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When his phone woke him up in the morning, Jason instinctively knew that the call was going to piss him off.
Granted, most phone calls pissed him off, simply based on the fact that he usually didn't like speaking to people, but the large caller ID declaring incoming call from: Dickface was what cemented him to his incoming blight. Calls from Dick as a rule tended to be nothing but annoyances; calls from Dick coming in at 6:30am only three hours after he'd finally gotten home from patrol? Kill him now.
He blindly stuck a bruised arm out from under his blanket and picked his personal phone up from the side table, lobbing it across the room and sinking down into his pillow at the satisfying shattering sound of the device breaking against the side of his dresser. He hummed happily, preparing to drift back off into sleep.
On the floor next to his bed, the phone he usually used to talk to Red Hood's subordinates started buzzing. His eyes snapped open in anger.
"Did you break your phone again? Because my calls randomly stopped going through."
"So why didn't you take the fucking hint?" Jason hissed, one eye half-cracked as he hung off the edge of his mattress to reach the source of his misery.
"Because if I always 'took the hint'," Dick responded breezily, "I'd see you at max once every other year."
"I can only dream."
"Mhm," Jason was brushed off, and he collapsed back into bed with a grunt, taking the phone with him. "Look, I'm sorry, I know you're usually passed out by now, but this is an emergency! An all hands on deck bat-emergency!"
His mouth scrunched up, displeased by this. "What kind of emergency? Why didn't Babs send out a call?"
"...Ok so it's not all hands on deck-"
"Oh, fucks sake Dick-"
"Please!" Dick whined. "There is a bat-mission... it's just not all hands on deck."
"Then why the fuck do you want me there?" "
"...Well... we don't."
Jason paused, eyes finally opening properly to glare at his stained apartment ceiling in incredulous offence.
"Dick, what the ever-loving fuck did you fucking call for you absolute fucking-"
Babysitting. They'd woken him up to babysit.
He should have stayed in the coffin.
There was some kind of child trafficking ring that had expanded into Gotham and was causing a ruckus. Hadn't reached Crime Alley yet, luckily for the idiots that ran the thing, because god knew Jason wouldn't let that shit slide. Instead it had been uncovered in Bludhaven, where Nightwing had recognised the infiltration of the Bat's city and called over to Bruce himself for help. Tim was also tagging along, and Damian had been keen on joining them. The others were... less keen on this idea.
Jason wasn't sure of the details as he'd been out of the country doing a couple favours for Ra's at the time, but about a month back there had been an incident where Damian had been taken as a civilian by a similarly conducted trafficking ring, and he'd been missing for two days. According to Damian he'd been completely fine, but according to Dick they'd found him being held in a tiny metal cage wearing nothing but a ripped pair of jeans, covered in blood and dirt, glaring out at the bats who had gone to save him like an abused dog being picked up by the pound.
Jason wasn't too worried; he knew what Damian could handle, and from he'd been able to tell the kid had really been more irritated about the fuss than anything else, but the overprotective natures of Dick and Bruce meant that they weren't exactly keen on having their baby bat working on a case so similar so soon after the 'traumatic incident' as they claimed it to be.
So, Damian was blacklisted from attending this specific mission. He was not impressed with this decision, and according to Dick, had been making their attempts to enforce it a living hell.
"So let him go with you?" Jason grumbled, leaning against his motorcycle as he watched the other three move around the batcave, preparing to go off on the two day operation.
"Robin is not necessary for this mission," Bruce told him. "It would be putting him in needless danger."
"You know it would just distract Nightwing and Batman." Tim rolled his eyes, pointing out. "They'd spend the entire time keeping track of him rather than actually helping."
"Pussies," Jason grumbled. "Where is the brat, anyway?"
"It's Thursday." Tim looked at him as if he was stupid. "And it's 2pm. He's at school."
Jason blinked at the younger boy, fighting the urge to respond with the point that he'd been helping Damian skip school to come hang out with him for as long as he'd been back in Gotham, so forgetting that Gotham Academy was even still an on-going commitment was kind of expected at this point.
"Look. Can you just stay at the manor, make sure he eats and goes to bed, and then send him off to school tomorrow? Alfred's on holiday, but we'll be back Saturday at the latest." Dick asked him, using his best rendition of puppy-dog eyes, to which Jason scrunched his face up in disgust.
"I already fucking said yes, shut up and go already."
And that was that. They'd headed out, leaving Jason on his own in the manor for the first time... well... ever. Before he'd died Alfred had always been around, and after he'd been resurrected he'd refused to be in the manor for prolonged periods unless strictly necessary, which had never happened without any of the other bats being there to force him into it.
He spent a while wandering around aimlessly, digging through Tim and Bruce's rooms to see what he could find, but when he found the string of condoms in Bruce's bedside table he decided to just raid the kitchen instead so as to avoid throwing up on the expensive carpet.
Damian got home at around 4:15pm, pausing in the entrance of the kitchen with his backpack in hand and narrowing his eyes at the sight of Jason sitting cross-legged on the counter, tearing into a crab leg with a bowl of homemade lemon butter sauce next to him. He continued to munch on his snack, watching casually as the kid examined the otherwise empty room and let his backpack drop to the floor.
