Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sourdough

The push and pull of kneading dough is soothing - Jason doesn’t need it, things have actually been decently calm as of late, but that doesn’t mean the motions aren’t borderline meditative.

Just because he isn’t stressed doesn’t mean he can’t be in the mood to treat himself to some decent, fresh sourdough bread.

Not even the scrape of one of his many siblings disabling the traps on his window can break through his fucking zen.

The sounds pause, the window opens. Seconds later, Replacement’s voice calls out from the hallway.

“Hey, Jay, did you get any new info on last week’s gang war flare - oh shit!”

Turning, Jason raises an unimpressed eyebrow as Tim books it out of the apartment like he’s being chased by literal hell demons. Them, or a very irate Red Hood - Jason has seen him run from both, and Tim's urgency and pacing are amusingly similar.

If the brat had bothered to pay attention before listening to his hard earned fight-or-flight instincts (really hard earned, no seriously, Tim had had to reap the consequences of interrupting Jason’s rage baking seven times before he finally started running), Jason may have even let him have some once it’s done baking.

Oh no, what a shame. More bread for him.

Jason focuses back on his kneading, humming to himself. He still has another four minutes before it’s ready for the first proof.

“Mean.”

Jumping about a foot in the air, he barely restrains himself from grabbing one of his good kitchen knifes and hurling it behind him. It would just end up with a dirty knife and a potentially nicked blade, since he sure as hell wasn’t going to hit Cass with it, and then Jason would actually be annoyed.

Instead, Jason rolls his eyes and exaggeratedly turns his back on his fucking ninja of a sister. “Don’t know what you’re talking about - I didn’t say shit.”

“Implied,” Cass says from right behind his goddamn elbow. She would be great at looming, if she wasn’t so short. (That’s a lie, she’s already great at looming - being scary as fuck lets her do pretty much whatever the hell she wants in the intimidation department.)

“It’s not my fault Timbo didn’t read the room before bailing,” Jason snarks, peering suspiciously at the dough to make sure his surprise didn’t fuck up any of the building gluten structures.

Cass huffs at him, disbelieving, as she leans onto his left arm.

“Do you need something, or are you just here to make my life difficult?” Jason grumbles without heat. The last time Cass had been in town, Jason had been on a mission with the Outlaws. It’s been months since they were last able to even talk. He’ll never admit it, but he may have missed her, just a little.

“Missed my litter brother,” Cass says, reaching up and patting the top of his shoulder.

Jason refuses to be touched by that, because he knows better.

Cass ducks out from her lean and makes herself at home in his fridge, pulling out the sliced fruit and last night’s chocolate mousse. “And snacks, while bread bakes.”

There it is.

“Just come into my house and eat all of my food, why don’t you,” Jason grouses, pausing to poke at the hall of dough to check its elasticity.

Cass hums happily, clearly interpreting his exasperation as acceptance for some reason.

He puts the dough into the oiled bowl sitting next to his flour-coated section of the counter, covering it with a towel and setting an alarm for one hour.

By the time he finishes washing his hands, Cass has already polished off half of her mousse cup, dipping strawberries into her early dessert. She pushes the second cup she’d taken when he wasn’t looking towards him, turning the fruit bowl so he doesn’t have to work to reach the blueberries.

They spend the next three hours quietly catching up over first fruit, then hummus and veggies after they eat through the available supply.

He’s going to have to go shopping sooner than expected, and Cass does end up stealing the first slice of bread, but the face she makes after she shoves the still piping hot goods into her mouth in an act of defiance makes up for it.

Whether or not the extra slices he throws at her ‘for the road’ ever make it to Tim is none of his business. That’s between Cass and Timbo, and no one else.

Chapter Text

Bread

It’s well past midnight, and Jason knows that he’s going to get into so much trouble for this, but he can’t sleep.

He’s only been in the Wayne Manor for three months at this point, and he still has a hard time believing that this might actually be real, that he won’t be kicked out the second he makes a mistake, that Bruce isn’t going to come to him and randomly demand what little Jason has to give in return for a place to live and food to eat.

Restless legs carry him through winding halls and into an enormous kitchen - he’s stressed, and upset, because why the hell does he miss that shithole of an apartment he’d lived in with Mom before… It’s stupid. He’s being stupid.

He just can’t shake the tight feeling in his chest, head filled with a collage of memories and smells.

The kitchen is Alfie’s domain, not Bruce’s. Sure, the old butler’s probably gonna be super pissed when he learns that Jason took advantage of those times they cooked together to fuck up his place, but he’s also too British to smack the shit out of Jason once he finds out.

Before he can think about it any longer, Jason starts opening cupboards and cabinets, looking for the basic shit you need to bake anything ever, and anything that looks like the packet of what he’d been convinced was off-color rat shit the first time he’d helped his mom make bread.

His search isn’t quiet, and he’s going purely off of memory. This is going to be a disaster, Jason can already tell, but he can’t seem to stop himself.

Minutes later, he has a large bowl, a large spoon, a fancy glass jar of flour, some salt, water as hot as he could get it from the sink, a jar of honey, and, miraculously, three of those rat-turd packets. They’re all different colors and say different shit on them, but they sound right when he shakes them, so Jason figures he’ll just choose one and live with it when that inevitably fucks everything up.

To give himself some more time, Jason spoons honey into the hot water until the little pool of golden goop amassing at the bottom of the glass measuring cup looks like it’s the right size.

That takes approximately no time at all, and he’s still no closer to remembering which type of turds his mom used.

Fuck it - he’s always liked the color red, so he grabs the packet with the most red on it. Looks like “Active Dry Yeast”, whatever the hell that is, is the winner.

A gentle cough from the kitchen entry way makes Jason jump hard enough he throws the packet in the air, spinning to get an eye on whoever just snuck up on him.

Alfie stares back patiently, dressed in that fancy suit and looking too fucking calm about finding the street rat his boss took in making a mess of his kitchen.

“Might I instead suggest the instant yeast, Master Jason? I find that it performs the best when working with quick rising bread.”

Jason relaxes his startled crouch slightly, glancing back at the other packets. Sure enough, there’s a packet lined in blue that says “Instant Yeast”.

“How’d’ya know I’m makin’ quick rising bread?” He bristles, too defensive to do much else. It’s almost a sincere question, and despite everything, he thinks Alfie might actually answer it.

He only kind of knows the one recipe, and an hour seems like a long time for the dough to poof up. He’s no expert, but it’s definitely not a process he’d call “quick” by any means.

Alfie smiles at him, warmth in his tone as he replies. “Just a feeling of mine, Master Jason. If you’re not planning on making such a recipe, then would you be willing to indulge an old man and assist me with making the bread we need for today’s lunch? You look as though a little kneading will do you good.”

Jason hesitates, looking between the two packets. “It’s supposed to rise for an hour. That sound quick to you? Why do you think I should do the kneading?”

To his surprise, the butler nods. “An hour may seem like a long stretch of time, but there are other types of bread that do best when left to rise overnight, with at least five hours to fully proof.”

Jason can feel his jaw drop. Five whole hours? Just for some bread?

“As for kneading, well, I’ve always found it to be soothing. Something to help calm racing thoughts, work through whatever tension currently weighs on one’s shoulders. It’s certainly helped me plenty in the past, much to Master Bruce’s great relief, I’m sure. I feel as though a such a thing may be helpful for you, today.”

Trying to be casual, Jason tosses the dry yeast towards the little pile of packets, swapping it out with the blue one. He’s gotta be cool about this, Alfie still hasn’t kicked him out yet, and he’s so close to being in a kitchen filled with familiar smells that it almost hurts. “You saying I look like shit, Alfie?”

He gets the stink-eye for that.

“Language, young sir. I said nothing of the sort. The fact that you are awake and embarking upon a labour-intensive task at two in the morning merely gave me the impression that you have something on your mind.”

Turning back to the still vaguely steaming water, Jason shrugs, embarrassed. He rips open the new packet of rat turds and dumps it in, stirring everything briefly before putting the cup off to the side to foam up. “… maybe I do have something on my mind. I don’t wanna talk about it, though.”

Alfie walks over to stand next to him, a clean apron held out in offering. “For some reason, I had another feeling that that would be your answer.”

Jason snorts, bringing his hands up to cover his mouth after a delay, glancing up like Alfie’s gonna hit his hands with a ruler for letting out such an uncouth sound.

The butler just smiles gently at him, raising the apron slightly higher.

Jason takes it.

“Can I still help you make your bread after mine is done?”

“Certainly, sir.”

Jason ends his night face down on the kitchen table, a funny feeling gripping his chest. He’s got a fresh loaf of bread, almost the same as how his mother would make it, a new recipe tucked away for rainy days, and a budding understanding of just how therapeutic smooshing around a bunch of dough can be. He thinks the weird feeling might be happiness.

Chapter Text

Easter Bread & Matzah 

“Jason, why do you hate me?”

Bending over to check on the Easter bread currently in the oven, Jason ignores Tim’s whining and lets himself enjoy the sweet aroma filling the manor’s kitchen.

“It’s no use, Tim. At this point, we only have two options: stay and endure, or leave and miss the opportunity to spend time with Jason while he’s willing to be in the manor,” Bruce informs Tim gravely, hands folded together on the kitchen island in front of him as though he’s delivering a proposal to his board of advisors.

The Replacement, slumped over with his forehead pressed to an unnecessarily large cup of coffee, moans. “That’s not nearly as big of a dilemma as you think it is, Bruce.”

“And yet here you remain, firmly in my presence,” Jason tosses over his shoulder, smirking. The top of the loaf isn’t quite golden, and the sliced almonds could certainly use the extra time. Another five minutes, then.

“Fuck you, I haven’t finished my coffee yet,” Tim snaps with a surprising amount of heat. “You’re such an asshole. It’s Passover. I know you know it’s Passover. Why are you making bread right now?”

