This was a bad idea, and Jason knew it.

He wasn't good with kids, he never had been. He just never knew how to deal with them, how to calm them down, how to appear non-threatening, how to make sure they didn't run screaming the moment they laid eyes on him.. And yet as if some cruel twist of fate, kids seemed to be drawn to him. He was always stumbling upon kids, having to return them to their parents, get them out of bad situations, the usual hero stuff.

That's why it was only slightly surprising to him when his nightly patrol led him to a Gotham alleyway, towards the sound of trash cans shifting and shuffling around. A cat? A raccoon? Sentient garbage? Nope. It had been a kid. A young one at that, maybe 8 or 9. The kid had told him that their parents left them alone a little while back, and they had been living on their own ever since.

Jason hadn't been sure why, but he had felt a connection to the kid. Perhaps it was the way their childhood was so similar to his own, or the fear of a kid with such wide, innocent eyes being put in the system, or perhaps it was simply that Jason was getting soft.

Which he wasn't. Totally.

And that was how he found himself standing outside of Wayne Manor at 3AM, holding a sleeping child. It was, as he said, a bad idea. He had only very recently started working with Bruce again, Hell he'd only been over once since their "reconciliation", and now he was showing up late at night with a whole ass kid? Bruce would probably think he'd kidnapped them.

And yet Jason also knew that there was no way he could take care of a kid on his own. He could barely take care of himself half the time, but a child too? A young one, who will undoubtedly need lots of care and attention? Jason isn't stupid enough to try. He knows how shit the kid's childhood would be, and there's already enough shitty childhoods in Gotham. So, he hesitantly knocks on the door.

“Please be awake, Alfred..”

He mutters quietly to himself, shifting the kid's sleeping weight in his arms.