"Fuck're you doing here, Akhi?"
Jason chewed on his crab slowly, before swallowing and reaching for another leg. "Talia was right." He mused, dunking the meat into the bowl on the side. "You really did inherit a lot of shit from me."
Damian scowled, folding his arms. "Where is father? And I'm nothing like you."
"Kid, you're so much like me that Ra's once caught his bodyguards referring to you as 'little red riding hood'." He swallowed another bite before jumping off the counter, dusting his hands off. "And the rest of the clan went to Bludhaven till Saturday. S' just us."
The reaction was instantaneous, Damian storming forward a few steps as his eyes went bug-wide. "They went to deal with the Piranio family ring without me?! Why didn't you stop them- I'm going with them, this is ridiculous, those imbecilic, pathetic pieces of-"
"Well that went well," Jason hummed, before following his little brother, who had spun round and stormed in the direction of the batcave, no doubt so he could chase down and prove his worth to the rest of the family. "Day, c'mon, stop- you stubborn shit." He grunted, forcing his way in through the grandfather clock entrance and sighing as they both headed down the steps into the cave.
"I told them I would be fine!" Damian snapped loudly, not looking back as he hurried down the steps. "Sure, Drake can be fucked over so badly he gets turned into Joker Junior and he's still trusted to fight, and you can fucking die and they still let you control the entirety of Crime Alley, but I'm forced to play victim for two measly days in order to protect our identities and nooo," It was moments like this that forced Jason to confront the fact that maybe Ra's had been slightly correct in his accusation of Jason's dramatic nature rubbing off on Damian back at the league. It was also moments like this that made Jason realise the rest of the bats were complete idiots for believing Damian's whole act of 'not being childish'. "Suddenly I'm being punished for following their protocols and waiting for rescue!"
"Well," Jason commented casually, leaning against one of the walls and watching him storm over to the dressing area. "Maybe you shouldn't have let yourself get found half naked in a cat-carrier. This is really on you, kiddo."
"Fuck you, Jason!" Was loudly spat from within the changing room. He held back a snort and elected to wait until Damian angrily re-emerged, Robin-ready and heading in the direction of the spare batmobiles, before sliding in front and blocking his path.
"As fun as it would be to watch you get yourself grounded for life," He pointed out, "I can't let ya' go after them. Fraid' you're stuck here, habibi."
"Why?!" Damian scowled, clenching his fists. "Since when do you give a fuck what father wants of you? Come with me and we'll piss him off together by completing their mission for them!"
"Yeah," Jason winced, scratching at his neck, "Bludhaven's like, a fuckin' ways away, and also Dickface said if I kept you away from that mission he'd set fire to the Discowing suit while I filmed, so-,"
"-God, you're useless to me." Damian blew him off in disgust, spinning away. Jason shrugged.
"Wanna order in?" He suggested.
"I want to go to Bludhaven and join my father!"
"I can offer you Thai, or Italian."
"I hate this family."
Jason wasn't really worried about his ability to wrangle Damian around the manor. He'd been wrangling Damian since he'd first come out of the pit, barely coherent and shoved in a room with a crying toddler because nobody else wanted to deal with the kid. The joke was on them, because Jason was fucking born to big-brother the shit out of little Damian, and he was the only person with an 100% success rate when it came to getting Damian to do what he was fucking told.
So no, Jason wasn't worried about his ability to keep control of the situation when it was just keeping an eye on Damian for a day or two. What he hadn't signed up for, however, was the doorbell going off repeatedly at seven in the morning when Jason had once more been attempting to fucking sleep.
He slowly thumped down the main staircase with his hair sticking up everywhere, sleep still stuck in the corners of his eyes. He spotted Damian, wide awake and leaning in the doorway of the kitchen with a bowl of cereal in one hand, and scowled as he walked over to the door.
"You couldn't have fucking gotten it?" He hissed, to his little brother's apathetic grin.
"I could have." Damian agreed. "But that would help you, and I want you to suffer right now."
"Little bitch."
"Old zombie."
Jason blindly flipped him off as he swung the front door open, looking on in confusion at the familiar kid waiting on the other side. Behind him, he heard Damian pause in his chewing, equally confused.
"Hi Mr Hood!" Jon Kent, youngest son of Superman, waved at Jason with a smile brighter than the fucking sun. "Hey Damian!"
"Kent, what are you doing here?" Damian asked, baffled. He stepped forward, coming to Jason's side.
"My dad sent me over here!" Jon told them happily, bouncing on the heels of his feet. "My mom's away on a work trip and Connor's busy with some titan stuff, so Batman said I could come here for a bit while dad helps him out with a superhero job!"
Jason and Damian stared at him in silence, and Jon smiled back expectantly.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Jason eventually checked, almost in disbelief.
"Superman is allowed on that mission but I'm not?" Damian added on, equally indignant. He turned to look up at Jason incredulously, and Jason glanced at him before shrugging, widening his eyes.
"I dunno, Superman doesn't get found half naked in fucking cat-carriers, what do you want from me?"
"...What?" Jon asked, smile faltering ever so slightly.
