Archive of Our Own ^beta

Jason wouldn’t say he was as close to Damian as they may have been while in the League. It was clear that the young boy had a soft spot for their eldest brother Dick, much in the same way that he himself had a soft spot for Bruce when he was Robin. Maybe even more so since Dick knew what it was like to be a partner-in-vigilantism, and thus how to connect to Damian better when he was Batman. Even after Bruce’s return, Dick and Damian were connected in a way that Jason couldn’t compete with. 

He supposed that he reminded the youngest too much of his time with Talia and the League. Maybe Damian reminded Jason too much of that period of time as well, and he subconsciously avoided the kid on days he remembered too much. Maybe he sought the kid out on days he wanted to remember, but always chickened out in fear of dredging up bad memories. Damian had changed so much since back then that Jason couldn’t really see him as the same boy anyway. 

There were, however, days where all Jason could see was the little boy who would sit in the corner of the training room while he practiced his katana swings. Eyes bright and curious with a pouty frown that could only be described as adorable and not intimidating like he probably hoped. There was a certain air of content that one could glean from Damian when he was still with the League. It was all he knew- all he thought he was going to know- before being shipped off to New Jersey to live with his father.

Jason hadn’t been there the last few years before Damian left the League, having been dipped into the Lazarus pit and sent off to do who knows what in his rageful state. He knew how things went at the League and could only assume what Damian’s life was like there, but he’d never truly know unless the boy told him. He did wonder if Talia knew she was going to send the boy away. Damian sure as hell didn't know until he was quite literally on the plane, but Jason theorized that Talia had been planning everything for a while. 

Ra’s was going senile, sick in the head with something even the pit couldn’t cure. He wanted Damian as his heir, but Talia wanted him to be free. Well, free in the literal definition of the word. He was still a child and needed guidance, but not a controlling force dictating his every choice. Jason supposed that he got that guidance in Gotham with Bruce and Dick, and if you pestered him enough he would admit to looking out for the boy himself from time to time. 

Jason wasn’t at the manor for Damian’s early days in the states, but he heard about the different mix ups and cultural differences the boy was going through from Dick and Tim. Damian was baffled that they walked around the manor with their shoes on, and Jason knew he had a pair of hard bottomed slippers that he would walk around inside with instead of his shoes. He had converted Tim into not wearing his shoes indoors, if the fluffy slip-on Uggs that he would wear around the manor meant anything. Alfred probably appreciated it, god knows how much dirt they tracked in. 

While Jason didn’t spend much time at the manor compared to the others, he’s noticed a few things that have changed since Damian’s arrival. Most notably, there were always two versions of any meal that Alfred made if meat was a part of it. Even before going fully vegetarian, Damian was very skeptical of eating the meat cooked at the manor. He was often inquisitive about the origins of the animal and the manner of its death, but it was mainly brushed off as paranoia by the others. 

Jason knew where it stemmed from though. In the League, every speck of food that was consumed was grown or raised on their own land. Animals were treated with as much respect as the people, and when it came time for one's death, it was done so in a quick and distinguished way. In the states, meat came from stores, which came from packaging facilities, which came from slaughter houses. While Alfred always used top-quality meats and produce, Damian couldn’t always know how an animal was treated leading up to and during its death. After the whole slaughterhouse fiasco and the boy acquiring Batcow, the switch to full vegetarianism was the obvious and simple thing to do. Jason always tried to eat the non-meat options when Damian was around. He wanted the boy to know that he respected his choice and understood his view point, that he wasn’t alone in his choice, and that Jason still followed some of the teachings of the League, however far away he may be from it. 

He heard about Damian’s reaction to the ever persistent gloom of clouds that never seemed to leave Gotham. After his first week of never ending drizzle, Damian had approached Bruce asking for his estimate of when the rain would stop. When he learned that it was, in fact, quite a clear day for Gotham and they already had their “sunny days” for the month, the boy was stunned. 

While Jason grew up in Gotham and knew the city and its weather like the back of his hand, he could again understand the boy’s perspective. Nanda Parbat was either achingly cold or devastatingly hot with little rain in the summer months. In the League, there was time planned into one’s schedule to simply spend time in the sun mediating or napping. Talia said it was to get a nice bronzing to her complexion, but Jason figured it was so that no one went stir crazy with a vitamin D deficiency. Damian had told Bruce that perhaps the lack of vitamin D is what caused so many people in Gotham to go insane. Bruce had laughed him off, but Jason knew that the boy was serious in his observation and proposal of sunlamps in every Arkham cell. 

