Chapter Text
Jason leans against the elevator wall. He’s alone in the metal box with a mirrored ceiling and mirrored walls. He winces at the reflection of a wrinkled red t-shirt, his work blue jeans, that are more wrinkled than his shirt and are smeared with oil and black soot from the autobody shop. He looks like a mess.
He doesn’t do himself any favors when he runs his fingers through his hair. His untamed loose curls stick up in all directions, and the white streak in his bangs falls back down, skimming his eyebrows. He really needs a haircut.
Most of Jason’s life is directed by impulsive decisions. Today’s impulsive decision has placed him in an empty elevator, in Wayne Tower, headed to Bruce’s high-rise office. Jason’s not dressed for a meeting with a CEO, and he certainly doesn’t have an appointment, which makes him take a deep sigh. If he had given this plan more thought, he would have worn his Red Hood suit. No one denies an appointment to a Crime Lord with two guns strapped to his thighs, and a tire iron strapped to his back.
He looks at the red numbers as the elevator ascends. Red blinking numbers and confined spaces are two of Jason’s major triggers, but he lets himself be soothed by the instrumental version of Celine Dion’s The Power of Love piping through the elevator speakers.
After the chorus – that Jason absolutely wasn’t humming along to – the door dings open, and Jason’s scuffed white sneakers step out of the elevator.
He nearly walks right into a man with a suit and a clipboard. The man is a head shorter than Jason, but as the Wayne employee raises an eyebrow, Jason definitely feels like he’s being looked down at.
Jason hunches his shoulders and clears his throat.
“I, uh, I need to speak to Bruce Wayne.”
Expensive Suit Guy raises his eyebrow higher, “I see. And you are?”
“I’m family,” Jason says, wincing as his voice cracks on the word family.
Expensive Suit Guy shakes his head. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave before I call security. I’m not even sure how you have access to this floor in the first place.”
Jason had snatched Tim’s Wayne Tower all-access keycard from his wallet at breakfast. Jason literally pickpocketed the kid at the breakfast table and got away with it. Growing up in Crime Alley, Jason learned to pickpocket around the same age he learned how to walk. Liberating Tim’s wallet was far too easy. After he had the keycard, he was too anxious to wait until after work to head to Wayne Tower, so a block away from the autobody shop, he called in sick, and raced over to the tallest, most expensive building in Gotham.
“Hello?” Expensive Suit Guy says, snapping his finger in front of Jason’s face. Jason jumps back startled, and the man mutters, “This kid better not be on something.”
Did this jackass just call me a kid? I’m the head of a fucking Crime Alley empire, and he has the nerve to call me a kid?
Jason tries to stay calm. He flexes and unflexes his fingers a few times.
“I just need to talk to Bruce for a minute. He knows who I am. Just tell him that Jason Peters is here to see him.”
“Bruce Wayne is an extremely busy man,” Suit guy says, tapping his earpiece, probably about to alert security. “You need to turn around, walk right back into that elevator, and go back into whatever hole you crawled out of, or I’m going to call security. Do you understand?”
“Do whatever the fuck you need to,” Jason grumbles, shouldering past the guy and stomping toward Bruce’s office.
“Wait! I said you are unauthorized to pass this point. Turn around immediately.”
The guy has the nerve to grab Jason’s arm, but Jason easily shrugs him off and continues his path to Bruce’s office.
Jason reaches his destination, and the door is thankfully open. He puts a hand against the doorway, and even though Bruce is on the phone, his eyes dart up to meet his.
Bruce clears his throat and says into the phone, “Lucius, I’ll call you back. There’s something that just came up that needs my immediate attention.”
Jason tries not to read into Bruce calling him ‘something important.’
Expensive Suit Guy sounds frazzled. “Mr. Wayne, sir, I told this gentleman that he needed to leave, but he insisted that he needed to speak with you. I’m sure that you have no business with someone like this. I can alert security to escort him out of the building right now.”
“That will not be necessary, Chip,” Bruce says, his mouth downturned into a slight frown. “This gentleman and I indeed know each other.”
Chip nods, “I will add Jason Peters to the approved list.” He turns to Jason and says, “My apologies,” before walking briskly away.
