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“Do you need help with the menu?” Bruce Wayne was smiling that fake rich person smile at him as he leaned over into Jason’s personal bubble.
“I know how to read.” Jason had been a semi-regular attendant of Gotham City public schools for nearly five years and had only been held back twice. He knew how to read. He did not, however, know how to read this. There were too many vowels in all the words and he didn’t know what was a dish and what was a section header. But Jason was not about to admit that in front of Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne, who had never made a social misstep in his life, Bruce Wayne who Jason had watched flirt in 5 different languages, Bruce Wayne who didn’t have to sound words out under his breath when he read. Bruce Wayne who lived in a manor twice the size of Jason’s entire apartment building.
Batman had dropped Jason off at Wayne manor without so much as a by your leave. The manor had glittering gold lights (chandeliers, Alfred had called them in his posh British accent. ‘Shan-da-leer’ Jason had written in his diary, adding to the list of words he did not know). It had polished corners, even the forgotten spaces under the armoire (arm-war) in his bedroom sparkled.
Bruce Wayne was nice, in the ditzy kind of way rich people could be. He never acted like he held Jason’s life in his hands, though of course he did. Bruce was always so considerate to ask Jason what he wanted, to change things to make Jason comfortable. And him, Jason understood, for the most part. Alfred was a different story. Every day Jason found himself smuggling new words into his diary to look up later. Shi-cane-are-y appeared in a story about Dick’s youth adventures on the shan-da-leers, four-two-i-tuss described Jason’s arrival at Wayne manor, and tonight Jason was supposed to behave with pro-pry-ity at the restaurant.
Jason wrote the words down, sounding them out slowly like his fourth grade teacher had taught him. He tried looking them up in the dictionary, sneaking out of his room late at night to break into the manor library. But the shan-da-leers didn’t start with shan, and shi-cane-are-y did not appear under S at all. It was impossible to look up the meanings of words if he could not spell them.
But Jason had answered too many pitying questions from social workers and private school admissions staff in the past month to admit he didn’t know what they meant.
He looked down at the menu. These, at least, were words he could look up later. These he knew how to spell. Bruce had asked him to pick an on-tray. None of the words looked like on-tray.
“And what would the young sir like for his entrée?” Crap. The waiter had arrived. There was no more time to try to read.
“What would you recommend?” Jason put on his most charming smile and the waiter glanced at Bruce who gave an airhead smile in return.
“The house special today is champignon parmentier. But if the young sir would like a kid’s menu.”
“No. I’ll take the special.” Special, at least, was a word Jason knew how to pronounce.
“Jason,” Bruce looked uncertain. “Are you sure you want the champignon parmentier?”
“You said I could order whatever I wanted.” Jason closed him menu definitively. He did not want the fucking kids menu. “I want the special. Unless,” he bit his lip and leaned over to whisper, not wanting the waiter to hear. “Is it too expensive?”
Bruce laughed. Right. Billionaire. “It’s fine Jason, I didn’t realize you liked mushrooms is all. Get whatever you want.” Mushrooms. Jason hated mushrooms.
“I want it. I love mushrooms.”
Their food came out fast. Faster than many of the tables that had ordered before them. Must be the Wayne name.
Jason ate the potatoes off the top of his dish. He moved some of the mushrooms around with his fork.
“Is something wrong?” Bruce looked concerned. “Do you want to order something else?”
Jason never wanted to look at that menu again. He wasn’t used to eating out, but when he did, the places his mom took him had pictures on the menus. He missed that.
“’m just not that hungry.” He mumbled.
“We can go somewhere else if you’d like.”
Jason took a stubborn bite of mushroom. Then he took a big gulp of water to wash away the taste.
“This is great, Bruce. Thank you for taking me here.”
“Of course, Jason. I had something important I wanted to talk to you about.” Bruce took a bite of his chicken. Jason tried not to look jealous. “The school test results came back. They think you can start in fifth grade if you take summer classes.”
Fifth grade? Jason had been about to enter sixth at Gotham Central Middle School.
“But I took fifth grade already.” Twice, he thought sourly.
“Your reading test was lower than it need to be for middle school.”
Jason was going to cry. He worked hard in school, when he could go. And he was far from the bottom of his class. It wasn’t his fault he wasn’t good enough for some fancy Bristol school.
“Then let me go to Gotham Central. They’d put me in sixth grade.”
“I’d rather you go to Gotham Academy. Gotham Central isn’t always safe.”
“They’ve got metal detectors and they just added new air filters in case of fear toxin.”
“Jason, I don’t want you to go to a school with metal detectors.”
“Why not?” Jason stuck his chin out. “It’s good enough for the other kids in the narrows.”
Bruce sighed. “Is this about the school, Jason? Or is it about the grade level?”
“I’m not stupid.”
“I never said you were. You just haven’t had all the same opportunities the other students at Gotham Academy have had. But you will catch up.”
“How am I gonna catch up if I’m a whole grade behind?”
“I’m going to get you a tutor so you’ll be ready to take the fifth grade classes. If you keep up with the work, you can do tutoring after school and on the weekends and we’ll see if you can skip ahead at the semester.”
“Can I retake the test at the end of the summer? So I can start in sixth grade?”
Bruce sighed. Jason pushed. “I’ll work extra hard. I’m not a dummy and I know how to read.” He did. He really did. He was just slow. There weren’t a lot of books in his elementary school library and most were missing pages or covered in stains.
“I know you know how to read, Jason. But there’s more to reading than just being able to sound words out.”
Jason blushed. He hadn’t realized Bruce had noticed him doing that.
“I’m not illiterate. I just never owned a book before.” He mumbled the last bit around a revolting mouthful of mushroom.
“What?” Bruce tilted his head towards him. “Swallow, then speak. And speak up, I can’t hear you.”
“I said, I’ve never owned a book before.” That came out louder than he intended. The whole restaurant was looking at him now.
“Did Alfred not show you the library?”
Did Alfred not show Bruce the library? It was full of thick books with small type and names like Wuthering Heights and MacBeth. Jason couldn’t even read the titles, let alone the contents.
“It, uh, doesn’t have a lot of kids books.” Jason wasn’t a kid. He didn’t want to read kids books.
Bruce, at least, had the decency to look embarrassed.
“Can we go?” Jason had eaten a full third of his dinner and everyone in the restaurant was starring at the dirty poor kid too stupid to know how to read.
Bruce paid and they left. They didn’t talk on the drive back to the manor, but Bruce pulled into a Batburger and ordered Jason a burger, fries, and milkshake.
“I was held back in fifth grade too.” Bruce said, as he handed over the meal. “My parents had just died and I stopped doing my homework and started cutting class. I thought Alfred was going to kill me when he got the letter from the school, but he helped me get back on track, and we’ll help you too, Jason.”
“That’s different. You had a reason.”
“So do you. The schools in Gotham City aren’t as good as they should be. That’s not your fault. I can’t help everyone, but I can help you. As long as you do your part and study, I promise you’ll be caught up within the year.”
Jason swallowed. “And you won’t be mad if it turns out I’m too stupid after all?” You won’t send me away, he wanted to ask but didn’t dare.
“I won’t.”
“Promise?”
Bruce held out his little finger so solemnly Jason couldn’t help but laugh. “Pinky promise.”