To put it succinctly, Jason knew a lot about the environment Damian was raised in. Which is why he wasn’t really that surprised to see him on the roof of the manor on the night of a full moon. Jason had been driving up the long winding drive way close to three in the morning after a long night of Red Hood-ing when he spotted him. There was a faint glow coming from Damian’s window, the boy sitting on a ledge that stretched across the slopped roof as he stared up at the moon. 

Jason parked his bike in the garage before making his way up. The door was closed, but not locked when he tried the handle. He toed off his shoes before he entered the room, a dim lamp scattering light around through tinted glass. The boy’s bed was perfectly made, but Jason saw the small pile of blankets sitting next to it on the floor. He wouldn’t fault Damian for thinking the bed was too soft, he sure did when he first moved into the manor all those years ago. It was also common to sleep on mats and rugs on the ground in the League, usually in groups for safety, so Jason figured it was Damian's way of feeling closer to home. 

Jason made his way to the open window, smelling something he couldn’t place drifting in with the breeze. It was familiar, but in a way that itched the back of his head with a deja-vu feeling instead of being able to identify it. He heard something too. Not the horns and yells of the city, but a tune that was vaguely familiar. He paused, taking it in, and realized he understood the words. “Two moonbeams, one low and one high. One sleeps in the hands of night, the other sleeps in mine.” Damian was singing, quiet and almost under breath, in Arabic. It was some sort of lullaby that was intercut with a series of La’s that lead into the next line. “The face of the moon beside in the doorway, your eyes still open, will be tired in the morning.” 

Jason knew where he had heard it before. It was something Talia would sing on the night of the full moon, Damian bundled up in her lap watching the night sky with awe. Jason had joined them a few times when he could only be described as catatonic. It wasn’t a conscious memory, but it was something he knew intrinsically had happened. He made his way to the open window, seeing the small incense burner perched on the sill, that’s what he had smelled drifting into the room with the night’s breeze. Damian must have known he was there, because his singing quickly turned to humming when Jason poked his head out the window. 

There was a small potted flower with drooping purple leaves in between the window and Damian. Jason reached out to touch it, but was quickly dissuaded. 

“It’s toxic,” Damian chimed in, pausing his humming but still looking into the night sky.

“Well, I’m not gonna eat it,” Jason countered, fingers hovering by the plant.

“That would be poisonous, which it is, but it’s also harmful to touch.” 

Jason pushed himself over the threshold and sat next to Damian on the small rug he had rolled out. 

“What’s it called?” he asked. 

“Khaniq aldhiyb.” 

“And that means…?” Damian looked at Jason like he was stupid, which he probably was being as the boy knew that he could speak and read Arabic, but he wanted Damian to tell him himself and didn’t want to second guess it. 

“It’s… well I don't know if it's the same in English. It translates to wolf strangler.”

“Wolf strangler? Like it’s deadly to dogs?” Jason asked.

“No, it’s just what it’s called. It’s poisonous to almost all creatures.” 

“So… why is it called ‘wolf strangler’ if it kills every animal?” he proposed. Damian frowned slightly, taking in the question and probably still thinking Jason was being stupid. 

“In the middle ages they used it to kill wolves to keep their sheep and crops safe…” he paused for a second, turning to look at the potted flower. The story sounded familiar, and once again there was an itch in the back of Jason’s head that needed to be scratched. “Peasants used to take the roots of the plant and make a tonic with them. No one else wanted the flower aside from poisoning dogs.” He opened his mouth to say something else, but nothing followed. He was facing towards the pot, but his eyes were elsewhere. Jason knew the feeling, especially on days where things just felt a little too green. 

“A tonic?” Jason prodded. “I wonder what that would taste like.”

There was a beat of silence, and Jason thought the conversation had gone cold. Damian shifted, uncrossing his legs and bringing his knees to his chest. He rested his check on his knee, looking far younger than he tried to act. 

“It’s sweet,” Damian almost whispered. Jason looked at him. 

“Sweet?” The boy hummed an affirmative. 

“Grandfather used to brew a tea with these-” He gestured to the flowers, his hand hovering over its petals. “And drink it every evening as the sun sets.” 

“Huh, guess I missed that,” Jason said, a bit confused. He knew he wasn’t quite right in the head during his time in the League, but he still absorbed quite a bit. He definitely didn't remember Ra’s sipping on a cup of poison every night, but to be fair Ra’s al Ghul didn’t really like Jason being around so his ignorance on the man’s evening tea wasn’t unwarranted. 

“You wouldn’t have seen it,” Damian said, confirming Jason’s thoughts. “You slept in the training room with the off duty guards. Mother and I slept in the northern annex of the compound near Grandfather’s room.” He brought his fingers down, gently brushing a petal before plucking one off of the stem. 

Jason panicked at the nonchalant maneuver, “Um- didn’t you just say that it’s poisoned? Like, toxic to touch?” Damian hummed again. 

