"Preposterous! You expect us to ride coach?"
"What part of 'under the radar' did you not understand?"
"Surely first class tickets are not that conspicuous."
"They are when all three passengers are under age and one of them is mute. We get first class seats and we'll look like three runaways who stole daddy's credit card for a joyride."
"But—"
"No, Damian. We're riding coach and that's final."
The boy grumbled and stomped off. Jason rubbed his temples, trying to relax the migraine that had sprung up during the argument. While he was glad his younger brother had gotten comfortable enough to argue with him over things like this, it also meant the return of bratty Damian, someone he had not missed. At all.
Jason had been prepared to deal with the tantrums that came with the child that he and Tim had so lovingly nicknamed 'demon spawn' years ago, but that did not make it any less exhausting. None of his Robins had been as spoiled and obnoxious as Damian was during his younger years, but then again, all of them except Matty had been far older when they came into his care and had experienced some resemblance of a normal life beforehand. Damian, for all his training and intelligence, still had the relative maturity of a seven-year-old kid who had been spoiled rotten by a distant family. A family that also systematically abused him with the intention of making him into a killing machine to help fulfill their delusions of world domination.
At least the boy had not complained about the rest of the cover. Playing the part of ignorant American tourist was every bit of demeaning as Damian claimed it to be, but there was no better cover than that. Just ask a few dumb questions, take a few enthusiastic pictures and people would write them off as foreigners with too much money and time on their hands and leave them alone. The only problem there was their ages, but thankfully they were only staying in the public for a day to pick up some new clothes before heading to the airport. People would just assume that their parents were nearby or something and leave them alone.
At least, that was what he hoped would happen. In this case, the biggest snag wasn't Damian, but Cass. A mute girl was not an easy thing to just brush off. Some may leave the situation alone out of propriety, but even more would inquire about where their parents were, because surely they'd be worried about their impaired daughter. Especially at the airport, when they learned that her only traveling companions were two brothers who were respectively sixteen and seven.
Cass herself was another problem entirely. The girl observed human behavior well enough to mimic it, so acting normal in itself was not the problem. It was the lack of literacy; bad enough she didn't know how to speak, but reading and writing as well? Jason could only hope TSA didn't ask too many questions.
I always did like to make it hard for myself, Jason thought mournfully.
Jason held up a picture of Dick, showing it to Cass and Damian.
"Richard," He enunciated clearly. Cass quickly began parroting the word, trying make the correct sounds. Jason handed her the picture so she could focus entirely on it while committing their eldest sibling's face to memory.
"And that would be…?" Damian asked. The boy was doing his own homework next to him, studying the layout for the airports they were going to use for the trip.
"Richard John Grayson-Wayne. Our oldest brother."
Damian perked up immediately. "The first Robin?"
"Yup. Though he goes by Nightwing these days. Protects his own city in Bludhaven. We're actually going to see him first before we meet Bruce."
Damian looked down at the floor plans he'd been studying. "That's why you're having me study the layout for the Bludhaven airport?"
"Yes. Bludhaven…" Jason winced, "In some ways it's worse than Gotham. But going there will not only throw off the trail of most of the people that will be after us, but also give us an in with Bruce. Dick is more likely to believe us to be who we say we are than Bruce will be. Or he'll at least treat us better until he can confirm it himself than Bruce would."
Damian nodded along absentmindedly, until he suddenly adopted a pinched expression. "Why are you calling our older brother a euphemism for testicles?"
"It's what he prefers to be called," Jason replied, grinning, "Dick is an old shorthand for Richard from the early days of writing, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. I don't know why he sticks with it; it's pure fodder for all sorts of jokes and unflattering nicknames."
"I see," Damian wrinkled his nose, "I take it he doesn't care?"
"Nope. Dick is the most cheerful member of the family. Combined with his good looks and overall friendly personality, and you'll be alienating a lot of people if you alienate him," he tapped the tip of Damian's nose pointedly, "So don't."
"What about his strength? How skilled is he?"
"One step below Bruce himself. I'm pretty sure I can give him a decent fight, but as I am now I doubt I can beat him," Suddenly Jason's expression morphed into something that resembled admonishment, "Which means you don't stand a chance at all, so don't even think about it."