"Mind your business." Damian snapped. Jason laughed.
"Are you shitting me Dick?" He hissed furiously into the phone, watching from the sunroom as Jon and Damian ran around the garden, Damian throwing a stick for Titus which Jon then flew to try and catch, taunting the animal from above when he succeeded. "I barely agreed to babysit the brat, not the brat and the spawn of Superman!"
"Look, I'm sorry Jason, seriously, I am," Dick whispered back, some kind of clinking in the background that Jason couldn't quite recognise. "But we had to call in Clark and Clark didn't want his kid involved and his parents were unavailable to babysit and B volunteered the manor before I could say anything else-!"
"Fuck the lot of you, I want more payment for this."
"You're a crime lord!" Dick hissed. "You make more than I do, what do you even want from me?!"
"Everything." Jason determined gravely. "I want everything."
An exasperated sigh. "Look- just keep an eye on Jon, will you? He's such a sweet kid, I bet you won't even notice him being there. When Damian gets back from school you can just let them mess around in the cave for the evening, feed them dinner, and tomorrow we'll be back and you can go home!"
"Oh, Damian isn't in school. I called him in sick." Jason said, as if that was obvious. Which in his opinion it was.
"...You let Damian skip school?!"
"What do you think I'm gonna do, send Day off to Gotham Academy and then hang out with this other random ass twelve year old by myself all day? I don't know this kid!" He yelled into the phone. Glancing up, he spotted as Jon turned away from Damian to look directly at him through the glass, sending him an awkward smile and a wave, and it was at that abrupt moment that Jason remembered oh yeah, super hearing.
He gave the kid a sarcastic thumbs up and then flipped him off before storming back into the hall.
"So what are you gonna do with them all day?" Dick demanded. "They're kids! And you know if Damian isn't occupied he's gonna get agitated about not being able to help us out as Robin. You said he tried to sneak out three times last night."
"I'm sorry, did you or did you not beg me to play babysitter?" Jason asked him sarcastically, rolling his eyes. "Who gives a fuck what we do; worst comes to worst I'll take em' to a fuckin'- a circus, or a waterpark or something. If anything goes tits up, you assholes have nobody but yourselves to blame." He hung up before Dick could respond, spitefully chucking his phone onto a shelf before spinning around and returning to the sunroom. He stepped out into the garden and whistled to get the boys' attention, Damian pausing mid attempt at throwing the stick directly at Jon's face. "Alright, kiddies. Listen up. I need to take this opportunity to steal from B, so I'm gonna go do some work down at the batcomputer. Why don't you two pick out some movies and order in some snacks, and then-"
"But you said you'd take us to a waterpark!" Jon called over, dismayed. Jason stuttered.
"-I- what-?"
"I heard you!"
Goddamn fucking super hearing.
"That was just to piss off Dick," Jason denied, shaking his head. "There aren't even any waterparks in Gotham. No."
"But there are some in New Jersey!" Jon pleaded, flying over to clasp his hands in front of his chest like a starving orphan asking for food. Jason narrowed his eyes at the kid. "There's one like 20 minutes outside of the city, I flew by it on the way here and it looked really fun!"
"That sounds like my worst nightmare." Jason told him firmly. "You two are going to watch studio Ghibli movies and eat pringles like normal children while I go hack into Batman's file system. End of."
"Aw, come on Mr Hood, I haven't been swimming in so long!" Jon begged. "You said to Nightwing that you would anyway, so why not?"
"Because it sounds like a fucking nightmare!"
"Language," Jon mumbled to himself, a half whisper. Jason stared at him, and then Damian finally decided to step forward, looking over with a distinctly unimpressed eyebrow raise.
"Tell your friend we're not going to a waterpark." Jason demanded. Damian looked between them for a moment before tilting his head and shrugging.
"I think a waterpark could be fun."
"Are you taking the piss?" He asked in disbelief. "Day, you fucking hate that kind of shit. To get you to learn how to swim back at the league I had to lock the exit to the pool room and throw you in like a football. You came at me like a traumatised cat."
"If I have to suffer," Damian sniffed, firmly ignoring the baffled look Jon sent him at that particular well of information, "Then so should you. If you wont let me join the mission, then fuck you. Waterpark."
Jason stared at the two, utterly baffled.
"What- no." He exclaimed incredulously, in disbelief that he even had to say it. "You can't make me do shit. If I say no waterpark, no fucking waterpark. Go play fetch with the fucking dog again." He waved them off, turning to walk inside again and only pausing in the doorway when Damian smugly decided to pipe up once more.
"Remember that time just after you came back to Gotham, when you mis-clicked a button and accidentally blew up grandfather's main city-based league hideout?" Jason slowly turned around, glaring directly at his little brother, who didn't even blink. "And I, out of the kindness of my heart, told him I'd done it as a desperate way to earn my father's trust? Do you remember that, Akhi? Do you remember what you told me after that phone conversation? Do you remember what it was you said?" Damian's eyes sparkled, and Jason gritted his teeth. "I believe it was: 'I owe you one'."
"I can't let you go on the fucking mission, Day." He ground out. Damian simply shrugged.
