Chapter 4
“Uh, Boss?” And Petra stuck her head in the door. Jason was grading homework, because really, what had his life come to, but something was clearly wrong. Petra was damn near unflappable -- there was a reason he chose her as his second, and it sure as hell wasn’t her total lack of punctuation .
“What is it?” He pulled his helmet on as they walked. It might not be dangerous (and she wasn’t moving sharply enough that he thought it was), but better safe than sorry. Really everything could heal (and heal well, with the Pit), except head injuries.
“We captured Robin.” Petra was succinct and concise. She was great at identifying the problem and ignoring non-essential details.
Sometimes, though, he really wanted more context.
“How?” And goddammit. He’d need to have a talk with his people. It had never occurred to him that his people might capture Damian, because- fuck. Why would it? Robin was clearly a kid and Damian wasn’t in the business of losing fights. Certainly not to people more poorly trained than him. Was he injured? Had something happened? Had Jason missed a call on his emergency burner? “Is he injured?”
Jason was walking faster, and Petra sped up to lead him down the hallways and to where they were keeping Robin. Well, maybe where Robin was choosing to stay. Hopefully that was the case. Fuck. What had Damian been thinking? He hoped Damian was thinking.
“He showed up in the warehouse on 3rd,” Petra was practically jogging. It didn’t seem to bother her any. “He didn’t use any of his weapons or tricks, and tried to fistfight his way through the guys there. It was at 6, so-”
“They were switching.” Damian had done it on purpose, with barely any plausible deniability. What was he thinking? Jason had his phone-- Damian could make it past the security at his main hideout (Jason had made sure of it). There was no reason to do it like this, not that he could think of.
“Robin.” And they would have to play this carefully. Red Hood could, reasonably, decide that Robin was not to be harmed. Could even decide that Robin deserved his protection, given that he was a kid with a shit dad. Or spin it that way, anyway. It might get him some shit, but he’d probably need to burn off the green after this.
The kid scaring the shit out of him pulled up the Green as much as Batman ever had. Which was frankly inconvenient.
“Do I want to know why you were trying to bare-knuckle your way through my warehouse?” Jason took off his helmet and knelt in front of Damian. The kid was gently tied to the chair (his goons knew better than to actually try to tie a kid down, but old habits died hard) and bruised to hell. There were a couple of cuts and Jason-
“Be at peace, akhi,” Damian said, quietly, in League. “It is just bruises. I am safe with you. You are safe with me.”
Which was, of course, true. It usually was, when Damian was around. And it was nice, to hear that all in Damian’s sweet little kid cadence. His voice hadn’t changed yet, and Jason had faint recollections of Damian stumbling over sounds when he was first learning to speak. When he was first learning how to say those phrases in every language they had in common.
“I’d be more at peace if you weren’t getting beat up just to talk to me,” Jason grumbled, and called, in English, “Hey, someone get me the first aid kit! And untie yourself, it’s pathetic.”
Damian smirked and let the ropes drop from his wrists.
“So why are you here, if you couldn’t use the phone and didn’t feel like climbing in my window,” Jason asked, speaking League again, and accepting the kit from one of the newer lackeys. Guess the older ones thought it would be funny to make the newer one come closer to a real Gotham special. Who ever heard of a crime lord patching up Robin and scolding him like a Crime Alley mama?
“Richard has been insufferable ,” Damian whined and Jason didn’t bother to hide his rolling eyes. “He’s been watching so closely that I can’t sneak out at all, not even for food! So I figured if I staked out a known warehouse and got captured, I’d get a chance to see you.”
That was…pretty good improvisation on Dames’ part. Jason approved. He’d have to start kidnapping the baby bird at regular intervals, if Damian couldn’t get to him. “Alright, fair enough. Do you want me to start kidnapping you, maybe once a week if Dick won’t let you loose?”
“If it is the only way,” and Jesus Christ, someone needed to get that kid in theatre, stat. The Al Ghuls, the Waynes, and the Todds all in one boy?
“Okay, up you go,” Jason spoke English and hauled Damian into his arms. The kid still fit there, which was good. He had a feeling neither of them would be willing to admit it, whenever that stopped being the case. At least Jason was big.
“Robin is off limits,” Jason told them all, letting Damian find a place to cling. “He’s a good kid and I have strong feelings about child endangerment.”
