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Jason yanked Damian away from the edge. He'd considered not coming, but the world didn't need two irreversibly corrupted Robins. He knew how to ruin a kid, and this was it.
Lazy curls of smoke rose off the pool, vapors from the corrosive reaction the waters were having with their container. Eating away at the old clay like they hated to be contained. Jason stayed low, hiding in the cloud that filled the bottom of the room, letting the sound of the roiling water hide the squeak of his boots. He slipped easily on the wet, Byzantine tile. Bad sign: the pit fumes were already affecting him.
It had been easy -- well, easier than it should have been -- to get in. Ra’s thought he had all the Bats neutralized -- and well, he did, didn't he? Jason hadn't set foot in Gotham since Dickface had won the cowl, and on that visit, he hadn't exactly been there as a friend. Of course, he wasn't on anyone's list. No reason Ra’s shouldn't leave his grandson alone to have a few words with the fucking detective.
But that didn't explain why Jason had found Damian with one foot hovering above the rough waters of the pit, giving Jason a panic attack and nearly causing him to break cover. Dick was supposed to have indoctrinated the kid already. He shouldn't have been walking into the pit of his own free will without Ra’s even in the room. Unless -- Jason told his stupid brain to shut the fuck up. Bats always survived. All of them except Jason.
Damian twitched in his arms, snarling, but he wasn't fighting back, dazed by just the fumes. The kid could talk murder all day, but he wasn't ready for magic as dark and potent as the Pit. His reaction worried Jason though, and he jerked forward to check, but the kids boots weren't even damp.
“Who are you -- my mother will -- ” Damian's voice trembled underneath the anger. “You are disobeying.”
Jason frowned. Damian was staring at this uncovered face -- Damian didn't recognize him. The kid had looked from Jason's League boots to his League tunic and League chest plate and that was it. He'd seen nothing familiar in Jason's bare face. From a certain perspective, he had stolen that from the League, too. Or Talia had.
Jason felt like he'd been knifed, worse because he hasn't thought to brace himself against it. Fuck. He didn't want to be a part of this family, so it shouldn't hit him like --
He tried to remember if he'd ever seen the little demon in Gotham without the Hood on. He hadn't. He’d shot the kid, but he’d never looked him in the eye unmasked. So, fine.
But for some reason that didn't make the lump in his throat go away. And that made him shaky and pissed off, which he really didn't need right now. The green was already creeping at the edges of his vision. He staggered in his crouch, almost going down.
“The men who brought you here aren't Talia's,” he said, wrestling Damian around to face him. The smoke rose over them like a canopy, stinking of sulfur. Jason was dizzy with it, his teeth aching like he wanted to tear into flesh and taste blood. Impulsively, he said, “I'm Talia's.”
Damian gave him a skeptical look.
The boots were Talia's, anyway. The rest of the uniform was in the style of Ra’s men, which Damian would have noticed if he hadn't been half out of his head on demon smoke. Growing up in the political death trap of the League tended to make people alert to nuance.
“Then release me so I may reach the pit,” Damian said. His eyes were wet, his nose a Rudolph red, undercutting the imperious tone. He had something clutched to his chest. Jason didn't like that. He didn't like it at all.
“Your mother doesn't want you in the pit,” Jason said, his voice coming out quiet and hoarse. Shit, he had the voice of a cartoon villain. He felt the pit as a pressure at his temples. He was gripping Damian too tightly. He wanted to hurt someone, but he also wanted to keep from falling over.
A stricken look passed over Damian's face before it blanked out -- the look of a lost kid deciding to do something terrible. It made Jason's hair stand on end, the look so familiar to his heart it was giving him flashbacks. Damian opened his mouth to call for Ra's guards, and Jason slapped a hand over his mouth, dragging him into the corner where the smoke settled as it moved across the floor. There was a fallen-in servants’ corridor here Jason had wriggled his way out of. It was the way out.
Quiet angry tears slid down Damian's cheeks. Jason pried at his fingers, trying to get at whatever he was clutching. Damian tried to fight him, but Jason was a lot bigger.
There, he had it. A piece of stiff cloth, wadded up. He shook it out across his palm, holding it close to see in the smoke.
Cold washed over him. Ra's is a liar, his brain reminded him. It sounded like Talia's voice. Damian pressed his face into Jason's shoulder, body shaking. Jason held him tightly with what little reassurance he could offer.
Jason was holding a piece of the Nightwing crest. The main piece. Torn from the center of the uniform despite being made of fabric that shouldn't tear. It was -- very bloody. Damian's dark League gear had hidden the blood, but now Jason could see the shiny wetness on his gloves.
He couldn't smell it, though; couldn't smell anything but the sulfur of the pit.
“Grandfather won't put Richard Grayson into the pit unless I go in first,” Damian whispered.
“Richard Grayson is irrelevant to the League,” Jason said. He tucked the crest into Damian's belt. It looked bad, but Ra's is a liar, and Jason had to get Damian out of here whether it was true or not. Dick was probably safe. Everything Ra's did was about control. Dick was the only one of Bruce's boy soldiers nobody in the league gave a shit about --
-- except Damian. Damian gave a shit about Dick. And too many people in power gave a shit about Damian. Jason frowned.
Forget it. They needed to go now before he passed out from the pit fumes or went berserk and stopped caring about Damian at all.
“Surely, you understand honor and debts,” Damian said, hiccuping in the middle.
Of course Jason understood. He understood Dick was catnip to bitchy Waynes. It wasn't like Jason didn't know. And he wasn't -- Jason couldn't blame them. Dick deserved better than this, than dying and leaving a kid behind like Dick's parents had left him.
Ra's had to know Damian's genetics were inclined to obsession on both sides. He wouldn't risk making Dick a martyr.
Jason rubbed Damian's back and felt him lean into Jason's body. Jesus, he was a completely different kid than the one that had been standing next to Talia when Jason had gone into the pit. Dick really had a magic fucking touch. It sickened Jason, and he closed his eyes against the pit haze, the jealous rage that could only be soothed through destruction.
“If Ra's isn't lying, I'll bring you back and put you in the pit myself,” he lied.
Damian wavered.
“Do you want to be here?” Jason asked quietly. “Do you think Dick wants you to be here?”
That did it. Damian let Jason push him towards the servants corridor, feeling out the opening through the smoke. He held onto Jason's hand a little too, which Jason needed, delirious enough from the pit that he could barely get through the half-collapsed opening. To his surprise, Damian waited patiently until Jason had gotten his bearings. He was probably imprinting on Jason now that Dick was gone, but Jason couldn't bring himself to push him away.
After all, he knew what it was like to lose a Batman you thought you'd have forever.