Work Text:
Do Not Yield
Bruce didn’t really think that Jason had killed Garzonas. But he knew, he just knew in his gut, that Jason had wanted to.
And if Garzonas fell, Jason might not have done all in his power to save him – or anything in his power.
Alfred couldn’t get through to the boy. Bruce had never been one for…emotional situations. He still had never actually talked about his parents’ murder, in any depth.
Bruce didn’t know what to do, so he did what he always did when sticky situations came up – he asked Alfred for advice.
Jason was a city kid, born and bred, through and through. He hated the idea of going to Kansas, to stay on a farm. But the Kents…there had been so many times that Bruce had been coerced into dinner with them – by Clark, of course – and…it had felt like home.
Trust the Boy Scout to be willing to share even his parents.
He only planned to leave Jason out there until he could figure out what to really do with him. Bruce had to get Jason’s head on straight. It didn’t help that Jason reminded him so much of himself at that age; angry at the world, and wanting to lash out. However, he’d had Alfred, and his own personal code of not killing, even then, and Jason…Jason had had no stable influence in his life until Batman had found him, and Bruce could admit (if only to himself) that he wasn’t very stable.
Jason was a good boy. He could be a great Robin, just as great as Dick – though obviously not as good an acrobat – but without putting intense study into the casefiles, he probably would not be a great detective. But above and beyond that, he was Bruce’s son, and Bruce had to try and help him.
The longer Jason stayed on the Kent farm, the more…settled he became. He still didn’t like it, however, and Bruce relented enough to grant him weekends away from ‘exile.’ Jason was less angry, but the anger was still there, simmering below the surface, rage ready to boil up and over. He needed therapy, most likely, but Bruce didn’t want to send him to a regular psychiatrist, where he couldn’t talk about being Robin, and being Batman’s partner.
J’onn was the one to approach him, but Bruce was never more thankful. Especially when, on one of his weekends in Gotham, Jason swung by his old neighborhood, found a friend of his parent’s who had a box of their things, and discovered his birth certificate.
And his first adoption certificate. Things got complicated, and Jason got even angrier. Bruce had to replace some of the Kents’ furniture, but of course, Jason never hurt the Kents. He even apologized, after the fact, for breaking the table.
The Kents understood about superpowered teenagers actually breaking things, and were much more forgiving than any two people past middle age had a right to be.
Bruce put everything he had into tracking down Jason’s ‘real’ mother. Then he had to put everything he had into not breaking a table himself when he found out that the Joker had somehow blackmailed her into working for him.
And when Sheila Haywood died in a bombing that also took out the Joker, he put everything he had into trying to console Jason. Jason took more solace from the fact that the Joker was dead – he’d become very attached to Barbara, if not as much as Dick had – than any platitudes Bruce could give him.
The anger seemed to die down to members, so Bruce took him back to Gotham. He tried to teach him more about detective work than fighting, more about justice than retribution.
Jason was the one who held him together when Superman died, and he insisted on going to visit the Kents at least once a month. When the young clone, Superboy, showed up, Jason was the one who convinced the Kents to meet him.
Once he had a friend in Smallville, one who disliked it as much as he had, Jason got to like the farm a lot more.
The anger was outweighed by friendship now. And if Bruce didn’t entirely approve of Conner Lane Kent, or Superboy, well, then he’d just have to put everything he had into making sure that Luthor hadn’t done something to the boy, to Clark’s…successor.
Clark’s son.
Bruce breathed a (momentary) sigh of relief, and made an uncharacteristic prayer for the future.