Chapter Text
Jason received his first phone at 13, only one week after Bruce had kidnapped brought him home and one week and one day after Bruce had decided that this boy was going to be his forever.
Alfred had warned Bruce about moving too fast and scaring Jason with how rapidly his life was changing, but Bruce couldn’t stand the thought of having Jason out of reach even though he had known this boy for less than two weeks.
“It’s a Waynetech phone,” Bruce explained in a slow, gentle voice. The boy was holding the phone in two hands, staring at it like he half expected it to bite him. His face reflected, upside down and too long, in the black screen of the phone’s glass.
“I’ve already set you up an account with a phone number,” Bruce added. “I’ve also put in mine, Alfred, and Dick’s numbers.”
Jason blinked and turned his childish, round face up to Bruce. He was too thin and his face was both slightly chubby from youth and wane from starvation.
“It’s mine?” He asked, his tiny voice hollow.
“Yes.”
His eyes narrowed and he warily analysed Bruce’s body language. He was searching for something. “Do I gotta do anything weird to get it?”
Bruce’s heart twisted in his chest and he struggled to keep it trapped in his ribcage. “No, Jason. Never. All that I ask is that you call me if you ever need me.”
The boy stared at him and suddenly the world around them felt small and tense like Bruce was wearing clothes that were too sizes too tight. The weight of the boy’s gaze, the wonder and wariness of it all mixed up in one, was one of the heaviest things that Bruce had had to bear.
But he would bear it if it meant taking some of the weight off Jason’s fragile back.
Finally, the boy shrugged his shoulders.
“Whatever,” he said and Bruce couldn’t help but smile.
Jason didn’t flinch when Bruce patted his head.
The first call was a test.
It came at 3:32 am when Bruce was naked and had a Kryptonian bending over him, grunting.
It had been a hard night. A close night. One of the nights where Bruce scraped by with his life barely intact. Hours ago, he had thought maybe he wouldn’t make it through. Maybe he wouldn’t see his kids any more. Maybe they would become orphans for a second time over.
They had gotten through it by the skin of his teeth, but he couldn’t shake the slight tremble in his fingers. He was bruised and smelled like smoke. The fury of fire and the burn of too-close, too-dangerous pressed into his skin.
Fucking away the lingering fear probably wasn’t the healthiest way to deal with it, but then again, when did Bruce do what was healthy?
Kal, of course, was perfect. Flawless. Free of any of the dark shadows that followed Bruce.
Untouched in a way that just made Bruce want to touch him. To drink him. To leave his mark even though no matter how hard he clutched, he would never bruise that skin.
“Harder, Kal,” he growled, trying to force the man closer and he groaned. Clark rammed into him, cock filling every inch of Bruce but it still wasn’t hard enough.
“I said harder,” Bruce repeated and Kal barked a breathless laugh.
“I can’t go harder, Bruce. I’ll break your pelvis.”
Bruce grunted, trying to push up so that the goddamn alien would just get on with it and fuck him harder.
“I swear to god, Kal, if you don’t—“
A ring.
Two short tones and one long one.
The pattern he had put in for Jason.
The boy had never called him before. Jason had had that phone for five months and he had never called Bruce with it.
His blood ran cold.
“Get off,” he said, twisting in the sheets and kicking Kal in the stomach. It felt like kicking a wall and Kal’s face just crinkled in confusion. His body stayed locked against Bruce’s with his unmoving, rock-hard, dick still in him. Bruce struggled against it, trying to push Kal out of him and get himself off the bed.
“Wait wha—“
“I said get off, Kal-El!” He snapped, his voice a snarl.
The alien jumped like he had been struck and finally took his dick out of Bruce’s ass. Bruce’s body ached for it and his own cock was frustratingly hard but he didn’t care. He hardly heard as the alien scrambled away from Bruce, mumbling ‘sorry’s
“Did I hurt you? Did I break a—“
Bruce didn’t listen to him. He lunged for the phone, practically slamming it against his ear.
“Hello? Jason?” He questioned, trying to keep the pant out of his voice.
Jason though, too experienced beyond his years, instantly picked up on it.
