Chapter Text
The thing about life is that people will constantly warn you about different scenarios, and yet never actually tell you enough details about those scenarios to help you in any sort of way. They’ll tell you that if someone tries to grab you in public, you should scream to get somebody’s attention. But they forget to tell you to scream ‘I’m being kidnapped’ or else everyone will just roll their eyes and walk right by assuming you’re just throwing a temper tantrum. They’ll tell you to tell an adult if someone touches you inappropriately, but they don’t make it clear that you still need to tattle even if it’s someone you’re supposed to trust.
They’ll tell you neglect is when your parents don’t give you enough attention or love, but they won’t tell you how much inattention matters. Then when you end up believing it’s normal being alone for months on end and brushing off the school assembly about Abuse in Different Ways because you got an email from your parent’s secretary once every other week and surely that means they care-
Eventually you’re hit with the realization that hindsight is 20/20. That every warning has a purpose but each of those warnings were given after the scenario has already happened because nobody gives you enough details and information to actually prevent it or to even cope with it.
So you sit there. Stare at a ceiling for a few days. Call in sick to school for a week. Maybe cry a little in the corner of your closet surrounded by all the blankets and linens in the house. And force yourself to realize that even though your parents tell you that they love you and would burn the world for you, it doesn’t matter much if they only bother seeing you and talking to you once or twice a year. Because truly, saying they’re proud of your grades at the end of each semester doesn’t mean much when all you wanted was their help for your project at the business fair. You don’t even like business.
Saying they love you doesn’t mean much when all you wanted was a hug and a conversation about you for once instead of school or the company or the travels you’re not allowed to participate in.
But you can’t change what’s happened.
And then at some point, after that earth shattering realization that you’ve been abused, maybe days maybe weeks maybe months maybe years later, you recognize that you will heal one day, but not yet .
And then you take the first step in finding who you are outside of what was or wasn’t done to you.
And then you think about who you want to become .
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When Tim finds out his parents died abroad, it’s not from a social worker, or the school counselor, or even a police officer.
He’s in his room. It was on the news.
Laying on his bed with a finger on the pause button of his remote, he stares at the tv in front of him in a vague kind of disbelief. Not because it looks like blatant company espionage and is being played off as an accident because- he assumes -the police are being paid off or they simply don’t care. Not even because he’s finding out about the news of his dead parents on tv- he’s known for years they’ve been just as neglectful towards the company as they have to him -which means they’ve got high expectations and yet take no responsibility to helping those standards be met.
It just seems so strange to see Drake Family Killed in Freak Accident and realize that it’s not just his parents who are being presumed dead, but him as well.
Squinting his eyes and huffing a little, Tim leans back and presses play and hears all about their family trip to Libya, and how their private plane ended up going haywire and how there was an emergency beacon that went out and how they haven’t recovered the bodies of all the staff and the Drake heir yet but how they’re still in the process and-
And Tim just lays there, biting his lip. Not upset or any measure of displeased. Because he’s known for years that people assume he goes with them on their trips, at least for the summers, and it makes sense to assume he would have been on the plane, too, if there weren’t any staff alive to disagree.
But Tim isn’t stupid. If his parents were killed, then it’s a good assumption that he would be targeted if it were to come out that he’s alive. And frankly, Tim thinks as he tilts his head, he wouldn’t really care for going into the foster system regardless as he knows there isn’t any blood family alive and he knows from his escapades around Gotham that the folks around who would take in the Drake Heir wouldn’t end well for him.
So he climbs out of bed, crawls over to the loose floorboard under his bed, and grabs one of his notebooks he keeps for himself because negligent as they ar- were -they would visit sporadically and he wasn’t a fan of random searches through his possessions.
Sitting on the floor, leaning back against the bed, Tim grabs a pen from his nightstand and writes a list of important things.
The police and such won’t be showing up for at least a few days to presumably close up the house, but criminals will see it as free game.
He’s legally dead, and it seems to be in his best interest to stay that way.
He needs somewhere to go, someone to be, and a way to survive.
He idly thinks to himself that it’s a good thing he’s been pretending to be someone he isn’t for the last decade or this switch would be a lot harder than it is. Snorting to himself, he writes a plan.
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"What are ya doing, James?" Jason laughs a little under his breath as he watches Jaimie practice her walking.
