Chapter Text
Jason felt like a fish out of water. It had only been a week since his encounter with Batman and his subsequent apprehension by child protective services, aka. criminal recruitment school, aka. hell. And only a week since, against all expectations and odds, he had been taken in by Edith Wayne.
An altogether rather odd woman with more money than Jason could rightly conceptualize.
It had all started on a Wednesday, like all life-changing things do.
He had been reading a book in his bunk—the only space that was his in this cramped place. A place that he had been planning to ditch as soon as they stopped watching him too closely.
Then, one of the social workers—one of those who didn't even like children—had come in and called for him and told him someone was interested in fostering him.
At once Jason's stomach had swooped all the way down to his feet, dread pooling heavily.
He had been counting on having time to gather some more supplies before he would leave. Never in his plans had he considered being transferred to a foster home this fast. Or at all.
He had heard enough horror stories about kids in bad foster homes, more than enough. Who in their right mind would want Jason? He wasn't a cute kid. Knocking on thirteen, in fact. No one wanted teenagers. At least not for good reasons.
Fucking fuckedey fuck, this was why he had avoided the foster care system like the devil. Because they were a devil’s device to enslave poor defenseless kids. If Jason were to ever push drugs, he'd damn well not share the profit. If Jason ever was to work in an illegal sweatshop, he'd damn well get paid with money. If Jason was to get beat on, then it would not be on the streets because he had crossed someone or other. Not locked in a house with people who profited off his existence. No thanks.
He moved along like a wind-up toy soldier while contemplating bolting right then. This was Gotham, and he had no protection but himself. But logic won out. He would run tonight. It wasn't ideal; he hadn't managed to amass any significant amount of cash and non-perishables. Grimly, he resigned himself to that fate.
The person who sat in the armchair by the desk with the matron was a woman. It was the first thing he hadn't expected. But women had the same capacity for evil and assholery as men. A conclusion that, though disheartening, was important to keep in mind.
Black-haired and blue-eyed Caucasian, she looked a lot like Jason. If Jason was twenty years older, female, and about a hundred pounds heavier.
The matron, whose actual job title Jason couldn't remember, gestured to the other armchair. She had earned the nickname on his first day in this place by having no sense of humor and looking exactly like the stereotype for orphanage matrons in the eighteen-hundreds.
"Sit, Jason." Jason didn't like her tone; he wasn't a dog. Shooting her a silent, spiteful look, he reluctantly sat on the edge of the armchair, avoiding the unknown woman's personal bubble.
When he got to take a second glance at her, their eyes met. Under her gaze, Jason felt like a bug under a microscope; it settled on his shoulders like a tangible weight. A faint smattering of gooseflesh rolled down his shoulders all the way to his legs.
"Is this him?" the matron asked the woman, whose attention hadn't lifted off Jason.
"I believe so." Her voice was calm and soft, the sort of soft-edged and reserved women in the Alley weren't. Because appearing soft was to make yourself seem vulnerable.
She turned to Jason fully and held out her hand. It took him half a moment to realize that she was actually initiating a handshake. It was weird that someone like her—well-dressed and impeccably groomed, obviously wealthy—wanted anything to do with the likes of him. To what end?
When he took her hand, it was warm and dry, swallowing his own with its size. It wasn't a wealthy woman's hand. The skin was only soft on the surface, but underneath there were noticeable calluses and solid muscle like those of someone who worked with their hands a lot.
There was little give, little actual fat on it, leading him to notice that despite her large frame, she was not fat. Not like the thick, soft-looking sweater she wore had made him assume on first glance.
Her hold wasn't firm; it didn't crush or cage his hand. His father used to tell him that a handshake always had to be firm to show that you stood on business. Jason didn't know what it meant when a handshake was deliberately not firm.
But Jason couldn't shake the hunch that she was pretending to be something she was not. Forcing himself not to look too sharp, not too mistrustful, he watched her back closely.
"It is nice to meet you, Jason. I'm Edith Wayne. An old friend of mine told me that you were in need of a home," was the first thing she said to him directly.
Jason's brain stumbled over itself to figure out who she could be talking about. None of his dad’s old buddies had given a rat's ass about Jason, and his mom's friends had no friends that were rich like this woman. The notion that she was pretending to be rich, he dismissed immediately. There were always signs. Looking uncomfortable in one's clothes, dirt under fingernails, crooked teeth. Always something of the act that gave it away. After all, it was the same principle as a homeless kid putting on his cleanest clothes to not be identified as such in the library or a store. Jason had always been able to pick out his fellow pretenders.
He couldn't remember pissing any of the big bosses off. No one with enough cash to send this lady after him. So either she was bullshitting him right now or—Batman.
