wouldn’t be any long term damage, just a sore arm for a day or so. “Do you want to do the blood draw and then get food?”

“Food,” Jason said. But he wasn’t stressed out. This was probably the best time to do it.

“Food after?”  

Jason shrugged with a sigh.

It was unlikely to get easier than this. Doing the draw while Jason had something to look forwards to would likely keep him a little bit calmer. “One minute and we’ll get food,” Bruce promised him. He helped him out of his hoodie, gloved up and then wiped down his arm with a mixture of alcohol and local anaesthetic. “Can you watch the door for me?” he asked as he tied the tourniquet.

Jason looked to the door.

“Slight pinch,” Bruce warned before inserting the needle, Jason started to turn to look at him. “Just keep your eyes on the door.” Jason looked back to the door. “You are doing brilliantly,” he promised him as he finished filling the first vial and moved onto the second. Three would do it. “Nearly there.”

Once the third vial was filled, Bruce stashed them, put the needle in the sharps container of the kit and wiped down Jason’s arm again. “Pick a plaster,” he told him, holding out a selection of dinosaur themed Band-Aids.

Jason picked a stegosaurus plaster and Bruce put it in place before removing the nitrile gloves and disinfecting the suit’s. Jason then reached for the disinfectant spray bottle and Bruce put a tiny bit on his hands too, rubbing it in. “It gets rid of microbes,” Bruce explained, “Reduces the chances of you getting sick.”

Jason nodded to himself, looking deep in thought.

“Ready to get some lunch?” Bruce asked him.

“Yeah,” Jason said, that was the first time he’d said the word rather than nodding.

Bruce smiled, “Come on.”

Luckily the haematology lab was enroute to the staff cafeteria, Bruce dropping off the three samples of blood labelled “Robin-2” at the door. Word of Jason’s existence had spread like wildfire throughout the facility and he watched the haematologist stare at him in interest. He blocked his view protectively, yes, it was very exciting that someone had spontaneously come back from the dead, but his son was not going to be living in a lab doing tests for the rest of his life. Just for today and then they could get him home. He gave into the urge to pick up Jason, keeping his expression professionally blank as he held him tight.

They then finally retrieved Jason’s hotdog, fries and ice cream from the cafeteria, Bruce getting a chicken and avocado salad before carrying both the food and Jason back into the meeting room they’d borrowed with Lilith to give Jason somewhere a bit quieter to eat.

Jason stared intensely at Bruce’s own lunch.

“It’s salad,” He told him.

Jason opened his mouth and Bruce guessed that Jason had to work out which one he liked more for certain. He fed him a bite of salad and watched him look vaguely repulsed.

He was however slightly surprised when Jason tried to break his hotdog in half, trying to offer it to Bruce.  

“I promise I like salad,” Bruce told him. He didn’t actually like salad all that much but it had protein and iron and mildly anaemic Batman was not as effective against the criminals who hadn’t spent almost a year also becoming mildly anaemic.

Jason judgementally ate his hotdog.

Once Jason was fed and cleaned up, they were onto the last test of the day, which meant that Bruce probably wouldn’t see Jason in person for another few days when they could get everything in place to legally resurrect him. Dick had made sure that all of Jason’s clothes for today were MRI safe, meaning that all Bruce had to do was remove his mask, shoes, vitals monitor and earpieces. The Batsuit was very much not MRI safe, meaning he had to get into scrubs and then to hide both their identities, use some metal free masks that he’d stitched up from left over fabric and lenses.

After that, and a quick scan to double check there was no metal on or inside either of them, he got Jason settled on the patient table and squeezed his hand. “So, what we’re going to need you to do is lie very still,” he explained. “This bed is then going to go into that tube and it’s going to take some pictures of you. It might sound very loud but it’s not going to hurt you and I’ll be right here the entire time.”

Jason whined.

“We can give you something that will make you sleep through it,” Bruce offered.

Jason frowned, confused for a moment before looking repulsed. He shook his head then whimpered, still staring at the MRI tube.

Bruce desperately wished they could just not do this. But they needed the scans, they needed to check that Jason’s body was functioning as it should be, that there weren’t aneurysms or broken bones or missing organs or hydrocephalus. If he told him he didn’t have to do this and then he required emergency surgery or… or he had to bury him again… “We need you to go into the MRI, Jay,” he told him. “You might be much more hurt than we think and the only way to know is by checking you over in there.”

Jason looked on the verge of tears. “Dad…” He begged.

Bruce felt like a monster, “You’re going to be okay, Jay lad, I promise,” he hugged him, “You are one of the bravest people I know, you can face this too.”

Jason whimpered the moment he was in the scanner and Bruce wished that they didn’t have to do this but they needed to check for any organ damage or aneurysms, and work out what was going on with his leg.

“You’re doing so well,” Bruce told him.

Jason continued to fuss and Bruce continued to murmur reassurances. He was here, he wasn’t going to let anything bad happen to Jason.

Luckily, it didn’t take the neurologist too long to get the images they needed, perks of very high-end tech Bruce guessed. Jason still leapt into Bruce’s arms and had a cry the moment he could. “I know,” Bruce soothed, rocking him gently. “You’re okay.”

Bruce was then punched in the chest, and he probably deserved that.

“It’s okay,” he said anyway. “It’s over now Jay-Lad. No more tests.”

Jason seemed to relax a little at that but he was still weepy. Bruce felt immensely guilty.

“Come on, do you want to go have a look at the scans?” Bruce asked.

That got a nod and Bruce carried him over to the viewing room to review their findings.

All things considered, the results for Jason below the shoulders were remarkably good. There were signs of healed damage, his liver looked like it had gone through significant regeneration, the ratio between lobes being somewhat atypical but there was no cirrhosis. His lungs showed mild scarring but his lung capacity, while reduced from what it used to be, was still good for his age, the healthy tissue was compensating well. Digestive system was working fine. There were no organs missing or out of place, nothing extra which was also honestly a worry when one’s child comes back from the dead. The growth plates on his limbs were still remarkably large and Bruce found himself wondering if maybe Jason still had a significant amount of growth left to go, balancing the average percentiles of his parents’ height, Jason would be about six feet tall when fully grown. That didn’t quite seem viable, but he’d maybe make it past five feet. There was evidence of some badly done surgery on his left leg, some weakened tendons and built-up scar tissue around the hip joint. That explained the leg pain and it was something that could easily be fixed by a competent orthopod. “That’s your leg,” Bruce explained to Jason who was still sulking a bit.

He got a shrug in response. He looked at the scans of his hands too, again surgery would hopefully fix the tendons in his fingers, maybe make it easier for him to learn sign.

