Fic: A Better Choice part1
A Better Choice Part 1 (Through A Glass Lightly series)
Fandom: Batman
Continuity: Post-Crisis AU, Umbra Verse
Characters: Jason, Bruce, Alfred, Dick
Rating: PG-13?
Warnings: Foul Language
Word Count: 3,123
Summary: What should have happened in Batman 426 (when Bruce was an ass and Jason found out that Catherine wasn’t his biological mom.)
Author’s Notes: This is the result of a brainstorming session for a different fic with vespertila . Thank you dragonbat2006 for betaing!
They’re fucked. They’re both completely off their rockers! Yes, Jason has been going over things in his mind, uncomfortable things about his parents, about how they aren’t alive any more. Sometimes they show up in his nightmares. But he’s fucking dealing with it. It’s not like there’s anything unusual about his grieving. It’s certainly not like he’s a danger out on the street!
Who the hell does Bruce think he is?
It hurts. Bruce doesn’t trust him. That much has been obvious since the shit with Felipe Garzonas went down. The man hasn’t said anything, it’s more what his silence means. He’s never believed Jason’s say-so about how the guy fell because he got spooked by at Robin’s sudden appearance. It’s the fucking truth! Jason had defiantly intended on beating him into...well, into something, for starters. Maybe get creative and make him feel the same kind of terror that caused poor Gloria take her own life. But killing him hadn’t been the plan. You can’t make a dead man suffer.
He hasn’t mentioned any of that. No point. Even he can recognize how petty and vindictive it is. Jason isn’t sorry the guy is dead, but it hadn’t been his intention or his doing. Even so, that’s not why he’s currently benched. Oh no, that one is all because Jason did his fucking job! Bruce hadn’t said shit about waiting for Gordon at the warehouse until Jason was already flying. If he had, Jason would have. He likes the old guy, given that the man has always been decent to him.
It’s not like there hadn’t been time to impart that particular bit of information; he’d been in the car with the man for the 12-minute ride to the warehouse! Yet, it’s apparently all Jason’s fault that the World’s Greatest Detective has the communication skills of a slug. Well, fuck him and his stupid-assed assumptions about grieving. That’s just so retarded. His mom was four years ago now. And his dad hadn’t been around for years before that. Mostly he’s just pissed that Bruce kept the Two-Face information from him. He’s not fucking grieving.
As the teen rails on in his mind, his feet keep moving. At the moment, he doesn’t want to be anywhere near that sanctimonious asshole, who is probably hiding in the cave by now; and no way in hell is he going to stick around upstairs. Moving helps him think and it’s a nice enough afternoon, so outside is just fine. He doesn’t mean to hitchhike, but when a cute blonde pulls over and motions him in, he really isn’t going to turn that down.
His pretty new friend, whose name he can’t recall two minutes later, lets him off at Fifth and Morry, after warning him that it’s a pretty tough neighbourhood. He just smiles and leaves. There’s nothing this city has which worries him at night, let alone in daylight. Once on his way, he keeps moving and barely notices when his feet carry him toward his old building at the south end of Crime Alley.
At that moment, he isn’t really thinking. No. He is, but he’s not paying attention to the thoughts beyond acknowledging the rolling anger that seems to consume all else. And he nurses it. Anger can be a source of power-his mother once told him-of strength. Showing weakness in this town is never a good idea, not when the shadows hide predators. Of course, he knows what else the shadows hide, but not here and not now; maybe not ever again for him.
God damn it! He’d done his fucking job!
Jason is shocked out of his obsessive spiral when a woman hails him from a very familiar building. His building-from a lifetime ago.
“You! You’re young Jason Todd, aren’t you?”
He looks up over his shoulder to see an elderly woman in an impossibly-bright, pink floral muumuu leaning out her second floor window. Something about her tickles his memories. Cautiously he answers, “Yes.”
That causes the woman to smile and reach a hand toward him, gesturing that he should come inside. “Then come up here!” she orders with that jolly smile of hers, as if Jason is the best thing she’s seen in years. “I’ve got some things for you.”
Puzzled, he nods and heads inside. Like most slums in the area, there is no lock on the building door. Whatever security might exist comes from what the tenants themselves furnish. Goddamn property manages won’t even spring for a basic deadbolt.
