gthm-drab

[gthm-drab]

just bits i wrote up over time. pretty scattered but attempting to solidify

[gthm-drab]

For the first time since they landed, Jason looked back at him, still silent. The expression in his eyes was enough to put a pit in Bruce's stomach - a pit he won't begin to unpack until months from now, long after the current mission of bringing Damian back from the dead has ended. He waited for Jason to snap, to lay into him, examined every microexpression on his face in order to anticipate and argue down the wrath when it came.

And the rage did come, Bruce was reminded, semi-absently reviewing the footage from that night, but not before he'd seen something break in Jason's eyes. Some dam large enough to have been holding back the storm of what came next. A storm that "long-repressed pit madness and the grudge" only seemed to scratch the surface of. Now - with Damian sleeping soundly upstairs, and no one having seen nor heard from Red Hood in nearly three months - Bruce found himself nudged back to checking footage.

Initially, he'd been scrubbing through recent surveillance of the area around Crime Alley, hoping to catch a glimpse. A switch-up of routine was well inside Jason's wheelhouse. But his territory seemed to be running itself. Zero check-ins. Zero sightings, even in civvies. Either the tunnel system under The Narrows was much more extensive than Bruce had thought, or he simply wasn't there.

He followed the thread of the latter option. If he wasn't there, where was he likely to be? It unsettled him that he had no ready answer. He could be with some mix of Outlaws, but a quick comb through the whereabouts of his usual comrades doesn't turn up anything. Nothing abnormal for months. Even Oracle had come up blank when he'd finally mustered up the humility to ask her, and that was when he'd started to remember that pit in his stomach.

He stares up at the frozen image on the screen, trying to piece together the components of whatever the dam was that he'd broken that night.

Tiredly, he wonders if he and Jason ever going to be able to understand each other without working the other as a case.

He bites down on that, and spends the better part of the next hour combing through access logs. Nothing. Bruce sighs, and reopens the video of the night in Ethiopia, still paused on the moment Jason turns around.

[gthm-drab]

At some point, Damian came to the conclusion that his frustration with the way Todd and Father were acting needed some sort of resolution, enough that it warranted him to take matters into his own hands.

Three problems: he could not figure out why he was frustrated; because of this, he did not know what type of outcome to aim for; and because of this, he had no clear options for what type of action to take.

After a week of pondering, he decided that as he lacked any clear options, he should kick a hornet's nest and learn what he could from the aftermath.

--------

Two mornings later, a parcel containing three photos arrived. The first showed a teenaged Jason, sitting loosely crosslegged on the ground, in front of a window glowing with an oncoming sunset. He had a stoic expression on his face, an absent gaze downwards, and a very small Damian between his knees. The sides of his hair were shaved close to his scalp, displaying the jagged web of scars stretching from behind his ear to his eyebrow. Damian's tiny hand was curled into Jason's sleeve.

The second picture

NOTES

2nd pic is talia cutting Jason's hair, Jason's face not seen by the camera, Talia looks like she is mid-conversation.

3rd pic is a much larger looking Jason with a Damian, older by at least a couple years, both in what Bruce recognizes to be robes of the League of Assassins, Jason holding a sword and beginning to point at the camera, mid-word, looking a little irritated. A photo of the two of them training.

Bruce's fury at this revelation is immediate, he flies to Talia first. She gives him very little info

Next he goes to see Jason, despite how ill-advised that idea may be, they argue. consider the hornet's nest fully kicked.

After back-to-back frustrations but a boatload of new information, Bruce collects himself and then goes to Damian. He asks him, what he wanted him to know with those pictures, and why now, and Damian admits he doesn't know.

[gthm-drab]

A little more quickly than expected, the grating friction between Damian and Bruce had reached Alfred Pennyworth's breaking point when it came to exactly when to drop the large hammer of calling in the reinforcements that hadn't crossed the threshold of Wayne Manor proper in over twelve years.

"Bruce," he'd said sharply, the deliberate dropping of his warm Master immediately prickling the ears of everyone in the room, "I am not about to allow the difficulties in communication the both of you are prone to drive him to flee from here again!" The thunder of his voice had rung about the silent room. Bruce's ears were beginning to turn red, eyes slightly widened, Dick was looking back and forth between them and beautifully fighting back the urge to cut in to dispel the tension. No one else spoke, or even moved.

"Or rather, the three of you," Alfred added on, sitting back in his chair with a sigh.

Minutes of silence.

"Bruce, I really think he's right," Dick finally says, quietly. "I get why you're hesitant, but... Jason's who Damian went to last time he ran off, why not try to nip it in the bud ?" He didn't react.

Moments later, Cass spoke as well. "I agree with that," she said, looking over at Dick, then Alfred. Then Bruce.

He was silent for a minute longer, then exhaled, nodding. "I know," he murmured. "You're right." He looked up at Alfred and nodded again. "You're right." Alfred softened his expression slightly, but nod he returned to him was quite firm, and Bruce's shoulders sunk slightly in resignation as he exhaled again.

"I can ask him, if you want me to," Babs offered, feeling some pity, but Alfred shook his head.

"I do thank you, Miss Gordon, but I will call him," he said steadily as he got to his feet. "Right now, I intend to see if Master Damian will speak with me. Master Bruce..." his tone dropped to its familiar warmth, clasping Bruce's shoulder as he strode by, "You and I can chat about how we would like to approach this together later, if you'd like." Bruce nodded, gratefully patted his hand, and then Alfred was out the door of the dining room and up the stairs.

...

In typical fashion of their clan, the lousy fucking communicators that they are, a short discussion debate was held later about whether Bruce should greet Jason before or after Jason attempted to talk with Damian that night. Dick only wound up having to snap about Bruce's avoidance of The Jason Issues once, and to his great credit, Bruce had taken the criticism and backed down without a verbal retort or protest.

And, in typical fashion of their clan, Babs then smartly cut in with her level-headed assessment of the situation: Jason was not going to be likely to react badly to Bruce when he arrived, because when it came to Damian, he almost never escalated, and usually did exactly the opposite. Can we all agree that's what we've all experienced for the most part? Okay? Okay. Then I think that's the answer. I think we are all overthinking this a bit. Okay?

Shortly after, once Bruce had gone to (hopefully) continue not overthinking it, and Dick+Babs left to grab a quick lunch, Steph finally turned to Tim with a grimace. "It is effing nuts how intense he is about him," she said, voice almost awe-struck.

Tim snorted, looking up from his phone at her. "It's not even REALLY going to be the first time he came back here. He snuck in to see Damian once before, like a year ago."

...

True to Babs' prediction, Jason's arrival went smoothly. Better than Bruce had expected of himself.

...

"I did not ask you to come here, Todd, and I find it appalling you criticize Richard for coming when called and yet here you are despite your insistence you will hold my father to your standards," Damian spat, scowling, frustrated.

"Alfred asked me," was Jason's straightforward response. Even tone. No sneer.

"Well, I have nothing to say."

...

They spoke about Damian's towering frustrations ambiguously for a while, despite his consistent resistance to the subject, but (in typical fashion for their yadda yadda yadda) Jason suddenly asked a question that managed to cut towards the heart of the matter.

"Is it you don't want to talk to anyone about whatever's got you pissed, at all? Or is part of it that you don't know how?"

That earned a hesitation, and a surprised but sharp blink.

"Or..." Jason leaned forward, nodding towards the rest of the manor, "is it that you know that he doesn't know how?" He gave one of his little smirks, rolling his eyes a bit, and they finally shared a snort of a laugh.