Touchy. “Because I need this Easter bread to turn out perfectly - Alfie’s been bragging about me to his church friends; I have to do something to validate all the hot air he’s blowing up my ass somehow.”

“You don’t even celebrate Easter! Couldn’t you have perfected your bread making literally anywhere else?” Tim grouses.

“Not that we’re not thrilled to have you here,” Bruce cuts in quickly, receiving a withering glare from Robin number three for his interference.

Jason snorts. “Nah, the manor’s got a proofing oven on top of the two regular ovens in this kitchen alone - none of my safe houses have half of the hardware you’re working with.”

“I will build you all of the ovens your dead little heart could ever want, if you promise to never make bread here again,” Tim hisses.

Bruce makes a wounded sound, and Jason laughs yet again.

“Pretty sure you’d have at least a couple people pissed at you if I accepted that offer, Timbo. Yourself included, in another eight days.”

“Fuck off, I do what I want. That’s a problem for future me to worry about.”

“Damn, if you really feel that way I can leave,” Jason starts, sighing dramatically. He gestures to the lauded second oven, currently set to ‘warming’, “It’s such a shame that all this fresh Matzah will go to waste with no one to eat it once I take it back to my safehouse, though.”

Tim’s head snaps up. “Matzah?”

Bruce looks disgustingly hopeful. “You made us Matzah?”

Jason pulls a deep pan covered in tinfoil out of the warming oven, setting it onto a pre-positioned trivet. “Of course I made Matzah. It’s Passover.”

Tim immediately makes grabby hands at him, all but cooing when Jason sacrifices two pieces to the gremlin his brother suddenly became through the promise of food after midnight (baked goods – he means baked goods). He shoves one in his mouth immediately, glaring at Jason like he’s about to snatch the other away. He’s gripping it almost as hard as he normally holds onto his coffee - it’s immensely gratifying, in a weird kind of way.

Tim blinks in surprise, the taste obviously hitting him. Frowning, he asks Bruce, “Is it normal for homemade to taste this much better than store-bought?”

Looking on ruefully, Bruce gives Tim a sad smile. “When Jason’s the one making it? Yes, absolutely.”

Jason can feel his ears burn with embarrassment. Sharply turning around, he grabs another handful of crackers to dump in front of Tim as he stalks out of the kitchen, ignoring whatever shit the two kitchen-invaders want to talk about in favor of finding some peace of goddamn mind.

He’s forced to come back four minutes later to take the Easter bread out of the oven, face red as he studiously ignores the stares directed his way. Tim can have his unleavened crackers; the kid needs to eat more anyways. Bruce, on the other hand, deserves to smell the wonderful bread Jason just made while also getting a first-row seat to just how awesome Jason’s Matzah is, knowing full well he can’t have any until this evening.

The fact that he moves the Easter bread into a much less often utilized kitchen as soon as he can safely transport it is almost as inconsequential as the second batch of Matzah he’s planning on making to go with the feast he and Alfie are putting together tonight.

Chapter Text

Potato Rosemary Rolls 

“Goddamn idiots!”

Jason slams the door to his safehouse shut, the piece of crap rattling in its frame as it latches. Fumbling to reset the small army of locks and traps arming said door single-handedly, Jason mutters curses under his breath as he pushes his other hand into the bullet wound that grazed his already bruised ribs.

Fucking assholes think they can get away with butting into his territory and messing with his kids. They’re lucky that they still had the teens they’d managed to pressure into acting as unwilling runners, all in relatively good shape.

This new gang really was getting too uppity, and the little flare of violence from last month hadn’t worked as well as it should have to keep them in place. A few well-placed bullets had fixed that, but only temporarily. He’s got some digging to do - such a quick recovery after getting what Jason estimated to be just under half their numbers decimated points to an outside source of financial backing, and the location and identities of the people they pulled off the streets even though they knew his rules means they’re after the Red Hood.

That means it’s his fault those kids got grabbed, got hurt, which is a reality he’s steeled himself to accept the second he made that damn rule to protect them in a city full of assholes who would take advantage of such an obvious weakness in a heartbeat, but more importantly, it’s his fault he didn’t catch on sooner. They’d been in operation for about half a year by this point, and Jason hadn’t caught wind of them being anything other than new meat on the block until two months ago. It’s unacceptable.

The simmering rage gets him through the arduous process of stitching up his side, growling out orders for surveillance and intel gathering to his second in command over the phone all the while.

It’s a late night for him - the inky smog has already gained a slight reddish hue, flashing its warning that the sun is nearly peeking over the horizon, and he’s exhausted.

He stalks over to his fridge, yanking out the biga starter he’s managed to convince over half his siblings is actually just a homemade bomb in its earliest stages, and roughly skims off the liquid and top layer, feeding it and setting it to the side to wait.

All but throwing down a cutting board, bowl, and sauce pan onto his counter, he spares a thought to whether this apartment’s nosy neighbors will submit yet another noise complaint for the loud banging he’s making at… 6:12 AM. It doesn’t matter, he’s the one that owns the fucking building. Plus, they’ve heard far worse from him, they can deal.

Next come the potatoes, which he easily cleans, peels, and checks for bad spots before he dices them and puts them into a bowl to microwave. Like fuck is he waiting forever for them to boil properly, he doesn’t have all fucking day.

With that plan in motion, he moves over to his cabinets and pulls out freshly ground pepper, kosher salt, powdered rosemary, and garlic powder. Next is the yeast, flour, measuring cup and thermometer for the water. Then, two baking trays, a roll of parchment paper, and that fancy rosemary olive oil Cass had gotten him on her last trip through Italy.

He measures out the dry ingredients, leaving out the powdered rosemary and onion since he’s got other plans for them, and pours the right amount of water to heat later.

That done, he grabs the potatoes just as the microwave rings, dumping them into the waiting pot and filling it with just enough water to cover the starchy cubes. Shoving that on the stove on high heat, he turns back to his fridge to look for the fresh rosemary he just bought earlier this week.

Five minutes and one boiling pot of potatoes later, and he’s still empty handed.

Cursing, he throws a handful of onion powder, rosemary powder, salt, and pepper into the pot, reducing the heat and setting a timer. Shit, maybe he just missed them the first time since he’s stressed. This is why…

Before he can dig too deep into the sparsely populated back of his fridge a second time, a text alert chimes from his personal phone.

It’s Duke.

Jason pauses.

No matter how much Jason hates everyone right now, he can’t be too much of an asshole to Narrows. The kid’s pretty great, all things considered, and he never treats Jason like he’s not living up to some imagined expectations, violent or heroic or otherwise. It’s not his fault Bruce managed to trap him into this shitshow of a family.

Glaring at his potatoes, daring them to boil over while he’s not watching, Jason shuts the fridge and unlocks his phone.

It’s a selfie of the kid standing in front of Jason’s shitty safehouse door, Steph’s rosemary plant held up in one hand like a prize, the other in a peace sign. Jason has no idea how the hell the kid took the picture.

Narrows: thought u might need some of this

A second later,

Narrows: is this u?

He sends Jason a picture of a grumpy black cat covered in flour.

Jason snorts. The kid’s been hanging out with East End too often if this is the kind of shit he’s sending him.

Narrows: LetMeIn.gif

And that right there screams Timbit, without the added layers of self-deprecation and depression.

Before he can send any more ridiculous memes, Jason makes his way to the door to let the kid in.

It’s a lot easier to navigate his locks while not actively bleeding, which is something he definitely knew already, but it’s nice to have concrete evidence that he didn’t lose too much blood to not have recovered a bit by now.

Duke greets him with a small, victorious grin once Jason wrestles the door open, offering up East End’s plant like it’s his ticket to casa del Todd.

Grabbing the thing, Jason stands aside and resets all the locks single-handedly for a second time this morning after the kid hurries inside.

“Figured this might be able to help a bit,” Duke says, nodding to the plant like that’s the only thing he thinks will help.

This kid. He texts ahead, doesn’t break into his place like the rest of their asshole family would, and brings him shit he doesn’t even know he needs, all because he knew Jason had a rough night.

“Come on, Day Shift, let’s get you sitting before you fall over. You still have to go to school today, remember?” Jason replies, grabbing Duke by the shoulder and steering him to one of two seats pushed under the kitchen table. He has more, but putting them out is just asking for a sibling invasion, so out of self-preservation, the other chairs stay locked away.

Duke collapses into his seat with a loud ‘oof’, acting like he’s an old man in his fifties. Jason stares judgmentally.

“Don’t give me crap for that, you know what all of this vigilante shit does to your joints!” Duke whines.

“Yeah, yeah. Groans when he sits down, complains about joint pain, has a bed time… you sure you’re a senior in high school, Narrows? Sounds more like a senior citizen to me.”

Jason actually manages a chuckle at Duke’s outraged squawk, stirring the potatoes and poking one with a fork to test it.

“That was terrible!” Duke moans, letting his head thump onto the table at the sight of Jason’s broadening grin.

“You’re right. Bruce will never tell anyone, but that’s the real reason I was fired from being Robin - my puns just weren’t up to snuff.”

Letting out a sound of incoherent disgust, Duke rolls his head to face away from Jason. “Awful! Horrible! I can’t believe I woke up early to see you!”

Smirking, Jason drains the potatoes, returning them to the pot and grabbing a carton of heavy cream from the fridge.

Duke whistles, then chucks a small carton of the same cream at Jason when he turns. Guess that went bad too, which almost never happens. Has it really been so long since he’s cooked in this safehouse?

Shaking his head, Jason discards the thought, turning his attention to mashing the absolute shit out of his potatoes. It helps, a little bit.

With just enough cream to give them the perfect texture, he scoops out a cup and sets it aside. Gathering the rest onto a large plate, Jason grabs dried parsley, a block of cheese, and a container of pre-cooked, thankfully still-good bacon, setting it all down in front of his guest. A second later, and a fork, cheese grater, and cup of water are also set down, the latter pushed meaningfully into Duke’s folded arms.

“Eat up, I’m not having you miss breakfast because you had to pick up after my sloppy ass.”