Jaimie just blows a blonde curl out of her face and quirks a hip. "Well Jay, use your thinkin’ skills I know you got em," she smirks at him.
" Obviously, " twisting her hips around, "I'm learning how to walk like the working girls."
Now Jason scrunches his nose a little and shifts on his feet, "Why? I thought you said kids shouldn't be doing that stuff?"
Snorting, "Of course not, Jay, and don't you worry your little behind no one will be taking my v card until you make an honest woman out of me," she says holding back a laugh as Jason turns bright red and sputters. James barely holds back a laugh.
"But!" She cheers a little when she figures out the proper twist and starts to prowl towards him as seductive as a pre-teen can be towards another pre-teen making him get even more red, "Every skill is a skill that can be used one day," she whispers as she leans into his space slowly before kissing him on the nose and backing off turning a little red herself as they grin to each other.
"I've got no plans in anybody else getting into m' pants but with the right walk and the right talk I can make anybody think I want in theirs which gets me easy access to everything they have in their possession."
They look at each other before breaking out into laughs.
Falling over each other, they finally calm down as they sit side by side, "Not because you feel like you have to right?"
Looking at her best friend fondly, she knocks their heads together gently, "Don't worry Jay. Only cause it's fun."
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In all honesty, Jason doesn’t know much about Jaimie at all.
He knows her hair is real, but the color isn’t.
He knows she doesn’t actually care what he calls her, but that her name is not the first one she’s had.
He knows she knows a lot of things she shouldn’t, but never uses it against the other kids in the alley.
He knows he doesn’t know much about her at all, but he knows he loves and trusts her anyway.
Laying together side by side with the warmth of their hands entwined between them, Jaimie stares into Jason's eyes.
"Jason you know I'll love you forever, right?"
Jason looks confused but nods without hesitation. "Of course."
He pulls her closer into his side. The corner they’ve claimed in the building protects them from the wet outside, but the cold still pours through the broken windows.
Biting her lip she kisses his hand, "I need you to promise something for me. But I don't know if you'll like it."
He stares at her searchingly. She looks hopeful that he’ll find what he needs to agree- before he nods resolutely.
"I'll promise as long as you promise something for me."
Huffing a soft laugh she looks at him, searching one more time for any hesitation. He doesn’t have any. Not for James. The only good thing he’s found and been able to keep since his mom died.
"If we ever get separated," she ignores his automatic scowl at even the premise, "that means while we're running from somebody, or if you get snatched and adopted by Catwoman," they snicker a little, "I need you to promise you won't look for me."
He looks at her confused but he already said he would promise, so instead of refusing he asks, "Why?"
She watches him as she tries to figure out how much to say and how much to keep to herself.
Jason thinks with anyone else, he would bristle at being left in the dark.
But James never lies. She doesn’t doesn’t tell the whole truth. She slips sometimes, and says things she clearly didn’t mean to before scowling sometimes and repeating a reminder of sorts under her breath. Jason can never make out what she says under her breath, but she always just huffs resignedly and smiles at him, before saying it’s fine since it’s him.
He thinks it would be suspicious. A case of manipulation somehow. But he’s twelve. And James is around ten or eleven. There’s really nothing he has to give her. She could get the same amount of protection in a group of street rats then she has with just him. And they have the same amount of sneakiness at the moment for stealing food, with her being just a bit better at cleaning up enough to look like polite company.
So Jason doesn’t know much about her, but the trust is strong. And he knows it goes both ways when she accidentally mentions that her parents were murdered and doesn’t look at him in horror for revealing why she’s so sneaky, but instead holds him tighter as she looks around the room at the windows instead just to calm some irrational paranoia that someone could be lurking and eavesdropping.
She calms when he holds her tight. Always. Ever since they met that very first time.
"I wasn't born an Alley kid, Jay. I chose to be an Alley kid because being here, being with you is what I want to do.” She stares at him with her big intense eyes as he snaps back into the present. “But if certain people found out about who I was before I came here, then I'd have a lot of people after me. I don't mind having fun with you and the others, but I don't like adults and I don't like running. So I need you to let me find you . Can you promise that?"
They both know he’d promise her anything, just as she’d do the same.
