So this is a bit of a weird one. Do you all remember when Jason went hunting for his birth mother? Not the painful, awful ending of it all, but back when they were considering the three different women with 'S' names it could be? And one of them was Sandra Woosan? AKA, Lady Shiva? So, I might have written this in response to that. This, is a 'what if' scenario of what if Jason's mother actually was Shiva, and he'd been raised with her, in the League? And, you know, there's a tiny Damian there too? So, this is a thing. I like the thing. (And though it might be April 1st, I swear this is not a joke. I kind of despise April Fool's Day.)

By the way, the pairings on this are very 'eventual', and I will get around to them but it might take a bit. (The rating might go up too if I end up writing sex, which, frankly, I probably will.) There's some backstory and growing up to do first. Enjoy!

The ground is always harder than I remember it being, and this is absolutely no exception. The wind is knocked out of me, but I shove past it and roll to the side in time to avoid the follow up heel towards the center of my chest. I move far enough up that I can backpedal, blocking the foot aimed at my head and getting just far enough out of range that I can get all the way back to standing. I stay a bit crouched though, ready to move in any direction because I am so severely outmatched.

Honestly, I love my mom to death but when she trains me personally I never go into it expecting anything but a sound ass kicking and enough bruises and sprains to take me out for about a week. It's kind of fun, if not also pretty humiliating.

And we always pick up a crowd, not that I can pay them the slightest attention if I want to get through this without broken bones.

She's smiling a bit — with that sharp edge that means she's enjoying beating me — but I only get a fraction of a second before she's moving towards me again. My chest is still burning, I can still barely breathe, but I meet her. I duck under the strike of her left arm, going for a return punch lower on her side where I've got more force and of course missing completely because she's already dodging. I get a sharp punch to the back of my shoulder in retaliation, which I let spin me around as I take the momentum and use it to get farther away.

Not far enough though, because the next second I'm getting yanked back by the back of my tank top and she's got my arm, twisting it high up behind my back. I give a breathless yelp as my shoulder strains, and then she lets me go and shoves me forward. There's a scattering of laughter in the crowd as I spin back around to get her back in my sights.

"Try again, Little Jay." Her voice is quiet, meant for us and not the crowd, and there's a slight softness to it that I recognize as a reminder to not pay attention to the audience. Or the fact that they're enjoying my slight humiliation.

Whatever. My mom is a fucking badass, and if anybody thinks they can do better I will seriously enjoy watching her break at least a couple of their bones. This? This is giving me slack because she cares for me, otherwise I'd end up with much nastier injuries and much longer medical downtime. She wants me trained to be as dangerous as I can be — I could go toe to toe with any of these morons around us and I know it — so she's not going to pull her punches; being her son just means that she doesn't hit quite as hard, it's never meant that she really goes easy on me. I knew how to hold a blade almost before I could talk, and by the time I really had a grasp on language I knew more about martial arts than most fully grown men.

I will make sure she stays proud of me.

I give a small grin, studying her posture as we circle each other. Not that I'm going to find a weakness in it, but maybe she'll fake an opening or something and I can try that, even though really I'm better off waiting for her to come at me instead. I can usually hold out a bit longer if I focus on defense and counter strikes than if I try and be aggressive. Took me a while to learn that, but it got drilled into my head eventually.

She strikes faster than I expect, of course, but I manage to react in time to her lunge forward and the strike of her heel towards my chest. I slide to the side, along the outside of her leg as I push it away and move in closer. Her weight drops as that leg does, and I can only envy her speed as she braces on that foot and hand and sweeps out her other leg towards mine. All before I can get close enough to strike back. I leap over it and she's still turning, spinning with the momentum and striking up at me with her left hand as she comes all the way back around. I get on the outside of the blow, feeling the rush of air as it almost grazes my cheek and then reaching up and grabbing hold of her arm. I twist the delicate joint of her wrist, pushing down and straining it to try to straighten her arm and pin her shoulder down.