Surprisingly, Jason didn’t get struck by lightning when he said that. He did, in general, have feelings about child endangerment. But frankly it was all about risk minimization when it came to freaky little child assassins like Damian. The kid didn’t even kill anymore, which was a huge win. And, he might add, something that Damian had chosen for himself. Should Damian have more backup? Probably. But if the kid was always running to Jason, it mattered a little less.
Besides. Damian was almost uniquely qualified to take care of himself (and yes, call for backup) if he got in a tight spot. And he would and had called for backup, even if he was upset and sulking. Cuz he trusted Jason to come.
So.
Yeah. Damian, child endangerment, not Jason’s largest worry, at least, not anymore. He and Dames had it down to a system.
“What do we do if he attacks us ,” and that was Frankie, who had probably been working in the warehouse. Frankie’s hand-to-hand could use some work, and Dames’ was a little too good.
“Robin, don’t beat them up too bad,” and Jason shifted Damian onto his hip. “And tell me if they leave anything other than a bruise.”
“Tt. As if they could.” Jason didn’t roll his eyes, because that might be true and he didn’t want his goons getting the wrong idea. Damian could kick their asses, unless there were too many of them. The chances of Damian getting a little too rough with them if he got overwhelmed was just…pretty high. Ah well. That was for him to know and them to find out. If they were idiotic enough to send ten people after one kid, well. Damian would dole out punishments for him. It was efficient.
“How long until ‘Wing or Bats show up to get you back?” Jason wanted to know, scooping up his helmet with his free hand and plopping it on Damian’s head. There weren’t any explosives in it anymore, and besides, Damian knew the unlocking sequence.
“I answered my comms while I waited for you,” Damian said, like it wasn’t wicked hard to do while he was pretending to be tied up and under guard. “So half an hour before they notice.”
“Give me that,” and really, didn’t his goons know anything about capturing a vigilante? He’d have to teach them better. God, he was tired of teaching classes. He was sure they were tired of taking them. But they kept needing them, so.
“Can I do it?” Damian’s eyes lit up a little too much behind his mask. Jason scoffed as he turned into the ‘break room kitchen’, which really boiled down to ‘commercial kitchen that Red Hood uses to make food for all the goons that also has a microwave’. It was one of the first things Jason added when Red Hood had the money. Long hours and high stress cases meant high volumes of stress baked goods, and so fucking help him, he was going to do that in a nice fucking kitchen. And his goons might as well benefit from his three dozen muffins, of two giant pans of lasagnas, or two hundred and fifty dumplings.
Jason didn’t respond, but he didn’t need to. He just put Damian on the counter facing the door (the kitchen didn’t have windows, so sue him , he deserved to relax while he cooked) and began pulling out the ingredients for samosas. He still didn’t like how thin Damian was, or how intense he got about the opportunity to eat non-Western food.
Damian was busy pulling apart his communicator and systematically destroying it the way most kids dissected earthworms and keeping an eye on the door, so Jason didn’t try to start up a conversation. Talking could happen on Damian’s terms, or it didn’t need to happen right then. It didn’t seem like Dames was avoiding anything, so there was no need to smother Damian in well-meaning questions and affection and prodding.
Damian always had done better with space. Which was probably at least partially the fault of him and the League, but Jason wasn’t going to spook Damian if he could help it.
“Want to help mix the dough?”
And Damian, the little gremlin, just flung himself across the empty space between the counter and the island.
“Wash your hands first, fuck, it’s like you were never taught about food safety.”
“I won’t be touching the food with my hands,” Damian grumbled, but he went over to the hand sink anyway. Not the dish sink. He and Jason had had this conversation, when they were undercover at a restaurant. Damian had been there as Jason’s teen baby which…wasn’t too far from the truth. So he’d worked his (highly illegal) shifts with Damian in a sling.
A lot of their undercover missions started in restaurants. Jason fit in well, a lot of people were paid under the table, and most people wouldn’t blink twice at an extra dishwasher or line cook. It didn’t hurt that he was good at it. Damian, too, knew his way around a kitchen, for all he sometimes pretended he didn’t. He could chop vegetables and fruits, and knew how to clean and dry dishes. He could bus tables and knew how commercial kitchens worked. Talia had been deeply unhappy with that part of Damian’s education, but their punishment had been minimal, given their success rates.
