#babysitter!grayson

Today was no different. He took a deep breath as he unlocked the door, already hearing your sweet little excited screams and laughter that only became louder as he stepped inside far enough to see Dick pushing you around in a laundry basket in the transformed living room. He makes train noises and skirts you precariously close around diy obstacles to make you giggle and shriek more, not noticing Jason yet due to how good he was at being stealthy.

Along with his perfectly nice new rocking chair being used as one of the obstacles, Jason could see candy, popcorn, half-drunk baby bottles, and way too many toys littered around the room. Making it look as if there had been a massive rager of a party in the few hours he'd been gone. 

He leans on the doorway as his gaze wanders away from the mess to watch you two for a few moments, feeling a mix of fondness and genuine bewilderment over how you two could create such a mess in such little time. 

After Grayson makes you crash into the pile of sofa cushions, sending them toppling to the floor, Jason clears his throat to get both of your attention. Both of you whip your head around to look back at him, giggle fits paused to register who had silently snuck up on them. 

Upon the sight of your caregiver standing there with his usual stoic, resting-grump expression, your face breaks right back into a massive smile of pure love for the man that everyone else feared so much. You squeal out nonsense babble, attempting to crawl out of the basket while your hands outstretch towards him, a recipe practically promising you would fall on your face if someone didn't help you.

Seeing your cute baby giddiness for him, Jason's mouth quirks up in a small smile and crosses the room while Dick helps lift you out of the basket while also making sure you don't lose your balance. 

He carefully steps over mess after mess to make sure he doesn't break any of your toys–luckily he had his boots still on so he wouldn't get something lodged in his foot this time. Reaching you before you have to crawl very far, he kneels down and holds his arms out.

“Hey kid…” He greets you, helping keep you stable as you practically try to climb him. The excitement that blew up in your chest upon seeing him filling you with the overwhelming need to both give and get as much affection from your favorite person as you could get. 

You babble nonsense, the only words anyone is vaguely able to make out is the nickname you call him while regressed to which Jason gives a quiet breathy laugh, responding to what he thought you were trying to convey. “Yeah… I know. I'm back. I'm home. You missed me plenty, huh? Mmhm. I hear ya kid.. You’re real little right now. Younger than I left you.”

He rubs your back then adjusts how he's positioned on the floor to sit you more comfortably in his lap while you keep babbling. Your hand now coming up to lightly paw at his uniform. He glances up at Dick, now crisscross on the floor in front of them, seeing him munch on one of the candies that had been scattered on the floor. 

Jason raises an eyebrow at him, glancing around the living room turned… whatever this was then continues pretending to be your interpreter so he could get some sort of legitimate answer from Dick, “So… sounds like the kid’s tellin me you two had… fun.” 

His brother grins slightly, popping another floor candy in his mouth, his consciousness apparently free from guilt. “Yeah. Babies know how to have fun.”

“Oh you're saying the baby came up with all this?” he says sarcastically, gesturing vaguely to the candy they both knew fully well had not been stocked in Jason's place for a kid to have casually found.

Grayson laughs a bit and shrugs as you babble out something to participate in the conversation, “Hear that? They're taking responsibility.”

Jason scoffs out a laugh and shakes his head, turning his smile down at you and softening his voice a little more as he asks, “Is that what you're doing? Huh? Or are you tattling on Uncle Dickhead?” 

You giggle and shake your hands happily, looking between the two of them as you recognize enough words to know your carer was talking about Grayson. You point at him to prove you knew that word, looking at Jason for approvable which he instantly gives with amused pride. 

“It was Uncle? He destroyed the whole place and you were such a good kid who would neeeever participate in his shenanigans? Oh I knew it! Good job! Yeaaah! Good job, baby!”

“Thats not fair! You're manipulating their love for you and their babyspace!”

“I would never. I believe in letting kids make their own choices no influencing the decsion.” Jason shoots him a playfully evil look then whispers to you while not so subtly pointing to himself, “who do you like better, hm? Me or your stinky uncle? Me right?”

“What?? You can't ask that! What are you– hey! Little bird. Look at me! Look at uncle! You loooove your uncle yeah? I let you skip naptime and eat a lot of junk food and I even drove you around in your own basket train!”

Jason whispers the little nickname you gave him a few times for extra insurance you would choose him… since he was pretty sure you didn't even fully know what they were playfully arguing over you to do… but you would no doubt respond to your favorite words. 

