Chapter Text
"Alright, can I get another idea?"
Jason watched as five hands shot up. He was running his class through improv exercises, which were both incredibly fun and extremely useful. It was a good warmup activity.
"Hazel, how about you," Jason said.
The dark-haired girl grinned widely. "Dentist's office!" she crowed, and the three children at the center of the circle of chairs scrambled around. One crouched down like he was sitting in a dentist's chair. Another pretended to be the dentist while the third positioned herself as the dentists' assistant.
"Assistant," said Jordan seriously, "I think we're gonna have to pull his teeth."
"How many?" asked Eden.
"All of 'em." Jordan tried to go for a grim expression, but he looked more like he was trying not to laugh. Jason hid a chuckle of his own behind his hand.
Elliot, still positioned like he was lying on a dentist's chair, gasped loudly and jumped up. "You can't take my teeth! I promised my gang boss I would have them to bite people with!"
The kids all laughed. Jason winced. Elliot was one of the kids on scholarship. He lived in Crime Alley and had parents who were actively involved in the drug trade. Jason was trying to figure out if that situation was worse than just parents involved in crime, but Elliot was somehow both incredibly closed-off and incredibly open, but the openness only extended to things that didn't really matter.
Jason shook himself out of his thoughts as the three kids finished up their little scene. He grinned widely at them and told them to return to their chairs. "We'll do one more round, then we'll head back to our desks and start class, alright?"
The kids nodded. They were all seventh and eighth graders—Gotham Academy split up its theater classes strangely. Sixth graders were required to take a musical instrument, so Jason didn't teach them. Seventh and eighth graders—there were twenty-seven of them total—made up one of his classes. His main high school class was composed of ninth through eleventh graders. He had thirty-two of them. The seniors had their own class, which Jason had decided would be focused on playwriting and directing.
(He had seven seniors).
There was also the theater club. It had been pretty robust back when Jason went to Gotham Academy, but Maria had told him that the previous theater teacher hadn't been the nicest, so there weren't many members of the theater club.
Jason aimed to change that, starting with a play.
"Back to your seats!" he called, and his students grabbed their chairs and went back to their desks. Jason fired up his PowerPoint presentation. "I know you guys are excited to learn what our fall play is going to be."
A few of his students drummed on their desks. The rest just looked excited.
"As I've told you before, this class will be putting on a one-act play, which we will perform in November." Jason moved to his second slide, which displayed the play practice schedule. "Auditions will be next Monday. I'll announce the cast on Wednesday, and on Friday, we'll do a table read."
A couple of his students whispered amongst themselves. Jason raised a brow and they went quiet.
"Thanks, guys." Jason pressed the next slide. "I believe I've told you about my plans for theater club, yes?"
His students nodded.
"Good." Jason took a few steps—he didn't like teaching while being still. "The middle-school theater club's first interest meeting will be the week after next. We'll be putting on a three-act play."
"What play?" asked Alyssa. She was always quick to both ask and answer questions.
"Great question." Jason clicked to his next slide. "The middle-school theater club will be putting on The Phantom Tollbooth."
"What's that?" asked Elliot.
Jason placed a hand over his heart in mock horror. "You don't know The Phantom Tollbooth? It's a classic! What are you reading in English class these days?"
"Lord of the Flies," said Eden sourly. She was one of the eighth graders.
"An . . . interesting book." Jason tried to be impartial—he may be an English nerd as well as a theater kid, but he wasn't an English teacher here. "I'm sure it's very exciting."
"It's not." Eden narrowed her brown eyes.
"I'm sorry about that." Jason chuckled softly. "It's an important book, but it's not important right now. What's important right now is the play this class will be doing." He moved to his next slide and waggled his fingers, flourishing his hands toward the title of the play."
"The Day the Internet Died," read Samantha, a tall girl with wild red hair. "What's it about?"
"The day the Internet died," said Jason primly, and his students sighed. He grinned. "It's about how a town deals with their internet going out. It's funny. I think we'll have a good time with it."