So Damian was at home in Jason’s kitchen, and Jason scowled at him until he washed his hands well and climbed back on the counter.
It was his counter, sue him. If they were going to use a flat surface as a prep station, he’d sanitize it first.
If two cups of flour yielded ten samosas…would twenty cups be enough? It would be a good place to start, anyway. Damian could probably eat at least ten samosas on his own, if he wasn’t hungry. And if he was, then of course he’d eat more. Jason should send him home with extra, but that might be weird. He’d figure it out later. Maybe Dick would help him. He’d been remarkably concerned about Dames sneaking out for food the last time.
“Potato stuffing?” Jason asked, looking through the pantry. He had enough potatoes that it was going to become a legitimate problem sometime soon. It was either that or pierogies, and he was pretty sure Damian would prefer the samosas.
“Do we have to peel them?” And the brat was suspicious ! Jason smirked and brought over the bag of potatoes while Damian sighed gustily and finished crushing his comm.
“Must we? Potato skins are healthy and do not negatively affect-”
“Start peeling, kid.” and Jason tossed Damian a peeler, this time, instead of letting him peel it with a knife. Which worked! It just took a while, no matter how good with a knife you were. It took even longer if you were working with a knife and had little hands. (Jason could tell you from experience that if a person were to say such a thing to a small assassin, they would get stabbed. Just a little bit. With a knife used for potato peeling.)
“How many do we need?” Damian was still so suspicious! But he’d begun peeling like he wanted to eat sometime soon, so Jason would let it be and probably not tease him too much.
“Recipe says thirty medium potatoes?” and the potatoes Jason had were not medium potatoes. They were very large potatoes. “So maybe twenty of these?”
“Is this not why you have servants,” Damian grumbled, and Jason breathed carefully through the urge to snap. He had not been the only one to raise Damian, and Damian had been raised very differently than he had. It wasn’t Damian’s fault. It wasn’t Damian’s fault. It wasn’t Damian’s fault.
“Do you remember why we cooked,” Jason asked in League, still peeling potatoes.
*“Because people kept trying to poison us?” Damian asked, following suit and looking a little confused. “Or because it helped the mission and it's easy to find work.”
“A few reasons,” Jason admitted, trying to organize his own thoughts. He knew better than to wing lectures with Dames. Or at least, he should by now. “The first one being that we all have to eat, and it’s important not to be dependent on other people for good food.”
Damian blinked but nodded, grabbing another potato. From the way his eyes flickered, his goons were trying to eavesdrop from the hall. Unsuccessfully, but they were probably bringing in goons who spoke all sorts of different languages to try and figure them out. He was proud of them for their problem solving skills.
“The second one is that everyone looks down on the kitchen staff,” Jason said, getting up to get another bowl for the peeled potatoes. “It’s hard work and everyone thinks they can do it. And they can, usually, but they aren’t willing to. So the higher-ups ignore the people in the kitchen. Which marks it a great place to sneak in or get gossip.”
Damian blinked and scowled. He was embarrassed. He hated getting caught in traps that were designed for ‘other people’. As far as he was concerned, he should know better than everyone else because he had League Training. And League training did a whole bunch of things for a person, but what it didn’t do was break down societal biases for their heir and teach him how to stop being a dick about certain kinds of manual labor. That was Jason’s job.
“The third,” Jason added, reaching for the second to last potato. “Is so you can share the places you’ve been with people.”
Damian scowled even harder. His face was going to stick that way, and then what was B gonna do?
“Stop making faces about it,” Jason elbowed him. “Go get the spices. Do you remember which ones you need?”
“Cumin seeds,” Damian said, “Uh, ginger.”
“Green chiles,” Jason added, getting out the cutting board. He had fresh ginger, which soothed something deep in his soul that he hadn’t known needed soothing. He almost always had fresh ginger in the kitchen. “Grab some cashews if we have any.”
And Damian, who was used to the way Jason organized the meager kitchens they’d had access to, either on longer missions or when he’d convinced Talia that maybe letting him use her kitchenette was better than her son dying from preventable causes, actually, found them after the second cabinet he opened.
“Which other spices?” and now Damian was just being ridiculous. He knew at least half of them and didn’t feel like trying to remember the rest of them. Which was fine. Jason had been hard on him, just then. Not everything needed to be a test. He needed to stop doing that to Damian. They were out of the League and Damian was safe. Damian was safe. Damian was safe.
