Chapter Text
Jason really really hopes Damian is as well-trained in treating wounds as he is in making them, or this whole shitshow is gonna involve hiding a body. Which would be unfair and maybe a little cruel, to give Bruce back one dead son in exchange for an MIA one that, actually, the former one accidentally sorta murdered due to incompetence and under duress.
As is, they’re already giving him back with bruised ribs, a broken nose, hand-shaped marks on his neck, and a big old knife wound in the middle of his thigh. At least Jason has a black eye, so it doesn’t feel completely one-sided.
Even though it was. That’s what it was meant to be.
“Quit hovering, Todd,” Damian snaps. He doesn’t even look up from where he’s stitching Tim’s leg shut. “I know what I am doing.”
Arguing with Damian is just gonna lead to someone getting stabbed, so he hums an apology and reluctantly tears his eyes away and back to the road.
A long-haul truck sans cargo isn’t his first choice in getaway vehicle, but it has a CB radio (broken, because of fucking course it is) and a bunk behind the worn seats that makes first aid easier than it would be in the backseat of a car. Jason’s gotten treated in the back of the Batmobile enough times to know.
Speaking of the Batmobile, Tim needs to wake the hell up soon so they can call for backup. He’s the smart one, apparently, and if he can rig a top secret assassin base to blow from a fucking kitchenette, then he can get the stupid radio to work. The Batmobile has a police scanner, it probably has a radio thing too, right? Whatever. He can’t do anything about that right now.
They’re far enough away that he can’t see the smoke from the League’s base behind them, but the mountain itself still looks no smaller. Oh well. If they run out of gas and have to walk through a damn desert, they’ll deal with it. The assassins can’t bounce back fast enough to catch up to them, at least for a few days.
They don’t need to, either. They know where Jason’s going. Which just makes warning Bruce all the more important.
Damian shuffles around a bit, and Jason can hear him applying ointment and gauze. Tim mumbles something, but stays very inconveniently unconscious.
He sighs. “How long ‘til the chloroform wears off?”
“I told you, it is not chloroform, it is a synthesized coating comprised of-”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jason says, waving a hand, “Not the point. How long ‘til the knockout knife juice wears off? We kinda need him.”
Jason can feel Damian’s withering glare. Still, he’s an obedient little demon, and he says, “Four to six hours. The knife was in his leg for almost ten minutes. Plenty of time for the,” he hesitates, then practically spits, “‘knockout knife juice’ to dissolve into his bloodstream.”
Four to six hours. Great.
Damian finishes wrapping Tim’s leg, carefully puts away the supplies, and immediately clambers to the front seat. Okay, so they taught him first aid, but not bedside manner. Jason really should’ve expected that.
It’s fine. Tim’s a Robin. Robins have bounced back from way worse - incredibly rich coming from him - so he doesn’t need Damian hovering, and he certainly doesn’t need Jason hovering.
Jason’s job is to drive the truck. Put four to six more hours between them and whatever dregs of the LoA managed to crawl out of the flaming wreckage.
It’s kind of dawning on him that he’s the closest thing to an adult in this situation, so he’s In Charge. He’s not sure he knows how to do that.
He’s taken care of himself, sure, but not exactly well. Bruce, Alfred, and Dick were the responsible ones, Jason-
Jason’s the one who nearly broke the new Robin’s wrist, the one who kicked him in the ribs and locked a hand around his throat, and yeah it had been to stall for time so Damian could give them an opening out, but, still, he’s the one who had to look into terrified blue eyes because they couldn’t exactly explain the plan, and the kid had looked at Jason like he was a monster, and he is, but worse was the resignation, because-
No one’s coming.
Jason tries to breathe. It’s fine. He can do this. He just needs to get as far away from the League of Assassins as possible, call for backup.
He knows. He knows that if Bruce knew, he’d come. If Bruce knew he’s alive, if he knew he’s in trouble, he’d be here. But he doesn’t know. He doesn’t. He apparently hasn’t visited his grave enough to notice that he’s not even in it. How could he not notice that, he’s supposed to be Batman, he’s supposed to know everything, he’s supposed to be magic, but apparently magic is weak to crowbars and explosions and-
“Todd,” Damian says gently. Well, as gently as he can say anything.