"I know, it's out of your control. But we are going to a waterpark. Go get the batmobile keys."
"This is the worst day of my life."
Jason gave Damian a doubletake, "Are you kiddi- you're the fucking reason we had to come-!"
"That was before I realised Kent would be buying a new swimsuit," Damian hissed back. The two stood just outside the changing area of the particular waterpark they'd ended up at, watching with disdain as Jon Kent skipped out towards them with a towel flung over one shoulder, bright blue goggles plastered to his forehead, and clear Batman themed trunks pulled up over his hips. It had been in the entrance shop, and he'd had his mind made up about owning them since they'd first found the monstrosities.
"He's my favourite member of the Justice League!" He'd whined, upon Damian's incredulous glares and denials.
"We are no longer friends." Damian had promised him. Jon had bought them anyway.
"So what do you wanna do first?" He asked excitedly, once they were all inside and changed, Jason begrudgingly holding onto the backpack containing all their clothes as the resigned 'supervision' of the trip. "We could go to the wave pool, or go on the slides, or go get an ice cream,"
"I have no interest in actually swimming," Damian told his friend, folding his arms. "I just wanted to irritate Akhi." Jason glared at him and was promptly ignored.
"C'mon, Dames! It'll be fun!" Jon whined, grabbing one of Damian's wrists with both his hands and shaking it up and down dramatically. Jason watched with interest, noting with no small amount of surprise the way Damian allowed the Kent to do so. He was aware through Dick that the youngest of the two families had become somewhat close, but it was a whole other thing to see Damian Wayne Al Ghul willingly engage in a friendship with somebody his own age. Up until that point, Jason was fairly sure Damian only valued spending time with those he considered his 'peers'. So just Jason himself and a limited selection of assassins at the league that had earned his respect.
"It's a pointless endeavour."
"I've seen you spend over three hours watching ants run back and forth across the ground." Jason told him solemnly.
"Do you ever stop talking?"
"Nope." Jason told him gleefully. Jon batted his eyelashes at Damian hopefully, and Damian turned to raise a lip in disgust.
"I will go on one slide with you."
"YES!"
Hiking the bag further up his shoulder and sticking his other hand in the pocket of his own dark red shorts, Jason sighed and watched the overactive child start jumping up and down on the spot. "Whatever, you kiddies have fun. I'm gonna go find a deckchair to fall asleep on and see if I can hack into the batcomputer from my phone. When you want money for nachos, come get me."
"You don't wanna come on the slides with us Mr Hood?" Jon said, eyes widening worriedly as he looked up at Jason.
"You can't call me Mr Hood in public kiddo, secret identities. Jason's fine." He drawled. "And no, I wasn't planning on it."
"Slide singular," Damian warned Jon, who promptly waved him off, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
"But there's a big one that needs three people per go!" He pointed out. "You have to try that one with us, right?!"
"Not really, no."
"Pleaseee?" He drew out. "Please please please please please-"
"Jesus," Jason hissed, taking a step backwards. "Oh my god, I will go on it once with you later. Fuckin' hell."
"You're the best!" Jon exclaimed. He jumped up and down before turning to Damian and grabbing him by the arm. "C'mon, Dami, let's go see how many slides there are so we can figure out what order to go on them all!"
"I said I would let you drag me down one, Kent."
"Suffer." Jason told him, brows raised pointedly when Damian scowled in his direction. "I'm gonna go get a drink, you kids have fun." And then, just to piss off Damian, he looked at Jon and added, "Don't let my kid drown, he doesn't like going in the water."
"Thanks Jason!" Jon beamed at him. "This is the best day of my life!"
"You lead a sad life, Kent." Damian spat, before turning his glare upon Jason. "And you-"
"Oh, that's so sweet!" Cutting off whatever barb Damian was in the middle of spewing, a woman around Jason's age wearing a pink bikini came to a stop next to them, flashing Jason a bright smile and lifting her sunglasses onto her forehead. "You giving the wife a break today by taking the kids out? My dad did that with me a few times, they're my favourite memories of him."
Damian paused, face going lax as he bore holes into the face of the woman daring to speak, and Jason licked his lips, quickly cutting in before anything worse could be said.
"Oh, no, no mom around, just thought they could use a bit of fun rather than being stuck at school. Thanks though, hope you have a good day." He smiled politely, already catching the thoughts racing behind Damian's mind, the defensive spark being lit. He'd always hated when civilians would hit on Jason during missions outside the league's grounds. He was kind of like an antisocial dog in that regard; Jason had gotten used to ending social interactions as swiftly as possible.
This woman didn't take the hint, instead her eyes widened slightly and she stuck her bottom lip out. "Oh no, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to assume- but oh my god, I have so much respect for single fathers. It must be so much work and you're so sweet with them, letting them ditch school like this! I know you probably have your hands full, but if you want, could I buy you a drink or something?"
"Say that again and I'll fucking rip your intestines out." Damian hissed in her direction, before Jason even had the chance to respond. He shook his head slightly, blinking at Damian incredulously, while the woman's face paled and she visibly stuttered in confusion.
