Work Text:
When Damian sees Jason Todd, he is always tempted to ask a few questions.
You see, differently from most, what he wishes to say usually isn’t about the killing that happens when Jason puts on the infamous red helmet. That he is capable of understanding. Damian didn’t use to kill for anything related to ethics — a natural aspect of his birthright more than anything else —, as grey as morality can get in both sides of his family, but he has blood on his hands nonetheless.
There isn’t much to say about dying, either. They’ve both been there, at different times, in almost different worlds, clinging to what Bruce Wayne once meant, but Death is timeless and the same to everyone it touches. (It is life that is different. Damian woke up to love and Jason to absence.) Sure, there were some scattered talks about it over a rooftop or two, mostly questions, “What do you remember of it?” and “Do you feel wrong when you breathe?”, that were met with, “I’m not sure,” and “Being alive to me has always felt somewhat unsettling,” but it wasn’t long before they realized that it was the last thing they wished to talk about, even with someone who could understand.
Good thing they can work just fine with silence.
Even though almost a full year has gone by after Damian was bought back to the unfortunate land of the living, he still catches the Red Hood looking out for him more than what is necessary whenever they happen to meet under Gotham’s night sky. It’s something he does even when they are in different sides of a fight, “not opposite sides,” Hood would say, “you know what I want for this hell of a city is the same that you want, too.”
(Damian supposes it is the same in more ways than it is not, but Father has a more abrasive opinion on the matter.)
Regardless of how many times Damian has snarled for him to stay out of his way — like a little brother would be upset rather than an acquaintance or an ally —, that he does not need the extra protection, especially not from him, the Red Hood is insistent. Merciless even about this.
Father’s face twitched when he mentioned the gesture. Drake teased, “you complain when we don’t like you, you complain when we try to help.” Richard gave him a sad smile that Damian couldn’t shake off his mind for days; Nightwing is also prone to reckless protection around his Robin, closer to endangering himself than he would be otherwise.
It makes it harder to work. It makes it more painful to love and be loved by Richard. It makes him more sensitive to what persisted of Father’s grief. But, right now, Damian can only think of how it makes him more curious about Jason Todd — he could write a list. How can you be so ruthless, yet so caring? How much of your idiocy is staged? How was Father before he lost you? Do you truly not realize the hole you left inside his heart?
But, most of the time, he wishes to ask him about Mother.
Damian knows they spent some time together. What parts of her that he knows that her own son doesn’t? He wonders, sometimes, what would have been of their weird brotherhood — if you could call it that — if Mother was to tell him about the ex-Robin’s leap into the Lazarus Pit. They could’ve met. He was very young then, but his tender age had never been an issue to the League. Perhaps, after probably trying to murder Jason for planning to hurt the Batman of all people, he would grow to admire that… unique determination. Like he does now, although reluctantly.
However, what actually pulls the trigger and has Damian swallowing his pride has nothing to do with blood — in any sense of the word.
“What do I own the visit?”
The way Damian stiffs, full-on Robin gear and with only one foot into the apartment’s window, could only be caught by someone trained under his Father. The Red Hood snorts, a sound distorted by the helmet’s voice modulator.
“I assume you let me in,” he chooses to say. “Otherwise your security methods could be compared to the skillset of a babbling infant. And that is me being polite.”
“It sure is,” Hood sits down, couch worn out and small like most of his safehouses, reaching for a mug resting on a table. The room smells like cheap coffee — the kind that offends Drake to a personal level —, but Damian suspects that this is tea. “Alfred called. Like, a few minutes ago. Said that if I let my window open I might catch a bird.”
Damian clicks his tongue. “I didn’t tell Pennyworth to inform you of my arrival.”
“Are you embarrassed?”
He presses the bag he is holding a little too forcefully to his chest. “No.”
The Red Hood hums and takes off the helmet. Then, Jason Todd blows on his drink. “You must have noticed by now, but Alfie kinda does what he wants.”
(Damian has very much noticed.)
“Were you about to go out to do any of your nonsense?” He asks. Then, more shyly: “I could come back another time.”
For a moment, Todd looks like he’s about to ask what Damian wants from him, but instead, he raises an eyebrow. “You don’t get to boss me. Weren’t you supposed to be getting ready to patrol now, baby bat?”
Damian frowns at the nickname. “We’re going in later tonight for a specific mission, but, for once, I am not here to discuss any crime-related activity. It is more… personal.”
