Author's Note: Bah, vacation's over. It's back to work tomorrow, but at least I managed to get one more update in. Enjoy and please review!
The nine hour layover in Shannon was draining. Not long enough to bother getting a hotel room, but more than long enough to drive Jason crazy. Passing an airport electronic store, he seriously considered buying one of the overpriced laptops just to be able to at least check what's been going on in the world since his death, but it was pointless. Even though Gotham was hopefully just a flight away, he didn't want to spend the remainder of the money. Besides, by the time he finished configuring the damn thing, the plane would be in the air. What he wouldn't have given for an Internet cafe...
Wandering around, he made sure to keep one eye on the boy. Kids tended to wander away, he knew that from personal experience. When he'd been the child... when he hadn't listened...
No, don't go there...
They passed a gift store with a few toys that Damian showed zero interest in, but he did flip through a few of the books in one of the small airport book shops. It didn't surprise Jason at all that he was looking at the classics rather than children's books. When he held up Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein" for his inspection, Jason made a face.
"Umm... let's skip the zombie-themed stuff." He pulled another book from the second shelf from the top instead. "How about this? Dad loves Sherlock Holmes. It's like... his Bible. Want to give it a shot? I can read it to you if you want."
He remembered from their week in the mansion before the fire that Damian did like being read to, even if he was perfectly capable of reading himself. It was one of the few things that made him appear as normal as any kid. The boy studied the book then nodded. Satisfied, Jason bought it along with a pack of M&Ms – that Damian was eight and had never before had junk food horrified him – and walked them over to crash in the seats near their gate.
The first short story brought them an hour closer to departure. When Jason was finished reading, Damian studied the black and white etching of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson on the inside cover, gingerly touching the paper. The young man smiled.
"See? Just like Dad." When the boy gave him a questioning look, he elaborated. "Dad's kind of a detective, too."
"I thought he was Batman."
Jason's eyes bulged, and he saw that a few people sitting around them looked up. For the first time, he wished that they were still in a country where English was not the main language, but luckily most were smiling. One woman even cooed in adoration. Jason gave a nervous laugh and returned their smiles.
"All kids think their dads are superheroes, right?" he said to their audience, then grabbed Damian and pulled him aside to a corner. Dropping to his haunches so that he could look the child directly in the eyes, he lowered his voice. "Okay, very, very quietly. What do you know?"
Damian frowned. "What do you know?"
"Don't be a smart ass. Spill it. Now!"
The child continued to frown, as if he didn't know why Jason was asking about something that was completely obvious. "I know Father is Batman, and he protects Gotham City and other places sometimes. Dick Grayson used to be Robin, but he's not anymore."
"I thought you didn't even know about Dick!" He had looked surprised when Jason told him.
"I didn't know he was our brother," Damian corrected. "Where did Father get him from?"
"The circus," Jason said flatly. "That's where kids come from: the circus."
"I don't come from the circus!" the boy objected.
A different kind of circus, Jason thought, but aloud he just said. "Okay, what else?"
"You used to be Robin, too." Used to be... It surprised him how much the past tense hurt. Damian cocked his head to the side. "Did Father get you at the circus, too?"
Jason pinched the bridge of his nose. "No, D."
"Then where did you come from?"
The innocent question brought forth unbidden memories so powerful Jason had to brace himself against the images. The streets of Gotham, where as a boy he barely scraped together enough money selling stolen tires so that he wouldn't starve to death, flashed before his eyes within the span of less than a second. When he refocused them again, Damian was still staring at him expectantly.
"Dad found me," he finally said simply.
Damian didn't seem to question this revelation that Jason wasn't Bruce's biological son. The young man found that a bit strange too, considering how he'd asked if they had the same mother when they had first met. He thought that someone with such an aristocratic upbringing would put an extra amount of emphasis on blood. Then again, Damian was eight. Still, Jason couldn't help but be curious.
"You're surprised about Dick, but you didn't ask about me being your brother. How come?"
Damian looked down, a little sad. "Mother said so. I didn't think she would lie."
Oh, kid, Jason thought painfully. You have so much to learn. Everyone lies. But maybe in this case it wasn't such a bad thing.
"She didn't lie," he said. "Not about this. Dad's still Dad, and we're still brother, and I'll look out for you, okay?" Damian nodded. "Good. But no more talking about bats or birds. It's our secret, yes?"
Curiosity might have killed the cat, but lucky for Tim, he was a bird,
A bird of prey, the Jason-voice inside his head reminded him.
Barbara had told him that Bruce had once asked her to take Jason out on patrol to assess him. He'd proudly declared that the robin was a bird of prey, and the story pleased Tim to no end. But back to curiosity... He'd decided that no matter how insane it was to build a case around an accidental phone call, Ra's al Ghul's movements were a legitimate thing to look into. And if they happened to somehow be connected to that call? Well, that would be an amazing coincidence!
