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Lucius checked his watch under the tablecloth for the fifth time, hiding his impatience from the present company.
It was a mask he’d worn for as long as he’d known the name Wayne, working under Bruce--tardy to every meeting, often exhausted and beaten half to hell--and his father, before that--equally exhausted, though the circles under his eyes were born in operating rooms, not fistfights in Gotham alleys.
It was, for the sake of the present charity board members, a mask of carefully-concealed concern. Either Bruce would show up, nursing three broken ribs and a collapsed lung under his Armani, or he simply wouldn’t. Lucius would make his excuses-- playboys, what did you expect?-- do the perfunctory shake hands, smile wide, and follow up with Alfred later.
Judging by the way the board chairwoman was scraping at her dessert plate, the absence of their billionaire was becoming apparent. Next to her, the other board members shuffled in their seats awkwardly, unwilling to break the silence.
“I’m sure Mr. Wayne will be right here,” Lucius said, believing none of the sort. Around them, the first floor of the Four Seasons buzzed with low-pitched conversations, the rich and glamorous watching the door carefully for someone equally, if not more, rich and glamorous to show up. “The orphanage program is of the utmost importance to him, as I’m sure you can imagine.”
The seat next to Lucius remained glaringly empty. Chairwoman Jones raised an eyebrow, pursing her lips.
“No, I don’t need you to--get your hands off my jacket, dipshit --”
Cameras flashed at the entryway, spilling into the dining room. Lucius looked up to see a terrified-looking maître d' scuttling away from the doorway, hands held above his head.
It took a second for the brown leather jacket and mussed dark hair to click, but when it did. When it did, oh boy--
Jason Todd-Wayne threw himself into the empty chair with the arrogance of a conquering king returning from battle, ignoring the camera flashes that continued from the window.
“Jason!”
“Hey, Jason! Give us a smile!”
“Jason, where have you been?”
It was comical how much bigger he was than the table, Lucius realized, as Jason unfolded the linen napkin at his place with a mildly curious expression. When had he gotten so big?
“Where is Mr. Wayne?” the chairwoman asked, finally breaking the silence.
Jason crossed his legs, cracking his neck.
“He’s not coming.”
That didn’t seem to appease Jones. “I was assured Mr. Wayne would be here.”
“Tough. Looks like you’ll have to settle for me, huh?”
With a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, Jason flagged down a waiter with two fingers.
“Modelo, with lime,” he said, in a near-perfect imitation of Bruce’s playboy purr. “Please and thank you.”
The waiter dashed off, leaving the table again in awkward silence. Lucius wondered briefly if the Four Seasons carried beer, much less Mexican imports.
“So,” Jason said, placing his napkin across his lap. The fact that his jeans were ripped and covered in paint splatters seemed only tangentially relevant to the motion. “We’ve got business. Let’s talk business.”
“No offense, Mr. Fox,” Barnere directed his smile at Lucius, ignoring Jason entirely. “But I don’t see the point in talking business, ” the words were dripping with disdain, “with someone with no financial stake in the foundation or the company. Or experience in navigating either.”
Lucius mulled over the thinly-veiled insult, weighing his words. Jason, in his infinite Bruce-ness, beat him to the punch.
“You can say delinquent runaway street trash, ” he said casually, pointing a finger at Barnere, “I know that’s what you’re thinking.”
Barnere was silent, leveling a look at Lucius. Leash your dog, it said.
Lucius wondered if, in the tangle of the informal CEO / CFO hierarchy Bruce had constructed, it had ever occurred to the foundation board where family sat, vis a vis decision-making. Anyone who’d seen the Batcave in action could sense just how much the Bat trusted his children.
But that was another story. Lucius blinked, returning to the present.
“If Mr. Wayne sent Jason as his representative for this meeting, then I have no problem moving forward as planned.” He said, reaching for the cup of decaf that was most likely ice-cold by his left hand. “Chairwoman Jones?”
Jones was hesitating, lips pursing as she examined Jason across the table. To the untrained eye, however, she seemed unmoved.
“Are you serious?” Kelly cut in from her right, astonished. “We’re letting a child run this meeting?”
Roberts, a balding man in a woefully tan suit, made a disgusted noise, turning in his seat. “Jim, remember who you’re talking to--”
“Oh, don’t tell me you’re scared of Bruce Wayne--”
“You’re right.”
Jason’s voice cut through the argument, silencing the table. The beer he’d ordered had mysteriously appeared in his hand, topped with the most pristine of limes. With a sigh, he put the bottle down, leaning forward until the table creaked.