"I- I'm sorry?" She chuckled nervously, looking to Jason as if he had any control over the situation. Jon sent the lady an apologetic smile before gripping Damian by the arm again and beginning to drag him in the direction of the waterslides, trying and failing to stop the hand-signed death threats that Damian was giving as they walked away.
"Yeah..." Jason eventually muttered helplessly, sighing at her. "If you don't want that thing as a son in law," He gestured towards the twelve year old currently being physically man-handled by his friend into lowering the arm he had raised to display his middle finger, "I'd walk away. 'Preciate the thought, though."
The woman looked slightly ill.
"Akhi."
"No."
"Akhi."
"Akhi is closed today. Come back tomorrow, demon brat."
Despite his clear-cut dismissal, the Damian-shaped shadow pressing against the outside of Jason's relaxed eyelids did not disappear, and after a few more seconds of waiting he was forced to huff, cracking them open to glare past the sun up at the soaking wet brother standing over his deck chair. It had only been 43 minutes since they'd parted ways.
"Jon broke a waterslide." Damian told him calmly. Jason opened his mouth. He shut it again.
"He what?" Damian looked down at him impassively, and Jason used a hand to shield his eyes. "How the fuck'd he manage that?"
"He punched it."
"He punched it?"
"He's underneath the tube holding the two parts together now to make sure nobody going down gets hurt." Damian continued. "I came to get you to help before a lifeguard spots him flying under the support beams."
Jason stared at him. "Are you fucking kidding me?"
"No, Akhi," Damian sighed. "No I am not."
"Holy shit." Holy shit.
"Hi Jason!!" Jon let go with one hand to wave down at him, smiling only to quickly re-establish his previous position when the plastic above him gave a mighty groan.
"What is wrong with the two of you?" Jason demanded, looking between the kid standing next to him and the one floating a good twenty feet off the ground. They were thankfully not in anybody's line of sight yet; hidden underneath one of the longest waterslides in the park. Damian had shown Jason the way to sneak past one of the barriers to get to the point where Jon was hovering, using his super strength to force together two broken sides of the plastic tube, keeping it melded together with nothing but his hands from below so that the slide was still usable. "What did you do?"
"He thought it would be more fun if we went down the slide together, rather than one at a time as the rules dictate." Damian explained, face solemn. "We were racing, and I shoved him to get a better head start. When he caught up, he tried to punch me in the head and I dodged. He hit the bottom of the slide."
At Jason's incredulous stare, Jon giggled nervously, giving him an innocent smile. Jason shook his head. "Dick said you were a sweet kid..."
"If a staff member walks through here," Damian pointed out, "We are, most likely, fucked."
"Right- shit, yeah." Jason squinted, trying to think. "Ok so the slide's completely broken? You can't, like, laser it together? Melt it?"
"Kent does not have laser vision."
"Thought you were the fuckin' son of Superman?" Jason asked, exasperated. Jon narrowed his eyes, seemingly offended.
"Am I or am I not flying right now?"
"But you can't laser anything."
"Waynes are so demanding..." Jon mumbled, and Jason pointed a finger at him in warning.
"Don't call me a fuckin' Wayne. Right," He turned to Damian. "Here's the plan, there's a bunch of bat-shit in the car, I'm gonna go see what I can find. You go up to the start of the slide and stop people from going down it- I don't care how," He cut off when Damian tried to interrupt. "Just do it inconspicuously. And you." He turned back up to Jon. "See if you can move one of these support beams to hold this section of the slide up so you don't have to keep holding it, I can't have somebody accidentally seeing you. We all clear?"
"None of this would have happened if I had simply been allowed on that mission in Bludhaven."
"No this wouldn't have fucking happened-" Jason instantly spun on the younger, jabbing a spiteful finger into his forehead. "-If your fuckass friend hadn't decided to cataclysm a fucking waterslide."
Damian slapped his finger away, unperturbed. "Are you going to help or not, Todd?"
"Bruce should have sent you back to the league."
"And mother should have left you in the grave."
Mark his words, Jason was never agreeing to babysit again.
Looking back, and considering the history of the day, Jason could admit that it wasn't a very responsible decision to once again leave Damian and Jon unsupervised while he went back to the batmobile.
It wasn't even like he'd been gone very long. All he'd done was sneak over to the area they'd hidden the vehicle in and dug around in the trunk until he found that weird silicon 3D-print gun thing that he'd seen Bruce use to repair stuff in the middle of emergencies back when he was Robin. It wasn't a long-term solution, but would it fix things long enough for them to get far enough away that they had plausible deniability? Probably.
It's not like it would make anything worse, anyway.
It wasn't until he was sneaking back into the waterpark with the gun safely hidden in his backpack that he started to hear the screams. He paused, confused, before realising the direction the screams were coming from and widening his eyes in alarm, hurrying his steps.
"If those fucking dipshits got themselves caught I swear I'll..." He trailed off, rounding a corner and slowing to an awestruck stop, staring at the commotion in front of him. "Oh my god."
"Somebody call the police!" A nearby woman was shrieking, in amongst the masses of concerned onlookers crowding around the area. "Or the firemen, or- or an ambulance-!"