Duke perks up, acting like any teenager faced with free food does, and gets to work preparing his potatoes. Two mouthfuls in, he points his fork at Jason in what’s probably supposed to be a threat. He just looks like an adorable squirrel with his cheeks puffed out, but Jason isn’t planning to be the one to burst his bubble.

“You weren't sloppy, this just happens sometimes. We all have bad nights.”

Jason turns around, face falling into a blank mask. He stays quiet as he measures out the room temperature biga and tips it out onto the counter, refilling the jar with flour and water before separating the goo he plans on using into pieces with a pastry cutter.

Duke doesn’t say anything as the unsharpened blade thunks into the counter with more force than necessary, or when Jason snips off two sprigs of rosemary to decimate and starts mixing the ingredients together slightly too violently, and he can’t help but be grateful.

Jason knows he’s getting into his head about this, but he also knows that he’s been a bit too relaxed lately. Constant vigilance leads to burnout, but he’s mostly still a bat, and all bats are classically trained in the art of paranoia. He’ll figure out how he feels about the most recent instance of those two truths clashing later, but outside interference will only piss him off right now.  

Not too surprising, but Narrows makes it through all ten long minutes of Jason beating the shit (properly) out of the slightly tacky dough, not bailing out when he starts cursing out a laundry list of assholes out under his breath, starting with Jason himself and moving onto the bastards making a move on Crime Alley pretty quickly before devolving from there. The kid's gotta go to school eventually, though, so Jason wipes down his hands and leaves the rest of the mess to sit for a little longer as he grabs his keys.

Duke raises his own judgmental eyebrow at him, which is kind of a bitch move to do to the person who just fed you breakfast, but whatever.

"You going somewhere, Red?"

Jason jingles the keys in front of his face, like he's trying to entertain a cat. "Yeah, school to drop your sorry ass off. Come on, Narrows, or you're gonna be late."

Duke's eyebrow stays up. "I know it's my turn in the family to cause some kind of media storm, but I was thinking more 'ACAB' than 'Red Hood drops me off at school sometimes', ya know?"

Blinking, Jason stares at him. "What are you talking about?"

Duke waves at him. "Dude, you didn't change, that's not your civilian bike, and you're certainly not about to reach for your civilian helmet."

Jason looks down. Sure enough, he's still in his slightly blood-soaked Red Hood armor, sans the chest-piece he had to take off to do his stitches. "Ah. Gimme a second, since you don't wanna offend anyone's delicate sensibilities."

"Let's save that one for when Bruce pisses off both of us, Alley!" Duke laughs, the sound following Jason down the hallway as he retreats to his room to change into something more daytime-appropriate.

Things are quiet when he returns from his good deed for the month, but it's not as bad as it was when he first ended patrol. He shapes the dough into smaller rolls, then gets them set up on the baking sheets and lets them proof a second time, doing the dishes as he waits. Jason ends up with twenty-four rosemary potato rolls, all but two of which he hands out to the street kids that swarm him as soon as they see his leather jacket. Jason doesn't know if they know he's Red Hood, or if they just think that he's a... very close associate - he's had people accuse him of being all sorts of things in that regard, and none of it actually matters in the end. What does matter, is that they trust him enough to take the food he offers without any suspicious glares or suspect counter-offers, which is an amazing feat in and of itself. The last two, he sends with Tim when he sees him on his next patrol to deliver to Narrows and East End, since they saved his bacon on this last recipe.

Tim glares at him, probably because it's still Passover and he's not allowed to have any, but Jason filled up the fridge in his so called “Nest” with enough kosher food to last the kid two weeks, so he probably doesn't have to worry about waking up and finding out all of his appliances have turned against him. Stress cooking isn't as meditative as stress baking to Jason, but he’s found that it's a decent enough swap-out in a pinch.

Chapter Text

Milk Bread

Steph, emboldened by the fact that she basically got free bread after she made Duke do all of the heavy lifting, has been sending Jason pictures of bread non-stop. He knows where she's going with this, but she'll need to earn it if she wants another slice; no more free-bees. He's not a "bread whore", like she implies. (Jason doesn't know what a "bread-whore" is. Steph said that it's like the "lemon whore's” hunky, gluten-based older brother, but that failed to clear up literally anything. Apparently, he lives in bakeries and steals bread? When Jason told her to stop profiling him, she just shook her head sadly and patted his arm in a move scarily reminiscent of Cass. He knows that he missed a decent chunk of 'meme culture' when he was dead or training under the League of Assassins, but he didn't think he'd missed that much.)

Her time doesn't come until a month later, when they both end up at a family dinner despite their best efforts.

Listen, Jason is a simple man. If he sees a spunky blond call Bruce stupid to his face and chew him out over a dumb decision from months ago, right in front of everyone during a family dinner, there's no way he's not gonna make East End something to encourage that kind of behavior.

Some may call it trying to Pavlov his family into cussing out Bruce, but he calls it being nice.

As far as he can tell, a majority of the pictures she's sent him are of milk bread, so he roots around the pictures section of his phone for the recipe he'd absently lifted from a bakery in Hokkaido years ago and makes his way to the kitchen after dinner concludes. Usually, he never stays in the manor longer than he has to, but some things are worth the risk of running into Bruce's 'disappointed' face. Being the one to inspire said face on purpose through conscious and well thought out action is one of those things.

He texts East End as he goes, making sure he catches her before she bails - she's absolutely hit her limit on how much bat-crazy she can take for the day, but Jason's pretty sure he's gonna be the exception, at least for tonight.

Two minutes later, Steph bounces into the kitchen as he's pulling out ingredients, and lights up with unholy glee. "Waffles?!"

Jason shakes the jar of flour he's holding at her, clearly labelled "Bread Flour" in Alfie's best handwriting. "No."

And just like that, she deflates. "Waffles," she says sadly, suddenly moving as though she has the weight of the world resting upon her weary shoulders as she approaches the island to flop into one of the stools.

"Last time I checked, blondie, you didn't need anyone's help to make some decent waffles," Jason says, thoroughly unimpressed.

Steph pouts at him. "But waffles made by other people taste better!"

Jason... kind of gets it? His mom would say something similar, back when she was in good enough shape to cook and they had the money for the ingredients. He shrugs. "Well, it's not waffles."

Sticking out her tongue, Steph screws up her face comically. "Boo, you whore."

Jason takes a page out of his most sane sibling's book, and raises an eyebrow at her.

Steph gasps. "Wait, is this you getting into your Bread Whore persona? Are you gonna make me bread? While shirtless??"

"N- why would I be shirtless?" Jason asks, lost.

Steph digs around on her phone for a second before turning the screen so he can see it. On it is a conversation between her and Narrows, and in the middle of a plethora of memes is a photo of him, bare-chested and baking in one of his safehouse's shitty kitchens. Jason has no idea when Narrows took the picture.

"You baked bread for Duke in your slutsona," Steph says, pointedly tapping her finger on the offending picture.

The only time he's baked for Duke specifically had been his last birthday, but there was that time...

Oh, for fuck's sake. Jason sighs, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "The only reason my shirt was off was because I had to stich up a bullet graze, East End, and that bread wasn't for him or for you. I'm not gonna strip so you can get even with Narrows in whatever pissing match you've got going on."

"Boo, you're no fun," Steph blows a raspberry at him, but switches gears quickly enough after both of her dreams finish shattering. "So, what are we making today, chef?"

Jason tosses her the bottle of 2% milk from the fridge, smirking as she yelps and dives for the glass projectile. He will never understand Alfie's penchant for taking things out of their original containers and putting then into glass ones, but it does occasionally make for some interesting kitchen interactions.

"Since you volunteered, we'll be making milk bread."

"Fuck yeah, cloud bread!" Steph yells, punching the air.

"Not cloud bread, milk bread," Jason clarifies.

Steph pauses her victory dance. "Wait, they're not the same thing?"

"Cloud bread is just meringue, East End. Milk bread is actual bread."

"Is it still fluffy?"

Jason holds back another sigh. "Yes, it's still fluffy."

Steph points at him dramatically. "Then it counts!"

Jason rolls his eyes, but he can feel the corners of his mouth lifting without his permission.

They decide to make two batches, with Steph closely following Jason's lead since she's one of the very few people who frequent Jason's life that can be trusted in the kitchen. Jason goes the classic route, using his hands to knead the bread, and Steph uses Alfie's fancy stand mixer since she's the kind of person to actually follow every single step of the recipe word-for-word when it comes to baking, surprisingly. Insults and quips get tossed around almost as much as spare flour, and Jason gets conned into playing a game on Steph's Switch as they wait out the proofing times.

Alfie pops his head in occasionally, alternating between shaking his head at the mess they're causing and making proud sounds when things continue to not be on fire every time he checks on them.

Eventually, the loaves go into the oven, side by side, and they settle in for a final round of Animal Crossing. Jason's kind of in love with the fishing aspect of the game, especially after Steph cheated and had him skip forward in time to the point that his island has an actual museum where he can see everything he's donated to that nerdy owl.

When the timer rings, Jason and Steph argue over what constitutes the perfect shade of golden brown the egg-washed tops should be. They wind up going with Steph's gut since the whole reason they're making this at all is because she was kind of a badass when she told Bruce to shove it where the sun don't shine.

(Steph turns out to be right on the money with her assessment, but Jason will never admit defeat like that, so it’s now a secret he's going to take to his second grave.)

The loaves look just as fluffy as the internet says they should, according to East End, and the two of them end up back on Animal Crossing while they wait for the bread to cool enough to eat. Steph taps at her phone for a few seconds, then turns her attention back to Jason's pathetic attempts to catch a scorpion to have as a pet. He's on a hell island that's chock full of the bastards, but try number three ends the same as the rest – with a worried Dodo hovering over his character, asking if he wants to go home.