“It’s fine,” he said, rubbing the petal in between his fingers. “Mother and I used to have tea with Grandfather and he refused to change his blend.” He brought the petal to his nose and breathed in its scent. “The first few times, I was sent to the Lazarus pit to recover, but I never died from it. I’ve built up a tolerance now.”

He held it out for Jason to look at it, a beautiful purple petal in the pale moonlight that curved into a slope as it tapered off. Jason liked purple; it was the opposite of green, the thing that signified how much his life has changed. It was shockingly familiar, the brightness of the purple and the shape of the petal. That itch in his head was back tenfold. 

“It can be found all over the Himalayas, all over Nanda Parbat. Bish, is what Mother called it. Others called it a monk’s cowl or hood.” He looked back up at Jason, mirth swimming in his eyes at his attempt at a joke about his alias. He could see it if he squinted, the vague swoop of a cloak’s hood, with little tendrils sticking out acting as the eyes of a face. It kept bouncing around his head until he was able to remember why it sounded so familiar. 

“Of course you have wolfsbane as a houseplant. I don't know what I expected, a pothos plant or something?” Damian glared at him and Jason threw up his hands in mock surrender. The boy huffed at him. 

“It-” he started, seeming to get embarrassed from what he was going to confess. He turned his face away from Jason, still squishing his cheek against his knee, before continuing almost at a whisper. “It reminds me of home.” Not Gotham, not Nanda Parbat, but home.

If that didn’t pull at his heart string, Jason didn’t know what would. Damian’s home wasn’t where he slept, or even where he acted as Robin. Home was where his family was, and it seemed that tonight his home was Talia. Jason knew instantly what the flower reminded him of; a dress that Talia would wear. 

It stood out to the rest of her clothes because unlike the sea of green and gold, the dress was purple. She wore it with a matching scarf, draped over the top of her head and pinned under her chin. Impractical, yes, but magnificently adorned with golden threads and matching jewels. Jason remembered distinctly how bright her green eyes seemed when she wore it, whether a trick of the light or the Lazarus pit, he didn't know. He just remembered the deep amethyst hue of her dress and the shine of emerald from her eyes. 

“Where’d you get it?” Jason asked, hoping that the change in topic was distracting enough for Damian to not fall into a bout of homesickness. 

“Jon actually,” Damian answered. He moved to place his chin on his knee. “He found a sprout of it by the Kent farm and thought it was pretty. He had potted it and left it in the kitchen. I saw it when visiting and informed him of its properties. I think you can presume how he overreacted.” Damian smiled in the way of his where it was seen more in his eyes and not his mouth. 

“Really? I didn’t know Kansas had wolfsbane. I can imagine junior's freakout though, bet it was hilarious.” Jason stretched his legs out, leaning back on his palms as he looked up at the moon. Damian breathed out a sharp breath through his nose, his way of laughing. 

“Yes, it was quite amusing,” he said, shifting to cross his legs and follow Jason’s lead in moon gazing. “It’s found all over North America, but… it’s not the same as the Himalayas.” 

“I’d imagine,” Jason said quietly. The stars were dark, with really only the moon shining even on a clear night. The light pollution from the city made it almost impossible to see any stars at night. If there was a rouge-induced blackout, then the Bats had to focus on getting power back to the city and subdue the villain, not star gazing. Although, if you looked hard enough you could see a few little specks in the velvet black sky. “Look,” Jason interjected, pointing up at the sky, “you can see Canis Major.” Damian looked towards where he pointed. 

He grumbled, “You can only really see Sirius clearly, Wezen is barely visible.” 

“Doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

“Obviously, stars do not simply disappear.”

There was a beat of silence. 

“We could go on a trip, if you’d like,” Jason proposed. “Go out to the desert or some national park and go star gazing one weekend.” He looked at Damian, whose eyes were on the sky but his gaze was still somewhere else. 

“That’s not necessary, Smallville gets quite a good view of the stars in the summer. In any case it’s… it’s not the same,” the boy said. “You may be there with me but…” Talia wouldn’t be there with him. 

“I get it,” Jason said quietly. He didn’t really know how to console the boy other than distracting him, and it seemed that joking about Jon wasn’t working. They sat in comfortable silence while Jason thought about what he could do. It wasn’t like he could ask Talia to come and visit; the woman was literally in the midst of a coup. Star gazing wouldn’t help either, but his poison plant seemed to bring comfort, no matter how different it was from the ones he used to see back in the League. Jason wondered if he could find an old recipe from the boy's home. He didn’t remember much of his time there, and sure as hell didn’t take note of anything they ate.

He was about to ask Damian if he wanted to try cooking with him when the boy spoke up on his own. 