Jason’s eyes are painting the dashboard green. He shuts them. There’s nothing to hit on the barren dirt road, so he lets them stay shut for two, three, four breaths.
Facts: Bruce would come if he knew.
The League of Assassins are manipulative and meticulous.
Bruce doesn’t know, because the League makes sure he doesn’t.
He opens his eyes and nudges them back onto the road. “Thanks.”
Deep breath in, deep breath out.
Bruce does not know Jason is alive. He does not know anything about Damian.
But he does know Tim is missing. Jason knows - he knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt - that Batman won’t stop until he sees the body, until he runs fifteen DNA sequences, until it’s the only explanation. He didn’t abandon Jason. He won’t abandon Tim. He’ll find them. He’s looking.
Unfortunately - Damian sees it first: dust, far off but still heading towards them, and he probably should’ve expected Damian al Ghul to be higher on the priority list - he’s not the only one.
-
Fresh from the Lazarus Pit, Jason is handed a knife, presented with a human trafficker who specializes in kids, and told to do what he wants.
He only remembers bits and pieces, which is probably for the best considering that’s how the trafficker ended up.
They bring him one every week, he thinks. In between training, in between being locked in what he is told is his room but feels more like a cell, in between dealing with Talia al Ghul and her infuriating smirks.
First, its traffickers, and rapists, and pedophiles, and the worst humanity has to offer. Then, it’s mass murderers, serial killers, even a few terrorists. When it gets down to one-time murderers, Jason can see the pattern. It takes until he gets down to arsonists to stop himself, to stop the bright green tunnel-visioned anger.
He glares at Talia and says, “Go to hell.”
She looks disappointed, and she makes the arsonist’s death slow. Jason makes sure to puke on her boots when she walks over to lecture him.
He thinks Damian started showing up to his training sometime between the second-degree murderers and the domestic abusers, but he’s too busy trying to rein in his rage. After the arsonists, he starts getting stalkers and robbers, and he puts a cap on the frothing bottle of green long enough to think, ‘Wait, why am I fighting a child?’ before the child wipes the floor with him. They’re best friends fast.
It takes him an embarrassingly long time to realize Talia is allowing their hushed whispers about the outside world, their fantastical escape plans, their “weakness” in each other.
Because, for all her many many faults, Talia loves her son. Jason is her pet project, a tool to be molded into a weapon. But that’s just what her father needs to believe. Really, Jason is a chance for Damian - to escape the world’s worst grandpapy’s fucked up plan for him, to land somewhere that actually has a snowball’s chance in hell of keeping him safe - and Talia really should’ve just found a way to tell him that from the beginning and saved herself the puke-covered boots.
Whatever. By the time they’re down to muggers and pickpockets, it only takes Jason a few deep breaths to control the anger. She feigns disappointment in him, tells him that he needs to follow orders without question, and kills the guy.
“I know exactly how to get you to understand,” she says. ‘Be ready. You get one chance,’ she doesn’t, but Jason’s gotten more than a little used to Damian doing the same, so he makes sure the kid’s ready to run, and waits.
The next week, Talia brings him a Robin.
-
It’s actually probably good that Tim is asleep for the fight. As much as he could’ve helped, it’s an ugly sight for a non-assassin. There’s a lot more blood in a human body than people think, and Jason’s… messy. He’s gotten better at pushing back the green before it starts skipping ahead in time like a scratched up record, but he’s still not good enough at it to get through a whole fight in his right mind. That means most things end up in more pieces than they started with. Damian is clean and efficient, as always, but Jason knows its hard to appreciate that when it’s tangled up in his own aftermath.
“I am glad I talked Mother out of giving you a knife for the fight,” Damian says. Damn. That’s his ‘judgy’ scowl. “With your self control in this state, you might have killed Drake.”
Jason glares right back. “I coulda told her Lazarus Pit mixes with anger issues like oil and fire, but unfortunately I know she’s not stupid. I’m starting to think she didn’t care one way or the other.”