“Are you fucking?” He questioned bluntly, part curious, part disgusted, and with all the force of an inquisitor.
Bruce was silent for a beat and behind him, Kal choked a laugh. Stupid alien ears.
“No,” Bruce answered, which wasn’t a lie because Clark wasn’t in him any longer.
Jason was silent and, then, suspiciously added.
“Were you fucking?”
Clark’s choked giggles became a full-blown laugh. Bruce kicked him and the other man definitely wasn’t hurt by it but it made Bruce feel marginally better.
“Are you okay, Jason?” He asked, desperate to change the subject before the 13-year-old could grill him any longer. “Are you hurt?”
Jason didn’t answer immediately and it twisted Bruce’s guts and made him wish for Jason’s expression.
Finally, Jason spoke.
“I need you to come and help me with my math homework,” he said and there was something that Bruce didn’t quite recognise.
Something delicate.
Almost hopeful.
Something that wanted him… to choose.
It was then that Bruce realised that this was one of those important moments when his sons were trying to decide whether to let Bruce be their Dad.
Dick had had his first moment in Bruce’s entryway. There had been a huge crash that had nearly made Bruce’s heart leap out of his chest. With that sound, every possibility flashed through his head. A gunshot. An explosion. A bomb snuck into the Manor past all of Bruce’s defences. Dick, laying broken on the ground with his limbs at all the wrong angles with the life flickering out of his eyes.
Bruce had run towards the sound with horrors of what could have happened sparking through his head.
It had only taken seconds for Bruce’s family to be taken from him before, he prayed he hadn’t just heard another piece of it die.
And he found Dick standing in front of a shattered chandelier with his shoulders hunched up to his ears. His body language was small and defensive, caught somewhere between being brave and being afraid.
When Bruce had skidded to a stop with Alfred close behind him, Dick’s head had snapped up and his small body flinched ever so slightly. He didn’t seem to have a scratch on him.
“Dick,” Bruce had questioned breathlessly, trying to fit the image of the tense boy in front of him with the broken-boned nightmare in his head. “What happened? Are you hurt?”
Dick stared at him like he was speaking a different language and then slowly, terribly , those little shoulders began to shake and his eyes began to fill with tears. Bruce hardly remembered lunging forward. One moment he was on one side of the room and, in the other, he was kneeling in front of his son and ignoring the bits of glass biting into his knees.
“Are you going to send me back?” Dick had whimpered, trying to wipe away the tears with the sleeve of his shirt and making the fabric go blotchy and dark. “Are you going to return me now?”
Bruce, who was still focusing on making sure there was no blood on his body, had to take a few moments to realise what his son was asking.
As if Bruce would ever let Dick go back to the Juvie cell that they had locked him in despite him never committing a crime. Like Bruce would even think about returning his sweet, precious son back into the prison that had been eating him alive.
Dick had required him to say ‘no’.
Jason was asking him to say ‘yes’.
“Of course,” he said, getting off the bed and picking up his discarded Batsuit. “I can be there in fifteen minutes. Is that fine?”
Jason made a tiny sound in the back of his throat like he was surprised. “Wait really?”
“Of course, Jason,” he said his boy’s name gingerly as he gathered his clothes and began to put on his pants. “I promised you I would come if you said you needed me.”
Jason was silent and Bruce was desperate to know what he was thinking. God, if only he could change things… if only he could go back, before Jason lost all his faith in adults before everyone had let him down and left him behind.
“Whatever,” Jason grumbled, and he hung up the phone.
He might have tried to sound dismissive, but a timer had silently started.
“Kal, I need to go back to Gotham,” he said, putting on his shirt even though he knew Clark had heard the entire conversation. The other man was sitting on the bed, watching wordlessly as Bruce gathered up his cowl. He had a faraway look in his eyes, but his gaze followed Bruce’s every movement.
Bruce could feel the weight of it as he put on more clothes.
Finally, when just his cowl was left to put on, he took a second to look back at Kal.
“Clark? You’re staring?” He questioned with a raised eyebrow and the alien jolted.