Then she's turning against it, nails digging into my wrist in turn as her shoulder pops straight out of place. I don't have the time to react to that with anything more than mixed worry and pride before one of her calves is slamming into my stomach and throwing me back. I let go on reflex, hit the ground on my back which knocks out any tiny fraction of air I might have had left in my lungs, and then a fraction of a second later she's kneeling over me with one knee pressing down across my throat.

I raise my hands in surrender as I struggle to draw in air, and watch her casually jerk her shoulder back into place. There's a tiny thread of pain in her expression, but it's overwritten by the small grin and the shine of pride. I can't help grinning back, even though I really can't breathe.

"Not bad, Little Jay," she murmurs. "You've certainly improved since we last sparred."

I sound as breathless as I feel, but I manage to get out, "In my blood, isn't it?"

She gives a quiet laugh, and shifts her knee off of my throat. "That it is. Share dinner with me? I'd like to hear the news about your lessons and instructors, and perhaps I can tell you a few stories about my latest mission."

I can't help the rush of excitement as I push myself up and follow her as she stands. "Sounds great. We leaving now, or having another few rounds out first?" I love hearing her stories. I love knowing that someday, I'll get to be the one out serving the League and kicking ass. Hopefully right next to her so I can see everything she describes in person and I can come back with stories of my own. Telling her what my instructors are putting me through and what I'm in the middle of learning — or who I beat up this week — just doesn't have the same kind of impact to it.

"Later," she tells me, rolling both shoulders back and dismissing the crowd around us with a flick of her hand. None of them are stupid enough to stick around. "Talia wishes to speak with both of us."

I don't quite freeze up, but I stall for a second. Talia? As in Talia al Ghul? I think she's spoken to me all of once, and I might have been all of three or four at the time. I've seen her more than that, and she speaks with my mother sometimes, but she's never seemed interested in me. I like it that way, honestly. I don't want attention from any of the real big names until I'm good enough to prove I'm worth it, and I'm not quite there yet. I'm damn good, and I can take almost any of the rank and file assassins in here, but I have so much more to learn. I know that.

My mother gives a small smile, raising a hand to ruffle through my hair. I make a bit of a face, but don't pull away from her. "Relax, Little Jay. If it was for a bad reason I would have been warned beforehand, and I can think of nothing you've done that would cause her to be displeased." A bit of a sharp look. "Can you?"

"No, Mother," I answer obediently, and it's actually true. I get in trouble sometimes, but only with my instructors and rarely with enough importance to even be brought up to my mother when she comes back through. By all accounts I'm a great student, they just have issues with my confidence and willingness to talk back sometimes.

I think it just frustrates them to be called out when they're not right, and it frustrates them that I'm willing to make sarcastic or mocking comments when they give me the opportunity. It really only makes me laugh when they threaten to beat it out of me; if my mother wanted an obedient little servant she would have made sure I held my tongue long before any instructors got a hold of me. I am the son of Lady Shiva, and I will damn well never curb my confidence just to please some irritated instructors. I'm better than that and I know it.

None of my instructors are allowed to punish me for my attitude, at least not as badly as they want to. A sharp rap with a cane will sting and maybe bruise, but they can't really hurt me unless I'm outright disrespectful, and then my punishment gets handed off to my mother. I remember getting to watch her take apart the last instructor who thought he could hurt me behind my mother's back.

He beat me until I bled, stripped some of the skin off the back of my thighs, so she made sure to strip all of his off. Inch by inch, until he was screaming so much more loudly than I ever did. She let me make the ending strike when his body was giving out. I was five, and it was my first kill.

That was what really convinced me that I never wanted to be anything but as dangerous and unstoppable as my mother. I've never regretted that choice, and I know I'm well on my way even with the barrier of only being eleven. Age won't be a problem for much longer, and for right now it just means that I focus on being small, underestimated, and faster than my opponents. Every once in awhile I still get some idiot from the masses who thinks taking me down will make him famous or something, and I take special care to humiliate those ones.

