It took hours for the weedy little batkids to come back, but Jason knew when it was happening because Dick hustled him up the stairs to avoid them. He enjoyed moaning and groaning about being sent to bed, privately gleeful at being a pain in the ass. They might realize he had deliberately caused a kerfuffle by interrupting patrol, but they had no concept that he knew damn well they had been busy trying to track down a crime lord who made appearances early in the evening.
The familiar hallways stretched out in front of them. Bruce’s door loomed at the end. Jason started to slow down, looking for Dick to stop– oh, fuck no. Not his old room.
“I am not going in there,” Jason said flatly. He dug in his heels and very much enjoyed the oof as Dick walked into him and bounced off his shoulder. Fucker was still off his game, it was hilarious.
“Wha- okay, okay,” Dick brushed himself off and clearly tried to recalibrate. “Wanna stay in my room with me? Like a sleepover!” He all but glittered when he grinned at Jason, eyes sparkling and perfect skin flushed with happiness. He felt even grungier in comparison and resented it enormously.
“Like hell,” Jason complained, because nothing in this life could be easy or painless. “Call Wally back, he was less annoying.”
And hot. Wally was kinda hot. He was one of Dick’s better friends. Jason had always liked him.
“He has stuff to do, you can’t just hang off of whatever redhead friend of mine you think is cute,” Dick said, because he was a terrible goddamn elephant and therefore never forgot a thing. Jason made the special effort to twist around and stomp on Dick’s instep.
He missed, as Dick slipped away. God, that fucker was fast.
“I died,” Jason whined, because that was his best card, “and you’re still a massive jerk to me. I wish I hadn’t come back. Someone else nice might have adopted me.”
Dick looked stricken. “Jason, no.” He reached out to put a hand on Jason’s arm. Jason let it happen and tried not to look too tense about it, even though it rankled to have a hand on his body. “I’m sorry, I won’t tease. It was just that you never cared for Donna, but you followed around Roy and Kory–”
“I did not.” Jason withdrew and fumed. It was a completely random coincidence that he had reunited with those two people only, after his training world tour. “Go away. I’ll sleep here.” He pointed to a random door. “Goodnight, assface.”
Assface twitched. “Not that room,” he said evasively, “that room’s not good. How about this one?”
‘Must be Drake’s room. And he isn’t telling me?’
“What’d you do to this room?” Jason let his nose wrinkle. “How’d you get it so nasty that you won’t even let me look in it?” He tried to open it, just to see how far Dick would go to hide that Bruce had gone and adopted a new model of Dick replacements.
It was locked. “Nothing,” Dick whined, and tugged on Jason’s arm. He took a deeply personal satisfaction in not moving an inch. It was very different to how Dick had been able to tug him around before, when Dick was a stacked 20-something bro-type and Jason had been tiny. “Do you still like bedtime snacks? Let’s go get a snack and then put you to bed.”
A few minutes later the faint sound shuffling of house shoes heralded the arrival of the only person in the world who could bark, “I say! It is the midnight hour, not the rugby championship!” and inspire automatic shame in all who heard it rather than laughter.
“Sorry,” they chorused. Dick let go of Jason’s hair. Jason stopped trying to shove his fingers up Dick’s nose and got up off the floor guiltily.
The moment that Alfred recognized him wasn’t hard to spot.
Alfred dropped his hands to his sides and his mouth open. He stopped breathing.
“Uh, I have good news.” Dick subtly unpicked his brand new wedgie and then made jazz hands at Jason. “He came back!”
“From the dead,” Jason completed. He gave Alfred a nervous smile. “Can I have a snack?”
Bruce stopped walking away from the zeta tube, arm halfway out of his batcoat. “Repeat that?” His expression was tight. So was his body language, wound up to a point that looked nearly painful.
“Uh, Jason’s alive,” Tim repeated, hiding a yawn behind the loose sleeve of his pajamas. “Came in like four hours ago, said he’d gotten brain damage in the coffin and spent a long time wandering the streets of Gotham. Barbara found a record of him as a John Doe in hospital in July of twenty fifteen…” He trailed off and squinted at Bruce’s back, as the older man power walked to the stairs and started taking them three at a time. His coat was still flapping behind him, caught on his left forearm. He looked extremely stupid.
Tim considered this. “…Whatever.” He reached out and smacked the key to shut down the Batcomputer. The post-patrol wrap up had been a lot longer than usual, given the absolute clusterfuck that Jason had set off. Damian had been sulking even worse than usual, the grim little bastard, and was basically no help at all. If he frowned any harder he was probably going to pop a vein, but that wasn’t Tim’s business. At least the kid was moping in silence.
His eyes hurt from being open too long. Hell. Tim rubbed his face in misery. Why couldn’t Jason have come home at a more sociable hour?
‘I’m pretty sure he did it on purpose. He could have called the house in the morning if he didn’t want to fuck with patrol.’
But, like, fair enough. Jason was allowed to be a little bit of an asshole, considering the circumstances. Tim hit the lights and the stairs, trudging up unenthusiastically. He and the little shit had spent hours circling Red Hood sightings and come up with nothing. There had been exactly one encounter, during which Tim had taken a boot to the center of his back and experienced ragdoll physics falling down a metal chute. He was pretty sure that was the fucking Red Hood. What an asshole.
He stretched carefully at the reminder, as if he could maybe iron out that growing bruise by pulling the skin taut. His shoulder let out an unexpected and unpleasant pop. Tim grimaced. That would probably work itself out. He rotated it slowly and it sort of made a grinding sound. Huh. He decided not to move it anymore.
What a night. But hey, Jason was back! That was worth celebrating. Adding one more competent bat operative would free up time and labor, wouldn’t it? Maybe they could bond by taking down this Red Hood together. Tim crawled to bed, idly running plans and fantasies about connecting with his predecessor via crime fighting.
