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Jason’s up to something.
Damian doesn't know what, but he's sure of it. They're all gathered around a table in the cave, looking over the files of the mission briefing, and Jason is surprisingly… amenable.
He's quiet. Too quiet. He doesn't insert as many sarcastic barbs as usual, he scowls, but he doesn't challenge every tactic like Damian expects. He doesn't push. He doesn't try to undermine his father's authority. He just listens.
Again, too quiet. Too dutiful.
“Drake,” Damian nudges Tim's side and whispers, “something is amiss.” They have the unfortunate circumstance of being paired for the Beta team on the current op, and thus sat together under the pretense that they are to collaborate and formalize their plan.
Tim looks at Damian with an arched brow and waits for him to continue.
“Todd is behaving oddly,” Damian states what must be blatantly obvious to anyone paying attention. “He is uncharacteristically cooperative. He must be up to something.”
Tim flicks his eyes over to Jason, who is huddled over a laptop with Richard while avidly discussing the best tactical positions around the warehouse, then looks back at Damian and shrugs. “Dick told Jason to play nice earlier. He probably bribed him with a free dinner.”
“Hmmph,” Damian grumbles. It can't be something that simple, can it? Jason is not so easily bought, but Damian puts his suspicions aside for the moment so that he can refocus on the mission.
They finalize their plans—Father, Richard, and Cassandra on the alpha strike team, Tim and Damian on the beta recon team, and Jason and Stephanie providing cover and demolitions on team gamma.
It's not an unusual choice. Damian has to admit that Jason's expertise in explosives is unrivaled, but he often elects to be on the team doing the frontal assault, given he's closest to Father in terms of brute force power. In the context of the mission it makes sense, so even though Damian is still suspicious of Jason’s ulterior intentions, he lets it slide for the moment.
“Alright, everyone,” Richard takes the lead to close up the briefing with a perfunctory speech, “curtain call is in three hours. Get a little rest, prep, eat. Whatever you need before we go live.”
They disperse.
Damian's suspicions do not.
Some of the group stays downstairs—namely Father and Tim—who both park themselves at a console and resume work. Damian would prefer to use his time productively too, but something about Jason’s behavior niggles annoyingly at the forefront of his mind.
He follows the rest of the crew upstairs. Alfred has laid out a spread on the dining table. Richard, Stephanie, and Cassandra are grabbing plates, but Jason is nowhere to be seen. After a brief scout around the lower floor, Damian finds him outside. Smoking.
Jason’s leaning against the stone balustrade that borders the edge of the garden, looking out at where the sun has dipped well past the horizon. He’s positioned himself just beyond the halo of the landscape lighting so that Damian mostly sees the red-orange glow of Jason’s cigarette as he takes a puff.
“Those things will kill you,” Damian tuts as he walks closer. The swirl of nicotine smoke clinging to Jason’s form is disgusting.
Jason gives a petulant snort. “Pretty sure my chances of getting shot or blown up on tonight's mission are much higher.”
Damian counters with a tut, “I do not understand your obsession with hastening yourself to a second death.”
The barb is met with a deflecting shrug. “Then why are you standing close enough to breathe in my second-hand smoke?” Jason flicks the cigarette to the ground and stamps it out.
Damian watches as Jason picks up the butt and puts it in his pocket. They both know that Alfred would skewer him if he found a stray butt littering the pristine expanse of the stone pavers.
Jason turns his face back toward the Manor. The lights are angled low, so Damian observes the play of shadows and light over his face. It's something he’s trained himself to watch for when he finds the time to draw or paint. He looks at where the light reaches and where it doesn’t. He looks to see if there’s a harsh line that cuts to darkness or if it's a softened blur where shadows gradually creep into ever heightening values of luminance.
Tonight, the lines seem harsher than usual. Jason’s face seems more angular. Gaunt. He even looks a little paler than usual. The bulky jacket hides the details of his form, but if Damian were to guess he would say that Jason’s lost some weight. It's subtle. He never would have noticed if his interest hadn’t been piqued by suspicion.
Jason returns Damian’s attention. He shifts uncomfortably. “What do you want?”
“You’re acting strangely.”
“Really?” Jason tilts up his chin, even though—to Damian's irritation—he has to look down to meet Damian's eyes. “How so?”