A few minutes later, they're joined by Tim who plops his bony ass down on Jason's other side and promptly joins Steph in laughing at his bug-catching adventure. Next is Dick, who leans over Jason's shoulder and exclaims loudly whenever one of the creepy-crawlies starts moving towards Jason. Steph's phone lights up with a text, and she announces that Duke's asked them to save a slice for him - poor boy's on an overnight field trip to Metropolis, of all places - high school, man. Then, Damian wanders in and claims the view over Jason's other shoulder, full of acerbic bite, telling him to give up his useless attempts at being cool and to admit defeat already. Jason knows that the brat just wants to see which villagers he got. Lastly, Steph's phone pings again, and she shoves it under Jason's nose to read the string of heart, bread, and exclamation emojis Cass sent, along with an actual photo of here proudly holding up an opened box of her own milk bread, brightly colored kanji decorating the paper it's wrapped in.

Steph's apparently chosen to share her Jason-baked bread with the whole family, which is a hell of a lot more generous than most people are with the stuff he bakes.

Using the bread knife (somewhat unnecessarily, since milk bread's whole deal is that it's so light and fluffy you can pull it apart easily), Jason splits his loaf into seven thick slices, leaving the last two on the plate to wrap up later for Duke and Alfie.

It's at this point that Bruce stumbles into the kitchen, clearly looking for one of his hoard of children, and shocked to find them all in the same place without any violence or property damage occurring.

"Ah, more bread?" Is the first thing he says, after an awkward pause where Bruce just stares at them in stunned (and stunted) silence.

Jason moves towards Steph's remaining bread on the counter, turning his back on Bruce and purposefully misinterpreting the situation. "If you're gonna be like that, I can just leave."

"Jaylad, wait!" Bruce calls, and Jason pauses. It's... been a while since he's heard that nickname. He thought it was weird how nice Bruce was being back when he was trying to keep Tim from banning him from baking in the house, but now he doesn't even have the promise of fresh Matzah to make B want to keep Jason around. He's not sure what this means, and he doesn't know if he likes how it's making him feel. "You don't have to go, I was just surprised. You don't usually stay after family dinners."

Someone coughs into the ensuing silence.

"... I don't usually come to family dinners at all," Jason says flatly, shooting Bruce a flat look over his shoulder. It's not his fault he'd been convinced he wasn't invited – he'd tried to shoot, stab, and/or kill multiple people in this family, multiple times. He's on the FBI's most wanted list. Half the time, people don't know if he's still on the list of Batman's rouges or allies. Sue him for not liking any bit of the ambiguity surrounding his station within the bat-clan.

Bruce's smile strains, but it's amazingly real. "I'm glad you decided to come to this one, then."

Damian fake gags, and like that, the moment shatters. Jason turns back to his task, wrapping up the extra slices, and Steph loads the dirty dishes they were too busy playing Animal Crossing to deal with earlier into the sink. The rest of the birds float away into the background, but pretty conspicuously fail to leave the room. They can sense an upcoming Bruce Blunder just as well as Jason can.

"Are you...  saving those for someone?" Bruce asks, knowing what his kids are doing but soldiering on regardless. He gestures to the neatly saran wrapped slices.

"Yes." Jason says, tone even and completely unhelpful.

"Oh, okay. Who are they for?"

"Alfie, since he let us use his kitchen, and Duke, since he's on a school trip and asked."

Jason moves on to Steph's loaf, saran wrap in hand.

"You're wrapping up that one, too?" Bruce asks, confused.

"Of course he is," Steph pipes up. "That's my bread - I'm gonna bring it in to share with my nursing class tomorrow."

"Oh," Bruce deflates, sounding sad. "I don't suppose there's a third loaf hiding anywhere that isn't already claimed?"

Jason makes a production out of looking around the bare countertops surrounding them before turning back to Bruce. "Nope."

Bruce wilts further.

Scoffing, Jason crosses his arms. "What, just because I can bake, you want to treat me like some kind of bread whore?"

Steph and Tim snort at the same time Dick chokes on his own spit and Damian lets out a loud noise of disgust. Bruce looks flabbergasted.

"Jaylad, what?"

Throwing his hands into the air, Jason spins around dramatically. "Newsflash, Bruce! I don't live in your kitchen! I'm not your maid, here to serve you bread twenty-four/seven! I have my own hopes and dreams for my future!"

Utterly confused, Bruce nods. "Of course Jason, I know you’ve always wanted to go to Cambridge for your literature degree."

Jason mentally stalls out. He didn't think Bruce would remember that.

Recovering, he turns his obvious pause into a dramatic swoon, landing in Steph's convenient embrace, an arm splayed across his eyes. "How do you expect me to pay for college if you want me to spend all of my time trapped in the kitchen? I am more than the pastries I make! East End, take me away from here! I can't stand being confined like this any longer!"

Steph hoists him into a princess carry, shooting Bruce a withering look as she silently staggers out of the kitchen with him in her arms. She doesn't let him go until they reach the front door, even though he can feel her muscles straining. He can also feel her chest shaking with repressed laughter, but that's a different issue.

As Alfie closes the door behind them, sadly dabbing at a watery eye like he’s an overly invested auntie watching her favorite telenovela, Steph collapses, and the two of them erupt into laughter.

"Damn, Jay, how much do you weigh? I didn't know Bread Whores were allowed to sample the goods!" Steph wheezes, wiggling out from under him and moving to sit pressed up against his side.

"Fuck you, blondie, it's all muscle!" Jason gasps. "Maybe you didn't recognize it, since you've obviously been skipping arm day!"

Steph whaps him with a wet-noodle of a punch. "You take that back, you big meat-head! Not all of us can use Ra's's forbidden jungle juice as our pre-workout!"

Jason wheezes.

Eventually, they're going to have to get up and go home, but right now? Right now, Jason just wants to enjoy the aftermath of a night spent with his family, a night that actually went pretty damn well, all things considered.

Chapter Text

Manriklo 

Jason's not anyone's fucking maid.

Dickhead's apartment in Bludhaven is so disgusting, he almost breaks his resolve to never pick up after anyone's messes but his own. Instead, he holds strong, roots through the shithole of a living space for the tiny ass grill he knows Alfie slipped into Dick's house as soon as he moved, and slams the patio door he'd just broken into shut once he retrieves his prize.

With cool air to clear out his poor, abused nose, Jason puts his back to the heaping mounds of clothes and the growing tower of dirty dishes collecting in the sink that he can still see through smudged glass, and turns his attention to the bright blue charcoal grill in front of him, considering.

Originally, he'd popped in because he was in the area, and kind of maybe needed to use Dick's medkit, but now he doesn't know if he trusts anything in that biohazard containment area to be sterile.  Then, he'd remembered that it's basically Dick's birthday, and the asshole is never clear about what he wants. It's always "Don't worry about me, Little Wing!" "All I want is to spend some time with my family!" "Oh god you're bleeding, where were you hit? You want to know what? Did they hit your head, too? Take that helmet off right now!". Ugh, so uncooperative. It's not like Jason would have actually gotten him anything, probably, he doesn't need to be so difficult about it.

He blames Tim's photo albums for making him feel nostalgic. The little shit had given him one as a thank-you for not letting his ass get killed in a spectacularly gruesome manner a while ago, and it's been hard to keep his shitty memories from cropping up and reminding him of the past. It's not all terrible, except for the part where it is – he didn't ask to take a trip down memory lane, remembering his first-time baking cookies with Alfie for an after-patrol reward, or the first and only time Dick had visited the manor for the older boy’s birthday, where they all sat down and ate a random assortment of food Dick swore up down and sideways was standard fare from his time in the circus.

Damn, he zoned out again. Fucking nostalgia, leaving him to sigh wistfully into the smog covered dawn in goddamn Bludhaven. Jason shakes himself, and gets to work.

Forty minutes later, and he's much better prepared. He's got a cast-iron pan full of bacon fresh off of the grill that he's currently turning into crumbles over a bowl of flour and salt. With that done, he whips out a bag of freshly grated gruyere and tips a decent amount in. It's quickly followed by a handful of rosemary and dill he'd dumped into the greasy pan to cut, then spooned out to join the dry ingredients. Add some water, and it's time to knead everything in the oversized bowl he'd used for just this purpose.

Dick drops in just as Jason's forming the dough into little balls, letting them drop into the bowl and rest against the shrinking mass of dough as he goes.

"Did you break into my apartment to steal my grill and use it to fry bacon outside?" Dick asks somewhat incredulously, honing in on the cooling pan holding two strips of bacon sitting in an ocean of grease.

"Fuck off, I could barely even see your stove under the mountain of crap you piled on top of it," Jason grumbles. "Hey, I'll give you the last two pieces if you go into that dump and clear off a table and the sink."

"Hey, that's my apartment you're talking about!" Dick complains, a touch too sincerely to have any hope of being written off as a joke. Jason doesn't care.

"And I'm pretty sure the last time it was cleaned was when the landlord forcefully evicted its last tenant." Using a pair of tongs, he waves the bacon in Dick's face. "Are you going to take my bribe or not, Goldie?"

Dick, a full-grown man, pouts at him. It makes any disapproval coming from his baby-face simultaneously hilarious, and utterly gut-wrenching.

He takes the bacon, slipping inside with a huff.

Letting out a quiet sigh of relief, Jason puts the now empty skillet back onto the grill to warm up the oil he'd collected. Dick's got to be really distracted if he didn't even ask Jason about the big-ass bowl he's got, which he'll be worried about later. Right now, he just wants to finish making the pan-fried bread before Dick can come back out and threaten him with emotions or brotherly affection.

As quickly as he can, he starts pulling the balls of dough out until they lay flat and he can start stacking them. Once he can hear the bacon grease start to sizzle, he drops the first dough-pancake in, watching it carefully to get a good gauge on how long these things are going to take to finish cooking.

He's got a limited window to make these in, since it won't take forever for Dick to finish cleaning.

Half a dozen cooked pieces of manriklo later, and Jason's sweating. Everything's taking too long, he's not going to make it.