“Garam masala, cumin powder, salt, kashmiri chili powder, amchur powder, and fennel powder.” Jason grabbed the frozen peas out of the freezer. Peas were fine whether or not they were frozen, and they still made great ice packs. When they thawed on whatever you were using them for, you ate them. Sure, they got a little lukewarm, but hey, vitamins!
“Would you knead the dough for me a bit?” Damian grumbled and leapt up onto the counters again. He left his boots dangling off the edge, because some things still weren’t exceptions to the rule.
“Why did you tell your subordinates not to injure me?” Damian asked, halfway through kneading the bread to an appropriate texture. And, Jason wasn’t surprised that a question had come out of it. Kneading bread was the fastest way with someone was the fastest way he knew to vulnerable conversations, which was, in fact, why he wouldn’t cook with Alfred at the moment. Bruce had bugged the kitchen. “Do you not think me capable of defending myself against them ?”
And, insult to his goons aside, Damian was right. Jason could’ve let it be. Damian could take care of himself, at least in that way, most of the time.
“Who’s your backup?” Jason asked, sniffing each of the spices as he dumped them into a small bowl.
“You, akhi.” Damian answered, without hesitation.
“Right. Always.” And Jason really wished his subordinates weren’t all there, because he desperately wanted to kiss his baby bird on the forehead. “Being your backup means taking care of contingencies. I’m not gonna let you get any kinda hurt if I can help it, yeah? Especially if it’s an easy fix.”
“I guess.” And Damian was pouting, again. Had he been taking lessons from Dick, or had Bruce been this much of a pouter as a kid, too?
“No guessing.” Jason checked the dough, but it wasn’t quite ready yet. “I told them they could leave bruises if they needed to, but they better not leave anything worse than that, okay. You’ll tell me if they do?”
This one was important. Damian would ask for backup and would ask for extraction, but he wouldn’t always report ‘minor’ injuries. Anything he could take care of himself was ‘a result of his own carelessness’ and ‘not relevant unless it began to affect his performance’.
If it was one of Jason’s goons who injured him, it would be a whole kettle of terribly stinky fish.
“If anyone is willing to hurt a kid, the Red Hood needs to know,” and sure, that was playing dirty, but Jason never promised to fight fair. “You can take care of yourself, but the other kids can’t, and I have to know I can trust my goons.”
“You have my word,” and of course that was what it took, but Jason was glad he would know if his goons were a) following orders and b) beating up kids. Damian might not be a normal little kid, but he was a good one, and he was Jason’s brother to boot, so they better be so careful.
“Alright, d’you know where the, the, fuck. What’s it called? The скалка? El rodillo? The?” and for the love of God. Jason couldn’t figure out what the damn thing was called in League, Arabic, or fucking English. So he was back to intercultural charades and making the damn movement with his hands.
Dames was laughing at him, because of course he was. The kid didn’t always even remember what language he was speaking, but sure, he was laughing it up. He remembered what a rodillo was.
“What’s it called?” Jason asked, in English, taking the damn fucking thing and beginning to roll out the dough.
“A rolling pin,” Damian shrugged, like he wasn’t going to be using the word ‘rolling pin’ in every conceivable sentence in every language for the next two weeks. What a little shit.
“God fucking dammit.” A rolling pin. It rolled things.
“How much oil do you want me to heat up?” Damian asked, and-
“None of it, you’re a baby, roll out the dough balls.” and sure, Damian was allowed explosives and sharp things, but oil on the stove was taking it a step too far. “I don’t care how old you are, you’re a baby. A fetus. A small cell cluster that’s terribly vulnerable to boiling oil. Taste the potato masala- FUCK, give it here, don’t taste it. I have to cook it first.”
“If you die of a stroke, it will be because you cooked too often,” Dames observed, like the little shit he was. He knew as well as Jason did that the swearing wasn’t necessarily an indicator of stress. Just emphasis.
“The oil is in the pantry, could you- yeah,” Jason called over his shoulder, and Damian made sure he scuffed his feet once and slammed something in the pantry. What a good kid.
“We have a visitor,” Jason said, in League, because his ears were probably better than anyone else’s, and also because his henches wouldn’t go quiet for anything else. “Probably the blue-striped bastard himself.”
“I thought we’d have more time,” and Dames was definitely sulking about it. “I was careful about destroying my comm.”