"Good," my mother says with a touch of praise, as she wraps an arm around my shoulders and steers me towards one of the exits to the inside training hall. "I'd hate to hear that you've been misbehaving while I was gone."

"You love hearing about me misbehaving," I correct. "You just don't like it when I'm blunt about it or get in real trouble."

She laughs, voice high and clear as she squeezes me in against her side. "True enough, Little Jay. Perhaps you should let me handle the conversation with Talia, hm?"

I roll my eyes, nudging her ribs with my elbow as I grin up at her. "I can behave, promise." Which is totally true; my mom taught me to show respect to the people I needed to before I ever even met them. Wouldn't have lived long if I disrespected everyone. Still, Talia's a different puzzle altogether, and it's probably better if I don't talk too much. So I let my grin get small and crooked, leaning my weight just slightly into her as we walk. "You got it, mom. I'll be quiet."

She reaches up and ruffles my hair with her free hand. "Good call." Her voice definitely has a bit of teasing to it, but that's fair. Not that I would have actually have been dumb enough to talk back to Talia al Ghul. Probably.

I let my mom guide me towards wherever it is that Talia's asked us to be, which turns out to be somewhere deeper into the levels of this base than I think I've ever been allowed before. My mom's got nice rooms, and most of the time I'm the only one in them since she's off doing missions or whatever her business is, but they're off in a different section. We're sectioned into the area for the League's lieutenants, but this? This is the al Ghul's section, and if you're not a guard or you're not specifically asked for, you don't belong here.

I almost stall for a moment as we come in sight of two guards, but my mother's arm stays around my shoulders and she steers me right towards them. So I shove away the flutter of nervousness in my stomach at the appraising stares of the two guards — and their casual grip on unsheathed weapons — and step into place beside my mother. Apparently they already know she's coming, because neither of them stops her from stepping right between them and pushing the door open.

I step in after her, sweeping my gaze across the room we've stepped into even as I register the guards at our backs moving to shut the door again behind us.

It's a bedroom, or at least that's the layout, but instead of a bed behind the fall of sheer curtains there's a wooden crib trailing what looks like soft black fabric from its sides. Talia is standing over it, though she's watching us with just a touch of wariness to the steel of her gaze, one hand resting on the side of the crib. That has to be her son in there; she might have kept it almost completely under wraps but my mother told me that Talia was having a child. That's about all I know though, apart from the fact that it's a boy.

I kind of really want to know who the father could possibly be, but I'm not suicidal enough to ask. I will take exactly as much information as she feels like volunteering and then keep my mouth shut unless she wants to give more.

The door shuts, and I remember my manners just in time. I try to make the way I sink to my right knee graceful as opposed to jerky, dipping my head to bare the back of my neck as I raise my right hand to my heart. My mother stays standing, but I know better than to think that means that I'm not expected to show more respect. I don't have the reputation, skill, or standing of my mother.

"You may stand," Talia says, with the slightest approving edge. I shift back to my feet, meeting her gaze squarely and resisting the urge to shift closer to my mother. "Thank you for coming to meet me, Sandra." I almost twitch at the sounds of my mother's actual name; I am so unused to hearing her called anything but 'Lady Shiva.'

"Of course, Talia," my mother says with a smile. "What is it you wish to speak about?"

Talia's gaze slips sideways, to me. "Your son, as a matter of fact. Jason, isn't it?"

I nod, and then confirm it with a, "Yes, Mistress al Ghul."

She tilts her head just a bit, and then takes a glance down into the crib before she speaks. "My father and I have a few large operations planned for tonight, and I would like to take all of my more elite subordinates with us. Including you, Sandra, but you'd already been informed of that." My mother nods. "I refuse to leave my son unguarded however, and if I am to take my guards I require someone to take their place. Someone I believe will not harm nor allow harm to come to him."

I stay silent, waiting for her to come around to her point even though I think I can see where this is going.

Talia turns a little bit more fully towards the two of us. "Your mother's told me that you're fairly far advanced in your studies, Jason. Is that true?"

