Author's Note: Fast update ^_^ Thank my vacation and ample time without the distraction of internet. Enjoy!
"What do you mean it doesn't fly direct?"
The pretty blond girl behind the ticket booth at the airport looked at Jason apologetically but a bit tiredly, as if she'd dealt with enough complaints for the day and was more than ready for it to be over which was probably true.
"I'm sorry, sir," she said, in accented English. "Direct flights to the United States are either from Frankfurt or Paris. There is one that leaves tomorrow from here with a connection flight in Shannon, Ireland."
Jason cursed and ran a hand through his hair. He'd waited this long. What was another day? It would probably take them just as long to get to Frankfurt and there was no guarantee the flight from there would be any sooner.
"Okay, fine. Can I have two tickets for that one?"
He pulled out the passports and hoped they were good forgeries. After a few moments though, the girl smiled and handed them back to him, typing away at her computer. Next to him, Damian shifted, looking around. He was pretty sure the child had never been around so many people. Understandably he was apprehensive, and even though the main danger was over, Jason was glad to see he'd taken his instructions to stick close.
"It's okay," he reassured him. "I won't loose you."
"I'm not afraid," the child said defiantly, but his words were belied when he reached out and clutched the edge of Jason's jacket with one hand. Amused, the young man patted his head.
"Checking in any bags, Mr. Wayne?"
"What?" His head snapped back up, momentarily wondering why the girl was calling him that before remembering the last name on the passports. "No. Just the tickets."
With the flight booked for next morning, he checked them into the airport hotel, this one a modern American-style one with all the comforts Jason didn't realize he'd missed over the last several days of sleeping in train carts and old inns. Not that he hadn't survived far worse, but the hot shower, clean linen, and two queen-sized soft beds that greeted them looked very welcoming. He slipped the key card in his back pocket and shut the door behind them as they entered.
"Alright, kid," he announced. "We got some time to kill, so what do you wanna do? Watch a movie? Check out the souvenirs? Want to eat something? We can order in."
Damian shook his head, and he sighed inwardly. Jason had come to the conclusion that he much preferred defiant, constantly questioning Damian over this quiet withdrawn one. At least when he talked, he sometimes sounded like a normal kid. What do you expect after all this crap? a voice in his head chastised. Like you're the picture of emotional stability. But he had to be. There was no one else.
"Tell you what," Jason offered, tossing him the remote. "Why don't you do some channel surfing while I take a shower and then we can figure it out. Just don't leave the room, okay?"
The silent nod wasn't exactly the enthusiasm he'd hoped for, but Damian didn't look like he was about to argue either. It would have to be enough for now.
The shower felt beyond divine. For a long time Jason just stood under the stream, letting the hot water run down his back, relaxing his muscles. Don't mind me, he though wryly. I'm just gonna stay here for the next few years, and one of these days I might actually feel like I didn't dig myself out of my own grave. He didn't remember much of it. Some of the broader things he'd overheard from listening in on Talia's conversations while a prisoner at the mansion, but there was a strange detachment about it. He never felt like it was him she was talking about, like those things had happened to someone else. Still every once in a while he got flashes, glimpses and feelings. The the cold and hardness of the ground where he'd slept, the hunger, the sensation of dirt under his fingernails...
Jason jerked his head up, braising against the shower wall for balance. Don't go there, he warned himself. If he delved too deeply into that nightmare, he might not return, and he had to get back home. Back to Gotham. Back to Bruce. Besides, there was a boy in the main room who needed him now.
He heard the sound of the television above the running water as he shaved and hoped Damian was watching something nice. Cartoons maybe. Jason snorted. Had any of them ever watched cartoons? Maybe Dick, when he was still a kid in the circus, but Jason himself had had no time for them in his early childhood and no interest by the time Bruce found him. Somehow he didn't think Damian did either. His guess was proven correct when he emerged, wearing the new jeans and black t-shirt with the black, red, and yellow German crest he'd picked up at the gift shop, and saw that the boy watching a news channel.
Jason stopped.
It was Bruce.
The footage was a few days old according to the captions and took place at some international business meeting in Paris. He could see his mentor shaking hands and speaking fluent French with the local business men. Dick must have been in Gotham, he though. He wouldn't leave the city unprotected. What shocked him though, was how... old the man looked. It had only been a few years, but Bruce looked like he'd aged a decade. What had happened to him? Bruce was... well, Bruce!
Damian must have heard him enter and nodded at the tv without turning. "Is that Father?"
"Yeah." Jason couldn't take his eyes off the screen. "Yeah, that's... that's Dad."
The boy studied the image for another minute until the news program switched to something else. When he looked up at him, his eyes widened momentarily. "You're bleeding!"
Jason touched his left jaw gingerly and winced. His fingers came away with a touch of red.
"I cut myself shaving," he noted, more to himself than to Damian. "It's nothing."
He had barely been old enough to shave before his death and hadn't had to do it often at that. For the first time, Jason consciously thought about how young he really was. Nineteen! With everything that had happened, he felt ancient, and it occurred to him that maybe that's what had happened to Bruce too.
The cave slowly rotated around him as Tim spun in the large chair next to the computer, kicking at the ground every once in a while to keep it going. Bruce had gone off to a JLA meeting, and he was under strict orders not to go out on patrol on his own. If Dick was available, he'd go with him, but not a second sooner. He tried not to be annoyed about it, especially since it was not like he never patrolled on his own before, but the order was not unexpected either. It had happened the years prior as well, right after the anniversary of Jason's death.
