Chapter 5 - Brothers
Damian is sent by Barbara to investigate a distress call, but finds more than he'd bargained for. A very injured Jason Todd.
Damian's POV
"Sorry, Bruce and Tim are in the middle of something right now. I wouldn't usually ask, but it's kind of important." Oracle was saying through Damian's earpiece.
"What do you want me to do?" He asked, veering away from where his father and Drake had asked him to go originally. Barbara was right, she wouldn't usually ask, which was what made Damian listen in the first place.
"Well, I got a distress call, directly to my computers. The only people who would be able to access them is you, Bruce, Tim and Dick. Well, you were just fighting with Bruce and Tim, and I just called Dick. He said he hadn't sent the call." She said flatly, "I don't know who else it could be."
Damian snorted. "Useless."
"Thanks for that, lil' D."
"Don't call me that."
Oracle severed the line as she chuckled. It was way too easy to provoke Damian.
The newest robin looked at the coordinates that Oracle had sent him and let himself drop from the roof of the bank, landing with a roll onto the next roof.
He caught a window frame and lowered himself onto a street lamp, looking out over the street. He definitely didn't have the acrobatics skills that Grayson had, after all, an assassin didn't need to know how to do a quadruple aerial somersault over lions to be successful, but Damian was still jealous of Grayson's skills. Not that he'd ever admit it.
Damian landed softly on his feet opposite a intimidating high rise. It didn't look as if it was home to particularly wealthy people. Quite the opposite.
Washing lines crisscrossed between windows with raggedy clothes hanging off them like makeshift scarecrows. The windows were grubby, and those that weren't boarded up had a dim light shining through. Obviously people lived here still, even though this was an abandoned part of town.
Damian sighed. This wasn't the sort of building he wanted to find himself in, especially not in response to a distress call. The ex-assassin had an idea of who it could be, given the location.
Still, he steeled himself and shot a grapple up to the second floor. Although he didn't know the exact room, he knew that it was somewhere on that level.
Damian dropped neatly into an open window, letting his hands take the brunt of the landing force, before pushing himself onto his feet. He sighed and started to look around when he heard a groan. He spun and saw a familiar flash of red and black in a heap near the elevator. One bloody hand was clamped white knuckled over a stab wound on his abdomen, while the other was flat on the floor, as if trying to hold onto something. His face was slightly contorted in pain, and although his eyes were hidden behind a red eye mask, Damian gambled that his pupils were probably dilated with the blood he'd lost. Jason Todd.
He muttered something that sounded like, "This guy?" And tried to crawl away to lean on the wall.
"-Tt- You're bleeding, Todd." Damian said helpfully.
"Really? Huh. Hadn't noticed." Todd murmured, expletives leaking out with the sarcastic comment. For Jason, sarcasm and swearing went hand in hand, especially when he was in pain.
Damian didn't seem to understand how swearing could help alleviate pain, and so tutted again and started to walk away.
"Where the hell are you going?" Jason demanded, looking on with horror. With all the blood he'd lost already, Damian leaving him would be signing him over to death.
"I don't need to help you, in fact, it'd probably be frowned upon if I did."
Damian may as well have spat on him.
"Thanks for the confidence booster, little brother, but I kind of need immediate medical attention here." Jason groaned through his teeth. His hands started to shake, blood leaking through the cracks in his fingers.
"You aren't my brother, filth."
Jason smiled lightly. He didn't know if it was because of he pain, or the blood loss or the numerous other ailments that came as a package deal with getting stabbed in the gut, but he was reminded of himself as he looked at Damian's judging gaze.
"You know, when Bruce first adopted me, I never thought of Dick as my brother." He started, gritting his teeth and holding his wound. "I thought that we weren't related in any way, so what gave him the right to call me his brother?"
Damian looked vaguely irritated, but turned back around and peered down at him with a morbid curiosity. The kid was so attention deprived he was willing to listen to what his pain induced hallucinating brother wanted to say.
"But Dick always called me his brother, and even if I tried to make him call me by my name, he would smile that annoying smile that trumps all other arguments and shake his head. I hated that."
Damian nodded. "He calls me 'lil D' and 'Dami'. Does he not understand that I have a given name?" He seemed to have gotten into the conversation at this point. "He isn't related to me, and he isn't my friend, so why does he treat me so while I treat him as an underling as I should?"
Jason laughed, a strained sound, but a laugh nonetheless. They'd found common ground! "And then there's the orders and the stupid moral code. Don't do this, you can't kill!" He said.
Damian sniffed in affirmation, "Killing is far more efficient, after all, there will be one less criminal on the street. Permanently."
