Chapter 2
Jason waited until everyone was settled for dinner and used the time they were all in the kitchen (he needed to find a way to thank Alfie for not letting them sit at that godawful dining room table) to sneak up to the family wing. There was no way Damian’s room was anywhere else, and it was the only place no one would come across him.
There were a lot fewer hiding places in the manor at his new size, but that was something to dwell on never and to deal with now.
Anyway, Bruce and Alfie would leave the kid’s room alone. They’d all learned the hard way that kids with trust issues needed privacy, so. No one would go in Damian’s room, not anytime soon.
Well, no one except Jason, but Dames was probably expecting him. He wondered if the kid would manage to shake Bruce early, or if he would just go along with everything for the rest of the night until he had the rest of the night without interruptions or suspicions.
That was more the kid’s MO. Well, unless something had changed in the last few years. That was possible. Jason hadn’t exactly been around to spend time with the kid.
Damian’s room had a handful of the ‘traps’ they’d been taught (some of which Jason had taught him) to see if someone had been in their space. Not to stop anyone, no, that would be too obvious, but just to make it clear that someone had been there.
Jason took the time to replace the ones visible to Bruce from the doorway and left the rest undone. He wished he could leave something out so that Damian knew it was him, knew it was Jason, but-- there was no way to do that without alerting Batman to an intruder.
So Jason chose the ensuite bathroom and folded himself into the gap between the vanity and the toilet. His knees protested. He was getting too old for this shit.
Two horribly written reports later, he was trying to figure out how, exactly, he was going to structure remedial English for his goons.
Seriously, he was going to have to teach them everything, starting with spelling and punctuation and working his way through organization. Well, maybe starting with organization and working his way through the technical bits? Because the technical bits were something he could read around, but a lack of organization was a serious problem when he was trying to understand what his goons were telling him.
So now he had to figure out how exactly to structure patrols and work so that everyone got paid for their schooling and homework time, but also got their work done. Fuck, that was a headache. Jason didn’t believe in hiring temps, because not only did that mean he was running his …whatever it was, badly, but it meant that he didn’t care enough to make long term changes and just hire people when he needed them. Crime didn’t need seasonal workers, it needed folks who were used to working together and who trusted their boss and coworkers not to get them killed. So. No temps.
This might mean, though, that he had to do another hiring drive. Which was literally the worst. It could turn into very literal headhunting way too fast, and that wasn’t anything he needed to deal with, not if he was also trying to whip up syllabi.
There were faint footsteps coming down the hall, now, two sets, and- when had Bruce gotten injured badly enough for it to be a limp even on normal days? Or had he finally given up on hiding his injuries around his kids? Only time would tell. Clearly Jason would be breaking into the manor more often.
The door creaked open, and Damian stood in front of the door. He was blocking the room with his body, from the sounds of it. Fuck, that kid hadn’t gotten any less trusting in the last few years. Showing his back to someone he was only mostly sure was Jason and locking himself in with them was-
Jason loved that kid.
Jason eased his boots off and set them carefully in the tub as soon as he heard the door shut. Damian would wash the dirt out, or he would, but this way he could walk soundlessly.
The second his foot was back on the ground, he was rocked by a hug. Damian’s hands held tight to the front of Jason’s jacket, and Damian was pulling himself into Jason’s shirt, like he was hiding his face from the League again.
Jason took his helmet off and set it in the sink before holding the kid tight.
Damian was so much taller than he used to be, and much lighter. He wasn’t the post-growth spurt light that Jason thought he was at first glance -- he was too thin. Either from training too hard or from food deprivation, his baby boy didn’t take up nearly enough space in his arms and Jason found himself wrestling with the Pit again. Who decided it was a good idea to starve his kid?
“Akhi, be at peace,” and Damian always knew when the Pit was starting to become a problem. A Pit Handler. Age 4. But it helped, always, to hear Damian calm, nearby, and relatively well. “We are safe. There are no threats.”
“Dames,” and Jason ran his gloved fingers through Damian’s hair and wished he dared take his gloves off. But no. He was going to stand here until Damian felt the need to pull away, no matter how bad it made his knees hurt. “Wanna tell me why you’re here?”
A question, a real one. Damian had never (in Jason’s memory, at least) refused to answer a genuine question. He often refused orders. It shouldn’t have been nearly as endearing as it was. The little shit.