His lips thin as he bites his cheek before he gently rests his hand on her cheek. Soft and only smudged with a bit of dirt from when they were practicing climbing the fire escapes. "James, of course I promise. But I want you to promise that you'll keep finding me no matter what. And that when we're both eighteen, you'll find me one last time and we'll get married and we'll figure it out together, yeah?"
Jamie leans in when he wipes the tears from her face as she smiles into his palm before leaning forward and gently brushing their lips together in a chaste kiss. It’d be considered childish by anyone else, but they knew what it meant for them.
They may have only known each other for a few months now, but it’s been the best few months either of them have ever had. The least lonely, the most connected.
When he looks Batman in the eyes with a tire iron in his hand a few weeks later, he takes the tiniest of moments to look behind him to see blonde hair and big blue eyes peak around the corner with a thumbs up and remembers an echo of previously spoken words.
"I’ll always find you. I promise, Jay."
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Something changed.
The distance between Batman and Robin grows and Tim looks after them in increasing dread.
Tim can't solve everything between them. It's their relationship and he promised himself he would back off to let them develop a healthy relationship that lets them solve their own problems between them.
Jason spoke to her in between cold breaths and suffocating nights that he wanted family. He wanted Jaimie of course, that was never something Tim ever double guessed after their first meeting, but he also craved a familial connection. A parental connection. Someone to take care of everything. Maybe an older sibling who’d protect him and love him and play games with him.
It’s something Tim can’t quite understand, because he doesn’t know what a family is supposed to be like and the idea of putting that kind of effort into creating one when it didn’t work the first time doesn’t appeal to him.
But he knew that night when Jason had his face in Tim’s neck with barely contained shivers that Tim would do everything in his abilities to get that for Jason. To make his dreams come true, even if it’s not something he could see for himself, and isn’t something he could tolerate at the moment.
Even if it means he’d have to separate from Jason on purpose.
Maybe Tim’ll grow into the idea of it, he thinks as he hotwires a car in an Ethiopian village. Then he’ll be able to watch Jason closer and spend more time with him then he’s been able to sneak the past three years here and there.
But not anytime soon because Bruce Wayne is really testing Tim's patience.
He pulls his long, now brown curly hair half up into a beanie as he follows the trail that he’s been following.
He trusts Jason of course, and he very rarely follows him on cases or adventures. He has his own adventures to go on after all. His own goals and leads to follow, he thinks absently to himself as he imagines the wall at the apartment he’s been staying in the past few weeks in Star City. It’s amazing how far you can go with money from illegal artifacts he took and hid from the Manor when he left.
But he digresses. This felt different, so he followed Jason.
Frowning to himself, he parks the car at the treeline and looks around the perimeter before deciding to climb in through the southwest side. He’s gotten particularly good at climbing buildings even without fire escape the past few years, and he sees a skylight through a tilted window he can use to see into the warehouse.
He doesn’t know what the fight was about, and tries (and fails) to not feel guilty about not paying attention to Jason the past few months while he was gathering evidence against an unknown organization he thought was related to the company that took the hit out against his parents, but was actually more interested in some sort of human experimentation. Maybe cloning? But he doesn’t know why Lex Luthor would fund that.
He finally gets to the top where he can see through the skylight, and takes a breath before carefully looking in.
All other thoughts come to a freeze as his stomach plummets.
He stares stock still as he takes in the scene.
In the middle of the room, Jason is bloody and broken tied to the chair, while the Joker- where did he come from? He didn’t even know there was a breakout, if Tim knew he would have paid more attention -holds a bloody crowbar with one hand and a gun in the other.
Standing to the side, is a woman who looks ambivalent towards the situation, even going as far as looking at Jason’s bloodied form with blank disinterested eyes before looking away again.
Tim feels something warm streak down his hands before realizing he broke the skin of his palms with his nails.
Focusing on the pain, he closes his eyes and counts back from ten.
Ten, nine, eight, seven…
Tim opens his eyes with frozen, glacial eyes.
He looks around the room to make sure it’s just the three of them before shimmying back towards the tilted window to slide in. Carefully, silently , he balances on the beams above everyone as he travels to the other side of the room behind the Joker.
It’s about ten feet above the ground, but he’s done worse, and if he rolls an ankle he’ll survive.