“Right yeah sorry, I was just… it was just… different to see you go into full father mode.”
Bruce tilted his head. “You’ve met Dick. I’ve been a father for years.”
“I know, but your reputation is so… dark and scary loner. The big bad Bat that doesn’t need anyone but himself. I know it isn’t true but…It still surprises me a bit when you prove it wrong.”
Then, Clark quirked a lip and Bruce didn’t want to admit it but his insides went all melty in a way only Clark could do.
“It’s nice seeing you like this… I like it.”
God, leave it to Clark to be a big softie about the fact that Bruce had kids.
Bruce rolled his eyes and strode over to peck a kiss onto Clark’s lips.
“I’m glad you like it because unfortunately, I’m stuck with the kiddos.”
Clark chuckled, pressing up for another kiss.
“As if you’re not hopelessly in love with them.”
Bruce didn’t say anything, but they both knew he agreed.
Kal put Bruce onto Jason’s balcony thirteen minutes after Jason hung up the phone. It wasn’t the fastest Bruce had ever rushed to Gotham but it still took longer than he would have liked. He would need to improve his response time in the future.
When Clark put him down, Bruce sucked in a big breath of air, suddenly nervous, and steeled his bouncy nerves before knocking on the balcony doors. Clark hovered awkwardly behind him, not quite sure whether he should stay or go.
After a pregnant pause, Jason opened up the doors with a suspicious tilt to his lip. When he saw Bruce and the man flying behind him, his eyes went impossibly wide.
“You’re fucking Superman!” He yelled into the night, mouth agape.
Both of them winced and Bruce awkwardly shifted his weight on his feet before tugging his cowl off.
“Language,” he admonished right as stupid, lovable, stupid Kal spoke without thinking.
“Well… technically he isn’t fucking Superman.”
Jason gaped even more and Bruce whipped around to hiss at Kal.
“Goodnight, Kal,” he snapped, his voice a low and dangerous growl.
Clark, at least, had the gall to look ashamed for his words. Bruce was going to have to have a very long, very in-depth talk about what kind of jokes were appropriate around 13-year-olds.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—“
“ Goodnight, Kal .”
Clark hung his head like a chastised dog and, blessedly, didn’t say anything else.
Bruce huffed and put a hand on Jason’s shoulder to bodily turn him around and away from the alien. The boy was still staring, eyes wide and disbelieving about what was happening on his balcony.
He pushed Jason inside and closed the doors with a loud crack.
Clark would have to be blind not to take the hint.
Now, if only Jason would al—
“You’re letting Superman fuck you?” Jason asked immediately, and Bruce had to practice his deep breathing exercises to not snap something smart back at the boy.
“I have been in a relationship with Clark for a little over a year,” he said instead of answering the exact question Jason was asking. The boy’s eyes only seemed to widen more
Bruce remained silent, waiting for Jason to say something, silently praying that the boy wouldn’t repeat some vile hatred that an adult had told him. But Jason remained quiet until eventually he padded to his desk and held up a math book.
“My homework.”
Shit, Bruce had nearly forgotten about that.
“Give me ten minutes to get out of the suit and take a quick shower, and then I’ll come back and we can figure it out together.”
He walked forward, pulling off his shirt as he did. He felt the boy’s eyes watching him. Jason didn’t have any of the wariness he had when he first came to the Manor, though. He didn’t scramble away from Bruce, flinched back at the thought of what might happen. As Bruce passed Jason, he couldn’t help ruffling the boy’s hair.
“I’ll be right back, lad. I promise.”
Jason nodded under his hand.
When he returned, Jason was on the bed, pencil in hand, and steadily working through math problems. It confirmed Bruce’s suspicion that the boy had called him just to see if he would come and it twisted something soft in his chest.
Jason looked so small, sitting alone in that large bed. His tiny hand fiercely gripped his pencil and his thin eyebrows were narrowed with his focus. A little pink tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth as he scribbled an answer down. Bruce couldn’t believe that anyone could look at that boy and see something to hurt and abuse.
“Jason,” Bruce said gently as he revealed himself, trying not to startle the boy.
