Chapter Text
The person she calls isn't someone they know, some random man who owes her a favor that she could call in. They met up halfway. It was a pull of strings, and tricky, but they had managed to agree on a buy time for Damian, and Bruce had already informed the rest of the police academy. Tim could barely breathe when he was putting on his suit. He slipped on his mask and Jason rounded the corner beside him.
"Tim," he says, quickly tugging on the back of his suit, Tim turns around. Jason sees the tears in his baby brother's eyes before his shoulders start shaking and he's in his arms. The broken sob that falls from his brother's mouth is all it takes for him to start running soothing circles into his back.
"What if-" he sobs out, "What if we don't get him back, Jay?" The nickname slips out softly, he doesn't often call Jason that. He hears Grayson nearby talking to Bruce, and he knows that Stpeh is somewhere with Duke and Cass close.
"We're going to get him back," Jason says, "we aren't going to lose them"
Tim lets out another sob, and all Jason can do is hold him. After a few moments, though they're called over, Talia walks over to them. She has a scowl on her face as she holds the seething form of a women shouting at her in Arabic. She hands her over to Batman who walks her to the cops, she snarls at him.
"You think you've won just cause you caught me? That boy will never be your son again"
She's pushed into the car before Jason can pull his gun to shoot her. Walking along the side of Talia's informant, Damian stands. And Jason instantly rushes to him. He tries to push the hurt down from the flinch. He slowly sees the green glow, the glow that happens when you're overwhelmed and pulling him away dispite the comanders protests and rips off his mask to show the same green glow in his own eyes. Awareness seems to come back to him as all he can manage is to mutter
"Brother?" In Arabic,
Jason nods frantically, pulling him closer and running a hand through Damian's hair as he sighs into his brother's hold. He ignored Damian's shaking. They both did.
"let's get you home okay kid?" He slips his mask back onto his face and after that his helmet, and he pulls Damian along with a signle to Tim and the others that he was taking home. The feeling of his bike in his hands again only brings back a familiarity to their once-normal schedule. The hum of the road under fast-moving wheels while his baby brother is tucked behind him safely. He always kept a spare helmet on him. Like hell he was letting Damian go on it without it, Damian used to whine about it. He didn't say a word when Jason slipped the helmet onto his head earlier, he only stood compliant. It made Jason sick, where rage used to be in the span of weeks it had dwindled out. They arrived on the front steps of their home when Alfred was their waiting for them. Softly he envelops Damian into his arms and asks if he would like something to eat. Damian, although scared looking nods his head. It's when Jason notices the collar that is stuck to his neck. But he can't ask about it before Alfred whisks Damian away into their house. He's not sure when it became his house again- he's not sure when what used to be stretched out unfamiliar hallways, became familiar comforting walks around the home during late nights because he knew the place better than anyone. Slowly he dropped his bag onto the floor of their living room, and he ripped off his helmet now that they were inside. Now all he had left was the rage, he found himself rushing down to the room full of training dummies. He punched through the feelings that he didn't want to deal with, punched through the rage he felt at losing his baby brother again. He had just gotten him back when he first came to the home again- had promised that they would talk about everything that they needed to talk about before this meta woman had taken him for him and traumatized him only more. And he knew Damian- he knew the kid well enough to know that he would act fine like he always did.
But Jason would know, they all would deep down. That unsettling silence and missing rage that's gone from his eyes. The tremor in his hands. Talia called his phone, and giving a final punch to the dummy he turned and answered it. She said that after a few hours alone with her (Jason has no clue how she had gotten legal permission to do that) she broke and spilled about the whole operation. Explained what was done to them to keep them in line, how many people he killed while there, and how they found out about who he was. The whole of the information made him sick. But he knew why the collar was there now. All he could mutter through his throat which felt all too scratchy and shaking for him to manage was a small
"Thanks, mama" and then he hung up the phone. He stormed down the stares calling for Damian, pretending not to see the way the boy flinched again.
"We're getting the collar off of you," He said.