In contrast to the bright afternoon outside, the hallways are dark, the light bulbs-those that still w0rk-are dim. Yeah, some things never change. Frowning, he heads up to the second floor, third door from the end, judging by the window she’d been leaning out of. The teen knocks politely before he turns the handle. Though it has three sturdy locks on it, it’s open since he’s expected. Huh.
“Hello?” he asks, announcing his presence.
“Come in! Come in!” is the immediate, surprisingly jubilant reply.
Jason slips in and closes the door behind him before turning to face the rather rotund woman. It’s the smile. Something about the... “You were a friend of my mothers. Mrs. Walker, right?” And she is. He remembers her bringing over crock-pots of chilli for them when his mom had started getting sick. The woman had taken it on herself to help with meals. Not charity. Just being a good friend, she’d insisted. But something had happened and she’d left three months before the end. Or he’d thought she’d left, though perhaps not. The apartment looks the same as it did four-and-a-half years ago; shabby furniture, hideous yellow walls. At least this one doesn’t seem to have any mold, which is a minor miracle.
Looking at the woman, he sees that she is holding a large, ratty cardboard box, its top taped shut. The boy’s brows knit together in puzzlement. But the answer to his unasked question is not forthcoming. Instead she’s smiling at him in that motherly way.
“That’s right,” she says warmly. “How you been doing?”
That voice is so honest that he almost smiles to himself, the rolling emotional storm momentarily subsides. But only momentarily, then his habitual defensiveness is back in full force. “Getting by,” is all he will offer her. Anything more than that could be dangerous on so many levels.
Thankfully, the woman doesn’t seem inclined to probe further.
“You kind of disappeared right after your mother died,” she muses as her generous bulk waddles over to the table, and she sets the box down.
Okay, now this he can answer. He actually had a reason for disappearing and moving his few things to that abandoned building. A valid reason that had nothing to do with Bruce or the Mission.
“Juvenile authorities were looking to put me into a state home,” he says sullenly. “Didn’t wanna go.” The bitterness in his voice is very real. The majority of his time during those first days alone had been divided between finding his next meal and ducking assorted social workers, or anyone that could turn him over to them. Those tasks had been in addition to his obvious need to stay in one piece. Going to the home might have been safer then the streets, but...No. Just no.
“Can’t blame you for that,” Mrs. Walker says with open understanding. Not with sympathy per se, rather it’s with a knowledge of how fucked up the system really is. “But when no one claimed your family’s possessions, the landlord sold them off. I was able to save this stuff for you, ‘case you ever came back.” She sighs. The landlord’s action hadn’t been illegal, but it rankled. “Afraid it’s a bit water damaged. Darn leaky roofs.” Pudgy fingers work the tape. One weak flap rips open instead. “The owner is too cheap to fix them,” the woman grumbles with a combination of palpable irritation and resignation.
Curious, Jason moves closer. Quietly he reaches in to take out a few things. His eyes widen in genuine surprise. “Photographs!” comes the quiet exclamation. Then he’s digging around in the box some more. This time he pulls up a handful of documents. “Personal papers,” he says a little louder, a pleased smile spreading across his face.
The woman is smiling at Jason’s obvious appreciation. “Thought it’d be stuff you might like to have,” she says.
Jason doesn’t notice anything but the contents of the box. “This is terrific!” he exclaims, eyes bright with excitement. “How can I ever thank you...?”
“Ain’t nothing,” the woman says distractedly. Then she moves, gently herding him and his box of treasures toward the door. “Now, I got to shoo you out of here, lad. Got shopping I gotta do.” She takes her purse before walking him out, carefully locking the door behind them.
Jason grins his thanks, then starts walking. The box isn’t heavy, but there’s no way he’s walking back to the Bristol with it. Jason makes his way towards one of the nearby commercial districts where the cabs still show up on occasion. He hails one and climbs in, giving directions to the driver. He doesn’t think about the fact that he is heading back to the manor and all that means.
The sunset is a red smear on the western horizon as he finally heads back to the Wayne ancestral home. He feels a little bad about ignoring Alfred as he takes his prize up to his room, but fuck it. Alfred is the same as Bruce; they’ve both decided that Jason is a royal screw-up. With that realization, he doesn’t feel so bad anymore. Over his shoulder he tells the butler that he’ll be in his room and that he doesn’t want to be bugged.
Once in his room, he carefully spreads out the contents, then sits down to look them over. He touches them, needing to connect with the past they represent. He pulls out a picture of his mom, his dad and himself in their good clothes from before the bad times; before his father first went to jail and his mother started turning tricks. He remembers those times, though they are only vaguely things at the back of his mind now.