“And he isn’t throwing my goons around like dolls, so he thinks you’re probably alright,” Jason pointed out, stirring the potato masala on the stove. Why did potatoes always take twelve years to cook? He should know better than this by now, but he never learned.
“Nightwing,” Jason called, making sure his voice echoed through the hall. “I’m not pulling that shit from Hansel and Gretel. He’d be gross. He stressed me out and I decided that his punishment is chores in my kitchen. It doesn’t count as child labor if I call it chores.”
Jason really hoped he wasn’t going to regret leaving his helmet on the counter. Nightwing was absolutely fucking brutal and there were some things Jason didn’t need in his life. A cracked skull was one of those things. He was picky that way.
“Robin, report.” And oh was Dick pissed . Jason would not want to be Damian when he got home. Dick was hard to be around when he was angry. Not for any particular reason, just the pure emotional force of his anger. It filled whatever room he was in and made it hard to breathe, no matter what pleasantries and activities were going on.
“I was captured by Red Hood’s men-”
“Goons,” Jason corrected. He had goons. From the Goonion.
“Goons. I was tied up until the Red Hood recognized me, freed me, and decided it was meal time. I have not been allowed to leave.”
“Damn right.” Jason knew his role in this. “This is a kidnapping. I don’t hurt children, and Robin was injured by my goons. I have to cook to restore my good name, and Robin isn’t allowed to leave until I’ve done so. It’s why all my goons are at the door. They’re terrified of my wrath and are trying to keep Robin cornered.”
Nightwing’s eyebrow went up. Which was honestly a pretty impressive trick in a domino mask. Jason wanted to know a) how he did it and b) how long he had practiced it so he could make fun of Nightwing for it. And then learn how to raise his own daring eyebrow.
“It’s true, I am trapped by his sense of obligation and my own foolishness,” Damian added, and not bad! Jason’s delivery had been flat and clearly fake, but Dames was trying to add emotion to it. Jason was so proud. “Red Hood is trying to make things right, and with our belief in second chances, I must allow it.”
Jason couldn’t laugh. He couldn’t. It would ruin everything and Damian was being as serious as he knew how to be.
“The potato masala’s done, try it,” and thank fuck, the food was going to save them all. “Tell me how the spices are. Any changes?”
And of course, both Dick and Damian took bites and hasshhfashsashfhsh’d their ways through eating it. Had he raised a heathen? Was his older brother really so stupid?
Yes. The answer to both of those questions was yes.
“You may repeat this,” Damian said, eyes watering from the temperature of the potato. Jason held back a sigh and got a cold bottled water for Dames. He knew better than to offer the kid something hot like that. It never occurred to him that e could wait for his own comfort, and if it did, he’d eat it right away because then it was a challenge .
*Damian guzzled water, while Nightwing tried to grab it away from him. Damian looked moderately betrayed.
*“Oh my god,” Jason rolled his eyes. “I’m not poisoning the kid. This is my goon’s breakroom. D’you think I poison them that often? Huh? Besides, I know the brat is resistant to the poisons that could go in something like that.”
*Damian paused to look smug and went back to his water, jerking it out of Dick’s hands.
*Damian was still small enough he had to use both hands to drink from the water bottle, and Dick looked gutted, if you knew what to look for, and of course Jason did.
*Right. Dick hadn’t been there. Damian hadn’t told them all the things that had happened, then. Fuck. Someone needed to know all of that shit, and sure, he did, but he was also technically a villain and not actually living with the kid or providing his emergency medical care, so--
*“Kid,” Jason said, in League, going to the dough and beginning to roll it out. With the rolling pin. “I need you to tell the bats that you’re immune to poisons and that you did things like torture and sleep deprivation training for me, okay? It’s important for your health.”
*“It’s not relevant,” Damian grumbled, drinking more of his water, but Jason wasn’t sure why he was uncomfortable about it, this time. “So there’s no need to bring it up.”
*“Oh, so if your tolerance messes with a medication they give-” and Jason caught himself and kept rolling out the dough. “It might matter. If they’re weird about it, make them talk to me, mkay?”
Damian just pouted.
Dick, who couldn’t understand a single word of what was being said, just watched them both carefully. Way too carefully. Dick was damn good at figuring out emotional nuance, and Jason frankly didn’t care. Nothing about his relationship or his conversation with Dames was actually secret, except that Damian needed to have control over his own health information. The kid hadn’t had much autonomy in his life, the least he could do was encourage a little bit here and there.