Bruce motions with his hand for Jason to come into the office. Jason closes the door behind him and sits on an extremely comfy chair across from Bruce’s desk.
Jason expects Bruce to yell at him for barging into his job unannounced. He expects Bruce to insist that he call ahead in the future. He does not expect Bruce’s jaw to tense and ask, “What’s wrong? What happened? Are you alright?”
Jason ignores the questions and rolls Tim’s stolen keycard across his knuckles. He pushes back a memory of Bruce showing him a magic card trick when he was trembling in Dr. Leslie’s office, after a guy broke his nose at school.
Jason continues to flip the keycard.
“I stole this from Tim’s pocket while the kid was literally talking to me. You gotta train your new Robins better.”
“Understood,” Bruce says, his voice tight.
Bruce is still acting weird, but Jason’s anger outweighs his curiosity.
“You know what, B? I’m not alright,” Jason scowls, looking down at his fists in his lap. “I want to be part of this fucking family, but I’m afraid that you’re gonna pull the rug out from under me any second. If I can move past your self-righteous inability to kill Joker, can you look past my mob boss body count so we can move on to being, like, good again?”
“Yes, Jason. That – I can agree to that.”
Another short answer. Something about the way Bruce’s voice pitches up on the last word makes Jason look up. Bruce’s eyebrows are pinched slightly together, and his thumb is tapping the edge of his desk. There’s a slight pink flush of color over the bridge of his nose. These are things only someone Bat trained would notice.
“B, are you alright?”
Bruce swallows before he starts talking almost robotically. “I want you to be a part of my life as well, Jay. I can have Margret from Human Resources coordinate with IT to issue you a keycard, and –”
“What’s wrong with you? Something’s off, B.”
Bruce tries to take a deep breath, but it’s a shallow breath, followed by another. He shakes his head. “I’m alright. You need to speak with me. I’m here to talk.”
Bruce’s hands are trembling, but he shoves them behind the desk when he sees that Jason is looking.
Jason has pushed through enough panic attacks to know what one looks like, even with the valiant attempts that Bruce is using to hide it.
Bruce gives Jason a tight smile. “I’ll send an email to Margret right now.” It’s almost imperceptible, but Jason can see Bruce’s fingers shaking as he types.
“Bruce,” Jason sighs, “I’m not gonna sit here and pretend you aren’t having a fucking panic attack. You want like, some water, or a hug or something?”
“I’m fine, Jay. I can handle it.”
His face is neutral, the same way Tim’s was when Alfred was bleeding and Jason told him to go Red Robin mode. The only sign that Bruce isn’t fine is the stutter in his chest, proof that he’s struggling to breathe.
Jason puts his feet on Bruce’s desk and goes for the humor angle.
“You shouldn’t suppress feelings, old man. It’s like holding in a sneeze in a quiet room. It always comes out the other end as the loudest fart in the world.”
Bruce’s eyebrows knit together, and his voice is shaking, “I think I need a minute alone.”
Jason kicks his feet off the desk.
“I can leave if you want me to, but I don’t have to go. I can help you through it if you trust me.”
Jason isn’t sure why he just said that, and Bruce looks equally shocked. Shock turns into painful gasps and Jason jumps up from his chair. Bruce is struggling to breathe, but more importantly, Dad is struggling to breathe.
Jason rounds the corner of the desk, and he kneels so that he’s eye level with Bruce. He swivels Bruce’s rolling chair so that they’re facing each other.
“Dad, breathe!” Jason orders, but Bruce shakes his head and holds a fist over his chest. He wheezes, “Can’t… Jay…”
“Yes you can. Look at me. Do it with me. In and out. Simple as that. Let’s go.”
Jason takes a deep breath in, and Bruce tries to mimic the motion. He can’t match the slow pace that Jason’s breathing, so Jason speeds up his breaths so that Bruce can gradually come down from hyperventilating speed. Jason ignores the flip his stomach does when he sees Bruce’s eyes fill with tears.
Bruce is still breathing too quickly for Jason’s liking, but now that Bruce has some air in his lungs, he tries to speak between the hitches in his breath.