Jason flinched a little anyways.
“How’s that math coming along?” Bruce asked as he slid through the room. He came to the bed and stood there until Jason gave him a small nod. Then, he climbed in, laying on his side and resisting the urge to put the book aside so he could curl Jason into his chest.
This was his son.
The sentence still caught him a little off guard.
Jason was his.
The thought that this child, this unique, precious child, could be his and that he actually was his was suddenly so important that it took the breath out of Bruce’s lungs.
He knew Jason would squirm if he hugged the kid now, so he settled with pressing a quick kiss into Jason’s temple.
The boy frowned at the kiss, glaring at Bruce with furiously but adorably furrowed eyebrows. “Stop being mushy,” Jason commanded and the steel in the little boy’s tone drew a smile to Bruce’s face.
“Okay,” Bruce said, leaning back. Jason kicked him in the thigh, dangerously close to a very sensitive area. He chose to follow Jason’s order, lest he readjusts his aim.
They settled, and Bruce watched his precious little boy as he puzzled through something in his math workbook.
“I’m not sure about this one,” Jason said, pointing to a question.
Bruce had to squint to see it in the dim light. It was geometry and spiky-edged triangles littered the page. Jason was pointing to one of them and the angle it created.
Gently, Bruce took the book, thought for a little bit, and then began to explain.
As he spoke, he and Jason drifted closer together. He kept edging nearer because he wanted to show Jason a point or part of the math he was writing on the page. Slowly, Jason moved so he was resting on Bruce’s chest, body going more pliant and head getting heavier on his breast.
He kept asking questions, but Bruce could begin to tell it was just to keep him talking. Jason’s voice was getting thinner and more slurred. His breath was evening out. His body was a warm, sleepy curl against Bruce’s body.
Eventually, Bruce put the book away and gave into the urge to wrap the boy up in his arms and hold him close.
Jason slumped into him, letting out a contented sigh. Bruce gently rubbed up and down the boy’s back, adjusting him into a more comfortable position.
Briefly, he thought about going to his own bed, but it was quickly dashed by a tiny whine Jason made when he shifted to put the book on the bed stand.
Bruce was sure that Jason was asleep, he was nearly asleep himself, but then a thin voice spoke.
“Do you really like Superman?” It asked, so quietly Bruce almost missed it.
When Bruce looked down, two very blue, very wide eyes blinked up at him.
“I like Clark very much,” Bruce whispered back, completely curled into Jason.
Bruce didn’t know what he expected in response, but he didn’t expect Jason’s face to scrunch up like he had tasted something bitter.
“What’s wrong, lad?” Bruce asked, brushing some hair out of the boy’s eyes. He would need a haircut soon if Jason would allow it. (Dick had begun to refuse around Jason’s age and let his hair grow into a horrifically garish mullet. Bruce had hated it but didn’t say a word about it. Dick had loved it and never stopped talking about it. Thankfully, it wasn’t a mullet anymore, but it was still longer than Bruce would have ever worn it. Only a young man as good-looking and confident as him could pull it off.)
“Superman…” Jason said, chewing at his lip a little before continuing. “He’s really strong, right?”
Bruce felt Jason’s thin fingers tracing a pattern into his shirt and worrying along its hem.
“Yes, Jason,” he said. “Clark is very strong.”
“Stronger than you?”
Bruce couldn’t help the petty little frown that rose to his face. “Unfortunately, yes.”
Dick would have laughed at that.
Instead of laughing, Jason’s body instantly became stiff with an anxious tension.
It made all the paternal instincts in Bruce scream and a sound like nails on a chalkboard scratched through his head.
Something was wrong. Bruce had to fix it. There was something that was making his baby afraid.
“What’s wrong, lad?” He asked, fighting to keep his voice calm even with the blaring wrongness that was scratching its way across all of Bruce’s bones.
Jason was quiet. Too quiet. And trembling up against Bruce’s skin.
“Jason,” Bruce tried again, his voice getting more desperate now. “Jason, please honey, talk to me.”
Jason’s little lip was trembling and Bruce had the urge to nuzzle into his son’s face and pepper him with kisses.