Damian pouted. Not that he'd ever admit it.
"Richard," Cass cut into the banter, smiling as she handed the picture to Jason. Jason gave her a congratulatory pat on the leg, and then showed her another picture; this time, it was of Tim in his civvies.
"Timothy," Jason recited clearly, handing it to his sister so she could repeat the exercise.
"I take it that's your successor as Robin?"
Jason nodded, "Timothy Drake. From what your mother told me, he replaced me as Robin about six to eight months after I died."
"So you don't know much about him."
Jason shrugged. "You could say that," he responded cryptically. Damian didn't fail to notice the non-answer, but said nothing.
Rather than wait for a response, Jason took out another photo, this time of Alfred. He trailed on the lines of the picture with fondness; unlike the other members of his family, Alfred had a relatively peaceful death. He had died of old age, not long after the deaths of Tim and Damian, though the impact it had on the family was no less devastating.
Jason, as Bruce's only known heir at the time, didn't have the heart to replace him; the man had been more than a butler to the Waynes. He had been family. Instead, he had opted to take on the chores of cooking and laundry himself and had a thoroughly vetted housecleaning staff enter the grounds every week to take care of the rest of the Manor.
It would be nice, seeing Alfred again.
"Why do you have a picture of the help?"
And here we go again, Jason internally groaned as he prepared for a long discussion on why, exactly, Alfred was not just 'help'.
"You don't talk about Father much," Damian noted as they transversed around the market place.
After Damian proved himself able to interact with the public as a normal child on his own, without Jason's direction, his older brother permitted him to come with him for the sessions with Cass and for more social trips, just to get out of the temple for a bit. Jason typically used these short reprieves to buy books that he read to Cass and Damian at night, snuggled together by the candlelight. It helped Cass with her literacy, and helped lull Damian to sleep whenever the stubborn child tried to stay up.
"… I guess I don't know what to say about him. Where I should start," because his relationship with Bruce was tangled and knotted with so many different kinds of feelings that Jason might as well be blundering in the dark to find the beginning of it all. He loved Bruce, he knew that much, and he knew that, despite everything that had happened between them through the years, that love had never died.
But no one was more aware of Bruce's faults as a man than Jason (except Dick and Alfred, perhaps). Flaws that Jason had never lost sight of, even as the years passed and his memories were glazed over with a light, rose-tint, as time was wont to do. With Damian, still so painfully innocent of his father's character, it was a question of painting an accurate picture without destroying the boy's own personal image of the figure that had dominated his fantasies for so long. Jason didn't want that on his shoulders. God knows that Bruce would probably manage that on his own somehow, somewhere down the line.
"Mother painted him as a distinguished warrior, as the only man worthy enough to be her mate. Grandfather said he was an esteemed adversary and an invaluable ally. But none of them have really talked about him, what he's like," Damian huffed, "You have, though not enough. You've told me about his ideals, about what he is above else. But not what he's like as a person, what it's like to really, truly interact with him. That is what I want to know about him. I want to know…" He inhaled, "… if he will like me." He whispered the last part of the sentence like a plea.
For all his childish naivete and privileged upbringing, Damian had never been accused of being anything less than intelligent. Jason's words about Bruce echoed in his thoughts, and it wasn't hard to make connections. Damian had spent his entire life indoctrinated in a belief system that diametrically opposed his father's. And his father was a stubborn man and with a great amount of pride, not unlike Damian himself. With his mother essentially abandoning him, Damian was desperate for parental affection, and wholly aware that his father was unlikely to be open with it, at least with him. As such, he was fishing for information so he could adjust his behavior to be something more acceptable for their father, thus help mitigating whatever damage the details of his past would have on their relationship.
Jason said nothing as he mulled this over. He remained silent throughout the rest of the journey, until they arrived at the local bookstore. It was a small shop, musky with the smell of old, battered and well-worn books. The books themselves were a relatively small selection. They were haphazardly organized by genre and publication date, spread out over a number of languages in even more different dialects. When Jason first found the shop, he deliberately stuck to the English section. While he was no doubt capable of reading everything in that store, and was certain that Damian could read a good chunk of it on his own as well, English was still the primary language of their inevitable destination, and so Cass needed to learn it above all else.