As he swaps out the piece he has in the skillet, he hears the patio door slide open.

"Hey, are you okay? You left a trail of blood behind when you went on that manhunt for my..." Dick falls silent, eyes falling on the stack of gently steaming bread next to Jason's left elbow. In a much smaller voice, he continues, "Is that manriklo?"

Shit. Time to downplay things. "It's just a minor stab wound. My bad about the blood, I'll clean it up later."

Dick blinks, his misty eyes shifting to analytical in a second. "A stab wound?"

Double shit. Which is worse, mama-bear Grayson, or weepy, nostalgic Grayson?

"I got better," Jason tries, shifting away from Dick's probing hands.

"Little Wing, that trail of blood is too bright to be anything other than fresh, and I know you didn't grab anything out of my kit to stitch yourself up with.”

Downplaying and deflection have failed him. Time to distract.

Jason grabs a piece of cooked manriklo off of his stack and shoves it in Dick's face. "Here, taste test this for me."

Dick grabs the bread before it can fall from the tongs, looking conflicted. On one hand, the eldest bird could never resist bread of any kind. On the other hand, he's also an utter menace whenever any of the rest of his siblings get injured.

When Dick takes a bite, Jason thinks that he's in the clear.

The shorter man closes his eyes briefly, his expression shuttering before smoothing over. He finishes his piece before he opens them again. "It's great, Jason. A little heavy on the rosemary, but... it tastes like..." Dick flashes him a watery smile. "It's great."

Wordlessly, Jason offers another piece. Dick takes it, but sets it back on the completed stack instead of going to town on it like Jason had hoped he would. Enough bread can cure any kind of sniffles, in his experience, even those brought on by the memories of long-dead parents.

Instead, Dick gently grabs the tongs out of Jason's loosened grip and ushers him away from the grill. "I can watch these, Little Wing. Go get patched up."

Jason takes the out, all but sprinting to Dick's bathroom in a desperate attempt to outrun any errant feelings that may have tried to latch onto him. He's not sure it works, since his brain is slightly fuzzy the whole time he sutures his arm, and it doesn't get any better even as he ties off the bandage he's got wrapped around the wounded area.

Slowly making his way back to the patio, Jason absently notes that Dick had done a halfway decent job of neatening the place up – he’d piled all of his dirty laundry into one corner of his living room, shoved all of his dirty take out boxes against the still overflowing trashcan, and piled all of the unopened mail on top of the counter closest to the door, covered it almost completely. The dining table is clear, though, and it looks like most of the used dishes even found their way into the currently active dishwasher, if the empty sink and the blinking light on said appliance are any indication.

Dick smiles at him when he finally rejoins him, huge and sad and painfully raw. There are three new pieces of mankrilo on the finished pile, slightly charred. There's only a couple of disks of raw dough left in the bowl.

Wordlessly, Jason steps into Dick's space, placing the next piece into the skillet once Dick fishes the done one out. They stand together in silence, listening to the dough sizzling away, the strong medley of smells filling the air around them.

"Sorry th're not cooked 'ver coals," Jason mumbles, suddenly feeling like he shoved a whole pouch of marbles into his mouth.

"They're still wonderful, Little Wing." Dick soothes. That's stupid, this should have been perfect. He shouldn't have to settle for Jason's shitty second-best try.

"S'rry y'had to cook 'em y'rself," Jason tries again. His head feels so light, but his limbs must be filled with lead. They're so heavy.

"It's fine. It reminds me of when my mama would let me help her cook."

Jason leans onto Dick's shoulder. It holds his weight, just like it always has. He could be the size of an elephant, and for some reason his brain is convinced that Dick would be able to prop him up and hold him even then.

"...h’ppy birthday, Big Wing."

A watery laugh. Then, quietly, "Thank you, Jason."

Chapter Text

Khubz

At exactly eleven in the morning, Jason is confronted in his own home.

More accurately, he exits the hallway of his most recent apartment-turned-safehouse after waking up only mildly feeling like he’s been hit by a car, and is immediately set upon by a cat-wielding Damian who’s blocking the way to his kitchen.

Jason pauses, staring sleepily at the two intruders.

“I don’t have a cat.”

Damian sniffs in disdain. “Obviously. You can barely take care of yourself, let alone provide adequate care and shelter for another being. She is only visiting.”

Squinting, Jason cautiously resumes his approach. “Brat, did you spend the night with Selina, again?”

There’s a whole lot of Alfie in the unimpressed side-eye Jason gets in reply. It’s nice to know that the kid’s hanging out with not just one, but two good influences.

Nodding to himself, Jason loses the last of his reservations and moves past the pair, still in the process of waking up. As he goes, he rubs the black and white tuxedo cat’s ears lightly, dropping a hand on Damian’s head as he does so. Both of them bat him away, but he doesn’t receive any new puncture wounds for his actions.

Pulling the electric kettle out from against the wall, he goes about sanitizing it before filling it with water and setting it to boil. He pulls out two cups, and then a third after Damian glares at him hard enough to start a fire.

Fifteen minutes later, he and Damian are sipping on fresh tea as the cat laps delicately at her cool water. Feeling more like a person already, Jason takes a deep breath.

“What’s up? Did Daddy Bats piss you off enough that you needed to escape to an apartment’s worth of cats and visit the family crime lord on your way home?”

He’s ignored, Damian blatantly putting all of his attention on the tea clasped between his hands.

Jason frowns. “Is it those assholes from school? I know you can handle things yourself, but if you give me some names I can - ”

"Am I not allowed to spend time with family simply for family's sake, akhi?"

Caught off guard by the uncharacteristic declaration, Jason considers Damian. He's deliberately avoiding eye contact to the point that he's rounded his shoulders into a pose his mother would have snapped at him for. He's holding himself like a tightly wound spring, but there's none of the usual thrum of anticipation and come at me if you dare present. His hands are flexing against the cup in something Jason might even call a fidget.

"Damian?"

The kid hunches in on himself even further, but mumbles. "You've been spending time with everyone else, lately."

Blinking in surprise, Jason pauses and pushes down his instinctive denial and thinks about the last few months. He's been over at the manner more frequently than ever, barring the time he'd actually lived there before he’d kicked the bucket. He's had multiple interactions with almost all of the members of B’s little bat-family, and pretty much none of them had ended in tears or the threat of handcuffs. Hell, even Bruce has been downright civil with him, acting... like he actually has something like emotions? And knows how to kind of express them??

It's been weird as hell, but not... bad.

Hm. Even with all of the increased interaction he's had with everyone, the most he's seen of Damian is flashes of him on patrol, not including the whole milk bread production. If he didn't know any better, he'd say that the little demon brat was ignoring him, but that doesn't match with the attitude he's putting off right now.

Damian has always been one of the very few members of the bat crew who actually listens to Jason when he tells people to back the fuck off. He's pretty sure it's a combination of leftover muscle memory from his mother telling him to do the same when Jason would not infrequently slip into a green-tinged haze back in his early days fresh out of the pits, and the paranoia-slash-mistrust Bruce had instilled in him as soon as he could, but he certainly doesn't complain. It just means he's got one less annoying busy-body clamoring for his attention.

He certainly doesn't miss the prickly little shit. Absolutely not.

Actually, now that he thinks about it, is it possible that... "You miss me?"

"You would have to be gone for me to miss you, you imbecile," Damian huffs dramatically, no bite and all show.

Nailed it.

"You've never wanted to hang out before now, kid," Jason pokes, crossing his arms and leaning back.

Damian's eyes skittered off to the side. "I did not wish to draw attention to your obvious League connections while your stance in the family was still uncertain."

And there's certainly more than one reason for the kid to do that, but since Jason's been in a real good mood lately, he's going to let the baby bat get away with the implication he's aiming for - that it was for Jason's benefit that he didn't broadcast their previous familiarity. Sue him, but sometimes when he looks at the prickly pre-teen trying to act tough, all he can remember is the bright-eyed little ankle-biter that used to follow him around the various League compounds Talia would take them to, demanding more sparring matches, or to be fed, or to be picked up, or... Damian was a very bossy child. This hasn't changed, but it is slightly easier to say no to him, now that he doesn't look anywhere near as cuddly as he once did.

He lets the kid stew for a little longer, mouth pressed into a thin line, even though he knows where to go from here.

Damian doesn't visibly get nervous, too well trained for such an easily exploitable weakness, but Jason can tell. He's almost cracked.

Heaving out a loud sigh, Jason leans forward and uncrosses his arms, bracing his palms against the table as he stands. "Alright. You want to hang out? Fine. It's breakfast time, and I'm hungry. Let's get moving, Baby Bat, chop chop."

Damian rolls his eyes, but hops up from his chair eagerly, the tension draining from his posture. Immediately, he starts rifling through Jason's cabinets to pull out bread flour, yeast, salt, and sugar. He dumps them next to the section of the counter Jason's wiping down, grabs his furry friend from where she’s pacing on the floor before she risks Jason’s wrath by jumping onto the counter, and scurries off to raid his fridge for whatever meal he wants to go along with the khubz they always seem to end up making when left alone in a kitchen together.

It was one of the few normal things Damian would do without complaining that the work was 'beneath him'. Jason knows Talia was conflicted on the matter, but she'd gotten over it after she'd seen her kid's face light up every time he would present a hand-made khubz to her.

Jason measures out the quantities they need, setting them aside and grabbing the roll of parchment paper, getting it ready for when they eventually roll out their delicate dough. That done, he steps back and drags the chair Damian's new cat hasn't made into her throne over to the counter, moving to look at what ingredients Damian pulled.

Seeing him coming, Damian waves a hand to the pile of vegetables, spices, and beans, face turned upwards towards Jason. "It has been a while since I've last tested your skills. Don't disappoint me."

What a brat. Jason ruffles his hair again, just to make him pout. "Chickpea falafel? You didn't want it with split peas?"