Both Bruce and the neurologist swore when they got to Jason’s brain. If it wasn’t for the fact that the patient was currently looking around excitedly to see what the commotion was about, Bruce would have said that someone with a brain like that would have no chance of regaining consciousness, let alone be able to hear, see, form new memories, move and speak. He pushed that thought aside for a moment, there were no vessels looking at risk of aneurysm or stroke, at least not anymore, there was evidence that one had blown at some point. The ventricles looked to be healthy and draining normally, nothing that would require surgery. That established, he looked back to Jason and then to the scan that said he should have been in a vegetative state, “How?” he breathed.

Jason tilted his head in confusion and then frowned in mild worry.

“Everything’s okay,” Bruce promised him. The anterior region was the most damaged, which made sense considering Jason’s difficulties seemed to be mostly in cognition and impulse control, but structurally nothing seemed to be organised quite correctly. He looked to Jason’s old scans which showed a normal brain. Now, there were signs of injury throughout the brain, which was to be expected. The more worrying thing right now was the fact that its general structure was unlike any brain Bruce had seen before. The brain’s generation required carefully timed and controlled communication between cells and migrating axons, nearly a third of coding DNA being dedicated to this cause. As far as Bruce could tell, no one had told Jason’s brain this. The longer he looked at the cerebrum, the harder it was to work out where lobes and areas actually were within it. The structures of the mid and hind brain all seemed mostly typical which explained why Jason could stay alive and wake up. It did not, however, explain everything else he could do. This was not something they could show to most neurologists without a hell of a lot of questions, Bruce made note to write down on Jason’s Justice League profile that he, much like Cyborg, Flash or Clark was a STAR treatment only case.

Bruce constructed a timeline in his head to try to work out how Jason’s brain looked like this, Joker would have caused damage, the explosion would have also caused traumatic injury, Jason died from flail chest, hypoxia would have made the brain no longer functional. In death, the decay of proteins meant ions and pathogens would have gradually started to go where they pleased, structures like dendrites and axons falling apart, neurotransmitters floating between unresponsive synapses leading to more structural damage. Jason had likely been dead for at least a few months, there likely wasn’t much viable tissue left by then. But his brain somehow regenerated like this, regaining at least enough function to be mobile and responsive, able to work out how to escape being buried alive, before an aneurysm took that function, at least judging by the vegetative state status written on the bracelet Bruce had found him with, until he recovered at least some function by seemingly typical means. This begged another question, were Jason’s current abilities a result of the aneurysm he’d likely had at some point or a result of the atypical structure of his brain. He needed to get some second opinions on this. “Send the imaging to Mr Terrific, Nightwing, Oracle, Robin and Agent A.” He ordered.

The neurologist did as told, going through the JLA network.

The ‘Batphone’ went off a moment later. “Is that Robin-2?” Nightwing’s message read.

“Yes.”

“Holy neuroplasticity Batman!” Nightwing’s next message read.

“That is not what I was expecting,” Oracle agreed. “And his condition is still the same as before?”

“He’s been getting better at speech and sign pretty rapidly lately,” Nightwing said.

Jason prodded the phone then, Bruce letting him have a go at using the keyboard. At least until he hit send on a message that was just “Ssres.”

“?” was Nightwing’s response.

“Robin-2 wanted a go at texting.”

“Hi R2!”

“He’s with you now? Hi mini–Boy-Wonder.”

“Nightwing and Oracle say hi,” Bruce informed him.

Another message came through from Mr Terrific. “Patient status? GCS?”

“Pubescent male, approximately 17 years old, GCS 13, AO1 to AO2 depending on environment, independently mobile, strong gross motor skills but significant difficulties in fine motor skills, minimally speaking, moderate-severe intellectual disabilities.”

“Meta status?”

“Unknown but unlikely. Full genome scan found nothing of significance.”

“Abilities before injury?”

“Intellectually extremely gifted, on par with us when age matched, physically gifted, polylingual.”

“This isn’t Robin, is it?”

“Not the third Robin.”

The Batphone rung then. “Batman, with all due respect, are you trying to imply that a non-meta child came back from the dead?”

“Verified but not yet announced.”

“H-how?”

“Unknown.”

“Dad?” Jason asked, looking a little bit anxious again.

“Everything’s okay,” he promised, holding him tightly a moment.

 “That was him?”

“That was him.”

“I have a potential theory for how he came back. Contact me if there’s a time when he can come to the lab.”

“Hn. I’ll do what I can.” He clicked off the call then looked to the neurologist who was still just staring at the brain and the reports and then back to Jason. Suddenly the bracelet Jason had been wearing when Bruce first found him made so much more sense. Jason wasn’t meant to be alive, and he wasn’t meant to be conscious but here he was, Bruce was so eternally grateful for this kid.

Jason grumbled, looking drained. He could have done with a surgical consult about his hands and his leg and maybe the skin grafts on his torso, Bruce was not above calling in some favours with either Diana or Scott to get Jason better medical care than should be possible, but he was more than done for the day. The orthopod would need time to look over the scans and as far as Bruce and the neurologist could tell there was no real risk of further harm for the time being. Bruce decided his next step was to call Dick so Jason could get a much-needed break. “Done?” he asked.

Jason nodded tiredly in response.

Not long after, they were sat out on the landing pad, Bruce pointing out the most prominent buildings of the Metropolis skyline while they waited for Dick. Jason seemed fairly excited at the sight of the Daily Planet and Bruce found himself murmuring a quiet “He might work there but I own it,” to no response. Or at least not the response he wanted. Even if Jason wasn’t, someone else was always listening.

Clark touched down on the building a moment later, Jason detaching from Bruce’s side to run over and hug him. “Hi,” Clark said, looking slightly bewildered between Jason and Bruce. “It’s good to see you too. What- what brings you both to Metropolis?”

“A comprehensive list of health checks,” Bruce answered, “And to verify Nightwing’s genome sequence.”

“Dick,” Jason uttered.

While not an issue with Clark, Bruce was going to have big problems if Jason decided that he needed to announce the real name of every hero mentioned around him. “The fact Nightwing is Dick is a secret,” Bruce tried to explain. “You can’t tell anyone.”

“Oh,” Jason looked incredibly guilty and the crueller part of Bruce hoped that meant the knowledge would stick.

“It’s okay, I know that secret,” Clark assured him, “But just keep it in mind with other people.” He gave the classic Superman smile, making Jason smile back. Show off. He then gave Bruce another questioning look.

“I’ll explain later,” Bruce mouthed. “He’s Jason,” he added.

“It’s good to have you back, Jason,” Clark said.

“Cool,” Jason grumbled, looking deeply disappointed with Clark.