He gives himself a shake and puts the photo that one down, focusing on the papers instead. He’s more than a little surprised to find a deed to some land out in Virginia, somewhere. Jason wonders briefly why they’d been living in Crime Alley if they had land. However, when he looks at it more closely, he understands; it’s only .78 of an acre. And it’s not in a large city, or even a small village when he looks it up. Well crap.
The old school report cards are next. Of course his mom kept those but, gah! He chuckles as he reads the teachers’ comments. There are more than a few complaints about his inattention, but there is also praise for his quick mind. The card from the end of kindergarten positively gushes about the playhouse he made out of popsicle sticks. Jason smiles to himself, remembering that.
The smile broadens as he reads, though he doesn’t realize it. His chest feels tight and strangely free at the same time. The boy’s fingers come across a lapsed insurance policy with his father’s signature. The next thing is his birth certificate. The smile turns to shock. Under ‘Father’ is Willis Todd’s name, but under ‘Mother’... it’s smudged. All he can make out is the first letter, an ‘S’. Wait! His mother’s name was Catherine!
His heart pounds as he tries to puzzle out something more from the water-damaged paper. A single letter isn’t much to go on, but it starts his mind running in frantic little circles. If Catherine Todd hadn’t been his real mother, then maybe, maybe his mother is still alive. Maybe, somewhere, he still has a family of his own!
That realization all but floors him and he sits heavily on the bed for he doesn’t know how long. His mind oh-so-helpfully flashes images of the woman that had always cared for him. Catherine WAS his mother in every sense of the word, minus biology, apparently. But that doesn’t mean… It can’t mean anything. Not as far as his feelings for her go. It shouldn’t. It really shouldn’t. So why is his heart pounding like a jackhammer?
He feels both excited and positively traitorous.
It’s not that he’s all of a sudden stopped loving the woman that raised him. It’s not that at all. But… But now everything that he knew, everything that he felt, has been called into question and he has no idea how to process that. In essence he’s been lied to all his life. That makes him mad, but it’s a fleeting thing. What would it have changed if he’d known, really? They had been good times. He’d been cared for. Loved. Jason will never, ever doubt that.
Yet the idea that he has a mother out there somewhere, alive… someone he doesn’t know, someone who could be his family, is an alluring thought. Just one problem: he only has a single letter to go on. That’s not possibly enough, is it?
The teen grins to himself. Two years with Bruce have to be fucking good for something! He heads back to the bed-when had he stood up and started pacing?!-where he once more digs through the box. Yes! His fingers close about a promising little black book. An address book. A quick look-through shows it to be his father’s. He begins scouring the contents, carefully searching for any names starting with “S.” When he finishes reading it for a fifth time, Jason concludes that yes there are only three. It narrows things down nicely, but there is a rather large snag: the addresses have to be several years old at least. Nothing says the women are still living at those addresses. Still, it’s a starting point, and that’s pretty damned sweet!
He could cold-call the numbers in the book. It is an option, just not a very good one. Yeah, hi, I’m Jason and I think you might be my mom, probably wouldn’t go over well. No, he has to do this right. And to do that... The boy smirks. Time to visit the Batcave with its lovely computer.
***********
He rubs his eyes and blinks at the readout on the screen. The search took all fucking night, but he found the current whereabouts of all three ladies. Thank God Bruce is off being obsessed with something. Heh, he never thought he’d ever think of that as a good thing.
Interesting. All of the women are currently in the Middle East, though the similarities end there. Sharmin Rosen immigrated to Israel six years ago, and is apparently employed by the Israeli Secret Service. Shiva Woosan, on the other hand, has no such political affiliations. Instead, she seems to be a mercenary-for-hire with a chequered past. Her last-known base of operations was Lebanon. Hopefully, she hasn’t decided to move on just yet.
Finally, there is Dr. Sheila Hayward, who is involved in the famine relief efforts in Ethiopia. That one sounds the most innocent of the lot. And she’s blonde. He has no idea why his mind is focused on such an irrelevancy. It’s possible that he’s a little punchy from lack of sleep, given that the computer is telling him it’s 7:24 am; way past a good little birdie’s bedtime. Of course, that doesn’t really describe Jason, so meh.
He leans back in the computer chair and thinks about what he’s learned and what his next step will be. A small voice at the back of his mind whispers that he should tell Bruce and get his help. The guy is a much better at the detective stuff than he is...