Damian wrinkles his nose at that, never one to tolerate being questioned. Sucks to be him, sometimes an older brother has to poke at his younger siblings. That's just how things work. "You didn't have any split peas, Todd."

"Did you check the back of the second shelf?" Jason asks, nodding towards the fridge.

Damian looks at him as though he'd announced his wish to renounce his use of guns and violence. "Why would you put dried beans in the refrigerator?!" Jason snorts, just a little bit. He sounds so offended.

"As revenge, for you taking this long to decide you wanted to see me again," Jason slings back, tone light. It had been a far-fetched hope, that he would get to tease his littlest brother like this again, but against all odds, here they are.

He ignores the tight feeling in his chest (again - he wonders if he needs to go to Leslie and get that checked out), snatching the bag of dried beans before it can hit him in the head hard enough to hurt, filling a bowl with water and dunking a cup in to soften.

Damian lets out another offended sound once he spots the chair. "I do not need this! I am no longer a child, incapable of reaching the countertop! Todd!"

Jason laughs, low and full. "You don't have to use it if you don't want to, Baby Bat. It's there just in case, though."

Simmering with irritation, Damian sets himself to making an ungodly racket as he mixes in the sugar and yeast into steaming water, being as loud as possible in his retribution. Joke's on him, Jason doesn't even have a headache this morning - his minor rebellion is nothing but a reminder that he's still an adorable kid, under all of the training and irritation.

Jason continues his prep for the falafel. After a while, Damian joins his side, having set a timer for the dough to proof. Jason slides the tomatoes and cucumbers his way, and he gets to work on the accompanying salad.

The kitchen is too quiet, aside from the normal sounds of cooking. Jason starts humming before he really thinks about it.

Jason's song stutters when Damian leans ever so slightly into his side, but he picks it up again once he gets over his shock.

They manage to get everything ready to cook at the same time, Damian leaving to check on the dough's progress periodically, then for good once it's risen enough. Damian mans the skillet, keeping a keen eye on the khubz to avoid letting it get overdone, and Jason dunks the falafel into three inches of oil, watching them fry.

Things move quickly from there, the actual cooking portion not taking very long at all, and soon they find themselves back at the table, a small feast of fresh food sitting in front of them.

Jason reaches out first, grabbing the fluffy khubz and tearing a hole into it, stuffing it with falafel and a few bits of the accompanying salad. Once he's finished, he sets the stuffed bread in front of Damian. Even a kid as healthy as Damian gets a craving for fried food every once in a while, and Jason isn't here to judge. Much. That done, he goes about putting his own breakfast together, and the two of them eat in easy silence. They split the third one in half, polishing off a majority of the food they'd cooked.

At the last portion, they both pause. Usually, Damian would take whatever the two of them had made to his mother, as payment for indulging their childish whims, but that's not possible this time. She isn't sitting in the corner of the kitchen, watching on in exasperated amusement, shaking her head as she accepts her sons’ gift, even though she's used to food of a much higher caliber.

... there is someone else he could give it to, Jason supposes.

He nudges Damian with his foot. "I'm not going to be able to finish all of this. Why don't you take it back with you?"

The kid glares at him, but his usual bite has been softened by food and the warm buzz of pressure-free cooking. "You need to revisit your lessons on subtlety, Todd. That was atrocious."

Huffing out a laugh Jason shakes his head. "I haven't been subtle a day in my life, Dami, you know that."

Damian lets out an annoyed sound. "Now you're being untruthful. Stop, it's annoying. If you want Father to benefit from the food we made today, then you can put together his portion yourself."

"Oh, man, I would love to, but..." Jason hedges, tone full of false sincerity as he waves towards his lap, "I think the other guest you brought me would be upset if I did that."

Settled firmly across his legs is Selina's cat, purring happily as Jason uses one hand to absently scratch at her head. He's not really a cat person, but every once in a while he's willing to make an exception. Damian always seems to bring him the friendliest cats, somehow - the kid's got a real talent for it.

Damian makes a sound of reluctant acknowledgement. "You can still reach across the table while seated, however."

Jason shakes his head smugly. "No can do - my hands are both absolutely covered in cat fur. It wouldn't be sanitary if I touched any of the food without washing them first."

Damian glares at him. "Your hands are fine."

"But they're not. What if Bruce is allergic to cats, and he tries to eat something we made that has cat hair in it?" Jason argues. "He'd accuse us of trying to kill him!" He really wouldn't. The old man would probably keel over from shock and Emotions, if anything, and eat whatever they gave him without a single thought spent on its taste or potential adverse ingredients.

Damian cocks an eyebrow. "Todd. We've both heard and, on multiple unfortunate occasions, seen proof that Father is not allergic to cats."

"You know Selina isn't actually a cat, right Dami?" Jason mirrors his haughty posture.

A dull blush seeps into Damian's cheeks at the ribbing. "Of course, I know that! Her clothing, on the other hand, is constantly covered in cat fur, and if Father has no problems with that, then it's safe to assume he isn't allergic."

 Jason shrugs. "Maybe he just slams a bunch of Benadryl before they bang."

Damian cringes, but recovers admirably. "That would make him too sleepy for crime fighting."

"So would his 'alone time' with Selina."

"He's not allergic to Alfred," Damian tries.

"He could be holding in his sneezes until you're out of the room, since he doesn't want you to feel bad. You know he would never make you get rid of one of your beloved pets, because he's turned into a giant pushover," Jason retorts smoothly.

"It's not in his medical file," Damian tries again. He doesn't sound as sure as he had last time.

Jason smirks. "Batman would never put information that could potentially be used against him into something that anyone could access."

Damian falls silent, grinding his teeth. "Fine," he bites out, leaning forward and putting together the last portion of their late breakfast.

Five minutes and one more hair ruffle later, Damian stands in front of Jason's door. Pouting under a wild tangle of untamed hair, a tupperware full of khubz and falafel in one hand and a cat in the other, he looks unbearably cute.

Jason takes a picture while the kid's distracted by the cat's unhappy wiggling, vowing to send it to Talia once it's time for their monthly check-ins.

Damian wrestles the cat into a more comfortable position, then squints suspiciously at Jason. Totally uncalled for, Jason hasn't done anything wrong in his life. He's innocent.

Jason smiles broadly at him, not an ounce of shame for his liberal use of gaslighting on a younger sibling in the name of causing chaos and doubt present in his body.

Clicking his tongue, Damian turns his head to look off to the side. "I still do not think Father is allergic to cats."

"It was nice to see you too, Damian," Jason says brightly.

Damian darts a glance over to him, then away again. "It wasn't... horrible. Your skills haven't completely relapsed from being stuck in a country with such an appalling lack of taste, yet."

"You're welcome to come over and cook with me again, Damian," Jason chirps.

He gets one more darted look in his direction before Damian sets his burdens down and ducks in close, squeezing him in a tight hug. With his face pressed into Jason's stomach, Damian's next words are hardly audible. "I missed you, akhi."

Jason freezes, then folds like wet paper. He settles one hand on the back of Damian's head, enough pressure for the kid to feel, but not so much that it becomes threatening.

"I meant what I said. You're welcome in my home at any time, habibi."

Chapter Text

Baker's (Twelve) Dozen

Sirens scream in the distance, approaching Jason's position at a rapid clip.

Crane’s gotten loose again, and he'd had enough time to plant several bombs full of fear gas throughout the city - most of the bat-crew is busy locating and de-arming the remaining bombs, providing triage care until the professionals can get the temporary medical stations set up. Batman and Robin had found Scarecrow twenty minutes ago, cornering him in one of the many abandoned warehouses littering the northern section of the docks. Ten minutes after calling it in, Robin had sent out his distress signal.

With everyone else otherwise occupied and freaking the hell out, Jason had wasted no time claiming the assist and hauling ass to get to them as fast as humanly possible.

Once he drops onto the busted-ass rooftop of the right warehouse, he lets out a relieved huff, then relays the situation to the rest of the worried bats blowing up his comms as he grapples his way down to the main floor.

Crane is bound and unconscious, but he must have gotten Bruce with those fucking scissor hands of his before accepting his beating: the big man himself is crouched protectively around Damian, clutching the boy to his chest, practically hyperventilating.

"Robin, report," Jason says, needing to know if Damian had been hit too.

Damian wiggles a bit in Bruce's iron grip, causing the man's breath to hitch on something that sounds suspiciously like a sob. Once the Baby Bat gets his face free, he grimaces at Jason. Clearly, the kid's lucid, but why hasn't he...

Damian blinks at him rapidly in morse code.

Well, that sucks.

Apparently, Bruce thinks that Damian's been shot and/or stabbed to death, and freaks out whenever Robin exhibits signs of not being dead. He hasn’t gotten any better even after Damian stuck him with the antidote – that’s when he called for help.

Jason sighs, then taps his comms again. "So, boys and girls, I've got some good news and some bad news for everyone. Good news: Baby Bat is fine and has already administered the basic fear-toxin cure to B. Bad news, whatever Batman's been hit with must be a new strain, and he is definitely still seeing shit. ETA to the cave is 25 minutes – Barbie, I'm counting on you to get the batmobile to us in five."

The line predictably explodes in a blatant display of poor comms discipline, but Oracle's disguised voice cuts through the chatter easily.

"Got it. Your ride should be there in three."

"Thanks." Jason mutes the line, turning back to the bundle of kevlar and angst on the ground in front of him.

Hoping to not trigger anything with Bruce and his memories of broken and dying birds, Jason takes off his helmet, shoving it under an arm before he slowly approaches. "B. Hey, B. We've got to get out of here. The cops are going to be here any minute."

Bruce tenses at his voice, but doesn't move.

Damian's entire face screams out his judgement of Jason's Bruce-wrangling skills.

Fuck you, brat, it never used to be this hard when he was still four foot nothing and missing close to a decade’s worth of emotional baggage. Trying again, Jason crouches, his hands partially extended, palms facing upward, supportive.

"B, come on. You're not going to be able to get him any help out here – warehouses don't really have great first aid kits. We need to get him back to the cave."