“Is Clark boring you?” Bruce asked, loving the opportunity to torment his best friend.

Jason nodded and Clark rolled his eyes when Bruce smirked. Bruce wasn’t egging Jason on or anything. He honestly thought Clark was boring and this would be the perfect ammo for years to come.

“I’m sorry,” Clark said, unsurprisingly holding no resentment towards Jason. “Do you want to see something really cool?”

Jason nodded, still looking unimpressed.

“Step back a moment then,” Clark said before breathing up onto the clouds.

Clark made it snow, a classic technique to impress kids and apparently greatly disappoint seventeen-year-olds.

Bruce tried not to look too smug that Jason was unimpressed. At some point teaching him tact would probably be a good idea. However, right now this was entertaining.

“Nothing?” Clark asked Jason, who immediately rolled his eyes.

“Hn.”

Clark disappeared into the sky. Bruce knew what was coming next but just grunted miserably as a clump of snow fell onto his head, the cowl’s ears turning parts of it into powder.  

Jason cackled and now Clark was the one smirking.

“Jay, come over here,” Bruce said.

Jason walked over so Bruce tilted his head down so Jason got snow in his hair too, watching him squeal and run his hands through his hair to get it out. Once he’d succeeded in that task, Jason tried pushing Bruce over, Bruce eventually play-wrestling with him. Part of him thought back to the scans and tests, Jason would likely lead a very different life to most people.  He then reminded himself that Jason was happy and had a long life ahead of him. That would always be more important than anything else. Besides, in regards to normalcy, he was currently playing in the snow with Batman and Superman after a day of being tested at Star Labs before Nightwing came over to take him back to Titans Tower. Jason had been leading a very different life to most people for years.

In Bruce’s brief moment of lamentation, Clark helped Jason knock him over. He was going to get them back for that when he watched Clark talk Jason through how to do a high-five. Even if this was as far as Jason’s recovery went, he would have every opportunity to have a good life.

Chapter Text

Dick felt like such an asshole taking Jason from Bruce but the kid fell asleep almost immediately on the way back to the Tower, and by the time they were back to their room, Dick just got him ready for bed and fell asleep too, the fact it was all of four pm be damned.

He woke up to Jason prodding his face. “Morning,” he murmured, checking his watch, five-thirty pm, “Or more accurately, late afternoon,” he added. Jason’s hair was a mess of bedhead and he imagined his wasn’t much better. “Feeling better after a nap?”

“Yeah,” Jason said and hey, a new word.

He knew both of them had had long days today, Jason with all the testing. Meanwhile, Dick’s day had been spent orchestrating a plan for Roy and Donna to bust a trafficking group in Ethiopia tonight. They’d hopefully be able to get everyone there identified and to the relevant authorities and thus home but they could then claim to have found Jason there and, considering his present condition, been unable to work out who he was and where to send him, taken him back to Titans Tower where Nightwing then did the detective work and just like that Jason Todd got to go home, alive and well and only thought to be dead due to issues with a lookalike. The John Doe’s coffin fell through in the quake and the remains were eaten by scavengers leading to a cold case that no one would be able to solve. Life would go on to a new normal. Which meant there was something else he needed to think about, what would that new normal look like for him? “How would you feel about me coming back to Gotham with you?”

Jason’s face lit up.

Dick smiled too, glad to know he would be a welcomed addition, at least in Jason’s eyes. “The problem is I’m going to need to find a new job. Any suggestions?” he asked.  

Jason thought for a moment and then said “Cool.”

“I need a cool job?” Dick repeated. He would need something that would allow him to still have a flexible work schedule, that would fit into his skillset. “What about being a personal trainer?”

Jason looked confused at him.

“Helping people with working out,” Dick explained.

Jason nodded then got out of bed, walking to the door. He wanted to go somewhere.

“Do you think you can show me where you want to go?” Dick asked.

Jason whinged and then flailed his arms around, making a “Shh…” noise.

“Do you want to go to the pool?” Dick guessed.

That got some more excited bounces.

“Okay, let’s grab our swimming trunks and we’ll go.”

Jason apparently did not have the patience to get into swimming trunks, throwing himself into the water the moment they were in sight of the pool. Dick sighed, safety-wise he could have done with someone else in the water just in case he suddenly started drowning for whatever reason, unless Jason remembered his water rescue and CPR training. “Hey, anyone want to come swimming, Jason’s just thrown himself into the pool.”

Donna laughed slightly, “On my way, honey.”

He stripped down to his underwear in the meantime, not really as eager to swim about in soaked clothes as Jason seemed to be.

Jason splashed his pyjama pants before he could put them to one side. He kicked them off anyway, putting them on a chair before sitting on the water’s edge. Jason was in fluffy pyjamas, a couple of air bubbles still somehow caught in the hairs. They probably weighed a fair amount now they were saturated with water but Jason didn’t seem to care. Dick was just glad that he still remembered how to swim okay in clothes, he guessed Bruce’s training sessions that included lifting two hundred kilos of deadweight mannequin while also in the full winter gear stuck with a person.

Donna laughed as she came into the room and assessed the situation, Dick trying to look as pathetic as possible if only to make her laugh harder.

It did, “Oh poor you,” she kissed his cheek. “I’ll go get changed.”

Donna returned a few seconds later in her swimming costume. Dick carefully ducked out of her attempt to knock him into the water, tilting his head towards Jason. He didn’t want Jason to treat Alfred or Leslie or a civilian the way he saw vigilantes treating each other. He wasn’t sure he’d easily understand the idea that Dick was very much trained to land right in the water if shoved and could recover easily from the shock of suddenly being underwater while a civilian potentially wouldn’t.

Donna nodded in understanding, sliding into the pool rather than diving too.

Dick, had to be at least a bit of a show off on that front, doing a swan dive into the pool, keeping his splash to almost nothing.

Jason looked very underwhelmed and Dick swam over to splash him, getting splashed back.

Donna cast him a look for initiating a fight with his little brother and Dick only had a moment to feel dread before he was struck by a wave, shoving him backwards. Super strength was an unfair advantage.

“Duh!” Jason then shouted and Dick for a moment thought he was shouting for Bruce again. But then he said, “Duhn!” He was asking for Donna.

“Do you want Donna to splash you?” Dick asked.

Jason nodded enthusiastically.

Donna hit him with a wave too, the force of the water actually pushing him back a bit. Jason’s face lit up as he immediately swam over to be pushed around some more.

