A/N: Alright, I have a few chapters pre-planed. This one took me four days to write, but that's more to say it took me three hours because I only get an hour to use the library computer's before I have to recheck it out and I might as well go home and do adult things by that point.
My Robin Reversal AU:
Jason-14 Damian-22
Chapter Two: The Rabid Teacher's Pet
Damian drove up to Wayne Manor on his bike, stopping in front of the front door. He only paused in his brooding gaze to remove his helmet. The last time he had actually set foot in Wayne Manor was when Timothy, . . . Damian shook his head. He wasn't here to relive the past. He was here to make certain that it didn't repeat itself. So steeling himself over and stomping his nerves deep down in his gut, Damian Wayne abandoned his bike and made his way to the door. He actually had to pause when his first instinct was to knock. It was a passive aggressive habit he had picked up during his and his father's more, ... abrasive part of their relationship. It wasn't to say that things were easy now between them, but it was progress. Slow, and unsteady, but progress non-the less. However, with how fragile everything had been between the two, Damian knew that just by knocking like he still didn't think of the manor as home anymore would be sufficient enough to destroy a good portion of that progress. Instead, Damian pulled out the key card Alfred had sent him when they updated the security systems and let himself in.
Already Damian could feel there was a difference between the last time he had been in the home and this one. For the most part, it no longer felt as depressing. Just with his first sweeping glance, Damian could see things had been moved around, a second glance showed him that it was all the more valuable, more fragile, items had been moved to either higher places or out of inconvenient areas all together, and a third glace at all the new dings in the wall gave him a good idea why. He pointedly chose to ignore specific pictures that had been removed from the main entry way as Damian continued on his mission.
There was a sent of Pennyworth's cookies wafting from the kitchen, and therefore, that was the direction Damian chose to go. Hopefully the butler would be of aid in his quest. With the thought in mind, Damian entered the room to see Alfred Pennyworth scrubbing at a mixing bowl while dinner simmered on the stove top and dessert baked in the oven. The old man's apron made Damian smile, just a little, as it called upon the memory of having bought it for the man his second Christmas in his father's home. Pennyworth finally paused his scrubbing to give Damian a knowing look and a smile before he moved to dry off his hands.
"Welcome home, Master Damian, I assume you will be joining us for dinner?" The Englishman asked as he moved to pull a mug from the cupboard, placing it on the counter.
"I believe I will today, thank you Pennyworth." Damian had since learned to see the butler in a grandfatherly light that his one actual grandfather could never shine against, but a part of that bond came from the understanding that it never needed to be addressed.
"Very good. Now if you'd be so kind as to take this tea up to Master Jason, I shall see to it that dinner will be ready in another half hour." The tricky butler poured boiling water from a kettle on one of the back burners into the mug before he pulled out a small mesh ball that was no doubt packed with tea leaves.
"So, you already know why I'm here," Damian sighed to himself. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised." Pennyworth didn't respond as he wrapped the chain on the mesh ball around the handle of the mug and handed it to Damian.
"I warn, he maybe in a bit of a sour mood," Pennyworth informed him, "Master Jason has been grounded once he returned home from school today."
Well, wasn't that just great? Damian carefully made his way up the stairs to the second floor as he analysed the set back. This was going to be the first time he met his second little brother and already he was working against obstacles. He couldn't help that he was now curious at how the kid managed to get grounded. As far as Damian knew the new Nightling had only been in his father's care for three weeks now, what mischief could his youngest sibling already get into? The thoughts were pushed to the back of his mind as he deduced, via the only closed door, which one was now Jason's room and knocked.
"Go away and leave me to die in peace!" Now wasn't that an interesting response. Damian just knocked again. "I mean it Bruce, I don't want to talk to you!"
"Then it's a good thing I'm not my father," Damian called out. There was a pause and the a rustling before foot steps made their way to the door. When the door opened a young boy with hazel blue eyes glared up at him. Damian was almost taken aback at how the boy resembled his father, but then again it seemed to be a quality that Gotham breed. One day of people watching on the street would prove that it was more common to find dark hair and light eyes in the city than any other coloration.
"Who are you? You look like a younger, tanner Bruce." Damian's brow twitched but he reminded himself that he could not afford to alienate this boy so early on in their relationship. Especially if they are to be brothers.