He spent the rest of class going over the auditions process and giving a brief lesson on stage directions. Then the bell rang and his students filed out of the classroom.
His next block was free. Classes at Gotham Academy operated mostly based on semester, but there were some classes that were year long. Theater, along with the art and music classes (and the APs offered) was one of the classes that was year long, so it followed a block schedule. Jason's classes were every other day. This week, his middle-schoolers had theater on Tuesday and Thursday. His high-schoolers all had theater on odd days, but Jason's pretty much empty schedule had prompted the administration to put him in charge of one of the study halls, which was the last class of the day.
His middle-schoolers were his first class of the day. Jason had two whole free periods before he had to monitor a group of bored eleventh-graders.
Since he hadn't managed to do a full stock of his costumes before school started, Jason headed to the storage room. He'd gotten about halfway through before he got distracted by a full pirate ship. That had gotten him wondering if the old theater department did a lot of pirate-themed plays, and then he spent a whole day going through all of the pirate-related costumes and trying to determine what play they were from. So far, he had identified costumes from Treasure Island, Peter Pan, and The Pirates of Penzance.
Today, though, he was determined to plow through another section.
His plans did not come to fruition.
"Excuse me?" said a voice, and Jason turned. He had a difficult time hiding the shock of seeing none other than Tim Drake standing in the storage room, but he thought he did a pretty good job.
"I'm sorry," he said, "can I help you?"
Tim picked at one of his nails. "We need costumes for my photography class."
"What kind of costumes?" asked Jason.
"Flowy fabrics." When Jason made a confused face, Tim added, "It's for a unit on movement and stuff. Miss Morley said you'd probably have something."
"I'm sure I do." Jason surveyed the room. "I'll admit, I haven't gone through all the costumes yet, so feel free to look around."
"Thanks." Tim started to rifle through the costumes.
Jason watched him for a moment, proud of how he kept from screaming and running from the room, then remembered that he hadn't asked Tim his name. Well, he already knew Tim's name, but that wasn't to be expected. To Tim, Jason was just another one of the many teachers employed at Gotham Academy.
"What's your name?" Jason asked as he made his way to the rack of costumes that looked like they came from Aladdin. There should be some flowy scarves here.
"Tim," said Tim. "Tim Drake."
"What grade are you in?"
"Junior year," said Tim. "But I'm in the senior photography class."
"Ah." Jason remembered that Maria had her senior photographers during second bell on even days. "You advanced or something?"
"Or something." Tim held up a few scarves. "This'll do. Thanks."
And he disappeared from the room.
"Damn," muttered Jason. "He's a weird kid."
He shook his head and continued on his inventory.
* * *
The next day, he showed up late to school for the first time.
Not that it mattered much—he didn't have his high-schoolers until second bell—but it was an odd experience. Classes were already going on as he made his way through the halls to his room. When he peeked into Maria's classroom, she was animatedly explaining something to a group of tenth-graders.
Jason unlocked his classroom door and flicked on the lights.
Damian was sitting at one of the desks.
Jason stifled a scream and placed a hand over his heart. Damian raised a brow at Jason's theatrics, as if he wasn't used to them already.
"You should be more aware of your surroundings," said Damian.
"You should be less creepy." Jason dumped his bag on his desk. "What are you doing here? Why aren't you in class?"
"I have finished all my assignments in my Pre-Calculus class. Thus, my teacher granted me permission to go to the library." Damian crossed his arms.
"This isn't the library."
"Astute observation, Todd." Damian smirked. "Or should I call you Mr. Peters?"
"That sounds so wrong coming from you," Jason muttered, shivering. "But, yeah, that would probably be best. I don't want anyone to make any connections between Bruce and I."
"Very well then, Mr. Peters." Damian looked like he was pretending not to take note of the way Jason dramatically shook at the name. "But this is not what I came down here to accomplish."
"Oh?" Jason perched on the edge of his desk. "What do you need?"
"I would like to propose something."
Jason nodded for him to continue.