The bell that hung at the corner of the door rang the moment they entered. The shopkeeper, an old woman with her graying hair tied in a messy bun, held up a hand in greeting before returning to stacking money on the counter. Jason gave her a short nod before guiding Damian with him to the line of shelves where the English section was. He immediately spotted what he was looking for, and handed it over to his younger brother.
"This was the first book our father got me," Jason said quietly, tapping on the title: Pride and Prejudice. "It was my favorite book long before I met him, the one I kept on reading again and again. So, for my first birthday at the Manor, he bought a first edition of the book and gave it to me."
"I loved it and hated it. It was my first gift from him, and it was something invaluable. But because it was invaluable, I was terrified to even so much as turn a page. I had to wrap it in some protective plastic and put it on display on the bookshelf in my room," Jason chuckled lightly, "When it came down to it, it wasn't a very practical gift."
"It seems like he did not really think your gift through," Damian commented, with an odd sense of wonderment to his voice.
"He didn't," Jason shook his head, a fond smile on his face. "When it comes to work, our father throws everything he has into it. He thinks about all the possibilities, all the possible contingencies for those possibilities, and then makes contingencies for those contingencies. But when it comes to his loved ones… he cares, make no mistake about that. It's just that he tends to see the forest instead of the trees, the big picture above all else. It's one of the reasons his first partnership started fracturing. Why his partnership with me started fracturing. He tried to plot out the best possible futures for us without considering our opinions on the matter."
Damian said nothing, simply staring down at the book as if it had revealed some dark, terrible secret he hadn't expected to hear. Jason clapped a hand on his shoulder, drawing him out of his thoughts.
"Expect greatness when you meet him, but never perfection. He might be a great man, but he is still just that — a man."
After that, it seemed so much easier to talk about Bruce. Every little thing that the siblings did together prompted some kind of story or anecdote of their absent father. Jason had been mindful to keep them within the confines of his first life, the life that Bruce would remember, but the comments still often stumbled out of his mouth before he realized he was saying anything at all.
Damian loved it. He'd listen, entranced, as Jason detailed something as mundane as a morning at the Manor, or a training session before patrol. It was obvious he was hoarding every piece of information on his father and filing it into his brain for reference for when he finally met the man in question. Cass was less attentive (obviously due to a lack of understanding) but seemed happy enough to hear the brothers converse so animatedly, without a hint of hostility.
Of course, there was some umbrage about the other aspects of Bruce's daily life…
"Bruce," Jason pointed to a picture of Bruce in his office, taking a call for work. He handed it to Cass, letting her practice saying the name, before taking out another picture and presenting it to Damian.
It was much more… wild. It saw Bruce being all but smothered by a gaggle of scantily clad women, all of whom were fighting to press their ballooning breasts against his chest and claw at his suit. Bruce seemed to enjoy it, his arms spread out as if to welcome them, a wide grin on his face. His bowtie was partially undone, and there was a half-filled martini glass dangling from one of his hands.
"Brucie," Jason stated firmly, sliding it over to the young boy.
"… What. Is. This." The boy hissed, glaring at the picture as if it had personally offended him.
"Our father's public persona. I figure I'd warn you now about it, because Bruce is going to have to throw a gala to formally introduce us to Gotham high society," Jason paused, "Or reintroduce, in my case."
"And he'll be acting like this?"
Jason leaned back into his pillow and sighed, "It's the best way to convince people that Batman is not Bruce Wayne. Nobody is going to expect the guy throwing himself at women like a man starved and showing up at fancy balls in pajamas is going out in a bat suit every night to punch out violent criminals. It just doesn't compute to the average joe."
Damian sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I understand that. It's just… it's going to be so embarrassing to be out in public with him. The man in this picture is not a man I'm going to be proud to call my father in public."