“Wash your fingerstripes,” Jason ordered in English. “You’re going to help fold samosas. You too, gremlin. I get the fry oil.”
“Peter,” Dick said after a moment. “Is that your name?”
“Sure is,” Jason agreed, amiably. “Wondered how long that was going to take. Baby bird, show Nightwing where the hand sink is.”
“Why do you have so many sinks ,” Dick whined, obediently washing his hands. “It’s just one kitchen.”
“It’s for safety, convenience, and sanitation.” Damian lectured. “This is the hand sink. That is the dish pit. Hood uses it as a pot filler, too, because his kitchen is small.” and that was a disapproving look.
“Would you rather it be busy, brat,” Jason asked, beginning to cut and fill the samosas as the oil boiled behind him. “You can wash dishes. I know how much you love it.”
Damian despised , above all other things, the feeling of soaking dishes. Washing dishes was fine, drying them was great, but having to put his hands in water full of floating food bits made Damian cranky for days.
“His kitchen is perfectly adequate for his needs.” Somehow, Damian made that sound like even more of an insult. Jason snorted and began frying his first five samosas.
“Start folding. Cone on the bottom, fill ‘em, then close ‘em.”
“Who would like to use the rolling pin?” Damian asked, innocently. Little shit. ‘Rolling pin’.
“Don’t forget to keep it even,” and he knew better than to react to the bait, otherwise Damian would just keep it up longer. And Dick smelled tesing opportunities like a bloodhoud.
Then again, Dick didn’t know he was supposed to be looking to tease the Red Hood.
Shit. Jason needed to be more careful. He’d been getting carried away. It was just so easy when he had them both there and folding samosas and bickering about which sink to use.
Dick seemed to remember they didn’t know each other, either. “So, how did you and Robin meet?”
“We worked some missions together, before,” and Jason shrugged. “Worked a couple undercover stints in restaurants. He was a bus boy when he got old enough.”
And-- Jason had forgotten, again, that Dick didn’t have context. That he would sound like another one of the League trainers scoffing about age limiting one’s training activities and missions. Dick didn’t know that if Damian was on a mission with Jason, that the two of them were actually safer. There were fewer assassination attempts, more freedom, and Jason could teach Damian things about the world at large. So they spent a lot of time on missions, especially when Damian was small.
Was it fucked up that Damian had to contribute for them to not face punishment? Yes! Yes it was. Did Jason cover for him once or twice before realizing that Damian’s lack of skill progress was going to show soon? Yeah, he sure did. Did he have a lot of regrets about the way he handled the whole thing? Absolutely! But Damian had looked for him because he was hungry and was waiting on some samosas, so things couldn’t be all bad.
Well, things might go all bad pretty quickly if Nightwing decided that ‘former League trainer’ meant ‘current Bat target’. Jason hoped not. Damian had really wanted something to eat, otherwise he wouldn’t have dropped by. And the samosas were smelling good.
Jason turned to put samosas on a plate and pointed to the fridge. “Chutney and sauces, go on. If we’re out of something, I might have the produce to make fresh, but I wouldn’t count on it.”
“I want tamarind chutney.” Damian announced, standing on his tiptoes to see into the refrigerator door. “Where is it?”
“Top shelf on the left,” Jason sighed. “We have a second jar of it when you’re done with that one, you little goblin.”
“Where’s the second jar,” Damian wheedled, and looked exactly where Jason kept it. “You’re as predictable as ever.”
“I’m used to having tiny little monsters going through my pantry for tamarind chutney,” Jasson retorted, very conscious of Dick’s eyes on him. “Come eat them while they’re hot. You get first dibs.”
“How many are you making,” Dick asked, slowly beginning to roll out the dough again. As if he wasn’t also making samosas.
“About a hundred,” and the next five were almost ready. “Kid’ll eat some, especially if he came here hungry, then there’ll be extra.”
“M’na keep ‘em.” Damian said, with his mouth full.
“We do not steal food without at least pretending to ask if people want it,” Jason said, absolutely exhausted. “I might want a few. So might Nightwing.”
“Do you?” Damian challenged, swallowing his third samosa like a boa constrictor. His esophagus was probably coated entirely in tamarind chutney.