Jason smiled, although his eyebrows twitched in pain. Damian on the other hand seemed to have completely glazed over the fact that Jason was bleeding to death all over the floor. At least he hadn't left him, but Jason wouldn't have been surprised if he did, he wouldn't have even been surprised if Damian had made the final blow to kill him. Bruce's hatred for Jason seemed to have genetically passed onto Damian, although the kid also appeared to like to break the rules once in a while. Jason figured he could use this to his advantage.
"So, d'ya think you could help a brother out...?"
Damian's lip trembled in annoyance, and he opened his mouth to make a sarcastic comment, but appeared to think against it. He instead nodded hesitantly, reaching to tap his comms unit. His finger paused above the button and he looked helplessly at Jason.
"What is it now?" He asked, visibly irritated now, face shining with sweat from overexertion.
"I...I don't know who to call. I don't think anyone in their right mind would help you."
Jason rolled his eyes. Of course they wouldn't, he was surprised Damian was offering to help him in the first place, although he seemed to have realised that Jason was more like him than he'd initially thought.
"...What about Dick?"Jason asked weakly, the words clawing their way out desperately to be heard.
"He may help, but he may also ridicule me, plus he will definitely tell father what has happened."
Jason growled in frustration, ripping his red eye mask from his face. "Then take me to a hospital. No one knows me as Jason Todd around here anyway."
Damian looked torn suddenly. "I still don't know if I should help you."
"Oh come on." The elder boys face scrunched in annoyance. "Haven't we been through this already?"
"Yes, I believe we have. Someone trusts you too much, then you turn and stab them in the back. I've seen it happen with you before." Damian spat.
"Right. But I really can't do anything this time. I'm bleeding to death here, not exactly in the position to be back stabbing."
Damian seemed to scan over him for a moment, as if making sure that he was telling the truth. "I suppose you can't. But still, how do you propose I get you to hospital?"
At this point, Jason was rolling his eyes. Any more stalling and he'd be dead. "Just call an ambulance, would you?" He uttered his last words before passing out completely from blood loss.
"Fine, Todd." Damian tapped his comms unit and typed rapidly into the keyboard on his wrist, connecting to the nearest hospital, Gotham Central. "Yes, I've found a civilian brutally injured in the abandoned district. I need an ambulance sent to this location immediately." He sent the coordinates over to them, before hanging up and turning back to Todd. "You're much more trouble than you're worth." He muttered, before turning away, Arabian curses slipping from his tongue.
ONE WEEK LATER
"Sorry to disturb, the young man is here to visit you again." A nurse held the door open to Jason's hospital room. The tired man looked up and nodded slowly, trying to get into a more upright position in an attempt to look less pitiful, belayed only by the dark circles that shadowed his eyes and his unkempt hair.
The nurse looked down at the young man in question, earning a sneer, before closing the door and rushing hurriedly down the corridor.
"Wow, two minutes and you've already managed to clear the room." Jason chuckled softly, wincing as his stitches pulled at the irritated skin.
"Save it Todd." Damian mumbled, not half as confident as he should have been.
"Hey, I'm not the one that almost got banned from the hospital just because of your death glare."
Damian smiled smugly, a comeback clearly on its way, "And I'm not the one in hospital, hooked up to half a dozen machines because you can't hold your own against common thugs."
"This scene is just adorable."
Jason and Damian both turned towards the speaker, thought they knew only three people could sneak up on them like that, and only one out of three would ever visit Jason.
"Grayson." Damian spoke the word like it was cursed, dragging the word out in dread.
"Dami!" Dick smiled, stepping gracefully through the window as if he was simply walking through a door. "...Jason."
"Hey Dick." Jason greeted casually. He really was too exhausted for a verbal fight and a physical fight was entirely out of the question.
Luckily, Dick's smile only widened at his younger brothers friendliness. "So, I checked through the visitors log. I hear Dami has been visiting almost everyday. I always did think you two had a lot in common."
Damian shook his head. "I don't agree. I find it despicable that he uses guns. Swords are a much more suitable weapon when fighting with pride."
Jason begged to differ. "Guns are easier." He said shrugging.
"It doesn't matter if they're easier. Swords feel right to me." Damian snapped.
"Aaaand we're back to arguing." Jason said, an eyebrow raised in arrogance.
Dick smiled in nostalgia. "You're truly brothers, then. I knew you two would get on eventually!" He ruffled Damian's hair fondly, gaining a piercing glare.
Jason however, had a shell shocked look on his face, "Brothers...?"
Damian swallowed his pride and avoided Jason's gaze as he said, "Yes, Todd. Brothers."
So, I don't really know what colour eyes Damian has... Is it blue or green, because Son of Batman (the animated movie) portrays him with green eyes, then a load of fic's say that he has blue eyes?
Oh, and if you want to, you could review! Reviews really make a persons day :) (Sorry, long-ish authors note)