I glance at my mother, considering the question, and then incline my head as I choose the safe option. I could be confident of my own skill, or do what I really want to which is flash a cocky smirk and tell her that yes, I'm kind of a badass, but what I let come out of my mouth is, "I trust my mother's estimate of where my training is. She would know better than me."

It's definitely true. I think I'm pretty skilled, and I think she does too, but she's trained lots of people before me and I honestly don't know for sure how I compare. If Talia wants an estimate of my skills, she'll get a better one from my mother than from me.

By the slight flicker of a smile on both of their faces, I think that was definitely the right answer.

Talia raises a hand, crooking her fingers to beckon me closer. I pause for just a moment before I obey, moving up to her side and next to the crib, then following the motion of her hand to look down into it. The baby inside is wrapped in soft fabric in shades of dark red and gold, with a fuzz of black hair on top of his head and large jade eyes staring curiously up at me. Almost without thinking, I quiet my breathing a touch and keep myself still.

"This is my son, Damian." Talia's voice is quiet, with a touch of softness I've never heard in it before. "You'll stay in this room by his side and guard him until I return tomorrow morning. No one else is to come into this room, and I expect you to kill anyone who tries. Do you understand?"

I lift my gaze, looking back up at Talia. "Yes, Mistress. Is there any code word or phrase I should know, in case plans change? Or instructions, for if he needs anything while you're gone?"

Another small flicker of a smile. "Yes, both." She straightens a touch, turning towards my mother. "Sandra, I will see you later for our journey. Thank you for bringing your son to me." My mother gives a small inclination of her head, and Talia turns back to me before she can say anything. "Jason, do you require something to write this information down, or will you remember it?"

"Is it a lot of things?" I ask bluntly, as I hear the door open and then close shortly after. "I know memory techniques, but if it's more than four or five things I'd like to write it down at first so I can memorize that instead of just hearing it once."

Talia gives a soft laugh, and I almost jump as Damian responds to the sound by making what I can only describe as a coo. I look down, and those chubby little cheeks have risen with an open mouthed smile, eyes wide and sparkling. I haven't had many opportunities to use adjectives like this living with the League, but it's pretty damn adorable. This is Talia's son? The heir to the demon and the next ruler of the whole League? I don't think I can fully connect the images of the deadly killer this kid is going to be with the adorable, chubby cheeked child he is right now. But then I guess I was probably the same as a baby, and I'm definitely dangerous now.

One of Talia's hands reaches down, stroking fingers over her son's cheek and then leaving them to be gripped by the tiny fingers of one flailing hand. "It will not be much to remember," she assures me. "Listen well though, because I expect you to follow all of them with the utmost precision."

"Of course, Mistress al Ghul."

The room is dark and silent, but that's good. My eyes have long since adjusted to it, positioned within the room and against a wall like I am. There's a barred and bulletproof window on the wall to my left, the main door on the right wall, a door to the bathroom — no entrance through there — directly to my right, and Damian's crib just across from me. The moonlight is shining through the window, but that's the only source of illumination in the room and it doesn't do much but brighten a square near the center of the stone floor.

There's no direct line of sight to Damian's crib, not from the window or the door. To get a shot at him you'd have to be already inside the room, which is where I come in. I'm here to be still and silent, part of the scenery, unless someone tries to break in through either of those entrances. Then I either kill them, or leave them too broken and crippled to do anything but tell Talia exactly what she wants to know before she enacts vengeance for the attempt on her son's life.

The base itself is quieter than I've seen it in a long time; whatever job the al Ghul's are pulling tonight it must be a pretty massive undertaking. Not that I don't think I'm a pretty good choice as a guard to Damian, but more that there are other subordinates of hers that are more experienced and arguably more trustworthy, so leaving me to guard him is definitely not the first choice. Whatever they're doing must either be a massive assault, or a war on so many different fronts it's unbelievable.