His plan successfully gets your attention, your gaze no longer flipping between them curiously. You giggle as you look at Jason then reach up to paw at his face, fingers clumsily grabbing near his mouth where the words you liked hearing the most were coming from.

He pretends to try eating your fingers and you squeal softly, pulling them away but watching him with rapt attention to see what he would do next. With a bigger smile on his face–one he usually kept mostly between you and him–he proudly states to Grayson who had to quickly turn his admiration from watching the soft moment between you two into pretend sulking. “I win. You know what that means.”

“Yeah… okay okay. I'm going.” Grayson groans and stands up, Jason helping you stand up and walk by letting you stand on his feet and keeping you upright with his arms wrapped around you. 

He walks Grayson to the door, your gaze fixed your two feet and the way Jason sort of waddles to move each of your legs with his. 

He opens the door and uses your arms to gesture in an exaggerated way outwards while playfully delivering in a dry tone to his brother, “Get out of my house.”

“I’m out. I’m gone.” Grayson holds his hands up in surrender as he walks out of the door, briefly pausing to break his act to give you an actual goodbye. He kisses your cheek and whispers to you before giving his little brother a wave as well, "I had fun, kiddo. Don't be too good for Jason while I'm gone.” 

Jason closes the door behind him and walks you back to the living room, groaning dramatically about how heavy your feet felt standing on his, “I mean… we gotta teach you how to walk soon. Or just how to crawl faster.”

You tilt your head back to try looking at him, babbling nonsense back that he shrugs at, “Cause I’m not Superman, bud. I’m only going to pick you up when I absolutely have to. Or… when I'm training and you're big enough to have fun being tossed around.”

He carefully sits you down on the floor, grabbing the couch cushions and placing them back where they're supposed to be. You whine at first when you're separated but stop when he softly chastises you, “woah. No. No whining unless we're hurt.” he gives you a tired but still stern look until you stop, mostly out of innocent confusion for what garnered that look. 

Ultimately you choose to crawl your way right in front of his feet to get his attention but after he tucks the last cushion in he simply… steps around you and nabs the blanket off the tv. You make another noise at being ignored and toss a toy in his direction then bounce on your knees while lightly smacking your hands on the floor to try getting him to come over and play.

“You throwing stuff at me now? Listen, little bird… I don't want to get into a fight tonight with you. So you better make the next shot worth it cause I’ll swaddle you so tight in this blanket so you can't do it a third time.”

You make soft hum noises and keep smacking your hands on the floor to keep his attention on you. You just wanted to keep the playtime going like with Uncle Grayson… but Jason knew well enough by the way your hands were subtly vibrating and the fact his brother said that you missed your nap… you would be crashing soon. Just like he would since he was running out of leftover adrenaline from his mission.

He tosses the blanket over your head for good measure on his threat then looks around for the tv remote so you both could have some time to… relax and wind down before putting you to bed. You squawk at the blanket landing over you and clumsily pull it off, making sure to let him know about your displeasure that he mimics softly during his search. 

“Mmm bahbah ehhhyeah yeah I know– give me a moment.” He finally finds the remote in the tipped over bowl of popcorn and vaguely wipes it off on his pants before coming over to collapse onto the couch. “Okay… c’mere kid. It's getting close to your bedtime… in… a few hours.”

You look at him with a mixture of excitement and frustration. Because he WAS home but he WASN'T playing with you. And that just wasn't fair. You made a little displeased noise as he pats the couch, expecting you to climb up as if you weren't some poor little helpless baby that couldn't even walk on your own without help! How could he expect you to do anything on your own without his busted beefy arms picking you up?

You pout at him and lightly smack the couch to sort of mimic him. He tilts his head slightly, trying to not show his amusement at your frustration. Because it wasn't funny that you were slowly getting tired and irritated but it was funny to see you trying to argue through babble along with those clumsy hand flaps. “What? What's that look for? Hm? Climb up here.”

You were losing your giddy little kid patience, not realizing you had begun to grow tired without any more candy to keep your sugar high going. You move a little closer to the couch just to drape as much as yourself as you could without raising off your knees, your cheek resting on the cushion to pout at him. 

“Awwha..” he coo laughs at your pitiful performance a bit sarcastically, “are you too little, huh? Are you too little and the couch too tall?” You make a soft extra pitiful whine and he grins softly at you with a head shake, finally leaning towards you. “You need help?”