No sooner does that thought flit through his grey matter than he discards it ruthlessly. He can already hear Bruce’s disapproving monotone in his head. You’re in no shape to be running off on this type of investigation! On top of that, the idiot wouldn’t even care. What the hell would finding Jason’s real mother matter to him? She’s not a super-villain bent on murder and mayhem, so she wouldn’t even register. That finding her is important to Jason is just one more thing the asshole would use against him, showing how he wasn’t fit for duty, or some other stupidity.
Feh! No, this one is all his; no way is he telling anyone about it, either. Bruce doesn’t trust him? That’s just fine, the feeling is mutual. Of course, he doesn’t have to trust Bruce to make use of his money. He has more than enough credit cards to make his efforts reasonably smooth. Yeah, the asshole could trace him through the transactions but there are ways around that.
Right, then. He has a plan. Of course, it’s too juvenile for words to simply run away. While Bruce can go fuck himself, Alfred deserves better, even if he does usually side with Wayne. Fine. It won’t kill him to leave a note on his bed. After he packs up and gets himself a cab. No point in giving them more opportunities to stop him then he has to.
He puts the Robin suit on under his civilian clothes. The quest should be mundane enough, but it never hurts to be ready for anything. Jason packs light: a couple of changes of clothes, some bat-toys and the pixie boots in the x-ray-proof compartment at the bottom. The teen makes sure he has his wallet, and he’s good. Jason tiptoes through the manor, carefully avoiding Alfred-which is bloody difficult!-so that he can leave the note peeking out from under his pillow. Then more sneaking as he heads out to meet the cab at the front gates, out of sight of prying eyes.
He spends the ride to the airport looking out the window and wondering which of the three ladies it will turn out to be. If it turns out to be any of them. He needs to be prepared for that possibility as well. He shouldn’t get his hopes up, but he also shouldn’t get ahead of himself. He’s got three suspects and they need to be investigated first before he can look at the possibility of others.
Jason feels tentatively positive as he walks into Archie Goodwin. That feeling flees for parts unknown as he notices a very familiar profile pacing near the ticket counter.
“DICK?!” he demands, pissed beyond words and wondering what the fuck to do now.
End of Part One
Part Two This Way.....
Fandom: Batman
Continuity: Post-Crisis AU, Umbra Verse
Characters: Jason, Bruce, Alfred, Dick
Rating: PG-13?
Warnings: Foul Language
Word Count: 3,123
Summary: What should have happened in Batman 426 (when Bruce was an ass and Jason found out that Catherine wasn’t his biological mom.)
Author’s Notes: This is the result of a brainstorming session for a different fic with vespertila . Thank you dragonbat2006 for betaing!
They’re fucked. They’re both completely off their rockers! Yes, Jason has been going over things in his mind, uncomfortable things about his parents, about how they aren’t alive any more. Sometimes they show up in his nightmares. But he’s fucking dealing with it. It’s not like there’s anything unusual about his grieving. It’s certainly not like he’s a danger out on the street!
Who the hell does Bruce think he is?
It hurts. Bruce doesn’t trust him. That much has been obvious since the shit with Felipe Garzonas went down. The man hasn’t said anything, it’s more what his silence means. He’s never believed Jason’s say-so about how the guy fell because he got spooked by at Robin’s sudden appearance. It’s the fucking truth! Jason had defiantly intended on beating him into...well, into something, for starters. Maybe get creative and make him feel the same kind of terror that caused poor Gloria take her own life. But killing him hadn’t been the plan. You can’t make a dead man suffer.
He hasn’t mentioned any of that. No point. Even he can recognize how petty and vindictive it is. Jason isn’t sorry the guy is dead, but it hadn’t been his intention or his doing. Even so, that’s not why he’s currently benched. Oh no, that one is all because Jason did his fucking job! Bruce hadn’t said shit about waiting for Gordon at the warehouse until Jason was already flying. If he had, Jason would have. He likes the old guy, given that the man has always been decent to him.
It’s not like there hadn’t been time to impart that particular bit of information; he’d been in the car with the man for the 12-minute ride to the warehouse! Yet, it’s apparently all Jason’s fault that the World’s Greatest Detective has the communication skills of a slug. Well, fuck him and his stupid-assed assumptions about grieving. That’s just so retarded. His mom was four years ago now. And his dad hadn’t been around for years before that. Mostly he’s just pissed that Bruce kept the Two-Face information from him. He’s not fucking grieving.