“I was, up until quite recently, a child,” he began, “You’re right--I don’t have experience running a company. Or a foundation.” He tilted his head, jaw tensing. “But I did read the minutes from your last ten annual board meetings. I researched the proposal you were going to put in front of Bruce today, and I feel confident I can represent his comments and suggestions faithfully.”
Lucius couldn’t hide the half smile that slipped across his face as the younger man spoke. It was a carbon copy of Bruce’s first speech in front of the board of Wayne Enterprises, trying to explain how a few years of being legally declared dead (and a few front page gossip scandals) didn’t mar his intent to uphold his father’s legacy.
Chairwoman Jones crossed her arms, appeased. She leaned back in her chair, eyeing Jason intently.
“What was Mr. Wayne’s opinion on the alterations to the scope of the Livingston project?”
It was a test. Lucius kept his face blank, watching Jason out of the corner of his eye.
“I thought those alterations were tabled until the next budgeting meeting?” Jason responded smoothly. “The remaining funds for this fiscal year were re-routed to the operating costs at Felder Park.”
Jones conceded the point with a twitch of her eyebrow. She pulled the folio with the proposal from her purse, flipping past the executive summary and into the figures on page thirteen.
The next forty minutes were a flurry of back and forths as Jones and the others lobbed questions toward Jason, who answered them easily, throwing his own back as he fleshed out Bruce’s concerns in surprising detail. Lucius was content to sit back and let the meeting go where it may, ready to chime in if Jason faltered.
He didn't.
The end of the meeting found Jason in a laughable pose, pen between his teeth, hunched over the proposal as he and Roberts argued over phrasing and word choice in the final section.
“--yes, I understand that the clause ends there, but with the next sentence it’s kind of redundant--” Jason was saying, waving an ink splattered hand at the page without looking up. “Hello?”
The other members were looking at their watches, growing more obvious by the minute. They were over by almost thirty minutes. Around them, the end of the lunch rush had left the dining room near-deserted.
“I propose we table further discussion until our next meeting.” Jones said, sending Jason a fond look Lucius wasn’t quite sure the others caught. “If you’d like, maybe you can attend. With Mr. Wayne, of course.”
Jason looked up from the proposal, regret flashing across his face. A moment later, he locked it down in a smile that was so utterly Bruce, it left Lucius shaking his head.
“Anything for the children, right?” he asked. “It was a pleasure, chairwoman.”
To the table’s surprise, Jason stood and shook hands as convincingly as any presenter could. Lucius stood at his side, nodding the board off with a proud smile.
“Well done,” he said when they were out of earshot, gripping the younger man’s shoulder. “That’s not an easy board to handle.”
Jason turned his eyes on Lucius for the first time. They were an eerie green in the direct light; this close, he could see the strip of white hair above his temple the tabloids mused endlessly over.
“He does this hungover ?” Jason asked, eyes wide.
“...constantly.”
“Jesus.”
Lucius laughed, shaking his head. “It takes--”
“Practice, I know. That’s what he said.”
There was no use breaking the charade in public, but the curiosity got the better of him. Perhaps they could bend it.
“I suppose Mr. Wayne is indisposed?” he queried, sitting back down. Jason joined him a moment later. “What is it this time? Skiing accident? Another slip in the pool?”
“Horseback riding,” Jason said, lips curling into a smile. A real one, this time. “Fractured vertebrae, I think the doctor said. Mandatory bed rest for the next few weeks.”
“Shame,” Lucius said. “Give him my best, will you?”
Jason stood, nodding as he straightened his jacket. “Of course.”
They shook hands, the younger man’s grip firm and even. Lucius held on for a moment, eyeing the cameras undoubtedly lying in wait behind the doorway.
“I trust you’ll be filling in for his other responsibilities in the next few weeks?”
There was that head tilt again--if he didn’t know better, he’d say Jason was intentionally copying Bruce.
“I think the whole family is pitching in.”
“That’s very good,” Lucius said, releasing his hand. “Very good, Jason.”
For a moment, Jason looked painfully young, listing over the table, waiting for instructions. Then, as quickly as it came, he snapped out of it, grabbing the mostly full beer bottle from the table and draining it, as if to prove he still could.
“Later,” he said, flashing a peace sign at Lucius.
(and if Jason happened to show up at the next foundation meeting by himself, that was nobody’s problem. except for Barnere, who seemed to feel strongly about young men hanging up jackets before they entered a conference room. Jason would part with his life before he hung up his tattered leather jacket in the presence of the board, and Lucius couldn’t really blame him for that)