If my mom can tell me about it, I'll be really interested to hear the stories when she gets back.

Damian's been more or less asleep the whole time, though I circle around every once in awhile to check and see if he needs anything. Most times he's dead to the world, but twice I've gotten wide jade eyes blinking up at me that are just as curious as that first look I got. It's a weird feeling, but there's something in my heart that feels soft whenever he looks back at me. It's kind of similar to the feeling I get in the quieter moments alone with my mom, but at the same time not at all.

I think I might have protected this kid even if he didn't have the al Ghul name behind him, though having that name will certainly make his life easier. In some ways. I can only imagine the training that Talia and Ra's will put him through, but on the other hand he's already got the weight of a deadly name and the promise of an army at his fingertips. When he grows up he'll be quite the force to be reckoned with, and I kind of hope I'm still here to see it. I hope I get to watch whole armies have to bow to this tiny kid and his wide eyes.

From the other side of the room there's a low cry, and I'm moving before I can even think about it. I stay in the shadows as I circle the room, coming up on the other side of the crib so I can look inside. I can see another cry building, his cheeks flushing red, but I raise my gaze up so I can still see the window and the door before I make a move to stop it.

I gently hush him, and when that gets me an offended looking blink of his eyes and the flail of one tiny arm, I let my mouth twist into a soft smile. "Hush, little al Ghul," I murmur. "I know, I'm a poor substitute for your mom. She'll be back soon."

I draw one of my bigger knives into my right hand, and then lower the left into the crib. Almost immediately there are hands grabbing at my fingers, and then a mouth wrapped around my index. I make a bit of a face, but don't retrieve my hand and don't lower my gaze. I can't feed him — apparently Talia is the only one who does that, out of necessity as well as a safeguard against poison — there's no smell, and I'm not allowed to pick him up out of the crib unless it's necessary for his safety or the aforementioned smell. But she never said I couldn't let him play with my hand to keep him happy and quiet. I know; I studied the rules she gave me pretty carefully to make sure I knew exactly what I could and couldn't do.

I'm not risking my life, his, or my mother's just because I wasn't paying attention.

His mouth leaves my hand, and tiny hands grab on kind of surprisingly tight as he squirms and then gives another soft cry. When I don't instantaneously respond, the next breath of his comes out louder and sounding a lot like it's a warning.

Without thinking about it I hum something soft, without the tune of any song I know but I don't think that matters. I glance down at him with a small smirk, and keep my voice low and quiet as I speak. "Easy, little prince. You can shout at me all you like when you're older, but maybe you want to keep yourself in check for at least a couple years. Pick fights with people you know you can beat, little al Ghul, not everyone around you." I let my smirk widen a touch, moving my hand against his grip to run my fingers back across that soft fuzz of hair. "Tell you what; if we ever spar, I promise I'll let you beat me the first time. Confidence boost and all that. Just don't expect me to do it a second time."

I have no idea if he understands even a little bit of what I mean, but he quiets anyway. His eyes are watching me as intently as I'm watching the two entrances to the room, and there's a significant focus to them for such a small child. I really do think he's going to be very interesting when he's older, and again I find myself curious who could possibly be the father. I just can't imagine who Talia and Ra's could have both found worthy of creating his eventual heir, let alone someone that Talia would actually be interested in.

Then again, I don't think anyone expected Lady Shiva to sleep with some random nothing of a criminal in Gotham's underbelly and end up with me, so there's that. I doubt Damian was an accident, but maybe it's more likely than I think that there's someone out in the world that the al Ghul's would consider worthy. I'm just probably not close enough to the top to know who it would be. Or, maybe it will get easier to know who Damian's father is as he gets older and more traits show through. He can't be all Talia, not unless there's some weird cloning shenanigans going on anyway.

There's a soft tap of something on the stone behind me, and reaction takes over.

I duck and whirl, pulling my hand away from Damian as I fling the knife in my other hand towards the sound. And then immediately freeze, because it's Talia behind me, and Talia snatching my knife out of thin air before it hits her. Her eyes are slightly narrowed, and as she flips the knife in her hand I swallow and shake myself into movement.