Bruce clutches Damian tighter, still not looking up. "It's no use," he grinds out, voice like broken glass. "I failed again, there's nothing I can..."

"Bruce," Jason says sharply, reaching out and grabbing one of the man's gauntlets. With quick movements, he takes the glove off and shoves trembling fingers against the pulse point on Damian's neck. "Shut up for a moment and focus on what you feel."

Bruce shakes his head. "It won't last. They never stay warm for long."

"God, old man, you're so fucking dramatic," Jason whines, as obnoxiously as he can. "I thought I was supposed to be the morbid one in the family. Focus on your fingertips, oh great detective. In my experience, corpses don't usually have a pulse."

Silence, then a grunt. "Damian."

Taking this as a cue that he's allowed to speak without getting smothered, Damian shifts in his dad’s hold. "Father. I am not dead."

"Damian, don't speak, we can get you help, you'll be okay," Bruce mutters, abruptly letting go and patting Robin down, searching for nonexistent injuries.

Jason can see the vein starting to throb in Damian's forehead. "Father, I am fine -"

"Bruce," Jason cuts him off, not willing to let go of the easiest method they have of getting an uncooperative Batman the fuck out of here. "We need to get him back to the cave. Agent A’s prepping the surgery station now, he'll be ready by the time we get back."

"The cave - maybe. Maybe. We have to hurry. Damian's dying. Damian..." Bruce stumbles to his feet, hoisting a glaring Damian into his arms.

"There we go, old man. The batmobile is just outside, and then we can speed our way through traffic and get the Baby Bat all of the medical attention he needs."

It only takes another minute of stumbling across dusty concrete for the three of them to exit the building. Shoving a panicked Batman into the car takes even less time, but when Jason attempts to shut the door so he can stay behind and make sure the cops pick up Crane, he's stopped.

Damian hisses out, "Don't you dare leave me alone with him while he is incapacitated like this, ahki." There's real panic in his voice – the kid has no idea how to deal with this.

More damning is the deathgrip Bruce has on his jacket, worn leather creaking against the sturdy gauntlet from just how tight his old man is grabbing him. With one hand glued to Damian's pulse, Bruce has latched onto his second Robin of the night, and doesn't seem to be planning on letting go any time soon. Jason hopes that this version of the toxin isn't one of the ones that makes people flip between terror and violence.

Jason hopes that Bruce doesn't let his terror flip into violence.

"Jason," Bruce gasps out, using the same tone he had when he thought he was talking to Damian on his figurative deathbed.

"Shit," Jason curses under his breath, but obligingly shuffles forward into the backseat, leaving the three of them cramped as hell. "Batmobile, take us to the cave."

Activating his comm, Jason growls, "Timbo, how quickly do you think you can whip up an - Bruce, what the fuck are you doing?"

His voice goes embarrassingly high, but excuse the fuck out of him for not liking it when someone shoves their entire hand onto his goddamn neck.

Bruce makes a distressed noise, trying to press down without restricting airflow. "Don't speak, Jaylad. You'll be okay - I - I just need to put enough pressure on to stop the bleeding -"

Jason flinches backwards, trying to put space between him and the man who might be about to accidentally strangle him. He hardly even registers Tim's frantic questions buzzing in his ear. "Bruce! I don't need the fucking pressure. Let go of my neck."

"No!" Bruce growls, then, softer, "No. It's my fault. I should have aimed better, I should have known - you're bleeding, Jaylad. I have to stop it."

God, Jason wishes he was literally anywhere else right now. Fuck, he'd rather dig out of his own grave again than have to listen to his goddamn pathetic excuse of a father have a fucking panic attack about that one time he slit Jason's goddamn throat. Where was this concern the first time around, old man? Fuck.

Jason's pretty sure Bruce is crying at this point. Damian definitely is, the kid's got a really weird stress response to emotional trauma. Hell, Jason kind of feels like crying, himself.

Trying to remove Bruce's hand from his throat only results in Bruce gripping on harder, and then Jason's the one panicking.

Swallowing hard, Jason relents. "Fine, old man, just remember that I need air, too."

Gotham's darkened streets flash past them in a blur, her pervasive gloom occasionally interrupted by the harsh glow of the few working streetlamps and bright storefront displays. Bruce's hand feels like a goddamn anchor holding steady at the base of his throat, his panic leaving a bitter taste where years ago there once was blood.

The rest of the drive feels like it takes an eternity.

Once they reach the cave, Tim rips open the car door, syringe in hand and a crazed look on his face. He manages to get a blood sample from Bruce, but in return gets trapped in the steel jaws of an overprotective embrace.

Bruce is muttering about Ra's and spleens and broken bones and yet more slit throats, so Jason decides that it's high time he got the fuck out of here before overprotective Papa-bat remembers just who gave the Baby Bird a fair number of the injuries he's stressing over. Damian, similarly freed, takes a cue from his father and latches onto Jason's arm.

Tim looks at them, panic in his eyes. "Help!" He squeaks.

Jason and Damian back up slowly, afraid that any sudden movement might trigger Bruce into remembering that they exist. Damian, because he's a little shit, raises three fingers in a salute from that one popular YA battle-royal series.

Unable to handle the look of deep betrayal on Tim's face, Jason signs Alfie's name and "wait" one handed, then turns around and books it up the stairs.

On their way up, Jason and Damian run into the old butler. Alfie gives them both a hurried once over, nods once he's assured himself they're both fine, and continues on his way to hopefully relieve Tim of his Trauma Teddy Bear duties. 

Finally unhindered, the two boys complete their escape. Damian drags Jason to his room before he has a chance to try and break the kid's grip, and Jason resolves himself to spending another half hour calming down a very stressed family member.

...

Damian ends up falling asleep before he lets Jason go. Despite this, Jason still stays with the kid for a little while longer – it's nice, being able to see that he's with someone who's uninjured and sleeping calmly, who trusts Jason to have his back, especially after today.

He knows his time is up when Alfie pops his head into the room, quietly requesting Jason's assistance.

Carefully, he extracts himself from Damian, leaving his jacket and helmet behind as a way to let the kid know he hasn't fucked off yet. Once he's in the hallway with the butler, Jason takes a deep breath.

"I'm not going back down there to help with B, Alfie."

Alfie smiles sadly at him, shaking his head. "I wasn't going to ask you to, Master Jason. Miss Stephanie finished overseeing the aid-station set-up and returned to the cave after ensuring Dr. Crane had been taken into police custody. It seems as though she isn't likely to get free until Master Duke, Miss Cassandra, or Master Richard arrives – I see no need to sacrifice my assistant patissier to Master Bruce's worried clutches for a second time."

Ah, stress baking. Finally, something Jason can get behind. He flashes Alfie a relieved grin, and falls into step behind the older man as they make their way to the kitchen.

The next five hours are a blur of dough and exhaustion. Jason's arms are aching, his hands feel raw from how many time's he's washed them, and he knows for a fact that he and Alfie are going to be donating a large portion of tonight's goods to Jason’s hoard of street kids. They ran out of counter space in the kitchen three hours ago, and have been staging their finished products on the dining table to make room for the rest ever since.

It is a complete coincidence that all of Bruce's favorites end up a little closer to the head of the table – they're making a metric fuck ton of food, it's all gotta go somewhere. Fuck off.

Daylight is streaming in through the large bay windows that line the outer wall of the kitchen. Jason's seen all of his siblings wander through at some point, every one of them looking as exhausted as he feels.

At one point, he pauses as he checks on the brotchen baking in the lower oven. One second he's popping a squat, squinting tired eyes in an attempt to see through the pattern of black dots covering the inside of the glass on the oven door, and the next... the next second, he's huddled into his favorite breakfast nook, nestled between two of the massive windows just off of the main bustle of the kitchen. There's a pillow under his head, and someone was ballsy enough to drape a blanket over his shoulders. Damian and Steph are curled into him on either side. Cass is laying across his shoulders like a giant cat. Dick is wrapped around Jason's torso, absolutely getting drool on Jason's armor as he snores softly. Rolling his head to the side, he catches sight of Duke sitting on the ground a little ways away, text book propped up against his bent legs, positioned so all of the room's entrances are in sight. Duke turns towards him, smiles, and signs, "sleep more – 45 min". Jason's too tired to do anything other than nod back, falling blissfully back into unconsciousness in under a minute.

His family is here with him. They're all safe. He's safe. His family.

...

It just figures that the one time Alfie lets them eat breakfast for lunch, B would be weird about it.

The old man spends the entire meal staring at his small army of children, something uncomfortably like wonder in his eyes as he reassures himself that they're all present and accounted for.

Tim had assured him that all of the fear toxin was out of B's system, and that this wasn't a lingering effect and that a latent complication isn’t going to raise its ugly head the second the right conditions are met. The Replacement looks just as weirded out as Jason at the open affection showing on B's face.

Bruce's whole... thing gets even worse whenever the old man grabs another pastry out of the overflowing selection piled onto the table. He keeps making direct eye contact with Jason, and he swears that B fucking tears up at one point.

As soon as he knows he won't get the patented ‘Alfie Stare of Disappointment’ for bailing out of a family function too quickly, Jason pushes his seat back from the table and all but sprints out of the dining room. He doesn’t go far, only up to the bedroom he uses whenever he’s forced to crash at the manor, but that’s only because he’s absolutely wiped and craves the comfort of a familiar bed and the enticing promise of a literary escape in the form of the books neatly arranged just the way he likes them in the bookshelves lining the walls of his room. He’ll run his ass back out to Crime Alley as soon as he doesn’t feel like death warmed over, hah.

(Jason finds himself back in the manor three days later, enlisting Alfie's help to make Barbie's customary birthday cinnamon rolls. The others aren't allowed to taste test, but if they're good, Alfie might make them something to get them to stop pouting once Jason's finished. Jason might help.)