As the teen rails on in his mind, his feet keep moving. At the moment, he doesn’t want to be anywhere near that sanctimonious asshole, who is probably hiding in the cave by now; and no way in hell is he going to stick around upstairs. Moving helps him think and it’s a nice enough afternoon, so outside is just fine. He doesn’t mean to hitchhike, but when a cute blonde pulls over and motions him in, he really isn’t going to turn that down.
His pretty new friend, whose name he can’t recall two minutes later, lets him off at Fifth and Morry, after warning him that it’s a pretty tough neighbourhood. He just smiles and leaves. There’s nothing this city has which worries him at night, let alone in daylight. Once on his way, he keeps moving and barely notices when his feet carry him toward his old building at the south end of Crime Alley.
At that moment, he isn’t really thinking. No. He is, but he’s not paying attention to the thoughts beyond acknowledging the rolling anger that seems to consume all else. And he nurses it. Anger can be a source of power-his mother once told him-of strength. Showing weakness in this town is never a good idea, not when the shadows hide predators. Of course, he knows what else the shadows hide, but not here and not now; maybe not ever again for him.
God damn it! He’d done his fucking job!
Jason is shocked out of his obsessive spiral when a woman hails him from a very familiar building. His building-from a lifetime ago.
“You! You’re young Jason Todd, aren’t you?”
He looks up over his shoulder to see an elderly woman in an impossibly-bright, pink floral muumuu leaning out her second floor window. Something about her tickles his memories. Cautiously he answers, “Yes.”
That causes the woman to smile and reach a hand toward him, gesturing that he should come inside. “Then come up here!” she orders with that jolly smile of hers, as if Jason is the best thing she’s seen in years. “I’ve got some things for you.”
Puzzled, he nods and heads inside. Like most slums in the area, there is no lock on the building door. Whatever security might exist comes from what the tenants themselves furnish. Goddamn property manages won’t even spring for a basic deadbolt.
In contrast to the bright afternoon outside, the hallways are dark, the light bulbs-those that still w0rk-are dim. Yeah, some things never change. Frowning, he heads up to the second floor, third door from the end, judging by the window she’d been leaning out of. The teen knocks politely before he turns the handle. Though it has three sturdy locks on it, it’s open since he’s expected. Huh.
“Hello?” he asks, announcing his presence.
“Come in! Come in!” is the immediate, surprisingly jubilant reply.
Jason slips in and closes the door behind him before turning to face the rather rotund woman. It’s the smile. Something about the... “You were a friend of my mothers. Mrs. Walker, right?” And she is. He remembers her bringing over crock-pots of chilli for them when his mom had started getting sick. The woman had taken it on herself to help with meals. Not charity. Just being a good friend, she’d insisted. But something had happened and she’d left three months before the end. Or he’d thought she’d left, though perhaps not. The apartment looks the same as it did four-and-a-half years ago; shabby furniture, hideous yellow walls. At least this one doesn’t seem to have any mold, which is a minor miracle.
Looking at the woman, he sees that she is holding a large, ratty cardboard box, its top taped shut. The boy’s brows knit together in puzzlement. But the answer to his unasked question is not forthcoming. Instead she’s smiling at him in that motherly way.
“That’s right,” she says warmly. “How you been doing?”
That voice is so honest that he almost smiles to himself, the rolling emotional storm momentarily subsides. But only momentarily, then his habitual defensiveness is back in full force. “Getting by,” is all he will offer her. Anything more than that could be dangerous on so many levels.
Thankfully, the woman doesn’t seem inclined to probe further.
“You kind of disappeared right after your mother died,” she muses as her generous bulk waddles over to the table, and she sets the box down.
Okay, now this he can answer. He actually had a reason for disappearing and moving his few things to that abandoned building. A valid reason that had nothing to do with Bruce or the Mission.
“Juvenile authorities were looking to put me into a state home,” he says sullenly. “Didn’t wanna go.” The bitterness in his voice is very real. The majority of his time during those first days alone had been divided between finding his next meal and ducking assorted social workers, or anyone that could turn him over to them. Those tasks had been in addition to his obvious need to stay in one piece. Going to the home might have been safer then the streets, but...No. Just no.
