"Don't you get it? It was all an act!" Jason's voice barked loudly across the rooftops as he waved his bottle haphazardly toward the rise of the skyscrapers barely visible through the Gotham city smog.
"That's not true," Damian's voice was a slight hiss as he stood just outside of Jason's reach, watching the man roll his head back on his shoulders to look him in the eye. His once blue eyes sparkled with the pit green and seemed to twist like a spiral-a web-
"Oh really?" A cut of his lips as he took another drag from the glass bottle, "What does he call you?"
Damian's brow furrowed against his mask as he frowned down at the man before him. "What idiocy are you spouting now, Hood?"
Jason hissed at him, eyes narrowing as he lunged without warning.
Damian twisted, but Jason caught the end of his cape and yanked him around, crushing him to the slate of the rooftop as he pinned him beneath his body.
"Get off me, you-"
"What. Does. He. Call. You?" Jason's alcoholed breath punctuated each word as he pressed down on Damian, large hands grasping the boy's wrists as his thighs restrained his thrashing feet.
Damian growled low in his throat, baring his teeth at the drunken man atop him. "What does it matter, you imbecile? I should have let you fall off the damned roof!"
"Aw-c'mon, demon brat" Jason's breath ghosted over Damian's face heavy with alcohol and it made Damian's nose twitch, "Tell me."
"Robin. He calls me Robin."
Jason threw back his head and roared with laughter, "That doesn't mean shit. We've all been Robin. That ain't special. What does he call you? The truth now."
Damian's mind whirled and his brow furrowed in confusion, "My name."
Jason's masked faces twisted painfully as his mouth continued to stretch upward almost as if he was being broken in two, "Damian? He calls you Damian?"
"No names-"
"He must really not love you at all."
Damian sucked in an audible breath, fingers twitching as his mind went blank, "what?"
Jason either didn't hear him or chose not to, "He always gives people names, y'know? Kori'andr is Kory. Barbra is Babs. Tim is Timmy, Timmers, little brother, baby bird, Timothy if he's angry. The big bad bat is B. Agent 1 is Alfie. Cassandra is Cass. Stephanie is Steph. I'm Jay, Jaybrid, Little Wing…" His voice trailed off as if in thought before refocusing on the frozen boy beneath him. His eyes were wide and dark as if completely consumed, "He names the people he loves and he must not love you if he just calls you Damian."
Damian couldn't breathe. Everything in him was frozen, unable to move. Everything just seemed to click and he couldn't lift a finger even if Todd pulled a knife and slid it across his throat.
Jason pushed off him, leaving him sprawled on the roof as if he sensed the broken pieces inside him scattering as he weaved back toward his upturned bottle near the edge of the building voice trailing behind him.
"Didn't you ever think of all the broken promises?" His voice took on a higher mocking tone, "I'm just a phone call away. Call me if you need anything. I'll come visit-"
"I won't be your Batman anymore, but we'll still be family. I'll always be there when you need me." A blindingly white smile from the shadow of the cowl.
Damian's heartbeat thundered in his ears as his eyes stared fixedly into the sky.
Liar.
"We're a family." He could hear the sneer as the liquid sloshed against the glass of the bottle as it was tipped against lips.
Liar.
"But he hasn't, has he? Not one damned call. Not one visit." Jason waved a hand against the sky now stamped with the bat signal. "All those platitudes about family, but really they were just empty words so you would behave. So you would toe the line. They were nothing. He is nothing!" He was screaming now, "Lies. They were all lies!"
The bottle arched gracefully through the air and shattered against the brick of the wall. The slide of the clear liquid was mesmerizing. It was all he could look at.
It made sense-everything Todd had said. Made. Sense.
Clarity hit him like a fist.
All those aborted phone calls-the moment he'd actually dared to let it ring to completion. Voice mail. Not that he'd ever lower himself to actually leave a message…but every time? It had gotten to the point that he'd call just to hear the other man's voice over the line, even altered slightly by the electronic device it was soothing and he'd gotten past the fear that he'd ever have to actually talk to the man. He never picked up his damned phone.
Then again-maybe he just didn't pick it up for him.
Or the rare instances he'd actually seen him, his suit flashing red and black in the night where it had once been blue and a dark lingering cape.
It was never to stop by and say, 'hi' or even in casual civilian clothes. It was always as a vigilante. It was always business.
Never as family unless there was someone else was around to see. Never lingering. Never just for him or maybe not even for him at all.
Todd was right. It was lies. All of it was lies.
A pretty leash for a child. One of alluring smiles, warm hugs and words strung with lies and deceit. All of it unnecessary now that his Father had returned. He was free. And Damian…he was left in a shattered world of his illusions.
He had given up his entire world to follow a man that didn't want to be in his.
He hadn't realized he was standing until he felt a hand grip his shoulder in a silent squeeze and his eyes snapped into focus.
Nightwing was standing beside him, his left hand gripping his right shoulder, his head tilted in a silent question before he focused on Todd, letting his hand drop as he took a step forward.
"Okay, what's all the ruckus now, Little Wing?"
Damian felt a drop in the pit of his stomach. He'd come, but not for him.
Todd was watching them, a hint of pit madness on his face, a twist of cruelty to his smile as he watched Nightwing advance.
Not one glance. No hint in his body posture that he was aware of anything other than Todd before him.
Todd, for his part, was now grinning against the wall as he swayed slightly even while he was standing as Dick made his way over toward him. He didn't even put up a fight as Grayson threw Todd's arm over his shoulder and wrapped an arm around the larger man's waist to keep him steady.
He swallowed, set his shoulders and stepped forward, "Nightwing-"
Dick's voice cut him off as he grabbed his grappling gun, "Robin, you should go. I can take care of this. B is waiting for you."
"Yes, Robin. You should go. Like a good little bird." Jason's voice snickered as he released more of his weight onto Dick, making him grunt.
Their eyes met and held and he forced himself to breathe. To calm the slight tremor to his fingers.
It was an act. Everything. A lie. Something he could no longer afford.
He smoothly removed his own grappling gun, swung in the opposite direction and pulled the trigger.
Even now he couldn't watch. Couldn't see that familiar figure in a different costume.
The man he remembered coming into stark contrast with the man he actually was. The man who didn't-
He let the force of the line yank him from his feet and swing him up into the sky telling himself that the sharp wind was the reason for his shortness of breath and sprinkling of tears beneath his mask.
Even now he could hear Jason laughing.
…
Dick watched as Damian's form disappeared and wondered at the boy's silence. His body posture had been off, his focus wandering. He'd been completely open when he'd landed on the roof. He hadn't even noticed him until he'd grabbed his shoulder-it wasn't like him.
Something was definitely wrong to throw Damian so far off his game that he didn't notice someone approaching his back. He'd have to have a talk with him later. It was dangerous-
Jason leaned in to him, laughing, his whole body shaking with it. He reeked of booze, but Dick couldn't find it in his heart to be angry. He always got somewhat unstable on the anniversary of his death. Letting the pit madness take him farther away from Jason for that short time. Wallowing in a despair he didn't usually allow himself. That's why he'd come to find him, but Damian had found him first.
He quickly hooked Jason to his belt so he wouldn't drop while they were mid swing and aimed his hook toward a safe house where Jason could stay until he slept off whatever he'd already done tonight.
"What were you talking with Damian about?"
Jason snorted, nose digging into the side of his neck, "Batman. I was telling him the truth about our Batman."
Dick ignored the slight worry that suddenly threaded into his gut and made his chest clench as he swung them into the night.