Chapter Text
Jason was doomed a long time before the warehouse blew up.
He didn't mean the warehouse in Ethiopia, either. He meant the warehouse that once stood across the street from where he was now. The warehouse that once held an entire arsenal and every other supply a runaway teen could need. And baby. Every supply a runaway teen and kidnapped baby could need.
He needed to sit down.
Jason hadn't wanted to kidnap the goddamn heir to the demon head, necessarily, he just didn't want a baby to be forced to kill people, that's all. That's not too much to ask, right? No more child soldiers. Except, well, apparently it was too much to ask, because now the entire League of Assassins were on his ass. And the warehouse Talia had set up for him? Laying at his feet, nothing but ash and smoke.
He sat down.
The motion jostled the three year old in his arms, who blinked up at him blearily with dark green eyes. He had a smudge of dust on his nose that Jason wiped absently. The cracked sidewalk was uncomfortable beneath him, yet after four days straight of running— barely stopping to eat—it was the most comfortable thing he'd felt in a while. Jason just needed to think for a minute, that's all.
Talia's safe house had been his only hope. She'd been his only ally in the League, he'd been counting on that warehouse to keep himself and Damian safe, at least for a couple of days, maybe even weeks if they were lucky. Clearly, though, they weren't. Talia's intel must be compromised, or the woman herself was, and he couldn't rely on her anymore to keep them safe. Just himself.
No change, then.
Jason was seventeen, seven-fucking-teen. He didn't know how to look after a kid. He didn't even know how to look after himself. He barely knew how to be alive again. Every time he took a breath he was sure his heart would stop again, that the gods would realise their mistake, that they'd make their correction. What was he supposed to do now?
He huffed and the air brushed a lock of Damian's hair, and the child looked at him again, much more awake. Jason looked back at him, and the child squinted, judgemental. Just like his mother.
Great, even the three year knew he didn't have a clue.
What Jason needed was to get on even ground again. Get somewhere he knew, where he wouldn't have to rely on strangers for handouts. (He'd always hated those as a kid, hated that he needed them even more.) Unfortunately, the only place where he could do that was...
Gotham.
Fucking Gotham.
Jason could say he had a love—hate relationship with the place, but that'd be a lie. He grew up there, except he didn't grow, exactly. That implies the city's habitable, which it isn't. No, he was forged there. Burned and beaten into something useful, and something more easily used. Not just by the city, either, but by it's people. Every one, just as bad as the last, some were just better at hiding it.
Like Bruce.
Jason stretched his fingers, listening to his knuckles crack and pop! As he started making an internal list of what he'd need. He needed tickets to the states, for one, plane or boat, doesn't matter really. A boat takes longer but runs less risk—an airport has way too much security, especially as you enter the US. He didn't wanna endanger the kid unnecessarily just because he was impatient, but he also didn't want to give the League an opportunity to catch up on them. They had a two day headstart on them, and he'd like to keep it that way. The warehouse was just... a set back, that's all.
Talia was raised by the league, he should've known they'd figure out where she was planning to hide them. They thought the same, after all.
No, it was down to him now, and he wasn't going to let them touch Damian ever again.
*
It ended up being a boat that they took. The warehouse had been in Libya, it took them three straight days of driving to get them to Mauritania. From there Jason was able to bargain his way onto a cargo boat heading for Mexico, which then took almost eighteen days to reach shore. In the meantime, Jason discovered he had absolutely no sea legs and threw up no less then four times. Blessedly, Damian did not share the same fate.
The smell of rotting fish and the tangled nets of corpses did him no favour, and Jason's stomach had revolted everytime a fish head looked his way. He'd spent countless night near Gotham's harbour—either tracking killer croc or busting shipments—yet he'd built no immunity to the decaying scent.
The rocking of the sea and changing hues transfixed Damian for most of the ride, the toddler staring into the ocean for hours at a time if Jason let him. His attitude changed quickly, of course, the second they touch the dry land of port Majahaul. Temper tantrums, followed by nearly twenty minutes of sulking every time Jason tried to feed him whatever food he'd been able to scrounge. It wasn't a surprise really, the kid had lived as a prince up until that point, the culture shock alone must've been sending the kid dizzy.
But Jason didn't have time to sit and comfort him through the change. They had to get to Gotham, and fast. Maybe he was just being paranoid, but he'd felt like they were being watched the second they made port. A white teenager and a brown kid would do that, he supposed, the issue began when people started reporting them to authorities. It was a quick way to alert the League exactly where they were.
Jason tracked down the smallest airport he could and booked a ticket to Delaware—which was as close as he could get to his desired location. Though maybe 'desired' was a strong word—and paid with the emerald encrusted earrings he took from Damians ears. Which earned him another tantrum.
The flight was bumpy. A storm cut right through their flight path and delayed them an entire hour, dragging their time in the air to five full hours. Damian howled with the wind and gripped Jason's curls so tight he ripped more than a few out. All Jason could do was hold him, and try not to scream right back at him.
(He couldn't do this.)
(He had to.)
When the plane landed, he stopped only to change Damian, use the bathroom, and steal some shitty airport sandwiches before booking a bus to New York for the next morning. They slept the night in the airport lounge, lying about waiting for a connecting flight to anyone who asked. Though, slept may have been another too strong of a word, however, as neither of them were able to keep their eyes shut for more than half an hour. Damian sat up on Jason's stomach more than once, looking around rapidly, the word mama tumbling from sleepy lips.
Jason tried to ignore the squirming in his gut everytime. He brushed the rough pads of his fingers through Damians soft, black hair and watched the kids eyes lock onto his, and then watched his eyelids grow steadily heavier, before passing out.
(He was doing the right thing. He knew that. He also knew what it was like to miss your mom.)
The bus was another four hour journey. Jason got Damian washed and ready in the bathroom and stole them some more sandwiches for the journey, ducking his head whenever someone double took at the scar on his face. The bus was mainly filled with tourists and the elderly, so they were able to sit in the back of the coach peacefully. They were only interrupted thrice, once by an elderly lady cooing at Damian, and twice by two Spanish speakers arguing with a racist elderly man, with Jason playing translator for the irrated bus driver.
When their feet finally, finally, touched down in Gotham (a rest stop for the rest of coach, a running point for Jason) he actually considered taking back what he thought before. Maybe he did have a love—hate relationship with the city. And right now, he was in love. Better then in love, he was home.
Twisted and hungry, old and dangerous, crumbling and strong, he hadn't realised he'd missed it so much.
The last time he'd stood on Gotham ground he'd been a mindless zombie, freshly liberated from his prison six feet beneath the dirt, and also freshly ground back into when a truck hit him whilst trying to cross the road. That's when Talia had found him.
But here he was now, mind and body intact, heart beating a steady rhythm in his chest. His only belongings the clothes on his back and the child in his arms. He'd never felt more alive.