“Can’t blame you for that,” Mrs. Walker says with open understanding. Not with sympathy per se, rather it’s with a knowledge of how fucked up the system really is. “But when no one claimed your family’s possessions, the landlord sold them off. I was able to save this stuff for you, ‘case you ever came back.” She sighs. The landlord’s action hadn’t been illegal, but it rankled. “Afraid it’s a bit water damaged. Darn leaky roofs.” Pudgy fingers work the tape. One weak flap rips open instead. “The owner is too cheap to fix them,” the woman grumbles with a combination of palpable irritation and resignation.
Curious, Jason moves closer. Quietly he reaches in to take out a few things. His eyes widen in genuine surprise. “Photographs!” comes the quiet exclamation. Then he’s digging around in the box some more. This time he pulls up a handful of documents. “Personal papers,” he says a little louder, a pleased smile spreading across his face.
The woman is smiling at Jason’s obvious appreciation. “Thought it’d be stuff you might like to have,” she says.
Jason doesn’t notice anything but the contents of the box. “This is terrific!” he exclaims, eyes bright with excitement. “How can I ever thank you...?”
“Ain’t nothing,” the woman says distractedly. Then she moves, gently herding him and his box of treasures toward the door. “Now, I got to shoo you out of here, lad. Got shopping I gotta do.” She takes her purse before walking him out, carefully locking the door behind them.
Jason grins his thanks, then starts walking. The box isn’t heavy, but there’s no way he’s walking back to the Bristol with it. Jason makes his way towards one of the nearby commercial districts where the cabs still show up on occasion. He hails one and climbs in, giving directions to the driver. He doesn’t think about the fact that he is heading back to the manor and all that means.
The sunset is a red smear on the western horizon as he finally heads back to the Wayne ancestral home. He feels a little bad about ignoring Alfred as he takes his prize up to his room, but fuck it. Alfred is the same as Bruce; they’ve both decided that Jason is a royal screw-up. With that realization, he doesn’t feel so bad anymore. Over his shoulder he tells the butler that he’ll be in his room and that he doesn’t want to be bugged.
Once in his room, he carefully spreads out the contents, then sits down to look them over. He touches them, needing to connect with the past they represent. He pulls out a picture of his mom, his dad and himself in their good clothes from before the bad times; before his father first went to jail and his mother started turning tricks. He remembers those times, though they are only vaguely things at the back of his mind now.
He gives himself a shake and puts the photo that one down, focusing on the papers instead. He’s more than a little surprised to find a deed to some land out in Virginia, somewhere. Jason wonders briefly why they’d been living in Crime Alley if they had land. However, when he looks at it more closely, he understands; it’s only .78 of an acre. And it’s not in a large city, or even a small village when he looks it up. Well crap.
The old school report cards are next. Of course his mom kept those but, gah! He chuckles as he reads the teachers’ comments. There are more than a few complaints about his inattention, but there is also praise for his quick mind. The card from the end of kindergarten positively gushes about the playhouse he made out of popsicle sticks. Jason smiles to himself, remembering that.
The smile broadens as he reads, though he doesn’t realize it. His chest feels tight and strangely free at the same time. The boy’s fingers come across a lapsed insurance policy with his father’s signature. The next thing is his birth certificate. The smile turns to shock. Under ‘Father’ is Willis Todd’s name, but under ‘Mother’... it’s smudged. All he can make out is the first letter, an ‘S’. Wait! His mother’s name was Catherine!
His heart pounds as he tries to puzzle out something more from the water-damaged paper. A single letter isn’t much to go on, but it starts his mind running in frantic little circles. If Catherine Todd hadn’t been his real mother, then maybe, maybe his mother is still alive. Maybe, somewhere, he still has a family of his own!
That realization all but floors him and he sits heavily on the bed for he doesn’t know how long. His mind oh-so-helpfully flashes images of the woman that had always cared for him. Catherine WAS his mother in every sense of the word, minus biology, apparently. But that doesn’t mean… It can’t mean anything. Not as far as his feelings for her go. It shouldn’t. It really shouldn’t. So why is his heart pounding like a jackhammer?
He feels both excited and positively traitorous.
It’s not that he’s all of a sudden stopped loving the woman that raised him. It’s not that at all. But… But now everything that he knew, everything that he felt, has been called into question and he has no idea how to process that. In essence he’s been lied to all his life. That makes him mad, but it’s a fleeting thing. What would it have changed if he’d known, really? They had been good times. He’d been cared for. Loved. Jason will never, ever doubt that.