But Dick called to tell him that he was held up in Bludhaven, so there he was, spinning in the chair, his domino mask discarded on the computer console. Another turn, and Jason's old suit in its display case came into view. Tim sighed and stopped the chair, walking over to it instead.
"It's not your fault," he told the suit. "You know how Bruce is. Guess I can't blame him for being overprotective. I mean, we do live in Gotham, not Metropolis or even Star City. Lex Luthor? Captain Cold? Give me a break, right? Bad guys around here are a whole different kind of crazy."
Talking to Jason made him feel better, though he had to laugh at the irony of just calling a bunch of masked villains crazy when he was the one standing talking to an empty suit of a guy who'd been dead for years. There was just something comforting about it. Jason wouldn't have judged him for the complaints. He'd have known what it's like.
But any one-way conversation gets old at some point, and Tim finally went back to the computer, deciding instead to check out what was going on in the great big world. Bruce had several personages under surveillance and a direct tap on police communication. He sat again and began flipping through the channels. No disturbances around Arkham, no major crime sprees... There was a mugging in Gotham Park and a drug bust in West Harlow, but the police were already on the scene in both cases. He switched to other sources that Bruce liked to monitor and frowned. Apparently Ra's al Ghul had abruptly abandoned whatever business he had in the Middle East and was now on his way to Eastern Europe. That felt strange. Unlike many of their other enemies, Ra's was nothing if not coldly rational. Why would he do something so... sudden?
Tim's developing detective skills and natural intuitiveness were practically screaming for him to pay attention. He'd had an odd sensation for a while now, the same one that had distracted him during his sparing session with Nightwing a few days ago. He'd chalked it up to the apprehension about the anniversary of Jason's death, but the event had come and gone and now Tim wondered if maybe it was something else. When had it started?
The phone call! Tim remembered. It had started with that odd mis-dial. He hadn't thought much of it at the time except that the voice on the other end had sounded ever so faintly familiar. It was a little strange though; the person hadn't even asked for anyone, just apologized with a flat "Wrong number" as soon as Tim had answered. As if... as if not hearing a voice he'd expected was enough to prove that he'd called the wrong house.
So what was the connection between that and the thing with Ra's?
He stared up at the screen at the profile image of the seven-century-old-immortal. Maybe he was just making stuff up out of boredom, looking for a case where there was none. Tim swiveled the chair to look at the retired Robin suit again.
"What do you think, Jay? Is it time to ship me off to Arkham?"
Sure, kid, would come the wry reply, and Tim snorted to himself.
Yup, he was loosing it alright. Except... he really wasn't so sure.
Someone was screaming.
Dimly Jason wondered who it was, if Damian was having another nightmare about his mother. But when he finally blinked open his eyes, it was the boy who was looking down on him, his palms resting on Jason's chest as he shook him awake. His wide eyes looked worried, and suddenly Jason realized that it had been him. He was the one who had been screaming, his throat dry and raw.
"Jason?" the child asked hesitantly.
"I..." He caught his breath. "I'm okay."
He didn't look too convinced. "You were screaming. Did you have a nightmare?"
Jason didn't answer, just rubbed his face and pushed the sheets aside. Damian scrambled out of the way as he got up and went to the bathroom and shut the door behind himself. He felt for the faucet and finally managed to splash some water onto his face. Jason dreaded it, but he turned on the light and looked in the mirror. He looked terrible. What had that dream even been about? The streets? The Joker? His death or resurrection? He couldn't remember now.
When he emerged, the boy was still kneeling on his bed, small fists clenched in his lap. He looked as if he'd been staring at the bathroom door the whole time, practically willing him to come out. Jason sat back down, tugging at the sheets that the boy was sitting on. He hoped Damian would take the hint but apparently not. He glared.
"Kid, I'm fine. Go back to bed."
For a moment he looked like he might listen, but then he just shook his head, face hardening in a kind of resolve he hadn't seen before. Jason sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"I'm tired, Damian. Really, really tired, and we have a very long flight ahead."
"I'm staying here," the boy insisted. "If you have another nightmare, I'll wake you up faster."
Jason stared as he made himself comfortable on the very edge of his bed and looked like he wouldn't be moved for all the world. Not wanting to pursue the argument, Jason had no choice but to settle down as well. He lay very still but felt the mattress shift as Damian scooted closer. Jason was not a big fan of physical contact, and the boy had apparently picked up on that. The pillow was far too high for the child, so he pressed his nose to Jason's bicep, arms bent so that they were tucked between his chest and Jason's arm. But he didn't try to cuddle.
Jason. felt. like. shit!
An eight-year-old child who he'd known for less than two weeks was trying to comfort him, and he hadn't even been able to hold him when he cried in his sleep over his mother. Good fuckin' job, Jay, he told himself. Kid has – had – Talia for a mom, Ra's for a gandpa, and Bruce for a dad. Okay, Bruce is awesome, but still... He's probably destined to be emotionally screwed as it is without you being an asshole.
"Hey, D?"
He forced his voice to be as gentle as possible and shifted a little so he could look at the boy, but the child was already asleep.