I bow my head as I sink to one knee, baring my neck just like before as I say, "Sorry, Mistress al Ghul." It's not enough, and I know that, but there's really not much else I can offer for throwing a knife at Talia al Ghul.

"Do not apologize," she remarks, as she moves closer to me. "I gave you no warning it was me, and I would rather you strike at me than hesitate to confirm an identity beforehand. I am more than capable of defending myself." She presses the hilt of the knife to my shoulder, and — still both embarrassed and nervous — I reach up and take it to tuck it away again. "Things went well?" she asks.

She definitely doesn't give me permission to stand though, so I stay exactly where I am as I answer. "Yes, Mistress. No one entered the room, and Damian seemed mostly content with sleeping or watching me."

"Good." She's silent for a moment, and then her fingers brush the back of my neck. "Thank you for your service tonight, Jason. You're dismissed; you may return to your mother."

I slip back to my feet, keeping my head a little bowed as I step to the side to give Talia space. "Yes, Mistress," I acknowledge, before I head for the door. I get about halfway there before I pause and turn around, a question burning in my mind. "Is there a secret entrance to this room, or did I really miss you coming in?"

Talia's mouth curls into a small smirk, watching me with the crib between us. "I did not come through the door or the window, no." It's not exactly the answer I was looking for, but at least it lets me draw my own conclusions that yes, there's a secret entrance in this room. Not surprising; it makes sense that Talia would want an exit strategy that no one else knew about for the sake of her son's safety.

"Got it." I bow my head again, bite back the, 'it would have been nice to know that,' sitting on the tip of my tongue, and resume my walk to the door. Talia doesn't stop me, and the door isn't locked when I slip outside. The guards are back though, not that either of them spares me more than a glance.

That's fine; they've got jobs to do and I don't need their attention.

The base is quiet as I slip through it, which makes me wonder if Talia waited for a while before coming back to her son. Usually when missions this big get pulled off there's a lot more movement all around as people get patched up, eat, and then head back to their rooms to sleep off the fatigue. So either a lot fewer people came back than originally went out, or my release was delayed and everyone's mostly already settled. I suppose I'll find out which it is from my mother, if she's still awake, or just by observation tomorrow. I've got training with my instructors for most of the day, but I'll travel through enough main areas going between them that I should be able to notice if we're missing a lot of people.

I get back to the rooms I share with my mother and fish my key out from inside my clothing to unlock the door. Light spills out from inside, and I raise my gaze as I step in to find her in the middle of stretching. She finishes the one she's doing as I close and lock the door again, and then settles back onto her feet and turns towards me with a soft smile. She's already dressed down, and a quick flick of my gaze doesn't turn up any bandages or bruises forming on her skin so she probably can't be too badly hurt.

"Did things go well, Little Jay?"

I shrug as I move towards her, and give a small grin as I answer, "I threw a knife at Talia." One moment for her eyes to flicker wide, and then I expand on the comment before she can start her questions. "Heard a noise behind me and threw the knife before I looked; she said she'd rather I almost hit her than hesitate on killing an intruder just to identify them first. We're fine."

I'm close enough by that point for her to reach forward and tug me into a hug, and I ease into it just as much as she does, wrapping my arms around her waist as hers circle my back. "You are a tempter of fate, Little Jay. Luck's been kind to you so far; perhaps you should stop relying on its protection."

"I'll be careful," I promise. "What about you? Halls are quiet; how'd things go out there?"

One of her hands ruffles my hair. "Very well. Let me tell you all about it, and you can tell me more about this throwing a knife at Talia al Ghul business, hm? I don't believe we ever got together for that dinner."

I grin up at her, letting go as she does and meeting her soft smile. "Of course, mom. Sounds great."