"You're preaching to the choir, kid," Jason snorted, "Once you know the real Bruce, Brucie is so disingenuous it's downright creepy. Everyone in the family hates Brucie; we only put up with him because he's damn good at deflecting the smarter ones from connecting the dots," he shrugged, "Dick even based his Richie Wayne persona after him. That one is a little more tolerable, if only because it's close enough to the real thing, just with a lot more space in the noggin."
"And you?"
"Bruce figured out pretty early on that having his adopted street rat at one of those parties was only going to be a recipe for disaster. Of course, now that I've come back from the dead, there's no way I'll be able to avoid them."
"What of me or Cassandra?" Damian asked, suddenly realizing with rising dread that he might have to attend these soirees.
Jason patted him on the shoulder comfortingly. "I wouldn't worry too much there. You're far too young to be attending these things; even if your presence is required, you probably won't have to stay long. Same with Cass, for obvious reasons."
"Bruce," Cass punctually stated, handing the picture back to Jason. She then looked down at the picture in Damian's hands, and pointed at it, tilting her head. "Bruce?"
"Sorta, Cass," Jason said, wincing as he made the customary hand gesture to help her understanding. Cass made a silent 'oh' in realization, though there was still some confusion on her face.
Despite the initial issues, Jason came to enjoy this time with Damian and Cass. Damian was too young to remind him of the Damian Jason lost, and Cass was Cass, not to mention she was very much alive the last time he saw her before his second death. Jason knew that he wouldn't have such an easy time divorcing these past versions of his family from the family he knew (and lost) when it came to the others, and tried to savor it as much as possible.
Even so, the day finally came. Damian managed to successfully convince three locals he was the lost child of an American tourist. Cass managed to make it through a crowd without anyone drawing attention to her lack of communicative skills. Three and half months after Jason Todd returned from the dead for the second time, one and a half months after his younger brother and sister arrived to the Chamber of All, it was finally time to leave.
"Thank you for sheltering us, All-Mother," Jason clasped his hands together and bowed. Damian and Cass mimicked the action, the former after a small nudge from his older brother.
"Thank you, All-Mother," Damian muttered reluctantly. Cass said nothing; her gratitude was more than evident on her face.
"Like I said, you're trouble, and your siblings are no better," Ducra gave a good-natured sigh, "But all three of you are trouble we can get behind. Don't make the time you spent here a waste."
"We won't," Jason said firmly, as if the very idea of it was impossible to think about.
Ducra smiled at him, taking his hands and giving them a comforting squeeze. "You're going to see your father again. How do you feel?"
"Happy," Jason answered immediately, before hesitating a bit, "And scared too. I know that once I see him, I won't be able to hide anything from him. And once it's all out in the open…" He trailed off, unable to voice all the possibilities in his head.
"Have faith, Jason. Not just in him, but in yourself as well," she patted him on the cheek, "If your bond with him is true, then it will hold past any insecurities and fears you both have."
Jason smiled weakly at her; the advice was comforting, but he wasn't sure if he believed it. Giving his hands one last squeeze, Ducra let him go, watching as her student and his siblings disappeared into the surrounding forest.
The Chamber of All, while typically located in a mountainous region, tended to relocate its entrance (and therefore, exit) in a much more milder climate, halfway around the world, on a random day every couple of years. Nobody, not even the All-Caste, understood why; Ducra kept purposely mum about it, though there were rumors that the Chamber was sentient and had a sense of humor. There were, however, methods to figure out when this day would be, and she handed out that secret rather freely. Nobody understood that either.
Jason took advantage of this day for their departure. The region the Chamber usually relocated the entrance to was near Istanbul, Turkey, and therefore the Istanbul International Airport. Once they entered the city, Jason dropped money at the nearest hotel for a room and then went to the lobby computer to book them an international flight to Bludhaven. According to the itinerary he printed out, the trip would have two connecting flights; the first one would take them from Istanbul to New York, and the second would take them from New York to Bludhaven. While the second flight would be much shorter, the layover would be at least three hours. By the time they would get to Bludhaven, it would be nighttime; Dick would probably be prepping for patrol by then.