Jason spent the next twenty minutes getting thrown about in waves and whirlpools that Donna created, laughing the entire time. It was good background noise for Dick as he sat talking through moving logistics to himself on his comm. Donna gave him a look but he had so much shit to do. He needed to tie up loose business in Bludhaven, he needed to find the perfect apartment in Gotham and preferably not have it be one owned by Wayne Enterprises, he needed to work out how to establish himself as a personal trainer, he needed to work out his patrol routes so him and Bruce weren’t in each other’s pockets, he’d need to find a way to pitch them as acceptable to Bruce. He needed to work out what the fuck was going on between him and Helena and Babs. Dick was busy and as fun as splashing in a pool would be, Donna currently had Jason distracted so he could in fact do admin.

Bruce forwarded him Jason’s blood test results, Dick picking up his phone and checking through them. Bruce hadn’t said anything with the attachment which Dick hoped was a good thing. If Jason needed treatment for anything, Bruce would have also attached a prescription for that. He skimmed through the results. Jason was a little bit low on a few different nutrients, which made sense considering where they just left, but they could easily fix that with diet. His cortisol was a little elevated but just enough to say he was stressed not that his HPA axis was off, and he needed boosters for a few vaccines. Other than that, he was fine. No bloodborne diseases, no signs of aberrant cell growth. His growth hormones were elevated and his androgen levels were higher than his last blood test but that mostly just indicated his body was still catching up from years of poor growth as a kid. Below the brain, Jason Todd was deeply medically boring and Dick could not be more relieved.

Jason then grabbed his leg, doing the big eyes that meant he wanted something. “What’s up, Jay?” he asked.

“Dick,” Jason replied.

“Hey,” Dick said, not sure what it was that Jason wanted.

Jason tugged at his leg again and Dick realised he was trying to drag him into the water.

“Okay, five minutes,” he told him, he then remembered they had a ball around here and stood up.

Jason made a dismayed sound and Dick realised that he probably thought he was just leaving the room.

“I’ll be back in a moment,” he told him.

Once Dick had fetched the inflatable ball, five minutes turned into an hour, Donna and Dick swapping who got to team up with Jason to keep the ball away from the other one. There was a lot of softened blows and getting swept about in the water and absolutely soaking the rest of the room, Jason adoring all of it, laughing and squealing and splashing around. It also gave Dick a pretty strong indication of Jason’s swimming skills. He was able to hold his breath underwater and manage with strong waves while also wearing fairly heavy clothes. While it was probably still safer to make sure that the pools at the manor and penthouse weren’t accessible by Jason without supervision, it was definitely reassuring to know that he was probably low drowning risk.

Their game did have to come to an end however, and Dick noticed that Jason was starting to look fatigued. In all honesty, he had just had one hell of a workout even if he hadn’t really realised it. Dick was also feeling a little bit fatigued too. He nodded to Donna before telling Jason to get out of the pool.

Once they were both in clothes that weren’t dripping wet, he carried Jason past the pool so he couldn’t just jump in again. He was sulking and Dick wished that he could give him the autonomy to make his own mistakes but it just wasn’t safe this time. Jason whinged and Dick felt so fucking guilty. “I know, swimming time is over and that sucks,” he said.

“Sucks,” Jason whinged.

Being able to say something sucked was at least good for self-advocacy’s sake.

“I know,” Dick agreed. “The water’s fun. It’s a lot of sensory input at once and it probably takes weight off your leg. But you’re also pretty obviously tired, and pushing yourself to exhaustion in the pool is dangerous. I’m also starting to get tired too, which would make things really unsafe.”

Jason still looked upset.

He really did want to make Jason feel less upset about the pool. He was also starving after that much of a workout. “How about we sort out dinner?” he suggested, carrying Jason through to the kitchen.

Jason nodded.

“Great,” Dick set him down on the counter and then started looking through the fridge and freezer for food ideas.  “How about pork and ratatouille with a side of rice?”

“Cool?” Jason said, sounding very uncertain.

“If you don’t like it, I can sort you something else,” Dick told him.

“Yeah,” Jason agreed.

Dick thought about the fact Jason could type on a phone, even if it was just jargon. He pulled out his phone and opened his downloaded music. “Can you see that triangle button with the line there?” he asked.

Jason immediately tapped it, startling when that prompted the phone to play music. Dick hoped the unexpected noise hadn’t scared him too much. Luckily it didn’t, Jason shrugged off the fear and pressed it a few more times, different songs playing as he grinned to himself.

“I want you to tap that little triangle whenever there’s a song you don’t like, think you can do that?” he asked.

Jason nodded.

“You’re gonna kill it as a DJ,” Dick grinned.

Jason sulked a bit throughout dinner, not refusing food by any means but looking like every bite was underwhelming. Dick bit back the sigh in his throat. It was unlikely that Jason had any intention of malice. He was just blunt. “Yeah, Alfred’s version is better,” Dick agreed.

For whatever reason, that comment distressed Jason more and then Dick was being hugged.

He hugged Jason back and he had that look again that said there was something he wanted to say but couldn’t and Dick kissed the top of his head, “You’re a good little brother.”

Dick then found himself being yanked sideways, Jason kissing the top of his head as well. He adored his little brother so much. Or so he thought until he was being pushed away again. Moment of affection over, Jason hit the table and opened his mouth. Dick had never seen clearer communication of “I love you, now fucking feed me.”

“Okay, yeah, let’s eat,” Dick chuckled slightly, still trying to work out what just happened.

Roy and Donna headed out just after Dick and Jason had finished eating. Lian was asleep, Dick’s babysitting duties were just going checking on her if she woke up at all. His other job was staying on comms, coordinating the pair of them and calling for back up if the situation called for it. He would have liked to have been in the field with them, hated being on the sidelines when his friends ran into danger. But right now, Jason needed him here. “We’re going to be fine, Dickhead,” Roy promised.

“I know,” Dick assured them, “I trust you both. Just stay safe and get everyone to safety.”

“It’s what we do,” Donna smirked. “You and Jason have a wonderful time on comms.”

He cringed slightly. Comms duty always reminded him of being injured and grounded as a kid. “We’ll do our best.”

“I’ll see you when you get back,” he hugged Roy and kissed Donna on the cheek.

“Don’t I get a kiss?” Roy asked, pursing his lips.  

Dick leaned in close, “Babe, I thought we were being subtle about this.”

“Babe.” Roy leaned in close enough that Dick could smell chewing gum on his breath. Dick wondered at what point he lost all sense of boundaries with the other Titans.

 Jason cackled.

“What are they like?” Donna agreed. “I hate to break up the loving couple, but we have people to save." She started walking towards the jet.

“On my way,” Roy started to follow her before spinning around and doing finger guns at Dick, “Call me.”

Jason started following after them both.

“Jay, we’re gonna be helping from comms tonight,” Dick said, hoping Jason would take the offer.

Jason whinged and stomped angrily.