“Jason, do you think…” he started. Jason, not Todd or Hood. “Is it bad that I… that I miss it?” Her. The kid just dropped bomb after bomb on him huh? Jason gave his question thought, but it was pretty obvious what he needed to say. 

“I don't think it’s bad,” he said. 

“But I see the face Richard or Father makes sometimes when I mention Mother or something from the League that I thought was normal it’s… they’re sad and angry, but not at me.” He was staring at the platform they sat on, the intricate Persian rug that kept them from collecting dirt while they sat. “They’re mad at her and the League but I can’t harbor the same hatred as them, no matter what I try.” 

“Kid,” Jason looked at him, placing his hand on his shoulder to gain his attention. Damian looked at him with a kind of vulnerability that Jason had rarely seen on him. “No one’s asking for you to hate your mom.” Damian’s bottom lip pushed up like one might do before bursting out into sobs, but his training reigned supreme and there was nothing more than a slight sheen over his eyes. “Dick and Bruce’s relationship with Talia and the League is complicated. They don’t know Nanda Parbat like you do, like I do.”

Damian’s voice was thick with emotion when he spoke next. “I know that there were… bad things that happened growing up, but it’s still my home, it’s still where I grew up. I understand how everything works there, there’s no secret rules or special ways to act. Everything there makes sense.” A tear struggled to escape his eye before it finally cascaded down his cheek. “I’m grateful, I truly am. I just feel so much… longing for it, even with everything that’s happened.” 

“I get it,” Jason said, deliberately turning Damian’s face toward him. He could see the doubt in his eyes, “I truly do kid. When Bruce adopted me, there were times I was so overwhelmed with everything that all I wanted was to go back to my shitty little apartment in the Alley and sleep under a stack of newspapers.” He brushed the tear away on Damian’s cheek and pushed his hair out of his face. “It’s scary, living in a new place. Especially when everyone is telling you that you're so ‘blessed’ and should be grateful that you've been taken away from all that you’ve known. You’ve got more reason to be offended than I did, Nanda Parbat is way better than Park Row has ever been.” 

Damian let out a breath, tension releasing from his shoulders. 

“It’s… People who make those comments don't understand where you're coming from. They didn't know that the guy who owned the bodega on the counter would always give me a free sandwich on Fridays, or that the library clerk would let me stay after hours when I had a test the next day. They didn’t see the good parts of it, and maybe they never will because I don't correct them. Crime Alley’s not a place that needs defending, at least in arguments, god knows I patrol enough.” Damian huffed in amusement. “But Nanda Parbat is good at its core, at least I think so. The League has good ideals for the world at its core, no matter how misguided their actions may seem. The others don’t know how everyone would stand around a table together to help roll the grape leaves, or how Talia would sing to you on nights when the sky was clear and you could see all the stars. They only know the bad parts right now, so that’s all they’ll see.” 

Damian was crying again, but it didn’t seem to be out of sadness or homesickness and more just a release of emotions. Jason tugged him closer and wrapped his arms around him, encasing the boy in a hug. Damian was stiff for a second, before melting into his brother’s embrace and letting more silent tears fall. 

“I’ll talk to them, okay?” Jason whispered. “They deserve to know that there were good parts too. You just gotta tell them, be open.” He felt Damian nod into his chest, he pulled back to look him in the eyes. “But don't take any shit from them okay? Your mother didn't raise someone who backs down, so stick up for your home.” 

“But… there were still things that weren’t nice about the League,” the kid said. 

“And you know that now, that’s all that matters. You're allowed to stick up for Nanda Parbat while still acknowledging that shit happened, okay?” 

Damian nodded, and leaned in to hug Jason of his own accord. “Thank you, Jason.” He pulled back to slide a hand from Jason’s palm to his forearm, gripping near his elbow in a handshake. Jason got the idea, and moved his head down, allowing Damian to put their foreheads together. Just how Talia would console Jason on days where the green started to creep in, or even how Damian used to coddle Jason when he wasn’t all there in the head. They breathed in together for a few breaths. Thank you, it said, thank you for being my family.

Damian pulled away first, obviously embarrassed about his show of brotherly affection, and Jason followed suit. “Well, I better head off to bed. You know me, asses to kick and names to take,” he said. Damian gave him that tight lipped smile. “Night, Damian.” Jason slid back through the window, pausing for just a brief second. 

“Good night, brother,” Damian whispered, and as Jason padded away back out of his room he heard his singing start back up again. More confidently, but still quietly in Arabic he sang, “The calm ground sleeps, the late stars seem as nightlights. Beebalm flowers, the smell of chamomile buds of the spring come to me, beebalm of home. The pretty horizon sleeps again.” 

Jason smiled, and made his way back to his room. His hand tingled a little bit.