Tim sits in a crouch and continues to watch the scene, not that he can hear much over the Joker’s cackles reverberating against the concrete ground.
His eyes trace over Jason’s outline. The blood along his misshaped bones. Broken in some places, shattered in others. His head is lolled forwards against his chest, but Tim can make out tiny flinches when the pitch of Joker’s crazed laughs gets to their peak.
He watches with his own disinterest as Joker pulls the gun on the woman and shoots her in the leg.
She finally develops some real emotion, if you count fear and anger, as she cries and yells in upset about betrayal.
Tim tilts his head but continues to just watch, waiting for the perfect time as he inches forward the tiniest bit to get the best angle.
“Well, well, well, now isn’t THAT a funny joke HA ha,” he giggles to himself maniacally.
Tim tilts his head, not knowing the story. Not really caring.
Jason whimpers, too tired to lift his head, but not too tired to defend another, as he rasps, “Leave her alone.”
The mad giggles stop as if they never began leaving stone silence.
The air feels suffocating, more suffocating than any of those nights with Jason as they held each other and hid from the gang the stole from.
Cold, ice.
Tim manually unclenches his fingers one at a time.
“Now, now birdie. That stage setup isn’t up to you now is it?” The Joker tilts his head before a grin slowly forms on his face once again,”But it IS close to the ending act!” He giggles to himself as he reveals the remote in his pocket- the final piece to his plan.
Exactly what Tim’s been waiting for.
He watches as the Joker points to a crate on the side of the room and presses a button on the remote making the box unfold revealing a bomb with ten minutes on it, before pressing another button to begin the countdown.
The Joker throws the remote on the ground and just as he looks down to step on it, Tim flips down slamming the man down to the ground head first. Without hesitation, he slides to grab the gun that skittered away in the crazed man’s surprise and turns, gun aimed and safety off towards the Rogue.
He pauses and breathes for a moment just staring at his target that doesn't get up.
He watches the blood ooze from the man’s head that had impacted directly into the concrete.
Tim’s breath deepens slowly, before he makes a decision and shoots anyway.
Just once, through the head.
Tim blinks at the ringing in his ear and the muscles in his arm spasming from the unnatural feeling of the recoil as he looks at the exploded cranium in front of him.
If he were any more aware and present than he was, he’s sure he would have already begun vomiting, but luckily for him, his body was already zoned out on auto-pilot as he was already turned around and untying Jason’s hands from the chair.
He looks up to see that the clock is at eight minutes when he stands up with Jason’s arm around his shoulder, before he feels something warm touch his ankle.
Snapping down he slams his heel down on what’s revealed to be the hand of the woman, when he hears the howling of pain reach his still faintly ringing ears.
Blankly, he stares at her bleeding out from the shot in her leg. Based on the blood, it hit her femoral artery and she’d die by the time she got to a hospital no matter what at this point. He continues to just stare for a moment before giving her an empty apology. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was you. But Robin and I really need to get going now.”
“You can’t just leave me! You can’t just-” The unknown woman blubbers hysterically.
Tim gives her one last look before starting to drag a half-coherent Jason along with him.
Past the door, he gives the lock on the other side of the door a passing glance before continuing the steady walk away from the warehouse.
They’re the same height but Tim focuses on the wet breathing against his side instead of the swelling in his left ankle and the heaviness in his lungs telling him to stop and catch a breath.
He feel himself slowly coming back online, and gets another burst of energy as his brain automatically tells him they have about a minute left. There isn’t anything real to hide behind but Tim pulls them behind a medium sized rock.
Gently settling Jason down, ignoring his sob of pain for now, he curls up on top of him trying to ignore the bones he can feel moving as he covers as much of Jason as he can.
Tim’s internal clock counts down from ten as he stares at Jason’s eyes.
Ten, nine, eight, seven…
Jason’s eyes clear for just a moment and immediately calms at seeing Tim’s eyes, which Tim can’t help but smile at as he cups Jason’s cheek and gives him a chaste kiss on the lips.
Jason’s body stays calm as Tim holds him through the explosion.
After counting another thirty seconds, he finally uncurls from covering Jason’s head and chest.
Jason just slowly blinks at him as Tim gives him one more loving kiss.