“Oh, no.” He groans louder than Damian wants to hear. “Is this any kind of family meeting? I know I have been on kinda-friendly terms with most of you for a while now, but I’m not in the mood for anything personal. ”
“It is not a family meeting.”
“Whatever it is, go to Dick.”
He clears his throat. “I think it will be of your interest.”
“Surprise me, then.” Todd sighs, stretching his arms. The mug is now empty and there’s probably more where it came from, but he doesn’t offer any beverage to Damian. Rude. “Do your worst, but you know I’m badder.”
He refuses the urge to roll his eyes at the insulting use of the English language — Todd is above this! — and drops his bag’s content onto the living room table with little to no ceremony, almost pushing the mug off. Jason curses at him.
Then, nine bangs. One from each Sherlock Holmes book colliding with the wood.
Todd's expression shifts in a way that Damian knows he wishes he still had the red helmet on.
“These are mine,” he draws out, slow.
“Indeed.”
“You,” Todd narrows his eyes, the greenish-blue glowing accusingly. “You stole my books?”
Damian bristles. “I am above stealing.”
“I don’t remember giving them to you,” he points out. “Or letting you borrow them. Thief.”
“They were in the Manor’s library,” he says. “With some other books that also belonged — belong to you, I believe. They had a special place just for them.”
“Wh—”
“Pennyworth.”
Todd’s shoulders are still tense, but the lines around his eyes soften at Alfred’s name. Damian can see that there’s some sort of internal struggle by the way Jason’s body carries itself in what he recognizes as the most unforgiving self-discipline; as if his fingers itch to run through the books’ covers, open them, press gently to the pages’ margins to see — to feel — if the notes he took so fervently all those years ago are still intact, but he doesn’t want to have this moment in front of Damian.
“You came here to tell me you found out Alfie is a good person,” Todd deadpans, but Damian catches the constipated emotion nonetheless. “Amazing job, Detective.”
“I came here,” he hesitates, “because I saw your notes.”
Todd wrote on all the nine volumes, a rushed, clumsy but determined calligraphy squeezed between the edges and Arthur Conan Doyle’s words, mostly untouched with the exception of a few phrases carefully circled by Alfred where Todd had made a grammar or spelling mistake. By the end of each and every book, there’s Father’s handwriting complimenting Todd’s observations and theories about the plot, the mysteries and the characters throughout the pages.
It made Damian heart’s ache when he saw it all. Younger Todd’s excited rambling about what he was reading was very, very bright. More often than not, he grasped even the more obscure clues and foreshadowings Doyle left within the narrative — a detective in making. A natural.
Damian had imagined Jason Todd as this dense, unruly kid that would only pick up a book if someone made him. Someone who worshipped senseless violence. It’s what almost everyone says. It’s what Todd himself tells people.
I was Robin. The bad one.
“And you’re here to tell me how stupid they were? How much better you were at my age?” Todd scowls, getting up a little too fast, already walking towards him. “Because I don’t want to hear any of it. Get out. ”
“Thank you,” Damian blurts out before the most Al Ghul part of him shuts his mouth and before Jason pushes him out of the window. “It was a privilege to read them.”
Surprise bursts into Todd’s face and he almost loses his balance when his steps come to an abrupt stop. “What?”
“You were — I saw your other books,” he says. “You have excellent taste in Literature and your notes were filled with very pertinent insights.”
“You’re complimenting me.”
“Yes.” Damian rolls his eyes. “It would be foolish of me not to admit it.”
Todd opens his mouth, then closes it. He repeats the action a few more times.
“You’re welcome, I guess?” He says, exasperation coloring his tone. “I wish I had a camera.”
“Only the Sherlock Holmes collection had notes on them,” Damian decides to push his look. “I checked it twice.”
Todd’s lips twitch, forming a thin line. A sort of bitterness clings to him and Damian is suddenly too aware of the fact that the boy who wrote what he read is lost to more than time itself.
“B gave them to so the detective skills part of training wouldn’t be so boring,” he sits down again, not looking at anything specific. “He — we decided to make it a sort of game. The notes were for him. So he could see my progress.”
“We don’t do this sort of activity,” Damian finds himself saying. He swallows, hand to his throat. The words hurt to pass through.
"I'd offer you tea, but I just ran out of it."
"Next time."
Todd’s smile is tired, “You can just ask Bruce to do stuff like this with you, gremlin.”
“I suppose I could,” he mumbles. Then, louder: “There are many clean books.”