“You were far too amenable tonight,” Damian clips. “It's unlike you. You want something and I want to know what it is.”
Jason smirks, but there's something cold and tight in his eyes. “What if I just want an efficient op where I can blow shit up, I don't get lectured, and I can just go home to a quiet bed where none of you brats come and bother me?”
“I don't believe you. You thrive on strife and conflict!” Damian crosses his arms. He meets Jason’s challenging glare with a cutting glower of his own. “What is it? Is there a target you mean to take out? Intel you will steal? If I catch you breaking the rules, there will be consequences!”
“Seriously?” Jason scowls and pushes off the balustrade, fists balled.
Damian readies himself for an attack. For Jason to come at him and for Damian to meet him blow for blow. He shifts his stance, knees bent, leans forward so he's on the balls of his feet and waits as Jason lurches forward… and then spins on his heel and walks away.
“Where do you think you're going?” Damian demands.
“I'm not doing this.” Jason doesn't even turn to look at him. He just marches back into the Manor.
“Doing what?”
“Doing this, whatever this is.” Jason shakes his head. “Not tonight.”
“What's so different about tonight?”
“Nothing. That's the whole point.” Jason meanders through the halls until he reaches Bruce’s study. He fiddles with the clock until the passage opens down to the cave. “I'm gonna prep the charges.”
He disappears down the darkened stairwell. Damian doesn't follow. If Damian is right and Jason is doing anything nefarious down in the cave, then surely Father and Tim would take note. And if Damian's wrong, well, then he doesn't need another lecture about his place relative to the others in this family. So he puts his suspicions aside for now and focuses on tonight's mission.
The mission goes smoothly. Mostly. Damian begrudgingly admits that Jason and Stephanie set off a rather impressive array of explosives. All of the trafficked alien assault weapons are rendered inoperable in a matter of seconds. Jason and Stephanie let out whoops and hollers over the comms as the entirety of the surrounding lot goes up in flames, leaving the field open for the rest of the bats to move in and apprehend the smugglers.
The strike team moves in. Tim and Damian handle the flanks, and once the perimeter is fully secured, they close in with the others. Damian is eager to finally enter the fray. There’s a group of smugglers providing cover fire for their compatriots from behind a stack of smoldering crates. A flash bang flushes them out and Damian takes them down in a systematic assault—bolas to subdue, disabling attacks aimed at the extremities, and nerve strikes to stop the smugglers just short of dead—all non-lethal methods that he's had to spend countless hours retraining his body to perfect. He knows his father would expect no less of him, and that in doing so has earned himself the right and the respect to stand at his father’s side as partner and rightful heir….
So he doesn’t understand why time and time again, Jason bends or outright breaks the rules and Father simply overlooks it. Even forgives it. Damian is constantly reprimanded for his mistakes while Jason flaunts them. He throws it in their faces. He mocks them with the supposed tragedy of his death—uses it to deflect and defer any consequences. Damian has died as well, but he never uses it against the family like Jason does.
His death was a mistake, but Damian takes his resurrection seriously. It's his chance to continue to make amends, to continue to prove himself better. Damian has seen Jason do no such thing, and yet he stands within their ranks. It's a right he hasn't earned. And Father simply lets him.
It drives Damian mad sometimes.
It drives him to distraction. His thoughts unwittingly draw so much of his focus that he misses it when one of the smugglers worms his arms out of the bola wires. He grabs a dropped gun—the alien equivalent of an assault rifle—takes aim at Damian and fires.
Damian ducks and rolls except he isn't quite fast enough to avoid getting grazed. He springs up onto his feet, arm drawn back to fling a batarang, but the smuggler is already taking his second shot. Damian tries to dodge. It's too late.
But then a larger body is suddenly in between them. A flash of a red helmet streaks across Damian's vision. It's Jason.
There's a grunt as the bullet impacts. Jason staggers back a step and then fires. He hits the smuggler in the arm. The gun drops and the man screams.
“Come on.” Jason hauls Damian behind a pile of unrecognizable wreckage. “You hit?” His voice is like the grind of metal gears through his modulator. “Your arm’s bleeding.”
“I'm fine. It's just a graze,” Damian huffs. “And you? You took that hit for me.” It's a statement. A plain fact. But it comes with a feeling of something heavy in his chest.