Damian absorbs that, idly wiping the blood off his katana with his robes. “Perhaps.” He glances at Jason, and he tries not to feel picked apart. “But she also sent me with you, so she must have some faith.”
Yeah, sure. More likely, Talia has faith that Damian could kill him if needs be. Maybe he should feel a little more offended that Talia’s using him and Tim as semi-competent meat shields, but he’s spent way to long not giving a single rat’s ass as to what Talia thinks to let it bother him.
Just wait - he’s gonna get all three of them back to Bats, and he’s gonna force Damian to have a normal-adjacent childhood if it kills all three of them. That’ll fucking show her.
Okay maybe he cares a little. Whatever! If he skates through this debacle on spite, so be it. The woman had been his own personal hell for months, sue him.
Damian insists on burning the bodies, and Jason is still too hopped up on adrenaline to even think about getting back in the car, so he agrees. Damian’s really particular about how the bodies are arranged, so Jason lets himself be directed by the tiny tyrant.
The sun’s set by the time they get the pyre going. Jason is sure that Damian would insist they put as much distance between them and the League as possible, but he doesn’t. Instead, he uses the burlap sacks the assassins brought (because is it really a kidnapping if there aren’t burlap sacks on your head?) to scrub at the blood on his skin.
Jason sighs and gets him a water bottle before he gives himself road rash. Damian sensibly conserves it, pouring it across his arms one at a time. Jason dumps his own bottle over his head, and tries not to snort at the look Damian sends him for it. It’s not like their League-issued uniforms aren’t waterproof for this exact reason.
Still, Damian is just as particular as he’d been with the bodies. Jason frowns as he watches Damian carefully comb the blood out of his hair. Something’s eating him.
Guilt, maybe? He hides it well, but despite everything, the kid cares. Then again, the last time Jason brought it up, Damian looked at him like he was the biggest idiot on the planet.
“They attacked me,” he’d said, lip curling up. “Self defense hardly counts as murder at all.”
Guilt is still possible, but maybe not… maybe…
“They will find us,” Damian says.
Ah. That’s it.
Damian’s shoulders are loose, even though they both know what that would mean for them. Because he sees pain as an inevitability, and he helped Jason and Tim anyway.
But he’s still afraid.
Jason sighs and loops an arm around Damian’s shoulder to drag him into a hug, feeling very much like he’s dragging a cat to a bath.
“You’re a good kid,” he says, and that pauses Damian’s cursing and vicious elbows. He tugs just a bit, so they’re pressed against each other. “I’m not gonna let them get us. They’re good, but they don’t stand a chance against Bats when he’s prepared.”
Damian stews in that for a moment. “Batman is not here.”
Jason scoffs, and risks his fingers to tussle Damian’s hair. “We’re an assassin, a vigilante detective, and a super-powered zombie. Don’t count us out just yet.”
Damian tisks. “You are not super-powered, Todd. The Lazarus Pit increased your strength and stamina, but it is still well within the bounds of-”
“Yeah, yeah, semantics, nerd.” Jason scrubs at Damian’s hair again and yanks his hand away before he can bite it. “My eyes glow and I punch hard. I’m super-powered.”
Damian rolls his eyes, but doesn’t object. And he doesn’t demand that Jason unhand him. He must be really scared. So Jason lets himself be a big brother for a moment. Hopefully the kind that made it feel like everything was gonna be okay. One like Dick.
Not that he’d ever in a million years boost the idiot’s ego by telling him that.
Eventually, Damian pulls out of his grip. “We need to get moving.”
Jason accepts without arguing.
-
Jason nearly slams on the brakes and sends all three of them careening through the windshield when he hears Tim groan. Even then, he brings the truck to a stop at a speed that makes Damian jerk to brace himself on the dashboard and swear under his breath in Arabic.
Apologies later. He whirls around. Tim’s face is scrunched around the bruises Jason had given him in the arena. He mumbles something.
Then, Tim groans again, and finally, finally opens his stupid fucking eyeballs.
“Wha… wha-happen…?”
“Oh, Timbo,” Jason says, shaking his head in a futile effort to hide the gigantic wave of relief that crashes over him. He really hopes he got all the blood out of his hair. “You are so late to this shitshow.”