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Jason made absolutely no noise or opened his eyes when he woke up, but his kidnapper knew this somehow, and as Jason tried to move his fingers he reminded, "Any attempt at escape is useless, and I know how far you can go ...... Jason. "
The familiar shadow was blocked by the back of the chair as Jason lay on the floor looking up at the sky, every breath made a part of his head flash with a light of pain, which was normal considering he had punched by both Dick and Tim in the head before he passed out. Jason grinned, which made his smile smell like blood, "I really miss the time when you still called me 'akh."
"I haven't called you that since I was four."
"It was four years, five months and three days later." Jason corrected with his eyes closed, and as he spoke he was a little startled by his good memory. Damian didn't say anything for a moment, so Jason turned his attention to the restraints on his body, and after three minutes of sweating he agreed with Damian's words and was sure that the most dangerous prisoners in Arkham had it easier than he did right now, and that at least they wouldn't have chains on the outside of their straitjackets. Later Jason tried to judge their current position from the dashboard, but the dizziness and pain alternated with tap dancing in his head and he was having a hard time organizing a difficult thought. Little Wayne, whom Big Wayne had left behind to work against him, seemed to aim for the moment when his thoughts coalesced, and accurately thrust language abruptly into his brain, "You didn't kill the imposter."
Jason's efforts of thinking were interrupted, which added annoyance to his voice, "What?"
"Drake, Timothy Drake, he's not dead. He ...... was very much alive when I dragged him out of your inferior batcave."
"That's a good news," Jason let out a string of mutterings, "I thought he had no pulse."
"Yeah," Damian grunted, "so I don't have to get you out from those Bats."
Jason hadn't asked where Damian was going to get him, he could have asked that question very naturally once, or answered a similar question for the little al Ghul. But things were different now, like the fact that they'd both left the League of Assassins and he'd given the little thing a bullet in the chest yesterday. For all those reasons above, Jason was sure he wouldn't want to know where the trip ended, because it would either lead to an underground hell or an above-ground hell, there was little difference.
"You will pay for your betrayal." Damian still didn't look back as he spoke, but Jason felt he needed to clarify something, "Betrayal? Who did I betray? Not you anyway, when I was in the League of Assassins I was under Talia." "My mother gave me ownership of you as a gift on my eighth birthday, I should have your loyalty." "No one told me it was a lifelong career when I crawled out of the pit," Jason tried to wave his hand in the air in a gesture or something, but it ended up just being some barely audible scuffling noise between the chains, "I never belonged to anyone! "
Damian covered Jason's later words with a suddenly elevated shrill voice, "You'll pay for your betrayal, I'll make you into a specimen!"
Jason closed his mouth.
Damian's voice became lower, but still tight, "You still have sixteen hours."
"Enjoy your last time, J."
Jason should have been thinking as fast as he could about a way to escape, but he was so sleepy his eyelids were practically glued together, and Damian must have overdosed him with barbiturates. And the little guy's voice at the end was so soft that for a moment Jason even thought they were still in the League of Assassins, cuddled up together in a bed, a time when Damian would grab him by the hand when he was haunted by a nightmare and yell at him in an airy voice to get him out of the phantom of explosions and screams. Hell, he yelled at Jason exactly the same way he did as a child.
Jason still furrowed his brow as he slipped into the disturbing dream, but he did reluctantly enjoy his time for a while, as Damian had said.
After waking up in the bumpy air currents Jason felt his brain get a little better, at least he was able to estimate without much effort that he had slept for about three hours, the pain was still rolling around in his head but the drowsiness was gone for now, now he had enough time and energy to figure out how to keep himself ...... from becoming a specimen. Since Damien had really wrapped him up nicely, all Jason could do was lie there helplessly like a mummy; he couldn't even crane his neck. The equipment Jason had brought with him earlier wouldn't have come in handy, Damian had definitely removed them all a long time ago and his mask didn't even stay on his face. Jason guessed he hadn't noticed the miniature bomb in his veins, but he was really tied up serious, and all the parts of his body that could move were his mouth, his nose, and his eyes, and Jason couldn't get the bombs out of his body with just those three organs.
