"SURPRISE!"

He jumps despite himself. "Shi—" A timely glare from Alfred shuts him up before he starts a swearing storm in front of Damian. (Although the kid's probably heard worse.)

In front of him is the image of overcaring idiots. Dick's holding up a huge banner that reads: "HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAYBIRD". The few seconds he could hold it up before accidentally dropping the entire banner on himself was enough for Jason's urge to strangle Dick to rise to near-boiling point (the way he fell down under the banner's weight was way too adorable for Jason to actually get mad). Barbara was holding a tray of cupcakes in her lap, her effort at ignoring Dick's little fiasco failing miserably. Damian had lost it, laughing and rolling on the carpeted floor, the cans of silly string he once held tossed away in a camera-holding Tim's direction. Jason instinctively ducks as the string explodes out of the can, pelting a miserable Tim and his poor camera with a flurry of sticky colours. It takes zero seconds for the kid to hand his camera over to an amused Cass (who was balancing the cake in one hand and a knife in another) and tackle the short stack, Stephanie watching the fight in glee. Alfred sighs, his party hat drooping from his head.

To his count, it takes exactly 5 seconds for chaos to descend.

To his count, practically everyone in the family is there. All except Bruce.

Jason blinks, stone-faced. Usually he'd laugh, cheer Tim on (he liked that kid way more than the brat—he guesses he has a thing for mildly sadistic people), get Steph and Cass to help him get the Bat-quarantined Nerf guns (Bruce's ban on guns went a bit too far really), start a manor-wide war, and get told off by Alfred. Good times, really. Usual times.

Today wasn't a usual day.

Jason walks out of the room, giving Alfred a sympathetic pat on the shoulder as he strode past. His anger was never really controllable, never organized, not like he kept his stuff. It was always messy, rising and falling with little trigger words, little things he noticed, little things left unsaid. But then sometimes it was the big things, people who set out to mess with him, big signs hung across the world, big scandals that just did things that pissed him off, and big days that were celebrated without reason.

Why did they bother trying? Why? They knew what today meant to him. But every. Damn. Year. They held some stupid "surprise party." And every year, he walked away from them, the anger bubbling at its brim. He wasn't one to under-appreciate things, wasn't one to discount his blessings. He knew what drove them. He knew the effort they put into these. He loved them, all of them, for bothering to care.

No, it wasn't them. It was her.

No, it wasn't all her. It was him too. His parents. They went around, messed up, did stupid things and they got themselves a baby they didn't even want to lay eyes on. Sheila, goddamn Sheila. She had to know the risks. She was a woman in Gotham, she must have known the risks. And still, she went up ahead and screwed with a horny street guy.

Normally, a pang of shame or guilt would spread through his bones when he said bad things about someone. (He wasn't the sadist in the family. That was Arleen. And Tim.) But god, god, saying that about Sheila made him feel so good, so relieved, so free. He didn't care about that stupid woman who—as his very unfortunate luck would have it—was his freaking biological mother.

And, damn, damn his father, damn Willis Todd. Jason hated himself every day for carrying that name, for carrying the Todd name, and cried when he realized there was no other name to go by. He just had to give in to his stupid urges, he just had to eye Sheila. He freaking impregnated Sheila and he didn't bother to even see Jason when Sheila threw him out to the wild dogs as soon as he was born.

In his child's eye, he was flanked by an empty hole, a cold wall, and nowhere else to go.

And then came light.

Catherine. Thank God for Catherine. She swooped into his life and saved him, cared for him while she still could. Even during the drugs, she loved him. She never stopped loving him. She never stopped caring about him. She was the best thing in Jason's life.

No, that would be wrong. It was true, back in the day, but not anymore. Someone else held his heart now.

It takes Jason a few seconds of staring into a blank wall to realize he'd stormed out of the Manor itself. He swallows, trying for god's sake to hold back the brewing lava steaming inside him. He shifts, repositions his stance, closes his eyes. Tilts his head back to the stars. (Or what he can see of it. It's very polluted in Gotham skies.) Tries to clear his head. Calm the fire.

   It's goddamn impossible.

+ + + + +

Okay, this is late, but it's my Jaybird bday post (sorry bout the angst, it's my operating zone)...