Adventures in Babysitting Part 2
After thirty minutes into their journey to an abandoned building by the docks that Jason had furnished for emergencies, Jason had considered five different ways to torture and/or maim Damien Wayne-Al Guhl. For a kid whose mother had just begged for his protection, he was extremely ungrateful.
"Todd?" Damian gasped.
Jason had tuned out the young heir several miles ago and had instituted a breakneck pace over rooftops, across fire-escapes, and through back allies that forced his temporary ward to focus on his actions. Damien was scrappy, Jason could give him that, but he was still a child. His physical limitations were close at hand, luckily their destination was near. Jason scanned the area, making sure that he had lost their assassin pursuers.
"Todd?!" Damian's voice was haughty and reeked of that condescending attitude that Tahlia herself had. "Todd! You will take me to my father now!" The boy had stopped in his tracks and had folded his arms over his chest in an impeccable impression of Bruce.
Jason pulled a key from the inside of his jacket and unlocked the door to his safe-house motioning Damian to get off of the street.
"I could give the keys to the Bat-mobile to Two-Face while I'm at it, but common sense tells us that is a horrible idea." Jason grimaced at the consequences of leading an unknown number of the League of Assassins bearing an unfamiliar arsenal of weapons up the steps of Wayne Manor. The security at the manor was good, but it was paranoid billionaire good, not let's stop a small army good.
"My father could handle it." The boy said with absolute certainty. Jason's hands stiffened around the first aide kit he was holding as he recognized the unflinching faith in his voice. It was the same faith that allowed children to believe in the fairytale that those that you admire are untouchable. Jason's childhood had not had that faith. His prostitute-drug-addicted mother and abusive father had never given him that. He only remembered having that kind of hope once, using that tone once. At the time he was at the wrong end of a crowbar.
"On the off chance that you are wrong. . ." Jason muttered as he pulled of his shirt and dumped peroxide over his shoulder wound " It might be good to get you home without inviting the League of Assassins into the Bat-cave."
"Coward." Muttered Damian "How could father have ever chosen you? He treated you as a son. Trained you like a son. You lived with him for years and you can't even do this one small thing?"
Jason pretended to ignore the princeling in favor of pulling gauze around his shoulder and opening his weapons locker. He could hear the thickness of the tears that Damien was holding back. Jason knew Damien felt abandoned, it was a feeling he could relate to. He also knew that Damien had been taught by the same teachers he had, the All-Caste. The nine-year-old was jealous of the time Jason had spent with Bruce. He was angry that his father had not been a part of his life, anxious for his father's approval and acceptance, but he was never allowed to show emotions, never allowed to be angry, sad, or happy. This was the one lesson that Jason himself had never mastered. Neither, apparently, had Damien.
"If I were here my father never would have taken you in." The boy was visibly shaking now. The dam of emotions the boy had kept inside of him was about to burst. " I would have been a better Robin! A better son!" Jason looked at his watch as he put on his Red-hood gear. It looked like he would not be retiring the persona just yet. Nightfall was fifteen minutes away. They would need the cover of darkness to make it to the back entrance of the Bat-cave.
"Mother told me about you Todd." Damian sneered, looking ready for a fight in the same way that an arrogant Chihuahua would with a Doberman. Damian didn't understand his feelings, so he was striking blindly at the closest target. "Street trash, that's all you are. If my father hadn't taken pity on you all of those years ago you would have ended up in some crack-house. You would be the same kind of monster that you hunt, the same kind of garbage that your parents were, because that is who you are. After all, how could you be anything else?"
Jason glanced back at Damian Wayne, the blood legacy of the Batman, heir to the Wayne empire, and arrogant entitled asshole. Good genes had certainly not made him a better person. The idea that blood and heritage was the only thing that gave a person value was shit. Jason had spent his whole life fighting for the underdog, fighting for the victims of an unjust world. Jason might have been a street-rat, but he wasn't garbage. People were defined by their actions. Bruce had taught him that. Alfred had taught him that. Hell, even Dick had taught him that, but. . . Damien hadn't been as fortunate as Jason on that front. Jason had never considered himself more fortunate than another person in his life.
He watched as the tears fell from the young boy's eyes. Jason was not one who was familiar with comforting others. He could only remember three times in his life that someone had held him. So, he couldn't be sure when he put his arms around the boy's shoulders that he was doing it correctly. He felt awkward as he rested one of his hands on the back of the boy's head and whispered the same words Bruce had said to him on the day he had been caught stealing the wheels of the bat-mobile all of those years ago,"It's okay to be angry Damian, you'll be taken care of from now on, and when you're ready you can let go of the pain."
Damien's soul-shaking sobs filled the room for several minutes before the boy fell asleep. Jason sighed, he had hoped to leave the safe-house sooner rather than later, but the boy would need some rest. Jason let his leather jacket rest on the back of his chair as he set an alarm and began cleaning his guns. Tonight would be long.