But real leads first, he thought, typing away at the computer to trace the trajectory the immortal had taken over the last year. As far as Tim could figure out, he'd been in Eastern Europe with his daughter until he left for the Middle East around six months prior, apparently without Talia. Then about a week ago he abruptly returned and he and his people had been moving west, following something Tim had yet to discover. There was no further mention of Talia.
Tim leaned back in thought then moved to a different tactics He had the access codes to all the Wayne satellites, but none of them were in the right place in orbit. Barbara was the best hacker they had, but he didn't want to reach out to her quite yet. Besides, Tim knew a few tricks too.
"Excuse me," he said to the military satellites as he hacked them. "I'm just going to borrow you for a second. Will put you right back. Promise."
It took him a few minutes to find the right one and a couple more to get through, but finally the satellite obediently shifted its gaze on the area in question. Tim waited for the zoomed image to clear. It could only go so far. Then he sat back, a deep frown creasing his brow as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. It was the chard remains of a mansion, apparently in the middle of nowhere. The closest town he could find was miles and miles away.
So, Tim reasoned. Ra's and Talia were there, then he left and she stayed, but then this fire happened and he came back... looking for her? But why is he still moving west? If she was dead, he would've found out, would have stopped looking and gone back to the Middle East. If not, she probably would have contacted him by now, and he still would have stopped. And what about that call?
He was still convinced it was connected to everything somehow. Oh! Duh! Tim tapped his forehead. Turning away from the satellite image, he brought up the call history from the manor for the two weeks. Bruce had all incoming calls monitored, both for the house and the cave, so even something as minute as a mis-dial would be in the logs. The teen scrolled down until he found it, brought up the number, and verified against the directory.
Bingo!
The country code matched the location of the burnt mansion. Tim grinned gleefully, before the other question popped into his head. So who had called? Not Talia, obviously. Who else did they know among the League of Assassins who would call Bruce Wayne rather than Batman? He thought about the voice. Young, male... and familiar. That's what it was still coming back to: the fact that somehow he recognized the voice.
"Sorry. Wrong number."
Tim felt like beating his head against the wall. It was so... frustrating! Like having the tune of a song he couldn't remember the name of stuck in his head. Groaning in frustration, he shut down all the screens and pushed against the floor, closing his eyes. When he opened them after the chair had stopped spinning, the memorial holding the old Robin suit was in front of him.
Tim stared.
Jason's domino mask stared back.
"Are you done yet?" Jason yelled into the bathroom stall.
"I'll be done when I'm done!" called back the angry child. "You might have tried not poisoning me!"
"I told you not to eat the whole bag!"
The M&Ms had obviously not agreed with the boy. Jason groaned and turned around to wash his face. He supposed he should be grateful they still had an hour left and that this hadn't happened on the flight itself. The last thing he needed was to hold back a line of angry passengers while Damian stank up the whole cabin. As it was, he would just have to suffer a headache. Could've been worse...
"Excuse me."
A dark-skinned man who had just entered the bathroom bumped into him as he reached for a paper towel, and Jason looked up momentarily but quickly turned away. He'd seen this man before. At the mansion with Talia. Did he recognize him? Since he wasn't in a choke hold yet, he guessed not. Jason pretended to take an extra long time wiping his face while the man washed his hands. Then there was movement in the stall.
Shit! Shit, shit, shit! Don't say anything, kid! For the love of God, stay down!
His heart pounded as the seconds passed, but finally the sound of flowing water ceased and Jason heard the automatic bathroom doors swish open as the man passed through on his way out. Less than a second later, Damian emerged, scowling. Jason hadn't realized he was holding his breath until he released it.
"Kid, we gotta go."
The urgency in his voice must have been telling, because Damian immediately dropped the annoyed look in favor of worry. Jason didn't have time to explain. He gave the boy exactly two seconds to wash before grabbing his hands and pulling him out of the bathroom. The man was only a few feet to his left, but he was looking away, talking on a cell phone, so Jason turned right and quickly rounded a corner. He walked briskly until they reached an elevator. The door shut on them, and Jason punched the button to take them down to the ground level.
"What's going on!" Damian demanded, obviously picking up on his anxiety.
Jason's mind raced. Ra's' people were following them. He hoped that when the immortal came across the fire, he'd think there were no survivors, but Jason hadn't counted on it. He'd just hoped that since they'd left the European mainland without incident, it meant that their perusers were too far behind. That they were in Shannon now...
"We gotta switch flights," he decided as the elevator came to a stop. "Can't go straight to Gotham."
"Why not? I thought we were going to see Father!"
If you only knew how much I wanted that.
"Bad people are following us," Jason said. "We're gonna try and throw them off our track."
If he told the boy it was Ra's, he might foolishly want to go to him. Jason had to get them both to Gotham... but not directly. The money and passports were already in his hand by the time they reached the ticket booth.
"I need to change my flight," he told the agent. "For Bludhaven."