Backup was out of the question, Jason had been working alone all this time and no one was going to come to his rescue. Gotham was just a mess after Bruce's death, all sorts of criminals were jumping out of the Bat-shadows trying to prove themselves, and the remaining Bats were already spending all their energy just stopping the city from falling into collapse, so no one was going to come looking for Damian either, they might find out that one of them had disappeared a day or two down the line, but Jason guessed the odds were they'd think Damian had finally gotten tired of putting up with them and gone back to to his mom. It was no big deal, the circus boy would take over the cowl, and the imposter would continue to be his Robin, and then they'd make Gotham quiet again, Jason and Damian's absence would just make this process smoother.
Jason almost laughed out loud at the thought, and he did, his hoarse laughter hitting the chains and making the air inside the fuselage clamor. "What are you laughing at?" Damian definitely furrowed his brow, but that didn't stop Jason's evil plan to fill the space with laughter. Damian ignored Jason and his insane laughter after a string of low curses, mostly because the plane wasn't the autopilot one and Damian had to stay seated to make sure they would make it to his intended destination.
Jason laughed until his lungs became empty, then he rested his head against the ground and quietly counted the minutes.
He had twelve hours left.
He counted three hours before the plane landed on some island in the Indian Ocean and then Damien stuffed him into a ziplock bag used to hold dead people, Jason didn't get a chance to voice his displeasure because he was gagged before that happened. A bumpy ride, some non-fatal impacts and twenty minutes of cadaver experience later Jason finally saw the sky again. His vision was limited, but the smell of the humidity and the shaking was enough to tell him a lot.
"Socotra?" Jason closed his eyes and let out a snort, relaxing as if they were just going on vacation, "I don't remember the League being this good at end-of-life care for traitors."
"It's none of the League's business." Damian's voice was a little raspy, and he briefly appeared and disappeared from Jason's line of sight for a second before Jason heard him go to the other end of the boat. It didn't take a second for Jason to hear his brain's reflexes screaming at him: Damian was tired, that he should be guarding the boy so that little prince could rest for a while. Jason let his body rock along with the deck so he could throw those subconscious urges out. Things were different now, he told himself, they had left the League of Assassins and the little thing no longer needed him as a bodyguard. Like Damian had just said, it was none of the League's business, and his departure had been authorized by Talia.
Yeah, Talia allowed him to leave, but Damian didn't. Jason knew Damian wouldn't allow it, so he left without saying goodbye to that guy.
Jason realized that he's got the rabbit by the tail.
Jason was Damian's closest bodyguard and attendant, he later left the League for Gotham without Damian's permission and refused to meet with Damian once he arrived in Gotham. The last time he'd met the kid he'd seemed like he wanted to say something to him, but the Black Mask crawling out of his grave, the ubiquitous discussions about Batman, and the flying Robin's had filled Jason's body with anger and annoyance, so he'd forced Damian to shut up with a bullet while tearing through the bat encirclement. Seriously, he didn't regret shooting an unsuspecting Damian, it was the best choice he could have made at the time, and even if he rewound back in time he would still pull the trigger again, but he would at least give Damian a chance to talk.
Going AWOL, plus attacked a young al Ghul, were two crimes enough to have him hunted down by the League's assassins to the gates of Hades' palace. Even though Damian was no longer the young lord of the ALeague, Talia will not just let him off the hook.
But Damian got him out of an underground river and flew him from the United States to an island in the Indian Ocean, and why? This is definitely not a trial for traitors, the League has no such rules, and there was not even a League base on Socotra.
All of this weirdness could only be explained by Damian's line that this wasn't the League business, this was just between him and Damian. He'd betrayed Damian, so it made sense that he'd be dealt by Damian in this own way. It was also why Damian had taken him to Socotra: they'd spent a few days on this island before they'd come here last time to settle their mission objectives, they hadn't much time to enjoy their time, but the strange creatures and landscapes had still impressed them. Jason gave a cursory review of the time they'd shared and was not surprised to find that the memories of Socotra were perhaps the best; there were no assassins after them, there was no need to worry about survival, and they'd drank goat's milk mixed with Dracaena resin together.
So Damian was going to end the life of Jason, who betrayed him, in the best place they've ever been together? That sounded
pretty drama, and the little guy was probably well suited to be a playwright or theater actor or something. Jason refused to admit that he had influenced Damian in that way, it was definitely part of the genes.
