it’s right here because I can’t resist a blatant invitation but I deffo need to clarify that Bruce is well past his disaster man early 20-something stage when he takes Jason in. by this point Bruce:
is in his (very) early 30s*
has spent almost a decade being Batman. he’s already figured out all the major bumps and bruises; he’s an Established Hero™.
has also perfected the Bruce Wayne, Beloved Airhead Philanthropist™ routine
has spent almost his entire career working with Dick, and Babs has also been on the scene as Batgirl for a few years now. it’s very important important to convey that while the Batfamily is still far from the brood it will one day become, we’re already MILES away from the anything goes wild west that was Dick’s childhood.
Dick’s moved out. he’s off Nightwinging it. there’s a story there, and I know what I think that story is, but we’re here to talk about Jason.
Bruce? feels Off. like I said, he’s spent almost his entire career as part of a Dynamic Duo, and it goes deeper than that. the Manor feels empty without Dick around. less like a home, more like a place to sleep off the nights.
working with Barbara helps, some, and she’s happy to jump in when he needs backup, but it could never be the same. I’m not going to get too much into it, because again, this is about Jason, but Bruce and Babs get on like coworkers who respect each other’s skills while butting heads often**.
so one night he finds a scrappy twelve year old in an alley trying to steal the tires off the Batmobile (off!!! the Batmobile!!!) and the kid calls him a big boob (him! Batman! a big boob!) and Bruce is just. delighted. fucking delighted. the Batman melts away immediately; he wants to know what’s up with this kid. and it’s slowly dawning on little 12 year old Jason, who’s shitting his pants under all the bravado he can muster up (he called Batman a big boob!!!! Batman!!!), that he might not be in trouble and holy crap this is Batman this is so cool.
Bruce is a little more careful now than he was when he adopted Dick. the good people of Gotham have noticed an absence of Robin; he doesn’t want anyone to make connections between a new Robin and Local Kooky Billionaire Adopts Another Orphan. but he figures out, in all of .6 seconds, that Jason doesn’t have the best home life, and he figures out a plausible way for Bruce Wayne™ to have met Jason Todd and take him under his wing, and boom bang, there’s a new kid in the Batcave. it’s just like old times, and nothing like them at all.
Bruce is a pro at parent-teacher conferences, and not once does he accidentally let Jason stay out til 4. he asks for details unprompted, knows that Jason likes his English classes best and that if you let him he’ll talk your ear of for an hour about how much he likes the characters in The Outsiders, what he thinks about A Separate Peace, or how dumb and awful all the rich people are in Gatsby.
he doesn’t blend into his fancy new school the way Dick did, though. he’s so happy to talk about his classes that it takes Bruce awhile to notice Jason hardly mentions any friends. when he does, he wonders if it’s because making friends is harder to older kids, or Jason maybe just lacks Dick’s easy social skills. in truth it’s because Jason is deeply, deeply uncomfortable around these spoiled kids and doesn’t really want to get to know them.
he eats so much. Dick liked his snacks, especially as a kid, but Jason eats like a black hole. he hits a growth spurt hard and fast, is taller and bigger than Dick by the time he’s 14.
Jason’s relationship with Dick is… weird. he loved the idea of him, thought Robin was just as cool as Batman, was beyond excited to step into his boots. when they finally meet (because Dick is avoiding Gotham for one reason or another right now) it doesn’t go how Jason wanted it to. it’s stiff, weird, Dick is obviously uncomfortable meeting a kid he sees as his replacement. that sours Jason on him a little, makes him a little passive aggressive towards Nightwing or even the mention of him. I think that’s when he stops trying quite so hard to be the perfect Dick Grayson 2.0.
I’m going to say this once: Jason is never the bad Robin. he loves being Robin, every part of it. the tech, the bad guys, the costume, hanging out in the cave. it’s been so long since Bruce has heard anyone exclaiming over how cool everything is; at risk of sounding cliche, it makes him appreciate his work again. but Jason isn’t Dick, and he’s painfully aware that he’s living in that shadow.
Dick was, I think, sort of a sheltered kid, in that he’d spent his entire life before Bruce travelling around playing on a trapeze, hanging out with elephants and fire eaters, bouncing from one country to the next. his world was big, but also very small and insular. he was mature in some ways - his ability to look after himself when he and Bruce travelled, for one - but immature in other, a little more naive than you’d expect some kids his age to be.
Jason’s not without his whimsical side; he’s got a huge imagination, loves reading, like fantasy and made-up worlds more than Dick did. he likes words, and using them in goofy ways; he was always the kind of kid to say something like “oh my goodness gracious, I’ve been bamboozled.” but he also learned at a very young age to push that down, try to look tough and not give a shit in order to be left alone. he’s not always sure when it’s okay to let his gooey heart out, gets guarded and defensive without warning if the wrong button gets pushed, has a healthy amount of cynicism in him.
the longer he spends at Batman’s side the more he starts wondering if they’re doing enough. it’s great how many people Bruce helps, how many folks he hires and supports and gives a second chance to; Jason affectionately calls him the least shitty rich dude in Gotham. but what about the ones they can’t help? what about the really bad guys, the ones who will just keep hurting innocent people again and again and again? shouldn’t they do more?
he brings this up, once, when he’s about 15 years old, near the end of his time as Robin though of course he doesn’t know it. something awful has happened, a higher caliber of awful than even Batman and Robin usually see. you can fill in the tragedy of your choice, but personally I think it was Babs, shot and left for dead in her own apartment, alive but not likely to ever walk again. she and Jason aren’t tight, by any means, but he’s known her for years, looked up to her a lot, respected the hell out of her. and he’s shaking, crying, furious knowing, knowing, that the Joker could do this to a hero, a friend, and still walk free to do it again to someone else. he lies awake at night feeling sick wondering what if what if what if they did more.
he asks Bruce, once, and the answer is a no so cold that it freezes their relationship over for weeks after. Jason regrets it immediately, can feel Bruce keeping a closer eye on him after that, breathing down his neck like Jason’s another serial killer about to pop off, like he was talking about killing everyone and not just the very worst one.
they’ve had rough patches before, especially as Jason got a little older and realized how much Bruce was expecting him to act like Dick. not in personality, necessarily, but in practice. every once in awhile something will happen between them, some fight that doesn’t go according to plan, where Jason moves in a way Bruce isn’t predicting because he still thinks of Dick when he thinks Robin, expects Jason to know what he’s doing and act accordingly exactly how Dick would have. easy for Dick, who was there when Bruce invented those moves; impossible for Jason, no matter how much time they spend training in the cave. he’ll make his move and it’s not the one Bruce wants, maybe not the safest either, and that scares Bruce so he gets mad, because he’d rather have Jason hate him than get hurt.
not that getting mad saves him, either; nine months after Barbara’s assault Jason Todd is dead and Bruce will blame himself for approximately ever.
*this is per the personal timeline I use to condense 70 years of Bat-history into one semi-stable story when I write about the family. it’s not endorsed by DC comics.
**note to self: make that post, too.
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