“He’s stronger than you,” Jason finally whispered, the words breaking apart because of almost-silent crying.
“They were stronger than me too.”
Bruce’s mind blanked.
He could feel himself trying to process and put the words into something that made sense. Every meaning that Bruce found only drew up a deep and monstrous horror in Bruce.
Jason didn’t talk about his life before Bruce, but Bruce had been able to put some things together from Jason’s flinches, the too-many scars that peppered his skin, the questions about what he would have to do to earn the necessities of life. His son flinched too easy. He looked at Bruce with eyes that were older than they should be.
The boy had softened in the nearly six months that Bruce had claimed him as his own. He no longer flinched away from his, Alfred’s or Dick’s hands. He accepted affection and turned towards Bruce’s love like a flower soaking up the sun. Jason fell asleep in Bruce’s arms, slumped and comfortable.
He trusted Bruce and, with that trust, came a desperation to leave the memories of the streets behind him.
But sometimes the past couldn’t simply be left in the past.
Jason was crying in earnest now. His tears were wetting the front of Bruce’s sleep shirt and his thin fingers were clawed into the fabric. He was clutching Bruce to him, holding onto the man like he was terrified that the men from his memories could claw him back into the past.
“Th-they held me down,” Jason whimpered, muffled and terrified. “I screamed and I cried and I b-begged…and they… They were so much stronger than me. I could never…”
His words began to descend into sobs and his breath kept catching in his throat. Bruce could see him fighting to breathe and his panic making his chest stutter and hitch. Jason was crumbling under the weight of his own memories, breaking apart and fraying.
“They were so s-strong,” he cried, suddenly burying his face into Bruce’s body.
“Shhh, honey,” Bruce hushed, cradling Jason’s head and rubbing up and down his spine. “You don’t need to tell me. I understand. You’re okay. You’re safe here. No one is going to ever do that to you again.”
Jason was suddenly shaking his head.
“No!” He yelped, head snapping up to meet Bruce’s gaze. “I know you’ll protect me. I know that.”
He said that with such sureness, like there wasn’t anything more true in the world.
“I’m worried about you,” Jason said, which made Bruce blink in confusion.
“Me?”
“Superman’s stronger than you,” Jason whimpered. “You’re the strongest person I know and he’s stronger. He will be able to hold you down just like they held me. He’s doing it already.The bruises, I saw… I saw…”
Jason didn’t finish the sentence; he didn’t need to.
The bruises. When Bruce took off his shirt, Jason must have seen them peppered across his body. Some of them were from the fight earlier, but some of them… Bruce wasn’t a gentle fucker. Clark wasn’t much of one either.
He knew there was a handprint on his hip and a thumbprint on his collarbone. Bruce had always loved them before, but now… he could see what it looked like.
“Oh baby,” Bruce said, hugging Jason close. “It isn’t like that.”
“Yes it is!” Jason yelled, miserable and shaking. “The bruises! I saw them! And if he does it again, I wouldn’t be able to fight him.”
Bruce paused, trying to figure out how he could explain this to Jason. How do you tell a child that the situation in front of them, which looked exactly like their past abuse in their mind, was wrong? That all their fears, which they had for real reasons, were unfounded in this case?
He couldn’t find the words, so he said something else.
“Clark is Kryptonian, do you remember what that means?”
Jason blinked, the surprise silencing his heart-wrenching whimpers.
He could see the boy’s mind fighting to reorient itself. “Kryptonian. From Krypton. Kal-El is an alien with superhuman strength, stamina, and resistance.” His voice was becoming stronger, more Robin. “He also had superior senses, the ability of flight, x-ray vision, and heat vision.”
“Good,” Bruce praised with a nod. “It also means he’s vulnerable to Kryptonite.”
Bruce raised a his left hand, showing Jason the ring on his middle finger. He clicked a little button in it and the ring clicked apart, revealing a glowing green needle point.
“This is a poison,” Bruce explained, taking the ring off and handing it to his son. Jason gingerly held the ring and inspected the piercing mechanism. “I developed it by combining a neurotoxin to a distillation with kryptonite particles. The kryptonite will allow the poison to do its work. Clark would be dead within ten minutes.”