“Yeah, maybe.” Jason shrugged. “I had empanadas for lunch, though, so I’m doing okay.”
Damian’s little shift in his seat was a normal kid’s equivalent of a gasp.
“I’ll make you some another time,” Jason promised. “You have your filling in dough. It’s just wheat dough. And Indian spices. It even has cumin.”
“When did he make you empanadas before?” Nightwing asked Damian, figured his baby bird would be the first one to crack. Jason let it be. He wasn’t opposed, exactly, to letting Dick know he was Red Hood but--
Well, they both needed to have other priorities. Gotham and Damian. Damian and Gotham. Jason Todd came in a poor third to those two.
“On a mission,” Damian said with a shrug, shoving another samosa down his throat. Jesus.
“They aren’t gonna disappear, fuck’s sake. Nightwing better be feeding you,” and Jason glared even as he pulled another two water bottles from the fridge and slammed them down on the table before he went back to his fry oil.
“He’s on sabbatical,” Damian said, trying not to sound like he was sounding out the new word. Oh. Alfred was on his yearly leave. No wonder Damian was hungry. He could cook for himself, but it brought back bad memories and he and Damian hadn’t had enough time together to work on that.
“Fuck that, I have a frozen casserole,” and sue him. He’d really over-baked one time, and not even his goons could eat that much. “I’ll make you some empanadas next time. Drop by for them.”
“We can-”
“You can, but you haven’t been,” Jason finished ruthlessly, turning on Dick. “If he’s hungry, I’m going to feed him. I’ve been feeding this kid longer than you’ve known he existed, and he’s not dead yet.”
“If you drop that, I’ll shoot out your kneecaps.” Jason didn’t mean it. Much. Probably. “Where’s Robin? It’s not his bedtime yet, and I don’t trust you with the instructions for reheating any of those.”
A laser flashed quickly at Jason’s feet and he grinned at Dick from under his domino, all teeth.
“Where. Is. Robin.”
“He’s at home in bed.” Nightwing was treating the dishes very carefully, as he should, but the eyeroll was audible.
“Are you sure,” Jason asked, slow and dangerous.
Dick froze. “Agent A is on sabbatical.”
Agent A was the one who kept all wayward Robins at home and safe. If any of them ‘snuck out’, Alfred already knew about it and had decided to allow it. But Alfred wasn’t home.
Jason flashed his own laser across from him, at Nightwing’s chest (which should be within Dami’s view) and flashed the sign for ‘Safe. Rendezvous immediately.’
“Akhi?” Dami wasn’t dressed as Robin, thankfully, but he was still running around without supervision.
“I don’t trust Dickwing here with the instructions. Here,” and there was one of the theatrically torn pieces of paper they used to pass information through the organization. “Remember that the oven is in Fahrenheit.”
“I will not forget.”
“I know, squirt, that’s why you have it and not fingerstripes.” Damian’s hand was hooked into his cargo pants, and he wasn’t gonna tell the kid to let go, even though Dick had clocked it immediately. It was good that the kid was comfortable. “What’s the rule about putting things into and taking them out of the oven?”
“I might need help because of the size of the door and the length of my arms,” Dami rolled his eyes. “I know.”
“Do you?” and Jason switched to League as he knelt to make eye contact with Dami, gently disentangling little hands from the loops of his pants. “I know you don’t like to cook by yourself, okay? You don’t have to. Just make sure he remembers to preheat the oven and then set an alarm.”
“I’m not a baby,” Dami scoffed in English, but he reached for Jason’s upright knee anyway. “I can reheat something in the oven.”
“Sure, kiddo,” and Jason stood, making sure not to take his knee out of Damian’s reach. Dick had at least stayed quiet the whole time, although that was…probably going to come back to bite them. Dick could be observant, when he thought to be.
Jason hoped Dick dropped in to talk to him first, and not Damian. Dami could hold his own, but he shouldn’t have to.
“Hey,” Jason said, nudging Damian with his hip and speaking in League. “What are the rules about protecting adults?”
“Adults can take care of themselves. In the field, my safety is the first priority.”
“Absolutely. Go enjoy your empanadas, bud. Let me know if you run out of food, okay?”
Damian just rolled his eyes and shoved the instructions he’d been given down his front before using Jason’s shoulder to get to a nearby fire escape.