"Ma'am, please stay calm," A lifeguard tried to assure. "Our staff are perfectly capable of handling this-,"
"Handling it?!" A man yelled over. "That kid's about to fucking die, how are you handling that?!"
The 'kid' was, because of course it was, Damian goddamn Wayne. The slide that when Jason had left was being held together perfectly well was now... not being held at all. Instead the broken part had fallen away, swinging out and over the concrete far below, water rushing down like a waterfall. A makeshift fence had been put up by the staff to stop people from going under it, and Jon was nowhere to be found. Damian however, had somehow managed to find himself on the broken part of the slide, holding on to the edge with his hands as the water rushed around him, barely managing not to fall as he glared down at the drop angrily.
"Kid, you're gonna be ok, just stay put and somebody will come and get you," Another staff member holding a megaphone was nearby, attempting to comfort him, and Jason was just about close enough to here the vicious spit-back of, 'OH, GO FUCK YOURSELF, ALAN,' which only cemented that it was, indeed, his little brother up there. He hurried forward, ducking past the barrier before anybody could stop him and coming to a stop when the falling water started to splash through his crocs.
"Sir- sir you need to get away from here," The man with the megaphone spotted him, whipping around in alarm, but Jason paid him no mind.
"DAMIAN." He yelled up, getting the boy's attention. "DAMIAN WHAT THE FUCK. GET DOWN FROM THERE."
Above the rushing water and shouting tourists, Damian's stare turned incredulous, and there was a split-second where he lifted his arms to make a 'the fuck you think I'm trying to do!?' gesture before realising how obviously bad of an idea that was and slamming them back down to avoid falling.
"DAMIAN!" He snapped again. "GET THE FUCK DOWN OR YOU'RE GROUNDED!"
"Sir, your son is in danger." Megaphone man pleaded, albeit angrily. "You need to evacuate the area so we can help him!"
"Oh shut up," Jason threw over at him, impatient.
"YEAH- GET THE FUCK OUT TODD." Damian yelled down, faintly.
"SHUT THE FUCK UP OR I'LL PUT YOU UP FOR ADOPTION."
"FUCK YOU DAD."
"FUCK YOU-!" Jason screamed back, while the staff switched between looking at him and Damian in what seemed like... slight fear? "WHERE'S YOUR OTHER IDIOT?"
"Uhh... Dad?"
Jason spun around, water still soaking his feet, to see Jon standing meekly on the other side of the barrier, biting his cheek and dripping wet. He pointed over up at Damian.
"I swear that wasn't me." He promised, face serious. He added on, hesitantly. "...Dad."
Jason stared back at him blankly, watching with nothing but malice the way Jon struggled to keep a fully straight face, holding back laughter with the barest lip twitch. Eventually, he turned to look over at megaphone man, eyes dead. "Never have children." He told the man seriously. "Never. Never have- get an abortion. Always get an abortion."
"Sir, please evacuate the area."
"The fuck happened while I was gone, Kent?"
"I- I tried to use the support beam to hold it up, like you said!"
"And?"
"...And when I moved it, it snapped. Damian was up there convincing people not to use the slide. The motion kinda made him... slip."
"Oh my god."
Since the staff at the waterpark were clearly too incompetent to deal with an issue such as this, Jason decided this was officially his problem to deal with. He went about this by threatening Jon with enough consequences of fucking off again that by the end of the conversation the kid genuinely looked like he was in the midst of shitting bricks, and then leaving him to sneak off around the back of the slides and climb up the other side.
It was, naturally, abandoned while the waterpark tried to deal with the issue of the broken slide and potential fatality in progress, so once he climbed over the fencing and got past the security, it was actually quite a pleasant walk up to the top of the structure. Once he got to the slide that was broken he looked out over the railing, peering down at where the open-top tube snapped and hung off to the side, disconnecting from the remainder of the ride. Damian was still clinging to the side of the slide, looking around himself as he no doubt attempted to figure out a way to get himself out of the mess he was in without using too many Robin-esque techniques that could get him found out by the public. Jason watched him calmly for a moment, letting the sun beat down on his sun-kissed shoulders and ignoring the civilians below that were finally catching on to his presence, shouting in alarm from below.
"Alright there, habibi?" He called down after a while, watching Damian's head snap backwards to stare up at him, blinking splashes of water out of his eyes.
"Todd, Todd I swear to fuck-" He coughed slightly, moving his face to the side to avoid the rushing water. "Tell those idiots down there to move out the way so I can flip down!"
"Yeah- I'm not gonna do that," Jason shook his head. "How much are your fingers pruning right now?"
"Todd!" Damian seethed.
"Al-right," He finally snapped, huffing and swinging a leg over the railing, much to the horror of everybody below. "But don't act like this is anything other than your own fault."
"My fault-?!" Damian screeched indignantly, as Jason edged along the lip of the slide, the only part not submerged in rushing water. "You're the one that told me to go up here! You're the one that left Kent alone to try his hand at improvised engineering!"
"I told you to distract people from the fucking slide," Jason argued back indignantly, crouching slightly so he could keep better balance, one arm flung out to steady himself while the other ghosted the slide he was edging down. "Not belly flop down it the second things sounded unsteady!"
