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Jason wants to say he’s surprised that Damian found him but he knows better than to doubt him. What really gets to him is that Damian tracked him down to a shitty diner in Tennessee on his own accords just to check up on him. Either way, when the youngest Robin slides into the booth seat across from him, it’s decidedly the happiest Jason’s felt since Roy left.
They don’t talk right away, Jason just makes his way through his burger while Damian messes with one of the holo-programs on his gauntlet. Damian speaks briefly to ask the waitress for a coffee and a bowl of ice cream, and Jason can’t help but snort at him. It’s easy to forget sometimes just how young Damian really is until he does something a kid his age would. Jason wonders how he could ever forget when the waitress sets down Damian’s sundae in front of him and his eyes widen as he gets ready to dig in. Jason takes his opportunity then to ask why Damian’s so far from Gotham.
“Does your father know where you are?”
“He doesn’t have to always know where I am,” Damian huffs, “I’m not an idiot, Todd.” He follows his statement up with a few angry spoonfuls of ice cream before he decides he has more to say. “Nobody knows where you are. Except for me.”
“Aww, you could’ve just told me you missed me, baby bird.”
Damian flings a little ice cream at Jason and in retaliation Jason dips his fingers in his glass of water and flicks it at him. It’s not enough to be anything more than annoying but Jason can’t help but laugh as Damian bristles as a cat would. “I didn’t miss you, I was the only one who knew how to find you, so I came to talk to you,” he practically hisses but there’s no heat behind the superficial layer of Damian’s anger. He rubs a hand down his face to collect the water, reaches over the table, and wipes it on Jason’s jacket. “What do you know about Sanctuary?”
Jason’s about to point out that the only reason Damian knows how to find him is because none of the other bats were probably looking for him, but his brain malfunctions halfway through at the mention of Sanctuary. Damian’s always serious, he rarely lets himself be anything but, except his tone now is almost suffocating with how direct he is with it. “I-” Jason begins, unsure what kind of answer his brother’s looking for. He fiddles with the silver band on his finger for a few seconds before answering, “it’s the hero rehabilitation center. Roy wouldn’t tell me where, exactly, I just know it’s in the Midwest.” Damian’s looking at him hard and Jason can sense he wants to say something he doesn’t think Jason will like. “If you’re trying to get me to go,” Jason says first, not wanting to give Damian the option to suggest it first. He tries not to sound angry but he can feel the bitterness building up when he continues, “I’m not gonna fucking go, even if you’re the one extending the invitation. I already said no to Roy, I don’t wanna fucking go somewhere where half the people don’t even fucking-”
Damian slamming both his fists on the table as he stands up cuts Jason off and he leans over the table to get in Jason’s face, “there’s nobody at Sanctuary, Jason.” He’s breathing heavily as he looks down at Jason but Jason can’t seem to figure out how to breathe at all. They both clam up after that, taking a few moments to calm down. When Damian thinks Jason’s ready he explains further, voice flat, “something happened a week ago and all of the remaining heroes were moved out.” There’s a pause, and Jason nods, trying to signal that he’s still following. “Father wanted to tell you himself but he’s busy trying to figure out who’s responsible for the massacre.”
Jason can feel himself becoming a little numb at that, at the idea of multiple heroes dying when they’re at their lowest point and trying to heal. His heart stops altogether when his brain finally catches up and all he can think about is where’s Roy Harper. Damian picks up on the change immediately thanks to his training and all the time he and Jason spent together with the League making it easy for him to read Jason. Instead of talking, he flips open the panel in his gauntlet and pulls up a hologram of the roster of heroes at Sanctuary. He slips it off his wrist and hands it over to Jason so he can scroll through. When Jason does, he’s struck with the reminder that Damian’s a child again when he realizes the gauntlet is maybe a third of the size of his own. His brain is halfway through processing the thought that Damian could’ve been hurt if he was there before his brain aborts it entirely and he returns his focus to the holo-projection.
