Chapter Text
“Batman, may I speak with you?”
Odd. Black Canary was not one to have questions or concerns to be brought up after the meeting. If she had an issue with how things were going she would speak up right then and there. Personal matter?
He grunted in affirmation, changing direction in the Watchtower hallway to follow her. His cape billowing out behind him with the momentum.
She led him to the observation deck, now empty as shift change was occurring. Everyone rounding the next shift in the main hull.
As the door automatically slid closed behind them Dinah turned, facing him now. Her body language was open as she shifted her weight to one leg. “As your friend, Bruce, I think you need someone to talk to.”
Had she really cornered him in their hero identities so she could stage an intervention?
“You haven’t seemed yourself recently, as Batman or Bruce,” she explained. “Something’s bothering you, and don’t even try to say it's not. I’ve known you since I started dating Ollie.”
There was a heavy silence as the pair just stared at each other. Dinah, standing tall because she knew she was right. And Bruce, refusing to budge, stared back.
Dinah caved first, being the more reasonable of the pair. “Listen, I just want to help. It doesn’t have to be as a therapist. But something’s eating away at you, more than normal,” she tacked on.
Bruce continued to stare. His stance unmoving besides his steady breathing.
Dick had been telling him for years to open up. Be ‘more human’.
He had exhausted all resources, all avenues of contingency plans to follow.
And he was tired.
“Hood is,” he paused. How should he word this? He didn’t want to sound like the antagonizer and yet he couldn't find neutral words to express the events. “Not engaging with the others well,” he said. There was a beat before he added, “It has been getting worse recently.”
“What do you mean by ‘not engaging with the others well’.”
Bruce almost sighed out of annoyance. It wasn’t that she was prying, she seemed to be of good intentions. It was just that he didn’t want to vocalize it, didn’t want to admit that he was failing, again. “When he joins us, there is only ever fighting.” as if he is trying to find an excuse to leave, he left out.
“Children do that,” she said as she sat down in a nearby chair.
Bruce followed, “this isn’t just sibling bickering. The only theory I can support is that he genuinely doesn’t like us. But that doesn’t explain why he keeps trying,” Bruce explained as he joined her in a chair.
“Have you talked to him,” she questioned.
Bruce knew she was falling back into her therapist mindset, helping the client to think through the situation. Coaching them to see the perspective of others and determine the proper course of action. But Bruce was a detective, he had already thought through fifty different ways of handling the situation. At least.
He must have taken too long, his thoughts taking too much time. “Tell me about the fighting. Is it verbal? Physical? Who starts it? Ends it? What are they normally about? Anything.”
That he could do. “They are verbal fights about anything and everything. Usually Jason starts them, or just blows a disagreement out of proportion. They end when he physically leaves the area.”
“Can you explain one fight you remember? It can be the most recent or just one that sticks out to you.”
Without needing to think, Bruce explains “the last fight was about which direction to take to cover the bowery on patrol. It resulted in Jason storming off and cutting his comms.”
“Ok, and what brought it on?”
“Dick and Jason disagreed.”
“There’s more to it than that and you know it, Bruce.”
He sighed. Now he had to be the bad guy. “Jason is too stuck in his ways.”
“That,” she stated as he poked him in the chest. He couldn’t feel it because of the armour but it still got the point across, “is an opinion. Not a fact. Come on ‘world's greatest detective’, what are the facts?”
That’s the issue, he didn’t know. When it came to Jason, it seemed like he was the dumbest person on the planet. He could never say the right thing, do anything to make it better. Whenever he tried, it just seemed to make things worse.
He didn’t say any of that though, he settled on “Jason is stubborn. He runs, the second thing’s aren’t perfect. It is likely left over from his days on the streets. When reading a situation quickly and getting away from something before anything went down saved his life countless times. Whether that is a disagreement, a confrontation, correction or if he is wounded. He will always leave.”
She leaned back in her chair before replying, “most of that was still your opinion.”
Bruce narrowed his eyes at her.
“Okay, okay,” she replied. Throwing her hands up in surrender as she accepted “maybe it's a fact since they are your children. But I raise a question that you won’t like hearing: is Jason safe?”
Bruce didn’t reply, simply cocked his head a few degrees to the side to show his confusion. Not following where this was going.
“Jason’s life story can be summed up into six parts.” Raising a finger for each section to drive the point home she began, “one, his parents raising him. Two, Jason’s mother getting diagnosed with Cancer. Resulting in his father becoming a goon and getting arrested. Signifying the first time Jason had to be self-sufficient as he had to take care of his dying mother.”
Bruce didn’t react, he still didn’t know where this was going.
“Three, Jason survived as a homeless orphan on the streets of the most crime ridden city in America. Four, being taken in by you. Five, being an assassin. Six, is where we are at now, Jason being Red Hood.”
A silence befell them. Bruce still didn’t understand where she was going with this.
“Bruce,” she sighed as she rubbed her forehead. “So far, there have been three years of his life that he has memories of where he was safe. I remember you telling Ollie and I that you never thought you would have to teach someone how to be a kid.”
Bruce kept quiet, urging her to continue.
“He was six when his father got arrested, he likely has very few if any memories of that time. You had him from the age of twelve to fifteen, Bruce. When he died he had essentially been an only child his entire life. Sure he had met Dick, but you two were butting heads too often for them to form a connection.”
They were talking about how Jason can’t handle not being correct. He didn’t understand how they were now talking about Jason’s relationship to Dick.
“Bruce, I’m going to spell it out. Jason is not mentally an adult. He has been in survival mode for most of his life. I know how the league works, disobedience means torture. As well as your point about him living on the streets.”
“He never got to hit the milestones everyone else has. When people don’t agree with him he doesn’t take it as banter, he takes it as ‘I’m being attacked’ because that's all he’s ever known. He fights with your other kids so much because he doesn’t know how to have siblings. He’s never had the chance to learn how to push someone's buttons and get retaliation in a healthy manner.”
He understood what she meant now, “he never matured past fifteen” he summarized.
“He never mentally matured past fifteen,” she corrected as she stood. Bruce looked like he had all of the energy sucked out of him. “Pay attention for a bit, don’t react, just watch. See if you can pick up on it, little quirks, things like that. I have noticed them the few times I’ve seen him with Roy and Lian. the more comfortable he is, the more he lets the mask slip.”
With that, she patted his shoulder twice as she walked past his sitting form to the door.
Slowing her pace she turns to speak over her shoulder. “You think Jason’s problem is attitude. I think it’s grief and fear. And it looks a lot like yours.”