Barely hearing a rasp, Tim just shakes his head and whispers, “No, Jay. Don’t try to talk. You’re too hurt.”
Tim pulls a small notebook and pen from his pocket before hesitating and looking up cautiously.
Leaning forward, Tim leans over Jason’s face one more time, immediately gaining his attention, even as it had already drifted in the twenty seconds he was away.
Holding Jason’s face, he looks at him seriously.
“Jason, this is very important.” Jason blinks with mismatched pupils. “I can take you away right now. To the hospital. And I can sneak you away as soon as you’re feeling better.” Jason closes his eyes as he turns into Tim’s palm making him want to cry.
Tim wants to not give him a choice because this never should have happened.
But he doesn’t know the whole story. And just because he doesn’t understand family doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it to Jason.
Perfect, wonderful, hurt and almost-died-without-him Jason.
Leaning forward to press their foreheads together, a few tears drop regardless of his intent.
“Okay, okay,” Tim whispers to himself, “Jason,” he waits for Jason to open his eyes again, “I need you to blink twice if you want me to take you to the hospital and hide you away. I need you to blink three times for me if you want Bruce to take you home, Jay. He’ll be here in less than five minutes. He followed you, too.”
He waits and waits for what feels like an eternity to him. He knows exactly what answer he wants, but he also thinks he knows the answer he’ll get is not the same one.
Jason stares at him with love as he blinks three times, and Tim huffs a breath and a teasing smile even as the inside of him shrieks of possessiveness to never let this boy go past arm's reach again.
He wants to yell at the sky and the earth and Bruce fucking Wayne for not protecting his Jason.
But he doesn’t know the story.
Tim kisses him one more time.
“I’ll be right beside you, love.” Tim looks at his parked car not too far from the rock they’re at, “When Bruce comes, I’ll call for him, and then I’ll leave, okay?”
Jason uses a small amount of his strength to hold onto his wrist. But he doesn’t decline. He just stares at him with love and full of leftover fear.
Tim gently kisses him all over his face, everywhere he can reach where it shouldn’t hurt, “I’ll come visit you, I promise. And I’ll keep watch until Bruce takes you, okay, Jay? I love you so much and I-” Tim’s voice breaks wetly but he carries on like Jason can't feel the tears falling on his face.
Tim just stares at him for a moment before blinking rapidly and taking a deep breath.
Jason just stares at him through it. Gentle, perfect, even when he’s completely broken.
Tim sits back to grab the notebook and pen he’d dropped and writes a note before folding it an gently placing it on Jason’s chest where it won’t be lost.
Carefully laying down by his best friend’s side, he lets his body share his warmth as he uses his hand to carefully brush his fingers through Jason’s hair.
Their eyes meet like they have a thousand times before, and they wait.
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At the Manor, Bruce stares at Jason unblinking as he sleeps.
He unfolds and refolds the note in his hands, unthinkingly, as he thinks about the girl he saw for a few seconds.
He faintly remembers screaming as he ran towards the rocks and tore a few nails off as he immediately tore through the rubble searching through his son before a noise stole his attention.
A tree branch was broken and Bruce was torn between a bottomless pit of wrath and vengeance he’d never felt before, and the bleeding desire of hope that the noise came from his son. That his little boy wasn’t in the warehouse after all. That he stayed out and waited like he was supposed to.
Walking almost zombie-like towards the treeline, he absently walked around the rock before his foot ran into anothers’. Looking down, he saw his son. Bloody and broken but when he fell down to touch his son, he remembers and cherishes the fact that his son’s eyes opened to a slit and his hand wrapped around Bruce’s wrist gently.
Bruce turned around just to make sure it was safe and saw a sliver of a girl watching from the treeline, watching Bruce intently with an anger in her eyes that felt like a threat, before she turned and walked further into the forest.
Jason’s hand around his wrist tightened for the tiniest of moments as if in reminder that he’s there, and Bruce looked back at him with love and fear in his eyes.
Blinking, Bruce looks at his sleeping son watching him. He must have woken up while Bruce was thinking.
Jason curiously watches for another moment, “What’d she write?”
Bruce doesn’t startle, he’d seen Jason eye the note many times the past few days, but he never asked.
“Do you know who she was?” Bruce asks his own question as he grabs the water with a straw and helps Jason lean forward to drink.