"My name is Damian, I'm Bruce Wayne's Tru-," Damian stopped and corrected himself, "eldest child. Pennyworth sent me with an offering." The young man held the mug up for the younger boy but was met with a suspicious gaze. Damian rolled his eyes before taking a sip of the tea and looking the boy in the eye with a cocked eye brow. Jason waited a beat before he accepted the mug of tea from Damian's hands and opened the door the rest of the way as a show of inviting him inside.
"Damian Wayne, huh? Yeah, Bruce and Alfie mentioned ya couple o' times. You're Shadowbat, ain't ya?" Jason called over his shoulder as he moved to his desk to the side of the room. Damian stopped short just past the door frame when he saw the mess Jason had made. Under the desk was lined with all of Jason's pillows as well as his thick comforter, and the desk chair had been up turned with the fitted sheet stretched over the wheels, spread to then cover the whole of the desk as if that was what the elastic corners were made to do. The non-fitted bed sheet was thrown over it length wise to make a door.
"I see you've already trashed your room?" Damian motioned to the, well the only word that came to his mind was 'nest'.
"It's my blanket fort!" Jason claimed proudly as he carefully crawled under with his tea. He reached farther back under the desk to pull out a book and smiled up at Damian. "Bruce said I was grounded ta my room and then took my T.V., as if I actually used the damn thing." Damian rose a brow at Jason expectantly and the boy seemed to back track. "Darn thing, I meant 'darn' thing."
"I take it Pennyworth still has yet to really make that lesson stick then, has he?" Damian asked as he sat on the naked mattress of Jason's bed.
"It's not my fault. On the streets, ya had ta show you weren't afraid of a few bad words. Now it's all about minding manners and not pi- ticking no body off," Jason bemoaned. "so it's not my fault that it's taking forever ta memorize every stupid rule." The pout might had made a weaker man melt. Damian was not a weak man.
"So is that why you're grounded?" he asked. Jason's pout moved to a scowl.
"No. I'm grounded because there's no justice in the world," he declared. Damian hummed in sarcastic agreement causing Jason to glare at him.
"So what injustice has fallen upon you?" Damian pushed as he settled more comfortably on the bed.
"There are a couple of jerks at my new school, and they asked me very nicely ta rearrange their faces," Jason 'explained', "and so I did."
"I believe I will need farther clarification." Jason huffed at Damian before he too settled in his pillow 'fort', and took a breath to begin his story. A very, very exaggerated breath. Maybe Bruce should get this one into theater.
"So I started a week after everyone else 'cause Bruce had only picked me up two weeks 'fore school had started-."
"Can you not speak like a hoodlum from the streets?" Damian interrupted.
"I am and hoodlum from the streets," Jason scowled, "I gotta stick ta my roots!"
"You're going to find it necessary to ditch the Crime Alley accent or everyone is going to know you're Nightling," Damian pointed out. Jason just huffed again before sighing, very, very dramatically.
"Fine!" He said in an exasperated tone. Jason then cleared his throat and started his tale up again. "Anyway. Everything was fine until English Lit when the teacher, Mr. Birchwood, decided to fix the assigned seating. See, since I was a week new he had just put me on the end, but he decided today that he was just going make me and Bentley Windsow switch places since the room was suppose to be in alphabetical order and we were throwing it off. But Bentley was use to sitting with his pal Jacob Steward and me being Jason Todd, put me between them, so they decided they were going to pick on me. I just ignored them at first, but that only made them try harder. They then started to make comments about Bruce, but I ignored that too. I didn't want to, but I know how bad it looks reacting to shi-crap like that. Tends to make people think it's true. Then Mr. Birchwood asked a question about Ray Bradbury's 'Fahrenheit 451' and I had just read that book last summer so I answered. Sure I was a bit overly enthusiastic about it, but give me a break, it was the first time reading ever gave me an edge in something! So of course Jacob and Bentley start making fun of me for being a 'teacher's pet', but I ignored that too! I stopped being able to ignore them when Bentley Windsow said that only fa-," Jason paused and glared down at his tea. "He said 'only fa-'. He said only gays like reading. But he didn't use the word 'gay' and that's when I jumped him. I then proceeded to bloody his nose with his own hard back copy of 'To Kill A Mockingbird' by Harper Lee."