“I know, comms suck,” Dick agreed. “But you’d be doing me a massive favour by helping with them.” And it was deeply unlikely that Jason would recover enough to ever go out in the field again and Dick wasn’t sure if Bruce would be outraged or delighted if he had the retirement conversation with him now.

Jason nodded with a sigh, walking over to Dick while glancing longingly at the T-Jet.

“Thanks, Jay.” Dick reached to squeeze his shoulder.

He then found his hand being bitten. While he thought this might have been standard fare for siblings, not that he was the most experienced brother, he was pretty sure that biting Jason back wouldn’t exactly be considered ethical.

“Jay, can you let go of my hand please?” he asked.

Jason let his hand go with a groan, giving Dick a murderous look. Hopefully, he’d calm down again soon.

He rambled to himself and Jason as he plugged in the switch, Jason watching him judgementally. He hoped to god that he’d like Animal Crossing at least. Dick did have other solutions if necessary. He’d downloaded a lot of audiobooks as well, in part for Jason’s sake, in part because comm duty was going to be exceptionally boring for the vast bulk of this mission. He had all of Shakespeare’s most famous works converted into audio dramas, the Jane Austen collection, Dickens, Orwell, Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett for some more modern and comedic stories. Bruce had told him that Jason liked most books. And Dick was aware, Jason had made him read the phone book the other month, but he still would have liked more info than “He likes to read.”

 With the Switch set up, Dick handed Jason a controller. Jason seemed to remember how to hold one of them but then immediately tried to chew the joystick. If he broke it, Bruce owed Dick a new controller. That said, Jason, by operating the controller with his teeth, did manage to get to Dick’s home screen.

Jason looked up and prodded Fire Emblem on the screen.

“We can play Fire Emblem,” Dick said, not sure it would really be the best game for Jason right now but Jason had pointed at it so they’d at least play it until he got bored.

It turned out to be fairly fun playing Fire Emblem with Jason. He wasn’t much strategic help, not that the game was too hard anyway, but he liked watching the characters fight and he apparently loved Dick’s rough attempts at voice acting. Jason reached over and pressed a button, moving a unit unexpectedly. Dick smiled all the same, saving the game and then asking, “Do you want a go?”

Jason nodded.

Jason looked like he didn’t know what was happening but still did remarkably well at following Dick’s instructions. He was on one of the easiest battlefronts Dick could find, if only because he had permadeath on and didn’t really want to lose any units if he could help it. But they managed to take down the enemy side. “We’ve won! High five!” He’d seen Jason high-five Clark when he collected him from STAR Labs earlier.

Jason, it turned out, hadn’t quite mastered the skill just yet, headbutting Dick’s hand instead.

Dick ruffled his hair and Jason immediately reached over to ruffle his back.

Dick laughed and let him make a mess of it.

“Wing, we’re at location,” Dick’s comm said, ending the moment.

He gave Jason a thumbs up before turning to his own screen, “Understood, Arsenal.” He pulled up their bodycam footage and reopened the backdoor into the traffickers’ camera system. The security guard monitoring all cameras would now just see some looping footage of an empty corridor as Dick saw what was actually happening. At the main entry to the warehouse, one of the gang members was scrolling on his phone, the other cloud gazing. “Guards are awake but unalert.”

“How about we fix that?” Roy replied, Dick watching him pull out a knockout arrow from three different perspectives.

The guards went down almost immediately.

Jason leaned over Dick’s shoulder, prodding at the controller and waiting expectantly for someone to move on screen.

If it wasn’t for the fact they actually needed to be stealthy, Dick would have absolutely told Roy and Donna to follow the directions Jason was putting into the controller.

“Do you want to watch the bust?” Dick asked. It was probably going to get pretty nasty but Jason had been Robin for three years. He was used to seeing some rough stuff.

Jason cheered on the violence, Dick not feeling all too bad for the traffickers getting thrown about either. They’d reached the door behind which most of the victims were being stored and Dick watched both of them dim their suits’ lights to not dazzle anyone, Dick swapping their body cams to night mode.

There were more people inside than they expected, which would help with the lie that Jason was among them, but practicalities aside, Dick felt immensely guilty that he only knew about this because he’d gone out looking for it. He couldn’t be everywhere, none of them could be, and somewhere out there other people were in desperate need of help that they’d probably be receiving right now if Dick hadn’t been seeking out trouble to solve in Ethiopia. “The world needs more heroes,” he muttered to Jason. They’d managed to miss him too, and he was under the noses of four different heroes for at least a year. And by going back to Gotham, Dick would be making the number of heroes even more concentrated in one area and leaving another without any. How many strangers’ lives were worth Jason’s comfort? None in any of those strangers’ eyes. He reminded himself that Wally and Clark, who could theoretically work indefinitely, still took time off. That they all needed it. Nightwing may have been a hero but Dick Grayson did not exist solely to save other people’s lives. He needed to do things that were right for him too. Even if it sucked.  

Donna and Roy got everyone out without much fuss, some who were locals were triaged to first responders, given burner phones and contact numbers for the Justice League’s relief fund if they needed it, others who were from further afield were flown back by Donna, Roy assuring those waiting to go back, and making sure they too knew who they could contact if they needed any sort of support.

Then the two were on their way back and Jason was gone. “Still on comms, away from screen,” Dick warned, running off to find him. “Jay?” What if he’d gotten into the pool, or god forbid the lab? Shit, he was going to be dead somewhere and there wasn’t going to be any coming back a second time and this was Dick’s fault for not keeping an eye on him and he needed to stay cool. Nothing was confirmed yet. “Jay,” he called again, running towards the pool, “Robin!” he did his best Batman voice but there was no one there. He locked down the pool for the time being. “Titans,” he said into his comms, “Robin-2 has gone missing. If you see him, please bring him to me. Jay, if you’re listening, I’m not mad, just need to know where you are.”

The lab was clear, he closed that off too. Garth’s room was definitely occupied but not by Jason, “Jay’s missing,” Dick said to the soon to be wed couple, shielding his eyes as the two used the blankets to recover some decency, and fuck he wasn’t wearing his mask. That did not matter right now.

“Shit, I’ll- on my way to help now,” Garth said as Dick fled the room.

Maybe Jason had gone to their room and Dick would walk in there and he’d be asleep on the bed. Nope. “Found him,” Wally said, “We’re in Argent’s room.” Why hadn’t Argent fucking called him? “You may want to explain why your brother thinks you’re a dick.”

Oh, Argent had probably made the right call with the information she had. “Thank you, Wally,” he shifted frequency, “Okay, Jason, I’m on my way. False alarm everyone. Jay has been found and is okay.”