"Shut up Todd, if you had just let me go to Bludhaven-"
"Oh- yes, if I had let you go to Bludhaven this wouldn't have happened," Jason cut off in irritation, words coming out fast as he finally got close enough to the younger to reach out and grab him. "-And also if I hadn't stolen ten dollars from my mom's purse when I was nine so I could pay the heating bill she wouldn't have been short on cash the next time she wanted to buy from her dealer and I wouldn't have had to trade him my virginity for her heroin, but here we fuckin' are Day, actions have consequences and you're the one stuck on a broken waterslide, not me, now do you want my help or not?"
Damian stared at him, unimpressed, and Jason raised an eyebrow at him as the only sounds between them that passed were the noises of the water rushing down the slide and onto the pavement below.
A beat passed.
And then another.
And then another.
"Well at least we know you were messed up before you joined the league," Damian eventually drawled. "Grandfather was starting to think he was the problem."
"Oh he's responsible for a good 40% of it, for sure."
"Only 40? I usually say 60 for me."
"Yeah but you didn't have the Joker to take into account, did you?"
A conceding head tilt. "I guess that's tr-"
There was a loud crash from somewhere in the park, and both Damian and Jason's heads snapped over, along with most of the people below, as an unholy groaning sound echoed across the space. In horror, they all watched as from the middle of another structure on the other side of the waterpark, a second slide started to break, support beams collapsing and the attraction falling in on itself. Damian's jaw dropped.
"...Are you kidding me-"
"I TOLD THAT FUCKING CHILD TO STAY PUT!" Jason bellowed, in disbelief, and clearly not expecting the loudness, Damian let out a squeak as his (frankly impressive) grip finally gave out. Civilians below screamed in terror as he started plummeting down towards the wet hard ground.
-Or he would have, if Jason didn't have the reflexes of somebody who had trained with both Batman, the League of Assassins, and the leader of the All Caste. He swooped down and yanked Damian back up by a single hand wrapped around his upper arm, dragging him painfully back up and into the air until he could throw his brother over his shoulder into a fireman carry, still using the other hand to steady his balance on the lip of the now very rickety slide.
"God," He breathed to himself, voice strained as he ever so carefully started manoeuvring his body so he could climb back over towards flat ground. Below him, the staff were yelling something and multiple on-lookers were cheering, but he ignored them. "You are so fucking lucky I'm such a good brother."
"This is the worst day of my life," Damian grumbled into his bare back, squeaking again when a particularly precarious step wobbled his balance momentarily. "Todd-!"
"I'm bein' fuckin' careful, calm down!" Jason snapped. "Question is, where the fuck is your idiot friend?!"
"Oh my god, there they are! There they are!"
"Holy shit, what a brave man,"
"Give that dad a fucking medal, Jesus Christ!"
"That poor kid must be traumatised."
They ended up being chewed out by the staff while wrapped in shock blankets. It wasn't until ten minutes later that there was another bustle from within the crowd and Jon was shoved to the front.
"Dad! You guys are ok!" He said, supremely over exaggerated, and Jason seriously considered trying to suffocate him with the foil blanket shoved around his shoulders. When Jon rushed forward to give him a 'relieved hug', Jason heard his tone drop into a terrified whisper. "Oh my god I'm so sorry I thought you wanted a distraction-,"
"Yeah they look real fucking distracted, kiddo." He whispered back, sweetly.
"Please don't kill me it broke earlier than I planned-"
"That's a news crew," Damian suddenly realised, announcing with a grave sense of danger as he pointed, shivering slightly from within his blanket, at what Jason was just now realising was. indeed, a group of people with news cameras and microphones, all of which were focused on the mess of broken waterslides. "That's a- Akhi. That's a news crew."
"...Shit." Jason mumbled. "Ok, fuck, we need to get out of here. Time to go. Trip over."
"Guys, they aren't gonna let us leave," Jon said, wringing his hands together and nodding over at the staff nearby. "They're probably worried you'll sue them for endangerment or something."
"Well we need to disappear without them noticing then!" Jason responded. "We need some kind of distraction, or a-"
"I can do that!" Jon perked up like a bloodhound, grinning wildly, and Jason paused in concern.
"Um, no-"
"I'll be right back!"
"Jonathan fucking Kent you get your ass-" He dropped his blanket to throw his arms up in the air incredulously when the kid disappeared instantly, turning to stare at Damian.
"I want a full written apology from everybody who has ever said I'm the bad influence out of the two of us." He demanded pointedly, to Jason's increased exasperation.
"I hate babysitting so fucking much."
"Hello~" Dick's voice echoed from down the hall, steps softly sounding out on the expensive wooden floor. "Is anybody- oh, hi guys!"
"I thought you weren't coming back until tomorrow?" Damian demanded, sitting up ramrod straight in his armchair as Tim wandered into the living room behind him, looking exhausted but relatively uninjured.
"Yeah, but with Clark helping we managed to clear everything up quicker than expected. B and him are just talking down in the cave, they'll be up in a minute." Dick explained. "Hey Jon, nice to see you!"