Damian paused and had to appreciate the poetry in the image of a book about fighting discrimination without violence being used to violently fight a bigot. Though he had to ask, "What was it that made you jump to violence? Being called 'gay' or being made fun of for reading?"
"Neither. I hit him cause he said the 'f' word," Jason clarified. "I don't care about being called 'gay'. I grew up on the streets, I've been called worse." Damian had to nod in acceptance of the boy's answer.
"So you didn't approve of the slur? I would think growing on the streets you'd get use to hearing them."
"Didn't mean I liked it, and you can bet your as- erm, bottom dollar that anyone I could beat up for it I did. 'frick' and 'darn' and 'crud', their bad forms? I used them all the time! But the eff-ay-gee word? No! Same with the 'N' word, the 'C' word, and the 'R' word!" Damian followed along and started to get a better understanding of the boy before him. Jason's sense of justice expanded even into his vocabulary, and Damian could see why his father saw 'Nightling' in him for it.
Damian and Jason spent another couple of hours talking and bonding. Damian still found Jason to be a bit uncouth, but he did have to give the boy credit in his dedication to his love of reading. 'During the summer and winter the library was good shelter and I just kinda picked it up-' was his excuse for his bookish nature. By the time they finished talking Pennyworth explained that dinner had been reheated and they would have company now that his father had returned from work. The eldest son figured that if conversation with his father remained as icy as it had for the past few years, he'd just strike up another with Jason to prove that it wasn't due to his own incompatibilities.
A few days later found Damian attempting to hold a civil conversation with his father without Jason around to act as a crutch for him. The end result saw the two men sitting in the study by the empty fire place sipping at their tea, not knowing how to break the ice between them. It was a heavy silence that made Damian wonder if it was even worth it to try to salvage his relationship with his father. The man didn't seem all that interested in the same. Then again, this was his father, a man who, while held more love and passion than Damian's mother, had even less practice showing it. The fact that the Oh-So-Busy Bruce Wayne and Oh-So-Important Batman had both been put aside for the past hour in favor of a wordless cup of tea with his son should probably speak volumes about how hard the older man was trying. But Damian wanted him to try harder.
Just as Damian was about to really work himself into breaking the ice with some scathing and completely uncalled for words, the front door opened and slammed shut while an ornery fourteen year old boy shouted at the top of his lungs, "I QUIT SCHOOL!". Both Damian and his father rushed to the door where Damian's father instantly set in on Jason for slamming the door. When the boy seemed properly admonished Damian felt it was an appropriate time to satiate his own curiosity.
"So, my I ask why you are considering dropping out?" Damian asked.
"I'm not considering! It's past considered! It's been decided!" Jason called out flailing his arms about as he spoke.
"Seriously, Father, when are you going to have him enrolled in an acting troupe?" Damian muttered to the man beside him.
"I, too, wonder why I put it off," his father muttered back, a tired though amused, look on his face.
"Dames, ya 'member when I told ya 'bout Bentley Windsow and Jacob Steward, right?" Jason started in by referencing a previous conversation.
"I do. I also remember telling you to talk like a civilized person."
"Gah! Fine!" Jason relented and straightened up as he continued to talk, as if keeping a proper posture helped remind him to keep to proper dictation as well. "So, get this, after Bentley's face healed up and was no longer all bruised to hel-hec- all bruised up," Jason had to try a couple times to watch his mouth and Damian's father's lips twitched as if threatening to smile, "he recruited 'Kegs' Kingsly and Monte Brooks to help him and Jacob try to 'teach me a lesson'. Alright, fine, I can handle myself in a fight. I can even take a beating and throw the fight to preserve my identity as Nightling. But Kegs said that the reason I beat up Bentley was because he made fun of Ray Bradbury and I corrected him and said it was because he said the 'F' word, but that just made them think I was talking about the word 'Fu-'erm the street version of 'frick'. Then they started chanting that I was a 'teacher's pet' and a 'nerd' and then they tried to beat me up and I was already angry and frustrated and so when Kegs tried to punch me, I hit him in the face using his own fist and stomped off when they were distracted. Now they have everyone saying 'F-word' around me, and no, I'm not abbreviating that time, they are literally saying 'F-word', and started a rumor that I ran crying! I didn't once cry the entire time!"