The smell of blood on the ocean breeze brought Jason back from his thoughts, and he knew that Damian was tending to the wounds on his body, probably including the gunshot wound he'd sent out yesterday without thinking. A fatal wound followed by a ten hour flight? That was within acceptable limits for Damian, he knew the boy's limits, the last time they had been in the Rub Al Khal Desert they had gone thirty-two hours straight without rest or sleep in order to escape pursuit, and there hadn't been any extra water left to clean out the sand-stained wounds. That time he had looked at the endless sand and suddenly exclaimed we might be dying, Damian hid in the shadow behind him barely able to speak, a few high fevered syllables rolled out of his throat with great difficulty, Jason couldn't remember exactly what he said but he was to the effect that you have the energy to talk you might as well shut up and hurry.
They ended up surviving and no one lost a limb or organ as a result of that experience.
There had been many more difficult experiences than this, but just because it was within tolerance didn't mean that Damian wouldn't get tired, and Jason hoped that he wouldn't suddenly collapse from overwork and infected wounds, in which case he'd either have to find a way to break the chains and straitjacket with his teeth, or lay on this ship waiting for Anubis to take him to Duat, and Jason definitely didn't want to die just like that. Since he had just changed his motto to Never Give Up last week, he figured he should try again.
"Hey kitty, how's your wound? I can help you with the boat if you need it."
"Have you been shot in the head? Did I hear you plead with me to release you?" Damian grunted, "Of course I'll get you out of that bind, after you're dead."
"That can this is too bad." Jason fabricated an exaggerated sigh. Damian returned his disgruntled airy tone, "Shut your mouth, none of this would have happened if you hadn't betrayed me."
"Can't you just leave me alone?" As Jason spoke he tried to flip himself over by shifting his center of gravity so he could see Damian. "I'll go back to my sewer, you stay at Wayne Manor, and we can pretend nothing happened."
"Shut up!" Damian screamed causing Jason to shut his mouth as more harsh language was then thrown by the smaller man, "You swore to mother and grandfather that you would be faithful to me, but you not only betrayed your oath, you forgot it! Now you're asking me to just let you off the hook and pretend nothing happened?" He paused briefly, Jason heard his ragged breathing laced with pain between the waves, and when Damian spoke again his voice was still mean across Jason's eardrums, "Life in Gotham has made you naive."
Jason felt a buzzing start in his ears, but Damian still continued his vicious speech, "You failed to stand up for your principles before father, and your concessions have made you weak ......"
"...... shut up."
"...... You didn't even kill the Joker to avenge your former self."
"Shut up!" At this point every cell in Jason's body was roaring with him, "SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! can't you just fucking shut up!"
Damian seemed to be shaken by him and didn't make another sound, but there was no way for Jason to stop, the words automatically jumping out of his chest, "You don't understand a fucking thing! You're not the one who got blown up after a broken bone, you're not the one who got beaten half to death by Bruce for abandoning his stupid principles! Your good mother will give you everything you want, all you have to do is stand in front of Bruce and he'll accept you because you're his fucking own son!"
"And what do you understand?" Damian finally responded and then he countered with a louder scream, "You spend more time with mother than I do and father never accepted me, he just kept me at the manor and then forbade me to do anything, I just - he only saw me as a responsibility, he never, to his dying day, ever wanted me as a son!" Something was dropped on the floor with a shattering sound. "He left a place for your old uniform in the Batcave, and your room at the manor was clean as if you were welcome back at any time!
"But what about me? No matter what I did they weren't satisfied enough, and the position that should have been mine was given to an outsider by my father, who even gave him Wayne's last name!"
"That's because you're their child and they expect more from you. But me? I'm just a disposable tool, after I lose my value they'll just throw me away!"
"Don't I? I have so many test-tube brothers, and I'll be replaced anytime I have a defect!"
At some point they stopped at the same time, just there to inhale air sharply and then exhale, and a faint voice in Jason's head finally had its chance to make an appearance at this point. Where's your mind, it asked, why were you just throwing sharp words at each other like this, making each of you miserable and exhausted? Was this what you want? Was this what you want to do? And if not, how did everything get to this point?
Jason laid there a bit dazed searching for memories, it started with Damian tying him up and claiming he betrayed him? No, not that, it all started before that, that predated Bruce's death, predated Damian's arrival in Gotham, predated his and Bruce's confrontation across the Joker.
It all started when he left Damian without any goodbyes and returned to Gotham from the League of Assassins.
He should have at least said goodbye to the kid, Jason thought. Why hadn't he thought of this before? He'd known Bruce hadn't killed the Joker for him before Damian could talk, and then a few years later, after he and Damian had returned from snow mountain Talia had told him that Bruce had a new Robin.