He doesn’t really know the first section of heroes who pop up, some are younger no-names and some are just heroes he’s never met. It’s daunting to see that out of everyone on the roster, almost all are marked dead or in critical condition. The feeling worsens when he sees his childhood friend Eddie Bloomberg amongst the casualties and that alone makes him wanna stop. Except he can’t, not until Jason finds what he’s looking for. He knows he’s not gonna like the answer he finds especially when Damian tries to sneakily slide into his side of the booth to sit next to him. As he scrolls further, he’s aware of Damian closing in on his side distantly but his heart in his throat takes up too much of Jason’s attention. His heart stops dead the second he sees the photo of Roy that’s X’d out and ‘deceased’ printed under it.
Jason doesn’t remember what happens right after, just that the next thing he knows he’s leaning against the brick outside the diner, Damian kneeling in front of him. Jason knows death isn’t a rarity for vigilantes, it’s as common as getting mugged in Gotham, but that doesn’t stop him from panicking. Roy’s gone. Who’s to say this is one of the times they get brought back? The universe exceeded its limit of being nice to Jason when it brought Roy back into his life when he got kicked out of Gotham, there’s no way it’ll bring Roy back to him again. Jason can feel the anxiety rising in the pit of his stomach and he can feel the heat behind his eyes as they start to burn. He’s no stranger to panic attacks but there’s something about the build-up of this one that feels like seeing a huge raincloud roll in over the horizon. He knows it’s gonna be a downpour but he knows he can’t stop it, that he’s just gonna be a bystander to the flooding.
His throat’s closing around what little breaths he can take but he tries to focus on the heat of Damian’s little arm pressed against his. If Jason focuses hard enough on Damian next to him, he can distract himself just enough to pull himself out. It’s easier to calm down when he realizes Damian is sitting so close because he remembers that’s how Talia used to help Jason through the panic attacks when they were living with the League. That Damian cared enough to remember how to help Jason or that he even wants to help him brings him down just enough that his lungs remember how to work.
When Jason is present enough, Damian pulls out his phone from an inner pocket of his uniform and opens up an album on his phone. He scoots in a little closer and holds the phone between him and Jason and on the screen is a photo of Titus sleeping at the foot of Damian’s bed. “I wish I could bring him along on Titans missions.” He scrolls through the album and comments on why he took them, gives them both something to focus on rather than the Sanctuary scenario. “I took this one because Alfred was making chirping noises,” Damian says when a photo of the cat standing in the windowsill pops up. He scrolls past a photo of Titus, Batcow, a few more of Titus, and then another of Ace. It’s a nice photo of Ace but Jason can’t help but feel mildly annoyed when he remembers the last time he saw the dog he had tried to eat Jason’s jacket. When Damian switches to the next photo he feels vindicated when it’s a photo of Ace sleeping on his jacket.
By the time they go through the whole album, Jason’s calmed down almost entirely. When they both stand and stretch, Jason starts to feel weird again. He wants to thank Damian for being the one to tell him, for coming to talk to him so soon after the incident, to thank him for helping him after but… he doesn’t know how to say all that. Instead, he pulls Damian in by the shoulders, tucks his brother’s head into him and ruffles his hair. Damian seems to get it from the way he doesn’t immediately bite Jason and if he presses into Jason ever so slightly, nobody else needs to know but them.
“Be good, okay?” Jason asks when they pull apart even though he knows Damian is too pragmatic to just behave like Bruce and anyone else he accompanies will want him to. Damian snorts and punches him hard in the side. Jason rolls his eyes and shoves him along, “you better get home before Bruce comes to beat the shit out of me again for letting you out past your bedtime.”
Damian makes a face at him for that, flips him the bird, and points a button at the sky. There’s a quiet beeping noise and a rumbling as a smaller version of the Batwing uncloaks itself from where it’s hovering in the sky. Damian gives him a smug smile and grapples into the aircraft and Jason can’t help but be jealous of him for a second. There’s no way Bruce would’ve let him use an aircraft and Jason wouldn’t have been brave enough to steal one to take halfway across the States. The jealousy fades into something softer as he watches Damian take off and head back to New Jersey. He knows Damian was only so tolerating today because of the conversation they had but Jason also knows that even if Damian had spent the entire evening beating on him it would’ve been okay because Damian at least cared enough to tell him in person.