"There is a student in my art class—a friend, I suppose—who is from Crime Alley. She has been attending Gotham Academy on scholarship, but she has just recently received word that her scholarship will not continue past this semester." Damian looked down. "She is unwilling to use my friendship to secure a scholarship from Wayne Enterprises. She said it would be taking advantage of me, but that cannot be the case, since I offered." He sighed. "In any case, I should like to help her, but I am unable."
"And your proposition?"
"Contact our mother. She is far richer than Bruce, and if you were to ask something of her, she would grant it. I do not know exactly what granting a scholarship would entail, but I am sure she could set something up." Damian looked up at Jason hopefully.
Jason tapped his fingers against the desktop. "I don't know, ahki. That's a big ask."
Damian gaped. "The tuition for Gotham Academy is nothing compared to Mother's substantial wealth!"
Jason grinned. "I was only messin' with you, Dami. Don't be so gullible—it's not a good look."
He scowled. "I do not like being the butt of a joke."
"I know," said Jason cheerfully. "But that's what big brothers are for."
"You are insufferable," grumbled Damian.
"But I am also very helpful." Jason pulled out his phone. "I'll text Talia now."
"You will?" Damian almost looked like a kid as he said it.
"Course I will. Anything for my favorite brother." Jason jumped to his feet and ruffled Damian's hair before the kid could bat his hand away. "Why don't you head to the library, just in case someone comes looking for you. I'll get that scholarship all set up."
Damian nodded and stood up. He paused for a moment, as if thinking, then wrapped Jason in a quick hug. "I will inquire as to your progress in the morning," he said, then disappeared from the classroom.
Jason shook his head with a grin as he sent a message to Talia. Not even a minute later, her response pinged through.
Call me after you are finished working. We will discuss details.
Jason set down his phone. Yeah, today was going to be a good day.
* * *
The scholarship ended up requiring an application. Damian, who had met Jason at his apartment, said that his friend (whose name was Hollis) would think Damian had somehow contacted a shell company of his father's to provide her with the scholarship. She didn't want charity, nor to use Damian, and so Jason set up a fake website with a simple application. Damian then mentioned the scholarship to Hollis.
A week after Jason set up the website, her application came through.
He couldn't help but read it.
Hollis was in ninth grade. Her mom had immigrated from Puerto Rico and her father was from Ireland. They had come to America with hopes of giving their then unborn daughter a better life, but had ended up in Gotham City, and then in Crime Alley. Hollis's father turned to working for low-level gangs to keep food on the table. Her mother worked at a laundromat. This was all outlined in Hollis's essay, which was incredibly well-written for a fourteen-year-old.
Hollis was incredibly bright. She scored above the 95th percentile in every standardized test she took, and had a 4.0 GPA. She was on the soccer team, the robotics team, and the swim team. She was in five separate clubs, one of them the community service club, and was determined to go to Harvard or MIT.
Jason had already been planning on granting her the scholarship, but even if this hadn't been a setup, he would have given it to her. She deserved it.
He sent the email telling her she'd gotten the scholarship a week later, and Damian relayed Hollis's excitement. "She would not cease jumping around and squealing," said Damian, doing his best to look put off. But a hint of excitement on the behalf of his friend seeped through.
"You did a good thing, helping her out like that," Jason told Damian, who scoffed and said it wasn't a big deal.
Jason thought it was. He would've killed for a scholarship like that back when he lived in Crime Alley, before Batman and Robin. There were probably hundreds of other kids just like Hollis who would do the same. Bright kids who deserved better than the hand the world had dealt them.
If only Jason could help them out as well.
It took him a full two minutes for that thought to fully marinate. His mug slipped out of his hands and crashed onto the floor, spilling tea and shards of glass over the tile.
He ignored it and opened his laptop. He didn't have resources, not many, but he did have Talia. And he had his history in Crime Alley. And he had a position that was primed for helping.
He opened up a Google Doc. The cursor blinked.
He typed a few words. Deleted them. Typed a few more and deleted those too.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" he muttered to himself.
Yeah, yeah, I am, he thought.
"Okay then." Jason shook his head and poised his fingers over the keys. He typed:
The Jason Todd Scholarship for Disadvantaged Students.