Jason was out of breath from his story, and considering how many run-on sentences he used, Damian was impressed that he didn't pass out half-way through. He did notice that the younger boy's eyes were slightly wet as if he was fighting back tears, and his nose was dripping a little as Jason no doubt fought off the urge to 'sniffle'. Damian hummed in thought and chanced a looked to his father, who's stone straight face was all the proof Damian needed to know that the man was dying of laughter on the inside. The older brother rolled his eyes and addressed the younger boy again.
"So you're plan to fix your sullied reputation is to run with your tail between your legs like a coward?" He asked. Jason glared at him before he seemed to realize the truth of what Damian was saying.
"I, uh, I guess I can't do that either, can I?" Jason muttered to himself before his eyes found his shoes and he bit his lip.
"Honestly if the worst is being considered a 'teacher's pet' then I believe you're doing fine. At least if your peers are constantly looking down on you they'll never suspect you to secretly be Nightling." Damian smirked when Jason glared back up at him. "Consider it a sacrifice for the greater good."
"Fine," Jason huffed as he crossed his arms. Putting so much overemphasis on the action it was ridiculous.
"Also," Damian's father jumped into the conversation, finally getting it together, "I want you to try to avoid fights. I understand that these boys cornered you and that this 'Kegs' threw the first punch, but I would rather you duck and run while at school."
"Bruce. I ain't no sissy. I'm from the street, and if someone throws a punch at me, I'ma hit 'em back. Three times as hard," Jason said plainly while looking his adoptive father in the eye. "And I promise this, next time those losers corner me, one of 'em is going to the hospital."
There was nothing left to say on the topic, at least, as far as Damian could see. It appeared that Jason was of a similar mind set as he picked up his book bag from where he had dropped it before and marched his way up the stairs to his room. Some where in the back of Damian's mind he could hear a voice telling him that this wasn't the end of it.
It was barely a week later and Damian was walking toward the headmaster's office of Jason's high school. Damian had to be the one to go, of course, because his father was busy in a meeting for Wayne Industries that Fox wouldn't let him out of and Pennyworth insisted that he needed to work on dinner and requested that Damian be the one to go. Damian was more than well aware that the butler was just giving him another opportunity to bond with his new younger brother and therefore let himself be manipulated to the task easily enough. However, he was not prepared for the queasy feeling in the bottom of his gut at the thought of dealing with an irate school official.
The feeling subsided a little with the aid of amusement at the site of three young teenage boys with their own parents, sitting in the waiting room. Each one sported some impressively dark bruises on their faces and each of their parents were seething. Judging by the count of the boys, Damian deduced that Jason must have made good on his threat to send one of his bullies to the hospital.
Ready to get this over with, Damian walked up to the desk where the secretary was filing paper work and cleared his throat, "Excuse me, I'm Damian Wayne, Jason's brother."
The secretary nodded at him and lead him to the door just behind her desk to the Headmaster's office, where Headmaster Smith sat glaring at Jason. Jason, for his part, was failing to hide the satisfied look on his face despite knowing it would only be detrimental to his own well being. Damian figured as the boy's big brother, he'd best help the kid out with that.
"So," Damian called Jason's attention, "Which work of classic literature did they mock this time, Nerd?"
The speed in which Jason's subtle smirk soured made Damian's heart sing.
A/N: Alright, I'm not using a beta on this and I'm barely giving these chapters a cursory glance before uploading them just to make certain they're legible.
Alright, so here's Damian and Jason bonding. I will be honest, I find there tends to be a lack of balance in Oldest Brother Damian in most Robin Reverse AU's I've seen. So I'm trying extra hard not to fall into that same trap by making Damian too nice to his little brothers, but I also don't want him to be the same immature little prick that Baby Brother Damian of the cannon is.
I love Nerd Jason. I also know that Jason isn't going to get stuck with the title without a fight so this is going to be fun.
R&R if you liked. (need a default response? just say: 'Loved IT!'. I'll accept it.)