"Hey!" Jon smiled brightly around a mouthful of popcorn. "We had a really uneventful day of watching movies!" He bullshitted, unprompted. Damian's face dropped into a blank stare, and he bore holes into the side of his friend's head blandly. Jason sunk down on the couch ever-so-slightly, rubbing at the bridge of his nose with his fingers.
"Uh- cool, that sounds fun!" Dick smiled back at him, slightly confused, and Tim snorted as he moved forward to steal some skittles from the bowl in Jason's hands, plopping down on the couch next to him.
"Is it just Disney movies? Is there nothing better on?" He checked. Damian scowled, ignoring him completely in favour of looking back at Dick.
"What happened on the mission, did everything go smoothly?"
"Yeah, Dami, don't worry we're all fine, it wasn't that bad a job!" He tried to comfort. This was a wild misinterpretation of what Damian was trying to dig for, and Jason bit his lip in sympathy of the argument he knew to be coming.
"If it wasn't that bad then I should have been allowed to go!" Sure enough,
"Oh come on, Dames don't be like that!" Dick sighed. "You know why we decided you should stay here."
"You snuck away while I was at school and left me in the hands of Todd!" Damian screeched.
"Oi," Jason grumbled, not looking away from the TV screen as Tim fumbled with the remote, trying to find something better to watch. "I shouldn't be catching strays here, I didn't even want to do this in the first place."
"Shut up Todd."
"Damian," Dick complained, right as Bruce and Clark finally wandered in, Bruce still half in his batsuit while Clark smiled warmly in Jon's direction.
"Dad! Did you finish up with that superhero gig?" He asked.
"Yeah, we're all good to head home now. Did you have fun with Jason and Damian?" And then he looked to Jason, "He wasn't too much trouble, was he?"
Jason laughed, slightly deliriously, high-pitched enough that Tim sent him a weird side-eye of judgement. "We're all alive aren't we?" He settled on. Clark seemed to take it as a joke, chuckling good naturedly.
"Well I appreciate you keeping an eye on him for me-,"
"What the fuck," Tim suddenly laughed in confusion, sitting up straighter on the couch and staring intently at the TV. Jason realised instantly why, clocking the news channel he'd landed on and recognising the large plume of smoke drifting up from the middle of a very familiar waterpark that was being watched by helicopters above. He froze, eyes widening, and felt Jon do the same, while Damian leant back into his armchair in an attempt to make himself as small as physically possible. "What happened over there?"
"Did anyone get hurt?" Bruce asked, watching the screen in slight concern. "That's not too far from Gotham, is it?"
"No like, a couple minutes down the main road." Tim responded absently, reading the bar at the bottom of the screen carefully. "Says some kid got stuck on the broken slide and like, almost fell to his death. His dad had to- holy shit the dad had to climb up and save him! Shit, bet that made the staff feel useless as hell. Two slides randomly collapsed and one blew up and set the restaurant on fire, and they have no idea what caused it. That's insane."
Jason stayed very still, as slowly, Dick started to turn and look in his direction. Similarly, Clark furrowed his brow, inquiring slowly, "Jon, are you ok? Your heart rate is rising an awful lot."
"I'm fine!" Jon squeaked. Dick narrowed his eyes.
"...You mentioned the idea that you might take Damian and Jon to a waterpark today, didn't you Jason?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Jason responded fast. The news footage switched to a video sent in from a civilian, and suddenly a familiar voice echoed around the room as a shaky view of a broken waterslide came onto the screen, close up.
"Kid, you're gonna be ok, just stay put and somebody will come and get you,"
"OH, GO **** YOURSELF, ALAN."
"Kid's got a mouth on him," Somebody close to the camera murmured, and everybody slowly turned to look at Damian, who was now curled into such a tight ball on the armchair he almost resembled a contortionist.
"Damian." Bruce said, evenly.
"I told you," The ball responded, slightly muffled. "I should have been allowed to go with you."
"Jesus Christ Jason," Dick whispered, sounding absolutely baffled. "How did you set a waterpark on fire?"
"How did I?" He exclaimed, indignant, leaning forward in his seat. "Are you joki- how did I? I didn't set fire to fucking shit-"
"Language," Jon mumbled, quiet, and without even looking in the kid's direction Jason held an arm out to point in his face.
"-You can shut the fuck. Up."
"Jason!" Dick admonished.
"I am not apologising." Jason remained steadfast. "I told you I didn't want to do this- this is on you."
"'Single dad of two saves his son from certain death,' Jason that's a photo of you-"
"TIM TURN OFF THE FUCKING TV I SWEAR TO GOD."
"I hope you all learned something," Damian raised his voice to be heard firmly over the chaos, as Clark looked around the room in pure bafflement and Bruce watched the TV screen with resigned disappointment. Tim looked ecstatic, and Jon was borderline hiding underneath a couch cushion as Damian uncurled from his ball, lifting his head up straight. "I hope you all learned a very important lesson!"
"Damian," Dick started tiredly.
"NO! No Grayson!" Damian snapped, shaking his head. "You need to learn. The next time there's a child trafficking ring to take down," And as Jason buried his face in his hands, groaning in resignation, he pointed furiously at his own chest. "DAMIAN SHOULD GET TO FUCKING GO."