Dick ran to Argent’s room, slammed open the door and immediately tackled Jason into a hug. He was okay. He’d just wandered off.

“Dick?” Jason asked.

“I’m okay,” Dick promised, “Are you okay?” he had no idea why Jason had wandered off.

Jason nodded then frowned in confusion for a moment. Dick wondered if he’d forgotten why he wandered off. “Hero,” Dick thought he then said.

“Hero?” Dick repeated to double check.

Jason nodded.

Jason had wanted to help Roy and Donna. “I promise you’re already a hero.” Dick was going to have to have this talk with him, wasn’t he? He loved Bruce but there was a very real chance that he’d just avoid it for as long as possible. He glanced up and saw that Argent was trying very carefully to not look at his face and looked absolutely terrified. “I’m just going to talk to Argent and then I’ll talk to you.” He gestured for Wally to keep an eye on Jason.

“Do you want to go read Dick’s book stash?” Wally offered.

Jason nodded and Wally quickly took him out of the room.

“I promise I don’t turn people to stone,” Dick said to Argent.

She looked at him, nervous and then she just stared blankly. “You’re Dick Grayson.”

“You cannot tell anyone who I am, okay? If I’m wearing my mask around them, assume they don’t know.”

“I had a picture of you in my room at my parents’ house.”

Dick didn’t really need to know that and judging from her expression Toni hadn’t actually meant to admit it. “Okay. But no telling anyone under any circumstances who I am.”

“Okay.”

“That established, thank you for looking out for Jay,” he said. “You thought I’d upset him, you didn’t know how so you tried to keep me away and call in someone with the authority to deal with the situation.”

“I fucked up, there was actually nothing wrong going on.”

“And there were no consequences to that. Wally’s going to laugh at me later but that’s it,” Dick reassured her. “However, if I had been hurting him and you’d just assumed he was saying nonsense then he would have continued to be hurt. You stood up for him, so thank you.”

“Can I ask something?”

“I may not be able to answer but go for it.”

“What is the situation with Jay?”

“Messy,” Dick said. “He was Robin then he died. Then he came back somehow, we’re still not sure on the details, and some parts of him healed better than others.”

“So, he wasn’t always like that?”

“I mean in a lot of ways he’s still the same person. He’s still curious, he’s still eager to be loved, even if he’s now a lot more open about it, he still wants to help people. He’s still him. He just has a lot more things he struggles with now and is very disinhibited.”

“Must have been difficult getting fostered to different families,” Toni said.

“Oh, we weren’t… He’s not legally or biologically my brother. He is my former foster father’s adopted son.”

“Holy shit, he’s Jason Todd.”

“He is.”

“Bruce Wayne hires out his kids to Batman?”

“No, more Bruce Wayne’s kids all inevitably insist that they’re going to work with Batman,” Dick laughed lightly. Toni would work it out before too long. “I’m going to get going, talk to Jay about some things.”

When Dick returned to his room, he found Wally reading the Canterbury Tales to Jason. “Hey,” he smirked slightly, of course Jason had made Wally read the second hardest book on his shelf that was still arguably in English. He’d have to get him to make someone read Finnegan’s Wake to him one day. “Didn’t know you could read Middle English?” he teased.

Wally laughed, “You don’t know everything about me,” he put the book down, free from Chaucer, “But seriously dude, some translated books would be great.”

Dick would keep it in mind. While he was fairly confident that Jason before his injuries would have been fine with Middle English, it was one of Bruce’s go-tos for making little Robins learn to work things out through context, he doubted it was that accessible to him anymore. “Eh, bit of detective work and Middle English is coherent. Just need to engage your brain a bit,” if he was going to get teased for being a dick later, he was going to earn it. He realised he was procrastinating, “Now, Jay, can we talk about some stuff?”

Jason nodded, Wally fleeing the room.

“Okay,” Dick sat down next to him, “I’m guessing that you’ve noticed some things have changed since you died?”

Jason took a few seconds to process the question and then suddenly looked panicked. He curled on himself defensively and shit, Dick had triggered a flashback or panic attack or something.

“Jay? Jason?” he couldn’t get his attention. Fuck.   

Chapter Text

Jason hyperventilated for a while. Dick kept trying to soothe him, muttering calming words and modelling calm breathing. But in the end he had to wait it out. He could not physically grab someone who was likely having a flashback to being violently assaulted.

Eventually Jason calmed down, still shaky but not hyperventilating. “You with me?” Dick asked.

Jason whinged, moving away from him and Dick had definitely fucked up. “Dad,” he said.

“We can call Dad,” Dick promised. It was one am, adding to some embarrassment from the commotion earlier, Dick definitely hadn’t put everyone on emergency alert at a time where everyone bar him really should have been asleep. At least, Bruce was probably on patrol. He changed his comm frequency to Bruce’s. “Nightwing speaking.”

“Received, Nightwing. Was the mission a success?”

“Troia and Arsenal are enroute back as we speak,” Dick replied. “R-Two had an anxiety attack, wants you.”

“How long until you can get him to Gotham?”

“I was going to hold off until morning, but once the T-jet gets back, maybe two hours? I think he’d appreciate it if you spoke to him on the comms though.”

“I’ll change to his frequency now.”

“Dad,” Jason said a moment later. A pause and then whinging, probably responding to Bruce’s question.

He was silent for a long moment and damn, he’d actually prompted Batman to speak in sentences. After another pause, he whimpered, curling in on himself.

Dick didn’t know what Bruce had said but he was wondering if Jason was maybe only just starting to process what happened. “We’re going to work things out,” he promised, “We always do in the end.” The world hadn’t ended yet.

Bruce likely said something similar because a moment later Jason let out a little uncertain but kind of happy hum.

Dick offered him a hug and Jason cuddled into him, earlier transgressions forgiven.

Jason promptly lashed out, clawing at Dick’s cheek before angrily snuggling into his side. Maybe everything was not forgiven. He rubbed at his face where Jason had cut him, trust a Bat to find a way to be petty without words. “You’re going to end up with very short nails if you keep doing that,” Dick half-jokingly threatened. Gar had given him worse wounds in sparring matches so Dick didn’t particularly care, but they needed to find a way for Jason to express anger at civilians that didn’t involve physical harm.

Jason shrugged, deep in thought for a moment. Dick thought he saw him murmur something, mouth forming shapes but he couldn’t pull any distinct letters. After a moment of vocalising, Jason squeezed him tight and Dick had a feeling he knew what he was trying to say. “Love you too,” he told him.

Jason hummed happily and Dick couldn’t help but smile too. He adored his nightmare little brother who ran off and bit and scratched him and now he thought about it definitely acted up way more for Dick than he did for Bruce. But he guessed it was a little brother’s job to wind up the older brother sometimes, even if Dick was in his early-mid-twenties and Jason was almost an adult.