“Don’t touch my stuff,” he snaps, but there’s no venom to it. “You hadn’t read Sherlock Holmes before?”
Damian’s back straightens. He puffs his cheeks involuntarily. “Of course I had. I wanted to re-read it. Who do you take me for? I’ve read the most celebrated literary works to date from authors all across the world!”
“To Kill a Mockingbird?” He challenges. “One Hundred Years of Solitude? Beloved? Fahrenheit 451? The Color Purple? The Left Hand of Darkness?”
“Please,” Damian scoffs. “I could’ve written an award-winning analysis on all of these when I was four.”
“What’s the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything?”
“42.”
“Impressive.”
He shoots back at Todd a list of his own and isn’t all that surprised that Jason only stops him once, “Dom Casmurro? Never heard of it.”
“It’s from Machado de Assis,” Damian for once in his life tries not to sound arrogant when explaining something. “Brilliant writer from Brazil.”
“They’ve got Clarice Lispector too,” Todd’s eyes widen in recognition. “I’ll look it up.”
“No need,” Damian waves his hand in a dismissive gesture. “I’ll have a copy delivered to you in no time. We can discuss it later if Capitu did or did not cheat on Bentinho and why it is unclear to this day.”
“I don’t know who these people are, but I bet she didn’t and, if she did, he deserved it.”
Damian almost smiles. “Good guess.”
“Uh,” he blinks. “Are you okay, Damian?”
“Do I not seem in good condition to you?”
“You want to spend time with me,” Todd says, pointing to himself. “With me. ”
Damian tries to mask the disappointment that creeps upon him with his usual scowl. “If you find it unpleasant and does not wish to—”
“I’m just surprised,” he interrupts. “God. Did I wake up looking like Dick Grayson and no one told me?”
“You’re not entirely impossible to be around, I’ll give you that, but you aren’t Richard either.” He smirks wolfishly. “But you do have a chance to prove to me that you can discuss art better than anyone else in our family.”
The last two words envelop the room in a heavy sort of silence. No one dares to move for far too long, and, despite the stillness of it all, despite how little effort one has to make in order to unveil the exact pace of their heartbeats and what they hide, no noise from the outside is brave enough to interrupt whatever flows between Damian and Jason in this instant.
Damian doesn’t know if Pennyworth keeping the books made him sentimental, or if the Bat-Signal is shining behind him for Father, or if the way he said our family was just like Richard says it, or if something about his careful way of approaching reminds Todd of how he and Drake started sorting out their own issues, or if the act of sharing words and finding meaning in it makes Todd’s mind wander off to Cain. Damian has no idea.
But, somehow, they’re all here. With them.
And Todd could run away. He could — and he doesn’t.
His hand finally finds its way to one of the books, with such care and devotion that, if it wasn’t for the bat plastered on Todd’s chest and the gun attached to his waist, no one would believe he’s the Red Hood.
“These stories,” Todd’s voice is not above a whisper, “made me feel like I had a home when you guys couldn’t.”
Damian’s eyes burn behind Robin’s mask. “You can have more than stories now. If you wish.”
The look in Todd’s eyes carries the kind of intensity that makes people afraid to live another day. Damian waits, without as much as breathing, for something to shatter; for having to turn his back and walk out with Todd’s rejection at his trail.
Instead, “Damian Wayne wants me to join his book club.”
Stunned, he almost falters. “If you want to put it that way.”
Todd turns away to put on his helmet before Damian can get a better look at his expression, but, if there’s anything feigned about Todd’s agreement, he isn't able to see. He seems to be getting ready for the night, back turned to Damian and a serenity to his movements that wasn’t there before.
“The things I do for art,” the voice modulator makes his dramatic sigh sound like static.
“I only expect the best,” Damian warns. “I choose the books.”
“Always?” Todd protests. “But then we’ll never know in which Hogwarts house you’re in, or who is your godly parent and if you’re in Camp Half-Blood or Camp Jupiter, if you’re Team Edward or Team Jacob, and I won’t get to see your face when Prim goes boom, or —”
Damian is almost regretting this already. “What even is this nonsense?”
“Oh, I’ll let you know.” Todd has one foot out of the window. “This is going to be priceless.”
“I won’t read any garba—”
“See ya in the Slytherin common room!”
“Where?”
Damian still has many questions to ask, but he is already gone, of course, and Robin is completely alone in the apartment.
But nowhere near as lonely as the other times Jason walked out on a conversation.