So, his next step was to book them a night at the Bludhaven Plaza hotel. While it wasn't the Ritz, it was comfortable enough, and far away from the more dangerous parts of Bludhaven. After they arrived in the city, they could stay the night there and find Dick in the morning. Jason was pretty certain he still remembered the address of the precinct where Dick was stationed during his time as a police officer. The question was whether he should enter there himself, or trail Dick to his apartment instead.
Looking at the clock, he figured he could decide that later. He returned to the hotel room where Damian and Cass were reading one of his books together (bonding!), and started to prep their luggage. The day before they left the All-Caste, Jason had burned all the files Talia had given them. With all the information firmly memorized in his and Damian's head, the hard copies were only liabilities. The last thing they needed was someone stealing them and landing the entire family in trouble, the exact opposite of the reason why Talia entrusted Damian to Jason and Cass in the first place. This left one of the briefcases Talia had given them completely empty, which Jason used to store a change of clothes for all three of them and some of the books he had bought to pass the time on the plane ride. He would try to sleep, but had a feeling that sleep would be rather fitful for him the closer they got to Gotham.
After that, he took them out to visit a local barber shop for haircuts. All three of them had their hair grown rather unruly during their time with the All-Caste; Cass's in particular was so long that Jason dreaded someone taking advantage of such a visible weak spot during a fight. Upon their arrival, he grabbed the nearest magazine and started sifting through for the appropriate hairstyles, choosing a bob for Cass and one vaguely similar to Damian's original haircut for the boy in question. As for himself, he chose a short cut that allowed a bit of his hair to fluff out in the front, similar to the cut he used during his Red Hood days while he was bouncing around the universe with Roy and Kori as the Outlaws.
By the time all three of them were done it was late in the afternoon. Jason opted to get them a nice dinner and ice cream as one last treat before they had to suffer the questionable quality of airplane food. It had been a while since he had Turkish food anyway. Thankfully, it didn't take the host long to seat the three of them; Damian's face scrunched up at being given a kid's menu, so Jason handed him his own and shared with Cass. He needed to order for her anyway.
As soon as their orders were placed, Jason propped up his elbows on the table and gave a pointed look at Damian, smiling lightly. "Just a few more days, huh?"
Damian gave him a neutral look. He said nothing.
"Are you excited?"
The boy shrugged. "I am… eager, yes. I'm just worried about how he'll react to my presence. From what you've told me about him, he will not be happy to hear that Mother has kept me from him for so long. Nor will he be pleased to hear of my upbringing."
"He won't," Jason admitted, knowing that his youngest brother wouldn't appreciate sugarcoating, "But he'll warm up to you, once he gets to know you better. My approval should help with that." He put a comforting hand on Damian's shoulder. "No matter where you came from, what you've done, you're still his son Damian. Nothing will ever change that." It hadn't for him, after all.
"And what of our brothers? Do you think they will approve of me?" Do you think they'll love me?
It was a true mark of progress that he was seeking their approval instead of their removal. Jason was suitably pleased.
"As long as you don't deliberately antagonize them, things will be fine. Try to reach out to them, compromise, and they'll meet you halfway."
"Mother says that someone of my blood never needs to compromise."
"Well, I thought we agreed that your Mother isn't always right about these things."
"We did," Damian whispered, looking down for a bit. After a long moment, he looked up again to meet Jason's gaze. "Do you approve of me, Jason?"
Jason lifted his hand to ruffle his hair in an increasingly familiar gesture that Damian refused to admit he enjoyed.
"Damian, I've loved you from the moment we met in the Chamber. Of course I do."
Jason had chosen a night flight, specifically so they could sleep both before the flight itself and on the plane. Travel was exhausting, even more so when you needed to be on alert for almost every second of it. The following morning, he woke up Damian and Cass for breakfast, then took them on a short trip to a nearby convenience store to buy toothbrushes and toothpaste, along with some shampoo and conditioner for a quick shower. They returned to the hotel, straightened out their luggage and took another long nap, before checking out of the hotel around three. They had another meal at a nearby bistro, before finally leaving for the airport.