The hug continued until Donna and Roy got back to base. It was now Dick’s turn to ‘work out who Jason was’, aka pack his things to be dropped off at the penthouse the next day. This didn’t take all that long, the clothes they’d bought what felt like a week ago but was actually the day before yesterday, going into a suitcase along with the plush toy dinosaur and the rock bottle and most of Jason’s new fidgets. Jason started to help too although he was mostly adding random items. “Yeah, that’s mine,” Dick said about the framed photo of the Titans together. “Is there anything here you want to take home with you?”

Jason reached for the yellow blanket and Dick was pretty attached to that blanket. He checked the label, “How about I get you one that’s exactly the same as a housewarming gift?”

Jason looked confused but nodded. Dick would take that as a win.

Jason proceeded to reclaim the metal plate Clark had gifted him, something Dick couldn’t protest too much about.

Jason paced around the room for a few minutes, examining all of Dick’s belongings before deciding to try and place Dick in the suitcase too. If he emptied it out, Dick probably could fit in there if he curled up small enough. He now had a new idea for a dare on the next rare occasion he got to grab a beer with his friends. In this exact moment, however, it was probably for the best that he stopped Jason from putting him in the box. “I’m just gonna drive over,” Dick promised him. “I’m glad you want me around though.”

Jason nodded and walked to the door. He was very ready to go.

“Let me suit up and then we’ll head out.”

Half an hour later, they were landing the T-Jet on a rubble heap next to where the GCPD was currently based. Jackhammers juddered and vans beeped as they reversed, bulldozers knocking down buildings despite the fact it was the middle of the night. Rome may not have been built in a day but they were definitely trying to rebuild Gotham that quickly. Dick switched the engines off and freed Jason from his seat, already planning how many trees he was going to plant to make up for travelling all of forty miles by jet. “I’m turning into a stereotypical billionaire kid,” he joked to Jason. He would have normally done the journey by bike but one, Nightwing rarely let civilians on his motorbike unless it was an emergency and two and more importantly, he wasn’t sure if Jason really remembered how to ride pillion, and that wasn’t even considering the fact they didn’t exactly have leathers and a helmet in Jason’s size at the Tower anymore.

Jason followed him out of the jet, both of them using the ramp down because again, Nightwing could not be seen throwing a civilian out of a six-foot drop between the plane and the ground as much as Jason would probably land fine and love it. “We are at location,” he told Batman, prepping him for the incoming phone call.

“Affirmative.”

Jason whimpered next to him.

“We’re gonna get you home to your family soon,” Dick promised. Jason gave him a nervous look. “It’s gonna be okay, completely random citizen.” He winked, hoping he’d get the hint.

Bullock stepped out of the temporary police HQ, looking suitably annoyed considering Dick had just landed a jet outside his workplace in the dead of the night. “Detective,” Dick said, trying to keep his expression neutral as Jason pushed him out as some sort of sacrifice to Bullock.

“Can’t you masks go a week without bringing trouble here? Big guy with the ears dealt with the Batsignal an hour ago, you can go back to whatever Cave you sleep in.”

“I’ve actually come with a weird case myself,” Dick said. “Trafficking ring bust in Ethiopia, got pretty much everyone returned to their home countries but got a John Doe here who’s a one hundred percent facial match for Jason Todd.” This would have all been much easier to say if Jason’s attempts to hide himself behind Dick didn’t now involve doing a chin up on Dick’s shoulders so he could hide his face in his hair. “Can you not do that, kid?” he asked to no response. He took a deep breath, reminded himself that as absurd as this situation was to him, it was probably genuinely distressing for Jason. “Is Miss Gordon still working here? He’ll probably know her better.”

“She’s in her office, I’ll trust you to know the way,” Bullock grunted.

“Come on, kid,” Dick walked off with Jason dangling from his back. He thought about picking up his legs and turning it into a piggy back but he wanted to give Jason as much freedom of movement as possible.

He found Babs’s office easily, drumming on the door and plastering on a grin, “It’s been too long, Miss Gordon.”

Babs started to laugh and Dick realised that Jason was almost certainly pulling faces.

“You are the worst,” he told him, headbutting him lightly.

“Keep bullying him, Jason, he deserves it,” Babs said. She then held an arm out for a hug, Dick guessed that was for Jason not him.

Jay hopped down from Dick’s back and ran into her arms.

“You’ve grown since I last saw you,” she told him.

He grinned in response.

Dick glanced around and Jason had already revealed his secret identity once in the past twenty-four hours, he really wanted to go before that was a risk again. “I should probably go, they’re going to get suspicious if I linger,” he kissed Babs on the cheek and gave Jason a quick hug before he fled back to the T-Jet. He, as always, had work to do.

…

Bruce didn’t really process the words he was saying to Barbara on the phone. It was all just an act. The father shocked by his son’s miraculous return, defensive denial followed by gradual acceptance due to a viable explanation. Jason was Jason and Bruce needed to make sure that they covered all their corners to make sure he didn’t just become the Robin who came back from the dead, keeping the cover was the last step in him coming home, in him getting to live a somewhat normal life and grow up and do all the things a dead boy couldn’t do. Vaguely, Bruce was aware he was agreeing on collecting Jason, throwing a fuss in true billionaire fashion about taking him to a Metropolis hospital himself. He’d do nothing of the sort, they already had a mixture of authentic and forged medical notes to put into Jason’s history, they just needed to change the dates.

He arrived at the police station looking scruffy and alert, a civilian father thrown out of bed and running on pure adrenaline in the middle of the night. “Dad!” Jason shouted the moment he saw him, tackling him into a hug.

If it wasn’t for the fact that Bruce was not meant to be able to lift him, he absolutely would have picked him up right now. Instead, he let his breath catch, his son was here and alive and for two horrible years he thought he’d been dead. He had been dead and they had so many questions about how he’d came back and what he’d been through in the gaps and Jason couldn’t answer any of them yet. But he was here and this time Bruce Wayne’s tears weren’t quite fake.  

Jason started to babble then, sounding somewhere between worried and trying to be comforting.

“Come on, let’s get you to hospital,” Bruce said. He signed the paperwork Barbara handed him and then led Jason to the car.

Old muscle memory set in for a moment when they reached the car. Bruce climbing into the driver’s side before realising that Jason was stood outside and staring confusedly at the car door. Bruce got out. “If you pull this handle here,” he tried to demonstrate to Jason.

Jason looked confused at him.