Getting summoned back the next day with my mother is not totally surprising, but it's a little worrying. There's nothing I can think of — apart from the whole knife-throwing incident — that she'd need me for, or that I could possibly offer her. If she's changed her mind about it being alright I threw that knife…

I'm screwed, basically.

That leads to me being seriously nervous when my mother and I are led to her, and then left alone in a small, offshoot room I didn't even know existed. It's a few minutes — I resist pacing, barely — until the door opens again, and one quick look confirms it's Talia so I drop down to my knees.

"You may stand," she immediately says, before the door's even fully closed.

I rock back to my feet, staying as silent as my mother though I'm not nearly as calm as her and can't even pretend to be. It's apparently pretty bad because she reaches over and rests her arm around my shoulders, drawing me half a step closer. Being in against her side makes things a little easier, even though I'm not sure I could honestly say that I think my mother would choose protecting me over loyalty to the al Ghuls. That's… That's a dangerous line of thought.

"Sandra," Talia greets, looking down at me as well, "Jason. I have a meeting to get to with my father, so I'll be short. I have a proposition for you, Jason, one which would grant you a prestigious title and much power, if you want it."

My tongue fails me a moment, and I can't help glancing up at my mother for some kind of clue. I don't get anything; she's looking at Talia with slightly narrowed eyes, and I'm pretty sure that she's as in the dark as I am. Not a common thing, since usually my mother knows just about everything that goes on around here, or is directly involved with it.

"Do I get to know what it is first?" I ask, and Talia's mouth flickers into an amused little smile.

"I've been searching for someone to become my son's companion, and his guard. Someone well trained," she nods to my mother, "loyal, and of the right temperament. I believe you fit my standards, Jason, and I would like to officially offer you that position. As my son's guard, you would be second only to my family, and my father and I's immediate lieutenants."

"So…" I swallow, trying to think through all the different implications of that. "It would be like—"

"You would be to my son as the White Ghost is to my father. His right hand, servant, and protector. In addition, I would expect you to have a hand in training my son, and to keep him firmly grounded. If his genetics show anything, it is that arrogance is a likely pitfall. Someone of your almost insubordinate attitude should do well at keeping him from that."

I wince at that, duck my head for a second. Before I can even try and defend myself — not that there's much to say — she's speaking again.

"I don't require an answer immediately," she reaches up, sliding a bit of her hair back behind the ear it's escaped from. "I expect one before the end of tomorrow however; come to me whenever you've decided."

My mind spins as she turns away, my mother's hand tightening on my shoulder, and then I snap to a conclusion and call out, "Wait! Mistress al Ghul!" She turns back from the door, one eyebrow raised, and I straighten up and step out from under my mother's arm. "Yes. My answer is yes."

Because I remember that kid in the crib, those jade eyes and that smile. I already knew I'd protect the kid even if he was just some random person's, and the fact that getting assigned to do that comes with power, respect, and an actual position in the League? That sounds like a win-win to me, no matter how the kid grows up.

Talia studies me for a moment, and I hold her gaze steadily. She smiles. "Good. To start with, I'll be sending you around the world to learn from various masters. You'll be seeing whether these masters are as good as reputation says, and whether they will be of any use to my son once he's old enough to learn from them. We'll discuss details later, and then you will be sent on to the first. Clear enough?"

I nod, and back it up with, "Yes, Mistress al Ghul. Thank you for the opportunity."

She echoes my nod, turns back towards the door, and says over her shoulder, "I trust you will not disappoint me. I will send for you, Jason. I would recommend being ready to leave."

She sweeps out before I can even start to formulate a response, and I stare at the partially open door for a moment before my mother is circling my shoulders with her arm again and leaning down to brush her lips over my temple. I almost startle, twisting my head up, and she's smiling at me with this hint of pride that warms my chest almost instantly.

"Congratulations, Little Jay," she murmurs. "Come, let's get you packed. Talia did not specify when 'later' was, and you should be ready whenever she calls." She pauses for a moment, I can't help smiling back, and then she squeezes my shoulder and adds, "Make me proud, Jason."

"Of course, mother."