- - - -
Tim could not sit still any longer, Grayson was worrying like a mother hen in the front seat asking Bruce everything about what Talia had told him, what had happened to Damian, who she was. But all Tim could think about was they had him back. He was still alive, he was safe. Safe. But the nagging feeling in the back of his mind wouldn't go away as they pulled into the Batcave. As soon as his suit was off and he was back in his own comfortable red sweater he headed up the stairs. The first thing he saw was a very scared Damian as Jason helped a pair of tools on an object on his neck. Collar, his mind helpfully supplies for him. Slowly he walks up, making sure that his presence is known. He hears Damian mutter something in Arabic to Jason but its too quick for him to make out any words but what Jason says back is clear,
"he is safe, honey, you know him. His name is Tim"
Tim swallows thickly and then turns to Jason, a look in his eyes that has Jason sighing and giving the tools over to him while they swap places. When Damian looked at him, that sheen of green in his eyes that reminded him all too much of Jason he softly joked
"Its alright Dami, im the better one with tech"
It earned a small smile that he didn't know what possible to get from Damian. Jason though looked pained. As if he so badly wanted to just shake Damian and ask him to be angry, to be rageful. Instead, all they get is a faraway look and him closing his eyes as he fears what he assumes is the expected pain to come from the attempt to remove the collar. Tim has it off in less than a second. Damian sighed when the weight is off his neck bringing a hand up and feeling the raw skin. He whispers a soft thank you to Tim and then turns to Jason.
"We have to talk about this Damian," Jason says
"We don't have to talk about anything" Damian shoots back, the conversation switching between Arabic and Spanish.
"You died?" Jason says. Needing another confirmation, because maybe what started this whole thing was just a mishearing that he could shove away and that they could all laugh about it together while joking softly. But all Jason earns as an answer to that is the glare of someone who is tired and truamatized and wants nothing more than to rest. He bites out
"yes! I died. I was first killed when i was four"
Jason freezes in his spot and hears Tim set the glass he was drinking in the kitchen a little bit too hard down on the table. Jason chokes out a sob and brings a hand to his mouth to smother the sound. How did he not notice? Talia kept him in the dark for a lot of things after his revival, kept a lot of his past. She had always said that it was for his own good and he's never had any reason to doubt this, but this? Why wouldn't she tell him about the death of his baby brother- unless she didn't know?
"How-" he tries and Damian sighs.
"I was too slow crossing the mountains."
Jason has never thrown a glass in rage harder in that moment, away from Damian and Tim he shouts and throws the cup onto the ground heaving with a hand pressed to his chest. He knew those mountains, they were miles long, nothing that a four-year-old kid could even walk into, let alone cross! He turned back around, slowly, to make sure not to aggravate Damian. Slowly he places his hands on the face of his baby brother and pulls him to his chest.
"God...Dami why did you tell me" He cries softly, it's the first time in a while since he had tears running down his face in something he could describe as pure misery. He felt the way Damian melted into him. And for the first time in a long time, he felt safe again. Jason softly ran a hand through his hair again, Tim saw as he held Damian and got a sense of Deja vu from when he was crying earlier.
"Because it wasnt just that one time"
Jason's hands stilled in his hair and he pulled away slightly to look Damian in the face he looked like he was about to open his mouth and shout, maybe yell, but he just pulled him back into a hug and whispered a soft apology for not being there to save him.
"S'not your fault," Damian says and Jason shakes his head.
"I should been there," He says again
"You were there. But it's okay, that's in the past" Damian assures softly and they both hear the heavy footsteps of their father and know that they don't have long to continue this conversation before their father arrives. They give each other a look that means that they both agree to talk about this later and Tim calls out to their oldest brother Grayson who runs down the hall and then envelops Damian into a hug, softly he presses kisses to his nose and his forehead
"Oh my darling- if you ever do that again I swear-" Damian softly laughs and pushes him off with a light shove
"Im fine"
Bruce gives Damian a firm pat on his shoulders and a ruffle to his hair and Damian smiles slowly and whispers a small "thanks for bringing me home" Bruce replies with his own "Always"
They stumble into Grayson's room and he holds all of them. Jason thinks that maybe one day he'll know the full story, for now. He'll be happy with his baby brother in his arms again and the feeling of contentedness he hasn't felt in years. And they'll figure it out from there.