By the time they arrived, it was five, three hours before the actual flight. Early, of course, but that's how a lot of Americans traveled. It was an effective cushion when dealing with the often trouble-addled TSA, and made it easier to avoid any tails they might have. Not that Jason had noticed any; either Talia was covering for them more than she cared to admit or Ra's wasn't as concerned about them as much as Jason thought. Whichever it was, it was useful. They made it through security with little hassle and into the terminal.
The first thing Jason did was direct them to the nearest convenience store. Outside food and drink were a no go and Jason knew they would need snacks and water for the trip. They could not rely on the complimentary sustenance that would be given to them on both flights. Jason directed both Damian and Cass to each take one large snack bag that they would like, then got six water bottles from the nearest shop fridge. At the counter, all of the items were placed in a large bag that Jason had Cass lug around. To reinforce their cover, Jason deliberately talked obnoxiously to the cashier in heavily accented Turkish, while Damian playfully tugged Cass around to point at the magazine stand, which was decidedly not stocked with People or Us.
Then they went to their gate. It was still populated with people waiting for the flight departing prior to theirs, so he directed his siblings to one of the few open spots on the floor and took out Pride and Prejudice for them to read out loud. It was mostly him and Damian, though occasionally Cass tried a sentence or two, with her brothers patiently helping her sound out the words. In about an hour the gate had mostly cleared out, allowing them to claim some of the empty seats for their own use and continue.
When it was time to finally board, Jason put the book away, though separate from the briefcase, and took them both by the hand as they waited for their section to be called. Damian plastered his widest, most innocent smile on his face and took his hand while Cass picked up their bag of goodies and stood on his other side. Jason took out their boarding passes, filing the appropriate ones into the correct passport and handing one to Cass while keeping his and Damian's. After they were checked in, they headed into the plane, allowing one of the smiling flight attendants to direct them to their seats. He quickly stacked his two briefcases on top of each other in the cabinet above and allowed everyone else to sit down, with their food and water placed directly under the seats in front of them. Damian was at the window seat, farthest away from actual people and allowing him a decent view of Istanbul for takeoff, Cass in the middle, and him by the aisle, where he could do all the talking.
Thirty minutes later the plane was ready to take off. He showed Cass how to do her seatbelt, made sure Damian's was tight enough, and held Cass's hand when the ascent began, calming her during the unfamiliar sensation. When the flight stabilized, he pointed to the screen mounted in the seat in front of her, showing her how to navigate through the channels while listening with the complimentary headphones. After noticing that Damian had already figured out the controls for himself (and vaguely amused at how entranced the boy seemed to be with a channel of cartoons), he took out Pride and Prejudice again. Marking the place where he originally stopped with a bent page, he continued reading the book again in silence.
Only pausing for the complimentary drink and then dinner, Jason waited until Damian and Cass were ready to sleep to put the book away. Once he was sure they were settled in and away in dreamland, he turned off the light, closed his eyes, and began to think.
In less than forty-eight hours, they were going to meet Dick in Bludhaven. Twenty-four after that, they would see Tim. Alfred.
Bruce.
And here's the freak out, Jason thought languidly to himself.
He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't have had to spend the last month and a half teaching a seven-year-old Damian to act like a passable human being in public. He shouldn't have needed to use that time to teach Cass how to communicate with others in a barely functional manner. He shouldn't be sixteen years old, traveling with two of his siblings to meet another one of his siblings so he can vouch for their identities when they meet another sibling, their grandfather, and their father. A father who technically wasn't the father of their sister and one of their brothers yet.
He should be dead.
And while Jason wasn't blind to the benefits, he also wasn't blind to the implications. Just by this alone, he had changed the timeline irrevocably. The future he came from felt like a dream now, and for all he knew no longer existed. Carrie was only a baby right now. Helena, Terry and Matt, Penelope… they all might never be born. And his siblings… Jason wasn't going to regret stopping them from suffering so much pain. But without that pain, they were going to be different.
Hell, they were different now. Dick was still trying to find his feet outside of Batman, trying to work through the guilt and grief over not doing more for Jason. Tim barely knew him out of his own voyeuristic endeavors and a costume stuck in a glass case. And Bruce…
And not just them, either. Babs — was she Oracle yet? Luke had yet to return from war, the last thing on his mind was a vigilante lifestyle. Stephanie hadn't even met Tim at this point, let alone become part of the family. Duke still had his own parents. Had Kate even begun her own career as a vigilante? The only person in this entire mess that Jason could count on to be the same was Alfred, but that was because Alfred was the stalwart pillar they all leaned on. That had been true long before he or even Dick had entered the picture, and had stayed that way until the day Alfred himself had died.
