Jaybird, Jaybird, Fly Through My Window

Baby Boy!

Jason Todd, for lack of better words, has been having shitty day after shitty day for two weeks which, unfortunately, started after he had a run with some idiots using magic they had no clue how.

The group had been pretty easy to handle, their handle on magic awful and their fighting even worse. Most went down without a fight. Most. One of them– a disgraced psychologist or something that he couldn't remember, not that it mattered beyond motive –had the bright idea to charge at him with glowing hands and actually managed to hit him on bare skin...before he smacked them with the butt of his gun.

He barely remembered what they screamed at him. It had been something like "you bats...something something...stressed out...something something...handle this now!" It was what he told the person who showed up too and had left soon after giving a report.

It was that night, stressed and sore and hungry, that something odd happened.

He had just settled on making a bowl of cereal after jumping into the shower and didn't realize he was out of milk. He felt a fog– gentle, not angry nor green –mildly take over his brain, feeling his face and eyes warm up from unseen tears as he, to his embarrassment, threw a tantrum about having no milk which was common. He was thankfully able to break through the fog before anything broke or he split open any wound and simply ate his cereal dry, mind working overtime to figure out what happened.

It hadn't been pit rage as that always came with green vision and it hadn't been regular rage. It felt...light? Small? Definitely small and apparently wanted food after his stressful day. Thinking the fog was because he had been hungry and already irritable, he planned on bringing food with him on patrols if these were gonna hit him this bad.

No one needed to see what a hungry version of this...tantrum fog was, especially with what he had seen of his counter. He had to fix it now.

With the brain fog choked up to low blood sugar and exhaustion, he had been able to get to sleep in his usual fitful way...only to have him wake up with that fog over his brain, his thumb in mouth, and his pillow clung to chest like a stuffed animal. It took longer to pull out of this fog, probably because he woke up in it, and had essentially stumbled his way through his morning– inside his apartment, thank you –on autopilot before he got out of the fog.

Jason brushed that one off as a stress response, figuring his brain wanted to hide his vital organs after taking a hit the night before and while also needing a boost of happy chemicals after last night thus...the pillow and thumb sucking.

It's a stretch but he wasn't that paranoid about it. At least...not until nearly two weeks go by and he now has a hoard of children's items in his panic room because he couldn't go shopping without the fog taking over and forcing an item or three into his cart every time. It was terrifying, especially when he came out of the fog just that day with diapers in his hands. Adult diapers.

'Yep, that was too far!', he had thought as he shoved it back on the shelf and left without his clothing, a few oversized because the fog took over part way through.

He might have been...panicking a bit, in retrospect when he called Alfred on the way to the manor to make sure no one was home and asked him to get any scanners able to detect magic out and ready. He might have used the terms "compromised" and "spells" and "magic bitch" a couple times..

Jason knew that if he was compromised, it was by a child who had no sense of boundaries and did not need to see what Jason does on a daily basis. His own family didn't get to see what he did for a reason. He's the "robin" who actually kills, Red Hood. Hopefully the fog can't see memories.

Thankfully, the manor came into view before he could think much on that and sped up the road.

The front door was already opening when he pulled up and parked, Alfred easily seen standing in the doorway with a worried expression...with Bruce behind.