“The severity of my punishments was increasing. Mother had to interfere.” Damian’s hands were tightening enough that any forearm would be crushed. “I believe this to be permanent.”
“Well, kiddo,” and Jason squeezed him tighter. They had known his punishments were going to escalate. The punishments had been escalating, and Damian had continued to quietly rebel. “B doesn’t do that shit here. I’ll be here, this time, okay?”
Damian didn’t do anything so vulnerable as cry. Not where anyone could see it. He’d learned better. But he still, amazingly, asked for ‘uppies’ by climbing Jason like a rock gym.
“Yeah, buddy, I know.” Jason just had to figure out how to get in and out every night, now. The Cave would probably be easiest, but he’d have to get past Alfred. That was going to keep him busy, for sure.
“Father,” and Jason smothered a laugh. Damian was a little menace. “I am going out tonight.”
“What are the rules, little D,” and Dick being here made it so, so much better. “About going out into the city?”
“I must have an adult, and hired adults do not count except for Pennyworth. I may not order Pennyworth around, but I may ask.” Holy shit, how many times had Dick had to wrangle a pissed off little assassin to get those rules into his head? Was that what Nightwing’s new injuries were from? He and Damian might need to have a conversation about brothers and avoidable injuries.
“That’s right,” and Dick reached out to ruffle Damian’s hair, only to snatch his hand back at the last second. Damian bit and bit hard (Jason had taught him that -- it wasn’t nearly as dignified as the League tried to be). “So which adult is going with you?”
Somehow, Dick had stumbled his way into the ‘asking questions’ way of raising Damian Wayne, and Jason was proud of him for it. Bruce hadn’t yet. Jason wasn't gonna tell him.
“Red Hood,” Damian said smugly. “We are former allies.”
Of course the little brat called him a ‘former ally’. Jason was going to have to get him for that later.
“Former allies?” Jason asked, on cue, with his helmet and vocoder on. To the Bats, it would sound supremely threatening. Unfortunately, Damian would just think it was funny and double-down.
“We met in the League, and I have renounced ties,” Damian said haughtily. “Have you?”
The speed at which Nightwing and Batman moved to cover Damian was nice. Jason liked it. “Ask Batman, there, the same question.”
“I severed ties with the League years ago,” Batman snarled.
“Not with all of them, clearly,” and Jason gestured to Damian. “I happen to know Talia Al Ghul has a special burner just for her ‘Beloved’.”
Damian rolled his eyes (another bad habit he’d picked up from Jason) and neither of the Bats could see it because they were busy defending him. Which was what they should be doing, but really, Damian was quite capable of wrangling a good chunk of the League. Not him, of course, but where else would Damian have learned it all?
“Hood,” and Damian was trying to sound bored instead of like he was having a great time fucking with the rest of the Bats. He was so dramatic. Well, with the Al Ghuls, Bruce, and Jason, it was inevitable. “May we leave? You are an adult, yes?”
“Yes, brat,” and the kid was so going to get noogied into next year the next time they were out of sight of the Bats. “I even know kiddy field medicine so that Daddy Bats there will let me babysit.”
“I have found a suitable adult that wasn’t hired,” Damian wriggled out from behind Nightwing and dodged a grab. “So, I will be back this evening.”
“Red Hood doesn’t count, he’s a villain!” Nightwing just sounded exasperated, and- Batman took more exception to someone running off with the baby than Jason had expected. He dropped Damian to the right so he could dodge left and a batarang was exactly where the gap in his shoulder armor had been.
“He doesn’t hurt children,” and Damian sounded offended on his behalf. “Certainly not- well,” Damian looked back at Jason consideringly.
“Brainwashing doesn’t make you not innocent,” Jason said, for the millionth time, trying to keep an eye out for Nightwing while Batman kept up the batarangs. “It just makes them more evil. Keep up.”
There was a stutter from Nightwing, and- fuck, he had been crawling under the batmobiles. That was fucked up. Jason was so impressed. “I’m not gonna hurt your fuckin’ kid, Jesus. He just needed-” and Damian jumped on his back the way they did for evac. The kid was getting bold. “-more enrichment. I’ll bring him back.”
“I will return.” Damian reassured them, hand on Jason’s knives, just in case he had to deflect something that one of his Bat-shit (ha!) family members threw.