Chapter Text

Focaccia

The kitchen is a warzone – Alfred and Jason are both on high alert with Steph acting as backup, trying to keep the damage to a minimum, but something's bound to get burned by the end of the day.

If he didn't love cooking with Alfie so much, this is the exact reason Jason would never show up early for family dinners if he could help it. Sure, it's nice to sit in the living room with one of the rarer renditions of his beloved classics as the rest of his family dogpiles onto the various couches to watch a movie, or to rib his younger siblings as he helps them with their various essays and assignments they despair over since "why couldn't it just be something STEM related? I'm good at that!', or to just lean up against Cass or Dick in a light doze, or... he's getting off track. This damn manor and its hectic inhabitants are the antithesis of relaxation and stress relief, that's the point he's trying to make.

For some reason, the whole crew decided they wanted to help out with today's snacks - he and Alfie would never let them contaminate dinner, since things are already bound to be touchy with this many strong personalities in one place, so the weirdos he calls his family have been forced to compromise for being relegated to glorified chopping boys and girls for the latest batch of focaccia they'd planned on putting together.

With the extra space and capabilities the manor's kitchen affords them, they're making three batches.

One, ruled over by Alfie, is destined to be a work of art - he's using a classic recipe for his bread, and has stolen Damian to do the cutting and arranging for the medley of herbs, asparagus, and beautify ripe tomatoes he has set aside to adorn his tapestry with before it goes into the oven to bake. Narrows, on the other hand, has his head buried in a physics textbook, a well-used notebook by his side, the pre-written problems already mostly solved. Jason doesn't trust his calm demeanor - he saw that glint in Duke's eyes earlier. That's his 'shit-stirring' innocent look, and Jason wants no part of whatever shenanigans the kid's gonna pull once he finishes his homework. His team is on easy street, since the recipe Alfie's using calls for an overnight rise, and as such, the Englishman had already prepared his dough yesterday. They only have a couple of steps left before their pan is ready to go into the oven. One of those steps, however, is a second rise that will last anywhere between two to four hours, during which the elderly butler will have to keep a hold of his hellions, so the trade-off is about even in Jason's eyes.

The second team, headed by East End, is faring well - she'd stolen Cass and Tim immediately once the pandemonium broke out, claiming the corner of the kitchen closest to the stovetop for herself. Cass has already decimated the onions she was supposed to be chopping and has moved onto the garlic – one of the only times Steph's willing to go off recipe is, apparently, when garlic is concerned. As she told Jason, "You measure that shit with your heart, and my heart is apparently deathly afraid of vampires." It looks like she'd grabbed half of a bulb and shoved it at Cass to get reduced into a fine paste. East End must be going for some kind of record, since she's also going off recipe for her actual bread, combining her original plan for a caramelized onion topping with a family favorite, roasted vinaigrette tomatoes. Tim's doing a decent job at mixing everything together, even if the repetitive motions look like they're about to lull him to sleep.

Last but not least, Jason's got his own little dream team of Bruce, who has been known to set things on fire whenever he steps into the kitchen with a consistency that's almost impressive, and Dick, who tends to get distracted and jump from job to job, leaving things only partially finished – which is fine, usually, unless one of those tasks is time sensitive, or needs to be completed in a certain order. Jason would complain, but… Dick looks so happy, flitting back and forth between the different cutting boards he'd set up for all of the different herbs Jason's planning on putting on his bread, and B… Well, B has a look of quiet content on his face Jason hasn't seen in, like, a decade. To be honest, he didn't think that his… that Bruce could make that face anymore. It's almost weird, how obvious the difference between Bruce and Batman is, here in the warmth of the manor's kitchen. It's nice. Jason's scared that he might get used to it, scared about how it'll feel once it's ripped from him again. Anyways, Bruce is also on stirring duty, far away from anything that could be considered a fire hazard, and they're making decent progress.

Steph's team gets into a playful shoving match as Cass mans the stove, watching as the onions cook, only to get booted out of the way as Tim tries to shove a pan full of marinated tomatoes into the oven before East End can fuss over them anymore.

Damian gazes out over the rest of the kitchen with his nose in the air, but the kid's eyes are keen as he takes in the various techniques and blunders he sees in the chaos surrounding him. Duke, on the other hand, is double checking his work, which means he's about to become a problem real soon. Jason can already see the shadows around the kitchen wiggling a little, like the kid's stretching before making a move.

Dick's chopped the rosemary, scallions, and garlic into tiny pieces that are more likely to burn than anything else, and Jason makes the executive decision that those are going to go into the dough rather than on top of it. B obliges, shuffling over as his over-excited golden retriever of a son scrapes his hard work into the bowl for one final stir before they set it to the side to rise. Jason makes eye contact with Bruce, glancing at the cutting board that had once held the rosemary before raising an eyebrow. Bruce smiles at him, puts a finger to his upturned lips, and heads off to the fridge to grab a new sprig of rosemary for the garnish. Dick, oblivious to their interaction, has become the first to fall to Duke's mischief – on his way over to see how Alfie's team is doing, his foot catches on the shadow of one of the stools surrounding the island they'd been working at, and he trips.

The ensuing series of acrobatic flips open the gates for a new level of chaos seldom seen in Alfred's domain – knives go flying, shadows grab at people's ankles, and taunts fill the air as the smell of garlic, onions, and yeast settles over them all.

Taking a second to find calm in the middle of the storm, Jason closes his eyes and breathes in. He's reminded of a different kitchen, from a lifetime ago, with two people snuggled up side-by-side, poking at the dough and each other as they wait for their bread to rise. He's reminded of this kitchen, a lifetime ago, starting to feel like a comfort he didn't have to doubt, a place he could maybe, one day, call his home.

For all that he's not that little kid anymore, for all that the families he remembers loving have been torn apart by the cruel whims of fate, he recognizes that he can still have this moment. He can still have this family. It's not what he started with, but it is what he's grown to be a part of. It's what he's grown to love.

Opening his eyes, Jason puts all of his mushy thoughts aside and focuses on his mission: sabotage. He won't go after their bread, he's got more honor than that, but the rest of their activities? Oh, that's all fair game. He grins, and slips into the fray.

...

An hour later, covered in flour, bruises, and three minor stab wounds, Jason retreats to the edges of the kitchen. Limping his way over to the door to the hallway, he waves at Babs as she rolls over to check on the ruckus.

Darting in quickly, he leaves a streak of flour on her cheek when she gets too close, getting a good-natured laugh in return.

"So, are you here to save us from ourselves, Barbie?" Jason asks, putting his back to the wall and sliding down until he's sitting on the floor, looking up at his honorary big sister.

Babs smiles warmly, shaking her head as she turns to observe the ongoing battles in front of her. Alfie's standing in a bubble of calm over by the stove, glaring at anyone who gets too close to the pans of rising dough, but otherwise not interfering. Steph has rallied her troops, stealing Duke for herself in a war against Damian, who in turn stole Jason's team out from under him. They've progressed to using rubber bands and the various cereal boxes Dick and Tim are responsible for bringing into the house, one full of enough sugar to ensure hyperactivity, the other specifically designed to be so boring people stop jacking off.

She huffs out a laugh at their shenanigans. "Nah, I'm good out here. Someone has to rally our guests, after all."

Cocking his head to the side, Jason strains his ears to try and hear past the cacophony currently assaulting him. "Guests?"

Babs winks at him. "Kate's in town with her new girlfriend, and B's been more social lately, so she's willing to stop by if she can get some food out of it. Harper and Cullen showed up about thirty minutes ago - allegedly because of the free food, but I think it's because Harper heard about Steph chewing B out last time and wants to see if it happens again. Bernard, as of five minutes ago, was trying to convince Clark and Lewis to publish a conspiracy theory column in the Daily Planet. Kon's in favor of Bernard's idea, and is putting all kinds of whacky ideas into Jon's head about just how real some of blondie's theories are. Helena's here to judge us on how well our focaccia turns out. Selina, Ivy, and Harley all came together - Selina disappeared the second she got here, I'm pretty sure Ivy went to the gardens to escape the crowd, and Harley's been grilling me for a play-by-play on how much her therapy sessions with Bruce have been paying off. She even brought her bat in case he hasn't been taking her advice seriously."

Jason can feel his eyebrows go higher the longer she goes on. He goes to speak, but Babs isn't done yet.

"Roy and Lian stopped by – Kori texted him to let him know you were baking something. Apparently, they miss your talents in the kitchen."

His heart swells. Ah, Dick must have told Kori. Jason didn't think that any of these assholes would make the trip all the way out here just for a shitty family dinner. He definitely didn't think that his old teammates, his friends, might even be willing to do the same. Looking away, Jason hums, his eyes watery for some reason. "Well, sounds like you've got your hands full."

Shrugging, Babs reaches out to pinch Jason's cheek like he's twelve again. "Like I said, someone has to rally our guests. If you really insist, though, we can swap?"

Jason scowls playfully up at her, swatting lightly at her hand to detach it from his cheek. "Hell no, you're more than welcome to keep coordinating that circus, oh great Oracle. I'll keep my efforts trained on this circus, if it's all the same to you."

Babs snickers, giving him one last pat on the cheek. "You do that, Jay. I'll see you when everything settles down, 'kay? Try not to let anybody get stabbed too badly in the meantime."

Rolling his eyes, Jason pushes to his feet. "Of course."

Before he can turn around and re-enter the fray, Babs calls out one last time. "Jay?"

Pausing, Jason looks at her.

She's still smiling, the chaos around them filling the air with familiar sounds and smells. "I'm glad you're here. We're all glad you're here."

Nodding stiffly, Jason turns around and flings himself back into the ongoing battle, coming to Alfie's defense as a spray of Batty Charms comes a little too close to the stove for comfort's sake.

He’s certain that his face is on fire. His chest is tight with emotions, but… but he feels lighter for it. Covered in flour and blocking Steph's flying kick while he flings an empty cereal box at Dick's head like a frisbee, he feels happy. Like he actually belongs.

It's nice.