Yet the idea that he has a mother out there somewhere, alive… someone he doesn’t know, someone who could be his family, is an alluring thought. Just one problem: he only has a single letter to go on. That’s not possibly enough, is it?
The teen grins to himself. Two years with Bruce have to be fucking good for something! He heads back to the bed-when had he stood up and started pacing?!-where he once more digs through the box. Yes! His fingers close about a promising little black book. An address book. A quick look-through shows it to be his father’s. He begins scouring the contents, carefully searching for any names starting with “S.” When he finishes reading it for a fifth time, Jason concludes that yes there are only three. It narrows things down nicely, but there is a rather large snag: the addresses have to be several years old at least. Nothing says the women are still living at those addresses. Still, it’s a starting point, and that’s pretty damned sweet!
He could cold-call the numbers in the book. It is an option, just not a very good one. Yeah, hi, I’m Jason and I think you might be my mom, probably wouldn’t go over well. No, he has to do this right. And to do that... The boy smirks. Time to visit the Batcave with its lovely computer.
***********
He rubs his eyes and blinks at the readout on the screen. The search took all fucking night, but he found the current whereabouts of all three ladies. Thank God Bruce is off being obsessed with something. Heh, he never thought he’d ever think of that as a good thing.
Interesting. All of the women are currently in the Middle East, though the similarities end there. Sharmin Rosen immigrated to Israel six years ago, and is apparently employed by the Israeli Secret Service. Shiva Woosan, on the other hand, has no such political affiliations. Instead, she seems to be a mercenary-for-hire with a chequered past. Her last-known base of operations was Lebanon. Hopefully, she hasn’t decided to move on just yet.
Finally, there is Dr. Sheila Hayward, who is involved in the famine relief efforts in Ethiopia. That one sounds the most innocent of the lot. And she’s blonde. He has no idea why his mind is focused on such an irrelevancy. It’s possible that he’s a little punchy from lack of sleep, given that the computer is telling him it’s 7:24 am; way past a good little birdie’s bedtime. Of course, that doesn’t really describe Jason, so meh.
He leans back in the computer chair and thinks about what he’s learned and what his next step will be. A small voice at the back of his mind whispers that he should tell Bruce and get his help. The guy is a much better at the detective stuff than he is...
No sooner does that thought flit through his grey matter than he discards it ruthlessly. He can already hear Bruce’s disapproving monotone in his head. You’re in no shape to be running off on this type of investigation! On top of that, the idiot wouldn’t even care. What the hell would finding Jason’s real mother matter to him? She’s not a super-villain bent on murder and mayhem, so she wouldn’t even register. That finding her is important to Jason is just one more thing the asshole would use against him, showing how he wasn’t fit for duty, or some other stupidity.
Feh! No, this one is all his; no way is he telling anyone about it, either. Bruce doesn’t trust him? That’s just fine, the feeling is mutual. Of course, he doesn’t have to trust Bruce to make use of his money. He has more than enough credit cards to make his efforts reasonably smooth. Yeah, the asshole could trace him through the transactions but there are ways around that.
Right, then. He has a plan. Of course, it’s too juvenile for words to simply run away. While Bruce can go fuck himself, Alfred deserves better, even if he does usually side with Wayne. Fine. It won’t kill him to leave a note on his bed. After he packs up and gets himself a cab. No point in giving them more opportunities to stop him then he has to.
He puts the Robin suit on under his civilian clothes. The quest should be mundane enough, but it never hurts to be ready for anything. Jason packs light: a couple of changes of clothes, some bat-toys and the pixie boots in the x-ray-proof compartment at the bottom. The teen makes sure he has his wallet, and he’s good. Jason tiptoes through the manor, carefully avoiding Alfred-which is bloody difficult!-so that he can leave the note peeking out from under his pillow. Then more sneaking as he heads out to meet the cab at the front gates, out of sight of prying eyes.
He spends the ride to the airport looking out the window and wondering which of the three ladies it will turn out to be. If it turns out to be any of them. He needs to be prepared for that possibility as well. He shouldn’t get his hopes up, but he also shouldn’t get ahead of himself. He’s got three suspects and they need to be investigated first before he can look at the possibility of others.
Jason feels tentatively positive as he walks into Archie Goodwin. That feeling flees for parts unknown as he notices a very familiar profile pacing near the ticket counter.
“DICK?!” he demands, pissed beyond words and wondering what the fuck to do now.
End of Part One
Part Two This Way.....