And then there was him. A fifty-year-old man stuck in a teenager's body. Nobody had changed more than him, and those changes were only going to be even more pronounced once he saw everyone again. The Jason Todd they knew had died a long time ago, much longer than any of them had yet to learn, and in his place was a worn old man who had come back from the dead twice after losing half his family by the time he was thirty. A man who knew them, knew their futures, better than they knew themselves. A man who had been a parent five times over, who had to manage the biggest company in the world while leading hundreds of superheroes to defend humanity on a weekly basis. A man who had loved and lost more than most had in a dozen lifetimes.
A man who had been Batman, and everything that entailed.
Jason wanted to cry. He wanted to cry so badly. But he couldn't do it here on this plane, with so many witnesses. To paint a target on himself, to be dealt with questions. Damian and Cass needed him to be strong now, so he would be strong. He'd hold it together until they were safe, and then…
Then, he could break.
Upon their arrival to New York, Jason had them make a beeline towards flight listings to make sure theirs to Bludhaven was on time. After confirming it was (and also confirming that they had a layover that lasted four hours), he took them to a nearby restaurant for an impromptu late brunch. It was in the midst of eating his burger (topped with a nice, fried egg) that Damian popped the question.
"What are you going to do after we've settled in with father?"
Jason paused mid-bite, before beginning to chew slightly as he thought his answer over. That was a good question. He had been so concerned about getting Damian and Cass to Bruce and his own impending reunion with the family that he hadn't bothered to think over what he was going to do when everything finally settled down. Of course, there was the matter of writing up reports for future events for everyone to use, but after that Jason was going to have a lot of free time on his hands.
Obviously, Robin was off the table. Even before he died the first time around, Jason was beginning to outgrow the role. He had been Robin for three years by that point and was starting to go through the same phases that had caused Dick to break away from Bruce to become his own hero. Now, there was no way he could go back to being the junior partner after having trained four Robins himself, especially when there was a perfectly capable Robin still around. He would have to establish his own separate identity if he wanted to go out moonlighting as a vigilante again.
Then there was school. It would be child's play for him to get a GED, but after that? There was that old dream of Princeton and an English degree, but did he still want that? Jason had given up that dream a long time ago, first for the sake of vengeance and then for the sake of Gotham and his family. He hadn't regretted doing so either time, because he truly felt it was for the best. But now?
"I don't know, honestly," he confessed, "there were a lot of things I wanted to do, before everything, and I guess I can do them now, but I'm not sure I still want to."
Damian raised an eyebrow, clearly not impressed with that non-answer, and even Cass seemed to understand what he was trying to say, judging by her sympathetic look. Jason shrugged. It was all he had. It would be nice to live a normal life the next few years, but Jason wondered if he could do that with all the knowledge in his mind. With that innate desire to help people, to do good, that was wired into his very being after spending most of his life as a vigilante.
Knowledge is a blessing, he thought wearily, and a curse.
"And what of me? I assume Father will continue Mother's training."
"Maybe. He'll probably send you to school instead."
Only Cass's quick reflexes prevented Damian from shrieking in inarticulate rage and drawing the attentions of the surrounding patrons.
The flight to Bludhaven was much smoother. Now that they had a trial run with the New York flight, neither Damian nor Cass needed any direction from him when prepping for the flight or occupying themselves when they finally got into the air. Jason spent the time filling out the paperwork to get them through customs, eternally thankful that the only thing they had brought with them on the trip were clothes and books.
When they arrived at the Bludhaven airport, they freshened up before heading to customs. As the passports they used denoted them as American citizens, they were sped through the line relatively quickly (half an hour opposed to two hours), and before they knew it, Jason was already signaling a taxi to take them to the Bludhaven Plaza. Not a moment too soon, either; Damian was clearly taking time to adjust to the city's polluted atmosphere. Jason sympathized; an urban climate was hard to adjust to after months of fresh air and nature, and no matter how bad Istanbul could be, nothing beat the toxins of American cities, especially the likes of Gotham and Bludhaven.