“My armor can handle it,” Jason states just as plainly. “Don't act so surprised.”
That's the extent of their exchange. They're both scanning the field for an opening. As soon as the remaining smugglers shift their attention to Tim, drawing fire on the opposite line, they both rejoin the fight. Damian skirts up along the northern perimeter toward the warehouse while Jason darts off somewhere toward the fence line.
The mission ends as expected with the smugglers tied up, the contraband either destroyed or ready to be confiscated, and the Bats with various scrapes and bruises but nothing warranting immediate medical attention.
Or at least Damian thought so. Jason pipes up and disagrees. “The brat got grazed,” he tells Father, “make sure he doesn't need stitches.”
Damian clenches his teeth. “Hood took a hit, too. Perhaps he also needs a bullet dug out of his shoulder.”
It was meant to be a biting retort. If Damian is being called out for sustaining injury, then it's only fair that Jason should face the same shame. Except now that he's looking, there's a dark, wet stain on Jason’s armor peeking out from under his jacket before he pulls it closed. Damian is a little surprised. He'd believed Jason when he said his armor could handle taking the hit, but then he recognizes that the alien artillery is an unknown quantity. It's highly possible that they have a more penetrative effect than standard rounds.
Jason's still wearing his helmet as he turns the whites of his lenses on Damian. The design of the helmet is meant to be menacing. For a brief moment it's quite effective. Then Jason turns on his heel, just like he did earlier in the night at the Manor, and says, “I'm fine. I'm skipping the debrief.” He pauses briefly, looking at the Bats gathered around and offers a playful salute. “Well, this has been fun. I'm out.”
He leaves. No one stops him, even though Father watches him leave for longer than he has to. Richard takes a few steps to follow before he thinks better of it. They watch him go without a word.
Much to Damian's indignation, Richard makes him check in at the cave's medbay. The bullet graze on his arm does, in fact, need a couple of stitches. Some unknown property of the alien projectiles increased the laceration radius, which caused deeper cuts than a normal bullet would have. Father has already begun the ballistics testing of several samples of the weaponry. Damian wonders then if the hit Jason took for him caused more damage than he let on.
He turns to Richard as he's finishing the last stitch, intending to instruct him to follow up with Jason, but something stops him. That heavy feeling from earlier returns. It coalesces into a pit in his stomach.
Jason took the hit for him. Damian was the one who had left himself open by being distracted. Damian was the one who was being unfair earlier, accusing Jason of unsavory motivations that, in hindsight, were unwarranted. And what did Jason do about it? He stepped in to take a bullet for Damian and then walked away without a word.
“Thank you,” Damian says to Richard as he hops off the medical table—he's been making more of an effort to be appreciative—but the twisting knot in his chest tells him that he should be saying it to someone else. “I'm going to bed,” he lies.
Richard pats him on the shoulder. “Get some rest. B and I will wrap things up.”
It doesn't take much effort to go up to his room and sneak out the window. From there, he makes his way to the edge of the property where he's hidden a bike for instances like these. It's a little harder to track down Jason's latest safehouse, but it's nothing a little hacking won't solve, especially since it doesn’t appear that Jason was actively trying to hide from the Bats.
The apartment sits on the top floor of an old Crime Alley tenement. Damian deftly lands on the crumbling brick ledge of the windowsill. There isn't much in the way of alarms, just a rudimentary wire system that Damian quickly disables. He slips inside a nearly empty one-room studio where there's a half-deflated air bed on one end and a barren kitchenette on the other. On the far wall is a closed door, presumably the bathroom. As Damian silently steps closer, he's confronted with the telltale sound of someone retching into the toilet.
Definitely the bathroom then.
Damian pauses just outside the door. Is Jason sick? He briefly considers turning around and leaving, but if Jason sustained a more serious injury than he let on earlier, then Damian can't leave. Getting shot could even be the reason he's suddenly ill. Nausea is a common symptom of shock. Or blood loss.
“Todd!” Damian raps his knuckles against the door. “It's me.”
A hoarse “Go away!” is the immediate reply.