His heart hurt just thinking about it. He loved Clark so much, but if he needed to… he would always do what needed to be done.
“I’m safe,” he promised Jason, taking the ring back and converting it back into its hidden state. Instead of putting it back on, he placed it on the bedside table.
“I have another in my gauntlet. I also have hidden stores of kryptonite in my batsuit,” Bruce said, meeting Jason’s eyes with a deep seriousness.
Jason opened his mouth, but before he could, Bruce spoke.
“I know it might not make sense, but I know Clark. He’s not like the men that found you on the streets. He’s a man like me, like Alfred. A man like Dick is going to be now that he’s growing up. A man like you will be.”
He pressed a kiss into the middle of Jason’s forehead.
“You don’t have to worry about me, Jason.”
The boy hummed and pressed their foreheads together. He was still clearly anxious, but no longer crying. He seemed to be exhausted mostly.
It was past 5am. The dawn was beginning to peek through the window panes. They both would sleep deep into the morning and possibly the afternoon.
Which was fine.
Bruce could hold his son forever.
A few days after that night, Bruce arranged for Clark to come to the Manor so he and Jason could have a more formal meeting.
Bruce would admit that his and Clark’s relationship was becoming more serious and that the meeting was long overdue.
Of course, Jason and Clark knew about each other, but Bruce was used to keeping his worlds separate and carefully siloed into their own individual categories. That was how his brain thought about things, though he would acknowledge that other people found it off-putting.
Hence, the meeting. The crash of two of Bruce’s worlds as they came together.
Right now, it was going…
Well, it was going.
He was watching from the side, eyes flicking between Jason and Clark.
Dick was lounging on the couch behind Jason, luxuriously sprawled like a great cat. Jason would occasionally turn to whisper something to his big brother, which Dick conspiratorially answered. Bruce couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he knew Clark could, and whatever it was it just made the alien tenser.
Bruce knew his children. He knew that they knew Clark could hear them. He knew how vicious they could be with only a few sentences. Amicable and kind-hearted Clark didn’t stand a chance.
The boys finished their conversation and Dick relaxed back, considering the scene in front of him with a half-lidded gaze that belied how closely he was watching. Dick had come home specifically for this meeting, curious to see what would happen.
Bruce also suspected that Dick was here to support his little brother, to stay protectively behind the scenes ready to tear Clark apart if needed.
Jason glared up at Clark, tiny face furious as he scowled down the man who was at least two feet taller than him.
Clark actually looked nervous because of it, feet shuffling and swallowing due to the force of Jason’s intimidation.
It reminded Bruce of a video Dick had shown him once — a hissing, spitting kitten that managed to scare away a crocodile just through the force of its little growls.
Jason was very much resembling that kitten. Clark for his part looked less like a predator, and more like a large cowed dog that had just wanted to greet the new family pet.
Dick, absolutely giddy due to this turn of events, smiled at Clark. The smile was dangerous and full of bared teeth.
It only made Clark twitchier.
He looked to Bruce for help.
Hah.
As if Bruce would willingly put himself into the clutch of his children’s claws.
Jason stepped forward and Clark stepped back, shooting Bruce more lost looks.
“You’re fucking Bruce?”
Dick choked back a startled laugh, hacking and giggling at the absolutely horrified look that had overtaken Clark’s face.
The childish and extremely petty part of Bruce equally wanted to laugh along on the couch with Dick.
“Jason,” Bruce gently chastised instead because somewhere in gaining multiple children he became the Adult™ in situations. “Language.”
Jason’s scowl deepened. “I don’t know how to put that delicately, B.”
“Your father and I are dating, yes,” Clark answered, smiling a little and trying to appear innocent.
Dick leaned forward, always one to pounce when he saw an opportunity. “That wasn’t the question, Uncle Clark.”
Get children, everyone said. They will be the light of your life, everyone said.
Clark gulped, face heating up and slowly becoming increasingly red.