He gives a soft chuckle then reaches out for you, “alright.. Poor baby. Up you go.” he hoists you up onto his lap, moving the blanket to rest around your shoulders but you squirm until it's off again. You still wanted to play… as evident by the toy you had snagged off the floor right before he hoisted you up. 

You bounce in his lap, babbling again with the expectation he would join you. But he gives you a slightly tired look and doesn't coo back to you, instead trying to limit your bouncing. After a minute, your babbles turned more grumpy and insistent, demanding he play with his favorite baby!

“Baby– I know. Okay? I know you want to play. But… I'm running on empty.. And I think you are too so– wait– no– don’t–” You insistently keep bouncing, now shaking the toy in his face and he grunts softly from frustration. 

He takes a breath to stay stern instead of angry. “No. No play.” he says firmly, gently pushing the toy to your chest to make sure he got through to you even through your current limited vocab.

The rejection hurts your chest and makes you pause, looking at him with slight despair, like him not wanting to keep the whole day full of playtime was a sort of betrayal. He sighs and gently tries to tug you forward to lay down against him but you don't go right away, a pout forming on your lips along with some watery eyes. He starts to shake his head with a grimace, “No… don't cry either… I didn't mean to make you cry… I'm just tired. And I know you're tired too. Aren't you kiddo?”

He wipes his thumb under your eyes where the tears haven’t quite fallen yet, a silent promise to wipe them when they do and to give you a gentle touch to let you focus on while he speaks real softly to you again, “Yeah… are you so tired? I can see it. Dick didn't put you down for a nap and fed you too much candy… now you're so sleepy.”

You start to nod a little with him, liking the sounds of him talking and reassuring you about how tired you were. And you know what? You were feeling a little tired now that he mentioned it. Almost overwhelmingly so. It made the tears feel hotter and you give a small breathy sob. 

“Let's have some quiet time.. Okay? Yeah. Wind down. No more play tonight. Let's get you calm and ready for bed.” This time when he tugs you forward you cuddle into his chest to have a brief quiet cry.  “Oof.. yeah. There you go.”

He rubbed your back for a few minutes to calm down the crying he knew was mostly from you being regressed so little. Babies didn't have great emotional regulation and while he always felt a little anxious about you crying he could recognize that you weren't actually hurt or upset. You were just a little baby with a sugar crash.

He turns on the tv and lowers the volume quiet enough to keep things soft before even looking for a show. He flicks through a few channels deciding cartoons would be better mindless content for the both of you to half watch than something like the news. No one liked Gotham news anyway. Not even the anchors. 

You peek at it but keep your face mostly smushed against him, the lazy tears that dripped out ran down his uniform if he didn't wipe them off first. You mumble out a tearful nonsense word while pointing to the screen with the toy still clasped tightly in your hand as Bluey briefly pops up. 

Jason makes an uncertain noise and flips it to a different cartoon, “Ehh… maybe not tonight, kiddo. Last time Bluey made me cry. And I dont… think we both need to have tears tonight.”

He flicks through a couple more, ultimately stopping on Transformers. You look at the screen curiously for a moment then back at him, finally noting how tired he looked right now. His face was about as dirty and bruised as his hands were. Brows slightly pinching together you reach up to brush your fingers over a cut on his cheekbone as lightly as a baby could.

His eyes flick over to you, curious about what you were doing. He gives a slightly confused smile at you, “What?” you make a soft noise and keep touching the mark until he wraps his fingers around yours, tugging them away. “Yeah? That so? Well how about this? We watch the rest of this episode… then you can help bandage me up and drink a warm bottle?” 

He didn't think either of you would be awake enough by then to actually bandage him up but he could manage a bottle. As… long as there was a clean one left in the kitchen and they weren't all on the floor right now. 

You make a soft squeal and squeeze his hand, repeating the last word with a smile that begins to dry the last of your tears. “Bababa…”

“Mmhm… bottle. Looks like you didn't finish a full one at all today… also looks like you were drinking soda from them instead of something good for babies.” Something he would also probably do if you gave him sweet enough puppy eyes.

“Bahbaba..”

“Bottle. Buh… aw… tuh… ul..” he repeats again, sounding out the word with you that you mouth along with.

Only to continue with the same babbled version. 

“Buh..ababab..”

“You know what? That's perfect.” he nods and releases your hand to pat your butt instead, “I’ll get you a proper baba in a bit.”