“Jay… my chest… can’t… I feel like… like I’m dying…”
“I’m here, Dad. I got you. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Bruce shakes his head. His words run together, not bothering to breathe in between.
“I wasn’t there for you when Joker took you from me I wasn’t there when Alfred was bleeding on the ground in Crime Alley I wasn’t there when Tim was – Jay I wasn’t there! I’m never there when the people I love need me! Jay, I can’t breathe I can’t breathe!”
“Fuck, Dad, it’s okay. Everything’s okay. We’re all safe. We don’t need saving right now.”
Jason feels the panic swelling inside him. He doesn’t know what to do. The breathing techniques aren’t working, and pain is practically radiating from his dad. Jason feels like little Robin again. He wants Batman to wrap his cape around him and tell him everything is going to be okay.
The wind is knocked out of him when Bruce tumbles out of the chair and pulls Jason into a hug. Bruce is holding on so tightly that Jason’s ribs start to protest. Jason hugs him back, ignoring the pain, forcing himself to breathe slowly, hoping that Bruce eventually matches the pace. Jason’s gripping his dad in a tight hug so he can literally feel the man’s heartbeat and his breathing echoing against his own chest.
Jason is enough to ground Bruce, and when Jason’s dad is finally breathing at a steady pace, Jason hums in relief.
He doesn’t want to push Bruce away, but forces himself to, keeping his hands on the man’s shoulders.
“You, okay, Dad?”
“Not really,” Bruce says wincing.
Jason laughs at the rare honesty and then squeezes Bruce’s shoulders.
“You scared me, B. I thought you were gonna die. You’re not allowed to die. I didn’t know what the fuck to do at one point. I was seconds away from calling Superman.”
Bruce’s mouth twitches into a smile. “I didn’t need Superman. You got me through that all on your own. Thank you for being my Superboy, Jay.”
“That’s the corniest shit you’ve ever said.”
Bruce rewards Jason with a real laugh.
Jason guides Bruce back to his chair, so that he isn’t sitting on the floor. Once Bruce is settled in the chair, and Jason is sitting on the edge of the desk, Bruce reaches out and runs his hand through Jason’s white bangs.
Jason’s voice is barely above a whisper. “You scared me, B. I didn’t know – I didn’t know if I was gonna be able to get you to breathe again. To be honest, I’m surprised I could.”
“I’m not surprised. You can do anything you put your mind to. You’ve always had that ability, from the moment I first met you.”
Jason’s vision blurs, but he refuses to wipe his eyes. Instead, he blinks a few times before saying, “I can breathe now, Dad.”
“Me too, son,” Bruce says with the warmest smile that Jason has ever seen. “Me too.”
__
Jason pinches the bridge of his nose and groans. He made burgers for his boyfriend, Kori, and the three teenagers that keep hanging out in his apartment. Today is the last day in the old apartment before moving to the bigger one upstairs. This is technically their last meal at the place, since it’s dinner.
Jason looks at Tim, sitting at the kitchen island, and is still pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Timothy Jackson Drake, what the hell are you doing?”
“Eating?” Tim mumbles, his mouth full of burger.
“I know you’re eating. I want to know why you’re not using a plate.”
Tim places the burger on the island’s surface, and squirts ketchup on his fries, which are piled on the island countertop as well, as he explains.
“You chop food on here, and when we made cookies the other night, you just made them on here.” He knocks the wooden island surface for emphasis, as he squirts more ketchup directly on the table. “I don’t think a plate is necessary. It’s like an extra added step that I don’t need.”
Jason slowly counts from ten to one, and Tim, the little heathen that he is, ducks his head down and picks up a fry from the pile on the table with his mouth, just like a seagull in a fast-food parking lot, carrying a fry in their beak.
Roy offers an unhelpful, “Oh shit.”
Jason opens his mouth, but Tim cuts him off.
“It’s not like I poured soda on the table and I’m slurping it off.”
“Yesterday,” Cass says with a smile.
Tim eats another fry like a seagull and Steph slides her burger off her plate and onto the table. Kori scoops a spoonful of her applesauce off her plate and onto the tabletop. Roy tilts his can of soda, teasing the idea of pouring it onto the surface that no one should be eating or drinking off of!