“I…w-we…” Clark was flustered and Bruce hated to admit exactly how attractive it made Clark in his eyes.
Bruce did step in. Only because he was afraid the Kryptonian might spontaneously combust if he didn’t.
“Our relationship has a sexual component,” Bruce explained. His children’s gazes snapped onto him immediately. “However, it is just one of my components in the greater system of our coupling.”
Dick looked like he was holding back laughter again.
Jason’s stubbornness didn’t fade. He swivelled back to Clark.
“Are you sure you want to date Bruce? You have other options.”
This time Bruce startled and Clark held back a chuckle.
He was… offended? That wasn’t even the right word. He was pretty sure being offended didn’t have this much confusion in it.
“Hey,” he said and Jason shot him an impish smirk.
“I’m just making sure he’s sure, B.”
Clark chuckled, stepping a little closer to Bruce. “I’m very sure.”
The alien leaned in like he was going to do something stupid like kiss him in front of his children, but before he could, a small body shoved himself between them.
“I need to talk to you,” Jason growled, a hissing, spitting kitten again. He had positioned himself in front of Bruce, like he was trying to shield the man despite his much smaller size.
Clark blinked, but stepped back a little. “I… I, okay?”
Jason’s eyes narrowed. “I need to talk to you alone. ”
Clark looked to Bruce. Bruce shrugged.
“Okay, little man, we can talk alone.”
Jason wasn’t stupid like Bruce.
Bruce might have been smitten with the alien, but Jason could read danger into every single one of his movements.
Clark was huge (Jason had to lean up to look into his face. The man’s hands were big enough to crack any of Jason’s bones). He was possessive (Jason saw the way the alien looked at his dad. The way he crowded into B’s space). He had Bruce under his spell (Jason knew his dad. He knew when Bruce was using his lovey eyes and his soft voice.).
This all made Clark a problem because Jason wouldn’t allow his new dad be controlled.
(Strong men holding him down. Being unable to fight. Unable to escape. Unable to do anything to stop it as his world crashed around him. It couldn’t happen again. Jason wouldn’t let it happen. He wouldn’t let what happened on the streets happen here. He had seen the bruises. The way Bruce had avoided the subject. He had never explicitly said that Clark wasn’t abusing him and the explanations he did give had danced around the subject. Jason understood that… he hadn’t wanted to talk about what happened either.)
Bruce grew up rich. He didn’t realise exactly how vulnerable it made him.
After all, Bruce was very smart, but he was also very stupid.
(Once, Bruce had taken Jason and Dick to a Gotham Knights game. When Jason asked to go with Dick to get nachos, Bruce had given him two crisp $100 dollar bills. Then, upon seeing Jason’s confusion, he had asked whether it was enough.
He hadn’t even asked for the change back.)
In things that involved people, Bruce was especially stupid.
“What’s up, kiddo?” Superman had asked when Jason had led him into the kitchen
Jason fixed him with his best glare, trying to do the exact same scowl that Bruce did to scare criminals into pissing on themselves in alleyways. It, unfortunately, didn’t have the same effect on Clark, but the man at least looked a little intimidated.
“My name is Jason,” he snapped, standing straight. “You don’t get to call me kiddo.”
The alien held up his hands. “Okay, noted.”
He gave Jason one of those ‘please be nice to me’ smiles, but Jason didn’t sway.
“I want you to know. I’m on to you.”
The alien pretended to be confused really well. “You’re… what?”
“I know your game. I know what men like you do.” Jason took a step forward and was immediately satisfied when Clark instantly responded by stumbling back.
“I want you to know that I will kill you because of what you’re doing to my dad. Maybe not now. Maybe not tomorrow, but I can wait.”
The man blinked and then he blinked again.
“ What? ”
“Mark my words, Kal-El,” Jason said, chest heaving with the force of his words and drawing his body up so he looked as large as possible.
“You will die at my hand.”
The alien tilted his head, giving Jason another puppy-dog look that he wanted to slap off the man’s face.
“I… uh… yeah,” he stuttered, still trying to look innocent. “I will note that.”
A vicious glee lit through Jason’s body.
It was a promise.