Jason hums tiredly as he drinks, “Yeah, of course. We met four years ago. She’s my girlfriend.”
Bruce can’t hold back his flinch as he startled.
Why didn’t he know?
“Oh.” Bruce says, unsure how he should continue as he rubs the letter between his fingers.
The different context makes the letter seem a bit different, now.
But just as threatening. Maybe more so.
“You’ve never spoken about her.” Bruce says almost stiltedly, even as he pulls Jason’s hand in his own, gently, and filled with love.
Jason entwines their fingers with a gentle smile, “Yes. She’s funny like that. Doesn’t like other people knowing about her. I actually think she arranged our first meeting on purpose since I told her I wanted a family a few weeks before. She’s creepy like that.” But he says it fondly.
Bruce twitches. Unsure what someone should say to that. What a father can say to that. About someone he doesn’t know. Someone he should know, but doesn’t. Whether his opinion would or should even matter about someone who’s known his son longer than himself. Especially if it’s someone who gave his son to him. Speculation or not.
Someone who can take his son away. Apparently.
Bruce ignores the fire in his bones telling him to hold tight and never let go.
It didn’t work with Dick and it didn’t work with Jason.
Taking a breath.
“Okay,” he says calmly.
Jason just smiles lost in thought.
“Did you tell her you were Robin?” He asks.
Jason turns to stare at him, before tilting his head.
“Will you believe me if I say no?”
The fire in his bones washes out in ice water as he remembers for the millionth time that this began with him staring at Jason and asking a question and not quite believing the answer.
Garzonas will not disappear even if it’s been put on the backslide.
Bruce should have known that the trust Bruce broke between them wouldn’t just-
Bruce sighs before looking up sadly and guiltily.
“Yeah, Jason. I’ll believe you.”
Jason looks and looks before turning away. But he doesn’t take his hand away from Bruce’s.
“I think she’s known about it since before she knew me. She wasn’t surprised at all when she first saw me as Robin. Just pulled me into a hug and asked how I was just like she does as always whenever she gets the chance.”
Bruce still isn’t sure how to respond. But he really never is. Not to Dick. Not to Jason.
“Will I get to meet her one day?”
Jason pulls his eyes back to him and smiles, “Yeah. She has a situation she’s resolving at the moment. But we promised we’d get married when she turns eighteen. So you know, sometime around then knowing her.”
Bruce’s eyebrows raise without his permission, “And how old is she now?”
Jason looks at him with a smirk, “Well, she wouldn’t tell me her actual birthday, but from what I gathered, she’s about one and a half to two years younger then me. So probably thirteen.”
“So you’re saying I won’t meet your girlfriend for another five years.” He says it like a statement instead of a question, but Jason still just shrugs.
“She doesn’t really care for authority or adults.”
Bruce stills.
“Are you implying she doesn’t have any authority or adults in her life?”
His son looks at him tiredly, almost exasperated about the topic, “Bruce. I know where your heads going with this, but she simply doesn’t want it. She finds the idea genuinely tiresome. And I know what you’re thinking-”
He cuts Bruce off before he can even begin, “You’re thinking that she doesn’t know any better cause she’s young and oh she needs someone to take care of her and love her and- Bruce.” Jason looks him dead in the eye, completely serious.
“Not everybody wants your version of saving. Not everyone wants to be saved at all.”
Bruce doesn’t say anything besides clenching his jaw a little.
“She could get her GED right now if she wanted. She has money available to her if she needs it. And if she needs help, she knows how to get into contact with me. She is a very self-aware person, and very aware of her own abilities and limits. She has goals she wants to accomplish. Dreams to reach. And none of those things revolve around putting herself in a position where another person can tell her what to do. She said I’ll be the first to know if this changes, but it hasn’t since I met her, and she rarely changes her opinion on things like this. I’m asking you, do not involve yourself in this.”
Bruce really wants to involve himself in this.
But he also really wants Jason to trust him again. And so he needs to trust Jason back.
Internally sighing, Bruce nods, “So… five years though?”
Jason just snickers.
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Bruce,
If this ever happens again, I’ll be taking him and you will never see him again.
I’ll be watching, and if he isn’t happy in the next three months,
I’m keeping him and never giving him back.
Sincerely,
None of your damn business