Just thinking of the guy made Jason's blood boil. He knew it was he who had tipped off the services. There was no way that asshole didn't at least have an idea how crooked the "social services"—and Jason was using the word generously—were.
She continued, her words well enunciated the way Jason had been trying to teach himself to speak. "I believe he knew that my house is feeling empty these days, now that my son has moved out."
Jason's alarm bells quieted down some, leaving space for him to think. It wasn't out of the possible that some rich lady got empty nest syndrome and decided to adopt a charity case. The golden child had flown the nest, so she decided to get a replacement. It wasn't out of the possible, just very, very unlikely. She could still be horrible but seemed less likely to be the trafficking kind of horrible.
"Jason," 19th-century Matron spoke up, her hands folded on the desk before Jason had the chance to get a word in edgewise, "this is an incredible opportunity few children in your position ever get." Her tone carried a subtle warning; don't act out. Don't make me look bad.
"Miss Wayne is renowned for her humanitarian work and has experience in fostering boys your age. You're not aware, but Miss Wayne is the reason we even have enough funding to feed everyone. She is the leading force of social reform in this city." *You should jump for joy in gratitude*, was what Jason heard. Not that he would get a choice, not that he would choose to stay here if he did.
At least she had given Jason more to work with, because now he recognized why the name had sounded so familiar. Wayne. As in the Wayne Foundation that ran the free clinic in the Alley. As in the Foundation that had set up the soup kitchen at the east end of the Alley. If his strong suspicion proved correct and it was Batman behind this, what did that mean for Gotham?
"I'm here today so you can get to know me a little bit and you can ask me some questions," Wayne chimed in. "And if after, you decide you really do not want to stay with me, I'll do my best to get you another placement." Wayne smiled kindly, and Jason just couldn't figure her out. Her eyes were really light and piercing in a way that felt unreadable, and her face was even, not betraying her thoughts in the least.
What he really wanted to ask was best worked up to. After hearing Mrs. Matron stereotype sing this woman’s praises, it was clear that this placement would happen.
"How old is your son?" he decided to lead with, because she didn't look that old. He knew rich people could get all those surgeries, and she didn't look like she was older than thirty-five at the most.
"Dick just turned eighteen."
Jason stared at her — she could not be serious. Nobody was called that.
Wayne caught his incredulous expression but, infuriatingly, just smiled at it.
"It's a nickname for Richard, outdated for obvious reasons, but he prefers it. He insists it's only weird in English, not in his mother tongue. We've all gotten used to it."
Jason was still weirded out. "He's not your biological son?" He had caught it from that. That would mean there was a precedent for her adopting. Wayne's smile didn't falter.
"I took him in when he was about your age after his parents passed away. I do not have or plan to have any biological children," she stated evenly. Jason thought that might be strange. But then, all his knowledge about rich people came from period pieces and TV. Perhaps normal rich people these days didn't care about bloodlines and inheritance and such.
"Why?" he asked, seeing she was really as open as she pretended to be.
"I don't enjoy the thought of being pregnant. I'm
very active and don't want to compromise that for an infant," so it's a convenience thing. She didn't like babies and saw adoption as a way to opt out of that.
"Do you have a boyfriend?" He checked the next and biggest risk box off his list.
Wayne shook her head. "I'm happily single. Now that Dick has moved out, it's just me and our butler, Alfred, in the home." A butler? Named Alfred of all things. This woman couldn't be serious.
"Alfred has been with the family since I was a small child," an old butler then. Of course, of course. That would make him what? At least mid-fifties. Jason wondered if he should start watching for the camera.
"Let me guess, he's British?" Jason couldn't stop himself from snarking. Then he suppressed his grimace at the slip.
Wayne's eye gained an amused twinkle. "He is."
"How old are you?"
Jason blurted, then cringed. Right, that was perhaps the worst way to distract from his slip of cheek. But that butler must've been with the family for, what, thirty years? Wayne thankfully didn't look offended.
"I will be turning thirty soon."
Okay, right, yes, if her son was adopted, then she didn't have to be over thirty. Now he had more information to work with, he figured it was just her clothes and how big she was that made her seem older at first. It also made him notice that she wasn't just not fat but fit. Very, very fit. Under her big, soft-looking sweater the difference hadn't been visible. She wore one of those mid-clav length skirts like those important rich women on TV, that showed enough to see how muscular her legs were. So she really liked sports.
Jason's eye flicked to the third person in the room, conveniently preventing him from asking the question burning on his mind straight out. "This old friend of yours," he started carefully and caught when her expression sharpened the tiniest amount, "Why'd he mention me to you?"
Wayne shifted in a way that didn't seem deliberate, but Jason couldn't help but suspect to be deliberate. "He says you helped him out when he almost got his tires stolen one time. He wants to make sure a good kid like you has a stable home." Jason almost blanched. Okay, crap, yeah, that was definitely Batman.