The moment the taxi rolled up to the hotel, Jason felt the beginnings of fatigue settling into his bones, and he could tell that Cass and Damian were also about to drop. All this travel had not just been physical and mentally exhausting, but emotionally as well. Jason felt his mind was running a mile a minute as he imagined every conceivable way this upcoming reunion was about to go, and he knew Cass and Damian were going through the same thing, if to a lesser extent. As much as Jason would love to see Dick as soon as possible, they really needed a night in first.
He gently roused them awake and got out of the car. While Cass collected their things, Jason payed the driver, not even grumbling when he saw that the going rate was much higher than it was supposed to be. As the taxi drove away, the trio of siblings turned to the hotel and trudged in.
Despite there being plenty of empty seating, both Cass and Damian had elected to stay with Jason in the Check-In line. Either they didn't feel safe within their current surroundings (a reasonable fear) or they wanted to get to the room as soon as possible instead of possibly crashing on the nice, comfy chairs and falling asleep there in relatively awkward and indefensible positions. Jason was betting on the latter. No matter how much he coached them to act 'normal', there was some training you just couldn't overcome.
It was just as Jason got to the counter that things went to shit.
The lights blacked out unexpectedly; both patron and employee alike let out noises of surprises, with one particular guest shouting out "What the hell?" During the commotion, Jason, sensing something was wrong, quickly grabbed for both Damian and Cass's hands, clutching both tightly.
When the lights returned, the screams started.
In the middle of the lobby were three masked gunmen, waving around rifles and machine guns while demanding that everyone get on the ground. While most of those present followed the suit, Jason had to clamp down on both his siblings to force them to do the same. He could already tell that Damian was not happy having to do his first stint as a hostage before he even got to Gotham.
Jason wasn't any happy about it either, but there were too many witnesses and his trained senses allowed him to hear the reinforcements their assailants had. Said reinforcements were now trying to secure the rest of the hotel for whatever reason. Why were they even at this hotel anyway? The Bludhaven Plaza was a nice hotel, but not nice enough for a VIP like Bruce Wayne or Lex Luthor, someone with actual money to burn for their safety. If it was ransom they were after, this was not a decent place for it.
"Got the police on the line?"
"Yeah, boss. With that many sirens, there's no way Nightwing will miss this."
"Good. Blockbuster is offering a mighty nice penny for whoever whacks him, and I intend to collect."
As Damian and Cass exchanged startled looks, Jason resisted the urge to run his hand down his face.
I haven't even seen Dick yet, and he's already causing me trouble. He sighed. Big Brother of the Year, my ass.
Merry Christmas, everyone! My gift to all of you: a new chapter!
Jason is finally acknowledging the implications of what his unexpected time travel means. While he'll never really know what exactly happened, I do. His future still exists, but now as an alternate universe on an accelerated path. When he finally dies for good, he will see his loved ones again. Other than that…you'll see.
As for everything else; yeah, there are a lot of questions riding through on where, exactly, in the timeline he is. I will fully admit that my knowledge of the comics is limited and I am borrowing a lot for Batman Fan Fiction, so just expect a mix of everything. Most of this story is a character/relationship study with a mix of slice of life, so it shouldn't be too much of an issue anyway.
As for romantic relationships — I'm on the fence for that. Jason/Artemis obviously happened in the past but I'm not sure about it happening now. It's entirely possible Jason might develop something with someone else somewhere down the line. I like Dick/Babs, but I also like Dick/Kori, and I also like Roy/Kori; I'm very tempted just to leave that mess on its own. I'm not sure about Tim and Steph, I've always felt they're better off friends, and as it currently stands Cass is in no place for a relationship and won't be for a while. And as for Bruce… there's still Selina, but I'm also a bit of a WonderBat shipper and I've always viewed that relationship with the potential to be more stable. I guess whatever happens, happens.
Next chapter: Nightwing! The first of many reunions.