“Stop glaring at it,” Jason grumbled as he rustled through the torn paper bag to pull out his third burger for the night. It’s a decision he’ll regret by morning. But he’s starving, and in between the slurps of straws during a well-deserved mid-patrol refueling session, something had to accompany the silence. Preferably conversation.

Was getting a kid’s meal for the latest addition to the swarm somewhat patronizing? Probably. A small part of him is pleasantly surprised that he didn’t get his ankles bitten in retaliation though, but hey, small blessings.

“The Batmite combo always comes with a toy. I’ll take it off your hands if you don't want it.”

He’s still a bit skeeved out over the fact that one half of Bruce and Talia’s iteration of the twins from ‘The Shining’ seems to gravitate towards him of all people — Jason’s not particularly warm and inviting like Dick has become, since mellowing out over the years. Nor is he steady and thoughtful like Tim can be. He doesn’t have anything in particular against Damian either, but it’s understandable to want to spend time away from someone who was grappling more or less with the same circumstances.

But in this line of work, sometimes you just have to roll with the punches and fight back before asking the hard questions. And who was he to judge the particular sentiments of the littlest Bat?

Jason mercilessly swipes the plastic abomination away, calloused thumb brushing against the painted plastic scowl of the toy Batman’s face. It’s a pretty good depiction, for some mass-produced monstrosity that is. Back when he was a kid, something like this would have made him over the moon. Now? Not so much.

“…I know that B’s not what you were expecting. And I know that’s hard to come to terms with," he mutters, knowing that the truth stings despite it not being his intention. It’s hard not to think further about the deeper meaning lying present underneath his words.

Who could ever truly understand the complexity of the man that Bruce was, beyond cape and cowl? Perhaps a child should think of their father in the positive light of a fracturing mythos — because even on some days, he wished that he still saw Bruce in a way where only naivety could hide the damage. It’s not necessarily rose-colored glasses, per se, but something that flies underneath the radar far beyond the magic that only stories and hope could ever hold.

Taking another bite of cheap beefy goodness, Jason tries to feign casualty between mouthfuls, wiping ketchup from the side of his mouth with the same gloved wrist he had used to backhand someone earlier that night. “And I’ll have to admit. Your folks on the other side of your family are...complicated.”

It’s the understatement of the century. The years of shared history with Talia, Ra’s, and everyone else who fell in between the cracks felt like inevitable casualties of a chess game at times. Where do pawns fall in the grand scheme of things again?

“But no one is expecting you to come up with the solution to world hunger or the answer to ending poverty overnight,” he continues, hiding a grimace over the sloppy execution of his words. “…Just be yourself, kid. Whoever that is. Whoever you choose to be.”

He managed to swallow down the unspoken, ‘don’t grow up too fast, either’ with another well-timed sip of soda — because he sure as hell knows that he did.