-
He spent a night thinking over "his decision" before he and his meager bag of belongings, consisting of two spare sets of clothes and a toothbrush, were standing on the steps of the orphanage. The matron stood at his side with a folder of his documents. Miss Wayne—“Call me Edith”—was waiting at the bottom of the steps; a few feet away waited a gleaming black car that must be hers. It stood out from the others—too new, too clean. And okay, yes, that was a Mercedes. Jason didn't look back at the orphanage when Miss Wayne held open the front seat for him.
He hadn't run. A decision he still doubted the sanity of. He'd lain awake almost the entire night thinking that he should run. And then he just hadn’t.
Because as much as he thought he had been ready to run, he didn't actually want to go back to sleeping in back alleys and hustling enough money to feed himself. At the very least he should give this a try, right? As much as he despised the “you should be grateful” attitude of the people working at the orphanage, this really was a chance.
If this turned out to suck, he could always steal a few objects of value—of which this lady had to have a lot—and book it. Right.
The inside of the car was just as freakishly clean as the outside, making Jason just feel even more ratty. It smelled clean, vaguely fresh, but had no other visible personal touches. Wayne stepped into the driver’s side and stuck the key into the ignition without fanfare.
Jason didn't feel like talking, tired as he was, so he was thankful when Wayne didn't initiate a conversation and turned up the radio instead. Absently, Jason watched as buildings passed by, crossing multiple neighborhoods. The drive was incredibly smooth. He didn't know if it was because of the car or because Wayne was a good driver. His mom hadn't owned a car, so his experience was limited.
The houses grew fancier and further apart the further they drove into the Bristol area. Bristol had wider and cleaner streets than the rest of Gotham. No homeless sitting on street corners, no trash bags piling, no boarded-up windows. It was freaky.
Eventually, one-family houses turned into spaced-out mansions, turned into far-off manor houses separated by larger swaths of land. And then the car slowed down before one of the driveways. An iron rod gate with ornate designs and wicked-looking peaks, part of a moderately weathered stone wall, swung open for the car, and Jason could only think of how difficult it would be to escape from here. Perhaps he had miscalculated.
The house resembled more of a castle in Jason’s opinion: it loomed above the courtyard like a cathedral, a monstrosity of brick and limestone with stone gargoyles looking down. The stone was not as dark as most of the similar-style buildings in the inner city that were black and slippery from the rain and pollution.
"Wayne Manor was first constructed in 1762 and has since been added to, changed, renovated, and repaired over the centuries." Wayne supplied it without prompting.
Jason was awed enough by its grandness without knowing it was older than the Declaration of Independence. The car rolled to a stop by the stairs leading to the front doors, more resembling a grand entrance on the cobblestone courtyard with a fountain in the middle. Jason felt like he’d stepped into a movie. Made a wrong turn and entered the wrong set.
The air was clean. It was the first thing that really hit him. The air didn't stink of piss or garbage or tobacco. He could still smell the factories far off, but also wet earth, like the aftermath of an Ivy attack.
Before Wayne could even touch the ornate front door, one of its wings swung open. A lean old man in a three-piece suit stepped aside to let them enter.
"Welcome back," he greeted in a perfect, crisp British accent. Of course. Of course. If he had really lived in America for almost thirty years, he must be doing it on purpose. Now Jason was almost sure he’d entered some sort of movie. Should he look for the hidden camera?
"And you must be young Mr. Todd." The butler turned his attention to Jason. His voice sounded neutral, and he didn’t appear to be wrinkling his nose at Jason’s shabby appearance, at least. Jason was still supremely uncomfortable.
"I am butler and steward of the Wayne estate, at your service." The man even bowed his head a little. Jason unconsciously sought out Wayne for guidance. How was he supposed to talk to the butler?
Wayne smiled at him encouragingly; it’s not a big expression, but it gave Jason the strength to take it in stride.
"Nice to meet you," he returned uncertainly. Alfred showed no signs either way if it was the right or wrong thing to say.
"Why don't you show young Mr. Todd around while I put the finishing touches on dinner?" Alfred suggested it to Wayne, then ghosted off before he could get an answer either way. When he looked back at Wayne for a reaction, she had an expression on her face that looked more fondly amused than anything.
"Don't be intimidated by him too much. He acts all cool and professional, but he's actually very nice and can even be affectionate at times. Don't tell him I told you that, though. You'll figure out how he operates."
Jason didn’t know if he should be reassured by that.
"Come on, I'm going to give you a brief tour so you won't get lost too horribly. It will happen, trust me." Considering the size and sheer opulence of the place, Jason didn’t doubt that. Alone in the marble-floored (he’s pretty sure that's actual marble) hall, he spotted easily snatchable items that could feed him for months.