How did he react then? He tore up all the information Talia had given him after reading it, then took a trip to Gotham, met with the impostor in his own way, and stopped by to help the League kill a few mission targets before getting up and going back to Damian.
When Damian had called out to Jason with his eyes he'd thought that anger and hatred hadn't corrupted his brain, but now it seemed that those things still lurked somewhere in his consciousness and then grew into something, something that would blind him with the shadow of anger at a given time.
Jason didn't know how much those stuff contributed to his decision to be an asshole, but he was pretty sure at that point in his life he thought it was for the best not to say goodbye to Damian, that the guy wasn't going to accept his goodbyes.
Trying to get baby al Ghul to accept his departure would mean that his trips to Gotham would only be for League business, and that there would be assassins on his trail at all times, and perhaps at some point Damian himself would come to Gotham and get in on his revenge scheme. That didn't sound so bad, he's been like that for the last ten years, and assassin help when necessary would also make it a lot easier.
But Gotham was different, he had different things to do, different opponents to face, and that could only be a personal business for Jason Todd.
Back then he didn't know how to explain this to Damian, so he simply just left the league. But now when he thought about it, it wasn't because he didn't know how to explain it, it was because he didn't want to tell a kid, "Hey little prince, I'm going to kill your father who you've never even met". That's a little too cruel, even if it was an al Ghul who knew how to kill people since he was three.
So Jason ran away, went off to Gotham alone and quiet, and buried his head in a pile of bat shit, as if that would keep him from remembering some warm little thing on a wet, cold night.
Isn't it a little late to be feeling sorry, he thought to himself as he rushed to speak before Damian could start a new round of mutual attacks, "I'm sorry, kiddo."
"Wh-"
"I'm sorry I went to Gotham without saying goodbye to you."
Damian's words were cut off by Jason's apology, and the sarcasm sounded a little blunted when he connected again, though that could have been Jason's delusion.
"What are you doing, hoping to lyrically get me to leave you alone? That's not possible."
"What? No, no. I just ......" Jason swallowed the non-existent hardness between his throats so he could continue, "I just ...... owe you a goodbye."
"...... Oh, oh yeah. I see." Damian didn't try to defend himself with another attack, it was pointless to Jason, he knew that Jason always knew what he was thinking and it made his response sound a little pathetic.
"But I will not forgive you for your betrayal." Little al Ghul added in a muffled voice. "The truth is I'm not sorry for that," Jason squinted as he watched a cloud drift past, his lips so finely parched from the lack of moisture that he could taste blood as he licked past it, "It was the best I could do at that point. " Damian snorted and didn't say anything, so a silence crossed between them.
He closed his eyelids after cloud floated out of Jason's range of vision, "Actually, I didn't just betray you."
"What?"
"I betrayed someone else." The rocking deck repeatedly tapped him on the head as he spoke, knocking Jason out of his shell of resentment and hate.
"I betrayed myself."
"Putting on the Batsuit, fighting criminals on my own terms, and recruiting another Robin, I thought that would replace him. But what happened? No one gave a damn about me, all of them knew I was an impostor who stole the cowl." Laughter vibrated through Jason's chest, "No matter what I do I will never be him, because I'm not him. All those things, the cowl and the name don't belong to me. Forcing myself to be something I shouldn't be will only make me less of who I am."
"I didn't go to Gotham for revenge, I was supposed to make sure that normal people could sleep at night." Jason opened his eyes, and before he realized it his pupils had become one with the sky, and for the first time the screams of madness and anger actually left his body.
Damian was quiet, but Jason knew he was listening. After a while, as Jason thought back to his childhood dream, the little thing spoke, "That sounds good, perhaps I can overlook your betrayal for now and allow you to join me as my subordinate to show father's incompetent apprentices how far we can go."
"What? I thought I was the one in charge of command?"
They argued about that subject for a while, and when Jason tricked Damian into untying him he and a fight with the little thing, he ended up locking the kid, who was only half his height, in his arms, and going to twist the rudder with one hand to get the boat to change direction. Damian screamed between his chest and arm, claiming he should have just made Jason a straight-up taxidermy.
Wait until you can beat me, Jason said as he rested his chin on the top of Damian's furry head as he spoke, his actions causing the little thing in his arms to erupt into another angry shout.