“I'm coming in.” Damian pushes the door open to find Jason spitting into the toilet. Bright red blood splatters before Jason flushes it away. He slumps into the corner as Damian approaches.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Jason presses the back of his head against the wall and closes his eyes, clearly in pain. He's stripped down to his undershirt so Damian can see the sloppily stitched pucker where the bullet must have punctured the meat of his shoulder. Blood dribbles from the wound onto ghostly pale skin. Far more sickly than Damian realized when he noted Jason’s pallor earlier.
Damian presses his lips together. “I thought you said your armor could handle it.”
“I still have my arm, don't I?” Jason tries to shrug his shoulders, then winces.
“Ttt. You should have come to the cave for treatment.”
“And get a lecture from Bruce? No thanks.”
Jason tilts his head in what Damian thinks is meant to be a head shake but the movement is stilted. He flutters his eyes open and swallows. It's obvious that he's still experiencing nausea of some sort. Perhaps a concussion?
Damian closes the distance between them and flips a penlight open from his pouch, intending to examine Jason’s pupils. He gets as far as pointing it at Jason's face before Jason snatches it out of his hand.
“Get that thing out of my face,” he growls. “It's not a concussion.”
“Then what's wrong with you?” Damian crosses his arms and awaits an answer.
“Nothing,” Jason stubbornly sets his jaw. “I'm fine.” He drags himself up, fingers gripping white on the tiny bathroom counter.
That's when Damian notices the pill bottles cluttering up the rim of the sink. He recognizes some of the drug names from his volunteer work at the hospital. He spends a lot of time with the end-stage cancer patients so he’s seen them often—there's an antiemetic and other things that help prevent heart and liver damage during chemotherapy.
He looks at Jason, alarmed. “Why do you have this?”
He doesn't answer at first. He's still leaning on the counter, staring down at his trembling hands. His breathing is abnormally measured, as if he were consciously trying to steady his breath. Finally, he looks up at Damian, expression cold and unreadable. “Why do you think?”
Damian recalls the blood Jason spat when he walked in. He takes in how much thinner he looks. How weak. How much muscle he's lost and how unsteady he seems to be on his feet.
But he seemed fine earlier, right? But was he? Now that Damian reconsiders, he sees the signs. Perhaps there is a specific reason Jason chose to do demolitions tonight. Perhaps he didn't want to engage on the front lines of the op. If he’s in a weakened state, joining the main assault would have been too much of a risk. Perhaps choosing the lead on explosives was his way of intentionally staying out of the fray. Perhaps the only reason he ended up down on the field was because Damian was about to get shot.
The pit in Damian's stomach has been churning since he entered the little run-down bathroom. He doesn't ask Jason why or what again, because the answer is obvious. It feels too terrifying to say, even in his head, so instead he asks, “What's the prognosis?”
Jason looks away. “Terminal.”
“You… you need to tell Father,” Damian stammers. “I'll call Richard. I know the doctors at the hospital. We'll get you–”
“No,” Jason cuts him off. “Just no. Don't you think I've already tried all that?” He waves his hand in the air. What he's indicating is imprecise, but at the same time completely comprehensible. “Doctors. Aliens. Even magic. I've looked, but there're some things I'm just not willing to do.”
The air is thick. An electrical tension. A dense, impenetrable dread. It feels like it's all Damian can do to pull the thin strands of oxygen into his lungs to insist, “You have to tell them.”
“I don't have to do anything.” Jason pushes past him out to the main room. He picks his phone up off the floor where it was charging and starts thumbing a text, then puts it in his pocket. “I'm leaving. You're not going to see me again after tonight.”
“Where are you going?”
“Straight to hell as far as most people are concerned, but otherwise nowhere you need to know.” His tone is punctuated with finality.
“You can't be so cruel as to leave without even a word to Father!” It's almost a shout. Damian knows he's feeling irrationally angry. That he's reacting to a bombshell of a reveal that's going to devastate his family as soon as they know, and Jason is being as flippant and dismissive as ever.
“How can you be so selfish?” he continues. “How can you be such a coward that you won't even face us?”
Jason half turns from where he was packing clothes into a duffel and just looks at Damian. His eyes are downcast, his stare devoid of emotion, and his skin so sickly white and translucent he practically looks like a ghost already. “You're right. I'm selfish, but at this point I have every right to be. I didn't get to choose how I died last time, but this time I do. I don't want to face Bruce. If things had been good between us, then maybe things would be different, but I don't want to spend my last days literally not living up to his expectations. I wanted one last memory. A good one. I got it. Mostly. I'll take it with me to the grave.”