“We’ll work on it,” Bruce said. He thought about Jason’s ADL scores again and his current communication methods and they had so much to work on and he didn’t know how much of a recovery Jason would make, once again thinking about the scans that showed a brain that shouldn’t have been compatible with consciousness. They had some words to roughly describe his brain, would probably have some more when they could comfortably get an fMRI, but at the end of the day, Jason was medically unique and that could mean full recovery, or it could mean terminal deterioration. It probably meant something in between.

“Dad,” Jason grumbled, looking slightly annoyed and concerned.

Right, now Bruce was the one hesitating at a car door. He opened it and Jason sat down. “Move your feet into the footwell, Jay,” Bruce prompted, gesturing where they needed to go. “Okay, just doing your seatbelt,” he clipped it in place.

Jason headbutted him.

“You’re welcome,” Bruce kissed his forehead. “Let’s get you home.” No matter what happened, he had a lifetime of this. Of his son being home and safe. Everything else would be okay.

Bruce glanced at Jason sporadically as he drove. He seemed to be happy, leaning against the window and smiling and humming to himself. Normally, he’d be chattering away right now, telling Bruce about what had been going on at school, what games he’d been playing, what books he’d been reading, that Blue Devil gave Kid Devil a bedtime and how that was so unfair. The wall of chatter wasn’t going to be the norm anymore, at least not for a while. Bruce enjoyed quiet, the rumble of the engine and Jason’s currently low vocal stims were just enough noise to be comfortable. But he was going to miss nodding along to conversation. “How was-” too open ended, “Did you have a good time at the Tower?”

Jason took a long moment to process the question then nodded.

“I’m glad,” Bruce said. Normally now Jason would tell him what he’d done. Now Bruce just had his best guesses, “Did you go swimming?” He knew the answer to that question, but it was a good way to test Jason’s memory and opinion.

The responding “Yeah!” told Bruce there’d be a lot more swimming in their future. Especially when Jason did some more happy stims just at the thought of it.

The drive to the penthouse wasn’t long, even when forced to drive slowly on the barely constructed streets. Bruce parked the car in the basement garage, got out and noticed how confused and betrayed Jason looked. “We’re just at the penthouse,” he promised, reaching to unbuckle his seatbelt.

Jason hit his hand away, yelling. He was hyperventilating and Bruce didn’t know why. He hadn’t been averse to the brownstone before.

“Can you tell me what’s wrong?” he tried to ask.

“Fuck!”

“Pokémon, gotta catch ‘em all,” Bruce blurted out, trying to think of something absurd enough to say that it would stop Jason’s spiral.

Jason wailed in response, before slamming his head into the back of his seat.

Bruce took his coat off and put it as a barrier in case Jason tried to do that again.

“Breathe, Robin,” he tried, “You’ve got this.”

Eventually, Jason managed to spend whatever energy he had kicking his heels into the footwell and yelling. Bruce still didn’t know what was wrong and that terrified him. What if it was pain? What if something terrible had happened at the penthouse that he didn’t know about and it was triggering some sort of trauma response now? He wanted to know what had upset Jason this much and Jason just couldn’t tell him. He reached for him and this time Jason was worryingly compliant, letting Bruce undo the seatbelt and lift him out of the seat, flopping his head against his shoulder which Bruce assumed was a “Carry me.” He rubbed his back and then stood fully with his son in his arms.

Jason fussed slightly in the elevator. Bruce kissed the side of his head, “You’re okay.”

Jason continued to fuss and Bruce wished he knew what was wrong so he could fix it.

“We’re home,” Bruce offered as some level of reassurance.

Jason growled in response and Bruce realised something.

“Do you want to go to the manor?” he asked as they stepped out the elevator and into the penthouse.

Jason looked more confused than anything.

Alfred paused in his approach as he saw Jason was crying.

“The manor, where we live normally, fell down,” Bruce tried to explain. “But we’re fixing it. It will be back to normal in a month.”

Jason looked deeply confused before he noticed Alfred. “Aa,” he called.

Alfred’s worried expression turned fond and Bruce set Jason down, watching him walk over to hug Alfred.  

“It’s wonderful to see you again, Master Jason,” Alfred said. “Now, knowing what everyone else in this household is like, I imagine you’ll be awake for a while longer. If you wish, there are refreshments in the kitchen.” He started walking that way, Jason following after him.

Bruce followed them both meaning he got to see Jason abandon Alfred to run at the cookies at full speed the moment he could see them. “I think he remembers the cookies,” he told Alfred.

Alfred’s responding smile was a little bit wobbly. Coming to terms with Jason’s reports would be a process for them all.

“Fuck!” Jason shouted, at least looking delighted as he ate a cookie.

Alfred looked slightly dismayed.

“Swearwords are generated in the basal ganglia,” Bruce informed Alfred. “He can probably access them easier.”

“I’ll hold off on the swear jar for the time being.” He still didn’t seem too impressed with the situation. That said, as much as Bruce trusted in Alfred’s competence in most situations, he wasn’t sure anyone would be able to stop Jason from swearing for a while.

Shrugging off thoughts about the amount of social skills, situational understanding, emotional regulation skills, impulse control and vocabulary options that went into not swearing, Bruce approached Jason and took a cookie. Jason giggled to himself as he took another one.  It was jarring seeing how quickly he could go from being upset to happy again. Bruce was glad for it, he just wished the opposite wasn’t true too. “Alfred’s cookies are good, right?”

Jason nodded, face covered in cookie crumbs.

Bruce had been keeping Ace in the spare room just while they got Jason settled. He wasn’t sure how the dog would react to seeing Jason again and he wasn’t sure how Jason would react to the dog either. From what he could tell, Jason wasn’t afraid of animals now, but he was aware it was a common fear and he didn’t want to risk it. However, now Jason was content eating cookies and listening to Alfred talk about petunias, he thought it was a good idea to give them a go at seeing each other. “Do you want to see Ace?” Bruce checked with Jason first.

Jason proceeded to vaguely bark before nodding enthusiastically.

Bruce smiled. “I’ll go get him.” He walked over to his bedroom door and opened the door, Ace sniffed the air and then immediately looked in Jason’s direction. “Ace, heel,” Bruce said.

Ace did as told, tail wagging excitedly as they reached the kitchen and he saw Jason.

“Heel,” Bruce reminded him again, “Jay, do you want to come say hi to Ace?”

Jason rushed over before hesitating a moment. Ace decided to disobey orders, stepping forwards to sniff at Jason before knocking him to the ground, licking at his face and prompting delighted giggles from Jason. Bruce found himself recording the whole situation, Jason rubbing behind Ace’s ears and looking absolutely ecstatic to have his dog back.  Even if they weren’t quite at the manor yet, they’d gotten Jason home.