Jason takes a long sigh and narrows his eyes.
“None of you are invited to the new place. I’ll make the extra two bedrooms into an office and a gym. And Baby bird, you can live off the streets for all I fucking care. You’re the one that started this.”
“But don’t you rescue street kids?” Tim asks, chewing on a fry. “If you kick me out and then rescue me again, that’s really counterproductive.
“You will be the exception,” Jason growls. “I’ll take pleasure in seeing you starve.”
Tim licks some of the ketchup off the table with his tongue, keeping direct eye contact with Jason.
“You little shit,” Jason laughs, running over to Tim and grabbing him before the gremlin can get away.
Tim squeals as Jason hauls him onto his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Tim struggles as Jason marches to the door, threatening to kick him out. When he reaches the doorway, he offers Tim a deal.
“If you eat off a plate like every other civilized fucking person on the planet, I’ll reconsider, and let you live with me in the new apartment.”
“Okay,” Tim groans.
“What was that? Say it again, and this time like you mean it,” Jason says, kicking the door open with his foot.
“Ugh, I think I’m gonna be sick,” Tim says, as he continues to hang upside down over Jason’s shoulder.
“So fucking high maintenance,” Jason grumbles as he puts Tim’s feet back on the ground.
Tim belches against his fist, but he smiles, so Jason thinks he might be in the clear.
Kori hums, “Family, there has been a great disturbance on the planet Zar. The Justice League will be responding to the emergency soon.”
“Hey Princess,” Jason says with a smirk. “Is there any chance that we can get there before the League does and kick some alien ass before Supes and Dad get there?”
“My spacecraft is faster than the Justice League’s,” Kori answers with a wide grin. “They will most definitely be upset when we arrive first. J’onn will call us irritating space pirates again.”
Tim’s eyes go wide. “Can me, Cass, and Steph come too? Please, Jay? We want to go to space.”
Steph and Cass have also surrounded Jason and are begging.
Jason can vividly see Batman’s face scowling in disapproval. He can almost hear the lecture about not asking him for permission to take three members of his Bat team off planet.
Jason nods, “Hell yeah. Everyone, grab your suits. We’ll get changed on the ship. And if anyone sees Green Arrow arrive, I call dibs. I’m gonna nail him on the ass with a bat-a-rang. Motherfucker won’t be able to sit for days.”
Everyone runs to gather their suits and equipment. As Jason grabs his Red Hood suit from the duffel bag in his closet, Tim gives him a hug. His eyes are shining. “I’m so excited, Jay. This is the coolest thing ever. Am I a member of the Outlaws?”
“Yup, you and the girls are official members of the Outlaw junior team. Cass can easily kick my ass, so the junior name is just based on age, not skills.”
“Yay! I’m going to upgrade my Robin suit to have a red hood attached to the back instead of a cape, and maybe a leather jacket like yours, but sleeveless. Although, a sleeveless jacket is just a vest, right? Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Alfie can help me upgrade the suit, so I look like a total badass.”
Roy shoves a compound bow and some bolts in a backpack from the other side of Jason’s bedroom. Roy calls over his shoulder. “You’re already a badass, Tim. You ready to fight some aliens and make the Justice League flip their shit?”
Tim nods and runs out of the room to join Cass and Steph.
Kori appears in the bedroom doorway, and she floats into the room. She puts her arm around Jason’s shoulder and drags him across the room, so that she can put her arms around Roy’s shoulder too.
“Brothers,” she says (it’s been discussed that Jason is her brother and Roy is her brother-in-law so that there’s no incest in her Outlaw family). “We will fight with honor, respect, and most importantly, we will show the League why they suck, and we are so much cooler.”
Jason laughs and draws his favorite redheads into a three-way hug. “Took the words right out of my head, Princess.”
“Of course I did. I have psychic powers,” Kori says with a dazzling smile.
Jason rounds up the main team and the junior team and lifts his equipment duffel bag onto his shoulder.
Batman is going to be so pissed off.
Jason can’t stop smiling.