A tightness clutches at Damian's heart. “So tonight… this was meant to be your last memory of us. Of the family.”
Jason nods. “Tonight was goodbye.”
“I’m sorry.” Damian forces himself to unclench his fists. “I'm sorry I… I spoiled it.”
“It's fine. You didn't.” Jason drops down onto the half-deflated mattress. The vinyl crinkles. The threadbare blanket bunches up around where Jason's weight creates a massive indent. “You're okay, kid.”
Damian sits down beside him. It causes Jason to bounce a little when the air shifts within the containment of the polyvinyl seams. Words seem meaningless suddenly. Damian doesn't know what he can say or do to make this feel right. He can only ask, “How long?”
“Months. Maybe weeks.”
He looks at Jason, sitting beside him with his head in his hands. He can't help but think that he's already fading away before Damian's eyes. He can't help but think that this isn't a way he would choose to go either. Dying in battle is one thing—to be able to fight with your full strength, with fortitude of mind and with the faculties that come with willpower—but having your body gradually wither away and fall apart is something else altogether.
“You're not afraid?” He's not sure if Jason will answer, but he does.
“I'm terrified.”
“Then why?” Damian implores, “Why do this alone? Why not let us help you?”
Jason let's out a long sigh. Maybe he was holding his breath. Maybe he couldn't hold it any longer. “I'm sorry, but this isn't really about you. It isn't about Bruce or Dick or anyone. This is about me and what I can handle, and right now, I just can't.”
Damian wants to argue. This is ridiculous. He should be calling Richard this very moment to bring his Father and force Jason to come home. There has to be a solution. There has to be something that Jason hasn't thought of.
“I know what you're thinking,” Jason cuts into his thoughts. “I'm asking you to just stop. Let me do this my way. Don't make me fight all of you to the bitter end. That's not going to be good for anyone.”
“So you expect me to just… what? Leave you to die?” This all feels wrong. Damian doesn't want to give in. Robin is meant to protect all life. Damian has too much blood on his hands already. He can't just sit here and do nothing.
A hand on his shoulder jars him from his train of thought. Jason squeezes his shoulder reassuringly, but his hand is cold. Boney. His voice is hollow yet soft and earnest at the same time. “Damian, you and I know death better than anyone in this family.”
It's true. They've both died. They've both taken a countless number of lives. Death knows them from both sides. Damian balls his fists in his lap. “So?”
“So you know that even after everything, it's going to be okay.” Jason squeezes his shoulder one more time, then lets his hand drop.
How can everything be okay after this? Damian doesn't believe it, but then again, he does. He doesn't remember anything from the time he was dead. There's just a vague sense of quiet. He knows there was peace.
He wasn't around for the time that Jason was dead, but he's heard from Tim and Richard about how Jason's death had affected Father. Something inside him broke. For better or worse it made him a different man, but either way he kept living. He survived the grief. He was… okay.
Damian wonders if his Father had failed in resurrecting him, if eventually he would have been okay after Damian's death, too.
A soft buzz sounds and Jason fishes his phone out of his pocket. “That's my ride,” he says. He picks up his duffel and rolls to a stand.
Without Jason’s counter weight, Damian sinks through the deflated mattress to the floor. He springs up and follows Jason down the stairwell onto the street where there's a car waiting. Jason opens the passenger door. There's a woman with long red hair in the driver's seat.
Jason turns to Damian before he gets in. “I won't be alone. I promise. Here, take this.” He hands Damian his phone. “Tell everyone I'm sorry. I'm sure they'll have questions. My phone might or might not have the answers.”
It's a poor consolation, but Damian takes the phone. He doesn't stop the car from driving away. He watches it go. Only when it's out of sight does he call Richard.
Damian happens to be the one who opens the door when Artemis turns up six months later on the Manor doorstep, holding an empty wooden box. It's the urn that at one point had held Jason's ashes. Per his last wishes, she had emptied it into Gotham Harbor five months ago.
“He did not wish for any particular funerary rites,” she explains, “But I have asked the Goddess to guide him on his journey to the afterlife.”
She offers nothing else.
Damian thanks her and takes the empty box, then heads down to the cave to tell his father that what's left of Jason will never come home.