You giggle softly and bring your freed hand up to his mouth, lightly poking at the split part there while he talks. “Bababa–”

Jason moves his head away each time you poke at the split then would turn back to pretend bite at your fingers. He pauses when you babble the same word again. It should be annoying. But it had teetered over to ridiculous for him, making him snort out a laugh. He drops his forehead against yours at first as his shoulders shake with quiet laughter then quickly drops it down to your shoulder as he keeps laughing.

“It's– this is so stupid– it's not even a.. Its not even a funny word–”

You smile a little as you watch him, pawing at his shoulders and chest to try getting him to look back up at you while he laughs as you cut him off to once again repeat your apparent new favorite word. “Babababa–!”

He chokes out a louder snort then lets you pull his head back to look up at you, knowing you had no idea how ridiculous you were as a baby. “It's so stupid, little bird. It's– ohh.. This is so dumb… I.. I know for sure I'm tired..for… laughing at… whatever this is. I think…” he shakes his head as he forces his laughing fit to calm down. He lets out a little breath then stands up, hoisting you with him, doing exactly what he said he wouldn’t do earlier. Carrying you when it wasn't necessary. “We need to just go to bed now. Before we get anymore… sleep drunk.”

He carries you to the kitchen, sitting you on the counter so his hands were free to look for any clean bottles… however he was instantly reminded how little you were when you nearly topple right off the moment he moved away.

“Shit–” he moves quickly, catching and gently sliding you back into a safer spot, “alright. Yeah. Okay. That was… my fault for.. Not keeping a hold of you.”

“Sha.. eet..!”

“What? No– you–” he presses his lips together to keep from cracking up again. “I guess.. That's also my fault. But at least… you've moved onto a different word?”

He slides you over on the counter, towards a different cupboard. Putting it within arms reach while he could still keep a hand on you to keep you in place. He fumbles around to look for a bottle making a slightly relieved sigh as he sees one last one bottle left hidden behind his many chipped coffee mugs. He frees it from behind its cheap ceramic soldiers and hoists you back onto his hip to turn around in the small kitchen, opening up the fridge. 

He holds it open with his foot then looks between the gallon of milk he needed to grab and the bottle in his only free hand. He ends up offering it to you to hold, which you happily do, bringing it to your mouth to try drinking from the empty bottle as he grabs the milk. 

He sets you back down on the counter and looks at you as you make little confused frustrated noises as you can't get anything out of it. “You struggling, kid? I wonder if it's because there’s nothing in there to drink..”

He gently pries it from your mouth where you were biting at the rubber then unscrews the cap, shaking the milk container, watching the way your mouth drops open in surprise to hear the drink you wanted was in a whole different place. He gives a small chuckle and pours the slightly frothed milk into the bottle, not bothering to clean up the counter or the side of the bottle when it spills over. 

He goes to put the bottle in the microwave right behind you but you whine and clumsily grab at the bottle to bring it back towards yourself. More spills over but he keeps it from completely toppling, “you want it now? It's cold. You feel it? Cold.”

You keep trying to wrestle the bottle towards yourself, not caring that it was cold. “Baby bird– cold. Do you want it cold or warm? Warm milk?” he points to the microwave but it causes you to nearly spill the bottle again so he just gives up on trying to get you to understand.

“Okay. You don't want it warm? I.. sure whatever you want.” he pries your now milk covered fingers off the bottle so he can twist the lid back on. 

He hands it back to you which you eagerly bring right back up to your mouth, trying twice as hard to drink from it since the first time all you got was air. But now that there's actual milk in it you get a little too much in your mouth, nearly inhaling it and causing you to cough it right back out, getting your shirt a mess. 

He looks at you with a bewildered and slight disgusted expression, thinking, ‘why would you do that?’

He slowly pushes the base of the bottle down so you can't do it again right away, still looking at you with such a tired emotion as he tried to figure out if he even wanted to deal with this the responsible way or not.

When you cough again, milk spittle getting on his uniform the decision is made for him. He was too tired for full dad mode. You're getting the big brother fix.

He peels your wet shirt off, using the dry parts to wipe more of you off then just… drops the shirt on the floor to be with the rest of the mess he would have to clean up tomorrow then repeats the came actions with his uniform.

He preferred to not sleep in his uniform anyway. At least not when you were regressed. He didnt… need to always feel wound up and ready to fight at any moment if he was taking care of you. Because with you his role was to be your caregiver. Not a vigilante.

You don't seem to mind the difference in clothing just reaching back out for the bottle again. He holds it away, picking you up instead and heading to the bedroom.